An appeal for donations has been made to raise money for award-winning framebuilder Rob English, originally from the UK but now based in the US, who suffered multiple injuries in a crash while racing in Oregon last weekend.
English, winner of best in show at the 2013 North American Handbuilt Bike Show, was riding in the Tour of Aufderheide when his bike left he road on a fast descent and he hit a tree.
His injuries include multiple broken bones and he remains in hospital, with doctors saying that his recovery is going to take a long time, which will also prevent him from working.
To lessen the financial impact, money is being raised for English and his family through the website Give Forward, with almost $8,000 donated so far.
On this side of the Atlantic, Talbot Cycles are auctioning one of their Dalsnibba or Trollstigen (the disc braked version) race frames made from a mixture of Columbus MAX, Spirit MEGA, Zona, swaged 853 and Paragon Machineworks. Neil from Talbot told us: "He (and his bikes) are a significant inspiration for the bikes that we (as Talbot) make, and he’s always been really helpful whenever we’ve had a technical question."
The frame is being auctioned on ebay - current highest bid is £1,000. If you'd like to bid you can do so here.
An engineering graduate from the University of Cambridge and top-ten finisher in the British national time trial championships, Rob now lives with his wife in Eugene, Oregon and founded his business English Cycles in 2009, going full-time last year.
You can donate here.
Born in Scotland, Simon moved to London aged seven and now lives in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds with his miniature schnauzer, Elodie. He fell in love with cycling one Saturday morning in 1994 while living in Italy when Milan-San Remo went past his front door. A daily cycle commuter in London back before riding to work started to boom, he's been news editor at road.cc since 2009. Handily for work, he speaks French and Italian. He doesn't get to ride his Colnago as often as he'd like, and freely admits he's much more adept at cooking than fettling with bikes.