Are 32” wheels cycling’s new rage bait? No matter what content you consume, these wheels spark conversation and very strong opinions.

The larger diameter wheels — which in theory would roll faster and smoother over bumps — potentially rule out a huge segment of the market. As I wrote when wheels and tyres appeared at the Sea Otter trade show: “the geometry simply doesn't work at smaller frame sizes without some significant engineering resulting in a good chunk of the cycling population locked out before the format has even properly launched.”

Allison Schmitz, however, disagrees. And, she’s designed the bike to prove it.

Standing at 5'2" (158cm), Schmitz is a design engineer at Salsa Cycles — and she rides a size small. Which is exactly why the Fargo, Salsa's new 32" wheel bike, is the first one I've seen that actually fits a frame that small.

As a 5’5 female myself, the buzz around 32” bikes had been completely lost on me. In my mind, I was just too darn short to ride them. So you can imagine my surprise when I was walking about the Sea Otter Classic this past spring, to find a 32” wheel bike in a size small. A frame I could actually stand over. When I asked the rep at Salsa how this was possible, the answer was simple: “Allison would never make a bike that wasn’t available to everyone.”

I recently caught up with Schmitz to hear a little more about why 32” wheels aren’t just for tall people.

THE 32" PROBLEM NOBODY WAS SOLVING

In case you’ve been shielded from the endless chatter about 32” wheels, the bikes built around this soon-to-be wheel standard are essentially designed for riders 5'9" and taller. It’s just math. Bigger wheels mean longer forks, higher stack, and an elongated wheelbase to help with tyre clearance, and the dreaded toe overlap. All this translates into a bike that fits a 6’ rider beautifully, and leaves the rest of us standing on the sidelines.

That is, until you get the right people involved in the conversation.

As Schmitz shares, when the Fargo project kicked off, the team had that same original intent: to follow the trend and create a bike around the 32” platform in size medium and up. And then things changed.

"We have this big team to help challenge the product design process and ask the questions. So why are you stopping there? Why not small? It was this perfect confluence of me being the engineer on this project and being a person who rides a size small, to really put that effort and focus into small prototypes," Schmitz shares.

A GAME OF MILLIMETRES

How does one shrink a size large into a size small? You don’t, as Schmitz shares. You start anew.

Like most ideas, Schmitz began with a simple sketch: “a 2D stick figure,” as Schmitz describes it. A basic outline of what a bike looks like on a screen in a software program called SolidWorks, and then slowly, tube by tube, you start hanging parts on it. She talks about it as pulling geometry numbers, checking clearances, asking what happens if you move this millimetre here or that angle there. It's methodical, iterative, and the kind of detailed work that could send your head spinning.

One principle she works by: always start with the smallest size. "That frame is honestly going to give you the most challenges because you've got less space to work with." Solve the small, she says, and the rest tends to follow.

Schmitz and the team were able to push the front wheel just far enough forward to solve the toe clearance problem. A negative rise stem manages the higher stack. A shortened head tube brings things back into proportion. Small decisions, made carefully, added up into a bike that actually fits everyone.

The next step was to ride it. With an in-house welder, the team was able to create rapid prototypes, bringing three different bikes to life for testing: a 29" variant, a 32" with a rigid fork, and a 32" with a suspension fork. The three builds weren't just variations for variation's sake, each one let Schmitz test how the small-frame constraints, toe clearance, stack height, fork length, behaved differently depending on wheel size and suspension setup. This was critical to nail down before any geometry was locked in for production.

"Bike design is a game of millimetres," she says. "You're just trying to squeeze every little millimetre you can get." And she feels those compromises personally. "It can be a little frustrating. You're like, is this a different experience? I understand why you had to do that, but also, what can I do to just make this a better compromise?"

RIDING YOUR OWN WORK

Schmitz rode the first Fargo prototype around Minneapolis and remembers the moment clearly.

"I was like, this bike looks cool. I'd like to keep this."

She rode those prototypes all summer. The decisions about geometry, about what compromises were acceptable — she was making them as a rider as well as an engineer.

"I'm not designing this bike for me," she's careful to say. "It's for a wide range of users."

So how did the bike feel? The impact of bigger wheels is significant, Schmitz says. "It has better rollover and momentum to get you there faster or take you farther," Schmitz said. But it isn’t necessarily the most intuitive, at least not at first. "There was an adjustment period, it felt like a lot of bike to get my leg over the wheel, but I was surprised how quickly that feeling went away and how normal it became.”

To help alleviate this issue, Schmitz added a dropper post. “It helped me get used to the handling, even just coming to stops and getting on and off the bike."

After that, something shifted. "It became my preferred ride," she said. "The better rollover, traction and maintained momentum is noticeable and I find myself more confident and daring on the 32" bike. The big wheels open up more trail for me, with the forgiveness of poor line choice because the wheels can overcome a lot."

32” WHEELS SHOULDN’T BE EXCLUSIVE

For Schmitz, this was never just about one bike. It's about access.

"Everyone deserves the benefits of 32" wheels and the choice on what wheel size is best for them," she says. Her argument is grounded in a very real, very practical need. "32" wheels have a higher angular momentum and a lower angle of attack, which means these wheels roll faster and farther under the same amount of power. This translates into tangible and measurable advantages. “The longer contact patch improves traction and, paired with the other benefits (faster rolling, more momentum retention) it allows for new line choices through difficult terrain."

These are benefits that every rider, regardless of height, should have the option. Just like any other bike, cyclists should be able to decide whether they want this performance, or not. Sadly, this isn’t even an option for most riders. There isn’t even the illusion of choice. The door isn’t simply closed—it doesn’t even exist. Until now.

"The only way to have this choice is if more brands to challenge and expand the size range for 32" bikes," she says. "We know it's possible, the Fargo 32 is a great example. But even with Fargo's versatility, it is one example with a specific set of design parameters in mind. I'm excited to see how the industry will innovate and serve a larger bike community with this new wheel size."

While one bike doesn't fix the entire size challenge across the cycling industry, it does prove a point. The next question is whether the rest of the industry will answer. Or is even willing to try.

WHAT SHE'S RIDING TOWARD, PERSONALLY AND PROFESSIONALLY

Schmitz describes herself as a casual rider. And then in the same sentence drops that she used to be a competitive distance swimmer and once did a 24-hour race in Minneapolis on a tandem, with her husband, that they found on Craigslist. She also wants to ride across the entire state of Minnesota and eventually, the United States… on rail trails. It’s this understated confidence that comes through in her professional life too.

She wants to keep learning, expanding her skillset into more carbon frames and even some full suspension projects too. It’s not about notoriety for Schmitz, instead, it’s about seeking solutions with the ultimate goal of becoming a subject matter expert. Not famous. Just genuinely good at the thing she's spending her time on. When I press her for a little more she keeps it cool and low-key with a simple: "I'm just ready to work on my next project.”

What makes Schmitz’s story so interesting isn't that she's a woman in a male dominated field (though she is, and that matters). Instead, it’s that she's proof that the best products come when there are more perspectives involved. When you invite different people into the conversation.

Schmitz didn't set out to make a statement. She just showed up, and asked the questions nobody else did. Ultimately, building something that made a difference and creating a bike that fits everyone because she needed it to fit her.

The rest is just millimetres.

Two generations ago, heart rate monitors were clunky devices found only in hospitals and sport science labs. A generation ago, power meters were for WorldTour pros and a few weekend warriors with plenty of extra cash to burn. Until about a decade ago, a bike-mounted rear-facing radar that gave you early warning to traffic approaching from behind was science fiction.

Sure, riding L’Eroica—on a steel bike with downtube friction shifters, wearing wood and wool—may be a fun experience. But have you ever wondered if you could be safer on your daily jaunt?

Ignoring technological advancements in cycling might bolster your bank account, but given the current state of cycling tech, are you doing yourself a disservice?

Radars

When I’m doing a very short commute to the gym on my city commuter, I’ll leave my Garmin radar at home. But even if I’m out for a short, leisurely coffee ride, I’d feel naked without it. Although a radar cannot affect traffic approaching from the rear, it gives me ample warning about vehicle proximity and closing speed. The latest generation of radar can discern a motor from an 18-wheeled flatbed, too, with enough early warning to allow for evasive action if needed.

Of course, you don’t need all this info to have fun on a bike. You can simply put your head unit in your jersey pocket and listen for the audible radar alerts. Given the life-saving potential of this device, why more people don’t have them is beyond me.

Bike Computers as Dashboards

Bike computers used to be small and awkward contraptions requiring wires wrapped around brake cables or zip-tied to downtubes. Wheel and crankset magnets never seemed to stay in place. And forget getting speed/distance data if you needed a neutral spare wheel in a race.

Current head units from Hammerhead, Garmin, and Wahoo sit at the centre of electronics ecosystems that provide more data processing power to crunch ride info than was available for the entire U.S. space program from start through the lunar landing.

Even if you don’t need or want to know your effort, basic bike computers act as a display to alert you to hazards approaching when paired with a radar.

Mapping and Navigation

When riding on strange new roads, using a printed cue sheet is low-tech and functional. But to be safe, you’ll need to pull off to the side of the road to use it. And hope it’s a rain-free day.

Of course, you can use your phone’s map, but what if you ride where mobile service is spotty? And if you’re using your phone in lieu of a bike computer, you're putting it at risk of violent ejection at worst, and a drained battery at best.

Route mapping and turn-by-turn navigation available in even modestly-priced bike computers may not be indispensable, but for those who find thrill in exploring new roads, these features can help get you home safely, with relatively few worries.

Wearable Tech

Do you ignore the check engine light when it comes on in your car?

Accurate wrist-worn heart rate monitors have been available to consumers since the early 1990s. Today’s generation of wearables are more powerful than many bike computers since they offer 24/7 monitoring.

And wearing sport watches or recovery monitors allows for basic biohacking (like when to take more rest, or have one less post-ride pint) backed by data that takes the guesswork out of when and how much to rest.

You don’t need this info to enjoy your ride, either—but it can inform you on how to make your riding more enjoyable when not as tired or fatigued.

Power Meters

Around the same time when heart rate monitors became ubiquitous for athletes, wired SRM power meters were seen on a few pros’ bikes. At the time, they cost more than a set of top-tier race wheels, (but also ensured a bike would be over the UCI minimum weight). Downside: they had to be returned to the factory for a battery swap, and could be fickle when used in rapidly changing outdoor conditions.

The latest generation of power meters can be had for the cost of a few sets of tubeless tyres. This democratising tech can help with pacing race-winning moves or confidently completing an epic randonneur.

When matching watts with heart rate data and recovery metrics, and comparing against terrain and environmental factors, you’ll have your own human performance lab at home. If you race and you’re not doing this, your competition will thank you.

Indoor cycling tech

Even for those who are fortunate enough to live in climates where one can ride year-round, there are always circumstances where cycling indoors means not missing a ride due to weather, daylight, safety, or obligations.

Tools like Zwift, MyWhoosh, and TrainerRoad mean you don’t have to skip saddle time. Why is this so crucial? If you race or have a big ride on your calendar, maintaining consistency is massively important for being successful. If you Zwift, you already know this. If you swore off riding inside, maybe you just don’t know what you’re missing?

Drivetrains

Electronic shifting isn’t a must-have, and ignoring it isn’t perilous.

But the big three component manufacturers are heavily leaning into battery-driven shifting, and many new bikes will be electronic-only going forward.

Should you start stockpiling shift cables now?

Tubless tyres

Much like the polarising disc brake debate of the late twenty-teens, tyre- and wheel systems are kindling for heated discussion.

Those not already in the tubeless tyres camp claim they know what they’re missing. But it’s a lot easier to carry a handful of plugs than more than two spare tubes. Like disc brakes and electronic shifting, most major bike manufacturers are shipping bikes with tubeless-ready wheels and tyres.

Parcours’ latest addition to the best road bike wheels segment is the Strade GT - a wheelset that employs recycled carbon fiber to enhance the user experience and improve overall performance, while also reducing waste and landfill. With performance gains in weight reduction and aerodynamics becoming increasingly marginal, Parcours considers material exploration the next meaningful step in cycling performance.

We’ve been testing Parcours products for a while now, starting back in 2020 with the original mixed-depth Strade wheels. This was followed by the brand’s foray into the gravel discipline with the Alta and FKT gravel wheels, and to this day one thing has remained consistent - Parcours’ propensity to stay abreast of trends and sometimes even beat more internationally established brands to market.

The secret recipe comes from what it calls VibraCore, a structural integration of recycled carbon material laid up within the wheel, designed to minimise vibration at the spoke bed before it is transmitted to the bike and rider. It’s very clever, and it works - transforming the way your bike performs on poorly surfaced roads. I wrote about it in more detail when we covered the launch news of the Strade GT wheels.

Technical details

Like the FKT gravel wheels, the optics of the Strade GT are premium, incorporating beautifully typeset logos that accompany the trademark Parcours wordmark. You’ll also notice the new GT nomenclature, along with two entirely new Lineat and AFFT logos. Gone is the typical unidirectional carbon-fibre look, and in comes a unique, ornate pattern attributed to the AFFT (Aligned Formable Fibre Technology), selected for its aesthetic qualities. Closer inspection also reveals a GT logo on both the front and rear hubsets, another nod to the quality and detail of this wheelset.

I quite liked the initial set of Parcours Strade GT wheels sent to us for early testing, especially their aesthetic qualities. Unlike the current Parcours wheel inventory, the prototypes featured a holographic, keyline Parcours wordmark that contrasted vividly with the carbon-fibre backdrop, but this design language was abandoned because Parcours founder Dov Tate opted for a uniform look and feel. Still, I do hope the company perhaps applies this to a special edition wheelset or gives customers the option to personalise their wheels.

One of the standout attributes of the Strade GT wheels is the company’s decision to utilise a hooked-bead interface rather than the now-de rigueur hookless system, intended to improve tyre security when paired with lower pressure. The rim profile is an evolution of the existing Strade wheelset’s 49/54mm heights and was optimised for use with 30mm tyres. The most notable change is a one-millimetre increase in internal rim width (23.5mm vs 22.5mm), which places the Strade GTs in line with contemporary standards.

The hubs feature a captive design and are laced with 21/24 front/rear in a two-cross radial pattern at the front and a one-cross (NDS)/three-cross (DS) configuration at the rear. The drive mechanism uses a four-pawl freehub and 60T ratchet, chosen for its notably quick engagement and light system weight. Looking at the performance metrics, according to Parcours, the Strade GT is 3.2W faster than the current Strade at 48km/h and 15 per cent more stable in the handling stakes, which is big news given how predictable the original Strade wheels performed in the wind. The GTs are also 390g lighter, which translates to a considerable improvement in rotational inertia and is something you’ll instantly notice.

The standout attribute of the wheels, however, is the VibraCore technology, which integrates reclaimed carbon material from AFFT (Aligned Formable Fibre Technology) into the spoke bed - a process carried out by industry specialists, Lineat. It requires state-of-the-art machinery to be done properly, but it's essentially carried out using processes such as pyrolysis and solvolysis, which remove plastics, resins, and solvents to obtain short carbon fibres. After the resins are burned away, the remaining fibres are realigned by Lineat and combined with resin to form new composite sheets. The AFFT retains a proportion of the tensile properties of virgin carbon fibre, accounting for approximately 12–15% of the rim's total material and ultimately helping eliminate landfill waste.

During manufacture, the placement of the reclaimed carbon fibre sheets is channelled in the thickest area of the wheel as part of the structural layup. VibraCore influences how vibrational energy is transmitted through the rim at the earliest possible stage, rather than acting as an external damping system.

VibraCore has also enabled the introduction of carbon-fibre spokes as it mitigates the harsh vibrations often associated with the material – in this case, Alpina Carbolite spokes laced in a 21/24 front/rear configuration and chosen for their narrow-bladed design, which rivals the compliance of steel spokes.

According to Parcours, the differences between a non-VibraCore and VibraCore rim are stark. Real-world testing in partnership with Nottingham Trent University, with multiple riders on varied surfaces and equipped with vibration sensors, showed that VibraCore reduced vibration energy by 19-23%. These results are comparable to a 10-15psi reduction in tyre pressure without negatively impacting associated rolling efficiency or speed.

Performance

You can feel the vibration-damping qualities of the VibraCore tech pretty much instantly, and while it's hard to quantify, road buzz feels notably subdued – delivering a softer, quieter ride with no discernible effect on speed or wheel stiffness. The wheels respond well under load and transfer pedalling force effectively. During all my testing, I purposely sought out rough roads and rumble strips to assess the wheels, and they handled everything impressively while keeping progress swift. Compared to my riding mates who were using regular carbon wheels, I often opened a bit of a gap on them as we crossed rougher, broken roads, as the VibraCore ensures better system conformity over choppier surfaces.

I’m not sure how they would cope with more severe terrain such as cobblestones, but paired with larger-volume tyres and lower pressures, comfort and overall control are significantly better than with a traditional racing wheel. While the Strade GTs are best paired with 30mm tyres, I fitted them with a pair of 28mm Pirelli PZero TLR SL-R tyres to better assess the ride quality and the claimed reduction in road vibration at my usual 55/60 psi front/rear pressures. I like the way the sidewalls of Pirelli PZero TLR SL-R tyres seamlessly integrate with the rim profiles, creating a complete system that looks flush and aerodynamic.

Interestingly, I spent time testing both a prototype of the Strade GT and the finished product, and apart from the slow-engaging 30T ratchet and prototype graphics, there wasn’t much difference between the two wheelsets in terms of ride feel and behaviour. It was only when I switched them for the production-ready Strade GT wheels that the differences were instantly notable thanks to a four-pawl 60T ratchet system and a three-degree angle of engagement.

In terms of straight-line performance, the wheels accelerate like any other performance wheel offering and sail up inclines thanks to the low system weight of 1,140g (495/645g front/rear). It’s worth noting that the wheels reduced the total system weight of my Cannondale SystemSix by 475g compared to my standard Shimano Dura-Ace C60 setup.

The 49/54mm front/rear rim profiles are close to perfect. They’re neither overly deep nor shallow – instead, they strike a balance often missing from the best road bike wheels when it comes to overall handling. They don’t suffer in crosswind situations either, which is a big plus for nervous descenders. They feel super stable, providing controlled handling and confidence in windy conditions and during fast descents. Compared to other wheels I’m currently testing, including my stock Shimano Dura-Ace C60 wheel arrangement, the step up in comfort and overall speed is undeniable, and I’m looking forward to this technology being applied to other wheels in the company’s range.

Value

As it stands, the Parcours Strade GT wheels have no direct rivals. The wheels occupy a unique space where performance and comfort converge – attributes that don't typically go hand in hand. Based on the mixed-depth rim profiles, the closest competitors come from Tune and Roval.

The Tune Yokto 4550 wheels we tested last month are pricier at £3,050 and do get ceramic bearings as standard, but also weigh 150g more than the Strade GT. We noted that the Yoktos do very little wrong but are not outstanding either and also possess a notably firm ride quality given the wrapped spokes.

Roval offers the mixed-depth Rapide CLX III in a reverse 63/58mm front-to-rear configuration. They also get ceramic bearings and carbon spokes, but have a narrower internal width and weigh more than both the Parcours and Tune wheels at 1,305g for the pair. They’re also pricier items at £2,998.

The Parcours Strade GT will set you back £2,499 with steel bearings. In fact, even if you spec them with ceramic bearings (£2,719), they still come up cheaper than both Tune and Roval, and quite frankly, offer better bang for your buck.

Based on their price, weight, all-round performance and superb ride quality, they are one of the best wheelsets I’ve ever sampled, and are close to perfect if I’m honest.

Tech specs

• Price: £2,499 / US$3,299 / €3,199
• Weight: 1,140g (495/645g front/rear)
• Disc layout: Centrelock
• Spoke count: 21/24 front/rear
• Rim depth: 49/54mm front/rear
• Internal rim width: 23.5mm
• Rim type: Hooked
• Freehub options: Shimano HG11/12, SRAM XDR

Cannondale's CAAD line has always attracted a following of riders who appreciate things done a little differently. And Los Angeles-based Team Dream has basically built an entire brand around that idea. Bringing the two together for a collab seems like it was only a matter of time.

Those who attended the Los Angeles Invitational at The Cub House in San Marino, California, this past weekend got an early sneak peek. And today, Cannondale is officially opening sales on this very limited-edition release.

Built around Cannondale's newest-generation aluminium race bike and infused with Team Dream's edgy visual language, the Cannondale x Team Dream CAAD14 framesets celebrate everything that has made both names cult favourites. The result is two framesets with eye-catching retro paint schemes and a cycling kit and other soft goods to match.

Only 100 framesets will be produced worldwide. Fifty will be available in the "Player 1" red-and-purple colourway and another fifty in the "Player 2" blue paint, with every frame individually numbered from 1 to 50. Each Cannondale x Team Dream CAAD14 frameset purchase includes access to a private Team Dream portal, where owners can select an exclusive Cannondale x Team Dream cycling kit and have it shipped directly to their door.

Founded in Los Angeles in 2012 by Sean Talkington, Team Dream began life as a fictional race team that served an outlet for creative expression. Over time, that fictional team became a small-batch apparel brand built around the philosophy of "looking good & having fun." Along the way, it developed a devoted community of riders drawn to its playful spirit, distinctive artwork, and refusal to separate performance from personality.

Those values align well with the CAAD lineage.

For decades, CAAD bikes have occupied a unique space in the road cycling world, delivering race-level performance without the price tag or perceived fragility often associated with carbon frames.

Stiff, fast and aluminium, the platform has developed something of a cult-like following among racers and hard-riding enthusiasts who believe performance metal still has a place in a carbon-dominated road scene.

The new CAAD14 continues that tradition. Rather than attempting to imitate a carbon race bike, Cannondale designed the frame around aluminium's natural strengths. Oversized tubes, smooth welds, and the classic double-diamond silhouette return, paired with modern updates including internal cable routing through Cannondale's Delta steerer system, UDH compatibility, a threaded BSA bottom bracket, clearance for 32mm tyres, and a new race-focused geometry designed to deliver the lively handling that has long defined the platform.

The Cannondale x Team Dream CAAD14 framesets go on sale for $2,499 / €2,499 at 10 a.m. Pacific on June 15 via the Cannondale website. With only 100 numbered framesets available worldwide, demand is likely to be high.

The accompanying apparel and soft goods collection will launch simultaneously on the Team Dream website.

Buying kit from a brand you know and love is all well and good, but sometimes you’re after something a little different. There are numerous reasons to buy custom cycling kit: wanting to show off your own design, needing matching jerseys for a group event such as a charity or corporate ride, sourcing a supplier for your cycling club’s clothing, or designing a leader’s jersey for a stage race. Customised cycle clothing allows riders to stand out from the bunch, individually or as a group. owayo creates the opportunity to blend style with functionality and performance, delivering professional-quality designs on premium fabrics. The 3D Kit Designer provides complete creative freedom to the user; explore numerous patterns and colours, and have fun creating exactly what you dream of wearing.

Read on to see how easy it is to design high-quality, unique cycle clothing and why owayo’s 3D Kit Designer is the perfect tool for the job.

Choose what you want to customise

You probably already know what you’re looking for: a single jersey, a matching jersey and shorts or a whole collection of kit for a club order. owayo offers a complete men’s and women’s range of long and short sleeve jerseys, bib shorts, skin suits, bib tights and casual wear, plus a unisex collection of jackets, gilets and accessories.

Just because you’re purchasing from a custom kit supplier, there’s no need to compromise on quality and performance. The fabrics are durable and the colours made to last. The collection includes more relaxed and race-fit items to suit recreational and competitive cyclists alike, and all are constructed from advanced, lightweight fabrics that’ll wick moisture effectively and remain comfortable on big rides. If you’re ordering shorts, you’ll have a choice of pads (or no pad if you prefer), and many of the tops allow you to choose different pocket and reflectivity configurations. Regardless of the item you choose to customise, you can expect to find all the features you would in your current favourite brand, such as breathable materials, aerodynamic cuts and practical touches such as high-vis details and secure storage, except you can really make this your own.

Available globally, including across the US, UK, and Australia, owayo combines its international reach with high-quality German manufacturing. With an environmentally responsible ethos, all their fabrics are Oeko-Tex certified, ensuring that everything you’re purchasing is free from harmful substances. They only manufacture clothes to order, minimising waste, and everything is done in-house: R&D, design and manufacturing.

Pick your favourite design

Designing your kit begins with choosing from one of the 32 base designs. These templates have been thoughtfully created in terms of aesthetics and functionality, ensuring that the placement of patterns and shapes works on the fabric, complements additional logos and text, and will be visually appealing when worn on the bike. They’re a starting point for your creativity and can be used as is or completely customised. If you need extra inspiration, you can start with one of owayo’s suggestions and build from there.

Get creative with colours, logos and text

This is where the customisation really starts, and is where owayo really stands out from the rest. Unlike other suppliers, where you’ll send in your design for them to print onto their clothes, you’re in charge of the whole process using the 3D Kit Designer. Test different patterns, combinations of colours, logo and text placement as much as and for as long as you like before committing.

There are over 150 colours in the OCOL colour system (created by designers and colour experts) and a huge range of patterns, think animal prints, geometric designs, hand-drawn sketches and many others. You can choose from logos in the system or upload your own, and add text such as the name of your club, team or group, placed exactly where you’d like it on the front, back or arms. Select from different fonts, colours and sizes.

There’s no need to worry about whether the colours will turn out how you hope, as if you’re in doubt, simply contact owayo in advance of your order and they will send out a piece of fabric with all your chosen colours printed on it. You’re then guaranteed that what you ordered is exactly what will turn up. If you can’t find an exact match to your brand’s colours, owayo can help you out — just email them with the Pantone, HKS or RAL colour code and they can add it into your account for use in the 3D Kit Designer.

Personalise your order

Once you’re happy with your design, add it to the shopping basket for further personalisation. Choose how many you would like — there is no minimum order but big groups and teams get significant discounts with tiered pricing. When choosing sizes, owayo offers more than the standard XS to XL. The jerseys, for example, have nine different sizes to choose from; every person in your order can really fine-tune the fit and won’t have to compromise with something that’s a little too small or a bit baggy. If you’ve added text, this can now be personalised for each jersey if you wish.

Send your order for checking

Before ordering, your 3D render will be thoroughly checked by the owayo team. They will ensure that all the logos and text fit well and are going to look perfect when they arrive.

Place your order

There’s no minimum order with owayo and pricing is all-inclusive, so no matter how extravagant your design or how many logos you want included, the price remains the same.

Once your design is checked and you’ve paid for your order, production begins. You don’t have to wait months for your order to arrive at your door. Delivery times vary between two and five weeks depending on whether it’s peak spring/summer or off-peak. You can view the current fixed lead time on the website, making it easier to plan in advance of an upcoming event.

Owayo’s custom kit design process is incredibly simple, and thanks to the 3D render, you know exactly what it will look like when it arrives. Designs are stored indefinitely, making owayo the perfect choice for cycling clubs and teams who wish to make repeat orders year after year.

Shipping is worldwide, so whether you're in the UK, or you need to ship your owayo custom kit elsewhere, request a free fabric sample to feel the quality for yourself, and explore owayo’s 3D Kit Designer for building your dream kit.

While the trend for WorldTour pros to ride the team’s aero bike regardless of the terrain continues, it hasn’t sounded the death knell for the do-it-all race bike just yet. The most recent proof of this comes in the shape of the Bianchi Specialissima. Regarded as the Italian marque’s flagship all-rounder, it's received a complete redesign that has helped it to become the lightest bike in its lineup.

At a claimed 750g in a size 55, the new RC frame is a claimed 40 grams lighter than the previous version without compromising stiffness. But this is no mere nip and tuck. Bianchi states it looked at every component and recalibrated them to improve the bike’s performance. The result, it says, is a Specialissima that’s faster, by the tune of 16 watts at 50km/h. While this is a stat that’s of more relevance to the Bahrain Victorious riders, who’ll have the option of riding the bike, than the rest of, it does suggest that plenty of stones have been turned in the pursuit of improvement.

Both the fork and the RC integrated cockpit have been redesigned with aerodynamic improvements in mind. Bianchi says these parts are now 14% and 25% more efficient than before respectively; the bars have helped to reduce drag by being more convergent with the shifters as well as promoting a more aerodynamically enhanced hand placement. Similarly the D-shaped seatpost has been updated to assist in making the bike faster overall.

Geometry has an obvious effect on just how aero a race bike might be and Bianchi has listened to feedback from the Bahrain Victorious riders. The result is that while the geo numbers have rolled over from the previous model, the aforementioned cockpit now offers a more optimized position thanks to changes in stem length that impact the rider’s reach.

However it’s accepted wisdom that an efficient race bike also needs to be comfortable over the duration of a stage. With this in mind Bianchi has equipped the Specialissima with its Countervail technology, which aids the frame’s ability to absorb road chatter.

There’s a new wheelset, used on the RC and Pro models, to accompany the frame in the shape of the RC 49R carbon hoops. They feature a 49mm rim depth and an internal rim measurement of 25mm, presumably to partner well with the wider race tyres that are now commonplace.

"With the new Specialissima, our goal was to create a bike capable of dominating on any incline and providing serious athletes with a competitive edge, whether that be in a valley, on a mountain pass, or in the final sprint of a Grand Tour stage,” says Bianchi CEO Alberto Cavaggioni. “The Specialissima isn't just a lightweight all-rounder bike; it is the ultimate expression of our performance DNA, and sits proudly alongside the Oltre RC at the very pinnacle of our road range.”

The bike is offered in three builds: the range-topping RC, the Pro and the Specialissima. The RC is equipped with the aforementioned RC 49R wheels, and either a SRAM Red AXS or Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 groupset. It retails for €11,500.

The Pro uses a different carbon layup but still results in a frame with a claimed weight of 850g. Groupset options are SRAM Force AXS and Shimano Ultegra Di2, with a price tag of €7,700. The entry level option extends the groupset choice to include Shimano 105 Di2 and uses a standard 49mm deep Bianchi wheelset. Prices start at €5,200.

Riding a bike is meant to be fun, and no one wants to think about the times when things don’t go to plan, but investing in some dedicated cycle insurance can potentially save you money, time and stress, and give you peace of mind so you can go out and enjoy every ride. Tens of thousands of bikes are stolen in the UK every year and many cyclists are injured, and in these unfortunate situations The Insurance Emporium can have your back. They offer varying levels of cover, plus the option to add ‘competitive use’ to the White Jersey, Green Jersey and Polka Dot Jersey levels, alongside a number of other optional benefits. Whether you’re a commuter, an adventurer or a racer, read on for six reasons to get yourself insured this summer.

1. Extensive cover for bikes, kit, and family members

The Insurance Emporium policies cover a range of bikes whatever the level of cover you choose. Mountain, road or gravel, acoustic or electric (the latter needs to fall within the UK definition of an e-bike), tricycle, tandem, trailer bike or push scooter – all are included, plus more.

Not only is your bike covered, but you’ll get up to £5,000 (level dependent) to replace bike accessories such as bottle cages, lights and panniers, cycle clothing, technology (cycling computers and dedicated cameras) and bicycle trailers. Other gadgets and mobile phones can be included if you pay an additional premium.

You can also insure up to three additional family members on your policy. Enjoy exploring with your partner, siblings, parents or kids, even your grandparents or grandchildren (all bikes must be insured and ridden by someone 14 years or over), and they will get worldwide cover from 65 days to 90 days per trip for theft, loss and accidental damage.

2. Cover for theft and accidental damage

Whether it’s the daily commute, a road ride with friends or club mates or a trip to the bike park, there’s always a risk of theft or your bike getting accidentally damaged.

If your bike is taken unlawfully and not found or returned in 28 days, provided it is appropriately secured, including from an unattended vehicle, you will be eligible for a replacement up to the value of £10,000. The ‘new for old for life’ settlement means your bike will be replaced by another of the same make and model, or an equivalent, as long as the sum you have insured it for covers its value as new.

If you have an accident, a crash, or your bike is in some other way suddenly and unexpectedly damaged, you will be covered for repairs, or replacement (if unrepairable), in the same way as above, and while waiting for a new bike or a repair, you’ll be able to hire a replacement bike for up to four weeks, so you needn’t cancel upcoming trips or events.

3. Protection for yourself

You need to be aware that there’s risk involved when cycling: the more you ride, the further you go, and the more extreme the terrain you explore, the bigger the risks. Not to say you’ll ever need to use it, but The Insurance Emporium will cover you in the event of a crash or other type of accident that causes a permanent, disabling impact on your life within 12 months of the incident. This includes death, loss of hearing, limbs or sight, or any other permanent disablement. You’ll also be covered for any dental treatment caused by an injury to your mouth.

4. Protection for others

Even when you’re experienced, things can still go wrong, and sometimes these incidents can affect others too. Imagine you’re involved in a collision with a pedestrian or another road user and are found responsible for the accident; legal costs can add up, as can the costs you incur for damage to third party property.

The White Jersey, Green Jersey, and Polka Dot Jersey levels of cover include public liability insurance, ranging from £1M to £3M, and if you feel like you’d benefit from additional cover, you have the option to top this up to £5M.

5. Be covered for theft, loss or damage anywhere in the world

Considering a summer bikepacking trip to somewhere as remote as Kyrgyzstan? Want to challenge yourself to some of the most famous climbs in the Alps or Pyrenees? Or are you planning to sign up for a training camp in sunnier climes? Your bike will be covered for up to 65/80/90 days on any trip worldwide (depending on your cover level), so that’s one less thing to plan, and you can head off knowing you’ll get the support you need if something goes wrong.

6. Racing

All types of commuting and leisure cycling are included in the three policies, including non-competitive sportives. However, if you’re already racing or thinking about giving it a go, then you should consider adding on the ‘competitive use’ benefit. This extends standard cover to include road racing, time trials, cross country, track, cyclocross and triathlons — essentially anything where there’s a chance you might step onto a podium. Choose competitive use and you will be covered during a race if your bike is stolen, lost or accidentally damaged. If you have to withdraw from an event due to injury or illness, you will be able to claim back any non-refundable event fee when choosing the event withdrawal optional benefit.

Any time you ride, there’s always risk, and having bike insurance can help you deal with issues if or when they occur. With varying levels of cover to choose from, plus a number of optional extras, The Insurance Emporium’s cycle insurance allows you to tailor a policy to work for you.

Lifestyle Policy Limited is an appointed representative of The Equine and Livestock Insurance Company Limited. The Insurance Emporium is a trading name of The Equine and Livestock Insurance Company Limited (registered in England and Wales no: 294940) which is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority no:202748.

All content provided on this blog is for informational purposes only. We make no representations as to the accuracy or completeness of any information on this site or found by following any link on this site. We will not be liable for any errors or omissions in this information nor for the availability of this information. We will not be liable for any loss, injury, or damage arising from the display or use of this information. This policy is subject to change at any time.

We offer a variety of cover levels, so please check the policy cover suits your needs before purchasing. For your protection, please ensure you read the Insurance Product Information Document (IPID) and policy wording, for information on policy exclusions and limitations.

When To Replace It is a feature series in which we explore when one should replace common cycling products like helmets, apparel and various moving parts on your bike. Curious about a particular product? Shoot us an email at anne.rook@futurenet.com

Pedals and cleats do a massive amount of work to keep you connected to your bike each and every pedal stroke. They are relatively inexpensive, easily replaceable and never in short supply. So why do so many riders neglect proactively replacing them?

These touchpoints are second only to tyres in keeping you grounded and connecting you through your bike. Worn cleats can allow your shoe to come free from your pedals when laying down power, which could result in your foot coming off at the worst possible moment.

Every time you come to a full stop and put your foot down or walk into a coffee shop, you wear down your cleats. And every time you clip into or out of your pedals, you put a bit of wear on them, too. So how do you know when it's time to refresh them?

A clear indicator for replacing your cleats is when the rubber no-slip pads on the corners are worn away. But what if you use cleats that don’t have these rubber bits, or other tell-tale wear indicators?

Cleats with built-in float allowing some side-to-side play will noticeably feel looser, and there may even be some vertical play to them, letting you know it’s time for new ones. If you use cleats with zero degrees of float, it’s probably time to replace them as soon as you notice any play in your shoe-pedal connection.

Deciding when to install new cleats onto your shoes is relatively easy if you don’t ignore simple tell-tale signs.

What do the manufacturers say about replacing cleats?

Cycling component manufacturer Shimano suggests cleats should be replaced when clipping in or out becomes harder or easier. A bit vague, perhaps, but it comes down to this: if you notice a change in how the pedal/cleat interface feels in use, then it may very well be time for a replacement.

The Japanese cycling component giant also suggests that when the coloured portion of the cleat is worn away, it’s time to throw them out.

"It’s time to change your cleats when you can see the cleat body underneath the coloured pads on the front and back of the SPD-SL cleats," advises Shimano.

Look KEO cleats, which appear similar to Shimano in shape but are not interchangeable with other systems, also have colour-coded wear indicators. As soon as you see the contrasting colour cleat material flush with the grey, red or black portion of the cleat, you’ll know it’s time to bin them and install new ones.

Time, part of the SRAM family of bike components, suggests when the walking pads that double as wear indicators on its iClic system feel like they are sticky when clipping out, it’s replacement time. Be aware that Time's cleats are known to wear quickly if you do a lot of walking in them.

Like other types of cycling parts and accessories, wear is dependent upon so many different factors. Wahoo suggests its SpeedPlay cleat life may range greatly—from 3,000 to 5,000 miles—depending on rider weight, riding surface, frequency of use, and more.

The SpeedPlay pedal and cleat system is slightly different from other brands—the cleat comprises most of the size and mass of the system. Wahoo cautions against using a combination of new and old cleat parts when servicing your cleats.

New Cleat Installation Tips and Tricks

Use a small amount of high-quality bearing lube (or similar) on cleat mounting bolt threads. These bolts are exposed to sweat, road spray, and other dirt ingress, which could 'freeze' the bolt/shoe interface. The next time you replace your cleats, you’ll be happy you properly prepped them.

To be sure you install new cleats in the same place as your existing cleats, you can use a Sharpie or a paint marker—or even a bit of chalk if you don’t want to graffiti the soles of your cycling shoes with ink—to trace the outline of your worn cleats before removing them.

Some pedal and shoe systems have built-in guide indicators to assist in replacing cleats. If you’re not sure if your system offers this feature, or how to use it, the aforementioned outline method is simple and as accurate as your hand allows.

For optimal outcomes, use a torque wrench to tighten the bolts to the manufacturer’s guidelines.

When to replace cleats:

• When colour-coded indicators are worn away
• When the cleat is loose, and unintentional clipping out is a problem
• When clipping in is hit or miss

Do road pedals even need to be serviced or replaced?

The short answer is yes, but not nearly as frequently as other wearable components. While pedals wear at a slower rate than cleats, you’ll want to service them as needed, paying attention to how they perform.

Worn pedal bodies don’t offer the same positive engagement when clipped in, or make clipping in a challenge. Unwanted side-to-side or vertical play, allowing you to lift your shoe from the pedal even when engaged, can cause you to clip out, similarly to a worn cleat.

Signs of wear include grooves and scuffs in the forward part of the pedal (except for Speedplay) and in the retaining clip at the rear top of the pedal. Wear and tear on pedal bodies is normal, but be mindful of rusty springs.

Diagnosing pedal spindle problems can be trickier, since wear can be mistaken for bottom-bracket or drivetrain issues. Spin the pedal in place while holding your crank steady, and feel for clicking, movement or rough spots.

To be sure, when spindles feel rough or the pedal body has side-to-side play on the spindle, you’ll want to service them sooner rather than later, to save yourself from having to replace pedals outright.

Many pedals feature serviceable bearings, and bearing swaps are easy to do.

For pedals with open internals, or exposed retention springs, a little bit of dry chain lube can prolong life and performance.

When to replace pedals

• When the body is grooved and worn
• When clipping in/out is inconsistent
• When the pedal has lateral play or wiggles on the spindle

The 1,500W Avinox M2S motor, which recently disrupted the e-MTB market, is making its road debut on the Megamo Upon road bike. This marks the first time the high-torque system has been integrated into a road-focused chassis rather than an off-road platform.

The bike's maximum speed with power assistance will still be limited by local laws (15.5mph/25kmh in the UK and EU), but the claimed 1,500W peak power and 150Nm of torque will mean riders get a dramatic helping hand on the likes of steep ascents.

Avinox, the e-bike division of drone manufacturer DJI, launched the second-generation M2S in April.

With a claimed 1,500W peak power and 150Nm of torque, it effectively doubles the output of typical premium mid-drive systems from Bosch and Shimano from the best e-bikes. This performance has sparked industry debate over whether such powerful motors belong on pedal-assist bicycles, leading to calls for regulatory power caps.

Avinox maintains that innovation should not be constrained by arbitrary limits, arguing that power represents possibility rather than excess. While some manufacturers suggest regulating bikes by weight instead of wattage, the Upon combines high-power with a relatively low overall weight; Megamo says the provisional weight is under 14kg.

What the power figures actually mean on the road

On the road, the full 150Nm of torque is primarily available in a time-limited boost mode, with continuous output closer to 1,300W and 130Nm.

Because UK and EU laws mandate a 15.5mph (25kmh) assistance cutoff, this extreme power is most relevant during steep climbs and rapid acceleration rather than high-speed cruising.

The Upon differs significantly from established e-road bikes like the Specialized Turbo Creo SL or Orbea Gain. While those competitors prioritise "super light" (SL) systems with subtle 50Nm motors and 250-360Wh batteries to mimic an unassisted ride, the Upon embraces raw performance with a much larger 600Wh battery and significantly higher torque.

We reviewed the Canyon On-Fly Endurace road bike recently and praised it for it's inobtrusive, low power, discussing how the road rider is looking for a hand, not a shove. The Avinox system goes the other way.

A point of contention could remain, in that the Upon’s regional speed limits are enforced via software rather than fixed hardware. While Avinox consistently closes loopholes through firmware updates, the potential for software-based de-restriction remains a concern. An unlocked Megamo Upon would legally shift from a pedelec to an unregistered motor vehicle with moped-level output.

Here, Megamo has paired the Avinox motor with a carbon frame featuring all-road geometry and plenty of tyre clearance; the bike is fitted with 42mm Vittoria Corsa Pro Control tyres. The frame is UDH-compatible and features a fully integrated 600Wh battery and 27.2mm seat post.

Megamo is positioning the Upon as a road bike of course, with geometry borrowed from an all-road bike playbook, the bike features a 71 degree head angle, and 75 degree seat angle.

Stack and reach is 568 and 398 respectively. The rear end is 435mm, on a wheelbase of 1051mm with a bottom bracket drop of some 80mm. Those numbers are designed for stability on the road with an accessible fit, rather than razor sharp race-bike handling. The Upon comes in four sizes from S to XL.

Megamo says the bike targets experienced cyclists aged 45-70 who want to maintain their pace on climbs and group rides. Three builds are available: the range-topping Upon 05 with Ultegra Di2 (£6,499), the Upon 15 with Shimano 105 (£5,995), and the Upon 20, which utilizes a lower-power M2 motor and mechanical gearing (£3,999).

The cycling world is abuzz following the latest sighting of the unreleased Specialized Tarmac SL9 at the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, previously known as the Critérium du Dauphiné.

The bike was first spotted on the roof of a Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe team car during an altitude-training camp in Sierra Nevada, Spain. But this time, we got a much closer look.

We spotted the bike outside a team truck where mechanics were setting up the bike on precise measuring equipment, presumably preparing it for its first public race outing on Sunday.

Should this indeed be the new Tarmac SL9, here's what we can glean about the bike's changes and developments.

What's new

Both sightings thus far were of the bike Specialized’s stealthy pre-production "Project Black" livery, a designation the brand uses for developing and testing future products through professional athlete feedback.

The frameset showcases a clear shift toward greater aerodynamic performance compared to its predecessor, the SL8. Notable changes include a reshaped fork with a chunkier crown and deeper blades, alongside a seat tube designed to hug the rear wheel closely.

The seatpost has also evolved into a deep-section aerodynamic blade, signalling Specialized's intent to further optimise its flagship race rig for top-end speed.

As the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes serves as a crucial warm-up for the Tour de France, the presence of the SL9 here suggests that we may see the bike in action at summer's main event.

While Specialized maintains its standard "Project Black" protocol regarding unreleased tech, these considered design choices indicate a machine that aims to balance its legendary comfort with a new benchmark in aerodynamic efficiency.

We reached out to Specialized, but the brand remains mum on the subject, stating: "Specialized relies on feedback from professional athletes in both developing and testing advanced pre-production products in real-world applications. With this top-level feedback, some of these design elements and products eventually show up in future retail product offerings. We call this Project Black."

While 'value for money' and 'affordable' are subjective terms they continue to be keen points of conversation within the cycling community. If you want to ride and wear the same gear as the pros then your bank balance is likely taking a hit like never before; road bikes that cost five digits are commonplace, while shoes north of £/$500 now exist.

But of course there are alternatives that provide a counterbalance to the eye-wateringly expensive and this roundup features a few in the shape of Ribble's new carbon endurance bikes, Canyon's road and gravel shoes and Lazer's do-it-all helmet.

Ribble Ultra-Road and Allroad Carbon road bikes

Ribble’s already extensive range of road bikes has grown a little larger with the addition of the Ultra-Road and the Allroad Carbon. Both bikes seek to blend performance with practicality via carbon construction, plenty of tyre clearance, sensible geometry and few added features.

The Ultra-Road features what Ribble calls “performance-leaning endurance geometry”. Rather than forcing you into a low and long position that you can’t hold, it is instead designed to allow for a comfortable, sustainable position that will enable a more consistent application of power, and a faster ride as a result.

In the medium the stack height is 560mm, combined with a reach of 379mm, while in the XL size, designed for riders at least 6’0” tall, this increases to 599mm and 408mm respectively. For comparison, the stack height and reach of Ribble’s dedicated race machine, the Ultra Race, in a size medium are almost a centimetre lower and longer.

The carbon monocoque frameset which makes a 7.5kg complete build possible, has clearance for up to 38mm wide tyres and features the brand’s signature dropped stays. There’s also internal frame storage on the downtube and an option to run mudguards, should you wish.

Like the Ultra-Road, the Allroad Carbon sits comfortably in the endurance category. Ribble says it's an evolution of its popular Allroad SL bike, using a premium carbon layup, alongside a re-designed front end that is now more aerodynamic thanks to the tube shapes, new fork design and the introduction of fully integrated cable routing.

As the name states, this is a bike that when it comes to road surfaces is created to handle the rough and the smooth. With this in mind the it too uses the same dropped stays alongside a round seatpost and clearance for 35mm wide tyres.

Both models are offered in a wide range of builds, with the Ultra-Road starting at £2,599 and the Allroad Carbon at £1,799.

Canyon Tempr Road and Off-Road shoes

Like the Ribble bikes above Canyon is aiming to balance performance and comfort in the shape of its new Tempr shoes. Offered in both road and off-road models, they include many of the features of the existing Tempr CFR shoes but in a more affordable package.

The Tempr Road features an 8K woven carbon composite outsole alongside a seamless synthetic upper, complete with perforations to help your food breath, and knitted tongue. The shoes boast generously proportioned TPU heel and toe pads with the aim of avoiding any café stop mishaps. Combined it makes for a shoe that weighs a claimed 285g in a size 42.

The Off-Road model eschews the carbon sole in favour of a glass-fibre nylon construction with a flexible forefoot section that is designed to make it efficient and comfortable both on and off the bike. It’s paired with a rubber outsole and TPU toe cap and mudguard to add some grip and durability. The claimed weight is 335g.

Both models use BOA® Li2 dial with PerformFit wrap construction, are offered in black and white, and retail at €159.95.

Apidura Aero Bolt-On Tube Modules

For a product that’s designed to help a cyclist go faster, there’s no better conformation than winning a prominent race. For Apidura and its new Aero Bolt-On Tube modules they did just that at the recent Unbound gravel race. Twice.

The modules, part of the brand’s Aero system design for gravel racing, were used by Sofia Gomez Villafane in winning Unbound 200 and by Robin Gemperle, who crossed the line first at Unbound XL using the long version.

The Aero Bolt-On top tube modules offer strap-free storage and can be used in conjunction with the Aero Frame Module. The smaller module offers 0.4L of space, while the longer model doubles this.

To help with structural integrity they feature a carbon plate and internal rods, while 5cm of fore-aft adjustment allows for a precise alignment with the bike’s stem to ensure an optimum aerodynamic performance; Apidura says that its sponsored rider Dylan Johnson “found the Aero Bolt-On Top Tube Module saved 4.2 watts when used in isolation and 5.2 watts when used in combination with the Aero Frame Module”.

The Aero Bolt-On Tube Modules retail at £68 / $98 for the 4L model and £92 / $141 for the 8L version.

Lazer Blade Kineticore helmet

If you ride your gravel bike seamlessly from trail to road and back again then it makes sense to be wearing a helmet that can comfortably make the journey with you. The Lazer Blade KinetiCore looks to be such a lid.

Aesthetically it appears to be a pretty streamlined affair, with a generous amount of vents and an overall appearance that is neither overtly road nor off-road. Lazer says the interior features “soft, dense padding”, with the aim of being comfortable throughout a long day in the saddle, while the integrated eyewear dock is there to keep your sunnies safe. There’s also a built-in mount at the rear for Lazer’s universal LED light. The seven colour choices range from Flash Orange to Matte Sage Green.

There are two pieces of notable proprietary technology in play: the Advanced TurnSys system and Kineticore. The first of these is designed to offer a precise fit by delivering both horizontal and vertical adjustability. It’s paired with a new strap divider that Lazer says keeps them in position for the entirety of your ride.

Meanwhile KinetiCore is the Belgian brand's own rotational impact tech that, unlike Mips used by many of the best road bike helmets, is built directly into the helmet’s internal structure and uses ‘crumple zones’ that are designed to direct energy away from the head during an impact.

The Blade Kineticore is available in three sizes, S, M and L, with claimed weight for M listed at 250g, and retails at 99,99 EUR / $99.99 US.

WattBike Air-Pro

Ever fancied owning the same Wattbike that you use in the gym?

The brand, which features in out guide to the best indoor smart bikes, has now released its Air-Pro model to direct to consumers, allowing you to enjoy “commercial-grade training” in the comfort of your own home.

Used by every Premier League football team, the Air-Pro bike is designed for high-intensity and high-volume training. It features dual air and magnetic resistance designed to create both a realistic ride feel as well as “scalable intensity” whether you're doing sprint intervals, endurance training or a recovery ride, where reduced stress on the joints is required. Another key feature is the performance touchscreen that provides clear access to your performance.

The Wattbike Air-Pro retails at £2,999, which includes a subscription-free hub offering structured plans, sport-specific workouts and accessible VO₂ Max testing.

At the beginning of a recent solo ride, I tried to add up the costs of going faster on the bike. With no paper or calculator within easy reach, I quickly exceeded my math abilities. But not before I reminded myself of the adage: there’s no such thing as a free lunch. This suggests there are always hidden costs and trade-offs to what seems free. But there’s got to be ways to hack the system, I thought.

I then started pondering if it’s OK to shell out $100/watt saved, or should the threshold be lower, say $25/watt saved. What are the real costs of seemingly free speed? And, importantly, can I go faster without spending anything at all?

I considered the scenario of riding a five-hour 100-mile gran fondo. This means being able to maintain an average speed greater than 20mph, when accounting for refuelling stops and nature breaks. While upgrades like a power meter and heart rate monitor can help with pacing, they won’t help maintain the necessary effort, especially when detracting factors like hills and wind are at play. So how could I get faster without paying for it?

Drag is a drag

In a previous article, Cycling Weekly generalised that if you're riding on the road at about 25mph (40kph), about 20 percent of power generated by the rider goes to overcoming rolling resistance, a whopping 70 percent goes to overcoming aerodynamic drag, and the remaining 10 percent is lost to drivetrain friction.

Specialized ran an ad campaign about a decade ago that leaned heavily into upgrading your bike, kit, helmet, shoes, etc., to the most aerodynamically available at the time, even if there was a small weight penalty. Of course, new bikes and parts aren’t free; quite the contrary. Each aero upgrade was more marginal and significantly more expensive than the previous.

But the California-based manufacturer made a point: putting a bike on a diet would not be as beneficial as tricking it out with the slippery bits that tested fastest in the company’s WinTunnel. Aero always bests weight, unless doing Alpine Grand Tour riding. My mind then wandered to non-obvious aerodynamic enhancements and their relative cost.

What can I get for the cost of a pre-ride cappuccino?

All the stiffest, most aero carbon gear won’t do a bit of good if I’m not comfortable on the bike. A bike fit performed by a professional bike fitter should allow for the most aero-optimised position sustainable for an extended period. OK—check—I’ve done this.

But fits often lead to buying new components like a stem, crank arms or handlebars. This means you're looking at several hundred dollars after the cost of the bike fitting. Certainly, this speed isn't free.

What if I could simply stay in the aero-optimised positions longer? Say with some dedicated stretching and some anti-chafe balm? That certainly isn’t as slick as a one-piece cockpit, but the upgrade can be had for the price of a few pre-ride Starbucks fill-ups.

Merch purch: get a performance perch

If being comfortable allows me to sit in the aero position for longer, then the right saddle that’s been installed properly (height, tilt, and fore/aft) is at the top of my list.

But here, too, is a slippery slope. Should I get the saddle with carbon rails or not? While carbon weighs less, the real benefit is its vibration-dampening properties. And when combined with a carbon seatpost, the system can help negate the discomfort of road noise communicated through an ultra-stiff bike frame. But this upgrade can be even more expensive than a new cockpit. There’s got to be a compromise.

When it comes to cycling apparel, I always opt for a form-fitting cut, which incurs a slight cost over a club cut, but eschews extra, wind-catching material.

Usually, an aero kit is performance-oriented and comes with a higher-quality chamois. So while this speed upgrade is by no means free, I figured since I’m buying a new jersey and bibs anyway, why not go with a drag-reducing option?

The best things in life are free but bike upgrades are not

Inflating tyres to the optimal pressure is about as close to free speed as I can get. The sum of a tubeless tyre, valve and sealant weighs about the same as the equivalent tyre with a latex tube (rotating weight of wheels can negatively impact handling and ride feel). Since tubeless systems are run at lower tyre pressures, the added benefit is comfort and lower rolling resistance, even when compared to the best tyres with latex or synthetic inner tubes.

If you’re still stuck on tubes, the $1/watt savings TPU tubes offer over a similar butyl tube is about as close to free as the air you put into them. If you’re not already riding tubeless tyres, this might be a relatively affordable upgrade the next time you’ve got to swap rubber.

An almost free speed upgrade is chain wax. Although not as sexy as deep-section carbon wheels wrapped in rubber from Continental, it’s a much better value in terms of financial outlay vs speed return—and it could actually extend drivetrain life. I use drip wax on all my bikes’ chains, even my dedicated indoor-only Zwift bike.

Before I drip wax onto my chain, I clean it in a tabletop ultrasonic tank. While I’m at it, I also clean my cassette, de-gunk my chainrings, and rear derailleur pulleys to reduce friction. Dirt and buildup cause drivetrain wear, which, according to CeramicSpeed, may cost one up to four watts when pushing out 250 watts. And dirt and grime greatly shorten component life, too.

The only real free speed is someone else’s work

About 100 minutes into this ride, where I pondered how to go faster with no effort, I joined a dozen friends. My 200 watts at 20mph became 160 at 23. Sitting in with them is the closest thing to free speed I could get.

The tradeoffs are relatively minimal, and the risks few: I had only to suffer a few shoulder bumps and some really poor dad-jokes, while I let the front of the group keep their noses in the wind for a few more pedal strokes.

It’s prototype-bike galore at Unbound Gravel this year. Some are hiding beneath subtle paint, while others are impossible to miss. There are the oversized 32" wheels on Cam Jones’ and Robin Gemperle’s Scott bikes, the hard-to-ignore fuchsia pink paintjobs on the prototype Liv bikes, and catchy graphics on the prototype from sibling brand Giant.

And then there’s Factor, with a prototype featuring that fork we all have opinions about.

Ridden by celebrated retired WorldTour rider Romain Bardet and several of his Factor teammates, Factor’s latest prototype gravel bike was first spotted at the Traka just weeks ago.

At Unbound, Factor allowed Cycling Weekly to take a closer look and shared some early details through Mike McGinn from its engineering team.

However, the brand would not share any hard numbers; no weights, no aero data, no launch timeline, no price and not even the bike’s eventual name.

Still, there was plenty to learn — and to deduce.

Meet Factor’s next top-tier aero gravel race bike

The design of the prototype bike is unmistakably inspired by Factor’s wildly polarising ONE road bike, complete with the dramatically wide fork intended not merely to cheat the wind, but to actively manage airflow before it reaches the rider’s legs.

And according to Factor, that controversial concept works.

“People are warming up to this wild-looking fork, and we know it’s faster," said Mike McGinn.

McGinn explained that the wide fork is designed to manipulate airflow before it reaches the rider’s legs and frame.

"Aerodynamics works a lot like refraction with light," he said, describing how the fork changes airflow downstream across the bike and rider rather than simply reducing drag at the fork itself.

The new gravel prototype takes that same aero philosophy and adapts it for the realities of modern gravel racing: massive clearances, a balance of compliance and stiffness, and, of course, aerodynamics.

But McGinn admitted that it wasn’t the brand's originally intention to use that ONE-inspired fork design on gravel.

"We already had riders planned to ride the original fork, but this was faster," he said.

And, we’ll admit that when it comes to pure aesthetics, that wide fork filled in with 50mm+ tyres looks more proportional and less radical.

"With this one, we tried to tailor it more to an acceptable visual language," McGinn said. "The result is, like you said, less offensive on the eyes."

Unlike, what McGinn called, a "bayoneted front end" used on the ONE, this gravel bike uses a standard steerer tube and bearing setup, requiring Factor’s engineers to adapt the aero concept into a more conventional package.

Factor says that once the bike is officially launched, most complete builds will ship with 50mm tyres, but the frame itself clears up to 2.2-inch rubber. Yet despite that huge clearance, chainstays remain remarkably short at 420mm, keeping the bike responsive and agile.

"There is nothing that’s even close to that," McGinn claimed, pointing out that many competing 2.2" gravel bikes now stretch to 435mm rear ends and mountain-bike-like wheelbases.

"This bike was meant for core connection to terrain," McGinn said. "You’re meant to feel like it’s a rocket ship."

When we reviewed the ONE, that's exactly what our tester called it: a "spaceship," so that could bode well for this new bike.

That focus on speed has been the topic of conversation at races like Unbound these past few years, and the industry is converging on the same solution: pairing aggressive aerodynamics with ever-wider tyres in the pursuit of outright speed over rough terrain.

Factor’s answer is this: an unapologetically aero gravel race bike designed around sustained high speeds while keeping riders relatively comfortable.

Interestingly, unlike other bikes in this category, Factor is keeping 2x drivetrain compatibility alive as well as downtube storage.

That decision, however, came with major engineering challenges. McGinn explained that packaging short chainstays, 2.2in tyre clearance and a front derailleur into the same frame pushed the limits of what was physically possible.

"You can’t run a 2x with anything over a 47 anyway, so there was a lot of hemming and hawing," he said.

Ultimately, Factor decided to preserve the option and found a way.

“We had to look at creative ways to manage stiffness and structural requirements in that area,” he explained.

The geometry itself was also redesigned around modern oversized gravel tyres. Factor lowered the bottom bracket to compensate for the taller tyre profile and adjusted trail figures to preserve handling characteristics despite the jump in tyre volume.

McGinn also revealed the bike uses size-specific fork offsets — typically 50-51mm on larger sizes and 56mm on smaller frames — helping maintain more consistent handling across the size range while reducing toe overlap on smaller bikes.

“Above 33kph, you get it”

French rider Gustave Orain, who is also racing the prototype at Unbound, described the bike as surprisingly comfortable despite its aggressive intent.

"What I like the most with this bike, it's the exact same geometry as the Aluto fully slammed. So you switch from an all-road gravel bike to an absolute aero bike without losing any comfort or compromise," Orain shared.

"The first thing I've been super surprised about is that it’s actually the exact same [ride quality] as the Aluto, but faster."

That theme kept resurfacing throughout the conversation. The expectation is that a bike this extreme-looking would ride harshly. But McGinn insists modern carbon engineering has moved well beyond that compromise.

"The biggest compliment we got from the ONE was: ‘It rides like a bike'," McGinn said with a laugh. "Because it looks like it doesn’t."

But make no mistake: this bike is designed to come alive at speed.

"Above 33 kilometres an hour, you’re like, ‘Okay. I got it,’" Orain said.

McGinn compared it directly to the ONE’s road-racing personality.

"If you ride the ONE below 40kph, people say it’s hard to manipulate,” he said. “You have to get it to speed for it to really work."

Going above 30kph, or 18mph, should not be a problem at Unbound, where 2025 elite men’s winner Cam Jones averaged 37.8kph (23.49mph) over the 202-mile course, completing it in a record-shattering 8:37:09. On the women’s side, Karolina Migon won with an average speed of 32.4kph (20.1mph).

Unlike Scott’s “never going to market” approach, Factor’s prototype does not appear to be a one-off experimental machine. Quite the contrary

"There is a very, very, very high chance that this is the bike that we come to market with," McGinn said with more than a subtle hint.

And despite the mixed reactions to the aesthetics of its fork, Factor seems increasingly emboldened by the response to the ONE.

"It’s the bike you didn’t know you needed until you tried it," McGinn said.

Time will tell if the gravel market follows suit.

Cam Jones (Scott) lines up on Saturday as the defending Unbound 200 champion, riding a Scott RC Gravel prototype rolling on 32” wheels.

His Scott team mate, Robin Gemperle, is on a second 32” prototype. Both riders are talking about levitation, revolutionary cornering; "I'm genuinely scared how fast I'll be able to corner once on a course with proper descents," Jones said. The theory is that a larger wheel just rolls faster.

The brand behind the bikes was keen to communicate that this machine "will never be released on the market." And yet, it was clear at the recent Sea Otter trade show that a plethora of wheel and tyre brands are keen to see 32” wheels become mainstream.

Whilst these larger diameter wheels have always had a legitimate place in custom bikes designed for riders exceeding the ‘average’ height, I would consider 32” wheels arriving on the mainstream market to be a major backwards step for cycling, and its accessibility.

Jones is 6’ and Gemperle is 5’10”; the latter falls right into the ‘average white male’ bracket with the former exceeding average. Baum Cycles’ new DBM 32” bike looks great in its marketing images - but that bike would suit a rider around 5’7”. The geometry of a 32” wheel just doesn’t work at smaller frame sizes. This means a massive chunk of the market – plenty of women and almost all of Asia – is locked out of 32” completely.

Having designed and built bikes for decades, I hope I can demonstrate why, with a quick CAD (computer aided design) sketch.

Building a 54cm 32” wheel bike in CAD presented major issues

I modelled my CAD image on a 54cm frame, which would typically suit a male of around 5’8”, much taller than the average Western female of around 5’4”. CW’s US editor Anne Marije-Rook rides a 49cm Specialized, and digital editor Michelle Arthurs-Brennan a 52cm.

The main values I sought to preserve were the stack and reach, relatively to the bottom bracket, as these coordinates dictate a rider’s position. The result was a struggle to fit everything else in.

To create my designs, I chose an arbitrary 440mm axle-to-crown length for the fork, which I judged as giving me enough crown clearance for a 50mm tyre on a 32” rim. To get the rear wheel in, I’ve had to extend the chainstays out to 485mm, some 35mm longer than a downhill mountain bike. The impact on front and rear centre and overall wheelbase could – potentially – give rise to incredible stability in terms of forward progress, but it will pay big time in agility. Even before you consider the extra mass.

To retain the reach, I pushed the effective top tube as far as I could - the horizontal distance from the center of the head tube to the center of the seat post. To get the reach working at all the head angle now sits at 68 degrees, that’s very shallow for a gravel bike - the same as a Specialized Chisel XC MTB. This would create overly slow handling and hinder precision, turn-in in fast corners, and the kind of positional changes we see in bunch riding.

The headtube is left with only a couple of thumb widths of space, and the whole front triangle is compromised to the extent that I simply don’t think it’s possible to physically make it work. I even struggled to illustrate it correctly in my drawing.

And then there’s the toe overlap. Despite slackening the head angle as far as I dare. At slower speeds and in very technical terrain, the rider’s foot is going to come into unavoidable contact with the front tyre.

I could go on.

You could go some way to solve some of the geometry problems resulting from the 32” wheel with offset forks, or a longer top tube paired with steeper head angles. A shorter fork crown might help, and could likely be designed, but the downtube quickly comes into direct conflict with the front tyre as the fork gets shorter. It's a fools errand, as any result is an unavoidable compromise.

Remember, a 54cm frame isn’t an unusual or even very small size in our home markets. In Asia, it's a large.

My brief and ragged design study – please excuse the presence of the double chainset – is a crude visual device to support my point. But what is clear is that each compromise trades away handling, adds complexity, or makes the bike slower handling or heavier in any sensible analysis. And on a 52cm or equivalent, there is simply nowhere for the front wheel to go at all.

The business problem

My point is simple: 32” wheels are not going to work on smaller bikes. Therefore, if 32” wheels were to become mainstream, the industry would be left with two choices: produce 32” bikes for larger riders and maintain existing 700c sizes. Or, majorly disadvantage some already marginalised customer groups, such as women who are already a minority group the industry claims to want to reach.

Given the bike trade has spent the last year or two complaining its ranges are too sprawling - Cannondale’s “one bike to rule them all” pitch in the WorldTour, followed by Giant with its Propel now shading out the TCR - the appetite for increasing SKUs with twice as many wheel sizes seems limited.

The most frustrating component in all of this is that on the question of whether 32” is actually faster, we have nothing empirical at all.

So far, we have a few field tests, a handful of runs in each, with a ton of variables in play, and one independent comparison that Vittoria offered at Sea Otter, quickly clarifying that the few seconds saved came with some major caveats.

Even if a 32” bike does cross the line first at Unbound, it proves nothing about the speed of these larger wheels. The fastest rider in any gravel race is, by definition, the fastest rider in the race.

Scott has been clear that there are no plans to create a consumer model of this bike, and I’m pleased. Gifting the vast majority of the female and Asian riding population with serious toe overlap and compromised handling, based on a data point of one, would be a travesty.

Editor's note: We updated the original headline of this article - which referred to the 'average height, white male' - to better represent the ideas presented within the piece.

While mainstream Western brands are charging five figures for their top-flight bikes, Pardus has launched a 6.7kg race bike featuring a Shimano Ultegra Di2 groupset for roughly €5,000. For comparison, an equivalent Colnago Y1RS like the one Tadej Pogačar rides, fitted with the same groupset, retails at around €11,000.

Owned by Chinese manufacturer Taishan Sports Industry Group, the premium brand announced its European launch in Milan on May 25th. Pardus claims to be the only Chinese brand registered as a European company, rather than merely shipping products in from abroad.

Two models hit that headline price: the SPK Gen 4 Aero and the 6.7kg Robin EVO. Both feature carbon frames, integrated cockpits, carbon-spoked wheels, carbon saddles, and Shimano Ultegra Di2.

Pardus keeps all processes - carbon fibre and resins production, and manufacturing processes for the components - in-house, allowing for greater efficiency. This move mirrors the likes of Chinese manufacturer XDS, whose recent U.S. launch of X-Lab brings more accessible pricing to a Western market also.

Eschewing the direct-sales model used by competitors like Canyon, Pardus will sell exclusively through independent bike shops. With centralised assembly in Poland, eight regional service points, and over 25 agents across 21 countries, the brand is supporting the traditional retail channel.

Developed with the Chinese National Team, the SPK Gen 4 features deep tube profiles and wide-set stays, positioning it as an aero competitor to the Colnago Y1RS, Cervelo S5, or Factor ONE. The brand notes the bikes were developed in a wind tunnel and are already proven in high-level racing.

Pardus is adapting its strategy to meet specific European demands, recognising that its domestic model requires localisation. Consequently, the brand established a dedicated European team of industry experts and adopted a "social media first" marketing strategy to achieve a cleaner, Western aesthetic.

In addition to supplying the Chinese National Team and providing bikes for the Olympics, Pardus has sponsored the Italian team Vini Fantini since 2025.

By offering high-specification bikes at significant value while providing local support, Pardus is directly challenging industry incumbents. While long-term resale value remains to be seen, the brand has arrived as a serious contender.

Over the last few years, Unbound Gravel has become the launchpad for the gravel industry’s next big thing. Every year, the Emporia, Kansas, start line and expo area become a rolling tech gallery packed with unreleased wheelsets, tyres, cockpits and bikes ridden by pro athletes under varying degrees of secrecy.

This year appears to be no different.

We already know defending champion Cam Jones will be riding a Scott prototype bike with 32" wheels, and most of the Specialized Off Road athletes will be aboard the brand new Crux 5.

Today, we got a peek at what appears to be brand-new prototype gravel race bikes from Giant and sister brand Liv, machines that we are fairly certain preview a new tier of the Revolt and Devote platforms.

They were hard to miss, in fact, with the Liv prototype in a bold fuchsia pink with gold detailing, and the Giant version featuring a monochrome black-and-white graphic treatment.

It wasn’t all that long ago that we first spotted prototype versions of the current-generation Giant Revolt Advanced Pro right here at Unbound Gravel, months before launch. Now, almost exactly two years later, Giant and Liv appear to be back in Emporia with another pair of unreleased gravel race machines, and this time, there appears to have been a significant transformation: a move away from the “do-it-all” gravel side.

Both prototype bikes show a clear shift toward race specialisation. Where the outgoing Revolt and Devote platforms were proudly versatile, with multiple mounts, fork bosses, flip-chips and seatpost options, these new bikes look far more singular in purpose.

The fork blades have been stripped of the fork mounts and accessory bosses. Cable routing is now fully integrated through the cockpit, rather than neatly tucked beneath the handlebars as on previous models. The overall silhouette is cleaner, sharper and more aero in appearance.

Both bikes also appear to be designed around 1x drivetrains only, and, of course, tyre clearance appears to have been beefed up.

Australian Liv athlete Peta Mullens outfitted her new steed with yet-to-be-released Maxxis Aspen tyres with a HYPR-X|EXO casing in a 55mm, although actual frame clearance will likely be slightly tighter if following strict ETRTO recommendations. And with the projected mud for Saturday, those 55mm will likely be swapped to something narrower as well.

The finishing kit hints at a closer collaboration with CADEX for complete-package aero savings.

Some of the prototype bikes were fitted with what appeared to be unreleased top-tier CADEX components, including deep-section carbon wheels and integrated one-piece cockpits. The wheelsets in particular looked similar to CADEX’s MAX-level race products, hinting these bikes are aimed squarely at the sharp end of elite gravel competition.

Despite the brands’ strong racing heritage and support of elite gravel athletes, neither currently offers a true "Advanced SL" gravel race bike equivalent to their top-tier road machines such as the Propel Advanced SL or Langma Advanced SL.

That could be about to change.

And according to the athletes riding them, the changes go beyond aesthetics.

Liv athlete Melisa Rollins described the bike as noticeably stiffer and more responsive than the outgoing top-level Devote.

Meanwhile, Mullens highlighted the bike’s more aggressive fit and lower front end.

Mullens is also running an unusually long 140mm stem on her one-piece cockpit, paired with narrow 36cm handlebars.

"I’ve had a bad back for probably 10 years and I’ve always gone shorter [on the stem], but this year I saw a new bike fitter and he actually pushed me longer and I haven’t had back problems for several months," she explained.

Across the industry, brands increasingly appear to be splitting gravel bikes into two camps: the Swiss Army knives and the scalpels.

When we reviewed the top-end Revolt Advanced Pro 0, we praised it for being a highly versatile bike that could comfortably handle racing duties while remaining capable for bikepacking and mixed-terrain adventure riding.

These prototypes, however, suggest Giant and Liv are leaning harder into pure speed.

That mirrors what we’ve seen elsewhere in the market recently, with several brands moving toward lighter, stiffer and aero-optimised gravel race platforms focused purely on getting their rider to the finish line fastest.

For now, the Giant and Liv bikes remain firmly under wraps, but history suggests prototypes spotted at Unbound rarely stay hidden for long.

Come Saturday, the fuchsia pink Liv bikes will be raced by Tessa Neefjes and Peta Mullens. The Giant prototype will see action in the 200-mile pro men's race under Brendan Johnston and Cole Paton.

Today, Specialized officially drew back the curtain on one of the most anticipated bike launches of the year: the terribly kept secret that is the all new Crux.

By now, leaked photos had already circulated widely online, especially after Specialized Off-Road athlete Geerike Schreurs raced the new bike to victory at the Gralloch UCI Gravel World Series event.

The main storyline is that the generation 5 Crux has undergone a dramatic transformation. It’s one that, some proponents say, was long overdue, but the more practical riders may bemoan.

Gone is the classic silhouette of round tubing and a standard round 27.2mm seatpost. Gone also are the exposed wires and the build versatility that made the previous generation so easy to live with.

In their place sits a bike that looks very much like a fat-tyred Tarmac SL8, complete with sharp aerodynamic tube profiles, a proprietary aero seatpost and a fully integrated cockpit. The tyre clearance has been beefed up to 55mm (or 2.2inches if you’re running MTB rubber) but drivetrains are now limited to 1x only with a 52t cap on the chainring. Goodbye road gearing, goodbye suspension forks and dropper posts. Hello modern gravel race bike.

This is no longer the "one bike to rule them all." It’s a bike that giveth and taketh. It’s both divisive and inevitable. It meets the demands of modern racing built around long-distance speed, aerodynamics, comfort and high-volume tyres. And in that role, I expect this bike to do very, very well.

But for riders who fell in love with the previous Crux precisely because it resisted over-specialisation, the new direction may feel bittersweet.

The Crux redefined, yet again

The Crux was born in 2010 as a dedicated cyclocross race bike, replacing the TriCross model. It was well-liked and successful too, with riders like Zdenek Stybar and Tom Pidcock racing aboard the bike to rainbow glory in the Elite and U23 UCI Cyclocross World Championships, respectively, over the years.

The Crux 4, launched in 2021, was a truly revolutionary product. Just as cyclocross participation was shrinking and gravel racing exploding globally, Specialized repositioned the Crux platform as the featherweight, stripped-down crossover product, and alternative to the Diverge. In doing so, the American brand created one of the most versatile drop-bar bikes of the modern era. Few bikes in recent years have been so universally loved by riders, racers and reviewers alike.

The Crux 4 struck a rare balance. It blended the playfulness and agility of a cyclocross bike with the stability needed in gravel, and a ride feel, efficiency and raciness appreciated across the board.

It is also a bike that’s easy to live with. The external cable routing on the front end, threaded BSA bottom bracket, compatibility with aftermarket seatposts, suspension forks, dropper posts and both 1x and 2x drivetrains all make it easy to service and travel with.

The same bike could, and did, be ridden to victory in both a 200-mile Unbound Gravel race and a UCI Cyclocross World Cup.

I have no doubt that the new Crux will be any less successful. In fact, I suspect it will become even more successful at the highest levels of racing but in gravel specifically.

Interestingly, throughout all of Specialized’s launch material, cyclocross isn’t even mentioned. Instead, Specialized is very upfront about what this bike was built around: Unbound Gravel.

And that tells you almost everything you need to know.

What’s new

The Crux 5 pivots hard toward the demands of modern racing, borrowing heavily from the Tarmac SL8 playbook while simultaneously increasing tyre clearance and stability for long-distance events on rough terrain.

Headline changes include:

• A claimed 15.2 watt aerodynamic improvement at 45kph
• New aerodynamic tube shaping inspired by the Tarmac SL8
• Fully integrated cable routing and cockpit options
• Clearance for tyres up to 55mm or 2.2in
• 1x-only drivetrain compatibility
• Maximum 52t chainring capacity
• Dropped seatstays and a slightly altered geometry
• Claimed 789g S-Works frame weight (for reference the Crux 4 was 735g)

Despite the aerodynamic redesign, Specialized says the Crux 5 retains the same stiffness and compliance targets as the outgoing model.

The bike is also no longer positioned as an all-road-adjacent gravel bike. This is now a purpose-built race machine first and foremost.

A Fat-Tyred Tarmac

As stated, much of the Crux 5’s design comes from its road siblings. That influence is immediately obvious in the bike’s tube shaping and overall silhouette.

“Drawing directly from Tarmac SL8 learnings and decades of aero research, every tube on Crux 5 was sculpted for speed at elite gravel races," Specialized says. “Crux 5 is the most aerodynamic gravel race bike we’ve ever tested."

The aerodynamic improvements are spread across the entire bike rather than isolated to the frame alone.

Specialized says roughly 50% of the aero gains come from the frame, fork and seatpost, with another 30% coming from the new Roval Terra Aero wheels and the remaining 20% from the integrated Terra cockpit.

Still, aero is only part of the equation.

Rather than chasing isolated benchmark numbers, Specialized says it focused on one overarching metric: total elapsed race time over real-world gravel courses.

The company calls this its “Equation of Speed”, a simulation model combining aerodynamic drag, rider power, rolling resistance, surface roughness, environmental conditions and total system weight into a single prediction: Time to Finish.

“Smoother is Faster” has long been an engineering philosophy at Specialized and that certainly did not go unaddressed in the designing of the Crux 5.

During the 2025 edition of Unbound Gravel, a small telemetry box mounted underneath Matt Beers’ saddle collected accelerometer data throughout the race. Specialized says it has now gathered telemetry across thousands of kilometres and multiple elite gravel events, measuring the roughness and vibration characteristics of different gravel surfaces in real time.

Why? Because gravel racing presents a very different engineering challenge from road racing. At road-race speeds, aerodynamic drag dominates the equation. On gravel, speeds are generally lower and rolling resistance becomes significantly more important, particularly over rough surfaces where tyre deformation and vibration losses increase dramatically.

Specialized says the telemetry data feeds directly into its simulation models, allowing engineers to better understand how tyre volume, wheel design, rider fatigue and frame characteristics interact over events lasting upwards of 10 hours.

Rather than pursuing suspension solutions as it did with the short-lived Diverge STR, Specialized says the Crux 5 achieves comfort primarily through frame shaping, tyre volume and carefully tuned compliance targets.

Dropped seatstays, size-specific layups and the ability to run significantly larger tyres all contribute to reducing rider fatigue over long gravel races without adding the weight or complexity of suspension systems.

Specialized also credits what it calls “Flow State Design”, first introduced with the Aethos road bike. Engineers focused on optimising tube shapes so they carry loads more efficiently, reducing the need for additional carbon material.

The bike’s geometry has evolved alongside those aerodynamic changes. Though in the smaller sizes especially, these differences aren’t large.

Compared to the outgoing Crux, the new bike gets:

• A half-degree slacker head angle
• A lower bottom bracket
• A half-degree steeper seat angle
• Longer reach figures in larger sizes
• Increased tyre clearance to 55mm

Taken together, those updates point toward a bike designed to feel more stable at speed, more planted with larger tyres and more confidence-inspiring over rough terrain.

The wheel and tyre story forms a major part of the package too.

Specialized claims the new Terra Aero CLX wheels allow riders to run larger-volume tyres with effectively no aerodynamic penalty. According to the company, a 50mm Pathfinder or Tracer tyre mounted to the Terra Aero CLX wheel produces similar aerodynamic drag to a 45mm tyre mounted to the previous Terra CLX II wheel.

The result comes with some bold claims.

Using the company’s simulation model, Specialized says former Unbound winner Sofia Gomez Villafañe would have completed the 2025 edition of Unbound Gravel an impressive 9 minutes and 58 seconds faster aboard the new Crux 5 compared to the outgoing Crux 4, assuming identical conditions.

These numbers are impossible to verify, of course, but they do reveal how modern gravel racing is increasingly being approached: not as adventure riding, but as a very long time trial on unforgiving surfaces.

Introducing S-Level

Alongside the new Crux platform, Specialized is also introducing a new “S-Level” designation.

Positioned just below S-Works, S-Level is intended to bring flagship-level race performance to a slightly broader audience.

The Crux 5 S-Level uses a FACT 10r frame paired with a FACT 12r fork, the new Terra cockpit, SRAM RED XPLR and Roval Terra Aero CL wheels. The frame itself is claimed to weigh just 897g, with complete builds coming in at a claimed 7.7kg.

In practical terms, S-Level appears to function as a high-end performance tier sitting between the halo S-Works product and the more attainable Expert and Comp builds.

Builds & Pricing

First Ride Impressions

I’ve ridden the outgoing 2021 Specialized S-Works Crux since December 2021 and, in the years since, I’ve ridden the absolute crap out of it. It remains my favourite bike I’ve ever owned. I won’t go too deep into that here, but you can read my full 1,000-word love letter to the outgoing Crux here.

So I’ll admit that I approached the Crux 5 with a healthy amount of scepticism.

I’ve not yet fully bought into the whole “aero-is-everything” approach to modern bikes. I tinker with bikes far too much to fully embrace integrated everything and proprietary parts. Show of hands for everyone who has ever lost a seatpost wedge.

And so, when I first laid eyes on the Crux 5, it wasn’t love at first sight. It looks beautifully sleek and undeniably fast, don’t get me wrong. But I’ve always loved the timeless look of rounded tubes, a two-piece cockpit and the sheer practicality baked into the whole thing.

And then I swung a leg over the new bike. In my size 49, the geometry changes are so subtle that I immediately felt at home. It fit me like a glove. And within minutes of pedalling, I had my ah-ha moment.

This bike is fast. Not just marketing copy fast. Tangibly fast.

It accelerates like a rocket and carries speed exceptionally well on both dirt and tarmac. And, fortunately, the familiar liveliness of the Crux does indeed remain intact. While the new bike feels more composed than its predecessor, it is by no means over-dampened. On my lunch loop, sprinkled with singletrack, the bike felt unmistakably like a Crux. A smidge taller perhaps, and the ever beefier types certainly don’t help with the toe-overlap, but Crux all the same.

In many ways, it feels like a more mature version of the Crux concept. The old Crux had a carefree do-it-all attitude to it. The new bike feels more focused, more deliberate and more purpose-built.

It is stiff in the places that matter, accelerates eagerly and, importantly, remains remarkably comfortable over long hours.

This is not a harsh aero road bike masquerading as a gravel bike. The Crux 5 still feels refined over rough surfaces, particularly when paired with high-volume tyres, and there’s still enough playfulness in the handling to make it genuinely enjoyable to ride.

Importantly, it also retains some crossover appeal. I would have absolutely no hesitation using this bike as a road bike alongside its gravel duties.

Gravel racing at the sharp end has become increasingly fast, tactical and aero-conscious. Today’s elite gravel racers spend vast stretches riding in tightly packed groups, or even solo, at road race speeds. The spirit of exploration has, at the highest level at least, given way to the pursuit of outright speed.

In that environment, aerodynamic efficiency is everything (aside from preventing race-ending flat tyres, perhaps). The Crux 5 reflects that evolution perfectly.

The outgoing Crux became beloved because it blurred categories. The new Crux 5 will succeed because it embraces specialisation instead.

Of course, that comes with trade-offs.

The integrated cockpit and proprietary seatpost undoubtedly improve aerodynamics and visual cleanliness, but they also reduce the ease of adjustment, customisation, travel and maintenance that made the previous bike so easy to live with.

The bike is now 1x-only and designed specifically around gravel-wide chainlines. Mechanical drivetrains remain possible, though riders using the one-piece Roval cockpit will need to stick with electronic shifting.

Whether riders embrace those compromises will depend entirely on what they want from gravel riding.

For elite racers chasing every marginal gain at gravel events like Unbound, SBT GRVL or the Gravel Earth Series, the Crux 5 makes complete sense.

After riding the new bike, I’ve come to a simple conclusion: I don’t want one or the other. I want both.

This is the bike Tom Simpson rode to a silver medal in the individual pursuit during the 1958 Commonwealth Games. However, the 1965 road world champion lost ownership following a card game.

“Tom had a good friend called Graham Plumber,” explains Dave Marsh, of the Universal Cycle Centre, Rotherham. “The two played cards together in local cafes, which is how Graham won this bike from Tom. I doubt Tom was too bothered – if he ever needed a bike, Gerald O’Donovan, manager and designer at Carlton, was very happy to oblige.”

Simpson - whose palmares included wins at Milan-San Remo and the Tour of Flanders - and O’Donovan were also good friends; in fact, O’Donovan was Simpson’s best man. Marsh recalls the now legendary tale that, after picking this bike up from O’Donovan’s home in Carlton Road Worksop, Simpson rode a local time trial road course in 19 minutes. That’s a phenomenal time on a 1950s teel fixie with no brakes!

“Tom was loyal to Carlton almost until the end,” remembers Marsh. “Most of his Peugeot bikes were rebranded Carltons. However, late in his career, he did switch to Italian builder Alberto Masi, whose frames were also disguised as Peugeots.”

Carlton Cycles was founded in 1898, by Fred Hanstock. Its growth surged with the arrival of Dan O’Donovan, who joined the company from the motorcycle industry before taking over in 1939, later joined by his son Gerald. The company was bought by Raleigh in 1960 and ceased trading in 1981.

The Carlton Flyer was the jewel in the brand's crown, and as well as being the bike that powered Simpson to his 1949 silver medal in the World Championships individual pursuit, is was also the machine he used to claim a bronze in the 1956 Olympic team pursuit.

The Carlton Flyer was the brand’s top-tier bike. Beyond the norm – Reynolds 531 Double Butted tubing, Fiamme rims laced onto 28/28 small flange Airlite hubs, Stronglight chainset and cranks – Simpson’s bike has a few quirks.

“Tom specified notoriously steep tube angles,” confirms Marsh, who now owns the Carlton. “I think this one probably has a 74° head tube angle and a 73° seat tube angle. He modified the Brooks Champion Narrow saddle too, cutting away leather at the rear. The huge drop on the bars, plus the under slung stem, enabled him to tuck into an imposing stance.”

When To Replace It is a feature series in which we explore when one should replace common cycling products like helmets, apparel and various moving parts on your bike. Curious about a particular product? Shoot us an email at anne.rook@futurenet.com

How do you know when to replace stuff you wear when riding, or on your bike? Tyres have wear indicators, and disc brake pads can be measured with a calliper.

It’s never a bad idea to measure your chain from time to time, especially when you think it might be time to replace it based on distance ridden, rider size and other factors.

But what about servicing your rear derailleur? Do you wait until you’re missing shifts and incorrectly diagnose the problem?

The short and simple answer is: It depends.

Just like some cyclists will get just 3,000km before replacing a chain and cassette, while others may get more than 6,000km, replacing rear derailleur pulley wheels—sometimes called jockey wheels—also depends on wear, not a set interval.

Larger riders who put out more watts and create more mechanical stress on their drivetrains may need to service and replace pulley wheels more frequently than smaller riders. Riding in wet conditions, which introduces grit into drivetrains, will also shorten the life of pulley wheels even if cleaned between rides.

Identifying Worn Pulleys

Worn chains that do not sit on pulley teeth properly will wear them. Likewise, worn guide pulley teeth won’t offer precise shifting, which in turn wears cassette teeth and chain parts. Of course, you can reduce drivetrain wear through thorough and frequent cleaning. Cleaning also affords the opportunity to examine components for wear.

We asked Shimano about causes of pulley wear and were told the most common causes are mud and dirt, high mileage and heavy load riding, infrequent maintenance and chain wear. Shimano told us tracking pulley wheel wear signs can be pretty straightforward, but requires some subjective judgement.

"If the pulleys are no longer spinning smoothly, are showing visible wear, or are contributing to poor shifting, it’s time to replace them – regardless of mileage," a Shimano representative told Cycling Weekly.

"Shimano does not set specific mileage or time intervals for replacing derailleur pulleys, as wear varies widely based on riding conditions, terrain, and maintenance habits. Instead, riders should regularly inspect their pulleys and replace them when clear signs of wear or performance issues appear."

Some indicators may be:

• Worn or "shark tooth" pulley teeth
• Excessive side-to-side play
• Rough or sticky rotation
• Squeaking, grinding, or clicking noises
• Decreased shifting performance
• Visible grime buildup that won’t clean out

We like proactive maintenance before many of these signs are evident. After 10 years of use and regular maintenance, I replaced the pulley wheels on a dedicated indoor bike—which previously spent five years' duty as my primary outdoor road bike—to ensure shifting remained crisp and precise. Your replacement schedule may vary.

What to Replace

Replacing pulley wheels is one of the easiest maintenance tasks you can perform. When swapping new pulleys for old, the process is easier with the rear wheel removed. You’ll need a 3mm hex wrench. For the detail-oriented, a torque wrench can be used when reinstalling fasteners.

The lower pulley is the tension pulley, which aids in keeping slack from the chain. The upper wheel is the guide pulley and aids in moving the chain from cog to cog. Shimano upper guide pulleys have longer teeth designed to maintain chain control during shifts, while lower tension pulleys have shorter, wider teeth that may offer greater durability under dynamic chain tension.

Shimano replacement pulley wheels are directional. Look for the arrows indicating direction for the tension pulley inboard of the teeth; the guide pulley rotates in the opposite direction. Shimano indicates using a sufficient amount of grease on the inside of the pulley cap. After servicing, tighten the pulley bolt with a 3mm hex wrench up to a torque of 5nm.

When replacing pulley wheels on SRAM road rear derailleurs, the lower pulley L indicator should face inward (towards the bike). The U indicator for the upper pulley should also be facing outwards.

Campagnolo Record 12-speed guide- and tension pulley wheels are specific, too. The upper guide pulley has longer tooth profiles, which may be ideal for wide-range cassettes. The Campy 13-speed lower tension pulley has shorter profile teeth, with less taper. Campy indicates this may offer greater durability and chain stability as it winds onto the cassette. Standard Campy pulleys have OEM steel bearings, unless ceramic is indicated.

When replacing pulley wheels, they can be replaced in kind or with ceramic bearing upgrades, which may offer single-digit watt savings. Be aware that most manufacturers indicate that replacing OEM pulley wheels with third-party components may void your warranty.

Aluminium is often regarded as the least attractive of frame materials, overshadowed by steel, titanium and carbon. It's not inherently the lightest or the most compliant but built well it can provide these attributes as well as coming with a price tag that makes it more accessible than the other materials. And it's application for affordable gravel bikes makes plenty of sense, as demonstrated by Canyon's new Grizl AL.

Here Canyon have a really cool bike painted with a broad stroke, able to be dressed up or down as required, making it something of genuine do-it-all in a product category that's becoming increasingly specialised.

Elsewhere, we check out Rapha's new Brevet collection, Mavic's latest aero offering, the Comete 50, Hunt's 4AM Limitless wheelsets and a collaboration between Santini and Pirelli.

Canyon Grizl AL

There have been a slew of carbon-framed gravel race bikes released of late, such as the BMC Kauis. As attractive as they are, they typically come with exorbitant price tags and are a little more business-like than many of us need. So it’s nice to see that those of us who prefer to mess around on the local trails rather than pin a number on are still being catered for, in the shape of Canyon’s newest Grizl AL.

The brand describes it as “radically refined” compared to the previous model, and “one bike” for “all adventures”. The aluminium frame is now said to be 120 grams lighter but just as durable, and it’s littered with mounts that suggest that the ‘one bike’ moniker could well be accurate; cages, bags and locks are are catered for and it's also compatible with Canyon’s DEFEND Fast Fenders.

Expanding tyre clearance has made the best gravel bikes more versatile than ever, and here you get 45mm tyres as standard with enough room to go as wide as 54mm or 2.1”.

This is matched with plenty of sensible features including external cable routing, a threaded bottom bracket and a round, 27.2mm seatpost that makes repairs, adjustments and upgrades something you can do at home, or while bikepacking. And then there’s Canyon’s direct-to-consumer value that sees the range start at €1299. Combined it appears to add up to a practical machine for many applications, and what’s not to like about that?

Rapha Brevet SS26

Rapha’s Brevet range has long been the brand’s most practical offering. Combining durable materials with a more relaxed fit, high-vis features and plenty of storage meant that it had an application beyond its long-distance roots, whether that’s the daily commute or relaxed bikepacking trip. These core elements remain with the latest collection, which includes jerseys, cargo bib shorts, a vest as well as a cap, mitts and packable backpack.

So while the new kit is designed for, and promoted by, the likes of Lael Wilcox, Jana Kesenheimer and Victor Bosoni, all ultra-endurance specialists, there’s plenty here to pique the interest of those whose bike rides are measured in double digit distances and hours, rather than thousands of kilometers and days.

The familiar reflective strips are present on both the merino jersey and the lightweight version, as well as the Wind Gilet. The Jerseys features what are called Brevet Air Pockets, five rear pockets that are designed to lift away from the body when loaded, while the Gilet features a breathable rear mesh panel and a stowaway pocket that it can be compressed into.

The cargo bib shorts boast an endurance dual-density chamois and four pockets, two on each leg plus two integrated lower back pockets designed to hold valuables.

Brand new for 2026, the packable backpack provides some additional storage when required, up to 10 litres to be precise, as well as 360-degree visibility thanks to reflective yarns in the shoulder straps and the signature stripes on the main material.

Hunt 4AM Limitless wheels

In the not-so-distant past, climbing wheels and aero wheels were two distinct product categories. While at the ends of the spectrum this still runs true - featherweight hoops for mountain application and deep-section rims for fast, rolling parcours - there is a growing number of extremely light wheelsets that are also aerodynamically efficient.

Adding to this list is the new 4AM Limitless wheel from Hunt, offered with both carbon and steel spokes, and built using what Hunt’s calls its 5-Stage Aero Development process, which involves CFD, wind tunnel testing and real-world AeroSensor validation.

At a claimed 1156g a pair, the Ti_UD models use elongated aerofoil VONOA Ti_UD carbon spokes. Weighing just 1.7g per spoke, they are often a significant reduction over steel. The reduced spoke count, 15 at the front and 18 at the rear, aids this further as well as meaning that only five front spokes are exposed to clean air. Recessed spoke nipples for reduced rotational drag round out the setup. Alternatively, the steel option uses Pillar SuperWing triple butted, aero bladed spokes, 20 at the front and 24 at the rear, which sees the overall weight of the wheelset rise to a claimed 1283g.

Both sets utilise the same carbon hooked rims. At the front this measures 49.5mm deep and 34.2mm wide, while at the rear these measurements are reduced to 47mm and 30mm respectively. The internal rim measurement is 23mm, with Hunt saying the rims have been optimised around 30mm wide tyres. The variation in rim depth is designed to add stability at speed while also reducing weight and improving power transfer.

The Ti_UD wheels are priced at £1,959 / $2,559 with stainless steel bearings and £2,449 / $3,159 with CeramicSpeed bearings. The steel spoked version retail at £1,659 / $2,359.

Santini x Pirelli Sport Club 2026 collection

As two iconic Italian sporting brands the synergy between Santini and Pirelli needs no explanation. The pair first combined on a clothing collection in 2024 and its back once more, continuing to draw inspiration from the Pirelli Sport Club that was founded in Milan in 1922 to promote employee wellbeing. The Santini x Pirelli Sport Club 2026 comprises jerseys, both technical and heritage-inspired, bib shorts, a skinsuit, wind jacket and vest and some lifestyle pieces including t-shirts.

The technical lineup has been expanded to include the Fast jersey, alongside the Ruota model that featured in previous years. The Fast is designed with aero performance in mind and features a second-skin fit and ultra-light materials, with the graphics drawing on the Pirelli advertising catalogue from the 1960s. The Pirelli SC jersey also returns with an eye-catching all-over logo pattern.

The SC wool jersey is a nod to the garments of the past and features embroidered logos, mother of pearl buttons and metal zips.

Road skinsuits are growing in popularity outside of just the pro ranks and here it's been designed using a breathable, quick-drying fabric to keep the body at the correct temperature even during hard, extended efforts. The sleeve adopts a striped construction that’s said to improve aerodynamics.

Mavic Comete 50 wheelset

Mavic says its Comete 50 wheelset is designed to deliver an aerodynamic advantage across all road surfaces. To find this balance it says the wheel passed 57 tests before being handed over to the brand’s sponsored pros, including Thomas De Gendt and Alison Jackson, to complete the testing. The result is a 50mm deep wheel that Mavic says is fast, stable in crosswinds, and comfortable over longer distances.

Weighing a claimed 1,315g for the pair, the Comete features profiled carbon spokes that Mavic says reduces drag compared its competitors carbon spokes by 18% as well as a rim that uses an adaptive layup that’s designed to excel in both calm and windy conditions; the rim’s internal width measures 23mm, while the external measures 30mm

Other details include a hub that features a 40t ratchet system for “near-instant engagement” and rolls on ceramic bearings for reduced friction.

Specialized has lifted the lid on the fourth-generation Evade, and the brand says it’s achieved a 2.4 per cent reduction in heat build-up, without giving away any watts.

The Evade has long been the brand’s best aero bike helmet offering, but in this iteration, 100 hours of aerodynamic and thermal testing went into increasing ventilation, without an aero penalty.

Interestingly, the Evade 3 - released in June 2022 - also aimed to build on comfort and ventilation, with the headline claim being 10% better airflow vs the outgoing iteration. That means the Evade hasn’t got any faster since the 2018 launch of the Evade 2, which made a claim of six seconds - over 40 kilometres - vs the original, out in 2014.

Still, the Evade has always been popular in the CW office, with its wearability and aesthetics often championed over the claimed speed boost anyway.

Addressing the particular focus on ventilation in this launch, a spokesperson for the US brand told Cycling Weekly that the goals were driven by rising global temperatures. “Temperatures above 90 degrees Fahrenheit are now the rule, not the exception,” our rep told us. Therefore, the brief was to make the Evade something riders would want to wear on a hot day, rather than reaching for the Prevail 3.

The physical changes back that up. There are now seven vents, up from five, plus a slotted exhaust on each side of the rear shell. The internal headform has been rounded to suit a broader spread of skull shapes, and the retention cradle is new. The padding is integrated into the MIPS Airnode Pro system, which features COOLMAX® fabric. The tail, now reminiscent of Specialized's best time trial helmet, the TT5, has been truncated so that head-down sprints don’t bleed too many watts.

While there’s no aero penalty for all this extra fresh air, the Evade 4 is a smidge heavier at 290g, versus 272g for the outgoing model. Price-wise, it comes in at £279 / $350 / €329, with six colours available at launch, including Root Beer and Multi Aurora.

The wider question, with the UCI having shut the door on visors in mass-start racing, is whether anyone has any aero gains left to find. The Evade 4 suggests that, for now, Specialized thinks the answer is no.

We’ve got an Evade 4 on the way to the Cycling Weekly office, and will be bringing you a full review soon.

In the meantime, you can find all the best deals on the outgoing Specialized Evade 3 below in your region. Including this one, direct with Specialized in the US, where the Evade 3 is now $70 off.

When To Replace... is a new feature series in which we explore when one should replace common cycling products like helmets, apparel and various moving parts on your bike. Curious about a particular product? Shoot us an email at anne.rook@futurrnet.com

Renewing or replacing wearable components and parts of a bicycle can sometimes be a straightforward affair, with clear delineations for use or toss. Tools for measuring chains are inexpensive and easy to use. Replacing a worn cassette when installing a new chain is still an easy guideline, depending on how you ride. And, checking your brake pad thickness for wear is pretty simple.

But what about wear from use and ageing of cycling soft goods? When should you change out other safety-critical items proactively, to ensure they will work as designed? There are no easy measuring guides or wear indicators for bike helmets like those on tyres, for instance.

Many helmet manufacturers and certification organisations generally recommend replacement on a calendar schedule, no matter the use or exposure. The independent U.S.-based publication Consumer Reports indicates that you should routinely replace your helmet every three to five years. Snell, the independent testing laboratory that certifies helmets, also suggests the same interval for replacing a bike helmet.

This guidance seems broad and potentially expensive, so we asked representatives from several helmet manufacturers to learn more about why and when to replace one of the most important pieces of cycling gear.

How and why bike helmets degrade

Helmets consist of several parts, each of which may wear at different rates, but they are only as good as the entirety of the helmet. Retention straps are exposed to the sun’s UV rays and sweat from riding in the heat.

The padded internal retention structure and fit adjustment system that contacts your head is protected from the sun, but is still exposed to sweat. The protective layer of a helmet, which may include proprietary systems like WaveCel, MIPS or Spherical, is shielded from UV, but may still be exposed to sweat and elements via cooling ports, and is susceptible to ageing from heat exposure.

And most obviously is a helmet’s external protective shell, which is always exposed to the sun and elements. Holding these components together is glue, which also ages at different rates depending on use and exposure.

It’s generally accepted that if you take a spill on your bike while wearing a helmet, and the helmet touches the ground, replace it. Doing so ensures you’ll be 100% protected should a helmeted head strike happen again.

But what if a helmet you've never crashed and looks to be in fine shape, even after a few years? Do you need to spend money on what looks to be a perfectly safe and functional bit of kit?

The authoritative U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) indicates that, in the absence of brand-specific recommendations, a helmet is safe up to 10 years. But this guidance seems to be the outlier. Most brands of helmets advise a more frequent replacement plan: after five years at most.

Belgian helmet manufacturer Lazer, for example, indicates that "under normal use, it’s smart to start thinking about replacement after three years, and Lazer recommends definitely replacing helmets after five years."

Factors such as UV exposure, sweat, chemicals such as sunscreen and bug spray, all can prematurely age helmets. Lazer suggests that its helmets won’t "suddenly stop working after five years," but notes that "normal wear, exposure, and material ageing can reduce its effectiveness."

Follow the science and manufacturers’ claims about chemicals

Published research indicates age alone is not the sole factor for buying a new helmet. One study examined the EPS protective cores from 63 used and unused helmets, ranging in age between two and 20 years. It similarly found, "impact attenuation properties of EPS foam in field-used bicycle helmets do not degrade with [helmet] age." Another study concluded, "bicycle helmets do not lose their ability to attenuate impacts with age; however, other helmet features that may change with age were not evaluated."

So why throw away what looks to be a perfectly serviceable piece of protective gear?

Senior director of R&D at Giro, Steven Kennedy, says replace your helmet based on use, but do so within a 36 to 60-month range.

"Generally, we say three to five years as a range. That's because I think it's really based on how much the helmet's used," says Kennedy.

"I think the biggest, true degrader of material quality is UV exposure. So if you're using the helmet once a month through the summer in the northeast, and it's stored in a cool, dry basement for five years, that's one situation versus if you're using it in Arizona, year-round, every day as a commuter helmet, that's a completely different situation," cautions Kennedy.

"Ultimately, the UV rays, the dryness and drying out of glue is probably the biggest concern, from an engineering standpoint, over time," he says. "I think the best parallel is in Southern California, we all surf. Manufacturers say, don't put your wetsuit in the sun to dry. Everyone does, and you can see the glue turn yellow, crack and degrade."

"As they off-gas, they become a little more brittle. And so the biggest concern from my standpoint as an engineer is those glues drying out over three years of constant UV exposure, and that's where we would say replace the helmet and find something newer—fresh glue, everything's all together nice and tight," suggests Kennedy.

Joshua Rebol of Giant Bicycles told Cycling Weekly it tests helmets, "in lab conditions that would negatively affect impact performance like extreme heat, cold, wet and UV."

Giant cautioned riders to be mindful of where they store their helmets when not in use, and how to clean them.

"Longterm exposure to something like storage in a hot trunk of a car where temperatures easily hit 60º to 70ºC is something I don’t think riders are normally thinking about, and can prematurely age a helmet and cause a degradation of performance," says Rebol.

To prolong helmet life, he also suggests, "if your helmet comes with a soft cover or you can protect it with a soft case or bag, you should, by all means, use that for storage. Please don’t clean your helmet with solvents that could damage the shell or foams. Dish soap and warm water will do nicely."

Does your helmet pass the smell test?

Giro’s Kennedy suggests riders practice good hygiene, and keep helmets smell-free. If there's a stank to your lid, it’s likely you’re cultivating bacteria, which is a skin irritant. Although this may not damage your helmet, it could damage your skin.

"Helmets are absorbing bacteria, and they can get pretty nasty, too. So, depending on how well you take care of your helmet, if you're sweating like crazy, you just throw it on the shelf at the end of the ride. There can be some pretty gnarly mould and bacteria growing on that stuff," says Kennedy.

And no one likes helmets with smelly bacteria farms.

"The stink is actually bacteria, and that's not stuff that you want to have on your skin. So similarly, depending on how well you take care of the helmet, is how long before it gets funky," he said.

"Then it can be a bad skin irritant on the sides of your face with straps, on the brow, that sort of thing. If you are super diligent, you rinse it with clean water after every ride—the brow pieces that you can take out—with a little antibacterial hand soap," observed Kennedy.

Bontrager’s Alex Applegate cautions against exposure to common protective and cleaning chemicals such as ammonia, which can negatively impact helmet function and lifespan. Since bug repellent is a commonly used product, keep it away from your headgear.

"We don’t have a full list [of chemicals or products] to share here; bug spray is often a large offender. We recommend applying bug repellent and [then] washing your hands before putting on your helmet; never spray on or near your helmet," says Applegate.

His colleague, Tim Kellagher, similarly cautions, "bug spray is something that is safe for skin, could be so damaging to foam and other materials."

And Kennedy, of Giro, also cautioned against getting spray-on sunscreen near your helmet, as it degrades the foam EPS protective component.

Bontrager, like Giant, suggests not storing helmets in hot automobiles at the risk of safety degradation.

Rudy Project suggests getting a new helmet after three to five years, too. The Italian manufacturer states that the protective layer of EPS foam degrades over time, and its protective properties become less than optimal.

This turnover cycle is also consistent with the advice offered by MIPS, the manufacturer of concussion-reducing technology licensed and utilised by many helmet makers: swap your lid when it’s between 36 and 60 months old.

Top takeaways for prolonging bike helmet lifespan

• Store in a cool, dry, dark location
• Do not use cleaning agents; use soap and water on helmets
• Keep bug spray and sunscreen away from helmets
• When locking your bike outdoors, take your helmet with you
• Examine straps and the retention system prior to each use for integrity

Replace your bike helmet if:

• You celebrate its fifth anniversary
• It hits the ground while being worn
• The outer protective shell is dinged and/or there’s a visible deformity on it
• Retention system no longer works like when it was new
• Excessive exposure to heat or UV

In a world forcing the aerodynamic performance narrative, the Specialized Aethos is a breath of fresh air, eschewing the mainstream dropped seatstay and deep headtube configurations of contemporary road bikes for classic double-diamond architecture. The first-generation Aethos, launched in 2020, was a hit among purists and, in many ways, close to the best lightweight bike in terms of rider enjoyment – perhaps even perfect.

Specialized was careful not to lose those attributes with the new model, but was also keen to modernise the platform, which now gains an integrated cockpit, wider tyre clearances, subtle tweaks to the geometry and a carbon layup inspired by the S-Works Tarmac SL8 race bike.

Despite these alterations, the lightweight ethos and character of the original Aethos remain unchanged, as does the exorbitant sticker price of the S-Works derivative. As expected from a Halo bike, it gets all the bells and whistles, but is there anything to be gained or lost looking further down the range?

Technical details

One of Specialized’s main focuses for the new Aethos is centred on creating a better fit, drawing on decades’ worth of Body Geometry fit data and over 100,000 fit studies. These values have culminated in a less aggressive, more stable platform across all sizes, thanks to a 15mm taller stack (13-15mm depending on size), a longer wheelbase, a slightly relaxed head angle, and a lower bottom bracket height – the latter of which should help it find favour with more riders.

To counter the added mass of the new UDH dropout, internal hosing, and increased stack height, the Aethos employs a Tarmac SL8-inspired layup with new tube shapes and ply placements that take up structural loads. The new frame is just 10g heavier than its forebear at 595g. The total system weight in SRAM Red AXS guise comes in at 5.98g in size medium, with tubeless tyres (and sealant) fitted. Despite its feathery intentions, it loses out to the 5.88kg Scott Addict RC Ultimate in the same size, but trumps the 6.3kg Cannondale Lab71 SuperSix Evo SL.

Despite the subtle changes to the tube shapes, some will find it difficult to tell the Aethos 2 apart from its predecessor, but to me, that’s a good thing. I appreciate the classic lines and clean silhouette that have all but disappeared from the pro peloton. The range-topping S-Works Aethos 2 is available in two colourways, depending on your groupset persuasion: SRAM Red AXS builds come in ‘Red Tint’, and Shimano Dura-Ace Di2-equipped models are painted in a pastel turquoise called ‘Fjord Metallic’.

The frame angles are not too different from those of the previous-generation Aethos. In size 54cm, the reach is identical at 384m, but the stack has increased from 544mm to 559mm. The head angle has been slackened from 73 to 72.5 degrees, while the wheelbase has grown 14mm to 992mm. While the chainstays remain at 410mm, the most notable change is an increase in tyre clearance from 32mm to 35mm, essentially future-proofing the platform for years to come.

Specifications

As a S-Works model, the Aethos 2 comes loaded with top-level kit - in this case, a SRAM Red AXS with a 48/35T, 11-33T chainset and Quarq power meter. We’ve waxed lyrical about the precision and smooth operation of this groupset, and the modulation of the powerful braking system continues to impress. The bike rolls on a pair of Roval Alpinist CLX III wheels shod with 28mm S-Works Turbo TLR Race tyres.

Owing to the push for complete system integration, the front end uses a Roval Alpinist Cockpit II with totally hidden hoses. The balance is rounded off with Supacaz bar tape, a SRAM DUB BSA 68 bottom bracket and S-Works Power with Mirror 3D-printed saddle.

Performance

The ergonomics of the new Roval Alpinist Cockpit II are a notable step up from the outgoing model. This, together with the new frame and Alpinist CLX II wheels, results in a good ride quality while still retaining the sharpness and communication you’d expect from an S-Works bike. While the featherweight design and responsiveness are still there, it’s the plushness of the ride that feels light-years ahead of its predecessor – even in 28mm trim. This can be ramped up even further with 30 or even 32mm tyres, and will add a little more mass to the system weight, but it is something I highly recommend. I ran the pressures as low as 55psi front and back (at 62kg), but reckon I’d have got away with 50psi if I'd opted for 30mm tyres.

While it’s an absolute joy to ride up hills, it’s equally as rewarding during descending situations. The lower bottom bracket and slightly longer wheelbase have boosted stability, while the improved communication from increased stack and integrated bar allows you to lean into the bike’s front end grip with assurance. Sure, the riding position is a tad more upright than before, but everything still feels dynamic. It’s only when the going gets flat that you may feel the Aethos struggling somewhat – aerodynamics is not its strong point, and in full lightweight trim (and shallow wheels), you’ll need to work harder to keep up with contemporary all-rounders.

The Aethos, however, is not about all-out racing or barreling along the flats at 40km/h and above. While it can do all those things, with a system weight of 5.88kg (6kg with pedals), the hills and mountains are its natural habitat, where it will bring the most enjoyment. And then once you crest, the alterations to the geometry will have you scything down the other side like a seasoned pro. It’s a sublimely entertaining bike.

Value

Specialized has done an incredible job with the new Aethos and created what I feel is pretty damn close to the perfect bike for the general rider. The S-Works Aethos model, in particular, might be a refined, superbly outfitted bike, but at £11,499 / $13,999 / €13,499, it’s just too pricey to justify, let alone recommend, in the current economic climate.

Thankfully, there are other models in the range to choose from, including the Pro (£7,249 / $8,499 / €8,499) and Expert (£5,499 / $6,999 / €6,299), the latter of which comes in around half the price of the Halo S-Works model. While it’s around a kilo heavier at 7.12kg (in size 56cm), it still gets a carbon frame and is outfitted with Shimano Ultegra Di2 and Roval carbon wheels but loses the fully integrated cockpit in favour of a Roval Alpinist carbon bar and alloy stem.

While it might lack the claimed stiffness-to-weight of the S-Works Fact 12r frame, it still possesses the climbing efficiency, balanced geometry and 35mm tyre clearance, making it a worthy alternative if you’re on a budget.

If you've got the cash to burn, however, the S-Works Aethos 2 elevates the experience to the highest level and will leave a massive smile on your dial every time you ride it.

Tech spec

• Price: £11,499 / $13,999 / €13,499
• Brand: Specialized
• Frame: S-Works Aethos 2 Fact 12r Carbon
• Fork: S-Works Aethos 2 Fact 12r Carbon
• Weight: 5.98kg (actual, 54cm)
• Sizes: 49cm, 52cm, 54cm, 56cm, 58cm, 61cm
• Levers: SRAM Red AXS
• Brakes: SRAM Red AXS, 160/140mm front/rear
• Rear derailleur: SRAM Red AXS
• Front derailleur: SRAM Red AXS
• Crankset:  SRAM Red AXS 48/35T with power meter
• Bottom bracket: SRAM DUB BSA 68
• Cassette: SRAM Red AXS 10-33T
• Chain: SRAM RedE1 Flattop, 12-speed
• Wheels: Roval Alpinist CLX III
• Tyres: Specialized S-Works Turbo TLR Race 28mm
• Bar/stem: Roval Alpinist Cockpit II, Integrated
• Seatpost: Roval Alpinist Carbon
• Saddle: Specialized S-Works Power with Mirror

I can feel the collective heat of the side-eye from the other adults clutching their lukewarm thermos flasks: I am that parent whose daughter, just turned twelve, is rolling up to a muddy park in the north of England on a Specialized bike that, if bought new, would cost more than my first two cars combined (true story, a Fiat Panda and a Vauxhall Corsa).

But this is the hill I will happily, doggedly, and perhaps a bit breathlessly die on: I will never buy my kid a brand-new, cheap bike.

We've all seen the ads on social media or global marketplaces - bikes that look flashy, come in neon colours, and cost less than a week's worth of take-out coffees. Cycling Weekly was able to find balance bikes on sale for under £15 - that’s a good £100 cheaper than big brand alternatives. It’s easy to understand why, as the cost-of-living crisis bites, parents will turn to these inviting, cheaper alternatives over the seemingly expensive secondhand market, with its scratched shifters and stretched chains.

But, online marketplaces can be a risky place to shop.

A British Toy and Hobby Association investigation found that of 68 toys purchased from the top seven online marketplaces - AliExpress, Amazon, eBay, Shein, Temu, TikTok Shop, and Wish - "90% failed independent testing against UK toy safety standards."

A report by the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) uncovered data on products sold on platforms such as Temu, which sells bikes for kids and adults. It found toys containing phthalates - chemicals used to make plastics more durable - at levels 240 times the legal safety limit.

Of course, it's reasonable to expect that products arriving in the UK have met safety standards in place. But, because they're shipped straight to front doors across the country, they often bypass safety regulatory systems that exist for a very good reason.

When it comes to bikes, some that don't meet product safety standards are stopped at the border, such as this children's e-bike, which Trading Standards considered a "serious" fire risk. However, according to the Technical and Policy Director at the Bicycle Association, Peter Eland, an overstretched border control means operations are often "intelligence-led"; with his colleague Kristian Rigby adding "the UK has possibly become a bit of a dumping ground for these products where they can't easily access Europe anymore.”

In February 2024, the European Union introduced the Digital Service Act (DSA), which holds online marketplaces responsible for what they sell. Meanwhile, the UK is stuck with a product safety law from way back in 1987 - totally out of step with online shopping today. "Until the loopholes for online marketplaces are closed", says Product Safety Solicitor at Leigh Day, Philippa Wheeler, "there's a real chance of the unregulated products landing in the UK."

Where is the regulation?

Most shoppers expect products they buy to meet basic safety standards. And, it's true, that "it is the manufacturers' and retailers' legal duty to ensure that only safe products reach the market", according to Eland. That means products should meet "guidance from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards, which dictate pretty much everything we do."

However, if a product is manufactured only for export, it doesn't necessarily have to meet the safety standards of the country where it was made. China, for instance, has incredibly strict domestic rules for things like e-bikes, but it is at liberty to sell whatever it likes to the rest of the world. And, on arrival to the UK, many products slip through the net.

When things go wrong, tracking down the manufacturer is often the issue.

"Ultimately, if you don't know where a product's coming from or if it's got a UK-based representative, then you might be in a position where you could get injured, and there's nothing that you can do under the law," says Wheeler. "These products are almost completely untraceable when they're coming directly from an unknown factory", she says.

"The Law Commission is currently consulting on the UK's new Product Safety Framework, following Parliament's passing of the Product Regulation and Metrology Act (PRM) last year. [But] there's little currently holding online marketplaces to account.

"It's when things go wrong that it gets really complicated", explains Wheeler, because "there are massive difficulties in bringing cases against an unknown or untraceable foreign manufacturer, even if the outcome from the unsafe product is life-changing.”

There is a solution

Of course, it would be easy for us to simply say “spend more”, but that money isn’t always there. So, what next?

If you don't want to drop a grand on a kid's bike (which is a perfectly sane position to hold), do not go to the bargain marketplaces. Go to the second-hand market.

The best kids' bikes, such as a five-year-old Isla Bike, Frog, or Trek, found via a secondhand bike shop or legit local selling page, are infinitely safer, better to ride, and more sustainable than a brand-new, unbranded 'deal' from an overseas site. These quality bikes hold their value because they were built to meet standards, not to bypass them. As Eland puts it, "if they're big enough to be worth suing, they will take all sorts of care not to be sued." Large companies also invest in recall insurance, so in the instance of a defective product being identified, a recall won't be a topic for debate.

When people see my daughter on a high-end bike, I'm aware they probably think I'm obsessed with her performance and podium count. And sure, I absolutely want her to enjoy the climb and have confidence in a good gear change. But above all else, I want her - and those around her - to be safe, and that's an assurance I can get from a brand that's big enough to be sued.

Tips for buying a secondhand bike

• Never hand over your money until you have seen the bike up close and given it a thorough once-over.
• Get close up: hunt for dents in the metal, and watch out for stickers or fresh paint that could be hiding cracks. Spotting flaws in carbon frames is even trickier, so take extra care.
• Verify History: Insist on documentation to avoid stolen bikes or counterfeits.
• Get to know the seller: make sure their story matches the bike, and do not be shy about asking plenty of questions.
• Choose trusted brands: names like Frog or Islabikes not only hold their value but also guarantee the bike was built to high standards from the start.
• Put safety first: test the brakes for quick response and check that the drivetrain runs smoothly. If you are unsure, let your local bike shop give it a professional once-over.

What appears to be a new Specialized Crux was spotted at the Gralloch in Scotland this weekend, and ridden to victory in the women's UCI category by Specialized Off Road athlete Geerike Schreurs.

The new bike represents a massive departure from the traditional double-diamond, round-tubed frame of the outgoing Crux, with a facade inspired by the road-going Tarmac platform. The most notable attribute comes in the form of an aerodynamic frame and the apparent larger tyre clearance - not that the outgoing model lacked provision for wider tyres: it could accommodate widths of 47mm, and many riders successfully ran 50mm tyres paired with 1x drivetrains.

While we can't confirm the exact clearances, based on current trends in the category, we can safely assume maximum clearances of around 55-57mm, which should accommodate tyres of up to 2.2 inches wide. We've seen provision for wider tyres at the forefront of contemporary gravel frame design with bikes such as the new Factor Sarana and Open Wi.De 2.0, with the latter offering gargantuan clearances once reserved for cross-country mountain bikes.

The outgoing Specialized Crux has been around in its current incarnation since 2022 and is due for an update. Despite its now-outdated template, it has notched up a long list of victories at virtually every major gravel event, including Unbound Gravel 200, The Traka, Big Sugar Gravel, Gravel Worlds, and Gravel Burn. That's quite a palmares, but as the discipline has evolved, so has the need to go faster, and it appears as though Specialized has caved and given in to the peer pressure of the aero gravel concept.

Visually, the bike ridden by Schreurs this past weekend looks a lot like the Specialized Tarmac SL7. Based on what we know about the new Aethos 2, we can also assume the layup will have taken learnings from the SL8 and applied them to ensure a balance of stiffness and compliance, fashioned into the aerodynamic tube profiles of the SL7. We can clearly see the paucity of a 'speed sniffer' on the headtube, with the basic frame architecture, seat tube, and cutout, and dropped seatstays adopting a silhouette similar to the SL7, but with a few nods to the Tarmac SL8, including the seatpost. It certainly has been designed with aerodynamics at the forefront.

The frame and front end are very clean - no hoses are visible on the entire setup, and the cockpit looks like the one-piece integrated Alpinist 2 setup seen on the new Aethos, but with a much wider flare at the drops. Component-wise, Shreurs' bike was built around an SRAM Red XPLR AXS complete with new Roval Terra Aero CLX wheels and Specialized Pathfinder tyres.

We asked Specialized for a comment and got the following reply:

"Specialized relies on feedback from professional athletes in both developing and testing advanced pre-production products in real-world applications. With this top-level feedback, some of these design elements and products eventually show up in future retail product offerings. We call this Project Black."

Based on the brazen testing in the public eye at the Gralloch, the launch of the new Specialized Crux is imminent. We'll update this story as we receive more information.

For most of us watching the Giro d’Italia is quite enough. While we might fancy tackling one or two of the famed climbs in our own time, the sheer pace and urgency of the race - of any professional race for that matter - is exhausting enough from the comfort of the sofa. Taking part beggars belief.

So while the Giro continues to raise the pulse and shred the nerves, some respite is offered in the shape of a few new releases that speak to the more laid back side of cycling, a world of trail riding, of bikepacking jaunts, and of not taking oneself too seriously. And if after checking out Stinner’s handbuilt 32” gravel bike, Fizik’s trail-running inspired gravel off-road shoes and Tailfin’s ever-so-clever rack you feel the need to switch gears once again, we have Garmin’s latest Forerunner watches to track your progress.

Stinner Refugio 32

Whether the emergence of the 32” wheel turns into a fully blown movement or the preserve of the few remains to be seen. But in its early days it’s certainly gaining the kind of momentum you’d hope from a design that’s created to provide just that. Stinner is just one of the brands that’s chosen to accommodate the free-wheeling platform in the shape of its Refugio 32.

The Refugio is Stinner’s multi-purpose gravel bike and here it is offered in titanium and with a maximum tyre clearance of 32” x 2.4”, which is as radical as it sounds. The ti frame is paired with a carbon fork complete with triple mounts and the option to run a dynamo light.

As well as the frameset, which is limited to 50 frames, Stinner are offering the Refugio 32 as a complete build and as a frameset with wheels. The full build features a SRAM Rival AXS/GX 'mullet' groupset and a set of Stoic carbon rims matched to DT Swiss 350 hubs, which are the same wheels offered in the frame/wheel combo.

Fizik Ergolace 2

While some gravel shoes closely resemble a road model but with an SPD cleat fitting and a few lugs for grip, the Ergolace from Fizik was a little different. With influences from the trail running hiking world combining to make something more practical than a typical offroad cycling shoes, it appealed to gravel riding, mountain bikers and bikepackers alike. And now it’s back, revamped in the form of the Ergolace 2.

The upper has been redesigned, using Gore-Tex’s Invisible Fit membrane for the base and PU-laminated sections in the high-wear areas of the shoe. A traditional tongue is eschewed in favour of booties made from Airprene. The idea is by reducing layers across the top of the foot you can remove potential pressure-points, improving comfort as a result, as well as reducing weight. Visually it looks like a modern trail running sneaker and aims to deliver durability, breathability and weatherproofing in equal measure. There’s also a non-GTX version available.

The Ergoace design that gives the shoe its name uses an asymmetric lace closure to avoid any unwanted clashes with your bike’s drivechain and a lacing system that’s designed to be adjustable on the go; the cord and lockring have been used on trail running shoes.

Offered in both flat and clipped versions, the latter relies on Vibram’s XS sole, while the clipped model uses Vibram Megagrip that features "a zonal tread pattern that separates pedal contact from walking grip” In the mid-foot area the lug are low profile, while on the heel and toe that are more aggressive for better traction.

The Ergolace 2 is available in sizes 36–48 (37–47 also in half sizes) and costs £/$149.99 or £/$189.99 for the Gore-Tex version.

Tailfin Journey Rack

The humble pannier has been hauling your gear around without complaint for decades. As effective the design remains it’s always interesting to see a fresh approach, especially from a brand dedicated to the cause such as Tailfin.

The Journey Rack is its newest pannier design, succeeding the Alloy Rack by bringing greater versatility to the mix. It still uses the Tailfin’s patented quick-release tech but is a modular system that’s designed to work with all bikes, and is even offered without pannier mounts should you prefer a more minimal offering; thanks to the new dropout design tyre clearance is now a whopping 29” x 3.25” without mudguards.

Perhaps the real selling point of the rack is its ability to work with existing products you may already own, from cargo cages to top bags. This naturally increases its versatility, meaning you can use one rack and add to it as the ride requires, from a quick commute to the office to a weekend backpacking trip.

The aluminium rack is anodised to add durability and weighs a claimed 740g for the pannier version, and 580g for the non-pannier. Maximum load for the former is 32kg and 22kg for the latter.

The Journey Rack retails at £150 / $205 for the non-pannier version and £190 / $260 for the pannier model. Add-ons include light and radar mounts and mudguards.

Garmin Forerunner 70, 170 and 170 Music

The Forerunner, in its various guises, has long been a staple of Garmin’s smartwatch lineup and one of the best options for cyclists. And there are now two three models: the 70, the 170 and the 170 Music.

Both models feature a 1.2-inch AMOLED display, a touchscreen and five buttons. Each model also has a built-in a GPS, time, distance, pace and wrist-based heart rate as well as quick workouts and suggested daily workouts, detailed training plans via Garmin Run Coach and advanced training features such as training readiness and training status as well as around the clock tracking such as advanced sleep tracking, sleep coach, breathing variations and heart rate variability (HRV) status.

Where the 170 differs from the 70 is the addition of Garmin Pay contactless payments, while unsurprisingly the 170 Music allows you download and play songs and podcasts.

The watches are available now, with the Forerunner 70 costing £219.99 / $249.99, the Forerunner 170 priced at £259.99 / $299.99 and Forerunner 170 Music retailing at £299.99 / $349.99.

Speaking on their Watts Occurring podcast this week, Geraint Thomas and Luke Rowe questioned UAE Team Emirates-XRG’s decision to race the wet opening stages of the Giro d’Italia on Continental’s GP5000 TT TR – the time trial-oriented version of the GP5000 line – after a Stage 2 crash took down Adam Yates, Jay Vine, and Marc Soler.

“We all know they’re faster. They are faster. They always use them,” Rowe said. “But they do have less grip… The first guy down was a UAE guy. He lost both wheels. You also question the decision making there.” Thomas agreed, noting that Ineos had themselves drifted toward TT tyres in road races over time. “I don’t understand that decision making, mate,” Rowe added. “I really don’t.”

UAE pushed back firmly. “We don’t feel it was a tyre issue,” a team spokesperson told Cycling News. “The riders have been using TT tyres for a long time. We think it was just because of the wet and the speed.”

The instinct that a TT tyre must mean less grip is a strong one. It’s also, on the current Continental range, harder to support than it once was.

The GP5000 TT TR and the more widely raced GP5000 S TR share the same BlackChilli compound. They share the same Lazer Grip shoulder pattern. The differences are structural rather than surface level: the TT runs a two-ply sidewall against the S TR’s three, with marginally thinner tread on top, making it lighter, more supple, and faster rolling. The rubber meeting the road is the same rubber in the same pattern on both tyres.

Another common assumption is that the limited tread on TT tyres has an impact on grip. This is a position that many of us absorb from learning to drive a car: wide, flat-fronted contact patches inflated to around 30psi means that at motorway speeds, they can aquaplane.

But bike tyres - at 28 or 30mm and 70psi - are very different. Continental’s own technical pages put it pretty bluntly: bicycles are not susceptible to aquaplaning in any realistic riding scenario. The tread on a race tyre is there for cornering deformation and, increasingly, aerodynamic trip effects, not water dispersal.

Given both the Continental options discussed share the same tread, it wouldn’t be fair to suggest this was an assumption at play in the What’s Occurring podcast, but it is a point worth making for the general public.

What does cost a rider grip when wet is a compound's behaviour when cold, the surface itself (diesel, dirt, shiny cobbles), and the lean angle asked of the rubber. Stage 2 probably had a generous helping of all three. So did the cobbled run-in to Naples on Stage 6. The tyre choice – GP S TR or the TT version – shouldn’t have made a difference.

Thomas and Rowe are riders of generational experience, and their instincts were earned in an era when “TT tyre” did indeed mean a harder compound and a slicker tread, with a measurable grip cost. That tyre is no longer the one UAE are racing on.

Enve released its first dedicated gravel wheelset back in 2018. In the subsequent eight years, the discipline has both flourished and diversified. More recently, a clear narrative has emerged: wider is better.

The US brand has responded in kind with its latest gravel hoops, the G SES, which it's promoting as “the fastest gravel wheels ever built”. Quite some claim.

The new wheelset lineup consists of the G SES 6.7 Pro and the G SES 4.5 Pro and 4.5, echoing two of the rim depth options offered in the SES road range.

Enve - which sponsors UAE Team Emirates and thus benefits from the expertise and publicity that Tadej Pogačar brings - says it has used real world insights gained from wins at a host of prestigious gravel events, including UCI World Gravel races and the Gravel World Championships.

Enve says the G SES wheels are there to match the demands of modern gravel riding. This means continuing to deliver the durability and resistance to flats that it’s always tried to achieve in its gravel wheels, but now ensuring that they are optimised around the higher speeds of modern racing, where large-volume tyres are the norm and aerodynamic advantages are essential.

The 6.7 Pro is promoted as the “world’s most aerodynamically efficient gravel wheel.” To back up the claim, Enve has detailed results from testing the 6.7 Pro against a number of its own wheels as well as those from other US brands, including wheels from local boys, Zipp and Reserve.

At 32kph it says the 6.7 Pro is 8 watts faster on average (achieved using 40, 44 and 48mm tyres) than the baseline model in the test, its own wheelset. This increases to 25 watts at 48kph. The difference to the G SES 4.5 Pro wheel is significantly less, as is the number to Zipp’s XPLR and the Reserve 40/44 GR; the percentage difference in drag reduction from the baseline at 32kph between the G SES 6.7 Pro and these three options is 1.9%, 3.5% and 5.8% respectively.

But with so many wheel manufacturers moving to carbon spokes, sticking with narrower - more naturally aerodynamic - steel spokes in this case is maybe somewhat of a cheat code.

Whether aero data matters to you is likely down to your own capabilities and the kind of riding you do. If you’re competing at the sharp end of significant gravel events then I’m guessing you’d be happy to take any advantage you can get. Enve says as much, going on to state that the advantage of the 6.7 Pro is “clear everywhere but the hilliest of courses"; at a claimed 1,580g for a pair they compare favourably to other deep section aero wheels – especially considering the very wide rim bed at 35mm – but are significantly heavier than a modern high-end all-rounder.

The G SES 4.5 and 4.5 Pro uses the template provided by the road going SES 4.5, seeking to bring a blend of attributes to create a versatile wheel that’s able to excel across a range of terrain.

Enve acknowledges that in focusing on aerodynamic speed, the 6.7 wheel has to make compromises in other areas, such as its performance when the trail points up, whereas the 4.5 models still deliver aero benefits but also a reduction in weight and an improvement in handling across more challenging surfaces>

In terms of weight, the 4.5 Pro saves around 100g compared to the 6.7 Pro, while the 4.5 is only 15g lighter due to a switch from Alpha Ultralight spokes to Sapim CX-Rays and the use of the Innerdrive Premium hub rather than the Pro model, which features ceramic bearings and a light 40t ratchet resulting in a 60g saving over the Premium model.

To ensure that the new G SES series can handle the impacts associated with off-road usage, ENVE calls on its experience making mountain bike wheels. It borrows the Wide Hookless Bead technology, created to limit pinch flats by creating a wider, blunt leading edge that better absorbs impacts.

Similarly each of the G SES models uses the same approach as the Tour de France-winning SES road wheels, namely differing rim shapes front and rear to better deal with the differing airflow that results from the wheel's position on the bike. In the case of this G SES 6.7 Pro this means a front rim depth of 60mm and rear that measures 67mm. With the SES G 4.5 Pro and 4.5 these are 49mm and 55mm respectively.

Tyre and rim width optimisation is also carried over from the SES road wheels with the aim of maintaining a smooth transition of the airflow over the rim's sidewall. In terms of measurements, the 6.7 Pro has a super wide internal rim width of 35mm and a sidewall width of 3.8mm, while the 4.5 models have a 30mm internal width with the same sidewall width. The result, Enve says, is three sets of gravel wheels that deliver aero savings on the wide tyre sizes - 44mm to 52mm - that dominate today's gravel riding.

The Enve G SES 6.7 Pro and 4.5 Pro are priced at $1,400 for the front wheel and $1,700 for the rear, while the Enve G SES 4.5 retails at $1,250 for the front wheel and $1,550 for the rear.

There’s a perfect lunch ride that starts about 15 minutes from my front door.

Depending on the variation, it’s an hour or so of fast gravel roads, punchy climbs and some fun singletrack to keep you on your toes. There’s broken up pavement, roots, loose pitches that nudge beyond 20 percent and, even, a small rock garden. Gravel bike, road bike or MTB, the choice is yours but either way, you’re getting a good bang for your buck in that hour.

This is my testing ground for a lot of products, and since I have a very young baby, where I’ll ride more often than not. With this in mind, I recently put a dropper post on my personal gravel steed, a Specialized S-Works Crux. And a cable-actuated one, no less.

Now, I’m aware this will upset a certain category of cyclist. Likely the same people who leave puke emojis on my Instagram whenever my bike appears sporting fenders/mudguards. How dare I deface a race machine? But, in doing so, they're actually selling the Crux and its beautiful versatility short. Specialized gave it generous tyre clearance, suspension fork compatibility and internal routing for a dropper post. That isn’t accidental. The bike was designed to be ridden, and to be ridden hard. (I may have taken it too far beyond its comfort levels but that’s not my point.)

Now, if your gravel riding consists primarily of the sort of epics we see at Unbound Gravel or SBT GRVL, then this article isn’t for you.

A dropper post absolutely comes with compromises. They add weight, and they’re stiffer than a carbon seatpost. Your lower back will almost certainly prefer a flexy carbon post if your riding is mostly seated pedalling over washboard roads for seven hours straight. And if you’re never riding terrain where a dropper actually matters, then yes, hauling around the extra grams is pointless.

But if your gravel rides regularly involve some “I wonder if I can ride that?” territory, then a dropper post changes everything. Mountain bikers figured this out years ago. At the push of a lever, the saddle is out of the way, giving you more freedom to move around when the terrain gets steep, loose or unpredictable.

With the saddle lowered, you can shift your weight farther backwards to avoid getting pitched over the bars. It also makes it easier to stay balanced when the bike starts bouncing underneath you. And in corners, the bike can lean independently beneath you instead of the saddle locking you into one position. In short, a dropper lets you move independently from the bike, and the bike independently from you. The result is better grip, more control, more speed and more confidence when things get rough. Most importantly, it makes off-road riding a lot more fun, and that’s really the whole argument.

I recently installed Teravail’s 125mm Telec dropper on my bike. I didn’t need it for the lunch loops, but I did immediately start setting PRs on nearly every descent. It also makes me smile every darn time.

But here’s the part where I climb onto my soapbox: if you’re going to put a dropper on your gravel bike, commit properly.

Too many gravel-specific droppers, or those that will fit a 27.2 seatpost, have too little travel. Forty millimetres of drop isn’t a dropper post; that's a mildly adjustable seatpost.

Would I prefer the clean aesthetic of the SRAM’s wireless dropper? Obviously. But to me, 50-to-75mm of travel just doesn’t meaningfully transform the bike on technical terrain. Plus, at nearly $645 and around 560g of added weight (which is more than a mechanical dropper), it’s a tough sell.

The Teravail Telec, meanwhile, does it right. The 27.2mm version comes in either 100mm or 125mm travel, with travel adjustable in 10mm increments up to 30mm, depending on your fit and frame size. Paired with the Telec Drop Bar Remote, the post delivers an impressively fast response time. This is Teravail’s first foray into droppers, and I’m very pleased with this $200, mid-range offer. At around 445 grams, it’s not absurdly heavy either. Compared to the carbon post I removed, the weight penalty is roughly 245 grams.

I wasn’t sure how I was going to like having a dropper post, but I'm enjoying it far more than expected. And now that it’s on there, I see no reason to take it off.

Will I keep playing with the cable routing to achieve a cleaner look, yes, but do I care once the trail points downward? Not even remotely.

When, six years ago, my brother announced he’d bought a bike radar, my response was a raised eyebrow and a lower opinion of his bike component choices. More high-end clutter to bolt to the bike, and yet another gadget to remember to plug in post-ride. Why on earth would anyone choose to ride with radar?

Looking back, I was suspicious that his new purchase sounded too ‘out there’ to be of any practical use. Even if it worked, knowing that a vehicle was approaching from behind wouldn’t prevent it from running me down, would it? I dismissed it as an expensive gimmick, a rich boy’s toy.

However, within months, I transformed from cynic to convert. One ride, and I was hooked; it’s no exaggeration to say that radar has transformed the way I ride. So, here’s why you should ride with radar.

How bike radar works

A bike radar unit strapped to your seatpost is a miniature transceiver that emits high-frequency radio waves in your wake. As these waves hit a moving object, such as a truck, car, or motorbike, they bounce back to the unit. By measuring the time it takes for these waves to return and the shift in their frequency (the Doppler effect), the bike radar calculates exactly how far away the vehicle is and how fast it’s closing the gap between you and it.

This vehicle data is transmitted seamlessly to your head unit or smartphone, via ANT+ or Bluetooth, where it’s typically shown as a moving dot, or a series of dots for multiple vehicles, on a colour-coded sidebar, representing the traffic’s progress in real-time. Not only does it warn you that a vehicle is there, but it also provides insight into whether it’s moving in a slow, controlled manner or represents a high-speed threat. These visual cues are reinforced by audio tones that warn of impending threats and sound the all-clear when they’re gone.

On that first test ride, about six years ago, I quickly realised there’s more to radar than flagging individual threats; it’s more cohesive than that. It has vastly improved my situational awareness, to the point that my riding style has completely changed. I was concerned it would make me a more nervous rider, one who rode more defensively. Instead, having an accurate 360° mental map of traffic conditions has liberated me to ride more assertively. It’s boosted my confidence, allowing me to better dictate my relationship with surrounding traffic – knowing when to safely adopt a primary position and when to fall back to a secondary position.

Additionally, most bike radar units have an integrated rear light that enhances your visibility on the road. These lights are typically programmed to increase in intensity and switch to a more frantic flash pattern when a vehicle is detected, alerting drivers to your presence. Ultimately, this means that with radar, you can both see and be seen.

We ask a lot of these devices; they must translate a rapidly changing environment into instant, actionable prompts without becoming a dangerous distraction. When they work well – admittedly, some work better than others – they provide a layer of peripheral vision that fundamentally changes the psychology of a ride.

Why Radar is so effective

Read any radar rider reviews, and the same phrases recur. “I wish I’d discovered it earlier.” “I never ride without it.” “If it broke, I’d replace it immediately.” To understand why some cyclists, myself included, have become such enthusiastic proponents of radar, I spoke with Professor Cristofer Englund. As the Dean of the School of Information Technology at Halmstad University and a leading researcher in Humanised Autonomy, Englund is one of the world's foremost experts on how humans and automated systems interact. His career has been dedicated to modelling road-user behaviour to improve safety for all road users.

“Our hearing, one of our primary senses, is often the first to fail us as we start moving,” explains Englund. “As we pick up speed, the wind noise quickly becomes very loud, so sometimes we don't hear vehicles until they are very close, if at all. Some riders may have earphones in too. A major benefit of radar is that it alerts the rider to something coming up from behind, which means they won’t be surprised when it passes them."

I recognise this; like most cyclists, I don’t enjoy riding with mirrors, so the only warning I have of a vehicle approaching from behind is the faint hum of an engine or the thrum of tyres. These cues are so unreliable that I’d unconsciously default to assuming there was always likely to be a vehicle tailing me, which was both distracting and unnerving on fast, busy highways.

“The early confirmation of a vehicle – that lack of surprise – is a vital safety measure,” says Englund. “It prevents the momentary ‘wobble’ caused by the shock of being startled by an unexpected vehicle, the pressure wave of a passing HGV or both. It’s the speed difference that is the danger," he continues.

"When you have advanced notice that a vehicle is approaching from behind, radar gives you time – even if only a few seconds – to position yourself more appropriately, more safely, on the road."

These vital seconds give the rider the confidence to navigate the UK’s increasingly potholed tarmac. With radar, you can move out to avoid a wheel-smashing crater, knowing exactly how much time you have before a car closes the gap.

Although an over-the-shoulder glance is recommended as an added precaution at fast-moving junctions, I know very few cyclists who can look back without inadvertently veering off course by a few feet. With radar, your primary focus always remains on the road ahead.

Sound first, screen second

The most significant – yet underrated – feature of a modern radar system isn't the sophisticated, animated screen on your phone or head unit; it’s the speakers. Unlike a mirror, which requires an active visual check that briefly pulls your focus from the road, a radar unit pushes information to you, initially via audio prompts.

Radar products and head units differ, but typically a distinctive, high-pitched ‘chirp’ announces a detected threat. This warning tone enables a rider to remain eyes front, maintaining their line with 100% focus. Only when ready does the rider choose to glance down at their head unit for more detail. When the road is once again clear, a lower-pitched, ‘all-clear’ tone sounds.

This audio feedback provides a massive advantage over a mirror or a traditional shoulder check. A mirror is passive; if you don't look, you don't know. If you do look, you’re immediately distracted from the road in front. A radar, however, acts like a digital tap on the shoulder. It offloads the cognitive burden of scanning for danger to the machine, leaving the rider free to focus on their route without distraction.

When a rider glances down momentarily for more detail, their gaze will be met with a colour-coded system that most brands follow. An orange overlay signifies a medium-level threat, while a red overlay warns of a high-level threat. According to Hunter Scanlon, Wahoo’s Product Manager, the system isn't just looking at distance; it’s looking at closing speed.

"The 'high threat' alert is triggered by the approaching speed of the vehicle," Scanlon explains. "If a car is closing in at a much higher speed than you are moving, the system detects that as a high threat, shifting to that red colour zone."

This intelligence extends to the light itself. Most of the time, Wahoo’s twin-LED design uses a pulsing pattern to draw attention, while a steady, solid light helps drivers judge their distance. However, when a vehicle enters the Trackr Radar’s 150-metre detection zone, it triggers a continuous, high-intensity flash pattern designed to grab the driver's attention, specifically as they begin their approach.

"It’s about starting a conversation with the driver," adds Tyler Harris, Category Director of Cycling at Wahoo. "A solid light improves depth perception, and the flashing light draws the eye. The high-intensity flash pattern – we call it the quick alert mode – makes the rider even more conspicuous on the road ahead.”

Radar smarts over hardware specs

To be of any benefit whatsoever, a radar unit must be reliably accurate. The two most common faults with poor-performing units are false positives – warnings of vehicles when there are none – and false negatives – a failure to warn of approaching vehicles that are present. The first issue is, at best, an irritation, at worst a distraction. The second problem – false negative – is downright dangerous.

Because these products rely on the Doppler Effect to detect threats, very slow-moving vehicles and those that match the rider’s speed will, quite literally, fall off the radar screen. This is an unfortunate limitation of the technology, and one that affects all units. However, some perform much better at persistently tracking vehicles moving at the same speed than others, just as some units report far fewer false negatives and positives. Erroneously, I always thought this was an issue with cheap hardware.

In fact, bike radar tech has matured to the point where there are plenty of good-quality, inexpensive, off-the-shelf radar PCBs available to brands keen to enter this burgeoning market. However, as Harris explains, hardware is only half the story. "It’s less about the hardware and more about the algorithms used to detect cars and remove false positives," he says. "At Wahoo, we undertake a massive amount of R&D, software development and testing to ensure that a radar is effective rather than just a nuisance. Not all brands are able to invest so much time."

Some development decisions can also seem counterintuitive in a world where less can sometimes be more. All radars have a field of view, or beam width, which is their arc of lateral coverage. It typically falls between 35° and 60°. While it's tempting to opt for the widest possible field of view, the Wahoo went narrower when developing its Trackr Radar. "We landed on 35° after a lot of testing because a super-wide field of view has its downsides," Harris explains. "If you’re riding on a path alongside a road, a wider beam picks up cars that aren't actually a threat to you. We tuned it to be the best compromise for real-world riding."

During my time reviewing the Trackr Radar for Cycling Weekly, I rated it highly for being one of the few bike radars available that rarely reports false positives. I suggest this is due to a combination of Wahoo’s work on its detection algorithm and its narrow field of view, which is less prone to picking up both random traffic and spurious reflections from walls, buildings and so on. On the flip side, I found it wasn’t so good at detecting threats on winding roads, where a wider beam is an advantage.

Interestingly, Garmin radar products typically went slightly wider at 40°, but its new Varia RearVue 820 model boasts a much broader 60° field of vision without sacrificing accuracy. It’s the first bicycle radar to use high-resolution, automotive-standard 60 GHz radar, which provides a more precise ‘image’ than the 24 GHz tech used by its competitors. This jump in frequency also enables the RearVue 820 to track same-speed vehicles with higher persistence.

The distraction dilemma

Garmin’s Varia RearVue 820 is the most accurate bike radar I have ever reviewed. Its 60 GHz radar provides longer range and more precise imaging, enabling it to identify vehicles by type and lane position. For example, you can see on your head unit whether you are being followed by a motorbike, a car, or a truck, and exactly which lane they are occupying. The increased range also allows you to ‘see’ a greater number of vehicles.

However, all of this information takes the rider longer to process, with the potential for more time spent looking at the screen and less time at the road. There’s also a fair chance that more range will warn of vehicles that will never pose a threat, because you, or they, are about to turn off the road. Are we in danger of trading physical safety for digital distraction?

“We are more distracted when we have to look down all the time," Professor Englund admits, reflecting on his research using bicycle simulators to model visual distraction. He suggests that while more data is useful, how we consume it should remain simple. For most of us, the traditional "series of dots" moving up a sidebar is the gold standard of UI design—it’s glanceable, intuitive, and requires zero cognitive load. The risk with ultra-high resolution is that we stop riding the road and start ‘riding the screen’.

Having spent a lot of riding hours with the RearVue 820, I don’t believe we have reached that point yet, but I wouldn’t want to have to register much more information. If my brain cannot interpret it within a momentary glance, it’s too much.

The road ahead – V2X and the connected bike

If newer radar products, such as the Garmin Varia RearVue 820, strike you as state-of-the-art, boy, you ain’t seen nothing yet. For decades, Englund and his peers have been developing Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) connectivity technologies that promise safer, more efficient road transport for all. The catalyst for this tech was the invention of the autonomous vehicle, but subsets of V2X are even more far-reaching.

Vehicle-to-Pedestrian (V2P) comms enable real-time data exchange between vehicles and vulnerable road users, such as pedestrians, cyclists, horse riders and wheelchair users. In a nutshell, vehicles will always know the precise position of cyclists (and other road users), and vice versa, making accidents far less likely. Because this technology will be factory-installed in vehicles and embedded in smartphones or wearables, it will remain entirely seamless and unobtrusive for the user.

“This connected technology is so much more effective than radar and lights,” says Englund, “not least because it doesn’t rely on line of sight. V2X can ‘see’ through obstacles like parked trucks, or around corners where a pedestrian or cyclist might be hidden.”

If V2X offers the precision of a digital scalpel, traditional bike radar is – by comparison – as blunt as a worn stone axe. This isn’t fanciful science fiction; the technology is here right now, with widespread trials already conducted in the USA, China, Europe and Japan. However, privacy concerns are putting the brakes on implementation.

“Understandably, there’s considerable debate about how the data is collected, stored, used and owned. Should governments gain detailed insights into people’s daily routines? Should employers know that I’ve visited a competitor for a job interview or a clinic for a medical condition? Will the data be monetised? Privacy is a legitimate concern, but taking steps to anonymise data should alleviate it. Ultimately, this technology will make our roads safer, less congested and healthier for all.”

Embrace the benefits of radar

After years of riding with radar, my conclusion is simple: radar doesn't just tell you a car is coming; it changes your relationship with the road. It replaces the low-level anxiety of the unknown with the confidence to ride your space on the road like you own it.

Expense is perhaps the final barrier to widespread radar adoption. Initially, these units were expensive, and even today, the latest tech from established brands such as Garmin, Wahoo and Lezyne isn’t an impulse buy. However, very recently, brands such as iGPSport and Magene have entered the market with radars costing under £100/$100, making this tech far more accessible. So, I implore you to give radar a try – you won’t look back, I promise…

When Canyon launched the latest Endurace CFR a month ago, it garnered plenty of headlines as the weapon of choice for Mathieu van der Poel’s Spring Classic campaign and for the overhauling of the German brand’s premium endurance offering.

Racers don't always do what marketing wants, and - in a remarkable race for all the wrong reasons - MVDP turned out for Roubaix on his old bike. However, the Endurace range is still the cornerstone of Canyon's public road offer.

We figured that more Endurace flavours would follow, and they have, in the shape of the Endurace CF SLX and CF; the new additions complete the revamped family with Canyon aiming to provide an Endurace for every occasion and budget.

While the CFR is a racing thoroughbred the CF SLX has a wider remit. It still benefits from plenty of aerodynamic enhancements that we see on the CFR - indeed Canyon says this revamped CF SLX “tests even faster than most race bikes competing in the World Tour, recording just 209 watts of drag at 45 km/h in TOUR Magazine testing conditions” - but there looks to be greater versatility here.

This starts with the 38mm tyre clearance - 3mm more than the CFR - which allows for plenty of high-volume options designed to tackle a variety of surfaces. Then there’s the geometry, which is a little more relaxed than the CFR with a view to keeping the rider comfortable on long days and differing terrain.

The higher stack, shorter reach combination that defines endurance bikes here equates to 586mm and 388mm respectively in a size medium; contrast that with the CFR which measures 563mm and 393mm in the same size frame.

The SP093 VCLS Aero seatpost is ‘borrowed’ from the CFR and is designed to blend aero enhancement with greater vertical compliance; Canyon says to the tune of “over 25% compared to a rigid equivalent”, helping to reduce road chatter, which in turn should help to keep the body feeling a little fresher after a few hours in the saddle.

The Pace Bar cockpit is another carry over from the CFR. The bars are designed specifically for the Endurace platform and feature 50mm of width and 20mm of height adjustment, achieved with only the TX25 tool necessary.

The CF SLX has genuine racing pretensions, and these likely include gravel events, with its suitability enhanced by the inclusion of some down tube storage. It’s an expanded system that’s well-suited to the self-sufficient nature of such races as well as acting as a practical solution for those of us who like to carry everything but the kitchen sink on a ride; the frame also features top tube and frame bag mounts. This practicality is echoed by the option of running Canyon’s full-length mudguard system, Defend.

Other notable highlights include a move to shorter cranks, 165mm on a size medium, and the inclusion of Canyon’s new ED 42 CF carbon wheelset on the CF SLX 7 AXS build.

The CF is the entry point to the new Endurace lineup. With Canyon’s direct-to-consumer model it’s genuinely been able to promote greater accessibility without derision from the skeptics. And the CF is another case in point. With the range starting at €1,699, it’s one of the most affordable carbon road bikes around, and the various build specifications suggest its good value, too.

That carbon frame eschews most of the aero features seen on the CF SLX, instead leaning into the endurance qualities that help give it its name. That means a frame that weighs less than 1000g, equipped with the same 38mm tyre clearance and frame mounting options as the SLX, including those for the Defend mudguards.

To assist the high volume tyres in the fight against road chatter, the CF comes fitted with a VCLS 2.0 flex seatpost; this is Canyon’s familiar design that uses its patented leaf spring to help absorb vibrations and provide greater comfort and reduce fatigue over longer distances.

The new Endurace CF SLX and Endurace CF are offered across a seven-size range from 2XS to 2XL. All CF SLX models feature electronic groupsets and carbon wheelsets, with prices starting at €3,999 for the Endurace CF SLX 7 AXS.

As mentioned, the CF lineup starts at €1,699 for the Endurace CF 5, with the build options featuring mechanical and electronic drivetrain options, with both carbon and aluminium wheel builds.

Tune might be better known for its lightweight hubs and components, but the German brand also makes a selection of wheelsets spanning disciplines such as road, gravel and cross-country mountain biking. The wheels pictured here are Tune’s all–new Yokto 4550, named after the very hubset and mixed rim depth they utilise, designed to balance weight, durability, and aerodynamics. While it’s not an out-and-out weight-weenie offering, given its use case and specifications, it’s as feathery as its rivals, if not lighter in some instances.

Having changed ownership in 2023 after being acquired by Carbovation, the parent company of Lightweight, the Tune Yokto wheels are among the first new products to come out of the merger, and they’re looking to challenge the best options on the market for race-tuned performance.

We were sent a pair of Tune Yokto 4550 wheels to sample over December and January, in the midst of one of the wettest UK winters on record - the ideal setting to put the durability to the test and assess their position among the best road bike wheels currently available.

Technical details

In terms of visuals, the Tune Yokto 4550s are quite stealthy-looking wheels with muted graphics that should see them pair well with most bike brands and colourways. The branding is lowkey with Tune wordmark logos set upon a unidirectional carbon-fibre backdrop and matched to black-titanium hubs and spokes. It all looks very posh and refined.

As the name suggests, the Tune Yokto 4550 wheels feature a mixed 45/50mm front/rear rim depth and a hooked 25/32mm internal/outer width. While this means you can fit wider tyres that blur the lines between road and all-road, the rear hub is limited to a maximum 1:1 easy gear ratio owing to the lightweight internals of the new Poetry Freewheel System. While I did test the Yokto 4550 wheels on both my Cannondale SuperSix Evo 4 with regular two-by gearing (48/35T, 10-33T) and a SuperX Lab71, the latter utilised a 46T, 10-46T gearing configuration, which falls within the manufacturer’s recommended limits.

The hubs are one of the centrepieces of the new wheels. The 24-hole front/rear hubs have been machined from high-grade aluminium and constructed to tighter tolerances than before - no pre-load adjustment needed here. Both hubs feature new lip seals with hybrid-ceramic Enduro bearings as standard fare and weigh 225g for the pair (XDR version). The rear hub features Tune’s new Poetry Freewheel System, which uses two hardened, oversized steel pawls and 40 points of engagement to handle drive and coasting duties. Tune claims the new free-wheel system provides better power transfer and reduces drag, but more on this later.

Another feature of the Yoktos is the spoke configuration and lacing technique, a nod to the solder-tied spoke crossings of yesteryear. Both the front and rear wheels are laced with 24 lightweight Sapim spokes in a two-cross pattern and wrapped in a special carbon-filament sheath at the spoke-to-spoke interface, which is said to add stiffness and reduce weight. Whether this indeed bolsters stiffness, I couldn't quantify, but the wheels are notably quiet under load and during sprinting, with no pinging from the spokes.

All this makes for an impressively light wheelset, 1,290g to be precise. Put the test on our Park Tool scale, the front wheel weighed in at 600g and the rear at 690g, which is spot on with the claimed figure. They’re not the lightest option in the Yokto range, that belongs to the 1,030g 3030 wheelset, and lack the aero benefits of the taller architecture of 4550 rims.

Performance

There’s nothing particularly special about how the Yoktos perform - they roll well at typical riding speeds of between 25-30km/h and respond eagerly when pushing on the pedals in anger as well as in sprinting scenarios. Speeds across the board feel on par with rival brands, and the engagement of the rear hub is impressive for a two-pawl system - there's no notable lag as experienced on some of the brand's previous wheel iterations. Unlike the brand's Poetry 60 and 138 hub systems, users cannot add or remove pawls and springs to switch between engagement levels.

The Yokto 4550 wheels perform flawlessly in crosswinds, with no front-end twitchiness, just predictable handling that promotes peace of mind and confidence on descents. Sure, the rim depths aren't anything too extreme, but these wheels feel planted and precise, and are easily up there with the most stable and confidence-inspiring options on the market for cycling in the wind.

While I tested them during the depths of winter - in mixed conditions and temperatures - I’d have liked to try them in drier, faster conditions. That said, there was a sense of reliability that made the entire two-month test period issue-free - even during some appreciably wet and rainy rides, the bearings and hub engagement remained smooth and effective, something that should provide prospective users confidence in using the Yoktos all-year round, not just for events or target races.

Considering Tune designed the wheels around 28-35mm tyre widths, I wrapped the Yoktos in 28mm Specialized S-Works Turbo TLR tyres at my go-to road bike pressure of 50-55psi front/rear. While this did help reduce road imperfections and vibrations and improve cornering grip, the ride quality remained notably firm, as expected given the wrapped spokes. A wider tyre at an even lower pressure should add a little more compliance if you’re after softer ride quality. That said, I wouldn’t fault them for the stiffness - after all, these are performance wheels, and Tune doesn’t make any marketing noise about comfort and compliance - they are an out-and-out racing wheel, and they excel in that context.

Value

The Tune Yokto 4550 wheels are an impressive option that does very little wrong - in fact, I can’t pinpoint any real foibles. They’re easy to set up and do everything you’d expect of a contemporary tubeless aero wheelset; they’re predictable, stiff, and robust enough to get you through the worst of winter and then some. The only thing letting them down, perhaps, is the pricing, which falls short of two of its most notable mixed-wheel-depth rivals from Parcours and Roval.

In fact, it's the Parcours Strade GT that poses the biggest threat, given its lower price. Not only are the Strade GTs cheaper (£2,719 / US$3,589 / €3,489 with ceramic bearings) and lighter at 1,140g, they’ve also got a fairly similar 49/54mm front/ear mixed-depth. They’re also manufactured using reclaimed carbon fibres that soften road buzz and boost performance. I currently have a pair of Strade GT wheels on test, and they really do minimise vibration and improve speed and compliance over poor surfaces. They’re superb and represent a genuine performance option worth considering.

Roval offers the mixed-depth Rapide CLX III in a reverse configuration, with a 63/58mm front-to-rear arrangement. They also come standard with ceramic bearings and gain carbon spokes, but have a narrower internal width and weigh more than both the Parcours and Tune wheels at 1,305g for the pair. They’re marginally cheaper at £2,998 / $3,500 / €3,499, so there’s a lot to consider here, too.

If you’re looking for something different yet still performance-focused and lightweight, the new Tune Yokto 4550 wheels won't disappoint. I appreciate the low-key aesthetics, relatively low weight, and the way they handle crosswinds to deliver predictable handling.

Tech specs

• Price: £3,050 / $3,695 / €3,495
• Weight: 1,290g (actual)
• Hubset: Ceramic bearings XD15
• Freehub options: Shimano HG11/12, SRAM XDR, Campagnolo
• Rim depth: 45mm front, 50mm rear
• Rim width: 25mm internal, 32mm external
• Spoke count: 24 front/rear
• Rim: Hooked

Wilier's latest launch follows hot on the heels of Factor's Monza, promising the prestige of a 'designer bike' brand, in a more practical – or accessible – package.

While affordability isn’t a selling point to get your heart racing, it’s one that certainly appeals to the head, and the new Rapida starts at €2.899 for a mechanical build.

The Rapida is displaying plenty of the tube shapes, integrations and standards (UDH for example) that are now the cornerstones of many of the best road bikes. These modern features have historically come at quite the cost, especially if brand heritage and racing pedigree earned over decades, not years, is important to you.

Designed as an entry point into the Italian marque’s range, the new model seeks to deliver many of the attributes of a quintessential race bike but without the prohibitive price tag.

At €2.899 with a mechanical groupset and €3.999 with electronic shifting, it’s €700 less than the cheapest Filante, Wilier’s flagship model, and €3,500 less than the lowest spec SLR version.

Naturally, there are plenty of distinctions between the two models, but if you want Wilier design and branding on a budget, then the Rapida might actually get the blood pumping. At least a little.

It’s not just the price that Wilier has tamed. The bike’s geometry sees it sit somewhere between its pure race bikes and its endurance models. The press release says this is the “exact point where speed and distance coexist”, and what that means in reality is a stack height of 556mm and a reach of 384.5mm on a size medium.

These numbers suggest that while you won’t need to be a contortionist, you’ll still be able to achieve a suitably low position on the bike if desired, while maintaining comfort during longer rides.

The bike carries the visual credentials of a dynamic contemporary road bike; the airfoil shapes on the tubes, fork and seat post, the dropped seat stays, the integrated headset and monocoque carbon cockpit, are borrowed - generally speaking - from the Filante. But while that bike, and most others in its category, carry with it bags of data to back up its aerodynamic achievements, the Rapida carries none, just a name that suggests that speed is achievable.

Accessibility isn’t only measured in currency. While many of the Rapida's potential customer base will want a bike that wouldn’t look out of place in the professional peloton - or the club run - they also required safer handling and plenty of comfort.

With stability in mind, Wilier has equipped the Rapida with clearance for 36mm road tyres; that’s some 6mm more than the Filante and gives the bike some genuine all-road ability. It’s also compatible with both 1x and 2x drivechains (and comes with UDH), which broadens its usage yet further.

On release there are two build options. The entry level Rapida features a Shimano 105 mechanical groupset and pair of alloy Miche wheels, while the range-topper uses 105 Di2 and a carbon Miche wheelset, the Asfalto 45. Each model is offered in four colours: grey, orange, black and white.

Seemingly, wherever gravel goes, audiences are prepared to follow. But did anyone truly see gravel's global popularity reaching such dizzying heights? Who knows. But the industry, of course, has responded in kind: cultivating, nurturing and at times shameless flogging, everything gravel.

If nothing else it's made for a range of products that run the gamut, offering technologically advanced kit to rival anything found on the road as well as bits and bobs that respond to gravel's lighter side.

And perhaps this is where its popularity lies, gravel offers the option to be both deadly serious and bags of fun, doing both while aiming a subtle nod and wink at the often sanctimonious road scene.

With Spain's Traka race just arond the bend, here are a bunch of new gravel-inspired items as supporting evidence, starting with some slick racing kit from Copenhagen...

Pas Normal Studios new SS26 Escapism collection

It feels like the gravel racing product segment receives several additions weekly, each one confirmation of a status that has grown from burgeoning to established in seemingly the blink of an eye. Pas Normal Studios' new SS26 Escapism collection is a case in point.

The Danish brand’s relaunched gravel clothing range has been developed with the PAS Racing team. The jerseys and bibs, both in mens and womens, feature a slew of pockets that allow riders to be self-sufficient: cargo pockets, arm pockets and and even externally attached pockets for gel and bar wrappers.

There are also ‘hydration-ready options’, another feature that means you don’t have to stop or slow down. No smelling the roses in a plaid shirt and baggies here!

But perhaps the clearest indication that this is a range designed, at heart, for speed and competition is the inclusion of the Men's Escapism Speedsuit. Here it’s offered in dark red and in limited quantities. The rest of the colours across the range are said to be drawn from the landscape: light olive, stone brown and black.

Selle San Marco Shortlift saddles

While some gear labeled ‘gravel’ looks suspiciously like the road-going version save for a brown or green colourway or logo, gravel and all-road specific saddles make plenty of sense. After all, a good deal of the vibrations you'd experience from rough trails and broken asphalt will be felt through the seatpost and the perch attached to it. With a view to dampening such chatter, Selle San Marco has released its Shortlift Allroad range of saddles.

The lineup consists of three models: Sport, Racing and SuperComfort Racing. While the material used for the rails differs, steel on the former and carbon for the latter two, and the SUperComfort has integrated gel pads, all three rely on three pieces of tech designed to add stability and aid comfort: the waved profile, the Bow Rail System and the integrated Shock Absorbers.

Selle San Marco says the wave profile is integral to the Shortfit’s compact geometry, providing better laid distribution and stability over rough terrain. The Bow Rail System is designed to let the saddle’s frame flex around the rail, which helps to absorb shocks and vibrations. Finally, the in-built Shock Absorbers are there to filter out high-frequency shocks, with the aim of reducing fatigue over the course of your ride.

Prices start at £74.99 for the Sport model and rise to £144.99 for the Supercomfort option, which the Racing model costs £134.99. All three are offered in two widths.

Santini MADSS Gravel skinsuit

You wait for a dedicated gravel skinsuit and then two come alone at once. But unlike London buses the two on show here can easily be told apart. While the Pas Normal Studios offering above draws its colour palette from the earth, the MADSS Gravel suit from Santini looks to have been inspired by Jerry Garcia’s wardrobe.

Tie-dyed vibes aside, the Mega Aerodynamic Speed Shell, or MADSS for short, Gravel skinsuit is far more space age than summer of love. It’s born from Santini’s R&D department that focussed on aerodynamics and speed and has been adapted to meet the demands of today’s elite gravel racers.

The upper is light, breathable and fits like a second skin as you’d expect, with a low collar to help reduce drag. The sleeves are made from a ribbed fabric that is said to better manage airflow.

To assist with gravel races and events the skinsuit has an integrated pocket on the back to hold a 2-litre hydration pack; there are fabric loops on the shoulders for the drinking tube and a rear loop that can secure the pack with a carabiner, although both the pack and the carabiner will need to bought separately. You then get five more pockets, which should accommodate the longest races and the most liberal packing.

The shorts use what Santini calls a “high-resistance warp-knit fabric”, and feature raw cut hems with internal grippers. The pad is the C3 chamois, which is created for long distance rides and incorporates anti-shock gel inserts.

Fizik Tones

Each year, Fizik releases a collection of its products, both shoes and helmets, built around a one-off seasonal palette. Called Tones, this year the palette is 'Aurora', and consists of pinks and purples chosen to symbolise light and atmosphere and the birth of a new day: Aurora is both a Latin word for dawn and the Roman goddess of sunrise.

“Tones came from a simple idea: cycling is constantly changing both in terms of where and how we ride, so why should colour be fixed as well?,” says George Huzford, Fizik Senior Marketing Manager. “Tones will give fans of fizik and those new to the brand the option to bring a bit more personality into their outfits without moving away from the core products they already know and love.”

This year the collection comprises four helmets - Kudo, Kudo Aero, Kassis and Kyros - and seven pairs of shoes - Hydra, Powerstrap, Vega, Lyra, Proxy, Ferox 2 and Beat. Given the gravel slant of this roundup, there are plenty of options here for off-road enthusiasts, including the Kudo helmets and the recently updated Ferox 2 shoes.

Northwave Extreme X gravel shoes

As mentioned, Traka is Europe’s most prominent gravel race and the 2026 edition starts this week in Spain. Northwave is making its debut as a sponsor and has released its latest gravel shoe, the Extreme X, ahead of the event.

The shoe is packed with tech, from the High Tail system, which sees an asymmetrical design extend over the outer heel for improved support, alignment and stability, to the PowerShape arch support that’s designed to be comfortable over long distances.

The Hyperlight HT soles use unidirectional carbon for stiffness and maximum power transfer. Combined with the features above and you get a cycling shoe that Northwave says delivers a superior structural performance compared to previous models; this is a combination of torsional and compression stiffness which the brand says results in “greater responsiveness and stability during accelerations, pace changes, and on varied terrain”.

Factor’s gravel bike range is now three models strong, with each option offering a distinct intention to cover all areas of the gravel cycling discipline: the Ostra Gravel for all-out racing, the do-it-all Aluto, and now, the Sarana, which was designed around carrying capacity and long-distance technical riding. And by long-distance riding, we’re talking ultra events where riders spend days in the saddle, often self-supported in remote, untamed areas.

The Sarana was born out of Factor’s engineering team’s quest to design an ultra-endurance gravel racing bike from a clean slate, uncorrupted by contemporary trends, and focusing on how the rider feels at twenty hours into a race. The project started nearly three years ago when the brand looked at the bikepacking sector and ways it could support endurance athlete Rob Britton, who smashed the 350-mile Unbound XL record last year on a Factor Ostro Gravel bike.

It's no surprise that Britton's meticulous approach to endurance racing was used to blueprint the ethos of the Sarana.

There was a lot of back-and-forth over a three-year period starting in 2023, and extensive testing was conducted in British Columbia, Canada. Many revisions followed, with special attention to tyre clearance and various frame shapes, before the engineering team and Rob Britton were happy with the outcome. Together, Factor and Rob looked at how fatigue changes bike handling, how load shifts the centre of gravity, and how efficiency could be sustained over long distances.

According to Factor’s Chief Engineer Graham Shrive, the design process was extensive and detailed. “The original frame had room for 52mm tyres, but that wasn’t enough, so we scrapped it and started again. It was redesigned three times - it was quite a process.”

The Sarana will make its debut at this year’s Traka gravel race, where Factor-sponsored athletes Victor Bosoni, Cynthia Carson, Rob Britton and Anuchi Gago will tackle the rough terrain of Girona. While we currently have a Factor Sarana in for testing and have been riding it for a week already, we will be publishing a comprehensive review in the coming months.

Below, you'll find everything you need to know about the bike, including our first-ride impression.

A systematic approach to design and performance

According to Factor, the Sarana is “a focused tool for a specific kind of rider, one who treats distance as a race, not an escape.” That means the company had to approach the design process in a completely different way than it did when developing the Ostro Gravel and Aluto platforms. While designed as a system, the Sarana has three distinct yet seamlessly integrated areas that comprise its frame architecture.

While wind-cheating wasn’t the modus operandi of the new bike, the front of the Factor Sarana does feature some aerodynamic shaping, albeit somewhat milder than its gravel bike siblings. The headtube features a truncated aero profile with subtle hourglass sculpting, drawing inspiration from the Monza road bike. The Sarana also comes stock with a collection of purpose-built bike bags that fit within the triangle to help extend the leading edge of the tube shapes.

The middle area is all about utility and tools. The backbone of the Sarana is the down tube, which has been purposely oversized to add torsional stiffness. It's also been hollowed out to maximise internal storage capacity. This design feature ensures that airflow over the frame is clean and that the centre of gravity is low and balanced.

The rear end focuses on terrain management. Dropped seat stays and an offset seat tube have culminated in a natural leaf-spring system that flexes while maintaining lateral progress, and also allows the fitment of 57mm (2.2-inch) tyres.

Clever directional layup techniques have been implemented, with high-modulus fibres in the bottom bracket and chainstays and intermediate layers positioned to manage fatigue and traction - the result is a claimed 18% reduction in vibration when compared to current endurance baselines.

It’s a good-looking bike - quintessentially Factor, adopting what can only be described as a form following function approach. The available colour palette is muted, but the graphic design is still enticing enough to draw interest. I like it. Factor has limited the Sarana to two colourways, the metallic Cyan Blue pictured here and Prismatic Gold with pink flecks - both options reflect the natural tones of the outdoors and the various hues experienced when riding from dusk till dawn.

For future-proofing and ensuring the Sarana is ultra-racing-ready, it is compatible with both rigid and 30mm suspension forks. The bike is set up to natively accommodate 160mm brake rotors, but can be flipped to use bigger 180mm discs, both front and rear. It's compatible with one-by-only groupsets and is dropper-post-ready - it comes standard with an external collar clamp with 30.9mm diameter for a greater spread of dropper choices.

The platform was optimised for SRAM XPLR AXS but can also run various one-by Shimano GRX Di2 groupsets (including Shimano GRX RX827 and RX710) - there’s a Di2 exit port above the UDH triangle for semi-wireless configurations. While the Sarana comes stock with a 44T single chainring, it can safely house a maximum chainring size of 52 T, thanks to the asymmetric chainstay arrangement.

Geometry and sizing

Despite the endurance theme, Factor says the Sarana’s geometry numbers were inspired by racing, and not implemented for comfort. This can be seen in the 71.5-degree head angle and 65mm trail figure, which are identical across all frame sizes, as well as the 74-75.3-degree seat tube angle. The reach (398mm) and stack (573mm) point towards an aggressive riding position not dissimilar to the Ostro Gravel, a move Factor explains "allows riders to stay low and efficient without collapsing posture".

The 425mm chainstays and offset seatpost have made space for 57mm tyres, while the 80mm bottom bracket sits slightly lower than most modern gravel bikes but not outrageously so. This tyre width falls squarely between the 52mm max tyre clearance of the newly launched BMC Kaius 01 and 66mm of the Open Wi.De 2.0 adventure bike.

Factor also looked at ensuring the geometry angles remained the same if riders require a suspension fork. The stock axle-to-crown measurement is pegged at 427mm to ensure parity when specced with a 30mm RockShox Rudy XPLR fork with sag.

Five frame sizes are available, spanning 49, 52, 54, 56 and 58cm - one less than the Ostro Gravel and Aluto models.

Factor Sarana - First ride impressions

To appreciate the Factor Sarana, you need to approach it with an open mind and forget everything you think you know about the gravel genre - it’s not a speed demon, nor does it profess to be, but don’t let its adventure-bent focus deter you. While it’s pretty rapid overall, the bike truly comes alive in a technical off-road setting. At 9.75kg with a RockShox Rudy XPLR fork, it’s not what I’d describe as lightweight, but it doesn’t feel heavy either.

The Sarana blends mountain bike-like trail manners and control with gravel bike speed and aerodynamics - it does have a Factor Lando feel about it, particularly the virtual seat tube angle, and the way it dismisses rough terrain.

I’m a firm believer that most of the trails in and around the UK's Surrey Hills, where I live, can be tackled on a gravel bike, and the Sarana reaffirmed this sentiment. In fact, I’d go as far as to say it nullifies the need for a mountain bike entirely, thanks to the front suspension, long and low reach, and fairly relaxed head angle. As a result, it’s sublimely controlled on technical descents - fire roads and singletrack included - allowing you to flow over terrain as opposed to hang on, rattle your way down and hope for the best. The confidence-boosting handling on the downhills carries over to the flats, where the Sarana delivers, quite easily, the best ride quality and comfort I've experienced from a drop-bar gravel bike to date.

The bike holds momentum with ease, conforming to and flowing with the terrain, nullifying most vibration-induced speed loss associated with off-road riding, and maintaining high speeds. Our test bike came fitted with a 44T single chainring, which perhaps holds it back from unlocking even greater top end, but suits the punchy terrain of my local gravel routes quite well. In combination with the 10-46T cassette, there’s ample gearing for most vertical excursions.

I haven't felt over-tyred by the 2.0-inch Continental RaceKing mountain bike rubber. If anything, the grip offsets any weight or rolling resistance penalties. I feel in most gravel settings - races or local rides - there’s more time to be lost on the downhills than climbs, and this width affords the rider assurance to push harder and let the bike do its thing. No overthinking line choices or panic braking here, just pure, unfiltered speed and descending comfort.

How I wish I had this bike for the challenging descents of Gravel Burn...

More testing remains, but I’m confident the Sarana will prove faster on most of my gravel training routes. In fact, I’m keen to see how it fares over some of the longer routes around Surrey Hills that take in sections of tarmac, too. There’s room to safely fit a 52T, so I’m keen to try it with something bigger if there's an opportunity during the test period.

I'm enjoying the Factor Sarana but haven't ridden it enough to formulate a final verdict just yet. More testing remains, but I feel it can be used successfully in most gravel settings, including stage racing and one-day gravel epics, not to mention the ultra-endurance events it was designed to conquer.

Pricing and specifications

The Factor Sarana is available in two complete builds (Premium Complete) or as a frameset (Premium Package), with or without suspension.

Premium Complete bikes are specced with either SRAM Red XPLR AXS (£9,399 / $9,599 / €11,499) or Force XPLR AXS (£7,699 / $7,899 / €9,499) groupsets. Both builds get Black Inc 46 carbon wheels, a Black Inc HB04 integrated bar-stem, an FSA SL-K Carbon seatpost, and a Selle Italia SLR saddle. Pricing jumps when specced with a RockShox Rudy XPLR fork - £9,999 / $10,199 / €12,199 (SRAM Red XPLR AXS) and £8,299 / $8,499 / €10,199 (SRAM Force XPLR AXS).

The Premium Package will set you back £4,599 / $4,699 / €5,599 (non-suspension frameset) and £5,199 / $5,299 / €6,399 (suspension frameset)

The Black Inc 46 wheels can also be purchased separately at £1,649 / $1,699 / €2,049 per set.

Up until recently, the road-inspired layups and racy angles of the best gravel bikes have resulted in reduced comfort and vibration-induced speed loss over challenging terrain. Having spent a lot of time riding and racing gravel bikes all over the world, I've experienced the very best and worst of it - including the corrugated and technical terrain of Gravel Burn in South Africa late last year. Looking back at my Gravel Burn experience, I cited the Cannondale SuperX Lab71 I used for the event was perhaps too racy given the technicality of the terrain, and I’d have been better off on something like the new BMC Kaius had it been available at the time.

Having tested the Kaius 01 One at the press event in Sardinia on a testing assortment of terrain types, I’ve come away impressed by what it offers as a package, especially in terms of overall trail compliance, front-end control, stability, and comfort - most of which stems from the clever frame design and geometry, and provision for wider tyres. BMC is a firm believer in the purity of the gravel bike and in the idea that suspension forks and shocks should be reserved for mountain bikes, not drop-bar race machines.

While gravel courses are getting increasingly more technical and demanding on both the body and the bike, BMC, like several other manufacturers, has looked to the humble tyre as a solution, exploring how wider clearances and aerodynamic efficiency can achieve parity. In fact, the biggest evolution in gravel bike design over the past two years has been an increase in tyre clearance, and the added capability, comfort, and speed wider gravel bike tyres provide when smooth tarmac becomes rough and rowdy gravel.

BMC hasn't merely shoehorned wider tyres into the existing platform either, but has instead looked holistically at the Kaius platform, tweaking the tube shapes, frame architecture, and layup to create what it believes is “the answer to every gravel racer’s wish.”

The need for speed and wider is faster philosophy

The first-generation BMC Kaius was unveiled in 2022 as an out-and-out gravel race bike with road-bike-inspired design language and angles borrowed from the Teammachine SLR. Armed with 45mm tyre clearance, it was designed as a dedicated aero alternative to the Swiss brand’s adventure-bent Urs platform. Having spoken to former BMC-sponsored rider Simon Pellaud at Gravel Burn, he told me he chose the Urs 01 One over the Kaius purely because it runs wider rubber. Simon squeezed 50mm Schwalbe G-One RS Pro tyres into both ends, even though it was designed around a maximum width of 47mm, to help with traction, protection and comfort over the 800km, seven-day stage race.

For version two, the modus operandi of the new bike was basically the same as before, focusing on blending aerodynamics, stiffness and weight with much wider tyre clearances - and I mean much wider. While Pellaud’s need for wider tyres wasn’t the catalyst for the new Kaius, his opinion, coupled with that of many other riders and the growing demands of rougher gravel courses, sealed the deal. As a result, the new Kaius has been optimised around 45mm tyres but can accommodate tyres as wide as 52mm, with 6mm clearance on each side.

To achieve this, the chainstays were lengthened by 5mm to 425mm. While the notion of wider tyres may sound counterintuitive on gravel race bikes, they are faster than narrower equivalents owing to the rubber’s ability to deform over the surface, improving traction and compliance.

The new Kaius, however, was developed as a complete system rather than merely combining individually considered components. To ensure it remained racy, however, the new bike drew visual and aerodynamic inspiration from the latest Teammachine SLR 01 and R 01 models, as seen in the deeper head tube and the AS10 seatpost. Together with the wide‑crown Halo fork and AeroCore bottle cage system of the Teammachine R 01 (cages that seamlessly integrate with the downtube), the new Kaius frameset is 12% faster than its predecessor at 40km/h with 45mm tyres.

As a complete system (including 45mm tyres and a fully clothed rider), the new Kaius is 1.05% faster than the first generation, and this is the figure more manufacturers need to reference and talk about. According to BMC, these claims were validated using advanced computational fluid dynamics (CFD), wind tunnel testing, and real-world testing.

Racy geometry and the one-by only approach

BMC has tweaked the reach, stack, and bottom bracket height to improve handling and confidence on technical descents while retaining the aggressive, racy nature of its forebear. As a result, a size 51cm Kaius gets a fairly steep seat tube angle of 74.3-degrees and a relaxed head angle of 70.8-degrees paired to a trail number of 72mm for improved front-end traction and response.

Smaller frame sizes have a slacker head tube and a 5mm longer fork rake, which also means the wheelbase on a 51cm is longer than the 54cm model. Overall, the reach is 5mm shorter, and the stack has been increased by 11mm across all six frame sizes, while the bottom bracket drop remains 79mm. To improve capability over obstacles and prevent damaging the chainring and frame, ground clearance has been increased by 10mm (this figure increases with shorter cranks). Chainstay length has grown 5mm to 425mm, and the wheelbase is marginally longer than the outgoing model. For this application, BMC has also introduced a T47-threaded BB with inboard bearings to facilitate speedy maintenance.

The longer chainstays were introduced not only to help accommodate wider tyres but also to ensure the Kaius plays nicely with one-by wireless groupsets. As a result, the new bike can only accommodate SRAM AXS and Shimano GRX RX827 and RX710. The one-by-only compatibility is not only reserved for gravel-specific groupsets but mountain bike or mullet configurations, too - ideal for tweaking your drivetrain components, and boosting gear ratios depending on the terrain.

Chainring compatibility ranges from 32 to 50T without a chain keeper and from 38 to 50T with a chain keeper.

Impressive complete system weights

The new Kaius is four per cent lighter than its predecessor - around 63g in fact – and this comes courtesy of revised materials, its 01 carbon recipe and new hardware. The Kaius is only available in BMC’s top-tier 01 layup, and this is referenced in the model range designation: Kaius 01 One, Kaius 01 Two and Kaius 01 Three. Despite the premium, high-modulus carbon fibre layup, the tube walls are 0.3mm thicker than the 0.6mm measurement of the Teammachine SLR road bike sibling to ensure extra protection against stones and rock strikes. For extra protection, BMC has applied a layer of clear 3M helicopter tape to the underside of the downtube.

In size medium (54cm), the Kaius 01 One frame weighs 998g, the fork 400g, and the seatpost 134g, making it one of the lightest gravel race frames available at 1,469g (excluding bottle cages, screws, thru-axles, spacers, headset bearings, hanger and other hardware). The complete bike weight of the Kaius 01 One in size 54, excluding pedals, is 7.1 kg. The 01 Two and 01 Three tip the scales at 7.8 and 8.3kg, respectively, in the same size.

For those looking to stand out from the standard builds, there's the frameset-only Kaius 01 VAR 0, which is the lightest option in the range, coming in at 1,855g with all the hardware fitted, including the AeroCore cages, hanger, thru-axles, spacers, headset bearings and spacers. Featuring a raw carbon look with a UV-varnish clear coat, it can also be custom-painted, provided the paint shop is approved by BMC.

Despite its racy intentions, the Kaius has five mounting points for those who enjoy riding long or bikepacking: on the top tube, within the main triangle, and on the underside of the downtube. There are no mounting bosses located on the fork.

BMC Kaius 01 One - First ride impressions

Sardinia is an amazing place. While it's better known for its network of mixed-condition tarmac roads and stunning backdrops, the island also offers even better gravel terrain. Technical and undulating, it provided the ideal litmus test for the all-new BMC Kaius and a chance for me to ride it in anger over two days. I was assigned a range-topping BMC Kaius 01 One in size 51cm, which sounds a little on the small side, but at 175cm tall, it complemented the fit measurements I provided the mechanic.

While gravel was very much on the menu, we spent an equal amount of time on tarmac, too - this was purposely done as most riders and modern gravel races traverse regular roads to link trails. For riders who enjoy the all-road experience, the narrowest tyre you can fit to the Kaius is a 32mm, so there’s scope to use it as an all-year one-bike solution.

Even with thicker tyres fitted at low pressures - we sampled the Kaius with the new 50mm Continental Dubnital tyres - the bike still feels urgent, granted you’ll need a few kilometres to get used to the added rolling resistance this width provides. BMC fitted these tyres over the stock 45mm Continental Terra Competition Race Rapid rubber due to the weather at the event; overnight rain wreaked havoc on the terrain, carving huge ruts and uncovering stones and rocks that warranted extra protection and traction.

The Kaius is exceptionally well-mannered on technical gravel and rough descents. The front end is a little slower than its rivals, but the upshot is planted, predictable steering thanks to the 70.8-degree head angle and 72mm trail. The control and front-end compliance instil in the rider levels of trust that some of its rivals fail to deliver, whether you’re on the hoods or in the drops. Of course, I always recommend descending rough terrain on the drops as this forces extra weight on the front wheel and helps dig the tyres into the surface for improved control.

You’ll still need to work hard to choose your lines and weight the bike underneath you, but the wider tyres paired with lower pressures help it skim over bumpy terrain as opposed to ramming into every object that comes its way.

Traction is superb on loose terrain, and the stock 42T, 11-46T gearing flattens steep inclines, allowing you to climb with confidence and precision. At 7.1kg, it’s up there with the featheriest options on the market - the Specialized S-Works Crux, Cannondale SuperX Lab71 and Canyon Grail CFR included.

This frame's ride quality and trail compliance come from its layup and flex zones. The Arete seat tube and cutout, combined with the AS10 aero seatpost, provide improved comfort over rough terrain, and the rear axle is claimed to provide up to 10mm of vertical deflection when compressed at speed. While I can’t quantify this claim, the Kaius did feel stable and composed over bumpy surfaces.

Crank length is not specifiable at purchase but differs between the six frame sizes: 165mm (47 and 51cm), 170mm (54 and 56cm), and 172.5mm (58 and 62cm). My 51cm test bike was fitted with 165mm cranks, which forced me to spin over features rather than torque my way up using the leverage afforded by longer crank arms. While I’m still not convinced that shorter cranks offer a performance benefit, they do provide added clearance during high-speed cornering, reducing the risk of pedal and rock strikes.

BMC has also raised the ground clearance by 10mm for added assurance.

Pricing and specifications

The Kaius range comprises three complete builds, all outfitted in SRAM componentry and one frameset option. While there's a variety of options, it is only available in top-tier carbon grade, so pricing is fairly steep across the board.

Spearheading the portfolio is the BMC Kaius 01 One, which comes in at £9,999 / $12 999/ €10,999. It employs an SRAM Red XPLR AXS groupset, BMC CG 39 SL carbon wheels wrapped in 45mm Continental Terra Competition Race tyres, an integrated BMC ICS carbon cockpit, a Fizik Vento Argo X1 carbon saddle, and finishing kit from BMC.

This is followed by the £7,299 / $8,999 / €7,999 BMC Kaius 01 Two. As the second model down in the range, it's built around SRAM Force XPLR AXS. It uses the same wheels/tyres and integrated cockpit as the Kaius 01 One, but ditches the carbon rails of the Vento Argo X1 for the kium-railed Vento Argo X3.

The SRAM Rival XPLR AXS-equipped Kaius 01 Three is the most affordable complete bike in the portfolio at £4,999 / $6,199 / €5,499. While it still uses the brand's in-house CG 40 carbon wheels, it gets a heavier version of the Fizik Venta Argo saddle and loses the carbon one-piece cockpit of the Kaius 01 One and Two in favour of a traditional yet fully integrated bar-and-stem arrangement.

Finally, the BMC Kaius 01 VAR 0 frameset will set you back £3,999 / $5,099 / €4,499.

On any ride nowadays, there will be aero sculpted frames, deep section wheels, and likely aero helmets and aero jerseys being worn aplenty. Perhaps even a pair of aero socks?

But where are all the skinsuits? Despite the looks, the skinsuit could be one of the best 'cost per watts saved' items available. Yet, you'll hardly ever see one on a club run.

Worn by the pros almost exclusively in road races for their aero gains and other benefits, they are one of the few pieces of kit that has yet to cross the rubicon, and be adopted by riders outside of the professional peloton.

Indeed, showing up to any form of group ride outside of a bunch race, in a skinsuit might result in ridicule. But should we be embracing this item that promises several key advantages over the classic shorts and jersey?

Aerodynamics

First and foremost, skinsuits are more aerodynamic. By attaching the jersey and shorts together, you remove seams and thicker hems, and can reduce the amount of baggy material present especially when hunched over in an aggressive riding position.

However, it’s not so much that the skinsuit outperforms shorts and jersey aerodynamically in controlled conditions - in fact, here the differences can be negligible - but rather what happens out on the road, in the real world.

Given that most of us will ride with phones, tools, food, and spares in our pockets, they are likely to be reasonably full. However it is quite difficult to get them evenly weighted. As we ride, the position of the pockets and our jersey often moves to one side, negatively impacting the aero performance. With a skinsuit, the positioning remains consistent, and it with the aero performance.

Unzipping a jersey typically leads to lots of material flapping around as you ride. Many road skinsuits, like the Castelli San Remo S, use a half-jersey open design on the front which allows for greater cooling but does not lead to as much flapping material. In short, it's the consistent performance throughout the duration of the ride where skinsuits definitely win out.

Weight and cooling

There are a few other performance areas where a skinsuit can beat a shorts and jersey combination, including a reduction in weight. For example, a Castelli Aero Race jersey and Free Aero shorts weigh 281g, while the brand's San Remo S suit are 243g. Around 40g is not a massive saving, for those seeking marginal gains, it’s a useful area to focus on.

This reduced weight also tends to help with cooling. With the lack of bib straps, there is less material across the front and rear of the jersey section of the skinsuit. Reduced material tends to lead to greater evaporative heat loss, especially with less fabric at the rear where a lot of heat is lost when cycling at speed.

This can be countered though when temperatures are incredibly hot and you want to undo your jersey. A skinsuit does not allow you to fully unzip the jersey section in most cases. However, the Castelli San Remo S, and PNS Mechanism Pro skinsuits both have feature a bottom half that's not fully attached, meaning that when unzipping, the jersey section does open up properly. Not all suits have this, and this feature can result in some bunched fabric when hunched over. However by the suit not opening fully aerodynamic penalties are reduced compared to a fully unzipped jersey.

Comfort and fit

Another area where skinsuits can win out on performance is when it comes to comfort. The removal of the bib straps reduces the chance of pressure points over the shoulders, instead the upper half of the skin suit spreads the load evenly. Equally removing the need for a hem on the jersey can alleviate pressure around the waist

However, skinsuits can only be purchased in a full size. In other words, if you are a medium in shorts and a small in a jersey, you might not be able to get the fit quite right and be forced to compromise. Having a loose or tight fitting garment is a surefire way to lead to discomfort from increased friction, compression, or pulling in places you really do not want clothing to pull. This single size does make getting the right match for your body more difficult than with two separate garments.

Looks, cost, and practicality

Interestingly it's in the looks department that skinsuits seem to fall foul for many, but I’m not sure why. For example, a lot of riders wear shorts and jerseys that are the same colour, which is similar to many skinsuits. If your looking for an alternative, Santini's MADSS suits come in several different colour designs, which are aimed to look like separate shorts and jersey.

The other huge benefit of this suit is that it costs £220, whereas Santini's Redux aero jersey and shorts cost £214 and £190 respectively. Although the items differ slightly, both feature the same external sleeve ribbing and high end C3 chamois. More often than not, the cost of a skin suit is quite a lot less than the sum of its parts. There is of course the issue that in the event of a crash, if the suit is damaged then the whole item can be a write-off. Whereas with shorts and jersey, perhaps just one item is damaged. That said, I've crashed in races over the years and ripped skinsuits, and more often than not the damage can be repaired neatly with some fabric patches and at a low cost. Some brands also offer crash replacement repairs or discounts.

There are other practical considerations. Although all the suits mentioned here have three pockets, quite often skinsuits will forgo this, and instead only feature two. Indeed the ones here do miss out on a zip-up valuables pocket.

CW says

While there are some elements of a skinsuit that don't win out when compared to a shorts and jersey combination, these are mainly practical rather than performance related. In terms of performance, comfort, cost, weight, and cooling, there are many areas where skinsuits present quite a considerable benefit.

I've undertaken more competitive events over the last year and a half, and invested in a skinsuit because of this; as someone who specialises in maximising performance in events (be that training, nutrition, or equipment) a skinsuit was an obvious area where I could improve my kit choices.

All told, I think it’s definitely worth donning a skinsuit for more than just your A grade events, and we should embrace their appearance on the weekend group rides.

Quirk Cycles has won Best Road Bike at Bespoked London 2026, with the prize handed down on Friday evening as the show opened at Unit 8, in the Bussey Building in Peckham.

The Hackney custom bike builder, founded by Rob Quirk over a decade ago, took the award for the Durmitor, a pure road-race bike, with new 'custom-lite' models available to order via the website.

The road category was judged by Robin Mather. Notably, as Mather is one of the most skilled framebuilders ever to exhibit at the show, and he was early, very early, to the same shift Quirk is now making. He moved from one-offs to a tighter model range and batch model, over a decade ago, having seen that this was the most sustainable way forward for a small builder.

He was early to that party, but he eventually stepped back from building under his own name. Mather putting his hand on Quirk’s shoulder this weekend makes it feel more pivotal now.

Best Road Bike - The Quirk Durmitor

Durmitor is Quirk’s fast road-race bike from his recently curated ‘stock-geometry’ model range, part of a shift in approach that will also include limited-edition batches – the most recent of which, we're told, is now completely sold out.

The approach – which distils everything Quirk knows about bike design, drawn from his extensive custom work – is designed to make it easier to understand, commission, and order a bike that works for you. It also jettisons some of the drag that fully custom approaches can have in a small workshop context. Essential for the growth Quirk is shooting for, since teaming up with Mottram et al.

The Durmitor is made from handpicked Italian steel, Columbus Spirit – the very best non-stainless range. Spirit is a thin-wall steel tubing designed for the production of high-performance road bikes, and uses Quirk’s own 3D-printed stainless steel dropouts, head tube, and seat cluster.

Modern hardware is evident throughout: T47 bottom bracket, UDH hanger, 12mm thru-axles, flat-mount disc brakes, and a tapered steerer on an Enve fork. Electronic only. Clearance is 35mm, and is designed for “slicks only”, so you can assume that’s a relatively tight 35mm.

The build utilises Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 running gear, and is rolling on Enve 4.5 Pro wheels, the same wheels designed for Tadej Pogacar for use in last year's Tour De France, here, paired with Enve's own tyre. The frameset is £4,999.

Attention to detail

The bike looked outstanding as the centrepiece of a Japanese-themed stand, nicely timed ahead of the show's move to Osaka, featuring a customised Honda Alty. The Alty imported from Japan for the event was adorned with decals spelling out Quirk phonetically in Japanese characters. Quirk informed me that the Japanese don’t have letters for Q, U, or R, making that design detail more necessary to keep the concept alive than it is deliberate. Lovely all the same, of course.

On closer inspection, the classic Japanese pickup truck was wearing period-correct Yokohama tyres. The beer crates looked like Asahi-branded crates but did in fact read, 'Quirk'. Once upon a time, you'd have to pay a lot of money for that kind of thinking at Mother and other agencies like it.

The here and now – in Peckham

That Quirk and his bikes were back in the halls at all, after Rapha founder Simon Mottram led a £500,000 funding round into the brand last November, was a gesture. Seeing as though Quirk went all-in – with a stand that formed the centerpiece of the main hall – was a vote of confidence in the show as much as a strategic move for the brand.

The Bussey Building, for what it’s worth, looks like a venue Bespoked has been hunting for since it left Brunel’s Old Station in Bristol, the 1841 train shed at Temple Meads, where the show came of age. If Lee Valley VeloPark in Stratford gave the show scale, then Manchester’s Victoria Baths gave it character. Despite that, neither felt quite right after the creative restructuring Petor Georgallou and his wife Rosie have painstakingly led since taking over in 2022. Peckham does.

One or many no longer matters

Three other 'small batch' names are worth mentioning. Mason, with its quietly excellent small-batch steel and aluminium. Cotic, with a wonderful-looking gravel bike, made in steel tubing, with a very nicely integrated headset design. And Condor was back in full force, with the Condor Makers Area at the heart of the show running interactive workshops all weekend.

Condor’s been steadfast in waiting for this moment. The London brand has always sat slightly adjacent to the rooms’ “true handmade” participants, distinguishable mainly only by the fact that its frames are produced at arm’s length – by builders just as good as many in the room, based in larger workshops in Italy. When the Super Accaiao took the best road bike in Manchester in 2024, there was a quiet surprise in some corners that the prize hadn’t gone to a “more bespoke” builder. None of that this year.

Pashley’s a similar but slightly different case. The brand picked up an award for Best Fixie. For the excellent and ever-so playful, BMX-inspired Mini-Velo, the Skyline. Pashley is Britain’s oldest surviving bicycle manufacturer, in continuous production since 1926; it has never really marketed itself as a one-off custom workshop. But the brand’s presence in Peckham and the conversation I had on stage with Smallwood and Cumberbatch makes the same point from another angle.

A larger, low-volume manufacturer with great skills is leaning into the craft community, with their own range and what is also essentially a 'smallish-batch' production model.

That Bespoked welcomes Pashley alongside smaller workshops speaks volumes about how this community is defining itself now – by quality and craft, in whatever form works for the builder, rather than by volume alone.

The rising tide lifts all ships

Quirk perhaps represents a group of builders that hasn't been ebbing as such of late, but has struggled to find a way forward amid the headwinds of the last few years. Now, the rising tide appears to be lifting progressives into more mainstream futures, in an evolving way.

The work Petor has done on the show is the energy that’s allowed it. With the misplaced stuffiness and politics of before gone.

You can sense the shift in who’s missing as much as who’s here. Sturdy Cycles, long-term Bespoked supporters, were at Rouleur Live last November, rather than Peckham this Spring.

So was Ricky Feather, Founder of the eponymous Feather Cycles, who said publicly recently how hard the one-off custom model has become, and who has since been actively building Wkndr – exhibiting at the London high-end bike show, Rouleur, in the Independent Bike Builders’ Room, alongside Sturdy and Pashley.

Wkndr is doing the same thing Quirk is doing now – repackaging a builder’s reputation and craft, refined over years of custom work, channelled in something more sustainable, which can grow. That offer, by design, has appeal outside of niche handmade shows.

Japan is next for Quirk and friends

The next stop is Osaka. Bespoked debuts at the GLION Museum in October, and on the evidence of this weekend it will arrive in pretty good shape. Japan, of course, has been doing this for decades – NJS-certified Keirin builders, the metalwork tradition around Osaka, a whole culture that has never confused the question of craft with whether you build one bike or twenty-five.

With so many British brands now producing exceptional work either in model ranges or in batches, with UK design at their heart, that’s a genuinely exciting prospect. Particularly inside a wider bike industry that’s currently struggling to work out what it is and who it is for.

Robin Mather, of all people, singling our Quirk's Durmitor this weekend doesn’t feel like a casual choice at all. He was right about this a decade ago and he’s still right now.

Quirk Durmitor's are available for order now via the Quirk website.

Bespoked London 2026 continues at the Bussey Building until Sunday. Further category winners, including Best Fixie, went to Pashley for their extremely fun Skyline.

Medusa bikes took Best in Show and Best Finish, with bikes that represented everything that the old guard prizes most highly: very well-considered, heavily detailed, craft-centric bikes made in the traditional mode, lugged and entirely done by hand and file.

It’s fair to say it felt like Campagnolo had lost its way for a while, with its groupset strategy. Trouble started when it dropped the thumb-shifter and whacked prices up, with the release of the Super Record Wireless groupset. Very few could justify it against higher performing Japanese and American alternatives.

With the most recent Super Record 13 speed wireless launch, Campagnolo sought to right those wrongs. And right them it did. The groupset looked great, was lightning fast at shifting, and pricing found parity with the competition again.

The latest version of Super Record came with incredibly fast shifting, and a price that meant it could once again, go head-to-head with SRAM and Shimano's pro-racing gear. It had remembered that people come to the Italians for their trademark flair, and in the latest version of their highest spec road-racing groupset, that was once again evident. The groupset looked great whilst being rapid and precise.

The one thing that was so clearly missing, was a more reasonable entry point for that new look, and latest tech.

With the launch of Record, the name given to Campagnolo's second-tier groupset, it's sorted that problem, by producing a well-priced groupset, that means it can now target Shimano Ultegra and SRAM Force level customers again.

Prices start at €2,129 (UK and US pricing to come, we'll update this article when we receive them), and with five variants across road and gravel the accessibility grows further. In simple terms, Campagnolo is back in the business of selling competitively priced groupsets again.

The concept of ‘trickle down technology’ is perhaps most keenly felt in groupsets. The advancements that are introduced with the top-tier offerings eventually find their way into the cheaper offerings, allowing cyclists to enjoy a shared functionality and performance, with often only a small weight penalty the difference between the sets.

This does raise the question of why anyone who actually pays for their cycling gear would opt for the range-topper, regardless of manufacturer, and it’s likely one that will be asked again with the release of Record 13.

So how close to the Super is Record? Well, Campagnolo says that the new Record shares “geometry, architecture and functionality” with its more expensive sibling. The result, the brand explains, is not just the same shifting speed across the two platforms but full component compatibility. Once again then the only differences appear to be cosmetic, with different materials and finishes resulting, and some additional weight; Campagnolo says the gains from Super Record 13 to Record 13 range between 208g to 342g depending on the groupset, which is less than a half full bidon.

Each of the five configurations are manufactured in-house in Italy. While this is likely music to the ears of any cyclist wanting to ensure that their new Colnago build doesn’t stray from the path of righteousness, Campagnolo says it's more strategy than statement, allowing it to remain at the wheel for the entire production process, which it says helps to keep the quality high and the pricing competitive.

Pricing has been a thorny issue for the brand in the case of launches which predated the latest Super Record drop, and it's one of the reasons that its slice of the pie got smaller as Shimano and SRAM continued to release effective and more affordable offerings, that meant riders could buy WorldTour level performance without dropping a fortune for the privilege.

So it’s not without fanfare that Record 13 pricing starts at €2,129 for a full 1x13 wireless groupset. That brings it right into line with both Shimano and SRAM's second-tier offer.

Yes, it’s still a considerable amount of money but it is over €1,000 less than the cheapest Super Record 13 offering. That's important. If you simply have to go Italian, or have always dreamed of it, its now in reach for a heck of a lot more customers.

So what are the five groupsets on offer?

For the road, there are three available options. The 2x13 groupset is the most traditional and has a claimed weight of 2,783g. There’s also a 1x13 Road, which features a Nano Clutch rear mech and a 36t cassette and is the lightest set at 2,656g, and a 1x13 Road X, which has the clutch mech and a 42 or 48t cassette. Next up is an All-Road offering, which is 2x13, with a clutch mech and a 36t cassette, and finally the gravel bike specific gruppo, which again uses the Nano Clutch rear derailleur and cassette options up to a 48t. The claimed weight here is 2,777g.

The difference between the two derailleurs is as you’d might imagine. The regular mech features a carbon fibre-reinforced polyamide body with an internal steel cage and 14-tooth narrow-wide pulleys and works with both the 10-33 and 11-36 cassettes. The Nano Clutch option used on the X gruppos uses a longer cage to work with the wide range cassettes, including the 10-48; here the pulley configuration is 12t and 16t. Both mechs are compatible with Super Record 13 cassettes.

As for the crankset options there are seven 2x combinations - 5/29, 48/32, 50/34, 52/36, 53/39, 54/39, 55/39, and eight ‘aero’ 1x models ranging from 38t to 52t. Like Super Record 13, the chainrings are made from carbon fiber but the axle is stainless steel rather than titanium. Structurally the crank arms differ, with Record using a low-density technopolymer in the less stressed areas rather than the hollowed out approach taken in Super Record. Crank arms lengths are 165, 170, and 172.5 mm and there is an option for a power meter across all of the five groupsets; Campagnolo says the Record PWM has an accuracy of ±2% and features the same architecture used on the Super Record version.

Another similarity between the two is found in the Ergopower shifters. They share the same functionality, with the internal Thumb Shifter, Shift Lever, Mode Button, Smart Button, and status LED the same as those found on Super Record. The ergonomics are identical too as is the hydraulic system. So again, the differences here are essentially found in finish and materials.

Anyone familiar with Super Record 13 will be glad to see that the battery used to power the wireless shifting is another component that remains the same as Super Record. This means 750km of range and charging via a standard USB-c cable - no dedicated chargers required here!

Love it or leave it, this year's Sea Otter Classic had a new wheel size on display and it's large. 32” big, to be exact.

THE CASE FOR GOING BIGGER

First, a quick physics lesson on the benefits of a 32” wheel. More tyre means more contact patch, which translates into more grip. A larger tyre enables you to run lower pressures without sacrificing traction. Lower pressure means more compliance (i.e. the tyre will flex and deform more easily over rocks and bumps). Finally, a bigger wheel has greater momentum and therefore, we're told, carries more speed. So the buzz is understandable.

WHERE ARE ALL THE 32” WHEELS THEN?

Most of the big brands weren’t in the big wheel game, at least not yet. However, Boyd Cycling out of South Carolina was one of the brands that did have something to show. Head Honcho (yes, that's the actual title on his business card) Boyd Johnson told me there were only five of his 32" wheelsets in existence. The company took their current CCC aluminium gravel rim and built it up to a 32" spec, anodising them in all kinds of eye-catching colours. Expect full production in 2027.

SUBSTANTIAL AND SUSTAINABLE AT VITTORIA

At the Vittoria booth, one of those rare Boyd 32" wheels was on display, wrapped in a very special concept tyre: the Peyote 2.4", the first sustainable MTB tyre ever made.

If this looks familiar, that’s because it’s a scaled-up version of the Terreno Pro gravel tyre. They’re created the same way, using recycled nylon sourced from commercial fishing nets. This compound is then blended with natural rubber and combined with soybean oil, and silica derived from rice husks. Sustainable and a pretty striking looking fashion statement to boot. Production is TBD.

Looks aside, the performance hype for 32” is real. In an independent test, comparing the performance between a 29" and 32" tyre, using the same construction and same compounds, the larger wheel showed a five watt difference. Expand that over several hours and that’s some real savings.

However, Vittoria's engineers were quick with a caveat: not all 32" tyres will be faster than 29". The benefit is construction and compound dependent too. Hype is not a substitute for engineering.

Price: TBD

MORE DURABLE. MORE SPEED AT TERAVAIL

Perhaps a little closer to production than other brands was Teravail. Their well-known Cannonball gravel tyre has been beefed up for a 32" wheel. Now in a 2.2" width with some genuine improvement including an upgraded casing, stronger nylon that's simultaneously more durable and more supple, and a higher rebound rubber for lower rolling resistance. Expect to find these tyres at your local bike shop later this summer.

Price: $95

THE BIKES: 32" IN FINE FRAME FORM

Tyres and wheels are one thing. What about a frame to fit it all?

Stinner Refugio 32 — Titanium for the Tall

Much like an amusement park ride, you must be 5’9 or taller to ride this bike. Running in sizes medium to extra-large, the Refugio 32 is the larger cousin to their current Refugio Standard gravel line. And this will be the first bike to launch with Stinner’s new components. Timing is TBD, but in my conversations it sounded like if the interest was there, production could move quicker.

Price: Frame and fork from $2,895

BTCHN' Bikes Bandito — Smooth is Fast

I’m a sucker for anything anodised, so walking by the Shimano booth (where this bike was on display) the BTCHN' Bandito caught my attention right away. Hand-built out of Chico, California, the Bandito is a 32” gravel bike designed around the wheels, not a pumped up version of a 700c ride. The geometry reflects that. With a 120mm bottom bracket drop, it’s a bike built with stability in mind.

And while the story here is about performance, this bike just oozes style. From the punk rock head badge to the Paul Components stem and even anodizing on the handlebars, it's giving way-too-cool vibes. And that’s not a bad thing.

While no specific date was given, looks like production will be set for later this spring with two build options planned, including an upgraded titanium handlebar and carbon wheelset.

Price: TBD

Salsa Fargo — 32" Bike For Everyone

Just when I was about to write off 32" as a format exclusively for tall people, I found the Salsa Fargo. Not only was this a 32" bike I could actually ride, but it was designed by a woman. Her philosophy is simple: if Salsa builds a bike, it gets built in every size. Small to extra-large, no exceptions.

They paired the frame with a set of 32” BERD wheels (the name comes from Bike Nerd, which tells you everything you need to know about their philosophy). Featuring what looks like spokes made of string (they’re actually made from Dyneema) which according to BERD is also known as “an ultra high molecular weight polyethylene.” The result is an incredibly strong wheel.

Watch for framesets (steel and titanium) available for purchase later this summer and complete bikes available later in the year.

Price: TBD

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM: WHO IS IT ACTUALLY FOR?

While the benefits are clear, the geometry simply doesn't work at smaller frame sizes without some significant engineering resulting in a good chunk of the cycling population locked out before the format has even properly launched. This doesn’t make it a bad thing, but in an industry that’s already facing headwinds, it does beg the question, is the juice worth the squeeze? We’ll have to wait and see.

WHERE THE BIG BRANDS STAND

The most telling detail from my four days at Sea Otter were the conversations that didn't happen. While the smaller brands were quick to move, many of the larger players had little to say, or share. Don’t take that silence as inaction. I imagine there’s some big announcements and launches to come, but right now, we’ll let the giants sleep.

What I did find on display at Sea Otter was more a reflection of the companies that are nimble and could make quick moves. Versus some of the bigger ships that take a little more time and effort to change course. Big news is coming — from whom and when is hard to say. Either way, the coming months will definitely be worth watching.

THE FINAL VERDICT

32" wheels aren’t coming, they’re here. The tyre development is genuinely underway, and the rider appetite is there (maybe not for everyone, but certainly for some).

What’s still up in the air is the timing, the accessibility, and whether the format can work across a full spectrum of rider sizes, not just the tall end of the size chart.

The Sea Otter Classic is North America's largest cycling event, with estimates of over 80,000 visitors descending on the show this year. It's also the marquee event for brands to showcase their latest wares. With a media pass in one hand and a coffee in the other, here's some of the tech that caught my eye.

IF APPLE MADE AN E-BIKE, IT WOULD BE THE ALSO TM-B

Living in San Francisco, tech influences are everywhere. And at this year's Sea Otter, they finally rolled up on two wheels in the form of the ALSO TM-B. Thankfully, it’s not vaporware.

With genuinely helpful touches, the ALSO features a modular system where you can swap out seat systems to create different bike configurations, from a solo commuter to a full, cargo bike setup. It’s a helpful idea, even if each set up does come with its own additional cost.

The drivetrain is just as unique. Instead of actually pedaling the bike, ALSO's “DreamRide system” removed the connection between the rider’s pedaling and the movement of the bike. Instead, the pedal action powers a generator that then replenishes the battery, which then powers software to drive a motor to move the wheels. If that sounds like a company trying to reinvent the wheel, you're not entirely wrong. However, the ride feel is similar to other e-bikes I’ve tried: responsive, smooth, with a real kick to boot.

The ALSO team claims their range tops out at 100 miles on the larger battery, with pedal-assisted speeds going up to 28 mph. Finally, you’ll find all the bells and whistles you'd expect to see on a high-end e-bike including a real-time GPS, integrated lighting, a 2.75-inch touchscreen display and more.

Price: From $3,500

START EM’ RIPPING YOUNG: THE PREVELO FOXTROT THREE 20”

It’s funny to be walking around the show marveling at—and mildly confused by—the 32” wheel revolution (more on that later) only to turn down an aisle and see this full-suspension beast, shrunk down into kid form.

I can confidently say this is the first ever full-suspension, children’s bike I’ve ever seen. Although, I’m also the first to admit I don’t review a lot of kids’ bikes. If they look this cool though, I just might start.

Built with a Manitou J-UNIT comp front fork with 120mm travel paired with a RST MONO DPU Trunnion rear suspension, delivering another 120mm of cushion, this is a bike that will give gravel confidence to even the smallest rider. I can’t speak to what kind of anxiety it might induce in the parent.

The rest of the spec is just as impressive with a Microshift Advent 9-speed drive train (11-38T), tubeless-ready tyres and Shimano Deore brakes. It really is a big bike in a little package.

The Foxtrot will be available in three sizes (20, 24 and 26 inches) with delivery later in 2026 or early 2027.

Price: TBD

THE MOST TECHNICAL SADDLE TOOL YOU’LL EVER SIT ON

The problem with finding the right saddle is just that — finding it. It's either trial and error, or if you're lucky, a local bike shop will have a gel pad for you to sit on and measure your sit bone width. Not precise. Not ideal.

Ergon is releasing a new digital sit bone measurement tool that precisely determines the width of your sit bones so you can pinpoint the right saddle for you.

They've also released a new women's saddle, the SRS LP Pro Carbon, featuring carbon rails, a carbon composite shell, and their reactive performance foam. It’s a material that offers a subtle give, helping to take the chatter out of any ride. Complete with a gender-specific cut-out, it's a saddle built for long rides and big adventures.

Look out for both coming to a retailer near you this summer.

Price: TBD

Building a Better Mousetrap, for Even More Pedals

I never pass up the opportunity for a quick noodle over to the local café, but putting on my cycling shoes for a two-mile ride always seems like a bridge too far. The folks at Redshift spotted this problem and developed a better mousetrap to solve it, aptly called the Mousetrap.

It's a clever design that lets you snap a flat platform over your SPD pedal, creating an increased surface area. So what used to feel like pedalling on a tiny pin head in your trainers, is now transformed into a proper flat pedal platform.

SPD-SL, Look, and Crank Brothers pedal adaptors will be launching later this autumn.

Price: $59.99 per set

Champagne Gravel Tastes on a Beer Budget: The Tavelo Grow

Chinese bikes are no longer the curiosity on a group ride, instead they’re becoming increasingly commonplace. And at $1,650 for a 830-gram frameset, you can certainly see why.

This is the Tavelo Grow and it might be the best deal you’ll find in a frameset, in a very long time. With room for 55mm tyres up front and 50mm in the rear, in-frame storage, a BSA threaded bottom bracket, and universal derailleur hanger dropouts that genuinely future-proof your groupset options, this frameset really does punch well above its weight.

This bike could easily be set up with some road wheels and look just as comfortable on the tarmac as an off-road escapade.

Price: $1,650 for frame and seatpost

Salsa Fargo: 32” Wheels Everyone Can Ride

It’s hard to ignore the buzz around 32-inch wheels at this year’s Sea Otter. Which for most brands translated into bikes that were designed for riders 5’9” and taller. As someone who’s 5’6” this was disappointing. Until I walked by the Salsa booth.

Their new Fargo steel and titanium frames were the first bike I found that featured a set of 32” wheels on a size small. I was so skeptical I even asked the rep if they could take the bike off the display so I could stand over it and see for myself. Sure enough, it fit.

With more contact patch, less rolling resistance, the opportunity to run even lower tyre pressures and the confidence to charge over just about anything in your path, the concept of larger wheels, and tyres, makes sense. The challenge is finding a frame that will fit them, and you.

Salsa brought their inclusive design philosophy to the table with the Fargo, offering sizing from small to x-large.

With framesets (steel and titanium) available for purchase later this summer and complete bikes available later in the year, now just about anyone can “go big” with the new 32” revolution.

Price: TBD

Some of the Coolest Tech Wasn’t Even at a Booth.

As I made my way around the show floor, I kept crossing paths with founders and entrepreneurs who had a prototype in their bag and a compelling idea they couldn't wait to share.

Tripp Hurt was one such pioneer, launching the first flax and fibreglass cycling shoe. All the stiffness and weight savings of carbon, with the added natural vibration-dampening properties that flax and fibreglass deliver.

The Stealth Mount is another clever innovation, hiding an AirTag in the cradle of a computer mount. And then there were plenty of apps. Suayves helps you track your hydration needs and Ride Call doesn't just give you weather for your ride, but will skip your morning group ride alarm if the forecast calls for rain.

While the big news from Sea Otter 2026 all pointed to the rise and seemingly industry-wide acceptance of 32-inch wheels, Swiss bike maker Open has once again torn up the script and ruffled feathers with its new gravel bike, the WI.DE 2.0. Originally launched in 2019, the WI.DE made headlines for its then-massive tyre clearance of 2.4 inches (61mm) - something that was considered overkill.

As the gravel cycling genre has developed, so has the technicality of trails and races on offer across the globe - something we've seen at The Traka in Spain and even Gravel Burn in South Africa, where demanding trails have seen riders get creative with their setups. Aside from front suspension, the most popular inclusion we see is the introduction of wider gravel tyres to improve grip, ride quality and comfort. For the most part, 50mm seems to have become the standard, but riders are pushing the envelope even further with 2.1 and even 2.25in tyres coming to the fore.

As early adopters, Open has always been a proponent of radical design, and the original WI.DE is a prime example. For generation two, Open decided to turn the tyre clearance screw even further, not only to expand its range but also to define a new category altogether. This wasn't easy. According to Open, "Fitting tyres this size into a compact, stiff and agile frame was a challenge. The result is marginally lighter than its predecessor and handles even more extreme terrain."

As a result, the Open WI.DE has been designed to traverse terrain others wouldn't deem rideable, thanks to the extreme, wide tyres. Instead of starting with the frame and then thinking about other areas, Open started with the tyres and looked at how the frame could work around wider rubber and accommodate bigger volume - going from 50 to 66mm nearly doubles the air volume inside the tyre.

As expected of the brand, Open had to rethink the norms of contemporary gravel bike design. This meant binning two-by compatibility and constructing the frame around one-by drivetrains, to free up space for tyre clearance in what Open calls a 'double chainstay drop' (the original Open UP had a single dropped chainstay). As such, the WI.DE 2.0 fits up to 700 x 66mm (29 x 2.6in).

Of course, there's also a host of mounting options throughout the frame. The WI.DE 2.0 has more cargo-carrying options than any Open model to date, including bosses on the fork, direct-mount frame-bag compatibility, and provision for two bikepacking bags inside the downtube, secured via a Fidlock bracket. There are also bosses under the BB, two on the toptube and near the seat tube. Interestingly, the WI.DE 2.0 combines both an aero and cargo fork dubbed the 'U-Turn AC/DC+' (Aero Cargo Double Combo). This lets users strap bags directly to the fork legs and use traditional cages and panniers.

The WI.DE also benefits from the 'Open B.A.R. system' - a fully integrated one-piece bar-stem that can be adjusted by 15mm in 5mm steps (there are ten different bar width options available at purchase). The frame comes standard with a UDH hanger, a T47-threaded BB, and internal routing.

The frame melds aero design details with functionality. The headtube is deeper than before, and the tubing is angular and aerodynamic throughout. A nice addition is the 27.2mm round seatpost, which not only allows for one of the best dropper seatposts but also makes it easy to upgrade to other aftermarket posts.

Looking at the geometry, Open has naturally tweaked some of the angles for even greater capability off-road and over technical terrain and features. The chainstays have increased from 420mm to 440mm across all sizes, and the wheelbase has grown by 41mm to 1,055mm on a size medium. The head and seat tube angles are basically unchanged, while the stack has increased slightly, resulting in a more upright riding position.

The Open WI.DE 2.0 will be available in raw, ready-to-paint, and painted framesets priced at $3,200/€3,200, $3,500/€3,500, and $4,000/€4,000, respectively, and two complete builds: SRAM Force AXS/Zipp XPLR at $8,000/€8,000 or SRAM Red AXS/Zipp XPLR at $10,200/€10,200.

At the tail end of winter 2014, I walked into a bike shop for a bike-fit. At 163cm tall, long in the leg and short in the torso, I had grown used to folding myself onto frames that felt not quite my size. When the fitter told me I needed a 53cm – a size rarely seen on shop floors – I ordered a Bianchi Dama Bianca, one of the era’s women-specific road bikes. Back then, “women-specific design” meant in-between sizes, shorter top tubes, taller head tubes, narrower handlebars, and wider saddles. The premise was clear: women’s bodies are different, so women’s bikes should be too.

A dozen years on, most brands have folded women’s ranges into “unisex” platforms, arguing that male and female rider proportions overlap too widely for gender to be a meaningful design guide. The industry now speaks of data sets, bell curves, and size resolution rather than female geometry. But does its tidy narrative mask a more complicated reality? Are women being underserved as women-specific models vanish while bike-makers consolidate production lines to protect their bottom line?

When I ordered that Bianchi in 2014, women-specific bikes were widely available. You could walk into almost any bike shop and spot frames with the “WSD” – women’s specific design – decal or a woman’s name scripted along the top tube: Specialized had the Ruby and Dolce models, while Trek offered the Lexa and Silque, and Cannondale the Synapse Women’s. Some of those bikes were carefully engineered, while others were little more than smaller frames in more feminine colourways. The most ambitious idea had arrived in 2008, with the launch of Liv, backed by Giant and positioned not as a sub-category but as a standalone brand. It offered bikes, kit, ambassadors, and race teams built around female riders. A bold declaration had been made: women were not simply a smaller segment of the same market.

Part of that contraction was philosophical, and part was commercial. Sales volumes for women-specific road bikes rarely matched their men’s equivalents, and maintaining parallel moulds, stock, and marketing streams carried significant cost. Every additional frame platform multiplies tooling, forecasting and inventory risk. Rationalising ranges into single platforms promised conceptual clarity and operational simplicity.

The most visible shift came in 2019, when Specialized announced it would go “Beyond Gender”, citing data from more than 8,000 Retül fits suggesting that body proportions “vary as much within a gender as between them”. The company concluded there was “likely more difference between two male cyclists than a male and female”, and retired the Ruby and Dolce in favour of single platforms offered across broader size ranges.

Specialized was not alone. Trek moved to gender-neutral sizing across its road range, arguing that its own fit data showed no meaningful correlation between gender and frame geometry. Cannondale had already begun sharing frames across men’s and women’s models, altering only contact points. Canyon, which had previously invested in WMN-specific platforms (including smaller 650b wheels on some models), gradually reabsorbed those lines into its main ranges as integration and standardisation took precedence.

Yet the industry never spoke with one voice. Liv and Giant continued to argue that global anthropometric data reveal meaningful average differences between women and men, including longer legs relative to torso length, narrower shoulders and, on average, lower system weight; and that these trends justify distinct geometry and component tuning.

Varying approaches

At Specialized, the move away from women-specific frames in 2019 was not positioned as a retreat, but as a correction. “The big myth was that all women have short torsos and long legs, and men do not,” says Todd Carver, head of human performance at Specialized. After analysing body-segment data and positional coordinates across tens of thousands of Retül sessions, he says the team found “two big overlapping bell curves”. There may be small average differences, but “the variability within a gender was huge. So we decided to design bike frames for the individual, not the gender.”

The data set behind that claim is substantial. In 2025, 16.7% of Retül fits were from women, with just under 28% of sessions coming from riders on 52cm frames and smaller. Jamie Stafford, Specialized’s director of industrial design, describes the shift as “human-centric and not gender-centric.” Small men and tall women routinely fall into the same size brackets, he notes, challenging the idea that geometry should track neatly along gender lines. “It’s not a gender problem,” Stafford says. “It’s an every-rider-and-the-size-of-your-body problem.”

Carver notes that while frames are now shared platforms, the company adjusted contact points in response to fit trends. “We made the decision to actually serve women better by putting wider saddles on our smaller bikes,” he says, noting that the difference in saddle preference between men and women is far greater than it is for frame geometry. Bikes under a 52cm now ship with 155mm saddles out of the box, a move intended to reduce costly swaps.

Cannondale, meanwhile, frames the debate less around gender data and more around the engineering process. Unlike Specialized, it does not draw from a centralised fit database. Instead, geometry decisions are informed through a combination of professional athlete feedback, rider and retailer insights, prototype testing, and internal engineering analysis, with women representing roughly 25% of its professional athlete fit data. The brand says it has not produced fully separate geometries for women in over a decade.

“What works for a rider on a 56cm frame doesn’t automatically work for someone on a 48 or a 62,” says Steve Smith, a Cannondale engineering manager. Rather than focusing on gender-based data sets, Cannondale frames the issue as one of proportional scaling. Each size is treated as its own engineering project, with lay-ups, tube proportions, and stiffness targets adjusted to suit the likely rider weight and load. What would it take to justify a women-specific platform? “[From] the data I’ve looked at, it’s not really a gender thing,” he says. “There are just smaller people, and there are bigger people.” On the latest SuperSix Evo, Cannondale added an additional size, offering a 50 and 52 instead of just 51. Crank lengths have dropped, and handlebar widths narrowed to as small as 340mm.

Trek did not respond to requests for comment, but its bikes surfaced repeatedly in conversations with independent fitters. Several noted that certain Trek race platforms tend to scale predictably through the smaller sizes, allowing shorter riders to find a sustainable position without extreme stem swaps or excessive spacer stacks. For Kate Corden of Hackney Bike Fit, the point was not brand loyalty but a geometry principle: what matters is whether stack, reach, and front-centre are scaled sensibly down the size range – and thereby “land in a workable place” for smaller riders.

Male-biased data

Large anthropometric databases, from NASA to military cohorts, have long shown that limb proportions do not just fall into gender categories. More recent cycling research complicates things further. A 2024 international consensus on bicycle set-up and kinematics concluded that even within sports science, the field has historically lacked consistent standards for measuring and reporting rider position. Before we argue about women’s geometry, in other words, we have not always agreed on how to measure a bike-fit in the first place.

Biomechanical modelling tells a similar story. Early optimisation studies relied too heavily on the “average 18–25-year-old male” body as their biomechanical baseline. As data sets broadened, the models shifted enough to underline a key point: population averages exist, but the overlap is wide. Flexibility, strength, injury history, and riding style often influence position as much as gender does.

Independent fitters describe an even more complicated reality from the workshop floor. Bearing in mind the caveat that most riders seeking a bike-fit are either in discomfort, chasing performance gains, or sitting at the edges of the size spectrum, fitters say they see recurring patterns – women more frequently presenting with longer legs relative to torso length, narrower shoulders and often greater flexibility.

Greater mobility often means a rider can tolerate a wider geometry ‘window’, further complicating the debate. Fitters report most commonly adjusting touchpoints for women, rather than other dimensions.

Julian Wall of Cycle Fit UK has noticed that women are more likely to accept discomfort as “normal”. Numb hands, aching backs, or saddle pain are often tolerated as “how cycling is supposed to feel.” In Wall’s experience, many women put up with discomfort for longer than they should. Sports medicine research supports this idea that female athletes, in some settings, are more likely to internalise or normalise discomfort before seeking intervention.

Another problem is manufacturers producing fewer bikes at the extremes of the size spectrum, and smaller frames are not always proportionally re-engineered. “The riders who struggle most are the super small and the super tall,” says Corden. “[Riders] under 165cm and over 190cm. They’re the ones who end up spending more time and money trying to make bikes work.” Wall argues that, commercially, simplification has narrowed choice: “We’ve got loads of amazing technology now, but fewer size options… From a fitting perspective, that makes it harder, not easier.”

Liv argues that the modern geometry debate cannot be separated from the question of representation. In many global fit databases, female riders still account for a minority of entries, raising the possibility that “general” geometry reflects a male-skewed norm. For Jen Audia, a marketing manager at Liv, the brand’s position stems from its founding in 2008 under Bonnie Tu, with the goal of building bikes “dedicated exclusively to women”. While Audia acknowledges that “there are more differences between one rider and the next rider than between gender,” she argues that small differences in reach, head tube length or top tube can still matter when applied across an entire size range.

For this reason, Liv uses dedicated frame moulds on models such as the Langma and Pique, which Audia refers to as a “significant financial investment”. For her, credibility depends on bikes being “exclusively designed from the ground up for women”, with the aim that a rider can roll a bike “out of the store without any adjustments”. More broadly, she sees the brand’s continued existence as evidence that women “deserve product and investment across all sports”.

Underserved outliers

In an online reader survey conducted for this feature, just over 80% of respondents said a new bike either “almost never” felt right out of the box or required changes. For many, that meant immediate swaps to stems, saddles, or handlebars; for others, it meant booking a professional fit simply to make a brand-new purchase rideable.

Among those who did make adjustments, saddle type or width (74%), stem length or angle (71%), and handlebar width or reach (61%) were the most common changes, with nearly a third also altering crank length. More than 60% of respondents had undergone an in-person professional bike fit, suggesting these views come from experienced riders rather than first-time buyers. As one reader put it, “I feel like the idea of a bike just fitting well out of the box is maybe a myth.”

Smaller sizes were repeatedly described as difficult to locate on the shop floor, with some riders advised to order unseen or “size up and adjust”. Taller riders at the opposite end of the range echoed similar frustrations. The survey also revealed a clear divide in perception. Nearly 40% reported feeling either overlooked by current sizing options or having to “make it work”. The recurring refrain was not that fit is impossible, but that it often requires extra cost, extra effort, or compromise.

Womens-specific bike sizes were not so much erased as absorbed. Separate moulds gave way to shared platforms; explicit “women’s geometry” was recast as improved scaling and broader size runs. The language shifted from gender to resolution. Economically, the logic is clear: fewer platforms, deeper runs, lower risk. Technically, it promises fairness through overlap.

But standardisation is not the same as neutrality, and designing around the statistical middle will always favour the statistical middle. The riders who feel the strain are those furthest from it, the ones for whom stock specifications and proportional scaling matter most.

The question, then, is less whether bikes should be gendered and more whether the industry is willing to engineer and invest beyond the centre of the curve. If “unisex” is to mean anything more than consolidation, it must result in fewer compromises on the shop floor, particularly for those who have spent years making do.

Does unisex clothing really suit everyone?

When Specialized closed Machines for Freedom in 2023, it marked the loss of a label built around extended sizing and explicit inclusivity. Its XXS–XXXL range and measurement-based sizing tool had offered a corrective to an apparel industry long shaped around a narrow sample size.

Some brands had anticipated this need earlier. Velocio, for example, launched in 2014 with a full women’s collection. It continues to maintain distinct fits and functionality rather than scaling from a single template. Elsewhere, brands are exploring unisex alternatives. Labels such as Van Rysel, Santini and Varlo have experimented with unisex ranges, aiming to create a “fit for everyone” through fabric stretch and pattern development. But these moves also simplify production.

Riders’ experiences suggest limits remain. On forums, complaints tend to be practical: bib straps pulling tight on taller riders, shorts extending beyond knees on shorter ones, and jerseys bunching because “sizes are all for tall people, varying only in width”. Avril Porter, a 6ft rider, told CW she has “spent all of [her] cycling life wearing men’s kit” to find adequate length.

This feature originally appeared in Cycling Weekly magazine on 5th March 2026. Subscribe now and never miss an issue.

Italian shoes hold a romantic space in the global fashion industry, and in cycling, they are a vital part of your kit, especially if you, like many, are captivated by cycling's obsession with aesthetics.

A great pair of racing cycling shoes needs to be lightweight, stiff, made from high-end materials, feature a low stack, be hardwearing, and, of course if they're Italian, they must be beautiful too.

Beyond looks, traditional Italian shoemakers are known for their exceptional quality, and Fizik takes this issue of national identity very seriously. To date, the brand has done a solid job of not undermining this reputation at all, offering a range of very stylish and well-made shoes pitched at the sharp end of the pro/premium market.

The range, like most cycling lines, has what can outwardly feel like a daunting array of names. Vento appears to be their race line. Tempo is for road and endurance riders, and Terra denotes their gravel range.

But then there’s Ferox as well, which you can see paired with Vento nomenclature occasionally. Ferox, like Terra, means MTB and gravel capability. As we already know, Vento means race, but whilst these shoes, don't feature Vento anywhere in the name, the racing intent is clear. If the names aren't.

Perhaps we’re so spoiled for choice, and names, because gravel racing is a product category that has seen serious growth in recent times, with continuing adaptations as the genre evolves.

The updated Ferox 2 Carbon shoes launching today from the Italian brand are an important part at the apex of the brand's gravel race offering.

Like the popular original Ferox, they are designed for fast gravel and XC MTB riding but now feature a more 'anatomical', presumably more foot-like, shape that Fizik says is better suited to modern bike geometry and riding positions. Developed after extensive testing with elite riders including Lachlan Morton.

If Morton did indeed put his foot in it, its to the wider footed rider's advantage, as It has reduced the heel drop and expanded the toe box compared to the first iteration, with the aim of providing the foot with more space to extend while also putting less stress on the ankles and calves during technical descents.

Italian shoes are often known for their miserly accommodation, so this will be a welcome development, opening the product up to a much wider market – no pun intended.

But the shape and fit aren’t all that’s new. While the distinctive Powerstrap closure system remains, it has been updated. According to Simone Orlando, a Product Specialist at Fizik, it’s “thinner and lighter than before” with greater flexibility and adjustment that “spreads pressure across a wider area.”

There’s also a new angled loop where the straps attach to the outside of the foot. Orlando says this “allows Powerstrap to lock into the footbed and outsole for increased power.” The Velcro Powerstrap is paired with a Boa Li2 dial.

The upper has also had a significant facelift. Gone is the perforated fabric, replaced with a water-repellant PU-laminated material that’s said to be lighter yet more durable, with a lightweight mesh added for breathability.

A shoe designed for racing is only as good as its sole, and the Ferox 2 Carbon has had an update here as well. As the shoe’s name suggests, it’s a full carbon outsole that rates 10 on Fizik’s stiffness index. While these numbers are somewhat arbitrary, a 10 suggests that it should be plenty stiff, with the brand saying it’s been created to “prioritise foot stability and support for more efficient power transfer.” To assist with this, the carbon plate is wider and lower than the previous model to create more contact with the pedal. It’s paired with a rubber-coated outsole with stud fitments to aid traction.

The claimed weight is 295g, which makes it a tad lighter than the previous model, while the size range is 36–48 (37 to 47 also in half sizes).

Prices are $329.99 / £319.99.

When you think about integrated bike companies, you usually think about the big manufacturers behind some of the best road bikes, not boutique brands coming out of Bentonville, Arkansas, but that’s exactly what Allied Cycle Works is. They make some really interesting bikes, and stubbornly produce all of their frames in-house, in the US.

They also don’t care for convention, often framing their work around the idea of balancing performance with adaptability, rather than chasing purity in one direction or another.

The new Echo sits in that space. On paper, it’s a carbon road bike with clearance for tyres up to 45mm. Overlapping road and gravel. But Allied is not presenting it as a compromised proposition. The geometry is road-led, with a focus on stability and control: it isn't even labelled as an endurance bike.

The frame is built around a fully integrated cockpit using Allied’s new HB10 handlebar and ST03 stem, and routing is internal throughout for wireless electronic shifting only. SRAM Red and Force builds are available, with both 1x and 2x drivetrains supported via a removable hanger and UDH compatibility out back.

The intent, according to Allied, is to treat the bike as a single system, rather than waiting for parts to be bolted on. That’s a pretty familiar approach these days, but the brand has been moving toward it for several years, developing and manufacturing more of its own parts in the US.

As gravel and road racing and riding continue to merge, bike handling and riding positions on and off road get ever closer. It's therefore likely that riders will look for bikes that can do both. Hold speed in a fast group ride, handle rougher back roads and tracks as well as everything in between.

The Echo is Allied’s answer to that shift, shaped by the thinking that delivered their success in gravel. In a world where the mainstream industry insists on creating niche after niche and selling us new kit to use in ever narrower conditions, this is a breath of fresh air.

Can a gravel bike really be a true all-rounder? Can it meet the demands of both the racer and the bikepacker and still be fun for those who just like to ride the trails with some road thrown in for fun? Look are banking on it, with the release of the carbon G85 Cezal.

The French marque described the bike as “fast and versatile…bridging the gap between amateur racing and long-distance adventure”. If your geography is good, you’ll know that the Cézallier region in France is home to an unspoiled and rugged landscape. Naming a gravel bike after such a region suggests versatility, and Look references both country roads and technical singletrack in its marketing efforts, before designating the G85 Cezal as a bike “built for any journey”.

Broad strokes, indeed. So how have Look sought to achieve a ‘do-it-all’ nature without compromising the bike’s performance at either end of the scale?

Not all Waffle

There’s already some proof that it’s managed this balancing act, with Russell Finsterwald and his G85 Cezal winning the respected US Belgian Waffle Race earlier this year.

“It checks all the boxes of a modern gravel bike: generous tire clearance, geo-corrected to accommodate a suspension fork and a racy platform,” says the US privateer. “What stood out most to me is the balance of handling and comfort. LOOK has managed to keep the bike lively while significantly improving stability, thanks in part to the slacker head angle.”

The tyre clearance that Finsterwald references supports tyres as wide as 50mm in the rear and 57mm up front. It means the Cezal is equipped to handle the deepening trend for voluminous rubber at many of gravel racing’s premier events, while also being a tick in the box for many bikepackers.

Versatility

Versatility is a reocurring theme across the bike. As you move through the details Look’s desire to create a genuine all-rounder seems less marketing hyperbole and more thoughtful design.

The geometry sees the aforementioned slacker front end - 70° head tube angle with a 50mm trail - matched to a shorter wheelbase and chainstays. Both the stack and reach can accommodate a range of cockpit options, allowing for a more aggressive racing position or something more comfortable for everyday riding and adventures, while the 74° seat tube angle aims to centre the rider for improved pedaling efficiency.

“With the G85 Cezal, we wanted to move away from the white lines and marginal gains, returning to why we ride in the first place: expression,” says Romain Simon, Bike Product Manager, LOOK Cycle. “We’ve taken the carbon expertise that has dominated the road and given it a rebellious, playful soul.” Those geometry numbers suggest this should be the case.

Flexible setup

The frame also seeks versatility through practicality. It can accept 1x and 2x wireless groupsets and well as 1x mechanical transmissions and accommodate suspension forks with up to 60mm of travel; while the bike comes with a carbon fork as standard, the option for those tackling the most challenging terrain to add some front end suspension should have plenty of appeal. There’s also a downtube storage unit complete with its own internal pouch.

As mentioned the Cezal is designed to work with different bar and stem setups depending on the usage. While the three build options all come with a combination of Look’s LS3 stem and Deda Superzero Gravel bars, there is an option to upgrade to the brand’s Aero Carbon Stem and Bars, turning the bike into a race-ready option.

As for those complete builds, Look are offering the Cezal with a 13-speed SRAM Force AXS XPLR groupset as well as both a Shimano GRX Di2 2x option and GRX 1x mechanical set up. The latter is priced at £3,499 / $4,300, while the range topping Force bike will set you back £6,190 / $7,500. You can also just buy the frameset for £2,300 / $2,750.

Panaracer's Gravelking line has been a benchmark in the gravel world ever since the original tyre launched back in 2014. As we’ve highlighted in our buyer's guides since the day dot – where the Gravelking is arguably a permanent fixture – the Japanese brand put itself firmly ahead of the gravel curve and has maintained a pretty commanding position since.

Tubeless compatible, varied tread patterns, and large-volume casings, the original was a revelation in a new niche that was still struggling to adapt road, cyclocross, and mountain bike parts. Our own extensive testing over the years has always confirmed the Gravelking's reputation as one of the most reliable and go-to options on the market.

Fast forward a decade, and gravel is everywhere. The parts lists are now as specific and long as the flint roads in Michigan that were elemental to the discipline's growth. Panaracer, having arguably kicked the whole thing off, in specialist rubber terms at least, continues to expand its Gravelking line-up, and the new ZX tyre is the latest evolution, showing the brand's commitment to continuous improvement.

Our experience with previous models, from the slicker SS to the all-conditions SK, has shown that the range delivers decent durability and awesome performance. This new release, the 700c ZX, is designed for the modern gravel racer: "riders chasing speed across mixed-surface gravel routes." The goal is clear: to deliver "low rolling resistance alongside the grip and durability required when conditions become more demanding," which is precisely the balance we've often praised.

The ZX is arguably a tyre for our mixed surface, go anywhere, times. It’s a semi-slick tyre that employs what Panaracer describes as a ‘three-zone’ tread pattern. It features a smooth centre for speed, paired with a transitional tread on the inner edge and aggressive side lugs on the outer edge. It’s designed to fast in a gravel race.

Engineered to maintain momentum on hardpacked surfaces and tarmac, while ensuring the cornering control and additional traction needed for loose gravel and technical terrain. Given how well their other semi-slick designs have performed in our reviews, we expect this new will be no less capable, not just for gravel racing but also for all-road use, especially with the 35mm model arriving in September. We’d expect to see a few of these creeping on to your road bikes too, for those that increasingly have the room.

Initial availability sees the ZX offered in wide 45mm and 50mm widths, with 40mm and 55mm variants coming in July. The dominance of these larger sizes confirms the 'big tyre' trend we've been tracking, as riders look to add width for stability and grip on increasingly aggressive routes and races.

Panaracer is positioning the ZX as a match for the toughest events, name-checking Unbound, Mid South Gravel, Dearth Reiver, Gralloch, and the UCI Gravel World Series events, which the brand sponsors. It’s had plenty of success at all of those events, and it’s a common sight in the paddocks, and on the podium.

Crucially, all widths feature Panaracer’s new proprietary ZSG Gravel compound. This single compound formulation is said to aid consistency and durability – key factors we obviously always look for in a top-tier tyre – and here it is combined with what Panaracer calls, TuffTex and BeadLock technologies. These features aim to simplify tubeless installation, add stability at lower pressures, and offer robust protection against punctures from sharp gravel, so it really should continue to tick a lot of boxes in this latest guise.

For those intrigued by the increase in tyre volume evident in the WorldTour at Paris-Roubaix this weekend, where plenty of riders stepped out in 35mm boots, you'll have to wait for September to try this new tread pattern out on your road and all-road bike.

The full line up will be offered with both black and brown sidewalls.

700 x 45C & 50C - Available March 2026

ZX+ / ZX R spec (700 x 45C & 50C) - Available May 2026

700 x 40C & 55C - Available July 2026

ZX+ / ZX R spec (700 x 40C & 55C) - Available July–Aug 2026.

700×35C - Available September 2026

ZX+ / ZX R spec (700×35C) - Available October 2026

Pricing for the ZX range starts at $64.99 / UK £54.99 per tyre.

When Continental launched the Dubnital, our writer Logan had high praise for its performance as an XC mountain bike tyre, noting its balance of fast-rolling speed and surprising grip in his review. As Logan put it, it felt like a worthy successor to the legendary Race King for aggressive, speed-focused riding. Now, with the launch of the new 50mm version, the Dubnital is poised to become the ultimate tyre for the rowdiest end of the gravel racing scene—a trend that has seen riders increasingly adopt wide, fast XC treads for better control and stability.

The 55mm Dubnital has already been a favourite among those who could squeeze it into their gravel frames, valued for its ability to maintain speed over technical and aggressive terrain. The new 50mm size, however, unlocks its potential for a much wider range of modern gravel bikes.

This is a point not lost on Continental rider and Unbound 200 winner, Rosa Klöser. “For me, the Dubnital 50mm is one of the most anticipated tyres in gravel right now,” says the German pro. “Considering the clearance of most gravel bikes, adding a 50mm Dubnital will make a lot of gravel fans very happy - including myself. The tyre inspires a huge amount of confidence, especially in corners where you can really maximize your speed thanks to its incredible grip and braking control.”

Klöser highlights the tyre’s versatility, describing it as a "reliable all-rounder for riders who want extra comfort, grip, and durability without sacrificing speed." This suggests the 50mm Dubnital isn't just for elite racers but for any gravel enthusiast seeking a robust, high-performance option.

The 50mm Dubnital retains the proven tread pattern that blends a smooth, fast-rolling central section with aggressive shoulder knobs. This design ensures straight-line speed while providing the necessary traction and stability when braking and cornering on unpredictable dry and damp surfaces—a characteristic Logan loved in the wider version.

Like its stablemates, it’s tubeless-ready and hookless compatible. Riders can choose from two casing options: the Race version prioritising outright speed, and the Trail option focusing on enhanced durability.

Ultimately, the 50mm width gives gravel riders all the lauded benefits of the wider Dubnital—including the low rolling resistance, high puncture protection, and low weight—in a size compatible with the latest generation of performance gravel bikes.

“In this 50mm dimension, it hits a distinct sweet spot for technically demanding off‑road races such as Traka, The Rift, or Badlands,” says Alexander Haenke, MTB and Gravel Product Manager at Continental. “The Dubnital 50mm delivers its well‑proven off‑road performance paired with low rolling resistance, high puncture protection, and low weight — a trend born in the racing scene, now available to everyone.”

The Continental Dubnital 50mm is available now and is priced at 74.95€ / £66.99 / $86.95 per tyre.

POC make some of the smartest gear and safety tech around, helping to establish MIPS as far back as 2009, but it wasn't plain sailing. They fell out with the creators of MIPS over a similar system, SPIN, but later settled the dispute and teamed up. The rest, as they say, is Swedish safety-tech history.

Their next chapter is also about finding a middle ground – for you this time.

With more people demanding more flexibility from their kit, wanting equipment that works whichever bike or ride you choose to go on, the demand for 'good all-rounder' equipment seems to be booming, and the POC Amidal is its offer to people who want one helmet to rule them all.

POC already make very good specialist lids with enhanced aerodynamics or superior ventilation, this one is more of a compromise agreement, in a good way.

POC says it "enhances the rhythm and pulse of early urban mornings, hectic city crits or long, winding rural roads." That's marketing speak for designed to cover all bases.

Naturally, Amidal comes with the safety features you'd expect from one of the most trusted brands in helmet tech. In addition to the usual suspects, namely an EPS liner and Mips Air Node to mitigate the effects of rotational impacts, the Amidal also boasts a neat bespoke Knog rear light, attached via a dedicated mount.

As for the light itself, it offers 30 lumens and four modes, including an eco mode that claims to deliver a full 24 hours of riding on a single charge. The waterproof light is charged via a USB-A port. It's an aftermarket purchase that retails for $45 / £40. The one I received is bright neon orange, and it adds a really cool pop of colour to the helmet.

The helmet aims to address both aerodynamic and ventilation concerns. As with any high-end helmet you'd take on gravel or road, they say they've not skimped on aero testing. Ventilation and aero have both been properly considered, as they would be in a specialist helmet, and validated through CFD testing. The front vents are designed to capture air and direct it through the helmet via internal channels that are as effective on long, hot climbs as at race pace.

The large rear exhaust ports complete the design. In terms of aerodynamic performance, its streamlined shape aligns with other aero lids in POC's lineup, such as the Cytal.

Elsewhere, you get POC's 360-degree fit system, which aims to evenly distribute pressure to avoid troublesome hotspots that can adversely affect comfort, especially on longer rides. A more personalised fit is achievable thanks to the chin straps, which can be adjusted up, down, fore and aft. With POC being a serious player in the sunglasses game - we rated its Propel model highly - it's no surprise to see a dedicated ‘eye garage’ for your chosen specs.

Claimed weights for the Amidal in medium size are 310g for the EU version and 350g for the North American standard. While it’s certainly not light compared to many race-ready helmets, we’d suggest it’s competitive among multi-purpose models. Similarly, the price tag - $270 / £220 - places it in the middle ground, although adding the Knog rear light moves it into a pricier bracket and adds a claimed 17g to the scales.

The POC Amidal is already on my desk, and whilst I've yet to test it in anger, unboxing it has made it clear it's every bit the high-end helmet, despite the all-rounder tag.

Whereas some helmets scream aero, this one is a little, well, harder to pin down. It just looks like a really nice helmet you could wear for, well, anything. Less a compromise, more agreeable perhaps. There's no dispute here that it's a cool looking lid.

I'll report in full in a couple of weeks and let you know how it stacks up against the competition.

Paris-Roubaix could have been Mathieu van der Poel's race once again this year. The Dutchman looked to be flying and was riding comfortably at the front of the race over the early sectors of cobbles. Then disaster struck as he flatted towards the beginning of the Trouée d’Arenberg, one of the roughest and most infamous cobbled sectors of the race.

With no team car behind and the peloton spread out down the sector the three-time winner was stranded at the side of the road. Then Jasper Philipsen pulled over and handed his bike to Van der Poel. The Dutchman jumped on and tried to pedal. Clearly in too big a gear, he struggled to get going over the rough surface with too much pressure on the chain to change gear.

But his troubles continued as it became clear he couldn't clip his shoes into the pedals. On a flat section of road a rider could push on the pedals without too much force even if they're not clipped in (as long as they didn't get out of the saddle), but bouncing about on the cobbles Van der Poel's feet were slipping off the pedal surface.

Alpecin-Premier Tech is a Shimano sponsored team, meaning all their riders will be riding Shimano Dura Ace pedals, one of the best road bike pedals on the market. So why couldn't Van der Poel - an eight time cyclo-cross world champion used to jumping on and off bikes - clip in?

It turns out Philipsen was using a new set of prototype Dura-Ace pedals, which also use slightly different cleats. As soon as Van der Poel realised this he climbed off, walked back to Philipsen and gave his bike back so the sprinter could continue. Van der Poel then calmly waked back to where he'd left his Canyon bike as the race went up the road.

When he got back to his bike, another teammate, Tibor del Grosso, was swapping his front wheel out so Van der Poel could continue. He did, but then incredibly punctured again just before the end of the Arenberg sector. By the time he got a new bike from his team car he was almost two minutes down and it looked like his race was over.

"I knew [about the pedals]. It was never the plan that I take Jasper's bike of course," Van der Poel said post-race. "But I think he didn't feel good himself so he gave me the bike. I tried to just get out of the Arenberg, and it was impossible. I took my own bike back because Tibor gave me a wheel. But then I flatted again, and I knew my race was over."

In hindsight it seemed like an odd decision for a rider like Philipsen to test protoypte equipment in one of the biggest races of the year, and the one that is the biggest test on equipment. It turns out two other riders on the team were also using the prototype pedal.

A team mechanic told Cyclingnews.com that they had been using the pedals for a while, and had riders swap bikes in other races with no issues. "But Arenberg is not the same as Kuurne." The mechanic said.

Team boss Christophe Roodhoft later said. "They fit, but it's not the same as normal. But it's done now. I can't undo it. I should have thought of it, but I never imagined it would all come together in such a crucial way.

"Right now, I think it was very stupid of me. That sounds harsh. But I don't understand how I didn't think of it. It's more unlikely than winning the lottery, all of it falling together like that."

Whether or not the decision cost the team and van der Poel their fourth consecutive victory in Roubaix will never be known. The Dutchman got back to within 20 seconds of the lead at one point, but couldn't close that final gap. He eventually sprinted to fourth place.

Shimano's SPD-SL pedals are common throughout the peloton and have gone largely unchanged for the last 20 years, but in 2025 the Japanese company released an updated set of it's popular off-road SPD pedals - also with updated cleats - to give better clearance. While the new road pedals will have to be listed with the UCI as Non-Commercial Equipment while they are being tested, no details have been released as yet.