RACE BIKE OF THE YEAR 2024

Cycling Weekly crowns its ultimate king of the road

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It’s finally time to unveil the winner of Race Bike of the Year, Cycling Weekly’s most coveted award. After countless hours in the saddle, rigorous scrutiny, and extensive deliberation, we’re ready to crown the best bike of 2024.

Before we reveal our top picks, let’s start by exploring our stringent selection and testing criteria while also providing context by outlining the ever-evolving landscape of modern race bikes.

Our primary selection criterion is that bikes must be raced at the highest level. Eight of our nine contenders are currently being ridden at WorldTour level, with the exception of the Enve Melee, which will be ridden at the Tour de France with Pro Continental team Total Energies.

Whenever possible, we have selected the most prominent bikes released in the past 12 months. However, this is not a prerequisite. Our test includes older models, like the Merida Scultura and Canyon Ultimate CFR, that remain competitive at the sport’s highest level, being raced by the likes of Matej Mohorič (Bahrain Victorious) and Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates).

Though the market has started to focus on ‘do it all’ single race bikes, rather than a quiver of aero bikes and climbing bikes, there are brands in our list that do make both to be raced at WorldTour level. In such cases, to avoid featuring a brand twice, we’ve chosen the bike that stands out best and showcases the latest technology. For example, the new Giant TCR is an obvious choice over the slightly older Giant Propel, and the Canyon Ultimate, an all-round race machine, provides stiffer competition against the Van Rysel RCR Pro. Talking of which, including the latter in such esteemed company would have been laughable just a year ago. Now, however, the RCR Pro is the bike ridden by elite riders like Ben O’Connor and Aurélien Paret-Peintre.