A baker's dozen of narrow bars, gummy bears, and one incredible bike: Will’s Gear of the Year

This is my third year of rounding up my favourite tech of the last 12 months. I’m using tech in a very loose sense here, as some of it isn’t necessarily tech, or even cycling related at all, but has had a positive impact on my riding this year. In order to get a better spread of things from throughout the year I’ve kept a note in my phone that I have added to as the year progresses, so as not to unfairly bias this list towards stuff that I’ve liked more recently.

I’m not going to wax lyrical about what I’ve been up to. This isn’t a blog, and I’ll fill you in on anything juicy in the product bits as we go. In no particular order, here’s what I’ve really loved using this year. 

None of this is sponsored in any way. I've added links below some of the products where relevant so that if you want to play along at home you can find the best prices for stuff, but this isn't a hard sell, just what I've liked using all year. 

1. Wahoo Music Controls

I listen to music when I ride. Always. I use both my headphones too, and while I don’t necessarily condone that or encourage it, I’ve done it since I was about 13 and I don’t plan on stopping. Riding is when I listen to new music, and especially on big rides I download a few key albums to rattle through, or an audiobook if I really don’t want to hear my own thoughts. 

While Wahoo computers aren’t perfect - the latest Elemnt Ace does so far have several flaws, a key one being I am yet to be able to make the music controls work - the addition of music control to my Bolt has been revolutionary. No longer do I have to fish my phone out to skip tracks, or change volume. It’s miraculous, and given that you can control your Wahoo computer using your Di2 buttons it means that I can now control my music from the buttons on my hoods, which is just brilliant. 

You can do the same thing with some higher end Garmin computers too, and had I been baked into that particular ecosystem instead I suspect I’d have been equally excited. What Have I been listening to, I hear none of you asking? Well, mostly the playlist below - It wasn’t just a phase, mum!

2. Wider shoes and better insoles

Last year the Lake CX332 dropped into my Gear of the Year, having opened my eyes to the world of wide shoes. This year I’ve taken my foot health more seriously, and tried a tonne of the best cycling shoes for wide feet, and been increasingly impressed with what’s on offer. This isn’t necessarily a single product I want to hype up here, but more a general prod that if you think you might have wide feet to go and do some Googlin’. Bont and Lake no longer have a duopoly, and while I previously have been confined to Lakes, I have since had good experiences with some Fizik, Specialized, and recently Northwave options. 

More than that though I’ve swapped out all the stock insoles in all my shoes with ones that provide proper arch support. This is an incredibly boring thing to put in as my second pick, but I’ll never go back. Bont makes excellent ones, and the difference they make to the stability of my knees has been transformative. That’s it, back to slightly more interesting things for a bit. 

3. A properly dialled tool canister

As you can imagine, testing a tonne of different bikes all the time, both on road and on gravel, means constantly swapping saddlebags, tools, tubes, spares, pumps and the like. About halfway through the year I got slightly obsessive over the idea of putting together a tool canister that works for all my bikes, meaning all I had to do was move it from one bottle cage to another and off I go. 

It took a bit of iterating, but I have managed to pack the following into a bottle cage canister:

• 1x road TPU tube
• 1x gravel TPU tube
• 1x Valve extender
• 2x Muc-Off tyre levers
• 1x Silca Eolo IV Co2 head
• 1x Co2 Canister
• 1x Dynaplug Racer tyre plug tool
• 1x Restrap tyre boot kit
• 1x Trek Pro BITS multitool, including chain breaker and spare chain links
• 1x Albion Burner, mostly to stop everything rattling, but also as a final emergency layer in case of emergency

Now I just grab this wholesale off whatever bike I was riding, slap it into a bottle cage, and away I go, making sure I have a pump of some kind. My long term bikes both run an extra downtube bottle cage, so it doesn’t even take up water space. On bikes with only two cages I usually make do with just one large bottle, and on long days where I will need both I’ll run a bar bag instead, into which the canister can slip wholesale. 

4. Narrow bars

I don’t necessarily mean hyper narrow, but narrower than is standard on most bikes. At the start of the year, I reviewed the pretty bonkers 22cm Lambda X-Wing bars, and they were totally fine. They didn’t make the bike unrideable, and while they had some handling implications it wasn’t anything insurmountable with an hour or so of getting used to it. The speed gains were clear, and so taken was I with them that in recent months I’ve fitted the same bars to my gravel bikes, along with some suspension forks, to see what the limit of narrow is for off-road use. 

Niche hyper-narrow bars aside, I’ve been running a set of 38cm Pro Vibe Ultralight round bars on my Fairlight Strael. This is the ‘correct’ width for me, and now I’m dialled in on them I cannot bear to use anything wider. It is amazing how many 56cm test bikes come with 42cm bars still and more than just making it feel like I’m driving a truck it’s leaving ‘free’ watts on the table. 

Especially if you run round bars you can easily swap to narrower bars with ease, and alloy options are relatively cheap, so have a play and find something that might fit you better. 

5. A gym membership

Until this year I have basically never set foot in a gym. I do not wish to become an upside down triangular Love Island wannabe. However, in the Spring, following a few expensive physio visits, I was told in no uncertain terms that the best thing for the long term health of my knees (as therefore my riding as a whole) was to do squats. Heavy ones, in very relative terms. 

Basically cycling makes your muscles pretty strong, but it’s too low impact to make the tendons strong, so they are easily inflamed. Now I go once a week, do the same four sets of leg exercises (leg press, leg extension, hamstring curls, calf raises if you’re interested), have a proper stretch, and do 20 minutes in the sauna as a reward for being a good, healthy boy. It has done more for my knees than any physio, and as an added bonus my sprint has got better. 

As it turns out my preconceptions were misplaced, as is often the case. My gym isn’t full of people attempting to get an 8-pack and lats wider than a TV screen, but is mostly full of normal, non-intimidating people looking to stay healthy. 

6. Cabled headphones

Let's circle back, to use a horrific LinkedIn phrase, to number 1 for a second. I like to listen to music when I ride, and while wireless headphones are great, they basically don’t last long enough for a big ride. I could just use one ear and charge the other, and then swap, but a far simpler solution is to just use old-fashioned headphones which don’t need a battery. I have recently upgraded my phone, and it doesn’t have a headphone port, so I’ve ordered a USB-C to headphone jack adapter so I can continue to just use cabled headphones like a Luddite. 

I am not alone in this though; watch any footage of Lachlan Morton embarking on some other mad ultra-distance adventure and you’ll see wired headphones dangling from his helmet straps; we can’t both be wrong.

7. Swift Paloma handlebar bag

While this job is mostly focussed on the more performance oriented side of the cycling tech sphere, I always like to keep my toe into the more gentle side of cycling. I have my beloved, custom by-my-own-hand rando tourer, and this year on the front of it I mounted the Swift Paloma bar bag. It’s a classically styled rando box, but doesn’t require a rack over the front wheel. I have used similar bags in the past, notably the Carradice Keswick, but that weighed a tonne, and also more importantly it left the quietly ugly Klikfix bracket on show. The Paloma is the superior modern rando bag.

It’s wonderfully lightweight, constructed as it is from recycled polyester. It’s big enough to throw a long day out’s worth of spares, snacks, and layers. You can, if you were so minded, fill the top clear case with a paper map, but I haven’t done that in a while. The lid clips over your stem for ease of access on the move too. It’s been perfectly happy over bumpy ground too, and can be clipped on and off in seconds so you can take it into a café. Basically it’s both lovely, and really useful, and while I ride my lovely green bike very infrequently, this bag has become as permanent a fixture as the wheels. 

8. Karcher OC 3 portable jet wash

Inside me I have two wolves: One hates riding a dirty bike, and the other hates cleaning a dirty bike. There’s also a third wolf who seems to love riding clean bikes in really mucky places, which only compounds the problem. 

Wolves aside, I live in a flat without an outdoor tap. Usually, this would mean resorting to just making do with a bucket and a sponge, but this wee little Karcher has absolutely changed my life. I have used portable washers from Mobi before, but they just sort of stopped working very quickly - This Karcher is far superior. 

It’s relatively inexpensive, ultra-portable, the tank lasts enough for one bike (both a pre-rinse and a post-sponge rinse), well waterproofed, and the jet is powerful enough to dislodge muck, but not nearly powerful enough to absolutely ruin your bearings if you absent-mindedly strafe your bottom bracket. 

If you also don’t have access to a hosepipe, this is as close to a must-buy piece of kit as you’re ever likely to find. Got a dog? Wash that too, and your muddy boots. As it’s battery powered it can go in the car for after a dog walk/cyclocross race. 

9. Any Haribo, but mostly gummy bears

I cannot tell you how little thought I give to nutrition. My editor Josh has trained himself to be able to take on some number of grams of carbohydrates per hour, which I have no doubt makes him ride faster and for longer. I just don’t find it interesting enough, and I have a delicate constitution that means if I eat any more than zero bars or gels I need to make a rapid and unscheduled watts per kilo adjustment. 

The latter part of this year though I’ve been really upping the mileage I do each week, plus things like the gym, and taking up running too (horror of horrors). As such I do need to up my carb intake, both for energy and because I have a history of just not eating enough in an unhealthy way (read: nicely masked eating disorder for a few years). 

My silver bullet solution to all this is: One large handful of gummy bears. Doing an hour of intervals or hill reps? One large handful of gummy bears. Feeling a bit low energy on a long ride: One large handful of gummy bears. Need to refuel after a long ride: One large handful of gummy bears. 

Flippancy aside, I found even my delicate constitution can handle these tasty little beasts. They’re also almost 100% carbohydrate, with 23g of a 30g serving consisting of carbohydrates. That’s as much information as I’m willing to digest, but a quick Google shows that that is 1g more carb than in an SIS Isotonic gel, and they aren't disgusting. 

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10. Assos Equipe R Spring Fall LS Jersey S11

This is something I haven’t actually got around to writing up yet, but even with one wear, it was immediately my favourite long sleeve jersey. It doesn’t come in a tonne of seasonal colours, only black and black/yellow, but if you are willing to forego being the height of style then what you’ll gain in comfort and performance is more than worth it.

It is beautifully tailored for an on-bike fit. This really is an Assos hallmark, and much of its gear feels really odd when just standing around, but once on the bike, it all makes sense. No flapping, no bunching, a luxurious fleece lining on most of it, a high neck, an easy zip, raw cut cuffs, all are excellent. 

The pockets are brilliant too, made of sturdy but perforated fabric they do their utmost to maintain breathability, and are built with an internal safety flap to stop things from ejecting unexpectedly. 

All of this pales compared to the one standout feature: A mesh back. Yes, this is a fleece lined, long sleeve jersey that I use even in sub-zero conditions as part of a layering system with a back panel made of the same material as a lightweight summer climbing jersey. It sounds mad but it’s amazing. Wind chill is significant when riding, but your back basically never experiences any of it. 

Without going too deep into the human nervous system, a lot of your temperature regulation takes place in the spinal column - It’s why wearing a backpack makes you unreasonably warm - and so allowing the spine to stay cool has an outsized impact on your comfort. It’s now the jersey I reach for when not actively testing other options, or on the sad occasions when I need to wash it. 

11. Rapha Pro Team Gore-Tex Jacket

In my endless search for the best waterproof cycling jacket I finally got around to testing this jacket from Rapha. It’s sensational. It’s also a little sad, because thanks to the changing regulations surrounding the use of PFAS in manufacturing, it’s also probably as good as waterproof cycling jackets are ever going to get. 

I’ve tried so many jackets now, and modern PFAS-free options simply can’t match those that have had the touch of nasty forever chemicals. Here you still get a durable water-repellent coating that doesn’t give up after an hour, is oil resistant to some degree too, and along with the brilliant Gore-Tex Active membrane, I could happily do an hour of hill sprints plus a commute each way in biblical rain without getting soaked from the rain or my own sweat. 

If you are PFAS averse then this isn’t for you. I spent a decade in the mining industry and worked in contaminated land remediation too and have likely been subject to things far more nasty than a DWR coating, so I lose no sleep over it. My grandfather dealt with lead paint, my father with asbestos, and I have microplastics in my brain. There’ll always be something. 

In general terms, the fact that fluorine is being removed from the manufacturing sector is a good thing, but come January in the USA you will no longer be able to buy this jacket, and that’ll be a sad day indeed. In the UK it’ll stick around a little longer because we still have the freedom and liberty to use scary chemicals, but when it finally goes it’ll go in the ‘for best’ box along with my Shakedry jackets and I’ll pour one out for all my damp homies who never got to experience truly exceptional waterproof tech. 

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12. Magicshine SEEMEE300 and Exposure Strada lights

This year as autumn progressed I took on curating the guide to the best bike lights. I now have a box of many lumens, full of things constantly needing charging. Most are great in one or two ways, but a couple really shone (what a joker I am). At the back of the bike I always ended up gravitating to the Magicshine SEEMEE300. It ticked all the spec boxes, especially with a monstrous 200-hour battery life, but it was the brilliant mounts, especially the saddle rail one, that got me. It’s a far neater system than any elastic band option. The extra downward LED bulb was also great for side visibility; it projects a cone of red light downward, illuminating not only the road around you but also your lower legs, a real bonus for being seen in the city. 

Sadly I tried to bodge a mount to a giant saddlebag rack, and promptly lost it through my own stupidity on a commute. I was very sad, and have since begged Magicshine to send me a new one. If they don’t I suspect I’ll just buy one and not be such an idiot again. 

For the last 8 years or so I’ve relied on an ancient Cateye Volt 800 light. It's fine, but having used the magnificent Exposure Strada I can’t imagine ever going back to smaller lumens. Yes, there’s a weight penalty, and yes the mount is fiddly, but the actual performance in terms of being seen and battery life are well worth it. It even auto-dims when it sees an oncoming car headlight. More than this it’s also totally indestructible. I stupidly mounted it (there’s a theme here) under a Hammerhead computer using the stock plastic mount, which promptly snapped as I hit a pothole on a descent. 

Despite cascading down a Welsh hillside at night on 70kmh and nearly obliterating a small hatchback in the process it was still shining when I picked it up. It needed a bit of repair but it was still working. The repair process was also easy, and I am always a fan of repairability. 

13. Pinarello Dogma F

I left this ‘til last partially to finish on a high, but also to give myself time to think about how to phrase things. I haven’t managed to find a better way of putting it than “this is the best bike I’ve ever ridden”. The new Pinarello Dogma F is that good. 

It isn’t perfect. It wasn’t the most aero in our wind tunnel tests, though it was very much in the mix, and when I attended the launch it seemed it was more of a tweak to the specs than anything really ‘new’, with really the only substantive change being a tweaked fork rake and a deeper head tube. It’s light, but not the lightest thing out there. It’s ruinously expensive in top-flight builds. On paper, it may not make total sense, but our job in the media is to tease out the things that ‘on paper’ can’t show you. 

Riding it is utterly, utterly beautiful. I am not an all-out aero chap, and while I appreciate that it is relatively fast by the numbers it’s how it feels that makes it so good. I don’t mean that fuzzy ‘ooh isn’t it Italian’ feeling, I mean the handling. The way this bike handles leaves me aghast. I could fling it into corners with poise and precision when I was concentrating, but more than that when slamming descents around the city on my weekly lap of all the hills I could still nail an apex when I was tasting blood. It’s nimble without feeling unstable like the Canyon Ultimate often did, and it’s stable without being a little dull to ride like the Colnago V4Rs.

If you love riding bikes, this is the bike for you. I also think it’s beautiful, and it’s less bonkers than Pinarellos of the past; it even has a threaded bottom bracket, though naturally, it is an Italian one. I have never been a ‘by the numbers’ guy, and while I have once again found a love of Strava this year, I have yet to find a performance road bike that I’d rather ride over the Dogma. 

I appreciate this may come as disappointing news to some of you. There are often swaths of comments on anything we write about hyper-premium products, but sometimes (actually surprisingly often), really, really expensive things are also really, really good. If this is you then I spent quite a large portion of November trying to find out precisely why the Dogma costs so much. Have a read, it might surprise you.