Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2020 i Cyclist

This issue our Classic Climbs series pays a visit to the mighty Col du Galibier, one of the high points – literally – of any Tour de France. It holds the record for hosting the highest stage finish ever at the Tour (2,642m, Stage 18, 2011, won by Andy Schleck) and although it is bettered in height by the likes of the Col de l’Iseran and Col de la Bonette, those have only ever been included a handful of times at the Tour, whereas the Galibier has been tackled no less than 58 times over its 108 years of appearances. It’s so massive that anyone attempting it from the north has to first climb another cat 1 climb, the Col du Télégraph, just to get to the bottom of it.…

Cadex is the new components division of Giant, providing top-end wheels and finishing kit in a similar way that Roval does for Specialized and Bontrager does for Trek. These new Cadex tyres use an ‘RR-S’ silica compound for more grip but less rolling resistance, and while the casing is single layer for suppleness, it also incorporates Kevlar to resist punctures. Do they work? Well, Cadex claims its range of ‘Race’ tubeless tyres has won over plenty of Giant-sponsored CCC Team pros, who are using tubeless far more regularly now.…

Anyone who skis will no doubt be familiar with the Trois Vallées. This vast region of the French Alps is serviced by several major resorts, all interconnected by a lift system that allows skiers to move from one valley to the next as seamlessly as possible. When the summer arrives, however, and the snow disappears, only mountain bike and hiking trails connect the resort of Courchevel in the Saint-Bon valley to Méribel in the Allues valley. Or at least, that’s how it used to be. In the summer of 2019 a road was built over the Col de la Loze, connecting the two ski resorts and creating a brand new playground for road cyclists in the process. Even better, the entire length of the route is closed to motor vehicles,…

TRAVEL Cyclist flew with Swiss Air from London Heathrow to Geneva. Expect to pay £90-£130 each way depending on the time of year. Geneva is one of the best-served airports in the world so there’s a huge choice of airlines and flight times to suit all. Brides-les-Bains is around two hours by car. ACCOMMODATION We stayed at the superb Hotel Les Chalets in Brides-les-Bains (brideslesbains.com), a hotel well used to cyclists. There is a secure garage with basic workshop facilities for bikes, and a breakfast buffet that caters for hungry riders. There’s even porridge. THANKS Huge thanks to Ade and Shelley of Alp Cycles (alpcycles.com), who were a big help making this ride happen. Thanks also to Elodie Guignard of Courchevel Tourism Office (courchevel.com) and Nadine Carle-Edgar of Montagnes Representation…

To describe the Galibier as the oldest Alpine climb feels a little misleading. After all, the paths over the Alps existed long before the Tour de France arrived, and who knows which of them appeared first? However, in terms of the history of the Tour, the Galibier is the most senior of all the Alpine climbs and it has a grandeur befitting this status. It first appeared on the roster in 1911, just a year after the Tourmalet had first ushered high mountains into the race. As you may remember, those forced to do battle with the Pyrenees in 1910 accused the race’s mastermind, Henri Desgrange, of being ‘murderers’, but this clearly didn’t deter him. As an introduction to the Alps, climbing the Galibier is about as intimidating as learning…

Iceland’s population is little more than 360,000, and yet three summers ago a mind-boggling 10% of them went to Euro 2016 in France to support their national football team. The country must have seemed noticeably quieter, and certain trades understaffed. Even ignoring the masses of supporters and their day jobs, the team’s manager was a dentist, and their goalkeeper a filmmaker who directed Iceland’s 2012 Eurovision Song Contest video. As we drive 100km east of Reykjavik to the town of Hvolsvöllur (population 934), my host, Bjarni Ludviksson, reels off another stat for me: 1% of his country’s population is involved in Search and Rescue. By contrast, Scotland (population 5.4 million) has around 900 such volunteers – 60 times fewer proportionally. So why the huge disparity? Apparently it’s down to tourists…

THE SPEC Model Giant Defy Advanced Pro 1 Groupset Sram Force eTap AXS Wheels Giant SLR-1 Disc Finishing kit Giant Contact SLR D-Fuse handlebar, Contact SL Stealth stem, D-Fuse SL seatpost, Contact SL saddle, Gavia Fondo 1 32mm tyres Weight 8.24kg (size ML) Price £4,799 Contact giant-bicycles.com If ever there was a brand that could see into the future, it would surely be Giant. Back when rim brakes were standard across the board, the Defy came out equipped exclusively with disc brakes, and weighed just 7.25kg. At the time that was mildly mind-blowing, and yet today it looks all too conventional. And while the new Defy doesn’t look any different, rest assured, this is no less a vision of the future than its forebear. ‘Aside from the D-Fuse seatpost, the…

The Fernweg Evo wheelset weighs 1.7kg. At the time of writing, the same weight of gold costs £66,289. That makes these wheels, per gram, only 1/9th the price of gold. To our mind that’s a relative bargain, as an equivalently priced 200g gold bar would have had no wind-tunnel testing. It certainly wouldn’t boast a mere 1nm of lateral flex from 90nm of external force, or be able to complete 20,000 emergency stops from 50kmh to dead stop in testing. The centrepiece for Lightweight, as ever, is the rather striking carbon spokes, each of which boasts a tensile strength of 1.8 tonnes. That makes for impressive stiffness but also offers exceptional braking. That’s helped by the pentagon hub system, which dissipates heat so that even the highest temperatures generated from…

To download this route go to cyclist.co.uk/98france. From the centre of Brides-les-Bains take the Route des Frasses, and after about 2km turn right onto the balcony road to La Thuile, then Bozel. Join the main valley road (D915) and descend, then turn left towards Courchevel. Climb through Courchevel 1300 and on to 1850, which is where the new road begins. From the summit at 2,304m descend west to Méribel-les-Allues and Brides-les-Bains. Follow the D915 down the valley and turn left before Salins-les-Thermes towards Val Thorens. Turn at Les Frênes, crossing the valley, and descend to Moûtiers. Take the D915 to Salins-les-Thermes and climb Rue du Colonel Duboin to meet Route des Frasses back to Brides-les-Bains.…

Whichever way you skin it, this cat is all about its Grit SL fork, which uses a series of leaf springs (‘Lauf’ is Icelandic for ‘leaf’) to allow the tip of the fork legs to move independently of the front wheel axle, thus providing 30mm of active suspension. These springs are made from super-strength ‘S-2’ glass fibre most often seen in prosthetic limbs – the field in which the fork’s designer, Benedikt Skúlason, used to work. Unlike carbon, S-2 glass fibre can bend a lot more without snapping or fatiguing, which means the Grit SL can oscillate much faster than a ‘regular’ telescopic fork. It’s superbly well suited to gravel, which is much more about multiple low amplitude impacts as opposed to less frequent large ones, and helps lend the…

THE SPEC Model Scott Addict RC Ultimate Groupset Sram Red eTap AXS Wheels Zipp 202 NSW Disc Finishing kit Syncros Creston iC SL one-piece handlebar, Syncros Duncan SL Aero seatpost, Syncros Belcarra Regular 1.0 saddle, Schwalbe Pro One 28mm tyres Weight 7.02kg (56cm) Price £10,799 Contact scott-sports.com Here’s something I wrote in a bike review back in issue 25 of Cyclist, August 2014: ‘The Storck Aernario Disc is arguably one of the most advanced road bikes on the planet. Yes, many other bikes now spec electronic drivetrains, 22 gears and internal routing, but what Storck has added to the mix is hydraulic disc brakes and thru-axles.’ At the time, the mere mention of disc brakes was enough to cause coffee cups to smash on kitchen floors all around the country.…

The Untouched Col p48 Giro Synthe MIPS helmet, £199.99 zyrofisher.co.uk Oakley Radarlock Path sunglasses, £195 oakley.com Sportful Bodyfit Pro Evo jersey, £90 c3products.com Sportful Bodyfit Pro Air LTD bibshorts, £120 c3products.com Sako7 Pro-Solitude socks, £7.76 moorelarge.co.uk Giro Imperial shoes, £374.99 zyrofisher.co.uk Bikes p125 3T Giro Aether helmet, £259.99 zyrofisher.co.uk 100% Speedcraft sunglasses, £179 madison.co.uk Castelli Perfetto RoS Longsleeve jacket, £190 saddleback.co.uk Castelli Tutto Nano bibtights, £125 saddleback.co.uk Shimano S-Phyre shoes, £340 madison.co.uk GIANT Kask Protone helmet, £199 velobrands.co.uk 100% Racetrap sunglasses, £179 madison.co.uk Le Col by Wiggins Sport jacket, £170 lecol.cc Le Col by Wiggins Pro Therma bibshorts, £165 lecol.cc Le Col legwarmers, £55 lecol.cc Mavic Cosmic SL Ultimate shoes, £295 mavic.com SCOTT Specialized S-Works Evade II helmet, £230 specialized.com Alba Optics Delta sunglasses, €149 (approx £125) albaoptics.cc Santini Sleek…

Remember when smartwatches were the latest hi-tech gadget? These days they have become as commonplace as non-dairy milks and Mathieu van der Poel winning things, so a watch needs to have something very smart indeed to stand out from the crowd. Mobile phone giant and political hot potato Huawei (pronounced wah-way) has decided that battery life is the best place to focus its efforts, and claims its new Watch GT 2 will go for two weeks between charges. That’s based on ‘average use’, which it defines as continuous heart rate monitoring, sleep tracking and 90 minutes of GPS-tracked exercise per week – covering everything from cycling to gym work to swimming (the latter an activity that usually precludes heart rate monitoring in other smartwatches due to the water, but which…

If you ask him about winning awards for his Saffron bikes, Matthew Sowter will likely shrug, look somewhat bashful and say something along the lines of, ‘I just want to make the best bikes I can.’ Luckily for Sowter his best efforts are pretty good; his awards shelf is stacked nearly as high as his order book. However, it has been 10 years since the South African set up shop in London and he’s keen to keep evolving not just his bike designs but his business model, and this is the result: the… well, er, it doesn’t have a name yet. ‘The bike will still be named after the customer,’ says Sowter, alluding to his stock and trade of ground-up bespoke bicycles. ‘And these new bikes will still be custom,…

1 BROOKS C17 OCTANE SADDLE AND BAR TAPE £103/£26, extrauk.co.uk 668, the neighbour of the beast. And C17, the name attached to one of cycling’s most enduring products, the Cambium (natural rubber and cotton mix) Brooks B17 saddle, which first appeared in 1888. That one was brown and leather, but the C17 is now available in this ‘Octane’ powder blue or fetching ‘Bronze’ orange. And if collars and cuffs are your thing, there’s bar tape to match. 2 BE ELITE CHAMOIS CREAM £20, wiggle.co.uk As recurring dreams go, the one where we divide 10 by three is infinitely preferable to the one where Sean Kelly appears in a fug of green smoke, pulls down his bibshorts, points at the saddle sore that cost him the 1987 Vuelta and shouts No…

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Of all Trek’s race bikes, the Émonda is the climbers’ favourite. The emphasis is on weight – a lack of it, of course – and the bike is built around the manufacturer’s lightest ever road frame, which comes in at a claimed weight of just 665g. Throw in the fork and the frameset is still only a shade over 1kg, helping this complete bike to come in at an impressive 7.11kg including disc brakes and Sram Force eTap AXS shifting. The combination was everything I could have asked for on this particular Alpine ride. The spec was flawless and the combination of low weight and unrelenting frame stiffness paid dividends on the climbs. And while the Émonda may be a featherweight, never once did it feel too flighty or unstable…

James Dyson might have made your vacuum cleaner suck a bit harder, but Andrew Ritchie is the UK’s greatest designer. He created arguably the greatest innovation in cycling since the safety bicycle itself: the Brompton. In just 10 seconds the Brompton bicycle can be folded down to something the size of a suitcase, making it small and neat enough to travel with you on even the most crowded public transport networks. Store it at home and it will take up minimal space; if you don’t fancy leaving your bike at the mercy of thieves on the street it will sit happily under an office desk or pub table. Yet unfurled, it rides surprisingly like a normal bicycle. It is almost like having a magic carpet you keep in your pocket…

THE SPEC Model 3T Strada Due Team Groupset Campagnolo Super Record EPS Disc Wheels 3T Discus C45 LTD Finishing kit 3T Superergo Team bars, Apto stem, Charlie Strada seatpost, Fizik Arione 00 Versus Evo saddle, Vittoria Corsa Control G2.0 TLR 30mm tyres Weight 7.78kg (56cm) Price £3,700 frameset (approx £10,900 as tested) Contact saddleback.co.uk During my tests with the 3T Strada Due, I couldn’t help thinking about the homeware company Alessi. It isn’t quite as random a leap as it first seems – both are iconic Italian companies and both have classic designs that have become synonymous with the brand. Alessi has its Juicy Salif lemon squeezer and 9093 Whistling Bird kettle; 3T has its Record 78 stem and, most recently, its Strada frameset. When it comes to product practicality,…