Some key elements of "bike" this year were significantly changed from previous years, some for better some for worse. The major new development was the BSX races. There were three sets of races each day, each one consisting of some heats with the first two of the four racers progressing into the quarters, four quarter finals, two semis and a grand final for £250. The racing featured the cream of the worlds riding talent, Carrem Amour, Will Longdon, Dave Wardell, Steve Pete, Nigel Page, Scott Beaumont, Chico Hooke, Rob Jarman, Ross Tricker, Neil Donoghue and Dylan Clayton amongt others. The first straight of the course featured a 17 foot tall start ramp with two big doubles, then a burm up to a pair of table tops, around infront of the big seating over some nasty big whoops, a step up and a low table to finish. In early practice the riders were having trouble with the jumps, the clay like soil (which had, apparently, been disinfected because of foot and mouth) was too soft to carry any good speed. By the second set of races though the action was getting larger on both the jumps on the first strait. Dylan Clayton and the other BMX boys were getting out of the gates fast but the action was almost always close. Steve Pete ruled the last strait, overtaking from as far back as third. Pagey took a nasty fall casing the second double and snapping his steerer tube. Overall the BSX was an excellent spectacle the accompanying sound effects and music helped to build a buzz around the races, my only complaint would be that their was too little seating and people standing at the barriers had a restricted view although the big screen helped a lot.
From reports coming in from Sunday the track was getting faster and there was some considerable sessioning of the dirt jumps with more back flips and a Pashley rider pulling 360 tables.
There was no BMX dirt on the Friday, if anyone knows how that went down (with any pictures) get in touch.
The trials had two arenas this year, a jam area and a master class area. The jam area consisted of various log, tube and crate creations and twice a day riders would come out and, basically, mess around egging each other on. I didn't see much but I was impressed by a 10foot drop onto a coke can and the massive one handed gap drop on the telly (Central News) looked great. The other area was the master class area, hosted by the MAD team. Members of the public donned helmets and borrowed bikes to be tutored by the Arial Display Team. The sections varied from "do-able" to pretty gnarly but a lot of people were, apparently, having problems with the front cable disks on the bikes.
The street course was home to the best action of the day. Early in the morning an Ellsworth Mountain Bike rider was jamming with a few BMXers, pulling back flips and other massive tricks (apparently the jump was too small for front flips!). Then the BMXers got a little "arsey" with him and he had to retire to being the stand-in BSX rider. By afternoon the back-to-back-quarter-pipes-with-hand-rail was seeing a lot of action (picture 1)particularly in the tech department, 360s over the rail, 180 to crank stall to fakey or 180 out, tyre stalls and more, particually memorable was a 360 to front-wheel-catch to face-plant-bike-on-back-of-head. Transfers from a quarter into the vert were attracting attention, as was the big vert-wall.
The rest of the floor space in the massive hall was taken up by trade stands, all the big players in mail order were there but few major brands. There were some bargains to be had particularly on the more popular products (hard tails). Highlights included the impressive Giant truck (next the HOPE mini), the huge Terrain stand, 24seven's tower and live band, and Super Cycle/Onza's stand had some cool new stuff on it with disco lights. DC, Vans, MBUK and Pashley had the most free stuff and most stalls were running competitions. Jo Burt had an interesting stall, first thing on Friday it resembled an empty space but by mid afternoon he was well into transforming the white walls into a large Mint Source mural and signing autographs.

There has been much reflection on the various fourums online that this was a weak show, too small, too little action and no bargains. I found that to be largly untrue. OK if I'd been wandering around all day i would have seen alot of things twice but if you took in afew shows, chatted with industry people, haggled, blagged and had a general larf there was plenty to ocupy althogh some of the big teams and bike companys were sorely missed. As for bargains there was no shortage particually come Sunday. Theres just no pleasing some people, you got better deals than you local shop (probably) and more action than your local trails (especially with F&M).

Click a picture for a bigger, better example....

Orange 222

24seven: Dark Angel 2


The DMR stand.

BSX berm


BACKFLIP!!!!!

crusers

Mint Sauce on my hat.

a giant truck/The Giant truck

New Onza kit

The start hill.

The first double.

That dud again.