Innehållsförteckning för July 1, 2021 från Cycling Weekly

The eighth edition of La Course by Le Tour provided another demonstration of the ability of the women’s peloton to serve up a thrilling spectacle, as Demi Vollering (SD Worx) outsprinted her rivals to take the title at the top of the Côte de la Fosse aux Loups. There was little Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig (FDJ Nouvelle-Aquitaine Futuroscope) and Marianne Vos (Jumbo-Visma), in second and third respectively, could do to stop her. Just as significant as the young Dutchwoman’s success, though, was the fact that this was set to be the final running of a race that was always intended to be the stepping stone to a Tour de France Féminin. Tour organiser ASO confirmed in mid-June that an eight-day women’s event will take place in 2022, with full details of…

STAGE 1 CHUTE! Every hero needs a villain. While Julian Alaphilippe’s daring, blistering and uncatchable acceleration on the early steep slopes of the final climb made him a clear hero of France today, it was The Spectator in the Yellow Coat that was the villain. The stage was majorly affected by two crashes, the first of which was caused by said spectator holding a cardboard sign at handlebar height. Jumbo-Visma’s Tony Martin, minding his own business, rode into it and hit the deck. Others came down on the narrow road and riders behind were held up. French police were soon searching for the spectator. The second was arguably more significant as it claimed big name casualties (Chris Froome) and many more lost time. None of this should take away from…

INEOS’S EARLY LOSSES – YOUR VIEW INEOS INSIST THEY’RE STILL IN THE FIGHT DESPITE LOSING TIME Shane Futch: “I love the fight that G has but he can’t beat Pog or Rog. Pogačar in particular looks so good.” Keith Cross Winds Cartwright: “Think he’s a step or two behind the Slovenians and I don’t see him taking much of any time back in the TT on current form – he could well lose time to them both.” Dean Unsworth: “It’s been a tough couple of days. I’m confident G will get stronger as the Tour enters its last week but I fear he may have too much in the way of time losses to recoup. I still think he’ll podium though. I have a feeling Roglič isn’t as strong as last year.…

Decades of popularity have withered the Giant of Provence, which for all its imposing, immovable stature has become a victim of its own success. The constant stream of visitors to the summit is only increasing, with erosion and general wear and tear being the result. To this end, the summit has been undergoing a bit of reconstructive surgery, expanding cycling and pedestrian-only areas, limiting off-piste parking and putting new pathways in place. The forecourt of the famous weather station will be given over to cyclists and pedestrians, with everything treated to a lick of paint and a general spruce-up. During this time the summit has been closed to cars, and even cyclists are having to single out to pass through the works at the top. The whole project is set…

UAE EMIRATES | DS: Andrej Hauptman, Matxin Fernándezw JUMBO-VISMA | DS: Grischa Niermann, Frans Maassen INEOS GRENADIERS | DS: Gabriel Rasch ISRAEL START UP NATION | DS: Rik Verbrugghe TREK-SEGAFREDO | DS: Steven de Jongh DECEUNINCK-QUICK STEP | DS: Tom Steels MOVISTAR | DS: José Luis Arrieta BORA-HANSGROHE | DS: Enrico Poitschke GROUPAMA-FDJ | DS: Philippe Maduit COFIDIS | DS: Christian Guilberteau ALPECIN-FENIX | DS: Philip Roodhooft EF EDUCATION-NIPPO | DS: Charly Wegelius AG2R-CITROEN | DS: Laurent Biondi, Julien Jurdie ARKEA-SAMSIC | DS: Yvon Ledanois DSM | DS: Rudi Kemna, Marc Reef, Luke Roberts LOTTO-SOUDAL | DS: Herman Frison, Mario Aerts, Marc Sergeant BAHRAIN VICTORIOUS | DS: Gorazd Štangelj BIKEEXCHANGE | DS: Matt White ASTANA-PREMIER TECH | DS: Dmitriy Fofonov QHUBEKA NEXTHASH | DS: Lars Michaelsen TOTALENERGIES | DS: Lylian…

I’ve always referred to my winter training bike as Trigger’s Broom. I’ve been riding it since the late 1990s and it’s served me extremely well. To keep it running that long I’ve taken very good care of it. It’s also had five different frames, three or maybe four groupsets and half a dozen sets of wheels. But as one thing gets updated at a time it’s still the same bike in my head. The current frame has actually been going since 2005, when Brian Rourke measured me up for a hand-built steel bike. I travelled up to Stoke-on-Trent and in a thoroughly enjoyable two-hour session he set me up on a rig whilst regaling me with tales from his very successful racing career. Brian is now enjoying his retirement, but…

The big changes for me this month are positional. On 10 June, I went for a bike-fit at Bike Loft in St Albans, and the changes made were the opposite to what I’d expected. I’d assumed that my 56cm frame was one size too big for me and that I’d need all the contact points brought closer together. But no! Fitter Simon Barnes asked how I was feeling on the bike and when I described the tension in my shoulders, he responded: “OK, I am going to do one thing”. With that, he slammed the stem, lowering it by 20mm. To my surprise, it felt better. He fitted a 10mm-shorter stem and it felt comfier still. We then played around with my saddle position, and another surprise: shifting it up…

Panache, drama, pain, tears and even a pantomime villain, the opening weekend of the Tour de France had it all. There were huge crowds too, as the peloton’s great entertainers fully lived up to the pre-race hype. Julian Alaphilippe’s latest demonstration of derring-do on the opening day enabled him to swap the rainbow jersey of world champion for the maillot jaune, but just 24 hours later, Mathieu van der Poel emulated his French rival with a powerful show of force and ripped it from his shoulders on the Mûr de Bretagne. Inevitably, the Dutchman’s victory on only his second day in the race was an emotionally charged one, coming less than two years after the death of his grandfather, Raymond Poulidor, who finished on the Tour podium a record eight…

Well, we had it all didn’t we? The predictability of the favourites living up to our expectations and the inevitable crashes, but with everything turned up to 11. What I hadn’t anticipated was the sensational way in which those big names would accomplish their exploits, nor the magnitude and severity of those crashes and the stupidity of a spectator in causing one. Even though Julian Alaphilippe and Mathieu van der Poel’s stage wins were not unexpected, the way in which they were delivered will stay with me for a long time. Two riders with flair we haven’t seen for a generation strutting their stuff in ever more inventive ways. A dream win for Alaphilippe which must have sent all of France into a frenzy, going from rainbow jersey to yellow…

THE TOUR AWAITS FRIDAY 25 JUNE After the Tour de Suisse I knew my legs were good and I got the feeling the team saw I was in a good place. So I had a good idea I was going but it’s always nice when you get the confirmation. It’s not just a confirmation of the recent months, it’s what I’ve been working towards my whole life. I was away training in Croatia at the time but I’m sure my parents celebrated. It’s nice, you get messages from friends and people who don’t follow cycling but they’ve heard of the Tour de France and see you’re doing that and are like, “You must be doing alright.” The team presentation day yesterday has felt really different. I’ve not had a day…

Tubeless technology is ubiquitous in the off-road world, with clincher versions of the top-end tyres mountain bike tyres dropped years ago. But despite the industry’s efforts to usher in a similar transformation on the road, it’s fair to say that the reception has continued to be rather lukewarm. Putting this all down to roadie reticence isn’t quite the full story. Road riders won’t abandon a tradition without a good reason, but if there’s a clear enough performance gain on offer, new technologies will be adopted. So what’s on offer with tubeless? Perhaps most significantly, the use of sealant instead of a tube means punctures from thorns or flints are self-healing – and there’s no inner tube to get a pinch-flat from bottoming out on a square edge. This enables the…

One of the pleasures of cycling is the great many athletes whose names are in languages other than your own. There are three basic approaches – and for the sake of argument I’m going to assume your native language is English. The first option is just reading it out as if it were English. This can work surprisingly well, is consistent, and satisfies any Brexity urges you may be suffering from. You score an extra point if, after you’ve said it, no one says, “Bless you.” You lose a point for adding, “As they say in…” and naming the rider’s nation. You lose two if you get the country wrong too. Option two is to pronounce it in the correct and authentic accent. Fine if you’re fluent in the relevant…

An impassive Henri Desgrange looks on, stopwatch in hand, as Belgian rider Sylvère Maes struggles to fix a puncture on the Col du Galibier. It’s not clear if the new tyre came from the stack wrapped around the wing mirror of Desgrange’s car or not. Maes need not have fretted too much over his misfortune here, and as he was 17 minutes in the lead at this point we suspect he didn’t. Indeed by the time he came to the end of the third stage of that day (yes, that’s right, it was a triple split stage) he’d be nearly half an hour in the lead having destroyed the opposition in a time trial over the Col de l’Iseran. He’d have no problem holding onto the jersey until a few…

A fan’s ill-judged decision to turn their back on the fast-approaching peloton in order to say hello to their grandparents with a cardboard sign, resulted in the first big crash of the race on day one of the Tour. In the days that followed, police searched for the culprit. The woman was clipped by Jumbo-Visma’s Tony Martin as the bunch sped past her, sending the German veteran to the ground and producing a domino effect behind him. Given the speed that the riders were travelling at and the number that went down, it was surprising that just one was forced to abandon the race, with Team DSM’s Jasha Sütterlin the unfortunate man. Tour boss Christian Prudhomme appeared on French TV and exhorted all fans to stay out of the road…

High above the lavender fields and the vineyards of Provence rests a stone that has endured across the decades. Sombre and unflinching, it has withstood the snow and ferocious wind of winter upon winter. Come summer, it has witnessed the epic battles between bike riders that are now detailed, in a hundred different ways, in cycling’s history books. And all the time, the people come; pausing to pay their respects at the stone, which marks one rider’s own final battle high up on this Giant of Provence, Mont Ventoux. The story of Tom Simpson, who died after collapsing on the mountain in the 1967 Tour de France, is well known to British fans. And the Simpson Memorial, located at the roadside 1.5km from the summit, hints at all that makes…

The bright hot light of a Mediterranean spring creeps under the roof of the Athens velodrome. On the track apron in a pile of exhausted, twisted limbs, lies one of cycling’s true greats, Mark Cavendish. Empty from the efforts set by his coach, the 36-year-old has collapsed spent, unable to hold himself up, let alone pedal a bike. In many ways the image from Cavendish’s Instagram tells you much of what you need to know about the Manxman’s recent comeback. It always comes back to the track with Mark Cavendish. He has spoken many times about how work on the boards has helped hone the speed in his legs – most notably in 2016 when Olympic omnium prep set him up for four Tour stage wins. His current return to…

Fantastic news, now we will all have to endure panic attacks and hiding behind fingers as we wait for the mad dash to the line. Christine Everett YES! One more win, Mark! I know you’ve still got it in you. Brain Phillips Cavendish is going to be under immense pressure to perform. Steve McDonald Great for Cav, but I’ll be surprised if he makes it over the mountains. Matthew James It will be very tough for him to get over some of the big climbs. One stage is 155 miles this year – going to be a lot of very hard and long ascents. Terry Johnson Thankfully there are no horrible, short mountain stages starting with a sharp climb straight away. Means he and the other sprinters have a chance…

The Assos Skharab glasses are the Swiss brand’s new entry-level sunnies. The Assos Zegho sunglasses are just about the most expensive cycling sunglasses out there, with their price tag of £385. That’s why in this rare case, £200 is entry level. The Skharab is clearly the little brother of the Zegho, with the same rimless design and little Assos logo that appears to float in the middle of the lens. Assos says the Skharab is “bred more for speed, protection and visual clarity in changing terrain and shifting light conditions” and a more angular styling does give it a racier look compared to the bug-eyed Zegho. “THE SKHARAB IS THE ZEGHO’S LITTLE BROTHER” The difference in price is partly down to the fact that the Skharab lens is not made…

My goal for the past month was to break 12.3 seconds for the flying 200m outdoors – and good news, I achieved it! At the SES Sprinters League at Herne Hill velodrome on 5 June, I got my time down to 12.1 seconds. Though the time was good, my racing wasn’t brilliant – I’m still trying to get to grips with gearing and tactics. To cut myself some slack, I’m still very inexperienced compared to most of those I’m racing against, so these races are a valuable learning experience. Hopefully the times will keep coming down; my goal is 11.8 seconds by the end of the year. As Dan Bigham pointed out in his Start at the End feature (CW 17 June), the big goal for me is to get…

A stellar line-up of time triallists from the RTTC awards night allows for a little game of ‘where are they now’. When it comes to putting names to faces, some are definitely a little easier than others. There’s a well dressed young David Millar at the back who, despite wearing a very stylish pinstripe suit and towering over many others on the stage, was there to collect his junior 25-mile title. “You have not seen anything yet,” he said on stage. That may seem overconfident for some, but considering he won the Tour de France opening TT four years later, it’s confidence that was at least backed up. Jamie Burrows was another snappy dresser that night who, after a short pro career, now works as a bike designer for Ribble.…