What if we told you the highlands of Romania are the perfect place to experience the joys of riding an electric bicycle? Chances are, you’d take our word for it. But the even better option is to see for yourself by renting an e-bike or joining us for a guided tour. FreeRider provides both bikes for rent and all the guidance you might need – all it takes is your willingness to try. Think you’d like to learn more? Then read on… FreeRider E-bike Rental is located a mere 160 km / 100 miles from Bucharest, Romania’s capital (a rather short drive if you take the A1 highway) and only half that dista ..read more

We already know that in the future, electric bikes will not look like, well… electric bikes. Today’s monsters become slowly but surely more suav, better sculpted and more humane, which makes them more appealing to the public. Jam 2 is one of those examples, where design teams spent extra effort to give it a more bike like appearance, but not to deceive the viewer, rather to please the aesthetic gods. Anyways, looking around, this is no easy task, and some sacrifices are necessary to make an e-bike look like this. On the other hand, it is interesting to notice how each bike builder starts to de ..read more

I always got along great with SQlab saddles, precisely my posterior felt like it was royalty in the most difficult conditions, and knowing they built an option for electric bikes, put an interesting smile on my face: what is the difference between an electric bike saddle and a normal one? It wasn’t long before we wrote SQlab to send us a version of the 60X Ergowave Active so we get a better idea. 60 km on the new saddle required getting used to, but after that it felt familiarVery good materials and rubber parts for good grip 60X is built also for all gravity disciplines (this includes downhil ..read more

Even if the idea is not completely new, the Austrians from Magped managed to create a product that combines multiple qualities: decent price, great quality and reasonable weight. The strongest magnet option was not available when we asked for a test, because the producer is overwhelmed with orders, so we got the AL10 version, the one with the weakest magnet (100N). There is a middle version with a 150N magnet and the strongest with a 200N magnet. The model we tested is built for people that weigh around 60kg, that cannot get used to clipless pedals (SPD), because they believe their reaction t ..read more

Rocket Ron, a Cross Country tire that suffered some changes for this year, the most important being the compound the tire is built from. Even if the tire structure is the same, it got some reinforcements and two compound types: Speed and SpeedGrip. We tested the blue version, SpeedGrip, which has a higher rolling resistance but compensates with better off-road grip and better durability. They are not as easy to mount as other tires and you need two levers in order to mount it on the rim. On the track we had to inflated to 1.9bar, a bigger pressure than what we normally use (1.7bar), but we wa ..read more

We don’t know what’s the deal with the Lite edition of this Whistler, but it has an unexpectedly competitive price for this market segment. Placed in the Sport category, this is the best equipped Whistler that you can buy, and considering it’s 799 EUR price, it has some extras that cannot go ignored. About it’s track handling, what it has to offer and who it is addressed for, please keep reading. Bike details: – aluminium frame hardtail – 100mm travel fork – price: 799 EUR – 29 inch wheels – for mountain rides or longer less technical marathons Frame / On the trail Compared to the previously t ..read more

If you are not a gravity rider, you cannot really understand why a grippy tire is crucial for riding. For us, the usual two competitions we attend annually are enough to convince us of the qualities of a product we get to test during a competition. However, this year we had other plans and we couldn’t make it to any downhill competition. Considering we received a pair of Maxxis High Roller II for testing, the only viable solution was to test them on an electric bike, you’ll see why in the following article. Installing the tires was difficult, we had to use levers and some extra sweat ..read more

When the Eagle groupset was launched everyone was shocked by the big 50T cog. The jokes kept on coming and they were pretty creative, mostly containing terms like pizza (referring to the big cog) or gold (referring to the chain color). Even we had a picture taken with the cassette covering my entire face. Anyways, from the first test, we embraced the idea of not using a front derailleur anymore, even if we are die hard fans of the 2×11 gearing. Packaged like expensive candy… The GX came as a necessity to offer an accessible product, the top model being dedicated to riders with a deep pocket ..read more

Do you believe the term Race appears too often in this tires name? Meaning every two words? There is a reason for that: Race King tire is one of the fastest that Continental builds for bikes, being also one of the lightest in this size. This is a tubeless ready tire (not advertised as one but using the right sealant can be used tubeless) and when you remove it from it’s wrapping you realize how thin it is. It’s easy to mount on the rim and once there it stays there and the fact that it is so light reminds us just how far technology progressed. The RaceSport version is the lightest model of Rac ..read more

One month before the official launch, Schwalbe sent us a set of their new XC tires: Racing Ray + Racing Ralph = Love. The Germans created a set of tires with different threads and different compounds, the first time we read the press release I must admit I was not that excited. The build made sense and seemed realistic but I had to test them before having a clear opinion and I had to prove myself, again, that I should keep my mouth shut about things I don’t understand. Anyways, the tires were easy to fit on the rim, Racing Ray goes on the front wheel and Racing Ralph goes on the rear wheel. Th ..read more