Tabla de contenidos para Issue 77 en Cyclist Australia

Do you ever get to the end of a season of racing and feel a little down? All those great moments witnessed, those memories made, those memes consumed, consigned to season 2025 – the past. As we’re printing this issue, the UCI Road World Championships are just beginning, so you won’t find anything about the races for rainbows taking place across a historic week in Africa. Instead, you’ll find nods to the past and the future among these pages. Let’s start with our fave time of the year, the time that gets us excited and pedalling more than ever – the Santos Tour Down Under. Every year the women’s and men’s races grow a little, and 2026 will be no different. We’ve had a chat with TDU race director, Stuart…

‘What a fantastic climb that the Tour de France has decided to include this year. Les Montvernier, 17 corners, it took no less than six years to build. They started building it in 1928 and finished it in 1934.’ It’s classic stuff from the late, great Paul Sherwen, part Tour de France Bible, the huge almanac given to teams and commentators that details everything from sign-on times to which order of monks lived in what abbey; part unfiltered and impassioned response to the pictures being beamed from Le Tour’s helicopter. This is perhaps the shortest Cat 2 climb in Tour history. It’s hard to think of a road with a higher hairpin-to-metre ratio As Romain Bardet stormed up the early slopes to an eventual stage win, countless viewers wondered why…

For one morning each April, the birds of Mallorca have to swallow an annual dose of their own medicine. At an ungodly hour, for once it’s them being woken against their will by thousands of freehubs buzzing through the night, heading towards the start line of the island’s long-running sportive, the Mallorca 312. The day will later see sunshine and blue skies, but as we stand waiting in the start pen, rain is lashing down and I can’t help but sympathise with the group of five stick-thin Spanish lads in skinsuits next to me who are huddled together in the dark for warmth like aerodynamic penguins. An hour rolls by and, just as the heavens are running out of rain, the sodden mass of humanoid bike centaurs starts to move.…

The last time I rode and reviewed a Wilier was a whole nine years ago – and what a difference nine years makes. Governments have fallen, borders have been redrawn, and as a species our brightest and best spent time putting Katy Perry in Space. And then there’s the bikes. How does the Wilier Cento10 Air I tested in 2016 compare to the Cento family’s successor, the Filante? Well, fairly favourably. That bike had one-piece bars and partially hidden cables because, yes, that bike had rim brakes. It cost about $8,000 in Ultegra spec, weighed 7.51kg, and tyre width was a progressive 28mm. But most favourably of all, it was aero-fied in a way you’d recognise today – dropped seatstays with wing-like shoulders, deep head tube with hourglass profile, truncated…

Every January, the world’s best cyclists descend on Adelaide for the Santos Tour Down Under, and it’s easy to see why. The climbs are close to the city, the roads roll through vineyards and valleys, and every cafe feels like it was built with cyclists in mind. Out here you don’t need to be a pro to feel the thrill of the race. We’re on the same tarmac and gravel where WorldTour riders test their legs, and in today’s Big Ride – ahead of the 2026 TDU – we’re stringing together some of the classic climbs, hidden backroads and bakery stops that make Adelaide one of the best cycling destinations on the planet. It’s both easier and more complicated than you’d expect to piece together a great route through the…

The standard custom framebuilder script reads: enigmatic artisan craftsperson (often with beard) hones skills over many years, working with dusty tools and traditional materials (usually steel) and fabricating frames in a time-honoured way (mainly TIG welded or brazed). When Bastion came onto the scene in 2015, it tore that script to shreds. ‘In 2014 my two co-founders and I were all development engineers for Toyota,’ says co-CEO Ben Schultz. ‘At that time the automotive industry lost key funding and support from the government and all three manufacturers in Australia, including Toyota, announced they were shutting down production. ‘We were keen cyclists and 3D printing in titanium was just becoming viable. We could see how it could unlock a way to create bikes that were impossible without the technology. ‘However, we…

As Cyclist reported in issue 76, Campagnolo is positioning the new Super Record 13 groupset as the product to get it back on track after a difficult few years. That article detailed 13’s updates over its WRL and S predecessors, but to quickly revisit the headline changes: 13 is lighter, cheaper, uses a 13-speed cassette, offers more gearing options, looks better and reinstates (a version of) Campagnolo’s iconic thumb shifter. What’s more, this road version of the groupset is merely one setup in a five-variation family, which Campagnolo will fill out over the next year or so. At launch, there was a real sense of hope that 13 was the real deal. Campagnolo was back once again talking the talk, but could it actually walk the walk? I’ve spent the…

With roots stretching back to Cervélo’s original aero bike, the Soloist, the S series has always had the burden of legacy to live up to as well as the standards of its competitors. It can’t just be fast, it must be the fastest. That’s why Cervélo launched a new S5 at the Tour de France this year even when the previous generation would probably still have been sufficient for Visma-Lease a Bike to mix it with the best. ‘At 45kmh, the new S5 is 6.3 watts faster than that previous bike on average across a +/-15° wind angle sweep,’ says Scotty Roy, Cervélo’s engineering manager. According to Cervélo’s wind-tunnel data, the S5 beats race competitors by an even greater margin, testing more than ten watts faster than a Cannondale SuperSix…

‘Akid-sized, bright pink Peugeot with drop bars,’ Kev Pollock says fondly as he recalls his first bike. ‘I must have been about seven. I’d seen it in the window of a local shop. We had no money growing up but my mum managed to buy it for me one Christmas, paying it off over months through one of those old Christmas Clubs shops used to run. That’s always stayed with me. I was totally smitten.’ He didn’t know it back then, but that pink Peugeot foreshadowed a life on two wheels. Pollock remembers building dodgy BMX ramps as a teen, weekend mountain bike trips in his twenties and cruising on slicks after university. He is now an artist and furniture designer, but bikes have been a constant. ‘These days, cycling’s…

When Marion Rousse stood up to speak at the UCI’s headquarters in Aigle at the start of June, it was a landmark moment. The director of the women’s Tour de France, or the ‘Femmes’, was revealing new standalone dates in 2026 for the reborn race, dates that hammered home the explosive growth in women’s racing. That’s because in 2026, the Tour de France Femmes will not piggyback the men’s Tour, the Olympic Games or anything else. It will be its own event and no longer riding on the coattails of the men’s peloton, an achievement that has taken just four years, during which sponsors, TV rights holders and the wider sports audience have all embraced the Femmes. Understandably, Rousse was jubilant. ‘We no longer need men for the Tour de…

The D’Aguilar Range runs along the western edge of Brisbane, creating a hard stop for urban sprawl and a hinterland playground for hikers, horse riders, runners and of course – cyclists. Stretching from The Gap through to Woodford on the Sunshine Coast, the D’Aguilar Range has a history of grazing, mining exploration and forestry. Now predominantly part of the D’Aguilar National Park and large land holdings, the range reveals a complex tapestry of old roads, snig tracks and trails to explore by foot or by bike. Nestled into the southern end of the D’Aguilar range lies Samford Valley, just beyond the edge of Brisbane. Camp Mountain, Mt Nebo, Mt Glorious and Mt O’Reilly form a fortress of peaks around what is now predominantly acreage lifestyle with hobby farms growing Ford…

In late 2020 Cube’s owner, Marcus Pürner, told his head of engineering, Bernd Schenkl, that the German brand was going to take on sponsorship of WorldTour team Intermarché-Wanty and that he’d promised them a climbing bike. ‘My response from the R&D side was, “Okay, no problem,”’ says Schenkl. ‘When do you need it?’ For the Critérium du Dauphiné, was his boss’s reply. ‘It meant a development time of just six months, which I would say is unique in our history,’ says Schenkl. However, those time constraints placed on the development of the Cube Litening Air C:68X actually go some way to explaining its strengths. Instead of designing a whole new frame, Cube took the aerodynamic template of the Litening Aero C:68X and slimmed down every tube while maintaining the geometry.…

At Cyclist, we’re fortunate to review the best bikes in the world. Bikes that spin heads at the local cafe, spark conversations with strangers and make you the envy of your riding crew. We’re spoilt and we know it, and every time a new bike comes in for review, we’re ready and willing to put it through its paces. So, when I was told I’d get to review a sub-$3k Polygon, my heart skipped a beat. Although $2,800 is still a lot to spend on a pastime, when it comes to road bikes in 2025, we all recognise it’s an affordable price tag. But when you take a look at the spec sheet and see it’s a full carbon frame with Shimano 105’s electronic rendition, it’s an absolute bargain. Unboxing…