I started this blog in 2007. It seems like only yesterday to me, but thats a long timeso long ago rim brakes on road bikes were normal, gravel bikes didnt exist, and mountain bikes still came with 26 wheels:Even though I called my blog Bike Snob, I didnt really know much. Granted, to this day Im constantly amazed by how little I know, but back then I really didnt know anything. New York City may be a global financial and media titan, but as far as cycling goes itswell, I wouldnt call it a backwater exactly, but its fairly staid and traditional, or at least it was back then. Certainly theres a tremendous amount of cycling history here, and a deep heritage of bicycle racing, and of bicycle delivery, and of advocacy. Yet while there was plenty of grit and/or extravagance to be found depending on your wont, overall it lacked the exuberance of some of these other bike scenes, probably because people are just too busy for that sort of thing here. Or at least thats how it seemed to me, a fairly staid and traditional person who would have sooner joined a minyan than a Critical Mass ride.Of course, when it comes to local bike scenes, the most exuberant of all (at least when I started this blog) was Portland. (The one in Oregon.) And yet this was one of the many things I still didnt know at the time. My friend had gone out there for Cyclocross Nationals (I dont remember the year) and come back with an enthusiastic report, but I didnt really know anything about the then-cutting-edge bicycle infrastructure, or the zany theme rides, nor did I realize that Chris King had moved there or that it was becoming the hub of the American bicycle industry. I just figured all the high-end bike companies that werent in Europe were in like Colorado or California or whatever.This changed almost as soon as I started this blog, and people started sending me links to stories about everything weve since come to associate with Portland. (Smugness, weirdness for weirdnesss sake, etc.) It would be several years before the TV show Portlandia came out and Portland became a byword for that sort of thing, and the source for much of the material people forwarded me (at least insofar as it intersected with bikes) was a blog called BikePortland.org. So I immediately felt nostalgic when I learned founder Jonathan Maus is stepping away from the blog after over 20 years:I hadnt visited BikePortland in awhile. Part of the reason for this is that Portland is no longer the Beacon of Bike Dorkdom it once was, as Maus himself admits:I think in Portland, theres many, many reasons why the sort of shine came off the apple for us when it came to being this biking utopia city or having that really strong brand. I never said this before, but we got high off our own supply. We got so navel-gazey and just so into ourselves. And Ill fully admit that I was part of that, in a sense of: I think we just got complacent.We started to think we were so cool and we were so bikey that we just maybe stopped looking at the fundamentals and stopped working hard and stopped being grateful and really working with intention to keep moving the needle maybe. I think that was part of it.Another reason is that, while I begrudge nobody their beliefs, the ones to which Portlanders subscribe can be difficult to take. At first its funny, but after awhile visiting the site felt like showing up at a party where everyones doing hard drugs. Yeah, not for me, Id think, and realize it was best just to leave. Perhaps this too played a role in the shine coming off the apple of Portland, as Maus puts it above. At least for an outside observer, after awhile the news coming out of Portland was no longer endearing.Also, as of next year I too will have been blogging for 20 years. Many of the other blogs that were popular in my heyday have long since vanished, but BikePortland has been a mainstay all this time, and now here he is letting go of the rope:I have this vision in my head of like skiing behind a boat for some reason and Im holding this rope, but I feel like thats the kind of image I think of when I think of Bike Portland sometimes. Im holding this rope and I just cant let it go and its tugging me. Ive never really let go of the rope. I mean, even when I took vacations, my family would be sleeping and I would wake up early, open up my laptop and have to check in and write posts. I was just so consumed by it.This last weeks been the first time where I just dropped it all. I just said, Im done. Im just not going to hold onto this anymore. The hardest thing about doing something like this for so long and doing it the way I did was that youre just on this treadmill and I cant, its hard to do anything else unless I just get off and create space and look back at it from a distance.It kinda makes you think. (Or at least it does if youre the curator of another dinosaur of a bike blog.) This is either a sign that I too should let go of the rope, or else zip-tie myself to it until I cant even stand anymore and let the speedboat drag my body around like a dummy until it runs out of gas so I can win, Im not sure which. The line between dedication and stupidity is a fine one indeed, and if Im being charitable I probably crossed from the former side of it to the latter by around 2011. But in 2010 my blog was only three, I had recently left my job to be a full-time bicycle bullshit artist, my first book was about to come out, and I went out to Portland to do a story for Outside:Id sold them on this idea that Id test the concept of the bike culture by going out to Portland anonymously and seeing if it would sustain melike Id find a place to stay and work as a messenger or something and really live the lifebut once I got there I just stayed in the Ace Hotel for a few days and then in a half-hearted attempt at authenticity I moved to a slightly cheaper, slightly less hip hotel across the street. I also met the big bike industry influencers (I dont think people were using that term yet) of the era, which at that point was centered around the whole proto-gravel Rapha epic thing. So I really didnt go too far out of my comfort zone, though I did go to some weird house, which was scarier than it sounds, and was like the house in The Young Ones if nobody was even remotely funny:I also reached out to Jonathan Maus, who was kind enough to take a meeting with a complete stranger:So, using my real name, I contact Jonathan Maus, editor/writer of the widely read news blogBikePortland.org, and simply tell him Im an adrift New Yorker seeking a greater understanding of Portlands bike culture. He not only replies but invites me to his office, next door to a coffee shop with a bike-thru window.So while perhaps his hiatus will be short-lived, this nevertheless feels like the end of an era. Indeed, in the years Ive been administering the blog Ive send the end of many things: the fixie craze, the mechanical drivetrain, the triple, and Portland as Americas number one bicycle city, to name just a few. Sometimes I imagine myself back in Brooklyn in 2007. The front door opens, and some old hairy guy wheels a Rivendell into the apartment. Holy crap, its Future Me!Youre not gonna believe it! All bikes run on batteries now, everyones obsessed with this stuff called gravel, and the wheels are enormous!Hey, nobody wants to start cycling, so the best you can do is sell bikes to the people who are cycling already:Some in the cycling industry have said32in wheels wont bring more people into cycling, but its simply a tactic to get more sales from people who already cycle. When I put this to Hitchens he replied, Well, of course.Of course, there are too many new bikes as it is, but theyre not innovative enough:But this relates to another issue that has plagued the industry for several years: overstocking. Ever since the Covid pandemic and ensuing economic downturn, cycling companies have been trying to shift products, which Hitchens says has hindered innovation.It really is hard to keep on holding that rope.

If youre looking to build a new bike for the summer or upgrade your current one, a quality groupset is a great investment. Shimanos excellent 105 Di2 has near Dura-Ace and Ultegra levels of performance, and it currently has up to 54% off depending on where you buy it. It features most of the same features as its older siblings, although it's 373g heavier than Ultegra and doesnt have a third button on top of the levers. When it launched, at 1,730, we gave the groupset a 4-star rating, concluding it was likely all the groupset any amateur would ever need. The groupset is 12-speed and is the latest R7170 model. Russell Burton / Our Media Weve found three retailers Sigma Sports, Certini and Winstanleys Bikes offering the groupset for 799, while Merlin Cycles is selling it for 825. At this price, its seriously worth considering if you're yet to upgrade to electronic shifting. There are plenty of options still available. Ashley Quinlan / Our Media Across the retailers, theres plenty of choice of crank lengths, chainrings and cassette size, so there should be something for every bike. The 105 Di2 derailleur is very neat. Ashley Quinlan / Our Media Crank lengths start from 165mm to 175mm, the chainrings are 52/36t or 50/34t, and the cassettes are 11/36t and 11/34t. Here are the links to the retailers, so you can vote with your wallet and pledge allegiance to whichever one you please. Buy Shimano 105 Di2 from Sigma Sports for 799 Buy Shimano 105 Di2 from Certini for 799 Buy Shimano 105 Di2 from Winstanleys Bikes for 799 Buy Shimano 105 Di2 from Merlin Cycles for 825

Cycling campaigners note electric cargo bike sales are "way behind" other European countries, with just 4,000 sold in 2022, compared with 70,000 in France and 90,000 in Germany

Mattias Skjelmose was one of the headliners of the Ardennes classics and one of the riders who climbed the best all week long. However, the Lidl-Trek rider reflected on it and admitted that the result he had at Lige-Bastogne-Lige was not the cherry on top of the cake that he hoped for. "I had a f...

On current form, theres only one rider in the world capable of getting close to Tadej Pogaar, but hes not even 20, yet

String spokes, aero gains and widths to support fat tyres. Scribe's new wheelsets are destined for modern gravel and prices start at 999

Good afternoon, friends. Welcome to the liveblog of the Tour de Romandie. The race, which runs through to next sunday, gets underway today with a prologue in Villars-sur-Glne, set to decide the first Yellow Jersey of the race. Join us and follow all the key moments of this opening stage live and mi...

In this cross between a Rider and Rig and Route Report, Cass heads off to ride the epic and wild Vuelta de Citlaltpetl, a loop hes shared on the site and written about for The Bikepacking Journal, as a yearly bike touring pilgrimage of sorts. This time, he does it in style. Or, at least, in Corey-style, complete with a chimney-equipped hot tent pulled in a trailer by a pink Bike FridayThe post The Little Bike That Could: Citlaltepetl in a Hot Tent appeared first on BIKEPACKING.com.

The Ineos Grenadiers Cycling Team will be renamed Netcompany Ineos Cycling Team and race in new colours from the start of the 2026 Giro dItalia. The new name and kit come as Britains only WorldTour cycling team has today announced a new co-title partnership with Netcompany, which it describes as one of Europes most ambitious technology companies. At the heart of the partnership will be Netcompanys Artificial Intelligence platform, Pulse, which is already used in Munich and Heathrow airports. This will be the first major deployment of Pulse in elite sport and the partnership will focus on the co-development of a model designed with the potential to shape the future of performance optimisation. Sir Dave Brailsford, team principal and director of sport at Ineos, described the partnership as one of the most significant in cycling. Our sport is a human endeavour, where decisions in training, racing and recovery make the difference every day. We have no shortage of data the real challenge is turning it into simple, practical actions and delivering them consistently. With Netcompany, we can do that better. Pulse allows us to orchestrate our data into clear insights that support faster, better decisions when it matters most, said Brailsford. For Brailsford, this all boils down to the objective long held by his team since its early days as Team Sky: to win the Tour de France. In recent years, the teams success has waned, with UAE Team Emirates-XRG and Team VismaLease a Bike dominating the Grand Tours. But this partnership could be seen as putting the newly named Netcompany Ineos Cycling Team back in the running if the AI-enhanced performance trend in cycling is your measure. Pogacars UAE Team Emirates-XRG team has been working with UAE tech partners for several years to create its own AI data platform. It reportedly has an AI bot called Ana, which analyses data sets and translates them into strategies such as recovery, training and even tyre recommendations. Team VismaLease a Bike has also announced a partnership with Mistral AI. The team plans to use the AI platform to enhance performance and decision making. The teams head of strategy, Patrick Broe, said: In todays high-performance cycling, data is everywhere, and leveraging AI is essential to staying competitive. Mistral AI is a global leader in helping organisations unlock the full potential of AI and we look forward to working closely together to drive successes on the road. Aside from performance, the partnership offers Netcompany the opportunity to further its long-term sovereign European tech growth strategy. This partnership supports our strategic ambition to accelerate growth across Europe by demonstrating the impact of cutting-edge technology and AI at the highest level of sport, said Andr Rogaczewski, CEO and co-founder of Netcompany. Geraint Thomas, director of racing at Netcompany Ineos Cycling Team, said: From my side, its about creating an environment where riders can focus fully on racing, while the team around them is connected and making the best possible decisions. If we get that balance right, it will make a real difference when it counts.

Stage 3 of the Tour of Turkey was always going to be a key day for the overall classification, and it delivered. On the steep summit finish to Kiran, it was Ivn Sosa who delivered the best climbing performance on the day; and has taken Equipo Kern Pharma into the race lead. The breakaway of the da...