Cyclist Best of the best gravel bikes 2024: Cyclist’s top-rated gravel and adventure bikes Gravel bikes are incredibly versatile. Capable both on and off-road, they’re able to carry you across a variety of terrain types. They’re robust, they’re fun to ride and they generally employ a lot of the best in modern technology, including disc brakes and beginner-friendly wide-ratio gearing. Most gravel bikes are still light enough and quick enough for use on the tarmac despite their broad capabilities, making them a great all-round choice, and arguably the best option if you’re only going t ..read more

Cyclist Canyon’s new Grizl:On e-gravel bike is actually an e-do everything bike Canyon has released the Grizl:On, a carbon electric gravel bike that replaces the previous Grail:On in its range. With the standard Grail being transformed into a gravel-race bike, the German behemoth has renamed and rejigged its e-gravel offering to slot in more neatly with the new-look range. The Grizl:On is a gravel bike, but Canyon is emphasising its versatility as a potential n=1 e-bike that can be ridden on the commute, on the road and on trails, with the four models in the range upping in off-road spec –&nbs ..read more

Cyclist Now you can buy a Colnago C68 gravel bike Not content with offering its C68 in road, all-road and titanium models, Colnago has launched a gravel variant of its handbuilt-in-Italy C68. The new C68 Gravel has a shorter reach and taller stack than the C68 Allroad, as well as wider tyre clearance. It’s also specced with a new, wider design of the Colnago CC.01 one-piece carbon cockpit. Colnago will offer three builds, priced at €7,250 with Shimano GRX RX820, €8,690 with SRAM Force XPLR and €12,010 (£11,099) with SRAM Red XPLR as well as a €5,935 (£5,269) frameset-only option.   ..read more

Cyclist Cyclist’s Gear of the Year 2023: Bikes Spare a thought for the staff here at Cyclist this Christmas. The Covid years saw a dearth of new bike launches and it was damn difficult to get our hands on any bikes whatsoever, what with the boom in sales and supply chain issues. Our main string of travel writing was no better with lockdowns and restrictions sometimes making a ride further than ten miles from home an ordeal. Put the violins back in their cases though, because 2023 has been a bumper year for bikes. Specialized alone has launched three new road bikes (Tarmac SL8, Roubaix SL8, All ..read more

Cyclist Meet the maker: Ryan ‘Rhino’ Flinn of Curve The average sales exec might zip from boardroom to boardroom via train or plane, clad in a suit and carting their overnight gear around a fancy leather holdall. But there’s nothing average about Curve co-owner, sales director and ultra-distance rider Ryan ‘Rhino’ Flinn. To his mind, when he’s peddling his adventure and bikepacking bikes, the only real way to get from meeting to meeting is by, well, pedalling his adventure and bikepacking bikes. ‘I’ve mainly been living in my tent,’ Flinn tells us as we catch up during his latest two-wheeled t ..read more

Cyclist What We Ride: Sam’s flat-bar Specialized Diverge E5 When it comes to road and gravel bikes, I’m in the privileged position of being spoilt for choice. The nature of my job means I’m never without a test bike or two, but even discounting those, there’s the ones I’ve bought and built up myself over the years. Between them they cover the full gamut of riding I do, but all have one thing in common: curly handlebars. Drop bars are great and all but they don’t half make life tricky in certain circumstances. For example, I commute into Cyclist’s London office and while the multiplanar curves ..read more

Cyclist Bianchi joins the fast gravel crowd with sleek 2×-friendly Impulso Bianchi says that aerodynamic performance, low weight, and off-road capability are the hallmarks of the renewed Impulso family, which it’s just launched, aimed at fast gravel riders. It highlights the growing divide between gravel racers and those looking for slower progress off-road, which it labels adventure cycling, saying that bikepacking and exploration are sub-specialisms.  As with the latest Specialissima and Oltre, there are three spec levels for the new Bianchi Impulso: RC, Pro and Comp. Prices range from ..read more

Cyclist Opinion: It’s time to rethink drop bar bike categories As with most things in life, bikes used to be so simple back in the good old days. Mainly, they just had to be light. But then steel was supplanted by magnesium, which aluminium even more quickly overtook. Then in the naughty noughties, carbon composite truncated aluminium’s time in the sun, and brands got wise to the near-limitless potential the new material held for bike design. It made bikes a lot better, but also gave designers and engineers the opportunity to specialise. They could make some bikes lighter than any metal could ..read more

Cyclist Meet the maker: Rubén Durán of Rizzo Cycles ‘The colour is called “peacock chameleon”,’ says framebuilder Rubén Durán from his home in Madrid as he walks Cyclist through one of his jazzier creations. ‘It changes depending on the angle from which it’s viewed. Google “synthwave sunset” and you’ll see where the inspiration came from.’ For the past few years, Durán has been creating custom bikes under the brand name Rizzo. This is one of them, a Columbus steel off-road adventurer designed to tackle intercontinental expeditions, featuring a 1980s-inspired paintjob and outrageous tyre cleara ..read more

Cyclist Canyon Grizl vs new Grail: The best Canyon gravel bike in 2024 The Canyon Grizl and the latest Canyon Grail are both ultra-modern gravel bikes that offer versatility and fun across a range of prices and specs. Keen on both but can’t decide which one is right for you? In this detailed comparison we’ll break down the key differences between the two bikes, making the Grail vs Grizl decision an easier one. The Grail had a major update in October 2023, which transformed it from the original all-rounder gravel bike launched in 2018 into an out-and-out gravel race bike. To scratch the competi ..read more