As I sat down to call my favorite merchandise for 2024, I couldn’t assist however reminisce concerning the journeys they’ve been part of. This 12 months has been crammed with memorable rides: from a 120-mile epic, the place climbing Mt. Ventoux was simply the midpoint, to a trek throughout Morocco. There have been additionally loads of adventures had at residence, from a spontaneous solo bikepacking overnighter to a uncommon probability to pedal up one among Portland’s busiest roads, quickly reworked right into a serene, car-free zone after a winter storm. And, after all, a few idyllic Pacific Northwest days capped off with a fast dip right into a mountain lake.
For years, gravel and journey using have been my mainstay, however in 2024, I rediscovered my love for the street: the rhythm of the miles ticking by, the reward of a climb conquered, the altering surroundings, and the simplicity of rolling out with out debating tyre decisions or packing further gear for self-sufficiency in distant areas. There’s a particular attract to the straightforwardness of street biking that I’d misplaced contact with, partly, due to a couple too many unhealthy encounters with automobiles whereas using.
This renewed love for the street is mirrored in my prime picks for the 12 months. I’m nonetheless of the mindset that the perfect rides embrace the roads much less travelled, and thus a few of these merchandise are completely at residence on the filth as effectively. Nonetheless, even the gravel wheelset listed under has seen extra pavements than filth, which is only a reflection of the place the bike took me this 12 months.
The all-new SRAM Pink AXS Levers & Brakes
(Picture credit score: Anne-Marije Rook)
When SRAM launched its newest top-tier street groupset this Could –named SRAM Pink AXS– the standout improve was the entire overhaul of its brake and shift levers. They acquired a complete ergonomic and aesthetic makeover, full with a repositioned hydraulic brake grasp cylinder, improved hood angle and new hood-based bonus buttons.
The hoods are actually leaner and elongated, with a prime profile about half as tall as earlier than, marking an finish to these bulbous hood shapes.
The brake callipers additionally acquired a big replace, that includes a lighter, all-aluminium physique. Inside, the pistons have been repositioned larger within the calliper, permitting braking drive to be utilized nearer to the rotor’s edge for improved effectivity.
The outcome? A sleeker design paired with intuitive and easy-to-reach shifting and smoother, extra highly effective braking. These of us right here at Biking Weekly who’ve had the pleasure of utilizing all of them agree: they’re merely improbable. I actually suppose they’re the perfect street brakes in the marketplace at present.
I used to be, subsequently, stoked to see that these levers and callipers had been carried over into the most recent gravel groupset, the Pink XPLR AXS groupset, as effectively. That groupset launched in August, and its different highlights embrace a 13-speed drivetrain, a much bigger gear vary, important weight financial savings and a UDH-only rear mech.
Hunt’s 40 Carbon Gravel Racer Dynamo Wheelset
(Picture credit score: Kenneth Rodriguez-Clisham)
Quick? Light-weight? Fast to speed up? Responsive? Aero? Verify, verify, verify, verify, and verify. However let me inform you why the 40 CGR wheels maintain a particular place in my coronary heart.
My first encounter with the 40 CGR wheelset was through the gruelling 350-mile Unbound XL gravel race in 2023. Hunt loaned me a set, full with a Schmidt SON 28 dynamo hub within the entrance – a custom-built then.
A dynamo hub is an electromagnetic induction generator that converts the kinetic power from the spinning wheel into electrical energy to energy lights and different gadgets. The Schmidt SON28 hub is broadly thought of to be among the many finest due to its low resistance, excessive effectivity and skill to place out respectable energy even at low and reasonable shifting speeds. With a protracted evening and day of racing forward, I opted for dynamo lights so I wouldn’t have to fret about batteries.
Whereas the hub provides 430 grams to the in any other case light-weight wheel, it was well worth the peace of thoughts of by no means working out of sunshine and the bonus capacity to cost my different electronics as effectively.
The Hunt 40 Carbon Gravel Race wheelset is a race-focused, ETRTO-complaint hookless gravel wheelset that includes a 40mm aero profile, 25mm inner width, and, sans dynamo hub, weigh1431 grams for the set — not unhealthy for a $1399 wheelset.
The rear wheel is laced to the model’s Dash SL hub with fast 7.5-degree engagement, which spins up shortly and aids within the common responsiveness of the wheels. The wheelset is unquestionably made to go quick and I used to be joyful to have them within the all-out race tempo of the primary 45 minutes of that Unbound XL. But, I did not discover them overly stiff, both, which is an efficient factor. Even after 350 miles, my decrease again by no means complained.
These 28 hours of using and climbing by unforgiving circumstances had been the final word gear check, and the beginning of an attractive relationship. The wheels have been my trusty companions on numerous miles since, on- and off-road. They’re now by devoted bikepacking and long-distance wheelset in addition to my day by day drivers within the winter when daylight is scarce.
Quick, comfy and indestructible, they’ve confirmed their value repeatedly. Hunt began providing this dynamo hub-equipped wheelset as a standalone product just a few months in the past, out there now instantly from the Hunt web site for $1799.
Pirelli P Zero Race TLR RS street tyres
(Picture credit score: Anne-Marije Rook)
With so many good tyres already in the marketplace, it’s uncommon for a street tyre to face out as of late, however Pirelli’s new flagship tyres do.
Made in partnership with the Lidl Trek WorldTour crew, the all-new P Zero Race TLR RS sits on the very prime of the model’s choices, unseating the P Zero Race TLR relating to pure efficiency.
Pirelli claims the P Zero Race TLR RS tyre is the model’s quickest and highest-performing mannequin but, however maybe extra importantly, it’s additionally safer than its predecessor due to a brand new bead design. In 2023, Pirelli issued a voluntary product recall for the P Zero Race TLR after reviews of an insecure bead retention with sure rim, tyre, and strain mixtures. The most recent mannequin guarantees higher air retention and broader rim compatibility –hookless included.
I’ve clocked effectively over a thousand miles on the tyres, and through that point I’ve been impressed with how effectively the tires maintain air. Moreover, the tubeless setup us a whole breeze and the experience high quality is remarkably comfy for a race mannequin. They’re noticeably smoother than opponents just like the Continental GP5000 or Vittoria Corsa Professional, and have additionally impressed with wet-weather grip and flat safety.
Sturdiness just isn’t a top quality that’s priotised in race-made tyres however I’ve been impressed with the mannequin’s sturdiness. I realise I’m jinxing myself penning this, however I’ve but to puncture them!
At $99/ £84.99 a pop, the P Zero Race TLR RS’s are expensive however show their value, delivering top-tier efficiency with an unexpectedly refined experience high quality.
Shimano S-PHYRE SH-RC903 PWR sneakers
(Picture credit score: Anne-Marije Rook)
The mannequin title is a mouthful, however the one a part of that mannequin title value remembering is the PWR. These sneakers are made for PoWeR-full efforts: observe racing, time trials and sprints. Or, in my case, throwing down at Fleche PDX, a foolish hill climbing problem that tackles a number of the steepest climbs to be discovered Southwest of Portland for some 2540 meters of elevation achieve in simply 80 kilometres.
The sneakers carry a 12-out-of-12 sole stiffness score, and that’s solely a part of the package deal. Every thing about this shoe was made extra inflexible – from the heel cup to the midsole wrapping and even the shoe’s higher, which is embedded with a skinny, pliable plastic reinforcement layer.
Given the all-around rigidity, I anticipated these reveals to be a little bit of compromise when it got here to put on consolation. However as soon as damaged in, the shoe impressed not solely its effectivity and stability but in addition its second-skin consolation – partly due to the only dial BOA Li2 closure mechanism, which supplies even rigidity throughout the highest and center of the foot.
Briefly, they’re cosy but breathable, extremely stiff but comfy. And that colourway! Star-eyes emoji value.
Bose Extremely Open earbuds
(Picture credit score: Anne-Marije Rook)
These earbuds had been an unintended discover – a present for media at Camp Strava this summer season. Bose is famend for its high-quality audio merchandise, however what intrigued me about these earbuds most was their distinctive clip-on design.
Clipped across the cartilage of the outer ear, they act like tiny audio system, delivering sound on to your ears whereas maintaining them open to the world round you. They’ve confirmed to be nice to put on, even for lengthy intervals at a time, and provide excellent sound high quality. At near 7 hours of continuous enjoying time, the battery life rivals that of the favored AirPods, too.
Utilizing earbuds whereas biking is all the time a controversial subject, and I agree that staying conscious of your environment –whether or not you’re biking, driving or strolling– is important. These earbuds help you stay conscious whereas additionally having fun with a superb audiobook. Greater than that, they achieve this with extra consolation and higher sound high quality than the bone-conduction headphones I’ve tried.
Everybody Watches Ladies’s Sports activities shirt
(Picture credit score: Anne-Marije Rook)
2024 was an unimaginable 12 months for girls’s sports activities. Simone Biles cemented her standing because the plain GOAT of gymnastics with a golden comeback on the Olympics. Caitlin Clark and her friends electrified the sport of basketball, drawing record-breaking crowds in and out of doors the arenas. And Jasmin Paris made historical past as the primary girl ever to complete the infamous Barkley Marathons—a gruelling 100-mile, 60-hour path race.
Biking was no much less thrilling. Lael Wilcox shattered the ladies’s around-the-world document, protecting an astounding 18,125 miles in simply 108 days. Demi Vollering and Kasia Niewiadoma delivered a nail-biting showdown within the Tour de France Femmes, with the smallest margin of victory in Tour de France historical past. In the meantime, Marianne Vos claimed her 14th rainbow jersey on the UCI Gravel World Championships—simply months after securing her 250th profession win at Dwars door Vlaanderen.
Throughout each sport, girls shattered information and at last garnered the worldwide consideration they’ve lengthy deserved. As somebody who’s spent a lot of her profession championing girls’s sports activities and voices, I couldn’t be extra excited by how far we’ve come.
That’s why the message on this T-shirt, created by Togethxr, resonates so deeply with me— a strong rebuttal to the dismissing chorus of “nobody cares about girls’s sports activities” that I used to be given all too typically
Thus, I wore that tee proudly as I jostled for an inch of house within the media scrum on the end of Unbound Gravel, the place the ladies’s race led to an completely thrilling nine-up dash. I wore it on the mountain summit of Alpe d’Huez, watching the jumbotron as a reside stream—broadcast to 190 nations worldwide—captured Vollering and Niewiadoma’s fierce battle for each single second within the yellow jersey race. And I wore it once more within the Utah desert, surrounded by 1000’s who’d made the trek to witness, with bathed breath, as girls took mountain biking to its extremes in a historic first Pink Bull Rampage girls’s occasion.
This 12 months, everybody watched girls’s sports activities.