The passion of cycling spans the globe. No matter the culture, language, country or gender cycling is a common bond among us all. Norco Factory Team rider Darcy Turenne made a trip to China with a number of fellow Shimano athletes to coach a camp and see the emerging mountain biking scene in China. The filming team at Anthill Films was there to document the experience and show the world that China is a part of our global cycling culture.
Read the full article at pinkbike.com
Jill Kintner calls the Pacific Northwest home living in the northern reaches of Washington State. This is an area known for a few different things, one of which is mountain biking, another is rain. Experiencing both is not a rare thing and this winter edit of Jill Kinter, Katie Holden and a few friends shows just how much fun riding in the winter slop can be. It may be wet and cold on the west coast but it is still a great time to ride!
Video by Jasper Wesselman of the Cascadia Collective
Galbraith Winters With Jill Kintner, Katie Holden, and Company on Pinkbike
China. Wow. How to describe China? It’s impossible. Mostly because the country is massive and to describe my trip to China, would be such a microcosm of all China visits that, in essence, I’d be wrong.
I can safely say that our visit to China was unique. Very unique. Myself, several of my Shimano teammates, the Anthill Films crew, and Endless Biking were invited by Shimano and the organizers of the “Summer Dancing Festival” (the name didn’t quite translate how they thought it would) to come on over to a mountain 6 hours from Beijing and be part of China’s first ever mountain bike festival. At least, I heard rumours that it was the first ever festival…however, judging by many of the riders’ $10,000 bikes I was a little suspicious. 
We landed in Beijing and boarded a bus with probably 50 other riders on it. After sitting dormant for about half an hour, we were all handed rations of soda crackers and water. Just one of the many indicators on our trip telling us that communist practices remain within a country of cut-throat commercialization. Two hours later our bus starts moving. One hour later we see the Great Wall. Four hours later we arrive at the town close to the mountain. Two hours later we arrive at our hotel after being ambushed by a surprise “welcome hot pot dinner”. 4 minutes later we are finally asleep. It was a long trip. 
The mountain had one trail on it — lift access only — and we were to ride and coach on that trail for four days. It could have gone terribly wrong, and by wrong I mean boring, however the trail turned out to be one of the most fun trails that I’ve ridden. Ever. In the world. We got lucky and the four days of riding blew past faster than any of us wanted them to. From extreme beginner, to fast as f#@* (insert Thomas Vanderham’s name here) everybody had a great time riding the trail. It was proper destroyed by the end of the festival…and proud to be so. 
It was amazing to be part of the relative beginning of a sport that is so new in such a quickly developing country. Mountain biking has the potential to explode in China, if only they had the trail network to support it. Some riders drove 48 hours just to get to the festival. We were told that we were like Gods to them. It was all very surreal, for them and for us, but by the end, we had made some good friends and got a lot of insight into China’s rapidly expanding, well, everything. 
I wouldn’t recommend going to China to find good places to ride. According to our new friends, we rode the only mountain bike trail in the country. It’s hard to fathom, but these guys were China’s riding elite so who are we not to take them seriously? That said, if you want to go somewhere with endless riding potential and friendly, enthusiastic riders, pack a shovel and spend a year over there trail building. You’ll have a small army of mountain bikers thanking you, and you’ll be a national hero (as long as you don’t cut any trees down during the building process. Ironically, that is illegal. So we heard. Who knows really?). 
I’d like to sincerely thank Hayashi from Shimano China for arranging us to come over to the Summer Dancing festival. It was an experience of a lifetime!! Stay tuned for the video from Anthill Films…coming soon. Darcy
After a fun trip and some good riding in California at the Sea Otter Classic, it sure feels good to be back on the Canadian coast. Photographer Dan Barham and I decided to drive down to Cali, why we’re still not sure, and after a 2-day car ride home we both dying to get back onto our home trails.
Squamish trails are in their prime right now (if you don’t mind getting a little bit muddy) and I’ve been taking advantage of my relatively mellow spring to hit them up on my Sight Forma and Vixa. The other weekend, as a last minute surprise I was able to sneak in a ride with my first ever, and still favorite, riding partner from growing up on the island. We sang the same songs as we did in grade 10 and probably scared off all wildlife in doing so, but riding with old friends is by far the most fun a person can have on a bike. Especially when your old friends rip!
Speaking of old friends, I got to shoot with photographer Nicolas Teichrob for the Dakine 2013 bike clothing line the other day and he, like always, killed it. Was great to be out getting good shots in the middle of a rainstorm and not even caring about the massive wall of water that was threatening to dampen our day.
Plans for the rest of the month include bikes, bikes, and more bikes. See you out there!
Darcy
The 2012 Sea Otter Classic was a whirlwind of activity but the highlight of the four day event was definitely from none other that Team Norco International’s Jill Kintner. After taking the win from Melissa Buhl in the Slalom Jill moved on to repeat the result in the DH. With a 1 second lead over Melissa and an 8 second lead over Mahon Jill took the win in definitive style.
Jill opted to ride her Norco Sight over her Aurum for this track. The pedaling sections and lack of technical aspects allowed for the 140mm travel bike to shine. Congratulations to Jill on two big early season victories. Watch for a full recap of the 2012 Sea Otter Classic soon in the Norco E-News.
Top Results were as follows:
Top 5 Men
1. Jared Graves 2:02.5
2. Mick Hannah 2:03.0
3. Aaron Gwin 2:03.8
4. Brian Lopes 2:04.4
5. Neko Mulally 2:04.6
Top 5 Women
1. Jill Kintner 2:16.1
2. Melissa Buhl 2:17.8
3. Manon Carpenter 2:24.0
4. Miranda Miller 2:26.3
5. Holly Feniak 2:27.2
Finally the Video is ready, take a bit but we want to release all in a Package, this is my „promovideo“ and also a short Trailer for the Bikemovie „El Faro“.
Norco Rider Angie Hohenwarter has been hard at work recently working with Philip Ruopp and Oliver Henke from VG Mediastudio on a film called “El Faro” The video stems from a trip with Tobi W to a beautiful Island called La Palma. With beutiful scenery, great trails and some amazing editing this film is going to be worth picking up.
The full length film will launch Feb. 16th on www.mtb-news.de and the behind-the-scenes story will run in the next issue of 6undZwanzig Magazine
While we all anxiously await the release of El Faro here is a trailer for the film.
Angie Hohenwarter – La Palma / Canary Island from Angie Hohenwarter on Vimeo.
The second annual See Jane Jump women’s mountain bike festival took place this past weekend at Mt Washington Resort on Vancouver Island BC. Selling out nearly instantly, the weekend festival brought together 60 women from around North America for two days of freeride mountain biking. After each day of world class mountain biking, evening festivities included food, coaching, wine, yoga and even a daily recap slideshow from photographer Dan Barham. Event organizer Darcy Turenne also used this venue to premiere her video “The Eighth Parallel” to attendees.
Norco is a proud sponsor of the See Jane Jump women’s mountain bike festival and offered free tech support to all event attendees. Norco also donated a Norco Vixa frame to be given to one lucky lady.
Thank you to Darcy Turenne for putting on the event, Mt Washington Resort for hosting, Dan Barham for photogging, and all the event sponsors for supporting this amazing event.
Canadian company Norco used Crankworx in Whistler, B.C. as a backdrop for its 2012 product launch. Fourteen of its bike platforms are either brand new or have seen significant upgrades from previous models. On the mountain bike side, there’s a continued push toward 29ers with a new value-based full-suspension bike line, as well as new 26” mountain bikes and a new downhill platform. On the road side, there’s a brand new endurance platform for long-distance riders, a new top-end race bike and a carbon cyclocross bike.
Read the full article at Canadian Cycling Magazine
Last weekend I decide to drive down to The Bike Festival in Riva del Garda, Italy. Every year at this event they hold a Night Sprint, it´s a flat 4x Race that resembles a BMX track. The builder Diddie Schneider did a great job on the course and made a great track that was a lot of fun despite it’s flat nature.
Then Qualification round went okay but was more a bit of a „Kudl Mudl“; nothing worked in this run. I was a bit out of breath through the round but I managed it qualify with the 3rd best time for the ladies. : ) All was good and I was clear for racing…
It was on the same day pretty late, we started at 21:00. First heat went great and I made it through to the finals. I was standing in the Gate and I felt like I was in a movie. Crazy but I knew what I had to do in this Moment! First out of the Gate, First in finish!
Yeeehaaa pretty happy and still have a big smile on a face : )
Scott NightSprint (4X) von Thomas auf MTB-News.de
The next day in the Morning I had to leave back home… short stay but defently worth it was just awesome to meet all the people/friends after a long winter and ride my bike : )
Recently we posted up an image of Angie’s recent cover in 6undzwanzig Magazine out of Germany. Well, the full copy just arrived with a great article on Angie. Check it out!
