I’d heard plenty of stories about the SSX Mystery Tour, how tough it is, how many climbs are waiting to test your legs, but also how incredibly beautiful the route can be. Some described it as a cycling adventure; others as a very long day of questioning your life choices halfway up a hill!

What do you do when the little voice telling you you're not good enough shows up in the one place you thought was safe? Contributor Mérida Miller has spent years battling those voices aka "The Itty Bitty Shitty Committee," and when it started crashing her rides, she got to work. A funny, field-tested list of ways to quiet the spiral. From rhino power poses to horse-lip resets to full-on growling on the bike.

Hamedel Ndiaye on his first gravel race in Girona, what it means to be visible in a space where people do not often see themselves, and why showing the messy bits of the story matters just as much as the shiny ones.

Three days, 300km, and a gravel route shaped by inclusion, landscape, and community. Words: Karla Williams / @karlaxrunbike Photos : @Allterre & @bicycle_factory I came to the Bristol Rally almost by chance after a recommendation from a friend who described it with the kind of certainty that doesn’t need much explanation. Something about it stayed with me. I signed up without fully knowing what I was stepping into, only that it felt like the kind of ride worth experiencing. B

Iman Achieng' Kagumba went to Cape Epic this year. Not to race, but to work. As a soigneur for the Pump for Peace pro team, she spent eight days giving muscle therapy to elite athletes, running between feed zones, and at one point holding four bottles for four different riders who all arrived at once. It is a side of racing most of us never see, and a story about what it feels like when your work is finally trusted at the highest level of sport.

Towards the end of the summer of 2024, Rouleur Magazines' editor, Ed Pickering, rang me up with an odd request