Bicycle Quarterly Back Issues

Summer 2021 Bicycle Quarterly

The Summer 2021 Bicycle Quarterly is another action-packed edition. We test one of Fern's dreamy creations, a pure adventure bike equipped to handle everything from fast road riding (with aerobars) to ultra-steep technical terrain (with a dropper seatpost). Outfitted with a full complement of custom-made Gramm_Tourpacking bikepacking bags, it's made...

The 75th Bicycle Quarterly

The Spring Bicycle Quarterly is at the printer! It's our 75th edition, and we've put together a very special magazine for the occasion. We visit an amazing framebuilder in Japan. Makino-san shows us how his small workshop builds frames of amazing quality and beauty, for professional Keirin track stars, road racers...

Natsuko’s Alps

One of the most amazing bikes I've ever seen is Natsuko's Alps. It converts from a cyclotouring bike... ... to a passhunter in less than 10 minutes: just remove fenders and rack, and swap the bars. To disassemble it for Rinko, you need only a single 6 mm Allen wrench for...

Winter 2019 Bicycle Quarterly

Adventures in all their forms are the theme of the Winter 2019 Bicycle Quarterly. Lael Wilcox and Rugile Kaladyte tour Kyrgystan in preparation of the Silk Road Mountain Race. Three friends attempting a new route on the border between France and Italy. Two riders enter The Japanese Odyssey, a ride so challenging that few...

Video: Open WI.DE. vs U.P.P.E.R.

https://youtu.be/HwQEO5eZUYw For the Autumn Bicycle Quarterly, we tested two amazing OPEN all-road bikes. The brand-new WI.DE. can run 60 mm-wide tires – wider than many mountain bikes. The ultralight U.P.P.E.R. is a true racing machine – and yet it handles even rough trails with confidence. Which would you prefer? Enjoy the video...

Autumn Bicycle Quarterly

If Bicycle Quarterly was a 'normal' magazine, the Autumn edition would look quite different. Which 'normal' publisher would add 25% more pages just because there are so many great stories? We simply felt that we had no choice... When OPEN told us that they had a new bike for ultra-wide tires...

Bamboo in the Cascades – the Movie

For the Summer Bicycle Quarterly, we test the incredible Calfee Bamboo show bike from the North American Handmade Bicycle Show. Not only does this bike feature Calfee's new bamboo tubes – lined with carbon for lighter weight and greater strength – it's also equipped with Rotor's brand-new hydraulic shifting. When I admire bikes...

Summer 2019 Bicycle Quarterly

The Summer Bicycle Quarterly is back from the printer! In this edition, we test two bikes that wowed visitors at the North American Handmade Bicycle Show. How do they ride? The Calfee's latest bike uses carbon-lined bamboo tubes for an even lighter and stronger frame. The show bike is equipped with Rotor's long-awaited...

Bicycle Quarterly Summer 2019 Preview

[youtube https://youtu.be/BTb4xIu4nr8?rel=0&w=640&h=360] The Summer 2019 Bicycle Quarterly is at the printer. It's an another exciting edition, full of bike tests, adventures and great stories. As a preview, we made the little video clip above of Natsuko riding the Frances All-Road. Perhaps you admired this beautiful bike at the North American Handmade Bicycle...

BQ 4-Packs

[youtube https://youtu.be/hI_p9uSSwz4?rel=0&w=640&h=360] Each edition of Bicycle Quarterly is more than just a magazine: It's a small book with more than 100 pages of timeless contents. The most common complaint we get is: "It doesn't come out often enough!" We can't produce more than four editions a year, but we do offer past editions in convenient four-packs....

Our Readers' Favorite BQ

BQ readers care about their magazine, and we get feedback each time a new edition comes out. And yet we were surprised by the sheer volume of comments, and by the enthusiasm they expressed. There is no doubt: The latest BQ is our readers' favorite edition yet. Many readers love the cover...

Summer 2018 Bicycle Quarterly

The Summer 2018 Bicycle Quarterly is off the press and will be mailed to subscribers soon. To cap our 15th anniversary year, we've put together a 112-page edition filled with truly remarkable stories. In our biggest adventure yet, we traversed the breathtaking Copper Canyons of northern Mexico. It was an amazing...

Spring 2018 Bicycle Quarterly

The Spring 2018 Bicycle Quarterly celebrates how past, present and future have come together to enrich our cycling enjoyment. As we venture off the beaten path into amazing landscapes and toward memorable adventures, we take inspiration from the past, benefit from current technical developments, and shape the future of cycling. Take the...

Preview of BQ 63: Passhunting in Japan

[youtube https://youtu.be/R37xixiGsX0?rel=0&w=640&h=360] To put our Caletti Monstercross test bike through its paces, we took it passhunting in the middle of winter. Watch the video for a sneak preview, and enjoy the full adventure and bike test in the Spring 2018 Bicycle Quarterly. Make sure to view in 'full-screen' mode! Subscribe today to...

Myths Debunked: Fenders DON’T Slow You Down

To celebrate 15 years of Bicycle Quarterly, we are looking at ‘Myths in Cycling’ – things that aren't quite what we (and most other cyclists) used to believe. Part 3 of the series is about fenders. Many cyclists here in Seattle install fenders when the rainy season starts, and remove them for...

Watch the Video: Ride into the Unknown

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKo2aDuTZ2g The Winter Bicycle Quarterly features the story of a remarkable adventure: Touring unknown mountain roads in the French Alps on an unrestored, 70-year-old René Herse. To bring you right into the action, we made a little video about the ride. Click on the image above to watch, before reading the full...

Summer 2017 Bicycle Quarterly

The new Bicycle Quarterly is at the printer. It's our biggest issue yet – well over 100 pages filled with exciting adventures. Here are a few of them: Renowned framebuilder and constructeur Peter Weigle joins us on a trip to Japan. Read his experiences with Rinko-ing his bike, riding the incredible Japanese mountain roads,...

Spring 2017 Bicycle Quarterly

We are always excited when the final files for Bicycle Quarterly go to the printer. We think that our readers will especially enjoy the Spring 2017 issue. We tested no fewer than three really amazing bikes. The Open U.P. (above) promises the performance and feel of a modern carbon racing bike and the...

Bicycle Quarterly Instagram

During our Bicycle Quarterly adventures and travels, we generate hundreds – sometimes thousands – of photos. Only a fraction of them make it into the magazine, and there are many great shots that linger in the archives forever. Now Bicycle Quarterly has its own Instagram account (@bikequarterly) to share more of these...

The Lure of Titanium Bikes

Over the last few years, Bicycle Quarterly has tested quite a few titanium bikes. There is a simple reason for this: Titanium is a great material for an up-to-date, thoroughly modern bike. In recent years, the pace of innovation, especially with respect to tires, has been incredibly rapid. Just a few years ago, "gravel grinders"...

Get Them While You Can!

We recently decided not to reprint Bicycle Quarterly back issues any longer. In the past, we've reprinted issues as they sold out, because we wanted to keep the great content available: amazing bike builders like Alex Singer, Charlie Cunningham, Jack Taylor, Reyhand, Hetchins, Charrel; the incredible French technical trials; original technical...

Remembering Naches Pass

Recently, I cleaned out old files on our computers, and came across this treasure trove of unpublished photos from Bicycle Quarterly's "Secret Pass" adventure. It took me back three years, when Hahn and I headed into the Cascade Mountains to test the MAP 650B Randonneur. Like all of Mitch's bikes, his latest machine...

Bicycle Quarterly Charity Drive

With a tumultuous election season in the United States, we sometimes lose sight of the bigger worries that exist in many parts of the world, even as the news highlight armed conflicts and refugee crisis. One of the ways Compass Bicycles has chosen to make a difference is with a special 24-hour charity drive...

Autumn 2016 Bicycle Quarterly

The Autumn Bicycle Quarterly went to the printer today. It's always a great sense of satisfaction to complete another issue. A lot goes into each BQ: organizing trips and scheduling test bikes; photography on the road and in the studio; writing, editing, copy-editing and proofreading; photo selection and layout; color corrections to...

The Inspiration: Bicycle Quarterly

Bicycle Quarterly is the inspiration for everything we do. It's the basis for our research and development: The all-road performance of Compass tires was developed through Bicycle Quarterly's testing of tires. The supreme comfort of Compass' Randonneur handlebars became apparent as we rode many bikes across varied terrain for BQ features. But more than that, Bicycle Quarterly...

New Bicycle Quarterly 4-Packs

The popularity of our 4-packs of Bicycle Quarterly back issues has surprised us.  They provide a neat way of reading up on a topic that interests you, whether it's tire performance, American framebuilders, or tandems. Especially popular has been "Our best interviews", which includes Grant Petersen; the legendary builders at TOEI; a...

Winter 2015 Bicycle Quarterly

The Winter 2015 Bicycle Quarterly is at the printer and will be mailed in a few weeks. It's another fun-filled, action-packed issue. The Winter issue's theme is "Riding with Friends". We test the Elephant National Forest Explorer, a bike made for gravel roads (above) by riding it to the Bicycle Quarterly Un-Meeting....

BQ Back Issue 4-Packs

All Bicycle Quarterly back issues continue to be popular, because their content is timeless. Our historic articles are well-researched, with interviews of the people who were there, plus detailed research in the contemporary literature. If you want to know the story of Alex Singer or Jack Taylor, or how the first...

Spring 2015 Bicycle Quarterly

The Spring 2015 Bicycle Quarterly picks up where the 50th issue left off: After reviewing the progress of "real-world" bicycle over the last decade, we are looking into the future. How can we improve our riding experience further? Could we fine-tune the tubing configuration of our 650B bikes to supercharge their...

Spring BQ Press Check

"Stop the Presses!" is a term you really only understand once you have seen these gigantic machines churn out sheet after sheet in rapid succession. They do seem almost unstoppable. Yet here they fell silent again, after just a few sheets had been printed. It was time for the press...

4,000+ Subscribers!

We just signed up our 4000th current subscriber to Bicycle Quarterly. The response to our 50th issue has been overwhelming – both from long-time readers who considered it our "best one yet" and from new subscribers. We received even more feedback than usual, with comments like: "The publication really has...

Gravel Riding

Gravel Grinding is the new "hot" trend in cycling. I am very excited about this. Riding on gravel is great fun. A friend who was a telemark skier had a T-shirt: "Free your heel and your mind will follow." I get a similar feeling when my tires are freed to...

Summer 2013 Bicycle Quarterly

The Summer issue of Bicycle Quarterly is at the printer and will be mailed next week. This issue features: Cycling in Mexico, at the intersection of tradition and fashion. A fascinating variety of bicycles and tricycles carries anything from construction materials to mobile food stands. In Mexico City, these utilitarian cyclists...

The Porteurs of Paris

The cycling cultures of Paris in the 1940s and early 1950s were varied and interesting. A few years ago, Bicycle Quarterly Vol. 5, No. 3 used this culture as a starting point to explore cycling for transportation. The porteurs were a particularly fascinating mix of transportation and sport. They were...

The Jack Taylor Story

Some stories are too big for a regular magazine article. They could just about fill a book! In those cases, we dedicate almost an entire edition of Bicycle Quarterly magazine to a single topic. The Jack Taylor story in Vol. 7, No. 4 is a good example. My friend Mark Lawrence...

Laws of Physics

In the last issue of Bicycle Quarterly, we compared the performance of a 17-pound titanium racing bike and of a 26-pound steel randonneur bike. We were surprised when both bikes climbed at the same speed in a set of controlled experiments. Others shared our surprise, but added: "That cannot be true....

Bicycle Quarterly Charity Drive

We are grateful that we can ride beautiful bicycles, both for enjoyment and for transportation. We discuss things like performance, handing and the advantages of aluminum fenders. Much of the world is much less fortunate. Even in the United States, there are many people whose most basic needs aren't met. And...

Bicycle Quarterly Winter 2012

  The Winter 2012 edition of Bicycle Quarterly magazine has returned from the printer and will be in the mail shortly. In this issue, we focus on titanium racing bikes and modern shifting systems. A titanium bike shoot-out in Bicycle Quarterly? We look at the best modern bicycles to establish benchmarks...

Suspension Losses

Suspension losses often are overlooked, but they are an important factor in tire performance. When we first tested the performance of tires in a roll-down test, we found that very high pressures offer almost no improvements of performance. This contradicted the testing done in laboratory settings on steel drums, so...

Daniel Rebour

Even though Daniel Rebour retired almost 40 years ago, his drawings remain recognizable to many cyclists today. Rebour's drawings distilled the essence of components and bicycles better than photographs ever can. He managed to make even the most mundane bicycle appealing, and his drawings greatly added to the allure of...