Alright then, no blog yesterday as the bloody internet at our hotel conked out, today was qualifying though so probably more interesting stuff went on today than yesterday anyway. Basically the crack is that Hill has qualified fastest with Fabien in second and Brendan in third. Nick Beer pinned it and posted 4th fastest time which is bloody mint for him, I think if he does something similar in race run he will be pretty STOKED. Blenkdog is in 5th place.

I think the general concensus is that Brendan is looking as fast if not faster than Hill on the track so we could be in for a pretty exciting race come Sunday. Apparently Milky has been voted sexiest photographer on the hill today as well, something he has been training for all year. Congratulations Milky.

I can’t think of much else to say. There were a few surprise qualifiers today with Joe Smith in 11th and Garth Bruisin in 31st and top placed junior. Rich Thomas, Joe Barnes and Scott Mears deservedly qualified as well so congrats to them. Hopefully we’ll get some good results on Sunday.

As for the main title race, Hill has given himself a bit more of a cushion now as Minnaar and Peaty both had problems in their qualifiers. Basically Greg now needs to win it and Sam needs to have an OTA run and come 4th or below for Greg to win the overall. Peaty needs even more luck than that although he’s still in it. Gee is also still mathematically in with a chance although pretty much the same as last year all the guys in front of him will need to get aids or something for him to win it.

I also have to say thanks to Scott Marshall, fellow MTBCut filmer who has been kind enough to put me up for the week in his mint hotel. Check out his videos from the week as they should be pretty sick (day 1 is already up).

Until next time (tomorrow),

Mono

Jamie News

Milki and Mono are continuing their epic media orgasm around the Schladming World Cup final.

Here’s a few snaps from the Milk Man from Thurs. EPIC.

Jamie News

The Troy Lee team fired some shots up of their 2010 D2 range this week…

TL graphics are always a bit of a love/hate thing but I really think they’ve got ‘em spot on this year. There’s a few jazzy ones, some simple ones and (thank god) they’ve finally brought back the matt black version which is sure to be a big hit.

Check ‘em out and let us know what you think on the comments.

Hit up the TLD website here

Jamie News

Jamie News

OK so I’m not doing the MTBCut videos this week as Scott is the European man so I thought I’d use the time to create some blogging magic for the masses.

So basically today was half f**k up, half good day. After the first f**k up which happened to be an airport f**k up we were left tired and bored. This was only a f**k up in the sense that we had to sleep in the airport on the floor and Milky used his time wisely to chat up the middle aged lady behind the till of the coffee shop. I don’t know whether he pulled or not but I imagine he did as she said her shift was finishing in half an hour and Milky mentioned he was off to get pizza just before I dozed off.

So after an eventful night in Milky’s case we got on the plane for Salzburg (pronounced Saltsberg). Shaky Keith Valentine showed off his World Championship tattoo, after winning the World Champs in Canberra he deserves to have it on his arm for sure. Actually before we got on the plane I had a traditional breakfast which was bangin’ except for the massive shitty mushroom I left at the end. Shakatron Keith mentioned that was what his chode looked like which was nice, luckily this subject wasn’t touched upon anymore.

The next event happened to be the plane’s wings falling off on take off which was a bit gay, especially seeing as we had to walk the rest of the way. Actually I’m lying and we took off fine, shortly after leaving London Milky came out with number 1 of his trademark blonde comments. Ideal. Here it is:

“(5 minutes after taking off from London) Mono guess what I can see? Is that Sweden or Wales, there’s no other places with mountains that high around here.”

“Milky, those are clouds”.

And the second trademark Milky thing is also happening, using his “buzz” word EPIC all the time. Annoying twat.

We got into Schladming and pretty much all that is going on is a massive orgy of pit making and track walking. So if you’re into that kind of thing, you’ve certainly missed out on the action. I spent the day getting final interviews from everyone for my DVD Foot Out Flat Out 2 so that was a pretty good way to spend day 1.

Two other fuck ups to report. Firstly Milky told me accommodation was sorted and to not bring a tent, unfortunately accommodation wasn’t sorted and I have ended spending over a hundred quid more than I wanted to spend on a room. Nice though it is, it’s still 140 quid more out of my overdraft. Great job Milkpro.

Second fuck up was realising there were no cooking facilities at the nice room and going into town to buy what should have been a nice pizza. Unfortunately it was like eating cardboard and it was officially the worst pizza I’ve ever eaten. Hopefully tomorrow’s blog I will be able to report better dinner. Charles the northern kid bought a nice Dr Oetker pizza and got the nice lady downstairs to cook it. Fuck you Charles.

Cool so make sure you check back tomorrow for more updates, if you don’t like biking don’t worry as it probably won’t be anything to do with that.

Cheers,

Mono

Jamie News

Very quick update from the Welsh DH lot. They’ve got another uplift on at Rheola this Sunday (20th Sep)with loads of free spaces. The track was running great last weekend and with the NPS coming up it’s a great chance to get in some practice.

Hit up their site here to get booked on.

Jamie News

Attention Spank fans! Smuttily named German brand Spank have just slapped a new website online for you to have a perv at. It’s got all their favourite bits of kit plus a heap of new stuff including scented grips!

Drop what you’re doing and head over to http://spank-ind.com

Jamie News

Jamie News

Saturday saw us hit the road for the Welsh Downhill MTB Association’s (WDMBA) first official practice day at Rheola. The sun was out, the trails were bone dry and we had an awesome day of South Wales downhill. James and crew at the WDMBA got together following the demise of the Dragon Downhill series and have been working hard to bring racing back to South Wales. They’ve had a tough year getting things up and running but it finally looks like things are coming together and their first proper race will be the Rheola NPSDH round this month.

Bikes in one - bods in the other. Worked well all day.

In prep for their first big race, James and co have been hard at work giving the old Rheola track a bit of a make over. It’s still got all the favourite flat out, rough as hell Dragon sections… and Star Wars is obviously still in there… but they’ve added a few technical, loose, rooty bits to mix things up a bit. There’s a savage off-camber bit after the 1st fire road crossing that’ll cause some people issues (lots of issues if it rains on race day), a fun and pretty tech section with a nice chute just above Star Wars and to finish there’s a MASSIVE chute to drop racers into the finish arena. It’s bloody massive…

Ben Baker haulin' ass on the new Astrix Havoc R

With the track given an overhaul the boyos put on an uplift to give everyone a chance to check out the new sections and get in some shady practice before the race. The turn out was pretty good with about 30 riders and with 1 bus and 1 trailer we got about 8 runs in all day, with about 25 minute turn around. Things seemed to work pretty smoothly so no complaints at all there! And the track? Well… I had a f-ckin good time – It’s a great mix of traditional wideopen Dragon’s style and much tighter, twistier, technical stuff. Should be a hell of a good race.

New chute above star wars - it's rougher and steeper than it looks!

This is Jay - he turned up on his hardtail and tore it up all day. Nice to meet you mate!

WDMBA's JT sortin' shit out

Team Leisure Lakes were in the house getting warmed up for a night on the lash in Bristol.

Devon Griffiths over the roots on his Nicolai...

That’s all for now – thanks to James and the crew at WDMBA for a great day out and big thanks to Tim Joyce for letting us use his snaps. You can see his complete album over on Pinkbike. Cheers all!

Jamie News

DJ Cheeba-The Reels of Solid Steel from Solid Steel on Vimeo.

My good friend and riding buddy Si (AKA Ninja Tunes’ ’DJ Cheeba’) has just put the finishing touches to this 60 minute AV mix – which he’s going to produce as a DVD to support the launch of his new website. He’s apparently made it using “two turntables and Serato’s Video-SL plug-in for Scratch Live to enable video to be controlled and manipulated by vinyl”.  Give it a watch – it’s a perfect warm up for a Friday night!

Check out his new webby here and his myspace here. Have a good weekend!

Jamie News