Issue 135

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Issue 135 Cover – Pete Scullion

The master of the brooding sky and awesome light, Pete Scullion, brings us this issue’s cover. With the rider perfectly timed and positioned in front of the sun – or is it a passing comet on a far flung otherworld where two suns offer perpetual daylight for the lucky mountain biking lifeforms?

Classic Ride – Reeth

The original idea for this Classic Ride was to try to find something as close as possible to Barnard Castle, for reasons we can’t quite remember. Alas, things didn’t quite work out that way, so instead Barney went to Reeth. Which is quite near to Barnard Castle. Nearer than London, anyway.

Pete’s Pros – Jamie Edmondson

Getting dropped from the Seagrave’s set up doesn’t seem to have done Jamie any harm, having bagged an U21 EWS and an Elite DH podium this year. What will 2021 and beyond hold for this rising star?

Kit Essentials – Pumps

You need a pump. In fact, you probably want two – a big one for home and a little one for on the trail. Check out the pumps that keep us rolling and stop us feeling flat.

The Seatpost Guy

Barney goes to visit The Seatpost Guy. If you’ve forgotten to lube your seatpost, he’s the guy you need – through some sort of sorcery he can remove your seatpost without damaging your frame. Barney takes various truth serums and spells with him on his quest to find out the secret that’s more closely guarded than the recipe for Coke.

Tour de Ben Nevis

Sanny has good reasons not to go to the top of Ben Nevis, but going round it doesn’t seem like such a bad idea for a summer’s day ride.

If At First You Don’t Succeed…

The source of our cover image, and with enough glorious shots to adorn a whole year of magazine covers, Pete reflects on a route that kept defying him and weighs up whether it’s better to give up when you’re ahead, returning again (and again) another day.

New Year, New Bike?

We test three bikes from Ibis, Orange and Revel which are newly available on our shores. All in the ‘ride up and down’ category. All in the ‘more than a little bit but less than a lot of travel’ category. How do you choose when bikes are this good?

New Zealand Trucking

How do you get into the middle of nowhere, before heading off to the edge of nowhere on your bike? One option looks like you trade off effort and replace it with terror. Tony Hutcheson and Jamie Nicoll go exploring, New Zealand style.

Riding the Iron Curtain

With travel further afield off the menu, Markus Stitz takes a trip back to his childhood home of East Germany, for what turns out to be a thought provoking tour of this former borderland.

Riding Solo

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