Having been banished to the mountains to write about MTB and Gravel bikes for sister site Bike Perfect, I returned to the Cyclingnews team in October after a four-year-long hiatus. Although the majority of my time away was spent sliding around on singletrack, I have still been clocking up plenty of drop bar miles too, albeit without the flow of road bike goodies passing over my desk that I was once accustomed to.
Riding has been a bit hit-and-miss this year in terms of mileage (thanks for reminding me Strava), yet I have still managed to accrue plenty of really great days on bikes. Insert “Quality not quantity”, or “no bad days” or some other boring adage, but in reality the start of my year was marred with a two-month niggling knee injury after a rather ambitious self-imposed Festive 500 challenge. What was meant to kick start my 2024 left me chasing to catch up on fitness but these things happen and 2024 will still go down as a very memorable year of riding for me for many reasons.
