The Cotic Jeht trail bike propelled itself straight into a position as the UK brand’s most popular model, with sweet spot mid-travel suspension and sorted geometry. Although only lightly evolved,…
Guy Kesteven
Trek Supercaliber SLR 9.9 XX AXS Gen 2 review
Trek’s new Supercaliber is very much an evolution of the original ‘revolutionary’ design. As a result, it feels like a very sorted, balanced and predictable XC bike, its eagerness for…
Was the first combined Cycling/MTB World Championships a success? – MBR Opinion
UK riders put in fantastic performance to come away with Gold and Bronze medals in the DH and XC events at the MTB World Championships in Scotland this summer. Guy…
Cotic FlareMAX Gold XT first ride review
The first generation FlareMAX 29er was a down-country blueprint before the genre really became a thing. We ride the latest evolution, in Gold XT spec, to check out how Cotic…
GT Sensor Carbon Pro LE first ride review
So it’s been three decades since GT Bicycles was THE mountain bike suspension brand of choice, with its RTS, LTS and STS designs ridden to countless race and championship wins…
Off-piste trails: reckless vandalism, or the future of MTB?
Cheeky. Secret. Natural. Unsanctioned… Illegal? Whatever you want to call them, we nearly all ride these trails. They’re more prolific than ever and frankly, from a pure riding point of…
Have trail centres had their day?
Twenty years ago, purpose built trail centres were the bright new future of mountain biking. But how are they doing today, and are they still relevant when so many of…
What makes a bike fun to ride? Can you engineer ‘fun’ into a new mountain bike? What even is ‘fun’? Guy Kesteven tries to find an answer
Why is one bike ‘funner’ than any other? Fun is a massively overused word in bike testing because it’s an easy, throwaway comment about any bike that puts a grin…
Santa Cruz Tallboy CC X01 AXS RSV review
The Santa Cruz Tallboy is the short 120mm travel 29er but don’t let the travel numbers decieve you – this is a bike that’s designed to be aggressively fast, full-send…
Yeti SB120 T-Series T1 review
The top-line Yeti SB120 T-Series T1 is now longer, slacker and has more travel – as the name suggests. And it’s comfortably one of the best down-country bikes on the…
Pivot Trail 429 Pro XT/XTR review
Boasting low weight and impressive climbing efficiency, the Pivot Trail 429 Pro XT/XTR is a 110/130mm 29er built for trail riding. This is the top-spec model, which features Fox Live…
Is new always better when it comes to bikes?
Is new stuff all it’s cracked up to be? Veteran mountain bike journalist Guy Kesteven wonders whether bikes are good enough now to stop the constant churn. It’s not a…
Scott Spark RC World Cup AXS first ride review
“Hey mate, that E-bike is really quiet”. Not once. I had that comment three times on one ride. Okay, so a Saturday afternoon at Cannock Chase isn’t the World Cup…
Whyte T-140 RS first ride review
Whyte’s new T-140 RS 29er plugs a very obvious mid-travel, big-wheel hole in the range of the UK brand. And it does so with an outstandingly sorted, ‘favourite from the…
Cervelo ZHT-5 Race first ride review
While mountain bike brands are jumping shark to launch new gravel models and tap into a new market for dirt bikes, renowned road bike marque, Cervelo, is swimming against the…