Inhaltsverzeichnis für April 2020 in Cycling Plus

There’s no escaping the climate crisis gripping our planet, and no excuse for continuing to pretend nothing can or should be done to address it. And as a print magazine, we have to face up to the fact that we need to act as well: we’ve recently started shipping all subscriber copies in recycleable paper packaging, and all of our bagged issues now come in plastic that can be recycled at local supermarkets. We will keep at it. In this issue, we look at some of the innovators trying to clean up the industry in our feature on p86. After all, cycling is green at heart, and we’re all one less car. SUBSCRIBE! NEW SUBSCRIBERS TO CYCLING PLUS CAN GET A LEZYNE CADDY SPORT SADDLE KIT WORTH £49.99 ALREADY A…

3499 A Canadian gravel crusher Devinci is based several hours north of Montreal, an area of mountainous forests, lakes, trails and fire roads. As well as being key to the company’s mountain bike development, this location is also perfect gravel biking terrain, as we discovered when riding the inaugural Grinduro Canada event on this bike last year. Building on 2016’s original Hatchet, version two has an all-new frameset, greater tyre clearance and updated geometry. The 12 model Hatchet range includes four carbon and eight aluminium bikes with our Carbon GRX LTD model topping the tree. For a headline model, its build is quite conservative, with some of the lowest spec Shimano GRX components, modern, wide but not especially light DT Swiss G1800 Spline wheelset, SDG saddle and Easton EA70 AX…

THE BIG PICTURE Inspired by the Cinglés du Ventoux, which involves climbing the three paved sides of Mont Ventoux on the same day, Nice-based clothing brand Café du Cycliste has invented the Zinzins de Turini – an identical, open challenge on nearby climb, the Col de Turini. The other part of its name roughly translates to ‘crazies’ – appropriately enough for the 120km, 3400m ride. Trevor Ward attempted it last June and his travails are chronicled in our season preview special next issue.…

01 ARUNDEL ART GECKO BAR TAPE £34 If you’re a cycling aesthete, then no doubt you’ll appreciate this stylish, grippy, Art Deco-themed PU bar tape that comes with a tessellated pattern that fades from a geometric design into pure black from the shifter mount point down into the drops. The tape comes in a variety of colours and is available in powder blue, celeste, green, yellow, orange, red, pink, grey and purple. 02 TORQ CARAMEL LATTE GEL £1.85 Of course, we’ve all seen coffee-infused gels before, however, this one uses decaffeinated beans and blends it with guarana, ensuring that the consumer knows exactly how much caffeine they’re getting, even if it is minimal. The coffee flavour of the gel is sweetened with caramel but it tastes natural thanks to the…

In the lower half of thrilling Wharfedale, a little upstream from Otley and at the foot of Ilkley Moor, the West Yorkshire town has always had road cycling in its culture. The short, steep climb up to Cow and Calf Rocks – on Ilkley Moor – is a racing and day-ride staple, while the road over the Moor to Keighley and Airedale is a must-do gravel-bike jaunt. It’s a handy gateway town to the Dales, too, being a few minutes’ local train from Leeds. Ilkley has fine Victorian architecture, upscale supermarket Booths, posh tearoom Bettys, Michelin-starred restaurants and quality indie shops – so it’s no surprise there’s a very active and engaging cycle cafe: The Commute sits on the (traffic-clogged) main street and always has a few road bikes on…

CINELLI VIGORELLI £1499 Cinelli’s purple and chrome Vigorelli won’t necessarily appeal to everyone but they’ll certainly see you coming on this criterium-inspired bike. The Thron steel frame and full-carbon Futura fork are both from Cinelli’s partner company Columbus, and the striking combination promises speed as well as style. This is only one of two of our steel bikes that has rim braking. SPA CYCLES ELAN 275 £1999 The Reynolds steel Elan brings Shimano 105, hydraulic disc brakes and wheels built by Spa’s in-house spokemeister already set up in tubeless mode. Schwalbe’s G-One tyres should further ramp up the comfort and the chainset/cassette pairing provide a very impressive range of gears, both high and low. Gold details and Hope components nicely set off the predominantly black frame. THE LIGHT BLUE DARWIN…

WE SAY… It’s light, it’s quick, it’s plush, it’s versatile, it’s a commuter, tourer or even a bikepacker Ah, college quads, the Footlights, cricket at Fenners… all things Cambridge, where The Light Blue bikes were first produced in 1895. Fast forward to 2020 and they’re designed in the city by the founder’s grandson. Back in Victoria’s time, they would have been made with lugged steel, rather than in this tidily TIG welded guise. As for the Darwin’s hydraulic brakes and 22 Shimano STI gears – 21 more than in 1895 – these would have been but a laudanum-induced dream, or perhaps a special delivery from HG Wells’s The Time Machine. The Light Blue describes the Darwin as a “light, quick, steel street bike” that can encompass commuting, tackling towpaths and…

The Zig Zag is what a modern road bike should be: it handles impeccably and it’s beautifully finished It’s another hard test to call, with the Venn diagrams of our five bikes covering slightly different ground – but each shows that steel is still very much a contender. The two racier offerings from Genesis and Cinelli encourage you to go faster with every turn of the pedals, and while both have rim brakes (yep, they do still exist) these didn’t hamper their overall performance. But apart from steel’s obvious appeal, they’ll have to fight hard against other bike materials. But it’s in the world of the all-round road-cum-endurance bike that steel more than holds its own against aluminium and carbon interlopers. Where an all-out low weight is much less important,…

The saddle is the most personal component on your bike, and also the most subjective when it comes to quantifying comfort. Whatever the manufacturers and their marketing machines say, one rider’s perfectly plush perch could be another rider’s instrument of torture. If you ever visit a cycling museum, you can marvel at the bikes used to compete in races over many years. Most observer’s comments are usually levelled at the skinny steel framesets, narrow tyres, limited gears and often agricultural brakes, but just take a look at the saddles. Narrow, usually with a flat central spine and about as much give, or flex, as a railway sleeper. We tend to focus on the achievements of cycling’s legends in terms of the terrain conquered and their physical and mental prowess, but…

At first glance, adventure bikes seem to be getting closer to being mountain bikes, just with drop handlebars and a ton of cargo fixtures. So just how capable are they when you put them into the most testing terrain possible? We took Mason’s steel-framed ISO and Salsa’s latest carbon-framed Cutthroat to the Kintail Affric trail in the Scottish Highlands to find out. IN AT THE DEEP END The last time I rode over Glen Affric (or the Morvich loop or Ben Attow as it’s sometimes known) it was on a six-inch travel enduro mountain bike. I still pushed and carried several sections up and down and that was during an unseasonably hot May a couple of years ago. The good news is that as my testing wingman, Ryan, amd Is…

“The time trial – some love it, some hate it,” says Liam Holohan. Competing on your own, against the clock, can be one of the most difficult challenges that a cyclist can face. That’s not to say the time trial is all about pain. For every rider it’s a great opportunity to pit what you’ve got against a marker. On the professional circuit, time trials (TTs) are part and parcel of the competition calendar. It’s the same on the amateur circuit with midweek TTs common-place up and down the country. And it’s worth the effort as you learn a heck of a lot from pitting yourself against the clock. As a snapshot, it naturally hones your sprint technique; you learn to utilise use your energy more efficiently; and your handling…

Just because you’ve started to eye the clocks going forward and evening rides are looking more feasible, don’t neglect your maintenance routine because your bike isn’t as dirty. It’s still being used and it’ll need maintaining as much now as it did when you couldn’t get a ride done dry. Now’s a good time to start de-winterising your bike. If you’re a one-bike rider, make sure you keep all the parts from your mudguards together when you take them off, and store mountings and chargers for your lights with the lights themselves. You’ll thank me in October. STORE MOUNTINGS AND CHARGERS WITH THE LIGHTS THEMSELVES If you have multiple bikes, give both – all? – of them a check over and clean. Was there anything you meant to do to…

£2319 Rim-brake Ribble A new road bike with rim brakes is unusual, just as we’ve become used to hearing that all new road machines will be disc-only Ribble’s revamped bike range is certainly extensive, with 11 models in its endurance category alone. The frames come in steel, aluminium and three levels of carbon fibre, each available with disc or rim brakes, and there’s even an e-bike option. But a manufacturer making new road bikes with rim brakes is becoming unusual. Just as we’ve become used to hearing that all new road machines will be disc only, Ribble surprises us. Using Ribble’s online BikeBuilder, you can choose one of three colours for the Endurance SL: black, grey and teal. Black and grey offer seven groupset options, including Shimano, SRAM and Campagnolo,…

TREVOR WARD: Italy has a well-established gran fondo scene and the daddy of them all is the Maratona dles Dolomites, which has been taking place every summer since 1987. It’s been successfully run by a committee of locals from the Alta Badia region in all that time, and the main man is a wonderfully eccentric eco-warrior called Michil Costa who rides a penny farthing dressed in tweed and would have cars banned completely if he could. The shortest version of the Maratona is a 55km loop over four mountain passes, the full distance covers 135km and features eight passes with 4000m of climbing. It requires serious training. I’ve done it a couple of times and, nevermind sore legs, you’ll get a sore neck from looking at the views. Then there’s…

WE SAY… The Vigorelli has modern features in both the frame and the components One of just two of the five steel bikes in this test with rim brakes, Cinelli’s striking purple and chrome Vigorelli was designed in conjunction with riders from Team Cinelli Chrome, winners of the Red Hook Criterium series. Along with the Genesis that’s coming up, this puts it very much at the racier end of the spectrum. The frameset is also available for £799.99. I tested the 2019 Vigorelli. As we go to press this model is still widely available and often at a discount. The 2020 Vigorelli moves to Shimano 105 compact – as seen on the other test bikes – but the Columbus steel frame is unchanged. With so much history, steel is the…

WE SAY… Steel isn’t as light as carbon, but in this guise it’s stiff enough for racing As with the £1500 Cinelli, Genesis’ Volare has a racing background, rather than the more all-round leanings of the other three. Whereas the Cinelli was inspired by criteriums, the Volare 853 is the more affordable sibling of the Volare 953 frames that were ridden successfully on the road by the Madison Genesis Pro Team, but which unfortunately folded last year. What Madison Genesis demonstrated is that, even in the third millennium AD, it’s possible to race on a steel frame. Yes, steel isn’t as light as carbon, but in this guise it’s stiff enough for racing without being punishing. My test bike’s Reynolds 853 is the ‘highest-spec’ steel frame here (1), 853 being…

Photographers might know the word ‘bokeh’ as a Japanese term for the blurry parts of a picture. Cyclists are more likely to recognise it from Mason Cycles’ exclusive “world-leading, finely finished titanium adventure sports frameset”, made to order in small batches in Italy. Mason describes the Bokeh Ti as its “ultimate smooth, comfortable, fast, multi-terrain, continent-crushing, ultra-endurance machine!”. It’s a descendant of Mason’s aluminium Bokeh and has completed the Transcontinental Race. Unlike many brands, all the Bokeh frameset’s fixtures and fittings come as standard. The matt finish is achieved by blasting the frame with micro-beads. Frameset fixtures include Mason’s MultiPort system of adaptable internal cable routing, rack, mudguard and dynamo mounts, fittings for electronic shifting and a third set of bottle bosses under the down tube. The frame and fork…

SBSCRIBE TODAY AND RECEIVE A LEZYNE CADDY SPORT SADDLE BAG FROM THE EDITOR… As if the chance to save 35 per cent and having every issue of Cycling Plus delivered direct to your door wasn’t enough of an incentive, we’re also giving new subscribers a free gift of a Lezyne Caddy Sport Kit. Only a fool would head out on the road without mechanical supplies (yes, we’ve done it!) and this kit will ensure that you have everything at hand if you need a quick fix, including multi-tool, hand pump, tyre levers and a smart kit for tyre repair. Paul Robson, Editor HURRY OFFER ENDS 14 APRIL 2020 FEATURES RAP six multi-tool Lezyne Sport Drive hand pump Smart kit for tyre repair Matrix tyre levers WORTH £49.99 GREAT REASONS TO…

Gels, energy bars and protein balls are all functional performance snacks to devour in the middle of long sportives but, on your everyday training rides, your stomach – and your taste buds – will thank you for sticking to natural snacks. Your body’s digestive system will find it easier to process ‘real food’ and, as it’s much more palatable, you’ll be less likely to order a slice of cream-covered chocolate cheesecake when you stop at a café. “Brioche with Philadelphia cheese and jam is a favourite amongst the team when we’re out on the bike,” explains New Zealand pro Tom Scully of the EF Education First pro cycling team. “It’s moist and easy to eat and tastes great. It’s important to have normal food to complement the bars and gels…

Here’s a vegan meal that’ll add variety to your week whether you’re looking to become vegan or not. Adding more vegetables, pulses and lentils to your diet will crank up your micro-nutrients and antioxidants, which can only improve your performance. It’s delicious both on its own or alongside a meat curry and rice. With chickpeas the base of this dish, it’s relevant to analyse what a 30g serving provides us… CALORIES 46 CARBS 8g FIBRE 2g PROTEIN 3g FOLATE 12% of the RDI IRON 4% of the RDI PHOSPHORUS 5% of the RDI COPPER 5% of the RDI MANGANESE 14% of the RDI As you can see, chickpeas are high in protein and fibre, which makes them a filling option that will help lower appetite and reduce calorie intake. Chickpeas…

HOW DID YOU GET INTO CYCLING? “I bought a recumbent hand-cycle six years ago as I wanted to get fitter. My trainer knows me well and knew I needed a goal or it would be sitting in the garage, so he booked me on a 10k race to ensure I had to get going!” HOW DO YOU FEEL CYCLING BENEFITS YOU? “I was diagnosed with Friedreich’s Ataxia at 16. It’s a recessive genetic condition that affects balance and co-ordination, but I’ve always had a passion for the outdoors, especially for skiing, surfing and cycling to help retain muscle strength and keep fit. Physically, hand-cycling strengthens my whole body. When I cycle in nature it’s so peaceful and I connect with myself. I become mindful of all that is around me.”…

PRICE £3400 (FRAMESET), COMPLETE BIKE APPROX £7500 UPGRADES NONE MILES RIDDEN 835 The S-Works continues to blow me away every single time I head out on the road on it, and it’s not just the bold acid pink/purple fade colourway. It’s impressively quick to accelerate, super-responsive to pedal or steering inputs, and its damn light too, so it climbs like a dream. The Force AXS group has been fantastic. The gear range of 48/35 chainset and a 10-33 cassette over 12 gears that, compared to an 11-speed setup, is like running a 52/36 with an 11-28 but having both a harder gear and a lighter gear and smaller jumps between those gears across the board, has been just brilliant. I’ve had a small issue with the group, however, and that’s…

We take our testing very seriously at Cycling Plus. For more than 25 years – an age when disc brakes, Di2 and super-wide 1x gearing weren't even a glint in a designer’s eye – we have been putting road cycling products through their paces. Our test team, led by senior technical editor Warren Rossiter, has nearly a century of riding experience between them in just about every discipline. They can separate the great from the also-rans when it comes to bikes, clothing, accessories – and more. If it gets our seal of approval you can be sure that you’ll be bagging a great buy! Wheels of steel tested as the old-school metal sees a resurgence p36 How comfortable is your perch? Male and female saddles tested p76 Cannondale Topstone and…

Specialized Diverge E5 £900 WHAT’S THE STORY? “The Diverge has everything you need for… gravel racing, bikepacking or weekend shredding,” says Specialized. The Open Road Geometry resembles that of a gravel-ised, thru-axled Allez, the lowered bottom bracket and 15mm extra length adding stability and off-road capability to the Allez’s fantastic all-round ride. TOP GEAR? Eight-speed Claris with a 46/34 chainset and a wide-ranging 11-34 cassette for off-road forays. The Tektro mechanical disc brakes offer good control but lack the power of hydraulics. WHO’S THE EASY RIDER? The endurance geometry, dropped slim seatstays and 35mm tyres ensure plenty of plushness, but the standard (non-flared) handlebar and shallower treaded tyres leave it more compromised than the GT on gravel. SPECIFICATIONS Weight 10.52kg (56cm) Frame aluminium Fork FACT carbon Gears Shimano Claris 46/34,…

We’re a fifth of the way through the 21st century, so why are we testing five road bikes made of steel, a material thats use in bikes dates back to the time of Queen Victoria? Well, steel can be built into comfortable, long-lasting and reparable bikes that – in theory and avoiding catastrophic crashes – should outlast you and me. I gave my own 1984 steel Raleigh to a charity last year, and even with 40,000 miles on the clock it had loads of life left in it. Our five test bikes are predominantly for the road but modern tastes are making their presence felt with disc brakes, tubeless tyres and room for wider tyres. The American company All-City calls its Zig Zag an “all-weather endurance road bike” and it…

WE SAY… It’s the versatility and comfort of the Elan that are its main strengths We put Spa’s titanium Elan through its paces a while back and it turned up trumps, so I thought I’d take its Reynolds 725-framed Elan – available in late February or early March – for an extended test ride. Steel is a little heavier than titanium but it will save you a fair wodge of cash, which lets you splash out on some swankier kit – hence the gold-coloured Hope components adorning the frame and the matching hubs. Back in the day, numerous bikes were available as frames, but these days it’s largely the preserve of steel models. The big advantage of this is that you can spec the kit to your needs, taste and…

WE SAY… The handling is impeccable… it zigs and zags with the best of them You’ll have to save your pennies and break the bank for All-City’s new Zig Zag, the American company’s first bike with disc brakes. That mix of old-school steel and new technology continues with the Zig Zag’s handmade frame featuring thru-axles, hydraulic disc brakes and tubeless tyres – showing steel doesn’t have to be retro. As with many steel bikes, All-City’s Zig Zag is also available as a frameset for £1300 or as a complete bike for £3550 with Shimano Ultegra hydraulic and an upgrade to Halo Carbaura carbon wheels. The Zig Zag may have endurance geometry, but it absolutely romps along at an almost indecent lick. Theoretically, the 30mm tyres may be slower than 25…

As cyclists, we’ve a fair right to claim we’re naturally saving our planet from the imploding parcours it’s currently on, especially when your four-wheeled suffocating commute’s replaced by a two-wheeled breath of fresh air. The stats support our self-righteousness, too, with figures from The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy revealing that carbon dioxide released by cars comes in at 271g for every kilometre driven. For cyclists, it’s 16g. So all good…? Not quite. Your Specialized Roubaix or Giant TCR weren’t forged by local people from local reusable materials and delivered in person by Caroline Lucas. The bike-manufacturing industry ships product all over the world, leaving a trail of environmentally damaging detritus behind, from emissions churned from forging steel to synthetic repercussions of your bar-end plugs. Then there’s your bike’s…

CHRIS BENNETT, HEAD OF BEHAVIOUR CHANGE AT SUSTRANS “First things first, get out of the gutter. Riding too close to the kerb can give drivers the green light to overtake when it’s not safe. While it may seem like a sensible option, riding in a more assertive position – about an arm’s length away from the kerb – is much better practice. This means you’re more visible and, if someone does overtake, you have more space to move into on the left. “Eye contact’s invaluable, too. You’re looking for the driver’s recognition – it cuts through the barrier or ‘bubble’ some road users have. So when approaching a junction, a roundabout or turning onto a different road, making eye contact with drivers can help you work out if they’ve seen…

The ability to change gear has been a big driver in the evolution and expansion of cycling all around the world. How we shift and how many gears we have has refined and developed over time. However, for much of a bike’s existence, its gears have been changed by a derailleur, operated by a cable and pulled by a lever. A good gear system’s like a good referee – you don’t even notice it’s there. The problem is, often you really do notice it’s there, whether that’s a mis-shifting chain or an irritating noise that accompanies every pedal stroke. The causes of gear issues are many. Are the cables corroded? Is your internal cabling correctly routed? Has one of the outers split? Has the cable head become displaced in the…

PRICE £2099 UPGRADES NONE MILES RIDDEN 60 “The Topstone feels deft and agile and I navigated around obstacles with ease”KATIE NICHOLLS Much has been written about the glorious freedom and comfort of riding a gravel bike, so I was excited to dismount from my road workhorse and test out for myself what all the fuss is about. Cannondale’s Topstone has also had a lot of praise mounted on it, so for my first proper ride (aside from the super-quick commute to work) I wanted to try out as many different kinds of terrain as I could. I chose a route that included a steep hill that hits 11 per cent at its max, some fast tarmac roads, an undulating gravel path and a wooded cycle route. The riding position is…

We stop to point, grin and marvel at our homeland’s great fault line My riding partner, Alan, and I had been riding in the mist since breakfast – and we’d just had lunch. We were in need of a view as our soup and sandwich combo repeated on us on the sharp ascent out of Fort Augustus, at the southernmost tip of Loch Ness. Much climbing still remained, but we were all out of gears. Then, finally, we were blessed with a cloud inversion, a scene you can never tire of. Cycling above the clouds revealed the, until now, hidden beauty of this most scenic of rides in a no-moreiconic Scottish location, at the summit of the new Loch Ness 360˚ trail above Loch Tarff. We stop to point, grin,…