What makes you get out on a gravel ride? To adventure, to explore, to visit new places, for the peace, for the exercise? We love getting out on a bikepacking adventure for the same reason Scott Markewitz does, to visit untouched places you wouldn't be able to get to otherwise. Take two minutes and join him on his latest adventure, then get planning for the weekend!

The Giro Chamber II mountain bike SPD shoes are chunky all mountain and enduro SPD shoes that are pretty efficient for pedalling but a thick sole and bulky upper means a less direct connection between pedal and foot.

Pirelli has just launched their new range of Scorpion mountain bike tyres. There is a tyre for hard terrain, soft terrain and a rear only option too. Available in the UK from March 2019, we take a look a the brands first mountain bike specific tyre lineup here.

This week it's all about carbon wheels, we've got some of those head-turning Spengle wheels, plus new wide carbon goodies from Bontrager. Alongside them, there's purple shoes for the ladies, some 2-in1 shorts and a Kona Big Honzo hardtail to razz! Dig in....

Hailing from Canada are Forbidden and relatively new bike company with a trail bike that is about to break cover into the wild! The Forbidden Druid is a high pivot mountain bike that, the company say is the perfect mountain bike, here's the teaser release video....

The long, slack Specialized Stumpjumper Evo now comes in carbon for a mildly breathtaking £6,800. As well as producing the carbon version with SWAT integration, you can also now buy a regular alloy version as a frame only, Spesh announce today. 

Bontrager has just launched an all-new Aeolus Pro 3V wheelset for road and gravel, you can think of this wider carbon wheelset as a gravel option from the Aeolus Pro range.

We brought you news of the new Spengle carbon wheelset back in January 2018 at their launch. The brand called their monocoque wheels the most advanced in the world, now our chance has come to test them. We've got two sets of wheels in the office, we'll be working with the testers at road.cc to review one set as a gravel wheelset and one set on trail mountain bikes.

Some great camera angles make this a video where you really can pretend you ride like Sam Hill! Take two minutes time out this Wednesday and watch....

The Kona Big Honzo DL is a bike that sits second from the bottom of the range of aluminium Big Honzo hardtails. It costs £1,800 and is the 27.5" Plus version of the bike that is also available as a 29er called the Honzo DL.