March 2016: Good Month or Bad Month
Drivetrain and Gearing Options
SRAM Debuts 12-speed Group, OneUp Shows Off Wide-Range Cassette Conversion
SRAM Debuts 12-speed Group, OneUp Shows Off Wide-Range Cassette Conversion
Is having twelve cogs better than having eleven? And should you consider a 10 - 50-tooth spread 11-speed cassette? Neither option may be for you, but SRAM's 12-speed Eagle drivetrain and OneUp's combination of a 50-tooth Shark Cog with a 10-tooth small cog (and the required MiniDriver) means that there are more drivetrain options than ever before. Long gone are the days when you were locked into an 11 - 32 spread cassette and a triple crankset, with riders now being able to pick and choose their drivetrain components as they see fit, or as their budget demands. Still running 10-speed? Yes, there are plenty of relatively inexpensive parts to pick from, and a boatload of aftermarket pie plate-sized cogs to add to your 10-speed cassette if you want some extra range.
While it's easy to pooh-pooh the latest drivetrain developments, the bottom line is that riders now have more to choose from than ever before, and that's a good thing.
Race Fans
The Winter Doldrums Are Behind Us
The Winter Doldrums Are Behind Us
Rejoice, fans of mountain bike racing, because the long, dark winter of boringness is finally behind us. The past few weeks have seen both the Enduro World Series kick off in Chile and the Oceania Championships take place in New Zealand. And with his win in Chile, Yeti's Richie Rude showed that he obviously hasn't spent all of the off-season celebrating last year's overall EWS championship, but rather training hard for another year of long days and varied courses spread all around the world. The season is far too long and hard to call him a shoe-in for another overall when there are guys like Nico, Graves, Clementz and a handful of others on his heels, but you'd also be silly to say he couldn't pull it off. In the women's field, Cecile Ravanel made the most of her time in Chile, but Anneke Beerten and Isabeau Courdurier rounded a podium that we'll likely see a few more times in 2016.
Semenuk's Decade with Trek
A Decade of Dominance
A Decade of Dominance
Time sure flies when you're having fun, doesn't it? Brandon Semenuk has spent the last decade riding for Trek, a length of time that can see other riders and racers bouncing around between countless companies and teams. Trek obviously know they have a good thing going and have made sure Brandon wants to stay put, and you can bet your last penny that Brandon wouldn't keep riding for Trek if they weren't making bikes that he enjoyed being on. It's an arrangement that obviously works well, and it's also one that has helped Semenuk become the slope rider to watch over the past few years. The Canadian is now at the point where he doesn't need to attend certain competitions if he doesn't feel they make sense for him, preferring instead to pick and choose his battles while also filming jaw-dropping video parts that we'll still be in awe of years from now.
Much like how you think of Rocky Mountain when you hear the name Wade Simmons, I suspect that Trek will come to mind when Semenuk's name pops up another decade from now.
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Cancer
Anne-Caroline Wins Against Cancer
Anne-Caroline Wins Against Cancer
The March 24th announcement by Anne-Caroline Chausson that she has thankfully won her battle against ovarian cancer was a shock to many of us, not just because she opted to keep her battle private until now - that is completely understandable - but rather because we can forget how the stars of our sport are just people like us, including the winningest racer of all time. Anne-Caroline learned of her cancer after leaving the Samoens Enduro World Series round in mid-July, and after having won an EWS at the start of the season despite feeling more fatigued than she said she usually would. She has since had three surgeries (including one for a collapsed lung) and chemotherapy treatment over the past seven months.
''Everything that could have been affected by the bad cells was removed,'' Anne-Caroline explained. ''Today, we can't say I'm healed because cancer is complicated. But everything was done so that it goes well. Above all, it was treated in time and hit nothing else.'' Chausson's goal is to return to racing, which she will certainly do, and there's a good chance that a return to winning will go along with that. Regardless of racing, however, the only result that really matters is that Anne-Caroline has beaten cancer.
Other Slope Competitors
Bezanson Planning to Compete at Crankworx
Bezanson Planning to Compete at Crankworx
Drew Bezanson, the BMX rider of Uncontainable video fame and crusher of all things 20'', announced in early March that he plans to compete in slopestyle, and specifically the Red Bull Joyride at Crankworx Whistler. This is good news for fans like us who are looking forward to what one of the best BMX riders in the world can do on larger wheels and with a bit of suspension travel, but it might not be what his fellow competitors wanted to hear. Sure, Bezanson might raise the bar and push slope riders to new heights, which they'll come out and say is a good thing (these comps always look like friendly affairs where the riders are pushing each other) but I'll also bet that more than a few riders will be one place lower down on the results sheet than they'd prefer.
Bezanson will try to qualify for Crankworx Les Gets by competing at the Swatch Rocket Air comp in late April. A win at Les Gets would qualify him directly for Crankworx Whistler, but if that doesn't happen, he'll have another go at the Colorado Freeride Festival in late July.
Macduff's 40ft Loop Attempt
Out of the Loop
Out of the Loop
Dirt bikes, BMX bikes, skateboards, mountain bikes, and anything with wheels on it, even full-sized trucks, have all made the trip up and around a loop, but Matt Macduff's plan to do a forty-foot tall loop on his mountain bike sounded a bit crazy when he started talking about it earlier in the year. Forty-feet is a lot of feet, even for a dude like Macduff who isn't exactly known as the kind of guy who backs down from things. And while it would be easy to see some riders talking about such a stunt but never putting it all together, Macduff isn't that kind of guy either.
Instead, he and his team built the forty-foot tall loop in South Africa, and he attempted it, just like most of us expected him to.
Instead, he and his team built the forty-foot tall loop in South Africa, and he attempted it, just like most of us expected him to.
It doesn't go as planned, though, with Macduff exiting the loop at its highest point and falling forty feet to the ground. A broken ankle and wrist were the relatively small penalties for an accident that could have cost him much more than some unplanned downtime. Will he be back to try it again? I expect so.
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-Beating cancer? Definite plus.
-Bezanson? The man rips on a bike. How ever well he does in contests, the best will continue to rise.
-McDuff? Continuing to push the limits and spreading good cheer? Yes a broken ankle and wrist is a bummer but that's a very acceptable outcome in my books, considering what could have happened.
Maybe I'm just a half glass full kind of guy, if I'd say March was a good month!
-It's a bad month *for Cancer* because Cancer Lost
-It's a bad month *for other competitors* because a great BMX rider is going to try competing
-It's a bad month *for the loop attempt* because it didn't happen
Maybe a bit of a failed attempt to creative riding? Would have been appreciated if it wouldn't have been done with something as serious as cancer. That's not something to be joking about. Bit disrespectful even though not intended so.
Cancer sucks, we all know this, but let's not get on our high horses about what was a 'f*ck you' to cancer basically.
Hat's off to One up for making something useful, but sram? Lets call it what it is, neither a good month or a bad month and leave it out.
Holy shit. Heal up ya crazy c*nt!
less is more in my opinion and if yall did more riding you wouldn't need these crazy mega-range cassettes. I mean for real, they look like the mega-range freewheels that come on kids 20" and 24" wheeled mtbs. It makes sense for the kids since they dont have the strength to turn those cranks sometimes but you grown up weak ass adults should be embarrassed running those inefficient monster cogs.
www.the-rise.com/2016/03/matt-macduff-40-ft-loop-crash.html