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Starting with the Sea Otter Classic on May 8 (yeah, a month and a half after the race, but it's on TV), OLN will also broadcast tape-delayed coverage of the 2002 NORBA NCS and World Cup rounds, both XC and DH/4X.
The fledgling cable network will also air a special on the oldest 24-hour mountain bike race in the country, Montezuma's Revenge. The show will offer an inside look at one of the most difficult and unique ultramarathon challenges in the world.
There's also a whole bunch of road racing coverage, including live coverage of all three Grand Tours of Italy, France and Spain and the epic Spring classic, Paris-Roubaix. For the complete calendar, point your browser to http://www.olntv.com/as_1453.cfm.
Ibis Cycles, the quirky NorCal bike company founded by Scot Nicol 21 years ago, has filed for bankruptcy and shut its doors. The company ran into problems with rising production costs for its frames, and had moved operations twice in recent years, first from Sebastopol to Santa Rosa, and then to a joint framebuilding facility with Montana custom maker Carl Strong, who took over building duties last year.
That association ended November 5 amid cost and production volume issues (production lagged at a mere 36 percent of target levels), and while Ibis pursued new agreements with unnamed makers in Oregon and Colorado, it never fully regained production capacity. The company filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection, a form of filing that usually includes liquidating the company's assets; that means Ibis will likely disappear from the world of cycling.
The more widely known Chapter 11 protection, which Schwinn/GT filed for last year, generally preserves the integrity of the company while allowing executive officers to restructure finances and operations. Ibis listed ,960 in assets against a staggering liability of $1,443,748 in its filing of February 21 in the Northern California district of the United States Bankruptcy Court.
Scot Nicol, the charismatic founder and framebuilder, quietly sold his struggling company over a year ago, taking on an advisory role but relinquishing all control over day-to-day decisions and finances.
Ibis was best known for its line of excellent hand-built frames including the long-lived Mojo hardtail and eye-catching designs Nicol conceived with collaborator John Castellano, such as the Bow-Ti, a titanium full-suspension bike that achieved five inches of rear wheel travel with no pivots.
Ibis was also known for poking fun at the serious types in the bike industry. When Tom Ritchey introduced Logic tubing and Columbus unveiled Genius, Nicol and crew promptly dubbed their new line of butted tubes Moron. Cable hangers came in the shape of a fist, and tagged with the name "Handjob."
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