Innehållsförteckning för Issue 41 från Cyclist Australia

THE ULTIMATE MTB STAGE RACING EXPERIENCE The Great Australian Outback, for visitors and locals alike, is what makes this giant island nation so unique. But the bush is just one aspect of Far North Queensland that makes the Crocodile Trophy arguably one of the most true blue experiences you could have on a bike. From sun-scorched trails through to lush rainforests filled with world-class single track and even a final stage along Port Douglas beach, this year’s eight-day Crocodile Trophy or three-day Croc Elements is one to seriously consider. Celebrating its 25th edition, this iconic event isn’t just for the die-hard off-road racers, the Croc is a cycling adventure that is about far more than just what happens on the bike. From the first night in camp – in your…

In the beginning there was only Garmin. Then came Wahoo, Lezyne, Bryton and a host of other cycling computer brands, and the US giant had a fight on its hands. Garmin’s 830 is an attempt to remind everyone who is boss, and does a pretty good job of it too. Weighing just 82g on the Cyclist scales and with a relatively compact 2.6in screen, the Garmin 830 could be forgiven for having minimal mapping functionality. But as soon as the 830’s bright and colourful 246 x 322 pixel screen comes to life, it’s clear that this is one advanced piece of kit. The 830 is essentially a smaller version of the 1030, complete with live segments, live tracking, ultra-fast route planning, incident detection, nutrition tracking and even a bike alarm…

Fittingly, 100%’s new S3 sunglasses take inspiration from three models that have come before them. They have the nose bridge and intake vents of the Speedcraft, the rimless lower lens of the S2 and the coverage of the massive Glendale. 100% says the main benefits of this combination are ventilation and an unrestricted field of vision. The lens is scratch-resistant, hydrophobic and oleophobic, so repels oil, dirt and water. What’s more, the HiPER variant shown here boosts contrast so road surfaces stand out and it’s easier to transition from light into shade at speed. This will be useful, as anyone hoping to pull off glasses this bold had better be prepared to ride fast.…

The Mawson Trail – upon which BikeSA’s 15-day ‘Outback Odyssey’ bike adventure takes place – was named after Antarctic explorer and geologist Douglas Mawson, whose famous expedition was the subject of David Roberts’ book Alone on the Ice: The Greatest Survival Story in the History of Explorationand whose image appeared on the Australian $100 note from 1984 to 1996. Reading into some of this history – and the fact this is a 900km point-to-point trail – really piqued my interest, and I had to sign up. When I first heard of the Mawson Trail, it sounded like a hell of an adventure. Just looking at it on a map you can see it covers a significant chunk of South Australia, which isn’t exactly a small place. I join the ride…

It’s the night before the second and final stage of the Tour de Yorkshire and Lizzie Deignan and her Trek-Segafredo teammates have no idea what’s coming. Having endured a wet first stage from Barnsley to Bedale, and seen their Italian sprinter Letizia Paternoster rushed to hospital overnight with stomach pains, the depleted five-woman team knows tomorrow’s stage – a 132km slog from Bridlington to Scarborough via the punchy North York Moors – will hurt. But not even Otley-born Deignan could predict the knife-edged headwinds and 50kmh hailstorms that will greet the peloton, when barrelling waves will pound the Yorkshire coastline and blue-lipped riders will shiver up 15% climbs. Trek’s American rider Tayler Wiles will later crown it her ‘worst ever’ day on a bike. ‘I felt a bit empty today,…

‘I used to be a tennis player but my dad was always saying, “Get a bike.” Then I got injured and as part of my rehab I was using a spinning bike in a gym,’ says Scarab Cycles’ Santiago Toro. ‘I was like, “If this thing is interesting staring in a mirror, what about being outside?” I got a bike and now my tennis racquets hang in the hall. ‘Before long I was riding so much that my dad said, “Let’s start a bike business together.” So five years ago I found Agustin, a traditional framebuilder here, one of the last in Colombia. He was not aware of the trends going on around him, so we updated his brand and made a commercial push using new materials and technology. ‘Unfortunately…

Cycling through the wrinkled, coffee-coloured mountains of the Parque Rural de Betancuria, in the volcanic heart of Fuerteventura, I glance up to see two lines of gleaming white pillars curling around the cliffs like rows of teeth. With one set of these stone road barriers curling left, and another higher set sweeping right, it looks as though we’re riding into the jaws of a giant crocodile. The markers trace a stunning strip of tarmac that will take us from the corrugated peaks of the park to the black sea cliffs, fluttering palm fronds and booming surf of the western coastline. With its diverse volcanic landscapes, Fuerteventura – one of the most eastern of the Spanish Canary Islands, less than 100km off the northwest coast of Africa – is full of…

Cycling shoe retention systems seem to change fashion more often than Australian prime ministers. One year it’s all about Boa dials, the next year it’s laces, and now it seems we’re back to Velcro. But Fizik’s Powerstrap is about more than trends. Powerstrap involves a central Velcro strap that wraps around the midfoot, plus a higher strap to secure the instep, which together offer complete control of the fit of the shoe’s upper. The design was originally found on the lower-cost Tempo R5 Powerstrap, but its light weight and improved comfort proved to be a hit with WorldTour pros such as Mikel Landa and Richard Carapaz, so Fizik has now introduced the system to its top-tier R1. That means the shoe includes a stiff unidirectional carbon sole to preserve power…

Jet-washing is bad for bikes, right? Not any more. Muc-Off’s latest release is, it claims, the world’s first ‘bike-specific’ pressure washer. ‘I’ve always been keen to develop this product because there isn’t really anything on the market that’s specific to two wheels,’ says Muc-Off CEO Alex Trimnell. Two years in development, the key is a specific array of spray lances that Muc-Off says can deliver a sufficiently powerful blast to tackle tough grime but not so much as to damage precious bearings and components.…

Cyclist: You and co-founder Gerard Vroomen have been credited with introducing aerodynamic design into modern road bikes with the Cervélo Soloist [launched in 2002]. Do you think we’ve now reached peak aero? Phil White: We all seem to think we’ve reached peak aero, but there’s another level of aero, a whole plateau higher. It’s going to take more engineering to get there, though. I’m working at the moment with a small team doing a bunch of stuff for the Olympics where we’ll see some of that. Right now a lot of companies think, ‘Let’s make an aero shape and put some carbon on it,’ and away it goes. But if you want to make it more aero you’re going to have to put some more engineering into it. It’s going…

With one day remaining of the 1987 Tour de France, the manager of the 7-Eleven team, Jim Ochowicz, was a happy man. The US squad had enjoyed a remarkable race. Davis Phinney and Dag-Otto Lauritzen had both won stages, while the team’s 23-year-old Mexican rider, Raúl Alcalá, had secured the young rider’s competition. For a team that had arrived in Europe for the first time as a professional outfit just two years earlier, such returns on the sport’s grandest of stages represented a huge achievement. Before the final stage into Paris started Ochowicz told his riders he was proud of them. ‘You looked like a team,’ he said. ‘Today, let’s go finish things off.’ That was exactly what they would do. With one-lap remaining of the iconic Champs-Élysées circuit that…

Medellín rises out of the jungle like a comic book city. At its heart are clusters of skyscrapers, yet these slender giants are themselves overlooked by the favelas, whose ramshackle brick-cement houses cling to the upper slopes of the Andes mountains nearly a kilometre higher still. Medellín’s airport is just 35km away, but even in the late evening the journey down National Route 56 – affectionately known to Colombian cyclists as ‘Las Palmas’ – takes over an hour. In another place on Earth, Las Palmas would seem tantalising but quite unsuitable for cycling. It’s a 12km climb from the city’s edge to 2,529m, averaging 7% and peaking at 14%, and is heavily used by a slew of HGVs and breakneck motorists snaking up and down its four lanes. But this…

Drops of rain began to filter through the large flat leaves of the plane trees lining the edge of the road just 150km into Paris-Brest-Paris, 2011. ‘It’s just a cloudburst,’ quipped Andrew, ever optimistic. Together with Gav and Craig, we had paused at the top of a small rise and stood straddling our bikes looking toward the town of Fougeres, our first planned stop on this marathon 1,200km course. Very heavy black clouds loomed ahead, and I would recall this moment distinctly amid the blur of what followed. On the move again, larger cold rain drops began to sting our bare arms and legs. A few kilometres later and we were shrugging into a racing cape, fumbling for clear lenses and pulling cap brims lower. By the time we had…

While we should probably take their opinions with a grain of salt, several Specialized-sponsored pro riders have been raving about these tubeless tyres. The pros may actually be on to something, though. The RapidAirs have been designed with a supple crown, thicker sidewalls and a casing made from two layers instead of the more typical three. The manufacturer says this means the new tyres corner better, install easier, seal punctures better (thanks to a developed-in-house sealant for an additional $15) and have lower rolling resistance than any other tyre their pros have raced. Are they good enough to prompt the professionals to fully renounce their beloved tubulars? Only time will tell.…

The Core collection aims to offer a taste of Rapha for a little less cash. It launched a few years ago with a jersey and bibshorts, but the range has expanded steadily and now comes the biggest overhaul since its introduction. The new Core line offers multiple bibshorts designs and a totally new version of the original Core jersey. The latter takes styling cues from the Classic jersey, with a white band on the left sleeve that matches the white branding. Rapha says it has designed the body fabric with a softer, stretchier marl fabric, and incorporated several fit refinements. Crucially the price has dropped to $105, which makes it the company’s cheapest jersey yet. The Cargo version of the Core bibshorts have the same external mesh pockets on the…

My motto has always been, ‘It's all in the details.’ In this photo, I'll explain exactly what I mean by that. This year, I had the chance to follow the Team Valcar-Cyclance women's cycling team. I got to know the riders, warts and all. This particular image is of the best young rider I ever met: Marta Cavalli. She is methodical. She is a perfectionist, starting from the athletic preparation to the finish. Every little detail is considered before the race. The detail in this photo is represented in Marta. The raw emotion after the finish of a tough fourth stage of the OVO Energy Tour. The pain, the fatigue of that gruelling climb on the finishing circuits, the joy, the satisfaction of reaching the finish line. Unlike the preparation,…

Giant TCX from $2,000, giant-bicycles.com/au Beautifully painted by yours truly with a few rattle cans from Bunnings. The TXC is a CX race bike – meaning quite fast gearing and a relatively lightweight bike, which was perfect. Despite most being on XC bikes, and even a lot of dual-suspension weapons, I truly feel this was the right type of bike for the job. I’ve been so impressed with this bike; it has taken me on some pretty epic adventures, and for that reason I think I’ll have a hard time ever selling it (unless I break it). I will, however, concede that I absolutely should have run tubeless. A pretty simple lesson, and to be honest, I should know better by now.…

‘People want to get stuff fixed rather than buy new, which is why we carry a lot of old stock. We’ll have that bolt someone needs to fix a brake,’ says Tata Otalvaro, who with her two siblings owns Colbic Bicicletas in the centre of Medellín. True enough, the stock room of Colbic runs bigger than its shop floor, the two areas separated by display-case counters housing everything from the classic red-blue woven pump adaptors to a hen’s-teeth-rare, new old stock carbon fibre Dura-Ace chainset, priced at the equivalent of $1,000. Alongside sits every type of bike you can imagine, from kids’ fat bikes and cheap alloy road bikes to expensive own-brand carbon bikes, and there’s even a row of 1980s-looking fan-resistance exercise bikes. ‘This shop and Ramos Hoyos across…

If you don’t master manufacturing, you don’t grow. If you’re just a designer and sending some drawings to a company you’re hardly involved with, you lose your soul and lose the reason you are…’ So said Jean-Claude Chrétien, general manager of French bicycle manufacturer Look and part-time philosopher, when Cyclist visited the company’s frame manufacturing plant in Tunisia back in 2015. It’s a sentiment that comes to mind on Cyclist’s latest visit to Look, this time at its headquarters in Nevers, a commune in central France. We’re here to discover the embodiment of that mastery of manufacturing – the historic bikes from Look’s collection that reveal the development of the brand and demonstrate its commitment to innovation. Many of the bikes are beautiful, some are baffling, but all of them…

What makes a good bike? According to Focus, it’s making sure that ‘each element of the frame has a purpose’. And how many elements is that, you say? It’s 56 different individual pieces if you include every part the German brand has redesigned for the Izalco Max frameset – a redesign that went right down to the flanges on the proprietary thru-axles – and 671 individual carbon plies per frame, each designed to help hit the numbers Focus was after. And boy does the company have a lot of them to share. I’m not going to ‘enlighten’ you with them all here, suffice to say this latest iteration of the venerable Izalco platform is stiffer, lighter and more comfortable than its predecessor in every way, but there is one stat…