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Live blog: How to win a Zwift race by Ian Bibby; Will Norman tells Karren Brady that cycle lanes don’t cause congestion; The dead otter question; Deer oh dear; Jens Voigt on racing as a parent; Europe’s best hotel is a cycling hotel + more
SUMMARY

Deer oh dear
Canadian Cycling Magazine reports that this cyclist was descending Mount Lemmon in Tucson, Arizona last weekend when he fell victim to a jaywalker. The footage was captured by the rear-facing action camera of the bike in front of him.
The bike suffered a shattered frame, the cyclist suffered a broken foot and road rash. The deer can be seen bounding off at the end.
More collisions and near misses involving cyclists and deer.
Dimension Data's new BMC race bikes
Team Dimension Data have switched from Cervelo to BMC bikes for the 2019 season, and the team appear to be happy with the new equipment. Well they wouldn’t say anything bad about their new sponsor now would they!
Jens Voigt on racing once you're a parent
Jens has six kids.
“With every child born, I did brake a little earlier,” he said.
Via the Economic Times.
Cross-country cyclist taken out by big slab of ice
It’s not just deer you have to watch out for while cycling in the States (see below) – it’s also great big slabs of ice.
While riding through Pennsylvania on his sixth coast-to-coast ride to raise awareness of breast cancer, Brett Bundy was hospitalised by a great lump of the stuff that came off a passing car.
“If it was any bigger, it would have killed me,” he told KTVZ.
He’s taking a week off before recommencing his journey.
Spring classics are just a few months away
But that hasn’t stopped Team Katusha-Alpecin from doing a recon of the pave for the Tour of Flanders. Seems a bit early no?
and… Ebike Vs Light bike climbing challenge
Big Dave takes on Little Liam on the climb up Cheddar Gorge – watch it here.
Yesterday we were mainly talking about… Grayson Perry on MAMILs
Artist, national treasure, and cyclist Grayson Perry talked about his Dutch roadster and offered the opinion that many MAMILs confused status with function (or was it the other way around?), either way plenty of comment was offered back. You can read more/add your own two penn’orth about that here
Mtb works wonders for mental health
The trails of Glentress in Scotland have been used to test pilot a new mountain bike scheme to support mental health patients in the UK, and shown that 10 participants found the sport beneficial as part of a ‘therapeutic recovery programme’. Read more on off.road.cc.
this is one hell of a thread with a lot of good points
A thread on the hypocrisy of car cultures (feel free to add your own, it’s fun!):
A person driving to the gym is a legitimate road user, but a person cycling to work is not.— Tony Arnold (@TonyArnold74) January 23, 2019
If one person reads it and changes their views a little, this guy’s done a good job.
Cyclist injured after hitting pothole finds legal process has outlasted the road repairs
Injured two years ago, he’s going to be examined in March for signs of long-term damage. Meanwhile, the pothole responsible has already reappeared.
TripAdvisor votes Belvedere bike hotel Best Hotel in Europe, Best Hotel in Italy… 2nd Best Hotel in World!
Always nice to see your friends doing well, especially when you know how much work they put in to being the best. If you’ve ever been there – maybe on the road.cc Italy Week – you’ll know what a special place the Belvedere is. The hotel as been a regular fixture in TripAdvisor’s Traveller’s Choice Awards over the last few years, but they’ve outdone themselves this year. Chapeau!
Oh, and we’ll be heading out there in June for some sun, cycling, and superb food… full details to follow but our stay will include entry in to the local Gran Fondo (quite hilly) if you fancy it.
You can find out more about the Belvedere here.
London cycling commissioner tells baroness that cycle lanes are the solution to congestion not the problem
Last week Baroness Karren Brady said of the decision to repurpose one of two eastbound traffic lanes on the Embankment to create a cycle superhighway, “Everyone knows this was a mistake but TfL and the Mayor won’t say so for fear of upsetting the powerful cycling lobby.”
Writing in the London Evening Standard, she suggested rerouting the cycle lane.
This week, in the same newspaper, Will Norman has responded.
He points out that the road was congested long before there was a cycle lane, “and it still would be if it were again just a motorway. Drivers would fill the available space, when what we need are fewer vehicles and better alternatives — exactly what the cycle lane delivers.”
Extra security for Cambridge's £2.5m CyclePoint as thieves target parts
Victim says security is ‘a joke’.
Dartmoor wildlife expert wants to know why man was cycling along East Devon road with dead otter strapped to his bike
Devon Live reports that the otter was bagged in the middle with its head and feet poking out either side.
“As we overtook the man on his bicycle, we suddenly noticed a huge tail sticking out of the bike rack,” said University of Exeter researcher Adrian Colston on Twitter.
“It was obviously an otter. But we weren’t in a position to stop him and ask him. Maybe it was a road accident, and the man was cycling along and decided to pick it up?”
He continued: “Otters are a protected species and this guy is blatantly cycling with it on the back of the bike – he’s not trying to hide it.
“Perhaps he is a wildlife conservationist himself? I wanted to know from people in my network whether it was someone investigating why it died. He may have even been a taxidermist.”
How to win a Zwift race by Ian Bibby, a man who won won a pro Zwift race
Look at those watts! The moment @IanBibby86 dropped the hammer and smashed the first round of the #ZwiftKSL pic.twitter.com/sHqbeal3F6
— MadisonGenesis (@MadisonGenesis) January 23, 2019
Ride at the front of the group, close down moves early and “go balls out” – hopefully not literally – Ian Bibby’s tips for winning on Zwift after he won the first ever virtual pro bike race on Zwift, earlier this week.
Driver fined after pulling out on triathlete at roundabout
Motorist accepts she “overlooked” cyclist.
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Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn’t especially like cake.
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"All that's required is an to roads policing" - that's a big all... Although no doubt the "idiots just keep coming" aspect does apply: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz9lel2wz93o "Man charged after car crashes through bowling alley" - luckily they only skittled over skittles.
Almost any change to roads and streets is accompanied by a period of heightened danger, and in the UK "look out for cyclists" will need to be learned... practically. And over the time it takes for cyclists to become a regular feature. OTOH once (if...) good designs are in and frequent enough such that drivers encounter them AND the cyclists on them regularly (another big if) I don't think they should be much more difficult than a footway to deal with. These things are all over NL - don't have the collision stats but they should. (NL isn't perfect but collecting info on the safety of designs to feed back into better designs as required is part of the "sustainable safety" philosophy - if they're really a killer I think they'd be altering these.)
I'm in the happy position of agreeing with everybody here! I've never considered a bike with a stand, yet I'm impressed by the ingenuity and adaptability of this axle. I tow a Yak Bob with a Robert Axle, employing my El Cheapo Vitus gravel bike and I just have to be very careful where I stop. Hedges are generally a dead loss, and I seek walls, telegraph poles and signposts and generally lean the widest part of the Bob against it. One very awkward task is removing the two steel pins which lock the trailer arms onto the special mounting slots on the Robert axle, and when you have one out, the sodding weight in the trailer can twist the whole caboodle and bend the Bob fitting before you can get the other out and unhitch. I doubt if a stand would help with that. You can imagine that this combo is a real pain when you have to get it over the bridge at railway stations, and it nearly resulted in Merseyrail nearly parting me and the trailer on the platform from the bike on the train. It's a long story for another time. Another axle example recently featured on here, with a 12mm front axle bearing the Herculean weight limit of a monster American front rack.
This has nothing to do with the type of bike - it's the type of behaviour that's the problem. Banning the sale of such bikes will not curtail the behaviour. They'll just find another type of vehicle and continue to drive dangerously as there's such a lack of enforcement. I'd sooner see them ban the bally. But really, all that's required is an improvement to roads policing.
The EAPC Bill is welcome, but full of holes. What's to stop an overpowered but temporarily limited e-bike being sold and subsequently delimited? This is often a trivial process.
@KiwiMike Yeah, in my over four decades of riding all over Europe I've never 'been for a ride in the countryside'. That must be it. Or, and I know this is a wild concept, you just accept that I just voiced my personal experiences and never missed a kickstand, like I wrote. Anyway, what's the big horror of laying your bike on its side for the very few occasions where there is nothing to lean your bike against?
They may have looked, but did they see?
Ds2025: where they are going wrong is that they are crushing the motorbike rather than the person sat on top of it. If they did the latter this issue would be solved in less than 24 hours.
I came this way today with the car boot sale in operation. There was a marshal at the entrance, who stopped a car turning right across the cycleway as I was approaching. So that certainly works. I think it necessary for the marshal to be there, I couldn't say if the driver would have turned if he hadn't been there but you always have to suspect the worst. Unfortunately there is no marshal at the exit, and there was certainly a car stopped across the cycleway as I was approaching it. But he pulled onto the road before I reached it, and the following car stayed off the cycleway as I went through. Ideally there should have been a marshal there too. On the whole, though, it's a really high standard piece of infrastructure. Just a pity it doesn't extend a bit further.
“absolute carnage” So right! Just look at the bodies piled up, blood running in the gutters and injured people limping away. It's a bit of a problem with a road, delaying some people for minutes at a time: it isn't carnage, let alone 'absolute carnage'. Anyone who exaggerates so ridiculously really shouldn't be allowed to comment in public, unless they want to demonstrate their idiocy to all and sundry.
5 thoughts on “Live blog: How to win a Zwift race by Ian Bibby; Will Norman tells Karren Brady that cycle lanes don’t cause congestion; The dead otter question; Deer oh dear; Jens Voigt on racing as a parent; Europe’s best hotel is a cycling hotel + more”
Awesome – almost a twofer
Awesome – almost a twofer
Daily hazard round here but fortunately the forest is relatively flat so you’re rarely doing a full beans descent.
Unfortunately they don’t have insurance or pay road tax. Prefer venison to gammon though.
kil0ran wrote:
Don’t they teach deer the Green Cross Code? Where’s Tufty when he’s needed? Surely he could be brought in to discuss road safety with his forest pals?
Pull the ‘Otter’ one.. it’s
Pull the ‘Otter’ one.. it’s got bells on.
peted76 wrote:
The explanation is clear; their kettle was broken.
So they needed a water otter.
I’ll get my hat.
Baroness Karren Brady says
Baroness Karren Brady says there is a powerful cycling lobby. Oh really? If it’s so powerful, why aren’t the roads safe, why aren’t there proper cycle facilities everwhere, why isn’t 30% of transport funding spent on cycling, why are we still waiting for the government inquiry into road law? Because she’s a liar. You only have to look at the real hierarchy in our transport system to realise who has all the power, and it sure ain’t cyclists.
The only way we are powerful is our arguments, which are utterly compelling, but although we win all the arguments, we still don’t get the funding or support.