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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
SUMMARY
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.
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.
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…
Driver arrested after cyclist in Bexhill dies following collision
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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.
It'll buff out...
We’ve not a scooby what happened here, judging by the caption the owner appears to be optimistic though…
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.”
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.
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!
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"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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
@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?
They may have looked, but did they see?
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.
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.
“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.
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.