Cycling Plus

WELCOME… My dad’s Spaghetti Bolognese, The Simpsons (series 2-9), The Rolling Stones (1968-72)… some things just never disappoint. You can add Shimano’s 105 groupset to that lofty mix. It has been a reliably brilliant presence in cycling for decades, offering faultless shifting and proven stopping power for generations of cyclists. But how does 2023’s 12-speed 105 compare to its forebears? We test three endurance bikes from Basso, Merida and Specialized in our big bike test to find out. Elsewhere, we join a research project looking at air pollution in York, hang out in Ned Boulting’s Giro d’Italia commentary booth for a day and discover a secret cycling wonderland in central France that’s loaded with quiet back roads and memorable climbs. Santé!  matthew.baird@ourmedia.co.uk Your experts Katherine Moore Tech writer  Reviewer and…

Boult on • Ned Boulting has added two more London shows to his forthcoming autumn tour, Ned Boulting’s Marginal Mystery Tour: 1923 And All That: Islington Assembly Hall (28 October) and The Clapham Grand (11 November) Best of Britain • The route for the Tour of Britain Men (3-8 September) has been revealed. Beginning in Kelso in the Scottish Borders and ending in Felixstowe on the Suffolk Coast, Lowestoft, Darlington and Sheffield also feature Dales delights • The Struggle Borderlands road and gravel sportives return this September (14 and 15). From the Dales Bike Centre in Reeth, the 177km road route includes Yorkshire Dales icons such as Buttertubs and Fleet Moss Moor, Moor, Moor • Dartmoor sportive Moor to Sea is back for a 12th year, with three routes (57km,…

Bike racing comes in many forms, to suit all sorts of talent and taste. At one end of the spectrum you have the ultra-cyclists, riding events such as the Transcontinental bikepacking ride across Europe, for whom the season is about building up mileage to unfathomable distances. At the other, the hill climb specialists, whose aim is a distillation of form and fitness into blink-and-you’ll-miss-it efforts. The goal with a hill climb is simple: to get from the bottom of a (typically short) hill to the summit as quickly as possible. The scene is around a century old in Britain, with a National Championships being run since 1944, on famous climbs such as The Rake (Ramsbottom, Lancashire), Horseshoe Pass (Denbighshire) and The Struggle (Cumbria). The first races are in September, leading…

ON POINT Biniam Girmay of Eritrea carved out two historical firsts at the Tour de France: becoming the first black African to both win a stage (he won three) and the green points jersey EVERY SECOND COUNTS Peter Sagan won heaps but finished second almost as much. In July he ended a wonderful career with yet another runner-up placing in the Slovakian MTB nationals WHERE THERE’S A WILCOX At the halfway point, Lael Wilcox was on course to break Jenny Graham’s 124-day round-the-world record by a fortnight. Follow her progress as laelwilcox.net CLIMBING OFF Top mountains resource climbbybike.com has closed its doors, citing a lack of funds. The website was a must-read for riders planning a trip to the high mountains THE PRICE IS RIGHT… HIGH If you liked the…

Carbon monoxide has a much higher affinity than oxygen to bind to haemoglobin, meaning that if you breathe it in, you have less oxygen attached to haemoglobin, so you enter a hypoxic state like you would at altitude. Picture the situation as a bus and the seats as haemoglobin. The larger customers are the carbon monoxide and take up all the seats, leaving little room for the thinner oxygen customers! It does eventually unbind (it has a half-life of around 12 hours), but in very high doses – like you’d find with people in garages with exhaust pipes – all the seats are used up, so there’s no room for oxygen and the result is death. But that’s at high doses. We’ve been using it in science for years to…

The Peak District’s finest, Sonder, has launched its first ever e-gravel bike. The electric version of the Alpkit house brand’s Camino gravel bike is a pretty competitive £2,999 and is replete with a multitude of features. 01 Hub drive What’s to tempt? Well, let’s start with those e-foundations, namely the Kynamic BC250 hub-drive system. For those new to Kynamic, it was founded early in 2021 by the KMC Group (yes, the same firm that makes bike chains). 02 Power play The latest BC250 hub-drive system features a 250Wh battery in the down-tube and a rear-hub 250W motor that boasts 45Nm of driving force with a real-life range of up to 70km in 100% assisted riding, though over 120km is reputedly possible with the 180Wh range extender that fits in a…