On your bike! with Citroen & MBUK
A strikingly liveried new Citroen Dispatch Combi is now attending mountain biking events around the UK, including this year’s World Championship event in Fort William, thanks to a deal between Mountain Biking UK (MBUK) and Citroen. Tym Manley, MBUK’s editor, remarks, “MBUK is engaged in frenetic activity all year round, testing bikes, running a race team, interviewing stars, creating and covering an ever growing number of world class events worldwide. In the UK this means carrying large numbers of bikes and people to the remotest parts of the country. As a new style of high performance load carrier the Dispatch Combi perfectly suits our needs. It drives like a car, with the comfort of a car, yet has the load carrying capacity of a van, offering the best of both worlds by providing safe, economical performance to handle long distances and heavy loads.”
The long wheelbase Dispatch Combi SX L2H1 2.0HDi 136 will enable the editorial team of MBUK, Britain’s best-selling cycle magazine, to cover this year’s main mountain bike season. The Dispatch Combi will primarily be run as a six-seater with space in the luggage compartment for four mountain bikes, which will be stored safely and securely in a custom engineered rack designed and made by Pendle Engineering. In addition, it features a removable, two bike external rack, also manufactured by Pendle Engineering.
Both short wheelbase (L1) and long wheelbase (L2) Dispatch Combis can be specified in six or nine seat configurations. A choice of fuel efficient 90, 120 and 136hp HDi diesel engines is available and, uniquely in this sector, self levelling/lowering rear air suspension is a low cost option. The new Citroen Dispatch Combi is offered in two trim levels, with the top specification SX model being supplied with a one piece rear tailgate as standard. As MBUK has found, the flexible internal layout allows the interior seating configuration to be easily altered to suit differing passenger/luggage requirements.
Robert Handyside, Citroen’s commercial vehicle operations manager, explains, “The stylish new Dispatch Combi has opened new markets for Citroen since its launch earlier this year. MBUK’s Dispatch Combi will demonstrate the benefits of this versatile vehicle to the growing number of mountain bikers. These benefits will also appeal to families and other groups with active lifestyles, including motorcycles and trail bikes, sailing, skiing, surfing, windsurfing, water skiing and other sports, who require greater versatility from their vehicles than that provided by a traditional MPV or estate car.”
Founded in 1988, Mountain Biking UK Magazine is read by some 130,000 people and has been leading one of the country’s fastest growing participant sports. Mountain biking is an increasingly popular sport as it gives riders excitement, fitness and outdoor adventure in exactly the proportions each individual chooses. As an athletic sport it is flourishing in the UK, with both elite Downhill World Cup Champions being British. Already with MBUK the Dispatch Combi has taken the one of the world’s best slopestyle riders, Canadian Darren Berreclough, to a major photo shoot with Britain's best riders, following his triumph at a high profile Urban Challenge slopestyle event in Newcastle. It has also participated in a trip to Fort William to film a lead story feature on the course, which will be used in the Mountain Bike World Championships in September. Following this, it has a tough schedule taking the MBUK editorial team on a tour of the British bike industry.
