By Where I live in southwest Colorado, seasons change hard and fast. In the space of a day, my weather went from a blissful run of sunny, 60-degree days to cloudy, windy, and much colder temps, with snow in the forecast. Winter brings icy roads, snow-covered trails, and winter wildlife closures, which means my outdoor riding opportunities diminish (oh, hello again, Zwift!). As my chances to ride outdoors dwindle, I’ve been reflecting on the best bikes I’ve ridden this year. And it’s been a great year. In between bouts of injury and illness, I’ve ridden several great bikes—but these five have stuck with me the most.
🚲 Allied BC40
The biggest deal about Allied’s BC40 (the company’s first mountain bike) isn’t the carbon technology, a new suspension design, or its geometry. The big deal is that Allied makes this carbon composite full-suspension frame in the United States. That puts it in rare company, along with the Ibis Exie cross-country race bike and Guerilla Gravity’s thermoplastic frames.
For various reasons, I’m glad Allied makes their bikes in the U.S. in numbers that approach mass production. But it wouldn’t mean much if the BC40 wasn’t a good bike—and it is. And not just good, it’s a ripper.
The BC40 has 120mm front and rear travel (it’s also possible to set it up in an XC race setup with a 100mm travel), with firm and sporty suspension, crisp pedaling manners, and lively handling. It feels like a homologation special: Something designed for racing but lightly modified so it can be sold to the public. It’s extremely fast, yet surprisingly capable. Plus, it fits two bottles inside the frame, it’s damn light, you can pick your paint color, and it is priced competitively with big brands’ Asian-made, high-end bikes.
🚲 Open U.P.
The U.P. (Unbeaten Path) is not a new bike, but I made one my own for the first time this year because I could no longer ignore how much damn sense it makes for where I am as a “road” cyclist. When it first launched in 2015, the U.P. was seen as a radical bike for a new category of riding called gravel. It had a few minor revisions over the years—mainly shifting from IS to flat-mount disc brakes. That the U.P. is largely unchanged seven years after its debut yet remains relevant, demonstrates how forward-thinking this frame was. Truthfully, I don’t consider the U.P. a gravel bike by today’s standards (though it does fit a 54mm wide tire with 650b wheels, 40mm with 700c: see the Otso below for what I view as a modern gravel bike) and instead view it as an all-road bike along the lines of a Trek Domane. It’s a comfortable, light, and responsive road bike that fits fat tires, and overall it’s such a joy to ride that it made my other road bikes irrelevant.
🚲 Otso Waheela C
What the hell is a gravel bike anyway? As far as I can tell, a gravel bike is a dirt-friendly drop bar bike (although there are some flat bar versions). Beyond that, there is a universe of interpretations. Hell, the first UCI men’s gravel world championship was won on the same frame Canyon’s pro teams race in the Tour de France. This win probably says more about the course than gravel equipment.
My loose definition of gravel riding is anything unpaved (or mostly unpaved) from the point where a typical road race bike isn’t appropriate up to where a mountain bike makes more sense. So, what is one bike that can do all that? The best one I’ve found so far is Otso’s Waheela C. Thanks to adjustable chainstay length (420, 430, or 440mm) via Otso’s chip system, the Waheela C fits tires up to a whopping 54mm in either 700c or 650b if conditions warrant. But if I want a faster-rolling, crisper-feeling, and tighter-handling bike, I can flip the chips to the short chainstay position (420) and run it with 35mm tires, and it rides great.
For tackling the extreme end of gravel riding, the Waheela is one of the only production bikes with suspension-corrected geometry. So, it can run a Fox 32TC or RockShox Rudy without screwing up its fit and handling (plus, it is dropper-post-ready). If I want to cut some weight for smoother rides or cyclocross, I can swap in the stock fork (the front brake routes externally, making fork changes blissfully easy). Perfect it is not—the bike is a little on the heavy side, and the ride is a bit firm with narrower tires—but the Waheela has a long front center for stability with the fast and lively feel of a high-performance bike. Plus, it's extremely versatile and works well in all configurations, despite the variety of those configurations.
🚲 Yuba SuperCargo CL
I almost don’t think of the SuperCargo CL as a bicycle. It’s a car, a tool, a life hack: Something so damn useful and practical that I kicked myself quite hard for not getting one in earlier to test. In most cases, it is faster, easier, and less stressful to ride the SuperCargo CL to run errands than to drive my car.
While the $6,000 Supercargo CL is expensive, my car (a heavy 2013 Volvo XC70) guzzles premium gas at an alarming rate, is expensive to maintain, and is a rolling nightmare of a carbon footprint. Given all that, the fact that the Yuba has the cargo capacity for 90 percent of my around-town trips—grocery store, garden store, bakery, take-out food pickups, bike shop, home improvement store, etc.—means that it should pay for itself financially and environmentally. And though I would expect the payoff will take a while, using the SuperCargo CL to pick up a few bags of mulch is immediately more enjoyable and gives me better feels than driving a mostly-empty car.
🚲 Trek Fuel EXe
The Trek EXe's awesome chassis, smooth, well-tuned, and nearly silent motor, and low (for an e-bike) weight come together to create my favorite e-mountain bike right now. It may not have the torque and range of full-power e-bikes with massive batteries, but the EXe offers just enough assistance. The bike rides and feels similar to a great unpowered mountain bike. Between its quiet operation—not just the motor, but the near-silence of the latest RockShox suspension parts—a lively feel, and “normal” manners on the trail, this almost unseats my prized Evil Following as the most entertaining and enjoyable mountain bike I’ve ridden.
A gear editor for his entire career, Matt’s journey to becoming a leading cycling tech journalist started in 1995, and he’s been at it ever since; likely riding more cycling equipment than anyone on the planet along the way. Previous to his time with Bicycling, Matt worked in bike shops as a service manager, mechanic, and sales person. Based in Durango, Colorado, he enjoys riding and testing any and all kinds of bikes, so you’re just as likely to see him on a road bike dressed in Lycra at a Tuesday night worlds ride as you are to find him dressed in a full face helmet and pads riding a bike park on an enduro bike. He doesn’t race often, but he’s game for anything; having entered road races, criteriums, trials competitions, dual slalom, downhill races, enduros, stage races, short track, time trials, and gran fondos. Next up on his to-do list: a multi day bikepacking trip, and an e-bike race.
