All Mountain Road Trip - Day 1/3

Drea and I went on a 3 day roadtrip to the German mountain area Harz. It ended up with some pretty heavy technical stuff, 2 different bikeparks and a whole lot of punctures. 

So what we wanted on day 1, was to ride technical stuff. A bit of up, and a bit of down. We decided to hit a local DH spot as well. We started out on a classic line; Magdeburgerweg (you guys should youtube that), its a line riddled with rocks, and has some serious technical chokepoints. After that we did some climbing, before hitting the Butterstieg DH line. Anyway, let me just show some pics and the setups;

We needed a setup that could go up, but at the same time be fun in a bikepark, this is what we brought for our trip;

Drea brought his new bike. A 13,1kg (28.8 pound) Banshee Spitfire 2. A 140mm 650b bike, that's slack and low, the setup is tubeless and kept aggressive with a short 50mm stem. It has the new Pike fork, the Fox Float X rear shock, ENVE hoops, a XX1 drivetrain, a Reverb dropperpost,  pretty much as tricked out as a setup can be..

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..and that makes my bike look a bit dated in comparison. This is my standard setup except the Schwalbe Muddy Mary DH tires in the front - a wise choice as I found out, but man did I wish I had installed a 50mm stem, and a tubeless setup. 14ish kilos (31+ pounds)
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Drea hitting the Butterstieg DH line. Its a relatively unknown line for outsiders, primarily used by locals. This has kept the track from being worn out by "Joey". Expect big sharp rocks, and layers of big roots. An awesome line. A tubeless setup is recommended....

Technical climbing is something I really enjoy to do. I love a good challenge, and that's exactly what we got on top of this particular mountain. This is not a mtb trail, this is a hiking trail. Big difference.

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I sure was doing alot of this tho'. I think I had 4-5 punctures this day. Here I've actually punctured my front AND back, all on Butterstieg DH. Wasted trailtime *facepalm*.

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Day 2 went to a brand new bikepark in Harz. Would it be crap, or is this a park that has learned something from the rest? Find out on my "Day-2" coverage.