Live blog: Zwift launches pro cycling league; the most active region in the UK; can Dave Brailsford ‘reach into the toilet and pull out chocolate’? + more

I'm honestly amazed that horse riders dare take to our country roads. I have no idea what the actual statistics on collisions are but they are very slow moving, often 2 abreast and generally on the little twisty turny country lanes. With the way far too many people drive on these tiny roads, I wouldn't dare be on a horse on them. On my weekend ride this week a pickup driver (shocker eh) nearly crashed into a poor lady head on because he simply couldn't wait until it was safe to overtake. Poor womans ABS kicked in and she had to go into the side of the road to avoid him as he barrelled on through and she still only missed him by inches I reckon. All because too many people don't care. If he hits her he will have a crash on his insurance but he almost certainly wouldn't be banned despite it being a fucking braindead overtake that he clearly does as a matter of course. He is a danger on our roads but we will never treat him as one until he kills or seriously hurts someone and we can prove he was completely at fault. Even then it will have been a "one off" according to his lawyer. A lapse. About 2 minutes after this near miss a BMW flies past me giving me plenty of space and gently drifts back over to our side of the road. He was going about 45 and was on the wrong side of the road going around a blind corner while he drifted back in. If someone else doing the same speed was coming around that bend he would have binned it into the hedge or hit them. The mind just boggles. Absolutely zero reason he didn't pull back in faster. Just didn't occur to him I assume. This is why it scares me on our country roads. Far too many drivers who are just fundamentally dangerous, bad drivers.

There needs to be a change in the language used when reporting on things like this. If there is ever an incident involving a cyclist it is very much dehumanised. Cyclist = Inanimate object. Not a human being, with family and loved ones. its all so easy to make them look more like a statistic. The more people who understand that cyclists are real people just trying to live their lives and and not just an obstacle or inconvenience then we might have people treating them the way you would wish to be treated.

@OnYerBike Hmm, and when I click the links to "preferred partners" for a small sample of items, they are not found on the preferred partners sites. So... seems it is now defunct too, as you surmise.

If the riders want a parade lap, then let the organisers set an officially neutralised parade lap. If some of the riders just don't want to race, then that's between them. They don't get to badger the organisers to neutralise the end of the race. And anyway, if they take final GC times at X km to go, that just sets the race to end at X km to go. If a GC rider really wanted to, they could try attack before then (course, it would lack the course feature advantageous for getting away that the riders wanted excluded.. but still). The riders trying to bring in safety, when conditions were fine and the circuit was also fine, is just going to undermine their voice in the future when they try bring up safety the next time. Stupid.

@james-o Yes. The mountain bikers are still breaking the law. I saw two more yesterday.

@james-o Yes. The mountain bikers are still breaking the law. I saw two more yesterday.

@panda I don't think there would be a problem with maintaining a GC truce, because it only has to be maintained until the times are taken. In the case of Paris, everyone could ride in fairly easy, couple of parade laps up and down the Champs, times taken, and then if after that Pogacar wants to tow Del Toro round three laps of Montmartre, or indeed go for the stage himself, no worries. I too am of the generation when the organisers held that sort of sway, nothing like as important now when 90% plus of the top riders' salaries come from the team rather than prize money, indeed I believe it's customary for the winner nowadays to give their prize money away to the rest of the team. This is, I believe, a good thing; although rider power can sometimes appear a bit excessive in its demands (the main reason for asking for neutralisation yesterday, as explained by the rider representative, seemed to be "we're all knackered", which was pretty ridiculous) at least organisers can no longer dictate that they must go on in dangerous circumstances. As they were saying on commentary yesterday, what they need to do is for the rider representatives and the organisers to get together as soon as, or even before, the route is announced and iron out any problems then instead of waiting until the eve of the stage or even, as in stage of the Giro this year, to complain about the parcours while it is in progress.

@Riggers No single option has really filled the void. For clothing, Sigma Sports probably has the best range, but tends to be higher end brands at RRP (or close to). They also have the Universal Colours brand, but my impression is that leans towards form over function (i.e. looks nice but isn't actually great quality). For steep discounts on brand name stuff, Merlin is probably the best bet. Beyond that, a lot of googling and shopping around - Tredz, bikeparts.co.uk, Condor, SJS Cycles etc. Van Rysel at Decathlon is probably the closest comparison to dhb for good quality "own brand" stuff at a sensible price.

@Paul J As I understand it, the sale did include the IP for the dhb brand, and I think Frasers/Evans claimed to have been planning to keep the brand going. That said, there's no reason to think that the brand has/will retain the quality or value credentials it was formerly known for - I don't believe any staff were retained, nor any obligation to retain or restore relationships with the suppliers that had previously manufactured dhb-branded kit. Far more likely dhb becomes another "brand" plastered across the cheap tat that is the hallmark of the Frasers empire. I note the dhb website you link to doesn't appear to have been updated since February 2024 (based on Wayback Machine archives).

@Rendel Harris I think it says a lot about the previous two days that not many guys chose to race for the sake of racing. If the win is prestigious (like Paris) and/or the previous stages haven’t been so brutal then more teams and riders will choose to race. It’s a shame because Paris the last couple of years has been great and I can see what they were thinking! Few minor tweaks and I think it works. I’m also from a generation where an organiser could just say “the course is safe, if you want your prize money, race. No tears” and it would have happened unless Hinault didn’t fancy it. Which he would’ve. I could also see a situation where a GC contender wants to work for one of their team-mates who has worked for them for three weeks so a GC cordially agreed truce wouldn’t be possible, but how big would the time gaps be, anyway?