Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2024 i Cyclist

Winter stays where it is – only for longer – and summer has been reduced to a scattering of pleasant days dotted between cold snaps, hailstorms, floods, plagues of frogs, etc. From a purely selfish point of view, this seasonal slippage – almost certainly the result of global warming – makes it particularly difficult to arrange the ride shoots that are so central to this magazine (our snowy Galibier shoot this issue was shot in July). All too often the months of preparation that we do in the hope of catching an Alpine pass at its glorious, sun-soaked best are obliterated in a phone call from a photographer saying, ‘There’s only two feet of visibility – I can’t see my own shoes,’ or, ‘The road has been swept away in…

What makes a Brompton a Brompton? There are other bikes that are similar in size, that fold up for carrying and don’t look very different but, as the company’s website says, ‘Few bikes can claim to be as recognisable as a Brompton.’ The answer to that question may be about to change, however, with the G Line, the first Brompton to be built with something other than 16-inch wheels. That’s not the only departure either. It’s also a multi-surface bike, with disc brakes and the option to run tubeless gravel tyres. ‘We want more people to ride Brompton bikes and we accept the limitation of 16-inch wheels on our regular bikes,’ says Tom Kerr, Brompton’s G Line design lead. ‘It will continue to be the best bike for when you’re…

The 2024 Vuelta a España was – meteorologically speaking – a race of extremes. Scorching temperatures in the south of Spain were followed by foggy deluges in the north. While this presented problems for the riders, it also made life harder for the photographers trying to capture the action. ‘It’s horrific,’ says photographer Chris Auld. ‘You think, “Oh, this is going to be great – the fog’s going to look amazing.” But really, you’ve got no view and it’s the worst possible scenario. Then you’ve got to somehow edit the pictures.’ Auld knows his business, having worked on WorldTour races since 2017 and covered five Vueltas. While it can be a solitary pursuit at times, if things go awry the informal alliances that form between colleagues can be invaluable. ‘We…

Thirty-three days. That was all the time Tadej Pogačar had this year between sealing his Giro d’Italia victory and the start of the Tour de France. In that time he spent three weeks at Isola 2000 in the French Alps. As has become commonplace, Pogačar sought out high altitude in the hunt for a competitive edge, but the thinking and strategies behind altitude training are evolving all the time. It’s no longer enough to simply spend a lot of time at the top of a mountain… Benefits to the blood Iñigo Mujika is one of the world’s leading applied physiologists, with a PhD in the biology of muscular exercise and another in sports science. Away from academia, he was head of training at the Euskaltel-Euskadi pro team (version one) and…

Having previously been known predominantly as a maker of posh carbon wheels, Enve entered the world of complete bikes in 2021 with the Custom Road, which offered a high-end carbon frame with bespoke geometry for people with fat wallets. This was followed by the slightly more accessible Melee, a similar road-going bike using mildly different construction and stock frame sizes. Last year, the gravel-focussed Mog was the third bike to join the team, and the Fray now completes the quartet. All four share a similar aesthetic, with slim and slightly dropped seatstays married to broader down tubes found across the range. The sinuous tube shapes found on the earlier bikes are also repeated in the interests of aerodynamics. The Fray comes as a chassis kit that includes the frame, fork,…

The first was a cafe ride that ticked all the boxes – sunshine, great cake and compelling conversation with a companion whose son is a rising star of the pro peloton. I’d met Ron at the funeral of my neighbour, Norma, an artist and teller of wonderful stories who had passed away at the age of 87. I had seen her in her hospital bed on the day Mark Cavendish broke Eddy Merckx’s record for Tour stage victories (bike ride number two). She died 24 hours later. I had bought her a decorative bicycle bell in Amsterdam for her Zimmer frame. It saved her having to say ‘excuse me’ all the time She had once given me a copy of a beautiful card, hand-painted by her father showing him riding…

Admit it, if you don’t already own a titanium bike, you’ve thought about getting one. After all, they’re light, fast, strong, comfortable, corrosion resistant and beautiful to look at. Yes, they’re also pricy, but titanium is arguably the ultimate frame material. The Soviets certainly understood the benefits of titanium – although their interest was more for the purposes of building submarines than bicycle frames – and invested heavily in its production. This led to an abundance of the material in the former USSR and Eastern Bloc. So, for a bike brand rising from the ashes of the German Democratic Republic in the early 1990s, it was the obvious medium to work with. ‘We decided, OK, we’ll take titanium for us, no problem,’ says André Pfeil, CEO of Kocmo Titan Bikes.…

1 The Road Book 2011 £45, theroadbook.co.uk Incorrectly is the only word that, spelled correctly, is spelled incorrectly. The Road Book 2011 is the only almanack of the 2011 pro cycling season. The book is edited by Cyclist contributor Andy McGrath and features 400 pages of race reports, essays and photos, with contributions from the likes of Cadel Evans, Chris Froome, Annemiek van Vleuten and Emma Pooley. 2 Shokz OpenRun Pro 2 headphones £169, shokz.com In 3,026 years, life will be either good or bad. It’s 5050. As is the balance of Shokz’s OpenRun Pro 2s, which use bone conduction for high and mid frequencies and air conduction for low frequencies to make its open-ear audio ‘unparalleled’. They offer 12 hours of playtime, come with a waterproof USB-C port and…

The Middle Eastern country of Jordan may be less than half the size of the United Kingdom, but it’s a place where stories seep out of every crack. Whether you want to see Biblical sites such as Mount Nebo and Madaba, the archaeological marvels of Petra and Quseir’Amra, or just where they filmed Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Jordan’s history and beauty make it a must-visit destination, and best of all, you can take your bike with you. Cyclist gets a taste of Jordan’s unique charm over three breathtaking rides. Day one The Umm Qais loop Our first ride starts in the north of the country, two hours outside the capital Amman in a hilltop town called Umm Qais, home to the ruins of the ancient Roman city of…

As gravel moves from niche to mainstream, it’s getting more competitive and average speeds are increasing. ‘Take Unbound,’ says David Morse, Zipp’s wheel category manager. ‘The winning speeds have been around 32kmh in recent years.’ Morse explains that aerodynamics now have a crucial role in performance, but most gravel wheels, being generally no wider than 25mm internally, don’t have the width to create a smooth transition from rubber to rim when paired with gravel tyres. ‘The cross-section of the rim-tyre pairing looks more like a lightbulb, with the tyre ballooning out wider than the rim,’ he says. Zipp saw this as a chance to widen the rim of its new 303 XPLR SW wheels dramatically, pushing it out to 32mm internally and 40mm externally. In combination with a 54mm rim…

Having given Sram and Shimano a few years’ head start, Campagnolo has now joined the wireless gang with its 12-speed Super Record Wireless road-specific groupset. Besides the lack of wiring, the most notable change is the loss of the iconic thumb shifters, which Campagnolo says were creating ‘a split in its community’. Instead, there are two small shift buttons nestled behind each brake lever. Whether you were a fan of the thumb shifters or not, it is certainly the case that the new buttons are so close together they are hard to distinguish, despite the ridged texturing. When I was forced into a quick gear change, such as by an unexpected rise, the chance of me hastily stabbing the wrong button remained high even after a month of riding. Campagnolo…

It is 2.32pm on 23rd September 2006 and 135 of the best female cyclists in the world are rolling out from Salzburg’s Mirabelleplatz for the women’s World Championships Road Race. Ahead lie six laps of a 22.2km circuit featuring two climbs, the second of which – to Elixhausen – has the potential to be the most tactically important part of the course given it is pretty much a 9km downhill run from there to the finish. It is considered a difficult course – too difficult for the sprinters in the bunch, some are saying. Time will tell. Among the riders rolling away from the start is 19-year-old Marianne Vos. She is in her first season at elite level, rides for the DSB Bank team, and has enjoyed a remarkable debut…

Everything around the lake breathed a profound calm, broken only by the occasional cry of a bird or the gentle lapping of the water against the shore, creating a sense of timelessness and serenity that seemed to envelop the entire scene. All I can say is, man, this place is pretty – the perfect backdrop for one of Italy’s most celebrated novels, even. ‘I Promessi Sposi is my favourite book; I am a romantic,’ says Emanuela with the bubbly inflexion of international English. ‘Manzoni, he is amazing. There is a translation called The Betrothed – you must read it.’ I explain that I read as fast as I speak and only for about ten minutes an evening before my eyelids shut themselves. But if I get the chance I’ll dip…

There are only a handful of cycling destinations where you’re likely to find yourself pedalling past five metre walls of snow in mid-July. The Col du Galibier is one of them. Topping out at 2,642m, this Tour de France mainstay is one of the loftiest points the race ever reaches, and one of the highest paved roads in all of Europe. The col’s first inclusion in the Tour was in 1911, when only three riders made it to the summit without walking Surrounded by soaring snow-capped peaks, the Galibier’s butter-smooth tarmac has served as the stage for some of professional cycling’s most high-octane racing action. The col’s first inclusion was in 1911, when only three riders made it to the summit without walking. Since then it has featured a further…

As the father of teenagers, I am learning a whole new language. In Gen Z lingo, when someone does something impressive, they officially ‘slay’. Anything over the top is ‘extra’, boastful behaviour is ‘flex’, and anything just a bit rubbish is ‘mid’. The implication with that last one is that things in the middle are, by definition, unexciting. All the cool stuff happens at the extremes, while the mid stuff is dull, unworthy and just meh. It’s an attitude that seems to be catching hold in the gravel bike market. The gravel scene is dividing into separate factions and many of the new bikes are aimed at one end of the spectrum or the other. Either you can have a gravel race bike that is superlight, aero-optimised and designed to…

You have to go back to the turn of the millennium – to the days when a certain Texan was not on his way to winning seven consecutive Tours de France – to find Decathlon’s previous entry into the WorldTour. Back then, the French sporting goods giant provided bikes for the AG2R team, and now, after a hiatus of a couple of decades, it is doing so again. For 2024, Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale have ditched the brown bibs and picked up the Van Rysel RCR Pro, the premium offering from the Decathlon-owned brand and one of the most talked-about bikes of the year. The aim, according to Van Rysel engineer Louis Defaut, was to create a bike that was competitively priced compared to the majority of rival bikes on the…