Innehållsförteckning för Issue 52 från Cyclist Australia

Well, wouldn’t you know it? Just one issue after telling our tale of a Big Ride that took three attempts to complete after lockdowns foiled our plans on separate occasions, lo and behold, we found ourselves back in another lockdown. And this time, it’s affecting more people across Australia than any since the start of the pandemic. It meant our plans for a Big Ride in the New South Wales Snowy Mountains – checking out part of the route that will be included in the exciting new Drops & Hoods event, scheduled for December this year (lateralevents.com/drops-and-hoods) – had to be pushed back an issue. Luckily, we had another ride in Victoria’s High Country already in the bag, exploring the largely unexplored gravel roads of the King Valley. Hosted by…

Lachlan Morton arrived in Paris five days ahead of Tadej Pogačar. He may not have worn the yellow jersey, but he did manage to raise over $686,000 for World Bicycle Relief. It was all part of The Alt Tour, where the Australian EF Education-NIPPO rider and ultra-endurance athlete rode a remarkable 5,550km and climbed over 65,000 metres in just 18 days in what many – including Morton himself – thought was impossible. Morton’s challenge was inspired by the inaugural edition of the Tour de France in 1903. He set off after the peloton to complete the 21 stages of ‘The Grand Boucle’, plus each and every transfer, from Brittany to Paris, suffering an extra 2,400km and 15,000 metres of climbing. His ride along the Champs-Elysees on 13 July marked an…

Wednesday 14th July 1948, Carlton Hotel Cannes. It’s the third rest day of the Tour and Gino Bartali is in his room relaxing. Two weeks ago he started the race in fine form, winning the first stage. His spell at the top of the General Classification proved to be short-lived though, and despite picking up another couple of stage wins in the Pyrenees, as the sun rises in Cannes he is more than 21 minutes behind race leader Louison Bobet. Bartali is not even the top-ranked Italian on GC – that honour belongs to Aldo Ronconi, riding for Italy’s B team. After a lie-in Bartali hosts some journalists in his room – a regular occurrence. Many have been critical of his performance and ask if the soon-to-be-34-year-old has too many…

You probably guessed there’s no right or wrong answer to this, so first let’s look at the pros and cons of each. Sitting is more aerodynamic and efficient – it uses less muscle mass and requires less core activation – while standing can produce more power but at a greater energy cost. I say ‘can’ because it’s not a given. A rider with poor core activation will ‘spill’ potential power output everywhere but into the pedals. Most pros ride seated unless attacking, but there are examples of riders who spend most of their time standing. Richard Virenque, for instance, seemingly never sat down. There are a number of external factors that will influence your decision. Your fitness, including power output and cadence, is a big one, but also the gradient,…

The more you cycle, the stronger you get. But all that time on the bike can also be detrimental to your body, resulting in aches and pains that prevent proper training or spoil your ride. To combat this, more cyclists – amateur and pro – are turning to yoga, which can help improve flexibility and balance, release tension and correct muscular imbalances. Why do cyclists need yoga? Cyclists hold one basic posture that allows for minimal lateral or rotational movement: hips flexed, spine rounded, chin forward, arms out in front. It’s similar to the seated posture we adopt for much of the day (especially if you sit at a desk), except we increase stress on this fixed position by adding strength, power and long duration with repetitive motion from the…

Forty years is a good age. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that a mere 30% of businesses survive past their 15th year, so by making it into its fifth decade Moots is something of an outlier. More impressive still, it has made it to 40 without losing touch with its roots. ‘What we’re doing here isn’t rocket science,’ says Moots’ brand spokesperson Jon Cariveau. ‘It’s making the best product out of the best material that we can.’ Moots has built a reputation for hand-crafting beautiful, rugged, uncomplicated bikes from titanium tubing, and Cariveau is well-placed to explain the company’s ethos, having now worked here for just shy of a quarter-century. As such he’s Moots’ longest-serving employee, and when he arrived in Steamboat Springs, Colorado in the mid-1990s, the…

Having just won a stage of the Giro d’Italia, Peter Sagan is in jovial mood during his post-race interview, when the reporter asks about a potential change of team at the end of the season. ‘It’s mooted that Deceuninck-QuickStep, Israel Start-Up Nation and Movistar are all interested,’ poses the reporter. ‘So you see I have a choice,’ laughs Sagan. ‘I still have to decide.’ The 31-year-old Slovak is out of contract this year, with no sign that Bora-Hansgrohe, his team since 2017, will extend his tenure. Where will Sagan go? We suspect he has already decided but, due to UCI rules on moving between WorldTour teams, public pronouncements can’t be made until 1 August, which is after we send this issue of Cyclist to print. Even once the season is…

Liv is Giant’s sister brand, producing a full range of women-specific bikes right up to WorldTour-level race bikes for its Liv Racing team. The newly redesigned Langma race bike sits at the top of the product tree, and at the top of the 11 models in the new Langma line-up is this Advanced SL Disc, which has already been ridden to victory by Lotte Kopecky at Le Samyn des Dames in March and the Belgian National Championships in June. The eagle-eyed will notice this latest model shares a number of traits with its cousin, the recently redesigned Giant TCR. The tube shapes and silhouette are very similar, as are the skinny fork and the seat tube/seatpost cluster. But that doesn’t mean the Langma is just a ‘shrinked and pinked’ version…

You could set your watch by the lifecycle of Pinarello’s Dogma. Every other year, just before the Tour de France, the Italian brand updates its flagship race bike for the Sky/Ineos team. More often than not the team then wins aboard the new bike. Seven of the last 10 Tours have been conquered on a Dogma by Ineos in its different guises. In recent times the naming code that has classified each new Dogma could be counted on too. Two more years, two higher on the scale. 2015, 2017, 2019… F8, F10, F12. For 2021, however, Pinarello has deviated. The latest Dogma is simply called the F. ‘It is a link to the bike’s historic past and a symbol of the present, while also creating an identity for the future,’…

Out of the box, the new Wahoo Elemnt Bolt II looks much the same as its predecessor, retaining the small size and aerodynamic shape that made this bike computer popular with road riders. But look closer and you’ll notice a change. The three buttons on the front were previously concave, which made them quite difficult to press, especially with gloves. Now these buttons are convex, protruding above the screen, making them much easier to use on the fly. Turn on the Bolt II and you’ll notice an even bigger change. The screen is now colour, and this is not the eight-colour screen of the larger Elemnt Roam bike computer but a 64-colour screen to offer incredible detail on maps and colour-coded zones on the training data pages. The new Bolt…

SAM SQUIERS Women’s Community Ambassador and sports journalist Sam Squiers will be riding the Newcrest Orange Challenge for the first time this year, but she has plenty of experience in similar events and, best of all, grew up in Orange. Cyclist: G’day Sam. You’ve spent plenty of time in Orange! What makes this area so appealing for cyclists? Sam Squiers: I love riding in Orange. I love the country roads out there that have minimal traffic and really cool scenery along the way. Orange has lots of little towns surrounding it from all different angles – Millthorpe, Molong, Lucknow and Canowindra – which are good for riding destinations too, or halfway points after a quick coffee and wander. Cyc: You’ve raced the Orange Marathon and a host of other endurance…

‘We are going.’ It wasn’t a question. I wasn’t home yet. Hell, I hadn’t even made it to the car. Somehow, through reception so patchy you’d think it was a regular day in the Melbourne CBD, my partner managed to squeeze a reply back to my sneak-peek mid-Big Ride Instagram story. I’ve been on some great trips around all parts of the world for these features over the years. This is the first time I have had a demand for a return laid out so explicitly. If that is not the biggest affirmation you need to add the following adventure to your bucket list, well, I’m not sure what is. So, from this point on, intrepid reader, I’m going to assume you’re convinced this is ‘must-do’ gravel. Snaffle a few…

Dense forests of pine and junipers shield the wary cyclist from the enormity of the task ahead The American passion for the motor car is reflected in the country’s roads. Even when the landscape is wild, the altitude suffocating and the destination a dead end, the road will be wide, smooth and inviting. There are no half measures here. Once it has been decided that a gravel track is no longer sufficient, the Americans will build a thoroughfare that can be cruised in comfort by Cadillacs, Chevrolets and SUVs wider than some Australian townhouses. Not for them the narrow tarmac strip so often found snaking up the side of Europe’s most famous mountains – in America, even above 4,000m you’ll find a road where two buses could pass each other…

‘As a kid Kent Eriksen had a rubber eraser in the shape of an alligator,’ says brand spokesperson Jon Cariveau. ‘One day these bullies on the school bus took it from him and poked a hole in its head. When Kent got it back, as he squeezed its little head it called out what he thought sounded like “moots”. He named this little guy Mr Moots and it went with him everywhere. ‘It became somewhat of an imaginary friend for him. When he got to junior high he started drawing Mr Moots in cartoon adventures for the school newspaper. Mr Moots hiked, skied, rode bikes… ‘After high school Kent toured the US, ending up in Steamboat Springs. He went to work for a ski shop, which was a bike shop…

Times change and this Diverge has since been superseded by the 2021 version, which is racier – tighter rear end, shorter trail – and it has a down tube big enough to house your sandwiches, thanks to its in-built cubbyhole ‘Swat box’. But this outgoing model is still a venerable steed, and features the same Future Shock 2.0 damping system underneath the stem, offering 20mm of travel. And it works. The front end smooths out much of the chatter of hard-pack gravel, although you’ll still feel big hits and this certainly isn’t a suspension unit designed to let you stop cushioning off-road riding with your arms and legs. But that’s a good thing because, together with a compliant carbon layup and the CG-R seatpost (designed in that Z-shape to increase…

I’m exhausted and can’t continue much further. For several days it has felt like pedalling through treacle. The relentless onslaught of mangled metaphors and clunky similes has drained me. My spirit wilts as the writer’s body ‘blossoms with tiredness’. Even if I make it to the end, there are still four – four! – pages of ‘Author’s acknowledgements’ to read. I put the book down, wondering how the adventures of amateur cycle-tourers evolved from ripping yarns to misery memoirs. It wasn’t always this way. The book that inspired me as a cyclist was Two-Wheel Trek by Neil Clough, published in 1983. Geography teacher Clough had previously only cycled to his local pub and back when he announced to friends that he planned to ride 10,000 miles to the Cape of…

This new range of Pirelli inner tubes is the perfect choice to enhance the performance of Pirelli P Zero, Scorpion and Cinturato tyres. They’re made with thermoplastic polyurethane, or TPU, which Pirelli describes as ‘a latest-generation material chosen by the brand’s engineers for the excellent performance that it offers compared to traditional butyl.’ The SmarTUBE promises a reduction in weight of up to 70% compared to the already lightweight latex tubes. This, Pirelli says, is the most advantageous way to reduce the weight of a bike: an advantage that also translates into less mass on the wheels and therefore better responsiveness, particularly when climbing and accelerating.…

It has been a long time since knitted garments were the sole preserve of your nan. Knitted fabrics have been used to make shoe uppers for almost a decade in sports such as football and athletics, and have been gaining in popularity in top-end cycling shoes since 2018. Compared to cycling shoes made with conventional uppers of synthetic leather, those with knitted uppers tend to come with a set of bold performance claims – better breathability, improved comfort and reduced weight among them. So how are they able to boast such advantages? ‘The uppers are created with electronic knitting machines which link loops of yarn on needles,’ says Fizik product manager Giovanni Fogel. ‘The machines are able to seamlessly change the yarn direction to create different stitching patterns within the…

Humans are endothermic animals, meaning we can regulate our own body temperature, which is very useful for cycling as it stops us from dying when we get too hot or too cold. As a result, the human metabolism – the chemical processes making energy – is most efficient within a certain temperature range. Too cold and it slows (plus we waste energy warming ourselves up doing things like shivering); too hot and the processes taking place in our cells start to break down, like an overheating car (plus we waste energy through profuse sweating – 75% of energy going into muscles is lost via heat as it is). In the middle there exists something of a goldilocks zone, an environmental temperature at which we perform best as cyclists. This is…

Almost the elephant in the room, all this talk of how the price branding of the bike doesn’t matter when it comes to having a great time on gravel (it really doesn’t) only for me to be rocking a custom Baum Cycles Orbis X, SRAM Force AXS groupset and Zipp 303 wheels. And while this is not exactly an attainable model, don’t let that fool you into believing Baum are out of reach. Their titanium Code model is the plain gauge tubing version of the Orbis and much more attainable. Especially when you consider cracking a downtube, courtesy of a kicked up-rock, is never a concern. Nor is handling. Custom geometry coupled with (Darren) Baum’s magic in shaping the handling of his bikes: this machine rides like a dream. The…

50 kilometres (return) to Myrtleford from the turn-off onto Lake Buffalo Road, should you need any sort of support by midpoint of the ride 40 millimetres – the tyre size we would recommend. Up to about 45 is fine. Over that, a little overkill (it’s gravel, not singletrack); and less… well, if underbiking is your thing… 6 the box size of fresh doughnuts that the Cheshunt general store (unexpectedly) cooks up. It took the two of us about 5 minutes to polish them off 3 nights’ stay, the minimum I would recommend. One for riding. One for a winery tour. One to recover and have another spin. Make a long weekend of it, we say 1 driver that we had buzz us. They had a stock trailer, and we spotted…

Jack is about two-foot six, weighs 75kg, has short grey hair and while not technically the owner of the cafe is very much its front-of-house face. He bounds between tables, gait like a lazy horse, barely able to see from under the droop of his brow. He poses with customers for photos. He’s the most famous Great Dane in Franschhoek – so famous that the Big Dog Cafe is named after him. In turn, the Big Dog Cafe is a famous spot with local cyclists: safe racking for bikes, a cool canteen-hacienda vibe for patrons and an excellent meeting point for rolling out of town and up the Franschhoek Pass. Across the table from me sits Kyle, our support car driver, and Jamie, an English expat who married a South…

Open mould. It used to be a dirty phrase because it meant carbon product X came out of a mould that anyone could access, and hence it tended to be lower quality. Closed mould, by contrast, meant exclusive. Exclusive meant money, and money meant high levels of quality control and R&D. Yet as technology has trickled down, open mould components are now often very good in quality terms and near identical in design. It’s hard to defend intellectual property in the Far East, so they say. The aero-fied Pressure is unashamedly open mould, although Cinelli vice-president Fabrizio Aghito says it ‘is a shared project’ with the factory that makes it. Cinelli used its own research to pick this frame from many others on the grounds that its shape was specifically…