road.cc live blog: Olympic BMX hopefuls wanted, hidden messages on Zwift, poll says cycling 8th most boring sport and much more
The news agenda is starting to pick up after the Christmas and New Year break …
Wed, Jan 10, 2018 14:54
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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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ktache 6 hours ago
Chris King are fairly serviceable. And the warranty does indeed require it. I enjoy the xtr plug and forget on two of the bikes. Until they die, and I just fit another. Chris's headsets are worth it, superb seals. It's such a mucky area, and I haven't had adjustable cup and cone BBs. on a bike since my Peugeot racers in the 80s, I was relieved when starting my mountain bike adventures in the 90"s that the fit and forget square taper BBs just worked. The seals on the hubs were awful back then. Singletrack FGF featured this, https://burgtec.co.uk/product-category/hardware/shimano-crank-bolt/, I'm wondering if it will replace my seemingly made of butter bolt on the xtr 960 cranks, almost impossible to find back in the day.
ktache 6 hours ago
If I had purchased my special products division 650 back in '96, rather than obtaining it under a warranty replacement, I would apparently have received a signed picture of the fine Nottingham artisan that welded her. The 750 of that year won Barry Clarke another British xc cup, as I recall.
ktache 6 hours ago
Yay! https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/26466698.speed-camera-catching-drivers-25mph-oxfordshire/
tomlew 8 hours ago
The fall of Raleigh happened long before this week. Just because somebody bought the name does not mean they were the same bikes. And if you care about the name so much, noone says it won't be purchased by another inverstor as Accell Group is liquidated!
tomlew 8 hours ago
@Destroyer666 I totally see your point. The good news is there are indeed BBs which use industry-standard bearings. Take Neco, for example - they offer exactly what you want. Maybe the bearings in the set are not perfect, but you can replace them with SKFs later.
Rendel Harris 9 hours ago
@chrisonabike I was just reading that myself, it seems a bizarre kneejerk reaction before poor Finlay's cause of death has even been fully investigated. What does Mr.Hansen think has been going on, have the manufacturers had the means to make safer, more robust helmets that are just as light and well ventilated but haven't bothered releasing them? Or does he want the peleton racing in motorcycle helmets, because that's the only way there's going to be a chance of meaningful protection in 100 kmh crashes?
chrisonabike 9 hours ago
I'm pretty sure that wouldn't work: AFAICS anti-social consequences are inherent in the business model. Models which seem to work better: advertising (Santander cycles), using bikes to make using another service which is more profitable (or less unprofitable) easier (Dutch OV Fiets). After that it's "local authority subsidises it" and then you're down to "flogging customer data"...
Destroyer666 9 hours ago
Back in the day square taper bb's rolled on bearings that were considerably larger than inside these Maxhit ones. The ball bearings in these fully serviceable models cost a couple of euros. Don't get me wrong, they had their issues, like poor sealing. But those days, servicing bearings was the norm. The current state seems to be something of an attempt at non-serviceability, where efforts made at making products that you DO NOT have to service are accompanied with products that you CANNOT service. And those two things are mixed in different ways. For example with this Maxhit bearing you pay a crazy amount of money for supposed durability - that you are nonetheless expected to service once a year. And once these bearings wear enough, there is no way to service them anymore - no cups, cones, ball bearings to replace, unlike with the old bb's (sure, it was not THAT easy even with them to e.g. find just cups in bike shop). I guess my point is that while I applaud e.g. Enduro for making "bike specific" bearings, I nonetheless long for products that are just easy to service - that is the key to durability. And that does not have to mean it costs a lot. To prove my point: There is absolutely no reason why Shimano could not manufacture it's ubiquitous 20eur BB-MT501 with easily replaceable industrial standard 6805 bearings (where SKF quality bearings cost about 20eur), for the same cost they manufacture the BB in it's current form. They just chose not to. And I would choose that over crazy expensive bb's with marketing schpiel and small print regarding warranty any day.
chrisonabike 9 hours ago
He's wildly over the top / backwards about what is a risk to the hard-pressed motorist and local places: those are "other motorists" and "mass motoring" respectively. He's almost right though in that many places - even in the UK - are gradually realising that a great way to save themselves money, improve their places and aid their chances of hitting targets on health, obesity, climate etc. is indeed to slow down motorists, restrict parking and deter (not prevent...) much *private motor* travel.
chrisonabike 9 hours ago
RIP. According to the president of the Cyclistes Professionnels Associes the first thing they need to look at is ... helmets? https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/articles/czxqqlpnx98o Of course this could make perfect sense for a professional sport, perhaps standards haven't kept pace etc. It's certainly a rarefied extremely fast and hazard-rich environment, compared with my experience of normally <20mph utility-and-leisure cycling. But since the main factor seems to have been an uninvolved vehicle on the course this does sound like a convergence with the standard "cycling safety" narrative? ("Can't fix anything else, so what we *can* do is...")
7 thoughts on “road.cc live blog: Olympic BMX hopefuls wanted, hidden messages on Zwift, poll says cycling 8th most boring sport and much more”
Quote:
WEell F1 can be interesting (note “can be”, not “is”) due to the technical aspects of it and certain (usually weather or crash-related) situations. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve turned off some proper bore-fest F1 events and if you asked me I’d struggle to even remember what happened at any one circuit or indeed which circuits were “best” but then I’d struggle to describe to you what happened in any given stage of this year’s Tour or Vuelta as well so maybe I just don’t concentrate.
If you had half as much data and camera angles available in road racing as you do in F1, it might liven things up a bit. Some of it comes down to the commentary as well; the F1 commentary onf Sky SPorts F1 is generally excellent and knowledgeable but there are some dire cycle race commentators. Millar and Boulting are excellent but even they can struggle through a 6hr TdF stage.
Cycling is the new golf. Or
Cycling is the new golf. Or is it the other way round?
Why isn’t buzkashi on the list?
Obviously an insular list to
Obviously an insular list to UK. That said, the big issue with cycling is the incredibly long and boring flat stages…sometimes there’s four or five hours of absolutely nothing before the final sprint. I can start the feed, go to the gym, do grocery shopping, and still make it back home before it’s over. It’s just hard to make cycling spectator friendly for people who haven’t participated and know what it’s like. This is where cyclocross and mountain biking have the leg-up. Unfortunately, every time there is discussion about whether there’s need for 200km long stages, everyone acts like their cereal just got pissed in.
There is a need for 125+mile
There is a need for 125+mile ‘boring’ days because if you try to have balls out racing over three weeks then you don’t have a three week race. Unless you want to bring in blood doping and all that. There has to be something in it for all teams who prioritise different things.
A flat stage can often turn out to be a deciding factor, just look at what happened in the TDF a couple of years ago when the time gained on a flat stage that was meant to be a ‘boring’ stage. The time gained by Froome was virtually the difference over Quintana at the end of three weeks.
As for F1, used to love it, now it’s an utter snoozefest. Gone the way of soccer in that it’s purely about business and is corrupt as fuck, at least F1 doesn’t steal as much money out of the UK as soccer does.
American Football is tedious for the most part, 8minutes of highlights includes multiple replays, test match cricket must be up there though and I did used to play limited overs BITD alongside playing rugby league and squeezing a bit of cycling in too.
I guess followers of each sport like parts of it and loathe some of it also.
I think one of the worst sports is beach volleyball but watching a 10,000m, 20/50k walk or marathon is about the most boring at the olympics.
The problem with cycling is
The problem with cycling is you mostly only get stage racing on terrestial TV and this is really only appreciated by the hardened follower – like test match cricket. I bet if there was more crit and track racing people would change their view. My wife hates TdF when its on but loves coming to the velodrome when I go.
Track racing is boring, just
Track racing is boring, just going round and round the same oval. But I realise I’m not typical, because I think athletics is boring, and this surveys shows most people disagree with me.
Stage racing is very much like test match cricket, in that if you follow it closely the tactics make it interesting, and sometimes exciting, but it demands a certain amount of commitment to follow the whole thing. Otherwise you’re just watching people on bikes. Which, don’t get me wrong, I could happily do all day, but I understand why not everyone would want that.
Mark B wrote:
Maybe you’ve been watching the wrong kind of track racing. Us BMX racers ride on a track and in no way can BMX racing be descrcibed as boring. Maybe we need more BMX or MTB racing instead of other cycling sports to show that being on two wheels really is pretty special.
I note that British Cycling is now reaching out to more people to ride BMX so as to be ready for the 2020 Olympics. Well that makes a change, seeing as how BC deliberately blocked some top UK riders from competing before. Perhaps it’s part of the change underway within BC but I do wonder why Tre Whyte in particular was blocked from attending the BMX Worlds at his own (sponsor’s) expense prior to the last Olympics. By blocking him from the BMX Worlds, it meant Tre was not eligible for the Olympics. The British Olympic squad was allowed to take more BMX riders than it did to Brazil, despite having some quality, world class riders who ended up sitting at home.
There have been allegations of sexism and racism aimed at the previous BC management. I could be more specific, but I’d rather avoid the risk of a libel case thanks. I’ll leave that investigation/reporting to a cycle specific news organisation to dig into some of the back room conversations within BC that have seen some riders being prevented from competing, despite having the skills and ability. I’ll also not go into detail why there is a massive schism between BC’s treatment of BMX racing (as being secondary to track and road) and the BMX racing fraternity in the UK. There are questions in the UK’s BMX fraternity as to why young riders are now blocked from competing properly with rankings in the UK. There are also questions about how the Olympic BMX hopefuls are blocked from racing in favour of training, despite racing being one of the most important factors in training for BMX.
I could go on. But I’ll leave it to the Road CC team to investigate further.