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Video round-up: How to wash your bike like a pro, Texas close pass, TdF peloton goes bug hunting and more

Plus: Cool lights, A Week Against the Clock & more…

Here’s our latest round-up of cycling videos from around the world, featuring some cool lights from California and a remarkable cyclist who survived cancer twice, plus much more.

Monkeying around

California-based company MonkeyLectric has a number of videos on YouTube featuring its lights, which attach to wheel spokes and feature artist-designed graphics, helping cyclists to be visible at night while injecting a bit of fun too. Here’s their latest clip.

James Golding & a week against the clock

James Golding’s story is remarkable. Diagnosed with a tumour in 2008, he went from 14 stone to 6 stone and was given a less than 5 per cent chance of survival.

Since then he has raised more than £1 million for charity, despite suffering horrific injuries when he was hit by a truck while cycling near New Orleans in 2010, and his cancer returning in 2011. He’s also become a father.

This beautifully shot film, called Distance Over Time, follows him as he attempts to break the seven-day cycling world record of 1,748 miles.

Distance Over Time from SpindleProductions on Vimeo.

How to wash your bike

Here’s a video showing how to wash your bike like a pro – in just 4 minutes. The Diamondback Podium Equipe bike belongs to Canadian national champion Leah Kirchmann, and the guy doing the cleaning is her Optum Pro Cycling team mechanic, Bill McPherson. Oh, and one other thing about this clip – it was shot on Google Glass.

Tour de France takes a bug break

We need to apologise to you – clearly we missed the biggest story so far of the Tour de France. But luckily The Onion didn’t; here’s their report on the day the peloton trooped off to a creek to have a look at some bugs.

Warning: graphic bad driving

Finally, the inevitable bad driving video, and we need to warn you, it’s a very difficult one to watch. A Texas cyclist was clipped by the wing mirror of a pick-up truck being driven far too close to him, and suffered injuries including a broken scapula, five broken ribs, collapsed lung, and a gash to the head.

The driver didn’t stop, but luckily others did to help out the stricken cyclist, although it’s noticeable how a lot of traffic speeds past – including a huge truck at the end, very close to where the rider is lying.

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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10 comments

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Bob's Bikes | 9 years ago
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READ THE SENTENCE PRIOR TO; I hope the driver is.........

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userfriendly | 9 years ago
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"Clean your bike"? Should be called "Dust your bike off after a wee jolly on clean dry roads". Happy to invite the guy to clean my commuter, I very much doubt he'll get it done within even twice that time.

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geargrinderbeard | 9 years ago
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Stopped watching that clean your bike like a pro vid after they used the chain brush to clean the rest of the bike - if I look at my chain the evil black muck affixes to my eyeballs....

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Bob's Bikes | 9 years ago
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Have to agree with Mathelo that looked deliberate. admittedly there is only a short piece of footage to judge the pickup's driving but you can see it driving in lane prior to the incident then coming over (poss just to scare the cyclist) but he miss-judges it badly. I hope the driver is charged with attempted murder (vehicular homicide? I think is what the yanks call it).

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bikebot replied to Bob's Bikes | 9 years ago
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FATBEGGARONABIKE wrote:

Have to agree with Mathelo that looked deliberate. admittedly there is only a short piece of footage to judge the pickup's driving but you can see it driving in lane prior to the incident then coming over (poss just to scare the cyclist) but he miss-judges it badly. I hope the driver is charged with attempted murder (vehicular homicide? I think is what the yanks call it).

You think it is deliberate attempted murder from the video? What exactly do you see that tells you that?

Do a bit of motorway driving, cars drifting out of lane isn't a rare event. You often know to give certains drivers a wide berth, because they're obviously not fully attentive. It's why the Gov't still has to run safety adverts telling tired drivers to pull over, and there's tons of research into safety devices that detect drivers nodding off.

It's a serious problems that is also criminal, but inflating the crime to "attempted murder" without anything to suggest there was intent is silly.

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zagatosam replied to bikebot | 9 years ago
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-and the driver didn't bother to stop. Doesn't that suggest something to you? This is appalling whatever way you look at it. There are some sick people about.

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pwake replied to bikebot | 9 years ago
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bikebot wrote:
FATBEGGARONABIKE wrote:

Have to agree with Mathelo that looked deliberate. admittedly there is only a short piece of footage to judge the pickup's driving but you can see it driving in lane prior to the incident then coming over (poss just to scare the cyclist) but he miss-judges it badly. I hope the driver is charged with attempted murder (vehicular homicide? I think is what the yanks call it).

You think it is deliberate attempted murder from the video? What exactly do you see that tells you that?

Do a bit of motorway driving, cars drifting out of lane isn't a rare event. You often know to give certains drivers a wide berth, because they're obviously not fully attentive. It's why the Gov't still has to run safety adverts telling tired drivers to pull over, and there's tons of research into safety devices that detect drivers nodding off.

It's a serious problems that is also criminal, but inflating the crime to "attempted murder" without anything to suggest there was intent is silly.

I haven't taken too much note of this particular incident, but the most likely cause is that the driver was messing with his cell phone, most likely texting. Phone use while driving isn't illegal in Texas (unless you are a school bus driver or under 18!) and is absolutely rife here. I reckon I have a 100% success rate in driving behind people and determining whether they are using their phone; they always, ALWAYS, drift in and out of their lane, just like the truck in the video. As it's not illegal and there is no need to conceal the phone use, most people's favorite method is to hold the phone up directly in front of them, just so they can keep an eye on the road at the same time as checking out what someone's kitten has done on Facebook. Welcome to the land of the free and the home of the cretinous, people!!

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mathelo | 9 years ago
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Looked intentional to me not to mention it is a hit and run.

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bikebot | 9 years ago
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I saw the clipped video at the weekend, it is disturbing. The Police have spoken to the driver, and he has apparently also spoken to the cyclist. Some might wonder if it was a deliberate act, which it doesn't appear to be.

It seems Mr McFlie chose to publish the video of his accident as a warning to drivers of the consequences of failing to look out for cyclists.

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nowasps | 9 years ago
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"Driven far too close to him" looks like an understatement. The driver's beaten up and dirty no. plate appears pretty clearly though, so they'll surely catch him?

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