New gallery posted: A Friday night out with TR…

"Scott says that it ‘redefines cable routing in the mountain bike industry’. While we’re yet to see if that claim rings true" I have a Spark RC Pro (2022) with mechanically controlled components. Because we use the front brake lever on the drive (right) side in the UK I have the rear brake hose and two cable housings (dropper and shock) on the NDS entering the headset. On my current bike I use 3.0mm Jagwire housing with no problems. I can install them by just pushing them through the headset without dismantling it. The new 2027 Spark has two openings either side of the headset so it is set up for a rear brake to be on the DS (right). Maybe they are dismissing countries that have the UK's brake lever configuration.

The first link is to one of their cycling computers.

To be fair when I'm out on the roads, car or bike, I see very many instances of people cycling who could be doing better. Ignoring the delivery riders, most of whom we know aren't actually riding bicycles / Ebikes, the most common issue I see is people riding too close to the edge of the road. Yes, drivers absolutely should do better, however this type of riding does little to discourage drivers from overtaking, and they will still pass too closely leaving the rider with FA room to the left either. So educating riders as to how to ride more safely isn't a bad idea IMHO. As for that narrow bridge, if it's popular with pedestrians I don't see how getting off and walking a few yards is a massive issue. And I'm normally in SPD-SL road cleats!

Indeed. Some lanes are so narrow, and with overgrown vegetation, that the driver may not be able to see anything behind in his wing (door) mirrors, and vans usually don't have a rear window so no rear-view mirror either. Much easier in this situation to just turn around and head back to the nearest farm gate, it won't be far. After all, 'share the road' works both ways. And before someone comments to say if you drive where you can't clearly see what's behind you, that driver may have no choice - deliveries, tradespeople etc.

So we can add time travel to his list of talents? Is there nothing the man can't do?

"Arguably the best way to carry panniers on the front of pretty much any bike" The thing that is missing from this sentence is the qualification "...that doesn't have the right bosses for a typical low rider rack" The horizontal tube seems too low which means careful pannier selection to avoid a ground clearance issue. Also the panniers are going to be quite far forward which is less than ideal. If you have the bosses then I'd argue you're much better off with something else e.g. a Tubus Duo which places the panniers at a good height and allows them to sit behind the axle minimising the effect on steering.

I was referring more to the cycling computers they produce, but I’m sure an opportunity to snipe couldn’t be missed. The article you refer to is for the older of their radar lights. My suggestion was that they have several cycling computers in a popular price bracket that seem to offer good usability. It would be nice to see those reviewed.

Laudable effort. Will a full review of the bike be following?

By their very nature the dockless bike schemes will result in bikes being parked in stupid places. The user has little incentive to find the correct place to park it. More so if they are tourists with a cruise liner to catch and only 3 hours to explore. So, if the operation can't be made to fit within the councils required operating method, then it should be removed. I'm pretty sure another operator will come in and propose a system acceptable to the council if they believe they can make money. I strongly suspect that the current operators can only make money by tacitly allowing bikes to be left where the tourist money wants to leave them, so time to rethink the financial model me thinks!

@bikercub "If they are good enough to be supporting the Groupama-FDJ United World TourCycling team, we should be looking at them as a contender." No, that only means that they paid enough to become a sponsor. Let's put the "pros use better stuff" myth to sleep, finally. And by the way, the trickiest part of a GPS computer is not data collection - that can be done by absolutely all of them. The hard part is the general user interface and turn-by-turn navigation, none of which really matters for a pro cyclist - and that brings us back to why any GPS computer could be good enough for just about any pro cyclist.