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I like to alternate my tests of accessories or typically urban and tourist components with others more sporty. Because it’s my way of interpreting the bike; it’s my “life on pedals”, made out of sport or vagabond going out, of stints to the utmost or of slow city transfers. That is why we will see a sport helmet: the Met Strale; even if I can anticipate that, after having used it for several weeks and…

This blog is named after a bike, my Ellesar; subtitle: life on the pedals. From day one I decided that I would try to respond to the doubts of the passionate cyclist, the one who likes cycling in many different ways. This explains why I deal with sport bikes and sport accessories, emphasizing – at the same time – what we use in our daily life on the pedals, precisely. In the last few days…

The latest products to review from the Taiwanese Gearoop, those I liked the most: the LED lights. This article comes late because I was waiting for an additional shipment to meet my personal request, which we will see at the end of the article. I simply titled them “LED lights” because we will see them in different shapes , but all sharing the exquisite workmanship and the undoubted originality of the chosen solutions, as it…

Can you recall the story of the Columbus’ egg? Surely a simple solution on the outlook, but also one which no-one had thought about before. You could think similarly of the Gripster, the latest creation of the Scottish start-up By Cyclogical. It would probably be difficult to define the Gripster as something other than a wee plasticky thingy of very intuitive use. ‘I could’ve come up wi’that!’, you might be thinking. And yet, as most…

We, as cyclists, are the second riskier category on the road, after the pedestrians. With them, we share the condition of being unarmed, without the strong metal armour which shields four-wheeled drivers. We have few weapons at our disposal: our and other people’s prudence, the hope of infrastructures suitable for bikes, the utopia of traffic regulations protecting us, and making ourselves well visible to whoever shares our road. A really poor arsenal, therefore. Luckily the…

Another product against conventions, proposed by the Taiwanese Gearoop, indeed another well-known product, reinterpreted with imagination. And I did not expect less from somebody who mounts the kickstand to the crank and the lights to the QR (which we will see next time). It is an aluminum and ergal rack, or an aluminum, ergal and carbon one for those bikes devoid of specific attacks, on which other solutions, for example using some clamps, are precluded….

A bike is simple or complex? It depends on how we look at it. Who among you has ever opened a Rohloff gear or some Campagnolo Delta brakes, was amazed by the amount of mechanisms. On the contrary, if we look at a bike just for what it is, then it’s really simple: a frame, two wheels, a seat and handlebar, a gear to go around and some brakes (but not always…) to stop. There…

Lately, you may have noticed my interest in multi-purpose bikes. It’s a kind of cycles that intrigues me for many years, although I must confess that, when I was younger, I created many of them for other people and very few for myself; I struggled to resist the lure of sport bike. The gravel phenomenon sails before the wind, but in the ocean of proposals it is difficult for a captain to choose the right…