Last weekend I went up to Edinburgh to race my first street race on a Saturday night in the middle of Edinburgh.

Edinburgh marked the last stop on the multi-sport series journey, with the city transforming for the night into a world class DH course. With the prize pot totalling £3,000, 300 riders - including the cream of downhill - tackled steps, wooden shore sections, alleyways and jumps.

Everyone wants to have their own frame built and, over the years, I have helped Jeff at Intense with the geometry on some of his frames. When I visited the Intense headquarters over in Califorinia earlier in the year, I had in mind what was needed for an all-round dirt riding and bike parks. Jeff built a prototype and, after a bit of testing and a few modifications, the Instense SS was born. This is one hell of a fun bike!

I just got back from the World Masters Downhill Championships where I took Gold and the Rainbow stripes!

The Masters was in Pra Loup in the South of France. The course was fantastic, flat out, loose and dusty with lots of off camber and not too much pedaling which is always good. The course flowed pretty good so carrying your speed was the key to a good time.

35-39 UCI World Masters Podium: Christain Taillefer (FRANCE), Me and Lars Tribus (USA) 

I recently handed over to a BlackMarket Riot Frame to a young dirt riding hopeful. Have just returned from 2 successful European events, Ricky Crompton (remember the name) lets us know what happened...

Ricky writes:

Since getting my Black Market RIOT off Nigel at Np Racing I've gone from strength to strength.. I did my first comp on the bike a week after building it up and took 3rd place at the KONA INVITATIONAL dirt jump comp in Les Gets, France,
The Line was such good fun to ride - It started off with a north shore step down with dirt landing straight into a sweeping left hand berm leading into two big dirt jumps it was the ideal comp line thanks to Grant "chopper" Fielders handy work. I had a great time in France - bikes, beers and bangers hahaha. I also hit up some of the downhill runs on my riot needless to say it was rather hard on the body ....