Table of contents for April 9, 2026 in Cycling Weekly

The Giro Imperial AS isn’t an entirely new design, utilising the blueprint of the regular Imperial II and weatherproofing it to a certain extent. I’ve spent two months and 1,200km using the shoe in Spain and the UK, with heat, cold, and rain included to help test its attributes. AS stands for ‘All Season’, and the Imperial AS is described by Giro as a shoe “engineered to deliver elite-level efficiency, comfort and protection in colder and wetter riding conditions.” To ensure it delivers on these claims, Giro has introduced changes to differentiate the AS from its breathable, airy sibling, the Imperial II. The former is constructed around a forged carbon-fibre sole that’s bonded to a two-layer upper made from warp-knitted mesh and a 0.25mm TPU skin designed to balance ventilation…

MICHAEL STANLEY 37, rides with Dulwich Paragon “My hardest session is one my coach calls ‘racewinning attacks’: it simulates the moment you launch a decisive move in a race and try to make it stick. After a good warm-up, the first of three sets starts with a 30-second attack at 160-200% of FTP to replicate the explosive acceleration needed to get a gap. Straight after that comes 2.5 minutes at 110–120% of FTP, which is about sustaining the move while everyone else is already under pressure. Then you’re into six minutes, 40 seconds at threshold (90–100% FTP) where the goal is to measure your effort to your imaginary finish line.” GRACE WARD 18, rides for O’Shea RedChilli Bikes “One of my hardest sessions is my ‘race mixer’ ride, which I…

Pete Richardson has had this striking Dalkiia F1 Zero for more than 10 years and, as he says, it suits his needs for the club 10s and open time trials he rides. Set-up is suitably old-school, with a Shimano Ultegra 10-speed groupset and Easton Tempest II tubular wheelset. Tyres are Schwalbe Ultremo TT. Want us to feature your race bike? Send a pic and information to cycling@futurenet.com…

Ayoung Roger de Vlaeminck wins stage 3a of the Tour de Suisse in Lenzerheide – a short road stage that was followed by a time trial before split days fell out of favour and were then banned by the UCI. Spring 1971 is when de Vlaeminck, then riding for Flandria-De Clerk-Krüger, started to cement his reputation as a major force in the peloton, and challenge the dominance of countryman Eddy Merckx. De Vlaeminck won Liège-Bastogne-Liège and a stage of the Tour de France the year before, then in 1971 he won Flèche Wallonne and E3. His wins continued to come through the decade, and in 1977 he finally won the Tour of Flanders (his only victory in the race) to complete his set of all five Monuments; one of just…

Giving it wings Zoe Bäckstedt, in the Red Bull helmet, throws her bike at the end of the Tour of Flanders, aiming to beat Lotte Kopecky to fourth place. It wasn’t to be, but she was the youngest person in the top 15. Spanish Italy? The landscape of Navarre looks almost Tuscan during the GP Miguel Indurain last week, as the peloton makes its way around the lumpy course in the north of Spain. The race was won by Ion Izagirre. Kwaremont surge Tadej Pogačar makes his move the first time up the Oude Kwaremont, chased by Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel. The crowds were treated to a classic Classic on Sunday. Grin and bear it Marlen Reusser on the left and Demi Vollering look like the…

Demi Vollering came into the Tour of Flanders as the favourite, with her FDJ United-SUEZ team fully in support of the Dutchwoman on the bergs of Belgium, and more than lived up to it. The 29-year-old might have had a strong squad on her side, but she won in style, speeding away on the Oude Kwaremont, 18km from the finish, and soloing to her maiden victory at the Monument. The Koppenberg had been key in whittling down the field, and FDJ’s Franzi Koch split the bunch again, setting up the final attack on the Kwaremont. Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma-Lease a Bike) won the sprint for second, ahead of Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Premier Tech). Vollering had enough time to sit up, take in the finish straight in Oudenaarde, and celebrate with what appeared…

I’ve been racing for 30 years. You don’t need all this fancy bling, don’t get blinded by it - you’re the engine! Desi Fivey There was a rise in cycling in the 2010s and while it’s still popular, once you have a couple of bikes, you don’t really need any more. Add to the mix that the cost of living is going up, and top-end bikes aren’t going to be a priority. Good-quality commuting bikes would sell, especially as fuel costs spiral. Gareth Cooper You can literally get almost any bike you want from 2020 or earlier, which will perform 99% as well as a current bike, for £/$500 or less. Why spend 10 times more? People are also rediscovering the beauty of simplicity and fun, on bikes from the…

Oquo, the Spanish sister brand of Orbea, is the latest to join the carbon spoke party with an update to its WorldTour-spec wheel packages. It boasts the holy trinity of bike marketing: less weight, more aero and an extra dose of stiffness. Collaborating with Lotto-Intermarché, Oquo has developed new wheelsets for both road and gravel and claims to have delivered greater stiffness, lower rotational weight and improved aerodynamics through a redesigned wheel system. Rims, hubs and spokes have been developed together to maximise speed and efficiency while preserving precise control. As a result, torsional stiffness is up a claimed 17% over the outgoing models, rotational mass is down 6% and aero improvements mean the wheels are two watts faster overall. The brand has everything from design to manufacturing and testing…

Talent transfer is the tactful expression for acquiring athletes from other sports. Instead of growing your own cyclists, you just steal them from another discipline. Popular places to nick athletes from include speed skating, cross-country skiing, running, rowing, and triathlon. In general, for road, you’re looking for highly aerobic sports with a power-to-weight element. You have the advantage that if they’ve been doing it a while they’ve probably already done some tests you can look at for things like VO2 max. Other benefits include the chance to snare the sort of person who has already proven they have the discipline to be an athlete, and has spent so much of their life as a sportsperson that they have no real social life anyway. The disadvantages are that they don’t know…

Don’t you long for the days when race bike design wasn’t constrained by rules and regulations? Take this wonderful Moorson Superior, a performance bike built in less restrictive times. Founded in 1914 by Francis Ernest Moore in the front room of his family’s terraced house in Selly Park – pity his poor wife Rebecca – the brand eventually employed their two sons, Ernest and Norman. Hence the name. They were an inventive trio, with a penchant for unconventional patents and a fondness for bold marketing slogans – ‘Moorson Superior – The Super Cycles’. This particular frame design, which dates to 1928, is defined by its remarkable twin-tube construction. Both the top tube and down tube consist of two slender, parallel tubes, leaving the seat tube as the frame’s only traditional…

Three races in 2026, two of them Monuments, three wins for Tadej Pogačar. Victory at the Tour of Flanders meant that nine of the last 17 biggest one-day races have been won by the Slovenian. With Paris-Roubaix to come on Sunday, and Liège-Bastogne-Liège a fortnight after, one could easily see it becoming 11 in 19. No rider had ever won four Monuments in a row until Pogačar, nor has anyone held all five at the same time, something that feels very possible, with Roubaix next up. In just five years, he has gone from cobbled Classic novice to joint-record Flanders winner. The most recent addition to the UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider’s trophy cabinet was no cruise, as at Strade Bianche last month, and he looked exhausted after crossing the finish…

1 Atypical winners The defending champion in the women’s race, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, will not be present this year, but she set a template for a different kind of rider to win Paris-Roubaix. The Frenchwoman won Roubaix and the Tour de France Femmes in the same year, and will inspire Tadej Pogačar to think that he can do the same thing this season. The Slovenian finished second last year, and is returning with the aim of going one better. 2 Denain and Compiègne, not Paris The men’s race begins in Compiègne, 80km north of Paris, with the first cobbles coming after about 100km. The women’s race, meanwhile, begins in Denain, with the first cobbles coming after about 65km. There are 30 sectors for the men, and 20 for the women. For…

Over the past decade, I’ve become obsessed with going uphill as fast as I can. Having drifted from road racing into hill-climbs, I now relish pushing myself to the absolute limit on steep gradients. That buzz of riding through raucous crowds at events like the National Hill-Climb Champs, feeling like a pro rider on a mountain stage of a Grand Tour, cannot be beaten. Living a stone’s throw from the Peak District, I’ve spent hours plotting sawtooth-profiled routes locally, but more recently I’ve started seeking out new climbs in unfamiliar corners. That’s where this story begins: a mission to find Britain’s most undiscovered ascents, so remote they barely register on the map. After trips to Shetland and Orkney, my sights turned to the Highlands and Western Isles. As a 45-year-old…

While Van Rysel, Decathlon’s in-house cycling brand, is known for offering products with great performance and excellent value, it also heads up a WorldTour team, creating the need for top-tier clothing as well. Enter the RCR-R PRO Wind/Rain 4-season road cycling jacket. It’s designed to circumvent more traditional layering systems and provide an all-in-one solution for riding in windy or damp conditions. To achieve this, Van Rysel has used two main membrane fabrics for the jacket, both of which have been supplied by Polartec: a thin, very stretchy material over the arms and back, with a slightly thicker, less stretchy fabric on the shoulders and front of the jacket. Both are windproof and water-resistant. There is a third material used for the cuffs and droptail that feels like a cross…

Every rider knows the feeling. It’s time for the session circled on the training plan that makes your stomach tighten just a little. The one you don’t skip – but might quietly hope will get rained off. It’s not the longest ride or the most challenging route, but it is the hardest one. Usually the one that strips everything back to effort, discipline, and the ability to sit with discomfort. “These are the sessions that expose your limits, then ask you to push beyond them,” explains coach Matt Bottrill. “Threshold blocks that burn through your legs and lungs. VO2max efforts that leave you gasping over the bars.” Or else, it’s repeats that seem manageable on paper but quickly become a battle of will as much as fitness. They are, in…

Elliott Colyer took a solo win in the third stage of the Totnes-Vire Two-Day Stage Race in Devon, with the Aero CLCTV RT rider securing the overall win too after attacking on the finishing circuit. The 22-year-old crossed the line 30 seconds ahead of Clay Davies (Ride Revolution Coaching), while Spencer Corder (BCC Race Team) was just over one minute behind in third; the overall podium was the same three riders. Saturday’s opening stage had seen Hamish Johnstone (Team Tor 2000 Kalas) take the leader’s yellow jersey, and he held it through the stage two hill-climb. But a bunch finish in the final stage saw him lose the lead. In Lancashire, Anna Morris secured her second victory of the season at the Capernwray Road Race near Borwick, while Deetray Jarrett…