Indholdsfortegnelse for October 3, 2024 i Cycling Weekly

Some 274km of racing. Over 4,300m of elevation. A rampaging Tadej Pogačar. Sunday was not the easiest of introductions for GB’s Oscar Onley to the sphere of senior Worlds road races. The 21-year-old, however, held his nerve in Zurich. After sticking with what was left of the peloton, Onley was the last British rider standing, and was even part of a promising move with Latvia’s Toms Skujiņš and Ireland’s Ben Healy. While this group was brought back, and Onley ended up dropping from the chase for the podium, finishing 16th, he was still Britain’s best finisher, and the youngest man in the top 30. “It was brutal,” he told CW. “I said before the race that I wanted to finish empty, having given it everything, and I definitely did that.…

There was one dominant topic of conversation after the elite women’s road race at the World Championships last week: what had happened to the Dutch? As Lotte Kopecky of Belgium defended her title, the post-mortem exam began for the Netherlands. The mood was muted in Zurich on Saturday as riders, organisers and the media came to terms with the news of the death of junior rider Muriel Furrer, and with incessant rain, which had fallen during the junior road races, continuing. On paper, their team was by far and away the strongest last Saturday. There was a double world champion in Marianne Vos, a Tour de France Femmes winner in Demi Vollering, solid domestiques who could also be leaders in Riejanne Markus and Pauliena Rooijakkers, and the coming things in…

Crashing is an inevitable part of cycling, and most careers aren’t complete without a broken bone, or five. Long periods off the bike and away from racing are common, but they never get easier. I’m currently six weeks into my recovery from a pesky little broken hand and slightly more painful broken vertebrae in my neck, but am finally starting to see the light at the end of the very boring, grey tunnel. Like grief, I feel that an injury imposes similar stages of processing, starting with pain. This is not a particularly pleasant part but luckily this time it didn’t last too long, and in my experience it can be relieved slightly with brownies (or other sweet treats of your choice). Next comes boredom, which begins as the pain…

I’ve done lots of downhill runs with big drops on my gravel bike, and it’s great. Like riding a rigid bike off-road as a kid in the Nineties. Jim Harley The bikes can typically handle the terrain, but it would be good to know how the riders felt after being bumped around. Perhaps a RedShift stem or FutureShock is enough to protect your wrists and arms. Russell Moore Blue trails are fun, red trails not so much given the need to do jumps or accept you’re going to bottom out and need to buy new chainrings. Andy Turner Yes, but you’ll end up with a smashed prostate and ulnar nerves, and sore feet if you’re older! Nick Danbury Manufacturers need to start putting flat bars and speccing front suspension on…

The Coros Dura Solar GPS Bike Computer is a lightweight, well-made, innovative bike computer with solar recharging capabilities. It features a user-friendly toggle that enables you to change the display screen with gloves on. Set-up and first impressions The Dura is pretty easy to set up, once you’ve got the accompanying app running on your mobile. The process of signing up for an account, making a profile and adding a new device is very straightforward. Once connected, you can customise which metrics the computer displays. You can also pair accessories such as power meters and heart rate monitors using ANT+ and Bluetooth. Nothing extraordinary here, but this unit does the simple things well. Screen, display and activity screens The screen is a fully customisable 2.7in (68.6mm) MIP colour screen with…

This image shows newly professional bike racers training on London’s Stamford Bridge track in 1930, in preparation for their first race. These days the track has gone, but the stadium at least – unlike with many of Britain’s old velodromes – still exists. Modern-day Chelsea fans fill the Bridge on alternate weekends for home games, but today the all-seater stands crowd in at the edge of the pitch, covering the area where the track used to be. When this picture was taken, the stadium had already been Chelsea’s home ground for 25 years, and up to 100,000 people could watch the riders race around the perimeter of the pitch on the unbanked track, thanks to the stadium’s enormous, bowl-like design, and the fact spectators could stand on the terraces. Although…

Chocolate box The men’s peloton passes through Maur early on in the Worlds road race last Sunday. The town is home to Powerplay Studios, where Europe recorded ‘The Final Countdown’, among other hits. Hard going Riders slog around the course at the Three Peaks CX race in the Yorkshire Dales last weekend. Competitors probably didn’t get much chance to enjoy the stunning vistas. Report in UK Scene (p54). Allez les bleus Joseph Fritsch of France waves Le Tricolore as he approaches the line in the men’s H4 road race at the Para-cycling Road World Championships. It’s grim in Switzerland The junior men had to contend with some of the worst weather at the World Championships last week. Here, Seb Grindley grits his teeth as he battles to stay out front.…

Having finished her final junior race as world champion, there was barely space for Cat Ferguson to breathe before she moved onto her professional career. The 18-year-old, deservedly junior world champion in both the time trial and the road race in Zurich, left Switzerland due to race in Belgium this week, with two more races to ride before the year is out. It means it is doubtful that the rainbow bands will ever be seen on Ferguson in a race, although future success does seem quite likely. Having dominated her age group this year and at the Worlds, it is time for her to step up, a situation that she is already relishing and succeeding at, with a win already for her new Movistar team, plus a second place. Life…

The post-race aches were all too familiar and didn’t cause me any major concern. But I was in an unfamiliar place, New York City, and about to board an eight-hour flight home. My best chance of minimising DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness), I figured, was to sit still and rest. Throughout the flight I barely moved, doing my best to relax and ignore the pain. Big mistake. Five days later, my left leg was still throbbing, my calf had swelled, and a suspicion something wasn’t right led me to google deep vein thrombosis (DVT) symptoms. That night, A&E confirmed my worst fear: a blood clot. Cycling was banned for four weeks, blood thinners prescribed for three months, and the reality of how dangerous long-haul travel can be hit home. Most…

Last year’s winners Bryony Halcrow and Giles Drake both successfully defended their titles at the Three Peaks cyclo-cross event in North Yorkshire on Sunday. The legendary 38-mile event attracted hundreds of riders to run and ride 5,000 feet of climbing as they ascended Ingleborough, Whernside and Pen-y-ghent. While the day itself was dry, days of rain in the build-up to the race meant it was very boggy. Drake (Wheelbase CabTech-Castelli) ended the race 1.23 ahead of runnerup Jenson Young (Ribble Verge), who made an impressive debut in the event, while Oliver Dawson (Wolf Cycles) was another five minutes back in third. Young led for some sections but Drake pulled it back when on foot, and a crash on Whernside for Young gave the former the chance to extend his lead.…

In some respects running was invented by the early humans millions of years ago, very shortly after the evolution of the sabretoothed tiger. But it wasn’t properly invented until the early forerunners of the bicycle, because until there was some other way to travel it hadn’t occurred to anyone that running was a choice. A poor choice. Now there was a good way to travel under your own effort, and a bad way. Running has served ever since to make cycling better by means of providing a flattering contrast. How much better is tooling along at 30kph on a bike for knowing that there’s almost no plimsollwearer on the planet who could keep up with you? (And, on the subject of shoes, running shoes have to be replaced every few…

A century of bicycle production is quite an achievement. In 1987 Raleigh decided to celebrate its 100th birthday in style – with a run of limited-edition gold-plated road bikes. The Nottingham-based brand had been on a high in the ’70s and early ’80s, thanks in no small part to the exploits of the Dutch TI Raleigh team. Peter Post’s outfit racked up more than 900 wins, with their success reaching a crescendo in 1980, when Joop Zoetemelk won the Tour de France. But by 1983 the team was no more and Raleigh fell out of the spotlight somewhat. Its centenary provided a golden opportunity to do something about it. Only 200 of the Centenary bikes were produced, sold to preferred Raleigh dealers across the UK. Two sizes were offered, 56cm…

Tadej Pogačar was already the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France champion, a double which in the current era was considered all but impossible. On Sunday, the Slovenian added the World Championships road race to his 2024 palmarès, a feat which has only happened on two previous occasions by male riders. This is Tadej Pogačar’s world, and we are all just living in it. His latest triumph came off the back of a move that he himself labelled as “stupid” and others called “suicide” and “crazy”. With 100km still to race, Pogačar pushed off the front of the peloton on the Zürichbergstrasse, and was never seen again by his rivals in the bunch. Belgian Remco Evenepoel, a man who knows something about winning big races from distance, said: “The moment…

Swiss junior rider Muriel Furrer died following a crash in the junior women’s road race at the World Championships in Zurich last Thursday. In a press release issued last Friday afternoon, the UCI confirmed the 18-year-old’s death after she suffered a “serious head injury” in the crash on Thursday. The incident reportedly took place on the southern end of the Zurich city circuit during heavy rainfall. Furrer finished second in both the junior road race and time trial at Switzerland’s national championships this year, and finished 44th in the junior time trial at the Worlds on Tuesday. “Our hearts are broken, we have no words. It is with a heavy heart and infinite sadness that we have to say goodbye to Muriel Furrer today,” a spokesperson for Swiss Cycling said.…

It’s a scene worthy of the front of a chocolate box. The mountains open up ahead of me, the white snow glaring in spite of my sunglasses. Speckled in the grassy hills, a smattering of boxy, wooden houses, each with differentcoloured shutters, stare back at me. I can hear water cascading down the rocks. It’s mid-June and I’m in the Swiss Alps, scaling one of the world’s most iconic climbs: the Gotthard Pass. I have never seen natural beauty like it. And yet, knowing what’s to come, this sublime scene is making me uneasy. Until today, the Gotthard had lived at the back of my mind as something mythical. I had visited the mountains of France, Italy and Spain, ridden Alpe d’Huez and the Col du Tourmalet, but this place…

You may pride yourself on owning a KOM on that little hill that you caught with a howling tailwind one day to place you at the top of the pile. You may even be fast enough to hold top ranking on some of the bigger, more well-known climbs in your area, but what about the most sought-after KOMs in the world? The ones us mortals can only dream of owning, on roads so famous that they have been attempted by hundreds of thousands of riders. What better excuse for an overseas adventure than to try your luck on one of these iconic ascents? We have compiled a selection of the most coveted Strava segments on Earth, assessed what it takes to crack their top-10s, and talked to the kings and…

Now that the evenings are drawing in it’s time to shed light on bike ‘headlights’, as CatEye calls them. The Japanese brand is often associated with budget products, which is fair enough because its popular light range starts well below £20. Its new AMPP 2200 is, however, light years away from those inexpensive products. Its sleek, matt black body is crafted from aluminium, not plastic, and its single, high-output LED produces 2,200 lumens in ultra-boost mode. That’s very bright indeed, comparable to a modern car headlight. Not surprisingly, running at this intensity will burn through its rechargeable li-on battery in about an hour. Dialling in a more road-friendly 800 lumens extends run-time to a more usable 2.5 hours, and switching to the 200 lumen Enduro mode will see you safely…

Oli France is a cycle adventurer who has visited over 75 countries. Difficulties he has confronted on his travels include getting interrogated, being held at gunpoint, catching meningitis, getting caught in an earthquake, being surrounded by militia groups and having a near-miss with an avalanche. These days he takes planning very seriously. Here are his top tips: • Do a risk assessment: “I spend a lot of time thinking about risk factors and what I can do to mitigate them. I will always have solid local contacts and a well-formulated plan and emergency procedures.” • Plan a decompression period: “When I arrive, I work on acclimatising, taking into account new cultures, new temperatures, different humidity, different elevations and different food.” • Follow regular sleep routines: “To stack the odds in…