Innehållsförteckning för April 8, 2021 från Cycling Weekly

What did you miss the most while our riding was restricted? It still is, of course, but to an ever-lessening extent, and as things relax I can’t help but look forwards. Was it the group rides with clubmates and friends? The big routes taking you out of your ‘local’ area? Or was it stopping at a cafe for coffee and cake? It probably says everything you need to know about my riding that for me it was the latter. In my defence, the cafe stops come with the longer rides. It’s not like I head out for an hour and spend another hour in the cafe. Well, not often. For me there’s nothing better than a quick stop, a nice slice of cake and a catch-up without having to shout…

Van Baarle takes Dwars Dylan van Baarle came out on top at Dwars Door Vlaanderen last week after going on a long-range solo effort with around 50km to go. Van Baarle (Ineos Grenadiers) held off the chasing group including Olympic champion Greg Van Avermaet (Ag2r-Citroën) and Milan-San Remo 2021 winner Jasper Stuyven (Trek-Segafredo) who were not able to get close to the Dutchman as he held around 30 seconds’ advantage for almost an hour. 18.44 The impressive amount of time that Irishman Ronan McLaughlin took off Sam Gardner’s Everesting world record last month, after finishing in a startling 6.40.54. US rider Gardner had held the record with 6.59.38 since last July. It was the second time McLaughlin had broken the record, and he completed the 8,848 metres of climbing on…

It had been widely speculated that Shimano would mark its 100th birthday with the release of a new iteration of its flagship Dura-Ace groupset, which itself has 47 candles on its metaphorical cake. But as the 21 March centenary drew ever closer, the anticipated new shiny bits never materialised. In their place came a limited-edition photo book: Shimano 100 Works. Only 2,000 will be available, and if you want one you’ll have to pre-register, enter a lottery – and pay 10,000 yen (£66.50). Applications will be accepted up until 27 May, with the winners announced from 7 June. If you were hanging out for new Dura-Ace, don’t go switching groupset brands in disgust just yet. According to its own standard four-year product cycle, a new version of Shimano’s pro-level series…

Stiffer, lighter, faster! It seems nearly every newly-launched race bike aims for the superlative in all three of this holy trinity. Weight is easily quantifiable, aerodynamics ditto – but stiffness is more difficult to assess. Instead, we tend to read about frames that are ‘15 per cent stiffer’ than the previous model, or ‘as stiff as the last model, but lighter – so stiffness-to-weight is improved’. These more woolly claims are largely used because different brands have their own methods of testing stiffness, and a bit like the ‘mine goes to 11’ method of indexing shoe stiffness, the scales aren’t comparable. THE NUMBERS DON’T COMPARE Stiffness tests, in general, are completed by hanging weights from a frame and measuring flexion in millimetres. There are industry standard tests, which frames have…

ONE UP BMC Roadmachine 01 Three £6,900 For an extra £700 you get a set of Zipp 303S wheels with your Roadmachine 01 Three. The groupset is SRAM Force eTap AXS. It also comes in this lighter colourway, a departure from the more familiar signature black or red. ONE DOWN BMC Roadmachine One £4,700 The ‘One’, which is the top model in the Roadmachine range (as opposed to Roadmachine 01) uses the same frame technologies but a lower-grade carbon and simpler cockpit. It’s equipped with SRAM Force eTap AXS and DT Swiss E 1800 Spline aluminium wheels.…

It’s a fact that the general standard of elite riders has risen vastly over the last 20 years. This is because more is known about how the human body reacts to training, and with the advent of power meters coaches can prescribe specific training loads to bring about desired improvements. But are the best getting better? That’s harder to say, because it is so difficult to compare. It’s unlikely we will see a rider win the number and range of races Eddy Merckx did, because racing is so specialised. I would make one observation, though, and it’s only a personal one… With more men and women from an increasing number of nations becoming elite cyclists, inevitably some of them will get together and have babies. And because endurance talent and…

A keen cyclist has been, so I hear, trying to sell his house. When a potential buyer booked a viewing, optimism was high. Afterwards his other half rang from work to see how the viewing had gone. “It was great,” he reported. “The guy was a bike rider. First thing he noticed was the Cervélo in the hall. He just loved it – said he was looking for the same frame, but what with the lockdown and all it was impossible to get one. I told him that actually I wanted to sell mine, so he gave me £1,500 for it then and there!” “Hmm. What did he think of the house?” came the reply. There was a pause. Eventually he said, “We never really got round to that.”…

The Equality and Parity in Cycling group which has been campaigning for equality of prize money in amateur racing in the UK, most notably in time trials, has launched a kitemark for events to show they meet prize money standards. The group will give the kitemark to events to use in their marketing material in the hope that it will ensure women can more easily pick the races that will reward them and vote with their entries. In a statement the group said: “The Kitemark is a way to celebrate those already providing equality in their events – whether organisers or clubs. It’s based on what we see as the gold standard for equality in prizes at cycle events, and while some are ready to adopt it immediately, others may…

SHOZABURO SHIMANO Born in 1898 and beginning his working life as a teenage lathe operator, Shozaburo Shimano founded his own company in 1921, in Sakai. Having started out repairing machinery, he was soon manufacturing freewheels for Sakai’s thriving cycling industry. By all accounts a born leader, with unmatched enthusiasm and a magnetic personality, Shozaburo put a lot of effort into developing the cycle industry as a whole, for he was said to be convinced that no one company would thrive unless cycling itself did. He passed away in 1965. DURA-ACE, 1973 While Shimano had been manufacturing cycle components for half a century, 1973’s Dura-Ace was its first foray into the world of pro cycling with a serious groupset. The name was an amalgam of duralumin — a hard aluminium alloy…

They can’t have known exactly what they were letting themselves in for in 1896. As 51 riders set off from Paris at 5.30am in search of the 1,000 Franc first prize, among them was two young Brits. Arthur Linton, paced by his younger brother Tom, who trained on the hills around Aberaman, Wales, was the first to show aggression that day. It seems odd to say now but this race wasn’t the big goal for his 24th year on this planet, that was Bordeaux-Paris a few weeks later. By the time he reached Amiens he’d teamed up with German Josef Fischer, but not long after, disaster struck. A dog ran into the road and promptly under Linton’s wheels and he went crashing to the ground. While Fischer flew off up…

The week: 22-28 February 2021 Location: Manchester & Flanders Training for: Omloop Het Nieuwsblad Fast-tracked into the Groupama-FDJ WorldTour team last October, Jake Stewart has made a superb start to his professional career. He finished fourth on GC in February’s Etoile de Bessèges, and made even bigger waves a few weeks later by taking second at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. At the time of writing, he has just been deprived of another impressive result at Cholet-Pays de la Loire – Nacer Bouhanni barged him into barriers in the final sprint. Here, Stewart talks us through his week leading up to Omloop. Did Covid-19 affect your winter? I was supposed to be going out to Spain for a pre-season training camp but it was just as the borders were closed. Instead I…

I sometimes get asked if I have a favourite bike. I have a standard answer to this: I do, and it’s a 2006 titanium bike that came from a sponsor in the days when I raced bikes for money. When asked why it’s my favourite, I rhapsodise for several minutes on the compliant ride, the easy speed over long, long distances and the beautiful brushed finish. Those things are all true. But the main reason I nominate that bike is that it’s from a long-defunct manufacturer – in spite of its excellence, the company that produced it went under. It’s the cycling equivalent of a band so good that no one buys their music. It means that even if you wanted one like it, you can’t have it, which adds…

The World Anti-Doping Agency has launched an investigation into UK Anti-Doping after a 2010 sample from a prominent GB cyclist contained traces of the steroid nandrolone, with British Cycling then allegedly permitted to conduct its own private investigation despite WADA code stating that UKAD had an obligation to look into the matter. WADA has asked its Intelligence and Investigations Department to look into the case and to gather more information from UKAD, who told British Cycling that the rider’s sample contained a low level of nandrolone in late 2010, with private testing then said to have been carried out by British Cycling in 2011. Nandrolone is a threshold substance, meaning a certain amount needs to be detected in order to raise concerns for an antidoping agency, and UKAD is said…

When Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France in 1999 using Shimano Dura-Ace 7700, naturally the company shouted it from the rooftops. It was the first Tour win for the brand and put an end to years of Campagnolo dominance. As is well documented, the Japanese brand became a familiar fixture atop the podium in Paris over the following years, with the Texan eventually ‘winning’ seven consecutive editions. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Lance Armstrong does not feature in the 100th anniversary section of Shimano’s website. Instead, the entry for Dura-Ace 7700 shows Johan Musweeuw, Mario Cipollini and riders of the Polti team in action. The brand remains justifiably proud, however, of another US rider’s Grand Tour performances, and the Dura-Ace 7400 entry shows Andy Hampsten in 7-Eleven kit, racing to Shimano’s first…

Playwright Laurence Allen, himself a keen rider, drew on Linton’s life story for a play entitled Gladiator, which debuted in 2015 and toured around much of Linton’s native Wales. The plot of the play centres on a contemporary story of a young man discovering Linton’s old Gladiator in the loft; upon mounting it the ghost of Linton’s trainer ‘Choppy’ Warburton appears with a mission to clear his name. The protagonist recreates Linton’s legendary and fateful Bordeaux-Paris ride in his living room. Allen recalls he was approached by a theatre company to do something based on Linton’s life. “I thought a contemporary twist was more relevant. There were so many parallels with modern cycling, including the whiff of a drugs scandal.” “I venture that Arthur was tempted by the false fuel…

I tested the Roadmachine through the tail end of winter and into the beginning of spring. Moving between this and a Basso Diamante race bike, the stack was notably higher, but generous reach meant the ride didn’t feel alien or overly relaxed. The compliance suited rutted roads, providing the platform for a build-up to fitness ahead of what may actually be a summer of road racing. Since club runs were off the cards, I got away with the lack of mudguards but this would be an issue in a normal winter.…

This is difficult. For a start, women don’t have the history of big races men do, so comparing between generations is impossible. It’s difficult enough in men’s cycling because the sport has changed. Up until the 1990s, top riders rode everything, and great riders of yesteryear often won Classics and Grand Tours in the same season. Nowadays everybody is a specialist – Grand Tours or Classics, and even Classics subdivide into cobbled or hilly. But here goes; my choice for the greatest is – highly predictable, I know – Eddy Merckx. The Belgian, born in 1945, started out good and was a fast responder. By 1969, he was a phenomenon, only 24 years old and winning his first Tour de France by almost 18 minutes, having already won six Monuments,…