Welcome to Wednesday’s live blog, with Jack Sexty, Simon MacMichael and the rest of the team…
Live blog: Terrific Bombtrack Dirty Reiver video, Wife’s stinging response to cyclist husband who shaved his legs, Panini TdF album lands at road.cc Towers, Brailsford vs Mortirolo+ more
All today’s news from the site and beyond…
Wed, May 29, 2019 19:30
SUMMARY
29 May 2019, 19:30
Half of Copenhagen commutes are now by bike
Forbes reports that Copenhagen is planning even greater restrictions on car journeys after bike commutes soared from 43% in 2017 to 49% in 2018. The city’s cycle priority plan had aimed for 50% of commutes to be cycled by 2025, but this target looks set to be surpassed.
29 May 2019, 19:30
Some speedy descending on the Mortirolo yesterday
Top speeds on that breath-taking Mortirolo descent:@giuliocicco1 @TrekSegafredo: 77.2km/h@vincenzonibali @Bahrain_Merida: 80.2km/h@rogla @JumboVismaRoad: 83.1km/h#VelonLive #Giro #cycling pic.twitter.com/o0cffL5C1G
— Velon CC (@VelonCC) May 28, 2019
The rain didn’t stop the riders from reaching some hair-raising speeds, with Roglic hitting 83.1km/h on his descent as he attempted to claw back some time on Nibali and Carapaz ahead of him… ultimately it wasn’t to be.
29 May 2019, 19:30
Dave Brailsford follows suit after his riders conquered the mighty Mortirolo, describes it as 'solid' on Strava
With Sir Dave’s team not exactly dominating proceedings at this Giro, it appears he’s taking some time to ride the course himself after the peloton has rolled through. Yesterday he took on the Mortirolo, averaging 272 watts for the segment and 240 watts for his entire 40km ride according to his Strava upload. When asked how it went, he simply replied “solid” in the comments below. He’ll be signing himself up at this rate…
29 May 2019, 19:30
Driver arrested after cyclist in Bexhill dies following collision
.jpg)
A 34-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving and causing death by driving without due care while unfit through drink/drugs, reports The Argus. The incident happened in Bexhill, West Sussex on Sunday, and police are appealing for witnesses.
29 May 2019, 19:30
It'll buff out...
We’ve not a scooby what happened here, judging by the caption the owner appears to be optimistic though…
29 May 2019, 19:30
Woman’s stinging response to husband starting to shave his legs hits headlines
A woman’s response to her husband starting to shave his legs because he’s a “cyclist,” posted to Australia’s version of Mumsnet, has been picked up by the press there and abroad.
Writing on Kidspot, in an article since republished by outlets including news.com.au, Olivia Williams said: “You might think one’s husband going south of the border with a shaver is just the calling card of the modern man, but my husband went WAAAAY south. Deep south.”
The husband, apparently, did the deed while his wife was away for the weekend, having raised the matter with her previously and been left in no doubt what her opinion was.
She admitted that her husband is “certainly a few pedal strokes further up the proverbial mountain than the easily recognisable and much meme-ified MAMIL,” but added that “he has no need to be shaving off milliseconds from his Saturday morning ride time with a new-found penchant for personal grooming.
“My husband is in shape,” she continued. “He’s super fit. One might say he is like a younger, balder Lance Armstrong; minus the mountains of disgrace, disrepute, doping and tell-all Oprah interviews. So not like Lance Armstrong at all. But he’s the only cyclist I could name, and that’s the extent of my willingness to research the matter.”
Concluding her post, she wrote: “So, I made a deal with him. If he shaves his legs, I’m not gonna. But I took it up a notch. I’ll grow out my underarm hair until I can braid it. My landing strip will become the literal untaming of the shrew. My legs will rival the Belanglo State Forest in both the density of native vegetation and impenetrability.
“And he liked that idea about as much as I enjoyed feeling like I’d traded in my husband for an oiled-up Peter Andre, wrapped in a silken sheathe found in the props department of a Pantene commercial. Phew.
“That’s what I call a close shave.”
29 May 2019, 19:30
Dirty Reiver… the view from the front + top pro eating tip
Here’s a very nice vid from Bombtrack (who sponsored this year’s Dirty Reiver) featuring their Dutch cycle-cross pro, Gosse van der Meer as he tackles his first gravel race. As he says 200km of gravel plus over 3K metres of climbing is a bit different from the usual “full gas for an hour” efforts he’s used to. No, need to worry though – as soon as you spot Gosse’s well sculpted facial hair you know he’s going to fit right it. Defo worth a watch if you want a flavour of what gravel racing looks like (from the front), you can get our more mortal perspective here – Gosse is good value, and it’s especially worth watching to the end for an excellent bit of nutrition advice.
29 May 2019, 19:30
Look what we've got in the post
The postie has reminded us that Tour de France fever is coming by dropping off our 2019 TDF Panini sticker album!
Help us to bring you the best cycling content
If you’ve enjoyed this article, then please consider subscribing to road.cc from as little as £2.49. Our mission is to bring you all the news that’s relevant to you as a cyclist, independent reviews, impartial buying advice and more. Your subscription will help us to do more.
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).
7 Comments
Read more...
Read more...
Read more...
Latest Comments
imajez 6 hours ago
@ChrisA the surface make up of a path bears zero relationship to it being a footpath/suitable. I once got lectured on why I shouldn't be riding a footpath by a driver of a Range Rover on a lovely tarmacked road. Another time I was lectured by someone blocking my way on a singletrack path that was built by cyclists, who said I should only be on large wide paths. The parallel wide path was a footpath. But these are very rare exceptions. I ride sensibly and most folk are usually entertained by my polite presence. Also most footpaths would have been paths used by horses in ye olde days, they often conveniently got mislabeled/demoted by rich landowners who failed to get path denied altogether when rights of way were being drawn up.
imajez 7 hours ago
@SecretSam Hence the rise of gravel bikes, which are just less capable drop barred bikes.
miksmith 8 hours ago
You state for the audio for the baofeng that they use an in ear design however they don't ship with any headphones with a mic. What did you use for this?
Rendel Harris 10 hours ago
@eburtthebike One of my best mates, a former rugby teammate of mine, is a Kiwi and a teacher (over here). I can imagine him making precisely that joke and he's a mad keen cyclist! Honestly, if this is the whole story it's a hell of an overreaction to a remark that deserved a mild reprimand about appropriate conduct if that (different if it was coming from a police officer or a driving instructor or similar, maybe). Having worked in a number of schools it's my experience that when senior management take agin someone they'll grab any excuse to get rid of them, I wouldn't be surprised if that was the situation here.
Andrewbanshee 10 hours ago
Hi I wasn't implying the ramps were equivalent to a pump track. I was saying many forestry trails are pretty hairy rather than a well designed pump track. The ramps are definitely not suitable and need replacing, but they are replacing with a new design. I suspect much more tame.
eburtthebike 13 hours ago
Oh dear! With my sense of humour, I should have been sacked a dozen times: every year. The Kiwis I've met all seemed to have a reasonable sense of humour, and one was excellent, but perhaps they weren't working for a school.
ktache 14 hours ago
"neither student laughed..." Well, it elicited a wry smile from me...
Rendel Harris 19 hours ago
@60somethingcyclist Unfortunately there are a couple of problems with that: firstly in order to try to manage some of the chaos in the Italian political system, for several decades when a mayor wins an election in large towns they are automatically given a guaranteed majority of 60% of the council seats, and also if a decree of the mayor's is overruled by the council that automatically triggers a no-confidence vote which then dissolves the council and forces a new election. So in order to vote down this decree not only would opponents need to persuade a considerable number of the mayor's own party to vote against him but also effectively to vote themselves out of office with no guarantee of return.
matthewn5 1 day ago
My first road bike was a Raleigh, too. A 1976 Raleigh Record. I dragged it out of the shed a few years ago and got it working again. 14kg it weighed! A 52/42 crank and a 14-28 five speed 'cluster' at the back made hills pretty hard work...
7 thoughts on “Live blog: Terrific Bombtrack Dirty Reiver video, Wife’s stinging response to cyclist husband who shaved his legs, Panini TdF album lands at road.cc Towers, Brailsford vs Mortirolo+ more”
H’mm I was in Copenhagen last
H’mm I was in Copenhagen last week, and although there are plenty of people cycling to work in the city, I wouldn’t say it was as high as 50%?
Having been to Rotterdam that seemed to have a higher percentage of cycling commuters.
Still they’re both higher percentages than anywhere in the UK
maviczap wrote:
Always tricky to judge by eye, since bikes take up so much less space than cars that it’s easy to under-count them.
rkemb wrote:
Agreed. I did see a video of Copenhagen showing many cars in traffic and what appeared to be a few bicycles passing by, but when a counter was used to determine passenger numbers, there were more cyclists than car occupants.
I visit at least once a year; the cycle infrastructure is mind bogglingly good. Just watch out, as a pedestrian, if you dare to wander into a cycle lane – they are not shared use!!!
rkemb wrote:
Agreed. I did see a video of Copenhagen showing many cars in traffic and what appeared to be a few bicycles passing by, but when a counter was used to determine passenger numbers, there were more cyclists than car occupants.
I visit at least once a year; the cycle infrastructure is mind bogglingly good. Just watch out, as a pedestrian, if you dare to wander into a cycle lane – they are not shared use!!!
maviczap wrote:
My impression of Copenhagen was also that it was a city with lots of cyclists, but still dominated by cars. And the drivers were quite aggressive. There were also a lot of supercars and big SUVs driving around, which doesn’t make any sense.
Some of the bike lanes are amazing though and I imagine especially the ones for commuters coming into the city are more busy than the one in the centre where I spend my time.
OMG what happened to that
OMG what happened to that bike??? It looks like it was bitten by a shark
I was in Hastings/Bexhill
I was in Hastings/Bexhill last weekend. Very sad. RIP Fella and condolonces to the family.