4|

Contents

Contents

7. Editorial Chipps is scared of missing out…

8. The Great Divide Jenn Hopkins raced 2,500 miles of the Rockies from Canada to Mexico and thrived to tell the tale.

16. Wet and Dry All it takes to cure the rainy-day blues is a mountain bike trip somewhere new – and a drying room.

24. Column: Matt Letch Matt celebrates those racers in the glorious bottom third of the results list.

26. Interview: Nick Larsen of Charge bikes. Time to face facts, mountain bikes just aren’t cool any more, and Nick’s trying to fix that.

33. Bike test: Widowmakers. Three big-hitting bikes to help you get yourself into trouble from Commençal, Kona and Specialized.

42. Singletrack Reader Awards Well, you voted for them, so find out who the winners are here.

44. Editors’ Choice We get to play with a lot of nice toys. But which products can’t we live without?

50. Through the Grinder A fresh crop of products dragged through a couple of months of autumn ‘sunshine’…

58. Baked Alaska – the Iditabike race. The Iditasport Invitational is a 300 mile mountain bike race in Alaska. In February! John Ross went from Bristol to below zero to race it.

69. Press Camp Shootout A light-hearted comparison of the different approaches companies take when launching new products to us journos.

76. Column: Jon Woodhouse Jon looks at the ways that many riders choose to handicap their riding – through lack of gears or excessive suspension.

78. Propaganda There’s JUST enough time to buy yourself nice Singletrack stuff for Christmas. Or leave this page open on the coffee table…

82. Grouptest: Helmets Everyone needs a helmet and we’ve got 15 of the latest lids from all over the place prodded and compared on different bonces.

92. Subscribe to Singletrack! It’s easy to do and subscribers now get even more benefits via Premier Membership of the Singletrack website.

94. Long Term Test Bikes It’s time to say goodbye to this year’s selection of long termers. Will we be sad to see them go? Or relieved?

100. Powerhouse Julien Happich volunteered to be a human hamster for the day and help power a house for a BBC programme using just leg power.

104. Column: Alex Leigh Why wear body armour? Why not ride better instead and not crash in the first place? asks Alex.

106. Blame the Dog – Mike Ferrentino. Our American columnist looks at the universal lack of a coherent cycling greeting.

108. The Big Welsh Ride Thing Inspired by events like the Great Divide Race, some STW forum members decide to try a much shorter version in mid-Wales.

116. Route Guide: Eastbourne. The south coast is home to endless miles of dusty, chalky singletrack. Or it was when Chipps was shown round.

126. Premier Club Here just are some of the benefits of subscribing to Singletrack or becoming a Premier forum member.

127. Outro The silly and stupid from this issue’s adventures and adventurers…