Jordan Carr is the marketing manager for Club Ride Apparel in Sun Valley, Idaho, a former tech editor at Mountain Flyer Magazine and a ripping rider who enjoys blasting singletrack around the West on his SS REEB with Gates Carbon Drive. Carr sent us these images of a recent trip to the White Rim outside Moab, Utah.

 “Riding with friends in beautiful places is why so many of us appreciate the simple yet elegant contraption we all passionately refer to as the bicycle,” Jordan writes on the Club Ride blog.

Amen brother.

And just to make you all jealous of Jordan’s life in Sun Valley:

Back home in Ketchum, Idaho, on the Cow Creek trail.

Press officer Sean Weide is an integral part of the BMC Racing Team’s operations. In addition to speaking with the media, one of his duties is to lead the team riders through the crowds between the team bus and the start line.

During Saturday’s stage from Livermore to Mount Diablo, Weide was on his official BMC team lifestyle bike, the BMC urbanchallenge with Gates Carbon Drive. The start of a pro race is a mad house. Weide weaved through the crowd, parting the spectators to give his racers a path to the start. Then he raced back to the team car and threw his bike on the roof for the drive to Mount Diablo to await the torturous uphill finish, where he would again jump on the bike to gather his riders for post-race interviews.

Weide loves his bike because it is virtually maintenance free, allowing him to get his important work done without worry or delay. Gates is a proud sponsor of the BMC Racing Team, and we are pleased to provide Weide and other integral staff and management with the fastest belt drive commuter bikes.

Congratulations to BMC and rider Tejay van Garderen for their victories in the Team and Overall categories in the Amgen Tour of California.

Tim Lucking and Taylor Nye of Team Gates Carbon Drive traveled to western Colorado to compete in the 18 Hours of Fruita last weekend. Racing on their belt drive singlespeeds against geared competitors, the speedy duo won the two-man category.  Lucking recounts the winning race strategy below.

Taylor Nye and I hoped for a podium spot, but that seemed optimistic given that we were racing our single-speeds against geared teams. We drove out Friday so we would have time to set up camp and get in a couple of laps and determine our gearing, settling on a 46 x 26 sprocket setup. It’s a relatively flat course with two punchy climbs. The rest is winding single- and double-track through sage and juniper bushes while skirting the twisty edge of Highline Lake. There were no long flat sections. Perfect for a single speed.

As the sun set on tent-town we got 2-3 hours of sleep before waking for the midnight start. Taylor was going for the hole-shot and had a great starting position, but the race director pulled the old switcheroo and started the race backwards, so Taylor started at the back of the pack. The race began and Taylor hammered like crazy and came through in 2nd position in the 2-man category after the first lap.

The night laps were tough because there was no wind and the course was dusty with lots of ambient dust in the air, making it difficult to pick our lines. We chased the leaders and caught them 7 laps in. We continued on through the night, morning, and afternoon knocking out fast laps with no mechanicals. The Spot Rockers gobbled up the twisty trails that became more wash-boarded by the lap, the TRP Dash Carbon brakes allowed us to wait until the last possible second to scrub speed before diving into a corner, the Lazer Nirvana helmets kept our noggins cool and protected, the Primal kits kept us comfortable all day, the Crank Brothers cockpit parts ensured that we were dialed for ergonomic efficiency, and of course the Gates Carbon drive required no maintenance all day even in the billowing dust.

With fast transitions we were able to lap the field by the mid-afternoon and finish in first place with 32 laps completed in 18 hours. That worked out to 117 miles per person. Not too shabby for a couple of single-speeders! We were wrecked afterward and enjoyed our sleeping bags greatly.

It was a wonderful event with fun competitors and hosts. It’s great to be part of a sport where you can go out on the course and be competitive and polite at the same time, then come back and hang out to swap stories when it’s all said and done.”

Congrats to Tim and Taylor.

It has been a great month of media coverage for belt drive bicycles. The June issue of Bicycling featuring the Editors’ Choice awards saw Carbon Drive go three for three in the commuter/urban bike category. All three urban bikes chosen by the editors feature the Gates belt drive, including the winning Breezer Beltway and runner-ups the Trek Soho Deluxe and Raleigh City Sport DLX. Bicycling also features the Source 11 from Specialized in its City Bikes Buyer’s Guide. For no-fuss commuting and urban riding, Carbon Drive is the premium upgrade.

The editors at Men’s Journal are likewise raving about belt drive bikes. The magazine features the Spot Honey Badger singlespeed mountain bike and the Scott SUB 10 urban bike in the Gear Lab issue now on newsstands. The SUB 10 from Scott, below, is a stylish and speedy urban steed that will get you noticed in city traffic.

Now a little more info on the Editor’s Choice runner-ups. The City Sport DLX from Raleigh, below, is ideal for urban missions and comes fully equipped with disc brakes, a rack, lights, fenders and a smooth-shifting drivetrain featuring Carbon Drive and an internal hub.

The Trek Soho Deluxe, below, is the bike favored by one of the nation’s top experts on commuter cycling, the president of the Alliance for Biking and Walking.

The summer cycling season is fast approaching. Time to get a new bike, leave the car in the driveway and ride.

Spring arrived early this year in South Lake Tahoe, cutting short the ski season but allowing cyclists to get on their bikes sooner. It’s a beautiful season to ride. The meadows are sprouting with wildflowers, providing colorful splashes to the rapidly greening landscape. The trunks of the big pines glow reddish in the late-afternoon light, their giant cones littering the trail.

The Raleigh Hodala singlespeed with Carbon Drive is fast and agile–a cyclocross racing bike. Belt-drive riding, however, is about more than just speed. I grab the bike from my garage and go, no dirty chain to clean or lube. No derailleur to adjust.

Some technologies make life more complex. Carbon Drive has simplified mine. Less bike maintenance means more time to ride. And to slow down to enjoy the flowers.

Thanks to Tahoe photographer Dylan Silver for the photos.