road.cc live blog – Union flag shoes … and one or two mentions of Chris Froome among other things

" ... noticeably easier to pedal." Really? How noticeable? I've seen a thing at point of sale in a major bike shop near Kingston which had two identical chainsets connected to two different bottom brackets, inviting the customer to try spinning each one and go "ooh, this one spins much longer when there's no grease in it or load on it, it must be better", but from what I've read, the real-world difference between tuned ceramic and out-of-the box decent steel is about one watt, at best?

@imajez Most people would have walked, but we take your point. I've never had a problem with riding on stoned tracks, designated as footpaths, but I'm not ripping up the surface on downhill footpaths. 0:-)

'Rather than using cups that cartridge bearings sit within, the MAXhit is the bearings, if you catch my drift' Still none the wiser - stick with dub and a ceramic Chinese affair at that which are brilliant for cost & durability in my experience!

@tomlew Will check Neco, cheers.

I’m not sure it’s a knee jerk reaction from Adam Hansen’s point. I think it’s more the media, as per usual, having a full statement in front of them about everything that was wrong with the tragic incident on Friday, and running with the headline that will get the most attention and clicks. No doubt this very publication will be the same come Monday. My sincere condolences to Finlay’s family and friends.

@mdavidford Always worth remembering with these spending outcries as well that a fatal road incident costs us as taxpayers £2.7M, and a serious injury incident £325,000. So if just one fatal road incident, or a small handful of serious injury ones, has been prevented across the whole of Oxfordshire by 20mph limits in the last four years, the taxpayer is actually in profit.

For reference, annual highways spend is about £80m (out of a total spend of £999m). Less than 0.013% is an interesting definition of 'high'.

Maybe the problem is the bikes are too good to make the trails challenging. Hence the growth of trail centres. Most MTBs are ludicrously competent now, particularly e-MTBs. Want a challenge? Change the bikes to something less competent.

Didn't move with the times, consequently it failed. Sad for the employees, but the real Raleigh died years ago.

"If there wasn’t enough parking the car-owning residents would be up in arms organising and petitioning the council" There isn't enough parking, in pretty much every neighbourhood. There a street in my town, where just about every house has off road parking for at least 2 cars, but somebody still saw fit to paint lots of parking bays along it. In addition to just encouraging even more car ownership, it causes regular incidents where people simply can't wait for a gap in the traffic and overtake the parked cars into oncoming traffic. (Said road is on a bus route, and a short walk from a well connected railway station, a large supermarket and not too far from town, but people still feel the need for multiple car households. It's a strange mindset that we've got ourselves into.