Mountain Bike Equipment Technique
Getting Fully Sussed
Each issue we refer to it. It’s one of the single most expensive elements to our bikes. It is fundamental to the way your bike works & feels. It can be pivotal (quite literally) to our performance and a major factor in our overall riding experience. For the vast majority of us, it is probably the least understood element of...
The Workman's Tools
All too often what you are riding is seen as the biggest limiting factor to the trails you can tame and the speed you can carry. Magazines and videos are filled with highly skilled riders on super pimped steeds riding super technical terrain, descending at speeds only previously considered achievable with the aid of a zip wire. Technology clearly plays...
Featured
Roll on Summer
With the clocks having sprung forward and the mercury rising (albeit not steadily), longer drier days herald the start of another summer season on the trails. After two seasons of decline in both weather and trail conditions you may find that your own riding is also a bit weather beaten and in need of a little TLC. Firmer trails will...
Contact Points
In this edition, we are getting all touchy-feely (in an appropriate manner) as we look at contact patches. No matter what we do on the bike from simply rolling along the road to ram-raiding a boulder field we have just a small amount of surface area in contact with the bike and the terrain. We are of course talking about...
Switchbacks
Switchbacks are a trail feature that has been long forgotten in the new world order of trail centres and cultured MTB parks. Old school riders and those who enjoy getting out into the back country will know them all too well, but the new breed of riders born and bred at the trail centre will find them to be a...
Up and Overs
We all love the flowing feel of gliding down trails, effortlessly zipping along, experiencing Mother Nature at high speed. 'Flow' is not a given and you'll often hear riders praising a trails flow or bemoaning its lack of it. The reality is that, although 'flow' can be engineered into a trail - with swooping smooth transitions and bermed corners all...
The Bunny Hop
I Said A Hip Hop Hippie to the hippie, The hip, hip a hop, and you don't stop, a rock it out Now, what you hear is not a test I'm rappin' to the beat... and for those of you not familiar with the hit track “Rappers Delight” by the Sugar Hill Gang I’ll crack on with this editions skill,...
Rock Stars
Rocks come in all shapes and sizes from solitary lumps and outcrops to collectives forming gardens of granite. Although for some of us 'home' might mean 'loam,' no matter where you live your journeys on two wheels will eventually ensure that you encounter trails that are made of sterner stuff. Whether the trail ahead is impregnated with igneous, scattered with...