Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 26 i Cyclist Australia

The early part of the pro season is a tale of two pelotons: those who battle the wind, rain, cobbles and pave of Belgium and France; and those who hit the snow-dusted mountains of Europe to prepare for the Ardennes classics, the Giro, and Le Tour. There are plenty of reasons to stay up late. Thankfully, we’ve also got enough in this issue to get you up early. That’s what our riders wish they’d done during our Big Ride through the Snowy Mountains as they battled slopes, scorching sun and the bites of March flies. You can take your own bite out of our stunning local feature on page 54. As we went to print this issue, all eyes were on Greg Van Avermaet (BMC Racing) and his near-unstoppable run…

$399, 240g (40cm bars); $199, 159g (120mm stem), pro-bikegear.com Shimano’s own brand of controls and components wouldn’t be right without a little future proofing, and both the new Vibe Aero bars and stem deliver as intended. Compatible with the all-new R9100 Di2 junction box – that sits inside your handlebar instead of a bar plug – and featuring internal wiring through both bars and stem, the entire package is kept sleek and ultra fast. Better yet, the Vibe Aero bar combats even the harshest of conditions, thanks to the reinforced Innegra fibres lined in high-stress areas. The anodised alloy Vibe stem comes stock with Ti hardware and integrated topcap, and is available in two different steerer diameter sizes, eight lengths and two angles. Serfas E-Lume 600 & Cosmo 60 Combo…

$370, echelonsports.com.au CPC (Connect Power Control) is Prologo’s attempt at a happy middle ground between slip-sliding all over your saddle and Tony Martin’s infamous sandpaper set-up, offering decent levels of grip but with much less undercarriage abrasion. CPC Airing is Prologo’s newest version of this technology and, thanks to a redesigned distribution of the polymer micro-cylinders that make up CPC (think tiny octopus suckers), airflow and shock absorption are claimed to have been improved by 10% and 15% respectively. Kinetic Rock and Roll Smart Control Trainer $1,349 (trainer), $119 (mat), $89 (Turntable riser), www.velovita.net.au Compatible with nearly any style of ride – road, time trial, CX or MTB – the Rock and Roll is still the only electronic smart trainer that provides a unique and realistic on-road feel. Pre-installed with…

Reversing isn’t easy on a bike – we know, we just tried it and landed with a hefty thump – but there is one thing that can go backwards if you don’t ride regularly: your fitness. It’s a process called reversibility, or detraining. It’s not something to worry about if you go for three days without riding (in fact you will possibly get fitter, as that rest allows your muscles time to recover and grow, and for the glycogen stores that your muscles use as fuel to replenish), but if you complete a gruelling race or sportive and decide you can’t face even looking at a bike for three months, it’s a different matter. You probably spent the previous three months training like a beast, so you may be interested…

We rode the 157km L’Etape Australia route, which – even as two guys who had never visited the Snowies before – was easy to navigate. Plotting it on a GPS-enabled cycling computer makes it foolproof, given the lack of other main roads to confuse you. We started at Lake Crackenback, near Thredbo, but due to the (roughly) figure-eight shape of the course, you can start the ride at Jindabyne – meaning you have a few less kilometres after the descent off Kosciuszko. Riding back to Crackenback after finishing the course would make it close to a 200km day – huge. And the Skitube connection between Perisher and Thredbo (i.e. across the valley) doesn’t currently run through the summer months, so riding back would be your only option (it does switch…

Spending thousands of bucks upgrading your kit is certain to improve your performance on the bike – but it’s not the best way. For the majority of us, there are greater performance gains to be had by losing body weight, because while shedding weight from your equipment has the potential to save a few hundred grams, stripping unnecessary weight from your body gives you the scope to save thousands. The reason weight has such an impact on performance lies in its relationship with power. Accelerating a given weight or moving it uphill requires power, so it follows that cutting weight from an object will see it travel faster for the same amount of power. In other words, the lighter you are the quicker you’ll go for a similar effort. This…

Colnago V1-r, $5,200 (frameset), colnago.com Aesthetically speaking, it’s hard to fault the matt black V1-r, designed just over the border in Italy – in collaboration with Ferrari, no less. Internal cable routing is pretty standard these days, but throw in an under-chainstay mounted rear brake and things start looking really clean. That said, the brake – and indeed the whole bike – is more than just an exercise in beauty. While not technically all-out aero, the V1-r has been designed with speed in mind – hence the tucked away rear brake and the wind-tunnel-optimised tube profiles. This was my first outing with Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 and it was indeed a slick-shifting pleasure, save for some jitters after replacing the rear wheel due to a rear puncture. Luckily it proved easy…

‘Come on, I’m going to show you the bike that’s going to save the world,’ Specialized’s creative director, Robert Egger, tells us excitedly, as he limps ahead on a recently injured hip. He takes us to a floor filled with various concept bikes of all shapes and sizes. There are laid-back chopper bikes kitted out with fatbike wheels and disc brakes, super-fast racers with gigantic wheels, cafe-racer motorbikes with cranks in place of engines, bikes equipped with steering wheels and novelty bikes that could have come from The Flintstones. Egger’s real interest, though, is the union of bikes and electricity. ‘I’m an e-bike master. I love e-bikes,’ says Egger. ‘I told Mike Sinyard one day that every bike will eventually be electrically powered. We may not like it as classic…

The SLR8 sits in the middle of Trek’s superlight Émonda range, and was built for days like these. My model had a measured weight of just 6.25kg (without pedals) and featured Trek’s ‘H2’ endurance geometry, with a slightly taller head tube than the more aggressive ‘H1’ version. This meant that a long day in the San Gabriel Mountains was dispatched in as much comfort as possible, while the Émonda frame was still stiff enough to ensure precise handling on the fast descents. A Dura-Ace 50/34 compact chainset with 11-28 cassette meant I could cope with any gradient (albeit slowly at times). Although Trek’s top-of-the-range Émonda SLR10 Race Shop Limited will set you back $14,999, I couldn’t imagine needing anything more than the SLR8 for even the longest ascents.…

There’s a growing trend among bicycle manufacturers for creating bespoke components in order to make their bikes smoother, sleeker, faster, stiffer, more comfortable and generally more desirable. This issue’s duo, the BMC Roadmachine 01 and Wilier Cento10Air, present perfect examples of how to best deliver a premium out-of-the-box package that leaves few questions for the customer to answer.…

 I wasn’t expecting to feel scared, yet I couldn’t ignore that strange sense of unease bubbling below the surface as I stood on the edge of a pitch-black abyss preparing to launch down Sa Calobra. It was 4am, and the only insight of what lay ahead was a couple of crumpled magazine cuttings I had collected about ‘Cycling’s perfect climb’. To get there, I’d driven for three hours across the mountainous backbone of Mallorca in the dead of night, and had not seen a single sign of human life for about two hours and 58 minutes. I felt isolated. Excited. Apprehensive. A foreigner in an exotic land, blinded by darkness. As I reassembled my bike under the full beam of my Renault Twingo hire-car headlights, the howling wind that threatened…

$TBC, au.oakley.com From Andy Hampsten’s 1988 Factory Pilots to David Millar’s 2000 Over the Tops (proving that not only did he race through the dark, but he also occasionally got dressed in it), Oakley is no stranger to outlandish designs. And while the Radar Pace might not look too dissimilar to Oakley’s built-in MP3 player ‘Thump’ glasses of 2004, they do a whole lot more than just play music. ‘Essentially, the Radar Pace is your own personal trainer,’ says Oakley’s wearable tech manager, Luis Diaz. ‘It’ll plan training sessions based on data you feed the app, then instruct you through tailored sessions via the ear booms. But the really cool thing is you can interact with it.’ Simply say something like, ‘Radar, what’s my power?’ and a reply will come…

It’s hard to believe Ben O’Connor has only been riding a bicycle – seriously – for the past five years. The Perth native only really picked up a road bike in Year 11, but his rise from neophyte to neo-pro has been nothing short of meteoric. After spending his first two seasons racing the National Road Series (NRS) with WA-based Satalyst Giant (now Satalyst Verve), O’Connor made the move to the top NRS team for the past six years – Avanti-IsoWhey Sport (now IsoWhey Sports SwissWellness) in 2016. Under the tutelage of team co-founder and sports director Andrew Christie-Johnston, O’Connor’s career began to take shape with a stage and overall at the New Zealand Cycle Classic followed by a third overall at Tour de Taiwan behind team-mate and winner Robbie…

What: Hong Kong Cyclothon Where: Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong Distance: 50km, 35km or 10km Next one: October 8, 2017 More information: discoverhongkong.com The air is still warm from yesterday, and as we descend into freeway tunnels beneath the sea it becomes thick, hot and soupy. It’s a relief as we emerge back into the morning light Our alarm chimes. It’s 3:30am. We shuffle lazily down to breakfast in our hotel-issue white slippers. The only guests at this early sitting of breakfast are fellow Cyclothon participants, some already in their cleated shoes and Lycra. Keen. ‘I can’t eat at this hour,’ I say to Marcus, your bearded photographer. He looks up from his plate, piled high with bacon on toast, and replies. ‘Okay, no worries. I’ll meet you in…

The Cime de la Bonette is home to Europe’s highest paved road, and is… what’s that you say? It’s not Europe’s highest paved road? Then why does it have a sign at the top saying it is? It’s one of life’s little mysteries. Officially the Pico del Veleta in Spain’s Sierra Nevada mountains is the highest ‘proper’ road, reaching just over 3,300m. Still, the Cime de la Bonette is at least France’s highest paved road, which isn’t to be sniffed at. However, if you’re talking about Europe’s highest cols things get even more confusing, because the Cime de la Bonette is not quite the same as the Col de la Bonette. A ‘col’ is a pass – a road that passes over the top of a climb en route to…

The new Focus Paralane was piloted by both Nick and Jack – Nick on SRAM 1x Apex and Zipp 30 Course wheels, Jack on Shimano 105 and Fulcrum wheels. Both had hydraulic disc brakes, which at their respective price points are exceptional value. Nick’s 1x set up was a 44-tooth front coupled to an 11-36 rear, giving him an effective gear range within a few (gear) inches of the 105 bike (which had a standard double chainset). Tyres were Schwalbe One race, with 30c on Nick’s and 28c on Jack’s. PSI was set around 70 and – hand over heart – neither rider noticed a lack of speed, whether climbing or descending. For the trails, some Maxxis knobbly off-road tyres were swapped in. One word of warning – the Paralane…

Pav Bryan, cycling coach at Cyclism, oversaw Cyclist’s weight-loss program and the results were monitored by Phil Chant at BodyScan UK. Chant says, ‘I’d recommend testing composition every three to four months if you’re on a committed intervention. This gives a good balance between being long enough to see meaningful changes but soon enough to establish trends and refine your program.’ In the one month I followed the program my weight dropped by a kilo, and thanks to DEXA’s detailed analysis it can be seen that the weight was fat mass – muscle mass stayed level. Thanks to this loss of non-functional bodyweight and my 20-minute power output improving by 5 watts, my functional threshold power (the amount of power I can put out for an hour) improved from 3.35…

The day before leaving for Los Angeles, I compiled my Californian playlist. Alongside contemporary favourites like Katy Perry, Snoop Dogg and NWA are such classics as Albert Hammond’s 1970s folk hit ‘It Never Rains in California’ and Roy Orbison’s ‘California Sunshine Girl’. Now, as I clip in to my pedals at the intersection of Highway 39 in the northern suburb of Azusa, my choice of music comes back to haunt me in spectacular fashion as the cloud that has been obscuring the foothills all morning finally breaks. Rain spots turn to showers, which turn to downpours as Alex, an LA-dwelling expat Brit, and I push on quickly through the dips and ramps of the initial nursery slopes. The smooth road surface quickly transforms into a polished mirror, raindrops firing off…

The mountainous roads to the north-east of LA are one of the world’s best-kept cycling secrets, and in part have even prompted their own sarcastic hashtag – #LAsucksforcycling – in response to anyone who thinks riding in this part of SoCal is a nerve-shredding, traffic-dodging crashfest. Beyond being locally famous, they’re also the roads on which the Tour of California has been decided, with Mount Baldy being used as a summit finish to the queen stage three times. The most recent was last May, when the stage parcours incorporated Glendora Mountain Road (known locally as GMR), Glendora Ridge Road, East Fork, and a final climb to the Baldy ski lifts. On Stage 7 of the 2015 Tour, Julian Alaphilippe of Etixx-Quick-Step stamped his authority on the race, won the stage…

THE SPEC Model BMC Roadmachine 01 Groupset Dura-Ace Di2 9070 Deviations Shimano R785 shifters, RS805 disc brake callipers Wheels DT Swiss Spline RC38 Carbon Finishing kit 3T Ergonova Team handlebar, BMC ICS 01 stem, BMC D-Premium seatpost, Fizik Aliante R5 saddle Weight 7.8kg (56cm) Price $13,999 ($9,999 Ultegra Di2) Contact bmc-switzerland.com There’s no doubt that with the Roadmachine 01 BMC has produced one of the cleanest-looking road bikes out there. All the usual cable clutter has been neatly tucked away, with a cunningly designed cockpit that allows the cables to disappear into the stem before running down inside the head tube thanks to a fork steerer with flattened sides, which leaves space for the cables. BOWERS The frame’s tube shapes and components just seem to flow seamlessly into one another,…

$2,599, 99bikes.com.au Renowned for its huge lineup of bikes – try scrolling through the range if you don’t believe us – German-owned Cube has enjoyed a rebirth in the Australian market after a couple of absent years. Seated, tested and raced under the caboose of the Belgian Pro Continental outfit Wanty-Groupe Gobert, which last year won Amstel Gold thanks to a handy move by Enrico Gasparotto, we were intrigued to see what a more wallet-friendly offering would deliver. The brand reportedly moves half a million bikes globally every year, but it’s still a very new player in the Australian scene. Now, with a slimmed down local offering, Europe’s largest producer is available here once again. We hit the streets on the Attain GTC (Gran Turismo Composite) Race equipped with Shimano…

This image was taken during the epic Queen Stage of seven-day MTB race The Pioneer, from Christchurch to Queenstown. This stage saw the riders climb nearly 3,800m of vertical over 135km from Lake Ohau through to Lake Hawea. The photograph was taken through the wide-open Ahuriri Valley, roughly a third of the way through the arduous journey to Hawea. What I like most about this shot is the scale of all the elements involved – the small line of riders and the wide-open valley, capped off with the dominant mountain display in the background with which the photograph has been framed. The relatively low early light helps make the riders pop, and the glowing dust gives the whole image context and adds a sense of movement and haste to the…

Russia’s Olympic scandal, Fancy Bears, TUEs, Team Sky’s mysterious package – doping is very much back in the news. The consensus seems to be that things are not as bad as they were in the Armstrong era, but athlete surveys and the UCI’s CIRC report suggest the number of sportsmen and women doping is still likely between 14% and 39%. Yet despite the introduction of the Athlete Biological Passport in 2009, the percentage of athletes failing drug tests each year remains between 1% and 2%. Yes, there have been victories, with the blood passport credited with hugely reducing the use of EPO in the peloton. But as BBC investigative journalist Mark Daly showed in 2015, it’s easy to beat the passport by micro-dosing, even without the historic diluting agent of…

’m going to lead off by addressing the elephant in the room. There are no two ways about it – Victorians are spoilt when it comes to their alpine regions. Their popularity – with the multitude of events throughout the summer months – means Bright (and surrounds) have become something of a cycling Mecca for riders in search of vert. Moreover, it’s also now the gold standard by which our other alps are judged. Exceptional climbs are no longer enough. You need good roads, great food, prime weather and beautiful surrounds to go with the climbing on offer – all of which the Vic alps deliver. In a country not blessed with an abundance of mountains, it feels almost ironic that the home of our highest peak isn’t the first…

'In that off-season, I had some issues. You're young – you think everyone has your best interests at heart, and then you realise it's just a business' It’s February, 2013, and Lachlan Morton is sitting alone in an apartment in Mallorca. He’s banged up and battered with a broken collarbone, just a few hours after being hit by a car on a training ride. He has only been in his new digs as a rookie professional for a week, and already, he’s wondering: what the hell am I doing? It dawns on Morton – then 21 and on the American Garmin-Sharp team – that his new life as a professional rider may not be all it was made out to be. It wouldn’t be the last time he thinks that,…

It’s only deep into the twisting, interminable ascent of the Col de la Bonette, when the lush meadows have given way to moonlike scree, that I finally click: the fruit and veg van tailing me is in fact the broom wagon. As the driver draws up, he winds down his window and asks if I’d like to continue. The problem, he says, is that the temperature at the summit is 0°C. Falling sleet is adding to the piles of snow that have already blocked the extra loop of the Cime de la Bonette and the leaders were pulverised by gale force winds. I find all this hard to believe. Down here in the hairpins above Jausiers it’s a balmy day, so much so that I’ve ditched my knee and armwarmers.…

‘There’s always a push and pull between design and engineering because what looks beautiful will rarely be what’s most efficient structurally’ Head south from San Francisco on Route 101 for an hour, past the monolithic tech motherships of Silicon Valley and into the Santa Clara valley, and you’ll find the sleepy town of Morgan Hill. Among a cluster of enormous warehouses there is one with a jagged ‘S’ emblazoned on its frontage. It’s an unassuming spot for one of the most pervasive and powerful cycling brands on the planet. Yet this is Specialized’s HQ. In one of these warehouses sits a temple central to the church of Specialized – the in-house wind-tunnel. In the next building over is a high security composites lab, inaccessible to all but the most senior…

Pick up Highway 39 at the junction of West Sierra Madre Avenue in the northern suburb of Azusa, and follow it north for 48km to its highest point, where burritos and coffee await at the Crystal Lake Cafe. Retrace your route back down to the junction of East Fork Road, taking a left over the bridge at the northern end of the San Gabriel Reservoir. Follow this road for 8.5km until you come to a right-hand hairpin turn to join Glendora Mountain Road. After 9km take the left signposted for Mount Baldy, and follow Glendora Ridge Road for a further 20km until the short drop down into Mount Baldy village. From here, take a right turn and plummet down Mount Baldy Road back towards civilisation. Turn right onto Baseline Road…

THE SPEC Model Wilier Cento10Air Groupset Shimano Ultegra 6800 Deviations Shimano Ultegra 6810 direct mount brakes Wheels Mavic Cosmic Pro Carbon Exalith Finishing kit Wilier Alabarda integrated bar and stem, Ritchey Cento10Air custom seatpost, Selle Italia SLS carbon saddle Weight 7.51kg (L) Price $6,900 (approx.) Contact wilier.com/en I always think there’s something reassuring about a bike that’s had many before it bear its name. Specialized has the Allez, Cannondale the CAAD series, Trek the Madone, Giant the TCR, and Wilier the Cento. SPENDER It speaks of consideration, faith and solid reputation. Consideration that a manufacturer has tried to create lineage and pedigree; faith that each iteration will be better than the generation before; and solid reputation that if a name has lasted long enough, a bike must be doing something…