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Contents

7. Editorial Chipps ponders double chins on children vs the unique joy of hurting yourself with a bike.

8. Broken Blowing up spectacularly is something that only cyclists and a few long distance runners have in common.

18. Shenandoah 100 Jon Meredith pitches himself heart and soul against a 100 mile hilly bike race on the East Coast of the States. He loses, despite finishing.

26. One! Two! Go! Three! It’s shockingly easy to fool yourself into doing something foolish. And that’s a good thing, reckons Matt.

28. The Kindness of Strangers 14 hours of walking through streams with your bike in a remote bit of Morocco and now it’s getting dark. Now where can you turn for help?

34. Bonky the Clown It’s not just Sunday fun-riders that hit the wall. Professional racers bonk too – as entertainly explained by Joe Parkin.

37. Bike Test: 69ers Three 29in front, 26in rear wheel modern penny-farthings from Carver, Singular and Trek. You need to try one…

46. Minus 40 Meltdown No matter how prepared you are – riding 135 miles in the blistering cold is not a journey to be taken lightly – or it could be your last.

52. Gallery Who needs foreign sunshine? Five pages of uplifting images from our very own island.

58. Through the Grinder Six pages of clothing and components tested in our Pennine playground.

66. Minitest: Pop-Up Seatposts Seatposts that go down at the push of a switch are the future. Here are three of them from Crank Bros, Gravity Dropper and Pure Racing.

68. Return to Ukraine Tomasz Debiec takes us back to the gentle pace and huge scenery of the Ukraine – riding the wonderfully named Smooth Polonyna.

76. Blame the Dog The murder of nuance. Mike Ferrentino’s regular letter from America.

78. Fitness: Ride without blowing Matt Hart tells you how to correctly fuel your body to ward off exhaustion and what to do when it all goes wrong.

84. Head to Head: The carbon question. Mark looks at two carbon hardtails from Felt and Merida.

87. Grouptest: Disc Brakes Benji looks at five examples of he new power generation of disc brakes from Avid, Formula, Hope, Magura and Shimano.

94. Because It Hurts More Why do people race skinny tyred bikes off road when there are mountain bikes? Chipps uncovers the hidden world of cyclocross.

102. Thank You We know who you are and you know why. So thanks.

104. Long Term Test Bikes A peek into the staff bike shed reveals a lot of change for 2009.

108. Subscribe Go here to sign up to subscibe and ensure that you get the magazine delivered and take advantage of all the special subscriber-only offers.

110. Column: Roly Lambert Our Roly gets himself lost within sight of his house…

112. Competition - Win a spring makeover from 2Pure! Win £500 worth of gear to spruce yourself and your bike up ready for that spring sunshine.

114. Propaganda Sale now on! Books and jerseys are on discount for you here.

116. Route Guide: South Wales Here’s a route guide for the area near Cardiff that you always drive past in your rush to get to Afan. You should slow down and ride…

127. Outro Christmastime is always good for some off-duty blackmail photos of the team…

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