dirt rag 20009With the printing of each issue of Dirt Rag, we offer selected feature articles on our website. Calendar year 2009 provided a fine collection of reprints, which are compiled below for your reading pleasure. Throw another log on the fire, and cozy up with a hot beverage and your laptop for a relaxing read.

How to Get Fast without Training
Would you like to improve your fitness this year? Hate following a traditional training plan, with all its heart rate monitoring and interval training? Lath Carlson shows us how to get faster without geeking out.

Warping in a Winter Wonderland. Iditaflashbacks in Vermont’s Jay Winter Challenge.
The good Captain was cured of any desire to ride on snow after racing the Iditabike twenty years ago, but his friend Tattoo Dave convinced him to give it another try. Jay Winter Challenge, here they come.

$60 and Some Flip-flops
Vacationing on a tropical island and mountain biking on seaside trails, doesn’t require big spending. Who needs a guided tour and an all-inclusive resort when you can camp on the beach and eat fruit from the trees?

Twenty Years of Paul Component Engineering
Paul Price, the man behind influential bike parts such as the WORD singlespeed hub, invites us into his California workshop to talk about his twenty years in the business of transforming good ideas into great stuff.

Urban Ride Guide
In the previous editions of our Ride Guide, interstate highways were the threads connecting the ride spots. This time, we find the hidden gems within places you wouldn’t think had much to offer: major metropolitan areas.

Interview with USA Cycling’s Kelli Lusk
Change is afoot on the national mountain bike racing scene, and racing has had a resurgence. USA Cycling’s Kelli Lusk shares some insight from the inside.

Mountain Biking’s Grand Tour
The 2009 Tour Divide race lived up to its billing as the toughest bike race in the world, with several records broken and set in an unprecedented weather year.

Massive Success: the Mid-Atlantic Super Series
The Mid-Atlantic Super Series is arguably one of the best mountain bike race series in the country. Find out how an organization made up entirely of volunteers keeps this machine running smoothly.

Libra
Jack traveled different path from his renegade brother Frank, who would go to extremes to save the places he loved. Now Jack must come to terms with his brother’s decisions, and wonder if his own path is the right one. .

Disappointment By Way of Gypsum
But in this waking place, the end of the world comes and goes and I die a little, but I keep pedaling and keep sweating until my body is nothing but a movement machine. .