Choosing a bike for a young child presents one fundamental dilemma. Given the rider in question will probably outgrow their new steed in a year or so, how much investment should you make in something with a shelf life of a year or two?

The problem is, these are formative years for budding young cyclists, and subjecting them to a heavy, clunky piece of kit may put them off riding for years. Investing in a bike they’ll love may well be worthwhile, but not everyone can afford to do that every other birthday. So what’s the answer?

Prevelo is a ten-year-old California-based brand that specialises in kids' bikes, and has built its reputation on getting the details on these just right. Their Alpha Two is its 16-inch all-rounder capable of tackling forest trails just as well as the school run.

With an optional balance bike conversion kit, and one of the largest saddle-height ranges around, Prevelo have clearly recognised the need to build something kids will get maximum use out of over time. It’s not cheap, but having gone to great lengths to make this a bike that can cope with a growth spurt, Prevelo ensure you get more bang for your buck.

We tested the Alpha Two MkIII, and my five-year-old son has certainly been getting great value out of it. When we’re not negotiating the school run on the gnarly streets of East London, we’re out on the trails in Epping Forest. Although getting detailed feedback from him hasn’t been easy, I’ll do my best to explain why the Alpha Two has become a family favourite.

Design and aesthetics 

The Alpha Two has plenty of thoughtful design touches, the most notable of which is probably the frame. Prevelo calls the design THRU-TUBE, and the practical upshot is a low-slung top tube that allows a minimum saddle height of just 430mm / 7 in, with the saddle able to travel all the way up to 640mm / 25.2in as your child grows.

This is about the lowest minimum saddle height you’ll find amongst 16-inch bikes, and the range gives you an extra 60mm / 2.3in compared to many of the Alpha Two’s peers, which means you’ll get more years use out of the bike.

The frame itself is triple-butted 6061 aluminium with internally routed cables and adjustable forged dropouts, which let you set chain tension yourself without fuss. A chainguard keeps trouser legs away from the drivetrain, and there are mounting points on the top tube for Prevelo's Rider Supply Pod (£29), essentially a small bag for snacks and the sort of roadside treasure (sticks, stones, creepy crawlies) that small riders insist on bringing home.

The top tube is 400mm / 15.7in and the wheelbase is 730mm, / 28.7in, both measurements are about as long as you get on a 16-inch bike, and the overall geometry lends itself to a slightly more aggressive riding position. That said, the longer wheelbase increases overall stability.

Up front, the handlebar and stem are a single piece, with recessed bolts and a rounded profile that means the rider is much less likely to catch a flailing knee on something ouchie. The bar is 460mm wide with 19mm grips specifically sized for small hands rather than shrunk down from something bigger.

There are three colours to choose from: Speed Silver, Braap Blue and Party Pink. The overall aesthetic, especially when it came to the Speed Silver we tested, feels distinctly grown up. There aren’t any cute additions to the design and the components mostly look like the ones on mummy or daddy’s bike, a detail that went down well with our tester.

Components and build

Just like the design, the spec on the Prevelo is both high-quality and well considered. The Alpha Two is single speed, with an 18-tooth chainring and a 10-tooth freewheel. That’s a pretty low gear compared to something like the Frog 44, which opts for 32-tooth chainring and 18-tooth cassette, so it’s clearly built to allow your young rider to cope with the odd climb.

The cranks are short and narrow, which makes for a more comfortable ride for little legs, and means less chance of pedals clipping the ground. The drivetrain also comes with adjustable rear dropouts, this means you can tension the chain if required.

For the descents, children get two Tektro V-brakes with levers sized for small hands. While V-brakes are common in this price bracket now, they still present a significant upgrade on the calliper system you find on lower-budget builds.

To help them hug the turns, the Alpha Two comes with a set of Kenda Small Block Eight 16 x 1.5in tyres, but the bike gives you clearance for up to 2.2in rubber if you decide you want something more trail-specific. Both brakes and tyres are good quality but similar spec to other high-end 16-inch options such as the Frog or the Hornit Hero.

Where things are slightly different is the one-piece bar and stem. Most of the similar kids bikes now opt for separate units, akin to the setup you’d find on an adult bike. Prevelo have opted to reduce the weight and amount of sharp edges by integrating the two. There’s a decent amount of rise on the bars, going someway to offset the longer top tube and reach.

The saddle is Prevelo's alloy-reinforced Frame Hugger which, like so much of the Alpha Two, looks and feels like a mature piece of kit. It’s not overly cushioned but didn’t generate any complaints.

There are sealed cartridge bearings in the hubs, bottom bracket and headset, and the rims have shaved sidewalls to save a few grams.

New for the MkIII is Balance-Tec, Prevelo's system for converting the bike between pedal and balance modes. You'll need to buy the conversion kit separately, but it could be a useful way to ease a nervous four-year-old into pedalling, or to get a bit more life out of the bike if your child is still finding their feet.

Prevelo quotes a weight of 5.5kg / 12.1lb without pedals. I weighed our test bike at 5.8kg / 12.8lb with pedals fitted.

Performance

In terms of performance, our Alpha Two has stood up to an almighty thrashing. My resident test rider was trading in his well-worn Islabike Cnoc 16-inch, and he immediately considered it a massive upgrade. The fact that the Cnoc has been handed down by two big cousins probably plays a part in that, as the spec and weight of the two bikes aren’t a world apart.

My son has just turned five, so sits in the middle of the recommended age range and the bike was a perfect fit for him. While the bike’s saddle can drop to 430mm and the low top tube will give smaller cyclists a bit more confidence, the 400mm top tube might leave shorter arms stretching for the bars a bit.

On first impressions, the Alpha Two was a huge hit and you can see why. The low-slung top tube and the downhill MTB-style bars give the whole thing a bit of dirtbike energy, but the medium tread tyres and light weight make sure it’s not crawling along on the asphalt either.

Getting it out of the box, you immediately notice the weight, or lack of it. While 5.5kg doesn’t break any records, as there are some similarly light alternatives now, it’s much easier on the arms than some of the budget beginner bikes out there.

If you’re entering the kids-bike market for the first time, the weight is worth a second mention. No matter how much your young cycling enthusiast falls in love with this bike, there will be occasions when you have to lug the thing home, possibly while also carrying the aforementioned enthusiast, and god knows what else.

From the outset, it was clear Prevelo put a lot of thought into its bikes. The design and spec have so many thoughtful touches, but seeing them in action helped separate the genuinely game-changing from the not-so-useful sales patter.

The one-piece bar and stem unit definitely reduces the chance of chunks being taken out of little knees. Pair this with the shorter cranks and longer top tube, and the ride feels immediately less precarious.

Having taken the Alpha Two on some quite hilly, lumpy terrain, it was noticeable how little we stopped compared to previous rides. The 18-tooth chainring meant my son was able to climb hills he’d previously given up on, while the compact crankset meant he was more confident getting over ruts and roots.

On the descents, the longer wheelbase meant our test rider was much more confident flying into and out of corners. While this isn’t all-out downhill bike, it was noticeably more comfortable on the trails than his old Islabike.

While the brakes aren’t pushing the boundaries in terms of performance at this price point, they work well. If you’re used to cantilever models you’ll definitely notice the difference. The Kenda tyres are also pretty common on 16-inch bikes, but we liked the level of tread given that 90 per cent of our miles are on the road.

The chain cover causes a bit of a rattle, especially on bumpier terrain, but this was reduced when we tensioned the chain.

The high-sounding Rider Supply Pod aka top tube bag (available as an extra) was also a massive hit with our test rider. Although slightly fiddly to attach and a bit cumbersome, giving your young cyclist the ability to take control of their own snacks whilst out on a ride is likely to be met with plenty of enthusiasm.

We’ve been using the Alpha Two on the school run, at the local skate park and on the trails. And for us, that was one of the standout plus points; the bike felt at home at all three. It doesn’t feel like Prevelo has compromised too much to create a bike that is a genuine all-rounder.

The low gearing is a simple decision that makes complete sense. There were a few instances where my son was left wanting a bigger ring when on the flat, but to be honest, he doesn’t need any help going full on the way home from school. What was way more important was that he rarely had to get off on the climbs, which meant for much more enjoyable family outings.

Value

When kids' bikes first entered my sphere of consciousness, there were only really two credible brands out there: Islabikes and Frog. Everything else seemed to weigh a ton.

Of those two brands, Islabikes ceased large-scale production of their kids' bikes back in 2023 (the brand still produces spares and occasional small batches of bikes), while Frog almost went out of business earlier this year, before being acquired by Mike Ashley of Sports Direct and Evans Cycles. It’s clearly a tricky market to crack, but thankfully there are some decent options still out there.

At £385 (or $509 in the US), the Alpha Two is at the higher end of the price bracket. If you’re looking to save some cash, you’re almost certainly going to add some extra weight.

In terms of weight, the closest rivals sit in broadly the same price bracket. The Woom Original 3 is £425 and weighs 5.4kg. This might not look quite as trail-ready as the Alpha Two, but if you’re not planning on straying too far from the school run, then this ticks a lot of the same boxes.

The Hornit HERO 16 is a little cheaper at £359.90 and quotes the same 5.5kg as the Prevelo.

If you’re looking for something genuinely off-road, then the Early Rider Charger might be worth a look. At around £850, it’s a premium purchase, but for your money you get RST suspension forks and hydraulic disc brakes.

The Frog 44 is available for around £330, after a discount from its £390 list price, and weighs in at 6.4kg. It also comes in a far wider range of colours than the Prevelo's three.

Verdict

The Alpha Two is an exceptionally well-thought-out bike that will give hours of enjoyment to whoever is behind the bars. Prevelo has clearly sweated the small stuff, from the extra range in saddle height to the one-piece bar and stem and even the knee-friendly bolts, and the result is a bike that is light, low and easy for small riders to get along with.

Prevelo badges this as an “all-rounder” and you can’t fault the claim. We’ve been using it for every time of riding you can imagine a just-turned-five-year-old capable of, and it’s more than coped with every instance.

The low gearing means there should be far fewer grumbles if you encounter any climbs, and the scaled-down components ensure everything feels fitted rather than unwieldy. When it comes to the descents, the longer wheelbase will help add an extra level of stability on the corners, and at 5.5kg you won’t collapse under it should your rider decide they’re done for the day.

It’s not cheap, but if you have a younger sibling waiting in the wings, or you have some like-minded friends or family who might benefit from a genuinely market-leading piece of kit, then it’s a sound investment.

See more of the Alpha Two at Prevelo.com.

The e-bike helmet market is awash with great options, with styles and models to suit all tastes and budgets. Brands vying for your custom range from Silicon Valley startups, fresh from their latest crowdfunding campaign, to wily old manufacturers who might remember when wheels were made of wood.

This Abus offering comes from a brand firmly in the latter camp. Despite not having the helmet heritage of Lazer or Bell, Abus have had skin in the cycling game for some time. Having started making padlocks back in 1924, founder August Bremicker quickly added a bike lock to the Abus catalogue a few years later.

Fast forward nearly 100 years and Bremicker’s brand is synonymous with cycle safety, whether that be keeping your bike safe from potential thieves, or keeping your head safe from potential collisions.

The Pedelec 2.0 MIPS is a thoroughly modern helmet that cements Abus firmly in the e-bike era. Complete with NTA 8776 certification (meaning it’s been tested to provide collision protection at higher speeds), the Pedelec ticks all the essential boxes whilst adding some great nice-to-haves.

This is far from a budget option, and there are competitors that do a similar job for a lot less cash, but on the whole the Abus goes a decent way to justifying the price tag.

I’ve been using it on both my pedal-assisted school run and on my old-fashioned (no battery) slog into the office. While the Pedelec positions itself as a lid for the battery-powered among us, if you also own a regular bike and want a do-it-all option, it’s worth knowing how the thing performs when you’re relying on leg-power alone.

Design and aesthetics 

If you’ve been shopping around, you’ll have noticed that the majority of e-bike helmets have taken on quite an urban aesthetic. Often at the expense of ventilation (arguably less of a priority for the e-biker), many of the helmets on offer now feature a smoother dome without the contouring and airflow more commonly found on road or mountain bike lids.

The Pedelec 2.0 hasn’t fallen into that trap. The design here is much more akin to the traditional pedal bike helmets Abus has been designing since the '90s. OK, it’s not super streamlined, and due to the requirements of the NTA 8776 certification, the shell comes down lower behind the ears, but otherwise this has more of a road look than much of what’s on the market.

The overall design generally sways towards function over form. As well as getting decent vents rather than a street-style dome, you also get an in-built, fold-out rain cover. This anorak for your head (well, helmet) isn’t sexy, but it will keep the draft out of those vents when the weather turns.

As well as built-in rain protection, something else that might tick a box for you (it certainly does for me) is the lack of excess bulk. Compared to some of its peers, the Pedelec is definitely on the slimmer side. It also comes in well under 400g, which is lighter than many rivals.

When it comes to deciding on a colour, you’ve got three choices. None of them are going to win any awards for originality. Pictured and tested here, you have Signal Yellow (gloss). Alternative options are limited to Velvet Black or Silver Edition (both matte). Effectively, you’re choosing between lolly-pop-lady hi-vis, grey or black.

Components and build

The Pedelec 2.0 is built in the conventional way. Abus uses an in-mould process, in which the expanded polystyrene (EPS) liner is foamed directly into the polycarbonate outer shell. This bonds the two together, which is a big part of why in-mould helmets feel solid while staying reasonably light.

The headline safety credential is NTA 8776. This is a Dutch standard written specifically for e-bike helmets, and it's more demanding than the EN 1078 standard every bike helmet sold in the UK is required to meet. Helmets that pass it have been drop-tested at higher impact speeds and have to cover more of the head, which explains that extended section towards the rear of this Abus.

Additional MIPS technology adds a thin plastic slip layer between the padding and the EPS. The idea is that it allows the helmet to rotate slightly relative to your head in an angled impact, reducing the rotational forces passed to the brain. It's a technology many riders now consider essential, and its absence from the standard model is worth bearing in mind if you're choosing between the two.

Weighing in 372g in a medium size, the Abus is lighter than a lot of its e-bike-orientated contemporaries. Given the abundance of features and extra coverage, that’s not bad going.

Fit is handled by Abus' Zoom Spin dial-adjust, which tightens a half-ring headband. The cradle is height-adjustable, so it not only provides a customisable degree of comfort, but it also creates an opening at the back to accommodate ponytails.

The straps get some thoughtful touches too. The webbing has reflective thread woven in, the dividers lock in place with a clamp, and it all fastens together with a magnetic buckle.

The front of the helmet has five large inlets which allow for plenty of airflow. They’re bigger than what you’ll find on most e-bike commuter lids, and they come with some bug mesh to help mitigate the chance of wildlife getting sucked into your helmet.

Then there are the commuter extras. The rear light is unfortunately a massive let down, with a measly 10-lumen output. Abus describe it as “especially bright”, but I found it to be pretty feeble. The brand claims it runs for at least three and a half hours on steady and eight hours on flash. It charges from flat in around an hour but uses the old-style Micro-USB.

Also at the rear of the helmet is the Pedelec’s true USP: the rain cap. It's a fabric cover stored in its own compartment, which you pull out and stretch over the shell and attach at the front using two small pegs. It has reflective panels of its own, and it's designed so the rear light stays visible when it's deployed. When it's not needed, it tucks back into the helmet, ready for the next downpour.

If you want even more, the Pedelec 2.0 ACE variant adds a flip-down visor and removable ear warmers. Abus also offers a winter kit as an optional extra for the standard model, which looks like it could be a welcome addition given the ample venting.

Performance

A bike helmet can have all the bells and whistles you like, but if it’s uncomfortable, they’ll count for very little. The Pedelec 2.0 sat on the head very nicely, with a good amount of padding in all the right places. Too much padding ends up holding a lot of moisture on hot rides, so used sparingly and effectively is definitely my preference.

I’m usually sceptical of half-ring cradles, as I often find they are a recipe for pressure points and often leave a big red mark on the forehead, but this wasn’t the case with the Pedelec. The fit was good and it’s made all the better by being able to tweak the height of the dial adjuster at the rear. Some helmets opt for a limited range of settings here, but the Pedelec allows you to slide the dial up and down, giving you a good inch and a half of customisation. Good news for the ponytail’d out there, but also just a nice way to find your sweet spot.

The strap was easy to adjust, with the clamp fastener on the dividers allowing for optimum adjustment around the ears. The magnetic buckle was a great addition and a welcome upgrade to my regular pinch-and-clip model. I’m constantly having to remove my helmet with a combination of a child, a school bag and the weekly shop in one or more hands, so having a buckle that can be easily undone with one hand is a game changer. The Abus website states that they use a Fidlock buckle, mine came with what seemed to be an Abus own-brand version, but it worked just as well.

The light is unfortunately where the Pedelec comes a bit unstuck. While I would never rely solely on a rear helmet light when riding at night, they do add an extra dimension of visibility that can make the difference on the road. Having gone to the trouble of integrating one, it’s a shame that the Pedelec edition only omits 10 lumens. I’m pretty sure there is plankton that gives off a more eye-catching glow! The light has just two settings and charges using the old-style Micro-USB charging port.

Given that I was testing the Signal Yellow option, I felt as though the helmet was plenty visible enough without the light, so I didn’t let it sour my overall sentiment towards an otherwise decent bit of kit.

Where the Pedelec comes into its own is in its combination of extremely good ventilation and in-built rain cover. Having recently tested helmets such as the Lazer Verde, I appreciate that it’s difficult for manufacturers to find the line between letting air in and keeping water out. The Verde attempts to do this through clever engineering between the helmet’s shell and the EPD, but with limited success. The Pedelec does away with the need for clever engineering and instead opts for the best of both worlds: enough ventilation to keep you cool on my 40-minute pedal-powered commute, with the rain cap coming into play when the winds got up and the temperature dropped. A simple but extremely effective solution.

While the rain cap might not immediately appeal to the image-conscious, for anyone who has walked into a 9 am meeting having just been drenched in puddle water by a passing double-decker bus, you might want to reconsider. Unlike closable vents, which you’ll find on e-bike lids like Abus’ own Hyp-E, the rain cap still allows for some breathability, so it’s a nice middle ground. The cap easily attaches to two small pegs on the brow of the helmet. Getting the cap back into the compartment brought on mild PTSD from packing up tents in the rain and isn’t something you want to do in a hurry, but otherwise I’m a big fan.

Thankfully, I did not have to put the Pedelec’s safety credentials to the test, but I felt pretty secure in the knowledge I was in good hands. Coming complete with the holy trinity of NTA 8776 certification, Virginia Labs score and MIPS technology, the Pedelec not only feels like a robust unit, but it has the paperwork to prove it.

Value

The Pedelec 2.0 MIPS has a recommended retail price of £190, although you’ll find it available for less. Although even with 20 per cent off, it’s still towards the top end of the market.

For your money, you get NTA 8776 certification, an integrated light and a magnetic buckle. These are some of the criteria you should expect when looking at this price bracket. You also get good ventilation that pairs with a rain cover for colder/wetter days.

There are a couple of areas where the Pedelec 2.0 is starting to look a little dated, though. The light is modest at 10 lumens and still charges via Micro-USB.

If the e-bike certification is your priority and you can live without the rain cover, there are some cheaper options. The Lazer Verde KinetiCore costs £99, is NTA 8776 certified and scores four out of five from Virginia Tech. It's also made largely from recycled materials. On the flip side, there's no integrated light, the ventilation is limited, and it's on the heavy side at 481g.

The Giro Camden MIPS is perhaps the most direct rival. It combines NTA 8776 certification, MIPS and a large built-in rear light, as well as vents that can be closed in bad weather, for around £120. The Bern Hudson ticks similar boxes for just over £100, although its light clicks in rather than being integrated.

The real bargain is the Specialized Mode, which adds MIPS and NTA 8776 certification to one of the highest Virginia Tech ratings around, at a budget price. You'll need to buy a light separately though.

If you're prepared to spend Pedelec money or a little more, there are a few helmets that arguably offer more. The Smith Dispatch MIPS costs £155 and pairs MIPS with Koroyd, NTA 8776 certification, a Fidlock buckle and an included rear light. It also has clever vents that help stop glasses steaming up.

Abus's own HYP-E has an RRP of £175 and adds front and rear lights, indicators and a remote to the NTA 8776 certification, making it a good option if visibility is your top priority.

Verdict

The Pedelec 2.0 makes a nice change to a lot of what currently dominates the e-bike helmet market. It’s quite old-school in allowing plenty of airflow and not opting for a skate-park aesthetic. However, when you get past the look, the Pedelec can go toe-to-toe with any of its contemporaries.

For starters, it’s about as safe as they come. Although it would be nice to see full marks from Virginia Tech, four out of five is very respectable, and that score is backed up by an NTA 8776 certificate and use of MIPS.

The light is the one component that lets the Pedelec down, and it’s a shame you’re not getting more brightness for your bucks. For me, lighting comes quite a long way down the list of priorities when shopping for a helmet, and is by no means a must-have.

At £190, it’s right up there with the top-end models, and if in-built visibility is important to you, there are better-illuminated options for the money.

However, if you’re looking for a helmet that can cope with a range of rides, the Pedelec is a strong choice. Having used this on both e-bike and pedal-powered rides, towards the tail end of an Indian summer, where the weather ranged from sweltering to bone-chilling, the Pedelec kept me cool when required but also gave the option of battening down the hatches if needed.

If you’re entering the world of bicycle kit for the first time, you’re probably wondering where to start. There are countless brands offering endless features that are constantly trying to reinvent the wheel; sometimes quite literally. In this world of perpetual new releases, it’s refreshing when you encounter a brand that doesn’t mess about.

Being a parent to two young kids means I am perennially time poor. So imagine my delight when, having blocked out time in my busy day to familiarise myself with the full Xnito range, I realised it only does two products. In fact, arguably only one.

The Xnito and Xnito Kid are the brainchildren of founder, Ben Dai, who began work on the concept in post-lockdown San Francisco during the summer of 2020. It had dawned on Ben that a lot of the local e-bike riders, himself included, were riding at speeds of up to 25mph wearing dangerously insufficient traditional bike helmets.

The helmets he and his peers wore were only crash-tested to meet standards suitable for traditional pedal bikes ridden at much slower speeds. So Ben set about designing the adult Xnito which hit shelves in 2022 and carried the Dutch NTA 8776 certificate. A standard which means the helmet is tested to provide crash protection up to 28mph.

The Xnito is not alone in meeting these standards; many of the best e-bike helmets do as well – we’ll come to some of those later. But, having reviewed the adult Xnito Helmet after its release, it made sense to check out its little brother.

Needless to say, I don’t have any first-hand experience of actually wearing the Xnito Kid. What I do have is one cycle-obsessed five-year-old who will put even the most robust bit of bike kit through its paces. He’s been wearing his Xnito Kid both on the back of my Tern Long Haul and riding his own Prevelo Alpha Two.

Design and aesthetics 

The first thing that strikes you about the Xnito Kid is that this helmet doesn’t feel particularly like it’s a kid's helmet. And I mean that as a compliment. The Xnito Kid isn’t a more basic design of the adult version, it’s almost identical. They even come in some of the same colours; perfect if you’re in the market for some intergenerational twinning.

The matte finish and neat recesses also add to the general feel that this is a lid for young riders who want to start taking their cycling seriously.

But don’t worry, if your little one is still after something a little more playful, the Xnito includes a sheet of foam stickers that can be used to customise

The Xnito Kid only comes in one size, designed to fit heads from 51-54cm. That’s on the larger end of the kids spectrum (or smaller end of the adult’s, in fact), so if you’re shopping for a child under four then you’re better off with looking at something like an Ozmo Sidekick which goes right down to 45cm.

Designed to meet the requirements of the NTA 8776 certificate, the Xnito provides more coverage than your standard cycle helmet. This is why the sides and the rear of the helmet come down much lower behind the ears. The extra protection brings it closer to something you’d expect to see hanging off the handlebars of a moped, rather than a traditional road-style helmet, but the smooth dome and matte finish give the Xnito the look of something more skate-park-esque.

More coverage means more heat retention, but the Xnito offsets the larger surface area with some vents. For warmer days there is also a fabric visor that can be easily attached to the padding just inside the brim.

Components and build

Like the majority of helmets, the Xnito Kid is made “in-mould”, which means the outer polycarbonate shell and the inner EPS liner are fused together during construction. This makes for a helmet that feels solid as the two elements don’t shift or creak, which can sometimes be the case with hardshell helmets where the shell and liner are fastened together.

The inner cradle runs around just over half of the liner, anchoring to the liner at the same point as the front of the strap. This is typically a system you would expect to find in lower-priced helmets, with high-end models often opting for a full 360-degree-fit. Having a cradle that goes all the way round the head means that when you adjust the dial, the cradle tightens all the way round, in theory reducing the chance of particular pressure points.

When the cradle only goes halfway, any tightening pulls the helmet back toward the dial, meaning there’s more chance of pressure being applied at the forehead and rear. Perhaps to help offset this, the Xnito comes with really good padding that not only covers the majority of the rim, but also the upper dome as well.

The straps are independent and firmly attached to the rim of the helmet. The brand’s own magnetic buckle completes the below-the-ear setup, with a simple pull cord allowing for easy, one-handed unbuckling.

There's a white LED up front and a red one at the back, both integrated and running off a single rechargeable battery. The charge port is USB-C, which is good to see, as plenty of helmets are still clinging to Micro USB. There are three rear modes (flashing, solid and a "wavy" pattern) and Xnito quotes up to 10 hours of run-time. The lights are rated IPX4, so they'll cope with a downpour but not a dunk in a puddle.

One of the big selling points of the Xnito is its NTA 8776 certification, which trumps the European EN 1078 or US CPSC. While the Kid meets both of those standards, it claims to offer a whopping 87 per cent more protection than CPSC. The Xnito doesn’t, however, use Mips technology or offer its own rotational impact protection. Mips (Multi-directional Impact Protection System) is an inner layer within a helmet that allows for a degree of sliding motion during an angled collision, which is designed to greatly reduce the risk of concussion.

When we reviewed the adult Xnito in 2023, the brand pointed us towards Snell Foundation research questioning how much systems like Mips actually add. It's a defensible position, and Kask has taken a similar line, but it puts the Kid on the back foot against rivals offering NTA 8776 and Mips together. There's no Virginia Tech rating either.

Performance

Firstly, as mentioned, I have not tested this helmet myself. Well, not in the traditional sense of actually wearing it on a ride. Secondly, anyone who has ever asked a five-year-old their opinion will know that detail is rarely a strong suit. So with that in mind, I have endeavoured to extract as much as possible from the grins, uptake and general vibes of my mini tester, plus my own parental intuition.

Finally, the Xnito is pitched as an e-bike helmet, so if your child is only ever going to be wearing the Kid while being taxi’d across town, then you can discount much of what’s covered said in relation to my son’s own pedalling escapades.

On the initial “unboxing”, my son wasn’t completely won over. Having got used to seeing his parents in road helmets most of the time, the bulkier look didn’t sit particularly well. However, that was before we discovered the stickers. Being able to apply a range of colourful dinosaurs and spacemen to his new (and admittedly quite plain) bit of kit was an instant selling point and quite a fun activity in itself. The stickers can easily be peeled off and moved if your little one changes their mind or grows out of the look. That said, the stickiness did dwindle a little bit after some considerable reshuffling.

My son usually wears an Abus Smiley 3.0 in size M, which covers a range from 50-55cm, and the Xnito fitted him well. The range of the Xnito is just 51-54, so it doesn’t have the same shelf life as something like the Abus. That is also the only size currently available at the time of writing, although a size M in the adult version covers 54-58cm.

I was worried the cradle not being a full 360-degree fit might make it uncomfortable on longer rides or leave a mark, but it was fine.

The fabric visor worked pretty well. It can be attached by removing the front section of padding and comes with some additional adhesive hook-and-loop pads, just in case it needs a bit of extra grip. It’s not something you want to be attaching or removing in a rush, but once in place it’s quite effective and was an appealing addition from my son’s point of view.

The magnetic buckle was a huge hit with everyone who used it. If you’ve ever caught a child’s skin in the old-style pinch-release then you will know why this is a genuine game changer. I have added 20 minutes of tears to my nursery run with some overzealous fastening. The magnetic system also allows your child to unbuckle themselves, which is a bonus for 95 per cent of the time (it's less of a parental bonus for the 5 per cent when they decide today is not a helmet-wearing day).

The ventilation isn’t brilliant. The intakes don’t look huge when looking at them from the shell, but most become even smaller at the exit inside the liner, meaning there isn’t a huge amount of airflow.

This was fine when being worn on the back of our Tern. Even on hot days, my son wasn’t noticeably more sweaty wearing the Xnito compared to his regular Abus. We did notice a difference when he was on longer, pedal-powered rides. Where usually he’d finish his ride without breaking a sweat, in the Xnito he was noticeably more clammy. As I mentioned at the outset, this is an e-bike helmet, and all that extra protection does come at a pedalling performance cost.

At 338g, it’s noticeably heavier than a standard kids helmet, but noticeably lighter than its nearest rival, the Ozmo Sidekick. The Sidekick weighs in at 410g in an XS.

The integrated lights are a plus point, and they also went down really well with my son. Whilst they’re not comparable to decent standalone bike lights, and I wouldn't recommend using them in isolation if your child is cycling on the road, the visibility is good enough to help them stand out. The button is easy to use but might be a bit fiddly for whoever is wearing the helmet (which is possibly a good thing).

Value

At £115, this is about as expensive as it gets when it comes to kids' bike helmets (discounting the full-face and teardrop varieties). While you clearly get plenty of return on your investment, there are also some limitations that might prompt you to look elsewhere.

If you’re specifically in the market for a kids helmet with NTA 8776, then the nearest rival is probably the aforementioned Ozmo Sidekick. The Sidekick comes in around £40 cheaper and has the benefit of using Mips technology, although it lacks integrated lights.

Given the sizing on the Kid, there are a number of competitors that class themselves as adult helmets. Obviously, they won’t come with unicorn stickers, however it does allow you a bit more choice. The Abus Pedelec is an adult helmet but fits heads 51-55cm in a size S and also comes with NTA certification. There’s no Mips but it does have an integrated rear light.

If you’re looking to kit the whole family out, Xnito do offer a 25 per cent discount when buying three or more helmets. On purchase of the Kid, you’ll also receive a 40 per cent discount code on the next size up (which, given the fact that there is only one size in the Xnito Kid, presumably means the adult size M).

Verdict

The Xnito Kid is as solid as it is stylish. If you’re looking for an e-bike-specific helmet that passes some rigorous safety tests but also catches the eye, you can’t go far wrong.

The Kid gives your little rider high levels of protection in a higher-speed collision, with NTA 8776 approval and the additional head coverage provided by the Xnito Kid. It also provides decent visibility with integrated, USB-C-charged front and rear lighting. With a range of eye-catching matte colourways, as well as a pack of foam stickers, your little one will be able to customise what is already a pretty chic bit of kit.

Despite the dial adjust only coming with a partial cradle, rather than offering a 360-degree fit, the extra padding makes for a fairly nice fit. The independent straps and magnetic buckle also add to what is generally a comfy helmet.

While the size range is quite narrow at just 51-54cm, Xnito offer a 40% discount on the next size when your child has outgrown their current helmet.

If you’re looking for something that can be used when your child takes to the trail, the Kid lacks the airflow that you’ll find on traditional road or mountain bike helmets, so it might be a bit hot or heavy.

The update and launch of the Canyon Endurace generated a lot of chat in the run-up to Paris-Roubaix.

Canyon split the launch of its latest endurance road bike, launching the top-tier Endurace CFR, which was designed to help Mathieu Van der Poel win Roubaix first, and then announcing the second- and lower-tiered CF SLX, CF, and Allroad models a little later on.

The latest Endurace CFR really looks like an Aeroad, the brand's aero race bike, and has almost identical geometry numbers.

The Endurace CF SLX that you see here has less racy geometry. In fact, Canyon calls it 'an aero bike with all-day fit'.

Canyon sent me the Endurace CF SLX 8 in 'Champagne' colourway to test; it's one click down from the top-level CF SLX 9 and comes in at $4,200 / $4,499 / $5,999 for the Shimano Ultegra, carbon wheel-equipped model.

The Endurace has a slightly cheaper entry price point than the Aeroad, and is a lot less than the top-spec Endurace CFR, but there's not much in it. When do you buy the Endurace, not the Aeroad?

The Endurace has been considered one of the best endurance bikes for a while now, and the bike's latest update saw it get faster and more aero with bigger tyre clearances and slightly more stable geometry.

I've ridden this bike on the road exclusively for several months, and have even stripped it back to race a local hill climb. This bike is at least a must-consider if you are shopping for an endurance bike around this price point.

Design and aesthetics

The Endurace was last updated in 2023, and at that time I reviewed the CFR model.

My size small bike came in at 8.24kg out of the box with a storage bag and accessories, computer mount, TPU tubes and no pedals.

Unless you order the bike with a storage bag and accessories, which aren't included as standard, you can expect it to be a couple of hundred grams lighter than this. It depends on what you might order and fit to the bike, but it's around this mark.

Canyon has changed a fair bit on the Endurace this time around; frame design, geometry and componentry have all changed.

When it comes to the frame, the biggest visual change comes from the altered seat tube and chainstay junction shape. The seat stays are also more aero, and the bike has a new seatpost.

The round S15 VCLS 2.0 flex seatpost has gone, as has the 'Comfort kink' seat tube cutout. The CF SLX now has a comfort aero post in the form of the SP093 VCLS Aero seatpost, which the brand says increases compliance by over 25% compared to a rigid equivalent. CF models will still come with the round VCLS post, which for me offers more comfort.

Fun fact: you can swap in the rigid Canyon equivalent, which is of course what the Alpecin pros like Jasper Philipsen did when they rode the Endurace CFR.

The frame has received aero tweaks and has been to the wind tunnel. The headtube is aero bike-narrow when viewed from the front, and it's clear that aerodynamic performance has been a consideration even on this second-tier model.

Canyon tested this bike in the GST wind tunnel in Germany with a lower leg dummy across a 20-degree yaw angle sweep, with bottles and cages, 65mm DT Swiss wheels with a 29mm Continental Aero 111 tyre up front and a 30mm GP5000 S TR tyre in the rear.

Average system drag at 45km/h for the Aeroad CFR, Endurace CFR, and CF SLX models was as follows:
Aeroad CFR: 204W
Endurace CFR: 205W
Endurace CF SLX: 209W

So, according to Canyon, there are about 5 watts in it. If you're shopping for an endurance bike and are told it's only about 5 watts slower than what a WorldTour pro is riding, I think that's positive news at face value.

This bike also isn't as stiff, which stands to reason. I asked Canyon for some stiffness numbers too for context, and it sent me over some info, in Newton-meters per degree for the head tube (HT), and Newton-metres per millimetre for the bottom bracket (BB); a bigger number in each case being stiffer:

These numbers show the force required for a degree of movement at the head tube and a millimetre of movement at the bottom bracket on a static test rig. The head tube test looks for twisting force, whilst the BB area deals with linear displacement (the push-pull of pedalling action)

Canyon also told me that stiffer isn't always automatically better, though there seems to be a trend here for race bikes over the endurance model.

Endurace CF SLX (Size M)
HT: 98,1 Nm/°
BB: 59,9 N/mm

Endurace CFR
HT: 114,5 Nm/°
BB: 69 N/mm

Aeroad CFR
HT: 103 Nm/°
BB: 70 N/mm

From Canyon's numbers, we can get some context here on what to expect from the CF SLX; it's slightly less stiff in the bottom bracket and softer at the headtube.

I've ridden and raced on an Aeroad CFR, and whilst you can feel the difference, it isn't a gaping chasm. I'll talk about this more, because with this endurance bike getting racier, I want to highlight what you can expect from the CF SLX's riding performance if you are considering one.

What else is new for the CF SLX? Well, the top tube storage hatch has now gone; it's been moved to the down tube. The bits in the tool roll could rattle against the top tube on the old bike; things are silent now, and there's more room. It's a good change.

Tyre clearance has also been boosted to 38mm from 35, providing room for even bigger rubber. My bike came stock with Schwalbe Pro One Evo 32 mm tyres. Starting with 32mm tyres does boost comfort.

The CF SLX can also be fitted with Canyon's Endurace CF SLX Fast Fender set, which comes in at £119.99. The fenders quickly fit to semi-permanent mounts which are fitted to the bike frame. You can of course just fit a clip-on guard, but they tend to need more fiddling with. It's a valuable option if you are considering this model as a winter bike or all-round workhorse, though clearance will be reduced to 35mm with them.

The Canyon Load tool pack costs £19.99 and doesn't come with the bike, so you will need to buy a frame storage bag at the least to take advantage of the built-in storage space.

I'd also recommend just mentally adding £33.99 / $39.95 to the cost of the bike you may be looking at, as you will need to buy the Gear Groove computer mount, which neatly integrates with the handlebars. There isn't really another option apart from O-rings and a basic mount.

Canyon doesn't tend to include mounts or many accesories. It would be nice to see the proprietary mount included with the bike, or just the price increased to cover the mount and eliminate a bolt-on at checkout; it feels a bit clunky to me, especially now that many brands include specific mounts.

The CF SLX 8 comes with a dependable Shimano Ultegra Di2 groupset with a 34-50 chainset and 11-34 cassette. You also get a 4iiii P3+ left-hand crank-based power meter; I found its numbers a tad jumpy compared to some dual-sided PM pedals, but it's nice to get one included for the price.

Endurace bikes now come with shorter cranks; depending on size, bikes have 160, 165 or 170mm cranks, to facilitate more comfortable positions and opening up riders' hip angles. My size small bike came with 165mm cranks.

There's also the integrated CP0048 PACE T-Bar with new 'compact' drops. The Endurace stock handlebar is 390mm to 440mm wide, with three adjustable settings via a pair of T25 Torx bolts under the bar tops. The bars have a 108mm drop and an 8-degree flare.

If you want a narrower handlebar, you will need the Race Drops with their 350 and 400 mm width, but they are going to set you back £219.99. It would be really nice to see these as an alternate option when speccing the bike at checkout.

The CF SLX also gets the Canyon Sport Geometry; the CFR has different Sport Pro geo. Compared to the previous Endurace CF SLX, the chainstays are 3 mm longer, the wheelbase is 16mm longer, and the effective stack and reach are pretty much identical.

The last Endurace CFR I rode was a real hot hatch; this updated model does feel a fraction longer to me, and just a little bit calmer in the handling department.

I've ridden a size small and am 176cm in height; my bike came with 165mm cranks as mentioned, an 80mm stem as standard, and has a stack and reach of 565mm and 386mm. Whilst that 80mm stem size may seem too small, I've ridden endurance bikes with longer stems that felt shorter; the Canyon geometry is well designed to make life easy, whilst still keeping everything looking good.

I think if you're a rider that needs a longer reach, double-check things, but this being an endurance bike, you're possibly on board for shorter reach numbers anyway.

To compare that to the recently launched Trek Domane in a Medium (an equivalent size for me) that I rode, the CF SLX is 10mm taller with a 12mm longer reach.

Compared to a size small Aeroad, the Endurace is 26mm taller and 4mm shorter.

Performance

My previous best-ever recorded power for one minute was set riding the Aeroad CFR a couple of years back; I improved on that number in my final week of testing on the Endurace.

Of course that doesn't mean this bike's faster than an Aeroad, but I share that information to show that it's a competitive bike with racy performance. This isn't a boring, endurance machine that can't be ridden hard.

'More speed, Captain' has been my train of thought for harder rides on the Endurace; I personally want a narrower handlebar. Coming from the 35cm Hyper bar I rode on the Winspace M6 left me disappointed at first and has been one of the things that makes the bike feel less quick for me, but I've adapted to the wider bar over time.

I've swapped in the new Dura-Ace C50 wheels I'm testing at times with fast 28mm tyres to sharpen things up, and they do extract more speed from the bike; a quicker pair of wheels does add more speed to the Endurace. Switching back to a 32mm tyre and lower pressures does introduce more comfort and just calms things down, which is great for everyday riding.

If this sounds a bit like you, the Aeroad or even the Endurace CFR (though it's expensive) is probably going to be the model to go for. If you purchase this bike and then constantly look for ways to make it faster, it's probably the wrong choice. Though the prospect of a fully aero, race-spec Endurace with that higher front end is an intriguing one. But if that is the case, the Aeroad or Ultimate, depending on what you need, are the way to go.

However, Canyon has, in my opinion, brought its endurance bikes even closer to its race ones with this update; the differences are finer in many areas. This is a key point to convey: the Endurace is a fast, capable bike with racy characteristics; it's just more comfortable and versatile.

The ride experience from the Endurace has been very good. The handling for me is just a touch calmer and slower than the previous bike, probably due to that longer wheelbase.

Handling and cornering on the bike are excellent; no concerns there for me. Diving into corners or braking hard are tackled with ease. Canyon has created a very capable overall handling package.

The geometry is also very balanced; it's an impressive blend. The bike doesn't feel too short or sit up and beg, but I can still achieve my usual hunkered down on the hoods aero position. However, due to that shorter reach and taller stack, I'm locked into the hoods very comfortably. I can also ride the bike slammed with ease due to that taller front end, and the saddle-to-bar drop makes it look attractive.

It's not as stiff and zippy as an Aeroad, or another full-blown race bike, and that's part of the feeling I miss slightly. It's not electric to ride, but the experience is still very pleasant.

I can't say I feel much ride smoothing from the new VCLS aero post; that's not to say it's not doing its thing, though. I think tyre and pressure will do the heavy lifting for you when it comes to smoothing things out. With a 32mm tyre, or bigger, the ride is refined and smooth.

The shallower DT Swiss wheels are also a good call for me; their 35mm rims just make things that little more user-friendly and aid the handling compared to a deeper, more aero wheelset. It's a nippy yet comfortable wheelset and pairs very nicely with the good-quality 32mm Schwalbe Pro One tyres.

The stock Fizik Aliante R5 isn't a saddle I'm crazy about; the way its profile changes shape, rising near the nose, makes it hard for me to get truly comfortable. I'd probably change it, but as ever with saddles, it will come down to personal preference.

The only niggle I've had from the bike came from the saddle rail adjustment bolt, which worked loose, meaning the saddle dropped forward at very annoying times on a hard ride until I torqued it to spec. Saddle fore-aft and angle adjustment bolts are seperate, which makes life easy, but it's the second Canyon model I've experienced it on, so do check this bolt after a few rides, which you should be doing anyway.

Everything else has been perfect on the bike, and I've had no issues. I feel riders are familiar with Canyon's adjustable stem and bar platform now, and it is very easy to adjust. Just look after it long-term to prevent any issues.

Maintenance and servicing

The key maintenance considerations when it comes to the Endurace CF SLX are front-end related. The integrated Canyon handlebar assembly will need to be looked after long-term to help minimise big workshop labour bills. A full strip-down for headset bearing replacement won't be that cheap.

Minimise front-end blasting when washing, and consider a mudguard or the Canyon fender set for wet weather riding to look after those headset bearings.

Check bolt torque specs every so often, particularly the pair of Torx bolts under each bar top, and the stem bolts.

I'd recommend something like six-monthly-ish headset bearing cleaning and re-greasing just to stay on top of them and prevent them getting into a real state; that's when things will get expensive.

Value

The CF SLX comes in at $4,200 / $4,499 / $5,999 as pictured, a very competitive price for the solid spec, which includes a power meter. Don't forget the £80 / $99 Canyon shipping and packaging fee at checkout.

For me, you get more value with this spec than a range of other big-name endurance bike competitors that I have tested personally.

Don't forget there's also the 105 Di2-equipped bike for slightly less cash, the performance will be on a par with Ultegra overall.

It's a good chunk of cash cheaper than a similarly specced Specialized Roubaix endurance bike, and if you want an equivalent Ultegra Di2-equipped Domane from Trek, you will spend over $1,000 more. Ditto the Cannondale Synapse, which, for a similar Ultegra Di2 spec, costs £6000 / $6,499.

The Ridley Grifn RS endurance bike is another competitor with similar performance, which I rate, but the CF SLX also has it beaten on price by a fair chunk of cash.

The Endurace spec is solid, with no gaping holes or weak points; yes, you might want to change the saddle, and you will need to buy at least the Canyon computer mount.

Canyon's direct-to-consumer pricing has a lot of its big-name competition beaten on price and in performance.

Verdict

The Endurace CF SLX is an excellent all-round endurance bike that sits at the faster, performance-oriented end of the endurance bike spectrum.

It isn't as stiff or as exciting to ride as a full-blown race bike, but it isn't too far off at all and offers a competitive, comfortable, and confident riding experience that will welcome you pushing it hard and going fast or tackling an all-day adventure.

The taller front end and more relaxed geometry are still purposeful, but it's more user-friendly than the Aeroad or Endurace CFR geometry. If this is a key concern for you, and you don't need a massive amount of reach, don't chance the Aeroad and regret being too stretched out or low; go for the Endurace.

Throw in the 38mm tyre clearance, which gives you plenty of room for bigger comfort-boosting tyres, improved down tube storage and the ability to run full fenders, and you have one of the most well-rounded endurance bikes out there right now.

After months of exclusive riding on the road, I'm in agreement with Canyon's statement that this is 'an aero bike with all-day fit'.

When Trek launched the Domane in 2012, with a new Isospeed vibration-reducer at the foot of its seatpost, it’s fair to say that the skinny road-bike tyres of the time weren’t a big part of the shock-absorbing equation. Roll comfortably forward to 2026, when disc brakes and a shift in perception have made ever-fatter tyres commonplace, and Trek has decided Isospeed has dutifully served its time.

The new Gen 5 Domane is lighter, simpler, almost as smooth-riding on a test track, and with its new bar setup and shorter cranks, in theory even more designed for all-day comfort than the previous model.

Tom Wieckowski detailed many of the technical changes and praised the comfort and responsiveness of the £6,700 ($8,499) high-end Domane SLR 7 AXS Gen 5 on a first-impressions test. This review looks at how the entry-level model, the £2500 ($2,699) SL 5, holds up.

The three more entry-level SL models have the same frameset measurements as their higher-end SLR siblings, with their post-Isospeed vibration damping coming from a combination of 35mm tyres (up from 32mm), vertical compliance in their carbon seatposts, and increased vertical compliance in the frame.

Design and aesthetics 

The goal of endurance bikes is to have more all-day comfort and practicality than a pure race bike, while retaining some of the sportiness. The brief for the Domane Gen 5 was basically to crank up both the comfort and the sportiness.

In terms of comfort, the geometry numbers haven’t changed much from Gen 4: the same fairly high front end (575mm stack for a medium), the same short reach (374mm, which gives a comfortably un-stretched-out fit, even by generally relaxed endurance bike standards).

The handlebars now have a 20mm rise, with a slight back sweep, which gives a slightly more natural hand position on the tops, and the option to either run the bars higher than before, or to take out a spacer or two for a sleeker. In addition, the previously standard crank lengths have been shortened across the board - a medium now comes with 165mm cranks instead of 172.5, which keeps your hip angle more open.

The biggest comfort-related changes are in vibration damping. It’s out with the Isospeed unit, which was a bearing-based pivot that allowed flex at the junction between the top tube and the seat tube; and in with bigger tyres and a carbon seatpost with a little flex built into its fibres. The Bontrager Kwaremont Pro tyres have increased from 32mm to 35mm (it might not sound much, but it’s around 20 per cent more volume), and there’s now room for 40mm if you want to go even smoother on the road, or venture slightly further off-road.

In terms of control and predictability, the biggest change is probably the added security from bigger tyres with lower pressures. If you were reading the geometry charts with eagle eyes, you might also notice that the trail measurement around the front wheel position has increased from 5.9 to 6.3 (probably thanks to a fractionally slacker head tube angle and bigger tyre size). All else being equal, this can slightly improve high-speed stability and straight-line tracking, but potentially make handling slightly less lively at slower speeds.

On to sportiness: while some models in the Domane Gen 5 range have lost a big chunk of weight, and the new range-topper SLR 9 AXS 1x has rightly grabbed attention by tipping the scales at 6.63kg, on paper at 8.84kg. The Gen 5 SL 5 is only 250g lighter than its predecessor - useful if not huge - and keeps the same wheels.

A final hallmark of endurance bikes is practicality - like the Gen 4, the Gen 5 keeps discreet fender mounts, including the ability to fit a seatstay bridge and it has mounts for a top-tube bag. It no longer has a down-tube storage compartment though. My test bike came with a neat ‘Trek RCS Pro Stem Blender Base’, a £10 widget that fits into the front of the stem and allows lights, etc to be attached via a GoPro-style mount, though I’m not sure that this comes as default.

It also remains a relatively practical bike to service. The cockpit uses split spacers so that the neatly routed cables and hoses don’t have to be disconnected if you want to adjust the bar height or replace the stem. The bottom bracket remains threaded. And on this model, up to a point, the mechanical Shimano 105 gears will be easier and cheaper to troubleshoot than their electronic alternatives.

In terms of looks, I may be in a minority for saying that while the frameset is beautifully finished, the stem and spacers are sleek, and the seat tube has a beguiling shimmer, I found something about the bike visually unbalanced. It may be that the size of the head tube is slightly at odds with the rest of the bike, or that the tubes shout speed while the geometry shouts comfort.

It may even just be that the Trek logo makes the down tube look bigger than it is. I suspect the entry-level 23mm deep wheels also make a difference to the balance of the looks, though they proved to perform perfectly reliably, and they’re a nice future upgrade opportunity. I had a number of compliments about the Domane SL 5 , including for its colour, so I feel slightly bad confessing that I didn't fall for it aesthetically.

Performance

It took a few rides, but I really warmed to the Domane SL 5 Gen 5. I used it mostly for exploring the Yorkshire Dales, including a couple of centuries, club rides, and commutes. By the end of my month with it, I realised I was always looking forward to riding it.

Hand on heart, my first impression out of the box was that it was heavier than I expected. Trek says 8.84 kg for a size medium-large with a tubeless setup, but my medium was 9.06 kg (19 lb 15.58 oz). That’s only a few hundred grams off the mid-spec steel Fairlight I’ve been riding as a four-season steed this year.

On my first ride, I wanted it to be as fast and flowing as the Domanes in Trek’s beautiful mountainous promo videos, and I was frustrated that it wasn’t. On my second ride - a 90-miler into the craggy hills of the Lake District - I focused on feeling as comfortable as possible for as long as possible instead, and the Domane shone.

It didn’t accelerate playfully, but neither did it make your heart sink as you got out of the saddle for another 1 in 4 climb. It certainly felt as if it transferred power from the cranks to the wheels effectively. It was composed on descents, and as you might imagine, the 35mm tyres made easy weather of broken back roads. At no point did I wish I was on a different bike.

Just as importantly, my body stayed comfortable for longer. I’ve unfairly resisted endurance bikes as not being "proper road bikes", but when my shoulders lasted six hours before getting a bit sore, rather than the usual two, I grudgingly accepted they might be onto something. My first instinct had also been to take all the headset spacers out, so that I could lean into corners better, be more aero, and just look a bit cooler, but I’m glad I didn’t for that ride, and I left them in place for the rest of the test.

The handlebars may have helped the shoulders too. At 400mm, they're just the right width for me, nicely in-turned levers, a discreet amount of flare in the drops, a shorter 70mm reach and a subtle backsweep.

Another comfort-oriented eye-opener were the short 165mm cranks, which kept the angle of the hip joint more open because the knees don’t have to come up so high when pedalling. I have some hip-joint damage, and the combination of the cranks and maybe the higher stack height, meant it didn’t flare up at all during the test. It also meant I was able to use the drops more easily, for longer.

I ran the tyres at 45-48psi, which was the recommendation for a combined bike and rider weight of about 75kg. I wouldn’t quite say it was like a magic carpet, but it was more than composed enough to let you confidently hold a line over uneven tarmac, rather than anxiously weaving around cracks. That little reduction in cognitive load, along with better real-world rolling resistance from the tyres, and general all-body comfort from the geometry, seemed like the kinds of things that let you stay out longer, and I was glad of it.

I only really noticed that it was a bit slower handling at low speeds when I got back on my Fairlight. On the move, especially on descents, it was nice and stable but not oppressively so - decent at holding the line you gave it, rather than trying to right itself onto its own line, as some longer-trail bikes can do.

On my long semi-rural commutes, it was also a good companion - easy on the body early in the mornings but brisk enough that you felt you were getting there, and pleasant to manoeuvre once you got into traffic.

Downsides were few, other than the initial disappointment about the weight. Coming from a year of road riding mostly on Shimano GRX brakes, I didn’t find the 105 brakes bit quite as positively, and on steep descents I was more likely to move into the drops for more braking power, whereas with GRX I pretty much braked from the hoods all the time.

On a more minor note, you might also want to stock up on the sleek rubber stoppers that fill the unused M5 bolt mounts around the frame - or replace them with actual bolts. I lost two within two weeks, once while transporting the bike, another while cleaning it.

In terms of the rest of the components, the mechanical 105 gears were fine. I appreciated the smaller steps in the gearing than I’d got used to on a 1x setup, and the fact you could use pretty much all the rear sprockets on either chainring without chainrub on the front mech.

If it was my bike, when the 11-34 cassette wore out, I’d replace it with a 11-36 so that I could stay in the saddle for a few extra yards on the steepest climbs. The Bontrager Paradigm 23 wheels stayed true and smooth for the length of the test, as you’d hope they would. The Bontrager Kwaremont Pro tyres were confident enough in wet, dry and slightly loose road conditions, if slightly noisy, as 35mm tyres are likely to be; and I got on fine with the short-nosed Verse Short Comp saddle.

Value

In terms of value on paper, the Trek Domane SL 5 Gen 5 holds up fine against other big-brand 105-equipped endurance rivals like the Giant Defy Advanced 2 (which is the same weight, and £200 more), and the Specialized Roubaix SL8 Sport (fractionally heavier, £300 more, with 20mm of travel in its headset suspension). It’s £300g more and 450g heavier than the Canyon Endurace CF7, which comes with sexier and lighter 34mm carbon wheels.

If you were to go up one notch in the Domane Gen 5 range to the SL6 AXS, you’d gain entry-level SRAM electronic gears, 50mm carbon wheels and a 200g sliver of weight saving, but it would cost you an extra £1,250. So the SL 5 seems reasonably priced and a nice platform for a future wheel upgrade, perhaps.

Verdict

The Trek Domane SL 5 Gen 5 is an easy bike to live with, and even in its entry-level spec, a nice showcase for the way a good endurance bike can be brisk enough and all-day comfortable at the same time.

It genuinely made me look forward to long rides. It was a good reminder too that even in hilly areas, weight is only one factor in the equation. A fresher body and a fresher mind - from a smoother ride and a more comfortable fit - will always help on climbs as well as flat land.

Magicshine has built a reputation for offering great-value lights for bikes, but it's been ramping up the power and tech in its more recent models.

The Monteer 12000 is the most powerful light the brand has ever made and is also the brightest bike light on the market. But how does it fare out in the real world, and does anyone really need a 12000-lumen bike light with twice the output as the brightest of its rivals? We tested the Monteer 12000 out on the trails to find out.

Design and specifications

Magicshine stacks five LEDs in the Monteer 12000’s aluminium lamp unit, combining a large central spot with four smaller angled units. The lamp has a simple on/off switch and you can toggle between the flood and spot beams or power up both.

To save you from reaching over to adjust, the light comes with a bar-mounted remote, which is already bound into the light. There’s a little bit of sequencing to access the different options, requiring you to double-press the remote to go from the flashing modes to the dedicated mountain bike modes, but once sorted, you can then toggle up and down quickly. To allow some further customisation, Magicshine also has a dedicated light app for both iOS and Android. You do have to reconnect the light each time via Bluetooth and the app is a little clunky to use, but you can do a full custom tune.

The lamp unit is mounted in a machined aluminium twin clamp, which straddles the front of the stem. It fits 35mm bars out of the box, but shims are provided for smaller bar diameters.

The cells that make up the 14.4V 10,000mAh battery are all housed inside a durable plastic case. This has a slight profile, so it sits relatively neatly against a frame tube and is secured via two Velcro-backed straps.

If you press the button on the side of the battery, it illuminates a small fuel gauge. This has four bars, which roughly equates to 22 percent for each bar, with the last 10 percent shown as a flashing red bar. This isn’t as accurate as a percentage figure, but it’s a bit easier to see when in the saddle.

On the end of the battery pack is an input for the power cable and another for the USB-C charging cable. The system comes with a 600mm cable and a 900mm extension in the box, alongside a plastic helmet mount and two mounting straps. So if you have the neck strength, you can run this beast on your helmet.

Performance

With its twin clamp, the Monteer 12000 is way more solid compared to the Monteer 6000, which uses a single-sided mount. This eliminates a lot of vibration and it’s also a hinged design, so you can attach it without moving the controls or grip. The fixing bolts are also on the top for ease of access.

By loosening the small lever on one side, you can pivot the lamp in the clamp on the trail – but unfortunately, we snapped this on our sample. There is a small hex bolt on the opposite side that does a similar job, but how long this will last is unknown.

The beam pattern produced by the Monteer 12000 isn’t quite as smooth as some, and there is a definite hard edge between the flooded areas and the spot beam. It’s not quite as white or as crisp as Exposure's lights, but picking out the detail is never an issue. The amount of light on full beam is insane, and you can see as far and as wide as you want.

In tight trees and dense undergrowth, there’s quite a bit of bounce back, so I often rode in the medium 6,000 lumen setting in the trees and on climbs. That way you can also extend the 2.2hr run time on full beam to over seven hours. The battery is big enough to do the whole of the night portion of a 24hr race on a single charge, but one of the downsides is it will take most of the rest of the day to recharge.

With so much power going into the lamp, it also gets pretty hot. To keep it as cool as possible there's an air intake at the front of the light and an exhaust port at the rear, as well as a couple of cooling fins. But if you’re worried, you can also monitor the temperature via the app.

The clamp design allows you to mount the lamp below the level of the stem keeping the weight low, but that tool-free adjustment needs to be a bolt, one that you can replace easily if damaged. I’d also like to see wider Velcro straps for the battery and a more integrated system for the remote mounting.

Verdict

With this amount of output for this amount of money, the Monteer 12000 is very impressive. If you’re hitting 30 to 40mph down a gravel road descent at night, its got your back on full power

However, from a purely practical point of view, toggling down to 6,000 or even 3,000 lumens means you can get seriously good run times, and that's how I use it most of the time. Plus, the lower settings mean you don’t have to battle glare bouncing back from objects ahead of you, and they are still bright enough for rapid off-road night rides.

Smart cycle helmets have only existed for a little over a decade, but have quickly become a much-discussed sub-genre. Since emerging in the mid 2010s, pioneering brands have experimented with tech wizardry such as inbuilt heart-rate monitors and Bluetooth speakers.

None of these features has quite set the cycling world alight, but more recent models have focused on better visibility and enhanced safety features.

The whole smart-tech spiel might sound a bit Silicon Valley and will undoubtedly give the purists out there the ick, but the Unit 1 story does come from the heart.

Co-founder Francisco Abelleira resented wearing his “extremely ugly” helmet as a kid, so much so that one murky morning he snuck out without it and was subsequently hit by a car and woke up in hospital. 20 years later, he set out to make a helmet that was safe, visible and appealing to wear.

Following on from the Unit 1 Faro (the brand's 2020 debut), the Aura is a prime example of how the smart helmet has evolved from the somewhat gimmicky to the genuinely useful.

Having launched off the back of a $750,000 crowdfunding campaign, the helmet already had a group of 2,800 supporters eagerly awaiting its arrival; it's easy to see how the helmet's name came about. Post-launch, I’m sure it will have picked up some more fans along the way.

Design and aesthetics 

Unit 1 set out with the intention of building one of the best e-bike helmets that is extremely safe without being "extremely ugly", and they appear to have absolutely nailed the brief when it comes to the former.

The Aura uses a host of smart features to maximise your visibility and keep you safer on the road. Most impressive of which are the LED lights.

When turned off, the lights sit nicely within the contours of the helmet and don’t impinge on the design. When turned on, they offer 350 lumens of front and rear visibility.

In terms of the overall aesthetic, Unit 1 has borrowed elements from urban-style commuter helmets while at the same time including large, linear ventilation more commonly found on traditional road or MTB lids. It’s a nice hybrid mix of the two styles and overall the Aura is a good looking helmet.

The Aura is definitely one of the bulkier urban helmets I’ve tested. My four-year-old son has affectionately taken to calling this my “horse-riding helmet”, and the visor does give off a certain equestrian energy. Despite this, Unit 1 has gone a long way to overcome the ugliness that co-founder, Francisco, was so keen to avoid.

To that point the Aura also comes in a nice range of colourways, including Maverick (pictured), plus the striking green and black Ranger and cool Stingray options.

Components and build 

There is no doubting the Aura’s position as a very smart helmet. Connecting to the Unit 1 app allows you all manner of customisation and control over your lights, which can switch between modes that get you from a 3-hour run time (full power solid) to 30 hours (beacon mode at 50 per cent).

The app also allows you to pair up with the Unit 1 remote and smart lights. The remote attaches to your bars and allows you to indicate by pushing a button, with three different indicator modes to choose from (blinker, half sweep and full sweep). There is even an automatic brake light.

The brake light uses sensors within the remote that can tell when the bike is slowing down, which subsequently tell your lights to change mode. Again, these modes can be chosen so as to make sure they can be differentiated from the helmet’s standard light mode. The sensitivity of the brake light trigger can also be changed so you’re not warning motorists unnecessarily.

The jury is still very much out when it comes to indicators on bikes. Although any additional raising of awareness when you’re about to make a turn is undoubtedly welcome, the benefit only comes when the person it’s meant for gets the message. At the moment I don’t know if drivers will spot the difference between a flashing rear light and an I’m-turning-right flashing rear light.

On a vehicle, where your two indicators are meters apart, it works. On a helmet, where they are in the same LED unit, I’m yet to be convinced. Likewise, on a quieter street where it’s just you and a motorist, it might be more apparent, but on a busy road with lights everywhere, I wouldn’t trust the lights alone.

The Aura also comes with Crash Alert, an inbuilt system that pairs with a smartphone and detects when you’ve had a knock. This detection then sends a message to your emergency contact to let them know, although it does give you a 15-second grace period in which to cancel.

While this will provide extra reassurance for some, for me, it feels like a feature more befitting a ski helmet where the wearer might venture off-piste and lie undetected. Unless your journey to work takes you into the wilds, I’d like to think fellow commuters would come to your rescue.

Beyond the smart features, the Aura uses a pretty standard combination of EPS liner surrounded by a polycarbonate hard shell. Within all this is the tried and tested MIPS system, which gives you added protection in the face of an angled collision. The cradle comes fitted with 7mm polyester padding with the option to switch that out for 12mm padding if required.

For an e-bike helmet, the Aura is well vented, with 14 different channels letting air flow in and out. Given the amount and size of the holes, I was surprised to see my scales near the 600g mark when I weighed my size large. And actually, with the standard-issue magnetic visor, it did notch up a pretty hefty 610g. This is lighter than Unit 1's original Faro model though.

The Aura comes with the NTA 8776 Dutch safety certificate, which is awarded to e-bike helmets tested to withstand higher-speed collisions. It also scored full marks when submitted to the Virginia Tech lab, where helmets are tested to withstand real-world-scenario impacts that would typically lead to concussion.

Performance

In the Aura, Unit 1 claims to have built a helmet “for every ride”. Personally, I’ve mainly been using the Aura on short-to-medium journeys on my electric Tern Quick Haul, however, to test Unit 1’s claim that this is a genuine all-rounder, I’ve also tackled a few 40-minute commutes on my Croix de Fer.

Before tackling the finer points of how this particular helmet sat on my quite particular head, it’s important to highlight the obvious point that no two human heads are exactly the same. So aside from glaring issues with dial adjust systems or a lack of padding, when it comes to finding a comfortable helmet, what works for one person might not work for another. And of course vice versa.

I always take a size large, due to my head being especially long from forehead to the back. My misshapen noggin often means I get pressure points at the front and back from a lot of helmets. I have previously done a lot of shopping around to find something that works (shout out to the recently tested Smith Dispatch and my everyday Giro Syntax).

On first trying on the Aura, personally, I found the size L a bit gappy at the sides, even when I adjusted the cradle to become quite snug at the front and rear. I swapped to the additional 12mm padding, but even then I still found the helmet to feel quite tight against the forehead and against the dial, but at the same time not particularly well fitted or secure at the sides.

For me, the cradle sat quite high above the ears and meant the whole thing had a slight wobble, even when the dial adjuster was tightened as much as I could, but my aforementioned ill-shaped bonce is likely to have played a part here.

I also struggled with getting the straps to sit where I wanted them. The strap divider, which on most helmets slides up and down to get closer to or further away from the ear, on the Aura moves from front to back.

Personally, I wasn’t a fan of this modification as I prefer the straps to sit right up under my ears where they feel the most secure. However, the Fidlock magnetic buckle is a nice addition that allows you to unclip easily with one hand or while wearing chunky winter gloves.

Once the Aura is in situ, there’s a lot to like. I’ll start with the venting. Where a lot of e-bike and urban commuter helmets have opted for a smooth dome at the expense of much airflow, the Aura has managed to craft a lid that has that urban aesthetic without sacrificing ventilation.

You could argue that an e-bike helmet doesn’t need ventilation as the rider won’t be cranking out the watts, but having pedal-assisted my way round London this summer I can assure you that letting some of that warm breeze flow through your sweat-drenched mane offers some welcome relief.

For those warm weather rides the detachable visor offered just the right amount of coverage to fill the gap between the brim of the helmet and the top of my glasses, which is ideal. The magnetic strip, which the visor attaches to, provides enough grip so that the setup feels solid, but removing it doesn’t take a crowbar.

Mine did fall off once when knocked, but that says more about my laissez-faire attitude to bike parking that it does about the design. Unit 1 also offer three larger visors which offer full eye coverage and a range of tinting to really help manage the sunlight.

When the weather turns and the nights draw in, the Aura really comes into its own. The inbuilt lights are genuinely class-leading and provide incredible visibility. While they don’t go as far as to offer 360-degree illumination, there is enough of a curve at both front and rear that motorists will pick you out if approaching side on.

I also tested Unit 1’s Smart Lights and remote, as well as the Torch backpack (complete with light fitting), which all pair up and sync with your helmet, meaning the mode pulsating through your helmet matches that on your lights. Setting up the app and pairing only took a couple of minutes and I didn’t notice any glitches.

I was pretty sceptical about the need for, or the reliability of, indicator lights on a bike. However, having used the Aura alongside the Smart Light, I can see how this could enhance your ability to signal your intentions. Especially when going from regular mode to indicating with a half sweep, as this would mean the light going from being fully lit up to sweeping from one side to the other, but only on the relevant half of the light. If the light was making a full sweep a driver could mistakenly think you’ve just switched modes on the light. Admittedly, this will make more sense if and when you actually start using the light, but essentially I’m convinced that this is more than a gimmick.

The Crash Alert function also seems to work pretty well. A firm whack (not just a casual bump) on the helmet triggers an alert that, if not cancelled in 15 seconds, sends to your nearest or dearest.

Value

For the safety-conscious commuter, the helmet is no place to cut costs. Having said that, £200 is a lot of money. And in this instance, £200 doesn’t even get you the indicator remote.

Unit 1’s “Ride Pack” includes an additional visor plus the indicator remote and comes in at £230 with the helmet. If you’re going to spend the money on the Aura, then it would be remiss not to get the remote.

If you want to be fully kitted out with everything – helmet, Ride Pack, additional lights, and backpack – you’re looking at over £450.

When budgeting for a helmet, anything over £200 is a big outlay, and in the commuter bracket it’s especially pricey. Depending on your criteria, there are some cheaper options available.

When comparing it to smart helmets that offer similar features, one serious competitor is the Abus Hyp-E. It comes with front and rear lights, has a turning function and includes a remote in the package. It also comes with NTA 8776 certification, but lacks a Virginia Tech score and automated crash alerts. The Hyp-E has a £175 RRP / $229 MRSP, but can usually be found for less. A brake light is available as a separate add-on.

If you’re willing to go without smart functions, the Giro Camden comes with NTA 8776, has Mips technology and sports a large, inbuilt rear light, but retails at around £120. The Bern Hudson ticks the same boxes (although the light clicks in rather than being part of the helmet) and can be picked up for just over £100.

Verdict

The Unit 1 Aura is a helmet literally full to the brim with safety certifications and features. With full marks from the Virginia Tech lab, as well as the NTA 8776 certificate in the bag, you don’t need anything more in the way of reassurance when it comes to being effective in a collision.

The Aura also smashes it out of the park on visibility. The front and back lights are very good indeed. Being able to charge both via the helmet’s USB-C port only makes for a more positive experience. Yes, the button is a bit cumbersome, and any customisation of settings needs to be done through the app, but overall the lights are great.

If you want to utilise the indicator functionality, you’ll have to purchase the remote control as it doesn’t come included. This will give your road visibility a whole other dimension, although I’m not fully convinced this is something enough road users are looking out for. If you’re hoping to use the helmet’s lights as indicators in lieu of signalling, I would proceed with caution.

The Aura is also fairly easy on the eye, albeit a bit on the bulky side. It was one of the biggest helmets out there and weighs in at 610g with the visor, so it’s also at the heavier end of the e-bike helmet scale.

Depending on how you intend to use it, the weight might be a deal-breaker, as you start to notice it when riding for long periods unless sat very upright. Yes, the venting is ample and very effective, but if you’re looking for a helmet that works both on a busy e-bike commute and a weekend gravel ride, then I would think again, or make your peace with having one helmet for each purpose.

Personally, I found the fit to be a bit uncomfortable, putting pressure on the back of my head while at the same time not fully wrapping tight around the temples and above the ears But helmet fit is a very subjective matter, and one I would recommend you put to the test yourself.

Clearly the price tag will put some people off, but who am I to put a price on the safety of your grey matter. There are cheaper smart helmets out there, and there are helmets with the same safety certification. However, finding one that does all of this and still appeals to you aesthetically might be a big ask.

As far as helmet manufacturers go, Smith is a relative newcomer to the bike market, having launched its inaugural Forefront MTB lid in 2013. Having made his name making ski goggles, founder Bob Smith patented anti-fog lenses 60 years ago and the company has been innovating ever since.

The Dispatch MIPS is the brand's premium commuter helmet and Smith's snowsports heritage comes through in the design. There are even special vents to help stop your glasses steaming up. Classic Smith.

With a £155 RRP, the Dispatch sits at the higher end of the e-bike-specific helmet range, but there’s a lot to like. The integrated light, NTA 8776 certification and magnetic Fidlock buckle are just a few of the standout features.

I’ve been using the Dispatch MIPS on my e-bike school run and during battery-free commutes into the office. Admittedly, I’ve not had much snow to deal with, but I get the impression the Dispatch would be more than equipped to cope.

Design and aesthetics 

The Dispatch is a stylish, durable commuter helmet with a subtle urban aesthetic. Leaning into its snowsport heritage, Smith has created a lid that wouldn’t look completely out of place on a ski lift, with a minimal domed shell, small vents and an inbuilt Microbrim visor.

The Microbrim is essentially an enlarged section with a very subtle lip at the front of the helmet that both shields your eyes and also facilitates the additional AirEvac vents. These inlets integrate with Smith eyewear and generally help prevent misty specs. The rear vents also allow for the attachment of an integrated light, which comes included with the helmet.

There are plenty of other smart additions to the design, including a Fidlock magnetic buckle and Koroyd protective material used alongside EPS in the liner.

Despite the abundance of features, Smith has kept the shell nice and sleek and the helmet isn’t overly bulky. There aren’t many contours or gaps, which only adds to a solid overall feel. The brand logo is subtle and even with the light attached, the helmet has a stripped-back silhouette which looks high-end.

If stripped-back is your thing, you’ll be pleased to know that Smith has kept things simple when it comes to colour options, too. The latest iteration of the Dispatch comes in two options: black or white.

Components and build 

The first thing you notice about the Dispatch is how solid it feels. There are no creaks or flexes and nothing feels remotely in danger of snapping off should it get dropped. It’s a military-grade piece of kit. So much so I wouldn’t be surprised if Smith launched a matching flak jacket.

The helmet uses MIPS, a system which protects the head from rotational forces during a crash, and uses Koroyd technology in combination with a traditional EPS liner. Koroyd is used “zonally” within the Dispatch, rather than all over, which effectively creates crumple zones that will absorb impact in targeted areas where it’s most likely to be needed.

To back this up, the Dispatch comes with the e-bike-specific NTA 8776 certificate, which means it's been tested at higher speeds and provides increased head coverage compared to regular helmets. It doesn’t, however, currently come with a Virginia Tech rating, although similar Smith helmets do boast all five stars from the reputable testing lab.

Smith’s Vaporfit cradle claims to offer 270-degree adjustment, which should mean less chance of particular pressure points. The system also provides three settings at the rear so you can tune the fit.

Smith haven’t gone overboard with the padding, with none at the rear, but what’s there does come with Ionic+ antimicrobial lining. The fabric contains silver, which actively reduces bacteria and therefore helps keep odours and stains to a minimum.

The straps come complete with a magnetic Fidlock buckle, which means you can unclip with one hand. This might not seem like a huge advantage, but for anyone used to carrying a bag or a child, then actually having one hand free can be a game-changer.

To keep your head cool on warmer days or longer rides, the Dispatch comes with eight vents. At first glance, these don’t seem like much, as the shell is mainly one smooth dome, with vents feeling very much secondary to the overall design. The whole thing weighed in at 394g on my scales, which is pretty impressive given the aforementioned rock-solid feel.

The most unique feature on the Dispatch is the Microbrim visor, which uses Smith’s custom AirEvac vents to channel additional airflow down through the lip of the helmet. With Smith’s ski and snowboard helmets, the vents are specifically aligned to match their own eyewear but, assuming you’re not commuting in ski goggles, as long as the browline of your glasses is quite flat, it should work well whether you’re in Smith specs or not.

Included with your helmet, you’ll find Smith’s integrated LED light, which attaches to the vents at the back. The light takes a Micro USB, rather than the modern USB-C, so you’ll need to keep that charger in the drawer for a few more years yet. You can set it to either a solid red light, a fast flash or a slow flash. The light adds another 28g grams to the total.

Alongside the light, you’ll also find a helmet bag with a drawstring that doubles as shoulder straps. Probably not something that will convince you to splash the cash, but a nice addition nonetheless.

Performance

Overall, the Dispatch was a pleasure to test. The biggest compliment you can give a helmet is that you completely forget you’re wearing it, and that was the case here. It was very comfortable and due to its relatively low weight, it remained pretty inconspicuous to me, even on my 40-minute pedal-powered commute.

Smith claim that the VaporFit dial gives you 270 degrees of adjustment, mitigating any particular pressure points in the cradle. These claims stood up to the test and I didn’t suffer the same pressure I’ve had testing other similar products. My head is large from front to back, meaning I often end up with a pressure point at the front of the cradle and a red mark on my forehead. I didn’t get that with the Dispatch. Of course helmet comfort is quite subjective, so I would always recommend trying for size or double-checking a store’s returns policy.

The height adjustment makes getting the fit right even easier. I found the lowest setting helped make the fit feel more secure. The higher setting will probably help when it comes to ponytails, although it does make the dial a bit harder to adjust.

In terms of aesthetics, the Dispatch isn’t nearly as bulky as some of its peers in the e-bike helmet subgenre, which contains some absolute whoppers. Despite looking quite bulbous in the pictures, when in position it’s much more streamlined. The look definitely borrows from some of Smith’s snowsports cousins, but has clearly been tweaked for the streets.

The shell looks and feels like something that is built to last. It withstood a few little bumps and scuffs during testing and just seems like a solid piece of kit.

The vents are pretty minimal and I was worried they wouldn’t be sufficient enough to keep my head cool on warmer rides. Despite not looking like much, especially compared to more traditional road helmets, these little inlets worked well on my commute. The vents being on the smaller side also helps keep your hair from getting soaked if the heavens open.

I’m also a big fan of the Fidlock buckle. It might seem like a nice-to-have feature rather than something genuinely game-changing, but try telling that to someone trying to remove a helmet whilst also wrestling a clingy one-year-old on the way into nursery.

The light, which Smith describes as “integrated”, clips on to the upper rear vents of the helmet. I’d say integrated is overselling it a bit, as the light is definitely a separate entity, but the clip-on process is very smooth. While in situ, the light works well and is easy to activate while riding. The button protrudes enough making it easy to locate, so you can feel confident you’ve hit the switch if you decide you need some extra visibility mid-ride.

From a performance point of view, it’s difficult to find too many faults. The fit will be something you’ll ultimately need to test yourself, but in terms of design and functionality, this is one of my personal favourite commuter options.

Value

The Dispatch is undoubtedly a premium helmet and comes with a hefty price tag, but after putting it to the test, the performance definitely justifies the expense. The engineering behind both the helmet and its components means you’re getting something that works well, will last you a considerable amount of time and gives will keep you safe in the unfortunate event of a collision.

However, if you’re looking for a similar style of product but want to keep the cost down, there are some options out there. The POC Crane has a similar urban look but comes in a little cheaper at £110 RRP. The POC also has the benefit in having a fluorescent orange option, as well as the black and white available with the Dispatch.

Also in the same bracket aesthetically is the Bern Hudson, which comes with a detachable fabric visor. This one officially comes in at around £137 but is currently reduced to £102 via the brand’s website.

At £99 RRP, the Lazer Verde also has a few more colourways to choose from and is both made from recycled materials and designed to be recycled. The POC, Bern and Lazer all come with the NTA 8776 seal of approval.

Verdict

Overall, this is one of the best e-bike helmets on the market. It ticks all the boxes you’d want and expect, with the addition of some really nice additional features.

It’s a good-looking lid as well. The Matte White colour I tested gave me additional Stormtrooper energy at the lights on my commute. The only other available colour option on this latest model is black, which is a bit disappointing given the previous model comes in the slightly more interesting Slate and Sunrise colourways.

The Dispatch feels extremely durable and offers excellent protection, with the necessary certification to prove it, but it isn’t overly heavy or bulky. The ventilation isn’t excessive, so shouldn’t let too much rain in, but together with breathable Koroyd technology it should keep you cool enough on the commute.

The visor venting is a nice touch, as is the Fidlock buckle. While there isn’t an abundance of padding, the Dispatch feels secure and the VaporFit dial helps you dial-in the fit without creating pressure points.

Where you might feel the pinch is when you come to payment, as this is at the top end of the commuter price bracket. However, the overall performance here justifies the price tag.

There have been some shining lights in the waterproof landscape however, as companies stop focussing on trying to maintain a near-impossible levels of dryness, and reprioritise temperature regulation in the face of impending dampness. One such glimmer of hope was the Castelli Gabba R, and in a similar vein I’ve absolutely adored testing Assos’ Equipe RS Shell Jersey S11.

It’s called a jersey, but in my eyes it’s more like a gilet (or vest, for y’all across the pond), but with sleeves. In fact, it’s the first thing to come along that’s actually managed to supplant my Castelli Perfetto vest when summer turns to autumn, or when winter finally gives way to spring. It’s been stowed in my pockets more times than I can count, it’s come with me up mountains, and it should absolutely be on your list if you like to ride hard in the wet.

Design and aesthetics

I’ll admit, it does look like a jersey, and while you could wear it over a base layer you’d probably struggle as it has no pockets. The Equipe RS Shell Jersey S11 (a typically wordy Assos product name, with Equipe RS denoting it’s from the brand’s most racy line, and S11 designating that this is the highest evolution of this product) takes the form of an aero jersey, but mates a VERY stretchy 2-layer softshell membrane on the front, shoulder, and down the sides of your back with the sleeves from a standard aero jersey, and a wide mesh panel running the length of the spine up to the top of the shoulder blades.

The polyurethane membrane itself boasts a hydrostatic head figure of “>25m”, which is certainly respectable, and a breathability of 40,000g/m2/24hrs, which again, on paper, is certainly impressive. This is more than the hydrostatic head of the Gabba R (5,000mm), though Castelli doesn’t offer a breathability figure for its garment. You do need to remember that breathability will be improved by having a mesh back, something that will also allow water ingress to a far greater degree than the membrane will, and the Assos doesn’t have any taped seams anywhere.

The fit is just like an aero jersey, albeit with a high collar, allowing it to fit like a second skin over whatever you’re already riding hard in, with a little more room engineered into the lower back to account for pockets stuffed full of gels.

There’s a double zip to allow access to the aforementioned pockets, and aid in temperature regulation top and bottom, and a very cropped front to reduce bunching when in a position conducive to going fast. There’s no gripper on the hem, or cinch functionality, but as I’ll get into, it isn’t really necessary. It comes in six sizes, and you should buy it in your usual jersey size. For reference, I have been testing it in a small size, tipping the scales at 137.4g (versus the 155g for my Perfetto vest, admittedly in a medium).

The branding is typically minimal for an Assos shell. You can have any colour you want as long as it's black, save for the Assos logo high on the left shoulder and the rubberised wordmark on the collar. It looks good, it’ll match basically any kit you have, and it doesn’t suffer from what the Castelli Gabba R suffers from, in that it makes you look a little like you have a latex fetish, rather than a cycling one.

Performance

What a joy it is to have some weather protection without that incessant flapping. It’s hard to overstate how omnipresent some flapping is in almost all waterproof (or at least water-resistant) gear, but this is just like wearing an aero jersey over your aero jersey.

The fit is, as is almost always the case with Assos, absolutely perfect. It’s the right length, the right cut, with the right stretch to allow full freedom of movement and access to the pockets without ever stressing that the wind is grabbing at you. It’s tight enough that it doesn’t ride up, meaning a hem gripper is basically obsolete. You do need to be already wearing a close-fitting jersey, however, or you’ll suffer unsightly creases; this is very much a layer for the aero crowd.

The sleeves could be a half-inch longer, to avoid certain jersey sleeves poking out underneath, but that’s my only real gripe with the fit. Even the collar, so often too tight for me (and I’ve not had any Viagra pills stuck in my throat to give me a big neck as yet), is just right.

The weather protection isn’t going to compete with dedicated hardshells like the Pas Normal Mechanism Shell Jacket, or even the lightweight Maap Atmos, but that’s not what it’s for. If you’re riding hard in drizzle and light rain in anything from warm to cool conditions (basically summer, spring, and autumn, outside of downpours and storms), you’ll be golden. It occupies much the same space as the Gabba R in this respect, but works far better as a transient layer as it goes on and off far more easily, with no tacky grabbing of the flesh from the outer fabric, and stuffs into a jersey pocket far more easily.

On drizzly rides where you wouldn’t necessarily bother with anything at all, it’s perfect to throw on for a descent, and basically does whatever a light cycling vest would do, too.

If you’ve never ridden with any of Assos’ mesh-backed garments then you’re missing a trick. I’m surprised other brands haven’t picked it up yet, but in any case it’s marvellous. Much like with the Assos Equipe R Spring Fall LS Jersey S11 that I reviewed last winter, having next to nothing on your spine really helps keep you cool. The leading edges at the front and on the shoulders deal with the worst of the wetness, and this lovely central stripe, relatively devoid of airflow, can steam away quite happily.

If you still find yourself too hot, then the double zip is more than sufficient to adjust accordingly, maximising the time you leave it on before deciding, once again, to stuff it back in a jersey pocket.

It’s so good, in fact, that it has replaced my gilets entirely for road riding.

If you stop, however, you may get chilly. You cannot layer up as well underneath, so will need to be switched on regarding your base layer and arm warmer strategies, but it will cover the same basic conditions as any vest, in my opinion, while also keeping some water out.

Value

At £215, or $315, it isn’t a cheap bit of kit. It is, however, cheaper than a Castelli Gabba R and I would argue a more versatile bit of kit, while also being nominally also aerodynamically optimised and significantly more stylish. It is more expensive than a Perfetto vest, for so long my go-to, but if you are wanting to go fast in a greater range of conditions then the Assos is going to be the better bet.

It’s expensive, but given how good it is at what it does, I actually think it’s decent value. You needn’t trudge through the truly desolate midwinter riding if you don’t want to, and you definitely shouldn’t do it in this, but it’ll certainly make shoulder season more enjoyable, and faster too, I’d wager.

Verdict

I really like the Assos Equipe RS Shell Jersey. It has, for the most part, replaced my gilets in my usual riding wardrobe. It’s packable, protective enough to shrug off a respectable amount of water if you’re going hard, breathable and adjustable enough to avoid getting sweaty, fits like a dream, and looks good. It’s expensive, but it’s barely more expensive than an expensive gilet, and more versatile for shoulder season and summer in my view. A very good bit of kit, and one that will remain in my regular rotation for a long time to come.

iGPSPORT's competitively priced bike computers have made me sit up and take notice this year.

iGPSPORT was founded in 2012, and its products are now available worldwide. It caught my attention earlier this year when it began sponsoring the FDJ WorldTour team.

I reported on that news at the time, as a pair of Chinese computer brands entered the top flight in the form of iGPSPORT with FDJ and Magene with Astana.

Like various other sectors, such as the automotive and coffee industry, this is another strong example of Chinese products challenging established Western brands.

I called in the BiNavi unit to test and to see if the performance, along with the price, justifies a seat at the big table alongside the likes of Garmin, Wahoo and Hammerhead in our best bike computers guide.

The BiNavi retails for £219.90 / $239.90 / €239 and possesses a spec list that on paper takes the fight to the big manufacturers.

The unit sits amongst the ‘bike navigator’ section of the brand’s computer offerings, alongside the six-unit-strong ‘GPS computer’ section. The Bi Navi units just place a little more emphasis on navigation.

There’s a colour touchscreen, app, 32GB memory, claimed 35+ hour battery life, certainly everything the average rider and this tech writer wants in a unit.

I’ve used it exclusively for several months and for the odd hill climb event. I’ve been impressed and won over; this review will be enough to help you leap to an unfamiliar system if you like the look of the unit and the price tag

Design and aesthetic

The BiNavi arrives in a neat box, and the standalone unit comes with a charger cable, tether, O-rings for mounting to a bar or stem, and something I’ve never seen before in a bike computer: a silicone case and screen protector to install to keep the screen looking fresh,

The brand also offers a BiNavi Air unit, which you might spot. It has a slightly smaller screen and costs a little less, but has a similar spec list.

The unit has six buttons and, size-wise, is roughly the same as the Hammerhead Karoo; official dimensions are 101×60×14.5 mm. There’s a picture comparison with a few units below for you to look at.

In terms of specifications, the BiNavi on paper at least is pretty much up there with various premium smart computers on the market, and it makes a strong opening case for the amount it costs. The full spec list is here, but the unit has a 3.5" colour touchscreen, a claimed 35-hour battery life, 32GB of memory, USB-C charging, an IPX7 waterproof rating and supports dual-band GNSS GPS.

In terms of additional desirable add-ons, there's music control, smart notification updates, Komoot, TrainingPeaks, and Strava integration, along with DJI, Insta360, Aerosensor and Tymewear, etc.

There's also training support, and the unit provides training analysis and training plans if you want to try and tackle more structured work.

This is the brand's navigation-focused unit, but its nav capabilities are on a par with a range of other smart computers. Routes can be planned or created from rides in the app and sent to the device; POI navigation can also be used, and you can see and access other local routes created by iGPSPORT users in the recommended route section.

Voice navigation for turns is also an option as long as you are connected to the app, and you can choose to have Chris Froome's (a global brand ambassador) voice as an option via your phone speaker/headphones, which I obviously tested out. You can have the multiple Grand Tour winner as your SatNav man/lady, it's a fun feature.

iGPSPORT has an app, and this is used alongside the unit using Bluetooth, just as you would with Garmin Connect or apps from any other brand. Activities are stored in the app, and routes can be transferred across to the BiNavi unit

The unit takes about two seconds to power up, and once on, you are met with the main home screen; 12 widgets take up the sreen from navigation, training, group riding, and weather, etc. Along the top is where you can select your ride profile screen; there are seven stock options for you to customise and set up. I've used two of them: one for my general road riding with lap screens, etc., and a pared-down race version.

There are two theme options to choose from, which dictate the layout of the computer (pictured below). I found the ‘dynamic widgets’ option a lot better than the ‘colourful cards’; it would be my recommendation and is a bit more like your average smartphone layout.

Slide down from the top on any screen, and a kind of settings screen comes up; from here you can toggle screen brightness using a slider bar, access your sensors and pairings, check the weather, etc.

Operating the unit and using the touchscreen to scroll through pages is very easy; the touchscreen is great and works perfectly, but the unit is very fast too; there’s no waiting for it to do anything. It’s great to use.

Performance

So, is it any good, and is it worth spending your money on? I would say yes, absolutely, but there are a couple of points to consider.

I’m well over 700 miles into my testing period with the BiNavi now and have been very impressed with the unit. I’ve used it for all my riding and training and a local hill climb.

It’s easy to use and generally very fast; the touchscreen is great, it charges quickly, and it does everything I need it to. There isn’t much to not like about it; I’ve bumped into two riders locally recently who use iGPSPORT units too, and they are converts.

My very first impression was that the screen wasn’t as bright or vivid as the other well-known units on the market. It’s more than fine, and I adapted within days, but it's just not as bright.

I found it easy to set up my pages, adjust them on the fly and set up a new one for a hill climb where I just wanted power and time on the screen for the short, all-out effort. It’s on a par with the Karoo for how easy it is to customise ride screens.

One detail I really like is the speed at which laps can be executed, and the lap ‘interval start’ screen is removed from the display; hit the lap button; the message comes up on screen; simply touch the screen to remove it, and it’s gone straight away.

I’ve found this a really agreeable feature in training. Don’t forget the unit is also compatible with TrainingPeaks, so your sessions can be uploaded to the platform straight away as well.

Battery life is quoted at 35 hours, though the brand says it will, of course, depend on your own use case. For my roughly 8-ish hours a week of riding, I haven’t come close to being caught out by a low battery; I've also found charging to be very fast. It will start to get used up quicker with all sorts connected and navigation on, but it will be fine for pretty long rides.

I've had a couple of ride upload issues to Strava where the device seemed to get the date wrong; rides I completed on a Monday came out as being done on a Sunday at a different time. I couldn't figure this out, and it seemed to be a glitch.

Navigation is generally good using the BiNavi, and I like the clear map layout, even preferring it to the Garmin format, I think. The device gives you turning warnings in advance, and you can customise nav screen metrics like speed and power.

There are a few points on navigation worth mentioning; the first thing that caught me out was that you can't use the touchscreen to zoom in on the map; instead, you have to use the + and - buttons on the screen.

The device froze on me once whilst calculating a route start; I was struggling for a few minutes before finding that hitting the power button sorted it out. Niggles can happen on any device, and it was isolated.

In the rain, you can lock the touchscreen from the main menu and just use the device buttons to prevent heavy raindrops from playing havoc with your data screens.

You can also only use the iClimb climbing metric feature whilst riding a pre-loaded route; again, no biggie, but it's not as comprehensive as something like Wahoo Summit can provide climbing metrics for every climb you ride.

You can navigate a pre-ridden route from the device, but you will need the app to save a route and send it across to your unit. It’s done in seconds, though.

I didn't find the one-click navigation function amazing in the app either; this is where you can search for a location and route to it. A simple search for a McDonald's (we've all been there) would only throw up one 100 miles away (there's one three miles from my house), but the unit located the nearby cycling track successfully, for example. The system seems slightly hit-and-miss and could be an issue on a bleak winter ride for some riders.

Verdict

At £219.90 / $239.90 / €239, this computer offers fantastic value for money; it’s on a par with units twice its value, and personally I’d take it over the Garmin Edge 550 due to that excellent touchscreen and save myself some cash.

The screen isn’t as vivid and bright; that’s it. I quickly got used to that though, and it’s not an issue.

Some of the navigation and UI performance from the unit and/or app seems slightly subpar, but for the price and overall performance, it doesn't bother me too much.

Verdict

For the amount of money it costs, I think this is a really solid computer unit from iGPSPORT. It's very fast and easy to use; the touchscreen is good, and it does all I need it to for my riding.

The map quality and navigation itself are good, and if you don't make new routes several times a week and really ask a lot of your computer's navigation tech, I don't think you will have much to worry about. If you're the sort of rider that generally knows your routes off by heart, and every so often downloads a GPX route for an event, you will be laughing.

At final count: over 800 miles of riding have properly tested the BiNavi. Some aspects of the overall system and app are slightly clunkier and less refined than some competitors in places, but there isn't too much in it.

Excellent performance at a very attractive price point; what's not to like. iGPSPORT deserves a seat at the big table.

I recently reviewed the Kärcher OC3 Foldable Mobile Cleaner and absolutely loved the compact portability of this wonderful low-pressure washer, which makes it one of the best pressure washers for bikes. As much as I rated the Kärcher highly, it did have limitations in pressure and reservoir capacity.

So, if mobile washing is a priority and you want some extra grunt for cleaning power, the Muc-Off Mobile Pressure Washer is worthy of your attention. However, there is a major flaw that turns what is a brilliant bit of kit into something less impressive, and some may consider it a deal-breaker.

The Muc-Off Mobile Pressure Washer launched back in 2024 as an upgrade and mobile variant of the brand’s mains-powered bicycle pressure washer. The unit features a self-contained 20-litre water tank, its own internal power source, a max pressure of 45 bar (approx. 652 PSI), and a rapid four-litre-per-minute flow rate. Impressive stats, and as a Muc-Off fan, I was keen to test it out.

Design and aesthetics 

Firstly, the Muc-Off Mobile Pressure Washer is very easy on the eye. Dressed in the brand's signature style with a sleek black-and-subtle-pink colourway, it really stands out, especially if you ever find yourself in a car park pressure washer standoff.

It is constructed primarily from high-grade, heavy-duty plastics, resulting in a solid build designed to withstand being bounced around in car boots, dragged across gravel, and exposed to the elements.

Considering it houses a 20-litre tank, it’s fairly compact. Its squat shape makes it resistant to tipping, but not impossible. The sturdy wheels, a basic towing handle, and a robust carry handle make it easy to manoeuvre even when fully loaded.

Muc-Off includes four lances with this basic Starter Bundle: a lower-pressure bike lance, an adjustable lance, a full-power motorbike lance, and a snow foam lance. The box also includes a bottle of Muc-Off bike cleaner.

The unit is driven by a 500W electric motor powered by a 40V lithium battery. This setup claims to offer 15 to 24 minutes of runtime depending on your selected mode (Boost or Eco) and recharges fully in three to four hours. The motor, internal pump, and water-sealed battery compartment are all safely contained inside, with a dedicated watertight door making the battery easy to remove.

The hose is a generous five meters long. While longer hoses always have tangle potential, not being tethered to a mains power cable makes this less of an issue, and the extra reach lets you move freely around your bike without constantly dragging the unit along.

This brings me to a curious design flaw.

The main lid isn't watertight. While this makes filling simple, but placing a full tank in your car or van means water will inevitably slosh out while driving. For me, this isn't a deal-breaker because I wouldn't transport a full tank anyway; doing so adds considerable weight and risks dumping 20 litres of water into my boot if the washer ever tipped over.

Muc-Off officially advises against travelling with a full reservoir. They even sell a separate 20-litre Water Tank for transport, though buying extra kit somewhat defeats the point of an all-in-one system. They also offer a waterproof Dry Bag Mobile Holdall to catch leaks and suggest filling the main tank no more than a quarter full if you absolutely must travel with water inside.

Empty, the unit weighs 7.7 kg (17 lbs). Filled to its 20-litre capacity, it tips the scales at a hefty 27.7 kg (61 lbs), a significant weight to haul around, particularly given the lack of a watertight seal.

Performance

Having owned several mains-powered, high-pressure washers, I was expecting big things from the Muc-Off and its power numbers, and it doesn’t disappoint. Thanks to a self-priming function, water pressure is instant the moment you pull the trigger, packing enough kick at full power to lift the lance if you're holding it one-handed.

I used the full-power nozzle on my bike’s tyres and gave the frame a general blast to shift the bulk of the muck. Just be cautious around sensitive areas like bearings and bottom brackets, as this unit will force water past bearing seals without a doubt.

The Snow Foam Lance is brilliant, quickly coating your ride in a thick blanket of Muc-Off Nano Cleaner or your preferred bike wash. Once the foam has worked its magic, you can switch to either the adjustable power lance or the full-power version for rinsing. I stuck mostly to full power, but the adjustable option is great if you want to dial back the force around delicate components, even if it's slightly less effective on stubborn dirt. The motorcycle lance packs the heaviest hit, and I used it on my bike with no problems; it's not advised, but useful for multi-purpose use.

Muc-Off claims a continuous battery runtime of 15 minutes in Boost mode and 24 minutes in Eco, plenty of time for a thorough clean. I found this accurate in testing, easily emptying the entire water tank well before showing any sign of battery drain. The unit also features a clear charge indicator displaying your remaining battery level.

The hose and lances are well-engineered, locking together with a satisfying click. While the hose feels quite long, perhaps slightly excessively so, it is robust and durable. When empty, everything stores neatly inside the unit, keeping all your accessories organised in one place.

Storage is another important factor to consider. Dimensions come in at 39 cm (15.3 inches) high, 32 cm (12.6 inches) wide and 43 cm (16.9 inches) long. Living in a first-floor flat makes storing and carrying the unit downstairs a bit of a slog when full, but certainly not impossible.

However, if you have a garage, shed, or nearby outdoor tap, or plan to use it exclusively for car park washdowns, this won't be a major issue. If you're using it at home, then having it filled, charged and ready to go works great and allows for a swift clean-down post-ride.

Returning to the washer's lid, it has to be mentioned and impacts overall scoring. If you want to transport the washer and water, your options are to either buy extra water-carrying accessories or use a waterproof bag (which doesn't really fix the root problem). Without a proper seal, water will spill while driving.

So the word mobile could be slightly misleading; it's definitely mobile, but just not as a water-filled mobile unit. Saying that, the convenience is no doubt a plus for use at home, meaning no hooking up hoses and running power from a mains supply.

Finally, like most portable washers, hot water is not recommended. I used lukewarm water for extra cleaning power, staying well within its maximum rated temperature of 40°C (104°F).

The power is impressive, but this level of output also makes the unit fairly noisy, sounding much closer to a full-sized mains pressure washer than quieter, low-pressure units like the Kärcher OC3.

Value

The Mobile Pressure Washer Starter Bundle is currently priced at £250 on the Muc-Off website. I think it offers decent performance for the price. However, considering you can buy a mains-powered unit like the Kärcher K2 Classic, which offers higher pressure, for just £75, it's something to weigh up.

Of course, traditional pressure washers require an outdoor tap, hose, and power outlet, none of which I have outdoors. If your requirements demand a punchy cleaner with built-in power and water storage, the investment is well worth it.

By contrast, the Kärcher OC3 Foldable is a fantastic low-pressure option. While it offers less power and water capacity, it is highly recommended for basic washdowns and is priced at just over £100.

Verdict

Overall, the Mobile Pressure Washer is really good; I enjoyed using it, and it performs brilliantly. The elephant in the room is that non-watertight lid, but is it actually a deal-breaker? If you don't fill the tank prior to transport, or if you don't travel with it at all and simply need all-in-one functionality, it's just no issue whatsoever.

However, if you do attempt to transport it full, prepare for a wet vehicle if you don't transport your water in a separate container. As far as cleaning power goes, it's right up there and does a great job of shifting stubborn dirt, especially on gravel and mountain bikes. It's arguably a bit overkill for a road bike, but it doubles up well as a general-purpose power washer – I've even used it to wash my car.

Ultimately, if it fits your specific setup, I have no hesitation in recommending the Muc-Off Mobile Pressure Washer. It has the lid design flaw and comes with a premium price tag, but it looks cool and performs brilliantly.

Designed to be Garmin’s entry level offering when it comes to chest strap heart rate monitors, the Garmin HRM 200 should not be considered lacking in advancements.

Impressively, for a budget heart rate monitor, the HRM 200 can be used for taking heart rate variability (HRV) measurements, something often lacking in chest strap monitors in the entry level market.

Appearance wise, it’s a big update from the previous generation HR monitor, but functionality wise there is little that has changed. That can be viewed as a good thing, given that the previous version just worked very well.

The HRM 200 has been positioned by Garmin as the optimal heart rate monitor to use when optical-based ones, such as wrist or arm-mounted, might not provide adequate data accuracy, such as high moisture/sweat environments where optical HRMs can struggle to remain consistent.

At £79.99, it’s not exactly cheap, but for a HRV (Heart Rate Variability) reading HR monitor, it starts to look better value. But just how well does it compare to other chest strap heart rate monitors on the market?

Design and Aesthetics

The Garmin HRM 200 is the entry-level offering from the brand when it comes to chest strap heart rate monitors. These HR monitors work by detecting the actual electrical signals from your heart, whereas optical sensors use flashing lights to measure pulse based on visual blood flow.

Optical sensors can become less accurate when there is moisture present, such as sweat, so for endurance sports with lots of perspiration, chest-based electrocardiography (ECG) systems are more accurate, as they detect the signal even better with moisture present. These two electrode readers are located on the back of the chest strap, and connect to the main broadcasting pod.

This pod has been heavily redesigned aesthetically. It now features a button on the front, and an LED light. The button needs to be held to enter pairing mode to easily connect to a bike computer or smartwatch, and then a single press to wake it up before use. The front LED has different flash patterns for connecting (orange flash), and being connected (green dual flash). The LED can also display battery level at the point of waking up; Green flash is okay, orange flash is low, red flash is critical.

On the rear of this pod, the coin cell battery, CR2032 in this case, is accessible. New US and Australian regulations require these to use a tool to open, rather than a penny or similar coinage to prevent children from accessing them. Garmin has addressed this very cleverly, making the strap buckle feature two small prongs which fit into this compartment to open up the battery door. Battery life is claimed one year, but it is not clear under what sort of usage that one year life is guaranteed.

Two strap options are available, XS-S (60-85 cm, 23.5"-33.5") and M-XL (80-119 cm, 31.5-47.0"). A simple hook and latch design is used to connect them, while the pod snaps on and off easily with two press studs.

Water resistance is a claimed 3 ATM (atmospheres) so should be able to deal with rain and sweat easily when cycling as that is far lower pressure. Garmin recommends removing the pod and washing the strap after every seven uses. You can also broadcast HRV data to compatible devices, Garmin, of course, recommends one of their Garmin watches. Total weight with the M-XL strap is 63 g (2.2 oz).

Performance

Some heart rate monitors can be a bit of a faff to get adjusted and fitted correctly, no such issues with the Garmin HRM 200. The M-XL strap fits me very well, with the advertised chest size being a good gauge of what size you should order. I also like the neat bit of low friction material that is placed on the inside of the strap hook. On the Wahoo Trackr HRM for example this isn’t present and the hook can dig into your side a little bit. Adjustment of the strap was also very easy and has remained in place throughout the entirety of testing.

Connectivity is also a breeze. Holding the button on the front of the unit until it flashes orange to show it is pairing, it then connects seamlessly with the Garmin Edge 1050 I was using alongside.

In terms of accuracy, to test this I ran a few different heart rate monitors concurrently in a few different scenarios. Indoors, I was using an Apple Watch Ultra 2 on my wrist, along with a Coros HRM on my arm. Both of these perform better when there is no fabric over them, so are ideal for indoors with a vest on. They do both struggle when the going gets sweatier though. For the easier rides, the Garmin HRM 200 tracked well with them, but at higher intensity it tended to read higher, where the others have struggled to reach peak HR readings.

Outdoors, I had the fun of wearing a Wahoo Trackr HRM at the same time, both around my chest. Both devices read consistently across lower intensity riding all the way up to maximal efforts around HR maximum. I’d confidently say that the Garmin HRM 200 reads accurately, as a lot of chest straps do nowadays.

The additional features are interesting. The waterproofing is more targeted toward swimming, where a smartwatch may not be as accurate for HR measurements because the wet environment can limit optical HR accuracy.

HRV is another feature of the HRM 200, but to measure this really you need to be either wearing a smartwatch which the HRM 200 is connected to, or connect each morning and get a waking measurement. Consistency is key when taking HRV readings, and I personally find putting the chest strap on for this a bit of a faff. At lower intensities, optical measurements have worked well for me and require less thought process. This is why an optical reading watch, strap, or ring would be my preferred option if I did track this regularly.

Battery level has been hard to judge, as over the course of the testing period I would not expect battery level to go from ‘okay’ to ‘low’ and it has not. I have not tested the unit for an entire year, just a few dozen hours, so I must take it at the brand’s word for the moment. Having used CR2032 HR monitors for years, the ‘one year battery life’ rings partly true depending on how much you ride and how many connections you have. I personally would have preferred to see recharging in this unit, like the HRM 600 or Wahoo Trackr HR, but coin cells, even with more waste, are better for fit and forget. I do have a huge list of devices that are being constantly charged after rides so maybe not adding to this is a blessing.

Value

Value is a tough one to gauge at the moment as there are a host of great HR monitors available with different pros and cons. The Wahoo Trackr HR monitor for example is the same price at £79.99 but is rechargeable although it lacks HRV broadcasting. Meanwhile the Polar H10 is very reliable, easy to use, has a great strap, but costs a fraction more at £86.50 and has a more awkward battery size.

There are some strong performing newcomers as well, with the 4iiii Viiiiva 2 (£64.99) and Magene H613 (£49) on paper offering better value overall given the features and the price difference.

Personally I find the HRV tracking a little hit and miss, as you need to be wearing a smart watch overnight to get truly accurate HRV measurements, which is not something I tend to do. You could connect it each morning with the Garmin app to measure waking HRV for a consistent tracking routine though. Personally, I prefer the rechargeability of the Wahoo Trackr HRM having tested that myself, while the Magene H613 with the same feature is a very enticing option.

As a chest based HR monitor though, the Garmin HRM 200 is a great performer, and if you don’t require the host of additional features that the Garmin HRM 600 comes with, then it is a better value offering and pretty good in the overall competitive market.

Verdict

The Garmin HRM 200 is a solidly performing heart rate monitor. It’s comfortable to wear, stays in place, has some neat features in-built, and it’s accurate for cycling use. The HRV features are something nice to have, but only if you have a smartwatch to pair with it or want to go through each morning actively setting up and measuring the HRV manually. For cycling use, I’d prefer rechargeability as a feature such as the same-priced Wahoo Trackr HRM.

What this means is that although it’s a solidly performing unit, it doesn’t exactly stand out to me. The likes of the 4iiii Viiiiva and Magene 613 claim to offer the same sort of performance for a decent chunk of cash less. Garmin has a great track record though as a superb HR monitor brand, so I expect the HRM 200 to be a reliable device for years to come.

When it comes to the best pressure washers for cleaning your bike, options and prices vary widely. The choice often comes down to your individual requirements and whether you need a gentle, bike-specific washer or a heavy-duty, general-purpose machine. You also need to keep in mind that high pressure isn't ideal for delicate paintwork or sensitive bearings.

Where you live matters too. I recently moved to a first-floor flat without an outside tap or mains power within reach, making post-ride cleanups a real challenge, and washing a filthy gravel bike in the bath is strongly frowned upon.

Will Jones’ review of the original Kärcher OC3 highlighted a potential solution, but its tiny 4-litre capacity meant it seemed that I'd be making constant trips back inside to refill and complete the job satisfactorily.

Enter the Kärcher OC3 Foldable. Built around an 8-litre collapsible water tank, it fixes the original’s biggest flaw while remaining easy to store and transport. This portable, low-pressure washer has been a total game-changer for post-ride cleaning. Even better, it doubles as a safe washing tool for muddy gear, cycling shoes, and even the dog, though Terry, my Lakeland Terrier, remains unimpressed.

Design and aesthetics 

Unboxing the Kärcher OC3 Foldable immediately reveals how compact it is, a massive plus for storage. Despite its tiny footprint, it genuinely holds 8 litres of water. The secret is its sturdy, accordion-style bucket that collapses down to roughly a quarter of its expanded size, making it easy to stash in a car boot or small cupboard while doubling the capacity of the original 4-litre model.

The tank is made from thick silicone (or thermoplastic elastomer) reinforced by a rigid plastic rim and base. The lid removes for easy filling and features a handy hook to clip onto the side during use, and the hose and pressure gun store neatly inside the collapsed tank afterwards. I initially questioned the durability of the flexible silicone, but after multiple uses, it feels tough enough to resist accidental punctures, leaving me with zero damage concerns.

Operation is intentionally minimalist. The front features a single rubberised power button, an LED indicator, and a USB-C charging port protected by a silicone plug. The battery sits safely inside the watertight plastic base, and that feels solid and well built.

Other thoughtful details include a sturdy handle that easily supports a full load of water, and an internal clip that keeps the hose from tangling, which is a generous 1.8-metre length. The pressure gun feels great in the hand, operating with a simple trigger pull.

Weighing just 2.2 kg (4.85 lbs) empty and 10.2 kg (22.5 lbs) fully loaded, it's easy to carry around.

Performance

Having owned several mains-powered, high-pressure washers, I didn't expect to get the same performance from the OC3 Foldable. I’m also currently testing the Muc-Off Portable Pressure Washer, which is double the price, far larger, and proving a bit of a storage nightmare, which really highlights the compact sizing of the OC3.

The beauty of the OC3 Foldable is that it collapses to almost nothing. At just 108 mm (4.25 in) tall when folded, a 60% reduction in vertical profile – you can easily store it in a small kitchen drawer or keep it in the car. Expanded, it stands at 271 mm (10.7 in), with a static footprint of 305 x 298 mm (12.0 x 11.7 in).

In operation, water flows instantly when you pull the trigger and stops the moment you release it. It is remarkably quiet, sounding more like a dishwasher or standard vacuum cleaner than a traditional jet washer.

While the nozzle spray isn't adjustable, its 5 bar (approx. 72.5 PSI) rating is powerful enough to dislodge stubborn mud while remaining completely safe around paintwork and bearings. The output feels like a strong household shower. I’ve even filled it with warm water to help lift mud. Kärcher rates it for temperatures up to 40°C (104°F); anything hotter risks degrading the silicone walls and internal rubber seals.

One word of caution: if you lean heavily on the bucket when filled, it will collapse and spill water. Accidentally testing this proved the power button's waterproofing works well. Kärcher also warns against submerging the base, so take care if filling it directly from a natural water source when out and about.

Kärcher says the OC3 Foldable has a continuous battery runtime of 15 minutes, and according to the spec sheet, a single charge gives you enough power to empty its full 8-litre tank about three to four times. That I found was pretty accurate, and in bike-cleaning terms, I got four or five cleans before the battery called it a day.

The LED starts flashing when the battery is running low, and a full recharge takes approximately 2.25 hours via its USB-C port.

Value

The Kärcher OC3 Foldable is currently available on Amazon for just £109, cheaper than the £119 standard OC3 model, and far less than the Muc-Off Mobile Pressure Washer starter bundle at £250. Given its performance and convenience, it offers, I think, exceptional value for money.

While it can’t compete with a full-sized pressure washer, it is a brilliant and incredibly useful piece of kit for cyclists with limited space. I absolutely love it; my flat and shower are both significantly cleaner as a result. While comparing it to the Muc-Off model will be an interesting exercise, the Muc-Off's double-the-price tag and much larger footprint make it an unfair fight.

Verdict

The Kärcher OC3 Foldable is perfect for washing your bike before loading it into your car or taking it inside your flat. It’s a viable solution for anyone short on space, lacking an outdoor tap, or travelling on bike trips, as it keeps trail filth out of your living space and vehicle.

At just over £100, it offers fantastic value. While similar cheaper alternatives exist, Kärcher’s reputation for superior build quality makes it worth the extra investment.

You could buy an entry-level, mains-powered unit like the Kärcher K2 for less, but there's little point in comparing the two; this is a specialised tool built for portability and space-saving convenience.

It handles basic grime effortlessly and fits my needs perfectly, especially for a quick rinse-down after a ride, or before loading the bike into the boot. If your cleaning needs sound anything like mine, I can’t recommend the OC3 Foldable enough. I've been hard-pressed to find a single fault in this brilliant piece of kit.

As Campagnolo expands its gravel range and revitalises the entire Super Record groupset to include off-road electronic Super Record X, it brings with it a new gravel-focused iteration of the famous Bora wheels, the Bora X. The brand claims the new wheelset brings the best out of the new groupset, and vice versa, due to the synergy between components.

I can’t comment on that, having not tested the new Super Record X groupset, but after a lot of riding on the Bora X wheelset, I can confirm that it is a highly competent wheelset in many ways.

It’s lightweight for a 50mm deep wheel, although it is a little on the narrow side by some standards meaning it is perhaps better suited for 40-45mm tyres rather than larger. However, the greatest performance aspect of these wheels is the balance of stiffness. Lateral and torsional stiffness are easy enough to achieve, but to manage that with vertical compliance for a comfortable ride is sublime for gravel riding.

A hoard of high-quality parts, bags and accoutrements boost the value of these wheels, although they are still a shade under two grand. The cup and cone bearing system is perhaps not the preference for most, it works well if you look after it. Not to mention, the wheels frankly look stunning. They are a real winner in my books and a perfect addition to any gravel race bike.

Design and specifications

The Campagnolo Bora X wheels are built upon a unidirectional carbon rim that very closely resembles the Bora WTO rims used on the road. The 50mm depth is high for a gravel wheel, and closely on trend with the increasing focus on aerodynamics in the discipline. The width of the rim is where the changes are bigger, with a 27mm internal channel designed for 35mm tyres and larger, using hooked rims still giving some riders that added sense of security. Externally, the rim reaches 31.5mm wide, relatively narrow by some standards in today’s market.

The rim also features a solid rim bed, eliminating the need for tubeless tape, with spokes instead adjusted externally. Valves are supplied and are long enough for the 50mm depth, which is designed to make tubeless setup very easy time after time. A glorious gloss C Lux finish is present on the rims, offset with a mix of matte black and chrome logos, which personally makes this a stunning set of wheels.

Moving down from the rim, the spokes are laced in the iconic G3 lacing pattern. This uses sets of three spokes, one on the non-drive side at the rear and the non-rotor side at the front, two on the drive-side rear and rotor-side front. This results in a 2:1 ratio 21-spoke lacing configuration, with the seven radially laced, and the 14 using a three-cross arrangement. The spokes themselves are straight pull and bladed, but not all of them, some are rounded to balance stiffness and comfort for gravel riding.

The freehub is available for all standards from Campagnolo, SRAM, and Shimano, and uses NSW ceramic bearings, rather than the top-end CULT offering, with cup and cone rather than cartridge bearings. This requires a bit more maintenance, but if looked after, should last well. Lightweight lockrings are supplied as standard and attach externally. A nice bonus is the supply of both tyre levers and soft padded wheel bags large enough for wheels with 50mm tyres fitted. Claimed weight is 1,430g, but actual was 1,463g, although with lockrings and valves. Remove those, and the wheels still come in at 1,444g.

Performance

Tubeless setup for these wheels was one of the easiest I've done. The solid rim bed means no rim tape is required, just fit the valves, put the tyres on, and inflate with a track pump to seat. The Panaracer GravelKing ZX 45mm tyres inflated to 45mm exactly on these rims with the 27mm internal width and 31.5mm external. This is a bit narrow by some gravel wheelset standards, especially by modern wider trends, but it allows the versatility to run 35mm and upwards.

I have to say that the wheels look glorious. The C Lux finish combines a gloss carbon weave across the entirety of the rim with a mix of matte black ‘Bora’ logos with a chrome-finished ‘Campagnolo’ and winged wheel nut logo. They reflect the light in the sun and really make the frame pop. They do lose this once the dust from gravel riding gets them, but they’re easy enough to clean. I personally prefer this a lot to the standard matte black that is now all too common.

Of course, these are performance gravel wheels, and they are an impressively balanced set which have several features that really help them on gravel. The spoke lacing is heavily asymmetric, with a 2:1 ratio on the rear drive side and front rotor side to better deal with the asymmetric forces applied to the wheels. This results in the wheels having a superb level of lateral stiffness for out of the saddle accelerations and putting the power down, but also a great deal of torsional stiffness when accelerating and braking.

Impressively, this is balanced with a good amount of vertical compliance which gives them a more plush sensation when riding off road on rougher surfaces. Some of this is apparently to do with the carbon layup, but also the use of elliptical spokes alongside the bladed aero ones. Of course tyres and pressures make up a lot of the cushioning sensation you get, which is why I test with the same tyres and pressures on the same routes to keep things consistent. The Bora X, however, are noticeably more comfortable to ride than other gravel wheels on test with all other variables kept consistent.

A 50mm depth means these are a solid set of wheels when travelling at speed. At speeds around 35kph the wheels start to come alive. I’ve used these on the road a few times as well, and even on faster group rides the wheels feel pretty at home and not much of a compromise compared to road wheels with 30mm tyres.

Impressively, with this rim depth, the weight is competitive. Excluding the valves and lockrings, 1,444g for a 50mm wheelset is impressively lightweight. This is felt out on the trails when accelerating on steeper inclines. This, with the stiffness, means they get up to speed very competently and also brake effectively even on loose surfaces with heavier tyres fitted.

There are some concerns about the longevity of the bearings, however, as a cup and cone setup requires more user input to keep them running smoothly, but if you do this, they will run very well. Generally, cartridge bearings would be used with heavier external seals and potentially internal as well. A ratchet system is still used, but a 36-tooth engagement is on the lower side of teeth numbers. However it is sometimes seen as more resilient than high-tooth ratchets, and in practice the acceleration of the wheels was great even with a lower tooth count.

These wheels are also potentially a little on the narrow side. 27mm internal width works well for 35-45mm tyres, and can be used for wider. However, for using 50-55mm options, as is becoming more frequent, a lot of wheels are adopting a wider internal and external width. Meanwhile, the 31.5mm external width does mean the 45mm tyres used with this sit fairly wide. We’ve seen in wind tunnel testing that although wider tyres carry an aero penalty, this penalty can be reduced if the external width of the tyre is wider to better smooth the interface between tyre and rim. I can confirm that riding on tarmac surfaces, the likes of the Parcours FKT felt to roll a bit faster above 35kph, with a ballooning 40mm maximum external rim width.

Value

£1,999.99/$2,180 is an expensive set of wheels, putting it in the similar regions of the HUNT Limitless 40 UD Spoke with carbon rims, lower weight, and ceramic bearings. Of course, they are far behind the price of the likes of the Roval Terra Aero CLX (£2,998/$3,400) and the ENVE G SES 6.7 Pro (£3,500/$3,100).

My personal feeling with these wheels is that the versatility they offer is impressive. I like the inclusion of hooked rims, and with some 35mm tyres these would be great wheels on rough road surfaces let alone gravel. There is also no user weight limit, and a solid rim bed which makes future tubeless fitting a lot easier as tape won’t come loose while cleaning out old sealant.

Of course there are wheels that are cheaper, and not far off in terms of many performance aspects. The Scope R4G (£1,498/$1,798), for example, are superb, but the hub is like a siren while the Bora X are silent. Meanwhile, the Parcours FKT (£1,249 ) are great when rolling fast, but lack the same stiffness, compliance, and low weight that the Bora X offer.

I am also a big fan of the inclusion of the very lightweight external rotor lockrings, as well as the valves, tyre levers, bag for all of that, and some very high-quality wheel bags. It does mean that the wheelset as a whole does come with some additional value.

There is also the subjective element that I think these wheels look stunning, and that does add value to me. I like to look at the bike and think to myself that it looks great, and these wheels genuinely add to that. This is, of course, a highly individual and personal preference, but as are most aspects of value.

Verdict

The Campagnolo Bora X wheels have become my favourite gravel wheelset to ride. The balance of high stiffness for accelerations, braking, and cornering, combined with vertical compliance for comfort is fantastic. A deep rim depth and low weight also makes them wonderful to ride at speed or on climbs.

My only gripe is the relatively narrow rim width for tyres beyond 40mm, while the bearing setup will require more upkeep. But for the performance and included parts, not to mention looking stunning, the £2k price tag does not appear too high. There are better-value (around £1,500) wheelsets, but I prefer these.

Despite the e-bike helmet being a relatively new subgenre in the world of bike apparel, there are already plenty of good options – see our best e-bike helmets guide for more of them. You probably have a list of must-haves when it comes to making a purchase: safety, comfort, and not looking daft. Sustainability credentials may or may not sway your final decision, but if you are looking for a model that looks after both your head and the planet, the Lazer Verde KinetiCore is for you.

Having used the Verde on both my 40-minute pedal-powered commute and on weekend e-bike outings for many weeks now, I can vouch for it as a comfortable, stylish option that won’t break the bank. At the time of writing, I haven’t put its safety credentials or ease of recycling to the test, but the relevant certificates and documentation back those up.

Design and aesthetics 

Lazer have been making helmets for over 100 years and claims to have designed the first true hardshell helmet, so it has always put technical innovation at the heart of its design.

The Verde is the latest product of this ethos, being the first to feature the brand’s EcoLoc system, which allows the helmet to be disassembled and recycled after use. In fact, 70 per cent of the helmet’s weight is made from recycled materials. There is no glue, Velcro, paint or stickers, all of which make the helmet’s production and decommissioning much less harmful to the planet.

Eco credentials in cycle kit can often read like marketing guff rather than genuinely meaningful action, but this doesn’t feel like the case with the Verde. Its closest competitor in the sustainable e-bike helmet category (admittedly a pretty niche genre) is probably the POC Myelin, however, the POC doesn’t have nearly as much certification.

The Verde comes with the essential NTA 8776 certificate, which is a Dutch standard specifically for e-bikes that rubber-stamps the helmet’s ability to perform in higher-speed collisions. It was awarded 4 out of 5 stars from Virginia Tech, so isn’t quite as safe as they come, but it’s pretty good. The helmet uses Lazer’s KinetiCore (essentially an in-house alternative to the MIPS design), which uses crumple zones rather than a separate inner shell like MIPS.

The Verde claims to provide ventilation that both offers enough inflow to keep you cool, while simultaneously keeping rain out. This is achieved by having most of the vents in the shell and the liner seemingly misaligned, which looks slightly odd at first glance.

The cradle uses Lazer's TurnSys dial adjuster, but unlike some of the brand's alternative options, there is no lateral adjustment. The strap comes with the old-school pinch-release buckle where some of the Verde’s competitors opt for a magnetic clasp, but again the design leans towards simplicity over sophistication as a way to reduce waste, and I’m here for it.

The Verde doesn’t come with a visor or the means to attach one. In terms of customisation, you might want to consider attaching Lazer’s LED light. There’s also the brand's compatible Winter Kit, which connects to the inside of the helmet to add insulation for colder commutes. Given the reduced ventilation, however, you might not need any extra warmth.

There are five matte colourways to choose from, with the Sage Green and Fort Knox particularly catching the eye. Another thing to note regarding the colour is that the plastic isn’t painted (another eco decision), it’s dyed, and has proved more resistant to scratches so far. Otherwise, the design is pretty slick and isn’t as bulky as some of its peers.

Performance

Overall, the Verde performed pretty well during test rides, which consisted of both e-bike nursery drop-offs and 40-minute, non–pedal-assisted commutes into the office. It’s probably worth noting that all of this riding was done in the south of England during the long, hot summer of 2026.

The two main things that let the Verde down are its noticeable weight and insufficient ventilation. While it feels unfair to judge it too harshly during the hottest British summer on record, for me the ventilation wasn’t sufficient for medium effort or on a warm day, and after half an hour I could feel the weight on my head – unlike my ususal helmet.

In designing the vents to keep rain out, it feels as though Lazer have sacrificed too much in the way of airflow. If you’re the sort of e-bike rider who is happy to let your battery do most of the work, then this might not be a concern, but if you’re looking for an all-rounder that you can use at the weekend on longer rides, then you might want to shop around.

In terms of weight, the M-L Verde comes in at nearly half a kilo which, given it doesn’t come with in-built smart features or a visor, feels quite weighty. Compared to the similar Smith Dispatch, it’s around 100g heavier.

Again, if you are using pedal-assist, keeping to shorter distances and riding in an upright position, this is much less of an issue. I noticed the weight far more when I was commuting head-down on my Genesis Croix de Fer compared to the rides when sat up straight on my motor-equipped Tern Quick Haul.

Having stripped the design back to make it more sustainable, there’s an unfussiness to the Verde that is quite refreshing. The TurnSys dial adjuster feels a bit primitive at first but is actually really effective and robust. The lack of lateral adjustment leaves you a bit limited when it comes to catering for ponytails or just getting a customised fit.

The straps feel a little bit dated but work well and are simple to adjust once the helmet is in place, although come with a pinch-release buckle and without any chin strap pads or the like. While the lack of glue in the manufacturing process means the shell and the liner are not inseparable and feel slightly loose on occasion, knowing this is part of the eco-friendly design put my mind at rest.

Lazer haven’t gone overboard on the padding, having sacrificed both glue and Velcro in an effort to make the helmet more recyclable. One inadvertent positive of having less padding is that when things do get a bit sweaty, is that there's less material to soak it up.

Otherwise, the overall fit was fine, even for someone not blessed with the most conventional-shaped head. Trying on helmets is not something I relish, as they usually only accentuate my Frank Sidebottom-esque aesthetic, but the Verde doesn’t look overly bulky. Even in the larger M-L sizing, the helmet doesn't look excessive.

The choice of matte colours is also very easy on the eye. I didn’t fall in love with the Lemongrass option of my test helmet, but I very much like the look of the Sage Green and Fort Knox.

Value

Anyone who is accustomed to making climate-conscious purchasing decisions knows that they often incur something of a surcharge. The Verde feels firmly in that category, given both its weight and its stripped-back design feel like they could belong to a slightly cheaper helmet.

But for those who genuinely try and make impactful choices when buying kit, the extra outlay might feel warranted. The Verde comes in slightly cheaper than the POC Myelin (at full price) and has much greater protection certification.

The simple straps without chinstraps or magnetic clasp feel slightly outdated, not to mention out of place at this price point, but won’t ultimately have a huge impact on the important things like safety and comfort.

At £99, the Verde comes in considerably more expensive than some of the best e-bike helmets, like the Specialized Mode, which has a similar stylish design and all the safety certification you need. If you’d prefer some lighting already integrated, the Nutcase Vio comes is at a similar price but has 360-degree lighting and uses MIPS technology rather than Lazer’s KinetiCore.

If you have room in the budget, there are a number of options around the £150 mark that weigh in quite a bit lighter, have integrated lights and much improved ventilation.

Verdict

Overall, the Verde is a solid and aesthetically-pleasing option that will keep your head intact should the worst happen. It also comes with the added benefit of helping you sleep better at night knowing you’re doing your bit for the environment.

The insufficient ventilation and weight of the helmet might leave you a bit hot and bothered if you’re putting in a decent amount of effort or you’re out on a warm day for more than 30 minutes, but for the average e-bike commute or school run, you should be OK. There are arguably better value helmets on the market, but that depends what price you put on sustainable design. There are also helmets that come with more bells and whistles, like integrated lights, but the simplicity of the adjustment on both the cradle and straps might suit the purists out there.

As much as an e-bike helmet purchase should fundamentally be about protecting your grey matter on the road, even the most safety-conscious of us want to look nice at the same time. The Verde is a good-looking lid that isn’t overly bulky and it comes in five great colours.

A first for Van Rysel, the RCR-G represents the brand’s first foray into gravel race bikes. The racing pedigree is clearly present, with many of the frame design features and components coming straight off the WorldTour race winning RCR-R Pro road bike, although that may be getting replaced imminently.

Full integrated aero one-piece handlebars, 50mm carbon race wheels, and full 13-speed SRAM Red XPLR groupset make it one heck of a race bike package, for a pretty good price considering all that’s included. The only oddity is the somewhat basic saddle included as part of this.

Clearance for 50mm tyres is somewhat race ready, but that along with a relatively stiff frame does mean this bike is best kept for smoother champagne style gravel and fire roads, rather than anything excessively rocky, rooted, or muddy. However, most gravel races do tend to be 45-50mm friendly rather than requiring the large MTB tyre sizes now accommodated for. But this, plus limited storage options exclude this from more adventure riding, but then the brand has a specific option for this, so perhaps that is not a bad thing.

But how does the new Van Rysel RCR-G stack up when compared to the best gravel bikes on the market?

Design and specifications

The brand new RCR-G frame has been designed in a similar vein to the RCR-R Pro road frame as used by the Decathlon CMA CGM WorldTour team. Van Rysel says the frame was designed in conjunction with the team, although I’m not aware of any of their riders being dedicated gravel racers. But regardless, the frame has been designed for “uncompromising speed in modern gravel racing.”.

This is a dedicated gravel race bike, not a compromise between adventure and racing as the brand puts it. Looking at the demands of gravel racing, Van Rysel identified key points that needed to be focused on: high average speeds, mixed-surface efficiency, explosive accelerations, and precise handling on technical terrain.

To address that first point, the frame has been through CFD and wind tunnel testing, similar to the RCR-R. This has apparently yielded an 8.6w efficiency gain, although the speed this is tested at was not specified.

On the second point, 50mm tyre clearance and accommodation for 2x groupsets means most surfaces and gradients can be confidently tackled.

For light weight, the frame comes in at 885g (Medium unpainted) and 415g for the fork. These use similar carbon layup to the RCR-R road bike, but with ‘gravel-specific layup designed to balance low weight, reactive power transfer and increased durability for the demands of off-road racing’. Lightweight thru-axles and a 27.2mm round carbon vibration dampening seatpost assist in this low build weight and required compliance.

Specific features of the frame also include in-built armour on the downtube into the bottom bracket, on the drive-side chainstay, and bottle mounts on the underside of the downtube and on the top of the toptube. It can accommodate up to a 50 tooth single chainring, or 52 tooth dual chainring setup. It is also UDH compatible with the three builds available all using 13 speed SRAM XPLR groupsets. You can see looking at the geometry charts that this is a rather long and low frame by most gravel bike comparisons. Meanwhile the chainstays and wheelbase are relatively short for more agile handling.

The handlebars are the same Combo RCR-R Carbon one-piece system used on the Van Rysel RCR-R Pro road bike. These are specced in a fairly racy configuration, with the stem length coming in at 140mm from top cap bolt to centre of bars, and around 370mm centre to centre from where the hoods sit on the tops. The bars feature a flare out with an aerofoil shape, but a slight reduction of this near the centre line which makes holding the tops more comfortable. A computer mount is supplied with fitting for Garmin, Wahoo, and Bryton, with GoPro style mount underneath. This mount is long enough to fit larger computers like the Garmin Edge 1050.

The wheels are Van Rysel’s own brand, with the VR50 wheelset. This is not a gravel specific wheelset, and instead is the same that can be found on the RCR-R Pro road bike. Claimed weight is 1550g for a pair built on the ever-reliable DT Swiss 370 hubs. Rim height is, as the name suggests, 50mm, while internal width is 22mm and external 30mm, using 24 spokes front and rear in a 1:1 2-cross lacing pattern. These are shod with the Continental Terra Comp TLR 45 mm tyres, which sit at 44mm.

Groupset on this specification is the SRAM Red XPLR 13-speed offering. Gearing is a 44 tooth front chainring with the 10-46t cassette, giving you a better than 1:1 ratio if required for the steepest gravel inclines. Crank length in this size 58cm is 172.5mm.

Meanwhile the saddle is the Fizik Vento Argo X3. It’s gravel specific, but uses alloy rails rather than carbon on the X1 variant. It’s 140mm wide, and more rounded so as to be more comfortable for gravel riding.

Performance

Getting on the Van Rysel RCR-G one thing is abundantly clear, this is a race bike. I’ve been testing a few gravel bikes lately, and switching between those and my road racing bike there is a big shift in the feel. Shorter stems and taller stack height give the gravel bikes a very different handling sensation. The RCR-G however is a low and slung out racing machine. The stem is 140mm in this size while the bars are a relatively narrow 37cm on the hood centre to centre, giving it a far more familiar feel to a road racing bike than a gravel machine. For some, this may be too aggressive a position, but it solidifies this bike as a race option designed to go fast. I have not found this geometry uncomfortable, given the position I use on the road, but it is worth considering for those wanting a more relaxed fit. I have also kept all the spacers under the stem, so there is certainly scope to go significantly lower.

Whereas adventure bikes are all about fitting points, the RCR-G keeps this to a minimum. There are downtube/BB storage bolts for a bottle cage or tools, but there is no internal storage, namely, to save weight with the associated hardware that would be required. If you’re racing, then I can understand this, as limiting weight is key and taping tubes or cannisters to the frame is often a chosen pathway. For more casual riding, I like the internal storage, and I did miss this. There are bolts on the toptube however to add a toptube bag, and I duly did for some additional storage across my riding. But when every bolt required internal threaded metal sleeves, more engineering, and more weight, I understand the design choice to exclude many of them. But still, a frame bag option such as the Argon18 is practical, generally incurs no aerodynamic penalty, and looks neat.

Bars I am a big fan of, and these are directly from the road. It means a very limited flare for gravel bars, and quite a long reach and deep drop by comparison. The only issue here is on technical terrain, it can be a little trickier to drop from tops to drops, while shallow drop flared bars allow you to almost roll your hands down without losing contact with the bars. The bars however are stiff for accelerations and do not feel to rattle you unduly.

The seatpost is an interesting choice, being round rather than D-shaped for aerodynamics, but it does mean a dropper post can be accommodated, many different seatpost geometries, and Van Rysel has designed it to be more compliant, very useful for gravel racing over long distances where fatigue can be a huge detriment to performance. The saddle is fine, but I expected a slightly higher end option with this pinnacle build choice. I ended up swapping it for comfort reasons and having personal preferences over saddles and allowing me to test the frame with a family seat beneath me.

The wheels are also a carry-over from the RCR-R road bike, so the internal width is quite narrow for gravel wheel standards. The 45mm Continental Terra Comp tyres sit rather wide on them as well, bulging out. This was noticeable when riding on some sections at speed with crosswinds, which did buffer me significantly. Although, at low pressure the narrower rim may be safer from direct rim strikes, and the wheels are reasonably light, but not class leading. They are also stiff, both laterally for performance, but also vertically which can be a little jarring. The tyres however are decent and rolled well on various terrain, save for a little bit of slippage over looser terrain or wet surfaces as the tread is not overly thick and quite uniform across the tyre.

All of these elements do mean that this bike is certainly a fast-paced smoother gravel specialist. I’ve been riding it across a range of canal paths, forest trails, tarmac, bike paths, and root infested downhill sections. When the trail is smoother, this bike goes like a rocket, as testified by unintentional KOMs on Strava aboard this. On twisty and technical surfaces, the bike responds well but remains stable. I personally like the long stem geometry that leads to a more reliable sensation at speed like a road racing bike. The flip side is that at very low speed the bike is a little more cumbersome, but it is designed for high speed racing. It does however climb well, as the total system weight is low and the stiffness means power transfer is effective, so you feel very little loss in power towards compliance elements. But this does have a flipside.

Rough terrain is where it starts to suffer. The difficulty switching from tops to drops, narrower bars, less compliant bars and wheels and a generally stiffer platform all lead to this bike being a little jarring over significantly rougher surfaces. Not just roots, or hard mud trails that are rutted, but larger stones as well. The seatpost does a good job, but the rest of the bike is not as compliant.

Of course, larger tyres could help, but a 50mm limit is in reality not large. Given that many gravel tyres I’ve tested come out wider than advertised, you are realistically limited to smaller than 50mm to avoid frame rub. I do think ditching the 2x compatibility and widening the chainstays and fork to accommodate 55mm would have been the right call. I prefer 2x for gravel riding, but in most gravel races I’ve done I’ve never got into the small ring anyway, and the SRAM XPLR gear range means that for the most part I did not miss two chainrings one bit. I don’t need to go into the SRAM Red XPLR groupset too much, it’s amazing, it converted me (mostly) to 1x for gravel, and most reviewers and riders tend to agree. There’s a reason it is the most prevalent groupset for gravel riding. Especially for racing, it makes sense to design this bike as 1x only with potentially a 50-52t chainring limit, and space the chainstays out further to accept wider tyres. It would increase the versatility of the frame and maintain a very race driven focus. The forks should be wider anyway as a wider front tyre does inspire greater cornering confidence. You can slide a rear tyre, you can’t slide a front, so more traction there makes a big difference in my experience.

I would also personally like to see some wider width gravel rims as we’ve seen at high speeds that a wide rim paired with wide tyres can be faster, and likely better in the crosswinds I experienced. The wheels are good for accelerations, even with the heavier weight, but for gravel racing and speed, they need an update for this model.

Value

£6500 is not cheap, but given the SRAM Red XPLR groupset with power meter retails for £3299.99 itself, plus wheels for £799.99, £599.99 for the bars, and you’re looking at the frame coming in at ~£1800 based on that calculation.

Other similarly equipped bikes for example include the Factor Ostro Gravel (£10199) or Aluto (£8699), Specialized Crux S-Level 5 (£8749) or £11999 for the S-Works model, Argon 18 Anti Matter (£10495), or Cervelo Aspero 5 (£10249.99). Even if we look at less boutique brands, the Ribble Ultra Grit is £7549 and Handsling A1R0evoG is £6799 which really demonstrates just how good value the RCR-G really is.

Even building up a Tavelo Grow frame you’re looking at $1930 for the frame and bars, so building with similar components will not be far off the price of the Van Rysel.

The Crux 5 does have the potential to be lighter, while the Argon 18 might be more aerodynamic with wider tyre clearances and smart storage options, but as a balanced combination of a lightweight gravel race frame that is well specced, it is really hard to argue for those options ahead of the Van Rysel which is nearly half the price.

The issue is if you want a frame with wider tyre clearances. I would say for most gravel races, 50mm clearance is enough, save for some events. For me personally, this bike has been great for race condition terrain, but it does need some more gravel specific wheels and a better saddle for the spec.

Other builds offer similarly good value at £4000 for SRAM Force XPLR and carbon wheels, or £3000 for Rival XLPR and alloy rims.

Verdict

The Van Rysel RCR-G is an impressively specced gravel race bike for the price, making it a great value offering. The groupset is superb, the frame itself and handlebars are great for race speeds, while 50mm clearance is generally enough for most race scenarios in my view.

The saddle is a bit lacking compared to the rest, while the wheels are not gravel specific so a bit narrow. The larger issue though is the lack of general compliance on rougher terrain. It’s fine on champagne gravel and fire roads, but rough stuff can shake you a bit more than you’d like. Geometry is also more road race feeling, which I personally like, but others may want to consider.

All in all, a superb gravel race specific bike as gravel bikes split and diverge into more and more specialist models.

They are Specialized's best gravel shoes, with a premium aesthetic, lofty performance caims, and a pretty lofty price tag to boot.

I have a lot of time for Specialized. I know a good number of their staff both here in the UK and over at its HQ in Morgan Hill; their approach to product design is thorough, and their thinking is often many steps ahead of the competition. But when the Ares launched, I was irrationally angered by the claim that it was seven watts better.

The claim was unsubstantiated, and a small asterisk clarified that it was compared to a non ‘Body Geometry’ shoe (Specialized’s in-house ergonomics technology), which could be inferred as meaning it's not seven watts better than any of its other shoes, since they all use the tech to some degree.

It could also be inferred to mean that it was comparing to another brand’s high end shoe, such as a pair of Giro Empire SLX or Bont Vaypor SL… or it could be in comparison to a pair of Birkenstocks. It didn’t say.

That same claim is being repeated here, and while I’m sure these are better than some other shoes to an equivalent tune of seven watts, don’t be expecting life-changing performance improvements. Especially ones that you can't get for a significantly lower price than the £399.00 / $550.00 these will set you back.

Design and aesthetics

The S-Works Recon Evo is built on the new Body Geometry Natural Last, which Specialized claims reduces forefoot pressure by "up to 44%" compared to previous iterations. It’s not quite as wide as the last used in many of Lake’s shoes, but I'm told it's 2.5mm wider than the Torch shoe, which itself was 4mm wider than the S-Works 7.

Support features include a Varus Wedge for forefoot stabilization, arch support to maintain foot shape under load, and a Metatarsal Button designed to reduce nerve compression and pressure points.

The upper is largely the same as found on the Ares 2, including the patented 'PowerHug' closure system which wraps across the upper to lock the midfoot and stabilise the heel. Specialized introduced a similar technology on the Ares 1, arguing it improves power transfer by increasing foot-to-upper contact in the back half of the pedal stroke, thus reducing energy loss to material flex.

BOA S3 dials are used for retention, with two dials per shoe for upper and forefoot adjustment, and it must be said, the machined aluminium dials add a real premium look to the shoes.

For its gravelly intentions, the outsole includes rubber toe and heel lugs for traction, along with TPU 'pontoons' – Specialized's word, not mine – on either side of the cleat. Notably, these pontoons are interchangeable via two screws accessed from inside the shoe.

There are two available mounting points for the cleats, and the mounting plate itself can slide back and forth. This means plenty of adjustment in cleat position, although I do find the whole setup is further back than I’m used to. I have mine around 5mm from the furthest-forward adjustment, to get the pedal axle to line up where it usually sits. The sole itself is otherwise smooth, save for a small rubber plate that adds grip at the midfoot.

Overall, these features combine to create a shoe that looks fantastic, and thankfully the white is pretty easy to keep clean. There's no fabric that stains, unlike the Fizik Vento Proxy shoes I reviewed last year.

Performance

I've ridden and raced in the Sub 6 (a long time ago), the S-Works 7, and the original Ares, and these are definitely wider, but on my feet, they don't feel 'better' (or worse) as a result. Just wider.

I’m a pretty textbook case for why this new wider last exists... my average-width feet are technically too wide for the majority of normal cycling shoes (according to a measurement by a Specialized bike fitter), but I have found these to be very comfortable. But then again I’ve never found an issue with the narrower shapes of older S-Works shoes, nor indeed Trek, Giro, Northwave, Fizik, Sidi, and more.

Overall though, these shoes are pretty good across the board. At £399, you won’t be surprised to hear that, but they’re comfy, stiff, secure, breathable, and reasonably lightweight at 764g (with the standard insoles that come with it).

They're also pretty easy to clean, as demonstrated by the gallery below...

The Boa dials are excellent. They tighten in the opposite direction for each foot, which sounds wrong until you've tried it the other way. They pop open to loosen, or can be backed off if you just want to loosen them a couple of clicks. They can get stiff or gritty if you let muddy shoes dry (or ride on the beach), but rinse them under warm water while dialling them back and forth, and you'll reinstate their butteriness once again (you can thank my colleague Tom for that tip).

The wrap-over strap is nice and secure, but I find the heel cup a little slippier than I’d like, meaning in hard sprint efforts, my heel isn’t as locked in as I’ve felt in other shoes.

I buy into the notion that there are comfort benefits to be found for most people with a wider last, but in all honesty I didn’t find much improvement here. As I mentioned above, though, I never have issues with narrower shoes, even though my feet are too wide for them.

Maybe I’d find a noticeable improvement by going wider again, and maybe someone who is uncomfortable in narrow shoes but not quite as wide as this Recon last, would notice the change more than me.

Still, I didn’t find any extra stability from the extra platform, and instead simply noticed more crank rub.

Elsewhere, the grip when walking is pretty good. And the shoes don’t pinch at the ankles when doing so. The pontoons are deep enough to bury the cleat and prevent it from fouling on the ground when walking. It does still foul on rougher surfaces, but the overall traction is decent on both hard and soft ground, and the lugs at the front are big enough to grip nicely.

Value

So they're very good shoes, but the problem is I don’t really think they’re 25% better than any of the other high-end gravel race shoes that retail in that £300 / $400 ballpark. I certainly don’t believe I'm suddenly seven watts better off when wearing them.

As much as I really do like wearing these shoes, I can’t in good conscience claim they are good value, nor really recommend them. The price is just too high and the performance delta just isn’t high enough to represent the hike.

Their one saving grace in the value stakes is that top-end Specialized shoes will happily take a beating. I've been using the last round of Recon Lace shoes since 2021 and save for being filthy, they're in perfect working order.

But I would still suggest you save some money, buy a £300 shoe – which is still a lot of money, but a fairer reflection of the cost of flagship performance – and buy yourself a new skinsuit if you’re worried about those seven watts.

Verdict

The Recon Evo shoe is good. Great even. But at £399 / $550 I think it needs to even be better than that.

The new last is a definite improvement on paper, but at least for my feet, I don’t feel it offers wholesale change. If you have nominally wide feet, there are plenty of high-end shoes at a much lower price, that either already offer a similarly wide last – Lake being the prominent brand – or that which come in a wide fit option, such as Fizik.

If you're at the pointy end of very big races and you want to squeeze out a modicum of extra performance no matter the cost, these will be the shoes for you, but for everyone else, they're probably a little overkill.

“It looks like a vape”

That was the verdict of my partner, who owns a Fara herself on the Gr4. Specifically, because I checked, it looks exactly like the Vapes Bars Lemon and Lime 3000 puff model. I nearly bought one for the bit, before remembering I have a worryingly addictive personality and thought better of it. This also doesn’t come across in the photos because, in my infinite wisdom, I decided to shoot the thing in an abandoned quarry which was essentially black.

I’ve not had a great time with gravel bikes this year. I appreciate most of you will be coming to this review standalone without the benefit of context, but for the 8 or so readers hanging on my every word you’ll have seen that I tested the Factor Aluto, which was too road-like and didn’t feel overly capable on the rough stuff, and the Stooge Rambler, which weighed the same as a mid-size aircraft carrier, neither of which translated into an overly joyful experience.

Now, though, I seem to have turned a corner with the Fara Gr4. Unlike its predecessor, it’s a totally modern gravel race bike, hitting all the trends but somehow still managing to stay surprisingly practical. I really, really like it. It may sacrifice a bit in terms of aero to the likes of the Argon18 Anti Matter, but I’d trade that for what you get in return.

Design and aesthetics

I have a big soft spot for Norway; my second proper job was based there, and if you want a little vignette that I think encapsulates the character of a nation, then you need to look no further than its hardware stores. If we wanted to rent or buy some tools for some light construction work, we popped down to a shop called TOOLS. Simple, beautiful. This pragmatism is somewhat reflected in the Gr4, once you peel back the modern gravel race bike layers.

Looking at the old Gr3 model, it’s hard to believe this is derived in any way. The Gr3 was fine but pretty middle of the road; a do-it-all machine trying to be all things to all people by the looks of it. The Gr4 is very progressive by comparison.

The tyres are probably going to be what draw the eye first. My test bike came with 55mm Continental Dubnitals, but you can officially go up to a 57mm, which is a 2.25” mtb tyre. Mounted up to the massive Zipp 303 XPLR S wheels, they look enormous, and while in our little bubble of covering gravel racing they look sort of normal now, if you rock up to your local club gravel ride with these they’re still going to turn heads. It's also likely that a 2.25" tyre on these rims would be over capacity, looking at the room that's left around the seat tube in particular.

Up front there’s also a visually interesting (some have said ugly) cockpit. Personally I don’t hate the looks, and ergonomically it’s absolutely on the money. The swept-down tops put your wrists at a far more comfortable angle when riding in the tops, and it’s still novel to have something this narrow at the hoods on a gravel bike (38.5cm). I’m so glad the era of fitting the widest possible drop bars is behind us because these feel great for a narrow boy like me. They’re very much like the Coefficient bars of a while back.

What I also like is the fact you can adjust the reach fore and aft by 1cm just by moving the tops back into a different pair of slots. It’s a less clean look, but if you’re embarking on an ultra and want a less racy position then you can back it off and raise the stem up the standard round steerer a bit to suit your needs in a couple of minutes without getting hydraulic fluid all over yourself. Or, like me, you can set it to as long as it’ll go and slam it.

The seatpost is carbon, and has a very good degree of flex in it, likely to some degree because it is a 15mm layback option, but I managed to get my saddle far enough forward that I found a very happy position over the BB. It is also round, meaning you could, if you so wish, run a dropper post. Most of the time I never felt I needed one, but on occasional hairy descents down steep, rocky and rooty gullies I did want for that extra torso clearance as I was hanging off the back of the bike.

It’s not to mark it down for not having one as stock at all, and definitely a plus that you can fit one, despite the likely aero penalty. It also means it has a normal external seat clamp which I love. So much easier to live with than wedges and internal systems.

Want to strap things to your forks? Well, there’s triple eyelets neatly blanked out with grub screws for those of you who want to ruin a perfectly good bike ride by going camping, or ruin a perfectly good camping trip by cycling there. Likewise, there are mounts on the top tube for a bento box; there’s talk of a frame bag for spring this year but that doesn’t seem to have materialised, and space for another cage under the downtube in front of a rubberised bumper to protect the disposable vape paint job (other paint schemes are available)

I am not a huge fan of internal storage, but the downtube has a non-rattling door that happily houses a TPU inner tube and a mini pump with relative ease, so I can’t complain much on that account. Also inside the frame are Ceramicspeed bearings, both in the bottom bracket and SLT (solid lubrication technology) headset bearings, which are especially a sensible upgrade on a mucky bike with internal hoses.

In terms of sizing and geo, it’s quite a long bike for a nominal size. I rode a large, which is quoted as a 56, and it’s 8mm longer and 12mm higher in stack and reach than the latest S-Works Crux. The seat tube is half a degree steeper to 74 degrees, and the head tube 0.8 degrees slacker at 71.2 degrees. These are all totally fine numbers, but comparatively the interesting things I think are the standover height, by function of a shorter seat tube (Fara is 26mm shorter, resulting in a 18mm lower standover) and a bottom bracket that’s 8mm lower, which is a lot. I don’t think I’ve ever ridden a drop bar bike with an 80mm bottom bracket drop. The latest Orbea Orca Aero has a BB drop of 78mm, and that’s the lowest of any road bike on the market.

Performance

I’ve not been this impressed with a gravel bike in a while. My stance on gravel bikes has changed in the last couple of years; where previously I would prefer my gravel bikes to be as road-like in their feel as possible, optimising for the road and just relying on bigger tyres to get through off-road sections, I am now very much minded that gravel bikes should be optimised for the off-road sections, and the Gr4 feels very much optimised for the rough stuff.

It isn’t an enormous machine by any stretch, but it feels bigger than it is when you venture off the tarmac. The longer, slightly slacker feel of it versus bikes like the Aluto makes it feel incredibly stable on really very bumpy terrain, even to the extent that I managed to bag a KOM on a descent (for all of about 9 minutes until someone else hit ‘upload’ back at the pub). All joking aside though, the Gr4 is a joy to send down both fast and open descents, and when things get narrow, rocky, and rooty as they often do near me, it performs valiantly there too.

Part of this is absolutely down to the lower bottom bracket, and while an 80mm BB drop sounds a lot, this needs to be viewed in the context of the 55mm Continental Dubnital tyres, which up the ride height considerably to the point that pedal strike was never an issue. Regardless, it feels hunkered down, squatted even, and I suspect with a dropper post it would be sensational for longer, steeper descents. The seatpost as it is, though, is lovely and compliant, visibly moving underneath you, and when combined with the higher volume tyres you get pretty incredible comfort. I could happily spend all day on this thing.

This lower chassis also means it corners really very well indeed. The Dubnitals aren’t the most grippy of the MTB tyres, and while they are fast I’d probably swap them to something like the Maxxis Aspen if I was blessed with more time on this machine, they’re more than grippy enough when combined with the frame geometry and a set of wheels with sidewalls wide enough to support the tyre carcass in hard, flat cornering. Oddly, the bike isn’t sold with Dubnitals; this seems to be some media setup. You’ll get Thunder Burts, which are good, and more knobbly, but maybe not the ones for summer, or you’ll get Schwalbe G-One RS Pros if you get the Campag build, which I haven’t ridden but look an absolute hoot in a 55mm.

On the flat, on and off-road, it may not have the aero chops of the Argon18 Anti Matter, but the cockpit is also narrower, and so all in it may well be faster than the test Argon we had in recently. We haven’t aero tested it, so it’s all subjective, but you don’t half barrel along, aided and abetted by the big tyres gobbling up bumps that would perturb other bikes and cause you to have to back off the power to take evasive action, which also rings true on the road with our numerous and interesting collection of potholes in the UK.

I was surprised to see the geometry charts in all honesty, because it doesn’t feel sluggish at all on the road. The narrow cockpit and fast tyres mean I can hold a speed that’s only barely below what I can on a road bike, and while the front end is a little more languid and the tyres are a bit more squirmy I never begrudged it at all on road sections, which is a rarity. It feels more playful than the silhouette would have you believe.

I have no complaints about the weight (8.7kg with cages, computer mount, and a sensible glug of sealant in each tyre, but no pedals), and the gearing. In reality, unless you want the absolute top-tier Red XPLR (and can afford the replacements when things wear out), then Force is the place to be for gravel. The shifting is good, the hoods are brilliant, the braking incredible, you still get the bonus buttons on the hoods, and in this case you get a power meter too (ooh big number go up), and the gear range sufficient to tackle just about anything.

I also love this cockpit, even aside from the adjustable reach. The ergonomics are brilliant, and the tops being at a better angle for your wrists is a real plus, even if visually it isn’t the best-looking thing in the world (‘it’s got a cupholder’, was remarked).

In fact, as I write this, there isn’t really anything I dislike about the Gr4. It’s excellent.

Value

In this guise (swapping the tyres to Thunder Burts, of course), it’ll cost you $8,500, or €8,000, or £8,600 in the UK.

This is significantly more than Crux 5 money, though not quite S-Works Crux money, it must be said. Compared to the Crux 5 Expert (£5,999) you get broadly the same things, but with the Fara you get a fully integrated cockpit not a separate system, you get modern 55mm wide tyres on deep and wide gravel rims, internal frame storage (which may not be your thing), a power meter (which probably will be). The Fara frame may be less aero, but I’ll bet overall when you factor in cockpit and rider position, the Norgs have the Yanks beat. You also get ceramic bearings throughout, and dropper post compatibility.

It ain’t a cheap bike that’s for sure, but you're not just paying for a slightly unusual brand name and a handful of rarity points, and you get a package that delivers a ride experience that’s pretty bloody great, too. In a sea of Cruxes and Grails, it’s always kinda fun rocking up to the group ride on a bike from a small Norwegian brand, provided it can cut the mustard.

Verdict

The Fara GR4 really was a pleasant surprise. It looks quite cumbersome and ungainly, but it rides like a dream. Off-road is where it shines, whether that be extended rolling terrain (Kansas, I imagine), or the sharp climbs and rocky gully descents of my local loops; it's taken it all in its stride, all with the bonus of not feeling like a barge on tarmac. It’s thoroughly modern, but without losing sight of the sensible touches that make owning certain bikes a lot less of a headache than others, and for that I really do think it needs applauding in the loudest way.

Ultimately, I think it’s very much in the conversation when discussing the best gravel race bikes out there right now.

Scope has risen in prevalence over the last few years, with WorldTour teams opting to use its fish scale inspired Artech wheels ahead of sponsor correct equipment, and Netcompany-Ineos partnering with them for the 2026 season. The Artech 6.A wheels even tested fastest in our 2024 round of wind tunnel wheelset testing.

The Scope R4.G represents the more wallet friendly option in the brand's gravel wheel line-up, which includes this, and the Artech 4.G.

It uses similar technologies and profiles to the Artech, but at a weight cost. A modern, wide internal and external hookless rim is used, making it comparable with several other carbon gravel wheelsets in this price bracket.

Additionally, sealed bearings, a reinforced rim, and no weight limit sets the wheels up nicely to be resilient across rugged gravel terrain, and my impressions from testing them has supported that. The weight is highly competitive with others in this bracket, while the aero performance with 45mm tyres results in very little speed loss versus a road wheelset on tarmac.

My only gripes are the rotors being a nightmare to fit and remove, and the freehub wailing like a banshee, making me feel self-conscious when riding down the residential street at unsociable hours.

But overall, these are a superb set of gravel wheels that offer fantastic value, and truly deserve a place in our buying guide to the best gravel bike wheels. What's more, they would be brilliantly paired with any of the best gravel race bikes, especially better value offerings.

Design and specifications

The Scope R4.G wheels are built using what Scope calls Algorithm Enhanced Aerodynamics (AEA), the same process used to develop the Artech rims. This process runs through different rim profile designs at different wind speeds and angles to devise the fastest solution. Although no fish scale rim profiles are present in the R4.G, many of the technologies from the very fast Artech wheels are applied.

The rim uses a 45mm tall rim with hookless beads, with an internal width of 28mm and external width of 38mm (albeit 27.08mm and 37.04mm measured though on my calipers).

This does place them among the wider offerings on the market and is designed to work best with tyres at 40mm and wider (35-60mm is the claimed width that these wheels can be used with).

The rim has also been specifically reinforced around the spoke holes, adding strength where needed without excessive carbon where it is not required.

Spoke lacing is a 2:1 two-cross at the front on the rotor side, radial on the drive side with 21 spokes total, while the rear is a 2:1 two-cross pattern on the drive side and one-cross on the rotor side, with 24 Sapim CX-ray alloy spokes.

This asymmetric spoke lacing, cross pattern, and number is aimed to balance the wheel against the forces of both braking and also drivetrain torque.

The hubs are Scope’s own R-Series hubs, and use a labyrinth system which essentially aims to block dirt from entering the hubs and bearings thus increasing longevity.

Internally a 36 tooth Diamond Ratchet SL is used. This 10 degree engagement is a bit higher (and thus slower) than some, but there are claims that fewer teeth results in greater ratchet longevity, and when keeping pressure on the pedals it has little impact on performance compared to higher counts.

The diamond carbon like coating is designed to prevent cassette bite into the free-hub body, while also reducing the weight. Claimed weight is 1,436g without tape or valves, while actual weight on my scales was 1,444g with tape and valves, so lighter than claimed.

Two decal options are available, with black or white options. Hub options range across Shimano and Shimano Microspline, SRAM XDR, Campagnolo, and Campagnolo N3W. Tubeless valves and rim tape are provided, but not lock-rings.

Performance

Fitting the tyres to the Scope R4.G was a nicel and simple affair. The 45mm Panaracer GravelKing ZX I use for gravel wheel tests can be a little tough to fit, but in this situation were able to be fitted without the need for levers. Given the wide and hookless rim, this was easier than I have found on similar gravel rims, while the tyres seated easily enough as well.

One area worth highlighting however was that the rotors are a pain to fit. The same system is used as on the Artech wheels, a lighter weight spline for the rotors, but it almost appeared slightly misaligned making them harder to fit than would be considered normal.

Getting out on the wheels, there are two things that are apparent pretty quickly when riding them; the ratchet engagement is a little sluggish by comparison to high tooth competitors, and the freehub is the loudest one I have ever used.

The ratchet uses a 36-tooth engagement, meaning it takes at most 10° of pedalling to engage the freehub. Hunt for example uses a 54-tooth ratchet, which means faster engagement. It’s only really noticeable when riding in scenarios where you are on and off the power regularly, so more techy terrain with lots of non-pedalling corners. Once rolling at speed, it makes little difference, and the Diamond Star ratchet Scope uses is extremely solid. I have tested a lot of Scope wheels, and the ratchet has never displayed any form of slip, and has proven to be very resilient.

The freehub noise is an interesting point. For early morning rides as I approach the end of my street, I found myself choosing to pedal while braking to avoid waking the entire street.

On the flip side, when riding shared trails with pedestrians, the freehub works better than any bell at alerting people to my presence. Coast for a few seconds and pedestrians a good 100m ahead turn around wondering why an angry hoard of hornets is approaching them.

I know some people enjoy a loud freehub, but this is a bit beyond my personal preference. I much prefer the almost silent running of the Campagnolo freehubs, but credit where credit is due, it acts as a fantastic alert when riding the trails. People will not miss you coming.

In terms of performance though, I am thoroughly impressed with these wheels. Scope might have gained more fame through the Artech wheels with fish scales and top level aero performance, but the R range of wheels are less than half the price and have most of the same performance.

I’ve even bought several pairs over the years, so can attest to putting my money where my mouth is. With the 45mm tyres fitted, measuring a shade under that width, and a 37mm external width, the wheels roll superbly and hold speed well. Going on the tarmac to head to the trails, the speed between these wheels and standard road wheels fitted is not massively different.

I’d say for most gravel this 40-45mm depth range is a very good balance for light enough to accelerate quickly and climb quickly, but deep enough to have some meaningful aero performance at speed.

At 1,444g for a 45mm depth, these are competitively lightweight wheels, and this does show when riding. The thing with gravel is that generally the climbs are tackled slower than tarmac for the same gradient, and gradients can ramp up quickly. This means lower wheel inertia, and weight requires more effort to accelerate up to speed.

Add heavier wider gravel tyres into the mix, and having a lighter rim can make more of a difference off-road than on tarmac. I’ve found the Scope R4.G climb very well, and the strong lateral stiffness also helps maintain a connected feel especially when mashing the pedals on more loose and rocky climbs. This lateral stiffness is most noticeable on the road, as cushioned low PSI wide tyres on gravel always take away an element of reactiveness of the wheels.

Although hookless, and me being a long term hookless sceptic, for gravel wheels with low pressures the system does work well. The tyres have maintained pressure, and going over some horrendously rough terrain and root infested trails, there have been no signs of tyre burps or pinches, and the rim has held up very well.

Value

At a penny under £1,500, these are not cheap wheels, but for a deep carbon wheelset they are in the bracket that I would term as good value. They sit alongside the likes of the Hunt Limitless CGR 40, and Reserve 44/40 G wheelsets. The Parcours FKT undercut them a bit at £1,249, and are deeper at 47mm and a fraction wider internally and externally, but also hookless and a touch heavier.

It’s a very competitive bracket for performance gravel wheels, and at this point they all have rather similar performance features, with just small differences separating them. If you want a quieter freehub, then the Scopes are not the wheels to go for, unless you get the brand’s special Silence Grease to reduce the known buzz of the Diamond Ratchet system. If you want to run wider tyres, maybe the Parcours are best with the 40mm external width.

If you want a pretty bombproof option with more heavily reinforced hub seals, no weight limit, and something that can tackle pretty much any form of terrain you throw at them, the Scope R4.G are certainly worth considering. Having used Scope R-line wheels across the last few winters, the hubs have held up exceptionally, and some truly heinous potholes have not led to any rim failures even when tyres have blown out spectacularly.

My best way to substantiate the value I see in these wheels, is that I have personally purchased sets of the road going version myself. Value is always subjective, but these are something I would, and indeed have, spent my own money on. I would suggest for most people that these wheels offer most of the performance of the likes of the Scope Artech 4.G, but for £2000 less.

Verdict

There's a much more expensive model in the range, but in my opinion, the Scope R4.G wheelset is the best gravel wheelset that Scope offers. Although the Artech model is lighter and potentially a little more aero, the cost is huge by comparison and there are some concerns about the delicateness of the hubs for off-road use.

The R4.G represent much better value in the carbon gravel wheelset market overall and based on previous experience with Scope R-line wheels the longevity should be impressive too.

The hub is intrusively loud though, and the rotors are a bit tough to fit and remove, but overall these are a highly impressive wheelset and a sensible investment for those who want a fast, lightweight, and resilient set of gravel wheels.

The Garmin HRM 600 takes many of the features of the cheaper HRM 200 and builds upon them in a quest to become the best chest strap heart rate monitor on the market.

Not only does it read heart rate, but it also takes heart rate variability. Added to that are a host of other features that are somewhat lost on just cyclists, but for multisport athletes such as triathletes there are a lot of very useful additions.

New for Garmin chest strap monitors, this is the first unit that is rechargeable rather than using coin cell batteries. The battery life is solid, lasting on average a month or more for most users. Add to this a very comfortable strap, and useful LED lights on the front of the pod, and it’s a highly capable unit. But the cost is high, and for just cycling, many of the features feel unnecessary.

Design and specifications

First and foremost, the pod has been completely redesigned. There is now a button on the front, which like the HRM 200, can be used to set up pairing to avoid unwanted connections to the device, and also to check battery status thanks to the LEDs on the front. It works exactly the same way as the HRM 200, so to refresh your memory; the button needs to be held to enter pairing mode to easily connect to a bike computer or smart watch, and then single pressed in the future to wake it up.

The front LED has different flash patterns for connecting (orange flash), and connected (green dual flash). The LED can also display battery level at the point of waking up; green flash is okay, orange flash is low, red flash is critical.

The pod can then be removed, where at the rear you'll find the charging port, something new for chest strap heart rate monitors for Garmin and now competes with the Wahoo Trackr HRM. This is a now standard Garmin connector, the same used on the new Garmin Cirqa competitor to Whoop, and the Garmin smartwatches. Claimed battery life is ‘up to 2 months’, based on 1 hour use per day. So divide your hours ridden per week by seven to work out a rough average of how many hours a day you use it, and you’ll get an idea of a recharging schedule.

The heart rate monitor is resistant to five 'atmospheres' (often denoted as ATM) of water pressure, for those wanting to swim, which is more than enough to deal with rain and sweat from cyclists.

Data for HR and HRV is transmitted via the standard BLE (three concurrent connections) or ANT+ (unlimited), but the HRM 600 can also record activities itself when linked with the Garmin Connect app. It monitors distance travelled, calories burned, and intensity minutes, along with other features more running and swimming focused.

Weight is 18g (0.65oz) for the pod and 61g (2.2oz) for the strap as well (accurate as per my scales). XS-S (60-85 cm, 23.5"-33.5") and M-XL (80-119 cm, 31.5-47.0") are available and can be adjusted easily. A small tab on the inside of the latch is included to prevent irritation.

Heart rate itself is measured via Electrocardiography (ECG) taking actual electrical readings from the chest and heart, which tends to be far more accurate, especially with sweat present, than optical light based sensors used on the wrist or arm.

Performance

Using the M-XL strap, the sizing was spot on for me, and adjusting to size was very easy. Over the course of the testing period, the strap has not moved so the fit has remained consistent; something I have had issue with on other brands' chest straps. I really like the small tab inside of the latch, as this can be an area that causes irritation, but this removes that issue.

There aren’t grippers as such on the straps, but the large electrode reading pad has a certain grippiness, so it stays in place very easily even in hot weather with lots of sweat.

In terms of the data, I have compared it to several other heart rate monitors. Wearing a Wahoo Trackr HRM along with a Coros arm HRM and Whoop MG. The Garmin HRM 600 and Wahoo Trackr have read very closely, to the point where there is no real shift from the trend lines and data. The Whoop has been less consistent, being a wrist based one, while the Coros is solid as long as you don’t get too sweaty. In conclusion, the Garmin HRM 600 is more than accurate enough for its intended use.

I am a big fan of the rechargeability of the device. A lot of coin cell heart rate monitors previously have not had battery indicators, so you only know the battery is low once it conks out during a ride. With the HRM 600, as with the 200, the LED lights tell you roughly how much battery is left, and the claimed 'one hour per day for two months' seems to track correctly, as after 14 hours a week for a month, I needed to recharge the unit.

Removing the pod is easy, and the cable connects securely making charging a breeze. It’s a little easier with the Trackr HRM as it is magnetic and the pod does not need removing, but equally the charger is bespoke for the Trackr and can disconnect if shifted.

The ability to take heart rate variability (HRV) is useful as a metric to track, but ideally this needs to be taken overnight or first thing in the morning, and a chest strap is not the ideal solution for this as you also need a heat unit or watch to connect to. It’s more accurate than wrist based measurements, but more of a faff. This takes us on to the next issue for cyclists, which is that many of the smart features are more relevant to runners or swimmers.

Essentially, this is the ideal heart rate monitor for triathletes, but for those who just cycle, I think many of the features on offer are somewhat superfluous and will seldom get used.

Value

That superfluousness of features is the issue with the Garmin HRM 600. It’s a great heart rate monitor, and for swimmers, runners, or triathletes I can see real value in the additional features that it offers, but for cyclists, many of those features will not be realised, and you are paying for technology that is not going to be used. At £149.99 it is one of the more expensive heart rate monitors around.

If you want rechargeable units, the Wahoo Trackr HRM is a little over half the price at £79.99, and although it lacks HRV readings, it works very well.

The Magene H613 (£49) is even cheaper and still features the rechargeable element, but at just a third of the price. It means that realistically, for cyclists, if you want a heart rate monitor that doesn’t rely on coin cell batteries, the Garmin 600 HRM is not a good value offering.

Verdict

The Garmin 600 HRM is a great heart rate monitor that is accurate, has a good battery life, features recharging, and has a whole host of smart and additional features. However, many of those smart features are somewhat limited to swimming and running, so from a purely cycling perspective, many of them are superfluous.

At £149.99, this means that this is a very expensive heart rate monitor that might not really bring anything necessary to users looking to just use it for cycling. It’s a great device, but poor value for cyclists.

The Sweet Protection Tucker III 2Vi is, as the name suggests, the third iteration of the Tucker helmet, but not the third version of the road helmet. The Tucker started life out as a TT helmet with removable visor, but like the Giro Aerohead, became the aero road helmet of choice for the Uno-X team. This latest iteration is road only and aims to improve ventilation while improving aerodynamic performance.

Using a mix of MIPS and proprietary 2Vi technologies, Sweet Protection also aims to ensure this helmet maintains the primary focus of protecting riders’ heads. There is no Virginia Tech helmet rating yet, but the Falconer helmet from the brand has been a five-star scorer there.

Aero performance comes via specific channelling and has been designed with F1 input and tested on the heads of the Uno-X Mobility WorldTour teams. The previous iteration was amongst the top scorers in our wind tunnel testing, so just how does this latest model work in the real world against the best aero road helmets?

Design and Aesthetics

Sweet Protection starts off by stating that the Tucker III 2Vi has been designed with expertise from a Formula 1 aerodynamicist, and in collaboration with the Uno-X Mobility cycling team who are well renowned for a highly data driven approach. That sets it up very nicely for delivering on the claims it makes as a performance aero helmet. The brand states that in testing the new Tucker III 2Vi saves 10 watts at race speeds over the Sweet Protection Falconer Aero 2Vi helmet, a significant saving claim.

Aerodynamics on this helmet starts with the vents. There are three larger vents at the front across the centre line of the helmet designed to pull air in. This air then follows internal channels and exits at the rear through the exhaust. Each vent and channel has been specifically designed to limit pressure at the front of the helmet, and turbulence off the rear. The byproduct of this is supposedly enhanced ventilation via accelerated internal airflow at race speeds, 150% more air volume than the previous Tucker 2Vi according to the brand. Meanwhile the vents have a rounded entry and exit design to limit turbulence further.

There are two additional front vents on the temple for storing glasses. These can be covered with vent caps to limit drag, but for UCI events those are not allowed as removable sections have been banned. These vents feature rubber grippers designed to hold Sweet Protection eyewear securely but work well with a range of glasses.

The helmet features a very narrow profile by comparison to other aero road helmets. This has been achieved via what the brand calls a 4-Shell Construction, four separate shells for the front, rear, main body, and top of the helmet bonded onto the foam inner. The front and rear shell panels are described as Impact Shields and aim to boost protection further.

MIPS Air Node is used internally for rotational impact protection. Additionally, Sweet Protection uses its own 2Vi system, which integrates the MIPS system into the brand's own Impact Shields and padding for comfort and safety combined. There is no Virginia Tech safety rating yet, but previous helmets from the brand have performed well.

Fit comes via the 360 Occigrip Fit System. This uses a full band around the helmet with adjustment from a rear dial on the adjustable cradle. This allows adjustments to spread pressure evenly across the entire orbit of the head. The straps are adjustable in length, but there are no height adjustments around the ears to reduce material for claimed aero performance boosts.

Performance

First things first, getting the helmet on my head. The Sweet Protection Tucker III 2Vi sits quite narrow on the head, it’s essentially the antithesis of the POC Cytal or Octal helmets which have become slightly synonymous with a more mushroom head shape. Think Toad in Mario.

I am personally quite a fan of this design choice, it also tends to perform reasonably well aerodynamically for road positions where the head tends to move more and also riders spend more time in an upright position. Similar to the new Specialized S-Works Evade 4, the Sweet Protection also features a more cut-off rear taper, instead relying on virtual aerofoil shapes for wind manipulation. Again, this feature is designed to assist in performance with the head down, similar in design methodology to the Giro Eclipse Pro which went for a short tail rather than long tail design for this reason.

Back to the fit itself, although narrow in external shape, the helmet itself fits my head well. I have a fairly regular head shape. Narrow helmets like the Abus Gamechanger 2.0 are too narrow, while most other helmets tend to fit well. The 360˚ fit system on the Sweet Protection works well to give solid retention across the entire hemisphere of your head.

There are two fit gripes straight away though. Firstly, the straps have no adjustment around the ears. This was not a problem for me personally, but it may be for plenty of people. It’s likely a weight saving and frontal area reducing design choice, but it’s not a huge area for gains, and limits fit adjustment. The other issue is the rear dial, it works well, but ergonomically it’s not great. The grip for the dial is textured, but very thin and can be difficult to get enough traction on to tighten as much as you might desire. In gloves I can imagine this would be even more problematic.

Some interesting little add-ons that came with this helmet as well; a helmet bag is included, which is not a given even at this price, but also some vent bungs. These are not allowed for UCI races as they are removable parts, however, for road bike time trials these little bungs can fill the gap where the glasses arm storage is. For a time trial, it is very unlikely that those vents will be required as glasses stored in the helmet ruin the aerodynamics somewhat. Instead, the bungs fill the gap and maybe add to the watt savings by a very marginal, unperceivable manner. It’s very Dave Brailsford ‘marginal gains’, but every little helps.

In terms of the performance of the helmet on the road, I’ll focus first on the more tangible features. Aerodynamics are notoriously hard to judge subjectively, whereas weight and ventilation are far more tangible. Weight wise, this is a fairly chunky helmet, but the reality is that it doesn’t feel heavy when riding. It’s only 44g heavier than the Giro Eclipse Pro, so for the real weight weenies maybe this matters, but for the majority it makes virtually no difference.

Ventilation is an area where this helmet actually performs better than might be expected given the limited quantity of vents. At the front there are three main vents at the point of highest pressure, the two side vents for glasses arms storage, and then the rear exhaust which is one entity made up of three exit flows for the internal channelling.

At speed, the amount of air that enters the helmet is frankly exceptional. 35+kph provides a large amount of airflow, likely due to the combination of placement of the vents, large internal channels that are deep enough, and well positioned exhaust. At higher speeds, I’ve even felt some lift in the helmet as the volume of air flowing through the channels has been enough to lift the helmet up from my head, but not enough that it’s caused any concern for the security of the helmet. I’ve been testing this in temperatures of between 20-28˚C, so not excessively warm, but on the hotter side for riding, especially when going up steeper climbs with low airflow. Even in these scenarios, the ventilation has not been bad. It’s certainly not as good as a far more vented helmet such as the Giro Aries, or even the Giro Eclipse Pro. It is, however, far better than a lot of fully dedicated aero helmets that I have tested.

When things do get a bit too warm and the sweat starts dripping, those glasses storage vents are quite useful. They keep the glasses nicely out of the way, but do only work with straight armed options. POC Propel glasses struggle to fit, while POC Elicit or Oakley Velo Kato models fit well.

In terms of aero performance, we have yet to test this helmet. We have tested the previous version though, which was 10^th in our huge helmet testing round up out of the aero road helmets. That helmet was only around 2w off the best on the test at 40kph. At 50kph that helmet was then relatively faster, jumping ahead of some other helmets. If we take Sweet Protection at its word, then the Tucker III should be an improvement on the previous helmet, especially given the design brief of 45-50kph performance. The only test data however states that the Tucker III “saves 10 watts at race speed” versus the Sweet Protection Falconer Aero 2Vi. We don’t know what ‘race speed’ is, but let’s assume 45-50kph. At 40kph we found the Tucker 2Vi to be 1.52w faster than the Falconer Aero averaged across all yaw angles. 10 watts is a lot, and testing protocol is not divulged, but we can probably assume that the new Tucker is faster than the Falconer for sure, and likely faster than the Tucker 2Vi. Although the new Evade 4 is no faster than the Evade 3, even the 2, but has greater ventilation. Simply put, we can’t confirm how fast this helmet is without testing it, but there is good reason to believe it will perform well given the design methodology and performance of the previous generation.

Safety wise it is hard to judge the helmet. There are no Virginia Tech Helmet safety ratings yet for independent testing, but the 2Vi, MIPS Air Node, and use of shell protection have all been used in helmets that have scored well. The Sweet Protection Falconer helmet has scored 5 stars in that testing and uses many of those safety features which boosts confidence in the Tucker’s performance.

Value

Breaching the £300/$350 barrier, this is not a cheap helmet. Looking across the range of premium aero helmets that we’ve tested. In fact, in our helmet testing of 47 helmets, only the Kask Nirvana and Elemento, and POC Procen Air and Cytal cost more. Every other helmet stayed under the £300 mark, including those that performed better than the Sweet Protection Tucker 2Vi (previous generation version). Even the latest Evade 4 stays under this price, while some helmets such as the Ekoi Aero R also exceed that price barrier.

If you want the fastest aero helmet, you can likely get something that performs nearly as well for a good chunk less cash. I can’t however comment on the ventilation capabilities of some of those faster performing helmets in our test, and that was an area where the Tucker III genuinely impressed me for a race helmet.

But then other issues such as the retention dial, lack of strap adjustability, and no independent safety testing scores so detract from the overall value.

This is certainly a very good race helmet, and having tested a lot of different ones, this is genuinely the helmet that I lean towards when choosing what to race in. However, if I was spending my own money, I would likely veer towards the Giro Eclipse Pro, mainly for the greater ventilation along with lower price, even if at the cost of a watt or two. If I wanted the best value, the Van Rysel RCR-F is still really the class leader there.

Verdict

The Sweet Protection Tucker III 2Vi is an impressive race day aero helmet. The limited number of vents are carefully placed, alongside strategic channelling, to provide a huge amount of airflow when travelling at speed, which remains adequate even at slower climbing speeds. We don’t have independent aero testing yet, but there is good reason to believe this will be a strong performer. It’s not the lightest, but that doesn’t detract from performance in any tangible way.

The lack of adjustability, and limited performance of the retention dial are however not ideal, while at present there are no independent safety testing validations. I may be able to forgive some of this, if it weren’t for the £309 price tag which exceeds that of many competitors. A helmet bag being included doesn’t do enough to stop this helmet from not being the best value. Yet, it is the helmet I reach for when it comes to race days.

When it comes to road wheels, things are moving quickly right now. Carbon spokes are becoming commonplace, wheelset weights are decreasing dramatically, and a variety of rim widths are being offered, generally in the wider direction of travel.

The UCI maximum rim-depth ruling for road race use has also influenced things. Any rider in a UCI-sanctioned race can only use up to a 65mm deep rim, apparantly a measure to limit speed and improve safety.

DT Swiss launched its revamped ARC 1100 wheels last year, streamlining the third generation range of wheel depths to 55,65 and 85mm and introducing a new wheel shape and specific tyre pairing.

These wheels are the Swiss brand’s aero range toppers and are used by Uno-X in the WorldTour. In fact, wheels from the range have been ridden by the yellow jersey wearer in both the mens and womens's Tour de France this year - a cool stat.

They have also been designed and arrive with a specific tyre pairing; you can buy them pre-fitted with Continental tyres and tubes.

I’ve been testing the 65mm deep version for a few months now. I’ve ridden two road races on them as well as a load of training and general riding, and we’ve taken them to the Silverstone wind tunnel to see how they fared against some of the best road bike wheels right now.

DT Swiss has long carried a ‘quality’ label from cyclists and shops. If you are shopping for a new pair of ‘best’ or race wheels, my own comprehensive test riding, plus our own wind tunnel test results, should help you when it comes to choosing.

Design and aesthetics

The 1100's have a matte carbon fibre rim finish, with some classy silver decals. A silver 'DT Swiss' and 'ARC 1100' on each side, and a red section around the valve hole, perhaps to help make it easier to spot.

The wheels are built around that deep 65mm DT Swiss rim and with DT 180 DICUT hubs with ceramic bearings, which are the brand’s top models. There are 20 spokes in the front, and 24 at the rear with hidden spoke nipples. The spokes themselves are DT Swiss Aerolite II bladed steel ones, not carbon; you will notice.

The rims themselves use a V shape, widening from the spoke bed, and flaring out a little more at about the midpoint of the rim.

The wheels weigh 1559 grams as a pair on my scales, a respectable weight for a 65mm wheelset, but overall wheel weights are dropping so fast that it's starting to be viewed as a little heavier.

The brand now has a carbon-spoked, climbing-oriented wheel, the 38mm-deep ARC 1100 Spline CS model; head that way for carbon spokes.

The wheels have also been designed with a specific pair of tyres in mind and can be purchased pre-fitted with them, which is how my test set arrived. They came fitted with a 30mm Continental GP5000 S TR tyre on the rear, and the brand’s Aero 111 tyre at the front in a 29mm size, which the 22mm internal width has been optimised for. They also arrive with Continental TPU tubes fitted.

The rims are hooked, so there’s no need to check any tyre compatibility charts here. Though the tyres come with Continental tyres and TPU tubes, they do have DT Swiss tubeless tape fitted and tubeless valves included, so you won’t have to re-tape if you do go tubeless.

The hubs use the brand's Ratchet EXP system, and it’s very simple to swap freehub bodies or remove for cleaning. There’s a recording of the freehub sound below; it is on the louder side as freehub bodies go.

On the EXP ratchet, certain units are affected by a premature wear issue. Click the link to see how you can check your own.

The wheels have a 22mm inner rim width and an external width of just over 28mm. The rim itself also has a narrow 'V' profile. In the context of the overall market, will the wheels' overall weight, steel spokes and narrower rim measurements make them less appealing?

Internal and external rim width measurements are growing, and for riders looking to run larger volume tyres, a corresponding inner width may be the way to go. For all-out speed, is a narrower size better?

DT Swiss is in the narrower school of thought with these wheels. The brand argues that increasing inner rim width affects frontal area, a key consideration regarding aerodynamic performance.

According to DT Swiss wind tunnel testing, its V rim shape provides 'the lowest drag measured' as well as ensuring a 'small steering moment' to provide easy and predictable handling in crosswinds, etc. The brand also says the Aero 111 front tyre can help increase the sailing effect at certain Yaw angles, which can help us ride quicker for the same or less effort.

Performance

I've had a very good test period with the ARC 1100's. DT Swiss says this is the wheelset to choose for speed on flatter terrain, and this is where they do seem to excel. I've tested them with a Winspace M6 aero bike, and the Canyon Endurace SLX.

Sitting in the wheels in a road race or swapping off on my local chaingang at 50km/h+ feels very fast, and based on my feel I'd say up and over around 30km/h is where the wheels seem to really come into their own. It feels like they hold and maintain speed very well once moving, and the 65mm deep rims make pretty much any bike look mean; who doesn't love big deep rims?

Whilst they sit at 65mm in depth, I can’t say they are difficult to live with in any way. They perform well across the board. I've felt a couple of pulls in high winds, but generally crosswinds haven't been an issue, which aligns with the brand's claims on minimising steering moments.

No, they aren't as nimble feeling when climbing as a lighter, shallower wheel. But if you are looking at a 65mm wheelset, you are probably focusing on what it can bring to the table on the flat, and that's not what these wheels are for- not a day in the mountains.

That front 29mm Aero 111 tyre paired with the deep front rim can contribute to some harsher feelings at times, particularly compared to a bigger tyre and perhaps a wider rim.

Where I do notice a difference at times is in slow-speed acceleration compared to lighter wheels; the Roval Rapide CLX III wheels do spin up that little bit quicker, especially from very low speed.

On hillier, up-and-down terrain they also don't feel as nippy, and for a hard, hilly day there are better options, but again, these are for speed on the flat first and foremost.

That brings me onto weight in general; whilst these wheels sit at a perfectly acceptable weight for their specs, are they beginning to look a little heavy compared to what else is out there?

The Scope Artech 6.A wheel for the same depth rim comes in at 1307 grams, though they are in the next price bracket up. The 65mm Scribe Élan Ultra 6 wheels also weigh in at 1328 grams for less cash. (They also had similar aero performance in our test)

Lower overall weights provide improved acceleration paired with the aero benefits of a deep rim. There is, however, more to a quality set of wheels than the overall weight number.

The single issue I have had with the wheels related to water, and the habit it has of finding its way into the wheels. Something I have had to do twice is remove the tyre, inner tube and rim tape and empty water out of the rim cavity after riding in the rain. I’ve run these wheels with tubes, so it’s easy to notice the sloshing noise.

The wheels seem quite prone to taking on water, I believe due to the size of the hole at the rim for the hidden spoke nipples. Relatively short wet rides led to sloshing in the rim cavity. This adds weight and potentially unbalances the wheels, but can also lead to corrosion over time. On the hidden nipples, wheel truing will be more involved if it's needed, especially with a tubeless setup.

If you would use the wheels in the rain, and we all get caught in it at some point, check the wheels and drain them ideally each soaking.

You've read my thoughts on the wheels, but we also took them to the Silverstone wind tunnel for our latest CN Labs aero wheel test.

We tested a group of 14 wheelsets and asked the brands to send the fastest UCI-legal wheels they had, with plenty being around the 60-65mm deep range.

One bike was used for the test, without a rider. We tested at a 40km/h wind speed, with the bike's wheels at the same speed, across a range of Yaw angles and with 28 and 30mm tyres.

It's worth reading the entire test; there's so much information and data to look at, but here's the topline. Out of 32 wheelset tests across the two tyre sizes, the ARC 1100's placed eighth overall, and performed better with a 30mm tyre than a 28mm one.

The wheels tested within a watt of the overall winner, the HUNT 5AM Limitless Ti_UD Carbon Spoke, but are heavier and more expensive than that particular model.

In short, the wheels held their own against the competition we tested. The specifics will dictate whether they are right for you.

Value

RRP for these wheels is $3218 / €2499 / £2,599.98. (inc. tyres and tubes). For the UK market, that includes the Continental tubes and tyres I mentioned, which sweetens the deal somewhat; they aren't cheap tyres. That may well be the case for the US and EU too.

The wheels sit at the same price point as the Roval Rapide CLX III, the Parcours Chrono GT (62/65mm) and Reserve 57|64 Turbulent Aero. They are also just a touch more than the new Shimano Dura-Ace C60 wheels.

It's clear there's plenty to choose from at this price point, and I think the fact that good quality tyres are included boosts the value offering; you can pump the tyres up and you're ready to ride.

These are quality wheels that are in line with competitor prices, but I have a feeling the overall weight and lack of carbon spokes may make them less appealing in the premium road wheel top trumps stakes.

Verdict

The ARC 1100's 65s are undeniably fast on flatter terrain. Despite those deep rims, they aren't a handful and can be used for everything, which I have done with them. They are best suited to flat, fast riding, which is where they perform most strongly.

They are optimised for up to a 30mm tyre; if you do want a wider rim for 30mm+ tyre sizes, then they may not be quite what you are looking for with their narrower V-shaped rims.

If you are a speed merchant or are perhaps taking part in flatter road races or fast chaingangs, and want some deep wheels, they are a good choice and have performed very well for me.

For general riding and doing a bit of everything, the lower weight and shallower rims of the ARC 1100 55s would be my choice.

The original Roval Rapide CLX wheelset launched back in 2020, at the time joining the CLX 64 models; remember them? Last year, the brand launched the Rapide CLX III, the latest addition to the Rapide range.

The CLX III was rolled out in June last year, along with the Rapide CL III and Rapide CLX Sprint. The wheels shed weight with the introduction of carbon fibre Arris spokes and use a 51mm-deep front wheel with a 48mm-deep rear wheel, in what's occasionally referred to as a 'road mullet' setup.

These wheels are seeing regular action in the WorldTour by various Specialised-sponsored teams, and are generally a popular choice on Specialized models or as a standalone aftermarket choice; to be clear, Roval is a component arm of Specialized.

I’ve been riding them for months, tackling a road race and training on them. We also took them to Silverstone recently to see how they would fare against the best road bike wheels in our CN Labs aero wheel shootout.

Just another stop on the Roval / Specialized hype train, or do these wheels walk it like they talk it? I’ve put in the hard yards to find out.

Design and aesthetics

Carbon fibre spokes and overall wheelset weights seem to dominate conversations at present when it comes to the latest wheelsets. We will cover that, but for me the rim shapes and depths of the CLX III's need talking about first. There's more to a set of wheels than the spoke material and overall weight on the scales.

The CLX III's, like the II's they replaced, employ specific front and rear rim depths. The Rapide II's had a 51mm front and 60mm deep rear; the III's have a 51mm deep front rim and a 48mm rear.

The idea is centred around the Specialized design philosophy of optimising the leading edge, or to put it simply, the front of the bike where aerodynamic performance matters most; the rear wheel can then be made shallower to save weight and aid handling and acceleration. The brand says everything contributes toward aero performance, overall wheelset weight, and crosswind stability.

The rims have a wider, round external profile that is a lot rounder than some wheels with a more traditional 'V' shape, with a more 'normal' internal width.

Internal width for both wheels is 21mm, whilst the front external number is 35mm at the widest point, and 31.3mm at the rear. Even the bead hook widths are specific: 5.5mm at the front, 4.1mm at the rear. Roval calls this the 'Flatstop rim bead' and claims the wider beads help prevent flats if you smash the rim. I haven't tested this specifically; who deliberately rides down potholes? But I haven't punctured whilst testing.

The hub internals are by DT Swiss and use the 180 hub internals with a 36-tooth ratchet system. Spoke count is 18 up front and 24 in the rear, and surprise, these spokes don't come from Vonoa, who provide spokes for a lot of wheel brands right now, but Arris, a US-based firm making composite spokes.

The spokes use titanium end pieces and alloy nipples; four spares are included with the wheels, and they can be manually trued. So need to worry about dealer-only truing procedures.

When it comes to looks, the Rapide III's are a stylish wheelset without overdoing it. The hubs and rims are gloss black, with silver spoke nipples and end pieces at the hub. Two decal versions are available: gloss white (pictured) or 'satin carbon', which gives a stealthy, blacked-out look with black decals.

Performance

During my test period, I’ve used the CLX III’s with two pairs of tyres: the S-Works Turbo TLR tyre, and the newer Cotton TLR models, which pair the Specialized cotton performance into a tubeless-ready package; they are now what you see Remco Evenepoel and his teammates using. Thankfully I’ve encountered zero punctures or sealant sprays in my test period.

I installed both sets of tyres with a track pump, but the process wasn’t completely painless, with some seepage, mess and hesitancy for the tyres to seat and seal first time. The rim profiles of the CLX III’s seem to make things trickier. It certainly wasn’t a disaster, but a little more annoying than I would like.

I’ll get straight to the point: the CLX III’s feel pretty fantastic across the board. I’ve been impressed, and when I have switched back to them from other wheelsets, the point has been reinforced: they are excellent all-rounders.

They accelerate very well from low speeds, and feel fast and reactive when making changes in direction. I felt like I could dart around on them; they are exciting to use.

There’s also a comfort, a kind of softness (I mean this in a good way) from the overall ride quality that I can’t fully put my fingers on; perhaps it comes from the rim shapes, good quality tubeless tyres or just the overall build, but there is almost a luxurious ride feel. We also mentioned this comfort in our Rapide CLX II review.

Get them rolling, and those big white Roval logos start to flick round when you glance down, and they feel very quick, about as quick as anything I’ve used to date, especially with a top quality road tyre fitted.

The pros seem to favour the CLX Sprints for most racing, except perhaps the mountains, but I don’t think there’s a massive amount in it in the real world. I used the wheels for a road race with 32mm Cotton TLR tyres, and they felt fast and poised, cornering excellently and stiff feeling when I followed moves on one of the circuit's climbs. They are also a prime example of how you can have your cake and eat it now when it comes to wheel depth and overall wheelset weight; 1338 grams is nice and light.

There are online comments to the tune of, 'why would you fit a deeper front wheel? Handling will suffer in crosswinds'. That may have been true 10 years ago if you ran something like a narrow 60mm deep front wheel and a 40mm rear, but times have changed, and these wheels with their more modern wider rim shapes do very well in the wind. To an extent it depends on the rider, but poor handling as a result of the mismatched depths is a non-issue, so don't worry on that front.

We also have some wind tunnel data for the CLX III's from our recent CN Labs aero wheel test.

We tested 14 wheelsets around the 60mm depth range, or 'brand's fastest' options, on the same bike at 40 km/h across a range of yaws. We also used the same pair of 28 and 30mm tyres for testing.

In our testing, the CLX III finished in the bottom half of the test group and was faster with a 28mm tyre than they were with a 30mm. The CLX Sprint wheelset was marginally quicker.

There was less than a three-watt difference between a lot of the wheelsets in our test, and rolling resistance and bike and rider differences would account for more than this number in the real world. The CLX III's are a competitive wheelset, despite not making the podium in our test.

Value

$3,399.98 / £2,999.98 / €3,498 is our RRP for the CLX III's. There's plenty to choose from at this price point. The Vision Metron RS are a little more cash; there's the CLX Sprints, of course, and several Zipp wheelsets amongst others.

The wheels have performed brilliantly for me; I really like the ride quality, handling, and my own perception of their speed has been good.

There are wheelsets out there that are cheaper by $ 1000-odd, with similar overall weights and aero performance.

You'll still have to pedal regardless; I don't think you stand to lose out on too much with a cheaper wheelset and great quality tyres.

Verdict

I like the styling, and I really like how these wheels ride.

They tick the carbon spoke box, the overall weight is low, they handle and accelerate well, and they feel fast pretty much everywhere. Throw in that plush ride feel and there isn't too much not to like.

They are excellent all-rounders in my opinion, great for racing and all-round riding thanks to their low weight, but they do sit at the premium end of the market; there's a lot of choice when it comes to wheels, possibly more than there ever has been, but for me the Rapide III is another very good wheelset from Roval.

Even lightweight bikes like the Scott Addict RC Ultimate are coming equipped with mid-depth wheels, as are all-rounders. It seemed a little against the run of play, then, when Zipp came out with a brand new 202 NSW wheelset earlier this year.

I’ve been using them in a range of really quite hilly environments, as is befitting. Full alpine ascents were scaled, as well as the savage and relentless Cornish coastal roads back at home, mostly aboard the new Cannondale SuperSix Evo, but also aboard the new Cannondale CAAD14 to try and invigorate what is quite a stolid machine as stock. They’re good wheels, but given their quite enormous price tag and some quite lacklustre constituent parts, I can’t really get on board with them with my consumer advice head on.

Design and aesthetics

If you’ve been riding a while, you probably think of shallow tubs when you see the ‘202’ number. While Hunt has produced lightweight tubular wheels in recent years, these are very much modern in terms of their tyre setup: tubeless, and as with Zipp's other options, hookless.

Hookless may not be the most popular thing in the world at the present moment. But the 23mm internal width should mean slightly enhanced compatibility with narrower (read: lighter) tyres than more progressive widths, but it does feel a touch backwards-looking in this day and age when 25mm internal is becoming something approaching the norm.

One thing I do like is that the maximum pressures for a range of widths are printed on the sidewall, so no annoying googling in the garage before the ride. There isn’t, however, a list of approved tyres as with so many other Zipp wheels as yet; I mounted up a set of 30mm Continental GP5000 S TRs (living to tell the tale) and set off into the mountains.

The wheelset comes in at 1,090g, though Zipp does state that this is the 90th percentile weight and that most sets will come in under this weight. On my scales, the pair came in at 1,050g, which is certainly light, but it’s not crazy light, as I’ll get into shortly. Part of this is down to the slightly odd decision to use metal, j-bend spokes which tip the scales at 3.3g each.

While it’s true that not every high-performance wheel uses carbon spokes, they’re definitely the norm on wheelsets that retail for just under £3.400/$4,200/€3,800 as these do. Each of the spokes is in the region of a gram heavier than a carbon counterpart, so for a grand total of 40 spokes (20 front, 20 rear), that’s 40g left on the table, and would have got my wheelset 10g under the kilo mark. Using carbon spokes also normally allows you to reduce the spoke count, which would further reduce the weight.

While we’re on the subject of spokes, Zipp is continuing to use J-bend instead of straight pull. This means the hub flange in general needs to be larger, which creates a slightly heavier hub, but also means a wider angle for the spokes to diverge, as well as a shorter distance for them to traverse, which could have improvements in stiffness.

Speaking to Bristol’s premier wheel guru, Rob Borek, it transpires many brands have switched to straight pull because it makes the hubs cheaper to produce in mass quantities as you need less material, but it also means you can lace them more easily with machines. I don’t personally think there’s any great issue with J-bend or with straight pull spokes. If the wheels are decent and fit your needs and budget, choosing to not go with them because the spokes aren’t straight is quite mad, and at least here you’ll have no worries about non-captive spokes ejecting from the hub under hard impacts.

Inside the hubs there are ceramic bearings as standard, along with a 6-pawl ratchet offering up 66 points of engagement, which for road cycling is plenty, given instant reactivity isn’t nearly so crucial as it is in the world of techy MTB. Mirroring the spokes, the use of pawls rather than a star ratchet feels a little out of keeping with the premium price of these, though it must be said I never had any issues with the engagement itself, and they are mercifully a lot quieter than the alternative, which is bliss when sending down long descents.

Aesthetics is a hard one to call on what is ultimately a pair of black circles, as most wheels are. I do quite like the graphics, which comprise a series of well-placed dash fades that make me think of 1980’s motifs in greyscale. The hubs, though, don't have that same premium aesthetic from a visual standpoint, but I think the most egregious thing is the silver nipples, which cheapen things significantly. There’s nothing different to black ones in terms of performance, really, but they just look out of place on a wheelset at this price.

Performance

I gave the Zipp 202s the best possible start in life with four days in the French Alps after the Dauphiné, including tackling the Col de Sarenne and Alpe d’Huez, plus several white-knuckle descents down the latter to really test their chops. They are, it must be said, an extremely pleasant set of wheels to ride, mounted up to a suitable machine; in my case the new Cannondale SuperSix Evo.

I didn’t have any issues mounting the tyres to the hookless rims. I am personally not overly enamoured with hookless rims for the road, but I do applaud Zipp for at least putting the maximum pressures on the sidewalls to stop me absent-mindedly causing an explosion in the office basement. Both a 28c Specialized Rapidair set and then a set of GP5000s went on with just a track pump (I managed to shred the former set instantly on some comically large shards of glass, it seems), and neither set lost more air than would be expected between rides.

The low weight is a big plus, and whether it was alpine climbs or the relentless, steep ramps on a trip down to Cornwall to raid the coastal roads, I was glad of the low mass. They certainly have that immediacy that is a function of both the weight and the stiffness. They never felt harsh, though. The 30mm rubber likely helps in this regard, but compared to some wheels, especially deeper options, they’re really quite mellow to ride over subpar tarmac, which the UK has in abundance for those of you unfamiliar with what can be charitably called our road network.

On descents is really where they came alive though. That lower rotating mass makes steering with precision a touch easier, and coupled with a reduced susceptibility to buffeting from the wind by virtue of just having a smaller side profile, they’re far less easily blown off course than many deeper options I’ve tried over the years. In hard cornering, whether full hairpins or fast open bends with more flow, they stood up extremely well, offering an extremely composed feel. I know in my head that the faster you go the more aerodynamics matters, and so on descents it’s perhaps even easier to argue the case for a slightly heavier but more aerodynamic wheelset, but I am a staunch believer in not living your riding life purely through the medium of a wattage chart; these feel brilliant on descents and you will have a lot of fun in a far greater range of conditions with them on versus something deep, in general terms.

They do, however, suffer against their deeper counterparts on the flat. The shallower depth will be less aero, but the lower mass also means at higher speeds you don’t have that flywheel feeling. They’re just a bit more of an effort to keep pushing on with on the flat, but you already expected that, didn’t you?

Ultimately, with mid-depth wheels reducing in weight and becoming the norm, the true shallow mountain wheel is now a very special tool, and with the price as it is for these wheels, it’s quite a hard sell if you don’t live somewhere especially mountainous.

Value

The Zipp 202 NSW wheels are really quite eye-wateringly expensive at £3.400/$4,200/€3,800, and I can’t help but feel like Zipp could have done more with these. They’re light, but not as light as some hyperlight options. To make life easier for you, I’ve graphed up a few key lightweight wheelsets, plotting both their quoted weight and their RRP, and these come out amongst the heaviest and the most expensive, which makes them quite a hard sell for a reentry into the lightweight specialised wheel market.

The spokes probably should be carbon at this price and with weight in mind, but make the nipples black to make them look more premium or make them internal to improve the aero package. Give us a new lighter hub just for these or something, maybe?

Verdict

If you live in Chamonix, Bern, Steamboat Springs, or Perranporth and you want a decent set of wheels for up hill and down dale, then these are good, and you will have a good time, especially if you prioritise handling, but you’re going to get more for your money elsewhere. And if your rides don’t look like a Toblerone every time you saddle up, then being realistic these are an awful lot of cash for a wheel that is not going to be ideally suited to your needs.

‘But I’m doing the Marmotte next year and need a wheelset for that!’ I hear you cry. If you’ve got the cash, then fill your boots, but if this is going to be your only wheelset, then I’d suggest going for something more general.

The best road bikes, the ones that I sit fondly with in my mind’s eye long after the review period has ended, are like a balanced diet. A few healthy salads, regular hearty bowls of pasta, infrequent takeaways, and the occasional night where you have four martinis and a couple of cigarettes for dinner.

Some bikes are a little more salad, others have a couple more martinis on the menu, but they all regress to the mean; a happy medium of comfort, stiffness, aerodynamics, liveability, and style. The Incolor SSR is not like living on a balanced diet; it’s like trying to survive on a diet of popping candy and vitamin pills. You might not die, but you’re not going to have a particularly enjoyable time.

It is, on paper, a very accomplished machine, and a challenger for the best aero road bikes for sure. A very low weight, and a claimed aero package that is just shy of 4 watts faster than a Cervélo S5, a bike that is widely considered one of the best aero bikes on the market, and one that came out on top in our own wind tunnel testing. All the mod cons, and yet, much like the Felt Nexar, things quite quickly fell away when the rubber hit the road.

I’ve taken the SSR out on my usual test routes, involving fast flat riding, plus the usual hills and twisting descents that test the handling, plus a solid 7hr day in the chair to test its endurance capabilities, which I’ll admit is not what it’s designed for. All in all… I have not enjoyed it.

Design and aesthetics

Visually, the Incolor SSR is a striking machine. In fact, it shares a similar vibe to the Felt Nexar, insofar as it’s clearly designed with aerodynamics at the forefront of everything, but with a slenderness that makes it look fragile against the muscular frames of the Cervélo S5 and even more so against the likes of the Factor ONE.

There’s more than a hint of a Giant TCR about the thing, with the compact frame and integrated seatpost, but the scalloped cutout to surround the rear wheel is Canyon Aeroad, and the bayonet fork is very Cervélo, at the head tube at least. The crown and legs, also extremely blade-like, are a thing of their own, and able to swallow a surprisingly large tyre. Officially the bike will accommodate a 32c tyre with a 2x setup, or a 36c with a 1x. All very modern.

What was also modern was the cockpit, which arrived in a 120x35.5 guise. A wider one also arrived, but let’s be real, I’m not going to fit that when there’s something as tastefully aero already fitted; shoulder pain be damned.

The seat mast you need to cut to size yourself, and unlike bikes from the likes of Giant whereby there’s some wiggle room in the topper to adjust the height, here you can modify your saddle height by a couple of millimetres by using different 3D printed saddle cradles. It’s certainly neat, and clearly done with aerodynamics in mind. Luckily my test model arrived with everything bang on, and topped with a suede-topped (yes - fun, right?) unpadded carbon saddle that, praise be, was at least a shape I was comfortable with. I did find after an initial test that the saddle was just on the cusp of being a little high for my tastes, so I swapped from my Bont shoes to a slightly higher stack pair of Lakes, and everything was on song from there on in.

Incolor claims ‘custom geometry’ as an option, though this is perhaps a bit of a stretch. What you can do is select a ‘more aggressive’ or ‘more relaxed’ version of each of the seven sizes (45-60), which either increase the stack and reduce the reach or vice versa while keeping the saddle height range the same, for an upcharge of $600. I tested the standard version, however, which is probably what most of you will opt for, too. A 72º head tube angle is perhaps a little slacker than most, certainly 1.5º slacker than a Tarmac, for example. The stack in my size is 2mm lower than a Tarmac, but the reach is shorter by 6mm, so like me you may be able to bump up from your usual stem size to compensate.

In terms of aero claims, SSR quotes a frontal area that is 60.37cm2 smaller than a Cervélo S5, resulting in a claimed 3.99 watt benefit at 45km/h. Take this with a pinch of salt as this was done over a yaw sweep of -20º to +20º; wind yaw angles of 20º at 45km/h aren’t impossible, but they are very rare. We don’t know what weighting Incolor used, but by the graph we have, it is clear the SSR outperforms the S5 at higher yaw angles. Regardless, to be in the right zone as the S5, taking its data at face value, with a bike that weighed 7.05kg with pedals, the aero bottle cages and the neat 3D printed titanium computer mount, is impressive. We will be testing it in the tunnel ourselves in the coming months to validate these claims.

There are also stiffness claims too, with the SSR stiffer in ‘pedalling stiffness’ (which I assume is at the BB) than a Tarmac SL7 and SL8, a Giant TCR, a Van Rysel RCR (not the RCR-F I don’t believe), and a Cannondale SuperSix. It has a stiffer head tube than an SL7, an RCR and a SuperSix, and has more laterally stiff forks than all but the TCR. Sadly, there’s no quoted data for the seatpost stiffness, something which I fear was totally overlooked, as this is by some margin the least comfortable bike I’ve ever ridden.

Performance

Everything about this bike: the claimed aero superiority, the low weight, the modern tyre clearance, the lifetime warranty, the modern cockpit options and ‘custom geometry’, and the nifty 3D printed accessories. All of it simply falls out of the conversation because this is an almost unbearably uncomfortable bike ride.

It feels crystalline and brittle, even in comparison to the Van Rysel RCR-F, a bike that was in its own right uncomfortable but one I still managed to tap out an early spring 200km ride on without wanting to simply walk home halfway round. The main culprit is the integrated seat mast, and while some of you may look at the unpadded saddle and say that’s the culprit, I will gladly point you to my stupid flat bar road bike, which has a bare carbon saddle on it that I can sit on for hours on end with no issue. It doesn’t feel like there’s not enough give; it feels like there’s no give, and it has knock-on impacts beyond just battering your undercarriage.

On climbs, where the low weight should make it sing, the stiffness of your perch means you bounce jarringly if your cadence gets too high. The weight makes it a good climber, sure, but for extended climbs of more than a couple of minutes I want to be in a position where I am able to focus solely on the pain in my legs and lungs, and not my arse.

On the flat it is fast; part of that is down in no small part to the 355mm cockpit, which is probably going to do far more than any frame aero package, but it ticked along very happily on fast roads, and when things were smooth I could tuck into a lovely aero position. The front end may lack the lateral stiffness of a TCR, but it does feel like it has the vertical stiffness of a breezeblock. Like the rear end, the front is entirely unforgiving over anything other than beautiful millpond tarmac, and this has implications for the handling.

There’s nothing wrong with the geometry at all. It’s not like the Felt Nexar, which seemed to get it all a bit wrong, but having a degree of compliance adds a sure-footedness to the equation that the SSR lacks.

Actually, despite the slightly slacker front end, it is quite a lively bike to ride; perhaps the narrower cockpit is at play, but I don’t think to a great deal. I never felt truly at home sticking it into the corners as it felt like it could judder and skate over the surface at any time rather than hunkering down into the forces that are borne upon it and dealing with them with composure and a degree of grace.

To try and alleviate things a bit, I swapped the quite cool ‘Aerowav’ wheels (these were perfectly fine, if also quite stiff, and rather like riding Campagnolo Hyperons in my experience) for a set of Enve SES 6.7s shod with 32mm Hutchinson Blackbird Race tyres, rather than the 28mm set that came with my bike. I wanted to use 35s, which would have just cleared the front derailleur, but I didn’t fancy taking the risk. In any case, things improved marginally, but not to the point that it became enjoyable. The Aerowav wheels did come set up tubeless as standard.

The Blackbird Race is a good, and quite underrated tyre in my opinion, and the higher volume and decent spoonfuls of supple gave the SSR a bit more self-confidence, but taking it on a longer ride was truly quite hateful. 1 hour is enjoyable, you can smash it out. 2 hours is totally bearable, but three is unpleasant, and anything beyond four is torture. After seven I couldn’t ride anything for a few days, with the rear end comfort complemented by a fizzing sensation in my hands that I’ve only experienced after strimming the allotment with a 2-stroke Stihl for several hours. I know it isn't an endurance bike and I wasn't expecting an armchair, but people train on their race bikes, and this is absolutely going to detract from your training if you're doing any significant volume.

Finally, I never managed to get the headset to tighten properly. The shiny top cap wasn't machined with enough clearance for the top cap bolt, which would bind in the countersunk hole before it could fully do its job, almost getting totally stuck at one point, so I just left it a little loose.

Value

The frameset, without a cockpit, will set you back $4,399, or $5,299 if you want the ‘custom’ geometry. That’s a lot less than an S-Works Tarmac frame, but when Specialized trickles out the standard Tarmac SL9, I suspect the differential will be less. It’s also a couple of hundred bucks less than an S-Works SL8 frameset, which is still a very, very good option and one I would pick over the SSR in a heartbeat.

When you package in the cockpit at $419 the difference between this and the best bike in our buyer’s guide, the Factor Ostro VAM, is minor. The same goes for the Cervélo S5, another absolutely sensational bike.

Verdict

I think you may have gathered at this point that I don’t think the Incolor SSR is a very good bike. It is a clear example of trying to design something that looks good on paper. It has to hit the wind tunnel numbers and the stiffness figures and the weight. It has to have the fancy 3D printed titanium hardware and the modern narrow cockpit, but it doesn’t feel like anybody took it out and actually rode the thing.

I loved watching Blackadder growing up. There’s an episode where Edmund Blackadder’s puritanical aunt and uncle come to visit, and instantly chastise him for owning chairs, which are of course an invention of Satan.

“In our house Nathaniel sits on a spike”... I think I know how he feels.

OK, I’m going to get this out of the way right at the top because: The CAAD needs mudguard mounts. It’s not aero, and at this price and the tier below it’s a serious contender for ‘first proper road bike’ for a great many customers, and a surefire contender for a spot in our guide to the best aluminium road bikes. I know it doesn’t rain in California, but it sure as hell does in Connecticut where Cannondale’s head office is, and it sure as hell does in the UK, too, even if the launch media was very Los Angeles. Despite this large gripe, I do actually quite like the latest CAAD.

I think it is going through a bit of an identity crisis of late. The old generation aped the dropped chainstays of the SuperSix Evo, but had mudguard mounts to make it a year-round performance bike. Now the stays are back up where they arguably should be for a metal bike, but with the lowest tier of the CAAD family now the cheapest road bike in the brand’s range, it seems caught somewhere in the middle of trying to be a crit bike of yesteryear while also offering new roadies an approachable package.

Despite this slightly confused outlook, I do like the platform. Rubino tyres on a bike at this price is a let-down, but it has the potential to be a really wicked road bike for those that don’t want carbon for whatever reason.

Design and aesthetics

As someone who lusts after the Liquigas-Cannondale era SuperSixes, I must say I love the decision to pop the seat stays back up where they should be. That, along with the basically horizontal top tube, makes the aesthetic package very classique and pleasing to behold.

Much like the latest SuperSix I am slightly underwhelmed by the paint options, especially given the crazy custom versions that have been kicking about on socials. The frameset-only option is delightful, as is the raw version, though these are so rare that I suspect they’re essentially a showpiece, like the 100-piece Team Dream Team limited edition. Black, white, or this perfectly handsome but dull cherry option are your choices, and if you want electronic gears, then it’s just this red.

Gone are the mudguard mounts (someone will die on this hill, I assure you, and it ain't going to be me), but there is a round seatpost and clearance now for 32mm tyres with a bit of wiggle room. This mid-tier model comes with the new SRAM Rival, and ‘robust endurance road wheels’ from DT Swiss of an alloy variety, paired with budget Vittoria Rubino Pro tyres. As I’ll get into when I discuss the handling, these are a little bit of a letdown and again point to the slight confusion of the machine.

The cockpit is a separate system, with alloy bars here. Given Cannondale is only offering integrated cockpits on its top-flight SuperSix models, it’s not a great surprise (and no bad thing) to have a two-piece on offer here. At the bottom bracket there is mercifully a standard BSA threaded shell, and there's UDH compatibility at the back, so no mad Cannondale standards of yesteryear.

The CAAD14 is geometrically very similar to the latest SuperSix Evo, a bike which I really, really liked from a handling perspective. In the same size, the CAAD is 15mm higher, which sounds like a lot, but the latest SuperSix cut 10mm from the head tube to make it lower. Same head tube angle at 73º, but a higher bottom bracket for the CAAD by 3mm, and 5mm longer in the chain stays, but all in all the lineage from SuperSix to CAAD is more or less a straight line.

Specs sheet aside, what I do like about the CAAD is the fact you can still mess about with it. Yes, semi-internal cable routing is a pain, but as a serial setup messer-abouterer I love the fact that, hypothetically with a bit of playing around with hoses and spacers perhaps, I could slap a Thomson seatpost and stem combo and some vintage classic drop bars off eBay and have something that looks pretty old school with modern sensibilities, or I could run it 1x with 35mm tyres and an extremely narrow cockpit to keep up with the trendy folks. It’s one of the main reasons I bought a Bowman Palace back in the day, and now run it with a flat bar like a moron.

Taking the mudguard mounts away, though, is dumb. It has endurance wheels; it’s alloy so will appeal to new cyclists and those looking for a winter bike that doesn’t handle like a water buffalo, and if we’re all honest with ourselves, despite the marketing, it ain’t a crit bike either. If you’re serious about racing, why would you get an alloy frameset that isn’t aero when you can get a Quick Pro frameset (as an example) for less money AND have aero gains AND have weight savings?

I hate to burst some of your bubbles, but if you crash and snap an alloy frame, it’s actually going to be harder to repair than a carbon one. It might take little knocks more easily, but the big stuff is going to write it off whether it’s made of plastic or tin.

Performance

The CAAD14 is, first and foremost, a laugh. There’s definitely something psychological at play, but not being aboard a bike that is carbon or aero, or both in this case, allows the mind to drift into a more playful space, and this is compounded well by the fact that the handling characteristics are pretty much as they are for the SuperSix, which is beautiful to ride. A little more stable with that longer back end, but basically the same.

Compared to my Bowman, admittedly a bike that is many years old now, the CAAD14 is worlds apart. It’s stiff enough in the frame, but like so many bikes it really pays to go up a little in terms of tyre sizes. Even up to a 30c takes some of the sting out of the tail that comes with not having a great deal of seatpost stickup. I have a size down here compared to my usual 56, and it is a little small (ideally I’d have this but with a longer stem, but we are where we are) and even here the seatpost doesn’t extend that far out. It certainly adds to the old school charm in a visual sense, but even a round carbon seatpost can’t do everything.

While I’m on the wheels and tyres, the stock wheels are OK, but the tyres are certainly a weak point for a bike where handling is such a key part of the appeal. Even if you don’t swap the wheels, you’ll have a far better time if you swap the Rubinos out for something moderately premium. Continental GP5000s and Vittoria Corsa Pros are good, but cost a bomb, and realistically, if you’re not dropping top dolla on a race bike then take my word for it and sort yourself out with a set of Hutchinson Blackbirds or Blackbird Race tyres and thank me later; ⅔ the price (or half, when on sale) and they feel really, really good. Same goes for Michelin Power Cups, though they don’t come in the same size range.

The stock wheels make for little to write home about, and I can’t help but feel I’d be writing “these would be a fantastic winter wheelset, and you can save some posh hoops for summer”, but THE RUDDY MUDGUARD MOUNTS ARE GONE.

I don’t lament the separate bar and stem combo, even if to all intents and purposes it’s just as inconvenient as a one-piece given the internal routing. I like the bars, and while they do flex more than I’d perhaps like when cranking out a sprint effort, they’re stiffer than the Seka Spear integrated cockpit. The ergonomics are sound, and being alloy I’m less stressed about leaning the thing up cack-handedly against a wall and it toppling over.

When the road points upwards I did wish I was on the SuperSix, even when I slapped a set of Zipp 202 NSW climbing wheels on. It’s just a little more stolid, but it gets over lumps perfectly well, even ticking off a few PRs on both sustained efforts and uphill sprints. The stock setup with pedals, cages, and computer mount tips the scales at 9.17kg (I did swap the saddle, though), and this isn't exactly feathery; it combines with the additional drag of the tyres, so it does feel sluggish at times, but it is an alloy bike with alloy wheels.

While one can’t necessarily feel the difference in a handful of watts here and there between the best aero road bikes, you absolutely can feel the difference between this and a frame designed to beat the wind. It’s not like having an anchor on or anything so dramatic, but you do have to work harder on the flat. Again, this is aided with better tyres, and you can do a lot with positioning, helmet, and clothing, but fundamentally this is a slower bike than a similarly priced aero frameset, whatever you put on it.

Downhill, though, it’s ripping good. The SRAM brakes are excellent and add a layer of confidence on top of the balance the geometry brings to the table. The same confident turn-in as the SuperSix is at play here, and a front end that is stiff enough to track where you want it to without being so stiff you skitter hither and thither. If this is to be your first ‘proper’ road bike, then there are far worse places to learn to descend than aboard one of these. It doesn’t descend quite as well as the SuperSix, but for a bike that costs substantially less it’s impressive how good an impression it can do if its premium sibling. It’s like the difference between Sprite from the fridge and room temperature Sprite. Same thing really, underneath, but one has a little more ahhhh.

It’s fun, but is that enough? The problem with the CAAD14 is that it’s sort of trying to be all things to all people and hamstringing itself in the process. It’s got the handling of an excellent fast road bike, but without the componentry, and realistically in this day and age if you’re buying a non-aero alloy frameset to race on seriously you probably need your head examining. On the flip side, it occupies the entry-level road bike space for the brand, but without shouldering any of the responsibility to be utilitarian that comes with that market position.

People buying their first road bike will also be looking for something to commute on and use all year round, and without mudguards it can do neither thing well. The Fairlight Strael manages to handle beautifully and be utilitarian enough to be a commuter, winter bike, and light touring masterclass, and if it can be done in steel then it can be done in aluminium, too.

I will also say that I never really got on with the groupset beyond the brakes. The gears were perpetually skipping and mis-shifting no matter what I did to trim and re-trim the rear derailleur. It was frustrating, and again, if this was my first dealings with electronic gears I’d be a bit non-plussed.

Value

£3,700 is a fair wedge but it’s substantially cheaper than the top-flight bikes I so often review nowadays. What else can you get for that money? An Ultegra-equipped Fairlight Strael… A bike I gave a perfect score to. I know any Nero Show followers will be wailing and gnashing their teeth, but both bikes are not aero, made of metal, and handle excellently. One is just a lot more adaptable and a lot more configurable.

It's also several hundred more than the Winspace M6 aero race bike my colleague Tom just reviewed. That has carbon wheels, a one-piece integrated handlebar, etc and is sure to be a much quicker machine.

From more mainstream competition, you could get an Ultegra-spec Canyon Ultimate, with carbon wheels and race tyres for the same cash. Maybe it ain’t as cool, but it’s more bike for your money. A SRAM Force version of the Ultimate with carbon wheels and race tyres will save you 350 quid over the CAAD, which you put towards a power meter, and you can get it in red not white, so people don’t accuse you of being an influencer on the internet.

What I’m trying to say is the CAAD isn’t particularly good value. It isn’t a good enough race bike to be raced as-is without investing in better tyres, for starters, let alone the wheels, and it isn’t utilitarian enough to be a year-round training machine.

Verdict

I liked riding the CAAD, but I am also here to provide consumer advice. I like riding bikes that are cool (have I mentioned my alloy flat bar idiot wagon?) but ‘fun and cool’ only really gets you to the marketing campaign. You can stick cycling’s most effervescent influencer on one in front of a Porsche, but that’s sort of all there is underneath. It is fun, and it is cool, but if that’s all it is, then why not make it cooler? Why not make it more fun? Give it the paint it deserves, and the tyres it needs. Give people who are coming to road cycling for the first time something to really show off at the cafe, and for pity's sake, give them some mudguard mounts.

Winspace has been making bikes since 2008, and despite being around for some time, only in the last several years has the brand’s visibility risen in the western market, as more and more Chinese brands have gained a foothold, popularity and visibility.

I’ve been test riding the Winspace M6 since April. It's one of the brand's latest aero road bikes and sits alongside the T1550 and T1600 models.

The M6 is available in a few configurations; I've tested the 105 Di2 version, though it's also available with 105 mechanical and Ultegra Di2 as well. It's generated interest wherever I've taken it, far more than some of the best road bikes I’ve ridden from more established brands.

As pictured, the bike I have been riding comes in at $3,900, making it a more attractive option than bikes from bike brands with similar specs that may cost a lot more or as an affordable yet capable platform to upgrade further down the line.

I’ve done all my road riding and training on it, and have used it for three road races. Here’s how I got in.

Design and aesthetics

Winspace owns its own factory in China, which I believe allows for some of its competitive pricing. Spec-wise, the bike comes with a strong overall package that doesn’t really have any gaping weaknesses.

You can do quite a lot of customising when ordering on the Winspace website, and the brand uses a direct-to-consumer model supported by dealers in different regions. You can choose from one of nine colour options, and custom paint services are offered in at least the UK, with prices starting from £450.

Two integrated handlebars are available: the Hyper bar, which is what came with my bike; I chose a 36cm/105mm combo and loved it, or you can choose the Hyper 2 for $100 more, which to my mind looks a bit like the bar shape on the Colnago Y1Rs.

The seatpost is an aero Winspace model, which has 15mm of layback in size M and upward, and is inline for the XS and S sizes, topped off with a Selle Italia Novus Boost Evo X-Cross Superflow, an XC MTB-specific saddle, but one which I have also found very comfortable, visually it also fits in well with the bike, and doesn't look out of place.

Handlebar width and stem length can be specified, as can crank length, and (to an extent) chainring size. It's all very customisable, and you should be able to get close to the exact build combo you want. One thing to note is shipping times; you can currently expect a 30-45 day wait for your order to arrive.

My bike came with the stock Unaas Hard D50 wheels with 28mm Continental Grand Prix tyres and tubes, but you can spend up to $1000 more by upgrading things on the wheel front.

The groupset is the always solid Shimano 105 Di2, and it was solid as a rock. The bike comes with a 170mm 34-50T chainset, and I did swap in a 36-52T for a road race; for general riding it’s absolutely fine, but if you're racing and need some more speed in flat-out fast finishes or for a better chainline you may want to go bigger. There's also no included power meter, a positive or negative depending on your opinion; PM crank arms for Shimano chainsets are relatively inexpensive though.

One aftermarket part that caught my eye immediately as I wax each new test bike's chain was the chain itself. Winspace spec'd a SUMC flat top model - a Chinese brand that I wasn’t familiar with. I'm a stickler for running Shimano chains with Shimano groupsets, but I must say performance has been good from it. I can’t say shifting performance was any different to a Shimano unit or poor in any way, and I was paying very close attention.

So, for the frame itself, the M6 is constructed from Toray T700/T800 and M40/60 carbon fibres. Various brands use Toray, so material-wise, the quality is there.

The bottom bracket standard is T47, and my bike came fitted with a Token screw-together unit; the cranks span very well straight out of the box, but more on this further in.

The frame is UDH-friendly and has 32mm tyre clearances; I've run it with 32mm Specialized Cotton TLR tyres comfortably at times.

Winspace quotes 900 grams for an unpainted size M, and my bike came in at 7.9kg out of the box.