When a fellow riding friend (FoShizzle) emailed me on this build, I knew it was going to be insane. El Beastro is known to have Spectrum powder coat some extremely original designs onto is frames. This Knolly Endorphin has to be one of the craziest I have ever seen.

I took the Ardents up to Pinhoti 2, 3 and 4 up in the north Georgia mountains over the weekend to get some long mile testing in. The Pinhoti’s are known for providing some of the best single track that Georgia can provide. Great tight, twisty downhills with long steep climbs get your heart rate peaked no matter which way you are headed.

I finally got a chance to get the new 29er Ardents from Maxxis mounted the night before I am supposed to be riding the north Georgia mountains. First, these tires go on Stans Flow rims extremely easy. There was no need for tire levers at all.

The 650B wheel size has been drawing a lot of attention over the past year. Many see it as the compromise between 29″ and 26″ wheels, and also a way to get bigger wheels to longer travel bikes. The long travel market is not a great fit for the 29er market, but with the 650B wheel size, frame and component manufacturers can stay closer to the 26 inch wheel specs to get increased travel.

Today seems like another great day for a custom steel builder write up. Doug Curtis of Curtlo Cycles has been custom fabricating his amazing frames for over 20 years. His reputation for having one of the best riding steel frames on the market has been earned through years of perfecting is craft. Each frame is hand made exactly to each customers needs.

The guys over at Maxxis sent us some of the 29er Ardents to test along side the DH casing 26er versions we are currently running on the Terremoto. So far, we are extremely impressed with the performance out of the 26er version, and we are excited about getting our hands on the 29er set.

As the blog continues to grow, navigation across the posts and the site becomes increasingly harder. In an attempt to make this easier for you guys, I have created some new categories and created a listing that you will now find at the bottom of the page.

As lined out here in a previous post, HIP/VIP is a time when a group of us off the MTBR board get together for some great riding in the Asheville, NC and Pisgah National Forest area. This is the mecca of east coast mountain biking with more epic trails to ride than you can handle. This year we went with Bent Creek, Laurel Mountain/Pilot Rock, Black Mountain and Dupont State Forest.

Walking into the front door, you come straight into the final assembly and order staging area of the plant. You can see by the pictures below they stock your spokes and hubs in white boxes and the rims go on the other wall. Finished prototypes are hung on one side of the room and the finished boxed wheelsets are stacked all over the place.