Interesting documentary on of getting girls on bikes in a town in England. Question to female readers of 303, do you feel that something should be done to alter the impression that young girls/women have on the image of them riding a bike? Learn more about this project Velodarlo.org

Do you have kids sitting you your garage that your kids have outgrown? If so Denver folks can donate those bikes now until Nov 30 at the following locations:
- The Cherry Creek Bike Rack 171 Detroit Street in Cherry Creek North shop
- Campus Cycles, 2102 S. Washington Street.

These bikes will be cleaned, serviced and provided to the Denver Kids Inc and Denver Department of Human Services.
More information on Denver donation see Bike Denver's website

If you live in Boulder then you can bring you bikes to the Boulder Velodrome December 19th and Community Cycles will service them and donate them to kids in need. Bikes can be dropped of earlier at Community Cycles shop at 2805 Wilderness Pl Ste 1000, see their website below for more details.

More information on the Community Cycles Bike donation

Click to view

We rarely do product reviews on 303cycling but when we like the product then creating a review is easy! Recently Gaget Video productions sent us a press review DVD of Warriors of cross. The movie covers the 2008 Cyclocross National Championships in Kansas City, this is the mostly dry nationals, not the blizzard of 07 that made for some extreme riding conditions. The DVD seemed very much like a documentary of the race covering juniors, U23, Women and Men Elite events. The filming was of good quality and taken from various parts of the course. Overall, this is a great affordable ($15) DVD to have running in either your shop or use on those cold trainer days.

Personally I would suggest spending just a little more ($27) and get the "KC Mud Pack" which has both 07 and 08's national championships... for all those who went in 07 this is worth remembering!

There has been some talk lately about gran fondos. Levi Leipheimer put on a gran fondo this fall and it was a huge success with over 3,000 participants.

What is a gran fondo?

A Gran Fondo is a celebrated tradition in Italian cycling culture. A Gran Fondo is a long distance, mass-participation cycling event – not a race – that welcomes professional, amateur, and recreational cyclists of all abilities . While not strictly competitive, these rides are timed to ensure cyclists complete the entire course and provide some scoring for quick completion of unique sections of the route.

There are three gran fondos scheduled for Colorado next year. Boulder, Vail and Steamboat are the three locations. I have looked at the routes for the three events and they all look like amazing.

There is even a GranFondoUSA.com website. Are gran fondos the next big thing in cycling? It looks like they may become the equivalent to a marathon for runners.

*** Updated ***