Indholdsfortegnelse for August 12, 2021 i Cycling Weekly

Back at the 2008 Olympics British dominance on the track (plus Nicole Cooke’s gold on the road) was expected. At the previous two track world champs the British team had been untouchable, so no one was surprised when they won medal after medal in Beijing. To repeat that in London was an incredible achievement, but with the whole British team doing well it was partially put down to the home advantage. In reality they had no right to do it again in Rio 2016, but they did. Since then, performances on the track have by and large been off the pace. Add to that the disruption of the pandemic and the fact that the staff at the British team – including the person at the top – has seen a…

After missing last year’s event through injury Hayley Simmonds proved the fastest woman in the National 25-mile Championships once again. The 33-year-old won the event for the fourth time in emphatic fashion with her time of 50 minutes and 19 seconds, over a minute quicker than her nearest rival. “It’s nice to get the title back, I felt good,” said Simmonds who also won the National Team Time Trial with her CAMS Racing team in June. “I’m really happy with my time and the performance, it was the best I’ve felt for that kind of length time trial for a while.” Wet conditions greeted riders with Simmonds recording an average speed of over 29.8 miles per hour on her way to victory. Alex Clay led the battle behind with The…

Fresh from winning gold in the mountain biking at the Tokyo Olympics – a feat the great Peter Sagan himself couldn’t manage – all eyes will be on Ineos Grenadiers’s nippy neo-pro Tom Pidcock. Prior to this remarkable victory, the Leeds-born rider had already chalked up a debut pro season for the ages with victory at Brabantse Pijl, podiums at Amstel Gold, Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne and top 10s at Fleche Wallone and Strade Bianche. So what can he do in his first Grand Tour? Win a stage maybe? Be a back-up GC rider? He won the Baby Giro last year, after all. Or will he be firmly in bottle carrying-mode for Ineos’s stacked line-up that, in Pavel Sivakov, Egan Bernal, Adam Yates, and Richard Carapaz, boasts four riders that could all lay…

There are more sprint stages at this year’s Vuelta compared to recent editions, and some of the world’s top sprinters have decided to ride. Caleb Ewan’s (Lotto-Soudal) ambitions to win stages in all three Grand Tours this season were scuppered by a crash at the Tour, but if his broken collarbone is healed he’ll be the man to beat in the sprints at the Vuelta. While Ewan hasn’t appeared since 2015, for Arnaud Démare (Groupama-FDJ) this will be a Vuelta debut. He too left the Tour prematurely after being timed out in the Alps, and hopes to rediscover the electrifying form he enjoyed throughout 2020. Another sprinter on the comeback trail is Fabio Jakobsen (Deceuninck-Quick Step) who is at long last back racing and winning after his horrific crash at…

The week: 5-11 July 2021 Location: Manchester & Newport Preparing for: Tokyo Olympic Games Having already set a world best time for the 3km individual pursuit in the National Youth Track Champs in 2018, Ethan Vernon followed it up with a strong season on the road in 2019, including third in the National U23 TT Champs. His progress was rewarded with a call up to the British Cycling Olympic squad last April – keeping him focused while many riders were derailed by Covid. Claiming silver in the kilo at the European Track Champs last November helped secure his place on the team for Tokyo. Here, the 20-year-old talks us through the week before he travelled to the Olympics holding camp. You started out in BMX – why the switch to…

The Covid lockdown has been an excellent excuse to avoid riding with other people. It offered the freedom of the open (and sometimes quieter) roads, and a blessed escape from the pressure of having to think up new ways to aggravate your friends through the medium of bike riding. Alas, for the moment we seem to be getting back to normal. I went for a ride with a friend last week, and had to remind myself of all the passive-aggressive techniques that underpin any group ride, but doubly underpin a two-up ride. In hilly lands it’s easier to dish out the irritation. On a climb even a marginal upping of the effort is enough to cause trouble. In the flatlands where I live, physics means you have to have more…

There will be little time to pause and reflect for the endurance coaches as riders get straight back to racing on the road and track. Major competitions are just weeks away and qualification for Paris starts next year. Ethan Vernon is due to head straight to the Tour de l’Avenir that starts this Friday (13 Aug), while Ethan Hayter (Ineos) and Matt Walls (Bora-Hansgrohe) will rejoin their pro teams. The junior and U23 European track champs in the Netherlands start on 13 August while the road world championships in Belgium take place next month. The re-arranged European track champs take place in Grenchen, Switzerland on 5-9 October, followed hot on the heals by the track world championships in Turkmenistan 13-19 October. Next year sees the Birmingham Commonwealth Games (with the…

So, the four top teams in the closing stages were set to ride off against each other in the competition, team A versus team B, and team C versus team D, etc. In the first race, team A supposedly ‘caught’ team B and crashed into the third man of team B, destroying team B’s chances of completing the race in the normal manner. Team A was surprisingly not penalised for causing the crash and was given victory. Team B were not responsible for the collision yet were penalised by the commissaires/judges by being refused the opportunity to a ride off against the team that lost the match between teams C and D for the third place in the overall competition… fair or what? Alan Miller Ed - That’s not how…

PRIMOZ ROGLIC 31 | Jumbo-Visma | Slo Vuelta starts: 2 Best GC result: 1st (2019, 2020) Best stage result: 5 stage wins (2019, 2020) 2021 race days: 28 No matter what hardship Primož Roglič is confronted with, he always bounces back. The Slovenian endured a nightmare Tour de France earlier this summer, when a heavy fall brought to an early end the race he had spent all season preparing for. But less than a month later he was back racing at the Tokyo Olympics, and produced one of the best rides of his career to win gold in the time trial. It’s a recurring pattern throughout Roglič’s career. He won both the Vuelta and Liège-Bastogne-Liège last year in the aftermath of heartbreakingly losing the yellow jersey at the Tour de…

The aim of heat training is to stimulate adaptations in the body’s heat loss mechanisms. Here’s how… PROTOCOLS Exercise Exercise for 60-90min in a hot environment (as close as possible to anticipated race conditions, typically 30-40°C, >50% relative humidity). Intensity: either fixed moderateintensity power output (Zone 1), self-paced cycling to complete the desired duration, or fixed heart rate. Post-exercise heat exposure Water immersion or sauna exposure (40°C bath; 70-90°C sauna), 20-40min in bath, 10-20min in sauna. Passive heating Water immersion or sauna exposure (40°C bath; 70-90°C sauna), 30-60min in bath, 15-30min in sauna. Controlled hyperthermia Exercise in environments of 30-40°C, >50% relative humidity, with self-paced exercise to achieve a target core temperature (e.g. 38.5°C – only possible with accurate core temperature measurement), with pace varied to control temperature once attained.…

In association with TIME TRIALS SUNDAY, 8 AUGUST National 25-Mile Championships (Keswick, Cumbria): Men: 1. John Archibald (Eolo Kometa) 45.48 2. C. Fennell (The Independent Pedaler) 46.09 3. S. Wilson (Ribble Weldtite Pro Cycling) 46.13 4. M. Gill (Saint Piran) 46.59 5. W. Perrett (AeroLab Ward WheelZ) 47.29 6. P. Williams (Team Bottrill) 47.37 Team: St Piran (Michael Gill, Steve Lampier, Ross Holland) 2:25.39 Women: 1. Hayley Simmonds (CAMS Racing) 50.19 2. A. Clay (The Independent Pedaler-Nopinz) 51.27 3. J. Patterson (The Independent Pedaler-Nopinz) 52.07 4. A. Morris (AeroLab Ward WheelZ) 52.25 5. B. Storrie (Brother UK Team OnForm) 52.52 6. K. Morrison (Drag2zero) 53.21 Team: The Independent Pedaler-Nopinz (Alex Clay, Joanna Patterson, Jennifer George) 3:03.16 Junior Boy: Jacob Bush (Bourne Wheelers) 50.20 Junior Girl: Ella Jamieson (Team Bottrill) 56.51 Welsh…

In 1977, A.C. Hickson and his co-authors published the results of a study into what they modestly described as a “strenuous programme of endurance exercise.” They asked eight subjects to undertake a 10-week training programme. The programme was less than an hour a day, for six days a week. So nothing too frightening there. The real crux of it is that it was hard. On three days they were to run for 40 minutes as fast as they could – effectively a race effort. On the other three days they were to do six five-minute maximal intervals on a bike, with just two minutes rest in between. The results of this were spectacular. Overall the subjects improved their aerobic fitness by, on average, 44 per cent. Not only that, the…

Capping off a perfect week for his family, John Archibald retained his National 25-mile Championship crown on a wet day in Cumbria. After watching his sister Katie Archibald win Olympic gold in the Madison and silver in the team pursuit it was John’s turn to win honours on Sunday. Riding for Eolo Kometa, the 30-year-old recorded a winning time of 45 minutes and 48 seconds to defend his 2020 National 25 crown and secure his first national title of the 2021 season. Archibald was pushed all the way by Christopher Fennell (The Independent Pedaler-Nopinz) who came into the event unbeaten with 15 wins this season including two national titles. Eventually Fennell was beaten by 21 seconds recording a time of 46-09 along the A66 between Keswick and Cockermouth. “At first…

Landa and Carthy taste Burgos success Mikel Landa took his first win in two years as he claimed the overall victory at the Vuelta a Burgos. The Bahrain-Victorious rider claimed the top spot on the final uphill stage five as DSM’s Romain Bardet crumbled. EF Education-Nippo’s Hugh Carthy won the stage, going clear on the double-digit gradient up to the summit finish, having tried for the previous stage before being reeled in by the bunch. Sagan steps down a division Peter Sagan has confirmed he will be moving to French second-division squad Team TotalEnergies, after five years at Bora-Hansgrohe. The move comes after the Slovakian star announced that he would be leaving Bora-Hansgrohe for a new challenge. The French team announced that it was with “immense pride” that they had…

GUILLAUME MARTIN 28 | Cofidis | Fra After spending last year’s Vuelta frequently on the attack in order to win the King of the Mountains classification, Guillaume Martin could ride for GC this year. The Frenchman continues to steadily improve every year, and last month recorded the highest Grand Tour finish of his career so far with eighth overall at the Tour. ALEXANDR VLASOV 25 | Astana-Premier Tech | Rus Team Astana have an illustrious history at the Vuelta, with Fabio Aru, Alberto Contador and Alexander Vinokorouv all having won the race riding in their distinctive turquoise colours. Grand Tour success has subsided in recent years, but they have a new star in young Russian Alexandr Vlasov. Having burst onto the WorldTour in 2020, he proved his Grand Tour potential…

SRAM, via its associate brand RockShox, has launched a front suspension fork and dropper seatpost for gravel bikes. The XPLR collection consists of a RockShox Rudy suspension fork, RockShox Reverb seatpost, SR AM XPLR 1x drivetrain with 10-44t cassette and a Zipp 101 wheelset, with existing tyres and handlebars gaining the SR AM XPLR branding. Rockshox XPLR Rudy fork There will be riders out there who simply do not understand the addition of suspension on a gravel bike – if that’s you, you probably didn’t get past the headline. Suspension adds weight, maintenance, and if it’s required, a hardtail mountain bike could be a more suitable option. However, we’re all for choice, and this new arrival certainly adds to the options, alongside the existing Fox AX fork and Lauf’s leaf-sprung…

We asked Dr Lee Taylor (@DrLeeTaylor on Twitter), an expert in environmental physiology at Loughborough University, about pre-, during and post-race strategies BEFORE THE RACE “In the hours before the race, alongside adequate hydration, athletes should engage in very aggressive pre-cooling, with cold water immersion before warmup, then an ice vest during the warm-up. This should be performed in the shade with cooling fans and perhaps misting sprays (dependent on humidity). The aim is to produce the greatest possible heat sink before performance. Athletes should keep the ice vest on until they are told to take them off by race officials! Most importantly, these methods should be individualised and trialled long before race day.” DURING THE RACE “Ideally, you should start a race with a cold core and a warm…

Bob Swailes memorial road race Date: Sun 12 September Seven laps of the Old Hutton Circuit make up the course for this. Unsurprisingly, being in the Lake District, it’s a hilly one for this race organised by Kent Valley RC. Closing date: Sat 21 August Athlon CC road race Date: Sun 19 September Just outside Chelmsford in Essex lies the West Hanningfield circuit where this race for third and fourth cat riders will be held. Closing date: Mon 6 September Royal Dean Forest CC 25 Date Sun 29 August Just near Usk is the start and finish of this undulating course that runs up the A449 to Monmouth and back. The men’s course record is 46.51 while the women’s is 53.18. Closing date: Tues 17 August…

Watching a German rider tapping his chest before a ride at the Olympics, presumably as a cue to help focus on his pre-event visualisation exercises, reminded me of a similar technique employed by an acquaintance of mine. He spent weeks with a psychologist, working on visualising the event, controlling his nerves and preparing for a calm, relaxed delivery of his best performance. As a cue, the psychologist suggested he tap himself firmly in the middle of the forehead. In the heat of competition, this would (a bit like hypnosis) bring back to mind all the mental rehearsal. It all went perfectly, right up to the moment just before the event where he went to tap himself on the forehead and discovered that, unlike in the psychologist’s office, he was wearing…