FROM THE EDITOR...

In 2017 I rode the brilliant Eroica Britannia vintage bike ride, which meant I had to find a pre-1987 road bike. I reverted to my childhood and bought a 1982(ish) Raleigh Sprint – the bike I had as a 10-year old – for 50 quid on eBay. Eroica was an amazing ride, the old Raleigh less so, with just 10-gears, a weighty steel frame, scarily skinny tyres and brakes that only vaguely slowed me down. To be fair, the Sprint wasn’t really a ‘serious’ road bike so it was bound to suffer compared to a modern machine. But how about something that was cutting edge in the last century? Turn to page 96 to

find out how much progress road bikes have made…