Table of contents for Summer 2019 in Cycling Plus

Welcome to this special bumper edition of Cycling Plus, where we start getting excited about this year’s Tour de France, the one race that makes us all stop and take notice. Along with this issue of our magazine, which itself contains an exclusive interview with Britain’s first Tour de France winner, Sir Bradley Wiggins, we’re giving you two supplements to whet your appetite for the Grande Boucle. In the first, we take an in-depth look at what lies in wait at the 2019 Tour, with a stage-by-stage guide and a look at all the teams, while in the second we drool over some of the bikes that will carry the stars around France this July. ANY OTHER BUSINESS? Postcards from the edge Also included in your Cycling Plus Tour de…

THE BIG PICTURE SUB-GIRO The first Grand Tour of the season is behind us, after Movistar’s Richard Carapaz held off home favourite and two-time winner Vincenzo Nibali to claim the 2019 Giro d’Italia. All eyes will now turn to France, where former Tour winner Nibali is now targeting yellow against the likes of Chris Froome, Geraint Thomas and Romain Bardet. At least the weather in the mountains should be warmer than on stage 13 of the Italian race! THE SPIN BEAT A RETREAT How do we solve the problem of more people choosing to do a spin class rather than getting out on a bike? Sport England’s biannual Active Lives survey made for, in the words of British Cycling, “uneasy reading”. As a snapshot of how British people are choosing…

“People always want to know if we could see from the start that riders like Luke Rowe and Geraint Thomas were destined for the top,” says Debbie Wharton, founder of Maindy Flyers, “and the answer is, ‘No!’ Geraint couldn’t ride in a bunch. He once finished a national championship circuit race in sixth, but he’d started his sprint at the back of the group because he didn’t like riding in the bunch! So there were always things that they needed to learn. Obviously, they did win races from an early age, but it wasn’t clear that they were destined for the top level. Of course, at the time, it was difficult to see anyone making the top level because Great Britain, never mind Wales, had never won anything on that…

“LET’S JUST SAY 182KM OF GRAVEL DOES UNSPEAKABLE THINGS TO A BOTTOM…” It was hard to know what hurt more. The palms of my filthy hands, which had been pummelled pink and raw, my cramp-infested calf muscles, or my back, which ached at the bottom and was excruciating at the top. Eight and three quarter hours into the Dirty Reiver and I finally made it to the crest of what felt like the hundredth hill. I’d seen a lot of single digit speed while climbing during the day, but the stubborn 7km/h I had seen for the previous 15 minutes was a spirit-sapping assault all of its own. Over the crest and a chance to sit cockeyed on my saddle. Let’s just say 182km on gravel does unspeakable things to…

RACING CAN BE PREDICTABLE–UNLESS YOU THROW IN A CURVE BALL, LIKE SKY DID IN 2016… THE GOLDEN RULE TACTICAL RIDING “Tactical riding as a team or an individual is all about knowing your strengths and weakness and those of your rivals, and exploiting those to your advantage. Self-evaluation, reviewing performance using data and breaking down performance to analyse it are key to being triumphant.” In an age where talk often focuses on FTP and watts per kilo, tactics and the ability to strategically master a ride and pilot a peloton are often overlooked. “Often it’s the smartest rider that will cross the line first, not the strongest,” says Liam Holohan,“by combining timing, observation, energy management and efficiency with an eye for the field, a knowledge of how the land lies…

AIM TO HAVE PROTEIN EVERY 3-4 HOURS TO STIMULATE MUSCLE PROTEIN SYNTHESIS Protein is a hot topic in performance nutrition and we have looked at it before in this column, but the focus for this piece is an update in the light of emerging evidence on daily recommendations for individuals and how that’s broken down in your day. TOTAL Our total daily intake of protein is completely dependent on our goal with heavy training loads, strength/power focus and the aim of fat loss all requiring larger amounts–including the non-goal but age-related intake for over 50s. • Low training volume/Casual rider = 1.6-1.8g/kg/bodyweight a day • High training volume/Fat loss/>50 years = 2-2.5g/kg/bodyweight a day • Gaining of muscle = 2.4-3.4g/kg/bodyweight a day FREQUENCY We should aim to have protein every…

Stuart Croxford and Jaco van Gass, became the first amputee team to complete the gruelling Absa Cape Epic Challenge in March 2019 1 GET USED TO OFF-ROAD “I’d done a little off-roading during adventure training in the army but this was on a different scale. We trained in gravel races in the UK and France.” 2 PICK BIKES FOR PURPOSE “We got two Scott Spark 910 FS bikes, which we had adapted to suit our specific needs and to carry the kit, clothing and nutrition supplements.” 3 TAKE A BREAK “Going on a week-long training camp in Granada (freeridespain.com) trained us for the climate, terrain and ascents that we’d race in South Africa.” 4 READY YOURSELF FOR ROUTINE “Nothing prepared us for the end of a long, hot day of…

GETTING THERE Nearest mainline railway station is at Chirk, about 16km from the start of the ride. WHERE TO STAY There are a number of options along the length of the Ceiriog Valley, but we can recommend The West Arms in Llanarmon Dyffryn Ceiriog, where Wayfarer spent the night before his historic ride. It’s a cosy hotel with pub, restaurant and great food. thewestarms.com BIKE Wayfarer may have done it on a fixed-gear Rover Light Roadster but you’ll need something robust with wide tyres unless you plan on doing a lot of pushing and shoving. We rode the Fuji Jari 1.3 Gravel Bike featuring aluminium frame, 40mm tyres and a single chainring, 11-speed SRAM Apex groupset with an 11-42 cassette. It effectively cushioned the jolts and bumps of the mountain…

Here at Cycling Plus we take our testing seriously and have been putting road cycling products through their paces for 26 years. Our test team, led by senior technical editor Warren Rossiter, is the best in the business. They’ve got decades of cycling experience between them and know what makes a good–and bad–bike, accessory, gadget or garment. That means you can trust us to bring you honest assessments of every product we feature. If it gets our seal of approval then you can be sure that you’ll be bagging a great buy! First Ride sees our test team bring you their first impressions of the most exciting new bikes available. As soon as they’re out, we’re riding! Before you buy a bike, you want to know how it stacks up…

OUT WITH A BANG Aussie hotshot Caleb Ewan (Lotto Soudal) was the big sprint winner of the Giro d’Italia, bagging two wins before quitting the race on the eve of the mountains to concentrate on his Tour de France preparation. PAIN AND GAIN The UCI have hailed their testing programme for pain medication tramadol a success. Since it was banned at the start of the year, no positive tests have been found among pro riders in over 100 tests conducted so far. BIKE FOR LIFE GPs from two practices in Cardiff will be able to assign up to six months of free bike rental to patients as part of a pilot intended to improve health and awareness of the physical and mental benefits of exercise. KITTEL KATUSHA KO Marcel Kittel…

There are times when your bike seems to see a mechanic more than it sees you, and while mechanics are a valuable resource for the high-tech stuff, there are a few ways you can keep your bike running better, for longer. Our bicycles, while being relatively basic mechanical systems, are a labyrinth of fixtures, mountings and other connections that have a propensity to work loose, become dislodged and generally misbehave. It’s worth going over your bike at regular intervals and making sure everything is secure, properly aligned and appropriately tightened. Firstly, if you don’t own one already, buy a torque wrench, or befriend someone who has one. There are some common reasons bikes are taken into shops, and the good news is that often it’s fixable at home. In this…

WEIGHT 18kg FRAME Lugged steel FORK Steel GEARS One BRAKES None WHEELS Wooden rims, steel hubs and spokes MAURICE GARIN’S 1903 LA FRANÇAISE Already a winner of Paris-Roubaix (in both 1897 and 1898), Paris-Brest-Paris (in 1901) and Bordeaux-Paris (in 1902), Maurice Garin secured his place in cycling history with victory in the very first Tour de France in 1903. The Little Chimney Sweep covered the 2428km route over just six stages–none shorter than 268km, with the final stage from Nantes to Paris clocking in at an immense 471km. The bike on which he achieved an average speed of 25.679ph was stage of the art for its day, when a racing cycle weighing in at 18kg, constructed from lugged steel with wooden wheel rims was the equivalent of the bikes you…

IN addition to the jersey itself, there is, Thomas Voeckler affirms, only one thing that every rider that has held the maillot jaune shares. “When you first take it, you can’t imagine what the yellow jersey will bring to you in terms of attention and recognition,” the Frenchman says. “It doesn’t matter whether you’re only likely to have it for a single day or if you’re hoping to wear it all the way into Paris, it will have an immense impact on your career. When I had the French champion’s jersey in 2004, I thought to myself, ‘This is cool, being the French champion everyone recognises me.’ But once you take the yellow jersey that recognition rockets into the stratosphere. It’s so completely different it’s hard to describe it. You…

RIBBLE CGR 725 STEEL £1199 > Ribble’s reworked all-rounder in its classy-looking steel incarnation SPECIFICATION Weight 11.02kg (M) Frame Reynolds 725 steel Fork Full carbon, tapered Gears Shimano Tiagra 50/34, 11-32 Brakes Tektro Spyre hydraulic discs Wheels Mavic Aksium Disc Finishing kit Level 1 stem, bar and seatpost, Prologo Kappa RS saddle, 28mm Continental Ultra Sport 2 tyres Ribble’s 2019 CGR ‘adventure bike’ range has had a comprehensive makeover for 2019 and is available in aluminium, steel, carbon and titanium–and even as an amped-up alloy e-bike version. The range is designed to offer ‘the ultimate in versatility and performance to handle the toughest roads, terrain and weather conditions’. You can get an aluminium CGR for £999, but we’ve gone for the classy-looking Reynolds 725 steel number at £1199. When it…

Commuter bikes all too often inhabit the realm of the mundane, the humdrum, the utilitarian. But that doesn’t need to be the case–as these six super commuters demonstrate. They have flat bars and drops, are made from aluminium and steel, come with a single chainring or two, disc and rim brakes–but each of them is much more than a ‘mere’ commuter bike. None of them have unnecessary suspension forks–hurrah!–but all have more strings to their bows, ensuring they don’t sit in your bike shed untouched, unloved and unridden come the weekend. The bikes are different because not all commutes are created equal. The idea behind this test was to find bikes that could tackle this tester’s present and previous commutes. They’re designed for tarmac, track, towpath or various combinations of…

If, like us, your earliest cycling involved pedalling in metal toe clips, with straps holding your foot in place, you’ll be pleased that the design advances of Look, then Time and Shimano in the mid-to-late 1980s, gave us what we know today as clipless pedals. The convenience of being able to step on and lock in to the pedal, rather than flip up the clip, fiddle your shoe in, then tighten the strap while wobbling along the road can’t be overstated Intuitively fast release with a simple twist is something we take for granted, but it’s infinitely preferable to panicking when you can’t extricate yourself in time. A major plus for clipless pedals is the fact that they automatically release in the event of an accident. Pedals can be easily…

DAN GUILLEMETTE SPECIALIST CYCLING PERFORMANCE PHYSIOTHERAPIST AT CHHP AND FOR TEAM MITCHELTON-SCOTT “First off, training. If your goal is just to complete the milestone, aim to ride three to four times per week with a couple of longer rides at the weekend–ideally two to four hours. Your longer rides should be done at a good steady pace that you can sustain with a view to completing one 80-85 mile training ride before you take on the event. Try adding some intensity - especially with your shorter rides during the week - it will help build your fitness and stamina. Pay close attention to nutrition and hydration as the biggest barrier to not completing your ride and avoiding the dreaded ‘bonk’. Start getting used to eating and drinking at regular intervals…

THEN OCCASIONAL RIDER NOW REGULAR ROAD BIKER HOW WAS LIFE BEFORE THE BIKE? “I’d always been into bikes, especially MTB–but in more recent years I turned to road cycling - now most of my rides are road.” HOW HAS CYCLING CHANGED YOUR LIFE? “I was physically fit up to my cancer diagnosis which enabled me to recover quicker from initial exploratory operations. My fitness level and strength has dropped considerably mainly due to the ongoing chemotherapy treatment knocking down my red blood cells. But I can still cycle, it’s just more difficult to get the same times on routes I have previously done.” WHAT OTHER BENEFITS DOES CYCLING BRING? “During a ride my mind is taken far away from the day-to-day cancer concerns and chemotherapy side effects, I am always…

The Tour de France is the pinnacle of our sport, the theatre where the best riders on the planet do battle for cycling’s greatest prize. It’s also the arena into which the world’s biggest bike manufacturers pitch their ultimate machines. In this supplement we take a look at 11 of the pro bikes that will be carrying their riders to ecstasy or agony in July, to investigate just what sets them apart from the bikes we ride in our everyday lives… but also what they have in common. A former seven-time winner of the race (now officially a no-time winner) once famously opined that it wasn’t about the bike, but in our Tour Bikes supplement, it definitely is… WEIGHT 7.53kg (M/L) FRAME Reacto CF4 Disc FORK Reacto CF4 Disc GEARS…