SMALL SCREEN: A day in the life of Joe Landricombe

A day in the life of Joe Landricombe from Aaron Bartlett on Vimeo.

Mono just sent over the fruits of a hard days filming in Southampton with Joe L. Turn on HD, crank up the sound and hit FULL SCREEN.

Mono says: "Basically I've always wanted to have a really good go at a BMX street/park vid and when I first met Joe at my work back before Christmas I didn't have a camera. So now 3 months on I finally have a camera and we went out and did two days of filming, this is the result. I'm pretty pleased with it myself!"

Rheola Rd 1 Cancelled.

Bit of bad news this one. Round 1 of the Mojo/Orange MDMBA series at Rheola has been cancelled.

According to WDMBA front-man JT the Forestry Commission announced this week that they were banning all uplifts that don't use the mini-bus/trailer system on their land. The team new this was coming but had been told by the FC it wouldn't be till later in the year. With the announcement coming early and no time to to sort out plan B they've very regretably had to cancel the event.

I spoke to JT quickly this morning and he sounded gutted... But was on the case with getting the rest of the year's events going strong. According to their site all entries made via paypal have been refunded and cheque payments are winging their way back to folks any minute.

Good luck to the WDMBA team for attempt 2... Stay tuned to Wideopen for the latest as it happens.

http://wdmba.co.uk/

First Look: Six Pack Millenium XXL bars and Raptor X stem

A set of SIXPACK XXL Millenium bars and a Raptor X stem landed on my desk this morning which was pretty wicked. The bars are a whopping 760mm wide and look the bomb in flashy white with some nice graphics. Seems everyone was running wide bars last weekend at Wentwood so I'm pretty excited to see what the fuss is about. Maybe also a bit nervous about those narrow trees up our local woods!

We took a quick look at these a couple of weeks back as part of our Propane exclusive test so it's good to get some through for a long term bashing. All seems to be quality, good looking kit so far.... Looking forward to getting them on the bike this evening!

Get over to http://www.sixpack-racing.com/ for more info

Millenium XXL Bars:
made of 7075 / T6 double butted alloy / 760mm width / 25mm rise / 9 degree backsweep / 5 degree upsweep / available in 31,8mm diameter / colors: black, white, grey / RRP £39.99



Raptor X Stem:
full CNC´d / 45mm reach, 15 degree / available in 25,4mm and 31,8mm / CNC side logo / only 37mm clamp height / colors: black, liquid-green, white, red, gold, wood / RRP £35.99

Rheola entries close this weekend!

News just in from JT at WDMBA - entries close for Rd1 of the Mojo/Orange series this weekend.

Get signed up now or miss out!

http://wdmba.co.uk/

Time to go pro (or not)

It had to happen half way though an issue! Wideopen Issue 9 is well on it's way to you when my 7 year old Mac 17" LCD display has ceased working and keeps blowing fuses! It's had a good innings and is currently hooked up to a MacMini.
Never fear, I'll be out buying a MacBook (or Pro if I'm feeling flush) in the next few days and Jamie and I are rattling through proofing to get things ready. Thanks for the patience!

Borderline Events 2009

Mike over at Borderline just got in touch with a reminder that entries are still open for their MASSIVE DH and 4X Easter weekend.

It's going to be at Moelfre on 10 - 13th April (Good Friday to Bank Holiday Monday) and will include:

• DH practice and racing
• 4X practice and racing
• Monday uplift day
• Live entertainment
• Boozing

Sounds like a mini festival to me... but with more bikes and less middle-aged yuppies getting off their heads on herbal highs and crying about how REM trips them out. Er - sorry. Anyway, get involved it's going to be wicked.

There's also a heap of uplift days lined up throughout March, April, May and June.

http://www.borderline-events.co.uk/

First Look: Halo Freedom Disc\Supadrive wheelset

We're pretty excited about this Halo wheel-set that just landed for long term test. They're a thoroughbred 4X race setup and have been built specially for Wideopen team rider Chris to thrash this season on his race bike.

He'll be putting them through their paces and reporting back on how they hold up throughout the race season. You can check out his updates in the products section of the mag or see them in action at loads of races this season including the NPS4X and RLS4x.

The setup:
Front - Freedom Disc 32H rim on Spin Dr hub.
Rear - Freedom Disc 36H Rim on Supa Drive Hub.

Thanks to Matt and the team at Ison for sending them over.

More from Halo on their website here.

SDA madness!

If you're reading this and you wanted to enter the first two rounds of the SDA series, I'm afraid you're too late. That's right, entries went live at 8pm tonight. 8:05 and they're all sold out, all 300 of 'em! 8:10 and the last of the reserve tickets are gone.

The first round is to be a push up race at Pitfichie on the 18/19th of April, with round two at Fort William in May.

Expect to see both races from the most popular series in Britain feature in a future issue of Wideopen.

The Tipping Point - Clay Porter's Latest

Just got the latest from Clay Porter - the fella behind F1rst and Between the Tape. Clay has been hard at work throughout '08 filming his latest epic which will be called 'The Tipping Point'.

It's going to feature every round of the 08 World Cup, the World Champs and a few other special shoots. Riders include Brendawg, Minaar, Gracia, Palmer and of course Sam Hill who Clay is shooting right now.

There's filming and editing still to be done but for now you can check out their brand new website and trailer at: http://www.thetippingpointfilm.com/

Rheola entries are GO!

News just in from James over at WDMBA - Entries for Round 1 of the MOJO/ORANGE series are GO!

Round 1 is going to be at Rheola on 20/21st March. Enter right here right now!

Simply Downhill - Wentwood Trophy

Sunday was a big day for Welsh DH with the first ever 'Wentwood Trophy' race and of course the very first event in the Welsh DHMTB Association line up.

Organisor Si Ward and the Wentwood locals did a sterling job of getting the track up to speed and keeping everything running smoothly. The push was a bit of a bugger but after a couple of shoves up everyone seemed to get into the swing of it and the banter got flowing!

The track was awesome, everyone was in a great mood, Janet's Jackets were punting out some great munch, Paton was flogging tyres, Paton's dog was running amock, Dave Morgan ran the timing without a hitch, Wideopen even stumped up a few prizes which felt great. Perfect day out in the valleys.

Surprise surprise Rowan Sorrel took the win on his Orange Strange proto DH bike, Manon Carpenter was on fire all day and spent practice scoping out shady lines and getting the track dialled with dad Jason. She took the top spot for the ladies - keep an eye out for her destroying the field this season!

I'll do a full repo for the magazine - until then check out.... The results, Simply downhill's website and the Welsh DHMTB website.

Massive thanks to Si W (pictured above looking a lot LESS stressed out than I saw him all day) and the crew for a great day out - can't wait for the next one. Also to James Tennant for not getting mad when I steal a couple of his photo's for this repo!

Webisode 3 - Tom Grundy

Tom Grundy, one of the South's up and coming young film makers has put together edisode 3 of his special "webisodes" featuring Uk's up and coming talent... This video features trails section, skatepark session in the secret tunnel and a Bernard Kerr section which is pretty rad! I'm hoping this will continue in episode 4 as they look like they are getting better and better.


More Mountain Biking >>

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)!