Innehållsförteckning för May 7, 2020 från Cycling Weekly

For us in the CW office much of our riding has shifted indoors of late. We’re still getting out and making the most of our daily exercise and enjoying the fresh air, but when we want to push ourselves a little harder we’re doing it indoors and online. And it didn’t take long for our competitive nature to take over. We started comparing our wattage and this led us to dream up the Max Watts Challenge. Half pedalling purgatory, half fun. As so many of you are riding indoors we thought we’d extend the challenge out. See page 5 for details. Now I’m no sprinter – never have been, never will be. I once won a one-lap handicap sprint at Herne Hill, but only because it was my first night…

Are we a nation of sprinters? Are Chris Hoy, Mark Cavendish, Victoria Pendleton and Jason Kenny outliers, or indicators of a population of pedalling powerhouses? While so many of us are riding indoors at the moment, and with power meters and smart turbos more popular than ever, we thought it was time to try and find out. The maximum sprint, or peak power is a crude but very accurate measure of talent. Many GB track riders have been discovered on this metric alone. Now Zwift is using key indicators like peak power to look for talented riders for its Academy Programme. We’re not looking for GB’s next Olympic medallist or Tour de France stage winner, but our increased use of training apps like Zwift and Sufferfest has piqued our interest…

ADRIAN HACKNEY, CHESHIRE MAVERICK ‘Female members formed a virtual choir to sing Queen’s Bicycle Race’ How are you doing? I have recently retired (end of March 2020) after 39 years working in the NHS. Due to the restrictions, the retirement hasn’t quite been the celebration and ‘turning pro’ experience that was expected, but that is of no significance compared to what is going on in the world. How do you keep yourself motivated to ride right now? Cycling has been the tonic to life’s stresses and strains in recent years and so the motivation, if anything, has increased. What has the club done to keep people connected? As a club, we have 264 members. From the start of the restrictions, we’ve taken a proactive approach to living and cycling through…

The list was compiled with a focus on how much and how good the action was in each individual race, with marks against those editions of the three Grand Tours that were affected by doping scandals at the time or subsequent to their completion. It is almost inevitable there will be lulls during any three-week race, that there will be stages when the peloton is happy to sit back and have an easier day while the breakaway enjoys its moment in the spotlight. But in the best races, even these ‘transition’ days, tend to produce good racing and plenty to divert. EVEN THE TRANSITION STAGES PRODUCE GOOD RACING Think back, for instance, to last year’s Tour de France, which was lit up by Julian Alaphilippe, whose no-holds-barred approach seemed to…

CCC The first Grand Tour I remember was in 1996 when I went to the Tour de France to watch as a spectator. I would have been nine at the time. My parents, my sister, and I drove by car to the stage that was closest to Switzerland, where I grew up. I had to look this up but I think it was the stage from Chambéry to Les Arcs. WE SAW THE WHOLE PELOTON COMING UP A HILL AT A VERY HIGH SPEED We saw the whole peloton coming up a hill at very high speed. This impressed me so much as a kid and until now I can still remember that long straight uphill road with all the spectators crowded around. I was very impressed by Jan Ullrich…

INEOS The first Grand Tour I remember watching is the Tour, the year Marco Pantani won – 1998. We actually went over to Paris as a family that year and watched the final stage on the Champs-Elysees. My Dad has always been a lover of cycling and it was always on TV in our house as I was growing up. He would always watch the big races. To be honest, I never paid much attention when I was little, but as I grew older I definitely got more into it, especially when I started racing as a teenager. It is pretty nuts to think that I was stood on the Champs-Elysées as an eight-year-old watching Pantani win with his Mercatone Uno team and now I’ve raced up and down it…

GIRO D’ITALIA: THE STORY OF THE WORLD’S MOST BEAUTIFUL BIKE RACE Colin O’Brien (Pursuit) £9.99 Style, landscape, passion – there are probably a dozen ways in which the Giro d’Italia could justify its bella corsa moniker. Colin O’Brien explores the characters and the stories that have provided the texture and shading for the Giro for more than 100 editions. Packed with feuds and betrayals, heroism and suffering, O’Brien brings alive a race that is almost more akin to a Shakespearean tragedy than a sporting event. GRAND TOUR COOKBOOK Hannah Grant (Musette) £40 Former Tinkoff-Saxo team chef Grant offers a different take on the Grand Tour with this beautiful and colourful book of recipes based on three-week nutrition. Far from being 21 different versions of flaccid pasta and the odd buttock-tenderised…

Having already worn yellow for 10 days in 2004, Thomas Voeckler had promised himself that he would do things differently if he were to ever lead the Tour de France again. He knew that it would offer him the best opportunity he would get for a high overall finish and resolved to cut back on press commitments and other distractions in order to focus on defending the lead. In the end, he insists, it wasn’t so much his own mistakes that cost him the title, but Cadel Evans’s superiority on the bike. “I never thought that I would win the race. I always knew that Evans would win because of the time trial coming right at the end,” he later reflected. I’D RATHER THOSE MISTAKES COST ME SECOND PLACE OVERALL…

There is a considerable art to weighing yourself if you’re a cyclist. It’s especially important for those of us who race online, where power-to-weight is an essential metric, and one where the ‘power’ bit is very difficult to, um, finesse. Ideally you weigh yourself first thing in the morning, naked. However, it takes quite a strong stomach to deal with that sort of bad news first thing in the day, especially when you’re looking at that sort of view. A much nicer option is to weigh yourself later, but subtract the weight of everything you’ve eaten or drunk since you woke. If in doubt, subtract a bit extra – after all, coffee must be heavier than water, because it’s basically water with a lot of extra stuff in it. You…

Tour We France ‘will not be raced behind closed doors’ If the Tour de France is raced in September it will not be behind closed doors, according to the French minister for sport. In March, Roxana Mărăcineanu originally suggested that fans be kept away from the French Grand Tour as a measure to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. However, with the race now postponed and set to take place between August 29 and September 20, she says spectators should be allowed at the roadside. 17-year-old Spaniard signs five-year deal with UAE Team Emirates n Junior rider Juan Ayuso has signed a rare five-year deal with UAE Team Emirates. Ayuso will be brought gradually into the WorldTour with his new team, spending his first year with a development squad. He…

“Claudio Chiappucci has attacked on the Passo d’Aprica during the 1992 Giro d’Italia, forcing Miguel Indurain to chase him down and neutralise the danger. There was a period of my career when Chiappucci and Indurain were always slugging it out. It was a rivalry that began in the 1990 Tour de France, when Indurain attacked with Greg LeMond on a stage to Luz-Ardiden and shredded Chiappucci’s long-held race lead to just five seconds, so ruining his chances of winning the Tour. Their relationship oscillated between friendship, respect, and outright rivalry in the Tours of 1991 and 1992, and the Giros of 1992 and 1993. Chiappucci would typically attack when Indurain was still waking up, early on in the stage, meaning the racing came alive like exploding fireworks as the resulting…

INEOS I grew up in France so from a really young age my memories are of the Tour. My first real memory is of mum and I going to visit my dad who was racing the Tour. I think it was a mountain stage. I remember the caravan vividly – the party that comes through before the riders pass. I think that’s what half the people on the side of the road are there for! I remember it feeling like a big party, and that’s what the Tour is to the French people. In later years, the first real racing I remember was a mountain stage in the Alps, to Le Grand Bornand, in 2007. We went to the village départ with my dad and saw all the buses. It…

Ten top-fives; six podiums and two stages. In 1988 this was all the work of one man, in one Grand Tour — the rider being Sean Kelly and the race being the Vuelta a España. Perhaps most impressively, Kelly finished every single stage in the top 10, on his way to becoming the first Irishman – and the first English speaker – to win the Vuelta. The previous year, 1987, the 30-year-old Irishman from Carrick-on-Suir had come heartbreakingly close to becoming the first Irishman to win a Grand Tour. Having taken the leader’s jersey in the final time trial on stage 18, Kelly was forced to abandon the following day thanks to a painful saddle sore. “To have to pull out was a huge disappointment, so 1988 was important for…

ASTANA I was a big fan of Team Telecom, where our GM Alexandre Vinokourov was riding as well, so I was following this team for many years. My first Grand Tour was the Tour de France. I don’t remember when I watched my first Tour, but I remember my impressions from the 1997 Tour, won by Jan Ullrich. It was a great moment for me as a fan of the team since I was wearing their jerseys, I was collecting a lot of stuff, which I could get from some staff members I knew. I STILL HAVE THEM – ULLRICH’S WHEELS FROM THE 1997 TOUR When Ullrich won the Tour he gave different kinds of presents to staff members and from one of them I’ve got a pair of Corima…

“The little guy is a big guy today,” shouted excitable commentator Carlton Kirby as Caleb Ewan (5ft 5in) won his first Grand Tour stage at the Vuelta in 2015. The Australian timed it perfectly to come round John Degenkolb at the death of the uphill sprint. At the time most knew that this would be the first Grand Tour stage win of many for the Australian. Lead-out man Mitch Docker told the Guardian: “He’s just brand new at a Grand Tour and he showed he is ready for the next step, it’s amazing.” EWAN IS NOW ONE OF THE BEST FASTMEN IN THE PRO PELOTON It’s surprising he’s not taken more between then and now. While Ewan is now undoubtedly one of the best fastmen in the pro peloton (if…

Looking back at this century’s 60 Grand Tours, it’s impossible to ignore the scourge of doping. This race, too, was impacted by three cases; the most notable was Alberto Contador’s positive test at the previous year’s Tour, which led to the Spaniard being stripped of that victory and all of his results in the 2011 edition. Yet, this race offered substantial reason to believe that cycling was changing, that great performances could be achieved without nefarious means, primarily because Cadel Evans ended it as the champion. EVANS’S GRAND TOUR TRAJECTORY WAS OF STEADY PROGRESSION Never implicated in any kind of doping affair, Evans’s Grand Tour trajectory was one of steady progression, including two podium finishes at the Tour in 2007 and 2008. At 34, the oldest Tour winner in the…

A few years ago I advised a youngster (quite a talented rider) who’d joined our club that he ought to think about getting some proper, clipless pedals rather than using the cheap toe-strap pedals that came with his bike. He persuaded his parents to order some, but it seemed that the intricacies of setting them up were too much for him and his dad. They’d neglected to buy any proper bike shoes. So the following week he turned up to the club race with Look cleats glued to the soles of his running shoes. Dave P, email…

Race organiser Sweetspot has announced that this year’s Women’s Tour is now set to run in June 2021. The organiser hopes to secure a June 7-12 slot for next season — a postponement of nearly exactly a year. The start town of Bicester, Oxfordshire, and finish town of Felixstowe, Suffolk, have been retained from this year’s race for the six-stage event. “We wanted to take an early decision not to look for an alternative 2020 date,” said Sweetspot’s Hugh Roberts. “With extra time now available we look forward to making next year’s race bigger and better and a fantastic celebration of cycling and Britain.”…

ROSS DUNCAN Early in April, Ross Duncan became the first rider to reach 5,000 miles in 2020. Based in Dunfermline, just north of Edinburgh, he has taken part in multiple fund-raising events that have seen him clock up huge mileage. “One week I did 750 miles riding from Edinburgh to Harrogate then London to Edinburgh as part of a charity ride called Wounded Lions 500.” Duncan raised around £10,000 for good causes in 2019, and when we spoke to him last week he was at it again, 151 miles into a 240-mile ride on Zwift – this time for the Around the World in One Day challenge, raising money for charities and foundations that work with the NHS. “When I started riding I thought I was going to do crits,…

THE RACE TOUR FOR ALL Test yourself against some of the best in the WorldTour from Bahrain-McLaren, EF and Canyon-SRAM among others. Thurs 7 May-Mon 11 May, various times THE WORKOUT ROYAL CLASSICS Join Philippe Gilbert and Anna van der Breggen for a testing workout that simulates the demands of the Classics. Fri 8 May, 20:15 THE CAFE RIDE FDJ GROUP RIDE Women’s WorldTour team FDJ Nouvelle-Aquitaine Futuroscope host a group ride where everyone is welcome and like all the best group rides there’s a smash-up on the final climb. Sat 9 May, 9:30…

In ‘From the Archive’ (CW, 23 April) you wonder if “broken cranks and chainrings were a genuine problem 50 years ago”. Certainly well into the 80s, there were problems with cranks breaking at the pedal eye, and CW ran an article on the subject. One tip was to fit thin washers to spread the load when screwing in pedals, another was to rub the eye area with a cloth that had been dipped in methylated spirits and then inspect it for minute stress cracks. In those days, Campagnolo had a strong market share and this may have explained the suspicion that its cranks were prone to breaking, prompting it to produce adverts saying that Eddy Merckx had never broken one. I asked Monty Young, of Condor, about the problem and…

If the Grand Tour hadn’t existed in 2000, would someone have invented it? The cost, the complexity of running it, the sheer size of the event all for what are often fleeting moments of high drama would make it likely they would not have. The Grand Tour format is in many ways a throwback to another time when a day’s worth of racing would only serve to be packaged down into several pages of newsprint, not shown live all day long. “Do the kids of today have the attention span for a three-week race?” the sport’s commissioners would have asked. As a fan you have to invest in a Grand Tour. While there are always intriguing and entertaining plot lines in the opening days, the main event frequently doesn’t crackle…

It is interesting to note the number of Grand Tour victories during this century according to nationality. Of the 60 races, Italy has won no fewer than 16, with Spain next in line with 13 victories, three ahead of Great Britain with 10, these figures reflecting how the extent to which the Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a España remained essentially national affairs until well into the 21st Century. Italian riders topped the Giro’s podium between 2000 and 2007, yet have won just four of the subsequent dozen editions of the corsa rosa. The picture’s similar for the Vuelta a España, where Spanish riders won the gold jersey in eight out of 10 years up to 2009, but have only secured the red leader’s jersey, introduced in 2010, on two occasions…

CCC My first memory as a spectator in a Grand Tour was when I went to watch the Tour de France in 1994 while I was on holiday with my parents and my brothers in the Alps, in Le Grand-Bornand. And so I remember that Piotr Ugrumov won the stage. The finish was in Cluses, a little bit further up the road. The riders with Miguel Indurain in the yellow jersey were climbing the Col de la Colombière. And I think that was pretty much the moment when I fell in love with the sport. I was about 10 years old. Of course, the whole day was a fantastic, fantastic day and a fantastic memory because there’s not only the race, but there’s the publicity caravan before. I CAME THROUGH…

ASTANA I watched my first Grand Tour, I think, in 2009. It was the Tour de France, where Alberto Contador was riding against Andy Schleck in a very tough fight. I was maybe 17 years old and at that time, I was in Kazakhstan at a junior race, an international race in Pavlodar. As I remember there were many teams not only from Kazakhstan, but also from other countries. I liked that race. Actually, it was my first big race I’d seen on TV, because before then I never watched big races on TV. Contador was riding for Astana and of course, it was the biggest reason to cheer for him at that Tour de France. With friends, we watched the most decisive stages and were happy to see a…

Among the most significant developments during this century’s Grand Tours has been increasing adherence to the unwritten rule that respect should always be shown to the rider in the leader’s jersey, particularly when they are sidelined by some kind of unfortunate event. Among the most notable of such cases was the cessation in hostilities when Tour leader Chris Froome required a bike change on the final climb in the stage to Chambéry, Fabio Aru getting an earful from several of his rivals when he launched an attack just as the Briton was signalling he had an issue. FABIO ARU GOT AN EARFUL FROM SEVERAL OF HIS RIVALS When Tom Dumoulin stopped to relieve himself on stage 16 of this Giro, his rivals did slow for a while, and the Dutchman,…

In 2011, the Scottish town of Oban organised a fireworks display. It was notable mainly because, due to a technical hitch, half-an-hour’s worth of fireworks went off more or less simultaneously. For the 50 seconds it lasted, it was utterly sensational. It was followed by a silence that was broken only by car alarms and crying children, as several thousand people waited for their heads to stop vibrating so they could ask each other what the hell had just happened. The UCI’s revised schedule for this season is going to be a lot like this. The last plan for the men’s calendar I saw, was to run the Tour in September, the Giro in October, the Vuelta in November (don’t forget your skis!), the Spring Classics simultaneously with the Giro,…