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For 2017, Bontrager has added new Trail and XC wheelset options at an affordable price point. Line Pro 30 TLR Line Elite 30 TLR Line Comp 30 TLR Kovee Elite 23 TLR $1,200 $600 $300 $700 27.5” – 1539g 29” – 1608g 27.5” – 1708g 29” – 1794g 27.5” – 1978g 29” – 2080g 27.5” ...

Kona knocked it out of the park with the Honzo CR Trail DL. Featuring a stealth matte black finish, aggressive all-mountain geometry and a reasonably lightweight package, this Honzo is a grand slam. It took all but five minutes on my initial ride to develop an attachment, which quickly led to confirming with our Tech Editor ...

Wisconsin is not the sort of place from which you’d expect to receive a package of riding apparel that also included warm and sunny February weather to facilite testing. But, lucky me, that’s exactly what happened when UPS delivered a selection of Bontrager’s 2017 spring/summer mountain bike apparel. Magically, Pittsburgh experienced a series of sunny(ish) days that ...

Cannondale’s Bad Habit could not have rolled into our Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania headquarters at a more appropriate time. As the trails began their late-season transition into an array of conditions from pristine hard packed to mud, slop and snow, the Bad Habit was ready to impress. On more than a handful of occasions, I found myself ...

Trek designed the Farley EX 9.8 to be a year-round bike capable enough to tackle any trail or weather condition. Fortunately I got my hands on this beauty at just the right time, as we transitioned between a glorious fall and bitter winter. I figured the large 3.8″ 27plus tubeless tires would be a welcome ...

The new Viral Skeptic is not your ordinarily hardtail. And before you get huffy about that weird looking black box nestled in the bottom bracket junction, it’s not an electric motor but a 12-speed internal gearbox made by German company Pinion. The Taiwan-made frame is beautifully executed, with clean welds and a seat tube port ...

The year 2016 was all about going “YUGE”, and no other bike I rode last year inspired me to go big like the monster Jones Plus. For the uninitiated, Jeff Jones has been designing his own brand of “non-suspended, off-road bicycles” for years, first by hand and now in full production overseas. The secret sauce ...

Every day is a good day for an adventure bike! This one comes to us by way of REI. Say hello to the steel Novara Mazama, designed for bikepacking, grinding gravel and all of your off-the-beaten-path adventures. It seems to work well on the plain-old road too, just in case you were wondering. At first ...

Salsa Cycles’ Pony Rustler is the rotund sibling of the brand’s well-admired Horsethief. Both bikes feature the same basic platform and very similar components, with the obvious difference being the wider wheelset of the Pony Rustler. I’ve been riding the Carbon X01 build for a few weeks and have been impressed on how well it ...

Ed’s Note: This bike is part of our annual, sub-$3,000 bike test where the Dirt Rag staff spends significant time aboard less-expensive but fully capable offerings that we’d seriously consider buying ourselves. The final review will be out early 2016 in issue #189. Subscribe today so you don’t miss it! Price: $2,400 Charge Bikes’ Cooker 4 ...

Ed’s Note: This bike is part of our annual, sub-$3,000 bike test where the Dirt Rag staff spends significant time aboard less-expensive but fully capable offerings that we’d seriously consider buying ourselves. The final review will be out early 2016 in issue #189. Subscribe today so you don’t miss it! Price: $2,500 The Hei Hei has ...

Kona’s tagline for its 2016 lineup is “Going Deeper” and it’s an apt description for its largest-ever product range. While some models carry over largely unchanged, nearly every mountain bike gets an update of some kind, and several get ground-up redesigns. We sampled some of the latest on the trails outside Bellingham, Washington. Honzo AL/DL ...

If any one single model epitomizes “mountain bikes” it’s the Specialized Stumpjumper. One of the first mass-produced off road bicycles, it been a mainstay of the lineup since 1981. Its evolution has traced the course of mountain bike design, through various frame materials, suspension setups and user categories. There are no fewer than 19 different Stumpjumper ...

The new carbon Mach 429SL from Pivot Cycles shaves half a pound off the previous frame to come in at a very respectable 5.3 pounds. Match that to 100 mm of potent dw-link controlled suspension and this venerable favorite becomes even more attractive. New hollow-core carbon technology from Pivot not only reduces weight but also increases ...

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 ...

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. Marin describes the Lombard as having been “Birthed from cyclocross and touring ...

You’ve never heard of Liteville? That’s OK, it’s not like you local bike shop has racks full of these bikes. Liteville is a sister company of Syntace, the German component brand. Besides being a niche brand, the 601 is a niche bike, with a downhill-worthy 190mm of rear travel, packaged into a frame that is ...

Editor’s note: Here at Dirt Rag we don’t really do “comparison tests” or “shootouts” or declare “winners”. Every bike we review has a story to tell, and they’re all interesting. That said, we rounded up six full-suspension trail bikes in the $2,500-ish range to see what’s really out there in the heart of the mountain ...

Liv may have cracked the code on how to sell a women-specific mountain bike. While some other brands fuss about paint color and handlebar length (both important!), Liv was taking measurements on how women ride bikes: The average ranges of our body dimensions (inseam versus torso length, for instance), where our power comes from, how ...

When the 429 SL first debuted as Pivot’s ultimate World Cup-caliber race weapon it was long, low and slack, at least for its time. Signaling a change to the new era Pivot’s cross-country bike is now named the Mach 4 SL providing 100mm of a renowned dw-link suspension paired with either a 100-120mm travel fork. ...

Words and Bike Photos: Brett Rothmeyer Action Photos: Ian Collins Santa Cruz Bicycles has released the latest version of the Stigmata out into the wild. Along with the Stigmata, sister company Juliana has released the all-new Quincy to their line up. Building upon where the 2015 revamped Stigmata left off there are some great new ...

The all-new Ibis Ripley has been released into the world today, and we had a chance to spend a day riding one on its home turf in Santa Cruz. So what’s new with the latest version of the Ripley? Everything according to Ibis. The bike has undergone a whole new redesign inspired by its longer ...

A few weeks back, Shimano took me (and other media) to the mountain town of Crested Butte, Colorado for a few days of high-altitude riding on the newly-released, 12-speed XTR M9100. Unlike the previous two generations, this newest version of XTR looks and feels like a true redesign rather than a few small updatess. Shimano ...

When Pivot made subtle updates to their LES for 2017, the sliding dropouts and sub 70º head angle which made the LES a crowd pleaser when it first came to fruition in 2012 remained intact. As Gordon “Quadsworth” Wadsworth, the 3x National Ultra Endurance (NUE) Series singlespeed champion states, “Budda don’t need no grease.” With ...