Rotorburn

In just about every conversation I have about the great improvements to mountain bikes, I say every time that a dropper post is the biggest leap forward we’ve made. I love the things and am that guy that scoffs and says “Ha! How did we ride with a rigid seat post!”. I make a point of getting a feel for every new dropper post I come across and have been really keen to get on a PNW Components post since they arrived at Mountain Bikes Direct. Click here to check it out.

The post I’ve been using is the PNW Components Cascade with the 1X remote mounted to the left side of the handlebars. It’s a 30.9mm clamp and an impressive 170mm drop. At it’s full extension, the post measures 489mm. The bike I put this on needed to be an external routing and it needed to impress a lot more than hydraulic post that it replaced. You don’t see too many externally routed droppers...

“ION. An atom or molecule with a net electric charge due to the loss or gain of one or more electrons” is what you’ll find if you search for the meaning of the word ION. In our world though, ION is an international brand created in 2004 as a water sports icon. In 2012, they bought their flavour to the world of mountain biking and now boast a huge range of top shelf apparel available to you from Bicycles Online. In the first part of this extensive review, we’re giving you the intel on some of the amazing protective gear and apparel you can pick up. Visit the Bicycles Online ION range here.

Let’s go bottom to top. The ION Raid AMP II shoe is a flat pedal shoe built for enduro and downhill riding. ION chuck some serious technology into this shoe and it is absolutely ideal for what we do on our bikes. There’s specific material in the ankle pad to protect your ankles and...

Winter isn’t all bad! Sure the days are short and cold but you get to where some new kit each season! One of my favourite apparel lines is Nukeproof. It hands down beats the big hitters for value, functionality and price. How does the Nukeproof AW range fair in the bearable Australian winter? We’ll tackle this two ways; gear you wear on a ride and gear you wear before and after.

Item: Nukeproof Blackline Winter waterproof shorts
Purchased From: Chain Reaction Cycles (click here)
Purchase Price (approx): $120
First up, I’ve been wearing the Nukeproof Blackline Winter waterproof shorts in some pretty damn ordinary weather. Muddy trails, wet tarmac between the trails, dusty, you name it. These are the shorts you want in your gear bag when the days are a bit gloomy but you still want to ride. I love Nukeproof’s accurate sizing, a pair of shorts in XXL fits perfectly with room to move and at $120 on Chain Reaction Cycles, it’s a winner...

Remember the days before being able to seamlessly buy a bike online when you’d walk into your local bike store and read a brochure of a trail bike you want buy and the headline would say “Climbs like a mountain goat, descends like a downhill bike”. Nowadays you read the same blurb on your favourite websites and you do your research online and either make the purchase from your local store or add that dream bike to your basket online. When you treat yourself to a visit to Bicycles Online’s website and define your search to dual suspension mountain bikes, you’ll be treated to the listing of the 2019 Marin Mount Vision 8. When you click through to the details, you won’t see the corny cliché headline but after spending a good amount of time on this bike I can safely say that the headline should say “Climbs like a mountain goat, descends like a downhill bike”.

Available from Bicycles Online for the presently discounted price of $5,499...

What’s the one thing that turns a good bike into a great bike? It’s the one item on trail and enduro bikes now that is so common that it’d be strange to see a bike without one. I totally hate the saying “game changer” but yep, dropper post’s have changed the way we play this game. There’s so many to choose from nowadays that it can almost put a new buyer off spending that much money for something they haven’t used. Make no mistake, a top of the line dropper post is a real pleasure to have underneath you but can you achieve the same result with your riding from something bought on a budget? Yes, yes you can. Read on to check out the Brand-X Ascend II dropper seat post with the Brand-X Ascend lever kit V2.


Item: Brand-X Ascend II dropper seat post with the Brand-X Ascend lever kit V2.
Purchased from: Chain Reaction Cycles...

It was rumoured and talked about, it then appeared in bike park testing but hidden by camouflaged decals, it was buzzed about when it appeared on the World Cup circuit under the Polygon United Racing Team and now it’s available from Bicycles Online for us lucky punters to throw a leg over. Ladies and Gentleman, the Polygon Xquarone DH9 downhill bike is here and the hype is real!

Item: Polygon XQuareone DH9 downhill bike
Purchased From: Bicycles Online (click here)
Purchase Price (approx): $6,699

Let’s get to the chase and cover the first three things that people say when they see this thing in the flesh. First up; No, it isn’t an E Bike. That lower pivot area houses something far more interesting than a pedal assist motor. Second thing; the frame design is certainly something pretty wild...