Paddling tips, tricks, news and gear reviews from an Unsponsored point of view
Last weekend was a scorcher. The best part of 1000 riders faced the heat and trails of the North Yorkshire Moors to compete at the Ard Moors enduro.
Ard Moors is a six stage enduro race up and down some of the best trails North East England has to offer.
I based myself at the top of stage six on both the practice and race days.
My images from the vent have been uploaded to Roots and Rain.
We are big fans of Sweet Protection at Unsponsored and have been using their paddling and biking gear for years. We first got hold of a Sweet Protection Bushwacker mountain biking helmet way back in 2014.
Since then we have owned, used, crashed and written off several!
Continue readingWe’ve been waiting on these to land for almost a year. Now that they are here we are going to take a quick look at the features and specifications.
The Ard Rock is a mountain bike enduro event and is based near the beautiful village of Reeth in the Yorkshire Dales National Park (UK).
Here are a few images from the weekend.
Day 1 – Friday
An early start Friday saw me on Stage 1 of the Ard Rock.
We do a fair bit of mountainbiking at Unsponsored HQ when there isn’t much water around and we have been using Five Ten shoes from the very start.
The newest addition to the flat pedal mountain bike range is the Five Ten Trail Cross. The version we have here is the Mid version which has much better ankle protection in the form of D30 inserts.
We’ve been using these weekly for well over a year now on a range of different bikes using DMR Vault flat pedals.
This year’s Boltby Bash Enduro had some epic action. As per 2019 Unsponsored was up at the top of stage 1 with a camera in hand.
Here are just a few of the 6k shots from the day 1.
We do a fair bit of mountainbiking at Unsponsored HQ when there isn’t much water around and we have been using Five Ten shoes from the very start.
The newest addition to the flat pedal mountain bike range is the Five Ten Trail Cross. The version we have here is the Mid version which has much better ankle protection in the form of D30 inserts.
I thought I’d post a few of my MTB Enduro shots from the last couple of years. I hope I’m starting to get my eye in.
Shots at the Ard Rock and Ard Moors 2018 were taken with a Nikon D500. All other shots were taken with a Sony Alpha A9.
The links will take you to my Roots and Rain pages where you’ll find tens of thousands of my images from these events.
Ard Rock 2018
I am a huge fan of Sweet Protection and have tested the Bushwhacker MTB helmet to destruction! In this edit Tracy Moseley outlines the key features that she likes in the Bushwhacker. As this is the new 2015 version the adjustment system relies an Occigrip dial rather than the adjustment system seen previously. Will this be seen in future whitewater helmet line ups?
If it is, you heard it here first right here on Unsponsored.
For ever and a day I have been using Oakley MTB shorts for all biking duties. They have been my favourite and served me well. However I managed to get hold of some Sweet Protection Hunter shorts to test and have been blown away by the fit, function and design.
Hunter Enduro shorts from Sweet Protection on Vimeo.
So what is so special. Well they fit really well, plenty of adjustment and the fabric has just that little bit of stretch that helps whilst pedalling. Not too tight and not too baggy (for a pair of baggies!). Length wise they sit just over the knee and are wide enough to accommodate knee pads without any issues.
If you are new to MTB then it isn’t always easy to know what gear to take, what works well, what is essential and what you can go without. Gear is very much a personal thing, what to one person is an essential may seem like to another a needless luxury. Carrying the right kit when out on ride can prevent a small mechanical problem turning into a 3 hour epic. Carry too much and your ride becomes a kit hauling nightmare. Obviously you will need to tailor what you carry to the envrionment your riding in and the length/duration of the ride.
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