GingaCal

The old carbon version might be better for freeriding than the new aluminum one anyway...

Vote for the Belltway trail at Launch Bike Park! Just 35 minutes outside of the city of Philadelphia, which has a surprisingly large amount of mountain bikers... It would be a massive hit!

Yeah Neko!

Brook for sure, pretty sure Neko will be back with them too. I think those two will have good seasons this year. Maybe Dennis Dertell too? Pretty sure he's a 23 degrees athlete and he wouldn't be too expensive to sign. As for the other two spots... It's not that likely, but it would be awesome to see the Hannah's with TWR... Either way, I think they'll sign a female rider. Martin knows that would help with the Team overall points

I think this could have been handled a bit more professionally from all parties. The way that specialized released the news was terrible... A 30 second cell phone quality video of Troy Brosnan picking Gwin on the pinkbike poll with no details at all for another three hours, is not the way to announce the signing of the most dominant rider in the world at the moment, especially when the whole biking community was under the impression that he was riding for TWR for another 3 years. Then, when the press release came out, there were no details at all as to how the deal came about which led to some negitivity toward their newly acquired rider. I think it would have been smart to hold off on the news until all of the crap between TWR and Gwin had been sorted out. Then, the 23 Degrees announcement... While on the team, Gwin was super professional and represented the sponsors so well. For 23 Degrees to turn around and publicly announce that they may peruse legal action on their most successful rider yet is childish. It also seems like they tried to low-ball him when the actual contract arrived. That's not how you treat someone who has brought the team 9 World Cup wins in the past 2 years with a 100% podium average. I'm not surprised that Gwin decided to leave if that was really the case. And lastly, Gwinny himself... I feel bad for him. He wasn't given the contract he was promised by TWR and I understand that must have been a huge slap in the face after his performance over the past 2 years, but an effort to contact 23 Degrees to sort it out would have been good. Either way, I hope Gwin kills it next year, and I hope that TWR can put together a solid team as well. Maybe this is a good opportunity for Brook McDonald to ride for a great team and find that consistancy he's been missing.

Claymore Challenge???

Pretty sure Neko had a big crash early in his run too. Not bad to end up 5th.

I know $3500 for a frame isn't cheap, but when you look at other frames in it's class (Specialized Demo Carbon and Trek Session 9.9, $4,000 - $4,400) it is a pretty good deal. Props to Santa Cruz for keeping it close to what similar aluminium frames are going for these days, and giving it a good warrantee.