2025: Things you loved this year

Me:
1) watching the DH racing this year 

2) riding some fun trails with mates that weren’t euro bike park rubbish, shout out Sgreben! 

3) riding some nice DH tracks 

4) not buying any “upgrades” for my MTB and just maintaining what I got

5) riding my rubbish commuter bike on silly rides <3

And the Lady (almost the opposite of me):

1) riding a BIG euro bike park jump line

2) installing a Noken on my Lyrik

3) riding the local trails

4) gravel bike climbs 

1. Learning how to jump; as an ex-roadie getting my wheels off the ground was scary AF but once I got it OMG, so fun (and still so much to learn!)
2. Riding/sessioning with friends: nothing better than helping each other progress and the shared stoke that comes with it
3. Digging: putting in time to build and improve the trails I ride is incredibly rewarding and it's fun getting a (small) say in how they're built
4 MRP Lift Damper: as a lighter rider this has been a game-changer for me
5. Schwalbe Radials: I feel like this is the first new tire that lives up to the hype
6. Fox Defend D30 gloves: expensive but they last forever and feel great
7. Cyplus AS2 Pro mini-inflator: they seem gimmicky but I now use it before every ride to check/top off my tire pressure
8. MTX Raxcing Gold pads for Dominion A4s: excellent power, modulation, feel and longevity
9. Immersion waxing my chains: kind of a hassle to convert all my bikes but once you're past that it's fantastic
10. Osprey Seral 7 hip pack: great size, great quality and lifetime warranty/replacement 
 

Great idea!

1. Tig welding

2. 3D printed components 

3. Berms 

4. Super light, super fast wheels 

5. AXS Transmission 

6. Ard Rock

7. Schwalbe Tacky Chan

8. Malverns Classic

9. WCDH season

10. Going too fast

1: Falling back in love with biking and actively doing it every week.  I used to ride a lot in the late 90s early 2000s but stopped riding mostly for about 12/13 years.  I rode bike parks a few times a year in between but didn't have any sort of trail bike and never rode my locals.  2020 I got the itch right as bike boom started undenounced to me, bought a low end polygon and went out with my uncles riding group and knew it was part of my life again.  Rode probably 25 rides before preordering a Tempo for 23.  Almost at 100 rides this year little time left to squeeze them in!

2: Convincing two friends to meet me at a trailhead on their 90s bikes they had laying around and come ride.  They both got hooked, bought some stumpjumpers, one a '21 and one a '25 and we ride every week.  Even got another friend to join after a few weeks.  Its been fun to share my love of bikes and its really helped me fall back in love with it.

3: Schwalbe Albert trail radials.  These are so damped it makes my 125mm feel like 150 over trail chatter.  The exo rekons I had were very bouncy in comparison.

4: Freedom coast levers.  Got these for my mt7 after snapping a lever blade ( no not the plastic the aluminum lever ) The bite point adjustment and feel of the blade are amazing,  Bought a second set for the dh bike immediately.

5: Tom.  He clears down trees at my local spot,  he builds new trails, he leads rides, and he grooms them in the winter for snow riding.  He is a legend

6: Riding alot.  Being a part timer in 22-23-24 i would get dropped and sometimes struggle to ride with the better of the groups i ride with.  Ridding way more this year has given me so much more fitness that never am I the one needing to stop.

7: ODI Longneck v2.1  Soft comfy and last forever it seems

8: Fork lower service  DIY its easy, cheap, and feels like you spent 700$  do it every 50-70 hours, you dont need to do it that often but its worth it.  Just foam rings and new oil until the seals show weepage which is a long time usually.  Air can service isnt as worth it imo.  do that over the winter.

9: New Stuff  it makes the old totally unrideable last gen stuff cheap.  also kind of on the same line The settling of big new "innovations"/geometry.  we got there more or less by 2020.  Used bikes are great value and the latest and greatest isn't much if at all different in some cases.

10 Worldcup DH racing  This year was wild.  The coverage is pretty great, really it is, the racing is mental, and the Athletes are absolutely insane at bike riding.

1. Buying a short travel 29". The LT E-bike has been collecting dust since I got my RM Element.

2. Solo rides on local trails. Being a dad with a full time job, makes me enjoy the 1,5 - 2 hour local solo rides after work.

3. Schwalbe Albert Trail Radial. Gamechangers for my Element. Mutes the trail chatter.

4. ODI Longneck v2.1. Best grips ever for people like me that hate to ride with gloves.

5. Not working in the bikeindustry anymore. After 18 years in the industri (bikeshops, sales rep, import/dist), its nice to have mountainbiking only as a hobby. 

1. Could compete in an Enduro race again, after few years of mental health problems...

2. Mental Health is going upwards... finally!

3. my intend fork 

4. my intend trinity brakes

5. no broken frame, ok couldnt ride as much as some other years

1. Riding / building with my dog. She's a freeking nut case and a work in progress but it's rewarding when she actually stays with me for a full lap.

2. Garmin alpha 10 gps dog collar that keeps tab on the nut case.

3. Trans BC. An awesome 6 days 

4. Schwalbe radials (Magic Mary) have been amazing

5.  Showa Temres insulated rubber gloves. Use em to ride and build in PNW. 

6. Halo headband & beanie that stopped sweat getting in my eyes and onto glasses lens. Bald guy problems.

7. Riding again after injuries 

1-10 - how great the Vital MTB community is these days.

1a. @sspomer for putting up w/ all our nonsense and keeping us (mostly) in line in the kindest possible way.

1. Riding on a regular basis again. My first few years with Vital I didn't have the best work-life balance. Managed to log the most time in the saddle I ever have this year (based on strava, which is lyf3)

2. Mechanical Transmission. It's what I would buy and ride if I wasn't so fortunate to be in the industry

3. Trying to optimize my recovery after getting a Garmin watch. It's pushed me to create better sleep habits, drink less, and be more in tune with how my body is chugging along week to week. Highly recommend if you ride regularly 

4. Watching my girlfriend continue to progress on the bike. I stopped trying to get better at riding a long time ago, so getting to witness her check off new features and build confidence really takes me back.

5. My dirt jumper. It had about 2 years of dust on it at the start of the year and it was really bumming me out. Especially after we did our DJ Test Sessions and I felt seriously washed up. Getting a session in at our local bike park or riding street once a week has been so fun and its made me approach trail riding with more creativity. 

1) Teaching my partner how to ride! She decided she wanted to try so I slapped her on my big bike and have been chasing her all around the blue flow trails of Van Isle on my gravel bike for a few months now. I’m so proud to see her make rapid progress outside her comfort zone AND see the supportive vibes from other more experienced riders at the trailhead, good job guys

2) 2025 Fox 36- I went through 3 or 4 past gen 36’s with GRIP2 dampers that felt like hot garbage compared to the comparable Rockshox/Cane Creek options that I moved to. Coming back to the new 36 platform has been mad impressive. I can actually use the compression damping now, and the Glidecore spring/new lowers are soooo good at not binding in awkward compressions. Bonus points for swapping to the cassette tool air spring cap.

3) Raceface ERA wheels- I’m not totally sold on the ERA bars or the chainring (don’t ask me how I ended up with a carbon chainring 5 cm from 2 lb’s of lead) but the wheels have been consistently solid. I’ve beat the brakes off the rear with some questionable line choices while hauling 40+ lb of camera gear around Whistler with not even a loose spoke. Also lovely feeling when trying to follow some of the local pros around after shoots. Compliant, light, and great warranty, will run em as long as I can.

4) XT Mechanical 12 Sp+Squirt Chain Lube- Affordable, light, and reliable is not something you see a lot of in this sport so I’ll take what I can get. Nothing against SRAM but from a cost to performance perspective, XT is way too good. I’m keen to give immersion waxing a rip soon but in the meantime the workshop size bottle of Squirt wax has been impressive. My last 2 bikes have been idler equipped and both were significantly quieter after a couple rounds of this drip wax.

5) VitalMTB Forum- Need I say more? 

1. Making positive life changes to reduce stress. I quit a high paying job this year that was causing some pretty heavy health issues from the stress, which was scary- young kids, mortgages, and a wife in grad school isn’t cheap. It’s all worked out great though and couldn’t be happier with the decision. 

2. With the career change, I was able to finally get back into great riding shape again, which makes everything more fun. Not being smoked on day 4 of our annual BC riding trip was icing on the cake. 

3. Got a DH bike again after about 10 years, and loving it! I’m super lucky to have Rock Creek bike park close by, and have been getting out every week or two. DH bikes are the best- full stop. 

4. Watching my 4 yr old daughter progress on her bike. She’s a bit of a maniac, and it’s equally terrifying and inspiring to see her blasting berms and rollers at the local park. She also only rides in Princess dresses, which is a hell of a flex. She’s got me thinking long term fitness, I have a feeling she’s gonna be into some cool stuff and I want to keep up as long as possible. 

5. The MTB world in general. I know it’s a tough time for a lot of our industry, and I’m hopeful that changes soon, but I feel like we are in the golden age of MTB otherwise. Incredible bikes, trails and bike parks popping up all over, lively communities of riders everywhere. 

I’m a huge proponent of eating 80-120g/hr of carbs, but trying to do that with Super Salted Raspberry Baja Blast flavor gels makes me want to die. The Maurten gels just taste vaguely sweet and have no aftertaste, so I can munch them indefinitely.

1) New Bike Day! These are awesome any year, but I don't buy bikes that often. (Last one was 2017.) I got a Commencal Meta V5 with Ohlins, TRP, Industry9 and Burgtec parts all over it, and it's been making me ride a lot!

2) Sedona in November. 

3) New trails at Greer Ranch, near where I live. The trail angels have been active! Also, the much feared and ballyhooed homebuilder construction that was supposed to destroy most of the trails still hasn't come to pass. 

4) Positive Mental Attitude. I regained some PMA last year and carried it through 2025. It's curious how your life is so much better when you believe it is. 

1) One year on my Bosch ebike from cube that ended up being the best bike I've owned and flawless (beyond some creaking).

2) 3 weeks without the kids over summer, some big trips to bike parks and high Alps, unreal.

3) Still progressing at 41, think I've hit the biggest gaps of my life this year, in part due to modern flow trails being so easy.

4) More or less ending the year healthy after a massive concussion last year, a freak shoulder injury at the climbing gym this summer and my lower back giving trouble most of the second half of the year.

5) Discovering new trails and still having several "best rides ever" each year.

1) Molini MTB and the Molini di Triora area - after hearing so much about the place, I finally managed to visit this year, and it was absolutely worth it. The trails are fantastic, technical enduro jank, quite hard in places, but definitely rewarding.

2) Misspent Summers - absolutely top-quality books and great people. I couldn’t recommend their work highly enough.

3) Santa Cruz Tallboy - after dreaming about this bike for the last two years, I finally managed to get one thanks to a deal from my local bike shop. It is great to have a bike that makes you think more about your line choice (compared with the enduro machine) and makes easier trails more fun. Basically, with this bike I gained a lot of new trails to ride that would otherwise have felt boring.

4) Trail building - this is, I think, the eighth consecutive year in which I have managed to build at least one completely new trail. I still love it as much as I did on the first day, and it is nice to see how my building has evolved along with my riding (I always liked building trails that scare me in one way or another).

On the same topic, I also have to point out something I dislike more and more: people who dumb down trails and cut corners everywhere. Public enemy number one. While half of the pleasure of building trails was sharing them with others, I feel more and more the need to keep them secret or build in more remote places so that less people get to ride them

The sound of side knobs scrubbin! 

1. No Strava. I toyed with it last year but I didn’t do a single Strava ride this year. Never liked bikes more and never rode better.

2. Shuttling. Rode for years with a crew that didn’t like shuttling but a friend dragged me into it just this fall and DAMN DO I LOVE DRIVING BIKES UP HILLS. I love getting dropped off but I also love driving my friends!!!

3. DT rim. I don’t even know which one maybe the ex471 but whatever the case WOW this thing saved my bike career. I can’t afford carbon hoops right now (I also hated the last carbon rims I had) and kept destroying other alloy rims. This things not only stayed alive, but it also just feels indescribably good. Like it’s rounder than other rims?!?

4. Riding a clapped bike. I used to obsess over how quiet my bike was and how good everything felt/performed. This year I haven’t been able to afford keeping my bike “dialed” and decided to try to learn to love a clapper. And damn, is it badass to ride a clapped bike. I am working on getting the suspension serviced and linkage bearings replaced, but now it’s out of care instead of anxiety.

5. Riding with confidence. I fell in love with WCDH last year and this year I was so stoked to watch Jackson doing what he does best. He is so confident and comfortable on the bike and it made me wonder if I could ride like that. My first attempts were bad (hugey in the woods) but after that I was off to the figurative races (I don’t like racing but I like watching it.) gradually I got comfortable on the bike and most rides I’m just having pure fun. 

1- Radial tyres, true game changers for me
2- Trip to Whistler + Evil Bikes HQ Visit with my best friend, unforgettable moments
3- Hope V4 and GR4 brakes, just soo good!
4- Choosing all the parts for the next bike ( Offering 151 ) and spending hours and hours researching reviews and forums to make the dream build 
 

1. Riding more frequently, even if it meant inside and seeing the positive benefits

2. Vittoria Mazzas. Just a very solid trail tire for New England(thanks Justin). Runner up Schwalbe Radials (MM front Fat Albert rear)

3. My 9y/o “I’ll just watch” daughter bogarting the pump track and not wanting to leave, thanks Brian for supporting that. Also, her uncanny ability for instant friendships with people and scarily good memory to say hello to someone she rode with just once months later.

4. Putting myself before the trails this past season. Still dug, but needed the pedal outlet a bit more.

5. My 5y/o at the time coming and help to dig with dad’s friends. Then seeing Justin jump like “one of the guys on your iPad!”

6. The community and acceptance of all within it that mountain biking fosters. This is the way. 

1. Oak components, high quality in fancy colors.

2. Biking more than last year.

3. Unlocking new jumps in my local trails, still some to go!

4. Finale Ligure and Sud Tyrol bike trips.

5. Coil shocks!

6. Anything from HopeTech.

1. Riding bikes with @Evwan

2. Riding bikes without @Evwan

3. Tall rise bars

4. Mavens

5. Schwalbe MM Radial Ultra Soft

1. Schwalbe Shredda (rear on the front) and Magic Mary (rear and/or front) radials have been awesome in the slop and then unexpected dust on my local steeps in Malvern. 

2. More mates getting eebs.  They enjoy it and I enjoy it. 

3. Trips to Scotland - long old drive, but worth it for the natural stuff in the Cairngorms and the well built and natural stuff in the Tweed Valley.  Also great to be away with mates and the main aim of biking. 

4. New Levo gen 4.  It's a great bike for me. 

5. World Cup racing - oh the drama! 

6. Hard Line - gets better every year...

8.  Bike content on websites.  Don't do any socials, so I'm grateful that websites like Vital still take the time to put great content out on the interweb.  Thanks! 

Forgot my 2010 VW T5.  Someone dented it in the autumn and it was in repairs for 6 weeks (terrible insrance company!).  It was like losing a leg (not really), but I missed it so much.  It's part of the family!

1) my Turner Nitrous. First HT since the early aughts and hoo boy has that changed! I moved to Missoula from ABQ last year and having a XC/trail hardtail has made the riding tons more fun and efficient. Have been getting more on:
2) longer rides. Nice to be feeling more in shape. 
3) custom tune on my Fox 36. Much more supple. I don’t smash like I used to, and a lighter tune has made the riding tons more comfortable 

4) Sedona. First trip there since the mid-aughts and hoo boy that has changed! So fun, and just enough different from GJ/Fruita/Moab where I used to ride a bunch. 
5) giving up on drop-bars. Ditched the ‘cross bike and got the Turner. Gravel is still fast and it’s fun to be able to rip some singletrack in the middle of a gravel ride instead of just surviving on rigid drop bars.

6-10) Finally committed to the dream build and SS conversion on my’92 Gary Fisher. ENO rear hub, MI5 front, Cliffhanger rims and plump 2.3 tires. XTR cantis, sugino cranks, MKS bear trap pedals, ODI Vans grips. Etc.  So fun to ride and it oooozes steeze.

Getting it in before the new year.

1. Trek Roscoe. I picked up this bike on sale and put a cheap lyrik on it and it turns out it's great for the vast majority of what I ride these days. It's a looker and a fun rig on the cheap, can't beat that. 

2. New trail centers. My local haunt Palmer Woods in Northern Michigan built some trails and a new trail center that I never thought they would attempt. It's always been a flow trails kinda place but the new trails have better and bigger jumps and actual rocks and tech, it was enough that I signed up to be a regular donor, I already donated every year but now I'm a yearly donor and they know why, the new trails so hopefully they keep building them.

3. Building your own trails. Still chipping away at some fun stuff, it's still fun to get in the dirt and build something.

4. Building your own trails office work. Still chipping away at trying to build a trail network closer to my local and hoping to put together some meetings in the new year. Plus just a plug for public land in general. 

5. Michigan having the cheapest marijuana prices in 2025. Not much else to say really was a good year for an after ride toke or a few.

Bonus Jesse Welles, if you know you know.