Indholdsfortegnelse for July 13, 2023 i Cycling Weekly

What did you shout at your TV screen on Saturday afternoon while watching the Tour de France? I’d already been sent a message so knew what had happened, and I was with my kids at the time, so after I’d scrolled back through the footage on the GCN+ app looking for ‘the crash’ it was more of a resigned “ohhhhhh, noooooo” when I saw it. Had I been watching the race live my response would have been unprintable in this magazine. Even if I was watching with the kids! For Mark Cavendish to crash out of the race in such a manner just goes to show how cruel and unpredictable the sport can be. Think of all the dangerous sprint finishes he’s negotiated, all the crashes he’s walked away from.…

If Mark Cavendish can be coaxed away from retirement, Astana-Qazaqstan renewing his contract is a no-brainer. From a team perspective, the publicity of making history as the sole, all-time Tour de France stage win record holder is too good to miss out on. That is why they took a gamble on him this season, and the gamble very nearly paid off. Cavendish showed at this year’s Tour that his astuteness for reading race finales is as sharp as ever. On stage seven to Bordeaux, while everyone was looking at green jersey wearer Jasper Philipsen, the Brit opened up an early sprint on the right side of the road, and very nearly held it to the line. Had it not been for a mechanical issue – his gears skipping – I…

STAGE THREE MON 3 JULY AMOREBIETA-ETXANO > BAYONNE Winner: Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) Yellow: Adam Yates (UAE Emirates) In the first of the bunch sprints, Jasper Philipsen proved victorious with a well timed move through the twisty streets of Bayonne. He had to wait to be confirmed the winner, however, as the commissaires took a long, hard look at whether his line had breached sprinting rules by cutting off his competitors, before eventually deciding in his favour. STAGE FOUR TUES 4 JULY DAX > NOGARO Winner: Jasper Philipsen Yellow: Adam Yates The stage itself was a snooze-fest as the peloton cruised all day, but the finale was, in Mark Cavendish’s words, “carnage”. Unlike the day before, there were no tight twists on the wide motor-circuit finishing straight, but multiple riders still…

Being at the Tour de France may appear to those on the outside to be something incredibly glamorous. Of course it’s a huge privilege getting to be out here, covering the event, but sometimes it’s such a blur that it’s impossible to take it all in, let alone ‘enjoy’ the parts of France we visit. It’s essentially a lot of time in a car and bouncing around between hotels and press rooms with very little time to do much more than glance up quickly to enjoy the views. I liken it to an SAS squad getting parachuted in to a mission somewhere. We’re dropped into the press rooms, typically a sports hall, rushing out and speaking to riders in the baking heat to get their reaction from the day, then…

Elinor Barker and Katie Archibald will headline the British track squad at the upcoming World Championships in Glasgow. They are joined by a women’s endurance team that also includes fellow Olympians Josie Knight and Neah Evans. Relatively recent recruit Anna Morris, academy graduate Meg Barker and track returnee Jess Roberts are also on the list. The men’s endurance squad will feature former Hour record holder and new father Dan Bigham; road stars Ethan Hayter and Ethan Vernon, as well as recently crowned British crit champion Ollie Wood and Olympian Charlie Tanfield. Veteran Will Perrett is also joined by newer faces Josh Charlton and Will Tidball. In the sprints Great Britain will be represented by triple national champion Emma Finucane, veteran Katy Marchant and rising stars Laura Bell and Sophie Capewell.…

Time trialling in the UK seems to have been in the doldrums recently. Some people see hilly time trials, like the one organised by my club the Manchester Wheelers last Sunday, as having some sort of appeal beyond the steadfast TT community, but we struggle for entries so something’s not cutting through. The Anexo Race Team entered, a junior team competing across Europe that is mentored by Alex Dowsett, which is why he was also riding and blogging about the importance of these sorts of events to help supplement a road racing schedule. Past winners of this event include Hamish Bond, the New Zealand Olympic rowing legend, who set the course record in 2017. In 2019 Saymon Mussie, a refugee from Eritrea, won the road bike category and blew the…

Most elite international sporting events have a single winner, or at the most one per gender. Part of our genius here in the world of cycling is that we’ve left this narrow-mindedness far, far behind. At the Tour de France, as with most other stage races, there are a frankly unbelievable number of winners. At the men’s race I make it potentially about 53 riders who can swagger home from Paris with a legitimate claim on a victory. There’s the yellow, green, spotty, and white jerseys, plus 21 stage winners, a super-combativity award and 20 individual-stage combativity awards. (No stage-combativity at the time trial, which I think misses a trick – they should give it to the day’s most badly paced ride, since that’s more or less what they do…

After a 48-hour ultra-race last year, one rider told me that he was suffering like the proverbial. Planning to give up and go home, he was encouraged by his partner. “You’re winning!” she shouted. This was a revelation – he’d no idea he was going that well. “If I’m suffering, everyone else is having it worse,” he told himself, and pressed on. “You’re winning,” rang in his ears every time he passed his support crew, all the way to the finish. He actually finished many hours down, and in about 30th place. “What was with the ‘winning’ stuff?” he asked. “Well,” said his partner, “I was speaking figuratively. Everyone who finishes an ultra-race is a winner, aren’t they?”…

For someone who has looked dominant at the 2023 Tour de France, taking three stages, Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) is incredibly self-effacing, refusing to take praise himself, instead passing it on to his team-mates. This is his fourth Tour, the third he has raced consecutively, but it is only in the last 12 months that the Belgian has gone from promising fastman to the best sprinter in the world. Between stage 15 of the 2022 race and stage seven of the 2023 edition, Philipsen won every Tour bunch sprint that he contested. However, there still does not seem to be an ego. After he won his first stage of this year’s race, stage three to Bayonne, he heaped praise onto Mathieu van der Poel, his final lead-out man: “When you see…

In a darkened conference room, on the third floor of Bilbao’s concretepanelled exhibition centre, Biniam Girmay sits and waits, anticipating the big question. He knows it is coming. He has answered it a thousand times. In fact, rarely an exchange goes by where the Eritrean is not asked it, be it by dictaphone-wielding journalists, fans in the street, or the shopkeepers back home in Asmara. A hand goes up, and with a tremble in the voice, the moment finally comes. “What does it mean to you to be a history-maker?” someone asks. Intermarché-Circus-Wanty have come to this year’s Tour de France with a clear ambition – to help Girmay to a stage win. If he succeeds, he will become the first black African ever to do so at the race.…

Unaware of the close battle he was in, Adam Duggleby stole the national 100-mile title from Alex Dowsett in the closing miles of a dramatic race in Norfolk on Sunday. Former WorldTour rider Dowsett had a maximum advantage of 1-51 before seeing that cut by 48 seconds going into the last 20 miles. ADDFORM-Vive Le Velo rider Duggleby, 38 and from Leeds, overturned the deficit to finish in 3:25.05, which was 25 seconds faster than Dowsett with Will Lowden in third (3:27.13). Meanwhile a second puncture in as many weeks for John Archibald (HUUB-WattShop) ruined his chances after going quickest at the first split. “With four miles to go my fiancée shouted that it was close and to go as hard as I could, but I didn’t know who to,”…

Canyon bikes that will talk to cars German bike manufacturer Canyon will start using Vehicle to Everything (V2X) technology in some of its e-bikes from 2026, meaning cars with the same tech will be alerted when the bikes are nearby. Chip maker Autotalks, a leader in this field, says this will alert drivers, or self-driving cars, of the presence of a cyclist in poor-visibility conditions. Currently around one million cars are equipped with the V2X tech across Europe. Elite road series continues at Lancaster GP Mary Wilkinson returns to the Lancaster GP this weekend to defend her title, leading a strong squad from Team Boompods. Saint Piran will be favourites in the 150km men’s race that rolls out from Williamson Park in Lancaster at 9am, finishing at 12.30pm. The 91km…

Professor Richard Davison, an exercise physiologist at the University of the West of Scotland, is a leading expert on the effects of ageing on cycling performance What do we know about how ageing affects cycling performance? You can’t hold back the clock – but you can partially hold it back. The amount of power you can produce will decline regardless of the amount of training you do, but ‘successful ageing’ means maximising the physiological potential for your age – there are huge differences in fitness between sedentary and trained older people. How rapid is the decline? It is not a straight line. We’ve done research showing that the decline up until 40 is relatively small; it speeds up a bit between 40 and 50, then accelerates after 50, and arguably…

The spoiler is the bane of the hardworking cycling fan, who wants to catch up on the highlights unencumbered by knowing the result. There are a number of things you can do. You can write to the BBC, ITV, the national press and the cycling websites and demand that they stop reporting race results, or at the very least conceal them on the front page with headlines like, “Someone wins stage in undisclosed bicycle race.” These communications will work better if you can manage not to make them sound too demented, but in practice it’s very hard to stop such an email having a certain note of lunacy about it. You should also direct message cycling journalists and commentators on social media sites demanding they withhold the result as well.…

ONE UP Specialized S-Works Crux £11,500 The top-tier model uses Fact 12r carbon throughout, with a frame that has a claimed weight of just 725g. The groupset is SRAM’s flagship Red AXS, again using a 1x system that pairs a 40t chainring with a 10-44 cassette, while the wheels are upgraded to ​Roval Terra CLX II complete with ceramic bearings. ONE DOWN Specialized Crux Expert £6,300 Take a step down from the Pro and you’ll find the Expert. While the frameset stays the same, the SRAM 1x XPLR AXS groupset drops a rung to Rival. Likewise the cockpit here is a downgrade and becomes an all aluminium affair. Roval Terra CL wheels are downgraded to Terra C.…

TIME TRIALS SUN, 9 JULY National 100-Mile Championship (Mundford, Norfolk): Men: 1. Adam Duggleby (ADDFORM-Vive le Velo) 3:25.05 2. A. Dowsett (Nopinz) 3:25.30 3. W. Lowden (HUUB-WattShop) 3:27.13 4. J. Sargent (Team Bottrill) 3:29.23 5. T. Hutchinson (Team Bottrill) 3:36.55 6. A. Critchlow (Paceline RT) 3:37.11 Women: 1. Emily Martin (Team Bottrill) 3:53.32 2. L. Brooke (Wahoo Le Col) 3:55.10 3. N. De Pennington (Drag2zero) 4:00.44 4. C. Clark (Swindon Wheelers) 4:14.43 5. K. Barfoot-Brace (Team Bottrill) 4:16.43 6. G. Reynolds (Brother UK-Team OnForm) 4:20.31 Virtual CC 25 (Raglan, Monmouthshire): Men: 1. Chris Gibbard (Bynea CC) (course record) 48.42 2. B. Jones (Port Talbot Wheelers) 49.34 3. P. Jones (Primera-TeamJobs) 52.18 4. J. Griffiths (Fulfil the Potential Racing) 53.15 =5. G. Boswell (Cardiff Ajax CC) 53.45 =5. L. Francis (VC…