Mountain Biking Australia

I’m writing to show my support for the letter written by Jonathan Cowan. I absolutely agree that the magazine should not be devoted to reviews of MTB. The vast majority of us only purchase 2-3 in our lifetime, so devoting so much of the magazine to v

I used to ride when I was a lot younger, and now it’s time to get back into it. The only problem is that I’m a pretty big guy (145kg, 190cm) and I’m finding it hard to get a straight answer about whether I’m too big for MTB any more. A lot of bikes a

Fox’s big, burly 36 fork gets a big performance birthday for 2019 with the addition of a new FIT GRIP2 4-way adjustable damper. Equipped with what Fox calls a Variable Valve Control (VVC) high-and low-speed rebound adjuster, it offers improved compre

LATE last year, a consortium of interested parties announced plans to develop more than 80km trails just 75km from the heart of Sydney. How is it all going? We sat down with the Illawarra Mountain Bike Alliance for an update on the potential Mt Keira

Nestled in the south-east of New South Wales, bordering on Victoria, the Snowy Mountains area is relatively small and different to other alpine areas around the world. Mostly made up of high plateaus with sweeping valleys and high plains, it still pr

Sure enough I’m slowly but surely working towards my 'grumpy old git' diploma, and expect to graduate with honours, although I do have something of a backstory to back up my whines and memoirs. Being a couple or three notches to the wrong side of mid

“That’s poison ivy,” says my guide. “Don’t touch it, or else in three days you’ll know about it.” Three days? What kind of weird plant is that? Of course, there’s all sorts of stuff that’ll make you itchy here at home, but the poison ivy in question

Hidden amongst the staggering beauty of the Aspen mountains are a series of gnarly, rocky and rugged trails and old dirt tracks that, when combined, come together to create one of Colorado’s premier mountain biking routes; the Power of Four. At sixty

US component maker Crank Bros has come out swinging with its newest carbon wheelset, the Sythesis. The company – now owned by Italian giant Selle Royale – tapped two people on the shoulder in order to fulfil the brief; co-founder of Enve, Jason Schie

We got a strange cold-call email the other month, asking if we’d like to test some new tyres (or tires, as the email said). Now, we get a lot of emails asking us to try new sorts of taps, or different kinds of metal grating, but tyres/tires is surpri

While Continental tyres continue to appear as original equipment spec on new bikes – especially with European based brands – their aftermarket presence has been close to non-existent in recent years. That has all changed with Velo Vita now serving as

Upgrading your MTB’s wheelset is one of the most effective ways to improve performance and drop some weight off your bike. Increasingly, carbon-fibre wheels are seen as the best option owing to that material’s weight to strength ratio but, at this po

I first moved to New Zealand from England two years ago to pursue my dream career as a Mountain Bike Guide with Haka MTB Tours. I knew of the world class downhill trails and bike parks scattered across the North and South Islands, but I wasn’t so clu

I got my first Deuter hydration pack in about 1996, and it simply refused to die. It was used as a day pack, a camera back, a long-distance race satchel and as a commuter backpack, and it easily lasted a full 20 years. Maybe not the best business mod

Mountain bikes have changed a lot in the last decade or two; suspension technology has improved to the point where it really is hard to buy a poor performing dually, composite construction has advanced massively and become far more attainable, big fa

Aside from getting longer and slacker, the other trend that we’re seeing now is reduced fork offset. Offset is the distance measured from the central axis of the steerer tube to the centre of the wheel axle. This combined with the head angle determin

It can be quite an eye opener when you first walk in through the near-anonymous back doors of a Taiwanese bike or component factory. For many (even seasoned media pros) it spells a crushing the end of a lifelong illusion. In non-cycling terms, it’s a

Stella Yu, owner of Velo Saddles (and a major partner in Prologo) is probably the most powerful woman in the bike industry, as well as the worlds biggest saddle maker. With a clear detail for privacy Velo has 30 different designers, one for each majo

If you grew up riding mountain bikes in the late 1980s and 1990s, GT is a name that can’t help but evoke affection. It was one of the biggest names in mountain biking, producing some of the best early full-suspension bikes using the RTS and then the

You've seen a few Whyte bikes come through the pages of MBA before, and that’s for a good reason; despite the English heritage, these bikes just flat out work for Australian conditions. The company itself too knows when to lead with a trend or, indee

When modern disc brakes work, they are amazing. When they don’t, they can be incredibly frustrating. We all have out preferences (or we’re stuck with the brakes that our bike came with!), so this workshop is designed to highlight a few tips that – sh

Polygon has always taken the bit between its teeth when it comes to producing great value, well specced, well performing mountain bikes. It might not have the backing of a big brand name, but that doesn't let this Indonesian go-getter hold it back. I

If you are heading away on a mountain biking epic holiday, then you need to be ready. What exactly do I mean by ready? You need to have done some training, so riding for 4-7 days back to back doesn’t come as a complete shock to the body. This article