Its been a bit topsy turvy lately, with things hitting us from leftfield here there and eveywhere. Firstly was the immensly sad passing of Willo, something which I know plays on my mind often, then computer failure rendered me silent. Galloping off to Torquay in the very early dawn to represent Ascend at the Otway Classic which turned out to be a great day, and now getting things sorted to pre-run the Nemesis Marathon Champs at Avoca on the weekend.

Photos are a bit lacking at the moment whilst we get this computer issue sorted out, but they're coming!

Its become more and more noticable the lack of daylight at the moment, so I've dragged my Nightlightning lightset out for the winter - how about a quick review

I'll have a full wrap of the Nemesis Marathon champs course for you over the weekend! Happy trails out there!!

James Williamson

Willo,

You will be missed by not only your close family and friends but also by the entire mountain bike community.

Thanks for the good times and memories!

Jason and Ash.

Headed out for a hoon on the Virtue this morning, without even giving the road bike a second glance. God I'm loving this thing!

I figure that there is a 'dawn patrol' in the surfing world, but that's really the only time we get to ride, so does that make us the dawn patrol too... Anyway, I bet its easier to put wax on a surfboard than it is to spray chain lube on whilst trying to wave enough to keep the sensor light on, and fend the dog off, whilst trying not to wake the wife as we live in a shed mid renovation. Regardless, its good to get out on the bike!! :)






Chasing the Hoff along the trails, we headed out towards Lysterfield, if only just to heckle Snozza, but also to go rail some great fun singletrack. About halfway out we were no longer wishing for carrot eyes, and it dawned just lover-ly! Some lucky people were even out enjoying it on the lake, floating around in kayaks which looked very nice indeed






The virtue was doing its thing with ease, I'd happily never go back to a hardtail. Everything it does, the bike bike just does it better. Even climbing, the usual bugbear of full sus, is fine requiring simply a change in technique and away we go! I'm absolutly loving it, and with yarra trails on thursday and lysterfield today, I think I just need a visit to the You Yang's and I'm an urban warrior :)

I'll put some pics up asap, just having to reinstall all the phone software. Jase just text to say he did all the hills around his place, about a million vertical, and I couldn't care how fit he's getting because I'm having too much fun on this bike!

Are you addicted?

Every rider must read this

Nemisis Marathon Challenge

It is just over four week to go. I think I may have to do alittle more of the above before race day.

You...?

Lookie at the kids out on the beach! The nice weather surely does draw 'em out! About a gazillion people out there, and sure enough, carbon met pavement...

Jase and Matt rolled down from the hills after a hazy, late evening organization for a stint of Beach road magic... Rolling out of bed a little tardy and clocking an impressive 8 minute transition, the boys were on the bikes and heading for the beach. Amidst a few bleary phone calls back and forth, we met up and tempo'd down to the beach, as chasing on was *not* an option!

About 9 million of our closest friends showed up as well, and was a 50km/h trundle down and around without too much worry, and I did a great job keeping an eye on the whole bunch from the rear, doing the yo-yo on the back with Cam Carlyle. And we both decided that the extra effort was worth at least one extra training session, so we banked it for a day when we can't be bothered riding :)

Big hardman Neil was rolling around, handing out wheels wherever he felt the urge, including asking Jason 'where he'd like to be for the sprint'. There's a reliable wheel, and sure enough delivery was prompt. Sadly, JJ was one smashed unit from staying out of trouble and nothing came of the hard work. Amusingly tho, Vic's finest seemed a little bit peeved towards the end of the ride and may have done something to disrupt people riding hard towards a roundabout (if you know what I mean) yet the sum total of their actions was a mess of broken bikes and people sitting on the road... And amazingly there must have been something important happening elsewhere as the uniformed people made themselves very scarce all of a sudden. There might have been some pretty upset skinny white guys ;)

Anyway, I got dropped off on the way home whilst the boys still had another hour of hills, so I'm sure they'll remember the k's in the bank when they are emptying the contents of their fridges into their necks...

Enjoy the day :)

Virtue versus Nemesis?

Blogging returns, hey maybe its not dead after all?? Felt Racing, back in the saddle

Last night I hopped on my hardtail to whip down and check out the new stuff thats going on at Westgate Park at the Full Gas Dirt Crits, and there is going to be some pretty sweet stuff going on down there let me say! Wall rides, berms, pump track and the list goes on, and for XC bikes no less. Parks Vic are coming to the party in a big way, now the mountain bikers just have to build it all.

Anyway, I digress. I always thought my hardtail was stiff as hell, and for some parts I was right. However, I some areas I was wrong. One of the key improvements is a stiffer front end on the Virtue one, and seeing as how I ride an XL, it is always going to be noticeable to me. From the moment I jumped on the gas in my street, I could feel how much softer the front end was in terms of flex. Yes, they are the old rubbish SID's on there, but even so, the lateral flex can definitely be felt! The Virtue however doesn't suffer from that to anywhere near the same amount! Happy days!

Naturally the revised rear linkages, sealed bearings, one piece carbon swing arm, grease ported needle bearings and the rest of the features add to a pretty neat and tidy bike, and with some judicious pruning by way of carbon accessories, its possible to get the weight right down on the bike too.

To be honest, I'm excited about riding the bike all day, and what better place to do it than at the National Marathon Champs at Avoca!? Cool things about this event? How about catering at feed stations, riding previously unridden walking trails, everything from 15km to 90km distance classes, and finishing on singletrack are all things that I'm looking forward to!

Rodeo hardmen?

To explain the title, Bronco riders are nutters... Forget the bullriders - they might get trampled on a bad run, but the Bronc riders get an a$$ kicking every time they step up! And thats the storm that hit Melbourne, coming our way!

But,

Buller was calling...

Its been a while between drinks, and it was high time to get out there once again. And what a weekend to not be in melbourne! One of the most severe storms of all time, with a fair bit of damage about the place. To say the sparky amongst us had his phone running hot would have been an understatement, but nothing too serious to stop us adventuring thankfully.

So, new bikes last week as you loyal readers would know and there was some last minute fettling to happen prior to our ride, setting up shock pressures and generally giving the bikes a final once over to see we hadn't missed anything, and we were on our way to a fun day of exploring the new trails on offer at Mt Buller.



Figuring that we'd be needing some climbing legs when we line up for the Nemesis Marathon champs in what feels like a few short weeks, we hit the road for the climb up to the mountain. Tapping away in the sunshine was a nice way to get back into things, and soon enough we were grinding our way through the final steel sections of the road, and meeting up with our riding buddies to go see what the fuss was about!

Everyone we've talked to has be raving about these new trails at MtBuller - to quote:

"Mt Buller's varied terrain and magnificent views combine to make it the ideal location for cross-country mountain biking. With an altitude that ranges from 400 metres to 1804 metres, and a variety of trails that stretch between Mt Buller and the neighbouring Mt Stirling, the High Country has plenty of trails to keep you entertained.

Check out the recently-constructed trails designed by internationally renowned mountain bike course designer Glen Jacobs and his team from World Trail. These include improvements in the Corn Hill area, new intermediate trails at One Tree Hill, as well as a link from the Village Circuit beginner trails to the downhill area at Spurs. They are designed to be low maintenance, sustainable and blend seamlessly with the alpine environment.

Using pedal power you can access the Resort's iconic landmarks and take in some of the most stunning sights of the alpine region including fields of wildflowers, forests of Snow Gums and Mountain Ash and the impressive view from the summit. Over 100 kilometres of quality trails stretch between Mt Buller, the neighbouring Mt Stirling and down into the Delatite and Howqua Valleys."

Sounds good in theory...! And in practice its even better!!! :)

We rolled around, found some favourites, realized how well designed the trails are to shed water so well and to neutralise the amount of climbing in such an enjoyable way, we couldn't get enough! A few hours more of riding some amazing singletrack, and we were starting to second guess ourselves with our top ten, if in fact we had gotten #1 wrong....?!

So what to do in a situation like this? Go and check if the #1 still should hold its status. Loading up the families, we headed over to the Klingsporn Trailhead and took a deep breath!

And let it out in really short puffs as we absolutely smashed our way down the best singletrack that we've ridden, period! There is nothing close to this in terms of a mountain bike singletrack. Tough, demanding, long, tricky at speed but achieveable when you turn down the dial, and so much damn fun!!!!! Rocks, roots, chutes, trees, views, wildlife, remoteness, hell it has it all for us!

Klingsporn retains the #1 title. For now...

Whilst this is a brief rundown on the day, hopefully we'll have a bit more of a write up on our Virtue 1's, the Panaracer Rampage tyres with Spex, and a bunch of other new products that we have to experiment with for the season. So be sure to check back as we prowl through the 240odd photos that we collected, and bring you some more as we can.

Cheers,

More to come tommorrow, be patient my pets ;)

Misty Twist

Over the weekend we may have found what we have been searching for.

LAS Helmet.

My new lid from Southcott. The LAS helmet has the important job of keeping the important parts of my body safe.

First ride down and all is well...

Felt Virtue One 2010

Click on the picture to enlarge the photo.

Sorry about the lack of pics, but I'm back at dialup speed for a few more days, so words will have to suffice.

And I'm pretty sure that this new Virtue is the best looking bike I've owned. And there is even a pearlescent fleck in the paint! Saweeeet! So quick run down - Fox shox are all pumped up and ready to be broken in. I'm curious to feel the difference in the new RP23 shock, with some valving tweaks, should be good! Forks feel stiff and bottomless!! The pressures from the factory were even pretty close, which is reasurring. Its not nice to have to stand there and pump away for hours, in the back of your mind praying something isn't wrong.

XT group went together well, brakes adjusted up easily, 180mm front rotor means BIG power, liking it!! Shift indicators - OFF. Swap around shifter and brakes for big hands, and on go the OzRidersGrips (white, why the hell not!) Hoses are to long as usual, but GVRaceTech will be able to handle it easy as you like! Wheels are straight and true, and weren't too hard to roll the Tubeless Panaracer Rampages over, and I didn't even spill too much Spex around the place. The cable routing is a bit how-ya-going, but a little bit of care, some well placed clear stickers and we'll be pretty for years.

The bar and stem combo is a little different to what I'm used to, but in the interests of testing, I'll give them a go for a while. The stem is longer, and flatter than usual, and the seat will be a fair departure from my usual ass-busting Flite's, but if you don't try things...!!

So now I'm just waiting for an opportunity to get it out on the trails...! C'mon weekend, c'mon!!!

And there is still another box of goodies to go through, so wander on by to see what else we'll be playing with.

We're back in the game!

Some pretty big boxes arrived overflowing with goodies yesterday to the building site that I call home at the moment. There'll be more to come over the next few days as we get these babies going, as they're getting a run on the weekend at one of our favourite ever trails!!

So thanks for stopping by and hopefully we can reward your loyalty soon! In the mean time, the rest of Melbournes bloggers have been back at it, so have a quick look through our links if you haven't recently and catch yourself up!

Cheers,