Innehållsförteckning för February 15, 2024 från Cycling Weekly

The second WorldTour stage race of the year takes the men’s peloton to the Middle East. In its sixth edition, the UAE Tour is always a proving ground for some of the best general classification riders and sprinters before the season moves fully to Europe. Remco Evenepoel won last year’s edition, settled after a tense battle on Jebel Hafeet with Adam Yates, ending two years of dominance from UAE Team Emirates and Tadej Pogačar who won the previous two edition. The only former winner present in the desert will be Yates, which inevitably means he is the outright favourite for the week-long race. He won on Jebel Hafeet last year, and in 2020, the year he triumphed overall, so knows how to pace on the decisive climb. The 31-year-old heads…

The loneliness of the indoor trainer. All great business ideas begin with a problem that needs solving. In this case, Eric Min – a tech entrepreneur in his early-40s who had just left behind a tightknit NYC cycling community to live in London – had both the problem and the solution. “I wanted to get rid of the sense of loneliness that I felt when I rode indoors,” says Min, now 56, the originator of what has long been a global super-success, Zwift. It may come as a surprise to many that Zwift was conceived not in the airy offices of a California tech start-up, or even in New York City, but in London, England. That said, New York certainly inspired what was invented in part to solve a London…

Despite dominating the women’s domestic time trial scene last year, Team Bottrill had to overcome a major setback: Kate Allan and Alex Clay suffered horrific crashes in the same event in the summer. Even so, the women’s team clinched seven national titles between them and dominated many podiums, but only after impressive recoveries from Allan and Clay. Both bounced back, and along with team-mates Emily Martin and Kim Barfoot-Brace, the team accomplished a quite incredible medal haul. “Winning that many national titles, has never been done,” said team founder Matthew Bottrill. “I’m not sure it can be done again, it was quite special really – an orientation of four athletes that have done something phenomenal.” Bottrill has coached Kate Allan for the last seven years, and it was her idea…

When Canyon released the Endurace CFR last year, it sought to redefine some of the stereotypes associated with endurance road bikes. Armed with the brand’s top-level carbon fibre construction, and premium groupset options, Canyon set out to create a bike that features adjustability, versatility, integration, aerodynamics and comfort – so how has it done? What’s changed CFR stands for Canyon Factory Racing. Simply put, it is the brand’s top-rated carbon-fibre construction, which it says utilises more high-modulus carbon fibre, allowing for a higher stiffness-toweight ratio. This all results in a claimed 930 gram frame weight coupled with a 400-gram fork, which in the endurance category is pretty competitive, and allows our full build (size large) to tip the scales at 7.4kg. Alongside the new carbon construction, Canyon has also redesigned…

Connor Swift, 28, is a former road national champion, has won Tro Bro Léon and is a key domestique in Ineos-Grenadiers’s Classics squad. But it wasn’t all plain sailing to the top. “I did every sport while at school: cross-country, football, rugby… I got into cycling aged 14 or 15. I was more into triathlons to start with but soon found I was strongest on the bike. “As a youth I only did a circuit race here and there, more as training for triathlons. I’d also go to Quibell Park [North Lincolnshire], the local outdoor velodrome. It was as a first-year junior that the triathlons slowed down and I raced the bike more, but still at a regional level. As a second-year junior, I was perhaps in the top five…

Sheldon Brown said “the diamond frame is one of most nearly perfect pieces of design known,” but that hasn’t stopped bike designers and framebuilders from trying to improve it ever since Starley’s safety bicycle set the template. The approach of Baines Brothers in Bradford was to dismantle the diamond frame, chop up the tubes and put them back together in a different configuration for their Flying Gate. Bates Brothers in London, however, decided to look at the tubes themselves. Even in the 1930s it was recognised – and proven – that oversized tubing was stiffer, so Horace Bates came up with doubled-butted Cantiflex tubes, which in their centre had a larger diameter and thinner wall thickness, tapering at the ends so that they could be built with standard lugs. He…

Mark Cavendish was left “speechless” last Friday after a perfect leadout led to his first win of 2024, his final season. The Astana-Qazaqstan sprinter triumphed on stage four of the Tour of Colombia. It came after he had finished third on the opening stage of the race, but possibly more interestingly, after he had spent three weeks at altitude in South America. Cavendish, who is competing in Colombia for the first time, was given the perfect slingshot to the line by his Astana team-mates, with three of them marshaling him inside the final kilometre. As he came off the wheel of Cees Bol with just over 100m of road remaining, Cavendish charged through the middle and crossed the line just as Gaviria was coming up on the left of him.…

SD Worx-Protime got off to an almost perfect start to their 2024 road season, winning three out of four stages and the overall at the UAE Tour Women. World champion Lotte Kopecky took home the red leader’s jersey from the race’s second edition, after triumphing atop Jebel Hafeet on day three. The Belgian’s team-mate, Lorena Wiebes, claimed back-to-back victories in the opening two sprint stages, opening the tally for the squad that reached a record-breaking 62 victories last season. Had it not been for the breakaway heroics of Amber Kraak (FDJ-Suez), SD Worx-Protime would have taken a clean sweep in the Middle East. The Dutchwoman, a fine time triallist, held on as the last of the final day’s escapees, foiling the sprinters and narrowly crossing the line ahead of an…

ADAM YATES UAE TEAM EMIRATES In the absence of Tadej Pogačar, Adam Yates will lead the line for the home team in his first race of the season. Yates has past form in the UAE Tour and won the general classification in 2020. The 31-year-old has a solid group of riders around him, including Brandon McNulty, to ensure he has the best chance of taking the honours once again. CW rating ★★★★★ BEN O’CONNOR DECATHLON-AG2R LA MONDIALE Ben O’Connor hasn’t quite managed to match the form that has previously seen him win Grand Tour stage at both the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France in the last couple of years. But he is a climber of the highest calibre. An impressive solo win at the 1.1 ranked Costa Colida in…

They work perfectly. Biggest risk is pinching them when fitting in a really tight tyre. If you get them in without pinching them, they are brilliant. Fergus Mac Eochaidh Standard tubes and a pair of spoons in ya back pocket for me. Fonzy Downing The cost outweighs any negligible benefit to old standard tubes. Chris Smith Their size and weight make them easier to carry in a small saddle bag. Even a 700x25 butyl tube is huge. Alex Kueper I have two road bikes, and one of them is set up with tubeless tyres. This is my nice-weather bike. After three seasons of using tubeless I must admit I’m not sure if it’s worth all the faff to clean out the old sealant and set up the tyres for a…

Tubeless set-ups have several advantages for road cyclists: the rolling resistance of the tyres is less without the friction between the tyre and tube, you can run lower pressures for greater comfort and better grip, and there’s the promise of self-sealing if something sharp does penetrate your rubber. But despite this, most road cyclists still prefer to run tubed tyres, happy in the knowledge that at some point they’ll once again be engaged in the cyclist’s rite of passage that is standing by the roadside fixing a flat. So why hasn’t road cycling jumped headlong into tubeless tech and enjoyed its many benefits? In truth there are a few factors at play here. First, tubeless set-up has a reputation for being awkward. And it’s wellearned. Although improved tolerances in wheel…

We have had something of a rush of product recalls in recent months: cranks, shifters, some tyres, helmets… the list of your expensive possessions that want to kill you is becoming extensive. We never used to have this. No, things used to just break, and we were still grateful. A friend in the 2000s ended up in hospital after his expensive carbon forks broke. After being discharged, he immediately ordered an identical replacement set. “They’re a great product,” he said. That pair snapped as well. But sometimes things were different. Around the same era, I put a Shimano Dura-Ace bottom bracket into a newlyarrived road frame. It was 27 March 2007 – I have it noted in my workshop log. (Everyone has a workshop log – if you don’t, I…

Lazer has released the latest iteration of its flagship Z1 road helmet, aiming to combine aerodynamics, ventilation, lightweight and top-notch safety in one do-it-all package. In fact, at 220g claimed (236g actual), Lazer contends that this is the “lightest helmet including rotational impact protection on the market,” having received a five-star rating from Virginia Tech’s independent crash protection testing. Lazer’s new Z1 helmet is lighter than the new Giro’s Aries MIPS Spherical helmet – purported to be its lightest yet at a claimed 265g in a size medium. That said, Kask’s Valegro helmet comes with its WG11 rotational impact standard and weighs a feathery 180g (claimed) in a size small – so there’s still competition. “IT’S LIGHTER THAN GIRO’S ARIES MIPS SPHERICAL” Lazer has, however, made the Z1 aeroshell compatible,…

Oskar Svendsen was on track to become one of the greatest cyclists ever. Back in 2012, at the age of 18, the Norwegian set the highest VO2 max ever recorded, 96.7ml/kg/min. Three weeks later, he won the World Junior TT Championships, beating Matej Mohorič by seven seconds. His fifth place a year later at the Tour de l’Avenir confirmed his brilliance. On paper, he was going to be unstoppable. Were he starting out today, the young Svendsen would be snapped up by a WorldTour team on a multiyear contract. Instead, he stepped away from the sport in 2014, reportedly struggling with illness, injury and the weight of expectation. While Svendsen is perhaps the most famous case, there are countless athletes who were touted for senior success after shining brightly while…

The “Cyclists Dismount” sign has a long history. The first handful were erected by cyclists’ organisations to advise riders of dangerous road conditions, especially steep descents, where walking for a short distance was going to be safer. This was largely a side effect of the invention of the bicycle coming before the invention of the brake. Then, for much of the 20th Century, the sign was almost unknown. It did, however, start to reappear in the 1990s. The most common reason for a “Cyclists Dismount” sign is when a highway engineer responsible for a piece of cycling infrastructure realises they are late for their lunch hour. To save themselves from having to remember where in the plans they were, they can always stick a “Cyclists Dismount” sign on the drawing,…

Five-time Giro di Lombardia winner Fausto Coppi (l) gives young pretender Louison Bobet a congratulatory handshake after Bobet’s victory in the 1951 race. ‘Il Campionissimo’s’ still-coiffed hair belies the harsh and grimy reality of the 226km race (now known as Il Lombardia). His grubby Bianchi jersey on the other hand illustrates it perfectly. Bobet, then 26 and yet to take many of his major victories – including his Tour de France hat-trick – had sprinted to victory in Milan at the head of an elite front group, which included Coppi, who was third. The previous year’s winner, Renzo Soldani (fourth); and the following year’s winner, Giuseppe Minardi (second) were also in the group. Although young Bobet’s star was on the rise, Coppi’s was far from on the wane. Having just…