Innehållsförteckning för May 19, 2022 från Cycling Weekly

Arnaud Démare, resplendent in the ciclamino jersey, emerged as the sprinter to beat at the Giro d’Italia during the race’s first week after taking two stage wins on the trot. Following the race’s return to Italy the Frenchman first struck gold on the stage to Messina. On that day the mid-stage climb of the Portella Mandrazi had caused complications for the sprinters. Caleb Ewan, Mark Cavendish and Démare were all dropped from the peloton on the climb but Démare’s group was further up the road than his two rivals and managed to regain contact with the peloton. His lead-out was executed to perfection and he never looked in trouble as he romped to the line ahead of Fernando Gaviria (UAE-Emirates) and Giacomo Nizzolo (Israel-Premier Tech). He said: “The climb was…

GIRO D’ITALIA STAGE 3 2020 Geraint Thomas The Welsh Tour de France winner doesn’t really do heartbreak, at least in public, preferring a pragmatic shrug of the shoulders and a rueful grin before refocusing on the next goal. It’s impossible not to see the work of former British Cycling psychiatrist Steve Peters in this approach, and it has no doubt stood him and many other former members of Team GB in good stead. But having waited all of 2020 to be able to show his mettle, Thomas would have to have been made of stone not to have been stunned by a major crash on stage three of that year’s Giro d’Italia that ended his season before it had even got started. Following a summer season decimated by the first…

You seem to have made huge progress over the past couple of years. What do you put that down to? Actually I think I’ve progressed at a normal rate, just maybe it’s been more obvious over the past couple of years. If you look at 2017-18 to now, there have been steps up along the way, but nothing completely unexpected – no big shocks. You had Covid earlier this year. What was it like getting back to full fitness? It took a while, and I raced quite a lot quite soon afterwards. Once I finally took a break [from racing] and just did a month of training before [the Tour de] Romandie, I was a lot better as a result. Maybe I should have done that sooner, in hindsight, but…

The first thing to note about sneaking a bike past the front desk of a hotel or office building is that ‘sneaking’ is almost always counterproductive. It’s frankly astonishing how often, even in the swankiest establishments, that a confident swagger will deter challenge. Just carry it past (carrying is better than wheeling – the noise of a freewheel is catnip to concierges) as if you’re delivering it to the most important person in the building. You can even add, “Just delivering it,” if you like, though this is more convincing if you’re not clacking through reception in bike shoes. If that doesn’t work, create a distraction. Get a friend to ask a series of difficult questions at the desk. Even better if they can phone the desk, because then the…

Italy was in shock on the day their sporting hero, Marco Pantani, was kicked out of the Giro d’Italia while leading the race, the night before the final stage. A blood test revealed his haematocrit level to be 52% and therefore he was unable to continue to race on health grounds. The ‘health tests’ were used to spot riders using EPO in the days before a test for the drug had been created and deemed reliable to use. A rider’s haematocrit level is essentially the amount of oxygen-carrying red blood cells in their blood. EPO boosted these cells and anything over 50% failed on ‘health grounds’. The story goes that the UCI and race organisers – terrified of the potential fallout – had been warning Pantani all race about his…

The final few hundred metres of tarmac on the Blockhaus climb are cracked, broken and scarred, the unforgiving weather and wear taking its toll. But it was the cracks at the foot of the mountain that would prove decisive for Simon Yates’s Giro d’Italia GC hopes. The much-reduced peloton had only just started to ascend the famous Italian climb on stage nine when the BikeExchange-Jayco leader drifted off the back of the group. He fought valiantly to start with but as the GC favourites started to fire shots at each other, the gap between him and any hope of claiming the pink jersey opened. By the time he crested the mountain, made famous by Eddy Merckx’s victory there on its Giro debut in 1967, he was 11.15 behind stage winner…

FRED WRIGHT Perfecting the art of the nature break Peeing is a task almost every rider will undertake at least once a race. Not so long ago Peter Sagan suggested younger riders were peeing in the middle of the bunch, and I would first like to clarify that, as a younger rider, I have never done that. During Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne this year someone decided to go for it on the bike on a tight, twisty descent while there was a bit of stress in the peloton. This caused a fair bit of shouting in the bunch and I wonder if that’s what led to Sagan claiming that riders “just pee on each other”. I don’t know if the rider managed to get any on anyone but I do respect his ability…

I’m secretly hoping that Cav will go to the renaming event. Andy Unwin He’ll be super ’appy and made up about that. Jon Price There is an excellent therapeutic centre near us called Centre for Ageing and Vitality, known to all as The CAV! Anna Larkin The only bus with a lead-out train. Christopher Crosskey Great to see Hungary providing such great support for cycling, hope it promotes the sport there. Seeing the crowds reminded me of the Tour de Yorkshire for public profile. John Judd Wait, will people see the bus coming and suddenly it accelerates and sprints past them? Rohan Shan There’s a bollard in the middle of the Via Aurelia, near the start of the Poggio climb, with a blue plaque dedicated to Cav. Mark Newman As…

Let’s get the full disclosure/declaration/introduction out of the way first. I am a Colnago fan, I own a steel Master Olympic and the Colnago coffee-table biography that Ernesto Colnago gave me and signed for me when I interviewed him 10 years ago is one of my most treasured possessions. It might sound unpatriotic but the launch of a new Colnago C model in 2022 is the real jubilee for me. However, fans love what they know best – they go to a gig and want to hear the old hits not the new material – so a new Colnago has to work hard to impress me or there’s a danger I might start retrogrouching about how great the C40 was (see my feature on page 36 for that). So, first…

REST DAY NETFLIX TIME Everyone has different rest day routines, some people have to push a little bit to stay in the rhythm. When I was young, I always struggled with rest days. I’d struggle the day after. But as I’ve gotten older I go more easy. I did 30 minutes on the rollers with just a five-minute effort at threshold just to sweat a little bit. Then I watched the second half of the fourth season of Ozark on Netflix. STAGE 4 JERSEY ON When I will look back on my career, spending this day in the mountains jersey will surely be very special. Even though I couldn’t enjoy it too much because it was quite a hard stage. I finished in the gruppetto. I didn’t feel great and…

Ineos Grenadiers road star Ethan Hayter showed he can still mix it up on the track at last weekend’s Nation’s Cup track event at Milton, Canada. The Londoner trounced allcomers in the omnium and also took a silver in the Madison, for which he paired up with Rhys Britton. The pair finished eight points down on the Dutch winners, with Germany taking bronze. Welshman Britton also got his own gold medal in the scratch race. On what was his 23rd birthday, he skipped off the front of the field with nearly 30 laps remaining and put a lap into the bunch. With nobody else able to copy the feat, Britton was able to sit tight to take the win. Silver went to Erik Martorell Haga (Spain) after a last-minute surge…

If that well known illustration that depicts the evolution of the human being was used to depict the evolution of the carbon bike, the Colnago C40 would be the final figure on the right striding proudly off into the future. That’s not to say that its predecessors were knuckle-dragging Pliopitheci: the carbon-tubed Carlton Flyer, made by Raleigh in 1969, reputedly weighed 7.5kg. Later, brands such as Alan and Look/TVT put carbon bikes with aluminium lugs into production in the Eighties as well as supplying pro teams, and of course Lotus built the radical pursuit bike that Chris Boardman used to win Olympic gold in 1992. But it wasn’t until Franco Ballerini won Paris-Roubaix in 1995 on a Colnago C40 that carbon-fibre proved it wasn’t just for fragile climbing bikes or…

ONE UP Colnago C68Ti Campagnolo Super Record EPS 12v - Bora Ultra WTO 45 €16,780.00 Before you put one or both of your kidneys up for sale, at the moment this bike is not available in the UK, and it’s not just ‘one up’ either – it’s the top of the range. It’s the one that grabbed all the headlines when it launched. ONE DOWN Colnago C68 frameset £5,069 The C68 only comes with flagship groupsets so if you wanted the Tiagra build you’re out of luck (and the C68 is for electronic groupsets only). But you could build it with your own electronic groupset if you bought the frame only – or maybe just hang it on the wall.…

Charly Gaul executes one of the most epic Giro stage wins in history on the slopes of Monte Bondone. Entering stage 19 of the race, the Luxembourger was outside the top 10, over 15 minutes off the overall lead. He already had a reputation as a rider who thrived in bad weather but on this day he’d exceed what most thought possible. The peloton was battered by hail, 70kph winds and snowstorms as it crossed the mountains. Nearly half the 83-strong field that started abandoned the race but out front and alone Gaul pushed on. He had to descend at close to walking pace as it was impossible to pull the brakes. By the time he reached the finish at Monte Bondone after nine hours of riding he had to…