We’re becoming spoilt for choice with tyre options these days. Using the Bontrager line-up as an example, they have four different tread patterns within their cross-country line-up alone. Within each of these tread designs you can select between two or three different casing types. In total they list eleven different XC tyres which is multiplied even further by the varying width options—and that’s only the XC treads (they have separate downhill specific and gravity enduro lines).

Shimano claims to offer the widest range of cycling footwear on the world. From a MTB perspective this statement shouldn’t raise any doubts, in fact you’d pretty much expect it, as they were the first brand to create a truly functional clipless shoe and pedal system for off-road use. That was in the very early 90s and they’ve been at it ever since.

It’s only taken a few years for dropper seatposts to go from something that was seen as a gimmick, to an almost essential component on any mountain bike other than a pure XC racer. The extra clearance and confidence provided through fast corners and steep descents is very difficult to relinquish once you’ve had a taste.

Our first look at the M9000 XTR groupset and a test ride of the new M9050 Di2; their first MTB component group to use electronic gear shifting.

Lighting technology continues to march forward with new brands, models and features hitting the market—here’s a selection of the latest MTB lights for you to peruse.

It wasn’t that many years ago where mentioning the ubiquitous ‘E’ word meant you were about to put on some fluoro clothing, grab a glow stick or two, and head off to some obscure location for a barely memorable evening of ‘dancing’. Whilst the garish clothing colours remain the same, today’s hackneyed and clichéd ‘E’ word – enduro – conjures up images of a very different kind.

I still hold a clear memory from the mid-90s of foraging around in search of an old corflute for-sale sign. When faced with a muddy XC event, we would cut them up and zip-tie a piece to the underside of the down tube as a makeshift fender. To this day you can still buy them (called the Crud Catcher) and they certainly reduced the amount of crap that you’d cop in the face on a muddy ride—especially important for me as a special wearer.

Italian brand formula is best known for their brakes, but year or so ago they released their first suspension fork; the Thirty Three. It was a lightweight cross-country model offering 100-120mm of travel but it was only made to suit 26 and 27.5-inch wheels. This struck us as odd when the XC market is dominated by 29ers.

Race Face is not new to the carbon fibre crank game but for 2014 they’ve completely redesigned the top-end Next SL crank and introduced some really interesting features.

If you’re not familiar with its origins, the name ‘Honey Badger Pro’ might seem a bit like a late night drunken word jumble. As it happens, however, the Honey Badger (yes, it’s a real animal) is considered, kilo for kilo, to be the fiercest and most fearless creature on the planet.

Italian company Met has made some pretty outstanding helmets over the years; in fact their Kaos line was one of the first helmets available with more head coverage than a standard XC lid. To keep up with the rapid development of bikes and the faster, more aggressive riding they allow, they’ve recently added the Parabellum to their range.

High volume, tubeless ready, lightweight multi-compound rubber seems to be the order of the day for trail riders and Maxxis has combined all these ingredients in the High Roller II.

I’ve always mounted my GPS in the middle of the handlebar stem. It just seems tidier than fitting it to the bars and it leaves more space for other things, like lights for example. However, current trends towards longer top tubes and shorter stems make stem mounting a challenge; my current bike has a 50mm stem and there’s simply no room to fit a GPS. When I saw the Pro Mount Billet ‘Enduro Mount’, it looked like the ideal solution. Made from machined aluminium, it replaces your existing headset preload cap and sits the GPS conveniently on top of the stem.

In 2008 when Crank Brothers first released its wheel range with their radically different twin-pair spoke design, they got a lot of people talking; unfortunately the off-the-shelf freehub they chose to fit had a roughly one in six failure rate, so the talk wasn’t particularly good. In 2010 the hubs (and spokes) were redesigned and things definitely improved, but wheel weights and rim width remained a little behind the mark for a premium wheelset.

Not everyone has $800 to spend on super-high-end lights, so we tested a selection of good quality lights in the $200 to $400 price range—you don’t need a bank loan to hit the trails with confidence at night.

Some people get a bit worked up when it comes listening to music while riding. It’s often considered to be unsafe as you can block out surrounding noise; such as cars when you’re on the road or a rampant dirt moto that could collect you around the next turn. Others feel it detracts from the mountain biking experience; the bush, the birds and at times the silence that lets you solve life’s bigger big problems while you pedal.