Innehållsförteckning för December 10, 2020 från Cycling Weekly

News and features writer Before Bradley Wiggins, Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas were GC riders and when Tao Geoghegan Hart was still at school, Mark Cavendish burst onto the world road scene and started winning big races. His domination of the sprint stages at the Tour de France, not to mention wins at some of the calendar’s biggest one-dayers, enthralled British cycling fans who had long been used to being grateful for whatever they got when it came to road wins, and laid a groundwork of confidence for other Britons to add to the Manxman’s tally. And so for Cavendish to have been forced to hang up his wheels for want of a contract this year would have felt unjust. The wins may no longer flow like oil from a…

Brit and stalwart of the domestic racing scene Cherie Pridham will become the first female sports director in the WorldTour with Israel Start-Up Nation in 2021. Pridham has headed up the Vitus squad – formerly Raleigh-GAC – for the past 10 years and is well known on the British scene. But when it became clear the team would need to fold from lack of sponsorship she found herself looking for work outside of cycling, with little success. She put in a call to a few teams and a month later heard back from Israel Start-Up Nation manager Kjell Carlström. “It was bonkers,” Pridham told Cycling Weekly. “He found some time in his busy schedule to actually give me a call. We spoke for a while and I told him about…

Earlier this year, we received an email with the subject line: ‘How good are you?’. No, it wasn’t a phishing attack; it was a genuine enquiry from a reader named Alex. To our relief, Alex wasn’t getting in touch to conduct an audit of CW staff FTPs or Zwift rankings. Instead, he was asking a serious question related to cycling performance and age. “We all want to know how our numbers stack up against club-mates and pros, and we’ve all studied the Coggan watts-perkilo table,” he wrote, “but for cyclists of a certain age, these comparisons are difficult. We’re missing comparative statistics within our own cohort.” It was a good question: how to benchmark your performance against your cycling peers? I immediately thought of the age-grading system used in running…

Alan Murchison’s PEA & MINT RISOTTO WITH GRILLED SALMON Murchison says: “This is a hearty carb-rich meal with healthy protein from the salmon. The quantity of rice specified makes two generous portions – enough for lunch for one the next day. If asparagus is out of season, you can use broccoli instead… or even have both – you can’t have too much green veg in your life.” Method 1) Chop the onion and cook in 25g of butter until soft. 2) Add the rice and cook over a medium heat for a further 2min. 3) Add the stock and simmer for 16-18min until the liquid is absorbed and rice soft. 4) In a food processor, blend 300g of the defrosted frozen peas with the olive oil and salt and pepper.…

The cover of this week’s magazine shows just how different the times were more than 100 years ago. One year into World War One, and Cycling’s cover image is that of ‘A divisional cycle corps, equipped for foreign service, marching along an English country lane.’ The obvious question is, why aren’t they riding? They’d get wherever they’re going a lot quicker. Some things don’t change, however, as the ‘Is Your Bicycle a Misfit?’ page illustrates. The term ‘bike fit’ may be decades away, but it is essentially the same thing, and some of the advice written 105 years ago still stands: “The saddle should be set at such a height from the pedals that when the pedal is at its farthest point, the rider can just rest the hollow of…

Mark Cavendish is set to go back to his roots at new team Deceuninck-Quick Step, playing the role of a new pro, before being let off the leash in the sprints again, said DS Brian Holm. And while it is not strictly in the plan, Cavendish’s nature means he is also likely to become a mentor for younger riders such as Fabio Jakobsen and this year’s Tour de France green jersey winner Sam Bennett. The Manxman signed from Bahrain-McLaren at the 11th hour, after his year-long contract expired and it was beginning to look as though he may have been forced to retire, contractless. Holm said the decision to sign Cavendish did not rest with him, but that when team boss Patrick Lefevere asked him what he thought of the…

Harry Tanfield, who last month was resetting his sights on the UK scene having not been able to find a new role in the WorldTour, has at the last gasp been signed to Qhubeka-Assos. Tanfield, a strong rouleur and time trial rider, had been set to move from Ag2r La Mondiale to Ribble-Weldtite for 2021. But he had an understanding with the British squad, as many top domestic riders do, that he could take up an offer from a higher-level team if it came. Last week Qhubeka-Assos, formerly NTT, announced they had signed the Brit. Speaking to Cycling Weekly, Tanfield revealed he didn’t have to return any kit or equipment to Ribble as the jersey he had posed in for the publicity shot had been borrowed. “I was about to…

Yes, for the close-ratio gears. Enough speed at the top and a good climbing gear. The benefits of a compact with the speed of a standard. Cameron Gray This is going to make my Sturmey Archer three-speed obsolete! Paul Stephens I used to ride 10-speed Campagnolo, it was great, and I was faster then. Now I’m fat and 40. New Dura-Ace will be better than previous versions in subtle ways. But that’s not the point, progress is progress. Dave Farmer Need? Maybe not, but unless you’ve ridden with them you won’t appreciate the smoother flow between gears. Andrew Payne I would probably use it as a drinks coaster. Peter Salkus Campagnolo have been 12-speed on the road for over a year now. Shimano are slow off the mark again! Tristan…

It’s an understatement to say that 2020 has been a year like no other, but bike design and technology stops for no pandemic. With cycling a permitted – and encouraged – way to stay physically and mentally healthy our testing hasn’t stopped either, allowing us to bring you the 2020 Editor’s Choice awards: a collection of 78 pieces of kit we’ve tested and rated either a nine or 10 over the past 12 months. And what a year it’s been; 2020 will be remembered amongst our Tech team as the year that aero and lightweight converged, to create some of the fastest road bikes we’ve seen to date. While brands were pushing to create the superlative in lightweight, aerodynamics and stiffness, a sizable chunk of the UK’s cyclists were looking…

Veteran TT records are the best (albeit still approximate) benchmark we have in assessing the rate of performance decline in ageing cyclists. What’s interesting and encouraging, looking at the graphs, is that the rate of decline appears to be relatively modest – less than 10 per cent slower than the outright national record right up to the age of around 55. That means giving away less than six minutes per hour – against competitors half your age. From 55 to 65, there is an acceleration in decline to around 15 per cent, then a short plateau before the slow-down picks up pace again from the age of 70, followed by a fairly steady decline into the 80s. How can you rate yourself against the very best, i.e. the younger riders…

CW AUTUMN CHASE SERIES In the penultimate race of the series, on the Greatest London Flat course, a group of Bs rode heroically to stay away RACE 5: 5 DECEMBER SERIES STANDINGS CW CLUB TEN: HUUB POWERED! A record turnout for the Club Ten, and a major scalp for Cycling Weekly’s Doctor Hutch MEN WOMEN SERIES CALENDAR Dec 12 – France, Casse Pattes GET INVOLVED The Club Ten TT takes place every Wednesday at 6pm; the Autumn Chase Series is each Saturday at 10.30am (final race 12 Dec). Sign up at zwift.com or via the companion app. You must be registered on zwiftpower.com…

1. National Championship 2013 Having been out front in a sextet of WorldTour favourites for nearly all of the 184km race at Glasgow Green, Cavendish and David Millar outfoxed Sky’s Ian Stannard and Peter Kennaugh in the finale, with Cavendish taking his first victory in the race. 2. Tirreno-Adriatico, stage 6, 2014 It might not be the Tour de France, but he beat Alessandro Petacchi, Peter Sagan and Arnaud Démare in the sprint, so it may as well have been. 3. Tour of Britain, stage 7, 2013 The second in a hat-trick of stages in that year’s race, Cavendish’s sprint from the bottom to the top of the cobbled hill of Guildford High Street was perhaps the most impressive. 4. Giro d’Italia, stage 1, 2013 Cavendish wore the pink jersey…

MOLLY WEAVER How I re-learned to love the bike With the changing of the clocks, the turning of the weather, and the run-up to Christmas in full swing, it feels like winter is upon us. For some reason it’s crept up on me this year. Perhaps it’s because the last eight months have gone past in a bit of a blur, with one month slipping into the next. Or it could be because the cycling season has only just ended, and the summer of racing ended up being in the autumn. Either way, the temperatures are dropping and the mud seems to be deeper every day. With that comes a switch in my mindset when it comes to riding, and the long miles in the saddle have always come next.…

It all used to be so easy. A man with at least four fingers would count you down, you’d pedal as hard as you could in a gear that felt it wouldn’t cause your kneecaps to explode, and a pace that felt like it wouldn’t result in you coughing up your lungs (at least not prior to the finish), at the finish a man with a stopwatch and another with a clipboard and a pen would record your time. Huw Price Ban everything. It’s the only answer. Phil Scott Isn’t everyone on Zwift three feet tall, 35kg and thresholding 400 watts? Must just be me then! David Heagney First world problems! Mark Blewett If there are prizes to be won then you have to police it. Why do people have…

Two riders at the six-day races at Olympia, London in July 1923, take a break from the action for a spot of high jinks in front of the camera. The racing demanded much from the competitors, who were afforded minimal rest – the rider on the right is surely alluding to this with a pillow across his handlebars, head tucked down as though ready to fall asleep. The winners of the 1923 London event were reported as Belgian pairing Alois Perseyne and Pierre Vandevelde, who rode an astonishing 1,737 miles across the six days. Six-day racing is quite different now, with a more varied programme of races, but endurance is still the key element as the Madison remains one of the longest on the track. The final Madison is often…