The biggest news from the world of Dirt this week and all in one place for your convenience.
Title photo: Ben Reid shot by Ben Winder.
There’s an absolute ton of mountain bike news to keep up with these days, so much so that we’ve decided to focus the sport’s major news pieces into weekly round up posts. That way there’ll be more space on our site for quality, exclusive content from our pool of the world’s best mountain bike writers, photographers, and videographers. (You’ll be seeing some seriously hot content from Dirt over the course of 2014 so watch this space.)
Without further ado, let’s take a look back at this week’s biggest mountain bike news and features.
Cam Cole on Commencal
This has been in the rumour mill for a short while, but today it became official news that Cam Cole will move to the Commencal Riding Addiction team for the 2014 season. The Kiwi pinner has had his fair share of injuries over the years, not least his season-ender in 2013 at the Vallnord World Cup – a horrendous ragdoll crash caught on camera. This comes after lest week’s news of the end of Cam’s time with Yeti, as the Colorado-based firm will take their focus to the Enduro World Series for 2014.
What’s new with the Dirt team?
Stay tuned for the big news from the Dirt team.
Another official press release today from our own team, noting the end of their time with Norco. It’s been a happy four-year relationship with the Canadian brand but 2014 is looking bright for pinner Ben Reid and co. Who will be sponsoring the team then?
New Bergamont team
In other Dirt related news, Canadian pinner Casey Brown will be leaving our team as she moves over to Bergamont bikes along with Aussie Jack Moir, Kiwi Eddie Masters, and German Junior Champion Ferdinand Brunold.
The German brand also adds Polish slopestyler Szymon Godziek to the team roster. They clearly mean business in 2014!
Winter training with the pros
The top pro riders are all at it – winter prep for the World Cup DH season that is. Loic Bruni is down in New Zealand putting some serious prep into his suspension set up as you can see in the above pap-snap (photo by Paul Haysom).
Danny Hart at the Forest of Dean in 2013 for Dirt issue 135.
Meanwhile Danny Hart has been racing in the gloop of the Forest of Dean (our local riding spot), unsurprisingly winning last weekend’s Mini DH by a considerable margin. But what size wheels was he on? By all accounts it was mid-sizers for Dan the Man. Sadly we’re lacking spy shots as our teaboy Ben Winder dropped his camera in a puddle.
Over in Italy the Gstaadt-Scott team has been putting their bike and riders through their paces in the popular winter training destination (and site of our Carbon Downhill Bike Test from 2013) of San Romolo.
Hafjell Bike Park to close for 2014?
It would be a complete travesty if Norway’s Hafjell Bike Park didn’t open its lifts for the 2014 season, but at present that looks like the plan. With such successful World Cup races already having been hosted and the World Championship due to take place in September of this year it would surely be a bonkers move to close the park to the public? Read about it here, watch the video above, and then get yourself over to the Save Hafjell Bike Park Facebook page to show your support with a simple Like.
