Ian Wagman, Carl Brooker and Ryan Hiscoe recently went to the annual Winter Sales conference in Vancouver at the Sugoi Head Office. It was a very successful trip as the guys were able to learn the ins and outs of how Sugoi Apparel operates and meet the support and design teams. The new Design team have got some great ideas for the future and some of these were clear to see in the winter 2012 range of Bike, Run and Triathlon kit that we will soon be showing to retailers around the country. If you would like to view the summer or winter range, please call Ryan Hiscoe, the UK Sugoi Account Manager, on 07739344641
12/09/2011
12/08/2011
09/29/2011
09/16/2011
09/09/2011
GT Racing UK have a National Champion!
Dave Henderson has retained his Scottish National XC Champions title in a hard fought race at Drumlanrig castle. Congratulations Dave, a well deserved result.
"The iconic venue of Drumlanrig castle hosted this weekend`s Scottish XC Mountain Bike Championships. Drumlanrig is famous for its slippy roots and is favoured by many riders as a true XC mountain bike course. With heavy rain during the week the Saturday pre-ride with team mate Gareth, was soggy to say the the least. However by race day the course was drying out although still plenty to catch you out!
After a good warm up I made my way to the start line. I took the lead early on with Grant Ferguson and Rab Wardell coming with me. Going into the 2nd lap it was just Grant and I. In the 3rd lap , Grant opened up a slight gap and I fought to get back up onto his wheel and we were back together for the 4th lap before the attacks started in the 5th. I managed to get away towards the end of last lap and held on to take the Scottish Champs title 2011! Grant gave me a great race after just getting back from achieving a 4th in the World Champs at Champery on the Thursday.
Team mate Gareth finished 4th in his first race back after breaking his collar bone. Successfully defending the title was a goal for me in 2011 and means a lot to me during what has been a mixed season."
Eurobike collaborations - Knog x Charge
The second instalment of our Eurobike collaborations comes from Knog.
For Knog we made 3 different bikes. A brand new Scissor, a Plug 3 and a Hob with an awesome paint job!
The Scissor
Matching Bucket saddle, Masher chain and pedals.
Subliminal head-tube graphic
Custom Charge Griddle grip next to some stylish Knog kit.
The Plug 3, the 3 stands for the fact this bike features 3 gears via a Sturmey Archer hub.
Kitted out.
And with it’s Brooks saddle.
The Hob – told you the paint job was special!
No-one’s nickin this one.
Moustachio!
Eurobike collaborations - Oakley x Charge
We were very lucky this year to be invited to create some special, one off bikes, to be displayed at Eurobike on the stands of our friends at Oakley and Knog. Today you get to see the 2 bikes we gave the custom treatment too for Oakley, come back tomorrow to check out the Knog bikes!
1 of 2 custom Charge Plug 3 x Oakley models featuring custom kit from Charge, Oakley B1B grips and a Sturmey Archer 3 speed hub.
David with the bike he’ll be taking on the streets of Zurich with.
In all it’s glory on the Oakley stand at Eurobike.
New head-tube graphic.
Rare Oakley B1B re-issue grips.
Custom red perforated leather Charge Spoon saddle.
And in yellow!
More colour coordinated Oakley B1B grips.
Charge Bikes - Eurobike people
Eurobike is full of weird and wonderful people, mostly wonderful thankfully as all have a common interest in bikes for one reason or another. What follows are a series of photo’s taken from our stand from passers by who stopped in their tracks to enjoy the carousel.
The many faces of people checking out the stand.
The carousel MUST have been the single most photographed stand at the show.
Phone’s were straight of the pockets of those who’d not brought SLR’s
There were plenty who’d brought their long lenses for the occasion.
The grabber machine saw plenty of action.
Was a great point of interest for both young…..
and older…. can’t quite call this lad old!
It drew quite a crowd!
The Charge Times newspaper made for a great read!
Hardly anyone went past the carousel without picking up a copy.
Handy tabloid sizing for taking home.
And the headlines are…..
For all your Charge Bikes news. Is that Andy Serkis in the background!?
And lastly, a treat for us all. I’m not sure who these guys were or what they were doing but they seemed to enjoy dressing up and prancing around the carousel. There were some proper, large film cameras following them so maybe they were in a band? Anyway, they were brave at least.
08/16/2011
The Latest from Aidan
Here's the latest race report from Aidan who's been absolutely tearing up the DH Enduro scene so far this year including a fantastic 17th place at the Mega Avalanche.
A chain jamming issue kept him off the overall podium on this occasion but his times were still fast enough to put him on the Masters podium at the last round of the UK Gravity Enduro Series in Eastridge Forest on his first race outing with his new Cannondale Jekyll. Check out the full race report below.
3rd place on Masters podium
The season is now heating up, and this past weekend I attended the 4th round of the new UK Gravity Enduro series. This round was a welcome change from the previous rounds as it was held at Eastridge woods nr Shrewsbury in Shropshire, not such a long trek up the country for me! So Gummy and Myself loaded up the van Friday night and headed to the race site, where we met up with Mackie who had created a RapidRacers pit complete with easy-up, nice! I was looking forward to this race for a couple of extra reasons also, one I have fond memories of this venue as it held several national DH and the National Championships in the mid nineties (where I had some success) and this would be my first outing on my new Cannondale Jekyll all mountain bike.
So we woke Saturday and prepared to set off and ride the trail route and try to learn the timed stages. The weather looked to be staying dry for at least the Saturday which was a nice change. The route consisted of climbing the hill to reach stage 1, a technical pedally start with roots and rocks then picking up some good speed in the middle and after a short fairly sharp climb you descended some steep very dusty corner to the finish, taking around three and a half minutes for a quick run. Stage 2 was again dusty quite steep and twisty through the trees with a couple of jumps thrown in for good measure and then a pedal along quite a narrow flowing path which climbed gently to the finish, under 2mins was a target time here. Stage 3 probably the shortest started out with a pedal along an undulating narrow trail then drop across a road and steep down onto a tricky off camber right hander round a dusty left then rail down right and up a lung burning climb before letting it go down a fast trail (if you were brave) and finish on a fireroad completing in around one and a half minutes.
Stage 4 and the top flowing pedally trail was the same as used in those 1990’s races then heading right concentrating to maintain your speed before crossing a road and picking up speed down the trail over some jumps if you wanted but watch the following corners, maintain some good speed to the finish around 2mins later. Climb back to the top of the hill for the final stage 5, generally quite a pedally stage under 3 minutes was a fair time following a trail route climb in reverse down and along a man made gravel path with flat hairpin corners where you had exercise caution so you don’t go off the side of the path and lose bags of time, drop onto some grippier dirt path corners before a step down out of the woods and over a double and table top before crossing the line in the finis arena. All in all a 2 hour ride and smiles all round from what I could see and hear from other riders.
With the morning completed and seeding runs scheduled to start in the afternoon down stage 5, there was time for a little extra riding to try and learn a little more of the stages before racing them, useful with so much to learn.
After final checks on the bikes and some food it was time to get back to the top of the hill and do our seeding runs. Stage 5 was used for this as is the norm for the series, meaning riders finish into the arena where the commentator and pits are positioned. With nothing really on the stage too technical times were going to be tight, the key to a good one was to not overshoot any of the flat loose corners and lose valuable seconds. By the end of it I had put in a solid run, nearly riding into a tree but managing to scrape by. Results ended up tight as expected, fastest was rich Thomas in elite on a 2:40, I had stopped the clock in 2:41 and ended 6th overall again the masters were competitive with the top six times being a 50/50 split of masters and elites. Mackie was content with his run also, not being too far back from the front and seeding himself in the top 15 in masters.
Saturday night and we managed to find a local pub for some food and then returned to our pit and watched a film whilst it decided to rain for a while, would this affect the course? Sunday we rose to sunshine again so it looked like the rain would only have helped dampen the dust. Gummy set off early as he was there for support and to ride, so he went out and rode the route before the first starters. Myself and Mackie then set off to ride up the hill ready for stage 1.
Being the longest stage it was quite a shock to the system straight off. I had a steady run with no big mistakes, the only thing I would have changed was learning it more as I found myself not knowing what was coming next at times, but otherwise an ok start. A long transition to stage 2 and on arrival I saw Mackie fixing a puncture, so he received some banter for not running DH tyres then we lined up once more. Trying to keep smooth through the tight steep turns between the trees, all was ok until a major setback, my chain had somehow managed to de-rail from my chain device, I was trying to back pedal to release it jamming then pedalling in the hope it might go back on the chainring. All this just before the stage starts to flatten and rise to the before the finish, in frustration I leant down and used my hand to try and encourage the chain to go back on but it wasn’t working so I was left to scoot along the trail having to let my 20 second man (eventual round winner) pass me and so I decided to get off and run to the finish….gutted!
Now I knew I would need the top two contenders behind me to have mishaps if there was any chance of catching them. I had to keep trying though as I felt if I could get the next three stages good I could maybe still make the podium. Stage 3 was a short one, so I set off determined to post a fast time, pedalling hard along the first section of it with it flowing quite well with little rises before heading downwards. Along the start section my chain came off again but this time getting itself back on so time loss was marginal luckily, I pushed on riding steady on some steep turns in the middle then it turned onto an uphill section of trail where I put the Jekyll to good use and switched down the travel and sprinted hard along this part, opening back up to full travel for the downhill section to the finish.
On to stage 4 then, a good start here and I was keeping good speed along the top and stayed on course and finished happy I had ridden the stage pretty well. Catching up with Mackie at the finish and he had crashed pretty hard near the finish of the stage, with pretty high speeds there it could have been nasty, but adrenalin had kicked in and he was good to go for stage 5. One more stage to go then, I set off with a point to prove and was keen to finish strong in the hope I could salvage a podium spot. No real mistakes and I pedalled hard and was rewarded with the fastest overall stage time, a satisfying consolation from the day.
So we packed up ready for the journey home and results to be released. Trying to work out the results is hard, there is a computer at the finish where you can view your progress but I haven’t worked out how it works, I think you can view your first 3 stages after you have finished but I’m not sure of the overall times!?! So we waited for the official times to be printed off, during the results being finalised and signed off Mackie caught a glimpse and informed me I had made the podium in 3rd place! I was glad I had made it and salvaged a top three result after knowing my chain mishap had cost me at least 20 seconds. Mackie had ended up 24th in masters, also a good effort as he was starting to feel the pain from his crash on stage 4 now.
So me and Gummy hung about for the podium presentations and in the meantime I looked at the times and I worked out if I had not have had my mechanical it would have been very close for me to finish second and would have been top 3 or 4 overall instead ending up 12th out of everyone.
Final results:
Masters:
1st Rob Cooksley 10min 16secs
2nd Chris Buchan 10min 23secs
3rd Aidan Bishop 10min 48secs
4th Dave Richardson 10min 50secs
5th Simon Everitt 10min 50secs
24th Paul Mackie 11min 37secs
Overall:
1st Neil Donoghue 10min 5secs
2nd Rob Cooksley 10min 16secs
3rd Gary Forest 10min 20secs
4th Chris Buchan 10min 23secs
5th Alex Langley 10min 27secs
12th Aidan Bishop 10min 48secs
59th Paul Mackie 11min 37secs
All in all a good weekend of riding and racing, a welcome arrival of dry weather making it all the more pleasant and on the new Jekyll a satisfactory result for myself and the team. Next and final round is Afan trail centre in Wales in a few weeks, time to train and see if I can get the better of Rob ‘box’ Cooksley before the series ends!
Big thanks to Craig at RRP, Cannondale, Mavic, Crank Brothers, Maxxis and all sponsors who have helped me this year.