It’s easy to buy a bike from a shop (or online), hit the trails and assume everything is how it should be – but there’s always room for improvement. Regular maintenance, once you've got your setup sorted, is essential too.

If you’re new to mountain biking, then the following tips will help you improve your bike setup and keep it working smoothly, without spending a lot of money on doing so.

1. Adjust your gears – they should shift, not skip

Naturally, the gears on cheaper bikes won’t shift as smoothly or quickly as those on more expensive options, but they should still shift accurately. If your gears aren’t staying in the right place, t...

Lots of things conspire to destroy bike frames of all kinds but the one that we cyclists worry about with steel bikes is rust, so that's we’ll look at. most modern frames are some variant of "Cromoly" steel. That means that the steel (iron and carbon) has been alloyed with Chromium and Molybdenum. Older bike frames (say, from the 1970s or earlier) tend to be "Hi-Tensile" or "Mild" steel, both of which are just basically iron and carbon. Chromium helps steel resist rust (if you alloy with enough Chromium, you have stainless steel) so modern frames are a lot less sensitive to moisture than older ones.

That said, if cromoly gets wet and stay...

When it comes to mountain bikes these days it seems like everything is getting more complicated and technical. While these new complications are often for the better, because they make our parts stronger, more adaptable, and often lighter weight, they can bog us down mentally and take some of the simple fun out of riding. This is where 1X or single chainring drivetrains come in. The concept isn’t totally new, but these days there are quite a few modern products that make running a single ring drivetrain a lot more easy to set up and ride efficiently.

Why would I want to run a 1X Drivetrain?

Lightweight – By getting rid of the front shift...

But first we must step back and realise that the bicycle itself is a fairly complex machine in its own right. The first bikes were created thanks to the Industrial Revolution of the 1800s, and with their steel frames and rubber tires they simply couldn't have been developed a century earlier. 

Bicycles have continually been moving forward, with better materials appearing and improvements in components such as gears and brakes seemingly endless. Recently, high-tech electronic components have changed the way we ride as well. This has put cyclists on a type of hamster wheel, always chasing the new.

Just as people line up for the next iPhone...

Follow these tips with some resistance training over the winter to start next season healthier, stronger and better equipped to avoid injury.

1. Start slowly. Let your muscles adapt slowly to the new work load. Use lighter weights and don't push it. If you haven't lifted in a while, you will be establishing efficient neuro-muscular pathways as well as strengthening muscle. This period also helps to minimize the risk of injury by signaling the tendons and ligaments and well as musculature attachment areas to become more robust.

2. Synchronizing your lifting with your riding. This will ensure that you hit the appropriate workout with the a...

To install disc brakes, your bike needs to have IS or post mounts on the suspension fork. On the rear of the bike frame, you need to have the exact IS mounts. The calipers will be mounted to these mounts. Most recent bikes (from 2009) have been having these mounts already installed. To be disc brake compatible, your bike hubs need to have mounts for the disc brake rotors. These mounts are going to come in one of two different configurations. The most common of these is a 6 bolt mount on the hub body. If your bike does not have these mounts, then it will not be possible to install the disc brakes.

Before you start the installation process,...

If looks could kill…it’s a material world

The very first thing other cyclists or even non-cyclists would notice is the appearance of your bike. Some may even judge you based on the type/brand of bicycles you use. Sure, most of us will drool at the sight of the latest Pinarello Dogmas, Specialized S-Works Venge or Cervelo RCA but when was the last time you ‘wowed’ at a truly artistic marvel of a bicycle?

Although most might say beauty is only skin-deep, going custom really allows you to truly determine the geometry, colour, finish and even details of your two-wheeled machine. If you desire high-performing bicycles which are also mobile ar...

Above image: Dean Koh

Saddle selection is an area in the bike building process that should never be taken lightly. Choosing the wrong saddle will give you an uncomfortable ride or worse, cause impotence.

So many cyclists have spent hundreds of dollars trying to find the perfect saddle, manufacturers have resorted to providing a multitude of variants that attempt to meet cyclists’ needs.

A quick look at any saddle manufacturer’s website, and you will be bombarded with gel variants, cut-outs, plain carbon saddles, and even uniquely shaped ones.  Below are a few examples:

Above: Selle Italia Max SLR Gel Flow saddle (note the big cut-out...