The BikeRadar Podcast

After a full winter of wet and muddy testing, and then a week thrashing the top-contenders in Spain with BlackTown Trails, we’ve crowned our Trail Bike of the Year, and Enduro Bike of the Year.With MBUK in the shops and BikeRadar rolling out the reviews online and on YouTube, we thought we’d bring together Rob Weaver, Tom Marvin and Luke Marshall, who put the entire test together, to discuss the process, the bikes and the eventual winners. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After months of testing and many hundreds of kilometres, the team from Cycling Plus and BikeRadar have crowned our Road Bike of the Year 2020. In this podcast we learn more about the contenders and eventual winner, with our Senior Technical Editor on Road, Warren Rossiter. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We’ve had great leaps in bike tech over the years that have greatly improved our road bikes – frame materials, compact geometry, electronic groupsets and disc brakes, amongst others. But where will things go next – is there another round of vast improvements yet to come, or have we, as we suspect, reached ‘peak bike’? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Between the team at BikeRadar, we reckon we’ve raced pretty much every mountain bike race format going. But, what’s the toughest type of mountain bike racing you can do?MBUK’s Luke Marshall has raced at World Cup DH level, while Seb Stott has competed in a number of EWS events. They, along with Tom, who’s targeted the more niche end of racing, weigh in with their race-based experience. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the autumn we headed to the Boardman Performance Centre, where they’ve built a bike-specific wind tunnel, that’s open to the public. We wanted to find free and cheap ways to cut our time in a 100 mile sportive, using the data provided by the wind tunnel. After our time there, we sat down with Barney Wainright, Head of Science to talk through our results. We then spent some time with Lee, the centre’s Lead Physiologist, discussing training and fitness testing. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Though appearing niche from the outside, cyclocross (or CX) is enjoying a resurgence in the UK, with races attracting ever increasing numbers of participants. Warren Rossiter and Robin Wilmott talk us through this resurgence, and the impact of the burgeoning gravel scene on the CX bikes we’ve seen released in recent years – namely, the gravel bike replacing the CX bike as the ‘ideal’ commuter bike, thus allowing CX bikes to return to their racing roots. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

More and more modern road bikes are being designed to incorporate suspension so Warren, Tom and Rob discuss the – surprisingly long – history of road bikes with extra cushioning. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bike companies, in general, do a great job when it comes to designing bikes, but Tom and Seb can’t help but think there are a few too many details that they keep getting wrong… Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hope Technology is one of the most influential British bicycle componentry brands in the world. From their early days producing high-end hubs and disc brakes, Hope Tech’s UK-based factory still manufacturers their wide range of highly regarded components. They’ve now expanded into mountain bikes, with the HB.160 and HB.130, as well as their ground-breaking HB.T track bike, ready to ride in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics under Team GB.Ian Weatherill co-founded Hope Technology after a spell manufacturing high-end parts for the aerospace industry, and sat down with Technical Editor Tom Marvin for this BikeRadar Meets Podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Road racing is as brutal as it comes – hard men and women pit pure strength against one and another in a bid to reach the finish line ahead of the pack. But with racing covering everything from 200m sprints to races across continents, we decided to weigh in and discuss which drop-bar race format is the hardest in the world. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices