Let’s leave the deserts of the middle east and the sun-soaked southern hemisphere of Australia for some traditional, attritional, hardman cycling. Omloop Het Neuwsblad rolls out on Saturday and with it heralds the arrival of the long-awaited spring classics. Expect: cobbles, short and sharp climbs, rain, sleet, mud and pure grit. It’s time to go into battle.
Read MoreA Day in the Life of Brighton Bikeshare
If you’re a user of a bikeshare scheme it probably hardly ever crosses your mind what goes on behind the scenes to ensure that you can easily hire a bike in good working order from a convenient location. But there’s actually a complicated and sophisticated logistical operation that goes on to ensure it all happens smoothly.
Read MoreBen Tulett - New Kid on the Podium
Young British rider, Ben Tulett, earned his stripes this weekend as he took the Junior Cyclo-Cross title at this weekend's UCI World Championship title in Valkenberg. In an emotional interview after the race, he dedicated the win to his friend and rival Charlie Craig, who tragically died in his sleep just over a year ago.
Read MoreCycling Diaries: Crystal Palace to Tunbridge Wells
A good friend of mine said to me recently that he doesn’t do winter cycling – “unless the temperature’s above 15 degrees, I’m not coming.” Sage advice as a group of us cycled from Crystal Palace to Tunbridge Wells on a particularly biting Saturday recently. One of the best things about this ride is the relatively short time it takes to hit “proper” countryside once you leave Crystal Palace station.
Read MoreAbsoluteBLACK Oval Chainrings: Mechanical Aesthetic Beauty
Oval chainrings have drawn a fair amount of scepticism over the years. But then Bradley Wiggins won the 2012 Tour de France using them, and Chris Froome also has them on the Team Sky bike that has seen him, with the help of an inhaler or not, win five grand tours. What claims do the manufacturers make, and is it worth you making the change?
Read MoreEritrea: 86 Years of Cycling Heritage
Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka is now entering its third year as a World Tour Team. It’s the first ever African team to reach that status and one of its main goals remains producing the first ever African world champion – nearly half of its riders are African born and bred. Four of those Africans are Eritrean. What is it about this country that is producing such a roster of talented young cyclists?
Read MoreCycling Heaven in the Pyrenees
There is nothing better to do on a bike than cycle up a mountain. No, not the Surrey Hills on a wet Saturday or the Ashdown Forest on a very wet Sunday. I mean a bright, sunny, 25 degrees kind of day, cycling up something over 1000m. I remember my first Col – Alpe d’Huez on a hot summer’s morning in 2012. The battle of body against machine, the stunning scenery, the knowledge that you are cycling in the shadows of the greats. I loved it.
Read MoreLeMond on Froome: “He should be punished”
Former Tour de France winner Greg LeMond has dismissed the suggestion that the high level of salbutamol found in Chris Froome’s test results at the 2017 Vuelta was due to taking a rapid succession of puffs from his inhaler to prevent coughing in post race interviews.
Read MoreCycling's Highs and Lows of 2017
We only have a couple of weeks before the World Tour kicks off again with the Santos Tour Down Under on 16th January. But before we start looking forward to the New Year, what were your highs and lows of the 2017 racing calendar? Here’s a recap of those landmark moments along with a few predictions of what to expect for the new season.
Read MoreTale of a Mountain Bike Obsessed Teenager
Whether it’s road cycling, mountain biking or just the daily commute, that passion for travelling on two wheels gets us through the occasional low moments in the wet and the cold of winter. When Fred, a fourteen-year-old from Brighton, wrote to us about his passion for mountain biking, his piece struck a chord in us. His thrill-seeking ups and downs on the South Downs and trails of Stanmer Park brought back that magical childhood moment of falling in love with the bike.
Read MoreDave Walker's The Cycling Cartoonist Review
Only 10 more days to go until Christmas, which is lucky because it means you still have time to buy your cyclist loved one Dave Walker's comprehensive book of cycling cartoons. It quickly sold out after publication earlier in the year but is back in stock today. We've been fans of Dave Walker's simple, but well observed illustrations for a while now and travelled into the wilds of south Essex to meet him back in 2016. If you've not come across him before via his very popular twitter or facebook pages, read on!
Read MoreA guide to the Tour de France 2017 Kirby Codec
Carlton Kirby has commentated on the Grand Tours for Eurosport for over a decade. Over that time he has devised a way of recording what happened on each stage of a 3 week race onto a single piece of A4 paper. It’s an extraordinary document that any bike fan will spend hours poring over as they remember each stage of the race. Here’s Ride Velo’s guide to what all those symbols denote and mean.
Read More10+1 Affordable Cycling Gifts for Christmas
Do you get tired of seeing Christmas gift ideas on websites and magazines that are clearly beyond the purse strings of the normal, average person? While my kids always ask me what I want, the latest Garmin is going to be well out of their price bracket. So in the n+1 cycling tradition we bring you 10+1 affordable and desirable gifts from £7.95 to £40 to put on your wish list.
Read MoreBBC Film And Cycling Tips Article Expose Brailsford and Sutton
The BBC documentary broadcast on Sunday, Cycling’s Superheroes; The Price of Success is worth viewing as a reminder of the ruthlessness with which Dave Brailsford and Shane Sutton went about transforming British Cycling from minnows to a cycling superpower. It asks the question, “In their pursuit of glory, did they cross the line?”
Read MoreDavid Millar on the Film, Time Trial
The film Time Trial which documents the final year of David Millar’s racing career is released at the Amsterdam film festival this weekend. Talking to Ned Boulting at the Rouleur Classic a couple of weeks ago, he gave a fascinating insight into how it was made while remembering and annus horribilis when he found himself deselected from the Tour de France team he helped to set up.
Read MoreP&P World Cycling Festival with Obree and Millar Announced
A new cycling festival that celebrates 200 years of one of the greatest human inventions of all time is to launch next summer at the famous Herne Hill Velodrome. The P&P World Cycling Revival aims to become “the greatest celebration of the bicycle the world has ever seen.”
It will be a high-end sporting, music and lifestyle festival with racing, exhibitions, a retail village and hospitality with up to 20,000 people attending from 14th to 16th June.
Read MoreBonfire Bike Train to Lewes
One of the bonuses of living in Brighton at this time of year is that we’re only a short bike ride away from Lewes, the bonfire capital of the world. As many as 3,000 people take part and they’ve had as a many as 80,000 spectators in the past.
What better way to join in the festivities than tag along with a mass bike ride from our local park, The Level, to Her Majesty’s Prison, Lewes, where the friendly guards allowed us to chain up our bikes?
Read MoreRouleur Classic 2017 Round-Up
Now in its third year, the 2017 edition of the Rouleur Classic put The Monuments as its central theme. This has quickly become THE cycling show to attend with its celebration of road racing, some of the best brands in the business showing off their latest and greatest products, some stunning cycling art and exhibits and an astonishing line up of speakers.
Read MoreREW Reynolds: British Cycling Shoes Crafted with Style and Passion
A good pair of cycling shoes are a must for any serious cyclist. They should be stiff, comfortable, light and stylish. Many professional cyclists (who are often superstitious) value their favourite shoes so highly that they won’t let them out of their sight in between races. But there are times when you’ll want something a little different from the flashy, garish, ultra light and Velcro-strapped footwear that we see in the pro peloton.
Read MoreStrava Heatmap Reveals Cycling Hotspots
Strava unveiled their Global Heatmap today. It’s an interactive visualisation of more than 1 billion activities by 10 million athletes across the globe.
While it features data from 31 activity types from mountaineering to skiing, it gives you the option of selecting a specific sport like cycling. Even mountaineers scaling Everest and cross channel swimmers are featured.
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