NUKEPROOF MEGA 297 FRAME AND SHOCK £2,500

One of modern mountain biking’s best hacks is the DIY mullet. Take a regular 29er, chop out the back wheel and replace it with a 27.5in, and suddenly you’re riding a bike that sits 10mm closer to the earth, with a slacker head angle too. The bike industry has picked up the scissors too, with most e-bikes and plenty of trail bikes running mixed wheels in 2021, all in the name of more dynamic handling.

The latest brand to join in is Nukeproof; its Dissent downhill bike had a mullet option last year and for 2022 you can get both the Mega and the Giga in the same. And just so you know, it’s not mullet anymore – the industry is now calling it MX in an effort to overthrow those 80’s vibes… they should have called it the fade.

Nukerpoof was determined to provide the same sizing and geo with its mullet frames (which share the same geometry as the 29er frame, incidentally) as on the regular bike, without compromising the geometry. It’s done this with new hardware to fit the 27.5in wheel in without dropping the BB or shortening the wheelbase of the bike.

Regular riders are not the only ones tinkering with mullet bikes, either, the pros have been at it too. EWS U21 world champion, Elliott Heap, helped pioneer the Mega MX in 2019, riding a 275 frame with a 29in fork and wheel bolted on the front. The tweak screwed up the geometry though, so Nukeproof made a custom rear end which eventually grew into the new Mega V4 297.

Pretty much everyone knows about the Nukeproof Mega, it was invented to win its namesake race the Megaavalanche and

became one of the first modern enduro bikes, with aggressive geometry and sizing and 165mm travel. The gnarlier 180mm-travel Giga is less well known though; launched earlier in 2021, it comes in 27.5in and 29er versions as complete bikes, and now frame-only as a mullet. Katy Winton has been racing on the bike this year, and Sam Hill has been experimenting on the MX frame too.

Both the Mega and Giga MX full-carbon frames come in yellow only, with black graphics and a Fox Factory X2 Shock. The only catch is the mullet versions are frame-only for now. The Mega

297 costs £2,500 and the Giga, £100 more. nukeproof.com

LORD HEREFORD’S KNOB, BLACK MOUNTAINS 24KM (14.9 MILES)

“Twmpa, Twmpa, you’re gonna need a jumper, It gets a bit chilly on top of Lord Hereford’s Knob”. Achieving notoriety amongst a certain audience thanks to a Half Man Half Biscuit song, Lord Hereford’s Knob, or Twmpa in Welsh, is a prominent escarpment on the north of the Black Mountains. This route starts outside Talgarth with a bit of a heave up onto the plateau, but from there it’s steady-going, with a tasty descent into Boxbush before the final plummet off the side of The Knob.

GPS download bit.ly/lordherefords