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Bicycling’s Gear of the Year 2023

From Bicycling.com

HE 50 BEST BICYCLING PRODUCTS YOU CAN GET RIGHT NOW.

Each year, the Bicycling test team puts together our list of the best Gear of the Year. This product has been ridden and raced by our editors and staff on trails and roads all over the country, and sometimes all over the world. No matter the type of riding you do, there is something for you on this list.

From commuting on busy city streets, to grinding out miles on gravel roads, to descending miles of singletrack, the items the test team selected for Bicycling’s Gear of the Year represent the 40 best products we rode and used for riding over the past 12 months. And we included 10 additional personal picks from Bicycling’s test team for their favorite cycling gear they can’t live without.

Components

Bicycling’s test team and contributors ride A LOT of stuff in a year. These are our picks for bicycle parts and components that stand out from the crowd in performance, quality, innovation, or just because they improved our rides.

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Is A Gravel Bike Actually That Much Slower Than A Road Bike?

How slow really are gravel bikes in comparison to road bikes? Conor puts his gravel and road bike through the ultimate test. Across different terrains and speeds, he finds out how much riding a gravel bike on the road could affect your average ride times!

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CicLAvia—Heart of LA presented by Metro

CicLAvia—Heart of LA

On Sunday, October 15, we’re opening up the streets in the Heart of LA so you can jog, ride, bike, skate, run, walk, skateboard, spectate, and enjoy the route however you want. Our routes are welcoming to people of all ages and abilities! This CicLAvia is presented by Metro.

Be sure to join our email list so you don’t miss any event news and updates. Use the CicLAvia digital map to plan which businesses, local gems, activities along the route, and Hubs to check out during the event on October 15!

 

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The Future of Cars Looks a Lot Like an E-Bike

Fromm Inverse.com

BYTOM VANDERBILT

The electric vehicle revolution is already here — sporting two wheels and a pair of pedals.

Transportation, like most human behaviors, is shaped by a mixture of utility, convenience, visibility, and familiarity. As energy-conserving, satisficing humans, we reach for what is easy, what we can see, what we know. Nearly one-third of car trips in America, for example, take us less than one mile. Why not walk or ride a bike? Because our impulse to drive is a virtual muscle memory. Habits, notes Charles Duhigg, “shape our lives far more than we realize — they are so strong, in fact, that they cause our brains to cling to them at the exclusion of all else, including common sense.”

When the bike-share system CitiBike arrived in New York City a decade ago, I immediately and enthusiastically signed up. There was just one problem. The nearest station, in those early days, was precisely a mile from my house. As transportation planners have found, people are generally unwilling to walk more than half a mile to a transit stop — and so was I. The subway, meanwhile, was a block away. As you might imagine, whatever my intentions to embrace the service, I generally defaulted to the easier option. It wasn’t until a bike-share station opened a block away that I became a regular user. My behavior only changed because the context did.

Image courtesy of Cake

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What Is The Most OVERRATED Bike Tech? | GCN Tech Show Ep. 301

Are you wasting your money on overpriced and overhyped cycling tech? Alex and Ollie run through the bike parts and components they think are most overrated. Of course oversized pulley wheels are on the list, but what else? There’s also some hot and spicy tyre tech from Pirelli and Hutchinson, plus the new Pinarello Dogma X and details of Shimano’s big product recall.

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We rode a Rad Power RadWagon 4 electric cargo bike to see if it can replace a car

From CNN.com

By Michael Berk

popular take on the longtail cargo bike design, with an overbuilt frame that integrates a supersized rack that provides support for almost anything you might want to carry, from double-length panniers to a pair of child seats to an adult passenger. A longtail can easily hold a full week’s worth of groceries plus extra heavy items you might want to pick up along the way, say a couple of 5-gallon jugs of water (we did this a few times), a few chairs, a kid’s bike — whatever you can imagine.

If you’re motivated, a cargo bike really can replace a car for a whole lot of things, and it’s one of the disciplines of cycling where an electric bike makes the most sense, making the huge carrying capacity far more practical for riders who don’t have thighs like tree trunks. We put the RadWagon 4 into rotation for several months to figure out if it was up to the task.

Image courtesy of RadPower.com

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Metro Should Treat Walk and Bike Projects with the Respect They Deserve

From LA.Streetsblog.org

Prioritizing true first mile/last mile infrastructure isn’t somehow optional; it’s how your customers get to and from the transit stations.

Like many people around Los Angeles, I was excited about the opening of the Regional Connector. Like those of us who still drive sometimes (this is L.A., after all), but look for opportunities to do it less, the prospect of a better transit experience is an enticing one. I was driving one day from the Arts District to Union Station and noticed something odd. Construction was wrapping up around the new Little Tokyo Station, and with the barriers removed the basic geometry of the streets around it seemed the same as it was years ago. Remembering the walk across Alameda from the old station to Little Tokyo, I couldn’t understand why nothing was done in anticipation of the many new Metro riders who will surely be walking, biking, or connecting to buses at the new station.

In fact, things were supposed to be done: the $30 million Eastside Access Improvement Project, a package of bicycle and pedestrian improvements around Little Tokyo. At the 2021 groundbreaking ceremony, Metro CEO Stephanie Wiggins promised that the project would provide “more access, more connectivity, and a safer pedestrian environment than when we started Regional Connector construction so many years ago.”

Soon after I saw Streetsblog L.A. coverage that the bike lanes and other improvements that were promised, approved, and funded were severely cut back or not built at all, without any justification or apology. Think about all the steps that go into a typical public construction project: years of planning, approvals by various agencies, scoping, public outreach, bidding on construction contracts, procurement, clearances, construction, inspections, and final project acceptance. How can half of a $30 million project just vanish?

Photo by Jamshed Khedri on Unsplash

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The Hollowtech crank recall is a nightmare for riders, shops and Shimano. How did we get here and what happens next?

From BikeRadar.com

By

Shimano’s worldwide recall of 11-speed Ultegra and Dura-Ace cranksets now affects 2.8 million units globally.

The original recall was issued after a reported 4,519 incidents of cranksets delaminating in the US and Canada alone, resulting in six injuries.

The recall is set to have an enormous impact on riders, shops and Shimano itself – and it’s not off to a good start.

Muddled communications and unanswered questions have fostered an environment of confusion that Shimano will need to resolve. Bike shops are also frustrated by the expectation they will mop up the mess of an issue that’s been in the public eye for years.

BikeRadar first reported on this issue in April 2020. In that piece, we outlined the possible causes of the failure, which sees the two-part Hollowtech cranksets split in two, sometimes catastrophically.

Here, we analyse what happened in the hours following the announcement and what impact the recall will have on shops and riders.

We also examine the questions left unanswered by Shimano and speak to the man who has arguably done more than anyone else to bring this issue to light.

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West Hollywood adds bike repair stations

From BeverlyPress.com

BY

West Hollywood will soon add a component to support its bicycle sharing program, which the council hopes will improve conditions for riders. Bike repair stations will be installed in the city, meaning flat tires, broken spokes and other bicycle malfunctions can be solved with a basic repair kit.

“People commuting through the city by bike should have access to stations where they can make minor bike repairs when necessary,” Councilman John Heilman said. “Installing these repair stations is important to address the needs of cyclists, in the same way we’ve installed electric charging stations for those driving electric cars.”

A similar program has already been implemented in Beverly Hills, with stations equipped with screwdrivers, various types of wrenches, tire levers and a bike pump.

“The city has installed two bike repair stations in Beverly Hills: one in the Third Street parking structure near the Farmers’ Market entrance and one in Beverly Gardens Park adjacent to the North Santa Monica Boulevard high-visibility bike lanes,” Beverly Hills transportation planner Jessie Holzer Carpenter said. “The bike repair stations provide publicly accessible tools for cyclists to make minor repairs to their bicycles, such as pumping tires and adjusting brakes. The feedback we have received from cyclists has all been positive – they have told the city that the tools make it easier to choose to bike instead of drive since they know they will have access to them if they need them.”

There would be two bicycle repair stations total in West Hollywood.

The program was spearheaded by Mayor Pro Tempore John Erickson, who tries to use green transportation options whenever possible.

Photo by Yaw Afari on Unsplash

 

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StreetLight Data Reveals Latest Bicycling Trends in Top 100 U.S. Cities

From PRWeb.com

Select findings from Bike Boom or Bust? Metro & Statewide U.S. Bicycle Activity Trends, include:

National Trends

  • Nationally, annual average daily bicycle trips per year grew a considerable 37% between 2019 through 2022. The biggest year-over-year (YoY) uptick was in 2020.
  • Biking activity in dense urban regions increasingly drove national trends. The top 100 metros increased their share of national bike activity, from 72% in 2019 to 77% in 2022.

State Trends

  • All of the top 10 U.S. states by population saw at least a 25% increase in biking activity between 2019 and 2022.
  • More than half of states saw average daily bicycle trips per year increase by at least 25% between 2019–2022.
  • The East Coast states of New York, New Jersey, and Delaware were the only states where bicycling activity grew by over 50%. North Carolina and Illinois ranked fourth and fifth for growth, respectively.

Photo by Cole Keister on Unsplash

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