As the inaugural Cyclingnews Awards Week draws to a close, I thought it would be sensible to take a moment to recap and congratulate our winners.
We've seen more than two-dozen articles published, which marks a collective culmination of more than a year's worth of in-depth testing. We've crowned more than 25 awards for the 'best overall' in as many categories. We've awarded a similar number of 'best value' options in a bid to celebrate the products that punch above their pricepoint. We've also given honourable mentions to the handfuls of products that, for one reason or another, we absolutely love.
But before we get into the details, a reminder of who we are, what we've been doing, and why.
I'll start with myself, Josh. I joined Cyclingnews in 2019 following five years working in a bike shop and more than a decade racing road, mountain and CX bikes. I am the Tech Editor here at good ship CN, and I'm ably assisted by Will Jones and Tom Wieckowski, who have also been riding, racing, and nerding out over bikes since their own respective youths. We also have Josh Ross over in the USA, who spends his days poring over the details of everything he tests, unafraid to question the claims of marketers worldwide.
Our everyday goal in our roles (i.e. our "editorial content strategy") is simple: To help you, our readers, choose the right products at the best price available, within categories you're already looking to buy. We're not here to force you to buy anything you don't need, and we're not interested in sharing products we wouldn't use ourselves.
Like many of our competitors, we monetise this content via affiliate marketing, but our recommendations are, and always will be, resolutely independent from this and any other paid advertisement. Thankfully, our bosses (Future Publishing) have commercial teams that handle all of that so we can focus on the editorial fun stuff.
Our strategy is anchored by our hundreds of buyer's guides, which primarily capture Google searches for queries like "what are the best…XYZ?". That XYZ could be anything from 'cycling shoes' and 'road bikes' to 'bike computers' or 'winter socks'; wherever there's interest, we put our focus on finding the best product in that category. The strategy also extends to covering deal events such as Prime Day and Black Friday, where our focus shifts away from finding products to recommend, and onto finding the best price on products we already rate.
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In those guides, we are always conscious to consider the differing needs of different cyclists. There's rarely one single product that is best for everyone, because everyone's needs differ. However, we're human, and so even with dozens of products from each category at our disposal, we have our favourites; products we absolutely love and get excited to use when the opportunity presents itself.
We want to share that with our readers and celebrate those products, and that's exactly why we created the Cyclingnews Awards week.
Throughout the week, we have been calling out those favourites and waxing lyrical about why we love them. For most categories, we've adopted a structure of awarding the 'best overall,' the 'best value,' and where we feel it's applicable, an 'honourable mention.'
In addition, to anchor together the whole thing, we specifically back-to-back tested two groups of bikes - road and gravel, with a price limit set at £4,000 (or equivalent in dollars and euros) - in a half-field-test, half-group-test scenario.
The winners - every single one from the entire week - are all highlighted below, so scroll down and enjoy!
