Welcome, once more, to First Look Friday – our look back on the freshest news, features and reviews to appear on BikeRadar over the past seven days.
Another week and another glut of stories broke in the world of bike tech, with the hefty lunar-exploring Surly Moonlander 2.0 turning plenty of heads on Tuesday.
Less than 24 hours later, Ashley Quinlan unpacked the highlights of German brand Cube's updated range for 2025. This prompted our team of cycling sleuths to spot a new drop-bar version of Shimano’s Cues groupset on the Cube Nuroad Pro gravel bike.
Once the dust had settled there, Simon von Bromley brought us up to speed on Zwift's raft of updates and new modular bike frame as we head out of an all too fleeting, mostly soggy UK summer into another indoor training season.
Our good friend, Finlay Anderson, pitted Shimano's Deore and SLX mountain bike groupsets against each other to give you a steer on where to spend your money and Nick Clark took a closer look at our latest Bike of the Week, the Antidote Woodsprite.
Now you're fully abreast of the week's highlights, let's get you some cycling tech goodies to feast your weary eyes upon.
Cane Creek Invert CS
Cane Creek claims the Invert is the ‘world’s first gravel fork’. This is news to us, its arrival coming months after our test and round-up of the best gravel suspension forks.
The Invert first broke cover at this year’s Sea Otter. Despite Cane Creek’s dubious claim, we’ve been itching to get our hands on the new Invert ever since.
Its combination of 40mm of travel and low weight suggests it could be a serious rival to the best examples of short-travel gravel forks from Fox and RockShox.
We requested the longer-travel 40mm version, the Invert CS. The CS stands for ‘climb switch’, which is a button on the top of the left-hand side of the carbon fibre crown. This isn’t a full lock-out, but it stiffens up the fork, making it more efficient on tarmac.
Cane Creek claims a weight of 1,130g for the Invert CS, with our test sample coming in at 1,250g with an uncut steerer and thru-axle in place. That’s lighter than both the 50mm-travel Fox 32 TC at 1,320g and the 40mm-travel RockShox Rudy XPLR Ultimate at 1,300g.
It’s a great-looking fork, with the smooth carbon fibre crown blending smoothly into the aluminium legs. It's also very simple, with no specific motion control system and only 40mm of travel, with wiper seals and two lower stanchions connected by the 12mm thru-axle.
Cane Creek reasons such a short-travel fork doesn’t need complex damping, preferring instead to keep the weight low. The shorter 30mm-travel Invert SL has a claimed weight of only 990g.
It certainly looks good once fitted and it's currently being tested on my Cannondale Topstone Lab71. Look out for a full review as soon as I’ve had the chance to get out and get some serious mileage on the fork.
- £1,199.99 / $1,199.99
Udog Cento shoes
Italian shoe brand Udog is known for its Tension Wrap System (TWS) design, which sees a continuous ribbon wrap around your foot to fix it in place.
The ribbon’s path underneath your foot and between the upper and outsole – up until now – has been tensioned via laces on its Tensione and Cima road shoes – and the Distanza gravel kicks.
Now, the same tech has been applied using a dual-dial retention system, called the TWS2.0.
The design positions one dial low down on the flank of the shoe, which attaches to a band around the forefoot. Udog founder, Alberto Fonte, claims this “ensures superior heel-grip and an extensive fit range”.
The second dial sits in the middle of the tongue on the forefoot, a position intended to tension the upper evenly.
A microfibre upper is laser perforated for breathability and the two-way 30mm-diameter dials have soft rubber grips. Our size EU45 test pair weighs in at 493.8g.
The carbon sole has a stiffness index of 11 (out of 11 on Udog’s arbitrary scale) and comes with titanium alloy cleat nuts, offering 5mm of rearward adjustment.
- £260 / $325 / €295
FixPlus bikepacking tethers
German brand FixPlus claims to have made the toughest straps for bikepackers and a range of gear-strapping widgets to get the best and most secure bikepacking setup.
The Fixplus+ straps are available in length from 15 cm to 86cm! and Fixplus+ claims the material used is UV resistant, seawater resistant and resistant to extreme temperatures from -30 degrees up to +60 degrees C.
With prices from €4.50/£9 (2 pack) for the 15 cm to €10/£20 (2 pack) for the longest 86cm version (single, twin packs and multipacks of 4 are available in every length).
FixPlus also offers simple mounting boards and Cargo cages in multiple sizes to attach to fork leg anything mounts or bottle bosses. These aluminium cages are heavily machined to keep weight down and feature a neat lock-in cargo support leg that clips into the base of the cage at 90 degrees to support the underside of your load.
With two sizes of cage (all with support legs) Fixplus have plenty of solutions to stow your kit secure and safely.
The cages are priced at £60/€50 for the 76g small £65/€55 for the 116g medium, and the simple medium (76g) mounting board is priced at £35/€29.95.
For more minimal stowage FixPlus+ also offer the minimal gear tighteners, simply bolt these 9g aluminium strap anchors directly onto bottle bosses and use FixPlus+ straps to mount directly to your bike. The Gear tightener 2.0 is priced at £20/€15.95 for a pack of three.
- £9-65 / €4.50-55
DMR Flat 4 pedals
DMR’s flat-pedal range is mostly centred on the more extreme end of mountain biking, but the new Flat 4 is aimed more at general riding and commuting.
DMR says it had noticed that most electric commuter bikes all came with basic stock pedals that simply weren’t up to the job. The Flat 4 is designed as the ideal upgrade.
The platform is smaller than a standard mountain bike flat pedal at 100mm x 92mm (the popular DMR Vault is 105mm x 105mm). Its slim 22mm-deep, diecast aluminium body has a concave footbed designed to suit any shoe type.
The platform is customisable too, with removable reflectors, flat shoe-friendly rubber gripper platforms and threads for up to eight pins per side.
Aside from potentially making for a great commuter pedal option, I think these might be just the ticket for younger mountain bikers where the standard platform width may be too big for small feet.
The Flat 4 pedals cost £60 / $69.95 and weigh in at 212.4g each on my scales.
£60 / $69.95
Garmin Index BPM blood pressure monitor
The Garmin Index BPM is a blood pressure monitor that can measure both systolic and diastolic blood pressure at home (or on the go).
An individual’s optimal blood pressure is very personal – it’s too simplistic to say that ‘fit’ individuals will automatically have lower blood pressure at rest, although it’s generally accepted that high blood pressure is considered a risk factor for other diseases.
Recent studies have shown that highly trained athletes can exhibit high blood pressure (known as hypertension) – even with much higher fitness levels.
Cycling, therefore, isn’t guaranteed to offer a free pass from hypertension – so keeping track of your blood pressure could be a useful tool, when used in conjunction with medical advice.
The Index BPM monitor uses Wifi connectivity to sync your blood pressure data across to Garmin Connect and can be viewed alongside all the other metrics you may be recording with Garmin’s suite of devices.
Through the Garmin Connect app, you can set up reminders to take blood pressure readings and view data over seven-day, four-week and yearly reports. You can export and share the data via PDF, offering a potential avenue for doctors to monitor certain conditions.
It meets the international standard ANSI/AAMI/ISO 81060-2:2018+A1:2020 and is an FDA Cleared class II medical device.
The adjustable cuff fits arm sizes with circumferences of 9-17 inches (22-42cm), while Garmin says it can be used by up to 16 user accounts.
- £159.99 / $149.99 / €179.50
