Dirtscrolls

After exploding into internet stardom with his short riding films "Inspired" and "Way Back Home", Scottish trials rider Danny MacAskill’s latest work needed to top them all. Partnering again with Red Bull and Inspired Bicycles, MacAskill opened his sketchbook to revive all the ideas that had been bouncing around inside his head for years. 

By David Nolletti

By Eric McKeegan

Years ago, I lusted after a Kona Hei Hei titanium hardtail. This was towards the end of the long reign of the hardtail as king of the NORBA series. I never got that Hei Hei, and years later, even after almost six years of reviewing bikes for Dirt Rag, I haven’t spent any real time on a Ti bike.

Steve Jobs was famous for introducing new Apple products at the end of his presentations with “one more thing”, and after we got a look at the all-new Santa Cruz Solo and the revised Tallboy2 last week, there was one other trick up the company’s sleeve.

By Molly Hurford

Justin Lindine, men’s overall winner

Where you’re from: New Salem, Mass.

Is there anything special or different about your bike? Well, we just got these sweet new Novatec Dragon 29 wheels, so those are the newest/most different thing right now. I got them just before TS Epic and they have been awesome!  Nice and light, but holding up well to the PA rough stuff.

By Vicki Barclay

Ah, the Trans-Sylvania Mountain Bike Epic. For being a local race, you challenge me in so many ways! I laugh out loud when I read about all the signs of “overtraining” and think about how they relate to one’s general well-being during stage racing: Lack of appetite, yep; low heart rate when racing, uh huh; difficulty sleeping, you betcha; emotionally unstable, oh boy!!

By Karl Rosengarth. Illustration by Stephen Haynes.

Dirt Rag is headed to the 2013 Big Bear Lake 2×12 Relay Race and Mountain Festival in Bruceton Mills, W.V., on Saturday, June 15 where the trails rock, the vibe is chill, there’s free beer and a live bluegrass concert after the race—it’s all good!

There was no doubt who the crowd favorite was as Gee drops in towards the finish.

By Adam Newman

By Adam Newman. Photos by Gary Perkin and Adam Newman.

By Mike Cushionbury

Photos by Eric Benjamin/Adventure Monkey

Justin Lindine, above, overturned his past years’ misfortunes to win the 2013 Trans-Sylvania Epic, while Amanda Carey takes her second overall win in the week-long stage race. After close racing all week, riders battled over an intense, 26-mile course in Stage 7 to confirm the final standings.

As a respected downhill and cross-country racer in the bike industry, Fox Global Marketing Communications Manager Mark Jordan practices what he preaches.

By Mike Cushionbury. Photos by Colin Meagher.

By Adam Newman

We stopped by the third round of the British Downhill Series in Innerleithen today, the final big tune-up before the opening round of the UCI World Cup season in Fort William next weekend. Adam Brayton (Team Hope Factory Racing) took home the Elite Men’s win while local favorite Rachel Atherton (GT Factory Team) won the Elite Women’s race. 

By Adam Newman

The folks at Santa Cruz Bicycles know how to throw a party. Partnering with TweedLove, the UK’s largest cycling festival, they gathered in Peebles, in the Scottish Borders, to unveil the new 27.5 Solo with some limited edition whisky and local legend Steve Peat. 

In Stage 6 of the Trans-Sylvania Epic, Justin Lindine (Redline) continued to build his lead in the Open Mens competition, while Amanda Carey and her NoTubes teammates regained lost time.

By Tim Darwick

Sam Koerber (Progold, above) edged out Justin Lindine (Redline) for the victory while Andrea Wilson (Brickhouse Racing) took her first win of the week on Stage 5 of the Trans-Sylvania Epic. The day’s stage featured a substantial amount of climbing condensed into only 26 miles. Lindine described the stage as having “almost as much climbing as the longer days, but all in a two hour package.”

By Karen Brooks

It’s 10:21 p.m. and I’m typing this at a rustic wooden table in the dining area of a Boy Scout cabin. My cabin-mates are chatting, drinking water (or beer) and snacking, discussing today’s racing (and shenanigans) and tomorrow’s stage. Someone says, “Aw, it sucks you guys have to work.” But then I remind them that I’m technically at work when we’re out on the trail, too.

Racers found Wednesday’s stage 4 to be the most challenging yet. 

By Mike Cushionbury

By Montana Miller

For 2014, Magura has updated the dampers and air springs in its line of 29er forks. I recently had a chance to ride the 120mm travel TS8 and got one ride in on the new 140mm travel TS8 that can be streched to 150mm.

Dampers

Zach Adams led the charge out of the mist Tuesday morning.

By Karen Brooks. Photos courtesy of Santa Cruz.

One of the coolest parts of my job is getting to meet those athletes or personalities who have inspired me in my own struggles to be a better mountain biker. So when I got an email from mountain bike legend Juli Furtado—one of my heroes from way back in beginner days—inviting me to a press camp to introduce a new brand she’s spearheading, I stared at the computer screen for a while in amazement. Juli Furtado! Wow! 

Day 1

The fourth edition of the Trans-Sylvania Mountain Bike Epic presented by Dirt Rag began today with picturesque weather and ideal trail conditions. The riders raced through the 14-mile NoTubes Individual Time Trial in Bald Eagle State Forest in sunny, 60-degree temperatures and dry, tacky trails. The course took riders through a variety of terrain, from gravel roads, to rocky descents and freshly cut, serpentine trails.

By Montana Miller

For 2014 Magura is introducing an automatic electric compression damper. To lock and unlock the fork, the eLECT damper uses the same accelerometer technology that changes an iPhone screen when the phone is flipped from straight up to sideways.

By Vicki Barclay

Approaching a big race like the Trans-Sylvania Epic, people always ask, “How you are feeling?” and “Are you ready?” I always find it a funny question to answer! The same way as when someone asks how a job interview went, men tend to answer with confidence, I have noticed, whereas females tend to be more coy and careful. I prefer the coy and careful approach.

While the top-of-the-line XX1 11-speed system is getting most of the press these days, SRAM has updated its 10-speed systems with trickle-down technologies across the board.

The XO, X9 and X7 shifters have all been redesigned. All three now have internals derived from the 10-speed XX group, including zero-loss shifting, a German-engineered mechanism, a smaller body and all are Matchmaker compatible. They are shipping now.

Photos by Margus Riga.

Rocky Mountain’s riders are a diverse bunch, and the company has been hard at work on "Fourtitude", a video that explores what four very different riders could bring to the Altitude 790 MSL. Watch it below.

BlackBox. It started nearly two decades ago with the original RockShox BoXXer and the desire to provide completely personalized support to a special group of riders. In this relentless pursuit of the podium, no rider request was too crazy or too costly—the average yearly salary of a pro mountain biker wouldn’t have covered the manufacturing cost of those first generation BoXXers.

By Adam Newman

Riders who do a lot of bikepacking and/or touring have been exploring lots of new ways to carry gear and while a couple of small designers and manufacturers have been going for a few years, a new bumper crop of options have been springing up like May flowers.

By Karl Rosengarth

If a rider hucks the gnar and nobody is there to film it, did it really happen? Thanks to folks like Bjørn Enga, that question is pretty much a moot point.

After striking a deal in 1996 with Surfer Publications to produce a show called "Bike TV" for the Outdoor Life Network, Enga formed Radical Films with business partner Christian Begin, and sallied forth in a purple bus to make history.

By Stephan Kincaid,

The Tour of the Battenkill is a road race spread over an entire weekend and catering to the beginner to the Pro. Littered with a bunch of dirt road sections it’s becoming a legendary event. This year had over 3,500 racers in attendance on Saturday alone.

So what does this have to do with getting ready for Trans-Sylvania Epic?

By Michael Wissell

So you decided to do a week- long bike race.

I can’t tell you what you have to do to win the race. I imagine that it involves a lot of “training” and “hard work”. I can, however, tell you about a couple of things that can make your week at the Trans-Sylvania Epic even more awesome (and perhaps take away a bit of the sting of losing 30 minutes a day to Jeremiah Bishop).

By Justin Steiner. Photo by Matt Kaspryzyk.

Man, it sure is a good time to be a mountain biker. With all of the recent innovations—from dropper posts to 27.5-inch wheels—development sure is cooking along. Seems like this year, more so even than recent years, there’s simply a flood of incredible bikes and products coming to market.

By Eric McKeegan

The S.I.R. 9 was one of Niner’s first models, helping to propel the 29-only company from tiny start up to a dozen models including three full-suspension platforms. Not one to forget its roots, the S.I.R. recently got a full redesign, and Niner sent us out a test bike, set up in single speed configuration.

By Karl Rosengarth

There’s no denying the buzz surrounding 27.5-inch mountain bikes. Color me intrigued, as I begin my first long-term test on a tweener. I’m ready to clear my mind of preconceptions, ride and learn.

By Mike Cushionbury

DVO (pronounced devo and short for “developed") Suspension has been not-so-silently working towards an August release for its new Emerald fork and Jade shock. The company formed over a year ago when then Marzocchi USA president Bryson Martin and four key employees walked out the door to form this new suspension company. Their plan is to focus on top shelf downhill suspension but, when we spoke with Martin at this year’s Sea Otter Classic, he hinted that there would be more products coming, targeted at other riders as well.

By Mike Cushionbury. Photos by Justin Steiner

Rocky Mountain started with a clean slate for its new 150mm travel Altitude 770 MSL. The Canadian company weighed the pros and cons of wheel sizes and decided that for a long travel, do-it-all trail/all-mountain bike with a genetic gift for descending, 27.5 was the ideal hoop size. Like geometry and suspension travel, Rocky now uses wheel size to enhance its bike’s ride characteristics.

By Justin Steiner

Here at Dirt Rag and Bicycle Times Headquarters it seems nary a day passes without a delivery person rolling a new bike through the door. Awesome as it is, there are challenges to constantly swapping from bike to bike. In terms of suspension bikes, quickly setting up a new bike at its manufacturer’s recommended baseline is key to kicking off a proper test.

Join damn it. That’s the message Niner has applied to its limited edition run of nine custom painted Jet 9 RDO frames that will be auctioned off to raise funds for the International Mountain Bike Association. Each is paired with a painted to match RockShox SID XX fork.

By Mike Cushionbury,

Dirt Rag Issue #170 has shipped to subscribers and will appear on newsstands on May 14. In case you’re wondering, a one-year, or lifetime, subscription not only ensures you’ll never miss an issue but it also guarantees you’ll get your own personal copy before anyone else. Don’t trust your postman? Then order a single issue or subscription through one of our digital options for your tablet.

By Stephan "Geronimo" Kincaid.

Over two recent weekends I rode in two different events, the Hell of Hunterdon and the Monkey Knife Fight.

Neither of these are "races", but there are some people that will "race." It’s no bother to me. What matters most is we all are safe and have a great ride. Both of these rides accomplish this handily.

By Eric McKeegan

Banshee Bikes is known for B.C. bred big hit bikes, so I was surprised to see this prototype hanging out in the booth. Dubbed the Phantom (at least for now), this bike is still a ways off. Banshee is calling this a 2015 prototype.

By Eric McKeegan

KS is continuing to expand its dropper range, from the highest of high end, to very affordable options.

This is the LEV Carbon. This post will weigh in at a claimed 325 grams, at least 200 grams less than most droppers on the market. The drop will be limited to 65mm of infinitely adjustable travel.

By Eric McKeegan

Diamondback has been plugging away the last few years, making great bikes that seem to fly under the radar. After hitting a solid homerun with the Mason 29er all-mountain hardtail, I’d expect to Diamondback garner more attention this year with some of these other new models.

Mason FS

By Joel Kostelac.

A few weeks ago I celebrated my birthday. It was a great week and day and probably fairly typical as birthdays go. I worked, enjoyed time with my family, and even managed to squeak in a ride at Allegrippis. I am thankful everyday that I can do so.

Ten years ago I celebrated my 28th birthday a bit differently in a small southern Iraqi city named As Samawah. It is a small city straddled over a key supply line to Baghdad and home to an important bridge over the Euphrates River.

By Eric McKeegan

Raleigh has been into the cross scene for quite a while, pushing both serious racing and fun with the Hodala single speed team and the Raleigh/Clement race team.

It has a few new carbon and aluminum bikes for 2014, and they should be available to race this fall. Here is a sampling of the line up.

By Mike Cushionbury

Renthal, located in Manchester, England, has 35 years of motocross parts mastery and has recently brought that knowhow to the world of gravity mountain biking with a range of handlebars, grips, stems and chainrings. It’s collection of elite racers using and R&D’ing the product include some of the biggest names and teams: Aaron Gwin, Troy Brosnan, Mitch Ropelato, Jill Kintner, the Yeti domestic and World Cup downhill teams, the Norco International team and MS Mondraker Racing.

By Eric McKeegan

White Brothers and MRP are sister brands under the Mountain Racing Products umbrella and we stopped by their booth at Sea Otter to see the new goods. 

With 34-35mm stanchion forks taking over the lion’s share of the market, White Brothers is set to fire back with their own bigger chassis. Shown here are prototypes, but the lowers are the final castings, so the investment to make these forks happen is already in place.