I’ve got to admit it, as soon as I pulled the red Mondraker out of the box I’d a good feeling about it.

The geometry has been lifted straight from it’s bigger brother, the Factor, itself a more than talented trail animal. Swing a leg over and everything felt good – the size large was a decent length and with the Zero system and shock located low down in the frame, it all felt balanced and stable.

At £1500 you’re never going to get a lightweight machine but that said, the Tracker R isn’t exactly tubby either. Five inches of travel, fun geometry and some sturdy kit – what more could you ask for?!

Check out my full review in the new MBUK 280 (on sale 27th July) but before you pop out to the shops with a deck chair and a Thermos, here’s a video…

We’ve been eagerly waiting for this for a while now – Mr. Semenuk has finally got his own web series. Life Behind Bars stars himself alongside house mates The Coastal Crew, Logan Peat and some chap  called Intern.

As you can imagine, the lads house is a bit more than your average student bedsit so without further ado, why not take a tour…

In episode 2, Brandon Semenuk and Logan Peat hop in the Mustang Mach 1 and head all the way south from British Columbia down to Santa Cruz, California…

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 I haven’t really kept the DH racing ball-rolling so this weekend’s Forest Of Dean Mini-DH is going to be a welcome reintroduction to sweaty palms, cocking lines up and generally being a bit panicked!

That said, I do get an anoraky joy out of getting my bikes sorted for races. Maybe that’s the future, maybe I should leave the actual riding to somebody else and just concentrate on spannering?

Anyway, the Morewood is sorted so here’s a quick run down of the stuff I’ve got on there.

Burgtec Penthouse Mrk.3 pedals – you can’t go wrong. I’ve spent the last year or so swapping between clips and flats and after some deep debate, have decided to plump with flats. The Burgtecs are just about the best pedals I’ve ever used – comfy shape (not too big or small), great pins and more than man off to take the odd knock.

Nuke Proof ShockWave Ti spring – this was the first mod I ever made to the Morewood and couldn’t recommend it enough, I’m sure anyone whose ever felt the weight difference between a Ti and steel spring would agree and at 450lb x 3.0 it’s perfect for my lanky, heavy bones.

I’ve recently swapped my cockpit about from my trusty Renthal Fatbars and Integra stem to this new Direct-Mounter from Burgtec coupled to their 15mm rise, 780mm wide RideWider bars. I’m running an extra spacer on top of the crown too just in case things feel a bit low.

Manitou Dorado Pro fork. There’s just no denying how good these look and the dampening feels second to none. I need some more time on them to really get their number but they were always getting the nod over the standard RockShox BoxXer RC’s.

Specialized Butcher tyres. Throughout 2011 I opened my mind a bit to different kinds of tyres (I used to be staunchly Maxxis) and among the best that I’ve found are these Sam Hill signature numbers. The ‘Sam Hill’ bit is purely a width thing as these clock in at a spot-on 2.35in. Sadly, like Arthur Guinness, he doesn’t sign them all himself… The wheels are the ever-true Hope Hoops which are still click-clicking away on their second bike. Here’s my initial review too.

SDG I-Fly Storm saddle and I-Beam post. Another nod to the monosyllabic Aussie trend-setter, I tested this a while ago and it’s stayed put ever since. Ok, it’s just about as hard a perch as you’ll find but I love the racerhead functionality of it. The I-Beam system has been faultless and has stayed steadfastly up to torque since the day I fitted it.

There we have it then – she’s ready to go. My aims for this weekends racing? Stay on, have fun and go faster in my second run. I’ll try and strap a camera on to my head at some stage too so stay tuned for that…

 Back in issue 269, I wrote a piece in Out Front called ‘Pushing the boundaries’ which basically tried to highlight the increased use of carbon fibre when it comes to constructing the worlds fastest DH bikes.

The black shiny stuff is back on the agenda as far as DH frame builders are concerned. Better production methods (well, they do use the odd bit of it in something called ‘F1‘) and an industry push to produce more entry-level/price-tagged machinery has resulted in the top of the line kit becoming even faster and dare I say it, flashier.

If you take a look at the top twenty ranked men in the world according to the official UCI rankings,  as many as 11 of the top 20 riders will be on carbon fibre-framed machinery come the Pietermaritzburg start-gate in six weeks time.

Now, bear with me here, this is making a couple of assumptions… Firstly, that the rumours of Monster Energy Specialized (Troy Brosnan in this case) are testing a carbon fibre framed Demo. Secondly, that you count the extremely hard-worked backends of the Lapierre DH 920‘s of Cameron Cole and Sam Blenkinsop.

However, forgive me those assumptions and consider that Sam Hill isn’t within those rankings (currently 36th) but could be on the same machinery (IF it exists) as Troy and also that there are extensive rumours that ex-team-mate Brendan Fairclough will also soon be running a prototype black and shiny all-new Scott DH bike.

Look outside the top twenty teams and Intense (still a staunch privateers favourite) have long pondered a carbon fibre framed DH bike too but, as with everything else, are striving to produce it as in-house as possible. That said, the arrival of their Carbine SL could be the precursor to something along those very lines.

Also rumoured to be popping wonderment out of steaming hot moulds are Yeti Cycles with their team allegedly set to be lining up on full carbon fibre machinery at Pietermaritzberg. That would fit in well with the fact that the alloy version of their new 303 DH looks set to arrive in February, every Yeti of course gets two years of race R+D before launch.

With weight limits dropping all the time, will we one day see a road race style UCI weight limit that bikes can not dip under? The questions are (reasonably) endless.

But what does all this hypothesis and supposition mean in the more immediate future? A move away from the time-hounoured world of bits of metal welded together with glorified strings and glue leading the way? For the top-whack machines it would appear so but hopefully companies like GT can shine a bit more light on the future for the rest of us. They produce their Fury in a more wallet-friendly alloy version with the top-whack machine coming in full World Cup spec carbon fibre (they’ve yet to confirm that this one will be available in the UK though). Whatever the answer, the future looks fast!

The heat bounces off the tarmac and back up around my pasty knees as I step out of my fully tinted big, black pick-up into the Arizona heat. Massive shades firmly in place, I saunter across the parking lot and through the doors of Pivot Cycles where owner/designer Chris Cocalis is waiting. Hand outstretched he greets me and beckons me into a meeting room where coffee is ever-flowing via a sultry secretary and together we spend the rest of the day chatting and designing up my next bike…

Of course, this is all ballocks but it’s always nice to dream.

My time is nearly up with my Pivot Mach 5.7 long term bike and a new ride is on the cards. The Pivot is not perfect but it’s scarily close – improving on that will be tricky.

So, what would I change? In reality, nothing but if the above pro-factory scenario were to actually occur, what high-faluting, pro-rider style changes would I make/demand for the 2012 bike*? For arguments sake, let’s give the project the working title ‘Pivot Mach 5.7 Superleggera Competizione  RM01′…

- Carbon rear-end. I’m all for the move to carbon/the jump to hyper-space but I’ll keep the front triangle made out of alloy, please. As with the Yeti ASR5 Alloy, this will bring the signature bike into the range beneath the full carbon number in terms of price. Again, as with the Yeti, I love the feel of a carbon rear triangle and it would further trim some weight. Also, can I have more tyre clearance please? It’s not horrendous at the minute, but when running the reasonably chunky Hans Dampf’s it’s a bit tight in the sort of mud present down my local woods. Oh, and a custom linkage guard too. Would gloss finish be do-able? Lovely stuff.

- E-Thru rear axle. I’m constantly writing about the millions of changing standards in mountain biking but the one which makes most sense to me is the Shimano E-thru rear axle. QR simplicity with increased stiffness and feel? One of them please, Chris.

- Shimano HollowTech II bottom bracket. I’ve already done one BB30 (ok, it had the Mega to contend with…) and there’s a very subtle knocking coming from my second one already. HollowTech II is easy to use, easy to install and lasts. Let’s go with that…

- Custom Fox Kashima-Coated FIT 34 fork. There are rumours that the 34mm legged 26in wheel Fox fork isn’t far away (they do one for the wagon-wheelers already). The FIT 32′s on my bike are  my favourite fork but I miss the supple yet unbudgingly stiff feel of the 36′s I ran at the Mega. So, I’m sure it can’t be too much to ask for a custom set to be whipped up… We could even sticker them up as 32′s and leek them on Facebook?

- No bottle cages bolts. I just use bladders so we could probably bin them off. Bill it as weight saving? Lovely.

- Carbon fibre lower link. The gorgeously sculpted upper link in the Piv’s DW assembly is one of the sexiest parts of any bike ever. True fact. Now, there’s probably a very good engineering reason why the lower one isn’t carbon fibre too but I think my signature frame should have one. Maybe with some sort of signature logo or something?

More HobNobs please, Tiffany… (Are they even available in Arizona?! I don’t know – I’m drunk on power…)

- Titanium hardware. Let’s go for the good stuff all-round – Allen head bolts too, proper deep ones to avoid rounding-out. Alright, it may push the RRP up again but come on! This is a signature frame! Ok, just give me £30 and I’ll buy the bolts for my own bike and have my mechanic fit them…

- Paint. It’s a custom rig so lets go mental with the paint – Kawasaki green for the front triangle with the carbon rear getting a deep gloss lacquer and matching graphics. Remember the green the Iron Horse Mrk.III used to be available in? Yeah, that’s the badger. But brighter.

- Bottle opener. You see those front triangle shock mounts? Can we make the non-drive side into a bottle opener? No? Ok.

So that’s it then, the Pivot Mach 5.7 Superleggera Competizione  RM01is finished and what a bike she’s shaping up to be. Seriously though, my desk and head are a mess with catalogues and ideas as to what should replace the 5.7 when the fateful day comes when I have to box her up for the last time. Such, SUCH a good bike… Any suggestions?!

Keep an eye in MBUK Magazine and this here blog for some all new long term machines very soon.

*NB – For 2012 the Pivot Mach 5.7 will be available in carbon fibre. This will be the equivalent of the Millennium Falcon in terms of speed.

What you doing at the minute? Want some special bonus content?! Course you do!

Here at MBUK Towers, we take a lot of time and care when it comes to shooting our SuperBike section. Each month we scour the nation for appropriately arty surroundings to showcase the creme de la creme of mountain bike beauty and sure enough, each month, we have a folder full of sexy snaps which sadly don’t make it into the mag. Now we’re putting them up here for your viewing pleasure…

Here we go then with issue 273′s Zerode G-1 internal gearbox DH bike. Oh, she’s a looker!

The show will be taking on 12 to 15 January at the Excel Centre in London. There will be tons of new bikes and kit on display and available to buy, with some of the best brands in the business represented, and you’ll be able to see the Animal Bike Tour in action!

Tickets for the show are normally £16 (advance, or £20 on the door) for adults, but you lucky MBUK/BikeRadar readers can get them for £14.

Click here to take advantage of this offer (the word ‘radar’ should show in the ‘discount code’ box). It expires on 25 December.