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Three years ago, Dain Zaffke was at a beautiful peak as far as his life was concerned. A bike industry lifer, he had ridden the full arc of experience - from being a teenage bike racer and shop rat, to getting a freelance article in Bicycling at the age of 19, to an intern at BIKE magazine, then associate editor, then on to brand manager roles at WTB, Easton and assertively upward into a senior marketing role at Giro, ultimately landing at Leatt as VP of sales and marketing.

An open secret in bike shops and among suspension and bike manufacturers is that most mountain bikers aren't well-versed in suspension setup.* If they are lucky, they may have had their sag set at the shop and their fork pumped to the correct range for their riding weight, and maybe a few knobs twisted. Otherwise, they may get their bike from the shop floor or delivered to their house and run it as it came out of the box.

Having experienced a similar used marketplace at Peak Designs, I have to say this is a very cool development, and even though Peak isn't still running theirs, if OneUp's works as well—and it certainly looks well-organized—this will be a great way to buy and sell used OneUp gear. The release from OneUp follows. Pre-Ride, ReRide, Freeride. OneUp's Used Marketplace. As mountain bikers, we accumulate spare parts.

For decades, we've been screaming at the top of our lungs here on the North Shore for bike companies to spec sticky and durable tires on their builds. We've also been asking tire manufacturers to come up with tires that don't slice on the first descent on some erosion-built trail features. Some listen, some hear, some are not even in the room with us. Everyday trail riders have it best. Flats are a thing of the past and the traction is really good. Tires even last longer now.

Team Relay Canada came out guns a-blazing in the team relay, finishing just off the podium in fourth place. The team was full of talent: Isabella Holmgren, Marin Lowe, Cole Punchard, Maxime St. Onge, Ethan Wood, and Eliane Blais all fought hard to finish 2:21 back on the winners. Italy led the charge, with Switzerland placing second and the United States finishing third. The team relay is a unique event with one racer from each category per team. Racers take one all-out lap of the XCO course.

Track walk's over, and the racers have made it onto the Val di Sole World Championships DH course—the famed Black Mamba. Follow Jackson Goldstone as he brings us aboard for his first look at the track from on top of his fresh Worlds version V10. Trending on NSMB

Since the launch in 2021, I’ve ridden a small pile of Fox 38s. That new, big boned fork quickly proved that there was room on a bicycle for something larger than what we were used to, but not quite in the realm of a full DH fork. That old 38 was a predictably stout companion on the front of any longer travel bicycle, and there wasn’t anything obviously wrong about that, now outgoing, fork. Still, five years is a long time in bicycles.

Last week I published a big old article about rebuilding a trail and documenting it with a unique process that uses nettles and sunlight to develop prints. Enough folks expressed interest in the process that I put together and printed this comic about the vertotype process.

Many review bicycles are fleeting and forgettable. They drift in for a few months, provide some smiles and some laughs, and then head back to the manufacturer. You may be reminded of them down the line some time, when one trait or another spurs your memory, but most just drift off into the ever-softening corners of your brain. The Yeti SB-5.5 was not such a bicycle.

MUD FEST Sleeper Shreddit: Les Gets