Snowathlon

Sean Bemis of Eugene was laughing as he talked about “the hardest fall I’ve ever taken on a mountain bike.”

“Fortunately,” said Bemis, 29, a graduate teaching assistant in geology at the University of Oregon. “it was on the snow.”

Bemis wasn’t the only rider sent flying over the handlebars when his bike’s front wheel suddenly hit a soft spot on the groomed track here Saturday during the 2008 National Winter Triathlon Championship, which combined running, biking and Nordic skiing.

– Excerpt from the Eugene Register-Guard, February 12, 2008