Table of contents for October 2017 in Cyclist

€499 (approx £450, thm.bike The path from the fork’s steerer tube to the handlebars is a critical one, given the complex nature of its make-up, the forces it must resist, the need for bolt fixings, and the requirement for all of it to come in at an ‘acceptable’ weight. For that reason it’s easier and cheaper to achieve a lighter and sleeker stem in aluminium than carbon, but THM clearly disagrees, and the Tibia stem is the result. ‘For such a small component it has a lot of different carbon fibre types, but because we account for every load situation in the design, things tend to get complicated,’ says THM’s co-founder, Thomas Mertin. ‘The shape is more or less governed by natural laws and structural mechanics, but we didn’t want…

Cyclist: What is your earliest memory of cycling? Fränk Schleck: As a kid I used to go with my family to Alpe d’Huez to see the Tour passing by. My dad [Johny] was a cycling fan and a former professional who had cycled Alpe d’Huez during his career [which included eight Tours de France]. We went there on family vacations to see and feel the ambience of the Tour. I remember standing at the side of the road and being amazed at the emotion and the passion for cycling that people have, especially on all the corners and switchbacks. It was something great. Cyc: What was the single best day of your cycling career? FS: It is strange to think that after going to Alpe d’Huez as a…

When Enigma Bicycle Works set up shop just over a decade ago in Herstmonceux, East Sussex, it’s unlikely owner Jim Walker could have predicted he’d be turning out bikes like this one. Engima began in 2006 by importing a couple of frames designed in-house but manufactured overseas. Now it ranges 12 bikes, seven of which are handmade in Hailsham, and one of which – this one – is hand-finished in gold. ‘Enigma is pretty new to the US,’ Enigma’s American importer Michael Musil told us when we caught up with him at the annual North American Handmade Bicycle Show (NAHBS) in Utah earlier this year. ‘One of the first bikes we showed was at Interbike [the Las Vegas trade show] last year. Jim was a bit worried because that bike…

This is the 2016 Addict, but it’s virtually identical to the 2017 model bar the Dura-Ace components, which have been upgraded to the new 9100 groupset. In a world of beefy tubesets and aggressive aerodynamics, the Addict remains slender and elegant. It’s a bike for climbers, being both light and stiff – exactly what I needed on the endless ascent of the Nivolet (all the kammtailed NACA airfoils in the world won’t make any difference if you’re doing 10kmh after 35km of climbing). On the way back down, the Addict’s precise handling only added to the fun of carving through the mountain’s winding hairpins. Despite its light weight, the bike never felt sketchy or jittery in the corners, and the aggressive racing geometry encouraged me to get low in the…

Tubeless tyres for road bikes have taken a while to catch on, initially appealing only to early adopters willing to fight through globules of sealant to attach hard-to-come-by tyres to expensive rims. Thankfully, things have changed, and tubeless technology is increasingly paving the way for a puncture-free, more comfortable and faster future. Because they eliminate the extra friction created between an inner tube and tyre carcass, tubeless tyres offer substantially reduced rolling resistance, and consistently top objective tyre tests for speed. But what has really spearheaded the progress of tubeless in recent years is advances in tyre and rim technology. ‘When everyone was running 23mm tyres cranked up to 120psi, tubeless was genuinely less viable,’ says Chris Currie, creative director of Stan’s NoTubes, a pioneer of tubeless rims and tyre…

Surrounding me are spools upon spools of steel wire. We’re not talking fishing reel-size spools, or ones like the little coils of solder you used to get in your design & technology class at school. These spools are half the size of a man and look about as heavy too, and they are everywhere. ‘We get through about 140 tonnes of steel wire every year,’ says Alex Schmitt, DT Swiss’s PR manager. He can’t put an exact figure on how many spokes that equates to – it varies from year to year depending on orders and production decisions – but based on the 6g weight of one of the company’s most popular designs, the Competition, it’s somewhere in the region of 20 million spokes.‘Rims, hubs and nipples are a huge…

THE SPEC Model Orbea Orca M11i LTD Groupset Sram Red eTap Deviations None Wheels Fulcrum Racing Quattro Carbon Finishing kit FSA Energy Compact handlebar, FSA OS-99 stem, FSA K-Force Light seatpost, Selle Italia SLR Kit Carbonio saddle Weight 6.71kg (55cm) Price £7,299 Contact  orbea.com The killer whale – or, to give it its Latin name, orcinus orca – is sleek, fast and aggressive. It’s understandable why Spanish bike brand Orbea might look to one of the ocean’s great hunters when naming its top-end race bike. Except that it didn’t. ‘The Orca has nothing to do with whales,’ says Aitor Otxoa, marketing manager at Orbea. ‘It stands for ORbea CArbon, because it was our first carbon bike. That the flair, craftsmanship and technical process of our frame evokes the power, speed…

THE SPEC Model Specialized S-Works Roubaix eTap Groupset Sram eTap Deviations None Wheels Roval CLX 32 Disc Finishing kit S-Works Hover Carbon handlebar (15mm rise), S-Works SL alloy stem, S-Works CG-R seatpost, Body Geometry S-Works Phenom GT saddle Weight 7.30kg (56cm) Price £9,000 Contact  specialized.com First launched in 2003, the Specialized Roubaix paved the way for a new genre of race-ready road bikes that offered greater comfort and stability with a more relaxed fit. Since then, it’s been victorious over the hallowed cobblestones of its namesake event an impressive five times, and now Specialized has given the Roubaix its most significant update in over a decade. Immediately noticeable is the absence of the signature Zertz elastomer inserts – the rubbery bits on the fork legs and seatstays aimed at reducing…

£1,320, chickencyclekit.co.uk If Keith Bontrager was describing wheels today he might well have said, ‘Wide, light, tubeless, aero, ceramic, cheap… pick five. Or sometimes three. Or maybe two.’ And up until recently he might have been right. Yet, with wheels such as these from Deda, picking all six is a distinct possibility. Granted, £1,320 isn’t cheap in the same way own-brand supermarket crisps are cheap, but in the grand scheme of carbon wheels it’s towards the entry level. Yet for that money you get a slice of all the latest wheel thinking. Deda has recast its rim offerings with a snub-nosed, 38mm deep aero profile that bulges to 26mm at its widest and has an internal diameter of 18mm. The rims are laced with aero spokes to hubs stuffed with…

$399 (approx £310), cercacor.com Used by Team LottoNL-Jumbo, Cercacor’s portable Ember unit delves deeper into your body’s circulatory and respiratory responses to training than anything we’ve seen outside of a laboratory. It’s able to track up to seven different biomarkers, including your blood’s haemoglobin and oxygen saturation levels, and even the strength of your blood flow, completely non-invasively from a tiny fingertip sensor connected to a handheld device barely larger than a smartphone, which then pairs to an app. For some it will be data overload, but for others there’s no such thing.…

I know it’s officially still summer outside, but I tend to live by the six Ps: prior preparation prevents piss-poor performance. One can never be too ready if one’s motivation and form is to survive the harsh winter months, and key to this preparation is appropriate attire. Winter kit is probably the most important kit you will wear, because if you set off on a long ride in the depths of winter and it’s poor quality, doesn’t fit or is just not up to the job you could easily come down with pneumonia, or worse, look terrible. I’ve spent more than my fair share of time out in the cold on those six-hour training rides in January that no pro ever talks about, so I’d like to think I’ve picked…

We’re used to hearing stories of the sacrifices required of professional athletes, which typically include giving up things such as meat, alcohol and sex before a big event. It’s only professional cyclists, however, who regularly sacrifice victory, personal glory and the occasional body part in the name of their team leader. In other team sports, every member gets a medal for winning. But in cycling, only the leader gets the yellow jersey, gold medal or rainbow stripes. Of the 200 riders who will start a Grand Tour, most will be putting their leader before any personal ambitions or UCI WorldTour ranking points, in a way their counterparts in sports such as football would struggle to comprehend (unless you play with Cristiano Ronaldo perhaps). The French have a word for this…

There’s a good chance you’ve seen the Colle del Nivolet before, but not because you’ve been watching the Giro d’Italia. The climb in the Piedmont region of northwest Italy has never been graced by the country’s Grand Tour, mainly because it goes nowhere except to a dam that holds the water supply for Turin. The top isn’t expansive enough to accommodate the crowds and infrastructure that might allow it to be a summit finish, so instead it remains blissfully undiscovered by the hordes of col-bagging cyclists. The only traffic heading up its slopes are hikers venturing into the Gran Paradiso National Park, motorcyclists on a day out to see the views, and maintenance crews for the dam. So where have you seen the Colle del Nivolet before? The answer is…

STAN’S NOTUBES UNIVERSAL VALVE STEM 55MM No inner tube means no valves, so tubeless tyres require the insertion of tubeless valve stems into the rim to form an airtight seal. The valve core is removable, so sealant can be poured through into the tyre after installation. If in doubt, any decent bike shop should be able to do the first installation. STAN’S NOTUBES TYRE SEALANT 59ML (2OZ) Stan Koziatek invented his pioneering sealant 15 years ago, and its job remains unchanged – to ensure a perfect airtight seal and plug punctures on the fly. As air escapes, it pushes the liquid with it, at which point particles within the liquid coagulate to bung up gaps – like how blood uses platelets to clot a cut. STAN’S NOTUBES RIM TAPE 25MM…

Orro Signature Gold STC Di2 Disc, £3,999, i-ride.co.uk UK bike brand Orro is based in the heart of the South Downs, so it seemed most appropriate to be setting out for this ride on its top-of-the-range Signature Gold STC Disc. Its frame is constructed from UK-sourced carbon fibre, supplied by Sigmatex in Runcorn, Cheshire, and comes in at a very respectable 985g (claimed, size medium, painted). The frame is noticably stiff, with its solidity tested repeatedly on the many short sharp inclines on this ride, where each time it delivered a snappy, responsive ride feel. 3T’s Discus Pro wheels too delivered a polished performance that struck a good balance of stiffness and weight. With 25mm tyres inflated to a cushy 85psi the Signature Gold STC took the sting…

Keep your cycling summer going a bit longer with a late-season trip to the beautiful northern lakes of Italy. As the venue for the final Monument of the year – the Giro di Lombardia – the roads around this region are rich in cycling history. You can climb the famous Madonna del Ghisallo with its church containing a museum dedicated to the legends of cycling, or test your legs on the fearsomely steep Muro di Sormano, which is etched with quotes from the pros of the past. Each day of the four-day trip will include a ride, expertly guided and fully supported by vehicles with mechanics. You can bring your own bike or hire a top-end Canyon, which will be set up and waiting for you on arrival. You’ll also…

£149.99, madison.co.uk With the days steadily drawing in towards the autumnal equinox, it seems an appropriate time to introduce Garmin’s new Varia UT800 headlight. It can provide a steady beam of 800 lumens for up to an hour and a half, which Garmin says is visible from up to almost 2km away. But the UT800 also has brains to back its brawn: it can pair with a Garmin Edge computer, allowing it to automatically adjust to both your speed and ambient light conditions. Aside from extending the light’s run time, it also means the only thing that will unintentionally dazzle passers-by will be the proficiency of your riding.…

Any rider who’s taken even a passing interest in training methods knows that power is the metric that matters. It’s what the pros use, it’s what coaches recommend and it’s the true measure of your strength and fitness on a bike. So what do you do? You go out and buy a power meter (at least they’re not as expensive as they used to be) and now every ride comes with a mountain of data that makes about as much sense as a Stephen Hawking lecture on quantum mechanics. And once you’ve downloaded the data, what do all these numbers really mean? It’s time for a crash course in power metrics. Number crunching Consider this scenario: you’ve just completed a two-hour ride and while waiting for the ket`tle to boil…

Racing over the highest mountain pass in Europe isn’t for the faint of heart. It also isn’t the easiest thing in the world to arrange logistically, which goes a long way to explaining why the 2,770m-high Col de l’Iseran last featured in the Tour de France in 2007. High time that it was used by the Tour again, then? Well, the organisers have been burned before: even at the height of summer, the Iseran often still has snow at the summit, and in 1996 it had to be dropped from the route at the last minute, along with the Col du Galibier, due to bad weather. In all, the Tour has only successfully crested the summit seven times in the race’s Hitting new heights Belgian Félicien Vervaecke was the leader…

‘If we don’t move, you can’t move. It’s not that ****ing hard.’ The poetic words of Matt White, DS of WorldTour team Orica-Scott. He’s driving Cyclist back down from Villars-sur-Ollon after Stage 4 of June’s Tour de Suisse, and in his way is an obstinate local in a van. ‘You should speak French – that’s what they do in this part of Switzerland,’ advises Orica’s doctor, Robbart van Linschoten, who is also in the car with us. ‘Refuse to, mate,’ White replies. ‘I’ll be doing that for all of July. You know the Frenchies – they speak perfect English but when we’re at their bike race, it’s all French.’ White couldn’t have worn a more Antipodean stereotype if he was grilling another shrimp on the barbie, but as we discover,…

It’s always the climbs that define a ride. Those moments spent puffing uphill, muscles ablaze with lactic acid, are the bits we talk about in the cafe afterwards. When we plan a ride, it’s often built around the climbs in the area, even to the point that we will take a detour just to go up a hill and come straight back down again to rejoin the route. The out-and-back climb is a peculiar aspect of cycling. All that suffering and effort, just to get nowhere, must seem perverse to those who don’t follow our sport. But among those of us who ride, no one ever asks the question, ‘What’s the point?’ The South Downs are only an hour from central London by train and this vast chalk escarpment and…

THE SPEC Model Spoon Izoard RR Groupset Campagnolo Super Record Deviations None Wheels Spin Industries Koppenberg XXLR 50 Fat Boy carbon clinchers Finishing kit 3T Aeronova Team handlebar, 3T Arx Ltd Carbon stem, 3T Ionic 25 LTD seatpost, Brooks England Cambium C13 saddle Weight  7.4kg Price  £6,200 complete bike, frameset from £1,995 Contact  spooncustoms.com According to the Spoon Customs website, ‘No matter how nicely a bike rides, it’s not a great bike until it looks rad.’ We won’t dwell on the use of the word ‘rad’, but one glance at this bike reveals that Spoon practises what it preaches. Thanks to its lustrous paintjob, which switches between pink and gold depending on the angle of the light, the Spoon Izoard looks like an ornamental sculpture. There is substance behind the…

How to wear... Winter Kit CLOCKWISE FROM TOP Gore Bike Wear Windstopper jacket, £124.99 goreapparel.co.uk Poc Raceday legwarmers, £95 2pure.co.uk Chapeau Thermal jersey, £99.99 chapeau.cc Sportful Finadre NoRain Jacket, £180 c3products.com Dhb Aeron Roubaix jersey, £65 wiggle.co.uk Poc AVIP Rain Jacket, £250 2pure.co.uk Le Col HC jacket, £300 lecol.cc Endura Windchill Biblong, £114.99 endurasport.com Rapha Pro Team Softshell jacket, £200 rapha.cc Castelli Transition Jacket, £150 saddleback.co.uk Pearl Izumi Pro Pursuit Thermal jacket, £99.99 madison.co.uk What’s The Best Metric To Train To? Poc AVIP long sleeve jersey, £160 2pure.co.uk Poc Multi D Thermal bibtights, £230 2pure.co.uk Hunt 4Season High Thermo-Lite socks, £6.99 huntbikewheels.com Vittoria Legend shoes, £263.99 chickencyclekit.co.uk In Praise Of... Domestiques Kask Protone helmet, £189…