Hearsay I dare say

I'm surprised I'm still here. Considering what's been said.

Human nature has a nasty habit of wanting to believe the worst of people rather than the best. The truth is actually easy to find if you ask the right person. Believing the best of people used to be an easy thing for me to do. Perhaps you feel the same way. You'll understand if you've ever been on the wrong end of hearsay or a deal gone sour.

Don't believe what you're told - dig deeper - think clearer. It may be convenient to lend an ear to untruths and you may even enjoy what you're told. It'll tickle your ears and make you feel smug about yourself, you may even want it to be true - but deep down you know that what you're hearing just doesn't seem right.

It's like hearing about a trail and not riding it for yourself. You live in somebody else's experience and never go out and ride it - never really knowing the truth for yourself. Never knowing if the trail actually exists or if it was all made up to make the storyteller seem more than he is.

You really have to get closer to the source to know the truth about Bike Hut. It was once mine - my pride and joy as it were - that's for sure. I nutured it, fed it, nursed it and watched it bloom quickly into a remarkable thing. Many passed through and were blessed. Yet, Life took me away and now I know it only by name - the name I passed on to others.

The mystery lies in how it came to be theirs.

Pacific Cycles (GT/Mongoose/Schwinn) buys Cannondale

It's always interesting when one company buys another. The effects further down the distribution chain can sometimes be more like nuclear fallout than anything else.

A couple years ago SRAM was almost a nobody company in cycling, then they purchased Avid (brakes), Truvativ (components) and most notably RockShox suspension. Almost overnight SRAM was a REAL somebody with leverage. One thing that SRAM Corp did was insist on was consolidation of all it's distributors. The guys in SA, Greenwall, doing RockShox at the time found themselves losing their agency to Cape Cycle Systems. That happened the world over. Many called foul - the smaller guys always seem to loose out. Now it's forgotten.

Last year Hayes bought Manitou suspension and Ritchey bought Syncros. Changes are coming I hear.

The latest in the soap opera of the bicycle industry is the sensational purchase of Cannondale bicycles by the parent company of Pacific Cycles who own the GT, Mongoose and Schwinn brands. You may recall that Cannondale was bankrupt in 2003 and sold to an investor for a paltry $58m. The effects of that were similar to what happened to RockShox except ProBike (Raleigh) lost Schwinn to Omnico who distribute GT and Mongoose in SA. Pacific insisted that their distributors handle all three of their brands - the result was that Omnico landed up with three mainstream bicycle brands under one small Cape Town warehouse roof.

Can you see where I'm going with this?

Cape Cycle Systems distribute Cannondale. Omnico distribute all of Pacific Cycles other brands. If they apply the same philosophy as they have in the past - CSS will lose Cannondale to Omnico. I reckon Omnico will like that. Talk about full circle.

However, if Pacific decide otherwise: "Our intention is to build a world-class company that dealers will want to buy from," said Schwartz. The plans from parent company Dorel are that Pacific Cycle will become a stand-alone division with an exclusive focus on mass merchant customers holding Mongoose and Schwinn brands; and Cannondale & GT in another division. That will certainly throw the cat among the pigeons too.

If that scenario plays out Omnico could find itself loosing GT to Cape Cycle Systems so that Pacific can consolidate GT and Cannondale under one company banner - and not by the decision of either CSS or Omnico. No, when these big US profit driven companies make a decision they're not thinking of the effects to the SA bike industry!

Watch this space.

I once was stolen but now I'm found

I'd always hoped that one day the stolen Intense M3 would appear miraculously through our door. And, thankfully, it has! The M3's theft hurt me badly as I had to cover the loss. Now it's back in our possession and for sale. If you're interested drop us an email on sales@bikehut.co.za

Summer's coming through the clouds

Weird weather we're having. The Garden Route is practically washed away. The South Easter is already cranking up, wheezing between out of season rainfall and the odd Cape Doctor. Weird weather everywhere. Not exactly motivating another ride. The times are changing for sure, but I'm not convinced that Al Gore has all the answers on this one and I don't think a diet of beetroot will improve my immunity (or my fitness).

Now the kids are on holiday at the end of November - earlier than I ever recall. Heck when I was at school (oh hell I'm sounding like my grand father now) I seem to remember only about 3 weeks of Christmas holidays and now they're lining up for 6 weeks or so. Life's good if you're a kid with a bicycle (or a teacher), particularly one you can do some dirt jumping with like we did on our BMX bikes back in the 80's and mountain bikes since then... Every spare moment was spent building jumps and shaping tracks to ride away our time. We rode dirt jumps, BMX tracks, half-pipes, walls and over each other. If they weren't there, we built them for ourselves.

I chuckle to myself when I hear the crew talk about "trails" like it's something new to the naughties or riders complain about how "they/others" must build new places to ride. I wonder how many are planning building trails this summer holidays or buy a new PS3 game? I keep telling my kids - learn to bunny-hop for real, that's a real life skill to have. Never mind the shin burgers you get from slipping pedals trying to master the skill - it's all part of the progression. If you can't bunny-hop you'll never do a 360, and you won't get there without some reminders we weren't born with a bicycle between our legs.

2007 World Champs

Not having live TV coverage in SA for our favourite sport's World Championships is like having a braai without meat. I scoured the web and this is the best video I can find: http://www.freecaster.com/live/fortwilliam/index.php

With Greg Minnaar and Andrew Neetling chasing the title in Elite Men Downhill there's a good chance SA will have another World Champion the rest of the country won't know about.

Coming soon to a Trail near you

Around this time of the year there's a silent undercover frenzy in the bike industry. News of next seasons models break into the public arena via "leaks", press previews and product launches to distributors and dealers. As a self-confessed bicycle junkie I love this time of year although I must admit I also feel a bit jaded. However for the most part I look forward to what's new - especially from the smaller companies with limited advertising spend.

There are many launches that tout the "latest revolution" in mountain biking (let's face it the road bikes just don't factor in, although some "wow" us!), generally this relates to suspension design but most relate to nothing more than refinement of an existing design packaged in a new colour scheme and graphics dreamed up by the marketing guys. See, I told you I was jaded, maybe 'cos I was in that industry for many years or maybe cos like you I'm also a consumer of sorts. More over I need to know what's up so we can keep abreast of the industry and what we offer our customers.

Kona have refined the same same 4-bar linkage suspension design over a decade of improvements eaking out better performance year on year. Some swooping downtubes (now copied by almost everyone it seems) some years ago breathed new life into the classic conventional look. For 2008 Kona have really pulled out the stops and released the MAGIC link suspension design. Debuting on the awesome CoilAir (see pic above) the Magic link concept is quite "revolutionary" in that it the suspension self-adjusts according to rider or terrain inputs. It's takes quite a bit of explaining so I'll leave that for another time, suffice it to say that this is a major leap forward for Kona and interprative suspension design. We're hoping to get hold of some of these bikes toward the end of the year.

Of further interest to BikeHut is what GT and GIANT are up to according to some internet reports and leaked press releases. Rocky Mountain are laying low and are one of the few companies that almost stick to model years. If you think about it, it's absurd buying a 2008 model bike in the middle of 2007 (well almost). No other industry has this kind of approach. When did the motorbike or motor vehicle guys ever do this? I reckon it's daft and confusing when most of the time there's nothing more that a new lick of paint and restyled graphics from this year to the next.

No doubt you know that GIANT are Mr. Huge in the bicycle industry and their Meastro suspension bikes are good value and excellent performers so far, but there's always been a mismatch with the travel options they offered. GIANT seemed to ignore the fact that the 4" travel Trance range was screaming out for more travel, or at least another model with the same lightweight frame design. New for 2008 is just such a bike with a redesigned frame too, the Trance X - resulting in a weightloss and travel gain.

If you've been reading my blog you'll know that I reckon 5" travel is ideal for most riders around here. Provided that suspension design is efficient, a 5" bike can really do it all in SA. 6" travel bikes round these parts are mostly overkill, although the Reign bikes did a good job for all we sold too, especially if they wanted to push their boundries technically.

GT have long been in my bicycle stable from way back in my BMX days. The iDrive design is so underated in SA it's almost a shame. I rode various incarnations for a few years and even raced some Downhill for a time. For next season GT are relaunching the iDrive system as "Independent Drive" - dunno why but there you go. Marketing guys at work again and as asual changing a name when the system stays the same. Ah well - the new Sanction 6" travel bike is beautiful tho. That's not something you could really say about the previous years designs, apart from the Carbon iDrives that is. Interestingly there's two versions of the new 6" travel GT long-travel cross-country trail bike: one for light freeride and one for lightweight long travel. Guess which one I think's best for SA. Yup, the latter.


Seems like the big bike companies are really starting to finally pay attention to what the smaller guys are up too and what many riders are asking for - more travel and lighterweight chasis for genuine all-day all-terrain riding. Consider that Rocky Mountain had the Slayer for a few years now and Kona the Coiler/CoilAir since 2005. Things are looking good for trail riders!

The scent of a new season

What a winter. Those few sunny, berg wind wonders definitely keep the mind hopeful of better riding conditions! Especially if you braved the mud in Stellenbosch over the weekend. I hear someone has put a price on Meurants head. As if he could possibly have planned the deluge that made some of the course more like a monster truck rally mud pit. Ah well it seems that it's just human nature to want to pin the blame on somebody! Afterall somebody put a gun to your head and made you ride didn't they?

The one thing I always liked about mountain biking was that it was fairly unpredictable. Even well ridden trails can be a complete contrast when wet or even ridden the other way round. Take your regular route and ride it in reverse. Not sitting backwards of course (that would be something special) but riding in the other direction. That trail will be like a new adventure. Same distance, same trail, different rush. All of a sudden riding can be fresh and invigorating. That's a pretty important thing to consider when drumming up the motivation to tear yourself away from the arm chair you've occupied all winter! Afterall, thinking of riding your local route for the umpteenth time can be pretty depressing.

Heading off to new trails can always be a great way to get yourself into the riding mood. It may even require a bit of training to get you prepared, but with the thought of new dirt to buzz always helps get the legs moving. So get planning - there's a long weekend coming up and there are trails to be ridden!

I've got my eye on some myself!