Folding bicycles

This is what happens when you get bored and click on one of the Google adverts.

Next week, we interview the bloke who commutes through central London on a road bike, wearing a full face helmet and a Dainese body suit. The muppet.

DIY interview

TRAIL ETIQUETTE, PART III

For future reference: The next time a tractor-trailer truck hauling 4,000 pounds of fish hucks off an overpass and crashes to the ground spewing it's cargo all over a half acre of the trail right at a point where six different parts of the trail intersect, and the highly spoilable contents are left to bake in the Sun for several days resulting in a noxious cloud of breathtaking stench, such a situation ought to make it's way into even the most elementary report of the trail conditions.

Trail Etiquette, Part II

After thinking about it for a while, I realized that my threat to snatch someone off his bike the next time he tried to blow past me without announcing his approach was just the sort of response that a macho rider would want. It would provoke a confrontation, and give him an excuse for physical violence. Then it occurred to me that perhaps the appropriate response would be to catch up with him in the parking lot, and kiss him full on the mouth in front of all of his buddies. Then it occurred to me that this was just the sort of response that a macho rider would want...........

Trail Etiquette

This is me, bitching. I have seen a lot of crashes, near crashes, and bad vibrations lately when faster riders come up on slower riders and try to pass without saying anything to let the slower riders know they are about to be passed. This is rude, unsafe, stupid, and messes with my tranquility. There seems to be some sort of macho thing about blowing past people without saying anthing. It should be really simple. Say: "Rider back." Say: "On your left." Say: "Hey, moron, I am about to blow past you, get the f--- out of the way." Say anything, but say something. The next time I am out on the trail with a bunch of newbies and you try to blow past me in a tight spot without saying anything, I am going to see if I can get handful of the back of your jersey, so that we can determine just how far your bike keeps going after you are no longer on it.

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH DARREN BERRECLOTH

Just after his huge crash at this year's Monster Park Slope Style event at Snowshoe Mountain which broke his rear wheel into several pieces, we were able to get the following exclusive interview with mountain bike legend Darren Berrecloth:

Stopa Correspondent: "Faaaaccccckkkk duuuuuude, are you O.K.?"

Berrecloth: "Don't buy Sun rims."

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH TRACY MOSELEY

Yeah, that's right. Only Stopadoodledoo get to interview Ms Moseley and ask her these questions. The kind of questions that the rest of the UK scene are frankly too scared to ask:
Who started riding bikes competitively first, you or your brother? Ed
Did riding with Ed help you to progress, much as Rachel Atherton cites riding with her brothers to have helped her? Most definitely, we used to mess about as kidson our bikes and then when I started racing I would have someone to follow and he would help me out with lines etc.
Who is the fastest out of you and Ed and if it's you, did you laugh at him the first time you beat his time? Sadly it’s still Ed, I was hoping when he came back to do a few races this year that it might be my opportunity to beat him, but he is such a natural bike rider that he can still kick my arse, but the margin is certainly not as big as it used to be !
It looks very likely that you are going to be the World Cup Champion for 2006, a fantastic achievement. How does it feel to have progressed so much over the last few years to be where you are now, the fastest female rider in the World? It’s great to have won the world cup this year. It’s been a big goal of mine for the last few years and it’s great to have finally achieved it. I really feel like I am riding better than ever so I hope I can keep it going for 2007 !
Does it increase the pressure on you a great deal, or simplify things (from the perspective of your sponsors, etc) moving forward?
Yeah there is certainly pressure as you are expected to perform at that level consistently, but in some ways there is also a bit less pressure on my side as I have achieved one of my goals and it’s done, history and nothing will take that away, so that’s nice.
What has been the highlight and lowlight of your career so far? Highlight along with winning the world cup this year, still has to be winning my first world cup in Fort William in 2002, the atmosphere and crowd was just amazing. Apart from the obvious injuries, my lowlight was getting a silver medal at this years worlds when I really felt like I was riding well enough to win the title….you have to get it right on the day. I guess it was not a true lowlight, but just disappointment.
Do you ride for Kona because you like the colour of the bikes? I presume not as the lettering on them looks like it's been stencilled on by a simpleton using a blunt crayon. Yeah it’s not for the colour of the wheels of our kit that’s for sure, I have never been a huge fan of orange ! I ride for Kona because they have been a great support and stood by for the last 7 seasons and it feels great to have won them a title after all that time they have backed me. They are a great company and I really feel like part of the furniture now !
If you were to pick the colours for your '07 race bike, what would they be? Would you go for a vivid bumble bee design like Steve Peat had on his gigantic 224 (nicknamed Mothra, or a subtle design like that nice man Geoffrey (you know, the ones that lives at the bottom of the road. Beard, ginger sideburns. Always wears a packa-mac. Oh, you do know him.) has done to his Brompton? I’d like a baby blue bike !
That Chris Kovarik, he looks like Rocky, don't you think? I don’t know about Rocky but he looks like he really has just been let out of the bush !
If you weren't a downhill racer, do you think that you may work at the QwikSave headquarters as an AS/400 operator? If not, what do you think you would be doing, remembering that many of us have dreams but our jobs end up nothing like what we wanted to do. For instance, I wanted to work for the National Trust and instead work in Strategic Outsourcing for an international IT company. I think I would probably have been a farmer, milking cows in the green and pleasant English countryside !
Do owls live in sandcastles? Yes / No. What is your evidence to back this statement up? No – I’ve never seen any way of getting into a sandcastle to enable an owl to live inside one.
You were brought up on a farm. When you were younger, did you ever ride a cow like it was a horse, and try to pass said cow off as a pony at the local gymkana? How did the cow fare against the ponies? At least you got a drink of refreshing milk for free at the end of the gymkana, which is more than that snotty cow Helen Stringer got !! Indeed I did have a cow that I used to ride around the yard. I used to leapfrog up onto her back. She was called Tricia. I never took her to a gymkana but I did drink plenty of fresh cows milk.
What are your views on the Kona Bike Park at Les Gets? I have to tell you that I was quite unimpressed but I have to admit that I was too scared to have a go at the shed jump because I was well aware that I would crash and make a fool of myself, the result being that some big boys would point and laugh. If you were to design a bike park, what would you put in it? (for instance, dirt jumps that you can get over on a DH bike, surely a consideration in a place where 99% of the riders are on such bikes). Unfortunately I have not had chance to get over to the bike park in Les Gets yet, so I can’t comment on that. Downhill bikes aren’t designed for dirt jumping so I think I would keep the dirt jumps for jump bikes and build some big, safe downhill style jumps for all the Dhers out there.
Do you ever go on to Mountain Biking forums under a pseudonym and wind people up? If so, which ones and who do you wind up? The kids who, if they were to be believed, are good enough to be pro elite and would be signed up if only their Mum would drive them to the World Champs in her Renault Clio? I stay well away from forums, plenty better things to do with my time rather than discuss what tyre pressure I think would be best suited for a certain type of terrain !
Can you give me a backie to the shops so that I can buy a Topic and a bottle of blue pop? No shops near my house, so sorry no !
Have you got any free stickers? Loads…

So there you have it, straight from the mouth of the mighty Moseley. I think we've all learnt a lot from this:

• If you spend all day on an internet forum, you're a LOSER. Tracy says so. She wouldn't give us any stickers though, which is a bit mean.


• Even World Champion downhillers aren't always experts in the architecture of sand castles (as any owl keeper knows, the owls get in and out through the windows)


• Chris Kovarik looks like he's been let out of a bush

On the other hand, there's more questions that Tracy's kind response has raised, that we'll be taking up with other top pro's.

• Why would you keep Chris Kovarik in a bush anyway? Wouldn't a garage or a shed with a bag of gone-off cement be easier to restrain him, than just some foliage and a few twigs?


• Have any other top racers helped develop their skills by riding farmyard animals in their youth?


• Does Greg Minaar have a favourite Lethal Weapon film?

Answers coming up, very soon...

Our first proper interview!

We emailed Tracey Moseley, and she replied!
To every question! Including the one about owls!
Not a peep out of Greg Minaar, though. That makes me think that maybe it was a mistake to ask him if he preferred Lethal Weapon 2 to the other films in the series. Ah well.
Will write up Tracey's responses in a nicely formatted page soon (unless I actually get round to putting issue 6 together properly this weekend, in which case that's how you'll see it).
Rennie gets the all important questions next. Wonder if he's forgiven us for making him so drunk he couldn't walk back in 2004...