Welcome to Friday’s live blog, with Jack Sexty, Simon MacMichael and the rest of the team.
Wiggo’s Vuelta crash verdict; Why don’t cyclists use the cycle path; Froome: Doubters are next Tour win motivation; Red light jumping – not RLJing cyclist; Pinarello, Whyte, Fizik + shiny, shiny shoes at the Cycle Show + more Vuelta & more
All today’s news from the site and beyond…
Fri, Sep 13, 2019 19:54
SUMMARY
13 September 2019, 19:54
British Cycling back 'Playing Out' initiative to make streets safe and traffic free for kids to ride outside
We’re working with @playingout
to restore children’s freedom to play and ride in the streets and spaces where they liveJoin the movement and create a safe space on your doorstep by organising a street play session
Find out how: https://t.co/kSoMSAZVWI#PlayingOut pic.twitter.com/KOOcDJFduE
— British Cycling (@BritishCycling) September 12, 2019
British Cycling are working with Playing Out and the Children’s Commissioner for England to encourage more parents to “reclaim their streets and estates and give children the chance to cycle and play out freely.”
The campaign is also calling on local authorities to get behind them, and say that the frequency of children learning to ride a bike safely outside is in decline; according to a survey just commissioned by British Cycling, 92% of parents used to ride their bike on local streets as a child, but 76% said they feel it’s now less safe for their child to do so because of traffic dangers.
88% said they would teach them if their local streets felt safer and 94% said they would if it was easier to get to safe places to cycle, which is where Playing Out comes in. Starting on a street in Bristol but spreading to over 950 throughout the UK, parents and residents can apply for ‘play street’ sessions so kids can ride bikes traffic-free. Information on whether your local council has a play street policy can be found here.
13 September 2019, 19:54
Commuter's recording of six drivers jumping red light in London causes stir on social media
A load of cyclists jumping red lights pic.twitter.com/0RGvWIFW2S
— The Dynaslow (@TheDynaslow) September 12, 2019
In the footage, the cyclist records numerous cars turning right at a junction where the light is clearly red, which takes them through the path of a cycleway. Ironically, the light actually goes green at the end of the clip.
The uploader says: “sadly I was not able to catch all the VRNs and nor would I have time to report them all”, but we’re waiting to hear back if TfL are planning to take any action. The footage was captured on the westbound Cycle Superhighway 3 at the junction of Lower Thames Street and Puddle Dock.
Anyone recognise this junction and had similar experiences?
13 September 2019, 19:54
Some recent history on the Pinarello stand
We’ll be dropping various things we saw at the Cycle Show yesterday on to the blog during the day starting with something extra special on the Pinarello stand.
There’s loads of cool bikes to see on the Pinarello stand (obv) quite a lot of orange paint schemes award for the orangest going to the Gan out front. Head to the back of the stand and you’ll find a special hint of yellow – a signed yellow Pinarello – we’re guessing it’s the actual one ridden to victory at the Tour by Egan Bernal, although it could be one of his spare yellow bikes too. We’d rather believe though….
13 September 2019, 19:54
More 'cyclists' running a red light. Oh, wait ...
… we meant ‘motorists’ – and 10 went through red on this phase.
Northern end of Baker Street. Sherlock Holmes’s house is just down there on the right, perhaps we should get him to investigate the paradox of why many drivers assume that all cyclists ignore red lights (spoiler: most don’t) while turning a blind eye to people in motor vehicles doing exactly that?
“Cyclists run red lights” pic.twitter.com/Ngy25tx5x9
— hot tub state machine (@angryaboutbikes) September 12, 2019
13 September 2019, 19:54
Meanwhile in Cambridge ...
13 September 2019, 19:54
Froome: People writing off my career gives motivation for fifth Tour win
Chris Froome has said that people writing off his career following his crash at June’s Criterium di Dauphiné, forcing him out of the following month’s Tour de France, will motivate him to seek a record-equalling fifth yellow jersey next year.
The 34-year-old has spent the summer recovering from his injuries and this week it was confirmed that he will ride in the late season exhibition race, the Tour de France Saitama Criterium in Japan late next month.
The Team Ineos rider told the Telegraph: I’m going to have to train harder than I’ve ever trained before to get back there again.
“I’m grateful to be alive. I’m grateful to be on the road to recovery, I’m grateful that I’m able to recover. Now I’m going to give it everything.”
He added: “As for the Tour, a fifth Tour title was a big deal in itself. But going for a fifth title off what was potentially a career-ending crash, that would be even bigger.
“There were loads of people who came out after the crash and said ‘He’s done. He’ll never win another Tour.’ They only spur me on.”
Earlier this month, Froome was back in hospital to have surgery to repair a tendon in his left hand following an accident involving a kitchen knife, but he says there is “no lasting damage.”
13 September 2019, 19:54
Rwanda submits formal bids for 2025 Road World Championships
The Rwandan Cycling Federation has submitted a formal bid to host the 2025 UCI Road World Championships and if successful would become the first African country to stage the event, first held in 1921.
With the locations of the event between now and 2024 already decided, 2025 is the next available slot for bids, and Morocco is also vying to play host to the event.
The country’s leading newspaper, The New Times, reports that sports and culture minister John Ntigengwa and Aimable Bayingana, president of the local cycling federation, Ferwacy, formally submitted the bid to UCI president David Lappartient at the World Cycling Centre in Aigle, Switzerland, yesterday.
Since February this year, Tour du Rwanda was upgraded from a 2.2 to a 2.1 UCI category race, making it only Africa’s second race with 2.1 badge, after Gabon’s La Tropicale Amissa Bongo.
The Tour du Rwanda, founded in 2008 as an amateur event and now a UCI 2.1 race – one tier below the Tour of Britain – saw its 11th edition in March, with hundreds of thousands of spectators lining the roadsides to watch it.
13 September 2019, 19:54
Disco sippers
Some more VERY shiny stuff we spotted at the Cycle Show yesterday. Hard to miss these tbh
13 September 2019, 19:54
City shoes…
Keeping with the footwear theme, this new line of shoes that Fizik were showing also caught our eye. Ostensibly they fall in to the off-road category, but the Fizik person we spoke to at the show said they were very much intended for any sort of cyclist who might want a shoe that didn’t look like a cycling shoe – and they particularly had urban cyclists, commuters in mind too. As you’d expect in an off-road shoe they take two bolt spd pedals, and the cleat looks like it should be well recessed so walking about in them shouldn’t be a problem. They also feature Vibram soles and you’d expect them to be robust and durable too… we’ll be getting some in to find out. They’re available from Monday and the SRP is £120. You can find more full fat Cycle Show goodness here – where Dave Arthur checks a host of new bikes from British brands and here where Jack Sexty check out the cool stuff on display while trying not to drool.
13 September 2019, 19:54
Drama at Vuelta as Roglic caught up in crash
It’s another dramatic day at the Vuelta as race leader Primoz Roglic got caught up in a crash in the rain that appears to have ended his Jumbo-Visma team-mate Tony Martin’s race.
With 60 kilometres left of the stage from Avila to Toledo, a group including most of the Movistar team – and crucially, second placed overall Alejandro Valverde – was a minute up the road and the world champion was within two minutes of race leader.
With 53km left now though and groups all over the road, Valverde seems to have told his team-mates to knock off the pace … we’ll keep an eye on this one …
Drama at #LaVuelta19 as race leader Primoz Roglic hits the deck in a pile-up crash during a wet Stage 19
See how Roglic recovers from the crash LIVE on Eurosport:
Eurosport 1
Eurosport Player https://t.co/bt3TbPVNQG pic.twitter.com/mkTp8si0l2— Eurosport UK (@Eurosport_UK) September 13, 2019
13 September 2019, 19:54
Too much orange?
Here’s that Pinarello Gan we mentioned earlier. Can’t help feeling that if they could have kitted it out with orange bars, saddle and stem Pinarello would. Not sure whether that would have been a good thing or not. Supppose that depends on how you feel about orange. One thing that shouldn’t divide opinion is the latest version of Shimano 105 that this bike comes spec’d with a most excellent groupset you can read our review here and of those 105 7020 disc brakes and levers here – been riding those myself recently, very impressive.
13 September 2019, 19:54
Advantage van der Poel as he wins penultimate Tour of Britain stage
Mathieu van der Poel of Corendon-Circus and Mitchelton-Scott’s Matteo Trentin have been trading punches (in the figurative sense) at the Tour of Britain all week – and today, the advantage has swung firmly in the Dutchman’s favour as he doubled his lead over the Italian to 12 seconds at Burton Dassett Country Park, where the pair finished respectively first and second.
And most years, that might be the GC all but decided – except that tomorrow, instead of a sprinter friendly circuit race in London, we have a looping parcours from Altrincham to Manchester that includes 2,000 metres of climbing.
Can Mitchelton-Scott, one of the strongest teams in the race, distance van der Poel on those climbs? Or will his Corendon-Circus team mates manage to neutralise any moves from the Australian UCI WorldTour team?
It should be a cracker.
Here's how @mathieuvdpoel got the better of nearest challenger @MATTEOTRENTIN to win stage seven of this year's @OVOEnergy Tour of Britain #OVOToBpic.twitter.com/CVkYQirrSP
— Tour of Britain (@TourofBritain) September 13, 2019
13 September 2019, 19:54
Why don't cyclists use the cycle path .. well, this doesn't help ...
Pavement parking has been in the news this week, so here is a timely video of a dad accompanying his kid on the school run, riding on a shared-use path until, rounding a bend … they encounter a car parked on the path.
Back onto the main road it is, then …
13 September 2019, 19:54
First look: Hope RX gravel crankset
Our chums over at off.road.cc have got their mitts on Hope’s RX gravel chainset, basically the RX chainset given the gravel treatment – you can read more about it here.
13 September 2019, 19:54
Sir Brad on the row about whether Valverde tried to take advantage of Roglic Vuelta crash
It’s been kicking off on social media … and in the peloton … about whether Alejandro Valverde, second overall at the Vuelta, tried to take advantage of race leader Primoz Roglic getting caught up in a crash with 66km to go on today’s stage into Toledo.
Our reading? Movistar had the numbers in the front group but did not go full gas, and it was Valverde who got his colleagues to knock off the pace, but only after he got an earful … and it has to be said, a well-aimed bit of spit – from riders from rival teams.
Here is Sir Bradley Wiggins’ take for Eurosport on whether Valverde was seeking to take advantage of Roglic’s misfortune, plus footage of the crash and the stage results.
"You're not always aware when these things happen"@SirWiggo doesn't believe @Movistar_Team took advantage of Primoz Roglic's crash on purpose #LaVuelta19 pic.twitter.com/sTBM3qm0AJ
— Eurosport UK (@Eurosport_UK) September 13, 2019
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13 September 2019, 19:54
More from the Cycle Show… Whyte Gisburn
It’s aaaaaages since we mentioned anything about gravel on here so to put that right here’s a Whyte Gisburn we spotted yesterday at the Cycle Show. There were a lot of shades of yellow at play on the Whyte stand and one of them was this yellowy or is it green Gisburn. An eye-catching bike either way and I’m sort of surprised we haven’t test one already, it features a Sram 1×11 gearing, tubeless ready wheels, and a dropper post. Whyte say the geometry is mountain bike derived and the post helps get the most out of that when descending. You can find out more here. Oh, it’s £1999.99.
13 September 2019, 19:54
Here are today's Vuelta highlights after another stage full of talking points
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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 6 hours 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 7 hours 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 8 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 10 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 10 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 11 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 11 hours ago
They may have looked, but did they see?
jackcycles 11 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 11 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 12 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.
18 thoughts on “Wiggo’s Vuelta crash verdict; Why don’t cyclists use the cycle path; Froome: Doubters are next Tour win motivation; Red light jumping – not RLJing cyclist; Pinarello, Whyte, Fizik + shiny, shiny shoes at the Cycle Show + more Vuelta & more”
That RLJ junction is an
That RLJ junction is an absolute nightmare. I was hit by a car doing just that, right there last year. After having wiped me out, and knackering my rear wheel, he started shouting about his car getting scratched. Some parts of London are just like that, unfortunately.
Judge dreadful wrote:
I’m not sure if it’d be able to check the number plates of those vehicles from the video clip. That is appalling though. I haven’t gone that way for ages but if I do, I’ll be sure to take care.
That intersction is bad for
That intersction is bad for people running the red light when it changes and then blocking the cycleway, especially from the right hand side and usually its busses, which is extra infuriating
But we must be imagining it.
But we must be imagining it. Cars can’t possibly be breaking the law, because they all pay road tax and have registration…
Clearly all those drivers
Clearly all those drivers were cyclists who had temporarily become drivers. Perhaps we should have some system of registering motor vehicles so that the drivers could be traced?
And here we have a doctor,
And here we have a doctor, and a cyclist, who thinks that cyclists should be registered, insured etc, because obviously it so works for drivers.
Fortunately, he gets royally shafted in the comments.
burtthebike wrote:
Great find burt
I love it that he gets demolished by good arguments and data and all he can say is
“and somehow the hostile responses to my blog might make that more rather than less likely.”
Disagreeing with me by hard evidence = hostile
Was there something going on
Was there something going on that we don’t know about on that Baker Street clip? I mean, none of those drivers were even pretending to think about it, they were all just going straight through as if the lights had never changed. Utterly mad.
brooksby wrote:
I was thinking the same on that and the Lower Thames St clip. I see drivers amber-gambling all the time and often one or two will squeeze through after a light has just changed to red, but I’ve never seen that level of flagrant disregard for a solid red from drivers. Are they just both junctions where drivers get held a long time for no apparent reason with no oncoming traffic?
quiff wrote:
I suspect it’s worse than mere impatience,if you stopped any of those drivers afterwards they wont even recall seeing the light and would then probably swear it was green anyway,it looks from the outside to be classic symptoms of brain in autopilot driving mode and simply following the vehicle in front, it didn’t stop therefore it was ok to carry on and there wasnt any additional stimulus/blockage to prevent it
What on earth has cycling
What on earth has cycling regulation got to do with medicine?
I told an older bloke on a
I told an older bloke on a scooter this morning, when we conicided again, that he hadn’t given me much room (a matter of a couple of inches). He then went off on one and we had an entertaining discussion over the following mile or so. His responses were predicatbly basic – I am, it would seem, a few choice four letter words in rotation. I suggested to him that he seemed very aggressive for someone in the right, and that he was perhaps temperamentally unsuited to riding a motorbike.
He then brought up the subject of tests and how he had passed one and we, cyclists, had not and that we should therefore four letters etc. He made offers of a scuffle on the pavement, so that he could “Show me what else he was good at”. “Walking? I thought, but the moment passed.
One minute later, in the big blue ASL at Stockwell, I observed to him that having passed a test he should perhaps know that ASL’s were not for him. More four letters. I confess to delight at this outcome.
nniff wrote:
Presumably only his one day of CBT and possibly a theory test. Or was this the only scooter in the country that doesn’t have “L” plates on the back? (BTW, I don’t have a problem with careful scooter riders with L plates, I just seldom see one).
quiff wrote:
As common as unicorns.
Grahamd wrote:
I ride a motorbike as well as cycling a lot. Trust me, most bikers get really irritated by twunts on scooters. I’m not talking about the old boys on classic Lambrettas and Vespas, they can ride properly. No, I mean the twunts on those horrible twist and go scoots, sometimes with L plates and sometimes not. Those three wheeled Piaggio models (two wheels at the front) can be ridden on a car licence and the riding standards of people on them are really poor as they don’t have to do a motorcycle test. The poor riding standards of scooter riders really shows. One of them nearly took me out once when he did a close pass on me at speed, and I was on my classic Suzuki at the time.
That is literally a pavement
That is literally a pavement that they have slapped a blue circle on.
A cycling proficiency course
A cycling proficiency course and test should be part of National Curriculum in schools and the successful completion of one should be a requirement to obtaining a license to operate any motor vehicle.
Wiltsrider wrote:
There was a comment from a Motorcyclist, I used to ride a motorbike and did the Ride Safe day with the London Met which was a great day and learned a lot. They should have something like that for cyclists, not just at school but for anyone.