Gear updates

A few random shots, and some thoughts to accompany it.

My latest Point One Racing Podium Pedals are still going strong. Sure its lost some pins here and there, but overall they have been doing great since mid-2011. Perhaps I was unlucky with my former set.

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I did a very positive review of the Fox Launch Pad Pro some time ago. But after a year of use they started to annoy my skin, just above the knee actually - its the red stuff on the pic.

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The annoyance resulted in the purchase of the 661 2012 EVO Knee. Relatively expensive, but you get that 661-knee-comfort, that few players match. These pads has their cons and pros, but overall im positively surprised, there is a big BUT however. I will do a full review shortly and let you know what im talking about.

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New shoes from FiveTen, its the FreeRider PRO. The Pro model adds a hardened toe box, and an ankle support. The ventilation has once again been improved, and  the weight has gone down as well, about 80 grams, FiveTen is obviosly very keen on improving their most popular shoe - good job guys.

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So its been more than an year of ONE riding. Still a great bike, that I really enjoy to ride. The low BB took some time to get used to, but today its something I enjoy, and its definitely a charming side of the bike

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How to (almost) destroy a camera.

So there is a story to this clip. On the first day of our roadtrip we wanted to shoot some rockgarden footage with my high-speed cam. And so we did, from several angles, all was good and dandy - so we started to experiment some more - with camera placement in particular.

I asked Christian to to ride past this stone field, with close proximity to the camera. He did so, what he didn't tell me was that he decided to block his rear wheel to "make stones fly". So there he went, blocking his rear wheel, kicking up stones, some of them where pretty big, like in hand-size big, and just as he did so, I saw them coming full force in the direction of the camera, I remember thinking; "There goes my cam".

For some lucky reason the stone missed. The camera was a inch from destruction, but hey, they footage turned out sweet. Watch the stone at 22 sec.

Roadtrip R us

We packed our stuff, and went south. The plan was to ride some AM and DH for the 3 days we where away. Day 1 was all about the AM, but we got ourself into an awesome local DH-line , and we ended sessioning that alot. Day 2 and 3 was spent in Braunlage Bikepark. The weather was amazing, and we had such a fun time there. We shot a few (not many) pics:

Christian trying to spot the best line. The AM trail we rode was challenging, so much so that we actually had to walk past a few technical spots - as we deemed them unridable (this day). And that's something I usually NEVER do, I rather prefer a fight to the death, than walking away - tail between the legs.. Fun fact; the stuff wee rode this day far surpassed the tech stuff in the bikepark. 
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AM-setup. Dual ply tires, and coil out back. Btw im not taking a dump here, Christian is cracking me up by asking me to do a better am-pose.

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Rubbing elbows with...trees.

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Breakfast when its at its best. The redbull is not mine tho' - thats taking it a tad too far ; )

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DH-setup. Boxxer up front, 40mm stem, and no adjustable seatpost. 15.89kg, or 34.96 lbs btw. Note the Mavic Crossmax SX wheels. I wanted to stress-test them in a bikepark on the DH and FR lines - they did great, so look forward to a concluding review soon.

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The cue to braunlage bikepark. This place is getting better and better every year, and people has started to notice.

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Felt a bit XC'ish

Several hours away from home, new lines, new territory, what is there not to like? I had the opportunity to be a bit more XC'ish, and took upon the challenge..sorta.

So without mentioning actual trail names;

Another day of sharing a hotel room - with your bike.

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Sweepy trails near the sea is not that uncommon to me, what is new to me are the trails itself.

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Pulling a little fun out of the xc trail

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Another place I had a go on my bike, was this huge forrest, lots of climbs and descends, and good variation as well. The xc trails where very varying in quality; both good and bad trail work was apparent. 

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Besides sporting alot of animals..

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...there was the occasional roadgap. Its actually a DH line (well more like a FR line), it was pretty apparent thats this particular line has had a solid thought process behind it - and I salute that.

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Raw vid, of a "Your Mom" session

Good times, background stuff here.

Watch HD version here.

33sec, raw edit.

Chicks dig scars - not bruises

Apparently I'm doing it wrong

Look at it, looking all guilty and stuff..

Sessioning "Your Mom"

Met up with Henning the other day, the plan was to do an all day ride of various stuff and trails. Then we hit "your mom" and couldn't leave the short trail section. In fact we sessioned it for 4 hours! And fun it was : ) Total riding time for this day was around the 6 hours mark, great weather, great company, its aaalll good. We shot some pics as well.

Henning giving "The One" a go.

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About to land the table

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Discussing technique. We actually forgot all about the cam, as it recorded. Watching all the big hand gestures made us laugh : ) 

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Nuff talking..

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6 clicks of slow

Anyone who's been on any of my bikes, know that I like my frontal rebound fast. It works great on the trails I primarily ride (smooth + flow), and the fast rebound makes the bike more playful. 

So this other day we where dicking around a rockgarden on a trail I usually don't ride, when one of my riding buddies questioned my fast rebound, and opted for a slower rebound setting for the rockgarden to keep the tire more glued to the ground. I though, well why not give it a go. We set up my high speed camera, and began testing, this is what we found:

"Normal" rebound setting, rockgarden test. 240 fps:

6 clicks slower rebound setting, rockgarden test. 240 fps:

Conclusion;

Well, from what I observe, the slower rebound doesn't make me any faster on this 15m rockgarden section. It does however look like its stabilizing me a bit more, and that's good. I need to do some more testing, and iron out some of the variants out of the equation. I want to test this as accurate and objective as possible - for the fun of it - perhaps I could use some of this data to setup my Boxxer fork a bit better. Stay tuned.

Do you spot or see something I don't? Got some Yoda knowledge to share? Then drop a comment in the comments section below - it does not require a log-in.

3 days of spring riding - Day 3

Day 3.

Thomas joining up for this sunny day. Always in a good mood, and just a joy to session with. Here you see him on a Speccy Enduro with a coil in the back.

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Air sprung bikes can fly as well ; )

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Janus on the booster drop.

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"Your Mom" rip

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A well deserved post-ride beer. I have to admit I was getting a bit tired mentally, its been my fifth day of riding in a row. Still, its a privilege.

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3 days of spring riding - Day 2

Day 2 opened up for some trail rip. Nice to loosen up a bit, and play around with gravity. Allthough there was quite a bit of sessioning, there was indeed alot of pedal mashing as well. Good balance between the two.

Grabbing some air on "Your mom".
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Janus dicking around some technical stuff, It took some tries with this particular section, but he finally nailed it.

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Christían joining in on the fun.
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We have been trying to get a good pic of this drop for ages. It isnt big, 1.5m at best I guess, but its good fun, great transition too.

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Another angle, Janus spinning it.

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3 days of spring riding - Day 1

A mtb buddy of mine dropped by for a few days of rockin', it resulted in more than 15 hours of effective trail time during the 3 days he was here. It was good fun as well. Day 1 was all about trail and xc - while im not particular passionate about that kind of riding, I still enjoy it from time to time. Think the guys had a good time as well, weather was a w e s o m e .

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Janus improvising on his Specialized Stumpjumper FSR.

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Christian joined up, and taught us how to do stuff.

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Harz mountains - panorama shots

Panorama pics. Mostly of the spots are mentioned in the post below.

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Best climb of the day ; )

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6 cool riding spots - I didn't know about..

... in the Harz Mountains. Took a trip to the Harz mountains to seek out some new riding spots. I wanted to find something challenging, fresh, fun, and in the All Mountain category. I bought all the maps I possibly could, and started doing some research. I decided to concentrate my search in the EAST Harz mountains. NO ONE that I know of has been riding there, as its always about  the west-Harz - usually leaving the east-harz out of the radar.

So, took my map, did some study on the topography, located the rock-icons on the map, and just packed my stuff and took off into the mountains. Here comes 6 different spots that I found during my 3 days of trail-spotting(without mentioning the actual trail names)

This spot had a massive potential for AM, hell, even devilish DH. No real lines, but it wasn't hard to visual lines upon lines on this mountain top. Bring the fullface helmet..

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This trail was leading up and down along a 300m deep canyon, some sections where easy, some hard, others just beautiful. Great blend of AM and trail.

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I stumbled upon this spot by pure luck. I bet no bike has ever ridden this place, and what a shame, this ultra lushness coupled with huge rocks reminded me a bit about the Whistler area. Great sessioning spot with FR potential as some of these rocks where as big as a van.

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This rockgarden continued down a mountain for more than 2 km. EVIL!

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Something ive never seen in the Harz mountain; Slick rocks. Somewhat small area, but with lots of potential for some technical sessioning. 

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Unridden equals untamed. Sharp and pointy rocks everywhere on this mountain descend.

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