Even if you’re not a mountain biker, you’ve probably heard of Mountain Bike Rider, or MBR. Originally a print magazine which later evolved into an online-only offering, the brand has been going for over 25 years, keeping mountain bikers across the UK up to date with new tech, reviews and trail guides.
Sadly, at the back end of 2025, Future – the publisher that owns the MBR brand – decided to close the site. But two of the core staff, Editor Danny Milner and Chief Bike Tester, Alan Muldoon, decided to take things into their own hands and acquire the licensing for the MBR brand.
Fast forward to January 2026, and MBR is back, with Milner and Muldoon at the helm – albeit without a site. It’s now video and social only, but the two have big plans to keep it an independent and informative source of mountain bike journalism. We chat to Danny about what’s next for MBR.
Talk us through MBR 2.0 and the demise of MBR 1.0. What happened to the website and relationship with Future?
In the many years that I’ve worked for MBR – going on 23 to be precise – we’ve enjoyed a number of owners. I guess somewhere inside me, I didn’t expect Future PLC to be the last people to own MBR, but I never imagined that we would be the ones at the helm!
How we ended up here will be familiar to anyone who’s followed the struggles of traditional media to make ends meet as audiences stop paying for content, the cost of making said content goes up dramatically, brands are offered increasingly varied ways to spend their marketing budgets, and big tech companies make it harder and harder for publishers to reach their audience and make money.
Simply put, while we achieved significant audience growth across web, video, and social media in 2024 and 2025, the money wasn’t there to make sufficient profit. In August, we found out Future was looking to mothball the brand, and in October, we started negotiating to license MBR back from them. In December, we got the green light and signed the deal to run MBR across YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.
Danny Milner
What made you and Alan Muldoon decide to take the project on?
Simple, really; MBR has been part of our lives for over 20 years now. It’s completely ingrained in our psyches. In many ways, we are the brand, and the brand is us. So, taking the opportunity to run it ourselves, fully independently, was a pretty simple decision. We strongly believe it has a bright future.
What does MBR 2.0 mean for your audience, and what can we look forward to seeing in the coming months?
Hopefully, your readers will already be familiar with the brand and our content; if not, get over to Instagram and YouTube right now and have a look. But basically, if you’ve ever watched the Muppets, we’re a bit like the Statler and Waldorf of mountain biking. Two jaded old gits heckling from the sidelines.
In all seriousness, we now have complete editorial freedom to create amazing content. Alan and I will be continuing to focus on the tech side of MTB, covering product launches and new tech, and delivering in-depth reviews. What we really want to do is help our audience make the most informed decisions about how they spend their money, and we want to do that in an insightful and entertaining way.
There’s nothing that satisfies me more than someone coming up to me on a trail or in the car park and saying “I bought this bike after watching or reading your review, and I’m so glad I did.”
What’s the long-term strategy for the brand?
Our long term strategy document is headed up with one simple line: don’t **** it up! If the last ten years have taught us anything, it’s that long-term strategies are all well and good, but you have to be able to adapt. Part of the reason big publishing companies are struggling is because they are the opposite of agile.
They have too much invested in declining platforms. And even when they do decide to change course, a new CEO comes along and decides to go another direction. So I think we want to focus on the basics: making good content that our audience wants to watch. And that’s about having an in-depth understanding of and a strong passion for mountain biking. We are also fortunate enough to have a silent partner bringing serious investment, so we’re here for the long haul.
And finally, are you looking for any brand help, sponsors, etc.?
Absolutely. We’re on our own now, completely self-funded, so we need to work with brands to make this a viable business. Whether that’s with short form vertical content or long form YouTube videos, we feel like we’re pretty good at drilling down into new tech and helping consumers to navigate confusing product ranges.
And with over 90k Instagram followers, over 180k YouTube subscribers, and 84k Facebook followers, we’ve got the reach to get that message across. But what’s really important to us is that we remain authentic. We’re never going to say something is good if we don’t actually believe it, because that trust and authority that we’ve built up with our audience is priceless.
If you’re keen to talk to Danny or Alan about working with MBR, drop them a message on the MBR social media accounts or email Danny directly at danny@mbm-media.com.
