A relatively bike-free video from the Animal Bike Tour boys sees the team head to Stockholm for Sweden’s first ever Scandinavian Fitness Festival.

While there, they tried their hands at all kinds of sports – Blake Samson showed a particular prowess for zumba and power hooping, and even gave pole-dancing a go!

Tour Manager Robin Kitchin also pulled some crazy moves on a segway and Martyn Ashton attempted parkour!

The team also called in on Malmo skate park – one of the best in the world – where MC James Thorne came into his own!

Don’t miss MBUK 275 where Martyn recalls his top three shows from the 2011 Animal Bike Tour, and keep up to date with their 2012 antics at http://biketour.animal.co.uk/.

The Bike Show at Excel in London is a great place to see what’s going on and catch up with some key contacts for us. There’s a lot of buzz right now…

Whyte's 29er carbon race rocket. Will we see an XL? *coughs*

Whyte bikes, the small company designed right here in Blighty by Ian Alexander and the great team at Whyte keep on pushing things forwards. With the 10 year progression of 29er bikes finally starting to flower, they are right on the money with their slightly slacker, faster and damn right light carbon race hard tails. A stunning bit of craft.

I reckon many people could ride these as fast off road as a good rider on a 150mm travel bike. Can’t wait to get on one, although currently only in limited sizes. Any chance of an XL please guys?

There are enough people that would want one, surely..?

Evoc- first prize in the unofficial cool stand competition!

Evoc had the coolest stand at the show- set out like an arrivals lounge at the airport, complete with display and flight numbers. Loads of effort gone in, and damn nice bags to boot. New for 2012 is their light weight body armour range- but more on that soon.

Rose bikes team DH- a nice bit of kit.

German giant Rose bikes seem to be a brand on the move too, refining their already nice DH frame in to a light weight racer with a dialled 64degree head angle. This is the team edition, which will be raced by the new Rose Vaujany team, made up of whiptastic DH racer Nico Vink, 4X and general style monger Joost ‘The Boost’ Wichman and the UK’s own Katy Curd.

Rose Jester Slopestyle. £1279, that is all...

There’s also a rad new Slopestyle bike, with 120mm travel, and a complete build price as seen here at £1279!

Could be just the ticket for mini DH; dirt jumps; 4X or any amount of looning around you might like!

Hard Eddie. Bad to the bone.

Intense Hard Eddie 29er.

I don’t need to say much here that two simple words don’t say on their own:

Bad Ass.

Stunning fork up front. I feel hot and bothered looking at this- I want!

And check out the fork- a fine stealthy contender to the Niner Air Carbon fork. But instead of the XC pedigree, you have the Intense stamp of mayhem- this is the whippet bike that hard core riders don’t realise they need…

Man and machine.

Martyn Ashton made a great video in which he flipped a road bike, did a little bit of trials and a bunch of other unthinkable stuff. So he’s gone to town and has built up a custom Cannondale Cyclocross bike, complete with a Hope trials rear hub with ultra fast pick up, and a few other extras. You may have seen him back flip it in one of the shows, but really you need to see him manual the thing round- it’s a piss take!
Got to take my hat off and give the man a little bow though- he’s one of the hardest working men in mountain biking and works flat out to promote mountain biking to audiences that might not be aware of it.

Martyn Ashton- still tearing it up after all the years. He deserves an award.

Mart is nearly 40, and he is still king of the castle.

You rock mate, keep doing it.

Rutger Hauer just out of shot.

The Excel centre at night, for some reason reminded me of the film Bladerunner. Or maybe the sight of a Ferrari Enzo and a Sunseeker boat worth 15million had made me go light headed.

This boat is bigger than my flat.

I wonder how much the contents of this hall was worth?

The boat show is something else, and one of the only places you can go- as a vaguely affluent person- and feel like a complete and utter tramp.

Paddle boarding out of shot. They were too fast.

Paddle boarding is hard core- you should have seen the size of the dudes racing in the pool. They all looked like Dolph Lundgren.

Mr Crud-  Pete Tomkins-  and his son Jamie are really in to paddle boarding as part of their active lifestyle. And you should see the condition Pete is in- he’s a gnarly old dude now and reminds me of a happy version of Taylor from that Sci-fi show Terra Nova…

There was a large following for the Bike Polo at the show. These guys look familiar- kind of like most the inhabitents of Hoxton but with kneepads and hockey helmets.

Got to say, I saw some pretty hard-core crashes and slamming action going on. It looks tricky and actually really good fun. But still makes me think of this… (Rob S over at Continental Tyres, this is for you…)

Finally, here’s a few random shots of recent stuff going on here at MBUK towers.

Doddy's Ibis HD 160, before being attacked with Muc-Off

And after...

Specialized Camber Comp Carbon 29er. So fast it's a joke.

The MBUK photo studio, yesterday.

A bike, yesterday.

Over and out…

2011 has been an incredibly busy year for the Animal Bike Tour, and late last month the crew, which features riders Martyn Ashton and Blake Samson, manager Robin Kitchin and MC James Thorne, wrapped their season up at the Motorcycle Live show at Birmingham’s NEC.

In this vid they round up their 10 favourite motorbikes from the show and assure us that next year’s Bike Tour will be bigger and better than ever!

Plymouth – a town steeped in naval history and, believe it or not, the 16th most-populated city in Britain. True fact.

Anyway, if you’re in the area at the weekend and fancy getting an eyeful of some of the finest tricks and stunts-related mountain biking you’ve ever seen then get thee to the Piazza.

Thanks to the mechanical engineering skills of Robin Kitchin, the Bike Tour team, captained by the fearless Martyn Ashton, will be hopping, jumping and generally showing off all over their Mercedes Vito Sports.

Go on – it’ll be a welcome relief from a days trudging round the shops dancing through the minefield of “What do you think?” Truly a great way to spend half an hour.

Rooting through a pile of my back issues the other day, I found a few cool things worth mentioning. Maybe this can be a nice little regular spot. There’s a really interesting history on the MTB scene, and we’ve been lucky enough to see it unfold in front of us.

MBUK- Sep 1990

That’s MBUK Tech Director Steve Worland on the cover there- Steve’s been testing bikes since the very beginning and has ridden more bikes than most people have ever seen…

Herbold- H-Ball. Looking Moto with a tiller instead of a stem.

And check that ‘All that Jez’ coverline, referring to stunt rider Jez Avery. Who’s still about now!

Nick Craig- November 1992.

Known then as Nicky Craig.

Riding for Peugeot, and in a DH race- no kneepads, just lycra shots, XC helmet, Goggles and Full Dainese Armour!

The Peugeot DH bike was a renamed Fox bike, with a steel/alloy mixed material frame.

MTB pro- September 1994.

Recognise the cover star on MBUK’s old sister magazine? It’s non other than ex-Trials superstar Martin Hawyes, who now works for Fisher Outdoor, in particular with Norco bikes.

Hawziee is still an awesome rider, and we’ve been riding with him in some really cool places around the world.

And check out the cover line- Bikes do LESS damage that feet. I might resurrect this and get a little militant to the red sockers out there…

MTB Pro Feb 1995.

MBUK’s sister magazine, with Brant Richards on the front cover. Brant used to be a Dep Ed/Tech Ed on MBUK many moons ago, is the creator of On One bikes and is now working under the Shedfire guise on the Ragley brand. Great guy, incredibly enthusiastic and talks rather fast…

John Tomac.

He was always ahead of the times. Check out his custom painted Bell helmet, with Troy Lee peak, as painted by Troy Lee Designs.

The Tomes always looked fresher than fresh, and had the skills to pay the bills. Be it stringing the field out on a punishing climb, or making them look like novices on the downhills.

John Tomac is still an incredible rider, and with close friend Joel Smith (son of the infamous Motocross Racer Malcolm Smith), has an incredible range of bikes on the market.

Tomac- way ahead of his time.

Martyn Ashton and Martin Hawyes may have been two of the coolest MTB Trials riders around- and Martyn Ashton still is, but they weren’t always super cool!

In their early days as young whipper snappers they brought experience from Moto Trials and 20in trials bikes on to bigger 26in wheeled bikes- and kicked off a huge craze. Without them, it may not have happened- and certainly not to the level it has.

Luckily, Martyn Ashton has matured in to a fine looking fellow. Well, someone in our office certainly thinks so…

Martin however, well, the years have been… shall we say kind?

Messers Ashton and Hawziee. A long time ago.

Little Deb Murrell- even smaller than our man Rob Weaver- on her radical little Formula 1 carbon fibre bike, with her British made Quasar leading linkage fork, which looked staggeringly similar to the Girvin Vector fork that Brant is running on the MTB Pro cover…

Pint sized Deb Murrell on her Formula 1

Dave Hemming, if I’m not mistaken, taken at Puddletown Forest in the early ‘90’s. I was stood on the outside of the turn by the ‘Ski Jump’, and we could hear his Tioga Disc Drive rumbling way before we saw him come in to view.

If you look closely the purple sticker on his helmet, you’ll find it’s the cape from Coleman the Cow in the Mint Sauce cartoon, in the strip where he appears as the Fabulous Fantastic Formidable Fuchsia Freishen.

Dave’s also was wearing a cut up Gul wet suit as a pair of kneepads. It could be that Dave forgot his regular choice of Hammer pads, but more than likely, knowing Dave, it’ll be because they vaguely matched his Ringle bottle cage…

Dave 'Pee Wee' Hemming. Named so because of his likeness to Peewee Herman, or for another reason..?

Jason McRoy set the pace for UK riders- he oozed style and grace on a bike where others looked frankly amateur.

Even when not racing, JMC have it everything and was a monster on a bike. You definitely wouldn’t want him to be chasing you down on an XC race…

The late JMC, with what he did for British mountain biking may be gone, but he’s sure as heck not forgotten.

When JMC had fire in his eyes, he was going to catch you. Out the way, severe skill coming through...

Sam Humphreys now rides for Charge bikes when he’s not rescuing cats from trees or living up to the ’80′s housewife fantasy of being a hunky fireman. He’s a sterling guy and another one of those riders you really don’t want to be behind you as he’ll push you until you drop. The GT Xizang was one of the nicest frames ever- essentially a titanium version of the Zaskar, and oh-so-sexy…

Bad to the bone.

Remember Grip Shift?

Some things are certainly best forgotten. And these early units, despite being incredibly sought after, we’re frankly crap. You needed bionic wrists to change more than a couple of gears in one hit due to the huge throw on them, and if they were muddy/wet and/or your gloves were, you could forget changing gear. Rubbish, thank god they’re long gone.

Grip S**t?

Remember Cosmic Trail? I’m sniggering writing this, even though I went out and bought a bunch of this stuff. I think I had the frame bag, saddlebag and fannypack… Oh yeah!

Now Jez Avery is a name that still hovers. He made Team Hot Pies famous, held the bunny hop record for ages, appeared on You Bet on a couple of occasions, rode for MBUK, refused to eat anything on photo-shoots except hot sit down meals and popped a Switzerland Squeaker at every opportunity.

Reckon his forks look bent here?

Insert own caption...

And extract the urine from his clothing choice you might, but he was with the times back then. He’s wearing Axo Pony MTB specific riding boots- which later came in an SPD version with the Axo Mission sole. Remember the Mission? What a shoe…

His riding Jersey is Bean Bag, and I’m assuming his trousers are too. Although they do look like the kind of thing weightlifters wear…

Squeaking his way to the gym, ready for some power lunges...

Many people have been kicking up a fuss about Alpinestars making an appearance on the MTB scene, but they’ve been involved before, but with bikes as well as clothing.

They used to make a great shoes, which was white with fluro paint flicker- although cost a bomb. Most people had the Carati Sport version, which was a cheap copy…

Check out this whip though- the Alpinestars Al Mega, with huge oversized tubing. At the time, this was one super desirable bike!

More, next time. Hope you liked this little nostalgic blog of random stuff found on my desk!

Over and out, Doddy.

Don't say it. He knows

On the recent Wrecking Crew mission, Doddy and Wrecking Crew rider Jon Ashelford headed north to the town of Whitby, and home of Pete and Jamie Tomkins- the team behind Crud Products, and close friends of the late JMC.

We were lucky enough to stay at Pete’s place, and spent a fair bit of time getting smoked by him on his awesome pool table, which takes prime position in his man-room, which is also his work shop for tinkering on his Harley Davidson collection. The late JMC was a huge Harley Davidson fan- no doubt influenced by Pete’s love of the gorgeous machines.

The spot we rode is known locally as The Moon, and it was great to see the spot after reminding myself with a feet up session in front of the telly with the original Dirt film playing. If you haven’t seen Dirt, then find a friend that has and borrow it- it truly captures the feeling of riding like no other film to date, and despite having older bikes and kit, and less extreme riding- it will have to fired up to ride. If you can’t find a copy, then try scanning YouTube- we’ve heard talk that some naughty people have posted sections for others to enjoy…

Also in the latest issue of MBUK you can see Martyn Ashton and Blake Samson getting all Tronned out, Doddy’s incredible float-plane accessed ride up in the Chilcotin mountains, the latest kit Wrecked and Rated, the verdict on 29er VS 26in wheels and you get a Shimano XTR beanie totally FREE!

And that means it’s generally gloomier come the end of the working day too and we’re not far off having to get the lights out for the ride home. To top it off it’ll be worse in a couple of weeks when we have to put the clocks back.

But hang on a minute. There’s no need to get all miserable about it. We actually believe this is where the most fun part of the year can really start. Riding when it’s dark can be a proper hoot and to prove it we’ve gone completely mad in our latest issue with the help of www.glow.co.uk and strapped a load of their lighting products to the guys from the Animal Bike Tour just for the sheer bloody hell of it! And the results were pretty stunning.

A glowing Martyn Ashton

You can check out more cool pictures and find out how to make the most of your next night ride in the next issue of MBUK, on sale Wednesday 20th October.

And in case you’re starting to feel the cold too there’s a free Shimano XTR beanie hat with every issue to boot. We bloody love winter!

Partridgisms aside though, our trip to the Cycle Show yesterday has been marred by this morning’s news that the Hotlines show in Brick Lane was burgled last night.

Thieving scumbags made off with amongst other high-end 2011 bikes, the only Lapierre DH Team in the country and the second generation prototype of the Nuke Proof Scalp – be vigilant and contact us if you see either.

The Scalp really was a thing of beauty – this looks like being one of the most important DH bikes in a while. World Cup geometry, a 40lb full build (more weight is scheduled for the chopping board before production) and a price-tag of around £1500 for the frame say it all really.

Also hanging out in trendy Brick Lane was the new Nuke Proof Mega. Scheduled for arrival in shops end of February/early March alongside the Scalp, it offers long-legged alpine geometry and all-round trail-thrashing potential for just under a grand for the frame. Value.

Back at the show itself in Earl’s Court there was the usual glut of new stuff glistening under halogen spots. After experiencing the aggressively air-conditioned ‘we don’t understand what you’re saying’ -ness of Vegas, it was pretty cool to be back at the Cycle and just saying hello to everyone again.

Specialized’s new Evo range looked the business alongside Sam Hill’s Worlds bike and the new production Demo 8. Also making waves was the Upgrade stand with some ultra-pretty new DMR products alongside their new brand, Pivot. I know first-hand how good their bikes are and can’t wait to get a leg over their Phoenix DH bike.

Road legends ‘Super’ Mario Cipollini and Eddie Merckx were in attendance too and signing autographs to long lines of star-struck Lycra types. We just went to the bar with Rob Warner and Martyn Ashton…