Tabla de contenidos para Issue 53 en Cyclist Australia

As we put this issue to bed, lockdown restrictions – in NSW and Victoria, in particular – are finally beginning to ease. However, the 5km radius rule still applies for many Australians, and here at Cyclist that’s the one restriction we’re really interested in seeing consigned to history. Don’t get us wrong, Picnic Day was great and all, but what we truly want is to head out for a ride that takes in some roads outside of our collective local government areas. Take, for example, our Melbourne-based reviewer, Nick Squillari, who instead of taking a brand-new set of Cadex 36 Disc wheels (page 26) out to his usual testing grounds in Kinglake, in this issue had to settle for a slog around the slightly more suburban Kew Boulevard. Cycling may…

RRP $469.95, cadex-cycling.com/au The Macquarie Dictionary defines a handlebar as, ‘the curved steering bar of a bicycle or motorcycle in front of the rider.’ Cadex’s Race Handlebar nailed the brief, and we love it. Everyone knows Cadex is Giant’s parts brand, and many know that Giant is a world leader in carbon manufacturing for bicycles. The company has used its knowledge in carbon to lay up this exquisite handlebar in a one-piece moulding process. A monocoque design means no bonding is required, making the bars lighter and stronger. The Cadex Race Handlebar is available in sizes ranging from 38-44cm, with 72mm reach and 125mm drop for all but the 38cm bars, which are 68mm and 120mm. These bars weigh 160 grams (42cm), which is about as light as road handlebars…

While we’d certainly never need an excuse to enjoy a Big Ride in the Snowies, our inspiration for choosing this particular route is its inclusion in the upcoming and inaugural Drops + Hoods multi-surface, multi-distance and multi-day cycling event. Drops + Hoods will take place on 2-5 December, 2021, with a range of rides from the 34km ‘Explorer’ to the epic 271 km ‘Ultra’ – and a bunch in between, including the 126km ‘Expedition’ sampled here. Indeed, Drops + Hoods embraces the entire Snowy Mountains region including Thredbo, Perisher, Charlotte Pass, Lake Crackenback, Jindabyne, Berridale and Dalgety. It’s organised by the same folks who brought you the iconic L’Étape Australia by Tour de France, so you know you’re in for a hell of a weekend. Visit the website at dropsandhoods.com…

It’s 11pm. Check the road book for start times tomorrow. I’ve already done it three times today but I check again for good measure. Set alarm, charge batteries, clean lenses, transfer images to hard drive. Check alarm again. Turn off light. Now sleep. Except something isn’t right. What have I missed? Although my limbs are weary and begging me for some respite, I have a nagging feeling that’s keeping me awake. Do we have enough diesel? Yes, I filled it up today. Have I charged the laptop? Is the equipment out of the car and safely stored in the room? All the pictures have been filed to the agency and photography edited and sent with confirmation emails. What have I missed? What day is it today? Day five of the…

The worry for many riders is that adding compliance means taking away stiffness – something vital in a frame for efficient energy transfer Light, stiff, aerodynamic. This is the holy trinity of the racing bicycle industry, with its promise of extra speed for less effort. Compliance, on the other hand, seems to be the opposite of these traits, conjuring visions of flexible frames and slow, comfortable rides. In a sport that idolises suffering, some cyclists will always treat comfort with suspicion. But comfortable can also be fast. If a bike can reduce the amount of vibration coming from the road, it allows you to ride harder for longer, with less fatigue and less wasted energy. Comfort, it seems, is no longer just the preserve of sportive bikes but is an…

The modern Tour de France, indeed modern cycling, has a keen sense of the aesthetic. The Champs-Élysées at dusk, Les Lacets de Montvernier, Mont-St-Michel, even a slightly half-hearted stage départ under the Millau Viaduct, all create the sort of visual feast for which the Tour has an insatiable appetite. Even if their sporting value is limited, such shareable, likeable moments are the driving force behind the massive media coverage that makes Le Tour the behemoth it is. In that sense it’s obvious why the 2021 race used a particular 23km of the route that Cyclist is about to ride at the Mediterranean end of the French Pyrenees. On Stage 14, after 166 of the day’s 184 kilometres, the pros ascended the Col de Saint-Louis by way of a spiralling road…

The Ultravox has been around in this guise for a few years now, so it isn’t part of the wide-tyred, disc-braked, internal-cabled zeitgeist, but it still excels on the smooth roads and massive climbs of the Hautes-Pyrenees, where I live. Those beefy tubes pay dividends in handling precision and power transfer, which is important if, like me, you’re very fussy about such things. The carbon-spoked Mavic R-Sys SLR wheels are brilliant in the mountains – they weigh less than 1,300g as clinchers yet are stiff and brilliantly responsive. Also those black rims are alloy, not carbon, which means descending in the wet isn’t quite as hair-raising as it might be. Built as it is – with an Enve bar, stem and seatpost, S-Works Power saddle, Rotor 2INpower crankset with 50/34…

The Grizl led me on a merry dance of emotions as I got to know it. At first there was the anticipation of a totally new bike from Canyon. Anticipation turned to excitement when I learned it was a bang-on-trend gravel bike built for exploring. Better still, unlike the Grail CF, it was a Canyon gravel bike that didn’t use the brand’s double-decker Hoverbar cockpit design, which is a component I’ve never really got on with. The Grizl was winning praise for both practicality and performance from the off. Excitement turned to delight when I saw it. Despite it having more mounting points than I could ever imagine needing, bikes with the Grizl’s adventurous remit seldom look this elegant. The bike shares more in appearance with Canyon’s Endurace road bike…

Watching finals footy in September, one thing stood out: the mullet is back. It’s like Mum always said: ‘Wait long enough and it will come back into fashion.’ Mullets. Flared jeans. Chunky sneakers. And while Kim Wilde and Billy Idol have not – to my knowledge (and dismay) – made a roaring return, we can now add Cadex to the list of 80s revivals. Initially, ‘Cadex’ was the model name for the first Giant carbon fibre frames, debuting in 1987 and at the forefront of the movement pushing carbon as a primary material for framesets. Retired with the advent of Giant’s ‘compact’ road frame design Total Compact Road (better known as TCR), the Cadex name was shelved. Disappeared – like many once popular bands or trends. The better part of…

The team at Cyclist hoped that this would be a golden column, reporting about Australian cyclists’ domination in Tokyo’s delayed 2020 Olympics. Well, when it came to gold on two wheels, the only Australian to sing the anthem from the dais was freestyle BMXer Logan Martin. Disappointingly, we collected only two bronze medals, thanks to Rohan Dennis in the road time trial (an incredible effort, to be fair) and the men’s team pursuit (also an amazing result, considering Alex Porter’s equipment failure left him faceplanting the boards at 65km/h in qualifying). In contrast to the Olympics, Aussie cycling fans had plenty to cheer about at the Vuelta a España Thankfully, it was a different story at the Paralympics in Tokyo, where Paige Greco (track), Emily Petricola (track) and Darren Hicks…

Early in the morning of the fifth stage of the 1989 edition of the Tour de France, José De Cauwer, the sports director of Greg LeMond’s ADR team, could be found pushing a bicycle through the corridors of a hotel in Brittany. De Cauwer was looking for the room of Claude Jacquat, the head of the Tour’s race jury. Jacquat had barely woken when he heard De Cauwer knocking on his door and angrily answered while still wearing his dressing gown. ‘What are you doing here?’ he barked. ‘Are you crazy?’ De Cauwer was not crazy. In fact, he had a very good reason for risking the wrath of Jacquat so early in the morning. Months before the Tour, LeMond had ridden a practice time-trial with some new aero bars…

You can’t out-train a bad diet, the saying goes, but eating healthily doesn’t have to be a chore, even if mealtimes take up time you’d rather spend riding. And we can help. Nutritionist Mayur Ranchordas is an expert in nutrition and exercise metabolism at the UK’s Sheffield Hallam University as well as a performance nutrition consultant who works with professional sportspeople including cyclists, triathletes and footballers. Ranchordas has devised the perfect day’s menu for the busy cyclist, based around an evening ride. We know you’re not going to ride at 6pm every day, but you can adjust the timings and amounts to suit any length of ride at any time of day – the principles of healthy nutrition are the same across 24 hours. Just leave a couple of hours…

As we settle in for a brunch briefing over a cheese platter and wines by the fireplace at Berridale’s Shut the Gate Cellar Door, the anticipation for the next day’s adventure grows. Our mission for this edition of the Big Ride is to tackle one leg of the exciting new event, Drops + Hoods, which will take place on 2-5 December 2021 and which is organised by the same folks who brought you L’Étape Australia by Tour de France. It’s early winter, and the snow has already begun to fall in the nearby Snowy Mountains, leaving skiing and snowboarding types salivating at the prospects of the season ahead. When the summer rolls around, those roads high up in the mountains become some of the best cycling roads in Australia, and…

To download this route go to bit.ly/3fyTttK or scan the QR code. From Prades, follow the D619 north for 54km to Saint-Paul-de-Fenouillet. Continue north, now on the D7, to the Gorges de Galamus, at the head of which is a cafe, La Casa de Galamus, with good coffee and incredible views. Turn left onto the D14 at Cubières-sur-Cinoble, go over the 4km Col du Linas and then south on the D45 and D9 to Caudiès-de-Fenouillèdes via The Snail spiral. Turning right, the D117 gives a chance for some brisk progress before you take a left towards Axat on the D118. After the gorge, fork left onto the D17 and the Col de Jau, then turn left after 6km of climbing to make sure you don’t miss the summit 12km away.…

TRAVEL If you fly into the UK, you could opt for a lengthy ten-hour drive from St Malo if you take the excellent overnight ferry, or 12 hours from Calais. The best-connected airports are Toulouse and Barcelona, equidistant at 2.5 hours of driving away. The small airports at Carcassonne and Perpignan are closer, but less well-serviced, though there are flights from London. ACCOMMODATION What with Covid and all, we rented an Airbnb house 7km south of Prades in the hammeau (hamlet) of Clara, but Prades does offer a few hotels and plenty of attractive chambres d’hôtes (B&Bs). THANKS Many thanks to JB for assisting and driving photographer Sami all day; Adrian and Mike for joining Cyclist on what was a very long day after the five-hour drive home; Sami for…

Aluminium has always seemed to me the perfect construction material for a gravel bike. A gravel bike needs to be lighter and racier than you can create using steel, but be able to take a hit better than some lightweight carbon frames, plus not be too eye-wateringly expensive to replace should the worst actually happen. That said, there are aluminium frames and there are aluminium frames. Fixing a few tubes of the stuff together doesn’t guarantee an appropriate blend of attributes will be created. There is a real risk that the result will be as heavy as steel but as skittishly uncomfortable as an extreme carbon climber’s bike. Thankfully that isn’t the case here. Felt’s Breed 20 gravel bike is as well-executed as aluminium gravel bikes come. Mixed materials Having…

$999.99, fesports.com.au AbsoluteBlack’s HollowCage is a bold new take on a part of the bike most do not consider – the rear derailleur cage and its jockey wheels. There’s a lot going on here, so it’s hard to know where to start. According to AbsoluteBlack, the HollowCage shifts better than anything on the market, it’s quieter, it saves watts, it improves the drivetrain’s aerodynamics and it makes your bike look cooler (the lower lockring is available in five different colours). AbsoluteBlack says there are many attributes housed within the HollowCage that create these improvements to your bike but, let’s face it, at the price tag, it all comes down to how it looks. (Honestly, how many times have you been beaten in a sprint or hill climb and thought: ‘my…

Anyone looking for a way to make their bike feel more alive should know that wheels are one of the best places to get a performance upgrade. Well before the age of special chain waxes, oversized jockey wheels and fully internal routing, dropping a set of high zoot wheels into your bike was a guaranteed performance improvement. I was once told that the best bike for gravel was whatever bike you are riding right now. I love this grassroots sentiment, however I think most of us would prefer to look at something new and special. And in terms of gravel-specific wheelsets, the DT Swiss GRC 1400 Spline 48 are quite special. They are the top-of-the-line gravel wheels from DT Swiss selling for $3,249, which could net you a complete gravel…

Some will point to his time-trial win in Laval on Stage 5. Or perhaps his performance on Stage 8 in the Alps to Le Grand-Bornand. Or the following day to Tignes, where although he didn’t win either stage, he claimed large amounts of time and chipped even bigger chunks from the morale of his opponents. Or maybe his back-to-back stage wins in the Pyrenees, although by then the Tour de France was all but done and dusted. However, arguably the most significant thing that Tadej Pogačar did in the course of winning his second successive Tour was actually something that he did not do. He didn’t fall off and seriously injure himself in any of the huge crashes that marred the early few stages of this year’s race. ‘There will…

It seems you can get away with doing less exercise and keep your endurance levels the same, just as long as you don’t skimp on intensity. In ‘Maintaining Physical Performance’, a paper published in The Journal Of Strength And Conditioning Research, researchers put a group of average individuals through a ten-week programme of 6x 40min sessions per week at 90-100% HRmax, and measured their vitals. The group was then split, with one group having frequency reduced from six sessions to four, the other to two, with volume and intensity maintained. Similar tests were then undertaken with a reduction in volume by 33% and 66% respectively, and a reduction in intensity to 82-87% HRmax or 61-67% HRmax. Results showed that decreasing frequency over 15 weeks had no big impact on VO2…

Scan the QR Code to see this route at the Drops + Hoods website. Start in Berridale, rolling south along Dalgety Road before going left onto Bobundara Road just out of town. Continue along Bobundara Road for about 19km until you hit Maffra Road. Take a right and follow the bitumen for about 300 metres before taking another left, this time onto Bobundara Lane. After 17km you’ll hit Springfield Road. Take a right. Roll along for 5km until you hit Avon Lake Road. Follow this for 7km – you can’t miss the imposing Boco Rock Wind Farm turbines on your left – until you reach Snowy River Way. Turn left, go another 2km and then make a right on Bungarby Road. After 7km, you’ll reach the southernmost point of the…

TRAVEL Alas, NSW and Victoria lockdowns meant we were unable to send the usual Cyclist crews to the Snowy Mountains for this ride – more on that soon – but as anyone who has visited the Australian Alps knows, having your own car is by far the best way. It’s about a seven-hour drive from Melbourne, a two-hour drive from Canberra, and a five-hour drive from Sydney. ACCOMMODATION As we were helped out by some Jindy locals for this Big Ride, in the end we didn’t need the accommodation, but a big shout-out to Touchdown Cottages (touchdowncottages.com) at Jindabyne who were all set to put our crew up for the weekend before Delta hit. FOOD Outside of the Drops + Hoods weekend, there aren’t really any stops for food and…

There are climbs that are famous for their place in Tour history; climbs that are famous for their extreme height and savagery; climbs that are famous for the splendour of their surroundings. This climb, however, is famous for its road. No other road on the planet can match its joyous swoops and swirls, or the playful way it loops around and under itself like a tie knot. It’s hard to believe that the enigmatic pattern it carves is determined purely by the contours of the hillside and the practical necessities of constructing the most efficient route from bottom to top. It seems certain that when Italian-Spanish engineer Antonio Parietti was building the Sa Calobra access road in the early 1930s he saw an opportunity to create something magnificent as well…

I’m swimming at the foot of soaring sandstone cliffs when a rare sea fog starts rolling in. With me, on what is rapidly turning into a doomed quest to spot some local sea birds, is a new arrival to my little coastal town. And we are in danger of becoming lost at sea because I didn’t want to go for a bike ride with him. Let me explain… Iain is a road cyclist who recently bought a holiday home near me. We got chatting and it wasn’t long before hints about going for rides together were being dropped like chains on a cobbled climb. I was confronted by an awkward dilemma: how do you explain to someone who shares the same passion as you that you prefer doing it alone…