Linking stage three Clun to Llanidloes Total distance: 70km Climbing: 2050m Day three of the GORE BIKE WEAR® TransWales, powered by Mercedes-Benz Vito Sport may have dawned with a drizzle of H2O from above at the day’s start in Clun, but it finished with blue…
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.
Blame The Dog – Our First eBook
Mike Ferrentino has done everything in the bike industry from spanner in a workshop to editing one of the World’s most popular bike mags. He’s now working for Santa Cruz Bikes in the marketing department (Marketing being one of his most popular subjects on which…
Mountain Mayhem 2011 – Rider Gallery
If you were there and you can remember your race number then there’s a reasonably good chance you will find yourself in our rider gallery. We took 1700+ shots of riders over the weekend and after some intensive and very boring tagging we’ve got them…
CRC Investigates Possible Link With Card Fraud Reports
An official statement from Chain Reaction Cycles about recent events...
Issue 61 – Extra Features
Issue 61 will shortly be on sale in lots of places but if you are Premier Subscriber then you can access all the extra features that we’ve stuffed into the digital versions right here. Bike Test – 2011 Bikes Three bikes get the Singletrack treatment…
Nicolai Helius AC – Part Deux
So, the initial build was ok but it needed some changes if I was going to take it to Morzine for a week. The 69degree head angle was fine with the Fox Talas 32s but the 32s were not enough for some of the brake…
Issue 60 – Extra Features
Issue 60 is now on sale in lots of places but if you are Premier Subscriber then you can access all the extra features that we’ve stuffed into the digital versions right here. Bike Test – British Steel Three bikes get the Singletrack treatment this…
Come work with us!
We are looking for the right person to join us here at STHQ as our Subscriptions Manager.
Issue 59 – Premier Extras
Issue 59 is now available as a digital download or to read in your Browser to all Premier Digital users. There’s a few extras we’ve put in to this issue and they are listed below for all Premier Users to access. Premier users make sure…
Singletrack and the iPad
Got and iPad? Combine it with a Premier Digital subscription to Singletrack and use it to access 43 current and back issues of Singletrack mag.
Singletrack Weekender 2010 – Final Details
The site will be open for camping from 6pm on Friday 2nd July. You can park in the car park at the bottom of the hill but you can’t take your vehicle into the quarry. There will be a landrover on hand to help with…
Cannondale 2011 – Over Mountain?
We went to see Cannondale's 2011 product launch 6000 feet up a mountain in Utah
Go Premier! Get A Free T-shirt
We've got 200 Spoke Shirt T-shirts to give away to all new Premier Print & Digital Extra subscribers.
A Touch Of Class (Premier Content)
Our second gallery of extra shots from the Touch of Class feature in Issue 56
Issue 52 Extras – Reader Holiday Gallery 2 (Premier Content)
We’ve just sorted through another batch of pictures from our annual reader holiday week that didn’t make it into print. Can’t see the gallery? Click the link above for details on how to upgrade to a Premier Account. Already a subscriber to the print mag?…
Reader Week Gallery – Issue 52 Extras (Premier Content)
In July FlowMTB.com hosted our annual Reader Holiday in Morzine. We ran the story of what happened in Issue 52 of Singletrack but as usual the majority of pics we came back with didn’t make it into print. Here is the first gallery of extra…
The Joy of Filth – Issue 53 Extras (Premier Content)
Our Joy of Filth feature in issue 53 consisted of a collection of thoughts from a range of riders but as is often the way with print we weren’t able to publish the whole collection in print. But that’s what our Premier Accounts are for!
Premier Accounts – The future of publishing?
It’s a bit of a long one this.. Sorry Premier Accounts are our answer to the growing and rather worrying trend in the publishing industry for people to stop buying magazines and newspapers. It’s an odd phenomenon because if you ask people if they prefer…
International Basque Force – Issue 53 Extras (With Premier Content)
A large gallery of shots we couldn't use from our International Basque Force travel feature in Singletrack magazine issue 53. Contains extra content for Premier Users.
Cotic BFe – Cycleshow Video Interview
Cy shows Mark around the all new Cotic BFe in our Cycleshow sitting room studio
18bikes Custom Steel – Cycle2009 Video
18bikes popped in to our sitting room to tell us about their new custom steel service 🙂
Cotic Soul Video Interview
Cy Turner from Cotic Cycles was the first person to be interviewed in our northern sitting room studio at the Cycle Show.
Interbike Video Diary 5
Camelbak’s new UV Water Purification bottle and a new rack from Thule that we really liked a lot.
Interbike Video Diary 4: Surly
We love the Surly guys. They have a slightly more laid back approach to what they do.
Cannondale ‘Simon’ at Interbike 2009: Video Diary 3
In the absence of any really groundbreaking product launches from the bike industry (most of it was done at Eurobike it seems) Cannondale have today told us they have invented the next phase in the evolution of suspension. It’s an electronic suspension control system. Mark…
Interbike 2009: Video Diary 2
Interbike is a trade only show, which means only people with some (often vague) connection to the bike industry get to go. So here’s a bit of quick helmetcam footage from our GoPro cam of the main arena at the Dirt Demo show that takes…
Interbike 2009 – Day 1 Video Diary
Mark and Chipps ride bikes, try on sunnys and get all excited about half a bash ring and thixotropic jelly. The bike Mark was riding was this one… It’s the Kona Dawg Deluxe and for 2010 it comes with a few tweaks that have resulted…
Shimano Anti Doping Statement
Watch out dopers! If you get caught Shimano will be round to strip your bike of bits
Road Bike Mayhem
Road bikes at Mountain Mayhem? Surely not!
How far away are they?
After a day of mucho rainio and excellentio trailsio yesterday on the hills above Irun…….imagine technical, rocky Lakeland trails and you’ll have a good idea of the type of riding we were doing, we were glad to waken up to normal service of blue skies…
El Scorchio Notio
Dias Uno in El Bigio Brotherio Housio! Arrived late last night to the rural B and B in an old converted farmhouse to find what seemed like a concerningly large double bed. While I’m in touch with my female side, the thought of Mark spooning…
Working hard in a Basque
Just arrived in Basque Country to stay with www.basquemtb.com. It’s me and Sanny here. Last time we both went on a biking trip together we were in Austria and it rained for most of the trip. It’s raining here. Hmmm. I’m quite tired at the…
Singletrack Reader Week – Video Diary 1
First day on the mountain above Morzine with a selection of the big bikes we took with us. A preview of the upcoming feature in issue 52 - out September 3rd
No Busman’s Holiday Thanks
Once a year I like to get away from it all. And by that I mean I like to have a week away from bikes! Now don;t get me wrong – I love bikes. I’d be in the wrong job if I didn’t, but to…
Lapierre 2010
Mark was invited out to Morzine see the 2010 range of Lapierre bikes. 2010 sees a mixture of simple colour changes and some substantial geometry changes across the more XC oriented bikes.
Singletrack EZ-up Stolen From Dalby Forest
Singletrack pop-Up shelter stolen from Dalby Forest. It's going to be expensive to replace but should be pretty easy to spot.
New Outdoor Bike Festival In The Works
What Tyres For Mountain Mayhem was not the only topic of discussion at last weekend's 24hr enduro. Organsiser Pat Adams gathered together brand managers from across the industry in the Singletrack marquee to begin a discussion process relating to his next big project.
Anodised Goodies Twittered
The guys from Fli Distribution just left our office after showing us a huge bag full of lovely, bright and anodised kit they are distributing far and wide to a bike shop near you. As the morning progressed we Twittered pictures to our Twitter feed…
Win £1000 of Bike Bits!
Win over £1000 of bike components by watching out for one of our special edition 50th anniversary posters in your local bike shop.
Comment on the comments
Is it me or are the people posting comments on our stories getting increasingly more negative and cynical? SRAM launch their 10 speed groupset and within minutes of Dave posting his report from the launch itself the comments are ‘what’s the point?’, ‘it’s all just…
Chicken Dance Extravaganza
Having been to Canada a couple of times to do mountain bike stuff with the help of the tourist boards over there, I’ve ended up on the mailing list of the Alberta Tourist Board. Usually I get press releases about new trails opening at one…
nPower just doubled our electricity bill
nPower have doubled our office electricity bill because we didn't write a letter to them in September to tell them we were switching suppliers in December, even though at the time we were quite happy with the rate we were paying them and didn't actually…
Twitter Ye Not!
Follow us on Twitter and you could win stuff we have lying around the office - This week we've got tyres, multi-tool, lock, pump and a bucket of energy to give away.
Statistics, swearing and those bloody ads again!
Swearing can be funny, stats are great but not when an insurance company gets hold of them to try and prove that cycling is dangerous and ads are here to stay and you need them as much as we do ultimately... No really!
Business as usual
The forum post frequency is returning to its pre Christmas level now, which is reassuring and I reckon a big indication of a return to normal service is the number of posts involving passioned and often irate posts about tiny, insignificant issues. It feels to…
Singletrack Issue 1 Editorial 2
GoFar is pleased to announce the birth of its successor. Well this is a bit of a leap isn’t it? From website to real mag. There’s a sort of inverse logic to all this. Magazines exist, then usually they sprout a token website full of…
