If you want to buy that particular bike, then you buy that bike. We're not judging you (any more).
Editorial
Chipps’s introduction to each issue of Singletrack magazine. From random ramblings to musical metaphors for riding bikes.
Issue 164: Nowhere To Hide
Tom Simpson is not sure about the minimalist, clutter-free design of new bike shops.
Singletrack Issue 164: Editorial
Explore why too much bike—and too much bravado—might leave you flying alone. Read on and question your limits!
Issue 163: Every. Single. Rock
Chipps wonders just how well you know your favourite trail? It might be better than you realise
Issue 162: Good enough for ya?
Chipps reckons that bikes are good enough these days, aren’t they? But good enough for what?
Issue 161: Don’t Wait For The Next Disaster
Chipps urges us not to wait for the bad times to remind us what’s important.
Issue 159: Fitting In
Chipps encourages us to get (just a bit) fitter. Do you know any rowers? They’re a special breed, aren’t they? Up before dawn for a few lengths of the river or 15km on the rowing machine before breakfast. How about triathletes? Same modus operandi, right?…
Issue 156 Editorial – A curated taste
Chipps gets to put together a menu of rides. Does he start bold? Or subtle and build to a crescendo? I had some riders in the village this week. Not friends or friends of friends as is often the way, but four Brits who’d looked on a map to find somewhere they’d…
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…
Trail Tales: Midges
The midge can bring horror to the most perfect of days, and reduce rational beings to desperate evasive action. If you know, you know. If you think they’re just a bit like mosquitoes but smaller, you really don’t know. Thanks to our Forumites for this…
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 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…
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 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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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 143 Editorial: Local Secrets
Chipps wants to show you all of his favourite trails. Well, nearly all. We all know that there are no secrets any more. Every mountain has been discovered, every field, stream and hillside catalogued, and every vaguely wiggly forest track named and KOMed. It seems…
Issue 142 Editorial: Gambling With Choices
Chipps ponders those moments where the path you choose makes all the difference. We all like to think that we’re, to a greater extent, in charge of our own destinies. Those decisions we make every day propel ourselves towards some ultimate goal. Occasionally, though, life…
Editorial: The Eternal Suffering Of The Spoke
I was once on a Mavic press launch, somewhere in the French mountains. Our merry band of bike journalists was augmented by some of Mavic’s sponsored riders, including Jérôme Clementz and the flamboyant Frenchman Cédric Gracia. As we stopped for lunch at an outdoor café,…
Singletrack Issue 127 | Editorial – Wear sunscreen…
Words Chipps Now, how did those lyrics go again? “Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old And when you do, you’ll fantasise that when you were young Prices were reasonable, politicians were noble And children respected their…
Singletrack Issue 126 | Editorial – There is no right or wrong…
Words Chipps How is it that I can love listening to a particular band, yet my friend hates them? Or that I can dislike food that is someone’s favourite dish? Or that I can laugh at a comedian who barely raises a titter from others…
Singletrack Magazine Issue 125 | Padded With Knowledge
Words Chipps There’s a fresh sign that’s recently popped up on a bridleway near me. It’s at a road junction between a very minor road and a bridleway. The bridleway in question is flat tarmac for the first 500m until it goes past the end…
Singletrack Magazine Issue 124 : Editorial
The wider we travel, the more narrow our focus… Words Chipps It’s been said that travel broadens the mind. If you expose your mind to new experiences, new places and people, you will find that your understanding of the world at large is brought into…
Singletrack Magazine issue 124 : Last Word
hannah blind. Will following half-heard directions in the woods lead to peril? Or pleasure? I’m following directions that are little more than a rumour: ‘Through the horse gate, turn right at the fallen tree, push up past the puddle, to the top, where two trails…
Singletrack Magazine Issue 122 : Editorial
finding your place Words hannah Chipps is away. He’s off on sabbatical to what he calls ‘his favourite place in the world’: Moab, Utah. Now, I’m not going to argue with him – Moab is probably wonderful, and there are some ancient petroglyphs there that…
Singletrack Magazine Issue 123 : Editorial
Greasing Out Words Chipps Daz was our ride leader for the evening, so he got to deliver the pep talk at the top of the final descent – a rocky start with a rollercoaster grassy singletrack lower down that got faster. It was one of…
Singletrack Magazine Issue 123 : Last Word
adam batty a spotters guide to mountain bike groups. Finding new routes for rad rides is pretty simple nowadays. You have standardised signs and symbols that give empirical evidence to inform your choices. Elevation can be calculated. Distance can be measured. Headcam footage absorbed. Bleep…
Singletrack Magazine Issue 122 : Last Word
The Highland Heist Charlie the Bikemonger reveals his criminal past. Does ‘I was very tired’ count as a defence? You know what? Bikepacking can really change you. Around ten years ago I cycled with my two great friends Crashy Simon and Beardy Martin from the…
Singletrack Magazine Issue 121 : Editorial
Longer shortcuts. Words Chipps Out in the car, running errands on a Saturday lunchtime… the Council tip, the shops, the cheese stall on the market… The usual. Wondering why it takes half an hour to go eight miles – and that’s even before the temporary…
When did it all get so good? Chipps’ Issue 120 Editorial
I took a trip back in time recently, revisiting a place I used to ride when I was just starting out. Back then the mountain bike world was a rich, but obscure landscape. I’d not ridden in many places and I didn’t have many riding…
Singletrack Magazine Issue 118: Last Word
Train, Train Go Away Barney faces up to the inevitable: he’s not magically going to get fitter by doing nothing. It sits against one wall of the cellar, locked in by a barricade of old unused frames. Slowly collecting dust and detritus in the five…
Singletrack Magazine Issue 118: Editorial
Make The Moment Last Words Chipps I’ve never heard of Ben Hogan. I’d assumed that he was the lesser famous brother of Hulk, but apparently he was big in the world of golf. Apart from admiring the odd bunker lip for its take-off potential, and…
Singletrack Magazine Issue 118 : Last Word
barney marsh Train, Train Go Away Barney faces up to the inevitable: he’s not magically going to get fitter by doing nothing. It sits against one wall of the cellar, locked in by a barricade of old unused frames. Slowly collecting dust and detritus in…
Singletrack Magazine Issue 117: Editorial
Strength through respect Words Chipps 2017 saw car brand Porsche retire from endurance, Le Mans-style bike racing (it’s off to do fully electric racing). Rather than gloating about one of its rivals leaving the scene, Toyota used the opportunity to run a video thanking Porsche…
Singletrack Magazine Issue 116: Editorial
Pecking Orders Words Chipps I’ve always been interested in the interplay between riders out on a ride, or over a week of riding in the mountains. Mountain biking is a great leveller and it doesn’t matter what high-powered job you have, how famous you are…
Singletrack Magazine Issue 114: Last word
Words Chipps Event organisers and the cycle of abuse, forgiveness and eventual love. As well as writing about bikes and the people behind them, I’ve been involved in organising mountain bike events for 20 years or so. Since helping organise the very first Mountain Mayhem…
Singletrack Issue 1 Editorial – I’m old enough to know better
I’m old enough to know better… I should know better than to get together with a couple of friends to try and start a mountain bike magazine, published entirely with our own, limited funds – in a ‘flat’ cycling market. Only a fool or a…
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…