Issue 166: From the Archives

“We didn’t mean to start a publishing empire…” Chipps looks back on some of the fun and quirky bits of the last 25 years.

Words: Chipps. Photos: Chipps, Heather.

When I first started writing for mountain bike magazines, back in 1993, I really didn’t know what I was doing. I could spell and punctuate, I knew a bit about bikes, I knew many of the people in the burgeoning eighties/nineties scene and I’d read a lot of the existing magazines for a few years. That was it. I felt like such a fraud.

And then, years later working for Singletrack, I met a marketing guy from a German bike company. “Ahh, Mr Chippendale! So good to finally meet such a well-known dinosaur of the bike industry!”

Dinosaur? Wait, what? How did I go from being a nervous pretender to being some kind of sage old font of Yoda knowledge? From someone waiting to be unmasked as a timid understudy, to an old-school part of the establishment. I’m still not sure. Surely there was a day where I was ‘the guy’? Or did I merely oscillate from ‘newbie’ to ‘has-been’ without ever passing ‘cool’? Probably…

Just think of a number

Singletrack’s reputation, too, has followed a similar arc. When issue one of the magazine came out, in 2001, we had no idea what we were doing. We had no money, so we had no marketing budget, and even our own website was hundreds of users strong, rather than the millions of visitors we now enjoy. We printed ten thousand copies of the first issue, because everybody we knew thought it was a great idea for a magazine. And, as everyone living in an echo chamber soon learns, it can be a surprise to find that no one out of your immediate circle thinks the same.

We loaded a van, booked a stand and took several thousands of copies to the biggest bike show in the UK. We sold 248. We hadn’t really worked out what our next step was, and we hadn’t really counted on having to rent space to store literal pallets of unsold magazines. But 400 people had already paid us for a year’s subscription, which meant that we had to keep going and work out what was going to be in the second issue, and the third. Anyone who’s been with us long enough will already know this story; we eventually sold nearly all of those issues (over several years, to be honest) and by our second year we had been taken up by WH Smiths, which was a big deal back then and really helped us get the word out (and the rent paid…).

What Does That Button Do?

I could pretend that every issue was carefully planned and mapped out, months in advance, but I’m a terrible liar. Mark has often used the analogy of a captain piloting a submarine; tweaking controls, turning valves and pushing buttons, to describe the nuances of the Singletrack website, and something similar would be true of editing the magazine. Probably more agricultural in character, though: perhaps an early hay thresher – exciting, complicated, and always the chance of losing an arm.

Exciting, complicated, and always the chance of losing an arm.

Some features are commissioned from ‘professional’ writers and photojournalists, where we get some say in how it’ll be written and shot. Sometimes a feature is presented to us, fully formed, by someone who’s already been there and done it. Other times, I might have seen a post or a blog from someone that really appealed and asked them if they’d like to develop it into a feature. Or we’ll have had an invite from someone with a great idea, or a great trail, or a magic invention, or some new twist on the sport. Sometimes there are words and no photos, other times there’ll be great photos with nothing to tie them together. It’s all a balance, and I hope I’ve managed to keep it reasonably to your liking over the years.

A Lack of Focus?

We’ve done some crazy, and some inspirational, things in the name of the magazine over the years. Again, there wasn’t a focus group suggesting what we should do; it was mostly while brainstorming over a coffee, or relaxing over a post-ride pint, that some of the best ideas arrived.

Flicking through a few of the metre-high stacks of magazines in the spare room, I’ve discovered features I’d forgotten all about. Even though they might have taken a week of travel and riding and writing up in order to get in the magazine, there’s always the next deadline looming, hungry for ideas, to make you forget what you’ve just done and get on with doing what’s next. Some of my favourite jaunts have included:

One Ton Challenge

This was our feature where someone would take a budget of £100 and come back with a feature. One of my contributions was to buy the second-cheapest bike in Halfords for £75, upgrade it with a pair of £25 clip-in pedals, and ride the 48-mile Mary Towneley Loop that rings Todmorden. I had stigmata-like blisters on my palms from the rock-hard grips, but the adventure was great, showing that you didn’t need a fancy bike to get out there. We even sold the bike to the postman for £50.

Blair Atholl to Braemar

A mid-December adventure. Starting in freezing fog, we left Blair Atholl to ride over to Braemar on one of the coldest days of the year, to the village that regularly boasts the coldest temperatures in the UK. We rode out above the inversion into glorious winter sun, frozen rivers and the pink-tinged, snowy peaks of the Scottish Highlands. A day later, we were treated to the same weather on our way back, descending finally back into the fog and the frozen drive back home.

MTB Bikeathlon

Alistair got in touch to say, ‘Hey, I’ve created a workable version of Winter Olympic biathlon, only with mountain bikes and air rifles. Come and have a go!’ And so we did. And it was one of the hardest, most ridiculous and fun things I’ve ever done on a bike.

Sea Otter, Interbike and Eurobike

Three times a year I would pack a bag and a camera and head off to see what was new and exciting in the mountain bike world. And I was never disappointed. The razzmatazz of the bike industry had some real power, and actual online reporting was still a valuable resource before everyone got a phone camera in their trouser pockets. Many of those big shows have gone away, or shrunk in size, replaced by video presentations and emailed PDFs. It’s cheaper, involves less travel for all involved and allows for home-testing of new products, but it’s not sitting outside Vegas’s Double Down Saloon at 2am on the first night of the exhibition, is it now?

Tour de Mont Blanc

A week’s guided riding around Mont Blanc, using many of the 100-mile Ultramarathon trails, with a mile of vertical climbing every day. It was stunning, it was so hard, and it’s one of the few adventures where I can remember exactly what bike I was riding for it. In this case: a beautiful copper-coloured Turner Flux.

Hans Rey + Finale

I raced a 24-hour race in Finale Ligure with Hans Rey on my team. With a full ska band on stage at the changeover tent, ten-person Italian teams doing it purely for the catering, scorching temperatures and a view of the Mediterranean from the course. It was surreal and special.

…a full ska band on stage at the changeover tent.

Blame the Dog

I was so happy when we got Mike Ferrentino to write for Singletrack. He guest-edited one issue and later on became a regular columnist (for probably a quarter of his regular fee). His insights, writing skills and dark humour still remind me of being that nervous imposter when I started my career in magazines.

Endurance Downhill

Six hours of racing down (95% of) the Fort William World Cup track. As many laps as you can do in six hours, with a chairlift back up. I surprised myself: not just by not dying, but by doing modestly well and enjoying it too. I couldn’t walk properly for a week, mind.

Being unprepared for things is what we do best!

West Highland Way with Pagey

Another Scottish epic. Riding the West Highland Way with downhill (and commentating) legend, Nigel Page. The other nicest man in mountain biking (Nick Craig is always No.1). We didn’t really know what we had let ourselves in for and we made the most of it. We did it so that you don’t have to, OK?

Connected by Bikes

I’ve interviewed many interesting riders in my time here, but I also really enjoyed meeting people, famous in other spheres, who were into mountain bikes. An early surprise was discovering that Formula One driver Mark Webber was not only a keen rider, but a 24-hour racer too. The same went for Guy Martin, who ‘trained’ for events like the Strathpuffer by simply riding there from his home near Grimsby and camping out behind the bins at McDonald’s on the way up to a podium place. And finally, riding with Simon Gallup, bassist of The Cure, was another surreal experience – just to find out how routine he found his ‘proper’ job and how excited he was about riding bikes.

Bothies and BOB Trailers

A final Scottish tribute: for many of the early years of the magazine, we would always try to do a winter adventure in Scotland. Usually with a distillery involved. The mileages didn’t matter, it was just enough for us to get out into some big scenery and feel small again.

The Mountain Mayhems

Pat Adams’ Mountain Mayhem 24-hour races started three years before Singletrack did, but I was involved from the first one, helping Pat out. Even after the magazine started, I still worked for a solid week, marking the courses and racing every one. We must have achieved Peak Singletrack at one of those events.

Brooks Saddles

Not massively mountain biking, but a factory visit to Brooks Saddles in the Midlands helped me better appreciate British bike engineering. Where you might have expected boxes of unmarked saddles from Taiwan, instead there were sheets of cow and bales of steel wire coming in at one end and hand-finished saddles coming out the other. The dedication, skill and craftsmanship was awe-inspiring.

Summit to Sea

Way back in 2014, my then-girlfriend-now-wife and I took a guided tour, starting from 1,500m up in the mountains of the Pyrénées-Orientales to the sea. Over five days, we rode the pine- and sage-smelling singletrack of the Pyrenees, climbing and descending as we made our way, eventually to the Mediterranean. The sights, smells and tastes of that trip must have stayed with me, as eight years later we sold our house in the UK and moved to be close to those very trails we’d ridden.

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I hope you’ve enjoyed my tenure at Singletrack and I wish Benji, Mark and the team every best wish for the future years. While I might not be in print as much any more, you know I won’t be far away. After all, Singletrack is for life.