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TECH NEWS

Video: North Cape 4000 winner Ian Walker and his Whyte Wessex One

We catch up with Ian after his epic 4,300km ride and look at the bike that propelled him to victory

August was a big month for Ultracycling in Europe, with James Hayden taking the win in the 6th Transcontinental Race and Ian Walker reaching Nordkapp first in the 4,300km North Cape 4000 race. Staring from Lake Garda the North Cape tackles the Alps first as it heads ever Northwards towards the very end of the continent.

It's a different kind of race to the TCR in that it has a proscribed route rather than just checkpoints, so it's a bit easier to see who's in the lead at any one time. And for the last 1,500km or so, that was sometime road.cc contributor Dr Ian Walker, who works in the Psychology department at the University of Bath, just up the hill from road.cc towers. We popped up to have a word with him about his ride and his bike, which after the travails of a 4,300km race is back in service as his day-to-day commuting bike.

> Review: Whyte Wessex One

Ian's bike is a Whyte Wessex One. Save for some posh wheels, a different saddle and the addition of aero bars and luggage, it's the stock bike that we reviewed on road.cc earlier in the year. At £2,199 it's certainly not in the superbike category; Dave Arthur called it a "Fast and comfortable 1x11 all-season road bike at a competitive price" and it shows that you don't need bottomless pockets to be properly competitive in the ultracycling sphere.

Probably the most interesting point, tech-wise, is that the bike uses a single ring transmission; Ian used a 42-tooth chainring and a 10-42 cassette. The pay-off for getting a wide gear range out of a 1x system is bigger gaps between the gears, but Ian never found that an issue in the race: you can find out what he thought about the gearing, and learn more about his winning ride, by watching the video.

Dave is a founding father of road.cc, having previously worked on Cycling Plus and What Mountain Bike magazines back in the day. He also writes about e-bikes for our sister publication ebiketips. He's won three mountain bike bog snorkelling World Championships, and races at the back of the third cats.

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6 comments

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Rick Dyer | 6 years ago
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Nice to see that the Whyte Wessex's mudguards appear to fit well. When I bought my Specialized Diverge (admitedly a grand below this bikes price point) I was assured that the frame had all the necessary fitting points and plenty of clearance. Not so. The Specialized hidden fixing points are fiddly and don't work very well, and I had to order fenders specially made by Specialized for the bike, which are heavy and not well designed.

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Ian Walker | 6 years ago
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Maxap: I recall thinking to myself during the race that the entire cassette was getting a good use. I reckon I was in the 10-tooth sprocket about as much as the 42. It's not unusual to get right up to the top on a downhill.

Oh, and as a slight correction to the article, the chainring was 44, not 42. Sur la plaque, and all that...

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J-Ro | 6 years ago
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Well done Ian! Had heard say a guy on Stayer carbon wheels won the race! They looks fantastic on that bike (in the video). I'd seen this shot of him on the bike on his way to win it but great to see the bike in more detail in the video. Looks fab!

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J-Ro | 6 years ago
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Well done Ian! Had heard say a guy on Stayer carbon wheels won the race! They looks fantastic on that bike (in the video). I'd seen this shot of him on the bike on his way to win it but great to see the bike in more detail in the video. Looks fab!

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maxap | 6 years ago
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Ian: Fantastic ... congrats
Just curious about the gearing. You say you overestimated the amount of power you would be able to put out, - 60 rather than 70 %>
How about the gearing? Did you use the 10 sprocket a lot or would you now have chosen a smaller chainring to get a lower gear for the steep bits?

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peted76 | 6 years ago
1 like

#impressed

 

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