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Blog:

Ever wondered what we get up to when we’re not “the guy at the bike shop”? We do have lives… This is where we will post general stuff that’s going on, like races, places to ride, places to go, people we met. We’ll post articles and pictures, and give you a place to leave your comments as well, or even your races and rides.

Testing Weekend!!
Added by Conrad Davies 07 December 2009

No racing! Which sucked big time. I think the combo of no sun for a week and the fact that they canceled a race that I was so looking forward to, just made me so depressed, but there was an up side to the weekend. With no race on Sunday, I took my new XC bike for a spin. The Kona Kula Scandium frame in 20inch is awesome.

I took it down trough Giba on my usual loop, and while it doesn’t track anything like the Shova, it was well cool. The build kit is straight off my Shove, so a little on the heavy side for an XC race machine. The Sun SOS wheels are around 2.3kg and a Fox TALAS 36 is just slight over kill. The thing that stood out for me was the awesome acceleration, the bike just doesn’t ride like any other hard tail I’ve ever ridden. While the back end doesn’t squat like a full susser, it still hooks up really well. It’s kind of like the rear triangle flexes just enough, in the right direction to develop grip.

I also tried out a set of Intense System 2s. Legendary! The tire work amazingly well in the wet and even in real muddy stuff. The thing that amazed me most of all was how well they shed mud. They just don’t hold on to mud and hook up in just about any condition.

Tire sealant has been a contentious issue in the store of late. Some Intense tire blew out with Ultra Seal in them. I have been running a set of System 4s on the Shova for about 7 months now with no problem. We use Joe’s Sealant in the shop and it contains traces of ammonia, is no where close to as aggressive as Stans. So far so go on the System 2s, I bounced off a few big rocks on Saturday and had no problems. I’ll give it a week of riding and them let you know what the inside of the tire looks like.

Sunday was DH practice again and I was super tired, but had great fun in the mud, with some Intense Spikes on. The Morewood Izimu is on rails at the moment and magic fun to ride. I just slowed the rebound down a bit for the wet and that was it. The bike is amazing fun to ride. Wish I could spend every day just riding DH for a few hours.