chinamtb 08

If you didn’t already know the 2008 Beijing Olympic games will be official opened today. I will do my best to keep you updated with the mountain bike and BMX results over the coming weeks plus any other interesting Olympic news. Luckily for me we are situated in Qingdao the Olympic sailing city, and have been fortunate enough to meet with Olympians from Australia, Italy, Israel, France and many others.

The picture above was taken last night just outside the Olympic Village in Qingdao and show the preparations for tonight’s opening celebrations.

Norco unveiled thier 09 line up a few weeks back and some crafty bugger managed to get a picture of this. It’s the 09 Norco Fallout complete with Hammerschmitt? Looks to me as this is what all the fuss is about and I’m really impressed by the neatness and shear size of it. I found more pics yesterday, but forgot to save them DOH! so only one….. for know. Keep posted!

10:30am

I’m not entirely sure what time the torch arrived, but luckily for you and me I was in the right place at the right time with my super zoom camera! I was under the impression the torch would come first in the procession, but I was wrong. The first thing to come along was the Coca-Cola float followed closely by the Samsung and Lenovo vans. Then the cheering really got started when the new torch bearer came along and stood practically in front of us. After a bit of posing the former bearer arrived and the torch was lit…. and that was that. I’ll post more pictures later.

8:30am

Still nothing much going on, however the crowds are here and the helicopters are flying low.

7:44am

You may ask why am I awake at this ungodly hour when I should be tucked up in bed dreaming of shiny bike parts. Well the reason is today is the day the Olympic torch and its bearer/s come to Qingdao. Luckily for me my home is a quick 30 second walk from the main route of the torch, however it also means I get to here the drums banging at 7am in preparation for the big event. I just had a quick look around (there’s not much to see). The main Hong Kong Rd which runs through Qingdao has been blocked off and is lined with brightly dressed Olympic volunteers (1000’s of them!) equally huge numbers of police are out and about, and there are a handful of vendors. I’m not entirely sure when the torch is due, and I doubt I’ll get to see it (there’s going to be huge! crowds) I may even take my bike for a ride, however if I am around and I have my camera I’ll get a pic.

For the past few years everyone has been drooling over all the shiny white components that have arrived on sale. Deity were one of the first to introduce white parts, but everyone followed suit (eventually). MacMahone came to the wedding a little late however, its only in the last few months that their white handle bars and seats have come to the market and were waiting on the rest. But being French and all they’ve decided to jump on the new ‘In’ color bandwagon ………. green. I think my brother is going to be happy as he can now get his Jackal to look like a lime and orange Tic Tac, but is green the new white? I’ll continue to wait for the industry to go full circle and offer everything in anodized purple again.

Check out the gallery below for some of the latest Macmahone parts and colors.

When buying new gears for your ‘rig’ (ha ha there you are Ash I said it) you have really one of two options…. don’t you? Shimano or the ‘Big S’ hailing from Japan, or Sram or as they say in China ‘S ram’ from sun bathed Cali. I’ve always liked to stay away from the mainstream so ever since I can remember I’ve always chosen what I considered to be the ‘Underdog’ option. Anyone remember Sachs wavy shifters? I had those, and my current ’sled’ (ha ha I did it again!!) has nothing from the ‘Big S’ on board. However now even Sram is pretty mainstream so I’ve been hankering over something unique. I already have two single speeds before you start, and a hub gear has been rattling around in my mind for some time. No, what I want is something people are going to look at and either say ‘Wow, thats pretty cool’ or for the uneducated ‘Why would you use a piece of sh1! like that?’.

Today I found this, the Driven range of top end bike parts from………. Sunrace!! If you’ve been in to cycling for a while you would have heard of Sunrace. Back in the day when everyone was starting out Shimano, Sunrace and Suntour were all pretty level pegged, however the other 2 S’s struggled to keep up, and are only just gaining momentum again.

The Driven range has been in development for sometime and consists of both mountain bike and road bike components. Everything from hubs, shifters and derailleurs have been designed and made of advanced materials such as carbon, ceramic and beautifully cnc’d aluminum.

The Driven mountain bike range comes in two flavours the NMX and NMZ (the X is presumably the higher of the two models as it has gold bits !).

RDMX - 9 Speed Mountain rear derailleur, All alloy construction, CNC alloy pulleys with sealed bearings, Alloy hangar bolt, Shimano compatible, Weight: 227g
FCMX - Mountain Crankset, 2 Piece External Bearing System BB, Sealed Bearing BB, Patented Fluid Drive shifting ramps, Shimano Compatible, Weight: 771g including BB

Keep posted for more pics and info on the rest of the Sunrace range, and something I find interesting from good old Sturmey Archer.

We’ll last weekend we got to the track and did a bit of work on the jump (as some arse had tried to destroy it). Then we spent 4 hours in the hot sun building our berm. We’re pretty impressed with the results (check the photos below) I just hope it survived the torrential rain this morning and Phil’s load-bearing cardboard does its job. Next weekend we’ll get some more done, probably a berm to the left right after this right hander as it’s pretty damn quick now!

The guys over in Hangzhou have been out and about again. This time at Yu Yang Hill, Suzhou. It seems they’ve found what we have always wanted a DH track in their backyard! With any luck we’ll be able to visit Hangzhou sometime and see what the riding is really like.

The Macmahone sword has always impressed us as a fine looking, lightweight and well handling hardtail. The geometry is set between race cross country and all mountain so great for getting your head down and riding up and not so scary when the going gets vertical! Just recently I was asked to find a frame for a single speed build that was light and had horizontal dropouts. I was so tempted to introduce the Sword, but didn’t as the dropouts were vertical.

Then this popped up in my inbox!! A single speed specific Macmahone Sword with built in chain tensioners! The new Sword SS is set for the 09 line up (so we should start seeing them soonish) and if it’s like its vertical dropout brother will be available in both aluminium and scary light scandium (we’re talking well under 4lbs here).

More info as it comes.