Innehållsförteckning för February 28, 2019 från Cycling Weekly

March is just one day away (when this mag goes on sale) and that really does mean the proper start of the race season. April and July are often feted for their big races, but the truly exciting month is March. The multiple events not only provide entertaining racing, but all give tantalising glimpses of the big race battles ahead, thus building the excitement. In March we can marvel at a rider’s promise following a good race, while simultaneously embracing the debate surrounding a bad performance. It’s also training camp month, as we mention in our ‘Things to do in March’ feature on pages 30-33. Training camp week used to be one of the highlights of my year. One of the most memorable is the year my bike didn’t make…

Classic de l’Ardèche Rhône Crussol (March 2) The UCI 1.1 race forms part of a double-header of one-day racing in the region and has been won by pure climbers and rouleurs in the past. Omloop van het Hageland-Tielt-Winge (March 3) Ellen van Dijk defends her 2018 win for Trek-Segafredo as the women’s peloton head to the cobbles and bergs of Belgium to begin the Classics. Britain’s rising star Pfeiffer Georgi, 18, makes her debut for Team Sunweb. La Drôme Classic (March 3) A lumpy parcours that includes its final ascent in the final two kilometres, Romain Bardet (Ag2r) will be aiming to repeat his 2014 triumph in south-eastern France. Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne (March 3) Reigning champion Dylan Groenewegen (Jumbo-Visma) and Fabio Jakobsen (Deceuninck-Quick Step) will be among the favourites, both on a…

Rate your last race. The Tour of Oman was enjoyable. Bike racers like to complain but in two weeks when we’re all racing in Belgium or Paris-Nice we will miss racing in Oman. Sunshine, it’s not that windy, good hotel, good food. What’s the plan for the rest of the season? It’s Paris-Nice, Basque, Flèche, Liège, California, then my wedding, then the Dauphiné and hopefully the Tour. Ilnur Zakarin’s doing the Giro for Katusha so it’s going to be Marcel Kittel and it’s unclear what I’m needed for. Maybe going for stages in the mountains. How was your 2018 Tour de France experience? Mind-blowing. I’d like to go well in California this year, but I want to go back to the Tour because it’s incredible, it’s like no other bike…

While, ultimately, the races themselves were a very successful sporting spectacle, bringing the whole thing together — and even running it on the day — proved far from stress-free for organiser Alan Rushton. With less than five months before the big weekend, Rushton inherited the event from an organisational team that had managed to make little headway in securing sponsorship. “There was a deal with Campagnolo for the meterage boards on the finish straight. But there was very little other money,” says Rushton. Eventually sponsorship for roadside advertising hoardings was found, but the challenges were far from over. While national team jerseys weren’t branded, riders would be wearing their pro team shorts, complete with sponsors. For the BBC, tasked with broadcasting the events and at a time when even footballers…

Stuart Hall Cycling Tours A long-established holiday company that’s been taking CW readers to Majorca for many years. Guided rides and airport transfers are included, bike hire is available. Staying at the four-star Playa Mar Hotel in Port Pollensa. Prices start from £425 per person on half-board. www.stuarthallcycling.co.uk Legros training camp Former track sprinter Dave Le Grys has been taking riders to Majorca for over 20 years. Based at the Duva hotel just outside Port Pollensa, guided group rides go out each day, tailored to ability. This year’s spring camp starts on March 31. Prices start at £490. www.legrostrainingcamp.com Sun Velo Based just outside Alcudia, Sun Velo’s spring season runs from March 1 to the end of May. Guided routes for all levels. Based at the four-star Prinsotel La Dorada…

Why a handmade bike? You either get it or you don’t get it,” says Phil Taylor, the organiser and founder of Bespoked, the UK’s annual handmade bicycle show. “It’s like trying to define love.” Let’s have a go at unpacking why something made from — more often than not — cold, hard steel makes fans of custom bikes feel all warm and fuzzy inside. “The most obvious one is that a bicycle made to measure fits you, it’s tailored to fit you for your specific riding needs,” says Taylor. “When you sit on it you know that all the contact points are in the right place for what you want to do. But there’s also the emotional response. For a lot of people it’s about riding a bicycle that’s unique…

13TH & 14TH APRIL 2019 The New Forest Spring Sportive has become one of the biggest events of the sportive calendar. It’s such a popular early-season test that it runs on both the Saturday and Sunday – and yet it still sells out before the day. Now in its seventh year, it is a flagship event for UK Cycling Events in the South of England. Event HQ is the spectacular stately home, Somerley House in Hampshire. Somerley House was designed by Samuel Wyatt in 1750 and has been in the Normanton family for five generations since it was bought by The 2nd Earl in 1825. The house and its gardens sit high up over looking hundreds of acres of parkland. Winding its way through this beautiful parkland is the well-known river Avon…

Pro rider turned coach Liam Holohan (hangrycyclist.com), 30, made last year’s Haute Route Alps his season’s main target. Here, he tells Pete Cossins how he prepared. "My principal goal last season was to become the first British man to win the classic Haute Route event in the Alps, which is essentially seven Tour de France mountain stages running back-to-back, covering 800km and more than 20,000m of vertical gain. “As a full-time pro, climbs were always my preferred terrain and where I got my best results, but having devoted more time to coaching from 2017 I knew that the Haute Route would be a difficult event to prepare for, especially on the roads around my Shropshire home. “Several of the riders I coach were also taking part, so I set up…

ROAD RACING SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 23 East London Velo Winter Series round eight (Redbridge circuit, Essex): 2, 3: 1. Liam Fenner (API Metrow Body by JR); 2. T. Torrie (Vitus Pro Cycling); 3. T. Cullen (Otley CC); 4. T. Whitehead (Oxted CC); 5. T.Boness (Blazing Saddles Cycles); 6. H. Gebrehiwet (CC Hackney); 7. L. de Moncheaux-Irons (Meudon Pedal Heaven); 8. T. Miles (Finchley RT); 9. S. Rivera (VC Londres); 10. O. Hennessey (Spirit Tifosi RT). Fourth Cat: 1. Yahel Houson (UCL Cycling Club); 2. W. Green (Maldon & Dist CC); 3. C. Walker (St Ives CC); 4. J. Bodey (Cambridge Univ CC); 5. J. Nesbitt (Pearson Cycles); 6. J. Guest (Oxted CC). Women: 1. Greta Cowen (East CC); 2. S. King (Bianchi Dama); 3. O. Poole (Islington CC); 4. H. Kitchen…

doctorhutch_cycling@ti-media.com I mentioned recently my vague thoughts about some sort of racing comeback. The good news is that it’s still on. The bad news is also that it’s still on. The problem has been training. After an injury-plagued 2018, I was keen to get back to it. I eased myself into it around October, and am pleased to say I was still easing myself into it at the beginning of last week. Then, stupidly, I decided to ramp things up and do a Zwift training session. “Proper training,” I thought. “I’ll enjoy that. It will be just like old times.” The first thing Zwift wanted to know was my FTP — functional threshold power. If you don’t know this number you can work it out, by riding for 20 minutes…

Reports land in the AoCS inbox of a cycling club getting ready for a big training weekend this spring. The organisers had formulated a spreadsheet that Team Sky themselves would have been proud of. It featured columns on which ride the cyclists were allowed on, where they were staying, with whom and where they were eating. Keen to be organised, they could even pre-book their post-ride food. Upon placing their order, one member asked: “Do they do a Caeser salad without dressing, croutons, parmesan or chicken?” The organisers said they would be more than happy to provide them with a lettuce, yes.…

British Vuelta a España champion Simon Yates professed to be improving each day at the recent Ruta del Sol as he builds form towards the Giro d’Italia in May. Yates lost time on the first day of racing in Andalusia, Spain, but bounced back to take a commanding win on the queen stage to Granada. The Bury-born rider said: “Well, it was getting better every day; I didn’t sit up the first day, it was just too fast for me.” The Mitchelton-Scott rider distanced a group including his brother and team-mate Adam, Steven Kruijswijk (Jumbo-Visma) and Ion Izagirre (Astana) by 26 seconds on the way to victory on stage four. “It’s not easy, I was almost at 200 heart rate and I can tell you now that it hurts,” he…

OWEN ROGERS News writer There is no glitz or glamour about the Tour of Oman. No team presentation in a swanky art gallery, no motor racing circuits, no WorldTour and no live TV. Indeed the Tour of Oman is so laid-back, so low profile you might be forgiven for thinking it serves no purpose. On the face of it Oman is a race in decline. Previous editions have attracted such luminaries as Chris Froome, Vincenzo Nibali and Tom Dumoulin, all lured by the promise of a battle on the signature climb of Jabar Al Akhdhar — the Green Mountain. “THE RACE HAS SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE” However, while recent editions have enticed only the second tier of general classification hopefuls, the race is now finding its niche as preparation for Classics…

Teenager Oliver Rees held off a field littered with elite and professional riders to win the Clayton Spring Classic Handicap Road Race in Lancashire on Sunday. The 17-year-old from Huddersfield led the HMT Hospitals-Giant team to a one-two, taking the win ahead of team-mate Dylan Westley while Isaac Peatfield (Green Jersey RT) was narrowly behind in third. At last year’s Clayton Spring Classic Rees was 14th and went on to place sixth in the Eddie Soens Handicap and finish ninth overall in the National Junior Road Race Series. His season also included winning the Harrogate Nova Summer Road Race as well as two top-10 finishes in the prestigious Junior Tour of Wales and numerous victories in the velodrome. “I decided to go long and attacked with about 500 metres to…

Swift down but not out for long Sky rider Ben Swift is hoping to recover in time to ride Milan-San Remo on March 23 after rupturing his spleen in a training crash in Tenerife. The Yorkshireman, currently still recuperating in a Spanish hospital, was with team-mate Geraint Thomas when he hit a well-disguised rock in the road, and suffered facial wounds and road rash as well as spleen damage in the crash. Cyber champs kicks off British Cycling’s eRacing Championship, hosted by Zwift, began last week with men’s and women’s qualifying races being won by Stevie Young (Canyon ZCC) and Illi Gardner (KISS RT) respectively. Young rides at second-cat for Royal Airforce CA, while Gardner is U23 with BrotherUK-Tifosi. Once the top 10 has been scrutinised and confirmed, riders will…

Forty Most Important Cyclists — what a great article (CW, Feb 7). No doubt there has been a lot of debate on who was the most important. I personally could not agree more with the choice of Fausto Coppi. What also made the man so remarkable was the fact he overcame massive pressure due to his private life. With the scandal of his relationship with an undivorced woman, he was kicked out of his home and suffered regular police harassment and denouncement from the Pope. He was shunned and spat at by the public and whilst racing. Despite all this he still competed and won races. By today’s standards, there are not many sportsmen who could cope with this pressure and still be at the top of their game. Chapeau,…

The Colnago Nuovo Mexico that Giuseppe Saronni propelled to Worlds victory is still alive and well today at the Colnago museum in Cambiago, Milan. It rests in pure unadulterated glory nearby the machine from which its name derived — the orange track bike used by Eddy Merckx to set a new Hour record in Mexico, 1972. Saronni’s bike even fathered a brand new range of Colnago bikes named after the new champion, some in the blood-red of the Worlds winning bike, which came to be known as ‘Saronni red’. “It became more known and important because in 1982 I won stages of the Giro d’Italia with that bike and in the Tour de Suisse — then the World Championships. And then the year after Milan-San Remo and the Giro d'Italia.…

Tenerife In all honesty, it’s not the best place to ride a bike. The pros go here to sleep at the hotel Parador de Las Cañadas del Teide at over 2,000m where they descend and climb Mount Teide every day. Elsewhere the riding on the island is limited. But there are few places in Europe that can provide altitude and fine weather in the first three months of the year. Gran Canaria is, however, a better riding location in the Canary Islands, just without the altitude. Calpe Just north of Benidorm, this hugely popular location offers a good variety of riding with (almost) guaranteed weather. Go in January and you’re certain to bump into a pro team or two. The area gets minimal rain and the roads are nice and…

Surrey-based WyndyMilla offers custom carbon frames made in the Veneto region by the builders that used to make them for the big brands before they moved production to the Far East. Everything else takes place back in the UK, and brand founder Henry Furniss is particularly keen to highlight WyndyMilla’s painting expertise thanks to new full-time painter Johan Johnston and the expanded WM Paintworks. “He has a background in street art and he also designs shoes, helmets and glasses as well as bikes. “But he’s more of a creative than a painter, so doesn’t actually do the spray painting himself,” says Furniss. “But when there’s really intricate hand painting he will do it and he’s amazing. Have a look at his Instagram [hasie_and_the_robots].” The WM Paintworks isn’t restricted to spraying…

1 What is cycling efficiency? Cycling efficiency is a measure of a cyclist’s ability to convert physical work or energy cost into mechanical work or power output on the bicycle. 2 Which element of efficiency is, 2 for most cyclists, easiest/cheapest to improve, and how? Riding on the flat, the single biggest resistive force comes from air resistance — at over 20mph, air resistance accounts for upwards of 70 per cent of all resistive forces. Optimising aerodynamics is critical. Reducing the resistive forces to cycling will reduce your energy cost for a given power output, making you more efficient. Therefore, optimising your bike set-up is probably one of the easiest ways of improving your cycling efficiency. Overhauling a poor set-up should gain you around 1.5 per cent, equating to more…

GP du Pays d’Aix (February 23) British 19-year-old Jake Stewart scored his first win of the season, sprinting to victory in this prestigious one-day race in France, won in the past by Thor Hushovd. Stewart, riding for Groupama-FDJ’s development team, is focusing on the road this year after several years of combining road and track. Tour of Antalya (February 21-24) Mathieu van der Poel (Corendon-Circus) transferred his cyclo-cross form to the road, winning the sprint on stage one of the Turkish race. Polish rider Szymon Rekita (Leopard) topped the final GC; Irish champion Conor Dunne finished fifth for his new team Israel Cycling Academy. Tour du Haut Var (Feb 22-24) Preston-born Hugh Carthy finished third on GC, five seconds behind overall winner Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) three seconds shy of Romain…

DIY is a lot like doing your own bike upgrades, except that it is stupid and boring. DIY is easy — for those of us who still know how to face a bottom bracket shell, and how many bearing balls go in the top race of a 1957 Campag Record headset, there are few fears in installing a new toilet seat, other than getting one of those toilet-seat transmitted diseases and losing a week’s training. But that’s hardly the point. Don’t be tempted to undertake acts of DIY under family duress just to prove they’re beneath your dignity. Your dignity is not as obvious to others as you might fancy. Rather than “beneath you” you might be better to shoot for “beyond you.” For instance, erecting a shelf is a…

The route for the 2019 British Road Championships has been unveiled, with Norfolk set to host the prestigious event. A weekend-long celebration of cycling will include a wealth of cycling events for riders of all levels alongside the elite road racing competitions. The men’s road race on Sunday, June 30 will follow a 125-mile loop starting and finishing in Norwich, and heading through Wroxham, to Cromer and back via Foulsham and Booton. In the women’s event, held on the same day, the peloton will follow a similar but shorter route of 83.5 miles. Geraint Thomas and Hannah Barnes won the TT titles in 2018, while Connor Swift and Jessica Roberts are the reigning road race champions. Previous winners of the road race and time trial titles include Laura Kenny, Mark…

“I’ve forgotten more than you’ve ever learnt,” is a catchphrase of my father’s. The ‘Ian Archibald Official Issue Phrase Book’ also includes “Let’s not reinvent the wheel here”; “Never mind a bed shop, they couldn’t run a bath”; and “I think you’ll find it’s legal tender”. But since I neither work for him nor serve him pints in English pubs, it’s the phrase explaining that I’m so poorly educated I can’t even keep pace with his mental decrepitude that I hear about most often. He’s forgotten more than I’ve ever learnt (including knowing when to say “learnt” and when to say “learned”). Maybe you read the phrase with a tone of self-deprecation, my father scorning his own forgetfulness and expressing its great capacity by comparison to my own great knowledge…

Former Lotto-Soudal rider James Shaw is the most prominent of a clutch of British riders who have finally found themselves teams for 2019 after a long and stressful search. Shaw has signed for new team SwiftCarbon, which evolved from the elite-level KTM team. Meanwhile, promising strongman Gabriel Cullaigh is sticking with U23 team Wiggins-Le Col despite turning 23 this year, which will mean his calendar is a little truncated. Ex-Aqua Blue rider Mark Christian is set to return to Wiggins as well. Shaw said he had spoken to SwiftCarbon manager Paul Lamb late last year but had held out in the hope of getting a ride on a WorldTour or Pro Continental team. But when that didn’t happen Lamb contacted him “a couple of weeks ago” to reopen negotiations. Shaw…