Cycling Plus

Cycling Plus is the manual for the modern road cyclist. Whether you're cycling weekly, an occasional new rider or a Tour de France fan you’ll find everything you need. Each issue is packed with buying advice and tests of essential cycling gear - everything from bikes to bags! Cycling Plus is the place to find training advice, nutrition secrets and practical tips guaranteed to improve your bicycling. It's also full of inspirational rides, real-life cycling stories and entertaining riding-related features.

Ed’s letter • Issue 414 ● February 2024

Your experts

GFNY Cozumel • Quintana Roo, Mexico

What’s on • The best media, entertainment and events from the cycling world

Go figure The month in numbers

Rolling horizons • 2018 Tour de France champion Geraint Thomas tells us about the joy of discovering new routes

One Shop Stop • Every issue, Cycling Plus gives some love to Britain’s best independent bike shops

Helmetcam militia • Hey, bad drivers! Want to be in the movies? Then smile as you close-pass us while on the phone

Black Series Multistrada • £5,629 British-designed, all-road speedster

Slow commotion • Downing Street targeting 20mph zones is attacking popular policy

Gower Peninsula, Wales

The Bike Test 2024 BIKES UNBOXED • Discover cutting-edge tech and exciting new trends with these four highly covetable models, all hot off the production line

Need to know • We spill the beans on the latest developments in the road- and gravel-bike world for 2024

Bike tech explained • Your quickfire guide to bike jargon

Bikes on test

Yamaha Wabash RT • £3,100 Rugged and powerful go-anywhere e-graveller

Merida Scultura Endurance GR 8000 • £4,600 Speed-focused gravel ride

Specialized Roubaix SL8 Expert • £6,000 Soft up front, sporty in the rear, the mullet endurance bike is here

Giant Defy Advanced SL 0 • £11,499 Blends race and endurance to devastatingly good effect

The winner is… Giant Defy Advanced SL 0 • All of our future stars are brilliant bikes in their own right

LOFTY GOALS • Higher, harder, longer… the road-sportive calendar gets ever more extreme. Here are 10 of the toughest single-day rides to enter for 2024

ENTER THE DRAGON • It’s one of the toughest sportives in the UK, but did climb-loving cycling author Simon Warren have the legs to slay the beast of a sportive route in 2023?

Virtual Realities • Turbo training addicts reveal their hard-won tips, gathered over countless indoor sessions, for thriving throughout the winter

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Ridden & Rated • The UK’s best tests for ever 30 years

Cinelli Nemo Tig Ultegra Disc Di2 • £5,799 Classically inspired, modern steel speedster

Chris King ARD44 wheelset • £3,000 Carbon wheels but not as we know them

Smith Persist • £109.99 Safety-packed, mid-priced road helmet

Fizik Tempo Decos Carbon • £279 Stylish, premium, high-mileage road cycling shoe

Trek Checkpoint ALR 5 Driftless • £2,700 Aluminium bikepacking-friendly gravel bike

The Best of 2023 • We’ve rated some 400 of the best – and worst – products in 2023. But which are our hottest picks of the year? Here’s our 23 for ’23…

CYCLING PLUS RIDER OF THE YEAR’23

Q&A RIDER OF THE YEAR • Your winning rider of 2023 Craig Maxwell opens up on his emotional year and mega fundraising

LAP OF THE GODS • Greece is often trumped by Mediterranean rivals when it comes to cycling sojourns, but could – and should – that be about to change? We ventured to the roads of the Peloponnese to find out

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