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News

Doubling up for Abergavenny


For the first time ever two rival sportives, The Iron Mountain and Tour of the Black Mountains – both stalwarts of the Welsh cycling calendar, well be held across the same weekend (July 9 & 10) as part of the annual Abergavenny Festival of Cycling.

 

For the last 6 years The Iron Mountain sportive has been a central fixture of the festival, serving up three distances of 25miles (family oriented road-route of North Monmouthshire), 50miles (with a glorious ascent to Tintern) and 100miler that includes a tough 3mile climb of the 1,500ft Tumble Mountain. But with the addition of The Tour of the Black Mountains (also three distances: 63, 101 and 120miles and usually held later in the year) the Abergavenny Festival of Cycling is set to become the biggest event of its kind in the country.

 

The entry fees – £5, £15, £25 for Iron Mountain and £15, £21, £25 for the Tour of the Black Mountains – includes full support, medals and certificates, sweep vehicles and chip timing. For entry details on all six distances and details of the full program for the Abergavenny Festival of Cycling see: www.abergavennyfestivalofcycling.co.uk

 

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Extras Reviews

Specialized Airtool Mini

Specialized Airtool Mini

Specialized airtool miniThe Specialized Airtool Mini is one piece of kit that Cyclo can, without question, describe as having been seriously put through its paces, mostly because it’s been our on-bike in-a-crisis pump of choice for several years and so has rarely been off our radar.

 

Now, at a tiny 25cm you probably wouldn’t want to use this as day a day to day pump – it takes an age to fully inflate a new inner and the flat grip end is positively blister-inducing for extended use – but weighing less than 100g it’s near faultless for roadside emergencies. With an aluminium handle shaft and chamber it ships with a bottle boss mount and can even, according to Specialized, “fit in a jersey pocket” – though to be honest we’d hate to meet anyone with a jersey quite that big.

 

The locking head (a good secure fit without any sign of leakage) converts from presta to schraeder valves and a neat added touch is the cap end which unscrews to reveal a glueless mini-patch and micro sandpaper. On a pedantic point the manufacturers did claim that it came supplied with mini-patches (plural) rather than the measly single patch that ours contained, but the compartment is nonetheless a fun bonus feature that could even be used for squirreling away a jelly bean or two to cheer yourself up in the event of a flat.

 

The newest iteration from Specialized has a very sleek carbon fibre-effect finish (Cyclo’s is brushed-metal but still, we think, pretty classy) and at less than £15 remains an utter bargain. Despite its size and weight the airtool mini is also surprisingly robust. Ours has survived more than one quite spectacular wipe-out and even remained un-dented when dropped from a third floor window. The latter not so much a controlled experiment as a freak accident, the details of which are too embarrassing to recount.

 

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Events

Tour of Flanders Sportive 2011 – April 2

Here’s your chance to ride like the pros just a day before some of the world’s greatest cyclists lake to the roads. The Tour of Flanders (De Ronde van Vlaanderen) is one of the biggest and most spectacular sportive in Belgium and your chance to pit yourself and your bike against a choice of three distances: 70km, 140km or the full race distance from Brugge to Meerbeke of 260km (go on, you know you want to…) For MTB fans there are a choice of four distances: 25, 50, 75 and 100km.

 

Full details and registration available from: http://sport.be.msn.com

 

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News

An F1 Approach to Cycling?

A major revamp and rebranding of international cycling has, somewhat controversially, been proposed to the BBC by Jonathan Vaughters the former pro racing cyclist and current directeur sportif of the Garmin-Cervélo Team. Vaughters, who is president of the Association of Pro Tour and Pro Continental teams believes that, given cycling’s demographic, the sport should enjoy far greater exposure and success than its current form allows, suggesting it should be brought more in line with Premier Football or Formula One.

 

Vaughters’ ten-point plan revealed to the BBC includes the introduction of more high-level events outside of Europe, a more consistent and easily understood format for races and leader-boards, an increased number of team time trials, open radio communications for fans to follow (similar to that introduced in F1), GPS tracking and increased use of other technical innovations such as helmet-mounted cameras.

 

But central to Vaughters’ argument is a call for an all-round cleanup of the sport’s image with regards to the seemingly ever-present doping scandals, which he calls cycling’s “Achilles heel”. Amongst his proposals to finally lay these ghosts to rest is the idea of team donations to set up an anti-drugs fund in exchange for longer-term guarantees of Tour de France entry. Vaughters points out that he first put many of these ideas forward to the UCI back in 2009 but has yet to receive a response. Cyclo waits with bated breath…

 

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News

Goss Takes Milan–San Remo

Continuing his string of successes this season Tasmanian Matthew Goss (HTC-Highroad) has won this year’s classic Milan–San Remo in a time of 6:51:10, beating World Time Trial champion and  2008 Milan–San Remo winner Fabian Cancellara (Leopard Trek) in to second and Omega Pharma-Lotto’s Philippe Gilbert in to third. Reigning champion Óscar Freire (Rabobank), who also holds wins for the 2004 and 2007 edition, came badly unstuck early with rear wheel problems that lost the kind of valuable time that was never going to see him regain pace for a fourth win.

 

The first Milan- San Remo was held in 1907 organised by Italian sports newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport at a time when it wasn’t known if the course was physically possible (1905 Tour of Lombardy winner Giovanni Gerbi was sent out to test it.) It became an almost instant favourite and has been held yearly – with the exception of 1916, 1944 and 1945 war years – ever since. Italy holds the record for most victories on the course with 50, whilst legendary rider Eddy Merckx still maintains his record number of wins with 7 (1966 & ‘67,1969,1971 & ‘72,1975 and his last in ‘76).

 

Full results available here: www.uciprotour.com

 

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News

South Downs Challenge

VOTwo South Downs MTBEntries are now open (indeed selling fast) for the South Downs Way MTB Challenge (May 14-15) an awesome looking two day mountain bike endurance event across some of the most beautiful – and tough – terrain that Southern England has to offer. The route follows old routes and drove-ways along the chalk escarpment and ridges of the South Downs, with around 80% off-road riding, 10,000+ feet of climb and what are promised to be “some exciting descents.”

 

Now in it’s fifth year and organised by Votwo, day one kicks off from Winchester across 54miles of chewy track to base overnight with a spot of camping (supply your own tent!) at Washington – West Sussex, not DC – before day two’s 52miler to Eastbourne. With a clearly marked route, checkpoints ever 15miles complete with fresh sandwiches and snacks, full support staff, Saturday dinner and a cooked Sunday breakfast included in the price, free T-shirt, a pro mechanic on hand throughout and Votwo’s legendary homemade soup at the finish this is one event that Cyclo could not recommend highly enough.

 

The team behind this MTB Challenge have an outstand reputation for staging slick, fun events and for client care, or as they put it: “The only thing we don’t do is push your bike up the hills and put your tent up!”

 

Further information and online entry: http://www.votwo.co.uk

 

 

Categories
Extras Recovery Reviews

Elete Water

Elete Water

If you’re interested in good hydration on your ride (if not, why not? Drink up) and you have a sensible aversion to stuffing your body full of unnatural goo, then Elete Water could be just the product for you.

 

Sourced from the evaporation of the mineral-rich water in the Great Salt Lake in Utah and processed on its shores in an environmentally protected area, Elete is an electrolyte mix that can be added to water (or squash, juice, etc) without any noticeable “salty” taste and which provides replacement minerals – magnesium, potassium, chloride and sodium – in ionically charged form to those lost through strenuous exercise. In addition to the medically-proven fact that stabilising your salt losses from sweat benefits endurance and helps in maximising your performance, there is also anecdotal evidence that using Elete can reduce your overall quantity of liquid intake which in turn helps avoid the danger of hyper-hydration (known as “water intoxication”).

 

From a rider’s point of view, and aside from the natural credentials, there are two other benefits to Elete that Cyclo really rates: Firstly it comes in a tiny 25ml ‘dripper bottle’ which, despite its minuscule size, can be used to make up to 10litres of electrolyte-rich drink. Secondly at around £6.50 per bottle that equates to just 30p for a 500ml drink. Larger bottles are available in 120, 240, 480ml sizes that can be used either to make up drinks pre-ride or to refill the “dripper bottle” (it has a nifty pop-off top) with economy of scale on these larger bottles bringing the price of 500ml of refreshment down to just 8p. We love a bargain at Cyclo.

 

Available from www.eletewater.co.uk

 

Categories
News

Sky’s the Limit

Team SkyAfter a year-long review and report process by consultation firm Deloitte to assess any possible conflicts between the commercially sponsored Team Sky and the Lottery funded Olympic track side the all “clear has” been sounded. With UK Sport, the agency responsible for public fund allocations, having raised the purse for cycling to £27m for London 2012 – an increase of £5m over the Beijing Games – there had been fears that the pro team established and sponsored by BSkyB (under the banner of Team Sky) undermined the credibility of the Olympic programme. The situation was made more complex by the involvement in Team Sky, which includes a number of foreign riders, of several key coaching players from the British Olympic cycling team.

 
But fears now seem to have been dispelled by the release of the Deloitte report which makes only a handful of suggestions, including the recruitment of a finance director by British Cycling, with UK Sports Chief Executive Liz Nicholl voicing the relief of all by concluding, “The fact that the review identified no major risks to the World Class Performance Programme is good news for everyone involved and indeed our aspirations generally as we look towards London 2012.”