Innehållsförteckning för July 28, 2022 från Cycling Weekly

All too often races are labelled as ‘the best ever!’ Have we just watched one of the ‘best ever!’ Tours, like everyone is saying? Notwithstanding the obvious thrill of watching a British winner in other years, I definitely found it one the most entertaining in a long time. Seeing a previously unbeatable rider beaten is always a treat (it makes them more human) and it’s all the better for seeing them go down with a fight. Away from the GC battle there were many amazing rides, from Tom Pidcock’s stage 12 win to Wout van Aert bossing the race in sprints, mountains and breakaways. But the highlight for me was Fred Wright, who saved Bahrain’s Tour. The police raids in Copenhagen set them off on the wrong foot and they…

What started as a group of mates wanting to watch the Tour together in 2015 has developed into a viral sensation, with the six Beefeaters attracting people from all over to whichever mountain they set up camp on during the Tour. The costume depicts the Beefeaters who once guarded the crown jewels in the Tower of London. “Nothing is higher than them,” Jay explains to CW, “so that’s why we chose it.” They have partied on Alpe d’Huez three times, each occasion on bend 20. Not because of its relative proximity to the bottom, but because “the first time we wanted to go higher but we had a trolley laden with so much stuff that we couldn’t push it up the mountain any more so we settled on the second…

Most likely to set a Commonwealth Games record KELSEY MITCHELL Canada Mitchell holds the women’s flying 200m time trial world record, with a time of 10.154 seconds at the 2019 Pan American Track Cycling Championships. Stephanie Morton currently holds the Commonwealth Games record in the event, with a time of 10.524 seconds – certainly an achievable target for Mitchell. Most likely to announce herself as an elite rider ELLESSE ANDREWS New Zealand At only 21 years old, Ellesse Andrews won the silver medal in the keirin at the Tokyo Olympics. Now 22, the New Zealander is ready to consolidate her name on the world stage as an elite rider. Most likely to steal the show JOSH TARLING Wales Technically still a junior, Tarling won’t be put off racing against seniors…

The time trials are based in Wolverhampton, north-east of Birmingham and, unlike the road races, they are comparatively long by modern standards, with the men riding 37.7km (23.4 miles) and the women 28.8km (17.9 miles). Both courses head south out of the city centre on the same roads and break off south-east before looping into Dudley, where the riders skirt the town centre before turning tail for Wolverhampton again. At this point the men’s route adds an extra westerly loop, where things get a bit more rural as the riders skirt Himley Hall and Park. After this 11km detour the men rejoin the women at Gospel End as they head back into the city to the finish at the official competition venue of West Park. Where to watch? West Park…

Even for cyclists who’ve been riding for years, getting your bike and all the gear from A to B isn’t as easy as it seems. Done right, it can mean the difference between arriving relaxed and prepared for your ride or stressed out and distracted by hunting for missing accessories. Or even forgetting to charge them! So, when it comes to planning your cycling road trip, even the small things can make a big difference for your journey. Here are five top tips for a smoother road trip – helping you not just avoid discomfort and disaster but also getting the most out of your car. You may find some of these are non-negotiable next time you set off, and not just the extra snacks in the glove box. 1…

Every year L’Équipe includes a ‘siesta guide’ in its Tour de France preview. It’s a diagram of the segments of each stage where you can have a quick snooze and still be confident of not missing anything important. Well, let me tell you that in shady sitting rooms all over France, cycling fans of a certain age spent the last three weeks waking up suddenly, looking at the TV and saying, “Qu’est-ce qui s’est passé?” and “Où est Romain Bardet?” and “Oh, la la la la.” This year’s Tour riders were no respecters of the middle-aged nap. It was impossible to know what was happening, who was making it happen, or why they were doing it. According to Geraint Thomas, early in the stage to Carcassonne, Fabio Jakobsen said to…

The time gaps in the year’s Tour de France GC top 10 were the biggest in over two decades. Tenth place Adam Yates’s 25.43 gap to Jonas Vingegaard was the biggest since Roberto Conti’s 32.26 to Jan Ullrich in 1997. The statistic spoke to how tough a Tour it has been. Luke Rowe, Ineos Grenadiers road captain, said: “We’ve had 20 days where we’ve kicked the s*** out of each other from kilometre zero to the end. “The way it was raced was pretty incredible. It was day in, day out. It was like a series of one-day races. We were saying on the bus, like, today was Scheldeprijs, today was Flanders. It was the toughest Tour I’ve done.” That was partly why stages that looked like nailed-on bunch sprints…

It’s always emotional, in an unexpected, almost gutwrenching way. But this year the wobbly glimpse we were afforded of the Eiffel Tower’s elegant might, lit up in gold, with its rapidly rotating searchlight scanning the Parisian night sky was overwhelming. There is an unchanging wonder in the approach to the capital on the eve of the final stage but after a two-year absence, that sense was intensified to a sharp point. There was something about the race this year that had shifted the dial once more. It is always during the third week, disorientated and limping through the stages, that we start to take stock. Conversations over lunch, or chance encounters on the walk to where you think you have left your vehicle start to turn on the same axis:…

1 WOUT VAN AERT PROPELS JUMBO DOMINANCE After winning the points competition, wearing the yellow jersey and winning multiple stages of the Critérium du Dauphiné in June, Wout van Aert prophesied that “the strength of the team is even bigger an advantage than in the last years, and I believe this will be key in the Tour this year.” He was proved right, with Jumbo becoming the first team in 25 years to top the general and points classifications, while they also scooped six stage wins and the King of the Mountains jersey. Van Aert had shown last year he could win sprints, ace TTs and compete in the mountains. This year he left no doubt, all while helping Jonas Vingegaard to the win. A truly amazing ride. 2 ISRAEL-PREMIER…

Your ‘From the archive’ page (CW, 14 July) refers to advice given in 1948 by “a Dr C. R. Woodward”. Christopher Roy Woodward was a regular contributor to what was then Cycling. In the 1950s he published Scientific Training for Cycling, which I read avidly, though to little avail in my pursuit of speedy riding. In the early 60s my mother was warning that “all this cycling” would damage my heart, so I wrote to Dr Woodward, who sent a reassuring reply. (My heart is still fine 60 years later.) His image was not helped when he took part in an informal ‘10’ on a chilly day and had his chauffeur empty a ladle of water over his head at the turn. Dr Woodward also wrote other books such as…

Friday 29 July Morning (10.00-13.00) Women’s team pursuit Q, women’s tandem sprint, men’s and women’s team sprint Q Evening (18.00-22.00) Women’s tandem sprint, men’s tandem TT, Women’s team pursuit F, men’s team pursuit F, men’s and women’s team sprint F Saturday 30 July Morning (10:00-13:45) Women’s sprint, men’s and women’s individual pursuit Q Evening (16:00-19:00) Men’s and women’s individual pursuit F, men’s keirin, women’s sprint Sunday 31 July Morning (10:00-13:00) Men’s sprint Q, men’s tandem sprint, men’s scratch Q Evening (15:00-19:30) Men’s tandem sprint, men’s sprint, women’s tandem TT, women’s points race, women’s 500m TT, men’s scratch F Monday 1 Aug Afternoon (14:00-19:00) Women’s keirin, men’s points race Q&F, men’s 1,000m TT, women’s scratch race…

Only halfway up Box Hill and my heart rate is already through the roof. I’m dripping with sweat, struggling to maintain power and my legs feel like jelly. This familiar climb, usually hard but enjoyable, suddenly feels horribly gruelling – and the reason is, it’s 26ºC in the shade. If this is what it feels like climbing a Surrey hill in a British heatwave, how do riders in the Tour de France cope in the mountains where temperatures exceed 40ºC with 80% humidity? To be able to climb heroically in the heat, you need to be efficient at shedding heat and replacing lost water – but how exactly? Could I get better at coping in the heat so that, in future summers, the Surrey Hills might feel less like Death…

The time limit is the thing that spoils many a Grand Tour rider’s day out. Instead of being able to take things nice and easy after they’ve been dropped from the peloton, they have to face a huge challenge. That challenge is working out what the time limit for the stage is. This involves a three-step computation in the field of hypermathematics. First, they must consider the factoring of the stage, which is determined by what sort of stage it is. There is a range of factoring coefficients to cover six different stage types, determined by the organisers, rather than by the riders. Then they have to predict the average speed of the stage winner, because before they can work out the time allowance as a percentage of the winner’s…

Anyone who gets the better of Tadej Pogačar three times in one week is a deserving winner of the Tour de France. The challenge now for Jonas Vingegaard is how he builds on his maiden Grand Tour triumph. Asked in his winner’s press conference if he now wants to win multiple Tours, he gave the customary response of wanting to defend his title but no indication of having a desire to create a legacy. There is no doubting the Jumbo-Visma man’s capabilities, but if he is to remain at cycling’s top table, he has obstacles to confront. Much has been made about his quiet and private demeanour, and it will be fascinating to see how he responds to the outpouring of support he is set to receive back home in…

A ccording to those in the CW car at the Tour de France, I will soon be responsible for the genocide of all cows in the French Alps. What have I inflicted on these milkgiving beautiful animals? Ask me, and I’ll say absolutely nothing, but ask my colleagues and they’ll passionately denounce me for taking a football out of a cow’s trough at the start of stage 10 in Morzine and keeping it with me all the way to the finish in Paris. The mechanics of how this results in mass death are unclear. They say I stole a beloved toy belonging to the local cows; I say I saved a slightly deflated orange ball looking rather sad in a pit of dried up mud, and definitely not used by…

Sir Bradley Wiggins’s son Ben was one of five golden riders at the recent Track Euros. The Great Britain Cycling Team would have been on the verge of having to book extra baggage for all the silverware they returned from the recent Junior and Under-23 European Track Championships. The Brits came away with an impressive 21 medals (five of them gold) from a total of 44 events at the championship, held in Anadia, Portugal, from 14-19 July. Their golds came across a spread of endurance and sprint events. Notably, Wiggins’s son Ben looked to be carrying on the family tradition, taking gold in the junior points race and helping the team to bronze in the junior team pursuit alongside Josh Tarling, Noah Hobbs and Dylan Hicks. Other golden riders included…

TRACK EVENTS LAURA KENNY Age: 30 | Team: England Riding: Track endurance Dame Laura Kenny is eager to get back to racing at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, where she is expected to race in the team pursuit and points race. The five-time Olympic champion has competed in two Commonwealth Games in her distinguished career, in 2010 and 2014. She picked up a gold medal in the points race in the more recent Games, but missed out on participating in 2018 due to recently becoming a mother. This year Kenny rode to victory in the Madison at the British Track National Championships alongside Neah Evans but crashed out of her last race at the Glasgow Track Nations Cup in April. Either way, if she’s in the race, she’ll be at the…

Newly crowned British time trial champion Joss Lowden will have her sights set on the time trial gold medal in Birmingham. After her Hour record success of last year, she hasn’t had a stellar year with her new UNO X team but she proved at the Nationals she still has the ability to cross the line fastest. Her fiancé Dan Bigham is always on the look out to get one over on WorldTour riders and, whisper it, apparently broke the Hour record in training recently. So he has good form. Anna Henderson comes to the Games fresh out of the Tour de France Femmes so could be on great form, or fatigued. Keep an eye out for Anna Shackley too. The Scot is quietly developing on the WorldTour scene with…

Just a month after the launch of the flagship Garmin Edge 1040, the new Garmin Edge Explore 2 offers a different, perhaps more relaxing, take on the GPS bike computer. Since its launch in 2018, the Garmin Edge Explore has eschewed most of the usual performance data metrics that bike GPS computers are synonymous with in an effort to make it more useful to the everyday rider. This means it records speed, time and distance, and you can pair it with a heart rate monitor. It’ll also pair with a power meter, but you won’t be able to deep dive into the numbers on your unit. (You can download free data fields from the Garmin Connect IQ store.) Assuming you have a compatible e-bike that’s ANT+ LEV compatible, you will…

TIME TRIAL SATURDAY-SUNDAY, 23-24 JULY National 24 Hour Championships (Farndon, Cheshire): Men: 1. Nick Tarmey (Velo Club Venta) 516.56 miles 2. D. Hart (Ilkley CC) 475.52 3. C. Stewart (HuntBikeWheels.com) 472.15 4. I. Holbrook (Stone Wheelers CC) 469.25 5. B. Goodwin (Fibrax Wrexham RC) 458.23 6. S. Mottram (Vive Le Velo) 437.37 Women: 1. Steph Mottram (Vive Le Velo) 437.37 miles 2. J. Cebrat (Bury Clarion CC) 425.23 3. R. Wilson (Rye & District Wh) 366.54 4. R. Price (Born to Bike-Bridgtown Cycles) 265.04 SUNDAY, 24 JULY Welsh 30 Mile Championship (Raglan, Monmouthshire): Men: 1. Christopher Gibbard (Bynea CC) 59.05 2. O. Burgess (UF Rowe & King) 59.58 3. P. Tucker (Bynea Cycling Club) 1:01.00 4. T. Wood (Team Echelon) 1:01.12 5. A. Davies (UF Rowe & King) 1:01.17 6.…

A racing rival from several years ago was once stung by a wasp on his way to a race start. He rode the race of his life. He said it was as if he couldn’t feel the pedals, and naturally he concluded that wasp venom was a powerful performance enhancer. He started arriving at races with a wasp in a jam jar, so that he could get it to sting him before races. Not once in the several years he did this did he manage to get stung. Invariably he took the lid off the jar and the wasp just flew away. Essentially he was just taking London wasps to distant locations where the local wasps would laugh at their accents.…