For the hardy types that braved the weather forecast this weekend, the reality at the Cwm Carn round of the Premier Demo Series was mostly sunshine (with the odd couple of hail showers on the Saturday). Representatives from Mojo/Fox, Lapierre, Intense and Rocky Mountain/Turner/Cove were all on hand to loan out shiny bikes for riders to test round a challenging 20 minute circuit.
'Why yes, we do have the bike for you as it happens...'Ed from Hotlines gets out to actually ride bikes on a Sunday, if only for a short while.Chris fights through the hugely crowded trails. See the queues - not.The windsock atop the newly revamped Freeride area at Cwm Carn.Intense showed everything from the Spider 29er to SOCOMsThe popular Cwm Down uplift service was fully booked both daysIs that a prototype Rocky Mountain? Scott Beaumont's box-fresh new Flatline - now with non-swoopy tubing!The Silverfish guys made full use of Scott Beaumont's deluxe motorhome and pizza oven.
Singletrack was there too, with Chipps mainly doing a bit of typing in the sunshine, drinking coffee and chatting. He was even seen out riding on a test bike and, later, on a rather tasty Intense Tracer VP…
With 23 years as Editor of Singletrack World Magazine, Chipps is the longest-running mountain bike magazine editor in the world. He started in the bike trade in 1990 and became a full time mountain bike journalist at the start of 1994. Over the last 30 years as a bike writer and photographer, he has seen mountain bike culture flourish, strengthen and diversify and bike technology go from rigid steel frames to fully suspended carbon fibre (and sometimes back to rigid steel as well.)
