Leatt started as the game-changing neck brace for moto in Cape Town, South Africa has evolved into a complete line that now serves XC and gravel riders. For 2024, Leatt partnered with Gregor Egger and Lukas Baum from
Speed Company Racing (winners Cape Epic 2022, and 2nd 2023) to develop best-in-class helmets and apparel.
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Radar
Head of the Pack: Wolf Tooth ReMote Drop-Bar Dropper Lever First-Ride Review
Now that Wolf Tooth released the ReMote Drop-Bar dropper lever, Travis compared it to its one good (and three not-so-good) direct competitors.
Reportage
A Homecoming at the 2023 Hodag Country Ramble
The Hodag Country Ramble is a ride. It’s a tour, a campout. But it has also become so much more. Read on for an insight into the event and what makes it so special for its founder, Jeff Frane with some marvelous photos by Alex Horner…
Reportage
Road to Desolation: Gravel Racing Across the Karoo
The Karoo is not flat, both in personality and profile. The Road to Desolation gravel race seeks to capture the essence of the Karoo—the idiosyncratic small towns, the solitude of its expanse, and the way the bicycle represents the ideal vehicle for navigating the internal and external challenges of the terrain. Simon Pocock photographed the inaugural edition of the event in 2023 and writes about the Karoo’s imposing appeal.
Radar
Ritchey WCS and Comp Cabrillo Saddles
The Cabrillo, the latest saddle from Ritchey, takes a new look at ergonomics for drop bar pursuits. It combines a shorter nose with a wider body and a flatter shape to allow riders to move around on the saddle’s surface, reducing hot spots and is available at the WCS and Comp levels…
Radar
VIDEO: Three Dashes – The 2023 Dirt Dash Film
The Dirt Dashes are grassroots bikepacking and gravel events in the UK. Join us in 2024 by signing up on Dirt Dash ‘Three Dashes’ features footage from all three 2023 Dirt Dash events and feedback from the riders – who range from an experienced bikepacker from the US to another participant from Glasgow, who had not ridden a bike further than on his 20-minute commute. Film by Markus Stitz with music from Epidemic Sound.
Reportage
Wood Is Good: Twmpa Cycles GR1 Gravel Bike Review
Steel may be real but, for Petor Georgallou, that cliché begs the question: is wood good? Ever the curious reviewer, Petor has long wanted to test the ride quality of a wooden frame and the opportunity to ride a Twmpa Cycles GR1 gravel bike finally presented itself a few months back. But before Petor dips into his ride impressions, he shares an exchange with another wooden builder, Mark Kelly, about the characteristics that make wood an especially compelling frame-building material. After checking out Petor’s review of the GR1, drop into the comments and let us know…would you? Wood you!?
Reportage
A Fine Time in Raleigh, North Carolina With Fine Bikes and Oak City Cycling
Last year Mitchell Connell fell in love with a custom road bike he saw at a bike show. After missing an opportunity to test ride the bike, he took a road trip to Raleigh, North Carolina to find it and its creator, Charles Thompson of Fine Bikes. Along the way, Mitchell got to pay a visit to the iconic local shop, Oak City Cycling, and get the tour of Raleigh’s mixed-surface riding.
Reportage
Athens Divide: A Micro Adventure Race
The Athens Divide is proof that you don’t have to lose a night of sleep to experience the full range of adventure racing. Billed as a “micro adventure,” this point-to-point race hosted by Donhou Bicycles takes riders over Athens’ urban ridgelines where, no matter the bike, everyone’s hiking somewhere. Read on for Tom Donhou’s recap of the first Athens Divide, with photos from Maliakos Nikos.
Reportage
San Juan Splendor: Circumnavigation of Mt Wilson
While winter has already set in over in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains, Todd Gillman and a troop of friends snuck in one last hurrah of the year, a two-day leaf peep bike tour to circumnavigate Mt. Wilson while the leaves were still poppin’. Read on for Todd’s lively route description and file this instant backcountry classic away for next year—you won’t soon forget Aaron LaVanchy‘s stunning photo set…
Reportage
Losing Our Heads at the Onguza Loskop Local Cycling Festival in Namibia
Held in Omaruru, Namibia this past July, the Onguza Loskop Local is a weekend festival with “great food, drinks & friends, with a wee bit of cycling thrown in for good measure.” After deciding the event looked really lekker Cape Town locals Stan Engelbrecht and Donnet Dumas made the trip out and each rode the event in divergent fashions—Donnet on a borrowed too-small Giant, and Stan on his ill-advised fixed-gear with skinny tires—and share a joint account of their adventure…
Reportage
Devil’s Cardigan: The 2023 Australian Gravel National Championships
Picture an island 42 degrees south of the equator deep in the middle of winter. Surrounded by great oceans, it is battered by cold rain, snow, and wind. The Roaring Forties haunt the island like the growls of a Devil. Born out of these challenging conditions, The Devils Cardigan seemed the only name fit to describe the Australian Gravel National Championships.
Read on for Scott Mattern’s recap of Tasmania’s annual off-road rite of passage and how he made it devilishly difficult by combing both the 50km and 100km distances…
Reportage
The Rough Road Renegade: Introducing the Curve GMX+ Steel
Is it a drop-bar mountain bike? A gravel rig on ‘roids? Or a bike from another dimension? When it comes to codifying bikes these days, it’s really easy to get really lost (real quick). However, once in a while, a bike comes along that challenges the norm, flips the bird to conventional geo numbers, and stands alone: not as an outlier, but as an original. Sam Rice has been test riding Curve Cycling‘s long-awaited GMX+ and shares his thoughts on why it isn’t “just another touring bike” below, along with a look at their updated Seek 430 FM carbon fork.
Reportage
Le Premier Pilgrimage: The Inaugural Edition of Le Pilgrimage – French Gravel Extraordinaire
On September 14th, a group of cyclists gathered around a table for dinner in Puy-Saint-Vincent, a small mountain village in the French Alps. Among them were an Italian, a Spaniard, a handful of Dutch, a British couple, a French couple, and a Costa Rican. They were meeting for the first time and were strangers to one another. However, they shared a common passion: mountains, food, people, and bikes – and that’s what brought them together for the inaugural Le Pilgrimage, a brevet-style gravel event…
Radar
Under the Hood: Reviewing Gravel Drop-Bar Dropper-Post Remotes from Crankbrothers, PRO, ENVE, Easton, and Wolf Tooth
MicroSHIFT, SRAM, and now Shimano all offer gravel brake levers with built-in dropper post remotes. And there are ways to hack most left shifters to work great as dropper remotes. But if you aren’t currently in the market for a new drivetrain, or if you run a front derailleur, there aren’t many good plug-and-play options that work comfortably from both the hoods and the drops. Travis Engel found just five of them, from ENVE, Crankbrothers, PRO, Easton/Fox, and Wolf Tooth. It turns out they’re all very special in their own little ways.
Reportage
No One Is Going To Do It Except You: A Schön Studio Shop Visit
If you weren’t already familiar with Schön Studio, you may have just seen some of their stellar work in our recent MADE bike show coverage. Tucked into a corner of a quiet neighborhood in Squamish BC, Danielle Schön has been building bikes, teaching classes, and doing a variety of other metalwork and art out of her hand-built, backyard workshop. Read on below for Pat Valade‘s shop visit and in-depth profile…
Radar
Every Ride Carry: John’s Riding Tool Kit for MTB and Gravel
A faint kiss of cool air blows across the Southern Rockies here in Santa Fe. That means summer is almost over. This season shift has led me to reflect upon my ERC, or Every Ride Carry, that I’ve been using all summer here on MTB and gravel rides in the foothills and deep into our Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Let’s check it out below…
Radar
The Hero We Need: A microSHIFT Sword 1x Drivetrain Review
MicroSHIFT’s new Sword group came into Travis Engel’s life at the perfect moment. He had been noticing that his Ratio-12-speed-converted SRAM Force shift quality would degrade quickly, as the cable housing wore and friction increased. It’s a sad side-effect of the Ratio conversion’s decreased cable pull per-shift. Also, the hydraulic brakes had too much dead stroke for Travis’ discerning index fingers. He was looking for something new. That’s when, like the sexy stranger disrupting a rom-com protagonist’s unhappy European vacation, microSHIFT Sword bumped into Travis with a very timely meet-cute.