Table of contents for December 2024 in Cyclist

The phenomenal season enjoyed by Tadej Pogačar – two Grand Tours, two Monuments, one other stage race (Volta a Catalunya, including four stage wins), one World Championship, 12 Grand Tour stage wins and three other one-day races – means the call has already gone out to declare him the GOAT. The internet is awash with articles comparing the 26-year-old Slovenian to Eddy Merckx (the best of which can be found on cyclist.co.uk), all of them bubbling over with stats about how many races each man had won by what point in their careers, weighted for race prestige, divided by the strength of the opposition and multiplied by the number of long-range solo attacks, with bonus points for the extravagance of the finish line victory salutes. It’s all a lot of…

In this age of hyper-refined design technology and intense sporting competition, it’s easy to lose sight of a bike’s most fundamental function: enhancing mobility. An organisation where that has always been top priority is World Bicycle Relief, which has been using bicycles to improve access to education, healthcare and economic opportunities since its inception in 2005. The non-profit social enterprise has distributed more than 830,000 bikes to rural communities all over the globe, many of which have been under the Buffalo Bicycle name. A Buffalo bike is the antithesis of many models that grace the pages of Cyclist. It’s sturdy steel rather than svelte carbon; it uses simple, easy-to-replace parts instead of complex, proprietary ones; it’s designed to carry heavy loads over long distances and to do that for many…

This Christmas, give the gift of adventure – Subscribe to Cyclist* From iconic climbs to expert bike reviews, Cyclist is your go-to magazine for everything about road cycling. Plus, this Christmas we’re offering an extra reason to subscribe: a FREE set of bike lights worth £38, to brighten up your winter rides. WORTH £38 ORDER TODAY QUOTING THE OFFER CODE CYCX24 store.cyclist.co.uk/cycx24 hello@metropolis.co.uk 020 8752 8195 * This offer is only valid for new UK customers, one per household, and while stock lasts. Please allow 8 weeks for delivery of the gift. Offer is not valid on the Free issue to 6-Month subscription.…

Tucked away at the garage level of a 1960s housing block in Camberwell, southeast London, is a hand-painted sign that reads ‘Community Bike Shop’. It’s Saturday morning and the place is buzzing. Owner Marlon Plein is busy tidying up in preparation for Cyclist’s visit, meaning his girlfriend Lauren can’t now find the parts she needs for a bike she’s fixing up. Volunteer Jeff wheels in, slings his bike down by the entrance and heads off to make a round of teas. Bang on 12pm, local kid Yayah comes hurtling down the slope on his Mafia bike before pulling a wheelie. ‘He’s been coming pretty much every weekend for two years, learning mechanics and various tricks, so we said, “OK let’s get him a new bike,”’ Plein says. ‘We set up…

The ancient graveyard in the village of Keir Mill is packed with mosscovered headstones and we have to battle through thigh-high grass to find the one we’re after. It’s the largest headstone of them all and it’s dedicated to the village blacksmith credited with designing the world’s first pedal-driven bicycle. Every square inch of the stone is inscribed with text that gets smaller towards the bottom as if the engraver suddenly realised he was running out of space. I’m expecting to read a florid account of Kirkpatrick Macmillan’s life – how he rode his wooden machine with steel-rimmed wheels the 70 miles to Glasgow on rutted country tracks in 1842 – but instead it’s a sombre list of all the family members who are buried here. I have to flatten…

The European cycling world is slowly becoming more diverse, but it’s fair to say that it is still largely dominated by white, middleaged, middle-class men. That’s why Atelier Pariah’s Swanee Ravonison feels it’s important to build a message into her bikes. ‘I chose the name Pariah because I’m a black woman in a white man’s world,’ explains Ravonison. ‘And I’m undeniably never taken seriously.’ Ravonison is no newcomer to the industry. Based in Nevers, France, she is a graphic designer by trade and has a background in fine art, which comes through in her approach to creating bikes. But she has also been cycling since childhood, both competitively and for pleasure. ‘Road, fixed-gear, gravel, mountain bike, BMX, long-distance, touring, bike commuting…’ she recounts. ‘I first had a store with a…

1 Surreal cereal £5.50, eatsurreal.co.uk Did you hear about the ghost who got arrested? He was charged with possession. Did you hear about Surreal cereal? It’s a high-protein alternative to a breakfast that isn’t traditionally a great protein source. Surreal uses a blend of pea and soya protein to create hoops that pack in around 13g of protein per serving while still tasting like a classic sugary cereal. 2 Leadout Racelite frame bag £156, leadoutgear.com You shouldn’t give unsolicited advice. You should give someone you love a Leadout Racelite frame bag. Its exterior is made with Dyneema fabric, so it’s lightweight and durable – Dyneema is apparently 15 times stronger than steel and has the highest tear and tensile strength of any alternative fabric. The bag packs in 2.7 litres…

When is a Classic Climb not a climb at all? Mallorca’s Cap de Formentor is more like a Classic Undulating Road. Over its 17.3km distance – not including the way back, and it’s a dead-end so you have to do it in reverse afterwards – there’s only a 590m elevation gain and the mixture of climbing and descending takes the average gradient to just 1.2%. But that doesn’t take anything away from its place as one of Europe’s must-do rides. Doff your Cap The Cap de Formentor is Mallorca’s northernmost point, with the lighthouse at the end marking its location since 1863. However, the road has only existed since 1925. Before then the peninsula was owned by Mallorcan poet Miquel Costa i Llobera, whose works include The Pine Of Formentor.…

With multiple Grand Tour stage wins under its belt in 2024, the lightly remodelled Canyon Aeroad CFR has hit the tarmac rolling. According to Lukas Birr, Canyon’s lead engineer, development was steered by one key group. ‘This bike was defined by pro rider feedback,’ he says. ‘The big overall theme was to be the fastest bike, which it is, so we didn’t need to change much there. And on the geometry, this was one of the points where the pros were totally content. We weren’t going to touch anything that wasn’t requested.’ This logic has led Canyon to concentrate its development efforts on the introduction of swappable aerodynamic drops that make the rider (not the bike) more aero without the need for complicated brake bleeding. This also gave Canyon the…

Just when you got over having to explain the difference between a gravel bike, a cross bike and an early mountain bike, along comes ‘all-road’, bearing a striking resemblance to an endurance bike, a pared down gravel bike and a beefed-up race bike. It just depends who you ask. Take the Italians, for whom an all-road bike is a road bike with 35mm tyres; or the Americans, who would find it hard to tell you where an Enve Mog (gravel) stops and an Enve Fray (all-road) begins, then stops again for the Enve Melee (road); or the Irish, whose FiftyOne Sika has 40mm tyre clearance but a 690g climbers’ frame. All-road means many things to all-people, and perhaps most wild so far in this potential frankenbike territory is the Ribble…

No one likes getting wet, but it’s probably preferable to ingesting chemicals that pollute our bodies at a cellular level. Polyfluoroalkyl substances – PFAS – are a group of synthetic chemicals widely found in consumer products and they have long been used in DWR (durable water repellent) coatings on cycling rain jackets. However, due to their glacial decomposition rate, their environmental impact is colossal. ‘They are present in everything chemical,’ says Fergus Niland, creative director at Santini. ‘Toiletries, electronics, kitchenware, packaging… practically any consumer item could contain PFAS.’ ‘From a moral, ecological and legal point of view, we have to adapt. From January 2025 there is European legislation coming in’ Widely known as ‘forever chemicals’, they find their way into the food chain and have been discovered in everything from…

Perched at the neck of the Valtellina valley in Lombardy, and flanked on all sides by brooding mountains, lies the medieval Alpine town of Bormio. It is the gateway to some of the world’s finest and hardest cycling climbs, with the Passo dello Stelvio to the north and, to the south, a pair of passes that have become legendary thanks to their association with the Giro d’Italia: the Mortirolo and Gavia. These climbs have featured in Italy’s Grand Tour on numerous occasions, and have garnered notoriety in the pro peloton, having seen their share of heartbreak and heroics. Today, Cyclist is planning to climb them both. What goes down As we roll out of town it’s a glorious July morning with a freshness in the air. My ride companion for…

Anyone who has spent time in the world of bikes is likely to have encountered someone who says, ‘But it’s made by Giant.’ It’s not meant as a compliment, always as a slight, whether it’s about a Giant bike or a bike they presume is made by Giant. The implication is that something mass produced in the Far East must be cheap and of low quality compared to, say, a bike produced in Italy by a traditional marque. While perceptions are slowly shifting, this illusory truth still persists today: anything crafted in the West is synonymous with bespoke excellence, while products from Asia are relegated to the realm of budget and mediocrity. However, a tour around Giant’s carbon production facility in Taiwan – one of a number of factories the…

Three-time Tour de France winner Greg LeMond once said, ‘It never gets easier, you just go faster.’ It’s a phrase that sprung to mind after I returned from my first outing on the new Trek Madone Gen 8. This is the bike that has taken the aero benefits of the previous generation Madone and blended them with the lightweight attributes of the Trek Émonda to create a best-of-all-worlds race machine. I couldn’t wait to try it out on my usual 80km test loop, my assumption being the bike’s lightness and aero-ness would mean I would barely need to turn the pedals and I would return feeling fresh as a daisy. So when I got back home drenched in sweat with the usual aching legs, I thought there must be some…

Garmin’s new flagship head unit, the Edge 1050, has a huge display, enhanced processing power and an array of new features on top of some old favourites. The result is that it is loaded with plenty of genuinely useful tools, but these come at a price and at the expense of runtime thanks to the removal of its 1040 predecessor’s solar panels. The 1050 is a similar size to the 1040, but is 28g heavier at 161g, and I was surprised at how hefty it feels to hold. That gives a sense of build quality, although it may put off those looking to trim weight from their bike, as will the repositioned mounting interface, which isn’t compatible with many out-front mounts. The bulk of the face is taken up by…

To paraphrase the henpecked proprietor of British TV’s most infamous hotel, Fawlty Towers, as he reflected on his life: ‘Zoom! What was that? That was the cycling season, mate. Oh, that was quick, do I get another? Sorry mate, that’s your lot.’ The peloton has passed, leaving in its wake a furrow of displaced air and dying echoes. ‘Fractured air pours back bird song,’ wrote poet Carolyn A Yates in Peloton Passing. Girls in summer dresses have stopped jumping up and down waving at helicopters. Children are being lowered from parents’ shoulders. Deck chairs are being folded. TV channels are being changed. Memories are being processed. ‘Is that really the last time we’ll see Thomas De Gendt?’… ‘Kasia smiled at me!’… ‘The Vuelta was definitely the best Grand Tour of…