Welcome to your Wednesday live blog, with Jack Sexty, Simon MacMichael and contributions from the rest of the road.cc team.
Live blog: Boulton talks b*ll*cks?, Boardman talks infra, Sagan rocks disc wheel + disc brakes at San Juan ITT, those NSW cyclists the cycle path driver swore out turned out to be cops on a day off + more
All today’s news from the site and beyond
Wed, Jan 30, 2019 20:22
SUMMARY
30 January 2019, 20:22
Now this looks fun...
SNOW CYCLING: Cyclists took part in a four-day mountain bike festival held in the Swiss Alps. The race features a prologue and three stages, and takes place over 80 miles of snow-covered trails. https://t.co/G2edmGoirf pic.twitter.com/4jiD2DADKi
— ABC News (@ABC) 29 January 2019
30 January 2019, 20:22
Rajistan cycling team were sleeping 30 to a room on the floor at Indian National Champs, reveals Times of India
Cyclists given pathetic accommodation in bitter cold at Nationals in Jaipur
READ: https://t.co/vKHYoKcIgS #Cycling pic.twitter.com/3tthe1aWlu
— Times of India (@timesofindia) 30 January 2019
Thought our cyclists have it tough compared to more lucrative sports? Spare a thought for those trying to carve out a pro cycling career in India, where it appears funding is seriously low if this story is anything to go by. Times of India reports that the 30-strong Rajasthan men’s team were put up in a 30ft x 20ft hall behind the velodrome stands of the Sawai Mansingh Stadium, with just mattresses laid on the floor to sleep on in temperatures dipping into single figures, with no hot water. Riders are reportedly worried about speaking out through fear of their team selection is dropped, and the Rajasthan Cycling Association claimed this was all they could afford based on their measly budget.
30 January 2019, 20:22
Sky presenter Adam Boulton tweets about Deliveroo couriers cycling on pavements in discussion about killer driver's sentence
Not to mention @Deliveroo bikers riding on the pavement, wrong way up roads, not stopping at crossings etc. All witnessed by me today. https://t.co/ZuYhvqLOxB
— Adam Boulton (@adamboultonSKY) 28 January 2019
Boulton has been described as “deeply sick” amongst other things by some on social media, as the tweet above was interpreted as an attempt to deflect from the news of a drunk driver who killed a three-year-old child when his car smashed into the car the child was sitting in.
A 3yr old child inside a Volvo, was killed by a drunk & speeding driver in an illegal vehicle, and THIS is your attempt at deflection?
You really are a deeply sick individual.— Simon (@muddydwarf) 28 January 2019
The inquest into the incident is currently taking place, with Cornwall Live reporting that Andrew Vass, 26, hit a bank when overtaking a lorry, after which his vehicle became airborne and smashed into the passenger side of the Volvo three-year-old Reuben Williams was sitting in. Vass was found to be over the drink drive limit, and it has since emerged that he previously served a five year sentence for the manslaughter of cyclist John Reeder in 2013. Mr. Reeder was chased and pushed off his bike, suffering fatal head injuries.
It’s not known why Boulton thought the comparison was necessary, and he’s yet to make any further comments on social media. He was widely criticised for penning an anti-cycling column in the Sunday Times back in 2017 (read more here).
30 January 2019, 20:22
All or Nothing - Spanish MTB racer takes on a season of Cyclocross
The Spanish MTB star takes us inside the heart of a cyclocross season. Grab a cuppa, this is well worth a watch.
30 January 2019, 20:22
Careful out there today! How to ride in the ice and snow
We’ve had another road.cc staffer who will remain nameless not heeding the advice of our riding in the ice and snow feature and landing flat on his backside this morning (slipping on black ice on a main road kindly left ungritted admittedly)… so do as we say and not as we do and find out how you can stay upright here!
30 January 2019, 20:22
Chris Boardman and Will Norman among speakers at All Party Cycling Report today
Both @Chris_Boardman and @willnorman talk about #walking as well as #cycling. Chris has a ‘double buggy test’ ie, can it get thru? Making space better used. pic.twitter.com/t2Ph7vRp82
— Jenny Jones (@GreenJennyJones) January 30, 2019
Boardman discussed numerous ideas during the meeting, and revealed Manchester is also working on a plan for a docked bike share scheme after the failure of its dockless Mobikes due to vandalism and theft. Here he explains his criteria for creating safe spaces for pedestrians and cyclists, outlining that if a double buggy can’t get through the space isn’t fit for purpose.
30 January 2019, 20:22
Valverde gets rainbow-themed shoes and saddle for the Mallorca Challenge
The world champion will wear new rainbow-infused Infinito R1 Iride shoes and ride a Antares 00 Iride saddle with a rainbow stripe in the middle for the first time at the Mallorca Challenge, which starts tomorrow. Neither will be available to the public, but you can see the regular versions of both products on Fizik’s website.
30 January 2019, 20:22
Things go from bad to worse for Aussie cycle path driver - as it emerges the cyclists he swore at were off-duty policemen
Cop that: ‘F–king d—head’ cyclists were off-duty policemen https://t.co/H8toaJYLWb
— Illawarra Mercury (@illawarramerc) January 30, 2019
On Sunday we reported on a video showing a New South Wales man driving on a shared path, berating two cyclists for using the road when in his opinion, they should have been using the path. The video divided opinion on social media, however the driver later handed himself in to police after broadcasting himself to over 2 million people driving on a forbidden path and using a mobile phone while driving. If that wasn’t enough, it’s now emerged that the two cyclists were in fact off-duty policemen, reports the Illawara Mercury. Worryingly it’s emerged that members of the Australian public who thought 27-year-old Thomas Harris was in the right have set up a crowdfunder to pay off his growing legal bills; however the Illawara Mercury has refreshingly posted an editorial opinion piece reminding drivers that they don’t own the roads. Here it is:
“To all the drivers out there who think you own the road, you don’t.
If you are driving a car on our roads it is your obligation to understand you need to share the road with other vehicles such as trucks, buses and yes, even bikes. Cyclists have as much right to be on the roads as others. As a driver, when you sit behind the wheel, it is your duty to be aware and responsible for not only your own safety, but the safety of your passengers and the safety of other road users. Cyclists included. Suck it up. Under NSW legislation bikes are considered vehicles and are therefore entitled to the same rights you are as a driver of a vehicle. Some national media outlets have reported the cyclists in the footage of a motorist abusing riders at Jamberoo were in the wrong because they were not “using the bike lane”. Critically, it was not a bike lane. A bike lane is a part of the road.It was a shared pathway and therefore the cyclists are totally entitled to ride on the road just as the angry motorist should have been doing. Also under NSW law, bicycle riders are allowed to ride two abreast, but not more than 1.5 metres apart. Nothing lights up social media and anger in drivers than the age old debate about cyclists on the road. Well, people of the Illawarra, you best get used to respecting cyclists on our roads. This region has been awarded the privilege of hosting the world road cycling championships in 2022. We have been afforded that honour in part for the wonderful roads and environment cyclists in our region get to experience.
“The eyes of the world will be on our region in the lead-up to and during that event. Sure, cyclists must obey the road rules too. No question. But motorists must understand cyclists have as much entitlement to the road as they do. And if you don’t like it, “on yer bike”. And if you are going to be aggressive in our roads and get caught well, you might just lose your license and guess what your only mode of transport will be?”
30 January 2019, 20:22
Croydon 'Zombie Knife' cyclist who was originally handed suspended sentence jailed following appeal
18-year-old Joshua Gardner, who was filmed slashing at a car window with a ‘zombie knife’ after the car nearly made contact with his bike, has now been given a three year jail sentence following an appeal, reports the BBC. Appeal judges said his original twelve month suspended sentence was too lenient, with Lord Justice Leveson commenting: “There can never be any excuse for carrying a weapon of the type this offender carried.”
Gardner’s initial lenient sentence was handed out because it emerged he had recently been kidnapped, which the judge said reduced his culpability. He’d been kidnapped and forced to sell drugs for ten days prior to the incident in Croydon, and his defence claimed his vulnerability led him to carry the knife for protection. London mayor Sadiq Kahn has praised the new sentence, saying: “I’m pleased the Court of Appeal has concluded that his sentence was unduly lenient and have sent him to prison.”
30 January 2019, 20:22
National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommend new and upgraded roads prioritise cyclists and pedestrians
The proposals suggest that pedestrians, cyclists and public transport should be prioritised over motorised vehicles when building or upgrading new roads. Sustrans CEO Xavier Brice commented:
‘We welcome the proposal from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), which puts the needs of our most vulnerable road users first. For too long roads in our towns and cities have been dominated by cars. A shift to people-prioritised streets will not only encourage more of the public to travel actively but also help to create safer environments for everyone to move around in.
‘Involving local authorities and residents in the redesign of their neighbourhoods and streets is essential; it ensures a good design that targets the issues people experience locally every day, and we have seen positive uptake in active travel through this approach. However, more needs to be done across the UK to enable more people to choose walking and cycling as their primary mode of transport for local journeys.
‘Cycling and walking for more journeys is part of the solution to many of the challenges we face, including road congestion, air pollution and high levels of inactivity. This proposal demonstrates how – with some practical design solutions – we can address these challenges, while also protecting people who cycle and walk.’
30 January 2019, 20:22
Drop bars all round at Vuelta a San Juan ITT
Riders opted for an unusual choice of equipment to cope with the nuances of a tight, twisty yet pretty flat 12km course at the Argentinian race, with Peter Sagan opting for a Venge aero road bike with a rear disc wheel for aero gains but more control with the front end. Stage winner Julian Alaphilippe also did the same, his victory being one of the positives to take from a pretty controversial week for his Deceuninck–Quick-Step team (and one teammate in particular). Read more about that here if you haven’t already.
30 January 2019, 20:22
Check out this cool little cyclocross doc ahead of the world championships
The video follows Tomi Misser of the Orbea Factory Team before the big race this weekend in Bogense, Denmark.
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Jack is group editor across road.cc, off.road.cc and ebiketips, overseeing all three sites in the F-At Digital group to make sure everything’s up to scratch. He’s been writing about cycling and multisport for over a decade, arriving at road.cc via 220 Triathlon Magazine in 2017. He worked across all areas of road.cc including tech, news and video, and also contributed to ebiketips before being named editor of road.cc in 2021 (much to his surprise). Jack has been hooked on cycling since his student days, and currently has a Trek 1.2 for winter riding, a beloved Bickerton folding bike for getting around town, and an extra beloved custom Ridley Helium SLX for fantasising about going fast in his stable. Jack has never won a bike race, but does have a master’s degree in print journalism, and two Guinness World Records for pogo sticking (it’s a long story).
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Latest Comments
mctrials23 9 minutes ago
@Rendel Harris By the time someone is looking at prison time its too late. As has been proven time and time again, the severity of punishment is a poor deterrent to bad behaviour if people don't think its going to happen to them or they don't think they will be caught. Now I do think that there should be far more severe and immediate punishments for bad driving when drivers are caught but this would need to be coupled with a massive push to actually act on information/proof of bad driving. As anyone that submits footage to the police knows, its a crapshoot and certain police forces are anti-cyclist. This would try to essentially put people off misbehaving whilst driving before they cause an accident rather than getting the tired old excuse of "it was a single dangerous incident, they definitely don't do this all the time and their luck finally ran out". Perhaps it should go even further and if you have a history of speeding and you hurt someone speeding, that is looked upon in a very dim light.
KiwiMike 20 minutes ago
Can we talk about “Washing up liquid contains a lot of salt – not a great idea to use a corrosive substance on a bicycle”? This is an urban myth. I have washed all of our many bikes using Fairy liquid or Ecover for decades. I’ve never found any evidence of corrosion, paint, laquer or decal wear, or any sign of anything. I regularly service forks and bearings, swapping a lot of gear, and everything has always been fine. Here’s far too much info below - long story short, Fairy liquid in 5L of hot water has a borderline-homeopathic amount of salt, it’s fine to use on a bike. ============ The honest answer is that neither Fairy nor Ecover publicly disclose the actual sodium chloride concentration in the consumer products I could find. The safety data sheets list hazardous ingredients above reporting thresholds, but sodium chloride is not reported for either product. However, we can put some realistic bounds on it. Fairy Original The SDS lists: Sodium laureth sulfate: 20-30% Lauramine oxide: 5-10% Alcohol: 1-5% No sodium chloride is declared. 15 In detergent formulations, sodium chloride is commonly used as a viscosity modifier (thickener) and is typically present at around 0.5-3%, sometimes lower. The absence of declaration suggests it is either not present or present at a low concentration that does not require reporting. This range is an informed formulation estimate, not a value stated by Fairy. Ecover The Ecover ingredient information lists: Sodium lauryl sulfate Lauryl glucoside Cocamidopropyl betaine Alcohol Lactic acid Sodium octyl sulphate Again, no sodium chloride is listed. Ecover's formulations tend to rely more heavily on plant-derived surfactants and may use little or no salt for thickening, but I could not find a published concentration. 63 What does this mean for bike washing? Let's assume a worst-case 3% salt content in Fairy. If you add: 10 mL Fairy to a 5-litre bucket Then salt introduced would be approximately: 10 mL × 3% ≈ 0.3 g salt Distributed through 5 L water ≈ 60 mg/L salt For comparison: Typical seawater: ~35,000 mg/L Lightly salted winter road spray: often hundreds to thousands of mg/L The wash bucket above: ~60 mg/L So even under a pessimistic assumption, the salt concentration is hundreds to thousands of times lower than the salt exposure your bike gets from winter roads. From a corrosion perspective, the quantity of salt introduced by washing-up liquid is essentially negligible compared with: Riding on salted roads Coastal spray Leaving winter grime on the bike Therefore my practical conclusion remains: ✅ Fairy or Ecover in a wash bucket is extremely unlikely to contribute any measurable corrosion risk. ✅ The important thing is rinsing and drying afterwards. ✅ Winter road salt is the real enemy, not washing-up liquid.
mitsky 21 minutes ago
Another example of a driver's actions that would have been a straight fail in a driving test but is barely likely to lead to a disqualification... I'm wondering if having a driving licence is like a "Get out of jail free" card...
Sheen wheels 26 minutes ago
Yes indeed. I have a version of the R8100 and you definitively need ceramic for the socket.
mctrials23 34 minutes ago
@perce I'm not sure I agree with that. I think thats just confirming that he is take fully responsibility and recognises that the cyclist could have done nothing to mitigate it.
Paul J 1 hour ago
If we don't fight it now, we'll all end up forced to wear baggy shorts!
kinderje 2 hours ago
@Rendel Harris Agree, I am baffled that the 84 year old who is now banned from driving for year can then start driving again without a retest. We should be re-tested regularly.
Rendel Harris 4 hours ago
@mitsky Just checking the figures and apparently the 2026 average cost is £58,000 per year per prisoner; worth noting that is only the direct cost, you then have to factor in ten years of lost tax income from the prisoner, ten years that the prisoner is making no contribution to society as a worker or as a consumer, plus the fact that if they were the primary breadwinner very likely the costs will include benefits for their family as well. None of which should be a reason for keeping violent recidivists out of prison of course, nor drug/drink drivers who kill, but it is a factor worth considering for lower-level offences.
Rendel Harris 4 hours ago
@Surreyrider I ride in Surrey a fair bit and absolutely many do look like that but the point is they all *think* they're driving perfectly reasonably (as one discovers when remonstrating with someone who's skimmed one by 30cm, "I gave you masses of room") so deterrent penalties have little effect. That's why we need to strike at the root cause and actually train drivers properly and test them stringently (and more than once over the course of a potential 70+ years of driving, it's absolutely absurd that competence and knowledge in what for most people is the activity in their life that will run the biggest risk of killing people you never have to have your qualifications renewed).
Rendel Harris 4 hours ago
@mitsky Imprisonment currently costs over £50k p.a. per prisoner and obviously that will rise over the course of a ten-year stretch with inflation. Regarding culpability and mitigating sentences etc, of course I'm not against condign punishment for drivers who kill (and cyclists on the tiny, tiny handful of occasions when this happens), including prison as appropriate; I was objecting to the ridiculous and oft-repeated demand of MM that drivers who kill cyclists must get ten years, "no excuses, no exceptions".
12 thoughts on “Live blog: Boulton talks b*ll*cks?, Boardman talks infra, Sagan rocks disc wheel + disc brakes at San Juan ITT, those NSW cyclists the cycle path driver swore out turned out to be cops on a day off + more”
Adam Boulton?
Adam Boulton?
Or are you recycling this story from 2017?
https://road.cc/content/news/228429-skys-adam-boulton-delivers-full-blooded-anti-cycling-rant-sunday-times
burtthebike wrote:
No recycling here – this happened yesterday.
STiG911 wrote:
It wasn’t listed when I posted, but it’s there now.
The twitter commenter is right; he’s one sick f**k.
burtthebike wrote:
Understatement where that pussball is concerned. As if like clockwork, the thread is filling up with comments from more hate-filled dickheads claiming they were nearly hit by a cyclist once, so all cyclists dangerous – Boy killed by a drunk driver? Nah, let’s have a cyclist pile-on.
Scum. Just scum.
Adam Boulton is a piece of
Adam Boulton is a piece of over boiled gammon, past his sell by date
If you don’t make the cut to
If you don’t make the cut to be a Deliveroo rider, you’d still be well-placed to be an Editor at Sky it seems
So he has previous, is out on
So he has previous, is out on license, and yet because he pleads guilty he only gets 5 years and 2 year driving ban? Reuben’s parents have a life sentence and I know the only comfort in that situation is to hope it never happens to someone else. A two year ban is utterly derisory, he should never be allowed to drive again. Life ban and if caught straight back to jail. Absolutely guaranteed he’ll kill someone (hopefully just himself) in, ooh, about 3 years time.
I wonder if Adam Boulton
I wonder if Adam Boulton ghost wrote the Illawara Mercury editorial?
Maybe not.
It’s factual for a start.
Regarding the tale of the slippery-road journalist, isn’t it strange that whenever someone tells of their winter misfortune it always involves black ice. It’s never the ordinary, transparent ice, nor even the common white ice. No sir, it’s invariably the exceedingly rare and much more unpredictable black variety that gets the blame.
mike the bike wrote:
Black ice is what “transparent ice” is called.
The NICE report should be all
The NICE report should be all over the msm, but since they’ve already mentioned cycling once this year, it’ll be ignored. Just like last time, and the time before that, and the time before that too. Do I need to go on?
At last! Great to see really
At last! Great to see really terrible driving punished with a suitable jail term for once. Well done British justice!
On a side note, do they do a version of the “zombie” knife in carbon for us weight weenies?