road.cc live blog: Documentary on why cyclists 'enjoy' suffering on YouTube, study finds dangerous noise levels in spin studios, near miss cyclist pulls giant knife on driver in Croydon, Team Sky reveal Ocean Rescue TDF kit (+ more)

Woldsman wrote:

“You ain’t no weight weeny, bro. You ain’t no weight weeny.”

And... he's gone full roadie. Holes in the blade to save weight. Handle's probably high modulus carbon too.

S_P_A_C_E_M_A_N wrote:

I know it's subjective, but that Sky jersey looks terrible. I applaud the cause, but couldn't they have done a bit better with the design? 

Agree on the front, but the back will look ace from a helicopter shot.

thehill wrote:

what about all the bidons that get thrown into the undergrowth/side of the road during a race. is old dave going to commit to somebody going round and collecting all of these aftera  stage

All Elite bottles (the most common in the Pro peloton) are 100% biodegradable. They're made of corn based 'plastic' rather than oil based. They've been this way for years. Even the caps are made of corn.

Ken Alog wrote:

thehill wrote:

what about all the bidons that get thrown into the undergrowth/side of the road during a race. is old dave going to commit to somebody going round and collecting all of these aftera  stage

 

All Elite bottles (the most common in the Pro peloton) are 100% biodegradable. They're made of corn based 'plastic' rather than oil based. They've been this way for years. Even the caps are made of corn.

Unfortunately the biodegradable credentials of corn starch plastics are at best limited.  Firstly the ethics of growing crops to produce plastic rather than food is a questionable one.  Secondly this material (PLA) will only Biodegrade in a Land Fill environment so any thrown in the hedge will not biodegrade as you have been lead to believe by the marketing department.   Also i think you will find the FLY bottle that the pro teams use is made from a plastic composite and not corn starch and certainly will no biodegrade.  So Sir Dave will need to send a clean up team to follow the race and pick up any bottles not taken by fans.  Lets just hope they drive an electric van powered by electricity from renewable sources when they do!       

Team Sky spurt all the stuff about plastics and saving the oceans but clearly do not consider that flying their riders around in privately chartered jets & helicoptors adding unnesssary air polution to the environment & wasting fossil fuels is a bad thing?   

Ken Alog wrote:

thehill wrote:

what about all the bidons that get thrown into the undergrowth/side of the road during a race. is old dave going to commit to somebody going round and collecting all of these aftera  stage

 

All Elite bottles (the most common in the Pro peloton) are 100% biodegradable. They're made of corn based 'plastic' rather than oil based. They've been this way for years. Even the caps are made of corn.

With all due respect, that's not true. They're made of plastic pellets held together with 5%  corn based oil (PLA) so in most respects they're very very similar to 'oil' based products. They are 95% 'oil based' product.

'Biodegradable' from a marketing point of view does not mean that it breaks down into CO2 and H2O, as in 'disappears'. Like many single use plastic bags, they are biodegradable because they break down from their bag form into plastic micro pellets which then enter the ecosystem. Many of these things have to go into a commercial composting system (I've tried putting 'compostable' coffee cups and lids into my compost at home, and they're still there a year later, unchanged) to degrade to their constituent parts, and actually commercial systems won't allow them in. 

Think about it, if they are going to decompose at the side of the road, they'll also decompose on your bike, so either thy'er going to decompose / biodegrade / break down very very slowly (in which case they're still 'litter') or only under very specific circumstances, and that is what the real case is. Coffee cups can be advertised as compostable, but in reality the fibres they are made of are, but in effect when those fibres are coated in wax and made into a cup, they aren't. 

So, no, those bottles thrown aside, though marketed as 100% biodegradable are to all intents and purposes, and in the majority of their uses, non-biodegradable, so should be taken home and recycled where possible (they're not recyclable from a commercial perspectiove, so end up in landfill when put in re-cycling), or (my preference) sent back to the manufacturers for them to live up to their claims.

dreamlx10 wrote:

Maybe they could promote the recycling of used inhalers too

You so furnney

StoopidUserName wrote:

dreamlx10 wrote:

Maybe they could promote the recycling of used inhalers too

You so furnney

Stoopid by name stoopid by nature

joules1975 wrote:

Team Sky are clearly trying to make a big marketing win out of stuff they could/should be doing anyway, but still, I applaud them for doing those things.

Is it really better than not bothering? The green special edition ones they wore in 2011 did nothing to help the rainforests. And it's all a bit hypocritial coming from the pro peloton's spendiest team* and likely the biggest consumer of natural resources, especially fossil fuels.

It's all just greenwash / whalewash.
 

* the 2016 budget was £31 million. For 2 dozen blokes to ride their bikes with some other blokes following them around in cars.

Simon E wrote:

The green special edition ones they wore in 2011 did nothing to help the rainforests.

Not strictly true. Sure the jerseys didn't do much but they were advertising something that did make a difference - not much of a difference maybe, but a difference is better than nothing.

 https://rainforestrescue.sky.com/

Simon E wrote:

And it's all a bit hypocritial coming from the pro peloton's spendiest team* and likely the biggest consumer of natural resources, especially fossil fuels.

It's all just greenwash / whalewash.

I think that's a little naive/short sighted. Yes it might be better for the environment if Sky didn't exist (waits for people to come up with other reasons too), but if Sky aren't there another team would be. Sky or whoever are not suddenly going to stop - there is clearly a demand for cycle races and they are simply helping to fill that demand. Therefore it's important that they do something to mitigate the impact they have doing what they are doing.

Also, if suddenly cycling stopped, the riders and staff would go off and do other jobs and other things with their lives, which for all we know may have bigger environmental impacts.

So rather than thinking that anyone impacting on the enviroment should stop what they are doing, get realistic, realise that they are going to have an impact whatever they do, and applaud their efforts to reduce that impact.

Could they do more? Sure, loads, but you have to start somewhere and if enough people applaud them for the initial efforts they are more likely to do more.

This applies everwhere, not just to Team Sky.

Quote:

* the 2016 budget was £31 million. For 2 dozen blokes to ride their bikes with some other blokes following them around in cars.

Now you're starting to sound jealous.

joules1975 wrote:

I think that's a little naive/short sighted. Yes it might be better for the environment if Sky didn't exist (waits for people to come up with other reasons too), but if Sky aren't there another team would be. Sky or whoever are not suddenly going to stop - there is clearly a demand for cycle races and they are simply helping to fill that demand. Therefore it's important that they do something to mitigate the impact they have doing what they are doing.

Also, if suddenly cycling stopped, the riders and staff would go off and do other jobs and other things with their lives, which for all we know may have bigger environmental impacts.

Bigger than running the massive Death Star bus plus the other vehicles, plane flights here, there and everywhere? And that's not just to races but all year round. You'd need quite some job to match that for the 70-odd riders and staff; and the costs won't include the sponsors, suppliers, liggers and whoever else is travelling too.

joules1975 wrote:

So rather than thinking that anyone impacting on the enviroment should stop what they are doing, get realistic, realise that they are going to have an impact whatever they do, and applaud their efforts to reduce that impact.

I'm sure lots of people find tokenism like this is more than adequate. I don't. This whole "raising awareness" of a single environmental issue by multinationals without addressing any of their own impact in any way is a crock of shit. I hate to shatter any illusions but cutting out single-use plastics on the team bus is a start but it's a nanomillilitre-sized drop in the ocean. Making another batch of jerseys may seem to be better than doing absolutely nothing (though I'm not sure how) but it's nowhere near as good as genuinely making a difference. If you like their shade of greenwash that's fine but it's still greenwash. I prefer to wear the MCS Save Our Seas t-shirt from Rapanui.

joules1975 wrote:

Quote:

* the 2016 budget was £31 million. For 2 dozen blokes to ride their bikes with some other blokes following them around in cars.

Now you're starting to sound jealous.

Ha ha, not in the slightest! For comparison AG2R spent 8 million Euros that year to do the same.