Indholdsfortegnelse for February 17, 2022 i Cycling Weekly

Jason Kenny has retired from competition to take up a position as a coach on British Cycling’s sprint Podium Programme, Cycling Weekly understands. The Bolton-born sprinter will be going out on a high. At the Tokyo Games in August he took a stunning gold in the keirin with a long-range surge, backed up by silver in the team sprint. Britain’s most decorated male Olympian, with seven gold medals, and nine in total, is set to be joined by newly retired Australian sprinter Kaarle McCulloch, a multiple world champion in the team sprint who also rode at Tokyo. Kenny has toyed with idea of retirement ever since Rio 2016 – where he won golds in the team sprint, sprint and keirin – and at the recent launch of his new Huub…

JOE LAVERICK Why training camp is like a second Christmas I’m currently on training camp in Italy – Tuscany, to be more specific. Training in Italy has its pros and its cons. The roads are quiet, and the culture is relatively relaxed so the few beeps we’ve had on the road have been followed by friendly waves rather than the normal hand gestures that I’m used to. The terrain is rolling and the scenery is beautiful, although the roads are much bumpier than I anticipated. The food at our hotel is great, and the pasta is just how you’d imagine it to be. However, it takes so long to arrive. Italian culture is to have the pasta and meat dish separately. You can imagine how a group of 20 bike…

Sign up to give back. That’s what we’re urging you to do right now by registering your interest in volunteering at an event this year. But British Cycling’s Yorkshire region is taking ‘giving back’ to another level – by giving back to its volunteers. Team Yorkshire (TY) brings all the volunteers in this sizeable region under one umbrella, and gives them not just a snazzy polo shirt but a sense of belonging and a huge network of like-minded people who could even turn out to be good friends one day. At Team Yorkshire’s first major event – the Grasscrete Ryedale Grand Prix last August – its members provided a cheerful and ubiquitous presence around the race, their bright blue TY jerseys marking them out immediately as part of the race…

Zipp 101 XPLR wheelset £1,646 For those chasing speed across relatively untechnical gravel, a wheel with a robust but aero rim is going to be the name of the game – that’s not the Zipp 101 XPLR. This wheel has an intentionally flexy construction created to meet the needs of those who like their gravel with a side order of gnar. Effectively, the single-wall carbon rim flexes to provide greater control and grip in the corners: imagine a runner rounding a sharp bend, their ankle pivots to allow them to turn, and these wheels target the same response. Zipp calls this ‘ankle compliance technology’. Weight has not been a focus – claimed weights are 1,590g and 1,665g for 650b and 700c respectively. We got 1,680g for the 700c pair (with…

Riders navigate their way through a packed feed zone in a wet edition of Paris-Roubaix in 1936. The race was won by 1933 road world champion Georges Speicher. The Frenchman had battled through what this magazine described as “a gruelling ride over 164 miles under conditions of extreme cold and frequent hail storms”. But in the end he had won the sprint against the reigning Tour de France champion, Romain Maes of Belgium, by just five centimetres. Despite what was something of an all-star field, the Queen of the Classics did not command quite the vaunted international status that it does now. Cycling’s write up on the race was a mere four paragraphs, one of which noted the fate of Paul Chocque – who retired after a puncture – seemingly…

Punishing Provence It might only be an early-season warm-up race in the south of France, but the Tour de la Provence was no four-day jaunt in the sunshine. Crosswinds turned stage one into a tough day out for the whole peloton and there was no let up in the climbs on day four. It started well for Ineos, who won the prologue with Filippo Ganna and stage one with Elia Viviani, but it was Colombian Nairo Quintana who ran out overall winner at the final summit finish of Montagne de Lure.…

Nairo Quintana got his 2022 season off to an encouraging start when he sealed the overall victory at the Tour de la Provence with a summit-finish win on the final stage. The Colombian went on the attack up the climb to the finish line of stage three, initially taking Julian Alaphilippe (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl) with him but the Frenchman, who was by this time in the virtual lead, couldn’t hold on. Quintana (Arkéa-Samsic) increased his lead all the way to the finish line, finishing half a minute ahead of the rest of the field to take his first victories of the season. On the stage, Trek-Segafredo’s Danish rider Mattias Skjelmose Jensen finished second, 37 seconds behind Quintana, with Matteo Jorgenson (Movistar) crossing the line on the same time as Jensen…

It’s easy to imagine a vast gulf between the volunteer at a midweek time trial or criterium and the professional racing star, but the two are inextricably linked; without volunteers, the pros we love to report on and to read about may never have got started in the first place. That might be why Cycling Weekly’s volunteers campaign seems to have struck a chord with many of the teams and cycling bodies we’ve spoken to, and they have been keen to offer their support for our initiative. WiV-Sungod’s Tim Elverson said: “Nearly all my riders have come through grassroots racing, which just doesn’t happen without the hard work of volunteers. Every potential top rider needs to start somewhere and that will nearly always be a volunteer-supported event. So please get…

In the last two years 18-year-old James Hawkins has gone from riding in a group of mates to forming a club – the Yomp Bonk Crew – and becoming a race organiser with several events and series to his name, including the upcoming Peaks Two-Day on 19-20 March. “It’s all stemmed out of nothing,” he says, “and we’ve had a lot of support from Team Yorkshire, it’s been good.” Hawkins underlines the crucial role volunteers play by pointing out that one of the courses in his Peaks Two-Day requires seven accredited marshals and seven flag marshals – 14 people before you even begin thinking about all the other roles involved. He describes Team Yorkshire as akin to networking, bringing together like-minded people. “It’s a huge help bringing together people who…

A mid the woes of the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, Covid-19’s dark clouds offered a sliver of silver lining. More people started to ride bikes. But surging sales constricted the flow of supply needed to satisfy that demand. As we near the two-year anniversary of the UK’s first lockdown, we’ve taken a snapshot of two British bike brands, each with quite different business models and approaches to their supply chains. We asked them how things have been, how things are and what the future holds. Economies of small scale Nestled deep in the South Downs near Steyning, Mason’s relatively short history is belied by the rustic barn comprising its headquarters. The brand is actually younger than the Transcontinental bikepacking race – but more than just an arbitrary yardstick, there is…

Cycling gives us a strong sense of who we are. As cyclists, we’re lovers of freedom, speed and achievement. We enjoy working hard to push to the next level, and we share a sense of belonging in a sport with a deep history and culture. All of this is underpinned by the knowledge that our hobby helps keep us physically and mentally healthy. Being secure in our commitment to two wheels should give us the confidence to try other activities, since there are few more effective ways to stay fresh and hungry for more cycling. There will always be times when riding your bike just isn’t feasible. Perhaps it’s icy outside, your bike is being fixed, you have an injury or you simply fancy doing something different. When a recent…

Since working from home and trying to balance quite a few roles, it’s been intense, and there have been a lot of distractions. So what I needed from this training space was to maximise immersion. I do quite a bit of medical education, training surgeons using virtual reality, and we’ve found it has to be believable, immersive and engaging. I wanted the same for Zwift because it has to substitute riding outside – and what better than a 4k projector screen filling the whole wall? The iPad controls Zwift and the other screens are for multi-tasking: while training, I can also be watching sport or catching up with TV programmes. That saves time. We moved into this house two years ago and this space was a basic garage: breeze blocks,…

Think it’s easy being a Tour winner? A heartfelt article written by Allan Peiper in this week’s edition showed everyone the other side of the coin. Entitled ‘In a Broken Dream’ he writes of Greg LeMond’s rapid fall from the top of the Tour de France, the race he won in 1986, 1989 and 1990. In 1992 Peiper finished in the autobus with LeMond on stage 13 to Sestriere. This essentially was the end of LeMond as a Tour contender. “He looked so down and dejected. There I was feeling sorry for a man who had won the Tour three times and the World Championships twice. “I wasn’t sorry because he couldn’t win the Tour, but because his dreams were shattered. The little boy in him was lost. At the…

If Mark Cavendish holds any ambitions of going to the Tour de France - when has he not? - then he appeared to be going the right way about getting himself there this last week at the Tour of Oman. The Manxman had won his first stage of the year at only the second opportunity at the time of going to press. The Quick Step rider is down to ride the Giro d’Italia and not the Tour this year, his Belgian team boss Patrick Lefevere favouring young up-and-comer Fabio Jakobsen as his sprinter for the Tour. But Cavendish has always centred his season around three weeks in France in July and will doubtless want to make a good case that he should be selected. His win in Oman on stage…

In sodden and freezing conditions Wiv-Sungod rider Damien Clayton sprang clear from a group of three to win the Perfs Pedal race solo. The race just outside Portsmouth is one of the earliest on the British domestic calendar and attracts a strong field. Clayton’s victory ensured that his team manager Tim Elverson, who is based in Hampshire, has seen his riders win the last five editions of the south coast staple. It was dry when the riders rolled out of the start in the village of Southwick, just north of Portsmouth, and a series of attacks tried to go clear of the bunch with only fleeting success, not helped by the stiff headwind up the course’s main climb that was ascended five times. Eventually it was Alex Richardson, who rode…

Tour de France organiser ASO has announced the 22-team startlist for this year’s race, with TotalEnergies and B&B Hotels-KTM being awarded the two final wildcard spots. The two ProTeams join all 18 World-Teams teams and Alpécin-Fenix and Arkéa-Samsic, who were already guaranteed places thanks to their performances across 2021. TotalEnergies have been present at every edition since their inception in 2000 as Bonjour-Toupargel, while B&B will return to the race for the third successive year. The only non-French team to be handed an invite to the Tour since 2017 has been Wanty-Gobert, now Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux. While Alpecin-Fenix are Belgian, their ranking guaranteed them a place. Peter Sagan joined TotalEnergies from Bora-Hansgrohe in the off-season, and the team are likely to be centred around the seven-time green jersey winner, although they…

Almost as expensive as cycling clothes. Alex Rodriguez If it made me go up hills like he used to, hell yeah. Nick Hurt What a joke. I thought for a moment it was April Fool’s Day. Anybody who buys these products and others that will become available are totally out of their minds, and I wonder what they are smoking. Dudley Samuels It’s called the free market, buy it if you want it, don’t buy it if you don’t want it. James Smith The T-shirt is really nice. I dare say I’ll pick up an item or two. Dean Unsworth I wouldn’t buy a $95 plain white T-shirt from anyone! Ted Sparrey ‘I love cycling’ might just be the worst slogan of all time. I mean I frickin love cycling,…

When Breeze champion Janine Morral wanted to know more about how racing works, she went in all guns blazing by enrolling on a commissaire’s course. She is now an accredited marshal and fully signed-up member of Team Yorkshire. She describes TY as a great vehicle for inspiring collaboration and conversation between volunteers who might otherwise be unfamiliar with each other. “It gives you that shared belonging, that identity to say, ‘Yes, I’m a marshal; yes, I’m a Breeze champion; yes, I’m a club coach,’ or whatever you’re doing. And it also means that you’re more inclined to ask people, ‘Who are you? Why are you here? What are you doing?’ “It gives everybody that sense of belonging, and that little bit more knowledge that someone has got your back,” she…

Multitools are a staple of saddlebag and jersey pocket, as well as a travel essential. They contain all the most commonly used tools required to maintain and repair a bike, other than the one you need at any given moment. If you need a 4mm Allen key, you can guarantee that it will have been replaced with a bottle opener. For some reason multitool manufacturers overestimate the number of bottles an average cyclist wants to open when they’re out for a ride by a ratio of approximately a million to one. At a minimum you’ll want your multitool to have Allen keys from 2mm to 6mm, a Phillips screwdriver, T25 and T30 Torx keys and hopefully a chain tool. The chain tool won’t really work, but it will make you…