Your weekly round-up of the best kit to land at BikeRadar HQ

By Nick Clark

Published: Friday, 19 January 2024 at 07:00 AM


Welcome back to another edition of First Look Friday, where we share the hottest tech that has passed over our desks in the past week.

Before we get into this week’s picks, let us look back over the last seven days and remind ourselves of the excellent content we’ve covered.

At the start of the week, Jack Luke pleaded with bike designers to stop making bikes without seat tubes, calling into question the doubtful aero claims of the mostly inconvenient frame style.

We also saw an eye-opening analysis of Campagnolo’s WorldTour omittance by our resident Campag expert, Oscar Huckle, who looked deeper into the brand’s situation and considered whether it is still one of the big three drivetrain manufacturers.

Later in the week, we reported optimistic news that UK bike sales are expected to reach £1 billion in 2024 thanks to a surge in electric bike sales and that Eddy Merckx announced it was restarting production after a pandemic hiatus.

Entwined with all of this were plenty of reviews, with Canyon’s Performance flat pedals, Castelli’s expensive Sorpasso RoS Wind Bib Tights and Garmin’s Epix Pro smartwatch all being put through their paces.

Without further ado, here is what has had us hyped this week.