Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2025 i Cyclist

I have recently arrived at the frightening realisation that, on occasions, I might be, from time to time, wrong. It’s a revelation that has come as something of a shock – infallibility being part of the job requirement for magazine editors – and like all major revelations, this one came to me while I was riding a bicycle. About a year and a half ago I wrote an opinion piece for this magazine entitled ‘Weight doesn’t matter’. In it I argued (rather eloquently, if I say so myself) that we should all stop obsessing about the weight of our bikes as it has very little bearing on how good a bike is or how enjoyable the ride. Yes, it matters if you’re racing up Mont Ventoux, but for those of…

It doesn’t get much more remote than Talmine. The tiny hamlet sits perched on the rugged fringe of Scotland’s far north coast – a hodgepodge of whitewashed cottages and old stone crofts, with nothing to the north but cold, unforgiving seas. Unsurprisingly, Talmine’s isolation and raw beauty make it an incredible place to ride bikes. As Jonny Charlton and his partner discovered, if the midges don’t bite you, the tandem bug just might. ‘We lived there for a while,’ Charlton says. ‘It’s blessed with remarkable cycling terrain, which people are discovering thanks to the North Coast 500 route. We’d bought a 1990s Thorn steel touring tandem from a couple in the Lake District. They handed it to us with parental love and care; it was clearly a beloved part of…

Over his 12 years as a professional rider, Thierry Gouvenou never stood atop the podium. But in his 12 years designing stage routes, the 56-year-old Frenchman has built a reputation as the artist behind the Tour de France. ‘It would make me very happy if that’s how I’m viewed at the end of my career,’ Gouvenou tells Cyclist in his office at ASO’s headquarters in Paris. ‘It’s true that I didn’t leave much of a mark on the peloton during my time as a rider. But it’s a huge compliment if people think I have helped change and evolve the Tour.’ He may never have finished a stage higher than tenth in his seven appearances, but his time as a pro remains invaluable to understanding what makes the Tour tick.…

In late 2020 Cube’s owner, Marcus Pürner, told his head of engineering, Bernd Schenkl, that the German brand was going to take on sponsorship of WorldTour team Intermarché-Wanty and that he’d promised them a climbing bike. ‘My response from the R&D side was, “OK, no problem,”’ says Schenkl. ‘When do you need it?’ For the Critérium du Dauphiné, was his boss’s reply. ‘It meant a development time of just six months, which I would say is unique in our history,’ says Schenkl. However, those time constraints placed on the development of the Cube Litening Air C:68X actually go some way to explaining its strengths. Instead of designing a whole new frame, Cube took the aerodynamic template of the Litening Aero C:68X and slimmed down every tube while maintaining the geometry.…

There’s a reason why so many pro cyclists choose Catalonia as the place they want to live and train. The region in northeast Spain offers the perfect combination of warm climate, great food, relaxed culture and, of course, amazing riding. While many British cyclists will be familiar with Girona as a riding destination, Catalonia offers a wide range of options, each with its own unique attractions. The regions of Catalonia In the far northeast of Catalonia is the region of Val d’Aran, home to towering 3,000m peaks in the heart of the Pyrenees. Be sure to bring your climbing legs. Nestled up against the border with France and Andorra, the Pyrenees of Catalonia region offers alpine-style scenery with mountains, forests and blissfully car-free roads. To the south, the region of…

Nestled between the Pyrenees and the Catalan coast, the mellow agricultural region of Terres de Lleida in western Catalonia is considered a natural paradise with an amazing cultural heritage. It is also a hidden treasure for cyclists. If you’ve ridden the rolling roads in Tuscany, this serene oasis will feel more than a bit familiar. Blending bucolic farmland with punchy climbs to castle-crowned hilltop villages, Terres de Lleida invites riders to cover big distances beneath epic skies. The cultured city of Lleida, dominated by the medieval Seu Vella cathedral and the ruins of La Suda castle, is one of the main tourist attractions in the area. But my plan is to venture further east, deep into the agricultural heartland, to explore a 113km circular route from the quiet agricultural town…

Take a look at the people wandering around Girona and you may notice that some of them stand out from the crowd. Among the locals and the tourists here to see the city’s famous fortified walls, Gothic churches and bustling shopping streets, there are two groups that are here to indulge rather specific passions. One group is the Game of Thrones fans. Many of the scenes from the fantasy series were shot in Girona’s old town, and gaggles of GOTies can be found milling around the city’s dramatic cathedral, or as they might better know it, the Great Sept of Baelor. The other group is cyclists. Wherever you go you’ll see people in bars and cafes with tell-tale tanlines and casquettes artfully perched on heads. Girona is such a cycling-friendly…

In 2014 a group of Catalan cyclists reflected on how the spirit and stoicism of road cyclists mirrored the gritty qualities of the historic mining communities in the mountainous, mine-pocked region of Berguedà, 100km north of Barcelona. In honour of this spiritual connection, they created a new bike route, La Ruta Minera (the ‘Mining Route’), a loop of over 100km from Berga, a gateway to the Pyrenees, which weaves some testing climbs into a rich tapestry of natural and human history. La Ruta Minera has grown in popularity in the years since and is now a popular challenge for local riders. But in the miners’ spirit of digging ever deeper, you can expand it to a two-day ride, or do it as one epic 170km route with 4,600m of climbing,…

With roots stretching back to Cervélo’s original aero bike, the Soloist, the S series has always had the burden of legacy to live up to as well as the standards of its competitors. It can’t just be fast, it must be the fastest. That’s why Cervélo launched a new S5 at the Tour de France this year even when the previous generation would probably still have been sufficient for Visma-Lease a Bike to mix it with the best. ‘At 45kmh, the new S5 is 6.3 watts faster than that previous bike on average across a +/-15° wind angle sweep,’ says Scotty Roy, Cervélo’s engineering manager. According to Cervélo’s wind-tunnel data, the S5 beats race competitors by an even greater margin, testing more than ten watts faster than a Cannondale SuperSix…

1 Weldtite Dry Lube £7.49, weldtite.cc Why is revenge best served cold? Because it’s just-ice. Why is Weldtite’s Dry Lube best in summer? It’s formulated to repel dust and dirt, keeping everything running smoothy with less cleaning thanks to a light, protective film left on the chain. It is now biodegradable too. 2 Amacx Energy Fruit Chew £26 (12 pack), amacx.com If you rearrange the letters of POSTMEN, they get really upset. The same thing happens when EF riders don’t get enough carbs. Thankfully they use Amacx nutrition such as these Energy Fruit Chews, which contain 30g of carbohydrates per bar, with a 2:1 glucose-to-fructose ratio to ensure fast absorption and an easier ride for the stomach. Flavours include orange, cassis and piña – which works best when you’re caught…

Right in the shinbone of the Italian boot lies Gran Sasso d’Italia National Park. One of Italy’s most biodiverse and seismic regions, this 2,014km² reserve is among the largest protected areas in Europe. At the centre of the park – whose name translates somewhat unromantically as ‘big rock of Italy’ – the massif’s tallest peaks gather around the 2,912m Corno Grande. The highest the tarmac dares go is to Campo Imperatore, a hilltop structure that was once a temporary residence for Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and is now home to an astronomical observatory. While secluded in location and interminable in nature, this Apennine challenge has had an impact far greater than its six Giro d’Italia appearances might suggest. The Gran Sasso d’Italia climb is 27km long in total but neatly…

In the second instalment of Group Think, we turn our minds to race bikes. The all-road bikes featured in part one of this series (see issue 164) may be hogging the spotlight currently, but race bikes are a perennially popular option. Their designs offer the compelling quality of helping the rider to go as fast as they can through a combination of low weight, stiffness, aerodynamic efficiency, sharp handling and an aggressive ride position. An equally attractive attribute of a race bike is the potential for normal riders to emulate the idols they watch on TV. They allow us to not only ride the same roads as the pros, but on the same bikes as well. That being said, the best-of-everything builds that are raced on the WorldTour command pricetags…

As Cyclist reported in issue 165, Campagnolo is positioning the new Super Record 13 groupset as the product to get the brand back on track after a difficult few years. That article detailed 13’s updates over its maligned WRL and S predecessors, but to quickly revisit the headline changes: 13 is lighter, cheaper, uses a 13-speed cassette, offers more gearing options, looks better and reinstates (a version of) Campagnolo’s iconic thumb shifter. What’s more, this road version of the groupset is merely one setup in a five-variation family, which Campagnolo will fill out over the next year or so. At launch, there was a real sense of hope that 13 was the real deal. Campagnolo was back once again talking the talk, but could it actually walk the walk? I’ve…

We’re used to the idea that many of our bikes are built around frames made in Asia, but most of those that grace these pages sport brand names with European heritage and at least a notional design presence in the West. As in other realms – cars, phones, heavy machinery – there are hints the tide might be turning. As Volkswagens give way to Jaecoos and BYDs, we can expect to see homegrown Asian bike brands vying for a place in our hearts too. Elves is one of these. According to company director Simon Huang, Elves combines ‘product development in Taiwan, visual design in Hong Kong, and manufacturing, customisation and distribution operations in mainland China’. Depending on who you ask, it’s either bold and brash, visually striking or hideous. What…

Take Alpe d’Huez, add three hairpins and two per cent to the gradient, and what you’ve got is the one of the toughest but least known climbs in Spain. Mont Caro, in the Terres de L’Ebre region of Catalonia, is a true beast. It’s 22.5km in length, and while the average gradient of 6% may seem benign, don’t let it fool you. A gentle run-in of 9km leaves the final 13.5km – the same distance as Alpe d’Huez – hitting gradients around 9-10%, with a maximum at 18%. If Mont Caro isn’t a climb you’ve heard of, it’s probably because it is such a wild place that the Vuelta a España has yet to grace its slopes. In fact, the only top-level pro race that has visited is the Volta…

In the Catalan Pyrenees, everything is bigger. This larger-than-life landscape, 200km north of the soft sands of the Mediterranean coast, is where Catalonia’s colossal peaks mark the region’s borders with France and Andorra. Gnarled mountains rise up like prehistoric monsters. Boulders the size of meteorites lie scattered around. The rock-strewn rivers roar. Snow dusts the cloud-scraping peaks. This epic landscape rewards cyclists with memorable high-altitude adventures. The Vuelta a España makes regular pilgrimages here. The Tour de France has ventured here on multiple occasions too. And no wonder: in the Val d’Aran, 30% of the land lies above 2,000m in altitude. Today I’m exploring a 125km journey from Vielha, a pretty town surrounded by towering peaks, to the elegant arcades and Romanesque architectural treasures of La Seu d’Urgell. It includes…

Another day in the simulation. Switzerland.exe is running flawlessly,’ says Material-Resist3770 above a mountain scene so stunningly perfect that it could be computer-generated. This internet post is joined by thousands of others, pictures of Switzerland united in their exacting beauty as if nature had indeed been preordained and packaged up into individual vignettes from which to paint chocolate boxes. If all this sounds daft, all I can say is, it’s not. Take Andermatt, where we’re basing ourselves for this Big Ride. It’s a beguiling blend of the ultra-modern and the medieval, where tasteful hotels mix with centuries-old houses, not a larch tile nor exposed beam out of place. To get here we travelled on the delightfully named Glacier Express, which winds improbably up through the mountains, over torrenting snowmelt and…

Times are changing at the world’s biggest bike race. For most of us watching at home, the more fans, the more razzmatazz, the more hullaballoo the better. The carefully distilled passion fills up our rectangle of television screen neatly, without incident or consequence. But for those whose job it is to document what’s going on, it’s not such a clear win. ‘This was by far the busiest I’ve ever seen it, and my colleagues agreed,’ says Chris Auld, long time pro cycling photographer. ‘The traffic was horrendous. Some nights it would take us three hours just to get off a mountain, and that was before you had to drive anywhere.’ More fans sounds like good news, as that means more interest, which means more coverage, more sponsorship, more money to…

‘Personally, I’m not convinced about the all-road category,’ says Paul Butler, Orro’s managing director. ‘So we wanted to keep the new Orro Gold away from that. We would always prefer to make an effective bike for a defined purpose rather than something in the middle that doesn’t do anything that well.’ As such, the remit for Orro’s latest endurance bike, the Signature Gold STC, is to cater for fast, comfortable, long-distance riding but with no designs on venturing off-piste. While tyre clearance has increased, it has been kept at a relatively tight 32mm (bear in mind most WorldTour race bikes are designed around 30 or 32mm these days), so Orro has created a bike to do a specific job for a particular customer. It’s an attitude that’s reflected in its…

The Costa Daurada (the ‘Golden Coast’) in the Catalan province of Tarragona is famed for its 81km of Mediterranean coastline. Along these shores you’ll find beach resorts, tranquil fishing villages and the Roman ruins of the World Heritage city of Tarragona. Venture into Costa Daurada’s inland core, however, and you’ll find a network of over 2,000km of quiet roads criss-crossing the region – a wilder world of serrated cliffs, natural parks, historic villages and challenging climbs. And those golden beaches will still be there waiting for you when you return to your hotel. The circular Route of Six Ports (ports means mountain passes in Catalan), which explores the comarques (counties) of Tarragones, Baix Camp, Priorat and Alt Camp, is a staccato riff of punchy climbs from the coast to the…

The Costa Brava may be renowned as a cycling destination, favoured by the pros and home to iconic climbs such as the Rocacorba and the stunning volcanic landscapes of Garrotxa. But whisper it quietly: there is a secret spot just across the regional boundary, one that is far more sequestered and remote, which only local cyclists know about. The Ripolles area of the Pyrenees region, 100km northwest of Girona, is a world of verdant landscapes, hidden climbs and glorious serenity. This is a place where riders can climb narrow mountain roads in solitude, dissolve into the bucolic landscapes and plot fresh adventures. Here you can relax while you ride, tour while you train and disconnect as you discover. The valley town of Ripoll, located in the pre-Pyrenees at the confluence…

The Maresme region – a kaleidoscope of seductive beaches, twisting coastal roads, emerald-green forests and steep hills – has served as an adventure playground for Barcelona-based cyclists for years. But the area remains strangely unknown to visiting cyclists, despite how much there is here to discover. In this hinterland to the northeast of Barcelona, the sea and the mountains are knitted so tightly together you can pedal from languorous Mediterranean beaches and fishing villages to the towering peaks of the nearby Montseny Natural Park in a matter of hours. The area enjoys warm weather year-round, and with flights from the UK to Barcelona taking less than two and a half hours, it’s within easy striking distance for long weekend escapes and extended training camps alike. This 145km loop begins and…