Bicycle Quarterly Magazine #60: Summer 2017

If you aren't reading Jan Heine's Bicycle Quarterly yet, you should be!  Jan's writing and bicycle reviews are in my opinion among the most neutral in the industry.  He does have his favorite type of bicycle and makes that known (He's the force behind Allroad and Enduro All-Road bikes with low trail, wide supple road tires, randonneur bags and fenders), but he's not affiliated or advertising for any of the big brands.  You'll see bike tests that measure and compare a bikes real world performance against "control bikes" that they ride on a daily basis, and explain in great detail how they did their tests.

There's also regular features on vintage bikes and especially French Constructeurs such as Rene Herse.  I thought I knew a bit about these old bikes until I started reading BQ and really learned about them.

From BQ:

The Summer 2017 Bicycle Quarterly is the biggest issue yet, with well over 100 pages filled with exciting adventures:

Renowned framebuilder and constructeur joined us on a trip to Japan. Read his experiences with Rinko-ing his bike, riding the incredible Japanese mountain roads and visiting the great constructeurs. Peter sees Japan with a new set of eyes, and his impressions make a fascinating read. As a bonus, we test the amazing yellow bike that Peter built for his trip to Japan.

Cyclotouring and the Tour de France share a common history – cyclotourists inspired the great race to head into the mountains for the first time. We retrace that history during a tour in the Cevennes mountains of southern France, while the Tour races in the valley below.

While in France, we visited Gilles Berthoud to see how modern technology and traditional craftsmanship are combined to make some of the finest saddles and bags in the world.

Our test bike is unusual, too: a gravel bike made from Bamboo. We took the Boo on an adventurous ride into the unknown. How does it perform on the most challenging terrain the Cascade Mountains can offer?

We’ve had our Specialized Diverge long-term test bike for two years now. What is it like to live with a modern, high-end, production bike on a daily basis? Did the lure of the “carbon race bike for the real world” endure? How did the superlight parts perform in the long run?