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Live blog: 5 things we learned from British Cycling’s Zwift eRacing Champs; Corner-cutting collision vid goes viral; Leave Vs Remain poll – summer time/winter time?; Skinny Wigan bike lane; Rapha pops up north; “too fat” pro cyclist; lots of bikes + more
SUMMARY

Patrick Lefevere says Remco Evenepoel is "too fat"
Rarely one to mince his words, Deceuninck – Quick-Step boss Patrick Lefevere has told Humo that junior road race and time trial world champion Remco Evenepoel is too fat.
He says the 19-year-old Belgian star is 4kg overweight.
"If you can't fit the bike picture in the lane, it's not wide enough"
not exactly a great use of public money.
Whoever painted the lines needs to be challenged to ride down it.Some good stuff happening in Wigan too.
I’m looking into it. https://t.co/GlAOSPoHI8
— Chris Boardman (@Chris_Boardman) March 29, 2019
Video of motorist ploughing into cyclist waiting at junction removed from Facebook
Michael Rammell removed this video from Facebook because… well, because far too many people were being colossal arseholes in the comments.
1: So my crash footage has been doing the rounds today. Hitting over 1,300shares on Facebook with 111k views. @theJeremyVine was also kind enough to share it too. I’m happy for it to be seen, provided it inspires a positive discussion about genuine road courtesy and kindness. pic.twitter.com/ilUVaw8l5w
— ThatBerkshireCyclist (@cyclist_that) March 28, 2019
Sample Facebook comment:
There are a number of comments just like this one (such a shame): pic.twitter.com/z0r8fkufZV
— ThatBerkshireCyclist (@cyclist_that) March 28, 2019
And here’s the background.
For those that didn’t see my original post over on my Facebook page, here’s the accompanying text that sets out the days following the incident and what’s happening next. It’s long! In summary, I’m forgiving and forgetting. Just thankful to be okay. pic.twitter.com/zm0uANa6Nx
— ThatBerkshireCyclist (@cyclist_that) March 28, 2019
Great sportsmanship from Hepburn
Sportmanship! @MitcheltonSCOTT @michael_hepburn pic.twitter.com/90AbPwVABU
— Daan van den Berg (@daanvandenberg) March 27, 2019
The Mitchelon-Scott Aussie stopped to help his friend from another team after a crash in the closing stages of Driedaagse Brugge- De Panne.
Thankfully Zak Dempster is ok and will be starting E3 Harelbeke today.
Not such great sportsmanship from Longo-Borghini
At least throw the bike in my direction eh?!
Got back up and on to my spare bike but unfortunately I was down too long and so wasn’t able to rejoin the bunch to help my @BiglaTeam in the finish. #UCIWWT #AG3daagse https://t.co/YM1Gzhfvhw
— Lizzy Banks (@ElizzyBanks) March 28, 2019
Here’s one to add to the highlights reel of cyclists throwing bikes. Problem is, that wasn’t even Longo-Borghini’s bike.
The Italian rider later apologised for the incident
Ryan Mullen hit by car while training
Figured Ryan’s fine, albeit making a fuss, what kind of write off state is the car in though? https://t.co/RByF6jajck
— Alex Dowsett (@alexdowsett) March 28, 2019
The Irish rider’s luck hasn’t been good so far this year.
After coming back from a virus, the Trek-Segafredo rider was hit by a car while on a rest day ride before E3 Harelbeke. He’ll miss today’s race, but as Alex Dowsett points out, what about the poor car?
Rapha launches Aero Block Collection
Rapha has just announced the new Aero Block Collection, a range of aero jerseys with a cool new block pattern that is apparently inspired by the way air flows over a rider’s body.
The range includes several jerseys, base layers, bib shorts and caps for men and women, with prices starting at £30 and rising to £205. You can view the range here.
Lord Robert Winston says a woman kicked him when he told her not to cycle on the pavement
Labour peer says he’s considering introducing a private members’ bill to force cyclists to have licence plates.
Leave Vs Remain poll: Summer time or winter time?
The clocks go forward for potentially the last time ever this weekend – no, it’s not the end of the world, it’s just the end of bi-annual clock changes, at least it is in the EU so…
Apparently there was a continent wide public consultation about it, millions voted …we were a bit preoccupied so most of us seem to have missed it. Upshot is that from 2020 countries are going to decide whether to stick with permanent summer time or winter time – referendums perhaps?
So (inserting the usual Brexit caveats here) which will it be, lighter rides home on the winter commute or the lure of bonus daylight at 3.30am when the roads are nice and quiet? Have your say!*
*all votes cast as will be treated as being purely indicative and non-binding
It's the London Bike Show today
We’re at the London Bike Show today checking out what’s new and hot in the bike world, and this speedy Cervelo S5 Disc has caught our eye.
Rose's funky new urban bike
German brand Rose is showing this funky new urban city bike at the London Bike Show today. What do you think?
Two thirds of drivers are surprised when a cyclist ‘appears from nowhere’
Image above is from the Now You See Me campaign video.
Five things we learnt from yesterday’s British Cycling Zwift eRacing Championships
Yesterday’s British Cycling eRacing Championships at BT Sport’s studio in London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park provided some terrific racing as 10 men and 10 women fought it out to be crowned the inaugural national champions. Here’s five things we took away from the event.
Virtual racing is emerging as a discipline in its own right. The purists may not buy into it, but there’s no reason why, as more events are developed, it comes to sit alongside road and track.
It’s a sport which lends itself well to a live audience. Yes, it needs a bit of space – the BT Sport studio that hosted last night’s event was huge – but eSports are nowadays often played out in front of big crowds in the US and Far East, and there’s no reason this should be different.
For that to work though, it does need a decent set-up. The set used yesterday was spectacular and it would be difficult to justify that for every event – but the huge screen behind the riders that showed the Zwift feed in real time really worked and it was easy to follow what was going on.
It’s fascinating to watch the riders close up. Watching a road race in person rather than on TV, even in the mountains it can be difficult to fully appreciate the riders’ efforts, they pass so quickly. Here, though, they stay in the same place so you can watch individual riders for as long as you like and it’s also eaasy to get an idea of who is struggling and who is looking strong.
It’s another means of talent-spotting. The men and women who contested the national championships qualified from hundreds of hopefuls and while a number of them will be familiar names to people who follow the domestic scene, others aren’t, and the Zwift Academy programme shows that it’s another way of potentially breaking into the pro ranks.
Three Edinburgh cyclists pushed into canal by youths
The Edinburgh News reports that the city has seen a spate of attacks on cyclists by the canal.
Between 5pm and 9.15pm on Wednesday, three men were cycling on National Cycle Route 754 near Murrayburn and Wester Hailes when they were confronted by a group of youths and pushed into the Union Canal.
Police are appealing for witnesses and say they are treating the incidents “very seriously.”
Green councillor and Edinburgh canal champion, councillor Gavin Corbett, said: “As someone who cycles on the canal towpath every day I’m alarmed and disappointed to hear of these incidents. I’m glad there was no serious injury but only by luck.
“The canal towpath has generally become so much safer over the last 20 years partly because so many people use it. However, it’s a prompt to look further at towpath improvements such as visibility and lighting, so that it continues to be a popular route for walking, cycling and running.”
Regarding that skinny Wigan cycle lane from this morning
As part of routine maintenance our contractor has recently refreshed the faded lines giving the appearance the mandatory lane is new.
— Wigan Council (@WiganCouncil) March 29, 2019
#AmsterWigan won’t be built in a day, but we are working on it. @Chris_Boardman
— Wigan Council (@WiganCouncil) March 29, 2019
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Latest Comments
@FionaJJ These officers deployed next-level stupidity, and it must be difficult for the police to find people this dim. It doesn't even need rolling-roads or whatever, just a reputable bike computer on a quickly changed mount for the difficult cases where a proper EAPC has been modded, although you would need to look hard in Lancashire to find a police officer who knows how to make a pedal cycle go. Most illegal electric motorbikes are immediately obvious, not least because the crim is wearing a face mask. I saw an obvious one tonight coming out of Garstang Sainsbury's, not pedalling but without a face mask because everybody knows that the police only come into the town to hide away in the police station 200 yards away.
Gustav Gullholm.. that's not a good look mate
@Chris RideFar I think what you meant to say was "REMOVE this and put it on PODCAST CC".
As Mary Whitehouse never said - one doesn't have to read the article if one doesn't want to read about an off-road bicycle.
@FionaJJ In London they're allowed to stop on single and double yellows to deliver packages or empty pillar boxes; in practice they take this as carte blanche to park wherever and whenever they want, such as this chap on the Brixton Road who pulled into the bus/cycle/motorcycle lane without indicating, as I approached at 20mph, to park on a red route, response to a remonstrance, "I suppose you never get post delivered do ya?"
@Rendel Harris We have a pavement parking ban, but around here at least, royal mail vans are already exempt, subject to certain caveats, such as allowing at least 1.5m, and only being stopped to do their work.
It was already embarrassing for the police that they made such a mess of their attempt to determine whether a bike was legal or not, but I had assumed it was a group of well intentioned, but under-trained officers acting on their own initiative, having spotted something they thought looked not quite right. I'm now discovering this was a planned activity, something sufficiently organised to have been given a name - Operation FRISLEN, designed specifically to identify and remove illegal e-bikes and scooters. It's apparent that the officers were sent out without adequate training, never mind the kind of equipment that should be used for this sort of work. I'm not saying they always need specialist equipment to spot all illegal bikes, but at least if they'd been given a demonstration with that equipment, they'd have realised why their approach was not going to end well.
Have put drop bars on a 2001 B1 mtb, a 2007 stumpy hardtail and a 2010 stumpy full suss. In all cases fairly basic conversións leaving gearing and wheels broadly the same and concentrating on correct positioning of bars and fit. Oddly, with all 3 I was happy with the result when recently done, but after a few months found that the extra speed on easy trails was more than offset by the lack of ability (probably mine) on tougher routes and finally preferred flat bar with slammed and inverted stem as best overall compromise. Good fun playing around, though.
The photos in this review look they are for a different bag?
This is a strange reactionary knee jerk overall. But what is this "are essentially motorbikes in disguise" waffle? "One letter claimed that high-powered electric ‘e-bikes’ were “essentially motorbikes” in disguise, with many being used without lights, helmets, or any hi-vis clothing." Surely, they simply ARE motorbikes?
15 thoughts on “Live blog: 5 things we learned from British Cycling’s Zwift eRacing Champs; Corner-cutting collision vid goes viral; Leave Vs Remain poll – summer time/winter time?; Skinny Wigan bike lane; Rapha pops up north; “too fat” pro cyclist; lots of bikes + more”
That BMW cutting that corner.
That BMW cutting that corner. I don’t really want to swear…
ktache wrote:
It’s the facebook and social media hate that makes me want to swear and raises my blood pressure.
Social media is one of the worst things to happen to this country for decades. It’s just a hate fest and an unbeliveably good way to spead fake news and misinformation. Burn it with fire or sort it the fuck out.
If it’s a choice between GMT
If it’s a choice between GMT or BST all year round, my preference is BST for those long evenings.
But I know there are arguments on both sides, and they rage every year. GMT keeps the mornings lighter in the winter, meaning fewer people have to go to work and school in the dark, so that’s safer. Changing the clocks in spring and autumn, as we do now, seems like a good solution, but I think there’s evidence that the change itself can cause accidents and health issues.
A quick search brings up this study from the US, which concludes that “health consequences from forced changes in the circadian patterns resulting from DST come not only from physiological adjustments but also from behavioral responses to forced circadian changes”.
Near the start of my home, I
Near the start of my home, I approach a junction. Even in my car, I have to hold back on approach because I know that there are too many people who cut that corner and refuse to reduce their speed to take the corner properly. Still, as they can only continue about 300m more max, it must save them all of 3 seconds to take the corner properly.
Motorist does that to police
Motorist does that to police car sitting at the corner waiting to turn and that’d be dangerous driving all day long. Speed awareness course, ffs another day and that’s yet another persons life snuffed out! Plod are a fucking disgrace!
What.. there was a vote on
What.. there was a vote on whether to change the clocks? When.. who voted, was anyone asked in Warwickshire? I’d be a bit buggered riding my bike if I couldn’t have long light summer nights… but then again it’d be a bit miserable going to work in the dark.. ah this is rather confusing!!
Why don’t we split the
Why don’t we split the difference in daylight hours? So GMT +30MINS. A bit like a Brexit compromise, else we’ll have to have another vote where about half will be pissed off.
Wardy74 wrote:
The answer is clear and we should decimalise the time system to 100 hours a day, one hundred minutes an hour and 100 seconds per minute. Then adjust the actual time by moving it backwards or forwards every day by an amount to synchronise it with sunrise.
This will be the easiest deal to negotiate since all the trade deals we’ve done since the referendum.
burtthebike wrote:
The answer is clear and we should decimalise the time system to 100 hours a day, one hundred minutes an hour and 100 seconds per minute. Then adjust the actual time by moving it backwards or forwards every day by an amount to synchronise it with sunrise.
This will be the easiest deal to negotiate since all the trade deals we’ve done since the referendum.— Wardy74
You do realize (or apparenlty not) that sunrise and sunset vary with latitude?
http://astrosun2.astro.cornell.edu/academics/courses/astro201/sun_rise.htm
fbhidy wrote:
Latitude is an EU concept foisted on the rest of us by those unelected European officials, and will not be tolerated now that we’ve left.
fbhidy wrote:
these are people who think bumping the clocks along by an hour magically lengthens the day, the idea that it might then end up still daylight at midnight in Newcastle instead of the leafy suburbs of London Im sure completely escapes them
Awavey wrote:
When told the reason for daylight saving time the old Indian said, “Only a white man would believe that you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket and sew it to the bottom of a blanket and have a longer blanket.”
Awavey wrote:
I get the relevance of London vs Newcastle (different lattitude), but what do the “leafy suburbs” have to do with the argument?
Are you saying only London suburbs have leaves, or that only London has suburbs? Or that suburbs are in a different time-zone to inner cities?
I bet Newcastle has at least as many leaves as, say, Croydon.
FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:
I don’t know, I’ve always been a treemainer, myself.
FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:
Many more, assuming you include blades of grass (which are leaves,) but not if you are counting trees. Bit blowy up there.