After more than 20 years of racing XC including a World Championship, an Olympic medal, and number of wins on several continents José Antonio Hermida has retired from racing (for the most part). From a spectator’s view he has always been fun to watch, but apparently behind-the-scenes he’s been entertaining the other racers just as much. His outgoing Multivan Merida team put together this more than 20 minute tribute that is basically all of his competitors telling stories about how much fun he has been, and how they will miss him, interspersed with riding and off-the-bike antics.
Jump past the break to catch up with some Suntour DH testing, the freedom of mind through riding through the winter, a sweet loop-de-loop & more…
To get us interested in new sponsorship deals for the year, it certainly helps to give us some good riding footage. SR Suntour are partnering with the Polygon UR team, and out of the deal we get some nice shots of their Whistler and Bailey Mountain, NC pre-season shake downs to see what the new the RUX DH fork can do. But maybe the most interesting is the data acquisition they are using to analyze the idea suspension settings for different track obstacles.
Toshiki Sato from Japan won Rapha’s contest for best film submission documenting his Festive500 riding. It’s a pretty somber slideshow of the highlights of riding in the short gray days of winter. But it is optimistic. With the selection Toshiki will be joining Rapha to document one of their Rapha Travel Randonnée trips in the coming year. So the next Rapha Travel film might take a more reflective tone. Rapha.cc
Kali Protectives has signed Matt MacDuff to another three years, protecting his noggin from 40-foot drops through 2020. And where might you drop 40 feet? From a custom built loop that he G’d out of, falling and breaking lots of little bones in his hand and arm. While he’s on the mend, check out the loop video above, and then watch more big ramp craziness in this one:
Coming February 24th is a new mountain bike film from SRAM, Kona and others that explores the new Texas Peak trail in the mountains of B.C.’s remote Kootenay region, where pioneers in search of precious metals blazed foot trails more than a century ago. Check the Digging for Galena teaser story on SRAM Stories.
