Val di Sole track walk

Brayton is back getting the inside scoop at Val di Sol, showing the secret hucks, treehouse veiwing platforms and local wildlife... what else do you need? Oh yeah... a Track walk before this weekends WC.

Red Bull Dirt Pipe

About 3 months ago i received a phone call from the editor of [R]evolution magazine , Australia's leading gravity mag. The mission was 5 riders 3 photographers and 3 days at Redbull's famous Dirtpipe. When we all first rolled into the place and looked at the giant pipe the first thing i noticed is this thing is way bigger then any picture or video makes it look. Its a lot steeper then i thought it would be. The owner Mitch built the pipe as close as he could to a snowboard super pipe. So to see it in dirt was an amazing site and huge props Mitchell Smith and his crew that built it. The speed needed to get out of the pipe and make the jumps was also a surprise, you had to be going warp speed at some place especially the hips at the bottom which were the most fun. I spent most of my time just hitting the hips cause there is nothing better to float over then a huge boosty hip. Anyway the magazine is out so here are some shots of the trip. Get [R]evolution v20 for the full story.

Alan Hepburn

Camp of Champions Wrap Up!

Well Camp of Champions have wrapped things up for another year, and i got to say what a year it was. The park was in awsome shape, a little dry at the end but the bike park crew kept things in good condition. New this year was the Camp of Champs compound which saw crazy sessions every night. As great as it was it sure made you beat by the end of the day and riding for a potential 12 hours a day for 4 weeks will drain anyone. But cant complain the last two weeks of camp went smoothly and more and more campers were learning flips and other tricks on the airbag then to mulch every day. Here are some shots of my experience from the camp :)

 

Alan Hepburn

Adam Brayton, Champery & a Straitline promo video to die for!

Battling Ben Cathro tomorrow is Adam Brayton… he starts in 42nd position for tomorrows start in Champery and by the looks of the start list and the order it is anyone's game tomorrow. http://dirt.mpora.com/news/champery-final-start-times.html 

 

Adam did a Promo video with Jacob Gibbons take a peek, week late by the way but that's how I roll with current news! Fashionably late as they say…

Adam rides like me but with less time on the ground pedaling!

Ben Cathro Top of the pack for tomorrows race!

Ben must be stoked, with this… I think or maybe this is bad, first thing in the morning, wet track and first to go… we will see.

“After an amazingly exciting wet and wild qualifying at Champery, here’s how the riders line up for tomorrows finals.”

Team MTBCUT runs a full Straitline race kit pedals/50 mm Boxxers/ SSC stems and he Silent guides you can see how stoked Ben is over our Retro 80’s kit this year!

Stu Thomson of Team Mtbcut also covers all that happens at the race and I am stoked for Ben tomorrow, he’s been on fire and his mind is in the right place for a win!

Qualifying was nasty wet, take a peek.

So I believe free caster will be playing this live while I sleep and drool in bed tonight but if you can keep an eye on it and root for Team Mtbcut!

 

 

 

Cutom Painthouse Kali helmets

Behold the work of Stacey Glaser from Painthouse!

Stacey painting up the God Fathers lid and now look at what he is up to with Dirt magazine in the UK!

 

Stacey painted my helmet last year and I was so impressed at his level of skill I introduced him around to a few Magazines knowing they’d be just as stoked. First he did the Decline helmet for Scott Hart and now he has Blessed Dirt readers with a chance to win big!

I personally picked these up myself at Sombrio on the shore where his GF worked, It was way sicker in hand with all the chameleon paint. Very very in your face, I am somebody type of helmet, Stacey turns some heads with his style.

 

So DIRT decided to run a contest to win these one off custom helmets and the contest  to win this is pretty frickin simple… in just a few words tell them why you deserve the full face or the xc lid!!

 

http://dirt.mpora.com/news/win-an-exclusive-custom-dirt-helmet.html

 

Take a long read at the reasons, some guys are funny as hell and others are almost in tears begging.

 

Of course the helmet has a small Straitline logo on it and if you have yet to see a KALI in person they can back up their hype! Best of luck and go enter this is the easiest contest to date.

Baxter RedFern N Ryan Berrecloth mix

I met Baxter through Alan Hepburn last year and have had him come in a few times for the odd project, his shot of Alan is on our about page.  Just saying this out loud… so that I have to back it up… but I nose manual this rock all the time Alan I would at least expect you to tail whip it or something.  I have been on a mission to show up Alan for a year or so but that was before i fell hard and failed hard this Feb..

 

Anyways, Baxter and Straitlines very own Ryan B have teamed up for a series of webisodes to be released this fall and most have a sense of humor thrown in just like this video made for Lizard skins… Ryan told me about this this video concept over a few beers but and I never really saw it coming out as so cheezmo awesome funny as this, Vespa skills are off the scale!

 

Baxter just had a interview up on Pinkbike and you have to watch his Beer commercial shot up at UVIC, be sure to pass this around.

 

Bidness N shit

Sorry we have been very busy working out a deal to acquire the buildings next door to accommodate yet another Tech upgrade.

I am going to keep it a surprise until we install the new machine and it’s personal slave but finally we have room to expand and stretch our wings.

Here is Denis and I working out a Bidness deal online with our new hands free head sets… not just all about the CNC over here, we are engineers and everything we see can be improved on.

Actually  we are just dialing in the new website and talking live with Trevor of Sploosh South Africa, I opted for packing tape while Dennis went for straight for the duct tape. I highly recommend never to try this, when the meeting ended it was like waxing your body and having all of your nose hairs pulled out at once.

 

So lots on the go, too much for one blog post but I’ll hammer up some updates soon.

 

But a few years back we were days away from owning a airplane hangar on the airfield down the road, it was pretty sick. But… me and my big mouth blogged about the deal a little to early and the deal fell apart in front  of our eyes. My bad.

But here is the original video I posted up because we were so stoked.. new buildings are ours so now I can post what ever I want… which I do anyways at all times but censorship sucks.

Goat Style 2010

I posted around 90 unedited pictures on Pinkbike.com last night. You can check them out here. http://home-team.pinkbike.com/album/Goat-Style-2010/

In the next couple of days I will pick the ones that I like the most and crop and edit them. I took over 1000 pictures, deleted them down to two or three hundred and then pick the ones that I thought were the best and then posted them.

I had a great time in Creston I got to see a bunch of friends that I have not seen in a while and got to watch some amazing riding from a lot of Banshee, Straitline and Geax riders. There is an awesome group of guys sponsored by all three companies.

Have to give a shout out to the guys at Geax for the shade, water, stickers and pizza. You guys rock …

It was a great weekend, Team Rider Mike Montgomery finished second behind Greg Watts with a run that could have easily been judged as a first placed run. Casey Groves had the run of the day going until he slipped a pedal.

I was personally most impressed by Fernie’s Paul Genovese. He was the youngest competitor to make it through qualifying. He had great solid first runs and then tried something new on his second runs. If he can keep progressing he will have a bright future in the industry.

More to come in the next couple of days. Jack and Allan killed it, I just have to find the pictures for them.

Keep Riding,

Rob Dunnet

Fogelsode #26 earns another VOD

 

I laughed my ass off on Jacks airbag comment and fully approve of the tent pegs! Yet another reason to buy Straitline platform pedals! We can open your beers and keep the rain off of your head while passed out after the beers!

Enjoy!

Micro machining up close! Shots by Rob @ Banshee Bikes

 

I did a blog post a while back on some small connectors we were doing for clients but this time I have a better example of what precision machining truly is.

The Part shown on this fine Canadian Penny is 5 Thou in diameter, turned from a 1/4” brass bar.  the overall length of the part is over 1” long, the line crossing the brass pin is actually a human hair!

The machining tolerance on this part is –.0000 +.0002” or 1/15th the thickness of the hair shown in this photo. 12,000 of these parts were produced flawlessly on our Citizen Cincom L20 within the allotted tolerances' of the design. When we manufacture our Bike products we hold all of our tolerances' part after part as if it was for a client in the aerospace industry. These parts are for Big Brother, not the TV show but the real Big Brother who is watching me type this and what I just did the bathroom.

The human hair was pulled from DJ’s head and placed under the microscope to verify its thickness. We typically run these parts though specialized measuring machines that verify our tolerances are being held and we respectfully can actually use the term Precision machining because we can verify every part to back it up.

 

 

 

The part shown is a rejected part so excuse the bend, it was damage but is a great specimen to show off under the microscope and the following video is of a larger Cincom by Citizen and they are referred to as a Swiss Style machine and just like the manufacture who makes this high tech machine, it is used to produce all those micro parts in your watches. This video is the best example to date of how the machine works on multiple axis

 

Here is the post I did before on a larger but more complicated connector that required the microscope and all of our measurement machines to verify and correct any oddities in the machining of it.

http://straitline.blogspot.com/search?q=micro

 

And this is just my favorite video of all time, has nothing to do with anything just funny.

Straitline Road Bikes!

I love random client emails and this one made me laugh. I can see Patrick passing a group of roadies and they all gasp and hold each other in shock when they see DH pedals mated with Carbon!

######

Greg-

I'd rather be sending pictures of my new bike slathered in Straitline sweetness, but it's not ready yet. I'm missing just one tiny piece now... The fork. Which i've been waiting for going on a month and a half now!! Sadly my wheelie skills are lacking, so i must wait for fork to get here.

While visiting my parents this weekend, I was allowed to try out my Dad's new bike...Provided I changed the pedals. Which I did!

 

Handling on tight singletrack is..interesting Especially if a gear change is needed. Braking...not so good. easy to hop over roots, at least.

These are arguably the grippiest platform pedals I've used. They're like foot velcro! I like em a lot. So much so that I'm going to get a set of red ones to replace the crappy cast chinese junk pedals on my 'city' bike.

Cheers

Patrick

This reminds me of my friends

 

I like how they are so excited for the carnage… look at the kids face when he peels it from the dirt. It’s all good because the cool kids are laughing, but at least he has climbed another level in the school!

 

So, this is why you use foam pits and air bags… bikes found off of the Wal-Mart discount flyer is best.

 

This is Alan Hepburn at Camp of Champions on a non Wal-Mart brand bike, made by Banshee and of course decked head to toe in Straitline. I would laugh when Alan alls too but Alan never falls enough for a good laugh.

Here is Alans update from Camp A

“Camp A just wrapped up here in whistler, the whole week was so much fun, Lots of riding everyday and all round good times.The campers get to ride banshee legend MKII ’s decked out in Race Face and Straitline products so they’re all buzzing from the get go. Video coming shortly.”

 

Game on! Mike Montgomery California Roll

I found this shot on the web and I cannot believe the ingenuity and progression displayed before me. All jokes aside this is is an epic display of what can be done when you put your mind to it.!

And lots of progression this Canada Long weekend weekend on the bike as well! I spent Canada day up in Whistler at the Camp of Champions and was in awe at what I saw. Montgomery pulled a 360 body varial he dubbed the California roll and now everyone who wasn’t there is debating if it was the first but rest assure it is the first on a 26.

 

 

Here was my angle of it all…

 

I wish that I caught it on film but Greg was hitting the jumps with his hands backwards on the bars… wrist out. When I asked him why he is riding like that he just said “I’m bored”! He went through most of his tricks like that and landed everyone

This film is by Eric Peterson of Faultline, he is getting all the camp footage and carnage as it happens.

 

 

I’ll caption this shot for everyone… “My name is Mike and I just did a California Roll, WTF have you done?”

Camp coach and Straitline factory rider Alan Hepburn

Alan again but this time he’s spicing it up on his Unicycle.

Camp coach and Straitline Factory rider Jack Folgelquist was right behind Alan throwing tricks.

 

 

Jack smiles a lot and if you watch him mid air he is perma grin.

Watts, Hepburn, Montgomery, Dyer, Cho Cho and Ryan Berrecloth somewhere out of frame.  Mr Groves had to leave for Goatstyle, in fact everyone is heading to Goatstyle next week to earn a spot at Crankworks.

The man behind it all Ken Achenbach. He owns a backcountry cat skiing firm and runs a SKI/BOARD/BIKE camp in the summer aka my new BFF.

Found this thread and Kens response to player haters after viewing the video below. Sums it up pretty good.

“It's pretty classic how every thinks you get "Sent" to COC. Kids actually beg all year to come to camp and when they get here they ride from sun up to sun down because it's their dream to come to camp. It's why we work so hard to make every day absolutely insane. Coming from a single parent family without two cents to rub together I know how hard everyone works for the money that camp costs, whether you are rich or poor. It's my dream to enable people to ride in an amazing place, ride amazing bikes and meet amazing people and make friends with them. Give them the opportunity that I never had. So I can understand the "F that 2 grand" I can also understand the "I want that and I will do whatever I have to do to come to camp." I collected bottles, shoveled snow, and mowed lawns to get the things I wanted. Things taste the best when you work for it and 99% of the kids that come to camp work for it. Be it getting good grades, doing chores or slaving as a dishpig. That's why camp is so fun. Everyone here wants to be here. I'd kill myself if I ran a camp where people get "Sent" We teach riders to Send It!
Bored kids go to the mall. Smart kids go biking.
Ken”