Conor Macfarlane has had a great season overseas and is killing it in Queenstown for the summer.

Here’s his clip from LKTV from the 2012 Wide Open Product Launch.

Look at his hair!

Wyn Masters on a smoking final run just before he demoed his derailleur.

Two of Wide Open’s rag tag downhillers made an impact at the first round of the North Island DH Cup on Saturday. Wyn Masters (current national champ) had a stonker of a qualifier and sat in 2nd (from memory, correct me if I’m wrong!) going into the final. Teammate Jay Barrett qualified 3rd in the U19 category, and come the final ended up a hair behind the eventual winner Reuben Olorenshaw to take 2nd.

Some of the ‘Team behind the Team’ from Wide Open were  on hand at the event and penned the following report…..

Jay on his way to the podium.

The New Zealand race series kicked off on a typical sunny day in the Bay Of Plenty, with Tauranga’s Cycle Obsession MTB park hosting the country’s top riders for an awesome weekend of racing.

Event organiser Tim Lawton went all out with impressive trade stands and a big screen TV to keep spectators entertained all day, while the relatively short track meant for some tight racing where the slightest mistake would make a big difference to placings.

Team Wide Open..... Chilled.

This was the first race for the new Downhill Team of National Champ Wyn Masters and upcoming junior rider Jay Barrett on the new Turner DW DHR and both riders were looking for a top result. Wyn and Jay both had enough time on the bikes before the race to make a few tweaks and get the suspension dialled in so they were happy with how the new rigs were riding. Come time for seeding runs they were feeling good. Jay seeded 3rd on a 2:08, 2 seconds behind Louis Hamilton and Reuben Olorenshaw while Wyn seeded 2nd in Elite, 2 seconds behind world #4 Sam Blenkinsop so both riders were off to a promising start!

Tim Lawton and co from the Cycle Obsession Bike Park know how to throw an event!

Race runs were delayed after a nasty crash to one of the racers but eventually Jay got to do his run and shaved 2 seconds off his seeding time to finish 2nd, just 0.01s behind Reuben! Wyn didn’t fair as well unfortunately as an exploding derailleur within sight of the finish line put and end to any chance of a decent finish. Sam Blenkinsop went on to take the win with a 2:00 min run ahead of Nathan Rankin and Matt Walker.

Photos: Jono Church & Jennie Barrett

The coverage from the Wide Open product launch keeps on flowing, this time with a bit of dirt jumping from Summerhill trails. Brook’s not kidding that weak Mo’ has taken him months to grow!

The Demo day before it got busy. Plenty of bikes to try although many on the rack in the pic are dealers personal rides.

Day 2.5 and Day 3 of the Wide Open product launch were a little different. The end of day 2 (let’s call it Day 2.5) wrapped up with Wide Open throwing down dinner for their dealers, team and associated hanger-oners (that’s Caleb and me). Abracadabra was the spot, a decent Moroccan place with amazing Lamb shanks on Potato mash!The evening wrapped up with a few pints of Crouchers Pilsner, general  banter and lot of smiles all round.

Matt Whittaker (left) is the kingpin of Wide Open, here he is preparing to tuck in to dinner. 'Dog Boy' was super busy over the last few days and can be proud of his effort!

Matt V from FSA (pretty obvious which person that is) and umbrella brands had flown out from the USA to give dealers the low down on their HUGE range of products.

Team Wide Open getting amongst the action.

Dog Boy mingles with some of his dealers (yes, that guy on the right owns a shop - Tim from T-Whites Bikes)

Brook MacDonald - Stoking.

Friday morning dawned (let’s call that day 3) at 7am. The team showered, Weet-Bixed and headed to the forest to to set up base camp for the day. With a complete fleet of demo bikes racked up for dealers to try and a clear blue sky, things were looking pretty good for the day!

Dealers rolled in and took each of the bikes for a thrash, either taking laps of the downhill track on the gravity machines, or looping a small section of trail to the side of the base on the trail and XC bikes. Lunch time came and dealers were fed and watered and set out to pasture for an hour or so, took a bit of a sit down and were back into it.

Matt V (FSA) getting amongst the action.

As the dealers headed for the hills we (the Spoke posse) rounded up the team for a bit of a pedal across the forest to shape and hit a couple of spots. Looking outside of the normal ‘gravity’ realm we hit the singletrack aboard everything from short travel jump bikes (Black Market Killswitch) and downhill bikes (Turners of course).

Matt Scoles mid corner. The 'print' shot from this spot is killer!

We bagged some shots, got some sun stroke, talked some mindless rubbish and were generally happy with the day! Until we had to ride back across the forest with heavy bags of cameras, flashes and tripods. But hey, that’s part of the job right?

Matt Scoles, flash check model.

Scolsey getting whipped on the DH rig.

Caleb, fearless Spoke editor getting a shot. Yeah, he forgot his riding kit so had to roll 'skate-rat' style.

Over the next few weeks we’ll be rolling out plenty of content from the Wide Open product launch, more photos and videos.

Keep an eye open in a future print edition of Spoke Magazine for a full article and all the good photos.

2006 was the beginning of Team Wide Open. Glenn Haden and Des Curry's first outing in team colours was a good one finishing 1st and 2nd at the first race of the year at the Mount.

The boys at Wide Open have been sucked into the “Time Vampire” of regularly updating their blog. It’s well worth checking out their site daily and if you head over there now you can feel all nostalgic as they look back at the history of “Team Wide Open”