Table of contents for Issue 76 in Cyclist Australia

There was the live feed on SBS, the YouTube recaps, the social media clips – news and parodies – and, of course, the many hours of podcast analysis to get through every day. Hate it or love it, one of the top rating cycling podcasts this Tour and for many previous is Lance Armstrong’s The Move. We discuss why that might be dubious as well as Armstrong’s move from pod media to real-life racing in a comment on page 29. (Personally, I disagree with the comment, but Cyclist is a broad church!) Also in issue 76 is the emergence of two new trends. One has been coming for a while: electric pumps. We dive deep into these incredible toys (page 38) and compare some of the leading brands. The second…

Shimano GRX RX827 wireless rear derailleur $829 derailleur, $80 battery, $70 charger, bike.shimano.com Shimano has officially entered the fully wireless gravel game with the launch of the GRX RX827 rear derailleur – marking a major milestone for its GRX ecosystem. This release makes it possible to run a completely wireless 1x12-speed gravel groupset, pairing the RX827 with RX825 Di2 levers, RX820 crankset and brakes, and an XT 10-51T cassette. To complement the 1x setup, Shimano has also introduced a new left-hand brake-only lever – something Sram can’t offer due to its paddle-based shifting design. It’s a subtle but important feature for riders seeking a clean cockpit. Much of Shimano’s tried and true technology is incorporated into the new GRX rear derailleur, including Shadow ES, a chain stabiliser to ensure smooth shifting…

Ricky Feather. Name ring a bell? If you’re a long-time reader of Cyclist the chances are it does, as we’ve covered his acclaimed UK framebuilding business, Feather Cycles, in previous years. What you might not know, however, is that Feather’s lifelong obsession with bikes started not with 700c wheels, but 20-inch ones. ‘The moment I threw my leg over a BMX bike I was obsessed,’ Feather says. ‘I knocked football on the head almost immediately and all I did for about 12 years straight was ride BMX. It took me around the world: the States and all over Europe, just from BMX trips.’ Feather’s earliest memories are all bike-related. He remembers lying about riding without training wheels at the age of three, and the time a friend of his dad’s…

While it might be best known for its fortified wines, the historic town of Rutherglen – a few hours north of Melbourne near the Victoria–New South Wales border – has quietly carved out a special place on the gravel riding map for cyclists seeking both challenge and charm. Rutherglen sits on the Country of the Bangerang people of the Yorta Yorta Nation, just west of Albury. We sneak away from our work desks in Melbourne a little after lunch on a Wednesday, heading north up the Hume Highway. As the kilometres tick by and the sky dips into dusk, the city quickly fades behind us. There’s a particular hush that arrives when you roll through a country town at golden hour mid-week. The shop signs are turned in, road-workers are…

‘We rub two fabrics together under pressure for 10 hours at a time to replicate bibshort friction on long rides’ Stepping into arrivals at Alicante airport, it’s evident this is cycling territory. Elite athletes in team-branded casualwear pull executive-style luggage through the corridors. Towering bike boxes roll along in step, policed by support staff. But Cyclist isn’t heading to the weaving climbs of the Costa Blanca or the sun loungers of Benidorm. Our destination is the town of Yecla, about an hour’s drive inland, which is home to the headquarters of Gobik, one of Spain’s fastest-growing cycling brands and kit supplier to WorldTour teams Ineos Grenadiers, Movistar and FDJ-Suez. Established in 2010 out of the embers of the previous decade’s financial crisis, Gobik is the brainchild of an architect and…

Pristine mountain lakes, towering cliffs that plunge into fjords, ancient woodland, tumbling rivers and endless gravel tracks – these are the scenes that accompany riders on The Bright Midnight self-supported bikebacking adventure in Norway. Competitors start in the mountain village of Tolga, about 250km north of Oslo, and face a 1,100km route of mixed tarmac and gravel with 20,000m of elevation and six and a half days to do it in. The route winds its way through moss and lichen-encrusted forests and past Mardalsfossen, one of Europe’s highest waterfalls where the water plunges 655m. After skirting the coast, it heads inland through Jotunheimen, ‘Home of the Giants’, where glaciers and jagged peaks dominate the landscape of Scandinavia’s highest mountain range. ‘I created this race for people like me who don’t…

Sram’s new Force AXS road groupset has borrowed some of the clothes of its older sibling Red AXS while adding a few neat touches of its own. Measured against Force’s previous update in 2023, which mostly just changed the look, the upgrades this time are wide-ranging and include improved braking, shifting and wireless integration. ‘We wanted to focus on braking, expanding Red’s performance down to Force and Rival, as well as reducing weight,’ says Dan Stefiuk, Sram’s road product manager. ‘This has been achieved via a new shape for the carbon crank arm, a forged carbon pulley cage, an updated rear derailleur shape and a new profile for the levers.’ These weight savings amount to a 183g drop in the 2x Force AXS groupset with spider-based power meter (as seen…

‘Compared to the men’s racing, where there are a few riders – especially one – who win most of the time, in the women’s races it’s much more open.’ So says pro racing photographer Francesco Rachello, and it’s hard to disagree. Over the course of the spring Classics season, while Tadej Pogačar was winning the men’s races seemingly at will, the women’s races were hard-fought and saw multiple different victors. Omloop Het Nieuwsblad went to Lotte Claes, Strade Bianche to Demi Vollering, Trofeo Alfredo Binda to Elisa Balsamo, Milan-San Remo to Lorena Wiebes, Tour of Flanders to Lotte Kopecky, Paris-Roubaix to Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, Amstel Gold to Mischa Bredewold, Flèche Wallonne to Puck Pieterse, Liège-Bastogne-Liège to Kim Le Court… The script was torn up time and again, making for exciting, unpredictable…

They call this northern part of the country ‘Green Spain’, and when I look out of the window of the plane as it nears Asturias airport, I can see how it got its name. Verdant forests spread back from the coast, creating a dense strip of dark green that rises into wreaths of mist on the higher ground. In the distance I can make out the bald, white rock turrets of the Picos de Europa mountain range, and I know that hidden somewhere in this prehistoric-looking landscape are some of the most feared climbs in cycling. I imagine the organisers of the Vuelta a España, having arrived late to the Grand Tour party compared to their French and Italian counterparts, set out to make their race the toughest of the…

It was only a matter of time, really. Cervélo has always been an aero bike company. Its P-Series TT and triathlon bikes are legendary, its S-Series roadies are winning races on the regular. Now the Canadian crew has officially given us a fully fledged aero gravel bike. Just look at the thing and you see an S-Series road bike, don’t you? Cervélo’s iconic seat tube hugging the rear wheel and the flat handlebars shadowing the stem faceplate are both hallmarks of S bikes past and present. Add to that the 48-tooth front chain ring, the 380mm handlebars, 165mm cranks and 42mm slick tyres, and yep, this is definitely set up for those who want to ride fast. But what makes it a gravel bike as opposed to an all-road bike…

The SuperX name has heritage within the Cannondale brand. It first appeared in 2010 attached to a dedicated cyclocross bike, but in 2021 the original SuperX was replaced by the SuperSix Evo SE and CX. The change in name only served to cause confusion – was it essentially a road bike with bigger clearances, a gravel bike with a cross build, or a cross bike with gravel leanings? In many ways it was all of the above, so Cannondale decided that its naming conventions needed better clarity. This latest update brings the SuperX name back, repositioning the bike as a race-focussed gravel machine that can double up for cyclocross duties. Speed is the main focus, so aerodynamics has become an increasingly important part of the gravel racing bike’s makeup. Cannondale…

Nestled among the jagged pinnacles of the Dolomites at the rock summit of the 2,239m Passo Pordoi is a blue-green bronze monument that commemorates the Italian legend Fausto Coppi. The five-time Giro d’Italia winner crossed the Pordoi in first place on five occasions between 1947 and 1954, etching his name into cycling folklore. The monument depicts his heroic cresting of the summit, cheered on by boisterous spectators, with the imposing saw-toothed peak of the 2,950m Sass Pordoi framing his glory. Even when you manage to recover your breath from the steep bends, it will be taken away by the spellbinding scenery ‘I was first over the summit there five times, maybe because whenever I was in that area I could breathe beautifully,’ he once said. Brutality and beauty: that is…

Lachlan Morton is a hard man to tie down. The Australian rider, born and raised in Port Macquarie, began his career in traditional fashion, leaving home to race in Europe and America, building a palmarès that included victory at the Tour of Utah in 2016 and appearances at the Vuelta a España and Giro d’Italia. However, the pro race scene didn’t really suit him. Morton was happier taking on less formal but more gruelling solo challenges that captured the imagination and built a loyal following of fans. His team, EF Education-EasyPost, was quick to spot the value of this so released Morton from standard racing duties to concoct a calendar of gravel races, ultra-endurance events and record attempts that it called Far Beyond. Morton found himself flying around the world,…

Every time someone has asked me over the years what light they should buy, I have said ‘the one you feel safe with’. But there has been a massive improvement in bike lights over the past 10 or so years, and now that we’ve exhausted what’s possible in terms of lumens, blinking patterns, water resistance, battery life, charging capabilities, mounting systems (and probably a dozen more things), it’s time for cyclists to normalise a once-niche category: radars. Radars have been around for about a decade, the market dominated by one brand beginning with G and rhyming with… well, not much really! If you’re new to the concept, radars sense a car coming and display it on your bike computer or watch. As the car gets closer, an icon on your…

Most of Trek’s parts and accessories have traditionally been marketed under its Bontrager sub-brand, but over the last year or so Trek has been reserving the Bontrager name for components, while its apparel and soft goods get the Trek name alongside its bikes. Trek has used the rebrand as an opportunity to overhaul its performance road shoe line, releasing four new models last year that covered the mid to high-end categories. Unsurprisingly given their $750 price, the RSL Knits sit at the top of the new tree. Compared to the cheaper shoes in Trek’s lineup, the RSL Knits come with flashier materials, the best Boa dials and top-grade carbon soles, but there are some consistent themes across the range. All four models have insoles made using Rise By Bloom, which…