Richard Anderson, XC Racer

Avanti

Avanti

Monday, May 3, 2010

New Sponsors and Bike!!

I have recently signed up with Avanti and love being involved with this great company. Along with riding an awesome Avanti Competitor Team bike, I am riding Kenda Tyres and Zero components. Coming off a soft-tail and now riding a hard-tail is great, I'm liking the change. The Competitor is a super light and stiff bike. You cant get any better than the gear on it with Full Sram XX and DT Swiss 1350 carbon wheels. Sram XX is great stuff and the wheels are light, very stiff and responsive. It is a really enjoyable bike to ride and is very fast on any climb.

Photos of it will be up by the weekend!

Over the last few months I have been doing a lot of long miles on the bike but I have managed to get a few MTB races in. The day after the bike arrived I shot down to Hanmer for the 8hr race. It was a good day for racing in Hanmer. The bike rode very well and the 8hr race was perfect for me because I was making small adjustments throughout the day to get the set up feeling just right.

The weekend after the 8hr I was asked to ride in the Avanti Plus Nelson/Peakfuel Team for the Nelson 12hr. Our team was Chris Sharland, Mitchell Cooper and myself. We rode Tempo for the whole race and kept our lap times consistent. It was good to have product supplied by Norm Wilson from Peakfuel and race entry's paid by Avanti Plus Nelson. Our team won the race in the end and we all enjoyed a good day of riding!

I am using Kenda Tyres now and find them great. The small Block Eight is super fast in the dry and the Nevegal is a awesome tyre in the wet. I now have the Karma's fitted and found them good for a all round racing and stick to the ground well.

Now Im just getting myself ready to go over to Europe in 3 weeks. I will be based in Switzerland for just about 3 months then I will be off to the World Champs in Quebec, Canada. Im looking forward to racing over there and will keep updates coming in.