Plus all the latest news and reviews from the past week

By Oscar Huckle

Published: Friday, 29 September 2023 at 06:00 AM


It’s the end of the working week and that can only mean one thing – your weekly adrenaline hit of the latest red-hot tech to land at BikeRadar HQ.

Before we unveil this week’s quintet of goodies, let’s recap on the week just gone.

We’ll first jump back to last Friday afternoon, when deputy editor Jack Luke analysed the possible after-effects of Shimano’s crankset recall, where the arms are susceptible to de-bonding and delamination. No fewer than 4,519 incidents have been reported of the cranksets separating in the US alone.

We’ve now learnt 2.8 million cranksets are covered globally, affecting the brand’s Ultegra 6800/R8000 and Dura-Ace 9000, R9100 and R9100-P models. Is simply inspecting them and not replacing them until they show signs of damage enough?

Outside of crankgate, we were treated to managing editor Gary Walker’s review of the Sony LinkBuds wireless headphones. The former music journalist came away very impressed by their light weight and clear sound, while facilitating safe cycling.

In a complete 180 from banging beats, digital writer Jack Evans took one for the team and sampled a cocktail of the latest energy drinks, picking out his top choices he thinks you should spend your hard-earned cash on.

Jack’s stomach must be made of hardy stuff, because he’s also recently partaken in a sodium bicarbonate trial, and didn’t suffer any after-effects.

A new Liv Devote was unveiled this week, a women’s gravel bike with integrated down-tube storage and a flip chip at the dropout to alter the now-racier geometry.

Finally, senior technical editor Ashley Quinlan brought us news and some first impressions of the new Specialized Creo 2. The bike has shifted further into the gravel genre, with clearance for 57mm/2.2in gravel bike tyres and inherits the Future Shock 3.0, which debuted on the Roubaix SL8.