CyclingTips Digest: Harrison Ford E-bike Denial, Gravel Bike Field Test, Plague Updates, Women's TdF, Fraud, & More
What's going on in the curly bar world? CyclingTips Digest showcases articles from our sister site, CyclingTips. In each installment, you might find endurance coverage, power-to-weight ratios, gravel bike tech and, of course, lycra.
Despite denials, Harrison Ford definitely rides an e-bike
By: Iain TreloarHere’s a sentence I didn’t expect to write today: this week, Harrison Ford appeared on US chat show Ellen, where he angrily denied riding an e-bike despite all evidence to the contrary.
At CyclingTips, we pride ourselves on our investigative reporting, so I did a little dutiful digging behind the blindingly obvious of looking at the pictured e-bike that Harrison Ford, star of Cowboys and Aliens, was definitely riding. It was a (not particularly) wild ride that plunged me into a seamy underbelly of paparazzi shots and online tabloids, with assistance from industry sources along the way.
(Watch Harrison's dislike towards e-bikes here.)
2020 Gravel Bike Field Test: 12 bikes, four riders, and endless dirt
By: James HuangYou know what’s even better than testing one bike at a time? Testing a dozen of them all at once.
Inspired by Pinkbike's Annual Field Test, CyclingTips recently brought 12 of the latest-and-greatest gravel bikes, four test riders, a giant box of control tires to eliminate one key variable, and a support mechanic to the red-dirt paradise of Sedona, Arizona. We divided those bikes into three categories — racing-focused bikes, MTB-inspired bikes, and budget bikes — and rode the wheels off of them on a wide range of terrain until we had decided on winners, losers, what we liked, and what we didn’t like among all of them.
Check out the CyclingTips Field Test 2020 here.
First up is Evil's Chamois Hagar.
Evil Bicycles infused a massive helping of mountain bike design into the recipe for its Chamois Hagar gravel machine. It’s unquestionably one of the most unusual — and visually striking — drop-bar bikes in recent memory. However, does that different approach actually deliver an improved experience, or is it different for the sake of being different?
Read the full review on CyclingTips.
The Secret Industry Insider: No bikes for you
By: The Secret Industry InsiderYou've heard from the Secret Pro, but with all that's going on in the industry we wanted to hear from the Secret Industry Insider:
Greetings from the underground biohazard bunker I had specially built here in China last month! Shit’s getting real over here, and if you thought this whole coronavirus thing has been wreaking havoc on the race schedule and trade shows, wait until you start thinking about how it’s affecting the actual bikes you might have been hoping to buy this year.
(Read more.)
Coronavirus and cycling: A continuously updated timeline of events
By: CyclingTipsHow is coronavirus affecting cycling on the road side of things? The news is moving fast. It feels like we’re posting a story every few hours on the subject, as national authorities, the UCI, teams, and race organizers respond. So we thought it’d be handy to put it all in one place.
The following timeline is in reverse chronological order – most recent first – and we’ll keep it updated as things change. Days and times are correlated to European time.
(Follow along here.)
Could a women’s Tour de France be on the way?
By: Sarah LukasLe Télégramme reports that Tour de France organizer Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO) is working on bringing back a women’s Tour de France.
“We are seriously working on a project for a women’s stage race. We want to organise it in the short term,” Tour director Christian Prudhomme told Le Télégramme. “We want to talk to everyone, not just 50% of the population.”
(Read more.)
Astana riders and staff have not been paid for two months
By: Dane CashThe riders and staff of the Astana team have not been paid for two months.
Spanish newspaper AS reported the news on Monday, noting that those on Astana are starting to get nervous after two months without salaries. According to AS, Astana brass had not yet provided team personnel with date for the payment of salaries.
Following the publication of the story, the team confirmed the delay but also offered a timeline for payment in a statement to media from general manager Alexandre Vinokourov and managing director Yana Seel.
(Read more.)
The curious case of Bruno Armirail, quarantine escape-artist
By: Iain TreloarIn the days and weeks since the 2020 UAE Tour screeched to a premature halt, wild stories of the race and its aftermath have slowly emerged.
In these stories, there has been both light and shade. There have been smuggled Playstations and teams entertaining themselves with hotel corridor Olympics; there have been vivid reports of a fever-wracked person shivering in the corner of a makeshift quarantine facility in a hotel laundry. The journalists that had been held in the media hotel have now all been allowed to return home, and so have most of the riders – only Gazprom and Team UAE remain, with several of their riders under suspicion of having contracted coronavirus.
It has, putting it mildly, been a bizarre couple of weeks for professional cycling.
(Read More.)
Oleg Tinkov battles extradition to the US on tax fraud charges
By: CyclingTipsAnd just for funsies...
Oleg Tinkov, former owner of the Tinkoff-Saxo cycling team, is currently battling extradition to the US on tax fraud charges.
Tinkov appeared before Westminster Magistrates Court last Thursday, where he paid a £20 million bail to avoid jail-time as he fights extradition. US prosecutors have accused him of financial deception – specifically submitting a false tax return, under-reporting his 2013 income – and have issued a provisional arrest warrant.
(Read More.)
Must Read This Week
87 Comments
Sorry. I woke up early and I'm bored.
It all depends on where and what you plan to ride I guess. You can use any bike for any discipline, just some will do the job for efficiently.
See you’re wrong about that and you’re wrong about gravel bikes ????
The question us if you are an enduro rider why having a XC bike and DH bike... Gravel or Enduro broo, what else?
Horses for courses.
They are great fun on easy trails and make your bike handling when you get back on the MTB even better.
Trust me once you can manual a gravel bike and do decent sized drop offs doing it on an MTB with suspension is a piece of piss.
I never understood the whole drive of people that run, I mean they have heard about bikes, right?
In all seriousness, it might just be that people are different from one another. I happen to like all the bikes, and I've owned just about all the bikes. Just never a downhill bike, but I do understand people that own downhill bikes, they appear to also like bikes.
I love my gravel bike, but I kinda disagree with your statement. My gravel bike has whipped me onto my head so fast several times. Most are basically crit bikes with maybe 10 mm longer reach a degree taken out of the head angle, and more tire clearance. They are great, but especially for this tall person they are the same story as the 80's and 90's MTB's that I started out riding..sketchy off-road, but awesome for what they are intended to do.
The gravel genre is starting to split into a few distinct groups and then the bikes will be great at handling the terrain they are intended to.
1. It is different kind of fun. You can go further and if you put a couple of bags on it, you can go camping in the woods.
2. It's easier to bunnyhop
3. You care less to brake things, because it costs less
4. It's way less maintenance. No suspension, dropper posts or other BS. Just tune your gears and ride.
5. It's easier to enjoy RIGHT NOW. On MTB you need to find all your protection, check tire pressure up to 1 PSI precision and then drive or ride to the trails. On gravel bike you put your tights and a bottle of water and you can go riding.
If I had to choose only one bike - I'm afraid it would be a gravel bike. Though I do like to huck a drop on my MTB or hit a steep rooty enduro trail, gravel riding gives me most fun per $.
That is called a full rigid MTB. Also fun but not really what most consider as a gravel bike.
I also find it really hard to do many hours of road type riding with only one hand position. That is why the long distance MTB bikepackers are mostly running some bar with multiple hand positions, like an H-Bar or running bar ends on the inboard side of the grips. You need someplace else to put your hands if you are riding for long distances.
First off- you don’t have to pedal a motorcycle, so that’s a terrible analogy. Try riding a beach cruiser bicycle for 50km up and down varied terrain, into the wind, and tell me if that relaxed position is still comfortable. You’ll be sweating hard and hating your life after an hour or so.
There’s more to comfort than just feeling ‘relaxed’. A hugely upright position will not be as fun if you have to expend twice the energy. Aerodynamics really do matter, for distance riding at speed. Aero is a big part of what makes road bikes comfortable, and don’t get it twisted- Gravel bikes are just road bikes that can handle rough surfaces.
Riding into the wind will force you to position your body low and forwards to minimize drag. If you’re on an MTB, this means crouching and sticking your elbows out, which is not comfortable.
Also, you realize drop bars can be placed to put you in any number of positions, from aggressive to quite upright? You can buy a road bike that is more upright in the drops, than a mountain bike with a low front end.
The other comfort benefit of drop bars you don’t seem to understand, is having options. It doesn’t really matter which is more comfortable, up or down- Keeping your hands and body position one way for hours can cause cramping and discomfort. The ability to mix it up makes all-day riding much more enjoyable.
Yeah I don’t know why the UCI does that- I think you should be able to run whatever bar you want, to your detriment.
Doesn’t change the fact that multiple hand positions are critical for long distance riding.
In my mind, that’s a huge reason not to consider it. I don’t understand why anyone would want a bike that’s intended for fast descents on rough surfaces to be so stiff. I have a feeling Evil has never had the experience of building carbon bikes without suspension.
My favourite thing about my Norco Search XR Steel, is the engineered vertical compliance of the steel seat stays and carbon fork. It soaks up road vibrations, and keeps the bike very planted and stable- No weird geometry needed.
Oh yeah, and it has a lifetime warranty on the frame.
@dirtyburger: I don’t know that they have, but like you say, it can’t be much. A few millimetres at most- just enough to kill those small, high frequency vibrations. The fork definitely deflects enough to be visually noticeable on hard bumps.
End of the day, tires and contact points will make the biggest difference, but I do believe the frame plays a part. If you look closely on a lot of better steel bikes, the rear stays are given curvature so they can deflect.
I’m no scientist, but I have ridden many steel bikes with similar tire sizes, with different results. Some vintage bikes feel like a cloud, but are super flexy. I’ve ridden steel track bikes with straight blade forks and stays that are ass-hatchets. And then there frames like my current bike that have a reasonably stiff front triangle, but also feel great after a long day. It’s subtle, but the effect on your body is noticeable.
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