I’m proud to announce a new arrival!

Gaaaaaaa… Fuck no its NOT a baby, its something even better than that!! Finally the day is here! Warning – some serious bike porn ahead. Yes, its epic Nomadness here at the Dirty Global Hub HQ as we welcome the newest arrival into the fleet, as Pinkbike said “The bike of the future that you can have now“, yes, that’s a fucking cheesy way to describe it, but the Santa Cruz Nomad 3 Carbon is a serious piece of equipment… Behold, here it is in all its magnificence:

I can tell you’re going to feel so good when you’re getting dirty…

Of course its standard practice to go mental with the camera when you get a bike as awesome as this. Yes, I have gone for the custom decal kit on the down tube, replacing the magenta logo with something that I felt made the bike feel like it was totally mine. Honestly, this thing is absolutely  beautiful in the flesh, its even hotter than the Nomad 2 and that took some doing. This is basically the Kate Upton/Scarlett Johansson of mountain bikes:

How did they manage to make you hotter than the last one?!

Finishing kit? Deploy the bike nerd… I have gone with my battle proven line up of Shimano/Fox/Cane Creek/Chris King/Thomson/Enve/Mavic to take care of critical duties. This stuff REALLY works, and by that I mean you can confidently go away to wherever in the world, thrash the shit out of it like a porn star honeymoon and have no issues in the slightest. New to the line up is the Chris King BB, a luxury/indulgence for sure, but one with solid logic behind it:

Instagramming the fuck out of it

The only slight downer is that one SHAM product has wormed its way on board… Yeah… The dirty old Reverb dropper. I had one of these once and it blew to pieces repeatedly, so fingers crossed that this new version is more robust. I will give it the nod that it still has the best lever feel of all the dropper posts going at the moment.

But wait!! It gets more exciting… I am not the only happy new father in town! No, the WHOLE gang are now enjoying the fruits of a massive collective load blowing, celebrating some weeks later with even more Nomadness arriving on our doorsteps. The entire Gravity eco-system is getting up an upgrade faster than you can kick a Cannondale MTB out the window. First up, you guessed it – Herr Doktor!

The latest victim in the Dok lab of mad tweaking and pea gravel

Yes, he is the first one to get his Nomad properly DIRTY, and he has reporting back that the thing is fucking INSANE to shred on, so that bodes well. But, looks can be deceiving… Yes, he almost ended up with this piece of shit here (god it feels good to have the Cannondale gag removed from my mouth):

If it looks like a DOG – Specced by people who work in a pod next to the team that looks after baby strollers…

Yes, we had to conduct a family intervention via Whatsapp to avert the re-marriage to the single pivot turd seen above. Its deeply satisfying saving a buddy from hooking up with a crazy girl shit machine. I had one of these things once and hated it, so much so I flicked it after 3 months of perseverance, still the best decision I ever made in terms of bikes. Bad geo, odd fit, rubbish suspension, wouldn’t have pissed on it if it was on fire essentially.

Never one to be left out of a Tsunami of frenzied purchasing, Das Wolf has also got into the Nomadness, hitting the Cedric Gracia build spec as well. Here is his creation, with Magenta intact, parked up next to the sex trampoline:

Wolf keeps his grass trimmed tight YO

This bike is so fucking cool it drives you to do cliche things like stand in front of the syndicate sign surrounded by hot Santa Cruz’s, wearing your “Fucking look at me I went to Whistler” T Shirt and your narcissistic cap. This is obviously pre the custom decal fitting:

Nothing cheesy about this… At all… much…

And finally in this Nomad frothing feverfest… Empirical evidence that Pussy loves the new Nomad, even when its just hanging around doing nothing…

Back to Toa Payoh with you…

Stay tuned… For a long time… For a proper gear rant on how this thing goes. Obviously I am well versed to talk about the Nomad 2, but will need to wait to the next mission to thrash this thing appropriately, which is about a month away (proverbial CAT out of the bag there). Apparently it takes care of some of the little gripes I had on the 2 and takes the DH performance to a new level, which should be fucking mind blowing, Dok assures me it is! He is on the rebound from an abusive Cannondale MTB experience though, so I can’t wait to see for myself.

Last but absolutely not least today, a massive Dirty Happy 40th Birthday to the Bay legend that is the Panther! He’s more dolphin than man, which makes him a king amongst the porpoises. Have a great day dude! Its a privilege to be able to call you a mate. How’s this for a flashback to his race debut, what came next? Domination:

The Iron Panther starts with a single transition…