The cycling tech that has changed the game in the last 10 years

Since the 1990s, bike tech has changed hugely. Back then, cyclists were riding steel framed bikes with toe clips and straps, quill stems and chunky saddles. In the last ten years, changes to road (and gravel) bikes have seemed less dramatic though.

Think back a decade and road bikes almost all had rim brakes and rode on 23mm tyres pumped up to 100psi. Low gears were for wimps and meant a triple chainset. Although the basic outline of road bikes back then was broadly similar to today (thank you, UCI), look closer and a lot of the tech and the parts bolted onto a bike have changed.

Many of the changes have been ported over from mountain bikes to drop bar bikes, so they’re not really ‘new’, just new to roadies.

After refreshing our all-time ‘Game Changers’ series over the past two weeks, here’s our pick of the tech that’s changed the game in just the last ten years and the products that presaged it.

Hydraulic disc brakes

Mountain bikers may have invented disc brakes years ago, but it took a while for it to catch on on road bikes. Back in 2015, road meant rim (with the exception of the Colnago C59 Disc, launched in 2013).

While the C59 Disc had hydraulic disc brakes, it wasn’t until SRAM launched Red HRD and trickled the tech down to its lower tier groupsets that hydraulic disc brakes became a more mainstream option for road cyclists. 

Now it’s hard to find a rim brake road bike, even if Colnago backslided with the C68 Rim in 2024.

Tubeless tyres

Yes, it’s another MTB thing. Again, there were tubeless road tyres available pre-2015 – Hutchinson launched the first back in 2006. But it’s only in the last ten years that tubeless road tyres and the rims to support them have gone mainstream. 

Tyre and rim combos are much more reliable now, so you’re unlikely to find a tyre that blows off the rim when you inflate it, unlike ten years ago. And while pro teams were until recently glued to their tubular tyres, even they have been converted to run tubeless.

Wide-range gearing

Wide range gearing? That meant an 11-28t cassette back in 2015. That’s close-ratio in 2025, with even racers on Dura-Ace offered only an 11-30t or an 11-34t option.

Again, SRAM was at the forefront, with its WiFli drivetrains launched in December 2016. These went from 11 to 32 teeth, while SRAM’s latest 12-speed groupsets offer an even wider 10-36t range.

1x gears

Yep, it’s SRAM again, with its Force 1 11-speed mechanical groupset (with hydraulic disc brakes). Launched in late 2015 (although technically the same as Force CX1 which came out in 2014), it allowed road riders to ditch the front mech. 

1x is still a hard sell for road use, but with 13 speeds now on offer, the ‘jumps are too large’ argument is increasingly difficult to swallow.

Sub-compact cranksets

More of a gravel thing, sub-compact cranksets with 48/32t or lower combinations allow you to winch yourself up pretty much anything. Appearing circa 2017, FSA, Rotor and Praxis were among the first to offer smaller chainrings for road/gravel use. 

Before then, 2x gravel options were stuck at 50/34t, with the aforementioned 11-28t cassette. Now any 2x gravel bike gets kitted out with a sub-compact, even if gravel race bikes are increasingly designed with space for larger chainrings.

Wireless electronic shifting

Mavic may have got there first and Shimano went wired electronic with Di2 in 2009, but SRAM was the first to go mainstream wireless with Red eTap, back in 2015. Wireless makes wiring up a new bike a lot easier (obviously) and makes for a cleaner front-end to the bike. SRAM has been followed by Campagnolo, while Shimano went halfway there with its wireless shifters and wired derailleurs.

Integrated cabling

Although you can find bikes with hidden mechanical shift cables, electronic shifting has made front-end integration much easier as the tight turns needed aren’t really conducive to smooth mechanical shifting. Again, wireless shifting makes things easier still while hydraulic brake lines can be bent through any angle you like without degrading braking performance. 

Back in 2015, hidden cables were hard to find, although the Specialized Venge Vias and Trek Madone had them, along with funky hidden front rim brakes. Nowadays, most new bikes have integrated cables, at least in higher spec builds.

Wider U-shaped wavy rims

Disc brakes have opened up road bikes to wider tyres, which are increasingly accompanied by wider rims, to avoid a lightbulb shape to the tyre profile and improve aerodynamics. 

Back in 2015, 19mm was a wide rim for road use, constrained by the need to fit within rim brake callipers. Now, Zipp’s premium road wheels, for example, sport 25mm internal width. They’re also hookless, another tech that’s been hinted at taking over, but some brands – and many consumers – such as DT Swiss aren’t converted. 

Deep section carbon wheels were available in 2015, but they typically had a pointy profile, which would catch a sidewind, making riding interesting. Modern rims are much more bulbous, with maximum external widths typically over 30mm and are much less prone to sidewind buffeting. 

Wavy profiles are progressively taking over too. Starting with Zipp’s NSW wheels in 2016, you can now find wavy rims on wheels from Princeton Carbonworks, Fulcrum and Campagnolo as well.

The price of deeper section carbon wheels is progressively decreasing. Once the preserve of pro riders, kept for best and brought out for races, they’re now an affordable upgrade for amateurs and specced on many mid-priced bikes too.

Gravel bikes

Gravel bikes were only just gaining traction back in 2015, with bikes such as the GT Grade (actually launched in 2014) specced with a 52/36t x 11-30t groupset and 28mm slick tyres. It was the Cannondale Slate, launched in 2016, that really put the G in gravel though, with its radical 650b wheel size and Lefty suspension fork.

Now there’s an abundance of gravel stuff, with gravel groupsets, gravel wheels and tyres, gravel bars, gravel saddles… There’s an almost endless breadth of gravel bikes too, from gravel race bikes aero-tuned to be ridden at 35kmh or more through to big clearance machines you can load up and disappear into the woods with, never to return – or at least not for a few days. 650b wheels seem to have gone out of style though, with most new gravel bikes fitted with 700c wheels, although many retain the option to fit 650b.

Ever-inventive, bike company marketing departments are now selling us all-road bikes to hum along nicely on the road while convincing more of us to stray off-tarmac.

Bikepacking bags

Bikepacking bags were around in 2015, but the choice has ballooned in the last ten years. While old school panniers and a trusty rack will still do the job, there are now bags you can lash to any part of your bike. Spurred by gravel, they’re the go-to way to carry extra stuff. 

Many bikes now have the mounting points to fix them, along with extra bottle mounts, providing a more secure connection than straps alone. 

Pedal power meters

Back in 2015, if you wanted a power meter, this normally meant replacing your cranks and no bike came equipped with one as standard. 

The only pedal power meter option was the chunky Powertap pedal. Roll on ten years and there’s a wide range of pedal-based power meters, both single sided and dual measuring and they’re all a lot more slimline than the Powertap.

The price of power meters is decreasing steadily too, both for pedal and crank-based systems, and many bikes are now sold with a power meter included, even at more affordable price points.

Lightweight/aero bikes

For much of the last ten years, you could either choose a lightweight bike or an aerodynamic bike and many bike brands had both in their line-ups. Over the last few years aero bikes have become lightweight and lightweight bikes have become aero, so we’ve seen one bike replacing two.

The tide looks to be turning though, with changes in the UCI rules allowing more aero designs, so the dedicated aero bike is making a comeback. The good news is that over the last decade, bike makers have learned how to make a frame lighter, so the chunky aero machines of the past are replaced by bikes that are fully aero but can skim the UCI 6.8kg weight limit. They’re more comfortable too.

Anything else?

What have we missed that you can’t live without? And what do you think will be the next thing to change the game? Let us know in the comments below.