By Jack Luke

Published: Saturday, 25 December 2021 at 12:00 am


Merry Christmas, beloved BikeRadar readers! We hope you have a fantastic festive period and a well-earned break.

While 2021 has brought many challenges, as a team, we’ve been buoyed by the number of people who have stuck with cycling since it saw a huge surge in popularity in 2020.

Whether you’re a new hardcore roadie, a fresh-faced mountain biker or just a casual commuting pootler, we have no doubt you’ve found a new lifelong passion that will bring you years of joy (and we hope you’ll keep visiting BikeRadar to learn about the latest cycling tech!).

2021 has been a busy year for us too, with some big product launches and great content from across the whole team.

The biggest news of the year came in June, when BikeRadar broke an exclusive first-look at Shimano’s much-anticipated Dura-Ace R9200 groupset at the Baloise Tour of Belgium. This was, without doubt, the biggest product launch of 2021 and a huge collaborative effort across the whole team secured us the scoop that we were incredibly proud of.

BikeRadar’s Gravel Diaries continued in 2021, with the BikeRadar team enjoying (and suffering) their way through two gravel-tastic adventures this year.

The team’s epic day out at the Dirty Reiver – a massive 200km gravel race in one of the most remote parts of the UK – was one of the best rides we did this year and the video from the event is well worth a watch.