2025 was another year of shooting — a lot.
Between domestic and overseas trips and a growing list of brand collaborations, the range of what we covered expanded dramatically.
In past years we’ve looked back chronologically with a flood of images, but this time we want to narrow it down to the shots we love the most, and revisit the year through them.
text & photo / Tats（@tats_lovecyclist）
LOVE CYCLIST PHOTOBOOK 2025
Model／Hiroko Partner／Intertec Location／MAGNET
Hiroko holding the SuperSix EVO LAB71, finished in 2025’s new gloss black. The slick, liquid surface of the frame sits in quiet harmony with the pared-down world of PNS. This shot was made for the piece “Why we’re drawn to Cannondale, and to the SuperSix EVO, right now” — and the moment we captured this frame, intuition told us the whole project would land. That kind of thing happens sometimes.
Model／Wataru Partner／KPLUS
Model／Yukari Partner／Altalist
The more experience accumulates, the more you can picture in advance how a frame will look if you press the shutter at this exact moment with these exact settings — and nowhere is that timing more decisive than when shooting a rider in motion. In these two shots, the camera settings and the image in my head lined up perfectly.
Model／Anna
A beautiful spot where light spilled through — and just as Anna went to tie her hair up, I asked her to hold still, then released the shutter exactly as a car passed behind her. Bending light and motion blur into a single frame: that’s what makes photography endlessly interesting.
Model／Takayuki
Strip color out and information drops away — what remains is shadow, texture, and the subject in their unguarded state. Taken in the corner of a café, this frame makes Takayuki’s gentleness feel that much more vivid.
Model／Taka
No need to spell it out — this is the Arakawa cycling road, and the style of the rider in the background tells anyone in the know exactly where we are. I dropped the shutter speed a touch to soften the rawness of the scene.
Model / Anna
Climbed up a wall to get this one. Especially on Instagram, it’s now standard to tell a story with multiple images rather than a single frame, so I’m conscious about varying the eye level to keep viewers engaged. Cleats might get chewed up, but the shot matters more…!
Model / Yukari Partner / Altalist
This year I shot almost exclusively with zoom lenses for the sake of mobility. Within that, I tended toward the wider end — this frame is roughly 26mm equivalent. There’s a particular expressive joy that only wide angles deliver.
Model / Rin Partner / Insta360
Also wide, but even wider — around 13mm equivalent. The Insta360 Ace Pro 2 is an action camera, but since it shoots in RAW, it can double as a stills camera. The look it produces is interesting, so I sometimes use it in place of a compact.
Model / Taka & Anna Partner / Bookman
A Bookman project kicked off a year of more frequent night rides. There’s an ease to rolling out after work, central Tokyo is bright and easy to ride, and the know-how for shooting in the dark keeps stacking up. Night rides — nothing but upside.
Models / the whole LOVE CYCLIST crew
Everyone gathered after work. That nicely-buzzed vibe is exactly what makes it. Using the camera’s interval timer for group shots lets all kinds of expressions slip out naturally. Looking forward to doing it again once it warms up.
Models / Anna & Yukari
Nihonbashi on the way home from a morning ride (shot on the GR IIIx). A suited foreigner passing through, a young guy noticing the two of them — snaps with side characters carrying their own story are exactly what the GR is made for.
Models / Yukari, Anna & Tats
All three in different colorways of MAAP’s Evade Pro series. No coordination beforehand — but when your riding partners’ aesthetics happen to line up like this, you can’t help but reach for the camera.
Models / Kazu & Naoko
Kitsuneya in Tsukiji, a stop on an early-morning ride. The standing-only counter makes it easy to drop by on a bike. Three layers in one frame: the back of our subject, the cooks working behind the counter, and the diners savoring their meal in the foreground. Another shot with that distinct GR feel.
Models / Karen & Takuma Partner / Mizutani Bicycle
A breather between gravel sections, the two of them perched on a tree stump for a snack. Their expressions are wonderfully sweet. What stayed with me was the image of Karen leading Takuma, still new to cycling, along on the ride.
Models / Ryuji & Ozzy Partner / Global Ride
A trip through Wakayama. Riding with Ryuji, one of Love Cyclist’s earliest members, the shoot moved in near-telepathic sync. When your model intuitively reads the intent behind the lens, things go this smoothly — and the schedule loosens up too. Of course, on most shoots, conveying that intent is the photographer’s job, which only reinforced how much building a relationship with your model really matters.
Models / Non & Rin Partner / NDLSS
Lit only by the light spilling in from the tunnel’s mouth — no exaggerated sense of speed, just a quiet forward motion.
Models / Non & Yukari Partner / Altalist
Every so often, I shot running too. The craft of cycling photography carries over to other sports as well.
Model / Hiroko & Anna
My second time up the Bandai-Azuma Skyline, following last year. The first trip was clouded over and the views barely registered, but this time the skies were wide open and the ride was magnificent. It’s a road I’d happily return to again and again — somewhere I’d love to shoot not just on personal rides but on client work too.
Model / Anna Partner / KPLUS
A shot built around the concept of KPLUS’s new NEON NEXUS collection. It ended up as the key visual.
Model / Mochidome & Masanaga Partner / KPLUS
Another from NEON NEXUS. A frame packed with the city’s transit fabric — JR trains, buses, taxis, kei cars. The client asked us to shoot strictly within the early morning window, so we scouted the location twice, locked the image we wanted in advance, and ran a tight, efficient shoot.
Model / Taka & Tats
This past summer was brutal again. But it’s too much fun to skip, so we kept riding every weekend. The ritual: share a 2-litre bottle between us, then dump whatever’s left over our heads. Looking at shots like this already makes me miss summer.
Model / Takuya Partner / uvex japan
Takuya — by some distance the most beloved character on the LoveCyc roster. What a face he pulls…
Model / Acchan
The ride got rained out, so we borrowed the kitchen at “oikaze” in Chiba and threw a curry party instead. Shot on the GR IIIx. The fun thing about the GR is that you can pass the camera around and everyone gets in on the chaos of shooting together.
Models / Tats, Saad, & Anna Partner / Global Ride
I joined the Honolulu Century Ride too. I’ve already covered it in a separate article, so here are a few personal favorites. A shirtless boy, a deadpan stare, pure giddiness.
Shooting different people in different places, I’ve gradually shed the old pressure of “I have to leave only cool-looking shots,” and started believing that more variety is a good thing. And once that shifted, the way I see the world in front of me seems to have become more flexible too.
Model / Taka
Cycling kit comes with reflective material, so when you pop a strobe, only those sections light up sharply. The effect is especially interesting with a slow shutter, so this is my go-to approach when I want to make a brand logo stand out. The MAAP logo glowing inside the all-black silhouette looks killer.
Model / Nobu
A Shibuya-scramble-style shot taken with the GR IIIx. When I first started shooting, I had no idea how to pull off a frame like this — now I can dial in the right settings on the fly, so I guess I’ve actually grown a little.
＊ ＊ ＊
This past year, just about everyone I met asked me the same thing: where is LOVE CYCLIST headed next? There are plenty of angles to consider — how to evolve as a media outlet, how to grow the community, how to expand the business — but in the end, I keep coming back to the same answer: photography is the core. Shoot, connect with people, and convey information through visuals (and words). That accumulation is what fuels the next project.
And the only thing that strengthens that core is being out in the field. Cycling isn’t just about the pleasure of riding — it’s deeply social, a context for sharing long stretches of time with the people you ride alongside. Most cyclists know the feeling of getting together with a few people from their community and having those dense, almost wordless exchanges where everyone is on the same page.
Big group rides are fun in their own way, but the real ideal is a handful of people who get each other, communicating in high-context shorthand. That’s where new discoveries are born, and where new modes of photographic expression tend to emerge too. Keeping those dense, on-the-ground moments alive is what creates the healthiest circulation for a community (and good photos make you want to post them on social media, which keeps the cycle going).
The discoveries that come out of those moments then get pushed out openly, for anyone to see, through the LOVE CYCLIST platform. Paywalled, closed-off media is one model, but it doesn’t quite fit what we do. An open state — where all kinds of people can encounter what’s here, take it as reference, form opinions, or simply react — feels healthier and more ideal for both the sender and the receiver. The idea is to open up the value created on the ground and let it circulate through a wider social fabric.
In an era where SNS dominates and the daily conversation scatters in every direction, being able to publish contextual content as a media outlet feels like a genuine strength. LOVE CYCLIST hits its 10th year next year, and the fact that it keeps growing year after year tells me text-based media isn’t dead at all.
Community closed, information open. That’s the stance I want to keep — continuing to build communication with photography at its core.
About the Author
 | Tats Shimizu（@tats_lovecyclist） Editor-in-chief and photographer. 12 years on sport bikes. Maintains broad relationships with overseas brands and proposes a wide range of styles through the media. Also works as a photographer on numerous shoots for domestic and international bike brands. Main bikes: Standert (road) and Factor (gravel). |
