More data, more warmth, and more practical: Graham’s Gear of the Year

Having been banished to the mountains to write about MTB and Gravel bikes for sister site Bike Perfect, I returned to the Cyclingnews team in October after a four-year-long hiatus. Although the majority of my time away was spent sliding around on singletrack, I have still been clocking up plenty of drop bar miles too, albeit without the flow of road bike goodies passing over my desk that I was once accustomed to.

Riding has been a bit hit-and-miss this year in terms of mileage (thanks for reminding me Strava), yet I have still managed to accrue plenty of really great days on bikes. Insert “Quality not quantity”, or “no bad days” or some other boring adage, but in reality the start of my year was marred with a two-month niggling knee injury after a rather ambitious self-imposed Festive 500 challenge. What was meant to kick start my 2024 left me chasing to catch up on fitness but these things happen and 2024 will still go down as a very memorable year of riding for me for many reasons.

When the riding was good, it was really good and here is a list of things that helped make my 2024 rides even better.  

1. Albion Ultralight Jacket

I started using the Albion Ultralight Insulated Jacket last winter and it has become an indispensable piece of cycling clothing since. At 99g and ultra-packable, it's a mid-layer that can easily be popped in a jersey pocket or handlebar bag and greatly increases warmth when on the bike far beyond its weight. The Ultralight Jacket is versatile too, it’s slim enough to fit under a waterproof to trap cosy air keeping you very cosy or worn over a jersey to take the edge off chilly summer evenings. The minimal perforated insulation panels around the chest and shoulder sections are specifically tailored for riding which helps regulate temperature. It's not going to keep you very warm on mid-ride stops or post-ride hanging out but that's not really what it's designed for. 

It’s not cheap but considering how it seems to be the perfect option every time I reach for a mid-layer I think the Ultralight is well worth the investment. Fellow Cyclingnews tester Will Jones liked the Albion Ultralight Insulated Jacket so much when he reviewed it that he included it in the best winter cycling jackets guide. 

 2. Shimano RX801 shoes 

I got a pair of Shimano RX801’s to replace my old, high mileage and rather abused RX8s. The RX8’s have long been one of my favourites when it comes to the best gravel shoes for fast riding. Shimano's latest RX801’s retain almost exactly the same design. There isn’t really anything new to say about these shoes, other than the new silver fade colour looks great, but considering they have been on my feet for the majority of my gravel and road riding this year I think they deserve a shout-out on my gear of the year. 

3. Favero ASSIOMA PRO MX1 pedals

One of the reasons why I have worn the Shimano RX801’s so much this year is because I invested in my first power meter. I have used power meters equipped on test bikes in the past but this would mark the first consistent stint of riding with power. I opted for the two-bolt SPD Favero ASSIOMA PRO MX1 as I wanted to use them for gravel and some XC riding.

Now I am not going to say that riding and training with power has been transformative to my experience on the bike, but having the data on hand during and post-ride has certainly added another dimension to my riding. I am now able to better pace a big ride, do some more focused training intervals and I have more juicy stats to pour over post-ride.

Although riding with power has been a “nice to have” rather than a necessity, the seamless integration of the Favero ASSIOMA PRO MX1 pedals is what has impressed me the most. Setup was as simple as registering an account on the app, pairing all my devices and fitting them to a bike. They are pedals so there are no issues using them on all my bikes other than occasionally committing a faux pas by wearing my gravel shoes on a road ride. Charging is equally easy, I don’t need to have a stash of coin batteries, I simply charge the battery using the charging cable and a battery pack and it lasts for ages. Then comes the price, the Favero ASSIOMA PRO MX1 pedals are considerably cheaper than other power pedal options. Undercutting the Garmin Rally XC and coming in significantly cheaper than the Look X-Track Power pedals, they were tempting enough for this frugal bike tester to part with his own hard-earned cash to get some.

4. Cargo pockets 

Pockets are nothing new on bib shorts, coming from gravel the practicality has become a must-have on any ride. Having amassed enough bib shorts to ride a full week and then some with pockets, and made a good dent in my winter wardrobe too, I simply find it impossible to go back to a non-cargo version. The mad thing is I don’t actually use them that much. 

Other than having my phone ready to quick draw for that spontaneous Instagram moment on the move or quickly stashing a tool or snack they remain almost empty most of the time, and I rarely use the rear ones either. With that said I have become utterly reliant on my handy leg storage that I'm left feeling a bit bamboozled on the rare occasion I am wearing a pair of shorts without pockets. I have never experienced any discomfort, inconvenience or annoyance from pockets so why don’t all bib shorts and tights come with cargo pockets?

Head over to our best cargo bib shorts guide for all your pocket needs.

5. MagicShine SeeMee 20 V2.0

I want to caveat this entry by saying Cyclingnews is not a shill for Magicshine, it just makes really good lights. Will Jones tested the SEEMEE 300 as part of the best bike lights guide and hasn’t stopped talking about that light since, even included it in his gear of the year. He then lost it while commuting and liked them so much that he begged Magicshine for a replacement. 

I have the smaller SeeMee 20 V2.0 which I bought with my own money. It was a spontaneous purchase with next-day delivery when my old light broke mid-ride so I would be able to ride again the following day. It's super small and only weighs 18g, the visibility angle is wide and 30 hours of runtime should prevent me from getting caught out in the dark. Although my first one is still going strong, I was so impressed I bought a second backup light just in case. 

6. Dependable workhorse bikes (Privateer 161 enduro bike)

If you have no interest in mountain biking then now is the time to change the channel. Admittedly Cyclingnews is probably not the audience that will get excited about an aggressive enduro bike but the reasons I include this in my Gear of the Year list have plenty of parallels with the road and gravel world.

This year I managed to wangle a big chunk of summer holiday and embarked on a Canadian MTB road trip of a lifetime. With a packed itinerary, my friend Joe and I travelled throughout British Columbia covering almost 900km of riding and a whopping 70,000m of descending. Our MTB pilgrimage took us to legendary MTB spots like Whistler, Squamish, the North Shore, Vancouver Island, Sun Peaks, Silver Star and more.

A trip of such magnitude would require some seriously durable tools and I pulled a couple of industry strings and got my hands on Privateer’s 161 Gen 2 enduro bike. It's pitched as an affordable enduro race machine and it’s a brute of a bike. The stout alloy frame has some very progressive geometry figures and the spec sheet is a list of dependable performance kit chosen by someone with the right priorities. Instead of fancy carbon wheels, a gucci cockpit and a premium derailleur you get properly aggressive MaxxGrip tyres, highly adjustable Fox Performance suspension and Hayes A4’s which are some of the best brakes around. After 24 days of back-to-back riding on some of the most challenging terrain across British Columbia, the Privateer was still charging hard.

What’s this got to do with road and gravel bikes? Well, it's all too easy to get caught up with the latest and greatest you forget what makes a bike fun to ride. Having the best road bike is nice but if it results in you not riding it to your full potential then what's the point? I have been lucky enough to ride some superbikes with wanton disregard and they have all performed spectacularly well. That said, if I had paid my own money for one of those machines I would absolutely be thinking twice about taking it out on days with threatening weather forecasts or charging around the pot-hole-ridden streets in the same manner.

Based on Strava PR’s, one of the fastest bikes I tested during my first Cyclingnews stint was a BMC ALR which I got sent as the testing platform for SRAM Rival eTap AXS when it was first released. The bike itself was well equipped with entry-level electronic shifting and base model Zipp 303’s but not so expensive that if something broke you would need to remortgage your house to repair it. The result was a bike that encouraged you to ride it flat out, all the time and it was infinitely more enjoyable because of it.

So if you're eyeing up a new bike in 2025, maybe think about what the real priorities are. Is spending a load of cash on the absolute top-spec bike you can actually going to give you the best riding experience or should you get a bike that you can hammer day in and day out? I know which one I would choose.