Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2024 i Cyclist

About a year ago I made a bold statement (to myself and the dog – that’s what happens when you work from home) that Cyclist would no longer use air travel to facilitate our European Big Rides. Instead, in the name of sustainability, we would henceforth use only trains. Well, that was the plan. In my mind, we would promote a cheaper, healthier, more environmentally friendly form of cycling travel that would replace the old fly drive model with a bike-train concept. It would be simultaneously modern in its outlook while harking back to a golden age when city workers would pack their bikes onto trains and head to the countryside for some fresh air and exercise. The way I saw it, it should be possible to ride to your…

Ferrari and Colnago, McLaren and Specialized, Red Bull Racing and BMC… performance car companies and bike brands have surprisingly strong ties, but Aston Martin can lay claim to being the most heavily associated. Founders Lionel Martin and Robert Bamford were brought together through bike racing, and the marque has collaborated on bikes before with the likes of Storck and Factor (subscribers will remember the incredible Aston Martin x Factor One-77 bike that featured in issue 2 of Cyclist, a mere 11 years ago). Its latest partnership with British titanium bike maker J.Laverack represents a departure from anything it has done in the past. The .1R has been a project five years in the making, and comes to market with a host of innovative features that have only been made possible…

Need a clue as to the Vallter 2000’s location? Say it like a long-pole track and field athlete. Still struggling? You will definitely get there if you’re a fan of the first Spanish WorldTour race of the season. Only don’t call this climb Spanish. Sure, it’s in Spain, but to anyone local the Vallter is categorically in Catalunya. Its name is Catalan for ‘valley’ after all. Said valley is in fact the Parc Natural de les Capçaleres del Ter i el Freser – obviously – and as a landscape it is gallery-worthy. But this isn’t the Catalunya of Dalí or Picasso. Set high in the Pyrenees less than a mile from the French frontier, here is the work of a pair of creatives that spans millennia, the rivers Ter and…

More historic bike brands have fallen by the wayside over the years than remain in contention today. But founded in 1977 in the Italian cycling heartlands of Vicenza by Alcide Basso, this eponymous company has steered a course through decades of change and innovation in the industry, and today Basso does everything you’d expect of a modern bike maker. Yet while better-known compatriots such as Pinarello or Colnago (with the exception of the C68) have shifted most of their production overseas, Basso still makes all of its bikes in Italy. At the same time, the name on the down tube also still matches that on the office door of the CEO. The family ownership continues, with Leo, son of Alcide, serving as marketing director. He lists the pros of Italian…

Back in 2018 I was roaming the halls of Eurobike (the world’s biggest bicycle trade show) and something caught my eye on Scott’s stand. The Swiss bike maker always goes big at Eurobike, and all its latest and greatest bikes, kit and components were on display. What grabbed my attention wasn’t the jewel in Scott’s crown – the recently renovated Foil aero bike (it promised aerodynamic efficiency without the ride quality of a jackhammer, which was a new concept at the time, and even had disc brakes!) – but a new mountain bike wheelset from Scott’s component brand Syncros, tucked away in a corner. The Syncros Silverton SLs were a marvel. DT Swiss had supplied the hub internals and custom-made shells, but otherwise the spokes and rims were effectively one-piece…

In recent years there have arguably been two main trends in road bike design. First is the hunt for the perfect all-rounder – a bike that balances aerodynamics, stiffness and weight in the hopes of creating the consummate road racing machine. Second is the focus on all-out aero, where slipperiness takes priority over everything else. The Orbea Orca, however, is bucking both these trends. The Orca is every climber’s dream, with a claimed weight of just 6.7kg for a size 53cm, and it favours lightness above all else. It’s a bold move, but Orbea is convinced there is a strong market for it among both pros and enthusiasts alike. Cutting it fine Lightness being the aim of the game, it’s unsurprising that Orbea has seemingly gone to extreme lengths to…

You only have to glance at a No.22 bike to know that it’s the work of someone with a deep-seated understanding of aesthetics and proportion. Perfectly balanced, beautifully finished and with some of the cleanest lines in the business, No.22’s bicycles are influenced heavily by co-founder Bryce Gracey’s background in architecture. ‘It’s a very similar process,’ Gracey explains from the company’s facility in Upstate New York, USA. ‘You come up with an idea, then it’s a case of working out how to execute it. Typically in architecture every project is unique so there’s always a need to explore new technologies and systems to make a concept work. I think you can see this in some of the things we’re doing at No.22 that haven’t been done before. ‘It’s like: this…

Just imagine for a moment that it’s 17th April 1949 and you are a 29-year-old professional cyclist riding for Stella-Dunlop with a handful of decent results over a five-year career. Today you are in Saint-Denis, a northern suburb of Paris, the city where you were born. You are standing astride your bike among 215 other riders, ready for the 47th edition of the most revered one-day race in the calendar: Paris-Roubaix. The flag drops. Ahead lies 244km of rough, cobblestoned roads then a sprint on the Roubaix velodrome to the finish line. At least the weather is kind – ‘a beautiful spring morning’ is how Le Miroir des Sports will later describe it – and you are feeling good. A fortnight ago you took fifth at the Critérium National, and…

1 Café du Cycliste Handlebar pouch £59, cafeducycliste.com We tried taking up archery but there were too many drawbacks. Plus the arrows didn’t fit in Café du Cycliste’s Handlebar Pouch. That’s because the Pouch is a compact bar bag for keeping tools, a jacket, food and valuables safe. It has heat-sealed seams and waterproof zips (but not a single bow) to keep stuff dry, and it secures with three straps to hold it steady. 2 Koo Alibi sunglasses £170, kooworld.cc Koo got Alberto Contador to be the face of its new sunglasses, called Alibi. Not sure why. But whatever, the Alibis have a half-frame design with big lenses for optimum trendiness and field of vision, and the frame is strong and comes in eight colours. There are holes at the…

Bicycles may seem like simple machines, but their design is changing constantly. New tube profiles, frame materials and levels of integration appear at a staggering pace and, while that’s all well and good, it is often the less glamorous elements of innovation that can have the biggest impact on the bikes that we ride. While most of us will have a cursory knowledge of a bottom bracket and how it functions, it’s easy to disregard as a realm for nerds and mechanics, so we thought it was time to demystify the humble BB and explain what all the fuss is about. The primary function of a bottom bracket is to facilitate the rotation of the cranks, which transfers power from your pedals to your drivetrain. To that end, bearings are…

In 1999, Audi unveiled a new estate car with a difference. The Audi Allroad Quattro sported plastic cladding over its wheel arches and rugged looking black bumpers. It was all-wheel drive, rode on height-adjustable air-suspension and promised greater versatility than its estate car counterpart. But it wasn’t a true off-roader; it was an SUV for people who don’t like SUVs. Why am I talking about cars? That Audi could be seen as a bellwether for cycling fashion, taking a road car off the beaten track in much the same way gravel bikes tempt roadies to explore a world beyond the tarmac, but without forcing them to adopt a new tribe. The car maker’s marketing department played a blinder with the naming. The ‘Allroad’ moniker may be trademarked for the purposes…

The Museum of Last Things would, fittingly, be situated on a remote mountaintop, buffeted by winds of fortune, blanketed in melancholia and accessible only by a steep, winding road that would be closed several months of the year by lingering nostalgia. Here you would find the ‘last things’ that famous riders used, wore or sacrificed at portentous moments in their careers. Every object would tell a tale of heroism or villainy, triumph or heartbreak, strength or weakness. Take that ordinary-looking bicycle chain, for example. It’s the chain that cost Andy Schleck the yellow jersey when it unshipped as Alberto Contador attacked on the Port de Balès during the 2010 Tour de France. Or that wristwatch. If defending champion Pedro Delgado had wound it up, he’d never have been almost three…

What were you doing at 15 years old? Perhaps studying hard for GCSEs, or being refused entry to your local nightclub because of your dodgy fake ID? ‘That was when I took up my first job as a mechanic,’ says Helder Gomes. ‘It was with Continental team Barbot Gondomar in my home country of Portugal. That was 28 years ago. I’ve been with EF for the past eight years. I don’t like change.’ Unlike the sport he’s been married to for nearly three decades. ‘This sport has evolved hugely,’ Gomes says, reflecting on his career. ‘It used to be cables, cables, cables. Now we have technology like electronic wireless. In our team, that’s Shimano Di2. In many ways, that has made the job simpler, especially with the software updates. In…

5:07am. Even when it is cold and dark, there is something magical about riding the streets of London while most of the city sleeps. Every light is green. The only other traffic is the occasional delivery van and a handful of cabs cruising like sharks in search of scraps. I skirt round the back of King’s Cross and down a deserted side street to find the underground parking at St Pancras station. In a perfect world I would be taking my bike with me on the Eurostar so I could simply ride off at the other end in Belgium. Sadly, despite the growth in demand for sustainable travel, Eurostar only offers limited options for carrying bikes on journeys to the Continent, so I’m obliged to leave my bike in the…

The squawk of a bird forces me to open one eye. It’s 4am and rural Brittany is still impossibly dark. My face is inches from the damp tarmac and there’s a faint smell of something you’d associate with phone booths. Within minutes I’m shambolically re-stuffing my saddlebag to leave it looking like a snake that’s eaten some kitchen utensils. Pulling on my damp and filthy kit, I crack a can of baked beans, clip in, do a quick scan of my bus shelter bedroom and freewheel down the road. It has only taken three days of riding the Pan Celtic Ultra, but already this is my new normal. Started by Matt ‘Mally’ Ryan in 2018, the Pan Celtic is an ultra-distance event that takes a different route each year, but…

At the Cyclist Track Days, you can spend the whole day putting a wide range of top road bikes through their paces on traffic-free, purpose-built tracks. We have three dates and three venues lined up for 2024, and we’ll even throw in lunch and a coffee as part of the price. Places are limited, so sign up soon. And keep an eye on the Cyclist Track Days website for more details of the brands and bikes that will be at each event. Dates and venues Saturday 27th April Lee Valley VeloPark, London Sunday 12th May Odd Down Cycle Track, Bath Saturday 18th May Brownlee Centre, Leeds Tickets cost £30 for the full day, including lunch and coffee. Cyclist magazine subscribers pay just £25. See cyclisttrackdays.com cyclisttrackdays.com…

When Icelandic brand Lauf was working on its new model, the Úthald, founder and CEO Benedikt Skúlason says the plan was to create a sensible road bike. ‘Not sensible in the sense of pannier rack mounts and all that kind of stuff,’ he explains, ‘but a sensible approach to fast.’ The idea for the Úthald initially came from the design process of the brand’s first gravel bike, the True Grit, back in 2016, when the company was making prototypes for many different geometries: ‘We figured out the formula to have a fast fit for the rider while the bike underneath you remains stable,’ Skúlason says. Lauf claims the level of compliance offered by the curved seat tube is ‘pretty much spot on the same as’ Trek’s IsoSpeed The result aims…