My new bike and racing

A couple of weeks back I bought a new full suspension bike. It's got a a pretty funky name, Fetish Cycles Seduction but is an amazing bike. It's a big step up in terms of controllability and comfort (in rough sections) over my old Stumjumper Comp hard tail. (Which Mel is now putting to great use!)

The bike had an interesting past getting to me – it's brand new but for the first 2 weeks I had nothing but trouble. Firstly, Paypal sucks so bad! I can't wait to Google come along and kill them. I wasted about 6 hours trying to deal with them. (Everytime you buy something of a certain value, alarms seem to go off!). Then when it arrived I had a few parts to upgrade/replace including the chain, the seatpost and the rear disc brake rotor. After all that was done though it's being riding like a dream.

This is the spec (similar to Ultra Seduction):

2006 Manitou R Seven Super 80mm travel fork
Manitou Radium RL rear shock with lockout
Crank FSA Carbon Cranks
Front Derailleur Shimano XT
Rear Derailleur Shimano XTR
Shift Lever Shimano XT 9-spd Dual Control
Cog Set Shimano XT 11-34T 9spd
Chain Shimano HG93 XT
Hubset Shimano XT Center Lock 32H
Rims WTB Speed Disc Pro XC double wall 32H w/ eyelets
Tires WTB Exiwolf Team XC 26 X 2.1 w/Folding Dual DNA
Brakes Shimano XT hydraulic disc
Brake Levers Shimano XT Dual Control
Handlebar Truvativ Team CarbonTeam
Grips WTB DOT
Stem Fetish Cycles Carbon
Seatpost Use1 Alien Carbon
Saddle Specialized Alias 143

And of course, I have to have a picture :)


Having spent all that money I decided that I'm going to have to start racing a bit :) Last weekend, M.A.D. where running a fun race close to where I lived, so I popped along. The track itself was great and it was an excellent racing down the single track at race speed. Basically we where speeding along a single track through a thick forest with almost zero visibility. In the end, I was lucky enough to win it with Nigel (it was a team event). Hopefully it will be the first of lots of races that I'll enter!