Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2020 i Cyclist

The uncertainty is themost difficult part, said Larry Warbasse in late March as the coronavirus spread throughout Europe, gradually but inexorably closing down a continent, putting life on hold and, almost incidentally, halting the cycling season in its tracks. Warbasse, the American on the French AG2R team, had been riding the UAE Tour in February when, with two stages still to go, the race was abruptly stopped. He spent the next two and a half days in quarantine. It felt like a liftetime, he says with a bitter laugh. At the time, to those of us watching from afar, it might have seemed like an almost comical sideshow. Talk about first-world problems: here were these pro cyclists, some of the fittest athletes in the world, locked in their rooms in…

Like stems, the industrysettled long ago upon the ‘right length’ crank for a given size of bike – for example, try finding a size 56cm without 172.5mm cranks attached. Yet, thinks Phil Burt, we should consider challenging this status quo. And he should know, having spent 12 years as head of physiotherapy at British Cycling and five years as lead physio and consultant to Team Sky. ‘When I first met Bradley Wiggins he was riding 177.5mm length cranks, but for the Rio Olympics team pursuit he rode 165mm [Wiggins won gold]. He was on similar for his Hour record. That wasn’t by chance – it was planned – and if it can work for someone who has won the Tour de France, it might be worth you considering. ‘Crank length…

How long should I wait after a hard ride before doing another? At least 24 hours, but the risk of muscle damage, glycogen depletion and dehydration could mean it takes up to 48. Learn to listen to your body. Do those nasal strips actually improve breathing? Research has been mixed, but they might offer – that dreaded phrase – a marginal gain. Your nasal passage narrows when you inhale, so in theory the strips hold it open to allow more air in. To get faster at TTs, should I prioritise position or power? Great TT riders can hold big power numbers in very aero positions. You need to find your sweet spot where you can hold the maximum power in the optimal position for you.…

‘They are given a few different names – tart cherries, sour cherries – but Montmorency cherries have been really popular over the last few years,’ says Nigel Mitchell, head nutritionist at EF Pro Cycling and technical lead at the English Institute of Sport. ‘They’re really high in phytonutrients like polyphenols, which act as antioxidants, meaning they reduce cellular inflammation. There’s some evidence to suggest cherry juice may reduce muscle soreness and even help people sleep. During Grand Tours we’ve gotten through nearly six litres of it. The riders love it, which should be a positive indicator in itself.’…

Try the local cheese… Formaggio Castelmagno is a hard cheese that is churned exclusively on the Fauniera’s slopes. Allow the cheese to age in your fridge and after a few weeks, or even months, it hardens like a bitter parmesan and proves delicious when crumbled over a plate of fresh tagliatelle. … and what’s cheese without wine? Labelled the ‘King of wine’, Barolo is produced from the Nebbiolo grape in 11 villages around the Piedmont region and is noted for its acidic, full-bodied taste, despite its floral smell and pale colour. Relax here afterwards Head to the Arione cafe and chocolatier in Cuneo’s city centre to try local delicacy and cafe invention Cuneesi al Rhum, a rum-spiked praline buried in a chocolate meringue that’s the perfect post-ride treat.…

1990 Born on 10th March in Cardiff. 2009 After two years of promising form as a junior, Rowe claims the ZLM Tour Dutch U23 race, his first win. 2010 Another solid under-23 season is capped by victory at the Grand Prix Di Poggiana one-day race in Italy. 2011 Again wins the ZLM Tour, and places fifth in the Tour de Normandie stage race. 2012 Turns pro for Team Sky, and caps a solid year with a stage win at the Tour of Britain. 2013 No wins, but places ninth on GC at the Tour of Qatar – the third-placed young rider. 2014 After abandoning the race in 2013, claims his first Grand Tour finish at the Vuelta, although more than four hours down. 2015 His strongest spring season to date…

There is no sport quite like cycling for its capacity to accommodate so many different types of stuff. In most other sports – football, tennis, bowls, paragliding – you buy the kit and you use the kit. But not cycling. In cycling, buying your first bit of kit is merely a door into a world that is as consuming and satisying as the sport itself. Once you have bought a bike, then you need pedals, bottle cages, maybe a seat pack. The pedals need some shoes, and the cages need some bottles, and the seat pack needs some tools. The shoes need matching socks, and the bottles need energy drinks, and the tools need spares. And then you invariably decide it’s time to upgrade everything. Consequently cyclists are like snowflakes,…

40 Challenge Paris-Roubaix Tubeless £70, upgradebikes.co.uk You can’t beat the feeling of rolling on tubular tyres. Sadly they’re too impractical for everyday riding, which is why open tubulars like Challenge’s are so popular, blending tub feel with clincher installation. What could be better? To make them tubeless, of course – just like these. 41 Vittoria Corsa Control TLR G2.0 £69.99, zyrofisher.co.uk While the full benefits of graphene, the highly lauded new wonder-material, have yet to be exploited, Vittoria has put a marker down by including it in its Corsa tyres. They are also tubeless-ready, which only adds to their grippy, supple performance by improving puncture protection and reducing rolling resistance. 42 Schwalbe Pro One TLE £68.49, schwalbe.com The original Schwalbe One Tubeless was released in 2014, and although not the…

Japanese painter KatsushikaHokusai painted Mount Fuji from 36 points of view before he felt satisfied that he’d captured it. Japanese bike brand Fuji, on the other hand, has taken just two attempts at its Transonic aero road bike before arriving at this rather fetching version for 2020. Fuji is a wise old brand, having first appeared in 1899. It took more than a century, though, for the Transonic to arrive on the scene in 2014. It was Fuji’s first foray into the aero road sector, and its impressive curves and integration made it a favourite of the NetApp-Endura pro team. In bike years, however, 2014 is a lifetime ago, so it was about time Fuji updated the Transonic, and to that end this latest instalment is suitably futuristic. Aero testing…

£630, mavic.com When Mavic launched theoriginal Comete Ultimate in 2017, the £900 pricetag was more aligned with designer footwear on the catwalks of Milan than it was cycling shoes. Thankfully, for the second generation, Mavic has dropped the price to merely exorbitant instead of insane. For £630 you can now step into what Mavic claims are ‘not just any carbon race shoes’. The Comete Ultimate II shoes are a modular design, constructed as two separate parts – a super-light and rigid carbon shell plus a soft, comfortable inner bootie. It’s this, Mavic says, that sets them apart from the competition, delivering unequalled power transfer thanks to the stiffness, and combined with the lowest stack height of any shoe – just 4.5mm – they also claim to improve pedalling biomechanics. The…

It’s hard not to get alldewy-eyed recalling those carefree days when we still thought an annual subscription to Eurosport Player offered some bang for its buck. The writing was on the wall at the end of February when Mitchelton-Scott’s Adam Yates won a coronavirus-curtailed UAE Tour, which climaxed with riders from several teams being quarantined in their hotel rooms and biting their nails with worry about losing form for a Milan-San Remo that would never happen. At least we still got (most of) Paris-Nice at the beginning of March. Less than a week after Frenchman Hugo ‘No Hassle’ Hofstetter won a meteorologically grim edition of Le Samyn (the only Flemish cobbles we’ll see this spring) and Denmark’s Kasper Asgreen TT’ed to victory in Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, a heavily reduced field set off…

One of the great mysteries about the break in the 2020 season is how the riders spend it, and who is going to emerge in form when racing does finally resume. AG2R’s Larry Warbasse thinks there will be ‘a very large gap’ between those who manage it well and those who don’t. One adaptation will be to largely indoor training. Another will be to only training and not racing. ‘I’m sure some people will come back absolutely stomping,’ Warbasse says. ‘I’m training like I’m going to come back and smash it. ‘I’m taking this as an opportunity to train in the perfect way possible. Usually only team leaders have this opportunity, so I’m trying to do the best preparation I can. It’s not an opportunity I’m likely ever to have…

In Scotland kedgeree is traditionallya breakfast (apparently devised by Scottish regiments in India in the 18th century), but if curried haddock isn’t to your taste first thing, it makes an amazing dinner the night before a ride. Basmati rice is a more complex carb than plain white rice, so provides slow-release energy to keep you going for longer. The eggs and fish take care of the full spectrum of amino acids to help recovery and repair, and the haddock is a good source of heart-healthy omega 3 fatty acids. Even the curry powder and turmeric do their bit, helping to reduce inflammation in the body. More importantly, it’s quick, natural and totally delicious. Ingredients 400g smoked haddock fillet, skin removed, trimmed and diced1 onion, peeled and finely chopped1 bunch of…

Polar Vantage V watch, £439, polar.com As cyclists we’ re wedded to our bike computers, but what we do off the bike can have a big impact on our performance, so Polar thinks a multisports watch such as its Vantage V is equally pertinent to cyclists. ‘We know cyclists participate in other sports to improve fitness, commonly known as cross-training,’ says Elizabeth Shenton, Polar’s sales manager. ‘The Vantage V can track performance across all their activities and calculate training load, so the user can find the right balance between training and recovery in whatever they are doing.’ And that’s just the tip of the iceberg with the Vantage V, Shenton adds. On top of the usual metrics you’d expect from a fitness tracker, such as step and calorie counts, the…

The Strava legend Pinerolo-based Davide Busuito holds the Strava King of the Mountains title for the Colle Fauniera. The Italian covered the 19.74km official segment in a time of 1:13.26s. Erica Magnaldi, pro rider with Ceratizit-WNT, holds the women’s QoM in a time of 1:25.55s. The chocolate mogul The late Michele Ferrero was born in nearby Dogliani. Inheriting his father Pietro’s bakery in 1949, he transformed this local business into Europe’s second largest confectionery company with inventions such as the Ferrero Rocher, Nutella, Tic Tacs and the Kinder Egg, to the extent that today Ferrero uses 30% of the world’s production of hazelnuts. The alternative climb If you tackle the Colle Fauniera, be sure to also tick off the Colle dell’Agnello while you’re at it. A 60km ride away from…

TRAVEL Cyclist flew from Gatwick to Turin with British Airways, which cost £140 return. The Piedmont Bike Hotel provides transfers to its hotel, but the train from Turin to Cuneo is also pretty easy to navigate and has a dedicated carriage for bikes. At €6 each way, it is also incredibly cheap. ACCOMMODATION We stayed at the Piedmont Bike Hotel just outside Carmagnola. It has a dedicated team of guides and mechanics, as well as a support van that will accompany you on any ride. Rooms start at around €80pn, with extras available such as guided rides and Pinarello bike hire. While Italy remains in lockdown at the time of writing, the Piedmont Bike Hotel is still taking bookings and is offering increased flexibility should you need to rearrange your…

…THE COMPETITION ‘About five years ago we were clearly the strongest. Now other teams are catching up, but it’s not all about copying “marginal gains” – they have their own approach. In fact, I’d say the sport has evolved as much in the past five years as it did the previous 20. Mind you, there are some things others copy. We always used to go to the Hotel Parador in Tenerife for altitude training. I haven’t been for a couple years, which is good because I don’t like it. But when I used to go I’d see one other rider. Now I hear there are three or four teams all year round. The sport has developed.’ …THE CURRENT INEOS SQUAD ‘Is this the strongest squad we’ve had? It is on…

One of the best things about the Aude Pyrenees is the local dish, cassoulet - a rich, slow-cooked bean casserole, often made with duck or sausage, full of nutrients and perfect ride fuel or recovery food. This region of the Pyrenees is also known for Blanquette de Limoux – the first sparkling white wine to be produced in France, predating even Champagne. The town of Quillan (where Cyclist stayed) is home to one of the oldest post-Tour crit races in history. The 76th Criterium de Quillan in 2019 was won by French superstar Romain Bardet, and the winners list includes the likes of Jacques Anquetil and Raymond Poulidor. The Gorges de Galamus is a must see. Just 28km east from Axat, the balcony road extends for over 2km up through…

Mur de Huy p92 Rudy Project Spectrum helmet, £170 yellow-limited.com Rudy Project Defender sunglasses, £165.99 yellow-limited.com Giordana NXG Air jersey, £144.99 yellow-limited.com Giordana NXG bibshorts, £199.99 yellow-limited.com Giordana FRC Tall socks, £15.99 yellow-limited.com Specialized Torch 3.0 shoes, £210 specialized.com Go Figure p120 Abus Air Breaker helmet, £229 extrauk.co.uk Shimano S-Phyre sunglasses, £139.99 madison.co.uk Castelli Climbers 3.0 jersey, £85 saddleback.co.uk Castelli Free Aero Race bibshorts, £150 saddleback.co.uk Stolen Goat Coolmax socks, £9.99 stolengoat.com Giro Imperial shoes, £374.99 zyrofisher.co.uk Forgotten Mountain p64 Lazer Z1 helmet, £149 madison.co.uk Alba Optics Stratos sunglasses, £169 albaoptics.cc Void Print jersey, £105 voidcycling.com Void Ride bibshorts, £150 voidcycling.com Void Lightweight Merino socks, £17 voidcycling.com Northwave Extreme Pro shoes, £339.99 i-ride.co.uk Bikes p133 ORBEA Poc Ventral Air helmet, £220 2pure.co.uk Poc Crave sunglasses, £215 2pure.co.uk Sportful Fiandre Light…

Nano Half Zip Jersey €160 (£140), Superlight Bib Shorts, €180 (£160), katusha-sports.cc Top fact: Katusha, the Russian diminutive for Catherine, is the name of a beloved Russian folk song about a woman waiting for her love to return from battle. The song was popular among Soviet troops in the Second World War and Katusha became the affectionate name for a piece of mobile artillery. This prevalence of the word is why Katusha was picked as the name of the Russian state-backed pro team (since taken over by Israel Start-Up Nation) and the clothing brand. The Nano jersey and Superlight bibshorts have been developed with extensive pro rider input, and it shows. Every care has been taken to make the jersey as light as possible, hence the half-zip, and as aero-form…

A rider only has three contactpoints with a bicycle, but one of them seems to have benefited from nowhere near the same level of innovation as the other two. While shoes and saddles are being constantly refined, the handlebar has remained much the same as it looked on road bikes 50 years ago. And yet, just recently the market has witnessed some radical new designs. ‘The variety reflects development in riding style, bike technology, aerodynamic and ergonomic understanding,’ says Rick Sutton, COO of Coefficient Cycling, a US brand that makes two of the more distinctive bars currently available, the Wave AR and Wave RR. The changes started to manifest around 10 years ago with the shift from traditional deep drops to more compact curves. ‘The main driver for this was…

‘You wear the rainbowjersey, the only one in the peloton. You are thinking now, in this moment, in this race, I am a different rider because I am wearing this jersey.’ Those are the words of Óscar Freire, the triple road race World Champion, who literally burst out of the pack and announced himself on the global stage at the 1999 Worlds in Verona. Just 23 years old at the time, the little-known Freire stunned the world of cycling to claim his first rainbow jersey. ‘The silence in the finishing straight was deafening,’ ran one race report, yet Freire’s win secured him a contract with Mapei, at the time one of the biggest teams in cycling. ‘It changed everything in my life,’ Freire reflected in 2017. ‘In my career and…

Motion Nutrition Nootropics, £24.99 (30-day supply), motionnutrition.com The word Nootropic comes from noosi, Ancient Greek for ‘mind’, and tropic meaning ‘affecting’, which is exactly what these supplements aim to do – improve cognitive function. There are two options: one to perk you up, the other to help you wind down. Power Up uses ingredients such as L-tyrosine and ginseng as a natural energy boost, while Unplug includes extracts from the ashwagandha and bacopa monnieri plants, which claim to help relax the mind at the end of a busy day.…

You’re much more likely to find a Pinarello Dogma in the hills of Surrey than the Alps of Italy these days, such is the affinity the MAMIL has for the bike made famous by Team Sky/Ineos. But it’s perfect for riding in the mountains – after all, it’s the bike dynasty that guided Wiggins, Froome, Thomas and Bernal to a combined 10 Grand Tours and counting. Simply put, the F10 does everything well. The asymmetric frame – offset and overbuilt to the left to balance the forces coming from the drivetrain on the right – is wonderfully stiff, providing an ideal platform for long climbs, while Shimano’s Dura-Ace mechanical groupset never missed a beat, which given how much I was shifting on the climbs was no mean feat. Yet it’s…

Luke Rowe is not meant to be in the spotlight. As road captain for Team Ineos, his job is to control the race; to manipulate the outcome from the shadows so someone else can take the glory. But it doesn’t always go to plan. On Stage 17 of the 2019 Tour de France, an otherwise uneventful stage became newsworthy when Rowe and Jumbo-Visma’s Tony Martin were disqualified from the Tour after Martin blocked Rowe at the bottom of an Alpine climb and Rowe responded by riding up beside the German and punching him – patting him, really – in the face. ‘It’s something I regret but people bash you in the peloton all the time,’ Rowe tells Cyclist as we settle down to talk in a hotel near Ghent in…

If you were writing a manual on how to win on the Mur de Huy at the end of La Flèche Wallonne – the Walloon Arrow – spring Classic, then you might well scribble down three general rules. First, make sure you are among the leading 10 riders through the climb’s famous S-bend. Second, never make the first attack, be patient, hold your fire longer than you think. Third, be Alejandro Valverde or Anna van der Breggen. I realise that this won’t be of much help to the non-pro hoping to tackle one of the most difficult climbs in Belgium (I fear deed poll won’t have any effect on your watts). For mere mortals it is simply hard from the start, then it gets harder and after that you’re just…

TRAVEL Cyclist flew with British Airways to Toulouse, which is serviced by a number of airlines. Axat is then about two hours by car. Or you could fly to Perpignan (one hour from Axat), Carcassonne (70 minutes) or Montpellier (2.5 hours), although these are less well serviced than Toulouse. You could even drive from the UK too, in around 14 hours. ACCOMMODATION Cyclist stayed with Steve and Lou Wood at Pyrenees Cycle Tours (pyreneescycletours.com). Their superb chambres d’hotes in Quillan is just 10km away from the Figure of Hate start, and is also perfect for short cycling breaks or longer cycling holidays in the region. It offers a relaxed, comfortable environment, and we were particularly taken with the shower in our room, which had a built-in radio and colour-changing LED…

This column is the latest victim of the coronavirus outbreak. At the time of writing, the Giro d’Italia is not going to happen in its planned slot in May. In fact, the chances of the 2020 race taking place at all are looking increasingly slim. So instead of previewing the 103rd edition of the Giro I’m looking back at a recent trend in its history that, ironically, might pose a bigger threat to its future than the Covid-19 pandemic. The last Grande Partenza I attended was a star-studded affair in Naples in 2013, where my wife and I bumped into designer Paul Smith on our way to the team presentation. He turned out to be very chatty, and we discussed Mark Cavendish’s chances of winning the opening stage and therefore…

61 Garmin 830 £349.99, madison.co.uk Garmin’s crown as king of GPS kit has been under threat from jealous rivals of late, but with its 830 it has shown it’s in no mood to give up its top spot just yet. With a featherweight mass of 82g (on our own scales) and a compact 2.6in screen, you’d be excused for expecting minimal mapping functionality. But as soon as the 830’s bright 246x322-pixel screen comes to life it’s clear that’s not an issue. The 830 comes with live segments, live tracking, ultra-fast route planning, incident detection, nutrition tracking and even a bike alarm – all while punching out 20 hours of battery life. It’s compatible with all ANT+, Bluetooth and Bluetooth Smart sensors, and offers impressive Cycling Dynamics metrics when paired with…