Full Suspension

Ive now come to the conclusion that i am terrible at writing blogs! Maybe its my speedy one finger typing or just my hate-ridge of all things computer, but i am trying to get better.

As some of you may or may not know DMR are going to be doing a Full Suspension frame! I for one have been too excited to control myself!

I managed to get my hands on the prototype a few weeks back, and have been putting it through its paces ever since.
Last weekend I took it out to the French Alps for a race called the 'MTB Enduro Des Nations' an enduro style DH race. The format was to do 10 race runs over a weekend and in a team of 3 it was your overall combined time. 6 runs on saturday and 4 on sunday with tracks between 10 minutes and 23 minutes long! The last race on sunday was a mass start race and utterly crazy!
Team GB consisted of me, Martin Astley and Rowan Sorrel, and we were out for blood! thinkin we were gonna be takin out franchies left right and centre!
Of course this didnt happen and half way through saturday we just wanted to curl up and die!
Anyway we battled through and came out with a 5th place over all, so pretty happy really. I had my best run in the final mass start race with a 6th place, must be all those head to head races i do!
Here is a vid of the mass start race, so you have an idea of what we did (10 times!!!)




The bike held up flawlessly over the 10000 meters of downhilling I did over the weekend, (around a year of racing here in the UK!). For a prototype I was amazed, you always expect something to go wrong even on a fully tested production bike. But set up with Fox 36's and a coil Fox shock it was perfect, and I didnt even get any punctures!





So after a week of sleeping (to recover), im back riding my Sidekick ready for a few races ive got coming up. The first being a dual salom race at Bike Radar Live next weekend, should be fun!

Untill next time.
D.

2010 has started

Well my 2010 race season has started and i havent been this excited about a season in a long time. Its time to see if 3 months training in New Zealand has paid off. Think im a bit late with this blog, from now on im going to try and write a little report after each race and let you know how it went. The first race of the year was NPS 4X round 1 at UK Bike Park on the 4th of april. Wet and muddy doesnt even come close to explaining the conditions, and with some new (very soft) course changes it was hard going. I only did one pratice run to save some energy, and try and stay dry! My motos went well apart from one crash and a pringled rear wheel! I made it to the final and felt pretty strong, after a good start i was in second behind Will Longdon into the first corner. As i tryed to go inside of Longdon i slipped my pedals in all the mud and was over taken by Will Evans. With Scott Beoumont crashing on the first straight i rolled down for 3rd place. Pretty happy with that start to the year and hopefully can keep the momentum going throughout the season. Ive just got back from the first World Cup 4X round in Belgium so i will put a little report up soon. But for now i'll leave you with this little vid from my NZ trip, 8 seconds and 134meters of holy sh#t:

New Zealand

My first Blog ever! wow exciting!
OK usually id have nothing going on at this time of year and defiantly nothin to Blog about.


But this year im spending my winter in New Zealand! downhill, dirtjumps, pumptrack, motocross and sunshine - paradise. Im living in Queenstown at the moment, the centre on mountainbiking in NZ.





Hopefully with the help of photo and video i'll try and give you a taste of life in New Zealand.




For starters; the view from my window, my local trails and me ridin (not crashing) mini moto:

I've got my DMR Sidekick with me and set it up to be a jack of all trades bike. DH, XC and DJ. And its coping serprisingly well!

Im only here for another 2 weeks so im off to have some more fun and if ive got the time i'll try and share.

Queenstown 4 life! peace out!

Duncan.