Dirtscrolls

Words and photos by Jeff Archer In the world of vintage mountain bikes, the 2014 Interbike show was an exciting event. The annual Mountain Bike Hall of Fame induction ceremony had some company this year with the debut of the Fat Tire Flyer book, written by Charlie Kelly, which chronicles his take on the birth of ...

So, you’re kinda still married to riding that old Trek carbon racer from 1998, the one with the garish red, white and blue graphics and a Shimano rear shifter that doesn’t work that well anymore? While it was fun watching you-know-who dominate the Tour de France for seven consecutive years, it’s time to step up ...

In its unending march of product development, Shimano has announced its latest Acera line of mountain bike and trekking components will feature many of its technologies that once debuted at a higher price point. The new M3000 series features a new compact triple crank, the introduction of the Shadow rear derailleur design, and shifters that stand ...

Courtesy of Sarah Galbraith, Ambassador to Vermont Mountain Bike Association. Photos courtesy of the VMBA.  When most folks think of Vermont they might think of maple syrup and skiing, but the Green Mountain State has seen an explosion in mountain biking in recent years. The Vermont Mountain Bike Association is leading the charge thanks to a ...

Editor’s note: This story first appeared in Dirt Rag Issue #158, published in August 2011. Words by Landon and Mary Monholland. Illustrations by Ashely Swidowski. I give two excited dogs a whistle. I mimic the whistle of The General Lee from the “Dukes of Hazard”—ya know, the first 12 notes of “Dixie.” That’s the whistle ...

Feeling pretty sluggish this time of year? It’s time to blast out the cobwebs with an indoor cross-country race at BOTH Ray’s Indoor Bike Park locations: Cleveland and Milwaukee. Both venues are tearing down walls, rerouting trails and creating a one-of-a-kind opportunity to get back on your bike and ride hard in a one-lap, time-trial ...

Cannondale designed the Trigger 27.5 Carbon Team to be the quintessential quiver killer—the one bike to replace all others hanging in your shed. Featuring a 140mm-travel carbon Lefty SuperMax fork and Fox DYAD adjustable rear suspension, the Trigger is meant to climb just as well as it descends and comfortably whisk you through everything from ...

Over the weekend we traveled to Quality Bicycle Products’ headquarters in Bloomington, Minnesota, to see what was new from their own brands and the brands they distribute to most of the local bike shops in America. e-Thirteen The LG1+ chainguide is one of e-Thirteen’s best selling products, and the new generation makes the popular gravity ...

Quality Bicycle Components is the largest bicycle products distributor in the U.S. and is the brand that supports nearly every bike shop in America. It owns several of its own brands and distributes dozens of others. We traveled to QBP’s home office and distribution warehouse in Bloomington, Minnesota, for FrostBike, its annual dealer show, to ...

Each year, Quality Bicycle Products, the parent company of Salsa (as well as Surly, All-City and others) hosts a dealer show at is Minnesota headquarters. Salsa took the opportunity to announce it would be officially offering a production version of the Powderkeg tandem that has been floating around in prototype form for years. Powderkeg Not ...

45NRTH is committed to pushing cold-weather cycling technology, and its latest two tires continue that trend, following closely behind the launch of the brand’s Ride Groomed website. The Flowbeist and Dunderbeist are front and rear specific, respectively, and measure out at 4.6 inches, a good middle ground that should fit a wide variety of fat ...

If you buy an American-made steel or aluminum frame and it isn’t from a small, boutique brand, there’s a good chance it was made in Portland, Oregon, by Zen Fabrication. Born from the ashes of Ellsworth’s U.S. manufacturing business and the withdrawal of the Sapa framebuilding enterprise, Zen has been building frames for other bike ...

This is Part 2 of my first real shakedown rides with the new Shimano XTR Di2 group. Read Part 1 here. In the span of just a few days since receiving the goods I was able to put almost 150 off-road miles on Shimano’s exciting new XTR Di2 electronic components. Here’s a rundown of how it ...

Riding fat bikes in the snow isn’t as simple as many folks might believe. Just like skiing, different conditions can make for vastly different experiences, as anyone who has pushed their bike while post-holing through deep snow can tell you. 45NRTH is hoping to help, with a new website called Ride Groomed that tracks trail ...

Editor’s Note: This story first appeared in Dirt Rag Issue #131, published in October 2007. By Steinar Smith, with photos courtesy of the author. There was a New Mexico Off Road Series (NMORS) race down in Silver City called the Signal Peak Challenge on Aug. 19. When Barin Beard of Mimbres Man (a Silver City ...

Photos by Sven Martin. After much speculation, Santa Cruz dropped a somewhat unexpected pair of bikes on the public, with a return of the Stigmata cyclocross bike and a refreshed Highball carbon hardtail with new geometry and a second wheelsize. The bikes were introduced on the South Island of New Zealand, perhaps the most picturesque place I’ve ...

Courtesy of the Chequamegon Area Mountain Bike Association. Photos by Kelly Randolph. Through the efforts of a dedicated group of volunteers and enthusiasts, winter fat biking has really begun to take off in the Chequamegon area of northern Wisconsin. The most visible evidence is the Fat Bike Birkie, put on by the American Birkebeiner Ski Foundation ...

It’s the end of an era. The Aptos Post Office Jumps and the accompanying pump track in Aptos, California, are being razed in February. Earning notoriety for their death-defying vert doubles and the local kids that have grown up with these jumps—both the jumps and kids are now internationally-known entities. While on Saturday, February 14, ...

Editor’s note: Machine Soul first appeared in Dirt Rag Issue #21, published in February 1992. Words by John Gurklis. Dirt Rag #21 cover art by Mark Tierney. This is defined as the ethereal component of the machine, in this context a bike. Machine soul is acquired as the rider’s mental energy becomes infused into the ...

By Harlan Price Snow riding today is all that’s left of the version of the chaotic two-wheel drifting we regularly did before trail stewards were abundant. Fortunately, some time riding the white-capped seas will benefit you in ways that only the traction-less trail can. A dirty little secret about this enlightened age of trail stewardship ...

Shimano unveiled its fleet of long-term test bikes for its revolutionary electronic XTR mountain bike shifting in sunny Palm Springs, California. My bike is the potent Pivot Mach 429 Carbon, which is one of the first available to be designed specifically for all internal Di2 wire routing as well as battery storage. After a few ...

If you think about it, the connection between your feet and the pedals is the most important between you and your bike. It’s where the power generated by your body becomes forward motion through the gears. Naturally cyclists spend a lot of attention on their shoes, but what is often overlooked is the insoles inside ...

   Chloe Woodruff, left, and Kaylee Blevins, right, have paired up on the brand new Team Stan’s NoTubes-Niner for 2015. The two American women got to know each other while they were traveling together to compete for the US National Team last year. “Team Stan’s NoTubes-Niner includes a more seasoned rider matched up with a ...

The latest generation of the Fox 36 fork is plenty versatile and capable, in all ways but one: fast wheel removable. The creative dropout design that can accommodate both 15mm and 20mm axles requires a tool to install and remove—not so fun when you get a flat out on the trail. The Flow Zone has a solution: ...

Sony has been pushing hard for a larger segment of the POV camera market in recent years and it’s confident that it can become a major player. The electronics company certainly has the brand recognition as well as a growing list of athletes and ambassadors. It hasn’t shied away from the comparisons to the GoPro juggernaut that’s been ...

With much of the country blanketed in snow and cold temperatures, it’s only natural our collective cabin fever has us dreaming of sunshine, warm temps and dry singletrack. Fortunately for all of us, the Sedona MTB Festival looks to be just the excuse to make the journey to the southwest for a long weekend of ...

Editor’s note: Each year Dirt Rag solicits readers’ fiction, essays and poetry in our annual Literature Contest. In Issue #182 of Dirt Rag you’ll find the winner of our 2014 Literature Contest, but we received many submissions worth sharing, so we will be posting some of the finalists here over the next few weeks. We hope ...

Editor’s note: This is one of six bikes we’ve gathered together that fall between $1,900 and $2,600. Read our introduction to see the other five and watch for our long-term reviews of each in Dirt Rag #182, due on newsstands and in mailboxes any day now. Subscribe now and you’ll never miss a bike review.   ...

Editor’s note: This “Beer Me” column, which was written by our good friend Max Kellogg, first appeared in Dirt Rag Issue #107 in May 2004.   Perhaps the best perk about moonlighting in a hot dog/beer bar, besides all the bacon you can eat, is sooner or later you’ll have to sample some of the ...

Editor’s note: This is one of six bikes we’ve gathered together that fall between $1,900 and $2,600. Read our introduction to see the other five and watch for our long-term reviews of each in Dirt Rag #182, due on newsstands and in mailboxes any day now. Subscribe now and you’ll never miss a bike review. GT’s ...

Photo courtesy of the Bush Institute’s Military Service Initiative It’s hard to imagine mountain biking being a priority of the United States military, but without the sacrifice of men and women in uniform, it’s possible many of us would not be able to enjoy our favorite sport the way we do today. Former President George W. ...

The Aurora series has been part of the Jamis stable of bikes since the late 1990s and has included the Elite build since 2008. The Aurora Elite comes outfitted with all the basic building blocks for a bike that could be used in any number of ways: full aluminum fenders and aluminum rear rack, both painted ...

Get a copy of Dirt Rag #182 in our online store. On the cover Evening moodiness at sunset captured by Ian Hylands   The Dirt Mark Weir reflects on chasing the sunrise and why it’s the most motivating time to ride in. Ever wondered why mountain bike stage races cost so much? Trans-Sylvania Epic promoter ...

KHS was one of the first brands to wholeheartedly embrace 27.5 wheels, putting its first model on the market in 2009 and now offering 19 models across the line. It was able to do so because it is one of the largest manufacturers in the bike industry, building its own bikes as well as those ...

Editor’s note: This is one of six bikes we’ve gathered together that fall between $1,900 and $2,600. Read our introduction to see the other five and watch for our long-term reviews of each in Dirt Rag #182, due on newsstands and in mailboxes in February. Subscribe now and you’ll never miss a bike review. I picked ...

Editor’s note: The poem “Pain” by Philip Walter—with art by Jim Harris—originally appeared in Dirt Rag Issue #121, published in May 2006.   I’m racing down through unknown track and, I’ll admit, a bit too fast. The air is dry, the soil loose. Naught on my mind but rocks and roots. When suddenly the turn gets ...

Editor’s note: This is one of six bikes we’ve gathered together that fall between $1,900 and $2,600. Read our introduction to see the other five and watch for our long-term reviews of each in Dirt Rag #182, due on newsstands and in mailboxes in February. Subscribe now and you’ll never miss a bike review. Kona’s line ...

As you might expect with a name like 45NRTH, as in the 45th Parallel, this company knows a thing or two about cycling in extreme winter conditions. The Minneapolis-based brand was founded under the Quality Bicycle Products (QBP) umbrella back in 2011. 45NRTH’s initial product offerings were tires, but they’ve since branched out to offer ...

There are few products in mountain bike history as transformative as the Shimano SPD pedal system. In 1990 the very concept of clipless pedals was still new to cycling and most mountain bikers were still using hiking boots and flat pedals. While mountain bikes, shoes and pedals have transformed radically around it in the past quarter-century, the ...

Specialized’s enduro racer Mitch Ropelato is the latest to show the world what he can do with a fat bike, in this case Specialized’s Fatboy. Looks like it’s right at home just about anywhere.

After a decade of unicycling and three years of planning this attempt, Lutz Eichholz succeeded in the first unicycle descent from the 18,000-foot Mount Damavand in Iran. Despite problems with the elevation, injuries to the crew and temperatures that ranged from the teens to more than 100 degrees, the team achieved its goal.

Editor’s note: This is one of six bikes we’ve gathered together that fall between $1,900 and $2,600. Read our introduction to see the other five and watch for our long-term reviews of each in Dirt Rag #182, due on newsstands and in mailboxes in February. Subscribe now and you’ll never miss a bike review. Giant’s Stance ...

This time of year isn’t ideal for mountain biking in the Midwest, so we’ve become huge fans of the Wheel Mill in Pittsburgh, a massive indoor bike park with flow lines, jump lines, a pump track, a skills park, a foam pit and more. It’s the perfect antidote to the winter blues. This year on January ...

Editor’s note: Here at Bicycle Times we are as mindful of price as you are. So we gathered together a group of six very diverse bikes to showcase what you can find right now at the $1,000 price point. See our introduction here. Way back in issue #2, I reviewed the Raleigh Clubman (with rim ...

Editor’s note: The following reader letter appeared in Dirt Rag issue #116, published in February 2003. Hey Dirt Rag, Not too long ago, I decided that my perfectly good paint job of stock primer gray on my 2003 Bianchi S.I.S.S. was just too familiar. So in a quick decision, it was stripped, primed and painted ...

By Jeff Lockwood. Ilustrations by Stephen Haynes One should never dwell too deeply on any polarizing statement frivolously tapped out in the comments section of any online article or posting. The stunning language, poorly argued opinions, hilarious misspellings and ill-informed “facts” expressed by virtually anonymous people can boil the blood of even the most level-headed, stable ...

Not all foam is created equal. While all bicycle helmets sold in the United States have to pass the same safety regulations, there is a lot of room above and beyond those tests where impact absorption can be improved. Kali Protectives‘ Composite Fusion Plus technology uses a dual-layer foam construction better absorb impacts and help ...

Rebecca Rusch has announced she will be riding for Niner Bikes in 2015. This marks the end of a lengthy relationship with her former bike and equipment sponsor. Rusch says this partnership is a perfect fit for where she is in her career and passions. “My mission has always been to push my own limits. I’ll ...

Editor’s note: This is one of six bikes we’ve gathered together that fall between $1,900 and $2,600. Read our introduction to see the other five and watch for our long-term reviews of each in Dirt Rag #182, due on newsstands and in mailboxes in February. Subscribe now and you’ll never miss a bike review. Santa Cruz ...

In a few weeks Surly will join its parent company, Quality Bicycle Products, at its annual product show dubbed Frostbike. Well, they couldn’t keep the cat in the bag, so today it announced a few new goodies we’ll be “officially” seeing for the first time at the show: First up is the Moonlander Special Ops, ...