The Unofficial Hardtail Champs is GO!

News just in from Iain 'ACE' Woodley at Hardtail nation - check it - KAPOW!

The Unofficial UK Hard Tail DH champs 2009 / UK Bike Park.

"This year I am hi-jacking round 4 of the UK Bike Park race series on June 20/21 and the Unofficial Hardtail Champs will be held here.

Hardtail is not a recognized racing class by British Cycling, therefore there is no official champion as officially we don't exsist and are not allowed to compete in the UK National Champs. So we have been doing our own underground thing.

This will be the 3rd champs race. More details closer to the date, anyone can enter and have a go. No race licence is needed, you are welcome if you have one, however anyone who has raced at World Cup level in 4X or Downhill will not be eligible to take the title or the race jacket of the Unofficial Champion, world cuppers are welcome to enter and post a time, this will be noted in dispatches, then again you might get beaten anyway !

Information will be on http://www.hardtailnation.co.uk/ and http://www.ukbikepark.com/ more information will be released at a later date."

Ace hardtailnation

2Stage UCI World Cup Factory Team‏

Our friends over at 2Stage bikes have just announced the launch of their brand new UCI World Cup trade team - It will be an all UK 3 rider line up featuring the talents of Tom Deacon, Jess Stone and Alex Powell. They'll be racing the 2Stage Elite 9 and opening the season at the Maxxis Cup in March before attending all UCI World Cups, Maxxis Cups and UK NPS rounds.


Here's a few words from 2Stage about the riders:

Local ripper, Tom Deacon, has just come off one his best seasons, ranking tenth in 2008 BCnational rankings. Preparing for 2009 with an intense off-season training programme, Tom expects to maintain his race-winning momentum that saw him become the Pearce Cycles Series Champion, Midland Region Champion and English Champion last year.

“I’m stoked to be working with 2Stage bikes this year! The bike is awesome, the first time out I knew this was it. It corners on rails, and the 2stage technology takes the bumps like they are nothing but pedals like a hardtail. It’s unreal! 2Stage is a tight knit family and I’m excited to be a part of it - this season is going to be rad!!”

The second team member is a superstar on the rise, Jess Stone. Jess’ first introduction to world cup racing was at Schladming last year where she pulled off 23rd placing (only eight seconds off qualifying), proving she’s a rolling stone who carries some serious speed downhill. 2009 will be Jess’ first season riding Elite, and she couldn’t wait any longer. Jess had the Junior category all sewn up last year coming in ranked at number one, and winning the British National Champs, English Champs, Hamsterley Winter Series, Midland Series overall, Decision DH and well, we could keep going on forever about her achievements. But it’s definitely time for Jess to take on some fresh blood.



Finally, aspiring young pinner 17 year old Alex Powell completes the team. 2009 will be Alex’s first year committed to full time racing due to previous year’s duties with his Loctite Formula 3 team clashing with his DH schedule, Alex is stoked on this golden opportunity to race for 2Stage and broaden his experience in international competition riding along side Tom and Jess.



2Stage Bikes broke onto the UK scene in 2007 when their NZ factory rider, Glenn Haden, won the 2007 Italian National Championship Series and Sprinte Avalanche while on a sponsored tour of Europe. Since then the company has planted its feet firmly in the UK DH scene supporting an academy team of talented riders alongside their UCI world cup factory team.

Essential support for 2Stage Factory UCI World Cup DH team comes from Loctite/Henkel Gmbh.

Additional support for Tom Deacon is from existing sponsors, TGG-Custom Helmet Painting, Funn, and http://www.dhspain.com/.

Jess Stone’s extra support from Five Ten Shoes and Loeka Clothing.

http://www.2stagebikes.com/ for more info

All snaps are by Wideopen photographer Jacob 'Millki' Gibbins at
http://www.jacobgibbins.co.uk/

Icebike 2009

I got a rare treat of a day out of the office yesterday to visit Madison HQ for their ICEBIKE trade show. Madi are pretty much the UK's biggest supplier of stuff to bike shops and help Wideopen out a lot with news and test goodies. They're also supporting the Atherton's and are in charge of the UK's supply of Shimano, Commencal, Park Tools, Thor, Giro etc and shout about all their new goodies at the show. It's always a nice day out with some free food and a chance to see what is dope and what is wack for the new season.



As with every MTB trip the day started out with chaos as our lift dropped out, my car broke down and the hire company pissed us about for 3 hours. We had a fry up at the local greasy spoon while we waited though so not all a waste of time. Here's Nouveu getting busy with beans on toast:

We finally got to the show and bumped straight into our mate Nico from Commencal. He's from Commencal HQ in Andorra and works with a couple of other guys to design all the bikes you see out in the hills. First thing he had to show off was the new 2010 Carbon Meta 5.5:

Here's Gee's 2009 race bike complete with Shimano Pro kit, Nissan sponsorship and rainbow stripes.



Gee's tyres - still no sponsor in the bag for rubber....



And the World Champs replica that you can get your hands on. If you aint winning on this thing then you aint winning on anything!



On to the soft goods and we've got a huge new range of gloves from Giro. If you like lightweight gloves like the Troy Lee XC then you should take a look at these. They're nice and light with just enough padding and simple graphics. These ones are the Xens - there's another DH and XC glove in the full finger range. Nice kit.




New Bell Drop helmets with jazzy graphics:

We spend a lot of time talking to the guys at Madison in the UK - the show is a chance to meet the faces behind the actual companies we're talking about and see who actually designs, builds and tests the kit. This is Eric from Bell/Giro in the States.

Here's Rob - he's Wideopen staffer Pete's brother and works for Continental. He'll be racing DH this season for Nicolai - keep an eye out for him. Cheers for the hats fella!



Gamut had their new design bash rings on show which will be rolled out across all models. They're re-designed to be tougher, less likely to break if you over tighten the bolts and to fit all cranks without the need for any bodging. Below you've also got the new dual ring Gamut model and new chain ring. The new rings will be available in single tooth increases (36, 37, 38 etc) and will have nice tall teeth to stop your chain wobbling around.




Next stop Genesis bikes to chat to their designer James. He's based in the UK and is always a nice fella to chat to about where the bikes came from, what he had in mind for them and where they're going. We've got an Apltitude on long term test at the moment so it was great to get some feedback and get the bike's history. Here's a potential new paint job for the Genesis line up and James' personal proto 953 hardtail. The idea behind 953 is to get a ride that's light and strong like Ti but is a wee bit stiffer for a more responsive ride. Ian over at Hardtail nation has got a funny little piece on the bike.



Er... Ogio rambo vest thing...



Apparently Animal clothing have dropped their bike range this year. Madison have replaced them with their own range of technical kit which actually looks really good. Here's one of their jackets:

Classy Thor Static kit:



Randoms:

Thanks to all at Madison for having us (and plying us with donuts)!

Atherton Racing 2009 team kit

Here's those Atherton team kit pics in high res. Check out the Shimano 'Pro' range bars and post on the team bike, bit of a surprise there but it makes sense from the amount of top road pros that run it. I wonder if there's some new bits in the Pro range coming up?



www.animalcommencal.com

New Atherton Kit

Gordo over at Litter just posted a sneak look at the 2009 Atherton team kit. Being the cut throat, blood hound journo that I am I just had to do a bit of digging and see what else I could find.

Looks like www.animalcommencal.com/ has got a few more snaps of the new team kit and heaps of info on what the kids have been up to. Check it out.

Looks like it's digi-camo for 09 - What do you think?

Team Blog: Chris Mucklow

RLS4X Update - In the last few weeks we've serviced and repainted the old NPS4X start gate. This has meant we've been running gate practice sessions during the half term which have drawn in a lot of interest with a large turn out. The majority of the track work is now completed and our first race is all set for the 29th March. For entry details or any other info Drop Billy C an email rc69uk@hotmail.com



Corby Session - It's been a while since I hit a skatepark but didn’t take long to get back into it, with the facilities they have there it suits even novice riders. As usual the first stop is the street section which is a new edition and is so much better since the re-vamp. It all flows beautifully. Next stop is the foam pit which is always good for a laugh. Whip comps, flip comps, well everything really though after a few runs the climbing out of the damn thing is a killer. Once you've got your tricks down in the foam you can move on to the resi box to get them really dialled!

Chris Mucklow is Wideopen’s team rider and will be flying the flag for the magazine at UK 4X and dirt jump events in ’09. He’s supported by Superstar components, Dialled Bikes and Goodrich hoses. Stay tuned for more from him every couple of weeks here on the website...

Lynskey Titanium seatpost (posh)

Fancy a REALLY posh seatpost? The fellas over at Hotlines have got the answer with this Ti job from Lynskey.

Here's the word from our mate Pete:

"Please see below for details on the new Lynskey Ti seatpost that we’ve just taken delivery of. It’s a pretty nice piece of kit, really light (I think its as light as the lightest CNT carbon post from Easton), but they’re also covering it for road and off-road use with a “no questions asked” replacement policy. If you break it they’ll fix or replace it free of charge. Pretty amazing really, it’s priced “competitively” at £179.99: cheaper than Moots etc and only slightly more than a top end carbon post. It’s also the only Ti post available in 31.6mm, in two lengths (and it conveniently fits all the Lynskey frames)."

Shaft: Aerospace quality 3al-2.5v titanium
Tension rod/upper saddle rail clamps, internal and external sleeves: 6061 anodized aluminum
Lower saddle rail cradle: Carbon fiber composite
Tension bolts: Aerospace quality 6al-4v titanium

Lynskey website

Hotlines website

Elbry gets Maced

It's that time of year when riders are getting sorted for the season and starting to show off their new teams and new rides. Always means heaps of news for us guys so no complaints!

Freeride veteran and Wideopen staffer Elbry Sandland just dropped me a line to say that he's going to be riding Mace clothing in '09. You can check out what Elbry's up to on his blog at http://elbry.blogspot.com/.

Mace website here and UK distro Windwave here

Steve Peat chooses EThirteen

Everyone's favourite Stella drinking Yorkshireman Steve Peat has signed up to EThirteen for the next 3 seasons. Steve will be running LG1 and SRS chain devices, teamed up with custom lightweight G-rings.

We've had an LG1 on longterm test here at Wideopen for a while now and we can safely say they're the bomb. Tough, light, simple and backed up with trackside mechanical support at the races. Definitely a good choice for a future World Champ (fingers crossed!).

EThirteen are exclusively distributed in the UK by Silverfish. Read the full story here.

Also check out ethirteencomponents.com and Stevepeat.com