Innehållsförteckning för March 7, 2024 från Cycling Weekly

For the first time ever, there are six British women’s teams racing at UCI Continental level, pointing to a boom in British cycling. Alba Development Road Team, DAS-Handsling, Doltcini-O’Shea, Hess, Lifeplus-Wahoo, and Pro-Noctis-200° Coffee-Hargreaves Contracting are all flying the flag at the second-highest level, but there’s more to women’s racing than this. While there has been much talk about the peril the men’s domestic scene is facing, three women’s team managers spoke to CW to discuss their realities. Jen Lemen - PDQ Property Elite PDQ Property Elite has only been around since August 2023, and was created in the South-West of England to set up women on their racing journey, as its captain and co-owner, Jen Lemen, explained. “What I realised was needed was a regional development team, which was…

Garmin HRM-FIT £139.99 Weight 53g Garmin’s HRM-FIT is a women-specific 13in heart rate monitor featuring a never-before-seen backless chest strap with buckles that clip onto the front side of a sports bra’s elastic chest band. It aims to solve the issue of ‘hot spots’ and chafing that can occur when wearing a regular heart rate monitor with a sports bra. Overall it was simple to put on and connect before heading out the door. It’s Bluetooth and ANT+ enabled, meaning you can connect it to a variety of smart devices. I did have some minor trouble getting the two electrode pads to lay flat on either side of the centred sensor. The fix was a matter of pressing the strap down to be flush with my skin and then securing…

Following a formal training plan, even amid an uncluttered existence, can be both physically and mentally demanding. Factor in a busy and perpetually evolving work and family life and it can become positively overwhelming – almost to the point of ‘let’s forget all this nonsense and take up television and crisps instead!’ But there are mechanisms we can employ to meld our lifestyles with our training programmes to get fit without risking burn-out. As a team coach, I’m well placed to help with this question. Our athletes generally fall into the category of balancing high-stress jobs, busy family lives and competitive training programmes. Here’s how we help steer our clients from base to race, while making the seemingly impossible become seamlessly achievable. “GET IT DONE FIRST THING, BEFORE THE DAY…

The first parcours came with the first road race, Paris-Rouen in November 1869. Like 'bidon' and 'palmarès', 'parcours' became part of the code English speakers use to signal their status as a member of the cognoscenti, despite the English language already having the words 'bottle', 'curriculum vitae' and 'route'. The glory of a parcours is its transience. A road that spends 364 days of the year serving out its time as a Belgian industrial estate access road can, for a glorious few minutes one spring afternoon, become the hallowed parcours for a Classic. Or an unremarkable drag outside San Remo can be a launch pad for the most extraordinary feats of athleticism you’ve ever seen. And of course, because road racing is on the open roads, you can ride it…

Cicli Patelli of Bologna was formed in 1948 by three brothers: Umberto, Luigi and Sergio Patelli. Sergio was a keen amateur cyclist and won 49 races through his eight-year career, including an Italian National Team Time Trial Championship in 1953. He retired in 1954 to concentrate on the family business and in 1964 the brothers moved to new premises on Via Matteotti in Bologna. This ‘Titanium’ model dates from the second half of the 1970s, and would have been top of the range. Interestingly, Luigi Patelli, who built the frames, used Columbus SL steel tubing with Nervex and Georg Fisher lugs. So why call it Titanium if you’ve used steel tubing? Titanium actually refers to Campagnolo’s then top-of-the-range Super Record groupset, which used titanium screws and pins. The yellow paint…

Lotte Kopecky will carry a triumphant swagger into the cobbled Classics later this month after her victory at Strade Bianche on Saturday, a race in which she said she had “not the best legs”. The world champion bounced back in Tuscany from the disappointment of an agonising second place at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad to continue her almost perfect start to 2024. She closed down early moves across the gravel, attacked with 10km to go alongside Lidl-Trek’s Elisa Longo Borghini, and then finally dispatched the Italian with 500m remaining, on Siena’s steep, narrow Via Santa Caterina. Having won the previous three editions, an SD Worx-Protime victory looked inevitable at Strade Bianche. The only question that hung over the rain-spattered morning was whether it would be the reigning champion, Demi Vollering, or…

It is an overcast afternoon in the medieval Belgian city of Ghent, and a racket is beginning to stir. Throngs of people have gathered in Kouter Square, usually a tranquil flower market, for the homecoming of their hero. Suddenly, a wooden cart appears. It trundles past the crowds, who turn to stare. On it, two rows of raucous men face each other, each turning their own set of pedals as they slosh their drinks and sing along. It is a beer bike, a staple stag-do activity, and the revellers have just spotted someone important. They cannot believe their luck. There, in the square, is the new cycling world champion, Lotte Kopecky, greeting the masses on a specially organised fan day. “I was just standing there taking photos with fans,” she…

The first time I speak to Fatima Ahmed, it is by phone and she is walking into a bike shop. I can hear muffled shouts and metal clanking in the background, Ahmed hurriedly explaining that her road bike needs looking at. Does she mean her race bike, I wonder. There isn’t a moment to ask. “Can I call you back?” Yes, yes, I assure her I’ll call at a quieter moment. But quiet moments are few and far between in the life of the 51-year-old road safety manager who is in the process of turning herself into a long-distance adventure cyclist. Ahmed is in the thick of preparing for the Pan Celtic Ultra, a self-supported, ultra-endurance bicycle adventure starting on 6 July. She is aiming to complete the ‘short’ route,…

Pitching for a place among the best endurance road bikes, the Wilier Granturismo fills the gap left by the brand’s previous endurance bike, the Cento10 NDR. Having been impressed by the Italian brand’s Filante SLR and Adlar machines, I was looking forward to long miles on the Granturismo, an endurance-focused bike with the classic shorter reach and higher stack combination. Comparing a size medium in both models, the Granturismo offers a much more upright riding position than the Filante SLR, with the former offering a stack height of 566mm and reach of 379mm while the latter’s figures are 538mm and 388mm respectively. The slightly more relaxed angles of the seat tube (73.5° versus 74°) and head tube (72° versus 72.5°) plus a 5mm longer wheelbase also make clear that the…

If you are the ‘typical welltrained 70kg male’ seeking evidence-based cycling advice, you have hit the jackpot. The majority of sport science guidance has been designed for you. If you are female, however, you are not so lucky. Of 5,261 sport science papers analysed for the British Journal of Sports Medicine this year, just 6% focused exclusively on female subjects. Every time women apply findings from the 60% of papers involving only men, we are taking a gamble. The bias against female athlete research is so strong that even those who could benefit most from it have been advised against developing it. Helen Scott raced as a tandem pilot in the GB Paralympic team for over eight years, winning five Paralympic medals, eight Worlds medals and four Commonwealth Games golds.…

81km to go. Not an attack with 50km to go, as he did in 2022, but 81km to go. That’s how far out Tadej Pogačar attacked from to win Strade Bianche last Saturday, an almost unbelievable distance. Two hours of riding alone, over one of the toughest parcours on the calendar, to take the win. In his first race of 2024 to boot. This isn’t how cycling is supposed to be – surely it is not meant to look this easy for one rider. One reads about rides such as Bernard Hinault’s at a snowy Liège-Bastogne-Liège in 1980, or Eddy Merckx’s repeated long-distance attacks, like at the Tour of Flanders in 1969, and it feels too good to be true, but history was made in Tuscany in 2024. Just like…

I fully support wearing team kit. And the rainbow, yellow, polka dot, and any other jersey you want. Life is too short to be told you can’t dress up like your heroes and go practise a sport you love. Tony Tuzzolino Last March I was at Papillon in Tenerife having a coffee. A rider pulled up wearing the rainbow jersey. About 10 mins later he literally choked on his coffee and sank under the table. Remco had arrived. Wearing the REAL rainbow jersey! Phil McNamara Pro teams sell their replica kit for others to wear. Football clubs do this as it’s a huge source of income. Problem is some people would like to dictate what is appropriate to wear. Jack Sinclair I once rode with a guy who had only…

One of the most striking bikes on show at the Opening Weekend in Belgium was without doubt the Liv EnviLiv Advanced Pro belonging to current Australian national road race champion Ruby Roseman-Gannon. The resplendent yellow to white fade, coupled with purple tones from the Liv AlUla Jayco squad, is something to behold, but there is a lot more to this bike than meets the eye. Namely, tyre choice. For the cobbled Classics, the Liv AlUla Jayco team has chosen to go with old-school tubular tyres instead of a more modern tubeless set-up. According to head mechanic at the team, Valentin Omont, “rider safety” lies behind the choice. “OK, the tubeless with the liner inside protects the rim, but the tubular with the glue on the rim can be more safe,…

Luxembourg’s Elsy Jacobs celebrates after what was the first ever women’s World Championship road race, in 1958. The men’s event had already been running for 30 years when the UCI finally voted through the proposal for a women’s version. Luckily for Jacobs, the Luxembourg federation also got round to sanctioning the sport for women in the same year – not long, in fact, after other major European cycling nations such as France and Belgium, as well as Great Britain and the Soviet Union. The race featured a hilly 20km loop based on Reims, to be tackled three times. Jacobs’s speciality was all-out solo riding and she duly put this to good use, breaking away halfway through the race on the day’s main climb of La Calvaire. Her rivals never saw…