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Video round-up: Tour of Britain crashes, CS7 near miss & rush hour madness

Plus: Alex Zinardi, Canadian road rage, Japanese wheel building, Cool Presta valve cap tip, mad Rush Hour, dodgy driving and teddy bears

It's been a while since we blessed you lovely road.cc readers with a video round-up. So to make up for it, this edition is stocked full of juicy Tour of Britain crashes, and much more, for you to sink your distracted teeth into.

Following a round of professional cyclist crashes, and a little behind-the-scenes bit from Madison-Genesis at the Tour of Britain, we head to soggy London as a cyclist on CS7 comes very close to meeting a sticky end under city centre traffic.

As well as the usual rush hour mayhem and crashes, we've got some quirky jazz wheel building, some totally relevant* teddy bears, a bit of valve ingenuity and the uplifting tale of Italian paracycling champion, Alex Zanardi.

*may not be relevant

Tour of Britain crashes

It seems that no pro cycling race on British soil is complete without a Mark Cavendish crash, these days. But the Omega Pharma-Quick Step rider wasn't the only one eating asphalt at this year's Tour of Britain.

Cav's fall on stage one of the Tour of Britain didn't garner as many column inches, or hit as many headlines as his high profile crash at the Tour de France in Yorkshire, but it was caught on camera nonetheless.

Cav managed to recover to the peloton, but crossed the line in third behind Marcel Kittel and Nicola Ruffoni.

 

On to stage five, and Team Sky rider Sebastian Henao misjudges a corner in Exeter, resulting in him colliding with the fencing. Fortunately, he was okay and made it across the line in 85th place for the day.

 

Stage seven now, and Tao Geoghegan Hart's break comes to a flying end, straight into the barrier. We've got two angles of the spectacular crash from which he got up and finished the stage. They're hard, these cyclists.

 

 

Madison-Genesis behind the scenes

Taking part in a nine-stage race is no mean feat. Madison-Genesis give you an insight into their preparations and in-race procedure through a series of videos during this year's Tour of Britain.

Madison Genesis - Tour of Britain 2014 Behind the Scenes Video: Part One from Madison on Vimeo.

 

Alex Zanardi: Touch the Sky

Alex Zanardi’s former Formula 1 career came to an end after he lost both of his legs in a near fatal accident while racing in 2000.

He went on to become a Paralympic gold medallist in paracycling at London 2012 and winner of races in the World Touring Car Championships

This short intimate window into the Italian’s world is inspiring, and epitomises the optimism of the man in its closing statement:

“I’m Alex Zanardi, I’m a lucky person, because at the age of 47, things are not over yet.”

TOUCH THE SKY from tim hahne on Vimeo.

 

Close call on CS7

The chances of being robbed at gunpoint while cycling on London’s streets are pretty low, cyclists in the capital still have plenty of dangers to be wary of.

Here, a group of commuters are cycling on one of London’s blue Barclays Cycle Superhighways on a wet afternoon, making conditions slippery, and adding manhole covers to the list of hazards to be aware of.

The cyclist following the filming rider falls - seemingly of his own accord, highlighting the danger of wet roads - and almost finds himself underneath traffic travelling in the opposite direction. Fortunately, no-one was seriously hurt.

 

Canadian road rage?

Cyclist-on-car collisions which usually hit the big time on YouTube often contain foul language, confrontation or particularly wince-worthy impacts.

This particular video has none of the above, however, it’s a rare example of confrontation in Canada, a nation renowned for its politeness and understanding, caught on camera.

In the video you’ll see a young driver knocking cyclist Ben Koker off his bike after running a stop sign. True to Canadian form the driver is quick to apologise and acknowledge his guilt, and offers no argument once a police officer gets involved.

We’re not ones to conform to national stereotypes here at road.cc, but we’ve seen enough road ragey videos to make a guess that incidents like this one, should they take place somewhere like London, don’t often end quite so amicably.

 

Ghostrider

Now we go from a very understanding pair of Canadians, to a sneaky German… erm, prankster. Humour can be a very culturally subjective thing, and apparently some people in Germany think this is funny. We're not convinced, but see what you think.

Bearing all the hallmarks of a growing breed of controversial YouTube pranksters, this individual appears to be playing a geisterfahrer prank. A prank which appears to be contained to German borders for the time being, most cyclists will probably hope it stays there.

Translating to ghost rider, this geisterfahrer prank apparently involves riding on the wrong side of a cycle path and shouting "geisterfahrer" at unsuspecting cyclists upon appearing from behind a blind corner. Your sides are probably splitting already and you haven't even seen it yet.

We don't know whether this prank involved a ghoulish outfit, or if there are other examples of ghost rider pranksters out there. We’ll certainly be keeping our eyes peeled, just in case this becomes one of those internet fads. Boo.

Rush Hour

Words that spring to mind when you hear the words rush hour? Here at road.cc we got: mayhem, confusion and frustration.

After filming one intersection, and weaving a bit of After Effects magic, film production company Black Sheep Films, have shed an entirely different light on the time of day which cyclists consider most hazardous.

A busy intersection suddenly looks like coordinated brilliance, all of the while hovering half a step away from absolute carnage. If only things could run this smoothly in the real world.

RUSH HOUR from Black Sheep Films on Vimeo.

 

Cycles

After watching the Rush Hour video above, we couldn’t help but be reminded of this mildly relevant, completely cycling related (see the title), video filmed on Worthing sea-front.

It’s old, it’s gold, and it’s well worth a watch.

Japanese wheel building

Employees at Japanese bicycle shop Blue Lug make their wheels to double bass-heavy jazz music, according to this video.

Blue Lug may well be likening wheelmaking to playing jazz music, a concept which we find strangely compelling, but really we're not sure how we’d feel about riding on such smooth unpredictability.

Wheel building from BLUE LUG on Vimeo.

Presta tube valve adaptors for everyone

We’ll swing from wheel jazz, to some literal wheel improvisation.

Stuck with a flat Presta valve tyre that needs inflating, but your portable bike pump is nowhere to be seen?

Worry no more. You can create an adaptor for your Presta tyres by simply chopping the top of the valve’s protective cap off and popping it onto your valve upside down.

Your tyre, as per the video, will now accept mechanised bike pumps, just like those you can find at petrol stations.

Close passes on Epping High Street, Essex, & Ashton Road, Manchester

To finish off this video round-up, here are two examples of awful driving that we’ve come across this week.

When the Tour de France came through Essex last month, raising cycling's profile, we would have hoped that drivers in the area would go on to give cyclists a little more respect on the road.

But alas, it seems nothing has changed.

We’ll continue to highlight shocking pieces of driving like this in our round-ups, in the hope that something changes one day and we won’t have to.

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13 comments

Avatar
chokofingrz | 9 years ago
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In Vietnam you don't even need After Effects to make the same film as "Rush Hour".

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pedalpowerDC | 9 years ago
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Honestly, who films cell phone race footage in portrait mode? Someone who dreams of it looking terrible at a future date.

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CanAmSteve replied to pedalpowerDC | 9 years ago
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"Honestly, who films cell phone race footage in portrait mode? Someone who dreams of it looking terrible at a future date."

As someone pointed out to me recently, most smartphones have a vertically oriented screen, and most young'uns only access media on smartphones, so it's landscape-orientation video that is like, so, yesterday  1

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NeilG83 | 9 years ago
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In the first bad driving clip the driver's second overtake is far too close, but it was clearly retaliation for the cyclist needlessly squeezing between the car and the kerb and then later hogging the middle of the lane.

At the start of the video the cyclist complains about the driver impatiently overtaking in the wrong place (the mini-roundabout) and a few seconds later he is impatiently undertaking the same car. Why undertake a car that is that close to the kerb?

After the undertake the cyclist didn't help the situation by riding right in the middle of the lane. He has every right to be there, but it's not going to please drivers when the it is impossible to pull into the other lane to overtake due to traffic. There is no need to ride in the gutter, but a bit closer to kerb would be more polite.

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Jimmy Ray Will replied to NeilG83 | 9 years ago
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NeilG83 wrote:

In the first bad driving clip the driver's second overtake is far too close, but it was clearly retaliation for the cyclist needlessly squeezing between the car and the kerb and then later hogging the middle of the lane.

At the start of the video the cyclist complains about the driver impatiently overtaking in the wrong place (the mini-roundabout) and a few seconds later he is impatiently undertaking the same car. Why undertake a car that is that close to the kerb?

After the undertake the cyclist didn't help the situation by riding right in the middle of the lane. He has every right to be there, but it's not going to please drivers when the it is impossible to pull into the other lane to overtake due to traffic. There is no need to ride in the gutter, but a bit closer to kerb would be more polite.

I agree with you... apart from the last bit... he was doing the right thing in riding where he did. It was not safe to pass, he was more or less traveling at the same speed as the traffic, so positioning yourself in a way that makes a safe overtake impossible is right.

The problem was, as mentioned, he had inflammed the situation with his unnecessary underpass... that pass was deliberate.

Taking out the emotion from that situation, his underpass did set a precedent... how close the cyclist feels it is safe to get to the vehicle.

Now as cyclists we all know that there is a difference to how close we feel it is safe to pass a stationary vehicle and how close a moving vehicle should get when overtaking us... but I think its a bit of an ask to expect that of the motorist... especially with emotion involved.

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Sit at the back... replied to NeilG83 | 9 years ago
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FATBEGGARONABIKE
I disagree.
Ride sufficiently far out from the kerb that other road users have to overtake you the same way that they would overtake a car, this is called owning the road. The edge of the road is a "French drain" ie full of gravel and loose stuff - stay out of it.
I do agree that there is bad driving / riding by all involved.

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Bob's Bikes | 9 years ago
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Yep I'm with Rasalati, can't see anything even remotely funny about that german clip personnally I hope someone reports him to the Polizei.
Loved the rush hour film but the next one what was that bloke on? and can I have some?
CS7 crash super scary seeing how close he came to having his feet crushed by that car.
With the first of the bad driving vids I'm assuming it was a rozzer doing the cycling/filming which begs the question did the moron driving the car collect some brucy bonus points? a follow up would be nice.

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rasalati | 9 years ago
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I'm failing to see the funny side of that "prank".. The lady appears to hit her head against the railing (I'm not sure if she actually does, but the possibility is still there). It's a pretty irresponsible act, and I would even say publicising it in such a light manner is too.

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Tony Farrelly replied to rasalati | 9 years ago
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rasalati wrote:

I'm failing to see the funny side of that "prank".. The lady appears to hit her head against the railing (I'm not sure if she actually does, but the possibility is still there). It's a pretty irresponsible act, and I would even say publicising it in such a light manner is too.

No, we don't think it's that funny either, but apparently some people in Germany do.

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giff77 replied to Tony Farrelly | 9 years ago
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Tony Farrelly wrote:
rasalati wrote:

I'm failing to see the funny side of that "prank".. The lady appears to hit her head against the railing (I'm not sure if she actually does, but the possibility is still there). It's a pretty irresponsible act, and I would even say publicising it in such a light manner is too.

No, we don't think it's that funny either, but apparently some people in Germany do.

I don't think that it's a prank. It's part of a longer clip. There's a discussion with the lady who seems unhurt and pretty reasonable about it all. He also shouts out Geisterfahrer at cyclists who appear to be either salmoning or using the wrong path. Maybe some of our German friends or those who speak German can translate as mine is pretty limited. Here's the link. http://youtu.be/YrH0CyY5nUk

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rasalati replied to giff77 | 9 years ago
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giff77 wrote:

I don't think that it's a prank. It's part of a longer clip. There's a discussion with the lady who seems unhurt and pretty reasonable about it all. He also shouts out Geisterfahrer at cyclists who appear to be either salmoning or using the wrong path. Maybe some of our German friends or those who speak German can translate as mine is pretty limited. Here's the link. http://youtu.be/YrH0CyY5nUk

It's a wonder what a bit of context can do. It looks like you're supposed to be on the correct side of the bridge for your direction of travel, in line with the road traffic. The arrows still point in the rider's direction of travel at the far end, and you can see a sign prohibiting bicycles when he turns around to look back the way he came.

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cqexbesd replied to rasalati | 9 years ago
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I'm not sure it's supposed to be a prank per se - that may be a poor translation. I think the point was that all the cyclists you see are heading the wrong way down a one way bike path - the two lanes you see are for bikes and pedestrians respectively. The woman who hit the railings may well have otherwise hit the oncoming cyclist.

Most of the time in Germany there is a bike path on both sides of the road and you should be using the correct one for your direction of travel. I've had some close calls with cyclists heading the wrong way down bike paths on my commute - and I can't help but wonder why, if you plan to head the wrong way down the path, you don't keep an eye out for oncoming traffic. Then maybe I am old and grumpy.

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matheson | 9 years ago
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Slightly pedantic, but Zanardi lost his legs as a result of a crash in a CART race in Germany in 2001.
His post-accident rehabilitation story is remarkable.

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