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Play nicely! CUK asks cyclists & horse riders to “Be nice, say Hi” in Surrey Hills; Outgoing cycling minister calls for big boost to active travel investment; “Quite nice” to watch Giro on TV says Froome; Cannondale SuperSix goes Dirty +Goat trauma & more
SUMMARY

Froome says it was “quite nice” to just watch the Giro on TV
The Criterium du Dauphine starts on Sunday. Chris Froome will be leading an Ineos team that will also feature Vasil Kiryienka, Michal Kwiatkowski, Gianni Moscon, Wout Poels, Ian Stannard and Dylan van Baarle.
The Dauphiné is a more conventional build-up to the Tour de France for Froome after last year’s win in the Giro d’Italia.
“It was quite nice in a way watching the Giro on the TV and actually not racing,” said Froome. “Also remembering my feelings coming out of the Giro last year – it’s so different to how I feel right now. Hopefully I’ll be a lot fresher now coming into this next block and more ready to race, as opposed to being on the back foot trying to recover from the Giro.”
Speaking about team-mate Pavel Sivakov, who finished ninth in Italy, Froome added: “Pavel was very, very impressive. For a 21 year old to have ridden a top 10 in just his second Grand Tour – that takes some doing and it goes a long way to showing what kind of engine he has for the future.”
Cannondale SuperX for Dirty Kanza 200-mile race
The EF Education First riders who raced Dirty Kanza last weekend – Alex Howes, Taylor Phinney and Lachlan Morton – did so on Cannondale SuperX cyclocross bikes but modified to suit the rigours of the 200-mile gravel race. The trio used Vittoria Terreno Dry file tread tyres in 38 and 40mm widths and fitted to FSA AGX gravel wheels.
View this post on InstagramA post shared by EF Education First Pro Cycling (@ef.educationfirst.procycling) on
Course tracking and navigation were via Garmin Edge 1030 computers with backup batteries, and as tracking devices are required for all riders each had a Garmin inReach Mini stuffed in the Rapha frame pack. The frame pack was the preferred choice for carrying all the essentials after testing by the team, along with a saddle bag for spare tubes.
Even with the frame pack there was space for two larger water bottles. Taylor Phinney instead preferred to use a hydration pack to meet the demands of staying hydrated for the long race.
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Alex Howes (@alex_howes) on
£5,400 spent on concrete blocks to keep cyclists off Leicester path
Local cyclists say situation will only improve when nearby cycle lane is finished.
NZ cyclist had bike stolen while rescuing a goat
Rogue goat rescue happening in Sandringham on fowlds ave @NZStuff community members have banded together and captured the devil, but it’s pretty scared and we want to look after it and return it home. Please help! pic.twitter.com/WsNmKj8NN4
— Jessica Rose for Whau (@jessicarose_LTF) June 6, 2019
So I stopped to save a goat in Sandringham, and in those moments some bugger stole my bicycle. Not very cool. @AklCouncil @BikeAKL @NZStuff mine is the little one (also still waiting for animal control and I want to go home) WTF is wrong with people #merxx pic.twitter.com/dpcB6pFItE
— Jessica Rose for Whau (@jessicarose_LTF) June 6, 2019
Full story over at Stuff.
E-bike use predicted to grow by almost 40,000% by 2050, according to Halfords research


While you may expect a retailer that sells bikes to be optimistic, the latest forecasting from Halfords suggests that UK e-bike sales, if they continue on their current trajectory, could jump from around 50,000 in 2019 to a whopping 1.5 million by 2050. Full story over on eBikeTips.
Outgoing cycling minister calls for huge investment in sustainable transport
Then comes Item C: a massive investment in sustainable transport, raising cycling and walking spend to £15/head p.a. by 2022, creating a new low-cost domestic light rail industry, maintaining heavy rail investment, expanding EV charging networks, as in https://t.co/SdXGCz0BB0 8/
— Jesse Norman (@Jesse_Norman) June 6, 2019
Click here to read the full thread.
UCI to roll out further mechanical doping measures
An upgrade to their magnetic scanning technology plus a ‘tracker’ that can be attached to bikes.
Horse riders and cyclists encouraged to “Be Nice, Say Hi” in Surrey Hills
Visitors to the Surrey Hills are being encouraged to “Be Nice, Say Hi”, in a joint campaign from Cycling UK and The British Horse Society (BHS).
The two charities are encouraging cyclists to drop their pace and call out a greeting, giving the horse and rider time to react before overtaking wide and slow.
Duncan Dollimore, Cycling UK’s head of campaigns said: “Every time a cyclist encounters a horse, there are three brains involved: the cyclist’s, the rider’s and the horse’s. Many people aren’t familiar with horses, and there can be confusion on what they should do when overtaking on a bike.
“Cyclists may already know to pass wide and slow when it’s safe to do so – but they could still startle the horse unless the horse and rider are made aware of your presence.
“Generally, if a cyclist startles a horse, it is due to simple lack of awareness that a horse needs more time to react, which is why Cycling UK is pleased to be helping the BHS promote the consideration and courtesy message of ’Be Nice, Say Hi’ and is delighted to see it adopted in the Surrey Hills.”
The Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) is the first area in the South East to take up the initiative.
US rider denies deliberately causing crash after being disqualified from race
“A career in crashing people out is not what I’m trying to do. It doesn’t pay very well and you don’t get on very many teams for that skill, and you don’t get to finish very many races.”
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Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn’t especially like cake.
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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.
10 thoughts on “Play nicely! CUK asks cyclists & horse riders to “Be nice, say Hi” in Surrey Hills; Outgoing cycling minister calls for big boost to active travel investment; “Quite nice” to watch Giro on TV says Froome; Cannondale SuperSix goes Dirty +Goat trauma & more”
RE :EF’s dirty Kanza bikes, I
RE :EF’s dirty Kanza bikes, I thought there was a moan they had tri bars attached? Can’t see any in those pictures.
AlsoSomniloquism wrote:
The winner had tri-bars. Makes sense but also seems a bit risky on bumpy roads.
The winner has used tri bars
The winner has used tri bars in the past as well, risk vs reward seems very worth it if you want to win.
“a massive investment in
“a massive investment in sustainable transport, raising cycling and walking spend to £15/head p.a. by 2022” Jesse Norman, outgoing cycling minister.
If only he’d had the guts to do it while he was cycling minister, he might have garnered a tiny bit of respect. Saying that when you’re leaving is adding insult to injury.
burtthebike wrote:
Bear in mind that as a minister he may have been carpeted / bollocked / humiliated for saying publicly what he has said now.
When your boss is Grayling, and DoT for the vast majority of people (and 99% of Tory MPs) means spending money on roads and doing stuff to favour car drivers, then one’s personal opinions are probably next to worthless. Since he’s no longer in that post it’s nothing more than the opinion of a single MP.
It may be better to ask: What do you think motivates him to say it now? What purpose does it serve?
Although when his one mention of food is a complaint that local burger joints can’t serve half-cooked burgers
one wonders whether he cares about any of the far bigger issues around food – agriculture, health and so on.
burtthebike wrote:
Edited my post to add a line but it somehow created a second post.
Simon E]
He must be planning to stand for the leadership, and knows that being outspokenly pro-bike will guarantee millions of votes from the loyal Tory faithful desperate to be freed from the joint tyranny of the motor car, the road-building lobby and the petroleum industry with all their filthy money.
ConcordeCX]
Of course! All those totally selfless, humanitarian, socialist tories will leap on his bandwagon.
burtthebike wrote:
Exactly. Like Theresa May now calling for the abolition of university tuition fees. If only there had been some way of making that happen in the past three years. Like being the fucking Prime Minister or something.
Goat? Another bike stolen
Goat? Another bike stolen because of kids.