Welcome to Wednesday on the road.cc live blog with Simon MacMichael and the rest of the team.
Live blog: Man drives lorry at cyclist, attempts to attack him with a weapon, comes off worse, GB’s Elinor Barker wins scratch race at track worlds, Cyclist scarpers from angry elephant, Live Zwift Racing, Sky team up with Garmin + more
All today’s news from the site and beyond
Wed, Feb 27, 2019 20:32
SUMMARY
27 February 2019, 20:32
Ben Swift discharged from hospital
Team Sky’s Ben Swift has been discharged from hospital a week after a training crash on Tenerife that left him with a ruptured spleen.
Some really good news. Had final scans today and have all come back good. Finally after a long week in hospital I have been discharged and will be on my way home tomorrow. Got to take my time but already excited to get back at it. Thank you everyone for the concern & well wishes
— Ben Swift (@swiftybswift) February 26, 2019
27 February 2019, 20:32
Like a weird cycling version of a Maypole...
World U23 and British Elite Cyclocross Champion Tom Pidcock has been taking his off-season training pretty easy with a few short laps around a tree.
Can any of you better the CX star for skillz?
27 February 2019, 20:32
Pro cyclists who throw water bottles away could be fined £750
Pro cyclist who throw away their water bottles now face a fine of as much as 1,000 Swiss Francs (£750) under new rules introduced by the UCI.
UCI commissaire Philippe Marien told Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad: “Dropping a water bottle into the canal or leaving trash on the road is no longer acceptable in this day and age.
“We have to stop those riders who leave their garbage everywhere. We have to stop those who, just after they ride next to the team car, immediately throw their bottle in the air.”
“World Tour pros have an exemplary function. With higher fines, we want set standards and head in a responsible, ecological way.”
Three levels of fines will apply to riders who do not dispose of their bidons in designated zones – 200, 500 and 1,000 Swiss Francs (respectively £150, £375 and £750).
Marien added that the heaviest fines would be imposed on riders who throw their water bottles into the crowd, endangering people.
“A rider who throws a half-full or empty bidon, that is life-threatening. We do not want to see that anymore,” he said.
27 February 2019, 20:32
New Hexband is a light and tough lock claims its makers
Ottolock has launched its new Hexband lock which is intended to be lightweight and compact yet able to withstand “ shearing tools such as snips and cable cutters” which makes it a lock strong enough for quick stops, as only powered devices will cut through it.
That means it ‘should’ be okay for popping into the shops or cafe, when you might leave your bike for just a few minutes, or locking your bike to a car rack, rather than locked up outside the office or your house for hours.
The lock comes in three lengths with the 30in lock weighing a claimed 250g. It’s constructed by using six stainless steel band layers and wrapped in an internal Dupont Kevlar outer. It’s available in 18”, 30”, and 60” lengths and priced at $65, $75, and $95 MSRP respectively – we’re waiting on UK prices.
27 February 2019, 20:32
Grey the new black? Stunning Canyon TT bike
Black is SO boring! Could grey be a good replacement? It’s similarly stealthy and looks good on a modern aero bike like this Canyon Speedmax TT racer.
This is a custom painted bike by one a Canyon employee so no, you can’t buy it I’m afraid. Shame.
27 February 2019, 20:32
Specialized's feathery light new race shoes
In case you missed this news yesterday, Specialized launched its lightest and most expensive ever road cycling shoes.
We got our hands on the heavier and cheaper of the two models, the S-Works Exos (if £450 is cheap) and run through all the key details in this video.
27 February 2019, 20:32
Kennaugh hits back at UCI fines
Don’t forget taking away uci points, fine is one thing, penalising the way we race though.
— Alex Dowsett (@alexdowsett) February 27, 2019
Peter Kennaugh, the Bora Hansgrohe rider is responding to the UCI’s new fines which penalise riders for throwing their water bottles away. The UCI are also penalising riders that are late to sign-on, docking them UCI race points
The Manx rider has a valid point. Most bottles are collected by fans and used. We certainly have a fair few bottles!
27 February 2019, 20:32
Anyone bring a bucket and spade?
Vamos a la playa pic.twitter.com/62aXnXk7Kg
— the Inner Ring (@inrng) February 27, 2019
The wind is picking up over at the UAE Tour with echelons splitting the peloton and sand being blown across the road.
27 February 2019, 20:32
Josh Ibbett 3rd in 650 mile race
Josh Ibbett, Transcontinental winner, has just finished third in the unsupported non-stop 650 mile BikingMan Oman ultra-cycling race. Kudos Josh!
He rode the event on his Mason Cycles Definition with 50mm carbon Hunt wheels and WTB Exposure 30mm tyres, with Miss Grape bikepacking bags and rocking a SRAM Force 1 groupset.
27 February 2019, 20:32
Team Sky announce 'formal collaboration' with Garmin
Team Sky has agreed a partnership with @GarminFitness, a world-leader in GPS technology, for the 2019 season.
> https://t.co/QMkFkMfj7R pic.twitter.com/AIg9KO6JnC
— Team Sky (@TeamSky) February 27, 2019
Sky have been using Garmin headunits for years so this looks like it’s simply a case of Garmin agreeing to supply the computers rather than Sky buying them.
Of the deal, Team Principal, Sir Dave Brailsford said that “technology is key to successful performance and at Team Sky we are always looking for new ways to improve our training and in race experience with the best products.”
“Our coaches and riders know that in Garmin we have a best in class partner for our many different needs. We trust their products. They are reliable, intuitive and state of the art. But importantly we look for partners that will innovate to develop new tools and methods for the future. We think the potential is huge and that this exciting partnership opens up a new world of possibility for us to explore together.”
The team will be supplied with headunits from the Edge series and Varia RTL510 rearview radar for the riders training bikes.
But this could also be a way back into the pro ranks for Garmin who haven’t been a headline sponsor since the Garmin-Cervelo days.
We’ll keep our eyes on this one.
27 February 2019, 20:32
A cyclist in Thailand had to make a quick getaway when he was charged by an angry elephant, reports the Bangkok Times.
The incident, captured on the dash cam in the pick-up truck driven by the cyclist’s father, happened in Thailand’s Khao Yai National Park.
The rider, 20-year-old Nattawat Popwandeeruechakul, said: “Senior cyclists of the A2Bike team invited me to join them on a trip through Khao Yai. I had never been in Khao Yai, so I joined in.
“There were seven cyclists with two vehicles following us.
“I was concentrating on the tarmac when I heard heavy footsteps and felt the ground shake. I looked up, and was shocked by the sight of a wild elephant running toward me.”
Initially frozen with panic, he jumped off his bike, and running, carried it back to his father’s pick-up truck and jumped in the back.
The elephant – apparently called Yoyo and prone to fits of anger at tourists’ vehicles, but who has supposedly never hurt anyone – headed back into the jungle.
27 February 2019, 20:32
When your assignment is due but you still need to get your session in...
27 February 2019, 20:32
New massive shades alert - Oakley launch the Sutro
“Inspired by the daily life of urban cyclists”, so say Oakley, the new Sutro shades have a high-wrap that provides plenty of protection from the sun’s rays while enhancing vision with Oakley’s Prizm lens technology. They’re available now in numerous colours for £130 a pair, head over to Oakley’s website to take a look.
27 February 2019, 20:32
Man drives lorry at cyclist, attempts to attack him with a weapon, comes off worse...
This shocker of a clip from Singapore shows a cyclist in a confrontation with a lorry driver, before the lorry driver begins to aim his vehicle at him. Thankfully he missed, but then got out of the lorry armed with what looks to be a hammer. The cyclist proceeds to land a heavy blow, knocking the lorry driver to the floor, before riding off.
Since the clip was uploaded, it’s been reported in Channel News Asia that the 32-year-old driver has now been arrested, and could face up to six months in prison and/or a heavy fine for committing a rash act endangering the personal safety of others. The 55-year-old cyclist is co-operating with police, but could also be prosecuted for voluntarily causing hurt.
27 February 2019, 20:32
LIVE Zwift KISS Super League
Tonight sees round 6 of what is proving to be an immensely popular form of racing.
We’re not really sure about the tactics, but it’s interesting to see the numbers that the pros can churn out. Racing kicks off at 7pm UK time.
27 February 2019, 20:32
Barker Wins Scratch Race World Title
Elinor Barker took the rainbow bands ahead of the Netherlands rider Kirsten Wild.
Barker came from the back of the pack with 2 laps to go, avoiding a huge crash that took down half of the field.
It’s Barker’s fourth Elite World Championship title and one that was very convincing, with half a wheel over Wild.
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Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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Latest Comments
mctrials23 28 minutes ago
@mitsky Its another one of those things that makes no sense isn't it. Someone was saying in another thread that we need a harder driving test. I don't think we do. Everyone who has passed in the last 20 years has done a test that is more than happy to fail you for behaviour that 90% of drivers exhibit every time they get behind the wheel. The test is fine. The fact that getting your license seems to be considered some weird proof that you will continue to drive safely is the issue. The fact that when you prove that you cannot drive safely its not immediately revoked is the issue.
mctrials23 32 minutes ago
@Rendel Harris The issue with GPS chips, as everyone who has one of those black boxes will attest to, is that they are crap. They interpret heavy braking as poor driving rather than someone else forcing it. They see rapid acceleration where there is none. All we need is a much higher chance of people being caught and punished for their everyday shit driving. I'm sure as a cyclist that every single time you go out on your bike you will have a dozen or more times when you think "that would have been a nasty accident if someone was coming the other direction". Eventually, when bad behaviour suffers no consequences it becomes completely normalised. Then we struggle to treat it as anything but a normal, unavoidable accident when that bad behaviour does incur consequences.
mctrials23 36 minutes ago
Drivers regularly pull out in front of me and cause me to slam on the brakes or avoid them. Very often they have seen me and just assume I'm not going very fast or they assume I will slow down/stop (which I do). Too many drivers don't look for cyclists, hate giving way to them or expect the cyclist to be moving slowly and just pull out.
mctrials23 59 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 1 hour 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 1 hour 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 1 hour ago
Yes indeed. I have a version of the R8100 and you definitively need ceramic for the socket.
mctrials23 1 hour 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 2 hours ago
If we don't fight it now, we'll all end up forced to wear baggy shorts!
kinderje 3 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.
12 thoughts on “Live blog: Man drives lorry at cyclist, attempts to attack him with a weapon, comes off worse, GB’s Elinor Barker wins scratch race at track worlds, Cyclist scarpers from angry elephant, Live Zwift Racing, Sky team up with Garmin + more”
Without wishing to condone
Without wishing to condone littering, the UCI seems to be lodged firmly up its own rectum.
“A rider who throws a half-full or empty bidon, that is life-threatening.”
Remind me someone; how many people have been killed by a water bottle?
burtthebike wrote:
Whilst I agree the UCI are prioritising a fairly low risk problem and should be focussing on recycling zones etc than fines. To put it in context a half filled half litre bidon would weigh minimum 250g, a cricket ball only weighs about 155-160g,a golf ball only 45g, yet both have killed or caused serious injury, yes there’s more to it than just weight alone, but a thrown bidon does have the potential to cause injury to spectators and possibly death, what happens if it hits you,you stumble fall and your head hits the kerb, all spectators to wear helmets in future?
I don’t think the UCI should wait till something happens before doing anything about it,even if I disagree about the way they are going about it
Awavey wrote:
Without wishing to condone littering, the UCI seems to be lodged firmly up its own rectum.
“A rider who throws a half-full or empty bidon, that is life-threatening.”
Remind me someone; how many people have been killed by a water bottle?
— Awavey Whilst I agree the UCI are prioritising a fairly low risk problem and should be focussing on recycling zones etc than fines. To put it in context a half filled half litre bidon would weigh minimum 250g, a cricket ball only weighs about 155-160g,a golf ball only 45g, yet both have killed or caused serious injury, yes there’s more to it than just weight alone, but a thrown bidon does have the potential to cause injury to spectators and possibly death, what happens if it hits you,you stumble fall and your head hits the kerb, all spectators to wear helmets in future? I don’t think the UCI should wait till something happens before doing anything about it,even if I disagree about the way they are going about it— burtthebike
A cricket ball has a very hard exterior, a water bottle does not and is very squishable, even half full it’s not remotely like a cricket ball ffs! Having caught one under the chin in a limited overs match 30 years ago and lost a molar, I can tell you from experience I would rather have a pro cyclist launch a full bottle of water at me compared to a cricket ball at same speeds every single time!!
Your theory that a bidon could cause death is without proof and so far in the history of cycling has being proven to be without merit in terms of occurence.
In any case the riders usually throw them to the ground, I can’t say I’ve ever seen anyone struck by a bottle in any fashion that would be considered dangerous, whilst I’ve no doubt it’s occured that someone has been hit a little bit hard, to fine for throwing away rather than throwing the bottle in a dangerous manner if it were full is absolutely ridiculous and massively OTT.
BehindTheBikesheds wrote:
I specifically said there was more to it than weight alone, it was to give context that just because you think something is small and doesnt weigh alot, actually small lightweight things can & do alot of harm in the right circumstances.
and its not a theory that people who get hit on the head can be injured, and injured in ways we cant necessarily reliably predict outcomes from, that might ultimately lead to their death.
Spectators at cycling races have certainly been involved in accidents with riders and there has been at least one death in the past decade that I recall,and one who ended up in a coma and was left potentially paralysed I think, fine you could argue in those cases they werent caused by the water bottles themselves, but weve seen crashes in rider groups caused by discarded water bottles, feed zones especially with riders taking sudden avoiding action, is it by luck or chance none of those crashes or avoidance ended up involving spectators.
so there is a risk however small and exceedingly rare that it might ever happen, just because it hasnt ever happened yet doesnt mean its something that cant or wont happen, and you dont wait till the unthinkable happens before you realise you need to do something about it.
as I said repeating myself, I dont agree with the method the UCI are using, but I do appreciate the reasons for it, even if others cant.
I’d always assumed that the
I’d always assumed that the race organisers, or the teams’ minions, collected those bottles…
Bidons made of biodegradable
Bidons made of biodegradable plastic are easily obtained. Doesn’t strike me as a littering problem to throw those about.
Gizzard wrote:
The small print validates they are biodegradable in a composting environment, so they would have to be gathered up and buried. The blurb confirms they are not affected by sunlight or heat and can be put in a dishwasher.
Chucking them into the verge is no better than standard bottles
Bidons made of biodegradable
Bidons made of biodegradable plastic are easily obtained. Doesn’t strike me as a littering problem to throw those about.
Pleased that they’re fining
Pleased that they’re fining for this (from memory they already fine for discarded arm warmers and rain jackets don’t they?)
Recall some head on shots from a TdF sprint stage last year where the teams lobbing bottles both sides of the road. And there were certainly cases last year of crashes in the peloton being caused by discarded bottle. Long overdue. Should also be applied to gel wrappers and so on. Sets the wrong example and rubbish generated by sportive riders around here is just one of the many things the anti-cycling nimbys moan about.
Quote:
Eh? I couldn’t be bothered to parse all that, and the page is similarly a mess of images and embedded video, in a different order to the headline. Personally, I much preferred it when you had one page per story.
Garmin?!
Garmin?!
…and there I was thinking Sky had enough crashes with G.
Kudos to the cyclist who
Kudos to the cyclist who decked the lorry driver! What a cool customer. Very reserved, under the circumstances. Surely nobody in their right mind would charge the cyclist for what was so obviously self defence.