January; time to hibernate and eat cake. No-one in their right mind (yes that includes me) would think about racing round the woods for 24 hours, especially not 20 miles north of Inverness. So how come the ‘Puffer’ is a sell out event every year?

The annual trek northwards was looking a bit wobbly as the south of the UK sank into snow chaos. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit a little voice in the back of head saying “cancel, yes! I won’t have to drive for 25 hrs!” Meanwhile at the same latitude  as St. Petersberg the mischievous Scots were ensuring that no excuses could be made for not showing up. Diggers, shovels & much local sweating saw the entire 9 mile route snow free, notwithstanding a few ice clad, off camber corners. Speaking of 9’s, in-spite of 150cm of snow in the Cairngorns, the A9 was completely cleared, apparently Tesco won’t allow it to shut!

‘Racing’ got off to a slippery start at 10 am Saturday as 300 people tried to run across sheet ice in cycling shoes. Having conquered the Le Mans start the foolish, sorry, brave competitors were granted with the privilege of slogging through a 20 cm deep trough of slice (ice+sludge=slice). Staying upright was an achievement, let alone riding at a velocity reminiscent of the aforementioned adjective (racing).

Did I mention that it’s dark for 18 hours at this latitude? Oops, most 24 hr races take place in June to maximise daylight riding. The Schadenfreuding Scots have turned this concept on its head leaving the masochistic mtb maniacs with a mere 6 hours of gloom, calling it daylight would be an exaggeration.

So hats off to all of the 450 crazy bastards who drove to Inverness in the middle of the ice storm for 24 hrs of mud, ice and gears. Special hats off and congratulations to Neil Walker & Drew Thomson from Walkers Cycling who piloted their Bionicon Golden Willows to a fantastic 3^rd place in the mens pairs.

Brrrr, rather you than me!

And test ride the world’s most innovative full suspension mountainbike

Too many calories every Christmas? Burn them off on the Bionicon demo day at Ballinastoe Woods, Co. Wicklow, Ireland.

Bionicon has been voted “most innovative bike brand” 3 years running by BIKE, Europe’s largest MTB magazine. No wonder – where else can you transform the performance of your bike at the touch of a button? The Bionicon system allows the rider to change geometry by up to 7 degrees and fork travel by 3-4”on the fly. Fork plushness and bottom bracket height are unaffected.

Sound too good to be true? Come and find out for yourself!

The demo rides will take place on Sunday 27^th December at Ballinastoe Woods, Co. Wicklow, starting at the trail head car park.

http://www.coillteoutdoors.ie/index.php?id=54&trail=135&trail_type=2&no_cache=1

Riders will have the opportunity to join a ride at 10 am, 12 am or 2 pm

We will have Golden Willow Scandium, Edison and Supershuttle bikes available in various sizes.

To book a bike and demo ride slot, please email me at:

roger.seal (AT) bionicon.com

Or phone + 44 (0) 7966 102963

More info on Bionicon bikes at:

www.bionicon.com

Well I said I’d do three wacky races this year, and this one was the silliest.

Admittedly the Three Peaks Challenge isn’t a mountainbike race, in fact you’re not allowed to compete on an MTB.

Still my Fixie Inc Pure Blood has disc brakes and knobbly tires, so it is kind of off road compatible.

If normal cyclo cross races is „one hour in hell“ what can you say about the 3 Peaks?

How about five hours in hell?

Why do this, you may ask: a 60 km bike ‘ride’ with 1525 metres climbing up three mountains? Homage to a beautiful bike, of which I have the only one in the UK? Fingers up at the UCI? How about the age old English desire to do something really dangerous/ stupid/odd? First signs of a mid life crisis…take your pick!

It got off to a brutal start. The first 5kms were termed ‘neutralised’ which didn’t stop the pack from roaring off like possessed. Ouch; not a good starter (I need 45 min to warm up) I seemed to be going backwards fast. But on the brutal clamber up Ingleborough, so steep you had to hold on to the grass to stay upright, I started to find my legs and make up lost ground. Maybe it helps when your stride is equivalent to 1.65 normal human steps.

It was all too good to be true though. No sooner was the first hill conquered disaster struck: a pinch flat. I must have looked quite comical spraying latex milk into the wind on top of bleak moor. It didn’t feel funny at the time. Good old fashioned pumping ensued, whilst hundreds of riders whizzed by. Onwards and cautiously downwards and the next road section leading to, you guessed it another unrideable hill – Whernside. At least this climb had a genuine stone surfaced path going up so I managed a bit of cheeky running and, shock horror even better some sketchy downhill riding.

Somewhere on that bouncy descent my pump went awol…..

I pressed on overtaking more riders on the road section leading to the last hill -Pen-y-Ghent. This one I’d hiked up so I knew what was coming. The track up was a novelty – an off road climb most of which could be ‘enjoyed’ in the saddle. Towards the top and with bike on shoulder I was finally catching those I’d already overtaken going up Ingleborough!. But low and behold on the last descent I flatted again and had no way of fixing my bike. Running down one of the best bits of off road track was a little bit depressing. The last 4km of tarmac to the finish with a flat front tyre was like riding through treacle. I finished with a time of 4 hrs 36 happy but very wasted (I think that was the aim all along).

I ended up 132^nd in my class with that nagging feeling that if I hadn’t punctured twice I could have finished under 4 hrs and in the top 100.

So I’ll be forced to come back again next year to prove these hypothetical ramblings, which means I can’t go back to junk food, tobacco and beer all winter. Damn it…

Bionicon is running a shop ride in the wonderful Hope valley area of the Peak district on Sunday 23rd August. 

We’ll be starting at 09:00 hrs from the Ladybower Reservoir visitors centre. The ride will be for 2-3 hours with a focus on fun not lactic acid threshold.

All are welcome to attend but demo bikes are limited. Please contact organiser Kevin Clews at BETD / Goldtec for information on demo bike availablity. Tel. 01782 629462

Happy trails

Just received my copy of Singletrack Issue 51 in the post where you will find a long term test of the Golden Willow Scandium on page 60. Dave “360″ Clarke (no relation to techno God) writes: “it really does seem like you’re getting two bikes for one.”

We agree, watch out Tesco, Bionicon is on the warpath……

For those of you who haven’t noticed, Bionicon has a line of urban bikes, which just like our MTB’s don’t follow the usual rules….

A “stylish and functional urban machine” say the reviewers of ‘Cycling Plus’ in issue 224 (July 2009) awarding 8/10 points - we  can’t argue with that.

Wow, I survived Megavalanche….actually quite an achievement.

I’ve been meaning to come and ride the Mega for a long time, as usual I needed a kick up the arse from my biking neighbour Gavin to actually make it happen. Off we trundled to France in the official Bionicon Team UK Fiat Doblo racing machine. Loaded to the gills with bikes, tyres and every possible spare part you can imagine.

Training for the event and riding at altitude took us to Morzine & Pila (northern Italy, go there!) and eventually Alp Duez. After riding both qualifying and proper Mega tracks I decided on using an Ironwood for the qualifying and my Supershuttle for the actual race…yes it’s a hard life being a bike industry bitch.

All was going swimmingly well in Friday’s qualifying, after a shockingly bad start I’d clawed my way past lots of riders to about 38th place. Then at the top of the last climb my chain snapped, bugger. Even a high speed repair allowed about 60 slower riders to overtake me. Overtaking on the loamy singletrack wood trails was fun but limited. I finished the qualifying race 102nd in 37 minutes.

This meant I missed both the main race (top 45 finishers from each 200 qualifying group) and the “Promo” race (next 45 finishers) - I would be racing the “Megaffinity” race on Sunday, directly after the main race departure. This had the advantage of missing the mass start with flying bodies and bikes raining from the heavens - a good thing.

The bad news was that after 450 riders had passed over the glacier the snow became totally unrideable. What was a fun high speed blast in practice became a frustrating, dangerous out of control trudge across 2 km of mush…oh well. Still I was 39th in the Affinity race with a time of 1 hr 25 min 31 seconds….just a bit behind overall winner Remy Absalon’s winning time of 49 minutes.

So I’m officially addicted! I’ll have to go back and do it again! I’m sure this is the secret of the event, 2/3 of the competitors have to return every year to see if they can actually make it into the main race. Oh and there’s the small matter of an epic 2500 meter descent with snow, rocks, alpine meadows and the finest woodland trail you’ve ever seen…

I decided last winter that 2009 was to be the year of Wacky Races. By wacky I don’t mean racing in a gorilla suit or on LSD, just doing some events that seem a little bit different to the usual all-night slog through a muddy field.

The Dyfi Enduro was wacky race nr. 1, although I’m told strictly speaking it isn’t a race. In fact it felt more like a mini Glastonbury festival but with bikers.
Bearing that in mind (and also because I was still bleeding my brakes 20 minutes before the start) I lined up with Bionicon team rider Elaine Burroughs at the very back of the 666 strong field.

I then realized that, yes indeed the alpha male competitive urge does flow strongly through my veins and yes I definitely, absolutely needed to overtake as many folk as possible. Unfortunately the lazy zero training urge is equally strong so most overtaking was done on the plentiful singletrack downhill sections. Having 6” of travel up front made blasting past wobbly hardtail riders most entertaining. My Golden Willow scandium was definitely the perfect tool for the task at hand.

Approx. 50km & 2300 vertical metres later I arrived at the finish coated in finest welsh mud but with a big grin on my face. It being the Dyfi Enduro no-one seemed to know (or care) about who won. I was happy to find out later that I came in 163rd overall with a time of 4hrs 10. A wee bit more training will be required to threaten the fast boys who finished in 2 hrs 45! Elaine seemed happy that according to her Garmin stats she could now eat 3300 calories of cake. She placed 7th in the senior ladies class  with a time of 5 hrs 18.

So bring on the wacky races. Two more to go this year, I suspect both will be considerably more challenging than the Dyfi Enduro.
Better get training…

Once again demo season is over and that means we have some demo bikes available for sale.
You may have heard about the currency crunch….just when you least need it, everything becomes more expensive as the pound is at a record low against the Euro. Bionicon will be increasing new bike prices from 1st June  so these are the very last demo bikes based on the 2008 pricelist.

Golden Willow:

1 x small I spec, upgraded PVA shock
1 x small II spec, upgraded PVA shock
1 x medium I spec, upgraded PVA shock
1 x large II spec

Golden Willow Sc:

1 x medium I spec, upgraded PVA shock

Edison Ltd:

1 x small II spec
1 x medium III spec
1 x large II
1 x large I spec

Supershuttle:

1 x medium II spec,
1 x large I spec, upgraded PVA shock & fork

Our demo bikes are low mileage but are often scuffed/scratched.
They have a 2 year frame & fork warranty and have been professionally maintained.
If you are interested in a demo bike frameset (frame, shock, fork, headset, stem, bars & button) we can probably help!

Please contact Bionicon UK for prices and further details if you are interested in a demo bike.
Mail: rogerseal@bionicon.com
Tel. 07966 102963

We’ve been trying to hook up with Mike from BikeMagic for ages….he only lives down the road!

Some projects take a little longer but are worth the wait.

http://www.bikemagic.com/news/article/mps/uan/6859