Where: Wyre Forest, near Kidderminster
Total distance: 61km
Total elevation: 1,126m
Difficulty rating: 5/10

Shropshire is the westernmost part of a largely flat area that stretches from Lincolnshire in the East Midlands through to the Welsh border, where the topography starts to become more interesting.

This makes it an ideal choice for a ride in the wintry depths of January, when the weather is liable to provide quite enough of a challenge without adding hills to the mix.

Armed with a trio of ‘all-rounder’ bikes designed to cope with variable British conditions, we headed out to the Wyre Forest, just west of Kidderminster.

This National Nature Reserve and Site of Special Scientific Interest is one of the largest semi-natural areas of woodland left in Britain, and the Forestry Commission visitor centre makes a handy base from which to start our outing, with a cafe and toilets on site.

A popular dog-walking area as well, there is even a self-service dog wash – a new sight for us all! From here, we’ll head in a loop that takes us west to explore the rolling lanes.

It’s a damp and chilly January morning when we set off , and we’re immediately onto a busy A-road – perhaps not the best way to start a ride, but thankfully it doesn’t last for long as we soon turn off the A456 towards the historic town of Bewdley.

Heading northwest, we follow the edge of the Wyre Forest on a road that seems to undulate constantly, without ever becoming too stressful.

Local rider and racer 17-year-old Max Gibbons – fresh from competing in the National Cyclocross Championships the previous day – almost floats up the rolling climbs, disappearing off the front and pushing us to the limits just to keep him in sight!

Warming up

Through Button Oak to Button Bridge, the undulating road gets us warmed up nicely, even if it is a little busy for a B-road.

As we head towards the village of Highley, we find ourselves on a quieter stretch of road, but it’s no less hilly as we drop quickly over Borle Brook before climbing all the way back up and into the village.

Reaching the edge of Sutton village, we hook left onto a smaller lane and clock a sign that many cyclists will love to see: Unsuitable for Goods Vehicles.

While the road surface is far from immaculate, the quieter routes are most welcome, giving us our first real chance to ride and chat without having to constantly watch out for vehicles approaching from behind.

The heavy rain that was forecast seems to be holding off too, for now and while the low clouds still dominate the sky, we are at least all still dry.

The meandering lanes head southwest towards the Clee Hills, with other bigger Shropshire hills in the distance – we’ll save those for another day when the sun is out.

Soon after passing the village of Stottesdon, we hit Loughton Lane, which might not be an extremely tough climb, but is the longest sustained hill on today’s route.

The briefest of B-road sections follows before we’re back onto the narrow country lanes, heading towards the peak of Titterstone.

Obscured by clouds

On a clearer, less cloudy day, the view would be fantastic, but unfortunately for us the peak is hidden by the clouds.

The section to Cleeton is great, although rather punishing for our tiring legs, especially with Max still pushing the pace.

Never flat, the road dips and dives before climbing up, often steeply, without ever seeming to ease off.

Passing through Cleetongate, the road opens out with no hedges and even with weather conditions starting to deteriorate, it is still a highlight of the ride with a gentle but quick downhill into Foxwood.

From here we pick up the A4117 and while the traffic is instantly busier, the steep, fast drop down Hopton Bank gives us a chance to really test the descending prowess of our bikes and leaves us all grinning.

With the rain starting to come down creating some grim road spray, we are all glad that the road feels almost all downhill and the kilometres are ticking by at quite a rate.

Passing through the town of Cleobury Mortimer, we start heading back into the forested roads of the Wyre.

A few short, sharp climbs provide a testing sting in the tail of our ride, but it isn’t long before we’re back in the car park and relishing the chance to grab something warm to eat and recover.

The route

To download this ride, go to cyclist.co.uk/30wyre

1 Starting from the Forestry Commission car park, turn left onto the A456, then take the first left at the roundabout towards Bewdley. From the town centre take the B4194 towards Bridgnorth, through the Wyre Forest.

2 Continue along the B-roads through Highley and towards Billingsley. From here you start to pick up smaller, unclassified lanes, where traffic will be less busy.

3 Continue to the B4364, which you ride only briefly before turning off left towards Cleeton. This undulating section continues for 10km through Cleeton to Foxwood.

4 From Foxwood, take the A4117 and continue for another 10km until the A456, for the final 2km section back to the Wyre Forest.

Paris-Roubaix is just one month away, and so being the target race of so many riders, we thought we'd take a look at the previous fiver winner's race programmes in the run up to the one-day Classic. 

There has been a varied approach witnessed by different teams and individuals in the past, from cramming in as many races as possible, riding every single-day race going with a few stage races thrown in for good measure, to a much more hands-off approach (mentioning no names, Team Sky).

Matthew Hayman, last year's winner, was unwittingly an example of the latter too, breaking his collarbone in a crash very early in the season, which ruled him out for the near-entirety of the Spring Classics campaign. Paris-Roubaix marked his 'return' to the peloton, and some strong riding, tactical shrewdness and a bit of luck earned him a victory. It was a stark contrast with the success enjoyed by Team Sky when they made a concerted effort to take a step back, in which their Classics team went on training camps and steered clear of potential crashes. Having since modified their approach though, a Monument win remains elusive for them. 

Apart from Hayman, each of the other previous five winners have ridden either Paris-Nice or Tirreno-Adriatico as a final stage race before narrowing down their schedules to an assortment of one-day races in their Spring campaigns.

2015 Roubaix winner John Degenkolb began at San Remo, which he won, before riding the 'major' cobbled races of E3 Prijs Harelbeke, Gent-Wevelgem and the Tour of Flanders, before winning in Roubaix the week after.

Niki Terpstra, the suprise winner of 2014, had a very cobble-orientated schedule, with Dwaars Door Vlaanderen, which he won, followed by E3 Prijs, the Driedaagse of West Vlaanderen (a stage race) and the Tour of Flanders in the space of a week. A very intensive schedule, but which, with a week of recovery and preparation before Roubaix, proved effective.

Fabian Cancellara, who won in 2013, and Tom Boonen, who won in 2012, both shared the same schedule, riding Milan - San Remo, E3, Gent-Wevelgem, Flanders, Scheldeprijs and Roubaix.

Interestingly they are the last two to include Scheldeprijs into their schedule, but in recent years the sprinter's race has developed a reputation of being too 'risky', coming on the Wednesday between Flanders and Roubaix, and also prone to crashes in the bunch as it careers around the streets of Antwerp. Even if they start, marquee Classics riders and potential Roubaix winners will remain all-but invisible, and regularly don't finish. 

The key to success in Roubaix is combining the benefits of structured training with those that can only be gained from being in similar race environments, getting a 'feel' for the bunch and having an inside view on how competitors are looking. Of course the risk of preceding a big target race like Roubaix with other, similarly treacherous, races, is that rather than a benefit, they can so easily become a hindrance to success, if not end any chances of it altogether. 

So, as Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico reach their conclusions and we enter the final month of this crucial period of Paris-Roubaix contenders, it will be interesting to see how the schedules play out.

Previous winners' schedules

Hayman (2016): Paris-Roubaix

Degenkolb (2015): Milan - San Remo, E3, Gent, Flanders

Terpstra (2014): Dwars Door Vlaanderen, E3, Driedaagse, Flanders 

Cancellara (2013): Milan - San Remo, E3, Gent, Flanders, Scheldeprijs

Boonen (2012): Milan - San Remo, E3, Gent, Flanders, Scheldeprijs

At the very heart of cycling is a force of goodness that’s best summed up by two quotes from opposite ends of the literary spectrum.

The famous one attributed to science fiction writer HG Wells is: ‘When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race.’ 

The second is more recent, from maverick bike designer Mike Burrows: ‘Unlike a tennis racquet or football,
the bicycle is the one piece of sports equipment that can save the planet.’

It’s fitting that such a force of goodness should be fuelled by the selfless motives and generous intentions of thousands of volunteers who devote their time and energy for no other reason than a deep love of the sport.

If this all sounds a rather florid and elaborate way of singing the praises of the bloke who hands you a banana at a feed station or your number at the start of a time-trial, I make no apologies.

It’s precisely because of their anonymity, the fact that we take them for granted, that they deserve some purple prose in their favour.

Grass roots, bread and butter, bottom of the pyramid – no description or colloquialism quite does justice to the vital role played by cycling’s army of volunteers.

They are as fundamental to the sport as wheels and pedals.

Little reward

There’s no recognition for the timekeepers monitoring a TT up and down a windy dual carriageway or the commissaires following a fiercely contested amateur road race.

There’s no medal for the marshals waiting in the rain for the slowest sportive riders to complete the course.

And there’s just an unflattering – but risk assessment-approved – fluorescent waistcoat for the volunteers keeping families safe on a city centre Sky Ride. 

How many of us bother to say a ‘thank you’ to the marshal who directs us safely across a busy junction during a sportive?

Who here displays gratitude to the timekeeper or chief commissaire at the end of their event?

These are the volunteers who allow us to practise our sport, test our limits, dream our dreams, in a safe and regulated environment. 

They are the essence of our sport.

They deserve our thanks, yet sometimes us cyclists can become so self-obsessed – the quest for a new KOM or PB can do that to a person – that we commit the cardinal crime of taking them for granted.

Unseen heroes

And it’s not just formal events, competitive or otherwise. It’s the coaching, the leading, the guiding, the encouraging that takes place at clubs up and down the land. 

British Cycling has trained 1,500 commissaires, 400 accredited marshals – the ones who get to brandish a ‘Stop! Cycle Race’ sign with legal impunity – and 5,000 ‘ride leaders’.

Another 10,000 volunteers are involved in organising rides for youngsters and families.

Outgoing chief executive Ian Drake says, ‘Volunteers really are the lifeblood of our sport. We know that, every week, thousands of people up and down the country are giving up their time in various different ways to help our sport thrive.’

It’s just a shame that despite the national federation’s obvious wealth – after all, it could afford to spare women’s coach Simon Cope for a couple of days to act as a Team Sky courier – it has to charge volunteers for their training.

Surely with the huge amount of income the body receives in membership fees and sponsorship deals, it could train up these volunteers for free, especially as the estimated value of sports-based volunteering to the British economy is £53 billion (according to a 2014 report by the Join In Trust, the national organisation for local sports volunteering).

Meanwhile an estimated 5,000 people are listed as volunteers with the UK’s 2,000 cycling clubs.

You may not even know the names of the people who make your local club tick, whether it’s the person who updates the Facebook page or the ride leader who plans your Sunday club run.

After all, all you have to do is turn up and remember to switch your Garmin on.

Harder than it looks

‘It’s about more than just finding a nice 50-mile route,’ says Bobby McGhee, club captain with Ayr Roads CC in Scotland.

‘You have to factor in shortcut options in case of incidents. You have to manage the pace and make sure the group waits for the slower riders if there’s a no-drop rule.

‘And you have to call out the formation – single file, keep it tight – as the roads and traffic dictates.’ 

But it’s not all rosy at grass roots level, as some clubs and races still struggle to find volunteers. Events are regularly cancelled because of the lack of marshals.

One club secretary tells me, ‘The problem is we are getting a new breed of member who’s previously been used to joining a gym and having everything laid on for him.

‘They think that just because they’ve paid an annual membership fee they don’t need to give anything else back.’

We need more members like Neil McDonald, who joined his local club, Porto Velo CC in Edinburgh, to learn how to ride in a bunch on the eve of his first sportive.

‘They were great and talked me through everything,’ he says. ‘In return I volunteered to lead some of their leisure rides and now do it on a regular basis. I think it’s important to give something back.’

The moral of this tale is a simple one. A ‘thank you’ may not take you to the top of the Strava leaderboard, but it might make the marshal in the hi-vis jacket or the person who sliced up all those bananas feel on top of the world.

It's Saturday morning, and so a perfect opportunity to sit down with a cup of coffee and take a moment or two to relax with some reading and catch up on the week that was. 

In no particular order, these were our most popular articles of the week.

Team Sky's exploding wheel

Gianni Moscon's wheel falling apart wasn't pretty to watch, and left the Team Sky rider with some nasty road rash, as well as putting an end to Geraint Thomas's GC ambitions at the race. 

Click here to read the full article.

How will cycling affect my sex life?

No further explanation of needed. 

Click here to read the full article.

Video: Baggage handlers hurl bike boxes from Easyjet plane

Video footage shows baggage handlers carelessly hurling bikes from the hold of an Easyjet plane. You weren't happy...

Click here to read the full article.

Cinelli Superstar review

Cinelli's brand new road bike reviewed in full.

Click here to read the full review.

Team Sky issue statement, while board chairman voices support

In light of the ongoing Bradley Wiggins / Fluimicil / Jffy bag saga, Team Sky spoke out publicly with a lengthy statement, while the board chairman voiced his support of the team via Twitter.

Click here to read the full article.

The Cyclist Track Day is back for 2017, and to celebrate we're giving away two FREE tickets to Track Day North, being held this year on Sunday 21st May 2017 in York.

At the event we will have a selection of the world’s best road bikes, from nine leading brands, for you to ride and test on York Sport Cycle Circuit, a purpose-built cycling circuit.

Some of the best bikes around will be available for you to test ride; a great way to decide which dream machine should be your next purchase.

Details

Date: Sunday 21st May 2017
Time: 10am-4pm
Place: York Sport Cycle Circuit, York (see on map)

To be in with a chance of winning, and perhaps have the opportunity to ride these world-class bikes, all you need to do is answer one simple question: In what city does the Tour de France finish? 

Think you know the answer?

CLICK HERE TO ENTER

To be an Italian cyclist is to be heir to a matchless sporting inheritance – a racing tradition rooted in courage and the embrace of risk. To contest the Giro d’Italia is to race on routes planned as much for their physical beauty as any logistical concern and to be welcomed by total strangers as son or brother in any of the start or finish towns. 

Davide Formolo is a son of the Veneto, the heartland of Italian cycling, and so keenly aware of the significance of this season’s hundredth Giro.

The Corsa Rosa was, naturally, the race in which he shot to prominence by winning the fourth stage of the 2015 edition with a panache that would have had even his most illustrious predecessors nodding in approval.

'The Italian guys are looking to the Giro, for sure,' Formolo says, smiling broadly. 'I grew up watching it.'

The Giro is so great a part of Italian culture that even the most dedicated cycling fan from beyond Italy’s borders struggles to understand its significance without attending the race.

Then, walking through the pink-ribboned streets of any town on the route, braving the snow-blown roads of the mighty Dolomites, or cheering the peloton through the early summer sunshine in some Tuscan hilltop town, the Giro’s embodiment of Italian identity, however nuanced that becomes as the race weaves its way through the various regions, is unmistakable.

To tell Formolo this however is to tell him that grass is green or the sky blue. The Giro’s significance to an Italian cyclist is the same as Augusta to an American golfer, or Wembley Stadium to an English footballer.

With all this in mind then, Formolo’s injury-racked campaign at last year’s Giro, his second in Cannondale’s signature green, must have been a bitter disappointment, even if fourth overall in the best young rider competition represents a campaign not entirely without merit.

'The first part of the season was focused on the Giro, no? And I think I was ready to be good. You could see in Romandie, the day before the big crash, I was seventh or eighth on GC, and I’d worn the white jersey.

'The day after the crash, I was dropped from a bunch of 50 guys and I could see there was something wrong in myself. My right leg was really swollen.

'With the team, I decided to start the Giro anyway, because the first week wasn’t so hard, and I hoped I could recover, but maybe one week wasn’t enough to recover from that particular crash.'

Speaking months after the Giro, he told reporters that he had finished 'with my morale in my shoes'. When I put the quote to him, he laughs. The disappointment is behind him. He elaborates, but does so with air of a man whose sights are fixed firmly on the future.

'I was really sad, because I’d been training really hard, and I was really focused on the Giro. I trained for a long time in the mountains, just focused on that. Just before the show, I had this problem and I think that compromised a lot my first part of the season.'

That was then. The hundredth Giro will offer a race of immeasurable significance to every Italian on the start list, and the young Venetian is looking forward to rolling out in Sardinia this May.  He’ll do so with knowledge gained in the service of Andrew Talansky at last yeat’s Vuelta a España.

The 'Pit Bull' as Talansky is known to admirers and rivals alike, is not a rider who needs a chaperone, but the service provided by his young Italian team-mate at last year’s Vuelta a España is unlikely to have gone unnoticed.

It says much for Formolo’s character that he counts his service to Talansky at the third of the season’s Grand Tours among the highlights of his 2016 campaign, despite a top five finish at the Tour de Pologne, an unerring barometer of young talent.

'I learned a lot from Andrew, from staying close to him in the crucial moments. I was supporting him, but it was really good for helping me to grow up. Sometimes when you are tired, you blow up, but no, I was there, telling myself, "Stay maybe for 10 minutes and I will be better".'

'Staying close to Andrew, I could learn. Sometimes, you can see things only when you are close to the leader. First you get to see, and then you can do. But if you cannot see, you cannot do also.'

There is sometimes more gained in translation than lost, and if Formolo’s English gives him the air of a sage, it is revealing of a young man whose daily goal is to improve.

The area in which Formolo seeks the greatest improvement this season is his performance in the time-trial. The 'race of truth', an exercise in the controlled application of effort, seems almost anathema to the Italian pro, so often a character of impulse and panache.

Formolo describes his challenge in more prosaic terms. It is a matter only of improving his position, he insists, with some justification: the power to weight ratio that makes him such a formidable climber is surely evidence of the innate force of the natural 'tester'.

He praises teammate Sebastian Langeveld for his good advice, occasionally offered over the team radio (the vastly experienced Dutchman it seems has all the makings of a sports director).

'I can learn a lot about controlling my efforts during the TT from Sebastian, because he is very professional. He’s been really helpful, talking to me sometimes on the radio, saying, "Ok, now focus on your rhythm. Now you’re a little bit over-paced. Now you can relax."

'I’m working on the time-trial a lot. I did a few tests on the TT bike and we’ve tried to fix it [his position]. With the TT bike, there isn’t a rule. Everyone is different. If you look at the first three guys in a time-trial, they have three different positions. You try to find a good position, to find the right feeling. We’ll just keep trying. Some people are lucky and find the right position the first time. Some people have to try 10 times.'

There is an innate optimism about Formolo that is unlikely to be blunted by age. His is a ‘glass half full’ personality, and if a sunny outlook is easily attained at 23, there is a natural effervescence to his personality that makes him a hit with his team-mates, regardless of nationality.

Formolo has spent his entire professional career with Cannondale, and while the team’s ownership has changed, and its roster has become increasingly cosmopolitan, he maintains that it still feels like home. It is typical of his optimistic outlook that in the team’s growing American and Australian cohort he sees greater opportunity to practice his English.

'When I speak with the guys now, I feel comfortable. At meal times, you can joke with each other, or talk about more important things than you can out on the bike. When you do that in training and at meal times, you feel at home.'

Formolo is one of three Italians on Cannondale-Drapac, but when the Giro rolls around he will hope to ride not only for his team-mates but for a nation. His is not a spirit to be crushed by the burden of national expectation, but to soar. He is proud, if relaxed.

He knows what the Giro is about; what it means to his countrymen. He will have seen their joy when he rode alone into Spezia nearly three years ago for the greatest victory of his career. His victory was celebrated on the front page of La Gazetta Dello Sport the following day. For an Italian rider, there are few greater accolades.

Slightly older and much wiser, Formolo will seek to repeat the trick in the Giro’s hundredth edition. Should you meet him, do not waste time by asking for his feelings for the Corsa Rosa. They will be written all over his face.

Milan-San Remo is the first Monument Classic of the year, falling on the 18th March in 2017, and as such comes with the alternative name of 'La Classica Primavera' - The Spring Classic. 

It's one of the oldest races on the calendar, first being run in 1907, and with a total route (including neutral zone) of over 300km, it's also the longest. But the real draw of Milan-San Remo is its sheer unpredictability. The length, combined with some spitefully placed climbs right at the end of the race, open up the possibilities for a lot of riders. Big breakaways, small breakaways, bunch sprints, and brave solo attacks can all win on the day, and it's this that makes the race so thrilling.

Milan-San Remo 2017: Key information

Date: Saturday 18th March
Start: Milan, Italy
Finish: San Remo, Italy
Distance: 291km
UK live television coverage: Eurosport 1 - 13:15-16:00

Milan-San Remo 2017: Route

Milan-San Remo 2016 route

Once out of Milan in the early morning, the race heads over the plains of the Pianura Padana, until the town of Ovada, which marks the start of the first climb, the Passo del Turchino, at 117km. Despite it's former importance, the Turchino is a gradual climb whose primary role in the modern era is largely to help shape the narrative of the race; cresting its summit and dropping down to Mediterranean shores is a big milestone on the road to San Remo.

The riders then twist and turn through the terracotta towns of the Riviera di Ponente - the road snaking in out of the same bays and headlands that it has done for decades, until a triad of climbs known as the 'Capi' - the Capo Mele, Capo Cervo and Capo Berta - populate the course within short distance of each other. While these ramps may not be tactically critical, they nonetheless signal the turning of another page, and with favourites now beginning to make their way to the front, they are a further reminder that the end is nigh.

The 5.6km long Cipressa, with an average gradient of 4.1%, comes at km 263 - late in the race, which with gradients touching 9% makes for a bona fide climbing test to unmercifully spit riders out the back. Vincenzo Nibali made good ground on the bunch by attacking on the Cipressa in 2014, as did Pantani in '99, but to make anything stick has proven notoriously difficult.

The reasoning for this of course is the approaching Poggio, which comes a mere 9km from the finish. The pace on the run-in to the climb is ferocious as teams try to place their leader in a good position for its initial slopes; with tired legs, narrow hairpin bends and the bunch on the verge of disintegration, positioning on the Poggio is vital. The climb is only 3.7km compared to the Cipressa's 5.6, and its ramps do not reach the same severity, but the speed at which it is undertaken, added to the fatigue induced from the Cipressa and preceding 280-odd kilometres, means that groups coming over the top are often in a bedraggled state.

A technical descent, which is often hard to follow on TV as helicopters hover for position, has also proven a launch pad for decisive attacks in the past, but when it levels out again in the middle of San Remo, the roads are wide urban boulevards. The final bend comes with 750m to go, swinging right onto the Via Roma finishing straight, with a slight kink in the road and very slight incline towards the line.

Milan-San Remo 2017: Riders to watch

Who will win?

The nature of Milan-San Remo's route can potentially be made to work for a broad range of rider types, which makes it notoriously difficult to pick a winner. But the three most likely ways that the finish will be contested, as usual, will either be from a large bunch sprint, a smaller group, or a solo rider - each of which we have seen decide the winner in the past.

The current route is a lot friendlier than it could be to sprinters, but the ever-present threat of the Cipressa and Poggio climbs still leave the door wide open. If it's a sprint from a larger group then the likes of former winners Alexander Kristoff (Katusha-Alpecin), Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data), John Degenkolb (Trek-Segafredo) will all be likely candidates for the win, with another former winner Arnaud Demare (FDJ), as well as Fernando Gaviria (Quick-Step Floors), Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis), Ben Swift (UAE Team Emirates) and Elia Viviani (Team Sky) all possible podium finishers. 

Riders like Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe), Michael Matthews (Sunweb), Greg Van Avermaet (BMC Racing), Edvald Boasson Hagen (Dimension Data) could well get up there in a bunch sprint, but are more likely winners from a smaller group. Adaptable stage race contenders, like Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain Merida), Simon Gerrans (Orica-BikeExchange), have come close to winning - or indeed won, as Gerrans did in 2012 - from small breakaways too. 

It really is a very open race, which is what makes it one of the best.

Milan-San Remo: History

With the first edition running in 1907, Milan-San Remo has a history as long as it's route, totaling over 300km (including the neutral zone at the start). It is therefore probably one of the only professional races that has retained, let alone lengthened, its distance over the years, and the prestige associated with the event has only grown with it. 

Milan-San Remo can actually be traced back to 1906, when a two-day amateur race between Milan and San Remo was held for amateurs, but after little interest was initially shown, the organiser of the Giro di Lombardia, a race which had seen its inauguration the year before, approached the newspaper Gazetta Dello Sport and proposed its taking-over of the race. Gazetta was in fact already chief organiser of the Giro di Lombardia (or Tour of Lombardy), and in 1909 it would also take part in the founding of the Giro d'Italia, cementing its place in what would become Italy's three biggest races. 

Poor road surfaces, temperamental spring weather and primitive bicycles meant that merely completing the distance was a remarkable achievement in the early days, but as the sport progressed, so did the race, and during the 1950's Milan-San Remo began to develop its reputation as a sprinter's classic. The roads, bikes, investment and growing professionalism meant that no longer did pelotons start as one and finish as a bedraggled mess of individuals, with sometimes hours between them. The Tour de France was experiencing a similar problem, with more editions - or stages - finishing with large groups of riders arriving at the finish together. Where the Tour organisers introduced the sprinter's jersey to reestablish some excitement, the organisers of Milan-San Remo also made some changes.

The route's only climb had traditionally been the Turchino pass, a longer climb that came at about half distance as an opportunity for the stronger riders to distance themselves. But in time they began to come over the Turchino together, and so the Poggio was introduced in 1960. The fact that Tom Simpson won the race in 1965 suggests diversity, but the desired effect was effectively neutralised by the emergence of one Eddy Merckx, who won on seven occasions between 1966 and 1976 - the first coming when he was just 20 years old. That record of most wins has remained to date, as has the perpetuation of Milan-San Remo being classified a sprinter's race, despite increasingly more climbs, such as the Cipressa in 1982, or the Turchino-esque La Manie in 2008, being added. Another, Pompeiana, was destined to be included as a vicious penultimate climb in the 2014 edition, but landslides causing roadblocks and then dismissals from certain riders - Mark Cavendish being one of them - claiming the parcours had been updated beyond their capabilities, meant that it never materialised. 

It must therefore not be forgotten that Milan-San Remo has never been a straightforward gallop. Despite common sprinter names such as Merckx, Kelly, Zabel, Friere, or more obviously Cipollini and Cavendish, proliferating on the list of winners, the efforts they will have had to put in in order to get over the preceding climbs - not to mention the distance at such an early stage of the season - is often forgotten. The fact that Marcel Kittel has never even started it, or that names we don't associate with sprinting, such as Gerrans, Cancellara, Fignon or Chiappucci, pepper the winner's alumni are only further reminders of its nature. Yes, Milan-San Remo is a 'sprinter's classic', but that certainly doesn't mean it's always won by one. 

We take a look at some of the most memorable editions, moments and riders that have played a part in the race's history.

The Epics

1910 - Riders on the storm 

The fourth edition of Milan - San Remo after its inauguration in 1907 is generally regarded as having some of the worst weather conditions that bicycle racers have been known to come up against. The eventual winner, Eugene Christophe, is also famous for being the first person to wear the yellow jersey at the Tour de France.

As the riders lined up on the Milanese start line at 6am, heavy snow was reported to be falling on the Turchino Pass - a stalwart of the parcours, coming as a mid-distance test for the riders - which caused many to abandon before the race had even begun. Once out on the road, the riders were soon isolated and riding by themselves amid the harsh conditions, and by the time they reached the Turchino there were only half of them left.

Belgian Cyrille Van Hauwaert was first over the top, 10 minutes ahead of the next, but took shelter in a roadside cottage and refused to continue. Christophe himself stopped too, but resumed after eating and finding some trousers to wear, and eventually made his way to front of the field.

When he eventually arrived in San Remo he didn't even realise he had won, after mistakenly thinking he had taken a wrong turn. He was taken to hospital with frostbite, and wasn't released for a further month.

Second place Luigi Ganna arrived almost 40 minutes after Christophe, but was disqualified for having taken a lift in a car, and only five riders, out of sixty-three starters, made it to the finish. Those, as they say, were the days.

2013 - Please take the replacement bus service...

While Eugene Christophe and the like raced in an era when bicycle races were a feat of endurance that bordered on militaristic, today's racers, while probably carrying similar DNA, are of an era of professionalised, commercialised sport. This means that winning a race no longer results in spending a month in hospital, but the weather can still have an impact.

The year that Gerald Ciolek won was a modern-era hark back to the days of raw physical suffering though, with reports of riders crying and shivering uncontrollably as they rode through the sleet and snow.

So bad were the conditions that the race was shortened from 298km to 246km, and the two highest climbs - the Turchino and La Manie - were bypassed, with the riders climbing into their team buses and driven to the coast in a mid-race transfer.

Ian Stannard and Sylvain Chavanel led a dwindling bunch over the Poggio (the final climb of the race), and formed a six-man group that also included Fabian Cancellara and Peter Sagan, which Ciolek, in a sprint that was painful just watching, eventually won out of. 

The nail-biters 

1992 - Demon descending   

Being the best part of 300km long, and with a series of testing climbs peppered throughout the parcours, Milan - San Remo is clearly a race that requires a decent amount of physical endeavour. But the nature of the course allows for a long list of potential winners, and an annual display of tactical complexity.

One such example was when Sean Kelly pipped Moreno Argentin in '92: The Italian was a hot favourite after notching up three consecutive wins in Tirreno-Adriatico, and after powering away on the Poggio he indeed appeared to have an insurmountable gap. But Kelly, in the twilight of his career and having struggled on the climb, eschewed expectation and attacked on the descent.

Taking advantage of Argentin's weak descending skills, the Irishman eventually bridged across and unashamedly refused to work, before putting Argentin to the sword in the sprint.

1999 - By a Tchmillimeter 

The '99 edition of Milan - San Remo pitted a typically broad array of favourites together, from the pure sprint speed of Erik Zabel and all-round capabilities of Michele Bartoli to the climbing prowess of Marco Pantani.

The latter two had forged ahead before commencing the Poggio, but a lack of cohesion meant that everything came back together on the run-in, for what was then taken to be a guaranteed Erik Zabel win.

But with less than a kilometre to go, the Russian-stroke-Belgian (and now officially Moldovan) Andrei Tchmil took a flyer. Already a victor at Paris-Roubaix and Paris-Tours, but not necessarily on the radar for Milan - San Remo, Tchmil's deftly timed attack proved to be the winning move, leaving the galloping bunch, led by Zabel, to settle for second.

The to-the-liners

2004 - Zabel suprised 

Along with celebrating a lap early, it's probably one of the most embarrassing and frustrating things that could happen to a professional cyclist. But in the 2004 edition of Milan-San Remo, German sprinter Erik Zabel had a 'bit of a mare' and raised his arms to celebrate, only to watch Oscar Friere squeeze underneath him and take the win. It would be the first of three Milan - San Remo victories for the Spaniard, in a race that suited his tactical nous and physical strengths perfectly. 

2009 - Cav pips Haussler

In perhaps one of the most tantalising climaxes to a race possible, Mark Cavendish took the biggest win of his young career with a truly remarkable sprint in the 2009 edition of the race.

Australian Heinrich Haussler, who would go on to enjoy his most successful season as a pro to date, had launched a surprise early sprint-cum-late attack at 250m to go, gaining what appeared to be an insurmountable gap. But Cavendish, who was about to come into the prime years of his road sprinting career, used the last 100m to kick, and kick again, pulling himself up to Haussler, and then past him within millimeters of the line. It was enough to make you - and him - weep.

Sportive

A car park on the periphery of Milan isn’t the most impressive location for the departure of a bike race, but no one is too bothered by the surroundings. It’s Milan-San Remo, La Primavera, the Monument that trumpets the arrival of spring each year. 

Even today, on a precision-engineered, lightweight, aerodynamically profiled bike, riding from the Lombardian capital to the Ligurian coast is no easy task, but a century ago it must have been torture. A lot has changed since the first race was organised back in 1907, but it’s still intriguing to think that today we’re doing it for fun. Ordinarily this granfondo is organised later in the season, avoiding the unpredictable weather that so often afflicts the professional event. Not today.

Luckily the pack of cyclists provides a natural barrier to the weather. The fastest riders sit on the front and drive our peloton at impressive speed towards the mountains on the horizon, along the wide, fast roads that cover the pan-flat plain of the Po Valley. The first 100km passes in what seems like an instant.

Milan-San Remo is regarded as a sprinter’s race, but the route’s profile is nowhere near as featureless as some would have you believe. Once we pass Alessandria, there’s a tangible change in topography and the road begins to work its way upwards towards the infamous Passo del Turchino.

At only 591m at its tip, Turchino isn’t anywhere near Italy’s great mountain passes in terms of altitude or difficulty, but after 150km of riding, and with the same still to go, I feel its bite. Only twice (in 2001 and 2002) has it been left off the route for the pro race, so it will be a familiar climb to racing fans. The temperature drops and the deluge increases as we climb, and some huddle for shelter at bus stops or in tunnels, hoping for respite. On this side of the pass it’s unlikely to come, so the smarter riders – those better dressed for the conditions – push on.

Getting lumpy

Rolling along the Italian Riviera, the La Manie climb comes quickly before the Tre Capi (three peaks) of Capo Mele, Capo Cervo and Capo Berta – and the coastal city of Imperia. Warm, dry and almost utterly exhausted we reach the Cipressa, one of the key climbs in the pro race. At just shy of 6km with an average gradient of 4% and maximum of around 7%, the climb is not a significant challenge to those of us able to tackle it at a gentle pace, but for the pros this is where the weak are separated from the strong and many a rider’s race is decided.

The descent is a quick one and there’s little time to admire the views, even though we are now surrounded by glistening sea and verdant hills dotted by picturesque villages and the vast, luminescent glass houses that are so important to much of the local economy.

What comes next needs little introduction. Poggio is a small town with a big reputation. The eponymous climb is often the denouement of Milan-San Remo, but by the time most amateurs reach its base there’s little spark left for fireworks.

Taken out of context, the gentle slopes are nothing to write home about, but as the final bump on the parcours of one of our sport’s truly great races it can mean everything. And climbing it with more than 280km in your legs, rounding each familiar corner, forcing your way up every sudden ramp, with all the memories and history that the location evokes, is an experience that every fan of professional road racing should savour at least once in their lives.

When the pros are in town, the roadside is lined with screaming fans, camper vans and barbecues. There’s less enthusiasm for the strung-out amateurs, but some friends and family have turned out to cheer their own on and as we climb there’s even a van ahead of us on the road, filled with smiling supporters being led in chants by a particularly eager – almost certainly inebriated – chap with a loud speaker hanging out the window and shouting in Italian.

‘Come on! You’re nearly there! The others can’t match you – this will be your greatest achievement! You’re a hero!’ One of the Italian riders in our little group shakes his head before looking around with an apologetic smile.

Added to the route in 1960 to provide more excitement, the Poggio has been a star feature of Milan-San Remo ever since. Compared to the punishing mountain passes that epitomise the Giro d’Italia, the Via Duca d’Aosta isn’t exactly daunting. Averaging around a 4% gradient compared to, say, Monte Zoncolan, which is more like 12%, the Poggio is neither as steep as many of Italy’s roads nor as rough and remote. The nature of its challenge lies primarily in the not-insignificant fact that it comes after almost 300km of racing. It is for this that the Poggio is both famous and feared.

A ramp off the main road into the town signals the beginning of the end, and leads us up and over the race’s final obstacle. The pros hit the ascent at full speed, and it usually looks as if they don’t slow down until finish line. Probably because they don’t. We ascend at a gentler pace to a soundtrack of groans and heavy breathing. It’s been a long day, but we’re almost there.

The final push

The gentle, narrow climb up the Poggio is the perfect end to a granfondo – hard enough to test my limits after so many kilometres, but easy enough compared to what’s gone before that I can feel my confidence rising. We’re now close enough to the end to ensure that even
the most overcooked rider can hang on for the finish line. Tackling it at pace requires rhythm and good racing lines, and seeing up close the speed with which the pro peloton climbs it every March beggars belief, but we can – must – take it easier, savour the final stretch, reflect on an enormous day in the saddle, recall favourite moments of races past, indulge in a daydream.

There’s an undeniable sense of accomplishment cresting the Poggio, turning past the Monte Calvo cafe and into the tight corkscrew bend that marks the beginning of the end, launching me into the lightening-quick downhill dash towards the centre of San Remo, with its Belle Époque villas, whitewashed casino and palm-tree lined thoroughfares.

It’s not a ride I’d want to do every day, but it is something that every rider should do at some point in their life. 

Colin O’Brien is a freelance journalist who is now thankful to have the Milan-San Remo ticked off his bucket list.

Arnaud Demare won the 2016 Milan-San Remo after winning a reduced bunch sprint. But reports of the Frenchman using his team car to regain contact with the peloton after a crash has cast suspicion over the victory. 

11 riders formed the early breakaway, with Maarten Tjallingi of LottoNL-Jumbo in the mix for the third year in a row. They had a lead of 8 minutes upon hitting the Turchino pass - the mid-point climb which brings the riders out onto the coastline - but the move was ultimately doomed to failure. 

The three Capi climbs passed without too much interest, but on the run in to the Cipressa there was a crash in the bunch, which caused some riders - Demare included - to come unstuck. In the gateway to the finale, a crash would normally seal the fate of anybody involved, and for Michael Matthews and Geraint Thomas, it indeed marked the end of their race. 

A group containing Gio Visconti and Team Sky's Ian Stannard did manage to get away on the crest of the Cipressa, but Katusha's efforts brought it all back together once down on the flat. 

Despite the usual furious pace of the bunch going into the Poggio, there was some hesitancy going up, which meant more riders than usual found themselves together on the tight hairpins, and attacks subsequently came. Southeast's Andrea Fedi and Lotto-Soudal's Tony Gallopin tried their luck, but it was Michal Kwiatkowski who gained the biggest gap. 

The Pole was all but taken back as they crested the Poggio, with a group containing all the remaining favourites just behind. One of the last over the top in this front bunch was Peter Kennaugh - another who crashed with Demare, but who had made it back. 

Kwiatkowski was gathered back in though, and come the wide boulevards of San Remo it was a nail-biting affair with a torrent of attacks and subsequent lulls, with Gallopin, Boasson-Hagen and Cancellara all trying their luck. 

In the criss-crossing paths of riders, Fernando Gaviria of Etixx-Quickstep fell to ground, causing Cancellara and Sagan to swerve drastically around him, taking the edge off their speed before the final sprint. Jurgen Roelandts led out, and with Nacer Bouhanni's chain slipping while on level terms with Demare, with was the former who held on for third, with an impressive ride from Team Sky's Ben Swift once again putting him on the podium in second. 

It was a quintessential edition of Milan-San Remo, with tension and uncertainty until the absolute end. Drama was provided with crashes and controversy, and it was a podium that not many would have picked prior to the final 10m of the race. La Classicissima indeed. 

From my hotel room I have an excellent view over Newquay’s Fistral Beach.

It’s undeniably beautiful, with long stretches of sand sweeping down from a fringe of green dunes, but it’s also disconcerting.

Large waves are crashing onto the shore, throwing up spray that’s being whipped away by a powerful wind. It’s a sign that today’s ride could prove tougher than I’d expected.

Cornish delight

As a peninsula that tumbles southwest into the Atlantic Ocean, Cornwall has one of the longest coastlines in Britain.

As such it provides plenty of opportunity to witness the elements at their most impressive but its abundance of surfing beaches and other attractions such as St Austell’s Eden Project mean that in terms of road cycling it remains underexplored.

Due to my front row view of the weather I’m not sure I actually want to explore it right now, but I put thoughts of gales out of my mind, and after wolfing down the largest and most fortifying breakfast on the menu of the Fistral Beach Hotel’s Dune Restaurant, I meet up with my ride partners for the day, Rob and Jonny.

Their self-deprecating manner immediately puts me at ease but their physiques suggest that I’m not in for an easy day on the bike.

Rob is an ex-professional rugby player turned Ironman triathlete and time-triallist with legs like tree trunks, while Jonny is lean and lithe, reinforcing the climbing credentials to which several local Strava segments already attest.

We spin away from Fistral Beach, leaving a few brave souls to attempt something akin to surfing in a supremely choppy sea, and meander along the appropriately named Narrowcliff Road, which is tightly sandwiched between a steep drop to the sea and Newquay town proper. 

Casting a look back across Newquay Bay it’s easy to pick out the distinctive and peculiar Huer’s Hut, its stark whitewashed walls almost Greek in appearance.

The hut was built in the 14th century when Newquay was famous for pilchard fishing – a lookout would be stationed in the hut and shouted ‘Hevva!’ to the fishing fleet when they spotted a pilchard shoal.

While the Huer’s Hut is now just a tourist attraction, Newquay’s insignia still incudes two pilchards as a reminder of the town’s fishing past.

I’m permitted only a brief glance back at the Hut as the wind tugs at our handlebars, threatening to blow us across the road.

Good advice

On Rob’s advice I’ve brought a skinny-tubed frame with 34/32 bottom gear to cope with Cornwall’s coastal inclines and as I battle the gusts I’m doubly glad I haven’t brought an aero bike with deep-section wheels.

Before too long we leave the urban setting of Newquay behind, taking an arterial road out through Quintrell Downs.

Our environs get rapidly more rural as we take a right turn onto the type of single-lane road we’ll spend much of our time on today, passing by Kestle Mill, heading towards St Newlyn East, and the high hedges that line the road on both sides insulate us from the full force of the wind. 

The surprisingly gentle topography serves as a great warm-up for the day and means we can hop from hamlet to hamlet chatting amicably.

We reach St Newlyn East and pass the Pheasant Inn, which Jonny tells me is the oldest pub in Cornwall.

His reliability is somewhat undermined, however, when he tells me the same thing about the next two pubs we come across. Rob finally tires of the joke and a brief argument ensues, before it dissolves into laughter.

I can tell I’ll have to keep a close eye on my local guides today.

The hedgerows that have provided our shelter finally run out as we approach St Endor Wood, and their disappearance signals a change to more spiteful gradients.

Nevertheless the slender road remains deserted of traffic and the tranquility among the trees means the route isn’t yet causing too much discomfort. 

By the time we emerge from the woods the day has become bright and clear, happily at odds with the cloudy forecast.

It means the view down into Tregony from the summit of the hill is unobscured, but I can’t linger on it for long – the twisting, technical descent requires concentration and handfuls of brakes to get down it safely.

No laughing matter

The first truly testing climb of the day comes out of Tregony with a couple of kilometres at over 10%. All of a sudden chat stops and things get serious.

Jonny makes the move he’s been threatening to all ride – a seated acceleration that leaves me and Rob unable to follow.

We crest the rise and Jonny sits up with a grin, climbing ability sufficiently displayed. With barely any time for me to recover, Rob ducks his head and goes into full time-trial mode along the undulating road.

Jonny and I cling on for dear life until he signals a left turn and things settle down again. 

‘Sorry about that – I don’t like that bit of road, it’s busy and I’d rather get it over with,’ Rob says.

After I stop seeing stars I’m more than a little relieved to hear that he does like most of the rest of the route.

Our efforts are rewarded with some stretches of flatter tarmac on high ground between Bessy Beneath and Caerhays.

The views are of expansive countryside to the left and occasional glimpses of the sea to the right, drawing attention to the fact that we’ve covered most of the distance between the north and south coasts.

A glance at my Garmin shows we’ve covered 40km, but the rest of the route profile reveals that things are going to get a lot harder – we’ll be steadily gaining altitude for a while now so there will be some big ups and not so many downs.

Frequent detours

Jonny has fully embraced the creative element of composing a UK Ride and frequently suggests detours to local places of note.

Rob’s usually firm stance on sticking to the planned route goes out the window when Jonny proposes a deviation down Parnell’s Hill Wood to an inlet called Portholland.

The suggestion reveals a hidden gem: a beautiful, narrow descent opens out to an idyllic seaside hamlet.

As a rider north of 80kg I don’t go uphill easily so it should say a lot that the trip to Portholland is well worth the 3km climb back up to rejoin our route.

A swift down-up-down sees us roll past Caerhays Castle, a manor house that has existed in its current guise since 1807.

Nestled amid copses of trees and unkempt countryside it looks unaltered by time, and I imagine Downton Abbey-esque characters scurrying about its halls. 

Caerhays Castle has an imposing position overlooking Porthluney Cove, an attractive little beach flanked by steep, crumbling cliffs on either side.

On a warmer day it would be a great place to stop and while away an hour or two, but I’ve come to learn that each pretty cove along this route is followed by a brute of a climb, so there is no time to linger. 

We’re making our way up the coast towards St Austell now, so seaside villages come in quick succession.

In the fishing port of Mevagissey we stop for some overdue sustenance – apparently some sharp ascents aren’t far away. We visit the Wheel House, which overlooks the bay.

The tide is out so it’s a long drop over the edge, and in the harbour fishing boats are stranded on the mud. A few fishermen are taking the opportunity to work on the hulls of their boats.

The fare is simple pub grub but by the time we set off again I’m thankful for the dense, starchy carbs that have reawakened my sleepy legs.

It’s a draggy ascent away from Mevagissey, but the hard work is rewarded by the opportunity to freewheel into the next port, Pentewan. 

A holy hill

‘Hardly anyone ever stops in Pentewan,’ says Rob. ‘Which is a shame, as a few of the cafes do awesome cake. It’s just everyone is too scared to climb the next hill on cold legs.’

I decide he must be exaggerating – there’s always time to stop for a good cake – but regrettably he isn’t.

The narrow climb up Pentewan Hill rears up to 20% for over a kilometre.

It’s tough enough to briefly turn me religious and leaves Jonny vocally expressing his regret at choosing a large portion of greasy fish and chips as lunch.

At the top the road eases off for a few kilometres and we roll along high ground into St Austell. Traffic-wise it’s the busiest part of the ride but thankfully it’s short-lived.

Before long we turn off the main road to start a 10km ascent that leads us through a series of pretty hamlets before we catch sight of the Eden Project, the environmental complex with its giant transparent domes. 

We turn for the road to Newquay and the sharp, man-made peaks of the ‘Cornish Alps’ dominate the horizon.

In 1745 a Plymouthian apothecary called William Cookworthy discovered a deposit of china clay here that turned out to be the biggest in the world.

Used to make porcelain, the clay’s extraction formed the large sculpted peaks that we are making our way around.

Not that I get much opportunity to appreciate the mounds – a combination of failing weather, winding false flats, fast cars and another stretch of road Rob doesn’t care for makes the next 20 minutes the most intense of the route.

I can see the top of the final rise when I crack spectacularly.

I crawl the final 100m of the climb, where we reach the roof of our ride. It has been disproportionately hard going considering we’re barely 300m above sea level.

The home straight

A couple of gels and a reminder from Jonny that it’s largely downhill from here lifts our spirits.

Compact chainsets are quickly spun out as some efficient through-and-offing through the beautiful Goss Moor nature reserve dispatches a few kilometres of open road quickly.

We skirt the edge of Newquay airport, where the high hedgerows return once more and occasionally reveal glimpses of the sea, but this time it is of the Atlantic rather than the English Channel.

A final 10% climb up through the village of St Columb Minor is one last reminder that a leg-stinging climb is never far away around here, but after grinding up that all we are left with is a spin through the centre of Newquay. 

Fistral Beach is still playing host to a few diehard surfers braving the inclement swells. Jonny suggests a quick dip – Newquay’s answer to a post-ride ice bath – but I decline.

In a choice between bike and board, there’s only one winner.

Pedals and pasties

Follow Cyclist's trek across Cornwall

To download this route, click here.

Head east out of Newquay and pick up the A3058. Take a right at Kestle Mill, heading towards St Newlyn East.

From there the Halt Road will take you under the A30 to Mitchell, where you turn right to Trelassick and over the B3275 through Ladock.

Turn south through Grampound Road, straight over the A390 and descend into Tregony. A left turn by Bessy Beneath sees you wiggle along the south coast, pass through Boswinger, Mevagissey and Pentewan and on to St Austell.

Head for Tregregan Mills on Chapel Lane to pass the Eden Project. Take the B3274 through to Roche and turn left just before the A30 to run alongside it.

The A3059 takes you past the airport and back into Newquay.

The rider's ride

Lynskey R240, £1,499 frameset, lynskeyperformance.com

The titanium R240 is burly American muscle that’s brilliantly suited to British riding.

A sticker just below the seat tube cluster claims this bike is ‘built to ride… fast’, which could be dismissed as American over-enthusiasm but in this case rings true. 

The solid frame can thud slightly at low speeds but when you put some power into the bike it comes alive, revving up to speed like a Mustang.

It cedes some weight to equivalently priced carbon machines, but the frame combines a rock-solid bottom bracket area with snappy handling thanks to a short wheelbase.

It’s the perfect beast for punching up Cornwall’s sharp climbs. 

A mix-and-match 105/Ultegra groupset is a good cost-cutting strategy though it might seem incongruous on a premium frame, but all the important bits are high spec and perform with Shimano’s usual precision.

DT Swiss’s Spline RC28 C carbon wheels are a highlight – they help keep the weight down and their stiffness does wonders for acceleration. Overall the R240 is a great mix of titanium ride feel and carbon-esque efficiency.

Do it yourself

Travel

Despite being near the southwestern tip of Britain, Newquay is one of the more easily accessible towns in Cornwall.

Once the M5 runs out at Exeter, it’s about an hour and a half drive on the A30 to Newquay. Or you could fly – Newquay airport is served by regular flights from several airports, and trains to Bodmin are on the main line from London Paddington.

From Bodmin, Newquay is 30 minutes by taxi or bus. 

Accommodation

Cyclist stayed at the Fistral Beach Hotel, which is a 10-minute walk from the centre of Newquay.

The four-star hotel has fantastic views out over Fistral Beach, which is only a short stroll if you fancy some surfing or a bracing swim after a hard day’s riding.

If you want to be treated a little more gently, the Fistral Beach has a great spa, and its Dune Restaurant caters perfectly for those with food allergies (myself included).

Thanks

Thanks must go to Rob Ley of Cornwall Council and Zennor Vélo (zennorvelo.cc) for his help in organising this trip and for the massive turns he took on the front towards the end of the ride.

Thanks also to Rob’s ‘cycling husband’, Jonny Burt, for acting as an entertaining (and knowledgeable) third rider on the day. 

Newquay’s Little Italy (littleitaly-newquay.com) deserves a special mention for Cyclist’s delicious post-ride pizza.

Finally, a heartfelt thanks to Sarah Harrington of Excess Energy (excess-energy.com) and Visit Cornwall’s Rosa Pedley – their logistical efforts were the main reason the trip was such a success.

For more information on the area go to visitcornwall.com.

Every year in Norway there’s a race from Geirangerfjord up a mountain called the Dalsnibba,’ says Talbot Frameworks’ founder, owner and framebuilder Matt McDonough. ‘I visit the area a lot because we have some family friends there, and I’ve ridden up the mountain numerous times.
It’s stunning, and it’s what this bike is named after.’

It’s a long way from McDonough’s workshop in south London to the easterly fjords of Norway, but the spirit of the mountain is manifest in the Dalsnibba, a lightweight, super-stiff climbing machine.

‘This is the first mixed materials bike I ever made – a prototype, if you like,’ he says. ‘I started building lugged frames, then fillet brazed, and now most of our work is TIG. This is fillet brazed, though, as you get that smoother finish on the bilaminate lugs. The carbon is from Enve, the main triangle is filament-wound and the seatstays come out of a mould.’

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Image 5 of 5

Bi the bi

The term ‘bilaminate’ originally referred to framebuilders adding an extra, often patterned or logo-stamped sheet onto a regular-cast lug as an aesthetic touch, thereby adding another layer, or laminating the lug. Today the term is more commonly applied when two shorter tubes are fillet brazed together to create a sleeve into which separate tubes are brazed or bonded. In the case of the Dalsnibba those tubes came from Utah-based Enve. The top, down and seat tubes are filament-wound, a process whereby carbon threads are wound around a cylindrical mandrel before being impregnated with epoxy resin and cured. 

This process is often favoured in lugged carbon designs as filament-wound tubes can be made to tighter tolerances than their wrapped or moulded counterparts. That said, the seatstays are moulded due to their more intricate wishbone shape, and the chainstays, like the lugs, are conspicuously steel.

‘Unless you weigh next to nothing then we tend to build Dalsnibbas with steel chainstays,’ adds McDonough, alluding to the fact that unlike a lot of builders he makes the Dalsnibba as one of three ‘standard’ models in the Talbot range – although every one is still custom made. ‘Steel makes a huge difference to the stiffness in the bottom bracket area, so the chainstays are Columbus Life.’ 

Elsewhere the head tube and bottom bracket are from Paragon Machine Works, a California-based machine shop popular with independent framebuilders, and the lugs are made out of T45, an aerospace-grade steel alloy. To keep the weight low the tubes that comprise the lugs have been turned on a lathe, inside and out, to remove excess material, before being hand-finished with a few semi-ornate flourishes. As such, the overall frame weighs 1,250g, very competitive for a frame that’s pretty much half steel. 

Although Talbot Frameworks’ frames start at £1,650 including paint, the Dalsnibba comes in at £3,000, so it’s no surprise McDonough has decided to spec it out with some exotic parts.

‘The fork is an Enve 2.0 road fork and the finishing kit is carbon Fizik stuff,’ says McDonough. ‘The groupset is Dura-Ace Di2, although I swapped
out a few components, and the wheels are tubulars.’

The fork and finishing kit have been colour matched by the Dalsnibba’s painter, a Bristol-based artist known as Dokter Bob (although McDonough does the majority of Talbot’s paint). It’s incredibly striking in the sunlight, a deep, shimmering metallic blue and mithril silver, but look beyond the aesthetic and it’s some more understated parts that draw the eye.

The brake callipers aren’t the expected Dura-Ace 9000 but American-made Eecycleworks Eebrakes, which come in at just under 200g a set with pads. The chainset is Cannondale’s SiSL2, and the wheels are conspicuously unbranded save for some etching on the hubs. 

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Image 4 of 5

‘The brakes are silly money, around £700, but they weigh less than 200g. I’ve used of a lot of lightweight brakes but these ones actually work! The
SiSL2 chainset is much lighter than Dura-Ace [483g versus 632g] but still really stiff, and the wheels are Light Bike rims laced to Extralite hubs.’

Extralite hubs are almost worryingly light at a claimed 48g front, 134g rear (by contrast Dura-Ace 9000 hubs are 120g and 248g respectively), and 24mm deep tubular rims from Asian manufacturer Light Bike come in at a claimed 320g. With spokes the wheels are less than a kilo, meaning the overall build is how much?

‘It’s 6.2kg and costs approximately £8,000 full build,’ says McDonough matter-of-factly. ‘It’s full custom geometry but this is pretty much a 54cm-effective top tube. This is “sunny-one-hundreds” stuff – I have other bikes for day-to-day – but I really like this one. It’s well made, really light. It’s a cool bike.’

talbotframeworks.co.uk

Powercordz lay claim to some bold stats: more than 75% lighter than steel cables; twice as strong as Kevlar; they never deform, don’t corrode and, once set up, will last the life of your bicycle.

They were also created by an engineer who made them in his garage in his spare time.

Tony DuPont developed Powercordz in 2004. ‘A lot of people knew synthetic fibres had the potential to outperform regular cable systems in every way, but no one had found the right design to get it to work,’ he says.

‘So using my engineering background I did some research and found Zylon, which is a liquid crystalline polymer that I thought would be suitable, but once I got some I didn’t really know what to do with it.’

The fibre came as a braided rope, so DuPont separated out the fibres and greased them so bunches would stick together in the diameter of a regular cable.

After feeding them through his bike’s regular brake housing, he tied knots at each end and went for a ride.

‘That first ride I almost went over the handlebars because the fibre is so different to steel in its modulus of elasticity,’ says DuPont.

Slow start

It took another year and a half of refinement for DuPont to develop a marketable product. ‘As I was doing it part-time, I’d be saving up to buy a batch, running a bunch of tests, then saving up to buy some more,’ he says. 

‘Things really got going when I went to a bike show with 20 cables in my pocket and I got orders.

‘Luckily I got some industry-savvy help from a future investor so we were able to put together packaging and product information, then it went from there.

‘Now the systems have been used in the last two Olympics. What riders remark on most frequently is the feel of them.

‘The fibre’s accuracy and durability means brake modulation never changes, regardless of temperature or age.’

A product that might seem too good to be true does indeed have its foibles, however. DuPont recommends tying an underhand loop-knot below where the brake cable is pinned in the calliper.

‘As Zylon is tougher than the brake clamp material it cannot be compressed and gripped like steel cable. So to properly anchor the cable in the brake we tie the knot, which tightens against itself the harder the brake is squeezed.’

On top of that, Zylon fibre can’t compete with steel in terms of price and, due to the cables being slightly wider in diameter than steel, can drag slightly in their housing. 

‘We’re always advancing and evolving the design, though,’ says DuPont. ‘We’re decreasing the diameter of the cable so it performs better and also figuring out how to natively produce Zylon-similar fibres, which will bring the cost down.’

When it comes to research and development, DuPont believes he’s found the perfect testers.

‘We work with a youth cycling team. They’ve produced 20 national champions and an Olympic gold medallist.

‘These kids are 16, 17, 18, and they beat the crap out of everything we chuck at them, so they are the best riders to test our products.’

Powercordz Prime cables and housing, £54 per set of two, synergyaction.eu

Cyclist: How has the cycling scene reacted to a relative novice like yourself jumping straight to the top of the domestic time trial scene?

Hamish Bond: I guess they're all intrigued in some ways. Coming third at the national time-trial champs was definitely a good marker as it was my first ever 40km TT, I didn't have the greatest run in and the result was pretty good.

I was about a minute off Jack Bauer who is with the Quick-Step Floors team. It was encouraging as I think I left a lot of time on the track.

Then coming third at Oceania champs two weeks ago, and beating Jason Christie who had beaten me at the National Champs was another great step on.

I’m coming to the UK for a couple of months in June and July so I’m keen to see what I can do on the race scene there.

It sounds like the time-trialling scene there is the world's best. Plus it’s winter here in New Zealand and there's not a lot going on in time trialling at that time of the year.

Cyc: You had the most successful winning streak in international rowing history, how did you find your way into it?

HB: We rowed for a few years in a coxless four. We were World Champions in 2007 and went into the 2008 Olympics with high hopes but got pumped by good old Great Britain.

They won the gold medal and we bombed, coming 7th. Off the back off that I looked around the squad and the coxless pair with Eric Murray was the best decision from my point of view.

Andy Triggs-Hodge and Pete Reed also went from the four to the pair at the same time. The talk from the media was not whether the British pair would win but whether they’d beat Pinsent and Cracknell’s World Record. We thought if we can be competitive and in amongst it that would be good.

We went into the season in 2009 and won our first race and never lost another race. Over eight years we had 69 wins in I don’t know how many events, plus we took a chunk out of the world record.

Cyc: What was your key to your dominance in such a competitive field in rowing, and was it tough to maintain that?

HB: We were probably both very good psychologically. I would put us both in the top five across all rowers internationally.

At all times we were both pretty good on the rowing machine. Eric, I think his best 2k score was 5.41, my best is 5.44 which is pretty handy at under 90kg.

We’re both pretty good and we combine well, when your parts are pretty good and the sum of your parts is even better then that’s a good start.

I definitely would say there was an element of expectation fatigue. It weighed quite heavily on me at times, almost that fear of losing as opposed to the excitement of winning.

Just the constant expectation that you know you’re good enough to win and you should win but you’ve still got to go out and win.

Cyc: When did you begin the transition from rowing to cycling?

HB: I basically started training for this before I left the Olympics in Rio, more or less a couple of days after the final, I was straight on the trainer.

It’s pretty nuts but I figured if you’re at the top of one mountain and you need to get to the top of another it’s better to jump off the top and land half way then start at the bottom.

Obviously I was in great physical condition. For the Olympics I rowed at 90kg. I set about stripping a bit of weight, naturally if you don’t use your upper body you tend to shed a little weight so I’ve managed to lose about 10kg.

So I’m down at 80kg now. I think I’m pretty lean, but I’m not Chris Froome lean.

Cyc: What was your cycling history before that?

HB: We did a little cycling as cross training. Probably the last time I cycled seriously was in 2009, when I raced domestically.

Since then I guess in the build up to London I really didn’t do much just because of the risk of injury.

That racing season did pique my interest, though, so I wondered how good I could be if I gave it my full focus and full attention.

Cyc: Has weight been an issue for you?

HB: When I was rowing Eric is about 10 kgs heavier than me so I always had to hold my weight up. Basically, I’ve just competitively eaten for 10 years.

So to flip that on its head has been quite challenging. I mean when I was rowing and I was hungry I would just eat, whereas now I just eat to perform not for satisfaction anymore. My food now has to be for a reason.

Cyc: What is your overall cycling goal at the moment?

HB: Ultimately the Tokyo Olympics. It’s a massive goal, to switch sports in four years, but I haven’t got to where I am by aiming low. Whether that’s in any way feasible is to be determined.

I have sort of given myself a time horizon. If I feel as though I’m not progressing anymore and I’m not at a level where I wanted to be at then I’m not just going to keep banging my head against a wall.

My goal is to be in Tokyo and be competitive whether that’s in cycling or in rowing, so I have a short amount of time to work it out.

I’m aware, you’re looking, the gold standard is around the 6 watts per kilo, as an 80kg guy, wow that’s really getting up there in terms of power.

I’ve heard rumours of Cancellara being able to do around those high 400s, 500. Yeah, I’ve done sets, short intervals at 500, to do it for a whole TT, well crikey that’s hard to get your head around.

Cyc: Would you say there’s more depth in a sport like cycling compared to rowing?

HB: Internationally, yes. I think so. I mean you only have to look at the number of competitors and in terms of competing at the Olympics there’s a lot of spots for rowers and a lot of medals to win.

If you’re a cyclist there’s a few on the track, if you’re a road cyclist there’s two. That’s hard, and you’ve got maybe 500 cyclists training professionally to a very high level for two olympic medals.

Cyc: Are you intimidated by the scale of the task?

HB: It’s an exciting challenge, Cycling New Zealand has been quite supportive and I guess trying to reduce or knock down any barriers that might inhibit me from getting the best from myself.

I’m on quite a steep learning curve and also conscious that in some way time is against me. I can’t spend two or three years figuring this out. I have to get through that "figuring it out" stage in six months.

I’ve also had support from Trek who have provided me with a SpeedConcept time-trial bike which is an amazing bike to be racing on.

Cyc: Would you consider joining a road racing team?

HB: I think I’m going down a different path, I guess I’m looking more at how track teams prepare for the Olympics – I know a lot of them still ride for trade teams as well.

If I was going to do any road racing it would just be a means to an end. In terms of training, if someone deemed it to be the thing to improve me the most or get me the best benefit then, yeah, I’ll look at it.

Also, I don’t know what sort of teams would be interested in me. I’m not adept at road racing, I know there’s a lot of tactics and you can’t get by on horsepower alone.

Cyc: Have you started the quest to become more aerodynamic too?

HB: You have to remember that we’re in New Zealand so there’s no wind-tunnel around the corner! There’s one wind-tunnel here and I have been in that once and I’ve been told I’m not completely unaerodynamic, so that’s encouraging.

There’s only so much you can do, I can’t exactly go at my shoulders with a knife or anything. I guess I can try to lean up as much as possible, I don’t do any weights anymore so I hope that happens naturally.

I’ll be working on that position as much as my power. Then finally if those two are looking good then I’ll get out the credit card and start buying speed. But there's no point in buying speed if you’re a chocolate pudding who can’t push anything.

Cyc: How about the more technical handling elements of cycling?

HB: That’s definitely somewhere where I can improve – taking the tightest course and carrying speed through corners, that’s all part of the efficient use of the power.

I had Jesse Sargeant helping me a bit. He rode for Trek for a number of years and finished with AG2R a year ago so he’s probably New Zealand’s best ever time trialist.

Cyc: Is it difficult coming from a sport considered extremely clean in terms of doping to a sport where many competitors may have a history of doping?

HB: I guess you can’t really do much about it on an individual level. I mean you’d be pretty naive to think it’s all hunky dorey now, but as long as I can take pride in being a clean athlete and doing things honestly then I'll be happy.

Some people take the cop out in saying you know everyone was on it and so it was a level playing field, but any sort of satisfaction or success one gets from racing with that mindset that then it’s a pretty hollow victory.

I certainly wouldn’t get any satisfaction from it. I don’t know any of the people who have been tainted by drugs but a lot of them were in a position to do something about it, to be a whistleblower and change the situation but they took the easy option.

I know that’s always easy to say from the sidelines, but that’s just my opinion I guess.

FACT FILE

Name: Philippe Gilbert
Nickname: Boar of the Ardennes
Age: 34
Lives: Monaco
Rider type: Classics rider
Professional teams: 2003-2008 FDJ.com; 2009-2011 Silence-Lotto; 2012-2016 BMC Racing Team; 2017 Quick-Step Floors
Palmares: UCI Road World Championship 2012; Belgian National Road Race Championship 2011, 2016; Amstel Gold 2010, 2011, 2014; Liège-Bastogne-Liège 2011; Flèche Wallonne 2011; Giro di Lombardia 2009, 2010; Classica San Sebastian 2011; Omloop Het Nieuwsblad 2006, 2008; Strade Bianche 2011

You can learn a lot from a rider's nickname, and Philippe 'Boar of the Ardennes' Gilbert is no exception given his attacking nature and tenacity in poor weather conditions.

Gilbert has moved to the Quick Step Floors outfit for 2017 after five years with BMC during which he won the UCI Road World Championship in 2012.

But while the kit on his back may have changed, Gilbert's style hasn't. Expect to see him looking to grind out the miles – and grind down the opposition – in this year’s Spring Classics, as he has done consistently over a long and illustrious career.

But what can we learn from the Walloon wonder as he joins a new team for the 2017 season?

1 Study your routes

WHAT? Unlike stage races, where you can make up for mistakes or lost time, there’s no margin for error in a one-day race, so knowing the route is vital.

Having won the Amstel Gold Race in 2010 and 2011, Gilbert went on to win the UCI Road World Championships in 2012 – not least because it followed a similar route to Amstel Gold, finishing on his favourite climb, the Cauberg in the Netherlands.

Gilbert bided his time, attacking on the Cauberg and blowing away his rivals. He used the same tactic in 2014 when he won Amstel Gold for a third time, going one better than the legendary Eddy Merckx.

HOW? Ahead of a sportive or event, be sure to pore over the route. This will ensure you can ride with the confidence of knowing, for example, that the fast descent you're haring down doesn’t stop short at a busy junction – or more importantly, that it does.

Use apps like Strava, or even virtually ride it with Google Street View, and check websites like roadworks.org for up-to-date details of disruptions.

If you live close to the route, you can take the simpler approach of just riding it and taking notes. Either way, you’ll be able to ride it on the day with greater assurance.

2 Warm up properly

WHAT? Gilbert has shown he can consistently handle riding in cold and wet conditions. His secret? A proper warm-up.

‘The idea is to turn your legs quickly, building from 100 to 120rpm,’ he reveals. ‘It’s very demanding at the beginning but is essential for the heart rate and the pure stamina work ahead,’ he adds.

HOW? Gilbert’s rpm target may be beyond most of us but it’s still a good idea to push the cadence in your warm-up.

By raising your pedalling rate in a low gear you’ll get the blood circulating more quickly without significantly depleting vital energy stores.

According to British Cycling, ‘A very important aim of the warm-up is to “switch” your aerobic energy system on prior to starting your main effort.

‘Doing so means you use energy more efficiently and you are less likely to fatigue prematurely.’

By warming up correctly, you’ll also mentally get into the ‘zone’ allowing you to put the hammer down more effectively when the time comes to really get going.

For a race, aim for a 20-minute warm-up to gradually bring up your heart rate. For a longer, less intensive sportive, a short 10-minute warm up will be fine.

3 Get a long stem

WHAT? Gilbert, like many other pros, can get incredibly aero on his bike. One reason for this is his extra long stem – at 130mm, this is a massive jump on the more common 100mm.

This puts Gilbert into a more stretched-out aero position, but while that’s a good way to reduce drag it does require good fitness, flexibility and technical skill.

Gilbert’s training includes a lot of core strength exercises, while his team will assess (and reassess) his bike fit to make sure he can get as low as possible with that stem without suffering any unnecessary strain to his back.

HOW? Fitting a longer stem won’t cost the earth but can drastically alter the handling of your bike. It can also put strain on the lower back, particularly if your core strength or flexibility is poor.

So if you want to go low, work on building the muscles that support your spine and head. You can do this in the gym with simple exercises or by taking up an off-the-bike activity that helps, such as bouldering.

Also consult a professional bike fitter. If getting faster is on top of your to-do list a longer stem is an easy win but don’t make your back pay the price.

4 Improve your pedalling

WHAT? Many pro cyclists love to mix up their cycling activities and Gilbert is no exception.

‘Cyclocross is an old passion,’ he revealed after riding in one recent event. ‘I realised I did not have the technique or the speed and compared to the specialists who were here, I was a very small fish, but it was fun.

‘Normally we cannot participate in this type of competition!’

HOW? Trying a different types of cycling is a great way to improve aspects of your road game.

Cyclocross is great for improving your pedalling technique because off-road cycling demands that you spin perfect circles – loose road surfaces will prove pretty unforgiving if you don’t.

Not only that, it’ll also improve your gear selection and bike handling skills, as well as developing your strength and speed.

With most cyclocross events also taking place in the autumn and winter, it also makes a virtue of rubbish weather, with the rain/sleet/cold all adding to the fun of riding (and carrying) your bike around what’s essentially a short off-road obstacle course.

To get involved, visit britishcycling.org.uk/cyclocross for more info.

5 Clear your mind

WHAT? Gilbert is one of a dying breed of racers who rides mostly on feel and gauges his chances by reading the degree of pain on his rivals’ faces.

In an interview in 2010, Gilbert explained just how old-school he is. ‘It’s true that I train mostly by feeling. In the team, we have PowerTap but I don’t use it.

‘I don’t even have a heart-rate monitor, but I always know where I am,’ he revealed, before adding, ‘I never analyse my training with the computer or graphics. I have not got a clue about how many watts I produce in a climb.’

HOW? There is something liberating about going out on your bike sans Garmin or power meter. For some it feels like a wasted ride, devoid of any structure, but if you know your body well you can still benefit.

Training with data is great – it gives us clear indications of how we’re performing and where we can improve – but don’t be afraid to trust your body and ride data-free.

It’ll give you more time to look up and enjoy the environment, too, and enjoyment is a powerful motivator that will get you out on the bike more often and for longer.

6 Fuel yourself properly

WHAT? As a pro, Gilbert has all his meals and nutrition analysed. While at BMC Racing Team his nutritionist Judith Haudum knew how important it was to use the right protein at the right time to get the best out of Gilbert and his team-mates.

‘If we wanted the protein to enter the riders’ systems quickly, we would go for whey because it is readily absorbed,’ she reveals.

‘However, if they want a sustained protein for longer recovery, we’d look elsewhere – casein protein, for example. It’s absorbed more slowly, so it’s good not only during the day but also at night when riders are asleep.’

HOW? We can’t all have a top nutritionist to plan our dietary needs but that doesn’t mean you can’t be on top of what you shovel down your throat.

A whey protein supplement immediately after a ride will aid speedy muscle recovery – try Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard 100% Whey Protein Powder (908g for £22.49).

For overnight recovery, get some casein protein in before shut-eye, such as Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard 100% Casein Protein Powder (450g for £19.49, both from hollandandbarrett.com).

Warning: in the next few paragraphs you may experience wobble, flop and twitch. Don’t be alarmed – they are terms that will help you to better understand the complex subject of bicycle handling. 

Put simply, handling is the input required to control a bike’s direction, and the biggest factor is the bicycle’s geometry.

It has taken a century to get close to fully comprehending the dynamics but Assistant Professor Arend Schwab of Technical University of Delft, Netherlands, is one of a team of physicists that claims to have eventually cracked the problem in 2011.

‘In our equation there are 27 parameters,’ he tells Cyclist. These include tube angles, dimensions, fork rake, bottom bracket height and centre of gravity. Change just one element and the handling changes.

Decades of cumulative experience have led framebuilders to a general geometry for road bikes that’s an acceptable balance between weight, comfort, efficiency and handling.

This means that, today, most of the tweaks for handling are made with the head tube angle and fork offset, sometimes called rake, because they determine ‘trail’.

To get an idea of trail, imagine a beam of light shining down through the centre of the head tube. It will touch the ground ahead of the point where the front tyre touches the ground.

The distance between these two points is the trail and it’s one of the main factors in how a bike handles.

‘Trail affects the stability of the bicycle,’ says framebuilder Richard Craddock of Craddock Cycles in Bromsgrove.

‘All bicycles are more stable the faster they move but more trail makes it easier to stay upright. On the downside, more trail means more wobble when you’re out of the saddle and it requires more effort from the rider to steer when it comes to cornering.’

It’s this last point that energises Anders Annerstedt of Luxembourg bike brand Rolo.

‘A bike with a longer trail is more difficult to keep on the ideal trajectory around a corner. So on a hairpin you’ll have to steer through the turn with maybe two or three different inputs.

'You have to be forceful because the geometry wants to keep the bike in its existing trajectory,’ he says.

With less trail the rider doesn’t have to expend as much energy to make those corrections and can do so quicker, Annerstedt adds.

He tunes his geometry to eliminate excessive ‘wheel flop’ – low-speed instability – and all framebuilders aim to adjust the trail to provide the kind of handling most suited to the intended use of the bike.

So a touring bike might have a lot of trail to provide a stable, predictable ride, while a race bike might have a small amount of trail to offer quick, sharp cornering. 

There are two main ways a framebuilder can adjust trail: by changing the angle of the head tube or by adjusting the rake (offset) of the fork. To reduce the trail, you can make the head tube steeper, increase the fork rake, or both.

Road cyclists have generally come to favour the handling of bikes where the trail is 50-60mm. A head angle in the region of 73° with a fork offset of around 45mm tends to acheive this.

Many framebuilders are cagey about their precise figures, but if you know two of the three variables you can calculate the third at the bikecad.ca website. 

There is an extra complication with small frame sizes because the front wheel is closer to the bottom bracket, which brings a risk that it will be clipped by the rider’s toes.

To increase the clearance either the head angle must be made shallower or the fork offset increased, either of which will affect handling unless other design changes are made.

Weights and measures 

Unfortunately, checking the geometry chart to assess trail won’t tell you all you need to know about handling, because there are other factors involved.

Framebuilders cite bottom bracket height and wheelbase as the next two most influential geometrical elements for handling.

Further changes to handling can be made by altering the length of the stem, the width of the handlebars, and the type of wheels and tyres.

Heavier wheels and tyres, for example, have more inertia and require more effort to turn the bars.

The way a bike handles is also down to the stiffness of the frame and forks, which means materials and tube shapes play their parts.

‘The choice and use of material allow a bike manufacturer to achieve more specific bike-handling characteristics within a defined geometry,’ says Tim Hartung, design engineer at Trek Bicycles.

‘This is where composite materials have a major advantage over isotropic materials such as steel and aluminium.’

He likes how carbon allows him to control and tune stiffness precisely through lay-up patterns, tube thicknesses and cross-section shapes.

Modern developments such as disc brakes on road bikes have also had an effect on the way a bike handles, according to Hartung: ‘Typically, thru axles are much thicker [than standard quick releases], commonly 12mm or 15mm.

'The thicker axle is stronger and stiffer and also creates a stiffer system connection between frame and wheel. It can create a scenario where the front and rear wheels are not in sync with each other.

'The rear wheel and frame will tend to stay more in the same plane with each other, which can be bad when trying to hold a constant line in high speed cornering.

'You can end up with a bike that does not have enough “give” or flex in the system to hold a good line in a corner or allow you to successfully counter-steer accordingly.

‘This could mean your tyre contact patch with the ground in the rear could be compromised. Or you end up hitting the brakes to adjust your line in a high-speed corner on the road,’ Hartung adds.

‘Neither of these are desirable in race situations. Keep in mind that this level of detail is really only noticed by elite cyclists and some of this effect can be mitigated by changing your frame stiffness parameters.’

The organic element

No matter what geometry and stiffness levels have been dialled into a bike, there will always be one variable that is impossible for the framebuilder to accurately predict: the rider.

Body shapes and riding styles are going to affect the dynamics of handling, and Arend Schwab of Technical University of Delft has definite views on how the rider’s position relates to the handling.

‘The pose or position of the rider isn’t so important when it comes to handling but the way you hold the handlebars is very important,’ he says.

‘The steering structure is very light and if you add the big mass of arms and upper body, it can influence the system and its response.’

Schwab suggests that, theoretically, holding the bars with straight arms at the same angle as the head tube would be best for stability because then your arm and upper body mass has minimal influence on the steering system.

London-based framebuilder Tom Donhou adds, ‘You really want to keep the centre of gravity in the right place, particularly when you’re riding at speed. Speed wobble is down to weight placement so you need to get the right distribution of weight between the wheels.’ 

For a framebuilder, trying to balance all the geometric elements against the rider’s physiology can be a daunting task, especially when customers can be remarkably demanding, while simultaneously unclear, about the kind of handling they want.

‘People use words like responsive, reactive, agile, nimble, aggressive,’ says Tom Rodi of American bespoke builder Parlee Cycles.

‘There are 20 or 30 adjectives that you’ll hear. Sometimes someone will talk about a bike feeling “nervous”. It could be too steep at the head tube or the fork being too rigid.

'There are a lot of pieces to look at. There’s the torsional rigidity of the head, top and down tubes, the torsional responsiveness of the whole fork assembly and there’s the vertical compliance – the ability of those things to bend in reaction to road abnormalities.’

What is apparent is that there’s no simple solution to predicting a bike’s handling. It’s something that framebuilders will continue to tinker with and refine as much through trial and error as through science.

And once you’ve got your frame, the parts you attach to it will also have an effect too, but mostly the way you carve through that hairpin bend will be down to you.

The way a bike handles is largely down to the person handling it.

Cyclist: Tao, you rode for Sky as a stagiaire in 2015 but a full-time contract didn’t materialise until now. How come?

TAO GEOGHEGAN HART: There was strong interest from the team but I wanted another year at under-23s. Why? The most polite way of putting it is that I didn’t win a race in 2015 and felt that was something I had to do before turning professional.

That said, my final year with Axel [Merckx’s UCI Continental team Axeon Hagens Berman] also provided me with opportunities to race at the highest level, competing at the Tour of California [where he finished as second-best young rider] and the Tour of Britain. It proved a great learning curve.

Cyc: Did it feel strange when you first started racing in the same events as guys like Sir Bradley Wiggins?

TGH: Maybe a little bit beforehand, but when you get into a race everyone is there to race so it becomes less and less strange. If you spend too much time thinking about it, it won’t go well.

But, yes, it is special and I have never lost that feeling. I appreciate big-name riders, and what they have done is always there. But the more races I do, the more normal it seems.

Cyc: Have you specific goals this season?

TGH: Something I’ve learned from British Cycling is that it’s more profitable when goals are more controllable than when they’re less certain, like where I might try and finish in a race.

We’re lucky there are so many metrics – time on a climb, power, weight – so you can aim to improve one facet or other and track that progression.

Less pragmatically, I want to show my new teammates that I deserve to be on this team, and that they can rely on me when needed. 

Dave Brailsford told us at the December camp that we go to races either to help someone win, learn to win so we’ll return to that race with knowledge, or to win.

There will be no situation where I won’t be going for one of those three aims. At this time of the season it makes sense, although things might be different come October when everyone’s dead and minds are heading downhill!

Cyc: Debatable TUEs and that ‘jiffy bag’ have dominated Sky’s off-season. Has this affected newcomers to the team like you and Jon Dibben?

TGH: Stuff like the jiffy bag news is left to you guys [the media]. For me it’s about heading onto the road for four, five, six hours. It’s about ticking off the intervals and repeated climbs. It sounds selfish, especially in such a team sport, but I have a two-year contract with Sky and must focus on myself.

Cyc:Cyclist’s recent profile of Team Sky highlighted the increasing role that good hygiene will play in cutting missed training days. Does that resonate?

TGH: Definitely, although it’s much easier at home. It’s a nightmare when travelling. Go to an airport and everyone’s wrestling you for space or in the name of security.

A bloke attempted to take my smartphone off me and scan in the flight’s barcode. No thank you – he’s touched a thousand of those in the past couple of hours.

Pass me an infection and that could be two weeks off. It’s even worse when you’re on the plane. Just think how many people have flicked through the in-flight magazine – although that’s nothing compared to the food trays.

They’re rarely washed and are purportedly 10 times dirtier than your average toilet seat. Would you eat lunch off a toilet? So yes, the message has had impact.

Tell any bike rider that if you do this you’ll reduce the chances of being sick by 50% and they’ll do it.

Cyc: How did you find moving from Hackney to the pro mecca of Girona?

TGH: I was there from when I finished school really, so three years ago. It’s been a really great base for me. I was 18 when I first turned up there in an apartment I had never seen before except on the internet.

But it was always an easy decision in a way as it made my day-to-day life so much easier in terms of training, resting and doing the right things, compared to what I was used to.

Cyc: You seem to have an old head on those 21-year-old shoulders. Has this maturity helped your progress?

TGH: If you want to be psychoanalytical about it, my parents broke up when I was pretty young so I’ve always been proactive about organising and looking after myself.

One story we laugh about is when I was 10 and I realised on the way to an important football match that I’d forgotten one of my goalkeeping gloves.

I was so angry and embarrassed that I’d let my team and myself down. It really cut deep.

Cyc: There’s a saying that the foundation to elite performance is choosing your parents wisely. Does this ring true with you?

TGH: Neither of my parents comes from a sporting background but they exhibit traits that are required for cycling, like grittiness and working hard.

My dad’s a builder and he often works 16-hour days. If he can put in that effort without 60-odd people looking after his every whim – without a daily massage to ease out life’s stresses – I reckon I can do this.

We have it easy in my opinion and I love my lifestyle. In fact, one of my greatest motivators is to maintain this lifestyle because it’s bloody awesome.

Cyc: It’s not just cycling and football that preoccupied the life of Tao but swimming, too, we hear?

TGH: Yes, I used to swim a lot and actually swam the Channel as part of a relay team when I was 13 years old. It feels like a lifetime ago now.

Cyc: What are your views on the team’s nutritional offerings?

TGH: The food here is incredible, and I’ve never had so much trust in what I’m eating and knowing it’s from a good source.

I’m learning a lot from the chefs, who’ve promised me they’ll show me how to sharpen my knives. I’m lucky that when I’m away from camp and back home in Girona I’ve access to quality fruit and vegetables.

I spend an unbelievable amount of money at a local farm shop but it’s amazing. When I return to London and wander around Tesco it just makes me depressed.

Cyc: So you do most of the cooking when at home?

TGH: I do, and when I’m with my girlfriend I love to cook her something tasty. Her New Year’s resolution was to be more inventive in the kitchen when I’m away, beyond eggs on avocado, which she loves.

So now she’ll drop me a line about what food she fancies that day, and I’ll source a recipe and write her a shopping list.

Last night it was mushroom cannelloni with spinach. The night before it was Ottolenghi green couscous with spinach patties. I’m good with veg as I grew up a vegetarian. 

Cyc: How do you perceive the state of cycling in the UK?

TGH: I feel a great sense of gratitude to all the Brits who have come before us, whether it’s Robert Millar, Boardman, Cav or Pendleton.

They brought the sport on in the UK so people actually care about cycling. I remember being at the launch of Team Sky [in 2009] and being so inspired.

Until then, seeing international professionals up close came down to the prologue in London [2007, Tour de France] and one race where Roger Hammond passed me his gloves over a barrier.

Now there are regular events like the Tour of Yorkshire and RideLondon, which keep the sport’s profile high.

Take my little brother and sister, who are both still at school in London. They race for their school’s cycling club.

They did well to get in as it’s oversubscribed. Ultimately, cycling in this country is in a very strong position.

Cyc: Are you looking forward to taking the next step as a pro?

TGH: Yes, but obviously that means a lot more learning as you have to find your place in your team and your role within it.

Turning pro means you are working up from the very bottom again. That’s the plan for the next few years and hopefully I can make that happen.

You just keep plugging away, focusing on the short-term goals and the long-term goals, and try to step up.

Picture, for a moment, being Chris Froome. It is 24th July 2016 and you’ve just won your third Tour de France. You’re standing on a podium on Paris’s sun-drenched Champs-Élysées, your leg muscles convulsing after enduring 3,500km of racing and 60,000m of vertical ascent.

You’re handed a bouquet of flowers (a timely gift for your wife Michelle, who you’ve barely seen during the weeks of pre-Tour training on a barren volcano in Tenerife) and a cuddly toy lion (perfect for your infant son, Kellan, whose growth spurts you’ve charted only via FaceTime catch-ups from far-flung hotels). 

The British national anthem fires up, giving you a moment to reflect on your improbable cycling journey from the red dust of Kenya to the yellow jersey of the Tour de France. 

‘When you stand on the podium and start thinking about all these things it is completely overwhelming,’ says Froome, sitting on a sofa at Team Sky’s training base in the hills above Monaco.

The Kenyan-born British rider, who turns 32 in May, is trying to explain a sensation none of us (future British Cycling prodigies aside) will ever know. 

‘You think about what it has taken. You have days when your legs feel like jelly and just to stand up is an effort. You think, “This is relentless.”

‘Not just the three weeks of the race but the months of hard work and the time away from family. You think about the nutrition and dieting and the team. Not just the riders who have given up their ambitions in the race so I can stand on that podium, but the mechanics and carers who are up at 5am and working until after midnight.

‘There are huge crowds and friends and family have come to see you… then someone hands you a microphone and you have to talk.’

Froome is a quiet man at the head of the most rambunctious sporting carnival in the world. His words are an engaging reminder of the silent, swirling emotions behind the high-profile moments captured by the cameras. 

In the endless soap opera of modern sport it’s easy for individual athletes to be reduced to pawns playing their part or cartoonish caricatures – above all in cycling where riders’ eyewear and helmets mask their faces and depersonalise them even more. 

This strangely warped reality, combined with Froome’s natural reticence, explains why we know a lot about Froome the athlete, including intimate details about his weight, heart rate and lung performance, but little about Froome the man: the tall, skinny dad who enjoys fishing for dorado with his spear gun and who has a far from superhuman weakness for pancakes and milk tarts. 

A man apart

So who is the man standing on the podium? Christopher Clive Froome is undoubtedly happy to be an outsider.

He would, you sense, be content to win races then quietly disappear back to his flat in Monaco with his family. He’s always been this way, even when growing up outside Nairobi with his British parents Jane and Clive and his brothers Jonathan and Jeremy.

While his friends were playing video games he hung around with an eccentric gaggle of older Kenyan cyclists called the Safari Simbaz. 

Fuelled by sweet tea and ugali, they would go on epic rides to the Ngong Hills, cycling past waterbuck, baboons and giraffes. When in his teens he moved to South Africa with his father following his parents’ divorce.

He would get up at 6am, wrap plastic bags around his hands for warmth, and embark on self-flagellating training rides before school. He sold avocados, taught spinning classes and offered bike courier services to help fund his cycling dreams. 

‘I was always encouraged that I didn’t have to fit in or follow the crowd. My parents brought me up to make my own decisions. I was always out exploring. I think it was an amazing childhood because of the freedom I had on my bike.

‘At first I really enjoyed doing tricks and stunts in the garden. I also did a lot of mountain biking in the beautiful highlands of Kenya and the tea and coffee plantations.

‘My parents were strict when they needed to be but they allowed me to make my own mistakes and gave me room to become independent.’ 

This need to do things his own way extended into his formative professional cycling career. He enthusiastically emailed hundreds of pro cycling teams before getting his first pro contract with Team Konica in 2007.

Back then he turned up at races with hemp clothing and long hair. He sometimes crashed into flowerbeds and marshals, confusing the peloton with his awkward style and boyish enthusiasm. 

‘I definitely felt different back then. I still wear a kikoy [a Kenyan sarong] now – just so you know, it’s great to sleep in. But I felt a big difference compared to my teammates who came into the sport through structured academy programmes.

‘But in terms of my cycling career I have always looked at things differently and I don’t follow the crowd.’

One example of this was the time he maintained what is best described as a travelling allotment. ‘That was part of my learning curve when I was trying to see what works for me and, erm, what doesn’t,’ he chuckles.

‘At that time my friend from Johannesburg, a Scottish boy called Patrick, had turned full vegan and was telling me how when grains and seeds like quinoa and beans start sprouting they release lots of amino acids. He said they have protein too.

‘So I would travel around with lentils, mung beans and quinoa growing in little trays in my suitcase. I was adding them to my morning porridge until one day at the [2009] Giro d’Italia the quinoa had taken a turn for the worse and I can’t remember ever feeling so ill. I was throwing up during the stage.’

Lean machine

The story says much about the quirky enthusiasm that has driven Froome to the top. His willingness to experiment with nutrition is a key part of his success.

When he submitted to independent testing at the GlaxoSmithKline Human Performance Laboratory in late 2015 the experts’ analysis suggested weight loss had been a major trigger for his progress.

He has always been blessed with outstanding endurance, possibly as a result of training at altitude in Kenya: the report found that as far back as 2007 Froome had a VO2 max of 80.2ml/kg/min (40 is average), which by 2015 had reached 88.2ml/kg/min.

But the key differential was his weight which had dropped from 75.6kg to 67kg, boosting his power-to-weight ratio. 

‘Being really lean but retaining muscle mass is the name of the game for us,’ he says. ‘It’s something I’m always trying to improve. In the last few years I’ve learned that timing is everything.

‘I have to think about when to eat certain food groups. I avoid gluten and salt. When you get into the routine it’s not so hard but I’m used to feeling hungry.’

Treats, like his favourite pancakes and milk tarts, are rare. ‘My wife and I only go out for dinner once in a blue moon, otherwise we are at home cooking where we know what goes into all the food.

‘When we do go out it is more to get a mental break and to socialise. But even when you do go out you try to keep as healthy as possible.’

A strict diet, innovative training protocols and hard work has enabled Froome to enjoy historic success since joining Team Sky in 2010, winning the Tour in 2013, 2015 and 2016, and claiming bronze medals in the Olympic time-trial at London 2012 and Rio 2016.

But not much is known about Froome’s life off the bike. He says he likes fishing with his spear gun and hiking in the mountains. He was recently filmed trying to wakeboard in Australia. It’s not that he lacks interests –more that he doesn’t have time to enjoy them. 

‘A recovery day is a recovery day, not a holiday. It really is a single-track life and there isn’t much room to do anything else. When we travel I get through a few boxsets but most of my spare time has been FaceTiming and Skyping with my wife and little boy.

‘It’s not just a sport. It’s a lifestyle.’

Froome maintains the same passion for wildlife as he had during his childhood when he collected butterflies and kept two pet pythons, Rocky and Shandy. He even has a rhino graphic on his Pinarello. 

‘I’m always going to have a passion for nature and it ties in to my love of cycling. Getting out on your bike every day gives you a special feeling for the environment. When you go out into the mountains you connect with nature. It’s de-stressing and it takes me back to my childhood.’

Froome is looking forward to the day when he can pedal purely for pleasure. Contrary to popular misconceptions, he’s not a huge fan of performance data, although he recognises its essential role in training and racing.

Team Sky are often chastised for riding robotically to the numbers on their power meters, although Froome himself drew praise at last year’s Tour for his aggressive attacks and eye-catching ‘super tuck’ descending technique. 

‘We follow the power meters but when I attack I don’t even look at my computer. I don’t want to know the numbers because they might hold me back.

‘I just give it everything I’ve got. Then if I get a gap I will start making calculations about what I can sustain for the rest of it. But in those big moments you just go for it.’ 

The doping debate 

In the post-Armstrong era all cyclists face doping questions but as the man with the maillot jaune Froome endures more than most.

The debate now follows a well-established narrative, with accusers and believers on either side, but Froome’s 2014 autobiography The Climb contains a story that is disturbing in its implications.

Froome recounts the day in June 2013 when, after months of hard training, he and former teammate Richie Porte rode up the Col de la Madone near Monaco.

Froome reached the top in 30 minutes and 9 seconds – 38 seconds faster than Lance Armstrong’s supposed best – with Porte just behind.

But instead of experiencing elation, they felt embarrassment. ‘We feel slightly guilty and a bit sheepish,’ wrote Froome. ‘I turn to Richie: “We can’t tell people about this.”’ 

Given cycling’s poisonous past, only a fantasist would deny the need for surveillance and hard questions, but it’s troubling to think success and progress alone are deemed so worthy of suspicion that even the riders themselves feel embarrassed to excel? The leap from scepticism to cynicism is too much for Froome. 

‘I see the bigger picture with what has happened in the past. But what’s easy is for someone to throw an accusation and say, “He’s a cyclist, he must be cheating.”

‘The sport really has come so far and done so much. That’s not to say there isn’t more to do, but I really believe cycling is leading the way in the fight against doping.

‘I’ve tried to do a lot. There is a time and a place to release information when it will not damage our competitive advantage. But this sport is about competitive advantages. For me, it is another little motivation to show that you can win the Tour de France clean.

‘I feel that because I’m in this position as a Tour de France winner, a lot of people are looking at me. And I have been calling for more where I think there are gaps in the system.

‘I feel as though I’m a spokesman for clean cycling and I want to set a good example to young riders.’

He points to the rigours of the modern whereabouts system in which riders must give their location for an hour each day, 365 days a year. Three missed tests in 12 months will trigger a two-year ban. 

‘At first it feels completely foreign having to log where you’re going and where you’ll sleep every day. But if you’re not where you say you are, you’ll be in trouble.

‘People don’t know about all this and they have this perception that things are like they were in the past, so if the testers pitch up at your front door, riders can jump out the back window and off you go, you’re free. But if you did that now you’d be kicked out of the sport.’

Wanting more

Froome admits he is driven by a hunger for more. Training is, to him, an ‘addiction’.

When he’s pushing hard, he thinks of his rivals, forcing himself to go deeper. He has the same mung bean-growing enthusiasm for self-improvement as he did in his youth. 

‘I’m always thinking about the next goal. I don’t necessarily think about winning the next race but about making the next step – like completing my next training session tomorrow.

‘I have a one-track mind. Thinking about my performance is everything, and everything I do is geared towards that.’

He is convinced this summer’s Tour will be one of his toughest. ‘This will be a much closer race,’ he insists. ‘There is only one big mountain finish and they have stripped out the time-trials so riders will have to look at other opportunities to gain time.

‘It is certainly a challenge for me. With one big mountain finish there will be no second chances and I have to be at my best that day. People say: you’ve won the Tour three times and it takes months of sacrifices so what brings you back? It genuinely is my love of racing.

‘Even after three weeks of suffering, when I get to Paris on day 21 of the Tour, I’m already looking forward to next year.’

It’s well known that interval training – where you break up a session with high-intensity bursts followed by periods of recovery – is a great way to build fitness.

The beauty is that the variations are virtually limitless, but that can also make it hard to know what works best. So is one type of interval better than another?

‘Yes and no,’ says British Cycling coach Will Newton, helpfully. But he has a point. ‘What you do has to be specific to you as an athlete.

‘So if you’re a long-distance time-triallist you need to do long intervals at the pace you race at. Those intervals won’t work if you’re doing a one-hour circuit race.’

Paul Butler, founder of PB Cycle Coaching, agrees, but adds, ‘If one of my clients is aiming to complete a 100-mile ride but only has an hour at a time to train, I would often prescribe intervals to make the most efficient use of their time.’

‘There are so many ways to do them,’ says coach Ric Stern of RST Sport. ‘Intervals target different areas of physiology – one could work on anaerobic capacity, another the aerobic system. However, within each target area there’s more than one way to approach a specific goal. 

‘So to increase functional threshold power [FTP, your ability to sustain the highest possible power output over 60 minutes] you could use the popular 2x20 minutes at just below FTP.

‘But some people may not be up for smacking themselves stupid with such a long, arduous approach, so could use a session of 8x5 minutes at a marginally higher power output, maybe even of only 5 watts. 

‘There are pros and cons for all sessions,’ he adds. ‘The 2x20 interval allows you to work on long, constant efforts and build endurance, whereas shorter intervals will require a higher power output and will force slightly different adaptations.’

A key word loved by coaches is specicifity. ‘The closer you are to your event, the more specific your training should be,’ says Butler.

‘If you’re training for a flat crit race, find a flat road and do lots of sprints and max-effort intervals of 10 seconds to one minute to simulate the repeated attacks and accelerations out of the corners.

‘But if you’re preparing for a 10-mile time-trial, perform some eight-minute intervals at an intensity above that of your last race.’

Stern agrees, adding, ‘If you’re going to be doing lots of climbing in a race, it makes sense to do lots of training and intervals uphill because adaptations within your cells are specific to the joint angle and velocity at which they’re trained – and this will be different uphill to on the flat.’

If you’re really not sure what you should be doing, coach Stern has some advice: ‘Hire a coach! It’s a tricky balance because not only do the duration and intensity of the intervals have an effect on what you’re trying to achieve, so does the recovery period.

‘There’s no set formula, and a lot of it can be a judgement call by a coach.’

Fluid thinking

What if you’re not in training for a race? ‘If general fitness is the goal, start with a manageable level and then each session make one change to increase the difficulty,’ says Butler.

‘You could increase the number of intervals, the interval length or the intensity, decrease the recovery time or increase the frequency of the workout. Whatever you do, make the increments gradual to prevent injury or burn-out.’

Don’t just jump straight in, though. ‘Beginners need a basic level of fitness,’ says Butler. ‘For everyone else the risk is overtraining because intervals are very catabolic – they break the body down.

‘Alternate with long, easy rides that are more anabolic and therefore help strengthen the body. They’ll actually help you cope better with intervals.’

This type of training has also been heralded as a great way of burning calories, but you have to get it right.

‘Assuming you want to shed fat not muscle, you’re unlikely to be using fat as fuel for any short intervals, whether they’re 10 seconds or three minutes,’ says Butler.

‘What interval training does do is raise your metabolism for the rest of the day – that’s why you’re starving. That’s where the fat-burning happens and, as long as you’ve gone hard in the session, the interval length is unlikely to make a difference.

‘What will make a difference is whether you satisfy that hunger with broccoli or cake.’

Where’s the evidence?

Not even science has all the answers when it comes to choosing the right intervals.

‘A lot of the research is conflicting, or even shaky,’ says Newton. ‘You might read that two minutes of rest is ideal, but on what interval? If you’re doing 10-second max efforts, a two-minute rest isn’t long enough to repeat that effort with the same quality.

‘What’s a sprinter’s favourite position?’ he asks. ‘Sitting in a chair. They roll out, sit up for a few laps, race for one lap at max effort and roll back in. Then they sit in a chair to recover – and they need more than two minutes.’

Stern takes a different view. ‘There’s stacks of evidence in research papers showing how different training regimes alter fitness – everything from very short to much longer intervals,’ he counters.

‘That said, it’s important to understand that no one session is a magic bullet, and that your performance will be affected not only by specific sessions but by your total workload.’

‘Taking a sample of cyclists and giving them different training plans over an agreed time period doesn’t really tell us that one workout is better than another – it tells us that each type of interval training is associated with unique benefits,’ argues Butler.

‘If you want to be good at going flat out for 30 seconds every minute, how could there possibly be an argument against riding like that in training? You get good at what you do a lot of.’ 

As with so much of training, what works for you will be unique to you. ‘Different people respond better to different training so it’s worth experimenting,’ says Butler.

‘You may be able to go very deep in an interval session but need three days to recover, whereas someone else may be able to get up the next day and repeat the same session.

‘That may mean you go on to be very good at one-day events, while they may excel in stage races.’

‘Danish researchers came up with an interval that goes: 10 seconds flat out, 20 seconds hard, 30 seconds steady – not easy, but steady, so you’re still putting in an effort,’ says Newton.

‘Do that five times, rest for five minutes, do five minutes easy pedalling and then start again. Do it two or three times, but remember the point of intervals is that less is more – you should always finish feeling as if you could go again.

Why does it work? I don’t know, but what I do know is that it works for me and it works for the clients I’ve prescribed it to. Experiment, but always come back to what works for you.’

As Stern says, ‘Ultimately, if you’re increasing the power of either your aerobic or anaerobic systems – or both – that’s the most important thing.

The Tour of Flanders is the second of the year's five Monuments after Milan-San Remo, and slots into the Cobbled Classics calendar as the penultimate race before the following weekend's Paris-Roubaix. 

Defined by its cobbled climbs, the race is largely played out in a small part of Belgium known as the Vlaamse Ardennen, or Flemish Ardennes, and over the years has come to develop a reputation as a favourite for both spectators and riders alike, such is the atmosphere that accompanies the race as it winds its way through the lanes of Flanders. 

A major course change in 2011 sees the route centred around the town of Oudenaarde, and after Peter Sagan was crowned victor here in 2016, the town will again host the finish of the 2017 edition.

Tour of Flanders 2017: Key information

Date: Sunday 2nd April
Start: Antwerp, Belgium 
Finish: Oudenaarde, Belgium
UK television coverage: 0915-1100 and 1230-1600, Eurosport

Tour of Flanders 2017: route

The Tour of Flanders has changed the route numerous times over the course of its 100 editions, and 2017 again sees a break from recent years. Rather than starting in Bruges, which has hosted the race since 1998, the start will be held in Antwerp, and - after being left out since 2011 - the Muur Van Geraardsbergen is set to return. 

After starting in Antwerp the race heads towards the town of Oudenaarde, and after a couple of preliminary cobbled sectors the race starts a sequence of circuits. The first of these starts with the Oude Kwaremont - the only climb to feature in the race three times - and heads out to Geraarsbergen for the Muur, before returning to Oudenaarde and commencing two shorter laps, in which the Paterberg and Koppenberg both feature. 

Tour of Flanders 2017: teams

WorldTour teams

A2gr La Mondiale (Fra)
Astana Pro Team (Kaz)
Bahrain-Merida (Bhr)
BMC Racing Team (USA)
Bora-Hansgrohe (Ger)
Cannondale-Drapac (USA)
FDJ (Fra)
Lotto Soudal (Bel)
Movistar Team (Esp)
Orica-Scott (Aus)
Quick-Step Floors (Bel)
Team Dimension Data (RSA)
Team Katusha-Alpecin (Sui)
Team Lotto NL-Jumbo (Ned)
Team Sky (GBr)
Team Sunweb (Ger)
Trek-Segafredo (USA)
UAE Abu Dhabi (UAE)

Pro Continental wildcard teams

Cofidis, Solutions Crédits (Fra)
Direct Energie (Fra)
Roompot Nederlandse Loterij (Ned)
Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise (Bel)
Veranda's Willems-Crelan (Bel)
Wanty-Groupe Gobert (Bel)
Wilier Triestina (Ita)

Tour of Flanders 2017: key climbs

Oude-Kwaremont 

The Oude-Kwaremont is an important climb at the Tour of Flanders, as it appears three times over the course of the race. The final appearance is 16km from the finish, so serves as the perfect place to grind out an attack. Although it’s not especially steep (avg. 4%), it is 2.2km long and has ramps up to 12%.

Paterberg

The Paterberg appears twice in the Tour of Flanders just 3km after the Oude-Kwaremont, and is the final climb in the race just 13km before the finish line. Although the Paterberg is less than 400m, it averages just under 13% and has ramps up to 21%. This is the final place for riders to make a big attack – Fabian Cancellara used the final few metres to gap Peter Sagan in 2013, before soloing away to claim victory.

Koppenberg 

Despite its infamy, the Koppenberg only appears once at the Tour of Flanders, 220km into the race. The Koppenberg is steep (avg. 11%, max 22%) and narrow, but with 44km of racing to go is too far away from the finish to be a suitable place to mount an attack. That said, the racing here is manic as riders do not wish to be caught at the back, where you usually end up walking, ending your race.

Tour of Flanders 2017: Riders to watch

Peter Sagan, Bora-Hansgrohe

The punchy climbs of Flanders suit Sagan’s powerful bursts more so than the flat cobbles of Roubaix, and as such the Slovak looked almost beatable on the cobbles of Flanders last year as he rode away to victory. Is 2017 his race to lose?

John Degenkolb, Trek-Segafredo

Degenkolb has already won Milan-San Remo and Paris-Roubaix, and his strengths would seemingly suit the Tour of Flanders better than either of those two races. Despite a 2016 season plagued by an extensive recovery period after a being hit by a car in January, Degenkolb has his form back and the Classics in his crosshairs for 2017. 

Alexander Kristoff, Katusha-Alpecin

The 2015 winner, after a clever ride that saw him hang on to Niki Terpstra before outsprinting him - something which shows Kristoff has brains and race craft as well as a fast finish. A quieter 2016 followed, but Kristoff is already a winner in 2017, and will definitely be a force this spring. 

Tom Boonen, Quick-Step Floors

Boonen has achieved a lot in his career, and his three Tour of Flanders victories put him on equal par with 5 others in the all-time record. But his last Monument victory was back in 2012, and it seems the Belgian lacks the explosiveness that he once possessed.

However, he will go into the 2017 Tour of Flanders as the leader of Quick-Step Floors regardless, and with his pedigree and experience, it's inevitable that he'll be in the mix. Failing Boonen though, any one of his teammates - namely Zdenek Stybar and Niki Terpstra in particular - could be in a position to win, depending on how the race pans out.

Greg Van Avermaet, BMC

Greg Van Avermaet has always been there or thereabouts in the Tour of Flanders, so regardless of whether he wins, we can at least expect some action from the BMC Racing man. Van Avermaet has come of age in recent years, winning the Olympic Road Race, Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and GP Montreal in 2016 alone. Bet against him at your peril. 

Sep Vanmarcke, Cannondale-Drapac

After bursting onto the scene in 2012 after winning Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Sep Vanmarcke has been a regular feature at the pointy end of Cobbled Classics races. But the elusive victory has remained out of reach for the Belgian so far, and his recent show of form with 8th at E3 and 2nd at Gent-Wevelgem will have only increased the hunger for more in 2017.

While Vanmarcke is good at getting in the winning move, we think he might lack the clinical edge of a winner, and so his best hopes of winning will be in a sprint from a small group, after a hard, hard race. 

Tour of Flanders: History

The Tour of Flanders, or Ronde van Vlaanderen, the second of five Monuments in the professional racing calendar, can trace its history back to 1913. Most classic races were started to create headlines for a newspaper, and the Tour of Flanders is no different. The race was first conceived by Léon van den Haute, who wrote for Sportwereld, as a celebration of the Flemish region as the other major Belgian race, Liege-Bastogne-Liege, was held in the French speaking region of Belgium.

The first edition of De Ronde left Ghent at 6am on the 25^th of May 1913 and wound its way to a wooden velodrome in Mariakerke through 330km of badly kept roads. The first winner was Paul Deman, aged 25, outsprinting a group of six after over 12 hours of racing.

Although the first few editions were successful, the race still struggled to attract a great deal of entries, and financial sponsorship with it. The race really gained popularity in the 1930s, perhaps as a result of shortening the race to 264km, and by 1933 there was 164 riders on the start line.

The first 40 years of the Tour of Flanders is also famous for not allowing the riders any mechanical assistance. In the ‘30s the rules were changed so that a rider could accept a pump, or spare tyre, but only in an emergency and entirely at the commissarie's discretion. Bike changes were only permitted if the frame, wheel or bars broke while riding. Over the course of the 1950s the rules were changed to bring the Ronde more in line with other professional races.

The 1960’s was the decade that cemented Flanders in cycling history. Tom Simpson became the first British winner in 1961, followed by a huge popularity surge in 1962 that saw the finish moved to Gentbrugge to cope with the spectators. 1969 marked the emergence of Eddy Merckx, who won the race by 5’ 36” over Felice Gimondi - the race’s largest ever winning margin. 

Era of the ‘Bergs’ 

Flanders made more big changes in the 1970s – the race was known for it’s tough course but many of the original roads had been paved over, making the course considerably easier. In 1973 the finish was moved again, this time to Meerbeke, close to the Muur van Geraardsbergen, which became a legendary part of the race. In 1976 the Koppenberg was included, feared by many due to its 22% cobbled ramps, and was the location of the beginning of Roger De Vlaeminck and Freddy Maerten’s bitter rivalry.

The 1980’s was characterised by a complete domination by Belgian and Dutch riders, including the legendary 1985 edition that saw only 24 out of 174 finish. The 1990’s era of Flanders is best known for Johan Museeuw’s exploits that included three victories and eight podium finishes. So complete was his control of the race he was nicknamed the ‘Lion of Flanders’. 

Post-2000

In 2005 the Tour of Flanders was included in the inaugural UCI Pro Tour, establishing it as one of the five Monuments of cycling. In the 2000’s a new star of Belgian cycling emerged, Tom Boonen, who won two consecutive victories in 2005 and 2006, with another following in 2012.

The big upset came in 2011, not from the riders but from the organising committee. The race was taken over by ‘Flanders Classics’, who moved the finish to Oudenaarde, much closer to the Koppenberg but also removing the Muur from the parcours to great outcry from the fans. The Tour of Flanders celebrates its 100^th edition on April 3rd 2016.

Top five editions

1977 – De Vlaeminck vs. Maertens 

Roger De Vlaeminck and Freedy Maertens were the stars of Belgian cycling towards the end of the ‘70s and were bitter rivals. They had both been dropped in the 1976 edition as they both decided they would rather lose, than see the other one win.

In 1977, Freddy Maertens suffered a puncture on the newly introduced Koppenberg while De Vlaeminck broke away. Maertens was given a wheel by a spectator and assisted to the top where he quickly caught De Vlaeminck, who had also punctured. As it was just the two riders together, De Vlaeminck refused to work with Maertens. Maertens rode 70km to the finish, with De Vlaeminck stuck to his wheel, and was then easily beaten by a relatively fresh De Vlaeminck in the sprint. It was De Vlaeminck’s only Flanders win.

The riders both fell out and to this day still dispute that day’s events. Maertens claims he believed he was to be disqualified for the wheel swap, and De Vlaeminck supposedly offered to pay him to keep riding and evade the peloton. De Vlaeminck denies this and claims he was riding tactically as he knew Maertens was a better sprinter.

1985 – Vanderaerden vs. the elements

Although Eric Vanderaerden’s solo win, aged 23, is worthy of a mention itself, it’s the weather that really grabbed the headlines. Vanderaerden broke a wheel before the Koppenberg, but managed to chase back onto a strong leading group including Greg LeMond and his team-mate Phil Anderson. Although a sprinter, Vanderaerden attacked on the Muur and soloed the final 20km to the finish.

While the attack is impressive enough, it all took place during a severe storm that broke during the second leg of the race. Of 174 starters, only 24 finished.

1987 – Jesper Skibby vs. the race official 

The Koppenberg’s fame comes not only from the steepness of it’s cobbled slopes but also the narrowness of the road. This all came to a head in 1987, when Danish rider Jesper Skibby was hit by an official car. The car was following close behind and when Skibby began to slow, the car (pressured by the encroaching peloton) knocked Skibby to the ground while trying to pass then ran over his back wheel, narrowly missing his leg and ending his race. After this, the Koppenberg was removed from the race for 15 years while the road was widened.

1994 – Bugno vs. Museeuw

Johan Museeuw dominated the Tour of Flanders so much that they nicknamed him the 'Lion of Flanders', but 1994 didn’t go his way. While the Belgians owned the race, the Italian classics riders wanted to claim it with Argentin, Bartoli and Bugno all taking wins.

In 1994, Museeuw contested the sprint with Bugno and lost by just 7mm – the smallest winning margin in Tour of Flanders history. The next day one newspaper ran the finish line photo with the headline ‘The Sorrow of Flanders’.

2011 – Everyone vs. the Muur

As it happens, 2011 was an unremarkable running of the Tour of Flanders save for one fact: It was the last time the Muur van Geraardsbergen featured. In 2012 the race changed to include a finishing circuit to better enable the new owners to sell VIP tickets, which excluded the Muur and focused on the Koppenberg, Oude Kwaremont and Paterberg.

The Muur used to be 16km from the finish and was often used as a springboard for many successful victories. In 2011, Fabian Cancellara and Sylvain Chavanel led up the Muur but were ultimately outsprinted by Nick Nuyens. 

Sportive

The top tube of my BMC is currently obscured by a bright yellow sticker that runs along its length. It marks the 15 climbs that lie ahead of me over the 245km of the Ronde van Vlaanderen. This, the hard man event of cycling, promises not only climbs, but cobbles, crazy gradients and savage winds that blast across the Flemish landscape.

It’s 6.40am and I’m standing in a state of sleep-deprived hypnosis in a car park beside Bruges’s Jan Breydel football stadium. A few thousand people surround me, many making last-minute adjustments to their bikes before shooting off to the start line 7km away in the centre of town. Unlike most European sportives, the start has no loud music, shouty commentator or starting pistol – instead participants can set off any time between 7am and 8am. By the time I amble to the start line it’s 7.30am and all the serious riders have long since departed. I waste no time in hitting the first stretch of the infamous Flemish cobbles.

The path to Oudenaarde

The cobble is a curious little artefact. Protruding about one or two centimetres from the ground at random jagged angles, with a slippery and inconsistent surface texture, it would appear to have been designed deliberately to provide the worst possible surface for riding a bike on. Rolling along Bruges’s cobbled city streets, I repeat to myself the advice I’ve been given time and time again: ‘Loose hands, big gear, light steering.’ It’s all going remarkably well, but I begin to suspect these neatly laid stones pale in comparison with what lies ahead. Crossing a drawbridge out of the centre, hundreds of cyclists feed onto the main road and head on the 100km journey to where the cobbles proper begin.

Interestingly, none of the routes available on this sportive replicate the precise route of the pro race of the following day. The race organisers decided in 2011 to loop over the Oude Kwaremont climb three times, offering a hub for spectators, but removing some of the classic climbs from the race’s history. In contrast, the sportive follows a hybrid route between the old and new course. It covers 15 climbs (‘bergs’ as they’re called), and a handful of cobbled flat sections. But first comes the trek to Oudenaarde.

On seeing the route plan, I imagined we would hurtle through the first 100km on wide roads in a pack hundreds deep. But unfortunately the organisers are quick to force us onto the cycle paths that border the roads. Little known to me is the fact that the use of cycle lanes is compulsory where they’re available in Belgium.

While the cycle paths are impressively maintained and wide, we quickly find ourselves in a thick bunch squeezing through bollards and hoping that no unseen obstacles pop up out of the mass of riders. I get into conversation with a pair of friendly Londoners, Ryan and Dan, who warn that the next 90km is much the same, but promise that the cobbles will be worth the wait.

Up ahead a handful of riders are powering away from the group. I seize the opportunity for a little more space and sprint my way up to them. I glance behind and see a solitary figure chasing us down. ‘That’s one match burnt,’ he exclaims in a strong Irish accent.

In our smaller group we manage to cover the first 100km in a little under three hours. Herbie, the match-burning Irishman, has pushed hard on the front at an alarming pace that means that by Oudenaarde I’m slightly worried that my own matchbox may soon be empty.

The tip of the Berg

As seemingly flat as the region of Flanders may be, it’s also home to innumerable short climbs with painfully steep gradients. It’s what makes the Tour of Flanders the domain of only the toughest riders. What’s more, the insistence by the Flemish government to protect the cobbled road surfaces as sites of national heritage gives rise to a unique feature – the cobbled climb.

The first climb of the day is already strewn with broken spirits. The Wolvenberg, reaching only 60m of elevation at an average of 4%, looks easy on the route profile but it includes a nasty 200m stretch of 20%, and as we grind up the slope I’m painfully aware of the 130km left ahead of me. 

Having crested the Wolvenberg we hit two flat cobbled sections in quick succession that make me realise just how mild the Bruges stretch was. My hands are tightening up, I’m pushing all my effort into a big gear and maintaining a reasonable speed, but it comes at a great cost to the energy reserves in my legs. 

After our flirtation with cobbles, the road returns to glorious tarmac for a while, cutting through sunny farmlands, until I spy a cobbled path emerging from the hedgerow to our left. Looking ahead at the Molenberg snaking up into the hillside, I get my first real taste of the savagery of the Ronde.

The Molenberg is extremely difficult to climb. The cobbles give little traction and the road tilts up to a punishing 15%. More than a muscular or cardiovascular demand, the real challenge is maintaining balance. Remembering the friendly advice of fellow cyclists, I try to keep the gear high and my hands loose, but it’s easier said than done. I’m struggling to keep a decent cadence and I’m gripping my bars for dear life.

What’s more, by the time we hit the cobbled climbs, we’re arriving alongside the stragglers from the shorter routes, and I have to dart and squeeze through gaps while keeping up some reasonable pace on the climb.

The Molenberg is followed by an easy 20km on tarmac punctuated by cobbled and concreted sections. But it’s not long before the climbs are back, with the paved Valkenberg and Boigneberg striking in quick succession, and the cobbled Eikenberg following. The gutter offers some relief from the cobbles, although I feel a little guilty for rolling along its flat surface. Herbie, who I’ve stuck with so far, looks away in disgust, opting instead for the middle of the pavé. ‘You can avoid cobbles at home, mate!’ he shouts.

Then, only a food stop separates us from the hardest climb of the day – the Koppenberg.

King of the cobbles

In the run-up to the Koppenberg, it seems that only me and a Flemish man, who must be in his late seventies, seem to be keen on doing any of the work at the front of our little chaingang, and by the time we reach the foot of the climb it’s clear enough why – the road is crowded with walking cyclists. On the lower slopes the cobbles immediately drain what little reserves I have left, and I switch straight into my easiest gear – fortunately a considerate 34/32.

As the Koppenberg starts to bite, I’m juggling the quad-tearingly steep gradient with my route through the crowds and my traction on the cobbles. It was here in 1987 that Danish pro Jesper Skibby famously hit the ground while on a solo break, and was subsequently run over by the race director eager not to hold up the chasing pack. I’m hopeful not to reenact the scene.

I manage to stay upright, and just as I feel like I’m about to pop, I suddenly seem to be airborne and floating above the road. The cobbles have given way to tarmac and the relief is exquisite.

Before I have my breath back we hit the Steenbeekdries, which again mixes incline and cobbles. It’s also the only stretch of the course to offer a cobbled descent, which is a prospect that has my already aching joints twanging with trepidation. Strangely, at speed the cobbles seem barely perceptible, and I touch 45kmh on the descent (a glance at Strava afterwards shows that Nikki Terpstra hit 65kmh on this same stretch). 

Next comes the Taaienberg, followed quickly by the Kanarieberg, the Kruisberg and the Karnemelkbeekstraat. Keeping track of the climbs is almost as exhausting as riding up them, but I know we’re winding towards the finish now, with a couple of obstacles in our way – the queen climbs of the day. The Oude Kwaremont and the Paterberg are both cobbled, with the Kwaremont being the longest climb of the day, and the Paterberg the steepest. 

The Kwaremont may be long, but it’s considerate in its incline and begins with a winding 5% tarmac section (it will be here that Fabian Cancellara will make his break in following day’s pro race to win the 2014 Tour of Flanders). When the cobbles hit, there’s no hiding as there’s not even an inch of gutter, but I’m finding my rhythm and with the sun out, and the land opening up to pleasant vistas, I’m beginning to enjoy the rattle of the cobbles.

The pavé spikes up to an aggressive 12%, but then levels off and moves to a shallower 3% stretch. I spot some flat paving in the gutter and steal a moment of relief, until Herbie’s look of disappointment pulls me back onto the cobbles. Looking over the rolling Belgian fields, I can see why, despite its desolate flatness, Flanders holds a magnetic charm over cyclists.

The Paterberg is the centrepiece of the pro race, featuring three times. The climb has an interesting history, in that it’s one of the least historical climbs of the race. It was featured for the first time in 1986, only after local farmer Paul Vande Walle wrote to the organisers insisting his own self-paved farm track outdid any of those currently included in the race. They repaved it to ‘regulation’ cobbles and it’s been
a central feature ever since.

Squeezing my way up, I curse Vande Walle with all my limited breath. Taking the first corner of the Paterberg, the full 400m cobbled stretch lies in view, and the summit seems desperately far away. I’m sitting in my trusty 34/32 and trying to keep my cadence in double figures, but I do feel I’m finally learning how to handle this abominable road surface – balancing my weight evenly on the bike, I leave my hands loose and let the bike find its own way. Finally I reach the cheering crowds at the summit of the berg, and it’s all downhill from here.

What starts off as an amble, with everyone catching their breath after the Paterberg, slowly gains speed towards the finish and grows into a full-on train. With Herbie and two Flandrians taking turns on the front, I glance down to see 50kmh pop up on my Garmin on flat roads.

As the line approaches, our growing pack readies for the final sprint, even though the fastest finishers came in long ago. I fly under the banner and raise a weary arm aloft, before slamming on the brakes to avoid the hordes of riders taking selfies around the finish line.

As I settle down in a cafe, my bones simply don’t feel right. I’m dehydrated to the point of mummification and I fear it could be days before feeling returns to my perineum. Despite the satisfaction of covering 245km in a day, I slightly resent the first 100km – it only served to dilute the charm of the cobbles, and hampered my opportunity to attack them as hard as I would have hoped. Next time, maybe I’ll choose the mid-distance event, but one thing is for certain, I know the cobbles will draw me back again.

Kidnapping was once the national sport of Italy. No one was safe. For three decades from the late 1960s, more than 700 men, women, children and pensioners were taken hostage.

And the hub of the kidnap industry was a spectacular mountain range on the island of Sardinia called the Supramonte. And that’s where Cyclist is heading today.

The remote gorges and caves in this area were regularly used as hiding places for the kidnap gangs and their victims. The nearest town, Orgosolo, became known as the ‘Capital of Silence’, because no one would reveal anything to the police. 

Our guide and native Sardinian, Marcello, has warned me the residents of Orgosolo are quite sensitive about the town’s reputation. In 1992 the town made international headlines when an eight-year-old boy was freed after nearly six months in captivity.

Part of his left ear had been sliced away and sent to his parents with the ransom demand. And just over three years ago, Italy’s most notorious kidnapper – Graziano Mesina – was caught hiding in the town.

Supramonte and Orgosolo are perfectly safe now, Marcello reassures me, though it’s probably best I don’t make any jokes about the Mafia, omerta or banditos.

It’s a short, stiff climb up to the town from the Cedrino river, and I’m wondering whether my choice of fancy kit might be considered an invitation to any former hostage-takers to come out of retirement.

Fortunately, a mix-up over sizing means the high-end Pinarello bike I’d been promised never materialised, so I’m riding a cheaper German frame instead.

No self-respecting bandito would think they could get a ransom for that, surely?

Pretty in pink

It’s taken us nearly three hours to reach Orgosolo from the beach resort of Cala Gonone on Sardinia’s east coast. A chunk of that time was taken up with the 7km, 7% average gradient climb from our sea-level hotel.

Since then, a soaring ridge of pink limestone has filled the horizon, signalling the labyrinth of gorges, peaks and valleys that make up the 35,000 hectares of the Supramonte.

It looks too benign and lovely to have once been the haunt of kidnappers and killers, but the situation was once so bad that a Sardinian politician described the island as ‘a kind of Wild West’, and the national government considered sending in 4,500 troops.

‘It’s definitely safe now?’ I ask Marcello, slightly concerned that hardly a single car has passed us since we left the last town of Oliena and started the gentle, winding climb over the mountain to Orgosolo.

‘It’s fine, you’ll see, there is no kidnapping now,’ says Marcello, although I’m getting paranoid there’s a reason why he’s suddenly letting me lead the way up the heavily forested slopes when earlier he’d been doing all the pacesetting. 

When we finally arrive in the town, we are greeted by scenes of violence and conflict on a massive scale. Fortunately, they are in the form of murals painted on the walls of the town’s public buildings.

Regardless of its violent history, Orgosolo is now a tourist trap cashing in on its popularity with muralists from all over Europe.

And instead of glorifying the area’s kidnapping legacy, the artworks depict more abstract scenes, ranging from cubist-style renderings of local politicians to anti-war messages and Communist propaganda.

The only danger facing the unwary cyclist these days is the threat of being squashed by a car packed with tourists trying to negotiate the narrow streets.

We stop at a cafe decorated with a cartoon of a shifty-looking figure carrying a sheep around his shoulders. Whether he’s a farmer or a livestock rustler isn’t obvious, and we decide it’s probably best not to ask for clarification.

A group of locals has suddenly congregated in the doorway, paying particular attention to our bikes. I’m glad it’s Marcello who is riding the more expensive-looking one. 

One of the locals is a young man with a walking stick. Another is a tall, gaunt figure dressed entirely in black. 

We shuffle inside and order drinks, but the tall man would appear to object to this and is suddenly having an animated conversation with Marcello while shooting menacing looks in my direction.

I’m wondering whether I could possibly have any value on the international hostage-taking market. Surely the current Euro-Sterling exchange rate makes me worthless?

Then Marcello says, ‘This man here is called Francesco. And he would like to buy you a drink.’

Over a beer we are soon bonding with Francesco and the man with the walking stick who shares his name, Graziano, with the town’s most infamous son, Graziano Mesina, ‘King of the Kidnappers’, who spent more than 50 years in and out of prison before his latest arrest two years ago aged 71 for drug-smuggling.

(This detail isn’t actually volunteered by Graziano, but related to me by Marcello later. Graziano is keener to tell us about how he won a medal at the European Paralympian Dressage competition of 2011.) 

Francesco and Graziano are curious about what we are doing here – while mountain bikers are a common sight, road cyclists are a relative novelty – and are anxious to tell us the story behind the town’s most colourful mural depicting a confrontation between local farmers and the army.

It seems the government wanted to open a military base here, but the farmers said they needed tractors and ploughs more than tanks and helicopters.

The base was never built, and the slogan above the mural reads in Italian: ‘The farm = life. The army = ????’

Packed with emptiness

So it’s with a bellyful of beer but our liberty intact that we start the climb out of Orgosolo. The slopes are heavily wooded with cork and oak trees and we are occasionally surprised by a cow or pig blocking the road in front of us.

The only motorised traffic we encounter during the next few hours is a coach parked up at the side of the road, its cargo of tourists visiting the ruins of one of the many ancient, megalithic tombs and towers that dot the Sardinian countryside. 

The road tilts downwards and we skirt the ‘ghost village’ of Pratobello, where a faded mural hints at its past as a shepherd’s community.

Then the road points upwards once more, and the slope doesn’t relent until 13km later when we reach the 1,247m Paso de Correboi – ‘Pass of the Cow’s Horn’ – and the highest point of the route. 

The views down the valley – with Sardinia’s highest peak, the 1,834m Punta la Marmora, to our right and the tombstone-shaped tower of Mont Perda Liana straight ahead – are a contrast to the landscape from which we have just emerged.

Instead of thick forest, we are now confronted by sparse scrubland and rocky outcrops that look like a scene from a spaghetti western. Below us, an empty ribbon of tarmac – the ‘fast road’ from north to south – snakes along the valley floor. 

We appear to have the whole island to ourselves. It’s an uncanny yet captivating sensation, and we have to rein in our exuberance as we start the long, sinuous descent.

The road, long since usurped by the new stretch of highway below, has been neglected for years and features stretches where there is no longer a barrier between us and a precipitous, dizzying drop. 

When we reach the rocky river bed at the bottom, we snake beneath several bridges that carry the new road above us, before veering left and upwards towards our next mountain pass.

In the 40km since leaving Orgosolo, we haven’t passed any sign of human settlement, and I’m starting to get hungry.

The population of Sardinia is only 1.5 million, half of which lives in the capital, Cagliari, meaning it’s the second least densely populated part of Italy.

Or, as Marcello puts it succinctly, ‘It’s very empty.’ 

That’s worth bearing in mind if you’re planning a long day in the saddle. Convenient coffee and food stops are few and far between.

We’d taken the precaution of stocking up with bread, cheese, pistachios and cake from a supermarket back in Cala Gonone. (My plan to raid the hotel breakfast buffet was thwarted by it appearing to consist of little more than a giant display of teabags and chocolate spreads, plus a couple of lukewarm tinned hotdog sausages.)

We top up our energy levels with an impromptu picnic before starting this next 10km ascent. 

Beasts of the road

The climb eventually flattens out on a barren, breezy plateau. The only creatures we see on the way up are cows, pigs, goats and a solitary mountain biker.

‘The pigs roam wild and their meat is delicious,’ says Marcello. He can’t comment on the mountain biker. 

The drabness of the plateau gives no indication of what’s about to come, nor how high above sea level we are.

The only clue that something dramatic is about to unfold is the huge expanse of blue sky ahead of us, uncluttered by clouds or mountain peaks. 

As we reach the crest of the road, a spectacular vista is revealed. A succession of ridges and tree-covered escarpments ripple to the coast and the distant port of Tortoli.

The road spirals down below us in a seemingly relentless succession of hairpins. One hairpin seems to graze the pastel-coloured house and church tower of a village that’s nestled in the nook of a rock face.

There are deep gorges and soaring rock faces to our left and right. And wriggling its way between the rock and the scrub, clinging to the contours all the way to the bottom where it becomes a hazy blur, is the thin strip of tarmac we will be riding down.

We lose height quickly, enjoying the sensation of leaning the bike through the curves, but now there is a slight complication.

Although Sardinia’s roads have been largely empty until this point, this particular stretch of road is, unsurprisingly, rather popular with leather-jacketed gentlemen astride their peace-shattering motorcycles.

Our descent is a cautious one for fear of a head-on meeting with the handlebars of a Harley-Davidson on one of the narrow stretches of road between hairpins. 

We make it to the village of Talána without incident and stop at a bar for a slice of pizza.

One of the regulars is quite an old fellow, prompting Marcello to lower his voice and point discreetly at him. I’m bracing myself to hear that he’s a retired bandit who will take great offence if we don’t finish every morsel of our food.

In fact, Marcello asks me to guess his age. He looks about 70. ‘He’s probably older,’ says Marcello. ‘We have more centenarians in Sardinia than any other country outside of Mongolia or Japan.’

I have no way of knowing the veracity of Marcello’s information. He’s previously told me he qualified in ‘wine and cycling tourism’. I suppose he could have learned this fact in the ‘How Exercise And Wine Aid Indigenous Longevity’ module. It certainly makes sense.

During our loop through this stunning mountain landscape, we’ve seen barely a hint of modernity. The pace of life is tangibly slower and more relaxed here, and the associated stresses lower, even more so now that the threat of being kidnapped while out tending your flock of goats appears to have been permanently removed.

End with a twist

We’re reminded of this rusticity during the next stage of the ride. The mountain villages of Talána and Urzulei appear within shouting distance of each other, but the road connecting them has to circumvent a deep valley and makes the journey 12km long.

From Urzulei, we begin the final climb of the day, which lasts for 11km.

The first section is an enjoyable, twisty affair, but once it joins the SS125 coastal road, the climb becomes a heads-down, grit-your-teeth drag.

When we do manage to lift our gaze from our stems, the wall of mountains to our left – the heart of the range we have just looped around – is silhouetted against the dipping sun.

We curl around a final pinnacle of rock and then start the descent through a succession of landslide shelters.

After emerging from the final one, the mountains to our left tumble down in a series of forested ridges towards the floor of the Orosei valley.

From here, it is a glorious 25km descent back to our hotel in Cala Gonone.

To our right, a steep ridge of pink-tinged mountains blocks out views of the sea, while to our left, the peaks of the Supramonte with their hidden bandits’ lairs and romantic mythology are starting to darken in the early evening light. 

The route

(Click here to download this route).

By all means start in Cala Gonone itself, although if you can get a lift up to the top of the first climb – which is one of the busiest stretches of road on the island and not particularly scenic – it will save you a good chunk of time.

At the top, follow the main coast road, the SS125, in the direction of Núoro. After 5km take a left turn for Oliena. Continue through Oliena until you come to a left turn signposted for Orgosolo and the SP22.

Once through Orgosolo, leave the SP22, bearing left uphill on the SP48. After approximately 6km, look out for an unmarked right turn (easily missed in this thickly wooded area). Take this turning and follow downhill.

After passing under a flyover, turn left. After 8km look out for a left turn signposted for Lanusei. Follow over the pass and downhill until you arrive at a riverbed.

There is a barrier across the road (most traffic uses the new main road on the flyover above you to your right) but plenty of room for cyclists.

Continue from here for 3km and then take a left turn (uphill) signposted for Talána. After a 10km climb, you will reach the mountain pass. From here, it’s all downhill to Talána.

After Talána look out for a left turn signposted ‘Campo Deportivo’ (easily missed). Take this road, which goes uphill for a short distance before continuing downhill to Urzulei.

After Urzulei, the road starts climbing again. Keep on it until you join the main coastal road, the SS125, and turn left.

This road climbs for 8km before offering a final, downhill stretch all the way back to the turn off for the road you climbed up from Cala Gonone.

How we got there

Travel

The nearest Sardinian airport to Cala Gonone is Olbia, served from the UK by Easyjet, with a transfer time of about 90 minutes. There are other UK flight options to Cagliari, but the transfer time can be twice as long. 

Accommodation

Cyclist stayed at Cala Gonone Beach Village, an all-inclusive resort about a kilometre from the centre of town. Doubles start from €90
(£77) per night half board or €120 (£102) per night full board. 

Marcello’s company, Sardinia Grand Tour, also offers other hotel options in Cala Gonone, which are nearer to the beaches and restaurants. Pizzeria San Francisco does decent food, although the pizzas are of the thick crust variety.

Thanks

Thanks to Marcello Usala for arranging the logistics of our trip. His company offers guided and self-guided cycling tours around the island, including hotel accommodation and bike hire. Seven-night guided tours, including airport transfers, accommodation and most meals, start from €1,090 (£928). More details at sardiniagrandtour.com.

1 Double up your bar tape

You can make your ride a helluva lot easier on your hands simply by wrapping two lots of tape around your handlebars to soak up road noise.

This is a trick that’s been used by pros for years – particularly those who take on the dreaded pavé of the spring Classics.

A cheaper– but no less effective – option is to wrap an old inner tube around your bars underneath your existing tape.

Obviously remove the inner tube and cut it down to length first before applying.

2 Sleep on an empty(ish) stomach

‘Denied fuel for five hours, your body will start burning its own fat,’ says fitness expert and author Bob Harper.

‘That means if your dinner was at 8pm, you’ll be burning fat by 1am. The lack of carbs in your bloodstream will also let your body produce the hormones it needs for better sleep.’

The theory is backed up by sports scientist and cycling coach Dr Allen Lim, who says, ‘The best pros go to bed a little bit hungry.

'When you go to bed moderately hungry, you lose about a pound a week.’

3 Go for light-coloured clothing

This is another one for when the sun (finally) comes out again. Avoid cycling in dark-coloured clothing in hot weather.

Opt instead for light colours which will reflect the sun’s rays rather than absorb it, which is what darker colours do.

And when we say clothing we mean tops (jerseys etc) never shorts. White shorts for a cyclist are just plain wrong.

Why? Because they show up any dirt instantly, including any leaks your body may choose to spring on you mid ride. Ewww... 

4 Don't forget the sunscreen

Tan lines are all well and good but long hours on the bike when the sun reappears can leave you with sunburn, so apply before you ride and take some with you for when your sweat has washed it off.

Using mini shampoo containers of the type you pinch from hotel rooms (we all do, don’t we?) is one way to transport them.

Another is to get a contact lens case (you can buy packs of four for less than a fiver on Amazon).

Fill the left eye case with sun cream, the right one with lip balm, and stick it in your back pocket.

5 Use traffic lights as motivation

Traffic lights are good when they’re green, awful when they’re amber, and rubbish when they’re red. So turn them to your advantage and use them as a way of getting some fat-burning, anaerobic-fitness boosting sprints in.

If you’re approaching a set of lights and they’re still green, sprint to and through them – you’ll more than likely hit a red or amber at the next set, where you’ll be able to get your breath back.

Unless, of course, you sync it just right and hit a ‘green wave’ – in which case you’ll be sprinting till you honk your breakfast up!

6 Use your old inner tubes for stretching

Another great use for seemingly done-for inner tubes is to convert them into improvised resistance bands for pre- and post-ride stretching exercises.

You’ll help keep your muscles supple, add to your eco credentials with some instant recycling, and save yourself a few quid into the bargain. Which is a win-win-win!  

7 Always have some duct tape with you

Good stuff, duct tape. It can be used to remedy any number of sticky in-the-saddle situations from patching up torn waterproofs or busted mudguards to providing an emergency fix for a slashed tyre.

Simply wrap a piece around your seat post or your on-board pump and forget about it until the day you need it. 

8 Never leave home without a spare gear hanger

All-too-easy to bend or break, a spare gear hanger – also known as a replaceable dropout – is useful to keep about you.

Usually made from so metal, your bike’s gear hanger is designed to break under stress to protect more expensive bits of your bike such as the rear derailleur and frame.

In fact, something as simple as using the wrong gear can cause it to snap. There are many types of hanger and as they’re usually specific to your frame, sourcing a replacement can be tricky.

So pre-source one from your local bike shop if you don’t already have one and take it with you.

9 Be sure to stash a plastic fiver

Those new plastic five-pound notes may look like play money but they actually make for great temporary patches.

Should you find yourself stranded at the roadside with a big slash down your tyre wall, you can use the note as a temporary boot on the inside of the tyre to get you out of trouble.

If you don’t have a fiver on you, an energy bar wrapper will do the job just as well. Just take the energy bar out first, eh?

10 Hold onto your valve caps

Next time you change your tyre, don’t ditch the valve cap that comes with the new inner tube. Why? Because if you snip the top off you can use it as a rough-and-ready Presta to Schrader valve converter.

If you’re in a tight spot you can use it to top up your tyres at the nearest petrol station.

And if you’re out of money or don’t want to break into that plastic fiver, try to find a Sainsbury’s garage rather than an Asda or a Tesco, where they won’t charge you for the air.

11 Keep some zip ties handy

Zip ties aren’t just for cuffing crims, they’re great for saving cyclists, too. They do all manner of jobs in an emergency, from anchoring a broken saddle to its rails, to serving as a makeshift seatpost bolt, or standing in for a missing chain ringbolt.

They’re light and cheap and will hold things together should your ride turn the shape of a pear.

12 Pack some split-links

These smart, snap-together chain links make re-joining a broken chain much easier.

Ideally, the damaged link should be removed with a chain tool but you should be able to break apart a snapped link with the screwdriver on your multi-tool.

It’s not ideal but it will get you home. Just type ‘split links’ into Amazon if you don’t own any – yours for a couple of quid.

13 Use your stem as a cache

And where do you put all your emergency supplies (zip ties, fivers and so forth)? Simple. Make sure that you never leave home without your emergency kit on board your bike by stashing it in the body of your handlebar stem.

That way, should your bike come a cropper when you’re out on the road, you’ll always have the necessary bits and bobs to rescue your ride.

14 Ride with wider tyres

If you’re currently riding on 23mm tyres and your bike has the clearance to take some wider rubber, consider upping the width to 25 or even 28mm.

Running wider tyres with slightly lower pressure can help transform the comfort of your ride, particularly relieving neck and hand pain.

15 Always look to maintain a steady pace

Pros ride a lot at a steady pace to build and maintain endurance – and you should too.

That means riding in Zone 2, with your heart rate at about 25-35% below maximum. If you ride without a heart- rate monitor, you can judge it by your ability to hold a conversation.

Manage one and you’ll be in the right zone, start gasping and you’re riding too hard. That doesn’t mean ride super-slow, but maintain a steady, moderate pace – it will seem almost too easy at first but on rides over two hours, you’ll know you’ve been on a bike.

16 Use furniture spray on your frame

Everyone likes their bike to look its best. But if you’ve just given your beloved a wash and scrub only to discover you’re out of showroom polish, then a tin of Mr Sheen or even a supermarket’s own-brand furniture polish will do just as well.

Not only will it make your bike gleam but it’ll restrict the amount of dirt that a aches itself to your frame when you next go out for a spin.

It also saves you forking out for dedicated showroom sprays, and when you’re done you can give the living room a once over with it, too!

17 Squeeze fresh lime juice into your water bottles

Limes are amazing. A study in 2000 found that adding lime juice to food had helped curtail a cholera epidemic in Guinea-Bissau in West Africa.

OK, so you may not be at risk from cholera but as the flavonoids in lime juice has a proven track record as a powerful anti-bacterial agent it’ll help keep the inside of your bidons clean.

It’ll also add a zesty tang to metallic-tasting tap water, while providing your immune system with a dash of vitamin C. And all for 30p a go from your local greengrocers. Bargain!

18 Use newspaper on your shoes

Once you’ve finished your ride and you take off your shoes, remove the footbeds, and then stuff sheets of crumpled up newspaper inside them.

This will soak up any rain or sweat the shoes have absorbed on your ride. You’ll be surprised how much moisture paper can absorb this way, so check them after a couple of hours and replace the newspaper if necessary.

That way you’ll be putting your feet into nice, dry shoes the next day, not something that feels like a trout’s mouth!

19 Make your zip-pulls longer

Do yourself a favour – go to amazon.co.uk, type in ‘zipper extension’ and pop a pack of cheap (we’re talking less than a fiver) zip cords in your basket.

When the postie puts them through your letter box add them to the zips on your jacket, saddle bag or jersey pocket to make opening and closing them easier when your hands are deep inside winter gloves.

20 Use talc on your inner tubes

By dusting down your inner tubes with baby powder before installing them you’ll reduce your chances of suff ering a puncture.

The powder makes the rubber’s surface slippery, so the tube and tyre are less likely to stick together, reducing friction in the process. It will also make fitting the tubes easier – which is never a bad thing!

21 Use your phone as a map

Unless you’re still rocking an old Motorola clamshell, your phone will more than likely have the ability to take screen shots off that internet thingy.

So snap a map or a route you want to follow on Google maps and use it to navigate offline when you’re out on the road. You’ll save your data allowance as well as your battery.

22 Save big efforts for the end of your ride

Smashing out intervals is all well and good at the start of a ride, but you’ll gain more from them at the end when you’re tired.

When you’re in a glycogen-depleted state, more intense efforts are likely to make your body more efficient at burning fat and improves mental toughness, too.

As sports psychologist and author of The Only Way To Win, Dr Jim Loehr puts it, ‘Toughness is the ability to consistently perform towards the upper range of your skill regardless of the circumstances.’

So dig deepest when you least feel like it and you’ll set new, improved limits for yourself.

23 Freeze a bottle before a hot ride

Next time you go out for a long, hot ride (we appreciate this may be still be a ways off!), pre-freeze the liquid in one of your bidons.

Leave it for the last part of the ride, by which time it’ll have melted, and you’ll have a long, cool, refreshing drink to see you into the home straight.

You can find out all you need to know about the 2017 Tour of Flanders in our in-depth race preview, but to get you in the mood we reminisce over past adventures on the cobbled climbs of Flanders.

It seems only fair to warn you right here at the very start that you don’t go cycling in Flanders for the scenery. Or the weather.

Normally in this Big Ride feature of Cyclist you would be drinking in views of sinuously snaking tarmac draped dramatically over a warm and inviting landscape. A cosy continental challenge played out in short sleeves. 

But Flanders is much more fun than that. Mountain passes can be conquered with compact gearsets, but no amount of sprocket switching will make the cobbled climbs in this part of Belgium any easier.

You come here precisely because it’s hard and unique. And while your tan lines might not improve, you can be sure that a trip to Flanders will leave a more lasting impression on your cycling psyche. 

We’re battling into a block headwind. Hands are on the drops and shoulders are being shrugged in as we attempt to cheat the hefty gale blowing straight into our faces.

The distance to the end of the pan flat, dead straight cycle path we’re on doesn’t seem to be shrinking either. Every time I look up, the four tall trees at the end still seem to be the same depressingly small size.

Between us and the poplars there isn’t the slightest scrap of shelter, just bare fields all around. I glance across at Alex and I can tell that this isn’t his idea of a gentle warm-up either.

William is tucked in behind, having taken a cunning turn on the front just before we joined this open sided wind-tunnel. 

I first met William and Alex (who run Pavé Cycling Classics - cyclingpave.cc) last year when I got beaten up by the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix (the Big Ride of which we'll post next week).

That exquisitely painful ride remains one of the very best experiences I’ve ever had on a bike, and I’ve spent the intervening year pestering editor Pete Muir to let me go back across the Channel to try the cobbles of Flanders. So here I am. 

Back to the start

William lives in Lille, so before our ride we drive the half an hour or so out to Oudenaarde (known as Little Brugge) first thing in the morning.

It’s not a picturesque drive but there’s a thrill just knowing that you’re in such a cycling heartland.

Sky, Omega Pharma-Quick Step, BMC and several other teams have their service courses here, while seeing names like Harelbeke and Wevelgem feels like an appropriate build up for a day riding on the cobbles. 

We unload the bikes opposite the Ronde van Vlaanderen museum in the centre of the town and then hand the car over to Flo and photographer Juan, before heading off for a gentle pedal into a hurricane.

After an eternity cycling through treacle we do eventually reach the trees and with leg muscles nicely humming we turn left towards the first climb of the day. 

The Oude Kwaremont used to be more of a first filter for the race, but in the Ronde’s current format this 2.2km stretch is crucial in deciding the finishing order because it’s the penultimate climb.

I can feel my heart beating hard in anticipation as we pedal towards the cobbles. The road actually starts going slightly uphill while we’re still on tarmac, but I can see the cobbles ahead.

I know there’s no point trying to soften the blow, better to attack with purpose and so I hold myself in readiness: Hands on the horizontal section of the handlebars, relaxed grip, but legs pushing hard on as big a gear as you think you can sustain. Here we go…

The violence of those first few metres is still such a juddering shock that it’s difficult to remember to keep pedalling.

The vibrations hit your arms like rapid-fire recoils from ammunition. It’s as though you’re gripping two automatic pistols instead of handlebars and then holding the triggers down.

With fresh legs though, I’m loving it. Speed is absolutely your friend because if you can go fast enough you get this wonderful sensation of skimming over the top of the stones.

It must be because the wheels don’t have time to sink down between each hit, so you’re almost floating across the surface with air underneath your tyres as often as the ground.

The steepest bit of the Kwaremont is only about 600m long at an average of around 7%, but it comes at the beginning and if you drain too much energy before you reach the small halfway crossroads then you’ll suffer terribly on the kilometre or so of false flat that follows.

There’s a sharp right at the top which then leads you onto the main road where you turn left and breathe a sigh of relief as your vision stabilises and the bike stops trying to hop about underneath you.

It’s a very wide stretch of road that plunges downhill and then rises up again straight away and I instantly recognise it as the point where Cancellara motored up to the break and caught them napping in 2011.

We’ve only just regrouped when we turn off the main road again and descend down a winding, singletrack side road.

As we hurtle downhill, William shouts that it’s the Paterberg next. I’m surprised by just how closely stacked these first two hills (last two in the race) are.

There’s barely enough time to drain some of the lactic from your muscles before you’re back on the attack.

The start to the Paterberg is actually a 90° right hander that’s hidden from view by a high bank until you’re almost on top of it.

In the race it would be a real bottleneck and you’d want to make sure you were near the front of whatever bunch you were with.

Today all I need to do is make sure I’ve changed down enough gears, but as I round the corner and see the climb I realise I haven’t.

Cobble tsunami

The Oude Kwaremont’s relatively gentle gradient had lulled me into a false sense of security, and I thought that perhaps Flandrian climbs weren’t going to be quite as tough as I’d expected.

The Paterberg shatters that illusion in a heartbeat. From the bottom it seems to tower over you like some huge tsunami of cobbles and I have no option but to instantly drop to the small ring on the front as the initial 16% gradient kicks in.

It’s actually an artificial climb, created by a farmer who wanted a climb like the Koppenberg that was on his friend’s land. Nothing like keeping up with the Van Joneses.  

The whole climb is only about 400m in length, but with an average of 14% and a sustained section in the middle of over 20% it is a brutal experience for lungs and legs.

And without any speed on your side, there is absolutely no floating over the cobbles here. 

The only upside is that it’s not very long, so you can set your sights on the farm buildings at the top, grit your teeth and push yourself into the red, knowing that it’s not for long. 

I’d always been slightly bemused as to why those who excelled on the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix also shone in Flanders. After all, one is flat and the other has steep climbs.

The cobbles are smaller in Flanders too and would only register about two or three stars on Roubaix I reckon, so in theory shouldn’t be as taxing for skinny climber types.

But even after two climbs it’s clear that, just like Roubaix, Flanders is all about the ability to put out big power.

You’ve got to bury yourself deep into a painful short-lived world of lactic acid, firing the big muscles in the top halves of your legs.

You feel them filling up with fatigue quickly, like a hose pointed into a bucket.

Turning left at the top there’s a bit of respite before the next climb, although as we twist and turn through the rural roads back towards Oudenaarde the wind does its best to leap out through gaps in walls and banks and unsettle front wheels.

I’m keen to conserve energy because I know what’s coming next and it’s potentially the most fearsome climb of the whole day.

It’s not often that you see pros walking up hills, but every year the Koppenberg has some of them tottering around on their cleats.

It is so steep, so rough and such a bottleneck that it only takes one person to wobble and put a foot down before everyone behind has to do the same.

Anxious to avoid this fate I press on ahead of the other two as we come round the almost hairpin right at the junction at the bottom of the hill, but I almost end up re-enacting another famous Koppenberg moment. 

Too close for comfort

I push myself to the point of explosion trying to carry as much momentum as possible into the base of the hill.

The most treacherous section of the climb is right in the middle of its 600m length – 22% with root-strewn earth banks crowding in on either side.

It’s a very wet hill too and the cobbles deteriorate quickly, particularly under the trees.

At times it feels uncannily like mountain biking up a technical rocky climb as you teeter this way and that, trying to navigate your front wheel between the yawning gaps and the worst of the cobbles that are sticking up proud of the surface.

It’s just at the top of this section that the car that’s been just ahead of me most of the way up suddenly stops.

Even at my snail’s pace I’m closing the metre or two between us fast but if I stop now I’m done for.

There’s no room to squeeze down the side of the car so I use what feels like my last breath to yell words to the effect of, ‘KEEP GOING!’ I’m centimetres from the bumper as the engine roars and the clutch slips… get this wrong and it will roll back over the Bianchi (and me) in a reverse re-enactment of the famous Jesper Skibby moment.

Skibby was in a lone breakaway but had fallen going up the climb. The race commissaire in the car behind was worried about the peloton closing in fast, so simply ordered the car to be driven over the stricken rider’s bike (while he was still clipped in!).

That was in 1987 and it was 15 years before the climb was used again. Thankfully the car doesn’t stall and I just about stay upright.

Everyone emerges from the trees onto the slightly easier top section with only the mildest pong of burnt clutch in their nostrils. 

‘People always forget about the sections of pavé,’ says William as we hurtle along with the wind on our backs, ‘but they’re a big part of the race because it means you can never relax.’

It’s one of these flat Roubaix-like sections that we hit next. Called the Steenbeekdries, it saps strength alarmingly quickly with its slight incline up to a junction and then a fast straight descent towards an open right hand bend that William takes at startling pace.

Then it’s across a railway line, which in the context of the ride doesn’t feel quite as jarring as normal, and on towards the Taaienberg (‘tough mountain’). 

This part of the ride feels immensely confusing as we twist back and forth through villages.

A couple of times we arrive in a main square with a church that looks familiar and I feel sure we must be going round in circles.

William assures me we’re not chasing our tails, but he does say that Flanders was always known as the easiest race to cheat in because of the proximity of the roads to one another and the twisting nature of the course that almost doubles back on itself at times.

Boonen wouldn’t call it cheating (and strictly speaking it’s not) but he does like to use the smooth gutter at the side of the Taaienberg to launch an attack, particularly on smaller classics like Omloop.

William kindly demonstrates how much easier it is to tackle the maximum 18% gradient while in said gutter while I bounce around next to him on the cobbles.

Like a lot of the climbs there’s a shallow build-up then a very tough middle section followed by a near false flat finish that almost feels worse than the steep stuff.

The best way to climb is sitting down in the saddle, because the bike has more traction and remains more stable.

I try standing a couple of times and it’s just horrible as the bike slips and skips underneath my feet and hands.

When Juan asks us to go back and repeat bits of the climbs for the photos I appreciate even more seriously just how tricky they are.

Initially this is because I have to cycle back down, which is faintly terrifying because trying to stop going downhill on cobbles is almost as stressful as trying to keep going on the way up.

Then, once we’ve turned around it’s remarkably difficult to get going again from a standing start on a cobbled incline.

Interval sessions on the turbo might have helped my legs a bit over the winter, but I envy Alex’s bike handling skills, honed during the cyclocross season, as he trackstands and bunny hops his bike into position without ever unclipping. 

Alex has to leave us as at this point as he’s got to get back for his daughter’s birthday party, but William and I have got plenty of kilometres left to do.

It’s the Eikenberg next (curiously suburban), followed by another longish stretch of pavé (the Marterstraat) where the cars seem to come haring past (the Belgians might love cycling, but it doesn’t mean they drive with a huge amount of care around cyclists).

The start to the Molenberg is extremely pretty as it runs next to a working watermill.

However, it’s no doubt a nightmare if you’re racing because the route funnels across a narrow bridge before spitting you onto some fairly rough cobbles beneath trees as you climb steeply around a right hand bend. 

Friends like these

There’s another strength-sapping section of pavé next called the Paddestratt and William makes me work hard.

Although we’ve only met a couple of times we get on well and both innately understand that it is our duty to keep the pace up and try to make sure the other one is hurting sufficiently to enjoy the ride.

When I drop his wheel by a couple of metres he obligingly pushes the pace just that bit harder. Lovely chap.

Thankfully for me, Juan is showing his Spanish roots and has turned into a latter-day Don Quixote, obsessed by finding a suitable windmill to photograph.

When the perfect example appears across the fields, he calls a halt to proceedings and I manage to gulp down a chocolate orange flavoured gel before we ride back and forth through a stiff crosswind for the benefit of his Canon.

Time is pressing on, but William announces there are just two more cobbled climbs to go, so we should be fine for light if we get our heads down.

What he fails to mention is that there are two un-cobbled climbs standing in the way. The most famous is the Tenbosse, which is just a wide-ish street between some houses on the outskirts of Brakel and looks very prosaic without the crowds to frame it.

At 6.9% average and 14% maximum however, you certainly feel it in your legs. 

After Brakel we battle along a slightly more main carriageway with a delightfully grippy concrete surface that makes you feel like you’re using Velcro tyres on a woollen road.

It’s only about 10km to Geraardsbergen but perhaps the significance of the climb that we’re heading towards makes it feel longer.

Between 1988 and 2011 the Kapelmuur or Muur van Geraardsbergen was the penultimate climb and frequently the decisive point of the Tour of Flanders.

This is where Cancellara so memorably dropped Boonen in 2010. However, since the finish of the race switched from Meerbeke in Ninove to Oudenaarde it has been left out, much to the disgust of many fans.

No doubt it will be reinstated to the Ronde at some point, but for now E3 Prijs is using it, as is the Eneco tour. 

Eventually the concrete gives way to tarmac as we reach the top of the descent into the Geraardsbergen, but as we plummet down I can already see the muur or ‘wall’ rising up on the other side of all the buildings.

A lot of the climbs have seemed to materialise in front of us quite quickly so there’s been no time to mentally prepare.

But as we head through the bustling Saturday afternoon shoppers in the high street I can feel the nervous anticipation building as we descend ever further and the climb on the other side looms up ever higher. 

And then before I know it the cobbles have arrived and I’m not ready. My fingers grope through the bouncing for an easier gear and my hamstrings, which are about as taut as a banjo string, begin threatening cramp almost from the first effort.

The climb is longer than I thought, stretching out for the best part of a kilometre before it reaches its 20% denouement up near the golden-topped chapel.

You wind around the town’s church on a wide street that belies the 7% gradient, before turning away from the traffic into the trees to the right. 

The hard yards

Here in the darkness is where it gets really steep, ramping up to 20% on cobbles that seem to be forming an almost serrated surface.

The stretch where Cancellara attacked is surprisingly short but, like all the Flandrian climbs, because it’s short it somehow makes you push that bit harder, ignoring screaming muscles simply because the end is in sight.

There’s a false flat past a building with a cafe, then you burst back into the light as the cobbles kick up once more into their famous snaking flourish.

As I squeeze the last drops of energy out of my legs on the steep left hand sweep, my ears are loud with the noise of pumping blood, heaving lungs and a clattering chain.

I can barely imagine what it must be like with the cheers of a huge crowd on the inside bank adding to the aural maelstrom.

There’s just a large man walking his small dog there today and they both do nothing more than sniff absent-mindedly and look in the opposite direction as I haul myself over the top.

A sweeping downhill is our reward for all the climbing effort, and then we are heading for our final climb: the Bosberg.

It’s not far and actually you’re climbing it before you know it, because it starts out as a long drag on asphalt that just nibbles at your reserves and stops you rushing the 10% cobbled section through the trees.

William kindly mentions that Philippe Gilbert likes to attack in the big ring on this climb, so obviously I try.

By halfway, however, my hamstrings are boiling with lactic and more taut than my spokes (I’m blaming a too high saddle…), so I succumb to clicking the left hand lever.

It’s a suitably pleasing amount of pain to finish the last climb in as I grimace and wobble the last few metres before enjoying the flood of relief at the top. I don’t think I would care about a view even if there was one. 

How we got there

Travel 

We took the Eurostar from London St Pancras to Lille which takes just 90 minutes. Once in Lille you can catch a train for about €14 via Kortrijk to Oudenaarde.

Alternatively it’s about a 1hr 45min drive from Calais to Oudenarde. We would heartily recommend a weekend with Pavé Cycling Classics (cyclingpave.cc) who will pick you up from the station/airport and then feed you, guide you, accommodate you and provide you with copious amounts of their own Malteni beer (see what they did there?).

Accommodation 

If you’re making your own accommodation arrangements then try the Steenhuyse Guesthouse (steenhuyse.info) or Hotel De Zalm (hoteldezalm.be), both in the centre of Oudenaarde with rates starting at €100.

While you’re there 

If you’re doing this ride (or simply passing through Oudenaarde) you really should pay a visit to the Ronde van Vlaanderen museum in the centre of the city.

It’s located opposite the church, has some wonderful artefacts and you can book
a guided tour from Belgian legend Freddy Maertens. Best of all they even serve Malteni in the museum's bar. crvv.be.