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Live blog: Waitress was “suggestive with her ass”, says father of Iljo Keisse as he says son wasn’t to blame for harassment incident; “We don’t treat crime committed in cars as serious crime” – Boardman; Roy Keane on cycling +more
SUMMARY

Alaphilippe sits out podium ceremony after team-mate’s expulsion for sexual harassment
Julian Alaphilippe and two Deceuninck-QuickStep team-mates skipped the podium ceremony after stage 4 of the Vuelta a San Juan yesterday.
Sporza reports that the Belgian team cited fatigue as the reason for their decision and a spokesman suggested that the stress resulting from Iljo Keisse’s expulsion from the race was a factor. He denied that it was a form of protest.
Alaphilippe is leading the race, while best U23 rider Remco Evenepoel and stage third-place finisher Alvaro Hodeg would also have appeared on stage ordinarily.
All three were fined 500 Swiss francs and penalised three UCI points.
Keisse was thrown out of the race after he allegedly rubbed his genitals against a waitress on Monday as she posed for a photograph with him and team mates. He was also fined by a judge as a result of the incident.
Team manager Patrick Lefevere was reportedly so incensed by the decision that he threatened to withdraw the team from the race, but they have since confirmed that they will continue.
Roy Keane on cycling
Roy’s struggling to get his head around the idea of doing sport for any reason other than to be the absolute best at it.
“I see people out cycling and think, ‘Maybe I should buy a racer?’ But I wouldn’t be into all the gear and the glasses.
“I look at people about 20 stone out cycling and say ‘What’s the point in you cycling?’ I still have that mindset, forgetting the fact that maybe they enjoy it.”
Via the Irish Examiner.
They're not. They're really not...
Well at least the potholes are frozen over at the moment!
Sparkly
Lookin’ good @allcitycyclesuk!#corebike #allcitycycles #allcity #custom #cycling #bikes #fresh
A post shared by road.cc (@road.cc) on
One of our highlights from the Corebike show this week, where we got to see some of the newest and shiniest new bike bits out there at the moment. This is a custom paint job on an All-City Cycles steel beauty.
Near Miss of the Day 246: Cyclists move into single file to let drivers past ... and are rewarded with a punishment pass
Date for Paul Sherwen memorial at Manchester Cathedral announced
A Memorial Service for former professional racing cyclist and cycling commentator, Paul Sherwen will take place on Wednesday 6 February at 2.30pm. All welcome. #PaulSherwen #cyclist #cycling pic.twitter.com/1N0JV4Pz6p
— Manchester Cathedral (@ManCathedral) January 30, 2019
A memorial for the legendary cycling commentator will take place at Manchester Cathedral on Wednesday 6th Febrary at 2.30pm, with all welcome to attend.
Another reason why Aussies might wanna stay out of the bike lane?
Just a casual stroll for this croc, spotted around the Cairns area. Following our story about two cyclists in New South Wales getting a mouthful of abuse for (perfectly legally) riding on a road instead of a shared use path, maybe this is another reason to stick to the main highway!
Driver who killed Carol Boardman is jailed for 30 weeks.
The motorist who killed Carol Boardman, the mother of Chris Boardman, has been jailed for 30 weeks and disqualified from driving for 18 and a half months. 33-year-old Liam Rosney pleaded guilty to causing death by careless driving in December and was sentenced at Mold Crown Court this morning. A full story and more coverage on the live blog to follow.
Video: Driver enraged by cyclist riding in middle of lane
“Are you not reading your fucking cycling licence?”
"We don't treat crime committed in cars as serious crime" - Boardman
The man who hit and killed Carol Boardman has been sentenced to 30 weeks in prison. (Full story here.)
Speaking before he was sentenced, Chris Boardman gave his thoughts on such crimes, telling the Press Association that, “the devastation behind carelessness is just unbelievable.”
He said: “We don’t treat crime committed in cars as serious crime, so somebody can be careless and crush somebody else to death and it’s classed as careless.”
Boardman insisted he does not want to see “big custodial sentences” for people convicted of driving offences.
“I would like to see more driving bans,” he said. “Driving is a privilege, so I don’t want those people who commit crime – and that’s what this is – become a burden on society. I’d just like them not to be able to do that to anybody else ever again.”
Aussie motorist filmed himself driving on cycle track and abusing cyclists... who turned out to be off-duty police officers
A campaign’s been launched to pay the driver’s legal fees because he’s “an Aussie hero”.
Quick-Step/Lefevere's reaction to Keisee harassment incident - not that surprising?
As a press officer I was refused entry to the Wanty-Gobert bus from 2014 until AGR in 2015. Rule: no women allowed in bus.
They literally left me standing in a Ghent square after Omloop.
So yes, Belgian Cycling can be bit old-fashioned when it comes to women & cycling #Lefevere
— José Been (@TourDeJose) January 30, 2019
According to José Been she wasn’t allowed on the Wanty-Gobert bus four years ago, which may not come as a surprise to some.
Chris Hoy responds to Twitter commenter criticising him for fronting #OneInAMillion campaign to get more women cycling
Why am I not allowed to care about this campaign that aims to close the gender gap? The interviews I did yesterday were alongside 2 females who ride bikes and they gave their perspectives. As well as myself, LauraKenny, ShanazeReade, Jo Rowsell have been backing the campaign too. https://t.co/RfPete7mwM
— Chris Hoy (@chrishoy) January 30, 2019
Hoy appeared pretty furious at the criticism, with many other backing him up in the comments below. Hoy appeared on BBC Breakfast on Tuesday morning talking about the campaign, which aims to get a million more women on bikes by 2020.
Waitress was "suggestive with her ass", claims the father of Iljo Keisse
It’s the story that keeps on digging a hole… and just when it appeared the worst might have blown over for Belgian Quick-Step rider Iljo Keisse, who earlier this week was accused of rubbing his genitals on a waitress during a photo opportunity, his father has now waded in apparently suggesting that the woman in question might have been partly to blame. From an article on the Dutch website indeleiderstrui.nl, these are the words we’ve got from Google Translate, which admittedly may have made Keisse SNR’s words sound harsher than originally intended: “That woman is also very suggestive with her ass behind. Who says that Iljo should not file a complaint against her? It should not have happened, but he apologised and will have to bear the consequences. Now we are waiting until the storm blows.”
You could say these latest comments are ill-advised at best when Keisse himself had already apologised for his actions. Quick-Step’s sponsor Deceuninck have already publicly stated that they whole heartedly condemn Keisse’ actions too, according to indeleiderstrui.nl.
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@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.
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.
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...
Yes indeed. I have a version of the R8100 and you definitively need ceramic for the socket.
@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.
If we don't fight it now, we'll all end up forced to wear baggy shorts!
@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.
@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.
@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).
@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".
16 thoughts on “Live blog: Waitress was “suggestive with her ass”, says father of Iljo Keisse as he says son wasn’t to blame for harassment incident; “We don’t treat crime committed in cars as serious crime” – Boardman; Roy Keane on cycling +more”
Really don’t think this is
Really don’t think this is the right way to go, if they feel it was an unfair decision and want to protest then fine, protest and admit that’s what you’re doing, or accept that what Keisse did was unacceptable and not what anyone should be doing, let alone a sportsman who’s supposed to be a role model.
I agree RobD. Nobody believes
I agree RobD. Nobody believes those excuses, it’s just a shitty attitude.
“Team manager Patrick Lefevere was reportedly so incensed by the decision that he threatened to withdraw the team from the race, but they have since confirmed that they will continue.”
Don’t threaten what you’re not prepared to carry out. Bunch of jerks, get over yourselves.
The sense of entitlement of
The sense of entitlement of these bicycle riders is unbelieveable. They need to get over themselves. Hardly the sort of image their new, hard-won sponsor will want to be associated with.
They should eject the entire
They should eject the entire team.
Is Alaphillipes bike so light
Is Alaphillipes bike so light that he’s using his member to support its weight, or is he just pleased to see the photographer?
The team should have done
The team should have done more… the organisers gave the team the option to manage this directly and they didn’t.
I’d personally have publically stated there would be a signficant fine, which would be used to provide the whole team with education / training around sexual discrimination or similar.
Then the race wouldn’t had had to chuck the guy off the race and we could all move on, better educated than before.
Roy Keane can’t get around
Roy Keane can’t get around the concept of seeing a big bloke cycling, but I bet he understands why a big bloke is at the gym.
Christ’s sake.
STiG911 wrote:
Roy Keane maybe isn’t the brightest bulb in the box.
peted76 wrote:
Did you actually lsiten to the video? Keane was been funny, humerous if anything laughing at his own attitude. I thought they were three of the best clips I’ve ever seen of the bloke; from his football days he came across as too intense, too competitive and here he was relaxed.
Will Chris Boardman please
Will Chris Boardman please become minister for transport, or justice, or prime minister.
He’d have my vote, if he chooses to stand as my local MP.
PRSboy wrote:
Totally this. I’m sick of hearing these pontificating politicians telling me how much they value cycling and support it and yet manage to do the sum of the square of sweet fa.
He’s absolutely right about withdrawing licences for those who kill or maim, rather than sending them to prison at our expense. Not sure I wouldn’t lock them up if they drove illegally after though.
Patrick Lefevere’s team can
Patrick Lefevere’s team can win throughout the year, but if their first race of the year shows off their public relation skills then this team is doomed. Deceuninck and Specialized are already questioning their sponsorship investment is smart within the first month of racing. PL really needs to stop digging himself a bigger hole. Seriously, what if the woman in question had been PL’s daughter or a female team support worker? PL would no doubt have a completely different attitude regarding the whole matter.
ridein wrote:
Exactly. No tolerance for this sort of nonsense, and no excuses after #metoo. Lesson learned? Probably not: given their reaction I expect that the petulance will continue and we’ll see something stupid like Deceuninck boycotting fan photos. Poor show from a great team.
I wouldn’t be shocked if
I wouldn’t be shocked if Deceuninck pulls the plug on this sponsorship come season’s end. Even if the team equals or exceeds last season’s results, the damage done by something like this is not worth the effort to combat.
“suggestive with her ass” ?
“suggestive with her ass” ? I guess some folks just cant stop digging deeper in the abject mess they are in
Awavey wrote:
Maybe his son just has a thing about donkeys…?