Here is a short video clip of Freeborn Esher shop friend Marius “The Destroyer” sessioning the pump track last week, before the 1/4 pipe was installed….

http://www.pinkbike.com/video/125788/

enjoy!!!

Rob C

I am getting alot of contact on the bike forums about the new Pump Track at Esher Shore bike park here in Surrey, England - Esher Shore is next door to the Freeborn Esher store

Today we had awesome weather with blue skies and some warmth - a sure sign that Spring is heading our way after an exceptionally harsh Winter!

Marius “The Destroyer” turned up today at Esher - he is a good friend of mine and also Esher builder and Freeborn friend John “Jesus” Holme

Marius is racing some 4X this season, and has been helping out with digging the Pump Track and riding it to develop aerobic fitness, as the Pump Track is a serious workout!!

We’ve found that if we get up onto the roof of Sandown Active Sports Club (next to the bike park) you can get a great perspective on the sheer size / scale of the Pump Track - I shot this photo of Marius whilst up on the roof

After Marius left, George Allen turned up, and helped me with some heavy duty construction - George is a local rider that has MC’d at the past 2 Esher Shore Jams, and is always up for some dirt jumping and pump track action

George helped me drag / flip the extremely heavy leftover of the old “Slopestyle” park launch ramp about 100 feet down the park, and into its new location in the Pump Track

Today was the first day that we have installed a “timber element” into the Pump Track (apart from the start ramp), what many riders have not figured out yet, is that the Esher Pump Track is ultimately going to look like one of those awesome Nike 6.0 adverts seen in many skate / bmx mags - with a crazy backyard setup full of ramps / stunts and mad lines

The Pump Track itself is made from Hoggins Clay and is running VERY quick, but its also going to be used as a mechanism to access the various timber stunts we are going to install as the facility develops!!

Of course, as soon as George and I installed the launch ramp (which is going to be turned into a full-blown 1/4 pipe by adding another 6 foot on top of what you can already see) we had to go session the sh*t of it

I ride alot of BMX, so am used to busting out airs and footplants at skateparks, it took a while to get used to doing this on the 26″ wheels and longer wheelbase of my Mythic Rampant but I soon got my “flow on” and cannot wait until the 1/4 pipe is extended to start pulling tiretaps and nosebonks way up the tree!!

More timber will soon be heading to Esher Shore to continue the good work - we have plans to install short “north shore” sections, kicker ramps, wallrides, 1/4 pipes and much, much more into the Pump Track

As Marius said to me this morning - “this is sick - its like a new hybrid pump track..no one has anything like this?”

Until the time that its “finished” (which it never truly is) I will keep plugging away with our hard work here at Esher Shore, creating a brand new facility which is truly going to ROCK the biking world

you heard it here first!

cheers

Rob C

Freeborn Bikes Esher / Esher Shore

Freeborn are looking at producing a print calendar for 2011, with images shot by professional photographer Phil Steinhardt (www.steinhardtphotography.com)

Phil is a keen bike rider and owns an Ellsworth Specialist and Devinci Wilson, as well as the Mythic Rampant he bought for his wife

Phil came to Freeborn Esher yesterday and shot this teaser shot for us….

More news coming soon!

Here’s a short video clip I shot today, showing the ongoing work on the new Esher Shore “Pump Track”

http://www.pinkbike.com/video/125296/

cheers!!

Rob C

esher shore

Don’t need to say anything about my Rampant - I’ll let your eyes wander over the picture and you can drool in the privacy of your own home

MYTHIC RAMPANT

Mythic Rampant, 100mm suspension frame, short size

Fox RP2 air shock with specific tune

Rockshox Pike 454 Air U-Turn fork (lowered to 90mm)

Thomson X4, 50mm x 31.8mm stem

Devinci Daredevil 720mm x 31.8mm mid rise bar

Avid Juicy 7 brakes, 185mm front rotor and 160mm rear rotor

SRAM X-9 (9-speed) shifter pod and X-9 mid cage rear deraileur

SRAM PG-990 11-32T 9 speed cassette, SRAM PG-971 chain

Shimano SLX HT2 crankset with 38T chainring and Gamut bashguard

E13 STS ISCG 05 chain device backplate, lower roller and wear plates

Stan’s ZTR FLOW rims on Hope Pro II hubs with DT Swiss Comp D/B spokes and Brass nipples

Specialized Control Fast Trak tires with Stan’s No-Tubes tubeless conversion

DMR Pivotal seatpost with FIT BMX pivotal saddle

Aluminium bolts in low stress areas….

its 29.4lb on digital scales, and will take a serious beatdown as my summer vacation to Winterberg Bike Park in Germany proved last year!

cheers

Rob C

Mythic Bikes / Freeborn bikes

John “Jesus” Holme and myself (Rob C) spent a great day working on the on-going Esher Shore “Pump Track” project today

The weather was fantastic today, as it was yesterday - which means our fast drying Pump Track was running pretty quick, considering we are still in the Winter period!

A day working on the Pump Track is a mixture of building / tweaking / riding and building some more - mainly building and tweaking, with the riding about 5% of the time

Basically, we look at where problems exist on the Pump Track, and then make adjustments, ride it, check the effect of the adjustment, and make further adjustments

The problem with a PUMP TRACK is that every small adjustment has a further adjustment on other aspects of the track, as the pump bumps either allow you to generate speed, or retard your speed - once you make the beneficial adjustment to generate more speed it can then cause a problem if the following bump has the incorrect profile

What we are doing at the moment is the fine-tuning which is REALLY critical to getting the Pump Track to ride correctly - its easy to build a sh*t pump track, but to build a GREAT pump track takes a lot more work!!

Since here at Freeborn Bikes and Esher Shore we are 100% about the QUALITY, we are very aware that our Pump Track needs to be 100% - hence the endless tweakage that is going on!

Today was the first time I had ridden my rebuilt Mythic Rampant for some weeks, and it felt stupidly quick and capable on the Pump Track

John and I have looked at which is quicker on the Esher pump track - hardtail or full suspension, and we have come to the conclusion that the FS is quicker as you can keep the wheels tracking the ground better!!

Where the hardtail’s back wheel leaves the ground, the FS will keep tracking

Despite carrying some extra weight over the HT, the FS is a quicker bike as Esher’s Pump Track has a lot of “gradient variation” compared to many ‘back garden’ pump tracks that are usually quicker on a BMX

We’ve already started spotting extra lines in the Pump Track, as this photo shows (transfer from UP the start ramp into the big berm

Further plans include finishing the existing pump track (Getting it 100% right) and then digging out an ‘extreme’ line at the lower end, with a huge bombhole and step-up / trick jump

We are looking at adding more timber including a big 1/4 pipe, a wallride, bits of ‘north shore’ to link the track and little timber kicker ramps where applicable

Dirt magazine have already called the new Esher Pump Track “one of the UK’s top 3 Pump Tracks..” and its not even open!!

cheers

Rob C and John Holme

Esher Shore www.eshershore.com

Sat 27 feb

Today enduro through the noline land , with two kids and two adults…cheap and shit bikes done wonder with the silicone 3-in-1 brand, 9 bikes in the hallway…in fact jean-pierre ,the neighboor  68 years old decided  to go to buy bread with his bike that we fixed earlier….brakes, chain , bars and saddle , he was happy to buy us the pastis ( french alchool very tipsy that make the monaco people rich) before barbecue…by - 2 degrees
enduro was good, throught 400 meters of negative gradient,  lot of slow snow and mud, ( we went with  DH trouser, they make sense !!!) and tested the wotan ,the big hit , the carrera detonate 20 “, and the supermarket bikes, ….no problems
The Devinci Hectik perform like a KTM 525 EXC and i welcome the all package happy and smiling close to perfection with a view of the alps 200 kms away , turning my head and seeing fox stickers, full face , skateboard kneepad , and the crew of that day, the kids , the bikes, we were rocking  !!!
I was impressed with how everyone deal with the terrain, snow is funny to ride, turn left and you go right !!
the kids were enjoying it to a big time, i am pride to be that uncle , to take them to the places we wanted to go when we were young, but sometimes they are draining energy on me like a duracell battery in a ipod , so….

There were two ways to deal with them back home…,
the first is the washing machine
the second is the shower and bed after a good meal with lot of wine ( for the big one)…and sleep smiling

sun 28 feb

we decided to go back up the mountain, no bikes just shovel , rake and saw

we manged to open a very nice and flowy section in the middle of the woods, the lines did look like a tennis court in texture, fine very fine and perfectly open after a fine tuning on everyone and what the fu@# is going on and tools application
the kids did help a lot and we moved easily one tonne of leaves, wood and shaped the berms quite high. the section is open for a kilometer, and that did look amazing we came back at the sunset with only the rake and the leave picker brocken !!
here now and getting ready to leave for lyon, close to the alps by monday night.
2 bikes with me, computer, cameras and, hope i won t be miserable to be on my own again, not a big deal anyway, i will start to move my ass and start to run for fitness.
one thing is sure, my family is deeply into mtb all mountain, thx uncle jey and …rob, Paul, Jim and all the guys at freeborn bikes
that equipment is very good , in fact excellent for a life team hooby, ( not for me, that s in fact a job)
completly tired for now i have to retired and leave my body and brain become like a blue ballon, slowly deflating

Jey and the crew
altimeter : 710 m

Influential UK website southerndownhill.com has just held their 2009 readers awards, as voted for by 1000s of SDH members, many of whom are very keen and committed riders with a bias towards the gravity end of the sport (downhill, freeride, dirt jump and all mountain)

Southerndownhill.com attracts many riders from the Globe over, but mainly UK riders, and is known as a more “serious” forum which has many industry people lurking on the boards!

Hope Technology just picked up the 2009 “brand of the year” award for making some of the best kit on the market, with great customer service, value for money and after-sales back up

Hope are primarily known for the excellent Pro II mountain bike hubs, their hydraulic disc brakes and other bikeporn like their headsets, seatclamps and wheel skewers, plus their innovative lighting range and their new stems

More info found here:

http://www.southerndownhill.com/news/other/readers-awards-brand-of-the-year.html

Alpine Bikes Winter Series Rd 2, Innerleithen

Adam Brayton and Jack Reading both raced at the recent, frozen second round of the Alpine Bike DH series in Scotland - Adam was the only Pro Elite rider to tackle the course (all the other riders pulled out due to concerns about course safety) so cruised down to take the win - first GOLD for the Mythic Legend Mk2 in the UK!

more info found here:

Adam won on his Mythic Legend Mk2, and Jack placed highly on his Ellsworth Dare

http://www.descent-world.co.uk/2010/02/22/alpine-bikes-winter-series-rd-2-innerleithen/

Not quite sure why, but we seem to have developed a habit of meeting up for a team ride on the coldest, wettest day of the year. So it proved for 2010, as the morning of Sunday 21^st Feb dawned, it was raining and the car showed it was 2º.

But, we’re a hardy bunch on the Freeborn team and bang on time, Paul 2 and I rolled into the Peaslake car park to find Charlie and Irene all cosy and warm in their new Camper van, hot drinks in hand. We jumped in to join them in the van and it very quickly became extremely difficult to think of riding…

After a few minutes, I snapped out of it and got the door open and everyone started the obligatory pre-ride faffing with kit, before getting aboard the various Ellsworth bikes and setting off up the hill, Charlie and Irene aboard their trusty Truth race bikes, Paul on his summer tyre, rim brake equipped Enlightenment and myself on my Joker, anticipated some looning.

Paul leads the way...

It quickly became clear that; 1) it was bloody freezing, 2) it was bloody wet – both on the ground and in the sky, and 3) it was treacherous in places as the ground was frozen underneath the wetness of mud and puddles. We were all complaining of cold hands, but after a while we were warmed up and enjoying the quality singletrack that Pitch/Holmbury have to offer.

It was a relaxed ride, with the usual significant competiveness ‘mostly’ kept under control. Irene was taking it easy on the techy sections as she’d been off the bike a while, Paul was hoping we wouldn’t notice his lack of pace (err failed…) and I was trying to balance the urge to jump off everything with the pain in my hand from my recent ‘incident’ on the road bike. Charlie the machine just motored on, taking on everything, and talking the talk at every opportunity…

Charlie explains his perfect lines...

Having tackled ‘the Gulley’ with varying degrees of success we took the opportunity for some team pics. 

Charlie, Irene & Paul2 pose

Charlie, Big Daddy and Paul2 now...

Then Paul2 comes down

Charlie nails BKB

and Irene adds style...

Big Daddy