Five cool things coming soon from Shimano, Specialized, Castelli and Tacx

Another new week and another batch of shiny new products for the tech team to look forward to testing, and it’s a bounty haul this week with wheels, derailleurs, a smart trainer and winter clothing. All the bases covered then.

Castelli Perfetto Long Sleeve Rain Jersey £180

This is the long sleeve version of the Castelli Perfetto Light 2 Short Sleeve Jersey we tested earlier this year, and like that top is made from Gore Windstopper X-Lite Plus fabric with a DWR coating that is windproof and water-resistant, ideal or dealing with mildly moist UK autumn and winter weather, and shaped into a race-cut jersey so to be aerodynamic for racing and fast training rides. Ash (modelling the jersey) will be finding out if it stacks up against the British weather.

Shimano Ultegra RX rear derailleur - Mechanical £89.99; Di2 £224.99

Clutch-style rear mechs are a common sight in the mountain bike world, and until now their presence on road bikes has either been through creative builds or using SRAM’s Rival or Force groupset. Shimano has now added its first road-specific clutch-style rear mech in the new Ultegra RX, available in both mechanical and electronic versions. It didn’t quite usher in Shimano’s first dedicated gravel bike groupset as many hoped, and is designed for 2x drivetrains. It first made its debut at Paris-Roubaix where dropped chains can ruin a race. David will be putting both through their paces to see how they perform. 

Specialized Roval CLX 32 650b wheels £1,700

650b is becoming a popular alternative wheel size for the growing allroad, road plus, adventure cyclist, with the smaller wheels allowing a bigger volume tyre for improved comfort over road roads and terrain. Roval has adapted its CLX 32 carbon fibre climbing wheelset producing a wheelset that is staggeringly light at 1,300g with a wide profile intended to be good for 40mm+ tyres. David has got his hands on them and will be trying them out, and you can watch him talk through their key features in this video

Tacx Radar bottle cage £13.99

The new Radar is a side loading bottle cage that is ideal for small frames or where space is at a premium, such as if you’re using a large frame pack for example. It can be set for left or right bottle entry. What more can you say about a bottle cage? Mike Stead will have that challenge when he submits his review soon.

Shimano RS500 wheelset £299.99

Shimano offers a wide range of wheels to suit all budgets and riding requirements, and the RS500 is the Japanese company’s newest offering. It’s an Ultegra level wheelset with a 24mm deep tubeless-ready rim made from aluminium and weighs a claimed 1,649g. It’s a rim brake wheelset and comes with quick release axles and is designed for tyres up to 32mm wide.

Stay tuned for reviews soon...