CLOTHES MAKE THE MAN

As a mountain biker, your bike is incredibly precious to you. It helps you tackle the unbeaten track, take your skills and tricks to the next level, and is also a part of your biker identity. As an integral part of your evolution as a cyclist, it feels very personal to you.

Off-the-shelf mountain bikes are designed to elevate your performance and support you on your biking journey. But as you cycle along the unbeaten track, you start paying more attention to the details. Perhaps you feel like a different type of geometry would better suit your build, or you would like a certain set of gear-change and braking componentry.

Whatever the reason is, there are a number of ways you can customise your mountain bike to best suit you.

Why are people customising their bikes?

As the weather starts to warm up around March, bikers start riding the customisation wagon with full force up until October. The autumn and winter months are a bit quieter in the customisation realms, along with the bike rides.

Intriguingly, the spring/summer of 2020, which coincided with the start of the pandemic, saw the biggest boom in Google search volumes for “bike customisation”. While in 2019 the highest search volumes were 2,900 searches in July, September, and October, in May and June 2020, Google search volumes reached a whooping 3,600 searches.

Currently, we’re getting ready to tackle the off-the-road trails, so it’s the perfect time to start thinking about customising your mountain bike. Whether you’re a professional cyclist or an enthusiast, you probably already have a good understanding of the functions and parts of your bike, as well as your cycling goals.

With that in mind, customising your bike can help you elevate your riding style, boost your performance, and make you feel like a cycling superstar. Here is what to consider when giving your old mountain bike a revamp or designing a new one.

Bike frame

Generally, mountain bikes have smaller, sturdy frames, complemented by wider tyres. This structure allows it to tackle muddy trails, rocks, debris, and even jumps and climb.

Low-end bikes usually feature a high-tensile steel or aluminium frame, while intermediate to high-end mountain bikes feature Chromoly steel, titanium, or carbon fibre frame.

Nevertheless, you can play around with the bike frame and change it up by having a custom paint job and applying a different bike frame material.

For example, you can repaint your whole bike to reflect your favourite colours or add a splash of colour or two to some of its components, such as the bike frame or the handlers. A custom paint job can do wonders in terms of personalising your bike, and you can turn to a graffiti artist, for example, to add their artistic magic to your bike.

Moreover, off-the-shelf bikes usually come with clear-coated bike decals, which you can easily remove and apply new ones to your liking. You can even design your custom vinyl decals! They not only add a personal flair to your bike but also protect the frame from scratches. Alternatively, you can fully remove all (or some of) the decals for a cleaner, more simplistic look.

Bike-building expert Gustav Gullholm (aka Dangerholm)advises:

“Try not to have more than three different colours on your bike. For example, if you have a black frame, you can add some white and red details (e.g. decals and components). But as soon as you add a fourth or fifth colour, it all becomes messy-looking. I’m not saying that it can’t work but that it rarely does. Keep it simple.”

Suspension is really important when it comes to mountain bikes, and everyone’s preferences differ, but, thankfully, most modern-day suspension systems have adjustable settings.

You can choose whether you want a hardtail or full suspension bike. A hardtail mountain bike is one that only has front suspension, also referred to as a suspension fork. The suspension fork is essential as it helps with control and comfort. A full-suspension bike has both a suspension fork and a rear suspension. The latter adds more weight and most competitive riders swear by it.

Wheel size

While 26-inch wheels used to be the standard for mountain bikes, nowadays ‘the bigger the better’ seems to be the wheels mantra. The 26-inch wheels can still be found on jump bikes, junior bikes, and extra-small mountain bikes.

Then the 29-inch wheels were introduced. They offer lower rolling resistance and increased grip, which makes them ideal for hardtails. Nevertheless, the additional weight rotationalinertial meant that they weren’t a perfect fit for full-suspension and downhill racing mountain bikes.

That’s why the 27.5-inch wheels were introduced, as they’re much lighter than the 29-inch ones yet have better grip and lower rolling resistance than the 26-inch wheels.

Depending on the purpose of your mountain bike, you can experiment with different wheel sizes to see which works best for you.

Mountain bike pedals

Stock pedals aren’t included with mountain bikes, which provides you with a great opportunity to choose your own.

According to Bike Radar, “What’s right for you will depend on where you ride and how you ride, but the first decision you need to make is whether you want flats or clipless”.

Flat pedals are literally a platform for your foot. They’re double-sided and usually have strategically placed pins to provide you with some extra grip.

Clipless pedals, or also called SPD pedals, on the other hand, “are a bit of a misnomer since they clip onto special cleats mounted on the soles of your shoes”, says Bike Radar. They’re also double-sided and are preferred by some bikers because they provide a sense of stability and pedalling efficiency due to the connection with the bike.You not only have a choice in terms of which type of bike pedals to choose but also which colour. Let your creative side flow and decide if you want to match your pedals’ colour with the handlebars, for example, or a different component.

Brighten your bike

You don’t have to spend a fortune on customising your bike with fancy components to make it uniquely yours. Whether you prefer a sleeker style or would like to be adventurous in your design choices, there is an array of exciting and affordable customisation hacks.

Bike stickers are also a great way to customise your bike and show your loyalties to a particular bike crew.

You will likely spend a good amount of time looking at your stem when going uphill on your mountain bike. Brighten your view by adding funky patterned stem caps with images or slogans. Did you know that you can even get a bike cap with a clock fitted into it?

The handlebars also provide an opportunity to brighten up your bike. They usually come in plain black, but you can add any colour or pattern through grips, bar tape, or hood covers.

There is a whole range of both model-incorporated and aftermarket customisations you can consider. From wheel size and bike breaks to gadgets and colours, the playground is yours to explore.

Shocking New Analysis Reveals That Every 6 Hours A Stack Of Clothing High Enough To Reach The International Space Station Is Thrown Into Landfill. 

• 64% of all garments produced globally each year end up in landfill.
• 94m kg worth of single-use outfits are bought every year with 1 in 2 people throwing away unwanted clothes directly into the bin instead of reselling them or giving them to charity. 
• Man-made fabrics like polyester and nylon can take up to 200 years to break down in landfill, in comparison linen takes two weeks to break down naturally and even natural fibres can take years to decompose. 
• Interactive visual tool demonstrates shocking statistics on how much fashion industry waste is added to landfills every few seconds

Childrenswear brand FIVE OF US have examined and created a visualised interactive page that demonstrates just how much the fashion industry contributes to landfill each year. The interactive page compares the volume of clothing in landfill to some of the world’s most well-known landmarks. It comes as latest statistics reveal that of the 32 billion garments produced for the fashion industry each year, a whopping 64% of these will end up in landfill 1.

This gross amount of waste is due in part to the 94m kg worth of single-use outfits bought every year and partially due to the 1 in 2 people who throw unwanted clothes directly into the bin 1 instead of reselling them or giving them to charity; because of this, it is estimated that the fashion industry (and its supply chain) is the planet’s 3rd largest polluter after food and construction 1. 

As you scroll through the interactive and educational page, users are asked the question “if we stacked up all the fashion landfill created in a 12 month period, how tall of a ladder would you need to climb to the top?” On-screen are statistics on fashion industry waste compared to well-known landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower, Burj Khalifa, Mount Everest, The International Space Station, and even the moon, to give context to the amount of waste. 

Space? That’s because the amount of clothing that is thrown to landfill every 6 hours is equivalent to the distance from Earth to the International Space Station. You’ll agree that figure is out of this world.

A spokesperson from Five of us commented saying: “At FIVE OF US, we don’t pretend to have the solution to the problem that is sustainability in the fashion industry, but we do believe that our “made to order” model is one responsible step in the right direction to reduce the problem of overproduction.” 

“While the fashion industry as a whole contributes more than a trillion dollars worth of waste to landfill every year, we rarely talk about how children’s fashion contributes to this. We think one of the key areas missing in sustainability in fashion conversation is educating the next generation on how to shop and consume with sustainability in mind. More than 3.15 billion articles of children’s clothing are thrown away every year – almost half the amount of menswear, and a third of women’s 2. It’s a huge problem, and this is why we believe that it is never too early to start educating our children about sustainability, and about where their clothing comes from (and ends up).”

An additional concern the fashion industry faces when it comes to sustainability is that of how long many of the materials used by manufacturers take to decompose.

While sustainably sourced fabrics like cottons, silks and recycled fabrics break down naturally over time, most brands often turn to cheaper, man-made fabrics to make their low-cost garments. Unfortunately for the environment, this can be catastrophic. Acrylic fibres such as polyester and nylons can take anywhere from 40 to 200 years to break down in landfill, leaving a carbon footprint of up to 11.53kg of CO2e per 2sqm 3.

A spokesperson from the brand adds: “Sustainability doesn’t start and stop with our materials or the bespoke garments, instead, it is about putting it at the core of everything we do and the educational efforts we build around it. Because when you really value the clothes you have, they will last longer and in turn will have a positive impact on the environment. This is why our collection is based on a made to order model, uses responsibly sourced materials and is custom-designed to last.”

Supercars are the thing dreams are made of. Violently fast, sumptuous flowing lines and raw exclusivity, these cars grab the attention like no other. With that in mind, private plate supplier Click4Reg sought to establish which 21st century supercar dominates popularity in the public eye. To find out, Click4Reg created a seed list of 20 of the most well-known supercars, analysed hashtag data from Instagram and ranked the findings, with the results being far from expected!

Key findings include:

• Lamborghini is considered the most popular supercar brand, with 2 models taking the top spots with a combined 2.7 million hashtags on Instagram
• McLaren are the only UK-based company to place in the top ten, with under a million hashtags shared between them!
• Once the fastest car in the world, the Bugatti Veyron places only 8th with 395,290 hashtags

The 10 most Instagrammable supercars of the 21st Century

In first place is the Lamborghini Huracán. Priced at $212,266, this Italian thoroughbred racked up nearly 1.4 million hashtags!

This was closely followed by the bigger brother of the Huracán, the Aventador. Costing over $500,000 dollars, this car attracted 49,000 LESS hashtags than its younger and cheaper colleague, however still commanding more than 1.3 million hashtags on the photo sharing platform.

The Nissan GT-R R35 comes in third place with 474,129 hashtags, closely followed by the McLaren P1 with 463,288 and the McLaren 720S with 452,058 hashtags respectively.

Notably, placing in eighth place we have the Bugatti Veyron. Once the fastest production car in the world, this multi-million-pound coupe no longer attracts as much buzz, with only 395,290 hashtags.

However, it’s Porsche who finished bottom of our top 10 most Instagrammable supercars list. The Stuttgart-based outfit has 2 cars in the rankings, with the 918 narrowly beating the 911 Turbo S by nearly 3,000 tags.

You can almost smell it, taste it…SPRING!.  The promise of Bank Holiday weekends and the long-awaited summer holiday is in the air!  

Whether you are escaping on a city break, off to the British coast or travelling further afield British sustainable activewear brand, Universal Performance encourage you to travel light! 

The Universal Performance mission is to help encourage day to day performance, not just in a ‘fitness sense’ but our performance towards one another and the planet. We feel it’s our responsibility to do the right thing, by producing ethically, and environmentally friendly clothing that we never want to find in a landfill site.

Universal Performance sustainable activewear separates, many featuring Polygiene BioStatic Stays Fresh technology offer an eco-capsule travel wardrobe including base layers which enable you to wear more, wash less and pack light this summer.

Wear more, wash less with the genius of Polygiene.  When bacteria can get into your clothes, it’s hard to get out, meaning you find yourself washing your activewear more than you would like. But with Polygiene BioStatic Stays Fresh technology, bacteria molecules are permanently broken down on contact. According to Polygiene, 45% of people discard garments after washing due to odour and we want to be part of the solution to that problem. 

UP was born from a passionate belief that performance wear should do good everywhere. That is why our activewear is for active people who want to make an active difference, by choosing quality, handmade, stylish performance clothing that helps protect the planet.

Be part of the solution not the problem. Universal Performance is passionate about reducing the environmental impact of its performance wear. It’s a fact that consumer use equates to almost two-thirds of the environmental footprint of a garment. Which is why by choosing Universal Performance you can be part of the solution, not the problem. Helping to save water, energy and reducing the use of microplastics.

That’s not all. All packaging is either fully recycled or made from eco-friendly, carbon-neutral sugar cane, the greenest material on Earth and you can count on all Universal Performance clothing being handmade by traditional craftspeople in Portugal. To avoid overproduction and overconsumption all of our clothing is made in smaller batches to help protect the world’s resources.

In the mid-1960s, auto racing was having a heyday, and a whole subculture had sprung up around “café racers,” stylish motorcycles, used to literally transport their riders from hip café to hip café.

Willy Breitling set out to capture the speed-driven style of the day with a completely new take on the timekeeper. The result? The Breitling Top Time, an unconventional chronograph designed for “young and active professionals.” It quickly became the watch of choice for a sporty in-crowd of men and women equally drawn to the watch’s bold proportions.

Today, that freewheeling 1960s café-racer spirit is back in a spectacular new Top Time collaboration between Breitling and British motorcycle brand Triumph. Now in its 120th year, Triumph combines historic craftsmanship with contemporary design to create its classic motorcycles.

“Triumph’s heritage and modern-retro aesthetic are just two of the many things we have in common,” said Georges Kern, CEO of Breitling. “Their blending of tradition with technology is completely in sync with what we do.”

For their debut collaboration, Breitling is producing a Top Time Triumph watch with a distinctive brushed finish in the bow-tie motif nicknamed “the Zorro dial” by Top Time collectors. Triumph, meanwhile, is launching 270 co-branded motorcycles—the Speed Twin Breitling Limited Edition—whose buyers will have the privileged opportunity to purchase a special owner’s version of the Top Time Triumph, this one with a sunray dial and engraved caseback featuring the individual number of the bike (owner’s version orders must be placed with Triumph by August 22, 2022).

The stars of both watches are their ice-blue dials. This unique color has two major references: a blue Triumph Thunderbird 6T from 1951, and a rare, blue-dialed Breitling Top Time Ref. 815 from the 1970s.

Features include a subdued racing-themed calfskin leather strap that lets the hero dial shine; Breitling and Triumph logos that sit subtly at 12 and 6 o’clock; oversized mushroom pushers that allow for easy control of the chronograph’s stop-start and reset functions; and a high- contrast tachymeter scale that provides clear legibility of speed readings. The watches are powered by the Breitling Caliber 23, a COSC-certified chronometer with a power reserve of approximately 48 hours. And one more cool feature collectors will love: the casebacks are etched with a detailed design sketch of Triumph’s parallel twin engine.

Of the co-branded watches, Triumph CEO Nick Bloor said: “This collaboration is born out of a shared philosophy of bold and original design. The Top Time Triumph brings that uncompromising style and craftsmanship together.”

At a 41 mm diameter, the Top Time Triumph is, like the original, a fit for both sexes. For fans of the Triumph brand and prospective owners of the Speed Twin Breitling Limited Edition motorcycle, it’s an absolute must-have.