Dan had a score to settle at No Fuss Events’ Fort William Enduro downhill. After a huge and very painful stack at last year’s event he was out to show the mountain who’s boss and it sounds like he managed it (in a small way):

“Now we are even!

After having my arse handed to me last year by a big pointy rock garden I was back with a rather large amount of trepidation to tackle the endurance DH on Saturday. I managed 13 laps and came 13th overall (out of 130, results here) and even though I was a passenger a few times I stayed on and bike and body sort of survived. It is an epic event, so hard on the body it is untrue. I need to get my lap times under 7 mins though if I am to do any better but after last years efforts I’ll take walking away without crutches as a result ;-) Oh and the 785mm bars did the trick, I might have to cut them down now for normal use as I still have a sore shoulder from hitting trees at Innerleithen last time out.”

Bit more of an update soon…maybe some pictures too.

The Megavalanche has always been on my to-do list and finally this year I got round to doing it. Even the tall tales from people who had ridden it couldn’t do justice to the scale and craziness of the event. Even the start above the snow was bordering on unrideable, let alone with 500 riders breathing down my neck, it was just a case of getting out of there as fast as possible and trying to leave the carnage behind.

Mega Avalanche start

The action started with the qualifying rounds on Friday, with 9 rounds of 200 riders each. The tight gravel hairpins straight out of the gate were the first potential for carnage, remember there are 25 riders per row all going to single file within the first 10 seconds of the race, but I left everyone else to pile up on the popular inside lines, scooting round the slower but safer outsides instead. 25 minutes later and barely able to grip the bars I finished 8th in my round, good enough for a 3rd row in the main event.

popping out at the end of the qualifier

Normally the race starts on snow. Well it did this year too I suppose, but the patch of snow was only just big enough to line everyone up on before it turned to piles of shattered rock which we were to ride along at a 30-degree camber. This was a recipe for disaster and I picked a safe route, it wasn’t fast but I got out of most of the trouble pretty quick. Not everyone was so lucky and as you can see from the picture below it quickly turned into a scene from Dante’s Inferno or perhaps an Orc battle in the Lord of the Rings.

Megavalanche start turns into a battleground

After the rocks the course went back onto the more traditional glacier, followed by the most amazing high Alpine singletrack you could ever imagine. Actually most of the course was singletrack this year, great for riding but not so great for passing and after I binned it up on the snow there was nothing for it but to be patient and wait for safe passing places. Still I got to the bottom in one piece, in 71st place which is OK for a first attempt. I guess I’ll be back for more one day with a load of lessons learned.

Riders spread out across the glacier

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…

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.

Seb has sent through the 2009 DH season listed out and we thought we’d share it with you incase anyone’s interested in travelling and racing every weekend for 2009!

Date Race
07/12/2008 MiniDH (Forest of Dean)
14/12/2008 Hamsterley / UKBP
21/12/2008
28/12/2008
04/01/2009

> read more…

Dual ply as the name suggests are super tough, if you’ve a problem with single ply then these are the tyres you need, but there’s a catch – they’re heavy and over 1kg a wheel to drag around needs some thought and ideally an uplift. See the post on mid-tyre weights if you’re looking to ride the ups as well as downs.

Ardent 2.4 DPC 60a – 1240 – 1170g (4 weighed) average of 1195g
Ardent 2.6 DPC 60a 1290 – 1300g (2 weighed) average of 1295g

Minion Fr 2.35 42a – 1100-1100g (2 weighed) average of 1100g
Minion Fr 2.35 60a – 1080-1190g (2 weighed) average of 1133g
Minion Fr 2.5 42a – 1250-1280 (2 weighed) average of 1265g
Minion Fr 2.5 60a – 1230-1250g (2 weighed) average of 1133g
Minion Fr 2.5 UST 42a – 1210-1300g (2 weighed) average of 1255g

Minion Rr 2.35 42a – 1260g
Minion Rr 2.35 60a – 1100g
Minion Rr 2.5 42a - 1220g
Minion Rr 2.5 60a – to be weighed
Minion Rr 2.5 UST 42a – 1260g
Minion Rr 2.5 UST 60a – to be weighed

High Roller 2.35 42a – 1120-1120g (2 weighed) average of 1120g
High Roller 2.35 60a – 1080-1200g (7 weighed) average of 1129g
High Roller 2.5 60a – to be weighed
High Roller 2.5 42a – 1200g
High Roller 2.5 UST 42a – 1290-1290g (2 weighed) average of 1290g
High Roller 2.5 UST 60a- 1120-1170g (2 weighed) average of 1145g

Swampthing 2.35 DPC 42a – 1050-1050g (2 weighed) average of 1050g
Swampthing 2.35 DPC 60a – 1030-1030g (2 weighed) average of 1030g
Swampthing 2.50 DPC 42a – 1100-1190g (2 weighed) average of 1113g
Swampthing UST 2.50 42a - 1030-1040g (2 weighed) average of 1035g

all tyre weights were correct at 24 April 2008 and may vary from batch to batch.