Alpine Bikes Winter Series Round 2!

Last weekend was the second round of the Alpine Bikes winter series. So it was back down to Inners for practice Saturday and some racing on Sunday. I did my usual trick of going out for "a few" the night before, so spent Saturday tired and a little confused as to why I was on a bike. I still felt confident on Sunday morning because of the fact that I'd had a sneaky practice there a couple of weeks before hand. With the hardtails category heading of first I was the second man out of the start gate and the first into the finish area, coming down the hill in 4:11 which was more than enough to take the win. Fastest man of the day was Marc Beaumont with a run at 3:09.
For a full report check out Wideopen Issue 6 which is due to hit your screens in the very near future.

New MRP G2

Here's a quick shot of the new MRP G2 chain device... Zipped over from Matt at Ison.

All looks pretty sweet on paper with a lightweight poly skidplate, 5mm thick CNC boomerang, ISCG or ISCG '05 options and 36-40 tooth range. At the very least it should stop everyone taking hack-saws to their bash-plates from now on!

RRP is about £120 and they're available NOW from your local bike shop.

We'll have a full test in Wideopen issue 6 and team rider Pat Campbell-Jenner will be giving one a good thrashing this season.

Click here for the full spec...

Claire's Blog: Pump-track Vid and Brendan's Crabs

Hey all! Here's a clip of me going for a cruise around the pumptrack:

My stomach hurts from laughing. My partner in crime, Katrina Strand, was just here for a few weeks to visit and between making the most amazing videos on PhotoBooth and other random tarding, ie. my impersonation of David Attenborough in the Planet Earth Series....."And another animal that depends largely on the great plains is......Wild Ass." haha. His voice is amazing! Anyways, we got a lot of riding in too.


Katrina and Claire

They took out "the wall" at the 3rd of the Winter Vomit Series as a pleasant surprise to all the racers. But, ya know, I have to admit I was a tiny bit disappointed. Because it is something I have to get stronger at, I kind of enjoy seeing how long you can go as hard as you can. Call me crazy....

But, although it was a bit shorter, it was a pretty cool track this time around with lots of corners, a rock garden and a decent amount of sprinting in it anyway. Chris (Kovarik) and I both won our races and there is now a $100 bounty on Chris to anyone that can beat him. With 2 more left in the series, will anyone be able to do it?

Brendan Fairclough and Matti Lehikoinen are also in town, and they are like peas in a pod, so we've all hung out a ton and have been having some good times. One day we all tripped out to Laguna to visit the CrankBrothers office and do some shuttle runs that end pretty much on the beach. This is where we all turned 5 years old again while exploring the tide pools and this is where Brendan "accidentally" dropped the hermit crab in a sea anemone.


Brendan showing off his crab

Katrina and I were devastated and Brendan felt pretty bad as soon as he realized what he had done but we couldn't save poor hermy. We like to believe he somehow escaped being digested alive...but Brendan, what a cutie, did feel very sorry, to the point where he mentioned it a couple times on the drive home.


Matti and Kovarik

With Katrina gone back to snowy Whistler and Brendan off doing that random street race down in Chile, our crew has gotten smaller for the moment. Out near our pumptrack there are a few jumps and things that Eric Carter built back in the day. Chris, Matti and I spent the other morning out there having a bit of fun. When I got tired of hiking the jumps, I caught some action on my little camera.


Matti


Kovarik

PS. Chris doesn't just drift his bike. We found this old photo of him in a drift comp back in Australia.

Kovarik gets sideways

Claire rides for Intense, Sram/Rockshox/Avid/Truvativ, Maxxis, Sombrio Girl, Chromag, e13, Crankbrothers, Mavic, Dakine, Smith Optics, THE helmets, Troy Lee Designs armour, Evolution Bike Shop, Dynamic Core Fitness, Whistler Bike Park..

Kovarik's CRC/Intense M6

Our pro-blogger Claire just emailed this shot of Kovarik with his new Chain Reaction/Intense M6. The team stickers are on the way...

Spec looks like:

M6 frame with Cane Creek shock
Raceface cranks
Burgtec pedals
SDG I-Beam seat and post
Shimano Shadow rear-mech
All new Dorados!

Solid Mission 9 Proto and Orange 225

Monday morning and AGAIN i'm sitting in work shattered from the weekend!

I made an express trip up to North Wales yesterday to meet Tim Morgan and test-ride the prototype '08 Solid Mission 9. We hooked up with the guys from MTB-Direct at Foel Gasnach and spent the day hammering the bike and getting some pictures.

You'll have to read issue 6 for the full report but... With a few tweaks it's looking like it could be a great bike.

As ever, there was a great turn out of riders. The tracks were riding nicely, the sun was out and the uplifts were rolling all day... Perfect!

As if one prototype bike wasn't enough... Tom Braithwaite appeared with the boys from MTBCut and a verrryy interesting looking Orange 225. Couldn't resist a bit of papping and got a few shots of it tied up in the van...

The Elbry o'clock news

Elbry blasted me over some news for you folks, check it out...

RiderRunCo will have the all new range from Vandal up in the coming month and wideopen will have the range to show in the next issue! Vandal was the first pure rider run mtb brand when it started back in 95, but the brand has been underground for the last few years with just team rider Jamie Taylor of late holding down the brand name at dirt events. Thats all changed, revamped team, clothing range and a mini site off of http://www.riderruncompany.co.uk/ in the coming months.


Check these sweet sleds out! 24 or 26" wheeled dirt rigs from samoon. This brand is blowing up on a world level and their frames are coming to the UK as of next month from http://www.riderruncompany.co.uk/ Frames come in at a great £270 and are cutting edge, more details and pics in the next issue of wideopen, to pre order contact the guys at RiderRunCo.

Martyn Ashton on Diamondback for 2008.

Great news as trials-god Marytn Ashton joins Diamonback. He'll head up Team 'Ashton Diamonback' with Sam Pilgrim, Rowan Johns and Ben Savage riding alongside. It's great to see some big-names and then also new talent from Rowan.

They'll be showing-off their skills at music festivals, on the high-street and on the Animal Bike-Tour. With 50 dates already booked you won't have much trouble catching up with them.

We're big fans of Diamondback here at Wideopen... Big company, roots UK team, quality bikes. Seems like a perfect combo and can only be good news for the UK riding scene. Stay tuned for some biiiig things from this lot!

No team web-site at the moment, but check out www.diamonback.co.uk




pic: Robin Kitchin

Rowan Johns video... Pure talent.

Something for the weekend from MTBCut

MTBcut.tv just popped up more great vids for your viewing pleasure....

They're also threatening to be literaly EVERYWHERE in 2008. World cups, Nationals, Regionals... Anything you might wanna see will be captured on video, set to a damn fine sound track and online for free.

New videos are:
Amiel Cavalier Rider Bio
Season rundown with Ben Reid
Cam McCaul Diary

www.mtbcut.tv

PumpUrbanWear.co.uk blog is ONLINE!

Our very good friends at PumpUrbanWear.co.uk just launched their all new blog.



It'll be the place to find out about the company and the team riders. With Rob Newman, Dylan Stone and Tom Gethin on-board it's bound to fire out some great pushbike content.

Pump are an independant UK clothing company that we've been working with since issue 2. They've got nice designs and a nice philosophy that's all about helping folks out wherever they can and not fucking up the planet along the way. You'll be seeing a lot more of them in the mag...

Cheers to Rick for the kind words on the blog.

Check out the blog and their line of threads here:
http://www.pumpurbanwear.co.uk/

Bionicon UK Demo Series

Fancy swinging your leg over a Bionicon?



If so there's 9 UK test days lined up between now and May.

09.03 - Forest of Dean with Zero G Cycles Tel. 0117 966 0743
16.03 - Apedale Country Park, Newcastle under Lyme with BETD/Goldtec, Tel. 01782 629 462
30.03 - Peaslake, Surrey with Moose Cycles Tel. 01633 601 040
19/20.03 - Ambleside, Cumbria with Biketreks Tel. 015394 31245
26/27.04 - Laggan Wolftrax with Basecamp Tel. 01528 544 786
10.05 - Pangbourne, Berks with Mountain High Tel. 01189 841 851
25.05 - Ynys-Hywel, Sirhowy Valley Country Park with Martyn Ashfield Cycles Tel. 01633 601 040

You'll be able to ride any of the following:

Golden Willow scandium – medium
Golden Willow – small, medium, large
Edison Ltd/Edison – small, medium, large (pictured)
Supershuttle – small, medium,
Ironwood – medium or large

For details about bookings, locations and times please contact the appropriate Bionicon dealer or check for updates on the ‘UK corner’ at www.bionicon.com

For information about Bionicon bikes please contact Bionicon UK at: roger.seal@bionicon.com

Claire Buchar: home movies and the Vom series rd2

So somehow this old VHS tape surfaces in one of the offices at the Intense factory...... It's labeled: 'Claire Buchar 2001 Video Resume'. Yup, not kidding.

So I'm wondering why all the guys are smiling at me the next time Chris and I drop by the factory to pick up some parts and Tyler, the shipping guy and riding friend, throws on this video for us. And to my dismay, there I am. On my first downhill bike ever, busting no footer bar tweaks(hahaha), suicides, wheelies and riding some pretty gnarly lines. Except it was 7 years ago and you can tell I was a little stiff in the saddle to say the least but the guys were impressed none the less.

Well I immediately turned bright red and Chris was saying, "I didn't know you could do that!", it was hilarious. Anyways, turns out, it was my part out of Pist 'n Broke Productions, Back in the Saddle and my friend Warwick Patterson sent it to the guys at Intense years ago to try to get me some kind of start in the world of mountain biking. And get this, the guy didn't even watch it until now! Jerk! Haha. And here I am, 7 years later, riding for Intense.....funny.

Anyways, so it's finally stopped raining and apparently the desert has never looked so green. We have had a rare week of extremely wet weather, leaving us with some extremely nice dirt. My favorite local trail, the Gripper, has never been grippier.

We raced in beautiful loamy conditions at the 2nd of the Fontana Winter Vomit Series this past weekend. I got my new Intense Socom 'test frame' built up the day before the event. It is from an early batch of frames that Jeff designed but while my race frame, with a slacker head angle, is getting specially painted, I am trying this one out. And I LOVE it already.

Chris, on his M6, took another win and I, on the Intense Socom, was second to the fast and furious Melissa Buhl. Only 3 more vomits to go!

Chris has been throwing down some tricks on his M6 that others may find difficult on little bikes, recently getting the cover of Revolution, an Aussie magazine, and a double page spread in the latest Decline. Not the clearest images but thought I'd throw those in for your entertainment....

Well, till next time! Claire.

Claire rides for Intense Rock Shox Sram, Truvativ, Avid, Maxxis, Chromag, e13, Fizik, Crankbrothers, Sombrio Girl, THE Helmets, Troy Lee Designs, Dakine, Evolution, Dynamic Core Fitness, Whistler Bike Park, West Coast Freeride Guides, Mavic.

BOS upgrades have landed at TFTuned

Looking to give your forks a boost?



TF Tuned just took their first shipment of BOS Engineering cartridge upgrades for RockShox Boxxer, Marzocchi 888 and Fox 40 forks.

There's loads of info on the forks and what TF can do for you here. If that aint enough, million times World Cup winner Nico V. is riding BOS for '08 which is never a bad sign!

More stuff, including a new rear shock, will follow later this year.