It is a fact that most bikes, cycling clothing and other gear are pretty good these days. Poor products are thankfully few and far between, so in order for a piece of kit to make it into a reviewer’s top 5 for ‘Gear of the Year’ it must be more than just another highly competent item. It needs to resonate for some reason or other on a personal level and this can happen even if the product isn’t completely perfect.
The biggest surprise for me was the Caledonia-5. Having ridden many thousands of kilometres on my own standard Caledonia, I was amazed at how fast, efficient and all-round fun the new -5 was to ride. Similarly, I can’t claim to have been particularly excited at the prospect of testing a gilet but the Espresso Vest completely changed how I viewed gilets and how I integrated them into the day’s clothing.
USE’s Vybe Stem might not have the first suspension stem on the market, but it cleans up the aesthetics and improves on the performance of the others - I hope it is successful enough that they increase the size range on offer so that I can buy one that fits me!
Both the Lezyne Control drive and the Goodyear Peak Tubeless Complete gravel tyre meet my ‘no-faff’ standard for products, requiring little maintenance or complicated setup, but still doing the job when required.
Lezyne Control Drive
No one gets too excited about CO2 inflators (or at least I hope not), but there is a certain beauty in the Control Drive’s knurled, CNCed simplicity. Despite spending 99.999% of its life at the bottom of a grimy saddle bag, it worked perfectly when called upon and didn’t take up much valuable snack space when not needed.
Castelli Espresso Vest
I found myself looking for reasons to wear the Espresso Vest and planning my ride outfits around it (yes, really), I liked it so much. Castelli’s use of fabric and fit elevated the humble gilet into a garment that was a pleasure to wear. I’d previously eschewed vests with pockets, but the Espresso changed my mind - the couple of seconds spent swapping larger items between jersey and gilet was richly rewarded with a svelte, better-fitting and less flappy windproof layer. When not needed it scrunched up into half a jersey pocket, yet when deployed it seemed to add warmth out of all proportion with its weight.
I’m just off to buy another in a different colour to match my other jerseys.
USE Vybe Suspension Stem
Suspension stems and gravel are the perfect pairing, differentiating the bikes from their road and MTB brethren whilst providing a genuinely improved riding experience. Simpler than a suspension fork and far more forgiving than a rigid stem, I am surprised at how few manufacturers and riders use them.
The Vybe betters its direct competitors both aesthetically and weight-wise, whilst providing a plusher ride with more tuning potential too. It does all this without costing the earth, making it a very worthwhile upgrade for most gravel riders.
Goodyear Peak Tubeless Complete gravel tyre
I love a fit-and-forget product, and that is exactly what the Goodyear Peak gravel tyre was - rarely has tubeless set-up been this simple, and once in place the tread worked well over my local Peak District terrain. Grippy and quick in all the right places, and with the best National Park’s name on the side too.
Cervelo Caledonia-5
I need all the help I can get with my speed, so bikes with an all-road tag worry me - there is no use being smugly comfortable if you are getting dropped by your mates every ride. This was not an issue with the Caledonia-5 though, and its turn of speed was truly amazing each time I rode it. A ‘race bike for B roads’ would be a more accurate, if less pithy category for it; I’d swear it is stiffer and faster than my old R5.
Although the SRAM Force-equipped test bike was painfully priced at over £7k, it felt like decent value in the current market. Aside from its impressively quick frame and faultless wireless groupset, the excellent Reserve wheels and Ti-railed Selle Italia saddle are also from the premium aisle of the bike shop, leaving little scope to upgrade anything.
I still couldn’t care less about the downtube storage though, no matter how on-trend it is.
