Right then, here we go… My new long term MBUK Machine is a Transition TR250. I hate calling it a ‘park’ bike for much the same reasons I hate going out for a ride being referred to as ‘enduro’. Too many terms, most of them rubbish.

Old man grumbling aside, the 180mm Transition is all about entertainment and as always with their bikes offers a finely fettled combination of angles, adjustability and superb finishing kit.

Don’t just take my word for it though, well, do,  rather take my verbal word for it here…

 The idea to go and ride some bikes on Skye began life as nothing more than an excuse to go and trawl some distilleries. Like a crew of half-rate vikings, we’d batter down the doors of various bastions of fire water and sip, sample and guzzle our way through some of Scotland’s finest malts before attempting to ride some of it’s rarest trails.

That shifted though when I started researching the riding on Skye. GoWhere’s Andy McKenna was a massive help and it soon became clear that Scotland should be the real star of the feature. The hunt was on for ‘epic’.

I drove to Andy’s house in Innerleithen where we also met up with Neil Donoghue who was a last minute addition to the trip. For those of you who’ve never driven to Skye, it’s a LONG way to go from pretty much anywhere but the drive was pretty scenic and the usual van banter was in good flow.

You can read all about the journey and the riding in the magazine of course but here are some things I learnt whilst on the trip…

1. Reversing on to a ferry is tricky

A long wheelbase VW Transporter filled with bikes, kit and three gobby blokes all willing you to get it as wrong as wrong gets is a difficult machine to back down a stupidly steep ramp on to a very small ferry. Getting it on there in a oner was one of the great achievements of my life so far.

2.  Whiskey is actually quite nice

My early experiences of whiskey pretty much consisted of Jim MacDonald in Corrie and drinking Jack Danials and Coke to try and look half-civilised at weddings. When presented with a 10 year-old malt then after a full days riding I was worried I’d pull a ‘Dear God that’s horrible’ face and mortally offend the nice wee woman from Talisker. As it turned out, I got all the flavours she was on about and learnt to embrace the warming whiskey burn. Buoyed by the experience, I even bought a bottle. Which I’ve yet to revisit.

3. Skye is beautiful

Like, genuinely, genuinely stunning. Everywhere around you seems to be hewn from a scene from Lord of the Rings. Similar (I’m guessing) to Megan Fox or a Jaguar E-Type Coupe, it’s incredibly difficult to describe such a perfect shape or form in words. Even if you’re sold on what I’ve managed to whittle down from a sea of adjectives in the article, go and visit Skye. I genuinely don’t think that Britain gets any more beautiful.

Somethings just fit – this is both a good and a bad thing. Good in that when found, some bits of bike clothing fit your body like (for want of a better analogy) a glove. Bad? Well that’s the finding part…

I’ve used MET helmets for years now. Just as when it comes to picking a new motorbike helmet, riders often describe themselves as having a ‘Shoei’ or an ‘Arai’ head, I most definitely have a ‘MET’ head. The Italian crash hat purveyors seem to have my loaf catered for. I recently realised though that I’ve had more or less the same Kaos UL strapped to my head for a few years now and it’s got more impact marks than the surface of the moon. The time had come to scour the web for a new lid.

Thankfully, I didn’t have to look too far – enter the POC Trabec. Now, unusually for me, the initial decision was more or less made with the colour. I’m not much of a tart when it comes to colourful lids but the Light Blue option is a thing of beauty. The shape is… Different. My missus has even gone as far as to call me ‘Playmobil heed’ but I like it.

Rear coverage is great – ideal for 6in bike thumping, the visor works and the tab adjust helps the Trabec stay in place even through the chattery stuff.

Most importantly though – the hat fits. Straight on, no bother. So is the £139.99 price-tag justified?

Well, you can’t put a price on safety but I reckon if you’re like me and spend a minimum of two hours a day in a helmet then you know the value of the right lid lies more in how you get on with it. The Trabec is one of the best helmets I’ve used in a good while and I’m looking forward to plenty more adventures in mine.

 One of the blingest SuperBikes we’ve featured to date… Mr. J Graves’ Yeti 303 WC Carbon.

Here’s a couple of shiny extra pics that we couldn’t fit in the mag but be sure to check out our digital edition for a full bonus gallery of carbon fibrey goodness.

 I’ve got to admit it, as soon as I pulled the red Mondraker out of the box I’d a good feeling about it.

The geometry has been lifted straight from it’s bigger brother, the Factor, itself a more than talented trail animal. Swing a leg over and everything felt good – the size large was a decent length and with the Zero system and shock located low down in the frame, it all felt balanced and stable.

At £1500 you’re never going to get a lightweight machine but that said, the Tracker R isn’t exactly tubby either. Five inches of travel, fun geometry and some sturdy kit – what more could you ask for?!

Check out my full review in the new MBUK 280 (on sale 27th July) but before you pop out to the shops with a deck chair and a Thermos, here’s a video…

E*thirteen’s new TRS+ range could hardly fit a bike or place better – the trail-burying Specialized Stumpjumper Evo and the hardened slopes of Les Gets.

Only five years ago you’d have been told strictly that this was ‘DH bike only’ stuff, not for the feint of heart or single-crown of fork. After three brutal days attempting to keep up with Fabian Barel however, I can confirm that the £2.5k Evo is a force to be reckoned with.

We did have trinkets – the all-new Fox FLOAT 34 fork, a smattering of TRS+ goodies and beefy Specialized Butcher Sam Hill rubber. There was no doubting the frames sure-footedness or the back ends ability to dispatch root after root after monstrous root though.

Heal scraping around the outside of a tracked in berm, dispatching staircase-sized braking bumps or skating around off-camber ledges all whilst cackling like a Bond villain on poppers, we loved it.

You can see how Ric gets on with his Evo every month in MBUK Magazine.

“You don’t have to brake here, you don’t have to brake here, you… MUPPET!” Yet another corner fluffed, yet more time wasted and yet more head-scratching required.

I’ll hold my hands up here and say that I haven’t ridden my Morewood Izimu DH bike for a while and amidst the humid woods outside Stroud, I’m finding it difficult to re-adjust. Since the arrival of my Specialized Stumpy Evo, I’ve been spoilt. With every ride I become more and more impressed with the silver bullets abilities. The current crop of 150mm enduro/trail bikes are in fact so good that it can be all too easy to neglect the DH bike for yet another Saturday and pedal off into the woods aboard something altogether trailer.

If I’m honest, it’s that ‘pedal’ bit that is probably at the crux of this particular problem. Compared to remove from shed/disassemble/put in car/drive to woods/push up/ride/push up again/disassemble/put back in car/ drive home/reassemble/put in shed, remove from shed/ride can (rightly) seem pretty appealing.

Painful as it is to admit, I’d lost the ‘feel’ of a big bike – I was awash in a sea of grip. In corners I was massively underestimating it and when it came to sections where hard-stamping pedal charges were required I was left pumping and flicking and ultimately going slower again.

What’s the answer then? After a healthy dose of soul-searching, tea-leaf reading and crystal consulting I’ve come to a difficult conclusion… Ride more DH!

There are definitely worse problems to have!

Editor Rob Spedding heads down to Enigma Bikes in Eastbourne to get himself measured up for our upcoming bespoke bikes feature and proof, if it were needed, that he’s related to apes…

I’ve always been lanky but have always assumed that my spindly limbs were perfectly in proportion with my round shoulders and pigeon chest. After a few minutes of having various bits of me measured in a small industrial unit on the outskirts of Eastbourne, East Sussex, it looks like I might have a couple of bodily anomalies after all. “Your arms are longer than the norm,” says Enigma Bikes’s frame building guru Mark Reilly. As my knuckles don’t drag along the ground I could argue, but Mark’s the expert and his observation is backed up by the huge database on bikefitting.com. This is the tool that Mark and many other top bike builders use to get the geometry of bespoke bikes spot on.

My, haven't you got long arms?

Mark’s typed my measurements – including shoulder width, torso length and foot size – into Enigma’s bikefitting.com software and it’s compared me to thousands of other people of my height. Where I hit the norm the measurements show as green, where I’m different it’s red. So, my arm length is red… “This means that I can tweak the geometry of your bike so that it takes this information into account and you get the perfect fit,” explains Mark. On screen he’s making small adjustments to the outline of an Enigma bike and changing details such as top tube length – it ends up shorter than the 58cm ‘off the peg’ size I tend to favour – top tube angle, stem length and reach from saddles to bar. I’m not going to pretend to understand it but it all makes sense… And once I sit on a ‘jig’ that has all the relevant measurements dialled in I’m happy. (And, more importantly, so is Mark.)

And this is the 'handlebar' right?

Of course, having a bike made isn’t just about getting the angles and lengths right so before my measuring session Mark and I chatted about the kind of riding I want to do on my Enigma. And the bits I want on it. And, most importantly, the material I want it made from. Now, unlike tech. ed. Warren I’m not really a bike geek so I’m not going into this with the dream of colour co-ordinated tubing, cables and spoke nipples. And I’m also not an out-and-out racer like tech writer Robin Wilmott so I’m not in need of a machine that’ll get me to the front end of the field… But I do know that want something that’s comfortable enough for big rides, climbs well but can provide me with plenty of fun in the twisty bits.

"Yeah, throw in some wheels and I'll take it..."

As for the material I was seriously considering going for steel as I’d recently had a lot of fun riding my father-in-law’s old Gios, however think of Enigma and you really do think about titanium. And Mark does a pretty good job of selling Enigma’s expertise in the art of crafting Ti.  I worry that my slightly vague wishlist might not be enough for Mark, but he seems happy. We agree on hand-built wheels – Mavic Open Pros on Chris King R45 hubs, a matching Chris King headset and Campagnolo Athena Carbon shifting. I toyed with Shimano Ultegra Di2 but as much as I like it, I’m not sure I need it. And, it’s a personal thing, I think Campag will just look better on a metal bike.  So, we’ve got the ball rolling – Mark’s going to send me the final confirmation of size and geometry. And then I’ll sit back and relax while Mr Reilly works his magic in the Enigma workshop. I can’t wait!

My wifes Uncle Derek’s 60th – that’s the reason behind our little spin to the Lake District. The motorway-heavy drive is long and dull, a van has overturned on the opposite carriageway closing all three lanes. When we pass it, the cutters have already peeled its roof open like a sardine can. Cardboard boxes lie broken in a pile inside and the faces of the people stuck at a standstill for mile after mile look equally as devastated.

Finally, we arrive in Keswick and there’s no doubting the epic surroundings. Outdoor shops seem to occupy every corner (a taxi driver later tells us that they’re a nightmare as locals can’t actually buy anything ‘of use’ in town any more) and we begin to feel like the youngest people in the area .

Saturday morning and after a heavy night on the beers, I’m 20 minutes late to meet Clive Forth, my old mate from MTBSkills.eu. Going for a ride with Clive is a bit like stepping into the ring with a heavyweight boxer – you know you’re going to take a battering, it’s just a question of how long you can last. As we start the first climb chatting away, he’s more like a bantamweight, dancing along on his Transition Bandit. His eyes always scanning ahead, breathing never laboured, every motion calculated and smooth.

We reach the top of Jenkins Crag and I feel anything but. The hangover I’ve been so doggedly dodging catches up with me and as we level out I stop fearing an oncoming wave of acidic, yeasty vomit. Five minutes later though and it’s under control and we crack on. I still feel horrendous but soft-pedalling along behind Forth seems to get me through it.

The Garburn Pass is our target and after a lot more techy climbing (and some more pushing from me) we get to the top. The views below us our epic and the grey skies seem to think better of raining on our parade. Clive isn’t happy – since he was last here the pass has been filled with deep gravel. It’s technically still a road so we can understand why. The smoother surface just makes the descent faster and there’s still the odd lump of rock to launch from and drainage shelf to clear.

The wide, smooth pass quickly gives way to tight stone wall-lined lanes and coffee jar-sized rocks. It’s loose going and keeping my speed up involves locking on to Clive’s back wheel and delicately shifting my weight around the bike.

We thread our way back up the hill the way we came and after a decent road-spin we’re back at the top of Jenkins Crag. We pelt down and all the time in my head I’m trying to remember just where that really rough section is I clocked on the way up. It arrives. Typically at speed and lined by walkers. Clive is long gone and the rocks are off camber, angled and slick looking. I try and front wheel a gap, tonk into the opposite side, get a swap on and just about pull it together. Phew…

Monday morning arrives and despite consuming the majority of the areas monthly allocation of Guinness in one day, I’m off for a ride with Ka’s cousin, Jonty. His Specialized FSR, by his reckoning, hadn’t left the shed for ‘easily’ 10 years. The Judy’s could be heard streets away and the freehub was as slippery as a Vaselined-up eel but that didn’t seem to concern Jonty.

Thanks to a cheeky spot of uplifting we managed to ride Lattrigg down to Keswick then back up to tackle Watendlath down to Rosthwaite. The first was flat-out death-gripping and popping off humped over drains whilst the second was typically steep, loose, rock carnage.

Cheers to both Clive and Jonty for showing me around,  James for the lifts back up again, Charlie from the pub who was dead sound and good old Arthur Guinness for keeping everything lubricated along the way!

 In the world of lying a few things are key – believing the lie yourself, communicating it in a convincing manor and most importantly, making sure it enables you to ride your bike!

Rob Jarman is a busy professional stuntman and can usually be found leaping out of windows or jumping motorbikes over flaming lines of elephants etc. When he’s not busy risking life and limb though, he works as a personal trainer. It’s long, physical work and often involves fitting his sessions in around the needs of busy professionals.

As a former Elite racer though, bike time is important for Rob and now and again he has to bend the rules of what is strictly true to his better half to grab a quick thrash on his Voodoo Zobop!