Innholdsfortegnelse for January 2023 i Cyclist

£220, udog.cc Cima is the Italian word for summit. The Giro d’Italia’s Cima Coppi indicates the race’s highest peak each year, so the term was a shoo-in when it came to naming Italian brand Udog’s latest design, which is made for climbing. Low weight is of course key for this genre and Udog says the Cima shoes weigh 240g each for size 42s, largely thanks to the slender carbon outsole and one-piece knit upper. While the shoes are light, Udog promises they aren’t flimsy and gives them a stiffness rating of 11 on its arbitrary scale. Balanced against that, the knit construction of the upper is intended to offer comfort via a soft, sock-like feel with minimal stitching. Udog says the knit construction also assists pedalling efficiency by using different…

£180, sciconsports.com Scicon’s Aerowatt sunglasses, as seen on the face of Tadej Pogačar, feature a new ‘bio-based’ frame that is produced using vegetable oil. The brand says this means it can be lightweight and durable while also helping to reduce the company’s carbon footprint. Elsewhere, the lens is made with the brand’s photochromic SCN-PP technology for optimum clarity in varying light conditions as well as UVA and UVB protection. Yet those technologies are footnotes alongside the Aerowatt’s main performance feature. The glasses’ big draw is the new SpaceVent system, which is largely responsible for their distinctive look. Instead of holding the lens along its top edge, the Aerowatt’s lens extends above and in front of the brow bar. The theory is that the frame is able to block the light…

Ah, there’s nothing quite like riding in the great outdoors – the sound of tyres rolling on freshly laid tarmac, the whir of the freehub, the click of the gears, the companionship of your fellow cyclists. Except these days there is something quite like it: virtual cycling. When the rain is lashing down and dark evenings are closing in, many of us are now eschewing the outside world and instead opting to climb onto a turbo trainer, plug into a laptop or tablet and explore the digital highways, which have come a long way from the early days of bad video quality, pixelated avatars and mind-numbingly dreary routes. Now, virtual training apps offer everything from real-life footage to immersive augmented reality and engaging gamified worlds. Many include exact recreations of…

With the pandemic lockdowns acting as a catalyst, much fuss has been made in recent years of the advancement in indoor training technology. We even have a roundup of the myriad training platforms in this very issue (see page 54). Plenty of riders adopted it as a necessity during Covid and have subsequently come to appreciate it as a valuable training aid when outdoor riding doesn’t appeal for one reason or another. The weather of the British winter is one of those reasons, and even we admit that it’s a pretty compelling one. However, just as indoor training technology has developed, kit for riding outdoors has got better too. Jackets have never been so protective, yet neither have they offered such breathability. Mudguards are now sleek, and it’s easy to…

‘I experiment because everything interests me. There is just too much to learn, but I think about perfection in everything I do; it is always in my mind. I think about Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel. If you spend a lifetime at the bench and you give everything, maybe before you die you can be a fingertip away from perfection – a fingertip away from touching God. We can try, no?’ This quote from Dario Pegoretti was recalled in a tribute written by Silca’s Josh Poertner after the Italian framebuilder died from a heart attack in 2018. Pegoretti was just 62 years old. For many he was the Godfather of Framers, who laid his artistic foundations by working for the masses before refining his craft on bespoke, artisan projects. He…

A year or two ago it looked as if aero road bikes were going the way of the dodo. Race bikes were becoming all-rounders – light enough to hit the UCI’s minimum weight limit but with enough aero cues to make them fast on the flats as well as uphill. A brand or two even dropped their aero bikes altogether as a result, and Trek’s own Émonda challenged the existence of its Madone. It was a concerning time for this iconic platform, but a relaxation of the UCI’s rules concerning tube aspect ratios (profiles can now be deeper for the same width) has breathed new life into the aero genre, and the latest Madone exploits those changes to the fullest extent. ‘The new Madone has undergone a host of changes but,…

Ghost Of The Galibier p58 Met Trenta 3K Carbon helmet, £280 met-helmets.com SunGod Velans sunglasses, £115 sungod.co Santini Gravel jersey, £80 santinisms.co.uk Santini Gravel bibshorts, £160 santinisms.co.uk Santini Puro Block socks, £17 santinisms.co.uk DMT GR1 shoes, £185 chickencyclekit.co.uk Furka Pass p84 Specialized S-Works Prevail II Vent helmet, £240 specialized.com Oakley Sutro Lite sunglasses, £152 oakley.com Maap Evolve Pro Air jersey, £135 maap.cc Maap Team Bib Evo shorts, £195 maap.cc Maap Path socks, £18 maap.cc Shimano S-Phyre RC9 shoes, £319.99 freewheel.co.uk Bikes p123 TREK Giro Eclipse Spherical helmet, £239.99 giro.co.uk 100% Eastcraft sunglasses, £169.99 freewheel.co.uk Castelli Alpha RoS Light II jacket, £280 saddleback.co.uk Castelli Free Aero RC bibtights, £190 saddleback.co.uk Specialized S-Works Torch shoes, £385 specialized.com 1816 Met Rivale Mips helmet, £140 met-helmets.com Koo Spectro sunglasses, £169 kooworld.cc GRVL Merino Polo jersey,…

As Specialized engineer Chris D’Aluisio tells it, the genesis of the brand’s ‘suspend the rider’ approach to gravel bikes was a particularly rough 8km stretch of trail in Eureka Canyon, California. ‘It changed my perception of a bump in the road and convinced me that gravel bikes should try to isolate the rider from the chaos that is going on below them,’ he says. This led to the launch in 2016 of the Future Shock-equipped Roubaix, a bike that helped the rider over the bumps by adding suspension to the cockpit. A year later the Diverge joined the party, and while both bikes have since received significant updates they still rely on simple compliance for rear-end comfort. The Roubaix now features a dropped seat clamp to create extra flex while…

From £30, saddleback.co.uk Silca dubs this new range of cleaning products its four-step Spa Collection. Step one is the Brake and Drivetrain Cleaner, which claims to break down ingrained dirt on the grimiest areas of the bike. The second step is the Bike Wash, which holds onto the broken dirt so it can be rinsed off without leaving micro scratches on paint. Step three is Graphene Spray Wax, which forms an invisible hydrophobic barrier on the bike’s frame, and the final step is Ceramic Waterless Wash, which is said to function as a daily top-up to extend the intervals between thorough cleans. Each Silca Ultimate cleaner has its own nose-tickling scent, from cinnamon to cherry to margarita cocktail and pina colada. Cleaning your bike never smelt so good.…

£149.99, litelok.com Litelok boasts that the 1.7kg X1 is five times more angle grinder-resistant than its rivals, despite not being any heavier. It manages this, says the maker, by turning an angle grinder’s force back on itself, eventually wearing down the grinder discs. This is thanks to the brand’s patent-pending Barronium material, a ceramic composite that is apparently tougher than angle grinder discs themselves. That is bonded to a fine-grain high-tensile steel core, meaning the X1 has been certified to Sold Secure Diamond level.…

1 RAWVELO GELS AND BARS From £10.69 for 5, rawvelo.com Depressed plastic surgeons put on a happy face. But even in your darkest hour on the bike, Rawvelo’s new energy products will trace more than just a smile across your lips, they’ll put energy in your hips (and other parts of your legs). That’s because each delicious flavour contains 20g carbs and is made exclusively using organic ingredients. 2 HIPLOK FLIPSTAND £19.99, hiplok.com Rainbows don’t weigh much – they’re actually pretty light. And Hiplok’s Flipstand isn’t exactly complex but it is a brilliant solution to the turn-your-bike-upside-for-a-workstand conundrum. The Flipstand case is a grippy mat for under your saddle and the foam blocks it contains clip onto handlebars, thus preventing your bike from moving about and getting scuffed while you…

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Plangent strings play. A yellow Rolls-Royce Phantom ascends an Alpine road, a hotel perched on a precipice in the background. Down in the valley Bond follows a dot on the screen of his DB5’s tracking device, which inexplicably places his quarry somewhere on the outskirts of Geneva. We are nowhere near Geneva. Some more Rolls, some more jaw-dropping scenery. A Ford Mustang appears. More driving shots. Goldfinger stops for a roadside snack. Tilly Masterson makes a ham-fisted attempt to shoot him with a sniper rifle. Neither he nor Oddjob notices. More driving shots. Bond runs Masterson off the road. What are men like? The 1964 classic 007 outing Goldfinger is a terrible guide to the Furka Pass for the modern road cyclist. Highly questionable chauvinism aside, the film plays fast…

The GFNY strapline is ‘Be a pro for a day’, which to a degree is where the matching jerseys come in If Cannes wasn’t French the world wouldn’t give it a second thought. I mean, have you seen the Palais? It’s the building equivalent of a Blair-years leisure centre with a casino stuck to its side, and yet thousands upon thousands of the great and the good flock there every year for the Cannes Film Festival and its advertising equivalent, Cannes Lions. But like ratty mullets and smoking cigarettes while you eat, somehow the French manage to make Cannes look chic. The art deco hotels might be crumbling but such things lend the streets a golden era air. The shops are outlandishly shiny and expensive, right down to the pharmacies…

Named after the year Karl von Drais invented the velocipede, 1816 is the brainchild of ex-Ashmei clothing founder Stuart Brooke, and L’Enfer du Nord is its first gravel bike. ‘It’s designed to be fast, but not an out-and-out racer,’ says company director Mark Tinker. ‘It’s a gravel bike that’s fun off-road but able to keep up on road sections.’ It’s a well-worn brief, but the execution here looks quite different. There are no frame mounts, the gearing is off a mountain bike and the wheels and bars off a road bike. It is, as I found out, a very interesting kettle of carbon. The Red Eagle My initial impression of L’Enfer was formed on tarmac, and as expected it was underwhelming. The bike looks fast, but with knobbly Pirelli Cinturo…

Legend has it that Ernest Hemingway bet his literary rival F Scott Fitzgerald that he could write a six-word story that would make the reader cry. He won the bet with this: ‘For sale: baby shoes. Never worn.’ I have my own six-word story that would reduce any self-respecting cyclist to tears (although whether with sadness or laughter is a moot point): ‘Punctured. No spare tube. Walked home.’ OK, it may not pack the atmospheric punch of Morrissey suffering a similar, six-word fate in 1983 – ‘Punctured bicycle on a hillside desolate’ – but I believe my version has a better narrative. My walk home should have been ten miles. In fact, I walked slightly less than a mile, just far enough to get me from the ‘hillside desolate’ to…

Faithfully adhering to the cyclical flow of fashion, the oversized puffer jackets of the 1990s are back on trend once again. No one can accuse cyclists of not being fashionable (well, not anymore), so fittingly, we have our own version of the puffer. While they have plenty of high-loft insulation, their designs are vastly different to those found on the high street. Some more casually styled puffers, such as Universal Colours’, bear a passing resemblance superficially, while racier takes, such as Rapha’s, are more visually disparate. Regardless of appearance, though, cycling-specific puffer jackets are far less bulky and tend to deploy that downy warmth in select areas. This ensures that the sections that are exposed to the chill of the wind are adequately protective, but the more sheltered parts, such…

Race: Tour de France Femmes, 26th July 2022 Photographer: Russ Ellis ‘Marianne Vos, in the yellow jersey after winning the previous day, sits exhausted after Stage 3 of the Tour de France Femmes into Épernay. The rolling terrain sent riders through the Champagne region to face a kick up just before the finish line – a scorpion sting in the tail that whittled down the contending group. Vos had made the selection alongside Kasia Niewiadoma and Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig, the latter winning with an explosive surge to the line. ‘I was on the finish line to take a shot of the winner, then ran to where the riders had stopped to get images of them recovering on the floor. Vos remained in the maillot jaune by 16 seconds after her…

‘Paris is not very far and I hope, next week, to make an entrance there which would reward me for the painful efforts that I have made during this time. I got a reprieve for my 28 regimental days, which I should be doing right now. I would be happy to prove to the military authorities that I did well to ask them this favour by conquering the gates of Paris.’ So wrote Lucien Petit-Breton in his column for the weekly journal La Vie au Grand Air, four stages from the end of the 1908 Tour de France. Petit-Breton had enjoyed a dream race. In the ten stages that had been raced when he wrote those words he had only once finished outside of the top three. That was on…

The fundamentals of bicycle architecture and biomechanics have remained largely stagnant since the ‘modern safety bicycle’ won out over the penny-farthing nearly 150 years ago. But that still leaves our ageing athletic bodies exposed to the resultant forces of mostly unchallenged Victorian design. Luckily our forefathers got enough of their sums sufficiently right that many of us can ride as often as we like without pain or injury. But does that mean cycling can provide all the exercise we need to provoke the changes we desire within our bodies to increase fitness and maintain health as we age? To answer that we need to think about the headwinds that blow in the face of midlife cyclists – and arguably the most profound of those is sarcopenia, or age-related muscle fibre…

A dramatic bulge of crumbling cliffs and monochrome peaks erupts around us as though we have flipped the page of a pop-up picture book The road to the legendary Col du Galibier has been splintered and shattered into a mosaic of broken rock. As I cycle up this river of rubble, my tyres judder over stones the size of prehistoric eggs and slide through puddles of scree. Every turn of my pedals is met by the crisp, crackling sound of crunched gravel. High above me, between moss-green meadows and the blazing late summer sky, is the fabled 2,642m summit of the Galibier, which has graced the Tour de France on 67 occasions. But this is not the Galibier as we know it. I’ve cycled up the Galibier, which straddles the…

When it comes to cycling performance, stiffer means better. Or at least that’s what the bike industry marketeers would have us believe. They may have a point, although just what the word ‘stiffness’ means in bicycle engineering is somewhat more complex than a simple ‘more is better’. Along with weight and aerodynamics, stiffness is one of the engines that drives modern composite bike design. But while a number on the scales and the way a frame cuts through the air are relatively easy concepts to wrap one’s head around, stiffness is much more difficult to quantify. Can it be put into numbers? Sure. There are all sorts of complex jigs that manufacturers use to measure stiffness, but for the average cyclist it’s less about exact figures and more about feel.…

1 Trek Madone p124 Trek’s dedicated aero bike has ditched IsoSpeed and replaced it with IsoFlow. It certainly looks different, but how does it affect the ride? 2 1816 L’Enfer du Nord p128 The first gravel bike from this intriguing brand mixes elements from road and mountain bikes, so can it take the rough with the smooth? 3 Vaast R/1 p132 The R/1 looks like an aero bike, but it doesn’t ride like one because, beneath the paint job, the frame is magnesium – and it works.…

Look at this bike, take in the details, and make some predictions of what you expect to read about it. Got something? Now cross it all out, because you’re probably wrong. This frame is built from magnesium alloy. Of course, you may well have guessed that because you will have read Cyclist’s review of the Vaast A/1 in issue 113, and you will no doubt recall that magnesium is one of the most abundant elements on the planet, requires significantly less energy to manufacture and is recyclable – although Vaast says that doesn’t mean it won’t last. And yes, it’s the same metal that you set on fire in science class, that burned so bright you had to look away. While it’s rare to find a magnesium bike frame these…