Remember the post One Chick. One Wheel. One Great Divide?
Well, I checked in at Divideby1.com and was stoked to see that they are currently in Montana and look like they are having a great time. They are on their way to becoming the first to ever unicycle the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, a challenging off road mountain bike route put together by the Adventure Cycling Association.

A lot of personality riding around on those unicycles, Matt & Gracie offer entertaining posts with photos and videos that are definitely worth checking out. Here is a brief vignette of their travels so far:

You may remember the story we did on Jordan Romero last year within the pages of Adventure World (he was also on the cover). Jordan is a 13-year old that has set out to climb the highest peak on every continent. He has already achieved the highest peak on 5 of the 8 (some consider Australia the continent and others consider all of Oceania as the continent…therefore, there are 8 total). His achievements thus far include Kilimanjaro (Africa), Kosciuszko (Australia), Mount McKinley (Alaska), Aconcagua (South America) and Elbrus (Europe). After they were thwarted from their most recent quest to conquer No. 6 due to political unrest in Indonesia, Jordan and team went to Mount Rainier (Washington) for a little practice for the upcoming season ahead.

The 13th Annual Molokai to Oahu Paddleboard Race returned to Hawaii this year, the competition held on July 26th. Considered the world championship of stand up paddleboarding, solo men and women, as well as two-person teams, made the arduous 32-mile paddle across the storied Molokai (Ka’iwi) Channel in pursuit of paddling’s top honor. Along the way they will battled battle tough seas, summer heat, physical and mental limits, not to mention, each other. This year´s long distance mile open ocean race offered a record prize purse of $16,000 and brought all the top athletes in the sport, including record holder Jamie Mitchel (Australian) who won for the 8th year in a row.

I was checking out some of the photos and videos of the Yukon River Quest and it looks like it was an absolute blast!

Having the opportunity to boat 460 miles of the Yukon river with a bunch of other paddlers from Whitehorse (a Canadian town with a great microbrewery) and ending in Dawson City (a cool old gold rush town) would have been a great adventure.

Check out some great video coverage by PilotGirl and a few photos from the event.

After a physical and mental torture, Christian Maurer (SUI) crossed the Red Bull X-Alps 2009 finishing line in Monaco at exactly 11.24 hours local time on Wednesday morning. Having set off from Salzburg armed with only a paraglider and hiking gear, the 26-year-old extreme sportsman came out on top in the toughest of battles across Europe’s highest mountains against 29 other athletes from 23 countries. The 2007 winner, fellow countryman Alex Hofer, was the only other athlete to reach the Mediterranean principality.

At 11:24 Christian ‘Chrigel’ Maurer (SUI3) landed in Monaco to become the 2009 Red Bull X-Alps Champion.

“Flying from the middle of the Alps to the ocean has long been my dream” Maurer said, just after landing. “And I did it!”

I returned from the Outdoor Retailer Summer Market over the weekend after spending over 3 days walking the show floor and meeting with dozens of companies each day. I spent my time trying on boots, running shoes, jackets, crawling in tents and just enjoying being surrounded by so much cool gear. In the past, I have packed my schedule so tightly that I basically ran from from one meeting to the next trying to make mental notes about what I wanted to go back and check out in a booth that caught my attention (only to ultimately forget and possibly missing out on something really cool). However, this year…I left blocks in my schedule just to walk the floor checking out not only the booths that I had scheduled meetings with but also allowing me the freedom to browse new booths and not just spend time rushing from one meeting to the next.

The 24 hour solo mountain bike World Championships have been over for just about 48 hours. The pain and damage my body took from the thrashing is going to take weeks of recovery. The glow of winning worlds three years in a row is going to take years to wear off. This year’s training was entirely focused on peaking for this singular day and putting my name definitively in the record books for endurance mountain bike racing. I have to say it was a bit daunting to form a whole year of training and focus around one event. The pressure of coming back multiple years in a row with a target on my back and the expectation of winning was a heavy weight. I was even given #1 as my bike number plate for this race. The unspoken pressure was thick and anything less than a three peat would have been a disappointment for me.

When Africa tour guide, Guy Lankester first read the proposal for a kite buggy race across the Sahara desert in the height of summer he responded candidly. “It’s the most insane idea I’ve ever heard” he emailed the organisers in Australia, “But I love it”. Six months on and everything is in place. Yesterday afternoon (Tuesday 28th) a convoy of three vehicles set off from Portsmouth heading for the Sahara. When they reach Agadir in Northern Morocco, they will unload four specially adapted kite buggies and two Australians and two Kiwis will embark on a race across 2,500 km of the world’s harshest terrain.

Talented young multisporter and adventure racer Dougal Allan (Wanaka) put the hammer down in the The North Face Peak to Peak in Queenstown yesterday to win the high profile event, which races from the top of The Remarkables to the top of Coronet Peak, for the second time.

Allan stopped the clock at the finish line at Coronet Peak in 2hrs 19. 13, three minutes ahead of prominent multisporters Gavin Mason (Wanaka) in 2.21.44 and Mike Kelly (Queenstown) who took third in 2.24.16. The 2008 winner Glen Currie, returning to endurance racing after a serious illness, achieved a creditable fourth place.

Tiffany Campbell and Andria Lessler have recently shifted their attention to female surfing, and put together an impressive film documenting the history of female surfers, from top professionals to epic adventurers like Liz Clark who is sailing around the world looking for the best waves. A conscious film that takes you across the globe, showcasing some of women´s contributions to the culture: from Ashley Lloyd, board shaper using soy based Biofoam blanks, to Judith Sheridan (she bodysurfed Mavericks!) who explains how geological forces shaped San Francisco´s dramatic coastline, to Belinda Baggs sewing her own boardshorts in between sets. In addition to clips of women killing it on the waves; the film conveys a good sense of place, history, and encourages sustainable practices.

Preparations are officially under way for this year’s Animal Windfest. The beach-based free extreme sports event returns to Poole in Dorset from the 11th -13th September 2009.

Now in its 11th year, it promises to be bigger, better and even more awesome than ever. Some of the biggest names in the sports of wind-surfing, kite-surfing and stand-up paddle boarding will be blowing audience’s minds all over again!

It´s amazing to see that there is a race like this going on. Certainly an event that warrants the often used label, “extreme”. Here is a recent press-release giving details about the progress of the athletes. More coverage to come in the future. Watch the action unfold on Red Bull Mobile Live Tracking at www.redbullxalps.com

Christian Maurer (SUI3) is raising the bar at the Red Bull X-Alps 2009, creating a huge lead over his rivals despite extreme flying conditions.

…in just five days, Maurer has completed more than 350km of the 818km course.

On July 16th, Zac Sunderland became the youngest person to ever circumnavigate the world solo by yacht. ESPN put together a feature writeup about this epic adventure you can check out HERE.

The total journey took about 13 months and covered about 25,000 nautical miles. At one point, he encountered a dangerous rogue wave, glowing from the phosphorescent phytoplankton, that came crashing down over his boat, destroying his electrical system. …

This past weekend Aaron Rinn and Myself, RVG, joined a handful of other Pacific Northwest seasoned racers in the fourth annual Peterisoba. This is an underground AR that is held just out of North Bend, WA and is within 45 minutes of Downtown Seattle. A majority of the race took place on the mountains that divide the North and Middle Forks of the Snoqualmie Rivers and had up to 9,000 feet of climbing and took teams from a base elevation of 1,000 feet up to the Green Mt peak of nearly 5,500. This was exactly what both of us needed to help get us primed for PQ.

Untamed New England crowned the ATP/Salomon team as champions when they crossed the finish line 68 hours and 43 minutes after starting the race. ATP/Salomon, a team of 3 Canadians and 1 American, won in decisive fashion when factoring in their 16 hours of time credits they earned by visiting 4 extra “bonus” checkpoints over the course of the event. Second place honours went to Team Kinetic, a team from Quebec, Canada; Team Kinetic crossed the finish line 66 hours and 50 minutes after the race began, but did not accrue any time bonuses.

Today 30 athletes set out from Salzburg on the adventure of a lifetime: the Red Bull X-Alps.

At 11:30 the start gun went off, startling much of the crowd gathered in the Mozartplatz – but it was nothing compared with the shock of what’s to come for the competitors.

Ahead of them, they face Europe’s harshest mountains and extreme alpine weather conditions. Rules state they must cross the entire Alpine chain by foot or by paraglider in their quest to reach Monaco.

Last weekend, I did my second marathon in the mountains after doing my first a week earlier. The first which consisted of the first 26 miles of the Angeles Crest 100 ultra proved to be quite challenging to say the least. Although we only ran between 6,600′ – 9.400′, I could definitely feel the rarified air and I had a pounding headache. It seems like I don’t do well at altitude as I age! Oh, well, maybe the lack of long distrance running also played a role. In the end, we climbed over 9,000′. A good all around day and stunningly beautiful with ideal weather (it’s hard not to in Los Angeles).

This morning, a squadron of six Red Bull X-Alps athletes flew a test flight directly over the city centre of Salzburg, Austria.

The flight was part of preparations leading up to the world’s most spectacular adventure race, the Red Bull X-Alps which begins at 11:30 on July 19 in Salzburg.

Wow!! Impressive to say the least. Not sure I´d wish this upon anyone, but what an amazing family. They have been bicycle touring for the past 8 years. What a cool, cool experience for them. I just browsed through their site and was amazed by their adventures. You´ll have to go check out their blog when you get some time.

          AWM is kicking off the summer with a great a new issue including an interview with Jon Bowermaster, legendary sea kayaker and coverage of adventure races from Patagonia to Arizona. Not to mention an interview with Rebecca Rush, one of adventure racing´s top female athletes
          As promised we have continued to offer live coverage of adventure news across the globe with our new site, from multimedia updates, to the latest TWEETs, and blog postings.

The Wenger Patagonian Expedition Race has a reputation for uncompromising courses in true wilderness and the 2009 race did not disappoint. If anything, that reputation was enhanced when the race finished with the racers temporarily …