By Mathias Eichler
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The Trail Running Film Festival - Online Watch Party Get your tickets.
The Trail Running Film Festival - Online Watch Party Get your tickets.
Singletrack – Episode 265:
Elaine Fung joins Singletrack to share how trail running changed her life. How this sport gives us big and small adventures, and allows us to join a community, during a race, while running it, or volunteering to make it happen for others.
Gripped reports:
A huge rockfall on Snowpatch Spire is sending shockwaves through the local and international climbing community. This will forever change this part of the Bugaboo Provincial Park and access to certain routes.
Not a single mention of ‘climate change’ in the article…?
Do check out the pics though, they are nuts.
Add an auto-posting feed to Mastodon from this website. If you’re on that service, and like to be reminded of new posts, follow Electric Cable Car there and stay up to date with all new posts. If you want to follow yours truly over there you can follow my personal account as well.
(Announcing this on the day of my 15th Anniversary on Twitter. That’s how long I lasted over there. I posted over 69,300 tweets. Time to say goodbye.)
Designer Brands Inc., one of the world’s largest designers, producers and retailers of footwear and accessories, today announced the acquisition of Topo Athletic (“Topo”).
Designer Brands owns the DSW retail stores and makes shoes for a bunch of brands like Lucky Brand and Jessica Simpson footwear.
I personally have never worn Topos or even considered wearing them, but a couple of my friends love them. It’ll be interesting to see if the brand will survive this transition.
Singletrack – Episode 264:
Jeremy Anderson is back on the show after having slayed the dragon that is Barkley Fall Classic. Yes, that race. He ran it, and he lived to tell the tale – and lucky for us, he’s sharing it with us.
I previously speculated, based on a conversation with a sponsor for the 2022 Golden Trail Series that Salomon might be finished with that series and that 2022 might’ve been the final year, but, alas, I was wrong and the website is in the process of being updated… albeit slowly. The first races for the first regions have been announced and it looks like the 2023 Golden Trail Series will happen after all.
The Mammoth Trail Fest will be the host for their US stop along with the Pikes Peak Ascent.
Our 26K will serve as both a Golden Trail World Series and Golden Trail National Series race for 2023.
On the official website race dates for several European countries have been announced, including Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
Amazon Jungle is the newest race to join the UTMB World Circuit. So far no official announcement on the UTMB social media feeds, but the event is happening in just a few short weeks in February and is offering the full menu of distances.
Added to the UTMB Events calendar.
Grindstone in the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia is the first UTMB race on the East Coast will happen in September and Desert Rats in Fruita, Colorado in April. Desert Rats we previously reported on.
Our UTMB Events Calendar will be updated later today!
Francesco Puppi on Instagram:
…
It’s time for the elite athletes to unite and stand for the issues they deeply care about.
To have a voice at the same level as the different stakeholders involved in the sport, not as individuals but as a structured group, united in a non-profit association.
To preserve the values which make trail running so special and to work to ensure a better future to the next generations.…
This effort can become an important and invaluable pillar of our sport. Athletes need representation and what better way to have a unified voice than an association that can speak on behalf of the individuals.
Their mission focuses on:
Their first assembly was today with many of the big athletes of our sport present.
Singletrack – Episode 263:
German ultra runner and North Face athlete Ida-Sophie Hegemann joins me this week to chat about her eventful racing season. We discuss sponsorship deals, shoe choices, and what not to do with poles on race day. She’s also an ambassador for next year’s World Mountain and Trail Running Championships in Innsbruck and has some suggestions on how to best kick off your summer running season in the Alps.
Just announced this morning by UTMB, the Canyons Endurance Run is Americas for Major. Congrats to Canyons of course, but it does seem a bit odd that UTMB waited so long to announce this. European and Asian Majors had been announced months ago. I wonder If UTMB had planned something different, that didn’t come through, and this was their backup plan?
Electric Cable Car’s UTMB Global Events Calendar is already updated to reflect the announcement.
Double the stones, baby!
The Trail Running Film Festival has opened submissions for the 2023 festival tour. Do you run trails? Do you love to make films? Submit them before Jan. 7th to be considered in our official selection.
A global award recognizing the great professional athletes who populate our sport, ranking their performances during the 2022 racing season.
…
Freetrail decided that, in order to truly capture the global sentiment of the trail running community, we would fully democratize the voting process – allowing fans all over the world to cast their own ballots and have their voices heard.
So, unlike other awards that are determined by a panel of ‘experts’ academy-style, this one’s community driven, which is cool but also has challenges which Freetrail address:
For those who do vote, we encourage you to take that responsibility seriously, applying research and deep consideration to the ranking.
Will be interesting to see if the hive mind can find results worthy of the runners’ efforts with a perspective on global races and international competition. Ah, whatever, it’s going to be Kilian and Courtney, isn’t it?
Stephen Casimiro:
It’s hard to overstate what a big deal this is. There have been more than 10,000 successful rescues since 2011 thanks to the inReach, and those were of people who were privileged enough to own and carry a satellite messenger (or be near someone who did). What about all those people who don’t know about inReaches or don’t have the money for them?
But one thing the InReach still has a leg up is this:
What you can’t do is send non-emergency texts, as you can with inReach.
I concur that one of the great functions of a satellite connected device in the backcountry is the ability to send a quick message to a family member or friend alerting them that plans have changed, but there’s no emergency situation. Curious if and how Apple will address this shortcoming.
The other big consideration we have to think about as we put more and more functionality into our iPhones is that we still only have one battery. I was reminded of this last when while traveling to a trade show with a brand new iPhone 14 pro. The battery was super fresh, is what I am trying to point out here. And yet, a fully day of mapping a city unknown to me, texting my team throughout the day, taking a couple of pics, and browsing the web depleted the battery that it didn’t last and I had to worry toward the end. That’s not a good scenario for a device that’s supposed to keep us safe in the backcountry. Yes, the phone could technically track our run, let us take pics and view maps, and be available in emergency situations, but if we do it all on one device the battery isn’t even remotely sufficient. So far.
From Coast Mountain Trail Running:
As of right now today, we are deep in the permit process with Whistler-Blackcomb / Vail Resorts to simply reproduce in 2023, what we successfully hosted there in 2022. We have not been granted approvals for anything at this time. Vail has introduced a new approval process which they just launched, with a best timeline of early in 2023 for a final answer. As much as it pains us to say this, there are zero guarantees that WAM will happen in 2023.
Having to deal with a private entity should be easier than a big government agency regarding public lands, but maybe not. I hope that this is not a ski resort corporation asserting it’s possibly narrow-minded muscle hoping to focus and cash in on ‘their preferred and lucrative sports’: winter = skiing, summer = mountain biking.
TransJeju is held on the volcanic island of Jeju in South Korea in early October of 2023.
Another race that perviously existed in its own right and is now a ‘by UTMB’ event.
The UTMB race calendar is already updated.
While we wonder if the Golden Trail Series will continue this coming year, the Skyrunner series definitely will. With 13 races in eight countries around Europe, I mean world, this series focuses on shorter distance races in the high alpine and is promoted by the International Skyrunning Federation.
These Alp-sentric organizations like to call their events ‘world series’ in the same way US baseball has a World Series by including a token Canadian team.
Elisabeth Kwak-Hefferan for Outside:
Last week, Patagonia filed a lawsuit against Gap, accusing the apparel company of copying its longstanding Snap-T fleece design.
I saw Gap’s version in an ad and immediately recognized what they were trying to do… and are now not getting away with. Perhaps I should quickly buy one and sell it after the lawsuit on eBay?
To establish rules to encourage and facilitate the participation of transgender and nonbinary runners at WSER with the goal of ensuring fair and inclusive practices that respect the personal rights and dignity of transgender and nonbinary entrants while preserving the integrity of competition for awards and records.
Western States continues to lead the way. Bravo.
Will there be one? Website isn’t updated and a little birdie told me at this week’s The Running Event in Austin that Salomon is done with it. From what I remember the Golden Trail Series was Salomon’s baby. They didn’t just sponsor the series, but the series was their concept.
This feels like a sign that Salomon is in retreat from the trail and ultra scene? Today’s marketing email promotes a shoe with the tagline:
“A beacon of our trail legacy, our ultra-functional shoe has evolved into a sneaker designed for the harshest city conditions.”
Maybe there’s more money in selling fashion shoes to city dwellers who like to pretend to be on trails?
This is from almost a year ago, but I completely missed that news. Amer Sports (a Finnish company) sold Suunto (a Finnish company) to Liesheng (Chinese technology company). This couple explain why Suunto’s been so sluggish in updating their product line in recent years.
Amer Sports still own Salomon, Arc’teryx and Peak Performance, among other outdoor adjacent brands.
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