TOMORROW: Beyond the Threshold & Break the Cycle‏

Posted on Wednesday 10 March 2010 by Steve

Wideopen Magazine presents:-

The first Scottish screenings of Ronan’s Taylor’s Beyond the Threshold and Andy Yoong’s Break the Cycle.

It’s too cold and wet to get out on the bike at the moment, so why not head over to Edinburgh’s Bongo Club on March 11th to watch to of the hottest mountain bike films to hit our screens this year.

We’ll be kicking off the evening with Beyond The Threshold which showcases some of the year’s best downhill action in Scotland, England and Wales. The SDA series, World Cup and regional races are part of the high-adrenalin mix. So too are rider sections and interviews with top pros, national contenders and local riders.

Then from across the Irish see comes Break The Cycle, a film about downhill mountain bike lifestyle in Ireland. While showcasing some of the most amazing Irish landscapes, Break the Cycle will give you an insight into the lives of ten of the top Irish riders, to capture how they have managed to break the cycle of everyday life, through their passion for riding their bikes.

The event is taking place at the Bongo Club in Edinburgh on Thursday 11^th March. Doors are at 7pm with the first film starting at 7.30pm. Entry is £5 on the door. ID will be required at the bar, while U18s are welcome so long as they are accompanied by an adult.

Raffle prizes TBC.

Details of the venue:-

The Bongo Club

37 Holyrood Road

Edinburgh

EH8 8BA

0131 558 760
Any queries can be directed to ste@wideopenmag.co.uk

More Mountain Biking >>

Alpine Bikes Winter Series Round 2

Posted on Friday 26 February 2010 by Steve

After the first round was cancelled due to overnight temperatures of -15 degrees freezing the track solid, the -6 degrees last Saturday night felt positively tropical!

Regardless of the temperature racing went ahead on a track that wasn’t as steep as last time and with the tape nice and wide for when (not if) things did go wrong!

Once again first runs down the hill brought miles of smiles but as the day went on and the track polished up the ice began to shine through and brought down everyone at least once over the course of the weekend. Some found it too much and didn’t come back to race on Sunday but just over 200 riders managed to make it to the top of the track for their race runs.

I was on a blinder of a race run until I caught the guy infront of me and binned it into a tree trying to get round him… and then again on the ice as soon as I got going again. 4miuntes 18s and I’d still done enough to take the Hardtail cat win and 59th overall.

Fastest time of the day went to Lew Buchanan in Juniors with an amazing run at 3:26. While Adam Brayton rolled home to take the Elite win after the others decided serious injury was too much of a lottery on the ice.

Expect to see a full race report in the next issue of the mag, with more snaps from Mr V. of Phunkt.com

The Wideopen 2010 team are supported by the following awesome companies:

Alpine Bikes Winter Series Round 1

Posted on Sunday 31 January 2010 by Steve

On, off, on, off…..

The first round of the Alpine Bikes Winter Series at Innerleithen in the Scottish Borders was supposed to take place this weekend however the race had to be called off due to safety concerns.

Photo: Pinched from the faceache page of Mr Valentine of Phunkt.com

With snow still lying on the top fire road and temperatures not getting much above freezing all weekend it’s not too supprising really but this didn’t stop Mike and his team at Borderline Events trying their hardest to get the race running.

Things were already looking bad after just a couple of hours on Saturday morning. As practice went on the track turned into a completely slick ice sheet in a lot of places meaning not one rider was getting down without having an off or lie down at some point. By 10am the decision was made to move the start down to the fire road as the top of the hill had become a bobsleigh run. Come lunchtime the race had been called off and the rest of the day was spent uplifting the other tracks on the hill. Then at the end of the day it was hoped that enough could be done to make the course raceable for Sunday and it was on again.

This morning I was the second man down the hill and there wasn’t a patch of ice to be found but again as more riders came down the track turned back into a death trap. After less than 2 hours the race was called off again.

A massive thanks has to go to the guys who stayed late last night and got up before dawn this morning to clear the track of ice. It’s a real shame the race was cancelled but there’s still another two races to come yet. Lets just hope the weather picks up for round two in 3 weeks time.

So with racing off the agenda, me and the Cumbrian contingent spent the afternoon on the uplift ripping down some of the much less icey tracks Inners had to offer, while others did the same, rode the ice shoot or just went home.

The Alpine felt amazing on the hardpack trails this weekend and thanks to Continental UK helping the team out this year I had a fresh pair of Rain Kings keeping me stuck to the trails. So despite the lack of racing it felt good to be riding DH again and I had an amazing weekend none the less!

The Wideopen Race Team is supported by the following awesome companies:

Scottish premieres a massive success

Posted on Friday 20 November 2009 by Steve

Just a quick note to say thanks to everyone that showed their face at last nights screenings of Foot Out Flat Out 2 and MADE.

The Bongo Club was rammed to capacity with over 250 folk managing to elbow there way into the venue to find somewhere to watch the films from.

Everyone seemed to have a good night despite the ‘immigrants in a truck’ conditions. The films went down down slightly better than the beer, which was warm because you drank the bar dry….twice!

Once again big thanks to Jamie for the Wideopen T’s, Hotlines Europe, Straitlines, RockGardn and Continental for the rest of the awsome prize fund, as well as Shaky Keith of phunkt.com for the snaps below.

To the guys we had to turn away, sorry once again, looks like we need a bigger venue next year!

New stuff…

Posted on Friday 13 November 2009 by Steve

They have quite an agressive tread pattern and so far I’ve been impressed though I’ve yet to hit the trails since they had a good soaking last week. These 2.2″ folding versions have a price tag of £21.95, but they’re also available in 2.4″ and wire and UST incarnations.

Next is the new 2010 Giro Remedy in “Black/Yellow Shards”, I’d say it was more Black/Yellow/Green/Purple/White Shards/Check/Splatter but I guess that didn’t fit in the catalogue.

Much better looking in real life than it’s web photo, the Remedy comes in at £99.99 which is £75 cheaper than it’s lighter brother the Remedy CF(carbon fibre).

Finally I’ve just finished building this little beauty.

The MKII Dialled Bikes Alpine is going to be with us on long term test and will be popping up in the mag from time to time, while hopefully making its race debute at the Alpine Bikes Innerleithen Winter Series. The eagle eye’d might notice a few subtle tweaks to the frames design but all will be made clear in the next issue.

This 16″ frame weighed 5.7lbs and tips the scales at 32.6lbs as seen here (lacking front brake). RRP £380 including delivery from dialledbikes.com

Before I go this also fell through the letterbox this morning….

Needless to say a lot of people are getting excited about the upcoming premiers and its impending release.

Cardiff: Saturday 14 November – Ten Feet Tall, Cardiff

Edinburgh: Thursday 19 November – The Bongo Club, Edinburgh

Steve Larking, Wideopen Team Rider.

Steve is one of Wideopenmag’s team riders – he races the SDA’s up in Scotland on his Dialled hardtail and helps the team fill the mag with great content. The Wideopen team are generously supported by the following awesome companies: