This weekend we celebret T's birthday, our longtime friend and partner (at work, at the trail...) of Shape bicycles rider Bruno. T is the master of the shovel, the mini digger, the flow of the lines, practicing all sort of riding, above all he is our dean. This birthday deserved a worthy event, because we are not 2 x 20 years old every day ! Logically, the trail was the perfect place to celebrate this event ! This place looks like T, multidisciplinary : pluridisciplinaire : trail, pump track, DH, mini motorbike, playground for Children, picturesque paths and bucolic woods...
We arrived at the trail on early afternoon, we prepared our bikes, the lines, chatting...  Firstly I rode on DH bikes to follow my friends, good sensations but the needs for BMX was stronger. Unfortunately, I rode alone as Bruno has been injured since the RBP jam in Vendée. Even through, I stayed motivated and ride a lot until throwing a no foot can, what a pleasure to dust off this trick ! Meanwhile, some friends continued to ride hard the DH track, others were riding mini motorbikes.
Beyond the ride, this day was exceptional, managing to mix friends, family, ride, meal, fire and birthday gift... A true moment of sharing with the feeling of being in a sort of extreme amusement park or as the Americans would say : a pro riders compound ! Everyone could practice the discipline they wanted or even link them in the same day. Everybody could walk and discover the spot, enjoy one of the session, or simply chat with anyone who was on the spot; even children could play in their dedicated playground. 
As usual, the day ended up with gift offers around a good fire who among the rocks at the top of the trail. To sum up, there was obviously something to do for everyone and it was true moment of sharing, with friends and in an appropriate place !

Our youngest rider JB has a good program for the summer. After spending almost a week at Banos, helping finishing the changes of the winter (bottom section of the trail), we met him at the RBP jam in Vendée where he opened the big line.
Currently, JB is on the road to Normandy where the Gro trail jam will be held this weekend. JB will then go to Paris and its famous Pipe trail and the final destination will be the Belgium and the even much famous MX (amongst other trails).
During his stay at Banos, the real JB was unmasked, his blue estafette was quickly spotted. In fact he inspected the trail and found every crack and worst bump... A full report is available on Banos distro, wrote by Marc the poet.

Last weekend, weather was Brittany style, expect in Vendée, it was one of the few area where weather was almost good (stand for, cloudy....). After this very particular start of the year with quarantine, it was very appreciable to take the road, along with Shape bicycles riders and team manager Bruno.
To be continued...

Our southern rider Bérenger Cordier sent us some news after this very specific beginning of the year. Good weather is back in the South, the motivation too at the Peynier trail, with the return of Max Bimar as a local. The Pills line has been renovated and should run like a southern highway !
In parallel with the Peynier trail, Bérenger often rides at the pump track of Pourrières (83), which is composed of a line of 3 "dirt" jumps style, but the whole track remains accessible to all level. Bérenger was part of the crew who built this track, made by Hurricane tracks (of which Alex Dropsy is one of the owner). Thanks to Steven Rochat for those beautiful photos, which were shot at Pourrières.

It's always a sort of new we like to write, to launch a new Shape bicycles product ! The Martine garde is the JB Bagnol signature sprocket, in collaboration with his team mate Alaric Streiff from Manual BMX shop. This sprocket is a full guard one as its "French" name stands for, also using Alaric's trail name, Martine trail. Alaric initially asked to us to draw a much street oriented model based on our OG sprocket design (5 branches) which he really appreciates. We were interested by the idea, as much for the mechanical aspect (complicated machining) as BMX while developing a new product within our expertise field: sprockets ! This project has been in the pipe for some time, the arrival of JB in the team accelerates it and enables us to complete the product. Both JB and Alaric have a multidisciplinary approch of BMX, the main goal was to have a strong sprocket, as much longevity as possible thanks to 5 positions of assembling and obviously a the strongest guard ever, without to forget a 7075-T6 aluminum ! The crurent prototype is a 28T, 23,8mm diameter with 19 and 22mm compatibility with a classic insert.

Our rider Jems Muller from Toulouse took time to answer a video interview, about the lockdown. Two riding sequences to be noticed : alley oop on the hip de la muerte at Banos (beginning of the video) and whip on the pocket at la Source (end of the video). Directed by Daniel Mini.

Three years ago we were happy to produce our first sprocket by ourselves - thanks to our supplier and friend LG Tech. It was a double victory as we also made CAM by ourselves, by this way we have gained autonomy ! This prototype was the first one of our Fusion sprockets range, a 28T for our team manager Bruno Abiven. At last but not least, this sprocket is still running well, without showing any sign of fatigue, even through Bruno has ridden hard on every trail he came for the last three year !