Here's some early year ride inspiration from Shimano

Sitting here in January with the temperature hovering around freezing, it's definitely the hardest part of the year to muster up the motivation to get out and ride your bike. So while we're all waiting for Spring, we've posted a couple of great videos from Shimano's YouTube channel below that just make us want to get out and ride our bikes. You can even watch them while you're on the indoor trainer if you want. 

The first video is about riding in and around Beijing on bikes made right there in the Chinese capital. . We'd never really thought of Beijing as a two-wheeled destination before, but after watching the below Made In: Beijing video we're now extremely jealous of the hugely varied terrain that's on offer. So now we're going to have to book a riding holiday there, which will be expensive. Wonderful. 

The second video comes from America's Pacific Northwest region, where the Trans Cascadia race takes place. Trans Cascadia is one of the best-known multi-day Enduro events in the world and, like so many MTB events, relies heavily on the hard work done behind the scenes by the trail building and maintenance community to make sure there are routes to ride. In 2022 there was no Trans Cascadia event, and this video takes a look at what the team behind it did that year. 

The whole are looks absolutely gorgeous whether it's slaloming through snow-covered woods or above the mist line on an exposed hill top. Sorry do we sound jealous? Because we are. Massively. Check this out: