We think that 2013 has been a fantastic year here on Singletracks.com, and in particular we’ve published some awesome content here on the blog. But you know what the best part? We’ve had a ton of fun along the way!

In case you may have missed them, here are some (but not all) of the best articles that we’ve published over the past 12 months:

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The 2014 Salvo Expert 29er is one of Mongoose’s latest installments in their affordable-yet-capable lineup.

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I've written a new "About" page. You should check it out here.

While plenty of companies make comfortable camp chairs, Kelty does it right. Featuring solid construction, and comfortable ergonomics, the Lowdown is reasonably priced and super functional. Best of all? The Lowdown features an attached bottle opener, so you never have to wonder where your camp can opener is. Kelty knows what’s up.

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Sunglasses are a crucial piece of mountain biking gear, but they are guaranteed to wear out, break, or get left on top of the car over the course of time. Consider getting the rider in your life a new pair of shades. With quality shades ranging in price from $50 Tifosis or Ryders all the way up to $300+ Oakleys, you can easily spend as much as you want to spend on a gift of eyewear.

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In the past I was never much of a vest person; it seemed to me that they’re only useful for a very small temperature range. And while I still think the useful temperature range for a vest is very small, after using the Hincapie Arnberg Zero Vest, I now know why vests are the right tool for the job!

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My mother and brother flew into Denver International the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and as we waited for my sister to arrive on a later flight, we decided to make use of the beautiful 60+ degree Front Range weather and go for a hike! We wanted something scenic and entertaining, but not too far away, so we chose Red Rocks in Morrison.

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Niner is breaking down barriers and defying conventions with their new WFO 9, as I’m sure you can tell just from my tech-focused On Review article. However, I’m sure what you’re really wondering is: “how does it actually ride, out on the trail?”

Read the full review here.

When I first laid eyes on the Boardroom Jersey, I knew that we would get along well. Generally, I hate wearing anything with a collar, but a bike jersey with awesome venting, relaxed fit, and killer Gravity Anomaly graphics? Sign me up!

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The LongHaul Shorts are Gravity Anomaly’s all mountain/enduro-styled shorts. Available in olive and charcoal (tested), the LongHaul features a “multi-panel nylon construction, incorporating an advanced 100% Polyester vented micro-mesh inner for breath-ability and comfort,” according to Gravity Anomaly.

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If you’re looking for Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals on hiking and camping gear this year, thankfully you can skip the crowds and shop from the convenience of your home! Check out the deals below, snap up the best ones, and then hit the trails on Friday and enjoy the relaxing peace of the wilderness.

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If you’re looking for Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals on mountain bike gear this year, thankfully you can skip the crowds and shop from the convenience of your home! Check out the deals below, snap up the best ones, and then hit the trails on Friday and enjoy the relaxing peace of the wilderness

Read the full article here.

While at first new moves are an exciting prospect filled with grand plans for the future, usually after I’ve lived in a place for a while I start having regrets… mover’s remorse, if you will. So on that note, I give you the top 10 reasons that you should NOT move to Salida.

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Six years in the making, this full-suspension carbon wonder bike from Ibis has long been anticipated by Ibis fanatics and casual observers alike. At Outerbike 2013, I had a chance to spend some quality time with a Ripley out on the Moab Brand Trails, leading me to choose the Ibis Ripley as the best 29er of 2014.

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As Saturday, day three of our trip, dawned, the group collectively decided to dedicate the morning to experiencing the mountain bike culture of Park City instead of just ripping trails.

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While GregHeil.com focuses primarily on my trials, failures, and occasional achievements as a writer, as a journalist and a blogger (both at the same time, in fact) writing never exists on its own. Photography is always a requirement, and the photos are often just as important as the words that accompany them.

You know what they say: a picture says a thousand words, and a dozen cliches as well.

With this new DSLR provided by my awesome employer, Singletracks.com, I am looking to step up my photography game. So stay tuned, folks!

A few initial, experimental shots:

While the snow had let up halfway through day one of our mountain bike adventure in ski land, it started dumping again that evening and snowed all through the night and into the next morning. Nevertheless, we piled on the warm layers, loaded into the van, and headed back up toward Guardsman Pass.

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Normally, if you wake up and it’s snowing outside and the mountains are covered in snow, you’re not going to go ride your mountain bike on your own. But if you have seven other idiots to go with you, it’s a whole different story.

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The Scott Genius LT 710 is hands-down one of the best mountain bikes I’ve ever ridden. With fantastic on-the-fly adjustability, extremely light weight for an all-mount rig, spot-on geometry, and superb overall performance, I have to honestly say that while I was stoked to ride the fantastic singletrack in Park City, I was almost just as stoked to be riding such a fantastic bike.

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While Park City’s economy used to be funded by silver, their newest natural resource, singletrack gold, is proving to be even more profitable. But how rich is this gold? How many karats, say, is Park City’s singletrack? Let’s take a look.

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One of India’s first mountain bike races will take place on November 17th in the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains, according to an article I spotted on The Hindus Business Line .com.

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As you may have read in my Niner Interbike article, the WFO 9 is Niner’s all-new rendition of the long-travel 29er. While Niner did have a previous model dubbed the WFO, about the only thing the new WFO 9 has in common with its predecessor is the name.

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Steamboat Springs, a bronze-level IMBA ride center and self-proclaimed “Bike Town USA,” recently passed a measure to devote the town’s 1% lodging tax to trail development with a 71% voter approval rating, according to Steamboat Today.

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In my opinion, the single biggest set of problems that will come along with this new push for e-assist mountain bikes are trail access issues. Currently, gaining and maintaining trail access with solely human-powered mountain bikes accessing the trails is difficult enough. Just ask the mountain bikers in Bozeman about the Gallatin Crest Trail, arguably the best trail in the state of Montana, that was closed to mountain bikes several years ago.

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Our inaugural interview is with Scott House, who hails from Park City, Utah. Scott is the Communications, Events, and Social Media Director for Jans Mountain Outfitters, a local chain of bike shops based in and around Park City. While that’s already a long title, Scott is truly a jack of all trades. He takes care of all media relations for the company, all of the social media platforms, internal email communications, external email marketing, website SEO and SEM, as well as some photography, mountain bike guiding in the summer, and running their avalanche education program in the winter. While he does have his plate full, Scott finds that the variety of responsibilities help keeps things fresh

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It’s that time of year: if you don’t go night riding, you probably can’t ride your mountain bike after work during the week. So if you don’t have a light yet, you need to buy one and extend your season.

But which light should you buy? While there are a number of great choices out there, I recently had the chance to review this one: the Fenix BT20.

Read the full review here.

If you ask me, mountain biking season isn’t over ’till the fat lady sings. And I don’t listen to opera, so that means it’s time to break out the lights.

Actually, I’ve already been riding with lights this season, thanks to the curse of the ever-shortening fall daylight hours. With the time change on November 3rd, the daylight hours at the end of the day are going to get even shorter. The only way to fit in an after work ride during the week will soon require (if it already doesn’t) a quality mountain bike light.

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While the dropper post market is growing at a rapid rate, Gravity Dropper is anything but new to the scene. One of the first names in the dropper arena, Gravity Dropper continues to roll out improvements to their posts. The new Turbo LP seatpost replaces the previous Turbo, which I reviewed back in 2012.

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While Steamboat Ski Resort’s Bike Park isn’t very big (yet), the lift-accessed downhill mountain biking is a crucial factor in Steamboat’s claim to the title of “Bike Town, USA.” And after a long week of doing pedal-powered rides, maybe a day of riding the lifts is just what you need!

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If you spend most of your time riding in hot, arid environments in direct sunlight (aka the desert), this is the jersey for you! This is probably the best jersey I have ever used for desert riding, and you can be sure that it’ll be on the front line for every trip I plan to Fruita, Moab, and Arizona!

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SR Suntour is the largest bicycle fork manufacturer in the world, and in the past few years they’ve decided to take the solid principles at work even in their low end forks and apply them to high-end components. According to Dan, “We make a solid fork that is going to perform well, is easy to maintain, and easy to use.” Since I’m not much of a mechanic and I shy away from complicated suspension setup and maintenance, that all sounds excellent to me!

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While NICA has been focused primarily on high school mountain biking up to this point, with Georgia recently added as the newest league, the So Cal league is now going to test out a middle school pilot program. This comes hot on the heels of Minnesota’s test middle school program this past fall.

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In my opinion, one of the coolest features on Singletracks.com is the ability to track which mountain bike trails you’ve ridden. Once you’ve logged these trails, they’ll appear on your “My Trails” list so that you can reference them later. If you want to get started creating your very own My Trails list, here’s how to do it:

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While not the longest ride, the most challenging, or the most jaw-dropping, Gooseberry Mesa offers a fantastic mix of fun-filled factors. The views are definitely camera-worthy, the riding is challenging and varied, and the middle-of-nowhere trailhead will make this an experience for the books. So what are you waiting for? Head to Gooseberry this fall for the best game of connect the dots you’ll ever play!

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First, and most obviously, this rig sports the biggest fat bike tires you can buy, at 4.8 inches wide. Hot dang, that’s huge! I’ve ridden singletrack trails that aren’t even 5 inches wide!

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Somehow (and I’m not quite sure how), until a week ago I had never done a legitimate test ride on a Santa Cruz before. This year at Outerbike I decided to change that, so I took a spin on Deadman’s Ridge aboard the Santa Cruz Bronson Carbon.

Read the full review here.

Just the thought of a 29er version of the Ibis Mojo is making me salivate. Six years in the making, this 120mm full-suspension carbon wonder bike combines sexy lines and incredible performance into one of the best-looking and best-riding bikes you might ever see. -mtbgreg1

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The sheer number of glasses on display at the Tifosi booth was daunting. Everywhere you looked there were glasses, glasses, and more glasses, with 25 different models and enough color and lens combinations to make your head spin.

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As you can see in the photo above, Thomson has a dropper post with stealth routing coming soon. The aluminum post will be cable actuated with hydraulic inners, and comes with a two-year warranty on the dropping mechanism.

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Raleigh is improving and expanding its mountain bike lineup as it heads into 2014. Two 27.5in bikes join the lineup, and the Talus 29er sees improvements.

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According to Eddie Mcdonald, who’s in charge of mountain bike marketing, the e-fat bike was originally just a concept bike, but due to the big response it garnered, this is a concept bike that may well become a reality.

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The only thing that the brand-new WFO 9 has in common with the previous WFO is the name: this all-mountain gnar-shredding machine is all-new and ready to throw down! The WFO 9 features a shorter top tube and lower bottom bracket than the previous WFO, along with a 67-66 degree head tube angle (depending on fork travel).

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The Spicy Team is world-class Lapierre athlete Nico Vouilloz’s ride of choice. Coming stock with 27.5in wheels, it is convertible to 26in if you so desire. This bike is built for enduro superiority, with 150mm of rear suspension and 160mm of front suspension and a 66.5-degree headtube angle. The mostly-carbon frame (save for aluminum chainstays) and SRAM XX1 build will retail for $8,000 US, with more affordable models bottoming out at $4,500.

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The Mach 6 is designed to be a killer enduro machine, complete with 27.5in wheels and 155mm of travel. In development for two years, the new rear suspension linkage features a stiff, direct connection (aka, no rear bushings) to boost rear end stiffness.

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The Redline d880 is an FS 29er with 100mm of front suspension and 110mm of rear suspension. This seems a tad odd since most designers choose to run more suspension up front if there’s any difference at all, but since we haven’t had time on the bike personally, we can’t comment on the ride quality. However, the extra 10mm of rear suspension suggests you could swap out the front fork for a 120 or 125 to turn the 880 into a slightly slacker, more aggressive rig.

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One of my first stops at Interbike this year was SUGOI. Having recently reviewed their RSX shorts, and with a review of their RSX jersey already in the works, I was interested to see what improvements they would offer on their previous products heading into 2014.

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An email just showed up in my inbox this morning “Introducing the new GoPro Hero3+ Black Edition.” According to GoPro, the new Hero3+ is 20% smaller than the previous version with a 30% increase in battery life. Boom! Those are both huge stats for a camera that’s already as small as the GoPro! GoPro also claims that the new camera “delivers improved image quality and powerful new features geared for versatility and convenience.”

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The North American Interscholastic Cycling Association (NICA) has been growing in leaps and bounds across the United States in recent years. The newest league, announced at Interbike this year, is Georgia.

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With the announcement of the brand-new Hydrapak Bishop and Bishop XT, those puzzled thoughts have been put to bed. The brand-new Bishop is jam-packed with advanced features and looks ready to tackle even the biggest dogs in the hydration pack market.

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Do you remember the X-Project shoes? Yeah, Pearl Izumi announced them over a year ago, and created a ton of press hubbub around their new product. They even held a media camp in California, which Jeff attended, and Jeff even reviewed a sample pair of the shoes.

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After my fantastic experience reviewing the Diamondback Sortie 3 29er this summer, I made it a top priority to stop by the Diamondback booth at Interbike. So, Diamondback was my first stop at 9am, right after the expo doors opened!

All of the popular Diamondback models are returning this year, including the Sortie, the Mission, the Mason Hardtail, and others.

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