Welcome to Thursday’s live blog, with Jack Sexty, Simon MacMichael and the rest of the team…
Live blog: Strava cuts ties with Relive, says new updates violate contract; road.cc’s John puts BBC straight on how bikes stay upright + more
All today’s news from the site and beyond…
Thu, Jul 11, 2019 18:07
SUMMARY
11 July 2019, 18:07
Froome experiencing major FOMO ahead of Tour's toughest stage
Massive FOMO today
Won my first @letour stage on La Planche des Belles Filles in 2012. What I wouldn’t give to be there racing it today
Please smash it @TeamINEOS https://t.co/3QVjDxbcEb— Chris Froome (@chrisfroome) 11 July 2019
That’s ‘fear of missing out’ if you weren’t aware, as stage six heads towards the place where Froome won his first Tour de France stage back in 2012.
11 July 2019, 18:07
Peter Sagan double-header
Sagan was back to his best yesterday, taking stage five in emphatic style – and once more gave something back to his eyewear sponsor 100% by donning one of their ski masks.
In other Sagan news, here he is convincing us the world is flat thanks to the Specialized range of e-bikes. The man can do no wrong…
11 July 2019, 18:07
Sir Dave Brailsford plays down rumours that he's set to step down as Ineos cycling team manager to take on wider role for the company
Ineos CEO Jim Radcliffe is known to be an admirer of his new cycling team’s general manager, and it was reported yesterday evening in the Telegraph that Brailsford could be set for a new role that would see him oversee all of Ineos’ sporting interests – which is growing at an alarming rate, having just purchased French League 1 football club Nice.
However, the Guardian reports that Brailsford was dismissive of the rumours when speaking to press before yesterday’s Tour de France stage, saying he doesn’t want to leave cycling completely: “You are constantly looking for things to challenge you and push you on. I don’t want to leave cycling, I love it too much, but equally I think this could be quite a challenge and it feels really invigorating.”
Brailsford is already set to be involved in Eliud Kipchoge’s second attempt to break two hours in the marathon , which is being organised by Ineos and will take place in Austria this October – do you think Brailsford will be tempted by a new challenge, and would the team be as successful without him?
11 July 2019, 18:07
Huge doping probe by Europol results in 234 arrests and 3.8 million substances seized
A big investigation by Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement agency, has led to a huge seizure of doping substances and led to 234 arrests, according to their press release. In all the bust shut down 17 organised groups, stopped operation at nine underground labs and seized 3.8 million doping substances and counterfeit medicines. Mario Thevis, head of Europol’s doping analysis lab in Cologne, said: “We learn from the case that obviously there is a big market. Only if there is a large market will imports and structures of this kind be built.“
It follows on from Operation Aderlass, when a number of pro cyclists and cross country skiers were caught in raids across Germany and Austria. No names in cycling have been implicated yet, but we’ll update if there are further developments.
11 July 2019, 18:07
Sagan's dad is pure gold
Well, @petosagan if we don’t see you on the start line bright and early, we know where you’ll be! #TDF2019 @BORAhansgrohe pic.twitter.com/6Ops3w1qn8
— Le Tour de France UK (@letour_uk) 10 July 2019
After three world championships and 11 stage victories at the Tour de France, it’s (sort of) lovely to see Peter Sagan’s old man acting like a complete loon celebrating his son’s twelfth TDF stage victory!
11 July 2019, 18:07
Adam Blythe rides today's brutal TdF stage finish on a Brompton - and pops a wheelie
How do you make a devastating climb look easy? Wheelie your way up… @AdamBlythe89 tackles La Planche des Belles Filles in the stage six recon finish #TDF2019 #TheBreakaway pic.twitter.com/mizH7BRwhs
— Eurosport UK (@Eurosport_UK) July 11, 2019
11 July 2019, 18:07
Dylan Teuns victorious on brutal stage 6 summit finish
Victory for @dylan_teuns!
Victoire pour @dylan_teuns !#TDF2019 pic.twitter.com/ySZiNdNMP7— Tour de France (@LeTour) 11 July 2019
Behind him, Geraint Thomas made up some time over other GC contenders with a very strong finish on the savage gradients and Giulio Ciccone put himself in the yellow jersey – full story to follow.
11 July 2019, 18:07
Strava vs Relive continued
With both sides blaming the other, Strava have made a new statement in response to Relive’s, standing by their view that Relive broke API terms by using the data of Strava members. Here’s the statement in full:
“We have strict standards for how our API partners utilise our member data. We deeply respect the trust of our member community and expect our partners to do the same.
“Relive’s current use of Strava member data violates our API agreement and we have ended its integration with Strava. We are disappointed that Relive was unwilling to make the changes necessary to comply with the agreement.”
11 July 2019, 18:07
The BBC tries to explain how a bicycle stays upright - and road.cc's John Stevenson points out where they went wrong
With bikes in the news after Channel 5’s portrayal of us cyclists as lawless killers, the BBC has gone after a bit of cycling-related website traffic with an article that asks the question ‘How does a bike stay upright?’
Good question, you might say, and it is. But unfortunately the article doesn’t get even close to answering it, and makes at least one serious error while failing to reach that destination.
After quite a lot of waffle about the gyroscopic effect of a spinning wheel, the piece concludes that this isn’t actually what keeps a bike upright as it rolls along. It cites Dr Hugh Hunt from the University of Cambridge, as having built bikes with extra, contra-rotating wheels cancelling out the gyro effect of the wheels on the ground. Turns out they’re still stable.
Rider skill, the article concludes, is what keeps a bike upright, which would be fine if it weren’t for the fact that you can push a riderless bike off down a slope and above a certain speed it will keep going.
As well as failing to explain what keeps a moving bike upright, the Beeb repeats common misconception about wheels. It says: “when you sit on the bike, the axle pulls down on the rim and acts like an arch … you are, in effect, hanging off the rim of the wheel.”
Except you’re not. If that was how wheels worked, then the upper spokes in a loaded wheel would have higher tension than when not loaded. A few minutes with a spoke tensiometer reveals that they don’t change, but in fact the tension in the lower spokes reduces.
This matters because it implies something important about building wheels: high tension is good. If the tension in a spoke drops to zero, the nipple is free to turn, allowing the wheel to go out of true. If several spokes end up with zero tension, the wheel can collapse because the spokes are no longer holding the rim in place.
A good wheelbuilder therefore builds with as much spoke tension as the rim can take, and well-designed rims have sturdy spoke beds to take the load from the nipples. If spokes increased in tension when a wheel’s loaded none of this would matter, but observation confirms that under-tensioned wheels quickly develop problems and high-tension wheels don’t.
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Jack is group editor across road.cc, off.road.cc and ebiketips, overseeing all three sites in the F-At Digital group to make sure everything’s up to scratch. He’s been writing about cycling and multisport for over a decade, arriving at road.cc via 220 Triathlon Magazine in 2017. He worked across all areas of road.cc including tech, news and video, and also contributed to eBikeTips before being named editor of road.cc in 2021 (much to his surprise). Jack has been hooked on cycling since his student days, and currently has a Trek 1.2 for winter riding, a beloved Bickerton folding bike for getting around town, and an extra beloved custom Ridley Helium SLX for fantasising about going fast in his stable. Jack has never won a bike race, but does have a master’s degree in print journalism, and two Guinness World Records for pogo sticking (it’s a long story).
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Latest Comments
Rendel Harris 10 minutes ago
@kinderje Are you aware that -ise endings are actually the newer form, having supplanted -ize (as used by Shakespeare, the King James Bible and Jane Austen, amongst many others) in the mid 19th century? Etymologically there is a far better argument for -ize endings for words with Greek and Latin roots than the -ise ending which arose from Victorian publishers imitating French verb endings. Both endings are now regarded as acceptable in British English, although the Oxford style guide recommends -ize. It is most certainly not incorrect.
mdavidford 18 minutes ago
@Backladder Given that the makers are selling it as being useable on any ride on open roads, it doesn't seem unreasonable to try to test it in those conditions.
mdavidford 21 minutes ago
'Leasting'? That's a whole 4 letters less.
mdavidford 25 minutes ago
Although usually the easiest thing of all would be for them just to stop for a few moments while you cycle past them (which requires a lot less space to do safely than them passing you), but most people seem allergic to stopping, even for the briefest time.
mark1a 1 hour ago
@Backladder Oh I think I can guess - the nearest indoor velodrome to road.cc HQ looks to be some distance away in Wales, whereas Odd Down Cycle Track (where this test was conducted) is just 2 miles away.
Cugel 1 hour ago
There are a number of causes of "the divide between motorists and cyclists". Only one is to do with the technology (of bicycles and cars) and that's the nature of the car, which is designed to induce the sort of dangerous and careless behaviours that providing humans with a lot of power and glamour fetches out of us. Other causes are much more insidious - A culture of hyper-individualism bordering on solipsism, with violently ultra-selfish and aggressive anti-heroes being promoted in every mass media channel as the ideal. A "news" media that overwhelmingly seeks, creates and offers pariahs and scapegoats to the rabid individualists, which pariahs and scapegoats includes all kinds of those perceived as less powerful and therefore easy victims, including cyclists. The near complete lack of any curb upon the dangerous antics of vast numbers of media-maddened motorists by the forces of law and order, many of whom are actually members themselves of the mass media maddened motorist ilk. ******** No amount of a more rational discourse about active travel or the means of making it safer will change these root causes of the vast numbers of deaths and maiming due to inept, incompetent and deliberately violent antics of vast numbers of motorists allowed their dangerous "weapons of choice". Yet many other highly damaging aspects of modern societies would be solved by a much more effective curbing of mass media mob-building and goading along with a serious attempt to prevent motorists and a whole range of other damagers from behaving as badly as so many do. It'll not happen, of course. Large and powerful elements of the modern world obtain far too much ultra-riches and power from current conditions for them to allow any significant change. And vast numbers of the population have long had their minds, attitudes and behaviours captured and directed by various oligarchical monsters and their mass media propaganda horns. About the only chance of safe active travel becoming extant is for the population at large to become mostly too poor to afford a car, ironically one other likely outcome of the machinations of those same power and money-mad monsters that have created the car-issue in the first place. Their need for zero-sum socio-economic arrangements degrades everything, including the wallet-contents of the masses.
Rendel Harris 1 hour ago
@Astralstroll The hierarchy of road users does not mean priority of road users except in certain circumstances, e.g. stopping to let pedestrians cross junctions before turning. It doesn't mean that cyclists have priority over motor vehicles at all times any more than the pedestrians have priority over cyclists at all times. It certainly doesn't mean that you have priority in the circumstances you describe; personally, unless the driver is being a complete dick, on a narrow country lane I accept that it is easier for me to turn around and go back to the nearest passing place, which is never that far if you're on a bike, than for a tractor or other large vehicle to reverse back down the road for my benefit.
Backladder 1 hour ago
If you were spending that much money on the device the obvious thing to do is to book a couple of hours in a velodrome for testing in a stable environment, I can't understand why Road.cc tried to do it outdoors.
wtjs 2 hours ago
@Astralstroll The Hierarchy of Road Users, announced with great fanfares in 2022, has been rendered into complete fiction by the attitude of the police: there is this hierarchy/ priority list but we don't take it seriously and if drivers ignore it we don't care! The same applies to the ludicrous notice of close-passing - No KSI'd cyclist = No Offence ttps://upride.cc/incident/lwa190_minicooper_hierarchy/
5 thoughts on “Live blog: Strava cuts ties with Relive, says new updates violate contract; road.cc’s John puts BBC straight on how bikes stay upright + more”
that peter fella is gold for
that peter fella is gold for our sport
You can link the following
You can link the following with Relive.cc too:
Endomondo, Garmin Connect, Runtastic, Suunto, MapMyRun | Walk | Ride | Hike & Polar Flow.
Redvee wrote:
i read it as “Relieve” and was thinking “top spots to pee while you’re riding- that’s brilliant”
“If that was how wheels
“If that was how wheels worked, then the upper spokes in a loaded wheel would have higher tension than when not loaded. A few minutes with a spoke tensiometer reveals that they don’t change, but in fact the tension in the lower spokes reduces.”
This doesn’t make sense. First part of the sentence says the tension doesn’t change, then after the comma says tension reduces. If you are going to criticise other people’s errors make sure your correction makes sense!
pruaga wrote:
I think it’s meant that the tension in the upper spokes doesn’t change whereas the tension in the lower spokes does change.