I have several photos and stories waiting in the sidelines to add to this blog, Kate/Jenny sunshine weekend, Paris trip, my brother visiting, Nicks stag do - the list is endless.
But the sun has been out for a while now and I've been enjoying my time away from t'internet.
However, this photo must leap the pack and make it on here by priority. It's the naked shots of my new baby:
Much love to Smith who has been going through the pain of ordering all the other parts I need and arranging the build. Plus Emma who has put up with my countless hours researching the parts I want.
I am considering custom building one of your fine BottleRockets as a treat for my impending 30th birthday. I currently live in the Netherlands but am considering the purchase during a vacation trip to Vancouver I have planned this summer to visit a friend in Whistler. Because of the limited knowledge of Transition bikes here in the Netherlands I would greatly appreciate some advice to help me build my perfect bike. Please excuse the long email!
About me, my riding style, current bike and reasons for choosing the Bottlerocket
I thought I'd give you a little of my background so you can tailor the advice for me. I have been riding all my life but for pure social adrenaline buzz rather than any competitive urges. My current bike is a 2004 Kona Coiler which I have beefed up to take more abuse that my riding style has evolved to. I'd prefer taking a charilift up and riding playful trails down enjoying trying new lines rather than getting to the bottom in the fastest possible time. I enjoy small jumps and medium drops but find it's my confidence rather than my skill that prevents me from progressing. My fear gets the better of me when I'm confronted with jumps that require high speed or gaps larger than 3m and the max drops I am attempting top out at 2m. I feel my current bike is a little heavy for the amount of travel it has plus I'd like to raise up the front end with some better quality 180mm forks but feel this may upset the rear of the bike. Therefore I'm in the market for a new frame and fork combo. I don't want an all out downhill monster as I'm often riding normal XC trails and want a dual ring up front. I'm attracted to the Bottlerocket for it's playful lightweight simple yet strong attitude to help me progress yet it has an all round appeal. Plus it includes my must haves of an uninterrupted seat tube for saddle height adjustment and double front ring capable.
Shocks
I have been a fan of single crown Marzo forks and am considering the 66 ATA's but I'm wondering if I am going overkill and would I be happy with the 55's instead? My rational behind choosing the 66 ATA's over the 55's is that I am more likely to ride downhill tracks with rock gardens than session dirt jumps. However, I am attracted by the ATA version so I can reduce the travel for cruising around urban style or XC rides. Would you be able to confirm the 66 ATA's are available in 1.5" steerer tube? If the frame accepts 1.5" then I want to make sure I get a 1.5" fork to feel the benefits.
As I understand the market leader for rear shocks is the Fox DHX. I think I would prefer the reduced weight benefits of the DHX Air but what are the other benefits to having a coil shock in case I am making the wrong decision?
Ultimately, for my riding style will the 66 ETA's be a good match for the DHX Air or should I be considering a Talas/DHX Air or a 66/Roco combination to have better matched ride?
Size
I had the pleasure of trying out a BottleRocket in the large size with some 160mm forks and the DHX coil at some local trails. At 5'10" I could immediately tell the reach was too long for me. However, from your size guide I am right in the middle of the small and medium recommended sizes. What would help me make the right decision? I very much doubt I'll ever performing flips or spins to need the benefit of a shorter wheelbase but I have the medium Kona Coiler and feel a shorter reach would be better. My 17" Coiler has the same effective top tube length as the medium Bottlerocket but an 80mm stem.
Paint Job
I recently read on your blog about DropN'Zone custom paint jobs and since I am going all out on this build I am also considering a custom paint job. How does a deep blood red sound?! I think it would go really well with a mix of white decals/forks/cables with a splash of gold parts. Is DropN'Zone the best quality place to arrange this or can you recommend anywhere else? Wherever I chose, are your coloured pivot caps readily available for order?
Other parts
My friend currently works in a Whistler Village Sports. Alebeit not a Transition dealer, but he can order from Norco distributed or Canada Outdoor Gear brands so I have quite the range of options to build my setup. I have a few questions about specific parts that I hope you can answer for me:
I will probably go for a set of Holzfeller OCT cranks or the 2009 Saints if I can get my hands on them before August. I understand the BB shell width should be 73mm but what length BB axle should I order to have room to fit an e13 DRS guide?
I presume the Chris King 1.5" fits but please confirm?
It looks like a top pull style front mech is required - please confirm?
Does the cable routing allow for cables to be attached by ties or do the brakes require disabling and threading?
What's the seat tube size? (for ordering the front mech)
When ordering just the frame will it come with a seat pin? QR is preffered
Ordering
If I don't go with a DropN'Zone build can I order direct from you and have delivered to Whistler?
Finally, I though it would be cool to visit Transition whilst I was out on my trip this summer. See where my bike was conceived, buy the designers/staff a crate of beers, pickup a T'shirt, maybe even shred some local trails with you guys if at all possible? (but being an old man now I might slow you down!)
Cheers and thanks for taking the time to read this rather long email :-)
As you can probably tell I am rather passionate about my next bike being the best for me. It's a little concerning that I will have to trust the parts I am choosing work well together, the custom paint shop does a good job and my friend organises a quality build without actually being there to oversee. I certainly don't want my 3 week trip to Vancouver to be spent mostly in the bike shop and not out on the trails! That is why I really appreciate your opinion to minimise the risks as much as possible. Thank you
Since Emma moved here she'd had to keep up with my biking addiction passion. We try to get out locally every week but at the weekends we've been further afield. Here's a few photos of one of our first trips since she arrived way back in February to the Filthy Trails.
On an earlier trip to the Filthy Trails, Giles, managed to snap the following shots of myself sporting my new helmet. Don't worry I know the sunglasses don't exactly make the helmet look the best but I have since purchased some goggles to look a more aggressive!
Next Month my friend Tanja will be running a Freeride Girls only workshop at the Filthy Trails which Emma will be attending. We managed to catch up with Tanja this Easter when we found a fantastically sunny gap in the persistent snow, hail and rain there is over here at the minute. Tanja has a short write up on her blog of the ride where she took the following excellent photos of myself.
All of my recent biking photos can be found here or viewed in slideshow format here
Just a quickie to say that although this weekend has been a quiet one, mainly due to a 6am Friday night out here, but I have still be out and about recently.
This week the weather has taken a turn for the worst. After 7 weeks of glorius sunshine, it's been a wet and windy week. However, that has meant the surf has been up. So I was out for a session in my kayak after work on Weds with a local club. I never thought I'd ever be able to say "Last night I went surfing" after moving to Amsterdam! Nowt special but enough for a bounce and a blunt plus I got a good backstab. The water was surprisingly warm so I'll be out again once the waves come back up. I've been missing the boating but for next year I've spotted a Corsica trip with the Europagaai guys or maybe I'll get lucky with a Grand Canyon lottery application if I can be bothered to follow the long registration process.
But I am loving the biking as of late. Last weekend I made a trip back to Winterberg and had a great time pushing myself. I didn't nail the wall like last time as it was a bit erroded. There was a gap between the top of the berm and the bottom of the wall which I didn't fancy negotiating!
However, I was much faster down the downhill and nailed a few lines I hadn't done before. I was also racing off the smaller drops so went to the freeride park to step it up a bit more. Remember these drops?
Well, this time I noticed there is a sign before them that states "Professional Riders Only". Not sure why it is in English but then perhaps it is ony the stupid English that bust themselves. So being the stupid Englishman that I am I decided to give them a go.
I naturally started at the bottom on the smallest drop but was soon to find that the run out slope was perfectly designed - it was smooth as. So I nailed the smallest one 3 times to get the confidence going then stepped up to the next size which had a slight downwards slant to it. This helped adding more speed to my nervous attempts. 3 goes at that one got my heart pumping and I was walking up and down the next size up trying to muster up some bottle.
A few skips on my shuffle found a suitable track and I attacked the head height drop with everything I had. Which wasn't quite enough, I landed less than perfect but survived to ride it out. Unhappy with my attempt I gave it some more wellie and hucked another go. Much better. To prove that wasn't just luck I gave it a third go and was stoked with another clean line. No pics or video of me but here's a guy from the last time I went:
I knew that was my limit for that day. The 4th drop is a good couple of feet higher and I think it will take some abusive friends wanting to see me crash to get me fired up for that one. But I'm not ruling it out for the future...
We may all be getting older and with the thirties around the corner it's a nice feeling that I can still scare myself but then push myself to overcome those fears in order to progress.
Well 3 day week this week at work and I have a Weds evening ferry booked to get me back to the UK to see Emma for a long weekend. It can't come quick enough plus I also get to pick up my new toy :-)
So as shown in my last post I went biking last weekend. A Dutch rider, Tanja, left me a comment on this blog after I posted about Megavalanche and I emailed her asking where to go ride anything other than flat cycle paths here in the Netherlands. The short answer was to join her in a trip to the nearest bike park with a chair lift in Germany called Winterberg - just 3.5hrs drive away.
It was cracking weather and I had an awesome time. Tanja showed me around and generally proved a fun challenge to keep up with. She's sponsored by a local shop in the Netherlands so had all the gear including a brand spanking new Switch. It was great to follow her line and get a few tips about better cornering. I avoided some of the gnarlier lines she took but wasn't too far behind in the long run. I think she was holding back though, recovering from a dislocated shoulder last October!
There's one 2 man chairlift and basically 4 defined tracks down. 1 dedicated downhill track, 1 north shore run, a fun run and a 6X track. The 6X ended with a freeride park and joined either the fun run or the north shore run to the bottom. There was also a separate dirt jump section but I never made it over there.
The 6X was nuts but ridable. Full credit to anyone who completely clears the tabletops, let alone amongst 5 other people. I was tanking it and still only made it over halfway! Below is a little helmet cam footage of the 6X:
The downhill was what I rode the most, there were some tough drops on it, a harsh rock garden section and a steep slippy tree section. I rode this track a good few times and kept adding a new drop to each run but there were still 3 or 4 drops and 2 doubles where I took the chicken run instead. Something to improve on next time :-)
The north shore was tough, I only rode this a couple of times because I had to walk a fair bit! Although I did take on some drops larger than my comfort zone and I also rode a seesaw. At first I thought the seesaw was a drop so hit it too fast and pulled up on the bars to take off but as my back wheel dropped with the seesaw I manualled off the plank. Probably looked quite cool but scared the hell out of me and I nearly binned it.
The fun run was exactly that - fun. Just like one track I rode with the lads in Morzine, nearer the Les Gets side. Berm after berm after berm with the odd jump thrown in - fantastic. Here is some more helmet cam footage and I'm the guy in red right in front of the camera:
Later, I stopped to take a few shots in the freeride park. I've created animated GIFs of the best sequences shown below but Blogger is not showing them animated so click on the photos to show them animated on their own. Here's a sweet line one guy took:
Here's one wall ride:
Then Tanja showed me how to style it:
I had a go at that wall and that's how I got the photo on the previous post. But there was a bigger wall:
And a HUGE fun box:
The drops at the top of the run were pretty crazy too:
Here's a little helmet cam action of the whole freeride park including the comedy wonky bridge thing at the end:
In browsing You Tube I also found this video from someone that gives a good overview of the whole place:
So thanks to Tanja and friends for a great session. I'll be back for sure and here's all the photos:
Wow! What a fantastic weekend. I'll write more when I have some energy but I couldn't resist immediately adding my new favourite photo of me taken earlier today :-)
I love riding my bike, but I've never entered a race. Why? Well I don't see the need to race against the clock. But I'm always racing against my buddies when out on the trail. That's why the Megavalanche caught my eye in a magazine recently.
700+ riders on a mass start at the snowy top of a mountain all the way down for about an hour to the finish line. I found the following pictures of last years event and I'm really keen on going this July if I can convince anyone crazy enough to go with me!
