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.

WELCOME…

Cycling Plus • The CP team tells you which Bike of the Year bike they’d most like to own

Paris-Roubaix Femmes Action Jackson

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

Go figure • The month in numbers

Travel essentials • Make your trip a winner with these overseas-friendly items

Baby steps • Lizzie Deignan on the ups and downs of returning to match fitness after giving birth - twice

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

Tandems • A two-person bike always raises a smile. Maybe that’s the problem…

Roads to ruin • Laura laments the huge cuts to England’s active travel budget

Paris

The route

Inspiring cycling reads from Bloomsbury Sport • Available from all good bookshops

BIKE OF THE YEAR’23 • Budget. Endurance. Women’s. Aero. Gravel. Performance. The biggest brands. 25 bikes. Just one overall winner.

Need to know…

25 Bikes on test • We’ve tested, whittled and tested some more to create this final shortlist

Marin Gestalt • £955 A beefy bike for beyond road rides

Lapierre Crosshill 2.0 • £1,199 French Performance on a British budget

Cannondale CAAD Optimo 1 • £1,300 Cultured performance that won’t break the bank

Merida Scultura Endurance • £3,400 Smooth operator with SRAM’s wireless shifting

Vitus Venon Evo RS Aero • £4,699 New endurance bike promising huge versatility

Rondo Ratt CF2 • £3,599 Endurance all-roader that blurs road and gravel

Cervélo Caledonia Rival eTap • £4,800 Cervélo’s fast endurance ride for less money

Wilier Gran Turismo SLR • £8,680 3D-printed elastomer-infused endurance ride

WINNING FORMULA • Should you go for a women’s-specific build or adapt a unisex model? Here we put three female-targeting options from Scott, Liv and Ribble to the test on the ascents of Dartmoor

The winner is… Scott Contessa Addict 25 • Despite being the least expensive of the bikes on test by some margin, the Contessa comes up trumps

Ribble Ultra SL R Enthusiast • £6,599 The aero road bike redefined

Giant Propel Advanced Pro 0 • £6,399 Half the price doesn’t mean half the bike

3T Strada ICR Force eTap • £7,398 A fresh start for the Strada?

Trek Madone SLR 7 • £10,200 Goodbye IsoSpeed, hello IsoFlow

ROUGHING IT • Grit, gravel, asphalt and multi-day rides. This top-notch fistful of all-terrain monsters look to handle it all and more. But which will be our gravel bike of 2023?

The winner is… Giant Revolt X Advanced Pro 1 • While all the bikes in this test have their merits, it was the Giant that ticked the most boxes on our checklist

Basso Diamante Ultegra Di2 • £7,199 Can classical looks cut the race-bike mustard?

Wilier 0 SL Force AXS • £7,250 A race bike without the aggressive geometry

Cannondale SuperSix EVO • £8,250 Evidence that evolution is king

Enve Melee Ultegra Di2 • £10,400 Could this be the race bike for mere mortals?

Colnago V4Rs Dura-Ace Di2 • £12,495 Is Pogačar’s bike the one you should covet?

THE FINAL...