Innehållsförteckning för April 2025 från Cycling Plus

Oslo is a city of contrast. Viewed from its glistening deep-blue fjord, it’s the modern mass of glass and design genius that we’ve come to expect from Scandinavia, but dig a little deeper and you’ll come to learn that it’s nature that Norwegian culture holds at its heart. Just a short ride takes you out of the city on segregated cycle lanes and onto sublime tarmac and smooth gravel roads snaking through the trees. There are forested wilderness areas with gorgeous networks of freshwater lakes in almost all directions, named Marka, with Nordmarka to the north being the most well-known and popular with gravel riders heading out of the city. Some of the best rides make a pilgrimage to Kikutstua, a large wooden cabin overlooking Bjørnsjøen lake, which serves up…

ALPE D’HUEZ. STELVIO. SA CALOBRA. Just the names of these three mountains will pique the interest of any avid road cyclist, and bring back memories of pain and suffering to those who’ve attempted them. But 25-year-old Illi Gardner wasn’t just taking on these monsters for fun. The Brit had the Strava segment’s Queen of the Mountain (QOM) title in her sights. “Alpe d’Huez was one of the first major ones I got,” says Gardner, who’s since added the Stelvio and Zoncolan to her trophy cabinet. The 2024 British hill-climb champ is one of a growing breed of col hunters – riders who head overseas to target some of the most famous (and hardest) climbs. Ex-pro Ed Laverack is another, the 30-year-old Welshman setting the record on Mallorca’s Sa Calobra in…

Weight 12.1kg (L) Frame Reynolds 725 steel Fork Amplitude G100 chromoly Groupset Shimano GRX RX822/RX610 12-speed (40t, 10-45t) Wheels Amplitude G100 Tyres Maxxis Rambler, 700c x 45mm Finishing kit Amplitude G100 handlebar (42cm), Amplitude G100 stem (100mm), Amplitude G100 seatpost, Madison Flux Switch saddle The combination of a classy Reynolds steel frame, a chromoly fork and a simple yet effective 1x drivetrain makes the Croix De Fer 40 an easy bike to like. Add in the nicely proportioned ride position and easy handling, and it all makes for a bike that’s fun to ride and dependable when the going gets tough. While the Reynolds 725 steel tubing that the frame is made from isn’t as well known as 531 or as expensive as 853, it’s quality stuff – essentially a…

I’m riding a legendary route – Dumfries to Glasgow. It was the ‘world’s first long-distance bike ride’, by Scottish blacksmith Kirkpatrick Macmillan, ‘inventor of the bicycle [in 1842]’. Except… he never rode the route. And his bicycle probably never existed. But facts shouldn’t get in the way of a good story – ask any anti-cycling newspaper columnist. Macmillan (1812–1878) features in many a 20thcentury history of bicycles as a pedalling equivalent of phone trailblazer Alexander Graham Bell or TV pioneer John Logie Baird. However, unlike those two other Scots, most statements about Macmillan’s inventions are largely cobblers. The story goes that in circa 1839, Macmillan made a treadle (foot-lever)-powered, steerable, two-wheeled velocipede at his smithy in rural Dumfriesshire – the world’s first pedal bike. He rode it regularly to Dumfries,…

01 DO VITAMIN SUPPLEMENTS WORK? Nearly half of UK adults take multivitamins or dietary supplements once a week. It’s easy to see why, because swallowing a promise of a healthier life is much easier, and arguably cheaper, than cooking a rounded, nutritious meal. Hundreds of journals corroborate the use of vitamin supplements… or do they? Where is the evidence that they actually work? Digging deeper A recent study in the journal Nutrition, Obesity and Exercise found that taking a daily multivitamin doesn’t help you to live longer. The US researchers analysed health records from nearly 400,000 adults with no major long-term diseases to ascertain whether a daily multivitamin reduced their risk of death over a 20-year period from the first study in the late 1990s. It didn’t. Worryingly, the research…

Devon & Cornwall The lumpy beginning “Devon and Cornwall are very pretty, but very hilly. It does get your legs going and into the ride. In fact, it’s the hilliest section of the whole ride.” The Lake District The last English section “The Lake District was somewhere I hadn’t visited prior to 2008, and it proved a real treat – scenic and pretty.” Northwest Scotland Powering to the finish “Once you get into Scotland, it’s so vast and remote, particularly that final section in the northwest – one of Europe’s least-populated regions.”…

There will be mud Dendermonde, Belgium 5 January 2025 ● Riding in preparation for a big season on the road after a tough 2024, Wout van Aert experienced quagmire conditions not often seen in the world of skinny tyres at the UCI Cyclocross World Cup round in Dendermonde. Come the finish line, where the Belgian rider would record his first World Cup win of a reduced ’cross schedule, only his eyes were clear of mud. “While doing it sometimes you question why,” a filthy but satisfied Van Aert said of cyclocross after.…

Ride around the tip of the Oslofjord and back on the Nesodden peninsula on this 53km mixed-terrain route, which concludes with a ferry ride back to Oslo. You’re quickly led out of the city by road, before some great gravel sections on woodland singletrack and wide tracks across rural pastures. Expect an undulating ride, with the most significant climb leading you away from the fjord and up to Svartskog. Finish on the road through Torvik before descending to the ferry port in Nesoddtangen. 1 Bike shop Visit Sørensen Sykler in the city for spares or workshop services. 2 Photo op The rock arch of Madman’s Window. Detour to the terrace outside the Ingierstrand Bad restaurant for incredible fjord views. 3 Brunch stop Backstube Nesodden is a good bakery at the…

Cube Attain C:62 SLT  £2,999 This sounds good value, with its premium C:62 carbon fibre frame, semi-aero design and Shimano Ultegra Di2 groupset Cervélo Caledonia-5 Ultegra Di2 £7,400 Endurance geometry is combined with in-built storage, big tyre clearances, aerodynamics and engineered compliance Ribble Allroad SL R Hero £8,799 (£6,999 without wheel upgrade) The Allroad has borrowed elements from the brand’s Ultra aero bike, but has a more relaxed geometry plus year-round usability…

Having grovelled my way up the Italian Alps’ Passo del Mortirolo, I thought I’d reached the outer limits of cycling climbs. But then I rode the Colle Fauniera in the second half of the Granfondo La Fausto Coppi and it redefined everything I thought I knew, delivering more anguish than the more celebrated col. Its numbers tell some of the story, but not all. Average gradients are blunt instruments when assessing the severity of long climbs, often misleading with long flatter sections or even descents. France’s Col de la Croix de Fer from Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne is one such climb, with two descents artificially compressing its gradient to 5.5% – it won’t feel like 5.5 come its summit. Colle Fauniera is the same. An average gradient of 7.7% over 21.3km is tough enough,…

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Weight 8.89kg (L) Frame Carbon fibre Fork Carbon Gears SRAM Force AXS/GX Eagle AXS mullet (40t, 10-50t) Wheels Volte Level 28mm carbon Tyres WTB Riddler, 700c x 45mm Finishing kit Guava Gravelbar integrated carbon bar/stem (42cm/90mm), Guava carbon 27.2mm seatpost, Selle Italia Model X saddle The Spot is the first bike from Spanish upstart brand Guava, with models starting at £2,950 for a mechanical 12-speed Shimano GRX build and rising to this flagship bike. Since every Spot frame is made to order, you can choose from a range of nine frame colours and 10 decal options, giving 160 possible colour combinations. Despite the Spot being Guava’s only model, it more than holds a candle to the more established brands. Guava claim a 1,185g frame and 475g fork weight for a…

The beauty of LEJOG, is that it’s only the start and finish – Land’s End in Cornwall and John o’Groats in Scotland – that are fixed. How you tackle the 874-mile(ish) distance, and in what timescale, is totally up to you. You might attack the solo record (circa 43 hours for men, 51 hours for women), aim for the popular nine-day ride or take a leisurely month to get under the country’s skin, as our expert this month, Sean Conway, did in 2008. He also became the first person to swim it in 2013, and has dreams to do it by air in a glider to complete his land, sea and air trilogy. 01 THINK BIG Don’t be overawed by the distance, or your own lack of experience. Zimbabwe-born Conway…

Winners atop Alpe d’Huez, the Tour de France’s (and cycling’s) best-known climb, get one its 21 switchbacks named after them. At Paris-Roubaix, their names are emblazoned on a shower cubicle. If that sounds like a lesser prize, these aren’t just any ablutions. A relic of professional cycling’s long-forgotten past, the showers are housed in a nondescript building next to the also-iconic Roubaix velodrome, which hosts the finale of the legendary cobbles race. Paris-Roubaix has a deserved reputation for an unreconstructed route, with riders tackling rutted surfaces that have long fallen out of fashion. While every other facet of professional cycling’s progress is on display – the high-tech bikes, aero kit and state-of-the-art coaching, for example – the cobblestones remain a connection to a long-forgotten past. The showers, too, built in…

Each issue, with her ear to the world of UK cycling infrastructure, Laura reports on the setbacks our community faces – and how we’re fighting back For someone without kids, it was a rare treat for me to join the morning school run with a large group of adults and children. The fact that (almost) everyone was on bikes was even better. For the past few months, more and more families’ school runs have become sociable affairs, thanks to a growing wave of so-called bike buses. These informal arrangements, usually organised by a set of parents or carers, work like a bus, only everyone pedals. Setting off on a predetermined route and with a rough timetable, the ‘bus’ picks up kids from various homes along the way, before ushering them…

With road race bikes becoming more comfortable, aero bikes lighter and gravel bikes more capable, the humble endurance bike looked at risk of falling by the wayside, like the classic tourer and audax bike before it. However, thanks to stunning bikes such as Giant’s Defy (which took our coveted Bike of the Year gong in 2024), among others from Trek, Ridley and Specialized, for instance, we’ve seen renewed interest in the kind of bike most of us should be riding. These three 2025 endurance bikes vary in price dramatically, helping you see what you should expect for your budget, and just how diverse this genre now is. 01 What is an endurance bike? Endurance bikes (also known as sportive bikes) are designed to help you cover long distances comfortably across…

All three of the bikes here have a lot going for them. Ribble’s remarkably different Allroad SL R Hero brings race-bike aerodynamic efficiency and speed that’s wrapped up with a ride position most of us can live with. There are proper practical touches for UK riders too. In usual Ribble fashion, their Hero build is remarkable value for money when compared to similarly priced rivals. Every element is premium and there are no corners cut here. The downside of this bike is its ‘Allroad’ moniker, because it most certainly isn’t one. Cervélo’s latest Caledonia-5 is sublime, its heady mix of race-capable speed and class-leading comfort wrapped up in a bike that’s equal parts exciting and easy to live with. The frame and fork are the stars here, thanks to their…

40°C RIDERS FACED EXTREME HEAT AT 2024’S VUELTA Athletes are having to adapt from ‘it’s hot and humid here’ to ‘it’s very cold and windy there’ At the Vuelta [a España] last year, temperatures in the first week went over 40°C, and for three or four consecutive days, there was a rider who finished the race in an ambulance. I was close to being in danger and having health issues, but I never went to the point where it was too much or that I had to go to hospital.” Groupama-FDJ’s top-10 Tour de France finisher Guillaume Martin is explaining what it’s like to be a rider competing on the frontline of the climate crisis. It’s an image that fans have become used to in recent years, as the mercury…

1 Lake CX146 £200 Weight 462.8g each (EU45) Sizes EU36-50 (Regular) EU39-50 (Wide) These winter wonders from Lake are the best I’ve tested. Although they’re bulkier and heavier than their rivals, they’re considerably cheaper than the other shoes on test. The upper is made from Clarino synthetic leather and the ankle section from a softshell fabric, and both have a DWR coating. Underneath is a solid, vent-free outsole made from fibreglass-infused nylon. The higher cuff, wrap-over design and large Boa M4 dial mean you can seriously cinch the boots down to keep warmth in and water out. On the downside, their stiffness can feel a little restrictive. The large cuff feels firm against your shin too, though not uncomfortably so –certainly not as uncomfortable as damp feet. Kudos to Lake…

As the only contact point between you and the road, tyres are one of the most important components on your bike. While there are dedicated options for summer and winter, an all-season design could suit you if you want a tyre you can fit and forget. But it’s not always easy to spot the difference between a good and a bad tyre, and the choice of rubber on the market can be a little overwhelming. I tested this cohort of the latest all-season tyres through the northern hemisphere’s late autumn and winter. Conditions varied wildly, from a prolonged period of dry, mild days to the aftermaths of storms Ashley (with no lack of irony), Bert, Connell and Darragh. By the end, I’d covered in excess of 1,500km. For this test,…