We practically froth over them, experience unbridled satisfaction while with them, and they occupy a pedestal in our lives. But until recently, bikes have never been seen as such objects of desire, such critical means for escape, or as such profound expressions of our character. So, what’s changed?
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Still remember your first kiss? That extraordinary chemistry between you and the other, like a magnet? What did it take for everything to fall into place here, could you describe that moment in one single word? The question is enough to send your thoughts spiraling. After all, complex feelings aren’t the easiest to manipulate into neat prose, let alone one word. These days, the process of stripping something back to the essentials, eradicating all and any irrelevant trimmings so you are left with the essence, is largely absent.
Now let’s shift firmly into the here and now, still on the one-word theme but away from your first kiss. When it came to summing up the entirety of this issue in one word, we fell short and have decided to ‘fess up. Just like your first kiss, we’ve been unable to resist the allure and completely succumbed to our better halves, bikes. And so have many of you this year! 2020’s bike boom has brought many more new faces to the scene–and we love this energy. With towns and cities now pulsing with bike riders, the need for reliable commuting rigs and the requisite infrastructure has reached unprecedented levels. Even aside from its role as eco-friendly transport, bikes have been rediscovered by virtually everyone, from outdoor lovers and adventurers to anyone wanting to find their own piece of tranquility in the world. So swipe right, and match! This issue is a celebration of exactly this sort of irresistibility. Bikes: the date you’ll never stand up!
The Highlights
- The best gravel bike of 2021 – 13 models on test
- Garmin Edge 1030 Plus vs. Wahoo ELEMNT ROAM – A head-to-head comparison
- Hype This: The most lust-worthy winter kit around
- Brother from another Mother – Into the wild with an OPEN and a Yeti
- Does anyone really need this? Masterpiece Roadmachine by BMC and what really matters
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All the bikes in this issue
3T Exploro Race EKAR 1×13 | ARC8 Eero | BMC URS 01 ONE | BMC Masterpiece Roadmachine | Cannondale Topstone Carbon Lefty 1 | Canyon Grail CF SLX 8 eTap | Fustle Causeway GRX600 | OPEN WI.DE. | Ridley Kanzo Fast | Ritte Satyr | ROSE BACKROAD AL GRX RX600 1X11| ROSE BACKROAD FORCE ETAP AXS LIMITED | Specialized S-Works Diverge | Trek Checkpoint SL 7 | Yeti SB115
What’s this issue got in store?
We invited the hottest, most hyped gravel bikes of 2021 to the party, testing them in all their finery across the Dolomites and showing them the sights of our local gravel. The purpose: crown the best all-rounder. Get ready to meet your match.
If you’re still outfit-less for the occasion, check out our HYPE THIS Special edition with stylish kits that have proven their worth against the dropping mercury.
THE LAB, our long-term testing feature, looks at how select products are holding up in the long run, while the Garmin Edge 1030 Plus faces off the Wahoo ELEMNT ROAM in our Shootout of bike computers. Same-same, or same-different?
It’s the very question you could ask of Christoph Bayer, editor-in-chief of our sister mag ENDURO and Ben, the red-bearded editor-in-chief of GRAN FONDO. These could-be twins set out on a ride in the Dolomites, equipped with two top-ticket offerings – an OPEN and a Yeti to see where the similarities end.
For other ride-related fodder in this issue, we recap one of the more left-field rides of 2020: a 175 km fixie grind from Stuttgart to Augsburg. An idea so preposterous, we couldn’t help but sign up. A bike ride is a bike ride, after all.
But is a bike just a bike? Our article on the Masterpiece Roadmachine by BMC mulls over our rationale for purchasing an € 18,000 bike, whether anyone needs it, and what value really means. To round off this issue, we’ve also summed up your 8,000-plus responses to the readers’ survey, illuminating us to what you really care about. Thank you for giving us such insight!
We doubt that we can use the articles in this issue to answer the question of how best to sum up whatever it was that made your first kiss so tantalizing in one word. Instead, see each article as a prompt. Get closer to your own answer. We focused on what really counts, which goes beyond just having a good ride and stretches right to the absolute, individual, irresistible sense of freedom you get on two wheels. If, for purely rational reasons this is the side of cycling that you choose to resist, this may not be the issue for you. If anything, this issue is us surrendering to the beauty of bikes. It’s a declaration of love. That’s what GRAN FONDO is: Irresistible!
Excited? These (and many more) stories are just a few clicks away. If you have already installed our free app, you can download the latest issue directly there. If not, first install it from the App Store (iPhone / iPad) or the Play Store (Android smartphones & tablets) and then load the latest issue within the app. Then you can sit back and enjoy the new issue (ideal with a cold beer or delicious coffee)!
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Words: Benjamin Topf Photos: GRAN FONDO-Team
