Cycling Weekly

FUTURE STARS

"YOU COULD JUST TELL HE WAS A CLASS ACT" Harry Hudson profile "WE REMORTGAGED OUR HOUSE" The true cost of chasing the pro dream

Back in the saddle

Earlier this week, I enjoyed my first day of 2026 feeling motivated to get out and start getting fit for the year ahead. This day comes once every year for me. It’s always on a different day, and there’s no telling when it might be. Although it doesn’t...

The UPF paradox

Ultra-processed foods (UPFS) have become the pantomime villain of modern nutrition. Headlines warn they’re driving obesity, heart disease and even early death; social-media feeds buzz with lists of foods to avoid. The debate reignited in October with...

Welcome to 2026

Happy New Year, everybody! I hope this magazine finds you well rested after the Christmas break and motivated to get riding again in the new year. We might have a few more weeks of dark, wet and cold weather ahead, but remember, we’re passed the Winter...

THE MOMENTS THAT MADE THE YEAR

Breakthrough riders, epic rivalries and UCI gaffes, this is how we'll remember 2025

New tech, same thrill

We all have our favourite bike, bikes, or bits of kit: that item that works perfectly well for the riding we do. Even our tech writers, who test hundreds of products a year, have ‘go to’ items they use more than any others. (See their favourite kit in...

Grading greatness

Every year during the week after the UCI Road World Championships, the editorial team here at CW sits down and begins one of the most heated discussions of the year. It’s in this meeting that we decide who should win our Rider of the Year awards....

CHASING POGAČAR

The writer who spent a year in his slipstream

BELIEVE IT OR NOT THIS IS AN EBIKE!

I’ve not seen the light

Over many years of working here at Cycling Weekly, I’ve been lucky enough to test all kinds of bikes and kit. Every new bike ridden, gadget fiddled with, or tyre rolled onto a rim expands my knowledge and builds my experience. I’m still inquisitive...

The draw of the coast

If you were to stand in the middle of Derbyshire, you’d be the farthest you could get from the sea in the UK – about 100km or 62 miles. In such places it’s possible to forget you live on an island. But the sea surrounds us and, taking into account our...

ARE YOU TOUGH ENOUGH?

FACTOR MONZA

We check out a bike made for the everyday racer

Beauty unbound

Over the years I’ve been lucky enough to ride up hundreds of mountains, across Europe and beyond – but nowhere matches Austria for savage gradients and spectacular scenery. It’s a country of towering 2,000m-plus peaks, each so remote that no one can...

The beating heartlands

After last week’s exotic locations of Asia and South America, this week we bring you back down to earth for our second travel-focused issue of October. But just because a location scores a little less on the glamour stakes, it doesn’t mean it’s any...

HUDSON MAKES HISTORY

Harrogate Nova rider becomes first GB male to win junior RR title

CERVÉLO R5

The 5.97kg climbing bike that breaks the UCI rules

FITNESS FADS

What the pros do behind closed doors, and should you copy them?

Vuelta latest

For all his success, Tom Pidcock has never finished in the top 10 overall at a Grand Tour. This is what he overtly came to this Vuelta a España to do, to take aim at a high finish on general classification in his second Grand Tour this season. In...

TOUR OF BRITAIN

Full stage details Spectator tips Riders to watch

Final Grand Tour of 2025!

With so much emotional investment poured into the season already, the Vuelta a España has to try harder than almost any other major race to stoke the fires of fandom. Once again, this year the Spanish Grand Tour deserves full marks for effort, having...

The worst of WADA

Lizzy Banks’s fight to clear her name may not have been successful, but her work could go on to become a key turning point in the world of antidoping. Her tireless work over the previous few years has shown that there is almost no way any athlete can...

A grand Grand Finale

At the end of the Tour de France, organiser ASO finds itself in a bit of a bind. It is, to all intents and purposes, a very traditional organisation – change doesn’t always come easily. So adapting the well-established, some would say iconic, final...

What the riders really think about the new finish in Paris

TOUR DE FRANCE WEEK TWO

A legend returns

For long-time bike racing fans, particularly those who started following the sport in the Channel 4 era of the mid-1980s, Superbagnères evokes two famous moments. The first came in 1986 – widely regarded as the best Tour de France vintage of all time –...

Caravan of love

Two weeks ago, I wrote about my nervous excitement ahead of the Tour as I was taking my children to see it for the first time. A bad day out could have put them off for life. The good news is that it couldn’t have gone any better. We drove over in...

Tour de France guide

Whether you're a seasoned Tour de France fan or someone who has just discovered the greatest sporting event on the planet, the following pages will guide you through the route, riders, rules and romance of a race that circumnavigates a country for...

Bravo Brompton!

I spent last Saturday racing a Brompton bike around Coal Drops Yard near King’s Cross in London. Wearing a garish Hawaiian shirt and cut-off denim jeans (don’t ask) I made it through to the final of the Brompton World Champs – my first world title...

Win it or bin it

At the Giro d’italia last month you may have noticed the ‘Red Bull KM’ on each stage. In a dramatic twist to the standard intermediate sprint, organiser RCS teamed up with Red Bull to bring you something different. Only the riders weren’t timed over...

Digital downsizing

My headspace is often filled with social media, apps and things on my phone. That’s modern life, I guess. It’s not all work-related either. As a parent of two young children (who don’t have smartphones), it’s a regular topic of debate among parents,...

Brilliant surprise

Cycling always has and always will have the potential to completely catch us all off guard. For good reasons and for bad. And while that is very much part of the joy of sport, it can’t half make things awkward for those working on a weekly cycling...

GIRO'S NEW GC STAR

Meet 21-year-old Isaac del Toro

Food for thought

If there’s one (non-cycling) book I recommend you read this year, it’s the borderline-terrifying Ultra-processed People by Dr Chris Van Tulleken. If you’ve already read it, you’ll understand why I describe it in such terms. One cover quote says, “It’s...

TOUR DE FRANCE SPECTATOR GUIDE

Time to book your travel for the opening week of racing

GIRO D'ITALIA 2025

THE YATES SUPREMACY How the twin brothers grew into GC heavyweights

SUPER FIT IN JUST 2 RIDES IN A WEEK

Hoban was a legend

British cycling lost a legend last weekend when Barry Hoban sadly passed away. If Brian Robinson was the British rider who paved the way for future generations, proving that British riders could go abroad and make it as a pro, it was Hoban and his...

The price of freedom

The freedom for people to stand by the side of the road, inches away from those taking part in a major sporting event, is both cycling’s strength and its weakness. Cheering spectators are a big part of the excitement and atmosphere of bike racing, and...

FINDING STRENGTH IN OUR DIFFERENCES

MVDP VS POG

Big showdown coming at Tour of Flanders

The eternal frame

This week’s magazine is dedicated to bikes made of metal. I’d love to be able to say ‘no carbon included’ for just one week, but that’s virtually impossible with modern-day wheels. But that little caveat isn’t going to stop us from celebrating...

ALL-ROAD VS GRAVEL

How to find the ULTIMATE BIKE for your riding

Words of advice

Reading through Andy Turner’s brilliant fitness feature this week put a wry smile on my face. Andy is an experienced coach, and former pro rider to boot, and in his piece he lists nine training/riding mistakes not to make. Turn to page 46 to read...

How REDS could be affecting your riding – and how to fix it

Ineos back on top

After a quiet start to the season at the Tour Down Under, Ineos Grenadiers came out all guns blazing when the racing kicked off in Europe earlier this month. They won two races in two days with Michał Kwiatkowski at the Clásica Jaén and Josh Tarling in...

Warming to a theme

I was laughed at a few days ago when I said to my family, “It’s meant to warm up at the end of next week!” The reason I was laughed at wasn’t my misplaced optimism, but because it was apparently the fifth time I’d said it that day. I do have to admit...

GET FITTER LIVE LONGER

The fitness hack that could add years to your life

YOUR ESSENTIAL RACE GUIDE

Find the right FTP test

This Christmas I decided the best way to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ was to inflict a large amount of pain on my person by doing five different FTP (functional threshold power) tests. This would not only atone for any seasonal gluttony but...

Keep kids’ sport fun

There’s something endlessly fascinating about the young talent that joins the Worldtour each year. How good will a rider become, and how quickly will they start winning? What has always captured my imagination is the stage before these riders turn...

FRESH START.

Pidcock steps out with his new Q36.5 team-mates

Warm up to winter

Every cyclist out there can no doubt remember a day they survived a bitterly cold ride. A war story from a day when they struggled home with fingers so cold they could barely squeeze the brakes or change gear. My most memorable one dates back to a...

BEAT THE WEATHER

Lightweight jackets to keep you riding through winter

REVIEW OF THE YEAR

The best and worst moments of 2024 – plus a few you might have forgotten

Breaking the taboo

Our ‘Let’s Talk About’ series continues this week with a look into eating disorders. These are more common in everyday life than many people realise, and when it comes to endurance sport they can be hidden or worse still, normalised. After all, we wear...

Time for heroes

Never meet your heroes. Or so the saying goes. I recently threw caution to the wind and ignored that sage advice. This week, we give the CW Lifetime Achievement award to Greg Lemond – turn to page 38 to read our feature. The triple Tour de France...

TIME EFFICIENT TRAINING

CANNONDALE SUPERSIX

Range topping features on lower priced EVO 3

Impasse at Ineos

There’s a great deal of speculation around the future of Ineos Grenadiers. At the end of their least successful season, questions are being asked about what is going on behind the scenes at one of the sport’s bestfunded teams. When it comes to 2024...

TESTED CANYON ULTIMATE

Does the German brand still have what it takes?

ASO’S gain is our loss

Cycling in the UK remains in a parlous state, with the grassroots scene struggling with volunteers, costs, admin, and entrants. Pro teams are almost completely gone, and many in the industry are just hoping things will turn a corner in 2025. But,...

Bringing it all back home

In the fourth and final issue of Travel Month, we’re staying at home. Call it a staycation, call it a holistay, call it what you want – there are plenty of places to discover and beautiful roads to ride right here in the UK. As an island, one of the...

Gravel without limits

In our third week of Travel Month, we’re heading off-road. While bikepacking is really just touring rebranded and resold to a modern audience, there is no doubt that gravel bikes do offer something different. They have opened up a whole new world of...

UNDISCOVERED EPIC RIDES

The Swiss Alps are calling

t’s a scene worthy of the front of a chocolate box. The mountains open up ahead of me, the white snow glaring in spite of my sunglasses. Speckled in the grassy hills, a smattering of boxy, wooden houses, each with differentcoloured shutters, stare back...

Parklife!

One news story that caught my eye last week was that of former MTB champ Kerry Macphee setting up a Parkride event in Scotland. In her words, she “basically ripped off Parkrun”. For those not familiar with the Saturday morning running event, Parkrun is...