Gear is our job. It streams into and out of our offices in an endless tide of boxes and couriers; it gets photographed and catalogued and crammed underneath desks until we have time to test it. We quantify it as best we can, to share its essence: good and bad, peccadilloes and superlatives. We even pick the 100 best pieces of gear every year. But to close things out this year, we asked each staff member to single out their favorite piece of gear that was new to 2015. We hope you enjoy our little love notes to the gear that made the biggest impact on our lives this year.
I’m not a cyclist — not like my colleagues. I don’t watch the tours, dream of weekend centuries. Nor do I ever plan on crossing the country on two wheels. But I do commute 10 miles every weekday between my apartment in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, and GP HQ in Midtown Manhattan. And for the past year, I’ve been crushing it on a steel frame Wraith Fabrication Paycheck. Though designed for cyclocross, the Paycheck is an urban workhorse. It’s light, quick, discreetly colored, durable — and even after taking a few knocks, it’s still safe to straddle (unlike aluminum frames). But what won me over is the smoothness of the ride, a characteristic that’s valuable on the pothole-laden bike lanes of NYC. I’m not a cyclist. Not yet, at least. But if that’s next for 2016, the road is well paved.
Frame: $500
Total: $1,350
Weight: 3.15 pounds (large frame)