Innehållsförteckning för Issue 55 från Cyclist Australia

The one everyone remembers is Rule #5 – ‘Harden The F*** Up’ – but there was (and still is) a long list of Rules, as laid down by the Velominati, governing everything from sock length to quick release positioning. As the Velominati pointed out, however, they didn’t invent The Rules. Rather, they curated them, based on what they saw going on in the ranks of the pros. Basically, if Eddy did it, it became a Rule. But then something happened. The arrival of disc brakes and wider tyres on road bikes ushered in a new kind of riding – gravel – which allowed us to explore further afield and escape the traffic. At first there was a certain amount of trepidation – isn’t this a bit too close to mountain…

$299, fesports.com.au These are the squarer version of 100%’s rounder Westcraft glasses. Like their sibling, the Eastcraft glasses can accommodate either a one-piece lens or two-piece lenses, the only obvious difference being that the wedge-shaped space in the middle is either filled in or not. The Eastcraft comes supplied with a one-piece mirror lens and two-piece clear lenses, although other kinds are available, including photochromic lenses. Both glasses are, of course, super-light, anti-scratch, and UV-blocking. Hydrophobic and Oleophobic lens treatment ensures water, oil and dirt pearl off your lenses, while removable side shields offer a bit more protection. More importantly, they are achingly cool and you’ll want to be seen in them – no matter the season.…

$239, shimano.com.au What we love about Shimano (and the cycling industry for that matter) is that there’s a product to suit just about anyone. The RC5 is the mega-brand’s mid-tier road shoe. Its synthetic leather and airy mesh outer, along with Shimano’s well-known wrapping system, ensure a comfy fit and durable design. The shoes are fitted with the popular Boa dial to allow for easy adjustment when riding and it has a single Velcro strap for toe-box adjustment. At this level, you don’t get a full carbon sole for maximum power transfer, but most riders will find the midsole’s carbon fibre reinforced nylon provides ample stiffness. The RC5 comes in both men’s and women’s specific shapes, and should be on the list for anyone looking for a great all-round road…

For all the concern of seeing Mark Cavendish crash badly on the track at the end of November, most viewers were probably less concerned about his continued presence at the Ghent Six than the impact those fractured ribs may have on his 2022 road season. At the time he had yet to re-sign with Deceuninck-QuickStep but that deal has since been done, and his bid to finally surpass the Tour stage record he now shares with Eddy Merckx is a marketing dream. Plenty of other riders have been on the move, however. The transfer merry-go-round has been intriguing, not least when looking at the ‘big three’ teams who each won a Grand Tour last season. For Ineos Grenadiers, UAE Team Emirates and Team Jumbo-Visma, failing to at least match their…

1 WARM DOWN When: Before you get off the bike. What: Once you’ve finished your training session, spin easily for five to ten minutes. ‘Most people do similar rides on regular routes, so have a point at which you start once you’ve warmed up and stop to warm down,’ says coach Will Newton. ‘Stop the clock here if you’re obsessed with your speed.’ Why: ‘Ten minutes easy spinning will break down the metabolites – waste products in the blood – that result from exercise,’ Newton says. ‘Muscle damage and fuel use both create waste products, and easy spinning will flush those metabolites out of the muscles.’ 2 STRETCH When: As soon as you get off the bike, but with a caveat. What: Does anything hurt? Focus on that area first.…

$399, thule.com/en-au As I unboxed my new Thule rack, my significant other remarked, unironically, that this assembly ‘looks a little like Ikea’. Mind blown, then, when I explained that Thule are indeed (also) Swedish and that the box comes with a hex key. The similarities, however, ended there. Not only was the rack immaculately packaged (unboxing was a pleasure, unlike their aforementioned counterparts), but the instructions - most especially, the included videos - set the tone for what is a first-class system. Sequential and stable fitting to the car, once the rack was on and the bike was secured there wasn’t a single time a gust of wind had me worried my bike would be disappearing across the western plains. And if ever there was a stretch of road to…

TRAVEL Not unlike a lot of regional Victoria trips, you can get there via public transport, but the bike adds a layer of complexity that in 2022 still appears to bewilder V/Line. My rant about how un-bike friendly public transport remains is, however, for another day. Best access is with a car, which in this instance, with the accommodation being down an extended dirt road, is the means of transport I’d be recommending (for a road riding experience at least). ACCOMMODATION We stayed at Grampians Pioneer Cottages. Aidan and Corinne took over the property from the original owner, who hand-built each cottage with recycled building materials. But ramshackle abodes they are not – time testifies to these unique cottages’ ability to withstand the ever-present western plains winds that rip across…

Prepare for the backroads with plenty of turns. Head south out of Milawa on Allans Lane. Left onto Whorouly-Bobinawarrah Road, which then becomes Kneebones Gap Road. Left onto Racecourse Lane. A quick dogleg right-turn onto Snow Road before turning left onto Whorouly Road. Out of the town of Whorouly, turn right onto Whorouly-Bowmans Road. Right onto Whorouly River Road which eventually takes you to back Snow Road, then left before taking a right onto Merriang Gap Road. At the end of this long stretch of road, turn right onto Buffalo River Road, which connects to the River Trail and the Murray to Mountain Rail Trail. Come off the rail Trail at Fletcher Lane, cross the Great Alpine Road and continue onto Ferguson Lane. At the end of this Lane turn…

1 Cervélo R5 p118 The latest version of Cervelo’s climber’s bike makes a lot of small tweaks in search of big gains. And if it’s good enough for Primož Roglič… 2 BMC Roadmachine X p122 The clue is in the name – the Swiss giant’s road bike line-up gets a new model that can head off-road without sacrificing performance 3 Specialized S-Works Crux p126 The US brand’s cyclocross bike is now billed as a gravel bike as well – and it’s the lightest on the market. But does that make it the best out on the trails?…

Ever since the name first appeared in the mid-80s, ‘Specialissima’ has been reserved for Bianchi’s most traditional bikes. They have always been classic in form – a double-diamond construction of round tubes and rim brakes that married light weight and high stiffness with timeless looks. That makes the latest Specialissima somewhat of a departure. The bike has gone disc-only, with fully internal cables and subtle aero styling to bring the design functionally up to date. It now competes with some of the most popular bikes on the market, such as Specialized’s Tarmac, Giant’s TCR and Cannondale’s SuperSix Evo. To make such radical changes is a bold move, especially considering how well-regarded the 2015 Specialissima was. ‘The old Specialissima was conceived to be included in the superlight category,’ says Bianchi product…

$219, fesports.com.au If the image to your left looks familiar but the name does not, here’s why. The first name change is the brand: formerly known as Aftershokz, the bone conduction headphones specialists are now known simply as Shokz. And their most popular product, the Aeropex, is now called the OpenRun. Ergo, the Aftershokz Aeropex is now the Shokz OpenRun. For those unfamiliar, bone conduction technology is where the headphones rest directly on the listener’s cheekbones, transmitting sound to the inner ear (cochlea) via this path instead of the traditional way via the eardrums. In doing so, they don’t obstruct external noises – say, a car engine or a rider calling out a pothole. The OpenRun incorporates some new updates including QuickCharge – offering an extra 1.5 hours of active…

In 2002 a new race was added to the international cycling calendar. The Tour of Qatar seemed like a novelty – a professional race held in the desert – but it had serious ambition behind it, as well as serious money and, perhaps crucially, the endorsement of the greatest cyclist of all time. Eddy Merckx and his business partner Dirk De Pauw worked with ASO, the Tour de France organiser, to build the Tour of Qatar into a race that attracted some of the world’s biggest teams and stars even as it remained a curiosity. It was an event with no roadside spectators. Unlike so many major bike races, it did not act as part of a marketing campaign for the country – at least not in the traditional sense.…

By the time the 1940s rolled into the 1950s, a total of 73 Swiss riders had taken to the start line of a Tour de France, with a solitary podium place between them – Leo Amberg finishing third in 1937. If Switzerland hadn’t exactly set the race alight so far, with the 1950s around the corner the country at last looked to have a couple of riders with a genuine shot at the yellow jersey. Ferdinand Kubler made his Tour debut in 1947. Billed as the ‘Tour of the Liberation’, the first race of the post-World War II era saw Kubler win the opening stage into Lille to claim the first yellow jersey. After winning a second stage he was forced to leave the race with Paris still two weeks…

If it’s not a meme already, it should be. In the form of ‘What my overseas friends think Australia is like’ vs. ‘What Australia is actually like’. Internationals think our backyards are full of kangaroos and we race emus to the shops, whereas reality finds us squealing if there’s a blue tongued lizard mowing through the snail population around Mum’s pot plant collection. Imagine my delight, then, when there’s a call for a Big Ride feature in Halls Gap: a corner of Australia where what overseas folks think Australia is like meets reality. It feels almost comical how, rising out of endless flat and windswept farmland, this oasis of bush and mountainous outcropping is home to an almost reality-TV level of Land Down Under tropes. Kangaroos are actually in the…

Yes, another Baum. I’m fortunate to have more than one. This bike was recently re-painted by Baum with their latest RS font – because a steel bike is for life kids, not just for Christmas. It is their Essence model. A modern take on the classic steel, with tubing closer to the size used in the heyday of steel racing machines. It now resides on the Baum secret menu. Which is to say if you know to ask for it they can still make it happen. And contrary to popular opinion, this bike will not set you back five figures. Unless you want it sporting 11sp SRAM eTap and Zipp 404 NSW wheels, in which case it might be a little more expensive. This is the perfect ‘all day’ riding…

There have been occasions in my life where I have found myself awestruck by incredible rides, made perfect by the roads, lack of traffic, and stellar company. Day one (Milawa to Beechworth) of the Girls Gravel & Gourmet weekend, run by the High Country Women’s Cycling Festival (HCWCF) in Victoria’s High Country, was one of those occasions. We’re talking three days of gorgeous gravel routes on quiet roads around Milawa and Beechworth, complete with support and photography cars, cuisine to travel for, and an overall sense of adventure on roads previously unseen. The weekend was the inaugural gravel event hosted by HCWCF, held in November 2021 (hot tip: there’s another coming soon on 24-27 March 2022). A diverse group of women with various levels of gravel experience and a variety…

‘If you look back at the Porsche 911s of the 1980s, they were widow-makers and the performance wasn’t there. But look at a current generation GT2 and it’s like you can – you shouldn’t, but you can – get the groceries. It’s comfortable every day, and you can potter around town in it. It’s not temperamental when it’s cold in the morning. It just does what it has to do and doesn’t complain. I think that’s where this generation of bikes is now.’ So says Scott Roy, engineering manager at Cervelo and the man ultimately responsible for the latest R5. Is it an everyday superbike? The underlying recipe hasn’t changed. The new model is an explicitly weight-focused counterpart to the aero-everything S-series and it has already been proven at WorldTour…

Everyone wants more comfort, but adding vertical flex into a rigid frame is a difficult thing to do without compromising other areas like stiffness, weight or aerodynamics. A stiff bike is a fast bike, so when it comes to adding in comfort, manufacturers and riders are obliged to look at areas beyond traditional frame conventions, such as tyres or special suspension devices. Or seatposts. Being a simple cantilevered tube, a seatpost can bend in a way that potentially improves ride quality without affecting the rest of the frame. What’s more, a seatpost is a simple upgrade to make. Even the most mechanically averse cyclist should be able to fit a new post without requiring a trip to their local bike shop. As such, several brands offer seatposts that are specifically…

More sleep is good, but a study published in August 2021 from researchers at University of Colorado Boulder points towards the ‘when’ being just as important as the ‘how long’. Researchers analysed a DNA database of 697,828 people held by biotech companies UK Biobank and 23andMe, and identified the chronotypes and average sleep midpoint of 85,502 people (based on info from sleep trackers and sleep surveys). The results showed that 33% of people identified as ‘morning people’, 9% as ‘night owls’ and the rest were in the middle. The average midpoint (the middle of a given person’s sleep) was 3am. Researchers cross-referenced the subjects’ genetic data from the sleep study with genetic data linked to major depressive disorder (MDD) and found that those genetically predisposed to earlier rising were 23%…

Porridge is literally the oldest one in the book. Analysis of a pestle and mortar-type tool found in the Paglicci Cave in southern Italy shows evidence of ‘thermally treated’ avena, a genus of grass-like plants commonly called oats. And while Quaker cereals was founded in 1877, the Paglicci tool has been carbon dated to around 32,000 years ago. Whether these Early Gravettians (for that is the name of these Upper Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers) turned these processed oats into piping-hot porridge is not known, but since it’s thought we first used fire about 400,000 years ago and there is evidence of us cooking some 120,000 years ago, there’s a case to be made that porridge has long since been on the caveman menu. Yet times change. Some Upper Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers evolved to…

Over the years that Cyclist has been visiting the world’s Classic Climbs, we’ve had one that shares its name with an aperitif (Monte Grappa), one that is a wine appellation (Ventoux) and one that gets within two letters of a fruity Swedish cider (Koppenberg). But this is the first time we have featured a climb that is also a beer. Brewed at the Brouwerij De Brabandere in Bavikhove, 28km away from the foot of the climb, Kwaremont beer is described by its makers, Chris and Jeanine Van Acker, as a ‘full-flavoured blonde with firm head’ that relies upon a ‘smooth, full flavour with a light, pleasant bitterness and a spicy touch’ to achieve a ‘hoppy character’. In other words, it goes down worryingly easily before its 6.6% ABV lands a…

A sensational cycling weekend exploring the roads less travelled in the beautiful High Country while eating and drinking along the way: that’s what was promised, and that’s what was delivered. Stunning gravel roads meander through farmland, forest, wineries and rolling hills as riders get off the beaten track to visit some of the highlights of North East Victoria. The roads are quiet, the gradients (mostly) gentle and the scenery beautiful. Along the way, riders stop off at a selection of the touristic and foodie highlights of the region, indulging in regional produce while visiting microbreweries, country pubs, cheese factories and wineries. What’s not to love about a route that features names like Bobinawarrah, Whorouly, Kneebone Gap, Merriang and Murmungee? The highlights of the days (besides burning it all off on…

Road plus. All-road. Gravel-adjacent. Groad. Choose your subculture. Choose life. Choose the BMC Roadmachine X. We’re living in an age of what BMC engineer Tobias Habegger calls ‘micro segmentation’, as brands try to work out what the hell different bikes actually are, and the goalposts for riding disciplines keep getting moved around by Instagram accounts sporting bar bags, tan-wall tyres and deeply entrenched views on tyre tread patterns. The lines between road, gravel and mountain bikes have never been blurrier and the Roadmachine X is as mixed-message as they come. It’s expected to launch in Australia later this year, with local pricing and spec TBC, but we were lucky enough to get our hands on an overseas model. So, what were our thoughts? New clothes If this bike looks familiar,…

It took an apple falling from a tree and hitting him on the head for Sir Isaac Newton to have his ‘eureka moment’ in developing the laws of motion and universal gravitation. For Specialized engineer Peter Denk, all it took was finite element analysis (FEA), a giant supercomputer and 1,000 simulations to have his own ‘eureka moment’ of reimagined tube proportions and efficient positioning of carbon fibres. The result was the 585g frame at the heart of the Aethos, the world’s lightest production disc brake road bike (see issue 49). A year later, Denk’s epiphany has been applied to Specialized’s cyclocross model, the Crux, to arrive at the all-new Specialized S-Works Crux, which at 725g (56cm) is now the lightest cyclocross/gravel frame on the market. Shedding the pounds The Crux…