Table of contents for Winter 2024 in Cyclist

We measure success by achieving the goals we set ourselves. ROUVY is here to help you chase and achieve your goals - whether that goal is getting fitter, training for a future event or travelling the world and experiencing bucket list routes like Cap de Formentor or Stelvio Pass. ROUVY is the realistic indoor cycling app with 1500+ real video routes and a wide selection of workouts and training plans to help you be better and go further. New subscribers can register at www.rouvy.com with the code GOALS2024 at checkout to get their first month for free. Valid on single monthly subscription.…

1 Ventete aH-1 helmet £350, ventete.com Did you hear about the woman who got arrested for laughing like a man? They charged her with manslaughter. Did you hear about Ventete’s inflatable helmet? It’s made from a glass fibre rib and triple-laminated nylon, packs down to 10% of its inflated size, has passed EU and UK safety standards, protects against rotational forces and claims better ventilation than most helmets. 2 Science in Sport Beta Recovery £20, scienceinsport.com You’d have thought taking the shell off a snail would make it more aero, but it just makes them sluggish. They might move a bit quicker if they used SiS’s Beta Recovery carbohydrate and protein powder. Each 100g serving contains 30g whey protein and 60g carbs with a 1:1 maltodextrin-tofructose ratio, as well as…

The Passo Fedaia is unlike any other mountain in Italy’s Dolomites. This 2,057m colossus is darker, moodier and more mysterious than its neighbours. While many climbs nearby serve up pleasant, forested landscapes and elegant mountain tapestries, the Fedaia oozes a wild and savage hostility. Some visitors dismiss the pass as ugly, but that’s untrue. The Fedaia is atmospheric and boasts the kind of raw, rugged aesthetics appreciated by mountaineers. The towers of rock that surround its steep hairpins are grand and imposing, and the barren, brooding landscapes trigger chills of unease. The Fedaia boasts all the irresistible gloom and glamour of a Gothic horror. This formidable pass borders the Italian regions of Trentino and Belluno, just a 40km ride south of the tourism hub of Corvara in Alta Badia. Hidden…

Calling a bike fast without independent data to back it up is suspect. But you don’t need data to tell you when a bike feels fast and when its riding manners favour aggressive riding. Bikes may be inanimate objects but some give the distinct impression they want to be ridden quickly, whether by virtue of ride position, styling or the sensation of pedalling. This second-generation Factor Ostro VAM is one such bike, and that sense of speed makes itself felt via a combination of all three. It looks fast standing still, it feels fast when you’re standing on the pedals and it feels faster still in an aero tuck with your hands draped over the bars. Factor fresh According to Factor’s founder, Rob Gitelis, the overriding design aim for the…

‘Drop bars and fat tyres since 2006.’ The tagline may be simple but the message is clear: this brand is a gravel pioneer. ‘The Kite started out as a rim-braked steel cyclocross bike but with bigger tyre clearances, and this was before anyone started calling them gravel bikes,’ says Singular founder Sam Alison. ‘That would run up to a 45mm tyre with cantilever brakes and slim steel tubes, but the geometry and design between that and the current Kites has scarcely changed.’ The new Kite Titanium is presented as a doit-all bike and Alison’s counter-argument to the notion that you need a different bike for every discipline. For him it’s a winter road bike, a touring bike, a cyclocross racer and a gravel bike. Life of Ti Designed in-house in…

Whenever I’m out and about with my wife and I see a bike that sets my heart all aflutter, she looks at me with the same mixture of incredulity and pity that she might reserve for someone who has fallen for an online dating scam. She can’t see what I see. But then I feel much the same way about shoes. In my world, if a pair of shoes allows me to walk from A to B without letting in water or causing blisters then they’re a good pair of shoes regardless of whether they’re from Primark or Christian Louboutin, and my brain can’t comprehend the £1,000 price difference between the two. After all, they’re both just bits of leather stitched together. Aren’t they? And the Primark shoe machine probably…

‘Week in, week out, our titanium bikes are bestsellers,’ says Ribble’s head of product, Jamie Burrow. Which would explain why Ribble has chosen to refashion its new carbon Allroad bike – favourably reviewed in Cyclist last issue – in titanium. The Allroad line replaces Ribble’s old CGR (Cross, Gravel, Road) and Endurance ranges, blending the lightness and aerodynamics of a racy road bike with the tyre clearance and forgiving geometry of an endurance bike. The Allroad Ti not only shares the exact same geometry as its carbon sibling, but also manages to come close to its aeroprofiled tube shapes thanks to some very modern manufacturing techniques. ‘Building the Allroad in titanium offers all-round robustness and a long lifespan,’ says Burrow. ‘And as of now we’re one of the few high-volume…

The Everest Challenge has proven to be as durable as the riders that complete it. What might have seemed like a fad when it first gained popularity is now baked into cycling culture, so much so that new variations are being spawned, including the Roaming Everest. Whereas the original Everest Challenge requires you to repeat one climb as many times as necessary to accumulate 8,848m, and can so be attempted by virtually anyone, virtually anywhere, including virtually, a Roaming Everest dictates that no climb may be repeated and therefore needs a mountainous area. It is as exclusive as the original is inclusive. A side note: Hell’s 500, the group that set down the rules of Everesting and the guardians of the online roll of honour, doesn’t recognise a Roaming Everest,…

Management theorist Peter Drucker is credited with the saying, ‘What gets measured gets improved.’ Which as anyone who wears a smartwatch knows is a falsehood of seismic proportions. Wading through the torrent of information and apps proclaiming to guide you to a new, healthier and happier existence would result in muscle strain (which there is almost certainly a preventative app for). Data is king, but only if that data can be easily interpreted and applied to your cycling and daily life. Which brings us to HRV or heart rate variability. Glance down at your wrist and, chances are, that life-controlling screen reflects your HRV score. It’s on Garmin, Apple Watch, Polar, Coros, Whoop… It tells you if you’re up, down or possibly middling. But what do the numbers mean? And…

These days there’s a certain image attached to titanium bikes: that they’re good for all-road and gravel. In a sense, that’s not unfair. Bikes made from titanium can deal with a bit of rough and tumble and offer a forgiving ride quality that’s appreciated away from the tarmac. However, a consequence of this perception is that when it comes to pure road riding, titanium is increasingly overlooked in favour of carbon composite bikes. Nonetheless, there are bikes such as the Moots Vamoots CRD – a fully integrated, lightweight titanium design with sharp handling – that make a good case that ti done right can and should be considered the equal of any of the near-identikit composite road race bikes it shares a market with. ‘Given where the Vamoots CRD is…

Although it only launched officially at the Tour de France, the new Pinarello Dogma F has been raced on by Ineos Grenadiers for the whole season, meaning the bike is already a decent chunk through its lifespan. The Dogma F-series is revised on a frequent basis – it generally has a two-year cycle versus competitors’ three or four years – so it’s understandable that the changes aren’t huge compared to the previous model, but their incremental nature feels appropriate considering Pinarello is the technical partner of the racing team that introduced the ‘marginal gains’ philosophy to road cycling. The big news is the inclusion of a new type of carbon fibre that Pinarello says allows for a lighter frameset as well as a ‘0.2% reduction in the bike’s drag coefficient’.…

‘It’s not a bike for introverts,’ says Curve co-owner Ryan ‘Rhino’ Flinn. ‘You’re going to get a lot of attention riding this thing. “That’s not a normal bike, is it?” is something you’ll hear a lot of.’ The hugely oversized wheels of the Titanosaur ensure that it is anything but normal, but there is method in the madness behind the Australian brand’s behemoth. ‘We originally designed it as an outback tourer about six years ago,’ says Flinn. ‘The Australian Outback is known for its horrendously corrugated terrain, which regular wheels – even 29ers with three-inch tyres – struggle to contend with. Our thinking was simple: big wheels roll better. ‘Imagine approaching a gutter on a scooter with tiny little wheels,’ Flinn continues. ‘You wouldn’t stand a chance. The angle of…

‘I’m no Tadej, Van der Poel or Van Aert, so I think with the capacities I have, I’ve probably achieved the most I can’ Search on YouTube and you’ll find a ten-minute video of Victor Campenaerts preparing for the 2024 Tour de France. The now 33-year-old Belgian is nestled down on his aero bars, shoulders squeezed in, training mask strapped to his mouth, perspiration streaming down his cleanshaven head, riding at a cadence that would leave mere mortals’ hips displaced. He follows with a cold shower and indoor rowing to strengthen a back broken in 2023, before an outdoor effort in the Sierra Nevada mountains. We learn that Campenaerts rides with laces in his shoes rather than dials for aerodynamic, weight and comfort benefits. It’s a regime of military precision…

Salzburg is a city of grand heritage, resplendent in baroque architecture and famed as the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It’s a must-visit for lovers of art and music, and better still, once you’ve had your fill of culture the Austrian city can now add gravel cycling to its list of attractions. The Salzburgerland region has created two multi-day gravel routes that start and finish in central Salzburg and head deep into the surrounding mountains. The ‘soft’ route clocks up a total of 460km and 4,700m of elevation gain and can be completed in a week depending on how energetic you’re feeling. The ‘hard’ route is 660km over ten days and packs in a total elevation of 12,200m, including ascents of monsters such as the Grossglockner. Just for a taster,…

The eye-catching design of Poc’s Cytal Carbon helmet draws on two other premium helmets in Poc’s range: the aero Procen Air and the airy Ventral Air. ‘The aim was to create a system that was as fast as the Ventral Air, but even more ventilated,’ says Magnus Gustavsson, Poc’s hard goods director. ‘Being fast is no use if the rider is overheating.’ Aerodynamically, the Swedish brand’s designs continue to be guided by the Venturi effect – the idea that airflow speeds up as it passes through a constricted space – with the front vents on the Cytal said to reduce the stagnation of air that builds up at the rider’s forehead, routing air through rather than around the helmet. ‘Even if you don’t care about ventilation, you still want to…