With the increased interest in cross-over disciplines in mountainbiking, trail riding has become a a staple for your everyday mountain biker. Flowing singletrack, fast descents and the inevitable climb all make for a good trail. The esphotograpy crew had this to say about the local Jonkershoek trails…

Just a few kilometers outside picturesque Stellenbosch lies the Jonkershoek nature reserve. The complete playground for all forms of mountain biking and hiking, accessible all year long. Playing host to various downhill and cross country races, the area also has a large network of all-mountain trails for those who like to pedal uphill as well as the thrill of a fast open downhill.

Jonkershoek offers a trail for all levels of riding, and for a couple of bucks, you get access for the whole day (year passes also available). Winter months usually brings a fair bit of rain, turning some trails a bit muddy and the tree roots a bit slippery, making riding slightly more interesting. It’s also a good time for fixing and building new trails – thanks to Bennet Nel for the great effort he puts in. During summer, the mercury pushes up into the mid 30’s celsius, but luckily the nearest section of pine forest is never far away.

Part 1 features an unnamed trail close to the entrance of the reserve.

Greg Minnaar has become a household name in South African mountain biking, firstly as the world renowned Downhill world champion and most importantly as an ambassador for the sport. By giving back to the sport and connecting with fellow riders, Greg will surely leave a long and healthy legacy in South African cycling…

The dates are Friday 9th – Sunday 11th December, come spend a weekend riding with GM on some of the sickest, toughest and best single track around. Part from all the riding there will be chilled evening braais, a few beers and loads of fun.

Rough idea for the weekend,

Mankele Bike Park Friday: Skills Clinic & Basic Bike Set Up & Quick Fixes Saturday: 60 – 75km Ride (depending on the group) Saturday: Bike Mechanics afternoon & some fun surprises Sunday : 50-75km Ride depending on group we have

As this camp is limited to 30 people only early bookings will be essential to avoid disappointment. 
Camp fee of R2995.00 Rand includes: • 2 nights accommodation (9th & 10th), including breakfast, lunch & dinner. There will be some juice at the meals but for any additional drinks during the day or beers can be bought at the little shop. • Basic mechanical support. • Personal tutelage from Greg Minnaar during the riding on the courses, stressing that its trail riding again and not the typical training camp. What we mean by that is that it will consist of longer rides and not stopping and doing sections as before, but still under the watchful eye of Greg to help where necessary. (As Mankele has some great singletrack so we might do these a few times as we all single track junkies) • GM will spend time with everyone on the rides where you will get some time to catch up with him.

• Spot prizes through out the camp

Participants are responsible for: • Getting to and from Mankele. • Bringing a well maintained bike. • Bringing a set of legs that can spend 3-4hrs in the saddle.

Please note that the camp is based on arrivals at Mankele on the 9th, and leaving after the 3rd day of riding on the 11th. This camp will be held in English language and there is a maximum set at 30 participants, but the camp will go ahead with a minimum of 15 participants. If you not staying at the venue and booked into Camp unfortunately you wont be able to join rides or functions.

For more info please call Mark on 082 445 5551 or email: mark@squireindustries.com

Get the skinny on two entirely new models for 2012, the Honzo and the Satori in the latest installments of our Sneak Peek series of web posts…

HONZO

SATORI

Because we’ve always been an aggressive trail riding, rough terrain loving lot, we figured we’d apply our 29er design expertise to two models that push the limits of big-wheeled application. The Satori is a light, sturdy, quick and nimble aggressively-oriented 130mm dually that features a new Swing Link variation of our tried and true 4-Bar suspension platform. The Honzo is a burly all-mountain oriented Kona Cromoly hardtail with features like an oversized headtube that accommodates tapered forks, super short chainstays, ISCG tabs and adjustable dropouts. Both bikes round out a diverse and performance oriented line of Kona 29ers for 2012: an all-new King Kahuna carbon hardtail and a zippity quick Scandium 6069 Hei Hei 29 Supreme. Click on the photos of the Honzo and Satori for all the details.

Kona’s 2012 bikes are starting to arrive from the factory. Here’s a quick look at the first batch to run through our photo department. Some of the bikes you’ll see include the all-new Entourage, a shorter travel version of our burgeoning Operator downhill platform. Speaking of which, the new Operator, one of our most acclaimed bikes last year, stays on top of the gravity game with its incredible performance and great price. When it comes to going quick as a bat via leg and lung, take a look at our streamlined Jake Series of cyclocross bikes, and our all-new King Kahuna carbon fiber 29er hardtail. For more information on each bike, click on the photo below. Look for these bikes to be sparkling at a Kona dealer near you in the next few months.

Not too long ago we sent our in-house film crew to spend a few days with two of the top enduro racers in the world, Kona Team riders Matthew Slavin and Karim Amour. At the first race of the Oregon Super D Series, while blazing down fiery tracks outside of Hood River, Oregon, where the dirt burns red with speed, we dove into what makes enduro riding one of the hottest emerging racing segments in mountain biking right now. With Slaven rocking the Pacific Northwest and Amour the South of France, two of enduro’s longtime hotspots, riding our specifically purposed, Magic Link equipped Abra Cadabra 160mm discernable travel bikes, we give you the straight goods in this beautifully produced 3:30 minute mini documentary. Click on the frame below to watch. When you’re done watching it, grab the embed code or share the video with your friends.

Following the decision to enter the UK market directly, Kona Europe have appointed its highly experienced UK sales and marketing team. Andrew Butler will be heading up UK sales from July 1st, making his first order of business a visit to all current UK Kona Dealers. Butler’s experience with the UK bicycle market spans 25 years, having worked with Kona Bicycles for the past decade.”It’s an exciting time for the UK bicycle market,” says Butler. “With Kona’s established UK customer base, plus the benefits of dealing directly with Kona, dealers can expect a healthy future. Dealers will have access to the immense European stock holding and better margins for 2012.” The new 2012 range will be launched at Kona’s European headquarters in Geneva from the middle of July.

Andrew will have the support of Meriem Maher who will be running internal sales for the UK from Kona’s Monaco office. Maher will bring her 10 years experience with Kona to the UK market and will be joined by Richard Aelter who will be taking care of any UK warranties. Aelter has a wealth of experience from the World Cup downhill circuit where he has been a mechanic for Fabien Barel amongst others.

Communications in the UK will be handled by Ben Gaby, with 10 years experience with the Kona brand and the UK bicycle market, Gaby will be working with the UK press and dealers, working closely with Kona’s world-wide marketing group based out of British Columbia, Canada.

Trek World Racing’s Willow Koerber, who is presently 4 months pregnant, will be visiting her teammates at the Windham World Cup this weekend…

Willow Koerber In Windham

6.7.2011

Trek World Racing’s Willow Koerber, who is presently 4 months pregnant, will be visiting her teammates at the Windham World Cup this weekend.

Willow, who found out she had fallen pregnant just 1 day before the opening round of the 2011 World Cup season, has been watching the progress of her teammates with huge interest and will this weekend be back in the team environment for the first time since South Africa. In addition to visiting the team and the team sponsors, signing autographs and commentating on Freecaster, Willow will be working on some of her other promotional plans for the remainder the year.

Willow says: “I’m really excited to be catching up with the team this Friday. They have been getting massive results and it’s time to cheer from the trackside! I’ll also be working with the team to map out the various promotional ideas we have for the remainder of this year, including the completion of my book, as well as participating in camps and workshops. I’ll be attending the event with my fiance Myles Rockwell and I know he’s keen to catch up with the downhillers too.”

The photos included here are the most recent of Willow, taken by Hailey King.

Any interview requests with Willow during the Windham weekend should be sent to info@23degrees-sports.com

Follow Willow on Twitter @willowkRocks Follow the team on Twitter @trekworldracing

Cape Town downhill organiser has two open spots for riders who wish to join him on a trip to France.

Bike park sabbatical in France, including a trip to the 2011 MTB World Champs in Champery, Switzerland with Chris Nixon.

22 August to 4 September 2011.

There are only 2 positions left and time is limited for people to confirm their bookings.

For more information contact Chris on 084 7777 802 or chris@chrisnixon.co.za

R20 000

UCI Announces that Pietermaritzburg Gets The Double-Whammy for 2012 and 2013, 20 June 2011 – Cycling South Africa is proud to announce that the 2013 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships has been awarded to South Africa…

This was confirmed in a meeting of the UCI (Union Cycliste Internationale) Management Committee, held in Maastricht, the Netherlands on Friday (17 June 2011).

It will be the first time that Africa will be hosting the one-off UCI MTB (Mountain Bike) World Championship, which will determine the MTB World Champion across the three mountain biking disciplines of Olympic cross-country, downhill and four-cross for 2013.

CyclingSA is committed to running world-class events of this stature in keeping aligned with their “2020 Vision” strategy, which sees the organisation becoming a dynamic, successful and highly respected governing body of cycling, at both National and International level.  Being awarded the 2012 UCI MTB World Cup forms part of an ongoing process whereby CyclingSA remain contracting with the UCI in the management of these events, building up towards the 2013 UCI MTB World Championships.

In professional mountain bike racing, there are approximately seven to ten ‘World Cup’ events each year of which a rider has the opportunity to score UCI points per event, leading up to a complete World Cup Series tally and potential World Cup Series title; whereas there is only one World Championship event each year, giving the riders only one chance at one event to be crowned a World Champion in that year.

Following CyclingSA’s successful hosting of the 2011 triple events held at the Cascades track in Pietermaritzburg this April, rave reviews were received from some of the world’s finest mountain biking professional athletes after months of hard work and many new improvements had been made to both the downhill and cross-country courses since the first hosting of the 2009 UCI Mountain Bike World Cup.  The 2012 World Cup and 2013 World Championships will once again be triple events, consisting of Olympic cross-country, downhill, and four-cross racing.

The 2012 UCI Mountain Bike World Cup Series will comprise 10 events in nine countries on three continents. There will be seven rounds for each of the traditional mountain bike disciplines: Olympic cross-country, downhill and four-cross. 2012 will also see the introduction of the cross-country eliminator, in which several rounds will go towards a final ranking.

Awesome news!!!

Ghost is officially the main sponsor of the Mankele Avalanche. It is lekker to see a bike brand that actually gets involved with races. These guys go flat out! From sponsoring a full carbon XT bike @ the Isuzu 3 Towers Stage Race, to being the bike sponsor of Mankele MTB.

Ghost Mankele Avalanche is a race not to be missed. 3 Stages of the best trails you will find. We basically take all the cool bits of the downhill single track sections and join them up.

No Climbs is this race’s motto!

How it works:

• We shuttle you to the top and you KLAP IT down!!
• Each rider gets 2 runs per stage, while the best time counts.
• Each stage is +/- 7km’s of nonstop single track.
• Two stages on Saturday & one stage on Sunday.
• Tent & Mattress supplied by Mankele.
• Saturday night meal included (war stories to be told).
• R600 each (limited entries).

You can use anything from a XC Bike (hardtail) to a Downhill Bike, I would suggest a 120mm – 140mm trail bike (Ghost AMR Lector 120mm).

Get a couple mates and come have an awesome weekend, of serious mountain biking fun!!

That’s it for now,

The Mankele Team

For more info on the event or inquiries on the venue, click here.

www.trekworldracing.com

From the opening homepage where there is a lot of new information on the team, viewers can select Cross Country or Downhill where the news and information will be discipline specific and includes a lot of new information on the riders, results and equipment. In the Video sections the team has also uploaded two brand new episodes of ‘In Pursuit’. In the XC there’s the new episode entitled ‘Victory In Africa’ featuring the Flueckiger brothers at the Cape Epic, and in the Downhill section, the new video is entitled ‘Pre-season In Iberia’ following the gravity riders in their build up to the new season.

There are many new features of this new website, which are summarized below:

1)Media Login – Here the media can request a password and have access to team images for season 2011. This replaces the Photoshelter site from 2010.

2)New Video Launch to wide screen – Loading from the team’s You Tube channel, select any video from the list and the site takes you automatically to the top of the screen for a wide screen view.

3)Twitter Feeds – Each of the riders’ latest twitter feeds are automatically loaded each time you log in, as well as the team’s twitter feed.

4)Results and Calendar – Latest results shown in a new format with rider headshots and placings. The upcoming events where the team will be participating are also shown.

5)Bikes – The technical information on bikes and the team’s specific components are now included with a link to Trek’s web pages for further info.

6)Team Staff – Introducing the people behind the scenes that keep the riders on track.

7)Sponsors – Logo placement and description with web links to all of our valued sponsors.

8)Images Gallery – Images added regularly for the public gallery.

9)Facebook link and RSS functions are included on the new site.

10)News – All of the latest news from the team, added into the homepage as well as discipline specific.

Stay up to date with Trek World Racing via this new website and send any enquiries about the features and functionality through the contact page.

At the opening round of the 2011 Downhill World Cup, Trek World Racing’s Tracy Moseley (GBR) and Aaron Gwin (USA) have walked away with the leaders’ jerseys of the series after a display of blistering speed, strength, and determination in front of a huge crowd in sunny Pietermaritzburg. For Tracy it was her first World Cup win in the coveted rainbow jersey of the World Champion, and for Aaron, it was his first World Cup win ever, and the first by an American male since 1999.

Aaron qualified 7th 2 days ago, but in the time between that race and today’s final, he worked with the Trek World Racing mechanics to find the ideal set up for what was going to be a much faster and drier race. His Fox suspension was perfectly dialled as was his choice of Maxxis rubber, and together with a supreme show of speed in the first and second sectors the Californian, who only started racing World Cups in 2008, scored his 8th World cup podium, but an all-important first win for his career, and his new team.

For Tracy Moseley, who did the same thing as Aaron here in 2009 when she won her first World Cup for Trek World Racing on her first outing for the team, it was her 13th career win, and her 3rd for the team. After winning qualifying on Friday by nearly 6 seconds, it was a much tighter affair today winning by 0.28secs. The course was running about 15 seconds faster for the women and the effort to get the bike to the line was huge.

Tracy said: “That was so tough today. Towards the end I was running out of steam and had the rear kick up on something in the lower section of the track; then I heard the onsite commentary say it was going to be close, so I dug deep until the end. It means a lot to win my first World Cup at my first attempt since earning the World Champs jersey, it just means so much.”

Aaron said: “I’m pretty speechless actually. It’s a dream. In the first sector I made a little mistake, hitting some trees with my shoulder, but then I just regrouped and put as much power down as I could in the middle sector. By the end, the legs were really feeling it, and then it was a pretty nerve wracking waiting in the hot seat. The bike is amazing, I can’t praise it enough, and the whole time here in South Africa with the team has been so great. Can’t wait for Fort William, I love that track.”

Team Director Martin Whiteley said: “Three years ago Trek, like Aaron, wasn’t racing at the top level of World Cup Downhilling. Here we are today with clearly a winning package and I can’t speak highly enough of the engineers in Madison, and our key sponsors who give our talented athletes such an amazing set up to do their job. I’m so proud of everything this team has done since we arrived in Africa 4 weeks ago, and I’m really looking forward to a thrilling 2011 season”.

There are 6 weeks until Round 2, in Fort William (SCO), but between now and then, the Trek World Racing boys will be racing on the east coast of the USA.