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Live blog: Specialist bike shop Ubyk reportedly ceases trading – but has it found a buyer? Team Sky sacrifice aero gains for festive spirit; County Down cycle lane cleared by ‘bloke with shovel’ + more
In today’s cheesy festive pro promo vid of the day, Team Sky are apparently ‘cold’ in Mallorca, so the wagon stepped in to give them something festive to warm up…
Thu, Dec 20, 2018 15:19
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Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn’t especially like cake.
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Latest Comments
Chris RideFar 6 minutes ago
@mctrials23 I totally agree with you, the RRPs are becoming meaningless are can therefore be seen a marketing trick. As I said, road.cc should do some real journalism and analyse the reasons behind these inflated prices and look at historical trends and how we got here.
quiff 9 minutes ago
I love how many videos on road.cc prompt detailed local knowledge from readers! I don't have any in this case, but the way we describe locations is context specific - if I was describing it for a police report, I'd describe it the way you have, but for the purposes of describing it to a cycling website, referring to e.g. the nearest large residential area (Blanchardstown seems to be c.7km away?) doesn't seem unreasonable.
Paul J 14 minutes ago
@mdavidford To be further fair to the blogger, Blanch is a sprawling mess of bland suburban hell that seems to keep expanding and consuming every townland around it. So... this will be close to Blanch one day, soon enough, if not today.
Paul J 17 minutes ago
@Zermattjohn That's quite possible - the turn there left on to Tinker's hill is very sharp and tight. Cars coming from the direction of the cyclist have to swing out to make that turn, and there are regularly conflicts between cars turning up Tinker's hill and cars coming down. Which is almost surely why there was a garda already standing there.
mctrials23 20 minutes ago
@the little onion I think that too many casual cyclists still identify far more with cars or at least the politics of anti cycling and their default point of view is "I hate cyclists but I'm one of the good ones that bows to the alter of the car". The same ones that somehow have apparently been cycling for 20 years and never had a bad overtake or an issue with a car because they are such a great cyclist. I would just love to go out with these people on their rides.
Jack Sexty 22 minutes ago
Gove absolutely might have been complete unrepentant even if the cyclist was perfectly polite. But that wouldn't have given him any room to accuse the cyclist of being "unmannerly", which is the only thing Gove could realistically have accused him of doing wrong here.
mctrials23 23 minutes ago
@Chris RideFar I wouldn't perhaps be quite so in the gutter but on windy country roads where people fly around corners I am somewhat scared that being in the middle of the road will get me killed. I get far far far too many passes from people who don't give a single shit that they are overtaking on a blind corner or on the crest of a hill. They simply don't care. They overtake me with plenty of space but they are just rolling the dice. I don't want to be in a position where someone reacts to a car coming the other direction and that reaction is to plough into me in the middle of the road. I don't want someone to be going far too fast around a corner and I am there in the middle of the road. I don't think taking primary at times is bad and I do do it. I just don't think its a panacea for people doing shitty overtakes and I think that in plenty of circumstances its more dangerous than sitting to the side.
mdavidford 33 minutes ago
In fairness to our blogger, the map of the ride posted to Instagram looks like this, so you can see why they might have described it that way.
mctrials23 33 minutes ago
Not gonna lie, I love the look of these tyres.
mctrials23 34 minutes ago
@Chris RideFar I don't know how many people are paying these prices but the GP5000 S TR which is pretty much the gold standard for tyres and one that a huge number of people in clubs ride can be picked up for about £50-55. A little less if you want a slightly less trendy size like a 28mm ;) Even at that price it feels like a lot but I think the RRP of a lot of tyres isn't remotely what they sell for. Its likely more marketing than anything else. If you came out and said "this is a top top tyre, its £40" some people would instantly associate the price with lower performance.
19 thoughts on “Live blog: Specialist bike shop Ubyk reportedly ceases trading – but has it found a buyer? Team Sky sacrifice aero gains for festive spirit; County Down cycle lane cleared by ‘bloke with shovel’ + more”
Well done Terry, is there
Well done Terry, is there some sort of award road.cc could give him?
Had something similar last year, with overgrowing foliage blocking the local paths, so I got the battery powered hedge trimmer out and sorted it myself, didn’t even bother wasting my time asking the council.
burtthebike wrote:
The cordless Hedge Trimmer is the tool of power for those in a similar position, you can do so much in so little time with them and they re about as safe as they possibly can be to use… weve kept a 7.4km long greenway clear for over five years using two of them !
scrapper wrote:
Nice one.
I’m kind of hoping that you use two of them yourself – one in each hand, swinging your arms in great circles whilst letting out a rampaging war cry against foliage.
HawkinsPeter wrote:
The cordless Hedge Trimmer is the tool of power for those in a similar position, you can do so much in so little time with them and they re about as safe as they possibly can be to use… weve kept a 7.4km long greenway clear for over five years using two of them !
— scrapper Nice one. I’m kind of hoping that you use two of them yourself – one in each hand, swinging your arms in great circles whilst letting out a rampaging war cry against foliage.— burtthebike
Juggling them surely?
Whilst rending the air with screams against the austerity that means the councils don’t have the resources to trim a hedge anymore.
burtthebike wrote:
Technically, it only counts as juggling if you use less hands than objects, so for two hedge trimmers you’d have to use one hand (which to be fair is quite feasible – ex-juggler here).
HawkinsPeter wrote:
Sorry, but that picture would only count if it was a squirrel juggling the shears or the man juggling sharpened squirrels.
burtthebike wrote:
Tough crowd!
HawkinsPeter wrote:
Oh no it’s not!
CygnusX1 wrote:
Is this some kind of joke to you?
HawkinsPeter wrote:
All a bit soft really that, a real man juggles chain saws in a ring of fire
burtthebike wrote:
Please send that man my road.cc socks, which I am going to win of course.
Elf and Safety gone mad,
Elf and Safety gone mad, innit?
If its not safe for a council worker to walk along with a broom then surely it is not safe as a cycle lane / pedestrian footway either. Ciouncil effectively admitting that the infrastructure they built is not fit for purpose.
Or if its safe enough for pedestrians and cyclists surely a bloke with a hand cart and broom or even a snazzy little pavement sweeper EV could manage to negotiate it without dying a gruesome death?.
Astonishingly, are not liable
Astonishingly, councils/authorities are not liable for “accretions” on the highway, and councils hide behind this to avoid keeping roads clean.
(Section 41(1) of the Highways Act 1980).
I wonder if tory Cllr Susan
I wonder if tory Cllr Susan Webb also considers the billions spent on building more roads to encourage more people to drive everwhere “vanity projects”? Or is that particular epithet only applicable to schemes to get people out of their cars.
^^ forget the ring of fire,
^^ forget the ring of fire, real men wear a neckerchief and no shirt ^^
Ubyk saga on STW. Long read
Ubyk saga on STW. Long read but the new owner appears to discuss the situation in more detail.
hopster wrote:
Aside from the shittyness of losing money to a fraudulent company, that’s an amusing thread in the typical STW competition for stupid prize and other internet stalking (for the wrong person, obvs) wankery.. Hat off to the new owner, even after the demands that he pays out for the previous owner’s shenanigans, and suppliers stepping in.
Head down TTing kills. Not a
Head down TTing kills. Not a great advert really. Plus, his helmet with the head down is so un-aero that he is being overtaken by a lovely lady on her shopping bike! Pahhh!
The old Ubyk owners seen like
The old Ubyk owners seen like scam artists after reading stw. New owner seems daft wanting to use a name with much bad will associated.