banshee bikes industry insider

This week's winner is Niels Koopmann from Germany & this is his 2006 Chaparral, fully updated with some awesome parts...



Remember, we're not just looking for the most expensive build or pimpest parts spec, its all about doing something unique & truly eye-catching with your bike. So whatever Banshee you ride, whether that's a single speed Paradox or a 50lb Scream, send in your photos & show the world what you're riding.

If you want to be considered for Bike of the Week, please email your photos & a description of you & your bike to: info@bansheebikes.com
Photos should be re-sized to a maximum width/height of 1000px & your email should be no larger than 1mb. Crashing our inbox will get you instantly disqualified!

From Pinkbike.com

ODI brought Mike Montgomery up to shred Mammoth Mountain before opening weekend on June 20th. ODI and Mike met up with the big dogs at Mammoth and gave input on what they feel needs to be added to the Mammoth Bike Park. Mammoth has 2-3 times the amount of budget this year and is looking to make a top notch bike park within the next few years. In the process Mike and ODI set up some future plans with Mammoth...watch Mike shred and talk about what plans he has coming later this year at Mammoth!



Mike

This week's winner comes from Claus at 222 Cycles in Denmark & this is his Evil Edition Wildcard. What an amazing paint job!






If you want to be considered for Bike of the Week, please email your photos & a description of you & your bike to: info@bansheebikes.com
Photos should be re-sized to a maximum width/height of 1000px & your email should be no larger than 1mb. Crashing our inbox will get you instantly disqualified!

(He also rides for Banshee Bikes!!! haha)

I'm very happy to say, that my favourite Whistler bike shop Summit Sports has just become an official Banshee dealer, and even have some Banshee rental bikes for you to try out either in the bike park, or on the amazing local all mountain trails. So if you're in town, go and check them out, they are the best Whistler bike shop (in my personal opinion), have friendly knowledgeable staff, and really near the gondola!


Also, if you are looking for a new hanger or something, they have spares for all our bikes, so it is nice for you guys to know where to go if you need anything.

Team Fakawi Banshee rider Adam putting the Legend mkII through its paces at the 2011 (UCI) Asian Continental MTB (DH) Championships at Suzhou, China.

Race results: CyclingNews.com

Check out my new bikes for the season!

Banshee Rampant!

Banshee Legend!

Hey Banshee lovers, not the norm for us but still an grand journey. I am currently on the most epic adventure of my life so far right now, following the Tour Divide as riders go from Banff Canada to Mexico. If you look closely you might even see a spy shot of a Banshee Bike. Enjoy!

Push Pedal Crank

Devon Balet

Lorien Arnold from Sooke Mountain Cycle putting his Legend through its paces at Broom Hill on Vancouver Island, BC.

#2 Round of the Danish DH cup

Sebastian Jensen prejumping the last drop.

The second round of the Danish DH cup was held at a new venue in Randers this past weekend. The forecast for the weekend said rain, rain and rain and so it was. The track was not that difficult, there was a couple of turn and a bunch of jumps and drops. Nevertheless it was a bunch of fun to ride. Compared to other danish courses it was good since they only had a couple of months to build it. Props to the builders!

Saturday practice:

Both Kasper and myself were on new bikes. Kaspers last parts arrived before the race so he could build up his new Last Herb DH. My old bike was stolen, a couple of days before the race. So Bo and I build up my new bike friday night just in the for the race. I would like to give at big shout out to the people who made it happen!

Practice went well and we got our bikes dialed in for the race on Sunday. We were trying out some funky lines in practice and having a lost of fun. Both Bo and I opted for the Maxxis EXO´s again for a fast and lighter rolling bike.

Sunday practice and racing:

Sunday started out fairly chilled with a couple of runs to dial in some lines and get a feeling of the bike.

Bo was up first to race since he hadn´t ridden the first DH cup. Bo´s first run went well until he crashed in the middle section. He picked it up again and ended up posting a 50,7. For his second run Bo wanted to get down without crashing and came in 6 seconds faster, which he was fairly happy with.

Next up was Kasper. He was feeling comfortable on his new Last. Kasper posted a 44,550 for his first run and went into the hot seat. Second run was good but .5 of a second slower but was good enough for a 2nd place and his first podium of the year.

Since I won the first round I was seeded first and therefore the last to pin it down the hill. My first run went good with no real mistakes and I came down in 42.13 which I was happy with. My last run was almost the exact the same only .35 slower which gave me the two fastest times of the day over 5 seconds faster than 2nd place. 1. and 2. for 222Racing was pretty good and were looking forward to doing the same at the next round.

Kasper Nancke - Sebastian Jensen - Mike Thisted - Mathias Lystbæk - Mikkel Groth

Thanks to Simon Nejst and Lars Mortensen for the pictures.

- Sebastian Jensen, 222Racing

Some Colorado local boys are enjoying finishing high school by going on a two week road trip. Check out their video here and be sure to look for more to come!

Hi from Dennis Hoppe!

Last weekend the SKS-Slopestyle has taken place @ Winterberg, Germany as part of the Dirtmaster Festival 2011. Below you find some pics of me riding my Rampant during competition on the rebuilt course, that was extended this year with some new wooden obstacles. The Rampant makes it a lot easier to compensate the hard landings while still having the handling of a hardtail. 1st choice.

Since the slopestyle-track is located in a dip, it's easy for the people to view the ongoing action.






























As every year some friends and myself rented a vacational home near the festival . Short ways for lot's of fun, party & action during the festival days.

Impressions from last year...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GC8AiJCfr-0

The Festival consist of slopestyle, 4x, Downhill, Enduro Ride and an expo-area.

http://www.dirtmasters-festival.de/










Here you have the view from the middle of the 4x straight to the slopestyle course.







Since the wind was blowing during my runs I did it the safe and not risked to much, so I ended up 27th, pro class, from finally listed 45 and total over 80 starters.

Overall it was a great & long weekend

Greetz from Germany

Dennis Hoppe

The Dirtmasters Festival in Winterberg is often referred to as the European version of the legendary Crankworx-Festival. And despite the fact that Winterberg is much smaller than good old Whistler, the comparison is fairly accurate actually. The Dirtmasters Festival consists of several competitions, ranging from speed-disciplines such as Fourcross and Downhill to style-oriented disciplines like the Slopestyle event. And just like in Whistler, tons of companies show up to show their latest and greatest products, tons of people show up to watch the bike action and get drunk, tons of riders show up to compete against each other... the list goes on and on!


Welcome to Winterberg!

My brother Joz and I arrived in Winterberg on Wednesday in order to set up our tent and get a few runs in on the Downhill track before the masses would arrive. Our plan was to compete in the first round of the iXS German Downhill cup, which was actually completely sold out within a few hours. In addition to that, we were obviously looking forward to watching all the other competitions, hang out with our friends, walk across the exhibition area and enjoy the weekend.

On Thursday, the iXS Rookie Downhill Cup took place on one of the well-known tracks in Winterberg. Although called Rookie Cup, the level of riding was far from "Rookie" and a lot of the spectators were blown away by the level of riding. In addition to watching the race, we also managed to walk the track for the upcoming downhill race which looked like a ton of fun, despite being fairly short.


The atmosphere was great as usual.

The track started with a good-sized jump followed by a fairly flat, pedalling-section before entering the woods. All the wooded sections were really fast and constantly changed due to a constant stream of riders on track. The entire course was flowing very well. It certainly wasn't the most difficult or longest track ever but this actually meant that racing on the track would be quite challenging. One mistake and your race run was pretty much over since times were extremely close.

Practice on the track was a ton of fun. Waiting in line to get back up the mountain... well, not as much fun as riding. But this is what happens when more than 500 people decide to practice and race on a course that is just a little over 1.5km in length. Except for waiting in line, the practice sessions on Friday and Saturday were great and both Joz and I felt really comfortable on track.


Having fun on the track! / credit: www.traildiaries.de

On his last run before qualifyers, Joz somehow managed to snap the damper unit of his fork in half. Luckily the guys at Sram fixed his fork for free but he had to ride his qualifying run on a borrowed fork that he'd never ridden before, so he had to ride very conservatively. Despite that, he managed to qualify in 24th position with a 2:06. My qualifier went well and I didn't make any major mistakes but for some reason my time wasn't very good. I qualified in 75th position out of around 150 people with a 2:15. I was fairly happy with my position but at the same time, I knew that I was a bit off my own pace so I was looking to improve my time come race day.

On Saturday night, we watched the SKS Slopestyle where some of the best riders in the world threw down some amazing tricks, including double backflips, triple tailwhips, 360 double whips and so on. Personally slopestyle or dirt jumping isn't exactly my cup of tea but I was absolutely blown away by the level of riding. Thousands of spectators were standing along the course and made for a great atmosphere. In the end, Martin Soderstrom took the win in a convincing manner.


The slopestyle was amazing to watch!

Come Sunday, I was well-prepared to give it all that I could in my race run. I felt great right before the start but for some reason messed up one of the first corners, almost sliding out. Apart from that, everything was going very well and I was riding notably quicker than in the qualifiers. With the finish line almost in sight, my bike slid out underneath me and before I knew what was happening, I hit the ground. I managed to get back on my bike but once again my race run was pretty much over. I crossed the finish line with a 2:19 way back in 96th place. Without crashing, I most likely would have gotten a Top 50 result out of 150 riders so I wasn't too devastated.



Joz rode very well in his finals run but made a few little mistakes that cost him some valuable time, especially on a track this short. He wasn't too happy with his race run but finished with a 2:05 which was good enough for 23rd position. He was less than 1.5 seconds off a top 10 finish which once again proves how close and competetive the racing was.

After our race runs, we headed up the mountain again to watch the pros take on the course. Unfortunately the race was delayed for close to an hour due to a fellow racer crashing extremely hard in the fastest and rockiest section of the course. Get well soon! In the end, German downhill legend Marcus Klausmann took the win ahead of Andi Sieber and US ripper Logan Binggeli.


Joz on his way to 23rd place out of 150 riders / credit: www.traildiaries.de

Looking back at it now, the weekend really couldn't have gone any better. The racing was a lot of fun as was watching all the other events, the atmosphere was great with thousands of spectators, a lot of friends showed up to support us and while not exactly as well-known as Crankworx, the Dirtmasters Festival once again proved that it's most definitely worth visiting.

Cheers from Germany,
-Moritz Zimmermann

Last week I got back from the first Canada Cup race at Mont-Tremblant in Quebec. It was my first time racing outside of BC and my first time being on a plane, so it was quite an exciting trip.


I arrived in Montreal on Wednesday and went directly to the mountain where I was staying with the Cycling BC downhill team in one of the two condos they had.

Thursday the team went for a track walk to check out the course. It was quite a change from riding on the Sunshine Coast, there were a lot of rocks, fast rock faces and huge boulder rock gardens.


The first day of practice was Friday. It took a few runs of the course to get the feel of it and than it was super fun from then on.

On Saturday I slipped off the back of my bike and stretched/smashed my foot on some rocks. It was my first run of the day which really sucked, so I had to sit the rest of the day out with my foot up and iced.

The 2011 Cycling BC downhill team.

I was able to ride on Sunday, with a little bit of pain. I got in four rides in before my race run, which is more than I usually do, but with missing Saturdays practice I was scrambling to get my lines and get up to speed.


I ended up taking a bit of a crash in my race run. I went over the bars and got a little tangled up and out of the tape in one of the rock gardens. Besides my crash I had a pretty good run. I ended up 7th in junior, which wasn't exactly what I wanted but it was okay considering my circumstances.


I have a few more weeks left of school and then I have a BC Cup and then I'm headed back to Quebec for Canada Cup #2 at Bromont.

Thanks to Dave Hord for the photos.

Thanks

Forrest

forrestriesco.blogspot.com

Greg at Straitline emailed me a bunch of pictures from Jump Ship. I went through them and pick out my favorites.

Flair from the small quarter to the step down landing.

540 from the small quarter to the landing of the step down.

Back flip tail whip in my final run.

Extended no foot can can.

Superman ...

I will be pretty busy until the start of Camp of Champions. I have my sister's wedding, some filming and the Claymore Challenge. Then I get to drive me and my bikes north to Whistler for Camp of Champions and Crankworx, I hope to see you all there.

In this new weekly feature, we'll be showing off some of the best looking Banshee bikes out there. We're not just looking for the most expensive build or pimpest parts spec, its all about doing something unique & truly eye-catching with your bike. So whatever Banshee you ride, whether that's a single speed Amp or a tricked-out Legend, send in your photos & show the world what you're riding.

If you want to be considered for Bike of the Week, please email your photos & a description of you & your bike to: info@bansheebikes.com
Photos should be re-sized to a maximum width/height of 1000px & your email should be no larger than 1mb. Crashing our inbox will get you instantly disqualified!

This week's winner is Braeden Hitchcock from Vancouver, BC & this is his fully colour coordinated Rune...



Think you can do better? You know what to do!

Adam and Matej were in Leogand for round 3 of the World Cup DH, and Adam decided it would be rude to go there without riding one of his favourite DH courses, the infamous Schladming, with his mate Scott Mears. Then Matej shows us the way down Leogang on first practice day.

Hold on tight...

Banshee does Austria ( Schladming/Leogang ) from Jacob Gibbins on Vimeo.

Team Banshee Australia and Banshee Factory supported riders Ben Power, Ryan Hunt and Cody Eichorn have been in training and racing mode for the past couple of months however; continuing rain on the east coast of Australia has created havoc with race programs.

Ben Power attended the Australian Institute of Sport, Canberra along with other members of the Aussie National Junior DH Team last week which was supervised by National DH Coach, Jared Rando assisted by Nathan Rennie. The camp focused on many aspects of training including recovery, diet and race preparation. The weeks activities including several days of timed DH runs on numerous tracks in the area culminated with participation in Round 3 of the NSW/ACT Downhill State Series at Mt Stromlo (venue for 2008 World Cup and 2009 World Champs). The junior team raced up in class with the Elite Men and achieved excellent results on race day. The weather was extremely cold and very windy which made hitting jumps and gaps very interesting!

Ben qualified in 4th position and placed 6th in the final run after having some issues shortly after the start. Cody placed 7th and unfortunately; Ryan had a major mechanical shortly after the start in qualifying and was forced to do a chainless run which tipped him out of the final race. Ben was the 3rd fastest Junior and has not done his chances of final selection to the National Junior DH Team any harm! Ben is now concentrating on training including DH and XC with fellow Junior team member, Brandon Yrttiaho (Yetti/Fox)and contesting remaining rounds of the Queensland and NSW/ACT State Series. Ryan and Cody continue to train hard and will meet up with Ben in Coffs Harbour for the final round of the NSW/ACT series in a few weeks time.

Just finished up a sushi dinner in downtown Victoria after placing second in the first Jump Ship. With the wind blowing on my final run I was lucky to be able to pull off my run. I 360'd the drop in, did a superman on the first jump and then a backflip-whip. Landed pretty far down the landing and lost most of my speed, 360'd the next jump and then whipped the small quarter.


Have some more filming to do and then I am back home for a couple of days before some more travel.

Check out the Jump Ship coverage on Cheknews, watch until the end for best trick results ...



Mike

Pulled off the JumpShip FB page here

http://www.facebook.com/jumpshipcontest

Lots of other info and way more pics available of the contest.

Congrats Mike!

Not sure how Matthews or Fogel did yet but we’ll have another post going up soon.

All the information can be found here:

http://www.jumpshipcontest.com/

http://www.facebook.com/jumpshipcontest

http://www.pinkbike.com/news/Jump-Ship-Rider-List-and-Course-Build-Update.html

Banshee has a few of its riders coming in for the contest and Mike Montgomery and Jack Fogelquist will be up from the USA to compete as well.

It should be a pretty cool contest with the helicopter flying around over the harbour and with the government buildings, hotels, and the rest of Victoria as the backdrop.

Pinkbike has even more here now http://www.pinkbike.com/news/Jump-Ship-Course-Build-Photos-and-Video-2011.html

Thanks to Chris from Plus Size BMX

Big thanks to Banshee Bikes , Hayes, Manitou, Sunringle, Geax, Straitline and YESS for all there help , great support and quality products .

Frame -Legend Mk II

Fork -Manitou Dorado

Shock -Manitou Revox

Brakes -Hayes Stroker Ace

Rims -Sun Ringle A.D.D Lite

Hubs -Sun Ringle Jumping flea

Tyres -Geax DHEA 2.35

Cranks/BB -Raceface Atlas FR

Handle bar -Raceface Atlas

Drive train -Sram X0

Stem -Straitline bolt on 50mm

Pedals -Straitline

Both Matej Charvat and Adam Brayton were at Fort William for round 2 of the world cup last weekend. Here is a video of them training down the course on the first practice day...



More Mountain Biking Videos

The weekend didn't go too well for the guys unfortunately. Matej was putting together a great qualifying run (6th at first split and 24th at second), but then crashed towards the end, and catapulted his bike off the course and into a stream... it took him about 1 minute to reach it and get back on course, and as a result he did not qualify. He was gutted as his pace showed that he had real potential to break into the top 20. Adam told me that although he was feeling good in practice, the nerves got to him when it came to the big event, and he had a messy run with too many silly mistakes, because he was tense and trying too hard, he ended up in 48th, so still got some points and with his first world cup of the season under his belt, he can now start to relax and get his flow on.

Both guys have their eyes now firmly set on Leogang where I'm confident that they will show everyone what they can really do.

Congratulations Mike!

Mike Montgomery has won the 2011 Teva Games slopestyle in convincing style. His final run included a big 720 along with a dialed run to seal the deal. When video is available we will be posting it.



Honourable mentions also have to go to banshee riders Paul Genovese (7th) and Jack Fogelquist (9th)... great work guys!

Paul Bas went down pretty hard on a double backflip by all accounts. We hope he isn't too badly hurt and makes a speedy recovery.