A few weeks ago, I posted my very first trail video to Reddit. Very exciting, right? Admittedly, I asked everyone to give me tips to get better, but I was pretty comfortable on that trail so I didn’t think there would be too many suggestions. Well, actually, no! As it turns out, one of my […]

I must say a word about fear. It is life’s only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unnerving ease. It begins in […]

Mike is away in Paris and wont be able to post today, but in the meantime here is an old video of me riding my trusty Banshee Rune down some of my favourite local trails. Do you have a fun MTB video that you want to show off on The Mountain Bike Life? Just click […]

My name is Ryan Simonovich, I am 16 years old and I race mountain bikes. Mountain biking is a very non-traditional sport in most high schools across the United States. My school doesn’t have a mountain biking team, but that doesn’t mean I can’t race. I am proud that I was a part of the […]

Till 2006 I had a a Rocky Mountain Rail cross bike. Unfortunately it finally tapped out with a cracked right side chain stay. And after moving towns in 2007 and picking up a 29er in 2008. Kind of forgot about replacing the Rail for 3 years. With ever increasing road riding as well as looking […]

In my last few Introduction to Downhill racing posts (part 1 and part 2), I tackled some of the basic questions about downhill racing. Now we’re going to dive into the nitty gritty. Let’s talk about something that’s very important but I rarely see addressed, and that is the subject of race practice. The following […]

I’ve mentioned before the challenge of learning to ride in an area with a very steep learning curve. To learn steadily as a beginner requires trails that boost all three riding factors together – skills, fitness and confidence. When your local trails jump from a (boring) to d (no can do), it’s hard to gain […]

I have been riding mountain bikes for around 26 years now, I have seen trends come and go and every time a new product is released it’s touted as the best thing since the last best thing. I don’t want to get all “well back when I started it was different” but it really was, […]

We’ve all been there – bombing down that beautiful technical single-track, hopping over everything you can, carving perfect lines through the corners, getting ready to pedal your way over that big root and… Nothing. Nothing more than your yells of frustration and, as was often the case for me, pain. What happened? Why didn’t it work!? Yep, […]

While we were picking up my Dad’s first new bike in probably 25 years (a slick bianchi road bike to replace his custom-made-from-used-parts college road bike), he began reminiscing, “You know, I can remember each bike I’ve had throughout my life very distinctly.  And how I felt when I got that bike.  Much more vividly […]