2010 was a very busy year not only for our design and production crew, but also for our riders who had an exceptionally good season - in fact it seems that every major event of last year was dominated either by our own factory team riders, or riders from other teams using our gear.
There were so many moments to remember that we decided to wrap them all up in one place.
Everything began with Vienna Air King where NS Bikes was represented by four factory team riders: Martin Söderström, Bartek Obukowicz, Jan Toth and Adam Williams.
Sam Pilgrim, who won Kona Whitestyle a couple of weeks earlier was there too, with a bunch of brand new NS components on his bike including the Quark Pro stem, Proof handlebars and Aerial Pro pedals.
With such a strong representation we knew that this weekend would be big for us. All of our riders managed to get into the final round and in the end it was Sam Pilgrim who won the crown and Vienna Air King title just ahead of Martin Söderström. Bartek Obukowicz finished on 12th place and Jan Toth came 19th.
Next stop was Switzerland and Rocket Air Slopestyle. This time our two team riders changed places on the podium – Martin took the win just ahead of Amir Kabbani and Sam Pilgrim. Bartek Obukowicz who was getting better and better in every event finished 8th.
The next event was Extreme Playgrounds in Duisburg, Germany with another big win for Martin Söderström and a well earned second place for Sam.
In April Martin was busy with his career in show business. He starred in the The Man vs Machine movie that was made in co-operation with NS Bikes, Red Bull and Fri Flyt. During the trip to California Martin Söderström, Trond Hansen and the whole Anti Media Crew (Niels Windfeldt and Andreas Braaten and Joakim Andreassen) visited some pretty cool spots and and made 3 amazing episodes.
By the end of May we had two big events where our two main riders competed against each other for the top spot on the podium. During Dirtmasters, Sam Pilgrim was a little bit better taking the win ahead of Martin Söderström. But it was not the only good news that we received that day. Our German NS Bikes / Trailtoys team rider – Ludwig Jaeger won Best Trick contest on Giro Bowl beating even Sam Pilgrim who was 3rd.
Straight from Winterberg our riders hit the road to get to the Austrian King of Dirt. Bartek Obukowicz who has always done very well there finished 4th and showed that there are really only a few riders that can beat him on a course that he likes. In the finals the first place went to Sam Pilgrim, and with Jan Toth finishing 9th, our NS Bikes team dominated the event by taking 3 positions in the top 10.
Martin Söderström proved himself to be a great rider with a wide array of skills, but once he announced that he is planning on competing in 4X World Championships everyones eyes were turned to Leogang where the young Swede and his single speed Majesty equipped with flat pedals would be up against 4X pros. Dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt he managed to pull off an amazing qualification run, although he was not so lucky in the finals due to an bad crash. However this amazing performance was widely commented in the media and will be remembered for a long time.
A week later it was time for one of the biggest dirt events of the 2010 season – the 26 Trix. This event attracted almost every pro rider in the world, but still the NS guys ruled - Martin finished 3rd and Sam came right behind him with a great 4th place.
In July, after bagging maximum points at the Bikeradar Invitational event, Sam Pilgrim was was in the lead of the FMB World Tour ranking, ahead of second best rider Amir Kabbani by 700 points. Martin who skipped a few events due to his injury was ranked at a good 5th place. There were only 3 big events ahead of them and our top guys were looking really strong and confident about Big in Bavaria and Crankworx in Colorado and Whistler.
Next up was Munich - a place where Martin should really feel at home. He took one of his first major wins in 2009 and then repeated his success in Big in Bavaria last year by beating Sam Pilgrim one more time.
With such an impressive winning streak and the amount of points gathered in FMB World Tour our top riders were ready to hit Crankworx. The first stop, Colorado, went pretty smooth for Martin, where he finished 3rd. Sam however, was hit by a strong gust of wind during his final run although he still managed to secure a pretty good 8th place. The Whistler event was not so lucky for our riders finishing 12th and 15th.
Apart from the big events our riders also took part in many smaller competitions across Europe. Here is a list of only some of them:
Lublin Off the Track – 2nd and 3rd Bartek Obukowicz
Latvian King of Dirt – 1st Bartek Obukowicz
MTBMX 2010 – 3rd Bartek Obukowicz
Slopestyle Pisek – 2nd Jan Toth
Roc d’Azur – 2nd Sam Pilgrim
King of Dirt – 2nd Adam Williams
The Eurobike tradeshow was next up on our schedule. Our riders Martin Söderström and Sam Pilgrim were in top shape as always taking 1st and 3rd place on the podium. Shortly after that, they checked into our booth for a signing session to put their autographs on hundreds of posters and had a nice photo shoot session with their fans in our NS Bikes booth.
2010 was an amazing year if it comes to videos and riding photos too. Here just a couple of them that you might have not seen yet. The rest of them can be found in our photo and video galleries on Pinkbike and Facebook.
We are honored that we have had the privilege to work with such a great team - and at the same time would like to say a very very big thank you to all the riders who rode for us in this season. We really hope the 2011 season will be just as good for our team. Ride on guys - you keep us motivated to bring out better and better products each year.
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