Inhaltsverzeichnis für February 2020 in Cyclist

More than 120 years separate the exploits of engineer George Pilkington Mills and maths teacher Michael Broadwith, yet they are united by the same remarkable accomplishment and a similar world of suffering. As he neared the end of his attempt to set a new record for cycling from Land’s End to John O’Groats in the early hours of a Friday morning in 1891, Mills ‘dropped off into a helpless sleep, and despite all the blandishments – some of them rather rough – of his friends, he became immovable, and slept on, and on, and still on,’ reported Bicycling News. Mills eventually woke up, remounted his safety bicycle and completed his ride in a new record of four days, 11 hours and 17 minutes. ‘Hitherto he has had a large contempt…

Castelli, a brand famed for producing weather-beating racewear such as the Gabba jersey, has a new line of indoor kit. That’s right – jerseys and bibs designed for cycling indoors, which is not as strange as it sounds, says Rich Mardle, Castelli brand director at UK distributor Saddleback. ‘With the huge development in smart trainers and software platforms indoor training is a great option when the weather or time gets the better of you. A lot more of our athletes are doing it,’ says Mardle. And we know that apparel designed specifically for a particular environment helps a rider perform better.’ What s wrong with simply training in a sweaty old base layer, or not wearing anything on your upper half at all? ‘Not all performance indoor cycling is done…

1 Single leg Romanian deadlift How: Stand straight and hinge forward through your hips, keeping your leg straight until your upper body is as parallel with the floor as possible. Hold, then contract the glute in your standing leg as you stand upright. Alternate sides for 10 reps, and progress by holding a weight on the opposite side to your standing leg. Why: Most cyclists are quad-dominant but your glutes are powerful muscles and this will develop them. 2 Goblet squat How: Stand with your feet wider than your hips. Hold a weight (if you don’t have dumbbells, a weighted rucksack is ideal) in front of you with your arms bent and squat until your elbows touch the inside of your knees, keeping your…

TRAVEL Cyclist flew to Venice Marco Polo, which is the de facto airport for flying cheaply into northeast Italy. From there it’s a not-unpleasant two-hour drive to Arta Terme, although if you go via the fast roads (the countryside way is winding but more beautiful), expect to pay around €15 each way for tolls. ACCOMMODATION We stayed at the Grand Hotel Gortani, which is a beautifully appointed hotel in Arta Terme surrounded by mountainside and graced with superb food and all the spa mod-cons to treat yourself post-ride. Double rooms start at around £70 per night in June. See gortani.it for more details. THANKS Huge thanks goes to Marco Cantagallo and Maurizio for helping us plan routes, riding with us and offering wing-mirror handholds and general moral support. Marco and…

…Remco Evenepoel ‘Take his age from the equation, and I cannot recall any rider doing what he did in the space of a month: winning Classica San Sebastian, the Tour of Belgium and then the European TT. Three completely different races, which he won with ease, and he’s only just got a driver’s licence. If he keeps his head he could be the best ever.’ …Internet lies ‘Somebody once changed my Wikipedia page to say I was an “average time-trialist” and after that I opened the floodgates to see what people would do. So far we’ve had that I was a professionally trained pastry chef, I was a model for Argos between 2010-2011 and I played the saxophone for the Doncaster orchestra.’ …Importance of social media ‘A good social media…

This is not McLaren’s first association with cycling, given its eight-year tie-up with Specialized and Mark Cavendish, but co-sponsoring a WorldTour team represents a big step up in its involvement. It’s logical from at least one point of view: Bahrain’s Mumtalakat sovereign wealth fund has a 57.7% stake in McLaren Automotive, as the company is now known. ‘The founders of the Bahrain cycling team are members of the same family who have a shareholding in McLaren,’ says John Allert, joint managing director of Bahrain-McLaren. ‘It was a matter of joining a number of dots. When you look at cycling and the journey it has been on, the fact it’s becoming a far more commercial sport, and that there’s a clear overlap between motorsport and cycling, it was screamingly obvious that…

The second iteration of the ‘Futureshock’ suspension unit is a lot more refined than the first. That was asimple sprung system but the redesign has introduced two significant features. First, the unit’s travel has been damped using an oil reservoir, which ensures that both the compression and rebound are more controlled and progressive. Second, the unit is adjustable now that the original top cap has been replaced by a dial that can be turned on the fly to stiffen or soften the suspension.…

Borderline Crazy p50 Abus Airbreaker helmet, £229.99 abus.com Roka GP sunglasses, £215 roka.com Café du Cycliste Micheline jersey, £131 cafeducycliste.com Café du Cycliste Marinette bibshorts, £184 cafeducycliste.com Café du Cycliste socks, £18 cafeducycliste.com Sidi Wire 2 shoes, £330 saddleback.co.uk Mont Ventoux p72 Specialized Prevail II helmet, £200 specialized.com Oakley Radarlock Path sunglasses, £195 oakley.com Le Col Hors Categorie jersey, £150 lecol.cc Le Col Pro bibshorts, £150 lecol.cc Le Col socks, £14 lecol.cc Specialized S-Works 7 shoes, £325 specialized.com Bikes p121 CANNONDALE HJC Valeco helmet, £125 saddleback.co.uk Julbo Rush sunglasses, £165 lyon.co.uk Castelli Perfetto RoS Longsleeve jacket, £195 saddleback.co.uk Castelli Perfetto RoS gloves, £60 saddleback.co.uk Castelli LW 2 bibtights, £130 saddleback.co.uk Fizik R1 Infinito Knit shoes, £359.99 extrauk.co.uk RIBBLE Kask Protone helmet, £195 velobrands.co.uk Rudy Project Defender sunglasses, £210 yellowlimited.com…

When someone refers to ‘VAM’, the chances are they are talking about how fast a rider can climb. It is an acronym for ‘velocità ascensionale media’, an Italian term that means ‘average ascent speed’. There is a reason it was coined in Italian –the infamous doctor Michele Ferrari came up with it to measure the performance of a certain American rider. Despite its nefarious connotations, it’s an appropriate label for Factor’s new bike. The brand claims the frameset for its O2 VAM Disc hovers around the kilo mark, making for a super-lightweight rig designed for going uphill fast. ‘It was time to evolve the O2,’ says Factor co-founder and chief engineer Rob Giletis. ‘Rim brakes were still very relevant when that bike came out. There was an O2 with discs,…

£320, sigmasports.com I will get her a box, and inside the box there will be nothing. Because Christmas is not about presents.’ So said Suplest brand ambassador Fabian Cancellara when we asked him what he was getting his wife for Christmas during the launch of the Swiss company’s latest shoe. Luckily Suplest was in a more generous mood, and we can report that its latest Edge+ Pro Road shoe has dropped around 30g per pair to 518g for a size 45, and is certainly appreciably stiff too, although we can’t verify its claims of ‘11% stiffer’ than the previous model. Elsewhere, the Edge+ Pro’s carbon-tongue wraparound has been enlarged, making for a harder-wearing section to evenly distribute tension from the two Boa dial closures across the top foot and, Suplest…

There’s a reason why Hope’s new HB.T track bike looks totally different to any other track bike we’ve seen – it has been designed using a totally different rationale. ‘You can design a very effective aero bike, but chuck a rider on it and it ruins everything,’ says Sam Pendred, Hope’s lead design engineer on the project. ‘We’ve considered the design as if the rider and bike are a single unit.’ That’s the reason for the extreme frame architecture. It simultaneously minimises the interaction of air between the fork blades, seatstays and the spinning wheels, while guiding air over and around the rider’s legs. ‘That forks and seatstays are in line with the rider results in a greater aero package,’ says Pendred. ‘While it’s hard to be certain, we would…

When all is said and done, weight loss (or gain) comes down to calories in versus calories out. If you consume more energy (calories) than you use you’ll gain weight, and vice versa. So weight loss is about consuming fewer calories than you require for your activity levels, but the trick is to lose the ‘right’ weight so it doesn’t hurt performance. Cycling obviously requires energy, which means that you can use it to tip that energy balance. Longer, lower-intensity rides burn calories as you cycle, while shorter, more intense sessions such as speed work and intervals burn calories on the bike but also in the hours after training as well. Both are tough ways to lose weight, though. Exercising isn’t the best way to get the job done simply…

‘While it is botanically related to cannabis, hemp seed has a far lower concentration of the psychoactive element, THC, and therefore has no psychoactive properties,’ says Nigel Mitchell, head nutritionist at Team EF Education First and technical lead at the English Institute of Sport. ‘It’s actually pretty nutritionally complete: it contains the ideal 3:1 ratio of omega-3 and omega-6 fats, all the essential amino acids as well as ahost of micronutrients.’ Hemp contains iron and magnesium, both of which play a role in oxygen transportation and muscle contractions. ‘Best of all they slide pretty easily into any diet,’ says Mitchell. ‘They can replace or supplement more conventional seeds in any dish and you can even buy hemp milk.’…

It’s like athreecourse meal. You start with something light and easy on the stomach, perhaps a soup or a salad. Then you move to the main course, which is a big portion of heavy stew with tough meat and one too many dumplings. It’s not particularly appetising, but like your mother used to say to you at the kitchen table, you have to get through it if you want to have any of the delicious pudding. This final course is also rich, but simultaneously refreshing and afeast for the eyes. Perhaps a raspberry pavlova. So great is its reputation that the Giant of Provence dominates your thinking long before you hit the road As you can probably tell, I’m no cook. However, climbing Mont Ventoux in the south of France…

It seems like every endurance race bike now features dropped seatstays –something the US company was among the first to champion. ‘Dropped stays are more aero and naturally promote compliance in the seat tube,’ says road product manager Cam Piper. ‘As the tubes are shorter they’re also lighter. Thanks to our R&D lab and wind-tunnel we could understand and optimise their inclusion in our SL6 Tarmac design quickly. We know other brands have found the same thing as it’s now hard to find a race bike without them.’…

TRAVEL Cyclist flew to Porto, which is a 90-minute drive from the start town of Peso da Régua or one hour from our accommodation in Viana do Castelo. Both towns can also be reached by train from Porto. There are direct flights to Porto from several UK cities. ACCOMMODATION We stayed at the beachside FeelViana Sport Hotel on the outskirts of Viana do Castelo. The hotel caters for cyclists as well as windsurfers and kitesurfers, offering quality bike hire, guided or self-guided itineraries – from a choice of dozens of routes around the region’s quiet, scenic roads that have been researched by ex-pro Ricardo Felgueiras – and customised tours. The hotel also offers airport transfers, as well as transfers to and from the start/finish of the Douro Granfondo (about a…

I’m not much of a betting man, but the way I see it, if you’re going to gamble, you might as well gamble big. So this year there will be no ‘five quid each way on Froome to win the Tour’. Instead, I’m going to go for the very long shots of pro racing. It’s unlikely to pay off, but if this accumulator comes in, I’ll be able to buy Ineos… January: Australia is in mourning after Richie Porte’s five-year reign on Willunga Hill comes to an end. Instead, a reborn Kenny Elissonde takes the Tour Down Under by storm On his Trek-Segafredo debut, telling reporters afterwards that his time at Skyneos had become ‘more than a marginal pain in the ****’. February: On his long-awaited return to cycling, bionic…

AmFib Jacket £199.99, Pursuit bibtights £179.99, madison.co.uk The perennial challenge facing designers of winter cycling apparel is to incorporate a high level of protection from cold, wind and rain into light and stretchy fabrics while allowing adequate breathability to avoid an unwelcome sweatfest. Pearl Izumi’s answer to this challenge is its exclusive PI Dry technology, which the brand describes as helping to create ‘its most advanced technical outer layers to date’. PI Dry is a hydrophobic treatment that means water will bead and roll off the fabric, and will continue to do so, Pearl Izumi claims, even after 100 washes. Both the Pro AmFib jacket and Pro Pursuit bibtights utilise the PI Dry technology, with three-layer, four-way stretch softshell for a combination of low bulk, warmth, unrestricted movement and decent…

£1,199.98, trekbikes.com The widespread uptake of disc brakes has sent wheel manufacturers scuttling back to their drawing boards to reconsider how best to design wheels for modern riding. One of the outcomes is that wheel rims are getting wider, with the slight weight penalty being more than compensated by improvements in stiffness and aerodynamics. Bontrager has fully embraced this school of thought with its new Aeolus Pro V3 TLR wheels. Their 25mm inner width is wider than most rims’ external width from just a couple of years ago, and externally they measure a considerable 32mm. The company says this means the wheels pair nicely with 28-30mm tubeless road tyres and also have the width to adequately support high-volume gravel tyres. Wider tyres with the suitable support of wide rim walls…

The 13 spring lambs of Paris-Roubaix waste no time are they on the road to stardom, or are they lambs to the slaughter?’ Those were the words of CBS Sports commentator Phil Liggett as he watched a small breakaway form just 44km into the 1988 edition of Paris-Roubaix. With more than five hours of racing still to go and with the sun shining and the teams of many of the main contenders represented, the peloton was more than happy to sit back and let the 13-strong group lead the way to Roubaix. Among the escape was the ADR rider Dirk Demol, who hailed from Kuurne, a town 35km or so north of Roubaix. Demol was riding for teammate Eddy Planckaert, winner of the Tour of Flanders the previous week. Demol…

How much sleep should I be getting? Aim for seven to nine hours. This seems to be the magic number for most people, but it does mean seven to nine hours asleep, not just in bed. Should I be detoxing in January? Detoxing – the way most people perceive it – is 100% bullshit. It’s loads of effort in a short time, almost like a punishment. Focus on building habits that mean you eat less crap through the year. What’s the longest a cafe stop should be to prevent ‘cafe legs’ kicking in? I’d avoid it altogether, for all sorts of metabolic and physiological reasons. Make it as short as possible near the end of the ride. Cycling hard, stopping, eating and then riding hard messes with the biochemistry that…

‘The concept of carb loading has endured since the 1960s,’ says Dr Asker Jeukendrup, a sports scientist and co-founder of Core, an online sports nutrition planning tool at fuelthecore.com. ‘But there are only certain circumstances where carb loading is necessary: when the only focus is performance, the ride is at a constant high intensity, and it’s longer than 90 minutes. ‘If the ride is short there’s no need – our glycogen stores are sufficient. If the ride is long but intensity fluctuates, again it isn’t necessary – you’ll have time to fuel during the activity. More often than not you’re better off making sure you’re well rested and well fed (but not over-fed) rather than stressing about carb loading.’…

‘It’s been really stressful,’ says Dowsett of the demise of Katusha-Alpecin. ‘The guys in contract, like myself, were stuck because we were told the contract would be honoured either way. By the time we were told otherwise the other teams were pretty much filled up. So guys had to make sacrifices in either their price or ambitions. I got lucky; others not so much. ‘At one point I was thinking if the team goes, with it being an Olympic year, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to ride for my local club Maldon and focus purely on the Olympic TT and the Hour record – a year without the distractions, almost like Rohan Dennis had before the World Championships. But then the Israel offer came up, and…

Norman Foster, it is set in vast, well-maintained grounds, with a lake lapping at its edges. It’s certainly an arresting sight – and yes, space age. But on reflection what it most closely resembles is the headquarters of a Formula 1 team. Which is precisely what it is – mainly. Around 1,000 of the 3,000 people employed in this building work on the McLaren F1 team. This swallows up £350 million a year. Another 2,000 people work on the commercial vehicles that are designed and engineered here, which are then sold for anything from £150,000 (‘usually £200,000 with extras’) to £750,000 in the case of the McLaren Senna. Only 10 Sennas were sold It’s too easy to describe the McLaren Technology Centre as space age. A circular, modern building just…

‘The Venge ViAS was released in 2015 and for us this was the moment when aero was widely accepted as something tangible,’ says Specialized’s Mark Cote. ‘But there were so many things that made it not your go-to bike.’ Not least was the cockpit design – it hid every cable away from the wind but was notably convoluted to adjust. The latest Venge is just as clean but uses split spacers and smart, easy-to-remove fairings to make sure the bike is easier to live with day-to-day.…