Tabla de contenidos para May 2020 en Cyclist

Over its 113-year history, Milan-San Remo has been cancelled only three times. The first was in 1916 during the First World War; the second and third times in 1944 and 1945 for the Second World War. The fact that it has been cancelled again in 2020 (or postponed, at least) can mean only one thing: the Third World War is here. On this occasion, however, the global terror is not an invading army, but a particularly nasty variant of the flu virus, which is no respecter of borders and seems selfishly unconcerned about the road racing calendar. In fact, it’s tempting to think the coronavirus is singling out cycling, what with its primary targets being China and northern Italy, the former being where much of the bicycle manufacturing industry is…

£449.90, zyrofisher.co.uk It isn’t by chance that the swooping architecture of the SP-01 Boost Tekno saddle’s carbon shell looks like it was taken straight from the panel of a race car. Selle Italia developed the saddle with Dallara, an Italian manufacturer of motor racing chassis, and judging by the retail price, that evidently introduces Formula 1-level costs. Selle Italia says it wanted to incorporate two of its most recent anatomic design concepts into a snub-nosed full carbon saddle to bring their purported performance benefits down to a lighter weight. So the SP-01 Boost Tekno features Selle’s Superflow technology, a large central cut-out to relieve perineal pressure, as well as the brand’s ‘Suspension Link Movement’ feature. That means the left and right sides of the saddle are only attached at the…

£999, parcours.cc The proof that wider tyres can be faster is indisputable, but the caveat is that the dimensions of the rim play a significant role in the outcome (see p76). Parcours says its latest Strade wheelset is optimised around tubeless 28mm tyres to be fast-rolling, lightweight and aerodynamic, but also robust enough for off-road use. Plus they cost under a grand. A key discovery in the company’s research, conducted at Nottingham Trent University, was that the front wheel is subjected to a much broader sweep of wind angles than the rear, which is shielded by the bike frame and rider. As a result, the Strade wheels are designed as individual products, not identical pairs. The profile of the front wheel is wider (32mm external) and shallower (49mm) to maximise…

Matt and I became friends just before Bespoked [the handmade bike show in Bristol], I think in 2015. I needed a spray paint booth as mine was out of action, so I went round to his workshop begging to use it. He was like, “Yeah, go for it.” We got on and have been friends ever since.’ It’s Monday morning, the coffee’s on and Caren Hartley is explaining how she came to be in an industrial unit in Mitcham, London, working with fellow framebuilder Matt McDonough. The idea that two people build bikes here is not surprising – there are the requisite decades-old lathes, gas bottles and racks of frames – but what might seem odd is the fact that here are two established framebuilders working together as well as…

1 ONE PRO BARS £2.50 each, onepronutrition.com Cycling has skiing to thank for some of its best roads, women’s undergarments for its clothing, and aeroplanes for its lightweight bikes. It also now owes former England cricketer Matt Prior for founding One Pro Nutrition and delivering a new range of vegan-friendly, gluten-free bars, packing 17g protein and 14g fibre each. We’ll take one hundred and eighty! No wait, wrong sport. Six? 2 AFTERSHOKZ AEROPEX £149.95, aftershokz.co.uk Definitely not to be confused with Aftershock, the lurid-coloured alcoholic shot that was popular in the 1990s among teenage binge-drinkers, AfterShokz’s Bluetooth headphones use the principle of bone-conduction to deliver sound without blocking the ear canal, and this latest Aeropex version weighs a mere 26g, is fully waterproof, super svelte and delivers a refined audio…

Ribble Endurance SLR Disc, £6,519, ribblecycles.co.uk The Endurance SLR Disc was uniquely well suited to the savagely long climbs of Evia. At 7.6kg it’s agreeably light for a disc brake build with deep-section wheels. That weight, coupled with a rigid rear end, meant that every vertical metre of ascent was made with as little wasted energy as possible. When it came to the descents, the integrated cabling and aerodynamic one-piece bar/stem played two roles. They improved the aerodynamics of the front end, thus increasing speed, but also offered a nice balance of rigidity and comfort so the bike handled immaculately but was still smooth over the rougher surfaces. As for the Sram Red AXS groupset, wireless shifting is a dream when it comes to travelling and packing a bike bag.…

Life was tough for Giovanni ‘Nani’ Pinarello in the 1940s. One of a dozen brothers, Nani scraped a living in the professional cycling ranks for several years until his team, Bottechia, bought him out of contract in 1952 for 100,000 lire. Despite this, during that time Nani had become something of a household name amongst the tifosi on account of being the last rider to win the maglia nera in 1951, a ceremonial black jersey awarded for finishing dead last in the Giro d’Italia, but which race organisers ceased awarding the following year. So leveraging this odd popularity and armed with his buyout money, Nani decided to set up a bike shop on a piazza in the north Italian town of Treviso in 1953. Today that bike shop remains, but…

Being the best cyclist of all time wasn’t enough for Eddy Merckx. In 1980, barely two years after his retirement from pro cycling, Merckx launched his eponymous bike brand with the aim of producing the best bikes too. As a rider he was a serial tinkerer, having famously stopped to adjust his saddle height mid-race several times. In retirement he needed an outlet for his obsessive attention to detail, so he headed to Italy to get trained in the art of bike building by none other than Ugo De Rosa, founder of De Rosa, who had built bikes for him throughout his career. Launching under such auspicious circumstances meant Eddy Merckx Cycles was competitive from the off. It quickly garnered a reputation for quality and found modest success through the…

£64.99 each, wolfpacktyres.co.uk If the resumé of Wolfpack founder Wolfgang Arenz is anything to go by, these tyres should be something special. Apparently, Arenz was behind Continental’s BlackChili, Specialized’s Gripton and Schwalbe’s Addix tread compounds. The man clearly knows his rubber, and says he has brought all his experience to bear in these Road Race Cotton tyres. Arenz says rolling resistance is low thanks to the 320tpi cotton carcass, and his newest compound creation, ‘ToGuard’, adds grip and even has vertical striations to help boost aerodynamics. Available in 24mm and 26mm widths.…

£84.99, trekbikes.com Bikes, components, accessories, apparel… Bontrager and its parent company Trek can provide the lot, and now Bontrager has a pedal to compete with the heavy hitters in the market. The composite body features a stainless steel wear plate and is compatible with Look’s Keo cleats. The pedals’ 250g weight is lighter than both Look’s Keo 2 Max and Shimano’s 105 pedals, despite being significantly cheaper. So with the pedal box ticked, all that’s left for Bontrager to produce is a groupset. We wouldn’t bet against it having a go.…

Legend has it that the Greek god Poseidon called the island of Evia home. In The Iliad, Homer describes the sea god striding across the land in four giant steps, crushing the landscape beneath him. Looking at the island’s jagged landscape, I can easily imagine it being carved by titans trampling stone and rock beneath their gigantic sandalled feet. We have an epic day of riding ahead of us, with 4,100m of ascent over 173km. That includes four peaks nearing 1,000m, with the day beginning at sea-level. Not quite the roll alongside white sand beaches I might have expected from a ride in Greece. As it happens, though, the island of Evia (also called Euboea) is a bit of an undiscovered gem for cyclists. The second-largest island in Greece, just…

TRAVEL Cyclist flew to Athens International, which is serviced by a wide selection of low cost airlines such as RyanAir and Easyjet. Greek Cycle Holidays (greekcycleholidays.com) arranged a transfer for us to Eretria, which takes about 80 minutes using the ferry from Oropos and is included in the package price. Public transport options to Eretria are scarce, so renting a car is the best option if you’re not using a transfer. ACCOMMODATION We stayed at Greek Cycle Holidays’ villa in Eretria. The villa comprises four twin rooms that can sleep eight people in total, and boasts an outdoor jacuzzi for some fine apres velo. Steven, a professional chef in the off-season, cooks all meals on site. There’s also a free bar with a trusting self-serve policy at the villa. Packages…

‘Come on, I’m going to show you the bike that’s going to save the world,’ said Specialized’s creative director, Robert Egger, when I visited Specialized HQ in the US a few years ago. What he showed me looked like a Specialized Venge but with a vast bottom bracket that housed a motor. ‘This isn’t for someone who is riding already or is already interested in riding,’ he said. ‘This is for someone who maybe enjoys watching F1, loves to watch supercross, likes fast things.’ It made sense – a bike that screamed high performance without demanding the rider be super-fit. But now that Specialized has launched its S-Works Turbo Creo SL e-road bike, the message has taken a U-turn: now it says the bike is intended for those who cycle…

£700, upgradebikes.co.uk Praxis is the king of compatibility. The brand is renowned for making bottom bracket converters that can seemingly fit any crank standard to any BB size, and it also has a big hand in after-market cranksets. The Zayante Carbon shows just how strong that hand is. The Zayante boasts a set of carbon fibre cranks that offer high rigidity for a light overall weight. Those power a set of cold-forged X-rings, which are fixed to a direct-mount 160/104 BCD chainring mount. The chainrings are available in 48/32, 50/34, 52/36 and 53/39 combinations, and the Zayante is even compatible with a 1x system – a real coup among chainsets. As if that wasn’t enough, the Zayante uses 4iii’s left-side-only crank arm power meter, which offers decent enough power accuracy…

Cyclist: When did you realise you had a passion for road cycling? Martin Johnson: When I was a kid I had a mate from a cycling family and so I was aware of the sport. I knew who Bernard Hinault was but I never really watched it, apart from the occasional time it appeared on World Of Sport. When I started getting serious with rugby I kind of forgot about it. Then one day another mate popped over to my house for a cup of tea and turned up on a road bike, and I instantly felt like I wanted in. He said to start with a hybrid, which I did, and while I was still playing I’d go out most Sundays to do 15 miles as part of my…

To download this route, visit cyclist.co.uk/99greece. Beginning in Eretria, a town 97km north of Athens, ride along the coast to the town of Vasiliko before heading inland towards the town of Makrykapa. Soon after that you begin the climb to Dirfis, which is followed by a descent to the coast. Next take the road around to Stropones, then climb southwards out of town until turning back inland through Metochi. Follow this road back to the coast before turning your back on the sea and following the road south through Manikia and Seta. From here it’s downhill back to Eretria.…

Will we be done by 3pm? I need to collect my twin daughters from school. This month is quieter before the motorsport season picks up.’ Tom Boonen is in relaxed mood as he ushers Cyclist into his rural home on the edge of his birth city of Mol, Belgium. The four-time Paris-Roubaix and three-time Tour of Flanders winner is three years retired from the sport that paid for the bricks, mortar and artworks of his magnificent cottage. ‘We’ve renovated inside and out,’ says the 39-year-old of his grand design. It’s typically Belgian, marrying formal undertones with quirky notes, including a waist-high rainbow-coloured elephant. As he fires up the coffee machine, Boonen looks fit and displays none of the traits of ex-sporting legends. There’s no expanded waistline, no baseball cap hinting…

Rim brakes have served us well for more than a century, but it seems their time is coming to an end. Road bikes are following in the tyre treads of every other mode of transport and adopting disc brake technology. It is, in the words of Campagnolo’s communication director Lorenzo Taxis, ‘one of the biggest win-wins in the history of the bicycle’. The consumer gets better performance, while the manufacturers get to redevelop almost every one of their products. Accommodating the switch from rim to disc brakes requires distinct changes to several areas of a bike, yet arguably no component has been more acutely affected than the wheel. Its design has needed not merely adjusting but totally changing, and for the past couple of years brands have been scrambling to…

An event such as La Purito calls for a pure climbing rig, and as soon as I saw the route profile I had only one bike in mind. Despite that formidable pricetag, the Ultimate CF Evo 10.0 SL is as strong in the value stakes as virtually every other Canyon. For starters the frame weighs a mere 665g, and the standard 935g Lightweight Meilenstein Obermayer Schwarz Edition wheels are used by Team Ineos at the Tour de France. German carbon specialist THM’s Fibula brakes and Clavicula SE crankset continue the impressive spec, and a Sram Red 22 groupset completes a package that keeps the weight down to 5.1kg out the box, or 5.45kg once cages, power pedals and a computer mount have been attached. Some lightweight frames compromise ride quality…

Remember the 1984 rock mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap, in which lead singer David St Hubbins explains how the band manages to be so loud? ‘Our amps go to eleven, which is one louder…’ What has this got to do with bikes? Not much, other than it’s where this new Pearson gets its name from. It has nothing whatsoever to do with gears. Fit for all Now we’ve got that out of the way, on to the bike itself. The Minegoestoeleven (MGTE) is the latest addition to Pearson’s range of road bikes, all of which have quirky names, such as Objects In Motion and Hammer And Tongs. This one is built primarily around aero performance, but within parameters that company director Will Pearson says makes it suited to a wide…

Greek Epic p50 Kask Protone helmet, £195 velobrands.co.uk Alba Optics Delta sunglasses, €149 (approx £125) albaoptics.cc Assos Equipe RS Aero jersey, £145 assos.com Assos Equipe RS S9 bibshorts, £175 assos.com Assos RS socks, £18 assos.com Specialized S-Works 7 shoes, £340 specialized.com Muur van Geraardsbergen p84 Bell Z20 MIPS helmet, £229.99 zyrofisher.co.uk 100% Speedcraft sunglasses, £139 madison.co.uk Mavic Essential Merino jersey, £125 mavic.com Mavic Ksyrium Pro bibshorts, £125 mavic.com Mavic Comete socks, £18 mavic.com Specialized S-Works 7 shoes, £340 specialized.com Bikes p125 PINARELLO Lazer Genesis helmet, £169.99 madison.co.uk Alba Optics Delta sunglasses, €149 (approx £125) albaoptics.cc Rapha Brevet Flyweight Wind jacket, £125 rapha.cc Rapha Brevet mitts, £60 rapha.cc Rapha Brevet Cargo bibshorts, £195 rapha.cc Rapha Lightweight socks, £15 rapha.cc Suplest Edge3 Pro shoes, £310 suplest.com PEARSON Giro Aether helmet, £259.99 zyrofisher.co.uk…