Welcome to Thursday’s live blog, with Simon MacMichael, Jack Sexty and the rest of the road.cc team.
Live blog: Car passenger filmed pushing woman off bike, Brief history of the bicycle from the BBC archive, Meghan and Harry’s baby bags a Trek, High jumping on a cross bike is a thing + small girl on pink bike (with stabilisers) races police car + more
All today’s news from the site and beyond…
Thu, Feb 21, 2019 17:04
SUMMARY
21 February 2019, 17:04
Future champ?
Police chase. Dutch style!
(@Politie_Rdam in Rotterdam)pic.twitter.com/76YJ50jqbz— Cycling Professor (@fietsprofessor) February 20, 2019
Look at her go!
On a day when there hasn’t been loads of news about to put a smile on our collective faces – this certainly does the trick (okay, a small girl on a pink bike racing a police car probably doesn’t count as news but we’re willing to stretch the definition for this one). Aside from the fact she gets up to an impressive clip, this young cyclist also displays masterful control of her bicycle – particularly tricky given it’s got stabilisers on plus as anyone who’s daugther(s) have ever had a similar bike will know those sort of pink Barbie bikes are flipping hard to ride.
21 February 2019, 17:04
The Ice Cycle Crit laughs in the face of health and safety
We’ve just caught wind of this barmy event held annually in Massachusetts, where participants race a crit on a completely frozen pond. Racers dressed their tyres with hundreds of screws and studs in a (sometimes futile) attempt to stay on their bikes over the multi-lap course. Check out the Facebook event page hosted by Berkshire Bike and Board to see more photos.
21 February 2019, 17:04
Would you care if your bike got stolen? (spoiler... yes)
On Tuesday’s blog we ran a poll asking you if you would actually care if your bike got stolen – being as a fair few of you will have some level of insurance and will be able to get some sort of replacement, we thought it was feasible some of us might not be too miffed if we had to get a brand new replacement should a thief strike.
Well it seems you all love your bikes insured or not, as a whopping 93% said you definitely wouldn’t like your pride and joy stolen! Just 2% said they weren’t bothered, and 5% said it depends on the bike and the insurance level. It seems the decision of the British Transport Police to shut down their bike theft unit in London and the south east will prove to be an unpopular one, then.
21 February 2019, 17:04
Chris Froome pulls out of UAE Tour
Gutted to be missing the @uae_tour I was really looking forward to the TTT & 2 uphill finishes
Unfortunately I underestimated the effect training and racing at altitude would have on me this early in the season.
Best of luck to the team! https://t.co/i1q82Rttxf— Chris Froome (@chrisfroome) February 20, 2019
Froome said he underestimated the efforts he put out during a couple of hard weeks in Colombia, and Sky’s team will now be led by Michał Kwiatkowski and Gianni Moscon for the UAE Tour.
21 February 2019, 17:04
Now THAT is a rad paint job!
21 February 2019, 17:04
Meussen wins CX high jump at CX Masters in Waregem
You know the cyclocross race that we told you about in yesterday’s blog? Well, Tom Meussen won the famous (in Belgium) high jump competition, equalling the competition record of 80cm!
Retiring British rider Helen Wyman won the Women’s race with Belgian National Champion Toon Aerts winning the Men’s event.
21 February 2019, 17:04
Video of woman being pushed off her bike by car passenger surfaces on Twitter
Not a great view of him, but this idiot shows his face (a bit) while knocking this woman off her bike. Anyone who knows him is sure to recognise him from this… pic.twitter.com/Bgi3EuAW8d
— Sticky Bottle (@sticky_bottle) February 21, 2019
The shocking clip shows a man lean out of a car window and push a woman into a hedge.
We spotted the original footage yesterday evening when it was retweeted by Twitter user Ivan Brasso. The post he was retweeting was subsequently deleted – but not before Irish website Sticky Bottle grabbed it and posted it again.
We’re unsure if the woman was ok following the incident, although in the comments someone claims the police have been informed. The offender’s face is reasonably clear.
Shockingly some on Twitter are openly expressing their amusement at the clip, including the ‘person’ below who when asked how he would feel if this was his mum replied: “I’d have disowned her long ago for being a cyclist!”. We’ll be following up to see if the offender is brought to justice.
Good morning! Your day won’t get much better than this. pic.twitter.com/Af60IwnAmR
— Bashy Mc (@BashyMc) February 21, 2019
21 February 2019, 17:04
A lavish but actually useful baby shower gift for upcoming Royal baby...
Hey @TrekBikes did you see that the Royal baby is getting a bike? I’m excited that the @RoyalFamily is encouraging cycling. Get kids on bikes early and create healthy habits. #cyclinglife #kidsbike pic.twitter.com/WpjGqlAfkJ
— sarah shipley (@Shipleycom) February 20, 2019
A certain right-leaning tabloid’s stalking of The Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harry has revealed that their child will have a brand new Trek kid’s bike to get around on thanks to a generous/very rich guest to Meghan’s baby shower.
It’s not the first time the Royals has been lavished with a bicycle… back in 2011 Boris Johnson presented Prince William and then fiancée Kate Middleton a £500 tandem ‘Boris bike’ ahead of their wedding back in 2011 – which received criticism as he insisted that TfL funded the cost of the bike. If only spending a few hundred quid of public money on a bike was our biggest Boris-related financial problem nowadays…
If you’re thinking of getting your nipper’s first bike or have enough cash to buy one for someone’s baby shower too, you can find some info on the very capable Trek Wahoo plus 16 more of our best kid’s bike picks in our buyer’s guide here.
21 February 2019, 17:04
A brief history of the bicycle from the BBC archive
Cracking piece of vid from the BBC archive (but you guessed that) – a 56 year old piece on the history of the bicycle in Coventry.
Top marks to the intrepid reporter who rides a succession of original early bikes including a bone-shaker, a penny farthing, and a succession of trikes – note the trailing microphone cable behind him as he rides along the road – chapeau! Also note the lack of traffic – interestingly back in 1963 what struck the reporter most about Coventry’s roads was the lack of bicycles – 10 years earlier they’d have been full of them he tells us.
#OnThisDay 1963: Tonight visited Coventry, to take a whimsical look at the history of bicycles (and tricycles) in Britain. pic.twitter.com/buCRbF2P6c
— BBC Archive (@BBCArchive) February 21, 2019
Rather scarily some of the stuff he’s talking is only 20 years further back from 1963 than 1963 is from now.
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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
HLaB 2 minutes ago
He "never thought of that" and "some of my best friends are" . Sounds like he doesn't think of much and is just blinded by his hatred into inventing things. Why is road.cc giving him air space!
the little onion 16 minutes ago
Barry Shitpeas (Philomena Cunk's sidekick) was a very prescient character. Basically a quarter-wit expressing ignorant opinions without any understanding of the issues at hand, with ample doses of Dunning-Kruger.
chrisonabike 32 minutes ago
Never mind the police - many cyclists (at least in the UK) would be totally unfamiliar with a velomobile, so perhaps police can be forgiven for ignorance there. (I've "normal" recumbents and even those cause lots of head-turning). And for "e-things" the tail of the market is very much wagging the dog of regulation. Or rather there's almost zero political interest in that. In an ideal world someone would find the money and time to get the police trained - but I wonder if most of them even keep abreast of things like the highway code wording tweaks? (Do those not specialised in road policing / pursuit driving get any more training than the average driver eg "enough to pass the test, once per lifetime"?)
Mr Blackbird 36 minutes ago
I thought that the lengthy technical downhill section on narrow roads was a poor piece of organisation. It was inevitable that faster riders with their team car would catch up with team cars of slower riders. Riders passing each other was a bit of a lottery at times. The camera motorbikes struggled to get out of the way at times.
mdavidford 2 hours ago
It's not a 'statement' though - it's road.cc's words, based on l'Equipe's interpretation. The actual statement issued on it said that the judge authorised it "guaranteeing strict proportionality between the infringements on the rights of the athlete and the stakes of the fight against doping in terms of fair competition and protection of his health."
Rendel Harris 2 hours ago
Trust me Callum, if you'd grown up watching the Tour in the 1980s, as I did, you would not be hankering after those long flat stages that weren't even as exciting as watching paint dry, it was more like listening to paint dry. As for the supposed benefits of those long TTs, what did they give us? Indurain winning five Tours in a row without winning a single road stage in any of them. As McT says below, you simply can't Pogacar-proof a course and we just have to accept, and enjoy, the fact that we are watching the greatest GT cyclist of all time. Anyway I think it has been a great Tour so far, yes no enormous drama about the inevitable winner (though of course Vinegaard and now Lipowitz have shown us that anything can happen) but just about every day has had a fascinating plot and multiple subplots. Some time in the future there will be another Indurain-style winner, playing it cautious, following moves, making incremental gains and winning without ever lighting up the race and we'll be saying I wish the old days of Pogacar making those spectacular solo breaks were back.
Gravel1-2 2 hours ago
The main issue is the layout of the stages with the bigger climb first then a shallow finish climb. It means pogacar can get a gap at the top of the big climb and then stretch 10-15 seconds to a minute plus at the finish over smaller riders like Vingegaard. A summit finish on the hardest climb might not lead to the most exciting racing but equally would keep the gaps closer. I totally agree with the TT kms though, they should have 60+km tts in the grand tours.
mctrials23 2 hours ago
@MaxiMinimalist I mean, that statement makes it sound like they had reason to think those two are doping. Either they didn't follow procedure and are making shit up to cover themselves up or something is going on.
Mr Blackbird 2 hours ago
Quite possibly. But the changeover time loss would be a bit more significant if it was done on the flat just after the downhill when the riders are travelling faster, the deceleration, changeover and acceleration loss could easily be around 30 seconds, which is quite a lot of a 34 minute effort.
mitsky 2 hours ago
So Skoda have taken a leaf out of Dung-Old Karen Taco Trump's book and are re-naming something when they have no authority to do so?
7 thoughts on “Live blog: Car passenger filmed pushing woman off bike, Brief history of the bicycle from the BBC archive, Meghan and Harry’s baby bags a Trek, High jumping on a cross bike is a thing + small girl on pink bike (with stabilisers) races police car + more”
Heartwarming video of the kid
Heartwarming video of the kid and the police, need some of that over here.
Don’t think i’d care if my
Don’t think i’d care if my old Boardman mtb was stolen. The chainrings are on the way out, one of the threads is stripped in front disc mount, the front wheel is now buckled and I blew the seals on the forks.
I would actually have an excuse for the +1 equation.
The vid of the woman being
The vid of the woman being pushed off the bike is horrendous and I trust it has been reported to the police.
What it does show is the insidious effect of the msm portraying cyclists as scum, sub-human and different. Just like they do with immigrants, socialists and any other out group, but since lying about women, coloured people and gays became illegal, they like to set up other groups they can get their gullible, easily led, readers to hate instead; classic, deliberate msm hate creation . This behaviour is the result.
There are hundreds of examples on here demonstrating only too clearly the complete lack of respect from other people to cyclists, as if they aren’t real people, not worthy of consideration, and it doesn’t matter if they are killed.
Not sure what we can do about it, I’ve certainly tried to get the msm to report fairly, but with very few exceptions, unsuccessfully, especially with the BBC.
I’ve resigned myself to
I’ve resigned myself to always being portrayed as an inhuman weirdo to be mocked/derided by mainstream (and let’s face it, most niche) news outlets. Drivers are herioc individuals battling substandard roads, heavy traffic and bad weather. Cyclists are sub-human parasites who don’t have to deal with any of those hardships.
Great that a royal kid is
Great that a royal kid is getting a bike, but rather a pity they didn’t go for the best, Islabike, and they are homegrown.
Surely as they are Duke and
Surely as they are Duke and Duchess of Sussex there are a couple of home (Sussex) grown bike builders that could have filled this niche.
Of course it would be more
Of course it would be more odd if an American friend of our American Duchess attending a baby shower held in New York would even know about UK based bike builders.
I’ll just stick with the happy thought that someone decided a bike was a good idea.