Dedicated solely to the exhilaration of road cycling, Cyclist is the very first magazine of its kind. A celebration of the rides, the travel and the latest gear – we'll show you how to get the best from your ride every time.
Can’t say I’ve ever tackled it myself, but I know a few people who have taken on Mont Ventoux. One pal in particular regaled me in vivid detail with the story of almost every excruciating pedal stroke from the town of Bédoin at its base to the weather station at the summit. He told me how he wanted to keep a gear in reserve for when things got tough higher up, and how he cursed himself as he clicked onto his biggest sprocket with 16km still to go. Every now and then he’d slap uselessly at his shifter in a futile search for a gear that wasn’t there. Lance Armstrong once said of Ventoux: ‘It’s more like the moon than a mountain. It’s the hardest climb in the Tour bar…
Foiled again Scott gives its aero road bike a little bit more of everything Scott’s update of its aerodynamic Foil bike comes complete with a raft of statistics to show that it is improved across all areas. The company claims it has 13% more bottom bracket stiffness, 70g lighter frameset, 6 watts average drag reduction, 27 seconds saved over 40km at 45kmh… but perhaps the standout stat is that the new Foil is 89% more comfortable. Comfort is, of course, a tricky thing to measure. How much more comfortable is, say, a sofa compared to a bar stool? Scott arrives at this figure based on the amount of additional vertical compliance the new Foil frame has when compared to the previous iteration, measured in Newtons per millimetre. The result, Scott…
Age: 28 Nationality: Australian Teams: 2008-2009: Praties 2010-2012: Genesys Wealth Advisers 2013: Huon Salmon Genesys Wealth Advisers p/b Praties 2014-2015: Team Sky 2016: Drapac Professional Cycling Honours: 2011: Tour of Wellington (3 stage wins) 2012: Tour of Borneo (2 stage wins) 2013: New Zealand Cycle Classic (1st overall, 2 stage wins);Tour of de Taiwan (1 stage win); Tour of Japan (1 stage win) A move home was not totally unexpected for Tasmanian cyclist Nathan Earle, who told Cyclist a year earlier at Le Tour de Langkawi (2.HC) he wasn’t confident of being re-signed following his program that was currently in place. At the time Earle was serving as domestique in the third unit of the biggest, most successful pro cycling team in the world – Team Sky – and getting few, if…
EQUIPMENT: Camera: Canon 1Dx Mark II Lens: Canon 24-70mm 2.8L II. Settings: f2.8, 1/250th, ISO 400 The pure chaos just after a sprint finish when you somehow have to dodge the riders still coming across the line and push your way through the media scrum to try and get an image of the victor – that's what this shot is all about. I was particularly happy with this image as it was Peter Sagan’s third win for the Tour de France and, as a result, the pack of TV cameras, journalists and photographers was enormous – and ravenous. You can never tell if you're going to end up with something as you push the camera between the mass of bodies competing for the shot. Fortunately, on this occasion the pack…
Fluorescent kit may be bright, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you are more visible to motorists – especially if you are cycling against a bright background Flourescent clothing has long been the safety-conscious commuters’ choice, and it has enjoyed a recent surge in popularity with fashion-conscious road cyclists, too. But in spite of its obvious attention-grabbing qualities, debate rages about whether fluoro and brightly coloured attire actually makes its wearer safer than a rider who prefers more muted shades. It might seem intuitive that bright clothing is more noticeable, yet academic studies and empirical evidence suggest it may actually make little difference in the real world, or even provoke a negative reaction in some drivers. In the name of clarity, we decided to examine the evidence on both sides to…
Should my wife ever ask how my ride was, which admittedly is as likely as me asking her which denier of hosiery she prefers, there are two ways I could go about answering. Option one: ‘It was beautiful, a bit windy on the way back, but the views were stunning from the top of the mountain. My legs felt great and I stopped for a coffee on the way home.’ Or I could say: ‘I beat my personal best up the mountain, averaged 300 watts. My average speed was 30kmh at a cadence of 92rpm. And I kept my HR average to 80%.’ Both answers contain data, it’s just that the data in the first is more qualitative than quantitative. Data is great, but for us recreational cyclists, it should…
