You know what they say, it’s always Friday o’clock somewhere. Well today, it’s Friday here, and that means fresh product for your pleasure, lockdown or no lockdown.
This week we’ve reviewed Santa Cruz’s brand-new Bullit e-MTB, taken a close look at Canyon’s super-integrated Precede:ON commuter and covered another stylish steel machine from Fairlight.
The UK government teased plans to offer healthy incentives to prospective ebike buyers, Strava reintroduced Bluetooth heart rate monitor pairing on its app and Zipp decided to tidy up your cockpit.
Meanwhile, Wahoo entered the smartwatch market with the new Elemnt Rival, Canyon debuted a new non-UCI Speedmax and we published Katherine Moore’s detailed look at diversity in cycling.
Roval Terra CLX gravel wheels
While there’s considerable overlap with road components, gravel-specific wheels are emerging as a category in their own right.
Roval’s Terra CLX carbon wheelset is very on-trend with a generous 25mm internal rim width that’s designed to work with tubed or tubeless tyres from 28 to 47mm wide.
Despite this healthy dimension, they’re seriously light at 1,306g including valves on my scales, quite a bit less than many conventional road options.
With the focus on rough roads, the Terras don’t make any particular aero claims, although the rims do feature a nice blunt cross-section that’s 32mm deep.
Where a number of manufacturers such as Zipp and FFWD have opted for a hookless rim design for their wide options, Roval is sticking with a hooked design which, if nothing else, means fewer worries about tyre compatibility.
The Terras are built on Roval’s own hubs, which use DT Swiss EXP internals. They’re laced 21-front and 24-rear with DT Swiss Aerolite T-head spokes, which should mean no truing headaches down the line.
- £1,850 / $2,500
Stolen Goat Clash Bodyline LS jersey
- Buy now from Stolen Goat
Do you like to blend in? Fancy yourself a bit of a conformist? Then this top from Stolen Goat probably isn’t for you.
Aptly called the Clash, this long-sleeved jersey uses Stolen Goat’s Bodyline performance-oriented fit and it offers similar levels of lairiness to the Rapha × Palace collaboration, if not more so.
The brand says the Clash jersey is designed to combine aero with all-day comfort. It has the usual three rear pockets, plus a fourth one with a zip, and an additional water-resistant lining.
Stolen Goat offers the jersey in sizes XS to 3XL. This particular design comes in a men’s cut only, but the brand does an extensive range of eye-catching women’s kit too.
Aftershokz Openmove headphones
The Aftershokz Openmove headphones are the latest launch from the bone conduction specialists.
If you’re not familiar with Aftershokz, the company’s headphones leave your ear canals uncovered, instead using vibrations that travel through the cheekbones to transmit sound.
The vibrations go directly to the inner ears, bypassing the eardrums, the idea being that you can still hear other noise – traffic or pedestrians, for example – as you ride. We’ve previously reviewed two older Aftershokz designs (the now-discontinued Trekz and Trekz Air, with somewhat mixed results.
The Openmoves are Aftershokz’ new entry-level headphones, priced at £79.95 – a significant drop from the top-end Aeropex (£149.95) and XTrainerz (£139.95) headphones.
BikeRadar’s senior technical editor, Warren Rossiter, has been using these for some time now – Warren logs a lot of miles testing bikes – and says they offer similar sound quality to Aftershokz’ premium headphones.
The finish isn't quite as nice as the Aeropex headphones – the Openmoves are a bit chunkier and generally a little less refined – but they do use a USB-C charger rather than a proprietary device. USB-C is still emerging, but digging out a proprietary charger from a mountain of cables is never fun.
The headphones are wireless and broadcast via Bluetooth, with a claimed range of 10m / 33ft. They also have three EQ modes and an IP55 sweat/water resistance rating. Claimed standby time is ten days, while continuous play time is up to six hours.
- £79.95 / $99.95 / €89.95
ETC Watchman action camera rear light
The concept of a dashcam for cycling has been around for a while and it was Cycliq that popularised the idea of combing a camera with a rear light with its original Fly6 back in 2014. (We reviewed an updated version here and the third generation is hitting the market around now.)
The Watchman from distributor Moore Large’s ETC lights range works along very similar lines (and also bears a striking resemblance to a device sold by Aldi in one of its cycling specials last year). It has fewer features than the Fly6 – there’s no incident detection to avoid the risk of over-writing accident footage, for example – but it’s also considerably cheaper.
The Watchman offers 1080p video recording, three light modes and a claimed maximum battery life of six hours.
It mounts to the seatpost using straps and its built-in battery recharges via Micro USB. The price, incidentally, includes an 8GB MicroSD card.
- £80
