Innehållsförteckning för July 9, 2020 från Cycling Weekly

British Cycling has cancelled the National Series and National Championships in road, mountain biking, BMX and cycle speedway due to the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic. With racing at National Series and National Championships level currently suspended until 1 September, the governing body said it was not feasible to hold any events that would have taken place in the spring or summer following consultation with teams and event organisers. The UCI has confirmed current national road champions Ben Swift, Alice Barnes and Alex Dowsett will therefore be allowed to continue wearing their national champion jerseys until the next editions are held. As for regional-level racing, which is currently suspended until 1 August, British Cycling does not currently believe there is a case to extend this suspension, and will be…

While many bike brands’ frame designs have changed radically over the years, there’s one that hasn’t: the Giant TCR. Back in the mid-1990s it disrupted the status quo, bringing mountain bike-style sloping geometry to the road. Since then, you’d be hard pushed to find a top-end carbon-fibre race bike with a top tube that doesn’t slope to some extent, although the TCR remains the most radically angled. Since the 1990s, the bike has undergone many iterations, which have seen a number of changes, including updated tubing shapes and different bottom bracket sizes, but the TCR’s iconic compact frame triangle has remained at the bike’s core from the very first model and that continues through to this latest update. Stiffer, lighter and more aero Although the modern bike is similar to…

We all know the pathway to turning pro: sportsmen and women start their sport young, commit wholly in their midteens, and by the time they are in their early-20s, all they’ve ever known as an adult is being a professional athlete. But that isn’t the only route by which those we admire, our cycling heroes, have become so masterful that they’re paid to do what is, at its core, their passion and hobby. Whether your goal is to become an elite category rider, to win a regional championship on the track, a World Masters Championship, or even land a professional contract and win UCI races, it is almost never too late. “The performance trajectory of a cyclist is: improving up until about 30, then plateauing until about 40,” Richard Davison,…

Scotland’s Ken Laidlaw goes on the attack on the Tour’s 16th stage, from Toulouse to Superbagnères. Laidlaw was far from a threat to Jacques Anquetil’s yellow jersey as he started the day 65th on GC. But there was still glory to be had in gritting his teeth, as he does here, and taking off up the road. The presence of the press motorbikes behind Laidlaw would also give testament that he was doing his British team sponsors no harm. Laidlaw’s attack on the final ascent to Superbagnères was a long shot but he’d led the stage until 7km to go. At the end of the day he was more than six minutes behind Italian stage winner Imerio Massignan. He’d go on to finish the Tour in 65th place and became…

The first weekend of the Virtual Tour de France provided valuable insights into which riders are starting to hit peak form before the return to road racing later this month. Winners over the weekend included Ryan Gibbons (NTT) and Julien Bernard (Trek-Segafredo) in the men’s race and April Tacey (Drops) and Lauren Stephens (Tibco-Silicon Valley Bank) in the women’s contest. These were all impressive results but Stephen Gallagher, director of coaching and sports services at Dig Deep Coaching, who has spent years analysing data from races, pointed to Sunday’s climb to the Zwift Epic KOM as the best indicator of riders’ form. That climb, at just under halfway through the 33km race, is around 10km long and is mostly steady around six per cent but kicks up in the final…

JOE LAVERICK How to do a hard reset, French-style Take two. I’m sitting in Heathrow Airport, face mask on and armed with hand sanitiser. After four months back in the UK, it’s time to head back to France and get on with real life. Saying goodbye to family is always tough, but it’s safe to say it wasn’t as hard as January, when I was moving to France completely blind. I’m excited to be going back. When I left Chambéry in March, the mountain tops were snow-covered and we were only a few kilometres from the ski slopes. The snow has melted away and in its place lies a cyclist’s playground, the French Alps. It’s not just on the bike where things have changed. There are a few off-the-bike perks…

I‘m the chairman of the Milford Tritons Cycling Club and this spring we decided to embark on a truly mammoth challenge to raise funds for two local charities during the lockdown restrictions. The first charity was Get The Boys A Lift, which provides free mental health counselling sessions. The second was Withybush Hospital ICU. We set out to cover 2,100 miles – the length of this year’s Tour de France – not once but 10 times, totalling 21,000 miles between us. We achieved our target well ahead of schedule, pushing past the 21,000-mile mark on day 25. We had an average of 30 riders taking part every day, ranging from six years old up to 70-plus. There were some restrictions in place in accordance with government guidelines, and a handful…

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Muur van Geraardsbergen First included on the route of the Tour of Flanders in 1950, it wasn’t until 1981 with the addition of the Kapelmuur at its summit that this climb took the form cycling fans know today. From 1981 through to 2011, the Muur was the penultimate climb on the race route and where the champions would almost always deliver their fatal blow. In 2010, when the then two giants of the peloton, Tom Boonen and Fabian Cancellara, arrived in tandem at the base, it was left to the Muur to separate them like only it could. Starting in the centre of Geraardsbergen, the cobbles begin as the road rises past the church, but here the slope is shallow and the stones neatly packed. Turning left, the surface then…

It wasn’t too long ago that the only pressure you were supposed to inflate your tyres to was the maximum recommended: normally 120psi and more. You were given this advice by any experienced cyclist and this was often accompanied by dire warnings of catastrophic pinch flats if you ran anything lower, and of course that old ‘fact’ that the higher the tyre pressure, the faster the bike. This belief also coincided with a time when 23mm was as wide as most ‘proper’ cyclists would go and a 25mm tyre was seen as a boat anchor more suited to commuting or touring use. Now, 25mm is seen as ‘narrow’ and the reserve of race bikes – with 28, 30 and even 32mm tyres being specced as standard on endurance road machines.…

Eight months after he became the first Briton to win a stage of the Tour de France, Brian Robinson wrote about that day in detail for Cycling. Robinson had noticed on the first six stages the initial break was always brought back, only for the next break to succeed. On stage seven to Brest, he made sure he was in that second break. He escaped with Frenchman Jean Dotto and Italian Arigo Padovan. “Padovan – a typical Italian in that he was doing as little work as possible, was passing on the front, but not very enthusiastically,” he wrote. Robinson then tells how he put in a 60 per cent attack with 12km to go, mainly to win the £100 combativity prize, but couldn’t shake the other two. “Padovan started…

JAMES SHRUBSALL GETS SOCIAL IN CYBERSPACE For the past three months and counting, doing any kind of social group ride has been a complete no-no. Even now that we can get together in groups of six, bike riding still tends to be fraught with complexity: avoiding the stream of heavy respiration coming from the rider ahead for one, not to mention keeping at least a metre apart, including avoiding bunching up at junctions. It’s enough to completely take the sheen off in-the-flesh group rides I’m generally more than happy to head out on my own anyway — I find conversation a challenge when riding with faster riders, which in my case is almost everybody. But now and then I do miss the camaraderie of the road, which led me last…

Us mountaineers sometimes use this technique to help before trying to summit the high peaks. It helps condition. Another method I personally use is training in an altitude chamber. The benefits help massively. Scott Pilling I hate myself for saying this because I really like him, but why is he going on so publicly about boosting his red blood cells? It’s not anything different, like the article says, to most endurance athletes. It just seems odd to make a huge song and dance about it. Graeme Baranyai That is why mountaineering is the toughest sport. Darren Lemai Don’t attempt. Risking pulmonary oedema and brain swelling. Peyman Pakzaban Don’t try this at home. At least if you’re 1) Italian, or 2) live in Italy (it’s a forbidden practice). Leonardo Poli I…

It’s not always easy to look inside the mind of an athlete who is always focused,” Johan Museeuw says, before taking CW on an exploratory browse. “My goal every year was to win a Monument and if I didn’t, well, then it really was not OK for me. I was a winner. To be third on the podium was OK, but it was not good enough. Nobody counts second and third place. It’s just the winner that takes it all.” That insatiable appetite to win drove him in every one of his 17 years as a professional and in each of his 65 wins. In 1996, that thirst for success led him to retaining his World Cup jersey and to two of his most rewarding and iconic victories: his maiden…

After nearly 50 years on top of the fastest MotoGP riders, and two years supporting Team Lotto-Soudal, HJC is an industry expert at keeping the fastest riders on two wheels protected. Its motorbike racing heritage mean HJC knows a thing or two about aerodynamic drag reduction, ventilation, comfort and safety. When Lotto-Soudal rider Victor Campenaerts rode one of it’s helmets to UCI Hour Record world record victory, HJC also stamped its authority as the maker of one of the fastest helmets in the world. Each HJC helmet is rigorously twin tested, both in the brand’s own state-of-the-art wind tunnel laboratory and in real-life situations, enabling the highest level of performance, comfort and fit to be achieved. Based at its Korean headquarters, the in-house wind tunnel uses cutting-edge testing protocols for…

Farr specialises in creating components that not only cater for distinct niches in cycling but also the sort of kit that many of us didn’t realise we needed. The Aero Gravel handlebar is a perfect example of this thinking. Many riders venturing into the gravel scene, as well as long-distance racers and tourers, have hankered not only after wider bars but also additional hand positions in order to alleviate muscle fatigue on long days in the saddle. Many opt for a traditional time trial extension set-up to keep comfy and aero but this might be too much for most situations. The Aero Gravel bar seeks to solve this by adding an additional forward section along the top of the bar, giving you not only fatigue-reducing hand positions but also extra…

“The P2 pedal is a pretty burly customer, coming in at 398g for a pair” Powertap Quarq P2 pedals £845 Weight 398g We’ve spent just over 50 hours with the PowerTap P2 pedals, and will bring a long-term review after more sustained use. However, so far, reliability has been good. The P2 pedal is a pretty burly customer, coming in at 398g for a pair (with the batteries). They’re heavier than competitors – but with that comes a very robust body and effective waterproofing. The pedals use AAA batteries, and have a claimed battery life of 80 hours. Ours still showed good battery levels at 50 hours. We did find that, unlike a normal pedal which spins freely on the axle, these presented some stiction which could be a concern…