New BMC teamelite hardtail spotted

Julien Absalon won the World Championships on a full suspension but at the last race he have done this year he’s riding hardtail again. But a new one.

This is how the frame looked before, BMC teamelite:

And here is a couple of pictures of him and his new frame:

Flat chainstay instead of going up at the back, a bigger carbon seattube at the bottom and just one top tube that gets bigger instead of being split in the connection with the seattube. That’s the changes I can see. There may be something special under the boots covering a bit of the seatstay and seattube too, anyone know?

mtb=Zipp, road=Maserati

It starts to get unusual to find a special bike. Everyone has everything and very few tune their bike old school style. There seems to be an solution to buy for everything. But putting Zipp wheels on a mtb, that’s not so common:

Really cool. High profile on mtb is cool, like my friends Gipiemme he had on his Merida some years ago. I’ve been thinking of the opposite to glue roadtires on a mtbrim but the tires didn’t fit to my AX-Lightness rims I had then.

Another cool bike is this Colnago EPS stripped from paint and painted in Maserati blue and made for Campagnolo Eps. Like made for each other with Colnago EPS and Campagnolo EPS 🙂 7030g:

Trenduro!

Enduro is the hype, everyone talks about single chainring in front, Pike forks and a lot of damping. I changed my SuperX with a Specialized Enduro Elite 29er today and rocked the forest with some friends.

Roots, rocks, mud and a lot of water makes a big bike useful. Martin said to me once that I should lift my front wheel a bit for the coming drop. Followed him and did like he said but thought it just would be a drop, not a hole and big stone first so my heart got a bit further up but made it 😉 When you just can ride and the bike handles the rest it’s a lot more simpler than have to doing everything yourself and plan.

Great ride without pictures. Would have liked to see a video when we took a shortcut. Been riding around the place on Le Peloton with my cx but with an endurobike you can drop in and take a shortcut. Dropped down but wasn’t ready for the landing on a wet rock sliding sideways and the bike went all ways. Think I had time to think twice how to crash but stayed upright all the way. Sketchy 😉

Awesome ride with good people and really nice trails. Movescount

A guy that didn’t have an endurobike today is Julien Absalon. He crashed hard and broke a collarbone racing cx:

2015 XC teams 1 gone

Giant is stopping their XC Team! One of the biggest bike manufactures in the World are not in the best bike sport. If they quit LIV too they are stupid. Ranked 1st with Neff, 6th with Wloczszowska and 18th with Ferrand Prevot.

But the sadest thing is with the men. Fabian Giger ranked number 3 and Emil Lindgren 9th, Heyden U23 World Champion! That’s what I call a top team. Giger seems to have found a new team, Lindgren doesn’t 😦

Looking at the ranking Women elite got many different teams, looking at men it looks like this:

1. BMC

2. Scott

3. Giant (gone)

4. Trek

5. Cannondale

6. BMC

7. Merida

8. Cannondale

9. Giant (gone)

10. Stöckli

11. Giant (gone)

12. BH

13. Trek

14. Scott

15. BH

16. Merida

17. BMC

18. Bh

19. Cannondale (for 2015)

20. MMR

Missing here is Specialized! Best rider from them is Yamamoto at 26th, they should sign a fast rider like Matthias Wengelin and get up in the ranking.

Another team missing is Bianchi with Gerhard Kerschbaumer that rode really good in the end of the season.

So the big question is: Which team should sign Emil Lindgren???

Summary of the XC World Cup 2014

Makes me wish that 2015 soon is here 😀

South Bohemia Tour and XCO Worlds

Reidar Borgersen in leaders jersey today (and tomorrow) had a great Team Joker working for him today.

Not a stage win but was in front in the hard end and is still leading with 12sec. Last stage tomorrow and I really looking forward to it 🙂

While it seemed to be great World Championship for some and really bad for some in Hafjell today. Didn’t see it but will see the replay when I come home.

Women elite:
1 Catharine Pendrel – Canada
2 Irina Kalentieva – Russia
3 Lea Davison – USA

Really happy with the podium in Men Elite. I like Absalon and great to see Fontana nailing it. And Fumic 5th

1 Julien Absalom – France
2 Nino Schurter – Switzerland
3 Marco Aurelio Fontana – Italy

World Cup XCO Nove Mesto Na Morave

Really exciting World Cup racing yesterday. Seems like you never know who will win the womens race and was true yesterday. Pauline Ferrand Prevot showed everyone how to ride, LIV Pro XC Team is good to dominate a race. When will Maja Wloszczowska win?

And the resultlist:

In the mens race it was more like usual. Nino Schurter showed skills but instead of racing his hardtail Scale 700 he now used his full Suspension Spark 700 instead. First win with a full suspension bike and first time a full suspension 27,5″ bike win’s a world cup?

1. Nino Schurter – Scott Racing

2. Stéphane Tempier – BH-Suntour

3. Moritz Milatz – BMC Racing

4. Daniel McConnell – Trek Factory

5. Julien Absalon – BMC Racing

UCI preview of XCO World Cup 2014

European XCO Championship

A video from the weekends European Championship in Bern. Men Elite:

Women Elite:

Rémy Absalon in La Bresse

Enduro race in La Bresse this weekend and what suits better than watching some nice video with the local star Rémy Absalon: