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2011 Whyte bikes preview

Hummerlicious — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 21:34:15 +0000

I’ve been literally busting to tell about these new bikes for the last couple of weeks, but I’ve had to keep my lip buttoned until now! So without further delay I can finally show you some images of two of whyte’s 2011 line up and give you my impressions after spending a couple of hours out on the trail on them.

Whyte T-120s

Whyte T-120e 2011

The T-120 is Whyte’s new 120mm travel full susser. In common with some of the other bikes in the Whyte and Marin range the top tubes are now a little roomier and they run shorter stems, this brings them up to date with ‘modern geometry’. Out on the trail it is light and nimble and well balanced. The longer top tube gives you a bit more space, but the use of a shorter stem still gives you the control you require. This bike positively zips up climbs, the light weight encourages you to push yourself just that little bit harder!

Linky linky

The linkages have gone on a bit of a diet and the whole mounting arrangement to the main frame has been revised, and it has those rather natty anodised bearing covers too!

Front view

Worth noting is the X9 / X7 drivetrain. This was my first time on SRAM’s ten speed set up. I’ve had a decent amount of experience of Shimano’s ten speed SLX now and it’s interesting to see the differences between the two. Like most people I’ve chatted to I find Shimano’s use of the triple with ten speed on the rear rather odd. There are obvious advantages to going to a 2 x 10 set up:

Less weight
Less prone to chain suck
Improved front clearance

To cut a long story short though I loved the SRAM set up, you will find you spend most of your time in the ‘big’ ring though. With a 36t cassette on the back most of the time there is little need to drop to the inside chainring. But of course it’s still there to bail you out if you need it. A great system, I loved it! It’s a shame it’s not retrofittable to existing frames as I’d love to whack a set on the hummer.

Whyte 146

Whyte 146

Here we have something that is definitely more my style! Previously Whyte had the 46 that was pitched as being a bit of a trail centre machine, longer travel for the downhills, but still light enough to climb well too. Well this is the updated version, swoopy carbon long travel lushness with a bombproof feel, light weight and sweet handling.

Front view

Swinging my leg over this bit of lushness I immediately felt at home, it was just like riding my El Guapo, but more annoyingly somewhat lighter and better! It’s decked out with some nice kit, new Easton Haven goodies and a mix of X-9 and X-0. As I said above the 2 x 10 drivetrain is really faultless and really suits this bike well too. Worth noting on both bikes are the new SRAM cranks too, I think they’ve finally got it right with the styling of these, previously if you wanted non shimano generally you got FSA or Truvative and these look way better (in my opinion anyway!).

X-0

New slimmer Y link

So how did it ride? I absolutely loved it, as far as I’m concerned it’s perfection for this sort of long travel trail bike. Laid back, stable and confident, light weight too.

Hopefully this has given you a bit of a flavour for these two, definitely worth seeking out a demo bike once they become available and seeing what they’re all about.

Hummerlicious

New Exposure lights

Hummerlicious — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 20:47:27 +0000

When we were at the 24/12 this weekend I managed to catch up with Rory from U.S.E./Exposure lights. On the surface he had the full range from 2010, but after a quick word he produced another case when asked “where is the new hotness”! The lights benefit from the newer LED technology, as a result the 2011 lights are brighter than their 2010 counterparts, but still retain the same burn times.

The new kid on the block is the Six Pack. This makes the MaXx Daddy look a bit anorexic! No mistake the Six Pack is a bigger unit, but if you are looking for that bonkers power output there’s now doubting what’s on offer. I can’t wait to get my hands on a demo unit to give it a whirl……

Big Dog coming soon…….

Hummerlicious — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 19:07:21 +0000

It’s less than a month away and despite the event selling out in double quick time, they haven’t been taking it easy. From fine-tuning the already popular course to getting the youth racing (Little Dog) off the ground, here’s a round up of what’s been going on over in the Big Dog kennel.

Little Dog

After last years successful event the Big Dog team wanted to make sure the whole family could get involved in the big day out. Working with the very highly regarded VC Jubilee (http://www.vcjubilee.co.uk) they are putting on The Little Dog in the morning prior to The Big Dog and all Little Dog racers will get the same cotton musette goody bag as those in the adult race too. There are categories for all boys and girls from 8 to 18. Enter online right here: http://bit.ly/d55Tnc

OneDer Dog

Many people have been caught out by the rapid sell out of the 2010 Brighton Big Dog and none so than the Big Dog team themselves. They have been taken aback by the demand for places and so have now opened online entries to the ever popular OneDer Dog category. This is a one lap “race” of the course which you can do at any time of the day. Whether you just want to see what all the fuss is about or you want to have a pop at The Hot Dog prize (that for the fastest lap of the race) your lap will be accurately timed by TimeLaps, so you can now really tell which one of your mates is the fastest (or slowest!). Free with each entry is the musette goody bag and also free tea and coffee. Enter online right here: http://bit.ly/d55Tnc

Limited Edition Event Merchandise

As many of you will know, the Brighton Big Dog is a non-profit race put on for the love of it, so the proceeds of this great clobber will go towards funding the racing and partying afterwards. Morvélo Bicycle Apparel, co-organisers of the event as well as sponsors, have rustled up a great looking limited edition event jersey, t-shirt and mug. Just 50 of the jerseys (http://bit.ly/9KKc5y) are been lovingly made by Vitesse, 100 hand printed SuperFit t-shirts (http://bit.ly/aDuri5) by Morvelo and 250 mugs (http://bit.ly/ar2epq) by the same people that make the excellent Pantone mugs.

Sponsors who go the extra mile

The Brighton Big Dog has a wide range on sponsors who all contribute to making the day a little bit special. Some even go the extra mile like Juice Lubes. Not content with just supplying a few prizes, they have created a limited edition Big Dog version of their extremely popular Chain Juice. For sale before the event here (http://bit.ly/aLBFtg) they are even topping them up for free should you bring your pre-purchased Big Dog Chain Juice over to the Juice Lubes stand on Saturday 14th August!

Old Dogs meet New Dog

Max Glaskin (left) lives in Brighton and was guest of honor at Big Dog last year. His business partner in grime all those years ago (1987-99) running the UK’s races and MOUNTAIN BIKE CLUB was Jeremy Torr. Jeremy since moved to Australia and then more recently to Singapore where he is the managing editor for Discovery Channel magazine. Back in the UK for a rare flying visit Jeremy met up with some old pals at Bike Radar Live. Sporting original T’s from the late 80’s Max and Jeremy were pleased to be photographed next to Brighton Big Dog’s Frazer Clifford. The Big Dog logo was designed by Morvelo with inspiration from the orginal emblem of UK mountain biking, the MBC’s very own Big Dog with shades.

Uncle Si & Steve (Old Spice) Do The 2010 Pass Portes Du Soleil 2010

Hummerlicious — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 18:37:47 +0000

For those of you that don’t know, this is an MTB event held in both France & Switzerland in the Portes du Soleil region of the French Alps (one of the largest skiing areas in the world) and in the summer it becomes a trail centre of giant proportions! It is not a race and the circuit is approximately 75km taking in a mixture of Alpine Single Track, downhill and fire trails with most ascending done via chairlifts/bubble lifts adapted to take your bike. Seven resorts are spread across the region with Chatel taking its turn this year to host the bike festival. A multitude of lifts take you to exhilarating long downhill & ‘lush single track’ that goes on for mile after mile. In short, Mtb heaven!

Si & Steve

Booking our places proved to be our first challenge. In our naivety we thought that we would be sending a one-line email to some cosy French tourist office, but it was nothing of the sort! Instead registration was done via the worlds most complex sports activity website! Places were disappearing at an alarming rate, counting down in real time. With three minutes to spare and 3 attempts for payment to be accepted by credit card we were in and registered to start at our chosen point of Morzine (or so we thought….).

However, it wasn’t long before we noticed our first problem; Steve was booked for the Saturday and I was booked to start on the Sunday!!…..

Ever the salesman, Steve later managed to sweet talk Mademoiselle into changing me to the Saturday. As this was our first time, we had no idea that the ppds could be done on both the Saturday as well as Sunday…….So it was a done deal, we were registered for the 2010 event.

Soon enough the big weekend is upon us. Steve had done a great organisational job and we were staying next door to Endless Ride with Gareth and his other guests that turned out to be 20 bikers from the Lake District (I think they must have been twinned with Sussex Mtb, all the characters were there!).

The first problem was the interpretation of Easy Jet’s baggage allowance. We were worried that my Attack Trail 6.8 & Steve’s Spicy 316 would exceed the allowance. Steve being determined to win the pre check in weight race, bought a pair of Mavic Crossmax wheels with tubeless Conti tyres (nice). In case anyone is interested, the limit for any one item appears to be 32kG with no excess baggage allowance for bikes. With this in mind both bikes were packed into hired boxes for the flight to Geneva.

The flight was 2 hours late owing to a French national strike (bless them) so that put paid to any riding when we arrived on the Thursday (24th June). Instead we felt the need to ‘warm up/get into the groove’ on Friday. In all honesty this was perhaps a bit of a mistake, a bit like taking a kid to a sweet shop and not buying too many sweets! 45 miles and 6 hours later we thought we’d better stop!!

The Friday evening meal at the Hotel, which was now overrun with bikers, was shared with the Northern boys who all seemed to be equipped with Orange P5’s & Alpine 160’s. Carl, also a Mountain biker, was the cook! The food was fantastic but after too much Single Track & alcohol the adrenalin must have been running and neither of us slept well that night……

Getting up on the Saturday to register at 7.00 am was not good. However it turned out to be a painless procedure and every one was given a goodie bag by way of an Mtb rucksack with a free lift pass that was put to good use on the Sunday. Friday was also half price! With all these freebies and an entry fee of 45 Euro, this has to be something of an Mtb bargain.

We finally hit the trails at about 9.30 via the Super Morzine lift. There was some serious looking coil sprung machinery in the lift queue and most people seemed to have full-face hats. By this time I was feeling a little pensive….

Off the bubble lift we were soon on a long ascent across the ‘Panoramique’ towards Avoriaz. There was more climbing than I ever expected and you wouldn’t want to pedal a Lapierre 920 with Fox 40 RC2’s uphill. These guy’s were pushing. The first thing you notice is the increased lack of breath due to the altitude, but this was soon neutralised with a drop in over rocks leading to the first of the downhill descents and there were a lot of them! (Super Lush in the immortal words of Jimbo).

In some ways for an aging weekend warrior like me, the testing terrain was not always as daunting as I thought because the obstacles, rocks and drop in’s come at such a pace that there is no time to contemplate and you are forced to make very quick decisions on the lines to be taken. However, there is a new downhill trail at Les Lindaretes that certainly induced a fair bit of buttock clenching. It was very steep with 60 degree berms, but having made it down in one piece made the grin factor even greater.

Later in the day a rocky scree slope at Lindaretes claimed its first fatality by way of a hole in Steve’s new tubeless rear tyre. This turned out to be a long story and having stopped at the Mavic service point, Monsieur Mavic claimed to have fixed it but it went down again on the chairlift back to the top; miles from anywhere. Once again this opened the tubeless or not tubeless debate. This was real bike munching territory & I don’t suppose that anything short of solid tyres would be guaranteed to survive!

By now, I was running low on fuel. With Chatel in the distance the rocky trails morphed into bermed sweeping single track leading to a Patisserie & Coke stop. Before this we passed through the Chatel Bike Park, which has some particularly fantastic trails. However, be warned and do not ignore yellow signs with black crosses; they inevitably lead to death defying jumps across 20’ ravines! Do not attempt unless your name is Steve Peat (or Hooper!)

Having topped up and had a brief visit to the Pharmacy for blister remedies (& change my incontinence pants) we headed to the Swiss town of Morgins for a lunch rest stop of soup, jambon & cake. Superb and all free.

Early afternoon having passed over the single track ridge with the stunning views of the Dentes Du Midi peaks (photo with bike in foreground) we like many others took a wrong turn but had a far more interesting decent towards Champary, but we were off the sign posted route. After some tough Swiss riding, blisters on the hands were getting worse and rear brake pads were getting low. Suddenly without warning at the top of a gnarly drop in I nearly collided with a biker walking back up the trail after bottling the up and coming decent! Having had a quick look over the edge I couldn’t blame him. Determined not to do the same I turned round and did another run up and successfully over we went. Its sad but I was chuffed to have done this one….

We descended back into France via Champery and down to the feed stop at Linderettes. Finally the day was drawing to an end as we dropped back down via the ‘Stingers’ through trees to the long, very rooty and fast rocky final decent back to Morzine.

53 miles & 8 hours having registered 37mph off road, the event finished in Morzine Town Square with free beer and a sound track being produced by an unusually good French rock band (no, really!)

Post event we hit Robinsons bar with 60 other grubby and knackered bikers.

Not one was without a major grin from ear to ear!!!!!!

Lessons learned:

• An adjustable seat post would be lovely.

• Carry a spare tyre and at least one tube. Note: buying a High roller in Morzine will cost 40-50 Euro’s! So take them out with you.

• Don’t ride for too long on the day before!

• Spare brake pads.

• A hard-hitting trail bike is good. Not a downhill monster as it will kill you up hills with the thin air!

• Many were wearing full-face hats. Not essential but the terrain makes you think.

Swotty

Bike Radar Live

Hummerlicious — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 20:55:13 +0000

Spent the weekend at BikeRadar Live at Brands Hatch. Had a great time so I thought I’d report back and share a few pictures and thoughts on some of the bikes I demoed. The weather was boiling on Saturday and my first activity of the day was The Airbag:

Air bags

Great fun and fully recommend it if you get a chance. They lend you DJ bikes if you want as well so you can attempt some crazy stuff.

Next went to have a look at how the pros do it:

Big air

Tailwhip

Followed By watching the Dual Slalom – It had some top riders including Steve Peat Vs. Gee Atherton (Gee won by the way.):

Dual

Saw my ultimate dream bike in the flesh:

Dream bike

Demo bikes:

I spend most of Sunday demoing bikes from the wide range that was available (but unfortunately Santa Cruz and Yeti stands weren’t demoing). I only had 30-45mins with each bike,and as some of you will know i’m not the most gifted rider so my opinions are hardly gospel!

First up was the Kona CoilAir:

Coilair

Very good indeed, really enjoyed this bike, I was surprised as Kona’s seem to have gotten some bad reviews recently, but I felt instantly at home and confident on this, and really wanted to keep riding it. Enjoyed the Hammerschmitt for the first time (some slight extra resistance in the harder gear, but barely noticeable) and the SLX brakes were absolutely superb.

Ibis Mojo SL:

Ibis Mojo

Looks stunning and I was really looking forward to this, but if I’m honest it left me a little underwhelmed. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a very good bike, very light and quick, but for some reason it just didn’t leave me wanting more.

Ibis Tranny (I adjusted the seatpost before I rode it!)

Tranny

I want one, I really want one, looks so good in the flesh, light, fast and nimble, the perfect frame upgrade for my IFT! (but it’s £1299 frame only…gulp)

Norco Something or other

Norco

Whatever it was called it was forgettable, didn’t click with this at all, heavy and didn’t have the feeling of confidence I want from a big hitting bike.

Rose Thrill Hill

Very light and very racey, probably a little too racey for me. Despite the guy on the stand setting the sag, it was very firm, and the forks didn’t have much small-bump sensitivity so the bike was quite harsh to ride. I could see this being a cracking bike though if set up correctly for me.

All in all I had a great time and recommend it, especially being able to demo as many bikes as you want no extra cost to the £25 weekend pass.

Josh

Quest ride this Saturday

Hummerlicious — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 21:04:21 +0000

It’s come round again, this Saturday (July 10th) is the next Quest ride, all are welcome and don’t forget your cake money for Parklife afterwards

Last month's ride

So get yourselves down to Quest Adventure in Broadwater on saturday at around 09:45 to roll out at 10:00 (or when my capuccino cup is empty, whichever happens first!). Thread here. Facebook here.

As ever all are welcome and helmets must be worn.

Cheers,

Hummerlicious

Pace prototype

Hummerlicious — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 19:48:59 +0000

JP and I took a trip over to Brighton last night to meet up with the Tuesday night ride from Morocco's on Hove seafront. Having had previous experience of these rides I knew I was in for a kicking, but rumour had it Adrian Carter of Pace would be present with his prototype steel 29'er. I decided it would be rude not to go and take a look and, of course, sample some lush singletrack as well.

A selection of Morvelo riders were there as well as Rob Dean and Jo Burt, I knew it was going to hurt, lets face it a Yorkshireman on a singlespeed was not going to be slow!

Pre ride chit chat with Adrian, Jo, Rory, Andrew and Phil

It was definitely worth it to see this puppy

853 lushness

Funky one piece bar and stem

The chrome bits looked lush

Hummerlicious

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Marin Rift Zone 2011 prototype

Hummerlicious — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 18:43:24 +0000

Well it's been a mad week for me, I've spent three days on Aston Hill training to be a MTB skills instructor with the CTC. It was a great few days and when I got back I was desperate to get out and ride as soon as possible!! Fortunately we had a ride lined up before work Friday morning. JP had arranged for Andy from ATB to bring over the prototype of Marin's 100mm full susser the 2011 Rift Zone for us to try.

So while this is a bit of a bike test I only got about an hour on it as I had to wrestle it out of JP's hands!! There a few noticeable changes to Marin's previous designs, the front triangle has a bit less of the hydroforming now and somewhat straighter tubes as a result. The shock mounts have been slimmed down and the top one features the new design 'Y link', very neat looking. As this is a short travel machine the rear swingarm has been slimmed down too, all in all resulting in a neat looking package with very nice lines.

So how does it ride? Well in a word very nicely. If you didn't know the travel before you rode it you'd be suprised to find it's only 100mm travel front and rear! It whips through the singletrack and the light(ish) weight means it's a good climber too (although this prototype had plain gauge front tubes, not the butted ones the final bike will have so it was carrying a bit of extra metal). The front triangle is a bit longer than previous bikes and is fitted with a shorter stem resulting in a sweet handling machine.

Also worth mentioning is the fact this bike came with the new 10 speed SLX drivetrain on it. As usual Shimano's super light shifting action was present. The front chainrings differ from the usual ratios and are now 24/32/42 and we had a 12 to 36 on the back. The result is a lot less shifting around. You can stay in the middle ring more than you would with a 9 speed set up as you have a lower gear for those steeper hills, although to be honest in the dry conditions we spent most of the ride in the big ring! All in all it functioned beautifully, I can't wait to get some onto my bikes…

So we can't wait to get our mitts on the finished item now and give it a blast….

Hummerlicious

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Start ‘em young

Hummerlicious — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 20:18:42 +0000

This piece is a bit different from my more usual ramblings about my riding. It stars Little Big Daddy, my 4 year old son. Having been out on a days riding with him the other day, I found myself reflecting on how his biking skills have developed, and this having never been near a bike with stabilizers.

Being that parenting is all about indoctrination, it was a given that the boy would spend his formative years outdoors, supporting the Reds and worshipping at the feet of Stevie G and having bikes in his life. So, having been at the outdoors show and watched him have a go on an ‘easy rider’ style bike, we got him a Specialized Hotwalk for his 2nd birthday.

The thinking with these bikes that have no brakes or pedals is that whilst the ability to pedal is developmental – a child just can’t do it until they reach a certain point in their development – the ability to balance can be learnt at any age, and Little Big Daddy certainly proved this – within a few months he was wearing the paint off the chainstays by standing on them to freewheel…

By his 3rd birthday he’d moved onto his first pedal bike, a Giant Animator (having first removed the stabilizers) and the balance skills he’d learnt really helped him master it.

He ended up crashing too much though because the wheels were too small for his cornering style and the bottom bracket was too low, so for his 4th birthday he got a Specialized Hotrock (minus the optional stabilizers). He has mastered this really well, including the rear coaster brake, and has built his skills up on our local bmx ramps, becoming ‘one of da boys’ amongst the local hoody clad bmx urchins.

So, I wanted to push him a bit with some mtb riding as he’s got some stamina, so we hatched a plan to go to the posh new ramps at Reigate Priory then on to Leith hill to session the top part of Summer Lightening.

We spent an hour at the ramps…

then moved on to Leith hill…

So, the upshot of all this, apart from gratuitous parental showboating, is for those of you with small children – don’t even entertain the idea of getting them a bike with stabilizers – all they do is create an obstacle to good riding and a fear of not being able to ride without the, instead get a trainer bike, a bit of encouragement and bring on the next generation of riders…

PS – The most amusing aspect of this story is that I find myself thinking of getting a BMX to keep up – I’ve never ridden one, but can’t be a ‘sit on the sidelines’ dad!

Big Daddy

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The Atherton Project, Season 2 Ep.3

Hummerlicious — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 20:16:09 +0000