Norco is offering a reward for information leading to the recovery of four bikes that were stolen from our showroom on the evening of Feb. 19th, 2007 (monday).

Very few of these bikes have hit stores yet, so if you see it around please call: 1.800.662.8916.

- Team DH Race, Ano Grey, pre production swing link, s/m
- A-Line Park Edition, Ano Blue, no post/saddle, s/m
- Shore One, Ano Grey, Marzocchi Fork, med
- Atomik, Matte Brown, s/m

Where to begin? Vancouver is beautiful and the B.C.Flowshows were amazing. Chris Donahue, Mike Kinrade, Wade Simmons, Jay Hoots all dropped by to say hello. RipTV was filming all weekend and the flowriders kicked ass on the skinnies. Kinrade pulled nice flips and big 360's while almost being thrown out by security for tricycle radness.

Big shout to the Muddbunnies who were in force and all smiles. After the flowshows we stayed with Dangerous Dan Cowan on Bowen Island. Here's a few stunts on his secret trail. The fog was trippy.

Big thanks to the guys at Marzocchi for customizing my 4X fork and lowering it to 80mm. 'Mangler' for taking us boating to catch prawn. Baker for hangin,drivin, and riding west Vancouver. Huge thanks to Dangerous Dan for being rad you cracka....

Source: mtbflatland.com

Bruce Wenting, Symmetrics Road Manager in Cuba, called to report that Svein Tuft captured the overall title in Cuba this morning. 'Today was an extremely difficult stage. The 90km circuit had the riders do 25 laps of a 3.5km circuit that was aggressive the entire stage. Unfortunately Svein was taken down with 400m to go while leading Pinner out for the sprint. The Cubans were going for glory in Havana and they were willing to risk anything for a stage win. The bottom line is Tuft took the yellow jersey, he is a bit scraped up from his crash but ok.'







Wenting went on to say that the team is completely spent but extremely happy with the win.

Christian Meier maintained his 2nd place position in the U23 and the team remained in 2nd in the team GC.

This is the longest stage race Symmetrics has competed in and kicks off the 2007 with a big, big bang. Symmetrics collected approximately 67 UCI points which provides many early benefits to the team and Canadian cycling.

Stand by for a more detailed report.

Source: symmetricscycling.com

After four stages of racing in Cuba, the S-Team is poised for good things as the 14-stage Cuban race continues. Although communication has been limited between the team, Kevin Cunningham, team co-owner reports that things are going well for Canada's number one pro team.

'I spoke with Bruce Wenting today, who is managing the team down there this week,' Cunningham said. 'It sounds like there's been some very hard racing and everyone on the team is feeling good. Svein was feeling ill the first few days but soldiered on and is feeling better now.'

Fast Facts

- Currently, both Tuft and Andrew Randell are the G.C. hopes, both within striking distance of the overall leader. Marsh Cooper is currently tied with three other riders for the under-23 (U23) competition.

- Symmetrics is tied for third in the team competition.

- Andrew Pinfold scored a second out of eleven riders yesterday, just missing the win. This follows two stages ago when almost all five Symmetrics riders were crashed by other riders as they set up a train for Pinner. All the riders were fine.

- Both Tuft and Randell are looking forward to next Friday's TT, which should favour both riders, as well as Cooper as he tries to make some headway in the U23 competition.

Source: Symmetrics Cycling

Just enjoying some dinner during my last night in Montreal. Yup, sitting by myself, waiting for food, and typing away; spinning too actually, it\'s a revolving restaurant. Anyway, I have just finished 8 shows in three days at a consumer bike show, Salon du Velo. My first demo of 2007 was last week, but this weekend proved to be good training for the start of my demo season. My trials muscels are sore after some time off the bike, and I imagine this will be the last time they\'re sore for the rest of the season, it\'ll be full on from here on in.

I\'ll be looking forward to some filming when I arrive home in a few days, I\'m excited to collect some footage and work on some new lines for my next film.

Not too much to say this time, just wanted to say hi, foods about to come anyway...

Ryan

Source: www.ryanleech.com

PRE SEASON TRAINING! With the 1st World Cup only 13 weeks away, Fionn has been hard at work with her new personal trainer (and 3x World Cup winner) – Elke Brutsaert

With the 2007 season fast approaching, Fionn has been working hard to get herself ready. After a few intense weeks at "Camp Elke" in Durango, Colorado Fionn has been busy putting the new training plans into action. After hours of gym and road work, she is happy to report

"So far, so good! I am already feeling as fit now as I did going into Sea Otter last season, which is great news all around. Elke has been amazing so far putting hours of effort into correcting some of the damage left by past injuries, as well as pin pointing and focusing in on my weaker areas. I have been impressed by her knowledge and how well she applies her own experiences training and winning World Cups in the past."

Although Fionn claims to appreciate the torture she can still be heard cursing Elke's name over and over in the gym, especially during sets of "ascending stairs" and "prone iso-ab contractions"!

Source: fionngriffiths.com

Innerleithan, Scotland – The 1st race of 2007 was a success for the whole team with both Jaymie and Fionn standing on the podium! The ladies put in an awesome weekend of riding and training although they were without proper DH rigs due to some kind of shipping hold up. However, this didn't stop either of them from racing! Fionn spent the night leading up to the race playing in the garage transforming both her Norco 4XXXX and Norco EXC (Cross Country) bikes into DH race rigs – or as close to that as she could! Both bikes turned out to be great and held up to the abuse.

Race day looked promising. With sunny blue skies and hour-long lift lines, Fionn spent the morning putting in practice runs with fellow World Cup rider, Helen Gaskell. Both ladies were surprised at Fionn's abilities to keep up to Helen on the rough track with her tiny bike. By racing time, both Fionn and Helen were excited to put themselves and their bikes up against the clock. Both of these fast ladies were curious whose bike/rider combo was going to edge the other out for the win. Helen put in an amazing race run, however, an unlucky front flat 20seconds into Fionn's run saw her skidding and sliding her way down the track. She managed to keep up right and was only one position back from Helen at the finish, despite her bad luck. The weekend was not over though. Miss Jaymie Mart put in an awesome race run getting every last millimeter of travel out of her Norco EXC and just nudging Fionn out of 2nd place. Congrats to both ladies on an excellent start to the season!

Source: griffithsracing.net

Norco Performance Bikes is pleased to announce that Kevin Haviland has been hired to fill the Norco Special Events and Technical Support Role for Eastern Canada. Kevin is no stranger to the race scene as Gears Racing Team former Coordinator and head mechanic. In addition, for a number of years, Kevin was also the owner and operator of Havy’s Bike Shop in Keswick, Ontario.

Making his home-base out of Norco’s Eastern Branch in Brampton, Ontario, Kevin will be putting lots of Kilometers on the Special Events Truck & Trailer, as he travels throughout the summer to a wide variety of events in Ontario, Quebec, and the Maritime Provinces

Please feel free to contact Kevin at kevinh@norco.com with any events in your area that we might be able to attend and/or with any ideas you may have to help us support riding in your area.

Norco is looking forward to an amazing 2007 season with plans to attend over 80 events!

After a winter of tough training, there\'s no more Stallin\' - the S-Team is set to begin its race season at the Vuelta Ciclista a Cuba. Racing begins this Tuesday, February 13th and will last a full 13 days, ending on February 25th.

The race features 14 stages of tough racing, including a 30-km individual time trial which should suit Svein Tuft. Tuft, who will wear his Red skinsuit of National Champion in the event, has been honing his time trialling skills lately on the track. \'I\'ve increased my Revolutions per minute, my leg speed, with all the riding at the velodrome, so I\'m pretty stoked to try it out on the road.\'

Joining Tuft in Cuba will be Marsh Cooper, Christian Meier, Andrew Pinfold and Andrew Randell. New S-team rider Geoff Kabush will be Lenin a hand to the squad, making his first appearance with his new comrades in arms.

Most of the team has been training in either BC or California, and although it is the rainy season in Cuba, weather could be a factor. \'If it gets warm, we could have a pretty hot war on the roads with some of the locals who are more acclimatized,\' Symmetrics veteran Andrew Pinfold said. \'As far as who is our best rider right now, I think some of the guys who have been training hard on the track might pull off some good rides, but whoever gets up there in the G.C., we will all ride in solidarity.\'

The total mileage of the race is 1865km for the 13 days, making the race itself an impressive feat. This is the longest race for all of the S-Team riders, and one of the longest races apart in the world apart from Grand Tours like the Tour de France. The community of racers who have flown in from various parts of the world will assemble Sunday in Havana, with the actual race beginning and ending at end at the Plaza de la Revolution in Baracoa.

Symmetrics will be providing reports from the race, so the People wishing to Git Mo\' information should be sure to check out: symmetricscycling.com

Ryan Leech isn\'t your average mountain biker. Trials hasn\'t been \'cool\' for some time now but Ryan doesn\'t care. His fans don\'t care either and Ryan makes a spot for himself in some of the best mountain biking films around - including Roam, The Collective and Progression: Kranked 6 - despite never doing a three whip or a 50 foot gap.

He\'s not such a bad dude either. Saying Ryan is a nice guy is a bit like saying Hitler was a bit of a jerk. Ryan is one of those people who does not have a mean cell in his system. It\'s impossible to imagine him saying anything negative about anyone at all. He\'s just a sunny, happy-go-lucky guy who happens to be a wizard on a bicycle. He should be bottled and sold as an alternative to Prozac.

Recently we asked him a few questions and he was cool enough to give us a few answers.
The Full Interview on NSMB.com...

Catharine Pendrel (BC, Norco Factory Team) is quickly establishing herself among Canada's top female cross country mountain bikers following a breakthrough season during which she recently won a silver medal at the Pan American MTB Championships and placed fourth at the MTB Nationals, behind top guns, Marie-Hélène Prémont (QC, Rocky Mountain/Business Objects), Allison Sydor (BC, Rocky Mountain/Business Objects) and Kiara Bisaro (BC, Team R.A.C.E.).

Finishing second at the Pan Am Championships in Balneário Camboriu, Brazil on October 15 was 'definitely an exciting finish to the season,' said Pendrel, who lives in Kamloops, B.C. with Keith Wilson, her fiancée and dedicated training partner, and their two kittens. Pendrel placed fifth at the 2005 Pan Am Championships in Mexico and was thrilled at the difference another year can make. She was informed only a week before this year's event, that she had been selected to replace Sydor, but that didn't faze the upbeat 26-year-old, who laughed about her low-maintenance 'flip 'n go' hairdo - which she demonstrated, using her shoulder-length blond hair during lunch at a popular café on Vancouver's West Side.

MORE...

February 16th - 24th, 2007

Tues. Feb 20th: VIMFF Mountain Biking Evening

The night includes: Robbin McKinney in a slide show “Great Bike Journeys of the World”; and films: Asiemut (bike road movie starring Quebecoises adventurers Olivier Higgins and Mélanie Carrier as they pedal 8000 kms from Mongolia to Culcutta, discovering the world and themselves); Brother (the Fawbert brothers of Gold River from Vancouver Island are bonded through their love for mountain biking); Snacking with Shaun (short street unicycling film with young Shaun Johanneson); The Bike Compilation (short clip from a newly released film featuring top female riders Katrina Strand, Hannah Steffens & Sari Joergensen).

For Details and Tickets: vimff.org

The people at Norco know that creating a life-long cyclist, starts with a positive first experience on a bike. Too often, kids miss out on the great memories and freedom of riding because they never get past the frustrating, and often painful process of learning to ride without training wheels.

To make sure that every kid gets a chance to fall in love with cycling, Norco has developed the Run-Bike. Conceived and developed in Europe as an alternative to training wheels, the ‘Run-Bike’ allows kids to gradually gain the basic skills and balance for riding, by allowing them to glide for short distances.

“My daughter was around 2 and a half, so I figured she’d be the perfect test rider when we started making prototypes of the Run-Bike. She was stoked!

Within a few weeks she could glide all the way down our driveway. She’s just turned 4 this year, rides a pedal bike, and has never used training wheels.”
- Jim Jamieson, Norco Bicycle Division -

Designed for 2-5 year olds, this fun mix between a scooter and a bike is constructed out of a strong, light-weight aluminum, and features ball-bearing wheels and headset, an adjustable quick-release saddle, adjustable handlebars, kid-sized bars and grips, and comes in two colours.

Check out the Run-Bike:
VIDEO
SPEC
PURCHASE

All right, the 2007 season is underway. How do I know?

1. I'm in California training, my usual pre-season prep
2. My legs are shaven which I don't bother with until it's racing time
3. Jacob is interviewing his team-mates, obviously bored silly from all the time away from racing - don't worry buddy, the cold dark night is almost over
4. And finally, we've booked tickets to go to the Tour of Cuba (sun, sand and safety the tourism posters say in Toronto's subway.)

These last few weeks in California have been outstanding. Nothing but sun until today when it finally rained so I can't complain about freezing my butt off coming down off the hills with my calves frozen and the rain pelting my face and... just kidding, it's been awesome here.

Last year my California training session was a total blow-out when I developed pain behind both of my knees. I ended up doing more couch-surfing than training. This year though things have gone to plan. I had a better build up in Toronto, what with global warming keeping things a balmy 5C most of December, and have taken things a little more gradually in the hills. All I know is that the watts keep going up and that's what matters.

Now it's almost time to get into some racing. Cuba should be a good start to the season.

Source: Symmetrics Cycling