Follow Me is a new mountain bike movie from the crew who brought you the Collective, Roam and Seasons. Using unique perspectives, including close-up helicopter footage, and HD imagery, Anthill Films takes the viewer inside the action. Getting away from the traditional single rider format and following the idea that “no one rides alone”, Follow Me mixes and matches some of the worlds best riders in different disciplines, taking in some of the best places to ride on the planet.

The tour kicks off with the European Cinema premiere at the Glasgow Film Theatre (www.gft.org.uk) on Tuesday 27th April 2010. This will be the first opportunity to see the film anywhere in Europe and will be shown as a double bill feature with Seasons. It will also be the first ever HD screening of a mountain bike film in Europe. Tickets are already on sale on line or from the Box Office for the Glasgow, Leeds and London screenings with the rest going on sale over the next few days. The tour will be supported by Red Bull who will be providing promotional give aways at the screenings.

To see dates and some more pictures from the film click ‘more’…

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An awesome line-up of riders has been announced for the fifth annual Vienna Air King mountain bike dirt jump contest on 10-11 April.

The centre of the historic city will see the likes of Jamie Goldman, Amir Kabbani (GER) and Darren Berrecloth taking to the air on three large double jumps, the biggest about 8m (25ft) in distance.

Last year’s winner Martin Söderström from Sweden and this year’s White Style winner Sam Pilgrim of the UK will also be there, alongside more than 50 riders chosen from around the world.

Check the website for info or click ‘more’ to see more pics, as well as the full line-up and  more course details from the press release.

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Cyclingfans.com has a full listing of links for online live streaming and delayed coverage and tickers.  Starts this afternoon at 11:30 CET with coverage expected to come online around 2:15.

Orbea teased us in January with info on the new Rallon (ray-yohn…the ‘ll’ makes the ‘y’ sound), a lightweight, race-worthy all-mountain bike made for insane enduro events like the Avalanche Cup.

Now, they’ve finally sent us big, beautiful photos and it’s impressive.  Not only is it far better looking than the original design, but it’s coming to North America for the first time.  Originally, Orbea only planned to release 100 of the 500 Rallons planned for production in 2010 into the U.S., but Orbea USA sales manager Ronnie Points says they can likely coax them to release 150 or so if the demand is there.  Based on the specs and price points, I’d say there’ll be demand.

Designed around 150mm rear wheel travel, the Rallon will come in three trim levels with front suspension ranging from 150mm to 160mm via various Fox forks.   The frame works with traditional and Hammerschmidt cranksets and prices range from $3,159 to $5,469.

Step behind the curtain for full specs and lots of photos…

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“DC Metro wants you to bike here (or so says the rack)” taken during the 2010 National Bike Summit by Palmetto Cycling Coalition. Check out their website regarding making South Carolina cycling friendly for everyone.

To see more Pics of the Day, click here, and to submit your own photo to be shown to the world, go here.

If there’s two things few of us outgrow, it’s the circus and bike stickers.

Last month, Manitou announced their all-new (and first) Dirt Jump fork called the Circus.  Besides the included red clown nose, each fork comes with different colored sets of circus-inspired graphics from artist Jeremy Pettis.  At Rich Travis’ (Manitou brand manager) suggestion, I spoke with Pettis about the job and how it came about that he had the honors of drawing up the goods.

How’d you get hooked up with Manitou and have the opportunity to create graphics for their new DJ fork?
I attended college with Katy Steudel, who has an awesome cycling team, Team Pegasus. You may have heard of them. Anyway, about a year ago I needed a bike and pulled an old Schwinn Varsity out of my parents garage. It was in rough shape but Katy and her boyfriend Cale fixed it up for me in trade for a t-shirt design for team pegasus. After that Katy was talking about getting me involved over at her dayjob at Manitou and was asking if I’d want to help out designing a sticker sheet. Of course I wanted to! She hooked me up with their brand manager Rich.

What sort of guidelines did they give you? Was the Circus name already known, or did you help develop the name, too?
The only real guidelines I had was that the name was circus and that they wanted something that had to do with the circus.

What was your process for creating the Circus graphics? (ie. did you run through a lot of variations? do you have some original sketches you could share?)
Rich and I would just get on the phone and discuss different ideas. Then I’d spend a few days sketching out what we had talked about, taking it in various directions. After I’d scan and send my sketches to Rich he’d print them out and cut them up and resend them back to me. We went through this cycle at least 3 times before the finalized version. A lot of great ideas came out of Rich and I’s brainstorm sessions, probably one of the best clients I’ve had yet. I’ve attached some of the better sketches I’d sent over to Rich.

More interview and some wild concept sketches shown after the break…

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So, it’s not a 24 hour, but it’s at Big Bear and it’s likely “one of the toughest (100 mile XC races) in the country,” according to race director Mark Schooley in a brief interview with XXCmag.com.

Looking to fill the ultra endurance void left by Granny Gear’s withdrawal, the Big Bear 4×24 will put solo racers through four laps of 24 (or maybe 25) miles each.

Experts will race as Duo teams in age brackets, completing two laps each. Sport Classes will race as 4 person teams and complete one lap each. After the racing, Schooley says he’s putting together a festival atmosphere with live music, food, etc. The event is being hosted by Big Bear Lake Campgrounds.

“Dailybread” by Singlespeed Pimp.

To see more Pics of the Day, click here, and to submit your own photo to be shown to the world, go here.

For those of you not familiar with Velorbis bikes, they are a Denmark based company supplying top quality “sit-up-and-beg” Dutch style bicycles. They produce distinctive bikes for the urban market, priding themselves on stylish and iconic designs reflecting the elements of Danish design and cool Copenhagen cycling culture. With a growing Scandinavian following Velorbis have just opened an exclusive concept store in Copenhagen to cater for this market. Further concept stores are planned in other major European cities in the near future and Velorbis are currently expanding their worldwide retailer base, focusing on primary markets such as Scandinavia, Europe, North America and Australasia.

For 2010 Velorbis are releasing a host of glossy new colours which will appeal to many stylish city cyclists. The new colours are specifically for the Student and Studine range, which are simplified versions of the Churchill Classic, Victoria Classic and Dannebrog top models,  offering customers a lower entry price point with the same high quality and style, synonymous with Velorbis. The new colours are certainly eye-catching and look great with a choices ranging from fire-engine red to racing green. With black or cream tyres and coloured powder coated rims the colour coordination is total.

Hit more to see some of the eye catching designs. You can also see all the Velorbis bikes on their website http://www.velorbis.com.

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In late 2008 Sanyo announced it’s eneloop hybrid electric bicycle.  It’s motor can basically double a rider’s effort by powering the front wheel while the rider gets on with powering the rear wheel. What is unique about this bicycle is that it can capture some energy from the wheels when braking or coasting downhill, and use this energy to recharge the battery thus extending the range.

Sanyo has just updated the energy recapture system to allow the bike to slowly charge the battery as the rider pedals along on the flats, thus increasing it’s range. According to Sanyo this system adapts itself to the rider output and doesn’t noticeably increase drag or pedal resistance.

With a price tag of $2,499.99 I guess I will never ride a Sanyo bike but with the electric motor assisting the rider up to 15mph it sounds like it could be a lot of fun.  If it makes cycle commuting more accessible to more people then it can only be a good thing.

First section has a few NSFW words, but the choreography of this section (and the trails!) of Kranked Revolve is amazing.  Check out Coastal Crew’s website for fun facts about the riders and camera crew behind this cut.

If you’re not one of the 12+ million people that have already viewed this on YouTube, this totally rocks.  Nothing wrong with a little off the bike aerobic cross training, right?