Mountain Bikes

About three years ago, in a cramped, musty garage in Graz, Austria, a handful of determined bike gear heads set to work on building an environmentally friendlier motocross-inspired e-bike. What they popped out three months later wasn't quite an FMX/motocross bike and wasn't quite a mountain bike. It was the all-electric EMX, a little bit of both.  Read More

Rear derailleurs are problematic, particularly on mountain bikes. They get bent, they get gunked up, and they’re exposed to the elements. While sealed hub transmissions lack these problems, not all of them have axles that are strong enough for multi-terrain use, they add revolving weight, and that weight is added in the back of the bike – not low and in the middle, where you want it. German company Pinion has developed what it claims is something better ... a sealed gearbox located adjacent to the bottom bracket.  Read More

If you’ve ever tried mountain biking through loose snow or sand, then you’ll know that even big ol’ 2.75-inch tires have a way of sinking in and bogging down. That’s why some bicycle manufacturers have recently started making what are known as fatbikes – rigid-frame mountain bikes with 4-inch or larger tires, that can be run as low as 8 psi (0.6 bar). They’re sort of like bikes with snowshoes. Now, California-based Pedego has released an electric fatbike, called the Trail Tracker.  Read More

Puncture-proof tires that incorporate a flexible internal matrix instead of air are nothing new, in and of themselves. In the past several years, we’ve seen prototypes from the likes of Michelin, Amerityre, Goodyear and Bridgestone. Colorado-based Britek Tire and Rubber has also been developing something similar, known as the Energy Return Wheel. While the ERW is intended mainly for cars, the company recently released a video showing a prototype set of the wheels in use – on a mountain bike.  Read More

Flashlight manufacturer Fenix is bringing its lighting expertise to the bike market with plans to launch a pair of bike lights that combine powerful output, low pricing and an established brand name. Some bikers already mount Fenix torches to their handlebars in place of more purpose-built lighting systems but its new bike light line will just give users a more integrated package for lighting up the road or trail with Fenix power.  Read More

No matter how many bamboo bicycles we see - and we have seen a few - they continue to astound with their otherworldly looks. Zuri is a German operation that hand builds bicycles in Africa out of locally sourced bamboo. It's multi-hued bamboo-framed bikes are designed for both city commuting and mountain biking.  Read More

If the funky, Segway-powered Centaur, shown in our recent look at Dual Mode transportation, is still too powerful and heavy for you, it may be time to go Athos. Sort of an unnatural cross between a pedal-powered bicycle and a four-wheeled quad, this burly "extreme quad-cycle" aims to give riders a new option in off-road travel that blends BMX, motocross and downhill biking.  Read More

Like a lot of other factors involved in mountain biking, setting the air pressure of the tires is a matter of compromise. Keep them too soft, and you can’t go as fast as you’d like on smooth stretches of the trail – keep them too hard, and they’ll just bounce off of roots and rocks instead of gripping them. As it stands, most bikers go for a “Jack of all trades, master of none” setting, that allows for some traction and some speed. The folks at ADAPTRAC, however, apparently think that such a compromise shouldn’t have to be made. Their new system allows riders to inflate or deflate their tires as conditions dictate, while they’re riding.  Read More