Author: Cris Bloomfield

It might only be March, but yesterday details of some of Shimano’s 2005 line up for mountain bikes were released. Have to say there is nothing that exciting to be honest. They’re trying to push their axle mounted rear mechs a bit more and there’s a new groupset called Hone. Singletrack’s Mark Alker says it’s:

A new groupset aimed at the type of rider who doesn’t need the strength of the new free ride Saint groupset but wants something a little beefier than XT. Priced rather nicely around the LX level the Hone will boast ‘Flippy’ shifters, Hollowtech cranks, rapid rise rear mech, 203mm or 160mm discs and centre lock hubs.

There’s photos in this Singletrack article.

Perhaps more significant is the fact that Shimano have acknowledged the feedback they have received over their new paddle STI units and have created some new rapidfire units for next year at XT level spec in both silver and black. Bikemagic has the photos.

Mike Davis also has news of two new Rock Shox models for next year. The lightweight marathonesque Reba and a new light weight long travel single crown fork that will probably hope to give Manitou’s Nixon fork a run for it’s money. You can also learn more on the Rock Shox promotional site.

Without wanting to appear like a Lance Armstrong appreciation page, here’s the latest on what the most talked about cyclist on the world has planned for this year:

From: Cycling News
Subject: Armstrong to ride Dauphiné Libéré

Lance Armstrong has decided that he will ride the 56th edition of the Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré, to be held between June 5-12. It will be the fifth time he has ridden the race, and the two time winner is attracted by the Dauphiné’s mountain time trial, which will probably be on Mont Ventoux. The only time Armstrong has not competed in the Dauphiné in the last five years was in 2001, where he opted to do the Tour de Suisse, again because of its uphill time trial.

There has been some money placed this year on the Armstrong/Ullrich battle for the Tour de France title and I have to say I think Lance is going to do it again.

Finally if you’re thinking about getting a bike frame resprayed take a look at the work of airglow. That has to be some of the finest work on the market.

The communication between Lance Armstrong who is acting as representative for the professional road racing community and Dick Pound of the anti-doping body WADA, has been hotting up and cyclingnews claimed the interview in which Lance gives his latest counter argument. Read the full text here and also find out whether we’ll be seeing Lance ride the Giro.

The Norfolk posse might be pleased to learn that the next Thetford Enduro will be on 18th April. Race format will again be two and four lap races running at the same time but this time with a slightly longer 10 mile lap. The same reasonable £10 entry fee will apply. Here’s the details.

Race Face is behind the third Ultimate Freeride Challenge which is now live. Another batch of riders pushing the limits, but who’ll arise to contest the likes of Tyler Klassen remains to be seen.

The Iditabike Invitational is over for another year and as Jon over at Just Riding Along reports there were a couple of Brits riding and they did well. Check out the custom bike and kit over on Alan Tilling’s website.

Despite the fact that it is now illegal, many motorists continue to use mobile phone handsets whilst driving. It’s going to be near impossible to police this policy, but there is little doubt that the legislation was needed.

I’m not sure exactly at what point in the learning curve it becomes necessary to be able to ask “Where is your bedroom? Is it upstairs?”. Perhaps you should be able to ask a name first. Anyway learn some Irish over at the weekly link and then try putting it to the test.

I sold a chaintool to Dougal McGuire today. I swear it was him. I have never had so much trouble or have spent so much time explaining to someone how something so simple works. I mean something like Stable Platform Valve technology or inertia valving – that takes a bit of intelligence to understand.

How a chaintool works doesn’t. I even resorted to using various analogies. It didn’t seem to make any difference though, he’d found the bike in a stream and was going to make the chain ‘tighter’.

This year Marzocchi responded to Manitou’s Sherman line of forks with a 6″ travel fork with a single crown. Now Manitou have upped the game with the unveiling of their new Nixon range of forks which includes a four pound SPV damped 6″ travel through-axle fork with an air spring. Singletrack reported their reviews a few days back, whilst you can read more over at Mountain Bike Action.

Talking of the mags, Mountain Bike have had the builders in and there’s a new look site. I found this and thought it was quite interesting – I rarely take my first aid kit on any rides. There’s quite a few spelling mistakes on there too and as I can’t see any e-mail contacts for them, they’re just going to have to find them for themselves.

AtomicZombie. Nothing to do with horror, but a lot to do with some scary metal work. I mean this is like a cross between a BMX, a shopping trolley and a luge. Mental. More on the main page.

Talking of which metal prices are on the up through out the global markets and this is going to mean a likely rise in bike prices next year. It’s all do do with a strong demand from China and the US for raw materials. Steel, Aluminium and Titanium bikes all look set to be affected, although whether composite based bikes will also increase in cost remains to be seen.

Bells and whistles? No, just bells. It’s the law (or will soon will be…):

From: Bikebiz
Subject: Does April 30th ring a bell to you?

By that date British IBDs should have completed stock checks to make sure the bicycles in-store are fitted with bells. The daft new law kicks in on May 1st and despite the Association of Cycle Traders asking for time for existing stocks to be sold first, an extension was refused.

That bells will soon need to be fitted to the majority of adult bicycles at the point of sale in the UK is well-known, but the ACT believes there are still some points that need clarified.

“There seems to be a lot of confusion amongst retailers, not least of all the date when it all kicks off,” said Anne Killick, the ACT’s national secretary.

“It must be stressed that these are changes to the BS regs and will apply to all cycles from May 1st. The responsibility for compliance stretches across the whole supply chain including importers, manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers.

The new bike is near complete. Well except for a few bits like a front mech which is on order and a bottom bracket which I haven’t picked up yet. Oh yeah and the frame – guess that’s going to hold things up a bit. Anyway the rather elusive Marathon SL travel conversion kit is now complete. Now I just need to get in the workshop, strip them down and get these 85mm units in..

Available form you friendly local LBS

Finally, there’s a couple more wallpapers up here.

It’s been over a year since I started the site. I’m happy with how things have turned out. Thanks to everyone who’s lent support and encouragement over the last twelve months. Thinks look set to continue.

Given the Irish origin of the site name, I’ve decided that there isn’t enough Irish content so I’m going to try and redress the balance a bit. This is the Irish Cycling site, a bit like Cycling News, but with a more celtic influence. It’s probably the best way to keep up to date with the Irish road scene, but there’s mountain biking stuff on their too if you want to keep tabs on Glyn O’Brien, Robin Seymour, Jenny McCauley, etc.

And also on an Irish theme: Bicykills? Definitely scope for a Manchester based version of this site. Anything left unattended between Friday night and Monday morning is likely to receive ‘the treatment’ from the Yates’ tossers.

Italian sprinter Mario Cipollini will return to what is likely to be his last Tour de France this year after his Domina Vacanze team were given a wild card by the event organisers on Friday. There are a few reports about, but this one pretty much says it all.

The Chelsea Pedalers Bicycle Polo Club? It’s a sport open to both men and women, check out the photo galleries and are those purpose built bikes? Maybe we should get the couriers onto this. Fixed gear bikes, handling skills….

And finally Volvo have been putting a rather controversial advert on the TV and at the Cinemas recently for their S40. Did 32 families buy the same car on the same day in a Swedish town? Find out a bit more here.

The Sleepless in the Saddle entry form has been sent off. Jed and I are returning for another crack at the pairs race. And the Saab Salomon Mountain Mayhem is to be tackled again, the entry form was downloaded and sent off this morning. This time the original team is reforming under the rothar.com racing banner and for some of us it’ll be our third mayhem marathon. Now we’ve just got to wait to see if we’re accepted.

I took the Stumpjumper FSR test bike out on yesterday’s ride with Conrad. There has been a lot of hype about the new Specialized design and I wanted to test it out. The first thing that strikes you is that it’s a long bike for it’s size, no doubt a product of it’s race orientated hardtail namesake. The bike I rode was a medium (17″), but with an adjustment of the lengthy Thomson-a-like seat pin and a quick change to a 12cm rather than a 9cm stem and it was of similar setup to my FSR.

disappointing

Differences stop there. This is a light bike with Fox air shocks front and back and can be fully locked out. It’s also has a low centre of gravity due to the swagged top tube, but this isn’t all good. The bottom bracket height is low due to the short overall length of the Fox shocks, which means it doesn’t take much to be grounding the pedals and cranks on even relatively flat surfaces. This annoying trait makes pedalling on bumpy downhills a rather off putting experience and riding in ruts near impossible.

Mud clearance isn’t fantastic either and isn’t helped by the Roll X tyres which although excellent all rounders, seem to like to cling onto mud. The lightweight design also doesn’t aid torsional rigidity. Powering on off camber surfaces, or out of ruts and the back of the bike seems to be pointing the wrong way. Conrad reckons there was a fair amount of this ‘crabbing’ going on, so tracking is a definite issue.

The fox forks were the usual excellent performers, whilst the new Triad rear shock was excellent in pro pedal mode, but seemed to blast through the travel too quickly when set at fully open, so might benefit from revised compression damping. The rest of the bike performed flawlessly and it certainly makes a good cross country day bike. I just can’t help thinking that an Enduro is better suited to northern England riding.

My overall verdict was one of disappointment. Either I just had a shocker of a ride with this bike, or magazines like Mountain Bike Action have got this bike completely wrong in their reviews. [Note: The comments expressed in this review seem to have been a bit controversial and haven’t been liked by some at Specialized for obvious reasons. Having spoken with many others that tested this bike or have ridden other Stumpjumper FSRs I am not alone in having experienced issues with this latest design].

The ride was the longest of Mike Pearce’s from his guide book to the Peaks and Derbyshire. Starting in Monyash, it takes in a large loop of the countryside, heading north to Chelmorton, through the stunning Horseshoe Dale, around the limestone quarries and through Longnor, before dropping down to Sheen and crossing the River Dove to Hartington. From there it was through another hidden limestone valley (Biggin Dale) and up onto the Tissington Trail and past Arbor Low back to the car.

More snow overnight. I woke up this morning and thought I was in Helsinki.

There’s been some rationalisation of the bike collection recently. The M5 is next to go and is currently completely disassembled. There’s something new on it’s way and I’ve calculated how to make the parts going back onto it over two and a half pounds lighter. It’s going to be a sweet race bike.

The first UCI points of the mountain bike season were up for grabs recently with an event held in Cyprus. Most of the big names were there and American Journal, VeloNews has the coverage.

Whilst IMBA-related things seem to have a renewed level of enthusiasm here in the UK, PinkBike has news that in USA, a successful partnership is set to continue:

Subaru of America, Inc . recently renewed its support of the acclaimed Subaru/ IMBA Trail Care Crew through 2006. Launched in 1997, the Subaru/IMBATrail Care Crew program has led more than 1,000 trail projects, trained more than 35,000 people in sustainable trailbuilding techniques and logged half a million miles of coast-to-coast travel in its official Subaru vehicles.

The award-winning program includes two full-time, professional teams of trail experts who travel North America year-round, leading IMBA Trailbuilding Schools, meeting with government officials and land managers, and working with IMBA-affiliated groups to improve mountain biking opportunities.

What’s IMBA? Well this poster has the answer.

This month has gone quickly and the discussion about this years big races has been growing. Entry forms for Sleepless in the Saddle are already out. Now it just a case of deciding what to do and who with.

Cars, love them or hate them they’re everywhere. There are a few of those ridiculous Chevrolet built Hummer’s around Manchester, which just goes to show there are some people with bottomless wallets. Even that Clarkson (who has been in trouble recently) didn’t like them. He and I’m sure a few others will be amused by this tongue-in-cheek website…

Cars are also probably the reason behind these statistics published by the Sustrans as part of their latest copy of the National Cycle Network Map. Part of the problem of course is changing the attitude of the majority about bike use…

There’s some interesting stuff coming out for the new season. New shoes from Italian footwear specialists DMT and Lance has a new weapon to help him in his campaign for this years Tour Yellow jersey, a new purpose built Trek TT bike. There are more photos on the Trek Bikes site. Any money on those wheels actually being used in Le Tour?

In a follow up to a report I posted up a few weeks ago, Bikebiz reports that the world doesn’t seem to have gone completely mad just yet:

Shanghai back-pedals on bike ban threat

Police chiefs in the bicycle-dense Chinese city had been planning to lever bikes off the streets in order to fit in more cars but the Shanghai city government has now said it has no plans to limit cycling and is, in fact, planning to build cycle routes. But is this a ploy to ghettoise cyclists in the run-up to the World Expo, due to take place in Shanghai in 2010?

According to the Shanghai Daily News, Wu Jiang, deputy director of Shanghai Urban Planning Administrative Bureau said “The bicycle is still a premier transport tool in the city.”

Shanghai has a bicycle population of 9 million and rising, but increasing prosperity in China is leading to an ever growing appetite for privately-owned motorcars. If Western cities are designed around the automobile, then so should Chinese cities, goes some official thinking.

In December last year, Shanghai police chiefs mooted plans for banning cyclists in downtown areas and on major arterial roads. Law-breaking cyclists were to also face tougher fines. To date there has bee no ban and Shanghai’s cyclusts continue to flout traffic laws with impunity.

No riding this weekend. I wish I’d gone, but I didn’t. I did however buy the latest Mountain Bike Action. I know it has loads of adverts, but I reckon there aren’t many others who offer the same format of magazine and I really appreciate the race orientated nature of a lot of the articles.

On top of photos from the US trade shows, this month includes a privateers account of a season racing an S-Works Epic, an inside look at Filip Meirhaeghe’s race bike, a review of the Anniversary Edition Stumpjumper FSR (so a few Specialized’s then) and the new Foes 7″ Trail bike amongst others. There’s more on the website.

Oh yeah and Paola Pezzo will be mounting her comeback campaign aboard an S-Works, she’s on the Specialized Squad for 2004. See the full listings here. I bet Gary Fisher is a bit gutted.

Karrimor’s shop in Manchester closed this weekend and we had a lot of customers carrying bags full of bargain buys. The full story on what happened is shown below and is from Bikebiz:

Karrimor sold within 24 hours of going into receivership

The Lancashire outdoor pursuits equipment supplier, spawned from a bicycle shop, has had a troubled recent past and has now been sold to Lonsdale Sports, the boxing suppliers retailer. Seven of Karrimor’s retail outlets are part of the acquisition. Corporate rescue and recovery firm Begbies Traynor had been working with Karrimor two weeks before it went into receivership and was able to secure a sale quickly. Pentland, owner of the Berghaus and Brasher brands, was one of the potential buyers of Karrimor.

Karrimor is based in Clayton-le-Moors, Lancashire. The company has 250 employees; 60 based at its HQ and the remaining staff located at its retail outlets dotted around the UK.

The seven retail outlets which are part of the Lonsdale acquisition are based in Clayton-le-Moors, Manchester, Cambridge, Brighton, Nottingham, London St Pauls, and London Wardour Street.

Begbies Traynor is seeking a buyer or buyers for the remaining 20 shops.

Karrimor was founded in 1946 by Charles and Mary Parsons. They hand-sewed cotton-duck pannier bags from the upstairs of their Lancashire cycle shop.

In March 2003, Karrimor acquired some of the YHA Adventure Shops, the retail group that went into administration in March. 15 of the 16 YHA Adventure Shops had store-in-store bicycle outlets called The Bike Chain.

A trip to Leeds resulted in some of Pitman’s tunes being played in the shop today. To quote Robert King: ‘The kids on the streets have a new kind of music hero to look up to. Fed up with ya ‘bling, bling’ So-Solid Crew the time has come for MC Pitman! Coalville’s answer to Mike Skinner’s ‘The Streets’. Kids are already racing down to hardwear shops to get hard hats to emulater ‘MC Pitman’.

Police forces up and down the country have welcomed this unlikely Pop artist to. A spokeman for the Police force said “Before, the kidz would carry guns when they was into So-Solid Crew and now with MC Pitman the most dangerous thing there most likely to carry is a torch!”‘ Check it out.

On a closing note the Singletrack Archive is now updated with Issue 13’s contents.

Ryder Hesjedal reckons that “Miguel Martinez and Filip Meirhaeghe will be strong, and Roland Green will be hungry after a down year. Of course, there are all sorts of young riders to watch. I’m just really happy that I can go into the race as a contender. It wasn’t so long ago that I used to look up to all those guys…I really believe I can win the Olympics.”

Canadian rider Roland Green is looking for a big comeback this season and most of the American sites have run a story about it in some shape or form and Steve Peat has just married another rider. Read more.

Carbon has been making something of a comeback recently. Seems last years trade shows were dominated by the black stuff and you can now get pretty much every component made from it. Whilst I have to admit that I have always been sceptical of the use in some applications (like this new stem from Specialized), these new wheels from Reynolds, the Stratus DV carbon road wheels look fast standing still. How much? Well if you have to ask…

Andy Cotgreave has some nice photos from his riding around New Zealand and what ever happened to bikeresource.com? Didn’t last long did it?

Last night I had my first experience of getting sideways to the accompaniment of squealing tyres and burning rubber. Thirty-eight like-minded lunatics descended on Daytona go-karting in Trafford Park and carnage ensued. I made it through the heats and the semis to the final only to be put into the wall on the fourth lap of the final from second place by one of my colleagues from work…

Great fun and I think the general consensus is to do it again soon, I’m not sure how much cross-over there is in terms of handling and reaction skills between two wheels and four, but I’m still buzzing off the petrol fumes.

Riding in Switzerland’s Valais region: ‘By the end of our trip we had descended nearly 80,000′ – with some days over 14,000′ – and slept and drank wine in high alpine chalets overlooking towns and peaks for as far as the eye could see. By day seven, it became hard to recall all of the previous rides’. Read the story and see the pictures over at NSMB.

Importers of fine steel, Sorted Cycles, have a new front page up replacing the excellent and much discussed bikespotting page. Check it out here.

I’m not convinced by Santa Cruz, but they’re extremely popular bikes. Daevh’s Bullitt though is a nice looking bike that’s been well spec’d up

And finally there is a public service announcement from the JonWIII over at his website, debating the organisational level of University Cycling Clubs and the Pope’s cock. Read more…