Innehållsförteckning för September 2016 från Cycling Plus

£135 › A smart way to travel 1 Two-in-one The Henty Wingman Messenger Backpack is essentially two bags – a tube-shaped holdall that’ll carry shoes, underwear, sarnies and the like and a suit bag for your smart clothing. 2 Roll it up A foldable plastic hanger, once loaded with shirt, jacket and slacks clips into the bag. Zip it up, clip in the rollbag, roll the suit bag around that and two clips give you a sausage shaped backpack. 3 It’ll carry more than a suit A zipped compartment will take up to a 15in laptop, which sits against your back in a padded sleeve and there’s a rain cover too. Another zipped compartment is the place to stash keys, wallet and phone. 4 It’s stable and secure The shoulder…

This new £1850 wheelset from the Dutch wheelsmith comes in tubular, carbon clincher, rim and disc brake versions, with the lightest variant weighing a claimed 1265g. The 30mm tall, 22.4mm wide rims spin on DT Swiss 240 hubs with 12mm thru-axles. We’ll bring you a full test soon. ON THE RADAR BIKE TECH OF THE NEAR FUTURE THE STAGE IS SET Stages’ single-sided crank-based power meter has gone carbon. The world’s first carbon crank with integral power meter works as it is with FSA chainsets, with adaptors for SRAM. FSA JOINS GRUPPO GANG Italy’s Full Speed Ahead has finally joined the groupset fray, with its new wireless setup making its belated debut in the Tour de France, where it was ridden by Cofidis and Direct Energie riders. TURBO CHARGED Tacx’s…

Last month, I went on a camping and cycling weekend with a group of friends and their neighbours. Some of their tents were more expensive than my bike, and a number of their bikes must have cost them more than my household income. There was much debate about life, post-referendum. However, cycling is a great leveller and we had a great time – with rides, drinks, barbecues and water pistol fights (we eventually let the kids join in). One thing that struck me was the cluelessness shown by many of the adults as to how bikes actually work. One lady, a high-achieving professional, walked her bike five miles back to the campsite because the ‘brakes weren’t working’. They were – it was only a bit of cable stretch, which I…

Eddy Merckx is widely considered to be the greatest cyclist of all time. His bike brand caters to all your road bike needs, with the Sallanches fulfilling the role of a big-mile endurance machine. The name comes from the town in France that hosted the 1964 UCI Road World Championships, where Merckx took the amateur title at just 19. His winning time (185.5km in four hours, 39 minutes, 10 seconds) is emblazoned on the down-tube. You might question what a bike weighing 8.6kg is doing in a test focused on weight, but the Sallanches is built on a frame that’s claimed to come in at a reasonable 990g, with a feathery 360g fork. Its total weight isn’t particularly impressive, but in the interests of fairness we should point out that…

When Fuji launched the SL line at the 2015 Vuelta a España, the claimed 695g weight of the 1-series frame put it in a very select group of ultralight machines. It’s a natural pick for a test focusing on weight, but it’s also far from cheap, which is where the working-man’s 2-series comes in. The SL 2.1 gets a frame that’s a bit heavier (900g with paint, apparently) than the top-tier machine, but benefits from the same tech. Fuji uses “high compaction” moulding (with both internal and external moulds) to produce a frame that’s just about as finished on the inside as it is on the outside. There’s no superfluous material adding weight, and the process helps to ensure the even distribution of resin within the carbon matrix, producing the…

UK importer Phian is on trend with fat rims built into friendly-handling wheels for less belligerent riders. The ride The C5 rims are 50mm deep but the 25mm outside brake track swells to 27mm at the broadest point. Add a rounded inner edge and this toroidal rather than teardrop shape is designed to manage varying airflow angles. It also helps to centralise the aerodynamic centre of the wheel so you won’t obviously notice them in the way your bar turns. The extra side area and broad bladed spokes mean you’ll still feel sideways pressure in crosswinds but they don’t twitch or tramline in high speed situations. The extra tyre width created by the 17.5mm internal width rim and even medium-tension hand-built construction give a smooth, speed-sustaining steel frame feel on…

£110 › Classy, British-made top Made from a luxurious fabric that’s roughly one third merino wool, two thirds synthetic, this top from microbrand Svelte doesn’t succumb to ‘Lycra stink’ nearly as quickly as standard kit. Its mid-weight construction makes it a good choice for changeable spring and autumn days. It’s the little details that make the Heritage work. There’s a zippered security pocket that’s easily accessed with your right hand, plus a button-down ‘key pocket’ in addition to the standard three at the back, enough to accommodate all your riding essentials. The cuffs are long and comfortable, with very neatly finished ends, and the overall cut is racy without being oppressively so – there’s just a hint of bunching in the front. VELOBICI CONTINENTAL SHORT SLEEVE JERSEY £160 If you…

01-04 Lifestyle SMALL CHANGES IN YOUR DAY-TO-DAY LIFE CAN BOOST YOUR WEIGHT LOSS GOALS Switch off your lights Gadgets, such as tablets and phones, that emit bright artificial light at night can contribute to weight gain, a recent study from the International Journal of Obesity has highlighted. It’s all the fault of ALAN – Artificial Light At Night – and its influence on hormones in the brain. But don’t dip the dimmers when you’re eating. Evidence in the Journal of Marketing Research found that those who dine in well-lit restaurants are 16-24 per cent more likely to order healthy foods than those in dimly lit ones. “We feel more alert in brighter rooms so tend to make more healthful decisions,” explains lead author Dipayan Biswas, University of South Florida. “SUCCESSFUL…

WHY TAPER? Tapering encourages useful physiological changes that can improve performance. Muscle glycogen levels increase so there’s more fuel to ride with, and tapering lets the body repair and heal, for increased strength and speed. In addition, a reduction in training volume can actually help to increase both aerobic metabolism and maximum oxygen consumption. TAPER DOWN TRAINING Your training load should be reduced 7-10 days ahead of an event, although there’ll be differences in this, based on your age, fitness and the type of ride. Your training frequency should be maintained, so if you train four days per week then keep doing that. However, the duration should be reduced by 50-60 per cent, so if you train 10 hours per week, reduce that to 4-5 hours TRAIN ABOVE RACE INTENSITY…

The first thing to bear in mind is that events like RideLondon are essentially big group rides. There are skills that you need to have to be able to ride in a bunch, as without them you’ll be working a lot harder. The only way to skill-up is to do it, so start off by riding with a local club. “There’s a limit to what you can achieve riding solo, riding with your neighbour or best friend,” says coach Courtney of Rowe & King Coaching (roweandking.com). “The energy an inexperienced bunch of riders uses compared to an experienced one is massive, and it’s critical – it’s the difference between keeping up and not, so find a quality club with good, organised rides “I’d also advise people not to necessarily join…

Back in 2004, tasked to help re-launch this years-dormant race, perhaps even Mick Bennett would’ve struggled to believe just how big it would become from such small beginnings. But the race director and his team at SweetSpot surfed the wave of the British cycling boom with skill and enthusiasm. Now, we arrive here, in 2016, at a race that is undeniably one of the biggest and best outside of the Grand Tours. With a lifelong passion for bike racing and the energy of a man half his age, Bennett’s personality is all over the Tour of Britain, as we found out when we went to speak with at him. Turn the page to find out more about the man behind the race and all about this year’s Tour of Britain,…

Chefs are no longer a novelty in cycling these days but a must for any team serious about their prospects. In a sport that is so focused on the minutiae, health and nutrition is paramount for a cyclist to make the most of their talents. Anyone who has ever been on a diet will know how hard it is to maintain it when you go away from home and for professional cyclists it is no different. Riders can spend anywhere between 50 and 100 days racing, plus days of travelling, with training camps on top again. There are times when the hotel food is fantastic but those can be few and far between, especially when races visit more remote locations, which is where the team chef comes in. How teams…

By doing a sportive for a stag you don’t feel guilty about getting hammered, drinking and eating I trained for RideLondon during Euro 2016. I needed to lose a few pounds after bulking up for a role so I watched the football while riding the turbo – for 120 minutes all through half-time too – in the front room, wearing a bin liner to sweat off some pounds. My wife thinks I’m insane. Riding a Brompton bike kept me on my career path. When I was living and working in London and Manchester, I’d ride it to Euston Station, then from Manchester Piccadilly to the studios. I took a wrong turn the first time through Salford and a load of Mancs just laughed at me shouting “What da fooking hell…

Ah Canyon, directsales custodian of our hearts. Your Germanic marketing and ridiculous value for money are forever the bane of bike reviewers trying to carry out fair group tests. We’ve tested Canyon’s Ultimate AL in a few different builds and it’s always done well. For our lightnessthemed round-up we asked Canyon to send one of its weight weenie specials, and while the SLX 9.0 Aero isn’t the lightest build the company offers, it’s on par with the competition and has an impressive spec that includes Shimano’s excellent Ultegra Di2 groupset, some stylish Reynolds carbon clinchers, and the usual decent finishing kit. This is one bike that doesn’t need to make any apologies for its choice of frame material. Built around a very nice aluminium frame weighing a claimed 1170g, the…

T he Ultralight is Basque Country brand BH’s weightfocused race bike and its frame is available in two versions, the rangetopping Ultralight Evo at a claimed 700g, and the standard Ultralight we’re testing here at 760g. In keeping with the gram-shaving theme, the frame has a minimalist and dare we say it, rather boring, matt black paintjob. (Paint, of course, adds lots of weight.) This understated colour scheme doesn’t do a lot to draw attention to a frame that’s elegant, if not distinctive. Its top-tube, down-tube and bottom bracket are big and a bit boxy for stiffness, with walls that manage to feel very thin without being flimsy. Things are a little daintier looking at the seat cluster, with a slim seat-tube and stays in aid of compliance, while the…

WE SAY The SUPERBones offers superb quality and performance but is very expensive SARIS ISN’T SHY ABOUT HYPING this carrier, calling it ‘the ultimate trunk rack’ and ‘functional art’. The company might not be overstating it though as it also says the SUPERBones is the culmination of everything learned from all its previous boot racks, and that’s a lot because the Bones rack has sold over a million in more than 20 years. The SUPERBones 3 looks very similar to the Bones 3, and in basic terms it is. Curved arms are adjustable to fit a wide range of vehicles from small saloons to flat-backed vans, the feet are designed to spread the load and avoid scratching paintwork. Ratchet straps are fixed to the arms to secure up to three…

There was certainly an air of invincibility, or at the very least inevitability, surrounding Chris Froome’s third Tour de France title. The Team Sky leader was the most proficient TT rider, had the measure of his rivals in the mountains, conjured up tactical master classes almost at will and had the strongest team whenever there was a hint of danger. Team Sky were simply too much for all of Froome’s rivals and once he rode into yellow on the stage to Luchon, he never looked back. It seemed, as was the case atop Mont Ventoux when the maillot jaune chose to run and on the final descent of stage 19, that only bad luck and crashes were potential obstacles on his path to glory. And by far and away this…

The women’s cycling market is growing, and growing fast. Driven by the inspirational performance of athletes at the London 2012 Olympics, initiatives such as British Cycling’s Breeze Champions network, increased coverage of inspirational women’s professional racing and a very strong grassroots movement, there are more women than ever on bikes. And the industry is responding, with more women-specific bikes than ever before, from entry-level models to top-end carbon-framed feats of engineering designed to be ridden at the highest competitive level. When it comes to actually working out which bikes give the best performance, or offer greatest value for money, information is a little thin on the ground. The truth is there isn’t a huge number of bike reviews out there. BikeRadar [Cycling Plus’s sister website] decided to do something about…

Choose a job you love, and you’ll never do a day’s work in your life, as Confucius never said. So how about cycling for a living? Professional racing is the preserve of the dedicated few, but there are a lot of other ways you can get paid to do something you enjoy. Police officers or paramedics on bikes are a familiar sight these days. As well as cyclists delivering takeaways, cargo bikes delivering to town centre businesses, tour guides... perhaps even Covent Garden rickshaws infuriating the taxi drivers. There’s also a hidden cult of people who do their main work from the saddle: gardeners, builders, florists, forest rangers, pianotuners... even (though none would be interviewed) private investigators. Well, that last one figures: we know that to many people we’re not…

I’m in the basement of a townhouse on London’s Harley Street, sweating and breathing heavily while being shouted at by a man named Jim, as his assistant takes photos. But don’t worry, this isn’t a terrible remake of Hostel, I’m at the Centre for Health & Human Performance (CHHP, chhp.com), in the middle of a cardio-pulmonary exercise test (CPEX), as part of my prep for Team Cycling Plus’s epic ride from Land’s End to John O’Groats. Jim Pate is a senior physiologist and leads the CPEX testing at the CHHP. He’s shouting encouragingly as I sweat all over his floor, wearing a mask that measures respiratory gases, on an exercise bike that looks straight from an ’80s movie set (I’m assured it’s very high tech). Riding at a steady 90rpm,…

Organising the Tour of Britain seems a mammoth task, where do you start? Our commercial department will tell me that a region wants a race and they’ll put the pieces of the jigsaw together in either the start or finish venue. Because we can’t cover the whole country in eight days, we have to move it in lumps, year-on-year. We’re down the west side of the country this year and it might be down the east next year. My department will piece the route together with the prospective venue, to find the good racing territory in that region. We’ll launch the race in January but never reveal the route, because we don’t have it at that point. In February we’ll drive the route and a month before the race we’ll…

NAME: TIM HOME AKA ‘JOHN TRAVOLTA’ LOCATION: THE STRUGGLE, AMBLESIDE, LAKE DISTRICT STAGE 2, CARLISLE TO KENDAL GRABBING THE TITLE AT JUST 16, Tim explains his path to glory. “John Travolta is my pseudonym on Strava. I thought it would be cool to do the same thing as the mysterious pro who goes by the name ‘JP’ but unfortunately I’m not quite as good. “I was in the Lakes two years ago for a weekend’s riding with my dad. I’d just ridden over Hardknott and Wrynose (getting the KOM on the way…) and was waiting in a car park to go home when I thought about The Struggle. I was in Ambleside so knew I was close to it. It ramps up steep, probably up to 20 per cent, in…

Imagine it’s the monthly meeting of your local cycling club and the first item on the agenda is that you’ve been asked by the UCI to organise and host this year’s road race World Championships. Would you be able to get enough marshals? Is the village hall available on that date? How much soup and sandwiches would you need? That was the challenge facing Anfield Bicycle Club members in 1922, except for them it was even harder, because bike racing on British roads was outlawed, and the whole event would have to be cloaked in secrecy. For the ABC, it was just another day at the office… It may sound unlikely but the roots of some of cycling’s most iconic events – from those world championships to time trials, perhaps…

1945 The year the race began, under the name Victory Cycling Marathon. Celebrating the end of World War II, the fivestage race ran from Brighton to Glasgow and was won by Frenchman Robert Batot. 8 The number of editions the Kellogg’s Tour - the professionalised Tour of Britain -ran for, from 1987 to 1994. There were some big-time winners, too, including Robert Millar (1989), Phil Anderson (1991, 1993) and Italian former world champ Maurizio Fondfriest (1994). 5 The number of stages in the first modern edition in 2004. It was barely a Tour of Britain, starting in Manchester and not getting south of London. Despite being a lowranking 2.3-level race it attracted teams such as US Postal, with a dominant Tom Boonen winning the stage to Nottingham. 1947 The Victory…

NEW BIKES AND KIT TESTS Among the bikes I rode are Bianchi’s All Road ‘adventure’ bike (p24) and stripped-back urban bikes on p26. Kit includes Specialized’s new highend lace-up shoes (p86) Warren Rossiter, Senior technical editor NEW BIKE AND KIT TESTS Belt-drives are still rare, but our test of the Scott Sub 10 (p25) shows they are great for commuter bikes. And if you think all cycling socks are the same, turn to page 84… Simon Withers, Production editor BIKE TEST As the lightest member of the Cycling Plus testing team it naturally fell to me to test lightweight road bikes (p48). These days they’re much more than just climbers’ machines… Matthew Allen, Senior technical writer RATINGS EXPLAINED EXCEPTIONAL A genuine class leader VERY GOOD One of the best you…

Australia’s Bastion Cycles has combined titanium and carbon fibre in its unique custom road bike. It pairs laser printed ribbed titanium lugs with round carbon tubes produced by what it calls ‘filament winding’. This allows Bastion to tune the bike to a rider’s needs with a claimed delivery time of just four weeks (if you live in Oz). But it’s not cheap. This model, built with Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 and Curve wheels costs $14,784 AUS (c£8400), though less expensive builds are available. But you’ll also have to factor in 15 per cent import duty and 20 per cent VAT. Calculators out……

Based in the Basque country where you’re never more than spitting distance from a mountain, Orbea is an obvious pick when talking about lightweight climber’s bikes. The one-time arms manufacturer has been making bikes for the better part of a century, and its Orca is a pure racer that’s campaigned by French Pro Continental team Cofidis. On test we have the secondtier frameset, which gets Orbea’s slightly lower-grade OMP carbon rather than the top-spec OMR stuff. Nevertheless, the frame is claimed to be 180g lighter than its predecessor at around 1050g, as well as offering the usual cocktail of improved stiffness and compliance. The Orca’s frame looks like it was sculpted by somebody with an imagination rather than mere CAD skills. Its lines are complex and varied, with the paintjob…

£3549 › Aero-esque design from German lightweight specialist We’re going to be terribly perverse; on test we have an aero bike, or at least one with aero features. Storck doesn’t quantify the benefits, but it sports a ‘Ground Parallel’ down-tube designed using CFD [Computational Fluid Dynamics], and one built by a weight-obsessed company. In its top-tier Platinum incarnation, the Storck Aernario gets a frame weighing a claimed 790g – light by any standards, and exceptional by aero standards. It’s also fearsomely expensive, so we’ve got the third-tier Comp version, which is only quite expensive and claims a slightly-lessimpressive-but-still-not-bad 1150g, plus 400g for the fork. But with an Ultegra groupset and DT Swiss carbon clinchers it still manages to flirt with the UCI minimum weight. The Aernario is a curious beast.…

NORTHWAVE EXTREME TECH PLUS Northwave’s Italian-made pro-level left- and right-specific socks are a bold and bright design based around Coolmax material, which does a very effective job. They’re a heavier weight, with high elasticated cuffs that stay up well and have a compressive effect. They feel like they are made to last. SUGOI RS CREW Lightish weight left- and rightspecific socks, Sugoi’s RS Crews are based around polypropylene for durability with wicking that’s very good, if not quite up there with the best. The cuffs are narrower than most, just a centimetre or so wide, but the elasticated feel ensures they stay up however hard you’re riding. CHAPEAU ABOVE ANKLE These are a lightweight pair of Coolmax-based socks that’ll keep you in the pink, with elasticated cuffs to hold them…

Until the first peals of laughter, I had no idea that the French find folding bikes hilarious. ‘Regarde le vélo!’ people would scream. ‘Comme les roues sont petites!’ I knew that my bike had little wheels, and I didn’t need telling. But then again, people have always liked to holler the obvious at cyclists. It was de rigueur during the 1970s, to yell, ‘Oi mister’ at people on bikes. Once you had their attention, you’d throw in the punchline: ‘Your wheel’s going round!’ This would be accompanied by a fusillade of Sid James-style chuckling. I never understood why. And so it was, that during the Tour de France, my co-commentator David Millar and I would normally get in an hour or two of riding before work, on folding bikes. We’d…