This weekend just passed was all about Cyclocross for a select group of enthusiasts from around New Zealand. The weekend kicked off on Friday night with a few Belgian beers at Gothenburg—a Hamilton craft-brew bar / restaurant—with event organisers ‘The Pain Train’. Planning, smack talking, stories of days gone by, stories of days to come and general banter were dished out from one end of the group to the other, most with some sort of Cyclocross theme, but some with a smattering of Cross-dressing talk!? READ MORE
“A two sided coin.” That’s how I would describe Byron Scott; there are two distinctly different (and sometimes polar opposite) sides to him, but what’s in the middle is gold (well, some sort of metal).
‘Heads’ is the daytime, business-hours Byron. An experienced and schooled sales and marketing guru, turned entrepreneur and business owner. In business mode, Byron can come across as serious and intelligent, often offering me nuggets of marketing or sales advice. Having left his secure, successful job, he decided to go it alone, pulling himself from the nine to five and combining all his motivation and skills to form his own venture that fits in better with the ‘Tails’ side of his persona. READ MORE
So Caleb was hating on 29ers, then rode one and now can’t (or won’t) shut up about how good the one he rode was. And it was the GT Sensor that made him gush. I must admit, my time on the big wheels has been limited to some of the rigid singlespeed variety, and they were fun, if not “life-changing”. READ MORE
All things start somewhere and many grow out of something else. Whether an idea sparks action, or circumstances lead you down a certain path, however something starts, the fact remains that sometime, somewhere, someone will have to do the hard graft to get it off the ground.
Rick Henderson is one of those guys who’s lived a varied life—and by his own admission, not always in the best way—and he’s put in lots of hard graft along the way. From the early days of his bike park ‘Krankin Park’ in Ngaruawahia, where he and his friends dug for endless hours shaping what was to become the first jump park in the country, to the launch of High Speed Cycles, Krankin Park’s on-site bike shop, and all the work that involves. I think it’s fair to say that Rick has carved himself a well earned place in New Zealand’s MTB history with lots of hard work and determination. READ MORE
I first met Karl about 10 years ago, mid summer at Nelson BMX track. There was one dirty big dirt jump built on the in field for Karl to hone his craft and perfect his bodily contortions in preparation for the ‘X-Air’ competition being held in Hamilton the following month. What struck me back then still reigns true today; how can one dude go so much higher than everyone else on the same jump with a similar bike setup? Well Karl’s that guy….
Fast forward a bunch of years and I’m in Wellington riding the infamous Island Bay trails up the back of the house where Karl was living. Again, Karl was boosting larger than anyone else and while he wasn’t throwing the hugest, latest ‘fad’ tricks he had better flow, boost and style than most of the visiting US pros at the session.
In the last few years, Karl’s focus has blurred from solely BMX shredding to MTB dirt jumping, onto downhill and now even XC. He’s also recently taken on the Black Market distribution in Aussie under the Private Distro flag. He’s a true all-rounder and is “jack of all trades, master of them all” which not many people can claim. He’s super friendly and a blast to ride with, and if there’s two wheels under him he’ll have a huge smile on his dial and be totally amped on whatever it is you’re riding.
And if you’re wondering how Karl boosts so big, he let me in on the secret: “Just pump your tyres up real hard, go fast and pull back heaps.” Cool.
Ladies and gentlemen, Frankly Thursday with Karl Bensemann…… READ MORE
Almost at the finish line in his final run, Blenki was fast and loose as always.
Sam Blenkinsop (Lapierre International, Wanganui) continued his strong run of World Cup form at Val di Sole, qualifying 2nd, and racing to a top ten 8th on a course that suited his aggressive and instinctive riding style. 2009 Junior World Champion Brook MacDonald (MS Evil, Hawkes Bay) backed up from his 6th at the last weekend’s Swiss World Cup to claim a 13th this weekend, both Kiwis looking good for the run-in to September’s Canadian World Championships. However, their race runs went ahead knowing that good friend Justin Leov (Trek World Racing, Dunedin) had been helicoptered off the course during his last practice run before the finals. Leov had a massive crash while putting the final touches on his race run preparation. Aiming for an airborne line between two huge rocks, but getting his approach slightly wrong, it was enough to send him spiralling away down the Val di Sole mountain to a massive impact. Leov is okay this morning however; nothing broken but dazed nonetheless. Leov is happy to put the less-than-ideal last two weeks behind him now, and concentrate on coming right for September. READ MORE
Terrible title, banger bike! This is the new Foes HYDRO DH bike, coming to New Zealand shores soon. Looks like there’s another slick race bike vying for your dollar now. The boys at Blue Shark distro should have these on the way….
After a bit of a late start leaving Chatel in the morning, Matt Scoles and I decided we would head over and check out the XC. Unfortunately we arrived a little late to catch the women’s round where Rosara Joseph stomped a solid 27th place and Samara Sheppard, in her first ever World Cup race scored a respectable 65th (out of a starting field of 99 riders). We quickly made a beeline for a section we’d heard about that contained a couple of steep rooty switchbacks and then a two-foot step down. When we got there, a lot of serious practice was going down with only ONE person (Nino Shurter) cleaning the switchbacks, pretty much everyone was sending the drop which was impressive to see, but some definitely were a lot more confident (and less sketchy) than others. We didn’t really move from here (mainly because it was so entertaining), and combined with an injured Cam Cole and Amy Laird’s raucous cheering we gave most of the riders a bit of friendly encouragement. 14th ranked Florian Vogel took the win followed by Czech Jaroslav Kulhavy, Nino Schurter in third, Justin Leov’s Trek World Racing teammate Mathias Fluckiger in fourth and Julien Absalon rounded off the podium in fifth. READ MORE
Round four of the UCI DH World Cup is in the bag and the Kiwis continued with a strong presence in Champery on the super steep and slippery track. Gee Atherton took the win followed by Greg Minnaar in second, Brendon Fairclough in third and Sam Blenkinsop landing himself on the podium in fourth place (not quite where he wanted). Brook MacDonald unloaded a scorcher of a run to narrowly miss out on fifth place by 2.2 seconds and Alexandra’s Matt Scoles finished inside the top 30 in 28th place, in front of crowd pleaser Cedric Gracia. I coped a little better on the track today with my camera, but I won’t be giving up my day job too soon. Hopefully next week in Val Di Sole I won’t be battling the weather and will be able to bring a little more quality. Anyway here is today’s non stolen gallery, results and captions to follow soon. (The Internet is being lame, there were supposed to be a few more photos but they won’t load.)
Seriously you have NO idea how wet it was today. Hopefully this does it some justice. Wyn killing it for a 5th place qual.
Definitely my worst ever post title. But it’s the truth. The Kiwis killed it in qualifying today in torrential rain at Champery, showing that our boys can actually ride and handle their bikes. Blenki qualified first which is awesome news but the rest of the top 15 riders contains four Kiwis. Wyn takes a well deserved 5th, Brook McDonald in 11th and Scolesy sitting in front of Greg Minnaar in 14th. It was my first World Cup too and I can tell you that it ain’t as easy as it looks, Sven Martin and the other regulars make it all look way easy. I could barely stay upright in the pouring rain. Okay so it is Spoke’s first ever non stolen World Cup gallery, hopefully tomorrow will be sunny, I will have found Scolsey’s house and I’ll take some not shit photos… READ MORE
