Innehållsförteckning för Issue 33 från Cyclist Australia

Forget the Giro d’Italia and the fact Chris Froome became one of just three riders to hold all Grand Tour trophies at the same time. The circumstances in which he achieved his record-breaking feat (he also became the first Brit to win the Giro) were astounding. But now, it’s time for the race that really stops the nation: Le Tour de France. Australia’s affinity with the world’s biggest race is stronger than many would appreciate. Sure, we recall Cadel and his victory in 2011, but what about those who paved the way for others to shine? Guys like Snowy, Don and Oppy. Read more about Aussies at the Tour on page 66. While Le Tour captures our imagination, in real life we’re still venturing off-road and experiencing the wonders of…

The LR is the latest addition to the Stages Power portfolio and, as the name suggests, it measures power on both left and right legs. By measuring both sides independently, you can harvest reams of extra data about your pedalling technique while adding just 35g to the system weight of the crankset, making it one of the lightest dual-sided power meters available. When Stages first entered the market, its intention was to make power meters more affordable by putting all the gubbins in the left crank only. As such, the LR could be viewed as a departure from the brand’s original principles, however Stages has shrewdly made the new LR system modular. That means you can still buy the single-sided Stages L power meter from as little as $729, then…

Women are different to men. It’s not just about chromosome combinations and the ability to multitask – women tend to have differently shaped bodies. The question is whether those bodies are different enough to warrant a specific bicycle frame geometry designed just for women. It’s a question that has become particularly pertinent of late, as some of the biggest bike brands have recently changed their attitudes towards women-specific bikes. Only a couple of years ago, Canyon had no specific offering for women (beyond adding women-friendly components to a standard frame), but now the German company has released a women-specific variant of all of its road frames, with slightly altered geometry to the original versions. Canyon concluded that women of the same height as men are lighter, have shorter arms and…

I checked the NSW National Parks website a few days before we embarked for Yengo to find out a little more about the area, which is situated two hours north of Sydney’s CBD. It read: ‘Yengo National Park is a rugged landscape of steep gorges and rocky ridges just waiting to be explored by 4WD, car, mountain bike or foot.’ Further down the page, it suggested that visitors should ‘get off-road on 4WD trails or grab a mountain bike and visit for the day.’ All this mountain bike talk made me think this particular ride wasn’t going to be your typical picturesque cruise along pristine roads. It was going to be a tough slog. What we found, however, was a world beyond the realms of what we, a trio of…

The Canyon Grail was the perfect machine for this off-road adventure. There are no compromises when it comes to bike choice in the Yengo. Adventure, CX or gravel – whatever you or your mates call it, just ensure you’re properly equipped. Discs, robust tubeless tyres and plenty of gears. Anything else and you’ll be in for a tough – or perhaps tougher – day. The Grail turned heads during its March 2018 release thanks to its unique Hover handlebar (or the ‘bunkbed’, as a friend of mine refers to it). The purpose of the riser bar is to position the rider upright when riding on the flats and to provide some extra cushioning thanks to the extra flex in the bars. The height discrepancy was a fun novelty when repositioning…

As far as cycling hot spots go, Chiang Rai probably isn’t high on your radar. Up until recently, it wasn’t high on mine either. That, however, has changed. A few key words come to mind when describing my dream cycling destination: exotic, mountainous, inexpensive, warm, quiet, safe. Chiang Rai ticks all these boxes and more. Chiang Rai is the northernmost city in Thailand, about 65km south of the Myanmar and Laos borders. The next major city south of there is Chiang Mai, which you’ve probably heard of either as a tourism hot spot or through the exploits of social media personality Durianrider. Or perhaps you’ll remember Cyclist’s visit (issue #14) a couple of years ago, when we took on the country’s tallest mountain, Doi Inthanon. Chiang Mai is well-known as…

I am not a violent person, but I swear if one more person tells me a 48-tooth chainring is too small, I might well remove said chainring and beat them with it. When I first rode the Strada in a group, I found myself constantly being drawn into the same conversation. It would start with someone saying, ‘Ooh, is that the new 3T?’ I would respond in the affirmative, and then they would say, ‘Wow, it looks really cool.’ I would agree that, yes, it does look cool. And then, without fail, would come the comment, ‘Not sure about the 1x drivetrain, though.’ The main objection seemed to be that the single chainring wouldn’t be ‘fast enough’. I’m not even sure what this means. After all, the number of teeth…

Since Pinarello won its first Grand Tour at the 1975 Vuelta a España, the Italian marque has been famous for producing pure race bikes. Its latest road bike, the F10, won the Tour de France with Chris Froome in 2017, and when the company announced a new launch late last year we assumed it would be another thoroughbred race machine, designed to propel the world’s top pros to victory. We assumed wrong. The Nytro is an e-road bike – a road bike with a motor that can aid the rider’s own pedalling inputs. The e-bike market is growing fast, but the e-road sector of that market is still very much in its infancy, which makes it all the more interesting that a traditional brand such as Pinarello should be jumping…

When Specialized unveiled the ‘Win Tunnel’, a custom-built wind-tunnel, at its Morgan Hill headquarters in the USA, we wondered if it was a marketing gimmick. It wasn’t. Since then, Specialized has barely released a single product without it being honed for aerodynamic efficiency, and the latest item to come slip-sliding through its Win Tunnel doors is the updated Evade helmet. ‘The head is a very poor aerodynamic shape,’ says Chris Yu, director of integrated technologies at Specialized. ‘It’s basically like a bowling ball, and that’s a very inefficient shape, so the best aerodynamic helmet will reduce the drag of your head, essentially turning it into an aerofoil.’ The company claimes the Evade II is the fastest helmet it has ever tested, with the Win Tunnel data suggesting it will save…

The peloton is a living, dynamic organism, with its own rules, etiquette and hierarchy. It adapts not only to external forces such as terrain and weather, but also to the whims of its member parts. It offers shelter and camaraderie, support and sustenance. And yet a certain breed of rider can’t wait to get away from it as quickly as possible. Until recently, ‘the day’s breakaway’ was always firmly established by the time live TV coverage started. The high-speed to-ing and fro-ing between the gravitational pull of the peloton and its maverick satellites remained a mystery until broadcasters started showing Grand Tour stages from start to finish. And then the full, frantic hurly-burly was at last revealed to all. To escape the peloton is one of the toughest challenges in…

The 105th edition of the 21-stage Tour de France is just around the corner. Stage 1 is scheduled for Saturday, July 7 on the island of Ile de Noirmoutier off the Atlantic coast of France. A good deal of the focus in the Tour lead-up this year has been upon the embattled Team Sky rider, and four-time Tour de France champion, Chris Froome. Sadly, the spectre of alleged anti-doping rules violations is rarely absent from professional cycling news for long. The excitement around the biggest events on the calendar in this sport only serves to amplify that focus. Of course, the history of drugs and doping in the Tour de France is well-known by now. But the Tour has always generated a much bigger narrative. One of the reasons the…

BASE LAYER ‘Additional layers might seem counterintuitive but a base layer absorbs sweat and helps regulate body temperature by wicking moisture away from the skin,’ says Team Sky’s Conor Taylor. ELECTROLYTES During a turbo session you sweat a lot more than you would riding outside. ‘Adding effervescent hydration tablets to your water bottle is a good move,’ says Sky’s Taylor. ‘It helps replace the electrolytes you lose through sweat so you maintain your hydration status. This prevents cramp and could promote recovery.’ STEP LADDER After he fractured his arm, Mat Hayman used a step ladder next to his bike on which to rest his cast. ‘The different steps let me change how I bore the weight throughout a session. My coach took a photo, which I was pretty embarrassed about,…

Departing from downtown Chiang Rai, follow Klang Wiang Road north and across the Kok River. After approximately 4km you’ll intersect Phahonyothin Road, a major road that continues north and across the border into Laos. This road can be quite busy, but there’s a generous bike lane. Veer left at the fork around the 30km point and continue through Thanchanok Village for another 10km. At this point you’ll find yourself at the base of the Doi Tung. Take a sharp left onto road 1149, an incredible stretch of hot-mix tarmac that meanders all the way to the top of Doi Tung. This ridgeline separates Myanmar and Laos and lasts for approximately 37km. Then, veer right and head through Ban Pha Mee Efficency-Tourism Park and back east towards Phahonyothin Road. Follow for…

I wanted a challenge – something of significance to mark my 50th birthday. With the 50th anniversary of Tom Simpson’s death in July, 1967 on Mont Ventoux, the Giant of Provence seemed appropriate. And so, in April last year, I wake up to a cold spring morning with clear blue skies. It’s a brisk 10° at the base of the climb and a chilly 3° at the top of the mountain. Perfect weather for the time of year. The pre-climb advice was to keep the speed up, and a sub-two-hour climb was achievable. However, my lack of training over the preceding two weeks and the amount of French food I had consumed meant speed wouldn’t come as easy as I had hoped. I leave Bedoin and the early progress is…

For those still scrubbing speed with rubber against rim, direct-mount brakes (originally pioneered by Shimano) are now the preferred choice on many modern frame designs. Sram claims its S-900 direct mount callipers make for firmer braking with improved modulation compared to standard rim brakes, with tyre clearance of up to 28mm. They’re sold individually, come fitted with SwissStop Flash Pro pads and weigh a svelte 326g for the pair, so should make the perfect match for any of Sram’s top-tier groupsets.…

Pinching at its worst at 23% in gradient, Steep Hill Road is, indeed, steep. It was the first major climb on this year’s edition of Gravelaide in South Australia. I had parked at the top and walked down to the steepest part of the climb to capture the different faces of riders coming through. As well as being steep, the surface is loose and chunky, and if you don’t get the line right you’d become one of the many left walking. The view from where I was perched is impressive, with the Adelaide plains stretching out in every direction. The rider to the left had stopped to take it all in, and as Adam Lana from Curve Cycling came by, he sighted the camera and decided it was the perfect…

If you really had to choose – and we’re asking you to right now – which climb used by the Tour de France would you pick as the most iconic between Mont Ventoux and Alpe d’Huez? The Ventoux, of course, sticks out – and up – like a sore thumb, towering over the Provençal landscape with its white moonscape summit and red-and-white-striped candy-cane observation tower on top. But ‘The Giant of Provence’ also has its dark side: 2017 marked the 50th anniversary of British pro Tom Simpson’s death. It’s a horror few other mountains have to shoulder. Alpe d’Huez, in the heart of the French Alps, meanwhile, is all hairpin bends and party time. Arguably the most terrible thing to have happened there is what happened to Giuseppe Guerini at…

Turbo trainers haven’t always been considered valuable training tools. The first stationary cycling devices appeared back in the 1880s, but the 1896 edition of the Badminton Library (a rather quirky series of sports books) concluded home trainers to be ‘odd contrivances’ whose value to racing cyclists was ‘practically nil’. Try telling that to Mitchelton-Scott pro Mat Hayman, who returned from injury to win the 2016 edition of Paris-Roubaix after six weeks training exclusively on a turbo. A turbo may have turned around Hayman’s fortunes but they are still viewed with suspicion by some cyclists, who see them either as a cop-out for those too feeble to brave bad weather or as instruments of torture for lonely masochists. To win these people round, the industry is turning to technology to prove…

The Swedish are obsessed by light. When Cyclist visits Stockholm just after midsummer, there’s an uncommon clarity to the light in this part of the world that’s infectious – it can’t fail but make you feel optimistic. It’s no real surprise, then, that the HQ of Poc, a brand totally and utterly Swedish by its own admission, luxuriates in a huge amount of natural light. It provides a sense of calm in the working environment, yet considering the growth trajectory of the relatively young brand over the past few years, efficiency doesn’t seem to have been dulled by the relaxed atmosphere. ‘I’d pin the root cause of our development on our inherent Swedishness,’ says Poc’s global PR manager, Damian Phillips. It’s an intriguing comment considering Phillips is from Wales. He…

An Australian brand with its head office in my home town of Perth, I’ve been working with AURA Cycles to develop their adventure fleet of bikes for the last 18 months. This trip, being a little different to the remote adventures I normally complete, opened up the opportunity for me to ride AURA’s ultra-light Ionos HC frameset. The groupset was made up almost entirely of Ultegra’s 6870 Di2, with the exception of the crank, which I opted for the ever-reliable Verve InfoCrank. Chainring configurations were relatively standard with a 53x39 at the front and an 11x28 at the rear. My wheels of choice were the HED Belgium Plus laced to White Industries T11 hubs and clad in Vittoria’s Rubino Pro rubber. A little sceptical that the gearing I had chosen…

The new Diverge is an interesting, albeit somewhat confusing, sign of the times. It sits in a space between road bikes and… just about everything else. With wide 38mm tyres, a suspension unit in the steerer tube and even a dropper seatpost, the S-Works Diverge is an abomination to the road bike purist. Sometimes, though, rules have to be broken. When the original Diverge was released in 2014, Specialized saw it as a niche product, to the extent that the US company was reluctant to export it outside of the country. However, its popularity surprised everyone, to the point where road category product manager, John Cordoba, now believes, ‘The Diverge will be biggest category in two to three years.’ While the previous iteration of the Diverge fitted squarely into the…