Indholdsfortegnelse for January 4, 2024 i Cycling Weekly

Happy New Year everyone. I hope this magazine finds you motivated and ready to go in 2024. Just a few days into the new year and I’m feeling quite good about my fitness levels and the months ahead, but I also know that feeling resides on a permanent knife edge, ready to be thrown off by the slightest sneeze or aching muscle. Cue several months of paranoia. Regardless of how many bugs and colds I’ll catch this winter, I need to come up with one or two more events and goals to keep me focused over the next 12 months. Or at least to the end of summer. If you’re still looking for a challenge this year then we might have just the thing. Our CW5000 challenge has been upgraded…

Nothing beats a new kit day. Turning up on the first day of training camp to a huge box of fresh kit in your room is always cool. The excitement was even greater this year as most of it is stripy. For 2024 the team has completely changed the colours and design to a white and blue look. I’m a big fan but it does mean I’ll stand out a bit less. Of course I want to milk my time as a national champ as much as possible. At least grabbing bottles will be easier now. When you’re a different colour to everyone else the swannys tend to pull bottles away thinking you’re from another team. At the end of the season I really had to make an effort to…

Mathieu van der Poel was fined for spitting at a group of booing spectators during last weekend’s UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup in Hulst. The Dutchman was fined 250 CHF after he was captured on camera spitting at some spectators as he rolled across the line at the Dutch course, extending his unbeaten streak to seven. Van der Poel said that his actions were because of a group of abusive fans: “Even during the warm-up. I’ve had enough of those boos,” he said. When asked if he would later regret those actions, he replied: “After a while, it’s enough, even for me.” The organisers of the Hulst World Cup said that the spectators did not belong at the event. “A few among those thousands of supporters felt it necessary to taunt…

The Garmin Edge 840 finds its place as a high-end offering among Garmin’s bike computers. Priced at £449.99, it’s aimed at those seeking advanced features without compromising user experience. The touchscreen display, mapping capabilities, and performance metrics make it a reliable companion for navigation and training. The display and battery life aren’t quite as great as its more expensive 1040 brother, but it still features the same compatibility with sensors and third-party apps. “BUILD QUALITY AND DESIGN ARE TYPICAL GARMIN” The build quality and design are typical Garmin too – rugged, purposeful, and well built. We have reviewed the 840 already but this time we’ve got our hands on it for a much more specific test. We are putting the Garmin Edge 840 head-to-head with its much more expensive Garmin…

Afew years ago, I learned to ride a penny-farthing. I was, in fact, briefly in love with penny-farthings. The view was good, the big wheel rolled effortlessly over anything from a pothole to a golden retriever, and there was a feeling of accomplishment at having mastered something that was simultaneously like riding a bike, and also not quite like riding a bike. I made plans to buy one from a guy in the Czech Republic who makes bespoke penny-farthings, and a hipster beard sprang unbidden straight out of my face. But then I realised there would never be an afternoon when I walked to my bike store to select something to ride and thought, “Yep. Today is a penny-farthing day. A couple of hours on the big wheel is what…

The Great Britain Cycling Team has set a medal target below recent standards for the 2024 Olympics, performance director Stephen Park has revealed. At the Games in Paris this summer, Team GB is hoping to achieve 10 medals across the road, track, mountain bike and BMX disciplines. This would be the squad’s lowest medal haul in two decades, having topped the cycling table at each of the last four Olympics, with 12 medals in Tokyo, Rio and London, and 14 in Beijing. “Some of the advantage that we’ve had has been eroded” Speaking to Cycling Weekly, Park said the downgraded target is a matter of “being realistic”. “We’re hoping that we will be in a position to be competitive for 10 medals,” he said. “I think we’re in a good…

Former world champion Tom Pidcock took the third and fourth podium finishes of his cyclo-cross season over the festive period, battling to third at the UCI World Cup in Gavere behind Wout van Aert and the unbeatable Mathieu van der Poel, and second at the Superprestige Diegem, behind van der Poel again. The Ineos Grenadiers rider had disappointing days out at the Hulst World Cup and the X2O Trofee Baal, however, finishing 25th and 12th respectively. One British rider who tasted victory over Christmas was Cat Ferguson, with the young phenomenon taking the win in the junior race at the Antwerp round of the World Cup. Her fellow junior racer Imogen Wolff finished second at that Antwerp race, and took another podium finish at the Vestingscross Hulst, but an international…

It seemed fitting that Jasper Philipsen eventually swapped his blue team issue kit for the green jersey of the Tour de France last summer once his Hulk-like sprinting won him the unofficial title of the fastest man in the world. A familiar pattern gradually emerged during the Tour’s sprint stages this year, first seen on stage three. Alpecin led the peloton into the final kilometre before Philipsen burst from Mathieu van der Poel’s wheel to win the sprint. With the 2010s Hulk, Peter Sagan, having reverted to something close to Bruce Banner, it was Philipsen who stepped forward to pick up the mantle of cycling’s most incredible strongman. Philipsen chalked up 19 individual victories last season. The 25-year-old was simply a cut above the rest and says he is aiming…

Occasionally, if you are a lucky prize-winner or a just general-purpose plutocrat, you may get an invitation to follow a big bike race in a team car. Usually, you get a privileged position in the front passenger seat beside the DS. There are a few things to remember. Don’t scream. You will want to do this more or less all the time that the car is in motion. DSs drive like they want to die, and soon. But try to remember that some DSs do live to be quite old, and it can’t all be luck. Feel free to eat any food you can find hidden around the car. A gel with a 'Remco last 20km' written on it is likely to be extra delicious. Ask all the questions you…

Your report on the career of Malcolm Elliott (CW 7 December) reminds me of a piece I wrote for the then Cycling magazine about him winning the Hertford town centre criterium in April 1983. I’d noticed that he had come to the start line at the last moment and wondered if he’d been delayed on the trip down from Sheffield. He explained that he’d lost one of his contact lenses in the changing room and he’d been spending time trying to find it. Did he find it? “No, I was in two minds about racing when I couldn’t find it, and had to ride the race cross-eyed.” This, it should be noted, was on a tight town centre criterium with high speed and tight corners. Also, he only thought the…

Gruesome images of Stefan Küng crossing the finish line with a blood-spattered skinsuit and shattered helmet after he rode head first into the barriers at the European Championships last September provoked much debate. What should be done about the dangerous time trial position that he himself admitted caused the horror crash? Küng, who suffered a broken cheekbone, fractured hand and concussion, claimed that when riding a TT he was “basically blind… I can only see a few metres ahead”. It doesn’t take long to cover the distance of a few metres when travelling at 60kph. Küng relied on his team car for directions, except at the Euros he hadn’t received a warning, and didn’t realise the course wasn’t following the direction he was expecting. The UCI has already looked at…

There are times while listening to Ottilie Quince’s story that it seems just too surreal to be true. It’s as if the world has conspired against her for most of her adult life. “Sometimes when I tell people my story, they say, ‘It sounds like madeup bullshit’,” she says, “but I promise you it isn’t.” The lively, fast-speaking and outgoing 41-year-old would not be alive today were it not for her mother’s donated kidney, transplanted 17 years ago. Then again, that very same transplanted organ has twice almost killed her after the cocktail of medication required daily provoked cancerous growths. On both occasions, Quince has survived – but cancer could come again at any time. Throughout it all, she has become an 11-time world, eight-time European and 18-time British transplant…

Doug from Barnsley gets in touch to tell us that he was recently doing a bit of DIY in his shed – he was repairing some lattice trellising from the garden. This involved drilling holes in some long lengths of wood. Some of these pieces projected over the end of his workbench, and above the bars on his bike. Inevitably (let’s face it, he wouldn’t be writing to me otherwise), he ended up carefully drilling a hole though his stem. “It was easier with a wood-bit than it should have been,” he reports, as if it was Black+Decker’s fault. He said he kept using the bike anyway. The stem broke about two weeks later, happily not resulting in injury. “I was pretty pleased it broke,” he said. “At least I…