A combination of awesome downhill skills, raw power and some NoTubes rims saw our team rider Dan winning the Ae Forest Avalanche Enduro last weekend. A full report will be up soon, but for now just enjoy the Euro music from the prize presentation…

A short cautionary tale for anyone indulging in X-treme offroad activities in the woods, someone will be along eventually to scrape you up andpack you off to hospital, but it might take longer than you think.

Last Sunday I was out with the normal riding crowd in Wharncliffe and on the first downhill run, dictated by tradition to be the Nemba course, I came round a corner and had to stop suddenly for what was obviously a victim of a serious stack lying on the ground. One of his friends was holding his ankle together (broken tib and fib just above the ankle) while the other had dialled 999 and, being not entirely familiar with the area, was trying to describe where they were to the operator.

Dave the crash victim has a leg splint applied.

> read more…

Avalanche trophy

The Avalanche Enduro was held in Kielder forest on the 25/26th May, it was a good event with decent weather and better than expected trails.

Saturday we checked out the event stages ridding them all twice, there was a mix of loamy bits but mostly trail center stuff which was sandstone based so sandy with lots of loose rocks. The stages were around 4 mins long and most required a fair amount of pedaling to keep the speed up. Stage 4/7 was used on Saturday afternoon as a prologue to seed riders for Sunday, this was probably the flattest stage so was a real suffer-fest but I got down it in a time better than it felt. This result did however mean an early start time on Sunday of 8:40 to head up the hill, the time allowances to get between stages were quite relaxed giving plenty of time at the start of the day and getting tighter as the event progressed, if you had a problem then things started to get interesting.

My first stage was the most fun in practice with sweet dry loamy bends as well as dark greasy woods sections but come Sunday morning it occurred about 2 coffees too early in my day and I minced my way down with lots of little mistakes.

> read more…

just in Dan Darwood reports on the first round of the SDA:-

Scottish Downhill Association

I went racin’ this weekend. It was the first round of the SDA up past Aberdeen at Pitfichie… a long way from anywhere
and once I had some beers I was putting the tent up (badly) at 1:00 on Saturday morning. The course had no uplift but
the push up wasn’t too bad for a 3 minute run, it was dry and dusty and I got a wee bit of sun burn yesterday (doh!)
even though there was a frost overnight.

The top was flattish through the heather with loads of granite bedrock slabs, it then went into the woods where it was
all full of embedded rocks to hit and a couple of sweet bermed corners before a flattish traverse (again with more
embedded rocks) and the final berms and jumps to the finish. Initial practice was hard work but after some lunch I
adjusted my tyre pressures, tried a few different shock settings and put clips on, this plus some additional confidence
meant I finished the day happy that I knew the course and wasn’t riding too much like a numpty.

My first run was a 2:49 and put me in 5th in the Masters, I had made a mistake in the rocks put was pretty pleased. For the second run I managed to hit all my lines reasonably clean but was tired and didn’t pedal as much as the first time down (I had used too much energy in practice and pushing up) but I managed to take a second off my time which was my goal. A few other folks went faster and I got bumped down to 6th, 10 sec off the category winner. I was still in the top third and was pleased with the result, I can see where improvement can be made if I want to work on stuff (bigger forks would have been nice too). Overall it was a very good weekend, top weather, a course in great condition, good folks and a very mellow atmosphere.

Results:
http://www.sda-races.com/sda/viewrace.asp?RaceID=1562

Things seem to have got rolling this year and we’ve hooked up with some good riders and team mates, more results and team updates soon we hope.

Team Just Riding Along

Seb Frost at Pearce Cycles rd 1

Seb Frost - expert DH - riding for us, testing the NoTubes Flow rims on the new American Classic front 20mm and rear 12×150mm in the UK Downhills. Seb was initially cautious about the light weight wheels but has just come back from the Maxxis Cup in Vigo where they stayed straight despite some enthusiastic riding (and the resulting crash).

team jerseys

Jon Webb - master DH - you’ve probably seen him somewhere before. Riding with some Industry Nine Enduro wheels in orange on Flow rims, for their 1750g weight these wheels are about as strong as they come.

Associated riders :

Jenny with her new kit

Jenny Copnall - elite XC - The UK National Champion, now riding for Fisher Outdoor Leisure with our NoTubes Race 7000 American Classic wheelset. At 282g each these are the lightest rims available and the whole wheelset comes in at just 1220g.

The Cycle Jersey Team - DH riders Ben Cathro, Joe Barnes, Chris Hutchens, James Scott and Chris Coates using our Copter Tape on their Orange 224s. Ben Cathro (in)famously rode a rubber skinsuit to 8th place in the World Cup race at Fort William last year and the rest of the team aren’t far behind.

white ZTR355 rims

New from NoTubes are these white powder coated ZTR355 rims. They are extremely limited edition at the moment, we were only allowed one pair and I had to ask very nicely but it was worth the effort. They are also expecting to have some Olympic and Flow rims in white some time this summer, and we will be getting a few if they do. Price is likely to be around 25% more than for standard black rims and they weigh about 7-10g each more.

We’ll build these up onto an Industry Nine build and see how they look…

UPDATE : 06 May 2009 - other white rims are starting to come in and the prices are about the same as black rims.

We’ve been thinking about getting some of these Reverse Racing hubs in since last year when we saw some spinning on Emily Horridge’s bike at one of the Midlands races. What caught our attention wasn’t just the bright colours but the fact that when the bike was laying down, the wheel just kept spinning…and spinning. Really nice smooth bearings and great colours along with light weight and a good reputation for reliability in the DH world means we’re looking forward to getting some of these built up.

There are 3 versions:

DH Race (3-zero-6 rear and 1-eight-0 front), very nice light DH hubs, like the names say, 306g rear and 180g front. Also available in a 150g front 15mm axle option. The red hubs in the photo.

Spirit XC: lightweight, QR axle only, the gold hubs in the photo. Weight is 153g front and 278g rear.

Evo9: Front is convertible between 20mm and QR using the adapter provided, while the rear is a 10mm bolt-through type, to be used with normal dropouts. These are the funky green and purple ones in the photo.

Prices are TBC but will be pretty reasonable. Expect full wheelsets to be from around £350.