My brother lives in Haifa, Israel, and I’m planning to visit him this year. And I was just thinking, this country must be filled with excellent bikespots, with all these rocks and open spaces. I was planning to travel one week, I might just add another (poor GF) and do a little roadtrip. I’m doing some research right now and thankfully Pinkbike.com has some local photo’s uploaded (I’m trying to get in contact with the posters) and video’s. If any of you live in Israel, in the area of Haifa, please contact me! I’m dying to find out if I should take the opportunity for some exotic riding!
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Spotted new Rocky Mountain Altitude
Rumoured to have 5.5″ rear-travel and 5″ in the front. Hydroformes are taking over!
Source: mtb-news.de/forum and forums.mtbr.com
PPdS: on fire!
Just got back from a hit-and-bike weekend in France and I had a superb time. I was kinda worried if I was fit enough to finish the whole loop. Erm… I mean I was VERY worried! We departed in Morzine and I was realy getting into gear by the time we reached Champery. My buddie was having a break-down on the long semi-flat climb and we passed the opportunity to ride a very cool downhill-track we actually did do last year.
The stuff that didn’t break?!
After a long break in Chamery (near the air-lift because the festival area was noisy as hell) we got back up and after Les Lindarets I was getting somewhat tired. The last downhill to Morzine I kinda forgot the flip the switch of my rearshock and it was no wonder my forks got overheated and myself included from working unnessesarily hard. The aphalt pedal to the Morzine uplift to Les Gets was murder. Without the slightest bit of wind, the sun was burning and we where close to being toast. The uplift to Les Gets stopped 2 times along the way, one time close to 10 minutes. Without any fresh are (these bulb-like cabins have no ventilation or windows) and having finished all my water, we all needed to keep our heads cool and not freak out. We had just 50 meters of faint downhill to go and a steep asphalt walk before we could cruise down and finish in our cabine up the mountain near Les Gets. Dead tired, but super happy. Just one chainsuck! Ask the many many other riders with trouble along the way, that’s pretty awesome!
About the trails
We did the classic route (75km) and the types of trails differ between almost boring wide flat tracks with grit or the ultimate singletracks with all the roots and rocks you can handle. I’m inclined to say that anyone with MTB experience, basic fitness and a dureable bike (one that’s in good technical shape) can enter the PPdS. Or I should say: anyone SHOULD enter the PPdS at least once. It’s perfectly organized, there’s no competition element; all the riders give room to one and another, everyone is happy. XC riders can get their kick on the special XC challenge routes, if you’re not fit or have a heavy DH bike, you can rest and take the uplifts. For 35 euro’s, you can’t ask for a better day of fun than the PPdS!
Counting the days
Just a few days of work, 1.000 km’s by car and I’m in paradise! Sunday we’ll ride the Passport du Soleil, starting at Les Gets (hopefully in sunny bliss and no broken stuff!). Want to know what the Passport du Soleil is? I’ll quote what I wrote last year:
What is the PPdS (look at TBX’ photo’s of 2006)
It’s 80 km’s (320 m of total uphill climb) in a resort with 12 ski-lifts and you can ride there all day long, starting between 8 and 10 in the morning. 7 different resorts to start from:
- In France: Avoriaz, Châtel, Les Gets and Morzine
- In Switzerland: Champéry, Morgins and Torgon
…yeah, I’m SO stoked to go!
RM Switch one year later
My Switch came back from the bikeshop after a tune-up. It’s been about a year and I’ll let you know the damages of a year riding on it.
- 2 sets of brake pads,
- 1 new chain and a casette change (didn’t like the race set-up),
- new bearings in front wheel (suspected production error),
- tiny scratch 1 innerleg fork (thanks to this *peep*)
- 1 broken spoke and 1 dent in rear wheel (kinda fixed),
- thinner oil in fork,
- standard maintainance to fork and shock.
That’s it! And it still looks praktically new, the paint still looks good. It has minor scratches on the rear, a few on the rims and cranks. Nothing out of the ordinairy. To be honest, I’ve had bikes looking like crap after just one year. My Switch still looks brand new, people ask me if I actually use it…
Anyway, I’ve bought new tires Continental Mountain King, going to use them with Bontrager anti-pinch innertubes. Light weight save without compromising the protection. Keep you posted with my experience, I must say that Continental makes impressive tires. For loose compound track I like to ride the Verticals, they have tiny spikes and a lot of clearing. Hopefully the Mountain King tires do well to.
I'm back
Hey all! I’ve been busy the last few weeks with buying a house, moving and the extreme home-makeover. Please remind me never to move again, ever! The good news is, that Passportes is just around the corner. About 3 weeks to go. I’ve bought a fourcross frame and I want to have that finished in the next week. I’ve bought a used Banshee Scirocco with some parts I had lying around: Halo Freedom wheels, Truvativ Holzfeller cranks and Syncross cockpit. New Hayes Stroker Ryde brakes and forks (need to decide today: Reba or Recon). Pictures of the build will follow asap, watch this space!
New look and feel for NSMB.com
Being into construction and moving house for the last 3 weeks (and 2 more to come) I’ve found out I’ve been living on another planet. Apart from email I haven’t been catching up on any online news, bike or otherwise. But I just noticed that NSMB.com has renewed their appearance and it looks great! It’s mostly just look and feel, no new features as far as I can see (okay: they finally added an RSS feed, improved navigation). Once of the things I really like, they’ve cleared more room for big pictures. I should now buy a Cinema 30″ display for the pages to truely come to justice… but it’s what I would have done if I can get my hand on so mucht excellent photography!
Wonder why they didn’t build in ‘pretty’ url’s, or is that just me
New homepage
Interview with Boyko photo-feature
Limburg makes for excellent rides
One of my good friends, Ilja, is from Limburg. But he never got around to ride in the region that’s known for having the little altitude we have in the Netherlands. But since we have big plans to be at least fit for the PPdS: we put Limburg on our map.
After a great ride last sunday we returned today for seconds (and thirds I guess), we got to ride lap 1 two times and had good fun at it! It’s just about 14km’s and there’s two alternative routes to connect to if you wish, which we’ll do next time.
Somewhat technical lap, plenty roots and small drop-offs. It has some very nice fast sections that makes the drive up there more than worth it. The beginning of the lap is the best fun and get’s you in the good mood right away. And for me, the mood never changed. Not even for the few uphill sections that can somewhat erm… suck. But I suppose it’s not even that bad considering we rode with our big bikes and I didn’t feel butchered at all. I must be getting in shape!
» More info on the Brunsummerheide xc routes (fun xc from now on)
Rocky Demo tour 2008
If you love Rocky Mountain Bikes and live in the US, you might bein luck! Rocky Mountain Bikes introduces the Rocky Demo tour 2008 and besides the large events like MTBR Spring Fling, Sea Otter, Fruita Fat Tires Festival, Downieville, and Crankworx Colorado it will also be showing up at your favorite local trailheads and independent bicycle shops throughout the Western U.S. The test fleet includes the Element (70 and ladies), ETSX (50 and 70), Slayer (SXC and SS), Hammer and Flatline!
Find dates and events: rockydemotour.com
Source: sicklines.com
Nothing but smiles and air-miles
Even-though this quote is one that my least favorite bikeperson Steve Romaniuk made in Kranked 6, it was so appropriate yesterday. Seven women defy-ed the bad weather predictions and got rewarded with nothing but sunshine!
One thread on the Mountainbike.nl forum got hijacked when we got sidetracked about doing a girls only clinic on the Filthy Trails. Eventually 11 women joined in and only a few skipped due to the weather. Most of them had no freeride experience or even the full intention to start with it. But skills for faster downhills, corners and drop-off’s was a common request I received from them.
Introducing the pump, the “poephouding” and “kijken”
(Sorry this subtitel contains dutch inside jokes).
I started off with some basic body position exercises and how to analyze corners and multiple corners. The Filthy Trails recently added a beginners trail, that features 3 sizes of drop-off’s, a seesaw, bit’s of northshore, roots and corners. Followed by a track with small bumps that invite ‘coasting and pumping. We chopped this track in pieces and eventually rode it in one breath and the spirit was the same for everyone: all smiles and even some air-miles!
It was a day cramped full with tips and tricks. Not all will land in the same tempo, but I’m sure in the next weeks they’ll find out riding xc has become more fun and dismounting the bike is not neccesary in tricky situations anymore. All but one btw, one sprained her ankle pretty badly so I wish her a speedy recovery!
Photo’s here on Flickr.com and some more taken by trailbuilder and owner Styles.
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