Innehållsförteckning för March 26, 2020 från Cycling Weekly

There has been much debate about whether or not people should still be riding their bikes at this time. Clearly we will all want to keep riding our bikes, as do British Cycling and Sport England, whose advice we are in line with. On Monday evening the government instructed us all to stay at home (except key workers) but you are allowed one form of exercise a day - including cycling. If you ride you must do so alone and keep your distance from everyone outside of your household - that’s at least 1.5 metres. Wash your hands before and after your ride, do not blow snot out of your nose, don’t stop at cafes etc. and be completely self-sufficient. You must also be more cautious than ever before. No…

Many pro riders may be finding themselves lost in the uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic, with all racing called off for the foreseeable future. But for one Swiss pro rider, the next step was obvious. Elise Chabbey, a 26-year-old Bigla-Katusha rider, recently qualified as a doctor and after her Spring Classics schedule was derailed by coronavirus, she has now begun work treating those suffering from the virus. Just a week after the cancellation of Strade Bianche, Chabbey was thrust into the front lines at Geneva University Hospital, where she is charged with monitoring and treating patients, including those with Covid-19. Chabbey said: “What’s happening now is unprecedented, and given the severity of the situation, I feel like I have to do something. “This week I had nine patients and we…

Where to stay Both Winchester and Eastbourne are well served with accommodation for any budget, but the best rail connections between the two both run through Clapham in London. Staying in this upcoming hipster district of the capital means you have a shorter journey home when you’ll be tired and quite possibly cold. Where to eat The Cobblestone Tea House, in Steyning, is roughly mid-distance and does a decent brew. Plus, the caramel slices are extremely indulgent. Where to get help Though it’s a little way out of town, if you can make it to Peter Hansford Cycles outside Winchester, you’ll get help form someone who’s been serving the local cycling community for decades. South Downs Bikes in Storrington is a good option for on-course emergencies.…

The first thing we noted was that at 30kph, the differences between the best and worst helmets were marginal – in the region of two to three watts. This increased at 45kph to the region of nine to 10 watts. Choosing the helmet that’s the most comfortable could be a bigger all-round performance gain. However, in any numbers game, there’s always going to be winners and losers. For our smaller tester, Michelle, the Specialized Evade was the fastest on the tops, the Bontrager Ballista was fastest on the drops, and interestingly the Met Trenta was the most efficient when in the drops with a low head position. If we average all of the numbers out, the Specialized Evade performed the best. The Lazer Bullet was the worst for her, across…

Do elite athletes automatically pedal well? Although there’s a general tendency for higher-level athletes to have better or more effective pedalling, it’s not exclusive at all, and there are quite a few elite, national level or even WorldTour level athletes who don’t have very good pedalling. A lot of cycling is about physiological performance and power output, and you can create that by having a very good physiology even if you’re not very effective in how you generate it. But if you get a situation where those people with great physiology actually improve their pedalling, then obviously their performance will go up. So they have more scope for improvement than people who already pedal effectively and are close to their potential. A few weeks ago, we consulted with a young…

“In your first year working in the City, if you put on less than a stone, you’re doing remarkably well,” says 35-year-old Dov Tate. “For me, it was more like three stone in the first two years.” Tate had played hockey at a high level at school and university, making the Welsh national squad. But when he graduated from Worcester College, Oxford, with a mechanical engineering degree, he heard the siren call of the City. “You essentially go from the student scenario of having no money and lots of time – able to play hockey all the time – to working 100-hour weeks and having no time but a decent amount of money.” Before long, sport had been replaced by less wholesome pastimes. “You very quickly fall into that work-hard-play-hard…

There are three categories of cycling-related possessions. At the top of the scale, there are things of value, beauty and utility – bikes, wheels, GPS units. The sort of thing with which my bike store glistens. At the bottom of the scale is the rubbish – the odd links of chain, all those bottle-cage bolts (where did they all come from?), and bits of gear cable that are just the right length to string a mandolin for a squirrel. With a real effort, it is possible to throw this stuff out. (Yes, it is. Trust me. Be strong.) What I never really thought about very much until now was a third category, the stuff in the middle. It doesn’t really have any practical use but is still somehow too valuable…

As the coronavirus continues to wreak havoc on the world of professional cycling there is increasing concern about the long-term effects on the sport and how and when racing will return. Last week saw the cancellation of yet more races, most notably the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix. The UCI had hesitated to call off the cobbled Classics last week, perhaps hoping that a solution to the pandemic might materialise, allowing them to run as planned. Both organisers, Flanders Classics and ASO, eventually called them off as Belgian and French authorities enforced stricter lockdowns. The Giro d’Italia has already been postponed, leaving the Tour de France as the next big engagement still on the calendar. However, as France entered ever-stricter lockdown to try and halt the spread of the virus…

Ignore the advice and we may lose our right to ride entirely, is the concern of many who witnessed those on group rides at the weekend, apparently ignoring the government’s advice on social distancing and mass gatherings. The French Cycling Federation advised its members last week not to ride at all, while recreational riding has been banned altogether in countries under lock-down such as Italy and Spain. The UK stance currently remains that it’s OK to ride solo, respecting social distancing, but going beyond this risks tougher measures being put in place. “For isolation to be sustainable, perhaps for months, [exercise] is a vital tool,” said Chris Boardman on Twitter. “Abuse it and we will lose it.” British Cycling CEO Julie Harrington, echoed his comments, saying: “Getting out on your…

Clothing brand Santini has factories in Italy and supplies kit around the world. We asked them how coronavirus was affecting business: “Our factories are open, in compliance with all the restrictions and rules applied according to government laws. Staff welfare is our top priority. At present, we do not anticipate a slow down in stock availability in 2020 or 2021, though we’re living day by day and we can’t give data for the next months. “Borders are closed only for people and leisure travel, not for items. Back orders are in production, custom orders are in progress and we are scheduled to deliver them in time.” Ribble has a store in Preston but recently unveiled an online portal to offer customers remote access: “We have put protective measures in place…

The visual representation of your pedalling – what Wattbike calls the Polar View – is shown in real time as you pedal. The force curve starts at the top and going anticlockwise, shows your left leg for the first 180 degrees before your right leg takes over at the six o’clock position. The further the distance from the centre point, the more force is being produced. So where the shape pinches in the middle, less power is being produced, generally at the point of transition between left and right legs – when your feet are above each other and not pushing or pulling, but instead ‘coasting’ over the top. The graph changes colour as well as shape according to PES score. Poor technique Red indicates a poor technique (PES 0-60)…

Coach Ben Webeck on Dov Tate’s indomitable spirit My five years working with Dov have been a very enjoyable and rewarding period of my coaching life. I wish I could say I have helped him achieve his wildest dreams from an endurance athlete standpoint, but not all fairytales are linear. He has had to deal with a few biomechanical issues in recent years, along with a very exciting and successful business venture. But throughout all this we have managed to keep things trending upward, and he has put out some seriously impressive racing, including notching up his first Ironman in 2016. Always very positive and insanely clever, you really can’t keep this man away from success!…

To the untutored eye 'collecting' and 'hoarding' have a lot in common. Yet one is admirable, and one will get you featured on the sort of Channel 5 show from which there is no way back to civilised society. The differences are, however, fairly simple. The first is that a collection is specific. It is focused on a particular area of life – beermats or clockwork owls – rather than just letting junk accumulate and threatening with physical violence anyone who suggests getting rid of it. Happily, 'cycling' is a narrow enough category to qualify as collecting. The second difference is that a collection will have some sort of a filing system for keeping track of what you have. This filing system can be as simple as 'everything that’s filed…

While cyclists around the Continent cannot train outside during the coronavirus outbreak, seven young British riders are making the most of their rural surroundings while quarantined in Italy. Holdsworth-Zappi are based in the northern Italian province of Rimini, but on 10 March, with the number of Covid-19 cases escalating and a lockdown imminent, the team decamped to a large house close to Mount Etna in Sicily. Calum Johnston, Charlie Beake, Paul Double, Connor Lambert, George Smith, Louis Rose-Davies, Oliver Knudsen and Dane Christian Bahr all made the 1,00km journey to the southern island. Lockdown rules in Italy mean that exercising outside is prohibited and punishable with a fine, but the team’s location means that they have a greater level of freedom. “No one is around us. We don’t see anyone…

Postpone Tokyo, says Bernal Egan Bernal says the Tokyo 2020 Olympics should be postponed. The reigning Tour de France champion, has been in isolation after returning home from a high-risk area in Europe, says the 2020 games should not be held on the planned dates in July and August. A number of nations have taken a stance, including Canada which has withdrawn from the Games, while the Australian Olympic team has told its athletes to prepare for the games to be delayed until 2021. “Given the situation linked to the coronavirus, I think the Olympic Games should not be organised on the dates that were planned,” Bernal said. Parks warn riders on social distancing London’s Royal Parks have warned cyclists to follow guidelines on social distancing or face a ban.…

Being a reader of a certain age, your Icons spot along with From the Archive is always of great interest. The Cinelli road stem complete with badge was my stem of choice back in the day. All this set me searching in the darkest, dampest recesses of the garage. And out it came, a rather sorry looking 10cm Cinelli stem complete with bars and brake levers. Alas, rust had won the day on the stem but interestingly the bars, not steel Cinelli but alloy genuine Maes and the GB Superhood levers were still in presentable condition. The Maes bars had a reinforcing sleeve in the centre which was stamped with the names of four great roadmen of yesteryear: Maes, Van Steenbergen, Kint and Schotte. The GB Superhood brake levers, despite…

Advancing technology means that road-going aero helmets have become commonplace in the peloton. They’re well ventilated, have the same internals as a standard road helmet and style wise have few differences, making them an attractive option for many. Reducing your aerodynamic drag via a streamlined helmet makes sense. Over a certain speed, 90 per cent of your effort goes into pushing air out of the way (drag) and the largest proportion of that comes from your frontal area, including your head and shoulders. Each new aero helmet launch is accompanied by independent aero claims around its watt-saving credentials. However, your equipment is only part of the equation – how the airflow interacts with the helmet will be impacted by your own shape and body position. To determine how big –…

Steph Post is a multiple Welsh time trial champion, who last year had what she describes as a ‘PB season’ after working on her pedalling effectiveness. “I’ve done two physiology tests at the Boardman Centre. The first time, my pedalling effectiveness was a very obvious weakness. My gym at the time had a Wattbike, so Barney Wainwright did a bespoke session for me, invited my coach Gareth Pymm to go as well, introduced to me to the Wattbike Hub app and told me what I was aiming for. We practised it in the TT position. I was very much powering down on the down stroke and not doing the pullback or ‘rolling the barrel’ over the top of the pedal stroke. “So Barney gave me the mental cues, which were…

Having only recently started using a Wattbike, I was horrified to notice, scrutinising my data, a truly lamentable PES score of 34, writes David Bradford. The graphic was less sausage shape, more figure-of-eight drawn by a four-year-old. To get my excuses in early, my sporting background is as a runner and I’ve never been taught how to pedal gracefully or effectively. I don’t know my souplesse from my soup-less supermarket shelf. So I contacted Dr Barney Wainwright and begged him: please, help me stop mashing the pedals round like a washing machine that’s shaken free its ballast. “Yes, that is a little sub-optimal,” he replied diplomatically. “You need to keep in mind that the most forceful part of the stroke is early on, as the crank arms move past horizontal.…

I was delighted to hear about the response of two local veteran riders, both in their 70s, who were forced to suspend regular Tuesday and Thursday rides together that they’ve been doing for the last 10 years. They just got on their turbo trainers, and did the usual ride while chatting to each other on the phone. They even, rather gloriously, extended the concept to reporting power numbers to each other to replicate a bit of competitive needle. My joy was complete when my informant (one of their wives) told me that after an hour they both got off and had a cup of tea and a slice of cake before riding ‘home’.…