So hot right now

Cheesy bike themed graphics and rough hewn block letter fonts:

I'm gonna give the nod to the Lumberyard, though. What's more badass than a bike wheel or a saw blade? Duh, a bike wheel saw blade.

The transitive property

I beat Brian Lopes at Downhill Domination, so if you can beat me at DHD, then by the transitive property you effectively beat Brian Lopes. As T-bag would say, ride the pony.

See you Friday night at Stevens Pass.

The score

If you're curious, here's Loic's Lapierre over the course of the season. Let's take a look at what shock he chose to run, where and when. Turns out he ran coil over air most of the time. At this point, I have no idea why he does or does not choose air vs. coil.



Rotorua: Coil

Lourdes: Coil

Fort William: Air

Leogang: Coil

Lenzerheide: Coil, complete with a special thermometer strip to keep track of damper temp on track

Whistler Crankworx, Le Deux Alpes: Air

Mont Sainte Anne: Coil

Windham: Coil

Val di Sole: Coil

Andorra: Coil

And so it ends

There is no more Littermag.com. For six years I believed if I kept using the old URL, Spomer would have to keep paying for it. Hope shattered.




In a totally unrelated story, boy was I wrong about this:

http://theteamrobot.blogspot.ca/2014/06/bets.html

"I think Loic Bruni was on track to win a World Cup by the end of this year, but my bet is that he completely falls off the back now that he has to ride the rolling garbage pile."


So, that didn't happen in 2014, and certainly not in 2015. But I will say this, in my defense:

A) Whatever size frame he was running at the 2014 Fort William BDS (the duct tape covered bike pictured above), it sure as hell wasn't the same size he won World Champs on a few days ago. In those initial pictures we got of Loic and the new bike, he looked like a bear riding a circus bike. The bike he's on these days looks like it might actually fit. And for my needs, the bike is still unridable, as the size large has a reach length 40mm less that what I'm used to riding. Which is a lot.

B) He's on an air shock, and I bet it's not for weight. Dollars to donuts, I bet you he's on the Gwin program, where he's using the air volume to tweak spring rate and make a linear trampoline bike into a more progressive, predictable, dick-smashing bike.

C) Everything else I said about France was on point. Crepes are awesome, Syria... not so much.

Ankle socks

Jean Gerard

For the last two seasons I've had people ask me at downhill races "wait, you still race downhill? I thought you were full time enduro guy." 

I ride for Felt, I race a lot of enduros, I'm past my prime and borderline irrelevant in downhill racing, so yes, on paper I should be "enduro guy." And I would be good at it too, if it weren't for this one guy who keeps showing up and winning everything in sight:

Luke Strobel. He's definitely not "enduro guy," he's still on flat pedals, and I don't think he pedals most of the time because he's lazy, but he keeps winning everything and making me look like shit. And if that wasn't bad enough, on Monday morning after the race, he texts me crap like this:

"Dude, you should put this up on TEAM ROBOT. So good."

You know in Talledega Nights when Ricky Bobby keeps getting beat by Jean Gerard, and Jean is sipping macchiato while driving and he spends his days on his ranch grooming his collection of gay horses with his husband while painting. It's like that.

Getting beat at every race by is bad enough, but when they start texting you youtube videos of sock puppets playing Weird Al versions of bad metal songs, it's too much for a ROBOT to take.

Your random New England video of the day

Random trail bike front flip off a ladder bridge with only 77 views? Check.

New England: the place where trying really hard, still riding ladders and bridges on your trail systems 10 years later, and no one in the bike industry caring about your local scene all intersect.

Upgrade

Translation

Jason McRoy died 20 years ago yesterday. Steve Peat counts him among the most influential riders in his life, and the inspiration for Steve to chase the mountain bike dream, paving the way for British downhillers for decades to come. I was six years old at the time and don't remember any of this, but from what I hear he was a total badass.




My only original thought to contribute is that, 20 years later, this is still what people picture in their heads when you mention mountain bikes.