Bicycling Australia

WELCOME TO THE SECOND EDITION OF BA FOR THE YEAR ... YES, 2021 seems to be hurtling away like a rider in an aero tuck. With that in mind, it’s high time to set some cycling goals and make the year count. This may be a certain number of rides or kilom

WELCOME BACK TO A NEW year full of hope and happiness, on the bike or off, 2021 is going to be better all round! I‘ve said it before, looking back is not part of my make up. What more can we do than look forward, particularly after the developments o

Focus have entered the ever-growing gravel and adventure bike market with a new model, the Atlas. The bike will be available in three variants, the Atlas 6.7, 6.8 and 6.9, and features a reliable alloy frame, carbon forks and the capacity for 47mm ty

FOR LUKE DURBRIDGE, THE LAST FEW YEARS OF HIS career have been missing something. He’s not mounted an uninterrupted Classics campaign since 2017. Since then he’s either missed the entire Classics season (2019), crashed out of Paris Roubaix (2018), or

IT HAS BEEN A LONG, TEDIOUS AND FRUSTRATING buildup but it’s finally just around the corner … the first Mudgee Classic will be held on Sunday, 2 May 2021. It should have been our second Mudgee Classic but the COVID-19 pandemic halted our plans. In fa

Mudgee and its surrounding region is great for a weekend away so make sure you take the time to have a look around before or after the ride. There are plenty of accommodation options from the holiday park and campsites right up to super-luxury boutiq

AUSTRALIA IS THE SKIN CANCER capital of the world. Approximately two in three Australians will be diagnosed with skin cancer by the age of 70. Over 16,000 Australians are estimated to have received a melanoma diagnosis last year, making it the nation

MY GARMIN IS TELLING ME TO TURN LEFT, ONLY there’s no road, just the faint outline of a dirt track leading into a vast expanse of copper-tinged mountains. Surely this can’t be right. I take out the old tattered map I was given in Marrakech to double-

March to June and September to November Australian and UK passport holders can obtain a tourist visa upon arrival in Morocco. Marrakech is blessed with numerous options to suit all budgets, however, choice is limited in the Atlas Mountains with most

To get the most out of a trip to Morocco, which means riding on mixed surfaces and gradients, it’s best to run gravel tyres and generous gearing. I used Panaracer Gravel King 32mm tyres and had 52/38 chainrings with an 11-32 cassette. Pack for all we

MAY 2022 WILL BE THE FIRST time a Masters Games has been held in Asia and is attracting significant participation from both Japan and other regional countries. Japan will be fielding a wide cross section of athletes at these games, and not least in c

THERE’S AN ALL TOO OFTEN indefinable line of threshold pain and suffering that lies between cracking a long climb and it cracking you, be that mentally, physically, or both. There is no definitive line between a climb being considered a power climb

KNEE PAIN, IN ONE FORM OR another, would have to be right at the top of the list of bike-related aches and pains that riders complain of when presenting for a positional assessment. The knee joint acts in a single plane of motion and is therefore sub

EMILY WATTS IS A 20-YEAR-OLD road and track cyclist currently racing for Kom Knights Racing. She is also a full-time university student in her second year of studying a Bachelor of Education (Health and Physical Education) at Sydney University. Orig

LONG GONE ARE THE DAYS OF walking through to the back of a bike shop and searching the small number of racks for a limited number of jerseys. There were a few pro kit offerings, usually a year or two out of date, and a variety of other plain, single-

Contemporary round neckline and longer sleeve length Stretchy ‘welded’ hem and arm cuffs for secure fit Three rear pockets with laser-perforated vent holes Fourth zippered pocket for secure storage of items Reflective striped dot pattern on pocke

DEVELOPED IN A FIVE-YEAR collaboration with German chemical giant, BASF, these are very clearly not your everyday tubes. For starters, there’s the price-tag: upwards of $50. Per tube. There’s also no rubber—something of a curiosity, given Schwalbe ha

IT WAS CLOSE TO 20 YEARS AGO that the first GoPro camera appeared on the market. Before the time of mainstream digital photography, that debut GoPro Hero was a rugged 35mm film camera designed for surfing but perfectly suited to other action sports s

COMPACT, DURABLE, comfortable and light. The Rudy Project Tralyx boasts a clean, modern design easily distinguished by the distinctive PowerFlow vent system that sits along the top ridge of the frame. Bespoke air channels are also incorporated to the

SUPERFICIALLY, DROP BARS ALL look pretty much alike, and they have looked like that for decades. Dig into the details, however, and it quickly becomes apparent that there are numerous subtle things going on in bar shape that distinguish one model fro

LAUNCHED IN 2016, THE 3T Exploro filled a void the vast majority of us didn’t even know existed. Described as a ‘Gravel Plus’ platform, the premise was to add aero efficiencies to the humble gravel bike and to ‘go slow faster’. This was primarily ach

Released just weeks after the updated Exploro, Campagnolo posted news of their first gravel-specific groupset in September 2020. Known as Ekar (pronounced ‘Eckar’) and named after a mountain near Campag’s Italian HQ, the new groupo came with a number

FRAME: Exploro RaceMax. Unidirectional pre-preg carbon, High-modulus/high-strength performance blend layup FORK: Fango RaceMax w/ compact crown HEADSET: 3T MinMax custom by Cane Creek IS42/28.6 + IS 47/38 HANDLEBAR: 3T Superergo LTD carbon (XXS: 3

WHEN IT COMES TO GRAVEL bikes there’s a sliding scale ranging from the ‘slow and steady all-day adventure bike’ through to the ‘I’m just a super-fast road bike in disguise’, with an ever growing number of bikes fitting somewhere in between. So, when

ONE OF THE WORLD’S OLDEST bike brands, Spanish manufacturer Orbea, is closing in on its 200th anniversary. But the company hasn’t been making bikes since the get go; in fact, they started out as a rifle and gun producer. Nowadays they are better know

WHO? ROMA STREET FIRIES WHEN? BEFORE WORK MOST DAYS WHERE? RIVER LOOP, BRISBANE COFFEE? LOST BEAN COFFEE VAN, SOUTH BANK ON ANY GIVEN MORNING, chances are you’ll find at least a few members from Brisbane’s Roma Street Fire Station sneaking in a p

HOW DO YOU REGAIN THE desire to commit to sport after losing motivation? Demotivation is common in sport these days, especially, it seems, during a pandemic. With no upcoming events or races to train for, many of us have decided to ‘pull the pin’ for

THE MELBOURNE TO Warrnambool Road Race is the second oldest one day race in the world, and one of the longest. I have started and finished the race four times and, for a hack like me, just to finish is an achievement in itself. It’s a hard, long and

When I first got hooked on the sport in the early 1990s and began chasing the ridiculous dream of becoming a pro (professional dreamer, yes; cyclist, no way, José!), it was commonly accepted that to be a Grand Tour contender, or to be in the running