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004

April 2016

Contents 056

The inside line on Team Sky. More than marginal gains

FEATURES

050 Lapierre’s TT aero superbike How Thibaut Pinot hopes to make the big GC jump

038

Photos: Graham Watson, Yuzuru Sunada

010 The Shot Arresting photos from the month 018 10 Things this Month Arresting, important, and trivial stuff from the month just gone 020 Big Story The E-bike exists, duck and cover 022 Five minutes with...

Brent Bookwalter

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The Kellogg’s Legendary 1980s UK criterium series

064 Pro Conti challenge They get the big invites but don’t always have the big budgets

Mark Cavendish on the Tour, Olympics and World’s

REGULARS

080

072 Taiwan V Italy How the dynamic bike industry of Taiwan took over the heart of European pro racing

024 Pro Bike Wouter Wippert’s Cannondale SuperSix Hi-Mod Evo 026 Graham Watson writes Closure of a legendary hotel plus observations from Australia 030 Race Ready Stuff that’s good enough for the pros 110 Bike Test Scott Foil Premium is better than the pro version!

102 The Month Race reports in brief with results and looking ahead to upcoming events 116 Big Read extract Muy de Huy 120 Images of Cycling Cadel Evans at the 2010 Tour

122

the

Pro cycling rebels past and present

This Month: Wacky world champion Peter Sagan

04/02/2016 15:59

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006 06 DEPART

Welcome

The editor Luke Edwardes-Evans

Epic clash of the sprint champions

M

arcel Kittel’s winning return at the Dubai Tour, where he won stage one in a field sprint, is one of the best things to happen in the year so far.

Last year’s absence of the ballistic German from the big set-piece sprints was really missed by devotees of the thrills and spills of the final kilometre.

The return to health, and immediate winning form, is a glorious prospect for upcoming Classics like Milan-San Remo (pictured), but there’s more to it than that.

This year is shaping up to be one of the most exciting ever in terms of the diversity and talent of top shelf sprinters all jostling for the number one spot.

Fellow German Andre Greipel will be determined to carry on where he left off last

year but he will be pushed all the way by exciting Aussie mini-missile Caleb Ewan.

Ewan is already winning and will be hungry to test himself against the old order.

In that category you have to now place Mark Cavendish, our cover star this month who is full of fight again on a new team and in Olympic year.

Cav talks to Cycle Sport’s Nick Bull on page 38 this month and all the signs are that he has got the fire back into his belly and is motivated like never before for the Tour, Olympics and World’s.

Just to see these riders in the same sprint is a mouthwatering prospect. Welcome back Marcel, let battle commence!

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010

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The shot...

DUBAI TOUR

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Round one to Kittel! The German uber-sprinter blitzed stage one with new team Etixx.

Mark Cavendish was second Photo: Graham Watson

011

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The shot...

TOUR OF QATAR

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Boels-Dolmans team mates Chantal Blaak (Hol) and Christine Majerus (Lux) on stage one of the women’s race Photo: Yuzuru Sunada

013

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014

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04/02/2016 14:43

The shot...

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HERALD SUN TOUR

015

GB veteran pro Russ Downing (left) and Chris Froome corner at speed in the prologue TT Photo: Graham Watson

04/02/2016 14:43

016

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04/02/2016 14:43

Focus on...

CROSS WORLD’S

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Wout Van Aert won the Elite World Cyclo-Cross Championship in Zolder with Lars van der Haar in second place Photo: Graham Watson

017

04/02/2016 14:43

018 THIS MONTH

THINGS...

Words Kenny Pryde Photos Graham Watson, Yuzuru Sunada

Cranky

Some pros don’t have a clue. Did you hear the one about the recently retired British pro who threw his bike at the team mechanics complaining about the ‘clicking!’

Turns out it was the mini-pump fouling the crank. The minipump he fitted...

Time for law Chucking urine over riders from a rival nation should be treated as assault and the perpetrators should be identified and charged by the police. It happened to Team Sky riders at last year’s Tour and some Dutch cross riders were attacked in the same way at the World’s.

Charged up

Cycling — and cycling media — can still shoot itself in the foot. A brilliant weekend of racing in the World CycloCross Championships was almost totally overshadowed by the electric motor found in Femke Van den Driessche’s bike after the Under-23 women’s race.

Suddenly news outlets were frothing at the mouth — we think absurdly — about ‘doping’ again.

High risk sport

Cycling is a dangerous sport and a precarious way to make a living. With six Giant-Alpecin riders flirting with death after a car mowed them down in Calpe — not forgetting Adriano Malori’s terrible crash in San Luis — we’re reminded what a risky business pro cycling is.

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Cross in Games please

Cyclo-cross should be in the Winter Olympics. Speaking of Olympic Games and cycling, how about the UCI and the rest of cycling’s stakeholders (that means us too, right?) start lobbying to get cyclocross into the Winter Games.

Same as cross-country running!

04/02/2016 15:08

019 Girona magnet

Girona is more popular than ever with pro cyclists. New riders from JumboLotto.nl and Orica are swelling the ranks in the old town. Robert Gesink likes it so much he bought Lance Armstrong’s old townhouse.

Fast friends

The first sprints of the early season in Australia, Argentina and the Gulf showed that the usual suspects Andre Greipel, Fernando Gaviria and comeback man Marcel Kittel (below) had lost none of their speed following their winter hibernation.

With Mark Cavendish reunited with Bernard Eisel and Mark Renshaw and Kittel now riding the Etixx sprint-train express, it should be an entertaining year.

Brutal in Brazil

Rio will cast a big shadow on GC stars.

Word is out that the Rio Olympic Games road race course (above) is a real brute, the likes of which we haven’t seen since Barcelona in 1992.

That means real climbers — and GC riders — have gold medals on their minds.

Et Voila!

French races for French people! It was great — truly — to see so many French big hitters support the Etoile de Bessèges. The sport’s other stars in Australia and racing in Middle Eastern deserts, but Tony Gallopin, Thibaut Pinot, Thomas Voeckler, J-C Peraud, Bryan Coquard (above) all lined up in a ‘classic’ early season stage race.

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Disc world

Disc brakes will be everywhere in the very near future. After much humming and hawing over discs, Shimano and bike manufacturers are all on board. Hitherto reluctant bike firms have realised if they don’t have disc-enabled lightweight road bikes, they’re going to miss out on sales.

04/02/2016 15:08

020 ANALYSIS

The Big Story Kenny Pryde, editor-at-large Finally proof! Following the discovery of a concealed electric motor in a cyclo-cross bike the world of cycling is buzzing, literally, with talk of hard evidence that a new form of doping is once again dragging down the sport. Hysteria, suggests Kenny Pryde, has become cycling’s default reaction

More proof needed for the E-bike ‘doping’ scandal

T

here have never been so many column inches (or bytes of data, if you will) written about a women’s cyclo-cross race in the short history of that particular branch of the sport.

When a post-race bike check found a small motor inside the bike of Belgian Under-23 rider Femke Van den Driessche, all hell let loose. After years of rumours and Heath-Robinson bodge jobs, after much poring over video footage purporting to ‘show’ bikes with motors in action we finally had an example of the beast in the wild.

Miserably, in our click-bait dominated media landscape, the phrase ‘mechanised doping’ was everywhere — even UCI President Brian Cookson used the phrase. Why ‘mechanised bike’ or ‘motorised bike’ wouldn’t tell the story — arguably with more clarity — isn’t really a mystery. ‘Doping’ is a word heavily associated with cycling and words often typed into Google search engines to find stories push those stories higher up search engine results.

You get more hits if you use the word ‘doping,’ basically. Plus, ‘doping’ is easier to spell than ‘mechanised’ or ‘motorised’. Add to that the desperation of cycling journalists to sell stories to sports editors on non-specialist media outlets and there was only ever going to be one phrase which topped the rankings.

Photo Graham Watson

Random theory The cycling world already knew that the technology to insert a small but effective motor into a racing bike existed and UCI commissaires have been carrying out random checks on bikes for two years. The most famous case was at the 2014 Vuelta. Ryder Hesjedal’s bike was checked following a crash when his bike appeared to spin around, apparently down to a motor rather than the less headline-grabbing combination of gravity, inertia and gyroscopic forces.

As yet, no high-profile road rider, not a single pro in any World Tour or Pro Continental team has been caught with a packet of batteries in his back pocket or, indeed, anything in his bottom bracket. Who knows if such technology has been tested at that level?

The problem, rather, is one of scale and inference. The

p020021_KP story LUKE.indd 20

nuclear melt-down perspective says, ‘Well, look, if a rider at his level is using a motor, it must be being used everywhere!’ The flip side is that you really can’t extrapolate a single incident like this and make an informed guess about how widespread the practice might be in the pro peloton. Targeted testing works in technical checks too you know.

Right: Femke Van den Driessche gives her bike a rest at the Under-23 women’s cross World’s

“Mechanics and managers would have to be complicit” If motors were widespread Motor neurosis There’s no ambiguity here, there’s either a motor in your bike or there isn’t. There’s no ‘contaminated supplement,’ ‘unusual blood chemistry’ or ‘lab screw up’ excuse if you get caught cheating in this manner. And the nature of the mechanical and technical expertise required — modest though it is — is probably beyond your average pro, more used to handing a bike to a mechanic than working on it themselves.

All of which would suggest that both mechanics and the team management would have to be complicit in the fitting of bikes, and that is hard to believe .

And even then, mechanics aren’t always on the ball.

When Ramunas Navardauskas finished third in the 2015 Elite World Road Race Championship, the Lithuanian team mechanic was in a bit of a state, looking for a Cannondale mechanic who had the tools to remove Navardauskas’ bottom bracket because the UCI wanted to check for a motor. They didn’t find one.

Unlike ‘proper’ doping, there are no grey areas when it comes to mechanically assisted cheating. You’ve either broken the technical regulations or you haven’t and racing on an illegal bike will get you banned for a form of cheating that brooks no sympathy. As cycling struggles to clean up its act, the last thing the sport needs is cheating by motor — if only to end the link between those keywords ‘cycling + doping.’ None of us needs that.

04/02/2016 15:14

Charge Sheet May 2010 Italian ex-pro and TV commentator Davide Cassani demonstrates a pro race bike powered with a hidden electric motor and batteries. He says that similar bikes may have existed since 2004. Claims are made that Fabian Cancellara used one to win Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix that spring. Said Cancellara: “It’s so stupid I’m speechless” September 2014 Ryder Hesjedal’s bike is filmed spinning on the ground after the Canadian crashed on stage seven of the Tour of Spain. UCI is now using X-ray to detect hidden devices inside pro bike frames January 2016 Under-23 Belgian woman Femke Van den Driessche is disqualified from the cyclo-cross World’s after an electric motor is found concealed in her bike

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04/02/2016 15:14

022 Q&A

Five minutes with...

Brent Bookwalter

As BMC’s super-domestique prepares for a 2016 season in which he is eyeing up his own victories plus a fourth Tour de France selection — he was part of Cadel Evans’ winning team in 2011 — Cycle Sport chats to the Albuquerque-born rider about securing success for himself and his teammates Words Chris Marshall-Bell Photo Graham Watson

This is your ninth season with BMC, what is it that keeps you wearing the red and black?

When they signed me in 2008 I was recovering from a serious broken leg and they kept faith with me through my rehab. That goodwill gesture stuck with me and I’ll always be grateful for that.

How much does that 2008 BMC differ from the 2016 BMC? It’s a far cry from Pro Conti level. But the same philosophy and ideas are still here and we have the same big bosses — Andy Rihs, Jim Ochowicz — same directors and the same staff. It’s familiar and I like that.

Are you proud of your own career achievements to date?

Very proud and there are still areas to improve in. In 2010 [when he came second in the Giro d’Italia prologue to Bradley Wiggins — Ed], when George [Hincapie] and Cadel came, I was wide-eyed, optimistic and awe-struck of my teammates. These were guys who I’d seen on the TV winning and all of a sudden I was their teammate.

That was a nice comfort, knowing that I belonged in their team. That stepped me up into the role of supporting these guys.

What’s it like predominantly being a domestique?

It can be really rewarding but also challenging and trying. The good days are amazing and the tough days are really tough. When you help a teammate to a win in one of the world’s top races it’s special, exciting and empowering. But there are races where you feel you can win and then your teammate doesn’t win and it’s like, ‘all that for nothing?’.

Was last year your most successful?

I accomplished a lot — it was very successful — but deep down I knew I was capable and I expected that. I like to think that there remains the chance for me to find my own results again.

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“It can be really rewarding but also challenging and trying” Bookwalter on being a domestique What races do you want to do well in?

One of the big things I’ve learned is not to target specific races. You have to be open-minded of the opportunities that can arise. If you said to me this time last year that I’d do the Tour of Austria, I would have said ‘I’m not into that’. Even at the time, it wasn’t a plan and I was pretty down at missing out on Tour selection. But I ended up getting a real strong result there [fourth overall]. Things change and fall into place.

Right: Bookwalter is team worker who can ride a strong time trial

So what would constitute a future triumph for you?

I’m 32, I’ve done seven Grand Tours and I’m capable of more, definitely, so more Grand Tours. I’ve always been a good teammate but I’m better than ever before.

Success is helping Tejay van Garderen and Richie Porte in the Tour and stepping onto the podium of a World Tour race by myself.

Tejay and Richie. How do you rate their Tour chances?

They have as good a chance as anyone. We have a great team. There’s been a lot of talk in the cycling press about a rivalry between them but from everything I’ve seen, as people, racers and teammates, they are compatible together. There’s 40 to 50 race days before the Tour and anything can happen. Questions will be answered in that time, but also new questions will get thrown up.

Having already been in a Tour-winning team, what does it take win the Tour de France?

It’s a cliché, but we had that all-for-one, one-for-all mentality. No one got stressed, annoyed or had arguments. We all put it in every hour, every day. It remains a career highlight.

03/02/2016 15:18

023

Highlights Brent Bookwalter (USA), 32 Team: BMC Lives: Albuquerque, New Mexico ■ By the end of 2006 the Lees-McRae college graduate had won 15 American MTB national championships, seven of them individual victories ■ Bookwalter has completed all seven Grand Tours that he has ridden: three Giro d’Italias (2010, 2014 and 2015), three Tour de Frances (2010, 2011, 2013) and one Vuelta a España (2012) ■ In 2015 Bookwalter won a stage and placed second overall at the 2015 USA Pro Challenge, a fortnight after finishing third in the Tour of Utah. He also came fourth in the Tour of Austria GC

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03/02/2016 15:18

024 FEATURE

Xxxxxx PRO RACE BIKE

Cannondale SuperSix Evo Hi-Mod

From pre-Tour Down Under People’s Choice Classic criterium

New signing Wouter Wippert had his first competitive outings aboard the new SuperSix at the Australian early season events this January. The Dutchman took third place on stage one of the Tour Down Under

THE RIDER: Wouter Wippert Age: 25 Height: 1.78m Weight: 74kg

Photos Graham Watson

A

fter two years at team Drapac Wouter Wippert steps up to the World Tour this year with Cannondale Pro Cycling. The sprint specialist gets the new for 2016 Cannondale SuperSix Evo Hi-Mod as his everyday racer and it looks like he has already personalised it with a custom alloy chainring which immediately catches the eye. Bolted to Cannondale’s SISL2 cranks with an SRM power meter piggy-backed onto it, it’s the standout component on an otherwise standard machine.

The new SuperSix hi-modulus carbon frame may look similar to last year’s version but its claimed to be stiffer at the head and bottom bracket, while offering extra damping thanks to extra tuned-in compliance in the fork and seatstays. There’s also a skinny 25.4mm seatpost designed to absorb road shocks. Claimed deflection for the seatpost is an extra 36 per cent and in the fork, 21 per cent — that’s a lot!

Radical aerodynamics are not in the remit of the SuperSix but Cannondale claims to have given this latest iteration a clean-up of key areas around the front end and aerofoil tube shapes.

Traditionalists will nod approvingly at the conventional siting of the front and rear Shimano Dura-Ace caliper brakes. No discs, note.

Gears are Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 electronic but that may change later in the year if team supplier FSA unveils the wirelessly operated drivetrain it’s been working on. Until then the team is free to equip its machines with a range of kit, from Shimano to the Mavic Cosmic wheels as pictured. Wippert favours FSA’s one-piece carbon Plasma bars which add stiffness to the front end plus some trick aero credentials.

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04/02/2016 13:17

Fizik Arione saddle features cut-out central channel

Sprinter’s view from the driving seat over FSA’s Plasma bars

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Frameset Cannondale SuperSix Evo Hi-Mod Gears Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 ST-9070 11-speed Brakes Shimano Dura-Ace 9000 Chainset Cannondale SISL2 with SRM power meter Wheels Mavic Cosmic Tyres Mavic SSC tubulars Handlebar/stem FSA Plasma one-piece Saddle Fizik Arione Seatpost Cannondale K-Force 25.4mm

04/02/2016 13:17

026 COLUMN

Watson

Graham Watson Life through a lens A race-snapping legend with more than 30 years on the scene and over 20 books on pro cycling. Check his latest shots at grahamwatson.com

From wizards of Oz to Spanish flyers

Illustration: Chad Gowey / Photo: Graham Watson

Y

ou might not think the sudden closure of a hotel in Kortrijk, Belgium, could cause so much dismay in the world of cycling. But when the iconic Hotel Broel closed its doors on January 21, the cries of alarm could be heard as far away as Adelaide, Australia. It was that bad.

The Broel was no ordinary hotel, its canal-side location on a cobbled street corner next to two 14th century towers made sure of that. Back in the day, its clients were European royalty, and world leaders like Margaret Thatcher and Bill Clinton have stayed within its impressive stone walls.

Since the early 1990’s, The Broel hosted the Motorola cycling team during its Classics campaigns, bringing young stars like Lance Armstrong to its prestigious address. Armstrong staying there attracted people like Eddy Merckx on many a visit and the guests were suitably gobsmacked that such a legend was in their hotel. Since then the Broel has been a Flemish home for the BMC team, as well as Lampre.

I’m fortunate enough to have stayed many times in the Broel during the spring Classics, and to have enjoyed the near-gastronomic quality of its restaurant as well as the old-style luxury of its musty-smelling rooms. It was a place to meet and greet cycling personalities, both old and new, and to sneak down into its impressive wine-cellar and ogle the red liquids that I could never afford to drink.

Maybe BMC’s team owner Andy Rihs will decide the Broel needs to be rescued and lived-in once again. For his Swiss-financed team has been displaced to a newly-built Hotel Mercure nearby, hardly their level of opulence I’m sure.

Heads down!

How good can Caleb Ewan become – as good as Mark Cavendish, or even better? For sure, the diminutive Orica-Green Edge sprinter is heading down the same yellow brick road that Cavendish himself took so many years ago, a road that has led to 15 Giro stage-wins and a massive 26 stages of the Tour de France.

The question is what can be done to help the diminutive Ewan outsprint men so much bigger than

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himself? When Cavendish began his beat-all path to glory in 2008, he was simply the fastest — and had a team dedicated solely to just him.

Back then there were no Germanic giants like Marcel Kittel and John Degenkolb in his way, but Ewan happens to have at least these two standing across his path to glory. Just as well then, that Ewan is a student of the elite collegiate of Australian cycling.

In men like Robbie McEwen, Baden Cooke and Bradley McGee he has the best tutors, and in Green Edge the best support, collectively the best in everything that will enhance his career.

A lot was made of Ewan’s unique sprinting style — nose and face well over and below the bars — in Adelaide, something he and his advisors have been working on to refine. Quite simply, if you can’t physically bump a rider like Kittel out of the way then just be faster, or at least more aerodynamic, than him. Let’s see how Ewan gets on, how close he gets to Cavendish’s remarkable tally of wins.

Above: Gerrans and Ewan represent two generations of the Aussie talent pool

Taste police The Tour Down Under gave me a first chance to study the new teams and colours for 2016, and as always some disappointed while others shone out brilliantly.

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Cannondale wins my early-season award because their lime-green outfits are so unique. Their milder green clashed with Bretagne-Seché in 2015 but they’ve pumped up the pantone levels so that no-one can be confused this time around. Ag2r have managed to breathe new-life into their aged colours and designs — a sky blue left sleeve on their familiar jerseys has salvaged what had become one of the peloton’s dullest outfits.

Credit to IAM for their simple mainly-blue-to-mainlywhite switch, the latest version is certain to make their riders easier to spot through a bewildered camera lens.

The verdict is still out on the new Dimension Data colours — they’re too new to call. But if you like your colours to be colourful as opposed to black and white, then look away. Lampre, Sky, Trek, BMC, Giant, Jumbo, Orica, Lotto, FDJ, Astana, Movistar, even Tinkoff – no great changes from familiar colours. And why change a winning design anyway?

Which leads me to my two lowest ratings, Etixx and Katusha. Just what these two wealthy teams were thinking when they sat down with their designers last summer is anyone’s guess. Etixx’s blue is not a blue, it’s a destruction of blue, closer to black than blue, and certain to be one of the season’s most overlooked jerseys — unless they win a lot. Katusha’s horrible pale-maroon kit makes them as anonymous as the way they rode the Tour Down Under, and their new-look ‘K’ logo seems to have been inspired by a KFC fast-food outlet.

Two trackies

Start the clock

Go Fabian

This wasn’t perhaps a classic Tour Down Under, it was more a milder version of a classic. The race had great stage-winners, and a deserving overall winner in Simon Gerrans. But the all-Aussie success left a lot of observers wanting something more. The summertime form of the Australians meant that Tinkoff, Green Edge, BMC and their support teams, Drapac and AIS, controlled the entire race.

Trek was all about getting Giacomo Nizzolo into a winning position in the sprints, thus adding another team to control the bunch. And Sky lent their strengths to the control for Ben Swift though at least they tried to break up the race for Henao in the climbs.

I do believe that after 18 years, a fresh twist needs to be made to this popular event. It’s not been a race for pure sprinters for over five years, but it now needs to break its current mould and have a prologue TT or TTT instead of the Peoples Choice criterium. Or a last-day TT in the place of its stage-six criterium.

The thoroughbred that he is once again, Gerrans was unbeatable throughout – his climbing and sprinting saw to that. But a TT might have scrambled the classification a little. It would also allow the fans to see each and every one of the starters in action, or as a team.

If Fabian Cancellara continues his season as he’s started it, cycling fans are in for a big treat when the March and April Classics come along. The Swiss legend was in sparkling form even before January had ebbed away, having never before ever raced that early in the year!

But with such success might come the extreme

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This all-Aussie Tour Down Under wasn’t to everybody’s liking, but it showcased the strength of Australian cycling like never before. And while the biggest stars like Gerrans, Porte, Dennis and McCarthy took the glory, two lesser lights shone out as true legends of the sport.

Consider that we are in an Olympic year, that track-racing in the Olympics is so important to Australian cycling, but that two of those track cyclists had to also perform in the Tour Down Under.

Michael Hepburn spent half the race chasing down escapes for Orica-Green Edge, but just as this column appears in print in early-February, he’ll be racing on the boards of the Adelaide velodrome in order to qualify for the Rio Games.

Hepburn appears in images of the Aussie pursuit team at the London Olympics, alongside none other than Dennis and Bobridge. But he intends to turn silver into Gold in Brazil — as does Bobridge. Trek’s new signing is arguably more diverse than Hepburn, for Bobridge regularly swaps road for track and back again with equal success in both disciplines.

Just over one year ago he made an attempt at the World Hour Record just one week after leading the Tour Down Under – and he’s been setting the track alight throughout this past season before winning on the road in January’s national championship! Keep your eyes on Hepburn and Bobridge this season, they are such talented cyclists.

Below: Cancellara has already shown good form winning a stage at Challenge Mallorca

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028 COLUMN

Watson

temptation to scale back on his intended retirement and give 2017 a whirl too. Which athlete wouldn’t want to go on that little bit longer once he or she has proved their capability to be competitive again. Yet I think Cancellara will stick to his guns and stop in 2016, he’s too calculating and experienced to let his ego or pride run away with him, no matter of the quality of his inspired racing.

Cancellara has such a busy year ahead, with the cobbled Classics on the near-horizon and the Olympics or World’s at the end of the season, but with a Giro-start and a full Tour on his agenda as well. Something will have to give, that’s a certainty, and I’d take a guess and say Fabian will forfeit an Olympic place in Rio in favour of the World’s in Qatar. What a way to go out — a World TT champion for the fifth time, or a world road champion for the first time.

Identity parade With such an array of colours and designs on display, even I struggled to name names when I sat down each evening in Adelaide to edit my pictures. And if I struggled, then just how do the fans, TV commentators and even pro cyclists cope so early in the season?

The only form of identity in this modern-age is still the frame number on a bike, or the pinned-on race numbers on the backs of jerseys. But how can a cyclist be identified from the front, head-on, when he’s in new colours, wearing new glasses and a new helmet?

I’d hate to see cycling go the way of triathlons and have ugly stickers on helmets to identify the wearer. But surely there has to be a way to resolve this issue. The transponders on bikes already emit an identity to timing computers on race-routes and finishes — is there not a

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“The Swiss legend was in sparkling form” Watson on Cancellara way to have that information flash up on TV screens, to at least keep viewers on-side and alert rather than send them away to put the kettle on?

Surely, a tiny inch-wide race number could be stuck on the bars’ or front forks. Or why not make it a new UCI rule that a rider’s name has to be on the shoulders or sleeves of all jerseys, instead of on their backs or side-panels as some teams do now?

Above: Poor Katusha gets the Watson thumbs down for style

Spanish hope I won’t be there, but I’ll have half an eye on the new five-day stage-race that is the Tour of Valencia — Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana to those that can speak the lingo. This re-launched event was one of my favourites until it died in 2008.

I’d go there direct from the Ruta del Sol, shoot the first four days and then high-tail it to Belgium for the Omloop Het Volk. And I’d go there utterly invigorated with the racing I’d seen.

I admire ex-Vuelta winner Angel Casero for dragging La Volta back to life. It’s a high-risk gamble that, if it pays off, could inspire other Spanish races back to life. The Tour of Murcia might once again become a five-day event, and why not a new Semana Catalana —§ that really was one of the best, taking place as it did in the lower-Pyrenees just north and west of Girona.

Spanish cycling is on the rise again!

04/02/2016 15:26

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29/01/2016 10:23

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032 RACE READY

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034 RACE READY

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www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/sportive-series 04/02/2016 12:38

038 INTERVIEW

Cavendish has been racing on GB tracks this winter as he attempts to qualify for the GB track squad in Rio

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039

Bring it on

Cav!

Mark Cavendish is facing all kinds of tests this season. A new team of course, as well as a return to track racing, an Olympic Games and a world road race championship course that suits him. He does love a challenge…

Words Nick Bull Photos Andy Jones, Graham Watson, Yuzuru Sunada

M

ark Cavendish is a perfectionist, a stickler for details. So when, during a pre-season press conference held at British Cycling’s Manchester headquarters in the first week of January, he was asked what the aims of ‘Team Dimension’ are for 2016, his reply started somewhat predictably.

“Dimension Data,” he started, emphasising the second word with such attitude and petulance that the 30-year-old momentarily sounded like somebody half his age. Nonetheless, it was a timely reminder of his mindset. He likes to be right, and if things are anything but, he does what he can to make them such.

So it’s little wonder that his much-publicised trio of targets for this year aims to finally add the biggest two things to his palmarès that have eluded him throughout his otherwise illustrious career: an Olympic gold medal in the six-event omnium, and at least a day in the Tour de France’s yellow jersey. (The other target is the world championships road race in Qatar on October 16, but more of that later).

“It’s a pretty full-on year, but I’ve done it before,” he said, recalling his — arguably career defining — 2011 season that saw him win the Tour’s green jersey and the Worlds in Copenhagen. “I backed up that last half of

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that season, and I think I can do it again.”

What links his Olympic and Tour ambitions are that he has previously been unsuccessful in such bids twice.

Meeting these two objectives in 2016 would arguably complete his CV (assuming one omits Paris-Tours, which he said he would win on numerous occasions back in 2009), and help make the year as significant in his career as his breakthrough 2008 was.

And while wearing the maillot jaune is an unfulfilled objective since it is the only Grand Tour leader’s jersey he has yet to wear, an Olympic gold is clearly Cavendish’s greatest desire.

Ask him about his chances, he’ll tell you he thinks he can win in Rio. Ask him whether or not the disappointment of Beijing — when he was in excellent form, but his medal chances in the Madison were hindered by having a fatigued Bradley Wiggins as his team-mate — still hurts, he’ll tell you he hates such a question more.

“I think the intention to ride the track at the Rio Olympics has been there since Beijing, to be honest,” said British Cycling’s technical director Shane Sutton.

“Even allowing for the road race at London 2012, that intention to win an Olympic track medal — while he may not have said it — never went away.”

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040 INTERVIEW

Cavendish

Omnium or bust His belated confirmation at the end of 2015 that he wants to win an Olympic track medal this summer was hardly revelatory; after all, why else would he have competed at the low-key International Belgium Open track meeting in Ghent in September 2013, two six-days in the winter of 2014, or last summer’s Revolution Series meeting in Derby?

Like a politician preparing to adjust a policy to match public opinion, Cavendish’s stance on the Olympics went from being “I might not do anything ever again on the track,” in Ghent back in 2013 to him “keeping options open” by the time he got to Derby in 2015.

“I think in the early days he didn’t want to tell the world that was his intention,” added Sutton. “But as soon as Cav said he wanted to be involved, we knew he would be committed.”

Cavendish denies that him renting an apartment in Manchester this winter (instead of, say, staying in a hotel when required) to facilitate his track training at the nearby National Cycling Centre was done deliberately in order to dispel any question marks over his commitment.

He may be right; then again, when he’s not even assured of Britain’s one allocated entry into the omnium, it’s not a bad thing to do. Competition most likely comes from fledgling rider Jon Dibben who, like Cavendish, is a product of the British Cycling Academy Programme.

Sutton added: “I sat in a room recently and he sounds like a new Academy athlete. He’s buzzing. But it goes down to performance. He has to perform, because we’ve

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“He has to perform because we’ve got good riders” Shane Sutton on omnium selection got good riders who could ride in the omnium.”

First added to the Olympic programme in 2012, the omnium’s inclusion in the Games’ track programme caused outrage among many, particularly since it came in as the individual pursuit (much adored by cycling purists), points race and Madison were cut.

However, the first two of those events feature in the discipline, alongside a 15km scratch race, elimination race, 1km TT and 250-metre flying lap. It marginally favours endurance riders (read: Cavendish) over pure track sprinters. But with placings decided by the highest number of points across all six, finishing highly in each is the key.

Given the varied nature of the six disciplines, Cavendish’s decision to focus on this may seem a surprise. Yet, when it comes to Rio, the challenging road race route could not be further removed from a sprinter’s course, and Great Britain are so strong when it comes to the team pursuit that the chances of Cavendish getting a place seem unlikely. It’s omnium or bust for him.

“I haven’t done that focused track training for 10 years now and the track’s completely changed since I last did it; the speeds they’re going and the gears they’re

Above: The 2011 Tour green jersey with final stage win in Paris, plus World’s victory was Cav’s most successful season to date

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041

using,” he said. “There was also no omnium then, so I never had to practice a flying 250m. That was unheard of for an endurance rider then. Obviously if you do too much endurance [work] it affects that.”

There’s also a chance, as per the London 2012 road race, that Cavendish’s reputation may count against him.

“If he’s the big fish in a little pond, everybody will follow him in the bunch races,” said Sutton. “A lot more fish means more freedom. The thing is, when Cav puts a number on, people are like sheep with him. It negates his ability to perform. With that comes frustration. The bigger the names in the omnium, the more his chances are enhanced.

“We know he can do a good individual pursuit,” he added, referencing such rides as Cavendish’s second in the 2010 Tour of Romandy prologue. “He’s obviously got to minimise losses in the kilo and the flying lap.”

One of those “big fish” is Sky’s Elia Viviani, the shoe-in for Italy’s omnium spot in Rio. Like Sutton, he knows the importance of Cavendish’s kilo ride to his chances of success — but is more dismissive about the Manxman’s chances.

“After the Tour you have really good condition [and] if

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you recover well, he will have the endurance for the points race. But he will pay [suffer] in the kilo. I think in the Olympics you can’t afford to pay in the kilo. The Olympic [omnium] is the only race that you need to be 100 per cent in every speciality,” said the 26-year-old Italian.

Viviani isn’t the only rider to have beaten Cavendish on the road in recent history who is likely to race the omnium in Rio: Colombian Fernando Gaviria, whose career thus far has been defined by the two wins at Cavendish’s expense at last year’s Tour de San Luis, also won the 2015 world title in the discipline.

Above: He’s done it once, in 2011, can he win the rainbow jersey again in Qatar?

Juggling act In preparation for his split road/track season, Cavendish trained almost exclusively on the Manchester velodrome from the start of December through to mid-January, when he travelled to the World Cup meeting in Hong Kong. In the highest-level omnium he has raced to date, he placed fourth overall, with his results in the individual pursuit (16th) and points race (17th) denying him a podium finish.

Speaking before the meeting, he gave a

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042 INTERVIEW

Cavendish

characteristically straight assessment of his chances in the event. “If I win the Hong Kong World Cup, I may as well go the Olympics. If I’m flying in January, I might as well sit at home for the rest of year.

“No matter what you do when you’re 30, your body reacts differently to when you’re 20. That’s why I’m doing a winter [of training], not just dropping in a few days before the Olympics.”

Because of his relative lack of road training this winter — prior to heading out to Australia ahead of the Cadel Evans Road Race on January 31, he did the occasional day in and around Manchester, as well as his native Isle of Man away from the track — those close to Cavendish do not expect him to win much early season.

He bullishly batted away such claims, saying: “I’m missing the Tour Down Under and Argentina to ride in Hong Kong — there’s two stage races I’m not doing, so I won’t win anything on the road in those weeks.” This is a classic Cavendish response; technically, he’s not wrong, but he likes to raise his guard any time he feels a question is intended to belittle him. “I’ve had a different winter to normal, I don’t know how my form’s going to be. I may have a lot speed and no endurance, or massive endurance but no speed. I really don’t know.”

Herein lies arguably the biggest challenge Cavendish faces in 2016: successfully combining the road and track.

He arguably faces more scrutiny than any other roadman sprinter when he loses a bike race, and if he takes several months before claiming his first victory (as per 2010, when he opened his account at the end of March), talk of

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“I’m laughed at if I only win two or three Tour stages nowadays” Cavendish his demise will not be far away.

In the past, that has seemingly impacted his riding; two crashes at the Tour de Suisse and Tour de France six years ago, which other riders blamed him for, spring to mind. On top of that, Cavendish’s last two seasons have been cut short by injury, and sickness hindered him in the 2013 Tour de France. He needs to avoid the latter two predicaments, at least, if he has any chance of 2016 being a success.

“I’m kind of laughed at if I only win two or three Tour stages nowadays, whereas one stage can make a riders’ career,” he said. “I’m happy with whatever I can get.”

All this makes Cavendish’s winter move to Dimension Data (a second division team when he signed, remember) more logical. He may have described riding for EtixxQuick Step as “a dream, a great place to be”, but ultimately team manager Patrick Lefevere’s disdain for the Olympics did not sit well with Cavendish’s objectives.

His new environment is more compatible with his aims: given that in their MTN-Qhubeka guise their riders won 12 international races in 2015 combined in comparison to Cavendish’s 14, you sense the team has a more laissez-faire attitude than Etixx.

Below: Stage win at the 2015 Tour confirmed Cav still has the hunger Right: Race face at the Dubai Tour where Cav had his first big sprints against Marcel Kittel

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044 FEATURE

Xxxxxx

Cavendish said: “It’s quite a relaxed team, the fact there aren’t these big, ambitious goals, put upon us that if we don’t meet means the end of the team, it’s a nice environment to be in.”

Based on his visit to Dimension Data’s pre-season training camp in Cape Town in early December, Sutton says he noticed a difference in him.

“You get rejuvenated if you have a new manager, a new team, a new hierarchy,” he said. “Moving team is good, I think he’s excited about the Dimension Data project, I think he has the people around him he wants, and he’s really enjoying his bike riding again.

“I think that may have been suppressed of late; I think we’re seeing the real Cav again.”

Post Harrogate Cavendish’s stage victory in Fougères on stage seven of last year’s Tour remains his only World Tour victory since that crash outside Bettys tea rooms in Harrogate which ended his 2014 Tour on day one. In the race’s four other sprint stages last July, all won by André Greipel, he

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“I think we are seeing the real Cav again” Shane Sutton on Cav placed third, fourth, sixth and 151st.

That Cavendish has not been the race’s dominant sprinter for five years adds to the intrigue as to whether or not his 2016 objective is do-able. Then again, given his record (26 Tour stage wins in the race is a remarkable achievement, regardless of what you think of him), the chances of him winning in Utah Beach on July 2 are far more likely than, say, José Joaquín Rojas, Bryan Coquard or Arnaud Démare.

What could make the difference for Cavendish come July is how he spent the winter. On a windy, damp day in early January, Cycle Sport watched the Manxman motor-pacing a derny at 55kph pace for 20 minutes. He looked comfortable and, most significantly, looked

Above: Riding the ill-fated Madison with Bradley Wiggins at the 2008 Beijing Games Top right: With fellow Manxman and former Sky team mate Peter Kennaugh at the Cadel Evans race.

Kennaugh won it.

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045

arguably the leanest he’s been at that point in the year than any time during his career.

“I just had Christmas Day off, we were training until 3pm on Christmas Eve and I was on the road on Boxing Day,” he said. “You can’t lose weight [as quickly] riding on the track as the road, so it was massively important this Christmas that I watched what I was eating, much like I do getting near the Tour de France.

“I remember being up on Tenerife [as part of a track team training camp] in the middle of November, I spoke to my wife and said ‘you know what? I’m looking forward to Christmas dinner’. I knew if I watched everything I ate each day up until Christmas, I knew I could have a proper nice Christmas dinner.”

Furthermore, the intensity of track-based efforts should pay off later in the season. “One of the things I spoke to him recently is that, whatever his results, the work on the track programme will give him the sustainable speed in going forward,” Sutton added.

“Look at the last couple of years, it’s the last 20 metres or so that have let him down speed-wise. We can talk about aero gains that his rivals have made and all the rest of that stuff, but ultimately he hasn’t had the sustainable speed he used to have. Coming back to the track and working on the boards will mean we see a different Cav out there this year.

Hot finale What separates Cavendish’s Olympic and Tour dreams in 2016 with his desire of winning the World’s is that the latter objective has already been accomplished. Yes,

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African mission

Why join Dimension Data team?

Mark Cavendish’s move from Etixx-Quick Step to Dimension Data for 2016 ended up being the most predictable transfer involving a sprinter since, well, Mark Cavendish left Sky after just one season.

Despite being sold by the offer of a three-year salary, freedom to focus on the Olympics and a lucrative salary, the idea of Cavendish joining what was then a Pro Continental squad for 2016 would have seemed farfetched last June.

“From the outside the team looked like a nice place to be, it looked formal and relaxed, and that’s really enticing to anyone,” he said. “Because of

the results they got, they were massively respected in the peloton, so I think it was a no brainer that it was a team I wanted speak to.

“They pretty much achieved everything they wanted and more [in 2015], so the bars have been set higher this year. I believe they’re achievable, but if we don’t win races and still highlight African cycling and [the team’s charity] Qhubeka, we’re in a winning situation.

“I truly believe it has the talent, ambition and with the kind of growth it’s taking, I think it will be one of the biggest teams in peloton in the next few years.”

04/02/2016 14:01

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47

Wins 2015 Mark Cavendish (GB), 30 Team: Dimension Data Lives: UK 2015 season wins (Etixx-Quick Step) ■ Tour de San Luis, stage 7 ■ Dubai Tour, stage 1 and 4, GC and points ■ Clasica de Almeria ■ Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne ■ Tour of Turkey, stage 1, 2, 7, points ■ Tour of California, stage 1, 2, 5, 8, points ■ Tour de France, stage 7

winning the rainbow jersey in Doha on October 16 would make him the first Briton to win the event twice, but it’s not an event that remains unchecked on his to-do list.

Because of the middle eastern climate, this year’s championships come with the added complication of being three weeks later than in recent seasons. Even then, temperatures are likely to be around 35°C, with strong winds likely.

Despite this, and the fact that Cavendish’s win in 2011 was a result of the meticulously-planned Project Rainbow, such a lengthy build-up has not been afforded to this year’s World’s.

“The Tour, Olympics and World’s are a big ask, but I think the one thing is with Mark is that he’s a seasoned professional. On numerous occasions he’s raced from the beginning of the season to the end,” said Rod Ellingworth, who oversaw the 2011 Worlds project and will do the same — albeit on a smaller scale — for Qatar.

“I think if people come out of the Tour and Olympics OK, then they rest, they can build back up. It’s not too bad when you look at it.”

Greipel was the first headline sprinter to declare his intention to win this year’s World’s and, just like Sutton’s thoughts on the omnium, Ellingworth acknowledges that the more headline sprinters on the start line, the better Cavendish’s chances could be.

He said: “Obviously the dynamic’s changed a little bit from 2011, when Cav was way ahead of everybody else.

“I think now with [Marcel] Kittel, Greipel and Viviani, there are a few other guys who can also perform: that could be pretty good, it means other people will work.”

Cavendish believes Great Britain has the “strength in

P038047_CavLUKE CAPS.indd 47

“Cav is going to need a team.

It’s going to be a huge challenge” Rod Ellingworth on the Qatar World’s depth” and that “it has got some of the best bike riders in the world who could come together and race, especially in those conditions in Qatar”.

Yet, this could be his biggest challenge. If Geraint Thomas is focusing on the Tour de France this year, and the likes of Ian Stannard and Luke Rowe are seeking to help Chris Froome to another yellow jersey in Paris, there’s a danger that they’ll be wanting their off-season to begin as quickly as possible. Will Cavendish be able to call upon the best classics riders available?

“Cav is going to need a team,” added Ellingworth, referencing the crosswinds that will likely affect the race’s outcome. “What happens with riders [is that] you get to October and mentally they’re cooked. Part of my role is to make sure guys are up for it. So it’s going to be a huge challenge, that, with the time of year.”

“I communicate with the [British World Tour guys] on a regular basis. The guys in Team Sky, Alex [Dowsett[, Steve [Cummings] the Yates brothers, Adam Blythe at Saxo...we’ve got a good group — it’s down to them and what they want to do.”

Ellingworth ended by saying: “My gut feeling is I think we’ll be OK, though I’m not 100 per cent sure to be honest.” In fact, his words also brilliantly summarised the general reaction to Cavendish’s triple-aim for 2016.

Above: Cav has switched his focus to include omnium selection for Rio

04/02/2016 14:01

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050

AERO storm!

NEW PRO BIKE

It’s no good being a gifted climber if you throw away minutes in the time trials. Thibaut Pinot of FDJ.fr hopes his radical new Lapierre TT bike will transform his efforts against the clock

Words Kenny Pryde Photos Nicolas Gotz/FDJ.fr, Graham Watson

I

f modern cycling is more and more obsessed by ‘the numbers’ then none speak quite so eloquently as Thibaut Pinot’s accumulation of fourth places in the final general classifications of stage races.

In 2015 alone the 25 year-old Frenchman slipped from second place in the Tour de Romandie and leading the Tour of Switzerland overall to a dreaded, unloved and unremarked fourth place. In both races he won key mountain stages but slipped down the leaderboard in final day time trials.

The assumption was that he was basically rubbish at time trials and that was the end of it.

Maybe he couldn’t concentrate in those efforts. Or perhaps the specific skill required is just too different from the terrain he excels on?

The fact that Pinot frequently posted decent results in time trials as an amateur was inexplicably overlooked. Or maybe his bike wasn’t quite as good as those piloted by his rivals?

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04/02/2016 13:19

Calpe, Spain, January 2016: Thibaut Pinot in pre-season testing on Lapierre’s new TT weapon

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04/02/2016 13:19

052 NEW PRO BIKE

Lapierre

McAerobike From a non-expert point of view, all of those aero-styled World Tour teams’ time trial bikes look much the same — more or less pretty and more or less aero. One might have a preference based more on aesthetics than aerodynamic co-efficients, but we presume that they are all pretty much the same and that in the end the result is down to the legs driving the pedals that counts.

Well, yes and no. The rider obviously counts the most, but, if any two riders are roughly equal, then a less than optimal bike and position is extremely important.

So it is that Lapierre, the French company who supply FDJ.fr with bikes, has produced a new time trial bike for the team for 2016.

The Aerostorm is the fruit of two years input from several sources — aerodynamic specialists from the Airbus plane design team, the riders as well as team coaches Fred Grappe and Julien Pinot.

Research and development project manager Remi Gribaudo explained that the new frame — called the Aerostorm — was the result of stripping the bike back to basics and gathering mountains of test and CAD data, but trying to build on the existing bike.

The result is that overall stiffness has improved, there are new chainstays, direct mount brake compatibility, improved cable-routing, narrower main tubes and a more laterally rigid bike too.

Aerostorm was still a work in progress at the December 2015 training camp, in as much as the cockpit area was still being worked on. Focus was on trying to integrate the bars and stem, both of which come from sponsor Shimano’s Pro range.

Cockpit The front end of the bike – in terms of steering, comfort and rider position - was the area that the whole team worked hardest on. “The problem is that the height of

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the bars and stem have a big impact on the rider’s position as well as the steer-ability of the bike,” noted mechanic Arnaud Desoeuvres.

He added that the internal cabling was difficult to route in ways that don’t interfere with the headtube and steerer — there’s not a lot of room in there. “Having said that, the first time we built the old TT bike it took us two days, but the new one isn’t a lot different to the road bike. The cables are easy to access and so is the battery which is located in Lapierre’s patented TrapDoor system under the bottom bracket. It’s really important for us to be able to get quick access to the battery.”

Pinot and Steve Morabito tested the first prototype in October 2015 and both declared themselves much happier aboard the new machine. It turns out that sizing was a real problem with the previous TT model.

Crudely, the old bike was a tricky ‘fit’ and many riders found they were obliged to ride bikes that were slightly too big or too small.

Nobody on the team ever used the Large size of the old model, such were the quirks of sizing. More seriously, the old TT bike was not easy to ride at speed on technical descents and certainly not on anything other than straight roads.

Info blizzard Developing a new aero bike is a tricky process too. “The problem is that you can go into the wind tunnel,” says Julien Pinot, “and gather data. Then you go and work to change things on the basis of that wind tunnel data. But the problem is the repeatability of the test and protocol you used.

“It’s hard to get good data on the things that you are trying to evaluate and improve. You can take the exact same ride, same position, same helmet, same skinsuit, put them in a wind tunnel and take 15 data sets and you end up with 15 different sets of figures unless you take a

Below left: Aero to the max around the seatpost and faired-in back end Below: Integrated front brake, tick! one-piece aero bars, tick! Stacked arm rests, tick!

04/02/2016 13:19

053

lot of care.

“Additionally of course, a rider in a wind tunnel, or on a velodrome or the road — those are very different propositions. The wind tunnel is useful in some ways, but not in others.”

Even if you find the most aerodynamic position for your rider, you still have to solve the key issue that an aerodynamically optimal position may not enable the rider to produce or sustain his best power output.

“There is always a compromise between aero and comfort as well as the rider’s ability to produce power with an aero position, not forgetting various other elements – the helmet, skinsuit and the bike’s handling characteristics,” observes Pinot.

“We’re always looking for a compromise between the most aero position and the power and manoeuvrability of the bike. There is always a lot of talk about Watts and Watts per kilogramme, but the thing that is enormously important in a time trial is the bike and rider frontal area measured in metres squared.

“If you look at Thibault and, say, Jean-Christophe Peraud, Romain Bardet and Warren Barguil, I suspect they are all more or less the same weight and can produce the same power. But their frontal areas, their positions are different – it’s not just about power.”

Four French riders, all more or less gifted climbers, but Peraud is the one who generally does better against the clock. “It is a different kind of effort,” notes Julien,

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“There’s a compromise between aero, comfort and power” Julien Pinot, FDJ coach “the power output may be the same, but the gears used, the cadence and position on the bike are all very different — all of which can be worked on.

“The thing is that, for sure, there are riders who are afraid to work on their time trialling because they are scared it will cost them their climbing ability.”

So, for all the wind tunnel, velodrome and positional work carried out, if the bike is unstable and you can’t carry speed through bends or you have to get out of your aero tuck frequently, you’ve probably been wasting your time in testing.

This, it would appear, was the big problem with the old bike — it didn’t handle well on technical road courses. “We’ve made the wheelbase longer to give it more stability,” says Gribaudo, “the top tube is longer and the head angle is steeper too.”

Add to that a claimed 30 per cent stiffer rear triangle plus the new cockpit and you can see that the FDJ team will be sitting on a very different bike in 2016. “We’ve now got a bike that is worthy of a World Tour team,” says Thibault Pinot. OK then Thibault, over to you.

Above: Aerostorm is longer and more stable than previous model. Stealthaggressive looks

04/02/2016 13:19

054 THIBAUT PINOT

Interview

The driver

Thibaut Pinot is France’s most consistent stage race rider and already a podium finisher in the Tour de France. But does Pinot still have the talent to improve?

P

inot finished fourth overall in two World Tour stage races last year — the Tour du Romandie and the Tour of Switzerland. A few seconds separated him from a place on the podium.

Given that he had won mountain stages in both races, the key stages, the fact that he missed out on the podium had to rankle.

“When you look at the fact that it was, in the end, only a few seconds that I missed the podium by in both cases, it’s clear that the seconds I lost in the time trials in both races cost me,” admitted Pinot, “but we are working on that, as we have been for a couple of seasons.”

In fact, the ‘working on it’ has been a key part of the work and investment at FDJ and Lapierre, the team’s bike sponsor and there’s a new time trial bike for 2016. “The old bike wasn’t very stable in the turns or in descents,” admits Pinot, “which when you are looking for seconds is a real problem. Being aero on the bike then having to slow up in faster sections means you lose a lot of the benefits. I rode the new bike a three times at a December training camp and although it was still a prototype, it was much more stable and handled better in descents.”

The physiological business of time trialling is, in some circumstances, the same sort of effort as that required on a long mountain climb; a steady, sustained near-maximal effort. Pinot has shown that he can produce the goods in the mountains, but doing the same on a time trial bike is different. “Yes, in many ways it is the same sort of power output, but you need to feel comfortable on the time trial bike, you need to be able to produce the same power in the best aero position and that’s not easy, that is something that needs practice and training, specific training.” Having been involved in the development of the new bike for the new season — together with his coach brother Julien and Fred Grappe — Pinot is confident that he can make a step forward. “Now we have a time trial bike that is worthy of a World Tour team,” he concludes, the none-too-subtle inference being that the last version was lacking.

The dream win, for Pinot, is still the Tour de France and there is no way he will win that race unless there are no time trials or he improves in the discipline. Pinot is no dreamer and neither is his team. “The fact that I’ve been on the podium once (third in 2014 at 8-15 from Vincenzo Nibali) means that I can see that it is an attainable goal,

P050055_pinotLUKE.indd 54

it’s not just a dream in that sense. I’m still working hard and making progress, but it is small steps and I don’t think I will be at my physical peak until I’m 30,” says the 25 year old, “so I think there’s time and I’ll follow the path and keep working.”

Working hard is something that he’s been doing since he turned pro, whether it was striving to improve his descending when he lost his descending mojo in 2013, or on his time trialling.

Pinot took to a racing car to get over his apparent discomfort when riding at speed and the team hired mountain bike downhiller Oscar Saiz to help the whole team during a training camp.

France expects “It’s true, that when l’Equipe asks if he can win the Tour and puts it on the front page, on one hand it’s flattering but in another way it’s a disaster. You can try to ignore it, but, deep down, it adds to the pressure,” notes his brother and coach Julien. “You could say that his success at the Tour in 2012 (a solo stage win in Porrentruy and 10th overall) came too soon, but you can’t stop the attention.”

The team, with its coaching staff and the new time trial bike as well as its recent embracing of ‘foreign’ training camps. “Two years ago, we had camps in Brittany in December when it was so cold you couldn’t feel your fingers’” said one FDJ rider.

For his part, Pinot recognises that the sport has evolved (even if Marc Madiot, the team boss, took a bit of persuading), “you have to be ready to race in January, whereas five or six years ago, you could take it easy because you didn’t really start till March.” It’s an inescapable fact too that a team needs to be ready to race and ready to win at the start of the season too — a win or two, a podium, some ‘presence’ in races is essential both for team and individual morale.

Last year, FDJ.fr had a pretty miserable early season, with Nacer Bouhanni gone and Arnaud Demare not performing at his best. By the time it was Pinot’s time to shine, he was under more pressure than anyone would have wanted. A couple of seasons ago, Pinot might have cracked; instead he coped. “Yes, it’s true that there probably was a bit more pressure on me, but at the same time, I’m one of the leaders of the team now, so I have to accept it, that’s part of the job.”

Above: Pinot wins stage 20 to Alpe d’Huez at the 2015 Tour de France

04/02/2016 13:19

Big year ahead Pinot, conscious, perhaps of the pressure that threw him off track, has supportive words for Demare. “It’s true that since he turned pro he’s sort of got into the habit of winning a few races every year, but then he’s still very young, he’s barely 24 and you can’t expect him to win 15 races every year. That sort of season can happen to anyone.”

In 2015, Pinot had a good year — performing in all the ‘rendezvous’ he had targeted (Tirreno-Adriatico, Romandie, Switzerland, the Tour and the Tour of Lombardy) and winning a gripping Tour de France stage at the summit of Alpe d’Huez. Once he started ‘ticking off’ performances and results, his confidence rose. “Even although I raced badly in Tirreno, I was happy with my form and at Romandie I felt good on the stage I won. In recent years that’s been a race where the winner has gone on to win the Tour and it’s a race a lot of the Tour GC riders go to test their form, so I was pleased with my stage. Romandie is the sort of race where, if you are riding

P050055_pinotLUKE.indd 55

“I’m one of the leaders of the team, that’s part of the job” Thibaut Pinot well, you can go away and prepare quietly for the Tour.

Confidence is such a big part of performance and racing, I’m not sure I can put a figure on it, but I’d say over 50 per cent is down to confidence. If the basic physical form is there, then confidence counts for a lot. Now I’m a lot more confident and decisive in those moments where you have to attack, to put a plan into action.”

With 2016 underway — and a Rio Olympic course which will suit riders of his type — this could be a big year for Pinot. “I want to start winning week-long stage races, it’s time I started doing that. I was quite close in Switzerland last year — but I’m not really interested in podium places now. I need to win.”

04/02/2016 13:19

056

Air Heads INSIDER

As another season kicks off, it’s a racing certainty that someone will ponder the secrets of Team Sky. Are there any tricks? Is it really a different kind of team? Cycle Sport went to their pre-season training camp to find out Words Kenny Pryde Photos Geoff Waugh

D

o you really want to know what makes Team Sky so special? Do you want to know what sets the team apart from other World Tour squads? It was stickers on the training camp hotel door — the ‘Team Sky 2016’ stickers. In any case that was what first impressed former Etixx rider Michal Kwiatkowski about his new employers.

“I asked the guys if they put stickers on the front door of every hotel, but it was just for the training camp. I was disappointed,” laughed the Polish former world road champion.

“But, look,” he continued, picking up the sheet of paper in front of him, “there’s even a printed A4 piece of paper (with the Team Sky logo) to let us know this is table number two at the media day press conference.”

With Sky then, it’s the attention to every single detail that counts. You can’t help but notice the hand

P056063_SkyLUKE.indd 56

sanitisers in public areas (“they were even in the lift last year, sat on a stool. But that didn’t last long, that was a wee bit over the top, even for us,” observed one rider) and before you went in to the buffet restaurant.

Attention to detail Ensuring the general environment is ‘special’ is one thing, but that’s just background. When it comes to training, things have gone way beyond ‘endurance’ and ‘tempo’ rides to very specific sets and durations of interval training on certain stretches of roads during training rides — on every training day.

Forget the worn-out cliché about ‘marginal gains’ and just reflect at the attention to detail in every department. The idea of marginal gains is now firmly embedded in the mind of the public as Sky’s Big Thing. But the reality of the day-to-day running of

03/02/2016 15:44

057

January 2016, Team Sky enjoy the Mediterranean sunshine in the calm before the storm of the pro season

P056063_SkyLUKE.indd 57

03/02/2016 15:44

058 INSIDER

Team Sky

the team is if anything, even more impressive.

While other teams settle into swanky four-star hotels shared with coffin-dodgers escaping northern European chills on the Costa Brava, Sky prefers to book a more modest hotel in Mallorca which opens for the team and no other guests in December and January. It’s ‘their’ hotel, with their own chef, features a strong wifi signal not even a hotel full of video-streaming pros and journalists can crash and no parking or bike security hassles either.

There’s no need to book or move in and out of meeting rooms, the team’s laptop computers and cables are already plugged in to whatever giant monitor in whatever room they need. The hotel info screens feature rider and staff arrival and departure times and reminds riders of the day’s agenda — and there were no bus excursions to the Caves of Drach or Aqualand in Palma on that list. The head of winning behaviours Fran Millar keeps her china tea mug behind the bar.

“They are always looking to evolve and bring in the next thing” Michal Kwiatkowski on Sky

Personal relationships “What is it that makes Sky different?” muses Andy Fenn — who, like Kwiatkowski came from Etixx. “I’d say the big thing is organisation, which is not to say that riders don’t get that at other teams, but I think here they are always looking for something extra, they’re always looking for ways to improve, even in traditional areas.

“Like last year there was the RV at the Giro (Porte’s camper van-sleep home — Ed.), or bringing in a team

P056063_SkyLUKE.indd 58

chef in previous years, or the cooking truck, they are always looking to evolve and bring in the next thing.

And in the past maybe they’ve been laughed at — obviously with the warm-down on rollers after some stages — but now everyone does it.”

It’s illuminating, spending a few days in team hotels during the winter season, when riders and staff are more relaxed, when there’s no racing being done, just the

Above: Kwiatkowski is the star signing — he’s already impressed by Sky Below: Froome leads from the front, inspiring others with results and attitude

03/02/2016 15:44

059

workaday business of eat, train, massage, eat, sleep, eat, train, massage. It’s at times like this where you are offered a small insight into the personal relationships that exist inside a team, where the dynamics and attitudes become a bit clearer. Sky is big on communication between staff and riders.

Good to talk Nobody is keen to be too critical of previous employers and, quite rightly, the experiences of one rider on a team are not, necessarily, the same as the rest of the squad, but it’s worth noting that all of the riders we spoke to mentioned ‘communication’ as a key Sky benefit. The pre-training ride briefings and explanations of what the riders were about to do and why they were going to do it was striking in its detail and thoroughness.

Other riders cited nutrition as something that Sky focused on more than previous teams they had ridden for. “I’ve had a lot of help with nutrition here,” explained Fenn, “in the end it’s only small changes, those ‘marginal gains’ that everyone talks about, but when it comes to nutrition it might only be a few little things that you change.

“Like looking at the balance of what you eat in terms of protein and carbohydrates. What exactly you are eating, when you are eating it. How portion sizes should vary depending on the training that you did that day.

“In the end, you are probably eating similar amounts of the same things, but it’s just there’s more focus on when you eat it. So it’s probably not like you were doing a bad job before, but with nutrition it’s more like giving it a tweak so you are getting the best out of it.”

You can get your nutrition right and you can be at your optimal weight (assuming you and your coach and

P056063_SkyLUKE.indd 59

nutritionist know what that is though, right?) but when it boils down to it, if the training isn’t right — and right for you — then you might as well get back on the donuts.

Always pushing

Above: Training sessions are planned and presented each day

“We’ve got three coaches here, with Xavi (Artetxe), Rod (Ellingworth) and Tim (Kerrison) and I think we’ve sort of got a lot of similar style and shape of riders,” muses Fenn, “though we don’t all get the same programme, far from it and there’s maybe a little more attention paid to details there too – we go on power a lot but there are a lot more intervals — certainly more than I did at QuickStep, that’s for sure.

“I feel here that they are always pushing you in training, whereas before it was kind of ‘OK, that’s enough’ while here they take you over and see what happens and how you respond.

“It’s not like they put you in a box though! The coach doesn’t just keep you going till you collapse, but they are willing to ask you to go a little bit longer or with a little bit more power.”

Totally Fenned The previous day Fenn had undergone a little field test and had shuffled towards the restaurant looking a tad fatigued, to say the least. As he passed Fran Millar, she cheerily and light heartedly said ‘Oh I hear you got a new PB on your test today!” A heavy-legged Fenn could barely raise an arm to wave away her compliment.

After lunch, Fenn explained his frankly knackered demeanour. “Yeah, that was hard, three five-minute efforts, just flat-out. And then another set of intervals today and tomorrow. But then again, there’s been a build-up in the volume and intensity of the training,

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060 INSIDER

Team Sky

Team Sky winter timeline ■ October 4 Final World Tour race of the year, the Tour of Lombardy, finishes in Como October 5 Team flies to Abu Dhabi to take part in four-day Tour of Abu Dhabi where Wout Poels finishes second overall ■ October 12 team flies home to Europe ■ October 19-21 A ‘training camp’ in London, where all the riders undergo medicals, photos are taken, fitments and measurements for clothing and bikes are made ■ November Rod Ellingworth pays home visits to various members of the team to review the season and start planning for 2016 ■ December 6-21 First team training camp in Alcudia, Mallorca where riders start preparation for 2016. Not all riders attend, it’s more of a rotating ‘drop-in’ camp ■ January 5-31 Those parts of the team not racing in Australia reassemble in Alcudia after the Christmas break, including media and sponsor activities. This is the only Mallorca camp Chris Froome attends, for a week. Training is stepped up ■ January 19 Team starts 2016 season in Tour Down Under ■ January 28 European season starts at Trofeo Campos in Mallorca

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aerodynamic and time trial strategies. Coaching at Sky doesn’t simply involve an email with a series of acronyms, numbers and recovery intervals — it doesn’t even revolve around the occasional long-distance Skype chat either.

Coaching party

“I’ve had a lot of help with nutrition here” Andy Fenn on Sky coaching it wasn’t like the team was asking me to do this sort of stuff in December, things always step up in January, which makes sense.”

When Fenn was on the squad, the Etixx team had two coaches (one of whom, Tom Steels, doubled as a sport director), while Sky has — including Dario Cioni who works closely with Italian new pro Gianni Moscon and Ian Boswell — four.

Additionally Sky has Simon Jones working as Head of Performance Support and Innovation while performance analyst Robby Ketchell studying and developing

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In the pre-season planning phase Ellingworth visits the rider at home for a half-day debrief and future planning session. Thus, before the riders even turn up at the first training camp, the coaching staff already has an idea of what the riders want to do based on the previous years.

Are they heading in the right direction? Making progress and meeting their goals? Are they ready to take the next step? From the outside, looking in, that’s not so much a ‘marginal gain’ as intelligent coaching practice.

But how many teams have the time and resource to do it? So instead of a leisurely but in-depth discussion, other teams might squeeze a similar meeting with riders during a training camp – between sponsor meetings and photoshoots, when the training for the following season has already begun.

Above: Training camps mix sociable riding with serious interval sessions Left: Andy Fenn is already benefitting from the extra coaching input

Poel’s perspective If Fenn, as a British rider, had an ‘easy’ way into a British team, its language, humour and culture, then Dutchman Wout Poels, signed from Etixx after three seasons at Vacansoleil, has an ear more attuned to notice the differences.

When Poels was informed that Sky might be interested in his services, he admitted that his initial reaction was: “’Hey, that’s quite cool that they’re

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062 INSIDER

Team Sky

interested’ but then I started to think that maybe it wasn’t a team that would suit me, because from the outside it looks like a super serious squad, which isn’t really my thing. I had a quiet word with Serge Pauwels who had ridden for Sky and he told me it would be a good team for me, that they could help me become a better rider.”

Poels was the first Dutch rider to join the team — and he now has Danny Van Poppel for post-race banter and scherts — but didn’t take too long to realise that the stern exterior, the ‘Death Star’ vibe was misplaced.

“We had a social get-together, sailing in the Solent and I have to say I’m not really a sailor and three hours on a sailboat was not much fun,” recalls Poels, “but when you are really new — and I only knew (sport director) Servais Knaven — and when you are sitting there listening to all the guys who know each other chatting away about races, it was weird at first. By the first training camp though, when you are just riding, chatting, I felt at home really quickly.”

Turning up after a year with Etixx, Poels discovered a team that suited him. “Here the image of the team is that they are really strict but, you know, I like that, it suits me. I want to give everything to get the best out of myself, so I also expect that the people around me will be doing the same — that they’ll be trying their hardest to get the best out of themselves too.

“That’s the atmosphere there is here. But,” he adds, “it’s a really relaxed atmosphere after, we’re playing pool and messing about and the Christmas dinner we had at the first training camp was so funny, I had never experienced anything like that before.”

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“It’s a relaxed atmosphere, we’re playing pool and messing about” Wout Poels on the off-season

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Left: Ford has replaced Jaguar as the Team Sky vehicle supplier Below left: Double Tour winner Froome talks training with a thoughtful Tim Kerrison looking on

There may have been fancy-dress costumes and all sorts of hi-jinks at the pre-Christmas training camp, but when it got to January, it was down to business and Poels, trained by Tim Kerrison, works as hard as anyone. Not that he was immediately convinced. “When I joined, we had a chat and I ended up working with Tim but, to be honest, the first few weeks I was working with him I was thinking, ‘Hmm, I’m not sure if this is going to work out for me,’ but I’m glad I stuck with it. It was another way of working from what I had been used to with Tom Steels at QuickStep and at Vacansoleil I always had my own coach who wasn’t part of the team.”

Recalling that Serge Pauwels had suggested that Sky would be good for Poels, the Dutchman understands better what the Belgian meant. “I was happy with Tom’s methods at QuickStep, but in the end the team is far more focused on the Classics and they have far more Classics-oriented riders, whereas here there are more ‘GC’ style riders.” So when it comes to coaching, Sky knows how to get the best out of that style of rider.

Froome goes Dutch The aura that clings to Sky from an outsider’s perspective also, rather reassuringly, affects fellow pros too, as Poels reveals. “Sometimes guys come up to me in the bunch and ask me what its like and have a chat but most of them I think see how I am riding and reckon it was a good move on my part.”

The idea that there is an emotion-free Sky sausage machine, churning out ‘robo-riders’ is further dented when, in response to a question about the essential drudgery and nose-to-stem hard work involved, Chris

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Froome said: “How could I not be motivated and happy to come to a training camp when I knew I would be sharing a room with Wout Poels!?” which says something about how quickly the Dutchman has integrated into the team and — aside from his riding skills — how much his cheerful demeanour has added to the squad too.

Poels laughs at this, noting that, again, the team has fun even if, in the end, it’s the time spent doing intervals rather than the timing of his jokes that probably make a difference. “When people ask me how is it that I have changed, I say that my training has changed a little bit, the volume, the intensity, the type of efforts. The fact that last year was the first time I had ever done a training camp at altitude.

“Now there is time to do it, to invest in that sort of work, whereas at other teams it just felt like race-racerace and you need three weeks to do a good altitude camp. At a more basic level, my position in the peloton has changed too, the team always rides at the front and in the past I would ride more towards the back, so you waste energy. Plus, when you see the rest of the guys on the front you think ‘Shit, I’m letting them down, I should be up there too.’”

In one paragraph, Poels more or less reveals the secret of Team Sky. They’re serious, they pay attention to detail, they have fun, they train hard, they recover well and have a great team spirit. It’s hardly a shock; it’s not exactly injections of lamb placenta and ozone treatments, is it? As far as we can see, it’s all legit and UCI-approved, right down to the stickers and hand sanitizers.

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064 ANALYSIS

Pro Conti rollercoaster World Tour teams get guaranteed access to the biggest races, but should Pro Continental teams also aspire to that level? With the sport in flux, is Pro Conti a good place to be?

Words Sean Gordon Photos Graham Watson, Yuzuru Sunada, Andy Jones

P

rofessional road racing teams are organised into three tiers. World Tour teams are obliged to ride all the races in the UCI World Tour calendar, which takes a lot of money and staff. Next, there are Professional Continental (Pro Conti) teams, who ride UCI races under World Tour level and whose budgets are concomitantly smaller. They do get wild card access to some World Tour events though. Finally there are Continental teams who tend to stick to their domestic calendars.

It’s assumed that most teams aim to move up a category, to race in bigger events and get wild card invitations to race in more prestigious events. The reality is rather more complicated and nuanced, as rider, management, sponsor and race organiser ambitions criss-cross.

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If professional cycling is riddled with ‘friendly’ deals and handshake promises kept and broken, Pro Conti teams — occupying the space between World Tour and 19 other similarly-registered (European) teams with their own agendas – have a hard life, fraught with pitfalls.

For some, Pro Continental level is a stop-off point for riders who are either on their way up, or on their way out from the top tier of professional cycling.

Spanish example Spanish bank Caja Rural de Navarra entered professional cycling in 1988 with a Continental level team. Between then and 2009, when their current set-up Caja Rural-Seguros RGA was established, they kept their hand in, sponsoring amateur teams in

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Mixing with the big boys: Omar Fraile (Caja Rural), mountains winner in white poses with Fabiu Aru (GC) in red and Pedro Rodriguez (points) in green at the 2015 Vuelta

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066 ANALYSIS

Pro Conti

“I was very fortunate to play in an era of English cricket that was very successful” Matt Prior on his past Spain, as well as one year as a Continental team sponsor in 2005.

They provided a stepping stone for young Spanish riders to the professional ranks — most notably Euskaltel-Euskadi, a pathway taken by 2002 Vuelta winner Aitor Gonzáles.

In terms of momentum, though, it would appear that Caja Rural-Seguros RGA, in its current shape, is holding station. What they’ve been doing is effective at their level but moving up to the World Tour is proving

difficult. That is despite being well-known in Spain, winning the mountains classification of the Vuelta in 2014 and 2015 with Luis León Sánchez and Omar Fraile respectively, as well as winning Vuelta a Asturias on two occasions in 2011 and 2013.

“For us to be a Spanish team is key,” Caja-Rural’s vice president, Ricardo Goñi explains. “Our two main sponsors are Spanish and have business interests in Spain, therefore they would not want to be the sponsor of a team that was not Spanish.

Above: Former England test player Matt Prior has big plans for One Pro

Colombia-Coldeportes

Colombian breakdown In some cases ambition and desire is not enough to keep a team going and when the funds dry up, the team dehydrates and fades away.

An example of this is Team Colombia-Coldeportes, which proved a catalyst for the return of Colombians to the top tier of cycling in its four-year stint as a professional team between 2012 and 2015.

Colombia-Coldeportes were the mountain goats of the Pro Continental scene, winning eight separate mountain classifications in its final

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year, including Carlos Quintero taking home the KOM jersey from the 2015 edition of Tirreno–Adriatico.

Once the announcement was made that the team would be folding at the end of 2015 general manager Claudio Corti said: “Unfortunately, the final decision by Coldeportes was communicated to us only in the last few days, meaning we could not proceed any further with the UCI. Nor could we help the team — riders, sports directors, staff and sponsors — who worked with us in the last year.”

Depending on your perspective the team was either bold or barmy in deciding to run the team entirely with Colombians, without the aid of experienced non-Colombian mentors on the road. Additionally, its best elements were quickly cherry-picked.

Thus, although the team can take credit for the rise of Esteban Chaves, one of the most exciting young riders on the World Tour right now, as well as Darwin Atapuma, a proven competitor on the World Tour, neither rider hung around.

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“However, the team has been taking steps to go up to the World Tour. That is why we have been looking for an international sponsor to make that move in the next two or three years.”

By coincidence, Caja Rural is headquartered in Pamplona, the same city as Movistar, the world’s number one team at the end of 2015. What sort of relationship does the small Spanish bank have with the communications multinational?

“The relationship with Movistar is very good. We compete with different objectives and have different ways of running. We collaborate on everything we can to improve the cycling and are in constant contact.

“No doubt Movistar is full of top-level riders and some of them have previously ridden with us. In Caja Rural-Seguros RGA we are very proud that some of our riders will step up to the World Tour and to do so in the Movistar Team would be a great option for them,” explains Goñi.

And there’s the rub. On one level Caja Rural is trying to develop and make the step up to World Tour level, but

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at the same time there’s the constant risk of losing its best riders to its bigger neighbour. At the end of 2015 Amets Txurruka moved to Orica-Green Edge and over the past six years riders like Jose Herrada and Javier Moreno have moved up and away from Caja Rural to Movistar. Losing your talent while trying to persuade bigger sponsors to come on board is a constant and serious problem.

Above: Pro Conti front and back, World Tour in-between — who cares?

Brit pack A new 2016 Pro Conti team with clear goals is One Pro Cycling. Founded in 2015 by former English cricketer Matt Prior the team has ascended rapidly, spending only one year in the lowest, Continental, UCI tier before securing Pro Continental status for 2016.

Prior claims to have taken ideas from his time in cricket and applied them to his cycling team, and that’s the secret to One Pro Cycling’s success so far: “I was very fortunate to play in an era of English cricket that was very successful. We created a model from 2008, when we weren’t very good, to 2011 when we were

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068 ANALYSIS

Pro Conti

the best in the world and a lot of that revolved around professionalism. I think it’s what a lot of people comment on and one of the things we’re most proud of is our professionalism as a team and as a brand.

“The structure we now have in place is what is needed if we want to continue to grow as a professional sports team. It’s been a huge change and it’s kind of unrecognisable as the team from last year, but it is what we wanted, right from the outset.

“We didn’t want to remain a UK team racing UK races, we always wanted to grow and eventually race globally and race in all the big races, I said that right from the outset.”

Diabetes USA But maybe striving to get a chance to race in the big league at World Tour level isn’t the only – or best - function of Pro Continental squads, for either the teams or the riders. Team Novo Nordisk is an American Pro

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Continental outfit, made up entirely of riders coping and racing with type one diabetes.

Founder and CEO Phil Southerland epitomises the besotted, committed cycling fan who is usually at the heart of a project like Team Novo Nordisk, generating the vision and drive for a niche cycling team: “Before the team I was at college, and I was racing my bike and when I was at college I was helping people with diabetes get motivated and take control and I got a real sense of gratification out of inspiring these people.

“I had one semester left in college and all I knew was that I wanted to work for myself and I wanted to make a difference in the world. And I thought the bike could be a phenomenal way to do that.

“We were Continental from 2008 to 2010 and managed to build up a good reputation with the riders, looking after them, and paying their salaries, which is important. And in 2011 we went Pro Continental. I think the secret to success is the team that’s around me. It

Above: Amets Txurruka at the 2013 Vuelta. Now riding for Orica-Green Edge in 2016

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wasn’t a case of just jumping in and creating this franchise, we built it and now we have well over 100 people, with the same mission, involved.”

To the bystander it may seem obvious that the aim of every Pro Continental team would be to get as many wildcard entries to as many World Tour events as possible. After all, to progress and get as good as the top guys, you have got to ride with the top guys, right?

Ex-pro Vassilli Davidenko is the general manager at Team Novo Nordisk and has been Southerland’s right-hand man since day one of the professional team.

Handling the ‘on-bike’ side of the operation, he reckons that the ‘aim high’ attitude isn’t always the best tactic for a Pro Continental team, and they have to be careful picking races that are manageable for their pool of riders.

“The team itself is very young and we’re still in the process of developing our riders,” says Davidenko, “in the third year of our existence it was the plan to be at one of the World Tour events. I knew we weren’t ready for races like Liege- Bastogne- Liege or Fleche Wallonne but I knew our guys could handle Milan-San Remo.

“The World Tour teams have everything a bit more grounded as they have the invitations and a racing calendar set out at the start of the year. They also have a pretty large choice of where they can go too.

“With the size of teams they have now you can have three teams on the go at one time and you can go to any event. With the Pro Continental teams it’s difficult

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“You have to take risks signing young riders to develop them” Vassili Davidenko, Novo Nordisk because you can have preliminary races set out that you want to do, but it’s no secret that if you want to race in France more then there will be challenges for an American team like us.

“First they invite the World Tour teams then they want the French teams and then all you have left is one or two places that you have to fight for and if you’re lucky you’ll get invited.

“A World Tour team have already got all the riders that have been developed to the top level, they know how many climbers, sprinters, helpers, lead out guys they need in the team, and they go out and get them.

With the Pro Continental, it’s different, you have to take some risks, signing the young riders to develop them and getting a balance. It’s a different world.”

Although the ambition for many Pro Continental teams seems to be to move to World Tour level, it doesn’t mean it’s the sole focus. It could also be an identity that matters, be it nationality for Caja Rural, or a common disease for Novo Nordisk. A shared goal can mean something other than collectively moving to the next level.

Above: Team Novo Nordisk got a high profile invite to the 2015 Tour of Britain

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“We didn’t want to remain a UK team doing UK races” Matt Prior, One Pro Cycling Different strokes The ambitions and motivations of Pro Continental squads are not always as win-focussed as their World Tour brothers. Some are clearly striving to build a structure and team with an eye to moving up. Others are happier to be bigger fish in smaller ponds, while some teams act as national beacons or de facto development teams.

What they all share though are planning and budget headaches, staffing issues and the impossibility of planning a season when you don’t know what races you’ll get invited to.

Next time you look at a race start sheet and see those relatively unknown teams on the list, spare a thought for the Pro Contis, because they’ve not got it easy.

Above: One Pro want to go from racing in Wales to the Tour de France

Scottish success

Endura’s story Clothing company Endura has its headquarters in Livingston, near Edinburgh and moved from pro level to World Tour, first as a title sponsor then as a technical partner. Its move up through the rankings offers another angle and insight into the sport and the relationship, benefits and complications of sponsorship and running a team at different levels.

From humble beginnings as mainly an MTB clothing brand its involvement in pro cycling began in 2008 and they have been involved in all the UCI team tiers. Initially Endura had its own Continental team in the UK, ending up as co-sponsor of NetApp-Endura Pro

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Conti team in 2013. In 2014 Endura became the clothing sponsor for World Tour champions, Movistar.

Although the move up the ranks looks impressive, managing director Jim McFarlane says that it isn’t the financial difference that’s noticeable: “We wanted a vehicle to get good direct feedback for our clothing at the pointy end of racing, and obviously to have a marketing vehicle.

“Once we got well involved in the running of the Continental team we were well into seven figures, a good bit more than a million pounds a year.

“Moving into Pro Conti because we were a co-title sponsor the cost didn’t

really go up more than the later days of Endura Racing, and because it was a separate team owned by Ralph Denk it was a much easier process for us, because we weren’t dealing with rider contracts or sponsors.

“It was similar going from NetApp-Endura to Movistar as again it’s diluted because we’re just the clothing guys. But that’s what the business is all about, not running a racing team.

“We’re diminishing our exposure as we go, but the majority of our effort with Movistar goes into making the clothing better. At lower levels the teams are just glad to get the kit.”

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072 INSIDE TECH

Italian in style.

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Made in Taiwan Cycling is steeped in tradition, but nothing lasts forever. No where is that more telling than among Italian cycling brands who once ruled the peloton Words Cam Whiting Photos Graham Watson, Yuzuru Sunada

“S

trong. Light. Cheap. Pick two.” This simple statement, attributed to American frame builder Keith Bontrager, was uttered in an era when steelframed road bikes were being increasingly shunned into mainstream oblivion by consumers preferencing aluminium and then-exotic carbon fibre counterparts.

Bontrager made his first steel road bike frame in 1979 as a silent DIY protest against the expensive Italian frames of the time. Unwittingly, his self-made frame and components stoked demand and business blossomed; so substantially that Trek Bicycle Corporation bought him out in 1995.

The components Bontrager designed and built survived and prospered under its new custodian, but the frames did not. No Bontrager-branded frames were produced after 1998. Ironically, they were just too expensive for the average consumer who could buy a lighter, cheaper US-made aluminium frame.

As US brands like Trek started offshoring road bike production to the Far East, Bontrager’s innocently coined phrase became less of a virtuous engineering truth and more of a broad sentiment amongst purists about the quality of Taiwanese-made frames. Because they were ‘cheap’, and ‘light’ they surely couldn’t be strong.

In 2016, wariness towards bicycles made in Taiwan has largely dissipated; partially facilitated by regulations from the European Commission and the UCI but mostly due to a quarter of a century of social proof.

Light in theory Although Bontrager’s statement was premised on adjectives which should be inherently unquantifiable, any road bike that meets the applicable EC CEN Safety

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Standards is deemed to be safe and therefore ‘strong’.

Similarly, ‘light’ has been defined — albeit arbitrarily and by association — by cycling’s governing body as 6.8kg for the best part of two decades. The rationale behind the UCI’s decision to prohibit race bikes weighing less that 6.8kg was ostensibly to not give one rider or team the ability to gain a performance advantage just because they had more money to spend on equipment.

After all, in those days lighter bikes cost more to produce and therefore buy.

There were also no off-the-shelf bicycles weighing less than 6.8kg in 1998, so the UCI’s move was seen as not disadvantaging any manufacturers. So, anything below 6.8kg was ‘too light’, whereas ‘light’ would be around seven kilograms. Off-the-shelf road bikes weighing around 7kg are now commonplace, though whether they are ‘cheap’ remains entirely subjective.

Left: French champion Laurent Jalabert on a Spanish team leads the 1999 Tour of Italy riding an early aluminium Giant TCR bike, made in Taiwan

All in the brand Anecdotally, road bikes originating from China or Southeast Asia remain subject to scepticism, while Italian brands continue to be amongst the most enduring and coveted in the eyes of so-called connoisseurs.

However, despite powerful brand narratives — spanning over 130 years in such cases as Bianchi’s — relatively recent commercial decisions made by some famous Italian brands have attracted ridicule from sceptics within the road cycling community who believe the stories no longer align with the belief of people who place their confidence and trust in them.

It is impossible to take a side without first understanding the pillars on which the narratives have been built, beginning with some aspect of what it means to be an Italian company.

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veted

074 INSIDE TECH

Taiwan

Behind every brand there is a nation, yet nations are brands themselves. Countries possessing and extolling what we believe to be desirable values are viewed favourably over those who do not share the same values.

In cycling, the ‘Nation Brand’ increasingly influences a purchase decision as the amount invested also rises.

Buying into Italy History, style, passion and creativity are examples of characteristics associated with Italy that have been successfully translated into highly desirable objects for centuries. Though ‘Italianness’ may be thought of in a proprietary sense, the individual values that typify Italian culture are also associated with other Latin European countries and can only be leveraged so far.

Italy’s proud tradition in manufacturing — it has for a long time been only second to Germany in terms of its contribution to European output — is a powerful, more tangible, asset.

To be ‘Made in Italy’, according to Italy’s official tourism body, is to ‘symbolize the excellence of Italian artisanship and manufacturing. Italian products bearing the prestigious Made in Italy title are highly-coveted the

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world over — for their integrity and durability, design originality and creativity.’

For bicycle manufacturers, it certainly has done no harm to be based in a country awash with esteemed producers of wheel and drivetrain-based performance brands like Ferrari, Ducati, Pirelli, Lamborghini, Maserati, Alfa Romeo, Aprilia to name a few. For reasons too numerous and too complicated to discuss here, a sense of ‘cool’ has attached itself to many Italian brand names and products.

A sense of exclusivity also lifts the appeal of road bikes emblazoned with il Tricolore and the words ‘Prodotto Italiano’. Using the basic metric of production, it should be much harder to find a road bike bearing the Italian flag and ‘Made In Italy’ mark than one originating from Asia; despite the fact that legal use of both elements only means the bike has undergone ‘substantial transformation’ in Italy.

Professional connection The formidable appeal of Italian bicycle brands can also be linked to an enduring relationship with professional road cycling and its stars and, yes, icons. Names like

Below: Saeco Cannondale TT bike in lurid pink for 2003 Giro race leader Gilberto Simoni

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“Italian brands continue to be amongst the most enduring and coveted in the eyes of so-called connoisseurs” Italy’s enduring reputation Bianchi, Bottecchia, Carerra, Colnago, De Rosa, Moser, Pinarello and Wilier have all enjoyed visibility in the world’s most prestigous races thanks to scrupulous attention to sports marketing as well as their association with riders like Fausto Coppi, Gino Bartali, Gianni Bugno, Marco Pantani, Francesco Moser and Giuseppe Saronni.

Adroit leveraging of ‘Italianness,’ endemic manufacturing expertise and investment in professional cycling saw Italian road bike brands gain unrivaled levels of distinction amongst consumers and win fawning praise from the media. A few French brands such as Gitane, Look and Time enjoyed similar levels of cachet, though there was otherwise little competition at the top of the road bike food chain throughout Europe.

It wasn’t until the final decade of the 20th century that Franco-Italian ownership over the premium road bike segment started to appear vulnerable when non-European entities started heavily investing in sports marketing and specialist manufacturing expertise.

Cannondale, then Giant In 1996 Cannondale’s then vice president of global marketing, Scott Montgomery, met with Sergio Zappella, owner of Italian coffee machine manufacturer Saeco, for lunch at a Tuscan villa to discuss sponsorship of Zappella’s Saeco pro cycling team. The American brand had been making aluminium road bikes since 1983 but, despite reasonable success in its home market, had failed to gain any traction in Europe.

The half-million dollar deal struck with Zappella that day displaced Moser as the team’s bike sponsor and secured a place under the team’s flamboyant Italian sprint superstar Mario Cipollini. If this wasn’t already a worrying sign for other Italian brands, it must have been galling to see a maglia rosa-clad Cipo win the first two stages of the 1997 Giro d’Italia aboard an Americanmade bicycle comprised of then-unconventional oversized aluminium tubes.

Further revolution occurred the following year when Taiwanese manufacturer Giant also burst through the euro-centric pro cycling bubble, through its sponsorship of the Spanish ONCE squad. Like Cannondale, Giant supplied its team with a lightweight aluminium bicycle that was also innovative. The sloping top-tube ‘compact’ design of Giant’s TCR was an affront to the horizontal double-triangle geometry promoted by the stubbornlytraditional Italian marques.

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Giant’s return on its investment came swiftly. ONCE’s Laurent Jalabert won three stages and the points jersey at the 1999 Giro d’Italia while the yellow train also stormed the 2000 Tour de France team time trial aboard aero-framed aluminium Giants with teardrop-shaped composite seat posts.

USA on board Appearing alongside Giant and Cannondale in the new millenium’s first Tour de France were other new or very recent bike sponsors GT (Lotto), Specialized (Festina) and Trek (US Postal). At the time, the frames of all four American bicycle brands were made from aluminium in the US. Giant’s TCR was the only frame actually manufactured in Taiwan at that point.

As the brand optic within the pro cycling sphere was diversifying, the manufacturing frontier which fed into it was shrinking. At first, this started with American brands offshoring production of so-called entry-level road bikes to manufacturers in Taiwan. Factories with aluminium fabrication expertise, such as Giant, Hodaka (partially owned by Giant), Ideal and Merida were the main beneficiaries of this vast transfer of production. Trek settled in with Giant, Specialized with Merida (in 2001, Merida also acquired a 49 per cent stake in Specialized thus crowding out competitors Giant and Ideal) and Cannondale with Giant and its partially-owned associate Hodaka. GT road bikes faded into mediocrity, but the other US road bike brands thrived.

Quantitatively, the visibility of Italian brands in pro cycling peaked in 2002 at the 89th Tour de France. Of the 21 teams that started, nine were supplied by Italian firms – namely Pinarello (three teams), Colnago (two teams), De Rosa (two teams), Fondriest and Carrera (each with one squad apiece). Decisions taken in Taiwan were about to impact on those numbers and the premium road bike industry in general.

Killer blow In the same year, in 2002, Taiwan’s two biggest bicycle manufacturers Giant and Merida formed the ‘A-Team’.

Along with 11 other parts suppliers with roots in the Taiwanese bicycle industry, the A-Team was established to ensure Taiwan would maintain its status as the preferred destination for ‘innovation value’; namely advanced fabrication using high-end materials with production systems expertise borrowed primarily from the Japanese automotive industry.

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076 INSIDE TECH

Taiwan

Every benefit of the manufacturing ecosystem the A-Team oversaw – comparatively low labour costs, control over raw materials, proximity to parts suppliers, experience with composites — proved irresistable to US brands who weren’t already producing in Asia.

In spite of the American ‘capitulation’ to the realities of business, the prestige Italian brands held off longer.

After all, the Americans were still making few inroads to the Italian road bike market. Crucially too, the upstart American brands didn’t have a decades-long legacy of road bike manufacturing to preserve and protect.

Ultimately however, troublesome economic trends demanded action. Racing bikes were expensive and the Italian economy had been stagnant since the early 1990s.

Between 1999 and 2002, almost one million units were carved from Italy’s domestic bicycle production.

Racing bikes accounted for six per cent of the 2.35 million bicycles produced in Italy in 2002, but this declined to four per cent by 2005 and it was clear that the Italian bike industry was facing ‘challenging’ market conditions, as battered CEO’s are wont to say when facing a meltdown.

Colnago goes first

move part of my production to Taiwan. So I’ve joined the A-Team because when I to do something, I always try to do it in the most serious and clearest way possible. I am not trying to hide anything here. Colnago wants to collaborate only with the very best Taiwanese companies.”

There was now no turning back and anyone in Italy who tuned into the Gran Galà Ciclistico Internazionale – Italian cycling’s version of the Oscars held every October since 1985 - on RAI Sport would have known it.

Though the Gala was conceived initially to celebrate Italy’s best professional cyclist, the Mondiale costruttori (World Manufacturer’s) prize was introduced in 2001.

This was awarded to the bike manufacturer whose sponsorship across national and world championships,

Below: Tommy Prim on the classic 1980s all-Italian Bianchi equipped, naturally, with Campagnolo Super Record

“Racing bikes were expensive and the Italian economy had been stagnant since the early 1990s” Tough times in Italy

Colnago was the first to blink, at least publicly, in a 25 February 2005 press release headlined ‘Colnago Chooses Dual Sourcing Strategy to Serve Global Markets’. The press release stated that ‘all high-end Colnago bicycles (were) to be Made in Italy’ while ‘mid-range complete bicycles (were) to be produced in Taiwan for 2006 model year.’ Furthermore, the Italian marque with 53 years of manufacturing history in Italy would join the A-Team as a sponsor member.

“This is a major step forward for the Italian bicycle industry”, stated company founder Ernesto Colnago in the communication. “At this point in time, in Italy, and in Europe it is unfortunately no longer feasible to costeffectively manufacture mid and low end bicycles. At Colnago, we understand that it’s important for people who are buying their first racing bicycle, or don’t have a lot of money, that the bicycle they buy offers the best performance and value for their money. This is what our customers have been asking for.”

Colnago’s founder continued to frame the announcement as a product of long-term planning rather than an admission his company felt there was no other option than to begin taking production offshore. The announcement shocked Colnago’s most die-hard fans, though nobody in the bicycle industry was surprised. To Ernesto Colnago’s credit, he was frank with his customers in a Colnago newsletter published only two months later.

“Of course, a few years ago, I would have never considered taking a partner in Taiwan,” he said, in the Colnago April 2005 newsletter. “But now the time is right. I am the first Italian who has officially decided to

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077

Olympic Games and the World Tour riders aggregated the most UCI points in one season.

In the first five years of the awards, Pinarello and Colnago each won the award twice, with Look winning once. Colnago’s last Mondiale costruttori win came in 2007 and Pinarello’s last in 2012 (ironically, courtesy of its sponsorship of British squad, Team Sky). North American brands Specialized and Cervélo won every other year until the final edition of the Gran Galà Ciclistico Internazionale in 2014.

End of an empire In a little under two decades, two of the three biggest pillars of Italian bicycle manufacturing — manufacturing expertise and sports marketing — had crumbled.

Bianchi (a long-time client of Giant and Hodaka who in 2012 also moved some of its production to Cambodia, beginning with a small trial order in November that year), Colnago and Pinarello (whose website once stated ‘Our frames are made in the Far East’ in the now-absent FAQ section) were still present at last year’s Tour de France, but with one team apiece.

By comparison, five teams were supplied by US brands, while Giant and Merida (a relative newcomer to the World Tour after squeezing out Wilier as supplier to the Lampre team) each supplied teams that they were co-headline sponsors for.

For those brands, only ‘Italianness’ is left today. And few people are as unconvinced of its value as Merida’s vice president William Jeng.

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“It is just a perception, a romantic nostalgia,” states Jeng, when he’s asked to explain the ongoing assumption, most notably by media outlets, that Italian brands are for the true cycling connoisseur. “The reality is whilst the brands may be Italian, the vast majority of product is Far Eastern.

“Looking at some of the scientific testing that Tour magazine in Germany do to discover the best performing bikes, Italian brands are absent. Again, the issue (is) defining when a bike is Italian and when it simply wears an Italian name.

“Pricing of Italian brands in the market usually carries a premium for the nostalgia rather than the technical performance of the product. Value for money wise a Merida will offer much better performance.”

Unlike its fellow A-Team founding member Giant, Merida has nothing to lose from issuing such blunt assessments. It has no Italian clients.

Above: Crazy guy, funky bike. Cipollini gave Cannondale priceless exposure in Italy and beyond

Point of view ‘We respect everybody’s opinion, but we are not willing to judge other companies’ performances,’ wrote Alex Colnago, when informed of Jeng’s comments by Cycle Sport. ‘We are proud of what we do, and keep doing it in the best possible way.’

Pressed further Alex, Colnago’s manager and nephew of Ernesto, politely declined to offer additional comments on the views of Merida’s vice president, although he did respond to claims made online by several self-proclaimed industry commentators that Giant

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79

“Colnago wants to collaborate only with the very best Taiwanese companies” Ernesto Colnago has a stake in Colnago, saying ‘Colnago is still fully owned by the Colnago family, and it will be like that for a very, very long time.’

Fortunately for the Italian road bike brands who have offshored a significant portion of their production, Jeng’s hard-line views don’t resonate widely across Asia.

Consumers in emerging markets such as Korea and China are still prepared to pay a premium for ‘Fatto in Italia’ bicycles. However, as road cycling is still a new hobby in those countries, sentiment may turn as the conversation amongst enthusiasts about the products they use becomes more sophisticated and probing.

Making a stand Brands which resisted offshoring are using their status as a unique selling proposition, albeit with liberal amounts of rhetoric and a premium price.

‘Ask yourself, where did my bicycle frame come from?’ reads a prominent passage on the home page of Tommasini’s website. ‘Did it come from a huge factory in a polluted Chinese city and by workers toiling for long hours at minimal pay? Or did your frame come from a small artisan shop where highly skilled craftsmen built your bicycle frame with care?’

Newcomers such as Scappa and Mario Cipollini’s eponymous brand MCipollini have avoided the generational change altogether, with both companies dedicating significant online copy to their domestic manufacturing approach. Scappa goes as far as re-producing its ‘100% Made in Italy’ certification, issued by the Institute for the Protection of Italian Manufacturers (partially funded by the Italian Ministry for Economic Development), on its website.

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For its part, Italy’s bicycle industry body appears to agree that more communication is essential to preserve and protect an important economic asset, without explicitly stating what should be said.

“Besides its industrial value, the bicycle sector has great cultural importance. Our companies have written and keep writing cycling history at world level and we must narrate these success stories,” said Fulvio Acquati, of Italy’s National Association of Cycles, Motorcycles and Accessories (Confindustria ANCMA).

Above: Ernesto Colnago with Erik Zabel at the Colnago factory

Uphill struggle For now, the only success stories are coming from Taiwan. The latest market reports from Italy showed that road bikes still accounted for six per cent of the 1.6m bicycles sold in Italy in 2014, but imports from Taiwan have soared. In late 2015, Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs released customs data showing that Q1 to Q3 exports to Italy increased by more than 250 per cent compared to the same period in 2014. It noted that Italy had become ‘a major potential market for the Taiwan bicycle industry.’

The world is a smaller place than it was pre-globalisation. More people are demanding more transparency in a more public way. Demand for exclusive products with authentic stories is also growing in emerging markets.

Growth opportunities remain for ‘legacy’ Italian road bike brands, but this depends on how far they’ve strayed from their heritage and whether or not they can recover an authentic back story to support their marketing materials and point-of-sale posters.

Perhaps they can start by revisiting the three pillars, and pick two.

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080 HISTORY

Kellogg’s 1986 Left to right: Phil Thomas; series leader Malcolm Elliott; points leader Allan Peiper; guest rider Frank Hoste

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1980s Channel 4 City Centre Cycling

Possibly the most exciting criterium series. Ever.

Cycle Sport celebrates ‘the Kellogg’s’, which introduced a whole new audience to cycle racing in the UK and inspired future generations to go for ultimate glory Words Keith Bingham Photos John Pierce, Graham Watson, Cycling Weekly archive

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082 HISTORY

Round one, Bristol, 1983. Only 20 are left from a field of 62. Dudley Hayton gives it full gas followed by Mick Morrison, Francesco Moser, Steve Joughin, Phil Thomas, Sid Barras, Phil Anderson and Maurice Burton. Behind Burton is Tony Doyle (orange) next to Stephen Roche (white) with Paul Sherwen behind (green). Alongside Thomas are Phil Bayton, Tony James and Sean Yates

W

ith today’s wall to wall TV coverage of cycling shown across several channels — all three Grand Tours, the national tours, road classics, international track racing, cyclo-cross — cycling fans have never had it so good.

It never used to be like this. Over 30 years ago cycling hardly figured on the box. A few minutes now and again, if we were lucky. It was mostly all football, cricket, rugby, some athletics. During the 1970s, we’d get a few minutes of the Tour de France televised on ITV’s World of Sport on Saturday afternoons, commentary provided by the stylish David Saunders. Back then there were only three TV channels in Britain.

Then in 1983 came the breakthrough, thanks to a new commercial television channel. They called

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it Channel 4.

No one who was there will ever forget the birth of the Kellogg’s Channel 4 City Centre Cycling Championship. From the very first televised race in Bristol, British professional cycling zoomed up the TV charts.

We’d never had this sort of TV for a British bike race. Not back then, in the 1980s!

You had to be there This was exotic. Streets crammed with outside broadcast units in giant articulated trailers, the satellite dishes, the rivers of thick black cables, big cameras on street corners and the TV motorbike.

This was a big deal.

The racing went out on prime time television on five Monday evenings through August. After

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Channel 4 City Centre Cycling series

“WE HAD NEVER HAD THIS SORT OF TV FOR A BRITISH BIKE RACE IN THE 1980S!” Channel 4 commits to a minority sport

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084 HISTORY

Bristol the series moved to Nottingham, Glasgow, Manchester and Birmingham.

It was the biggest boost the sport in Britain had ever had. Crowds packed the tight one-kilometre city centre circuits. Most spectators were completely unaware of how fast racing cyclists can go and were thrilled by the speed, breathless at the acrobatic cornering skills — the inevitable crashes.

Key to the success was the use of a TV camera motorbike, conveying nail-biting close-ups of the cut and thrust of racing we are so familiar with today.

An hour after the race was over, the broadcast went out from the finish line TV truck. Audience figures for the first race in Bristol topped 653,000, Cycling Weekly reported. “We’re quite pleased with these figures,” said a Channel 4 marketing spokesperson. “It compared well with the basketball series which had an average audience of just over one million. We expect the (cycling) figure to go up a bit….”

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“WE’RE QUITE PLEASED WITH THESE FIGURES. IT COMPARED WELL WITH BASKETBALL” C4 reaction to first round

It went up by a more than ‘a bit’, topping two million for the later rounds, notes series organiser Alan Rushton.

The public saw the British pros, led by national road race champion Phil Thomas — winner of the opening series and the following one in 1984 — outpace Tour de France and Continental heroes like Francesco Moser, Jan Raas, Sean Kelly, and Stephen Roche.

Short criteriums were the British pros speciality and for the overseas visitors they presented a serious challenge. Many found the short, sharp races and no holds barred tactics a shock.

Below: Irish legend Sean Kelly added glamour and lots of cred to the Kellogg’s Right: Hard riding Aussie Phil Anderson thrilled with his fast and aggressive riding

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Channel 4 City Centre Cycling series

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086 HISTORY

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Channel 4 City Centre Cycling series

“IN 1994 RUSHTON BROUGHT THE TOUR DE FRANCE TO SOUTHERN ENGLAND” From Bristol to Paris!

These races proved the sport of cycling had mass appeal in Britain and it made a lasting impression on the television people. It also created a public demand for cycle racing which today can be seen on all the major TV terrestrial and satellite channels.

Snap, crackle and pop But it didn’t happen by chance. The concept of professional cycle racing geared to television was the idea of promoter Alan Rushton. The Kellogg’s was his baby. He was seeking ways to create public demand for British professional racing which in those days hardly figured on the public radar.

When Channel 4 Television was launched with a remit to show programmes and events the other three channels didn’t cover this presented Rushton with a golden opportunity, and he seized the moment.

And he did something else to assure the success of this new TV sport. He brought in Kellogg’s, the nation’s favourite breakfast cereal, as sponsor. It was their first ever involvement in sport.

At a stroke, professional cycling in the UK was both on the box and at the breakfast table. And the British public were captivated.

And the success of the Kellogg’s criteriums marked Rushton out as the most innovative promoter in British cycling history.

In 1984 the series expanded to include Dublin and Cork. The resultant publicity brought Nissan into cycling, sponsoring the Nissan Classic Irish Tour in 1985. The Nissan ran for eight years, drawing tens of thousands to the roadside. City centre finishes, such as Limerick, were jam packed. For the Nissan was showcasing Ireland’s most famous cycling sons, world number one Sean Kelly and Stephen Roche, the latter in 1987 famously winning the triple, the Giro, Tour and the world road race title.

The Kellogg’s series morphed into the new profes-

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sional Tour of Britain which also ran for eight years.

After the Kellogg’s, Prudential backed the Tour for a few years. Later on it was picked up by another promoter, who continues with it to this day, and has expanded the sport still further with an Elite criterium series and a women’s Tour.

Big race legacy Rushton went on to surprise and delight by bringing top Continental racing to these shores in World Cup Classic road races, notably the series of races held in Yorkshire based on Leeds and in Sussex based on Brighton. And all were televised. He also spiced up international track meetings, drawing all the star riders and top teams.

It got even better when, in 1994, Rushton brought the Tour de France to southern England for two stages which drew two million spectators to the roadside.

All of this was spawned by the Kellogg’s Channel 4 City Centre Championships in 1983, the first bike race series which finally put the television spotlight on the sport in Britain.

Left: The Kellogg’s Tour of Britain ran from 1987 and featured a final stage in Westminster Above: Joey McLoughlin won the first Kellogg’s Tour in 1987

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088 HISTORY

The Ringmaster Promotor Alan Rushton was the brains behind the Kellogg’s.

He talks exclusively to Cycle Sport about how the series came about

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Channel 4 City Centre Cycling series

O

ver two million UK viewers tuned in and were turned on to professional cycle racing when Channel 4 televised the Kellogg’s City Centre Cycling Championship three decades ago. It was a unique moment in British cycling history.

The man who made it happen was former roadman Alan Rushton and his promotions company Sports Plus.

Today, over 30 years later, he explains how the Channel 4 series was conceived, and launched a little known sport on its ascent to become the major attraction it is today in the UK. “We knew British riders needed to be able to show themselves off on the domestic scene,” said Rushton. “In those days there were about a dozen or so who went to the Continent, the likes of Graham Jones, Sean Yates.

They left and you never heard about them again.

“If cycling was going to be a big sport you’ve got to keep your stars at home — or else show them at home,” he explained, “There would be the reports in Cycling, but there was nothing in the major papers. They left the country and left everybody’s mind!”

Finding the slot

1985 Gent-Wevelgem: Phil Thomas and Joey McLoughlin (right) at the finish. Both riders and the ANC team cut their teeth in Alan Rushton’s Kellogg’s events. ANC rode the Tour de France in 1987

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How did he get Channel 4 — the new TV channel — interested? “Well, in those days, cycling didn’t matter very much to people. We ran the Empire Stores Marathon, from London to Bradford. That was originally the 265-mile London to Holyhead. And it was on a fixed date in the calendar. Trying to get it off that date was very difficult and it was always the Sunday after the FA Cup Final.”

The big problem, he said, was that the BBC and ITV were the only television channels in the UK and neither was interested in cycling. There was no programming time, no cameras available.

But when Channel 4 was launched, with a remit to show programmes and sport not covered by the BBC or ITV, Rushton’s thinking cap started spinning. His first idea, he said, had been for a national league of races for pros, two races a week around the country and a league system. This would be linked to local newspapers. But that didn’t work out.

“But we thought we could offer the best of it to television. Now the best thing for TV would be a one-kilometre circuit, or 1.5km, in the city centre with iconic buildings — going from city to city each week.

That idea coincided with the arrival of Channel 4. So that went ahead and we pushed for that.”

Rushton had talks with Brian Venner who worked for Mark McCormack’s company, IMG (International Management Group), the biggest sports company in the world at that time. An approach was made to the new Channel 4.

“Channel 4 said, ‘yes, we could give you six slots on Monday night at 7pm.’ Which was terrific.

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090 HISTORY

“The idea was to create a very tight circuit and key to it was sound all-round the circuit, so the public would hear what was going on whichever part of the circuit they were on.”

Rushton pulled together a field of the British professionals. These guys had turned criterium racing into an art form because that’s mostly what their calendar consisted off. In fact there were too few of the longer distance road races they craved.

Men like Sid Barras, Phil Thomas, Keith Lambert, Phil Bayton, Steve Joughin, Malcolm Elliott (who turned pro in 1984 and finished second overall to Thomas that year), and Tony Doyle, were some of the best riders the UK had seen for quite some time.

The first event Rushton invited overseas pros, including, for the first race at Bristol, the three times Paris-Roubaix winner and 1977 world pro road champion Francesco Moser of Italy.

“A test race was run the night before, using amateurs,” said Rushton. “We had to try and make everything slick so that you could get a result out on air and you didn’t have to wait half-an-hour.

“We couldn’t be saying we haven’t worked it out yet!”

Rushton chuckled at the memory.

“Anyway, we ran it with amateurs and then we ran it the next night with pros. And by that time we’d kicked a lot of the problems out of it. And it was pretty smooth.

The riders were good and there was a huge crowd. We got very big crowds. The races started at 7. I think our (TV) slot was 7.30 to 8.30pm.

“The big thing about this was we came up with an idea – and all TV people are basically looking for new ideas – with what I call, the ‘Film Lane’. And this was the motorbike in a separate coned-off lane. The purpose of this was so that the cameraman sitting on the back could get the jump, get the pounce, and you can slow-mo that down and see it happening like a cat going to pounce.

“And in those days you could see if someone was tightening their toe straps. So the motorbike pilot would always be an ex-rider and he would tell the cameraman ‘look at number three’.”

Former racing man Ian Wright was one of a group of former riders driving the TV motorbike. The motorbike ran parallel to the bunch, filming the action as it happened. This was a first for British TV. Rushton was delighted with the really close pictures.

A couple of years later, they did away with the cones and put the motorbike in free with the riders. But on a kilometre circuit it was very difficult to do, with the constant braking and accelerating.

Massively popular “The interesting thing,” says Rushton, “is we had an audience of 2.5 million! That’s a bloody big audience. OK,

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it varied from week to week, but it was mostly around the 2m mark.”

Rushton ran five UK races in 1983, after Bristol the series moved to Glasgow, then Nottingham, Manchester and the final at Birmingham. Did he at that time have any thoughts, or hopes, for any further TV developments? He said they quite clearly did. Cycling had always been just inside the top 30 of televised sports. But after Rushton’s series cycling for a time jumped top fifth position. By then of course, Channel 4 had begun showing the Tour de France.

Later cycling would settle into around 10th, 11th or 12th position, never below that. And good ratings attracted sponsorship. TV in tandem with sponsorship lifted the profile of the sport. For a while, cycling was ahead of rugby. Also crucial for the Channel 4 series success was it was shown before the football season kicked off.

Above: Nissan Classic 1987: Sean Kelly has won his third edition and salutes the adoring crowd with newly crowned world champion Stephen Roche on his shoulders

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Channel 4 City Centre Cycling series

The success of the city centre series which ran for a number of years led to Kellogg’s sponsoring a professional Tour of Britain stage race. And a home pro tour was another part of the jigsaw to keep talented riders at home.

“That was one of the main reasons why we pushed to do a stage race. And when we did the tour there were massive crowds. It was great. And we got good audiences.

The Tour of Britain always had bigger audiences, at the time. Then came coverage of the Tour de France on Channel 4.

“We quite often got two million a programme. And the C4 Tour de France was pushing to try and get one million.

That has changed now, obviously. But they were interesting times.”

Since those days, Rushton’s work has taken him to the Philippines and to Beijing, where he ran the Beijing Tour for four years. He is currently working on two national tours and another stage race, in three different countries.

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“WE HAD AN AUDIENCE OF 2.5 MILLION! THAT’S A BLOODY BIG AUDIENCE” Alan Rushton on the viewing figures

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092 HISTORY Phil Thomas interviewed by Steve Rider in 1983

“THE KELLOGG’S WAS GREAT BECAUSE IT PUT THE BRITISH PROS ON THE MAP” Phil Thomas: The first winner

Rider’s tales

Kellogg’s feature writer Keith Bingham, former staffman at Cycling Weekly, catches up with the heroes and villains from the first series in 1983

W

hen Phil Thomas wiped the floor with everyone to win that first Kellogg’s series in 1983, he did so as reigning British National Professional Road Race Champion. The Liverpudlian was a lot more than ‘just’ a criterium specialist.

As an amateur, his best road race wins included the Manx International, Lincoln Grand Prix — two of the toughest single-day races on the British calendar — plus stages of the Milk Race.

Thomas was also just about the best criterium rider of his day, honing his skills further when he turned pro. In those days, the home pro calendar was top heavy with crits, which explains why domestic scene riders gave the visiting pros such a hard time in the Kellogg’s Looking back, Thomas says: “The Kellogg’s was great because it put the British pros on the map. It was a masterpiece for my career. I think I was in my second year as a pro. Got us on television. People thought, this is exciting.”

When the series launched in Bristol, how did Thomas rate his chances? “I was convinced from

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day one that I was going to win it. I thought, five criteriums over a six-week period, I couldn’t see how anyone, from anywhere in the world, was going to beat me. I was convinced of that before the race had even started.”

He led from start to finish.“We had a really, really good team with Falcon. Sid Barras was a big help to me. He kept it together, led me out for the sprints. The races were unbelievably fast. We were probably a bit more motivated.”

Tricky follow-up In the second series in 1984, Malcolm Elliott gave him a run for his money, Thomas only taking the lead at Cardiff (round five). He then lost it to Elliott at Birmingham when he crashed, (according to reports, but he can’t recall).

Thomas regained the lead in final event, and that he does recall! “Malcolm was leading on the last one (Glasgow) and I beat him.” (The race was won by Danny Clark. Thomas was second, Elliott third).

“I knew the Glasgow circuit. It suited me. The

last bend came just 250 yards from the line. I knew they’d be hard pushed to get round me.

Danny just pipped me. Malcolm was probably the most talented rider I rode against.

“The great thing about the Kellogg’s was Sport for TV brought a couple of Tour de France guys over. But when they tried to get riders for the second year, they didn’t want to come. Sean (Kelly) said they wouldn’t come because it was too hard,” laughed Thomas. “They were paying huge amounts of money and they still wouldn’t come. I didn’t know that at the time. Sean told me that later,” Thomas chuckled.

“Sean came, but he was a good criterium rider, a great rider. Imagine if he was around today?

Doesn’t bare thinking about.”

Thomas went on to finish ninth overall in the first Kellogg’s Tour in 1987, second best British rider. It was won by Joey McLoughlin. Thomas also raced abroad with ANC, winning a couple of stages of the Ronde van de Algarve in Portugal and was pleased with his showing in the Classics and semi-classics, including Gent-Wevelgem.

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Channel 4 City Channel Centre Cycling Centre Cycling series series

“T

he Kellogg’s city centre series was revolutionary back in 1983. British Cycling owes Alan Rushton a great deal,” declared Doyle.

“He has never received the full recognition that he deserves. Alan always had great vision and was never afraid of a challenge.”

Doyle, former double world pursuit champion (1980 and 1986) recalls his victory in Nottingham as if it were yesterday. Thirty years ago, he was one of four who had broken clear early in the 51-lap race based on the market square and they almost lapped the field.

“There were four of us, me, Allan Peiper, Phil Bayton and Steele Bishop.” Doyle just edged out Australia’s Bishop in the sprint finish, and relished denying the man who that year would go on to win the world professional pursuit title in Zurich.

Looking back now, how did the Kellogg’s series benefit British pro racing? “It was just what the British cycling scene needed. Channel 4 recognised the sport of cycling and the important thing is that those kids who came to see cycling for the first time, those kids who were born in the early 1970s, they are now the MAMILS (middle-aged men in Lycra) in our sport.

Love at first sight “Cycle racing was brought to the front rooms of people in the UK for the first time. Kellogg’s became a household name that gave the sport a tremendous boost. For the cities, we are talking about major cities, it was the first time they had had cycling.

“Also, they were more receptive because in 1982 the world championships were held in England — the track at Leicester, road races at Goodwood.

Both were televised. And the following year a major blue chip powerful company got involved. So the World’s coming, that helped. And Alan saw his opportunity. He sold it to Channel 4.

“The Kellogg’s series was the most important part of the season for the British pros. It was their world championships.”

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Tony Doyle used his pursuiting power to win Kellogg’s ctiteriums

“CYCLE RACING WAS BROUGHT TO THE FRONT ROOMS OF PEOPLE IN THE UK FOR THE FIRST TIME” Tony Doyle MBE: Winner at Nottingham 1983

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094 HISTORY

“I STUCK ABOUT 10 LENGTHS INTO PEIPER. HE DIDN’T LIKE AN OLD GUY BEATING HIM” Sid Barras: 240 wins, 18-year pro career

Sid Barras was a team-mate de luxe to Phil Thomas

I

n 1979 Barras completed a rare double when he won both the British pro road race title and circuit race title. He was a major player in the Kellogg’s series, winning the Manchester round in 1983. His best, he says, was winning the Dublin and Cardiff rounds in 1985.

Barras had made his mind up to stop racing by the end of 1982. Then Rushton said he might want to change his mind, mentioning a TV race series starting in 1983! “I was 34 or 35. I had the bike shop and I was going to call it a day. And I got this call off Alan Rushton who said, ‘If I were you I’d keep training, we’ve got television.’ So all those years, my best years when won all those races were never on TV.” “My best ride in the Kellogg’s? When I won Cardiff. I was in the same team as Steve Joughin.

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I was flying. I’ll tell you why I was flying. Allan Peiper had been slagging the British pros off.

“I’d had a do with Peiper when I had won two years previously in Manchester 1983. I’d won in Manchester. I’d got in the break and Phil Thomas, who was my teammate, had the yellow jersey.

“So I got in the break with Allan Peiper and Steve Jones and I wouldn’t do a turn. Rightly so because Phil had the yellow jersey. I wasn’t legless. Two or three laps to go, Allan says, ‘you won’t sprint, will you?’ I said, of course I’ll sprint, Allan. And I stuck about 10 lengths into him. He didn’t like an old guy beating him.”

Bit of argy bargy Peiper was thumping the handlebars in frustration and it got a bit confrontational on the walk to the

podium. “So that was 1983, I won that round. But Phil Thomas won overall. Phil was number one in the Falcon team then. I was a good lead out man.

“In 1985 I’d changed teams for Moducel with Joughin and Ian Banbury. Good all-round team. I was really motivated.

“I was going to retire at 34 but the Kellogg’s kept me in the sport until I was nearly 40! I was earning much better money than I’d ever had. And we had a lot of guys turning pro, like Malcolm Elliott.

“We loved the Kellogg’s city circuits, we rode crits, and they were our bread and butter.

“The Kellogg’s really brought the UK professional class on. And it brought the money up too. In the last five years I was earning really good money.”

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Channel 4 City Centre Cycling series

“T

he Kellogg’s series inspired me to turn pro,” recalls Sheffield’s Malcolm Elliott, the double Commonwealth Games champion and Milk Race winner, a rated sprinter, who would go on to win stages and the points jersey in the Tour of Spain and get a third place on a stage of the Tour de France.

“Seeing the Kellogg’s in 1983 was a big factor in my decision to turn professional,” he said.

“Prior to that it was always a bit questionable as regards recompense, really. I was never a well-paid amateur, but the pros at the time, unless your name was Tony Doyle with a world title, they were not really in a much of a different situation.”

“I remember watching them in 1983 and Phil Thomas certainly found his niche there and I thought I could perhaps do well there, too. And the money then being talked about, to turn pro, made it worthwhile.”

Elliott found his match in Thomas in the 1984 series, the pair jostling for the lead throughout.

But he had to give best to Thomas who defended his title to take a second overall victory.

Ireland’s Sean Kelly won the opening round in Manchester and Elliott was second with Thomas in third place.

The next night, in Dublin, Stephen Roche won from Kelly, with Thomas third and Elliott fourth. A week later in Nottingham, Elliott landed the victory from Thomas and took the overall lead.

Crowd displeaser

Malcolm Elliott fell easily into the role of glamour boy at the Kellogg’s

“THOMAS WAS MARKING ME SO CLOSELY I KEPT DROPPING BACK AND THEN WE WERE BOTH OUT THE BACK”

Malcolm Elliott: Kellogg’s launched his pro career

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At Bristol, Sean Yates won unchallenged by both Elliott and Thomas in a battle of their own, as Elliott recalls. “That is where Phil Thomas and I took each other out of the back, at Bristol,” laughs Elliott, “he was marking me so closely I kept dropping back and then we were both out the back.”

Thomas took the overall lead off Elliott in the penultimate round in Cardiff where six-day ace, Danny Clark won. Elliott has hazy recollections of that, and wonders if he crashed at Cardiff.

But he was back in the overall lead after the next round in Birmingham won by Peiper, after Thomas crashed. The final, in Glasgow, saw Clark win again, with Thomas in second to take back the overall from Elliott who was third.

“I think I lost it by a point! Our rivalry ran from beginning to end, cut and thrust, that’s what I remember.”

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096 HISTORY

Five rounds, four winners, one champion Which of the five races in the 1983 Kellogg’s was the best?

Impossible to say, but in staging the first, Bristol holds special memories for me, writes Keith Bingham

National road race champion Phil Thomas wins round one in Bristol ahead of Aussie Phil Anderson

“I’VE NEVER STARTED SO FAST IN MY LIFE” Dropped rider Jacques Hanegraaf

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Channel 4 City Centre Cycling series

“F

irst blood to Phil Thomas” ran Cycling’s headline, as the British champion won the opening round and distanced the King of the Sprints winner, Australia’s Phil Anderson of Peugeot who the year before became the first Aussie to wear the yellow jersey in the Tour de France.

A crowd of 6,000 packed round the College Green circuit witnessed a slickly run programme beginning with the presentation of the star riders by Channel 4 presenter Steve Rider. Top of the bill, triple Paris-Roubaix winner Francesco Moser of Italy on a borrowed bike (His own was held up at Heathrow airport), Tour men Stephen Roche of Ireland and England’s Graham Jones, plus the best of the home men, led by Thomas.

The music stopped. There was a brief moment of silence. The TV motorbike revved up and the race erupted and in a tense 47 minutes it took to cover 50 laps (21.5 miles) on this very tight 700-metre circuit.

There was no let up. Anderson was the hero, winning all King of the Sprint laps and breaking clear at half-distance.

Caught after 11 laps Anderson attacked again, gained three seconds, was brought back, tried again with three to go and again with two to go. To no avail.

Thomas, handily placed throughout, came out of the final corner like a bullet and Anderson almost went down. Angry, he went looking for Thomas!

Raleigh’s Dutchman Jacques Hannegraaf was one of the 40 to get dropped, from the field of 62. “I’ve never started so fast in my life,” he said.

Thirty minutes later the race went out on Channel 4 television. A prospective sponsor asked if Kellogg’s were backing it again next year, adding, if they don’t, he will!

Nearly 700,000 tuned in that night and were dazzled at this first ever nationwide TV showing of a British bike race.

Round one: Bristol, August 1 PHIL THOMAS (Falcon-Campagnolo) 21.5m in 47-37; 2, P. Anderson (Peugeot); 3, M. Morrison (Moducel); 4, S. Bishop (Australia); 5, F. Moser (Gis-Olmo); 6, S. Joughin (Moducel); 7, D. Hayton (Moducel); 8, S. Yates (Peugeot); 9, P. Bayton (Coventry Eagle-Campagnolo); 10, A. James (Urban & City), all st.

Overall: PHIL THOMAS (Falcon-Campagnolo)

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R

evenge for Anderson as he beats Thomas to the line in Glasgow in round two. “New TV cereal is a knock-out” reported David Taylor. Steve Joughin was third. An estimated crowd of 26,000 and a TV audience of over one million watched the hair-raising second round on a tricky circuit of eight corners with a climb and a descent, based on St George’s Square.

It seemed to be Anderson versus the other Continentals, including his own Peugeot team-mate Allan Peiper, with the home pros caught in the middle.

It was heated. Sid Barras was nearly brought down

by Anderson and Paul Sherwen fighting for space.

Among the fallers were guest rider Sean Kelly, Tour de France point’s winner and world number one, who came down twice. then punctured. He was 12th. “It was a hard circuit, but it was the same for everybody,” said Kelly, as pragmatic as ever.

Thomas also crashed, bloodied his elbow, damaged his new bike but held on to the overall lead.

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“A HARD CIRCUIT BUT IT WAS THE SAME FOR EVERYBODY” Sean Kelly

Round two: Glasgow, August 8 PHIL ANDERSON (Peugeot), 47 laps in 56-36; 2, P. Thomas (Falcon-Campagnolo); 3, S. Joughin (Moducel); 4, M. Morrison (Moducel); 5, S. Wallington (Pedersen); 6, M. Burton (Roberts); 7, D. Cuming (Wightman-Vega); 8, S. Barras (Falcon-Campagnolo); 9, W. Nickson (Catos-Fibrax); 10, J. Kershaw (Wightman-Vega), all st Overall: PHIL THOMAS and PHIL ANDERSON 19pts ea

Above: Anderson avoided the crashes for a popular win Anderson, a superstar on the Continent, showed his respect for the GB crowd with a virtuoso performance

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Channel 4 City Centre Cycling series

“THE SPEED KEPT RATCHETING UP AND UP” High pace from the start

H

ome star Tony Doyle snatched the verdict from Aussie Steel Bishop. Classics hero Jan Raas animated the race, broke clear, got 30 seconds, and was pulled back. Cue for Anderson to unleash a searing attack, look back, and see Thomas on his wheel.

Bishop again, this time racing clear with national criterium champion Phil Bayton — the Staffordshire Engine. It was the break of the night as they were joined by Peiper and Doyle.

With Anderson’s attacks being countered, not only by by Thomas’s team mates Barras and Keith Lambert, but also by Paul Sherwen working for Anderson’s team-mate (!) Peiper — no love lost there — the speed kept ratcheting up and up, sending men out of the back.

They couldn’t get Doyle’s break back and the former world pro pursuit champion scored a psychological victory over pursuit rival Bishop. Thomas retained the overall lead.

Round three: Nottingham, August 15

Doyle got the win from Bishop (right), while Thomas held on to the GC

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TONY DOYLE (RMC-Security Grille) 21.42m in 52-06; 2, S. Bishop (Australia, Malvern Star); 3, P. Bayton (Coventry Eagle-Campagnolo); 4, A. Peiper (Peugeot) all st; 5, D. Hayton (Moducel) at 30sec; 6, S. Jones (AL-Gipiemme); 7, J. Herety (Coop-Mercier) both st; 8, I. Banbury (Moores Cycles-Kenda) at 40sec; 9, P. Thomas (Falcon-Campagnolo); 10, P. Anderson (Peugeot) both st.

Overall: PHIL THOMAS (Falcon-Campagnolo)

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amed for his powerful sprint, Barras surprised everyone by getting clear for a lone victory in this fourth round, leaving Peiper in thumping handlebars mode. He’d been on a lone escape for six laps at half-distance and moved up to second overall.

A packed crowd watched as tactics came into play.

Peiper and Steve Jones did most of the work and must have thought they had the finish to themselves when Barras took a lap out with a mechanical problem — only for Barras to upset Jones by attacking the pair after re-joining!

What did they expect? Barras was protecting team leader Thomas back in the field, who in turn was frustrating Anderson’s every move.

“I can take him easily now,” said Thomas who had once more held the overall lead. Turning to Anderson at the finish, he added. “He’s not as fast as he was. What happened, Phil?”

Anderson knew that, of course. He just grinned. He had retained his lead in the sprints competition, admitting to a truce with Peiper. The Aussie pair, both Peugeots, had nevertheless been working against each other in the preceding rounds. But clearly, they decided to hedge their bets, for Anderson was blocking for Peiper this time.

Round four: Manchester, August 22

‘Super’ Sid played a canny team game and bagged the win too

“I CAN TAKE HIM EASILY, HE’S NOT AS FAST AS HE WAS”

SID BARRAS (Falcon-Campagnolo); 2, A. Peiper (Peugeot); 3, S. Jones (Ayel-Gipiemme); 4, P. Thomas (Falcon-Campagnolo); 5, P. Anderson (Peugeot); 6, S. Joughin (Moducel); 7, P. Bayton (Coventry Eagle-Campagnolo); 8, J. Kershaw (Wightman-Vega); 9, S. Yates (Peugeot); 10, M. Morrison (Moducel).

Overall: PHIL THOMAS (Falcon-Campagnolo) Domestic pro Phil Bayton took a hard earned seventh place

Phil Thomas on Phil Anderson

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P

hil Anderson, brilliant animator of the series, went on a blinder on the 13th lap of the 892-yard circuit in Birmingham, and lapped the entire field. He was roared all the way round by a massive crowd, which sent the pigeons scattering into the sky above the council house buildings.

Thomas could live with Anderson’s taking off, but he needed to take second to keep the overall. Anderson, of course, pinned his hopes on someone denying Thomas in the gallop, the most likely candidate was Peiper.

Bishop was also backing Anderson — three Aussies with a single cause. Get Thomas.

But they reckoned without Thomas’s men, Barras and Lambert, slaving away countering Peiper’s and Bishop’s moves, striving to get Thomas back to Anderson. The speed, down the straights, up the climb, through the bends, was a relentless 28mph average.

Former world pursuit champion Bert Oosterbosch was dropped, but Robert Millar fought his way back to the main field, down to 16 men. As Anderson stayed clear, Barras gave Thomas a huge lead out with two laps remaining to secure that vital second place.

Channel 4 City Centre Cycling series

Round five: Birmingham, August 29 PHIL ANDERSON (Peugeot) 50-12; 2, P. Thomas (Falcon-Campagnolo); 3, S. Barras (Falcon-Campagnolo); 4, A. Peiper (Peugeot); 5, S. Joughin (Moducel); 6, P. Galloway (Unsponsored); 7, D. Hayton (Moducel); 8, S. Wallington (Pederson); 9, M. Morrison (Moducel); 10, I. Binder (Newsweek).

FINAL OVERALL.- PHIL THOMAS (Falcon-Campagnolo); 2, Anderson; 3, Joughin; 4, Peiper; 5, Barras; 6, Morrison; 7, Bishop; 8, Bayton; 9, Hayton; 10, S. Jones.

Below: Anderson, Jan Raas, Thomas and Barras were Kellogg’s heroes

“HE WAS ROARED ALL THE WAY ROUND

BY A MASSIVE CROWD” Phil Anderson laps the field

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102 KNOW THIS

THE RACING MONTH

Race reports from the early early season in Australia and South America plus race previews for the upcoming cobbled early Classics and the first big stage race of the year, Paris-Nice Words Stephen Puddicombe Photos Graham Watson, Yuzuru Sunada

RACE REPORTS Tour Down Under January 19-24 Australia Distance: 781.3km

Australian riders demonstrated their quality by dominating on home roads at the Tour Down Under, getting the better of such high-calibre foreign visitors as, err, Giacomo Nizzolo, and erm…Michael Woods.

OK, so perhaps the roster wasn’t exactly jam-packed with international superstars, and maybe those who were present weren’t quite as motivated and/or as in shape as the home riders. But the Aussies’ clean sweep of every stage and the overall was nevertheless quite an

achievement, and demonstrated the strength both in depth and across disciplines that Australian cycling possess right now.

If the race had played out on a computer simulator, the results would probably have been much the same. The best Australian sprinter (Caleb Ewan) won all the sprint stages, the best Australian climber (Richie Porte) won the mountain top finish stage, and the best Australian all-rounder (Simon Gerrans) won the overall.

Gerrans rode a typically canny race, hoovering up bonus seconds early on and winning the sprint from a select group on a hilly stage three to move into the overall lead. Yet more impressive was his defence of the jersey — he extended his lead the

Tour Down Under visits the famous vineyards around Adelaide

Gerrans (right) sprints to victory on stage three of the Tour Down Under

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following day by outsprinting specialist fastmen in a bunch finish, then dug deep on the challenging Willunga Hill finish to limit his losses against the specialist climbers.

For all Gerrans’ imperiousness though, this year’s Tour Down Under may go down as the race Caleb Ewan came of age. He was a class apart in the sprints, winning the opening and closing stages as well as the preceding People’s Choice Classic, all at a canter. Still only 21, he already looks ready to take on the world’s best.

■ This is the first time that every

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stage and the overall of a World Tour stage race has been won by riders from the same nationality ■ Gerrans’ victory is his fourth at the Tour Down Under, twice as many as any other rider ■ Caleb Ewan (aged 21) is the youngest rider to win more than one stage at a World Tour race since Peter Sagan’s two wins at the 2010 ParisNice (aged 20) Overall Classification 1 Simon Gerrans (Aus) OricaGreenEdge 19-11-33

2 Richie Porte (Aus) BMC Racing at 0-09; 3 Sergio Henao (Col) Team Sky at 0-11; 4 Jay McCarthy (Aus) Tinkoff at 0-20; 5 Michael Woods (Can) Cannondale at same time; 6 Ruben Fernandez (Spa) Movistar at 0-28; 7 Domenico Pozzovivo (Ita) AG2R La Mondiale at same time; 8 Rafael Valls (Spa) Lampre-Merida at 0-36; 9 Steve Morabito (Sui) FDJ at 0-49; 10 Patrick Bevin (NZl) Cannondale at 0-50 Stage 1 Caleb Ewan (Aus) OricaGreenEdge; stage 2 J. McCarthy; stage 3 S. Gerrans; stage 4 S. Gerrans; stage 5 R. Porte; stage 6 C. Ewan.

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The Month

Tour de San Luis January 18-24 Argentina Distance: 920km

A bunch of cyclists ride over some big mountains in South America. Quintana wins.

No, not that one. Such is Nairo’s superiority over the rest of the riders from the continent that you’d expect him to win soft pedalling, but it was in fact his younger brother, Dayer, who triumphed at the Tour de San Luis.

Dayer became the team’s best-placed rider when an attack intended to set up Nairo became one for personal gain as his brother never latched onto his wheel. Two days later, he was able to match the pace of his brother in the select lead group on the crucial penultimate stage’s final climb.

A perturbing sight for Chris Froome, for whom one of the few sources of discomfort in recent Tours has been the vicious accelerations of Quintana in the mountains

— the last thing he needs is to have to deal with two of them.

Dayer wasn’t the only fledging local talent to impress. After his squad won the opening team-time trial, Etixx neo-pro and former Cav-slayer Fernando Gaviria got the ball rolling with a sprint victory ahead of Peter Sagan and Elia Viviani, and could have made it two had the bunch caught successful lone escapee Peter Koning the following day.

Argentine Eduardo Sepulveda then claimed arguably the biggest win of his three-year career by breaking clear on the race’s first mountainous stage, although he would have to settle for second overall after he was dropped by the Quintanas on the other mountain top finish two days later — won by another bright young South American star, former Tour de L’Avenir winner Miguel Angel Lopez.

Evidently, there’s much more to South American cycling than just Nairo Quintana.

■ This is only Dayer Quintana’s

second career win, following stage three at last year’s Tour of Austria ■ The average age of stage winners was just 22 years old Overall Classification 1. Dayer Quintana (Col) Movistar, 22-52-12; 2. Eduardo Sepulveda (Arg) Fortuneo-Vital Concept, at 0-20; 3. Nairo Quintana (Col) Movistar, at 0-35; 4. Miguel Angel Lopez (Col) Astana, at 0-38; 5. Ilia Koschevoy (Blr) Lampre-Merida, at 1-42; 6.

Rodolfo Torres (Col) Androni-Sidermec, at 2-15; 7. Rafal Majka (Pol) Tinkoff, at 2-31; 8.

Janier Acevedo (Col) Jamis, at 2-44; 9.

Roman Villalobos (Crc) Costa Rica, at 2-59; 10. Andre Cardoso (Por) Cannondale, at 3-31 Stage 1 Etixx-Quick Step; stage 2 Fernando Gaviria (Col) Etixx-Quick Step; stage 3 Peter Koning (Ned) Drapac; stage 4 E. Sepulveda; stage 5 German Tivani (Arg) Argentina; stage 6 M. A. Lopez; stage 7 Mareczko (Ita) Southeast-Venezuela.

Dayer Quintana took a big win in Argentina

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105

RACE PREVIEWS

Tour of Oman is struggling for top teams in 2016

Tour of Oman February 16-21 Last leg of the Persian Gulf trilogy

When the city of Muscat first poured its petrodollars into funding the Tour of Oman back in 2007 in the hope of garnering some tourist-attracting publicity, scenes of riders striking over tarmac-melting, tyre-boiling temperatures of well over 40 degrees was probably not what it had in mind.

There was a tumultuous fallout between riders and race organisers, so much so that, although each party denies

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it, it’s hard to believe that the decrease in participating World Tour squads for this year’s edition from 13 to nine, and the hints that Muscat may not extend its contract beyond this year, does not at least have something to do with the scenes on stage five last year.

It would be shame if this were to be the last ever Tour of Oman, as the annual ride up Green Mountain has become one of the season’s first battlegrounds for the peloton’s top climbers. This year it’s even harder, with a further 1.8km being added to its duration (now extended to 7.5km) without compromising its vicious average

gradient of over 10 per cent. Though none of Alberto Contador, Nairo Quintana and two-time overall winner Chris Froome will be riding due to the absence of their teams, a stellar field of climbers featuring the likes of Vincenzo Nibali, Richie Porte and Tom Dumoulin are all expected.

With each of the other five stages all relatively flat and lacking in any notable obstacles, it’s on these slopes that the winner of the Tour of Oman will be decided — the backers from Muscat will be hoping the headlines will be made here rather than any more controversial incidents elsewhere.

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The Month

Omloop Het Nieuwsblad February 27 It’s nearly springtime, and cobbles are back

Forget the glorious sunshine and fancy hotels of the early season races in Australia and the Persian Gulf — the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad is when the real cycling season starts. Those preceding races will feel like all-inclusive holiday packages compared with the icy temperatures, treacherous cobblestones, and all-round grimness of Belgium at this time of year.

Het Nieuwsblad is the first of the spring Classics, although it’s held much earlier in the season than the headline events — so early in fact that it takes place on the last weekend of February, before spring has even officially begun. Consequently, conditions are generally even more unpleasant than at the likes of Paris-Roubaix and Tour of Flanders, ensuring that only the hardest and hungriest riders have a chance of success.

In this era of specialisation, dedication to winning this specific race, and not just using it to train for the later, bigger classics, will also be a crucial advantage. A few stats stand out: the two great classics riders of this era, Tom Boonen and Fabian Cancellara, have never won Het Nieuwsblad; and no

rider has ever won Het Nieuwsblad and the Tour of Flanders in the same season. The big names tend to use this race to prepare for the more prestigious races later on, so, consequently, less well-established, emerging Classics talents tend to go well here — like Ian Stannard last year, when he prospered by outfoxing a trio of Etixx riders, only to trail behind the same riders come April.

That repeat Nieuwsblad victory propelled him to top Classics contender, meaning he’ll skip this year’s edition to focus on Flanders and Roubaix. Instead, look out for younger riders like Yves Lampaert and Tiesj Benoot, or perhaps even Great Britain’s own Luke Rowe.

Het Niewsblad is the first cobbled semi-Classic

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KBK passes through Kortrijk on the race to Brussels and back

Kuurne-BrusselsKuurne February 28 Second race of the cobbled weekend double-header

The poster for last year’s Kuurne-BrusselsKuurne, which featured a muscular, hammer-wielding demon bursting through the cobbled road surface from the depths below to block the path of an approaching peloton, suggested the marketing department had been eager to brand the race as a fearsome, hellish spring classic. But KuurneBrussels-Kuurne is not a fearsome, hellish spring classic, but rather a sprinter-friendly, occasionally windy semi-classic usually won

by Tom Boonen in second-gear. Still, the race throws up some exciting early season showdowns, such as last year when Alexander Kristoff’s procession of victories was briefly interrupted by Mark Cavendish in a hotly contested bunch sprint.

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Last year Cavendish beat Kristoff (right) into Kuurne

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The Month

This year the Strade Bianche debuts a women’s edition

Strade Bianche Women March 5 A new dawn for women’s cycling

Another significant step on the long road to gender equality in professional cycling will be taken this month, as the first ever Women’s World Tour gets underway.

We may have filled many column inches over the years complaining about how the men’s World Tour categorically fails in its attempt to crown the best rider in the world, but a season-long competi-

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tion that takes into account all the major races from one-day Classics to week-long stage races makes much more sense in women’s cycling, where riders are less specialised and compete head-to-head against each other more regularly.

The competition it replaces (the World Cup) was limited in that it only included single-day races, and also excluded the several promising new additions to the calendar that have been sprouting up over the past few years — such as the Strade Bianche.

Following a successful introduction last year, it has been scheduled as the first race of the 2016 Women’s World Tour. And

it’s likely to be something of a baptism of fire for the competitors. Inspired and held on the same day as the men’s equivalent (see below), the organisers have not let up on the difficulty of the parcours; last year’s inaugural edition was a gruellingly attritional affair, won by Boels Dolmans’ Megan Guarnier with riders arriving at the finish line in ones and twos.

With even more kilometres over the exposed gravel roads the race is famous for - 22.4km over seven sectors as opposed to 17km last year - this year’s edition looks set to be even tougher.

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Paris-Nice March 6-13 Curtain raiser for Europe’s stage race season

Races this early in the season are often about getting back into the swing of things and training up the legs, but Paris-Nice is where riders and teams have made statements signalling their intent for the rest of the season.

Looking at recent previous winners, it’s notable just how often overall victory at Paris-Nice has provided a platform for a successful season. In 2012, 2013 and 2015 Team Sky won here (Bradley Wiggins, Richie Porte and Porte again) to kick off seasons of stage race dominance, each of which culminated in a yellow jersey at the Tour. In the one year they didn’t (2014), Ag2r were triumphant with Carlos Betancur, foreshadowing the French

renaissance at the 2014 where they would place Jean Christophe Peraud second. And looking further back, Alberto Contador was victorious in both 2007 and 2010 prior to winning the Tour both years (before a certain clenbuterol positive test, that is).

This year’s exciting edition could turn into a showdown between defending champion Richie Porte and his former team Sky. Porte has made the race his own recently, and will be eager to prove to his new BMC that he is capable of riding just as dominantly without the might of Team Sky backing him up.

Sky themselves will not want to lose their grip on the race, and have plenty of potential replacement leaders who could step up — Geraint Thomas perhaps, or maybe even Chris Froome if he opts for Paris-Nice over Tirreno-Adriatico.

Whoever emerges as leader, and whatever the result, this race could shape the rest of the season.

Strade Bianche Men March 5 Tenth edition of unique dirt road classic

Since first appearing nine years ago, the Strade-Bianche has become firmly established as the most distinct genre-bending race on the calendar. Not quite a race for rouleurs, yet also not quite a race for lighter puncheurs either, the Tuscany-based classic borrows traits from races as diverse as Paris-Roubaix to a Giro mountain stage, as is reflected in its eclectic list of former winners; heavy powerhouses like Fabian Cancellara, puncheurs like Philippe Gilbert, and climbers like Thomas Lovkvist have all won here.

The only thing uniting them all is their tough resilience, an attribute that is crucial for tackling the 50+ kilometres of gravel roads that make this race so unique.

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Paris-Nice should be a cracking race this year

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110 BIKE TEST

Scott Foil Premium £8,999

Scott’s all-new top-of-the-line aerodynamic Foil is already a winner at the start of the 2016 pro season Words Nigel Wynn Photos Chris Catchpole, Daniel Gould

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BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN

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Frameset Foil HMX F01 Aero carbon Fork Foil HMX carbon Gears Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 11-28t Brakes Shimano Dura-Ace direct mount Chainset Shimano Dura-Ace 52/36t Wheels Zipp 404 Firecrest Tyres Continental Grand Prix 4000 S II 700x23C Handlebar Syncros Carbon Foil Combo Stem Syncros Carbon Foil Combo Saddle Syncros RR1.0 Carbon Seatpost Syncros Foil aero carbon Size range 47, 49, 52, 54, 56, 58, 61cm Weight 7.08kg/15.6lbs Size 56cm www.scott-sports.com

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BLACK YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN

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Scott Foil Premium

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he 2016 season could not have got off to a better start for Orica-GreenEdge, claiming four stage victories and the overall win — all on Scott bikes. The Australian outfit has used Scott machines since its arrival in the WorldTour in 2012, and the Foil has been its bike of choice for fast races on flat roads and sprints.

The Foil was first introduced in 2010, and for 2016 it’s had a complete overhaul. The new frame has been designed from scratch, with the aim of making it more aerodynamic, retaining stiffness yet increasing comfort levels over the previous incarnation.

Scott has also introduced a new carbon-fibre material, which they call HMX. The company says this offers a 20 per cent increase in stiffness, with no weight penalty. The model we have here is pretty special as it’s actually specced higher than the ‘works’ model that Orica-GreenEdge uses: the Team Issue.

Seat clamp hidden under flush-fit cover

Frameset The Foil shares some attributes with the current crop of high-end aero road bikes offered by several manufacturers: integrated stem and bar that follows the contours of the head tube; seat stays meeting the seat tube well below the top tube; and truncated aerofoil shape for the tubes — most notably the down tube. On the latter point, Scott claims to be one of the first to use this tube shape, and they have filed a patent to protect it.

From the side, the Foil’s newly-designed thin seat stays are very noticeable, and contrast with the wide, sculpted head tube area. The bottom bracket

LeMond’s tri-bars

Scott’s aero heritage Scott’s path into the cycling market is an unusual one, but it’s one that is punctuated by innovations in design and materials. The company was originally founded in Idaho, USA, in 1958 by Ed Scott. His first products were for the skiing market: Scott’s aluminium ski poles were a revelation in contrast with the commonly used steel and bamboo poles.

By the 1970s, the brand had also started making products for motocross as well as skiing, with its goggles and boots quickly becoming popular with riders. In the mid-1980s, and with a European headquarters in place, Scott created is first bicycle: a mountain bike.

But it wasn’t until 1989 that the road market really woke up to Scott, when Greg LeMond used a set of Scott

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aerobars during his 1989 Tour de France victory. The use of aero equipment and a more aerodynamic position for the rider was in its infancy. LeMond’s achievements meant that his rivals took great notice, and for a period Scott’s aerobars were much in demand.

Since then, Scott has been among those pushing the boundaries of road and mountain bike design to make bikes faster and lighter. The creation of super-light road machines such as the Team Issue and CR1 in the early 2000s set the scene for Scott’s reputation for creating featherweight bikes.

By the late 2000s, the Addict frame was born. This sub-800g frame could easily be built up into a complete bike weighing less than 6kg, finding favour with those wishing to have the ultimate

climbing machine.

Today, Scott has extensive ranges of products, clothing and accessories for the cycling, skiing, motocross and running markets.

Its range of road bikes starts with the Speedster models, and then runs to CR1, Solace, Addict and Foil models. In addition, the Plasma range is a time-trial specific line-up that shares much of the same aerodynamic innovations with the Foil.

The entry-level model in the five-bike Foil range — the Foil 30 — retails for £2299 and is equipped with a Shimano 105 groupset. Then there’s the 20 and 10 models, and the mechanical Dura-Ace equipped Team Issue is £5999, which is £3000 less than the rangetopping Premium reviewed here.

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“This is a bike that is absolutely worthy of arriving on the start line of a top-level race�

Bright orange graphics contrast dramatically with plain carbon

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114 BIKE TEST

Scott Foil Premium

junction is also notably chunky looking — it’s another area that the new Foil has beefed up to aid stiffness.

Save the front brake cable, all cabling is very neatly hidden from view. Finished in matte black and with gloss black and orange-red highlights, the Foil looks stunning.

It has clean lines and looks purposeful and aggressive.

Out on the road, the changes in design have certainly improved the bike’s stiffness, with out-of-the-saddle efforts providing instant acceleration. We’re also pleased to report that the ride quality is much smoother than that of its predecessor.

Components It’s hard to fault the component package selected on the Foil Premium — as you would and should — expect on a bike that costs just short of £9,000. Shimano’s Dura-Ace Di2 electronic groupset leads the way in effortless, crisp shifting. There is simply nothing currently on the market that can surpass its function.

Scott has neatly tucked away the Di2 brain and battery within the stem and frame, so there are no ugly parts jutting out to ruin the aesthetics or aerodynamic efficiency.

Direct-mount Shimano Dura-Ace brakes provide assertive braking power, with the rear brake tucked away on the underside of the chainstays. The rear brake quick release is via a small mechanism transecting the cable as it runs out of the bar and into the frame.

Scott’s in-house Syncros branded kit is first class, and the company is rapidly establishing Syncros once again as a name to look out for on high-end componentry. In this case, it also means that the finishing components have a level of integration into the frame that would not

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“Out of the saddle efforts provide instant acceleration. Ride quality is much smoother too” be possible with third-party parts. Our 56cm test model weighed in at just a shade over 7kg, which is very reasonable for an aero machine.

Above: Direct mount brakes lighter than discs

Wheels Scott has elected to spec Zipp’s deep-section carbon 404 Firecrest wheels on the Foil Premium. The Zipps are a thoroughbred choice for a thoroughbred machine. Zipp designed the 404s to be an all-round deep-section wheelset, with a lightweight design to complement the aero benefits of its 58mm deep rims.

Although Zipp 404s are available with bold white logos on the rims, it’s the more subtle all-black version that comes on the Foil Premium. It’s a look that complements the frame perfectly.

Intended for clinchers rather than tubular tyres, Scott has equipped the 404s with Continental Grand Prix 4000 S II tyres in 23mm width. These are the tyre of choice for many racers, offering reliable all-round performance in the wet and dry, on training runs and in race conditions.

The Scott Foil Premium is absolutely worthy of arriving on the start line of a top-level race. There are no compromises in its design or build, and this is translated into a fast and smooth riding experience. Any performance shortfall is going to be down to the rider.

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Photo Graham Watson

BIG READ EXTRACT

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In this extract from the Cycling Legends bookazine series author Chris Sidwells chooses one of his favourite iconic places in pro cycle racing: the legendary Mur de Huy

Mur de Huy

Huy is a non-descript town that straddles the River Meuse, deep in the Ardennes hills of southern Belgium. It doesn’t look special, but like many small towns it has its stories and celebrities. Huy is the birthplace of three-time world motocross champion Andre Malherbe and the inventor of roller skates Jean-Joseph Merlin, and it’s the home of the Mur de Huy.

T

he Mur de Huy has a big place in cycling. It gave shape and character to La Fleche Wallonne, a tough race, a classic with a list of distinguished winners, but a race that suffered in comparison with Liege-Bastogne-Liege. That changed when the Mur de Huy was included.

La Fleche is younger than Liege. The first edition was run in 1936, but for years it had no identity other than being a hilly race between Liege and Charleroi. Sometimes it went one way, sometimes the other. It was always hard, always prized among the fans and by those who won it. And it satisfied the thirst for bike racing of a huge Italian community working in the steel mills and mines of the Meuse. But until the Mur de Huy, Fleche-Wallonne lacked a defining shape.

Mur de Huy‘s equivalent to the Eiger’s notorious White Spider.

Excitement can get the best of riders here, they think the finish is close, but Fleche winners keep their cool here. They dose their effort around the bend to perfection. After it the gradient relaxes a bit. The road curves gently away to the left for 300 metres of around 14 per cent, and this sweeping bend acts as a cue in the race’s script for the potential winners.

Before it’s all been about waiting, now they can make their move. It might have been possible years ago, but going early on the Mur de Huy is suicide now.

The trick is still to avoid hitting maximum until as late as possible. But by now there are only a few left in the race who can win. The Huy, Huy, Huy road markings continue their exhortations up here. On the left a short terrace of stone houses provides perspective on how steep the climb is.

Then suddenly the black wall of tarmac that is the rider’s focus all the way up the climb is replaced by blue sky. The top has come. It must feel like a spider climbing out of a bath. The Mur is done, it’s over. At last.

“The sensation switches from tolerable to absolute pain” Racing up Huy

Vicious The hard bit of the Mur de Huy starts as the route flicks right from wide main roads into the Chemin des Chappelles, named after the seven chapels along its length. There’s no time to offer a prayer, as the sensation of climbing switches from just about tolerable to absolute pain.

The first steep section averages 11 percent.

A right and left bend maintains the gradient, then as the road straightens and the S-bend comes into view. ‘Huy, Huy, Huy’ proclaim the white letters on the road. As if a location fix was necessary at this stage. The vicious S-bend is the crucial part of the climb, the

Cycling’s Iconic Places Mountains, hills, cobblestones and velodromes

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The Iconic places Big Read is one of a series of Cycling Legends all available on back issue from www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/shop Go to page 118 for more details on the current edition of Cycling Legends

Memorable moments 1996: This has ended up being the biggest victory of Lance Armstrong’s career, because everything he did after 1998 is void. He hit the climb with Frenchman Didier Rous. They shared the pace, but coming into the S-bends Armstrong forged ahead and won by a good margin.

2002: Mario Aerts won, but he was so tired after slugging it out with his six co-escapees all the way to the top of the Mur he could hardly raise his arms in victory celebration.

2010: Cadel Evans has edged closer to winning this over the last few years by leaving his effort later and later. This time he got it exactly right, staying cool and virtually letting the race come to him. That’s how to win a modern Fleche Wallonne, be the last man standing at the top of the Mur de Huy. 2012: Stage three of the Tour de France finished on top of the Mur de Huy. Joachim Rodriguez used the Cadel Evans playbook move to win, while the rest bashed themselves to pieces by going too early.

VITAL STATISTICS Length: 1.3 kilometres Average gradient: 10 percent Maximum gradient: 25 percent

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The Ten Best Climbers in Cycling Kings of the Mountains, number seven in the Cycling Weekly’s collector series Cycling Legends, is dedicated to the true climbers of the sport. These are riders who possess the ability to make stinging attacks and gain time in the mountains, and as such have been responsible for some of the most beautiful moments in our sport.

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Photo Andy Jones

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Tour de France 2010, stage 17, final bend before the summit finish on the Tourmalet: world champion Cadel Evans rides in for 56th place behind winner Andy Schleck. The following year Evans became the first Australian to win the Tour de France, confirming him as the greatest Aussie pro in history. Evans retired in 2015 but his name lives on in January’s Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race

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Rap Sheet

Peter

Sagan Wild at heart, a bike handling god and prone to making pronouncements on world peace, Peter Sagan is a bit of a lad Words Holly Blades Photos Yuzuru Sunada

F

rom taking the Slovak Cup as a junior, on a supermarket-bought bike borrowed from his sister, to winning the points classification in his first four Tours de France, Peter Sagan has always been a different kind of champion.

The current world champion has made his fair share of gaffes — machine gunning his Tour trophy at the crowd and goossing a podium girl, anyone? — but he’s growing into a gracious and thoughtful twentysomething who still manages to retain a rebellious and slightly surreal side.

Take his recent wedding. Now, I’m no scholar of Slovak history but while the 19th century nobleman outfit may have been traditional, I’m not entirely convinced that riding a tiny antique bicycle across a tightrope features in many nuptials. The

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same goes for the undeniable ‘boob honk’ of his future bride in other wedding photos.

Terrible lip syncing Sagan’s playful nature rears its head in pro races as well, like in the 2015 Tour de France, having just contested an intermediate sprint, he jokingly suggested that he, Andre Greipel, Mark Cavendish, John Degenkolb and Bryan Coquard had already gained enough of a lead that they might as well start a breakaway.

Breakaways were his thing that year, and after Stage 16, when asked why he joined the break for the third day in a row, he replied “I have big balls.” Obviously something that comes in useful in a career full of bunny-hopping kerbs at however many miles an hour, wheelying over finish

■ Won one of his first races on his sister’s bike, complete with iffy brakes and limited gears, after ‘accidentally’ selling his own bike ■ Started as a mountain bike rider, winning races in tennis shoes and a t-shirt ■ Absolutely, categorically not afraid to make a spectacle out of himself ■ “I do not want to be the second Eddy Merckx, I want to be the first Peter Sagan”

PUNK RATING 4/5

lines and, according to Cavendish, “Making us all look like juniors.”

Peter Sagan is a hero in his home country of Slovakia, acting as the commercial face of several companies including Telekom and the health food company Sun-Root. The latter is responsible for the greatest cycling gift to grace YouTube in the form of Sagan and his poor bride Katarina, who appears to be dragged along on most of these ventures, re-enacting ‘You’re the one that I want’ from the movie Grease complete with outfits and not un-terrible lip syncing.

The Slovak president has said that the country appreciates Sagan’s “humour and exaggeration” and states that he’s making the country proud. Has he not seen the Grease video?

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