“Sir, we’re gonna need a longer B-screw”: Bike shop baffled by bizarre chain routing that left despairing mechanic with “absolutely no f****** hope”; Mountain bike world champ to target road races in 2025 + more on the live blog
SUMMARY
Mason and Magicshine do it again and David Millar's smart new shoes get our seal of approval: road.cc Recommends updated with eight top products
Mountain biking world champion signs for Team Jayco AlUla, will compete in road races next year
Following in Tom Pidcock’s footsteps, South African mountain bike star Alan Hatherly is coming over to the road next season and has signed with Jayco AlUla. The team says the 28-year-old — who won the Mountain Bike Cross Country World Championships in September and picked up bronze at the Olympics — will combine road racing with MTB in an exciting cross-discipline venture.
Hatherly’s Olympic achievement made him the first African rider to win a medal in the discipline. He won’t be a complete newbie to the road, having previously finished second at the South African time trial championships.
“I am incredibly excited for this new chapter in my cycling career and very grateful for the opportunity to ride for GreenEDGE Cycling for the next two seasons,” he said. “I think now is the perfect moment for me to get out of the comfort zone and develop even further.
“Moving to a WorldTour road team is of course something totally new for me, it will be a steep learning curve, and I will be learning from the best. Combining road and MTB is new and refreshing and I am really looking forward to where this journey can go.”
Chris Boardman marvels at world's biggest bike parking facility... which is in the Netherlands (obviously)
The decision to invest €30-million in the world’s biggest bike parking (12,500 spaces) at Utrecht Central Station seems extravagant, but when you calculate the cost of the alternatives—in the context of tens of thousands of bike-train trips each day—it’s an absolute bargain…🧵 pic.twitter.com/nwvQiPZFxw
— Melissa & Chris Bruntlett (@modacitylife) November 7, 2024
This is Utrecht Central Station’s 12,500-space bike parking metropolis. Melissa and Chris Bruntlett, the authors of ‘Building the Cycling City: The Dutch Blueprint for Urban Vitality’, pointed out it cost €30 million and then made the case for why that’s “an absolute bargain”.
An external analysis put the cost of the bike parking facility (including construction and operation) at €1 per user per day, where the cost of bus or tram travel was €3 per user per day. So enabling cycling to the station saved millions in public transport subsidies each year.
The savings were even more dramatic when compared to accommodating car travel to the station. The related negative externalities—such as congestion, pollution, road safety, and public health—were calculated in the tens of millions each year; even in the most optimistic scenarios.
Furthermore, a great deal of traffic congestion can be relieved by replacing a small proportion of cars with other modes. The provision of cycling and public transport supports this shift; allowing authorities to postpone or even supersede road expansions that cost them billions.
By executing this type of social cost-benefit analysis, and considering the full economic impact of alternative scenarios—including doing nothing—cities like Utrecht can justify “extravagant” infrastructure investments, because they know it saves taxpayer money year after year.
Active Travel Commissioner Chris Boardman took note, replying to the thread: “A systemic approach that is fit for the future, on its own, pointless but as part of an integrated transport strategy, it’s proven effective, bluntly, ensuring trains are readily supplied with customers is good, joined up investment (and it’s nice!)”
Nopinz, I'm begging you to please release something for runners...
Please, Nopinz, anything… an adhesive see-through pocket that can be stuck to bare chest? Anything to not see this on the timeline again…
How the other half Zwift
Nada mal o espaço de treinamento do @AbraJonas pic.twitter.com/0nTgAjCQQy
— O País Do Ciclismo (@opaisdociclismo) November 7, 2024
Fair play, Mr Abrahamsen, fair play…
"Selfish and reckless" drug driver jailed after killing cyclist while speeding and five times over cocaine limit, before "fleeing and weaving web of lies"
Dash-cam company shares study claiming a quarter of cyclists run red lights in London and 11 per cent of motorists are distracted, advises everyone to... buy a dash-cam, of course...
This has got a bit of attention, not least since it was shared by ITV yesterday…
Nextbase, the dash-cam company that set up the National Dash Cam Safety Portal for reporting of footage of incidents from the roads, has published a study looking at behaviour of road users in London and claimed that it found 11 per cent of motorists are distracted at red lights, with four per cent using mobile phones, and a quarter of cyclists ride through red lights in the city.
Nextbase said it examined 80 London junctions over a period of several hours, recording the behaviour of over 12,500 road users.
Bryn Brooker, Head of Road Safety at Nextbase, commented: “Junctions can be very dangerous places and must be treated with respect. It doesn’t matter if you’re a driver, a cyclist, or on an e-scooter — running the red light is illegal and puts you and others in danger. Hitting a pedestrian will be life-changing for both you and the victim, and you could easily be hit by traffic coming from another direction. It’s just not worth it, ever.
“This research is not designed to attack cyclists or e-scooter riders. We are simply keen to highlight how a minority of these road users are putting themselves in serious danger.”
Naturally, the conclusion to be taken was (according to Brooker)… buy a dash-cam… presumably a Nextbase-branded one… “Drivers worried about liability in these instances should look into a dash-cam, which will always provide a neutral record of exactly who is at fault in the event of a crash.”
I’d be happy with the Met policing more RLJing cyclists. I’m a bit sceptical of this study finding only 4% of drivers on their phones, because IMO it’s far greater than that. https://t.co/HZb9VGMeLd
— CyclingMikey the Unspeakable (@MikeyCycling) November 7, 2024
🚨Major industry news klaxon🚨... Future of British bike brand Orro secured by investment company promising to "continue its tradition of producing world-class bicycles"
Indoor cycling: Is it really that bad? road.cc's sceptical co-founder's first ride
Right, and on that note I think I’m heading off into the dark for my evening spin… *hopes he remembered to stick his lights on charge*…
"Sir, we're gonna need a longer B-screw": Bike shop baffled by bizarre chain routing that left despairing mechanic with "absolutely no f****** hope"
“Even an Altus couldn’t save them…”
We haven’t checked in with the Trench Tales Instagram page for a while. Beginning to crave our much-needed dose of mechanical misfortune, we looked and weren’t disappointed. I’m sure some of my earlier chain routing attempts might have looked something like this… praise the lord that was quickly remedied via the proper route through a rear derailleur and a bike shop with a penchant for Instagram sharing never got a look at it.
“As always, there’s absolutely no f****** hope,” the mechanic behind the page concluded, finding some amusement in the very existence of the classic ‘you bike shops are on the Shimano take’ joke.
We’re kind of intrigued to see if it actually works as an inadvertent, overly complex and unnecessarily heavy single speed set-up.
Trench Tales reckon it “ever-so-slightly-sorta-kinda” would work… “unless it didn’t”
As ever, the comments section was a hive of helpful advice and back-seat drivetraining, one follower joking: “Just screw in the B tension and you should be good.”
Another helpfully added: “Always aim for a clean chainline.”
The page dedicated to showcasing life in the trenches as a bike shop mechanic, its undramatic bio simply “the abyss, gazing back” has a rich history of live blog gold, from battered rusty bikes that had the toughest of lives, to unbelievably worn tyres and drivetrains, Trench Tales has seen it all. Good motivation to get your chain checker out once in a while…
> “Just replace the chain, it’ll be fine”
The genre of social media posts from bike shops and mechanics showing questionable maintenance was the subject of an online discussion the other month, one cyclist suggesting shops shouldn’t be “shaming your customers on social media”, that debate sparked after a California-based mechanic posted an image of a cracked stem with the caption: “Came in for new cables, leaving with a new stem too… #YourBikeHatesYou”
Some said that while these sort of posts can come across as elitist and may appear like they are taking a knock at those just taking their first steps in the home mechanic journey, but others argued that if done with no harmful intentions and more importantly, keeping the cyclist/user anonymous, it can be some quick insightful content in jest.
One person said: “How is this shaming? showing clearly worn out parts and showing that they look over the bike completely to make sure their customers ride safe?” to which the original poster replied: “It’s the ‘your bike hates you’ hashtag. This picture with a different caption would be a lot more helpful.”
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Latest Comments
@Rome73 The solar panels top up the battery. A battery is still needed especially when there isn't enough direct sunlight onto the panels to provide assistance. Brings a new meaning to fair-weather cyclist.
roadcc sinks to new low, next week wee reviewing electric cars !
@GravelIsNothingNew nearly, but not quite.
@chrisonabike I think its defining features are that it has nothing to do with sport, and very little utility.
@Sriracha I'm guilty of this because it's easier than going through the collision dynamics (which I'd no doubt get wrong). It's a proxy - I guess it's more fairly useful for explaining to the occupants of motor vehicles why less speed could be better (for them) eg. when crashing into an minimally yielding hard object? And for a gross "what damage does the vehicle do" in a collision - cyclists don't commonly bend or break street furniture, or buildings... As you say accelerations are more to the point. Of course as others note with larger heavier vehicles you could still suffer additional impacts (vehicle carries you on its front into an unyielding object, or you go under it / into a wheel arch). Plus potential crush if it ends on top of you.
I think you sort of miss the point. The idea of " pulling up whenever you fancy " just isn't possible with a roof tent as they overtly advertise your being there. You are limited to camp sites, themselves getting more and more expensive. A van remains the only viable choice for a true adventurer, as you can legitimately just pull up and go for a ride. Stealth... Stealth is the name of the game and a big orange triangle on your roof is only going to attract attention and end one way....
Again, two photos of the tyre still banded up fresh out of its packaging. No photo of the tyre fitted and inflated clearly showing the tread and profile.
I don't think the research stands up to the highest levels of scrutiny but the long notjusbikes video about this issue ("these stupid trucks are literally killing us") references some things like companies effectively "marketing towards arseholes" and a version of the common "roadkill experiment" by Mark Rober which had "SUV" drivers as the biggest (fake) animal killers. Now that these things are everywhere * perhaps this effect would be smaller. But perhaps it's not shocking that "less pro-social types" might be more likely to get a big mean car (and drive aggressively) than a 2CV... * What exactly is an "SUV"? Is it more "bigger car" plus the "look"?
@ROOTminus1 Plus 1 from me. I'd also add "LibreWolf" - Firefox fork that is focused on privacy and security. It adds some things like letterboxing to defeat fingerprinting by screen size, deletes most cookies on close by default, has other privacy protection mechanisms.
We need to take different driving tests to be able to operate different (larger/more dangerous vehicles). Should we have a much longer learning period (including requiring cycling on roads so they become aware of the dangers) and tougher test for people who want to drive them?
32 thoughts on ““Sir, we’re gonna need a longer B-screw”: Bike shop baffled by bizarre chain routing that left despairing mechanic with “absolutely no f****** hope”; Mountain bike world champ to target road races in 2025 + more on the live blog”
A quickish fix for the bad
A quickish fix for the bad chain routing: unscrew the top pulley axle. The swear box will fill up a bit putting it back on if you don’t remove the back wheel but better than splitting the chain if you don’t use quick link.
Pub bike wrote:
You’re probably going to have to split the chain anyway, what are the chances that the person who installed a chain like that managed to get the length correct?
On ‘Trench Tales’: perhaps
On ‘Trench Tales’: perhaps the customer hadn’t realised that you have to measure the old chain, and remove links so the new chain is the same length? If they just put the chain on straight out of the box, it might end up like that…
Some said that while these
Some said that while these sort of posts can come across as elitist
Reminds me of the rather good sketch with Rowan Atkinson, and Mel Smith I think, playing counter staff in a ‘HiFi’ shop, ridiculing the customer not versed in HiFi jargon. Probably ‘Not the 9 ‘O Clock News’
wtjs wrote:
I actually had a similar stem
I actually had a similar stem issue. Went in for a bike fit a few years back, and the fitter found a hairline crack in the faceplate when adjusting the stem. Was very happy to leave that one with a new stem rather than finding out the hard way!
Is that one of them defective
Is that one of them defective Sram chains that re-routes itself?
The fastest route through a
The fastest route through a corner is a straight line. I cut out all those squiggly corners in the derailleur
If anyone is struggling with
If anyone is struggling with sleep here’s more of the world’s biggest cycle garage (“Fietsenstalling” = “cycle stables” apparently):
Clearly providing all this parking space is symptomatic of the terrible failure of the Dutch system and “cycle infra” in general (is this right?)
Of course the value of bike parking at stations runs into another problem in the UK which is it does rather depend on existence of trains (ones which are frequent, reliable, connect to most places, are not far more expensive than driving etc.)
Naturally “ride to the walk /
Naturally “ride to the walk / shopping / cafe” parking is also required for city centres:
…just as in the UK we have multi-story car parks around the “shopping streets” and/or at big stores.
“By executing this type of
“By executing this type of social cost-benefit analysis, and considering the full economic impact of alternative scenarios—including doing nothing—cities like Utrecht can justify “extravagant” infrastructure investments, because they know it saves taxpayer money year after year.”
We’re decades behind in the
We’re decades behind in the UK of being able to do this, Utrecht works because the Dutch prioritised safe cycling infra, which makes convenient bike park facilities a necessity.
You could spend 30million GBP, more like 50-60million based on our track record of infrastructure projects, but you’d still have a crappy ride to the station to use it.
Don’t forget the trains when
Don’t forget the trains when you get there also…
True, fwiw they’re half
True, fwiw they’re half decent round my neck of the woods, but I appreciate having travelled around the UK via train, it ain’t always so good elsewhere.
If only public transport were
If only public transport were like this (video of NL looking in part at the public transport connections / stations in small towns with frequent services)…
… but “people won’t pay for it, because it’s expensive, because we don’t have enough users, because it’s often infrequent and unreliable, because …”
Ultimately “because we got rid of lots of services because we decided to make way for driving”. And now we’ve made it often quicker, easier and – remarkably – cheaper to drive.
“However, he said that by
“However, he said that by moving his head around Wilkinson, who was driving at around 20mph, could and should have been in a position to have seen Mr Down. “
But it was “a one in a million accident”.
Which was it then ?
tipper truck as well.
Lorry driver cleared of
Lorry driver cleared of killing cyclist
https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/24707865.felixstowe-lorry-driver-cleared-andrew-death/
How in the name of heaven and
How in the name of heaven and hell can blind clear you, when he could have seen the rider if he’d moved his head?
“I was driving a lorry that I
“I was driving a lorry that I knew had blindspots but I didn’t take account of the fact that a cyclist might be in one – got to be a one in a million chance…”
“Ah well then, discharged without a stain on your character or licence…”
On a point of genuine curiosity, how can a cyclist entering a roundabout from the right of a lorry driver in a right-hand-drive vehicle possibly be in a blind spot? Quite obviously he simply didn’t look.
A Felixstowe lorry driver
A Felixstowe lorry driver accused of causing the death of a 69-year-old cyclist by careless driving has been cleared by a jury.
A jury of drivers not cyclists.
Mr Bleaney told the jury that prosecution and defence experts agreed that there were three blindspots in the lorry Wilkinson was driving.
However, he said that by moving his head around Wilkinson, who was driving at around 20mph, could and should have been in a position to have seen Mr Down.
So he chose not to look, but that isn’t careless, according to the jury of drivers.
….described it as “a one in a million accident”.
Considerably less than that if he doesn’t bother turning his head to check, in fact, it’s odds on.
Great to see justice being done by our superb system.
In case anyone missed it in
In case anyone missed it in yesterdays blog here are the two pevious articles. The second one contains the testimony from the driver.
https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/24702352.trimley-careless-crash-death-trial-begins-ipswich/
https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/24705235.felixstowe-lorry-driver-gives-evidence-trimley-crash-case/
Bungle_52 wrote:
So all he had to say to the family is “sorry, not sorry”. Disgusting and so are the jury.
The most concerning thing is the “as I was driving correctly”. I just cannot accept that at all and if he continues to drive like that, then others are going to be put at risk.
Yes, and plenty of people
Yes, and plenty of people ‘drive as correctly’ as him on the roads round here, tbh I always expected this outcome, simply because of my experiences with local drivers who made up the jury and the countless times I’ve used that roundabout and been put in danger by the way drivers approach it.
Another thing that wasn’t
Another thing that wasn’t mentioned in the news articles, is why this lorry was there in the first place. There are weight restrictions on both exits, the lorry has been described as an 18 tonne tipper.
Location of collision from report: https://www.cyclestreets.net/collisions/reports/2020371002018/
Looking at the Streetview on
Looking at the Streetview on the link you give, on the exits to the roundabout there are 7.5 tonne weight limit signs but underneath it says “Except for loading” so presumably if he was going to collect rubble from a building site or similar he would be permitted to use the road.
There have been, and still
There have been, and still are, plenty of construction sites for new housing around the Trimley area. In fact the other cyclist killed by a truck driver in the area in the past couple of years, was on a roundabout put in for one of those developments.
Worth highlighting also the signage isn’t always maintained, the Kirton side the sign is often completely hidden by overgrown hedges/bushes, as are the roundabout approaches.
Statement from the family of
Statement from the family of the cyclist killed https://www.ipswichstar.co.uk/news/24708294.felixstowe-family-statement-andrew-crash-trial/
Thanks for the link. I’m
Thanks for the link. I’m still trying to get my head around this. Lorry driver kills cyclist and its not even careless and everyone seems quite happy to let him carry on driving the same vehicle with it’s blind spots so he can kill another with impunity. Something is wrong somewhere.
theres an attitude I
theres an attitude I encounter alot locally, and demonstrated in bucket loads by drivers on my commute home tonight, that cyclists shouldnt be on the roads, because its dangerous for cyclists to mix with traffic, so that anything that then befalls you by their crappy driving and inability to look, think ahead or simply drive safely, is your own fault, not theirs.
so I can almost guarantee the jurors sitting there and saying stuff like, well its a dangerous roundabout, trucks are bound to use it and they cant be expected to see in their blindspots, and if you needed to cross the A14 to get to Kirton, you should use the footbridge instead thats what its there for.
RIP.
RIP.
As has been said in other cases “the cyclist was there to be seen”.
Here: “The prosecution case is that Andrew Down was visible and could have been seen and should have been seen and we suggest the defendant is sitting in the dock because his driving fell below the standard of an ordinary, careful driver … ‘If you can’t see, you don’t go’ “.
Unfortunately “seeing” is an active thing. As a society we seem to accept that “looking” is good enough e.g. didn’t have windscreen blocked by stuff / wasn’t just on the phone. And in fact even the latter is increasingly “understood”.
This was a professional driver operating a large vehicle, not just an “ordinary driver”…
I was wondering why the
I was wondering why the prosecutor used the word ordinary rather than competent. The two seem completely different to me.
If your interest was piqued
If your interest was piqued by using piercings to attach race numbers, you’ll love this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feVQXqvBZx0