Starting next week: road.cc Recommends awards 2022/23

Make a date in your diary, folks: the road.cc Recommends awards start next week where we’ll be revealing the best bikes, components, accessories and clothing that we reviewed in 2022.

Here’s how it works… You probably know that the best products we review are added to road.cc Recommends every month. We set the bar high. From the many hundreds of reviews we publish every year (it was about 900 at the last count), only the really special stuff gets in. It’s an elite club.

Then for our end-of-year awards, we push that bar even higher. Making it into road.cc Recommends is no longer enough. These awards recognise the crème de la crème – the absolutely outstanding products that we’ve reviewed on road.cc – and our sister sites off.road.cc and ebiketips, where relevant – over the past 12 months. Be prepared for a few surprises.

We make a few tweaks to the format most years and this time around is no different. For example, rather than splitting road bikes into performance road bikes and sportive/endurance road bikes as in the past, we’ve decided that all drop-bar bikes designed for road use will fight it out in one category. Why? It’s sometimes impossible to separate bikes neatly into these categories so we’ve binned them off.

We’ve also given wheels, tyres, and bags and racks their own categories because the numbers that have made it into road.cc Recommends warrant it… But we’re getting too deeply into the detail now. The main point is that if you want to know which of the bikes, components, accessories and items of clothing we’ve reviewed over the past year are the absolute best, you need to stay tuned to road.cc over the next couple of weeks.

All the discussion and debate, analysis and arguing is done, and we’ll be presenting the results from Monday.

For those of you taking notes, here’s the schedule:

• Monday 16th January Electric Bikes
• Tuesday 17th January Commuting, folding and urban bikes
• Wednesday 18th January Gravel and adventure bikes
• Thursday 19th January Road bikes
• Friday 20th January Overall Bike of the Year
   
• Monday 23rd January Accessories
• Tuesday 24th January Bags and racks
• Wednesday 25th January Components
• Thursday 26th January Turbo trainers and fitness equipment
• Friday 27th January Wheels
   
• Sunday 29th January Tyres
• Monday 30th January Clothing
• Tuesday 31st January Bargain

Oh, and before anyone makes the predictable suggestion otherwise: the road.cc Recommends awards are 100% independent. There is simply no way of getting in – or of boosting a result – via commercial means.