I’ve just rolled back in the door after a great day up at the Rheola NPS final. Ben Cathro and Jess Stone won today and Tom (MEAT) Deacon and Helen Gaskell took the overall series titles. Well done to all of them – and well done to everyone that supported UK racing by helping organise the series or signing up and putting a time in. Good f-ckin work to all of you.

Keep an eye on the site this week for more NPS final snaps and even a race vid from our mate Tom Grundy. Night y’all!

It’s the big NPS final this weekend at Rheola and Milki has spent the day on the hill putting his new World Cup photo skills to good use. He’s currently camped out at FootOut FlatOut HQ where Mono and Paul are up to their nuts in editing the DVD. The PC keeps breaking and chances are they’re all drunk – but apparently it’s going ‘safe as f-ck’.

Enjoy 6 of the best from our man in the Rhondda. Tidy!

Here’s a wee helmet cam of the track courtesy of JT at WDMBA – it doesn’t take in some of the new sections or the new finish but you get the idea….

The final round of the MSC / Descent-Gear NPS is back at Rheola in South Wales! Last time we were there, Marc Beaumont took home a gold medal and the National Champions jersey.

Who will it be who takes home the series trophies, kindly provided from Hope Technology?

The course has been revamped as has the pit area and we now have a brand new finish arena.

Rheola was described by Rob Warner as Fort William with trees! It’s a riders dream with a super fast open section up top, ruts and roots in the middle and then it gets tight and dirty at the bottom.

Parking and spectating is always free, we have a caterer onsite to keep you fed and watered. The Monster Energy team will be there with their killer sound system, Monster Wig-Wam and be fuelling up the riders with over 2,000 cans of the green stuff. Tim Flooks will be there from TF Tuned to keep the suspension working. Retail wise Pure Riders and Descent-Gear will be there with an end of season blow
out sale.

Directions:
Head up the M4 to Swansea, continue to Junction 43. Take the A465, continue past Resolven. Take the first Glyn Neath turn (by Macdonalds). Take the next left (after Macdonalds) which is the B4242 (the old A465). Drive down this road for about a mile and the entrance to the venue is on the right opposite a layby. Alternatively, you can get on the A465 halfway between Newport and Monmouth and drive past Abergavenny and Merthyr along the ‘Heads of the Valleys’ Road. It’s a nice drive if you know it and would avoid and football or rugby traffic down Cardiff if there is anything on.

Good camping at:

Dare Valley Country Park Tel: 01685 874672
or Dan yRogoff Showcaves 01639 730284

Local accomodation:
Drwfs Nesaf 01639 720 035
Craig y Dinas 01639 720 378
Forresters House 01639 720 250
Old Bakehouse, Glynneath 01639 720 375

The Postcode your looking for is SA11 4DU, this is the lane at the bottom of the
course, if you go past the Snack van its just on your right.

Grid Reference is: SN 848 051 – Thanks to Jamie Todd from Extreme Medical for this
vital info!

PARKING IS LIMITED SO LISTEN UP:
Guys you know as well as I do Rheola is a nightmare for parking. Therefore we need everyone to use a bit of common sense and park nice and tightly.

Main pit area: Reserved for teams and officials, please don’t park here unless you
are supposed to.

Fire road: All cars to park here on the left hand side only. Anyone parking on the right may block emergency vehicle access and therefore would stop racing and practice.

Small car park on the right: Strictly for motor homes and converted vans only.

CAMPING:
No camping onsite were afraid..

We look forward to seeing you all trackside.

Steve, Si and Hensley..

===================================================

Si “Superfly” Paton.
www.Descent-Gear.com
www.NPSDH.com
www.Pinkbike.com

Office 0121 422 1032
Mobile 07968 229 359
si@descent-gear.com

Pictures by Scott Cartwright.

Friday in the office is always a  good time to piss around on the web and dream about the pub.  I’m going to try and spread the love a bit and post up a link to a site that I like every Friday – it might be bikes, music, photography – whatever’s caught my eye . Hopefully it’ll give you all something fresh to check out whilst you’re waiting for 5:30. 

First up is West Country trails blog Digmore as featured in Issue 9. Click here.

Still Woods 2009 from Sam Fowler on Vimeo.

The super talented Sam Fowler just put together this vid of him, his misses Suze and their mates enjoying a summer of great trails in the West Country. You might have seen Still in a recent Dirt mag – here’s what it looks like in action. Enjoy!

MINNAAR 3RD AT SCHLADMING WORLD CUP FINALS, SYNDICATE #1 TEAM

Sept. 21, 2009

Schladming, Austria

It was a great showdown and an amazing end to the 2009 UCI World Cup Downhill Series in Schladming, Austria, as it came down to four racers in contention for the overall title. In the end Sam Hill won the race, and the overall, with Santa Cruz Syndicate’s Greg Minnaar and Steve Peat (SRAM/RockShox) giving chase and placing 2nd and 3rd overall, respectively. Josh Bryceland pulled out a great run to finish the race in 8th place, just .02 seconds behind teammate Steve Peat who struggled to find his rhythm and placed 7th on the day. Minnaar focused on his performance and came back solid, if a little conservative, from his major stack in his qualifier, and placed 3rd. Their efforts boosted the team overall points to the top and the Syndicate won the best downhill team title.

What an incredible season the Syndicate has had finishing the world cup series in a solid 2nd, 3rd and 13th place overall, winning the team overall and Steve wearing the rainbow stripes. Going into the finals Steve donned his world championship rainbow jersey for the first time in competition. It took some getting use to, but after a few days he felt right at home in his well deserved jersey, although the first few days of practice he managed to keep it muddy as the demanding track had riders falling all over the place.

Going into this race Sam Hill was the favored rider and the Syndicate did their best to close the points margin. The long, physical track had the boys tired each practice day, and when qualifier day came they struggled, with a big crash from Minnaar, and a spill for Bryceland. Peat was the only one of the boys to stay upright, but his effort just got him 7th place. Course walks, and another few days of practice had the guys focused ahead for the race.

Bryceland came down and held the hotseat for a few riders until Minnaar unseated him. He held the hotseat for a half hour until Sam Blenkinsop came down and bested his time. Anxiously waiting for the arrival of Sam Hill, Minnaar and Peat had their eyes on the big screen. Sam didn’t falter and took the win, and the points shook down to Minnaar in 2nd, and Peat 3rd. Bryceland felt he could have done a bit better in his race run, but was pleased to end the season with a top ten result.

Steve says, “It’s been a hell of a year hanging out with the Syndicate! My V-10 has worked the best ever and it shows in our results. I wasn’t happy with my 7th place finish in Schladming. I was happy with 3rd overall in the series, and even happier with the rainbows! I just want to say thanks to all our team sponsors for supplying the best kit to go and take on the rest of the world with.”

Minnaar had this to say about the race, “I felt like I was riding good all week. My bike was handling the extremely rough course really well. I new I could qualify top 5, but at the end of the day I needed a win and that was going to be hard. I was happy with the overall result of the race and to finish 3.61 seconds behind Sam was good for me, especially on this course. Obviously I would like to have won on the day and the overall, but I’m happy with 3rd in the race, and 2nd in the series overall. Thanks to the Syndicate, our sponsors, and Doug and Kathy for a great season.”

It has been a storybook year for the Syndicate with Greg winning three world cups, Steve winning two and making history having the most world cup downhill wins, and finally winning the world championships. We look forward to racing again next year and hope to keep the success rolling.

MEN’S DOWNHILL RESULTS:

1st Sam Hill 4:01.10

2nd Sam Blenkinsop 4:03.43

3rd GREG MINNAAR (SANTA CRUZ SYNDICATE) 4:04.71

4th Aaron Gwin 4:08.07

5th Brendan Fairclough 4:08.07

6th Justin Leov 4:09.28

7th STEVE PEAT (SANTA CRUZ SYNDICATE) 4:09.35

8th JOSH BRYCELAND (SANTA CRUZ SYNDICATE) 4:09.37

9th Luke Strobel 4:09.59

10th Mickael Pascal 4:09.89

MEN’S OVERALL STANDINGS:

1st Sam Hill 1469

2nd Greg Minnaar 1349

3rd Steve Peat 1258

4th Gee Atherton 1166

5th Mick Hannah 990

6th Justin Leov 838

7th Sam Blenkinsop 828

8th Aaron Gwin 770

9th Fabien Barel 725

10th Steve Smith 620

13th Josh Bryceland 613

Thanks to the SYNDICATE Sponsors:

Santa Cruz Bicycles

SRAM

RockShox

Truvativ

Avid

DT Swiss

WTB

Crankbrothers

Lizard Skins

Clif Bar

Troy Lee Designs

Chris King

Five Ten

Portable Shade
Galbraith Chiropractic

The World’s finest BMX race mag FASTLANE has just launched it’s 4th issue – which you can now buy online from their website.

As ever it’s full of stunning photography, inspiring interviews, expert product reviews and life changing editorial. I can’t think of a better way to spend £3.

Buy it today here! 

Two quick bits of news here. First up – The National Points Series will be gone as of 2010. From next year it’s going to be renamed the ‘British Downhill Championships’. Not to be confused with the one off British Downhill Champs that they held at Innerleithen… It’s all about selling the sport better to outside sponsors apparently.

Second news – as of 2010 you’ll get free digital images with your race entry courtesy of David Francoisy. They’ll be published at BritishDownhillChampionshipsphotos.co.uk. Interesting stuff.

Supersnapper Andy Dunwoody has been mad busy this season shooting the NPSDH and 4X races for British Cycling.

To celebrate a summer of great images he’s put together the mother of all slideshows showing off his best 4X photos from 2009.

Check it out here – it’s awesome. We <3 Andy.

After the first day’s terrible pizza I thought last night would be a good time to see if I could find a much better quality pizza for my dinner. So me and Scott Marshall of MTBCut fame took the 5 minute walk to Schladminger square to try and find some 1st class grub. Luckily enough we came across Jacob Gibbins of Cosmo fame and his buddy Scott Cartwright of Shavenredheads.com. They were sat outside a local restaurant consuming what looked like a very tasty pizza and slurping up the last mouthfuls of what looked like an equally tasty orange juice. Current World Cup Champion Greg Minnaar and his friends were also eating at this place so it must have been bloody top grub. Bloody ideal I thought.

Unfortunately enough our luck wasn’t in. This is how it went:

“Sorry sir the kitchen is closed.”

“Dang, would there be any other pizza establishments nearby please?”

“Yes sir there is a pizza bar just 50 metres down the road on the left, best pizza in Schladming.”

Bloody ideal. This was the break we’d been waiting for. We said goodbye to our friends Scott and Jacob and found this new pizza place 52 metres down the road, just 2 metres outside of the waiter’s guestimate of 50 metres. He’d certainly done his homework, bloody hell.

First impressions of the Pizza bar were good; we were greeted by a clean shop front with a recently cleaned window. Extra points were given for the attention to detail with the decorative curtains on the lower half of the window, bloody stylish. As we walked into the shop we saw that there were 4 guests, two were sat at a table next to the door and two at what could be called a “bar” at the back of the establishment. Both sets of Schladminger couples seemed to be experiencing a bloody good time in this place so more points are awarded. One couple had this to say:

“Best pizza in whole of Australia”

A good selection of drinks are on offer in Das Kleine Cafe

So more points for Das Kleine Cafe for a positive review from an impartial customer. Things are certainly shaping up for a favourable review so far. Schladminger’s best pizza place certainly had a menu to match it’s top reputation in length, no less than 18 different types of pizza are on offer here so make sure you don’t have that thing that Rainman had or you’ll be totally screwed. Bloody hell.

So all that was left to review was the pizza, served of course with a healthy slice of good service from the proprietor. We settled for the cheapest option which was a cheap and cheerful Margherrita pizza for just €5.20. All I can say was it was a shitload better than that cardboard hell that they served me in the kebab shop on Wednesday. Bloody amazing.

Service with a smile

So in review, the Das Kleine Cafe served a better than average pizza with good service and for a great price. I give it a bloody impressive 6 slices out of 8.

Oh and DH practice was on today, everyone looked fast and someone will certainly win tomorrow.

Check back for actual riding updates tomorrow after the race.

Mono