Innehållsförteckning för November 23, 2023 från Cycling Weekly

Talented British junior Cat Ferguson came through adversity to win her first ever World Cup race on Sunday. The Skipton native lined up on the front row of the grid in Troyes, France, with fellow Brits Imogen Wolff and Alice Colling, the first time GB has had three riders on the front row in any category. Ferguson has dominated the domestic cross scene, winning all but one of the four races she’s started, but had found international contests tricky, with her best result being silver at the European Championships the weekend before. The presence of newly crowned European champion Célia Gery clearly didn’t faze her as Ferguson sprinted into the lead from the start. Then disaster struck. Father, trade-team DS and some-time mechanic Tim Ferguson said: “Her gears failed straight…

The roll-out of road bike time trialling by Cycling Time Trials appears to have slowed the decline in event entries the sport has suffered in recent years, according to new figures. Numbers from the sport’s governing body show 1,198 new riders registered to ride in 2023, with the vast majority of those – 964 – entering an event on drop-bar bikes. It’s a fillip for a sport that has seen participation declining over the last decade. Between 2017 and 2022 the number of entries to time trials fell 46%, but the last year has seen that trend slow. There was still a 5.8% decline in accepted event entries but this is an improvement on last year’s 19.4% fall and is the smallest reduction since 2017. The figures were published by…

The most dominant kilo rider of his generation, Jeffrey Hoogland, needed to be persuaded to have a punt at the one-kilometre time trial world record. “He took a lot more convincing than I thought,” his coach, Mehdi Kordi, tells CW. “I said, ‘Do you fancy a trip to Mexico where it can be all about you, and the upshot is that you become the world record holder? “He was like, ‘I’m not sure. I want to be world champion first.’ I was like, ‘I’m pretty certain you’re going to be world champion on your worst day.’” Hoogland’s form in the event had, after all, been unrivalled in recent years. He had held the rainbow bands since 2021, and this February became the first person to go under 58 seconds at…

In December 2022, while training in Majorca, Tom Pidcock set a new Sa Calobra KOM of just 22:46. Ten months later, I took on the same challenge with a raggedy bunch of pals on our own less elite kind of training camp. Backs to a sparkling Med, we set off strongly, before very quickly realising we’d need to settle into a steady rhythm just to make it up the nine kilometres of 6.5% average gradient. Our time, I’m embarrassed to admit, was more than double Pidcock’s effort. On the plus side, the long effort gave me a remarkable amount of time to ponder whether pro riders are on another level genetically or whether any rider, given the right blend of consistent, quality training over a long enough period, could significantly…

CELEBRITY SPECIAL Since retiring at the end of last year and moving back to the UK from Andorra, it’s been a process of relearning how to train to be good at racing. My aim is to keep competing on the domestic scene, and I soon realised I couldn’t rely on residual fitness. In my first 30-mile TT, off the back of a winter doing not much, I averaged 345 watts and Michael Hutchinson laughed in my face. After my final professional race in 2022, it was a really weird process – for the first time in years, no one was looking at my TrainingPeaks account. No one cares anymore whether I train or not – I’m accountable to no one except myself. There’s a real sense of freedom I didn’t…

Oscar Egg was the fastest cyclist of his generation, a proto-Obree innovator and, once he retired, a big commercial success with his bike components. Born in Switzerland in 1890, Egg broke the Hour record three times between 1912 and 1914. In the year World War One broke out he won two Tour de France stages, the Swiss national championship and Paris-Tours. He experimented with dramatic-looking aerodynamic fairings, most famously the Velo Fusée – ‘rocket bicycle’ featuring a Zeppelin-inspired aerofoil behind the rider (this was before the UCI got involved). The Super Champion derailleur he developed was the only one allowed to be used in the Tour de France when the gear ban was lifted in 1937. It won every big race on the calendar that year and sold in its…

Bright spell If Puck Pieterse (Alpecin-Deceuninck) thought she could waltz back into the 2023-24 cyclo-cross season and pick up where she left off last winter then no one gave her teammate Ceylin Alvarado, pictured, the memo. Pieterse won just under half the races she entered in 2022-23 but Alvarado had no intention of breaking her three-win streak when they lined up for the latest round of the World Cup on Sunday. Instead, Alvarado eventually won by 21 seconds. For more cyclo-cross see p12.…

Members of the environmental movement Extinction Rebellion (XR) held a rally outside British Cycling’s annual general meeting last weekend in protest against its partnership with oil and gas giant Shell UK. Around 20 members of XR’s Midlands division protested outside the Edgbaston Park Hotel in Birmingham on Sunday morning. They let off green flares, banged drums and held a large banner with the words “no future in fossil fuels”. One of those present was Michael Bastow, a member of both XR and British Cycling. “We want [British Cycling] to drop Shell and continue with the good work that they do within communities,” he told Cycling Weekly. “The two don’t match at the moment.” During the protest, Bastow said he had a “brief chat” with the governing body’s CEO Jon Dutton.…

There will be something missing from next year’s WorldTour. A Peter Sagan-shaped hole is set to open up as the enigmatic Slovak retires from top-level road racing. He won’t be gone completely though – he is staying on to target the mountain bike race in the Paris Olympics next year. “You cannot put a lion in a cage,” says Sagan’s old boss at Bora-Hansgrohe, Ralph Denk. He was talking about letting the Slovak off the leash to enjoy mountain biking or skiing. But with Sagan’s recent retirement from the WorldTour, it feels like that metaphor has never been more apt. The ultimate uncaging. Over the course of a wildly successful pro career Sagan, now 33, has earned the nicknames ‘Rambo’ and ‘the Terminator’, conjuring an image of someone you’d probably…

When it comes to designing a kilo-record-setting bike, “stiffness is more or less the main goal,” says Tim de Boer, the head mechanic of the Dutch track team. “Especially with a rider like Jeffrey, we mainly look for stiffness and aerodynamics. Weight is a little bit less important.” Hoogland’s Koga track bike weighed 7.7kg and, according to De Boer, is worth around €21,000. The sprinter used a 70-tooth carbon Digirit chainring – the biggest he has ever ridden – with a 15-tooth rear cog, creating a massive 123in gear. The cranks were Vision 170mm. “I think the kilo is maybe the hardest event regarding gearing, because everything is involved in it,” the mechanic says. “You have a standing start, a really high top speed, and you will slow down at the…

The Vitus Venon EVO is an all-road frameset that aims to blur the line between endurance and gravel bikes. It can accommodate tyre widths from 28mm up to 45mm and is offered in both road (RS) and gravel (GR) builds. The latter comes with gravel-specific groupsets, with the upper models in the range using aero components too, and it’s this top tier offering we’re reviewing here. Construction The ‘EVO’ tag denotes Vitus’s highest performance bikes in each of its ranges. It borrows engineering and technology from its high-performance road bikes, as well as aerodynamic design, to create a bike that has speed and efficiency at its core. It uses a one-piece monocoque frame featuring integrated cable routing, a BB386EVO press-fit bottom bracket and M12 thru-axles. The claimed tyre clearance is…

The British have a fondness for hapless amateurs who triumph against the odds. At first glance, Andy Bruce appears to fit this mould. His racing career began in 2011 as a sedentary 39-year-old on a basic cycle-to-workscheme-funded Orbea. Chatting with him, his tales come thick and fast: the time he was placed just behind Cavendish in the 2022 Isle of Man Gran Fondo qualifier, despite having had to screw a crank back on at the roadside. Or the time when, having been dropped at the 2019 World Masters Points Race Championship, he prised victory from the jaws of defeat. Yet, get to know him and it’s apparent that his multiple successes, including three Scottish Vets RR and two British Masters IP titles, are the product of rigorous, targeted training rather…

CYCLO-CROSS SUN, 19 NOV Central League round nine (West Glebe Park, Corby, Northants): Men: 1. Thomas Timberlake (Dyson Cycles) 50.33; 2. F. Scheske (Team Spectra Cannondale) +0.41; 3. M. Burke (VeloElite RC) +0.55; 4. H. Sleight (Drag2Zero Endura) +1.16; 5. O. Martin (ROTOR Race Team) +1.20; 6. M. Wilson (Ride Revolution Coaching) +1.35. Women: 1. Gemma Felstead (Veloccino) 37.24; 2. E. Humphries (Welland Valley CC) +0.43; 3. E. Mitchinson (Montezuma’s Race Team) +1.34; 4. N. Reddy (Team Empella) +2.52; 5. M. Bettles (Numplumz) +3.10; 6. A. Bowler (Cowley Road Condors) +4.30. Yorkshire Championship round five (Pontefract Racecourse, West Yorkshire): Men: 1. Oliver Akers (Ribble-Verge Sport) 51.37; 2. S. Jackson (Acrog-Tormans) +1.26; 3. O. Taylor (Shibden CC) +2.59; 4. B. Scott (Racing Metro 15) +4.03; 5. D. Hepton (Team Bikestop Tyrekey) +4.27;…

Last Friday Ineos Grenadiers confirmed that the 51-year-old Rod Ellingworth, who was involved in the original set-up of Team Sky back in 2009, would leave at the end of the season. Former head of British Cycling and the UCI, Brian Cookson said the move was “very surprising”. Cookson was involved in bringing Ellingworth into the BC coaching system in the early 2000s, and described him as “absolutely inspirational”. Ellingworth has been de facto in charge of the Ineos cycling project since 2021, as deputy team principal, despite Sir Dave Brailsford having the title of team principal. Ineos have failed to live up to their high expectations, their last Tour de France win coming in 2019, after winning seven out of eight editions before then. It took the British team more…

For me it’s about the expectations I had before I went tubeless… that it was some kind of zero-maintenance panacea. I was sorely disappointed and went back to tubes. I might try them again some day, maybe on a wider, lower-pressure tyre set-up. Jim Dennison I went tubeless. No punctures. Just found sealant sprayed all over the bike after the ride. I’m back with tubes which is a lighter set-up regardless of what tubeless advocates claim. Vance Kwan Not broken and doesn’t need fixing. Tubes work fine for me. Joe Wallace Tubeless on my mtb and gravel bike all day long. Works great and benefits outweigh the downsides. But these are larger-volume tyres where tubeless works much better. I gave up with road tyres. The higher pressures don’t seal and…

Back in August, Lotte Kopecky ended a somewhat unbelievable 50-year drought for the Belgian nation in the Women’s World Championship road race, stealing victory by mere seconds on a course that can only be described as brutal. As well as wearing the famous rainbow jersey until next September, Kopecky will also stand out with her brand-new custom-painted Specialized Tarmac SL8. Specialized hasn’t gone overly ostentatious though. The main frameset is striped with different white and silver gradients, made up of tiny digital camo dots. The only bold rainbow stripes can be found on the front fork, where you’ll find coloured bands wrapped around the front portion of both fork blades. Customisation doesn’t stop there, however. On the top tube, Specialized has added ‘2023 World Champion’ graphics, alongside Kopecky’s name, all…

Agaggle of amused schoolboys look on as riders come a cropper in a muddy ditch at Stoke Prior, Worcestershire, in November 1969. As one rider flails around in what looks like very cold and muddy water, a well-placed photographer catches another who appears to be preparing to join him, looking with almost pleading eyes towards the camera before presumably taking a dunk. Stranded and half-submerged in the water, the narrow tyres on the first rider’s machine show that as well as big ditches and swathes of mud, early cyclo-cross riders had a serious lack of grip to contend with too.…