Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2023 i Cyclist

Bulging pockets and sweaty snacks are not ideal for anyone, ever. This is why burrito-style bar bags are so great. They’re big enough to carry the essentials – extra layers, tools, pump, tubes, food – but crucially they don’t make it look like you’ve turned your svelte racer into your granny’s shopping bike. The Brooks Scape handlebar pouch, for example, holds a whopping three litres of storage, but still looks neat and minimalist, and not like you’ve attached a saggy sack of potatoes to your bars. When it comes to style, you can either opt for a plain Jane that blends into your bike and doesn’t attract attention, or add a dash of colour to stand out from the peloton. Take the custom Jango Rolls bar roll, which is made…

‘Coppi and Bartali in the Tour! What’s more, in the same team!’ So began a L’Équipe cover story two days before the start of the 1949 Tour de France. ‘It does not seem possible that these two great champions so totally opposed in Italy agree to ride side by side, in the same jersey, to share the same team members of Italy’s squadra and, above all, agree to lend a hand – if necessary.’ Much has been written about one of cycling’s greatest rivalries, one that would divide Italy into Bartaliano and Coppiano. Bartali was the dogged and devout Catholic; Coppi the charismatic and graceful star whose extra-marital affair would provoke the wrath of the Vatican. Coppi would lobby for Bartali’s exclusion from national teams; Bartali would break into Coppi’s…

There are no cars. There is no one. Just three riders and miles of road. A bird caws with startling clarity, just like in the movies If there was a worldwide competition for yellow, Utah would triumph every time. Its autumnal aspens are the winning hand, but it’s more than just their colour. Their leaves are crepe-paper counters hanging by stems so close to seasonal failure that they quiver at the slightest breath, and it’s this quivering that brings their yellow alive. Set against the trees’ silvery bark and brilliant sky, this single hue morphs into a full spectral gamut of all known yellows, gold, lemon, honey, fire. When the wind blows, the leaves ripple like sequined cloth, tick-ticking against each other, thousands raining to the ground, where they rot…

1 Argonaut RM3 p114 This US brand takes a superb road bike and refines it even further for a ride that’s like no other 2 BMC Kaius p118 BMC’s first gravel bike looked like a mountain bike. The Kaius looks more a road bike — and it hits a sweetspot 3 Fairlight Strael p122 This striking steel bike combines a host of practical options for riding in UK conditions to great effect 4 Garmin Edge 1040 Solar p126 It’s packed full of tech, so how does the latest Garmin perform on the bike?…

‘Our bicycles are tools, not trophies. Designed for transport, recreation, exploration and enjoyment.’ That’s what the Fairlight website says, although the brand’s Strael road bike has won trophies, including two wins at the Transcontinental Race. Fairlight Cycles is a London-based, direct-to-consumer steel bike manufacturer, founded in 2016 by Dom Thomas and Jon Reid. The Strael was its first bike, released in 2017, and as the pampered firstborn, it is still the one that takes design priority, with developments being handed down to its three siblings in the range: the Secan, the Faran and the Holt. ‘The Strael is our four seasons road bike,’ says Thomas, who previously designed bikes at Genesis and built custom bikes under the name Wold Cycles. ‘We wanted to build something with the feel of a…

Do you ever go on a ride and see an enticing-looking road? You wonder what might be down there, but your GPS device informs you that it’s not on your route, so you obediently pedal on by without even thinking. This happens to me frequently and I find it very frustrating. GPS devices have slowly and sneakily become the rulers of every ride and, frankly, I think every so often we need to ditch them. The GPS device has become too ingrained into everyday cycling, so much so we let it dictate every road, every trail, every turn. These computers are robbing us of an intrinsic value of the sport – exploration. Don’t get me wrong – when following a set route with a particular training goal in mind, these…

These photographs of kids on bikes speak of another age. The smiles on the faces of those young riders in their tracksuit bottoms, football socks, woolly jumpers and bobble hats define an era before riding required the validation of data uploaded to a training app, when bikes were for pleasure and socialising as much as competing and record-setting. Among the faces in these pictures from the 1970s and 80s are a future Tour de France rider, an Olympic medallist, a Commonwealth and Olympic Games contender, a national road champion, a professional cyclocross rider and a two-times winner of the Monsal hill climb. Speak to them today and their memories are less about the hard slog and sacrifices they had to make for these achievements, and more about the fun they…

A fair amount has changed since I rode the original Argonaut back in 2019, although as Argonaut founder Ben Farver explains, the RM3 is more evolution than redesign. ‘We increased the diameter of the chainstays and went from independent stays to more of a yoke style, which resulted in a torsionally stiffer frame but with pretty much the same vertical stiffness. The top tube is more ovalised to increase horizontal stiffness, and we added some carbon top and bottom to retain vertical bending.’ The seat clamp is now just a single integrated bolt and all routing is internal, but otherwise the RM3 is quite similar to its predecessors, which is a bold statement. Few brands change so little across generations – just look at the new Trek Madone and Specialized…

The Garmin Edge 1040 Solar is packed full of features. Taking over from the Edge 1030 Plus, it sits at the top of the range and combines class-leading navigation, training aids, road-specific metrics and solar charging to make it an impressive piece of kit. When you consider its pricetag, though, the main question is: do you need it? Getting physical There’s no escaping the sheer size of the unit. It’s almost reaching smartphone territory, and I was very aware of its presence on my bars. It has the quality feel I’ve come to expect from Garmin, though, with positive button action and a secure charging port cover. The port itself is now USB-C, in line with most new devices. Also, having seen numerous examples of the mounting tabs shearing from…

I’m riding home when suddenly two masked people jump out the bushes with tins in their hands and throw the contents at my bike. The thick, glutinous substance clings to my sinuously sculpted carbon fibre frame as I weave across the road in shock. Before my assailants disappear, I notice they are wearing ‘Just Stop Oil’ T-shirts, and that the red gloop on my frame is tomato soup. When I get home there’s an envelope on the mat. I open it to find a note, on which is written: ‘I know what you did last summer. Greta.’ And then I wake up… As dreams go, it wasn’t quite as entertaining as the one in which I was the long-lost son of daytime TV antiques expert David Dickinson, but I feared…

1 KINETICA PLANT PROTEIN £38.99 (1kg), uk.kineticasports.com What does Sean Connery think of seabass wearing bowties? Really most sofishticated. And what does Kinetica think of protein powders? Well, it’s keen they should come from plants, which it says makes its Plant Protein universally ingestible no matter what your dietary requirements, all while packing 23g protein per 30g serve. Pea-licious. Flavours are chocolate and vanilla, though. 2 ORUCASE SADDLE BAG £25, orucase.com Calligraphy classes are great ways to meet illegible bachelors, and the Orucase Saddle Bag is a great way to store all your basic bikey tools. It’s waterproof with a storm zip, available in a load of colours, and uses a basic yet effective bungee strap that wraps all the way around the bag to both attach it to saddle…

Think small First, the bad news. ‘New Year’s resolutions don’t work,’ says bike fit guru and former British Cycling physio Phil Burt. ‘Research strongly shows that trying to make big changes inevitably ends in failure.’ But there is something you can do. ‘Aim instead for small, incremental changes within a sensible plan. So identify the goal, work a plan out of how to get there with sensible changes, and implement it. I’d apply this to my world of bike fit but also almost any aspect of weight loss or performance improvement in cycling.’ Work on your cadence ‘What you do this winter can really make or break your year,’ says Hunter Allen, founder and CEO of Peaks Coaching Group (peakscoachinggroup.com). ‘There are some vital components to creating a good winter…

The Giant TCR has been such a successful road bike over the past 25 years that it’s easy to forget just how radical its design was when it first launched, and just how much influence it has had on road bike manufacturing ever since. Take a look at your own bike now – if it has a top tube that slopes down from head tube to seat tube, the original TCR was its ancestor. Giant’s ‘total compact road’ geometry concept created such advantages in performance and production that it has become the standard way to build a road bike today. Fittingly, given the significance of the innovation, the story behind its conception is remarkable – it involves an eccentric British engineer, a scrap mountain bike frame, a bunch of new…

‘It’s the views,’ says Ed when I ask him why he has chosen this route for us. ‘It’s amazing to be able to look out over all the lochs and inlets. That and the ferry. Riding onto the ferry to get across to the peninsula adds a real element of adventure, I think.’ Ed Shoote knows a thing or two about gravel riding in Scotland. He spent two years researching and testing gravel routes all around the country for his book, Gravel Rides Scotland, and today we’re planning to tackle one his favourites: a 58km loop around Loch Eck and along the shores of Loch Long and Holy Loch. It helps that the route is also remarkably easy to get to. The start point is just a few kilometres north…

When BMC first properly committed to the gravel niche, it released a bike somewhat out of left field. Despite the brand’s strong road heritage, the radical design of its first gravel bike, the URS, looked to have more in common with BMC’s cross-country mountain bike platforms than its road-going ones. In a sense, the new Kaius is the gravel bike everyone knew BMC could make, for it seems more an extension of a road bike than the dilution of an off-road one. It meets the URS in the middle, but comes from the other direction. It’s clean and aggressive, and its design bears strong resemblance to the brand’s road models, but it’s none the worse for taking a more familiar approach. In fact, for the type of gravel riding I…

Big Country p54 Limar Air Pro helmet, £254.99 chickencyclekit.co.uk Oakley Sutro Lite Sweep sunglasses, £152 oakley.com Rapha Pro Team Lightweight gilet, £95 rapha.cc Giro Chrono Elite jersey, £109.99 giro.co.uk Giro Chrono Elite bibshorts, £149.99 giro.co.uk Giro Hrc+ Grip socks, £23.99 giro.co.uk Suplest Edge+ Road Pro shoes, £320 suplest.com Les Deux Alpes p84 Met Trenta 3K Carbon Mips helmet, £280 met-helmets.com 100% S3 sunglasses, £159.99 freewheel.co.uk Proviz Podium jersey, £79.99 provizsports.com Gore C5 gloves, £39.99 gorewear.com Chapeau Club II bibshorts, £139.99 chapeau.cc Santini Cubo socks, £16 santinicycling.com Northwave Magma R Rock shoes, £155.39 northwave.com Wee Bit Hill and Glen p102 Kask Mojito3 WG11 helmet, £139 velobrands.co.uk Alba Optics Stratos sunglasses, £153.67 albaoptics.cc Gore Lupra jacket, £179.99 gorewear.com Gore Daily jersey, £79.99 gorewear.com Gore Fernflow shorts, £129.99 gorewear.com Gore C5 Short gloves, £39.99 gorewear.com…