Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2020 i Cycling Plus

With life tentatively returning to some kind of normal in the UK it does feel like we can start to look forward again to planning the cycling adventures we’ve put on hold in 2020. For some of us, that simply means committing to more regular bike commutes now that workplaces are reopening, for others it’s pencilling back in the big European gran fondo or the bikepacking trip around South America. On Cycling Plus we’re looking forward to getting away in 2021 and on p78 we speak to the people and companies who help make these trips so special. SUBSCRIBE! NEW SUBSCRIBERS TO CYCLING PLUS CAN GET AN ALTURA CLUB JERSEY WORTH £55 ALREADY A SUBSCRIBER? Get access to exclusive content, competitions and offers. Turn to p76 SUBSCRIBE TODAY FOR ACCESS…

£2540.29 New lightweight endurance bike from German direct-sales brand The concept behind the Reveal was to create an endurance bike that’s built for high performance Rose’s reputation for producing technically impressive bikes at hard-to-beat prices means we are always excited when an update of established models, such as the Rose Pro SL, comes along. However, we’re even more stoked by this new Reveal, a whole new line for this buy-direct company from Germany. The concept behind the Reveal was to create an endurance bike that’s built for high performance – think Specialized Roubaix or Canyon Endurace, rather than a steady upright-position pseudo audax-cum-touring machine. That becomes obvious when you look at the stack and reach numbers for our 57cm test bike: a low 589mm in stack and a mid-length 385mm…

THE BIG PICTURE WHITE VAN MAN As the Covid-19 pandemic closed down Europe in March, Paris-Nice just managed to make it through to its conclusion in what would be the final WorldTour race for more than four months. The show finally got back on the road on the first day of August, with the white roads of Tuscany hosting the men’s and women’s Strade Bianche. It was a scorching affair, drier than is often the case in its usual early spring position. Wout van Aert and Annemiek van Vleuten took the wins.…

01 WAHOO TICKR £39.99 Wahoo’s original product, the TICKR heart-rate strap, has undergone a revamp and redesign. The newshape monitor now sits flush with the chest strap, and together they weigh just 46g. Battery life has ramped up to 500 hours and new LED lights along the top edge make it far easier to see when it’s activated and working. You can also connect to three Bluetooth devices at the same time (as well as ANT+) so it’ll talk to your bike computer, phone and smartwatch simultaneously. 02 WOLF TOOTH BLING KIT £35 If you fancy shaving a few grams, Wolf Tooth’s anodised bling kit might just be the answer you’re looking for. The complete kit weighs just 33.9g and includes nearly 40mm of headset spacers, a stem cap and…

With the Cotswolds to the north west, the Chilterns to the east and various Downs to the south, Oxford has plenty of super options for day rides – and the smooth riverside path by the Thames (called the Isis here) is perfect for trundling (unless there’s a regatta!) or heading south to Abingdon. To the west, lack of river crossings (until they get round to reinstating the tiny ped-bike ferry at Bablock Hythe) means getting out can be a touch dreary – there’s only really Botley Road’s shabby cycle path and then the busy Broad towards Eynsham – but once there you have lovely, quiet heart-of-England scenery. The city centre, colleges and all, is patchy in terms of infrastructure, but can feel full of A-to-B cyclists, especially in term time…

£1350 Keeping it real with steel WE SAY… A gravel bike that performs well on tarmac with the feel of a smooth endurance bike We recently tested Marin’s sub-£1000 Nicasio + and were hugely impressed with its capabilities. The Nicasio 2 shares the same Beyond Road geometry traits as the + but the frame is a higher-grade butted Series 2 steel, complete with mudguard mounts, rack mounts, a reinforced head tube and even provision for internal Di2 wiring, plus a minimal flat-mount for the disc brake. Up front it boasts an all-carbon fork with mudguard mounts and a tapered steerer. Marin’s Beyond Road geometry blends numbers you’d expect to find on a sporty endurance bike with (on our 58cm test bike) a 610.4mm stack height (the vertical distance from the…

£1799.99 Carbon frame and fork, and SRAM Force at an amazing price WE SAY… Amazing value, top-quality gravel bike that’s kitted out with excellent features ON-One was started by ex-mountain bike journalist Brant Richards as a response to increasingly complex mountain bikes. He designed simple, affordable single-speed bikes, and pairing with direct-to-market legends Planet-X brought them to the forefront of the road singlespeed/fixed gear trend in the late noughties. With the advent of gravel bikes On-One has started to push out some classy, cost-effective bikes, initially with the On-One Space Chicken and now this poultry themed bike. The frameset is built from high-grade Japanese Toray T700 carbon (Toray is a brand of carbon used by some of the most respected brands in cycling) (1). The Free Ranger frame is bang…

At first glance, cycling appears to be one of the lucky industries that has not been ruined by Covid-19. With people keen to avoid public transport and stay active, Halfords has seen a 57.1 per cent surge in bike sales, while some UK regions have witnessed a 300 per cent rise in bike use. But although local riding and bike commuting have grown, cycle tourism has collapsed. From UK sportives to European training camps, Alpine holidays to Gran Fondo events, bike travel has become increasingly difficult and daunting. Tour operators have been o"ering refunds, credit notes and date transfers, and most sportives have been postponed until 2021. As an industry built on adventure and camaraderie, cycle tourism was destined to su"er in the world of social isolation. The outlook for…

One of the fundamental ways to keep your bike in good shape is to check your brake pads and change when necessary. Rim bakes work through the friction between brake pad and rim, and over time the softer pad material will wear away. If the pad thins to beyond its wear indicator line, it’s time to change pads. If your pad doesn’t have an indicator line, change the pad when its grooves are approaching the halfway point. Poorly aligned pads may have formed a ridge – remove this with a file if you plan to keep using the pads. Regularly cleaning worn material and dirt from the pads means you might be able to extend their life a little. Periodically remove the pads to wipe clean, and check for grit…

July should have been the month when Team Alpecin’s Paul, Steph and Marcus headed to France and got stuck into the 2020 L’Etape du Tour – the best day in amateur cycling. Instead, they had a somewhat less glamorous date with destiny on a turbo trainer at home… As we’ve documented in previous issues, our trio, rather than a summer-long road season around Europe, took up the Covid-19-necessitated Alpecin Cycling Challenge, a three-month programme of intensive turbo sessions to up their fitness and push their FTP – their average hour-power – upwards. It’s not just been a physical challenge, but a mental one too as real life, in the shape of redundancies and frantic work and home lives, got in the way. But they all made it to the final…

In an ever-widening area around a Northamptonshire reservoir, there has been “a dynamic flash in different coloured Primark sports gear” – a description that, location aside, could apply to any of the thousands of people who have rediscovered cycling during lockdown. In this case it is, in his own words, Chris Heaton-Harris, the government minister responsible for cycling. Like many others who’ve dusted off an ageing bike and rediscovered a love of cycling, Heaton-Harris has reaped its health benefits of regular riding – benefits he is keen to help others enjoy. The MP for Daventry is a former greengrocer who took up the cycling post, along with the portfolio for rail and Crossrail, in July 2019. A year later, he presided over a raft of active travel announcements from Downing…

£4970 Sporty UK-built steel endurance road bike The Resolution is Mason’s steel allroad bike and, back in 2018, it was updated with 12mm thru-axles, flat-mount brakes and handsome custom dropouts designed by Bear components. Constructed from a mix of Columbus Spirit and Life tubes, the frameset is welded by Mason’s contractors near Venice and assembled to spec in the UK. Out of the box with no pedals fitted, our size 56cm test sample weighs 9.05kg on the nose, which is on the lighter end of average for a steel bike. The bike is compatible with both mechanical and electronic groupsets. The ports for cables/hoses sit flush with the frame and give a clean look, even when built with a wireless groupset, such as the SRAM Force eTap AXS groupset pictured…

Recently gravel bikes have dominated drop-bar bike sales. The idea of a bike that can get you off the beaten track yet not feel sluggish on tarmac has wide appeal, so we’ve tested four of the best for under £2000. California-based brand Marin launched in 1986 as one of the early mountain-bike specialists. It’s expanded into road, cyclocross and now has a wide range of gravel and adventure bikes. The Nicasio 2 combines a classic, slim-tubed steel frame with Marin’s Beyond Road geometry and a road-derived drivetrain. This is a bike with versatility at its core. Fuji’s Jari 1.3 Adventure is built around a light alloy frame and carbon fork and aims to offer versatility from the same mould as Marin. Fuji, however, has opted to provide the rider with…

£1399.99 Well kitted-out gravel machine WE SAY… An ever yday work hor se that can take you on week end adventures You could mistake the alloy tubes for steel they’re so slender. The satin matt-blue finish also keeps things understated and even the fluro graphics don’t detract from a great-looking bike. It’s very well set for fixtures and fittings with internal cable routing for 1x and 2x drivetrains, full rack and ’guard mounts, top tube bento-box style mounts and three sets of bottle bosses. The full carbon fork has rack mounts and a drilled bridge for full-length mudguards, plus triple bosses for anything-style cages on the legs (1), internal routing for the brakes and for a dynamo on the right hand fork leg. I was blown away with the equipment…

Inspiration came from mountain bikes and progressive geometry – looks odd but feels so right! This test has been fun but a tough one to judge as every bike here has its merits. The Marin’s lively steel frame and great ride position make for an incredibly fun experience, especially on long days out. The Fuji majors on versatility and while it make a good commuter, it tilts its spec to the more adventurous rider looking towards multiday epic tours and challenges. British brand On-One has yet again overturned the apple cart when it comes to out-and-out value. We were impressed by the spec on the Free Ranger. Try and find a similarly equipped bike from the big bike brands and you’d be looking at around a £1000 more on your…

£10999 Big performance, grand price tag e-road bike Specialized has certainly taken its time in launching an e-road bike with all of its rivals already selling their versions on the market. Specialized has gone a different way to its competitors, however, having developed its own motor system at its ebike research and development headquarters in Switzerland. Specialized says it had ambitious goals for range, weight and riding dynamics that existing systems couldn’t quite meet. Its system, called SL, has been subjected to 3250 test hours and over 70,000km of field testing and took three years to develop. The SL1.1 motor is designed to be smooth, silent and powerful and at just 1.9kg it’s the lightest bottom bracket motor available. Not surprising when you consider the motor’s housing is made from…

On the face of it, the easing of lockdown restrictions in the UK has been a good thing for cyclists and cycling. We can get out on our bikes without worrying that we’re breaking a vague guideline, more people are taking to two wheels, and the government has put bikes front and centre of its policy and investment plans. There has been a downside, though. According to figures from national cycle database BikeRegister, bike theft is up postlockdown. In June alone, reported thefts increased by 48 per cent compared to the same month in 2019. This means that cyclists, experienced and new alike, need to be more vigilant than ever when it comes to securing their rides. To help you keep your pride and joy (or even the old clunker…

When Trek introduced the first Emonda back in 2014 it completed the brand’s triple line-up of pro-level race bikes. Trek, like the rest of the pro-peloton providers, had a bike for every stage of major races. Trek’s Madone, introduced in 2003, was raced by Lance Armstrong. In 2012 Trek diversified with its first anagram of Madone: the Domane. This bike was designed to attack the cobbled classics - a comfort-orientated race bike to take on Specialized’s all-conquering Roubaix, Trek even secured classics specialist Fabian Cancellara to ride it in 2014. In the same year the Madone had morphed into a full-on aero-road bike but Trek knew that its climbing specialists required a lightweight bike for the highmountain stages of the grand tours and so the Emonda was born, a bike…

DAVID GEORGE, CEO OF SPECIALIST CYCLING INSURER BIKMO.COM “For some, the idea of buying specialist cycle insurance on the back of purchasing an expensive, high-spec bike may seem like a no-brainer. While you are legally required to insure a car, why not protect your bike too? But not all cyclists opt for specialist cover. A few factors to consider when weighing up this decision include the fact that you may not be covered on your home insurance. Some home insurance policies can cover all risks, but most don’t. Many home insurance policies have a bicycle limit as low as £500, and it may also exclude cover when you’re away from the house. Check the small print and see what a specialist policy can offer. Accidental damage is our number one…

No matter how fit you become, and however hard you train, if your knees don’t move in a symmetrical and fluent motion when you pedal, you will never achieve your optimal efficiency. “Muscle imbalances from cycling develop over time no matter how hard we try to avoid them,” explains Laurence Plant, specialist chiropractor and clinic manager at Henley Practice, and expert for physio suppliers Meglio (mymeglio.com). “If left to develop, they can increase your risk of injury and negatively impact your performance.” Poor ‘knee tracking’ – when your knees don’t move in a fluid or evenly balanced motion as you pedal – is usually caused by an asymmetry between either your medial (hip and thigh) or lateral (outer lower leg) muscles. “This leads to the knee dropping in and out…

PRICE £3400 (FRAMESET) COMPLETE BIKE PRICE APPROX (£7620) UPGRADES NONE KILOMETRES RIDDEN 2800 “This bike is as smooth as it is fast; and, by god, it’s fast! It’s hard to imagine how the SL7 can improve on this…”WARREN ROSSITER All good things, they say, must come to an end, and my time with Specialized’s wonderful Tarmac SL6 S-Works is drawing to a close. Not because I’ve grown tired of it, or found a better replacement, it’s because Specialized has decided this July to launch an allnew SL7 Tarmac. The latest model brings much more aerodynamics into the equation; so much so, in fact, it’s decided to discontinue its aerospecialist road bike, the Venge. After more than 2800 kilometres (1700 miles) on the SL6, what have I learnt? Well, SRAM’s Force…

1 Fast-forward to a carbon bike Consider this a message from your fitter and wiser future self: road cycling is a gloriously slippery slope and you’ll be addicted in no time, so be bold and invest in a carbon bike straight away. Like many new cyclists, when I began riding to work I opted for a cheaper aluminium bike, unsure how long my enthusiasm would last. But within two years I was cycling up colossal mountains in Tenerife and enjoying epic rides in the Brecon Beacons, all the while drooling after a lighter and stiffer carbon ride. When I bit the bullet and upgraded to a £1,650 carbon bike, it meant I had splurged big sums twice in two years and now had an old £750 bike festering in my…

BIKE-BUYING ADVICE YOU CAN TRUST… We take our testing very seriously at Cycling Plus. For more than 25 years – an age when disc brakes, Di2 and super-wide 1x gearing weren’t even a glint in a designer’s eye – we have been putting road cycling products through their paces. Our Senior Technical Editor Warren Rossiter, has nearly a quarter of a century of riding experience in just about every discipline. He can separate the great from the also-rans when it comes to bikes, clothing, accessories – and more. If it gets our seal of approval you can be sure that you’ll be bagging a great buy! THE TECH TEAM’S SENIOR TECHNICAL EDITOR PREVIEWS HIS ISSUE HIGHLIGHTS… WARREN ROSSITER SENIOR TECHNICAL EDITOR This month’s testing has meant getting out and dirty…

£1300 Compact folding ebike With its bright orange hue and unusual design, the British designed ebike MiRider One stands out against most folding bikes especially when you add in its proprietary motor system. Jump on board and, well, it’s a nice place to be. The power assistance comes in smoothly and tracks your pedal cadence well, although with 16-inch wheels and a fairly light gear from its 48-tooth chainring and 14-tooth sprocket (which gives you a 49-inch gear) don’t expect to motor along at high speeds. However, as a single-speed machine, the gear is a fair compromise. It’s light enough to ascend pretty much any urban slope you’ll throw at it when you add in assistance, and you can speed along happily at around 24kph/15mph. The assistance system is based…

MARIN NICASIO 2 £1350 Marin is a legendary mountain bike brand named after the Californian county of the same name. It’s been in the gravel bike game since it started to become popular and for 2020 it’s assembled a range of classic-looking, but thoroughly modern all-road machines with its Beyond Road geometry, practical fixtures and a road-derived drivetrain. The Nicasio 2 promises maximum versatility for minimal outlay. FUJI JARI 1.3 ADVENTURE £1399.99 Fuji’s Jari range is aimed at the more adventurous gravel rider. The Jari 1.3 Adventure is a decently priced all-road machine that aims to combine a versatile lightweight aluminium frame and carbon fork with a gravel-focused drivetrain based around SRAM’s wide range Apex 1x groupset. It’s built to give you a bike fit to take you through the…

£1400 Mountain-bike influenced design WE SAY… Fun to ride on the trails and will serve you well as a commuter or tourer The Silex takes more influence from mountain biking than road. The difference lies in the increased stack to a tall 663mm, and a long reach of 430mm (see p40 for descriptions of both stack and reach). Longer reach usually means a lower position as you are more stretched out, whereas a taller stack means a more upright position. Here, Merida combines this mix of dimensions with a short 80mm stem. This means a position similar to a standard endurance bike, but with handling optimised for off-road as a slack 71-degree head angle increases the trail; this stabilises the front wheel while a short stem speeds up the handling…

YOU NEVER FORGET YOUR FIRST TIME. It didn’t happen on my first long ride, but years after I started cycling. It wasn’t even a mega-ride — just a classic Box Hill loop of three hours. Before that ride, I had done a Park Run with my friends. Then we changed gears and went for our Saturday spin. I tried to eat regularly (my personal rule of thumb was one bar per hour), but it wasn’t enough. On the way back, we started to push a bit harder and, all of a sudden, my energy switched off. My vision got blurry, I felt like I was passing out, and my energy indicator fell to empty. I was cooked. A little uphill road that I usually didn’t even notice suddenly felt like…

There’s something hypnotic about watching the peloton, overhead from the helicopter, traversing the landscape, parting like the waves upon encountering a roundabout,” says Liam Holohan. Of course, as with so many aspects of elite-level sport, those who make it look so easy have, in reality, devoted hundreds and hundreds of hours of hard work away from the public glare to perfect the peloton. “This is not by chance, each rider has applied a number of principles and plenty of practice to ride just centimetres away from other individuals.” As Covid-19 social distancing restrictions ease, meeting group numbers will increase and British Cycling’s registered clubs and coaches will resume activities in some parts of the UK, so knowing how to ride effectively as a group becomes imperative to ensuring safety and…

HOW WAS LIFE BEFORE THE BIKE? “I’d ridden a BMX as a kid and got into road cycling about 16 years ago, but work took over everything to the point where it left me exhausted, anxious and suffering from panic attacks.” HOW DID CYCLING IMPROVE YOUR HEALTH? “Work issues came to a head when I ‘hit the wall’ during a business presentation. I walked off the stage midway through as my mental health was really suffering. There were then some very dark days in the months that followed before I took drastic steps to re-prioritise my life, to regain my work-life balance and restore my mental health. Getting out on my bike at least three times a week was one of the first steps I took to rebuilding my life.…

The Cairn O’ Mount is a climb that gets inside your mind and gives you sleepless nights That’s better. I’ve just showered and eaten after being beaten up by a big, ugly lump of a climb that towers over an otherwise benign landscape of Aberdeenshire’s east coast. The Cairn O’ Mount is notorious among local riders for the savagery of its first section. From the Clatterin Brig tearoom and the snow barriers that are lowered for frequent periods during the winter, the road dramatically pitches up, continuing this ruthless trajectory for several hundred metres before dropping down to a gentler gradient – a mere 14 per cent. For some, however, it’s the climb’s final section that’s the real killer. This comes after a kilometre-long stretch of around six per cent…