Innehållsförteckning för May 23, 2024 från Cycling Weekly

Why is it when someone dies as a result of a car crash it’s a tragedy, whereas merely the thought of a cyclist travelling ‘fast’ means they’re a menace to society and we desperately need new laws? You’ll have no doubt seen the statistics in amongst the rather ridiculous coverage over the last week. There are around 30,000 deaths and serious injuries on the roads each year (each a tragedy) and on average three of those are caused by a person on a bike. So to keep the 0.01% safe, an MP has suggested updating the criminal justice bill to make prosecuting ‘dangerous cyclists’ easier. Cue newspapers and broadcasters filling space and time with stories of dangerous cyclists. My favourite was a story about someone riding through London at 52mph.…

Turn up at the local group ride wearing a rainbow jersey and there’s a good chance you might get the odd funny look. Opinion is famously divided on the matter, with many riders holding to the line that rainbow jerseys should only be worn by real world champions. Well, the Gralloch keeps the dream of silencing the naysayers alive by holding out the possibility that one day you’ll be able to rock up in the genuine article. As part of the UCI’s 25-round Gravel World Series, the top 25% of riders in each age category and gender (or race, if they are elite) will qualify to compete in the Gravel World Championships on 5-6 October where each winner will, of course, receive their own bona fide rainbow jersey. Starting at…

As a cyclist I am very glad about the planned new rules on dangerous cycling. However, adding on the part about the condition of the cycle, they have inadvertently probably banned cycling. ‘Why?’ you may ask. First, it is nearly impossible to buy legal lights in the UK that conform to the regulations. I only comply as I use 30-year-old filament lights marked BS6102/3. Second, in the daytime, you need pedal reflectors and front and rear reflectors of this standard, but most good pedals won’t take them and most bikes don’t even have front or rear reflectors. Again, I’m lucky as my bike is elderly. Maybe it’s time to update the lighting regulations to be more sensible. Maybe replace reflectors with a front white light. As cycling at day and…

Seb Grindley is one of British cycling’s most exciting young prospects. Having only just turned 18, he is already a winner on the road and in the winter mud of cyclo-cross, in the UK and in Europe. He is not, however, the first Grindley to enjoy international success as a teenager. Seb’s dad, Dave, won a bronze medal at the 1992 Olympic Games in the 4x400 metres relay, and his time of 44.47 seconds, aged 19, at the Barcelona Games remains the fastest ever by a European teenager. Though he was ranked as the world’s second-best 400m runner in 1993, injuries stalled Dave’s highly promising career, and he retired from athletics in 1996 aged 24. After hanging up his spikes, Dave Grindley started cycling with North Cheshire Clarion and raced…

The all-new 64GB Karoo is designed to “control every aspect of your ride”, combining data, navigation, workouts and connection to other components and products. Now in its third generation, it boasts a 3.2in colour touch screen alongside hardware buttons on the side. It’s reported to have improved battery life; the claimed 15+ hours is 30% more than the outgoing model, with a full charge said to take less than 2.5 hours. A new companion app is designed to let you upload your rides, routes and workouts; for example, you can send a pin from Google or Apple Maps to the head unit. The device now supports both TrainerRoad and Training Peaks. “THE NEW KAROO COMES WITH FREE GLOBAL MAPS” Navigation is aided by multi-band technology, used to deliver greater accuracy…

Let’s dive briefly into the science of sleep. Each sleep stage totals 90 minutes and comprises four phases: two light, one REM and one deep. The two restorative phases are REM and deep because this is where the repair work is done. In deep sleep, blood pressure and heart rate drop, muscles are repaired and hormones such as human growth hormone are released, building muscle, burning fat and stimulating tissue growth – key for physical recovery. The majority of your daily human growth hormone (HGH) is secreted between 11pm-1am so it’s important to get your full complement of sleep. Cognitive repair happens in the REM phase; this is when memory consolidation, emotional processing, brain development and dreaming occurs. Most of us need to sleep through five 90-minute cycles, which takes…

Stresses come in many forms, not just physical, and the tiredness you’re experiencing might not be fully fledged overtraining. These are the four classified types of fatigue associated with athletic endeavours: ACUTE FATIGU E The normal tiredness experienced by most people after having done a bout of vigorous exercise. FUNCTIONAL OVERREACHING Higher levels of fatigue over one to three weeks of overload. Performance decreases temporarily, but after deloading, you get stronger. It’s an intense, but planned, block of hard training. NON-FUNCTIONAL OVERREACHING This occurs with sustained overloading. Not enough rest or deloading results in burnout, which can take a month to come back from. OVERTRAINING, OR CHRONIC FATIGUE A state of burnout from which the body and brain can take months to recover. The cause is sustained psychological and physical…

The small-wheeled bike was invented by Alex Moulton in the late 1950s, and launched publicly in 1962. Moulton had been responsible for the design of the suspension on the Mini, the car which did so much to democratise motoring. Possibly he was trying to make amends for this. He felt that normally sized wheels made a bike bigger than it notionally needed to be, and made it more difficult to store or transport. The problem is that the reason they’re that size is that if you make them smaller, the lack of give in the very short spokes and the small, rigid rim means that even the smoothest road will be turned into a corrugated tin roof. Moulton solved this with a sophisticated suspension system and a forgiving spaceframe construction,…

Activists target Shell and BC Protest art collective Brandalism ‘hacked’ billboards in Manchester in protest against Shell and its partnership with British Cycling. The group’s fake billboard ads showed a bike rider drinking oil from a bidon and another depicting a rider falling off after riding over a split oil drum. Shell responded by saying: “These protest ads are misleading, not constructive and completely mischaracterise the nature of our partnership with British Cycling.” AI to catch Strava cheats Strava cheats will now come under the watchful eye of AI as part of a number of updates to the platform, with machine learning flagging suspect performances. It will also be used to summarise training data to best suit users and to suggest routes. The second half of its update plans is…

Yu’ve been at the top of the sport for more than a decade,” I begin softly, aiming to warm Romain Bardet to my theme before coaxing him to reflect on his long career at the sharp end. So I’m shocked to get knocked back so soon. “At the top?” he interrupts, taking issue with my premise. His longevity at the top is objectively true: he’s a two-time podium finisher at the Tour de France and runner-up at this year’s Liège-Bastogne-Liège – but he has a point to make about the fact he hasn’t won any of cycling’s biggest races. “The most organised team or best riders win almost every race they target and it means the sport has become less entertaining,” he says. “Nowadays, you can bet that the next…

What’s Dave’s best trait as a dad? Seb: The fact that he is relatable. He’s probably one of my best friends – we hang out a lot. He comes on race trips, we ride together. He’s my right-hand man. I’ve got to give him some thanks so he’ll be my mechanic a little longer! Dave: He definitely won’t have said my cooking, that’s for sure! Who would win a 400m foot race today? S: Me, 100%. My dad is like the Terminator – half man, half metal. With all the metal bones he has, he’d be limping through. D: Most definitely Seb – he’s actually a really strong runner. What makes Dave most uncomfortable while watching Seb race? S: Because he’s really competitive, he’s always identifying things that could go…

As a keen cyclist and occasional insomniac, I’ve got into the habit of delving straight into my sleep data as soon as I wake up. Take this morning: in a few seconds, data from my Garmin watch downloaded onto my phone showing eight hours, 32 minutes of sleep, of which 39 minutes were ‘deep’, five minutes were ‘light’ and two hours 38 minutes were R EM. I flicked down to my ‘sleep score’ – a rating of sleep on a scale of zero to 100 – to see a score of 82 (‘good’), indicating that I was adequately rested for the hard interval turbo session I had planned for later. Obsessing over this data is a hard habit to break. I’m not alone. As cyclists we’re accustomed to arriving home,…

Track cyclist Orla Walsh, an 11-time Irish national champion, has been wearing a Whoop band since 2019 to monitor sleep and recovery. Taking note of her sleep scores, Walsh believes they are accurate and adapts or swaps training sessions accordingly. When this isn’t possible, she does her best to overcome fatigue through hydration and fuelling. That said, the 25-year-old isn’t always convinced by the data. “The recovery score may say that I’m in the green when neurologically I feel very fatigued as a sprinter,” she explains. “I think it’s difficult for heart rate data to calculate the effort involved in sprinting or weightlifting when there is little cardio involved.” Using the app’s diary tool, Walsh noticed that her caffeine consumption was affecting her sleep and so cut coffee from her…

ROAD RACING SUN, MAY 19 Surrey League Paceline RT Road Race (Bletchingley, Surrey): 2, 3: 1. Casper Brazier (Trash Mile); 2. C. MacNamara (Sigma Sports RT); 3. G. Tucker (unattached); 4. T. Doig (Primera TeamJobs); 5. P. Burton (Paceline RT); 6. S. Long (VC Londres). Banbury Star Road Race (Banbury, Oxfordshire): Women’s Team Cup Road Race E, 1, 2, 3: 1. Lucy Harris (Loughborough Lightning) 2:29.52; 2. Z. Langham (Pro Noctis 200 Degrees Coffee); 3. R. Shier (DAS Hutchinson-Brother UK) all same time; 4. G. Reynolds (Brother UK_Team OnForm) +1.04; 5. B. Dew (Pro Noctis) +4.12; 6. M. Heywood (Pro Noctis) st. Men 2, 3, 4: 1. Bernard Galea (SPRNT) 2:10.31; 2. C. Genner (Halesowen A&CC) +0.02; 3. J. Somerfield (Trash Mile) same time; 4. E. Calow (RAF CA) +0.09;…

I recently heard about an account of an attempt on the world humanpowered water speed-record, made in the early 1970s. It was the work of two naval architects from Southampton University, who designed a craft made with two rowing shells modified into a catamaran, and a tandem bicycle modified to drive a propeller. They tested this using all the available facilities, including a towingtank, the equivalent of a wind tunnel for boats. They recruited two local racing cyclists to navigate it and arranged suitable coaching for them. At the record attempt, at Weymouth in Dorset, they were unfortunately defeated by two “quite drunk” students from Bristol who turned up with a stolen swan-shaped pedalo.…

If this were another rider, one would caution that Tadej Pogačar should begin to save energy in the last week of this Giro d’Italia. The Slovenian is aiming for victory at the Tour de France as well, and will then head to the Olympics, so has a lot more on his schedule. When Chris Froome won the 2018 Giro d’Italia and then headed to the Tour de France as the defending champion, it is not too big an assumption that it was the effort put into the final week of the Giro which meant he was slightly off colour come July – he finished third. Pogačar has already won the Giro, more or less. He leads Geraint Thomas by 6:41. He could ride defensively for six more stages and still…

I have no desire to wrangle over the premise of fair punishment for reckless behaviour that results in serious injury or, in the worst instance, fatality. Any unnecessary death is tragic and the experience of an unjust justice system heartbreaking for all involved. The ‘but’ is that the road system is horrendously unjust in almost every instance where it touches upon cyclists. The moment mainstream newspapers publish headlines around ‘dangerous cycling’, bike riders can expect heightened aggression on the roads, which can range from the unpleasant – windscreen wiper fluid and swearing, horrendously close passes even when pedalling with a toddler on the back – to the deadly. To an extent, quibbling over the sentences available and the sentences genuinely handed down serves to little gain. Because each year, around…

Implement a salary and/or budget cap ▪ Pro: Proponents of the idea say it would stop the richest teams hovering up all the best talent, and readdress a competitive balance. ▪ Con: Those who disagree say it would discourage investment into the sport, limiting reach and development. Ban race radios ▪ Pro: Banning radios would, in theory, encourage spontaneous, creative riding and prevent the strongest teams from dominating, as they would have less knowledge of what’s happening in the race. Radio-free races such as the World Championships appear to support this case. ▪ Con: Attila Valter of Visma-Lease a Bike says: “It would all be fun and games until you lose a Grand Tour because you can’t communicate to your team car that you’ve had a crash or a puncture.”…

ONE DOWN Giant Revolt Advanced Pro 0 £2,999 What it lacks in terrain-levelling hardware, the Advanced Pro makes up for with a stiff and responsive frame that’s ready to race out of the box. We rated it the best bike of 2023 in our gravel bike grouptest. Tracking rough ground won’t be as assured without the X’s suspension fork but there’s a substantial weight reduction of about 800g. TWO DOWN Giant Revolt 2 £899 An aluminium offering with a Shimano Sora groupset and Giant’s in-house finishing kit, the Revolt 2 certainly doesn’t have the spec of the higher-end models in the Revolt range but that’s reflected in the price. This is still a very capable bike for those of us on a tight budget.…

■ Breakfast in the garden: Getting some direct natural light when you first wake up stimulates the release of hormones such as serotonin. Our circadian rhythm is attuned to the light-dark cycle, meaning we need lots of light early on, less in the evening and zero during the night by sleeping in a very dark bedroom.■ Take a nap: Napping for 20-30 minutes really does work. If you’re training hard but struggling to sleep more than seven hours (the minimum amount for athletes), a nap supplements nocturnal sleeping.■ Mix it up: Aim for seven to nine hours of sleep a night. If this proves tricky, set aside an hour for ‘recovery’ in the day – this might include a nap, a simple breathing exercise or even just putting your feet…

What, in a nutshell, is overtraining? Traditionally overtraining has been defined as a prolonged impairment in an athlete’s performance lasting for several months despite reducing the workload. As the name suggests, the chronic reduction in performance is due to excessive training without enough recovery. However, more accurately, it is the state of chronic fatigue, and most of the time it’s chronic mental fatigue. Of course, you have to exclude any underlying disease or pathological condition, by a process of exclusion – and if you find nothing, the diagnosis is overtraining. “Overtraining is not the best term – the cause is not just training but all life’s stresses” What causes this long-term fatigue? The psychological load of training and competing is a big component. With muscular or physical fatigue, even if…

On a recent ride, my friend Bernard and I found ourselves talking about another friend who’d ridden the Paris-Roubaix Challenge sportive. “He said it was the worst day of his life,” reported Bernard, clearly hoping that hadn’t been hyperbole. “He lost all the skin from his hands, got massive hunger-knock because all the stuff in his pockets fell out on one of the many occasions he crashed, and he punctured five times and ended up having to buy a new tyre off a Belgian tyre-scalper in a campervan for €200.” “At least he finished,” I said. “But why?” asked Bernard. “What awful inadequacy has he got that he feels the need to do that? I can understand a pro doing Paris-Roubaix – it’s their job, and it means they can…