Photochromic sunnies for all your riding glasses needs?
Mark Alker
Mark has been riding mountain bikes for over 30 years and co-owns Singletrack, where he's been publisher for 25 years. While his official title might be Managing Director, his actual job description is "whatever needs doing" – from wrangling finances and keeping the lights on to occasionally remembering to ride bikes for fun rather than just work. He's seen the sport evolve from rigid forks to whatever madness the industry dreams up next, and he's still not entirely sure what "gravel" is. When he's not buried in spreadsheets or chasing late invoices, he's probably thinking about his next ride.
Singletrack Editor Interviewed On BBC Radio Leeds
Today at 2pm. Listen live as it happens here The One On One programme airs at 2pm and is an hour long spot lead by Nick Ahad. The programme states that it is dedicated to ‘the great and the good of Yorkshire’. Chipps is today’s…
Updated: Stolen Trek Madone Spotted at Ride London Event
Police are looking for the rider of a bike reported stolen hours before it was snapped by an official event photographer
Issue 83: Islabikes Beinn 29
Isla added the Beinn 29 to the range because lots of parents who’d bought her age-specific bikes wanted a bike of the same quality for themselves.
Issue 83: Surly Krampus
We often wonder how mountain bikes might have looked if they’d been designed from ground zero rather than having a junkyard heritage of rescued beach cruisers dictating most things. How large would the wheels and tyres have been? How much suspension would they have had?…
Issue 83: Pivot Les
The Pivot Les (see what they nearly did there?) is partly here to show that a fixed blade fork can be plugged into any hardtail. Okay, the Les isn’t just any hardtail. It’s the first cross-country trail hardtail produced by Arizona suspension masters Pivot Cycles.
Has Contour Cameras Gone Bust?
Doors are locked on employees at the Seattle based versatile video camera company.
Singletrack Contributor and Forum Regular Writes A Novel
John Metcalf, sometime writer of travel features in the pages of Singletrack has told us he’s written a book and unusually it’s not a travel book or a guide to here and there – No, this is a proper work of fiction. An actual Novel.…
Singletrack Nominated In 3 Award Categories
It's awards time once again and we've just heard that we've been nominated in three categories in this year's Bikebiz awards.
Giant Trance X 29er 1 Long termer
A couple of months in, how's Sanny getting on with his Trance X 29er
The ST Video Archive
Inspired by the the fact the most popular search term in our recent Wiggle Mountain Mayhem rider gallery was ‘crash’ we were reminded of some of the videos we had tucked away in our Vimeo archive
Trek Remedy 29r
Mark traveled to Sedona, Arizona to continue his journey into the erosion of all his anti-29r excuses.
New Bontrager Wheelworks Rhythm Elite & Comp Wheels
About to hit the shops are these all new wheels from Bontrager Wheelworks
Bontrager Rhythm Elite Wheelset – 30 Second Interview
With just 30 seconds on the clock it's tough to fit everything in but that's all we gave Michael Browne
New ‘Hinged’ SE4 Tyre from Bontrager
We sent Mark to find out where our summer has gone. As part of his research he went to Arizona and called in at the home of Frank Stacy, designer of all things tyre like and Bontrager labelled.
Wiggle Mountain Mayhem 2013 – Course Preview
Mountain Mayhem has been a regular June resident at Eastnor Deer Park for 9 years but this year it has moved ever so slightly east to Gatcombe Park
Canyon Nerve AL 8.0
In the UK you buy Canyon bikes via mail order. Whether you agree with the concept of direct sales bikes or not, they aren’t going to go away. There's only going to be more and more brands following this business model.
Singletrack Enduro 6 2013 – Results
The sun shone. There was dust! It got really quite warm and there were more than a few new twists in the course at Catton Park.
Situation Vacant: Art Director
Come and work for us! The most creative position at Singletrack towers is now up for grabs.
Issue 81 Wallpaper and GPX File
Wallpaper images and route guide files made exclusively available to our subscribers
Throwback Thursday 3: The Steve Worland Interview.
Back to the sunny summer of 2003, when we interviewed bike industry veteran, Steve Worland for issue 10 of Singletrack Magazine
Singletrack Breaks 1 Million Threshold
Over 1 million unique users visited Singletrackworld in the last month according to Google
New Year, New Free Gift with a Sub
Subscribe to Singletrack and get a free Charge Spoon Saddle worth £25
Burry Stander Killed In Vehicle Collision
South African and Olympic mountain biker Burry Stander has been killed in a road accident involving a taxi while out on a training ride.
Mudtrek & Bionicon Launch Trail Test Centre
If you’ve ever wanted to have a proper test ride on a Bionicon with it’s on-the-fly geometry adjust control and see what it’s like to switch from steep climbing goat to a downhill slacker at the push of a button, then now you can. MudTrek…
Free Sub For Your Mate – £5 For You
If you are a Print & Digital subscriber you should have spotted a special postcard that we inserted in every subscribers copy of Issue 77
Subscribe And Get Free Trail Centre Guide Book
Here's a fantastic extra reason to join the ranks of thousands of Singletrack subscribers. Plus we've a great deal for existing subscribers too.
Subs Deals – What are we playing at?
Mark tries to explain why we offer freebies to new subscribers and what it is we are trying to achieve
From Road.cc: Phil Liggett Reckons MTB and BMX are an Olympic joke
Veteran cycling commentator Phil Liggett has risked the wrath of BMX and mountain biking fans by suggesting that those events should not be at the Olympics.
Hurricane Components Fork Up Adaptor
In our Thule 561 Outride review in Issue 75 we explained how you have to remove the entire locking mechanism in order to fit the supplied thru-axle adaptor. That’s all fine if all you are ever going to carry on your roof is thru-axle bikes.…
Thule 591 ProRide Roof Rack
Issue 75 features our review of the Thule 891 Slide Bars and the 561 Outride Racks. We also tested this 591 ProRide rack too. The best way to make sure your bike is compatible with a roof rack is to pick a frame mounting version…
Mavic Crossmax SX wheelset
My only previous experience with Crossmax was a set of ceramic, V-brake rim SLRs bought for fifty quid from a mechanic I worked with some years back. They were light, accelerated like crazy, made a strange, hollow rumbling noise off-road and paid absolutely no attention…
Wiggle Mountain Mayhem – Searchable Results
Our tech guys have prodded and poked the spreadsheets and coaxed the numbers into a handy searchable database
Industry Interview: Bike Verbier
Bike Verbier launched their first holidays at about the same time Singletrack published mag number one. We wanted to know how the last decade had gone for the couple who turned their hobby into a business.
UK MTB Hall Of Fame – The First Inductees
The first 12 inductees of the UK MTB Hall of Fame can now be revealed.
Singletrack Are Media Pioneers
Singletrack picks up another award. This time from the Specialist Media Show
Bionicon C-Guide V2
Bionicon have revisited the old DCD and given it a rather clever revamp for the new generation of chainslippers
Garage Bikes 1st Birthday Party
Garage Bikes in Leeds is celebrating its 1st birthday this Saturday 21st April and as a Singletrack premier dealer they will be offering more than just a slice of birthday cake. There’s 10% off EVERYTHING in the shop for a start for all Saturday customers,…
Issue 72 – Why the big changes?
Issue 72 will be a landmark issue for us. Why are we changing? Mark reveals some of the grand plan
Premier Interbike: Mark’s Blog
Interbike is over and we are just killing time for a day before we fly back to the UK. For Chipps this was Interbike number 17, for Jon it was his first. I’ve now done three. Vegas is an amazing city, but don’t let the…
Premier Interbike 2011 – Devinci 1st Impressions – UPDATED
Jon took a Devinci Dixon and an Atlas 29r out for a rider around the desert. Here, for our Premier subscribers are his thoughts on both. UPDATE: Close up image gallery now added! A Premier Sub costs just £2/month via visa/debit card and you can…
Interbike 2011 – Premier Video Diary 2
Just for our Premier users here’s Interbike 2011 Video Diary part 2 with Jon and Chipps’ highlights of day 2 in the desert.
Interbike 2011 Day 1 Premier Video (and a glimpse behind the scenes)
A brief introduction for our Premier users to what Interbike is about and some choice words from Surly (by which we mean some sweary stuff – so be warned! Keep the volume down if you are at work briefly – we’ve stuck a warning in…
Up The Buttress – A Hebden Bridge Hill Climb Event – FINAL UPDATE “The Rules”
Looking for Up The Buttress 2013? Update: Write-up and results here Calling All Calderdale Hill Climbers! FINAL UPDATE: THE RULES! If you are entering on the day please register between 12pm and 1pm RULES Helmets must be worn and bikes must have two working brakes.…
Day 5: The GORE BIKE WEAR® TransWales 2011, powered by Mercedes-Benz Vito Sport
Day five took the riders from Machynlleth to Cwmystwyth, some 73km and 2300m of climbing south the fifth linking stage struck out towards the fourth special stage at Nant-y-Arian.
