Team Geronimo and Gene Hamilton of Betterride

During a rare break in the busy 2010 race season, Team Geronimo racers (from left to right) Michael Buell, Brian Buell, Graeme Pitts and Cody Eichhorn had the great opportunity to spend a few days with Coach Gene Hamilton (center) of Betterride http://www.Betterride.net. It was Eichhorn's first chance to meet with the legend, but the rest of the team are all veterans of multiple skills clinics, so the focus of this private gathering was advanced race technique, just in time for the second half of the season.

(Note Pitts' Argentinian national jersey, which he acquired at 2009 Pan Am Championships in Chile. The custom is to swap jerseys with anyone who requests it, accompanied by autographs on the jerseys and the customary European kiss. Pitts got to enjoy this whole ritual with an Argentinian pirate, complete with gold tooth and long hair!)

Lone Wolf Productions Goes Live

Hey Guys,

Today was a bit of a big day. The site has gone live and in the same day has been featured on the pinkbike.com's main page:

http://www.pinkbike.com/news/lone-wolf-productions-section-1-2010.html

Lots of props to Banshee of course for being a site sponsor. We are also available on the Lone Wolf Productions blog, our facebook page and twitter now so follow as there as well:

http://lonewolfproductions.wordpress.com/
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=128040877218809
http://twitter.com/LoneWolfTeam

Hope you all have a second to check it out.

Matt Brooks

Legend Spy Shots

I have been hanging out with Jay in 中壢 (zhong li) for the past couple of days. On Friday I got my first view of the 2010 Legend. I can honestly say I did not want one until I saw the finished product.

Today Jay made the big mistake of taking me back to the factory, giving me a tour of the Legend production facility and then asking me to take some pictures of the finished white and black Legends for www.bansheebikes.com. That is like showing a crack addict where the crack is made and stored and then leaving the crack addict with the crack to take pictures of it. Or maybe it was more like being left with a camera and two swim suit models.

When Jay left me in the studio with two Medium Legends and his camera so many things flashed through my crack head mind. I could call a cab and be back home in Kaohsiung before he even knew I had made off with the frames. But then I did what any straight Canadian man would do with two swim suit models …

(Medium Legend with two bands on seat tube.)

Medium Black Legends will have two green bands on the seat tube. Small Legend frames will have one band and the Large frames will have three.

EDIT by Keith: Props must be given to Aaron Neumann for both of these colour way designs. Great work Aaron!

(Large Legend with three bands on seat tube.)

Large White Legends will have three red bands on the seat tube. Medium two bands and Small will have one.

I hope it was as good for you as it was for me.

Rob Dunnet

for more go to Cycle Taiwan and Pinkbike

Matt Brooks and Friends Riding in February

Hey all! I got a chance to take out a friend on the Banshees and hit the bike park over the last couple days. It's been unseasonably warm for quite awhile here in Kamloops so I thought it might be a good chance to shoot a couple pics and spread some 22 pride. My friend Lance and I took out the Wildcard and the Rampant on the first day and got a little dirt jumping in. The trails are in awesome shape right now, and there is some building happening, so obviously we weren't the only ones peeking out noses out side to see what's up. When we got there, there was about 10 others already dirt jumping, and another few building. It looks like a new DH track is nearing completion and it's got some real nice features. I hope it will draw lots of people for the race the ranch event this year. On day 2 we decided to pull out the big bikes and shred some DH trails, so I got on the Scythe and Lance stuck with the Wildcard. All the trails were in great shape with no mud at all. We put in a bunch of laps and called it a day after a couple beers. All in all a great riding day for the beginning of February. We snapped a bunch of pics so I thought I'd share them with everyone on here. Hope every ones winter is going as well as ours.

Aussie Champs Day 1

Hey Banshee Fans, we've arrived in Adelaide for the Aussie Championships. Team
Banshee are psyched and firing. We have an awesome setup and all are relaxed and
ready to race. Our Dirt Jumps also look sweet, so stay tuned over the coming days
for race reports, pics and tour madness.

Cheers all, Darren, Team Banshee Australia

Ryan and Jayne Podium in Tasmania

Hi Banshee fans, it's Darren here from Barspin Imports, down here in Hobart, Tasmania (Australia) for the first round of our National Series. We're absolutely stoked to report that both Ryan Hunt & Jayne Rutter both scored themselves 2nd place podiums in Elite Four Cross. Ryan on his Amp and Jayne on her Rampant.
Tomorrow sees the boys Ryan and Ben Power contest the Elite and U19 Downhill respectively. Hopefully we'll be able to report more Banshee goodness.
Cheers all, from Tassie.

Wildcard Version 2.0- More than just a dream?

A follow up response to http://bansheebikes.blogspot.com/2009/08/banshee-wildcard-long-term-review.html

As my eyelids struggled to compete against the force of gravity, a few thoughts tripped on my mind’s doorstep. What if money grew on trees? What if first time homebuyers didn’t need a 25 year mortgage? What if I could change whatever I wanted on the Banshee Wildcard?

As my eyelids regained their crown as the daily Awake Champion, I began to contemplate the thoughts that only moments ago occupied my cerebrum. The first two questions were quickly dismissed as I remembered a wise and BIG philosopher once said, “Mo money, mo problems.”

But what if I could change whatever I wanted on the Banshee Wildcard? What would I change?

In my opinion, the Wildcard was initially designed as a slopestyle bike, but due to its versatile geometry it soon found its niche as a true jack-of-all-trades bike capable of slopestyle esque riding and freeriding. As a result, most riders who choose to purchase the Wildcard also spend a great deal of riding time on the trails.

With the above disclaimer in mind, there are three and a half revisions I would like to suggest. The first is revision is around the area of geometry. The Wildcard is an excellent all around platform suitable for climbing, jumping, descending, and cornering. However, I would like to see a slightly lower bottom bracket height of approximately ¾ of an inch (bringing the bottom bracket height to 13.15” on my current set up), and a slacker head angle by one degree (bringing my current head angle to 66 degrees), while the rest of the geometry numbers remain the same.

With a lower bottom bracket height, the Wildcard would have a lower center of gravity and in my opinion, be even better at railing through high-speed corners. With a slacker head angle, the Wildcard would be even more stable when pointed down steep descents. Of course the drawback of having a lower bottom bracket height means more bottom bracket, crank, and pedal smashes while having a slacker head angle means having a slower turning response for slopestyle maneuvers.

The second area of revision is around weight. While by no means heavy at 8.92lbs (for an anodized finish DHX air 5.0 equipped size small), a loss of ½ a pound would place the Wildcard ahead of its competitor the Transition BottleRocket and be one more reason to hand over the green (or brown bills) to Banshee Bikes.

The third area of revision is around appearance. With riding hotspots like Whistler peppered with wildly finished carbon fiber helmets and TLD superhero suits, riders are definitely spending money on their riding kits. My preference would be to see anodized links to colour match or colour clash the anodized finish on the Wildcard. Banshee specific decal kits (think Rock Shox like) for the wet paint Wildcards would also be a draw for all the sticker-crazed groms.

The last half revision is around price. The reason I claim this to be a half revision is because while the Wildcard is a fairly pricy frame, you definitely get what you pay for. It is a solid frame, backed by a great warranty, and a standup company. However in tough economic times, what will entice new riders to purchase a Wildcard over similarly priced frames? I believe my first three suggestions are the key.

Wildcard Version 2.0, am I still dreaming?

C.C.

What I have been doing for this last month

So I got the chance to bring my tractor to my buddys place with good dirt and I have been building the jumps for about a month every single day. Its gotta be hard just to look at the photos and understand what going on but their is about five different lines in their somewhere with anything from transfers to pump tracks, normal jumps and big berms, The big set was just started in thease photos but they are about 20ft gaps and 7ft tall lips and landing that stand about 12ft tall and go deep into the ground.




Anyways theirs a bunch of photos of the new jumps and shot of me riding my small set
hope you enjoy
COMMENT i wanna hear what you think

Hello Scythe!

Banshee describes the Scythe as a bike that simply put, just works. That it definitely is, but unfortunately it is overlooked by a lot of riders as its stock geometry is more on the freeride side of things.

Using a 8.5 x 2.5 shock over the stock 8.75 x 2.75 shock, the geo settles to something in the right ball park for dh. Here is my experience of the first 3 months on the Scythe with this set up.

Deity pedals, one of those great bike parts that fly under the radar.

A little bit on my set up:
Parts are all transferred from my rune previously, I did have to build up a new wheel set as the rear is a 150mm for the scythe. Wheels are ZTR Fows laced to Hope Pro 2s, i cannot believe how light these wheels are, definitely gives the bike a very different feel. Easy to move around and accelerates well. Nothing special about the rest of the set up really. The build comes to around 37lbs with tubes, and just under 37lbs tubeless.

With the shorter stroke shock, the two travel options reduce to 7.3 and 6.4 inches from 8 and 7 inches. The only geometry that i measure was the head angle, it's 65.5 degrees now the rear travel at the 7in setting and the fork at 7.5 inches.

I could go a bit slacker by taking the fork up to 8 inches but the geo it working fine the way it is now. The bike was easy to get used to, single pivot in the back, nothing fancy going on in the links, nice geometry all made it a very simple machine. Nothing that will catch you out and surprise you, i felt right at home on it.
I am really impressed with the 2009 dhx, its quite an improvement over dhxs of past. Due to my light body weight, it normally means i am not able to run much compression damping using the pro pedal and boost valve before it felt really harsh on the higher speed hits. Not the case with the 09 dhx, it's almost a pity that they are replacing it with rc4 already.

This combined with the light wheels and simple frame make for a very good ride, it really feels glued to the ground and has loads of grip. A good mate of my agreed too, said it rides better than his full on dh bike.

yes, i still hate pedalling. so why carry extra gears?

cut down spikes, best served wet or dry

There isn't really any particular thing to shout about with this bike, that's not to say it's dull or rubbish. There are no fancy linkages in the suspension, clean lines that are functional as opposed to being pretty.

It's the whole package that makes this bike a great bike, one thing comes to mind when i think about this bike. What santa cruz used to say for their super 8: it's like a sharp axe in a world of broken chain saws.

At the end of the day it passes the biggest test, it puts a huge smile on my face!



Adam.
Fakawi |Banshee

Mythic Rune test - MBR magazine

I'll let the test do the talking.... all images / text copyright MBR magazine

cheers!

Rob c