Welcome to Thursday’s live blog, with Jack Sexty, Simon MacMichael and the rest of the team.
Live blog: World Naked Bike Ride coming to Ipswich, Pokemon Go grandad has 22 smartphones on bike (video), Regent’s Park cyclists block driver on wrong side of road, Cav to miss Milan-San Remo squad, Team Ineos to face anti-fracking protests + more
All today’s news from the site and beyond…
Thu, Mar 21, 2019 16:30
SUMMARY
21 March 2019, 16:30
Going for a ride...
Modeling cycling attire. pic.twitter.com/d3FiHlCFRN
— You Had One Job (@_youhadonejob1) March 19, 2019
If you aren’t familiar with the ‘You Had One Job’ Twitter account, we reckon this might be their best find yet.
21 March 2019, 16:30
Scotsman Dean Nicholson adopts a cat on round-the-world bike ride
Hello kitty! Dean was cycling around the world when he came across an abandoned cat – and now they’re completing the trip together.
[Tap to expand] pic.twitter.com/KVMjxbt3rw
— STV News (@STVNews) March 20, 2019
While riding through Bosnia in late December Dean was chased by a cat on a hill desperate to be fed, and since then Nala hasn’t left his side. The pair are currently rolling through eastern Europe, and he’s now raising funds for animal welfare charities. If you want to donate Dean’s JustGiving page is here.
21 March 2019, 16:30
Anti-fracking campaigners say protests possible at Tour de Yorkshire and Road World Championships events due to Ineos sponsorship
Speaking to the BBC, Steve Mason of Frack Free United says there will almost certainly be protests over Ineos’ involvement in cycling at the Tour de Yorkshire in May and the Road World Championships weekend in September. Ineos actually has permissions to explore for shale gas in the county, but work has yet to begin because of issues with planning permission.
On Tuesday’s live blog we reported that Friends of the Earth campaigner Tony Bosworth says the Ineos deal with what is now known as Team Sky is an attempt at ‘greenwashing’ by the corporation: “Taking over Team Sky is the latest blatant attempt at greenwashing by Ineos. It’s a harsh change of tone that may see Sky’s Ocean Rescue campaign to clear plastic pollution from our oceans ditched from the team jersey in favour of Ineos – one of the biggest plastic producers in Europe.
“This is also a company that wants to frack large swathes of northern England and the East Midlands. Ineos has also been lobbying hard for the government to relax safety rules so fracking companies can trigger larger earthquakes before having to down tools.”
21 March 2019, 16:30
Nokere Koerse Highlights
Catch up with a crash-filled edition of the Belgian semi-Classic
21 March 2019, 16:30
Cycling on the rise in London
Highest levels of cycling in central London since records began We had an average of 188,000 daily journeys or 573,646km per day in Q3 2018 pic.twitter.com/Gz19gZRtbj
— Will Norman (@willnorman) March 20, 2019
Let’s hope it continues on an upwards trajectory (and accident rates go downwards)
21 March 2019, 16:30
Cavendish left out of Dimension Data Team for San Remo
The first monument of the year is upon us… we are looking forward to this weekend's @Milano_Sanremo!
Details: https://t.co/PqsqnI26Wv pic.twitter.com/ycp0HTO0N9
— Team Dimension Data (@TeamDiData) March 21, 2019
Team Dimension Data have today revealed their team for Saturday’s Milan San Remo. It’s notable for one admission, 2009 winner Mark Cavendish not included in the seven-man squad.
The Manx rider has been struggling to find form after recently discovering that he’s been suffering from an Epstein Barr virus for the last two years.
Dimension Data will instead hope that Italian sprinter Giacomo Nizzolo can survive the Poggio for a chance on the Via Rome finish.
21 March 2019, 16:30
No idea what's going on here...
How did I miss this classic pic, @SadiqKhan @willnorman? Thankfully @TfL has published it in its latest board papers pic.twitter.com/VEipDbWRLn
— Ross Lydall (@RossLydall) March 21, 2019
A bizarre image, apparently from a recent TfL board paper!
21 March 2019, 16:30
Trolling a trolley dumper...
What to do when someone uses a trolley to block the bike path each day? Put in on board and take it far, far away. #cargobike pic.twitter.com/en39Cw4l0r
— Fiona Campbell (@FionaBike) March 20, 2019
21 March 2019, 16:30
Win a ride with the Team Sky Zone Hoppers at Paris Roubaix
Fancy a chance to get right into the heart of one of the most chaotic races of the year?
Team Sky are giving you the chance to win a ride in one of the team cars that drive to several cobbled sectors to support the riders with wheels and bottles.
Head over here to enter. Then go an practise your wheels changes and 50kph bottle hand-ups, just in case!
21 March 2019, 16:30
Commuter can be heard shouting "you nearly took out four people" to driver who attempts to cut traffic queue by driving on wrong side of the road
Another day another driver endangering cyclists in #regentspark @RPcyclists @metpoliceuk pic.twitter.com/JWOkTcXvM4
— Merv Charles (@mervcharles) March 20, 2019
According to commenters under the video this has become a common problem in the area – as traffic builds up heavily due to a pedestrian junction ahead, cars move into the other lane to attempt to cut the queue, and in this instance the culprit was apparently close to hitting four cyclists on the correct side of the road. Do you ride this road on your commute, and what do you think could/should be done to stop it from happening?
21 March 2019, 16:30
Cycling grandad and Pokemon Go fan lands smartphone brand ambassador gig
A 70-year-old grandfather from Taiwan who became an online celebrity after hooking up 11 smartphones to his bike to play Pokemon Go has landed a gig as brand ambassador for Asus.
When the tech brand heard about Chen San-yuan’s exploits, they decided to make him the brand ambassador for their Asus ZenFone range, reports Mashable.
He now has an array of no fewer than 22 of them on his bike, with the partnership aimed at highlighting the device’s battery and GPS capabilities.
台湾のポケモンマスターの進化はとどまるところを知らない pic.twitter.com/byrXqJWcke
— 阿雞 (@SCMcrocodile) March 9, 2019
21 March 2019, 16:30
Electric dockless bike hire brand Lime now operating in Islington
Electric bikeshare expands in London! @limebike is operating in LB Islington as of this week. Several pedelec bike groups spotted on the Cally Road 🙂 [N.B. Earlier tweeted that was available in W/minster too but this is a bug in the app – it’s actually a new do-not-finish zone] pic.twitter.com/4DXLKmZEto
— Oliver O'Brien (@oobr) March 21, 2019
21 March 2019, 16:30
World Naked Bike Ride coming to Ipswich for first time
The World Naked Bike Ride is coming to Ipswich for the first time in July this year.
Cyclists will join the ride, which aims to highlight the vulnerability of the human body as well as protesting against car and fossil fuel dependency, on Saturday 6 July.
Co-ordinator Robert Brown told the Ipswich Star: “It isn’t a race, it’s a gentle, leisurely ride around town.
“Our motto is ‘bare as you dare’ but we find once people get on the bike and start cycling naked they love it.”
Other places in the East of England to host similar rides include Clacton, Chelmsford, Colchester and Cambridge, where more than 200 people take part each year.
“Most people are supportive – you get the odd nasty comment but that is usually from someone who is narrow-minded,” Mr Brown added.
“We are not breaking the law or doing anything illegal and we have worked with the police, who helped us decide on a route around Ipswich.”
He added that the ride would take place whatever the weather.
“Once we have organised an event, nothing stops us,” he explained. “At one of the Chelmsford rides, it started to hail heavily and it started to sting, and we ended up having to take cover in a bus shelter.”
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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
chrisonabike 30 minutes ago
"All that's required is an to roads policing" - that's a big all... Although no doubt the "idiots just keep coming" aspect does apply: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz9lel2wz93o "Man charged after car crashes through bowling alley" - luckily they only skittled over skittles.
chrisonabike 41 minutes ago
Almost any change to roads and streets is accompanied by a period of heightened danger, and in the UK "look out for cyclists" will need to be learned... practically. And over the time it takes for cyclists to become a regular feature. OTOH once (if...) good designs are in and frequent enough such that drivers encounter them AND the cyclists on them regularly (another big if) I don't think they should be much more difficult than a footway to deal with. These things are all over NL - don't have the collision stats but they should. (NL isn't perfect but collecting info on the safety of designs to feed back into better designs as required is part of the "sustainable safety" philosophy - if they're really a killer I think they'd be altering these.)
wtjs 2 hours ago
I'm in the happy position of agreeing with everybody here! I've never considered a bike with a stand, yet I'm impressed by the ingenuity and adaptability of this axle. I tow a Yak Bob with a Robert Axle, employing my El Cheapo Vitus gravel bike and I just have to be very careful where I stop. Hedges are generally a dead loss, and I seek walls, telegraph poles and signposts and generally lean the widest part of the Bob against it. One very awkward task is removing the two steel pins which lock the trailer arms onto the special mounting slots on the Robert axle, and when you have one out, the sodding weight in the trailer can twist the whole caboodle and bend the Bob fitting before you can get the other out and unhitch. I doubt if a stand would help with that. You can imagine that this combo is a real pain when you have to get it over the bridge at railway stations, and it nearly resulted in Merseyrail nearly parting me and the trailer on the platform from the bike on the train. It's a long story for another time. Another axle example recently featured on here, with a 12mm front axle bearing the Herculean weight limit of a monster American front rack.
HoarseMann 4 hours ago
This has nothing to do with the type of bike - it's the type of behaviour that's the problem. Banning the sale of such bikes will not curtail the behaviour. They'll just find another type of vehicle and continue to drive dangerously as there's such a lack of enforcement. I'd sooner see them ban the bally. But really, all that's required is an improvement to roads policing.
AidanR 4 hours ago
The EAPC Bill is welcome, but full of holes. What's to stop an overpowered but temporarily limited e-bike being sold and subsequently delimited? This is often a trivial process.
Sredlums 5 hours ago
@KiwiMike Yeah, in my over four decades of riding all over Europe I've never 'been for a ride in the countryside'. That must be it. Or, and I know this is a wild concept, you just accept that I just voiced my personal experiences and never missed a kickstand, like I wrote. Anyway, what's the big horror of laying your bike on its side for the very few occasions where there is nothing to lean your bike against?
mdavidford 5 hours ago
They may have looked, but did they see?
jackcycles 5 hours ago
Ds2025: where they are going wrong is that they are crushing the motorbike rather than the person sat on top of it. If they did the latter this issue would be solved in less than 24 hours.
Rod Marton 5 hours ago
I came this way today with the car boot sale in operation. There was a marshal at the entrance, who stopped a car turning right across the cycleway as I was approaching. So that certainly works. I think it necessary for the marshal to be there, I couldn't say if the driver would have turned if he hadn't been there but you always have to suspect the worst. Unfortunately there is no marshal at the exit, and there was certainly a car stopped across the cycleway as I was approaching it. But he pulled onto the road before I reached it, and the following car stayed off the cycleway as I went through. Ideally there should have been a marshal there too. On the whole, though, it's a really high standard piece of infrastructure. Just a pity it doesn't extend a bit further.
eburtthebike 6 hours ago
“absolute carnage” So right! Just look at the bodies piled up, blood running in the gutters and injured people limping away. It's a bit of a problem with a road, delaying some people for minutes at a time: it isn't carnage, let alone 'absolute carnage'. Anyone who exaggerates so ridiculously really shouldn't be allowed to comment in public, unless they want to demonstrate their idiocy to all and sundry.
17 thoughts on “Live blog: World Naked Bike Ride coming to Ipswich, Pokemon Go grandad has 22 smartphones on bike (video), Regent’s Park cyclists block driver on wrong side of road, Cav to miss Milan-San Remo squad, Team Ineos to face anti-fracking protests + more”
So Ineos is destroying the
So Ineos is destroying the planet…
From what I’ve seen, the TdF and other major cycling tours do a pretty good job of doing this already without the help of Ineos.
MarkiMark wrote:
They should definitely stop them from throwing bottles away like they do. It’s not a good image.
DrJDog wrote:
Many/most pro races have now introduced so-called ‘green zones’ for dumping stuff like gel wrappers and empty bidons so we should see less of this from now. Fines to be levied on riders who chuck bottles outside those zones.
Round-the-world cat is a
Round-the-world cat is a lovely item.
Is it me, or does Sadiq Khan
Is it me, or does Sadiq Khan look like he’s been (badly) photoshopped into that photo…?
To get plod to attend then
To get plod to attend then ring 999 and tell them that a driver who deliberately veered onto the the wrong side is drunk and nearly wiped out 4 people (don’t mention cyclists), when approached you suspect that they have a weapon of some sort in the vehicle.
They’ll be round sharpish!
BehindTheBikesheds wrote:
…and maybe mention something about them being a possible terrorist (e.g. “Yes, the driver has a swarthy complexion and also has a beard”).
HawkinsPeter wrote:
Actually if it’s the MET they should ring and say a cyclist was riding in the middle of the road and nearly mowed down 4 people. They’ll send a ‘Viper’ rapid response unit round with their glock’s ready to rumble!
“you said there was a cyclist threatening people?”, “er, I said motorist but as you’re here …, don’t forget your sworn oath cuntstable”
The cyclist has only
The cyclist has only adequately made their point when the motorist reverses back the way they came and then drives appropriately on the correct side of the island.
While the motorist is still in the wrong and still trying to get away with it then the point clearly has not been accepted.
Khan does the decent thing
Khan does the decent thing and takes City Hall to the tip.
My original comment wasn’t
My original comment wasn’t really aimed at the riders throwing bottles and wrappers away. A lot of these end up as souvenirs for someone roadside.
It was more about air miles, transfers, helicopters, and that circus that goes round ahead of each stage giving away feebies.
My original comment wasn’t
My original comment wasn’t really aimed at the riders throwing bottles and wrappers away. A lot of these end up as souvenirs for someone roadside.
It was more about air miles, transfers, helicopters, and that circus that goes round ahead of each stage giving away feebies.
I want my cat to come riding
I want my cat to come riding with me, I’d love that.
peted76 wrote:
The best cyclists have a parrot.
ChrisB200SX wrote:
Indeed but a bit too soon for me 🙁
ChrisB200SX wrote:
Indeed but a bit too soon for me 🙁
There’s less waste in the
There’s less waste in the back of the lorry than in the cab.