Innehållsförteckning för September 2019 från Cyclist

Something strange is happening. At a time when big road races are getting more TV coverage than ever, how is it that for a few days in June we found our attention being dragged away from the glamour of the WorldTour to some muddy trails in Britain? While his teammates were riding to an unremarkable 27th place at the Tour de Suisse, EF Education First’s Lachlan Morton was setting off from Land’s End on a Cannondale Topstone gravel bike, fully laden with bikepacking bags. As part of the team’s ‘Alternative Calendar’, Morton was taking part in the inaugural GBDuro, a self-supported multi-day race from one end of Britain to the other, open to all-comers and with much of the route following off-road trails. Being a seasoned pro, Morton had little…

£209, saddleback.co.uk Stages’ original Dash computer was really just a screen that displayed data generated by the company’s power meter. As such it was a useful training device for users to follow and analyse sessions prescribed by Stages ‘Link’, a software that formulates training plans based on a rider’s goals. But the unit was a little too limited to compare with the more complete bike computers on the market. The new Dash M50 seeks to address the old version’s shortcomings. It incorporates mapping capabilities and a colour screen in an attempt to make sure it can now do everything its competitors can. The M50 has a claimed 12.5-hour battery life, OSM base maps preloaded as standard and an ‘EverBrite’ 2.25in display that should mean you’ll be able to find your…

£224, sciconsports.com Scicon is known for protection. It protects your bike, kit and accessories with its bags and packs. It protects your undercarriage with its anatomically designed Elan saddle, and now it protects your eyes with these Aerocomfort sunglasses. The frames are made from a light, tough plastic called Grilamid, but the large lenses are the priority. They’re scratch resistant, moisture-phobic and photochromic – you even get a little UV light included in the box to pre-darken them if you want to be über-prepared before heading out for a ride.…

Cyclist: You and co-founder Gerard Vroomen have been credited with introducing aerodynamic design into modern road bikes with the Cervélo Soloist [launched in 2002]. Do you think we’ve now reached peak aero? Phil White: We all seem to think we’ve reached peak aero, but there’s another level of aero, a whole plateau higher. It’s going to take more engineering to get there, though. I’m working at the moment with a small team doing a bunch of stuff for the Olympics where we’ll see some of that. Right now a lot of companies think, ‘Let’s make an aero shape and put some carbon on it,’ and away it goes. But if you want to make it more aero you’re going to have to put some more engineering into it. It’s…

In his 2006 book, The New Spaniards, journalist John Hooper refers to the type of coffee normally served in Spain, torrefacto, as ‘double roasted and finely ground until it is the gastronomic equivalent of Semtex’. ‘The Spaniards’ addiction to torrefacto is all of a piece with a nation in which there is very little that is bland, gentle or reassuringly soft,’ he adds. ‘So is the way in which they use the word descafeinado in a wider, and universally pejorative, sense to mean “watered-down”, “artificial” or “bloodless”.’ What hope for a bicycle race in a nation with such an attitude, where bullfighting and bull running are still popular pastimes, and where no one eats dinner before 10pm? If a Grand Tour is defined by the history of the country that…

Beating your mates to town signs is only part of the benefits of sprint training – it will help you improve in other areas as well. Wattbike’s training consultant, Dr David Nichols, explains that when it comes to going eyeballs-out, an indoor trainer is often the safest place to do it. Fast forward ‘Short, all-out efforts interspersed with short recovery periods give some of the best bangs for your buck,’ says Nichols. ‘Research has demonstrated improvements not only in sprint power, but also gains in aerobic capacity. It’s a two-for-one and especially useful for the time-crunched amateur. ‘Sprint power is trainable in anyone. Big legs are an advantage, yes, but a lot of the benefits come from training the neuromuscular system, enhancing the signalling processes between the brain and the…

Improving your fitness is like building a house. You have to lay the foundations first, and do everything else in the right order. You don’t start with the roof any more than you begin training by doing VO2 max intervals until you puke. For the past three months I’ve been trying to regain the fitness I lost over the winter when I was doing DIY on my new guesthouse in France (ahem, escapetothepyrenees.com). It’s been going well, but recently I noticed my physical improvements had slowed down, so I turned to my coach, Chris McNamara from trainSharp Coaching, for advice. ‘A periodised training programme can be broken down into a macrocycle, mesocycles and microcycles,’ he says. ‘The macrocycle is the longest and provides an overview of your season for long-term…

‘When I interview a rider after a hard stage, I see the emotion and pain on their face and it starts to feel complicated,’ says Eurosport cycling reporter Laura Meseguer, who is tasked with extracting live reactions from suffering athletes. ‘It feels like you’re interrupting a private moment, like you shouldn’t be there. I really admire how they deal with their emotions so publicly. I just try to show empathy and get a few words to help explain to people at home how much this really means.’ ‘We’re in an airless, windowless, soundproof booth in a truck, watching the telly and talking about it’ Ten million spectators line the roads of France for the Tour each year, but most fans inhale the daily drama through the words, pictures, analysis and…

TRAVEL Flights to Tenerife are relatively cheap and you can often find return options for under £100, even at the last minute. Note that Tenerife Norte Airport is the closer of the two local airports to the start line. ACCOMMODATION Cyclist stayed at the Hotel Sandos San Blas (sandos.com) and the Hotel Meliá Hacienda del Conde (melia.com). They both get five stars from us, with the latter closer to the sportive. It also has a dedicated bike centre with stands and tools. Rooms from £99pn. BIKE You won’t struggle to rent or repair a bike here. Bike Point Tenerife (bikepointtenerife.com) has a huge range of high-end machines. With twin stores, it also maintains a fully stocked workshop, along with a showroom and guiding business. THANKS Much appreciation to Christophe, Harald…

THE SPEC  Model WyndyMilla Saw Doctor Groupset Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 Wheels Shimano Dura-Ace C60 Finishing kit WM one-piece aero cockpit, WM carbon aero seatpost, Fabric ALM Ultimate saddle, Continental Competition Tubular 25mm tyres Weight 7.41kg Price £4,325 frameset, approx £10,000 as tested Contact wyndymilla.com D’ve wracked my brain and can’t think of another product (except possibly shoes) that can offer the same degree of personalisation as is possible with a bicycle. I often hear custom bikes likened to bespoke suits, but while a tailor can produce a suit to fit your precise measurements and you get to select the fabrics, the result is still not truly 100% unique to you. After all, you’re limited to picking the fabric from a catalogue or swatch. It’s the same with bespoke kitchens and…

£274.99, selleitalia.com And the award for the longest saddle name goes to… Which is ironic, because Selle Italia’s new SLR Boost is actually its shortest road saddle, knocking 25mm off the nose of the regular SLR to measure 248mm in length. Short saddles, which allow more pelvic rotation for more aggressive ride positions, aren’t new, but this is the lightest in class at 122g. It comes in two widths, 130mm and 145mm, and a more padded women’s version (£154.99, 198g) is available, as are two other rail choices: titanium (£189.99, 158g) and manganese (£119.99, 208g).…

£1,289, huntbikewheels.com Hunt claims its new 48 Limitless Aero Disc wheels are the most aerodynamic of their kind – road disc wheels of up to 50mm depth. So what’s the secret of their wind-cheating prowess? Apparently it’s all down to the massive 34.5mm external width. ‘The wheels are so wide it makes the transition of air very smooth at wider yaw angles, meaning they perform much better,’ says Hunt co-founder Peter Marchment. It also means the rims are as efficient with a set of bulky 30mm tyres as they are with a set of skinny 23mm tyres. Achieving that width required some thoughtful engineering. The rims use an outer carbon sidewall that reinforces the internal structure necessary to support the wide rim bed and tyre walls. That helps keep weight…

You might not have heard of his bikes before but, if his previous employer is to anything to go by, you may already have something in your pocket that Jürgen Putzi had a hand in creating. ‘I worked in the semiconductor industry for nearly 15 years, for a company in Villach, Austria. By the end I was in a management position, so I bought a really expensive bike,’ he says. That company is Lam Research, which you have probably never heard of either, but which develops manufacturing processes that mean ‘today, nearly every advanced chip is built with Lam technology’, from smartphones to home cinema systems to driverless cars. Rink Cycles, which Putzi set up in 2015, couldn’t be further from his old day job, but his previous work in…

1 BRYTON AERO 60 £169.95, i-ride.co.uk The average price of a three-bed in Brighton is £474,507, but for £169.99 you can buy Bryton’s latest bike computer, which has all the square footage of the Earth crammed into its tiny GPS mind, plus it syncs to electronic groupsets to show gear combos and battery life. It offers TrainingPeaks support and a 32 hour run-time. Dimpled casing and slimline mounting are drag-optimised, and at just 71g it’s much lighter than a house, too. 2 STOLEN GOAT SOCKS £9.99 a pair, stolengoat.com Perhaps the only thing more joyous than these riotous socks is the tale of Hertfordshire farmer Jim Arnott, whose Boer goat Scarlet and her three kids were stolen last November, only to be returned following a Facebook campaign. A…

This is a controversial question and if you ask a few nutritionists they’ll probably disagree with each other. You can fuel optimally on a vegan diet, but you will have to pay closer attention to your diet and plan your meals carefully around your training. In short, a vegan diet is one in which you eat only plant-based foods and eliminate all animal products from your diet, so no meat, fish, eggs or dairy. Following a vegan diet is much easier these days because restaurants, supermarkets and shops now offer a range of vegan products and foods. One drawback in sports nutrition terms is that a vegan diet does limit your intake of some key nutrients. If your diet is poorly planned you’re likely to miss out on sufficient protein…

Despite his extreme fitness, natural talent and deep love for riding his bike, Lachlan Morton has had a complicated relationship with the professional side of cycling. His individualism and unorthodox approach has regularly clashed with the dogma of the WorldTour, but while Morton’s path hasn’t been the smoothest it has taught him a lot. ‘In the WorldTour it’s easy to get caught in the bubble, thinking that what you do is more important than it really is,’ he says. ‘I took a break a few years ago and it taught me about balance, gave me a wider perspective. It’s just sport. It’s only as important as you make it and I’m the only one making me do it, so I might as well get what I want out of it.’…

Sometimes a start is hard to find. Particularly that sneaky start to a Strava segment. But climb the Route de la Bonette from the north and the start is simply the point at which you turn off the D900 and cross the wide Ubaye river in the small town of Jausiers. From here you have around 22km of riding to the top of Europe’s highest pass… according to the signs. Except you don’t, because Europe’s highest pass is the 2,770m high Col de l’Iseran, about 200km away. It’s all a bit complicated, but to reach the start of the Bonette’s descent to Nice you only have to climb to 2,715m. But if you want to, you can climb on up round an extra loop to 2,802m, which is then the…

Measured top to bottom, Mount Teide is over seven and a half kilometres tall. The volcano rises from the seafloor off the northeastern coast of Morocco and stops at 3,718m above the surface of the ocean. Even if you only count the bit that sticks out above the sea, its peak remains by far the highest of any Atlantic island. Draped over it like some lunatic Mario Kart track is the route of the Vuelta al Teide sportive. It’s a twisting, meandering 160km with more than 4,000m of ascent, traversing lava fields and rolling through deep ravines. All that’s missing is flaming boulders raining from the sky. Massage is a new one on me. I’m not quite sure of the protocol is it like going to the hairdressers? One section…

THE SPEC  Model Orbea Orca M10i LTD-D 2019 Groupset Shimano Dura-Ace 9170 Di2 Wheels DT Swiss ARC 1400 Dicut 48 DB Finishing kit Vision Metron 4D Compact handlebars, FSA OS-99 stem, FSA K-Force Light seatpost, Selle Italia SLR carbon saddle, Hutchinson Fusion 5 All Season TLR 25mm tyres Weight 7.1kg (size 55) Price £7,599 Contact orbea.com When Orbea began life back in 1840, it didn’t make bicycles. Initially it was a manufacturer of guns and rifles, before turning to bikes in 1930. Intriguingly, it wasn’t alone in having this slightly odd backstory – BSA, later bought by Raleigh, started out as the Birmingham Small Arms Company. That aside, we’re glad that Orbea decided to make bikes and not war, and the flagship Orca is the latest product of its years…

Here Be Dragons Bontrager Ballista Mips helmet, £130 trekbikes.com Oakley Radarlock Path sunglasses, £195 oakley.com Santini Redux jersey, £135 zyrofisher.co.uk Gore C3 mitts, £24.99 gorewear.com Santini Redux bibshorts, £155 zyrofisher.co.uk Santini 365 Classe socks, £13 zyrofisher.co.uk Specialized Torch 3.0 shoes, £210 specialized.com Cime de la Bonette Endura Pro SL helmet, £149.99 endurasport.com 100% Speedcraft sunglasses, £139.99 madison.co.uk Endura Pro SL Lite II jersey, £74.99 endurasport.com Endura Pro SL II bibshorts, £119.99 endurasport.com Endura Pro SL II socks, £14.99 endurasport.com Specialized S-Works 7 shoes, £325 specialized.com Bikes ORBEA Kask Protone helmet, £199 velobrands.co.uk Poc Crave sunglasses, £215 2pure.co.uk Rapha Brevet Lightweight jersey, £120 rapha.cc Rapha Cargo bibshorts, £195 rapha.cc Rapha Pro Team socks, £15 rapha.cc Specialized S-Works 7 shoes, £325 specialized.com PROVA Abus Airbreaker helmet, £229.99 abus.com Roka GP sunglasses, £215…

£349, hexr.com What does a brand new unboxed TV and a cyclist’s head have in common? They’re both protected by more or less the same material – expanded polystyrene. British brand Hexr aims to change all that. Hexrs are made from a polymer honeycomb structure and are custom 3D printed to each customer’s head. The result is a helmet that Hexr claims trumps the competition in safety terms. ‘The average deceleration in a CE test is 150G [representing the force encountered by the head on impact]. The safety threshold is 250G but we regularly achieve figures as low as 80G or 90G,’ says Hexr co-founder Jamie Cook. He claims testing on 32 helmets at the University of Strasbourg confirmed Hexr’s helmets were 26% safer than rival helmets, even those with…

£419.99, madison.co.uk It was 25 years ago that DT Swiss patented its ‘Star Ratchet’ freehub design with its original DT Hügi hubs. It’s been virtually unchanged ever since, but here we have its first major overhaul. DT dubs the system ‘Ratchet EXP’, whereby the inner ratchet ring is now screwed directly into the hub shell and wound over the top of the driveside bearing, which can now be pushed further away from its non-driveside counterpart. The result, says DT Swiss, is a system that is 15% stiffer, more durable, easier to maintain and lighter.…

When CSC’s Ivan Basso attacked on the final climb of the 2004 Giro di Lombardia, it looked like the efforts the Saeco team had made over the preceding 240km would come to nothing. Damiano Cunego, the 23-year-old Saeco rider who had announced his arrival five months earlier by winning four stages and the overall at the Giro d’Italia, had launched his bid for a first Monument with just under 15km to go, riding away from a small leading group on the descent of the penultimate climb. For a short time it had the look of a successful move, with the ‘Little Prince’ pulling out a decent lead, but Basso led the pursuit of the young Italian alongside Rabobank’s Michael Boogerd, and the catch was made well before the final climb.…

Planning a good route is arguably the most important factor in ensuring any ride is enjoyable. It’s not always easy, though. Technology often can’t differentiate the needs of a cyclist from those of a car driver, or a road cyclist from a mountain biker. If you’ve ever been face-to-face with a muddy track on a bike with 23mm tyres, you’ll understand the frustration. Komoot is proving that with clever tech and well-curated community insights, you can remove the threat of the unknown while retaining a sense of adventure in any route. Komoot already has 8 million users worldwide, and has proved an especially useful resource for those looking to plan routes into the unknown. Whether it’s ultra-endurance riders like Josh Ibbett or Lael Wilcox choosing a route for an event…

Legend has it that the lake was home to a dragon with huge wings, a black tongue and fiery red eyes Cycling towards the crest of the Passo Staulanza, on a circuit of the colossal 3,220m Monte Civetta in the Veneto Dolomites, something extraordinary happens. As we slice around a bend in the road, the emerald-green forest miraculously transforms into a sparkling world of white and silver. It’s a bright summer’s day but an eerie combination of the slanting early-morning light and a gauze-thin mist has triggered an optical illusion that turns every pine tree, plant and patch of lichen various shades of ivory, alabaster and pearl. It’s a winter landscape without a single flake of snow or frost. This phantasmagorical scene endures for half a kilometre before we turn…

Everything in Taiwan makes music. Für Elise and A Maiden’s Prayer chime from dumpster trucks on their morning rounds; lift buttons produce eight-bit ditties; bite-sized symphonies announce arrivals and departures through every 7-Eleven door (of which Taiwan has 5,222 – you’re never more than 50m from a 7-Eleven, they say); and the vending machines – every can of Coke comes with its own tiny polyphonic pop band. On the face of it there is a real joie de vivre on this famously heart-shaped island. Each day at dusk, old folks in floppy hats power-walk around parks and perform tai chi. Night markets are amok with laughing school kids still in their neat uniforms. Robots dressed like human chefs produce noodles and delicacies such as peanut ice cream on crispy chicken,…

Tenerife has a low crime rate. Which is good, because if you left this Focus sitting around outside a cafe stop in the UK, someone would have it off you before you’d ordered your espresso. And they’d be away quick too. With aerodynamic tube shapes, the Focus Izalco Max is a very fast bike. Loaned to me by Bike Point Tenerife (bikepointtenerife.com), the Izalco’s integrated fork and seatpost keep it clean and modern looking, while disc brakes and electronic gearing limit the amount of energy needed to keep it under control. With a compact racing position and lengthy seatpost, it’s quick, but not so aggressive or rigid as to make longer days in the saddle uncomfortable.…

THE SPEC  Model Prova Speciale Groupset Sram eTap AXS HRD Wheels Zipp 303 NSW Disc Finishing kit Zipp SL-70 Ergo bars, Zipp SL Speed stem, Prova titanium seat topper, custom Selle Italia Flite saddle, Vittoria Corsa 2.0 28mm tyres Weight 7.99kg (55cm) Price £11,200 as tested (approx £4,500 frameset, £840 paint) Contact provacycles.com Just when every high-end bike seems to be converging on the same style – semi-aero tube profiles, dropped seatstays, disc brakes, fully integrated cabling – along come three in quick succession to alleviate this often brilliant but mundane predictability. Last month I was fortunate enough to test the beautiful Cicli Barco XCR; a few months prior I reviewed the perfectly balanced Argonaut Road Disc; this month I’m already getting separation anxiety thinking about having to return the…

Was it really only three months ago that Great Britain could boast about having won five consecutive Grand Tours? It was a sign of just how dominant our little island nation had become in the sport of cycling, like an echo of the days of the Empire when Britain ruled over a quarter of the world’s land mass. We were invincible. But then a chap from Ecuador won the Giro d’Italia, and everyone rushed to Wikipedia to find out who Richard Carapaz was. A month later, Chris Froome blew his nose in a gust of wind, and – kapow! – the stock of our riders seemed to drop quicker than Julian Alaphilippe on a technical descent. I blame it on Simon Yates. Fresh (or not so fresh, as it turned…