I guess I should get our New Year greetings out of the way as early as possible. With my record of posting it could be Easter before you hear from me.

Apologies. Many times over the years I’ve had to make some acknowledgement of patchy posting. It’s not something I am happy with but I hope to do better in 2025 and you will definitely being hearing more from me in coming days and weeks.

What I really wanted to say is a big thank you to all who visit and hopefully enjoy this site and especially those who ride with us. If I think about it, October 2025 will see us celebrate 20 years of the Muddymoles!

It’s not easy, but the reality is trying to ride as much as possible while full time employed makes it hard round the edges to write stuff up. That’s a shame because I really think I could write something every day without too much effort. But these things take time and money.

I’d like to switch up the format on here a little to post up shorter pieces alongside longer form writing, reviews and quite simply, cycling stories.

The truth is, there is not much original bike media out there outside of a handful of obvious sites – Singletrackworld, BikeRumor, road.cc/off.road.cc and Pinkbike. None of those have had much investment recently from what I can see.

All of the above and others like Velo and The Escape Collective are struggling to find a way to make their content and journalism pay.

In tandem, the independent enthusiast voice has all but disappeared from the internet; not just from the cycling space but more widely.

We’ve all regressed to snark on social media as we create content for a small number of massive corporations, with people either trying to ‘build an audience’ or bang a fervently held drum as loudly as possible.

It’s… just not pleasant and that was before a world of rampant AI theft. Despite that, I believe people appreciate our efforts in our corner of the internet and I firmly believe original voices have value.

There’s things I plan to implement to bring this site up to date. More evolution than revolution but site structure, accessibility, mobile navigation and a way of accommodating shorter notes-style posts are high on the list. Believe it or not, the Muddymoles site design has not really changed much since 2015 which I consider an achievement of sorts, but it can be a lot better.

Change is coming plus I have my end of year stats, a Christmas ride report and our plans for riding in 2025 to discuss, along with much else.

About the author

Matt is one of the founding Molefathers of the Muddymoles, and is the designer and main administrator of the website.

Having ridden a 2007 Orange Five for many years then a 2016 YT Industries Jeffsy 29er, he now rocks a Bird Aether 9 and a Pace RC-627.

An early On-One Inbred still lurks in the back of the stable as a reminder of how things have moved on. You can even find him on road bikes - currently a 2019 Cannondale Topstone 105 SE, a much-used 2011 Specialized Secteur and very niche belt drive Trek District 1.

If you've ever wondered how we got into mountain biking and how the MuddyMoles started, well wonder no more.