Table of contents for November 2017 in Cyclist

From £49.99, silverfish-uk.com Knog’s new PWR range of front lights is based around an intriguing concept – the light body is effectively a power pack, so aside from just powering your light it can also simultaneously charge your bike computer unit or phone via micro-USB. The range consists of five models, but it’s the three higher-powered options (road, trail and mountain) that are the most interesting. Their modular system of interchangeable parts means if you want to upgrade your round-town light to a higher output for unlit lanes (or maybe even a mountain bike night ride), or just boost your run time, you don’t have to buy an entirely new light, just the appropriate head unit or battery.…

£120, wiggle.co.uk The Aeron Carbon Road D sits at the top of a completely new range of high-performance road shoes that Dhb says delivers similar quality and performance to other brands’ top models without the sky-high pricetag. There’s a carbon fibre sole for stiffness, and a soft synthetic upper that is claimed to bring support, comfort and breathability. An Atop dial closure system (similar to a Boa dial) and a pair of Velcro straps ensure a secure fit with easy on-the-fly fine-tuning. It’s also pretty lightweight – our size 43 weighs in at 271g, which is a touch over the claimed 257g, but still competitive with far pricier shoes.…

Bernard Hinault Age: 62 Nationality: French Honours Tour de France winner 1978, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1985 28 stage wins Giro d’Italia winner 1980, 1982, 1985 6 stage wins Vuelta a España winner 1978, 1983 7 stage wins World Road Race Champion 1980 Paris-Roubaix winner 1981 Cyclist: You’ve ended your work as ambassador for ASO, organiser of the Tour de France. Why did you make the move and what are you doing now? Bernard Hinault: I am retired. With competition and all of my activities I have been working with ASO in one way or another for 42 years. That’s finished now. I have two grandchildren who I’d like to see grow up. The whole thing has made me think about how my grandfather spent time with me, and all…

This Italian brand is as big on aesthetics as it is technical excellence, describing its products as ‘bicycles intended as jewellery’. The frame was certainly a head-turner, with a striking finish that was the result of the brand’s ‘handmade paints’, researched and produced to ‘clothe our bikes’. Behind the breathless blurb is 20 years of framebuilding experience. The Lemma is the only carbon frame the brand produces, its other two models being steel. Despite its slender, retro appearance, the frame is light, rigid and compliant, which is just as well considering our ride was either uphill or downhill with very little flat in between. The price quoted is for the Dura-Ace model, but ours came with a Sram Red eTap groupset. As someone who’s never owned a smartphone, the idea…

MODEL Bianchi L’Eroica FRAME AND FORK Lugged Columbus Zona; 1in threaded lugged steel GROUPSET Campagnolo Silver Vintage 10spd, Bianchi aluminium chainset, Dia-Compe brake levers and 610 callipers, Dia-Compe W-Shift down tube shifters GEARING 48/36t chainset; 13-29t cassette WHEELS Ambrosio Excellence rims on Bianchi wide flange hubs TYRES Vittoria Zaffiro Pro 23mm FINISHING KIT Bianchi Classic bars, Bianchi alloy stem and seatpost, Brooks Team Pro Classic saddle WEIGHT 9.39kg (55cm) PRICE £2,700 CONTACT bianchi.com JAMES’S SUMMARY On the one hand, the L’Eroica is pretty terrible. Braking is more a promise than a reality, shifting is like picking up pennies with your elbows and the saddle weighs the same as a side of beef. Yet that misses the point of this bike. It has been designed to be within the rules…

I am not Chris Froome. I have no designs on winning a summit finish at a Grand Tour, so altitude training is not something I’ve ever given much consideration to. I know it can boost performance but, like most people, I don’t have the time or money to spend weeks up a mountain in the Alps. There is, however, an alternative. Which is how I come to find myself pedalling a Wattbike at 2,850m above sea level in the heart of London. I’m at The Altitude Centre, which is at an actual height of around 35m, but the hypoxic chamber I’m in simulates riding on high mountains. Under the watchful eye of performance specialist James Barber, I’m experiencing what it’s going to feel like when I get out to Colorado…

In December 2016 news broke that Pinarello had sold a majority stake in the company to a private equity fund part-owned by the LVMH group, a conglomerate made up of Louis Vuitton, Moët & Chandon and Hennessy. So what does this mean for Pinarello? ‘I’ve done a deal and I’m in the minority, but I still own the company, I put my money in my company because I trust my company,’ says Fausto Pinarello. ‘Our new partners are good at marketing and distribution, and it sends a message, a profitable message. No, there will never be a Louis Vuitton Pinarello bike! It would be easier to have a Pinarello Louis Vuitton handbag. So not much will change. Next year there will be a new aero frame and a new all-round…

THE SPEC Model Lightweight Urgestalt Disc Groupset Shimano Dura-Ace 9170 Di2 Deviations None Wheels Lightweight Meilenstein Clincher Disc Finishing kit Lightweight Rennbügel bars, 3T ARX Ltd stem, Deda Superleggero seatpost, Selle Italia SLR saddle Weight 6.70kg (56cm) Price £3,989 frameset, approx £12,000 as tested Contact  vielosports.com Lightweight’s David Bergmann is attempting to explain to me what the word Urgestalt means. ‘It’s a very German word,’ he says. ‘I don’t think there is a direct English translation for it. I would say it’s like “an origin” or “first version”, or something like that.’ Bergmann tells me that the name harks back to how Lightweight came into being. The brand may be best known for its highly desirable (and highly priced) wheels, but its first product was far from being round. Back…

Summits And Switchbacks Poc Octal helmet, £220 2pure.co.uk Rapha Pro Team Flyweight sunglasses, £140 rapha.cc Café du Cycliste Fleurette jersey, £116 cafeducycliste.com Rapha Classic Crochet mitts, £60 rapha.cc Café du Cycliste Annabelle bibshorts, £194 cafeducycliste.com Café du Cycliste Striped socks, £18 cafeducycliste.com Rapha Climbers shoes, £280 rapha.cc Time Machines RIDER 1 Lazer Blade helmet, £59.99 madison.co.uk Oakley Holbrook sunglasses, £120 uk.oakley.com Isadore Espresso jersey, €129 (approx £114) isadoreapparel.com Lizard Skins Aramus Classic mitts, £37 2pure.co.uk Isadore Men bibshorts, €129 (approx £114) isadoreapparel.com Isadore Echelon socks, €22 (approx £20) isadoreapparel.com Quoc Pham Night shoes, £219 quocpham.com RIDER 2 Giro Synthe helmet, £224.99 zyrofisher.co.uk Nike Legend sunglasses, £72.95 nike.com Ashmei KOM jersey, £129 ashmei.com Lizard…

 As sports go, cycling can take an unusually large physical toll on your body. So looking after your body properly, allowing it to not just survive but to adapt and progress, should be a top priority. The issue of whether you can fulfil your nutritional requirements through your regular diet alone is a contentious one, and has fuelled the rise of the sports supplement. ‘If a rider needs to bolster their flagging energy levels it’s easier to gulp down a gel than chew through a flapjack, regardless of whether they’re at the Tour or in a local lane’ A quick internet search on supplements throws up pages upon pages of information: what they are, how to use them and which ones are best for you. However, as the supplement industry…

In the early days of the Tour de France, riders not only had to contend with 400km-plus stages, but they had to do it with just two gears. Not only that, to move between them, they had to get off the bike, release wing nuts on the rear wheel, flip it around and replace the chain on the sprocket before remounting. These days we expect 22 gears as standard, but do we need quite so many? It might seem obvious that having more gears is better, but there is an argument to be made for losing gears. Specifically, the switch to a single front chainring, known as 1x (‘one-by’), means you can do away with messy cabling, mounts and a bulky derailleur. ‘For me as an engineer, the front derailleur…

Embrocation. Superstition. Navigation. Sunscreen and chamois cream. My cheap, plastic ‘climber’s crucifix’. A map oozing contours and suffering – the symbols of my silent, solitary ritual before a Big Ride. A combination of the scientific, talismanic and cartographic that will be topped off by the calorific, a big bowl of muesli with the contents of two cartons of natural yoghurt squeezed over it. My riding partner, Gav, is calibrating his sock length. These are the marginal gains that will define our day in the mountains of southern France. They say cycling is ‘the beautiful sport’, though they have obviously never seen Gav in full flight. He may be fast, but looks like a chimpanzee trying to escape from the zoo. Or me, hunched like a bear stuck in economy class.…

The link between cycling and socio-economics is unmatched by any other sport. In the mid-1800s bicycles were essentially playthings of the rich, but by the turn of century they had become essential tools for the poor. Cycling was working class, and those early two-wheeled pioneers we now look back on as great champions were once farm boys, chimney sweeps and caretakers. Riders took to the Tour de France not to win accolades but to earn money – every day spent riding a stage came with its own food allowance several times the average weekly wage. The bikes were pig iron, the roads no more than cart tracks. It’s all a far cry from today, with our smooth tarmac and hi-tech carbon fibre bikes. Yet look through the catalogue of a…

MODEL De Rosa Nuovo Classico FRAME AND FORK Lugged Dedacciai 01; 1in threaded lugged steel GROUPSET Campagnolo Super Record 2013 GEARING 52/36t chainset; 11-25t cassette WHEELS Fulcrum Racing Zero TYRES Continental Grand Sport Race 25mm FINISHING KIT Deda Speciale 26 bars, Deda Murex stem, Deda RS01 seatpost, Prologo Scratch 2 T2.0 saddle WEIGHT 8.61kg (56cm) PRICE £2,550 (frameset), approx £5,500 as tested CONTACT i-ride.co.uk SIMON’S SUMMARY I know it’s not all about looks, but you really have to hand it to De Rosa – the Nuovo looks absolute dynamite in this rosso red. I could spend all day chatting about the beautifully embossed details on the fork crown and bottom bracket, the polished stay and lugs and its perfectly poised stance, but there is a lot more to it.…

Surely it’s no coincidence that what are widely considered the two best Tours de France in living memory – the 1986 and 1989 editions – both featured the climb of Superbagnères. And if it is a coincidence? Well, then the climb can be considered a good luck charm for the organisers, and including it again might really spice things up. As we head rapidly towards 30 years since the Pyrenean climb last featured on the route of the world’s biggest bike race, it’s surely high time that the Tour considered going back. What’s the hold-up? Weak road bridges on the climb’s lower slopes mean that the Tour isn’t prepared to risk catastrophe to get the race’s heavy infrastructure to the top. One solution would be to station the weighty team…

THE SPEC Model Ridley Helium SLX Groupset Shimano Dura-Ace 9100 Deviations Shimano Ultegra cassette Wheels Fulcrum Racing 5 Finishing kit Forza Cirrus handlebar, stem and seatpost, Forza Cirrus Pro saddle Weight 7.21kg (size medium) Price £2,700 frameset, £4,900 as tested Contact  sportline.co.uk I’m seeing more and more Ridley bikes on the roads when I go out riding. Thanks in part to its connection with WorldTour team Lotto Soudal, the Belgian brand is constantly expanding its presence outside of its home market, not least on British weekend club runs where riders looking for high-end machines are increasingly willing to pay premium prices. Ridley’s popularity is also down to the fact that it makes extremely good bicycles. I tried out the slightly lower-spec Helium X earlier this year, and became rather attached…

£160, extrauk.co.uk If Fizik’s exhaustive range of saddle designs is enough to make you dizzy, you may want to take a seat because the Italian brand has introduced a whole new sub-division to its popular Arione, Antares and Aliante models. The new Open range retains each model’s overall shape but includes a central cutout in the name of perineal pressure relief. It hasn’t just been a case of slicing up the old designs with a hacksaw, however. Fizik says the cutout has been researched to give the best balance of pressure relief without affecting hull rigidity – an issue it claims plagues many cutout-based saddles.…

1 ZIPP TANGENTE RT TUBELESS TYRES £71, zipp.com While Zipp Tangente might sound like a slick detective from a comic book, who investigates crimes in an alternative universe, it is in fact an all-new tubeless tyre from the Indianapolis-based speedsters. Available in 25mm and 28mm, Zipp claims they’re the fastest-rolling tyres in their category – an amazing storyline in itself. 2 BHIDE SADDLE From £110, b-hide.com There’s only one thing worse than people talking about your tatty saddle, and that’s people not talking about your saddle at all. So make sure your posterial perch is the subject of gossip and renown in cycling circles by having it reinvigorated by B-Hide, which will re-cover any saddle – such as this once-battered Fizik Antares – in custom leather and with hand-stitched detailing…

‘I have no news on Kristoff or Kittel. There are always rumours at this time of year. Some are true, some are not.’ Katusha-Alpecin’s general manager, José Azevedo, is giving nothing away. It’s the morning of Tuesday 11th July 2017, just over a week into the Tour de France, and Cyclist is nestled with the WorldTour team at their hotel in Dordogne. The Manoir du Grand Vignoble in Saint-Julien-de Crempse, on the outskirts of Bergerac, is charming and rather regal, but has seen better days. I can’t help thinking that the creaking and disjointed floorboards of the Grand Vignoble are laden with symbolism, as Azevedo bats away questions about the impending transfer merry-go-round. The talk is that Quick-Step Floors’ German sprinter Marcel Kittel is to join the team, to replace…

MODEL Condor Classico Stainless FRAME AND FORK Fillet brazed Columbus SLX and XCr; 1 ⅛in lugged Columbus XCr GROUPSET Shimano Ultegra 6800 GEARING 52/36t chainset; 11-28t cassette WHEELS Ambrosio Excellence rims on Shimano Ultegra 6800 hubs TYRES Continental GP4000 II 23mm FINISHING KIT Fizik Cyrano R3 bars, R1 stem, R3 seatpost, Fizik Aliante VS saddle WEIGHT 9.00kg (56cm) PRICE £1,800 (frameset), approx £4,500 as tested CONTACT condorcycles.com NICK’S SUMMARY I absolutely love this bike. If this is what steel is like, I’m a convert. I spent all day trying to pick holes in the Classico, to find even the slightest chink in its Columbus armour, but I failed. When I first picked it up it felt heavy, but that apparent heaviness just didn’t come across when pedalling uphill. A…

Tre Cime Acciaio When all around him were riding doubles, Pinarello made Giovanni Battaglin this triple chainset steed on which to tackle the Tre Cime di Lavaredo during the 1981 Giro d’Italia. Engineers machined the Campagnolo 53/44t Record chainset to fit a third 36t chainring, but without affecting the rider’s Q-factor (adding an extra inside ring would usually have forced the chainset outboard). This gave Battaglin a smallest gear of 36x24 – enough to win the stage and claim the maglia rosa, which he kept until the finish two days later. Espada Carbon Designed by Elvio Borghetto – the same man who executed Battaglin’s triple chainset and who still works at the company – this bike helped Miguel Indurain become the first rider to break 53km when he successfully attempted…

Once upon a time it was easy. We’d wander into a bike shop, seize a bike by its top tube and lift it up. If it weighed less than a hardback book we’d hand over our cash. These days being light is great, but it’s not enough. We also want our bikes to be super-stiff for snappy performance, as well as being as comfy as an old armchair. All three bikes on test this month claim to have solved the light/stiff/ comfortable equation. Cyclist finds out which of them has done its sums correctly.…

THE SPEC Model BMC Teammachine SLR01 Groupset Sram eTap Deviations TRP T980 direct-mount brakes Wheels DT Swiss PRC 1400 Spline 35 Carbon Finishing kit 3T Ergonova Team bars, BMC RSM01 stem, BMC Teammachine SLR01 D seatpost, Fizik Antares R5 saddle Weight 6.87kg (56cm) Price £7,000 Contact  evanscycles.com That’s right. BMC engineers, with the help of some intellectual institution bods and a Swiss supercomputer, say they have gone through a mind-bending 52,000 virtual design iterations based around 247 parameters to create the company’s new standard bearer, the Teammachine SLR01. Some people might find it suspicious that it took precisely 52,000 iterations (which would suggest this bike is therefore number 52,001), others will just marvel at a company that’s gone to such lengths. And indeed it had to. As BMC engineer Tobias…