Mountain Biking

After goofing off yesterday I headed out on a ride with Julien around Ken’s loop. Not long into the ride, just before a fast gully descent, I noticed the rear brake didn’t feel right including a forceful click felt through the brake lever towards the end of the action. It turned out one of the pistons had siezed. The brake still sort of worked ok, the other piston making up most of the difference and flexing the rotor sideways in the process. The Hippie Track rides have worked the brakes hard lately, to the point of chronic  fade — leaving its mark on the brakes, literally, with some rotor burn. Wonder if it’s all related. (more…)

Had another trail building session at the vineyard in Harcourt today with Peter from the Bike Vault. Lots of work still to be done but we both reckon the trail is shaping up well especially the section of bush single track which flows around the dams and includes a fun descent before heading off around the property. The vineyard guys have offered to slash and smooth other sections of trail using machines, which is great as it leaves a few weeks to clean up and ride the trail in before the event mid May. (more…)

Thought it would be fun to do a 20 year MTB showdown – my old 1991 Specialized Stumpjumper vs the circa 2011 Ibis Mojo HD. Over the next month or two the ‘plan’ is to take both bikes out on a few adventures — XC, AM, Downhill etc — and assuming the Stumpy doesn’t kill me, see what differences 20 years of MTB make out on the trail! (more…)

I’ve been using the Specialized Phenom Body Geometry Expert saddle for two months now, time to revisit the all important Junk Joy index. (more…)

BikeRadar posted a fun article the other day about 50 ways to be a better mountain biker. (more…)

After flooding rain and stinking heat, some awesome weather! (more…)

You don’t see many old chromo 1991 Stumpjumpers wheeling around, you don’t come across many guys riding unicycles off road either. (more…)

There was a time in the early 90’s when like many other MTB’ers I was a chronic weight weenie. I was reminded of just how bad the obsession was the other day when I came across the original box for my Selle Italia Evolution Carbon Titanium Saddle while unpacking stuff in the shed. I guess keeping the box all these years isn’t a good look either… it is a sweet box though! 🙂 (more…)