Innehållsförteckning för August 4, 2022 från Cycling Weekly

STAGE ONE HISTORY TIME There was a real buzz in the team after Lorena [Wiebes] won the stage. Obviously it’s not like every other race, it’s the first Tour de France Femmes and the first yellow jersey up for grabs. On the bus it was really relaxed, we had our music, our singing just like normal. We had our meeting and made our plan of how to ride the race and do the lead-out. There was a combination of taking everything in, but also just keeping to our process and trying to not get too overwhelmed by the event itself. I think we did that really well, putting Lorena in the place to sprint. During the race it was all under control, we were just trying to keep the peloton…

Belgian sensation Remco Evenepoel is eyeing Vuelta a España success after blitzing the competition at the Clásica San Sebastián with a 45km solo attack. The Quick Step-Alpha Vinyl rider will go to Spain in three weeks’ time with ambitions to win stages and get a high placing in the general classification. His mood was visibly buoyed by his performance on Saturday when he was a class above his competitors, out-climbing both Simon Yates (BikeExchange-Jayco) and Pavel Sivakov (Ineos Grenadiers) before soloing away to victory. He said: “This is the perfect race in between training camps, and to win is even more amazing so I can go with a really good feeling towards the Vuelta, and with a lot of confidence and relaxed feelings.” The Belgian struggled in his Grand Tour…

“Expected. How it should be. Symbolic. Deserved. Destined.” Seeing Marianne Vos in the iconic Tour de France yellow jersey in July stirred emotions in the entire women’s peloton, past and present. First there was Vos herself. Just after the finish line of stage two in Provins where she claimed it, Vos collapsed into the arms of her always-present family. Sitting on the hay bales that served as roadside barriers, Henk and Conny Vos, who have travelled the world to support their superstar daughter weekend after weekend for the past 29 years, wrapped a spent Vos into their arms and let the tears flow freely. “Every win is special, but this is a uniquely special jersey. It was a beautiful moment, a dream. So much has been written about this jersey…

Never mind the hills or the gravel, it was a nondescript straight, flat, exposed section of road that shaped the first half of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift. This elite group containing Marianne Vos (Jumbo-Visma), Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SR AM), Elisa Longo Borghini (Trek-Segafredo) and Elisa Balsamo (Trek-Segafredo) escaped the clutches of the peloton towards the end of stage two and allowed Vos to take the yellow jersey. With no major climbs until the final two days, the peloton raced every day to try and cleave open small time gaps and shape the GC contest rather than wait for the finale. This hectic, always on, style of racing put Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar) on the back foot as she suffered with illness through the opening stages, and, via a…

The new Cervélo S5 is finally here. And its existence has been one of the worst kept secrets in cycling. Despite only launching at the end of July, the aero race bike already has quite the palmarès to its name thanks to the exploits of Jumbo-Visma. Ridden by freshly-minted Tour de France champion Jonas Vingegaard and his compadres, it’s seemingly been at the sharp end of this season’s racing since Wout van Aert piloted it to victory in Omloop Het Nieuwsblad back in February. Perhaps the most obvious changes compared to the outgoing S5 are the new tube shapes. The release confirms that the frame’s aero profiles have been deepened, a product of the relaxing of UCI regulations. This is most noticeable at the head tube and bottom bracket area,…

Calum Hughes of bike-fit provider Veloclinic gives his top tips on making aero changes sustainable over the long term Start small: When adapting or adjusting to a position, make small changes, one at a time – movements of 5mm or less. Get used to it over two to four weeks before making further changes Check your breathing: If your breathing rate for the same power/heart rate has become faster, it probably means the position change has made you less efficient as your body is demanding more oxygen for the same effort. Preserve movement: If you aren’t mobile in your new position, it might look good but can you still pedal at full power? The best position is often a compromise. See your way clear: If training indoors, place an object…

Former rider Phil Griffiths had popped into Cycling Weekly’s offices in Cheam and the editorial team didn’t pass up the opportunity to interview one of the domestic scene’s most outspoken riders. A multitude of topics were covered, and as anyone who has met ‘Griffo’ will know, once you get him talking on any cycling-related topic, you’re likely to be entertained with stories for hours. The writer introduced Griffiths with: “The Stoke man was always a handful for officials, team-mates and opponents alike.” Griffiths’ retirement at the relatively tender age of 32 had actually been enforced on him by a persistent back injury, something he tried in vain to fix. “I used to give the doctors a bit of patter, I’d say, ‘Look, I’m an ex-champion, an ex-Olympic athlete’…. they’d look…

Annemiek van Vleuten won the Tour de France Femmes at the weekend with two dominant rides in the mountains and in doing so made good on her pledge to win the Giro-Tour double at her first attempt. The race’s final two stages in the mountains were always going to be her playground, but the ruthlessness she displayed in despatching her rivals was mesmerising. Last Saturday’s Queen stage to Le Markstein in the Vosges mountains saw her turn a 1.28 general classification deficit into a 3.14 advantage with a huge solo effort. The following day to La Super Planches des Belles Filles, after several bike changes saw her having to chase back on, she left her rivals for dust well before the final gravel section at the top of the climb,…

Laura Kenny refound her best bike racing self to produce a surprise win in the women’s scratch race to become the most high-profile rider of the home nations to win gold. Scotland’s Neil Fachie and Welshman James Ball also won gold in the opening weekend of action in the velodrome, which was dominated by New Zealand. After her win Kenny said: “I can’t believe it… I said to Jase [Jason Kenny], ‘I think this is going to be my last race.’” She said this year she had “lost the spark” in training. “Every day I’m like, ‘Here we go again.’ I’ve been there three Olympic cycles now, to keep picking yourself up after this whole year it has been a nightmare. I have absolutely just lost motivation. “Then last night…

Completing their dominance of the domestic circuit racing scene, Wiv-Sungod took another one-two in Newark, with Jacob Scott taking the honours on Friday night. Yorkshire-based Scott led the National Circuit Series coming into the final round where he once again broke away from the field to take his third win of the series and with it the overall crown. After winning the Tour Series overall earlier in the summer, Wiv-Sungod riders then won four of the five races of the national circuit series. Team-mates Jacob and Robert Scott have shared the accolades across the series and fittingly finished up one-two on a new course in Newark. “It was pretty perfect,” said Jacob Scott after winning in Newark. “We each attacked, which made the race harder for the others than it…

Every rider now deserves to be believed. Is cycling completely clean? Probably not, but I do believe it’s a lot cleaner than the 90s and early 2000s. I think an indication of it being cleaner is all these youngsters able to compete at the highest level. In the doping days that was almost impossible. I’m hopeful and give them the benefit of the doubt. Danny de Smedt Over 20,000 out-of-competition drugs tests in cycling and still people question it. Fraction of that in athletics and yet still more caught and yet little questioning the records at the Athletics Worlds. Kevin Blackburn Seems like it’s now a Tour de France tradition to accuse the winner of doping. Every year we go without a scandal or positive test is hopefully a step…

DANNY LLOYD ‘ON THE WHEELS OF THE WISE’ As I prepared for the Etape du Tour (10 July) I was lucky enough to spend a day learning from two pro riders from the Ribble-Weldtite team, Si Wilson and Matt King. The experience was tailor-made for me by Ribble – many thanks to them – and it started at the company’s Clitheroe showroom. First up was my chance to pick these two pro riders’ brains about how to make a step up in my cycling. Matt and Si were the two perfect riders to answer my questions. I was a fan of Si already, as I look up to him as an older rider still at the top of his game – he’s 42, yet he was just back from Germany…

As well as the immutable presence of Mark Cavendish for the men’s road race, the home nations boast the big, versatile engine of England’s Ethan Hayter. Cavendish himself will be ably backed by IOM team-mate Matthew Bostock (pictured), who recently won the National Circuit Championship in Scotland, while Hayter will be riding alongside Ben Turner. Team Scotland also has a hitter in Jon Archibald, who will be one to watch in the road race as well as in the time trial. Last but certainly not least for the men is Wales’s Geraint Thomas. Third at the recent Tour de France and a road race gold winner at the 2014 Games in Glasgow, he is well capable of making it a double. In the women’s race former national champion Jess Roberts…

If someone told me they could add 10 watts to my threshold power in an afternoon, I’d bite their hand off. To add this much power through training alone would take at least a few solid interval sessions, if not several weeks of consistent hard work. But this is the promise of the simplest form of aerodynamic testing: a few pain-free test runs, a little positional rejig, et voila – a substantial dollop of extra speed. One day, no training, 10W faster – an amount of power that equates to almost one minute in a 25-mile time trial at around 40kph (25mph). To many uninitiated riders, it sounds too good to be true. But it really does work: if you can improve your position on the bike to minimise your…

British Cycling coach and Ribble-Weldtite pro Si Wilson is still racing at the top level domestically at 42. He put Danny through his paces, then offered some pointers… My biggest piece of advice for Danny was not to get fixated on making himself a physically better rider – because in a mass participation event like the Etape du Tour he would get a bigger gain from being able to ride in the bunch efficiently. By positioning himself well, using his gearing effectively and basically being a better bike rider, he would save a lot of energy – a greater improvement than would come from sitting on a turbo-trainer churning out intervals. It’s no good being really strong if you’re also really wasteful. From going out on club runs, you learn…

Colin Sturgess swings up to finish his turn at the Kuala Lumpur Velodrome as the England team pursuiters qualify on their way to a final against Australia. The red and white team, which also featured a young Bradley Wiggins, ended up with a silver medal, losing out to the Antipodeans by a second with their 4.14.298. The British record at the time was 4.06 for the 4,000 metres, but times have changed since then, in more ways than one. At the Birmingham Games, the team pursuiters (Charlie Tanfield, Ethan Vernon, Ollie Wood and Dan Bigham) had a national record of 3.45 to aim at when they tackled the event on Friday.…