God’s own county

Yorkshire. Land of the Dales, the Moors, and over 5000 miles of drystone walls.

More recently, host of the Grand Depart, the subsequent ‘Tour de Yorkshire’, and next year the UCI World Championships.

Yorkshire’s place in road cycling folklore was cemented many years before ‘the circus’ passed through, however.

in 1955 a Yorkshireman by the name of Brian Robinson from Mirfield in the West Riding became the first Briton to finish the Tour, placing 29th.

He became the first Briton to win a stage three years later in 1958 when the Italian Arigo Padovan, having crossed the line first in a fiercely contested sprint on stage seven, was relegated to second for his tactics.

Robinson would go on to win a stage outright at the Tour the following year however, taking victory on stage 20 from Annecy to Chalon-sur-Saône by over 20 minutes from his nearest rival, and proving that his victory the year before was no fluke.

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Back in October we headed to the Yorkshire Dales in the West Riding to put our Autumn/Winter 2018 range through its paces.

As ever when riding in Britain we encountered all four seasons across two days of riding, giving us a range of conditions to pit the gear against on notorious local climbs including Garsdale Head, Malham Cove, Park Rash and Oxnop Scar.

Beautiful and brutal in equal measure, the riding in this part of Yorkshire is easily some of the best on offer in Britain.