🎇Stage 47: Happy New Year!

A Zwift bike and 'what if I don't win?'

Hello, happy new year and welcome to our first newsletter of 2022.

I’m back in Girona for this week’s newsletter. While it was nice to be in the UK for Christmas with my family, the two days where I came back borderline hypothermic after training was a little too much.

I had a travel day from hell. I was due to fly back on New Year’s Eve, but I was denied my flight due to a problem with my bike bag. After a quick call, I ended up staying with a family friend and traveling the next day. It’s safe to say it’s not how I planned to spend my New Year’s Eve, but c’est la vie.

I’m thoroughly enjoying being back in Girona. It’s nice to be able to walk everywhere, and not rely on a car like I have to back in England. It’s also nice to be back in the sun. It’s so grey in the UK, there’s hardly any daylight this time of year. And not to brag, but I was riding in shorts on today’s ride - a novelty for Northern Spain in January.

Thanks for reading this newsletter and catch you next week,

Joe

Feel free to email me at joe@nplus1.cc if you have any questions, or feel I’ve missed something that is worth putting in the Newsletter.

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📖 Read

#cyclocross

Wout van Aert’s winning streak finally ended this weekend. After seven wins in a row, mechanical issues meant that WVA wouldn’t take the honors in the Hulst World Cup. Who else would step up to take the win, but Tom Pidcock. In other news, current UCI World Champion, Mathieu van der Poel is now a serious doubt for the remainder of the season due to injury.

5-minute and 4-minute read

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#womenscycling

The role of a sporting director has historically been a male job, even in the women’s side of the sport. In 2020, there were only two full-time female directors in the Women’s World Tour, but that’s starting to change. Anna van der Breggen and Chantal van den Broek-Blaak are legends of women’s cycling and they’re both taking up the role of a sport director in 2022 with SD-Worx. Is this the revolution we’ve been waiting for?

6-minute read

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#futuretech

Love it or hate it, Zwift is quickly becoming an important part of the cycling world. In the past, Zwift has relied on companies such as Wahoo and Elite to make the hardware to access their app. However, recent reports hint that Zwift are making their own smart-bike and it’s a little bit different? What’re your thoughts?

3-minute read

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#breakingtradition

For good or bad, cycling is the most traditional of sports. In recent years, people are bucking the trend, and that’s what has happened with Jukebox Cycling too. Based in Northern America - but with an international line-up - Jukebox are multi-discipline. From ex-WorldTour riders to gravel racers and everything in between, they’re not necessarily a team, but a collective of people doing fun stuff on bikes.

5-minute read

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#training #bikefit

At one point or another, we’ve all suffered from knee pain while cycling. The issue with knee pain is that a whole host of things can cause it. From saddle height to cleats, crank length to flexibility, there is a myriad of possibilities. Your future self will thank you by checking out this guide to staying pain-free.

6-minute read

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📱Tweet of the week

Renaud Breban @RenaudB31

#Stat 📊 / Quelques stats de 🇧🇪 Wout van Aert (TJV) sur l'année 2021 🤯

January 3rd 2022

18 Retweets231 Likes

A recent social media post from Wout van Aert did the rounds on Twitter last week. If you were wondering what it takes to be a pro-cyclist, here are some of the logistics.

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🎧 Listen

Ian Boswell’s road career was cut short by a severe concussion. Boswell started his post-cycling job at Wahoo, and before you know it, he’s racing gravel. It turns out he was quite good too, winning Unbound Gravel - the biggest event on the calendar. Boswell talks to Rouleur about all things cycling, as well as about diversity in the sport.

36-minute listen

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👀 Watch

“When asked about filming something for National Criterium Champs, I replied ‘what if I don’t win?’” said Alec Briggs. “I then remembered running a talk for youths about racing and training. We talked about losing and learning from it. One of the parents said to me, ‘Yeah but you win all the time’, to which I replied ‘I’ve had more losses than wins, the wins are just what you see on social media.’ That comment hit me.

I wish those kids knew I was probably worse than all of them when I was their age, I made more mistakes, had less of a clue, and lost. The losses make the wins once you work out how to learn from them.

Alec Briggs is a DJ and criterium specialist. He also runs Tekkerz CC.

8-minute watch

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👋🏻 Introducing

In this new part of the Newsletter, each week we’re going to introduce one of the brands that we work with at N+1.

Introducing…FRM

FRM Bikes were born in 1991 with the aim of bringing MTB culture to Italy. Becoming world-renowned for their lightweight parts, FRM stepped-up in 2016 by bringing the first bike to the market made in Dyneema fiber. MTB, Gravel and Road, FRM have it all.

Be sure to download our app and browse their collection!