We have it straight from the horses’ mouth that Steve Peat is riding Orange this year. Anyone who’s been to the Orange website recently
will have seen the rampant tongue in cheek rumour-mongering about Peat being a new
test rider for the Halifax bike builders. Clearly, we had to check the rumours out.
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To try and confirm exactly what the ex-plumber’s apprentice and World Cup
Downhill superstar from Sheffield was doing, we rang Michael Bonney of Orange bikes who told us:
“We were working on some new plumbing and piping fixtures with Team Global
anyway, and as Steve knows a thing or two about that we thought we’d ask him
to help. Besides, the poor lad has never had a proper job, he’s just been
riding his bike around. We thought we’d try and get him used to real work
gently. The only trouble we’ve had is that he keeps sneaking bikes out on
the weekend and getting them dirty.”
“Yeah, whatever” responded Steve himself, before showing he was pretty happy with the situation “It’s going
really well. I’ve done my first race on a stock 222 at the Midlands Super
Series (full report on that on descent-world) and won by nearly 12
seconds. The stock frame is too short for me, but it’s still a really good
bike, and I can see why Greg (Minaar, current UCI World Cup champion) rides
the way he does. We’re working on some more stuff for the 223 though.”
Bonney then came clean and confirmed that Orange were working on a longer bike just
because of Steve’s size and that Peat had also been helping with development work on
some prototypes Orange were already working on with Team Global. He explained: “We’re mostly
trying wider rear ends to increase the torsional stiffness, or rather
maintain it but go lighter. If you widen the hub to between 150 and 165mm you can
increase the space between swingarm bearings which gives better stiffness,
so we can use thinner material in the frame but still get better results.
We’ve even tried a 100mm bottom bracket, though we’re sticking with 73mm at
the moment.”
As for Steve, he told us that he’s not finding life without his usual Californian
hibernation home too bad either. “The weather gets to you occasionally, but
it’s good to be home. I’m really pleased with how the bike is going and the
things we’re looking at next. It’s certainly a different bike from the
I-Drive but then we were always playing around with that anyway so I’m used
to bike changes. There’s certain stuff like Boxxers (forks) I’m sticking
with but I’m still looking at my options on brakes though.”
We also asked him what his immediate plans were, “Not sure really” he said, “we’re up
in Fort William next week for the official press launch of the World Cup
event, so I might put in a bit of practice at Innerleithen on the way up.
Apart from that I’m just keeping training and looking for races to enter to
keep my hand in until the season kicks off properly.”
As well as Orange Steve will also be flying the flag for;
Troy Lee, Rock Shox, DC shoes, Maxxis, X-lite, Royal, Clim-8, MRP, Smith,
Crud, Hansons energy drink, Hotwheels, The PPG custom paint company and
Ratfink (helmet painters). We wish him the best of luck and hope that he has a much better season this year after last year’s injury-ridden one.
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