Cyclist的February 2024目录

RideLondon is Britain’s biggest cycling event. Each year more than 75,000 cyclists descend on the capital to take part in either a 30, 60 or 100-mile closed road sportive that heads into the Essex countryside, or to just ride round the car-free roads of Central London in the RideLondon FreeCycle. On top of that, there is a three-day women’s WorldTour stage race, the Ford RideLondon Classique. That’s a lot of cycling. ‘RideLondon is a legacy event from the 2012 Olympics,’ says Kevin Nash, RideLondon route director for organiser London Marathon Events. ‘Legacy event planning began when we won the Olympic bid back in 2007, and that’s when this event was dreamt up. ‘The capacity and style of the event has evolved over the years, but the principles remain the same…

When self-confessed bike nerd Sami Al-Khayat was gifted a mysterious vintage frame just days before he was due to appear at handmade bicycle show Bespoked, he knew he had to do something special with it. Passed on to him by a friend, the old Rossin frame was unlike anything he had seen before. It looked like a Ghibli – one of the Italian brand’s most iconic bikes that won its fair share of Grand Tour jerseys in the 1980s – but it lacked many of the model’s signature details, and featured Columbus Gilco tubing throughout. ‘My best guess is that it was a Ghibli prototype frame,’ says Al-Khayat. ‘It didn’t have the typical Rossin bottom bracket, it lacked bottle cage threads on the seat tube, and it didn’t have the…

1 Lead Out Racelite top tube bag £61, leadoutgear.com Broken your New Year’s Resolution? Don’t worry, ours was to feature fewer top tube bags, but Lead Out’s Racelite just ticked too many boxes. It has a Dyneema outer and X-Pac inner material, both of which are lightweight, durable and water-resistant; it has a padded hardshell base, mini-pump mount and cable port for charging lights or a head unit on the go. It can also be strapped or directly mounted, so will fit any bike neatly. 2 Precision Fuel & Hydration Carb Only drink mix £39.99, precisionhydration.com Butterflies aren’t what they used to be. Neither is cycling nutrition thanks to companies such as Precision Fuel & Hydration. With riders now understood to be able to consume an ungodly amount of carbohydrates…

A little-known fact about Ghent in Belgium is that it has two cathedrals. The elder is St Baafskathedraal, which dates back to 932AD and is home to a 15th century masterpiece by brothers Jan and Hubert van Eyck entitled ‘The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb’. The younger is a 25-minute walk through the student district, just a stone’s throw from the train station. First consecrated in the 1920s, its original structure was destroyed by fire in 1962, rebuilt and reopened in 1965. This place of worship is called ’t Kuipke and it’s home to the modern masterpiece known as the Six Days of Ghent. Though the website of the town’s tourist board proclaims it to be ‘Mecca for cycling fans’, from the outside ’t Kuipke has little to reward the…

Desert canyons, snow-capped mountains and lonely gravel roads. They are all part of the annual Atlas Mountain Race, a fixed-route, self-supported, single-stage bicycle race that covers 1,300km from Marrakech to Essaouira, taking in 21,140m of climbing along the way. Competitors can expect a lot of single-track and old, broken colonial roads, with big distances between towns. There is very little tarmac. Temperatures can range from the high 20s in the day to sub-zero at night. There are steep gravel descents, river crossings and sections of hike-a-bike. There’s also the ‘Moroccan Stelvio’, a 1,000m climb over 12km with a large number of switchbacks. To ease the hardship, riders can also expect beauty in abundance, with trails overlooking deep valleys, dusty peaks, spectacular sunsets, plus friendly people and the occasional camel. The…

The Ridley Falcn RS sits in the gap between the Belgian brand’s aero Noah Fast and superlight Helium SLX models. The idea, says Ridley, is that riders now don’t have to choose between an aero bike or a climbing bike, and can instead have a versatile race machine. Ridley says the Falcn RS is a mere 110g heavier than the Helium SLX, despite providing ‘similar’ aerodynamic performance to the Noah Fast, with the aero bike only measurably faster above 50kmh. As a result, the manufacturer claims the Falcn RS is the most aero sub-850g frame on the market. This balance of weight and aerodynamics has been achieved by prioritising aero features at the front while making weight-oriented concessions elsewhere, including using a selection of premium Toray carbon fibre types in…

The last to arrive in the revamped Vittoria Corsa tyre range, the tubeless Corsa Pro Control takes the standard Corsa’s 320tpi cotton carcass with reinforced beads (to better play with sharp-edged tubeless rims) and adds a wider, thicker tread made from a tweaked graphene/silica compound. So while Vittoria describes its Corsa N.EXT as ‘a daily workhorse’ and the Corsa Pro as ‘the world’s most successful racing tyre’ (to be fair, Jonas Vingegaard did win the Tour on them), the Corsa Pro Control is a beefed up Corsa Pro made for poor weather, harsh terrain races such as Paris-Roubaix or Strade Bianche. As such, the Control comes in wider sizes, 26mm-34mm (2mm increments) as opposed to 24mm-32mm for the standard Corsa Pro. These pictured are the 28mm versions, which on my…

If you’re a fan of professional cycling, there are a few places you should aim to be at least once in your life: beside the Arenberg Trench on the day of Paris-Roubaix; on Dutch Corner when the Tour de France visits Alpe d’Huez; and at the ’t Kuipke velodrome on the Saturday evening of the Six Days of Ghent. Yes, it’s track cycling, which can be a baffling version of the sport for us road cyclists. And yes, trying to follow what’s going on in the Madison is about as easy as trying to follow your favourite fish during a feeding frenzy. And yes, the whole thing takes place in a nondescript building in a particularly charmless bit of a fairly drab city. But for all that, the Ghent Six…

When the World Championships rolled into the Belgian city of Ronse in August 1963, the overwhelming favourite was Rik Van Looy. Known as the Emperor of Herentals after his home town, he was in the middle of a stellar career. He was the first rider to win all five Monuments, winning Liège-Bastogne-Liège in 1961 to complete a set that had begun with Milan-San Remo in 1958. That day in Liège he had won easily from a three-rider group that included his Faema teammate Armand Desmet. Described as being a win ‘imposed with absolute superiority’, Van Looy had benefited from Desmet’s work in the final kilometres. As he would find out, he wouldn’t always enjoy such support. Van Looy was also already a double World Champion. In 1960 he had taken…

There is a type of man to whom time and lifestyle bestows a certain kind of hair. Matt has this hair, a wonderful snowy bulb offset by the deep tan of a life spent outdoors. Matt hands my bike up to Dave, who is stood on top of the Ford Excursion; Dave square-jawed, ex-military and easily 6ft 5in; the Excursion a true American also, with seats like sofas and wheels like a tractor. At 4.30am Matt’s sun-visor seems comically redundant, his easy smile in stark contrast to my stinging eyes. The duo work for Rim Tours, Matt as owner, Dave as guide, and our objective in being up so early and starting this ride not on our bikes but in the truck is to reach the canyons in time to…

Thanks to its warm climate, laidback vibe and easy access to training roads, Girona in northeast Spain has become a magnet for pro cyclists. You can’t chuck a bread roll without hitting an Esteban Chaves, a Kasia Niewiadoma or a George Bennett. The city was ‘discovered’ in the mid-1990s by American riders crossing the Atlantic to join the European pro circuit, and the trickle of interest became a flood when Lance Armstrong’s US Postal was the first team to establish a European base there in 1997. From the mid-2000s, for any rider to show they had what it took to make it in cycling, first they had to prove themselves on the local test-piece: Rocacorba. Don’t let your legs lull you into a false sense of security – you’ll be…

Sram Apex XPLR AXS is the most affordable 12-speed wireless electronic groupset yet from the US manufacturer. The entry-level tier contains features first found in the range-topping Red AXS groupset, so in many ways it is the ultimate example of trickle-down tech. It should open the door to many price-conscious riders looking to switch to electronic shifting. In the past, Sram hasn’t had a dedicated gravel groupset in its line-up, instead offering cross-compatibility between different versions of its road and mountain bike lines, which gave riders plenty of options to mix and match components. While Apex AXS is gravel-focussed, that’s still the case here – there are plenty of compatible options across the Eagle mountain bike and XPLR gravel components that allow riders to run up to a 10-52t cassette,…

As more of the Defy’s rivals incorporate features such as suspension units and top tube mounts that push them towards the gravel category, Giant is bucking the trend by continuing to position the Defy firmly as a road bike. ‘The new bike is even UCI-approved, whereas the old one wasn’t,’ says Giant UK’s product manager, David Ward. ‘We want this thing to be raceable.’ Make no mistake, with its bumped-up 38mm tyre clearance, the new Defy would fit snugly into the all-road category, but Giant has favoured the development of more aggressive attributes over bells-and-whistles versatility. The frameset is now offered in Giant’s highest Advanced SL composite blend, whereas the last design only extended up to Advanced Pro. This means the new Defy is around 200g lighter despite being just…

At the Cyclist Track Days, you can spend the whole day putting a wide range of top road bikes through their paces on traffic-free, purpose-built tracks. We have three dates and three venues lined up for 2024, and we’ll even throw in lunch and a coffee as part of the price. Places are limited, so sign up soon. And keep an eye on the Cyclist Track Days website for more details of the brands and bikes that will be at each event. Dates and venues Saturday 27th April Lee Valley VeloPark, London Sunday 12th May Odd Down Cycle Track, Bath Saturday 18th May Brownlee Centre, Leeds Tickets cost £30 for the full day, including lunch and coffee. Cyclist magazine subscribers pay just £25. See cyclisttrackdays.com cyclisttrackdays.com…

Considering that it is a mainly static pursuit, indoor training has come a long way in the past ten years or so. ‘Traditionally, indoor training was a necessary evil for committed cyclists to get in shape for spring,’ says Mattia Gomiero of Italian turbo trainer company Elite. ‘It was the whole “pain cave” culture. Trainers were expensive even though they were rudimentary, sessions were monotonous, and it was a solitary activity.’ Over time, aspects of this started to change as technology developed. Trainers got interactive and companion software was introduced, improving user engagement. The ‘pain cave’ started to morph into the ‘ecosystem’, where connected devices spiced up the experience in terms of interest and variety. Then Covid happened. The pandemic affected almost every area of the cycling market, but for…

This is generation seven of the Specialized Roubaix, a platform that debuted in 2004. Great fact, I know, but in searching it out I came across something that I think really is interesting: a 2009 review of an S-Works Roubaix SL2. Its price? £5,499.99. Insane money. But now? This all-new Roubaix SL8 is £6,000. OK, so it’s not the S-Works version – that is insane money at £12,000 – and it weighs a kilo more than that SL2. But it does have disc brakes, wireless gears, carbon rims, a power meter, tubeless tyres, front and rear suspension and aerodynamic tube profiles. Then, another fact: the average price of a pint in 2009 was £2.83; today it’s £4.87. Anyway, food for thought. And on to the review… Shock news It seems like…

Sarto has been making bikes since 1959 as both a supplier for other brands and its own label, and its first carbon designs were fabricated almost two decades ago. Enrico Sarto says the brand was finally strong enough to go it alone in 2019, and now Sarto exclusively makes custom bikes in its own factory in Italy. In 2022, the Veneto-based company invested in the few remaining machines it required to become fully independent from suppliers, meaning it could move quickly from design to prototype through to build. The Raso TC is the first model to benefit from this new structure. ‘The Raso TC was born for two main reasons,’ says Enrico Sarto. ‘Firstly, to showcase the first result of a 100% in-house product, and second, to offer a new…