Cyclist -julkaisun August 2016 -irtonumeron sisällysluettelo

For a company that claims to lead the way in wheel technology, Enve is quite late to the party with its disc-specific road wheelset. So why the delay? ‘Our competitors have basically just taken the same rim from their rim brake wheels, increased the hole count, slapped in disc-specific hubs and called it a day,’ claims Enve’s Jake Pantone. ‘We’re experts in making disc-specific rims for our MTB wheels, so we knew we could save weight, improve tubeless performance and investigate what is achievable aerodynamically when there is no requirement for a brake track.’ The result, according to Enve, is a wheelset that is ‘virtually identical’ in aerodynamic performance to its rim brake 4.5 wheelset, but with rims that are much lighter. ‘The laminate schedule and even the moulds we…

Bob Parlee founded Parlee Cycles in 2000 with the simple but lofty goal of making carbon bike frames better. Now, no longer content with refining frame design, the carbon fibre specialist has developed a range of finishing kit to complement its frames. ‘We decided to produce finishing kit because we felt ride quality could be improved, not only with the design and engineering, but also in the ergonomics,’ says Parlee’s Tom Rodi. It was the latter in particular that informed the design of the bars. They feature customisable drops (where the tails can be cut to a preferred length) and are 35mm in diameter at the clamp area, where most bars are 31.8mm. The stem is an oversized design as well, matching and accommodating the bars. ‘Larger cross sections suit…

Over the past decade, Assos may have been more infamous for its female model than its female kit. Assos Girl, as she came to be known, usually wore a set of bibshorts and nothing else. But now the brand has decided to alter its Eurotrash approach so it’s the kit itself that takes centre stage. The Laalalai bibshorts are different to your average bibs, having been rethought to suit women. Assos has long championed a central Y-shape strap rather than two separate straps from the shoulder. It believes a strap between the breasts rather than to the sides offers more comfort and sits flush to the body for a tighter fit. The shorts use a modified S7 generation insert that floats inside the shorts to reduce friction. The real innovation,…

It’s been a torrid time of late for British Cycling. The departure of technical director Shane Sutton in May was hardly ideal in the months leading up to the Olympics, yet track cycling remains one of Great Britain’s best hopes of striking gold in Rio. After all, Team GB claimed an impressive seven gold medals on the track at London 2012, plus one silver and a bronze, and while performances failed to hit the same heights in the following years, the team got back to winning ways and topped the medals table at this year’s World Championships, again in London. It was a timely return to form, even if several of the events that Britain dominated at the Worlds aren’t included in the Olympic track schedule – we’ll see no…

‘I’ve had mixed experiences on previous teams but I feel my performances are improving this season because I’ve been given the confidence to try things in races’ Agrey day in Stevenage is not quite in the same league as the Grand Départ at Mont St Michel, but you’d never guess it by judging how Team Ford EcoBoost prepare themselves for round four of The Matrix Fitness GP. Uniformly dressed in distinctive orange polo shirts, the riders are easy to pick out among the other teams at the race briefing. It projects a level of professionalism in contrast to the more laissez-faire dress code and behaviour of their rivals. After being embedded within the team for the day, Cyclist discovers this is about far more than just making a first impression.…

Am I hot or cold? In this hallucinogenic landscape I’m not sure whether to take a photograph or call a doctor In the wilds of Tenerife a cyclist’s senses can become disjointed from reality. As I pedal through a volcanic world of red cinder cones, golden pumice fields and shiny black obsidian rocks, I can see the Teide volcano looming high above me, which makes me suspect, with a wince, that I must be much lower down the day’s big climb than I had hoped. Yet when I glance in the other direction, I realise that – thanks to a confusing cloud inversion – I am already high above the clouds, which float, absurdly, below the pine forest I’ve just cycled through. Craning my neck at the sight of clouds…

How many chains do you think a pro team goes through in a year? It’s about 1,000. Gels? About 15,000. And how many men does it take to change the pressure washer in a team bus? About eight (if you include me, standing around and making helpful suggestions). Cyclist is at the Trek-Segafredo service course in Deinze, Belgium, and a large kerfuffle has erupted as the team bus has just arrived back from the Tour de Suisse. This doesn’t happen often, and the service course is usually a calming place – a warehouse stocked with order, tranquillity and all the bike parts you could ever dream of. The service course is a pro team’s base of operations, where everything is kept to run the team throughout the year. Service courses…

CV – or Countervail – refers to the impregnation of carbon fibre sheets with a viscoelastic layer, a technology that Bianchi claims improves vibration-damping by up to 80% while also increasing stiffness. Perfect in theory for an endurance-oriented machine, and so it proved in practice. The Infinito plied its trade effectively over both tarmac and gravel, offering a great pace on the former and excellent handling on the latter, tracking lines in a surefooted fashion despite its rider doing his best to upset the cart. I swapped out the Fulcrum Racing Quattro wheels that came as standard for Vittoria Qurano 60s shod with Vittoria’s Corsa tyres, and both performed admirably even in the punishing conditions. For a more detailed review of wheels and tyres, check out cyclist.co.uk…

THE SPEC Model Canyon Ultimate CF SLX 9.0 Aero Groupset Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 Deviations Shimano Di2 Remote Sprint Shifters Wheels Zipp 303 Firecrest clinchers Finishing kit Canyon HII Aerocockpit CF, Canyon S13 VCLS CF seatpost, Fizik Antares R5 saddle Weight 6.66kg (size M) Price £5,399 Contact  canyon.com National stereotyping and bike reviews, like love and marriage in Frank Sinatra’s famous number, seem to go together like a horse and carriage. German bikes, for instance, are routinely described as clinical, ruthless and efficient, reflecting our commonly held views of the country itself and its people. But while German brand Canyon’s creations are indeed all of those things, Canyon’s story has more in common with romantic artisans than mass-production monoliths. In the 1980s brothers Roman and Franc Arnold would tour the country,…

If you’re being asked to pay close to £300 for a pair of shoes, it’s reasonable to expect them to fit perfectly. That’s why Fizik has put a lot of effort into how its new top-end shoes are fastened to ensure the fit is spot on, as well as making sure they’re super-light and super-stiff in the sole. ‘Using a single-pull configuration as opposed to the more usual loop Boa system, the foremost Boa dial adjusts for individual fit across the whole of the front of the shoe as it fastens,’ says product manager Luca Viano. ‘We call this Volume Control.’ This is complemented by the second Boa dial, which with the top part of the upper forms an ‘Extended Power Strap’ that plants the foot back into the heel…

Cyclist: The UCI suspended testing of disc brakes on safety grounds after Movistar’s Fran Ventoso was badly injured at Paris-Roubaix. Will they be making a return? Brian Cookson: I don’t think we have seen the end of disc brakes by any means. We took the cautious decision. The equipment commission looked at the whole issue over the past year or two and agreed to allow limited testing. With the Ventoso incident some serious concerns were raised and while there are alternative interpretations as to what may have happened, the equipment commission erred on the side of safety. So it is a temporary halt. There may well be requirements to modify them – maybe a cover or something – but it was right to err on the side of caution.…

Easily the most recognisable pedals out there, Speedplay’s lollipop-shaped Zeros are a popular choice among the pros thanks to their low weight and adjustable float range. As if its 164g titanium-axled version wasn’t already light enough, in 2011 Speedplay launched the Zero Nanogram – an unfathomably feathery 65g pedal. At 130g for the pair, they’re almost half the weight of a pair of Shimano Dura Ace SPD-SL pedals, and even Look’s top-end Keo Blades, with a carbon body and titanium axles, are around 60g heavier. The Zeros also have the added weight-saving attribute of making the purchaser’s wallet significantly lighter – to the tune of £600. ‘You can be sure every pair we sell is for the weight saving,’ says Adam Glew of Speedplay’s UK distributor, i-ride. But how many…

1 LIZARD SKINS MICRO CACHE £16.99, 2pure.co.uk Forget Coppi’s aviators, Merckx’s coiffure and Wiggo’s sideburns, the true champion of style was Marco Pantani, who circa 1996 sported Team Carrera’s faux-denim bibshorts like a disco-pirate. It was a strong look, and one Lizard Skins is keen we don’t forget with its denim-eqsue Cache saddlebags. 2 MUSCLE FOOD PROTEIN SWEETS from £1.19, musclefood.com Adding protein to snack foods to make them ‘healthy’ is a bit of a trend at the moment, and the latest to join the party is Muscle Food, which has taken those twin pillars of Dickensian sweeties – the pear drop and the wine gum – and given them a low-sugar, high-protein makeover. How long before someone launches honey-glazed pork scratchings? 3 SPECIALITES TA CHAINRINGS from £59.99, chickencyclekit.co.uk In…

About 45km west of my front door stands Rutland’s alp. There are no chalets along its flanks, no whistling marmots in its meadows and no snowy peaks. But there is a proper switchback – a real zig followed by a genuine zag. Stockerston Hill is a 1.6km-long category 4 climb, according to Strava. It’s not the longest or spikiest hill by any means, but it is a superb benchmark for a mission to see how far I can improve my climbing ability… within one month. Every summer for as long as I can remember I’ve arrived at the start line of a serious event wondering whether I’ve done enough to actually make it to the finish. I want this year to be different. I want to laugh in the face…

We’re unlikely to suffer altitude sickness, but that’s not to say this ride is going to be easy As I mop up the last remnants of my scrambled eggs and smoked salmon with the crust of my toast, I can’t help but feel I’m being watched. Staring down at me from a very large canvas on the wall of the breakfast room at the Bath Arms in Horningsham is the sizable figure of Lord Bath. Alexander Thynn, the 7th Marquess of Bath (to give him his full title) is a well-publicised eccentric, artist, writer, poet and politician (not necessarily in that order) who according to The Sunday Times Rich List is worth a tidy £157 million. The portrait makes him look like a flower-powered Hairy Biker, and the staring eyes…

THE SPEC Model Ritchey Break-Away carbon Groupset Campagnolo Chorus Deviations None Wheels FFWD F3 wheels Finishing kit Ritchey WCS Logic II handlebar, Ritchey WCS C220 stem, FSA K-Force seatpost, Ritchey WCS Streem saddle Weight 7.38kg Price £2,475 (frame only), approx £5,900 as shown Contact  paligap.cc Tom Ritchey is a man who likes to travel. Before he launched his eponymous bike brand, he toured the world on his steel bike, but was never keen on paying extortionate flight charges or lugging around a cumbersome bike bag. So in 2002 he invented the Break-Away frame, which could split into two pieces and pack down into a normal suitcase. It wasn’t until last year, though, that Ritchey did it in carbon. Ritchey’s Break-Away system has been built into steel and titanium frames over…

The received wisdom in cycling is that it is currently easier to sell ice to Alaskans than it is to sell high-end wheels made of aluminium. But that hasn’t stopped US brand Industry Nine from quietly building top-spec a-loo-min-um wheels out of Asheville, North Carolina for over a decade, and it seems to be making a pretty good business of it. Originally a mountain bike brand, Industry Nine crossed over into road a few years back via the world of cyclocross, realising that the robustness of its mountain bike hubs coupled with their low weight and fast engagement made them ideal for crossers’ needs. That move worked out well, so now the company is applying the same logic to the road with the i25 TL. Well, sort of. While entirely…

Tiziano Zullo has been building steel frames out of his workshop on the shores of Lake Garda in Italy for more than 40 years, so you’d be forgiven for thinking the creation of this frame – the Inqubo – was a simple process for a man of his experience. Not so. ‘Inqubo comes from the Italian “incubo”, which means nightmare,’ says Roger Graver of Velorution, Zullo’s UK distributor. ‘When Zullo developed the shapes of the tubes with Dedacciai they found it so hard to get right that he exclaimed, “questo è un incubo!” [this is a nightmare] and the name stuck.’ The Inqubo uses Dedacciai’s Eom 16.5 tubes, which have a slightly squared-off profile on the top tube and chainstays, and a bi-ovalised down tube to create a very stiff…

There you are, speeding downhill like your life depended on it. Crouched over the bars, white knuckles gripping the drops, you look down at your bike computer and you see the figure click up to 70kmh. Oh yes, you’re really flying now. But before you can gain any more speed, the road sign signals a junction ahead and you squeeze the brakes to bring you safely to a halt. But what if that junction wasn’t there? What if there were no obstacles or bends or dogs wandering into the road, and the slope was as long and smooth and steep as you could possibly wish for? How fast could you go then? Let’s begin to answer that question by looking at what’s holding you back. Life’s a drag ‘That would…

The following references to ‘suffering’ are meant in the context of sport. Just because you can’t stand in the shower after a race or training session, it doesn’t mean you have suffered as much as a victim of war, disease, famine or poverty. Cyclists used to suffer in silence. Now we sing from the rooftops about it. Instead of a sign of weakness, it’s a badge of honour. You can get a ‘Suffer Score’ on Strava, subscribe to videos from ‘Sufferfest’, or enter a race called ‘The Suffering’. One well-known brand has even adopted the slogan Ex Duris Gloria – ‘From Suffering Comes Glory’ – for its cycling club, and published a book called Kings Of Pain. Suffering is now a USP. Inevitably, it’s us amateurs who make the biggest…

I admit I was slightly perturbed by the French colour scheme on this bike, which is in honour of the Française des Jeux pro cycling team. Then I told myself that the Union Jack is red, white and blue too and my national pride was soothed. But on to more important matters: cyclists come to Tenerife to climb, and this bike – which comes equipped with Shimano Ultegra components – is light and stiff enough to handle the Teide volcano, and its 11-32 cassette means you’ll never have to pedal pentagons to get home. Equally adept on the rougher roads, it is built with Shock Absorption Technology – essentially an elastomer built into the frame – that helps to absorb bumps while retaining the bike’s all-important lateral rigidity. The slightly…

To download this route go to cyclist.co.uk/51wiltshire . From Horningsham, head towards Hindon and Chilmark. Turn right to Tisbury. From here you will go through Wardour, Donhead St Andrew, Donhead St Mary and Cann Common to Zig Zag Hill. After the summit, turn left and descend to Donhead Hollow. Head to Bowerchalke, Stratford Tony and Netherhampton, where a right takes you into Salisbury via Harnham. Follow the River Avon to Camp Hill, then go through Wilton and South Newton to follow the river valley through Wylye, Stockton and Sutton Veny. Cross the A350 at Sutton End, head into the Longleat Forest and back to Horningsham.…

‘I remember that the crowds on the climb were crazy. I was a Frenchman leading the race and it was an unbelievable experience. Truly magical’ The Casse Déserte, says double Tour de France champion Bernard Thévenet, can only really be compared to the ‘moonscape’ of Mont Ventoux. The vast, middle section of the southern route up the Col d’Izoard marks it out as quite a different beast to the other big climbs in the Alps. Most of them boast a lush, green, summer covering – picture the Heidi hills of just across the border in Switzerland. The Izoard, however, and the Casse Déserte in particular, bring something very special to the table. ‘It’s wild and empty,’ Thévenet tells Cyclist. ‘There’s nothing there – barely a plant or a tree among…

Cancellara and the Trek pro team have turned up to ride out with us mere mortals You don’t just invent bicycle races. They take years of planning and decades of execution. Races become tales and tales become legends. For a bicycle race to enter the calendar is one thing; to cement itself in the velocipedic vernacular quite another. Yet that’s exactly what the Strade Bianche has done in less than a decade. Or has it? Although it might seem counterintuitive in the age of amateur spin-offs from professional events, the Gran Fondo Strade Bianche, whose starting gun I now anxiously await, is actually the parent of the pro race, a 1.HC category race that started in 2007 and has since become one of the early-season cherries. The gran fondo predates…

In a world of uncertainty at least one thing is true: bikes are, and always will be, bloody great. Whether they come from the Home Counties like this month’s Orro Gold, from a European powerhaus like the Canyon Ultimate, or from our cousins across the Pond like the Ritchey Break-Away, a bicycle is the very embodiment of social democracy: it doesn’t discriminate and exists just to ride, enveloping allcomers with its warm embrace. In fact, we could probably all learn a thing or two from it.…

THE SPEC Model Orro Signature Gold STC Di2 Disc Groupset Shimano Ultegra Di2 Deviations None Wheels Fulcrum Racing Quattro Finishing kit 3T Ergosum Pro bar, 3T Arx II stem, 3T Stilo seatpost, Prologo Zero 2 saddle Weight 8.02kg Price £3,800 Contact  i-ride.co.uk Thousands of cyclists ride up Ditchling Beacon every year. A good chunk of them are complete novices – not your average Strava baggers – as it’s the infamous brute of a climb onto the ridge of the South Downs that seals the fate of many a rider on the annual London to Brighton charity ride. Few of them would realise, however, that just moments before commencing a losing battle with lactic acid, they had ridden past the headquarters of UK bike brand Orro. Back in issue 25 (August…

Island In The Sky p60 Kask Mojito helmet, £100 velobrands.co.uk Oakley Radarlock XL sunglasses, £195 uk.oakley.com Louis Garneau Performance Carbon jersey, £64.99 evanscycles.com Louis Garneau CB Carbon 2 bibshorts, £99.99 evanscycles.com Louis Garneau Conti Long socks, £19.99 (three pack) evanscycles.com Specialized Expert Road shoes, £160 specialized.com Make Me A Better Climber p76 Giro Synthe helmet, £199.99 zyro.co.uk Rudy Project Hypermask Performance sunglasses, £219.99 yellow-limited.com Louis Garneau Course skinsuit, £229.99 evanscycles.com Prendas Ciclismo High Summer socks, £6.95 prendas.co.uk Fizik R1B Uomo shoes, £279.99 extrauk.co.uk Shire Bliss p94 Bontrager Velocis helmet, £159.99 bontrager.com Oakley Radarlock Path sunglasses, £155 uk.oakley.com Sportful R&D Speed jersey, £80 c3products.com Sportful BodyFit Pro bibshorts, £75 c3products.com Sportful AC Vuelta 9 socks, £12…