[Francis Cebedo]

There's just a lot of Trek bikes where I ended up. And a bowl of cheese with every meal.

In the hills, the air rang out with bells and chimes. The bells on cows have different notes so the farmers can find their specific cows from miles away. Some of these bells are as big as a soccer ball and are worth over $1000!

Anyway, here's some cool photos. They hired some fancy photographers to make scumbaggers like me look good on the bike.

Anyway, here's some highlights from Sterling Lorence and Geoff Waugh.

fc

 

[Francis Cebedo]

............

 

[Francis Cebedo]

Here's my 'very nice' interview videos:

 

[One_Speed]

Awesome!! those pics are amazing. Wow I am jealous, the riding must be incredible.

 

[rollinrob]

So will you be catching some of the tour, I know there is closet roadie hiding somewhere in hat body!

 

[medieval]

Damn, I'm in the wrong business! You looking for a sidekick, Francis?

 

[Francis Cebedo]

Awesome!! those pics are amazing. Wow I am jealous, the riding must be incredible.

Sup. Yes, you will like it there. They have a bike park that's trying to be the Whistler of Europe. http://www.mountainbikeparkchatel.com/. It's still young but it's got a lot of potential. They have huge jumps and a ton of berms. Some of the flow needs to get worked on but they certainly have the terrain and views.

They have over 500k of trails that is all connected by ski lifts. The network is called Port du Soleil and it was built for skiing and they're not trying to get mountain bikers to get on it.

Some of the guys took a couple of ski lifts and biked over to the top of the mountain where a TDF mountain stage finished.

To get there from SF, 11 hour flight to Hamburg Germany and one hour flight to Geneva, plus 1.5 hour drive. I'll be back there some day.

fc

p.s. on the photos:
Note the guys neck while taking the berm. He does not brake and he is steering with his neck

See the photo with the guy's head inside the leaves? How do you take that shot? Does it take skeelz?

Travis Brown who is in the photos fell while we were riding 2 mph to get on the ski lift. He broke his hand!

Because I did not want to climb for four hours with the group, I asked my bike mechanic if he could show me some trails. It turns out he's ex japanese champ, Shinobu Noguri. He's the one following me (suffering ) on the 5th photo.

 

[CONoobie]

Wow, those pictures are AWESOME! I want to go ride there!!

 

[V.P.]

what bikes did you try?

 

[Francis Cebedo]

what bikes did you try?

I rode the Fuel EX, Remedy, Scratch Air, and Scratch Coil. I got some good first impressions on each bike and will be writing them up soon.

The Fuel EX video interview is here btw:

New Bontrager products are here:

 

[sanjosedre]

I've been following the updates on the scratch coil but have yet to hear if the geometry has been updated to accommodate the fox 36 180 fork (last year was using a 160mm)?

I would be disappointed if they just threw on a fork with an additional A-C of 20mm on an already tall (14.5 bb height) frame.

 

[N8G]

Wow, great pics! The bikes don't look bad either. Thanks for posting.

 

[eruizela]

Love my Scratch

 

[twanto]

See the photo with the guy's head inside the leaves? How do you take that shot? Does it take skeelz?

Well you do need some skills but it's not a very difficult shot. The photographer either would have gotten lucky with that grab- using continuous shooting on modern DSLRs can get you very high frame rates and a lot of action frames to choose from. But he might have envisioned the shot and pre-focused his lens, and just waited for the rider to get into that frame of leaves, and fired away. Of course if you were to attempt this you'd need a decent DSLR and an probably a medium telephoto lens- could cost as much or more than the bikes you were riding.

twanto

 

[David_315]

I love my xr2 tires. They are really doing a good job with things keep up the good work.