What's up with the Youth of Today?

Eddie Masters
With the final round of the NIDH series held in Wellington on the "Long Gulley" course, a big turn out was expected. The VERY competitive under 19 class had 10 very strong competitors entered and a quick look at the other class's showed they were pretty full too.

Eddie showed his consistency with a 3rd place finish, with 1st and 2nd places being taken by the local Welly lads, Michael Langford and Daniel Melink, respectively.

A BIG thanks to Nick Latta, for providing the photo of Eddie.

George Bennett
I would like introduce George Bennett, George will be a new edition to the NZ Santa Cruz team. George is a young Nelson lad that seems to go pretty fast on a mountain bike, so it made a lot of sense to get some new blood into the team.

George will be racing a Superlight "classic", while we all anxiously wait for the new 07 Superlight models to arrive in NZ.


Both Eddie and George will be racing the National Mountain bike series in early 2007, so make sure you cheer them on at your local round.

Racing and Results

Down Hill
Well it’s been an eventful couple of weeks, with Round 3 of the North Island DH race run in Dome Valley. It’s been a while since a sizeable mountain bike event has been held in Dome Valley. With typical Dome weather patterns, it had to rain on one of the days, so it was a wet practice day and fair for race day. It was a good practice run for the those riders participating in the DH National series too. Dome Valley is on the circuit.

With two Vet1 Santa Cruz riders racing the Dome Valley event, it was a hard call on who to back. Dale Cragg has been Mr. Consistent and winning what ever he enters, but a crash ended with Dale breaking his collar bone and put him out the running. Ouch!

This left Hammer to fly the Santa Cruz banner. His long experience in the DH scene and his knowledge of the course gave him a good advantage. Hammer pulled in a respectable 3rd place with his NZRide.com partner in crime, Aaron Fernandez taking the win. I suspect that there may have been some NZRide.com team orders in play, with that result, but it was good to see Fernandez take the podium finish with the amount of work he’s put into the NZDH series.
Check out http://www.nzride.com/ for complete results.

Cross Country
Those Canterbury XC racers have got it good, a weekend doesn’t seem to go by with out a race on.
The MacDonald Downs race is in it 5th year and gaining popularity. The race has 3 specific categories, with the “Summit” option being a 42km race, with 1800m of climbing. The “ThirtyFive” option is “only” 35km long and “only” has 1300m of climbing. Easy!
This years race saw good participation from the Santa Cruz team in both the “Summit” and “ThirtyFive” option and some great results.
Craig “Phelps” Phillips had a fantastic race, winning the 40+ age category and actually finishing 2nd overall in the “Summit” option. He was only a couple of minutes behind the overall winner Julian Mitchell.
Cathy Hamer won the “Summit” race in the 30+ age category closely followed by Ground Effect’s own Santa Cruz rider, Bridget McMillan.

The “ThirtyFive” open men’s class win was taken by Craig Tolsen on his Nomad, proving that the Nomad is the “ONE” bike to do it all.
Full results at http://www.mountainbike.orcon.net.nz/

So another good day at the office for the team.

2007 Superlight review in January MBA

OK, MBA review has just been published on to Santa Cruz website. Have a read

I just read the review that Mountain Bike Action did in the January 07 issue.

Looks like the new 07 Superlight is worth waiting for, I just put my name on the waiting list.
It gets a "BIG thumbs up" from the MBA wrecking crew, you can track down this review by subscribing to the Electronic version of Mountain Bike Action or tracking down a buddy who get's a issue shipped to their home.

Funny but I thought it was still November 2006 too.

Hopefully we'll see the new Superlight (and Juliana) in NZ, by February, fingers crossed.
For the time being, you can download the catalogue page from here;

















And the Juliana form here;

Living with the Ibis Mojo

Very shortly, I will not be only one in New Zealand with an Ibis Mojo. There will be a handful landing in early December. These have already been allocated to my dealers, who have anxious potential customers waiting.

I still haven’t got over how amazing the Mojo looks. It is hard for me not to keep the bike in the lounge and just look at it. It’s so good looking and in my eyes more a work of art that something you should go ride in the dirt. The photo’s (especially mine), just don’t do the Mojo justice. It just looks some much better in the flesh, the attention to detail is amazing. From the shapely curves of the carbon frame to the little details like the seat clamp and linkages, it all just looks fantastic. There is nothing that has been overlooked; honestly, you will remain in awe of it for quite some time.

Don’t think this bike is all form and no function, you will be hard pressed to fault the ride of the Mojo. The bike is the definitely at the forefront of suspension and handling performance, with 140mm (5.5inch’s) of travel via DW linkage design, the Mojo climbs, descends, accelerates and corners better than Jet Lee in fight scene and I doubt that there is a carbon bike out there that gets even close. Ibis are in a league of their own, light, efficient and beautiful, you’d be crazy not to lust after one. I think if you need more technical details about the Mojo, a look at http://www.ibiscycles.com/ will be worthwhile.

The Mojo is so ahead of the pack, that for a while there, it didn’t have a title for the type of bike it was. Magazines describe it as an “all mountain” bike, which is a nice all encompassing title for a extremely capable bike. This is the intelligent, no compromise bike; it’s the bike that makes the 80/20 rule come alive. This bike does everything brilliantly for 80% of what you use your mountain bike for. The 20% would be the specific requirements of a mountain bike, XC racer, Free-Ride bike etc. The Mojo makes a 4 hours plus ride in the Redwoods, Rotorua, just rocket by. Chasing skinny XC racers up hills and then catching the guys doing shuttle runs and carving up the single track. In or out of the saddle, the suspension soaked up the bumps and no pedal stroke was wasted, all my pedaling efforts propelled me forward to light speed. The Mojo and I really got along well, it loved Rotorua single track, but then again, who doesn’t? Its light weight and nimble handling just made the whole ride a pleasure 100% of the time. The geometry felt just right and so balanced with 140mm travel at each end. The Mojo so good at doing everything so well that maybe it does need another category to cover it.

So yeah, the Mojo goes as good as it looks and it’s a hard call which is better, looks or performance? When the Mojo was displayed at the Bike Vegas expo center at the 2006 World Champs, there where many people that described it as the Ferrari of mountain bikes, which is a fair call. Good looks, high-tech materials, fast and efficient pedaling performance, amazing handling, active suspension, attention to detail and light weight.

The Mojo fits into the sort of bike I like, a high performance machine.

Mayhem Festival in Sweden

I recently got an email from Steve Murphy (also known as Smurf), he's been helping out with the Mayhem Festival, www.mayhemfestival.com. A BIG slopestyle, 4X and DH event in Sweden. It was started 4 years ago by Dave Rimmel and John Roche and this year it attracted about 1500 riders, which is now the biggest event in the Nordic area.

Steve said he had a bit of spare time to do a photo shoot with Steve Rommaniuk and Jay Hoots one night.

That's Steve with his Blur 4X in the photo's, nice aren't they?
Oh yeah, forgot to mention photo's courtesy of
Mattias Fredrikkson, thanks mate.

Eddie Master 2nd at Round 3 of Wanganui DH Champs

The third round of the Wanganui DH champs were held in Lismore forest in very wet conditions.
The under 19 juniors were the ones to watch, the top 6 of them were all faster than the fastest open male.

Sam Blenkinsop showed that he's still the one to beat, posting the fastest time of the day with a 2.45.1.
Eddie Masters finished in a comfortable 2nd place with a time of 2.51.3.




Image of Eddie from the 2006 World Champs in Rotorua.



Wet Conditions for Whitford XC race in Round Three of Auckand XC series.

Amanda Davies finished 2nd in the open womens class of round three of the Auckland XC series.
If there is one thing you can count on in an Auckland series race, it's wet conditions and this was true for the Whitford race. The very technical course which was wet and steep in some areas were highlighted by the long lap times, most riders talking 45 minutes plus to complete.
Amanda and her Blur XC were in their element in the typical Auckland conditions.
Amanda is also one of the people designing the Auckland finals course in Riverhead. This will also be a round in the National series too, so it's worth going to Auckland to race the final as a preview.

Another Auckland Dealer for Hyperformance Hardware

Bicyclette is a new store in Auckland and our new stockiest of Santa Cruz bicycles too. I highly recommend a visit to see Bicyclette. Located in 76 Sale Street, near Victoria Park, it’s a bike shop with a difference. From the outside, it looks like an old Italian street café and that impression doesn’t really change when you first walk in. There is a café to the left and seating to the right, so it all seems to be cafe orientated. Then you’ll spot that Gus and Cycle Therapy are also located in the shop and I hope you will notice the couple of Santa Cruz bikes that are also displayed there. They have in stock a fully built up polished Nomad, if you haven’t seen a polished Nomad in the flesh; I highly recommend you have a look at it before it gets sold. They do look fantastic. There is also a fully built up Heckler, in Basic Black. So if you need a coffee and have some time to kill, go and check out Bicyclette.

Craig "Phelps" Phillips and his Blur XC, Part of a Winning Team
Craig Phillips and Jason Blair took out the Alpine Energy 12 Hour race in Timaru. These boys are Vet riders (Phelps is a 40+ rider) and they didn't just win their class, they won the whole event! They beat their closest competition (a 5 man open team) by one lap. Both Phelps and Jason set a blistering pace for whole 12 hours. Have a look at their results on www.thecyclery.co.nz/events.htm.
Well Done guys. Keep an eye out for Phelps during the National MTB series, I think he'll be the one to watch in the Vet2 class. Hold on a minute....that's my class, did I need more competition, what?! And he's riding a Blur XC, have I got my work cut out?

Santa Cruz bearings 4 Life!
That’s right, Santa Cruz will provide the original owner, with bearings for your new Santa Cruz for life.
In my latest shipment of shiney new Santa Cruz’s, I received the first installment of the new 6901 SM bearings which replace the original 38802 MAX bearings. These new bearings are directional (they have a left and right side). They are also supplied with new seals for extra protection. Check out ww.santacruzbicycles.com for more info about maintenance.
Oh Yeah, all my stockest should have new 07 Santa Cruz's in stock now too. This shipment contained a few Nomad's, Hecklers and the few Blur XC's. Check them out before they get snapped up.