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Spencer’s Favorite Products of 2023

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Spencer’s Favorite Products of 2023

Spencer Harding is up next and below, joins our team of contributors and editors in sharing a list of favorite products and albums of 2023. A few of his picks are things he’s had for a while and have withstood the test of time and extended use. Others include some new gadgets as well as one non-bike-related product for good measure. He also put together a list of album and podcast recommendations. Let’s get right into it below!

The Dust-Up: Most New Mountain Bikers Should Start on Full-Suspension Bikes

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The Dust-Up: Most New Mountain Bikers Should Start on Full-Suspension Bikes

In today’s installment of our ongoing opinion column, The Dust-Up, we bring you Travis Engel’s thesis on why full-suspension bikes offer the most inviting, user-friendly experience to people trying mountain bikes for the first time, and why the commonly held “hardtail-first” doctrine is flawed and outdated. Please read in full before commenting, but please comment.

Rigid, Vintage, Ready: Lachlan Sillitoe’s Anonymous Beach Bruiser

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Rigid, Vintage, Ready: Lachlan Sillitoe’s Anonymous Beach Bruiser

You won’t find many fully rigid, bi-plane forked, singlespeed mtbs on the trails of Kamloops—or anywhere else for that matter. But Lachlan Sillitoe, an Aussie transplant in the Loops and owner of the Bicycle Cafe, breaks the mold of the typical British Columbia Interior ride, with style and flow to spare. After hanging on his wheel during a few rides earlier this year, Dylan Sherrard writes about his friend’s unconventional bike choices and eagerness to embrace the entire spectrum of the riding experience—comfort be damned. Read on for Lachy’s thoughts about why easier isn’t always better and for a closer look at his anonymous vintage rigid SS mtb “beach bruiser.”

The Dust-Up: Will Unchained Bring About a Road Cycling Revival? Is That a Good Thing?

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The Dust-Up: Will Unchained Bring About a Road Cycling Revival? Is That a Good Thing?

Like its predecessor, Drive to Survive, the new Netflix Unchained series seeks to humanize the World Tour’s automaton-seeming athletes that make up professional road cycling’s peloton. But as the exploding gravel scene in the U.S. faces “growing pains,” Nic Morales wonders if the effects of Unchained’s inevitable popularity will remain culturally abstract, or if they will serve to usher in an era of Road 2.0 on America’s gravel roads. Read on for Nic’s reaction to the series in this latest installment of The Dust-Up, our ongoing opinion column.

2022 Cyclocross Nationals on Film: Patience Through the Chaos

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2022 Cyclocross Nationals on Film: Patience Through the Chaos

With my camera bag loaded with several boxes of 120 film and a brick of Ilford HP5, I pulled out of the driveway bound for Hartford, CT; I paused, wondering how I arrived at this moment. All of the little moves and influences resulted in me lugging two cameras with a combined age of some 75 years to shoot the season’s most crucial cyclocross race. There is a “Butterfly Effect” moment in our lives that leads us to our current state, and somewhere amongst the mud, dust, and thousands of shutter actuation is mine.