Mike Marsden is working HARD to get some quality races under his belt. He’s doing good stuff by all accounts up at Moelfre and after a succesful Easter event he’s decided to up his game and go for Fort Bill.
It’s a hell of a long way away for a lot of folk but it’s a World Cup venue, you don’t need a license to race and it’s a pretty decent price. Recipe for success? Check out the press release below and let us know if you’ll be racing on the comments.
G’luck Mike!
Borderline Events has teamed up with Dales Cycles to bring you “Kill the Bill”
With support from Descent World, timing by the SDA and prizes from Dales Cycles this is a weekend not to be missed.
Pure Riders Co. Everything you need Online and Trackside. Dragon, ONeal, E13, Funn, Reverse, RaceFace, Intense Tyre Systems and Much More…The UK’s ONLY authorised dealer for AXO Clothing www.pureridersco.co.uk
New website alert! Who gives a shit? Well – it’s got the Vital team, the Littermag team, Lucent productions and more behind it. Chances are it’s going to be at the top of the game. Behind Wideopen of course <ahem>.
“Ahhhh, finally. I’m so stoked to be able to officially let the cat out of the bag and get you all pumped on the future of Littermag and VitalMTB.com. I’ve been checking VitalMX and VitalBMX for a long time now and have always loved what they do…everything great about moto, bmx and community are rolled into their sites.
One January day, my main man Matty Thompson pointed me to one the “Perspectives” features on VitalMX. The feature had big photos and utilized audio. It hit me instantly and I wrote Brad and Todd and asked how we could work together to make a mountain bike site. Vital has great technology and a community platform that was the next necessary step to take all of us into something more than a glorified blog. When they wrote back, curious about things, I got the jitters and kept my fingers crossed.
Well, 6 months later we’re here, announcing the launch of VitalMTB.com on August 1…how sick is that?
It’s been a great experience working with Brad and Todd so far, and without all of you (the fans) and people like Sven, Gary, Breach, K.Shiz, Lucent, T.Berg and every other individual dedicated to Littermag over the years, this would have never happened. Here’s to another incredible journey!
(Has it launched yet? How ’bout now? Can’t wait!)
Official Press Release below…spread the word! I’m off to SolVista for a little feature I think you’ll all like.”
Jagwire Ripcord is an aftermarket cable replacement and if you’re feeling a bit of a bike tart these come in seven different colours! It comes in Black Carbon, Maxxis Orange, Hot Pink, Merida Green, SID Blue, White & Red. And as tempted as I was to put Hot Pink gear cables on my flourescent yellow ‘Orange’ Alpine 160 I relented and chose Maxxis Orange.
They come with 4.5 Lex outers and an L3 liner. Which basically means a tough outer with a lubricant coated liner which constantly lubricates the Teflon coated stainless steel cable. Slick!!
It comes with enough cable to fit most bikes (1.8m) and all the necessary connectors. The RRP is £24.99 and is available from most good bike shops – distributed in the UK by Moore Large.
Secondly we have the KNOG puncture repair kit. These days we don’t even need the tube of rubber glue which goes everywhere and makes a sticky mess.. Knog call these the ‘Porno Patches’ and have adorned the outside of each patch with a suitable design.
The patches are self adhesive and the box also comes with two folding tyre levers.. whilst we probably wouldnt trust these to wedge on a super tight Michelin they would come in handy for getting the tube out a bit quicker than normal. The set has 6 smaller patches and two larger ones, ideal for both pinch & thorn punctures.
Everything folds neatly into the little box and can then be chucked into your backpack. Priced at £6.99 RRP for the kit and £3.99 RRP for a patch refill, again available from most bike shops and distributed by Moore Large. The kit keeps everything in one place and avoids the usual faff trying to find the tyre levers amongst flattened sandwiches and melted chocolate bars.. brilliant!
We’ll bring you a bit of a test in the next issue of the magazine to see whether its worth pimping your bike with some shiny colourful cables or if those tyre levers really are stronger than we think!
The full podium line up was:
Barel
Hill
Minnaar
Leov
Fairclough
Finals Day video:
Qualifying (or not):
Practise:
Huge thanks to Stu & Scott from MTBCut.tv for keeping us up to date with all the latest footage.. awesome guys!
Check out littermag for some killer pics from the races, check out photo number #2 of the ‘Day 4′/Finals photo shot.. wideopen.. its the way to be!!
Wideopen team rider Steve just turned up at my gaff after a weekend at the Hardtail Champs. Ben Deakin took home the infamous denim vest and is now the UK hardtail champ, his time was something like 1:20. Ben Baker took 2nd fresh back from a broken neck and 3rd went to a local fella called Andy Payne (we think). Steve bagged 5th place – good work fella!
AVAST! The 2009 Unofficial Hardtail Champs is closing in on UK Bike Park like a marauding hord of scurrulous PIRATES!
Captain Ace Woodley and crew have thrown down the challenge for all hardtail riders to get entered NOW and help them invade, rape and PILLAGE Rd 4 of the UKBP series. If you want to answer the call AND see Wideopen team rider Steve Larking become UK Hardtail Champ you better read on. Yarrrg!!!!
The Unofficial UK Hardtail Champs 20/21 june 2009 @ UK Bike Park
It’s a goer, we are hi-jacking round 4 of the www.ukbikepark.com summer series, entry is easy, just go to the Uk Bike parks website and enter the HT cat for there Rd 4 race and you have automatic entry into the Champs, it may or may not state this on there website. All track and venue info will be on this site as well.
The Hi-jacker (me) can be found at www.hardtailnation.co.uk and upto date race info can be found there, but for booking up go to the Uk Bike park.
So normal HT rules apply, which mean no licence needed, no age cats and no gender issues, so if your a 30 year old bloke that cant cope with being beaten by a teenage girl in a race, best not to enter (never know might happen) only issue is for anyone who has competed at World Cup level in 4x or DH, you are welcome to race but will not be eligible to take the title (you might get beaten anyway), people who do have a licence are welcome to race, you just wont be getting any BC points (which is why most of us dont have a licence) so go to the shed drag out the old HT clean it up come race.
Prizes, oh yes been working on that. So far the very lovely people from these companies are behind us.
New boss Martin at www.tftunedshox.com has offered a free fork service to the winner and podium get a speedlube kit as well. (Thank you )
Damian from upgrade is www.dmrbikes.com is going to have a rummage for some DMR and maybe some Atomlab bits. (Thank you)
Jamie from wideopenmag (very nice chap) has promised to rustle up some stickers and t-shirts as well (thank you, everyone hassle him to race, do him good get out of the office)
As usual i will nailing a broken bike part to a lump of wood for a trophy, and spending the non-existent race budget on beer for the podium and some one-off race stickers.
Podium place gets some stuff and depending on what i get maybe some spot prizes or like last year a game of Race Plate Russian Roulette for posh prizes.
Still working on people so a few others might join the prize fund list !
How will it work then, well simple, fastest person (non gender there) down in HT wins, there can be only one champion, however i heard a rumour that we might get some female racers this year, this will be noted on the podium and i reckon a fast bird prize, but there can only be 1 champion.
Lee Huskingson is the current Champion will not be able to attend to defend his title, he parted company with dmr,gone solo got a race licence a second hand Turner DHR and is having a bloody good stab at the NPS this year, he will be training for the fort william round, so good luck to Lee, maybe a return next year !
Wideopen team rider Steve Larking getting some training in at Fort William SDA. Be afraid – this dude has been training like Ivan Drago AND Rocky in ROCKY4!!
Should be a fight as Jamie is sending some of the Wideopen 4x racers, Cotic are sending there man, Astrix hope to have a man there, Extreme Culture from wales want the title as Lee hamer 2nd and Ryan lewis 3rd last year should be there, maybe a few others ! Also heard from Ben www.torico.co.uk he has dragged out a pump track round the back of the shop and is having a BBQ pump jam on the Saturday night as well, its a short drive from the race venue and i reckon i will be spread over the track most of the night.
Your man ACE in 3rd place getting his training down at Taff Buggy.
Got this through on the email over earlier in the week – slackness on my part sorry guys… check out the vids!
Shimano has teamed up with Anthill Films to produce a series of videos that uniquely showcase its 2009 mountain disc brake technologies through the eyes of some of the best in the sport. Appearing as a series of six themed videos that will debut online throughout 2009, Shimano team riders Andrew Shandro, Wade Simmons and Darcy Turenne are traveling the globe with the Anthill crew, hitting trails that put Shimano’s mountain disc brake systems through the ringer and tell a unique story in each video. The second video debuts today and can be viewed at Shimano’s YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/ShimanoVideos
Viewers will see the riders push themselves and their Shimano goods to the
limits through high-definition cinematography and unique point-of-view
perspectives that provide a deeper connection to the athletes and the
components they rely on.
With 2009 being a big year for new Shimano mountain bike component
introductions like the new SAINT and SLX components, the exciting new
product and technology advancements are captured in the videos that cover
themes ranging from power, to control and confidence.
The collaboration with award-winning adventure filmmakers, Anthill Films,
is a continued relationship for Shimano and Anthill company founders – the
masterminds behind The Collective films. Shimano is the title sponsor of
Anthill’s first release, Follow Me, to debut in spring 2010.
Bit of a geeky industry one this but it’s quite interesting. The ‘International Mountain bike Teams, Tech support and Organizers’ group has created a new ‘Constructors Championships’ for ‘09. Basically, when a race is won the company that built the winning bike is awarded points and ranked in a league. The idea is that the companies behind the winning bikes get some recognition for their hard work.
“This year, IMTTO (International Mountain bike Teams, Tech support and Organizers) has created a Constructors Championship, much like there is in various motorsports. The aim is to recognise the participation of various bike brands in the UCI World Cup and World Championships.
The current ranking can always be found here, at IMTTO’s web site:
How the points are scored? It’s a straight forward sliding scale. In Men’s events, 20 points for 1st place, 19 points for 2nd place, down to 1 point for 20th place. Same for women, except only the first 10 places…so 10 points for 1st etc. We only give points for World Cup XC, DH and 4X….as well as World Championships (including Junior and Under 23 categories).
Any questions, please feel free to fire them away.
At the end of the season IMTTO will award a trophy to the winning bike brand.
Cheers,
Martin Whiteley
President
IMTTO
email: info@imtto.com
www.imtto.com”
The latest ranking after the Fort William World Cup is…
Lee Huskinson, Chris Akrigg & Oscar Golding interviews, Orange Five DIVA test, Ride bikes in Poland, Winter race reports and much more! Click the cover above!
