Table of contents for Summer 2022 in Cyclist

There’s something unmistakably British about the Rough-Stuff Fellowship. The cycling club, founded in 1955, made its purpose in life to take bikes to the kind of places that bikes just weren’t meant to go. In the club’s early days, the members’ spirit of adventure was undeniable, but it was blended with a healthy British dollop of absurdity as they were frequently reduced to carrying their bikes for long distances, and extreme conditions were tackled while wearing colourful bobble hats and inappropriate footwear. All hardships and setbacks were met with humour and copious amounts of tea. As the archive pictures in this issue show (see p106), a proper ride for rough-stuffers meant being knee-deep in mud, fording rivers or slogging over rubble-strewn mountain passes with a bike slung over one shoulder.…

£289, saddleback.co.uk The new Dash is Stages’ third generation head unit but the first designed and built in cooperation with Giant. It comes in two variants – the M200 and this, the L200. It is the bigger of the two models, featuring a 2.7-inch display and weighing a claimed 105g. In line with the likes of the Garmin Edge 830 and Wahoo’s Elemnt Bolt, the L200 features a full-colour screen, pre-installed cycling-specific maps and a full suite of training features. The L200 doesn’t have a touchscreen but instead operates via five concave buttons, making it more comparable to the Elemnt Bolt than the Edge 830. As for battery life, Stages says the Dash L200 lasts for ten hours on full power or up to 18 hours in reduced power mode,…

£599.99, freewheel.co.uk There is certainly an argument tosay those with the cash to drop £600 on a one-piece bar and stem are likely to have bought the type of bike that comes with a decent cockpit already, but Pro’s new Vibe Evo is worth ogling nonetheless. First off it’s lightweight – a claimed 390g for the smallest size. It’s also aerodynamic and comes with the necessary ports for internal routing of electronic shift wires and hydraulic brake hoses while still being compatible with mechanical and external systems. The most intriguing aspect, however, is on the tops. Pro has fitted the Vibe Evo with inlaid grips, which the brand says are anti-slip and replaceable, negating the need for bar tape above the hoods. Pro even offers bespoke grips for the drops…

Peter Bird was an apprentice silversmith in the early 1980s when the price of gold and silver shot up, meaning there wasn’t enough work in the Hatton Garden shop he worked in to get by. Having been into cycling since he was young, he bought his first set of steel tubes from nearby Condor and began building bike frames from his parents’ garden shed. Swallow Frames was born. Two years later in 1983, Robert Wade was at college in London studying film and photography when he and his girlfriend bought a former hire tandem from the London Bike Company. A cheap build, it flexed a lot around corners, so Wade sought a framebuilder to shore it up with extra tubing. He found Bird. ‘My girlfriend had an extra year to…

1 THE PROTEIN BALL CO. BREAKFAST TO-GO £17.99 (pack of 10), theproteinball.com Turns out the UK is so wet because the Queen has been reigning for years. And The Protein Ball Co. is called The Protein Ball Co. because its balls are full of protein, including these latest Breakfast To-Go balls, which comprise a cyclist-friendly 3:1 carbs-to-protein mix and are munchable in two tasty flavours. 2 LIFE JACKET WEEKENDER SET £44, lifejacket.com In some truly horrendous news, a friend of ours drowned last week. We placed a life jacket on his coffin – it’s what he would have wanted. Not this Life Jacket though! Because this Life Jacket makes creams specifically for sporty types like us cyclists, with sun protection designed to stand the test of sweating, and moisturiser so…

TRY 3 MONTHS OF CYCLIST FOR £5 + FREE JUICE LUBES BIKE KIT GREAT REASONS TO SUBSCRIBE • 3 months of Cyclist for £5 • Free Juice Lubes Bike First Aid Kit (RRP £27.98) • Free delivery of every issue • Exclusive collectable subscriber-only covers ORDER ONLINE TODAY AT store.cyclist.co.uk/subscriptions OR CALL 020 8752 8195 OR EMAIL hello@metropolis.co.uk You will be able to view your subscription details online at https://store.cyclist.co.uk/login Offer and gift is only valid to new customers and one per household. Gifts limited to the first 100 orders only. Please allow 28 days for delivery.…

Where to start. legends forged on its slopes. Yet for all that it has contributed to cycling history, Superbagnères has appeared in the Tour de France only six times, and not since 1989, so it’s possible that many race fans have never seen it in action. Pronounced soup-air-ban-yair, Superbagnères is a ski station and therefore always a stage finish, meaning it naturally attracts drama, but even so its hit rate of special moments is quite something. Take the 1971 Tour, for example. Spain’s Luis Ocaña had Eddy Merckx on the ropes, with a near eight-minute lead overall, only to crash on Stage 14. For Stage 15, an unusual 19.6km mass-start hill climb up Superbagnères, the race had no yellow jersey, as Merckx requested not to wear it out of respect…

The warning signs are there from the very beginning. The first appears less than 200m from our ride’s starting point in the little village of Dinas Mawddwy on the southern edge of the Snowdonia National Park. Framed in a vivid red triangle is a message that will come to haunt us during today’s outing: 20%. If we had any sense we’d take some time to ponder the sign’s ominous meaning, register its import and adjust our expectations for the day accordingly, but right now we’re high on sunshine and caffeine, the prospect of a hilly 128km ride giving rise only to a giddy excitement. The sky is a brilliant blue and the sun is warm even at this early hour – a rare occurrence in this part of north Wales…

Flat Of The Land p64 RIDER RIGHT Met Rivale Mips helmet, £140 met-helmets.com Oakley Sutro sunglasses, £144 oakley.com Rapha Pro Team Insulated gilet, £150 rapha.cc Assos Equipe RS Jersey S9 Targa, £155 assos.com Sportful Fiandre Light armwarmers, £45 saddleback.co.uk Sportful Fiandre Light gloves, £60 saddleback.co.uk Assos Equipe RS Bibshorts S9 Targa, £190 assos.com Sportful Thermodrytex kneewarmers, £35 saddleback.co.uk Assos Monogram socks, £17 assos.com Sidi Wire 2 shoes, £385 saddleback.co.uk Superbagnères p90 Poc Ventral Air helmet, £220 pocsports.com Poc Aspire sunglasses, £180 pocsports.com Lusso Escape jersey, £80 lusso.bike Lusso Momentum gloves, £19.99 lusso.bike Lusso Turbo bibshorts, £75 lusso.bike Lusso I’m Not A Climber socks, £12 lusso.bike Bont Vaypor+ shoes, £360 bontcycling.com It’s Always The Quiet Ones p114 RIDER LEFT Kask Mojito³ helmet, £139 velobrands.co.uk SunGod Vulcans sunglasses, £150 sungod.co Ashmei Signature…

For a brand with the race heritage of Pinarello, there was only one path it could ever take into the otherwise nebulous world of gravel. Its Grevil platform was released in 2018 and came in two variants, both setting out their stalls as unashamedly aggressive. Essentially Dogma race bikes with bigger tyre clearances, they looked fast, and according to deputy editor James Spender – who tested the Grevil+ version in issue 104 – they rode fast too. ‘Gravel was slow until the Grevil came along,’ says Maurizio Bellin, Pinarello’s chief operations officer. ‘We started the competitive gravel sector.’ 3T and Gerard Vroomen, who released the aero-gravel Exploro bike in 2016, may have something to say about that, but at the very least the Pinarello certainly added fuel to the fire…

From €129 (approx £110), ceramicspeed.com CeramicSpeed’s new SLT bearings may look ordinary but they come with some pretty extraordinary claims. The brand has used an ‘oil-encapsulated solid polymer’ to fill the bearing races instead of regular grease. That means there is simply no space available in the bearings for dirt to ingress. As a result, together with a stainless-steel construction, CeramicSpeed says its SLT bearings are self-lubricating, corrosion-resistant and don’t require any servicing… ever. Limited specs of headset and pivot bearings are offered currently but CeramicSpeed says it has big plans to expand its aftermarket offering, so the potential is there for one of a bike’s more high-maintenance components to become fit-and-forget.…

€299 (approx £250), odettelunettes.com Odette Lunettes is a boutique Belgian eyewear company looking to bridge the gap between fashion and sports performance with sunglasses born out of a collaboration with Tom Boonen. While the glasses look casual, they boast a lightweight, flexible construction and understated silicone grippers. Their key feature is the frame, which is 3D-printed by a specialist company called Materialise. It uses a sustainable polymer material derived from castor beans and a printing fabrication method that doesn’t create any waste, so you can bask in the glow of your own virtuousness.…

It has been said the dominance of black bibshorts was never just a style choice. We were led to believe that they weren’t just desired but required: how to hide all that oil, grease and dirt otherwise? Riders were fined for not wearing black shorts at the Giro in 1981. ‘The Rules’ decreed that cycling shorts had to be black. AG2R’s famous brown shorts were seen as a gimmick. Even Philippe Gilbert and Mathieu van der Poel couldn’t turn the world on to white. However, a few well-regarded clothing manufacturers have been seeking to upset cycling’s traditionalism for a while now. As a result, left field has become centre court and coloured bibshorts have begun to find their place both in the pro peloton and on the streets. Helped along…

‘Richard Carapaz wearing the maglia rosa sprints ahead of Jai Hindley at the summit finish at Santuario di Castelmonte on Stage 19. This year’s finale was a battle royale between the two, with only three seconds separating the duo until the penultimate stage. ‘After a day chasing the race we drove up the final climb, but finding nothing of significance to shoot I decided to go for a finish line shot – maybe not the most creative option, but with the general classification on a knife edge there was sure to be some action. ‘But despite the high-octane racing, one of the highlights of the day was lunch. Working on bike races, food and drink are not on your list of priorities, but somehow we found time to stop and…

We’re not supposed to do them anymore, but if we were allowed to, anyone could do accents with this handy accents guide. Take space ghettos, for example. Say it out loud with an American lilt and suddenly you sound like a Scot describing their favourite 1990s girl band. Or emma chizit. Never met her, but a bit of a South African enquiry on price, perhaps? Or in Detroit. Now, doesn’t that have a touch of an Irish acknowledgment? But here’s a doozy: how do you pronounce Møn? It’s the first question I ask when I meet Michael, and he should know. He works at the GeoCenter Møns Klint, whose logos adorn his jersey along with a picture of the chalk cliffs that make the island of Møn, in Denmark’s southern…

As Cyclist tech editor, our seasonal kit picks features are something I take pride in helping to put together. While each member of the Cyclist team makes their kit choices independently, as the curator of the series I get a unique perspective on each edition’s tone. And all too often a theme emerges out of the choices made: how to make the best of suboptimal circumstances. Most of the year we Brits aren’t blessed with weather that’s conducive to pleasurable bike riding, so the agenda of our choices tends to centre around mitigation or some degree of damage limitation. Not this time around, however. Now that summer is well and truly upon us, for once we aren’t making the best of a bad situation – we are maximising something that…

1 Specialized Allez Sprint p126 A clever construction method has allowed the US firm to reimagine its aluminium road bike in the image of carbon – but was it worth the effort? 2 Stanton Switchpath Ti p132 Most gravel bikes come from manufacturers with a pedigree on the road, so let’s see how this one from a mountain bike specialist fares. 3 Lapierre Xelius SL p138 The French brand’s long-serving race bike has some new tricks on show for the riders at Groupama-FDJ – not that you have to be a pro to enjoy them.…

Kasia Niewiadoma Age 27 Born Poland Team Canyon/Sram Notable results 2016 1st, Young Rider Classification, UCI Women’s WorldTour 2017 1st, The Women’s Tour 2019 1st, Amstel Gold Race 2021 3rd, World Championships Road Race Cyclist: You finished second at Brabantse Pijl and fourth at Strade Bianche this year. How would you rate your season so far? Kasia Niewiadoma: I wouldn’t say I’m hugely disappointed but I’m definitely unsatisfied. I came into this season having big hopes and unfortunately I got Covid. Since then I feel like I’ve just been floating, having good days but then setbacks that I cannot understand. It makes me want to finish the season and start a new one all over again. Cyc: What motivates you to get out of bed and ride? KN: When you’re in…

The received wisdom has long been that riders can only usefully consume 90g of carbohydrates per hour. However, in a paper published this April in the Journal Of Applied Physiology, researchers claimed that this number could be much higher. In the study, nine trained male cyclists underwent fuelling strategies and tests designed to mimic those in competition. That meant carb loading 24 hours prior (consuming 8g carbs per kilo of bodyweight), a big pre-exercise meal (2g/kg) three hours before, then a 180-minute ride at 95% lactate threshold followed by a test to exhaustion at 150% lactate threshold. First they consumed only water; latterly they repeated the process consuming 120g carbs per hour at 20-minute intervals. These carbs were delivered in four ways: drink, gel, chew or a combination of all…

The advert in The Bicycle magazine in November 1954 didn’t attract all that much attention, but its impact is still being felt today: ‘I believe there is still a small select circle who love the rough and high ways among the mountains of Wales, the Lakes and Scotland,’ wrote Bill Paul. ‘This prompts me to suggest the formation of a fellowship of rough-stuff enthusiasts.’ A few months later, in May 1955, Paul was joined at the Black Swan Hotel in Leominster by around 40 cyclists for the founding of the Rough-Stuff Fellowship, giving it claim to being the oldest off-road cycling club in the world. Almost 70 years on it’s still here. Now numbering over 1,000 strong, its members are still devoted to exploring the rough-stuff of the UK and…

Strange as it might sound, the original Allez was steel and hand-built in Japan between 1981 and 1984 by Yoshi Konno, who founded Cherubim and 3Rensho in the 1970s. Identifiable by its long, pointed lugs and sloping fork crowns, it’s highly sought-after today, the product of a man who learned his craft dismantling and rebuilding old Cinelli frames and who went on to forge an enviable reputation for Keirin-winning bikes. But success can breed tragedy. Konno was allegedly a hard drinker and this contributed to a car accident in 1995 that left him paralysed and led to the closure of 3Rensho. Konno died in the late 2000s but his legacy lives on in Cherubim, built by nephew Shinichi Konno and well worth a Google. As for the Allez, while production…

Perspective, says Collins Dictionary, is ‘a particular way of thinking about something, especially one that is influenced by your beliefs or experiences.’ The majority of gravel bikes featured on these pages have come from manufacturers that specialise in making road bikes, and as a result those gravel bikes are highly influenced by the lessons learned from years of honing and refining road bikes (the Pinarello Grevil F on p15 being a perfect example). By contrast, the Stanton Switchpath Ti comes from a British company that, until now, has only ever made mountain bikes. Brave old world While this is Stanton’s first foray into the world of gravel, that doesn’t mean drop bars have simply been plopped on a mountain bike frame. ‘We looked for a niche that would best suit…

Lapierre is about as experienced as a bike brand gets, having been building frames in every genre for more than 75 years. The French brand also has one of the longest partnerships at the top level of road cycling, as sponsor of the various incarnations of what is now Groupama-FDJ for 20 years. For more than half that time the Xelius has been one of the team’s chosen race bikes, fulfilling the role of lightweight all-rounder. Indeed, while Lapierre does offer road bikes that fit into each of the three usual categories – endurance, lightweight and aero – its stance is more skewed than its rivals’ in the sense that its endurance Pulsium and aero Aircode bikes occupy specialist niches, whereas the Xelius is the first port of call for…