Innehållsförteckning för January 25, 2024 från Cycling Weekly

Sir David Brailsford is to take a step back at Ineos Grenadiers, with commitments at Premier League football club Manchester United taking a priority. The 59-year-old will still be the director of sport at Ineos, and thus will retain a certain amount of control over operations at its cycling team, but he will no longer be team principal at Ineos Grenadiers. Brailsford’s move is part of a significant reshuffle at the team, which appointed a new CEO, new performance director and a new head of racing last month. It also saw the departure of general manager Rod Ellingworth and sports director Roger Hammond. Brailsford is thought to be joining the board at Manchester United, and will apparently conduct an audit of the club’s football operations and personnel. The move comes…

I find a verbal ‘passing on your right’ is better as often a bell causes people to scatter. If cycling infrastructure was better and we didn’t just squeeze bikes onto shared paths and instead gave both cyclists and pedestrians usable, safe space, it would all be rather unnecessary. Louise Grant I use a bell to warn pedestrians on a shared path. Seven-times-out-of-10 they can’t hear because they’re listening to music or talking on their smartphone. Kevin McGroarty I use my bell with pedestrians but my voice with horses, as I hope it sounds less alien. Alison Smith Legally you need a bell! I use it every day. I abhor cyclists who don’t have bells. Jill Hyde There’s no legal requirement to have a bell. The requirement is only at the…

The BMC Kaius is a (relatively) new platform for the Swiss brand, being a part of that new breed of race-oriented gravel bikes designed specifically for the UCI Gravel World Championships. It landed with a bang, piloted to victory by Pauline Ferrand-Prévot in the inaugural race of 2022. (In the most recent 2023 UCI Gravel Champs, it was the new Canyon Grail which took the top spot under Kasia Niewiadoma). The idea of gravel as a spectrum is quite well established now: burly bikepacking bikes at one end and all-road endurance bikes at another, with ‘gravel race bikes’ slotting in a little closer to the latter than the former. But there are further gradations within the category of gravel race bikes itself, and the BMC Kaius sits at the extreme…

As you’d expect from the name, the Vaude Aqua Box Light is a watertight bag featuring a roll-top closure to keep your kit dry, or dust free, whatever the weather throws at you. It is also light, weighing in at 170 grams including the shoulder strap. Its four-litre capacity is plenty enough space to carry a few essential tools, an inner tube, a rain jacket, and sundry snacks… It attaches using two robust and slightly stretchy straps, which can be moved within the light grey attachment points to allow you optimum placing of the buckle for your set-up. The loose ends can be tucked away into the attachment point too. The fitting of the bag is very straightforward, you loop the strap around your bars and then secure it using…

Nothing says ‘classic bike’ like a curly lug – and the ones adorning the frames made by Ephgrave of London E5 in the 1950s and 1960s were up there with the very curliest. In the new post-war decade, just as quiffs sprang out of previously Brylcreemed-flat hair, bicycle lugs began to entwine tube ends ever more extravagantly. It wasn’t just art imitating the new life bursting out of the austerity of the war years, it was a celebration of a new bike boom, a golden age of cycling – at least until the motor car took over about 10 years later. Les Ephgrave had learnt from Harry Rensch of Paris Cycles before the war, worked for Claud Butler after the war and then set up on his own in Clapton…

Stevie Williams showed that he is now a man to watch in all week-long stage races and hilly Classics with an outstanding performance at the Tour Down Under last week. The 27-year-old from Aberystwyth was not one of the favourites, something his directeur sportif Sam Bewley readily admitted. And even though big-name riders the likes of Simon Yates (Jayco AlUla), Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal Quick-Step) and Jack Haig (Bahrain-Victorious) were worthy challengers, none could match the Welshman. Williams finished second on Willunga Hill on Saturday’s stage five, to take the leader’s jersey, and then completed his GC victory on Sunday, with a stage win. The man in ochre calmly reeled in those attacking him on the final ascent of Mount Lofty, before launching his sprint, keeping Isaac del Toro (UAE Team…

Tributes have been paid to multiple British national champion Mick Ives, who dedicated his life to bike racing. The Coventry-based cyclist, who died last week aged 84, raced for six decades and represented Great Britain at road, track, time trial, mountain biking and cyclo-cross, winning 81 national titles along the way. After beginning cycling as a method to reach work in 1956, the budding champion built his first cyclo-cross bike from parts in a scrapyard and later went on to run his own bike shop. A couple of years later Ives was representing his country at the World Championships and Empire Games on the road. He held a racing licence between 1962 and 2017 and only stopped racing after suffering a heart attack. During an era when you could race…

Soudal-Quick Step are going all in on Remco Evenepoel’s Tour de France dream, redirecting their investment to support the Belgian superstar in Grand Tours. The winner of the 2022 Vuelta a Espana will compete at the Tour for the first time this summer, where he’ll be one of four big favourites alongside reigning champion Jonas Vingegaard, two-time winner Tadej Pogačar, and Primož Roglič, now of Bora-Hansgrohe. No doubt conscious of the huge expectation that will surround his Tour appearance, Evenepoel was quick to play down his chances of winning the yellow jersey when meeting with the press recently, although his team-mates and team staff were all bullish that the soon-to-be 24-year-old can land himself a place on the podium. Stage hunting “For me personally, it’s difficult to say what result…

If you look at a new team jersey and have a sense of déjà vu it’s probably because you really have seen it before, writes Simon Richardson. Jerseys reflect a sponsor’s corporate colours and certain colours are in fashion, and go well together, so it’s therefore not hard to find other brands with similar colour combinations. Household cleaning products seem to be particularly in sync with this year’s pro peloton. Bora-Hansgrohe-Cif Cream Lemon Power Well, Bora do make kitchen appliances, and you gotta keep ‘em clean. Ef Education-Pink Stuff And just like that, there’s the American team’s new nickname. Soudal Quick-Step-Domestos Well this jersey is nothing but a blatant rip-off! SDWorx-Vanish Oxi Action Lorena Wiebe’s Euro champs blue accents makes for a perfect match. Astana-Qazaqstan-Antistatic Cleaner A clear bottle of…

Every January we are treated to a plethora of new cycling technology, paint schemes, and kits from the world of professional cycling – and 2024 is no different. While some teams have left their colourways all but unchanged, Team DSM-Fermenich PostNL has seen a total palette redesign thanks to new title sponsor, PostNL. Alongside new kit, the Dutch WorldTour outfit now holds a fleet of stunning white Scott bikes in place of the sparkly paint scheme of 2023. Splashes of blue, yellow, and orange on the fork blades and seat tube complement the classic white frameset. Team DSM-Fermenich PostNL can be traced all the way back to Shimano Memory Crop in 2005, and for all of that 19-year stint, Shimano has been solely responsible for the team’s groupsets. Bardet’s aero…

ONE UP Kaius 01 TWO £8,350 A straightforward upgrade to the Force AXS groupset and SRAM’s broader product ecosystem: the wheels are the Zipp 303 S, which straddle the boundary between endurance road and speedy gravel. Nothing changes regarding the rotor size or gearing ratios, it’s just the next level up in terms of the components. TWO UP Kaius 01 ONE £11,350 The wheels get an upgrade to Zipp’s 303 Firecrest model – shaving off weight and going wider with a 25mm internal width. The groupset is upgraded to SRAM Red and the drivetrain goes from 2x to 1x, with a 42t chainring and 10-44t cassette – shedding even more weight.…

The Aerocomfort 3.0 is a soft, fabric bag on the outside, made from high-density woven nylon. Inside, there is a metal bike stand that ensures that the frame is kept off the ground. All you do is remove both wheels, fit the chain over a purpose-built T-bar, and slide the bike onto the metal frame via quick-releases or thru-axles. The wheels go into pockets on separate sides of the bag, the handlebar, the seatpost and the saddle stay in place, and I didn’t even remove the pedals. There are straps to keep the bag close to the frame, as well as top tube, handlebar and saddle protectors – packing up my bike took just 20 minutes. Almost everything about the Aerocomfort 3.0 impressed me, but I wasn’t convinced by the…

Smashing out very high-intensity intervals on the indoor trainer may be placing your knees under excess pressure, reckons Dr Graham Theobald (thebodyrehab.co.uk). According to Theobald’s investigations, cyclists’ knee pain can often be traced back to the pressure they put their knees under while using training apps like Zwift. “While riding hard indoors, there are a lot of explosive, seated power sessions where riders are driving through the knee,” he explains, “without moving or changing position as they would naturally while riding on the road.” This static position, combined with the competitive pressures of riding against others – watts displayed on screen for all to see – means indoor training can be brutal on the knees. “Men are worse,” says Theobald. “Their egos get in the way and they do too…

Further creditors have emerged after the long-standing British racing promoter, SweetSpot, entered liquidation last week. Cycling Weekly revealed that the company behind the Tour of Britain and the Women’s Tour had called in a corporate recovery firm after its many financial issues had reached crisis point. KRE Corporate Recovery confirmed to CW that it was handling the affair but would not be drawn on the exact number of creditors involved in the liquidation. West Yorkshire Police are one of the impacted parties as part of the force’s work in the central escort group which handles the closure of roads for cycle races and other major UK events. “West Yorkshire Police is a creditor” A spokesperson for the force said: “West Yorkshire Police is aware of this matter and is a…

Introducing yourself in a room full of people can be awkward, even more so when it’s cyclists doing the talking! Last week I went over to Norway for a couple of days of media, kit and sponsor commitments with my team for 2024, Coop-Repsol. At the evening sponsor dinner, each of us headed up to introduce ourselves to the room full of Norwegian sponsors. To assist you in your introduction process, the team flash on screen your photo, where you are from and unfortunately your age. Now this is fine when you’re 25 but when you can’t see 30 in the rear-view mirror too well and you’re eight years older than your next team-mate (probably 10 if I’m honest!) you realise that the usual ‘fun fact about yourself ’ isn’t…

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If you want to ride as hard as your training plan dictates or heart desires, it’s worth knowing how to identify some of the most common cycling ‘niggles’ – those aches and pains that crop up from time to time. Whether it’s a dull ache in your left buttock after every big climb or a soreness on the outside of the knee the day after each long ride, these are overuse symptoms caused by the repetitive nature of riding. Often they can be treated or at least managed. On the pain scale – from one being pain-free to 10 being a career-ending injury – a niggle is somewhere in the middle; it hurts but generally not enough to prevent you from riding. If you feel the niggle on every ride…

I’ve always liked my indoor riding – I had a CycleOps 400 Pro indoor bike eight or nine years ago, long before Zwift. When I bought this house, we got it renovated from scratch and one of the first things on the plan was the bike training room. In the old house, I had to push the CycleOps from room to room. I knew the miles I’d done indoors and I knew the room would get used as much as my outdoor bikes – that’s why it was a priority. It’s got four bi-folding doors so that I can open up the whole side of the room to the outside for ventilation. I ended up in hospital once after I passed out from overheating. This is going back a few…

By “external cables” here we’re really talking about the Bowden cable – the inner and outer cable system we all know and love. The earliest Bowden cables were for front brakes on fixed-gear bikes, and replaced rods. To be honest they didn’t work that well because despite the masterstroke of the cable, the actual brake wasn’t up to much and most riders stuck with the old standby of crashing. But when they sorted out the brake, the Bowden cable became universal. And, just as universal, cables to the rear of the bike were routed externally. A couple of cable stops with the exposed inner cable running between them was easy to maintain, light, and very simple. Naturally, that was a situation we managed to put a stop to. Starting in…

Innovation has to start somewhere, and this intrepid cyclist is at the vanguard of para-cycling tech as he puts an early handcycle to use opposite Sandown pier on the Isle of Wight, to the apparent bemusement of other cyclists and onlookers. The rider is forced into what looks like a less than comfortable position, and he is required to grip the bars with one hand in order to turn the pedals with the other. The positioning of the chainset is perhaps not the safest. It’s a far cry from modern handcycles, which often use a recumbent tricycle setup that places the rider in as comfortable a position as possible so that they can concentrate on using their arms to maximum effect. That said, the appearance of the low slung, ultra-streamlined…