Okay so as most of you will of known i have been without a bike for the last couple of months. But last week i finally got hold of my new bike, It is a 08 Giant Glory with Fox 40′s up front and DHX 5 on the rear. I am very pleased with it so far, it is going to take some getting used to as it feels very different to the VP-Free.

So on Friday, James W, Jeffrey, Shane (who was borrowing James W spare Rocky Mountain Slayer) and Myself (James) went out to test it out. The weather looked very ominous but it just about held off all day, with the sun even making a brief but welcome appearance good old British weather After a long push up onto the top of Mono we found that it was very wet indeed making the top section very interesting sliding from rock to rock. So much so that we decided not to push up again, instead just to start from half way. As the bottom steeper parts are in much better shape. By this point the sun had disappeared and it was starting to get a bit chilly so we headed down off Mono in search of somewhere else to ride. We remembered the woodlands around Heatherdene so off we went.

We had a session riding the rock drop, with James W pulling some whips as you can see above. And after a blast around the woods we decided to call it a day.

09-01-17 Mono6ti+Heatherdene JI+JW+ST+JK, 25 Pictures by Jeff

Just finished watching the DH World Championships live on Freecaster, one word: DRAMA.
Josh Bryceland won in Junior Men 7.5 ahead of Sam Dale. Rachel Atherton took the win in Elite Women, by 12 seconds ahead of Sabrina Jonnier of France!
Then the mens, there had been a lot of talk about Fabien Barrel being very fast but intentionally seeding in 33rd place, it was suspected he thought it would rain later on. He came down what was a very steep and technical track to place 4 seconds ahead of the previous fastest rider. Peaty came down with +3 on Barrel, was this finally going to be his chance to win a much deserved World Championship having been 2nd three times before?
As Sam Hill, the favourite, came down he was flying, -5 seconds on the first split, then -6 on the split before the flat out motorway section. It seemed he’d easily beat Steve by a large margin, then on the last major corner his front wheel sides out and goes down, the man who never crashes had gone down!, losing his 6 second lead and the win! He got back on and crossed the line still only 0.5 of second slower than Steve. The next real competition for Steve was Greg Minear, but he was 2 seconds slower than Peaty.

At this point a Great Britain victory was assured with only Gee Atherton left on the hill. He’d seeded 1st, but Steve was 10 seconds up on his seeding time, he had a great run, finishing 2 seconds up on Steve, making it a double Atherton victory. Peaty had got his fourth 2nd place at a World Championships, bad news for the man that said 1st is all that matters to him.

A somewhat bitter sweet result, not only as Peaty didn’t get a World Championship win, but also Sam was on track to be 3 seconds faster than Gee’s wining time when he crashed. But that DH racing.
Is this the closest Steve will ever get to his elusive World Championship win? Will Sam’s crash erode his confidence and chances of winning races? and how much are the Athertons going to dominate the sport in the future?

The 4X is on later: http://freecaster.com/live/
Dan Atherton has broken his shoulder, so won’t be racing, removing the chance of an Atherton triple World Championship win.

Course length : 2250 m / 1.40 Mile

DH Men’s Seeding Results: (Full)
1. ATHERTON Gee GBR 3:24.81 Average Speed : 39.55 Kmh / 24.57 Mph
2. MINNAAR Greg RSA 3:28.52 +3.71
3. LEOV Justin NZL 3:29.95 +5.14
4. HILL Samuel AUS 3:32.32 +7.51
5. BLENKINSOP Samuel NZL 3:35.72 +10.91

DH Women’s Seeding Results: (Full)
1. ATHERTON Rachel GBR 4:05.72 Average Speed : 32.96 Kmh / 20.48 Mph
2. RAGOT Emmeline FRA 4:16.14 +10.42
3. JONNIER Sabrina FRA 4:22.16 +16.44

DH Men’s Final Results: (Full)
1. ATHERTON Gee GBR 3:12.12 Average Speed : 42.16 Kmh / 26.20 Mph
2. PEAT Steve GBR 3:14.74 +2.62
3. HILL Samuel AUS 3:15.27 +3.15
4. MINNAAR Greg RSA 3:17.34 +5.22
5. BAREL Fabien FRA 3:17.92 +5.80
6. LEOV Justin NZL 3:17.96 +5.84
7. PASCAL Mickael FRA 3:20.12 +8.00
8. CAMELLINI Julien FRA 3:21.31 +9.19
9. PEDEMANAUD Fabien FRA 3:21.46 +9.34
10. OULEGO MORENO Ivan ESP 3:26.86 + 14.74
…
14. FAIRCLOUGH Brendan GBR 3:29.06 + 16.94
26. CATHRO Ben GBR 3:33.74 + 21.62

DH Women’s Final Results: (Full)
1. ATHERTON Rachel GBR 3:03.60 54.02 3:49.92 Average Speed : 35.23 Kmh / 21.89 Mph
2. JONNIER Sabrina FRA 4:01.91 + 11.99
3. RAGOT Emmeline FRA 4:07.03 + 17.11
…
6. MOSELEY Tracy GBR 4:12.30 + 22.38

UCI All Results

Check out www.mtbcut.tv now for live DH, in pretty good quality too.

WOW Gee Atherton beat Sam Hill!, by 0.31sec. Rachel won the women’s DH, and Dan won the 4x apparently, so the Athertons are doing pretty well. If you missed it, it’ll probably be on www.mtbcut.tv later.

The showing of Seasons at Sheffield will also include Roam!, as they are both films about 35-40 minutes long, and there will be a short making of documentary in between.

We are also reliable informed that (HRH) Steve Peat will be making a personal appearance with some of his team mates and answering a few questions from the audience at the end of the showing, provided ‘things go to plan’.

Get them tickets booked!!!

As Nicky said we (Nicky, Shane and myself) have been looking into getting some custom monkeyspoon jerseys sorted. We have been looking for jerseys to get everything printed onto. And as the idea is that we get a good number of jerseys ordered so that everyone can have one, if they so wish. I thought it would be a good idea to put a poll together, so that we could vote what we thought the best jerseys were.

The idea is to get Monkeyspoon, Just sharing the ride across the front (two lines) and then a logo and maybe rider name across the back. However, this still has not been 100% decided so ideas are welcome.

Right these are the Jerseys we have selected;
1.Troy Lee L/S Moto Jersey ’08, details here. Obviously would have to rethink the front design but Troy Lee stuff always looks good.
2.Fox Attack, details here
3 Fox Attack L/S Black , details here
4 Fox Attack L/S White/Grey , details here

When voting please consider price as well as looks, would you be willing to pay that price. In addition, we still need to factor in the costs of printing, Both Josh and Nicky has been told about a place near Je James but as of yet we don’t know the price of printing. But before we order anything we will obviously get this sorted. If you have another ideas/thoughts please leave a comment below.

[poll=2]