Cyclist Australia

Welcome, readers, to the 50th issue of Cyclist Australia/NZ. It’s a milestone we’re incredibly proud of here at the Cyclist office, particularly after a tough few months at this Our big plans for issue 50 don’t end there. The pro season is back once

You’d be forgiven for thinking that Bianchi, as the oldest bike brand in the world, would be resolutely about road riding and nothing else. Yet the Italian brand’s range is surprisingly diverse. If you could see beneath the mud splatters you’d notice

As Beyoncé once famously told the world, if you like it then you should have put a lid on it. Or perhaps we’re paraphrasing. Who can be sure? Either way, we agree with the sentiment, which is that helmets are very important. If you’re in the market f

RRP $599.95, fesports.com.au Apparently there are people out there who run and swim as well as cycle, and to accommodate these peculiar folk Wahoo has created the Elemnt Rival. This smartwatch can connect to a Wahoo Elemnt bike computer to show extra

I don’t know about you, but when I think of DT Swiss, the first thing that pops into my head are hubs, and for good reason. DT Swiss hubs are just about bomb and idiot-proof, which is why you’ll also find them strung into Roval and Bontrager wheels,

$129, polar.com Polar is widely regarded as the company that brought heart rate monitoring technology into the sporting mainstream. As it enters its 44th year, Polar continues to strive to create best-in-class technology that is accurate, reliable an

There’s nothing like some sumptuous aerial camera shots to remind us where we can’t visit, even if the season curtain-raiser, the Grand Prix Cycliste La Marseillaise, appeared to have been shot through a sepia-drenched potato. Once the technical glit

By the time you read this, plenty of Aussies will have contested plenty of stunning classics in Belgium, Italy, northern France and the Ardennes. But the beauty of print is you can be whisked back to review some poignant moments you may have overlook

Cyclist: You’ve been at Bicycle Network since 2007. Since you began, how have you seen the cycling landscape change in Australia? Craig Richards: Fifteen years ago our cities had great off-road paths, but on-road there was little more than painted wh

When her professional racing licence arrived in the post at her Brittany home in January, Audrey Cordon-Ragot might have been forgiven for punching the air in triumph. The French road race champion, who rides for Trek-Segafredo, had been making the c

The peloton of the Tour de France is approaching the Alpine town of Bourg d’Oisans. It’s late afternoon on Friday 4th July 1952 and the 88 riders that will finish the race’s 10th stage have been on the road for nearly eight hours and 252km since sett

‘A group of us asked the UCI why they had the rule that says saddles could tilt no more than 2.5°,’ says cycling performance innovator Phil Burt, ‘and they actually said they didn’t know. We explained how we’d seen a correlation between horizontal sa

Let’s start with the basics. Nutritional supplements are typically consumed orally and come in many forms such as pills, capsules, powders or liquid. They’re usually vitamins, minerals, protein powders, amino acids, meal replacements and extracts. Al

Parallels are often drawn between carbon fibre and cooking. Composites engineers are like chefs, we’re told; the layup schedule – which piece of carbon fibre goes where – is the recipe. And the ingredients? Those would be your carbon fibre pieces. An

Eddy Merckx once said, ‘The race is won by the rider who can suffer the most.’ It’s hard to argue against 525 professional victories including all the Grand Tours and Monuments, but was Merckx right? Does the key to success lie in how well we can cop

Save up to $46.40 Never miss an issue FREE delivery direct to your door Stay up-to-date on everything you need to know about cycling ONLINE subscribe.cyclist.com.au PHONE 02 8227 6486 POSTAGE-FREE to Cyclist PO Box 161 Hornsby NSW 1630

It seems like only yesterday we were cheering home Jai Hindley on Stage 21 of the 2020 Giro d’Italia. The 24-year-old Perth lad fell agonisingly short of a shock Grand Tour victory when he finished 39secs behind Tao Geoghegan Hart, who claimed the ma

In Australia you’d count yourself lucky to find a servo with a stocked pie warmer and a $1 coffee machine. The average service station in Italy, on the other hand, is a culinary delight. Espresso is deliciously rich, arancini are made on-site and the

Exactly 200 years ago – some 60 years before the bicycle as we know it was invented – work began on possibly the most famous mountain pass on Earth. Holy Roman Emperor Francis II (who by this stage was, confusingly, Emperor of Austria Francis I – hen

It’s a fractured world we’re living in. Post-truth. Alternative facts. Every statement or position feels less and less likely to be embraced scientifically and investigated logically – rather, it’s more akin to sticking one’s head above the parapet w

Before we get down to the nitty-gritty, a quick bit of cycling trivia to impress (or bore) your mates with. What was Cannondale’s first full carbon road bike called? That’s right, it was the Synapse, released all the way back in 2005 and made entirel

I have ridden 250km sportives on aero bikes, and 160km gran fondos on custom tube-to-tube bikes, and commute thousands of kilometres a year on a piece of aluminium from the early 2000s, and ultimately I have found them all palatable. But they are not

Any bike-buying decision is a battle between the heart and the head. The heart says you should go for an Italian brand with oodles of heritage. The heart says you need the same bike as ridden by that guy who won the Tour de France. The heart says you

There was at least one thing we agreed on here, quite by accident, and that’s the existential question of endurance bikes. Do they exist? How are they different from – in Sam’s words – that encroaching threat of lightweight bikes and gravel bikes, wh

‘If you’d told me at the start of last year that I’d finish the season number one, I wouldn’t have believed it. And now I’m prepping for our “Hell of the North”. I seriously thought I’d be retired by now. Thank God I didn’t make that decision.’ Lizzi

Sometimes you forget how good you’ve really got it. What prompted this reflection? Well, when I found out the destination for the Big Ride in Cyclist Magazine’s 50th issue would be right on Sydney’s doorstep, on some very familiar roads, I can’t exac

NEXT ISSUE ON SALE 10 JUNE ■

A bike painted in WorldTour team colours had better put its money where its mouth is – especially when those colours are as bold as this Merida’s Photography Mike Massaro, James Carnegie ■

A bike that comes painted up in WorldTour team colours needs to deliver the performance to match, and for the most part the Merida Reacto Team-E lives up to its colourful billing. In truth, the paintjob on this bike most closely matches last year’s B

Legend has it that Swiss-French rider Pierre Brambilla lay his bike on his bed and slept on the floor every time he’d had a bad race during his post-War career. ‘That no doubt didn’t improve his physical fitness, but his mental health came out of it