I’ve been getting into the wacky world of Twitter lately and I am finding it to be a great tool for interacting with expert and enthusiast cyclists both locally and around the world. Surprisingly, it has been particularly useful tool for staying in touch with local bike bloggers. In fact a recent discussion I was having on Twitter with Peter Prebus (aka Mountain Bike Pete) of MountainBikeRiding.com lead to the idea of starting a monthly gathering of Flagstaff Bike Bloggers to share ideas about biking and blogging.
For our inaugural Flagstaff Bike Bloggers meeting I contacted Pete of MountainBikeRiding.com, Nate of HandlebarSandwich.com, Adam of AdvenutureBikeRiding.com, the Gnome of DrunkCyclist.com, Troy of Epic Rider, Dara of Dara Marks Marino, Jon of Rocky Chrysler and Steve of Coconino Cycles. A handful of bloggers showed up for our inaugural meeting and we enjoyed discussing topics ranging from Nate’s recent participation in the Kahtoola Snow Bowl up and back race to the increasingly integral part social media sites like Facebook and Twitter are playing in getting readers to blogs.
Flagstaff is a great cycling town with extraordinary cyclists. Beyond just riding our bikes, Flagstaff seems to attract cyclists with an opinion. Here is a round-up of the above mentioned bloggers and their blogs.
MountainBikeRiding.com is former Pro Mountain Bike Racer Pete Prebus’s website dedicated to providing a full range of information and community to mountain bikers. Pete’s got a lot of great resources in his website, from mountain bike buying guides, to
riding tips to excellent mountain biking destination. Pete’s media extends from his blogging into some great mountain bike photography. Lately he’s added video and pod casting to the mix. Check out Pete’s blog for true expert knowledge on mountain biking.
HandlebarSandwich.com has become Nate’s “handle” around town. Nate specializes in living the good life and making it look easy. Mountain biking all summer and skiing all winter, Nate is a rock star of the outdoor opportunities in the Southwest. At our meeting we were all asking Nate how he maintains his schedule getting in one epic adventure after the other with travel and good times mixed in all while keeping his engineering job running at full pace. To get some inspiration on living life to the fullest, check out his blog.
Adam has recently gotten into blogging here at www.CampfireCycling.com as well keeping our blog BikeTrailerBlog.com updated. Adam has been writing his own blog focusing on mountain bike touring, AdvenutureBikeRiding.com. Adam is a very talented cyclist racing at the Pro level in both mountain bike and road. Adventure Bike Touring chronicles Adam’s mountain bike touring adventures as well as featuring mountain bike touring gear and tips.
DrunkCyclist.com is the best know blog to come out of Flagstaff. The originator behind Drunk Cyclist, Big Jonny has moved down to Phoenix for law school, but still keeps blog posts rolling in. Dave, aka the Gnome, now holds the reins, keeping Drunk Cyclist running strong. Drunk Cyclist is a blog dedicated to leaving no rock unturned when it comes to any controversy surrounding Flagstaff cycling, cycling advocacy, professional road racing, politics and anything else that captures the imagination and/or distaste of the very active Drunk Cyclist following.
Epic Rider, like Handlebar Sandwich, is a blog about living the good life in Flagstaff. Troy always seems to be doing some of the most unbelievably epic mountain riding and skiing around and telling the story of it on his blog.
Former top pro mountain bike racer Dara keeps her personal blog, Dara Marks Marino, regularly updated with posts of her life in Flagstaff. Her in-depth, reflective style covers a wide range of topics and often circles back to her love of cycling.
Jon, aka Rocky Chrysler, blogs at Rocky Chrysler. Jon is a long time Flagstaff cyclist and skier with old school cred. I’m not sure if I’m correct on this, but I’m pretty sure Jon has been spending his summer breaks from 
teaching, working at Absolute Bikes and leading their Tuesday morning rides since I first got into mountain biking 17 years ago. Along with his blogging Jon is a bike journalist having freelanced for Bike Magazine.
Steve Garro of Coconino Cycles fame, keeps up an excellent blog that keeps all of his customers updated with the current bike frame he is crafting. Garro takes some great photography of both his shop and the outdoors with some exquisite shots of the local flora. Garro’s travel also are a big part of the blog as well.
And I can’t forget good old FlagstaffBiking.org which unifies and unites Flagstaff’s biking community through a variety of activities, events, advocacy drives and involvement with city government. Flagstaff’ Biking’s blog keeps Flagstaff cyclists abreast of upcoming events such as their premier upcoming event, Bike-To-Work-Week kicking off May 16th.
And finally as you may already know, www.CampfireCycling.com is only 1 of the 4 blogs that we are involved in. Our other 3 blogs are UtilityCycling.org, BikeTrailerBlog.com and WomensBikeTalk.com. While these 3 blogs are topical blogs and not very Flagstaff centric, the Flagstaff vibe does make its way through quite a bit especially in the photos. And we do have high aspirations for this blog, the Campfire Cycling blog, to represent our shop life and what is going on in Flagstaff’s cycling world.
If you are a Flagstaff bike blogger and want to be added to this list, send us an email or comment on this post. Thanks for checking out all of the great bike blogs coming out of Flagstaff and bring your bike out here to see for yourself what everyone is blogging about.