Trail Bike Adventure Magazine

Up to my neck in knee braces. June 28

Monday, 28 June 2010 10:12

It's been one of those weeks with not much exciting to tell about. I've been pretty much stuck to my desk researching the knee brace piece for issue #35.

Actually, there hasn't been a great deal of research. Neck braces are a fairly new piece of equipment, so there's heaps of interesting science available on their performance and lots of internet fiction being bandied about. Knee braces have been around long enough that there's not really much question about their performance. The interest is in the new models which have recently hit the market.

It was a major bummer to see Australia wouldn't be fielding any ISDE teams this year, but I phoned around to try and get competitors' thoughts on it all, and it seems MA is being entirely sensible. Mexico, especially that area in Mexico, is just far too dangerous at the moment. Whether or not it'll still be dangerous in November is unknown, but with the lead time necessary to organise competing overseas at the level, the call just had to be made. It's sad, but it seems a good decision. The question we're left with now is, will there even be a Six Day this year?

I've just had another proposal for someone heading off on an epic dirt-bike journey to raise money for charity. I must have half-a-dozen of these at the moment, all claiming they're crossing the Simpson (or Australia or some other monumental trip) to raise money for a good cause. I'm glad they're doing that, and those charities deserve the support, but how many of them can we support? If TBAM were to support them all we'd just run charity ride stories which all looked very similar. And if we tried to give them all money we'd be broke and need charity ourselves.

It's a vexing problem. I'd like to help them all, but it just can't be done to the degree they all deserve.

Meanwhile, I was kind of interested to see Katy Perry had signed up to play a Smurf in a movie. That'd be a Smurfette, if memory serves. I've never thought of her as an A-list babe, but maybe she deserves a promotion on the list. Imagine her with blue hair and barbie-doll make-up and see what you reckon.

Or you could just imagine her like this.

Whatever.

TF