Fort William World Cup 2014

Over the weekend of 7-8th of June the UCI Downhill World Cup moved to Fort William. We took the Marzocchi, Dainese and Gravity brands to the expo, here are some images from the weekend.

Welcome to Fort William

Marzocchi race support truck

booth set up and ready to go

George Gannicott's 380 equipped TR450 Transition

hard at 'work'....

Trails legend (and Marzocchi rider) Dougie Lampkin does his thing

Russ on the blue route

Tom, getting 'sick'

Martin got back on a bike after 4 years, next step 800mm bars and 45mm stem...

we were very busy....

prototype Marzocchi Edge Enduro shock

Russ, Dan, Martin, Tom

Marzocchi Service truck, teams and media 2014/15

On Monday 26th and Tuesday the 27th the Marzocchi service truck stopped by on Aston Hill on the was to the EWS and WC. This was a great opportunity for our sponsored athletes to get some pro-set up from the amazing Pedro, Marzocchi's vastly experienced MTB and Moto tech guy. We also had the chance to show the UK media the new 350 enduro fork.

We will all be at the Fort William World Cup on the 6/7/8th June for with a demo bike, so if you are there please pop by and say hi!

here is the image gallery.

Marzocchi's service truck 

Morewood with 350CR fork waiting for a Roco Air Lo with 'special' tune

Ride.io team bike with its 380's removed

ride.io's long term Saracen with 350CR

Pedro working his magic

Stefano working on a team Morewood

380 check, Moto, check, lets ride!

Stefano re-fits a team 380

Steve Jones from Dirt checks out the 350 CR and 2015 NCR!

Team Aston Hill, now with dialled suspension! 

where the magic happens! 

PRESS RELEASE: North American MTB brand Transition Bikes to be distributed by Windwave

PRESS RELEASE

North American MTB brand Transition Bikes to be distributed by Windwave.

Transition Bikes has announced Windwave as their new UK distributor. Windwave will begin distributing Transition Bikes with its 2015 model year bikes. Transition is a rider owned company founded in 2004 located outside Bellingham, WA. Their product line-up has expanded rapidly in the past years, but they are best known for their freeride, downhill and enduro bike models "Our bikes have always been popular in the UK, and every time I fly across the pond for a visit I remember why," said Transition International Sales Manager, Sam Burkhardt. "The UK riding scene has a lot in common with the Pacific Northwest; our mountains might be a bit bigger, but the trails in the UK are really awesome, and our bikes are a perfect fit for the market," said Burkhardt.

“We are stoked to have Windwave signed on to help us grow the brand to another level in the UK. We would also like to take the opportunity to thank Surf Sales for all their hard work over the past few years,” said Kyle Young, Transition Bikes owner.

Windwave marketing manager Dan Jones said:

“We have been long-time admirers of Transition Bikes with their amazing marketing style and company values; we are all really excited to be working with the Transition team starting with the 2015 models."

Transition will release info about its 2015 bikes during the Eurobike trade show in Germany this August. Windwave will begin to supply the UK dealer network around this same time. All current model year inquiries should be directed to Surf-Sales or Transition Bikes directly.

Windwave is a co-founder of the Core Bike Show and will add Transition to their existing portfolio of A2Z, BBB, Colnago, Dainese, FSA, Gravity, Ice Toolz, Marzocchi, Morgan Blue, Nokon and Vision.

Links:

Web: www.windwave.co.uk

Facebook: www.facebook.com/WindwaveUK

Twitter: https://twitter.com/WindwaveUK

Transition: www.transitionbikes.com

Transition TR500 Mega Press Release Video from Transition Bikes on Vimeo.

Headset bearings

We get loads of phone calls regarding headset bearings for other peoples headsets... Here is a chart of all the bearings we supply, ID, OD, height and inside and outside angles.

My bike: The Cannondale M800 Beast of the East

Back in 93 I bought a brand new M600 Cannondale, I chose this model after I had a Delta V 2000... This was a great bike but in those days FS bikes were not that good, so much so I went back to rigid. The M600 model was a cross between the conservative M1000/2000 and the radical M800 and featured a normal height BB like the 2000 and a sloping top tube like the 800. It was a great bike, however I guess I always wanted the more radical 'Beast of the East'.

One Friday night, maybe after one to many glasses of France's finest I hit buy it now on a bit of a shed of a M800 and this is what turned up....

Painted grey and a real mix and match parts build, a bit of a mess really... Using the website www.vintagecannondale.com I at least dated the frame to 1993...

So the first decision was how to build it, hardcore retro style as per brochure or hot rod style... It had to be hot rod, the same way we rode them back in the 90's.

The bike was stripped and the frame shot blasted and powder coated in the closest red I could match to Cannondale red. Decals were bought of the ebay and are not great, there is a guy that now does better ones so I may swap these out.

The build currently features XT thumbies with XT short cage mech running 8 speed, American Classic hubs on Mavic 217 SUP rims, FSA Ti b/b with Cook Bros crank and Pace chainrings, Club Roost riser bar, NOS headset, Zoom Stem and DX V brakes.

As a footnote I met Martyn Ashton at the Goodwood Orbital Festival last year and took a liking to the M800 and signed the frame for me. He mentioned that he had fond memories of the bike as when he signed to ride for Cannondale they sent him a Beast of the East and a week later he was World Champion!

Tech: ThreadFit82.5 a new BB standard? Not quite...

On Wednesday 5th March Colnago has released their brand new C60 superbike. Blistering with technology the C60 improves on the C59 in every area, however the all new ThreadFit82.5 bottom bracket rang my 'standards' alarm bell, that was until I read what it actually was...

What's really interesting is that Colnago have critically looked at the BB shell and come up with the following points.

1/ BSA threaded shells are good, brilliantly reliable and self aligning. The only negative being the limited available width for large tubes.

2/ Press fit B/B's have great width allowing the use of larger tubes but can be unreliable due to frame tolerances and frame deformation.

Colnago's solution for gaining frame width but keeping it reliable is actually quite simple...

1/ Colnago's Threadfit82.5 uses threaded press-fit adaptors that thread directly in to the frame, aligning the BB seats correctly and are easily removable and replaceable if damaged.

2/ The adaptors themselves take the (Shimano) standard BB86 bottom bracket enabling the installation of any crank set.

3/ Using an adaptor gives you a precision machined surface for the BB to fit to, opposed to carbon surface that can be irregular due to the manufacturing process.

4/ The increased diameter of the BB shell has allowed the Colnago engineers the freedom to increase the down tube size increasing stiffness and performance of the bike.

So in summery the C60 doesn't have yet another new B/B standard, it uses standard BB86 units with he addition of replaceable press-fit inserts meaning if you damage them you are not throwing a frame away...

My 'standards' alarm is well and truly silenced, clever stuff...

The C60 bottom bracket

Opinion: Bike Biz guest column

Recently I was asked to talk about my favourite subject for a feature in Bike Biz, maybe my tweeting of my displeasure of dumb standards hadn't gone unnoticed after all....

To be honest I was more than a little nervous about sticking my neck on the block so I was extremely careful not to point the finger at anybody. So far the reaction has been extremely positive from comment's on-line/ social media and also face to face at Core Bike.

A big thanks to Mark Sutton at Bike Biz for the opportunity to vent, follow him on twitter at @marksuttonbike

You can also read on-line here.