So I woke up on Sunday AM and hit the race venue as usual. First stop was the press tent to upload some photos of the previous day’s 4X. I should have done it the night of the race but the Wideopen crew were hammering me to go for a beer so it never happened. After getting that all online (and feeling like a school kid that’d forgotten to do his homework) I had a cruise round the pits to say ‘ello to a few people and see what was the next big thing for 2010.

First stop was the Hotlines/Lapierre stand to meet up with Wideopen’s Scottish correspondent Pete “Wee man” Scullion.  Pete and the Hotlines team were grabbing everyone with a camera and forcing them to photo this gorgeous new Lapierre Zesty Carbon. 

Fort Bill was the first time Pete and co. had even clapped eyes on the new Zesty so info is pretty scarce at the moment. The only info they’ve got so far has come straight from Cyril Lagneau (Lapierre SaabSolomon team manager) saying:  ”2010 model, due for general sale Sept/Oct 2009, has a full carbon frame and replaceable shock mount to change travel/geometry”. Stay tuned for more when we got it!

Pete was also disturbingly excited about his new super exclusive, rarer than rocking horse dung MTBCut Straitline pedals.  The MTBCut team are riding these this season and Pete managed to bag a pair for his steed. Lucky boy!

Next stop was the Orange stand to harass Cathro and Hutch before their runs and see what the boys from Halifax had been working on. Remember our exclusive look at Rowan Sorrell’s proto Orange Strange? Well – here’s the next incarnation. Very similar bike with some minor tweaks to the linkage. Expect the final bike to look something – but not exactly – like this. 

As you can see, Steve did the important car park test and Hutch showed how well the new bikes can be used as moustaches. One of the fellas from Orange also had a chat with us and was pretty excited that the new linkage means that the sag on the bikes always stays constant regardless of rider weight or shock. 

That’s that for now. I’ll save the rest of my random junks from the pits for the mag.

Tell us what you think of the new bikes in the comments below.

Sam Hill’s Fort William race kit is up on ebay and raising loads of cash for “The Weekend to End Breast Cancer benefiting Jewish General Hospital“ in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. No doubt the kit is absolutely gopping but it’s a great cause and well worth a look if you want some super special memorabilia.

It’s just bust the $1K mark so head over to here and get bidding!

POC have been getting on with things in the snowsports world for some time but now they’ve turned their mind to all things wheels. Boasting a team of experts consisting of engineers, back specialists, designers and neurologists it seems the Swedish company has its roots firmly set in providing a scientific solution to reducing the injuries we inflict on ourselves. Not only that but their products have a distinct Swedish simplicity about them with a smart no frills aesthetic.

Now most of us find wearing upper body armour very restrictive and human nature means that if we aren’t comfortable with something we tend not to do it. Well firstly check out this, the Spine VPD Vest. Just what it says, a sleeveless vest with a back protector incorporated. It uses the Visco-Elastic Polymer Dough (VPD) as its construction. In layman’s terms it’s a foam which is soft and pliable during normal use (and will form itself to your body) but during impact it stiffens and absorbs the impact, meaning less energy passed from the crash to your spine, and less chance of causing major injury.

Still focusing on back protection – arguably the most important area to protect along with your neck another product to note is the Spine Ergo Flow. Similar to the Spine Vest in that it doesn’t include any other pads but this doesn’t even include the vest! With a kidney strap and two shoulder straps, coupled with its super lightweight construction its ideal for those rides which include technical downhill sections but would just be over the top with full on armour. It has plenty of vents to keep the air flowing, with many XC riders now running knee armour, perhaps this is the next big thing?

I couldn’t finish this up without showing you these helmets, see what I mean in terms of low key design with high spec tech features?

I’m always keen to see another company in the marketplace innovating and doing it well. POC are due to take the MTB world by storm – keep an eye out for their product in the next year. Competition drives innovation so let’s hope this leads to better things – not only from POC but also 661, Dainese and all the companies working hard to develop new ways to protect ourselves.
We all know our sport is dangerous – its why we do it, for that adrenaline kick and the separation from this increasingly cotton wool padded, Health & Safety high vis world. But even minor crashes can cause major injury and with new, better, more natural & comfortable ways to protect yourself, why the hell not?

Check out POC Sports website at www.pocsports.com, be sure to check out the POC Lab for the real, medical reason why you should wear a helmet or body armour. Body armour & helmets aren’t all they do, check out the gloves, goggles & softgoods!

From Chris Via Facebook:

Hey mate! Hope you had a good weekend up at the World Cup. I had a pretty good day myself at RLS4X Rd2. I entered the elite cat rather than senior and got 2nd, 2nd, 1st, 2nd in my motos and then got knocked into the B final and managed a 6th overall. I was a little annoyed at getting kicked cos there was some seriously close racing all day!!

I’lll fire over a repo asap for the mag! Check out RLS4X.com for more info.

Huge thanks to Tina Ingram for the image and to the team sponsors for backing us, check them out below…

NPS time again and I headed over to The Edge in Shropshire for the Rnd 2&3 double-bill. I’d just passed my driving test but because of a cock up with the DVLA and insurance I could only get to round 3 on the Sunday! Not too much of a problem though as only 5 of the 7 rounds count towards the overall season total.

We couldn’t of asked for better racing weather and it was lovely all day. The track was running super fast and dusty making things really fun. If you haven’t seen the track it runs down a pretty steep hill with some nice jumps along the way. So racing kicked off and I had a cracking first moto going from 3rd to 2nd over the first jump then catching the leader and taking the 2nd berm very tight which moved me into the lead to take 4 points from my first moto. It seemed everyone was very close and putting in some excellent overtakes in all of the categories.

Soon enough I was back on the start gate and took 2nd in my 2nd moto, this was followed by a 3rd then another 2nd which gave me enough points to qualify for the Quarter Finals which are always the worst part of any days racing. Just like Rd1 at UK Bike Park I got knocked out though not until having one of my closet races to date with me and Rich Norton battling bar to bar through a lot of the course!

Scott Beaumont won Elite on the day with Katy Curd taking it for the ladies…. They had a bit of a cock up with the timing so I’m not sure where I came just yet!

Check out NPS4x.com for more info and get along to South West Extreme on June 14th for Round 4.

Chris’ Dialled Holeshot race bike

Huge thanks to The Duck for the images and to the team sponsors for backing us, check them out below…

Here’s the top 3 results from each cat:

DH Finals just finished here at Fort Bill with Sabrina and Minnaar taking the win. Danny Hart delivered the goods for the UK and is now the highest ranked junior rider.  It’s been a hell of a day with constant hot seat changes, a screaming crowd and some of the most exciting racing I’ve ever seen. Possibly not the best ever day for British riders but bloody exciting none the less!

The women’s podium was a French whitewash with fastest British ladies Ffion G and Tracy falling down the results sheet.  Not sure what happened to Tracy. She was storming in the top section and was 3 seconds up at the first split… No cigar at the finish line though!

Top 5 women were:
Sabrina Jonnier
Emeline Ragot
Celine Gros
Florian Pugin
Myriam Nicole

Greg had a storming run top to bottom taking fastest top split, loosing a bit of time to Sam Hill at the second split but still crossing the line 1.45 seconds up.  Steve Peat took 6th and was off pace on Sam and Greg from the start. He crossed the line 5 seconds down on Greg. Good news is – on the back of his strong first 3 rounds he’s still wearing the overall leaders jersey.

Top 5 men were:
Greg Minnaar
Sam Hill
Sam Blenkinsop
Gee Atherton
Mick Hannah

Danny’s the man for the UK crowd today – fastest junior and 20th overall. Good work mate.

Here’s photographer Andy Dunwoody’s report from the Fort. “Some people went quick, some people went slow and some people were fair to middling”. He’s about hit the nail on the head – DH practice just finished and everyone is taking it easy before the main event – kicking off at 1:15 this afternoon.

The riders were out blasting some runs this morning and styling it up for the crowd – Brendawg won £100 last weekend at the NPS at Llangollen for the biggest whip. Apparently they don’t give out prizes at the World Cup for that – but he’s still at it.

The girls are about to start rolling – with Sophie Borderes from France first out the gate. There’s only 20 of ‘em in the whole pack with Sarah Newman, Jess Stone, Katy Curd, Ffion Griffiths and Tracy Moseley repping for the UK.

First UK fella down is Aaran Gannicott who’se off at 2:14…

That’s it – all that’s left is the main event. Give the riders a cheer and fingers crossed for some UK podiums!

Good luck everyone!

4X finals just went down here in Fort Bill – Graves and Kintner took the top spots with Ffion taking bronze for the UK.  It was a tough day for the UK 4X crowd with some strong motos but no one making it through to the final. Main man Dan Atherton was looking good and cruised the first few motos but ended up in 4th place later on and never made it back. Gutted for him but BIG well done to Ffion for making the podium.

See you tomorrow for DH FINALS!

Justin Leov had a hell of a crash in today’s DH qualies. He was flying through the top section of the track but managed to lose his back wheel – grind the board walks with his chain ring and EXPLODE off track and into a photographer. Was pretty nuts!

He did the walk of shame back up track to the gondola and sat out his qualy run. He’ll still race tomorrow because of his overall points in the series though.

Our mate Scott at eggraphy.com captured the carnage and sent over these top quality snaps. Cheers mate!