Innehållsförteckning för May 12, 2022 från Cycling Weekly

It was only mid-February, but already Tejay Van Garderen just knew something special was building. “It was the last stage of the Volta ao Algarve and there was a 17km time trial,” the American remembers. “It was a tricky course, but I was with Tony throughout the whole TT until we got to the hardest section, and in those few kilometres alone he put 30 seconds into me and the rest. On a section that demoralised people, where they succumbed to the pain and pressure – that’s where Tony was at his best. It was just his power; he had this ability to go faster than anyone else when it was harder.” Five days around southern Portugal against opposition still finding their race legs might not appear hugely significant, but…

We cycling fans are an interesting mix of endearingly earnest and supercilious. Fan clubs unveil massive banners for their preferred riders, dress in matching outfits, line the course screaming and singing songs with utter unabashed devotion. And yet, at the same time, being draped in your favourite team or rider’s kits is sure to get you called a “full-kit w**ker”. This is very much a cycling thing. In any other sport buying team shirts and other merch is part of the fandom. However, the culture is shifting and it could yet help the sport itself thrive. Teams and riders are collaborating with big designers – riders like Primož Roglič, Rigoberto Urán, Remco Evenepoel, Chris Froome, and many more, now have their own stores. Teams too have expanded into non-riding and…

Bryton has launched a new flagship computer, the S800, that’s designed to go head-to-head with the Garmin Edge 1030 Plus. Its 3.4in colour touchscreen might be smaller than the Edge 1030’s 3.5in but it has a huge claimed battery life of 36 hours compared to the 1030’s 20 hours. The Taiwanese company only launched the Bryton S500 in January – that was its new flagship computer and was aimed at taking market share away from Garmin’s 830 and Wahoo’s Elemnt Bolt. The new S800 incorporates all of the S500’s features, including voice-to-text activated Group Chat and Group Ride features, and voice search. Navigation features include turn-by-turn and route-guidance features on pre-installed regional OSM maps. In addition to navigation, there’s auto-rerouting, on-screen POIs, reverse saved rides, and route retracing. The Bryton…

Ettore Milano is extremely happy as he makes his way around the 10th stage of the Giro d’Italia. Judging from his pockets he’s been back to the team car, or perhaps stopped at the side of the road, to pick up refreshments for him and quite possibly his Bianchi team leader, Fausto Coppi. Milano is carrying both a Thermos flask and what we’re pretty confident is a couple of bottles of beer. This day was the second longest day of the race at 285km between Riccione and Venice in the north of the country. It was a fairly flat affair which resulted in a win for Belgian Rik Van Steenbergen. Milano seems unfussed, like he’s out for a relaxed summer ride, just that it happens to be right behind the…

Déjà Ew Caleb Ewan (Lotto-Soudal) pulls off a homage to his 2021 Tour de France ending crash on the first stage of the Giro d’Italia last week. At the Tour last year he broke his collarbone in a high-speed crash on the race’s first proper sprint stage. In Italy he crashed in a similar manner, skidding towards the left of the road, but this time was able to pick himself up and continue. Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Fenix) went on to win, ahead of Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty).…

STAGE 1 CHILLED If you raced the Tour de France, for example, you expect a very nervous first stage. And this was very different. It was one of the most relaxed starts to a Grand Tour I’ve ever done, we were just cruising along. My finish line was at 5.7km to go where we hit the climb, my only job was to position Giacomo Nizzolo for that. STAGE 2 KING OF THE MOUNTAINS It was my room-mate Matthias Brändle who said, “Two years ago on the opening stage you went for the KOM points and got the jersey for a day, why don’t you try again?” I figured I had nothing to lose. I did a recon in the morning and did the final corner before the climb a few…

Cycling ultimately does have an issue with cheating. From doping scandals to the original Tour de France riders jumping on trains, it doesn’t always help itself. A grey area unlike any other sport is the sticky bottle or magic spanner that riders use to get back into contention in a race. Both by the letter of the law are cheating – no one ever needs to hold on to a bottle for more than two seconds. However, cycling is not like other sports, with its crashes, mechanicals, even wrong turns. Without the use of the convoy we would likely only see a handful of riders by the final stage of Grand Tours. Commissaires have chosen to turn a blind eye to the sticky bottle for years, but social media has…

When we began our volunteering campaign, we wanted to get more readers enthused about the idea of volunteering, and to register their interest in getting involved with British Cycling or Cycling Time Trials. We’re happy to report that British Cycling in particular has experienced a significant uptick in visits to its volunteering pages, with 560 people seeking out advice on how to become a volunteer. While we fell short of our original target of 1,000 recruits, we’d like to think that our campaign has inspired a few extra willing helpers in clubs and clubrooms across the country in all kinds of events – plus there’s still the rest of the year for you to get involved. It’s been an eye-opening and rewarding couple of months. We’ve met some quite frankly…

If you’re considering giving up a bit of your time to volunteer at a cycling event or two, you’re probably imagining a low-key role at a local race, maybe holding a flag at a junction, or serving tea to well-deserving time triallists. These and others like them are roles which are not only valuable, but often much needed too – they’re a great place to start, and indeed continue. However, there are other options. You could, for example, follow the lead of retired police officer Mavis Evans and go straight to the top – volunteering at the Tour of Britain, Women’s Tour and Track World Championships. “I was absolutely crazy about cycling – I’d regularly go to the Tour of Britain and I’d watch races on TV. But I never…

When Roval launched the Rapide CLX and Alpinist CLX wheelsets in 2020, it raised some eyebrows by not going tubeless. The brand’s message was that the tube system was simply the fastest. But that wasn’t the complete story. Roval had every intention of going tubeless until Peter Sagan destroyed one of the prototypes in training in December 2019. The story goes that Sagan was doing Sagan things: jumping a roundabout and running straight into a kerb. The front wheel cracked and the tyre burst off. Sagan was unharmed, but the wheel was sent back to the lab for inspection. It had, after all, met all certifying bodies’ standards, including the UCI’s 40-joule drop test. So what happened? “The wheels are the strongest Roval has ever made” Now, tubeless wheel systems…

In recent years, recovery has been monetised and packaged up, in the form of wearable devices – most worn on the wrist. These devices track daily activity and sleep, and calculate a ‘readiness score’ using an algorithm. Wearable device brands keep their algorithms private, so it is very difficult to independently verify the accuracy or validity of the recovery metrics they produce (as compared to the self-testing methods outlined above). On the plus side, they do take the work out of tracking your recovery – everything is automatically measured and recorded.…

Have you or any of your clubmates or ride buddies been complaining recently about new riders on the roads not knowing how to ride, giving the rest of us a bad name and being a danger on the road to themselves? Well if you have, rest assured you’ve joined a very non-exclusive club. Like pros complaining that the new breed have no respect for the older generation, cyclists have forever been complaining about the standard of ‘new’ cyclists: “The standard of cycling skill has definitely deteriorated during the five and a half years of war. A generation of cyclists unaccustomed to swift moving traffic in any considerable density has grown up and its education is far from complete. The cycling clubman…” – definitely the ‘us’ in this context – “……

As Mark Cavendish crossed the line and raised his arms in celebration on Sunday, he was marking his spectacular start to the Giro d’Italia. But equally he could have been celebrating the fact that he and his compatriots had dominated proceedings in Hungary. Cavendish’s 16th Giro stage win, which he is returning to after nine years away, came just 24 hours after fellow Brit Simon Yates stormed to victory in stage two’s punchy individual time trial. In the process the BikeExchange-Jayco rider launched himself to the top of the GC favourites’ list. Yates was just three seconds faster than pink jersey wearer Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Fenix) over the 9.2km course. As a consequence he sat second overall in the race headed for its native Italy on Monday, with five…

Continuing their track record of developing talent, Trinity Racing’s latest recruit powered up Michaelgate to win the Rapha Lincoln Grand Prix on Sunday. Nineteen-year-old Luke Lamperti rose to fame when he won the United States National Criterium Championships last year. In his second year with the British development team, the American led a reduced bunch into Michaelgate for the 13th and final time after more than 100 miles of racing, before charging to victory. “I just went as hard as I could from the bottom, there wasn’t much in the way of tactics,” said Lamperti. “I just went as hard as I could from the bottom” “It’s good to come here with a British team and show the guys what I can do.” With the breakaway kept on a short…

In the run-in to the season, the buzzwords at Ineos Grenadiers were ‘new chapter’ as they pivoted towards a focus on the Classics. Four months later, with new head of racing Roger Hammond at the helm, the team had not so much started writing a new chapter as rewritten the book. When the dust had settled, the team had walked away with two huge results – victory in Paris-Roubaix and Amstel Gold, via Dylan van Baarle and Michał Kwiatkowski – plus a win at Brabantse Pijl by 19-year-old neo-pro Magnus Sheffield, and second in the Tour of Flanders (van Baarle again). But, says Hammond, it was actually at Opening Weekend, which left them with no silverware to speak of, that the team’s real potential in the Classics was plain for…

I think there is some evidence from ultra-running that as distances get longer the difference in performance between the sexes reduces, and maybe even reverses, so why not. Joe Wallace The answer to “should there be more racing?” is always yes. Barry Bean Yes. Actually, in this day and age I think the case would need to be made for NOT having a corresponding women’s event, rather than the case for having one. Having a corresponding event should be the default. Ted Diamond Why is there not already? However, let’s think of another question. Can a race organiser create a women’s one-day race with the intention of it being a future Classic/Monument that the men will then want to piggyback off. Martyn Kimberley Not every men’s race will work as…

Mark Edwards has been coach of Celtic Tri’s junior section for the past eight years, looking after riders as young as seven years old and up to 17. While Celtic Tri is indeed a triathlon club, much of what Edwards does is bike-centric and will be recognised in dedicated cycling clubs nationwide. As well as running a weekly bike skills session, the 39-year-old has recently been involved in setting up a monthly evening club time trial, and even the enduringly challenging task of taking groups of youngsters out on road rides. He is also a British Cycling-qualified coach and volunteers in schools to teach kids bike skills. His energy, says coach coordinator Sam Perrott, is endless. “He just doesn’t stop,” she says. “He absolutely will do anything to help and…

For WorldTour teams, the UCI mandates quarterly blood checks to make sure athletes are healthy and fit to race. At UAE Team Emirates, John Wakefield and his team test the blood of riders training at altitude every seven days to keep track of a range of biochemical variables. The key biomarkers regularly tested include: ▪ Ferritin (for iron) ▪ Testosterone (important for bone health) ▪ Creatine kinase (CK) (for muscle damage) ▪ Haematocrit (how much of your blood is red blood cells) ▪ Cortisol (the stress hormone) For any endurance athlete, from recreational to pro, checking iron (ferritin) levels annually is highly recommended. Biomarker tests for sportspeople are not routinely available on the NHS but are easy to purchase as home-test kits from private suppliers such as Medichecks and Forth…

For professionals, the ability to slow a group down is a useful talent. Normally they do it because they have a team-mate up the road, or chasing back on. The wily pro goes to the front to just get in the way a bit. They go through, then back off. Or they let critical wheels go, making others close gaps. They’ll not be much loved, but they’ll still be respected for doing their job. If you’re an amateur wanting to slow down a group ride, well, you could try doing it that way. But it takes much more energy to get to the front and then start making a nuisance of yourself than to just sit in the wheels, and the chances are that the reason you want the group…