Innehållsförteckning för March 2, 2023 från Cycling Weekly

The loss of the Tour Series from this year’s domestic calendar has left a major hole for teams and signals the end of the last major engagement that many can sell sponsorship on, say domestic teams. The announcement that the popular town-centre race series would take a year out came from organiser SweetSpot last week, which explained that in the challenging economic climate it had “proved impossible to compile a commercially viable calendar of events”. The series planned to return in 2024, the statement said, with a refreshed format. For elite teams without a guaranteed Tour of Britain ride, the Tour Series represents the only TV shop window that they can promise potential sponsors. Even for domestic Continental-level teams, who can currently expect to ride the ToB, the Tour Series…

The absence of last year’s winner, Tadej Pogačar, will not change this Saturday’s Strade Bianche, Tom Pidcock has said. The Slovenian won the first three races he took part in this season, and as Ineos Grenadiers’s Pidcock said, he “could probably win every race he starts”. However, due to the UAE Team Emirates rider’s participation in Paris-Nice, which begins the next day, he will be absent from the race he won last year in dominant fashion, as he attacked from 50km out and soloed to the finish. “Pogačar not being there doesn’t change the race really, there are still going to be some good riders on the start line,” Pidcock said. “Pogačar could probably win every race he starts this season. You don’t base your race off the competition.” For…

Hitting apex too early, drifting out at the end of the corner is dangerous, as well as that he needs to wait before pedalling. The position of the body looks like the driving style in MotoGP in the 80s. Björn Nordgren Would love to try this. At 55yrs I start to get way too nervous above 45mph. Those guys would be halfway done with lunch by the time I caught up. Matt Makowski Safa Brian – the cameraman – actually has the KOM for this descent about nine seconds faster than Pidcock, so yeah fair to say he’s no slouch! Yann-Ael Manceau Safa is probably better going downhill than Tom. That’s kinda what Safa does. Jeff Barco That’s what I look like going down a hill on Zwift. Dave Alpert…

“Well, yeah, I’m just me,” says Fabio Jakobsen, but he’s dissatisfied with his answer. “Wait, I’m going to look on Google Translate,” he adds, before unlocking his phone and typing in a Dutch phrase. “OK, translated directly,” he begins to narrate, “the saying is: ‘sport is the most important sideshow in life’. “We all know that life is about having a good time, enjoying [being] with friends and family, and sport to me is the most important sideshow there is.” He pauses, and then adds a second thought, almost pre-empting the follow-up question. “Especially after the crash, but also before – I could always relate and separate the two.” Just over two years ago, Jakobsen nearly died. If he had not been surrounded by medics within seconds of a life-threatening…

Cannondale has launched the fourth generation of its SuperSix EVO race bike. After what is probably the worst kept secret of the year – it has been ridden and photographed since the beginning of the season with the EF Education First Easypost – we can finally take a look at what the new bike is all about. The main source of all the speculation has been the ‘LAB71’ designation. Cannondale has announced a new echelon of bikes above Hi-MOD which previously was their range topping offering. According to Cannondale, a bike with the LAB71 logo will make use of a new carbon-fibre layup – which Cannondale is calling its Series 0 layup. “This feels more like a 3.5 generation than an all-new bike” Although the new SuperSix at present is…

How long before a British rider scoops a win in a major Classic? Not long, the results from this weekend’s racing in Belgium would suggest, with a slew of promising rides from young riders. Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers) got his year off to a good start with fifth place in Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, while Pfeiffer Georgi (Team DSM) recorded the same result in the women’s race. Also active in the men’s race was Fred Wright (Bahrain Victorious), who has gone so close on several occasions to his first WorldTour win, while Jake Stewart (Groupama-FDJ), always a presence in the Classics, finished 17th. The following day Stewart’s team-mate and WorldTour debutant Sam Watson (Groupama-FDJ) was impressively active in Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne before going on to finish in a creditable 18th place in the…

The suffering that Fabio Jakobsen endured in the mountains, in particular on stage 17 when he made the time cut by just 15 seconds, meant that the fairytale ending of a win on the Champs-Élysées never came to pass. The Dutchman still completed the race in Paris as a Tour stage winner, though, and, he thinks, a better rider. “I left the Tour thinking that it was really hard!” he laughs. “You hope that when you do a Tour like that, which I think was one of the fastest ever, and maybe one of the hardest ever, that you’ll get stronger from it. It’s hard to tell the difference, but for sure I did not get worse. I like to believe it made me a bit stronger.” He is targeting…

Pinarello has launched a new range of road bikes: the F-Series and the X-Series. The top-end Dogma remains but the Prince and Paris are out, in a makeover designed to make the mid-range more appealing. Pinarello F-Series The F-Series comprises three models and essentially replaces the Prince. It’s a range that’s designed to mimic the same ride dynamics as the Dogma F but with a friendlier price tag. Pinarello says the F-Series’ geometry is “based closely” on the Dogma F, with the bike being offered in nine sizes rather than the Dogma F’s 11. The series comprises the F5, F7 and F9 – the higher the number, the higher the spec. However, you’ll not find a number painted on the frame, because as we all know, components can be upgraded.…

Shimano S-Phyre RC903 £349.99 Weight 225g Shimano’s RC903 is the latest iteration of the Japanese brand’s top-end race shoe. It’s designed for ultimate performance but comfort is still a key priority – just consider the many hours on the pedals riders rack up in a Grand Tour. I opted for the wide fit but they look nearly identical in shape to the standard fit and are only 3-4mm wider. But that slightly wider fit turns out to make a world of difference, at least for me. I prefer a shoe with a wider toe box, like the Specialized S-Works 7, but the narrower RC903 does have some benefits. When it came to efforts, I cranked down the front dial so that my whole foot was completely locked in. There is not…

Eddy Merckx crosses the line to win Ghent-Wevelgem, very closely flanked by race motos and the commissaire’s car. This was Merckx’s second Wevelgem win and while it looks like a relaxed affair, there was a group of eight riders including Walter Godefroot, Patrick Sercu and Jan Janssen just 10 seconds behind. Belgium’s Willy Vekemans eventually won the sprint from that select chasing group. Their proximity may be the reason the race traffic is so close to Merckx, as the drivers would have needed to get out of the way of the riders behind, especially if they were building up to a sprint. At this point, Merckx was already a winner of the Tour de France and Giro d’Italia (and would win both again this year) and building his reputation. The…

Henok Mulubrahn (Green Project-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè) came into the Tour du Rwanda a week after he had won the African Continental Championships road race with the aim of showing off his new jersey and challenging himself through the eight stage 2.1 UCI race. In the end, he didn’t get much time in the striking kit, but happily this was down to the amount of time the Eritrean spent in various classification leaders’ jerseys through the week, finishing with the overall leader’s yellow jersey on his shoulders on Sunday. Speaking to Cycling Weekly ahead of stage one, the 23-year-old said: “To be African champion, to wear this in this race, it’s going to be very good. It has been a long-term goal of mine to wear this jersey in this race. For…

Jonas Vingegaard of Jumbo-Visma had the “ideal lead-up” to Paris-Nice this weekend as he won all three contested stages and the overall at O Gran Camiño a week ahead of challenging at ‘the Race to the Sun’. After the opening stage of the Spanish race was curtailed due to heavy snow, the Danish Tour de France winner won three days on the trot to clinch the overall. Intriguingly, his great rival Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) also won three stages and the overall at the Ruta del Sol, his first stage race of the year, last week; the rivals will clash in France from Sunday. “It was a great week for us,” Vingegaard said after O Gran Camiño. “It couldn’t have been better. We’ve won three stages and the overall…

You see a dead end, I see an opportunity, you see a cul-de-sac, I see a potential summit finish. Don’t let that blue square with it’s bold red and white ‘T’ turn you away, see it as an advert to adventure, an invitation to explore. It may not be a through route but it will lead somewhere; and that somewhere may just be a magnificent, secluded part of Britain that most people would have simply passed by. Our island is littered with such roads. Climbs to transmission masts, isolated farms, radar stations. One-way streets to high-altitude adventure and best of all, due to their nature they are almost all free of traffic. You may well have heard of such legendary climbs as the Cowlyd in Snowdonia, Abdon Burf in the…

You can make a compelling argument that it’s a brand’s second and third-tier groupsets that matter most. After all, their lower prices means they are bought by the largest number of riders and in recent years this saving has involved less of a compromise in quality than ever before. SR AM’s Force eTap AXS is a case in point. It shifts like the more expensive Red groupset, with the difference between the two largely a matter of material choice, and as a result, weight. With the latest version, the gap to the top-level groupset has narrowed still further. “The new Force is designed as a do-it-all groupset” SR AM appears to have taken an ‘if it ain’t broke’ approach here; understandably – there was far more to like than not…

The Pinarello F7, which is priced at £7,000 and comes with Ultegra Di2 and Most carbon wheels, lines up very nicely against the Specialized Tarmac Expert. Again, both sit as second tier bikes, as the Tarmac is one down from the range-topping S-Works. Both come with full Shimano Ultegra groupsets; the Tarmac also makes use of in-house brand Roval Rapide carbon wheels. However, the Tarmac costs £250 more, though the wheels are arguably worth the extra. The other rival to the F7 is the Canyon Ultimate CF SLX 8 Di2. You get a full Shimano Ultegra groupset and the brand’s own integrated carbon bars – just as you do with the Pinarello. However, the Canyon has a 4iiii crank-based power meter and is fitted with quality DT Swiss 1400 ARC…

Everyone in cycling loves a good invention – it’s the inevitable result of a sport that involves a piece of equipment that is proverbial in its simplicity and beauty, and which is therefore ripe for complication and uglification. Inventions that have made a notable impact in cycling history include the bicycle, the pedals, the chain drive and the pneumatic tyre. Inventions that have had no impact at all include any number of puncture-proof tyres, propeller drives, the Tobleroneshaped ‘lever-chain’, triathlon and absolutely everything ever designed to reduce ‘top dead centre’ in the pedal stroke. Some inventions have had the happy effect of selling more bicycles, as with the pneumatic tyre, or when manufacturers in the 1890s realised that the chain should be on the right, then the left, then the…

Two years into World War Two and there was little racing going on at this point. Understandably so. First of all, this is a November edition of the magazine, and secondly, individuals and industry were focusing on the country’s war effort, not sport. But the UK race scene was clearly missing its annual celebration at the Royal Albert Hall. There were concerns over the future of what was a major event, and that of the competition that it celebrated: the Best All-Rounder (BAR). “Those were some marvellous gatherings,” Cycling wrote in its Clubroom Gossip page. “They were more than just concerts. The Royal Albert Hall on All-rounder night became the Hall of Cyclists. Men and women met there to honour the lads who prove themselves to be champions of the…