Cyclist UK - July 2025 - Issue 164

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What’s the hardest climb in Italy? The Stelvio? The Mortirolo? Colle delle Finestre? All giants, all rightfully revered, but ask most Giro d’Italia riders and they’ll all tell you the same thing: Monte Zoncolan. It’s the queen climb of this month’s Big Ride, 9.8km long, average gradient 12.3% with long kilometres pitching up to 20%. Together with its neighbour, Monte Crostis, the Zoncolan helps turn a mere 65km day out into a whopping 2,800m of vertical ascent. It’s brutal, beautiful, and you’ll get jelly legs just reading about it.
This month, we sit down with the president of the UCI, David Lappartient, to discuss deaths in the peloton and the decision to take the World Championships to Rwanda; we shine a spotlight on Britain’s only one-day UCI road race, the CiCLE Classic; train our lenses on the Women’s Spring Classics in our extended photo gallery; and examine why it has been 40 years since a Frenchman last won the Tour de France, and answer the question, who can break the curse?
Tech comes in the form of new bikes from upstart brand Guava, the latest BMC Roadmachine and the insane-looking Rondo Ruut, Fizik’s first foray into helmets, the new Cannondale Synapse and a host of shiny new gear. And if that’s not enough, we take a trip to the New Forest to unpick this all-road bikes malarkey with head-to-head tests of the Enve Fray, FiftyOne Sika and Giant Defy. Felix Lowe is forced to reexamine his pronouncements on foreign Grand Departs; we take on a hidden gem of a Classic Climb, the Göscheneralp in the Swiss Alps; and we chat with French author and Tour de France superfan, Serge Laget, about what makes the la Grande Boucle so magical.