Table of contents for September 2022 in Cycling Plus

We recently decamped to Denmark for a weekend spent initiating ourselves in one of the world’s great cycling cultures (and devouring plenty of pickled fish on rye). Deputy ed John spent a discombobulating 16-minute thrill ride in the back of Nairo Quintana’s team car during the Tour de France’s TT in Copenhagen (p62), while I got the more sedate six-hour experience of the Viking Gran Fondo in Jutland (p120). Both highlighted the immense passion for cycling in Scandinavia, both the slick cycling infrastructure, and both what a top-rate cycling holiday destination this would be. Skål! matthew.baird@ourmedia.co.uk Your experts Katherine Moore Tech reviewer Reviewer, writer and presenter Katherine is a gravel bike expert and experienced bikepacker. She gives her judgment on the best sub-£2k gravel bikes in this month's major bike…

Beryl Burton wasn’t just ahead of the opposition. She was out of sight. Literally. She dominated 1960s British women’s cycling with outlier stats of (Australian cricketer) Don-Bradman-like beyondness. We’re talking 24 national titles and several world titles, in track and road racing. She was also unbeatable in domestic women’s time-trial between 1959 and 1983. Eddy Merckx, tough? Hah! He never toiled on a rhubarb farm then cycled home to make the family tea before a race. Beryl did. She was a West Yorkshire housewife, lifelong amateur – and cycling phenomenon. Among her catalogue of records, her 1967 mark of 277.25 miles in 12 hours is legendary. Unsurpassed by a woman until 2017, it wasn’t bettered by a man for two years. En route to setting it she overtook leader Mike…

Each issue, with her ear to the world of UK cycling infrastructure, Laura reports on the setbacks our community faces – and how we’re fighting back Blimey, do I love cycling. This week I’ve ridden 15 miles in my lunch break on a friend’s cargo bike, collecting second-hand garden furniture (I’m trying to cut my carbon footprint). I’ve also spent three hours after work riding off-road through Epping Forest with a women’s and gender-variant’s ‘gravel club’, laughing and weaving between the trees in the growing dusk. Add to that riding my cheap commuter bike across town with a heavy bag, leaving the bike at the station overnight and returning home the next day. Finally, I’ve also ridden my big pink ebike 20 miles back and forth across central London one…

• Riding, racing and bikepacking on gravel since its 21st century conception, Katherine has swung a leg over everything from budget models to off-road superbikes and boutique builds, but still has a keen eye for quality at a reasonable price. THE GRAVEL BIKE is quite a new entry in the cycling world, but it makes a lot of sense for all sorts of riders, even if you don’t spend all your time on the rough stuff. The design usually means these bikes are just as capable riding on the road as they are off-road, so they could work well for the daily commute – especially if yours takes in mixed surfaces (or badly maintained roads) – while doubling up as a machine that could take in weekend rambling, or even…

Weight 10.7kg (XS) Frame SmartForm C2 Alloy Gears Shimano 10-speed 11-34 Brakes Shimano GRX 400 hydraulic disc Wheels WTB ST i23 TCS 700c Finishing kit Full carbon fork with triple fork mounts, Fizik Aliante saddle, Vittoria Terreno Dry tyres 700c WHILE THE CARBON Topstone is now well established, Cannondale’s latest Topstone Alloy brings the brand’s gravel platform to a more affordable price. The £1,800 Topstone 2 sits in the middle of the alloy range, and it comes in five frame sizes. The 2022 frame is available in this ‘midnight’ colourway, or olive green, both with a matt black carbon fork with cage and mudguard mounts. The frame is made from Cannondale’s ‘SmartForm C2’ alloy, with smoothed welds giving an appealing finish. The dropped seatstays are curved towards the rear axle,…

SMITH MAY BE better known for its eyewear, along with ski and mountain bike lids, but it does also offer a sharp line in road-going helmets. The Ignite is the veteran US brand’s aerodynamically optimised road helmet and it’s striking in its small volume and generous vents. While it has plenty of smooth surfacing, it also has four huge forward-facing vents that vary from 35mm wide on the brow to 85mm long on its flanks. Most of the rear is taken up with a massive 120mm wide and 40mm deep exhaust port. Large cutaway channels on the inside of the helmet then channel air through, keeping you cool and sweat at bay. Smith has used Koroyd (ultralight, thin plastic tubes in a honeycomb formation that are designed to crumple on…

Ere Tenaci Handlebar Cover £35 Weight 162g Width 35mm Colours Black; Moss green/Black; Army sand The Ere Tenaci Handlebar Cover is a hybrid concept that mixes mountain bike-style grips with traditional bar tape. Rubber grips slide over the drops while tape is used to wrap the top of the bars. Fitting is simple and the grips slide easily into place. The guidance given is that the distinctive finger position ‘knuckleheads’ should be in line with the bar, but I found it more comfortable to angle them slightly inwards. Ultimately it was the aggressively ridged finger pattern that did for me. I liked the sureness of grip, especially in the wet when it has a reassuringly firm hold, and it works well to suck up vibration. However, there’s no room for…

Vredestein 38mm Aventura Gravel Tyres £50 each Weight: 428g per tyre Measured width: 37mm ETRTO tyre size: 38-622 TPI (threads per inch): 120 The Aventuras feel quite speedy from set-up. Appreciably light, they measure 37mm when fitted – slightly smaller than their advertised 38mm width. They’re simple to fit onto my 24mm rim wheels, but when running them tubeless they lose 3-4psi between rides. The tyres are almost the perfect combination of supple, fast and grippy, giving a great ride though. Quick to pick up and maintain the pace on the tarmac, once off the road, the Aventuras float over uneven surfaces despite their relatively low volume. The grip is solid through corners and reassuringly firm, even when standing through climbs. The result is a smooth, comfortable performance and nimble,…

When you’re spending a lot of money on a bike, it’s reassuring to know it has some high-tech security measures built-in. First up for the C68 is blockchain technology – but what eaxctly is this? Blockchain is a system of recording information in a way that makes it difficult or impossible to change, hack or cheat the system. For the C68, it’s used to keep a kind of digital passport for the bike, including a diary of ownership, in a safe virtual ‘vault’, and is a way of proving the provenance of the bike. For the C68, blockchain technology is used to keep a kind of digital passport for the bike in a safe virtual ‘vault’, including a diary of ownership So how is this blockchain info attached to the…

Swims 1 Stenkrith Bridge (small river) 2 Wain Wath Force (falls) 3 Semerwater (lake) 4 Cotter Force (falls) 5 Ingleton (heated lido, entry fee) 6 Wray (panhole) 7 Crook o’Lune (large river) 8 Denny Beck (large river) 9 Morecambe beach (sea) Getting there Easy by train. Glorious Settle-Carlisle line to Kirkby Stephen; back from Morecambe, or more frequently, mainline Lancaster four flat miles away. Where to stay Pubs aplenty from £35ppn. Many campsites. Good hostels/bunkbarns at Kirkby Stephen and round Ingleton. Hotel chains/Airbnbs in Lancaster. More to explore Caffè Curva in Hawes; many cafes and pubs en route. Find, plan and share adventures with komoot Komoot is an app that lets you find, plan, and share adventures with the easy route planner. Driven by a desire to explore, and powered…

BAKED POTATO VS BOILED POTATO Ahh, two of the staples of larders up and down the land, but which is the best when it comes to the nutritious spud u like? When we examine the calories, understandably the boiled version comes in at slightly less than the skin-on jackets, at 86cals per 100g to 93cals, both spuds deriving most of their calories from carbs. Each does contain muscle-repairing protein, but it’s nominal at around 1.7g (boiled) and 2.5g (baked per 100g, respectively). Fat’s similarly low – unless you cake both in butter, of course! Where they markedly differ, however, is in the vitamin and mineral content, as the skin is packed with calcium, vitamin C, phosphorous and potassium, which will boost bone health and immunity. Those naked boilers just can’t…

01 Aero road helmet • Our previous Silverstone Sports Engineering Hub wind-tunnel time showed an aero road helmet can be up to 3mins faster than a traditional vented lid over 100 miles at 35km/h. 02 Race wheels • Okay, they’re a serious investment, but the difference between basic training wheels and deep-section rims can be as much as 16mins over a century, so these could be worth saving up for. 03 Performance jersey • Our wind-tunnel tests’ data have revealed that stretch-woven fabrics, sealed seams and ribbed sleeves can save you 52secs over a century ride at 25km/h.…

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Ned is the main commentator for ITV’s Tour de France coverage and editor of The Road Book. He also tours his own one-man show Another Tour de France has come to an end. Never mind the yellow jersey, the green jersey, the sprints. Never mind the tussle for polka dots. For us, on the ITV crew, it’s always been about the ride. We travel, as many of you may be aware, each with a Brompton in the back of the car. Though they are tremendously economical, in terms of the space they require (that’s kind of the point), by the time you have four of them folded up and racked side by side in the boot of a Ford Galaxy, there’s not a huge amount of room for the luggage…

1. Aberdeen – Glenshee Ski Centre 2. Hawick – Duns 3. Durham – Sunderland 4. Redcar – Helmsley 5.West Bridgford – Mansf eld 6. Tewkesbury – Gloucester 7. West Bay – Ferndown 8. Ryde – The Needles The bookends of the 2022 Tour of Britain is almost a reversal of last year, with a start in Aberdeen and a finish in southern England, this time out a first-ever visit to the Isle of Wight. It’s an unpredictable route, with few stages that you could guarantee will be won by one type of rider. Route Director Andy Hawes says teams will have to keep a close eye on the road book and use all the tools at their disposal to solve the questions that each stage will pose. Highlights include an…

Starting on p20, leading climbs authority Simon Warren runs us through eight climbs that have never appeared in this race but which he’d love to see. In the original long list was County Durham’s Chapel Fell, which we didn’t end up using and not for the reason that is, in fact, making an appearance today. At 627m high, it would be the ceiling of many Tours of Britain, but for the earlier visit to the Cairngorms. The climb, which is at number 62 in Warren’s 100 UK Climbs list, begins in the village of St John’s Chapel, averaging 8.3% over almost 4km. “The riders who are hanging on in there are going to hate it, as you can see the top from a long way off, it’s very open,” says…

Gloucestershire is a frequent host of the Tour of Britain but stage 6 marks the first time it has hosted a full stage entirely within its borders. The start and finish are separated by a little over 10 miles, so fans can easily visit both should they want to. There are KOM points up for grabs early in the stage, with the Round Hill and Withington Hill falling within the first 50 kilometres. “Depending on the battle for the KOM jersey, I don’t think the peloton will want a break going too early on in this one,” says Hawes. The race heads south through the Cotswolds, skirting round Cheltenham clockwise, heading through Cirencester, Tetbury and getting as far south as Chipping Sodbury and Yate, just north of Bristol. They then…

Book of Daniel Newly-retired pro rider Daniel Martin has been busy in his first year off the bike, and has just announced that he’ll be publishing his autobiography (Quercus, L20) on 13 October this year Mountain excitement Later in the issue you will find our report on the seven-stage Tour Transalp road race (p52). It was the 18th year of the mountainheavy event and they’ve just announced the dates for the 19th: 18-24 June 2023. tour-transalp.de Forest commission Southwest Scotland’s Galloway Forest Park is one of the finest places to explore on a gravel bike and now there’s an event for it: Raiders Gravel, three days of riding arriving imminently (25-28 August) Tour de l’Avenir The Tour de l’Avenir, arguably the most prestigious race for male u23 riders, will add…

Butted tubing • Butted frame tubes have a constant outside diameter but the wall thickness varies. On a doublebutted tube, the ends are thicker to boost weld strength while reducing overall weight. Triple-butted tubes have three different wall thicknesses. Flared bar • Measuring wider on the drops than at the hoods, these give a more stable position when you’re in the drops, which is handy on rougher terrain or descending. It also creates more room for luggage. Disc brakes • Disc brakes work by pushing a pair of pistons against a disc rotor attached to the wheel hub. Systems can be either mechanical (cable actuated) or hydraulic, for maximum power and control. Dropper seatpost • This type of seatpost allows you to slide your saddle down and out of the…

Weight 10.3kg (XS) Frame 6061 aluminium Gears SRAM PG1130 11-speed Brakes SRAM Rival hydraulic disc Wheels Mavic Allroad 650b HG Finishing kit Full carbon fork with Carryall mounts, Selle Italia X3 Boost saddle, WTB Sendero TCS Road Plus 650b tyres RIBBLE’S GRAVEL AL COMES IN A number of builds from £1,699 to £2,399, with our middle-of-the-pack model sporting 1x SRAM Rival, Mavic Allroad 650b wheels and chunky WTB Sendero tyres. At a first glance, you could mistake the Gravel AL for carbon, thanks to the fantastically smooth welds. It’s only when you cast your eye towards the chainstays that alloy welds are visible. As standard it comes in British racing green, with a headturning matt and gloss finish, but for an extra £299 you could use Ribble’s custom programme to…

“T he battery life is the Edge 1040’s major trump card, especially with the solar version” THE LATEST TOP dog Garmin Edge 1040 adds a new trick to Garmin’s cycling computers: the option of solar charging (you can also buy it without a solar collector). Incorporating this functionality in the Edge 1040 makes sense – there’s a large screen area that’s going to be facing upwards and a lot of cyclists are taking on multi-day adventures where extended battery life is a big plus. The Garmin Edge 1040 follows the Edge 1030 Plus in Garmin’s king-sized bike computer format. At 59.3 x 117.6 x 20.0mm it’s actually a few millimetres larger than the 1030 Plus, but it’s significantly larger than the Edge 830 and it takes up a lot of…

IT’S NOT OFTEN I get excited about something as humble as a flat commuter pedal, but the Arclights are an exception. At first glance these just look like your average flat pedals, ones that are very neatly made and with bars rather than noncycling shoe sole-destroying pins for grip. They run on smooth-sealed bearings and are well finished with a hard-wearing and understated all-black finish. What sets them apart, though, is the inclusion of two light modules on each pedal. These modules contain COB LED strips that slide into hollows on the pedal body and magnetically lock into place. The LEDs offer full length visibility both forwards and back, and there are windows for side visibility, too. The really smart aspect of the lights, however, is that they automatically sense…

“The Majolica is cut well to suit the female form with a tailored, non-restrictive fit” A REAL EYE-CATCHER, Majolica is just one of a whole suite of hand-drawn designs from Australian brand Cycology. Its pattern is said to be inspired by Italian and Portuguese ceramics. The closer you look, the more detail you’ll find, with jockey wheels, chain links and cranksets cleverly woven into the artwork. The Majolica is one of Cycology’s figure-fitting performance jerseys, cut well to suit the female form with a tailored, but not restrictive fit. The sleeves are a comfortable mid-length, somewhere between capped sleeves and a longer aero design. Multiple fabrics make up the jersey panels, including a lightweight, perforated back panel and underarm strips to aid ventilation. At the front, a tighter weave gives…

01 Trek Voda Ice £19.99 Size 591ml Weight 125g Colours Blue with stars & stripes THE TREK VODA Ice Stars and Stripes Insulated bottle lacks the performance to match its price. Despite being chilled in the fridge, the Voda Ice failed to keep its contents cool for the length of a two-and-a-half hour warm evening ride. Its 591ml capacity isn’t that generous either. The cap does dispense lots of fluid and can be firmly closed, but the neck indent’s grippy texture doesn’t compensate for the bottle’s slippy outer. This makes the Voda Ice susceptible to slide out of your hand when you lower the bottle back into the cage. 02 Zefal Arctica Pro 75 £11.99 Size 750ml Weight 140g Colours Red; blue; green; orange; pink • ZEFAL’S ARCTICA PRO 75…

Vittoria Air-Liner £37/wheel Fits tyre 700 x 31-40mm Rim internal width <25mm Weight 59g/wheel Rim valve supplied 3-way version needed The Vittoria Air-Liner is supplied as a single length. You cut the lightweight foam core to fit, then make a hole, before zip-tying it together. We took several attempts to get it right and even then the final result is not wholly satisfactory as the end of the tie doesn’t lie flush. In our experience, running with tyre inserts means that you need around 50% more tyre sealant. In this case we used nearly double the usual amount. Once inflated, though, the tyre ran smoothly at our standard pressure and did its job of protecting the rim. However, it’s not so good at lower pressures and, unlike some inserts, it…

Colnago Concept 1986 Following its 1984 carbon Olympic bike, the 1986 Concept was made in conjunction with Ferrari and used carbon tubes and lugs, rather than alloy lugs. • Colnago Concept C35 1989 Even more radical and with nods to aerodynamics, the C35’s swooping frame was a radical departure from the standard round tubes of the day. • Colnago C40 1994 The lugged carbon C40 was produced for 10 years and despite initial reservations from the Mapei team, it was ridden to five Paris-Roubaix victories. • Colnago Extreme C 2006 An evolution of 2004’s C50, this featured a stiff, sub-kilo frame. In 2005 Michael Rasmussen took the Tour de France polka dot climber’s jersey on one. • Colnago C59 2013 After four years and a reputed 40 prototypes, the short-lived…

Gracing spiky bushes everywhere from parks to verges, these berries (or aggregate fruits made up of drupelets of berries to be precise) are to be found in the UK from August to mid-October. Yes, they’ll give pickers purple fingers (and no doubt mouths too), but they’re bursting with antioxidant vitamin C, plus all of those seeds will help keep you regular. Who can resist them when paired with apples in a pie, tart or crumble, or made into jelly, jam or syrup? The possibilities are endless……

Fred Whitton Sportive • This brutal 113 miler in the Lake District takes place on 7 May 2023. It includes the major the Lakeland passes (hello Kirkstone, Hardknott, Honister…) and is definitely not for the inexperienced. Be prepared for the brutal 30% gradient at mile 98… The Dragon Ride • Both metric and imperial centuries are (just about) on offer at the Dragon on 18 June 2023, with the Medio Fondo coming in at 157km/98 miles and the Macmillan 100 at 98km/61 miles. And hilly beasts they are too, taking in some of the Brecon Beacons’ best climbs. The Viking Gran Fondo • This is Denmark’s biggest mass-participation cycling event (the Harvejslobet in Danish, 24 June 2023), with 6,000 riders expected to enter next year. The rolling routes (with climbs…

Wout van Aert, almost certainly the best all-round bike rider in the world, paid the Tour of Britain the ultimate compliment last time out by dominating the race from start to finish. The irrepressible Belgian won the first stage, the last and two more in between, on flat sprint finishes, in the hills and a summit finish on Llandudno’s Great Orme – and capped a fine performance by snaffling the general classification on the line ahead of Britain’s Ethan Hayter. It encapsulated where the race is today. A top tier race, targeted by the world’s best riders across unpredictable terrain. This 18th edition of the modern race looks like a cracker, too. Roll on September!…

Like a popular TV show that starts up a new season following directly on from the previous year’s cliff-hanger, the 2022 Tour of Britain opens in Aberdeen, in exactly the same spot as Wout van Aert clinched last year’s victory in a gripping finale with home favourite Ethan Hayter. The riders will start in Union Street, though racing will be neutralised until they cross last year’s finish line. It’s the modern Tour of Britain’s second visit to Aberdeenshire and, after the start, the roads today will be different to last year. “It’s always nice to not tread the same path,” says Route Director Andy Hawes. The route heads west, towards the Cairngorms National Park, via popular local climbs My Lord’s Throat and Suie Road. It’s up and down all day,…

Just 40 miles separate last night’s finish and today’s start in Redcar, for what is the toughest stage on paper – the shortest, but with the most climbing (2,669m) Today the route heads south down the coast to Whitby, before turning inland to traverse the North York Moors National Park. It’s set to be a great-looking stage, too. “I’ve driven the length and breadth of this country in this job over the years,” Hawes says, “and I don’t get too many ‘wow’ moments any more, where you drive round a corner and the view opens up in a grand way. This year I had it a couple of times on stage 4. It’s stunning. If they’re not going up they’re going down, the only flat part is the neutralised section.”…

Britain is a tough country to traverse, particularly when you get off the motorway network, and the Tour of Britain, in a bid to cover as much of the country as possible and make it a true tour of Britain, can sometimes have long, tough transfers from a stage finish to the following day’s stage start. That is certainly the case today and getting from Gloucester to the start in West Bay, on the Dorset coast is two and a half hours by car on a good day. And, as Hawes points out, it will be done on a Friday afternoon when there’s often an exodus to the south coast. Once there, riders and spectators are in for a treat. Remarkably it’s the first time that the modern Tour of…

Length 9km / Height gain 616m Average Gradient 6.8% / Max gradient 20% APART FROM BEING hundreds of miles from everywhere else, and there being nowhere near enough accommodation for the riders and staff never mind spectators. Apart from the road being perilously narrow with a precipitous drop off its edge. Apart from the fact it rains all the time and often has winds so strong they would blow the peloton clean off the road, Bealach-na-Ba would be a brilliant Tour of Britain climb. The road climbs over 9km and is as close to a mountain pass as you’ll find in Britain. It’s the big one, our Stelvio. Aside from the physical test, there is simply no better way to showcase the colossal beauty of Scotland than to run the…

Length 15km / Height gain 725m Average Gradient 3.2% / Max gradient 14% From base to summit, starting from Mennock, climbing from west to east via the village of Wanlockhead (the highest village in Scotland), this road climbs a whopping 15km. That’s a kilometre-and-a-bit more than Alpe d’Huez. Of course, it can't touch the Alpine giant for altitude but it is a monster climb with a killer finish. Part one to Wanlockhead is steady, building ever steeper as it winds through the wonderful interlocking hills. Passing the village you reach the service road to the radar station, where things go bang. Cutting across the pristine scenery, just like a classic Alpine pass, the wonderfully surfaced road snakes upwards hitting sharp gradients. With hairpin bends, amazing vantage points, splendid views across…

Luke Durbridge, 31, rides for Team BikeExchange-Jayco and is a four-time Australian national time trial champion Things have changed hugely in time trials since I turned professional in 2012. Back then, if you enjoyed time trialling, as I did, even on a bad day you’d hit the top-15 of the stage classification. Now, everyone riding in the men’s WorldTour, at the top of the sport, has their time trial game dialled in. So much work goes into going faster. Most riders undergo CdA (coefficient of drag) work in the windtunnel, which will make a rider go faster without any additional power, and out on the track, many will ride their time trial bike at least once a week all-year-round. A bad day in 2022 and you’ll be down in 60th.…

Weight 11.1kg (S) Frame 6061 T6 aluminium Gears Sunrace MS8 11-speed 11-42 Brakes SRAM Apex hydraulic disc Wheels DT Swiss G 1800 Spline 650b Finishing kit RockShox Rudy XPLR 30mm fork, Vitus Ti rail saddle, WTB Venture TCS Road Plus 650b tyres THE SUBSTANCE IS Wiggle-CRC’s gravel offering from its in-house brand Vitus. It offers a dazzling array of different builds, including 1x or 2x, carbon or alloy, SRAM, Shimano or Microshift, and for 2022, the option of rigid or ‘HT’ (hardtail), which comes with a mountain bike-style suspension fork. Our test model is the priciest alloy build. The double-butted aluminium frame has numerous mounts for bottles, cages, rack and under-down-tube storage, and can accept 650b wheels, as fitted, or 700c. But the Substance’s most distinctive features are the RockShox…

Our 30th birthday, 400th edition and a fresh redesign of the magazine. 2022 is a major year for Cycling Plus. So, what better way to celebrate than bringing out our debut retail range of branded cycling kit in collaboration with HUUB Design of Derby, the rising force of cycling apparel with bundles of Olympic gold medals, world records and track titles in its heaving trophy cabinet. “HUUB and Cycling Plus are a natural fit,” says editor Matt Baird. “Like us, HUUB is immersed in the latest technical trends but its kit, crucially is comfortable for big days out on the bike, whether that’s tackling mountain passes in Scotland, sportives in Snowdonia, or the rolling roads of the Peak District near HUUB’s beloved Derby home. I’m looking forward to seeing Cycling…

The Testers Paul Norman Multi-discipline rider A lifelong rider, Paul has ridden with some of cycling’s greats on European bike launches Katherine Moore Gravel expert Katherine is a gravel and bikepacking expert, bike tester and much more Simon Withers Tech writer Simon has been testing bikes and all sorts of cycling kit since the mid-1990s Jack Evans Multi-discipline rider Road, gravel, cyclocross… trained journalist Jack has ridden just about everything…

Gravel riding can put a lot of demands on both your body and your bike, but you can improve matters in all sorts of ways, many of which aren’t that expensive. And a lot of these products aren’t just relevant if you’re riding on gravel. If you regularly ride on very poor road surfaces or go touring or bikepacking, where tarmac may be variable or non-existent, the greater comfort and better handling offered by these upgrades are always welcome. Your hands feel it whenever you ride, but this is even more true when you venture off road, which is where gravel-specific padded bar tape and under-bar tape gel inserts come into play. These will add comfort and allow you to ride for longer with less fatigue – and they don’t…

Prime Orra Gravel £50 Weight 319g Diameter 27.2/31.6 Length 350mm The Orra has been designed to absorb shocks and vibration and reduce fatigue and numbness. The post is well made from T6 aluminium alloy, but is a little on the heavy side. I especially liked the set-up, which has only two bolts: one for fore and aft adjustment, the other for tilt. If you’re dedicated to the fine tuning of your saddle position, this makes it easy. The post’s shock-reducing qualities come via a polymer bushing inside the clamp. It’s not a suspension system so it doesn’t move; but is there to absorb and smooth out the rougher edges of gravel riding. Unfortunately, it’s not an obvious advantage, or at least it wasn’t to me. Swapping the post onto my…

Norman, 86, is a physiology professor at King’s College London, a former audax champion and author of The Lazarus Strategy: How to Age Well and Wisely I have not cycled in very many countries. Ireland springs to mind, as does Germany, the Netherlands, France, New Zealand and South Africa. France is the pick, hands down. It’s a big country with plenty of small roads and superb villages with hotels that serve lovely food. The motorist is also, in general, the friend of cyclists. South Africa, on the other hand, has less going for it, in cycling terms. When my brother was still alive I would regularly travel there to visit him. I was about 75 at the time. Near where he stayed in Johannesburg was a cycle shop run by…

01 Get good support I was so lucky to have had my Dad, his partner Eileen and my friends Simon, Kerry and Marcus there on the day. I couldn’t have done it without their encouragement, so sign up some friends! 02 Learn how to fuel I didn’t take enough time on this and hadn’t worked out how to overcome the nausea. Make sure you practise with foods by taking different things on big rides before your event and seeing what works. 03 Make time to train As an amateur you need to make yourself get on and do it. Even if you cycle 10 miles, you’ve done 10 miles more than you would have done, and once you get out you usually feel a lot better than before you went.…

The Tour of Britain is to the Tour de France in the same way that there is no adequate translation into French for ‘sausage roll’. That was the conclusion I reached a decade ago when I wrote a book about the very particular cycling culture which has grown up on these shores. The history of British road racing is so peculiar, so arcane, so wilfully different that it’s tempting to say the sport had Brexited itself about a hundred years before Brexit was even a word. A governing body that effectively banned mass road racing, subjugating the development of the sport in Britain to clandestine time trialling and giving birth to a spirit of difference which has seeded itself in the nation’s flagship stage race. The Tour of Britain, in…

As with last year’s race, this is another hilly week, packed to the gills with climbing. Yesterday’s 2,500 metres of elevation is followed by the same again today and only stage five drops under 2,000m. We’re again in Scottish Borders territory, but despite the frequency of visits here, Hawes says they’ve found roads, towns and villages that they’ve not been to before. “Hawick also hosted the start of stage 7 in 2021, a lumpy stage to Edinburgh won by Yves Lampaert. The race doesn’t get as far north today, heading out” to the east coast town of Eyemouth, before turning around for the Lammermuir Hills, a natural separation between the Borders and East Lothian. While it was hilly up to now, all three of today’s King of the Mountains sections…

With four chunky stages through mountain ranges of northern Scotland and England, it seems fair to the riders that they get a stage something close to a respite. It’s hardly flat today – it almost never is in the Tour of Britain – but with 1,691 metres elevation over the longest stage, the peloton can take stock at the start of the second half of the race and plot to make their move – or stay one step ahead. There was a stage between these two towns in the 2018 race, won in swaggering fashion by Team Sky’s Brit Ian Stannard, a moment of glory at the back end of a career largely in service of others. The Essex rider retired in 2020, but will be back at the race…

For the first time the Tour of Britain arrives on the Isle of Wight. Such are the logistics of getting to the island that the race could only ever start or finish here and, with sporting terrain and wonderful scenery, it’ll be a fitting finale for any bike race. The island’s size necessitates a route that seems to cover just about every strip of tarmac on the island. “Yes, we’re pretty much covering the Isle of Wight, that’s definitely ticked off,” says Hawes. “It’s going to give riders and fans a full flavour of what the island is about.” Because of how the route traverses across the island, fans will be able to catch the race in multiple locations across the day. “The route crosses over itself but you never…

Length 1.6km / Height gain 188m Average Gradient 11.7% / Max gradient 20% THERE IS NO better venue for a bike race in Britain; it's as if it's been cosmically engineered for both racing bikes and fans watching people race bikes. Over the years, Winnats Pass has seen plenty of action in races, including multiple visits by the Milk Race (1958-1993) and the lost long annual Tour of the Peak. Last year, for the first time in 44 years, it hosted the National Hill Climb Championships. On a dark October day, Winnats proved again what a draw it is, pulling in a huge crowd in dismal conditions. It’s a showpiece climb, as photogenic as a boyband, and one that would be a highlight of any stage race. It could be…

Length 0.6km / Height gain 88m Average Gradient 15.3% / Max gradient 30% FORGET FLANDERS, and the cobbles of the Muur de Geraardsbergen and Paterberg, the best cobbles anywhere in the world can be found in Yorkshire. In Halifax there is Shibden Wall, Gibb Lane and the infamous Trooper Lane but the best of the lot, on the outskirts of Keighley, is Thwaites Brow. What sets this road apart from its peers is not just its surface or colossal gradients but its sweeping curves. It’s like a cobbled corkscrew, a rugged, hellish obstacle that rips your legs apart. However, it’s far from perfect for a bike race. It’s not in great nick, with gaps between some stones so big you’ll need rope to pull riders out. Spectators wouldn’t have it…