Innehållsförteckning för January 16, 2025 från Cycling Weekly

The UCI recently released a batch of updates to its regulations. Some were simple rewordings or clarifications, but one caught our eye. It covers sprints in road races, and penalises riders who endanger others by decelerating. It lists talking on radios, knowingly staying within the line of other riders, and “celebrating in the bunch” as ways they might do this. Therefore, a rider putting their hands in the air as their team-mate wins in front of them could find themselves fined and relegated to the back of the group. There were many people online quick to criticise the UCI and its rules, but this one makes sense. It doesn’t change the outcome of a race, and the sport as a spectacle isn’t losing anything. The UCI shouldn’t have to wait…

Junior world champion Cat Ferguson will make her Movistar road debut this season at the Classic Brugge-De Panne, she revealed to Cycling Weekly. The event will be the 18-year-old’s first at WorldTour level, after she competed in – and won – second-tier professional races while interning for the Spanish squad last autumn. “My road season starts quite late – 27 March is my first race,” Ferguson said. “It’s a bit scary, but it should be fun.” The teenager’s delayed start comes so that she can focus on cyclo-cross this winter. Immediately after finishing runner-up at the British National Championships on Sunday, she flew to Valencia to join a Movistar team camp, and will compete in the UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup in Benidorm on 19 January. She will then race in…

Neve Bradbury (Canyon//SRAM zondacrypto) Last year was the 22-year-old’s breakout season, with Bradbury winning stages at the Giro d’Italia and Tour de Suisse, as well as finishing on the overall podium at both, and second in the under-23 category at the World Championships. The Australian finished third last year at her home stage race, and will be in fine form having come off the back of the Australian Nationals, and aiming to impress. CW rating ★★★ Niamh Fisher-Black (Lidl-Trek) Having moved from SD Worx-Protime to Lidl-Trek in the off-season, it is a new start for the New Zealander, who will be expecting more GC opportunities this year. The 24-year-old will also be coming off the back of her own National Championships. A tip for the Willunga stage. CW rating ★★★★…

In case visiting squares isn’t enough to satisfy your exploration cravings, you can take things even further thanks to an app called Wandrer. The US-based app creators say, rather elegantly, that Wandrer is “meant to encourage you to take a small action against going where you’d normally go”. That’s a great way of putting it, we think, playing perfectly into the microadventures sentiment. Instead of recording your activities in terms of tiles visited, Wandrer records roads ridden. It shows you new roads you’ve ridden in any given activity, and keeps a tally of percentages of rideable roads and trails ridden in your local area, wider region, your country and even the entire world. Now, clearly, cyclists love their numbers and their rankings, ergo Wandrer has leaderboards aplenty, as well as…

The main use for the phrase “a keen cyclist” is when your friends are talking about you. As in, “Michael is a really keen cyclist.” This has the implication that “keen” is very much not the same thing as “good”. If you described your 10-year-old as an enthusiastic accordion player, it would not inspire very many of us to ask them to play the old Channel 4 Tour de France theme tune. It also means your friends think you do too much of it. When you’re not within earshot they’ll swap “keen” for “obsessive” or “fanatical”. These are calculated to imply a damaging habit, at which you are nonetheless not improving. The truth is that very few people who are actually keen on cycling ever describe themselves as keen on…

Merseyside has a rich history of framebuilding. Craftsmen from Jim Soens to Harry Quinn, Jim Fothergill to Terry Dolan have all plied their trade in the area that has produced more than its fair share of great British riders over the years. And you can add Bill and George Hewitt to the list for good measure. The Hewitt brothers took over Clifton Cycles in the 1940s, but the marque’s roots in Birkenhead go back as far as the late 19th century. Their bike shop, which included a workshop where they built the frames, was initially located in the Haymarket. However, when construction of the Mersey tunnel began in the 1960s and approach roads were built, the brothers were required to move to Grange Mount. The differing addresses on the head…

Cold day in the sun Bahrain Victorious practise riding the cobbles during a January team training camp in Altea, on Spain’s Mediterranean coast. The squad will be hoping to better their 13 victories from 2024. Coming up for air Dylan Sullivan of CTW Racing gasps for air during the British National Cyclo-cross Championships last weekend. The under-14 rider finished 41st on the day in Gravesend, Kent. Turbo cooldown Luke Durbridge of Jayco-Alula celebrates victory at the Australian National Road Championships in Perth by emptying a bottle of water on his face. This was the 33-year-old’s second Nationals win. Nys smile A mud-spattered Thibau Nys savours his triumph at the Belgian National Cyclo-cross Championships. The 22-year-old followed in his father, Sven’s, footsteps by winning the title. Turner speed At the GP…

Cameron Mason (Seven Racing) had time to savour his third straight British National CX Championship victory on Sunday. He weaved along the finish straight, soft-pedalled over the line, and then perched to rest on the steps of the podium, waiting for the second and third placed riders to finish so the medal ceremony could begin. Winning by over three minutes, the Scot had pulled off his most dominant margin yet. He raced supremely throughout the hour-long event in Gravesend, leading solo for half the race after his main rival, the 2022 champion Thomas Mein (Hope Factory Racing), crashed and abandoned. “Every single one it gets a little bit more pressured, but it also gets a bit easier, because I’ve already done it twice before,” Mason said afterwards. “I knew what…

On the first day of January, Team Picnic PostNL gave to me: 12 pairs of socks, 11 casual T-shirts, 10 fresh new bidons, nine pairs of shorts, eight national jerseys, seven pairs of glasses, six sets of gloves, five new helmets, four suitcases, three pairs of shoes, two new Wahoos and a brand new Lapierre bike! In the world of cycling, 1 January always means new kit day. A day where freshly packaged aero socks are unfolded, crisp jerseys are donned, and a day where Instagram has to put up with an endless stream of head shots of riders in their new uniform. It’s the only day of the year where you get a medal for riding 150W for a minute (thanks Training Peaks) and where everything I own is…

Sometimes you have to feel sorry for Belgium. It has so much going for it – not least triple-cooked chips, Trappist beer and Eddy Merckx – yet often it’s reduced to being to a unit of measurement. Perhaps most famously, the Amazon rainforest has lost an area the size of Belgium. But there have also been reports of an oil slick the size of Belgium, and an iceberg even bigger than Belgium. Now, though, there’s another. This little country in the north of Europe, centre of culture and economics, is being compared to a max square. You’re probably wondering what on earth a max square is, unless, that is, you happen to enjoy tiling. Tiling, in the context of cycling, involves ‘ticking off’ map squares by riding through them. The…

“This way,” our guide Giovanni Riccadonna pointed to a black, wooded track that wove steeply up from the side of the main road. It was hard to tell whether he was serious, because he’d been jokingly directing us up vertiginous walking paths and MTB trails all day. Now, though, it was 7pm, and the skies, heavy and dark, had opened. We were supposed to have arrived at our accommodation four hours ago. Thirty kilometres earlier, as the light had begun to soften, we’d stopped at a viewpoint where a waterfall thundered down to the river below. “Ten kilometres more,” Giovanni had told us. “Plus or minus.” I’d come to Trentino in northern Italy to ride the Doga alpine cycling route, a 110km course from the foreboding Brenta Dolomites to the…

Five things you need to know about… BASSO SEMPRE VELOCE £8,999 | 6.7KG A new ‘rider-focused’ ethos makes the Sempre Veloce a modern rig for the masses Frameset: Basso Sempre Veloce Cockpit: Basso Fuga integrated Groupset: Shimano Dura Ace Di2 Wheelset: DT Swiss ARC 1100 Tyres: Continental GP5000 28mm 1 A race bike that’s NOT for the WorldTour Instead of adopting an aggressive race geometry or an endurance-focused approach, Basso has identified a gap in the market for what it calls a ‘riderfocused performance bike’. The philosophy behind this design is simple: WorldTour bikes are often too aggressive for everyday riders, so Basso has crafted a bike that’s slightly softer to ride, and more practical. 2 Hand-built for the customer No bike geometry suits everyone perfectly out of the box,…

Andy Nichols used this Orbea Orca for road racing before turning it into a hill-climb bike last year. Sourcing some of the cheapest carbon pieces he could find, he turned it into a bona fide hill-climb special, complete with a 90mm deep section front that he added, he says, “for comic effect”. The gears are Shimano Ultegra 6800. The 90mm front wheel is Farsports with Continental GP5000 and TPU tube, while the rear is custom built, running a Vittoria Corsa Speed tub. Want us to feature your race bike? Send a pic and information to cycling@futurenet.com…

Having never finished on the podium before at an Elite National Cyclo-cross Championships, Xan Crees would have been delighted with any medal at Sunday’s event in Gravesend, Kent. So it was to her tearful surprise, and that of her Spectra Racing team, when she won gold, holding off two newly minted WorldTour riders in Cat Ferguson (Movistar) and Imogen Wolff (Visma-Lease a Bike). Ahead of the race, Crees warmed up shoulder-to-shoulder with her team-mates under a large gazebo. They laughed among themselves, as if free from expectation. A few steps along the road, yet somehow a world away, Wolff enjoyed the luxury of a private tent, assisted by two Visma-Lease a Bike mechanics, who had come in two team vans. The strength of the pack’s two WorldTour riders became clear…

1 Can Williams defend his title? Last year’s Tour Down Under represented the start of Stevie Williams’s best year yet, as the Welsh Israel-Premier Tech rider won his first WorldTour stage race in the hills around Adelaide. The 28-year-old went on to win Flèche Wallonne and the Tour of Britain Men in a successful season. This year’s course, with its mix of punchy hills and proper climbs, should suit him. He certainly knows how to do it, although he’ll have to get past 2023’s winner Jay Vine, too, who has the extra incentive of being the home favourite. 2 FDJ-Suez’s new start This is an important season for FDJ-Suez, with their big signing of Demi Vollering, a switch to Specialized, a deal with Nike, and all the attention that comes…

Because that’s the danger, not the fact that UCI still puts riders through tight finishing courses with plenty of road furniture in the way. Claudio Tommasi My feeling is that if their socks are the correct length they should be able to celebrate. Shane Bogan Has a team-mate ever celebrated a win and taken down another rider? Matthew East If this had caused a nasty, high-profile crash that was all over Instagram, then everyone would be saying the rider shouldn’t have done it. People have to see an accident happen before calling for change. Laura Chapman This appears to be an attempt to stop riders “decelerating during a sprint and endangering other riders”, which is a good thing. Michael Jonathan To claim it’s a team sport, and then penalise the…

Scan to see all our routes on Komoot How to get there Milan’s two airports (three hours’ drive from Malé) are well-served by flights from the UK. We returned from Verona, which is an hour from Arco. Flights from London start from around £85 return. Bolzano airport, which has direct flights to London, is 1hr 15min from Arco. Where to stay In Malé, we stayed at Hotel Michela (hotelmichela.com), where prices start from £110 per night. Seven-room, family-run guesthouse Agriturismo B&B Casariga in Poia was our base for the second night (casariga.com). Prices start from £153 per night. In Arco, we stayed at outdoorholiday-makers’ favourite Hoody Active & Happiness Hotel (hoodyhotel.com). Prices start from £84 per night. Bike rental We rode gravel bikes hired from Skiarea Sport Shop (skiareasportshop.com), costing…

The humble pump has been around for just about as long as pneumatic tyres themselves, but technology never stands still. Over the last few years, we have seen an influx of small, electronic tyre-inflating options, and as the technology improves they are becoming genuinely pocket-sized. Hoto Tools, winner of multiple design awards, has been in this space for a little while now, but its most recent release has our heads turning. The Air Pump Pocket is about the size of a thick wallet and will put 30 PSI in a 23c tyre in just 25 seconds at the touch of a button. Couple that with a battery big enough to inflate 18 road bike tyres from flat, and this might just be practical enough to replace a mini pump. It…

Despite the recent wintry weather, time trial riders across the country are preparing for early-season events, several of which have taken place for many years. Aside from New Year’s Day events, the traditional season-opening Ely and District CC Hardriders is the first event in just over three weeks’ time. “We have the usual range of people from the length and breadth of the country, and various ages too, all of whom want to come out here and beast themselves on a cold February morning!” said organiser Simon Butteriss. The event uses the BS19 course, a 25-miler using country roads to the north of the Cambridgeshire town. St Ives CC 13-year-old Bo Jeffery is currently the youngest entrant for this year’s event, while 73-year-old Peter Tibbitts (Ford CC) also hopes to…

It’s amazing what cyclists – and apparently runners too – can come up with to keep themselves entertained during the colder months of the off-season. In this case, two wheels line up against two legs in a ‘runners vs riders’ race in Oxford in 1934. While it’s not something you’ll see often, this was far from a unique occasion. There have been plenty of similar events over the years and they still exist. The most recent one we could turn up was the Irvine Running Club ‘Cyclists vs Harriers’ event, which was held in December and has been in existence for 65 years. Perhaps even further out of left-field were the now-defunct runner vs horse vs bike races that even managed to find their way into the pages of this…