Cyclist的November 2023目录

It’s easy to forget that, while it is a hobby and a form of exercise, a lot of cycling can be about getting from point A to point B, often with belongings in tow. While pannier bags are the traditional method of storage on the bike, many brands offer cycling-specific backpacks for those who don’t want to use racks, or don’t have the option to. Like cyclists, the needs of these bags vary, and these days there’s an extensive range of shapes and styles to choose from. The most common design is a roll-top rucksack, with the Elops Backpack Speed 520, Stubble & Co Roll Top Mini and Ortlieb Velocity PS all offering variations on this classic closing system. Quick-access storage is also key for items suck as locks, with…

An array of cameras is installed on the walls at Dr Borut Fonda’s Lab, surrounding a pneumatically controlled platform that can simulate hors catégorie climbs. A unique and incredibly accurate pedal-based tool is fitted to the bike placed on top of it, recording diagnostics of cycling biomechanics including three-dimensional forces and torque at the pedals. Designed in part by Fonda, it cost around €700,000 to develop. Only a few such pedal-based systems are currently in existence, most of them owned by universities and used in their sports laboratories. As absoluteBLACK’s lead scientist, Fonda has been using this state-of-the-art setup to help riders such as Tadej Pogačar and Matej Mohorič hone their positions and work on their riding styles. Possessing a PhD in kinesiology, with an emphasis on inter-muscular coordination during…

You might not think it to gaze up into these vast mountains, but thanks to a network of tracks it’s possible to circumnavigate the Sierra Nevada mountain range, winding far above the sprawling white towns at its feet and deep into its wilds. Inspired by an old hiking trail, in 2011 Andalucía Tourism and the International Mountain Bike Association stitched together eight otherwise disparate segments to create the Transnevada. At almost 500km long, this set of gravel tracks encircles the range’s rocky peaks like a jagged halo. The route sits around 2,000m above sea level at all points, but because it traverses the Sierra Nevada’s slopes rather than climbs them more directly, the path mostly rises and falls within a fairly narrow bandwidth, which makes riding the Transnevada surprisingly manageable……

There’s no perfect bike for a ride like this, but Factor’s Ostro Gravel comes pretty close. Despite its frame shapes being designed for aerodynamic efficiency, the bike weighs just 7.9kg thanks to some pretty fancy materials used in its fabrication. Such a low weight for a gravel bike meant the Ostro climbed nicely, and while the promised benefits of the aerodynamic style cues weren’t exactly tangible, the bike did tick along particularly well on tarmac, feeling more like a road bike than its gravel design would have you believe. Unfortunately that feeling was extended on particularly rough gravel, as the frameset offers little in the way of comfort beyond what comes from the tyres. For gnarly, technical riding I’d therefore look to maximise the Ostro Gravel’s 45mm tyre clearance. On…

It’s a glorious July evening in South London. The sun is just about to sink behind turn two of the Herne Hill track, painting a band of pinks, purples and oranges across a cloudless sky. The organisers have gotten lucky. Had it been held on almost any other week this summer, the South London Grand Prix – the first UCI meet to be held here in nearly a decade – would be taking place under a blanket of grey. As it is, conditions are perfect for bike racing. Although the evening session is still to kick off, it’s already standing room only around the 450m circuit. There’s no spare spectating space to be found against the fence, and in places the crowd is three deep. Around the back of the…

You’ve got the bike, you’ve done the training, you’re brimming with a sense of adventure. Now all you have to do is ride around the world until you end up back where you started. Easy. Every cyclist has, at some time or other, thought about riding around the world. For most it is just a momentary pipedream, but for some it is a genuine consideration. If you’re one of the latter, here are the rules to being a true circumnavigator. The minimum distance to cycle in order to say you have ridden around the world is 29,000km, or 18,000 miles, according to the powers that be at Guinness World Records. The journey should be continuous in one direction and go either east to west or west to east, and the…

The Endurace was Canyon’s first road bike to use disc brakes, but since that revision in 2016 the manufacturer has tended to debut its most innovative features on its more aggressive race bikes, the Ultimate and Aeroad. What’s more, while Canyon introduced new Endurace models last year, that update focussed on the lower end of the range. Up at the top end, it feels like the Endurace is long overdue an overhaul, but there is a good reason why the brand has taken its time. The bike’s name is a legacy of its original category, but traditional endurance bikes seem to be a dying breed. Ultimately this is just semantics, but more ‘endurance’ bikes are introducing features that shift them into being what might more accurately be described as ‘all-road’…

There’s a myth in cycling that the bike you should be buying is the bike your local bike shop mechanic rides. The rationale is that mechanics get to see, pull apart and fix everything, so they know what works, what breaks and hence what’s best. There’s a caveat here – the mechanic needs to love bikes and work in a ‘proper’ bike shop. So the dusty second-hand shop you frequented as a kid, where lead mechanic Derek clearly despised bikes and anyone trying to talk to him about bikes, is not much use here. Derek spent his wages on a Mk2 Fiesta (OK, maybe that was just my experience). But find a bike-loving mechanic in a half-decent LBS and you’ll find the ‘thinking rider’s’ bike, the most sensible balance of…

The view from inside the peloton ‘I don’t know anyone who didn’t want Sepp Kuss to win the Vuelta. Here, Jonas Vingegaard congratulates his teammate after crossing the finish line of the Vuelta a España in Madrid on Stage 21. Jumbo-Visma narrowly avoided a PR disaster after joint leaders Vingegaard and Primož Roglič dropped fan favourite Kuss on the brutal slopes of the Alto de l’Angliru. ‘With elbows sharpened and camera aloft, it was a mass pile-on to get this photo. This shot is pretty much “spray and pray”; you can’t see through the viewfinder and you’re pointing the camera vaguely in the right direction. Some you win, some you lose.’ ‘Stage 6 of the 2023 Tour of Britain started in the Essex town of Southend-on-Sea. I’ll often leave the…

It turns out that pedalling a bike isn’t the only thing you can do with your legs. There’s also this thing called running. But should we be doing it? There are two answers to this, says Hunter Allen, former pro cyclist, owner of The Peaks Coaching Group and co-founder of TrainingPeaks: if you like running, yes; if you don’t like running, no. Let’s get the negatives out of the way first. ‘If you force yourself to go running it will just make you hate it more,’ says Allen. ‘If you want to train off the bike, chose another aerobic sport that you like better. Swimming? Roller blading?’ Let’s say you’re a cyclist who enjoys running, but perhaps not to the degree where you want to enter a duathlon (or triathlon if…

We gather on the beach before dawn for a ceremonial dipping of our rear wheels into the Pacific Ocean. The plan is to cross the continent of South America, riding due east from the coast of Chile to the coast of Argentina, taking in the mountains of the Andes and the vast plains of the Pampas along the way. Understandably, the atmosphere in the hotel last night was one of nervous excitement. Everyone here is part of the Rat Race Trans Andean event, a nine-day, 1,517km ride that isn’t a race but is instead billed as an ‘extraordinary global adventure for everyday people’. Certainly, it’s a diverse group of 29 riders on the start line, ranging from Marie-Louise, a racing cyclist from England in her twenties, to Scott and Charleen,…

Few bikes can claim to be genuinely visionary, but the Soloist is one of them. In 2002, Cervélo created the first truly aerofoil frame tubes on a road bike, complete with custom-extruded NACA profiles, and in doing so launched the aero road bike category. However, after some notable early successes in WorldTour races, the Soloist has been MIA since 2008. But now it is back from the wilderness. The question is, seeing as Cervélo has three other road framesets – the lightweight R5, the aero S5 and the comfort-oriented Caledonia – not to mention a fairly roady gravel bike, where does this revived Soloist fit into a very busy roster? Well, slap bang in the middle, is pretty much what Cervélo says. ‘The new Soloist focusses on serviceability, ease of…

A Scot, a German, an Englishwoman and your narrator walk into a bar. We are all cyclists – two of us have ridden around the world, one has cycled the length of South America and one (me) has ridden around Europe – yet we have little in common. Josh is a record-breaking endurance cyclist who called one of his rides, ‘The Journey to Happiness.’ I normally label my own rides on Strava something like ‘Long Way for Milk’ or ‘Ride of the Bastard Climbs’, but then Josh has had more reason to go looking for happiness than the average rider. After a youth blighted by drink and depression that led to a failed suicide attempt, Josh was inspired to take up cycling by seeing Chris Hoy on TV, and set…

Mikoláš Voverka and Robin Fišer first met (as all the very best of friends do) through a shared love of classic Italian racing bicycles. After spying each other’s steel frames from across the street in Prague, the pair struck up a conversation. They joined forces to hunt down vintage bikes, and it wasn’t long before they’d amassed a stable of 35 of them in Voverka’s childhood bedroom. Then they started their own brand, Repete. ‘I think the first bike we bought together was an old Francesco Moser Cromovelato,’ Voverka tells Cyclist. ‘It’s the one with the blue-tinted clear coat and it’s super-nice. We still have it today and it’s all original. ‘I was about 22 when Robin and I first met, and Robin was even younger. We’ve been friends ever…

1 LIZARD SKINS DSP V2 BAR TAPE £47, lizardskins.com Don’t trust bin men – they all talk rubbish. Do trust Lizard Skins DSP bar tape – it’s tried and tested, plus the brand has added a thick 4.6mm option and updated the design, making the top layer tougher but more comfortable and adding more depth in key areas to improve grip. The plugs have also switched from push-in to scre-win for secure and neat bar ends. 2 ENERVIT C2:1 PRO CARBO GELS £71.99 (24 pack), chickencyclekit.co.uk Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be. Neither is fuelling. Enervit’s C2:1 Pro products – chews, bars, jellies and gels – are named after their 2:1 maltodextrin-to-fructose ratio, which allows the body to take on more than 90g of carbohydrates per hour. The 60ml…

Summer’s over, but that doesn’t mean you have to pack the bike away now that the nights are drawing in and falling leaves are turning the roads to mush. You don’t even have to worry if you’ve used up all your holiday blasting around smooth Mallorcan tarmac or tackling the Alps on two wheels. Thanks to Rouvy, you can still enjoy riding your bike and explore the world – all while getting fitter and having fun – from the comfort of your own home, whatever the weather outside. The Rouvy indoor cycling app allows you to travel around the globe and ride some of this planet’s most famous, iconic cycling routes. And this is not simply a gamified version of cycling because these routes are real, using immersive high-quality video…

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As afternoon melts into evening in the Italian Dolomites, the grey limestone walls of the Sella massif blush a glorious shade of rose-red. It is a phenomenon that locals call enrosadira (literally ‘turning pink’, but so much more evocative in Italian). And on Stage 17 of the 1998 Giro d’Italia, on the storied slopes of the 2,240m Passo Sella, the jersey of Marco Pantani underwent the same magical rose-tinted transformation. Cheered on by tricolore-waving tifosi, the Italian cyclist’s gloriously aggressive acceleration on the Passo Sella turned his jersey from the maglia verde of the mountains leader – which was only changed from green to blue in 2012 – into the iconic maglia rosa of the Giro leader. It was the first time Pantani, 28, had worn pink. And he would…

There’s a thought gnawing at me, scratching gently at the bit of my brain where really good thoughts come from. I’ve got a dropper post, two-inch tyres and a squishy air fork. I’m riding serpentine singletrack. But my thumbs are pointing forwards rather than down, and my hands are closer together than perhaps they should be. The thought is this: I am riding a mountain bike but also I am emphatically not riding a mountain bike. The Giant Revolt X is the Giant Revolt (see issue 129) but more so. A chunk more tyre clearance and commensurately more substantial rubber is accompanied by a Fox suspension fork offering 40mm of travel, and a dropper post that adds 25mm of squish at the back. X marks the sport The Revolt X…