Table of contents for August 7, 2025 in Cycling Weekly

Twice the French president Emannuel Macron cropped up at this year’s Tour de France Femmes; once to interrupt Pauline Ferrand-Prévot’s winner’s interview with a phone call, and the other to commend Maeva Squiban, French cycling’s breakthrough talent. The two riders shared four victories between them at the race, Squiban earning a brace on stages six and seven. “Congratulations for this exceptional performance that makes French cycling shine,” Macron wrote on social media. “The country is behind you.” After UAE Team ADQ’s GC hope Elisa Longo Borghini withdrew ahead of stage three, Squiban took on the baton of saving her team’s Tour. “Like many people, I don’t have much confidence in myself,” the 23-year-old said, but her 30km and 20km solo attacks told another story. She was ultimately awarded the race’s…

I’ve been working with Ben since he was an under-16. I was arguably the first rider to encounter a long-range Healy solo attack: on the Stourbridge CC reliability ride. I’d encouraged Ben to try and get rid of me on the final climb; back then I was confident I could hold him. Instead, Ben attacked on the first climb of the day and held off a chase group including elites and national time trial champions. My first concern was: have I miscalculated Ben’s winter training and accidentally got him in peak form for February? That long breakaway pattern has continued, including becoming the youngest ever winner of a stage at the Tour de l’Avenir. So, when it came to choosing a WorldTour team, being able to race in the way…

Forty years on, Clare Greenwood is ready to share the real reason she attacked on the Champs Élysées. “I’d had a bidon that had lasted me the whole three weeks,” she says. “I decided: Right, I’m going to act like one of the guys – I’m going to finish my drink, then toss it to the crowd.” On one of the most iconic roads in cycling, with ‘Great Britain’ emblazoned over her heart, Greenwood did just that. But the move backfired. “It hit a lamppost and ricocheted back into the peloton at the height of everybody’s head.” She heard a shouted complaint from behind and thought, “Oh hell, I’m in trouble now.” Her only means of escape, she figured, was to attack. “Needless to say, it only lasted a few…

Tekkerz, the UK race team run by Alec Briggs, has built a reputation around turning heads, and this latest drop is no different: a limited-edition set of just 100 gold Tune Nano wheels, released in collaboration with the German component specialists. The gold wheels are plucked straight from the team’s Canyon Aeroad race bikes. While they have already been turning heads for some time this season, this is the first time they will be available for sale to the public. The wheels are based on Tune’s brand new Nano hubs, an evolution of the Yokto system released earlier this year. At just 1,389g a set, they’re lightweight enough for full-gas crits, with a stiff, 50mm-deep TRC50 carbon rim and Sapim CX-Ray silver spokes laced 24 front and rear – the…

Not long after being sworn in for a second term, Donald Trump dismissed global warming with a tweet about freezing temperatures in New York. But for cyclists, the evidence of a changing climate isn’t hard to find – it’s written across the heatmaps of our summer rides, the early-morning alarms we set to avoid midday sun, and the rising demand for heatshedding clothing and acclimatisation strategies. As temperatures continue to break records year on year, riding in the heat is becoming less of a once-ayear inconvenience and more of an all-summer-long challenge. Whether you’re racing, training or just riding for fun, high temperatures demand careful management of hydration, fuelling and effort. advice on heat acclimatisation, practical riding strategies, and how to In this feature, we’ll explore how to adapt and…

Sweat is a liquid emitted from pores on the skin in response to a number of stimuli, including high temperatures, physical exertion and fear. All of these are highly relevant to the sort of sportsperson who enjoys riding in the summer, riding hard in the summer, and just occasionally gets things horribly wrong. (Who among us has not squirted sweat from every pore on realising they’ve committed themselves to a 30kph corner at 50kph?) Humans developed the ability to sweat around 2 million years ago, around the same point we lost our fur. It provided a valuable means of thermoregulation in hot African environments. In general, the fitter you are, the more you can sweat, and the more dilute your sweat will be. A top sweater can lose up to…

Alpine idyll A majestic mountain looms behind the yellow jersey group on the final stage of the Tour de France Femmes. Demi Vollering leads while speaking via race radio. Yellow streak Yellow jersey Kim Le Court sprints for bonus seconds at the end of stage six of the TdF Femmes in Ambert. Le Court pipped Demi Vollering (right), with Dominika Włodarczyk coming third. Watch out! Riders speed past as a marshal directs them away from a piece of road furniture on stage six. With the increase of traffic-calming measures in towns, there are more obstacles to mark every day. Model fan A strangely impassive fan stares fixedly as riders pass by on stage seven of the Tour. The dummy has one of the best views of the race in Bourg-en-Bresse…

Kim Le Court-Pienaar’s career has been one of historic firsts. She’s the first Mauritian – male or female – to compete at cycling’s highest level, after signing for WorldTour squad AG Insurance-Soudal. She’s the first African to win a Monument. Now, as of last week, she’s the first African woman to lead the Tour de France – and the first to win a stage, too. Growing up 9,000km away on an island in the Indian Ocean, Le Court’s latest two achievements were beyond her fantasies as a child. “I think someone needs to hit me in the face to make me realise,” she laughed in Guéret, the site of her stage win on day five. The victory gave her a second stint in the yellow jersey, a privilege she had…

A refreshing change. Julie Platt Loved the Montmartre climb. It was exciting, but what’s in it for the green jersey boys? I’d love to know what Cav makes of it? Kieran Gorman It was a spectacular final day. If I think honestly about it, much of what made it so special was that Tadej was there, mixing it up and striving for the win. He is a very special champion. Mark Clausen I’m kind of on the fence. Yes, fantastic finish from Wout this year, but I think the better sprinters will do a Mario Cipollini and leave the Tour before the mountains, if this is going to happen every year. James Montgomery Sometimes change is good. Thought the last stage this year was the most exciting since that stage…

Tales from Celtic folklore speak of a mischievous spirit – a playful trickster said to shape-shift through nature and enchant those it encounters. Often portrayed as fairy-like, this creature’s name is Puck. In 1600, William Shakespeare brought the character into the cultural mainstream, lending the name to a magical mischief-maker in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, who famously declares, “What fools these mortals be!” – a line that could serve as an apt warning to the rivals of my interviewee. Speaking to me by video call, Puck Pieterse looks puzzled as I muse on the meaning of her first name. Swivelling in a desk chair in her father’s home office, the Fenix-Deceuninck rider clearly isn’t sure where I’m going with this tangent. She’s fairly certain, she tells me, that her parents…

The GoPro Hero 13 Black features an 8:7 sensor and GP2 image processor, capable of a top resolution of 5.3K at 60 frames per second (FPS) or 4K at 120 FPS. It uses a 2.27in rear LED screen, and 1.4in front colour LED screen. Charging is again done via USB-C, and the fold-out legs for the traditional GoPro mounting are still present. However, a universal tripod mounting point has been added, as well as a magnetic clip option. I found the add-on a handy feature, and the magnetic mount was more than secure enough for underside mounting over some rough gravel. I’ve been a long-time user of GoPro cameras, but not with great frequency. My last purchase was a Hero 8; using this latest model, I found the system itself…

The week: 27 May - 2 June Location: Teide, Tenerife Training for: Giro d’Italia Women ● Tuesday Long ride with threshold efforts We work with seven training zones. Zone 0 for me is 100 to 150 watts; Zone 1 is between 150 and 215 watts; Zone 2 is up to 250 watts, and so on. This ride was in Zone 1, except in the third hour I did two lots of 12 minutes in high Zone 2, and in the fourth hour I did a 20-minute block alternating four minutes at threshold and one minute easy. My threshold power is between 290 and 300 watts. Riding time: 4hr ● Wednesday AM: Endurance, PM: Gym I did a three-hour morning endurance ride followed by a 75-minute racespecific afternoon gym workout. I…

Josh Charlton’s Colnago V4RS is one stealthy looking machine and befitting of a rider who – as the team car behind it suggests – who represents their country. So far this year, as well as taking the national individual pursuit title Charlton has ridden the National Series road races and won the final stage of the Rás Tailteann in Ireland. His bike features top-line Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 with an FSA power meter, plus Roval Rapide CLX wheels and Conti Grand Prix tyres. Want us to feature your race bike? Send a pic and information to cycling@futurenet.com…

Veteran rider Adam Duggleby finally took the coveted National 25-mile Championship title on Sunday after it had eluded him on previous occasions. The 40-year-old, who is also a tandem pilot in the British Cycling Paracycling Team, used his technical ability and power to devastating effect to win in Cambridgeshire. Meanwhile, after two previous podium finishes, Emily Martin took her first women’s 25 title. Sixteen-year-old Leon Atkins (258 Protégé) showed his talent once again by dominating the junior event and posting the second-fastest time on the day – just six seconds slower than Duggleby. ADDFORM Vive Le Velo rider Duggleby posted a winning time of 49.20, beating the Team Bottrill pairing of Thomas Lee (49.43) and Rob Francis (50.09) into second and third respectively. Matt Rossiter (George Fox Cycling Solutions) finished…

Despite having the Colnago V5Rs climbing bike at his disposal, Tadej Pogačar elected to use the Colnago Y1Rs aero road bike for all road stages in his 2025 Tour de France campaign. The Y1Rs is one of the most outlandish bikes in the pro peloton. Its design eschews traditional tube shaping with a form-followsfunction approach that Colnago claims made it the fastest bike among its peers at the time of its launch. The Y1Rs is claimed to be just as stiff as the old V4Rs race bike while being 20 watts faster at speeds of 50kph – again, validating Pogačar’s reasoning behind opting to use it on all 21 road stages. The Slovenian used three different versions of the bike: a white World Championship version in the early stages; a…

On this year’s summer solstice, 21 June, I decided to put Taylor’s and Benson-King’s advice into practice by taking part in Chase the Sun, a 206-mile ride from east to west Chase the Sun has editions in the Scottish Borders, Northern Ireland, Italy and southern England – the latter my event of choice. We set out from Sheerness, on the Kent coast, and would finish on the opposite side of the country in Weston-Super-Mare. The aim is to set off at sunrise and arrive before sunset. Two-hundred miles is hard enough under normal circumstances, but this year the UK was experiencing its first heat wave of the year, with temperatures set to breach 30ºC. I knew I would need to factor in heat to my hydration and pacing strategies. That…

Maxwell Hereward won the Yorkshire U23 Classic last weekend, as his 360cycling team dominated the race, with Jake Edwards coming in second. Max Bufton of Wheelbase Cabtech Castelli came third. Jessica Disley returned to domestic TT action in style with victory in the Welsh CA 10-Mile Champs on Sunday. The AeroCoach rider set a storming time of 21 minutes and 22 seconds to finish 20 seconds ahead of teenager Mabli Phillips (Shibden Cycling Club), while Deb Hutson-Lumb (Legato Racing Team) finished third (22.51). Seventeen-year-old Dylan Sage was celebrating his latest success after winning the open event in 18.09, finishing ahead of Owen Burgess (UF Rowe & King) in second and fellow youngster Oliver Tregear (Tofauti Everyone Active) in third. Meanwhile, Hedd Griffiths (Cardiff Ajax CC) was the fastest road bike…

Phil Bayton leads riders up the Devil’s Staircase climb north of Abergwesyn, mid-Wales, on stage three of the 1982 Milk Race. Riding for the British team, the ‘Staffordshire Engine’ was a Milk Race regular in an era when the race was often dominated by Eastern Bloc riders. It’s not clear from the information given whether or not Bayton is leading the group, off the back of the peloton (he wasn’t a climber) or if he’s just been picked out from the middle of the pack by the photographer, John Pierce of Photosport International. Bayton isn’t listed in the top three at the end of this 180km stage from Porthcawl to Aberystwyth, won by Yuri Kashirin of the USSR team, and doesn’t appear in the final GC listing. Bayton would, however,…

This is the bike Tom Simpson rode to a silver medal in the individual pursuit during the 1958 Commonwealth Games. However, Simpson lost ownership following a card game. “Tom had a good friend called Graham Plumber,” explains Dave Marsh, of the Universal Cycle Centre, Rotherham. “The two played cards together in local cafes, which is how Graham won this bike from Tom. I doubt Tom was too bothered – if he ever needed a bike, Gerald O’Donovan, manager and designer at Carlton, was very happy to oblige.” Simpson and O’Donovan were also good friends; in fact, O’Donovan was Simpson’s best man. Marsh recalls the now legendary tale that, after picking this bike up from O’Donovan’s home in Carlton Road, Worksop, Simpson rode a local TT road course in 19 minutes.…