Our live blog can sometimes be slow to load so you may need to refresh your browser if it’s taking too long.
Live blog: Vuelta highlights, jobless Aqua Blue riders make best of it by going on epic bikepacking adventure + more
All today’s news from the site and beyond
Thu, Sep 06, 2018 14:41
Help us to bring you the best cycling content
If you’ve enjoyed this article, then please consider subscribing to road.cc from as little as £1.99. Our mission is to bring you all the news that’s relevant to you as a cyclist, independent reviews, impartial buying advice and more. Your subscription will help us to do more.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
16 Comments
Latest Comments
yodhrin 3 hours ago
@robgodd The poor guy himself suffered a traumatic brain injury and his skull was so badly shattered a significant portion of it had to be removed - do me a favour, have a look around cycling helmet manufacturers and see if any of them claim the foam hats they produce will protect against or even mitigate that level of injury. I'll wait if you like, but I can save us both the time and tell you what you'll find: none of them. Not a single one of them will. Because they don't, and they *can't* based on simple physics. Once the point of failure in a material is reached all(or as near as makes no odds) of the additional force beyond that necessary threshhold transfers through to the object beneath. Since bicycle helmets are rated for forces roughly equivalent to being dropped straight down from a stationary start 1.5m above a hard surface. Now, I'm not an expert in vehicle crash investigation, but I'm *fairly* sure that any impact or series of impacts powerful enough to render a quarder of your skull into gravel, put you in a weeks-long coma, give you massive amnesia, and leave you with ongoing symptoms of traumatic brain injury are a little bit, a teeny-weeny amount, a little smidgeon-widgeon more than what bike helmets are rated for. That's why none of the companies that make them claim they will help in such circumstances: because they know it would be a lie, and that unlike uninformed punters, carbrained journalists, or "medical professionals" who think wearing a helmet would save you from a broken arm(an actual scenario encountered by a mate, who's nurse at the A&E tutted and harrumphed her way through his whole treatment due to his lack of helmet despite his bonce having come through *being hit by a car* - another scenario bike helmets are worthless in - completely unscathed), the lawyers for those companies know their business and understand that if you lie in advertising you will get sued into the ground.
Mr Blackbird 4 hours ago
The Battle of Ypres April 1915. The German infantry division advanced using das Brumptstadt Fahrarden. The slow speed kept them behind the cloud of chlorine gas as it drifted towards the Commonwealth trenches. The offensive cleaved a two mile gap in the Western Front. The use of cycles was copied by the Japanese as they invaded Singapore and Burmah. By then war technology had embraced wider low pressure tyres, carbon frames and hydration gels. The German forces decided not to incorporate cycling as part of Operation Session, as bike theft in London and the South East was rife and would have caused huge casualties. Ironically superior advancement of tyre technology led to a British victory at El Alamein. This technology played a key part in the US Marines victory at Iwo Jima.
ROOTminus1 4 hours ago
The appropriate response to Google pissing on your cereal is not a fancy new sugar that removes the taste of urine. Stop using Google products where you can. Firefox browser and DuckDuckGo search engine have had noticeable upticks in market share by explicitly NOT pushing AI.
belugabob 5 hours ago
my thoughts exactly...I wonder how that approach is working, with motor vehicle drivers...🤔
Anonymousattorney 5 hours ago
I do not wish to diminish the personal tragedy, but one never hear calls for pedestrians or even hikers to wear clothing with integrated lightening rods.
chrisonabike 5 hours ago
RE Andy Burnam / Heidi Alexander - this is the best thing in many ways - set an example (even if currently it leads to lots of online name-calling). And imagine some of the political alternatives! The folks in the apparently second-placed party seem incredibly unlikely to be doing so. And even the current "new Greens" seem less interested in ... y'know, environmental things. OTOH I wish Heidi could be bolder. And I fear that like anyone ambitious enough to get to the top (exception B Johnson - well, I guess there was the Corbyn bicycle...) Burnam will be trimming his transport policy sails to fit the wind (should that be "bunker-fuel-burning engines"?)
Rendel Harris 5 hours ago
@mattsccm Bull bars aren't banned, they just have to conform to regulations so they are deformable or have plates that allow crumple give on contact, rather than rigid steel bars that can smash into pedestrians and cyclists with no give at all, catch them and drag them under the wheels. If you think that's a problem, do one. Why should who is responsible for a collision remove the responsibility of people driving a tonne of machinery on the road from having safety features to at least mitigate some of the effects of a collision?
AidanR 5 hours ago
I'd be willing to bet that's lazy use of stock photography rather than deliberate misinformation, but the result is still the same.
Backladder 5 hours ago
@smallbeer You obviously don't realise how many bulls there are wandering around Chelsea, in and out of the china shops, that he needs to protect his Range Rover from.
chrisonabike 5 hours ago
I agree, it's bloody 'elf and safety overreach, can't help some people, I put some meat, sorry, neat decoration on the front of mine and the polis were round poking their noses in like that (mind you, that was a mistake...) (etc)
16 thoughts on “Live blog: Vuelta highlights, jobless Aqua Blue riders make best of it by going on epic bikepacking adventure + more”
So that’s where the sheffield
So that’s where the sheffield ofo bikes end up!
Well done Daniel, even if the
Well done Daniel, even if the perp seemed a rather sad person. I’m sure the police will learn the lesson and equip all officers with a decent bike to catch criminals on foot.
burtthebike wrote:
Yeah, felt a twinge of sympathy for him there.
Re. Tavistock Place. All that
Re. Tavistock Place. All that fuss (how long in consultation?!?) and looking at the map it’s about 50 inches long.
The taxi lobby in london have too much power.
StoopidUserName wrote:
it’s part of a very significant cycle corridor. It’s been a cycle lane for years, maybe 10 years – I’ve been using it for at least seven years. I use it a lot more now that they’ve replaced the previous kerbs separating the lanes. This is a good result.
What they need to do now is resurface Tottenham Court Road, which is pit-holed to fuck.
I love these professionals
I love these professionals doing their bike tour just for the hell of it. I wonder how many accountants lose their job but then go off and do some double-entry bookkeeping together for a couple weeks, just because.
So dark shoes aren’t even
So dark shoes aren’t even acceptable now. Get Sir Chris Boardman on the case.
Organon wrote:
They have form for bringing this shit up for motorcyclists on their FB page too, they never apply this to car drivers, bunch of victim blaming cretins. HC needs to be changed ASAP, lighting regs need changing too. Get rid of reflector requirements and static and/or british Standard lights because that’s so ridiculously out of date.
If you can’t see any person or vehicle on the road during the day or at night by your own headlights then you’re travelling too fast, driving distracted or not competent mentally or physically to be allowed on the road other than by foot
So, ignore your own rules to victim blame, wankpuffins
BehindTheBikesheds wrote:
As you no longer drive a car, thought you might be interested to see this from a drivers point of view.
Please note that as a driver, I don’t want to see you at the range of my headlights, I want to see you at the greatest distance possible even if that is 1/2 a mile away so that I can adjust speed, take road position and generally plan well ahead for your presence. Even to the extent of protecting you from other traffic.
As for dark shoes? In this video, pretty much the only visibility of the peds is motion of their light coloured trainers.
Mungecrundle wrote:
You have so much to learn about safe driving and what the statement in the HC means. You can’t even grasp that driving faster because you can see stuff further means shortened thinking time, massively increased braking time and more incidents.
Congratulations on proving how much you know about safety, the sqaure root of nowt.
BehindTheBikesheds wrote:
Who said anything about driving faster? I think I was explicit in stating that I want to see vulnerable road users at the earliest possible moment exactly so I can plan for their safety.
Probably best that you have given up the car. Not only are your driving skills rusty but your powers of critical thinking are also on the wane.
Anyway, winter is coming (in Sean Bean accent) so another season to test out your theory and maybe as the nights draw in you will be able to regale us with a few more anecdotes of incidents where drivers claim not to have seen you.
I’m finding that dog really
I’m finding that dog really annoying today. Look at its grin, and its puffed-up stance. Little git.
It’s gonna be a long Friday… roll on the weekend.
davel wrote:
Grumpy today, are we?
davel wrote:
Haters gonna hate.
Much better now. Chris bless
Looking at the vid, Munge has
Looking at the vid, Munge has a point. Once the light starts to fail why stack the odds outside your favour? You can make your point that drivers SHOULD see you in your ninja gear and maybe they should but the reality is they need a helping hand. God knows what sort of people are out there.
I had eye surgery the other day and whilst I was walking back to the car (wife drove!) with a patch on one eye and the other blurred to hell, I said to her “I bet there’s people out there with worse sight than me at the moment”. I bet there are. Don’t become a pair of shoes you see at the last moment. Maybe you can’t get Rapha in hi-viz but whatever.
Flashing xmas tree posse in tha house!