And we’re back for our 9th season!
Team Wideopenmag is gearing up for another amazing year of travel, adventure and racing.
Team Wideopenmag is our pride and joy.
We’ve run the team for nearly a decade and helped some amazing riders go fast and step up to become professional athletes…. not least, Charlie Hatton, Laurie Greenland, Mark Scott, Morgan Tyrrell, Chris Cumming.
We’re super excited to share our plans for 2019 and for our team setup for this year.
The team is also our way of staying right in the heart of the British race scene. We’re not satisfied to just sit on the sidelines, looking in. We want to be living racing, supporting the race organisers and helping to make the British mountain bike scene strong.ย
For 2019, we’re back with a four rider line up and, again, riding Nukeproof bikes with some amazing kit. There’s some new sponsors in the mix and some familiar faces alike.ย
Introducing our riders:
Chris Hutchens – elite enduro
A Scottish legend that’s already been through a career in elite downhill and is now focussing on travel, adventure, shooting videos and racing.
Hutch will ride and race enduro in 2019 on a Nukeproof Mega 275 custom build.
Christo Gallagher – elite enduro
Our steezy Scotsman! Christo loves tearing up the Tweed Valley and the Glasgow pumptracks and loves chucking one-foot-tables around like sweets.
Christo will ride and race enduro in 2019 on a Nukeproof Mega 290 custom build.
Dan Cope – youth downhill
Danger Boy – a South Wales legend in the making, a national champ and one of the fastest young guns on the UK national scene.
Dan will ride and race downhill in 2019 on a Nukeproof Dissent custom build.
Connor Smith – youth downhill
Last, but definitely not least, the Midlands Missile. Connor Smith is, like Dan Cope, one of the fastest Youths on the national DH circuit and is training flat out to step up to the top step for the new season.
Connor will ride and race downhill in 2019 on a Nukeproof Dissent custom build.
Dru Farrow – on the tools
Dru (AKA James Farrow) is our Cornish downhill mechanic. He loves pasties, cider, rallying his camper-van and is a bloody excellent mechanic and hardtail racer.
His pasty deliveries to every race are what has kept him on the roster for 2019.
Dave Konstanz – team manager
Big Dave has the tough job of managing our squad of misfits. It’s his job to get everyone everything they need, on time and on budget.
If you don’t find him in the pits at the DH races, he’ll be up the top of the hill getting the guys warmed up and ready to go.
Ian Lean – Media squid, photo
Our soul-stealing, camera wielding Cornish eco-warrior. Ian loves razzing his ebike, taking photos of the Cornish coast and a spot of surfing now and again. Look out for him on the hill at a race this season.
Lewis Bradley – Media squid, video
Our new team video-squid, Lewis will be filming our team vids all year. He’s from South Wales, he shreds on an enduro bike and he ain’t half-bad at singing and playing his guitar too!
And our kit:
For 2019, we’ve mixed things up a little in with race kit and protection.
The guys will run Nukeproof clothing for all of their riding and racing. We tested the kit last year, raced it at the Megavalance and were so impressed we asked Nukeproof if we could bring them on board.
The riders will be kept safe with 661 Protection – another personal favourite of us here at Wideopenmag and a brand we’ve all ridden for years. They’ll supply pads, gloves and open face helmets.
Full face helmets will come from Bell Protection. We raced in Bell full face helmets in 2018 and trust them, so, we wanted to stick with them.
We’ll also ride XForce goggles and sunnies.
And our bikes:
We’re riding full custom set ups for 2019 with Nukeproof frames and some amazing kit from Stan’s NoTubes, Goodyear, Funn, Fibrax and Granite Designs.
Hutch and Christo will both ride the Nukeproof Mega. Christo is on the alloy framed 29’er and Hutch is on the carbon 275.
The young guns will both race the new Nukeproof Dissent DH bike, which we’re excitedly waiting to arrive.
The guys will use XTools to maintain their bikes and Mobi jet-washers to keep ’em clean. Granite Designsย frame straps,ย tools, valves and bike stands will help make life a bit easier.
Last but not least,ย Juice Lubes are on board to make sure everything is greased, lubed, buffed and polished to perfection.
And, a big mention also goes to Ben Plenge at Strength Factory and Alan Milway who help Connor, Dan and Hutch with their training.
And our plans for the year
We’re all about supporting the UK mountain bike scene, creating great content for Wideopen and helping our riders develop. So, our calendar is built around that.
The focus will be on British downhill and Enduro nationals and national champs. We’ll race the National Downhill Series, Downhill National Champs, BEMBA National Enduro Series and Enduro National Champs.
Alongside that, we’ll get stuck into loads of regional events and one-offs. That includes Mini Enduro and MiniDH, Pearce Cycles, Ard Rock, Welsh Gravity Enduro and loads more.
Of course, there’s also a few chances for overseas travel and adventure and you’ll see the guys at a few Enduro World Series races, the Megavalanche and more.
