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Nature is Luxury at Wales’ Fforest Gran Ffondo

Reportage By: Petor Georgallou

Nature is Luxury at Wales’ Fforest Gran Ffondo

Oversized white t-shirts flapping listlessly between a great white softbox Welsh sky and endless hordes of casual, sunbathing daisies. Jersey pockets bulging with hard boiled eggs and gummy bears. Hushed whispers of chain ring print, oil tattooed cyclists entering a bird hide and unzipping Leica binocular cases. Nature’s comfortable chatter pauses incrementally to listen to the doppler shifting cacophony of a freewheeling Hope RS4 flying down a caution signed gradient. The Fforest Gran Ffondo must be, objectively, the finest road cycling event around right now.

Radavist x Komoot: Silver Linings on the East Devon Trail

Radar By: Katherine Moore & Komoot

Radavist x Komoot: Silver Linings on the East Devon Trail

Katherine Moore, a zoologist by training and a cycling writer by trade, has just launched a new bikepacking route through her home turf in East Devon. Besides the gorgeous coastal tracks and sleepy wooded trails further inland, quaint thatched villages, and colorful seaside towns, the East Devon Trail features a twist: linking up nature reserves and bird hides along its 115-mile length. While the release of this accessible weekender trail has been the cause of much excitement, its development sprung out of a much darker and unexpected place.

Note: This article is part of a sponsored partnership with Komoot. We’ll always disclose when content is sponsored to ensure our journalistic integrity.

The Misplaced Optimism of Summer: Riding Scotland’s Deeside Trail in October

Reportage By: Ali Macleod & Jonathan Kambskard-Bennett

The Misplaced Optimism of Summer: Riding Scotland’s Deeside Trail in October

For the young men of post-war Britain, the train from London King’s Cross to Aberdeen was not unfamiliar. Hundreds of conscripts were required to board the carriages as part of their National Service. The train would pull away from the platform on a Friday night and arrive at the Scottish coastal city by Saturday mid-morning. Iconic red Routemaster buses exchanged for grey-stone buildings and seagulls. There was the novelty of a Highlands map, marked with unknown Gaelic quantities: Glens, Munros, and Gorms, and excitement for rural air, combined with blissful ignorance of the military enforced misery that lay ahead. Or so the old man told us.

Radar

The Hill Climb Project with ISEN Workshop

When The Service Course caught wind that the 2021 National Hill Climb Championships was being held at the iconic Winnats Pass in the Peak District National Park for the first time in over 40 years, they could sense the perfect storm beginning to brew – and quickly got to work. A year in the making, this project is a celebration of everything we pride ourselves in – a passion for cycling culture in all its quirky guises, collaborating with a dream team of talented creatives from ISEN Workshop and yes producing head-turning, jaw-dropping steel bikes weighing in at 5.4kg and ready to fly.

See more at The Service Course.

Radar

The Starling Cycles Roost Hardtail

Starling’s very first hardtail, the Roost, had to be something special, so the UK MTB framebuilders went all out to make a bike built for pure, undiluted fun. Made to go anywhere and do anything, it’s as suited to back-country epics as it is bike park blasts. A handbuilt, zingy steel frame makes light work of rough and rowdy descents whilst mullet wheels bring that perfect balance of flick-knife and magnum. With room for a 120mm to 160mm fork, you’ve got plenty of options to custom build your own perfect setup. It’s not a spindly XC whippet, it’s not a sickly ‘hardcore ‘hardtail. It’s a ride-wherever, ride-whatever, tough-as-nails stainless do-it-all that’s built to take on whatever you can throw it at. And, of course, it’s built-in beautiful stainless steel for that shiny, rust-free raw style.

When you’re done with the video above, check out more photos of the Roost below and check out the pre-order at Starling Cycles. Pre-orders are open now with frames shipping to customers in early April 2022.

Radar

MAIDEN RACE: Mark Beaumont’s tale of GBDURO

An extraordinary race with a bizarre twist in the final stage gives GBDURO victory to the Around-the-World record holder in his first-ever race…

Despite a career of world-firsts in endurance cycling expeditions, Mark Beaumont, the current round-the-world record holder, had never competed in anything other than what amounts to very extreme solo time trials. This summer though, for the first time in his career, he entered a race. And not just any race, arguably the toughest endurance race in the UK, GBDURO. The drama was captured in a new Shimano video called MAIDEN RACE. Watch it above…

Paul Paul
Mondraker Mondraker
Industry Nine Industry Nine
Singular Singular
Silca Silca
State Bicycle Co State Bicycle Co
Leatt Leatt
Rivendell Rivendell
SimWorks SimWorks
The Radavist The Radavist