Table of contents for September 2020 in Cyclist

For anyone unfamiliar with the concept, Everesting is the challenge whereby you have to accumulate the same height as Mount Everest – 8,848m – in a single ride, on a single climb, by repeating it over and over again. During the coronavirus lockdown period everyone has been at it, from top pros to that annoyingly keen rider from your club (if you don’t know who that is, it’s you). Even Cyclist is doing it. In this issue our intrepid cyclo-mountaineer Marcus Leach scales the north face of Mill Hill in South Wales over and over for the best part of 16 hours in a valiant bid to understand what the point of it all is (see p112). And this is my big worry. Unless we can get past this trend…

The Pro Teams are the raciest in a range of four sunglasses from Rapha that uses its new ROSE lens technology. That stands for ‘Rider Optimised Surface Enhancement’, a jazzed-up way of saying the lens’s base colour attempts to boost contrast so road details are easier to pick out and the transition between light and dark is easier to adjust to. The lenses have all the treatments you would expect, as well as a ‘military grade’ anti-fogging treatment, which Rapha says prevents them from fogging even under direct breathing. That will no doubt be useful when riding, but quite how you’ll be able to give them a quick pre-ride buff without that breath-fog remains to be seen.…

What is success? Money? Power? Beating your mates up a climb? It’s different for everyone, but there’s one definition that holds universal – following a dream and realising it. Which is exactly what Hesson Labs’ founder Tom Robinson has done, because a few months ago he quit his job, moved into a workshop, sunk all his money into tools and is now officially a framebuilder. Yet despite the ink having barely dried on the self-employed tax form – and despite Robinson being just 25 years old – there’s a wealth of experience that has led up to this point. Life in study ‘I grew up riding lots of bikes, lots of BMX, got into the fixed gear scene, mountain bike, everything to do with bikes. I worked in bike shops…

Quinoa is the ultimate grain,’ says The Cycling Chef, Alan Murchison, ‘and this is perfect as a recovery meal or as a lunchtime meal ahead of an evening ride. There is not a cyclist I advise who hasn’t had this meal and loved it.’ Held in reverence by the Incas, quinoa (in fact technically a seed) packs a serious nutritional punch, with twice as much protein as white rice and three-quarters the carbs, and it is high not just in vitamins and minerals but flavonoids – trace nutrients that have anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer and anti-viral effects. But plain quinoa is a touch on the bland side, so it has been zhuzhed up with the addition of raw veg – which could be anything you fancy, the more the merrier – and…

Motion lotion Amp Human PR Lotion, £30, amphuman.com For decades, sodium bicarbonate has been used by athletes who need to perform near or above their lactate threshold. Explaining why gets very sciencey very quickly, so is best left to an expert like Patrick Dixon, Amp Human’s head of applied sports science. ‘At higher intensities, muscles switch from aerobic to anaerobic metabolism to produce energy. Over time, this leads to a buildup of lactic acid. Almost every athlete has experienced that threshold moment where they can’t maintain their work rate and this is partly due to a change in pH where the body can’t process the lactic acid fast enough. ‘By increasing the amount of sodium bicarbonate outside the muscle cell, a gradient is formed where the extracellular environment is slightly…

The road is wide and empty the whole way up and its surface consistently as smooth as glass The shadows are lengthening as we approach the cream-coloured concrete struts of an arched bridge across a dried-up riverbed. Despite being in the middle of nowhere and carrying nothing more significant than a farm track, the bridge is a local landmark, its distinctive geometric design dating back to the 1930s when the island of Rhodes was part of Italy’s colonial empire. A moped is buzzing towards us from the opposite side of the bridge. As we get closer, it stops and the rider flags us down. He and his female pillion passenger are, appropriately, Italian tourists. In faltering English he points to his map and asks if they are on the right…

Here’s a bike to bring a lump to your throat. This Genesis Zero Team harks back to the days when the manufacturer had its own pro team, the British Continental squad Madison-Genesis, and it proudly displays the team colours on the frame. Sadly the team is no more, having folded at the end of the 2019 season, but the Zero continues to offer a pretty decent carbon race bike at a very reasonable price. I hired this bike from my hosts at Get Active Rhodes, and I was immediately reminded what a solid performer it is. The Zero was launched in 2014 specifically to meet the demands of a pro team that needed a lightweight racer, having been racing on the brand’s steel Volare bikes up to that point. Oddly,…

…GIFTING A RACE TO EDDY MERCKX ‘It was just the two of us left at the end of an elimination race. I’d already beaten him that night so he knew I was very keen. He came alongside me and had a little word in my ear. He said, “Will you let me win this one?” I said, “OK, Eddy.” It was an honour that the greatest rider of all time would ask a favour of me.’ …RACING IN BELGIUM ‘Belgium only has two sports: football and cycling. So when you have some ability on a bike, people want to associate with you. It was better for me there inasmuch as the public liked me. Maybe I was a novelty, but they liked me.’ …TEAM GB AND HIS SON GERMAIN ‘I…

Come Saturday 29th August 2020, 11 weeks after its original start date, the 107th Tour de France sets off from the cycling playground that is Nice on the south coast. Stage 1 is 156km long and contains a few punchy hills scattered along the route, but a lengthy downhill run-in to the finish should ensure that any speculative breakaways are reeled in and the peloton arrives back in Nice in one big bunch. This is a stage for the sprinters. As a breed, sprinters are unique and they require a unique set of skills. They have to be physically capable of riding the same distances and climbing the same mountains as the rest of the peloton, and yet still have enough in the tank to be able to produce over…

The nature of bike development means that, over time, models from different manufacturers start to look the same. As everyone works towards similar goals it tends to iron out the quirks that make a particular model distinctive, and the market becomes homogenised to a certain extent. If you take away the logos, it can require a trained eye to tell the difference between several brands, and yet there is one bike that very much stands apart from the crowd: the Factor One. The bike’s direct lineage can be traced back to Factor’s first bike, the 001, which was designed by motorsport engineers at Bf1systems and was radical to the point of being conceptual. Next came the Vis Vires, which Cyclist reviewed back in issue 26. The first One came next…

We’ve had graphene in jerseys (see previous page) and now the wonder material is being used in a lubricant that claims to be ‘the world’s first hydrocarbon-based water emulsion’ containing ‘high-purity graphene’. As is typical with products said to contain graphene, AbsoluteBlack boasts some impressive performance claims – a single application could last up to 1,800km and may hold ‘sub-five watts of frictional losses for over 900km’. The brand says studies have shown graphene is ‘very effective for friction and wear reduction’, but doesn’t get used much in lubricants owing to its high cost. At least if those performance claims hold up you won’t need to buy a new bottle very often.…

Beast is a boutique carbon component fabricator based in Dresden, Germany. All of its products are made in-house and the Ultra bar is the new crown jewels of Beast’s road range. The immaculate finish belies an ergonomic complexity the brand says is hidden beneath its clean lines of unidirectional carbon fibre. Thus the bar may look conventional, but Beast says it has several features that improve rider comfort while remaining stiff and exceedingly lightweight (218g). The tops have been flattened in a way that Beast says spreads pressure so as to place less stress on nerves in the hands. That squashed-circle profile is exaggerated at the bend round to the hoods. ‘This section has flattened outer edges to allow a relaxed grip when riding on the hoods,’ says Beast’s Anne…

Cyclist: You’re at a training camp in the French Alps before the start of the season on 1st August. How different is it from normal because of Covid-19? Guillaume Martin: Before camp we were tested for Covid. We have to wear masks when we go to the restaurant. But the biggest difference is that we are only five riders and three members of staff. Usually we have more people. There is another small group, including Elia Viviani and the sprinters, training in Livigno in Italy, and some riders are training from home. The team wants us to be in a bubble until we start racing. Cyc: What effect do you think the delayed, shorter season will have on the racing? GM: I think, and I hope, the races will be…

The bicycle is a vehicle with two wheels of equal diameter. The front is steerable, the rear is driven through a system comprising pedals and a chain. So sayeth Article 1, Sub-section 3.007 of the Union Cycliste Internationale’s technical regulations. At this point, most of us are on the same page. It’s the other 55 pages of its bicycle design bible that sometimes cause disagreement. The problems started towards the end of the last millennium. Until then bikes had been built from metal and there wasn’t much bike builders could do to create radical new designs. But in the 1990s, advances in composite materials and aerodynamics led to a golden age of weird and wonderful bicycles that handed their riders a winning advantage – remember that Pinarello Espada bike ridden…

Mark Cavendish is the most successful sprinter in the history of the Tour de France, his 30 stage victories only eclipsed in the all-time list by five-time champion Eddy Merckx. If selected by Bahrain-McLaren, he’ll aim for number 31 in Nice. And if he does win, he can once again thank his incredibly aero riding position. Likewise Caleb Ewan if he wins. Ewan is of a similar stature to Cavendish, which means that his absolute power output can’t equal that of larger, heavier sprinters such as André Greipel. On paper, Ewan’s 1.65m and 67kg is no match for Greipel’s 1.83m and 78kg. ‘That’s why I’ve honed a really low position over time,’ says Ewan. ‘That and my size means I can reduce drag.’ Ewan has taken Cav’s aero position to…

At 90kg I’m a long way from the ideal build for climbing, let alone so much in such a condensed manner, so thank heavens for this dream machine. The Factor O2 VAM is the quintessential climbing bike – its name even comes from the climber’s favourite metric, ‘vertical metres per hour’ – and it is now the weapon of choice for the Israel Start-Up Nation pro squad. I didn’t get a chance to weigh this bike, but I know the disc brake version in this spec comes in at a very light 6.6kg, so I would fully expect this rim brake setup to be even lighter. Factor says the weight is achieved using special additives in the carbon composite and clever moulding. I suspect it may be witchcraft. Either way,…

1 Trek Émonda SLR9 p126 The brand’s lightweight bike has had an aero makeover to make it even faster for the pros, but it comes at a cost if Grand Tours aren’t your thing 2 Factor One p132 A bike that has always dared to be different is now stiffer than ever, and more rapid too. So why is it something of a flawed genius? 3 Pinarello Grevil+ p138 It doesn’t come cheap, but this innovative gravel bike has echoes of the Italian marque’s Dogma on the road – and is a whole heap of fun off it…

Let’s play the game What Will £7,000 Buy You?. Perhaps you could opt for a sloping plot with planning permission for three houses in Pembrokeshire, or a gold and enamel portrait snuff box (possibly Jean-Louis Hauchard) circa 1780, or – as I have just discovered on a car dealer website – a 1974, 6.75-litre V8 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow in metallic brown. Or £7,000 will buy you a Pinarello Grevil+ with no change. Not a single penny. Exotically sourced Grevil sounds like the phonetic spelling of how Borat would say ‘gravel’, but the more important part of the name is the ‘+’ on the end. It indicates that there are two Grevils in Pinarello’s range, the standard Grevil made from Torayca T700 carbon fibres and the pimped up Grevil+ made from…

Hot on the ergonomically engineered heels of DMT’s KR1 knit shoes (as worn by Elia Viviani to multiple wins last year) comes the Italian marque’s SH1, a ‘hybrid’ in the sense it combines knitted uppers with touches from more traditional models. As such, just over half of the SH1 is knitted and formed around a last, providing a variable-thickness, highly malleable structure that promises to conform and flex with feet. The idea is that not every size 42 is born equal, and the foot benefits from being able to flex during the pedal stroke, meaning that although power transfer dictates a stiff sole, comfort for many is found in more flexible uppers. The knit’s 3D lattice-like structure is by nature highly breathable, however the SH1’s aren’t just a summer fling…

Whether it’s a comedy gig or the political spectrum, it matters where you sit, and where bike saddles are concerned the industry seems to be converging on one place: short-nosed saddles. These allow more forward rotation of the pelvis, which in theory means a rider can sustain a lower, faster position for longer. And who doesn’t like pain-free speed? A central cut-out aids soft tissue relief, and the weight has been kept to around 170g thanks to a carbon shell and rails. There’s even a neat mount to discreetly house Bontrager’s Blendr rear light.…

1 CAFÉ DU CYCLISTE RIDE PACK £26, cafeducycliste.com How does the Moon cut his hair? Eclipse it. And how does the discerning cyclist with a penchant for Gallic flair stow valuables? In Café du Cycliste’s Ride Pack, a waterproof fabric, water-resistant zippered pouch for phones, money, keys or anything else up to 155 x 78 x 25mm in size, such as some smaller Penguin Classics or a doubled-up Tesco Finest sandwich. 2 HOPE ROAD CL ROTOR £65, hopetech.com In certain circles, not being a dad is a bit of a faux pa. In other circles, not having those circles made out of laser-cut stainless steel with bevelled edges and riveted to an aluminium carrier is even more of a misstep. Especially if that circle is a disc brake rotor made…

There were three months between the last WorldTour race of the 2019 season and the first of the 2020 season – 91 days, to be precise. The season began at the Tour Down Under in Australia in late January with the usual sense of a sport emerging from hibernation, in shiny new kit, on sparkling new bikes. But the off-season was dwarfed by the 143 days between Paris-Nice – the last race before Covid-19 halted sport – and Strade Bianche, the first race since the restart. What’s more, they were not ordinary off-season days but days characterised by uncertainty, anxiety and fear. Days that saw some stuck inside their homes for weeks on end. For cyclists, who thrive on routine and competition, this period posed particular problems. It also created…

The basic theory goes like this: haemoglobin is the protein in red blood cells responsible for carrying oxygen and removing carbon dioxide, therefore increase haemoglobin mass and you’ll be a faster rider. Theory is a wonderful thing, but how do you go about doing that? Training at altitude has long been one method. Then there’s, ahem, EPO doping. But now a paper published in the Experimental Physiology journal may have identified a third way: training in heat. The study’s authors took 23 elite-level cyclists of comparable age, shape and fitness and assessed all manner of metrics including haemoglobin mass, lactate threshold and 15-minute power. They then split into two groups: CON (for control), which undertook five hour-long sessions a week at 15.5°C, 25.1% humidity, and HEAT, which did the same…

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As a youngster in south London, more than anything Maurice Burton wanted a bike to go riding with his cousin Dexter. The son of a Jamaican father and an English mother, ‘My upbringing was quite strict,’ he tells us at his bike shop in south London. ‘Each time I had to build the courage to ask my dad, and each time the answer was the same, which was no.’ Burton’s solution was to liberate a broken bike from a nearby garden. Meeting his cousin on Blackfriars Bridge, the pair would spend any free time riding. Burton was soon aware he was faster than the riders they met out on the roads, and a school trip to Herne Hill Velodrome would provide his talent with the direction it needed. It was…

On a sunny day, with vast green slopes close at hand and picturesque mountainscapes beyond, the Col d’Aubisque is one of the most peaceful and beautiful places in the world. As you climb its steep but stunning final slopes the only blip in the vast calmness is likely to be the sound of your breathing as you battle the incline. It’s the same with many other classic climbs, of course, but somehow particularly here it is hard to comprehend that this oasis in the Pyrenees has been the scene of some of the most thrilling and captivating action in bike racing. Its serenity is amplified by the fact that it doesn’t feature high up most lists of ‘must-do climbs’, thanks to its bridesmaid status to the nearby Tourmalet. For example,…

The message from bike manufacturers has always been fairly clear. If you want to go super-fast, choose our aero bike. If you want a forgiving ride then over here, sir/madam, we have the endurance bike. If you want to go up hills like a startled squirrel up a tree then you need our lightweight bike. But things are changing. The lines between models are becoming blurred as frame shapes converge on the same space, and this, the third generation of the Émonda, is a case in point. When Trek launched the Émonda in 2014 the focus was entirely on weight, or the lack of it. The frame was a mere 690g and the top-of-the-line SLR 10 came in at a staggeringly low 4.6kg, meaning the Émonda could rightfully claim to…

Col d’Aubisque p94 Specialized S-Works Prevail II helmet, £200 specialized.com 100% Speedcraft sunglasses, £179.99 freewheel.co.uk Le Col by Wiggins Pro jersey, £120 lecol.cc Le Col by Wiggins Pro bibshorts, £150 lecol.cc Le Col by Wiggins socks, £14 lecol.cc Specialized Torch 3.0 shoes, £210 specialized.com My Own Personal Everest p112 Kask Protone helmet, £199 velobrands.co.uk Rapha Core Rain jacket, £100 rapha.cc Rapha Brevet Lightweight jersey, £120 rapha.cc Rapha Merino Sleeveless base layer, £55 rapha.cc Rapha Pro Team Training bibshorts, £140, and socks, £15 rapha.cc Giro Empire shoes, £274.99 zyrofisher.co.uk Jewel Of The Med p62 HJC Ibex 2.0 helmet, £200 saddleback.co.uk Galibier Surveillance sunglasses, £42 galibier.cc Rapha Pro Team jersey, £120 rapha.cc Rapha Pro Team bibshorts, £195 rapha.cc Rapha Merino socks, £15 rapha.cc Rapha Explore shoes, £220 rapha.cc Bikes p125 TREK HJC…