Inhaltsverzeichnis für June 2019 in Cyclist

£2,900, edco-wheels.co.uk Tubeless, disc hubs, 28mm deep, 17mm internal/25mm external rim width, thru-axle and quick release compatible, 1,497g. Oh yes, and £2,900. But here’s the thing: Edco’s latest wheels have carbon spokes, and not just any carbon spokes. ‘The spokes are unique to the these wheels,’ says Edco’s Christian Dietl. ‘The weight is about 1g lighter than the lightest existing steel spoke – 2.8g for a 272mm spoke, for example – which provides a 25% weight benefit per spoke.’ With 20 spokes front and 24 rear, that’s a big chunk of weight saved over regular metal spokes. Unlike other carbon-spoke wheels, the Brocon’s spokes are replaceable and the wheels true-able in the same manner as regular spokes, as the ends of the spokes are bonded to steel inserts that thread…

To download this route, go to cyclist.co.uk/87roubaix. There are too many turns and unnamed roads on this ride to describe it in detail, so the best way to follow in our wheel-tracks is to download the GPX link above. Roughly, starting from Mons-en-Pévèle, head north to Mérignies and Pont-à-Marq. Then head northeast to Ennevelin and east around the outskirts of Templeuve, before going north again to Cysoing. Make a loop around Bourghelles, Wannehain, Camphin-en-Pévèle, the Carrefour de l’Arbre and Gruson, then back to Cysoing via Bouvines. Follow a southeasterly trajectory for around 40km via Nomain, Aix and Saint-Amand-les-Eaux, then head towards Arenberg. After the Arenberg Forest, take the D40 to Wallers then head west through Hornaing before north to Warlaing, Tilloy-lez-Marchiennes and Beuvry-la-Forêt. Continue on to Orchies and then west…

Catch the 7.30am Northern Line Tube from Clapham Common to Bank station, Monday to Friday, and among the army of commuters travelling into the City of London, cycling fans will see a familiar face. In a well-tailored suit provided by old friend Jeff Banks, and still looking trim and tanned, Australia’s greatest-ever one-day rider and double Monument winner is on his way to his new job. ‘I’m officially on the Sports Internship programme at Goldman Sachs,’ says Simon Gerrans when we meet on a weekend near his London home. ‘My old agent, Andrew McQuaid, told me about this scheme that came off the back of London 2012, but it kind of fizzled out. I contacted them about sparking it back up and they said, “Yeah, why not?”’ Gerrans has been…

Condor Leggero SL Disc, £7,650, condorcycles.com The tubes are round, the shifting is mechanical, and while it does have disc brakes, the brilliance of the Leggero SL comes from its simplicity. Handmade in Italy using tube-to-tube construction (where pre-fabricated tubes are cut and bonded as opposed to pieces of the frame being moulded), there is a traditional, near steel-like quality to the smooth, comfortable nature of the bike. But thanks to what its builders can do with carbon, the frame remains stiff for punchy efforts yet exhibits just the right degree of flex to grip through corners and feel lively – yet never chatty – over a variety of surfaces. The full complement of Campagnolo parts rounds off the bike nicely, with special mention going to the disc brakes, which…

THE SPEC  Model Basso Diamante SV Disc Groupset Campagnolo Record 12 Speed Disc Deviations None Wheels Campagnolo Bora One 35mm Disc Finishing kit Microtech Quantum bars, Basso Diamante stem and seatpost, Selle San Marco Mantra Carbon FX saddle, Michelin Pro 4 Endurance tyres 28mm Weight 7.78kg (size 56) Price £7,999 Contact bassobikes.com This time last year we had yet to learn of the existence of Knickers, the 6ft 3in cow from Australia; rapper Dr Dre had yet to lose his trademark case against gynaecologist Dr Drai; Zafar the sexually frustrated dolphin hadn’t forced the closure of a French beach; and news outlets still reported on things that weren’t Brexit. A lot can happen in 12 months, such as Basso releasing a disc brake version of its aero Diamante road bike.…

Mean Streets RIDER 1 Giro Aether Mips helmet, £259.99 zyrofisher.co.uk Oakley EVZero Path, £130 oakley.com Le Col by Wiggins Hors Categorie jacket, £300 lecol.cc Poc Resistance Enduro Adjustable gloves, £50 2pure.co.uk Le Col Hors Categorie bibshorts, £180 lecol.cc Le Col legwarmers, £55 lecol.cc Shimano S-Phyre shoes, £319.99 madison.co.uk RIDER 2 Met Trenta 3K Carbon helmet, £265 met-helmets.com Oakley Jawbreaker sunglasses, £175 oakley.com Castelli Head W Thingy snood, £20 saddleback.co.uk Castelli Perfetto W Longsleeve jersey, £180 saddleback.co.uk Castelli Scaldo Pro W gloves, £60 saddleback.co.uk Castelli Chic bibtights, £110 saddleback.co.uk Castelli Poggia 3 shoe covers, £55 saddleback.co.uk Col Agnel Ready, Eddy, Go! Abus Aventor helmet, £139.99 zyrofisher.co.uk 100% Speedcraft sunglasses, £160 madison.co.uk Castelli Cyclist jersey, £75 shop.cyclist.co.uk Castelli Cyclist bibshorts, £95 shop.cyclist.co.uk Defeet Cyclist socks, £12 shop.cyclist.co.uk Suplest Edge/3 Pro shoes, £299…

£329, extrauk.co.uk An incredible 100 of the 180 riders at the 2000 Tour de France wore Time shoes. Unfortunately, the French brand soon found itself being muscled out of the market by the big American and Asian companies, and it languished in relative footwear obscurity until 2016. That’s when major ski boot manufacturer Rossignol purchased Time, bringing the necessary money, technology and facilities to allow the company to produce its first new pair of cycling shoes since 2013. The Osmos 15 is a high-end shoe that couples a seamless, one-piece synthetic upper with strategically placed Sensor 2+ padding (made from a specially developed foam material) on the inner sole. The outer sole is full carbon and provides a low stack height with a view to finding the sweet spot between…

£34.99, madison.co.uk If a hole in a tubeless tyre is too large for sealant to cope with, the Dynaplug Racer offers a fast fix. There’s no need to even remove the wheel – simply push the appropriately sized insertion tube (there are two sizes included) containing a repair plug through the hole and then extract the tool, leaving behind a gummy, viscoelastic-impregnated plug that creates an instant bond for an airtight and permanent seal. All you need to do is re-inflate the tyre and go. The kit contains two ‘Megaplugs’ and three standard sized plugs, plus insertion tubes, and weighs just 23g.…

'It’s funny. Since I’ve stopped, I’ve been in all of the places I would have loved to have been in when I was working as an artist,’ says Caren Hartley. The one-time silversmith, artist and sculptor began building bicycles professionally in 2014, and her creations have been exhibited in the V&A, the Design Museum and the Barbican, and most recently in the Homo Faber exhibition held last September in Venice, which is where this particular bike comes in. Nicknamed ‘Ex Machina’, it was commissioned by a customer named Austin and was inspired by his love of engines and machinery, in particular the Rolls-Royce Phantom I of 1925. That car was a rolling cathedral of sharp chrome lines and deep lustre coachwork, and while Austin’s bicycle rolls on two wheels, not…

1 BIRZMAN DIVERSITY 17 MULTITOOL £28.99, silverfish-uk.com Caruncle: the pink triangle in the corner of the eye. Tittle: the dot over an i or j. Snollygoster: an untrustworthy politician. Dysania: the state of finding it hard to get out of bed. Skimmington: a public procession used to make an example of a cheating husband or a nagging wife. Having just the right word for the job is like having the right tool for the job – eminently satisfying and overwhelmingly useful. It’s why we love the Birzman Diversity: 17 different tools including chain breaker and CO2 inflator head, delivered with the utmost concinitty (skilful, harmonious arrangement, since you ask). 2 PRO HANDLEBAR ENDPLUGS £9.99, madison.co.uk UCI rule 5.11i states ‘handlebars and stem must be fashioned to prevent any…

Positioned in the top left-hand corner of the front page of the Manchester Weekly Times on Saturday 4th June 1881 was an advertisement. ‘Great Six Days Bicycle Contest,’ ran the notice. ‘£150 in prizes. Promoted by GW Waller, Champion Bicyclist of the World, in his Mammoth Marquee, 90 yards long by 40 yards wide. Illuminated by gas. Entries to Mr Harrison, 128 Portland Street, Manchester.’ According to a report in the Manchester Evening News, published two days later, the riders that started that Monday morning included ‘the best riders of the iron steed in the world’. Among them was said George William Waller, 100-mile ‘Champion of the World’. He didn’t feature in the final reckoning, however, and the event climaxed with a win for Newcastle’s JW Lamb. Lamb had sped…

TRAVEL Salzburg airport is 30 minutes from Fuschl am See by car, and is serviced directly from Stansted (Ryanair, from around £70) and Gatwick (British Airways, from around £130), taking two hours each way. Other airlines such as Lufthansa fly from London City via Frankfurt from £182, taking 3.5 hours. ACCOMMODATION Cyclist pitched up at the exquisitely plush Ebner’s Waldhof (ebners-waldhof.com) in Fuschl am See, which offers double rooms from £285pn, including breakfast and access to the wellness centre, gym and myriad swimming pools. It also provides free use of stand-up paddle boards, kayaks and row boats, which can be launched onto Lake Fuschl from the hotel’s private beach. THANKS Huge thanks to Yvonne Rosenstatter, Alice Rager and Christina Kahlenbach from the Salzburger Land tourist board for making this trip…

THE SPEC  Model Litespeed Ultimate Gravel Groupset Sram Force 1 Deviations CeramicSpeed rear mech upgrade Wheels FSA K-Force AGX Finishing kit FSA K-Force handlebar, FSA 0S 99 stem, Litespeed titanium 31.6mm seatpost, BBB Phalanx road saddle, Hutchinson Overide 38mm tyres Weight 8.0kg (size ML) Price £8,450.95 Contact windwave.co.uk There aren’t many bike brands that have seen their components put to use beyond the confines of Planet Earth, but Litespeed is one of them. It developed a ‘rocker-bogie’ suspension system for the Curiosity Mars rover, designed to prevent the car-sized vehicle from tipping over while exploring the Martian surface. So far so good – it appears to still be upright. It’s testament to the technological expertise of the company from Chattanooga, Tennessee, which began life in 1986 and quickly developed a…

£145, albaoptics.cc The trend for big sunglasses may have led to some riders looking like they’re wearing safety goggles for industrial welding, but it has also brought about some highly impressive leaps forward in technology. Alba’s Optics Stratos glasses, for instance, include an ‘optical cone of 180 degrees’ – in other words, a very wide field of vision – aided by an adjustable frame that can allow the lens to sit almost flush to the face. A central vent helps to prevent fogging, while the ‘Vzum’ lenses offer high-contrast vision on cloudy days without impacting clarity. It’s a bit like wearing a VR headset, except what you’re looking at is real.…

Even for its time, the 1926 Tour de France was a particularly brutal affair. Covering 5,745km over 17 stages, it remains the longest in history, rightfully earning the nickname ‘The Tour of Suffering’. For French rider Marcel Bidot it was especially gruelling. Making his Tour debut at the age of 23, he found himself a victim of successive misfortunes and petty regulations. First, he broke a pedal and had to use just one foot to propel himself until he was eventually allowed to borrow an ill-fitting bike from a spectator – on condition he used his own wheels. Then his freewheel broke in the Pyrenees (derailleurs were banned) but he still managed to climb five cols, including the Tourmalet, in the gear he would have been using on the descents.…

The skies outside are heavy. The rain hasn’t yet arrived but it’s as inevitable as the beating we’re about to take on the cobbled roads made famous by the Queen of the Classics: Paris-Roubaix. As I stir my coffee and peer out the window I can see a large blue tarpaulin covering a damaged section of barn roof across the street, flapping violently in the wind. Its rope tethers are winning the battle to secure it for now, but I wonder how long they will hold out given the forecast suggests gusts of over 40mph today. Were this any other Big Ride, we might have taken a rain check. After all, tomorrow’s forecast looks considerably more amenable. But here, waiting to do battle with the iconic pavé of Roubaix, the…

In any catwalk of climbs, the Agnel would be up there in supermodel territory A bit like Chris Froome’s Grand Tour potential back in 2010, I can’t help feeling that the Col Agnel is underappreciated. After all, at 2,744m it’s the third-highest pass in Europe (and eighth-highest road), beaten only narrowly by the glamorous celebrity climbs of the Col de l’Iseran (2,770m) and Stelvio (2,750m). Straddling France and Italy, Agnel is also the highest border crossing in Europe. As a test of climbing chops it’s a decent 20.6km in length from Ville-Vieille on the French side and it averages a healthy 7%, according to Strava. The final 5km of the climb in the thin air above 2,200m actually averages closer to 9%. So it’s fair to say the numbers stack…

It was Benjamin Franklin who said that only three things are certain in life: death, taxes and the annual scramble of professional cycling teams to find sponsorship. In 2018 it was the turn of BMC Racing, one of the wealthiest squads on the WorldTour with an estimated annual budget of $29.4 million, to clean out the begging bowl. It was no secret that the US-registered outfit would need a funding transplant after Swiss bike manufacturer BMC announced the end of its 11-year association with the team shortly after the death of its billionaire owner, Andy Rihs. Many companies were touted as potential saviours, including accounting giant Deloitte, but hearsay doesn’t provide much stability so it wasn’t long before Richie Porte, Rohan Dennis, Tejay van Garderen, Nico Roche and Stefan Kung…

With a glass of red wine in one hand and still in his cycling kit, Eddy Merckx looks rather cheerful when we are ushered into the back garden of the Hotel Mohrenwirt. This is the second time I have visited this hotel, the first being when I turned up yesterday with suitcase in hand, only to be politely rejected when it turned out the taxi driver had dropped me at the wrong address. In his defence, despite its modest size there are a lot of hotels in Fuschl am See. There needs to be to put up the large number of tourists who come here for the mountains, the beautiful lake and air so clean it could have just been unboxed. This part of Austria, just east of Salzburg, is…

THE SPEC  Model Boardman SLR 9.8 Disc Groupset Sram Red eTap HRD Deviations None Wheels Zipp 202 Firecrest Clincher Disc Finishing kit Zipp Service Course SL handlebar, Zipp Service Course SL stem, Boardman SLR carbon seatpost, Fizik Antares R3 saddle, Vittoria Corsa G+ 28mm tyres Weight 7.48kg (large) Price £4,999 Contact boardmanbikes.com The year was 1992. A young man from the Wirral threw his leg over what appeared to be a space-age carbon bicycle, made by a well-known car brand, and promptly won the Individual Pursuit on the track at the Barcelona Olympics. At the time, the nation was so thankful for a gold medal (Britain managed a meagre five golds at Barcelona, compared to 27 at Rio in 2016) that most people missed the true significance of the moment.…