Innehållsförteckning för February 2026 från Cyclist

Cyclist: You’ve had your first season with Tudor Pro Cycling, having joined them after ten years with QuickStep. Has it given you new motivation? Julian Alaphilippe: Maybe just a new appetite because I’ve never lost motivation in my career. It was a good time to change direction, to join a project that gives me something extra, to have the privilege of being part of something almost new, a team that wants to grow and go to the top. That means having my role of leader but also giving my experience to the new guys. They are mostly happy to ride for me, but also happy to see me riding for them. That gives me a lot of pleasure because I feel useful. Cyc: Who were your guides when you were a young…

If Gold Hill looks familiar, that’s because it was made famous by the Ridley Scottdirected 1973 advert for Hovis The fluidity of well-honed souplesse; soaring Alpine passes; the dynamism of a peloton in full flight… There are plenty of examples to demonstrate that cycling is one of the most graceful sports on the planet. However it also comes with a number of indignities: skin-tight kit; clacking and slipping on a cafe floor; being forced to push your bike up a steep hill. For most cyclists the first two are unavoidable, but usually the third can be surmounted with a well-timed energy gel and a big sprocket. That is unless your route takes you up Shaftesbury’s Gold Hill. Just ask the Hovis baker’s boy. If Gold Hill looks familiar, that’s because…

‘Five years ago, after long races I’d always end up running to the bathroom. Now I can consume up to 120g of carbohydrates per hour without any issues,’ said Tadej Pogačar after his historic Giro-Tour double of 2024. And in the Women’s WorldTour a similar message came from Demi Vollering after winning the Tour de France Femmes in 2023: ‘Before the race we make a food plan, looking at the stages and then seeing the race hour-by-hour. I then know what I want to eat and make sure I get those 100g of carbohydrates every hour.’ It seems that at cycling’s top table a culinary trend is taking place. The world’s strongest riders are consuming huge numbers of calories on the bike, from energy bars to gels, blocks and drinks,…

I once met a rider called Mauricio Ardila, a Colombian escarabajo (if you’re a good climber in Colombia they call you a beetle), who said he bought his house with a payoff from Italian rider Paolo Savoldelli. Savoldelli had been leading the 2005 Giro d’Italia until he started to come unstuck on the penultimate stage over the Colle delle Finestre. With the maglia rosa slipping away, he turned to Ardila – who was riding on an opposing team – and promised him a slice of his winnings if he could help him cling to his lead. Ardila duly did, Savoldelli got his second Giro title, and I received an anecdote that I’m now linking tenuously to the new BMC Teammachine SLR 01. You see, Savoldelli went on to ride for…

1 Lizard Skins DSP Ultra bar tape From £47.99, silverfish-uk.com Why do origami artists make such bad poker players? They’re always folding. They’d probably be better at wrapping bar tape, so worth tapping one up when fitting Lizard Skins’ new DSP Ultra. Made for both road and gravel, it features DuraSoft polymer construction, which helps with vibration-damping and durability. It has an extra-grippy texture and reliable adhesive for all conditions and comes in several thicknesses and loads of colour options. 2 Smart Lever Bead Lever £14.50, smartlever.uk Why did the keyboard factory worker lose his job? He kept missing shifts. Why did Smart Lever create the Bead Lever? To easily separate tyres from wheel rims when they get stuck with tubeless sealant. It’s less than 9cm long so fits into…

The cycling market is a crowded place, but the gulf between the big names and the small ones is particularly stark. Smaller brands such as Pearson can’t compete with the huge R&D budgets, buying power and economies of scale of the big players, so they need to find a point of difference. That’s why Pearson’s new CEO, Scott Davies, is taking the one path that big brands can’t go down: a more personal service. ‘When I took the reins at Pearson the vision was simple: build the brand into a company I’d want to buy from,’ he says. ‘In particular, that meant improving the purchase process and aftercare options beyond what is typically offered elsewhere. Our sales model starts with fit – what works best for the customer – rather…

Having different shaped rims between front and rear wheels is becoming a more widespread feature on high-end aero wheelsets. Brands can manipulate test results to prove essentially whatever they like, but the rationale behind the trend holds water. Front and rear rims are subject to different airflow conditions – cleaner, laminar flow over the front and messy, turbulent flow across the rear – so should therefore be different shapes to best manage those respective conditions. In most cases, such as with wheels from the likes of Enve, Reserve and Hunt, this has manifested in blunter, shallower rims at the front to prioritise light weight and stability, and pointier, deeper rims at the rear to regain some control over the chaotic airflow. Roval’s new Rapide CLX III wheels flip that logic…

Hot on the heels of Cervélo’s S5 aero race bike – reviewed last issue – comes the American company’s new gravel racer, the Áspero-5. It’s appropriate: the gravel bike is the result of Cervélo applying its WorldTour-honed aerodynamic nous off-road, and the frame has been radically transformed versus its predecessor. A once slender silhouette has morphed into a beefier shape with a tyre-hugging seat tube and deepened head tube that, while it doesn’t extend to the bayonet steerer extreme of the S5, is clearly inspired by its design. ‘The new Áspero-5 is a no-holds-barred aero race bike but optimised for off-road use,’ says Cervélo’s engineering manager, Scott Roy. ‘It’s intended to appeal to three types of rider: serious gravel racers, “dirt-curious” roadies and European cycling enthusiasts.’ ‘It’s intended to appeal…

Slovenia has always been a great place to ride a bike. Just ask Tadej Pogačar, who grew up riding the country’s roads, honing his prodigious natural abilities on his way to global cycling superstardom. Pogačar isn’t the only over-achieving Slovenian in the peloton either. There’s Primož Roglič, a five-time Grand Tour winner; Matej Mohorič, stage winner at all three Grand Tours, 2023 UCI Gravel World Champion and a former Milan-San Remo winner; and Urška Žigart, a multiple national road and time-trial champion. It’s a remarkable roll of honour for a country that ranks just 38th in Europe in terms of size, with a population of just over two million. It’s hard to think of many other examples in sport of a nation punching so far above its weight. Maybe there’s…

When planning a cycling trip, Europe offers two main options: overcrowded destinations with good coffee, smooth tarmac and a sense of community, or hidden gems that require a bit more planning but pay off in beautiful roads so quiet you can hear the tumbleweed. This ride is definitely the latter. I’m in Gérgal, a small town in the south of Spain about half an hour north of Almería city on the edge of the Tabernas Desert, which unsurprisingly doesn’t have quite the same level of resources as your Mallorcas, Tenerifes and Gironas. But I’m told that what it lacks in infrastructure and starspotting opportunities, it more than makes up for in tranquillity, climbing and actual star-spotting. Joining me for the ride is Dirk, who like many European retirees spends his…

With a name that could win you a Scrabble game, Romania’s Transfăgărășan is revered locally with the title of ‘the most spectacular road’. And while the stunning setting among the Carpathian Mountains and Transylvanian forest supports this claim, that tagline is rooted in a history clouded by dictatorship. Step forward Nicolae Ceaușescu, Romania’s long-term communist leader and a man whom Mikhail Gorbachev dubbed ‘the Romanian Führer’. Anxious in the wake of the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, Ceaușescu sought to bolster his defences in case of any move to expand the Warsaw Pact to its southerly neighbour. As such, the Romanian leader homed in on the Carpathian Mountains, authorising the construction of a 150km highway for strategic military use to fend off what he perceived as ‘a great danger to…

The food, the culture, the art, the accent, the sheer bloody romance of the place… yet my favourite thing about France is that you’re never more than a layby away from a bloke sat in a plastic chair staring at a road. Behind him is invariably a motorhome, beside him almost certainly his long-suffering wife, but whatever the specifics, I’ve always found this bewildering and beguiling. We’re pedalling past one of the most wonderfully blue expanses of water I have seen in some time at the tail end of a glorious French summer, vertiginous mountains on all sides, and although I too want to live a life with my shirt off, I can’t understand why this fellow and his partner have positioned themselves at car exhaust level on the side…

On first inspection, Q36.5’s Unique Pro road shoes don’t look particularly unique at all. The absence of a traditional tongue is similar to Specialized’s new S-Works Ares 2, while the sock-shaped mesh panel is reminiscent of Canyon’s Tempr CFR shoes. Flip the Unique Pro upside down and the magnificently sculpted raw carbon outsole – proudly stamped with ‘Made in the Dolomites’ – looks much the same as the sole used on the Nimbl Ultimate Glide shoes. However, Q36.5 claims that the Unique Pro shoes do have elements that aren’t found on other shoes, and which were included at the request of pro riders such as Tom Pidcock and his colleagues at Pinarello-Q36.5 Pro Cycling. ‘The outsole’s thickness was reduced to 2.2mm, which lowered stack height while meeting the team’s stiffness…

Legend has it that Ernest Hemingway once bet a rival he could write a six-word story that would make the reader cry. The result was: ‘For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.’ I found a real-life cycling equivalent to this in the classifieds of a Facebook group I’m a member of: ‘Tandem for sale. Surplus to requirements.’ It turned out I knew the person selling the bike. About eight years ago we’d gone on a ride together and found ourselves stranded at dusk in the middle of Scotland’s remotest glen without lights or a phone signal. He was a Super Randonneur, a title awarded to audax riders who manage a series of punishingly long rides in a year. Before taking up cycling he’d been an accomplished mountaineer who named his three…