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Bikes are great, but bikes are for riding. We enjoy a good tinker as much as the next person, but realistically the more time you spend messing about with your bike the less time you have to actually ride it. Here are five simple things that'll help you minimise faffing and get you out riding as quickly as possible. 

milKit

Sure, a milKit injector kit might cost more than those free tubeless valves that came with your wheels but guess what? They're better - and if you want nice things you have to pay for them. The ability to insert and check sealant levels by just removing the valve core and using the supplied syringe really does save time and hassle, and stops you spilling sealant all over the carpet and getting in loads of trouble which has definitely never happened to us...

Dynaplug

Tubeless is a really good thing. Ride quality is better (yes it is), you can't pinch

Setting up disc brakes isn't all that much fun. It's not that it's particularly hard, but it can be quite time consuming and there are a few fiddly bits that, if we're honest, we'd rather do without. Like adding the inserts into the end of the hoses, that's always a pain. Fiddling with vices, small yellow clamping blocks and still managing to push the hose around rather than add any kind of inserts is a recipe for an afternoon of frustration. Well Park Tool feel that pain too, and their new HBT-1 is a device designed to not only make adding inserts to hoses easier, but to make cutting them a simpler. Two for one, that is.  

It might be one more for the workshop than the home mechanic, but the HBT-1 will save you plenty of time as it makes setting up and cutting your hoses a much simpler process. Plus, like most of Park Tool's stuff, you can replace parts - the blade and the push pin tip here, specifically - so this one will last as long as you want it to. 

In case you hadn't heard, Genesis has just announced its 2020 range and while it's stuffed full of fantastic bikes there's one that stands out a little brighter than the others - both literally and figuratively: the Fugio. 

Updated and upgraded for 2020, the Fugio now uses Reynolds 725 tubing paired with a full carbon fork making for a lighter bike that rides with even more quality. The Fugio is basically a Croix de Fer with an extra dose of imagination, and a bike that really comes into its own when you point it down that seldom-trodden path - it doesn't come with 47c tyres as standard for nothing! 

Better than that, the Fugio 30 is adorned with Shimano's brand new GRX gravel drivetrain, the first gravel-specific groupset ever made, and one that pairs a 40T front ring with a 11-42T Deore

Let's get this out of the way first: carbon bikes are great. They're light, stiff, aerodynamic and represent just about the pinnacle of cycling technology for anyone who wants to ride as fast as possible. But even taking all that into account, we still have a major soft spot for a steel bike. Technology might move on, but style is eternal and there's something timeless and wonderful about thin tubes and a stainless steel finish. 

One bike that has this in abundance belong to Madison-Genesis rider Rich Handley. It's his Reynolds 953 Genesis Volare and we think it's easily one of the best-looking bikes you'll see anywhere, let alone in the professional peloton. 

Proving that steel doesn't mean retro, this Volare has a full Shimano Dura-Ace r9150 Di2 groupset and has internal routing for the wires along with external routing for the rear brake cable giving the perfect balance of aesthetics and practicality. 

This frameset here isn't available to buy,

The Tour de France is well underway and Team Ineos, with Egan Bernal and Geraint Thomas, are expecting to be up there when the race reaches its climax in a couple of weeks. But fuelling for a three-week stage race where you're spending 4-6 hours in the saddle every day isn't an easy task. That's why Ineos work with Science in Sport to make sure that their riders are eating properly (and eating enough) to perform at their best. Here Ben Samuels, Performance Nutritionist from Science in Sport explains how the riders fuel for peak performance. 

For a number of seasons now, we’ve worked closely with Team Sky - now Team Ineos - to understand the goals and requirements of nutrition and Science in Sport products across the team. Nutrition plans for grand tours will be mapped out day-by-day and Team Ineos have three main goals for sport nutrition during a grand tour:

1 - Fuelling and recovery around each stage

2 - Driving optimal body composition

3

At some point of owning a bike, you're going to end up with an odd creak or squeak. But if you look after your bike properly, that should be the exception rather than the rule. Here are a few things to check regularly that'll help keep your bike working as well as possible.

Check chain wear regularly

One of the most important checks to keep your bike is working smoothly is to monitor chain wear. A worn chain doesn't just affect shifting, it'll also cause your chainrings, cassette and jockey wheels to wear quickly, too, so making sure that your chain is in good condition is doing your whole drivetrain a favour. 

A chain checker - like Park Tool's new CC-4 - is a simple way to see how worn your chain is. You just drop the tool into the chain, maintain pressure on the right hand end, and see how far the left tip drops. Park Tool have, as ever, made an excellent video showing you how to use it:

When DT Swiss decide to do something there's no messing around, they do it properly. Don't believe us? Check out the new GRC 1400 gravel wheels. 

The rims are 24mm wide internally, making them perfect for large volume tyres, and the 42mm depth has been optimsed to give you the best aero advantage with 35mm tyres. Think aerodynamics doesn't matter when you're racing off-road? Think again. As soon as you're past about 10mph, aerodynamics are the main thing holding you back so any improvement will help you ride faster. They roll really well, too. Tested with a 35mm tyre against the CRC 1400 cyclocross wheels, the GRCs came out with a 5% reduction in rolling resistance with the tyres at 3.5 bar, and a 7% reduction at 4.5 bar. Told you they designed these to be fast...

They're also tubeless-ready (naturally) and have 130kg max