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We rode Amy’s Gran Fondo this weekend, qualify for the UCI Gran Fondo world championships. But we wanted to deep dive into gran fondos in 2024. They are most popular road cycling events we have, but are we doing them right?
Plenty of gear chat from what we saw as well as an adhoc Tavelo vs Cervelo debate. Finally 5 tips to make your road bike descending even better.
Chapters
00:00 intro
00:30 Qualifying For UCI Gran Fondo World Champs
12:51 What’s Happening To GF Courses?
21:01 Has The UCI Stuffed Up Gran Fondos?
24:35 What Did Other Riders Think?
33:58 How Much Did It Cost?
37:51 Was It Worth It?
46:21 Gear Chat From The Weekend
55:53 Tavelo vs Cervelo
1:10:01 New S5 Expectations
1:15:33 YouTube Round Up
1:19:18 5 Tips To Better Descending
Footage courtesy of
@FreshCrits
@TheCyclingTattooist
@JordanWatkinsRacing
@AmysGranFondo2024
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29 Comments
Just gonna say it, the Tavelo frame shape is nicer than the Cervelo, and I'll die on that hill
I think the UCI Gran Fondo in Switzerland would fit your description: 148km & 3700m of climbing… lot of selective alpine passes to be had.
Hi Chris and Jesse, love the show. What's your sugar water recipe? How much of what type of sugar?
“Why would you rip off another brand’s name”
I’m a photographer. My first commercial job was for McDonald’s in Shanghai. To do to the job, I bought a at the time state-of-the-art Canon 5D MkII from an official Canon store in Shanghai.
When I told the Singaporean creative director who hired me, she asked if I was sure it was a real Canon camera.
Ripping off established brands is a tradition in Chinese business.
The price of events in Australia these days is absolutely ridiculous
@ChrisMillerCycling stated in a previous episode that people did fondos rather than race was because they are scared 😱.Wow so many scared people at Amys it was like a horror show. 😧
Cervelo RS5… Ask Audi, it's faster
From a mass start point of view, as it’s a UCI thing, doesn’t need to be age group for qualification
Guys I know, who did the World gran fondo in Denmark( all finishing in front bunch) said it was a crash fest. Crazy Euro's everywhere taking big risks. Road furniture. Big bunches. Most didn't bother sprinting at the finish because felt lucky to get there in one piece, and thought it was too dangerous.
@chrismillercycling make sure you get down to Worlds on Thursday at Alex surf club (5am) for a real fast bunchie!
Real hard boys, not like the northerners 😅
Hard mass start races with hard courses are great. We have one in my home town which is 5km flat then immediately goes into a hard undulating Cat2 which starts with a 13% uphill sprint until the lactate kicks in. Everyone gets sieved into w/kg. No way you can fake it. You get to the flat bit(before the next climbs) and there are minutes between bunches which makes everything so much safer as everyone's pretty much at the same level.
Tour de Brisbane I did a Jessie Coyle. Me wanting bigger water bottles decided NOT to use my Cannondale aero bottles on my Cannondale. Started in front group, hanging on for 20 mins until the group finally started to ease up. Ready to settle in until Cootha and bang, hit a manhole and both bottles ejected. Worst feeling, I also turned around and picked them up. Never saw the front group again. 😢
Congrats fellas on 100 episodes! Fyi, prior to Fondo Worlds in Perth 2016 they held qualifying age group "races" on said course with pro teams, ams etc. It was not something piggybacking a Fondo event like Amy GF. Keep up the great work!
You both mentioned the difficulty of finding larger chainring sizes to suit Amy's course.
Would an additional inefficiency of your highest gear only, whilst perhaps adding chainline efficiencies elsewhere ( just why do they use 62T rings in TTs?), influence you both to reconsidering an XDR rear hub to allow the 10t to only be used on downhills?
Reserve wheelsets oughta have an XDR option, surely. Jesse, are your rims as wide as the frame/fork can accept, there maybe a reason for an even more focused Chinese wheelset build. My rimbrake Cervelo allows for 28mm widths, so my rims are 28mm wide, allowing 21mmID. These can wear 23 & 25 for the rule of 105, or 28 & 30 with no 105 rule. The Velocity Quill wheel sets for both my training and endurance rides also offer 21mmID but much less OD for the Cervelo RS but day to day wheel swaps if needed (4-seasons vs GP5000s, & for flats).
Velocity also has a 23mmID disc only rim for those looking to go wider on a budget. Tyre width advantages aren't all about aero. We were riding 'forever' with unaero wheel/tyre sets before Josh P, Zipp, Cervelo & Roubaix aligned in the mid naughties to actually test. Any thoughts on doing your own Chung Method aero tresting to confirm your optimisations?
Wheels may not offer the aero savings alone without integration with framesets but what about for gearing options and tyre 105 ruling?
Seems this could open up Shimano's top-end gearing as each rear cost step is roughly 4 teeth at the front. Perhaps you could both have a Sheldon Browne Gear Calculator cast as Gain ratios actually quantify how tyre size and gearing choices relate cogs and cranks lengths too. Maybe Jesse would carry around his inner chainring & front derailleur for more than just the 1 time on that 16% pinch after Forest, too!
Thinking outside the square? As a 17yo building my first serious road bike before 6 spd freewheels, there were few options for a hack to select from, 13-17, 13-21 with 52/42 or 52/39 or so. A Teledyne Titan priced at $2400 with Campy Record in my local bike ship wore 60/47T Suginos. On my budget I selected TA 60/46 rings and a custom DA 1st gen 13-28t freewheel. That worked for me for 18 years whilst moving onto 13-30t 7spd before it was stolen.
It seems to me that all too often gearing selection for a course is overlooked. Who carries around gears that they won't use anyway, seriously? If you don't discuss gearing choices in your journeys to win rainbow jerseys I think you are both stuck in thinking like one bike can do it all.
So many finetuning/MG discussions oughta be on the tabletop now. Discard any at your own peril; like Silca's thin bartape for better CdA? I may never win anything but I still want my equipment to never hold back my speed anywhere. Shouldn't one's equipment work even harder than the athlete.
No stones unturned, please guys! Start at the basics to confirm every selection in each area is optimized, you'll be doing this with your training. Before Amy's you both agreed, 'no aero-helments'. I'm guessing '25 will be an aero helmets race, now!
I'm especially looking forward to your Amy's 102 cast when that happens. 12 months looks like a good timeframe to plan and adapt to any subtle, or not so, changes afterall.
Nice to meet you as you were about to get your presentation Chris. What was your nutrition for the race
Can you take us threw all your cycling crashes or the more important ones and what lessons did you take from them? I think there is a lot of knowledge to be shared. Cheers!
Amy's was much better when it went the other way around and finished up the hill above town IMO
That's a pricey weekend. Different when you live in a country not as vast as Australia where the distances between places and races isn't so far.
Great content guys. Raced in Whistler GF couple weeks ago. Self selected start corrals based on estimated time of completion regardless of age category, works well with no real bottleneck issues
Climb fast, go down slow and safely 🙂
100% agree on the changing vibe fondos/sportives. If you want to road race just road race, bunch sprints for a podium are not what they are about.
Some notes on the Amy Course. First 10 years started down the coast, the UCI Grand Fondo rules require a climb early in the course to brake up the groups which is why it changed direction.
Tavelo vs Cervelo = Jesse approach vs Chris approach. High end Chinese Tavelo, Seka over the mid range established brands Specialized, Cervelo no question. Top end yes, the emotional factor is there but you do bump up against a significant reality of a price difference, if you have the option of no being effected by this reality great otherwise its great also since on a performance level not really much in it.
They need to change the name of this event to the Amateur World Championships. Not all races have to be made for climbers. Some of us sprinters can’t climb for shit.
Wondering if you guys are going to cover the ProVelo Super League? I know you probably think it is irrelevant niche Australian racing chat but would be interesting to hear about it from ex-NRS perspective. Also cos I have no idea what the PSL will actually be
Congrats guys! Your show got me through all my indoor training session🎉 On the Tavelo naming, “Ta”(踏）means pedaling, and “velo” (为乐） sounds like “is fun”. So it is basically “pedaling is fun”. It is quite straightforward and nice for a Chinese speaker😂
Having ridden around 15 UCI gran fondo qualifying events ( 10 Amy's & 5 B2B) and 4 UCI gran fondo world championships I have to say the level of lack of knowledge in many of the comments by Chris and Jesse regarding Amy’s and the UCI gran fondos is surprising. It is obvious you guys could benefit from chatting to
people who have experience in these particular events and not just from the younger rider perspective.
You need to understand that the UCI gran fondo concept started to be the UCI replacement to the masters world championships in St Johann, Austria. Initially the UCI gran fondo WC was for masters riders. Until the UCI saw the money to be made from these events and the younger age groups were included so now it includes all ages over 18.
These UCI events are run as age groups and are effectively an age group scratch race. It is not intended as a fun social ride. Otherwise the feed stops would be used by all but no the serious age group racers never stop.
At Amy's there was a recreational event that started after the age group riders. This event started in speed waves where the rider self nominated their average speed (not always very accurate method)
The first 2 years of Amy's went in a clockwise direction and the riders started in speed waves (again self nominated) This did not guarantee all the fast riders were in the front groups. Year 1 the winner came from the 4th wave. It was super dangerous along the coast. The only way this speed wave could work properly is if you had to provide a qualifying time from a previous year.like they do in the City to Surf run.
The direction was changed as a safety issue based on those first 2 years feedback and the 10km climb helped to slow things down and at least made the passing speed differential a little bit less. Remember guys that these events also cater for riders well over 60 and it is not just for younger riders. The Amy's course is certainly selective enough as a scratch race event. There are more than enough changes of elevation along the coast to launch attacks if having a sprint is not preferred.
The finish line could be 200 metres further up the road so the round-a-bout was not so close and yes the cables at the finish line are not safe. Cheers
Studio looks like dorm room with all those empty soda cans
paint work so bad