Innehållsförteckning för July 11, 2024 från Cycling Weekly

The seven stages across the Tour’s first week saw six different winners stand atop the podium, with Cav taking his 35th Tour stage win and Remco Evenepoel his first. In what looks set to be a year of record breaking, Eritrea’s Biniam Girmay became the first black African to win a Tour stage, then promptly went and won a second. More seem on the cards. • Stage three: Monday, 1 July Piacenza > Turin Winner: Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty) Yellow: Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) History was made as Biniam Girmay became the first black African to win a Tour stage. A crash a few kilometres from the line in Turin split the peloton in half, and the Eritrean profited from the reduced numbers and excellent teamwork to take a ceiling-shattering victory.…

“When you’re racing on the Bonette, you don’t think it’s beautiful; you hate it. It’s terrible, really terrible,” says Bjarne Riis, the disputed ‘winner’ of the 1996 Tour. “If you want to admire the beauty, go there for a training ride and stop to enjoy the view. But in a race it’s tough – so very tough. It’s long, it’s at high altitude, and it’s up there with one of the hardest climbs in cycling.” This year, on stage 19 next Friday, the Tour de France is returning to the roof of the world: the Cime de la Bonette. The highest paved through-road in Europe – though not the highest road on the Continent, which is Spain’s Pico Veleta (3,398m) – the Tour will go up and over the 2,802m…

Finnbar Stockley has had intimate, first-hand experience of Mark Cavendish’s journey back to winning ways at the Tour. And last week he was in France, with his camera, to experience the moment when his stepfather made history. He takes us through it in his own words… “I feel privileged in the last 10 months to be one of the few people who has seen every high and every low on Mark’s journey, the sleepless nights and uncertainties, as well as the cold mornings on the bike with only the rain for company. “From the moment I left school I took on any role I could within the sport to ensure I would be skilled enough to work with Mark. I learned how to ride a motorbike so I could pace…

With just four weeks to go to the National 25-Mile Championships, many riders took the opportunity to tackle the same course at the Weaver Valley CC and Manchester and District Ladies CA event in Cheshire on Saturday. Team Bottrill’s Emily Martin stormed to the win in the women’s event. She clocked 58-29 on the new J2/21 course near Lower Withington, while Lauren Creamer (Velo Fixers) was second. In the open event Maxwell Hereward (360cycling) clocked 52-25 to win and leave Marcel Schubert (Zurbaran Racing) in second. Riding a road bike, Casper Von Folsach (HUUB WattShop) was an impressive third overall in 53-20. Henrik Persson (FTP Race Team) just scraped under the 50-minute mark to win the Westerley CC 25 at Marlow, Buckinghamshire, on Sunday. His time of 49-54 gave him…

Riders snake up the Col de Vars on stage 18 of the 1950 Tour de France, led by French climbing ace Louison Bobet, who would eventually win the stage. Despite being a major (category-one) climb that has featured in the Tour more than 30 times, the Vars does not enjoy the household-name status of some other mountains in the modern era – partly, perhaps, because it is often raced in tandem with its big brother, the Col d’Izoard. The two are paired as surely as wine and cheese, with the inevitable finish in Briançon perhaps representing the grapes, crackers or even a digestif. Take your pick. Food-based metaphors aside, Bobet revelled in this territory, engineering stage wins and yellow jersey assaults on the slopes of these climbs. So much so…

Vintage year? Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe’s Aleksandr Vlasov cuts through the vineyards south of Dijon in the individual time trial on stage seven, tracked by the Tour’s ever-present TV cameras. Green real deal Eritrea’s Biniam Girmay proves his stage three win was no fluke as he outpaces Jasper Philipsen to the line in Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises on stage eight. White lines The chemins blancs near Troyes produced a spectacular stage that tested riders’ bike handling skills as well as their power output – and resulted in another French winner. 35 and counting Every member of Astana-Qazaqstan was thanked by Mark Cavendish after his 35th stage win, including Davide Ballerini. The Italian rider actually finished 157th, but still got a celebratory hug.…

Just like any other key moment in British history, cycling fans will remember where they were when Mark Cavendish crossed the finish line to take his record-breaking 35th Tour de France stage win in Saint-Vulbas in the heart of the Ain department. Hundreds of miles away in northern England, Tour of Britain race director Rod Ellingworth was getting twitchy on the sofa as the peloton tore into the final kilometre with Cavendish locked onto Jasper Philipsen’s back wheel. “Myself and the family were jumping around with 500-600 metres to go,” Ellingworth told Cycling Weekly. “Afterwards my initial reaction was just being in awe of what he had done. “There was that moment afterwards when he walked back down through the peloton and everyone was hugging him or high-fiving him, or…

There are two versions of this story. One is honest, the other is fanciful, but only one turns out to be true. It’s been three years since the 2021 Tour and Mark Cavendish’s return to winning ways after a five-year wait full of setbacks. That shockingly unexpected victory in Fougères ahead of Nacer Bouhanni and Jasper Philipsen sparked a winning streak that yielded a total of four wins, taking Cavendish to the brink of bettering The Merckx Record (as it suddenly became known). But then the Cavendish comeback, as brilliant as it had been, stalled. In 2022, conscious that he was probably not going to be selected by his Deceuninck Quick-Step team ahead of Fabio Jakobsen, he delivered a savage victory on the eve of the Tour at the British…

Jess Roberts has come a long way since the Tokyo Olympics. In 2021, the 25-year-old was off the bike, barely training due to mental and physical toils. Three years on, the Welshwoman was among the final 12 names announced for GB’s Paris Olympics squad last Thursday, as part of the endurance team. “It has been a bit of a rocky road,” Roberts told Cycling Weekly. “The last Olympics, I wasn’t even riding my bike. I took a break from the sport, from cycling, I was struggling with my mental health and I had a bit of an injury too. I took six months out from training but basically a year out of racing. “That break was the best thing that could have happened to me, and helped me get to…

The reaction from the team car following the peloton got me laughing. Then riders stopping to congratulate him – wonderful to see. Ellen Croxon His win is even more remarkable when you see all the sprinters that he beat. There aren’t words left to do justice to his achievement. Martin Hickson Absolutely fantastic, seeing him thread his way through the riders to hit the front reminded me of George Best scything through defences. A piece of sheer genius. Dave Perris Amazing, I really couldn’t see this happening, but fair play to him, and huge kudos to Astana for going all in on him. Probably the only team in the peloton prepared to give him the opportunity to go for the record. Martin Moore Lots of Greek riders were lucky to…

Sunday, July 7 • Fete du Velo Criteriums (Redbourn, Hertfordshire): Men 2, 3, 4: 1. James McCormick (Finchley RT); 2. M. Wilson (Ride Revolution Coaching); 3. A. Peet (Reflex Racing); 4. T. Timberlake (Trash Mile); 5. M. Watson (Ride Revolution Coaching); 6. K. Jarvis (Optimum Coaching). Women 2, 3, 4: 1. Sophie Holmes (Saint Piran WRT); 2. A. Kolbert (Team Pau); 3. E. Morris (Brother UK-OnForm); 4. A. Butcher (Wilfox x Pedal Mafia RT); 5. R. Babbage (Team Boompods); 6. E. Inglis (Brother UK-OnForm). • Sam Robinson Memorial Road Race (Balfron Campus, Stirlingshire): 2, 3, 4: 1. Alexander Ball (Project 1 CT); 2. F. McHenry (The Cycling Academy); 3. H. MacLaren (unattached) all same time; 4. E. Bain (Glasgow Univ CC) +4.00; 5. N. Scott (Deeside Thistle CC); 6. O.…

There are a number of reasons why your chain might fall off – rough roads, a badly timed gear change, badly adjusted gear mechs and, of course, karma. In more or less all cases the procedure to replace it is the same. First, swear loudly. Then frantically try to use the front mech to fix it. Slam the mech to the opposite side of the chainset to the uselessly flapping chain and mash the pedals as hard as you can. This will almost certainly not get the chain back on, but it might snap the front mech and give you something to really cry about. Assuming that doesn’t work, reach down, grab the chain and stuff it vaguely in the direction of a chainring. One of two things will happen.…

SOMEC, from Lugo di Romagna in Italy, is unusual in the Italian artisanal bike building field, as it’s not named after the founder, Oliviero Gallegati, but rather the SOcietà MECcanica that he founded in 1973. Gallegati had been a mechanic working on the Giro d’Italia and was a welder at a local company. He was also coach of a local cycling team. He was best known for building beautifully crafted, bespoke bikes, but could also be viewed as the grandfather of modern bike-fit after inventing a tool called the Ciclomaster. This was a static bike that could take the measurements of a rider by adjusting the ‘frame’ until a perfect fit was arrived at. This 1983 bike, photographed at Golden Age Cycles, is constructed from Columbus tubing and features the…

The air was filled with a cocktail of both disbelief and relief in Saint-Vulbas last week, when Mark Cavendish, at 39 years old, sprinted to a record-breaking 35th stage win at the Tour de France. It was a distinctly ordinary setting for history to take place. Beside an industrial park on a newly tarmacked road, fans scaled mosscovered trees to get a better view of the finish line. There were no bars, restaurants or boulangeries to pass the time, only the suspense of an impending bunch sprint, and a chance to see a record broken. The arrival of the pack was signalled by a voice over the tannoy. People pressed tighter against the barriers, and watched on the big screens as Cavendish surfed his way through the bunch, weaving right…

Mark Cavendish may finish his professional cycling career at September’s Tour of Britain. Rod Ellingworth, the race’s organiser, and the man who masterminded the Manxman’s win in the 2011 Road Race World Championships, told Cycling Weekly that the national Tour would love to have Cavendish and his Astana-Qazaqstan team at the race. “He will get an invite,” Ellingworth confirmed. “I’m totally open to it.” Astana’s team boss Alexander Vinokourov told CW that the team don’t yet have the British race on their programme but that they would be willing to take part depending on “what Mark expects and wants to do”. If the Kazakh team does not participate, then Cavendish will still be welcome at the race, Ellingworth said. “The invite will definitely be there, on or off the bike.…

• Stage 4 It was a short but brutal day. I got the nod from the climbers that they didn’t need anything else once we were a few kilometres into the Galibier, so it was gruppetto time. Sometimes you climb too well and actually miss the chance to join a nice gruppetto and sit in the wheels. We all agreed in our group that it didn’t feel like stage four, more like 14. • Stage 5 It was at around 50km to go that I had my first bit of bad luck in the Tour. Out of nowhere we were squeezing around a bit of road furniture and Tadej [Pogačar] was almost sideways in front of me, no idea how he held it up. Definitely lost one of his nine…

Tom Pidcock of Ineos Grenadiers glances behind at Movistar’s Alex Aranburu as the pair are briefly gapped on a section of gravel, or chemins blancs, on stage nine. Pidcock made the day’s crucial breakaway, and was part of the group of nine which contested the win. He appeared to be dropped a few times during the brutal day’s racing, but later explained that it was a tactic to save himself for the finish. He did not shy from the wind, however, unlike Aranburu, on his wheel. “It’s always difficult, but you’ve got to understand that everyone in the group is also there to win, so you have to play a little bit,” Pidcock said post-stage. “When I’m in a group, I never really show how I’m really feeling and I…

• Drop the ego. Don’t get hung up on what your FTP or weight used to be 10 years ago. Your current numbers are just a baseline from which to move forward. • Stick to the plan. Get a training and nutrition plan that works for you and your life commitments, and stick to it. • Ask for help. Taking on a big challenge can be daunting, so speak to people who’ve done it before. Cyclists are a friendly bunch and almost always willing to offer advice and share experience. • Trust in the process. Progress can sometimes seem slow, but it’s still progress and the results will come eventually. • Mindset is everything. There will be ups and downs; what matters most is how we react to them. •…

Location: Birmingham Web: halesowencycling.net The story of the jersey “The club jersey was for many years a plain purple coloured jersey,” club chair David Viner tells Cycling Weekly. But the jersey has morphed over the years from plain purple to the busy item it is today. It carries more than a nod to a certain Nineties Paris-Roubaix winning pro team thanks to its Mapei sponsorship. This began in 2020 and signalled, of course, a new jersey to incorporate the new sponsor. ‘Academy’ has been part of the design since 2015 when the club took on that designation. The kit is produced by Pro Vision. The story of the club Halesowen formed in 1943, and as part of the Halesowen Athletic and Cycling Club it owns its own velodrome at Manor Abbey…