Bicycle Retailer announced today that the industry's biggest enemy could very well be the personal computer you're using to scour this very site. As young Americans spend increasing time on the Internet and playing computer games, they are playing fewer sports and exercising less, the Leisure Trends Group, a business information resource company, said. "Simply put, the computer business is doing a better job of marketing virtual reality, computer games and other uses of technology than either the sport or the health sectors. The implications both short and long term are serious," Leisure Trends President Jim Spring said. In four years, physical activity by 16 to 24-year-olds has dropped 15 percent while computer usage has risen 63 percent, a Leisure Trends study found. Industry companies are reacting in two opposing ways: battling to promote cycling as a worthwhile alternative to computer entertainment, and integrating the two worlds. An example of the latter is CycleFX, a bicycle-driven interface designed for use with the Sony Playstation, a popular video game system.

Kris "krispy" Baughman is now riding for Foes Fabrication. He is the first
"non-racer" to ever be sponsored by this company with a long, prestigious history steeped in racing. Foes, with the
introduction of the Fly long travel trail bike, are broadening their horizons
beyond racing. Krispy will be sporting a Fly w/ 6 to 8'' in back and a
6.5" Foes F1 fork. For DH racing and super burly moves that he's known for, a
DHs Mono w/ 9'' and an F1XL w/7.5'' should do the trick. After a trip to France
to shoot Third Down, Krispy discovered the Mono is well worthy for wicked
riding and felt right at home.

The awesome folks over at Red Bull are at it again hosting another kick ass event. This time Australia will be the backdrop with the World's best extreme riders vying for a piece of the $15000 purse. Red Bull Rampage winner Wade Simmons will be defending his title, and I have it on good authority fellow Canadians Darren Butler, Robbie Bourdon and Dave Watson will also be attending. This event is sure to be a media frenzy and film crews from Freeride Productions (NWDI and II) will be capturing the best of the event for you to enjoy. Not ones to stop at one event per season, Red Bull is also working on an extreme bike competition at Whitefish Montana for February 16 and 17, 2002. This event should be much like the Pinkbike Frozen Feet Festival and some of our crew will be attending to help with the event. It's been said before, but I'll say it again. Be sure to support sponsors like Red Bull who step to the plate! Since it's unavailable in Canada, I'm headed for the border to pick up a case and do my part!>
Read Red Bull Press Release

The last time we saw Santa he was caught on camera by Wade Schmidt at the 24hrs. of Adrenaline Race in 2000. Norad is currently tracking him as he plots his course around the globe and the snow experts over at Biglines.com guarantee he needs no snow pack to make a safe landing. Merry Christmas to everyone around the world from all here at Pinkbike!

The folks over at Avro Rims have come through for those of you Pinkbike shoppers stll hunting for that perfect gift for the riders on your Christmas list. We have been testing a set of the Avro ZUM Eliminator's in both 24" and 26" sizes. Pinned and (TIG)welded, with a huge 44mm width, these rims are definitely some of the beefiest on the market. Like most products the Pinkbike crew endorse, weight weenies, look elsewhere. Because of their width, many rider's first impressions were the rims would be flat spot prone. Impressions be damned, mine have held up well so far and a certain RM7 rider in Calgary has been truly abusing his all summer without failure. Just in the nick of time for Christmas, Steve at Avro has been kind enough to offer you, the Pinkbike reader(other websites need not apply) their ZUM Eliminator rims at a superb deal. One lucky buyer will get them free! Click here to order. Happy Holidays!

Many of you watch the Ride Guide, and some of you might of even caught the Pinkbike segment that was filmed back in August. It aired a while back on A-Channel, OLN and others...thanks to Chris, Mike, Chanttell and Kevin at the Ride Guide, we now bring it to your computer.
Check out myself, Mike B, and Stephanie in out television debut. I know this will come back to haunt us one day...but I think it's most cool right now. The stats on the site that are in the clip have about tripled since then.
Once again a big thanks to the Ride Guide, and stay tuned to the winter episodes, watching for the already filmed biglines.com segment!

Here is the video segment
Also this is the first time I bring you the vids in uber quality MPEG4 format so if you can't play them, complain! And remember right click and save - don't stream!

Questions/Comments

Our good friends over at Rocky Mountain and Race Face along with a partnership of industry heavy-hitters, unveiled a new 1.5 inch standard steerer. The new oversized standard is built around a 1 1/2" steerer tube and will provide for a dramatic increase in performance, strength and durability of bicycles built for long travel forks and extreme use. The OnePointFive standard was developed not only by Race Face and Rocky, but Chris King, Answer/Manitou, and Cane Creek, while Intense and Park Tools provided their technical expertise. According to the group, the beefier standard is aimed at the freeride and long travel crowd. It is said to be 44% stronger and 134% stiffer than the current 1 1/8" steerer used by the industry. The standard further calls for minimum 25.4mm bore depth for headset cups (compared to 14mm today) which should eliminate ovalized headtubes. Bikes with the new standard should be available for the 2003 product year, and parts could be picked up much sooner. Visit www.onepointfivestandard.com for more information.

Questions/Comments?

Mountain Cycle and its Canadian Distributor Yodobike announced today that Mountain Cycle has been purchased by premiere US framebuilder, Kinesis USA. Company founder, Rob Reisinger will continue on as chief designer and the head of the brand. Mountain Cycle has been relocating to Portland from San Luis Obispo over the past month. Kinesis USA's CEO, Micheal Nover stated, "Robert is a talented designer and he is the major reason we were interested, he will focus on reestablishing the brand using our resources and manufacturing capabilities. Since we purchased most of Mountain Cycle's manufacturing equipment we can offer hydroforming and Robert's design expertise to our frame customers." The new Mountain Cycle will begin by producing the current line of frames with few changes. For model year 2003, it will likely introduce some new models along with updates to existing ones. The frames will continue to be made in the United States. This purchase was a bit of a surprise to me, as I had heard through reliable sources that Honda Motorcycles was interested in the company.

Questions/Comments?

Global Racing's design contest went online today. Be sure to vote for your favorite design before the new year. Here is your chance to decide which design will adorn every Global steed for the 2002 season. The winner will receive an Orange MsIsle dual bike and runners up will get a Greg Minnaar signed team jersey and their very own copy of Sprung 5.

Click here to vote!

Questions/Comments?

I just got an email from Steve Peat to let us know he'll be riding an Orange for 2002. Not a huge surprise considering they co-sponsor his Royal Racing squad in the UK. He's set up a personal sponsorship package that includes DC Shoes and Smith eyewear. Unfortunately for us, he's still working on his US visa and can't commit to attending the Pinkbike Frozen Feet Festival until that nastiness sorted out. We're still hoping he can be here hucking it large with Canada's best riders and Shaums March. If I have missed any details about his ride next season, I'll be sure to let you know when we receive the official press release.

Getting set up with your first ride can drive the most stoic person mad. Trying to build up a bike that will suit your desired style of riding within a budget, especially if you have no more money to spend than Chretien on Canadian national defense, is difficult indeed. There are a myriad of choices in frames, components and riding equipment with manufacturers vying for your monetary affection. I was lucky to be able to call on friends here at Pinkbike with their experience to get an idea of what would work best for my needs and here’s what I found...

The National Post once again recognized Race Face as one of Canada's 50 Best Privately Managed Companies for 2001. This is the third year in a row Race Face has won this prestigious award. "We're very honored to have won this award, especially for a third time" said company president, Craig Pollack who added, "Our commitment to having a participative management environment has been critical to our success. For example, our staff is given a
high degree of authority and responsibility in making both micro and macro
decisions in the company, and we share all of our financial information with
every staff member. Our track record in terms of developing innovative
products and marketing them in an impactful manner is excellent. We have
also focused on getting our business fundamentals right - delivering
products to our customers on time for example. The combination of these
initiatives and others have enabled us to be a pretty dynamic company with a
track record of growth". The "50 Best" awards are open to all privately managed companies
in Canada that are Canadian owned (50%), have greater than $5 million in
revenues, more than 25 employees, and exhibit steady sales and growth. Don't forget, the Race Face Ultimate Freeride Challenge deadline is January 15, 2002. That leaves you with 31 days to edit your 60 seconds of fame and send it in!

With the 2nd Annual Frozen Foot Festival a short 6 weeks away, we are looking for 30-40 volunteers to help us put the finishing touches on this baby. Day 1: January 26 All Day at Wintergreen Family Resort in Bragg Creek and volunteers are needed for set up of the Biker-X course, course marshalls, and organization of the events. Day 2: January 27 5:30-9pm at Canada Olympic Park in Calgary and help is needed with event organization, set up, rider registration, crowd control and more. Interested parties should email me with any event preferences or special skills they could contribute to this World Class event! Mark this one on your calendars, we are cleared for take off!

Questions/Comments?

Our friend Warwick Patterson of DH Race and creator of The Circus will be on 16mm on OLN Canada Saturday Dec 15. For those of you not familiar with 16mm, each week they feature 2-3 extreme sport filmmakers. Using content from the videos, unused content and interviews with riders, filmmakers and other interesting stuff, they give you an impression how their respective sports are pushing the limits season after season. Look for interviews with not only Warwick, but Steve Peat and Scott Beaumont as well. Check your local listings for details. If you have not yet seen The Circus, it is a must own for any hardcore race fan.

This is MK here. I'm a new Pinkbike DH rider and I just wanna say all you little boys better watch out as the PBGirls are going to kick ass this season. If you're going to rip it up you better do it in style, so here are my PBGirl tshirt designs for all you girl riders out there. Hope you like them.
Oh yeah boys, if I was your girlfriend I would REALLY be thankful if I got one of these as a present. I might even let you ride my Super 8.

The Superheros II premieres tomorrow night Dec 12, at Vancouver's Premiere night club,Au Bar located at 674 Seymour St. They promise lots of drink specials and a ton-o-schwag to be given away. The Superheros' very own Gareth Dyer and Brian O. will be in attendance as well as Wade Simmons and the who's who of the Vancouver Bike scene. I understand the video features some killer footage of the Red Bull Rampage and insane jump footage from the Playground. Tickets are $5, doors open at 8pm and the show is sure to start by 10pm. Be there or be square!

So I bet ya have been thinking that we were going to leave ya hangin' when the snow started to fall. You should know better than that!
From the same folks that bring ya all your biking needs, we now give ya'll a fix for that white powder addiction, BIGLINES.com All the snow action, videos, films premiers, events, photos, buyandsell, forum and community you could ask for. Dust off the board, dig out the skis and pray for snow. Now get over there and download some videos!

Calgary's own Revolution Sport Supply has won the right to distribute Canada's newest brand of industrial bike parts, "Block 8". Although details are scarce, the founders of Block 8 were repeatedly thrown in a freerider's equivalent of a drunk tank, the "bike tank" in an unnamed Western Canadian City by the police for violating urban laws; scaring grannies and hookers alike with their stair gapping, mad drops and other outlaw riding. Finally the group was charged with "Reckless Endangernment of Society" under the criminal code CC25625-8. When their case came to court, all defense had to say was "the end of weak bike parts is nigh". They were apparently declared insane, and the sympathetic judge granted the group the right to repay society by giving them a life sentence in the Block 8 Internment camp deep in the bowels of the Canadian Rockies.
This Camp, with it's 100,000 hectare compound, and mammoth machine shop is where the Block 8 crew will serve their life sentence, designing and testing tough bike parts on homemade bikes in an effort to spare Canadian freeriders the agony and expense of mangled and broken bike parts.

Initial impressions and set up

Questions/Comments