Urban Mushing on TV

Our local southern California PBS station recently came out to Fairview Park in Costa Mesa to do a story about Urban Mushing. Conveniently enough, we had one of our carts with passenger seat available for the reporter and the cameraman to hitch a ride with eight of our Siberian furries:

Watch Urban Mushing on PBS. See more from KOCE.

Urban Mushing during So Cal summer

With the exception of maybe one week, we've had a phenomenal summer so far (sun bathers and tourists might disagree). It's been overcast, cool and overall pretty pleasant for our dogs. While conditions are still ok in the morning, our local Urban Mushing group is out and about, running the dogs at Fairview Park in Costa Mesa CA

When we're not out with the dogs, there's always a lot of work waiting at the shop thanks to our great customers. There will be plenty of happy dogs (and mushers) in the near future enjoying the new "ride", from California to Canada.

Plans are firming up for our "Big Sky Roadtrip" in early September. If you want to take advantage of our free delivery offer (see previous post), now would be a really good time to contact us, before we're booked solid for the remaining weeks.
We might be able to squeeze one more cart in at this point.

Here are some pictures of recent runs at Fairview Park:

What did we learn...?

Our local "Urban Mushing" group got together for its weekend fun runs at Fairview Park, a week after our annual mushing clinic.
So today it was time to put all newly acquired techniques to work and take the dogs out on the trails. Several scooter, bike and cart teams were out and about, running 1 to 8 dogs.
Weather conditions were excellent: overcast skies and cool temperatures allowed for long runs.
At the end of the day, the dogs were tired and happy (and so were the drivers) but everyone realized, that there's still a lot to learn for us and our dogs.

If you like what you see and would like to learn more about our group, we're going to be at the OC Pet Expo in Costa Mesa April 16th -18th and at the Wag-A-Thon in Dana Point on April 24th.

4th annual (not so) Great Serum Run a great success!

Our SoCal mushing group's 4th annual (not so) Great Serum Run last Saturday was a great success! We had about 70 (yes, that's seventy!) teams competing in several scooter, bikejour and canicross races. After the races, we gathered for a fantastic potluck bbq, raffle and awards ceremony.
Most successful musher was Robert Stradley of Wrightwood, who, along with his boys, won in several classes. "Team Arctis" placed a surprising 3rd in the 3-dog 3-mile race and missed 2nd place by only 6 seconds, and a 4th place finish in the 3K canicross. Great job, puppies!



Many thanks to Rancy, who's heading the Urban Mushing group, as well as all volunteers to get this event organized!
Also, many thanks to Alpine Outfitters, Three Dog Bakery San Clemente, Laguna Beach Dog Park and Diggler Scooters for providing raffle prizes.

Please see the local Daily Pilot article here and a short video by the OC Register here.

Hope to see all of you next time around!

One week to go until our 4th annual (not so) Great Serum Run

After it had to be postponed, it is finally time to go racing!
Our local southern California mushing group is hosting its 4th annual (not so) Great Serum Run on January 9th at Fairview Park in Costa Mesa CA.

Races will be held in a fun and friendly atmosphere in the following classes:

1-Dog / 1-Mile Junior Scooter Race
1-Dog / 1-Mile Scooter Race
2-Dog / 2-Mile Scooter Race
3-Dog / 3-Mile Scooter Race
1-Dog / 2-Mile Bikejoring Race
1-Dog / 3-Km Canicross Race

For more information, registration forms and rules, please see UrbanMushing.com
Registration deadline is December 5th!

After the races, we will have a potluck bbq, raffle (including a brandnew scooter, courtesy of Diggler Scooters!) and carting demonstrations with 4- 6- and 8-dog teams.

We will have some of our Arctis Carts available for test runs as well.

Fairview Park is located in the city of Costa Mesa on Placentia Ave, between Adams Ave & Victoria St. within minutes of I-405, Hwy 55 and Pacific Coast Hwy

For driving directions, see map here

Excellent post-Christmas run

With continued cool temperatures in southern California, we're able to take the dogs out on slightly longer and faster runs. Only two more weeks until the re-scheduled (not so) Great Serum Run, so we better get them up to speed, plus our local sledding season is about to get going the week after and we want the dogs to be able to handle some decent runs while we're up in the mountains.

And while large portions of the country are currently covered in snow, remember that dryland season is almost year round, so check out our carts and the reviews on our Facebook page, and get your order in today!

Here are some pictures of today's run with the six-dog-team at Fairview Park in Costa Mesa:

New date for 4th annual (not so) Great Serum Run

After getting feedback from the registered participants and reviewing the viable options, we have rescheduled the 4th Annual (not so) Great Serum Run to Saturday, January 9, 2010.

This is the soonest date that will work out for most participants. If you've already registered and cannot make that date, we will refund your entry fee (contact our group through info@urbanmushing.com). Of course, this also gives a chance for new dog teams to register for the races!

We'll send out a reminder again in a couple of weeks but everything else remains the same - venue, race classes, barbecue potluck, raffle and t-shirts. Oh yeah, we will once again be raffling off a grand prize --- a brand new Diggler Dirt Dawg courtesy of Diggler Scooters!!!

4th annual (not so) Great Serum Run Postponed!

Our 4th Annual (not so) Great Serum, originally slated for this Saturday, December 12th, at Fairview Park in Costa Mesa, has been postponed.

Everything is all set --- medals, t-shirts, racing bibs, sponsors, raffle items, barbecue potluck, etc. And on top of that, we are experiencing unusually cold temperatures for this area and it would have been a wonderful and fun opportunity to run the dogs.

The City of Costa Mesa, to which we had to get permission and pay special events and usage fees to, contacted our group an hour ago and has revoked the permit for this weekend. They have determined that due to the soaking the park has received from the heavy rains this past Monday, coupled with the forecast for additional wet weather starting tomorrow (though possibly only showers/light rain), that the trails will be subject to a lot damage IF a large number of scooters and bikes were allowed on it. (FYI, they recently set up new trail systems and are continuing to do so together with a general beautification of the park).

And believe me, this is VERY disappointing as we've made all these preparations and spent all this money to get this set up but there is nothing we can do. It's not being postponed due to the weather but rather the effect past weather has had on the trails.

What are our options? I think there are only two of them at the moment: 1) move the date to Sunday, December 20th (the park is already reserved by the Boy Scouts for December 19), or 2) move the date to sometime in January, probably the January 10th. We have between 60 - 70 entries signed up so far and all will be contacted individually to get their suggestions for a new date.

The 4th Annual (not so) Great Serum Run, Dec 12th 2009

It is time to go racing!
Our local southern California mushing group is hosting its 4th annual (not so) Great Serum Run on December 12th at Fairview Park in Costa Mesa CA.

Races will be held in a fun and friendly atmosphere in the following classes:

1-Dog / 1-Mile Junior Scooter Race
1-Dog / 1-Mile Scooter Race
2-Dog / 2-Mile Scooter Race
3-Dog / 3-Mile Scooter Race
1-Dog / 2-Mile Bikejoring Race
1-Dog / 3-Km Canicross Race

For more information, registration forms and rules, please see UrbanMushing.com
Registration deadline is December 5th!

After the races, we will have a potluck bbq, raffle and carting demonstrations with 4- 6- and 8-dog teams.

We will have some of our Arctis Carts available for test runs as well.

Fairview Park is located in the city of Costa Mesa on Placentia Ave, between Adams Ave & Victoria St. within minutes of I-405, Hwy 55 and Pacific Coast Hwy

For driving directions, see map here

Just announced: the 4th annual (not so) Great Serum Run

It's once again time to make preparations for our 4th Annual (not so) Great Serum Run (NSGSR - 2009)! This year, we will hold the races on December 12 (Saturday) at Fairview Park in Costa Mesa CA.

For those new to the southern California "Urban Mushing" scene, the NSGSR is our once-a-year scooter race event that is really more of a chance for most of us to get together to run our dogs in a fun, recreational, yet competitive race environment. We have the 1-mile/1-dog, 2-mile/2-dog, 3-mile/3-dog scooter races, a bikejoring class, as well as a 3-Km canicross race and a junior division. The whole point is to get motivated to run our dogs, engage in friendly competition, feel the thrill and excitement as you and your dogs anxiously await your turn to take off at the starting line (and believe me, the dogs can feel it too), and just have a day of fun on the run with your four-footed furballs!

It's a great way to promote the sport and while we mostly focus on the joy and camaraderie of participation, we do award medals for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place PLUS the coveted Red Flashlight Award (patterned after the Red Lantern Award, which is awarded to the last place finisher in the Iditarod).

More info and details will be posted over the next few weeks.

Still waiting for fall to arrive

The forecast was for fall to arrive today, but as it frequently happens, it was "just slightly off". Clear blue skies and typical late summer temperatures in southern California. Nevertheless, our local Urban Mushing group got together at Fairview Park in Costa Mesa for an early morning run, albeit at slow speeds and for limited distances.
We ran three cart teams with 4, 6 and 7 dogs, plus several scooter and bike teams.

Speaking of carts...we still offer free shipping within the continental U.S., see below.

That's a lotta dogs!

...and that's an often repeated comment we get, when taking the dogs for a hike or run in suburban southern California. Weekday mornings, we take anywhere from 3 to 6 dogs out for an 8-10 mile hike on the local trails, including some of our friends at Three Dog Bakery.
Weekends, we usually run the trails at Fairview Park in Costa Mesa with 8 and 6-dog cart teams, as well as several scooter teams. For most park goers, it's just not a common occurrence to see a pack of 20+ Huskies coming around the corner.




For videos of our recent adventures, please click here.

Another fun day at Fairview Park

Taking advantage of overcast skies again, a good sized group of "urban mushers" showed up at Fairview Park in Costa Mesa this morning to let the dogs go on another one or two of our short and slow training runs. Two cart teams and several scooter teams went out on the trails at a slow pace, squeezed in some training exercises and after a well deserved break went back to the parking lot. It seems like some of our training has actually paid off, since it was a rather uneventful day; no drama to report. Everyone, humans and canines alike, did their job and things ran very smooth. Now if things could cool down just a little, we could actually work on speed and endurance to get ready for winter.

Video of our recent training runs

Here's the video to go along with the pictures below of our recent training runs at Fairview Park in Costa Mesa. During the warmer months, we just take the dogs out on early morning runs to practice trail behavior with other teams, basic "on-by's" and "gee over's".



...and just a reminder: our dogs are well hydrated before we go out on a run. We make sure, that the runs are kept short and slow, and that the dogs get plenty of rest in the shade in between.

There's always work to do!

Even though we're currently going through a rather warm period here in southern California, we still manage to squeeze in a little bit of groundwork exercises in the early morning hours. Fortunately, we have quite a few folks that come out every weekend to work on commands, discipline, and trail behavior, plus we constantly mix and match our dogs, so we're able to put together larger teams of 6 and 8 dogs, instead of the more common 2-dog scooter teams.
For more information about our local group, please visit UrbanMushing.com

Click here and here for a few pictures of the last three weekends at Fairview Park.

Summer's Here!

Yes, summer has finally arrived in southern California. For the past week, we've been laying low, taking it easy on our walks, and just kinda hang out on cool tile floors, close to the fan with plenty of water. Unfortunately, that only worked for the canine members of our family, not the human ones; those had to keep building carts. A bit ironic to build sled dog equipment in the summer heat, don't you think?





Anyway, today was the day we went out to Fairview Park and met up with a few members of our Urban Mushing group to take the dogs out on an easy run in the early morning.
We hooked up an 8-dog team to one of the Arctis carts, and took them to the rest area, where we kept switching teams for short runs so we could work on commands and improve team work.
An impromptu mushing clinic, if you will.

More pictures are here.


Note: please keep in mind, that our dogs are well hydrated before we run. The "runs" are about 3/4 mile at a time at a slow pace with plenty of rest in the shade after each run.

4th of July Fun Runs

Unfortunately, our beloved marine layer did not stick around for very long in the morning, so we had to run the dogs early, slow and short distance, but we still managed to have a good time on the trails at Fairview Park in Costa Mesa, as well as Laguna Niguel Regional Park. Sunday's run might have had more excitement than some had hoped for; there's just nothing like two loose Huskies running down the trail at breakneck speed, just to be found relaxing on a cool patch of wet grass a little while later. All's well that ends well.

Not done yet...!

Yes, it's summer, and yes, we're in southern California, but the coastal fog still keeps our mornings cool enough to get in a decent run.
On Saturday, we had a decent sized group at Fairview Park in Costa Mesa, and on Sunday 9 scooter teams got together at Laguna Niguel regional park for a quick 4½ mile run around the lake.
"Lead Musher" Rancy took a great video of Sunday's first mile or so, which you can find here, and the pictures taken before and after the run and at breaktime, are here.

It looks like 4th of July weekend might even be a little cooler than last, so we're still going to be able to run.




Another part of the So Cal Urban Mushers put on a weight pull event in the high desert area. Pictures from that event are here.

If Barbie ran sled dogs...

...she might order one of these carts!
A while back, we made the all black Arctis cart and and dubbed it the "Bat Cart" since it looked like something the dark knight might run, if he ever wanted to join the mushing community.
Now on the opposite end of the spectrum, we have this:



Our paint shop promised "pretty much any color you want" so we put them to the test with this special order by one of our customers...and they delivered!


In other news, our local mushing group went out on a few nice fun runs this weekend, since we're still having overcast skies that keep temperatures low enough for us to squeeze in a run or two.
Most of "Team Arctis" stayed home to rest after a pretty busy week filled with long hikes and several runs, so only crazy clown Silver was out at Fairview and ran with some of his buddies. He also got a chance to meet special guest "Dade" who had his first outing on the local trails.

Orange County Pet Expo This Weekend!

America's Family Pet Expo is on this weekend (Friday - Sunday) at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa CA.
We'll be part of the "Working Dog" display on the lawn near the amphitheatre and will do dog sledding demonstrations at 2pm and 5pm.
Thanks to Southern California Alaskan Malamute Rescue for letting us share their booth.
For more information, please see the pet expo's website here
Pictures of all three days are here