Tech of the month: The hottest bike tech from November

November has, for me at least, rolled by in a bit of a blur. My desk faces out of a window towards a magnificent red Acer tree; over the last four weeks, the seemingly unrelenting wind has stripped it of all but a handful of its leaves, much to the disgruntlement of the two doves who regularly use its branches as a perch. 

The normal routine of testing, reviewing, and the usual news cycle get somewhat upturned in November here at Cyclingnews as the juggernaut of commercialism that is Black Friday rolls into town. This year as ever we devoted quite some time to finding you, our dear readers, the best deals out there on stuff you might actually want to buy. While the Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend is officially over, many places just quietly keep products at a discounted price for some time after. If you missed out on the bonanza because you were out riding (I'm definitely NOT jealous, honestly), you can find all the best finds collated in our Cyber Monday Bike Deals hub. 

By way of a counterpoint to the Black Friday weekend I put together a guide to Buy It For Life cycling tech; gear that, while maybe not the pinnacle in terms of performance (or the pursuit of speed), wins out in the long run by lasting noticeably longer than the competition. It included some premium components from the likes of Chris King, Rene Herse et al, but also some decidedly budget options too. 

Even if square taper cranksets and hub gears aren't your thing It's full of a load of pictures that I'm particularly fond of, so you can at least get some eye candy out of it. 

While Black Friday might have ruled the airwaves for a while that doesn't mean normal duties were totally suspended. Given that we're into winter riding now we put together a good number of totally new buyer's guides to help you make the best purchasing decisions possible. 

To kick off, Josh Ross culminated a slew of testing by compiling a guide to the best winter cycling jackets. This encompassed tips and specific product recommendations for softshell cycling jackets, insulated cycling jackets, and a handful of totally waterproof options too. 

Following on from this, I've spent an inordinate amount of time riding recently in the pouring rain in order to bring you a totally new guide to the best waterproof cycling jackets you can buy today. 

As a follow on, I decided to try and give you all a little insight into how we test, so there's also a companion article, six things I learnt when testing waterproof jackets, to provide even more info. Forewarned is forearmed with these things.

As a heads up though, if you are looking to buy a new waterproof cycling jacket, the extremely popular and high-performance Shakedry fabric is set to be retired by Gore, so best not to hang around if you're on the fence. It may be too late soon.

In other testing, Josh Ross also produced a new guide to the best winter cycling gloves, along with a companion six things I learned when testing winter gloves article, and I spent hours testing the best bike pumps back to back with a standalone tyre pressure gauge to bring you some well-informed buying advice. 

In 'Staying Warm' news, Tom, forever plagued by cold feet, also decided it would be a good plan to share all his tips on how to keep your feet warm on the bike. Further up the human anatomy, I compiled everything you wanted to know about embrocation, in case you were curious about that odd spicy leg cream that you've heard whispered on club rides whenever the weather turns sour.  It's not for everyone, but it is a lot of fun making your own with the included recipe. 

As well as numerous group tests we took a deeper dive into a select few items of clothing with some full reviews. 

While the short sleeve season in the northern hemisphere is behind us, when I put out my review of the MAAP Alt_Road 1/2 Zip Jersey there was at least still a modicum of warmth in the anaemic sunshine. 

Josh Ross was a bit more climactically savvy in reviewing the Rapha Pro Team Long Sleeve Gore-Tex Infinium jersey (try saying that five times as fast as you can), and the Sportful Fiandre Light NoRain Short Sleeve jacket (only slightly less of a mouthful).  

In new bike news, mountain bike brand YT Industries released its first foray into gravel with the new Szepter. Not only that, but Tom spent some time on it before the launch in the muddy hills of Surrey and brought us a Szepter first-ride review of what, on paper at least, is a pretty rad package. 

As ever, as well as giving you a retrospective of the last four weeks, we like to bring you a preview of some of the things that have landed here at CN HQ recently to whet your appetite ahead of the content to come. Without further ado, here's some of the good stuff that has been slung through our collective front doors.

A pair of smartwatches

While plenty of you out there are exclusively cyclists, many of you will do other, lesser activities, like 'running' and 'swimming'.

Joking aside, a smartwatch has the potential to cover just as many bases as the best bike computers, and more besides. With this in mind, we're going to test a slew of them from the point of view of the cyclist to see how they stack up.

The first through the arrivals hall are the Wahoo Elemnt Rival and the Coros Vertix 2. Stay tuned to find out how they perform. 

Two pairs of overshoes

A set of the best cycling overshoes can keep your feet warm while you ride through the winter, as well as keep your best cycling shoes clean. While our buyer's guide has plenty of decent models to choose from, we're continually testing new models to see if they cut the proverbial mustard.

First up we're going gravel specific with the Explorer Waterproof Gravel Shoe Covers from GripGrab. They're constructed much like knitted waterproof gloves or waterproof socks, with a knitted inner and outer fabric for comfort and warmth and a membrane sandwiched betwixt the two to keep that pesky water out. Unlike road overshoes, these have bigger cutouts in the sole to accommodate the chunky treads on the bottom of gravel shoes, and TPU plastic toes and wear pads for when you inevitably have to get off and walk. 

Second is a pair of Specialized Neoprene Tall Shoe Covers. They feature a water-resistant front that extends halfway up the leg, before continuing with an exposed neoprene to the knee, preventing any road spray from hitting exposed bib tights and soaking down into the overshoe. Taped seams keep water out, and a hook-and-loop closure beneath makes them easy to get on and off. Of course, it would be remiss to mention knee-high overshoes without bringing up the British company, Spatz, who pioneered the concept. They were given a perfect score in our Spatz Pro 2 review a while ago, so we're excited to see how the Specialized attempt stacks up. 

Some extremely narrow washers

One of my favourite thing about gravel bikes is that, with a swap of wheels, you can go from an all-out rad gravel shredder to what is for all intents and purposes an endurance road bike.

If you're running two identical wheelsets then brilliant, it's pretty hassle-free. The issue comes when you're running two different wheelsets, or more specifically two different hubs. The bicycle industry has a difficult relationship with 'standards', but the position of a rotor should be identical between two hubs of the same width. Unfortunately, due to differing manufacturing tolerances, the position of your rotors relative to each other can be ever so slightly different, meaning when you swap wheels you get a slight rub.

These tiny shims from cyclocrossracer allow you to space one of the rotors 0.25mm further out from its usual position, allowing smooth, rub-free wheel swaps. You can stack up to four per wheel to get 1mm of in/out adjustment.

If you're running 6-bolt rotors you can easily achieve the same thing with shim washers, which are available online extremely easily, and can be stacked to get the fit just so. 

A genre-bending helmet from Kask

The best road cycling helmets must tick all the relevant safety feature boxes, whilst being lightweight and easy on the eye. This month we received the newest helmet offering from Kask, the Sintesi which looks like it might be capable of meeting this brief. The Sintesi is a stylish unit which looks solid for the price point. 

The Sintesi is a new budget offering from Kask which comes in at under £/ $100. The new helmet is not just pitched at roadies and is advertised as being for commuters, gravel riders and everything in between. It's available in 11 block colourways which means if you are interested, it should be easy to colour coordinate with your kit.

Importantly, the Sintesi comes with the WG11 sticker from Kask meaning it meets the Kask strict WG11 rotational impact safety standard. Exactly like some of Kask's more premium offerings. 

A size medium helmet comes in at a claimed 230 grams and you get a reflective stripe on the rear to aid visibility. The helmet also features anti-bacterial Blue Tech padding and Kask ergo-fit adjustment system.