Why the double-chainring won’t die
You can fly an Eagle 1×12. Yet some remain committed to 2×11. Why? When you look at kids riding their first proper bike, you probably remember your own. And the one distinguishing feature is that we all start with a single blade mounted to that drive side crankarm. The desire for gears are real and […]
Tour de France: The pace of riders in the modern era
With the last week of racing in the 2017 Tour de France underway, John Wakefield digs into the numbers we have seen so far and looks at reasons why the peloton has gotten faster over time. Why might the tour be faster in this modern era? I said I would touch on this in my […]
Carbon wheels. Aluminium frame. Or the opposite?
Light. Strong. But there are features of riding carbon wheels that are never really discussed. Let’s have a chat. Life is expectation tempered by reality. Marriage forces a trade of the GTi for CrossPolo. You bought Capco instead of Capitec shares with your bonus five years ago. And then there’s the worst paradox of choice […]
Democratising the dropper seatpost
XCO racing is doing what downhill never could, embracing the dropper seatpost. And the consequences could be significant. In the beginning, there was no XCO or stage racing. It was all downhill, without helmets, on awfully unsophisticated rigid bikes. The Mount Tamalpais Repack race, held during the 1970s near San Francisco, was the first timed […]
The secret ‘cheat’ for muddy stage races
At this year’s sani2c, a very cheap bit of kit could have made everyone a lot more recognisable in their event photos. It’s deeply embarrassing when one is required to unclip, and push one’s single-speed. Especially in Stellenbosch, where you are more likely to be passed by a pro mountain biker than almost anywhere else […]
29er downhill bikes will help us all
The advent of 29er downhill bikes has a resonance way beyond the start gate. Two weeks ago, one of our own did the unconscionable. After much teasing of bits and pieces on social media, the greatest mountain biker South Africa has – and likely ever will – produce did what many considered impossible. He introduced […]
The upgrade we can all afford
One of the best upgrades in MTB racing, is nearly for free. Yet demand remains low. Why? Seventy-five thousand Rand. It’s not a perfect, actuarially verified number, but one with the least disagreement when a price point is fixed to what a new South African mountain bike, with a stage racing number cable-tied to its […]
Is two-six the new Enduro? Meet the mid plus-sized tyre
Consider yourself a fit and committed gravity rider? There is a new tyre size you can not afford to ignore. This Easter long weekend, friends and family inevitably enquired about how your ‘mountain biking’ is going. And bless them, they attempted to appear genuinely interested, by asking the one question all non-riders believe mountain bikers […]
Do eBikes belong on the mountain?
It’s been a year. Since their arrival. These most unprincipled battery bikes, with on-board power aiding their propulsion. Much like creeping taxation, quinoa everything in restaurants and mobile data pricing, the ebike draws our collective ire. Judgement is absolute and crushing. ‘It’s not a bike. It’s a motorbike… If you can’t ride, go spin on […]
Where are the German bikes?
German cars are the focus of our four-wheeled desires, but where are all the German mountain bikes? It’s the great curiosity of contemporary mountain biking, an absence of German bikes despite the crushing excellence of German mechanical engineering in relation to all other things wheeled. And it’s not a case of Germans being averse to […]
Why Lance Armstrong is just like you and me
Do you remember first hearing about Lance Armstrong? Do you remember what you felt? The shock, the anger, the betrayal? Consider for a moment if you will, that the only reason you felt that was because his behaviour reminded you too much of yourself. Simon Ekin. Stay with me now. I am not saying what […]