Early in 2025 Roll Models was launched, a mentorship scheme helping women and gender minorities to ride adventurously. Now, a year on, with their first year’s cohort having competed the program, Athlyn reflects on their first year as Roll Models sharing what worked, what didn’t, what surprises they faced and how they plan on doing things in 2026.

For five consecutive years the Pan Celtic Race put riders shoulder to shoulder to do battle across five Celtic nations, becoming a cornerstone of the Northern European ultra calendar. For what was to be their final instalment, the Magnum Opus saw 55 hardy souls set off each to complete their most ambitious race yet.

After more than 50 days solo, riding his bike in one of the hottest and most sparsely populated countries on the planet, Lawrence Walters set a new world record for the fasted unsupported circumnavigation of Australia. In case that wasn’t enough, he did so riding a fixed gear bike.

Part emergency drill, part race, part community celebration, the Disaster Relief Trials is a cargo bike competition designed to simulate a disaster relief supply run where riders navigate a course simulating post-disaster conditions. In September 2025, the first DRT out of the US came to Bristol.

Hosted by Tailfin, mid-September 2025 saw the inaugural Detours bikepacking event kick off in the heart of Wales. In a unique format, riders would forge and navigate their own route through the Brecon Beacons to gather points before spending the evening together sharing food and stories of their individual adventures. Despite a rowdy weather forecast, PINCH FLAT compadre Michael Drummond took it upon himself to make the trip across the Severn to discover what Detours was all about.

Sisters in the Wild is a women-led cycling and adventure community that creates supportive, inclusive spaces for women, non-binary, and other marginalised gender riders to explore, upskill and connect. Now, it launches its first Bikepacking Bursary. The new initiative is designed to support women and marginalised genders to experience the freedom of bikepacking.

Earlier this year, Weronika found herself back in her hometown of Katowice in Poland for a prolonged period – the first in more than seven years. Before she headed out back on the road for the summer, we caught up for a remote beer via our respective laptop screens, to hear more about how she balances touring with racing, hearing what she got up to in the summer of 2024 and what she has planned for the year ahead.

Set against the backdrop of his attempt at the Triple Crown, King of Chaos dives into Justinas Leveika’s motivation, home life, and infectious attitude for life as he aims to race the Tour Divide, Colorado Trail, and Arizona Trail in one calendar year.

Always at the pointy end, his smile is impossible to wipe from his face, find out what it takes to dig so deep.

There’s a logical pursuit among bike manufactures towards creating more capable, more practical, more efficient bikes. But in that evolution, there’s a simplicity lost and a growing disconnect between rider and machine. Through the medium of his highly unpractical single-speed mountain bike, Varun Jyothykumar explores the beauty in struggling across challenging terrain with a single, and often unsuitable, gear ratio.

In 2024, Cordelia Hughes (one half of Roll Models) was lucky to enter GBDURO with her beloved friend and housemate Lucy Wood as the one and only pairs entry. In order not to forget the experience, below Cordelia shares a handful of the stories that remain.

Undisputed route-building workhorse, Markus Stitz launches his latest contribution to gravel cycling in Scotland with a brand new guidebook, Gravel Rides Cairngorms & Perthshire. Below he gives us a sneak peak, sharing from it three of his favourite routes.

The UK Government has confirmed plans to bring cycling legislation in-line with driving laws, which could see cyclists who kill pedestrians serve longer prison sentences. On paper, this might seem like a logical step to improve safety, but the reality is far more complicated.

The Speed Project started as a unique running pilgrimage between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Twelve years later, the race still remains true to their founding principles. No route. No rules. No spectators. For the first time, in 2024 The Speed Project held a cycling race. Whilst the fastest teams would come armed with RVs, support crews and detailed plans to cover the ground in the shortest time possible, three riders decided to do it differently: fully unsupported.

Amidst the well-established adventure cycling scene in Bristol, Roll Models is a brand new mentorship programme empowering women and marginalised genders to ride, as they define it, adventurously. Kicking off a three-part series following their inaugural cohort through the year, we caught up with founders Athlyn and Cordelia not long after they identified their first mentors and mentees and set out their intentions for the year ahead.

A motley posse of friends, colleagues, peers and two-wheeled compatriots shared trail and tarmac with a collective goal of just being together. Making space to slowly pootle in good company and dotwatch in real life, away from laptop screens and office chairs. A weekend of high spirits and low temperatures, they’d traverse their own route at their own pace, intersecting racers of the delightfully rugged, boggy, gritty and often very damp Dales Divide. 

More than two thirds of the Earth’s surface is covered by water. Our cells too are composed of about two thirds water. It’s all around us – the reason life itself exists. WOSSA is a brand new bikepacking adventure exploring the vital, life defining journeys taken by water in its various formats across the Alps.

Sometimes all it takes is to ride a bike somewhere and talk to someone new to realise that we’re not so different and often, we want the same things. So, in a society where binary politics and geographies are cut through by anger, fear, and motorways, Middle Ground is a series of artist residencies based on a cargo bike, with the intention to connect and reclaim.

If iconic climbs and secluded gravel roads are your thing, the Torino–Nice Rally has to be one of the best bikepacking journeys imaginable. 2022 marked the sixth and so far, its last official edition of the rally. Below Ray shares some of the moments that stick with him a few years down the line with a selection of images he shot along the way on the sixth edition of the TNR.

In January 2023, Joe set out on what would be an incredible journey south following the spine of the Andes through South America. Combining his two passions – dirt touring and speciality coffee – he started off in Colombia, with an extended tour of Efe Cafetero, the internationally famous Coffee Axis.

Did you know in the past 15 years there have been more than 1,500 instances of birds of prey persecution in the UK? From hen harriers to white-tailed eagles, peregrines to goshawks, golden eagles to red kites. These amazing birds are being trapped, shot, and poisoned in big numbers, despite being protected under UK laws.