For most of us the Mountain Bike Life is about more than throwing our leg over our favorite steed and shredding the local single track. The ride itself is the climax of the whole experience but there is plenty of foreplay and afterglow worth writing about.  Mapping out your next adventure, packing the right tools, […]

Unlike loose ball type bike parts like hubs and BB’s sealed bearings need a tool to get them in or take them out. Some will tell you need to spend a $100 on some special tool while others will say you don’t. In my time working in a now closed local bike shop I had […]

Pushing bikes through snow at 7,800 feet in mid-April didn’t come as a surprise – that’s the gamble we took going to Reno/Tahoe this past Easter.  The yearning for warm sunshine and drier trails trounced doubts that Lady Luck wouldn’t be on our side. The online chatter was all about the unusually low snowpack this […]

I have to admit this whole Enduro thing has been beaten down pretty hard. Enduro this and Enduro that, but frankly, I love it. Call it what you want, but the premise of Enduro is perfect and fits my personality well. I am one of those, struggle to the top, bomb to the bottom type […]

The Sea Otter Classic was held last weekend in Monterey, California. For those who don’t know, the Sea Otter Classic is four day cycling festival with a huge expo, racing, and gran fondos. This is one of the largest cycling gathering in North America, and I am lucky enough to live only about an hour […]

Dropper posts are one of the hottest products in the mountain biking industry. They vary in price ranges starting at around $250 for the cheapest ones, up to around $600 for the top end. But what if you are on a frugal budget? For instance, you might have an inexpensive $500 – $700 bike. Spending […]

If you remember the MacGyver TV star from the late ‘80s, you know he could fix anything with what ever was at hand along with his knife and duct tape. My husband has a knack for MacGyverying and this has come in very handy for those unpredictable mechanicals on the trail. Way back in the […]

While many bike upgrades are often just for cosmetic reasons and others offer some added comfort; some upgrades can genuinely make a huge difference of how well you ride. When I started looking around for ways to improve my bike, one of the first things that I looked up were air forks. I was not […]

As mentioned in Part One of this journey I decided over the winter to build up a Monstercross bike instead of a Cyclocross. And the  base frame I was using was a 29er frame. And this would be a build that would evolve over time as mileage was put on. And one must acknowledge that with the […]

Packing Big and Packing Light are no longer mutually exclusive. Gearing up for those big summer rides demands the proper pack for the job. Many of the High Country rides here in Colorado are remote enough to be very very far from help should one need it. Even something as mundane as a flat tire […]