Spoke

The holiday season is upon us: Christmas carols blaring at the supermarket, punishing queues at the shops as people scramble to buy their family presents they don’t need, and a mad rush at work to get everything done before the office shuts down. But

March 2019 will mark the fifth edition of the festival of good times and radness that is Crankworx Rotorua. The first stop on the annual Crankworx World Tour, it’s part of a global megabrand, syndicated across the globe and entertaining a huge range

I’ve ridden a bike every day this year. You can too—just use this one weird trick. But first I should back up a bit and explain how I got here and why it’s a big deal. Turn the clock back 14 years and I was riding for a living. Well, not really a liv

27.5” wheels, 63.5 degree head angle, 200 millimetres of travel—sounds like a downhill bike, right? Well, what about a 1940-millimetre wheelbase with two cranksets, handlebars, and seats? Yes, that’s plurals. These guys have been pioneering the way o

First-time dog dad Michael Hayward has big plans for his trail dog in training. He’ll cover the highs and lows of canine companionship in Spoke’s new column. I’m on the wrong side of 30 now, and it’s catching up with me. My belly’s getting round and

Like us, trails change with time, needing care and attention to survive and grow. Those with the itch to build trail can take care of their own wellbeing through the process of maintaining a track. I’m not a trail builder, not even close. Sometimes I

A dusty white ute skids to a stop beside us. Russ Paver climbs out smiling and wanders over to greet us with a firm handshake. The tall jovial Englishman took charge of the building and maintenance of Cardrona’s ever growing trail network last summer

With Sam Hill’s dominance in enduro over the past couple of years, flat pedals are starting to look pretty appealing. But you’re not Sam Hill, so how do you know which is best? Spoke rehashes a classic debate that’s more relevant than ever. Debating

Jamie: I’m no trail builder: I can barely remember the last time I even skidded a line in. But when Nico (an adopted Queenstown local originally from France) called asking if I wanted to go to New Caledonia to build some new trail for Ouenghi Bike Cl

Founded six years ago by a small group of locals, the Rotorua Bike Festival has quickly become an annual staple for the local biking community. Though the events have become quite the spectacle, it’s the people surrounding them that make it unique an

A lifelong outdoor enthusiast, there’s not much Charlie isn’t keen for—be it on snow, bikes, or late-night human experiments. He jumped on a trail bike with no knee pads and an XC helmet and took on the enduro scene. It all started with Tom Bradshaw

I’m riding a narrow ribbon of perfect dirt, off-camber sections punctuated with the roots of the surrounding forest and tight catch berms. We’re moving fast—the trees are a blur like that scene in Return of the Jedi on the moon of Endor. I’m on the w

“Think like a camel. Ride like a tiger. And drink like a Viking coming from the battlefield!” Maor, our guide for the day, gives us these words of advice to prepare us for the inevitable heat in the Judaean Desert. Camels look for the path of least r

Sometimes the way a trip plays out in your mind before you leave is nowhere close to what actually happens and your predetermined expectations are completely shattered. This happened to me on a recent mission to Canterbury—but it certainly wasn’t a b

Fifteen years in the dreaming, five days in the realising. The Tour du Mont Blanc has played on my intentions for longer than it had any right to. Though I’ve spent enough time in Europe to have crossed it from the wish list many times before, factor

Dropper posts are the best thing to happen to mountain biking since Charlie Kelly and the Repack Run. A good post makes riding more fun. These days, I think I’d almost rather ride a rigid with a dropper than a full suspension bike without one. Of cou

I was already 31 years old when the legendary Bomber Z1 first hit the slopes, offering its oil damped, twin coiled, bulletproof chassis to the world. Since then, I’ve owned a few pairs of their constantly evolving big-hitting fork. Marzocchi lost the

The Goodyear name is more familiar in motor racing than within cycling, but the brand synonymous with the eponymous blimp has recently released a range of mountain bike tyres. We’ve been running their gravity-oriented offering, appropriately named Ne

Mondraker has been at the forefront of the geometry game since the early days of long and slack bikes. The Spanish brand has been pushing bigger reach and stubby stems in the name of going from A to B as rapid as possible. As this long, slack revolut

It must have been around 2002 when a friend returned from Canada with a Rocky Mountain RM7, and I don’t think I’ve ever coveted a bike quite so much. The RM7 not only blew my mind with its radical looks, it also made my Gary Fisher Aquila hardtail fe

You’ve ridden the trail a few times and remember it well as you pitch it to your friends: “There’s a climb at the beginning, but it’s only got one steep pinch, and once you get to the top it’s pretty much all downhill. There’s a rocky chute halfway d