Welcome to Wednesday’s live blog, with Jack Sexty, Simon MacMichael and the rest of the team.
Today’s crazy Vuelta stage the fastest 200km+ bike race in history (+ highlights); US firm in a “Spin” over its claim to have trademarked the word; Doping – a Viz reader writes; Watchdog bans Deliveroo bike delivery + more on the live blog
All today’s news from the site and beyond…
Wed, Sep 11, 2019 18:50
11 September 2019, 18:50
Essential advice as ever from the Viz letters page
11 September 2019, 18:50
At 219.6km, today’s Stage 17 of the Vuelta was the longest of this year’s race – and at an average speed of 50.63kph is thought to have been ridden at a faster pace than any 200km-plus road stage or one-day race in the history of professional cycling.
It’s also the fastest stage in the Vuelta during the past 15 years, eclipsed only by Stage 9 of the 2001 Vuelta as shown in this list provided by Procycling Stats in their excellent livefeed of today’s stage.
https://www.procyclingstats.com/race/vuelta-a-espana/2019/stage-17/today/situation
As you’ll see from the list, stages ridden when EPO use was at its peak in the peloton dominate; there’s only one other stage from the past decade, from Andorra La Vella to Lleida in 2010, when there was a drop of 830 metres in altitude. Certainly, it’s well documented that the average speed of Grand Tours has dropped noticeably since the early 2000s.
A number of factors combined to make today’s stage so quick. As in that 2001 stage, there was a split in the peloton due to crosswinds and today that was followed by a tailwind.
With seven riders in the 45-strong front group, Deceuninck-Quick Step rode hard – and saw Philippe Gilbert take the win in Guadalajara and James Knox jump from 11th to 8th overall. Other teams in the front group had numbers too and an interest in distancing the other GC contenders – not least Movistar, whose quartet of riders included Nairo Quintana who leaps from sixth to second overall.
What we can say with certainty is that today’s stage was quicker than the fastest road stage ever at the Tour de France, which also came around the turn of the millennium, when Mario Cipollini won a 194.5km stage from Laval to Blois at an average speed of 50.4kph.
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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
ChrisA 2 hours ago
@quiff And not all EAPCs comply with the EAPC regulations: Viz; fitted with pedals, have max 250W motor, 15mph cut off, etc.. An EAPC that does not comply with the regulations, is treated as a motor vehicle, etc.. To paraphrase the DVSA & DoT guidance. :-)
Mr Blackbird 4 hours ago
@the infamous grouse I would imagine most women in sport's priorities are the same as men in sport, in no particular order: Sporting success (titles, medals etc), Personal satisfaction, Respect from fellow professionals, Respect from the media (much less important than that from fellow professionals), The feeling of belonging and contributing to a team, Fair renumeration and being able to make a living from the sport. I do think that women's sport (and men's to a lesser extent) is still sometimes patronised by parts of the media, where there is total ignorance of the talent, efforts and sacrifices required to get to the top. One example of this was the past heralding of Katy Price aiming to make the GB Olympic Equestrian squad. I'm not sure whether things like this calendar contributes to the patronisation.
the infamous grouse 4 hours ago
@Mr Blackbird i find it all quite laughable, the person being targeted isn't pretending to be a sportsperson ... she's being eyecandy. surely the women in sport don't care about or aren't interested in male recognition?
ktache 6 hours ago
@Rendel Harris I think it was jitensha_oni who when this was discussed previously, posted a Surrey by law that made pushing a bicycle on a public footpath was an offence.
Mr Blackbird 7 hours ago
@the infamous grouse I think a calendar with shots of women cyclists competing or training would be much better. I am still on tablets as a result of seeing the cycling video for Ariana Grande's "Side To Side" a few years ago. I later found out that the lyrics were even ruder than the video 😯
rookybiker 7 hours ago
Losing the metal shims is a downgrade. These shims are one of the best features of the SPD-SL cleats, as they avoid the "imprinting" of the bolts into the plastic that makes other road cleats hard to fine-tune after some use (I'm looking at you, Time i-clic).
mitsky 8 hours ago
Honestly, the backlash to the Novig advert is not wide enough. For future reference: https://www.thisgirlcan.co.uk/
mitsky 8 hours ago
Unduly lenient sentence. My guess is, his self-belief that he did nothing wrong is so ingrained that there is a strong possibility that he might be involved in something in the future. (Assuming he can afford any future insurance premium.) Then hopefully this incident can also be taken into account to have him banned for life.
chrisonabike 9 hours ago
@Rendel Harris the "relationship engineering" of a product and how that then evolves (because humans exist in societies) is a fascinating business. To a first approximation aren't products designed to be loveable? (Leaving aside the "marmite effect" or "learn to love it" of eg. hot chilli or beer) Doesn't a great deal of effort and indeed trial going into that, from making things "self-explanatory" through decent ergonomics to hooks like having "a satisfying click" and "making me walk tall"? It would be remarkable if people *didn't* love their cars. Because cars weren't set up as a simple blag (or have outlasted it) there's also the mitigating or getting us to overlook the unpleasant parts. As with other "addictive" things those become increasingly noticeable once the first thrill lapses. Luckily we aren't great at saying "could things be better? Let's step back and see whether they might be overall if I did things differently. Allowing that any change will be work and take time to get used to".
Rendel Harris 9 hours ago
Got to take issue with "traditionally" there, Coppi, Anquetil, Merckx, Moser, Hinault, Fignon all rode it (all bar Anquetil and Fignon winning at least one) and further back GT winners like Garin, Lapize, Pelissier, Maes etc all won, one could go as far as to say that traditionally grand tour contenders frequently rode it and frequently won, it's only in the modern era that teams have decided that they shouldn't risk their golden geese.
16 thoughts on “Today’s crazy Vuelta stage the fastest 200km+ bike race in history (+ highlights); US firm in a “Spin” over its claim to have trademarked the word; Doping – a Viz reader writes; Watchdog bans Deliveroo bike delivery + more on the live blog”
I wonder if the cyclist being
I wonder if the cyclist being deliberately run over with life changing injuries will generate the same level of outrage as the cyclist head butting the pedestrian?
burtthebike wrote:
It definitely won’t. And it’ll be more to do with gang warfare than hatred for cyclists.
Obligatory call for cars to be fitted with number plates to allow them to be traced when they leave the scene of an acc… oh wait! Not that having number plates is a requirement for car drivers anymore. I often see cars driving around London without plates fitted.
srchar wrote:
My first thought, too.
Hey – maybe we’re looking at ‘headbutting cyclist’ incident all wrong… Maybe there was a previous conflict at a bridge club or something, rather than their being total strangers
brooksby wrote:
My thought too. There was clearly a close passing of the cyclist & pedestrian. Did the cyclist have right of way? Did the pedestrian say something highly offensive to the cyclist? I have no idea but there is more to this than the video shows.
burtthebike wrote:
Tricky one, it might because it was a 17 year-old, but then maybe not because it was only a cyclist… or maybe it will because perpertrator was a yoof… or maybe not because he was in a car… or maybe it will because he fled the scene.
Or the 4×4/little shit story
Or the 4×4/little shit story from yesterday.
So an American corporation
So an American corporation “owns” the rights to an English word? What’s next, no more spin cycle for washing machines?
Philh68 wrote:
the whole , spinning, is only ‘spinning’ if you are ‘spinning’ with a trainer, trained in ‘spinning’ who’s paying the American corporation, for the privellege of calling his ‘spin class’ a ‘spin class’ thing, has been going on for many years. It’s nuts, but that seems to be the way of the world now. Soon, you won’t be able to go for a ‘shit’ without someone claiming a copyright infringement, if this carries on.
Judge dreadful wrote:
they could market a toilet under the brand name Pooloton which bland beautiful people could sit on in their vast apartments in front of the landscape windows, laying some massive cable without even their t-shirt getting sweaty.
Philh68 wrote:
No, in broad terms an American corporation has the right to use an English word to sell goods or services in specified classes in a particular geography for a limited period of time. I assume their registration doesn’t cover washing machines. What I don’t understand is why the owner of the “spinning” trademark is taking action for use of the word “spin”, which they don’t appear to have a registration for. Maybe this will turn out like the Roubaix debacle, where Specialized got heavy handed over a cafe using the name until Fuji bikes pointed out that actually Specialized didn’t own that, they did.
I’m not sure what I think
I’m not sure what I think about the Deliveroo judgement.
I never actually believed that a kid on a MTB could deliver to a fleeing bank robber or to the ISS – I’d assumed it’s what used to be called “artistic licence” – so I wouldn’t have taken on face value that they could deliver “anywhere”…
I mean – Domino’s don’t deliver to my village even though there’s a branch in the next town 4 miles away, so I wouldn’t imagine Deliveroo would either.
brooksby wrote:
Dont assume anything with advertising… Red Bull lost a case based on someone who said that he was not given wings as promised.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/29550003/so-red-bull-doesnt-actually-give-you-wings.
Oh, and the rolling bib shorts into the jersey video… genius!
PRSboy wrote:
+1 on that!
CygnusX1 wrote:
That’s the way I’ve been doing my t-shirts when I go on holiday for the last few years, takes up less space than folding and gives a nice tight bundle. I bought a couple of t-shirts when I was away recently and folded them like this on the shop counter.
Redvee wrote:
I’ve recently started using fold and roll for most of my tshirts etc that go away into a drawer, avoids getting creases that get compressed by the weight of others above, and it’s much easier to find the one you want when they’re layed out visibly rather than in a stack. Keeping the bib shorts inside the jersey is a minor stroke of genius though.
I’d be most happy if they
I’d be most happy if they change their name to “America corporate fitness giants are a bunch of c*nts”