Wide or light; take your pick. That’s the choice that mountain bikers have always been faced with when choosing wheels; until now, that is. Late last year German component experts Syntace released four new wheelsets with external rim widths varying from 25mm up to a whopping 40mm, and all with ridiculously light claimed weights.

When it comes to product design, Crank Brothers has built their name on doing things a little different. The first product they released was a unique telescopic tyre lever that pivoted around the wheel axle; called the Speedlever it was a bit of a hit back in 1997. Their real claim to fame came in 2001 with the launch of their distinctive Egg Beater pedal—a super-light and simplistic design that remains popular to this day.

Given the breadth of products and accessories produced by Shimano and its subsidiaries, it seemed only logical that at some point they’d add a cycling pack range to their line-up. That time has arrived, and after several years of R&D the Unzen pack and a range of other bags are hitting your local bike shop.

The Magellan Switch range of GPS-enabled ‘fitness devices’ are interesting little units. Designed around multi-sport athletes (as opposed to straight-out cyclists), there are four models in the range. The basic Switch models start from $219 and $279 with a heart rate strap. The Switch Up models ($329 with heart rate) will hold the greatest interest with MBA readers, as they are supplied with a bike mount as well as the regular wristwatch strap.

French brand Time’s ATAC (Auto Tension Adjustment Concept) pedals would have to be one of the most enduring products in the entire mountain biking world. They’ve been kicking around on the dirt since the 1990s, and in all that time they’ve gone through remarkably few changes, instead undergoing a steady process of evolution.

Winter isn’t far off and when it hits, a good set of lights may be just the ticket if you still want to escape for a mid-week MTB ride. Here’s a selection of the latest and brightest LED lighting systems for 2013.

Let’s get it out there from the beginning; these rims are expensive—bloody expensive. Think of how much a range topping alloy wheelset will cost, around $1,000 perhaps? Well that’s about the price of a single Enve rim—one rim, no hubs, no spokes! You can also purchase them as complete wheels built with DT Swiss 240 hubs and Aerolite spokes for around $3,500.

When it came to building my Enve rims, I wanted to use some high-quality lightweight hubs. While the obvious choice would be from DT Swiss or maybe American Classic, I was curious to try something a little different. German brand Tune specialises in really light gear and their hubs are offered in a broad range of spoke hole drillings (I wanted to run 28 spokes and some MTB hubs are only offered in 32-hole).

After five months on the trail, we take an in-depth look at this new single-chainring 11-speed group and see how it fares in the real world.

Simple clipless pedal designs (suchas those from Crank Brothers,Time and Look) have gaineda real following but some still prefer Shimano’s SPD retention mechanism. In 1990 Shimano kicked off the clipless pedal revolution for mountain bikers and their design follows similar lines to this day. SPD pedals use dedicated cleat retention plates with separate adjustable springs that allow you to vary the release effort.

Think of the Czech Republic and your mind may well drift to postcard-perfect images of Prague, the smell of warm soup with dumplings, or the moreish bitter taste of Pilsner beer on a warm afternoon. Mmmm, beer… Anyway, I digress; it’s also the home of rubber and tyre manufacturer Rubena, who are well established and highly regarded in central Europe despite being a newcomer to our shores.

Not to be confused with Formula Hubs (the big-time OEM supplier in Taiwan that just happens to have a similar logo), these wheels come from Formula in Italy—the long-standing disc brake specialist. Since 1993, Formula has focused their attention primarily on disc brakes, which are made in their Italian factory. Within the last year or so they’ve branched out and turned their attention to front suspension and wheels.

‘Trail’ seems to be the new industry catch phrase. It describes gear that’s more robust and functional than the weight weenie stuff but not full-on heavy like the downhill and freeride parts.

For general trail riding, dropper seatposts are probably the biggest game-changer of the last five years; after you use one it’s very hard to go back to a traditional seatpost—more and more riders are putting one on top of their upgrade list. Despite being one of the leading suspension makers, Fox have been a little slow in joining the uppy-downy party, having only just released their interpretation of the perfect dropper post—the DOSS.

Fox Float CTD In our last issue we offered some first impressions on the new 150mm travel Fox Float CTD fork. Now we’ve had time to give it a thorough flogging and found it to be a very different beast for 2013. For us the standout improvement came from their new ‘long travel air spring’, which features on all of their air forks from 130mm of travel and up. With this they’ve made the air volume much bigger, and as a result the spring rate is far more linear.

German brand Deuter have been making backpacks for longer than just about anyone—over a century in fact, and they’ve learnt a thing or two in that time. Their new Compact 10 and Compact 8SL packs are designed to carry all your gear for rides ranging from a few hours up to all day epics, and they are jammed with enough features to, well, fill a back pack. They both weigh in at a little over 1,000g and retail for about $150 without a hydration bladder. Deuter bladders come in various sizes and are available separately for around $60.