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.

In those 13 years, gravel bikes have morphed from something more akin to a cyclo-cross bike into a tool capable of tackling some very serious terrain and equally demanding distances. There are branches of the gravel family tree shooting off into adventure riding, group racing and even mountain bike-type territory, but the Revolt remains something of an all-rounder, especially this mid-priced Advanced 2 model.

I spent some time on the 2025 version of this bike, so was interested to see what changes, if any, had been made for 2026.

Technical details

Most obviously, the smart gloss black paint job remains, but the logo has been switched from iridescent purple to a tyre-matching tan colour. And at first glance, that is about it. In fact, at a second or third glance, there is not much that has been changed between the model years, but that is no bad thing, as I was impressed with the last year's Revolt.

The carbon frame is classic Giant, with a very compact design and masses of standover height, but there is a bit of cleverness going on around the seatpost. The supplied Giant D-Fuse carbon post is D-shaped for compliance, but fits into a round seat tube using a shim. This is a little bit of faff, but does give the option to run a 30.9mm dropper post if so desired, although I never quite got the rubber seal at the top of the seat tube to seat neatly in place.

Apparently the frame has been on a diet and dropped 160g through a change in carbon layup, but both the 2025 and 2026 models that I tested weighed in at 9.6kg for a M/L, probably because of a welcome increase in tyre width from 40mm to 45mm on the newer model.

Another carryover feature is the flip-chip on the rear dropout, which alters the chainstay length and hence the wheelbase by 10mm. The down tube storage, now a gravel mainstay, also remains.

Giant has used a neat compromise when it comes to the ever-fashionable internal cabling – the cables run through the frame as usual, but, crucially, don't run through the stem or handlebars. Instead, they route along the underside of the bars and stem before disappearing into a port on the front side of the steerer. This keeps the cables out of harm's way and prevents them from fouling handlebar bags, but it also means that bar and stem switches and alterations can be made far more easily.

Specifications

Complementing the carbon frame is Shimano’s 12-speed GRX groupset, using an 11-36T cassette paired with a 32/48T chainring configuration from FSA. The frame can take 53mm-wide tyres, too (in the long flip-chip position), so the inclusion of a front mech hasn’t affected clearance

As is the norm with Giant, most of the components, other than the groupset, are in-house. As mentioned, the stem and handlebars are Giant-branded, as are the seatpost and saddle. The P-X2 wheels are also a Giant product and are shod with, yep, Giant rubber in the form of 700x45C tubeless-ready Crosscut Grip gravel tyres. There is nothing inherently wrong with this approach, and it often enables better pricing and specifications than those of externally sourced components.

The Revolt range has three main families within it: the Revolt (aluminium), the Revolt Advanced (carbon composite) and the Revolt Advanced Pro (carbon composite with SL grade materials). Within each of these, there is a choice of specification.

Giant’s sizing runs from XS through S, M, ML, L to XL, and caters for riders from 155cm up to 200cm tall.

Performance

Between the 2025 and 2026 models, I’ve spent a lot of time on the Revolt over the last 12 months and racked up plenty of miles; I’ve ridden it on short, hard blasts and long, 100km+ days as well as overnighting with it, too.

I’ll start with my main negative point: the handlebars. While, controversially, I really liked the lack of flare, I think that they are too thin and harsh (especially when compared with the plush rear end), and the Stratus 3.0 bar tape does nothing to help this situation. Thicker bar tape is essential, but I’d more likely swap the bars completely for something more comfortable if the bike were mine. In part, this is a function of the trails I ride being a bit more MTB-adjacent than champagne gravel, but even on smooth terrain, some additional comfort won’t go amiss, especially on long days out. Unlike me, I imagine that many riders might prefer something wider with more flare, too.

Aside from comfort, the bars have another issue, which is that they taper immediately after they leave the stem, meaning that it is difficult to fit a computer, bell, or light unless you use a stem mount.

Luckily, thanks to the semi-external cable routing, changing the bars and/or stem would be very easy and reasonably inexpensive.

Aside from that, it is pretty much all good news. The wider 45mm tyres add a modicum of comfort to the front end and, in conjunction with the new carbon layup, give the bike a slightly zingier feel. With the D-shaped carbon seatpost almost at its maximum for my 186cm height, the rear of the bike was super comfortable when seated, with plenty of flex in the post. Of course, this only works when in the saddle, so rough, out-of-the-saddle descents still relied on the tyres and my legs for suspension.

The tyres and wheels were decent enough. Despite the weight, the wheels rolled very smoothly, a sensation accentuated by the freehub’s silence; indeed, a noisier freehub would have been useful in lieu of a bell on some trails! The Crosscut tyres with their smallish knobs performed well enough on dry trails, and weren’t horrible on tarmac sections, but looked like sloppy mud would overwhelm them. Luckily I didn’t experience much of that.

As is so often the case with reasonably priced bikes, the wheels and tyres would be a great place to start any upgrading and weight saving. Although doing so can quickly move a bike out of the reasonably priced category, I did try the Revolt on some lighter carbon wheels, and the improvement in ride feel was instant, but the upgrade would add another 50% to the bike's price.

One area that really doesn’t need any upgrading is the groupset. I’ve used various versions of Shimano’s GRX offering, and, put simply, it just works. Braking performance on the Revolt was excellent – powerful and rub-free, while the shifting was light and accurate. The use of a double chainset goes against gravel’s obsession with single rings, but I am all in favour of it and run a double on my own Topstone; I’ve never had an issue with using a front shifter, and much prefer the range and closeness of gear ratios it offers.

Some will perhaps bemoan Giant’s use of a press-fit bottom bracket, but again I’ve never had a problem with them, and I think on a bike at this price point it’s not unreasonable to use one.

There are plenty of attachment options for riders who like to go long (or just carry the kitchen sink with them on every ride). In addition to the standard two bottle-cage bosses, there are bosses on the fork legs and the top tube. I didn’t use the downtube storage, but it looked to be one of the better versions of this feature, with an easy-to-use mechanism and a secure, rattle-free fit.

I rode the Revolt in both the long and short flip-chip settings, and while it was interesting to play with, I can’t say I’d have missed it if it wasn’t there. I think it felt a little zippier and more playful in the shorts setting, but it could easily have been confirmation bias.

Making the switch is a 10 minute job; rear wheel out, rear mech off, undo both dropouts with a small hex key, flip them and tighten, replace rear mech, undo brake caliper, flip the adaptor, refasten caliper and set up on the rotor, replace rear wheel. Easy enough at home, but not a realistic option for trailside use. I suspect most riders might change it once and then just leave it alone.

Giant says that tyre clearance is reduced from 53mm to 45mm in the short setting, but there looked to be plenty of room for 50mm tyres to me, even with a front mech.

Value

The 2026 Revolt Advanced 2 is actually £200 cheaper than the 2025 model and, at £2,500/ $2,800, represents pretty decent value.

Handlebar issues aside, you could quite happily ride the Revolt as it is day in, day out on all sorts of terrain and never think twice about it.

You could fit a dropper post, flip the chip, max out the tyre clearance and stick on a flex stem with big bars and blat around having loads of fun. Or you could bolt on a bunch of luggage and head off for the horizon.

All of which to say that the Revolt is a versatile, easy-to-ride gravel bike; if I were told that this was to be my only gravel bike for the next few years, I would be happy enough.

I really liked the seated compliance offered by the combination of the frame and D-shaped seatpost, and the tyre size increase to 45mm is a great upgrade. I would consider budgeting for a different set of handlebars, though, for better balance and easier mounting of gadgets.

Four stars feels a bit mean for such a competent and enjoyable bike, but I'm not sure that buyers at this price point should be expected to fork out more cash to sort out the cockpit.

Tech spec

• Price: £2,499/ $2,800
• Brand: Giant
• Frame: Revolt Adv 2 Advanced-grade composite
• Fork: Revolt Adv 2 Advanced-grade composite
• Weight: 9.6kg (actual, 56cm)
• Sizes: XS, S, M, ML, L, XL
• Levers: Shimano GRX RX-610, 2x12
• Brakes: Shimano BR-RX410hydraulic, Giant MPH rotors, 160mm/160mm front/rear
• Rear derailleur: Shimano GRX RX-820
• Front derailleur: Shimano GRX RX-820
• Crankset: Shimano FC-RX610-2, 46/30T
• Bottom bracket: Shimano, press-fit
• Cassette: Shimano CS-HG710, 12-speed, 11-36T
• Chain: KMC X12L-1
• Wheels: Giant P-X2 , alloy
• Tyres: Giant Crosscut Grip, 700x45c, tubeless
• Bar: Giant Contact XR D-Fuse, 31.8mm
• Stem: Giant Contact AeroLight, -10 degree
• Seatpost: Giant D-Fuse, composite, 14mm offset
• Saddle: Giant Grit

His aunt, retired German sprinter Ina-Yoko Teutenberg, won the women’s race (then called the Liberty Classic) five times and now works as a lead sports director with Lidl-Trek’s women’s team. On Sunday, her nephew added his name to the Philadelphia honours roll by winning the first men’s edition in 10 years.

Making the most of Lidl-Trek’s numerical advantage, Teutenberg made the race-defining selection before beating Robert Donaldson (Jayco AlUla) and Jonas Rutsch (Lotto–Intermarché) in the three-up sprint.

Teutenberg knew Donaldson well from their under-23 days and entered the finishing straight confident that he could beat the British rider.

"I sprinted a couple of times against [Donaldson] in under-23 [Paris-]Roubaix, and I won the sprint there, so I knew normally I should be faster," Teutenberg said. "But you never know.

"It was a bit of cat and mouse waiting. Then, with 220 metres to go or something, I just went with all I had. It was a clean set of wheels."

The 24-year-old was also struck by the reception on the Manayunk Wall, where spectators packed the roadside for the race’s return.

"It was incredible how many people were there," he said. "It was super loud," comparing the atmosphere on the climb to the Tour of Flanders.

Lidl-Trek plays its numbers

After the decisive breakaway formed with two laps remaining, Lidl-Trek had options on both sides of the split. Teutenberg and Sebastian Grindley were in the front group, while U.S. national road racing champion, Quinn Simmons, pursued with Simone Gualdi (Lotto–Intermarché).

Lidl-Trek’s advantage appeared to be slipping when Grindley punctured with around 20km remaining. Fortunately, Simmons was not far behind.

"I didn’t hit anything, but my rear wheel started to spray sealant, so this just happened to work out," Grindley said.

"The DS was debating bringing me back anyway and called me back to tow Quinn up to the front. This was literally 30 seconds before my flat, so it all worked out, really."

After a wheel change, Grindley joined Simmons in pursuit of the breakaway. The trio regained the leaders on the first of two short finishing circuits, giving Lidl-Trek three riders at the front.

"We knew Quinn was super strong, so that somehow he would find his way and make it to the front — and that’s what he did," Teutenberg revealed. "I tried to slow the group down a bit, and when he arrived in the group, he immediately attacked."

Lidl-Trek’s strength in numbers was clear, and its rivals were watching closely.

"We had a few guys in the move, but Trek always had us outnumbered," lamented Luke Lamperti (EF Education-EasyPost). "In the final, Teutenberg had been sitting on and, to be honest, he had good legs. We knew Donaldson was going well."

Ben Oliver made the decisive selection for Modern Adventure Pro Cycling but was unable to follow the final move.

"I wanted to be on the hill when the attacks were going," Oliver said. "I snuck away with a group and we had a good group rolling. The legs kind of fell off at the end, but I made it to the final and had a good chance. I didn’t quite make it happen, but I’m happy to be in the mix."

The reunion at the front created some confusion on Lemon Hill, allowing Rutsch, Donaldson and Teutenberg to power away from the enlarged group. Their acceleration produced the winning split, leaving Teutenberg to convert Lidl-Trek’s tactical strength into victory on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

With the Maryland Cycling Classic cancelled for 2026, the next top-tier race on the calendar is the Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec on September 11, 2026. The UCI Road World Championships follow later that month, in Montreal, from 20-27 September.

After spending two full laps in the decisive breakaway, Teutenberg, Robert Donaldson (Jayco AlUla) and Jonas Rutsch (Lotto–Intermarché) emerged as the only riders left in contention. On the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Teutenberg launched his sprint early and held off Donaldson and Rutsch to claim his first professional road victory.

After its long absence, the Philadelphia Cycling Classic brought top-tier racing back to Pennsylvania with an 87-rider field that included five WorldTour teams, alongside UCI ProTeams, Continental squads and the leading domestic teams.

The racing was active from the onset, and a seven-rider breakaway containing Philadelphia-native Robin Carpenter (Modern Adventure Cycling) formed during the opening lap. Canadian Derek Gee-West subsequently joined the move for Lidl-Trek, while Rutsch made an unsuccessful attempt to bridge across, leaving all the bigger teams, minus Lidl-Trek, unrepresented in the selection.

The peloton seemed content to let the breakaway sit in the wind, and there was soon a 1:40 gap. It wasn't until the fifth of the eight 23.2km circuits that the breakaway started to falter. On the Manayunk Wall, a group of 11 riders attacked and eventually swept up the remnants of the breakaway, leaving a much-reduced race at the front.

The decisive move formed on the sixth ascent of the infamous Wall after NSN Cycling Team increased the pace leading into the climb. Riley Sheehan escaped off the front and was joined by Donaldson, Luke Lamperti (EF Education EasyPost) and Teutenberg as the peloton splintered behind them.

Rutsch started the chase once again but was aided this time by was Lidl-Trek’s Sebastian Grindley, Ben Oliver (Modern Adventure Cycling) and Eder Frayre (L39ION of Los Angeles). The two groups joined before the start of the penultimate full lap, giving Lidl-Trek two riders in the eight-man selection.

Determined to not be left out, U.S. national champion Quinn Simmons attempted to bridge as the rest of the peloton looked to be out of contention. He was joined by Simone Gualdi (Lotto–Intermarché). Simmons then gained a teammate when Grindley punctured out of the front group and, following a wheel change, joined the chase.

In the front group, Oliver and Frayre lost contact with the breakaway on the final ascent of The Wall but were able to reconnect later on the descent. On this first of two short finishing circuits, Simmons' chase group caught the leaders, now giving Lidl-Trek three cards to play with.

The reunion was short-lived, however. Rutsch, Donaldson and Teutenberg powered clear on Lemon Hill and carried their advantage onto the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, where Teutenberg held off his two companions for the win.

Despite only having ridden one World Cup event so far this year, which he won at Nové Město in May, the British rider once again proved to be too strong for his competition, beating many of the world’s best riders to reclaim the rainbow jersey that he last won on home soil at Glentress Forest in 2023.

Starting from thirty-fifth on the grid, Pidcock navigated the traffic and scythed his way through the field on the opening laps to move himself up towards the front of the race. By the end of lap four of eight, the double Olympic champion had fought his way onto the back of the leading group of Martín Vidaurre, Adrien Boichis, Cole Punchard and his British teammate Charlie Aldridge.

A mistake on an uphill section through the forest on the fifth lap saw Pidcock lose ground, as he was forced to put a foot down after getting his tyre caught on a root. However, he quickly composed himself and gradually worked his way back to the leaders, remaining at the back of the five-rider group for the rest of the lap as he took some time to recover.

After some brief respite, Pidcock came to the front at the start of the sixth lap, putting in a massive attack on an uphill section, which distanced Punchard off the back of the group. He then continued to push on through the remainder of the lap, with the other three riders battling to stay in his wheel.

Another dig through an uphill section then saw Boichis distanced, leaving three riders at the head of the race. With the Frenchman dropped, Aldridge and Pidcock began to work to drop Vidaurre, but the Chilean continued to hold on as they went onto the seventh lap.

However, the pace of the British duo ultimately proved too much for Vidaurre, as he began to lose ground and was ultimately dropped. It would now be a battle between Aldridge and Pidcock to decide the victory, with the recently-crowned European champion continuing to battle in the wheel of his more experienced compatriot.

A brilliant move from Aldridge then saw him go down the inside of Pidcock through a sweeping right-hand berm on a downhill section, pulling out a small advantage over his teammate. However, Pidcock quickly worked to get back into the wheel, before attacking on the next uphill section, just as Aldridge was pausing to take a drink from his bottle.

Centimetres then turned to metres for Aldridge as Pidcock began to open up a gap over the Scottish rider. The Yorkshireman then continued to power away, as Aldridge began to pay for his earlier efforts.

As they went onto the eighth and final lap of the race, Pidcock had a nine-second lead over his teammate and was continuing to press home his advantage in what was quickly becoming a complete show of domination.

Meanwhile, a rear-wheel puncture for Martín Vidaurre saw him fall to fourth place, whilst Cole Punchard produced an incredible comeback to move himself into a medal position in third place as they began the final lap.

A valiant effort from Charlie Aldridge saw him continue to fight on, but he was simply unable to match Tom Pidcock, who held his bike aloft as he crossed the line to become World Champion once again.

Aldridge then came home to complete a British one-two and claim his second silver medal of the week, after finishing runner-up in the short track event on Friday, whilst Punchard also held on to finish third ahead of a disappointed Vidaurre and Boichis in fourth and fifth respectively.

Elsewhere, it was not a good day for Mathieu van der Poel, who finished four minutes and forty seconds behind Pidcock in thirtieth place, whilst double World Champion Alan Hatherly suffered misfortune with an early puncture and finished in forty-third place.

In his post-race interview, an emotional Pidcock dedicated his victory to the late Finlay Tarling, who died aged 19 years old in a crash at the Volta a Portugal earlier this month.

“I don’t have many words to be honest,” said Pidcock. “It was a hard road here after the Tour. I just want to dedicate this win to Fin Tarling and to Josh, seeing him start the Vuelta was incredible, so I want to dedicate this to his family.”

Having only raced his mountain bike once so far this year, Pidcock’s form was unclear going into these championships, but he once again proved himself to be the best rider in the world at this discipline.

“I knew it was a course where you really couldn’t overpace yourself and you had to ride within your limit,” he said. “I crashed pretty badly in practice on Friday and my back was hurting from the first lap. I really couldn’t go any harder, so I’m lucky that the pace I could hold was good enough to get to the front. On the last two laps I just had to push whatever I could and see if I could try to stretch that gap before a final sprint, and yeah, that was a pretty hard race.”

Always a balancing act between his road racing commitments and his ambitions in other disciplines, Pidcock laid out his plans for the next two years ahead of the Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028, where he will be looking to win a third-consecutive gold medal in the cross-country event.

“Next year, I’m not going to do as much mountain biking,” Pidcock stated. “I’ll focus on the road and then return to mountain biking before LA the following year, but I’ll need to find the time to come and wear those bands.”

Pidcock is set to return to home roads at the Tour of Britain next week, with the race passing through his home county of Yorkshire on stages three and four.

Results

UCI Mountain Bike World Championships 2026, Men’s Elite Olympic Cross-Country

1. Tom Pidcock, Great Britain, in 1:25:26
2. Charlie Aldridge, Great Britain, +17s
3. Cole Punchard, Canada, +31s
4. Martín Vidaurre, Chile, +59s
5. Adrien Boichis, France, +1:06
6. Mathis Azzaro, France, +1:47
7. Dario Lillo, Switzerland, +1:54
8. Filippo Colombo, Switzerland, +2:02
9. Fabio Püntener, Switzerland, +2:04
10. David List, Germany, +2:08

Despite the course's punchy nature, the 100-kilometre race came down to a sprint finish, with Italian Chiara Consonni (Canyon-SRAM) edging out Canadian Alexandra Volstad (EF Education-Oatly) and American Ella Sabo (Virginia's Blue Ridge TWENTY28).

This trio was among a small selection able to stay ahead of a crash that took down race-favourite Maggie Coles-Lyster (Human Powered Health) in the closing metres of the race.

"I hear that something happened in the last few meters, some crashes, but, yeah, fortunately, we were in front. I think we managed really, really good the lead-out," Consonni said post-race.

Consonni’s teammate, Australian Tiffany Cromwell, commented that the race went exactly as the WorldTour team had planned.

"We knew we had the strongest team; we had to be smart. And it worked out perfectly," said Cromwell.

First held in 1985 as the Philadelphia International Championship, the race became one of North America’s premier one-day cycling events. For decades, it brought many of the sport’s biggest names to Philadelphia and its infamous Manayunk Wall and Lemon Hill. But as funding and interest in road cycling declined in the United States, the race went on hiatus.

Now, after a decade's absence, it is back as one of just two UCI-sanctioned 1.1 one-day road races on U.S. soil, and its revival attracted a truly international peloton.

The 116-rider women's peloton contained WorldTour teams, Olympians and national champions as well as the best domestic riders. Megan Guarnier, a former Giro d'Italia Women winner, U.S. national champion and the last winner of this race back in 2016, also made an appearance racing with the CCB Kenetik p/b Levine Law Group team.

The revived course was built around a 23-kilometre urban circuit featuring Lemon Hill and the race’s defining obstacle, the Manayunk Wall with its brutal 17% gradients.

After an extended neutral rollout, racing finally kicked off just before the first trip up the Wall, with EF Education-Oatly taking control of the pace.

The steady tempo began to thin the back of the peloton, although the field remained together through the opening lap.

A two-rider breakaway consisting of Mairen Lawson (Aegis) and Farah-Dale Morris (Automatic Racing) briefly escaped early on lap two, only to be caught on the Wall as EF Education-Oatly again controlled the group.

The longest-lasting breakaway formed on lap three, when seven riders from the field's smaller teams went clear and opened a gap of around 40 seconds. Attrition gradually reduced its numbers, but the remaining riders still carried an advantage into the final lap.

EF Education-Oatly swept up the breakaway at the base of the Wall and immediately helped launch a dangerous five-rider countermove. Olympic champion Kristen Faulkner and teammate Babette van der Wolf represented EF, Chiara Consonni and Agnieszka Skalniak-Sojka were there for Canyon-SRAM, and Guarnier completed the group.

With two powerhouse teams represented at the front, it came down to the WorldTour team Human Powered Health to take up the chase. The five-rider breakaway was fully reeled in with less than 10 kilometres left in the race. Another countermove went off the front, but this was short-lived.

Consonni said that she and her team were aware of the threat posed by Coles-Lyster’s sprint.

"It was really chaotic, because there was this breakaway, and then we knew that every stronger team were there," said Consonni.

"But we had Maggie [Coles-Lyster], that she had also a nice sprint, so we tried to close the gap, because we knew that maybe, if we arrived with the sprint, we can make it."

A reduced bunch of around 20 riders was headed to the finish line along Benjamin Franklin Parkway with Canyon-SRAM, Human Powered Health, and EF Education Oatley controlling the front.

After navigating a roundabout at the top of the finishing straight, riders fanned across the wide American road.

With about 300m remaining, a small touch of wheels took down Coles-Lyster and her teammate, taking them out of contention for the sprint.

"We were on perfect wheel, ready to come around and start opening up the sprint, and a rider just chopped us, took out the front wheel," Coles-Lyster told Cycling Weekly post-race. "We were in perfect position, and I think it easily could have been both Catherine [Schweinberger] and I on the podium."

This was Coles-Lyster’s second tumble in a week, and after collecting herself and crossing the line, she said she was feeling it.

"I'm pretty sore. I mean, we both had a tumble last weekend [at the Lloyd’s Tour of Britain] as well, so this is just kind of, you know, what is the saying, adding injury to whatever," she lamented.

Coming out of the wheels, piloted by her teammate Cromwell, Consonni looked to be in the best position on the right side of the road, and she launched her winning move.

With her head down and eyes forward, the Italian took to the front and made her winning kick. Volstad and Consonni both threw their bikes across the line but the Italian came out well ahead.

It marked the first stage win for Movistar at the Vuelta a España for five years, ending an embarrassing drought for the team in their home Grand Tour, whilst Mas also extended his overall lead to a minute and eighteen seconds over Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), who was unable to match the Spaniard’s attacks in the final kilometres.

In fact, the only rider able to follow Mas was Oscar Onley (Netcompany Ineos), but the young British rider did not have enough to come around the red jersey in the final few hundred metres and was forced to settle for second place on the stage, with his strong showing him moving him up to fourth place in the overall standings.

It was a disappointing day for Felix Gall (Decathlon CMA CGM), as the Austrian rider’s team made massive efforts to whittle down the lead group on the lower slopes of the Alto de Aitana, but he found himself out of position when the decisive moves came and was ultimately unable to match the strength of some of his rivals, losing time to Mas, Onley and Roglič in the general classification.

With the first rest day coming on Monday, Mas now goes into the second week of the race with the red jersey firmly on his shoulders, as he has a lead of a minute and eighteen seconds over Roglič in the general classification, with a further twenty-one seconds to Gall in third place.

Meanwhile, Onley continues to lead the youth classification by a large margin and moved up to fourth place overall, just forty-one seconds off the podium, after Sepp Kuss (Visma-Lease a Bike) lost nearly two minutes on the stage, which saw the American rider drop to seventh place, with Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) and Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) also moving ahead of him.

How It Happened

The abandonment of Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) the previous day left the Vuelta a España in a state of uncertainty heading into stage 9, which saw the race head back into mountains near the Costa Blanca, with a summit finish atop the Alto de Aitana awaiting the riders at the beginning of the day.

Without the usual control of UAE Team Emirates-XRG at the head of the peloton, several teams saw an opportunity to get riders into the breakaway at the beginning of the day, with multiple attacks on the opening climbs culminating in a massive group of 24 riders going up the road.

Behind them, Movistar assumed the responsibility of setting the pace in the peloton after Enric Mas (Movistar) inherited the red jersey of overall leader from Pogačar after stage 8. They would allow the breakaway an advantage of more than five minutes at some points in the stage, with no threats to the general classification in the lead group.

One rider active in the breakaway in the middle of the stage was Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain Victorious), as he took maximum points on the Puerto de El Miserat (5.1km at 10%), Puerto de Tollos (4.1km at 5.8%) and Puerto de Tudons (7km at 5.3%), with the Colombian rider moving into the lead of the points classification and pulling on the polka-dot jersey at the end of the stage.

It was on the descent of the Puerto de Tudons where Alessandro Romele (XDS Astana) went solo off the front of the breakaway and gradually drew out a gap of close to a minute over the rest of the group, whilst also growing his advantage over the peloton to well over six minutes in the process.

Meanwhile, the Decathlon CMA CGM team made their first appearance at the front of the peloton with around 50km to go, as they looked to bring the stage victory back into play for Felix Gall (Decathlon CMA CGM), after Movistar had allowed the gap to the breakaway to expand.

The breakaway then began to splinter, with several riders attacking in an attempt to bridge across to the Italian sprinter at the head of the race, with a two-rider move of Pavel Sivakov (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Marcel Camprubí (Pinarello Q36.5 Pro Cycling) eventually joining Romele after the summit of the Puerto de Benifallim (4.8km at 5.8%) with just over 40km.

The leading trio worked well together as they continued to grow their advantage over the chasing group, whilst the gap to the peloton remained at over five minutes, as they began the final climb of the Alto de Aitana (22km at 5.8%).

After a courageous effort, Alessandro Romele quickly found himself distanced on the lower slopes as Camprubí and Sivakov went clear, whilst Jordan Labrosse (Decathlon CMA CGM) began to up the pace in the peloton, with the Frenchman’s efforts cutting the leading duo’s advantage to four minutes with 16km to go.

The gap began to tumble further as Decathlon CMA CGM continued to set the pace, with each of their riders pulling massive turns before peeling off one by one, as the peloton began to be whittled down to just a select group of general classification contenders.

As the peloton neared in, Sivakov attacked with 10km to go, dropping Camprubí off the wheel to go solo in search of the stage victory. However, it seemed the writing was already on the wall for the Franco-Russian rider, as the gap to the main group had already been reduced to just two minutes.

A massive effort from Gregor Mühlberger (Decathlon CMA CGM) saw him deliver one final leadout, with Sepp Kuss (Visma-Lease a Bike) dropping off the back of the group. Gall then launched his inevitable attack with 7km to go, but failed to distance any of his rivals, as Mas covered the move with relative ease, whilst Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), Oscar Onley (Netcompany Ineos) and Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) also followed in the wheel.

Gall then accelerated again, but it was still not enough to open a gap to Mas and the others, as an attack from Carapaz followed soon after. The move from the Ecuadorian rider saw him quickly gain a handful of seconds, which forced the hand of the other contenders, as Mas, Gall, Roglič and Onley all had to bridge across.

After the continuous accelerations behind, the last remnants of the breakaway were then swept up, with Sivakov the last to be caught after he had clearly emptied the tank, as he went out the back shortly afterwards.

Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) then returned to the group after having been dropped earlier on and went straight over the top with an attack with Jarno Widar (Lotto Intermarché) and Harold Tejada (XDS Astana) in his wheel. This then triggered a reaction from Mas, who instantly caught and passed the three-rider group and went clear with 3km to go.

Gall found himself out of position and without the legs to respond to the move, as he fell to the back of the group of contenders, whilst Onley attacked across the gap to Mas. The overall leader and the best young rider then began working to extend their advantage over their rivals, with Roglič also attempting to bridge the gap.

The Slovenian rider got to within touching distance of the leading duo, before Mas then launched another attack, dropping him off the wheel once again. Onley was able to immediately follow the Spaniard’s acceleration, as Roglič struggled to regain contact and the gap to the group behind continued to grow.

In the group, Carapaz was beginning to pay for his earlier efforts, as he was dropped off the back, whilst Gall was attempting to limit his losses to those ahead of him.

Going into the final kilometre, it was clear that it would be between Mas and Onley for the stage win, as Roglič continued to lose ground.

Launching the sprint from the front, Mas managed to keep Onley behind in the final few hundred metres, as the British rider was unable to find the power to come around the red jersey and was forced to settle for second place, whilst Mas kicked again to win the stage and extend his lead in the general classification.

Roglič then crossed the line twelve seconds later in third place, whilst Gall had clearly attacked behind in an attempt to limit his losses, as he finished a further six seconds back with a splintered chasing group coming in behind him.

Results

Vuelta a España 2026 Stage Nine: Villajoyosa > Alto de Aitana (187km)

1. Enric Mas (Spa) Movistar, in 5:10:40
2. Oscar Onley (GBr) Netcompany Ineos, at same time
3. Primož Roglič (Slo) Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, +12s
4. Felix Gall (Aut) Decathlon CMA CGM, +18s
5. Cristián Rodríguez (Spa) XDS Astana, +20s
6. Mattias Skjelmose (Den) Lidl-Trek, at same time
7. Jarno Widar (Bel) Lotto Intermarché, +25s
8. Harold Tejada (Col) XDS-Astana, +33s
9. Richard Carapaz (Ecu) EF Education-EasyPost, +54s
10. Santiago Buitrago (Col) Bahrain Victorious, +1:41

General Classification After Stage Nine

1. Enric Mas (Spa) Movistar Team, in 28:34:03
2. Primož Roglič (Slo) Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe, +1:18
3. Felix Gall (Aut) Decathlon CMA CGM, +1:39
4. Oscar Onley (GBr) Netcompany-Ineos, +2:20
5. Richard Carapaz (Ecu) EF Education-EasyPost, +3:26
6. Mattias Skjelmose (Den) Lidl-Trek, +3:55
7. Sepp Kuss (USA) Visma-Lease a Bike, +4:09
8. Harold Tejada (Col) XDS-Astana, +4:39
9. Gregor Mühlberger (Aut) Decathlon CMA CGM, +7:33
10. Jakob Omrzel (Slo) Bahrain-Victorious, +8:05

"Unfortunately, Tadej Pogačar suffered a heavy crash during today's stage and was unable to continue the race." The statement read.

"He is stable, and following a thorough medical assessment at hospital, Tadej has been diagnosed with a concussion, displaced left clavicle fracture, a stable C7 cervical fracture, and multiple abrasions. Fortunately, no other major injuries and no neurological fallout."

"He will require clavicle surgery which will be delayed due to concussion precautions."

"Tadej remains under the care of our medical team and we'll provide further updates following the surgery."

While the team didn't confirm either way, the fractures almost certainly rule Pogačar out of the UCI Road World Championships in Montreal Canada, in a month's time, where he was hoping to defend his title that he has held for two years.

The men's road race takes place on September 27, four weeks and one day after today's crash.

Today's abandonment was the first time Pogačar has failed to finish a Grand Tour. His first was the 2019 Vuelta a España, at which, aged 21, he finished third. Since then he has ridden the Tour de France seven times, winning it five times and placing second twice, and ridden the Giro d'Italia once, when he won in 2024.

The last time he failed to finish a race was the 2023 Liege-Bastogne-Liege, when he crashed and broke his wrist. His consistency, along with his win ratio, is unmatched in the modern era of cycling. He had already won three stages of the eight stages, prior to today's stage, at this year's Vuelta.

It is yet to be confirmed what caused the crash, although TNT Sports released a video on social media suggesting debris in the road was the reason. the crash happened on a straight, well-surfaced section of road when the peloton was relatively calm at 32km to go.

Brian Coquard won the stage, while Enric Mas (Movistar) moved into the race lead. The Spaniard was presented with the red jersey on the podium, but out of respect for Pogačar, and mindful of the way he took the lead, declined to put it on and there were no celebrations.

The Vuelta continues tomorrow with a 187km stage from La Vila Joiosa to Alto de Aitana on the Costa Blanca. A mountain-top finish at 1,530 metres above sea level.

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.

Despite an uneventful start, the race’s final 30 kilometres were marred with crashes - including one which saw race leader Tadej Pogačar abandon the race, and another in the final 500 metres, taking some sprinters out of contention.

Visma-Lease a Bike had been open about their ambitions to secure a third stage win with Matthew Brennan, with Wout van Aert positioning Christophe Laporte, but Brennan caught up behind.

Coquard, though, seized his opportunity. Pouncing out from Jordi Meeus’ (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) wheel, he threw his bike to the line, giving him that final, crucial advantage. Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) finished second, with Meeus third.

“I waited a lot of time for this victory,” said Coquard in an interview with TNT Sports after the race. “13 years. I finished second lots of times in Grand Tours, and I am 34 years old. I’m so proud, and very happy.”

Coquard praised the efforts of his team, which had worked hard to position him in the final five kilometres. “After, I just follow Alexis [Renard], and at 500 metres I look at Jordi Meeus —I know he is very fast in this type of finish— and I wait…I do my effort at the good moment with aspiration, and yeah – I’m very happy.”

“I’m fast again,” he added.

Brennan, who finished 10th, was evidently unhappy with the finale. “A lot of people thought they were superheroes today,” he said after the race. “I’m willing to risk it a little bit, but I guess some people are happy to fall off for the risk of the win. I’m not super comfortable with that.

“The team tried their best, and I tried to follow Christophe, but in the end, these people were too aggressive for my liking. I lost a wheel, and then I couldn’t really go from any good place. I tried to get back, but then you’re not really in the position to sprint,” he added of his own performance. “We can always try again.”

Today’s 171-kilometre flat stage started in Puҫol, just north of Valencia, winding south to the beach resort of Xeraco.

With tomorrow’s 4,900-metre mountain stage ahead and no hills to tempt breakaway challengers —except Burgos Burpellet BH’s Sinuhé Fernandez— it looked to be an quiet day of racing. But how wrong we were.

In the end, the day would be defined by its crashes. Its first came before the stage even started, causing the race to set off behind schedule, but with riders thankfully unharmed.

A later crash, with 31 kilometres remaining, would change the course of the race altogether. Unbalanced by what appeared to be a stone on the road, race leader Pogačar fell heavily, bringing a number of other riders down with him.

Evidently in pain, he attempted to remount his bike, before shaking his head. Instead, Pogačar was led towards an ambulance with his arm in a sling and driven to hospital – and his race, unfortunately, was put to a premature end.

Enric Mas (Movistar Team) now wears the leader’s jersey —although he declined to wear it at the podium ceremony— with Primož Roglič (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) in second place, and Felix Gall (Decathlon CMA CGM) third. The race, it seems, is suddenly all to play for.

Wout van Aert, meanwhile, cemented his lead on the green jersey by claiming 20 points at the intermediate sprint, and Andrea Leknessund (Uno-X Mobility) retains polkadots.

VUELTA A ESPANA 2026, STAGE EIGHT: PUҪOL > XERACO, 171KM

1. Byran Coquard (Fra) Cofidis, in 3:47:06

2. Mads Pedersen (Den) Lidl-Trek

3. Jordi Meeus (Bel) Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe

4. Ben Turner (UK) Netcompany INEOS

5. Jordan Labrosse (Fra) Decathlon CMA CGM Team

6. Alessandro Romele (Ita) XDS Astana

7. Bastien Tronchon (Fra) Groupama-FDJ United

8. Hugo Hofstetter (Fra) NSN Cycling Team

9. Orluis Aular (Ven) Movistar Team

10. Matthew Brennan (UK) Visma-Lease a Bike

GENERAL CLASSIFICATION AFTER STAGE EIGHT

1. Enric Mas (Spa) Movistar Team, in 23:23:33

2. Primož Roglič (Slo) Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe, +1:00

3. Felix Gall (Aut) Decathlon CMA CGM, +1:11

4. Sepp Kuss (USA) Visma-Lease a Bike, +2:15

5. Oscar Onley (GBr) Netcompany-Ineos, +2:16

6. Richard Carapaz (Ecu) EF Education-EasyPost, +2:22

7. Mattias Skjelmose (Den) Lidl-Trek, +3:27

8. Harold Tejada (Col) XDS-Astana, +3:56

9. Gregor Mühlberger (Aut) Decathlon CMA CGM, +5:39

10. Jakob Omrzel (Slo) Bahrain-Victorious, +6:04

Until then, the 171-kilometre flat stage had been relatively sedate, with most riders saving their energy for tomorrow’s heavy mountain stage.

But with 31 kilometres remaining, the World Champion was felled by what appeared to be a stone on the left-hand side of the road, which caught his wheel and caused him to lose balance. A number of other riders, including Oscar Onley (Netcompany INEOS), Ben Tulett (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Pavel Sivakov (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), were brought down with him.

At first, Pogačar remained seated, with medical staff dabbing blood away from his neck and shoulder, and his concerned teammates standing around him.

Grimacing, Pogačar attempted to remount his bike, but before he had slung a leg over the saddle, he was shaking his head: no. He doubled over, clutching his left arm, with a deep cut on his shoulder and a bloodied face.

Once medical staff had applied a bandage and sling to Pogačar’s arm, he was ushered towards an ambulance – and his race, unfortunately, was put to an abrupt and unexpected end.

Pogačar has been taken to hospital for treatment and checks. The extent of his injuries has not yet been made clear.

Meanwhile, at the front of the peloton, uncertainty reigned. Lidl-Trek and Decathlon CMA CGM gestured for the peloton to slow down while they waited for news; riders looked at each other, or took to their radios.

Pogačar’s UAE Team Emirates-XRG teammates were encouraged to ride on, and were eventually told by their team car that their leader had been forced to abandon the race. They finished the stage as a group, more than 11 minutes behind the peloton, applauded by fans as they crossed the finish line.

“This is the hard side of cycling – the crashes,” said UAE sports manager Matxin Fernandez. “Tadej is a historic rider. He has won three stages in the Vuelta a España, with more than three minutes’ [lead]. It was a good situation, but similar to Jonas [Vingegaard’s crash] in the Tour de France, this hard side has touched Tadej directly.”

“I think we start to get tired, that may be one reason [for the crashes],” Wout van Aert commented after the stage. “With Tadej crashing out, it’s a big loss for the race, and something we rarely saw from him. I hope he will recover well. We will miss him in the race.”

Onley, who managed to escape the crash without injuries, also shared his perspective. “I came down in the crash with Pogačar. I was really lucky actually. Hopefully, Tadej is okay, because we were going really fast and it was quite scary. I came off pretty well. I have no idea what happened. We were sitting behind UAE and Visma, and suddenly there were bodies everywhere.”

He added: “I think it’s going to be a quite different race now. It’s going to be quite a lot more open. My goals don’t change and the people I’m racing against don’t change either. For me, nothing really changes. But maybe for stage wins, for breakaways and stuff, they get bigger opportunities now.”

Pogačar’s sudden departure has left a vacuum at the top of the general classification. Enric Mas (Movistar) is now in first place, with a minute’s lead, with Primož Roglič (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) second and Felix Gall (Decathlon CMA CGM) third.

Only six minutes separate the top 10 – and, with tomorrow’s 4,900-metre mountain stage on the menu, the stakes have suddenly become higher. Pogačar had had almost four minutes on Mas, but with his premature departure, the race has been blown wide open.

Mas, however, declined to wear the red jersey at the podium ceremony out of respect for Pogačar. "To be honest, I know this is sport and cycling, but Tadej crashed, I didn’t win the red jersey, so I think to not put it on now is something to show the respect to him,” he said.

“Now, another race starts. I hope we are ready for it. Tomorrow is one of the hardest stages, with stage 20. We will try to enjoy the stage and the place, and I know the team will do a super good job.”

Design details

Rapha says the shorts are constructed from lightweight, durable, high-performance Italian fabrics - a blend of 64% recycled polyamide and 36% elastane - chosen to withstand the demands of regular riding and repeated washing, something of a prerequisite for the best cargo bib shorts.

The upper section incorporates Rapha’s nature-break design, using supple elasticated bib straps. Rapha’s ‘nature break optimisation’ uses a simple pull-down system, now a familiar concept among premium cycling brands, allowing the shorts to be lowered without removing layers. The fabrics are engineered to recover their shape afterward, helping to maintain the chamois's correct position and comfort.

The chamois has been revised for Version III. Rapha describes it as a dual-density pad featuring an antibacterial topsheet and quick-drying foam layers, designed to maintain comfort and performance over consecutive days in the saddle.

Storage is generous, with four compartments built into the design: two identical thigh pockets and two integrated lower-back pockets. One of the rear pockets is zipped, providing a secure place for valuables.

Version III features fewer panels, low-profile flatlock stitching and laser-cut hems, all intended to improve comfort and reduce irritation on longer rides.

The shorts are available in sizes XXS to XL, with three colour options: Black, Dark Olive and Dark Forest – the latter two being muted military-inspired brown and green tones, which are often a favourite choice for gravel bike clothing.

Performance

I’ve been testing a size medium, as suggested by Rapha’s size guide. The fit is perfect, therefore, I’d advise using its sizing guide. I did find the leg length to be longer than average. If you like short shorts, these might not be the best choice for you.

The hot weather we’ve enjoyed recently has provided perfect conditions to assess fabric and chamois performance; on warm, consecutive days in the saddle, a poorly performing chamois can quickly become a source of discomfort, so its ability to manage moisture and maintain comfort is crucial.

Rapha’s ‘dual-density Endurance Seamless Chamois’ feels slightly stiffer than many pads I’ve tested. That said, it has softened a little after several washes. In use, I found it to be well positioned within the shorts, while the neatly finished edge transitions smoothly into the main body of the garment. Combined with the pad’s sleek surface, this has delivered comfortable, irritation-free riding over extended periods. While cycling I never sensed a build-up of moisture inside the shorts, indeed the pad is among the quickest drying (post-laundering) that I have comes across.

The main body of fabric dries remarkably quickly. Indeed, this fabric is wonderfully comfortable against the skin – not overly compressive but snug enough not to budge over the course of a long ride. The raw cut edges and subtle grippers look and feel great. Talking aesthetics, I love the understated branding too, though a subjective point to be fair.

The bib strap material is comparable to that used on Lusso’s latest Paragon Bib Shorts, feeling robust while still offering the stretch required for the comfort-break system to work. I’m less convinced by the cross-strap arrangement, though. It can take a little adjustment to get the straps sitting completely flat when first pulling on the shorts.

That is a relatively minor issue - once positioned correctly, the arrangement is extremely comfortable - but my main criticism is that it doesn’t offer quite the same freedom of movement as some other pull-down designs, such as those from Lusso and Velocio. This may be partly down to the crossover straps, although the slightly taller rear panel here could also be denying wriggle room. In fairness, when paired with the Brevet Jersey tested alongside it, the higher-back design makes sense, as the jersey itself is shorter than average in the body. Personally, I’d want a longer-bodied jersey and a lower cut short to aid easier calls of nature.

The storage offered by the Brevet Cargo Shorts is among the most generous I’ve encountered. When the bike's carrying capacity is limited, four pockets prove genuinely useful. Cargo shorts have been around long enough for manufacturers to have refined the design of thigh pockets. Maybe it’s no surprise then that Rapha has struck an excellent balance between capacity, reduced seam stress and security.

I felt confident carrying my smartphone, complete with a 6.7-inch screen, in the thigh pockets, with no fear of it sliding out. The fabric and attachment points showed no signs of being overly stressed, either. My personal preference is to use thigh pockets for snacks, but a phone provides a useful test of both seam durability and security for weightier items. There’s easily enough room for six regular-sized energy bars in just one single thigh pocket.

The rear pockets are less spacious, although no less practical. They comfortably accommodate items such as credit cards, a GPS cycling computer (removed from the bike when heading into a shop) and a multi-tool, among other essentials. There’s also an added sense of security for more valuable items (with one of these being zipped). For me, if I’m wearing a traditional cycling jersey, rear pockets may compromise on comfort. However, they are undeniably brilliant if you are wearing a more casual top, or use them for storing valuable items when leaving the bike for short periods of time.

The shorts feature integrated reflective detailing, although I'm not entirely convinced by its placement; positioned beneath the thigh pockets, it's ineffective when those pockets are full. Even empty, I wonder if the mesh pocket fabric (on the black shorts I tested) is partially hindering the reflective elements full potential?

VALUE

For me, the standout features of Rapha’s Brevet Cargo Bib Shorts are the chamois, the excellent main-body fabric, and the generous cargo storage. The comfort-break design is undoubtedly useful, but it isn't class-leading in my experience.

Among the key rivals, Lusso's £140 /$191 Terra Bib Shorts offer two cargo pockets, though they lack the brand's Paragon comfort-break system. Velocio's Adventure Cargo Bib Shorts (£219/ $299) feature the company's FlyFree design alongside three pockets, while 7mesh's MK3 Cargo Bib Shorts appear to be Rapha's closest rival on paper. Like the Brevet, they offer four pockets in similar positions, a dedicated Pull2P comfort-break system and a women's-specific performance chamois with higher-density foam. At £200/ $230 versus Rapha's RRP of £260/ 360, they may also represent better value. That said, I haven't tested the 7mesh shorts, so I can't draw meaningful comparisons on comfort, fit or long-distance performance.

Overall, Rapha's Women’s Brevet Cargo Bib Shorts impress with their comfort, storage and quality of construction. My only real reservation is the pull-down comfort-break design, which I found offered less freedom of movement than some rival systems. Whether that proves an issue will depend on individual fit, but at this price I'd be tempted to try the 7mesh MK3 before deciding whether Rapha's premium is justified.

Tech specs

• Price:  £260/ 360
• Chamois style: Endurance
• Storage: Four pockets
• Leg type: Shorts
• Colours: Black (tested), Dark Olive and Dark Forest
• Sizes: XXS, XS, S, M, L, XL

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.

His countryman and Uno-X Mobility teammate Tobias Halland Johannessen completed a Norway one-two, with both riders wearing black armbands to commemorate the death of Norway's King Harald, which was announced early this morning.

Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike), who had attempted to chase Leknessund down having been out front with him for the entire stage, was third.

Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) was the first of the main GC challenger to finish, coming in 19th at 4:23 behind a swathe of long-time breakaway riders. Felix Gall (Decathlon CMA CGM), followed by Enric Mas (Movistar) were best of the rest of the GC men, gaining 23 and 13 seconds respectively on the trio of Sepp Kuss (Visma-Lease a Bike), Oscar Onley (Netcompany-Ineos) and Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe).

Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EF Education) came away a significant GC loser, after being dropped in the final and slipping from fourth to seventh in the classification.

Leknessund, who broke away with Van Aert the moment the flagged dropped on the 148.9km stage, said afterwards how hard the day had been.

"I didn't expect it to be this emotional, but there's so much feelings," he said. "I've been fighting really hard - it means a lot. It was such a special day, going from the start with Wout. It was really hard, we were going so fast.

He said his teammate Johannessen had probably been the strongest climber in the group, and that "he basically gave me the win".

"Tobias came up, and when he was there it gave me confidence that today we could win. I believed he was the best climber in the group, and he maybe was, I think. We had a mission that one of us would have a gap on the last climb, he let my wheel go and basically gave me the win, and I'm really proud and grateful," he said.

Asked about the significance of the win, coming as it did on the day of his king's passing, Leknessund said: "It's been a special day for the team and for the whole of Norway. [The win] is a small thing in the bigger picture, but still, it makes the day more special."

It was a day for the breakaways, as the race ventured inland from Vall d'Alba on the east coast to Aramón Valdelinares in the Iberian mountains. Leknessund's early move with Van Aert was eventually joined by Eddie Dunbar (Pinarello Q36.5), Alexey Lutsenko (NSN Cycling) and of course Halland Johannessen, and quintet rode at the front for much of the day.

Behind was a large chase group of 20-plus riders, including the likes of Pursued by a big group including Bruno Armirail (Visma-Lease a Bike), Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) and Pello Bilbao (Bahrain Victorious), with the GC riders falling slowly back to the tune of six-minutes-plus for a large portion of the stage.

For once, it appeared that Pogačar had no particular designs on winning the stage, and the GC riders allowed the stage to play out ahead as Leknessund attacked with seven kilometres to go to the summit finish, never to be brought back, despite a concerted chase by Van Aert.

Vuelta a Espana 2026, stage seven: Vall d'Alba > Aramón Valdelinares, 148.9km

1. Andreas Leknessund (Nor) Uno-X Mobility, in 3:49:47
2. Tobias Johannessen (Nor) Uno-X Mobility, +34
3. Wout Van Aert (Bel) Visma-Lease A Bike, +47
4. Jakob Omrzel (Slo) Bahrain Victorious, +58
5. Juan Felipe Rodriguez Contreras (Col) EF Education-EasyPost, +1:13
6. Ivan Sosa (Col) Kern Pharma, +1:16
7. Alexey Lutsenko (Kaz) NSN Cycling, +1:44
8. Edward Dunbar (Irl) Pinarello-Q36.5, +1:51
9. Léo Bisiaux (Fra) Decathlon CMA CGM, +1:53
10. Raul Garcia (Spa) Movistar, +2:14

General Classification after stage seven

1. Tadej Pogačar (Slo) UAE Team Emirates-XRG, in 19:32:37
2. Enric Mas (Spa) Movistar, +3:50
3. Primož Roglič (Slo) Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe, +4:50
4. Felix Gall (Aut) Decathlon CMA CGM, +5:01
5. Sepp Kuss (USA) Visma-Lease a Bike, +6:05
6. Oscar Onley (GBr) Netcompany-Ineos, +6:06
7. Richard Carapaz (Ecu) EF Education-EasyPost, +6:12
8. Mattias Skjelmose (Den) Lidl-Trek, +7:17
9. Harold Tejada (Col) XDS-Astana, +7:46
10. Gregor Mühlberger (Aut) Decathlon CMA CGM, +9:29

Netcompany-Ineos's Onley ended up finishing at the back of the second chase group, 1:38 down on stage winner Pogačar of UAE Team Emirates-XRG. It was an unaccustomed spot for the British 23-year-old, who clung on to his white jersey by just three seconds.

Onley was one of the quickest responders to Pogačar's move on the final climb of yesterday's stage six from Alcossebre to Castelló. But the Brit admitted he was caught out by how difficult the gravelled climb of the Puerto El Bartolo was, and, he says, "paid the price".

“It was pretty hard," he said afterwards. "The gravel went on for longer than I thought it would. I probably just overcooked here a little bit and paid the price towards the top I think."

Following a tricky descent, Onley was grateful to be able to hook up with a four-strong chase group, including Sepp Kuss (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek), with whom he spent the final 10 headwind kilometres.

"I just took the descent at my own pace," he said. "To be honest, I didn’t want to be alone for the headwinds to the finish, so when I saw Skjelmose and Kuss’s group come up to me I was quite relieved. I tried to pull with them and then I just started getting cramps so I was useless."

Onley, who dropped two places on GC to seventh at 5:37, might have done well to listen to his boss Geraint Thomas's Watts Occurring podcast after the Andorra stage, during which the Welshman said that following Pogačar in full flow was pretty much an exercise in futility.

"You’re not going to mark him if, with 50 kilometres to go, he’s riding at seven watts per kilo," Thomas said. "That’s just not possible.”

That said, second place Enric Mas (Movistar) surprised many when he managed to follow yesterday, beating Pogačar to the top of the Bartolo and accompanying him to the finish, where the Spaniard leapfrogged Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe) on GC, taking his second place. Mas now sits 3:34 off the race lead – a gap which could easily change after today's seventh stage, as the riders tackle yet another mountainous day, this time with a summit finish at Aramón Valdelinares.

Last month, Courtney parked her world-title-winning career as a mountain biker and transitioned to the tarmac. It’s a move, she says, that has felt like a “huge leap”, but has already borne fruits: in June, she won the US national title on just her fourth ever road race day.

The 30-year-old now wears the stars and stripes for FDJ United-SUEZ, one of the top women’s teams in the world, who she signed a deal with last month until the end of 2028.

Speaking to Cycling Weekly at the recent Tour of Britain, Courtney reflected on her first pedal strokes in the pro peloton.

“It’s been a steep learning curve, for sure, but I’m really enjoying it,” she said.

“The biggest thing is really navigating the bunch and just being able to be a safe but confident rider out on these roads. That’s easier said than done, but I think I’ve made a lot of progress this week, and I’ve certainly gotten thrown in the deep end with British roads and British weather. It’s been a really good start and I know what I need to work on.”

Keen to learn the old-school way, Courtney travelled to Belgium last month to race kermesses, fast-paced town centre criteriums popular in the amateur scene. “It’s all about positioning and managing the bunch,” she said. She came away with two wins and a second place, carrying her form into the Tour of Britain, where she finished eleventh overall.

Courtney's aim in each race is try to stretch the limits of her comfort zone. Stage four's finish last week to Hay-on-Wye, for example, was the first bunch sprint she has ever contested.

“I think, for me, the technical sections are probably the parts where I feel most comfortable, which is ironic, but in general a lot of it is quite new, and so much of it is mental,” she said.

“Knowing that we’re heading down a hill at 60kph with 100 girls is such a different experience and feeling, and it’s something that you really have to get used to and start to learn where those limits are and push yourself, but also be safe.

“I think the other thing about the bunch is we all rely on each other – you need the other girls to be safe in order to protect you. Learning those dynamics and settling in and observing and figuring out where I need to be when is all part of that process.”

Born and raised in California, Courtney was 22 when she won the cross-country mountain bike world title in 2018, becoming the first American woman to do so in 17 years.

She’s still the reigning champion in the marathon distance, but will forgo her title defence this weekend in favour of training for her debut at September’s UCI Road World Championships in Canada. “Montréal will be hopefully my next race in four weeks,” she confirmed.

What are her goals there? “I think it’s too early for me to necessarily know what my ambitions are in these types of races,” she said. “Actually, the freedom to just compete is a really great freedom that I’m looking forward to taking advantage of all season.”

Still, it feels natural to ask what the overarching goal is of Courtney's move to the road. When Olympic mountain bike champion Pauline Ferrand-Prévot made her peloton comeback in 2025, she set herself the target of winning the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift within three years, and ended up doing it in eight months.

For Courtney, the “bigger picture” is the LA Olympics in 2028. “But I would say I’m in a much different position [to Ferrand-Prévot], just because I’ve never raced on the road before this season,” she said.

“It’s been a really, really rapid rise in the level, and a lot to adapt to. I’m really grateful to the team for continuing to remind me that I can make mistakes and learn.

“When FDJ United-SUEZ cracked that door [in offering a contract], I was ready to walk right through. I’m really excited that we’ve been able to make it happen on such a crazy timeline. At the end of the day, when you get an opportunity like that, you’ve got to jump, go for it, and take it all the way.”

Its sponsorship of the Decathlon CMA CGM WorldTour team has both raised its profile and given it a reason to produce more performance-oriented products alongside its more budget-conscious offerings.

By and large, most of the gear we have tested from Van Rysel has impressed us, not only for its value for money but also for its genuine performance. However, if there is one area where shortcuts and scrimping should be avoided, it's bib shorts. Nothing ruins a ride as fast as uncomfortable shorts, and while the steady rise in price of many of the best bib shorts isn’t a welcome one, it is always well worth buying the comfiest shorts possible.

So, do Van Rysel’s RCR-R 5 Bib Shorts provide a worthwhile, cash-saving alternative?

Design details

The RCR Bib Shorts are built around an Elastic Interface pad, a brand used by many manufacturers. Van Rysel says that the Performance 2.5 HD pad uses a ‘very high-density foam under the top layer for maximum effectiveness on long-distance rides to give you enduring comfort, guaranteed for up to five hours’. The Rhombus fabric used is promised to prevent harmful bacteria.

Well, that’s the marketing spiel anyway.

In reality, I wouldn’t describe the pad as particularly ‘high-density’, it's at the softer end of the seat pads that I have used, with a relatively basic feel to it although it does have a pressure relief channel down the centre; this is not necessarily a bad thing, one of my favourite pads of all time, the original Assos S5 pad, had a similar feel.

The shorts’ material is a touch lighter than some modern, highly compressive fabrics, although VR claims the shorts offer some compression. The main body material extends up between the shoulder blades, acting as a yoke for the straps, with some large perforations in the top section for breathability.

To keep the shorts in place, there is a very deep section of silicone grippers at the bottom of each raw-cut leg – 6cm of the stuff to be precise.

The straps are white in colour, with reinforced bonded sections where they join the main fabric at the front. The branding is limited to a small ‘Van Rysel’ printed on the right thigh and a tiny ‘RCR’ behind the left thigh – all pretty subtle.

Pine Green, Cashmere Beige, Concrete Grey and Smoked Black are the colours for men, while women just get Concrete Grey and Smoked Black. Sizes for men are S to XXL and XS to XL for women.

Performance

Having been very impressed with Van Rysel’s winter bib tights, I had high hopes for the RCR shorts, and for the most part, they lived up to my expectations.

The fit was good. A large was the right size for me at 73kg and 186cm, and marries up with sizing for brands like Assos, Castelli and Velocio. Leg length was great, with the hem long enough for my personal preference and again, in line with Castelli and Velocio.

The front of the shorts was also a good height, sitting above my belly button, so there shouldn’t be any issues with gaps between shorts and jersey when off the bike. Strap length and elasticity were spot on, holding things in the right place on the bike yet without discomfort when standing upright.

The only area that was less than slick was the cut around the crotch. Baggy is far too strong a word for it, but there did seem to be a bit too much fabric, leading to crow’s-feet-style creases radiating outwards across my groin and upper thighs. Only a sartorial issue, but one which I haven’t noticed before with more established premium brands.

I was able to put the shorts and matching jersey through their paces in the UK and for a couple of weeks of warmer weather in Mallorca and Gran Canaria. The RCR bib shorts performed well, and if that sounds like damning with faint praise, it kind of is.

Whereas I found the Elastic Interface decent enough when I used it in Van Rysel’s winter tights for 2-3-hour cold-weather rides, I don’t think it stood up as well for full days out on the bike. After a few hours, I became aware of the saddle and would have preferred a higher-density cushion, especially on day four or five of the trip. There was no specific issue, but I did find myself wishing for a different pad by the middle of the afternoon - maybe my backside is not as hardy as some, but VR’s promised five hours plus of comfort is a little optimistic for me.

Value

At £90/ $119, the RCR shorts are operating in a very competitive pricing segment. This means that judgment of them must be in this context, and as such, I think that they fall slightly short of perfection in a couple of areas.

The fit and design are very good, with decent leg length and comfort, but the fabric provides a bit less support than I am used to these days, and the cut around the crotch could be better, too. I accept that there is an element of personal preference in this, though, and some riders might prefer the less compressive feel of the RCRs.

I also think that the pad should be a bit better for this price. It was fine for short- to medium-length rides, but it would not be my first choice if I were planning to spend more than four hours in the saddle. It is a bit too soft for that in my opinion.

However, most problematic in terms of value is that Van Rysel’s terribly named but excellent Water-repellent Winter Road Cycling Bib Tights, RCR Extreme, use the same pad and straps, are full-length, and have warm, windproof panels, yet cost £10 less than these shorts. Makes no sense to me.

Ultimately, the RCR Bib Shorts are pretty decent, but they could really do with being a bit cheaper or using a better pad to offer the kind of value we are used to seeing from Van Rysel.

Tech spec

• Price: £90/ $119
• Chamois style: Race
• Storage: None
• Leg type: Shorts
• Colours: Smoked Black (tested), Pine Green, Cashmere Beige, Concrete Grey
• Sizes:  S, M, L, XL, XXL

There were purpose-built forks, carbon rims, various tyre options, production intentions and even a new TPU tube. What emerged as a collection of prototypes early in the season is beginning to resemble an actual ecosystem. But what I could not find was anything resembling a road bike built around the 32-inch platform.

The pitch for 32-inch wheels is usually that they roll over rough terrain with ease and cover lots of ground with significant momentum, at least in a straight line. This is because their larger radius meets obstacles at a shallower angle, reducing the disruption that can slow a bike down. Their greater rotational inertia helps resist changes in speed once the wheels are turning, but do take more effort to get up to speed.

The first benefit naturally belongs off-road. The second sounds tailor-made for riders who spend hours chasing aerodynamic and rolling-resistance gains. To me, that sounds a lot like triathletes.

And long-course triathlon has produced some of cycling’s wildest machines precisely because it sits outside the UCI’s tightly drawn equipment box. Think beam bikes, huge airfoil sections, unconventional hydration systems and adventurous cockpit arrangements.

When I pondered my thoughts out loud with a few builders at MADE who had already embraced 32-inch wheels, the first response was, admittedly, laughter. Then we went down the rabbit hole together, exploring the possibilities and limitations, lack of parts and potential use cases.

"This is a wonderful question," said Aaron Barcheck of Mosaic Cycles. "We were talking about this last week."

Road racing is a closed door, unless the UCI rewrites its rule

The UCI does not need to ban a 32-inch road wheel by name because the rim size already sits outside the limits of its current code. Article 1.3.018 caps a bicycle wheel at 700mm in overall diameter, including the tyre. A 32-inch wheel uses a 686mm bead-seat diameter, leaving only 14mm for both tyre radii combined. In other words, any usable tyre would push the complete wheel well beyond the limit.

That makes UCI road racing a closed door unless the rule changes. Any eventual wheel design would also need to satisfy the UCI’s approval requirements for road, track and cyclocross wheels.

Road racing is not the end-all of bicycle design, of course, particularly for independent framebuilders whose freedom to experiment is part of the appeal. But when a new rim standard is seeking broad adoption across the industry, access to road racing and the development budgets, exposure and perceived legitimacy that come with it often matter.

A main concern with the larger-wheel standard is that it creates significant geometry problems (more on that below), and many shorter riders may struggle to fit one properly.

Interestingly, UCI rules and regulations do not require every product to fit riders of every height. However, the governing body seeks to preserve safety, sporting fairness and access to competition equipment.

The fit problem

The UCI rules aside, for the industry to embrace 32-inch wheels as a genuine standard rather than a tall-rider niche, manufacturers would have to show that the platform works across a meaningful range of sizes.

Right now, the geometry compromises are difficult to ignore. Larger wheels tend to push the front end higher and the wheelbase longer while generating toe-overlap. The smaller the frame, the more significant those compromises become.

Barcheck was frank about the constraint: "It’s just going to be a long-wheelbase bike no matter what."

In creating his 32-inch gravel bike, Mosaic’s new GT-1 i55 32, Barcheck couldn't find a fork that suited the build, so he created his own. Sold under Mosaic’s new Zero Components name, the carbon fork has a deliberately short axle-to-crown measurement to suppress front-end height and an offset to preserve toe clearance.

However, this fork is built around a 2.2" tyre clearance, and a road version with, say, a 30mm tyre would need another purpose-built fork with the appropriate length and offset.

Brian Hall of Rare Earth Cycles cautioned against declaring the fit problem insoluble, however. He declared that he has seen a five-foot rider happily using a prototype 32-inch bike, while recognising that it was, indeed, a mountain bike.

Hall also described his award-winning MADE creation as an "aero drop-bar-shaped mountain bike," rather than a gravel bike, due to the fork offset and trail being closer to those of a rigid mountain bike than a traditional drop-bar bike.

The missing parts

Before anyone can test the road concept properly, someone has to make the parts.

Aaron Stinner of Stinner Frameworks said the current ecosystem of 32-inch parts stays true to its off-road origins. There are no suitable forks, little-to-no narrow tyres and the available 32-inch carbon rims generally have internal widths intended for wide tyres. A road project would therefore need a suitable rim and tyre before a builder could learn much from it.

"If I had a road tyre, I’d build one and try it," Stinner said plainly.

Barcheck arrived at the same conclusion. "You would need some road-specific rims," he said, noting that the products appearing now tend toward 28 or 30mm internal widths. "That’s not going to work for road."

Simply putting a narrow tyre into Mosaic’s existing fork and calling the result a road bike wouldn’t work either, he said, explaining that a smaller tyre would require "a really specific rake and offset of the fork." Depending on the frame, it might also need a yoke or another chainstay solution to control rear-centre length.

"Maybe we try an all-road next," Barcheck mused. It preserves some of the tyre volume and rough-surface benefit that justified the bigger wheel in the first place, while allowing builders to move incrementally toward road speed.

Would bigger actually be faster on asphalt?

The central unanswered question is whether there would be any real benefits of going bigger on pavement. On rough ground, the larger wheel’s shallower angle of attack is tangible: it meets rocks and holes less abruptly and can tackle broken terrain without losing as much momentum. Smooth asphalt removes much of that advantage. What remains is a hypothesis about rolling resistance and speed retention, but that’s met with extra material, aerodynamic exposure and rotational inertia.

Barcheck pointed out that a light 700c road wheel with a low moment of inertia will remain difficult to beat, especially when the road tilts upwards. The answer may be course-dependent, he said, just as a 32-inch gravel bike might suit the long, fast expanses of Unbound Gravel better than the steep climbing of Crusher in the Tushar.

Stinner’s experience was similarly specific. On an aggressive fire-road climb, the big wheel can roll over rocks that would trip up a smaller one. Take those obstacles away, however, and "you’re not going any faster uphill," he said. The longer wheelbase also changes the way a rider approaches tight switchbacks and technical descents. Stinner admitted that when riding a bike with 32-inch wheels, he had to relearn finding the right lines.

That suggests that a 32-inch road bike, if it ever emerges, would be a highly specialised machine for flat or gently rolling courses, sustained speed and relatively few accelerations. Which brings the conversation back to triathlon.

The Kona case

Triathlon had occurred to Barcheck, too. Its bikes are already "wild," he said, and long-course racing often resembles gravel in one important respect: riders spend long stretches alone, travelling in a mostly straight line. Toe overlap matters little, and a long wheelbase can be a feature rather than a fault when stability is the priority.

IRONMAN’s rules provide substantially more design freedom than the UCI’s and do not specify a maximum wheel diameter. They even allow the front and rear wheels to have different diameters unless an event director decides otherwise for safety reasons.

That does not make a 686mm BSD wheel automatically race-legal. Under the current rules, "non-traditional or unusual" bicycles or equipment require approval from the event-specific head referee before the race. The bike also needs to meet the rules governing overall bicycle dimensions, axle placement, braking and safety. But unlike in UCI road racing, the wheel diameter itself is not expressly disqualifying.

The biggest concern would be wind. A larger, deeper front wheel catches more of a crosswind, which could make the bike harder to steer and control.

Stinner said that he’s currently waiting on a deeper 32-inch rim prototype, in part to reduce spoke length, which would increase a wheel’s stiffness. He expects it to be interesting at speed but wants to know what happens when faced with side winds. Deep-section and disc wheels already become "huge sails," he said. Scale the front wheel up and the handling concerns increase.

Gravel first, road backwards

Historically, bicycle technology has migrated in the other direction: road creates the performance idea, all-road adds volume and gravel pushes it farther. Like the adoption of disc brakes, the 32-inch wheel may travel backwards. Mountain biking supplied the first tyres and rims, gravel gives them another use case, and custom builders use their freedom to solve the geometry one rider at a time.

All-road may be the next step. Triathlon could be the first road experiment. The UCI peloton would come last, if it comes at all.

At MADE, nobody could say that a 32-inch wheel is, in fact, faster. What the builders could say, almost unanimously, was that it feels fast enough to make them curious.

Stinner compared his first ride to an e-bike moment: "You get on the 32, and you’re like, ‘'Whoa, this thing wants to go'."

Barcheck sees all-road as a plausible next build. And Hall’s fully in love with the new wheel diameter. "I love it. I absolutely love it," he said. "I pretty much quit riding 29ers at this point."

So, is road next? Not any time soon. The industry needs to create more components. For that, it needs proof of the diameter’s benefits, geometries that aren’t limited to only the tallest of riders, and, above all, it needs demand.

The UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider has now won half of the stages so far at this year's race, but did not have everything his own way on Thursday. Movistar's Mas was first over the final climb of Puerto El Bartolo, and Pogačar left the road into a muddy verge on the way down, although avoided crashing.

The pair put time into their other general classification rivals, with Ramses Debruyne (Alpecin-Premier Tech) beating the other chasers in to third. Mas is now second overall, with Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) dropping to third.

Among those to miss out on stage six was Oscar Onley (Netcompany-Ineos), who dropped from fifth to seventh, coming in 1:38 behind Pogačar.

Thursday's stage, which involved a gravel sector on the final climb, looked set to be a breakaway day, but it was reeled in on that ascent after UAE Team Emirates-XRG kept it on a short leash.

"We had a plan to let the breakaway go today, but it took nearly two hours to form a breakaway," Pogačar explained on TV post-stage.

"So in the end, we had to pull less than half the stage to control. João [Almeida] and Kevin [Vermaerke] did a good job to keep it together, and then I could go for the stage, with Pavel [Sivakov], Jay [Vine] and Pablo [Torres] leading out on the climb and setting me up for a perfect attack."

As for Mas's attack to beat Pogačar to the top of the Puerto, catching him, which is something seen rarely in cycling in the last few years, Pogačar explained that he was unaware the gap was closing.

"I was really surprised on the top, he flew past me like a rocket," he said. "I was not expecting it, because I heard on the radio that I was leading by 40 seconds to second, to the chasers. There was no mention of Enric, so when he passed me I was a little bit shocked. I was sure he knew the downhill, and I was just happy to be with him in the last 10km into the headwind, because I had no water.

"It was nice to have a companion next to me. I knew I could beat him in the sprint, but I appreciated that he committed full, and I committed full too. Chapeau to him, and it was a great race."

The brief foray off-road might not have impacted the race in the end, but it was proof of the risks that Pogačar was willing to take on the technical descent. Despite not looking like his usual all-conquering self, he still managed to win the stage.

Stage seven is another general classification day, with well over 3,000m of elevation in 150km and a category-one summit finish.

It took until less than 100km to go on Thursday for the break to be established, meaning it did not have a lot of leeway to build up a sufficient gap to hold off the peloton.

Onto the final climb, just 14 riders were left in the group out front, with just over 90 seconds on what was left on the peloton: Carlos Canal (Movistar), Tom Gloag (Pinarello Q36.5), Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain Victorious), Patrick Konrad (Lidl-Trek), Ramses Debruyne (Alpecin-Premier Tech), George Bennett (NSN Cycling), Gianmarco Garofoli (Soudal Quick-Step), Andreas Kron (Uno-X Mobility), Vincenzo Albanese (EF Education-EasyPost), Hannes Wilksch (Tudor Pro Cycling), José Manuel Díaz (Burgos Burpellet BH), Lars Craps (Lotto Intermarché), Gijs Leemreize (Picnic PostNL) and Urko Berrade (Kern Pharma).

However, just a couple of kilometres later, Canal, Gloag, Albanese, Wilksch, Konrad, Bennett and Leemreize were all dropped, leaving a handful out front, as UAE Team Emirates-XRG pulled the bunch back to the front. The team of Pogačar burned through riders, but the break was blowing apart at the same time.

As soon as the race hit the newly resurfaced road ahead of the gravel section, Pogačar put the power down, splitting up the group of favourites, and reeling in those left up the road. Onley was the only rider who could follow immediately, with Mas, Roglič and Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) following further behind. Felix Gall (Decathlon CMA CGM) was briefly distanced, but made it back to the chasers. On the gravel, Mas pushed on.

Out front, Debruyne was the first to hit the gravel sector, with the red jersey 30 seconds behind, but Pogačar quickly ate this gap up, moving to the head of the race with just under 3km to go of the climb, and 23.5km remaining of the stage. Onley was dropped by Roglič and Gall, with Carapaz for company.

Mas put in the ride of the day to catch Pogačar, pipping him to the top of the Puerto El Bartolo. On the descent, the Slovenian misjudged a corner, going off the side of the road, but quickly rejoined the race.

The duo up front built a lead on the flat run-in to the finish, with Roglič, Gall, Carapaz, Debruyne and Harold Tejada (XDS Astana) around half a minute behind. Onley was about a minute further back, along with Sepp Kuss (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek).

In the finale, Mas forced Pogačar to lead him out, but it was to no avail, with the Slovenian comfortably having enough power to win once again.

Results

Vuelta a España 2026 stage six: Acossebre > Castelló (177.4km)

1. Tadej Pogačar (Slo) UAE Team Emirates-XRG, in 4:12:40
2. Enric Mas (Spa) Movistar, at same time
3. Ramses Debruyne (Bel) Alpecin-Premier Tech, +46s
4. Richard Carapaz (Ecu) EF Education-EasyPost
5. Harold Tejada (Col) XDS-Astana
6. Felix Gall (Aut) Decathlon CMA CGM
7. Primož Roglič (Slo) Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe, all at same time
8. Cristián Rodríguez (Spa) XDS-Astana, +1:38
9. Clément Berthet (Fra) Groupama-FDJ United
10. Mattias Skjelmose (Den) Lidl-Trek, at same time

General classification after stage six

1. Tadej Pogačar (Slo) UAE Team Emirates-XRG, in 15:38:27
2. Enric Mas (Spa) Movistar, +3:34
3. Primož Roglič (Slo) Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe, +4:21
4. Richard Carapaz (Ecu) EF Education-EasyPost, +4:50
5. Felix Gall (Aut) Decathlon CMA CGM, +4:55
6. Sepp Kuss (USA) Visma-Lease a Bike, +5:36
7. Oscar Onley (GBr) Netcompany-Ineos, +5:37
8. Ramses Debruyne (Bel) Alpecin-Premier Tech, +5:40
9. Mattias Skjelmose (Den) Lidl-Trek, +5:58
10. Harold Tejada (Col) XDS-Astana, +6:30

The Welshman started the Spanish Grand Tour on Saturday just over a week after his brother Finlay died after he was hit by a non-race driver at the Volta a Portugal.

He finished third on the opening day's time trial in Monaco, just four seconds behind the winner, Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG).

He spent the next few stages working for Oscar Onley, who sat in fifth overall after stage five.

Netcompany-Ineos posted on social media: "Josh Tarling’s Vuelta has come to an end as he’s decided to stop. We couldn’t be prouder."

Later, the team added: "After the unimaginable loss of his brother Fin, Josh showed incredible courage in starting La Vuelta. 


"We are immensely proud of him, and he now returns home to be with his family with the full love and support of everyone at Netcompany-Ineos. Family comes first. Always."

Ahead of the race, Tarling's parents, Dawn and Michael, posted on Instagram that he heading to the Vuelta with their support.

"He has chosen to do so in honour of his brother Fin, with the full support of his family, surrounded by a team who have been incredibly supportive of whatever decision he made," they wrote.

"I could not have wished for two boys who were closer growing up and into adulthood we have watched with pride as Joshua has been the most loving and supportive big brother to Fin. Following this devastating news he has been an incredible strength for us all.

"Finlay was so incredibly proud of his big brother, and would be watching nose to the TV and shouting as he competed.

"So it is right that Josh honours that love."

A GoFundMe page created in memory of Finlay Tarling, aiming to raise money to support young Welsh riders in the future, has raised over £90,000 in less than a fortnight.

But the peloton will also feature a host of top British names, ready to take on the visitors on their home roads, British Cycling revealed on Thursday.

Among the top competitors from the host country is Ethan Vernon (NSN Cycling), a four-time winner this season and a former points jersey winner at the Tour of Britain. He has never won here stage though, despite finishing on the podium seven times. This year, he says, his main aim will be to stand on the top step.

“I'm super motivated to race my fifth Lloyds Tour of Britain off the back of a successful Commonwealth Games," he said, referencing his team pursuit gold and scratch race bronze at the recent Glasgow events.

"Winning a stage at your home race is what every rider wants," he added. "I've been second or third seven times now, so getting that first stage victory is my big target for the week. I'll have a strong team backing me, so I'm really looking forward to it."

Sprinter Vernon will have his work cut out against fast-finishing competition that will include Tour de France hat-trick winner Tim Merlier (Soudal Quick-Step), and Olav Kooij (Decathlon CMA CGM), who also won a stage in the Grand Boucle.

Also riding, and keeping it in the family, will be cousins Ben and Connor Swift, both of Netcompany-Ineos. The Yorkshire pair are regulars at the Tour of Britain, though only Ben has a stage win here and that was back in 2009, and while he has had a quiet season this year, Connor has had results on home soil already this season, netting bronze and silver in the National Championships road race and time trial respectively.

As usual, a Great Britain team will also be riding, this time led by national circuit race champion Matthew Bostock, who is likely to thrive in the technical town-centre finishes. He'll be joined by Ollie Wood, winner of the Sheffield Grand Prix and Lincoln Grand Prix this year. Riding in the national outfit too will be Ben Wiggins, Elliot Rowe, William Smith and Jacob Bush, for whom the race's Lincoln start will be a home roads affair.

“The first two stages of the race are the most special to me, as both start in my home county of Lincolnshire," he said. "Michaelgate has been a big staple of the domestic scene for years now, so I’m really interested to see how it will be raced amongst the professionals. I also think the first part of the second stage will be tricky – you can’t underestimate the Wolds.”

The race begins in Lincoln next Weds 2 September and runs until Sunday 6 September, finishing with a stage based on Earlston in the Scots Borders.

Fast forward to today and it’s accepted wisdom that this approach is the best route to lowering rolling resistance while also improving comfort and increasing grip. And who doesn’t want to be faster and more comfortable? But to allow for such voluminous rubber, frames have had to adapt. A case in point is the new Kanzo Fast 2.0 from Ridley. When the Belgian gravel race bike was first released in 2020 tyre clearance was 42mm, the second iteration has seen this expanded to 58mm.

By going wider, the Kanzo Fast 2.0 has also become more adaptable. While it can now run 29 × 2.3in MTB tyres, it also means that riders can fit a range of tyre widths to meet their needs. For example, when faced with muddy conditions a narrower tyre can be used to create more clearance for dirt and debris, while still being wide enough to reap the benefits discussed above.

While this whopping tyre clearance will garner plenty of headlines, it’s not the only story. The aforementioned original Kanzo Fast was something of an outlier. As an early example of a dedicated gravel race bike, it had more in common with a WorldTour rig than it did with the majority of the adventured-focussed gravel bikes that had become so popular. And the 2.0 edition continues this theme, with aerodynamic efficiency front and centre.

To achieve this, Ridley looked to its Noah Fast race bike, using its validated aero technology to help make the Kanzo Fast, well, faster. Typically wide tyres have created an aerodynamic disadvantage, but Ridley has sought to counterbalance this added drag by designing tube profiles accordingly. A quick look at the new frameset reveals an exceptionally deep head tube and an oversized down tube, despite the frame being claimed to be 150 grams lighter than its predecessor.

The bottom bracket has been lowered to compensate for the wide tyres and the increase in wheel diameter they bring. The fork rake is also designed to accommodate the larger wheel radius, aiming to keep the 2.0 as agile as the original Kanzo Fast. In addition, by limiting the bike to electronic 1x groupsets only (with up to a 56T chainring), the designers have been able to keep the chainstays short - 425mm - to aid responsiveness.

Naturally, a race bike needs to be fast with a rider on board, and Ridley has opted for a steeper seat tube angle to create a more forward and aerodynamically beneficial position. This is paired with the new integrated Nimbus Pro cockpit, designed to enable riders to enjoy an aero position while also offering the option to adopt something wider when greater control is required.

In Ridley’s Aero Performance Lab, all the tweaks appear to have paid dividends. It says that its tests show that the new frame has reduced the gap between a 38mm tyre and 55mm tyre to just 6 watts, a number low enough to be easily mitigated by the holistic benefits of wider tyres over rough terrain.

With identical wheels and tyres (Forza Skiron wheels and 38mm Vittoria Terreno Dry tyres) Ridley says 2.0 bests the original Kanzo Fast by 13 watts with a rider present compared to just 2 watts in a bike-only test. This seemingly validates the design approach that chose not to view aerodynamic performance in isolation, instead creating a gravel race bike for the real world, one where setups vary based on the terrain ahead, as riders seek to balance aero gains with improved rolling performance.

As for the wheels, the Forza Skiron RS have been designed specifically for gravel racing and feature 50mm-deep hookless rims with a 27mm internal width. Carbon spokes help to keep the build suitably light, with a claimed weight of 1,350g for the pair.

Given the length and remoteness of many of today's gravel races, a degree of self-sufficiency is required. To help, the Kanzo Fast 2.0 comes with some internal frame storage that includes two padded pouches and integrated top tube mounts. There’s also compatibility with a bespoke mudguard system, designed in conjunction with Curana, that increases the bike’s versatility.

The Ridley Kanzo Fast 2.0 is available in sizes XS, S, M and L. It's currently offered in three complete builds:

SRAM Red XPLR 1x13, with DT Swiss GRC1400 Dicut wheels and 4ZA Nimbus Pro cockpit, with a price tag of €11,699.

SRAM Force XPLR 1x13, with Forza Skiron RS wheels and 4ZA Nimbus Pro cockpit, priced at €6,999.

SRAM Rival XPLR 1x13, with Forza Skiron CG40 wheels and Forza Cirrus Pro cockpit, which retails at €5,499.

The frameset can also be purchased separately for €4,499.

It’s a surprising admission from the best female gran fondo racer in the world right now. This summer, Stansfield won the 177km Marmotte in the French Alps in record time, as well as the Étape du Tour de France and Étape du Tour de France Femmes – three of the most iconic sportives in the circuit. Now, she’s less than 24 hours away from her biggest challenge yet: La Dame Blanche.

It’s an idea she conjured up herself. The name comes from French folklore and means ‘The White Lady’, the female spirit of the mountains. Stansfield’s plan is to cycle 330km around Mont Blanc, and then immediately line up to compete at the 171km UTMB (Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc), the most famous event in trail running.

Nobody has ever done both back to back. In total, the challenge counts 501km, and more than 18,000m of climbing, split 8,300m on the bike, and 10,000m on the run. “My goal is to do it all in 50 hours,” Stansfield says.

And yet, she concedes, there’s a possibility she won’t finish at all. Over the past few weeks, Stansfield has been taking bets from her family and friends on the likelihood of her completing the entire route. “My husband thinks there’s an 80% chance. I put myself at 85%,” she says.

“I’m so excited to just see what I can do. The premise of it for me is: competing in a gran fondo or riding the Tour of Mont Blanc, or doing UTMB, I know I can do them, and there’s a safety in knowing that. But the two together? I truly don’t know if I can do it. I’m not 100%. That’s what excites me so much.”

You’d be forgiven if you hadn’t heard of Victoria Stansfield until now. Born in Bristol, the 31-year-old only took up cycling properly last year, but has quickly catapulted herself to the top of the amateur scene.

“I was a cross country runner,” she says of her school days. “Then I started triathlon in 2018, and went straight into half Ironman, and it was going really well.”

The following year, Stansfield left her career as an accountant to pursue becoming a professional triathlete. Covid then ground sports events to a halt, and she began caring for her father, who had become unwell with cancer.

“I took the decision to step away from triathlon, and I never went back after dad died,” she says. “Triathlon was our thing, and I didn’t know how I would feel about it without him there.”

In its place, Stansfield took up marathon running. She clocked a 2:41 on her marathon debut in Sevilla in 2021, and later transitioned into trail running. Early last year, however, she slipped in Switzerland and broke her pelvis. The doctors gave her crutches and told her not to walk for two months. “The thing I really missed was, and this sounds really strange: the feeling of the wind on my face,” she says.

Cycling came first as a way to restore fitness. But immediately Stansfield fell in love with the rush of weaving through the mountains.

Last July, a month after she first began riding a road bike, she entered a multi-day sportive in the Pyrenees called the Campilaro, and won. The following week, she entered the Étape du Tour de France Femmes, and won that too.

It’s curious then, that despite going on to do the Marmotte-Étape Hommes-Étape Femmes treble this year, Stansfield still feels like an “imposter” in the cycling world.

She says she doesn’t know how to descend or ride in a bunch, and only learnt how to corner this year after she crashed twice in the Mallorca 312 gran fondo, where she finished second.

“I’ve actually just been to get my bike looked at,” Stansfield says. “My husband told me my brakes were soft, but I wouldn’t know,” she adds with a laugh.

It’s a self-deprecating attitude that stands in contrast to her growing status in the cycling scene. She was a bit embarrassed, she says, when the mechanics at the bike shop greeted her by saying: “Here she is, the champion!”

Similarly, after she won the Étape du Tour de France Femmes earlier this month and fans asked her for photos at the top of Mont Ventoux, she laughed and asked them why.

The truth is Stansfield has never sought stardom in her riding challenges. With her upcoming La Dame Blanche, her goal is to inspire, particularly her daughter, Margot, who recently turned three.

“For me, it’s terrifying,” she says. “But I really want my little girl to go, ‘Mummy did something that really scared her.’”

The first of those fears will be riding through the night. “I should be getting to the top of the Col du Grand St-Bernard at sunrise, so it’s going to be the most stunning morning of my life,” she says.

“I’m just hoping sunrise doesn’t happen when I’m on the descent, because I think there’s a period just before sunrise when your body gets a bit freaked out… and we all know I can’t go downhill as it is.”

Barring disaster, Stansfield hopes to have two hours for her transition from cycling to starting at UTMB. She will then face a cut off of just under 47 hours to complete the 171km mountainous trail run.

“This is completely unknown,” Stansfield says. But that’s her whole reason for taking it on. “I just want more people to try and do stuff that scares them – put themselves out of their comfort zones. What’s the worst that happens?”

You can follow Victoria Stansfield's La Dame Blanche challenge live via the tracker on her website.

Sophomores Haylan Engdahl and Brayden Rogers were killed in the 19 August collision; seven other students were injured and taken to hospital.

Two of the fundraisers will help Engdahl’s and Rogers’ families cover funeral and memorial expenses. The third will help the injured cyclists and their families with medical bills, recovery costs and other urgent needs.

The three campaigns had collectively raised more than $72,000 at the time of publication.

Haylan Engdahl, 19, was a graduate of Christian Life High School in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The fundraiser remembers him as smart, funny and kind, with a deep passion for mountain biking, cyclocross and criterium racing. "Never without a smile, Haylan had a presence that was impossible not to notice," the campaign reads.

The Support Haylan Engdahl’s Family campaign was organised to help Engdahl’s mother, father and brother with funeral expenses, memorial costs and time to grieve.

Similarly, the Funeral Support for Brayden Rogers campaign aims to "ease some of the financial burden during this incredibly painful time."

Rogers was a graduate of Buckhorn High School in New Market, Alabama. He was 19.

"This heartbreaking loss has left Brayden’s family, friends and community grieving and trying to process an unimaginable tragedy,” the campaign reads.

A third fundraiser, Support Milligan University Cyclists, was organised for the seven injured riders and their families, some of whom remain in hospital.

"Donations will help offset medical expenses, recovery costs, and other urgent needs as these students work to rebuild after such a devastating event," the fundraiser reads. "Just as importantly, this fundraiser is a way to surround them with love, compassion, and support during one of the hardest moments of their lives."

On the morning of 19 August, 11 members of the Milligan University cycling team were riding on Highway 19E in Carter County, Tennessee, when they were struck by a car driver.

The driver, John Benfield, 69, of North Carolina, was taken into custody following the crash. He has been charged with two counts of vehicular homicide by recklessness and five counts of aggravated assault by vehicle. Benfield was released after posting a $300,000 bond and is due back in court on 31 August. The investigation remains ongoing, with the National Transportation Safety Board now involved.

I don’t blame her. A few years ago I was T-boned by a car driver because he "hadn’t seen me." Never mind that I had a green traffic light, was in the designated bicycle infrastructure, and had my bike lights flashing even though the sun wouldn’t set for another hour. After some days on the hospital trauma ward, I went home with a long list of injuries. It took nearly a year to recover, and frankly, I’ve never been quite right again.

It wasn’t the first time a driver had taken me out either, and experiences like these change the way you ride. You become more protective of your space on the road and wary of other road users. It also changes for the people who love you. You may be the one leaving to go for a ride, but your loved ones are left behind fearing you won’t come home. No matter how careful you are.

Before we continue, let me get one thing very, very clear: I do not believe cyclists should have to dress like flashing hazard signs to earn the right to use the road. No amount of neon colours or lights can compensate for a driver who isn’t looking, who’s on their phone, driving impaired or making reckless decisions.

Yet, I am also not willing to stop road cycling altogether. So if there are things I can do to make myself more seen, be proactive and aware of the road users around me, I’m interested. At the same time, I also want my gear to perform, be comfortable, look good, and generally be unobtrusive to my cycling experience. If I don’t feel good in it or it requires some cumbersome mounting or charging process, I know myself well enough to admit that I probably won’t use it consistently. And safety equipment left at home is no use to anyone.

The following is by no means an exhaustive list; they’re just a few items that have become personal staples in helping me feel a little more seen without sacrificing performance or style.

Brightly coloured jersey I actually want to wear

If visibility is the goal, clothing seems like the most logical place to start. It is already on your body, requires no batteries and covers one of the largest visible surfaces on any cyclist aside from the bike itself.

The difficulty is finding something bright that doesn’t scream, “I bought this in a desperate hope that a driver texting ‘OMW’ or scrolling TikTok won’t run me over.”

Castelli’s Espresso collection is my happy compromise.

I first tested the original Espresso kit in 2024, and it immediately felt like a different side of Castelli. Made for riding rather than racing, the Espresso range is softer, more forgiving in its sizing and light on the graphics. In short, it feels and looks good with a range of solid colours well beyond the standard black, navy and dark green palette that has dominated apparel for the past decade.

The Espresso 2 W Long Sleeve Jersey in purple has become a genuine favourite. It’s a summer-weight long-sleeve jersey in a purple that’s bright enough to stand out without feeling like Barney on two wheels.

The fit is flattering without being aggressively race-tight, and the Air_O stretch fabric is soft, breathable and comfortable for all-day adventures in the saddle. Castelli has refined the fit for this second generation, with a shorter front (less zipper bunching), a collar that sits slightly lower, and the rear pockets are more structured to reduce sagging.

Raw-cut sleeve endings keep things smooth and comfortable, while three rear pockets and a fourth zippered valuables pocket supply the expected practicalities.

Sizing remains worth discussing with Castelli. For a brand that’s known for its snugger-fitting size charts, the Espresso line is much more forgiving. In fact, you may even need to size down, so consult the size chart before purchasing.

Weather protection aside, the long sleeves are a visibility bonus. More sleeve means more colour, and therefore more of me for a driver to see.

For the warmest days (of which we’ve all had plenty this summer), I also like the short-sleeved Espresso 2 W Jersey in Giro pink. It is a girlier departure from my usual style, but the colour is done well: it's cheerful, highly visible and unmistakably 'cycling' without being fluorescent.

Are these safety jerseys? No. They are performance jerseys that happen to come in colours less likely to blend into the background. I am not wearing them as penance for riding a bicycle on public roads. I wear them because they are comfortable, stylish and genuinely good. The fact that purple and pink are more noticeable than black is simply a very welcome advantage.

Look put lights in its pedals—and I wish it were a standard feature on all pedals

I have been a career-long Speedplay user on the road. Pedal preferences are deeply personal, and after enough years, clipping into a particular system becomes so instinctive that changing feels a little like deciding to write with the other hand. But then Look put lights in its pedals.

I saw Redshift do it first with its ArcLight commuter platform and was genuinely excited to see Look integrate lights into a performance clipless platform: the Keo Blade Ceramic Vision.

It's one of those ideas that's so obvious in hindsight. A traditional rear light sits in a fixed position. Your feet, meanwhile, are constantly moving. Two red lights tracing the pedalling motion immediately signal that the object ahead is not a mailbox or a traffic cone but a human being riding a bicycle.

Look calls this use of recognisable human movement "biomotion," and claims that the dual moving lights make a cyclist 5.5 times more visible than a standard seatpost light. It can also be seen from up to a kilometre away.

Anecdotally, I do get comments on them quite frequently, which means they are indeed being noticed.

The lights can be clipped on and off the road pedal easily without having to take your pedals off the bike. They offer four steady or flashing modes, 180 degrees of visibility and a claimed battery life of up to 40 hours. And the lights add a mere 20 grams to a set of pedals compared to the non-lighted version.

Importantly, Look has integrated them into a proper high-performance pedal.

The Keo Blade Ceramic Vision has a carbon body, ceramic bearings and a broad contact area. And if you already use compatible Keo Blade V4 pedals, Look offers the lights as a retrofit kit, which is neat.

For me, the visibility element was enough to convince me to not only switch over from Speedplay, at least part of the time, but to learn how to clip in on a single-sided pedal as well.

Now I'm just waiting for someone to make an SPD-compatible light-up gravel pedal...

Lights, lights and more light

We test all sorts of bike lights at Cycling Weekly, including some powerful enough to turn night into day. But the ones I use day in, day out are less dramatic. Their greatest feature is not extraordinary output or clever software. It is that they are so unobtrusive that they're always on my bike.

Knog Plus rear light

I've had this tiny Knog Plus light for years. It's about the size of a pack of Wrigley's gum, weighs a mere 18 grams and can be charged by sticking it directly into a USB port.

With a 20-lumen output, I treat it as a supplementary rear light. Paired with the Look light-up pedals, a more powerful light or as a backup, it's always there in case I go through a tunnel, it's rainy or just to have another flashy light on my bike or person.

The Plus light clips onto a jersey pocket, bag or the supplied magnetic bike mount, so it can follow me between bikes without demanding another permanent bracket.

The light offers five modes, a claimed runtime of up to 40 hours and enough water resistance to have survived seven winters in the Pacific Northwest.

The cleverest feature is its integrated USB-A plug. Pull the light from its mount and plug the whole thing directly into a USB port. No cables needed.

Magicshine HORI 900S

Now that most new bikes come with a semi- or fully integrated cockpit, I like to keep the handlebar clutter at a minimum. I've long been using a GoPro attachment on the bottom of an out-front computer mount to attach various lights, but this compact light negates the need for even that.

The dual-mount Magicshine HORI 900S clips directly into an out-front computer mount – either sandwiched between the mount and your head unit or on the bottom side of the mount. It doesn't require a separate mount, it keeps my bars clear and my bar bag accessible should I choose to use one. And, with a mount on either side of the light unit, you can continue using your action cameras.

The 900-lumen output is bright enough to do more than flash politely during the day, while the cut-off beam is designed to put light on the road rather than into the eyes of oncoming riders and drivers. It also has a separate daytime running light, and a claimed runtime of up to 40 hours.

At 107 grams, this isn’t the smallest light, nor would it be my first choice for off-road riding at night. But for road riding, commuting and the inevitable occasion when a daytime ride runs later than planned, it strikes a good balance.

Mostly, I like that it requires very little thought. Mount it beneath the computer, charge it occasionally and switch it on. If you're taking the bike, you're taking the light.

Live tracking features

One safety feature I use without fail, and without even thinking about it, is Garmin LiveTrack. The moment I hit start on my Edge cycling computer, my pre-selected contact (in my case, my wife) receives an email with a tracking link. The link opens a browser-based map, so your designated worrier does not need a Garmin account or app to follow along. On compatible Edge units, they can even send messages that pop up on the screen. My wife no longer needs to ask where I am, although she may still ask why my two-hour ride is taking four.

Wahoo Live Track provides much the same peace of mind across its ELEMNT bike computers. Once enabled in the companion app, it creates a link you can share with family or friends. Like Garmin, Wahoo also offers auto-sharing, removing one more thing to remember as you get ready to ride.

Hammerhead has live tracking on the Karoo as well. Enable it on the computer and the Karoo Companion App can automatically share a unique link showing the unit’s live location. It is a more straightforward implementation than Garmin’s broader collection of LiveTrack, incident-detection and group-riding features, but it covers the essential requirement: allowing someone at home to see where you are.

You do not necessarily need a bike computer, either. Strava Beacon can share your live location with up to three safety contacts when recording through the Strava phone app. Beacon is free when used directly in the app, while using it through certain connected devices may require a Strava subscription. Apple’s Find My and Google Maps offer less cycling-specific alternatives, but they still provide the most important piece of information: where you are.

There is one substantial asterisk attached to nearly all these features: connectivity. Lose mobile coverage and the dot may stop moving until the connection returns. For genuinely remote rides, I rely on my Garmin inReach to communicate and share my whereabouts. It can share tracking information, exchange messages and summon assistance beyond cellular coverage. It does, however, add another device, another subscription and another battery to manage.

Oakley Meta Vanguard: for when things get hairy

Now for the controversial one.

I have already argued that the Oakley Meta Vanguard glasses would be better without Meta and its always-on AI assistant. I have privacy concerns. And yet, I keep reaching for them when I ride on the road.

Underneath all the technology is a very good pair of sports sunglasses. Oakley’s Prizm lenses offer the contrast and road definition I expect from the brand. I also love the speakers built into the arms as they are surprisingly clear and automatically adjust to wind noise. The glasses can also pair with a Garmin, supply workout information and respond to voice commands.

Frankly, much of that is clever technology I could live without. It’s the camera (and the open-ear speakers if I’m being truly honest) that keep bringing me back.

Positioned between the eyes, the 12-megapixel ultra-wide camera records up to 3K video from my point of view. If I see something worth capturing, I can take a photo or begin recording using a quick physical control or voice command if I can't remove my hands from the bars.

That is fun when the thing in front of me is a beautiful view, a friend getting shreddy or an animal beside the trail. It feels rather more consequential when the thing in front of me is an angry driver.

The easily accessible camera gives me an odd sense of reassurance in traffic. If an interaction starts getting hairy, I know I may be able to capture it almost immediately. There is comfort in the idea that, if things go sideways, some record could exist beyond my recollection of the event.

I know this reassurance has limits. A camera will not prevent a driver from hitting me. It cannot de-escalate a confrontation or guarantee that a license plate will be legible. Depending on what happens, I may not have time to activate it at all. Still, it makes me feel slightly more protected when the post-collision questioning tips borders on victim blaming: What were you doing? What were you wearing?

Of course, a conventional action camera can provide the same evidence without being connected to Meta’s ecosystem. Some can even record continuously, removing the need to anticipate an incident. But since I already have these sunglasses, it’s what I use - even if recommending them comes with a significant asterisk.

Perhaps that is the point of this whole exercise. None of these products offers perfect protection or an entirely compromise-free experience. They are simply the things I am willing to wear, charge and use because each makes riding on the road feel marginally less vulnerable.

My wife would still prefer the Christmas tree or traffic cone look.

The Briton, riding his first Grand Tour, said he hoped there would be more to come after winning stage three at the weekend, and he got his wish. With a strong leadout train including Wout van Aert and Christophe Laporte, there was little stopping Brennan, who romped home well ahead of second placed Jordi Meeus (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe).

GC leader Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) finished comfortably in the bunch, and retained his red jersey, with a 3:21 lead over second-placed Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe). The entire GC top-10, in fact, remained static.

Speaking afterwards, Brennan said: "It's not a bad one. Better than a normal day job. It's fantastic. Second one in the bag, first Grand Tour."

The team had gone all-in for him all day, he said, adding, "I'm very thankful to finish it off again, and I think the boys are also quite relieved."

Asked about his leadout deluxe from Van Aert and Laporte, he said: "It was pretty spot-on to be fair. Wout and Christophe are the best guys you can have in the world for this type of thing, and they supported me all the way into the final. Last corner I lost my wheel a bit – the paint was a little bit slippery. But thankfully I stayed safe. Christophe also felt that a little bit, and managed it really well. So, glad we could finish with the arms in the air.

"I wouldn't say I'm a sprinter," he continued, "but I can climb a little bit and I think on this type of terrain it works really nicely with the support that I have here. Even Stevie [Kruijswijk] and Bruno [Armirail], these guys are just so strong. And when you've got these guys with you, it really gives you the confidence to try and achieve more."

Following a chaotic first few days, with major transfers and an abandoned third stage, the riders entered Spain for the first time today, with this 173.3km outing from Falset Costa Daurada to Roquetes Terres de l'Ebre in southern Catalonia.

Largely flat with a series of hills in the last third and a 20km flat run-in to the finish, a sprint finish was predicted, with many eyes on the imperious-looking Brennan.

An early five-man move included Fredrik Lavik Dversnes (Uno-X Mobility), Walter Calzoni (Pinarello-Q36.5), Mattia Gaffuria (Picnic PostNL) and Diego Uriarte (Kern Pharma), and for a short while Stefan Küng (Tudor Pro Cycling), but it was brought to heel with 100km still to ride.

It was then the turn of solo escapee Ethan Hayter (Soudal Quick-Step), who has been caretaking the green points jersey for Pogačar since the start of the race in Monaco. He earned himself the day's combativity prize after 23km mid-stage break, with the bunch bringing him back as the hills appeared on the horizon.

Assertive riding from Visma-Lease a Bike with Brennan in mind ensured that no other significant gaps were opened. It was clear at that point that the Brit was on a good day, and he proved as much at the stage finish.

Vuelta a España 2026, stage five: Falset Costa Daurada > Roquetes Terres de l'Ebre, 173.3km

1. Matthew Brennan (Gbr) Visma-Lease a Bike, in 3:47:02
2. Jordi Meeus (Bel) Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe
3. Vincenzo Albanese (Ita) EF Education-EasyPost
4. Alessandro Romele (Ita) XDS-Astana
5. Axel Laurence (Fra) Netcompany-Ineos
6. Orluis Aular (Ven) Movistar
7. Christophe Laporte (Fra) Visma-Lease a Bike
8. Alberto Dainese (Ita) Soudal Quick-Step
9. Vito Braet (Bel) Lotto Intermarché
10. David González (Spa) Pinarello-Q36.5

General Classification after stage five

1. Tadej Pogačar (Slo) UAE Team Emirates-XRG, in 11:26:01
2. Primož Roglič (Slo) Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe, +3:21
3. Enric Mas (Spa) Movistar, +3:32
4. Sepp Kuss (USA) Visma-Lease a Bike, +3:44
5. Oscar Onley (Gbr) Netcompany-Ineos, +3:45
6. Richard Carapaz (Ecu) EF Education-EasyPost, +3:50
7. Felix Gall (Aut) Decathlon CMA CGM, +3:57
8. Mattias Skejlmose (Den) Lidl-Trek, +4:06
9. Jarno Widar (Bel) Lotto Intermarché, at s.t.
10. Jay Vine (Aus) UAE Team Emirates-XRG, +4:11

The tickets gain the lucky winner free entry to the Brompton World Championship this September, which take place at the Lee Valley VeloPark in London.

In order to take part, riders will have to follow clues to discover a bespoke, factory-etched Brompton part hidden inside its Bike Hire lockers in the capital. Usually £5 to hire a Brompton for 24-hours, on 27 August, and also on the day of the World Championship, Saturday 5 September, it is free. There are 35 lockers in London, all with Bromptons waiting to make getting around the city easier.

The competition will be launched on Thursday morning with the help of Johno Verity, the popular Instagram cyclist, who will be giving out clues on how to find the golden tickets, on his regular dawn ride.

The promotion runs from 25-28 August, with tickets found outside this window void, and only one prize is allowed per person. Each ticket must be claimed by emailing press@brompton.co.uk by 29 August sharing a photo of the unique prize. The prize is one free entry to the Brompton World Championship, plus race number and rider pack.

The Brompton World Championship will take place on Saturday 5 September. The big race begins with a Le Mans-style start, with competitors sprinting to their folded Brompton bikes before unfolding them and racing onto the circuit, with riders competing across ten qualifying heats before the fastest men and women progress to the championship finals.

Alongside the race, there will also be Brompton demonstrations and test rides, folding competitions, workshops, exclusive merchandise, as well as hospitality in the form of food and drink and entertainment.

In 2025, riders from over 25 countries contested the BWC in Coal Drops Yard, King’s Cross, but this year's event will see 650 competitors compete for the coveted crowns on the fast-paced circuit at Lee Valley VeloPark, which hosted the track cycling events during the 2012 Olympics.

New for this year are a four-person relay race, where fast-paced change overs should inject some jeopardy and entertainment into the mix for onlookers, and the Hydro Scrap Lap, a crowd-pleaser of a contest that celebrates the most creative and memorable rider of the day. Tickets and entry spots are available now.

So, is shorter better?

Well, as with most factors relating to individuals, it really depends. There is no single correct crank length for every rider, and here I’m going to look into why that is. I'll also delve into the purported benefits and potential drawbacks. But first off, let’s get a bit of the background science out of the way.

Power (watts) is made up of two components. There's angular velocity, measured in cadence, and force, which is the torque we produce. An example equation would be 300W at 80RPM requires 35.81Nm of force (Power/Cadence) x 9.5492968).

But an interesting factor regarding crank length is that, although it doesn’t change the cadence at which you pedal, it does change the speed at which your legs move. This is due to the circumference of the pedal revolution changing as you alter crank length. Shorter cranks actually slow the foot, as it travels a shorter distance to complete each pedal revolution.

This has an interesting side effect: more pedal force is required with shorter cranks to achieve the same torque at the spindle, due to the reduced lever length. This has been suggested as a reason for higher self-selected cadences with shorter cranks, so as to reduce the pedal force required, increase the angular velocity of the foot, and still achieve the same power.

So why would a WorldTour rider use cranks that mean more force is required at the pedals? There are several reasons why, some of which we will discuss later. But first, smaller cranks change how the foot and leg move, which can affect efficiency and psychology. Since the foot is moving more slowly, there is an argument that higher cadences become more efficient because the legs do not need to move as fast or as much. This drop in angular velocities at the joints can help make repeated accelerations at higher cadences more sustainable, as at higher power outputs, higher cadences can also be more efficient.

Indeed, part of the supposed reason for Tadej Pogačar switching to shorter cranks has been to allow for the rapid accelerations he produces to effectively fly away from the bunch en route to one of his signature solo victories. It becomes somewhat easier to ‘spin up’ the gear with a shorter crank, even if torque can be reduced. It used to be assumed that longer cranks meant a longer lever, which resulted in more watts, but with higher cadence at higher power outputs being more efficient and excessive torque application being a limiting factor for fatigue accumulation, shorter cranks make sense for elite riders.

With bikes such as the Factor One and its innovative take on bike geometry, there has been a clear shift in the WorldTour toward riders being positioned further forward over the bottom bracket, akin to a time-trial ‘lite’ fit. Shorter cranks can assist here as the hip angle does not get as closed off at the top of the pedal stroke, and can make pedalling and power production more efficient. This, in turn, can allow for a lower front-end position without impeding the pedal stroke, possibly creating a more aerodynamic position. So far, it's looking like the benefits of shorter cranks are endless.

But they are not without their flaws.

Firstly, from a performance perspective, they do have some downsides. Shorter cranks mean your legs do not extend as much at the end of the pedal stroke if saddle height remains the same. To counter this, you need to raise your saddle or get a lower-stack-height cleat and shoe options, which is not cheap. This, in turn, results in a larger frontal area, and I’ve seen wind-tunnel testing showing that shorter cranks and adjusting your position to accommodate the change in fit often add a small amount to the coefficient of drag. Raising the saddle also has a small impact on the centre of mass, raising it, which can marginally reduce stability when cornering. Visma - Lease A Bike addresses this by using Nimbl Shoes with four-bolt cleat mounting for Speedplay pedals, which results in a stack height of about 8.5mm vs 14.6mm for Shimano Dura-Ace pedals.

Shortening the cranks also reduces the total torque production possible. It's not a problem for the most part, but for sprinters, it has been found that shorter cranks can reduce peak power production.

We also have to consider that the majority of us are not professional road riders, spinning up climbs at 90-100RPM at 400+ watts. In addition to that, what is going to be most efficient for one rider is not necessarily going to be the most efficient for every rider.

An expert's view on crankarm length

To get more insight into this, I spoke with Phil Burt, an expert bike fitter who has worked with Team Sky/Ineos and British Cycling over the years.

His view on shorter crank arms is that there is very little downside, as long as riders adjust their bike fit to account for the changes shorter cranks make to hip and knee angles, as well as saddle height and setback.

“People who bought 165mm crank arms are not taking advantage of that, likely keeping their saddle height the same level and therefore compromising position and power. The benefit of short cranks is moving up and forwards, getting over the BB more without compromising knee angle. It loosens up the psoas muscle, and you don’t really pull up on the pedal angle anyway, which is what this muscle can help with, but you can limit stiffness with a wider hip angle.

The problem with really small cranks, such as 150mm, is that the bike ends up in quite a high position. Potentially 25mm higher than what many bikes are designed around.”

This is a very interesting point, as frames are designed around certain crank ideals, so the BB drop is designed to accommodate crank lengths of 170-175mm. Short cranks and the higher saddle will impact the centre of mass and handling.

“The big benefit with these shorter cranks is more inclusivity for fit for women and shorter-stature people. They are also better for people with biomechanical issues or injuries; especially as you age, it is more important to optimise fit as the optimal fit window shifts and gets smaller. Short cranks reduce impact on the hip and knee joints which just makes sense as you get older. It also reduces asymmetry, as you don’t have the extreme angles where imbalances are more prevalent. A good crank length rule of thumb is that 5mm shorter opens up the hip angle by 2-3%.

Negatives? It’s trendy, but it’s only a problem if you don’t address the changes needed when you switch to shorter cranks. You also need to ensure it will fit within your optimal fit window. The only real performance downsides are at 0-30RPM, then short cranks are not as good, so team sprint off the line, maybe super steep MTB, but not much, if any, impact on road performance.”

As a fun analogy for how shorter cranks have had positive performance gains right away, Phil shared this story about Bradley Wiggins before his Hour Record attempt.

“Back in 2015, we were looking to optimise the team pursuit squad. They were low and super aero with their thighs in their chest. We dropped them down to 165mm cranks across the board for aero and power, and it helped instantly. Bradley Wiggins was training for his Hour Record attempt, three weeks out, and came to talk with us. He changed from 177.5m down to 170mm, and was able to get a 30mm drop in front height and over 3% drop in CdA. The rest is history.”

Beyond performance

As Phil mentioned, one very important aspect of shorter cranks being more readily available is greater fit accommodations for a wider range of people. Cycling has traditionally been very male-focused, with all bikes coming with 172.5 or 175mm cranks. Fine for the average global male height 171cm. But the average global female height is 160cm, and you wouldn’t set up a bike fit for a 171cm person the same as for a 160cm person.

With the release of cranksets down to 150mm, SRAM has taken a great step towards greater fit inclusivity, be that for female riders, younger riders, or riders with conditions such as dwarfism. It may be coming off the back of a 175cm rider dabbling in short cranks for professional bike racing, but the wider implications of this release are highly positive. Perhaps just don’t switch to 150mm cranks on a whim, hoping it will make you climb as fast as Jonas Vingegaard. Instead, get a bike fit and select the correct crank length for your individual biomechanics and specific cycling goals.

In an open letter to the UK prime minister, Andy Burnham, sent on Wednesday, the leaders of British Cycling, Grand Départ GB 2027, Scottish Cycling, Beicio Cymru, and representatives of key start and finishes for the Grand Départs have called for £30 million of government funding to seize the opportunity created by the Tours starting in Britain.

They write: "We are calling for targeted capital investment in communities that need it most – places where demand is high but market failure has prevented provision. A £30 million government investment would create safe, accessible places to ride, helping people improve their health, build confidence on a bike, connect with others in their community, and access an affordable form of transport at a time when many households continue to face cost-of-living pressures.

"The investment would also turbocharge our wider legacy plans, extending their reach, accelerating their impact and ensuring benefits are felt for generations to come."

The men’s and women’s Tours de France will visit 10 host towns and cities across Britain in 2027, as the two races start in the same country outside of France for the first time. The men’s race will start in Edinburgh on 2 July, with a finish on stage one in Carlisle. It will then go from Keswick to Liverpool on stage two, and Welshpool to Cardiff on stage three.

The women’s race will open on 30 July in Leeds. Manchester will host the finish of stage one, as well as the start of stage two, which will run across the Peak District to Sheffield. Stage three will be held entirely in London, and will bring the race’s first-ever team time trial.

The open letter reads: "We have a pipeline of investable projects ready to deliver, many linked to Tour de France host cities and regions, in areas of high deprivation, ensuring a meaningful and visible legacy from this major event. We are also confident that Government investment would unlock significant match funding.

"Manchester City Council, host of the Tour de France Femmes, and Edinburgh City Council, host of the Tour de France, have already ringfenced capital funding that could be deployed alongside Government support. This would create tangible benefits quickly, with the Tour de France Grand Départs 2027 providing an unparalleled platform to showcase these success stories to audiences across the UK and around the world."

British Cycling aims to build on the original Places to Ride programme, which was supported by £15 million of government funding between 2019 and 2024. It supported more than 150 projects across England, generating almost £268 million in social value and an estimated £32.9 million in NHS savings, according to the organisation.

"We know the demand is there, and the opportunity is significant," the letter reads. "We would like to request a meeting with you and your team to present our business case at the earliest convenience, and explore how, together, we can capitalise on this unique opportunity."

Lee Gibbons, the interim CEO of British Cycling, said: "The Tour de France Grand Départs in 2027 represent a once-in-a-generation opportunity to inspire millions of people and showcase Britain to the world.

"We want to ensure the legacy extends far beyond the race itself. Investment in safe and accessible places to ride would help more people enjoy the physical, mental and social benefits of cycling while creating healthier and more connected communities."

He rode himself into the young rider's white jersey on yesterday's stage to Andorra La Vella, finishing in a creditable fourth place behind winner Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and at the same time as second and third-placed finishers Jarno Widar (Lotto Intermarché) and Felix Gall (Decathlon CMA CGM).

The ride left him sitting fifth on GC, just 24 seconds off Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe) in second place, and 3:45 behind race leader Pogačar, who looks as though he will be difficult to topple over the coming two-and-a-half weeks.

Onley's white jersey grab was perhaps all the more impressive given he had apparently been ill with a stomach issue that had kept him up throughout the previous night.

“Before the stage, I half expected to lose my overall classification standing entirely, so it was nice to be able to compete in the group behind Tadej,” said Onley after the stage.

"I actually got sick late last night and spent the whole night in the bathroom," he said. "I'm relieved. I actually felt pretty OK. I surprised myself a little. Luckily, I was able to eat this morning and had a normal meal last night too, so I don't think it's such a big deal."

The Scot said he had circled stage four, a 104.8km outing that started and finished in Andorra La Vella, as an important one for the GC, adding: "With the descent and the short climbs, I actually expected it to turn out this way, with a small group crossing the finish line.”

Asked about his plans to retain the white jersey, the 23-year-old called it "a great goal".

"So far, so good," he said. "The white jersey matches the shorts, which is always nice. It's a great goal. Given my ambitions, I hope the white jersey will be a nice bonus. Jarno Widar is, of course, very strong. That final sprint he had... The upcoming stages will be pretty tough, so it’s certainly not over yet.”

With today's fifth stage to Roquetes Terre d l'Ebre likely to favour the sprinters, Thursday's stage six looks like the next GC appointment, with the riders cresting the cat-one Castello de la Plana climb 20km before the finish.

Right on cue, the air raid sirens started.

“These happen so often that people tend to ignore it during the day, or they've got a good idea of what's going on [due to the Telegram texts] and make a conscious choice not to respond to it,” he tells me, once again starting to spin up the power on his Wahoo Kickr turbo trainer.

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022. Reports list the death toll as close to 500,000 Russian soldiers, 55,000 Ukrainian soldiers and over 16,000 Ukrainian civilians. But, life goes on. And training continues for cyclists like Nathan – who moved to Ukraine in early July this year, and did not want to share his real name – not only inside, but out on the open road, too.

“Most cities have parks. Kyiv is more like a city in a park,” Nathan told me, speaking on the podcast I host, Going Long.

“You’re never more than five minutes away from woodland. Last week I went out and went down to the national park in Holisiivskyi Kyiv, and you could have been in the New Forest. Absolutely peaceful, nobody around. And that’s probably 20 minutes by bike from central Kyiv.”

So how safe – or not – does it feel to ride in Kyiv during a period in which Russian attacks on the capital appear to be escalating?

“Because I ride mostly in the woodland and it’s not targeted, I feel perfectly safe – all I see is people out having a good time, sitting on the beach, having a beer by the riverfront,” he says of a population trying to acknowledge its circumstances rather than letting it define them.

“If I went out in a different direction, and went up to some of the squares in town, you would see a lot of devastation. There have been times when sirens would sound as I’ve ridden back into the city, so you head to the metro or to the nearest shelter. Under the law here, you cannot be denied access to a shelter, even if there’s no immediate threat,” Nathan tells me.

Picking the right route, then, is of great importance to cyclists in Kyiv. But rides aren’t restricted to forests and woodland.

“There’s a very active Audax-affiliated cycling club here in Kyiv ” Nathan continues, “I want to pick up a 200 [mile ride], a 400, 600, and there’s a 1,200 or a 1,000 as a qualifier for Paris-Brest-Paris next year.”

Audaxes – long-distance and mass-participation challenge rides – are invariably ridden on the road; does Ukraine have the cycling infrastructure to support such events?

“Every big dual carriageway has a very wide bicycle lane next to it, and a pedestrian path, sometimes combined. It’s segregated from the road, set back from the road, either by bollards or really deep kerbs or whatever.

“When you cross an intersection, there’s a big red lane laid out across the road, and cars actually stop for you. It’s bizarre because coming from the UK, you think everybody’s trying to kill you, so you stop and let the car go. Here, they will stop and wave you on. Car drivers here are incredibly courteous and polite,” Nathan comments.

The club’s next outing takes place on Sunday August 30th, with distances of 50km and 100km available. The event website states that the slogan for 2026 is “keep your balance”, adding, “balance is an important component of cycling. You need to keep your balance, balance your strength and pace. Life in Ukraine is also a balance: peace and anxiety, work and rest, support for family and the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”

Peace doesn’t appear to be on the Russian president’s agenda, and sadly, Ukraine remains as deeply ensnared in battle as it did on 24 February 2022 when Vladimir Putin announced the start of his ‘special military operation’.

Cycling has allowed Nathan to move beyond the immediate reality of the conflict and see Kyiv as its inhabitants do: not just as a city under bombardment, but as a place where people still ride, socialise and carry on with their lives.

“We had an absolutely massive strike last week, like the biggest they’d ever had. It killed quite a few people,” Nathan states, referring to an attack on the city on August 5 which saw 17 people die and a further 44 injured.

“The mood in the office was pretty grim, but then I went out on the bike that night, cycled down the river, and there’s people sitting in the cafes, drinking beer and chatting, and young girls doing selfies, and all the stuff that normal people do in a normal life.”

The cyclists of Ukraine ride on, they continue to balance.

Twenty-one events take place across five days with five disciplines featured from Cross-Country Olympic (XCO), Cross-Country Relay (XCR), Cross-Country Short Track (XCC), E-Mountain Bike (E-MTB) and Downhill (DHI).

Today (August 29), Downhill takes centre stage with Canada's Jackson Goldstone and Austria's Valentina Höll looking to defend their titles. Find full schedule below.

The biggest attraction is undoubtedly the arrival of cross-format stars such as Tom Pidcock and Mathieu van der Poel. Van der Poel will be particularly keen to win the XCO, with the MTB rainbow jersey still absent from his palmarès. Alan Hatherly, Charlie Aldridge and Adrien Boichis will also be among the main contenders, making for a seriously strong men's field.

The downhill will also be a huge feature thanks to Val di Sole's infamous Black Snake. Vali Höll goes after a fifth consecutive elite women's world title, but she faces the likes of Gracey Hemstreet, as well as Myriam Nicole, who beat Höll to the world title on this track in 2021. Lisa Baumann, Sacha Earnest and Marine Cabirou will also be worth watching.

The men's downhill promises just as much as well, with defending champion Jackson Goldstone looking to retain his title on a course where he has an outstanding record. Jordan Williams, Finn Iles, Amaury Pierron and Loïc Bruni will all have something to say about that, though, making it another race that could go right down to the final run.

Below, Cycling Weekly has put together all the key information on broadcasters and live streams so you can watch the Mountain Bike World Championships 2026 wherever you are.

Quick guide to watching the Mountain Bike World Championships 2026

• UK: TNT Sports / HBO Max (£30.99/mon)
• US: FloBikes ($39.99/mon)
• Canada: FloBikes ($49.99/mon)
• Australia: Stan Sport ($29.99/mon)
• Free Stream: UCI YouTube (select countries) / VRT, RTBF (Belgium) / RaiPlay (Italy) / L'Equipe (France) / BBC (UK)
• Anywhere: Watch your local stream from anywhere with NordVPN

Can I watch the Mountain Bike World Championships 2026 for free?

The Mountain Bike World Championships are free to watch this week in select countries without a broadcaster on the UCI YouTube Channel.

As well as this you will find free streams in European countries on VRT and RTBF in Belgium, RaiPlay in Italy and L'Equipe in France.

The BBC will also show both the women's and men's Cross Country race on Sunday in the UK.

Coverage is geo-restricted, so if you're not in any of these countries right now then you'll need a VPN — more on that below.

How to watch Mountain Bike World Championships 2026 while abroad

Most streaming platforms have geo-restrictions these days, which means they only work in certain countries. But being locked out of the races is a thing of the past thanks to a VPN.

A Virtual Private Network is a piece of internet security software that can alter your device's location, so you can unblock your usual streaming services, even when you're abroad.

Want to know more? We have an explainer on the benefits, costs, and considerations of using a VPN...
– Should I use a VPN to watch cycling?

How to watch Mountain Bike World Championships in the UK

In the UK, the Mountain Bike World Championships will be shown on TNT Sports which is available to live stream via HBO Max. Check the schedule here.

The will also be available online and on mobile devices on HBO Max with a package price of £25.99 a month for a year's term.

How to watch Mountain Bike World Championships in the US and Canada

For North American viewers, you will need FloBikes to stream the Mountain Bike World Championships.

In the US, FloBikes costs $39.99 a month. In Canada, a FloBikes subscription cost CA$49.99 a month, with big savings for long-term plans.

How to watch Mountain Bike World Championships in Australia

In Australia, Stan Sport will be showing the Mountain Bike World Championships.

Prices for Stan start at A$9.99/month with the Sport add-on a further A$20/month.

▶︎ Read More: How to watch cycling for free in 2026

Mountain Bike World Championships 2026 - Schedule

Wednesday, 26 August

9am – Women’s Elite E-MTB Cross-Country
10.30am – Men’s Elite E-MTB Cross-Country
4pm – Mixed Team Relay

Thursday, August 27

8.30am – Women’s Junior Cross-Country Olympic
10am – Men’s Junior Cross-Country Olympic
2.30pm – Women’s U23 Cross-Country Short Track
3.30pm – Men’s U23 Cross-Country Short Track
4.45pm – Women’s Elite Cross-Country Short Track
5.30pm – Men’s Elite Cross-Country Short Track

Friday, August 28

9:30am – Women’s Junior Downhill qualification
Followed by Men’s Junior Downhill qualification
2.30pm – Women’s Elite Downhill qualification
Followed by Men’s Elite Downhill qualification

Saturday, August 29

8.15am – Women’s Junior Downhill
9am – Men’s Junior Downhill
12.20pm – Women’s Elite Downhill
2pm – Men’s Elite Downhill

Sunday, August 30

8am – Women’s U23 Cross-Country Olympic
10am – Men’s U23 Cross-Country Olympic
12pm – Women’s Elite Cross-Country Olympic
2.15pm – Men’s Elite Cross-Country Olympic

We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses. For example: 1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms and conditions of that service). 2. Protecting your online security and strengthening your online privacy when abroad. We do not support or condone the illegal or malicious use of VPN services. Consuming pirated content that is paid-for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future Publishing.

But looking carefully through the start line melee, one bike stood out from the rest. Professional triathlete Amanda Macuiba, 32, pushed off to tackle the 9,000 feet of climbing aboard a $500 Marin gravel bike that she'd purchased on Facebook Marketplace the previous week.

"I would be a liar if I said I wasn’t a little underprepared," Macuiba admits. "But I had faith that my body and my years of racing experience would get me through the race – even if it got a little ugly."

No bike? No problem.

Macuiba is no stranger to elite competition. She competed in collegiate running, and now races as a professional in the sport of triathlon with multiple podium finishes to her name in half- and full-distance Ironmans.

When Macuiba had the opportunity to pivot from racing Ironman Maryland in September to lining up as an elite at Gravel Worlds (the long-running Nebraskan gravel race not to be mistaken with the much-newer UCI Gravel World Championships), she readily took on this new challenge.

"I love how gravel biking has different focus points [than road racing]," Macuiba says. "It’s not just about how close you are to someone’s wheel; it’s also about navigating the terrain and handling technical sections…I find gravel to be fun and refreshing compared to road cycling."

While Macuiba's late entry into the elite wave at Gravel Worlds was accepted, she was facing two big challenges: she hadn’t done any gravel-specific training in months and, worse, no gravel bike to race on. She has a custom gravel bike in the works, but it wasn't going to be ready in time.

Some may have let this stop them from pursuing Gravel Worlds, but not Macuiba.

"I didn’t feel comfortable asking a friend to borrow a bike given the length and technical terrain of Worlds," Macuiba says. "So I turned to Facebook Marketplace, and the $500 Marin bike I ended up getting fit my budget and was close enough for easy pickup with less than a week to go for Worlds."

Macuiba adds with a laugh, "I refuse to call the bike a bad bike. I thought what better thing for [the bike] and I to bond over than both being a bit over our heads with Worlds."

With a bike now secured, Macuiba decided to rely on her years of aerobic endurance training, hoping it would translate to the 150 miles of dirt awaiting her in Lincoln.

The $500 Bike

• Brand: Marin Nicasio+
• Year: Unknown
• Size: 52
• Frame & fork material: Steel
• Tyres: 650b x 47mm (with Super Glue jammed into the cracks)
• Drivetrain: 1 x 9 speed Microshift mechanical

95 Miles and Lessons for A Lifetime

When the race got underway, Macuiba was pleased to keep up with the elite peloton for the first 10 miles, until the gravel-specific skills and tactics of the race came into play.

"I learned the harsh lesson that one bad corner will cost you the entire peloton," Macuiba says of her race experience. "But it also gave me so much respect for the other elite women. I tried to channel any humiliation I felt into absolute respect for the skills these elite women possess."

At mile 53, Macuiba crashed hard while attempting to corner at a high speed, planting the bike derailleur-side down into the dirt and rock. Despite Macuiba being physically OK, the bike was not.

Mechanics at the mile 54 aid station attempted to fix the bike’s shifting issues caused by the crash, but with little success. Macuiba had to manually push her shifters back into place after every click, and eventually, could only shift between two gears in the middle of her cassette.

"By mile 95, my knees were aching from grinding uphill at 50rpm and I was weary of spinning out on every downhill," Macuiba says. "I thought to myself, 'I can’t do this for 55 more miles.' Plus, I could have used more calories, and my body and mind were growing weary. I decided it wasn’t safe for me to try to continue and made the tough call to DNF."

Despite DNF’ing, Macuiba says she comes away from the race with a wealth of new information that she "couldn’t possibly" have learned without giving Worlds a go on her $500 steed.

"I took any feelings of embarrassment or imposter syndrome and told myself that physically, I can belong [in the elite field] if I work on my technical riding and get some better gear," Macuiba says. "As I waited for my teammate to pick me up [from the DNF point], I reminded myself that my elite application for Worlds was accepted for a reason."

"I would absolutely do this again"

Macuiba unflinchingly says she would do this entire experience again.

"I would absolutely do [Gravel Worlds] again," Macuiba says. "And when I get that finisher medal, no matter what place I’m in, I’m going to be really freaking stoked. I can’t wait to re-prepare myself for a big gravel race like this in the future."

Macuiba says that if she could impart any post-race wisdom to other cyclists, especially those new to the sport, it would be that "waiting for everything to be perfect will never be worth it."

"Waiting for the perfect day where everything aligns is unlikely to ever happen," Macuiba says. "Embracing the imperfect days will make you a better athlete mentally and physically – and I think that’s why we do sport at all."

Even if you feel twinges of embarrassment or nerves taking on a new challenge, Macuiba encourages cyclists of all abilities to push through those feelings and enjoy the new adventure.

"As I stood on the start line with these incredibly elite women and their really nice bikes, I did feel some embarrassment," Macuiba says. "But I thought, 'You’re already here, so just do your best,' and I ended up having such a cool experience that I would never have had if I waited for the perfect circumstances."

As for the $500 Facebook Marketplace bike? After it gets some TLC to recover from its battle wounds, Macuiba plans on keeping the bike and loaning it to family members so they can experience the joy of riding and trying something new and different, too.

It comes after Accell Group, which owns the company as well as Raleigh, was declared bankrupt earlier this month.

Lapierre's directeur general William Perrier wrote about the court hearing in a post on LinkedIn on Tuesday afternoon, saying: "It doesn't mean everything is settled, nor that Lapierre is saved. It means that we have obtained the right and the time to fight."

The 20 days since insolvency proceedings began against Accell had been used as "preparation", managing customers, cash flow and suppliers, wrote Perrier.

Now, he said, a new phase would start that involved, among other things, securing a new investor.

"A new stage begins: to make the company run properly and to bring in a long-term industrial or financial investor," he wrote. "These two projects will move forward together.

"I want to salute the women and men of Lapierre once again," he continued. "Every order processed, every delivery kept, every customer and supplier reassured builds our credibility with investors. They are the ones who make the value of this company. We've got an opportunity. It's up to us to transform it into a future."

Lapierre has been a standard fixture in the men's pro peloton for more than 20 years, with French stars Thibaut Pinot and Arnaud Démare winning major races aboard its bikes. Both men's and women's Picnic PostNL teams currently ride the machines, although to limited success so far this year.

Accell Group's Dutch arm was declared bankrupt two weeks ago. Other cycling-related brands in its portfolio include Batavus, Sparta, Koga, Haibike, Winora, Ghost, Babboe and XLC – as well as the iconic Raleigh, a brand that is freighted with nostalgia for British bike riders of a certain age.

Accell Group said at the time that every "realistic option for the future of the business has been tirelessly explored", but in the end there had been no "viable solution" for it to be able to continue operating "in its current form".

A potential life line seemed to have been thrown out from an Irish-based investment firm, Quanta Capital, which has expressed interest in buying the entire group. As a sponsor of the Junior Tour of Ireland, Quanta has links to bike racing. In a statement acquired by Irish site Sticky Bottle, Quanta's chief executive Mel Sutcliffe said: “Our main objective will be to put the group onto a more stable footing as it has endured quite a tumultuous period of trading.

“We have made contact with Accell and its administrators to formalise our interest in purchasing the group.”

If that purchase does come off, it could secure a future not only for Lapierre and Raleigh, but for all their fellow stablemates.

Enve may not have been the first to the wide-wheel party, but the company made a splash when it launched three new gravel wheels earlier this year. The "Big Dawgs," the G SES 6.7 Pro, certainly got most of the attention, and rightfully so: these are wheels that mean business. In fact, Enve claims to be the "outright fastest gravel wheel on the market."

While the 6.7 Pro appears to be extremely fast, especially on long, open gravel courses like Unbound, Enve’s shallower option in the lineup, the G SES 4.5 Pro, provides a much more versatile option for most riders. They’re lighter, for one, and less susceptible to crosswinds, making them easier for smaller riders to control. And while they may lose out a bit in terms of absolute speed, the 30 mm internal width of the 4.5 rim enables riders to safely run tyres as narrow as 40 mm, something that isn’t possible with the mega-wide 35 mm internal width of the 6.7s.

Design details

The G SES 4.5 Pro is the lightest option in Enve’s gravel lineup. The rims themselves are front- and rear-specific: the front measures 49 mm, while the rear is 55 mm deep. Internal width is 30 mm, while external width is 37.6 mm (37.8 by my calipers). Enve states that the rims are “tuned for aerodynamic performance with high volume tyres between 44-52 mm.”

The wide rims are mated to Enve’s top-spec Innerdrive Pro hub, which features ceramic bearings, oversized stainless-steel ratchets, and a light-action spring to reduce drag. The hubs are laced with Alpina alloy nipples and Alpina Ultralite straight-pull spokes. Like most Enve wheels, the nipples are located internally within the rim. Total system weight, including rim tape and tubeless valves, is 1,482 grams, per my scale. The spokes and hubs both have a polished silver finish, visually differentiating the Pro wheels from the standard G SES 4.5 wheelset (which shares the same rims as the Pro version) and adding a bit of pizzazz.

In the box are multiple freehub bodies, and swapping them is straightforward; it can be done without tools in about three minutes. I conducted most of my testing with an HG driver installed, but also briefly tested the XD driver. Underway, the freehub makes a loud but not deafening noise that’s decidedly more of a growl than a high-pitched buzz.

The rims are hookless and ship with tubeless tape and valves installed. As this is a gravel-specific design, Enve has designed these rims with impacts in mind and made the bead very wide to blunt the edge and help prevent pinch flats. The width of the sidewall measures a very robust 3.8 mm, similar to what one might find on a mountain bike rim. Max tyre pressure is 50psi and the minimum approved tyre size is 40mm.

Enve manufactures its rims in the USA and covers its products with a limited lifetime warranty for materials conformance, as well as a limited lifetime crash-replacement policy.

Performance

These wheels are fast, full stop. Are they the fastest option out there? It’s tough to say. Enve’s road-going wheels seem to be working fairly well for Tadej and his UAE teammates, so it stands to reason that the equivalent gravel version would also be pretty quick.

In my time spent riding these wheels, I tested the G SES 4.5 PRO wheelset with two different tyres. I started with Schwalbe’s 2.1 inch/55 mm Thunder Burt tyres, a fast-rolling knobby tyre that is my go-to for dry gravel conditions. Installation was smooth, and the (slightly undersized) tyres measured around 54 mm, just over the upper edge of Enve’s recommended tyre size.

For such a wide rim, the G SES 4.5 Pro is impressively light. I didn’t try to ascertain any measurable aerodynamic gains during my testing, but at higher speeds, the wheels clearly make a difference to the bike’s speed. Good wheels feel stable and encourage you to push, to dig deeper into your pedal stroke and tuck your head that little bit more to eke out another .5 kph. That feeling of liveliness at speed, where the entire system is working harmoniously, is addictive, and these wheels possess it.

I also tested the wheels with a tyre at the opposite end of the recommended range: Vittoria’s 42 mm Corsa PRO Control tyres. Setup with these tyres also proved uneventful, and riding on this (slightly) narrower rubber gave me a good feel for the character of the wheels without the interference caused by the knobby tread and sheer volume of the 55s. In this configuration, the 4.5 Pros felt very much like a standard aero road wheel, with good lateral stiffness and direct road feedback coming through to the rider. Here again, the wheels performed at their best when ridden aggressively, seemingly coming alive once my speedometer ticked over 45 kph. I think the wheels are at their best, performance-wise, with a slightly narrower, firmer tyre. According to Enve, these wheels are optimised for 44-52 mm, but based on my time spent riding them, I liked them the most with rubber in the 40-45 mm range.

Now obviously I wasn’t privy to the engineering discussions that Enve’s designers had about wide tyres and aerodynamics. Clearly, they know what they’re doing. With that said, I wonder why Enve decided not to make these rims even wider. I presume that making them more similar in width to the tyre widths they are supposedly designed for would improve their aerodynamic performance. Perhaps the extra-deep 6.7 wheels are better suited to tyres on the wide end of the range.

Regarding the hubs, I didn’t have any issues during my testing, but I do wonder how they will hold up over the long term, given that they are touted as a race-day-tuned setup. Enve uses the same hubs on its top-level road wheels, so the tech is not new, but then the demands (and conditions) of gravel racing are unique.

Also notable about these wheels is their look: big logos and silver spokes tend to draw eyeballs, for better or worse. If you want people to notice your bike, these wheels provide an efficient, albeit very expensive, way to achieve that. Paired with a titanium bike, the shiny silver with a bit of dust on it looks, to my eye, quite proper. If understated is more your thing, these wheels may not be the best option.

Value

Enve has a reputation for making high-quality products and pricing them at the top end of the market. In my experience, it also provides a commensurate level of customer service and warranty coverage, which helps to justify the cost somewhat. At $3,100/ £3,500/ €3,899, the G SES 4.5 Pro wheels aren’t at the very tippy-top of the carbon wheel market, but they’re close.

If you’re interested in Enve but don’t want to spend quite that much, the standard G SES 4.5 wheels use brass nipples instead of alloy and have black hubs and spokes instead of silver, but are otherwise indistinguishable from the Pro version. These wheels cost a still quite substantial sum of $2,850.

Zipp’s 303 XPLR SW wheelset is another close competitor. Specifications-wise, they’re quite similar. The internal and external widths are very close, as is the weight; however, the Zipp wheels cost a third as much at $2,200. Having ridden both, I would say the performance is indistinguishable.

It also must be said that the rise of direct-to-consumer wheel brands out of China, of which several, like BTLOS and Light Bicycle are now well-known and highly regarded, also make wheels with similar dimensions for even less. These products may not have the same wind-tunnel chops as a top-level name brand, but they aren’t far off.

Enve makes a very good product, but not one that screams value. If you want the best, flashiest wheel on the market, these are right up there. I could find no discernible faults with them, and I rode them hard. But for the money, that’s the way it should be.

Tech spec

• Price: $3,100/ £3,500/ €3,899
• Weight: 1,480g (claimed), 1,482g (actual, including tape and valves)
• Internal width: 30 mm
• Minimum tyre size: 40 mm
• External width: 37.6
• Depth: 49 mm front, 55 mm rear

Unsurprisingly, then, the S-Level SL9 shares much in common with the more expensive S-Works model. Essentially, the bikes’ DNA is a match. That means the S-Level is shaped by the same aerodynamic blueprint that informed much of the S-Works version's development.

Here’s a quick 101 in case you missed the details at launch. In creating its ‘Time to Finish’ metric, the Specialized engineers used the kind of computational race simulation data (inputs include aerodynamics, weight, rolling resistance, surface roughness, environmental conditions, and rider power) that pro teams typically rely on to fine-tune bike set-ups and race tactics to help them design a faster bike. Using a moving-legs mannequin in the wind tunnel, they were able to better understand how a cyclist in motion impacts airflow across the bike. From here, they redesigned tube shapes accordingly.

Like the S-Works Tarmac SL9, the S-Level version features the redesigned Speed Sniffer headtube, seatpost and WinFin, the reconfigured seat tube and rear triangle junction. A quick recap on these design details. The headtube is now slimmer than its predecessor the SL8, made possible by a combination of rerouting the rear brake hose and an offset steerer tube. The result is a refined hourglass shape that reduces the bike’s frontal area by 10%.

Similarly, the new seatpost is more streamlined, with a thinner, deeper design to improve airflow from the rider’s legs into the space between the legs and the frame before it hits the seatpost.

As for the WinFin, it’s a product of Specialized’s analysis of racing behaviour. In this case, breakaway riders ditching a water bottle. By losing the second bottle, airflow around the seat tube and rear triangle changes, so Specialized re‑engineered the rear of the bike around this real‑race configuration. It says the change saves 0.5 watts compared to the SL8. A marginal gain for sure, but if true, a gain nonetheless.

So if the similarities are plentiful, what are the differences? In short, material, weight, and price. The most impactful of those is likely price. To bring “world‑tour‑level performance to more riders than ever,” Specialized needed to reduce the cost. While an S-Works SL9 with SRAM Red AXS or Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 will set you back £11,999 or $14,000/ $13,500 in the US, an S-Level with the same groupsets retails at £8,799/ $10,500. It’s a significant chunk of change, achieved in no small part by the first two measurables mentioned above: material and weight.

While the S-Works model uses Spesh’s top-of-the-line Fact 12r carbon across the frameset, the S-Level adopts Fact 10r for the frame and 12r for the forks. It’s a recipe that comes with a weight penalty, but not as great as you might imagine given the price differential. The claimed frame weight of the S-Works SL9 is 687 grams. The S-Level version tips the scales at 882g. With less than 200 grams between them, complete builds for the cheaper bike are still suitably svelte, with options as light as 7.13kg.

Lower price. Competitive weight. It makes the Tarmac SL9 S-Level a compelling new entry in the second-tier race bike category. It also raises the question of why anyone who pays for their kit might choose the S-Works over the S-Level? For amateur racers, a few hundred grams is negligible and can be made up with a bit of componentry switcheroo, especially when you have £3,200 more cash in your pocket; the S-Level complete builds come equipped with Roval CL III and a Power Pro Mirror saddle, while the S-Works uses CLX III wheels and the S-Works version of the saddle. Both share the same integrated Roval Rapide carbon cockpit.

Yes, the S-Works marque carries a certain cachet, and for the finely tuned athlete, there might also be a discernible difference in performance between the two models. But for many cyclists this won’t be the case, and the design attributes that are likely to positively impact your performance are those shared by the S-Works and S-Level.

If your purse strings are tighter still, the Expert and Comp versions of the Tarmac SL9 are available, starting at £3,999/ $4,500, and rising to £5,999/ $7,000 for an Expert model (built using Fact 10r carbon) with SRAM Force AXS, Roval C38 wheels and a two-piece Specialized cockpit.

Specialized Tarmac SL9 S-Level specs

• Price: £8,799/ $10,500/ $10,000
• Frame: Fact 10r carbon
• Forks: Fact 12r carbon
• Wheels: Roval Rapide CL III
• Saddle: Specialized Power Pro w/Mirror Saddle
• Bars/stem: Roval Rapide Cockpit
• Groupset: SRAM Red AXS or Shimano Dura-Ace Di2

The world champion launched his stage-winning move on the second of four climbs, the category-one Collada de Beixalis, and immediately drew out a gap over the peloton.

He went on to claim the stage – the fifth of his career at the Vuelta, including stage one’s 9.4km time trial – by two minutes and 39 seconds in Andorra la Vella.

Jarno Widar (Lotto-Intermarché) placed second and Felix Gall (Decathlon CMA CGM) third. Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe), seventh across the line, finished on the same time as Widar and Gall, and is now second overall.

Reflecting on his victory, Pogačar said in his post-race interview that he "didn't have to" attack from so far out.

"The pace was super-high already on the first climb, then on the second climb, we were basically going all out from the bottom," the UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider said.

"When Jay [Vine] let me pass on the wheel of Decathlon, then I knew, ‘Ok, I don’t want to be isolated against all the GC riders, because they will all play against me.’

"I tried with an attack on the climb and then just hoped I could survive until the finish when I saw that I could open the gap. I did it. It was pretty tough, but a beautiful day out there.”

The victory marked the seventh longest solo of Pogačar's career, and his longest ever at a Grand Tour.

Now bolstered by a more than three-minute GC advantage, he said he can be "calm and confident" across the next 17 days of racing. "Any gap is more than enough, but it’s super-good," Pogačar said. "It will be a little bit less stressful, for sure."

The Slovenian also faces the possibility of holding the leader's jersey from start to finish, a feat that hasn't been achieved at a Grand Tour since Tony Rominger at the 1994 Vuelta a España.

"You never know, but now it’s a good gap," Pogačar said of the challenge. "We give our best to control it every day. But if it’s uncontrollable, you cannot control, then we’ll have to fight. It’s going to be tough, but we have a really strong team here, so we are ready.”

How it happened

After stage three’s abandonment due to a hailstorm, the peloton set out under clear skies in Andorra la Vella, the capital of Andorra, for the shortest road stage of this year’s race, but certainly not the easiest.

The day’s 104.8km route counted more than 3,000m of elevation gain over four categorised climbs – three category ones and a category three. The riders began climbing from the gun, immediately onto the 23.2km Port d’Envalira, where a breakaway group went in search of KOM points.

Lorenzo Fortunato (XDS Astana) earned full honours at the summit. The peloton came back together on the descent and into the second climb.

There, Decathlon CMA CGM accelerated at the front, and looked to be setting up a move for their GC leader, Felix Gall.

Before the Austrian could strike, however, Pogačar charged ahead. Gall tried to follow, but within a few hundred metres, the gap grew to a handful of seconds. A few hundred metres more, it was 20 seconds, and the stage win looked destined to bear the Slovenian's name.

Reflecting on that moment after the race, Netcompany-Ineos rider Oscar Onley said he wasn't surprised to see Pogačar go solo. "We just let him do his thing," Onley said, "and then we race between ourselves."

The Scot was part of a GC cluster that formed behind Pogačar on the road. Alongside him were Widar, Gall, Roglič, Enric Mas (Movistar), Sepp Kuss (Visma-Lease a bike), Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) and Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) – a group that swung between co-operating and trying to drop each other.

In the end, the only riders to lose time from the chasing group were Carapaz and Skjelmose, who finished another 18 and 38 seconds down respectively.

Pogačar was already on his way to the podium by the time they crossed the line. The world champion spent an hour and 20 minutes alone up the road, and his stage win never looked in doubt.

Tying up the victory, Pogačar also marked a full-circle moment for his career: his first Grand Tour stage win came in Andorra at the Vuelta, back on his race debut in 2019.

"Not for second did I think I would ride like this ever," he said, thinking of his younger self. "I have such beautiful memories from the first time in Andorra. It’s one of my favourite moments of my career.”

Fast forward to today: he's now a two-time world champion, five-time Tour de France champion, former Giro d'Italia winner, with a Vuelta title in waiting.

Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) is already in the famous red jersey as he looks to complete the Grand Tour set by adding the Vuelta a España to his Giro d'Italia and five Tour de France titles.

Yesterday's stage three was abandoned after a hailstorm saw Pogačar wave his fellow riders to a halt. Although the stage ended without a winner or the scheduled mountain showdown on Font Romeu, it was exciting viewing all the same.

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Design details

The wheels are built around a brand new hub, a source of much of the weight trimming. It’s made from the ‘Topology Optimised’ 3D-printed Scalmalloy material. Scalmalloy is primarily composed of aluminum, magnesium, and scandium and is designed to be incredibly lightweight while also being able to be made into highly intricate shapes.

This is why the hubs are somewhat reminiscent of bone structures, which are formed by the direction of the stresses applied to them. The principle is applied to the hubs to make them strong against torsional, lateral, and vertical forces, with the aim of offering unparalleled stiffness, something that many of the best road bike wheels look to attain.

Internally, Scope uses its Diamond Ratchet SL, which is made of titanium and uses a diamond-like carbon coating for durability. There's a 36T ratchet with a 10-degree engagement, while the bearings are either standard SKF or CeramicSpeed, available at an additional cost.

The reasonably deep Carbonlite Aerospokes provide strength and improved aerodynamics. On the front wheel, there are six radial spokes on the non-rotor side and 12 two-cross spokes on the rotor side, while the rear also uses a 2:1 ratio with 8 one-cross spokes on the non-drive side and 16 two-cross spokes on the drive side to better balance the asymmetric forces through the drivetrain.

The rims are another unique aspect of Scope's design and stand out from the crowd. Whereas most wheels are smooth or feature dimples like Zipp, Scope has used patented AeroScales. Scope claims they “generate velocity streaks travelling at different speeds over our rim surface. This has a stabilising effect on the airflow and reduces drag.”

The rim profile is also designed using Scope’s Algorithm Enhanced Aerodynamics (AEA) to be as aerodynamic as possible. Local Reinforcement carbon technology is then applied around the spoke holes to strengthen those areas, resulting in less carbon required across the entire wheel.

This results in a pair of wheels that, with rim tape and valves installed, weigh 1,206g - impressively light for a 45mm rim with 25mm internal width and 33.84mm external width. The rims still use hooks rather than microhooks or hookless; for a wheel this light, they buck the trend by not specifying a weight limit.

All standard road hub options are available from Shimano, Campagnolo and SRAM, while off-road options such as Shimano Microspline and Campagnolo N3W are also available. White or Black graphic options can be specified upon purchase. The wheels also feature a very smart tool bag and proper wheel bags.

Performance

Fitting tyres is always the first part of testing wheels. I personally don’t like rim tape as much as solid rim bed profiles. However, this means additional material and external spoke nipples, which can marginally impact aerodynamics. Traditionally, I have found Acope wheels quite tight to get tyres onto, and that remains the case with the Artech. The 25mm internal width also makes fitting standard road tyres, optimised for 21mm internal widths, a bit more challenging.

What really does strike you is the weight, or rather lack of. With tyres, rotors and all elements fitted, these are a properly lightweight set of wheels, especially considering their 45mm depth, and out on the road, it makes for a tangible difference. Aerodynamics has taken the market by storm, but unless you go from a round-tubed bike with shallow rims to a full-on hyperbike, I don’t find much difference from one product to the next. That’s not to say the benefits don’t exist, but 33kph feels very similar to 30kph even if that is 10% faster. What is noticeable, and remains something highly romanticised by cyclists, are lightweight components.

Every acceleration away from a junction or traffic lights, every surge up a steep incline, your efforts are rewarded in spades. Combining a very lightweight hub with a lightweight rim, where rotational weight/inertia has a greater effect during changes in velocity, the Artech feels nimble under acceleration. I have noticed a genuine difference accelerating up climbs with these wheels. At a constant pace, the weight does help, but is not as perceivable. However, for crit racing or races with any climbing, these are a superb choice.

Adding to this accelerative performance is the stiffness. The aforementioned topology-optimised hubs are an interesting design, carefully sculpted to deal with the directional forces that the wheels come under from lateral movements, torsional twisting forces, and the vertical forces from the spoke tension and weight. Even with a relatively low spoke count by disc-brake wheel standards, the wheels are incredibly stiff, reacting well to acceleration, cornering, and braking with no lull. It’s not at all jarring, but just makes the wheels feel very connected with the frame and pedalling forces. The Carbonlite spokes may also help with this, given their tensile strength.

Aero-bladed spokes also contribute to the aerodynamic performance, as does the rim profile. At 45mm deep, these are not quite a dedicated ‘flat day’ aero offering, sitting more in the all-round category. However, I feel no discernible difference between these and the Vision Metron 60 SL wheels, which I’ve previously reviewed and really liked. I can’t tell if the scales help or the AEA rim, but a telling sign is that professional teams use these unmissable wheels even when they're not sponsored by Scope; part of why the road and time trial variants are often out of stock is due to WorldTour purchases.

In crosswinds, the 45mm depth, very wide profile, and scales seem to result in a wheel that reacts in a predictable manner. They still feel the forces of the wind, but it has been consistent and reliable, so easily controllable, so much so that I was able to remove a gilet in some crosswinds without too much trouble.

The Scalmalloy material can react to rain and water, giving a discolouration and surface texture shift if the wheels are not properly maintained. Scope provides a cleaning spray and a cloth for these wheels and instructs owners to properly clean the hubs after rides in the rain or after cleaning the bike with water.

It has no performance impact on the wheels, I have been told; it is purely an aesthetic byproduct of the material, and one the brand will hopefully provide a solution for. However, it does feel a bit odd that wheels this expensive require a special treatment. But then looking after a Ferrari requires a lot of expensive additional specialist care compared to a Honda Jazz - that’s the price of performance in some cases. But what a price it is.

Value

On the face of it a £3498 / $4398 for a pair of bicycle wheels is ludicrous. You can buy a reasonable carbon bike, even with electronic gears and carbon wheels, for that amount of money. It’s not as extreme as Lightweight’s Obermayer Evo Disc Carbon Road Wheelset Tubeless Ready Schwartz Ed, which is £7,559/ $8,695. Even the Princeton Carbonworks Peak 4550 Evo starts at around £3,799/ $3,150, while the new ENVE SES 4.5 Pro starts at £4,100/ $3,750. In this context, the Scope actually appears to be good value, as they are lighter and cheaper than the competition, have no weight limit, and are all-road-usable wheelsets.

However, compared to the likes of the Vision Metron 60 SL, which are £1,000 / $2,000 cheaper, it’s hard to say these wheels are that much better. Even more so looking at the likes of the Scribe Élan SL 40 wheelset (we've reviewed the SL 50), which is only a claimed 40g heavier but comes in at £1,199 and features ceramic bearings as standard rather than a £500 add-on.

Realistically, the Scope Artech 4.A wheels are not good value for money. They are firmly in the halo category, where value for money becomes less of a consideration and people are buying these because they want the best, even if that comes at £1,000 for a watt or 50g saving. However, in raw performance terms, they are exceptional, and I would argue, among premium offerings, potentially the best option available.

Tech specs

• Price: £3,498/ $4,398
• Weight: 1,206g
• Hubset: Artech 3D printed
• Freehub options: Shimano HG11/12, SRAM XDR, Campagnolo
• Rim depth: 45mm front/rear
• Internal rim width: 25mm
• Spoke count: 18/24 front/rear
• Rim: Hooked

But stage three of the Vuelta a España changed all that, bringing both winter and summer – and a whole load of bedraggled bike riders – through the doors of this ornate building. These were not holidaymakers, far from it. Instead they were sheltering from a hailstorm of biblical proportions that ultimately led to the abandonment of the stage.

But the incident thrust the hotel, situated around 15 kilometres from the intended stage finish near Font Romeu, into the global sporting spotlight. It's newfound fame has been accompanied by a host of affectionate and spoof reviews, many praising it for sheltering the riders or simply joking about their presence.

One reviewer suggested it ought to earn the combativity prize, saying, "Vuelta combativity award for this hotel! It must not be easy to accommodate 183 cyclists+ staff without prior notice."

Another simply listed the benefits of staying here as: "Warm hospitality - Cycling Friendly - Free towels on arrival," alluding to the towels offered to the riders to dry the freezing hail.

More than one review referenced the Vuelta's much-maligned social media influencer Erola Jons, who bemused a raft of riders with her questions, and called Tadej Pogačar as 'Pogacita': "Met a guy named “Pogichitar” he started hyperventilating for some reason," wrote the reviewer, while another wrote: "Undeniably good experience. However, the weather was not too friendly and some amateur cyclists were in the first floor. I even got to meet a kid who was in red, I think his name was pogachita. Anyways, excellent service."

Other 'reviewers' joked about the presence of so many cyclists during their stays, with one writing: "Great hospitality and great service, but it has a serious problem with cyclists," and another saying, "Bad weather but great service! The janitors cleaned a bunch of wet men in leotards. The view was nice."

For many of the riders, yesterday's stage ended at the hotel with hail coating the roads outside. There was no result recorded for the stage, which took riders 174km from Gruissan to Font Romeu, with the general classification remaining as it was after stage two, with Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) still wearing the leader's red jersey.

Today's stage is held within the Pyrenean country of Andorra, with a 104km mountainous outing based on Andorra La Vella.

The legendary Italian framebuilder was speaking about the material’s enduring quality at a time when carbon was rapidly taking over the bike industry. Nearly two decades later, while walking through the MADE bike show, Pegoretti may have been right – though not in the way he may have imagined.

Steel was everywhere at the Portland handmade bike show, as you’d perhaps expect, but what was more surprising was what builders were doing with it.

Steel in 2026 looks nothing like the skinny, round-tubed, heavy lugged, rim-brake bikes of old. Modern steel is lighter than ever and paired with 3D-printed titanium and carbon aero foils or custom-drawn to create a no-expense-spared climbing bike, or fully hand-formed into aerodynamic truss structures around 32-inch wheels.

At MADE, Big Block, Scarab and Rare Earth each approached steel from a very different direction, but all demonstrated that one of cycling’s oldest frame materials still has plenty of unexplored territory left.

Big Block 427: framebuilding for the CAD generation

Raleigh, North Carolina-based builder Dustin Simons showed a bike made from steel, yes, but also carbon and 3D-printed titanium, using each material where, in his view, its particular qualities served the bike best.

Simons is a self-proclaimed "lifelong grease monkey," yet when it comes to his bike designs, his process consists of a fair bit of computer time.

Much of his Big Block 427 show bike was conceived digitally, including complex junctions that can be 3D printed rather than painstakingly fabricated by hand. That makes it easier to create intricate interfaces, simplifies fixturing and allows Simons to easily adapt the same underlying design to different rider geometries.

The mixed-material approach makes for unique lines, welds where one wouldn't necessarily expect them and stands out in the bike's aerofoil-shaped carbon sleeve.

Rather than treating one material as inherently superior, the 427 is more of a pick-and-mix: steel where steel makes sense, carbon where carbon does, and printed titanium where conventional fabrication would be unnecessarily complicated.

"All materials are the sum of their tradeoffs," Simons explains. "I build with them all because I believe they all serve different purposes. We shouldn't have to give up a forward-looking design that takes advantage of all the ways modern bikes are beautiful and improved just because of the material it was made from."

There’s a practical benefit to all that digital work, too. By shifting some of the labour from the workshop into CAD, Schwell can keep the cost of a fully custom bike relatively grounded, which is Schwell's raison d'etre: to "build bikes people can actually afford."

In the rarefied world of handmade bicycles, "affordable" is, of course, relative. But at $3,200 for a frameset including custom geometry, custom seatpost mast, and custom paint, Big Block sits well below many of the five-figure dream machines displayed at the show. Schwell even paints the bikes himself.

Scarab Serena: steel, but make it premium

Where Big Block is rethinking how a steel bike is made, Scarab Cycles decided to tackle how the material is perceived.

"People sometimes think of steel as cheap," Scarab founder Santiago Toro told me.

His show bike, The Serena, is an exercise in proving otherwise.

The Serena is the most conventional-looking machine of the three steel bikes featured here with slender tubes, restrained proportions and a classic road silhouette that doesn’t immediately scream technological showcase. But beneath those clean lines lies an obsessive effort to create the ultimate steel climber's bike.

"Serena asks a question that extends beyond weight and stiffness: how should the ultimate climbing bicycle feel?" the brand's marketing material reads.

"The answer is both technical and somehow psychological. A good climbing bike is the result of variables that can be measured, and others that can only be felt."

Steel is the base of this project because, for one, it's all Scarab does, but also because of the material's "balance of compliance, spring-like return, precision, and durability."

Scarab worked with Columbus to develop an ultralight family of custom-drawn Spirit tubes specifically for the Serena, tuning diameters, wall thicknesses, tapers and shapes around the demands of the bike rather than simply stripping weight from an existing platform.

The tubes are paired with a custom-machined two-piece head tube, a T47 bottom bracket, 3D-printed stainless-steel dropouts, fully integrated cable routing and, of course, rider-specific geometry.

The complete bike Scarab brought to MADE is Toro’s own, labelled 0 of the 25 complete builds the brand will offer.

Designed as more than a frameset, Scarab developed complete configurations with climbing-oriented partners so that the gearing, wheels, cockpit, saddle, tyres, and contact points all contribute to the same "riding sensation".

The build includes a Campagnolo Super Record 13 with Ultra upgrade kit, a Darimo Nexum Drag cockpit and T2 seatpost, a Selle Italia SLR Racing Replica saddle, and Vittoria Corsa Pro 30mm tyres. Wheel choices include the 1,030 g Tune Yokto 3030, Campagnolo Hyperon Ultra, and Lightweight Meilenstein ART (as shown).

Estimated complete-bike weights range from approximately 6.95 kg to 7.16 kg, based on the published configurations and a size 56 prototype.

The price? $16,167 USD.

Even Toro himself admitted to feeling a tad nervous riding something this expensive. But buyers are, apparently, less apprehensive. Toro revealed that Scarab had already sold eight Serenas before the ordering window had even officially opened.

As a Colombian brand, Scarab Cycles is uniquely positioned for this climbing experiment. There's simply no escaping the mountains there, and the country is known for producing some of the sport’s finest climbers.

"Being a cyclist and a Colombian means one thing: you are constantly exposed to mountains. Climbing here is not optional. It is not something you specifically aim for, nor something you carefully prepare around. It simply becomes part of how life happens here," the brand muses. "Colombians do not live despite the mountains. We live within them, alongside them, adapting naturally to their gradients and conditions."

These gradients are replicated in Serena's paint, with silver fading into green, and touches of purple revealing themselves only as you moved around it. Sadly, my camera struggled to capture it. Some bikes are simply better seen in person.

Rare Earth Rare Berd: are those even tubes?

If Scarab's Serena challenges the assumptions about steel, then Brian Hall’s Rare Berd (Rare Earth Cycle)takes those assumptions and throws them out the window altogether.

"Most people look at this bike and say, ‘That’s really cool,’” Hall told me. “Then there’s 20% of the people that give me a barf emoji, so… yeah.”

Hall's 32-inch-wheeled machine was created in collaboration with Berd to showcase the wheel brand's newly launched Sparrow 50 Gold wheels. With the 32-inch aero wheels, Hall decided to design an aero steel frameset to match, steel fork included.

Hall describes it as "an aero drop-bar-shaped mountain bike," noting that the fork offset and trail numbers are more akin to a rigid mountain bike than a conventional gravel machine.

The finished bike looks as though it came from a carbon mould or a 3D printer. Instead, Hall painstakingly formed the entire thing by hand.

"For me it was an exercise in sort of artistic, sculptural shaping," he said. "The whole bike is American steel, so I hand-formed steel to be aerodynamic."

"It’s a skeleton with a skin on it, basically. A steel skin."

The top tube, chainstays and fork were shaped around an internal truss structure made from thin steel tubing. Hall then covered the truss skeleton with thin sheet steel to create the aerodynamic shapes.

The down tube and seat tube required a different bit of invention. Hall formed round steel tubing into aero profiles, taking some inspiration from the Specialized Tarmac SL8.

For being fully made of steel, the Rare Berd is surprisingly light: 22 pounds, ready to ride. That’s just under 10kg, complete with enormous 32 x 2.4" tyres.

Whether the Rare Berd performs as boldly as it looks remains an open question. Hall said that while the Berd wheels have been tested in the wind tunnel, the bike had not. He'd only finished it about a week and a half before the show. This also means that he'd spent barely any time in the bike's saddle, limiting his riding to the paved roads to keep the show bike "pristine".

But the 32-inch wheels themselves are anything but a novelty to him. He said he's already built several mountain and bikepacking bikes around the larger wheel size. And he is emphatic about the result.

"I love it. I absolutely love it," he said. "I pretty much quit riding 29ers at this point."

Both Rare Earth and Scrab Cycles received Builder's Choice awards at the show.

She waved to the fans, who clapped harder for her than anyone else, and laughed at the DJ's song choice. The previous day, when the Dane still had one team-mate by her side, she did the same when the speakers played 'Just the Two of Us'.

But after all five of her O'Shea Red Chilli Bikes companions abandoned, Krickau was left to fend for herself on Sunday in Leamington Spa.

“It’s weird, but I’ve got plenty of staff now to look after me,” the 20-year-old told Cycling Weekly ahead of the final stage. “All of my team-mates are supporting me. Even though I’m standing here alone, I’ve got plenty of people behind me.”

Krickau set out on stage five with the aim to “represent the jersey in the best possible way”.

She went on to finish the race 69th overall, almost 32 minutes down on the winner Kim Le Court-Pienaar (AG Insurance-Soudal).

"I was really looking forward to being here with my team, and the whole experience. But in the end, it's been a good race, and I take it as it is," Krickau smiled.

O'Shea Red Chilli Bikes were one of four British Continental teams competing at last week's Tour of Britain Women, alongside DAS-Hutchinson, Handsling Alba Development and Smurfit Westrock.

Last autumn, all four outfits feared they would no longer be allowed to take part in their home race, after the UCI revised its rules to limit WorldTour events to WorldTour and ProTour squads. They were later invited to start due to unfulfilled team slots.

"We're making the most out of it," said Krickau, who was racing her first multi-day WorldTour event.

Half of the 24 riders on British Continental teams that began the race in Cockermouth on Wednesday went on to finish Sunday's stage in Leamington Spa.

One team manager put the abandons down to the gulf between the WorldTour and Continental teams, which continues to swell as budgets at the top of the sport grow.

Still, marquee races like the Tour of Britain Women provide a crucial platform for third-tier riders to gain race experience, and for teams to show off their sponsors.

That's why, when Krickau took the start line alone in Leamington Spa, she did so with the determination to prove that teams like hers "belong in this race".

Her solo ride may not have won her any medals, but it showed heart and tenacity, and gained her a host of new fans.

Race leader Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) was seen telling riders in the peloton to slow down with around 15km to go on the climb to Font Romeu, after they had topped the Col de Mont-Louis.

Riders were shown on TV sheltering in a hotel on the roadside atop the Col de Mont-Louis, with team staff handing out wet weather gear. While there was initially hope that the stage would be restarted, moments later the day was cancelled.

There are no results for today's stage, and the general classification remains as it was after yesterday, with Pogačar in pole position ahead of Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike).

The day had been largely warm and sunny, but as riders began the final third of the stage, which took them into the Pyrenees, the weather turned. At first it was simply wet and unpleasant, but this soon morphed into a torrential hailstorm with stones so big the riders had little choice but to shelter.

TV images showed riders sheltering at the roadside, before a race announcement urged them to take shelter if needed. This was followed a short while later that the stage had been abandoned.

The stage, which took riders 174km from Gruissan to Font Romeu, was widely expected to bear witness to Pogačar underlining his overall lead with another stage victory. Indeed, his UAE Team Emirates-XRG team had spent much of the day on the front, keeping the early breakaway in check.

The five-rider escape included stage one's nearly-man Ethan Hayter (Soudal Quick-Step), Magnus Cort (Uno-X Mobility), Mats Wenzel (Kern-Pharma) Timo Roosen (Picnic PostNL) and Olivier Le Gac (Groupama-FDJ United).

While Hayter, Le Gac and Roosen were caught with 28km to go, Wenzel and Cort pushed on up the penultimate climb of the Mont Louis, but the race was paused before either had the chance to register the mountains points at the top.

General Classification after stage 3

1. Tadej Pogačar (Slo) UAE Emirates-XRG in 4:58:40
2. Wout van Aert (Bel) Visma-Lease a Bike +9s
3. Matthew Brennan (GBr) Visma-Lease a Bike +10s
4. Léo Bisiaux (Fra) Decathlon-CMA CGM, +12s
5. Finn Fisher-Black (NZl) Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, +14s
6. Stefan Küng (Sui) Tudor Pro Cycling, +18s
7. Jay Vine (Aus) UAE Emirates-XRG, at same time
8. Mads Pedersen (Den) Lidl-Trek, +20s
9. Primož Roglič (Slo) Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, +26s
10. Jordan Labrosse (Fra) Decalthon CMA CGM, +27s

The quartet of Phinney, Anders Johnson, Colby Lange and David Domonoske qualified first in the 4km event with a time of 4:03.688 in Carson, California. They then went on to win the final after only five of the 16 laps, having caught their rivals with just over a minute on the clock.

“Honored to rep the jersey once more,” Phinney posted on Instagram.

Prior to Sunday, the last time the 36-year-old competed on the track was at the UCI World Championships in 2010, when he won the individual pursuit world title and placed third in the omnium.

He announced his comeback this April, with his sights on making the US track squad for the LA Olympics in 2028.

“What started as a return to gravel racing has delicately snowballed into a full on Olympic dream,” he wrote on Instagram at the time.

“The track was where I first found love and success in this sport, it was even the first discipline to break my heart when my specialty event, the individual pursuit, was removed from the Olympic program, which prompted me to swiftly abandon the track and go all in on the road.

“Recently the USA boys have been making huge strides in the Team Pursuit, and I couldn’t be more stoked to be joining them in the chase for the Olympic Dream.”

After dropping track cycling in 2010, Phinney stepped up to the WorldTour in his road career, first joining BMC Racing, and then EF Education First. He retired from road racing in 2019, aged 29, but has competed in gravel events in recent years.

The Olympics in LA carry sentimental value for the Phinney family; Taylor's mother, Connie Carpenter-Phinney, won gold in the inaugural women's road race at the LA Olympics in 1984. His father, Davis Phinney, won bronze in the individual time trial.

“Regardless of whether I make the official team for LA28 or not, I'm honored to be in the running and will look forward to making some World Cup teams to elevate the team to its highest potential and Olympic qualifying position,” he wrote in April.

A full list of the winners at last week’s US National Track Championships is below.

US National Track Championships 2026 winners

Men’s

Team pursuit – Anders Johnson, Taylor Phinney, Colby Lange, David Domonoske
Individual pursuit – Anders Johnson
Omnium – Colby Lange
Scratch race – Aaron Beebe
Elimination race – Colby Lange
Points race – Aaron Beebe
Team sprint – Joshua Hartman, Dalton Walters, Sterling Reneau
Sprint – Dalton Walters
Keirin – Dalton Walters
Kilometre time trial – Dalton Walters

Women’s

Team pursuit – Bethany Ingram, Anna Hicks, Olivia Cummins, Ella Sabo
Individual pursuit – Anna Hicks
Omnium – Anna Hicks
Scratch race – Kimberly Zubris
Elimination race – Chloe Patrick
Points race – Anna Hicks
Team sprint – Emily Hayes, Kayla Hankins, Hayley Yoslov
Sprint – McKenna McKee
Keirin – McKenna McKee
Kilometre time trial – Mandy Marquardt

The race heads into the Pyrenees on Monday, with stage three finishing in Font-Romeu, before it continues into Andorra and Spain. In a press release on Monday morning, the race's organisers, Unipublic, called on those watching the race to act to prevent further incidents by not creating sparks or throwing cigarette butts.

Last month, 300,000 people were evacuated in France and Spain as wildfires spread, with record-breaking temperatures causing blazes in especially dry areas. Scientists have said that the ongoing climate crisis is creating situations which have fuelled fires. At the Tour de France, fans were prevented from going to stage three in the Pyrenees due to ongoing wildfires, while stage 21 was shortened due to policing resources being redirected to tackle other conflagrations. Fans were also stopped from watching part of stage seven of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift due to fire risks.

The Vuelta's statement reads: "La Vuelta 26 travels through Monaco, France, Andorra and Spain, crossing some of the most spectacular landscapes and natural areas in our territory. Along the route, the race will also visit places that, unfortunately, have been affected by wildfires in recent years, reminding us of the importance of protecting and preserving an environment that is part of the very essence of La Vuelta and which serves as our great open-air stadium.

"For this reason, La Vuelta is calling on all fans following the race from the roadside to take every possible precaution and help prevent fires throughout the 21 stages.

"Small gestures are essential to protecting our surroundings: do not throw cigarette butts or matches on the ground, do not light fires, avoid any activity that could generate sparks, and always collect your waste before leaving the area. In addition, it is essential to respect at all times the instructions and restrictions established by the local authorities.

"Let’s enjoy La Vuelta responsibly. Taking care of our surroundings means protecting the open-air stadium that makes our sport possible."

The Transition range responds directly to unpredictable shoulder seasons - specifically autumn and spring - when crisp mornings lead into mild afternoons and traditional winter riding gear can quickly become overkill.

Castelli states that Transition is designed as an adaptable foundation to any cycling wardrobe. With multiple mix-and-match core pieces, which they claim will be a range of products that riders will genuinely reach for during these transition months.

The first products in the all-new range are the Corretto LS jerseys for men and women. These sit at one end of the Transition range, and Castelli has a host of new garments joining the Corretto jerseys, including lightweight bib tights, thermal bib shorts, packable insulation, and lightweight protective layers.

Castelli claims Transition is the future of cycling apparel, which isn't simply better summer and winter kit but creating high-performance clothing for all the conditions in between – gradually prioritising insulation and protection from the elements, and bridging the widening gap between traditional summer and winter kit.

Castelli Product Line Manager Andrew Montgomery explained the Castelli ethos behind the range: “The old way of riding was simple: summer gear in summer, winter gear in winter. Today, due to factors like climate change, cycling moves at a different pace. Seasons don’t hit like a switch; they transition gradually over a more prolonged period, giving us an expanded window of riding."

Andrew continued by adding, “That realisation led us to define what we call Transition: a period between summer and winter that has become increasingly important for cyclists, yet remains largely underserved. While the wider industry is still complying with a rigid, dual-season calendar, we’d rather tailor our range to the real-world conditions people are actually riding in."

Castelli says the Corretto LS jersey stands at the forefront of its technical excellence and premium design, which they call an ideal solution for when summer heat begins to wane.

It offers more coverage than the Corretto short-sleeve sibling, featuring the same lightweight, breathable and aerodynamic fabrics which allow riders to adapt smoothly without overheating.

Standout detailing includes a claimed weight of just 194g in the men’s and 170g in the women’s. The tailored fit includes an elastic silicone waist gripper to keep the jersey in place, a full-length YKK Vislon zipper with an easy-use pull, and is complemented by three back pockets plus a fourth zippered security pocket.

The men's jersey is available in two new colourways: Steel Fade/Chestnut-Vivid and Night Shade/Elmwood-Rosa Giro. The women's jersey is available in Paprika/Winter Sky.

Sizes are XS-3XL for the men's version and XXS-XL for the women’s version.

The Castelli Corretto LS Jerseys are priced at £175/ $210/ €170 for both men's and women's versions, and further information can be found at Castelli.

Designed for the demands of elite gravel racing, the new platform marks a shift from multi-purpose gravel geometries to a pure competition setup.

The launch of the Van Rysel RCR-G marks a new chapter for the brand in gravel, making it a notable addition to its existing line-up and positioning it to compete with the best gravel bikes already at the start line.

Speaking to me ahead of the launch, Van Rysel RCR-G project manager Jeremy Debeuf said development of the all-new gravel bike focused on four key performance metrics: high average speeds, mixed-surface efficiency, quick acceleration, and precise handling on technical terrain.

Building on the engineering layout of the Van Rysel RCR-R road bike, which is currently being ridden by the likes of Paul Seixas and the rest of the Decathlon CAM CGM.

Debeuf says the team used Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis, virtual prototyping, and wind tunnel testing to adapt the road frame's architecture for gravel use.

One major departure was the decision not to use the same top-level carbon layup: "This would be too stiff for a gravel bike," confirmed Debeuf, and would create a very uncomfortable ride feel.

Built for speed

While the core of the RCR-G is still a high-modulus carbon frame. Van Rysel's Race Bike Engineer, Alexis Grosecorge, who also worked on the road and cross platforms, explains how the carbon mix just needed to be 'toned down'.

He explained that this was initially challenging as the target weight for the whole bike, in a size medium, was set at 7.8kg; "we actually achieved 7.7kg, with a SRAM Red AXS build," he told me, clearly delighted with the outcome, although caveating that the 885g carbon frame and 415g fork are at the unpainted weight.

To also help keep the overall weight low, top models feature an integrated monocoque carbon cockpit, lightweight thru-axles, and, curiously, a 27.2mm round carbon seatpost.

This regular seatpost setup may seem like a compromise on proprietary frame tech, but asking Grosecorge about it in more detail, he assured me that the seatpost specification was chosen specifically to help filter out high-frequency vibrations and reduce rider fatigue during long-distance races.

Despite its focus on low weight and aerodynamics, the RCR-G still has off-road-ready clearances, with room for tyres up to 50mm wide, although it comes as standard with 45mm Continental Terra Comp TLR tyres on the VR 50 Carbon wheelset.

Another uncommon choice on a performance-focused bike is drivetrain compatibility: it supports a maximum 50T chainring in one-by configuration and a 52T when set up as a two-by arrangement.

It's a helpful safety net for riders planning to tackle crazy, hilly events and need fail-safe gearing options. It's Universal Derailleur Hanger (UDH) compatible and will also open up more cassette options, but a braze-on is a pretty rare sight in this day and age, and I can't work out if it's the future or living in the past.

Peer pressure

Looking at the big gravel bike rivals and doing a quick back-of-the-envelope cross-check, the RCR-G most closely resembles the Factor Ostro Gravel, with nearly identical stack and reach (RCR-G: 554mm stack and 391mm reach vs 555mm stack and 394mm reach on the Ostro, both size medium).

It also closely mimics the snappy handling of the Ostro, with its 72- vs 72.2-degree head angle. That said, the chainstay is 6mm longer at 426mm.

Compared with the Specialized Crux, with a 560mm stack and 388mm reach, the Van Rysel RCR-G could be considered 'racier' in its lower, longer position.

Double new bike day: the Van Rysel EDR-G gravel bike

The EDR-G was the second bike launched by Van Rysel today, and is the more adventurous ultra-long-distance twin of the RCR-G, favouring total comfort and practicality for multi-day riding.

Carrying the 'don't endure terrain, outplay it' strap line, the woman behind the bike, Product Manager Rachel Gassier, also worked on Van Rysel's EDR-CF Ultra and EDR-CF endurance bike range and spent two years on the design, capturing 25,000km of ride data from more than 30 testers.

The EDR-G has a longer wheelbase (1,033.7 mm vs 1,019mm in size M) and a slacker head tube angle (71 degrees in size M) than the race-oriented RCR-G, aiming to deliver a more stable ride at high speeds and smoother, less "twitchy" steering on technical trails.

An even more vibration-damping carbon lay-up was chosen for the frame, which, along with the forks, has 15 luggage mounting points and an integrated toolbox as standard.

The top-end EDR-G uses a RockShox Rudy XPLR fork with 40mm of travel, a Deda Gera cockpit with 24-degree flare, and a VR32 carbon wheelset, capable of running up to 50mm tyres.

Van Rysel RCR-G – First ride impressions

So far, I've only spent a day on each model, at a pre-launch press event in the Var region of southern France, just east of Marseille, and in the lesser-known Massif des Maures, a mountain range considered part of the pre-Alps.

A 70km hilly route included tough techy gravel, leaving all riders grateful for the respite provided by stretches of paved road. Despite the rocky, loose-stone, hilly terrain, I was impressed by how agile and responsive the RCR-G was. I was far more fluid than on the previous day's ride on the EDR-G, finding the bike easier to maneouvre over and around the pretty gnarly trails.

A mix of drops, rock gardens, and rain-slick climbs with little flat ground meant I struggled with the wide bar flare and barely used the drops, not wanting to risk putting more weight on the front wheel. I've tried to unpick this and concluded that the longer wheelbase and flared bars meant I didn't have the strength to overcome the bike's turning moment and lift the front end at all.

On the RCR-G, however, I was significantly more graceful. I had initially left the 35psi in the Continental Terra Comp TLR 45mm tyres, knowing that it would be a few kilometres on tarmac to the trailhead, But on dropping into the first off-road section, I was immediately dealing with too much bounce back from rocks and stones. A quick pressure drop—measured unscientifically by a thumb and forefinger squeeze—changed everything.

I went from hanging on to feeling far more harmonious with the bike. It felt way more comfortable than the two new models, despite having a much stiffer frame and fork and more road-like handlebars.

It was still a brutal ride, and one that could have used more vibration-damping tech. Despite wearing gloves, my hands were blistered, like the pros' at the end of Paris-Roubaix, and the five kilometres of black tarmac had never looked so inviting.

I'm looking forward to getting a longer term test with the RCR-G. I've turned down the ECR-G for now, as I can't see how, for the riding that I do, the RCR-G can be beaten, even if I'm not looking for podiums, or rapid full gass rides, it just rides so much better than it's adventure going sibling that I would be more confident at coming back in one piece, perhaps minius small patches of skin on my palms.

Model range

There are three Van Rysel RCR-G models.

The top-end Red AXS uses SRAM Red XPLR AXS (46T, 10-44T), a VR50 carbon wheelset, and the integrated Combo RCR-R carbon cockpit used on the RCR-R Pro bike from the Decathlon CMA CGM pro team. It weighs a claimed 7.8kg (size M), comes in XS to XL, and costs £6,500/ $10,999.

Next is the RCR-G Force AXS, which moves to SRAM Force XPLR (46T, 10-42T), an aluminium/carbon stem-and-bar combo, and VR35 carbon wheels. Weight rises to a claimed 8.2kg, while the price drops to £4,000/ $7,399.

Finally, the RCR-G Rival AXS uses SRAM Rival XPLR (46T, 10-40T), an aluminium bar and stem, and VR30 AL wheels. It weighs a claimed 8.6kg, costs £3,000/ $5,299, and is also available in XXS to XL.

The Van Rysel EDR-G also has three models. The top model, the EDR-G Force XPLR, uses a carbon frame and fork, SRAM Force groupset (46T, 10-40T), Deda Gera Alloy stem and handlebars, VR32 carbon wheels, Schwalbe G-One R Pro 45mm tyres, and comes in sizes XS-XL. It weighs more than the race version, with a claimed 8.85kg for a medium. Unfortunately, it’s currently unavailable in the UK, but retails in the US for $6,299.

The EDR-G Suspended fork is reserved for the UK and has a retail price of £3,500. The spec is the same, but the carbon fork has been replaced with a RockShox Rudy XPLR with 40mm of travel. While I’d have loved this extra suspension on the routes we rode, it adds about a kilo, bringing the medium to 9.7kg.

The final model, the £2,100 EDR-G GRX, is also not heading to the States. It keeps its 1x setup, but drops to 12-speed (40T, 10-51T). It comes with DT Swiss G1800 wheels and Schwalbe G-One R Pro 45mm tyres. It comes without suspension and weighs 8.75kg.

12 to 13-speed

The Japanese brand appears to have added a cog to the currently 12-speed Dura-Ace cassette, joining Campagnolo in offering a 13-speed road groupset (SRAM only has a 13-speed gravel groupset, XPLR AXS).

A 13-cog cassette reduces jumps between gears and increases range in a two-bydrivetrain. It is even more beneficial in a 1x setup. This could indicate Shimano is going to make single chainrings for the new Dura-Ace. Until now, the Shimano-equipped pro teams have resorted to aftermarket chainrings to run one-by, while SRAM and Campagnolo supply single rings dedicated to road use.

A new freehub?

The move to a 13-speed cassette may require a new Shimano freehub, as the leaked listing of a DT Swiss freehub body suggested, especially if it has a 10T smallest cog. Shimano looks set to decrease this from 11T to close the gear-range gap with SRAM. This would force users of wheels fitted with Shimano's current road standard, HG for 11-speed and 12-speed drivetrains, to convert their freehubs to use the new Dura-Ace.

When SRAM introduced a 13th sprocket to its XPLR cassettes, it maintained the same spacing as its 12-speed road groupsets so they both could use XDR freehubs. Meanwhile, Campagnolo's 13-speed N3W freehub is backward-compatible with older 9-, 10-, and 11-speed cassettes. But because Shimano has already found space for an extra cog on its HG freehubs with the current Dura-Ace Di2 12-speed, it may be difficult to repeat the trick.

A new rear derailleur but still wired

The new Dura-Ace rear derailleur spotted on the bikes of riders from Team Picnic PostNL and Alpecin-Premier Tech appears to have a slimmer profile and diagonal cut-outs near the charging port, suggesting it could be lighter than before.

From what we can see, there is nowhere for an external, removable battery to go, like on SRAM's AXS derailleurs. The absence of a battery and the presence of a cable running from the drive-side chainstay suggest that Shimano has retained the Dura-Ace R9200's semi-wireless design. This allows the shifters to communicate wirelessly with the derailleurs, which are connected to a battery stored in the frame.

Because Shimano's latest electronic gravel and mountain bike rear derailleurs are wireless and it has filed a patent for a wireless 13-speed road groupset, it seemed a done deal that the new Dura-Ace would be free of wires.

So why doesn't that seem to be the case? It's handy to be able to charge SRAM's removable derailleur batteries off the bike, but their runtime is shorter than that of the single battery currently used in Shimano's Di2 electronic groupsets. In addition, the external battery makes SRAM derailleurs bulkier than Shimano's, and possibly less aerodynamic as a result.

In-built satellite shifters

Shimano appears to have integrated satellite shifters into the inside of the new Dura-Ace Di2 shifters. As well as the paddles and hidden buttons on top of the hoods, these now appear to have a small lever on the inward-facing side of the pommel. It remains to be seen whether these miniature paddles will replace the hidden buttons on top of the hoods featured in the current groupset, or exist alongside them.

Both SRAM and Campagnolo have their own versions of these bonus shift buttons, which help riders seamlessly change gear when climbing out of the saddle on the hoods or when adopting the aero-hoods position.

New power meter and cranks?

We can't deduce much from the pictures of the cranksets on these bikes, which are fitted with other seemingly new Dura-Ace parts. Cyclingnews reported that the black cranks, which look similar to the existing version, are attached to off-brand chainrings on Alpecin–Premier Tech's bikes. The cranks themselves could still be prototypes like the unreleased SPD-SL pedals that have been raced this season.

We do, however, understand that Team Picnic–PostNL is using an updated Dura-Ace power meter. Shimano will have tried to improve the doubtful accuracy of the current generation.

What is Shimano saying?

A Shimano spokesman said: "Shimano is constantly developing new products, but does not comment on rumours, speculation, or unannounced products.”

On the second day of racing at the Vuelta a España the Visma-Lease a Bike sprinter left the entire field in his wake with an explosive acceleration.

Brennan was ideally placed in the final in Manosque after other teams were forced to chase his team-mate Wout van Aert who had attacked on a short climb 1.8km from the line.

The 21 year-old put clear air between himself and a field that included decorated sprinters such as Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek), who finished fourth.

However, with race leader Tadej Pogačar (UAE Emirates XRG) in third place on the day Brennan’s win was not enough to bag him the points jersey.

Regardless, today’s victory is the biggest of the young rider's career, which has already seen him rack up 20 wins, the highest profile of which was Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne this spring.

Speaking at the finish Brennan said: “We started off with the ambition of Wout trying to get in the red jersey today. We said there’s a nice opportunity to attack in the final and Wout was keen to do that.

“I was always going to be in the background to do the sprint in case the guys [out front] sat up and that’s exactly what happened. The guys sat up in the front and Christophe [Laporte] was able to guide me through all the hectic-ness of that.”

Asked how he felt about his first win in a grand tour he said: “Hopefully it’s not the last one, it’s nice. The boys worked all day really well and gave it 100%. They believed in both of us so we could achieve something successful today.”

There was less good fortune for Brennan’s compatriot Ethan Hayter (Soudal Quick-Step) who had also staged a bid to snatch the red jersey.

Hayter had been one of four riders in the early breakaway alongside Koen Bouwman (Jayco AlUla), Sinuhé Fernández (Burgos Burpellet BH) and Diego Uriarte (Equipo Kern Pharma), but had set off on his own with 50km to race.

He picked up six bonus seconds at the intermediate sprint putting him into the virtual red jersey.

That left the Brit, who started the day just nine hundredths of a second off Pogačar, with just the task of finishing in the same time as Van Aert and Pogačar to likely claim the red jersey – assuming Pogačar didn’t win the stage.

However, when splits emerged in the peloton in the finale Hayter was several groups back from the front of the race allowing the Slovenian to preserve his place at the top of the general classification.

Brennan’s next best chance for a stage will be stage 8 to Xeraco, which is fairly flat.

Result

Vuelta a España, stage 2: Monaco > Manosque (202km)

1. Matthew Brennan (GBr) Visma-Lease a Bike in 4:47:47
2. Pau Miquel (Esp) Bahrain-Victorious
3. Tadej Pogačar (Slo) UAE Emirate-XRG
4. Mads Pedersen (Den) Lidl-Trek
5. Hugo Hofstetter (Fra) NSN Cycling Team
6. Tobias Johannessen (Den) Uno-X Mobility
7. Finn Fisher-Black (NZl) Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe
8. Axel Laurence (Fra) Netcompany Ineos
9. Oscar Onley (GBr) Netcompany Ineos
10. Orluis Aular (Col) Movistar, all at same time

General classification after stage 2

1. Tadej Pogačar (Slo) UAE Emirates-XRG in 4:58:40
2. Wout van Aert (Bel) Visma-Lease a Bike +9s
3. Matthew Brennan (GBr) Visma-Lease a Bike +10s
4. Léo Bisiaux (Fra) Decathlon-CMA CGM, +12s
5. Finn Fisher-Black (NZl) Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, +14s
6. Stefan Küng (Sui) Tudor Pro Cycling, +18s
7. Jay Vine (Aus) UAE Emirates-XRG, at same time
8. Mads Pedersen (Den) Lidl-Trek, +20s
9. Primož Roglič (Slo) Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, +26s
10. Jordan Labrosse (Fra) Decalthon CMA CGM, +27s