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Varun Jyothykumar
8 min read
Back to the Peaks: MTB Leadership Training with MTB Colour Collective
On my last trip with the fabulous people of MTB Colour Collective, I rode a mountain bike for the first time as an adult on 'serious'...
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Varun Jyothykumar
5 min read
The Ultra Bike Tour? Entering the Dales Divide 2023
Not long ago, I decided that ‘touring’ was a very good word for the kind of bicycle riding I enjoy. I do like riding fast (at times) and...
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Varun Jyothykumar
6 min read
Commuting by Bike - The Year-Long Audax
Given up driving? Sold your car? Trying to set yourself up for an optimal long-distance, year-long commuting life in all seasons? This...
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Varun Jyothykumar
6 min read
How to Live Car-Free
With a looming climate emergency, astronomic fuel costs and a cost of living crisis like none before, now might be a very good time to...
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Varun Jyothykumar
7 min read
What does ‘Inclusion’ look like?
This is the kind of bombastic headline often seen on many ‘how to’ guides for supposedly inclusive initiatives. The trouble is, as many...
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Varun Jyothykumar
5 min read
Review: Alpkit's 'Deluge' Bikepacking Bag Range
I was glancing through a product release email from Alpkit (as you do) when I spotted that the Peak District-based brand had released a...
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Varun Jyothykumar
5 min read
The Ultimate Utility Bike
I will start off by saying I love utility biking, but utility biking in India, where my family live, is of another breed. Indian travel...
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Varun Jyothykumar
3 min read
Is Shimano Tiagra the new 105?
With the recent introduction of Shimano’s 105 Di2 groupset has come a lot of furious debate; typically, that this is a move by Shimano to...
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Varun Jyothykumar
5 min read
Review: Stayer Groadinger UG 'Ultra Grav Grav' Bike
When I first spotted the Groadinger UG on Stayer Cycles’ website, I had come from a period riding two separate bikes - one that was...
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Varun Jyothykumar
4 min read
The Trouble with Gravel Bikes
I’m going to start this article by addressing a non-issue to put it out of the way completely (because it’s right there, you and I can...
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Varun Jyothykumar
4 min read
The ‘Right’ Bicycle
This all started on a cold January’s morning, when someone stole two of my bikes and I decided, very swiftly, that I didn’t want them...
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Varun Jyothykumar
3 min read
Making it work: How to Hack a Bike Together P2
In the last instalment, we heard the story of how I acquired and then adapted a pretty pink fork to fit my 1990s Specialized Rockhopper fram
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Varun Jyothykumar
5 min read
Making it work: How to Hack a Bike Together P1
In my first article, I wrote about 'making do' with the bike you have to get you around. This is not a definitive guide (is there such a...
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Varun Jyothykumar
2 min read
Quaxing: Cycling can be Utilitarian, Too…
This is not an article about performance, endurance and speed. If anything, it's an article about survival. Change is, by definition,...
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