Cyclist

What would it feel like to be punched by Tyson Fury? Or to be at the bottom of a ruck in the Six Nations rugby championship? Or to approach a chicane at 180mph on the Nürburgring? With most sports we can never really understand what the pros are going through because we haven’t been there. That’s where cycling is different. Almost uniquely in sport, everyday cycling fans can emulate their heroes by riding the same roads using the same equipment, experiencing the same difficulties and feeling the same pain (only at a slower pace and with fewer people waving flags in your face). Cycling’s most famous arenas – Alpe d’Huez, the Stelvio, the Koppenberg, the strade bianche of Tuscany – are all freely available to visit to recreate your own…

As road bike designers continue to oscillate between ultra-light, ultra-aero and all-round designs, gravel bikes are going through their own growing pains with manufacturers trying to work out how many kinds of bikes are required to ride different kinds of off-road in different kinds of ways. For Trek the answer is now ‘two’, having released the race-oriented Checkmate gravel bike to sit alongside the Checkpoint, which is now more about endurance and adventure. ‘In previous generations of the Checkpoint, we were trying to stuff lots of use cases into one bike,’ says Trek’s Whitney Beadle. ‘It was for racing, for cafe rides, for bikepacking and for just riding with your friends. We were stifled by trying to be all those things, so our decision this time around was to focus…

Pro Discover finishing kit Aero bars £349.99, Stem 10 £99.99, freewheel.co.uk As the speeds in gravel racing continue to increase, aerodynamic equipment is becoming more relevant than ever, with the perk that its performance attributes translate neatly onto the road as well. The latest bars and stem from Shimano’s components brand Pro demonstrate that logic as applied to finishing kit. ‘Aero gains in gravel frames and wheels have become the norm, yet dedicated cockpits have been in short supply,’ says Pro’s Niek Verbakel. ‘We wanted to change that.’ The tops of the Pro Discover Aero bars use an aerofoil cross section but ultimately that’s chump change when it comes to improving aerodynamics. The real gains come in manipulating rider position to create an aggressive but sustainable position. ‘The tops adopt…

Pashley’s new CEO, Andy Smallwood, arrived at the company in 2024 having led Ribble for seven years and been in charge of Boardman Bikes for the seven years before that. It’s therefore little wonder that less than a year after he took over the reins at Pashley, the British brand, which celebrates its centenary year in 2026, has released its first drop bar bike in a long, long time. ‘That’s one of the brilliant things about Pashley,’ says Smallwood. ‘We have the capacity to do everything in-house, so products can be conceived, designed, refined and manufactured much more quickly and to a higher standard than at other brands. ‘Raw tubing comes in and finished bikes roll out. Our designers can walk out of the office and into fabrication or our…

‘In some ways I feel this bike isn’t meant for a show,’ says Russell Stout. ‘Handbuilt bike shows are all about the complexities and details of bike design. Try as I might, I can’t help but keep things simple. A bike is a tool for a job and in my opinion doesn’t need more than what’s absolutely necessary. But I still wanted to show that aluminium can be part of the mix.’ The Bespoked handmade bike show in Manchester is dominated by elegant steel tubes and outlandish design quirks, but Stout is flying the flag for no-fuss aluminium frames. Operating out of a modest workshop in the Scottish Borders, armed with a jig, a mill, a welder and little else, he builds bikes for the love of it, using what…

Cyclist: 2023 was your breakthrough year. What changed? Matteo Jorgenson: I’d spent three years at Movistar and was progressing at a good rate but I still hadn’t won a race. I was coming into the final year of my contract and felt I’d learned what the best teams were doing in terms of training and nutrition but because of their budget the team couldn’t provide me with those things. I decided before the 2023 season to invest everything I earned that year into my training and equipment, including my own personal altitude camps. I sacrificed everything and literally trained alone for four months, doing everything perfectly. I’m really happy I did that because I won my first race at the Tour of Oman [in February 2023] and that was a really…