Tomac Carbide REVIEW

Where to start? Well, when I was given the opportunity to get onto a bike that a legend like John Tomac had something to do with, how could I say no? I at least had to test ride it. Rodney and Bec from Supersports gave me a run down on the Carbide and hooked me up with a demo to try.
So, I have this sweet full carbon carbide to test ride. I went straight up to Gap creek - it's where I seem to test ride everything for the first time. Some key elements that you should look for in a dual suspension are efficiency, stiffness and if your a weight weenie how light it is or could be. Well as far as being light goes, the bike with the build kit on it came in at 10kg - pretty heavy LOL. I have been told that a guy in Spain got one down to 7.4KG to race stage races over there.

As for efficiency and stiffness, the Carbide has these covered hands down. The Carbide doesn't seem to take any of your pedalling efficiency away with the rear suspension wide open and once you click the rear shock to closed you won't ever want to jump on a hard tail again. I have been a big believer in hard tails for their efficiency, but after riding this bike it has totally changed the way I look at dual suspension bikes, and hard tails for that matter! Put it this way I don't think you will see me tackle another enduro on a hard tail again.

So back to Gap Creek let's just say I had a ball, the Carbide exceeded all of my expectations and I think you would be hard pressed to find another bike that can out perform this one. Do yourself a favour, if you're in the market for a new bike give one of these a demo at the very least.

Thanks heaps to Rodney and Bec for the opportunity to get onboard with Tomac.

Bring on 2010.

LunarC 8hr

Well a lot has happened since the Pitch Black last year. The LunarC was ment to be my first solo race for the year and a bit of a feeler for my performance at the moment. As with most plans in racing they change. I rang Fitzy on the wednesday before the race and he told me that his team had pulled the pin, so we decided to have a crack at the two man catagory and hopefully pick up where we left off from last year.

The race was held at last year's Insomnia track, & being the first race of the year attracted 250+ riders. The course its self was not overly technical, but pretty fast with nice flowing single track & a few hills to keep us honest. This made it the ideal track to introduce Richard & John from Aus Aerospace to the mountain biking scene. The start time of the race was midnight Friday and there was a good atmosphere among the competitors as most people wound down from their working week.

Seeing as Fitzy did first lap honours at the Pitch Black last year, it was my turn to get out there first. The solo riders took off 2 minutes before the teams, which meant there were a large number of solo competitors to get thru once the teams got underway. By the first corner it was clear that the riders who could manoeuvre thru the field the quickest would get a good lead on the other teams. With this in mind, Timmy from FTR got away from me until about the 8km mark where I managed to catch him again. As it turns out, Team FTR was keeping within a minute of us for the first few hours which kept us looking over our shoulders.

Meanwhile, John & Richard were running their own race & getting a good feel for night racing. To their surprise they were lapping consistently and holding their own in the field. This was great considering neither had much experience night riding. When I asked them if they were enjoying the race i got the same response - "loving it".

In the early hours of the morning we were finally able to get a bit of breathing space between us & FTR which we held for the rest of the race. Fitzy provided some outstanding overtaking skills coming into transition, which kept things interesting.

Andy Fellows took out the solo category with a convincing Win over the rest of the field.

In the wash me and Fitzy [ Team Ay UP ] finished in 1st in the two man and by the looks of the results were 25 seconds off taking the outright win for the race. John and Richard finished 20th in the two man which is a great result.

Thanks to everyone for making it a fun race and to FTR for keeping Honest looking for ward to the next battle.

Big thanks to my sponsors Tomac for my xc weapon, Ay Up for blazing a way through the night and Onza tyres fro keeping me glued to the track.

Keep the legs burning and I will be putting a review together on the Carbide sl soon

Tomac

As you can see I have had a great opportunity to get on board with Tomac. I will get back to you with all the detail soon and a review on the Carbide sl after LunarC 8hr this weekend. Bring on 2010