Chipps takes a look at some of the gravel, travel, drop-bar and ride-far components and bikes on display at the world’s biggest bike show. As well as keeping an eye out for some of the new bits and pieces in the mountain bike world, I…
Chipps
With 25 years as Editor of Singletrack World Magazine, Chipps holds the record for the longest-running mountain bike magazine editor in the world. He started in the bike trade in 1990 and became a full time mountain bike journalist at the start of 1994.
Chipps stepped down as Editor in April 2026 after 25 years at the helm. He's now wondering what to do next, while riding his bike in the French Pyrenees, where he also runs some gites.
Eurobike 2024 – Chipps went so you didn’t have to
Chipps gives the Singletrackworld members his personal takeaways from the massive 2024 Eurobike Show, held recently in Frankfurt. I reckon it’s coming up on 30 years since my first Eurobike Show and, obviously, much has changed since my first one in 1995. Back then, there…
Issue 155 Editorial: Going The Extra Mile
Chipps urges you to put in that extra 10% today and you’ll get 30% back tomorrow. It’s like a fitness/friendship pyramid scheme… In some respects, ‘Going the extra mile’ and ‘Giving 110%’ aren’t really related. After all, going another mile sounds easy enough (and it…
Debate: Is It Even Mountain Biking?
As part of a new head-to-head debate series, Hannah and Chipps agree to disagree on what constitutes ‘mountain biking’ and, by extension, on what should appear in this magazine. We’ve given them a couple of pages to set out their stall.
Rob Fisk. Stand down, Merlinman
Long, long, longtime friend of Singletrackworld, Rob 'Merlinman' Fisk passed away earlier today. We're so glad we got to share time with him.
Obituary: Greg Fuquay by Chipps
Another massive influence on my life has left us. I’ve just found out that Greg Fuquay passed away this weekend. Greg was a bike frame builder, based near Ipswich, when I first met him in 1991. His US Airforce career had given him some razor…
Bob Seals: Devil, do-gooder or daydreamer?
Spiritual eco-warrior? Half-naked singlespeed pioneer? Genius machinist who brought you the Cool Tool and Klean Kanteen? Or someone who offended a race organiser so badly they forklifted his team truck out of the arena? Robert, Bobby or Bob Seals is obviously all of these things…
Are Welsh Trails Up For Sale By NRW?
Local mountain bikers and councillors around Coed y Brenin are concerned that Natural Resource Wales (NRW) is planning on selling off the Coed y Brenin visitor centre and its miles of trails to the highest bidder in a veiled closed-door process that has ignored local…
GRX RX825 Di2 Wireless Groupset Launches today!
In one of the least surprising announcements of the gravel year, Shimano today has announced an electric version of its popular GRX groupset. If the big news of August 2023’s GRX announcement was that it had one extra gear (or two if you run a…
Shimano GRX RX820 Mechanical Gravel Groupset review
Chipps, perhaps perversely, specified his test on Shimano GRX RX820 to cope with gravel riding that was more mountainous than groomed, how did he get on? Pros Cons When ‘new’ GRX RX820 was launched at the end of last summer, I was very interested to…
Singletrack World Issue 154 Editorial: Let’s Get Lendy
“Neither a borrower nor a lender be, For loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.” And so goes the oft-quoted advice in Hamlet, where a father gives his just-off-to-France son a concise set of rules by which to…
Issue 154 Last Word: Schrödinger’s Stans Monsters
Chipps gets existential in his tyre swapping. Perhaps those new tyres you had on backorder have finally come in, or you’re simply putting in that pre-summer maintenance where you swap worn brake pads and bottom bracket bearings for new ones. And now, your attention turns…
Issue 153 Editorial: Always Meet Your Heroes
Chipps encourages you to seek out and praise your heroes. However, they might not be the people you first think of. Doesn’t the saying go ‘Never meet your heroes’? Is that because you’ll get to meet them and discover that they’re just normal, boring folks…
Patrick Adams – The Big Man Has Left Us
We’re truly sorry to have to tell you that Patrick Adams, that legend of the mountain bike scene, passed away last night, Feb 11th 2024 leaving the whole cycling world with a massive hole in it. Mountain biking and cycling in general has lost one of…
Issue 153 Tech Head: When It’s All Your Own Fault
A custom-built bike is a dream for many, but how hard is it to choose (and then live with) your exact, perfect machine? Words As told to Chipps Photography Credited For some people, commissioning and speccing a custom-built bike is a fantasy indulgence, for others,…
Cyclists Not Welcome At This Spanish World Cup
This weekend, January 21st, sees the UCI Cyclocross World Cup descend on Benidorm. And before you say ‘Eh, what?’ – it’s a cracking course – dry, dusty and fast and one that provides the world’s best racers with some welcome relief from the mud pits…
9Point8 Slack-R Headset Review
What if you want a slacker head angle, but your bike won't accept slackset-style headset cups? Enter the 9Point8 Slack-R!
Issue 152 Editorial: I went into Publishing and all I got was this awesome magazine
Words: Chipps Thirty years ago, at the start of January 1994, I walked into the Future Publishing offices in Bath to begin as technical editor for the recently launched MTB Pro magazine. My deputy editor Richard Howatt showed me around the basement office we shared…
Singletrack Issue 151 Editorial: Especially average? Or averagely special?
Words: Chipps Does anyone ever aspire to be average? Surely, statistically, most of us must be average at most things? Look around, though, and all talk is about the fastest, the biggest, the raddest, with occasional glances towards the terrible for balance. You’ll never really…
Singletrack Issue 151: Ydyn ni bron yna?
Chipps wonders what happened to the Welsh Government’s promises for a more accessible outdoors for all. Words Chipps Photography Amanda *Ydyn ni bron yna? = Are we almost there? A few short years ago, the mountain biking public was hopeful that it would soon be…
Shimano GRX RX820 – New Gravel Groupset Goes 12 Speed!
Today Shimano has launched its new GRX gravel groupset – Shimano GRX RX820. The brief highlights are that it’s now 12 speed and that, by using Shimano’s Microspline cassette, it can now offer a 10T smallest sprocket to give a bigger top gear (or a…
Fresh Goods Friday 666 – The Number of the Wee Beastie
Welcome to Fresh Goods Friday, number six hundred and sixty six! There’s obviously only one tune that can start off this instalment – so make sure your office speakers are turned up full for maximum workplace embarrassment. And the ‘wee beastie’ bit is in honour…
Singletrack World Issue 150 Editorial
It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to issue 150 of Singletrack World Magazine. Whether you’re a new reader in print or online (or both), or an old hand who’s been around since our first issue back in 2001, I’d like to thank you…
Issue 150: Chipps’ Summer Ridewear
Chipps gives his top kit tips for those summer weeks (or foreign trips) where the temperatures hit ‘scorchio’ and beyond. I’ve had a long-running debate with American (mostly Californian and Coloradan) bike, clothing and shoe designers about designing mountain bike gear that only works in hot, dry lands, as they clearly have no…
Fresh Goods Friday 665 – The foreign food edition
Iiiiiit’s FRIDAY! And no matter how often it rolls around and how predictable it is, you’re never quite sure that it’ll actually arrive until it does, all casual Friday-style and all. And here, in a cycling-filled frenzy, is Fresh Goods Friday! This has been a…
Chipps With Everything: The Current State of Grit, Gravel and Bikepacking
It’s definitely a good time to be into gravel, ‘cross or drop-bar off road bike riding. Nearly all of the manufacturers, big and small were showing drop-bar bikes intended for the wide-ranging needs of gravel riders – from dropper-posted, suspension-forked gravgnar bikes, to sleek, aero…
Fresh Goods Friday 661 – The Hard Lining Edition
It's Red Bull Hardline weekend! And it's looking like it might be a terrifyingly wet one. Good luck to all the racers giving it their best.
Chipps with Everything: 2023 Eurobike Highlights
Chipps brings you a curated tour of the eye-catching highlights of this pivotal European trade show.
FARA F/Gravel Bike Review
FARA is a small bike company based in Oslo, Norway which was set up in 2015 by Jeff Webb, a Canadian ex-pro racer and it (currently) offers three styles of drop-bar bikes: a road bike, an ‘adventure’ road bike and the one I’ve had on…
Editorial: Work up to the widdly bits
Chipps reminds us not to try to skip to the end... When I was about 16 I borrowed an electric guitar from a friend, with the usual teenage ambitions of becoming a rock star in the ensuing weeks. Obviously, this still hasn’t happened… I already…
Interview | Rob Warner: ‘Look At The Time!’
Chipps quizzes Rob Warner, on lucky breaks, World Cup racing and how commentating saved him from himself. Words & Photography Chipps CAUTION, CONTAINS ALL OF THE SWEARS. NORMALLY WE TONE DOWN THE ODD BIT OF SWEARING IN INTERVIEWS SO AS TO NOT OFFEND MORE SENSITIVE…
Fresh Goods Friday 651 – The C-Word Edition
Regardless of where you stand on the whole divine right to rule over a nation of subjects whilst wearing a really heavy bling-bling hat, we can all agree that an extra Bank Holiday is nothing to be sniffed at.
A close look at Classified Powershift. Two-by is back!
The Classified Powershift system revolves around a two-speed hub, made in Belgium, that is electronically shifted by a remote shifter.
Issue 148 Editorial: Every ride is like an individual snowflake
What is it that sets our sport apart from most of the other sports/hobbies/lifestyles out there? After all, some people don’t even think that mountain biking is a sport anyway. While the cross-country tip of it has some Olympic cred, it doesn’t pop into your…
Fresh Goods Friday 648 – Sort It Out Edition
Enough with the chocolate, it's time for everyone's favourite end-of-the-week shiny bits showcase: Fresh Goods Friday!
grit.cx 2023 Tour of Flanders Gallery
Chipps reports from a chilly Belgium at last weekend’s Tour of Flanders. Ahead of an influx of new content for grit.cx, I thought it’d be good to have a gallery from last weekend’s Tour of Flanders to get you in the off-road, drop-bar mood –…
Fresh Goods Friday 647: Bank Holiday Bonanza!
Spring arrived earlier this week, and what a treat it has been. How have you chosen to use all that extra daylight? I have spent it taking a longer way into work, baking trail treats, going lamb spotting, counting goose eggs and avoiding llamas. So…
Spy Shot – New Specialized Bike Spotted In Banyoles
Specialized debuted a secret new cross country race bike this weekend
Issue 147 Editorial: Best Foot Forward
Admission time… I’m a secret, or perhaps ‘recovering’ left-hander. That is to say I write and use a mouse with my left hand, but apart from that I’m basically right-handed. I play guitar right-handed. If I played racquet sports or golf, I’d do it right-handed. I still rely on my left…
International Adventure: New Kids Sur Le Bloc
For my part, I have moved with my wife Beate to a little place called Fuilla, in the southeastern Pyrénées-Orientales – about as far south as you can get in France. It’s a sleepy village of 450 people at about 600m altitude, sitting in a wide, grassy valley…
The Cobble Wobble Returns!
Frome Cobble is a ‘World Famous’ bicycle hillclimb sprint up 179 yards of a steep, cobbled hill in the heart of Frome, Somerset. With the narrowness of the streets, the backdrop of 17th century buildings and a cheering crowd packed along the full length of…
Fresh Goods Friday 637: The Warranty Edition
This in the 'kin-tro... A bit like the flippin-tro but just that little bit coarser. Because we all just want to go out and ride our ATBs today, let's dive straight into FGF!
7Mesh WTV Chilco Jacket review
7Mesh WTV Chilco jacket (‘Wind, Thermal, Ventilation’) is a big new thing from top-notch clothing company.
Issue 146: Editorial – We Are Not Alone
Chipps encourages us to get to know our ride-group neighbours. As a reasonably feeble and glasses-wearing schoolboy, I was never great at ball games and was usually among the last to be picked for school sports teams. Imagine my delight when I later discovered mountain…
Issue 146: In Praise of Petrichor
Mountain biking smells aren’t just of damp shoes and disappointment. There’s joy to be found in the company of a good trail nose. Words by Chipps, photography by Mark Do you remember your first off-road ride? Of course you do. Those tend to be burned…
Fresh Goods Friday 630: Behind The Radiator Edition
The orange-chested robin redbreast is called redbreast because there was no English word for the colour orange until the 16th century.
The Bicycle Academy Closes Its Doors
After ten years of teaching framebuilding, designing and selling frame jigs and generally being a force for good for British framebuilding, the West Country’s Bicycle Academy has closed its doors. In its goodbye announcement, below, founder Andrew Denham and the other workers there, cited a…
Singletrack World Issue 145: Editorial
Chipps is in the flow zone… just don’t tell him. Been ‘in the zone’ lately? Have you achieved ‘flow state’? Perhaps you have; perhaps it’s something you’ve only glimpsed once or twice, or it might be something you’ve never heard about. ‘Flow’ is something that…
Issue 144 Editorial : No More Crashing?
On floors, that is… but why not? I’ve been a serial chancer/cheapskate/ ‘economic lifestyle enthusiast’ for years, especially when travelling. I’ve been that guy who phones up someone I met ten years ago, saying ‘Hi! Remember me? No? Well, we met in a hotel bar in…
Issue 144: Zippity Doo-Dah
Zippity Doo-Dah Chipps would like to lead you in praise of the humble cable tie. Words Chipps Photography as credited Every mountain bike guide seems to have two different tool rolls and two different first aid kits. The first kit, marked clearly with ‘Tools’ will…
10 most eyebrow-raising things seen at Eurobike
Chipps reflects on the best, worst and out-there inventions of the 2022 Eurobike Show (his 25th visit!) and the bike industry in general.
