Table of contents for SUMMER in Cyclist

£100, saddleback.co.uk Whether it’s tweaking your bike at home or at the roadside, Silca’s T-Ratchet + Torque kit has got you covered. It comes in a neat wallet that’s just about small enough to carry along on rides, and the ratchet can be quickly switched between three different forms – a mini ratchet handle, a T-handle wrench or straight on like a screwdriver. It has a large range of heads and there’s even a 2-8Nm torque attachment to ensure bolts aren’t overtightened. And being Silca, it’s as stylish as it is functional.…

£270, graftonsaddler.com ‘Stingray skin is a fascinating material,’ says Grafton Saddler’s founder, Hannah Galvin-Horne. ‘It’s made up of thousands of tiny bony calcifications, which make it very tough yet also very light. The Samurai used the skins as armour.’ The skin is a great material for road warriors too, blending durability with a unique aesthetic, and Galvin-Horne assures us the skin is responsibly sourced, being a by-product of the southeast Asian fishing market. The titanium-railed saddles cost £240, while for carbon it’s £270, or you can have your saddle re-covered for £200.…

This was a bit of an accident, really,’ says Ricky Feather as he props his bike against the wall. ‘I’d gone home one night and worked a bit on a design for my own bike in between working on a customer’s bike. At the end of the night I closed down the drawing for his bike on my computer, but left my own design open and carried on working on that one the next day without realising it. ‘It was an almost identical frame to the one I’d designed for myself. It used nearly all the same tubing, but it was only after I mitred it all up that I realised it was never going to be big enough for a 6ft 4in guy. I was scratching my head, wondering…

Dear Frank I recently bought a road bike that’s everything I want in terms of fit and function, but I just don’t like how it looks. So I have decided to get it re-painted professionally. Trouble is, I can’t decide on a colour or design. Are there any Rules I need to follow about custom paintjobs? Christine, Brighton Dear Christine I’ve spent my life not loving the way my bikes looked. My first road bike was a Raleigh with 27-inch wheels and long-reach centre-pull brakes. Bleurgh. To make matters worse, my dad put my baby seat on the top tube and destroyed the finish of the lovely bronze-glitter paintwork. My next bike, the one I saved my pocket money for all summer long, was black with white splatter paint and…

The Lemma is the only carbon frame this Italian brand produces, its other two models being steel. Despite its retro appearance, the frame was rigid and light enough for the massive amount of climbing in our route. The brand is as big on aesthetics as it is technical excellence, describing its products as ‘bicycles intended as jewellery’. Our frame was certainly a head-turner, but behind the breathless blurb is 20 years of framebuilding experience. The price quoted above is for the Dura-Ace model, but ours came with a Sram Red eTap groupset. If I’m being picky, I didn’t find the changes quite as slick as with Shimano’s Di2, although that may have been something a bit of tweaking back at the workshop could have easily rectified. I never felt as…

Taking a Grand Tour outside Europe for the first time broke new ground. And the fact that the Giro’s Grande Partenza in Israel was a logistical success could embolden its organisers, RCS, to consider even more far-flung destinations. According to persistent rumours, New York and Tokyo are in the frame. Israel was the 12th foreign start for the Giro, which puts it well behind the Tour de France’s 22. The Vuelta a España has only started outside its own borders on three occasions. With some catching up to do, a Yorkshire start for the Spanish national tour seems likely in the next few years. The Vuelta director, Javier Guillén, was a guest at the recent Tour de Yorkshire – the race set up to build on interest generated by the…

Terrain as varied as Gran Canaria’s calls for a well rounded bike that’s light on the climbs, planted on the descents and comfortable enough to ride all day. Cannondale’s SuperSix Evo ticks all those boxes. The frame and components are designed alongside each other – what Cannondale calls ‘System Integration’ – to ensure they work in harmony and save weight. I never felt the frameset held me back on the ascents, yet neither did it feel skittish on the twisting descents. The bike’s proprietary ‘Save’ seatpost is a neat idea, doing a lot to smooth out imperfect surfaces. It visibly flexes under impact but it didn’t feel unstable during seated grinds either. Cannondale’s Hollowgram Si wheels literally round out a comprehensive package, their braking being admirably consistent in conditions that…

If the length doesn’t get you, the gradient will. If the gradient doesn’t get you, the humidity will. And if the humidity doesn’t get you, it’ll be the altitude. And if none of that gets you, keep an eye out for falling rocks,’ says Scott J Ellinger as he strides across the stage of the conference room in the Parkview Hotel, Taiwan. Ellinger is a former US Army officer, and his presentation for the Taiwan KOM Challenge has all the chutzpah of a 1980s gameshow crossed with the gravity of a UN Summit. However, the pronouncement is made slightly less harrowing for two reasons. First, Ellinger peppers his grim warning speech with high-fives and hugs with a man in a bear suit. The bear is the ‘Task Force Commander of…

It’s a little known fact, but Cinelli once made a BMX, the CMX.1. Launched in 1980, it may well be the only BMX in the world made from Columbus steel and featuring Campagnolo cranks. It was also, admits Cinelli CEO Paolo Erzegovesi, more of a market reaction than a market driver – BMX had exploded in the US in the mid-1970s, and Europe was rushing to follow. ‘We did not sell many, really,’ says Erzegovesi, ‘but it was an interesting bike for the times, and it had some advanced features.’ Most notably it was TIG-welded, which was a new approach to joining tubes, and it featured a girder-style strengthening gusset at the back of the head tube. In a roundabout way, this little BMX would go on to help create…

£699.95, windwave.co.uk All too often alloy wheels are overlooked in favour of their carbon siblings, relegated to the lower leagues of winter and training wheels. Yet to do this is to miss a trick, and Vision’s latest Trimax 25s are looking to redress the balance. They weigh in at 1,380g for the pair, which puts them firmly in mountain goat territory and embarrasses a number of carbon wheels in the process. The shallow rim sections – the front is 20mm deep, the rear 24mm – undoubtedly help, but so too does the milling of unnecessary material between the spoke holes and pared down versions of Vision’s top-tier PRA hubs. The rims are tubeless-ready – 17mm internal and 21.4mm external width – and, Vision claims, will maintain their black (well, very…

It would require £9.31 billion of government cash and 14 years to fix the backlog of potholes and bring roads up to ‘a reasonable standard’ Why are potholes in the news? They’ve never really gone away, but they’re back in the news because of Simon Moss’s face. Photos of the 40-year-old cyclist’s injuries went viral when he lost four teeth and suffered a fractured spine and broken skull after hitting a nine-inch deep pothole and landing on his face. Potholes also hit the headlines in May when the AA’s director of insurance labelled them ‘a national disgrace’ that are now writing off cars. ‘The AA’s report is an eye-opener, but it also misses a serious point,’ says Eric Craig, chairman of Free2Cycle, a social enterprise that supplies bikes to partnering…

This year, Aqua Blue has become the first professional outfit to compete at WorldTour level using just 11 gears The first bicycles had only one gear. By the mid-19th century this had increased to two, and the number of gears has risen consistently ever since such that today it is possible for a bike to have 81 gears (oh yes it is: a Sturmey Archer CS-RK3 internally geared three-speed hub with a nine-speed cassette and a triple chainset, since you ask). Of course, more isn’t necessarily better. It’s the range – the ratios – that matter most in gearing, and in that regard we have never been more spoilt. The trick is to know which combination of gears will work best for you. Choices, choices Not so long ago, most…

What’s the weather forecast for tomorrow, I ask. ‘I’m afraid it will be bad,’ Pascal says, without any attempt to soften the blow I have studied the map of southern France, and from what I can see the shortest navigable loop from St-Étiennede-Tinée, including the Col de la Bonette, is 159km in length. The route includes two other climbs, the Col de Larche, which will take us into Italy, and the Colle della Lombarda, which will take us back out of it. The hardest climb will come at the end, so it promises to be a long day. In view of this, I aim to get as much local knowledge as possible, so arrange to meet with someone from the tourist office on the eve of our ride. Unfortunately, a…

The weather app on my phone says it will be 10°C with heavy rain showers. Craig, my riding partner for today, has a different forecast. ‘Sunny with patchy cloud and 18°C,’ he says confidently. Craig and I have been friends for a long time, and generally I trust his judgement when we’re out riding. But today I’m unconvinced – my Met Office forecast seems pretty certain we’re in for a cold, wet day. ‘No they’ve got it wrong. The Met Office is always pessimistic,’ Craig insists. ‘Plus that is the forecast for the northeastern side of the island. Everyone knows that thanks to Gran Canaria’s different microclimates the best weather is on the southwest side, which is where we’re riding. Besides, have you seen our route? It’s worth the risk.’…

There’s a good reason why so many of the world’s best cyclists train in the rich countryside of Catalonia – it’s simply a cycling paradise. As popular as the region is with cyclists, however, the Costa Daurada offers a real hidden gem. This pristine strip of Mediterranean coast is 80km from Barcelona, and connected by a high-speed train that takes only 35 minutes. When you get there, you’ll find 2,000km of quiet, well maintained roads connecting the foothills and vast white limestone cliffs of the Serra de Llaberia mountain chain to countless local historical sites and vineyards, not to mention the coastal fronts of the Mediterranean. It’s a region just begging to be explored, and numerous specialist travel and tour agencies in the area can help you do it, arranging…

If it’s a hill climb bike you’re after, look no further than this top-tier Émonda. Furnished with the lightest parts Trek has to offer, the SLR 9 weighs just 6.08kg for a 56cm. I was incredibly grateful for every saved gram, but it would have been worth nothing without a stiff chassis to make the most efficient use of power. And the Émonda is very stiff for a frame that weighs a claimed 640g, an incredible figure on its own. It’s not the most comfortable bike. Uncovered, with wafer-thin carbon edges on display, the saddle was a pain in the backside after 100km. That said, the frame’s compact geometry exposes plenty of the seat mast, which did help to dampen road buzz.…

Disc brakes or no disc brakes? That is the question. For Specialized it’s a more important question than for most, because it has committed totally to the move towards disc brakes, claiming that it might eventually phase out its rim brake bikes altogether. ‘The Tarmac has always been a pure-bred race bike,’ says Specialized’s Chris Riekert. ‘But I think when we launched the original Tarmac Disc two years ago, the disc bike was seen as a club enthusiast’s bike because you couldn’t race it.’ Since then, however, the rules have changed – both literally and figuratively – and the bike now seems to be gaining traction with pro cyclists. Zdenek Stybar and Elia Viviani, both of Quick-Step Floors, have been competing on the Tarmac Disc this year, and Specialized has…

Often I get asked what it is I look for when I’m testing a bike. The answer is: there is no answer. I don’t have a tick sheet stuffed in my jersey pocket. Bike testing cannot be conducted like a marketing survey – ‘On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being strongly disagree and 10 being strongly agree, would you say the front end of the bike feels stiff?’ If I were to test bikes that way, the result would merely highlight that almost every bike out there is actually pretty good. That’s because a fair number of the bikes we ride are made in a very similar way in very similar factories, despite what the marketing spiel would have us believe. Bike testing comes down to something much more…

£280, extrauk.co.uk It’s often said you can tell a lot about a person by their shoes. Well, if your feet are in these limited-edition, custom-painted Fiziks, you’d better be riding quicker than your mates or you’ll have a hard time justifying why you bought what must be the most lairy shoes in the world. The unique decoration is the work of Artful Kicks artist Simon Fellows, who Fizik commissioned to hand-paint a graphic that would capture the spirit and heritage of Italian racing. The upshot is unlikely to be to everyone’s taste, but we’re certain that won’t stop the limited run of 101 pairs being snapped up like hotcakes. The shoe is Fizik’s Aria R3, which promises everything you’d expect from a top end race shoe: stiff uni-directional carbon sole,…

£49.99, extrauk.co.uk Ever feel like your position on the bike, even after slamming your stem, isn’t low enough? Us neither, but for those who crave an ultra-low, ultra-pro position, components specialist Cane Creek has produced the SlamSet, which shaves up to 5mm more than usual off a bike’s stack height thanks to a slimmed-down top bearing cover and upper bearing. It means the headset’s seals are less substantial because of the lack of space, but Cane Creek claims its new Hellbender stainless steel bearings are its most durable yet when exposed to dirt and moisture, so looking pro shouldn’t come at the expense of the component’s longevity. Just maybe your spine’s longevity.…

There is a point in every Grand Tour – typically as soon as the road tilts upwards – when at least half the peloton disappears from view. We hear talk of riders mysteriously ‘buying tickets for the autobus’ or ‘joining the gruppetto’. While the cameras remain fixed on the breakaway and the GC contenders, what happens in the gruppetto stays in the gruppetto. It sounds like some kind of secret society where the pace is easy and beer and hot dogs are passed around. In a sport that has ‘suffering’ as its default setting, it’s hard not to believe the gruppetto is a day spa for the weary and aching. In reality, says Chris Boardman, the gruppetto is ‘based on the old premise that misery loves company’. In his book…

1 POLAR V650 GPS £189.50, polar.com When universal remote controls came along in the 1990s they literally changed everything. It’s a bit like Polar, which created the first wearable wireless heart rate monitor in 1982, and is now raising the bar again with its all-new V650 computer. It comes with every mode and metric known to riding-kind, including detailed sat-nav style mapping, Strava segment support and, of course, heart rate monitor compatibility. 2 PELOTAN SUNCREAM £20, pelotan.cc To paraphrase the Baz Luhrmann 1998 tune, ‘Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the rubbish and recycling it for more than it’s worth. Floss. Cycle… even if it’s just on the turbo in your living room. Stretch. Look after your knees. And always…

To download this route, go to cyclist.co.uk/76bonette. From St-Étiennede-Tinée, follow the D64, signposted to Col de la Bonette and Jausiers. At the T-junction in Jausiers, turn right onto the D900. After about 10km, take a right turn – still the D900 – signposted for Larche. Follow this road all the way to the summit and the Italian border where it becomes the SS21. Stay on this road for the next 30km – all downhill – until just before the village of Vinadio. Turn right onto the SP255, signposted to France and the Santuario di Sant’Anna di Vinadio. Follow this road all the way to the summit and border, ignoring the turn off for the sanctuary after 15km, and then descend all the way to Isola. At Isola, turn right and…

There’s a striking moment in the second of the Thereabouts cycling movies that offers a refreshing antidote to the pro cycling scene’s complex web of intrigue and politics. The documentary follows a group of friends in 2015 as they ride their bikes from Boulder to Moab in the United States. They drift across the vast landscape, riding mainly dirt roads for a film that is both meandering and evocative. As twilight settles on the deserts of the American southwest, Taylor Phinney hunches over his machine, his long legs effortlessly speeding him along a seemingly endless road stretching towards the horizon. He’s wearing BMC team issue shorts, a hoodie and denim jacket. ‘The pointlessness is the beauty of it,’ says the voiceover. ‘We’re not training, we’re not racing, we’re not fuckin’…

Entering Israel for the Grande Partenza of the 101st Giro d’Italia, the first Grand Tour to start outside Europe, was easy. Leaving seemed more difficult. There was an exit interview during which my passport was whisked away and I had to wait 30 minutes before being grilled about previous visits to the Middle East, including Qatar and Oman. Why had I gone there? ‘To report on cycle races,’ I replied. Why was I in Israel? ‘To report on a cycle race. The Giro d’Italia – the Tour of Italy – has been here the last few days.’ ‘Oh, everyone knows about the Giro,’ smiled the security officer. Finally I was waved through. The Giro’s three days in Israel were controversial and complicated. In the event, they were also incident-free. If…

To download this route go to cyclist.co.uk/76grancanaria. From Puerto de Mogán on the south west of the island head north on the GC-200 for about 10km, then take the right fork onto the GC-605, signposted to Tejeda. This road heads to the centre of the island, where you’ll need to take a sharp left onto the GC-60 to pass through Tejeda. Continue through Las Crucitas, after which you go straight over the roundabout onto the GC-210. Stay on this road through Artenara, Acusa Verde and Candelaria until it reaches La Aldea de San Nicholas, where you’ll turn south once more on the GC-200, which you can follow all the way back round and down to Puerto de Mogán.…

Some bikes are objects of beauty, some are unique concepts and others are prized antiques. The Lotus bike is all of these – its sleek, curved silhouette is a reminder of a time in cycling when science, automotive engineering and the pinnacle of the sport collided. For enthusiasts, though, the Lotus 110 is about more than looks – it also has a complex history and is probably loved and loathed in equal measure by those involved in its creation, development and eventual demise. Cyclist has travelled to a country house in Dorking to meet four owners of the Lotus 110 frame. They are all members of the Lotus 110 Club, which was formed to connect some of the owners of the 250 or so bikes that are still in existence.…

‘This is an exact copy of the one that Boardman rode in the World Time-Trial Championships in 1994,’ says Edwards. ‘All the components are Mavic originals from the 1990s. The most difficult thing to track down was actually the Mavic handlebar. There are lots of old tatty ones but finding a clean set was really hard.’ Despite being 25 years old, much of the componentry looks surprisingly modern. ‘The really innovative stuff back then is the mainstream now. For instance, the concealed cabling was pretty new at the time. The previous owner modified the seatpost to put a normal round seatpost in it,’ Edwards adds with a wince. ‘So I had a carbon specialist remake it, as it was an integrated seatpost before. We made a stub out of it…

So these are cyclists?’ asks a charming septuagenarian in the foyer of Vitor’s Plaza apartment block in Portimao, Algarve. ‘Is there a bike race on? Well, jolly good luck to them all…’ And off cycling’s newest, oldest supporter limps to the all-inclusive buffet lunch. Portugal’s south coast is well established as a retirement magnet for British expats, and for five days it is also the venue for the Volta ao Algarve, now on its 44th staging. Cyclist is here to spend the opening day with LottoNL-Jumbo, the Dutch team slowly emerging from the shadow of its nefarious past as Rabobank. The likes of former junior world ski jump champion Primoz Roglic have brought the team attention, with the Slovenian winning the 2017 edition of this race in a breakthrough season…