It may be January, but if you're a mountain biker in the Bay Area, it's never too early to start planning out your riding season. Especially if you have any interest in racing. Conventional wisdom might have you believing that you can start your serious riding and training in the spring and be ready for the summer racing season, but CW, she is a minx.

In fact, past experience has shown us that if you want to race mountain bikes in the Bay Area, you better start training now because a majority of the big races are in the spring.

Also, because a comprehensive, integrated, updated calendar of mountain bike events in Northern California does not exist, we've compiled the following list for your reading and racing pleasure. Be sure to bookmark this page.

If you can make only a handful of races this year, even just to watch, these are them:

By SFist the Truthmaker, contributing