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It sounds like our prayers and wishes have come true, and the kind god Honda is bringing their legendary RN01 to us mortals.

Details are really thin on the ground, but what we're pretty sure about is that the RN01 will be available as a frame kit, what this will include we're not sure (obviously the 'gearbox' but forks too?).

A number have bike dealers and retailers have been approached by Honda, presumably to hear their views on how they should go about things.
More info will be available in June after Honda's press launch.
Fingers crossed our dreams will come true, and by Christmas 08 Santa will have left us a nice RN01 shaped parcel under the tree!!

UCI is pleased to announce the 2007 UCI BMX Supercross World Cup calendar, with 4 legs on 3 continents.
The second round of the BMX Supercross World Cup will be the test event for the 2008 Olympic Games, on the actual Olympic BMX track. This will be the only time riders will be able to ride the Olympic track prior to the Olympic Games in August 2008 and will take place between 20th-21st August this year. The 2nd round will also see the introduction of a Women class (open class Elite Women/Junior Women) in the BMX Supercross World Cup.


Event dates and venues:

13-14/04/2007 UCI BMX Supercross World Cup, round 1 Madrid ESP


20-21/08/2007 UCI BMX Supercross World Cup, round 2 Beijing CHI


21-22/09/2007 UCI BMX Supercross World Cup, round 3 Salt Lake City USA


13-14/10/2007 UCI BMX Supercross World Cup, round 4 Frjus FRA

More than 15,000 spectators braved rain and mud to cheer on the riders at the second round of the UCI World Cup. This round took place at the technical Offenburg track, Germany.
Sabine Spitz (Ghost) and Wang Jingjing (China National) set the early pace through the first three laps, and conditions remained dry, despite the looming cloud.

Chinese riders found the technical track more of a challenge that they did at Houffalize, with Ren dropping back to 15th place by the end of the first lap.
Chengyuan Ren kept the pace up and the pressure on and managed to battle her way to 7th place overall and also held onto the women's series lead by 10 points over current world champion Gunn-Rita Dahle Flesjaa (Multivan Merida).
For a full race report and list of results visit Velo News.

This is Ryan Leech's section in the latest installment of the Kranked series, Kranked 6 "Progression"



For more videos check out Rip.Tv.

One of the best ways to improve your riding skills is to go out and ride in the mud.
Now, I know its summer for most of us but the past few days here have been really quite wet and muddy, perfect for honing the old trail skills. Its amazing how a bit of water and a few sllimey roots can transform your local route.

Just check out riders like Steve Peat and the Atherton's. While the rest of the riders are slipping and falling over in the mud these guy float over it.

Not only is riding in the wet good for your skills its also tons of fun! Last night we were out for the weekly night ride, our usual dusty rocky ride had turned in to a mud wrestling arena and it was great fun (just don't roll your dirty bike through the living room at 2am like I did).

So next time the rain starts to fall stick on a decent set of tyres and get out in the mud!

Other than being a really long name The International South China Two-wheeler Stunt Competition 2007 is one of the the biking events in the Chinese cycling calendar.

It will take place on Dec. 2nd 07 at the Dcannon Cycle Club in Shenzhen at their great looking 4X track where Mountain Bikers and BMXer's will be pitted against one another.
Last year Todd Lyons from SE Racing took the win over China's top Slalom and 4X riders.

There will also be a trials competition and a 40 km cross country race.

If you are interested in taking part you can either register online by emailing ksyenyue@21cn.com or by calling Miss Zhang on 132655447506. Registration cost 150RMB and must completed by Nov. 25th.

Chinamtb will be there ripping up the 4x track and probably getting injured in the process.

See you there.

Everyone taking part must use gloves and a helmet and be in good physical condition.

Forget your quad bikes and mini motos, how about one of these beauties to drag up and down the beach in?

Now I know they aren't mountain bikes but you have to admit a lot of fun could be had in one of these little dune buggies.
Both are made by XingYue Vehicle Co Ltd and feature automatic gearboxes and 260cc single piston 4 stroke water cooled engines. The yellow buggy or 'XYKD-260-III' can reach speeds of around 80kmh!! and the red buggy or 'XYKD-260-II' can get to about 75.

Price wise, the red 'XYKD-260-II' costs 30,000RMB (not sure on the XYKD-260-III price) Which is less than half the price of a Nicolai Nucleon TST frame here in China.

I'd still probably go for the Nicolai though.

Steve Peat was the man to beat at this weekends Lisbon Downtown race in Portugal. Having won it the past 5 years in a row the pressure was really on, but he pulled it off and in spectacular style.

Peaty managed to stay ahead of Syndicate team mate Nathan Rennie by an astonishing 2.624 seconds.

Final top five:

1: Steve Peat: 1:39.658 SANTA CRUZ SYNDICATE
2: Nathan Rennie: 1:42. 282 SANTA CRUZ SYNDICATE
3: Filip Polc: 1:42.444
4: Samuel Hill: 1:42.543
5: Matti Lehikoinen 1:42.563

The Downtown race is the most unique race in the downhill calendar. Instead of competing on a downhill in the mountains riders race through the narrow cobbled streets of Lisbon. Staircases and tight bends are really hard on both rider and machine not to mention the cobbled paths which make tire choice a tricky decision.

The riders will be heading over to Scotland next for a round of the British NPS series.

Nice job Peaty!!

Apparently by the end of June Qingdao's very first skate park will have been completed and ready for its grand opening in early July.
The park will be located on Beizhong Rd. near to the TREK store and will be free to the public!!

The best beginning to a mountain bike movie ever!!

While out on our weekly night ride Ash and I started to scope out some of the terrain for possible trail expansion.
Now, flash back 30 min and we were in XGNBT bike shop watching ROAM, which is an amazing mountain bike movie, and making noises such as 'oooohhhh!' and 'Wow!' .
'Why can't we have some 'Oooohhh!' and 'Wow!' at our own little mountain?' we thought, and that brings us back to where I started walking around in the dark looking for rocks to jump off.
While on our little mission we found a few drops off a downhill which need very little work to get rideable and we also found a huge piece of land ideal for dirt jumps.
So, the plan is in the next few weeks to go out as a group and start building, but we can't do it alone, we need a little help from our friends.

If you ride in Qingdao and fancy helping us buid some trails and in the process help promote our sport email me at andi@chinamtb.com maybe you'll even get a free beer out of it.

Novatec recently gave us one of their single speed dirt jump hubs to test. They have a number of single speed hubs available for mountain bikes and BMX and with or without disc mounts. The model we have on test is the D256SBT with a 10mm axle, there is a 14mm version available too.

I've said it before and I will continue to say it, Novatec products are quality items and the D256SBT is no exception. CNC'd alloy body, 4 sealed bearings a tough cromo axle even the axle nuts are top quality.

The D256SBT uses a freehub for its single cog to sit on, it has been specially designed for single speed and the type of aggressive riding people will use the hub for it also has 4 pawls for instant power transfer and peace of mind.

The hub body itself is much wider than a standard rear hub, 75,5mm as apposed to around 58mm (ish) this means that the wheel can be built up without any dish making for a much stronger wheel.

I can't wait to get it built up in to a wheel so keep posted for a full test report soon.

Novatec worldwide supplier details are available here.

The night for the chinamtb weekly night ride has changed to Thursday nights we will meet at 8:00p.m at the XGNBT bike shop and head up Jilin Shan for a few hours and finish the ride near number 3 beach (and have a few beers).
Anyone wanting to join us is quite welcome, but please bring a helmet and lights.

La Bici Shanghai has a huge selection of top of the range bikes from the likes of Commencal, Sunn, Cove, DK and more.

Anne Caroline Chausson's Commencal at the La Bici stand.


To see what other great bikes and parts they have call in to their store:

La Bici address
No. 241 WanPing Rd,
Shanghai.

Also see their website www.labici.com.cn

Bike companies will do all sorts to make their brand stand out from the crowd. Some will make the bike with the most suspension travel ever and that weighs the same as a small country while others will make a super light fully rigid single speed.
Maybe they will use the most advanced materials available or bring in a special design team just to wow the customers and attract you to their brand.

And then there are the companies who make a mistake and manage to draw attention to themselves for the wrong reasons.
Which brings me to this.

Not the kind of thing you want written on your child's first bike, but it made me laugh.
If your not getting what's so funny about having "Morning Glory" written on your bike then you'll have ask your mates or listen to some Oasis.
Now, I am not going to mention the company name, but if you send me a resume I can put you in touch with them. They obviously need a bit of translation work.

Great looking new chains from Yaban are now available they have a half link chain for us singlepeeders and dirt jumpers. Half link chains are ideal for getting the correct chain length.

A huge looking downhill chain which is compatible with Shimano, Sram and Campag (If your running a road cassette). It seems to have been designed to be used specific way round, we are waiting for more details.

And a super light XC chain which has hollow pins as well as cut outs in the links.

For more details on their chains go to the Yaban site.

You may or may not know this but Orange mountain bikes (a top UK based mountain bike manufacturer) recently showed off two prototype bikes sporting the new GBOXX technology (GBOXX is an internal gear system which is mounted in the frame) .

Most magazines have commented on how these bike were only prototypes and it's not likely they will go into to production any time soon. Well we have news for you, maybe, possibly.

We recently met a gentleman who works for Suntour Europe, I asked him many questions about their new gearbox design and which companies are involved, "DaBomb, Ghost, Orange and a few more" He replied. I know the DaBomb will go into production sometime in the near future and Ghost seem to have theirs almost ready but 'Orange' I said 'Thats just a concept bike isn't it?'.

Well I was surprised to learn that the Suntour guy was under the impression Orange will put at least one of their GBOXX bikes into production, and that they were just waiting on the GBOXX units form Suntour.
This would be a huge development for Orange, who have pretty much stayed with their simple single pivot design for many years.
No word from Orange yet but, keep posted.

A nice video for you all after a hard week. Enjoy!

At the Novatec booth the first thing that took me back was the sheer quality and attention to detail that goes into every one of their products. All the hubs and wheels sets are designed and tested thoroughly, and made in house for guaranteed quality.

Novatec have recently entered the wheel set market, everything from carbon hub/carbon rimmed XC wheels, to monster tough DH wheels and everything in between is available.

The X Trail CL 2x2 is their top of the range cross-country wheel. The hubs are alloy carbon bodied with sealed bearings and are hand laced to carbon wrapped rims via Sapim flat bladed spokes. The hubs feature Novatec’s ‘Fastlock’ and ‘Easychange’ systems which allow the use of either standard 6 bolt discs or Shimano splined discs which are fastened to the hub with a cassette lock ring. The front weighs 774g and the rear is 960g.

For Downhill and 4X riders there are the Dynamite and Dominant wheel sets, both again are hand made using Sapim spokes and feature sealed bearings.

The Dynamite is the DH wheel and has a 20mm from hub and a choice of either 10mm or 12mm cromo rear thru axle. The rims are single eyeleted, double wall with a welded join. The front weighs in at 1050g and the rear is 1290g
The Dominant is for 4X and features standard quick release hubs front and rear and have sleeved 28mm wide rims. The front weighs 940g and the rear weighs 1196g.

All the wheel sets have two silver spokes at the valve hole, I thought this was just to make it a little easier to find the valve hole, which it is but, Novatec also did this so the wheels looked good when the sun shone off them while riding. That really is attention to detail!
Thanks to Milan and Jeff at Novatec for their time and help.
Keep posted for more Novatec info and also a full test of their single speed dirt jump hub.
You can also visit the Novatec website for their full range of products.

Battle, a Tianjin based company are known throughout China for making the kind of bikes you would buy at the local supermarket for a couple of hundred RMB but, it seems they are now aiming their sites at the downhill market.
We found this, the 'DHEX' Downhill bike hidden in the corner of the Battle stand at China Cycle Show in Shanghai.
Its an impressive looking bike with a Manitou Swinger rear shock, huge CNC'd 4 bar linkage and a heavily gusted front end. The rear suspension has been really well thought out and has been made with great precision. The main pivot is around the bottom bracket shell and all of the linkages have been made from huge heavily machined pieces of aluminum.

Now, the keen eyed readers will be looking at the Battle DHEX and remarking on the similarity between it and the Tank Zeus DH 2 frame. Thats what we thought too, so a quick email to Tank yesterday and a very prompt reply confirmed that Tank actually make this frame for Battle.
Well it sure looks like Battle mean business. When it comes to building a quality downhill frame you can't get much better than Tank Cycles, its just a shame that Battle decided to spec it with way way below average components! Cheap forks and no name gears are not what we expect to see on a quality DH rig.
Lets hope that this is just a show model and the production model will come equipped with some quality kit.

'Wow, a seat post big news!"
Yes, I hear you but this is no ordinary seat post. The Kindshock KSP 850 (catchy name) offers on the move saddle adjustment and a small amount of bump eating suspension.

There's a red lever attached to the post under the saddle, which when pulled, activates a pneumatic system very similar to that found on an office chair meaning you can lower or raise your saddle without stopping to undo your QR or 5mm bolt (Mosso Pangolin riders). When in the raised position the post will give you either 50mm or 100mm of travel depending on the model.

The over all length of the post is quite short, great for suspension bikes with interrupted seat tubes.
I had a play around on a demo model at the China Cycle show and found it to be a little difficult to lower, the reps assured me this was due to it being new and needing time to 'bed in'. It might have also been the fact I'm a lean 65kg :)
We are trying to secure a ride on one to see how they really perform, in the meantime go to the Kindshock website for more info.

Well they're finally here, after months years even of waiting Mongoose are officially in China, and they're web site is up and running.
The Mongoose stand was a hub of excitement during the China Cycle show, not only did they have a great selection of bikes to drool over, but they also had top athletes from the Chinese Olympic BMX team and also Australian team rider Steve McCann, who came 3rd in this years Asia X Games, at the booth signing autographs.


The Bikes


The Black Diamond Triple was on show alongside the Eric Carter Downhill Bike. Both bikes feature the FreeDrive suspension design which helps eliminate pedal feedback into the suspension giving the bikes a really plush ride and great pedaling characteristics.
Magazines all over the world are raving about these bikes, I can't wait to get a ride on one.

For you cross country riders the Canaan Team was also at the stand, again featuring the FreeDrive system but slimmed down and specced with all the high end components you expect to see on a bike of this caliber, Sram X.0/XT drivetrain, FSA carbon cranks, Avid discs and Fox suspension front and rear.


There was also a great range of Jump bikes and BMX's to ogle at.


For more details on the Mongoose range of bikes go to their website
www.mongoose.com.cn

Just a quick one to let you all know www.mongoose.com.cn is up and running.

Hopefully we'll start to see their bikes on the market soon too.

Maybe its just me but I hadn't heard of MacMahone until today when I happened upon them at the Marechal booth at China Cycle.
MacMahone have been making quality frames and components for the past 15 years and now they are available in Asia.
I had a good look at one of their freeride frames, the Emblem.
The Embem is a lightweight freeride frame with 131 mm of travel. The overall weight of the frame with a Manitou Swinger air shock is a 3.9Kg (about 8.6 pounds).

All the important areas have been heavily gusseted such as the headtube, seat tube/toptube junction and bottom bracket. The rear suspension is a 4 bar linkage but, the shock is mounted parallel to the seat tube, not only does this give the Emblem a unique look but it also means the frame can have a longer seat tube and riders can run a longer seatpost, great if you ride up the hills as well as down. There is also a mount for a front mech and a fancy cnc'd cable route just above the bottom bracket shell making it possible for a full 27 gears to be ran on the frame, although most Emblem riders will opt for 18.


Also, at the Marechal booth was the Lionheart, a scandium/alloy all mountain frame.

The Reaper is a 4130 cromoly jump frame with internal gussets. It's compatible with either 24 or 26 inch wheels, 'V's or discs and has replacable dropouts so you can have gears or a single speed set up.

4 Cross fans will be interested in the Elliot. Made from double butted 7005 series alloy and weighing only 2.2 kg (4.8 pounds) its at home on the local bmx track or world cup race course and should handle well too thanks to the short rear end.

MacMahone also make a good range of components such as handlebars, hubs, headsets etc.

For more info on MacMahone products and where to buy them contact Marechal.

Yesterday I had the honor of meeting two of the Chinese BMX Olympic riders at the Mongoose booth at China Cycle here are some of the photos.

We reported on these forks a few weeks ago but today we managed to see them in the flesh and get some more info.

The X Calibur DH which we managed to play around with features an alloy steerer and 36mm legs and is suprisingly light for a ingle crown DH fork. The internals are oil bath and are easy to maintain and replace if the need be, Topgun even sell a self service kit for the fork.

At the bottom of the legs is a 20mm bolt throu axle and rebound control.

At the crown end the compressio, lockout and rebound can be adjusted through the huge adjusters. There will also be an option for travel wind down from 120mm- 160mm.

Overall this is a great looking product and one of the big surprises from the show. The Topgun rep also told us they have a carbon version available which will be considerably lighter than the magnesium version shown here.
Specs are as follows:
Hydraulic lockout
Adj. compression
Adj. rebound
36 mm legs
Magnesium cast lowers
20mm axle

Look out Rockshow/Manitou, Topgun have an ace up their sleeve.

Well the first day of the Kia Asia X games in Shanghai is over and what a day it was too. Riders from around Asia and the globe turned out to wow the crouds and represent their countries.
CMTB were there to bring you the latest photos from the BMX and Motocross action (and to get a nice sunburn!).










To see the rest of the photos from todays action go to the X Games photo album.

Thats right tomorrow May, 3rd sees the start of the Asia X Games 2007, the first X Games ever to be held in China (and not the last according to sources). There are a huge amount of events going on over the 3 days but we are only interested in the BMX. Both BMX vert and skate park riding competitions will be at the Games with riders from all over the globe.
Here is a list of the BMX competitors.

BMX PARK
1. Ryan Guettler (AUS)
2. Luke Fink (AUS)
3. Colin Mackay (AUS)
4. Clint Millar (AUS)
5. Kenji Tsuruta (JPN)
6. Haofeng Chen (CHN)
7. Lemin Liang (CHN)
8. Youcai Zhong (CHN)
9. Yun Yi Li (TPE)
10. Han Kun Chen (TPE)
11. Armand Mariano (PHI)
12. Chee Keong Ng (SIN)
13. Danny Heng (SIN)
14. Owen Lu (SIN)
15. Kiattichai Wanitsakul (THA)
16. Chokchai Wanitsakul (THA)
17. Prachaya Iam-sa-ard (THA)
18. Tomotaka Yoshitani (JPN)
19. Yuta Tominaga (JPN)
20. Tobias Wicke (GER)
21. Chad Kagy (USA)*
22. Josh Harrington (USA)*
23. Tom Stober (USA)*
24. Scotty Cranmer*
25. Daniel Dhers*
26. Diogo Canina (BRA)*
27. Steven McCann (AUS)*
28. Mike Spinner (USA)*
29. Dave Dillewaard*

BMX VERT
1. Tim Wood (AUS)
2. Kiattichai Wanitsakul (THA)
3. Matt Fairbairn (AUS)
4. Steven McCann (AUS)
5. Jan Valenta
6. Nick Richardson
7. Kevin Robinson (USA)*
8. Jamie Bestwick (GBR)*
9. Chad Kagy (USA)*
10. Josh Harrington (USA)*
11. Tom Stober (USA)*
12. Jay Eggleston (USA)*
13. Koji Kraft (USA)*
14. om Haugen (USA)*

As you can see top riders from China, Japan the U.S and UK will be attend.
See you at the X Games!!!