2024’s Top 5 BEST Road Bikes | Race Bike Of The Year 2024

Our 2024 Race Bike Of The Year Awards are here! We tested nine of the hottest high-end bikes on the market to crown our winner. We had five categories, best climbing bike, best value race bike, best aero bike and our overall best race bike. The Look 795 Blade RS won our best aero bike award, the Merida Scultura 9000 topped our best value category, the Giant TCR Advanced SL 0 took the best climbing title, the Enve Melee got us all aquiver so is deemed the most desirable bike on test. And now, drumroll please… Cycling Weekly’s 2024 Race Bike of the Year is the Specialized S-Works Tarmac SL8. What do you think of the winners, and which would you put on your wishlist?

00:00 – Intro
00:33 – Best Aero Race Bike
04:39 – Best Value Race Bike
09:41 – Best Climbing Bike
15:13 – Most Desirable Race Bike
19:12 – Race Bike of the Year

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for the past few months Joe has been very hard at work testing the best bikes to bring you our 2024 winners for race bike of the Year some of the best bikes on the market were tested across four different categories and a wild card bonus category too those being best climbing bike best air rad bike best value bike and of course our overall race bike of the year and finally after all of that testing we now have five winners so without further ado let’s get into them so Joe talk us through the Aro bike category what were you looking for well I think a good place to start with this one is that actually every single bike we test now pretty much has seen some sort of aerodynamic design process it’s either been in a wind tunnel or it’s seen a lot of computational fluid dynamics so what separates an allrounder from an aerrow bike now is slightly different for me this award is going to be the bike that a sprinter would choose so what would make Fabio yakobson choose a bike over what taddy pagat might choose for example okay so in that instance then and those being the parameters to you what makes a good aerrow bike so there’s a few things first of all stiffness the aerrow bikes are generally ritten by more powerful Riders and therefore things like bottom bracket stiffness is something that you’re really going to be able to notice that also can affect how planted a bike feels and the other thing there is confident hand handling these bikes are often going to be handled at higher speeds and in Bunch Sprints for example and therefore it is imperative for them to be both stable and have quick handling okay so I think please put us all out of our misery who won and why so this year’s winner is the look blade 795 RS now this bike was released last year at the tour to France and has been ridden by cofidis for around 12 months now and it really impressed me for a number of reasons now the first thing as I mentioned before is stiffness this is 100% one of the stiffest bikes we had on test both sprinting and on climbs you really notice how well it accelerates and again that is something that I think is really important for bikes in this category as well as that once you do have it up to speed and again this always feels a little bit subjective because we haven’t had all these bikes in the Wind Tunnel but back to- backing them you can tell that it holds its speed really really well and I think the component Choice as well is really suited to that so talk us through the component Choice what was on the bike you were riding yeah so I was really impressed by the Cora wheel set now they’re also quite lightweight so that allowed again for acceleration and sort of good top end speed what was really brilliant though is the cockpit it does a really good job of being nice and stiff which by the way for a lot of In-House cockpits is really not the case not always the case at all and it was good and stiff but it was also quite comfortable of course these are race bikes so perhaps you don’t expect them to be the most comfortable but it’s still really important a lot of races are long and a lot of r riding on these race bikes as well is going to be long days in the saddle couple that as well with the fact that this is a two-piece setup and a very neatly integrated one at that and I thought it was worth shouting about okay that’s great to know but are there any other key points that you thought were particularly good or may be particularly bad so I think two things firstly the bike climbs fairly well which by the way no aerob bike in today’s market really with so many all around machines can climb badly and as I mentioned it’s not too heavy so this build comes in at 7.48 kilos which is still I think respectable for a bike in its category and then the other thing is the handling is really good as well so it was one of the it probably the most stable bike on test 410 mm chain stay so slightly longer which means it doesn’t feel quite so responsive as some of the other bikes on test but it does mean you can really get the most out of it on sort of more technical terrain and for example in a bunch Sprint scenario so obviously the look one but how did it compare against all the other bikes that you were testing why did It win compar so yeah this is a really important point the main thing that the look does incredibly well is acceleration so for example the mvy was a super super quick and comfortable bike at highp speeded but in terms of how it got there it just wasn’t quite as fast now the other thing to mention as well is it climbs better than other aad bikes I’ve tested as well the canyon Air Road is a prime example brilliant bike and again fast but just has a slightly a slight numbness to the ride feel it doesn’t quite get up and go as quickly as the look and that’s where it really impressed me and that also which I think this is a massive consideration for anybody spending a vast amount of money on a new bike makes it a lot more fun too now this next category is one which I think a lot of you will be very interested in I am myself Joe what determines good value right now this is obviously especially in today’s market a really important question now for me a good value bike is one that performs as close to or the same as sort of some of the big brand names but of course at a lower price point now just the same as in all our other testing brand loyalty is totally left at the door we rigorously backto back test all of these bikes and then go to the stat sheet afterwards to see which brand offers the most amount of bike at the lowest price so really important what are your points of comparison when judging a category like this so the main points of comp comparison are going to be weight obviously super important geometry that is something that so often we see more budget Brands getting wrong so that’s a real contentious issue features as well sometimes on Valley models bike brands will choose specific components like handlebars for example to really skimp out on so we look out for that and of course stiffness comfort and ride feel so tell us who won so the winner of the best value bike for 2024 is one you might not expect it’s the marid scultura 9 ,000 tell us why why cuz that is a shocker now the merid impressed me from ride one the biggest thing that struck me initially was the bottom bracket is super super stiff now this makes for kind of an electric ride feel really really quick to accelerate and it does all this at a price of £ 6,750 which yes is a lot of money but compare that as a top level frame set to the likes of the specialized an equivalent B from specialized you’re talking over £10,000 it’s a really real real saving wow I think the question that’s on everybody’s lips though and the one that’s on mine the van RIS last are the super bike killer indeed I can’t believe it didn’t win Why didn’t it win so a lot of you will be thinking of course that bike’s going to win it came out 85,000 or £99,000 for a world tour spec bike Why didn’t it win well we did test it and I did back-to-back test these two bikes in particular and the truth be told the van r s I just couldn’t fall in love with it interesting so what it was mainly down to a ride field thing ride fi indeed so the van rol boasts a real lightweight frame so you’re talking 790 G I think for a size 56 which is actually lighter than the Marita at 830 G I think and in fact van R’s goal when building that bike was to be able to build a bike 2 6.8 kilos which actually as we mentioned the merid comes in a little bit over that but the big thing here was that I just as I said I couldn’t fall in love with it and as he said that comes down to ride field so what do I mean by that I think the van risle was fast once you got it up to speed but it had just a slightly numb ride feel now by no means this is this a slow bike I mean we can prove that because it’s one Summit finishes this year but I just don’t think it was that exciting to ride and at the end of the day it is still £85,000 there are no concessions for a £4,000 bike here it’s not half the price is it competition so really we have to be rigorous and I think the biggest thing as well is if you look at the price points across the range Van risel slightly has Marita be at the very top end but as soon as you get to that mid-range they start overlapping and actually some of the cheaper frame sets that merid do are actually cheaper for the same spec than the van rle wow that is quite surprising I won’t lie it makes me more intrigued about the Marita though so tell us more about it sure so the first thing to know about the marid I think it is still very much a climbing bike and it’s one that’s been out for a couple of years now but it really has stood the test of time um plenty of welto Victories of course with barain Victorious but the first thing to note is that it’s kind of arguably slightly outdated in terms of sort of tube profiles it’s less of that sort of all round ilk than other bikes on test but I think the climbing bike is still a formula that when executed well creates an incredible riding bike merid has also done a brilliant job of specking the bike too so our bike that was on test was spec with Shram force and also had a really really nice cockpit as well so it was maid’s own cockpit pit It’s relatively Slim So still you know designed with aerodynamics in mind but also it did a good job of being stiff in the right places and comfortable as well and all around it just made for an engaging fun bike to ride which again spending this much money is really important but the key features about this bike it all starts with a fantastic geometry it shares the geometry with the merid reacto their AO bike a really stiff bottom bracket and head tube make it fly up the climbs and be really confident on descents too now couple all this with the price tag when it was going really toe-to-toe with some of the much more expensive bikes on test and it made it an obvious choice for the best value bike of 2024 now then it’s time to move on to our best climbing bike category before we get into our winner Joe I’d love to hear from you what makes a good climbing bike sure so I think the first thing I’ll say is that this is a category I absolutely love to test I said before actually how good a climbing bike can still feel to ride I think for a lot of people out there if you don’t want to go nuts with aerodynamics it can still be a really really fun and engaging bike to own now all that as side the big important points are obviously a very low weight bikes need to be stiff that goes across the board but another one is geometry now actually depending on how the geometry Stacks up a bike can feel really different when you put it up on a steep gradient so some of these bikes feel a lot more responsive out the saddle and and and really lend themselves to those steep climbs and others field maybe just a little bit slower um we’re looking at stuff like chain stay length here so who was the winner the best climbing bike of 2024 is the giant TCR Advanced sl0 firstly I’d like to say I had an absolute blast riding this bike I think giant have absolutely knocked it out the park so this is the newest bike on test released just a couple of months ago and it’s the 10th iteration of the TCR so all the way back in the early 2000s when it revolutionized bike geometry with sort of compact geometry bought over from mountain biking it’s been refined over the years and this is actually potentially the last TCR we might see and I think if that is the case they’re going out with a bang so the frame weight has been dropped to 690 gam for an unpainted frame which is the second lightest on test they’ve also for this generation refined the aerodynamics slightly so cables have gone internal and the tube shapes have been changed slightly which actually brings this bike within 5 watts of the giant Propel which is their air bike that for me is really why this bike wins this category so other bikes on test such as the factor O2 vam climbed unbelievably well that bike is just 6.3 kilos for a full build by the way the giant TCR coming in at 6.4 but it failed to do the other things quite as well now I tested the TCR as I did with actually every bike on test in a number of fast group ride scenarios as well as long rides and sort of specific back-to-back training loops and it was here that the bike actually really impressed me the most you get a 6.4 Kilo bike and you expect it to be quick uphill which by the way of course the giant TCR is but what’s amazing about this bike is when you get it in a high-speed scenario how well it handles it’s a really Dynamic bike to ride and in my local chain gang for example which is about 35 K and only 200 meters of climbing so it’s relatively flat I felt like this bike was absolutely not to my detriment it was still a really quick bike in sort of those High speeded scenarios so it’s the combination of the fact that it climbed as well as any bike on test that’s specialized tarmac Factor O2 vam it climbed as well as any bike on test but it was quicker on the flat than some of the other climbing bikes and actually the geometry made it super fast handling as well as we know with climbing bikes they go up incredibly well it’s great to hear that it’s worked really well on the flats but on those longer descents does it still feel at home there and does it still feel balanced and poised sure so the first thing is I say yes it does now it’s not the best descending bike on test I think actually if I were going to have to choose that would be a tossup between the mvy melee which we’ll talk about soon and the specialized tarmac as well both of those have a real confident feeling but the bike handles really quickly so 405 mm chain stays which as I mentioned makes it both great for dancing up climbs out the saddle but also makes it change direction really quickly which is brilliant and the other thing that giant have done incredibly well is the stiffness in the head tube now one of the anecdotal tests I tend to do with all the bikes I ride is a test for head tube stiffness now I’ll get the bike up to really quite high speed and then violently wiggle those handlebars in the drops at sort of 40 50 60k an hour um which isn’t to be advised by the way I think it’s worth we say um but what it does is it gives that head tube a chance to sort of start oscillating and if a bike isn’t stiff in the head tube you will start to notice that now the giant was absolutely stable at those high speeds which I think is really impressive and it gives the bike quite a lot of confidence even though the back end is really short and it handles really well so yes it does go downhill it does feel slightly more precarious than as I said something like the MV but I was really really impressed overall now Joe we do know that giant does tend to be really good in terms of its value um so I’d be Keen to hear your thoughts on the rest of the range because obviously the bike that you’ve tested is five figures so what do you think about the what else is available yeah so I think important to note that we this was a range topping bike and it felt absolutely brilliant but as you said giant has been really good generally trickling down that technology now while I haven’t ridden any of the other bikes in the range I would still recommend it I think actually the fundamentals of stiffness and uh geometry tend to not change so much and actually it’s worth remembering back to last year’s race bike of the Year testing where Stefan hailed the giant Propel for having such good frame quality at around the 2 and a half th000 price Mark so although you will foro these lovely kadex Wheels which are so so fast by the way and you will foro as well the different seat clamp design and run sort of a more standard seat post game a little bit of weight on the frame the fundamentals are still there so I’d still recommend it and I’ll say as well this bike ran our overall winner its closest race at the very start of this video I mentioned the fact that we were also including a wild card bonus category and that category is most desirable now this is a new category for us so Joe what did does it mean so a desirable bike of course has to be aspirational and it has to be a dream ride but really importantly it has to have a personality here we’re looking for something a little bit different as well bit of Panache something that’s not quite so run-of-the-mill and I think other really important aspects as well it’s got to be customizable and it’s got to be ready to ride from the moment you receive it so here we’re looking at sort of the Dream Ride experience rather than perhaps just the best race bike if I was going to go and try and ride the tour to France gotcha so I think we can reveal that the winner was the Envy melee I’d be interested to hear though what other bikes were in the running for this category so I think the specialized tarmac SLA had to be up there I think especially in that red paint job it just looks brilliant doesn’t it but the reason a bike like that couldn’t take the cake there’s too many of them to be honest with you we’re looking something a little bit different here as I say I think the look is also up there I think it’s a very elegant looking bike and of course Aesthetics are totally subjective but yeah the Envy to me to be honest it wasn’t even close I absolutely fell in love with that bike so run us through why did It ultimately win where I’ll start with this is when I first saw the release of the MV Mele I was quite underwhelmed and I think you were too yeah we looked at the Press images and it perhaps didn’t photograph that well due to that sort of map paint job and I sort of you know when we got it in I wasn’t maybe that excited about it I walked through the door and S leaning up in our workshop and I just thought wow that looks stunning it’s stated it’s classy I think the proportions are spoton for me as well it’s the fact that everything on that bike is either Envy or Shimano there is nothing else even the C Italia saddle is branded up as Envy it’s a collab piece I think that’s just a really really nice touch okay so this does then beg the question how much weight does the name carry because if it wasn’t Envy say it had come from maybe a a more run-of-the-mill better value brand but it was the same proposition would it have still won most desirable okay look I think yes it does carry some weight is the truth but for me it carries more weight in the componentry than it does for the frame set let’s not forget mvy have only been making frames since 2021 so they’re relatively new in that space But it’s the quality of those components that really set this bike apart The Handlebar feels spot on the Wheels super fast and it’s more the understated look Elegance of this bike and The Panache and more importantly the fact that it is sold as a rolling frame set and envy will build you the setup however you desire it so that just makes this bike a bit of a dream build for me so obviously it looks great but is it style over substance absolutely not oh absolutely not so this bike is okay it’s not the lightest it’s about 7 and 1 half kilos definitely lends itself more towards the aerrow bike category I feel it didn’t climb especially back to- backing it was say the TCR it does not climb as fast as the TCR it feels a little bit more labored but it’s really really versatile you can fit up to 35 mm tires it’s even got mud guard mounts which seems crazy but of course doesn’t affect the look at all but above anything it just has this sort of like Magic Carpet Ride feel I think it’s a combination of the wide tires and the geometry and the arrow features that just make it sort of just sit at speed and I just felt like I could just do miles upon miles on this bike I was comfortable and the geometry was such that I could really push the descents and nowadays to be honest when when things go downhill I’m a little bit more excited that’s why for me it was great fun comfortable and when I got to the cafe at the end of a ride I could just sit and look at it the time has come we are now going to reveal our overall race bike of the Year winner for 20124 so Joe tell us who won so the winner of cycling week Le’s race bike of the year for 2024 is the specialized sworks tarmac sl8 but hold on because you’re probably thinking this is an obvious choice specializes the biggest brand it was the most marketed bike of last year why have you chosen this well let’s give a bit of context around how we’re ranking this bike for starters now how I was tackling the whole sort of race bike of the Year testing and ranking was that if I was going to try and get round a pro race and I had all the equipment on the table what would I use to get me as far as possible this means a bike needs to be aerodynamic it needs to be good in high-speed scenarios it needs to handle really quickly it needs to be stable as all these things we’ve mentioned in the bunch in Sprint finishes when the race points uphill it needs to be fast and responsive and it needs to be comfortable too after all we’re talking about sort of long rides for us or long races for the pros it can’t be fatiguing either and truth be told the SLA does all of those things unbelievably well so Joe tell us why did the sl8 win so truth be told specialized have H an absolute home run with this bike it does so many things so well the full build that we had on test weighs just 6.68 kg um now that is ready to ride they’ve managed to get a frame weight down to just 685 G for a painted 56 frame that in combination with the finishing kit so the roal CLX 2s which are widely considered to be the industry standard just makes for a bike that is literally the fastest bike on flat that we had on test and a bike that climbs genuinely as well except for maybe the really steep gradients as the giant TCR wow okay so talk to us a little bit about the stiffness and how that played out in both climbing descending and on the flats sure so specialized increased that stiffness to weight ratio but that didn’t just mean they lost weight the raw stiffness also improved now that is really this bike’s party piece I think the bottom bracket and the head tube are just Rock Solid really really stiff okay if I was a sprinter I think if I had one gripe I think the bottom bracket when I really lent the bike over I could feel it moving a tiny bit but we have to remember that we’re talking about a bike that’s 6.68 kg here and particularly the head tube as well just means that when you’re going uphill the handlebars just don’t move around you can just dance around on the bike and when you point the thing downhill it’s just so stable and I can just push it so hard it’s also worth saying as well we’ve got the shortest wheelbase here and again 405 mm chain stays which just makes the bike change direction so quickly so how does that then play out on The Descent does it ever feel Twitchy or does it feel too fast or um did you wte feel like you’re in control I did feel in control for sure I think potentially I would say for more advanced Riders it’s it’s I would say it’s maybe less easy for anybody to just jump on and feel secure straight away um like the Envy for example was a little bit more confidence inspiring but if you’re an experienced rider I think you can get the most out of the SLA now I think with a bike as good as the SLA it can be easy to get kind of Rose tinted glasses um and really enjoy all of the best bits about it but being as critical as you possibly can be what areas does the SLA actually have to improve upon going forwards yeah so there are a couple I think the first one which I briefly touched on is that bottom bracket stiffness now I hailed the bottom bracket for being super stiff for a bike which frame weight is only 685 G however I think there’s still a way they can go there my overwhelming opinion when I first rode the bike and this has not changed is that if I was a big bunch Sprinter and specialized with saying right you can’t ride the venge you can only ride this bike now I’d be a little bit annoyed and I think that’s that’s just they they’ve got a bit of room there now whether that means maybe going the other way and slightly bringing up the weight or just improving the carbon layup further in future bikes I think that is one thing they can certainly improve on the other thing is the specialized cockpit so the geometry is absolutely fantastic um it’s super stiff and not too uncomfortable either which some buzz you get a real horrible Road buzz from but the biggest thing is I don’t think they offer enough width choices particularly for 2024 you know we’ve seen a real move in the direction of narrow handlebars and I think we will continue to do so yeah and this is now the specialized SLA is now an AO bike really right and I just think you know on our on our bike 42 CM handlebars for a size 54 I think it’s too wide yeah so I think there’s a ways to go go there in what they can offer but above anything else when you discard those things and actually remember that some of those are sort of slight personal preference as well I think this really has redefined my Benchmark for testing bikes it makes me wonder then obviously it performed really really well was there anything else that came close so yes and no I think really other bikes on test only really came close in a particular category yeah so for example the look I think was kind of level on a par with how fast the bike was on the flat but it didn’t climb anything like as well and the TCR I think was maybe as I said on the real steep gradients just in front of it potentially really not much to choose between them there but then put the TCR on the flat and it just doesn’t roll as quickly now I’m going to round things off here with a particularly hot take and it’s one that no doubt will cause a stir in the comments section below but I think that when you consider the package as a whole I’m talking Comfort aerodynamics stiffness handling geometry I think the specialized s Works Tac SLA is the best race bike ever made to date that is a very big claim well there you have it those are all of our category winners let us know down below what you think of Joe’s choices and more importantly which bike you would pick