Inhaltsverzeichnis für July 2017 in Cyclist

In its first foray into women’s saddles, Fizik claims its new Luce saddle follows a different path to the infamous ‘shrink it and pink it’ route taken by many brands when launching women-specific products. By analysing all standards of female riders Fizik found its traditional fit logic didn’t apply, so the Luce is shaped to accommodate better flexibility yet wider sit bones. It’s shorter, the rear is wider and the front has a narrower nose, which Fizik claims all adds up to better female-specific ergonomics. The Luce’s 175g weight rivals most of Fizik’s top men’s saddles and even its name isn’t stereotypically feminine – Luce is pronounced ‘loo-che’ and is Italian for light.…

Stages is only five years old, but in that short time it has established itself as one of the big names in power meters, even becoming official supplier to Team Sky. Having produced various versions of its crank-based power meter, the Colorado-based company now has its own head unit, the Stages Dash. Stages says the focus has been on keeping things simple, and it believes the Dash will be as appealing for beginners as it is for elite-level athletes. The screen is adaptable, and can display up to 16 fields of data in either landscape or portrait orientation. The unit itself is designed to be light and neat to reduce its impact on aerodynamics, while Stages claims the aluminium out-front mount is sturdy enough for MTB downhill use. Battery life…

If ‘hyperspectral’ sounds cool, it is. The process involves dividing light up into many more bands than the red-green-blue of the human eye, and Oakley has used it to create a lens that filters out ambient light ‘noise’ for greater clarity of vision. The texture of tarmac, for example, appears more pronounced through a Prizm Road lens than, say, the browns and greens of a forest (for that there’s a mountain bike-tuned ‘Trail’ version). Oakley has slipped these lenses into its latest glasses, the Crossrange, designed to be both ‘lifestyle’ and cycling-specific thanks to interchangeable arms and nosepiece. In cycling mode the arms are made from ‘Unobtanium’, a silicone material that grips more when wet with sweat.…

Parlee made a name for itself building bespoke carbon fibre frames in the US when few other brands had even heard of the black stuff. Those bikes still exist today as the cream of Parlee’s crop, but in recent years it has branched into stock models, subcontracted to the Far East, to meet the demand for higher numbers and lower prices. Slightly lower prices, because at £3,999 for the frameset this is still an organ-sellingly expensive bike. You do, however, get a lot for your money. Even though this bike is stock, Parlee is all about fit, so the Altum’s stack height can be adjusted in tiny increments by way of the Flex Fit spacer cap, ostensibly an elongated headset cap that comes in three different heights: 8mm, 15mm or…

‘I couldn’t attack Visentini because he was a teammate, but I thought, “If a group goes up the road I’ll go with them”’ Stephen Roche is relaxing on a sofa in a hotel by the Thames, a short walk from the bustle of the London Bike Show. At the nearby cycling mecca everything is dazzling and new, but on the table in front of Roche lie three faded but elegant relics: the maillot jaune of the Tour de France, the maglia rosa of the Giro d’Italia and the rainbow-striped jersey of the World Road Race Championships. These are the holy trinity of cycling jerseys, but to Roche they are personal time capsules that evoke the glory, pain, drama and controversy of 1987, the year this humble son of an Irish…

Box Hill has become almost a cliched symbol of the boom in cycling over the past few years It was one of the most dramatic moments of the London 2012 Olympic road race. American Taylor Phinney attacked on Box Hill, bridging to the break up ahead. Britain’s David Millar held strong at the front of the peloton, resolute that the home nation could still reel in the lead group and set up Mark Cavendish to win the sprint. Unfortunately Millar was wrong. After eight laps of the punishing climb the British team couldn’t catch the break and, with no one else prepared to help, they watched their gold medal hopes disappear up the road. It was a bad day for GB but a great day for Box Hill – secured…

The scene before the start of La Resistance is unlike any sportive I’ve ever encountered. For one thing, it’s not pre-dawn. The sun is up and breakfast was enjoyed at an almost sociable hour. There are no pens full of riders jostling for position near the front. In fact, as I look around barely anyone has even bothered to gather on the start line yet. Instead most are content to sit on the scattered hay bails or kick back on the grass, sipping a last-minute coffee and chatting. Just a few metres away the calm waters of Lake Annecy lap against a sandy shore. It’s all very relaxed. I could just as easily be on holiday, rather than preparing to embark on an epic day in the Alps. Talking with…

THE SPEC Model Factor O2 Groupset Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 9070 Deviations None Wheels Black Inc Thirty clinchers Finishing kit Factor RGi Carbon integrated aero system handlebars and stem, Prologo Navo Evo CPC saddle Weight 6.58kg Price £7,750 Contact factorbikes . com We wanted to offer something different to the rest of the market,’ says Factor co-owner Rob Gitelis. It’s a slightly odd statement because, despite Factor having made some truly innovative bikes during its short history, the Factor O2 is perhaps the most conventional frame the brand has ever produced. You may remember the Factor 001 back in the heady days of 2009. It was a sort of Bond-bike that had a split down tube, an integrated computer screen and disc brakes long before other brands considered…

THE SPEC Model Cannondale SuperSix Evo Disc Black Inc Groupset Sram eTap HRD Deviations None Wheels Zipp 303 Firecrest Disc Finishing kit Zipp Service Course SL70 handlebar, Zipp Service Course SL stem, Cannondale Save 25.4mm seatpost, Fizik Antares R1 saddle Weight 6.91kg (56cm) Price £2,500 frameset; £8,000 approx as tested Contact cyclingsportsgroup.co.uk It’s been nearly five years since my review of the SuperSix Evo appeared in the very first edition of Cyclist. I couldn’t resist flicking back through an old copy, revisiting what I’d written back then, before setting to paper my thoughts on the most recent, disc brake version of Cannondale’s flagship race bike. Nostalgia is the fiendish ally of procrastination and, just like finding an old photo album in the midst of clearing out a cupboard,…

The RS1 is DMT’s new flagship shoe, taking over from its previous top-tier R1. The new shoes use the same unidirectional carbon in the sole but it has been heavily reshaped to accommodate a distinctive ‘Skeleton System’ closure design that was developed with help from Team Sky sprinter Elia Viviani. It adds 35g to each shoe, bumping the weight of a pair up to 520g, but Jack Edwards, brand manager for DMT at its UK distributor Paligap, says the benefits of the system far outweigh the extra grams. ‘The Skeleton System allows for one Boa dial to completely wrap and secure the foot using a single cord. It negates the need for a tongue, so the two sides of the upper can overlap around the foot, giving a really snug…

‘We found most women’s kit didn’t fit very well, wasn’t in the bright and bold colours we loved, wasn’t designed to flatter us, and we were often short-changed on the fabric quality,’ says Rhian Ravenscroft, co-founder of Threo. The brand was created by Ravenscroft and business partner Laura Mundy, both busy professionals and keen cyclists. They wanted to create clothing for women across a range of endurance sports, but it was cycling where they claim they found most ground for improvement. Threo’s Herne Hill jersey juggles comfort with flattering aesthetics, with a redesigned slimmer side panel, slightly longer sleeves and with effective sweat wicking, all with a cut designed for women. As Ravenscroft puts it, ‘We are British women and athletes. We’re not built like an Italian man.’…

Thomas Voeckler  Age: 37 Nationality: French Honours Tour de France 2012 Mountains Classification winner Four stage wins (2009, 2010, two in 2012) Stage races 2016 Tour de Yorkshire 2016 Tour La Provence 2013 Route de Sud 2011 Four Days of Dunkirk 2006 Route de Sud 2003 Tour de Luxumbourg One-day races 2012 Brabantse Pijl 2010 GP de Québec 2010 National Road Race Championships 2007 GP Ouest-France 2004 National Road Race Championships Cyclist: How emotional do you feel about your final appearance in the Tour de France this summer? Thomas Voeckler: In my last year as a pro each race I take part in feels a little bit different because I know it’s the last time I put that number on my jersey. But once we start I have to…

In the world of cycling Craig Calfee is something of a polymath. The softly spoken American holds various patents as diverse as Simplified rear suspension for a bicycle and Ground air water craft. He’s built a solar-powered, 6m-long bamboo tandem e-bike. He teaches people in developing countries how to build bamboo rickshaws. He was also among the pioneers of carbon fibre road bikes back in the 1980s – with a little help from a friend. ‘The guy who brought Time pedals to the United States was sponsoring Greg LeMond, and he saw one of our carbon bikes and said we should send one of them to Greg’s dad because he was looking for a custom carbon bike for the whole team. I said, “Wow, really?” So we sent a bike…

In the world of bicycle upgrades, carbon is king. When practically every other component on your bike has been formed of the black stuff, it only makes sense that the chainrings be next, and Italian company Carbon-Ti has just the thing. ‘To start with, Carbon-Ti leveraged the knowhow of its parent, LLS Titanium, a company with 27 years of experience in industrial-scale titanium and carbon fibre manufacturing,’ says product manager Marco Monticone. ‘We applied it to bike components because we recognised we could make products that were lighter and stronger than what was on offer.’ Carbon-Ti’s X-Ring chainring has metal teeth bonded to a carbon core, although somewhat surprisingly the metal is aluminium, not titanium. ‘Initially the chainrings had titanium teeth, but the way it had to be manufactured meant…

There are few better places on Earth to be a cat than Mani. It’s unlikely the felines care much for the local myths or the views, but on this late summer evening in Kardamili, a footnote of a town on Greece’s southernmost appendage, the cats lounge nonchalantly on cafe steps and vacant chairs, picking at scraps left by a table of men gambling over cards and cups of wine. It’s not a bad place to be a cyclist either. Yesterday I went on a brief recce, and within a few clicks from my guesthouse the glistening shoreline had given way to vast limestone cliffs interwoven with a fading tarmac ribbon that traced its way into the mountains. In 14km I’d gone from sea level to over 700m, and but for…

Unbelievable as it sounds, just two men carry the aces when it comes to choosing the roads tackled by the world’s biggest bike race If you could design the route of the Tour de France, where would it go? Should it stay entirely within France’s borders or visit other countries? Would you have more mountains or more sprints? Would you include all the classic cols or look for new, undiscovered venues? How many time-trials should there be? How long should the Tour be? How hard? Which direction? How many transfers between stages? Perhaps more importantly, the question should be: who are you creating the Tour for? The fans? The riders? The sponsors? The shareholders? It’s a daunting task, and given the geographical, financial, logistical and technical constraints, is it remotely…

Set against the imposing peaks of the Wasatch Range in the cauldron of Salt Lake City, Reynolds Cycling’s HQ is a utilitarian, bunkerish affair. The cream and grey exterior walls mimic the snow-capped granite peaks behind, the only flashes of colour a bright red fire hydrant and a gently flapping Stars and Stripes flag in the car park. Inside things are equally calm. A faint whiff of coffee and the sound from a radio drift through the air as uniformed employees tap away at keyboards. Then suddenly the tranquillity is shattered by a collective groan from the next room. It’s come from a group of Reynolds’ engineers gathered around a computer watching YouTube. ‘Woah! How on Earth did that happen?’ exclaims Todd Tanner, director of product development. The clip is…

Riis told Channel 4, ‘I wanted to see how they looked, in their faces, and most of them didn’t look so well, so…’ Fans of 1990s pro bike racing will remember Hautacam as the Pyrenean climb on which Bjarne Riis sealed his domination of the 1996 Tour de France – a day when the Dane theatrically dropped back alongside each of his rivals to assess how they were feeling before accelerating past them all and disappearing into the distance, as though he had a motor hidden in his bike. Of course, we know now that the stage was indeed fraudulently won, but not through so-called mechanical doping: Riis admitted in 2007 that he’d taken performance-enhancing drugs for much of his pro career. But let’s blame the rider, not the mountain.…

With such varied terrain, choosing the right bike for La Resistance is vital. The 3T Exploro is purpose built for this kind of adventurous day out. It combines attributes of a top-end carbon aero race bike with the ability to fit wide 40mm treaded 700c tyres (or even 650b mountain bike wheels with up to 2.1-inch tyres), making it extremely versatile. The down tube is so vast that there is virtually no flex, making the Exploro quick and responsive on the tarmac. Once on the trails, it proved to be surefooted over the rough stuff, but all that rigidity did make for a bumpy ride, and I was glad of the wide tyres for the dampening effect they offered. For me, the only thing lacking was a sufficient range of…

If Harrods sold turbo trainers they’d probably look a lot like this. And, in fact, they do. ‘Like all Technogym equipment we weren’t content with just making a functionally brilliant turbo trainer, but one that also looks the part,’ says Technogym’s Alex Bennett. ‘Historically we have sold through Harrods as well as other sporting outlets, and the MyCycling turbo will follow suit.’ Even if you’re not aware of Technogym the chances are you’ve seen it somewhere before – either in rows of silver and yellow-accented gym equipment or as title sponsor of the MG Maglifico-Technogym team in the mid-90s, which starred Gianni Bugno and Michele Bartoli. The MyCycling turbo therefore marks something of a renaissance for a brand steeped in Italian sporting tradition, but which has been conspicuously absent from…

The sharp V-shaped cross section of Swiss wheel brand Edco’s new Flüela wheelset appears in direct contradiction to the current thinking that to be aero yet controllable, rims must have blunt profiles. It’s no mistake – Edco says this doesn’t have to be the case and claims to have proven it in a white paper with the help of Paul Lew, a composite scientist who knows a thing or two about aerodynamics (see the feature on Reynolds Wheels on p110). To cut a long and very complicated story short, Lew claims that while blunt rims perform well at constant wind velocities of 40-50kmh in a wind-tunnel across relatively narrow yaw angles, they do not perform in the wind velocity range of the real world, which is typically much lower and…

South Tyrol truly is a giant playground for cyclists. Home to the Dolomite Mountains, declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2009, the region’s stunning peaks and deep valleys make it a unique cycling destination. Criss-crossed with a 4,600km network of cycle trails ranging from easy routes through beautiful orchards to more challenging options taking in the some of the region’s towering moutain passes, a tour of the Dolomites will be an unforgettable experience no matter what your level. For those looking to combine their passion for cycling with a love of wine, South Tyrol’s Wine Road connects the superb vinescape to the south of Bolzano with the Lake of Caldaro with short detours to bathing lakes and plenty of wineries along the way offering their wares for tasting. The…

1 ASS SAVERS £8.50, ass-savers.com Quite apart from being an international superhero organisation obsessed with donkeys in peril, Ass Savers is a Swedish-born company that all but invented the lightweight saddle mudguard in 2014. The idea is unchanged – simply bend into shape then clip onto saddle rails – but it has now been refined to fit carbon-railed saddles and better accommodate posterior man bags. 2 ELITEFLY TEAM BOTTLE £5.99, madison.co.uk When Peter Sagan loses his locks on 21st July (after the joker in polka, Rafa Majka, shaves his head at a post-Tour party), he stands to lose 57g in weight, or gain 0.01kmh when riding at 350W on a perfectly still day. Or, he could keep his hair and drop nearly the same weight by using just one of…

Ritte is a brand that won’t try to bamboozle you with technical language and outrageous performance claims. Instead it aims to make its mark by looking good – and its stunning paint schemes are evidence of that. That they ride well is an excellent bonus. I rode the Ace for a few months and there’s no doubt it won the battle of aesthetics – consistently drawing a crowd at any given coffee stop. In terms of ride quality, the Ace sits at the more aggressive end of the spectrum. It responds admirably to power inputs but can feel quite jarring when it hits holes in the road. I was very happy to be rolling on Easton’s wide-rimmed tubeless-ready EC90 wheels. They felt fast yet comfortable with 25mm tyres, and I’m…

It’s 7.55pm on Wednesday 8th March 2017 in the anodyne environs of the Hotel Novotel Macon Nord. An hour north of Lyon airport by train, this could be anywhere. Anywhere that is drab, tired and bristling with corporate types seeking midweek solace in the bottom of a half-pint glass. But for one night only, a dash of colour eclipses the grey. In the car park are the flashy team buses of Sky, BMC Racing and Cannondale-Drapac. In the lobby roam the world’s finest cyclists. Nico Roche (BMC) wanders past Luke Rowe (Sky), while Cannondale’s Pierre Rolland and Davide Villella disappear into one of the rooms that branch off a seemingly never-ending corridor. The two Cannondale riders are focused on dinner and prepping for Stage 5 of the week-long Paris-Nice. Cyclist…

THE SPEC Model Heroin H1 Limited Edition Groupset Shimano Dura-Ace 9070 Di2 Deviations Rotor INpower 3D30 power meter Wheels Heroin High Modulus rims on Tune hubs, Sapim CX-Ray spokes Finishing kit Heroin Integrated Carbon Fibre bar and stem, Deda Superzero seatpost, Heroin Carbon Rail saddle Weight 6.91kg (55.5cm) Price €14,900 (approx £12,600) Contact heroin-bikes.com First things first, I find it somewhat distasteful that this bike is called Heroin. Yes, there was some mild mirth at seeing the courier docket. ‘Contents: Bike. Heroin.’ But beyond that, Heroin? Seriously? It’s a name that might have seemed edgy in 1985, but people also liked shellsuits in 1985. And Phil Collins. Plus, this company has only existed for three years. Its makers could have called it anything – literally, given that the…

THE DETAILS Weight 1,406g pair (637g front, 769g rear) Rim depth 32mm Rim width 20.7mm internal 28.1mm external Spoke count 21 front; 24 rear Price £1,870 pair (£770 front, £1,100 rear) Contact specialized.com In its infancy as Specialized’s in-house wheel brand, Roval found itself a bit lost. Its ‘rock’ was the assumption made by many that producing its own wheels meant Specialized was thinking more about its coffers than its consumers. Its ‘hard place’ was that it lacked the experience and resources to keep pace with top aftermarket competitors such as Zipp, so inevitably it struggled to attain the kudos needed to be seen on anything other than Specialized bikes. Times have changed, according to Roval’s road category manager, Stewart Thompson: ‘We’re trying to move away from being a…