Do you have any special memories of the past racing bike season? We do too. A lot, actually. In many ways, 2024 was a special year for the TOUR test editorial team. This applies first and foremost to the bikes that we were able to test in the lab and under the saddle, because many a record was broken in the tests of the past twelve months, there were big surprises, enlightening and fascinating moments on tarmac and gravel - and of course particularly stylish bikes that we remember fondly for their craftsmanship alone. But the year will also be remembered in a very sober way. After all, in 30 years of TOUR testing history, we have only very rarely put our hands on our test system and the test benches in our laboratory.
At the beginning of 2024, the cut was comparatively radical, although we are actually constantly and systematically scrutinising our test system: whether the measurements do justice to the perception in practice, whether the evaluation scales reflect the current state of the art and whether there are new trends that we should take into account with our tests. Nevertheless, some of the test stands in the TOUR laboratory have survived three decades largely unchanged because they reflected reality on the road very well right from the start. The measurements were gradually expanded to include new ones: the most recent addition was the comfort measurement on the saddle in 2006, followed by systematic aerodynamic measurements for competition racers in the wind tunnel from 2010.
Even closer to reality
The past year, or more precisely TOUR issue 2/2024 published in January, marked another new chapter. Firstly, we introduced a new criterion for the competition bike category: since the beginning of 2024, we have been measuring comfort on the handlebars.
We had already recognised the ability to cushion impacts on the hands before, but only in isolation on the fork and only on endurance road bikes and gravel bikes. However, our gut feeling told us that something was wrong with some bikes: Something is wrong here. In addition, some manufacturers, such as Giant, advertise that their specially designed handlebars have better suspension than others; suspension stems are also increasingly becoming an issue on road bikes. With the new measuring method, we can now better reflect this reality. And we can say, at least for this test year: Giant is not lying, especially the women's brand Liv is at the forefront in this discipline. Our geometry measurement of Stack plus and Reach plus, which also includes the handlebars and categorises the riding position on a road bike as it actually is, is very popular with our readers. Unorthodox handlebar designs, which can only be replaced with great effort, increasingly distort the picture painted by the frame geometry. Even manufacturers' specifications on frame dimensions are becoming increasingly worthless if you don't know the shape of the handlebars. Our measurement of the actual grip positions takes this development into account and is much more valuable for readers. Manufacturers still have a lot of catching up to do here.
Test bench - Stiffness
The frame and fork are the most compliant parts in the road bike's stiffness chain and characterise the riding impression: a stiff frameset steers precisely and rides as if on rails, even at high speeds. A soft chassis is easier to throw off track in the event of bumps, gusts of wind or steering forces and requires more concentration. In extreme cases, the bike can rock and develop a dangerous life of its own - the higher the system weight, the greater the danger. However, this rarely happens with modern racing bikes. Measured values are between 7.5 and 11.5 Newtons per millimetre (N/mm) of deflection. We rate bikes with 9 N/mm and more as "very good".
Test bench - Handlebar comfort
New in the test concert. The tyre takes on the lion's share of the comfort impression at the front. It can be adjusted over a fairly wide range via width and air pressure, but its potential is limited. The spring chain consisting of the fork, stem and handlebars also makes a noticeable contribution: the handlebars can deflect by up to six millimetres at the brake levers when 40 kilograms of load are placed on them. This smoothes out fine vibrations even with narrow, inflated tyres.
We have also transferred the stiffness measurement of road bikes, a kind of big bang of our test procedure, to a completely new test rig. Since the beginning of the TOUR tests, the stiffness measurements of the frame have remained a highly weighted component of our laboratory tests and have established themselves worldwide in the industry as the standard for evaluating the riding stability of road bikes. Since the beginning of the year, we no longer measure the riding stability, i.e. the stiffness against deformation caused by lateral forces, separately in the frame and fork, but combined on the assembled frameset. This is not only due to a new system concept that we are increasingly pursuing at TOUR: The frame and fork, and increasingly also the handlebars, stem and seatpost, are more and more often a unit designed together by the manufacturer, whose individual parts are matched to each other. It is often no longer possible to replace the parts and sometimes even impossible because they no longer have standard dimensions. On the one hand, this means that we can represent reality better than with isolated individual parts.
On the other hand, only this set-up allows the important characteristic to be measured at all, as the components are often so unique and complex that they defy metrological examination on a classic test bench. The result is the same - only better: the criteria and benchmarks that qualify a good road bike as a very good or outstanding product have largely been retained - or rather, they have been fine-tuned to match the results of our previous methods as closely as possible. This is because the laws of physics have not changed. We apply comparable forces at the same points on the wheel as they occur in practice. However, the method of measurement and the absolute figures are different and can no longer be directly compared with previous tests. Even with the new method, a previously very good road bike remains a very good one, as the new Canyon Aeroad shows.
Less time for more wheels
Admittedly, the switch to the new, integrated test procedure also has a very pragmatic background: disassembling and assembling the test wheels took up more and more time, most recently around 80 per cent of the laboratory run. The increasingly complicated wheels required more and more assembly and set-up time, which was lost during the actual work on the wheel - not to mention the immense amount of time required to reassemble the wheels after the modular measurements. Cables and wires tangled up in the frame cost our workshop mechanics a lot of time and nerves to reinstall them as intended by the manufacturer. Defects, for example on pressed bottom brackets, could not always be avoided during removal and reinstallation.
122 bikes passed through the TOUR test lab in 2024. These included 68 road bikes and 54 gravel bikes.
With our new procedure, the measurements are now much faster, which means we can test and evaluate more bikes again. 68 road racing bikes and 54 gravel bikes, a large proportion of the latter in the two special issues on the subject, have completed the course in our test cellar over the past twelve months and have been out on the road with us. This is not a comprehensive overview of the market, but it provides a very good picture of technical developments and shows which trends are shaping the market. For example, the fact that gravel racers are taking up more and more space on the market. The main protagonists were, of course, the major brands in the industry. But there were also small suppliers and exotics made of titanium or steel, expensive luxury vehicles and surprising bargains. What we particularly remember, which records were broken and what else surprised us in the 2024 road bike year, we have summarised in this article.
Jens Klötzer
Editor
