If only this bike could talk. It’s clearly an Eddy Merckx team bike from the late Molteni era; almost certainly from 1972. What an incredible year that was for Merckx.

He achieved a Giro d'Italia-Tour de France double, won three Monuments (Milan-San Remo, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, and Il Lombardia), and secured other victories, including La Flèche Wallonne, the Trofeo Baracchi and the hour record in Mexico City.

This wasn’t his bike; the frame is far too small, but it’s exciting to suppose that it might have been ridden alongside him, and ultimately behind him, by a supportive teammate on the stage-defining slopes of the Col d'Izoard and the Passo dello Stelvio.

“There’s a unique quality to this bike,” says current owner Richard Hoddinott of vintage specialists The Velo Pages. “The handling is very purposeful, it’s special. The build is top-notch too, Campagnolo throughout, with Cinelli bars and stem, and a Unicanitor saddle. I particularly love the patina, the worn 531 decals and the large, characterful Nuovo Record chainring that’s been drilled in a slightly haphazard fashion.”

Merckx employed Belgian entrepreneur Fernand Kessels to supply Molteni Team bikes in the early seventies, along with a number from both Colnago and De Rosa. Kessels was more at home behind a desk than behind brazing goggles, so he commissioned various high-end frame builders, including Marcel van der Este.

Tantalisingly, there’s a note painted on the underside of the bottom bracket that reads ‘K V.D. ELST’. Does the K stand for Kessels, and the rest of the script indicate van der Este? A misspelling seems unlikely, but it’s possible. Or perhaps it identifies the shop or rider the bike was intended for after the team had finished with it. We’ll never know.

I was out for a ride with my friend Bernard last week. We were about an hour in, on a hot afternoon, when he pulled over, took out an Allen key and dropped his saddle by a few millimetres.

“It’s a hot day,” he said, as if that amounted to an explanation.

I probed deeper.

“I like to put my saddle down a little on a hot day. It feels right,” he said.

If I’m honest, I’d been hoping for some bucket-of-blue-steam nonsense about the bike having expanded in the heat, something I could possibly mock in print. But if he wants to do it because it feels right, well, who am I to argue?

Bernard has strong opinions on the whole world of bike-fit and bike-fitting. “Bike fit,” he likes to declare, “is a myth.” He especially likes saying it to riders who’ve had a professional bike fit.

And it’s true that in Bernard’s bike-riding youth, and even in mine just about, bike fit didn’t really exist as a specialism. Although if you went to a bespoke frame builder (the common premium option until carbon fibre took over), the frame builder would usually have some sort of home-brew system for working out frame geometry from body dimensions. (Luckily, the systems were adaptable enough that if your bike came out of the building-jig looking totally different, as it usually did, that would be just fine too.)

He still prefers to ignore all that. “If it looks right, it is right,” has always been his guiding principle. This means that you take what’s more or less average among people you want to be like, and authoritatively declare it to be correct. It only recently struck me that this is exactly how ChatGPT works.

When pressed for more details about what looks right, it turns out he has a whole range of rules-of-thumb. There is a formula for saddle height above the bottom bracket axle, which is 0.833 multiplied by your inside leg. Your bars are in the right place when, “if you bend your elbows a bit, not as much as if you’re driving a breakaway, more as if you’re trying to make your reflection in a shop window look a bit less embarrassing,” the top of the bars obscures your view of the front hub.

Your saddle should be “level” unless you’re “a triathlete, time triallist or some other sort of weirdo”, and the tip of the saddle should be, “60-65 mm behind the bottom bracket, unless you’re a triathlete, time triallist, or some other sort of weirdo.” Your cranks will be, “170 mm, unless you’re a Gen-Z fashion victim, in which case they’ll be 155 mm until you bloody grow up a bit.”

That’s bike-fit by Bernard. The thing is, I reckon his system is not a million miles out. If you used it, it would do. It helps that humans are adaptable. A few millimetres one way or another doesn’t make much difference to most of us – we can accommodate it.

There are some things Bernard’s system misses. You could work out your preferred saddle by trial and error, but the errors these days are getting towards £200 a go, so it’s useful to find a shortcut. And many people really benefit from detailed fitting around cleat positions and angles, and insoles to prevent knee issues.

And he’s right that you should never be afraid to tinker. You can always change it back. Eddy Merckx used to not infrequently stop mid-race and change his saddle height – he always carried a little spanner just in case. It amuses me that in this respect, if in absolutely no other, my friend Bernard resembles the greatest rider of all time.

Although Merckx probably never looked at his reflection in a shop window and felt embarrassed.

Seemingly cut from a completely different cloth to every other elite cyclist in the modern era, former WorldTour-rider Lachlan Morton has always ridden a unique path, combining wins at major events such as Unbound with original endurance challenges and extreme record-setting rides, often raising funds for charities such as World Bicycle Relief.

But this week, talking to Cycling Weekly after winning the 3-Peaks Cyclo-cross race in Yorkshire, the Australian dropped a bombshell, revealing that he is about to leave EF Education-EasyPost, the team he has been part of since 2019, and that something new is looming on his horizon.

“The 3-Peaks was like my last time pinning on a number with EF,” he told CW. “It was a cool place to do it.”

When we spoke, he couldn’t reveal his exact plans (more about that below), but did give us a little teaser. “I'm doing an endurance ride, starting next Monday. I can't say exactly what it is, but it'll be a long multi-day ride here in the U.S. And then yeah, that will be it.

“I'll still be riding, just not in the pink anymore.”

Even when he was a WorldTour rider, competing in Grand Tours including the Vuelta a España and Giro d'Italia, Morton rode in a range of rough and tough off-road races around the world through EF Education First's alternative calendar.

It was during this period that he was exposed to some very British events, including the GBduro (a race he won in 2019) and the 3-Peaks, a challenge Morton didn't win in either of his first two attempts, in 2019 and 2025, but which kept calling him back.

"It's just one of those races that gets under your skin, so I've been back a few times since," he explained. "Every time you do it you learn more, and you realise things you could do differently or better, and that rings true even when you win.”

Morton became completely captivated with British bike racing culture, which led to him doing his last race in the distinctive pink livery of EF Education-EasyPost right here in England.

“I love the UK scene,” he says. “People get very passionate about very specific disciplines and events, and the history of those events and disciplines. And it feels like everything grows from a strong local place, and branches out from there, from club runs and the local racing scene. And experience is passed down from older riders to riders just getting into it.

“This is something I find fascinating, and it's similar to the environment I grew up in – except the British go way harder for the niche element, like hill climbing, and get really passionate. And I think that's very cool.”

Despite his success and popularity, Morton, who now lives in California, has maintained his easy-going Australian attitude to life, and he evidently enjoys the fact that even people with celebrity status in world cycling don’t get special treatment at local bike races in the UK.

“I like that it’s a scene you have to prove yourself in,” he says. “There's always a healthy amount of banter, or people hanging sh*t on you. When you turn up, you really have to earn your spot there. It's like a funny but rewarding thing to go through.

“And it's also a beautiful place to just go and ride. That's always my struggle, going over for the 3-Peaks. I just want to go and do all the riding I can around Yorkshire, because it's so beautiful. I end up riding more than I should before the race.”

Keen-eyed spectators at the 3-Peaks might have noticed Morton had a slightly less hirsute look than we've become used to, with a neatly trimmed 'tache and beard, but he denies that this is part of his new direction.

"My wife drops hints every now and then - she prefers me clean shaven, so every now and then I have a reset… I'm in the reset phase," he explains. "I'll be back to my shaggy-looking self in a couple weeks time. That's how it tends to go. Same with my hair I like grow it until it annoys me and then it just shave off and start again.

So at least we know he's not going corporate. And Morton promises that, whatever his future holds, he’ll be coming back to defend his 3-Peaks crown. “It's not a matter of 'I've done it now', because it's just such a great event,” he tells me. “I'd love to go back as many times as possible.”

And he has no shortage of plans for future adventures, all over the planet. “I'd really love to ride in Pakistan,” he says. “I've been looking at northern Pakistan, where the terrain looks like it lends itself to really crazy adventures.

“Papua New Guinea would be a cool place to go and see on bike. And then in South America I really want to go to Ecuador.”

Right now, though, it seems the Wild West of America is where he is heading for his next adventure.

Update: Morton races the Pony Express

Since we spoke to him, Morton has revealed that his very last adventure with EF Education-EasyPost will be a multi-day ride across the American West along the route of the legendary 19th-century postal service, the Pony Express.

Starting on 5 October, he will attempt to ride the 1,966-mile (3,164km) route faster than the horsemen who carried mail from St. Joseph in Missouri to Sacramento in California, passing through Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and Nevada en route.

Founded in 1860, the horsemen of the Pony Express service were tasked with delivering mail across the decidedly untamed West in 10 days or less. It was an extremely perilous journey and the service only last 18 months, after which time it was replaced by the telegraph, but the heroism of the riders made it a legendary part of the American story.

The fastest time was set in 1861, when Abraham Lincoln's inaugural address (which is credited with helping to persuade California to remain in the Union as the Civil War simmered) was carried across the distance in seven days and 17 hours, with horses being changed every 10 miles (16km) and riders changing every 75 to 100 miles (120 to 160km).

Can Morton do it quicker?

He plans to travel light, resupplying and switching bikes from a truck, also carrying his brother Gus, who will be filming the trip.

"The idea is to mimic how they used to switch out horses," says the Australian adventurer. "I'll be swapping between a gravel bike, a road bike, and a mountain bike depending on the terrain. The route I've put together tries to get as close to the original as I could. I'm excited because it'll use all the different disciplines I've raced."

"You start on the plains, essentially, coming across Kansas, then across the basin through Wyoming, into Utah," explains Morton. "The real crux is the Nevada section — the stretch from Salt Lake City across to Carson City – because it's incredibly remote and very exposed. There's a lot that could go wrong there, and you're very much on your own. That's probably the hardest part.

"Then you cross the Sierra Nevada on the southern side of Lake Tahoe and drop through the foothills, which I know well because I live out there now, and finish in Sacramento.”

Want a job? Know how to fix a bike? Then you might be in luck.

A brand new report suggests that Europe is suffering from a dearth of bike mechanics, with 105,000 new ones needed by 2032 to meet demand and prevent people abandoning their bikes.

Published by NextGen Mechanics initiative and European Cycling Industries (ECI), the report says the shortage is already reportedly changing how people travel. It also draws on Shimano's State of the Nation 2026 survey of 25,000 respondents, which found that 212 million people across Europe experience barriers to maintaining their bikes. Of those, 121 million cycle less as a result, and 7.6 million have stopped cycling altogether.

There's already a shortage with 45,000 needed right now to meet current demand, the report says, with the additional numbers needed as the market continues to expand thanks to e-bikes, leasing and fleet models such as London's Lime bikes.

The report comprises a map illustrating levels of accessibility to mechanics across Europe. The Netherlands leads the way, with only 34.92% of cyclists reporting barriers to maintaining their bikes, and the UK is also among the least troubled countries in this respect; 40.92% of people, however, respondents still reported issues with getting their bikes repaired. Perhaps more surprisingly, that number was significantly higher again among French and Italian riders. Eastern European riders experienced the most difficulty, with 55% of Romanian and Turkish riders reporting issues.

Director of the Association of Cycle Traders and Cytech, Jonathan Harrison, was a significant contributor to the report, and he told Cycling Weekly he hoped it would help to improve the perception of what a bike mechanic does – both in the eyes of the public and those in the role or considering it – and make it a more attractive career. At the moment, he said, mechanics often saw the job as a stop-gap with too few prospects for good pay and progress.

"We're hoping that this project will be the start of work to raise the level of professionalism as a mechanic," he said, "[and that] the perception of a bike service and repair will raise in value, and therefore the wages of mechanics will follow and subsequently more people will consider it as a career."

Mechanics not only deserved to be paid more, he added, but because working on bikes was becoming increasingly technical, the job itself deserved a perception shift.

Not only, that, he said, but it was also, on paper, safe from AI. Always a plus: "It's really hands-on… it's a really skilled job, and people overlook that a bit," he added. "I personally always take my bike to a mechanic because they sort it out, and if I tried to do it, I'd make a mess of it. But yeah, hopefully it'll be a safe job from AI.

"We've got to try and change it, because actually technology on the bicycle now is not that simple anymore. We've got e-bikes, electrical systems, software, diagnostics… you know, really complex components, hydraulics. You know it's so much more complicated now to work on a bike than it was, say, 30 years ago," he told CW.

Giving the example of fleet bikes such as those available for public hire on city streets, Harrison pointed out that they required many mechanics, without whom, potential bike riders would end up back in their cars.

"People would go back to public transport; public transport gets overcrowded; they jump back in their cars. They do all these things. We're trying to work towards a better, clearer, cleaner cycling ecosystem," he said.

There was one strand of good news underlying the shortfall of mechanics, Harrison added, which was that the rate of bike shop closures had fallen significantly, and that new ones were starting to open – bringing with them, of course, demand for new mechanics.

Henry Silvester of Silvester Bros. cycles in Farnborough, Hants (UK), said he'd yet to see the report but that the figures did not surprise him.

"We've got growth in that sector of the business in that people now don't do their own repairs," he said. "A lot of them now will come to cycle shops for pretty much 90% of bike repairs."

The jobs his workshop would often carry out included puncture repairs, inflating tyres, adjusting handlebars, and fitting grips, he told Cycling Weekly. Not because bike owners would necessarily be unable to do it themselves, he said, but because they just don't have the time.

"Bikes are getting more technical – that definitely is one reason. But I also think people are busy in their lives now, and you know both parents or both people are working in a family. There's less spare time for jobs like that to be completed. So I think a lot of the time they just pop it into the shop. It's a service. A bit like getting their boiler checked every year, or getting their car looked at or MOT'd. It's another extension of those."

The future is, in theory, promising for mechanics, estimated Silvester. With so much work coming in and jobs becoming ever more technical, salaries should increase. Like many such things, though, it's likely to take time.

"All of this will help the industry," he said. "But I think it is just something that is going to take a bit of time to sort of get rolling, really."

As well as being pretty much AI-proof, the often-humble LBS workshop remains a huge part of the bricks and mortar industry, and feels as though it's likely to remain so for some time.

As Silvester says: "The workshops have helped keep local bike shops running really. Without a workshop, if you had to just rely on bicycle sales or P&A [parts and accessories] sales, you'd be in trouble."

Cycling Weekly can today reveal that ultra-endurance cyclist Dr Sarah Ruggins is planning a new expedition and world record attempt, Project Atlas, during which she will attempt to pedal around the planet faster than anyone has previously done.

The current Guinness World Record for circumnavigating the globe by bicycle is held by Mark Beaumont, who completed his epic journey in 2017, cycling 18,032 miles from Greenwich to Greenwich in a time of 78 days, 14 hours, and 40 minutes.

The British adventurer remains the only person to have achieved the big loop in less than 80 days, after Alaskan ultra-cyclist Lael Wilcox abandoned her attempt to best Beaumont’s time earlier this year, bailing after 14 days because she was suffering from heat exhaustion in the midst of a brutal heatwave that was scorching a large part of the planet.

Wilcox does still hold the women’s round-the-world record – 108 days, 12 hours and 12 minutes – which she set in 2024, but Ruggins has the outright record firmly in her sights, and believes she can shave three full days from Beaumont’s benchmark, completing the 29,000km (18,000-mile) challenge in just 75 days.

To achieve this, the Canadian-born adventurer – who plans to set off from Peggy’s Cove in Nova Scotia, close to her family’s home, on 4 May 2027 – will need to ride an average of 400 km (250 miles) per day.

When you learn that Ruggins, who spent a decade recovering from a rare autoimmune condition in her teens, couldn’t even ride a bike just three years ago, you could be forgiven for doubting her ability to achieve this. But she has form.

The 38-year-old, who appears on the cover of the current edition of Cycling Weekly and features large in our article about Fastest Known Times (FKTs), already holds two outright records, one for riding LEJOGLE (Land’s End–John O’Groats-Land’s End) in five days, 11 hours and 14 minutes in 2025, and another for cycling 6042km (3754 miles) south-to-north across the European Continent in 13 days, 20 hours and 27 minutes earlier this year.

Both times are considerably quicker than anyone else, male or female, has ever achieved, before or since. “I look for challenging routes, where the fastest known times are held by men, and I look for routes that whose records have been challenged multiple times, and people have failed,” Ruggins told Cycling Weekly. The round-the -planet record, the ultimate FKT, certainly ticks all those boxes.

"We've been cooking this up for three years," she says. "When we did LEJOGLE we took a country, and when we did the European record, we took a continent, and so now we're taking the world.

“Our three-year trilogy was always country, continent, world. And the reason we did it that way is because I'm new to cycling. I got my first bike in 2023. And from there I’ve built the team. I've built my riding competencies, and so as we learn to work together, and as our skills developed together, so too, did the complexities of challenges we want to take on.”

Beaumont certainly doesn’t doubt Ruggins' ability, nor the seriousness of her attempt to beat his decade-old time. “Mark texted me back in June and said: ‘You're going to be the one to break my world record,’” she reveals. “He has been a mentor and a friend to me for several years. Mark opened many doors for me in this industry and he's one of the people who has actually given me the belief that this is possible.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly then, Ruggins is keen not to present her new expedition as an all-out assault on her mentor’s biggest achievement. “I'm not saying I want to beat Mark Beaumont,” she tells me. “I just want to see if a person can go around the world in 75 days.”

Although it’s inevitable that people will portray her Project ATLAS ride as a race against the existing fastest time, in one important sense they’re not directly comparable, because Ruggins is taking a very different route to the one Beaumont followed.

"Mark had the benefit of going around the world in 2017, when there was far less geopolitical disruption than now," she says. "He crossed through Russia down into China, and obviously, we can't do that. So, my route will also be quite different from Mark's. We're starting from a blank sheet of paper.

“We're bound by the exact same rules that that he was, but obviously we can't go through Russia. We can't pass east across Europe through Ukraine or Iran to get to the Stans. And every flight I take means I will have to increase my mileage every day versus his pace. So we have to be quite clever, and therefore the route is still under construction, but we will announce it in a few months.”

Cycling Weekly will report on the route and other elements of the expedition as they evolve, so watch this space.

You may have heard about Spain's new cycling rules, which come into force this Thursday (1 October). For the country's cyclists, they're a mixed but mostly positive bag which, assuming the drivers of Spain and its island territories take note, should theoretically mean that the nation's bike riders will be just a little bit safer.

The new regulations include welcome, tougher new rules for car drivers overtaking cyclists, more flexibility for riders out on the road, and – less popular with some, perhaps – tighter rules on wearing helmets. If you're planning on a bit of spring sunshine in Majorca next year, take note.

The Spanish government's state gazette says: "[The New] Bicycle regulations have several objectives: firstly, to promote cycling as a healthy and sustainable mode of transportation that helps reduce urban pollution, and… encourage greater bicycle use in the city. Secondly, the regulations introduce measures that enhance the safety of cyclists, who are vulnerable road users."

A quick run-down of the most salient points includes the removal of all previous exemptions regarding the wearing of helmets. Currently, riders can forgo helmet use on long climbs, in extreme heat, and for medical reasons, but the new General Traffic Regulations call these "no longer justifiable". So, if you get caught out on Sa Calobra next March with your helmet hanging from your bars, that'll be a €200 fine.

Anyone under-16, or who rides a bike for their job, must use a helmet at all times and on all roads, while over-16s are only obligated to do so on intra-urban (rural) roads.

The most welcome rule changes are likely to be the ones pertaining to drivers overtaking riders. They must still give the rider 1.5m space while overtaking, but must now slow to 20kph below the speed limit on rural roads as they do so; as well as hang back "at least" five metres from the rider until they choose to make the manoeuvre.

The gazette says: "When overtaking pedestrians, animals, animal-drawn vehicles, mopeds, personal mobility vehicles, cyclists or groups of cyclists, the overtaking driver must take special care with the manoeuvre, in order to avoid creating any dangerous situation for them."

Cyclists are also encouraged to take the primary position and ride in the centre of the lane. This makes the cyclist more visible to drivers, makes their movements more predictable, and discourages risky overtakes. Urban one-way roads with speed limits of 30kph or less could also see cyclists allowed to travel both ways, subject to signage.

All good for the cyclists of Spain – and those visiting any time soon, which could include a fair few readers and plenty of WorldTour pros. But what's in it for the rest of us? Sadly, probably nothing immediately. But give it time. There is more than one political and philosophical theory postulating that when things improve in one country, they are eventually likely to improve in its neighbour in a similar way.

Importantly, the rest of Europe is witnessing its neighbour taking progressive strides – strides which don't involve wholesale replanning of town infrastructure, but simple guidelines. We probably shouldn't kid ourselves that Spain's doing this so that the local group ride can have a more untroubled crack at setting a new PR for its usual course. Instead, this is about wider issues: reducing road deaths and pollution – important issues on (almost) any nation's 'To Do' list.

It could take time, but we have already seen the UK adopt measures grounded in the cycletopia of Europe's most bike-friendly cities. The Dutch reach, for example, or the hierarchy of road users, which puts the onus on the drivers of bigger, heavier vehicles to look out for those who are more vulnerable.

In North America, Portland, Oregon and Montréal have introduced Dutch-inspired intersections, while Minneapolis has experimented with them too.

Progress like this advances incredibly slowly, and for us in the UK or the US, the new regs are not a signal to attach tassles to bar-ends and throw a party. Even for Spain's riders, introducing new traffic laws is one thing, but educating drivers and then ensuring they adhere to them are separate challenges. Similar issues exist in the UK, where it remains largely down to cyclists with cameras to report overtaking transgressions by motorists, despite clear Highway Code guidelines.

What the new rules are though, is another strike of the hammer in just one of the nails in the coffin of the unfettered dominance of motor vehicles on our roads. Bit by bit, regulation by regulation, we're getting there.

The rollout of the long-awaited next-generation Shimano Dura-Ace R9300 groupset appears to be gathering momentum, with Mathieu van der Poel using the unreleased components at the World Championships road race in Montréal on Sunday.

The Dutchman had been spotted riding it during the course reconnaissance on Wednesday as well, and must have deemed it race-worthy on a course that has seen a lot of dropped chains and mechanicals over the past week.

The tell-tale features of the new groupset are the protruding shift buttons on the inside of the hoods, and, if you're able to get close enough to count the rings of the cassette, the 13-speed drivetrain.

The prototype groupset was previously spotted at the Vuelta a España, and at the Tour de Luxembourg, where Van der Poel escaped on a 174 km solo to win stage 5.

Uncertainty remains over whether Shimano riders are running full production-ready groupsets or if there are still tweaks to be made before the commercial product is released.

Van De Poel has been riding the Dura-Ace R9370 carbon spoked wheels for well over a year, and a leaked DT Swiss specification sheet back in August confirmed that the new groupset will use a new freehub body standard to accommodate a smaller 13th cog. The big question still remains: will the new groupset be fully wireless?

Riders spotted on the new R9300 are all clearly running the new shifters, with their renewed ergonomics and satellite shifting buttons. But the rear derailleur has a visible wire, which appears to be a refined R9200 design rather than a road adaptation of the brand's fully wireless GRX gravel groupsets.

Many unknowns remain about the new R9300 Dura-Ace groupset, and both Shimano and its sponsored teams remain tight-lipped. However, its appearance at a race as high-profile as the UCI World Championships suggests that whatever parts are in use are unlikely to be mere prototypes.

Riders of Van De Poel’s calibre, who have a legitimate shot at the rainbow bands, wouldn't be taking the risk of using unproven components. The Dutchman was already burned by prototype tech early in the season at Paris-Roubaix, when he punctured twice on the Arenberg and was left unable to ride teammate Jasper Philipsen's bike due to incompatibility with the new Shimano SPD-SLR cleats.

Dura Ace has traditionally launched in the summer, aligning with the season's biggest race, the Tour de France. With Il Lombardia on October 10, the only elite men's race left this season, a full commercial release now looks unlikely until early 2027.

I arranged a ride recently with a couple of friends, who then suggested that we all join another local ride that I didn’t know. I said yes, on the basis that however old you are, you’re still supposed to pretend to like meeting new people and putting yourself in a position where their almost certain incompetence can cause you serious injury.

In the end I more-or-less enjoyed it. Small groups that ride together a lot usually end up behaving like they’ve been married for years – you know each other, you know the routes, there are few surprises. And a new group can remind you how nice that is.

“Left,” shouted someone in the new outfit as we approached a junction. Then, “No, right, sorry… No, left… Sorry the GPS has reset itself, can we stop for a moment?” We went right, which was wrong, so in an attempt to get back on track we took a route through a housing estate that eventually led to an impassable muddy trail.

It’s important to accept that all group rides that have not yet achieved married status need to have officers. This one was our navigator. On a bigger, more formal ride, it’s a role fulfilled by the ride-leader. The most outstanding characteristic of the navigator / ride-leader is being bad at navigation.

This is because they’re anxious about it, and they’re anxious about it because they are the sort of conscientious person who volunteered to be in charge, planned a route, uploaded it to a GPS that they don’t know how to work, and made wild promises about being able to find the café. They don’t want to mess all of this up.

Another reason they’re anxious is that they will be at all times undermined by the other chief officer, the sergeant major. This is a self-appointed role. The sergeant major likes to provide instructions. “Change at the front, w*nkers!” “Stop bloody pointing to tiny potholes! Only point at things that you can’t effing ride over!” “Why are you shouting ‘car up’? We’ve just as much right to be here as he does – he can bloody wait.” And so on. It’s a constant stream of slightly too-aggressive instructions.

Luckily, the mortal enemy of the sergeant major is the wrecker. Sometimes he (it’s normally a he) is an innocent who just wants a better work out. Sometimes it’s someone who should know better. But the key is they go to the front on every hill and hit it. Any chance they get, they go to the front and hit it.

They want to ride hard, but they do not want to go on a hard ride – they want to ride hard on a steady ride. They are totally immune to the sergeant major, which is why they’re tolerated by everyone else.

There are other ride regulars, even if they’re not yet officers. My favourite is the gifted beginner. Not every ride has one. At their best they’re like a man called Dan who turned up a couple of times to a fast group ride I used to go on, riding a cheap aluminium hybrid from Halfords. In the run-in to the first hill of the route everyone who hadn’t ridden with him before would queue up to patronisingly tell him not to worry when he got dropped, we’d wait for him.

Cometh the hill, Dan would unleash about 650 watts and steam off toward the summit like he was being pulled by a ski-lift. It was brilliant. (He was very talented, but gave up cycling after a couple of months – I’ve often wondered what he might have done if he’d stayed.)

Me? I’m the quiet one. The one who just gets on with the ride. Although I have a suspicion that if you think you’re the quiet one, you’re probably the wrecker.

Not many track bikes can claim associations with Manchester, Milan and Osaka, but this Keirin racing machine, built by Yoshiaki Nagasawa for Mancunian pro Matt Crampton in 2009, does. Crampton, a contemporary of Sir Chris Hoy, has a trophy cabinet bulging from numerous Commonwealth Games and European Track Championships.

Still, it was winning the Japanese Keirin Association Race in Manchester in 2008 that led to an invitation to join the Japan Keirin School in Izu, Japan.

Part training academy, part spiritual retreat, wholly disciplinarian, the school is as intense as the racing scene, which exists solely to generate 1.328 trillion yen (£6,481m) in annual gambling revenue. Keirin is big business in Japan; a contact sport far removed from the sanitised Olympic and UCI versions.

Hoy and Crampton raced Keirin frequently in Japan during the late 2000s. Both pros maintain that nothing honed their track skills for international competition more than belting around an outdoor asphalt track in all weathers with a group of eight fiercely competitive Japanese riders.

“Crampton may have been new to the scene, but he knew how to choose a bike,” says current owner Richard Hoddinott of vintage specialists The Velo Pages. “Nagasawa is a legendary Keirin frame builder who served a lengthy apprenticeship with Ugo De Rosa in 1970s Milan.”

Back in Osaka, Nagasawa applied his learned skills to Keirin bikes, which, to ensure fair play for those having a flutter, must be near identical. The frames have to be steel, and all components must be approved by the Nihon Jitensha Shinkōkai (NJS), the sport’s governing body. The NJS seldom changes its standards, so the bikes have barely changed since the 1970s, bar contemporary drive chain components.

The sport’s restrictive standards may seem at odds with creativity, yet Nagasawa can work magic with lengths of Japanese Tange chromoly steel tubing and a brazing torch like few others. Note the heart on the forks, a tribute to the late, great Ugo.

A £104 million funding package has been made available to the Walk Wheel Cycle Trust (WWCT) by the British government, to be spent on improving walking and cycling routes around the country, making them safer and more accessible for more people.

The health and societal benefits of encouraging people to cycle are well documented, but, just like last year, we’re left wondering whether this sum is even close to being enough to achieve meaningful updates to a network that the charity charged with looking after them admits are in need of much improvement.

The WWCT is a Bristol-based charity, formerly known as Sustrans, which is responsible for developing, maintaining and improving the National Cycle Network (NCN), a web of signed cycling routes that roll across the country, covering a total distance of 12,739 miles (20,501km), which was initially launched with a £42.5 million National Lottery grant 30 years ago, in 1995.

The funding package was announced at the Active Travel England’s (ATE) ‘Making Active Places’ conference in Manchester on Tuesday by transport secretary Heidi Alexander, when the Government positioned it as part of what they described as a 'record investment' in non-motorised travel, saying the sum builds on their commitment to establish the basis of a national active travel network by 2030, which will benefit millions of people across England.

In reality, the funding package (which is utterly dwarfed by the £27 billion investment the government recently pledged to spend upgrading the country's motorways and A -roads) had already been earmarked for use in improving active travel routes as part of the Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy, but what will be interesting is how and where the WWCT choose to spend the money, and how far it can possibly be stretched.

According to the announcement, the cash will be spread across hundreds of projects aimed at establishing more traffic-free routes, improving surfaces and making crossings safer, and there was also talk of consolidating local active-travel plans into a single national digital platform.

Cycling Weekly subsequently asked the charity for more details on how it intended to use the £104 million.

"Funding will be allocated to projects across England, benefiting a wide range of communities," said Carole Patrick, National Cycle Network Director at Walk Wheel Cycle Trust.

"Major projects under development include upgrades to the English portion of the Avenue Verte [the National Cycle Network route linking London and Paris], as well as new walking, wheeling and cycling routes that make use of opportunities created by the HS2 corridor.

"The National Cycle Network is an incredible resource. However, it faces challenges. Many routes need to be improved to make them more inclusive and the network is vulnerable to climate impacts. This funding will allow us to make it safer and more accessible – moving on-road sections to new traffic-free paths, removing barriers, resurfacing and widening paths, and making the network safer for women and girls."

This last goal relates to a gender gap that the charity has identified through their Walking and Cycling Index, published annually each March, which clearly and persistently shows that twice as many men are regularly cycling as women, and that women and girls feel less safe while riding bikes than their male counterparts.

In March this year, Patrick wrote about how the WWCT are working to build safer active travel networks that are better designed for women and girls, with campaigns to achieve improved lighting being a big focus.

These are laudable objectives, but concerns remain about how realistic such goals are with such relatively modest levels of funding.

Bikepacking luggage brand Tailfin is to join Castelli and Sportful in the MVC Group portfolio, after being acquired by the Italian holding company.

Tailfin was founded in Bristol, England, in 2017 by engineer Nick Broadbent, and has become renowned in the gravel and bikepacking community for its innovative luggage systems. Among these are the Speedpack and Cargopack systems, which feature a lightweight rack and bag and can be fitted, pretty much, to any machine.

Broadbent and his team will maintain a minority stake in Tailfin and continue to manage the company, while at the same time being able to take advantage of MVC's global presence, according to a statement released by MVC. The past five years has seen Tailfin grow by an average 50%, with 2025 seeing nearly €10 million in revenues globally, most in the UK, US and Germany. The company has an enviable register of R&D riders helping to develop its products, Aussie ultra-riding veteran Lachlan Morton and former Paris-Roubaix winner Alison Jackson among them.

Broadbent said: "Since Tailfin was founded, we have invested heavily in innovation to develop products that set the standard within the rapidly growing category of bikepacking and adventure cycling. Joining MVC Group will allow us to accelerate this journey further, leveraging the Group’s industrial strength and international presence, while preserving the identity, autonomy and innovation culture that have made Tailfin so successful.”

MVC Group, which is headquartered in the Veneto region of northern Italy and specialises in apparel for cycling and outdoor sports, is in the process of an international expansion, with the Tailfin acquisition forming part of this. It considers the UK brand "highly complementary" to its Castelli and Sportful offerings.

MVC CEO Emilo Foà said in a statement: "With Tailfin, we are not simply adding a new product category: we are integrating a leading brand whose positioning around excellence and strong focus on innovation are fully aligned with our own brands, while also being complementary to their offering.

"We are delighted to welcome Nick and the entire team, and look forward to working together to unlock Tailfin’s significant potential for further international growth and to embark on a new phase of shared development."

British premium cycling clothing brand Rapha is set to have a "proposed organisational restructure and a formal consultation process", as the company prepares to post deepening financial losses. Despite this, Rapha says that its "strategy is working".

A press release on Wednesday afternoon, sent after Fran Millar announced that she had resigned as CEO, revealed that turnover had dropped by £7m from £96m in FY24, the period ending 26 January 2025, to £89m in FY25, the period ending 25 January 2026.

The brand also posted a trading loss in its EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) of £5.6m this year, an increase from £2.6m the previous year. Its operating loss is now at £21.2m, which has increased from £17.2m the previous financial year. This means losses for the ninth year in a row.

The press release, shared with Cycling Weekly, reads: "These numbers reflect deliberate decisions to invest in our brand, product quality, cycling communities and customer experiences, while reducing our reliance on discount and promotional related activities – choices that will strengthen the business over time.

"Early signs in the current financial year suggest the strategy is working. We are seeing encouraging revenue growth in a number of our key territories and in our like-for-like Clubhouses, with fewer days on promotion and increased customer acquisition vs last year. Rapha Cycling Club membership has returned to growth, increasing by 18% year-to-date.

"Rapha's new Clubhouse concept is also performing strongly: Shanghai has recorded some of the highest footfall across the global Clubhouse network, and Bentonville has attracted 31% more new customers year on year. Customer lifetime value is growing and product innovation in our pinnacle performance range, Pro Team, is positively impacting sales."

Last year, it was explained that a large part of Rapha’s annual losses stems from an amortisation, which is responsible for around £10m of losses a year.

As a result of the company's financial situation, "significant changes" are now planned at Rapha to try and ensure the future of the brand. The first of these was confirmed as Millar's departure.

"This involves a proposed organisational restructure and a formal consultation process with affected team members will now take place," the press release explains. "We believe these proposed changes are necessary but recognise the personal impact on affected colleagues, and we do not take these decisions lightly."

The company is owned by brothers Steuart and Tom Walton, the grandchildren of the billionaire founders of the retail giant Walmart. "My brother and I have been majority owners of Rapha for nine years," Steuart Walton said. "We love the brand, the product, and what Rapha stands for, and we are deeply grateful to the people who have made the company so special.

“Our belief in Rapha has not changed. We remain committed to the power of cycling to make the world a better place and to Rapha’s unique role in advancing that idea. We are confident in the long-term future of the brand and committed to helping Rapha achieve its ambitions."

UK cycling retailer Sigma Sports has returned to profit following three years of losses amounting to £8m.

The London-based business posted a pre-tax profit of £171,268 in its latest accounts, which were published on Companies House last week and cover the year to 31 December 2025. The results follow three years in the red, with pre-tax losses of over £1m in 2024, £3m in 2023 and £4m in 2022.

On publishing the deep losses of 2022, Sigma Sports’ chief financial officer Oliver Lawson cited the cost-of-living crisis, rising interest rates, and the global economic impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, all of which contributed to a “decline in consumer confidence”.

The company’s latest accounts point to a recovery in the industry, which lulled after the boom in popularity during the Covid pandemic.

“2025 was a positive year for Sigma Sports, with the business maintaining its position as the leading premium retailer in the sector,” Lawson wrote in the accounts published last week.

“Growth was driven by both online and physical retail channels, reinforcing the importance of an omnichannel approach.”

Sigma Sports, whose original store was founded in Hampton Wick, London, in 1992, expanded its high street presence in 2025 by opening its third store, this time in Letchworth Garden City, just north of the capital. The opening “exceeded expectations”, Lawson wrote, generating revenues of £2m from April to December, and encouraging the directors to open a fourth store in Wilmslow, in the north west of England, earlier this year.

The company also grew its head count in 2025, up from 106 full-time employees to 128.

Sigma Sports’ most profitable years came during the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, when demand for sports equipment ballooned.

Across the two years, the company posted pre-tax profits of more than £14m, but experienced difficulty in the subsequent years, like many retailers in the UK, as the cost-of-living crisis deepened.

In late 2023, one of Sigma Sports’ main competitors in the UK market, Wiggle Chain Reaction Cycles, entered administration. Sigma Sports went on to experience “an acceleration of performance” following Wiggle's demise, and gained market share, Lawson notes in the 2024 accounts.

The business’s latest results give no indication of performance in 2026. Sigma Sports relies on the UK market for 97% of its trade.

Cycling Weekly has heard from other sources in the industry that this year has generally been a positive one for retailers.

“Data from the Bicycle Association has shown month-on-month growth through the year, and August was one of the highest grossing months,” said Mike Rice of Balfe’s Bikes.

“I think the cycle industry is returning to a growth mode and it’s in a healthier position than it has been for years in the post-Covid era.”

Fran Millar has left Rapha as CEO after two years at the cycling clothing brand, warning of "significant operational changes" to come.

First reported by Escape Collective early on Wednesday, the news was confirmed by the now-former CEO herself in an Instagram post. Rapha is yet to comment.

Millar suggested in her post that her "vision and strategy" remained in place, with Escape reporting that employees had been told that her five-year plan would continue. She was appointed in September 2024, after a career which had seen her work as CEO of British clothing brand Belstaff, which was owned by Ineos CEO Sir Jim Ratcliffe at the time, and previously in charge of Team Ineos in cycling.

Last October, Rapha revealed financial losses for the eighth year in a row, but Millar said there was no need for alarm bells. The company's accounts showed an operating loss of £17.2m. This is a slight improvement on the previous year, when the operating loss totalled £21.2m. In the same accounts, the directors reduced the company's value by £102m.

"After two bonkers and brilliant years, I’ve decided to leave Rapha," Millar wrote on Wednesday. "The vision and strategy I set are in place, and the path ahead for the brand is clear. What remains is delivery.

"To support that, the business will make significant organisational changes to reduce cost and drive efficiency, and those changes call for a different governance and leadership structure. With that in mind, I proposed to the board that I step down as CEO.

"I am incredibly proud of the passionate, loyal, committed people who work at Rapha across the world and it has been a joy to lead them for two years.

"All that remains to say is THANK YOU to our team, our members, our customers and the brand. It’s been an honour."

A large part of Rapha’s annual losses stems from an amortisation, which is responsible for around £10m of losses a year. "It’s an accounting adjustment," Michelle Woolaghan, Rapha's chief financial officer, explained last year.

Last year, Rapha announced it was parting ways with EF Pro Cycling’s men’s and women’s teams after seven years, but signed a new partnership with the USA national team from 2026 to 2029. At the beginning of the year, Rapha closed five of its Clubhouses across the USA and the UK; Millar called it a "painful decision" but the "right call" at the time.

It's understood that Millar's strategy included reducing Rapha's range of clothing and slowing discounting on products, which peaked after the Covid pandemic.

The company is owned by brothers Steuart and Tom Walton, the grandchildren of the billionaire founders of the retail giant Walmart.

“I was on the bus with the Visma guys, like with Wout van Aert and Pascal Eenkhoorn, and really from then, all I've aspired to do is to race for Visma one day, and hopefully ride the Tour de France with them.”

Xander Graham is reflecting on an extraordinary day five years ago, which burns bright in his memory, when, during stage seven of the 2021 Tour of Britain, he kept pace with a breakaway group as they rode towards his hometown of Edinburgh. Aged just 12 at the time, he was rewarded for his efforts by being handed a bidon by Eenkhoorn, who was then riding for Jumbo-Visma, and was later invited to meet the team. The video clip of the moment went viral, but now the story has gone almost full circle.

Now 17, Graham still has that bidon and knows exactly where it is (“on a shelf in my garage”). But as of this week, he also has something else, something that is putting him within touching distance of the dream he’s been holding onto for the last five years: a contract with JEGG-SKIL-DJR, a Dutch team who are directly affiliated with Visma-Lease a Bike.

“I was already a fan of Visma back then,” he tells Cycling Weekly. “But from that day onwards, it definitely made me love them, and they became my favourite team now. So, yeah, it really is like a dream come true.”

But it hasn’t come out of nowhere. In the intervening five years, Graham has been working hard to make his fream come true. A key member of the Yorkshire-based Prologue Cycling Team, he is halfway through a two-year programme with the Manchester Cycling Academy.

“I'm also a beneficiary of the Braveheart programme in Scotland,” he tells me. “The fund supports riders with funding for transport and costs, so they can get across to Europe to race, which is a massive help for me.”

As commentators Ned Boulting and Adam Blythe noted at the time, when they described the encounter as the best moment of the tour thus far, the Scottish youngster showed remarkable pace even as a pre-teen.

“I rode my bike from being four years old,” Xander tells me. “I used to do local mountain-bike dirt grits and then from there some cyclocross and a bit of road. From under-14 to under-16, I did every discipline – mountain biking, cyclocross, road and track – but for this last year, I've fully focused on road riding.”

And it has paid off. In spring this year, he was made aware of a young talent day being held by JEGG for under-19s.

“Loads of people applied, but I got through,” Xander explains. “Then we had to do testing in Belgium. Two or three weeks later I got a message from the head of JEGG, and he invited me to a training camp in Germany. After that he said that there was a space on the team for me.”

“I'll be based at home in Edinburgh, but I’ll fly out to races and training camps and stuff like that. I've got a training camp with them later in the year – that will be the first time that I’ll actually meet up with them.”

Major outdoor retailer Backcountry today announced its acquisition of Velofix, a mobile bike shop network operating across the United States and Canada.

Backcountry plans to integrate the network into its bike assembly and delivery operations, helping bridge the gap between a boxed bicycle arriving at a customer’s door and getting them ready to ride.

Velofix’s 96 certified technicians – or bike mechanics – work out of fully equipped vans, bringing the repair shop to customers’ front doors.

"A rider in Boulder or Boston can order a bike from us and have a Velofix technician build it, tune it, and hand it over ready to ride," said Kevin Lenau, Backcountry’s president.

The transaction closed Sept. 17. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The deal follows a series of acquisitions since CSC Generation bought Backcountry in September 2024. Backcountry added Utah-based Level Nine Sports in July 2025, then acquired Velotech, the parent company of BikeTiresDirect, Western Bikeworks and TriSports, later that year. With Competitive Cyclist already in the portfolio, Backcountry is assembling quite a collection of cycling businesses.

Outside cycling, Backcountry acquired outdoor apparel and gear brand Coalatree in April 2026. It also launched Backcountry Garage, an incubator intended to help outdoor brands grow through access to its resources, expertise and distribution.

Backcountry says it plans to expand Velofix’s services but hasn’t detailed those additions. It also hasn't yet revealed when it will integrate the mobile network into its operations.

For many years, Wiggle was the first place most people would look when searching for cycling equipment and apparel, from spare tubes, tools, repair kits and affordable dhb cycling shorts and jerseys through to helmets, shoes, saddles, pedals, pumps, frames and entire bikes. It was a one-stop Amazon for bike riders. You even used to get a little packet of sweets with each delivery.

But while Wiggle seemed all-powerful, behind the scenes elements were failing and eventually the wheels fell off. The company went into administration three years ago, was subsequently acquired by Frasers Group for a bargain and now, as we reported last week, even the URL has disappeared, along with the once-ubiquitous logo. The entire brand has seemingly been swallowed by another subsidiary of the Fraser Group: Evans Cycles.

So, what does the demise of the major player in the online cycling market mean? Why did it happen, where are riders spending their money now, and how has it impacted other retailers in the bike businesses?

Obviously, the relentless rise of online retail within the cycling industry – epitomised by Wiggle – was not welcomed by all. Cycling shops, especially traditional and small independent stores, couldn’t compete on price with a massive company that operated on an industrial scale with comparatively small overheads. Of course, what web purchasers saved in discounts they lost in service and expertise, but still the market became increasingly challenging.

Some shops, including many with a long histories like Brixton Cycles, sadly shut, with the 'survive to 25' mantra wearing thin, but others doubled down on their bespoke credentials and/or evolved to offer online sales as well as in-store service. And finally this adaptability and tenacity appears to have paid some dividends.

“This has been a pretty good year for the cycle industry,” says Mike Rice, CEO of Balfe’s, which operates 12 bike shops across London and the South East, and also trades online. Like other similar-sized businesses, Balfe’s have been buffeted by some big headwinds in recent years, but Rice sounded very positive when Cycling Weekly spoke to him this week.

“Data from the Bicycle Association has shown month-on-month growth throughout the year, and August was one of the highest grossing months,” he told me. “I think the cycle industry is returning to a growth mode and it’s in a healthier position than it has been for years – in the post-COVID era.”

His sentiments are backed up by the recently released accounts of Sigma Sports, which reveal the company made a profit last year, for the first time since 2021.

Rice reports an increase in sales both in-store and online. “We've adapted our product range to fill some of the voids that had been created by the demise of Wiggle Chain Reaction. We now have around 70,000 active SKUs on our website, and over time we’re looking to grow that. But at Balfe we operate a single pricing policy, so the price you see on the web is the price you pay in store. It's our duty to give a consistent offering.”

This last point seems key. “Sales online is generally driven by price,” observes Justin Hoy, MD of Pronto Bikes in Frome, Somerset. Hoy has completely eschewed web sales because of the pressures to discount in the online marketplace, but his company is growing and has very advanced plans to open a second store in Ringwood before the end of this year.

“I don't want to be in a price war with Merlin, Wiggle, Sigma Sport or whoever,” he says. “It's a lot of work for little gain. It seems all those businesses that have been big online, have either gone bankrupt or are really struggling. To me, there's something wrong with that business model.

“We announced that we'd be opening Ringwood a couple of weeks ago, and a couple of days later Primera closed down. But I think they've been suckered down that line of the internet and well, you can only get to a certain point. I mean, even Planet X is gone.

“We're growing, which is great. But if we're suddenly making less margin, because we've got to match whoever else is online, we're going to be busy fools. It's not financially viable to continue like that.”

Hoy has taken a very different approach. “We have set ourselves up as a community,” he tells me. “Our business is not just about offering products that people want to buy, but offering them the ability to meet other people and go riding together. People don't join the cycle industry to get rich, because it's not a massively lucrative thing for anyone. They join it because they like riding bikes. And we love riding bikes.

“We opened in Frome in Covid, and started a club off the back of the shop: Pronto CC. Because of Covid, we were meeting in the car park across the road and groups of six would do a little chain gang ride. The first week we announced it, 30 people turned up. And then word got round, and three weeks later we had 85 people rock up for this chain gang ride. Soon we got to the point where we’re having Christmas parties with 150 people, which is brilliant.

“You feed the shop by people coming in, and it being have a place to meet. We've got a cafe in here, so it's a nice place for people to sit and sit and chill out and drink a cup of coffee mid-ride, or to meet to go for a ride.”

For Hoy, selling kit online at discounted prices but without the service is the antithesis of the community-based business he has worked hard to build. “If people want to buy things online, that will happen,” he admits, but says something gets lost along the way.

“We've done super well with Pinarello, because they don't allow you to sell online. You're not allowed to ship a Pinarello bike. That's great, from my point of view, and it’s why the brand has grown. The customer sees the value in that product, because they've got to come into a shop, they've got to be fitted to it. They get to pick it up and they get to experience that sense of collection. It's not just opening a parcel."

And when people come into a bricks-and-mortar store like Pronto Bikes, they get the benefit of many years’ experience and knowledge.

“We've been in the bike industry long enough to know what's going on,” says Hoy. “Tony [from Torke Cycling], one of the best bike fitters in the world, works from here. People fly in from bike shops around the world to get taught by Tony.

“And we stock up to £15,000 worth of shoes, because everyone's feet are different. [An online outfitter] will just sell someone a pair of shoes because they can, but we want to be able look at someone's feet and sell them the shoe that fits them best. It adds real value to what you offer, and it's the right thing to do.”

World Bicycle Relief (WBR), the charity that provides sturdy bicycles to rural communities across the globe, has announced the first upgrade to its two-chain Buffalo bike.

The Buffalo Pro is the newest iteration of the Utility S2 bike that was released in July 2024 and bore an innovative drivetrain with two chains. The system, described as an “engineering feat”, allows riders to backpedal shift across two chain tensions to swap between two gears.

Last week, WBR announced the release of two updated bike models: the two-chain Buffalo Pro and single-speed Buffalo One. The new versions build on two decades of design for the charity’s flagship bike, of which more than a million have now been distributed around the world.

Speaking to Cycling Weekly, Andy Samways, WBR’s VP of product development, explained the latest updates focused on the bike as a whole, rather than the just dual drivetrain.

“We were broadly happy with our bike. It’s been doing really well,” Samways said. “We hit a million last year, and so in that time, I think we’d amassed a bunch of observations and things we’d seen, some things we wanted to tackle, and so we just took a pass through all of those issues.”

The changes include front and back disc brakes on the Pro model, an updated stand to make loading and unloading cargo more stable, and the introduction of two frame sizes: standard and large. The previous model was one size fits all.

“Although it’s not a huge technical innovation for us, it does mean that more people can ride the bike,” said Samways of the size options.

“Taller riders never complained about the bike, but it was clear to us from watching how they use it and how they ride that there was an opportunity to make the bike more comfortable and functional for them.

“Similarly, when we were testing our very early prototypes of this generation in Kenya, a woman came to us and asked if we sold children’s bikes, and we don’t. Rather than produce a kids’ bike, we want to make sure that a much younger rider can get on our bikes, and so the geometry changes for our standard-sized bike allow us to get a much shorter, much younger rider on that bike.”

WBR runs bike distribution programmes in seven countries – Zimbabwe, Uganda, Kenya, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania and Colombia – although its bikes are present in at least 28.

The latest iteration of Buffalo bikes took three years to design and develop, and are already being rolled out into communities.

The cost to donate a single-speed Buffalo One is £138 ($185), which covers the price of materials, manufacturing and distribution. A two-speed Buffalo Pro is around £20 ($27) more.

“That two-speed drivetrain is still the star of the show,” said Samways, adding that the system underwent no major changes in the update.

“It’s a product that, because it’s so unique, it’s very much at the beginning of its life,” he said.

“If you look at a derailleur, for example, that’s had like 100 years of innovations and improvements and refinements, and this is a very new thing. We know there’s plenty of room to keep improving that, so we’ve been working on bearings and material processes, and just trying to refine it as we learn about how it behaves in the field.”

As it stands, the single-speed Buffalo One is best for users on flat terrain, while the two-chain Buffalo Pro was built to withstand hillier regions, as well as cargo loads sometimes exceeding 100kg.

Samways, who has been working with WBR since 2010 and was previously employed by parts manufacturer SRAM to develop drivetrain solutions for the charity, hopes one day to have the two-chain technology on all Buffalo bikes.

“That’ll be something we’ll look at in the future,” he said. “But it does take time for us to work the manufacturing, find the efficiencies, and bring it down to a price where we can make it a standard feature.”

It's all part of WBR's commitment to keep developing. As the charity's bikes reach more people, and are ridden to their limits on hard-wearing terrain, Samways and his team of around 17 developers are always looking for ways to make the design more durable and accessible.

“We’re never done [innovating],” he said. “Our bikes are used so hard for so long. We will work on one set of problems, and then we’ll move on to the next. We’ll just keep chipping away at whatever presents itself as the next big problem.”

I’ve always liked long-sleeved jerseys. I have weirdly long arms that I’ve never really liked, and I enjoy my riding more if I can’t see them.

In winter, it’s fine. Winter jerseys have long sleeves. In summer, it’s harder. The vast majority of modern summer jerseys are short-sleeved, and the handful of properly light long-sleeved ones are never really comfortable because the arms are weirdly stretchy. So that means the irritation of arm-warmers, and the annual spring ritual where I lose my grip on an arm-warmer as I’m pulling it on and smack myself in the face.

It never used to be like this. I’m always a bit self-conscious about how long I’ve been a bike rider but I’m not ashamed to admit to being old enough to remember that perfectly normal, usable, long-sleeved and lightweight jerseys definitely used to exist.

Last week I punched myself in the face for the second time this year and decided that enough was enough. Down I went to the bottom of my kit drawer and found a couple of old long-sleeved jerseys. I put one on. In disbelief, I took it off and tried the other one. It was the same. They were so big I could have set myself up in there with a pair of binoculars and a packed lunch and used it as a bird-hide.

That at least solved the mystery of why the sleeves used to fit better, but it left a lot of other questions - did I really race in one of these things?

Both horrified and curious, I watched some old bike-racing videos. And, right enough, all jerseys used to be much, much baggier. I found some footage of Marco Pantani wearing a skinsuit so generous he could have turned around inside it and looked out of his own backside to see if Jan Ullrich was sneaking up on him, and no one would have noticed. Magnus Backstedt won Paris-Roubaix in a jersey he and both his daughters could wear at once.

So, anyway, I went for a ride in my bird-hide. And it was just lovely. There was a delightful current of air that could drift through. A wasp that flew in just turned around and flew out again. I could get things in and out of my pockets so easily that at one point I fished out a gel just so I could read the recycling information on the packet. It was like going cycling in a dressing gown, in a good way.

I’ll admit there are downsides. Some bits of flapping feel like they add to the ventilation, but some bits are just irritating; I don’t need the ability to assess the angle of a crosswind from the flags on my arms. And I remember that a baggy jersey stretches over time, so that the pockets gradually stop being on your lower back, and creep ever downwards to create the sort of lumpy-buttocked silhouette more normally associated with an iffy Turkish cosmetic surgeon.

And of course it’s slower. Ultimately, that’s why it all changed. Mark Cavendish won the Worlds in 2011 in a skinsuit, and suddenly jerseys got tight. They also got more expensive – you can make a baggy jersey out of anything and be a bit slapdash about it. To make a good tight one, you need to buy better fabrics, make more sizes, maybe do some aero testing, and use some more-considered seam patterns.

It's been a classic great-leap-sideways. Less comfortable, more expensive, slightly faster. It feels like an odd set of trade-offs for 99% of us, 99% of the time.

If you’ve got a big old jersey sitting in a drawer, or you can find one second-hand, give it a go. You might like it.

The internet is up in arms after an ad released by sports betting company Novig starring Sydney Sweeney stirred controversy this past week. The ad features Sweeney, an American actress, using different sports equipment to cover elements of her naked body, whilst she says the words ‘sports’, and then, ‘it’s just sports’.

The response from female athletes has been pretty loud and unanimous, expressing frustration with what they perceive to be the sexualisation and mockery of women in sport, with several prominent athletes taking to social media with content showing what a woman in sport looks like to them. Amongst others, Tour de France Femmes winner Demi Vollering shared a reel with her audience in which she also said; “it’s also sad women still need to have this conversation”.

Women’s sport has been on the rise in recent years, with more and more eyes tuning in and, as a response, better funding going into it. We saw the Lionesses (England’s women’s football team) win Euros in 2022 and 2025, which helped stir up public interest in women’s sport in the UK, and in cycling we have recently seen the return of the women’s edition of the Tour De France with viewership increasing year on year and crowds turning out in full force to spectate the race.

The stats have shown that women’s sports’ popularity is on the rise, and with this comes the respect for and perception of the female athletes themselves. For me that is why this ad felt like such a kick in the teeth to a movement that has been gaining so much traction in recent years.

As a professional female athlete, I know how hard it can be to get people to take you seriously in your sport and how hard it is to maintain female participation levels. Two-thirds of teenage girls drop out of sport by the age of 16 as a result of the barriers to continued participation. There exist many cultural and social reasons for this. The barriers to reaching a level where you can earn a full-time salary from your sport are greater still.

Our bodies go through such extreme changes in adolescence, and body confidence can really impact levels of participation in young people, particularly women. Add in the media shooting out an advert of a naked, slim, beautiful actress in sporting contexts, and you send a rather extreme, unhealthy message to these young women about what a woman in sport should look like.

Some have sprung to the defence of the advert, and Sweeney herself pointed out that professional athletes have taken part in naked photoshoots in the past, asking where the difference is with the Novig campaign.

For me, the clear distinction here lies in a professional showing off their athletic body with the goal of promoting body positivity: showing its strength and power. Versus someone who is not an athlete sexualising their body in order to sell a product. In this instance, a gambling product aimed at men. It is a celebration of male voyeurism rather than a celebration of an athletic female body.

There is no denying that this advert has been successful. It has been divisive and is clearly provocative, perhaps made intentionally to anger people. The age-old saying ‘no PR is bad PR’ seems to apply here, as the backlash has meant that the advert has spread even further, and perhaps to new audiences. Even by the people it upset.

I see these conversations as an opportunity to highlight women’s sport in a positive light and the need for these discussions about respect for women in sport, as well as their participation in sport at all levels. What shocked me the most this week was not the advert itself, but the comments on the social media feeds of the female athletes who spoke out. Misogyny is still very much present in some parts of our society, and, unfortunately for me, a section of the internet that was fed my content via the algorithm.

Amongst many rather unpleasant comments, a follower of mine told another woman in my comments to ‘go back to the kitchen’, while I was told by other men that “nobody cares about women's sports”, and “Riding a bike? Wow…you’ve achieved what most have by age 6”. There were also comments about how only five women would be able to finish the Tour if it was the length of the men’s race, and others such as “women’s sport is a joke”.

And this was only on my post. These comments are replicated thousands of times across multiple responses to the ad. This campaign really unearthed a wider and deeper problem, which is that there still exists a real societal issue with the perception of women, and in particular within sporting settings.

In 2026 this feels rather crazy to be saying, but I do think that with the rise in popularity of figures like Andrew Tate comes a rise in a rather depressing sub-section of society who really do lack respect for women in all walks of life.

So what can we do? We can keep shouting from the rooftops about how exciting women’s cycling is. (It really is!) We can inspire other women to get on two wheels or just move their bodies in the way they feel most comfortable. We can encourage those around us to interact with women’s sport in whatever way they can. We can support and encourage the female athletes in our lives: our mothers, our sisters and our daughters. Because this advert shouldn’t be a step back for women’s sport, but an opportunity for a huge leap forward.

Is cycling your career already, and if not, do you want it to be? We're hiring for a new role within the Cycling Weekly and Cyclingnews team. And, if your world revolves around bikes, we want to hear from you.

Cycling Weekly is the most-read cycling magazine in the UK, and cyclingweekly.com is one of the world's biggest cycling websites. This is a role that will help to shape, grow, and transform our brand, helping deliver and create social and video content that informs and inspires our audience. Our sibling title, Cyclingnews, is pretty big too, and this role will work across both brands.

This is a UK-based full-time role. It will take the form of hybrid working, with two days a week in our Winnersh office, close to Reading, and three days working from home. To apply for this role, please submit your CV and a covering letter explaining why this is your dream job.

If you haven't heard of our parent company, Future, it's the global leader in specialist media. With over 3,000 employees working across 200+ media brands, Future is a prime destination for passionate people worldwide looking to consume trusted, expert content that educates and inspires action - both online and off - through our specialist websites, magazines, events, newsletters, podcasts and social spaces.

Social Media Editor

What you'll be doing

Reporting into the Video Manager, you'll be shooting, editing and posting video content on Cycling Weekly’s and Cyclingnews’ social media channels. You'll come up with shareable, innovative ideas for new videos - organic and paid - and bring them to life. You'll be covering a range of topics from the grassroots cycling to bike tech to the Tour de France.

You'll be video presenting and storytelling, understanding the latest social media trends and create content that helps grow both brands' audiences.

Experience that will put you ahead of the curve

• An interest in and knowledge of the cycling market
• Ability to present high quality, engaging video content
• Knowledge and experience of social video editing tools
• Ability to use native analytics to report on and inform content strategies
• Able to interpret and use audience behavioural data to inform content strategy

Interested? Find out more, and apply, here.

A new museum entirely dedicated to British bike racing is being planned for a town in Nottinghamshire where one of the greatest professional bike racers Britain has ever produced spent his formative years.

As youngster, Tom Simpson delivered groceries around the houses of Harworth and the Bassetlaw district, but he would go on to become a road-racing world champion, Olympic and Commonwealth medallist and, in 1962, the first British rider to ever wear the leader's yellow jersey in the Tour de France.

Tragically, during the 13th stage of the 1967 Tour de France, 29-year-old Simpson collapsed and died during the climb of Mont Ventoux, having suffered heart failure, which was officially recorded as having been caused by exhaustion, but has also been blamed on the use of alcohol and amphetamines, a practise prevalent at the time. A monument is now located on the spot where he fell.

The new museum won’t be named after Simpson, but the location has been chosen specifically to honour him, as came to light this week, after Bassetlaw Labour MP Jo White revealed in an interview printed in the Doncaster Free Press that she had been involved in talks with the curators of the proposed British Cycle Racing Museum.

“There are cycling museums in the UK, but nothing dedicated to this telling the story of British racing," says Chris Sidwell, who says he came up with the concept of the museum, and also just happens to be Tom Simpson's nephew.

"Cycle racing is our most successful Olympic sport, our highest funded Olympic sport. It's the pinnacle. British men and women have won all the grand tours. And it's not celebrated anywhere [apart from] a little bit in Manchester.

“I thought that Harworth, the place where Thompson comes from, was the ideal place for it to be. This is where the British men's yellow jerseys story started."

The plans have evolved to go beyond simply a museum, as Sidwell explains. "It will also be a community centre that will encourage cycling. We've got all sorts of little bolt-ons. We trying to connect up to the national cycle network as well from the site. We've built a green wheel cycleway around Harworth.

"We're trying to make it a destination. It's going to become a cycling town. It was a coal mining town. We haven't got coal anymore, we've got cycling - so we're selling cycling."

The ultra-cycling world is in mourning following the death of one of its luminaries, Max Riese. The Austrian was an accomplished ultra-distance racer, as well as the founder of gravel and ultra-riding community GravGrav.

The 33-year-old placed fourth in last year's Tour Divide – the blue riband ultra-bikepacking event. More recently he won the Hellenic Mountain Race in May and was second in the Silk Road Mountain race in August. Both major events on the ultra-racing calendar.

"It is with extremely heavy hearts that we share the news that Max Riese passed away in a fatal accident on the 15.09.26," read a statement released by GravGrav on social media last night.

It continued: "As we all know, Max is a special soul. Although ultra-racing is an individual pursuit, Max cared deeply about the people and the community around it.

"He leaves behind an irreplaceable space, in the larger community, for gravgrav, but mostly for his family, for Lisa, and his closest ones.

"Let’s all continue riding, exploring, bringing people together, and keep connecting the community Max cared about so deeply. Your spirit will live on in our hearts, in our ideas, and in our actions. You will be missed more than words can express."

It finished: "See you around, Max".

Tailfin, whom Riese represented as an R&D rider, posted a message on Instagram saying: "Rest in peace, Max Riese. A teammate, a friend and a competitor. Your spirit will live on through the community you built. See you on the climb, Max."

At once affable and passionate, Riese has featured in the web pages of Cycling Weekly previously. We ran the story last year when he set a record for a triple Everest, which he completed near his Salzburg home. He also appeared on Cycling Weekly's Going Long podcast, where he spoke about how he discovered a love of ultra-riding, including confounding restaurant proprietors by being able to order two pizzas in one go.

"It fascinated us," he said. "It was just this idea, like, 'can we do it?'. Like going from Salzburg to Munich and back in one day – over 500 kilometres. We had a bunch of friends that basically said, 'how about we try and do this route in 24 hours'? And it was just fun. Also the surreality of like, after 14 hours or something you arrive in Munich after 300 kilometres, and you go into a pizzeria and order two pizzas at once, and they look at you like 'Okay…."

Cycling Weekly's thoughts are with Max Riese's family and friends at this difficult time. The ultra-riding community will miss him.

Starting next week, a group of active Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), volunteers from Tower Lifeboat Station in London will embark on an eight-day, 540km bike ride to raise money for the charity, which saves lives at sea in the UK and Ireland.

It will take place from the charity’s headquarters in Poole to Lifeboat Pier in London, pedalling one kilometre for each life the crew has saved on the Thames since the station was established in 2002.

A core group of five or six cyclists will ride the entire route, visiting other lifeboat stations as they travel along England’s Southeast coast, via Cowes on the Isle of Wight, Littlehampton, Dungeness, Walmer and Whitstable, with additional riders joining the core group for single days. On the last leg, from Gravesend to London, the group are planning to cycle while wearing full gear.

The original plan was for the volunteer lifesavers to wear visible gear for most of the ride, and to invite more people to join them on various legs, but after recent incidents of aggression towards members of the RNLI by anti-immigrant belligerents, additional risk assessments have been made to protect the safety of the participants.

“We've had some really lovely messages of support, but we've also had some horrific messages,” explains ride organiser Toni Scarr. “So we won't be wearing any RNLI gear in various critical locations. We're also looking at the timing of where we go past a few places as well. We may well need to change our route.”

Founded in 1824, and now operating 238 lifeboat stations and 240 beach-based lifeguard units around the UK and Ireland, the RNLI is a charity that is entirely reliant on donations to perform its service, which has seen volunteers save over 146,700 lives to date. Having just had a recent intake of new volunteers, the Tower RNLI riders are using the challenge to raise money to help with training and equipment costs.

Based on the River Thames, providing a 24-hour search-and-rescue service on one of Britain's busiest waterways, Tower RNLI is currently the busiest lifeboat station in the entire country, with the crew responding to over 600 calls out from HM Coastguard every year. The goal of the ride is to raise £10,000 to help equip and train the new lifesavers so they are ready when the next emergency happens.

“The second of January next year is our 25th anniversary,” Tower RNLI volunteer and full-distance rider Nick Harding told Cycling Weekly. “We've been on 11,930 shouts in those 25 years, and 540 lives have been saved. When we started planning the ride, we were on 530, so the distance keeps getting a little bit longer.”

“Actually, it’s 541 lives saved now,” he adds, explaining about an incident the crew responded to last week. “If we need to throw in a couple of legs, or go around a park a few times [to make up the growing number], then we will, but we'll see how we feel towards the end.”

Even before donning their rescue gear for the final leg, the group is likely to look a little different to the average group of riders. “We're all using our own bikes,” Harding tells me. There's quite a wide range – someone's on a Brompton. I'm on a nice Cinelli gravel bike myself.”

Harding is a keen bikepacker, but the group will be very mixed, with some less experienced members. “We're not doing massive daily distances, but we want to visit as many lifeboat stations on the way as we can. Our longest day is 49 miles and our shortest day is the last day from Gravesend, which is just under 30.”

Like all good ideas, the seed for this concept was planted during a conversation in a pub, during the Tower’s Christmas party last year. “I was chatting to Toni [Scarr], and she said, let's do a group ride to mark the anniversary. By the end of the evening, she'd recruited half the crew to the cause. And this rides is what has transpired from that conversation.”

It transpires that Scarr has previous in this department. In 2014 she organised a Tower to Tours challenge that saw RNLI volunteers (in relay) run from London to Dover, swim the English Channel and then ride to the town of Tours in Centre-Val de Loire in France. So really, by comparison, this lot are getting off lightly.

"There's just a lot and going on and we haven't fundraised for a while," Scarr tells me. "But we've also had a massive recruitment recently. last time it was similar, in that we needed to train a whole load of new people, but that was 10 years ago. So, it has come round to that focus again. And it sounded like fun."

Support the Tower RNLI crew through their JustGiving fundraising page.

Swiss bike manufacturer Stromer has expanded the its recall of its electric commuter bikes due to a risk of failing suspension forks.

First announced last year, the e-bike company recalled 6,500 of its ST3, ST5 and ST7 models, fitted with WREN forks, because the suspension fork steerer tube "can fatigue prematurely and crack, break or separate during use and, as a result, the rider may lose control of his bike, posing fall and injury hazard".

At the time, the brand said it had received 15 reports of failing forks, of which eight led to injuries.

In light of the reports, Stromer told its customers: "For safety reasons, do not use your Stromer until the WREN suspension fork has been replaced."

According to the UK's Office for Product Safety and Standards, the recall has now been expanded as of this month.

"This recall expansion concerns a batch with modified design (oval hole vs round hole), due to the possibility that these forks present the same safety risks as the recalled WREN forks," the report reads. "Consumers who own bike that is fitted with a newly identified affected batch have been contacted directly and should contact their dealer to arrange for their front suspension fork to be replaced free of charge."

Stromer says: "Owners of Stromer ST3, ST5 and ST7 are asked to verify whether a WREN front suspension fork has been installed on their bikes. To do so, please click the applicable images for your bike below."

"Stromer sincerely apologizes for the inconvenience and thanks all customers for their cooperation and understanding," Stromer added last year.

You can do so on its website, with the serial number found on your WREN suspension fork. Anyone concerned they may be affected by the recall can contact Stromer directly at safety@stromerbike.com for further information, or visit the brand’s website.

Stromer’s range of e-bikes are generally sold as high-powered commuting models. The advertised prices of the models affected by the recall range from €8,458 (£7,423 / $9,930) for the ST3, up to €11,490 (£10,084 / $13,490) for the ST7.

A protest ride that took place in the south of England last weekend had long been planned, but there was an awful lot more poignancy and pertinence to the event in Kent after two local cyclists were killed on the route of the ride last week, having been struck by a car.

Steven Anscomb, aged 60, and Natasha Lewis, 51, both died at the scene when a car-driver hit a group of bike riders on Sole Street, near Gravesend, last Sunday. A third cyclist was also injured. A 22-year-old man has subsequently appeared in court, charged with two counts of causing death by dangerous driving.

On Saturday, hundreds of cyclists, horse riders and walkers attended the Pass Wide and Slow ride that takes place annually in the area, conveying an urgent message to drivers to treat the bike riders, pedestrians and equestrians with whom they share the road, with care and respect. Because the consequences of not doing so can be truly tragic.

Moving slowly along a pre-planned route, riders and walkers were given a police escort and when they reached the spot where the cyclists died, the crowd paused to observe a two-minute silence in memory of in honour of Steven Anscomb and Natasha Lewis.

Pass Wide and Slow is a road-safety campaign started in 2015 by Debbie Smith, focused on protecting vulnerable road users from unsafe overtaking. It has gained traction across Britain and beyond, with awareness rides taking place in Belgium, Australia, the United States, Canada and New Zealand.

Drivers are encouraged to slow down significantly when approaching horses, cyclists, or walkers, leave ample space when overtaking (often 1.5 to 2 metres, depending on local law) and avoid sudden noise such as revving engines or honking.

“We do always have some cyclists [on our rides," Smith told Cycling Weekly. “I have worked with Caspar Hughes [founder of Stop Killing Cyclists]. But it was a one off having so many there and yes, I think that was because of the accident.

“It's important we work with cyclists we have a lot in the group. We have many differences between us on certain points, but it's education all the way.”

“This year we organised another ride for the group,” Kent activist Tora Lorence explained to CW.

“We are up to ride 162. But due to the awful tragedy that happened to those poor cyclists this event just got a lot of support so we decided to join it together with a little memorial service for the families to show our respect.

"I decided to get involved due the way some drivers treat us and the abuse we can get, it should be fun to do our hobby. With a lot of people it’s just ignorance [they don't know] what a 600kg animal can do when in flight mode. They can jolt sideways at 50mph if spooked, so just being patient and giving space is all we ask. It's the same with cyclists - they could go down a pot hole or catch a stone on their tyre and have to swerve suddenly.

"We were in awe of the amount of people that arrived and made this a very special day to remember those poor souls that lost their lives, it was past the route we had planned so I decided to make it as best I could, and it was amazing the reception we got."

Female cyclists from across the sport have spoken out after a sports betting website released an advert featuring actress Sydney Sweeney, mostly undressed.

Riders have criticised the advert, in which the Euphoria actress appears mostly naked, alongside assorted pieces of sporting equipment.

Olympic champion Sophie Capewell posted a video on Instagram, with Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift's reigning champion Demi Vollering, gravel rider Maddy Nutt and Team Confidis later following suit.

"I'm sure you've seen Sydney Sweeney's ad, but imagine a world where women are seen for what they can do not just what they look like," Capewell's social media video implored, with text over the track sprinter working out, training and racing.

"[Imagine a world where] it's cool to be an athlete, it's good to be strong, where sexualised representation isn't the most popular way of seeing women in sport," the text reads.

Posting the video, Capewell, an Olympic gold medallist and world champion, wrote: "This isn’t really about Sydney Sweeney. It’s about what gets attention and why."

Women from a wide range of sports have spoken out against the advert. American gymnast Gracie Kramer appeared to start the trend by posting a similar montage, stating: "I don't know what Sydney Sweeney was doing, but this is what women in sport look like."

The advert, for American sports prediction brand Novig, went viral over the last week, and has faced immediate criticism. British athletics track sprinter and four-time European champion, Amy Hunt, told the BBC "Sydney Sweeney, this is what women in sport look like", after finishing fourth in the 200m at the Ultimate Championships. She added: "en you’re a woman in sport, it’s not pretty. It’s not glamorous. It’s not sexy all the time, definitely."

Sweeney has joined the brand as a "strategic partner and equity holder".

"I think it's quite powerful, the amount of women who've come out and said something," Capewell told BBC Sport . "It's giving a very specific picture of women around sport and I think that's the challenging thing. Why is that the face of the campaign that is associated with sport?

"And that's the way you want to portray a woman, instead of it having, I don't know, an athlete or anything else that's more sport-centric.

"It's not necessarily that people are upset with someone having autonomy, it's the fact that that seems to be the only narrative that is directed around women in sports, or that's what gets more popularity."

Several others cyclists and teams have since shared similar videos.

Gravel racer Maddy Nutt, who finished second at Unbound XL, posted footage of her racing through muddy, tough conditions, with the words "this is what a female athlete looks like.

"No glitz, glamour or sexualisation. Pure grit, determination, mud, sweat and tears."

She added: "We've fought for years to give women's sport the respect it deserves. We work hard to show other young women what being a female athlete is. Women's sport is finally being taken seriously! Please don't undermine that."

Reigning Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift winner, Demi Vollering posted a video alongside an extended caption.

"Maybe it’s good that [the ad] started a conversation. But it’s also sad that women still need to have this conversation," she noted, adding, "for a very long time, women have fought to be seen for what they can DO, not only for how they look. And I think many women are simply tired of that."

The  FDJ United–Suez rider added: "Sport can teach us something completely different about our bodies. Not: How do I look? But: What can I do? How strong can I become? How fast can I go? What can I achieve with this body?"

Vollering added that sending healthy messaging was particularly important for young girls, who often "drop out during their teenage years."

"I want sport to be a place where girls can worry a little less about how their body looks and discover what their body can do, she stated.

Team Confidis also posted a video montage, depicting women in sports as "a teammate, a friend, who inspires others or helps them shine. Someone who pursues her dreams with passion and isn't afraid to own her ambitions."

Perhaps the smuggest variety of cycling comment piece is the “Cyclist reports conversation with non-cyclist about cycling” one. I should know, because I’ve smugly written quite a lot of them. It’s simply because as a group-bonding experience, it’s as good as it gets.

At one end of the spectrum, there are non-cyclists who are impressed, and we can come together to lord it over them. At the other end, there are the openly hostile, whom we can band together to hate. In the middle there is weird stuff, like the day I ran into someone I hadn’t seen since the sixth-form. When he heard what I’d been doing since he said, “Wow. You must have taken absolutely loads of drugs.”

We can combine outrage with amusement, share an expensive coffee, and agree that we are best. There is no social interaction with a non-cyclist where we don’t come out feeling good. The more of a cyclist you are, the better.

I’ve found an exception. I’ve seen myself as others see me.

I happen to have a really lovely neighbour. A man in perhaps his mid 70s, always cheerful, always polite, usually gardening. A couple of years ago he was trimming his front hedge as I got back from a ride.

“Been far?” he asked.

I started my answer, “About nine…” His eyes widened.

“… teen miles,” I finished, swerving away from the truth, which was “ninety”. I could tell that the real answer was about to genuinely horrify him. I know I was right because the lie nearly knocked him off his feet as it was.

The real answer would have catapulted me into a classification of “weird neighbour” from which I’d never recover. Every time he looked at me he’d see a strange man with a disorder. He wouldn’t necessarily be wrong, but you still don’t want looked at that way. For some reason, this time, I cared what he thought. I really wanted him to water my plants when I’m away without muttering, “Ninety miles!”

I’ve told him a lot more lies since. He asked if I’d ever done any racing, and I told him I’d done a little but hadn’t ever won anything. He asked me how much a Specialized S-Works time trial bike cost, and I told him “about £500”, because while I’m too old to trade in patronising ageism, I still didn’t want to give him a coronary.

Sometimes the lies have to be vaguer, because they’re not as baldly factual. Getting back on another hedge-cutting afternoon, one of warm sun and gentle breezes, he nodded and said, “Beautiful day. You’ll have enjoyed that, I’m sure.”

There isn’t really a good answer to this. Bear in mind that most people thank a “fitness fanatic” is someone who goes to the gym twice a week, and add to that that he’d seen me as I headed out five hours earlier. So, “Yes, loved it,” is odd. But, “No, I got dehydrated and didn’t take enough food and the last two hours were a nightmare,” is worse. It’s “weird” to go on a five-hour physical odyssey and enjoy it. It’s much weirder to voluntarily undertake a hobby in your spare time and at your own expense that you fail to enjoy in ways that seem highly predictable to outsiders. On such occasions I have to change the subject – hedge-cutting technique is usually a winner.

For years I’ve manged to stay more or less an undercover-oddball. He thought I was a normal man with an only slightly peculiar hobby. Then, last week, I blew it:

“Is it not about time you got an electric bike?” he asked.

“Don’t fancy it,” I said without thinking. “It would make life a bit too easy.”

Damnit.

Customers and browsers attempting to view stock on the websites wiggle.com and chainreactioncycles.com now find themselves redirected to the main website of Evans Cycles, as first reported on by roadcc, prompting speculation that what was once one of the biggest names in online retail within the cycling industry is now, finally, completely dead and gone.

Cycling Weekly has reported extensively on the travails of one-time online behemoth Wiggle Chain Reaction Cycles (WiggleCRC) since it was first put into administration in October 2023, after its parent company SSU filed for insolvency, with millions of pounds owed in debts to some 400 creditors.

In February the following year, WiggleCRC was acquired by Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group, with the sale subsequently creating headlines when it was revealed that the group – run by Ashley's son-in-law Michael Murray – had paid less than £10 million for an asset once valued at over £200 million, and that almost all the company’s staff – around 450 people – had been laid off. It eventually transpired that Frasers Group only forked out £3 million for WiggleCRC.

Previously, in 2018, the Frasers Group had hoovered up high street and online retailer Evans Cycles for £8 million, making 300 workers redundant three years later and placing the remaining staff to zero-hour contracts.

The group, which revolves around the main cash cow Sports Direct, also owns cycling retailer ProBikeKit, German chain SportScheck, luxury department store Harvey Nichols and a large chunk of Hugo Boss.

Frasers Group showed pre-tax profits £538m in the latest financial year, but having gone on a spending spree to acquire new companies, its net debt rose from £941 million to £1.26 billion in the year to 26 April 2026.

After acquiring WiggleCRC, Frasers relaunched both the Wiggle and Chain Reaction Cycles websites, which appeared separately to the Evans Cycles site, to maintain three online shop windows in order to achieve its stated aim to “become the no.1 Sporting Goods retailer in Europe”.

With two of the URLs now having been killed off, it looks like this strategy has changed, marking the end of the road for the Wiggle and Chain Reaction Cycles names.

Cycling Weekly reached out to the Frasers Group for comment.

Research routinely shows that fears over safety and sharing the road with motor vehicles is a major barrier to cycling. This is a shame, considering the physical, mental and environmental benefits of getting about by bike.

But could e-bikes provide the answer?

According to a Cycling UK survey, just 2% of UK adult journeys are made by bike. In the US, numbers from the National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) suggest that – between 2009 and 2017 – about 1% of all trips in the United States were taken by bicycle.

In terms of the barriers, a 2018 YouGov poll showed that 57% were worried about sharing the road with lorries and large vehicles, 56% had concerns over close passes and 49% worried about crossing busy junctions.

That’s where the power of the e-bike comes in. The best e-bikes are quicker to get up to speed, the added power may allow for longer routes on quieter roads, and, the size and weight of an e-bike might just be enough to inspire greater confidence in those otherwise put off.

UK charity for cycling, Cycling UK, has certainly found that its e-bike hire scheme, ‘Making Cycling E-Asier’ – running in Greater Manchester and Luton and Dunstable – has encouraged people otherwise put off saddling up to give pedalling a try.

In fact, in Bedfordshire’s Luton, “cycling to work increased from 32% to 75%” following the introduction of the scheme, according to the organisation's Director of Behaviour Change and Development, James Scott.

“E-bikes aren’t necessarily taking away from conventional cycling. They’re expanding the market by bringing in people who previously felt cycling wasn’t for them”, Scott, told us.

How are electric bikes banishing fears for the scheme users? Scott outlined the key feedback from users.

That extra kick from the motor

“[Improved confidence] is not about going faster,” Scott begins, “it’s about feeling safe and getting yourself out in front of the traffic,” he explains, outlining participant feedback.

This is where the important difference between legal e-bikes and the illegal machines we see far too many of lies.

All UK-legal e-bike motors cut out at 15.5mph (25kph); in the US, speeds vary by state – most use a three-class system: Classes 1 and 2 provide assistance up to 20mph, while Class 3 pedal-assist e-bikes can assist up to 28mph. But it’s the added boost of power at slow speeds that makes all the difference; a motor gives a ‘kick’ in those first pedal strokes which can provide confidence at junctions, traffic lights and roundabouts.

Anecdotal evidence concurs: “One of our research participants said, ‘I can accelerate quicker in traffic than I could on my usual bike,’” Scott explains.

In one case, a participant in Cycling UK’s bike loan scheme enthused, “I could get to work and back three times on this bike in the time it takes me to commute by public transport or by car. Undertaking all the cars on my way home in rush hour traffic in the cycle lanes is very liberating!”

Given that average traffic speeds in many urban areas are 12mph or so at peak times, e-bikes are very often a quicker option as well as a healthier and more enjoyable one.

Quieter, longer routes?

Can e-bikes encourage people to use quieter, longer routes instead of navigating busy roads? That’s likely but not entirely proven.

What is abundantly clear from the stats – 57% worried about sharing the road with lorries and large vehicles, and 56% with concerns over close passes – is that high traffic counts deter would-be cyclists.

The assistance of an e-bike allows riders to be more flexible with route choice, granting the freedom to explore quieter roads over longer or hillier routes, rather than looking for the most direct option.

“There’s definitely evidence that people are willing to ride longer distances on an e-bike,” Scott told me.

“We had one participant who had never thought about cycling to work before because it was around an 18-mile trip each way. With an e-bike loan for a month, he cycled it every day – 36 miles there and back.”

E-bikes also flatten out the hills, reducing fear born of moving much slower once the road points up.

One scheme user said, “the commute felt too far before. It doesn’t anymore. The hills felt intimidating, and there was a fear of arriving sweaty and concerns around fitness.”

Encouraging more underrepresented groups to cycle

A lack of infrastructure can put women off riding more than men.

In a 2025 report, Cycling UK stated, “Over half of women (58%) believe their cycle journeys are limited by safety concerns and a lack of suitable infrastructure. Female respondents pointed to roads not feeling safe enough to cycle (36%) and a lack of dedicated cycle routes (23%) as significant barriers to cycling.”

The added power may help to close the gap.

“Women make around half as many trips by bike as men and are more likely to be put off by fears around heavy traffic. E-bikes don’t remove all those barriers, but they can alleviate some of them by making journeys quicker and taking some of the physical strain out of cycling,” explains Scott.

Those with disabilities often find e-bikes a great way to get to work too.

“People with disabilities are motivated to cycle – they really want to cycle, including for commuting. What was often lacking wasn’t the motivation, but access to the right bike,” Scott says, adding, “there are lots of people with disabilities who can ride a standard bike, but having the electric assistance behind them makes it much more viable – particularly the acceleration and the constant power. Again, it’s about the bike taking the strain.”

Car replacement

There are many benefits and motivations for cycling as a whole. But those who begin with an e-bike are very often replacing car use rather than considering cycling a new hobby or leisure pursuit.

In fact, I'm personally an example of this. This year, I swapped car miles for bike miles, and as well as often saving time sat in traffic, I've lost weight and seen my resting heart rate drop by 6bpm.

Looking to results seen from the hire scheme in Bedfordshire’s Luton, where participants' cycling to work habits increased from 32% to 75%, “one of the big things we saw was people dropping car travel for cycle travel,” Scott says.

Luton isn’t the most bike-friendly town, with its busy inner ring road and car-oriented road network, so this shows that where e-bikes are available, Cycling UK’s participants use their cars less.

All of this said, the bike is only one part of the puzzle. Case in point, London’s boroughs’ investment in infrastructure contributed to a doubling in cycling in Greater London between 2012 and 2024.

Scott concurs. “E-bikes are one part of the solution, but you have to marry them with the right cycling infrastructure,” he said, adding, “if we want more women cycling, more children cycling to school, and a broader range of people cycling, safe infrastructure has to be there.”

Ezra Caudell has been taken off a ventilator and is communicating with family and teammates, but remains in critical condition following his crash at the Philadelphia Cycling Classic on 30 August.

In a new update, Modern Adventure Pro Cycling said the 19-year-old American had been successfully weaned from deep sedation 11 days after the crash and is showing promising signs of progress.

"Despite the severity of his injuries – and very much consistent with Ezra’s personality – it wasn’t long after waking that he was making jokes and sending short videos to his teammates," the team said.

Caudell remains in the intensive care unit at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, where he continues to receive ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) support while his lungs heal. The team said his injuries include a concussion and severe chest trauma.

Coming off deep sedation and the ventilator has allowed his family and medical team to assess his neurological status more clearly.

"His ability to interact, communicate, and recognise those around him has been an especially welcome and encouraging development," the statement said.

Caudell’s family remains at his bedside. The team thanked supporters for the outpouring of support and continued respect for the family’s privacy.

"Important milestones still lie ahead. But after an extraordinarily difficult 11 days, there is genuine reason for hope as he begins his road to recovery," the team said.

During the Philadelphia Cycling Classic on 30 August, Caudell and Lotto Intermarché rider Milan Menten were attempting to bridge across to the breakaway when the crash occurred. After looking behind him, Caudell lost his balance and hit either the kerb or a drain. His front wheel broke in the process, and Caudell collided with a lamppost.

Caudell was reportedly knocked unconscious but regained consciousness before being transported to hospital, where he was later placed in an induced coma.

Previous updates revealed that Caudell suffered multi-system trauma, including head injuries and significant lung damage. He is working toward stability and is expected to face what will "likely be a long recovery."

One day after Kim Borthwick received the devastating news that she had a terminal brain tumour, the 36-year-old mum chanced upon the documentary Cancer Courage and Me, made by six-time Olympic cycling champion Sir Chris Hoy, and it motivated her to do something positive in the darkest of times.

Borthwick was diagnosed with an aggressive glioblastoma in January, shortly after seeking medical advice for an "unbearable” headache that she initially put down to tiredness after the festive season. Sadly, she very quickly found herself dealing with a terminal diagnosis while trying to raise her four-year-old twins.

In 2024, when he was just 48, Hoy revealed that he had stage four prostate cancer and had been told that he only had two to four years left to live. Since then, the Scottish track-cycling legend has called for routine prostate cancer screening to be conducted on men at a younger age, revealing that the disease also claimed the life of his grandfather.

Inspired both by how Hoy and his wife, Sarah, dealt with his diagnosis with their children, and his efforts to make a positive difference for others, Borthwick bought the cyclist’s book All That Matters, and began adopting his mindset, focusing day-to-day on what she could control.

By coincidence, a couple of weeks prior to her diagnosis, Borthwick's mother had bought her twins, Max and Freddie, a book about Chris Hoy called Little People, Big Dreams. The boys became fascinated with the champion's six Olympic gold medals, and when she was initially discharged from hospital, the family presented her with six replica gold medals, each engraved with a heartfelt tribute: 'Best Mummy', 'Best Wife', 'Best Daughter', 'Best Sister' and 'Best Friend'.

Borthwick went on to meet Hoy in person, got a bike and formed a team to ride his Tour de 4 charity cycling event, which took place last weekend. Unfortunately, the physical toll of her illness has left her unable to take part personally, but her team of friends took on the challenge in her honour, riding to raise awareness for her cause.

Like Hoy, Borthwick is now devoting much of her remaining time to advocacy, working with the Brain Cancer Justice campaign and trying to generate support from everyone from grassroots cyclists to sport stars, to help tackle a disease where standard treatments and survival rates have remained depressingly unchanged for decades.

"The most shocking thing I was told wasn't that I might be gone within months", says Borthwick. "It was that in the last almost 30 years, the treatment options have not changed. So, on the NHS, it's surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and that's you.

"I don't know if I'll see my boys start school. My diagnosis has given me the clarity to enjoy every moment I have with them. But I have a fire in my belly to affect change for people diagnosed with brain cancer."

Currently, brain tumours are the biggest cancer killer of children and adults under 40. Borthwick and the Brain Cancer Justice campaign are calling for a dedicated national lead for brain tumours across the UK, and life-saving systemic changes like universal access to whole-genome sequencing from mandated frozen tumour tissue.

"It's too late for me," says Kim. "But I want to make a difference for those who come after me."

Scottish Cycling has paid tribute after a club cyclist was killed on a training run on Tuesday evening in the west of Scotland.

Iain McTavish, 46, was hit by a car driver, along with two other riders, all of whom were taken to hospital, but McTavish died from his injuries.

The Johnstone Wheelers Cycling Club rider was hit by a car driver on the A8 in Port Glasgow on Tuesday evening. His cycling club posted on Facebook: "Today we’re all reeling from the awful news yesterday. Iain McTavish was killed yesterday evening whilst riding with the bunch.

"This will take a long time to sink in and process, but for now suffice it to say that we are devastated at the loss of one of cycling's good guys. RIP Iain."

Scottish Cycling posted: "We are heartbroken to hear that Iain McTavish has passed away after he and two other riders were hit by a car on a training ride last night.

"Iain was a vital member of the Scottish Cycling community, a member of Johnstone Wheelers Cycling Club, a stalwart of the Renfrew bunch and Georgetown TTs.

"Iain was the only person to have attended every round of Track League last year and stood as rider rep on their committee. A reliable and friendly face that you knew would be at the meet point of a ride even if nobody else showed up.

"The messages highlighting his positive influence on so many people are already pouring in, and his loss will be felt heavily in the West of Scotland.

"Our thoughts go out to his family, friends, and everyone who knew him.

A Police Scotland spokesperson said: "A man has died following a crash on the A8 in Port Glasgow. Around 7:10pm on Tuesday, September 8, we received a report of a collision involving a blue Ford C-Max Zetec and three cyclists on the westbound carriageway, between the Langbank and Woodhead roundabouts.

"Emergency services attended, and a male cyclist, aged 46, died at the scene.

"Two other male cyclists, aged 37 and 27, were taken to hospital.

"The male driver of the Ford vehicle, aged 33, was also taken to hospital but has since been released. The A8 has reopened and enquiries are ongoing to establish the full circumstances."

It is not the only cycling death in recent days; at the weekend, two cyclists were killed in Kent after a collision with a car driver. A man has now been charged with two counts of causing death by dangerous driving, failing to stop at the scene of a road traffic collision and possession of a class C drug.

Statistics from the Department for Transport released this July revealed 79 cyclists were killed on British roads in 2025, and a further 4,311 were seriously injured.

Police have charged a man in relation to the deaths of two cyclists in Kent, England.

Twenty-two-year-old Aaron Turner has been charged with two counts of causing death by dangerous driving, failing to stop at the scene of a road traffic collision and possession of a class C drug, Kent Police confirmed in a statement on Wednesday.

A man in his 60s and a woman in her 50s were pronounced dead at the scene on Sunday morning following a collision with a car driver in Cobham, near Gravesend. The incident took place at 7:47am, involved a white Ford Focus, and also left a third cyclist with minor injuries.

Two men, aged 21 and 22, were initially arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving, and a 19-year-old woman was also held on suspicion of assisting an offender. One of the men and the woman were later released on bail.

Turner, 22, was remanded into custody and will appear at Medway Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday.

Kent Police are still appealing for witnesses of the incident to get in touch; anyone with information has been urged to contact the force’s Serious Collision Investigation Unit (SCIU) on 01622 798538, or email sciu.td@kent.police.uk with reference RY/KA/072/26.

Members of the local community have laid flowers at the scene in tribute to the two people who died.

“It is such a devastating accident,” Dakota Dibben, ward councillor for Istead Rise, Cobham and Luddesdown, told Kent Online. “They were cyclists going out on a Sunday morning, enjoying the countryside, and this fatality happened. It is deeply saddening.

“A lot of the residents are very, very upset. Sole Street is a very, very small community in Cobham, and they are deeply saddened by the news.”

Statistics from the Department for Transport released this July revealed 79 cyclists were killed on British roads in 2025, and a further 4,311 were seriously injured.

Last November, the government agency Active Travel England (ATE) highlighted that many British roads aren’t wide enough for vehicle drivers to overtake cyclists safely.

The Highway Code states that drivers in the UK should leave at least 1.5 metres when overtaking cyclists at speeds up to 30mph, and more space when travelling faster.

After her failed around-the-world attempt this summer, ultra-endurance cyclist Lael Wilcox has shifted her attention to a new challenge: tackling the Pan-American Highway from her home in Alaska to Argentina in 2027.

Wilcox said she is aiming to begin the north-to-south ride in August or September of next year with a Fastest Known Time in mind.

The exact route and start date have not yet been announced, but the established record course runs from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, to Ushuaia, Argentina, and covers roughly 22,400km (13,900 miles).

"I’ve been looking at this ride for basically my whole time cycling because it makes sense," Wilcox said. "It’s a straight line and because it goes to all these new places, and it rides through the Andes.

"And I want to do it fast."

The announcement comes after an early end to Wilcox’s attempt to break Mark Beaumont’s outright around-the-world record. She left Chicago on June 7 but stopped just 14 days and approximately 3,000 miles into the ride, having suffered nausea, vomiting and heat exhaustion during a severe European heatwave.

"Sometimes things just don’t work out the way you had expected," Wilcox said. "I trained harder than ever. I had a huge plan. I had more support, bigger budget, and by day 14 I had to quit the ride."

Wilcox said the outcome had been disappointing both for her and for her wife, filmmaker Rugile "Rue" Kaladyte, who had backed and documented the project. But the pair remained in Europe, spending time hiking in the Swiss Alps before Wilcox rode the Pan Celtic Race around Ireland and Wales. They then watched the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, and capped their travels with a solar eclipse. This time, Wilcox said, gave them space to ride, hike and consider what should come next.

Their answer was the Pan-American Highway.

From Alaska to Tierra del Fuego

The Pan-American system consists of interconnected roads extending from the far north of North America (Alaska) with the southern tip of South America.

The network of roads total approximately 30,000km (19,000 miles), while record attempts typically follow a more direct route of approximately 22,000km (around 14,000 miles) between Prudhoe Bay and Ushuaia.

The route crosses dramatically varied terrain and climates, from Alaska’s Dalton Highway through Canada, the United States, Mexico and Central America, and on through the Andes and Patagonia.

The road is interrupted by the Darién Gap, which is stretch of dense, undeveloped, rainforest between Panama and Colombia. Under the Guinness guidelines used for Michael Strasser’s 2018 record, the missing section had to be bypassed by flying from Panama City to Cartagena, but the clock continued to run during the transfer.

The fastest reported north-to-south ride is Bond Almand’s solo, unsupported journey in 2024. The American covered the route in 75 days, 17 hours and 55 minutes, improving on Michael Strasser’s 2018 time of 84 days, 11 hours and 50 minutes.

The women’s unsupported benchmark belongs to Canadian Ashleigh Myles, who rode 22,412km (13,926 miles) from Prudhoe Bay to Ushuaia in 118 days, 2 hours and 30 minutes. Myles was the first woman known to complete the full route by bicycle.

"Those are fast, really good times," Wilcox acknowledges.

Wilcox did not explicitly say which category or record she will target, only that she wants to ride the route quickly.

As with her 2024 around-the-world ride – when she set a new women's record at 108 days, 12 hours and 12 minutes over 18,125 miles – her Pan-American Highway ride will be self-supported with an open-door invite to the cycling community.

"We want to do it in the spirit of how I rode around the world in 2024, so people can come join for any stretch, and I’ll go taking care of myself," she said.

Kaladyte plans to film the journey, and the couple will meet in the evenings to record Wilcox’s podcast and have dinner together. Wilcox acknowledged that unstable weather will again be an unavoidable variable.

"It’s hard now with climate change," she said. "Weather is very unstable, unpredictable, but I want to give it a shot, and Rue wants to shoot it."

For Wilcox, though, the appeal extends beyond the clock. She's inspired by those who came before her, including Greg and June Siple, whose Hemistour to Argentina in the 1970s led to the creation of the organisation now known as Adventure Cycling Association.

"I just want to join the mix," Wilcox said. "And I want to see this land."

Two cyclists were killed and a third was taken to hospital with injuries after a car was in collision with a group of bike riders on a narrow street in Cobham, near Gravesend, on Sunday morning. Kent police would like to hear from anyone who witnessed the horrific incident.

Police say a white Ford Focus car being driven along Sole Street towards Meopham collided with three bike riders at 7.47am on Sunday 6 September. Tragically, a man in his 60s and a woman in her 50s were confirmed dead at the scene, while another woman sustained minor injuries and received medical treatment.

Two men aged 21 and 22 were arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving, and 19-year-old woman was also held on suspicion of assisting an offender.

Flowers and tributes have been left at the scene and the local community is said to be in shock after the accident.

“I was truly devastated by such an accident that took place in Sole Street, Dakota Dibben, Ward councillor for Istead Rise, Cobham and Luddesdown, told Kent Online. “A lot of the residents are very, very upset. Sole Street is a very, very small community in Cobham, and they are deeply saddened by the news.

“It is such a devastating accident. They were cyclists going out on a Sunday morning, enjoying the countryside, and this fatality happened. It is deeply saddening.”

Last year, Active Travel England (ATE) highlighted that many British roads aren’t wide enough to be safe for cyclists, and concerns have previously been raised about safety on Sole Street.

A 'Pass Wide and Slow ride' had already been planned to take place in the area on 12 September, to raise motorists' awareness about how to safely drive on quiet country lanes shared with other more vulnerable road users, with cyclists, horse riders and walkers due to take part.

Local press are reporting that this will still take place, and more people are being encouraged to take part in the light of this tragedy.

Cycling Weekly reached out to Kent Police for an update and we were told that one of the men and the woman have subsequently been released on bail, pending further enquiries, while the older man is still being held in custody.

Anyone who witnessed the incident, or who has information that might help police, is being urged to call the SCIU appeal line on 01622 798538, or email sciu.td@kent.police.uk, quoting reference RY/KA/072/26. Drivers with dashcam footage can also upload footage.

There is an episode of The Simpsons (episode 238, “The Mansion Family) where Mr Burns, the oldest resident of Springfield, goes to a doctor for a check-up. The upshot is that he has every disease known to man. The only reason he’s not dead is “Three Stooges Syndrome” – all the diseases are trying to get through the “door” to kill him simultaneously, so they get wedged against each other. The slightest disturbance in this equilibrium would be fatal.

I’d argue that the sport of professional cycling is in a similar position. There are a simply awesome number of things wrong with it, yet it still works. This has been the case for as long as I’ve been interested or involved. For a business worth millions, employing thousands of people, and run by people who at the very least aren’t obviously morons, it’s wildly unstable.

Teams vanish every season, and they always have done. Sometimes they do it in an orderly manner that lets everyone try to find another job, like the Arkea-B&B Hotels teams last year. And sometimes they just point their propellers at the sky and thunder to the seabed mid-race, like ANC-Halfords, which imploded in the middle of the 1987 Tour de France.

Races come and go too. Even things that looked fairly permanent like the Criterium International, the Tour of Yorkshire, or the Ride London events. One press release and they can blink out of existence.

The sport is ludicrously dangerous. If you invented pro cycling today, your idea wouldn’t survive the risk assessment for the first race. “Risk: catastrophically unstable vehicles being raced at high speeds in close proximity to each other, surrounded by hard objects. Mitigation: polystyrene hats.”

It’s run by an often-opaque organisation based in the Swiss mountains like a Bond villain. Large parts of cycling are kept afloat by questionable money from iffy government regimes and industries.

It should all fall apart at any moment, but it does not. In fact, the shambles is a lot of how it works. We’ve just finished with the spring classics. The thrill of the classics can easily blind you to their weirdness.

Imagine, again, that you’re inventing this from the start: “We start in Milan, we ride down 300 km of flat road, we have a couple of really short, easy climbs, and we finish in San Remo. It’s going to be amazing.” Or “We’re going to get everyone to ride their road-race bikes over the worst roads in Northern France. Half of them will fall off, and the other half will get punctures. You’ll love it.”

They’re like that because they weren’t primarily intended to be bike races. They were publicity operations – having a race to Roubaix was mainly about publicising the not totally prepossessing settlement of Roubaix. The Tour de France and the Giro d’Italia were just selling papers by means of a terrible trial of endurance – 50% of their DNA is in common with the worst excesses of reality TV.

A lot of cycling’s glory is that it’s not a modern sport. It’s evolved, and barely, from a nineteenth-century freak-show.

This is why I’m always concerned about the calls to modernise it. They’re almost always well-meaning and sincere – most people in pro cycling want to make the sport more financially stable, and above all they want to make it safer.

But I also know that, for example, a properly safe sport would be on shorter laps of a carefully designed circuit. And that a really financially-sustainable sport would almost certainly mean fans paying to watch it from the roadside. And while I don’t want to see riders injured, and I don’t want to see riders getting raked over by dodgy sponsors, I also worry about the beautiful equilibrium of impending disasters that got us here.

Four years after stepping away from his CEO role, Specialized founder Mike Sinyard will resume as CEO starting 1 November. The 76-year-old will retake the helm following Armin Landgraf’s departure.

Bicycle Retailer reports that Landgraf is stepping down after two years as CEO and four years with the American bicycle company. Neither Specialized nor Landgraf disclosed the reason for his departure or details about his next move.

Sinyard founded Specialized in 1974 and served as its CEO for 48 years. After stepping down from the CEO role in 2022, he remained with the company as founder, chairman and chief rider advocate.

Since then, two executives have led the company, each lasting just two years. Former Dyson executive Scott Maguire succeeded Sinyard in 2022, before Landgraf, a former CEO of both Pon.Bike and Canyon Bicycles, took over in 2024.

Landgraf described leading Specialized as "a tremendous privilege" and said the company is in "a strong position, with a clear strategy and an exceptional team."

In return, Specialized thanked Landgraf for helping strengthen its foundations for sustainable, long-term growth.

"As I step back into the CEO role, I’m driven by the same passion for supporting riders and retailers," Sinyard said in a statement.

He described Specialized as "a big bike shop at heart" and said he still shows up every day "committed to making it the best one it can be."

American rider Ezra Caudell, 19, remains in intensive care with major injuries following his crash at last weekend's Philadelphia Cycling Classic.

In a new statement posted today, George Hincapie and the Modern Adventure Pro Cycling team asked that Caudell and his family be given "the privacy and space they need at this difficult time."

The statement did not provide further details about his condition, stressing that future updates would depend on the wishes of the Caudell family.

"At present, Ezra continues to be supported by medical professionals with his family by his side," the statement said. "Further updates on his condition will be communicated by the team, in accordance with the wishes of the Caudell family, in due course."

A GoFundMe campaign, established by a friend close to the family, provides the clearest account to date of Caudell’s injuries. It says that Caudell suffered major trauma to his lungs and head and is being treated in the ICU at Jefferson Einstein Philadelphia Hospital. He is working toward stability and is expected to face what will "likely be a long recovery."

During the Philadelphia Cycling Classic on 30 August, Caudell and Lotto Intermarché rider Milan Menten were attempting to bridge across to the breakaway when the crash occurred. Menten told Belgian newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws that Caudell lost his balance after looking behind to check their advantage over the peloton. His front wheel then struck either the kerb or a drain and the rim broke. "He went straight into a lamppost. He took me down with him," Menten said.

Caudell was reportedly knocked unconscious but regained consciousness before being transported to hospital, where he was later placed in an induced coma, according to Het Laatste Nieuws. Menten was also taken to hospital but said Caudell's condition was far more serious. He was shaken up by what he'd seen and stated that he intended to speak with a mental coach after witnessing the crash at close range.

On Friday, Modern Adventure said it had contacted Menten to offer its support.

"We have reached out to Milan Menten to offer our support and recognize the difficult circumstances we now share surrounding this incident," the statement said. "We will continue to navigate this situation together, along with Ezra's family, teammates and friends, supporting one another as we do so."

The team has urged supporters and others seeking information to respect the family's privacy wishes during what it described as a sensitive and difficult period.

"We respectfully ask that they be allowed the privacy and space they need at this difficult time, and to respect that we will share information only when, and if, it is appropriate to do so," the statement said.

The GoFundMe campaign is intended to help Caudell's family meet the mounting costs associated with his hospitalisation and recovery. His parents and sister had recently moved to Germany to support Caudell’s career and travelled from Germany on short notice to be with him after the crash. Organisers said the funds raised will help cover accommodation, meals, travel, medical bills and other unforeseen expenses while the family remains in Philadelphia.

Modern Adventure said the support offered to Caudell and his family had been deeply appreciated.

"We know that the incredible support for Ezra means a great deal to his family, as it does to all of us," the statement said.

Caudell hails from Acworth, Georgia. He joined Modern Adventure at the beginning of 2026 after racing as a junior for Team California. This season has been his debut as a professional, and he’s made appearances at a host of Belgian spring races as well as stage races like Tour de Wallonie, Tour de Hongrie and Tour of Denmark. In April, he was the youngest rider to race and finish Paris-Roubaix.

Cycling’s governing body, the UCI, has called for safety tracking systems to be put in place across all professional road races “as quickly as possible” following the death of Finlay Tarling.

The 19-year-old was struck and killed by a non-race vehicle driver at the Volta a Portugal on 14 August, after he was distanced from the back of the peloton.

Earlier this week, a meeting of the Professional Cycling Council (PCC) took place at the UCI’s headquarters in Aigle, Switzerland, with stakeholders from men’s and women’s professional road cycling in attendance.

A UCI statement shared on Friday afternoon said a “large part” of the meeting was dedicated to rider safety, and particularly GPS tracking.

“In the absence of a joint proposal from the different stakeholder groups, the UCI stressed the urgent need to put in place, as quickly as possible, a dedicated safety system allowing the real-time location of riders and vehicles to be tracked at all professional road cycling events, starting with those in the UCI WorldTour and UCI Women’s WorldTour,” the UCI said.

A safety tracking system was put in place at last year's UCI Road World Championships in Kigali, Rwanda, a year on from the death of 18-year-old Muriel Furrer, who crashed in the junior women’s road race at the same event in Switzerland, and was not discovered for 82 minutes.

“Given safety remains an absolute priority, the UCI will therefore establish protocols and a regulatory framework for the use of real-time tracking systems at races,” the UCI said.

“UCI President David Lappartient reiterated that, in discussions on safety, stakeholders need to move past any disagreements on certain issues and act together. In his view, riders' safety requires this, and safety must never be sacrificed for commercial interests.”

In race classification terms, professional races are those labelled WorldTour, ProTour, 1.1 and 2.1.

Last year, the Tour de Suisse introduced rider and convoy tracking, claiming to be the first race in the world to do so.

“We cannot completely prevent crashes with these measures,” Tour de Suisse race director Olivier Senn said at the time, “but we are doing everything we can to ensure that all information is available to the teams and that the consequences are as minimal as possible.”

GPS tracking enables real-time monitoring of a rider's position, and allows for "immediate identification of any unusual situations, such as a rider suddenly stopping on the course," the UCI said last year.

"In such a case, the rider's exact position will be transmitted to the relevant parties in the convoy – organisers, UCI Commissaires, medical and security services – so that appropriate measures can be taken without delay."

Five teams were disqualified from the women's Tour de Romandie in August 2025 following a dispute over a GPS safety tracker trial at the race. The teams were asked to nominate a rider to use a tracker, but refused, later writing in a letter to the UCI that they did not consent to the imposition of tracking devices.

Also in its statement on Friday, the UCI announced a meeting will take place at the upcoming Road World Championships in Montréal, Canada on 20-22 September, regarding reform to the structure of professional road cycling. Guidelines will then be unveiled in mid-December.

The UCI also confirmed a date change for the Vuelta Femenina, which will move from the first week of May to 3-10 October in 2027.

A London police force is clamping down on illegal e-bikes by seizing and destroying them.

Since its formation in July 2023, City of London Police’s cycle team has detained over 800 non-compliant e-bikes and scooters.

The team’s sergeant, Stu Ford, told Cycling Weekly he has witnessed a “massive increase” in people riding illegal e-bikes in recent months. Last week, for example, his team seized 18, including one that showed a top speed of 70kph on its speedometer.

“What we’re finding are these non-compliant bikes that are overpowered and have got a throttle to make them go rather than pedals,” Ford said.

Under UK law, an ‘electrically assisted pedal cycle’ (EAPC) must have pedals, cannot be propelled to more than 15.5mph (25kph), and cannot exceed a power input of 250 watts.

Ford and his team have been seizing bikes under Section 165A of the Road Traffic Act, which treats them as uninsured vehicles. Once confiscated, the bikes are taken to a pound and destroyed after 15 days.

“When we first started doing this, you could literally walk out of the police station and two or three would be right in front of you,” Ford said, adding that the majority of the users are gig economy workers, such as food delivery riders.

“I understand that they’re in an economy where it’s very low income, they have to work long hours, and the quicker they can get to and from calls the better, but we’ve still got to stick to the laws of the road,” Ford said.

“People are getting badly injured and in some instances killed by these bikes flying around, and there’s no accountability for these people because they’re not on licences. There’s no way to necessarily trace them. We need to do something, and what we’re doing at the moment is what we can with the powers we have.”

Around 200,000 cyclists pass through the City of London, the square mile district on the north side of the River Thames, between 8am and 9am every weekday.

Ford and his team of 10 on-bike officers rely on certain markers to identify non-compliant e-bikes, such as the presence of a throttle and a “dinner plate-sized hub” containing a high-powered motor. “We even had one bike that had a 2,000-watt motor on the front, and a 2,000-watt motor on the back, and it was just ridiculously fast,” he said.

According to Ford, the vast majority of these motors are bought online, and can carry fire risks from their lithium-ion batteries. Eighteen people died and nearly 700 were injured in the UK due to fires caused by e-bikes and e-scooters between 2019 and 2025, a freedom of information request made by the BBC showed last week.

“What I’m trying to do now is education, engagement and enforcement,” Ford said. “I’ve been talking to numerous other forces and assisting them, setting up the same [cycle teams], so they can understand the best practice of doing this.”

What this has meant for the City of London Police is a strict clamp down. The force made its stance clear in a warning to illegal e-bike riders posted on X: “If you ride non-compliant e-bikes in the City, we will seize them and they will be destroyed.”

For more information about the rules around e-bikes, visit our 'electric bikes and UK law' page.

Amy and Kyle Hudson were well ahead of schedule during their round-the-world cycle when a serious traffic incident in Canada caused Kyle to crash, leaving him with a broken collarbone and throwing the couple’s whole record attempt into doubt.

“We were just getting out of Montreal, on a bike path, when a car decided to turn left without any right of way,” Kyle told Cycling Weekly, while enroute to hospital.

“Amy had to slam her brakes on – which was the best course of action, otherwise we would have all got run over – and there was nowhere for me to go. I ended up hitting her bag and then the floor. I stood up straight away and said: ‘I think my collarbone’s gone’. I hit my head quite hard off the floor and cracked my helmet.”

“It was really horrible,” Amy Hudson adds. “I could see the look in his eyes and at that point I thought, ‘Oh no…it's over!’ But Kyle was like: ‘No, it's not over – there's no way I'm letting it be over.’

“We had 2,000 thousand miles left to go. We just had to carry on and keep trying. He managed to just live with it, but obviously we had to be really careful. I kept thinking, ‘I hope nothing else bad happens – if he hits a pothole and comes off, it’s definitely over’. It did taint the last bit of the ride.”

However, their luck – and Kyle’s pain threshold – held, and on 2 September, the bikepacking couple came to the end of their epic adventure in their home county of Derby.

Travelling self-supported, the bikepacking pair finished their lap of the globe in 123 days, 27 days quicker than they had planned on doing it, and 83 days faster than the previous record of 205 days, set by David Ferguson and Caroline Soubayroux in 2023.

Arising each day at 4am and cycling until 8pm, Amy and Kyle pedalled around 150 miles each day, passing through 20 countries and visiting both hemispheres during their 18,100-mile ride, satisfying the requirements for a round-the world record. The route they took can be seen here, and whilst on the adventure the pair have also raised almost £70,000 for the mental health charity Shout – a cause very close to their hearts.

The expedition is currently being ratified by the World Ultra Cycling Association (WUCA) as the fastest cycling circumnavigation of the globe by bike by a mixed pair, and by Guinness as the quickest round-the-world ride by a married couple.

Aside from bad and occasionally aggressive drivers (one of whom, in the US, screamed that he hoped they would get run over), they had to contend with wildlife on the roads, wet weather, brutal heat and severe cold during their journey.

“In Serbia and Bulgaria, there were so many stray dogs,” recounts Amy. “Big scary dogs that would chase you. And in Canada, there were massive bison with babies beside the road. In Thailand and Malaysia, it was 45°C with 99% humidity – we bought ice in every shop we passed and stuffed it into our shorts and jerseys.

“We rode through a heatwave in North America. Kyle's really good in the heat and I'm not. I get quite swollen up in the heat and need loads of electrolytes. There was a lot of crying…but I got through it.”

Even more amazingly, the couple are still speaking to another. “It actually brought us closer together,” observes Kyle. “We've been together 10 years, but when you spend so much time with each other, you learn new things – like how you both deal with certain situations.”

“We got know how each other ticks,” agrees Amy. “I know that we had to get Kyle a coffee in the morning, otherwise he won’t talk for the first two hours. And he knows that when I'm struggling, I need to have a little cry and a shout. And then, 10 minutes later, I'll be fine.”

Their bikes – carbon Pinarello gravel steeds – survived relatively unscathed too. “We got so many messages saying how risky it was to use carbon bikes, and urging us to use steel bikes instead, but honestly, they were so good,” laughs Amy.

“The only mechanicals we had were punctures – and we had 53 punctures in total, which for 18,000 miles on two bikes isn’t actually too bad – and a cable snap, which Kyle fixed on the side of the road. We fell off our bikes six times in total, including the crash, and they were fine every time.”

For now, the pair are looking forward to catching up on some sleep, but they already have more rides planned. “Kyle’s collarbone needs to mend, but I'm going on a ride this weekend,” says Amy.

“There's Paris–Brest–Paris next year. Last time we did it we’d only really been cycling for about two years, and we did it in 72 hours – so we want to try and beat that this year.”

Kyle tells me he is planning an attempt to beat his club’s one-day distance record, with a view to doing 450 miles in 24 hours, and Amy alludes to a new record attempt, but she’s keeping that one under wraps for now, so watch this space.

London cycling showroom and cafe VIA Atelier is currently closed with mystery surrounding when or whether at all it will open again.

On 24 July, a ‘notice of forfeiture by peaceable re-entry’ was placed in the window of the store located in Coal Drops Yard, behind Kings Cross Station. It explained that the landlord had seized the property due to the tenant’s failure to “pay the reserved rents in accordance with the lease, in that rent due under the terms of the lease is now overdue, has not been paid and remains in arrears”.

The store has now been closed for six weeks.

Cycling Weekly has contacted VIA for comment. Writing on Instagram last month, the business said: “VIA café and showroom are currently closed due to [an] unforeseen series of events, we are working to reopen.

“We know this news may be worrying for our community and for the riders who have become friends over the years. Thank you for bearing with us while we work through the challenges.”

The notice in the window, signed by law firm Hogan Lovells Cadwalader, also states the landlord’s intention to “immediately” re-let the premises. Cycling Weekly understands this is an ongoing process, with new tenants currently being sought.

VIA was co-founded by designer Michael Sodeau and chef Anthony Demetre and opened in 2022. The central London store sold products from brands including POC, Pas Normal Studios, Q36.5 and Standert, hosted events such as launches and race watch-alongs, and previously organised its own VIA Criterium race.

Its bike workshop has remained open throughout the store closure.

Cycling Weekly understands there is now limited stock remaining inside the store. According to the notice, VIA had until 7 August, two weeks after the notice was issued, to remove its goods from the premises, otherwise the landlord would “sell or dispose of them in the appropriate manner and without further notice”.

An accompanying notice in the shop window, issued by VIA, re-assured that their cycling club's weekly rides will continue to take place as they seek to "resolve this situation".

“Thank you for your continued support,” the VIA notice ended.

Cycling Weekly will update this article if VIA respond to our request for comment.

The final round of the Llandow Revival Series, a south Wales-based circuit racing league, will be held in memory of Finlay Tarling on 13 September.

The 19-year-old Welshman was killed on stage eight of the Volta a Portugal on 14 August, when he was struck by a non-race vehicle driver that had entered the course.

To celebrate Tarling’s life, Maindy Flyers Cycling Club, the organisers of the Llandow Revival Series, are dedicating the sixth and final round of their league to the teenager, and will be raising money for the ‘For Fin’ fund; the GoFundMe page was created in Tarling’s memory to support young cyclists in Wales and has already gathered more than £96,000 in donations.

Commenting on next Sunday's event, Maindy Flyers chair Mike Richards told Cycling Weekly: “It will be a full day of racing and will be held in memory of Fin Tarling.

“The circuit owners have kindly waived the £500 hire fee so that we can donate it to the For Fin fund, and we’ll also be raising money throughout the day. We are expecting a large turnout and what should be a very special, if emotional, occasion.”

The teenager’s father, Michael Tarling, is currently listed among the entrants in the Category 3/4 open race.

The day will count nine races in total, from under-eights up to elites, which will all be held on the 1.4km closed Llandow motor racing circuit, 15 miles west of Cardiff.

Entrants can sign up via ‘The Fin Tarling Llandow 2026 Round 6’ event page on the British Cycling website. Fans have been urged to “bring the gazebos, picnic tables and the family and make a day of it”.

A minute’s applause was held on Wednesday in memory of Tarling ahead of the opening stage of the Lloyds Tour of Britain Men, where his NSN Cycling team is competing.

Two days after the teenager’s death, his parents, Michael and Dawn Tarling, shared a joint post on Instagram saying their “broken hearts will never be fixed”.

“He was not only our son and brother but our best mate. Gentle, loving with the driest sense of humour we will miss him terribly,” the parents wrote.

Their eldest son, Josh, chose to start the Vuelta a España on 22 August for his team Netcompany-Ineos to honour his younger brother. He placed third on stage one’s individual time trial, before abandoning the race on stage six.

Finlay Tarling’s funeral will take place on 17 September and will be a private affair for family and friends.

Customers have been left out of pocket after a popular independent bike shop in the south of England ceased trading.

Primera Sports, a family-run business in Bournemouth, closed suddenly last week after 34 years, with customers told their orders would not be fulfilled.

When Cycling Weekly contacted Primera for comment, it received an automatic response saying the company has instructed insolvency firm Leonard Curtis. A spokesperson for the firm confirmed to Cycling Weekly that Primera is entering into liquidation.

“The directors have taken the difficult decision to cease trading following a period of increasing financial pressure,” said Leonard Curtis director Nicola Layland in a statement.

“We are aware that some customers will have paid deposits for bikes, however because the company has ceased to trade and is entering into liquidation, those orders cannot be fulfilled. Unfortunately, the company is not in a position to issue a refund to these customers, which I appreciate will be particularly unwelcome news.

“We’d advise those customers who paid deposits via credit card to please contact their card provider in the first instance. Credit card protection provisions allow customers to obtain a refund where a retailer fails to deliver goods. All other customers will be contacted shortly as we get the liquidation process underway.”

Primera’s store on Charminster Road has been shuttered now for around a week. The company’s phone line, website and social media accounts have also been shut down.

A notice in the window of the neighbouring E-Performance shop, an e-bike business also owned and operated by Primera Sports Limited, reads: “Please note Primera Sports have ceased trading.”

A previous notice, photographed by the Bournemouth Daily Echo, read: “If you have paid a deposit for a bike, apologies we are unable to supply the bike, please contact your payment provider.”

Over the weekend, there were reports on social media that a number of customer bikes, which had been taken in for maintenance, were trapped inside the closed Primera store.

A spokesperson for Primera told Cycling Weekly on Wednesday: “All bikes are back with the customers, we still have one for a customer who is on holiday abroad, one more we are waiting for him to call back with a convenient time for delivery.

“There was one man who is doing a charity ride, we delivered his bike to him first thing Saturday.”

Professional mountain biker Ben Moore launched a campaign on Facebook and Instagram over the weekend to try and help customers recover the bikes. Speaking to Cycling Weekly, he said he had heard “horror stories” of people losing their deposits on orders with Primera.

“The most monetary value one that I’ve heard so far was a guy who went in and paid outright for two e-bikes for him and his wife, and obviously it’s gone. No e-bikes, but the money’s gone. It’s a bit of a rubbish situation for everyone,” Moore said.

Moore said he had also heard from an 11-year-old boy who paid over £600 for a bike and was told it would no longer be supplied. The owner of the Giant store in Poole eventually stepped in to help with a replacement.

“I bought many bikes from [Primera], so I know the business,” said Moore, who grew up locally. “I feel for the owners because they’ve lost their family business that’s been going on for a long time, and the staff that have gone with it as well. It’s an awful situation.”

Primera opened in Bournemouth in 1992, and was run by the Temple family. The company’s second store in Poole and its E-Performance e-bike store, which opened in 2007 and 2023 respectively, have also closed.

Insolvency firm Leonard Curtis said in its statement that Primera had been affected by “increasing operating costs and growing competition from online and lower-cost cycle repair businesses. Wider cost of living pressures have also reduced consumer spending on non-essential goods.”

If you have been affected by Primera’s closure, you can contact us at cycling@futurenet.com. Creditor queries should be directed to Leonard Curtis at creditors.south@leonardcurtis.co.uk.

Tiffany Cromwell has quietly called time on her 16-year road racing career, revealing three days after the Philadelphia Cycling Classic that the American one-day race had been her final appearance on the road as a professional cyclist.

The 38-year-old Australian announced the news on Instagram on Wednesday, confirming at the same time that 2026 will be her final season as a professional altogether.

"The [Philadelphia Cycling Classic] was my final road race as a professional cyclist, as 2026 is officially my final season racing bikes professionally," she wrote.

Cromwell had not publicly announced ahead of Philadelphia that the race would be her road farewell. When she extended her contract with Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto for an 11th season in November 2025, she instead spoke of ambitions for the Spring Classics, earning selection for the Tour de France Femmes and targeting the UCI Gravel World Championships in Australia.

"The biggest goal and reason to continue for another season is the UCI Gravel World Championships in Australia," Cromwell said at the time.

Cromwell's road career stretches back to 2010 and encompasses Giro d’Italia stage victories, a win at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, an Olympic appearance and more than a decade with the Canyon-SRAM programme.

"I’ve been fortunate to have a very long cycling career and part of the massive change and growth of women’s cycling," Cromwell wrote.

"There’s been many highs and lows and many amazing memories. And I’m happy to be able to finish on my own terms."

Cromwell is not finished racing altogether, however. The Australian national gravel champion said she still has "a couple more gravel races to go" before ending her professional career at the UCI Gravel World Championships in Nannup, Western Australia, in October.

A fitting farewell

Cromwell's final road race delivered an appropriately team-focused ending for one of the women's peloton's most experienced road captains.

Canyon-SRAM raced a smart race in Philadelphia and took the win, with sprinter Chiara Consonni edging out Canadian Alexandra Volstad (EF Education-Oatly) at the line.

"Philly was a great race to be able to close out this chapter of my career," Cromwell wrote.

"An iconic U.S. race with so much history that was back for the first time in 10 years. The atmosphere was electric, and as an added bonus we managed to take home the victory as a team with [Chiara Consonni]."

That final contribution was representative of the role Cromwell had increasingly embraced at Canyon-SRAM.

While she may have spent earlier parts of her career racing for her own results, Cromwell evolved into a rider valued for positioning leaders, reading races and guiding younger teammates through the biggest events on the calendar.

Speaking to Cycling Weekly in 2024, she described herself simply as "a teammate you can rely on", adding:

"No matter how good or bad I'm feeling, if I have a job to do, I'll do it."

From Australian prospect to Omloop winner

Cromwell turned professional in 2010, although her international career had already begun several years earlier.

After riding for Hitec Products and Lotto Honda, she joined the Australian Orica-AIS team for 2012 and produced one of the standout performances of that year's Giro d'Italia Femminile.

On stage 5, Cromwell went clear and won by eight minutes and 33 seconds ahead of Giorgia Bronzini, moving herself to fifth overall behind race leader Marianne Vos.

The following season brought arguably the biggest one-day road victory of her career.

Cromwell won the 2013 Omloop Het Nieuwsblad after escaping with Megan Guarnier late in the race and beating the American to the line, while teammate Emma Johansson finished third.

At the time of her victory, the women's Omloop was not yet part of the Women's WorldTour, television coverage was limited, and the depth of the professional peloton was considerably smaller.

Cromwell's career would eventually span that entire transformation, from the comparatively modest women's calendar of the early 2010s to the modern WorldTour era.

Her 2013 season also included a ninth-place finish in the elite women's road race at the UCI Road World Championships in Florence.

Cromwell moved to Specialized-Lululemon for 2014 before joining Velocio-SRAM in 2015, the programme that would become Canyon-SRAM the following year.

She remained there for the rest of her road career.

When Cromwell extended for 2026, she was the only rider remaining from the original group.

With Canyon-SRAM, she won another stage at the Giro and in the LOTTO Thüringen Ladies Tour. But as the seasons passed, Cromwell's responsibilities steadily shifted away from pursuing her own results and into one of a road captain and mentor.

"These days I’d say my main role within the team now is definitely being that leader. Not for results but for leading by example; helping our younger riders develop, and giving my knowledge to the team from the years of experience I have in the sport," she said when extending her contract last November.

The longevity of that relationship became one of the defining aspects of her career. While rider movement became increasingly common in the Women's WorldTour, Cromwell remained with the same organisation from 2015 through her final road season in 2026.

In 2021, Cromwell fulfilled one of her longest-standing ambitions: to represent Australia at the Olympic Games.

In Tokyo, she rode the women's Olympic road race, won by Austria's Anna Kiesenhofer, after years of trying to earn Olympic selection. She finished 26th, the best-placed rider of the Australian squad that event.

There had been several points when Cromwell considered whether her career was approaching its end.

In 2021, she said she had once imagined the 2022 UCI Road World Championships in Wollongong as a possible retirement point. Instead, she continued racing.

A second career in gravel

Gravel increasingly provided a renewed source of motivation, allowing Cromwell to chase personal victories while her road programme became more focused on supporting teammates.

Cromwell quickly became an established contender on the discipline's international circuit, winning the 100-mile event at Unbound Gravel, UCI Gravel World Series races and Australian national titles.

In May, Cromwell won the SEVEN UCI Gravel World Series event in Nannup, attacking solo on a 125km course containing more than 3,000 metres of climbing and more than 80% gravel.

It was her second consecutive victory at SEVEN, and that same Western Australian terrain will host the Gravel World Championships this fall. It'll be here that Cromwell will officially end her professional cycling career.

"Time to turn my attention back to gravel for the final few races of my career!" she wrote in her retirement post.

"Too many thank you’s to give right now, I’ll save that for later. But thank you to everyone who has supported me from the very beginning until now and followed along the journey!!"

As for what comes afterwards, Cromwell does not appear ready to say.

"Then …. What’s next? 🤷🏼‍♀️"

USA Cycling today announced the team that’ll vie for the rainbow stripes in Montreal, Canada, later this month.

U.S. road race champion Quinn Simmons (Lidl-Trek) and Olympic champion Kristen Faulkner (EF Education-Oatly) will lead the elite squads, with former mountain bike world champion Kate Courtney (FDJ United-Suez) making her UCI Road World Championships debut.

Taking place 20-27 September, 39 U.S. riders will compete across the elite, under-23 and junior road races and time trials.

Simmons, the 2019 junior road world champion, will be joined by fellow WorldTour riders Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-Lease a Bike), Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), Sean Quinn (EF Education - EasyPost), Kevin Vermaerke (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost) and Artem Shmidt (Netcompany INEOS). Shmidt earned places in both the road race and individual time trial after winning the 2026 elite national time trial title. Larry Warbasse of Tudor Pro Cycling Team rounds out the men's elite roster.

While Simmons will lead the team, McNulty is another rider to watch. Last season, the Arizona native won the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal ahead of teammate Tadej Pogačar, completing a historic one-two on roads that will also feature in the Worlds course.

Faulkner will race both the elite women’s road race and time trial. She won two gold medals at the 2024 Paris Olympics – one in the road race and another with the U.S. team-pursuit squad – and will be a threat in a breakaway as well as in the race against the clock. The course, however, may be better suited to Kate Courtney.

Courtney will make her Road World Championships debut after winning the 2026 U.S. road title, though she's best-known for her mountain bike career. She won the elite cross-country world championship in 2018, the UCI World Cup overall title in 2019 and the marathon world championship in 2025. She made a switch to the road in 2026 and, in July, made a surprise announcement about joining top-tier road team FDJ United-Suez, bringing longtime sponsor Red Bull along for the move.

Taylor Knibb, a two-time Olympic triathlete and U.S. national time trial champion, will also make her road worlds debut in Montreal, albeit in the time trial. Knibb won an Olympic silver medal in the triathlon mixed relay in Tokyo and competed in both the time trial and triathlon at the Paris Games.

The women’s roster also includes Alexis Magner (EF-Oatly-Cannondale), Natalie Quinn (Mayenne Pro Cycling), national gravel champion Lauren Stephens (Aegis X Leaders of Enchantment) and Grace Arlandson (Aegis X Leaders of Enchantment).

USA Cycling’s development selections are led by eight 2026 national champions, including Ashlin Barry (Visma - Lease a Bike Development), Kade Kreikemeier (Meridian Racing), Katherine Sarkisov (CCB p/b Levine Law Group Cycling), Kylee Hanel (Aegis X Leaders of Enchantment) and Enzo Hincapie (grenke - Auto Eder).

Team USA at the UCI Road World Championships in Montreal

Elite Men:

• Matteo Jorgenson (Boise, Idaho; Visma | Lease A Bike) – Road Race
• Brandon McNulty (Phoenix, Ariz.; UAE Team Emirates-XRG) – Road Race, Time Trial
• Neilson Powless (Roseville, Calif.; EF Education-EasyPost) – Road Race
• Sean Quinn (Los Angeles, Calif.; EF Education-EasyPost) – Road Race
• Artem Shmidt (Cumming, Ga.; Netcompany INEOS) – Road Race, Time Trial
• Quinn Simmons (Durango, Colo.; Lidl-Trek) – Road Race
• Kevin Vermaerke (Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif.; UAE Team Emirates-XRG) – Road Race
• Larry Warbasse (Traverse City, Mich.; Tudor Pro Cycling Team) – Road Race

Elite Women:

• Grace Arlandson (Boulder, Colo.; Aegis X Leaders of Enchantment) – Road Race
• Kate Courtney (Kenfield, Calif.; FDJ United-Suez) – Road Race
• Kristen Faulkner (Homer, Alaska; EF-Oatly-Cannondale) – Road Race, Time Trial
• Taylor Knibb (Boulder, Colo.) – Time Trial
• Alexis Magner (Athens, Ga.; EF-Oatly-Cannondale) – Road Race
• Natalie Quinn (Harrisville, Utah; Mayenne Pro Cycling) – Road Race
• Lauren Stephens (Dallas; Aegis X Leaders of Enchantment) – Road Race

U23 Men:

• Ashlin Barry (Toronto, Ont.; Team Visma | Lease a Bike Development) – Road Race, Time Trial
• Nathan Cusack (Chevy Chase, Md.; EF Education-Aevolo) – Road Race
• Kade Kreikemeier (Fort Collins, Colo.; Meridian Racing) – Road Race, Time Trial
• Marcis Shelton (Mill Valley, Calif.; Comp Edge Rading) – Road Race
• Gavin Sherry (West Hartford, Conn.; EF Education-Aevolo) – Road Race

U23 Women

• Mia Aseltine (Littleton, Colo.; Comp Edge Racing) – Road Race
• Lidia Cusack (Chevy Chase, Md.; Smurfit Westrock Cycling Team) – Road Race, Time Trial
• Kylee Hanel (Portland, Ore.; Aegis X Leaders of Enchantment) – Road Race, Time Trial
• Alyssa Sarkisov (North Potomic, Md.; CCB p/b Levine Law Group Cycling) – Road Race
• Katherine Sarkisov (North Potomic, Md.; CCB p/b Levine Law Group Cycling) – Road Race

Junior Men:

• Kashus Adamski (Bloomfield, Mich.; Hot Tubes Cycling) – Road Race, Time Trial
• Sylvan Garrelts (Brooklyn, N.Y.; Hot Tubes Cycling) – Road Race
• Enzo Hincapie (Greenville, S.C.; grenke - Auto Eder) – Road Race, Time Trial
• Cormac Nagle (Bolton, Mass.; Hot Tubes Cycling) – Road Race
• Rowan Nistal (Boise, Idaho; Bear National Team) – Road Race

Junior Women:

• Liliana Edwards (Washington, D.C.; CCB p/b Levine Law Group Cycling) – Road Race, Time Trial
• Emma Jimenez Palos (Miami, Fla.; City Bikes) – Road Race, Time Trial
• Sofia Tripcevich (Berkeley, Calif.; Team California Academy) – Road Race
• Sophia Wellmeier (Corta Madera, Calif.; Team California Academy) – Road Race

Tadej Pogačar has undergone successful surgery on his fractured left clavicle following the crash that ended his Vuelta a España.

UAE Team Emirates-XRG confirmed the latest update on Monday evening, two days after the Slovenian abandoned the Grand Tour on stage eight.

Pogačar had initially been unable to undergo the operation due to precautions relating to a concussion he sustained in the crash. Having since received medical clearance, he has now had surgery at Hospital Universitari Dexeus in Barcelona, Spain, and is expected to remain in hospital for monitoring.

"This afternoon, Tadej underwent successful surgery on his left clavicle after receiving the all-clear to proceed with the operation," an update from the team doctor read.

"The procedure went well and he will remain in hospital for post-operative monitoring for a few days.

"When ready, Tadej will travel home to begin his recovery and rehabilitation under the supervision of the team’s medical staff. We will continue to monitor his progress closely throughout the recovery process."

Pogačar crashed with around 31km remaining on stage eight of the Vuelta, when his front wheel appeared to hit some debris or a rock on the road. Several other riders were caught up in the incident, including his UAE Team Emirates-XRG teammate Pavel Sivakov, Oscar Onley and Ben Tulett.

The world champion initially attempted to remount his bike but was unable to continue. He was treated at the roadside before being taken away by ambulance and transferred to hospital for further examination.

The full extent of Pogačar’s injuries was confirmed later that evening. Alongside the concussion and left clavicle fracture, he was diagnosed with a stable fracture of the C7 vertebra in his neck and multiple abrasions. The team said there had been no neurological damage or other major injuries.

The crash brought Pogačar’s Vuelta campaign to a sudden end while he was leading the general classification. He had won three of the opening eight stages and held an advantage of almost four minutes over Enric Mas.

It was the first time in Pogačar’s career that he had failed to finish a Grand Tour.

No timeframe has yet been given for his return to training or competition. His injuries, however, place his planned defence of the rainbow jersey at the UCI Road World Championships in Montreal on 27 September in serious doubt. A clavicle fracture typically takes between six and 12 weeks to heal, although recovery times vary.

Pogačar will begin his rehabilitation at home once he is discharged from hospital, with UAE Team Emirates-XRG expected to issue further updates as his recovery progresses.

After a decade-long absence, the Philadelphia Cycling Classic has returned, bringing world-class road racing – and the noise and spectacle of the Manayunk Wall – back to the City of Brotherly Love. Here’s where to find the livestream and who to watch.

First held in 1985 as the Philadelphia International Championship, the race became one of North America’s premier one-day cycling events. It brought many of the sport’s biggest names to Philadelphia, including Greg LeMond, Peter Sagan, Lance Armstrong, Andre Greipel, Lizzie Deignan, Jeannie Longo, Giorgia Bronzinia and more

The race was last held in 2016 as a women's-only event, won by Megan Guarnier (Boels-Dolmans). Spain's Eduard Prades (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) won the 2015 men's race.

Its return comes at a time when internationally sanctioned road racing remains scarce in the United States: Philadelphia is one of only two UCI-sanctioned 1.1 one-day road races in the country this season.

A total of 32 teams, including seven at WorldTour level, are confirmed for the women’s and men’s races.

The revived course is built around a 14.4-mile urban circuit featuring Lemon Hill and the race’s defining obstacle, the Manayunk Wall. The short but punishing climb reaches gradients of approximately 17%, providing an obvious launchpad for attacks and a gathering point for spectators.

The women will race approximately 62 miles, while the men will cover approximately 120 miles. Surviving the Wall will be essential, but the run back toward the Benjamin Franklin Parkway means the race could still favor a fast finisher who can handle repeated climbs.

How to watch the Philadelphia Cycling Classic

The racing takes place on Sunday, August 30, and the entirety of both the women’s and men’s events will be streamed live by 6abc.

Fans in the United States and internationally can watch through 6abc.com, the 6abc YouTube channel, Hulu, Disney+ and other platforms carrying the 6abc stream.

Local viewers can also follow race updates during Action News on Sunday morning and throughout the day. A dedicated Philadelphia Cycling Classic special will air on 6abc at 5:30 p.m. EDT.

Race Schedule - Sunday, 30 August:

• Women’s race:
  8:35 a.m. EDT / 1:35 p.m. BST / 2:35 p.m. CEST
• Men’s race:
  12 p.m. EDT / 5 p.m. BST / 6 p.m. CEST

Who to watch

Women to watch:

Maggie Coles-Lyster, Human Powered Health

WorldTour racer Coles-Lyster is the reigning Canadian road race champion with an extremely fast finish. Coles-Lyster is enjoying a successful comeback year following iliac artery surgery with a win at the one-day Santos Tour Down Under race and several high-profile podiums to her name this season already.

Marlies Mejías, Virginia’s Blue Ridge TWENTY28

Pan American Games champion and multiple-time Cuban national champion Marlies Mejías may race outside the WorldTour, but she is widely regarded as one of the fastest women competing in the Americas. Her years of experience across road and track have given her more than pure finishing speed: she can also survive the climbs, making her one rider the competition will not want to bring to the line.

Kristen Faulkner, EF Education-Oatly

Two-time Olympic gold medalist, Kristen Faulkner can never be counted out. She is one of the most accomplished riders in the field and a major threat to force a breakaway.

Men to watch

Quinn Simmons, Lidl-Trek

Fresh from a top-10 finish at the Leadville 100, Quinn Simmons will line up in Philadelphia wearing the Stars and Stripes as the reigning U.S. road race champion. The Coloradan spent much of July working for his Lidl-Trek teammates at the Tour de France, and for his efforts, he earned the race’s Best Teammate award for a second year in a row. In Philadelphia, Simmons may finally get his chance to race for himself. His aggressiveness and ability to drive a breakaway certainly make him well-suited for this course.

Derek Gee, Lidl-Trek

Lidl-Trek has several cards to play. If Simmons cannot make the decisive move, then maybe Canadian Derek Gee offers the team a formidable alternative. The 29-year-old has developed into one of the peloton’s most versatile riders, pairing the climbing strength needed to survive the Manayunk Wall with a strong finish.

Luke Lamperti, EF Education-EasyPost

Luke Lamperti is one of the fastest young Americans in the WorldTour, with a stage win at this year's Paris-Nice to his name. He will be among the leading contenders should the racing come down to a mass sprint.

Riley Sheehan, NSN Cycling Team

With three international victories already this season, Riley Sheehan is one of the most promising American riders racing in Europe. His combination of strength and speed gives him options whether the race is decided by a breakaway or a reduced sprint.

Ben Oliver, Modern Adventure Pro Cycling

New Zealander Ben Oliver is a former criterium racer who's led George Hincapie's Modern Adventure Pro Cycling team to its first major GC victory in Europe this season. At the Tour de Wallonie, Oliver won two stages and claimed both the points jersey and the overall title. With the strength to handle a selective race and the speed to finish it off, he arrives in Philadelphia as a genuine dark-horse contender.

The Tuesday after Paris-Roubaix weekend, I was out for a ride with a friend and I got a puncture. As I sat on a conveniently placed bench and calmly changed an inner tube, I had a moment’s peace to reflect on the fact that this was a very different affair from the punctures that had defined Roubaix events as they crossed Northern France in a torrent of cursing.

There are many, many varieties of puncture. When I started to think through all of them, I realised there is a whole matrix of possibilities: fast or slow, frightening or just annoying, the dull, even the mysterious.

At one extreme you might find very fast and very frightening in combination, as when two of my friends were descending a Welsh hill at 100 kph during a tandem race and had a front-tyre blowout. There was a bang followed by several seconds neither of them will forget. My main witness was the stoker: “I figured my mate would cushion the impact. I wasn’t looking forward to the crunching noise that was going to make, but I thought that sacrificing himself for others was very much his sort of thing. Also, he chose the tyre.”

But you can also have fast and boring. A few seconds before the start of a time trial a few seasons ago, the rider behind me said, “What’s that?” and pointed at my back tyre. It was a phenomenon I’ve never seen before or since – there was a small hole in the carcass, and the latex inner tube was gradually extruding through it as we watched, until it was a thin column the size of a cocktail stick. After about ten seconds it very quietly went “pop”, the tyre deflated, and that was the end of my race. It was both novel and dull.

Even the best Tubeless sealant offers little protection from the fast puncture, but it does offer the enhancement of “unbelievably messy”. I’d have said there was nothing worse in cycling that the fast and terrifying puncture, until I’d experienced an added sealant enema. With old-school fast and terrifying, you’re pleased to survive. With tubeless fast and terrifying, you’re slightly sorry that you did.

Mid-speed punctures are less exciting. In a race, they are just annoying. On a club run, they are just annoying. On a solo ride they can occasionally be quite pleasant – a chance to take in the view, listen to the bees in the hedgerow, peer into your saddle pack and idly wonder where your spare tube has gone, whereupon the experience becomes annoying again.

Slow, on the other hand, can drive you nuts. Can you get home? If you stop and inflate it, where on the curve of energy-expended to tyre-pressure-achieved do you maximise average velocity? How many times will you recalculate this before admitting defeat and fixing it?

Of course, as an alternative, the slow puncture can remain undetected until after you get home. And there can actually be something oddly satisfying about seeing your bike sitting on a flat tyre an hour after getting home from a long ride and realising that it looks as old and tired as you do.

There are many other punctures. There is the phantom puncture – you’re convinced you can feel it going soft, but it vanishes if you stop to check. There is the intermittent puncture – when you re-inflate the tyre and find it stays blown-up, while the puncture retreats and awaits a sinister moment to re-appear.

Ironically the one puncture that isn’t really a puncture at all is the Roubaix version. A true puncture entails an element of misfortune, and a legitimate feeling of being hard-done by.

A Roubaix puncture, in contrast, come from riding over big, sharp, uneven rocks at 50 kph on lightweight racing tyres. Honestly, it’s like kicking a wall and complaining that your foot hurts.