Indholdsfortegnelse for January 18, 2018 i Cycling Weekly

There was a time when I measured the success of my winter training by the number of kilometres I covered (this was before the advent of affordable power meters). Now I measure the success of my winter training based on the number of colds I suffer. I’m not one for claiming man flu at the first sign of a sniffle, but I do back off my exercise when the dreaded dry, tickly throat — my first and very reliable sign of a cold — kicks in. This winter has already been a bad one for me, as anyone else with a young family will sympathise I’m sure, and I’ve all but written off January as a result. It’s basically impossible to avoid illness when a small child is running around,…

Team Sky heads into the 2018 season possessing the two most highly-rated stage racing prospects of the current generation and, arguably, the speediest young sprinter. In Pavel Sivakov, Sky has recruited a lightening-fast climber, a menacing time triallist and a perennial winner at U23 level. The Russian-born but French-raised 20-year-old counts the Baby Giro, Ronde de l’Isard and Giro Valle d’Aosta Mont Blanc among his wins. His former coach Klaas Lodewyck has already predicted that “within three years he can be winning stage races like the Dauphiné.” Sky has also signed Colombian Egan Bernal who they quietly believe is Chris Froome’s heir. The winner of the 2017 Tour de l’Avenir and three other stage races, Bernal has already been lining up against and rivalling riders with several years more age…

Sam Mak is a chartered physiotherapist at the St James Clinic in London (thestjamesclinic.com) specialising in sports performance. He is also an international-level competitor in Wushu (martial arts) and big-screen actor — soon to appear in the forthcoming Tomb Raider movie. Why do cyclists need to do off-the-bike conditioning? Cycling is predominantly one motion — pedalling — with a limited range of movement, using the same muscles repeatedly. This can lead to imbalances. Riders assume they can cycle their way to fitness, but it’s not fitness in the holistic sense. If you don’t address imbalances with exercises and conditioning, your injury risk increases. What are the most common issues in cyclists? Generally, it’s tightness and stiffness, particularly for cyclists who have desk jobs — they’re always sitting, either on a…

The evidence on stretching is mixed, with no clear consensus about its usefulness. Nonetheless, Sam Mak insists that a streamlined, targeted stretching programme is worthwhile: “Static stretches are best performed after exercise, whereas dynamic stretches are preferable as warm-up. Once the muscles are nice and warm after exercise, there is less risk of injury. I believe stretching is important to maintain the pliability of the muscle, how well it’s able to move, extend and contract.” Lunge hip flexor stretch 30-second hold Instructions: ▄ Start a wide forward lunge position with rear knee on the floor, front foot flat on the floor, slightly bent. ▄ Place hands on front thigh and push hips forward until the stretch is felt in the opposite hip. ▄ Keeps hips square throughout the movement. Sam…

43 MILES 1 Ferryden to Farnell A fast stretch — nicknamed a “4.9TT” on Strava — that is the perfect leg-warmer at the start of the ride. It also offers great views across Montrose Basin towards the distant hills. 2 B966 Another fast and straight section along a quiet stretch of road. The lack of traffic and endless views across the Mearns are what social cycling is all about. 3 Garvock Hill A testing 3km drag that offers great views back down to Laurencekirk. It’s also favourite to host the club’s inaugural hill-climb competition later this year, says secretary Julian Foley. Favourite cafe One of several local businesses that support the club by offering discounts to members, the Pavilion is an old-school, intimate cafe offering a selection of breakfasts, home-made…

Santos Tour Down Under (ends Jan 21) The opening WorldTour stage race of the season ends in the early hours of Monday morning. Defending champion Richie Porte (BMC Racing) is the favourite to take the overall win that is expected to be finalised on the steep slopes of Willunga Hill, which UK fans can watch at around 3am on Sunday morning. The race finishes with a criterium in Adelaide. New Zealand Cycle Classic (ends Jan 21) New Zealand’s premier cycling race — which British team JLT-Condor have always done well in and won three of the five stages in 2017 — begun yesterday (January 17). John Herety’s team return to New Zealand to compete once again in the five stages, with the penultimate stage the probable GC decider. Track Cycling…

Richie Porte will attempt to become the first rider to win consecutive Tour Down Under titles, armed with a supporting cast of past champions in his BMC team. The 32-year-old broke his twice bridesmaid status at the race last year and is motivated to take a careersecond ochre jersey in Adelaide, Australia. Porte has the strongest team on paper and will be able to call on 2015 winner Rohan Dennis as well as four-time race champion Simon Gerrans during the six-stage event. The first WorldTour race of the season marks Porte’s return to stage racing following a crash in stage nine of the Tour de France last year in which he fractured his clavicle and pelvis. The recovery from those injuries seems a distant memory and the Australian’s form appears…

Riding with Reg STAR LETTER In 1951 I became the proud owner of my first ‘racer’, a Dayton Flyer, replete with GB bars extension and brakes, not to mention a three-speed Benelux (plunger type) gear. All for £12/10s if I remember. The fashionable ‘South of France’ bars, a double chainring and a four-speed block were soon fitted, giving eight gears, and I was King of the Kids. My most memorable ride was one time I was out riding solo near Macclesfield when I became aware of someone ‘on my wheel’. I put the pressure on to try and drop whoever it was, only to find Reg Harris, the Champion of the World, coming alongside me. As a 13-year-old I was dumbstruck. He rode with me for a few miles before…

James McLaughlin, 27 — illustrated throughout this feature — is a pro rider with Team Guernsey (the island’s national team). We asked him why these exercises are an important part of his programme “An efficient and manageable core routine is one of the most undervalued parts of training; it's really important. I've been working with Sam [Mak] at the St James Clinic London for several months, and this circuit provides a brilliant, time-efficient way to keep in good all-round condition. Best of all, it can be done on your living room floor. “Last year, after recovering from a crash injury I sustained mid-season, Sam and I focused exclusively on maintenance and injury prevention. Stretching and work on my hamstrings very quickly improved my flexibility, position and power on the bike.…

Being overweight had never bothered Julian Porter. As a wedding photographer, continually surrounded by fancy food and drink, he had accepted gaining weight as a hazard of his profession. The crunch-point came five years ago when, aged 50 and tipping the scales at 18st 8lb, Porter visited his GP for a check-up. “Honest to God, my doctor said to me, ‘You’re screwed,’” he recalls. Tests had revealed that Porter had developed a deadly double whammy: high blood pressure and Type 2 diabetes. “I have a fantastic relationship with my doctor, and he told me straight: the two conditions together are really not good bedfellows.” The straight-talking GP instructed Porter that salvaging his health would require a “major lifestyle change”. “It was a complete bolt out of the blue. My wife…

There were new faces in the red, white and blue striped jerseys of men and women’s elite cyclocross champions on Sunday night. In the men’s race Scottish mountain biker Grant Ferguson (CST-American Eagle) took the title at a decidedly chilly, but nevertheless dry, Hetton Lyons Country Park course near Sunderland. Ferguson had spent almost the entire race locked in a three-way battle with defending champion Ian Field and Liam Killeen, who won the title in 2016. The trio looked a match for each other throughout the race, until Killeen slid out on a muddy bend and lost valuable seconds as the race neared two laps to go. Half a lap later Ferguson hit the front hard, putting Field under pressure. When the pair were forced to dismount and run up…

The moment of failure always feels like a mental defeat. For some reason we all prefer the idea that we’re strong enough to do anything, it’s only our minds that let us down. Capitulation takes many forms, from slipping unnoticed off the back of the group, to lying sobbing in the gutter, to waking up in confusion and finding you’re being given first aid by a group of Brownies, for whom this is the best afternoon ever. The mental torture we like to put ourselves through means you always feel like you’ve suffered at least one grade of humiliation worse than you really did. But remember there is no shame in failure, just failure. Embrace it. Failure is the consequence of ambition, and it means that when you finally succeed…

Newly crowned under-23 cyclo-cross national champion Tom Pidcock has admitted he’s already feeling a touch of nerves ahead of the Cyclo-cross World Championships next month. Following his dominant performance at the National Championships in Sunderland Pidcock told Cycling Weekly he was “a little bit” nervous with the big event approaching. “I’m thinking about it when I go to bed and how it’s getting quite close. It’s going to be a much tougher race this year; I think the competition is going to be extra tight”, he said, after pulling on the red white and blue jersey followed by his Mum’s coat to stop him shivering in a biting wind and three degree temperatures. His Nationals win, though, had given him extra confidence, he said: “I can see my form’s there…

“I can only assume someone licked me in my sleep because I honestly feel woozy from all the hand foaming I’ve done” I’m on camp with Team GB again. This time, we’re in Majorca and staying in the hotel Team Sky use. The hotel walls are cluttered with “ZERO DAYS” posters, in reference (I’ve learned) to the fact that Team Sky lost no rider to illness in any 2017 Grand Tour. Each poster has a little tip on how to continue this trend like “use anti-bacterial hand foam” or “avoiding shaking hands”. I received a fist pump from someone I hadn’t seen in a while recently: it was their first day working for Sky. Somehow, though, I’ve got a cold. I’m mortified. The posters read to me now as: “Well…

Missed the time cut Lambrecht out of Tour Down Under after Whereabouts confusion Lotto-Soudal started the 2018 Tour Down Under one rider short after Belgian neo-pro Bjorg Lambrecht was withdrawn from the start list due to confusion over the anti-doping Whereabouts system. The team explained that 20-year-old Lambrecht had not met the Anti-Doping Administration and Management System (ADAMS) Whereabouts criteria due to signing up to the scheme too late. Anti-doping regulations state that he needed to be signed up to ADAMS Whereabouts scheme for 42 days prior to the start of his first World Tour race. However, Lotto-Soudal says that Lambrecht only received his log-in details for the ADAMS system 32 days before the start of the race. Sign on National Track line-ups revealed Jason Kenny leads the list of…

As a new season of WorldTour racing is upon us, there’s a new group in town. Every year heralds the latest influx of young, talented men and women. Only a few, however, will achieve the greatest of success by winning Grand Tour stages, determining the outcome in the biggest of races and wearing some of the sport’s most coveted jerseys. Competition, failure to handle expectation and the inevitable low points, married to a struggle in adapting to the level required are just some of the reasons why the brightest stars will fail to shine on the biggest stages. Some will trickle down the sport’s divisions — some might fall off the scene completely — while some will have to be content (and many are) with being domestiques. Whatever their future…

Fizik Infinito R1 Knit shoes We first saw these at Eurobike and, alongside Giro’s knitted offering, they caused quite a stir. They’re designed to be lightweight and for climbing in the hottest conditions but they’re also DWR treated and water runs straight off them. Contact: www.extrauk.co.uk Price: £349.99; Review: February Rapha Pro Team insulated vest and jacket This new Rapha gear comes with Polartec Alpha material, which was designed for US special forces. Despite its fluffy nature both garments pack down small enough to be squeezed into a rear pocket. Contact: www.rapha.cc Price: £140 (vest); £160 (jacket) Review: March Cateye Orb bar-end lights We’ll be replacing our bar-ends with these lights, which have just come in for test. They are made of alloy, run on a couple of coin cells…

How many? 10-15 reps Instructions: ▄ Feet shoulder-width apart. ▄ Head forward, chest up. ▄ Sit back and down as if onto an imaginary chair. Arch your back slightly as you descend. ▄ Lower thighs to 90 degrees, keeping knees over your toes and weight in the heels (eccentric contraction). ▄ Drive through the heels to stand up again Muscles targeted: ▄ Quadriceps ▄ Gluteus maximus ▄ Hamstrings Progress to the next level… Tougher variants are the Goblet squat (holding dumbbell/kettlebell) Barbell front/back squat. Sam Mak says: The squat is a compound exercise, meaning it engages multiple muscle groups. Although it’s focusing on the lower legs, hips and back, it’s a very functional movement, working your quadriceps, gluteus, and ankle range of movement — all very important for a cyclist.…

The unofficial slogan of Montvelo CC is that membership makes everything “82 per cent better”, but that doesn’t apply to the Scottish weather as we meet in freezing rain on a December Sunday morning. Club treasurer Dougie Glen drove the route last night, and has taken the decision to shorten it, leaving out the highest and most remote stretch that is likely to have succumbed to ice. Caution will still be the name of the game though, and many of the 30-plus riders have turned up with hi-vis and flashing lights. We are divided into two groups before threading out of the handsome coastal resort of Montrose and into the rolling Angus countryside. Night shift to gear shift Elaine Banks has arrived straight from her night shift as a nurse…

The Under-23 National Cyclo-Cross Championships saw virtuoso performances from two of the sport’s most exciting prospects at the weekend, as Evie Richards (Trek Factory Racing) and Tom Pidcock (Telenet-Fidea) both soloed to victory. Richards, who recently won an elite World Cup round in Namur, and has already won gold (2016) and bronze (2017) World Championship medals, was riding for her third consecutive national under-23 title. The 20-yearold had a particularly impressive start, and from the word go it was clear that only a crash or a mechanical could deny her victory. Richards, from Malvern, Worcestershire, took the win having ridden the whole race without a bike change, declaring herself “cleaner than when I started” at the finish of the quick and relatively dry course. “It’s really good to defend the…