Innehållsförteckning för July 21, 2022 från Cycling Weekly

There are so many reasons to celebrate the rebirth of the Women’s Tour de France. Or the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, if you want to give it its full name. First and foremost, the women’s peloton now has its own version of the biggest race in the world. Secondly, the sport’s biggest race organiser, ASO, is stepping up its calendar and bringing back a race it should have reinstated years ago; thirdly, we get an extra week of Tour de France action to watch and enjoy. As we look ahead to it with this 32-page pull-out magazine, we’re still unsure what we’re going to get. I think everyone is. We know the pattern and ebb and flow of the men’s race over three weeks, but how is that…

Trek-Segafredo have established themselves as one of the powerhouse teams in the peloton. This has been built alongside the men’s squad; the two teams are fully integrated, even if the Tour is the first time their kits and bikes are the same colours. The women’s team has the same access to equipment and scientific support as the men, and it shows. Along with SD Worx, they are the year 11s in the playground. They always take responsibility for making the race, even if sometimes they don’t appear to have a rider able to win the day. After winning the opening stage team time trial, the strategy at last year’s Giro Donne was to ride for home champion Elisa Longo Borghini, but when she fell out of contention they were forced…

Despite their high-profile, Canyon-SRAM are the ‘almost’ team of the peloton. They consistently animate and take responsibility, but rarely win. The recruitment of Chloé Dygert and her voracious winning appetite was expected to change that, but the American has raced only twice in the team’s distinctive colours since joining for 2021. Though they have only one victory to their name so far, 2022 has not been a bad season for the German-registered squad. They have numerous podium and top-10 finishes to their name, and the addition of Pauliena Rooijakkers has given them real options in hilly races where she either leads or acts as the perfect foil to Kasia Niewdiadoma. Concentrating on the Olympics, the Polish rider did not start last year’s Giro Donne, where the team’s top finisher was…

After years as one of the peloton’s also-rans FDJ-SUEZ-Futuroscope have arrived at the top of the sport. Manager Stephen Delcourt has built an international squad who have learnt how to win. Though others came before, the transformation began in 2020 with Denmark’s Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig. Suddenly the team were competing in big races and that year she was two seconds off the Giro Rosa overall podium. And there, as if to prove their strategy of internationalisating the squad while developing home riders, Frenchwoman Evita Muzic won the final stage, the team’s first ever WorldTour win. Uttrup Ludwig won a stage at the Vuelta a Burgos in 2021, but it’s this year the team have exploded, with four top-tier victories to go with three lower-level ones. It is the emergence of…

Since 2014, when they raced as Boels-Dolmans, this Dutch team have remained a winning machine. Back then Lizzie Deignan was their main winner, taking the overall World Cup title two years on the trot. After the Brit, it was Anna van der Breggen who was the dominant rider. However, SD Worx have never needed to rely solely on one woman for victories, with winners of all descriptions throughout the squad, and this year they have perhaps their most powerful group of riders ever. Last year the team absolutely dominated the Giro Donne. From the second stage to the last, they occupied the top three places on GC; Anna van der Breggen won two stages and the GC, Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio bagged the final mountain stage and third overall, while Demi Vollering…

I’m a keen cyclist and avid Tour watcher but I’m fine with people protesting for such an important issue. Leigh Coulson I watched every minute of it and if they had signs on the side of the road, it probably would have been broadcast. As it was, I didn’t know what the protest was about principally as they were invisible and sat in the road in thick orange smoke! Paul Sheldon So climate protesters target a zeroemission form of transport to protest. Graham Austin Are the cars, motorbikes, helicopters… all electric? And the circus that goes with it? Kobe Dinky Apparently the French Guards took them to one side. The sport may be mainly at zero emissions but all the cars, bikes, buses, planes, etc. are not quite zero… and…

French sunnies brand Bollé last month launched its new C-Shifter glasses, which are currently being worn at the Tour by Groupama-FDJ and B&B Hotels-KTM. They look like worthy rivals to Oakley, 100% et al, and also incorporate some fascinating-sounding technology. The Volt+ that comes with the C-Shifter is the first-ever sunglasses lens created using artificial intelligence. According to Bollé, it was able to test over 20 million combinations to develop a patented lens that delivers a richer colour experience than is humanly possible with your own natural vision. Bollé is claiming 30% superior colour enhancement to help you see colours you’ve never perceived before. Yellow will certainly be on that list for the FDJ and B&B Hotels riders. Actually that’s a bit mean. The C-Shifters have a half-rim style frame…

Before the fall Still wearing yellow, Tadej Pogačar and his UAE-Team Emirates squad lead the peloton up the spectacular Lacets de Montvernier climb on stage 11, itself a mere taster for the triple-header of the Col du Télégraphe, the huge Col du Galibier and then the Col du Granon to come. The latter would see Pogačar crack, as first Jumbo’s Jonas Vingegaard and then a series of Pogačar’s rivals including Geraint Thomas all made the Slovenian pay for his earlier boisterousness.…

Achange to his diet, training methods and race programme are behind Geraint Thomas finding some of his best form since 2018 at this year’s Tour de France and hitting some of his highest power numbers. The Welshman, who won the yellow jersey in 2018, sat third on the general classification entering the race’s third week. He has mostly kept pace with the two leading riders Tadej Pogačar (UAE Emirates) and Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) through the mountains. “We wanted to get a bit more explosive racing in his legs” Although the Ineos Grenadiers leader lost time on the explosive Col du Granon climb on stage 11 he still gained on Pogačar, who was having his worst day of the race so far. Then on the following day’s stage to Alpe d’Huez,…

STAGE 10 BREAK TIME The fight for the break today was crazy once again. I somehow managed to get myself up there by following the wheels when everyone really started to get tired after 60km. Coming into the last climb I don’t think anyone expected there would be some climate protesters blocking the road. Of course we all had to stop. To be right there at such a memorable moment in this year’s Tour was pretty cool. The restart wasn’t nice at all; if you’ve ever tried to ride hard after stopping at the cafe it was very much like that. I thought me and Luis León Sánchez rode the final climb well. I got up the road early and rode at a tempo that was comfortable. Eventually he and…

omewhere in a car park in rural France aboard the Israel-Premier Tech team bus Phil Collins croons: “The hurt doesn’t show, but the pain still grows, it’s no stranger to you and me.” Baboom, baboom, baboom, baboom, BOOM, BOOM, the iconic drum fill of ‘In The Air Tonight’ kicks in and Chris Froome, Jakob Fuglsang and Simon Clarke all join in with pounding the skins of their air drums. “I can feel it coming in the air tonight, oh lord,” they belt out with the Genesis frontman. “Dance, trance and Europop keeps the mood high” Israel rider Michael Woods is the man responsible for this. He is one of a select few in the Tour peloton, the rider entrusted with sorting the music on the bus. In some ways the…

The gigantic juggernaut that is the Tour de France is centred on the most energyefficient mode of transport, but the enormous convoy that follows the cycling race leaves a carbon footprint that dwarfs that of other major sporting events. ASO, the race’s organiser, claims that it has offset 100% of the race’s carbon emissions through various tree planting schemes, and that they have reduced their footprint by 40% in the past decade. But spend a day at the Tour and you are confronted with a moving town, a mass of heavy polluting lorries, trucks and vehicles, and an obscene amount of plastic packaging. Also not accounted for are the carbon emissions generated by the hundreds of journalists and hundreds of thousands of fans who come to the roadside to watch…

In what is bound to be a fervent exchange of the baton in Paris on Sunday, the inaugural Tour Femmes picks up just as the men are about to leave off, with a short, sharp 12-lap blast around the famous Champs-Élysées circuit. And so begins the long-anticipated eight-stage race, which heads in a southeastern direction across l’Hexagone, culminating in what could be a firecracker showdown at La Super Planches des Belles Filles the following Sunday, 31 July. Supporters of women’s cycling have long lobbied for a proper Tour de France for female riders, and this feels like a great start and a major step forward from the one and two-day La Course of recent years, which felt like a token in comparison. After their Paris criterium comes a flat sprint…

Nationality: Italian Age: 30 2022 highlights: Victories at Paris-Roubaix and the Women’s Tour CW Rating: ★★★★ Since joining Trek-Segafredo, Longo Borghini has blossomed into one of the strongest, most aggressive all-round riders in the peloton. She used to lack explosiveness but though she’s no Lorena Wiebes, she has developed a kick and now has everything a professional cyclist could want. In 2021 her huge engine was the perfect counterpoint to Lizzie Deignan’s fleetness of foot. With the Brit on maternity leave, the Italian has stepped up even further. Early in the season she seemed a little out of sorts. But in April she exploded, assuming Deignan’s crown as queen of the Classics by winning Paris-Roubaix. Top-10 placings in the Ardennes followed, before a break and return to action last month as…

Only created in 2018, the initial mission for the Spanish squad was to develop home riders, though included among the original 10-woman roster were three foreigners. Movistar’s first three years were difficult – Frenchwoman Aude Biannic took their only first-year win – and they bumped along the bottom for two more seasons, only taking one win each year. But the arrival of Annemiek van Vleuten in 2021 transformed their fortunes and, rather than the single success of previous years, they bagged 18 wins, and not all from the Dutchwoman, though all from non-Spanish riders. Van Vleuten sat out the Giro Donne last year in order to prepare for the Olympics but dominated once again in Italy this year, winning the race overall to complete a Giro Donne hat-trick and took…

It’s been a difficult second season for Jumbo-Visma. With a fit Marianne Vos any team would thrive, and last year the Dutch master continued her magnificent career with her new team, bagging seven of the squad’s 12 victories. However, Vos’s two recent Giro Donne stage wins are her first of the year. The team went to last year’s Giro only with Vos in mind. There, though she was bested in the pure bunch sprints, she managed two stages, extending her career record to 30 victories. She added another two this month. It is with stage wins for her in mind that the team will be in France next week, with the yellow jersey also a target. There are other winners in the squad. American Coryn Labecki is chief among them…

In its previous incarnation as Tibco-SVB, this American team developed from occasional visitors to European shores into regulars. Now, as a top-tier WorldTeam with EF Education on board, this year they are a constant fixture. A creditable performance in last year’s Giro Donne opening-day team time trial was followed by a couple of top-20 stage finishes. However, their best-placed rider, Kristen Faulkner, was only 25th overall when the entire team withdrew after a spate of Covid positives. With the fast-improving Faulkner leaving for BikeExchange-Jayco, the team might have suffered this season, especially with the continued absence of the injured Lizzy Banks, but they have stepped up as the year has gone on in a way that suggests that things are going to plan. Star rider: New to cycling, Veronica Ewers…

Finding new interests is the biggest reason for time triallists not racing this year, a Cycling Time Trials survey indicates, while many simply say they are giving up time trialling or competition full stop. The survey was sent out in April as the result of low participation numbers that were causing events to be cancelled and saw even some popular events with 50 per cent fewer starters than previous years. It received a healthy response rate of 12%, with 900 separate comments addressing a very wide range of issues. Twenty-seven per cent of respondents said they had no plans to race this year (though 16% of those said they were not active racers), with 28% of those saying they were pursuing other interests and almost as many, 27%, citing retirement…

The York Rally was one of the biggest events on the UK cycling calendar as thousands of members of the CTC (Cyclists’ Touring Club, now Cycling UK) would descend on the city for a weekend that involved a major trade show, talks, a photography competition, time trials, a map reading competition, dances and grass-track racing. Les West was the star of the latter, the future Milk Race winner had ridden there with many members of his Tunstall Wheelers club. West won the half-mile and five-mile races, creating ‘destruction’ in the longer race by lapping the field. The rally was opened by CTC secretary Leslie Warner, who decided to wow the crowds with a ‘lecture’ on his honeymoon. You won’t be surprised to hear his honeymoon was spent touring the most…

What are you watching? I watch a lot of documentaries and docuseries about history. The latest was about a Polish artist who lost all his work in World War Two when he was sent to the USA, and now they’re trying to find it. I don’t like fiction, but more stuff that really happened – that’s my kind of relaxation. What are you reading? At the moment self-growing books, especially ones by Robin Sharma. I also like sporting autobiographies as I can identify a little easier with pro athletes, and I like the idea of having 24 hours a day to work on your shape and who you are. The best one I’ve read is Andre Agassi’s Open. What else are you doing? My ultimate hobby is coffee. I do…

There was a time when Tadej Pogačar was spoken about in hushed tones. He was the godlike figure whose name must be embellished at every opportunity. No one can touch young Tadej, the story went, the smiling, happy-go-lucky kid with boyish good looks and talent that will surpass all those that have come before him. Here was a man who was becoming a living myth. A walking, talking and laughing legend whose every pedal stroke generated fevered, excited discussion and prompted enchanted onlookers to desperately try to capture images of the chosen one. That was just over a week ago. Then, on stage 11 of the Tour de France, across some of the highest roads in the French Alps – the grandest of settings for such a mythical dethroning –…

Astricken Tadej Pogačar looks on helplessly as Jonas Vingegaard achieves what everyone was starting to think might be impossible – decisively dropping the Slovenian. Pogačar’s UAE-Team Emirates squad was already depleted after George Bennett went home with Covid and Rafał Majka was under par on the day, and the twice-winner at times found himself alone as Vingegaard’s Jumbo-Visma team rained blows on the defending champ, first on the Col du Galibier and then on the final climb of the Col du Granon. Pogačar initially appeared unflustered, chasing down attacks by Primoz Roglič and also Vingegaard himself without fuss, and even playing up for the cameras as the race sped towards the foot of the Granon. But halfway up the hors-catégorie climb, Vingegaard appeared to sense weakness and there was no…

For years the GreenEdge team seemed to be a one-woman outfit, first with Emma Johansson and then with Annemiek van Vleuten. Last year was the first in the postvan Vleuten era and, Grace Brown’s WorldTour wins aside, the team seemed without focus. And with Spratt suffering with health problems at the Giro Donne, they only managed two top-10 finishes. This year, though unlikely to make the Tour de France podium, they are a team reborn, and new recruit Kristen Faulkner has already made her mark with a stunning solo stage win at the Giro Donne. But it is the return of Alex Manley who has added real confidence to the Australian team. In May Manley won four of six stages at the Lotto Thüringen Ladies Tour and was second in…

Nationality: Dutch Age: 39 2022 highlights: Victories at Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Giro Donne CW Rating: ★★★★★ With Anna van der Breggen retired, there is little argument that van Vleuten is the best stage race rider in the women’s peloton. The most voracious of winners, only Marianne Vos can possibly match her desire for success. Since emerging transformed after a horror crash in the 2016 Olympic road race, she has been dominant. Fifty-eight of her 92 victories since she began in 2008 have come since then, and include Olympic gold and silver medals, world road and TT titles, and, of course, three Giro titles. Not only does she have a huge engine, she has the explosiveness to get a gap, and if that doesn’t drop her rivals she can repeat…

DSM have a way of doing things and if a rider can’t accept the DSM way then it’s the highway. They’ve lost experienced riders like Lucinda Brand and Ellen van Dijk this way, and Coryn Labecki (née Rivera) headed to Jumbo-Visma over the winter, in part for the same reason. What the squad have become accomplished at though is finding excellent young riders, developing them and trusting them with long contracts. Floortje Mackaij’s four-year contract was unheard of in 2015. This policy has led to some fallow years, but now a group of talented young women is maturing and starting to win regularly. This season alone they have nine WorldTour victories, more than any other team; all but one of those successes have come from one woman, sprinter Lorena Wiebes.…

For years this team relied on Marianne Vos for success, and between 2006 and 2020 she delivered, with literally hundreds of victories. When she moved to Jumbo-Visma Lotte Kopecky made a substantial contribution, but when she left this year Liv Racing-Xstra were left light on winners. While they are not yet winning, this situation has brought a change in approach. While other teams sit in and hope for some fortune, Liv-Xstra take things in their own hands and have become breakaway regulars in the bigger races. It has not yet worked but shows the aggressive intent of new sports director, former double world champion Giorgia Bronzini. Star rider: Valerie Demay is super aggressive, has become the team’s go-to breakaway rider, and will be in France for that purpose. The team…

Scott has redeveloped the Foil to be more comfortable and lighter – qualities we agreed the previous model was lacking when we tested the £8,000 Foil Premium – while still doubling down on aero performance. Scott claims the new Foil, which is being ridden in the WorldTour by DSM, is 20% faster, 10% more comfortable and 9% lighter – but there’s a lot of interesting tech behind the numbers. After the UCI updated its regulations on bike design in 2021, Scott took full advantage of what could now be done – the tubes are a little deeper than before, while the fork crown is a little higher up from the front wheel. Up front, “the oversized head tube acts as a fairing,” Scott explains, “breaking the air and reducing aerodynamic…

Lake CX403 £425 Weight 315 per shoe While the foot and ankle don’t produce any power themselves – it all comes from the quad and the glute – “you can lose a hell of a lot through badly fitting shoes,” says British Cycling physio, Phil Burt. Lake is a brand that understands this and its party trick is heat-mouldable carbon inserts to create, in theory, the perfect cocoon for your feet. The CX race shoes are designed for racing: the last has a narrower toe box and tighter heel than that which you’d find on the ‘competition’ shoes, and the overall volume is lower than that of the ‘sport’ shoes. The carbon outsole comes with a standard three-hole cleat mount, but there is also the option of a four-hole Speedplay/Wahoo…

There are a number of ways to avoid the horror of hunger knock (aka ‘the bonk’), as experienced by Tadej Pogačar last week. Prime among these preventative methods is not to ride very far. If you keep your long-range ambitions down to, say, 20-30 miles at a time, you’re probably safe for as long as your cycling career lasts. If you have the grandstanding urge to ride further than 30 miles, your next recourse to avoid the pedalling-in-squares horror is to go very slowly. If you stick to something around walking pace you’re going to get bored long before you get bonked. If you really, really feel it’s important to go faster as well as further, at least make sure you eat as often as you can. Ideally this will…