Is this the best blag ever?!

There's an interview on the Singletrack site right now with Nigel Page, manager for the Chain Reaction team. It's a bit long but if you read it you will come across this story which anyone who has ever flown to Mega with their DH rig on Ryanair will appreciate and possibly crown as the best blag ever:

'Finally, can you tell us one of your famous excess baggage stories?

Well, this is certainly an area where my stress levels max out! Some of the excess baggage charges I have talked and argued my way around have been ridiculous, but when you arrive at check-in with 150 plus excess kilos you can imagine some of the charges. If I had agreed to pay the charges that the airlines tried to charge us last year going to and from South Africa we would have paid an about an extra £15,000. I managed to blag my way out of paying about £12K going out there, but on the way home the check-in lady was having none of it. The usual happened, the rest of the team left me to it, more out of embarrassment than anything else, but I had tried everything I knew from my blagging book and still I had to pay the excess of 125 excess kilos at £30 per kilo, otherwise we were not getting our stuff checked in. So off I went with the credit card to the payments desk with a bill for £3750 for excess baggage. I was stressed out massively, thinking about our team budget after just the first race, and I thought there has got to be a way around this. So as I queued up I thought I would try one last idea and got out my pen and put a point between the 2 and the 5 so my ticket said 12.5 instead of 125 excess kilos. I thought “This is going to be dodgy…” and as I approached the payment desk I noticed the guy had a Liverpool FC tie on, so quickly changing into my bessy scouse accent before I handed over the ticket, I asked him if he had ever been to watch the reds at Anfield? We had a quick chat about the Pool before he took my ticket and frowned at it and asked: “Is that 12.5 Kilos?”I said “Yeah mate” Obviously sh*tting it, as they don’t normally put on point 5. He said, “OK, I will just charge you for 12 kilos.” So I paid my £360 instead of £3750 and returned to the check-in desk with my stamped paid receipt just praying the lady didn’t check the amount I had paid. She handed me our tickets and told us to hurry up so we didn’t miss our flight. We all rushed off with my heart rate at about 170 until we sat on the plane! Then I thought ‘I bet the bloody plane will be too heavy to take off now and I’m going to be responsible for killing everyone!’

Check out the rest of the interview here

When bad clothes ...

... happen to good riders.


More Mountain Biking >>

Sometimes you just have to go: respect

Straight from the Black Run joy of race day last weekend, Aston Hill is hosting another cool event on 23 March (yes folks, that's a Tuesday) where Brian Bartlett who invented the Bartlett tendon will be riding with some of the first British users of the device. It's a prosthetic limb which allows people who have lost their leg above the knee to kick ass on DH rigs. And probably other stuff too but let's not forget we're here for the DH people.



The event is being hosted by Pace Rehabilitation and no, the video wasn't shot at Aston Hill. Couldn't you tell?

I can't help it ...

... I just love the houndstooth.



2010 Trek Session DH. Proving a little bit of style goes a long way.

Panic! Whistler is for sale

News is in that Whistler resort is to find itself well and truly plopped on the auction block come 19 February unless naughty parent company Intrawest LLC find some spare change to make up for missed payments on a $1.4 billion loan.

Let's ignore the irony for the minute that one of the exasperated impoverished lenders is Lehman Brothers (you'd think they of all companies could cut a defaulter some slack) and think about the effects this could spell for mountain biking and its mecca. A totally unverified and unnamed source close to Whistler that I made up but who could easily fill in for any desperate news organisation, said: 'It could well be goodnight Vienna.' Meanwhile a spokesperson for Intrawest LLC - and let's face it we can probably trust them just as much - said: 'No foreclosure has happened. We are looking forward to the Games.' Remember them, the O-L-Y-M-P-I-C-S. The winter sporting event, the summer version of which doesn't include DH. Ah, now you're with me.

If we're honest, nothing will happen. BUT. Check this. In a public notice, the group of lender companies stated: 'Each qualified bidder must be a financial institution or other entity that has the financial wherewithal to purchase the membership interests in immediately available funds on the closing date.' In other words: blah, blah, blah. Or, WE CAN BID FOR WHISTLER! Now my mate Benji who is a superb journalist of immense disrepute, recently bid £350 for West Ham. He didn't win it but they were pretty worried for a bit there. So, let's get involved!

How cool would it be to own Whistler? If I owned the resort I would immediately make Wednesdays (because they can usually dowith some jazzing up) a compulsory Led Zepp appreciation day. No need for getting your headphone chord wrapped around your saddle - just listen to II powering out across the treetops.

Having solved the soundtrack crisis I would then outlaw any clothes by Altura. Sorry, just not a fan.

Hand wipes in cable cars would be quite good. Not for my hands but for my face as I always seem to end up wiping the crap from my gloved hands across my head.

Absolutely totally free all week demoing on any DH bike. Financed by Lehman Brothers.

Sorted.

Freeride festival and other shenanigans

Make no absurd mistake: Howard Donald, DJ, is not a reason to visit Saalbach Hinterglemm, deep in the Austrian Alps near Zell am See where, by the way, no coffee shops open on a Sunday morning. Fact.

But this being Austria and taste in music questionable ( I know this from watching five days worth of MTV), it probably seemed fair to assume on their part that we would be impressed by an ex-Take Thatter (now reestablished Take Thatter) taking to the decks at the annual Rave on Snow. This event is massive. It is literally a big fat massive rave. On snow. And in a kindergarten. The music goes on for 48 hours and the outfits get wierder the longer people rave. Quality.

We were blessed too with fantastic snow. But you don't need to hear that. What you do need to hear is that Saalbach plays host to Europe's longest freeride MTB trail, plus 400km of MTB trails in total, including DH and a bike park. Dates have been released already for next year's Freeride Festival which is taking place from 9 to 11 July. The resort also has five big cable cars carrying bikes up the hill.

Here are some snapshots of the freeride route in the snow. Me likey. Is it time to ditch Morzine?

Thinking of getting a DH bike?

Think again!
http://www.pinkbike.com/news/mini-mega-report-2009.html
Cheered me up no end.