Simon Cardon on the Rampant

Here's a cool video that Simon made for us.
Simon is Banshee's new French DH and 4X racer and he is the guy responsible for helping us get the geometry so bang on.
So far his results have been great. He was the top amatuer racer at the French 4X championships beating all but 4 pros to place 5th overall. Also last night I received this message from Patrick at XCYTT [our French distributor]
"Hi Jay,
There was this weekend the DH Championship of Belgium, Simon wanted to participate but he has no DH bike.
He has therefore done the displacement with the Rampant, the track was technical and not adapted to a bike with small travel, then some riders looked it with astonishment and smile.
Statement, Simon finish fourth, 2 seconds off Nico Vincq, UCI rider.
Patrick - XCYTT"

Me and Keith are super stoked that this bike is proving to be such a contender. So here you are... Simon Cardon

Keith on the Rune

Finally we have Keith discussing the features of the Rune. We didn't do the other bikes but will have something a little more polished on all the bikes in the lineup on the 2008 website.



or download it here
http://rapidshare.com/files/54379944/2008BanKeithRune.mpg

Jason at Sicklines just sent me a quick link to the dirt demo we're doing Bromont in Quebec... scroll down and check out the last bit of news on the Rune here at asilvertouch.com

Keith on the Rampant

Keith talks about the Rampant.



or download at
http://rapidshare.com/files/54146944/2008BanRampantKeith.mpg

Keith on the Wildcard

Here's the Wildcard. Again the sound isn't that great... I'm on the hunt for a microphone that I can use with my video camera which should help a bunch.




http://rapidshare.com/files/54130826/WildcardEuroShow.mpg

Keith on the Scythe

I took some video of Keith explaining the Scythe. Unfortunately the show is really noisy so it might be hard to hear him - my apologies.




Or download a better version here
http://rapidshare.com/files/54129033/BansheeScythe2.mpg.html

Eurobike2008
So it is another year -my third actually- where we pack up and head off to the largest bike show in the world. Interbike in comparison is about half the size of what Eurobike is due to the large number of European brands that don't show in the USA. Brands such as Ghost, LaPierre, and Univega are massive over here in Germany but you'd be hard pressed to see someone on the trail in North America with that name on their bike.

The flight from Vancouver was pretty uneventful except for the Ukrainian lady who chatted my ear off about Romainian gypsies fortelling her future in broken English.
Nine hours later on my KLM flight I arrive in Amsterdam [which i like calling 'Hamsterland' cause it rhymes] to wait for my connection to Frankfurt. Honestly I expected more from a KLM flight... the food was terrible and I wasn't going to choke down that thing they called pasta; I managed to get something in the airport before the next flight out on the smaller city hopper - a Fokker which is very similar in size to a Boeing 737.

14 hours later I arrive in Frankfurt. The time change and lack of sleep is starting to kick in because its nearly impossible for me to sleep on a plane sitting in those cramped seats with little room to move or stretch out. The first symptom of jetlag is that out-of-body experience where you seem to be in another world while you run around the airport, collect your baggage, and try to find a transfer to your hotel.

North of Frankfurt is where the taxi is headed. We arrive 40 minutes later in Idstein, pronounced Idschtine, which is this cool old world town [I'll get some pictures later] to look for a hotel to stay at. I've been awake for more then 24 hours and have only the energy for a quick pint of German beer before crashing. It was only a week earlier I was in Taiwan and just managed to adjust my clock back to Vancouver time and now I'm screwing it up again.

Its tuesday morning and I've left the hotel to meet up with our German distributor Shock Therapy for the drive down to Friedrichschafen, it's just north of Vienna in Austria and the place where the Eurobike show will be taking place.
I'm greeted by some familiar faces I haven't seen for a year and a few new ones. After some short pleasantries its back to work loading the last of the gear.
Its about a 4 to 5 hour drive as I pass in and out of consciousness in the backseat of a Ford minivan whizzing down the autobahn. I'm awaken on occassion as Hans, owner of Shock Therapy and driver, lays on the horn and yells some profanity in German at some driver that's failed to adhere to the speed limit and gets in his way. The speed limit on the autobahn [freeway] is go as fast as you can, and if you can't keep up don't dare go in the fast lanes or you'll get an earfull. We're doing over 150Kph but are still passed by BMWs, Mercedes, and Volkswagen going over 170kph. Contrary to popular belief there are speed limits on the autobahn and you can only "open it up" in certain areas.

We arrive in Friedrichschafen, drop our bags off at the Burgerstuble Gasthouse, which is the name of the hotel we'll be staying at, and head to the Friedrichschafen Messe to unload and setup some of the tradeshow booth.

Its now 9pm back at the hotel. We gather around a dinner of snitzel, spetzle, and that oh so tasty German beer, before I call it a day and hit the sack.

Keith arrives tomorrow and I'm sure he'll add somethings to the blog.

Its still one more day of setup before the show starts but I plan to do some scoping of the show as setups going on.

...

I had planned on writting everyday but everywhere I stayed it was impossible to get an internet connection... I'm kinda pissed about that.

I'm writing from the Frankfurt aiport and the show is over. It was really awesome to see all my friends again and I need to come back to Europe before next year as I had way too much fun this trip.
The show itself was awesome with lots of eye candy however me and Keith were mostly slammed with questions, so we had to spend 99% of our time working the booth.
I was stoked to see the interest in all the bikes and 2 German mags left with the Wildcard and Rune which was a bit unexpected but a pleasant surprise.
Keith spent some of his time trying to court Ryan Leech over to Banshee - the Norco booth was right across from us - so that was funny to see... but I think they were mostly talking bike stuff.

I did manage to corner Keith long enough to get some vid footage of him going through the bikes, so as soon as I get home I'll get the vids up here on the blog. There's stuff he's designed into them that I didn't even know about; which he'll explain in the videos.

The party the last night was great again except I did manage to get punched in the face and kicked in the nutz by who knows who in the mosh pit, but you need to expect that if you want to get your "rock-on"

Big thanks go out to all the riders who came by to see us. To Steve... [official banshee party dude] don't ever change man!!
Special thanks to Hans, the lovely Marina, Frank, Peter, the beautiful Ellen, and Jovolin who gets to build up the Scythe and run it through its paces. The trip was tons of fun because of you guys - me and Keith can't wait to come back again.

I'm off to Montreal for another show ... look forward to seeing you if you 're coming to the BTAC show. We will be doing the dirt demo so if you want to rip on the 08 stuff come on by!!

Mythic Bikes 2008

Greetings from Mythic Bikes, England

as regular visitors to this blog and the Banshee website may know, Mythic is the UK sub-label of Banshee Bikes, Canada

For those who don't know; to cut a long story short, another distributor has the rights to use "Banshee" in the UK

We put our heads together with Banshee about 2 years back, to come up with a cool name so we can promote and sell the frames into the UK market

we are stoked to be part of Banshee, but having our own name is extra cool as it gives us our own identity

Mythic riders seem to like getting envious stares from other riders on the trails, and plenty of questions about their frames from the locals in the lift queue at Whistler Bike Park!

the 2008 range of frames is looking completely dialled, and we are soon to receive our sample frames - Rampant, Rune, Wildcard and Scythe, which will be built into high-end test bikes and sent off to the UK mags for some serious testing

In addition, i will be getting my Team Wildcard frame, which i am totally stoked about. I have been riding the Chaparral this season and although the Chap was a sick rig and up for any kind of bad abuse, it was a touch heavy for the typical UK terrain

I've been busy in the workshop getting my build parts together for the arrival of my Wildcard frame, gonna try out Stan's No-Tubes with some Syncros BHT kevlar tires to keep the rotational weight low as possible, to help with the tricks!

I've been riding BMX alot this year, and a couple of sessions in the Air Dome at Whistler last month has given me lots of confidence to try out lots of new stuff

We are also working on the Slopestyle park here at Esher Shore over the Winter, which will require lots of test riding...it's a hard life, eh?

The response to the 2008 frames here in the UK has been very very positive, with the Wildcard looking to be the stand-out seller, due to the Slopestyle "trend"...in other words a lighter weight, mid travel bike, yet tough enough to abuse, which sounds ideal for our terrain

We will also be pushing the other frames equally as hard, with the Scythe for the hard hitting freeride crowd, the Rune for the All-Mountain riders and the Rampant looking perfect for the 4X and Dual tracks that are springing up across the UK in public forests

And of course the timeless classics such as the Scirocco and Morphine which are always popular for riders looking for genuine all-rounders

As soon as the 08 samples arrive, i'm burning the midnight oil in the workshop and will get the pictures up here first

cheers!!

Rob C

VF4B Pivots

All the VF4B (Virtual Floating four bar) frames are equipped with entirely new pivot assemblies for 2008.

By reducing the complexity and part number I have made the pivots far easier to maintain, whist also reducing weight and increasing lateral stiffness.

For 2008 the Rune, Rampant and Pyre will all be using iglide polymer bearings. This decision has not been made lightly. We have considered all the pros and cons as well as done a substantial amount of field testing (actually I would say that hardcore BC trails are far better than fields for testing to the limits!)

what are the benefits?

• Increased lateral stiffness


• Reduced weight


• Reduced maintenance


• Cheaper for customers to replace


• Self lubricating

I realise that there are a lot of die hard bearing fans out there... but what you have to realise is that bearings are designed to take complete 360degree rotations like you get in bottom brackets, and not angular rotations (less than 90degrees) like you get in suspension pivots. This means that the whole load in bearings is constantly wearing out just 2 or 3 of the ball bearings in a conventional bearing, whereas the polymer bushings wear evenly due to the design.

You can find more information on the bearings here.. http://www.igus.com/show_iglide.asp and you can also order replacement bushings directly from them quickly and at a low price.

Axles:

The axles for the main pivots have been specifically designed for performance, simplicity, and ease of maintenance. This has been achieved by:

• Direct grease injection ports with set screw grease zerk


• Grease injection can be done in under 30 seconds, just unscrew the set screw, inject grease, screw in set screw. (obviously the area MUST be clean when you do this to stop grit getting in to the pivots)


• 3 parts to the axles... axle, bolt and zerk ... that's it, why over complicate things?


• Double helical groves on the axle surface to allow the grease to push under the bushings.


• Hard anodised finish to axle surface improves the life of both axles and pivots. (not seen in prototype above)

Basically the you inject the grease in through the end of the axle and it feeds through into the gap in the pivot between bushings due to the machined grease path. (you can see the grease paths in the following cross section picture).

Yes the bushings are self lubricating, so if they remain clean then there is no need to even grease the pivots, however if you suspect there is some grit in there then injecting grease can force out the grit without harming the bushings.

After spending months testing and abusing the prototypes that all had the new pivot assemblies we are very confident that they will help improve your riding experience.

720 roadtrip Czech Republic

Last week I took a road trip around Czech Republic which was organized by my good friend from 720.cz website.


13 cars, about 30 people, riding, trawling, camping, having party and fun. One week on the road. We spend perfect time riding every day one or two different locations like bikeparks, local freeride and dirt jump spots or secret trails.

Kamil Tatarkovic (Kona Les Gets, 3th man from 4x world cup 2006) and me at his backyard





I have an Banshee Pyre in test. The bike was build little more for freeride and it was perfect on all kind of trails, dirt, 4x track, freeride singletracks... Geometry and suspension system worked great, but it ts still a light enduro frame. I thing that new burlier Rune will be excellent do-it-all bike.


Check few pictures from trip:

Rampant and other stuff

Got the Rampant pics up in the gallery now [see the previous post on how to access it]. It would have been nice to show it in the other team color because you've all already seen the red and white version. I know I should have weighed all the complete bikes but I forgot - sorry - I'll try to do it when I'm in Germany next week.

Make sure you check out the difference between this pic and the earlier pics of the rampant prototype, which is namely the custom hydroformed 7005 tubeset. The shapes are just awesome and all flowy and the differences can be seen on the Wilcard, and Rune also.

Yes... its the dog and pony show time of year again which will see me globe trotting around meeting everyone again.

I'll be in Friedrichschafen for the Eurobike show, then fly straight to Montreal where the BTAC show is - we plan to do the dirt demo where we will have all the bikes [except the Legend], then a few weeks later is the Interbike dirt demo which should be pretty cool.

I'll definitely be looking forward to seeing a few of you.

So no I'm just waiting to get the Scythe which may or may not be done before I leave... well maybe leave, because Typhoon [hurricane] Sepat, which they are classifying as a Super Typhoon, is headed our way and it should hit land very close to the time I'm suppose to fly out.

What I didn't realize is the hurricane is approaching from the East and even if there was a window to the west China has a no fly zone so we wouldn't have much room to maneavour; there is a chance i may be grounded.

If so me and Lance are probably going to find a few lawn chairs and have a beer outside... should be pretty funny.