Solid-Reverse Racing Team in Malaga

My first encounter with Peter Schmid; the founder of Solid Bikes, is more than twelve years ago. He was the manager of the best German Bike Park and I needed to replace some parts for my race run. We kept in touch since in a more or less friendly but casual way until I met the Solid National Race team end of November 2014 in Finale Ligure. I was chasing the sun and did some proper trail surfing, never the less, I was doing what I called my life – riding bikes. As we shared our stories and passion for riding, it became obvious that we would stay in contact for the future. As time went by, I found myself in a remote town in the heart of the Black Forest in Germany, where Solid Bikes are based. Nowadays I call the guys from Solid ‘my family’ and we enjoy every single day working together at the office.

Peter and his wife, Heike have built the heart and soul of a lovely and quality driven company. He is also the team manager of the Solid-Reverse Factory Racing Team, with former world champion, Morgane Charre. To work for Solid Bikes is great, but sometimes it gets even better. My alarm got me out of bed at 3:00am to commute to Malaga. The whole Solid Family was going for a pre-season preparation camp to the very south of Spain. I was more than happy for the opportunity to ride with our new UCI Racing Team and to ride with a world champion. Not to mention hot sandy trails instead of minus 7 degrees and snow, even though a ten hour journey was still ahead of us.


It was busy checking in eight bikes at the airport and the airline staff got a bit confused at first to such an odd ratio of people to bikes. An hour and two coffees later we finally reached our plane just in time for boarding.



The British lads and team riders, Harry Molloy and Josh Lowe joined us in Malaga at the airport. These two relaxed mates were quite content lounging around in the sun for an hour or so before helping to carry the stuff to the shuttles. The team gathering was complete as Morgane Charre arrived shortly after the boys. Only Stefan Garlicki could not join our camp as he had an important race in South Africa. He managed to hold up the pace all weekend and was rewarded with his first win of the season.


Being in Malaga is always a pleasure especially if your host is Michael Saunders. Michael told us in advance that we might be surprised by the tracks he and his Switchbacks guides had in store for us… but he didn’t tell us how great our accommodation would be. Villa Elisa was our palace for the next ten days – a stunning red villa with plenty of charisma, comfort and space. It was definitely a welcome surprise for us. All our team riders were blown away by the property. The pool obviously needed to be checked straight away, with breathtaking water temperatures of 8 degrees. Harry seemed to be the only one who had no problem with this. He must have been kidding as he referred to it as “a perfect English swimming pool” – legend!


Harry is that type of guy who has a permanent grin on his face, which made it easy for us to work with him, especially with all the extensive testing we had come to do; geometry refinements were just one thing from a list of many. The trails in Malaga demanded some different skill sets and it provided perfect conditions for the geometry field test. Everything we needed was covered, from chilled and mellow tracks to steep, fast and technical trails, hard pack to sand and dust – only loam was missing, but we didn’t miss it at all. Matthias (Solid Bikes Head Engineer) wanted to evaluate if the current design was as tailor made for world cup racers as he planned it to be. We decided to build a more conservative geometry, which reflected customer feedback and a secret special version for this test purpose. We had shorter, longer, slacker and steeper frames, set up identically and were ready to jump on for the testing. The team was asked to race the same track all day with different settings. After a hard day and over forty timed runs the results were quite promising. All riders preferred the current version over the modified versions.








Having Morgane Charre on our team is a huge plus as Peter and Matthias always wanted to build the best women’s downhill bike. Morgane had been involved in the development process of this specific bike from day one. The goal was to build a bike specifically made for women who race on the highest level, which is still a better bike for all girls. We did not just ‘shrink it and pink it’. Our Bike supports the female strengths and helps to limit upper body fatigue to a minimum. The bike still features the same suspension layout but was balanced slightly different to improve faster cornering and to have more nimble handling with less strength needed. The whole geometry had to be adapted to the needs of female riders. We do not believe that girls ride a bike differently, they simply are different when it comes to ergonomics. That being said, we listened what Morgane had to say, in order to design her bike. After all the testing was done we were all satisfied with the result and a bit proud of what we had achieved.





The week was also about lot more than just testing; riding and many fun times on and off the bike. Max Kruse is a classy “freeracer,” he likes it big and sometimes very dirty. This fella is a “do it or leave it to me” type of rider. You could place him at the Rampage site and he would still be as chilled as a Spanish beer. He’s always on the hunt for some action on the bike or for some beers in the evening. So it was no surprise before long he had spotted a road gap that was still untouched. After he had organized a shovel from a construction site further down the hill, there was no one that could have stopped him from sending it. Not even a landing zone that needed to be imagined to exist. He called a less than 2m long, super steep and soft grass spot, his ‘sweet spot’ to land. We called it suicide. I had to call his mother countless times in my head as he rolled in – jumped and then screamed “yeeeeaaah I made it”.



Strange things happen in Malaga, we also somehow found a new team member on the way, Joe Connell is currently working as a bike guide in Malaga and had been in touch with us for some time now. As we seemed to share the same understanding of riding and racing, he was keen to join us and we were happy to welcome the Scottish rider to our growing family. He and the rest of the Solid-Reverse Factory Racing Team had some good battles on the bike and always a laugh along the way.


The youngsters Joshua Barth and Josh Lowe held a constant competition on and off the bike. They were chasing each other every chance they could and decided to triple sections that were not meant to be tripled … It looked like the boys had a good time and kept their motivation for the races high. Luckily they managed to stay in one piece and so the competition went on until the last night in a real Spanish Tapas Bar. Well the boys got everyone drunk except themselves – well played boys, well played.


The time was precious in Malaga, a lot needed to be addressed and tested. That is why we used every day to the fullest. Long days and short nights were my daily business so that the riders could test the next day. Well sometimes it is also quite hard to be part of a bike brand, isn’t it? It was a blast for all of us and I am happy to be part of a solid family – oh sorry the Solid Family!


Thanks to all who made this trip so special! Especially to Heike for being so patient with all of us and to Peter to make this trip possible.

For more pictures please check here:www.pinkbike.com/u/solidbikes/album/Solid-Reverse-Team-Camp-Malaga

Thanks to our partners:

BOS Suspension www.bosmtb.com
Sapim Spokes www.sapim.be
Reverse Components www.reverse-components.com
ClockWork Clothing www.independentracing.de
Switchbacks MTB holidays www.switch-backs.com

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MENTIONS: @solidbikes @switchbacks @BOSsuspension

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