Lake Dunstan Trail – why not go by boat?
Lake Dunstan Trail is the most talked about of the Great Rides. Now you can get transported by boat too and add another dimension to your day out.
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Trek Rail 9 (2021)
Trek’s Rail was introduced for the 2020 season along with the Bosch Performance CX Gen 4 motor. This enabled a more aggressive and modern geometry (compared to Powerfly LT) and got rid of that annoying tiny front chainring that messed with full suspension. The motor is lighter and more responsive and — to my ear at least — quieter. The
Read moreLiv Intrigue E+ 2 Pro on the Great Lake Taupō Waihaha section
I’ll say it straight: this was one of the most enjoyable day rides I’ve done — and I’ve done most of them. It’s a 30km Grade 3 ride through stunning scenery with glimpses of waterfalls, massive pools, the great lake Taupō, an echoing rock and finishing on a lake beach. Then the uniqueness of hopping on a boat with your
Read moreBiking Lake Garda
Lake Garda in northern Italy may be a bit out of the way for the long-weekend, but highly recommended if you are anywhere nearby. It’s not far from Milan or Verona, and lies in the southern end of the Dolomites. Ski areas like Val di Sole — home to MTB World Cup races — and Mt Baldo are nearby. It
Read moreThe Beginners Guide to Buying an eMTB
Outside of the main cities, eMTB is the hottest ticket in ebikes. If your goal is to be able to go up any mountain in sight (Queenstown), ride longer and higher without shuttles (Rotorua) or simply keep up with your stronger, fitter, younger or less-injured mates, an eMTB might be for you. It’s a great equalizer for a couple too.
Read morePivot Shuttle – is this the best eMTB so far?
Pivot is known among MTB enthusiasts as being top-end. They use the very best carbon fibers throughout (unlike most brands including ones that rhyme with Fanta Blues and Betty), and are very committed to R&D. Their DW-Link suspension is highly regarded as efficient and responsive. They have race teams including our own Ed Masters, Matt Walker and Cole Lucas. So
Read moreKTM Macina Kapoho 2973
You may recognise KTM as an Austrian boutique motorcycle manufacturer, the sort that teenage boys of my generation had posters of in their bedrooms. The bike manufacturer shares these roots, but today is a separate business, still manufactured in Austria. The Kapoho is a burly eMTB featuring 160mm of fore and aft suspension, and in intentions is definitely not a
Read moreWest Coast Wilderness Trail
The trail is part of the Nga Haerenga/NZ Great Rides network going between Greymouth in the North and Ross in the South, taking in Kumara, Hokitika and Cowboy Paradise in between. It has a diverse mix of trails, from roadside, coastal, gravel rd, tramline and even sections of singletrack. You can find more including places to stay on their website.
Read moreCan I commute on an eMTB?
Yes, but… This is one of the ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ in the current ebike market. A nice eMTB costs upwards of $6k and most now can do 32km/h which is a perfectly respectable commuting speed. They generally have big comfortable tyres, around 500Wh of battery and enough grunt to get up any hill. So comfortable, fast enough, powerful. And anyway,
Read moreLiv Intrigue E+ Pro and Giant Trance E+ Pro on the Timber Trail
Liv is the female-specific sub-brand of Giant, and as such the two bikes are close to identical. ElectricMeg and I (along with friends to make it even better) decided to take the review bikes on the Timber Trail, which is a magnificent forest trail west of Lake Taupo in the Pureora forest. For model-year 2019 Giant announced a large range
Read moreSpecialized Levo Comp 2019 – Best got better
From what I see in Woodhill Forest, the Specialized Levo is the most popular “real” eMTB in New Zealand. When it came out three short years ago, it was groundbreaking. At the time most eMTBs were horrid; either with hub motors or earlier Bosch and Yamaha motors from fringe brands (at the time) like Haibike and Moustache. Nobody here (myself
Read moreWisper Wildcat Carbon
High end bikes are almost all made from carbon fibre – not just for light weight – but because it gives the designers more flexibility to get exactly the ride characteristics they want. There is no reason why this shouldn’t apply to high-end ebikes too. In this case, it does lend lightness – it was noticeably lighter than the Levo
Read moreBottecchia Newton
When the Italians do the handling and the Germans do the electronics, you have it the right way around. Add in cycling brand history dating back to 1924 — including the fact that Greg Lemond won the 1989 Tour de France on a Bottecchia — mix in the model name Newton from the guy who invented gravity(*), and you’ve got
Read moreMotatapu Queenstown MTB Event 2018 – The Best Day Ever!
This day was full of best evers….best decision to enter, best ebike for me to use (Moustache Trail 5), best scenery, mountains and valleys not normally open to the public, best company and camaraderie out on the trail, best backflip off the ebike on one of those annoying “little pinch hill climbs”, little or no previous rain meant the trail
Read moreReporting from Crankworx
ElectricMeg, ElectricBazza and AcousticRobin were all at Crankworx Rotorua. Most of the manufacturers had ebikes on display. Notably Specialized didn’t have any bikes on display at all, and Giant didn’t bring any ebikes. Electrify.nz had an ebike display and so did Bosch. In fact it was Bosch who did a media ride attended by AcousticRobin and had a range of
Read moreSmartmotion HyperSonic – redefining value in an eMTB
The Smartmotion HyperSonic is a true full-suspension eMTB developed in New Zealand. It plays happily beside other major MTB brand bikes costing thousands more. I have to be honest and say that I wasn’t expecting much from this bike. After all, what does Smartmotion know about mountain bikes? It was with some nervousness that I headed into Riverhead Forest just
Read moreCharging about with full Moustaches – the Race 5 and Trail 5
Queenstown has built some brilliant MTB trails for all abilities, and Campbell from Chargeabout Bikes in Queenstown encouraged us to try their eMTBs on the trails around from home base at Kelvin Heights to Jacks Point. “Sounds like a good idea”. It was. When I first saw that Chargeabout was renting bikes from near the Hilton I was wondering why
Read moreArrowtown to Gibbston Valley on Haibike SDUROs
The Haibike SDURO is a premium German MTB-style ebike featuring a Yamaha motor. Most of the Haibike range sports Bosch excepting the SDURO range (Xduro is Bosch-powered). The Yamaha system is a bit rarer but also used by Giant and other brands we don’t see much of in the NZ e-scene. I first heard about the SDURO when I watched
Read moreSpecialized Turbo Levo FSR Short Travel Comp 29
Let’s get some quick questions out of the way: Is it fun to ride? Hell, yeah! Is it a great mountain bike? Yes, definitely. I could rail corners and do drops that I can’t on my XC bike. Is it the best eMTB on the market? Along with it’s 27+ siblings, likely yes. So when are you going to buy one
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