Innehållsförteckning för January 23, 2020 från Cycling Weekly

This week our web writer Alex Ballinger gives you the lowdown on indoor racing and even how to challenge for a win. There’s no denying it, Zwift has taken the cycling world by storm over the last couple of years. While we’ll always endorse riding your bike on the open road and in the fresh air, turbo work is an essential part of any fitness or training plan. This is especially true on weekends like the one we’ve just had. My Twitter feed and WhatsApp messages were full of warnings of icy roads, stories of riders hitting the deck and the odd picture of a bare, bleeding hip or backside. I ducked out of riding this weekend. With early mornings too dangerous, my mileage total sat stuck at zero. As…

Gravel and Tar Classic (January 25) Held in the Manawatu region of New Zealand, last year saw the introduction of the first women’s race that includes five gravel sections of almost 40km. The men have an additional sector to complete. Kasteelcross Zonnebeke (January 25) One week shy of the World Championships, Mathieu van der Poel will be expected to continue his dominant season in Flanders. Wout van Aert, who has struggled to compete with his long-time nemesis since returning to the scene after Christmas, is on the startlist alongside Eli Iserbyt. Cyclo-cross World Cup: round nine (Jan 26) The final World Cup race of the season takes place in Hoogerheide and Toon Aerts is all but certain to win the men’s classification, despite not winning a single round. The women’s…

Incoming British Cycling elite road racing manager Erick Rowsell has outlined ambitious plans to develop the elite racing scene, with his ultimate goal to have a UCI stage race for domestic teams on the calendar. The governing body appointed the former Madison-Genesis rider, who retired last year aged 29, to the new role last month and, speaking to CW, Rowsell said: “I’d love to create a UCI stage race in August. There is a huge gap there from our National Series; we have a big lull in August and unless you are then in the Tour of Britain there’s nothing in September, so sponsors only get exposure for four months of the year. Continental teams could use it to build for the Tour of Britain and the elite-level teams could…

5th worst sport for doping That’s what cycling rose to in 2019 according to the MPCC (Movement For Credible Cycling). It said 2019 saw a sharp rise in doping cases, bucking a recent trend of not being among the sports most troubled by doping. In the MPCC’s ranking of sports affected by doping, cycling rose from 13th to fifth and now sits behind only track and field, weightlifting, baseball and American football. Lowden secures sponsorship from work Drops rider Joscelin Lowden’s employer believes in her so much it has become a team sponsor. Business solutions company itelligence, where Lowden is a project manager, announced the deal last week. It will sponsor the team, and Lowden personally, with a part-time working model, towards Tokyo 2020. “My employer is a true partner…

I hit a deep, jarring pothole in March 2019 and stopped immediately, expecting at least a buckled wheel. But I found no damage to the bike. I didn’t realise at the time but the damage had actually been done to me. Over the next couple of weeks I started to get pins and needles in my right thumb and forefinger. Cycling would cause pain in my right shoulder, forearm and scapula. My GP prescribed painkillers but the issue was getting worse. In late July, a scan revealed that I had compressed a disc between two vertebrae in my neck. A visit to a spinal specialist in September revealed the full extent of my injury: the compressed bulging disc is pressing onto the C7 nerve roots. I was told to stop…

“People have understood there’s an equation behind everything, that’s why times are getting quicker,” says Xavier Disley, head of consultant Aerocoach. “With the advent of understanding aerodynamics there’s less necessity for technical ability to determine your time. For the team pursuit you have to be technically competent and many different factors have to be in your favour to set a TP world record. Whereas an IP world record — you get your start right, you’ve done your training and your aerodynamics are sorted — it’s more of an equation. So that’s why people who are approaching it from that perspective — working on their aerodynamics, getting training sorted and going to a fast velodrome or altitude — it will result in the time you’re looking for.” Bigham agrees. Aerodynamics rather…

“For me, Sam is one of the best sprinters of the bunch,” states Wilfried Peeters, Deceuninck-Quick Step directeur sportif. He will be working closely with Bennett in 2020 and is excited by what he has seen before. “He is one of the guys who can climb very well. This combination is very good for us for the future. “Now we will try to find a good leadout with him, give him a lot of riders who can help him. I think the first goal is to try to win Milan-San Remo. Another goal is going to the Tour de France. For sure there is a very hard first week, and there we will try to win some stages.” Bennett is impressed by his dealings to date with Patrick Lefevere, the…

The week: December 30, 2019-January 5, 2020 Location: Baal, Belgium & Cannock, Staffordshire Training for: British Cyclo-Cross National Championships (January 12) Widely tipped as a British road racing star of the future, Lewis Askey shot to prominence in 2018 when he won the Junior Paris-Roubaix. He confirmed his prodigious potential last year with nine top-10s in UCI races as well as big domestic wins including the Junior Tour of Wales and Isle of Man Junior Tour. For 2020, the 18-year-old is joining Groupama-FDJ’s development team as he steps up to Conti level. How did you first get into cycling? My mum did triathlon, and Cannock Chase, the mountain bike centre, is two minutes’ ride from our house. When I was little, everyone went mountain biking, and I couldn’t wait to…

A bit more than a year ago I finished rebuilding my house. It gave me the chance to create a bespoke bike room, which has become the envy of everyone I know, especially since I won’t let them into it, and in their imaginations it has become greater and more glorious than reality could possibly match. Let’s just say that my concerns about the practicality of the marble floor and the sheer scale of the Doric columns were entirely unfounded. While the bike room means that bicycles form a rather less prominent part of the decoration of the actual house than they once did, there is still some cross-contamination of the cycling and the domestic. Some of this is positive. Thanks to Teflon lubricant, no one in Cambridgeshire has smoother…

Word reaches us of an international rider of some ability, who spent a day in a wind tunnel (at considerable expense) working on an improved time trial position in the run-up to the National Championships. She saved a considerable amount of drag with a new, lower set-up. In particular, she dropped her head down as far as she could manage while still retaining forward vision. Yet, come the Nationals, she rode with a weird, head-up style. Questioned about the position by a team-mate, she said, “Well, the day after the tunnel session I had some Botox injections in my forehead. And after that I couldn’t move my eyebrows. So when I got onto the bike in the new lower position, I couldn’t actually see where I was going.”…

Primož Roglič “The best rider will win. We are all going to fight to get it and, if you look at my results from the last few seasons, you will see that I have won a few races. Therefore, I see no reason not to be optimistic. It is true that things are going fast but I have not skipped any steps in my evolution. First, I won a one-week race. When I got it, I went for some more. Later, I faced the three-week tests… everything has gone step-by-step so I don’t have the feeling of having suddenly arrived and getting on the podium at a Grand Tour,” he told ciclo21. Chris Froome “The only appointment I’ve set myself is the Tour de France. The prospect of going for…

DAN BIGHAM, HUUB-WATTBIKE “I don’t think you’ll ever see an individual pursuit below 3-40 with the current UCI rules, but equally it is going to get quicker as aero improves and power input keeps going up. Yeah, you could end up with an outrageously aerodynamic rider who has a ridiculously high aerobic capacity and a big anaerobic tank who gets into track cycling and all the stars align, but the nature of going faster, it gets harder because aerodynamic drag is cubic. So you could put in either side of the equation — energy in or energy out — but you’re going to get less and less speed for that wattage increase. I think that by the close of this decade it will be down to 3-55 or 3-56.” XAVIER…

The Garmin 5 series has historically been the more basic of the Edge GPS computers for those after performance orientated stats, with the more powerful Edge 8 and 10 the popular choice among those seeking navigational assistance at their handlebars. However, with the Edge 530, Garmin has upped its capabilities, bringing it closer to the range-topping models available. In fact, it’s so capable, it may leave riders wondering if they’ll ever need anything more advanced at all. Appearance Place the Edge 530 side by side with the more expensive Edge 830 and it’s difficult tell the two computers apart. The cases share the same dimensions and it’s only the additional five side-mounted buttons on the 530 that differentiate the two. The screen has been increased from the 2.3in of the…

The endless gains to be made on the indoor trainer are old news, but what can you expect out on the road after ramping up your Zwift racing? Matt Rowe explains. “It will make you stronger! In Zwift racing, you are literally producing power the whole time, whereas IRL [in real life] you get lots of little breaks for a couple of seconds, in the wheels, around bends, etc. “I am noticing riders I coach, along with the general cycling scene, are hitting the new year in better form each year, which I put down to structured training on Zwift throughout the winter. Rather than hitting January and having to build your fitness up, riders are now getting to January in good shape, and setting new PBs all through the…

ROAD RACING SAT, 18 JANUARY Woolly Mamil Winter Series round one (Stourport Sports Club, Worcestershire): 1, 2, 3: 1. Matthew Exley (Team Flamme Rouge p/b Grenade); 2. W. Harding (Marsh Tracks Racing); 3. J. Blain (Bikestrong-KTM); 4. L. Towers (Cero-Cycle Division RT); 5. A. Thomson (CC Bridgnorth); 6. J. Teagle (ANB Bilbao); 7. K. Hatwell (Ilkeston CC); 8. J. Satoor (Cero-Cycle Division RT); 9. J. Peatson (Bikestrong-KTM); 10. M. Malone (Z Junior RT). 3, 4: 1. Rory Webster (Ayr Roads CC); 2. H. Paveley (Innovation Racing); 3. J. Satoor (Cero-Cycle Division); 4. S. Holwill (Hafren CC); 5. W. Harding (Marsh Tracks Racing); 6. N. Leaves (Cwmcarn Paragon CC); 7. R. Hughes (VOST); 8. J. Fothergill (Solihull CC); 9. O. Laight (Halesowen A&CC); 10. R. Hawker (Velo Vitesse). Women: 1. Melissa…

It was business as usual at the Schwalbe Classic on Sunday as defending champion Caleb Ewan (Lotto-Soudal) took his fourth win in what has become the traditional curtain-raiser for the Tour Down Under. The home nation’s own pocket rocket outsprinted Elia Viviani and Simone Consonni (both Cofidis) into second and third places. Brit Chris Lawless (Team Ineos) sneaked into the top 10 in ninth place, while Ireland’s Sam Bennett, in his first outing in Deceuninck-Quick Step colours, lost his lead-out and found himself marooned behind, finishing 16th. The race was held on a 1.7-kilometre city-centre course in Adelaide — the same one that the Women’s Tour Down Under had used for its final stage a few hours beforehand. The men covered 30 laps for 51 kilometres, unusually beginning on wet…

Tom Pidcock continued his build-up for the Cyclo-cross World Championships in two weeks, finishing fifth at the World Cup in Nommay, France, 1-46 behind winner Eli Iserbyt. The newly crowned British national champion started on the third line of the grid and came from a long way back on the first lap to end the day with his 19th top 10 of the season and narrowly missing out on his first World Cup elite podium. The race was relatively open with Mathieu van der Poel passing up the opportunity to take his fifth World Cup win in a row as it fell on the Dutchman’s 25th birthday. Pidcock goes well in hard conditions and having dried over the course of the day, the lap in Nommay was conducive to strong…

Away from the spotlight of the WorldTour or the Olympics, in spare bedrooms and on massive spreadsheets, a classic rivalry is brewing. On one side, one of the greatest athletes ever to sling his leg over a top tube, on the other a team of British underdogs with physical talent but more importantly, higher levels of stealth and cunning. It’ll come to a head soon — in April the Huub-Wattbike team heads to the high-altitude Bolivian Cochabamba velodrome with the aim of going sub-four minutes for the 4km individual pursuit — but can Filippo Ganna, the triple world champion and holder of the current world record of 4-02.647 4-20 4-19 4-18 get there first when he rides the Track World Championships 4-17 4-16 4-15 in Berlin at the 4-14 end…

The presence of a touchscreen is often seen as the benchmark of a ‘better’ level of performance when it comes to cycle computers. We have our reliance on smartphones, in which such technology is the expected norm, to thank for this. However, while buttons may seem old hat, they make a lot of sense on a bike computer as they offer a reassuring level of reliability regardless of weather conditions and what you might be wearing on your hands. Not only that but the lower level of complexity results in button-operated units being more budget friendly and is the reason the Edge 530 is able to compete with far more expensive touchscreen computers.…

ANAEROBIC CAPACITY Duration 1hr ■ Warm-up: 14 mins ■ Effort 1: 2x10sec at 150% FTP, 50sec rest at 50% FTP ■ Recover: 4min at 50% FTP ■ Effort 2: 3x30sec at 190% FTP, 6min rest at 60% FTP ■ Recover: 2min at 50% FTP ■ Effort 3: 2x3min at 125% FTP, 6min rest at 55% FTP ■ Warm down: 30sec at 50% FTP THRESHOLD Duration: 1hr 25min ■ Warm up: 15min ■ Effort 1: 15min at 90% FTP ■ Recovery: 10min at 50% ■ Effort 2: 15min at 90% FTP ■ Recovery: 10min at 50% FTP ■ Effort 3: 10min alternating between 1min 96% FTP and 1min 104% FTP ■ Warm down: 10min…

Cyclocross Otegem (January 13) Britain’s Anna Kay (Experza Pro) finished third in the women’s race, with her team-mate Alicia Franck winning for the first time this season. Ellen van Loy was second. Mathieu van der Poel won his 12th successive race, with Tim Merlier and Gianni Vermeersch rounding off the podium. New Zealand Cycle Classic (January 15-19) Australian Rylee Field stormed to victory on the queen stage to secure a maiden general classification victory. The BridgeLane rider, 25, finished 25 seconds ahead of stage one winner and 2019 champion Aaron Gate. Corbin Strong rounded off the podium. Cyclo-cross World Cup: round seven (January 19) Eli Iserbyt won his fourth World Cup race of the season ahead of Toon Aerts and Laurens Sweeck; Tom Pidcock was fifth and Mathieu van der…