Innehållsförteckning för October 27, 2022 från Cycling Weekly

Having claimed victory at the 2021 Championships on Winnats Pass, Bell has bounced back from a disrupted start to his 2022 season to put himself in a strong position to retain his title in the face of competition from close rival Andrew Feather. A time of 3:23.3 helped the High North Performance rider to a dominant win on the Riber in Derbyshire last weekend, 27.8 seconds ahead of Matthew Denis in in 3:51.1, while Team PB Performance’s Jude Taylor was a second further back in third. “I feel like my form is coming together at the last minute” Climbing back from Covid With only the title race on the Old Horseshoe Pass to come on Sunday, Bell is confident he is nearing his best again after a season that has…

ELEANOR BARKER How having a baby makes you a better cyclist I recently heard that having a baby causes a biological change in your brain that makes you temporarily, categorically, stupid. The rationale is that operating at your normal level of cognition would make the mundanity of the eternal feed/sleep/change newborn cycle so unbearably dull that we just wouldn’t do it. So the human brain does a very clever thing and checks itself out of the situation entirely, leaving behind a robotic shell of a person to carry out the dirty work. This made a lot of sense to me as a new parent, who recently tried to put two nappies on the baby, and also as a cyclist. Looking back, my brain has been hacking this handy little evolutionary…

CAT ALLEN LONDON, UK Cat Allen is a real life superwoman and exactly the kind of person you would expect to crank out thousands of kilometres on Zwift every month. She is a 50-year-old solo parent and a senior consultant for a global pensions and investment company which she’s worked at for 23 years. Allen first started using Zwift in 2018 and was hooked immediately. When we ask her what drives her to log so many miles on Zwift, Allen says, “Zwift is a safe, fun way for me to exercise and be at home and I can still chat to my daughter and jump off in a second if I am needed. When speaking to Cat, one gets the impression that she is someone who would exercise a lot…

It was quite common for Cycling magazine to analyse the physique of a top British rider – usually the winner of the British Best All-Rounder competition – as they held certain poses wearing little more than their underwear. These were usually men, but balance is restored in this issue as the one and only Eileen Sheridan put herself forward to be checked over by Sir Adolphe Abrahams, the man who is considered to be the founder of British sports science. Sheridan was an exceptional rider whose talent is perhaps underappreciated thanks to the achievements of Beryl Burton in the 1960s and 1970s. At one point Sheridan had broken every RR A record going, and her long distance time trial performances were only marginally slower than those of the best men…

In 2019, there were six UCI Continental teams registered in the United Kingdom. Fast forward to the end of the 2022 road season and there are just three left. Despite last-minute efforts, it was revealed last week that due to a significant shortfall in sponsorship, Ribble Weldtite, one of the UK’s most successful teams, would be no more at the end of the year. The loss of the team leaves just Saint Piran, Trinity Racing and WiV SunGod flying the flag for the UK at UCI Continental level in the men’s category. Losing an entity like Ribble Weldtite also now means a heavy reduction in places for talented British riders to compete on the UK scene, which was acknowledged by Trinity Racing general manager, Andrew McQuaid. He said: “Finding money…

Filippo Ganna is a serial world record collector. The Italian currently holds three; the team pursuit, the Hour record and his latest exploit, the individual pursuit, which he claimed in show-stopping style at last week’s Track World Championships. Ganna’s IP time of 3:59.636 made him just the second person in history to go under four minutes, bettering the benchmark set by American Ashton Lambie last year by three tenths of a second. “I would suspect if he goes again, he’ll go faster” Though some suspect Ganna has now shelved his records for many years, a new UCI rule, due to be introduced next year, could see them topple a lot sooner. As of 1 January 2023, a technical specification will allow taller riders extra reach on their handlebar extensions. The…

I find it staggering that a team can fold for the sake of £50-80k. I know it’s not an insignificant amount of money but in comparison to the budgets of British Superbike, British Touring Cars, etc. it’s a drop in the ocean. There is clearly something wrong with how our sport is perceived in the corporate world. Gary Hibbert There’s virtually no domestic scene left. WiV SunGod will win everything that Alex Richardson doesn’t ride and the scene will get even poorer. I mean, it’s October and being a team competition, the Tour Series is already a foregone conclusion! And BC will do nothing to develop the domestic scene. Lee Wood Home riders are unknown outside of their immediate circle, what can sponsors expect from ploughing money in? Garry Edwards…

A book isn’t usually considered ‘hot kit’ – or at least not the sort that respectable cyclists read - but we’re making an exception for this one. It’s 30 years since Chris Boardman won Olympic gold on the legendary Lotus 108 and 2022 is also the year that its inventor, Mike Burrows, died. Paul Greasley, the historian of the Lotus 110 Club – the 110 was the later roadgoing Lotus bike which was commercially available for a short time – has meticulously researched the story of the original Lotus superbike. And what a story it is. Greasley goes behind the scenes and with the help of characters such as Rudy Thomann, the Cycling Weekly reading Lotus employee who first spotted Burrows’s prototype and wanted it for himself for his local…

Shimano IC102 Indoor Shoes £69 Despite the ‘indoor’ designation in their name, Shimano IC102 shoes could work as an entry-level option for all types of cycling. The sole of the shoes uses a three and two-bolt cleat pattern, so they cater for pretty much any pedal/cleat platform. The soles aren’t made from superstiff carbon, but rather a less expensive glass-fibre reinforced nylon. This still delivers a reasonably rigid sole – ranking six on Shimano’s proprietary scale. Although looked at another way, that scale does go up as high as 12, and there is quite a difference between the IC102 Indoor Shoe and road race-oriented carbon-soled models. The upper of the shoes is almost socklike, which fits really nicely and feels comfortable around the foot. It also makes the shoes very…

The Cyclocross de Montmartre was held in Paris five times during the 1940s, and pitched riders against the daunting 280 steps up to the Sacré-Coeur. The iconic church, with its white dome, looks out across the French capital from on high, and getting up (or down) is challenge enough for the average tourist, let alone when it’s plonked in the middle of a bike race. This prototype urban cross event was a good example of life carrying on during wartime, having begun life in 1942 during the German occupation of World War Two. It was repeated in 1943 and 1944, and then again post-War in 1947 (when it was won by Jean Robic, who would go on to win the Tour de France that year), and 1948.…

The Rayner Foundation’s annual charity dinner returns to the calendar next month, following a two-year absence due to Covid-19. The celebration, to be held on 12 November in New Dock Hall in Leeds, will recognise the achievements of the foundation’s class of 2022, six of whom have now signed professional contracts – more than any previous year. Of the six riders, four will step up to the men’s WorldTour in 2023, with Leo Hayter joining Ineos Grenadiers; Sam Watson graduating into Groupama-FDJ’s elite squad; Sean Flynn signing with Team DSM and Harrison Wood swapping AVC Aix for Cofidis. Josie Nelson and Millie Couzens will both join women’s Continental outfits for the upcoming road season, signing for Team Coop-Hitec Products and Plantur-Pura respectively. The dinner will be hosted by cycling commentator…

The British team claimed a record 30 medals in a Para-cycling Track World Championships that lived up to expectations of the first one to be run in conjunction with the able-bodied champs, which concluded the weekend before. The 2022 meeting was held on the same track that will host the 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games. The British team’s staggering medal haul was won by experienced Paralympians and track world champ debutants alike. Those that came away with the goods at the first time of asking included Daphne Schrager (WC3), Taylor Ryan (WC2), Lizzi Jordan (WB), Chris Latham (MB). Having come from behind in the individual pursuit final to claim her first world title Schrager said: “I can’t believe it, I’m actually speechless. I didn’t really come into today with…

Reader, I love cycling outdoors. I will bend anyone’s ear for hours about the benefits of being in the middle of nowhere on two wheels, and I don’t think it is too much of an exaggeration to say that riding my bike has helped me continue to stay on the straight and narrow, to keep me away from the mental health-shaped wolf at the door. Throughout the pandemic I kept riding, through the heat and the cold of lockdown, even in the rain, because I simply had to keep going. Throughout this, I never once considered cycling indoors. Mainly through stubbornness, because I felt superior thanks to my exploits in the great outdoors, but also because of the merits I see “traditional” riding having. Also, it must be said, I…

Stages’ unique selling point over the competition, it says, is its durability. The brand is responsible for a high volume of the machines you’ll see in commercial gyms, which means it needs to create hardware that can withstand vigorous use and keep at bay a lot of sweat with minimal maintenance. Construction There’s no two-ways about it, the SB20 is a heavyweight. It comes in at 62.5kg, 23kg of that in the flywheel. Like the majority of its competitors at this premium price point, Stages has opted for electromagnetic resistance. The flywheel is driven by a Gates carbon belt, which is extremely quiet: you couldn’t hear the bike whirring from adjacent rooms. Stages claims a maximum resistance of 3,000 watts – which is more than most of us could dream…

If you’re even remotely interested in cycling performance, you’ll be familiar with the concept of ‘functional threshold power’ or FTP. Theoretically, it is the maximum power that can be sustained for 60 minutes, and is a marker of general aerobic fitness. It’s useful because it helps define training intensity zones and calculate metrics such as ‘training stress score’ (TSS). The more scientifically sophisticated rival to FTP is Critical Power (CP) – but is it really a superior test and, if so, why? Critical Power, though similar to FTP, is finding favour among cyclists who place a premium on accuracy and in-depth data analysis. For the same reason, it is the preferred benchmark among sports scientists and national cycling federations including British Cycling. So should you too be testing CP instead…

I played rugby in my 20s but got into off-road riding in the Nineties. A few years later, in my early 30s, I began to dabble in road riding too and did a few TTs, until family life took over and put my cycling on hold. I didn’t start again until I turned 50, when I decided to enter a local cyclo-cross race. The high standard was a massive shock. I’m now 56 and still racing cyclo-cross in the very competitive West Midlands League – and I’ve got back into time trialling too, achieving my 10-mile PB of 23.45 at the age of 55. In fact, I’m now more into cycling than I’ve ever been. I’ve done triathlons and runs too. During the pandemic, I got more serious about indoor…

Even if you’re lucky enough to have a dedicated winter bike, chances are you still failed to show your gratitude by actually cleaning it last spring. Last winter’s accumulated crud will by now have dried into the sort of thing that ancient Britons used to build houses. That’s right, you’ve got a wattle and daub bike. There are several ways to clean it. For a start, you can just downgrade your current summer bike to a winter bike, and solve next summer’s problem when next summer gets here if the world hasn’t ended first. This only works if your summer bike is actually clean. Alternatively, you can pressure wash it. This won’t remove so much as a gram of crud from the bike, but will nonetheless, mysteriously, allow you to…