Welcome to Wednesday’s live blog, with Jack Sexty, Simon MacMichael and the rest of the team.
Swiss pro in snapped steerer crash tweets (and deletes) broken Bianchi pic; Strava adds ‘Perceived exertion’ to mobile app; Glitch sees Santander Cycles app users spammed; Oz driver channels Ronnie Pickering in epic road rage rant +more on live blog
All today’s news from the site and beyond…
Wed, Sep 18, 2019 20:31
SUMMARY
18 September 2019, 20:31
If ever you needed yet another great reason to cycle...
I do fear for my life living in London. But it’s not the knife crime or the robberies that scare me. It’s the cyclists, they’re an unruly menace that think the world owes them something!
— Darren Grimes (@darrengrimes_) September 17, 2019
…apparently it scares this person who describes themselves as a ‘Conservative commentator, Brexit activist & podcaster’. Happy riding!
18 September 2019, 20:31
Steve Cummings out for the rest of the season after fracturing vertebrae in Tour of Britain crash
Medical Update: Steve Cummings
Unfortunately following his crash at the @TourofBritain it’s been confirmed that @StevoCummings sustained fractured vertebrae and won’t race for the rest of the season.
Get well soon, Stevo!
Full details: https://t.co/gaRCj4B0Sf pic.twitter.com/oiBh4iCyM7
— Team Dimension Data (@TeamDiData) September 17, 2019
Dimension Data confirmed last night that the 38-year-old’s injuries have forced him out for the rest of the season. They say that Cummings underwent “thorough diagnostics” at Liverpool’s neurosurgical department, and was found to have fractured four vertebrae of the thoracic spine: “Luckily no further neurological damage occurred and an operation is not necessary.”
18 September 2019, 20:31
“Don’t f**k me, motherf**ker!” Extraordinary road rage rant from Australia caught on camera
Somebody come get yo uncle pic.twitter.com/h2LvW9aA8E
— Claudia (@claudiascore) September 17, 2019
Perhaps even eclipsing the infamous Ronnie Pickering, this bizarre rant at a group of cyclists from down under beggars belief. At the beginning of the clip, we see the driver of the Mercedes convertible circling a cyclist shouting “Do you wanna have a go” amongst other unintelligible things, before he tries to retrieve what looks to be a pair of flip-flops that have ended up under his car.
The cyclists ask what they have done wrong, as the man finally realises the light is now green, and gets into his car with the flip-flops back on his feet.
18 September 2019, 20:31
Credit: unkown
18 September 2019, 20:31
TfL-backed Parcels Not Pollution e-cargo bike delivery scheme launched in Hammersmith
Hammersmith BID (business improvement district) has teamed up with Hammersmith & Fulham council and e-cargobikes.com to launch a new zero-emissions freight hub, supported by £50,000 in funding from TfL.
Businesses in Hammersmith town centre signed up to the Parcels Not Pollution clean air delivery service, which launched on Monday, include Kings Mall Shopping Centre, Regus, the Ark building, and the Lyric theatre.
The scheme uses e-cargo bikes to deliver goods locally, with businesses able to receive and sort deliveries at a single location, thereby reducing the level of freight vehicles on the road, especially at peak times.
Patricia Bench, director of Hammersmith BID, said: “We are delighted to have been awarded this funding which will help us achieve our objectives to reduce the number of, and emissions from, freight and goods vehicles in our town centre.”
18 September 2019, 20:31
Vuelta withdrawal symptoms? Watch this ...
18 September 2019, 20:31
Strava add Fitness' and 'Perceived Exertion' metrics to mobile app, allowing you to rate your workout for intensity on a scale of 1 to 10
Strava is releasing two new in-app features to their Summit subscribers, ‘Fitness’ and ‘Perceived Exertion’, to help users track workouts over time and estimate their training load.
Fitness will helps athletes understand how workouts are adding up over time, Strava say, with a daily Fitness Score charted on a graph to provide a high-level view of individual fitness trends over time. You can also zoom out to analyse fitness trends over one month, three month, six month, one year and two year periods.
Perceived Exertion allows you to manually note how intense a run, ride, swim or other activity felt on a scale of 1 to 10. Strava say: “Whether an athlete trains with or without a device or heart rate monitor, they can now capture their effort and track their Fitness Score over time.”
They will be available to use on both the iOS and Android versions of Strava’s mobile app, for those who pay the subscription for Strava Summit.
18 September 2019, 20:31
Santander Cycles are REALLY excited about free bike hire next Sunday
@SantanderCycles sort it out guys… #spam pic.twitter.com/TYh4qaP8L8
— Chetan Taylor (@chetantaylor87) September 18, 2019
It appears the popular London hire bikes may have some sort of glitch with their app, as numerous people are complaining on social media of endless notifications telling them about the apparently unmissable offer…
I think @SantanderCycles are trying to tell me something… pic.twitter.com/XAO5GqZLmK
— Michael Potts (@MichaelPottsRT) September 18, 2019
Not sure but I think next Sunday it’s a free cycle day @SantanderCycles pic.twitter.com/GVqavB4T8A
— Ashot (@AshotLovesShots) September 18, 2019
Really any need for that many notifications @tfl @SantanderCycles ? pic.twitter.com/Lr5zSMRw8c
— CyclingMikey aka Bike Gandalf (@MikeyCycling) September 18, 2019
Santander Cycles have replied to numerous complainants on Twitter to say they are aware of the issue and “can appreciate that it’s a bit much”.
The cycles are affectionally known as ‘Boris Bikes’ after Boris Johnson, previously Mayor of London and now Prime Minister, and he could do with some good PR at the moment; subliminal messaging? Now where’s my tin foil hat got to…
18 September 2019, 20:31
Sir Chris Hoy backs Doddie Weir's fight against Motor Neurone Disease
Sir Chris Hoy is backing retired Scotland rugby great Doddie Weir’s fight against Motor Neurone Disease, taking to Twitter to urge followers to show their support by buying a cycling jersey or bottle of gin, profits from which will go to the My Name’5 Doddie Foundation.
I’m supporting @MNDoddie5 in his mission to tackle Motor Neuron Disease! Be part of the cure and buy the new Doddie Cycle Jersey. All profits from each sale going directly to the Foundation! Buy here: https://t.co/cY9EeQEpmu (or the gin here: https://t.co/Ll08jSegkH’5-gin-launch pic.twitter.com/PwBgg4zdcV
— Chris Hoy (@chrishoy) September 17, 2019
49-year-old Weir, who played 61 times for Scotland, set up the charity which has its own distinctive tartan after announcing in January 2017 that he had been diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease, and so far it has raised more than £1 million for research into the condition and to support people living with it.
18 September 2019, 20:31
North Yorkshire road gritter gets rainbow makeover for World Champs caravan
An 18-tonne road gritter has been given a makeover in rainbow colours ahead of next week’s UCI Road Cycling World Championships, when it will form part of the first-ever publicity caravan to feature in the event.
The vehicle, which will carry the slogan, North Yorkshire – Salt of the Earth, will precede the women’s and men’s elite road races, respectively being held on Saturday 28 and Sunday 29 September.
If you’ve ever been present when the publicity caravan has passed by ahead of a big race such as a Tour de France stage, you’ll know each vehicle is traditionally accompanied by people dishing out freebies, and you have to admire the lateral thinking that’s gone into this one – there will be natural sea salt crisps from Yorkshire Crisps, as well as salted fudge from Harrogate brand Stirrd.
Andy Hindley, CEO of Yorkshire 2019, said: “We are very excited to be the first hosts of the UCI Road World Championships to have a publicity caravan because it’s such a great way to engage the thousands of roadside spectators before the riders arrive.
“We are enormously grateful to North Yorkshire County Council for the role they have played in the planning for this huge sporting event and it is great to have them in the caravan.”
18 September 2019, 20:31
Move over Batman and Superman...
…because now we have Lawnmower cyclist man! Definitely a more fun way of keeping the lawn in check.
18 September 2019, 20:31
"No words": Chris Froome on Gareth Thomas revelations
No words. It’s absolutely appalling the way the British media treats their athletes.@gareththomas14 @benstokes38 @Mo_Farah @SirWiggo @paulajradcliffe https://t.co/sk1F21gAMW
— Chris Froome (@chrisfroome) September 18, 2019
Froome tweeted in support of the retired rugby star, who claims to have been forced into going public with his HIV status due to a blackmail attempt from a tabloid journalist: “It’s absolutely appalling the way the British media treats their athletes”, Froome added.
18 September 2019, 20:31
Dealclincher mega deal: 30% off Garmin watches to celebrate 30 years of the brand
Garmin are celebrating their 30th anniversary, and are offering 30% off some of their top GPS watches to mark the occasion. That includes the new Forerunner 645 Music, and the Fenix 5 – check out the deals and bag yourself a bargain here.
18 September 2019, 20:31
Madison-Genesis post farewell video after riding final race
Saturday’s concluding stage of the OVO Energy Tour of Britain marked the final race for Madison-Genesis – and by means of farewell, the popular UCI Continental team with one of the most distinctive kits in the peloton has put together this video charting its seven seasons in the sport. It’s well worth a watch.
18 September 2019, 20:31
Swiss pro tweets (and deletes) pic of his broken Bianchi
Swiss pro cyclist Simon Pellaud tweeted – and swiftly deleted but not before it was screengrabbed – a picture of the Bianchi Specialissima bike he was riding when he crashed spectacularly as he sprinted for second place at the Tour du Doubs on Sunday.
The incident has got plenty of attention – crashes in bike races aren’t unusual, unfortunately, but ones involving a single rider apparently due to equipment failure certainly are.
There’s been a lot of speculation about what caused the steerer tube of the IAM Excelsior rider’s Bianchi Specialissima to snap at the French one-day race.
As our tech editor David Arthur explains here, such equipment failures are more often than not due to human error somewhere along the line rather than an inherent defect.
Our suspicion is that the stem bolts holding the steering tube in place may have been tightened beyond their maximum torque tolerance, putting excessive stress on it and causing it to break.
Here’s the crash itself in case you missed it.
La vidéo de la potence de Simon Pellaud qui casse après le sprint final (via @LNC_CYCLISME ) pic.twitter.com/VGTUQm3ZOC
— Bertrand Guyot (@bguyot1982) September 15, 2019
18 September 2019, 20:31
#WhereisWout? Bahrain Merida...
We’re thrilled to announce the signing of race-winning rider @WoutPoels, as we build an exciting new chapter for the team with McLaren. #WelcomeWout
Full story: https://t.co/DBZ3yun67K pic.twitter.com/9QI9XIabWo
— Team Bahrain Merida (@Bahrain_Merida) September 18, 2019
It’s been rumoured for a while, but now it’s official that Poels has left Team Ineos to join Bahrain-Merida. Coinciding with the team’s recent partnership with the British automotive manufacturer McLaren, Poels said in a statement: “It’s impossible not to admire what Team Bahrain Merida has achieved in less than three seasons, and I’m very excited about the opportunity that its joint venture with McLaren offers.
“Combined with Rod Ellingworth’s expertise, McLaren’s involvement promises to make Bahrain Merida one of the best and most captivating teams in the peloton, and I look forward to playing a key part in its future success.”
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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 3 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 4 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 5 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 7 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 7 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 8 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 8 hours ago
They may have looked, but did they see?
jackcycles 8 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 8 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 9 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 “Swiss pro in snapped steerer crash tweets (and deletes) broken Bianchi pic; Strava adds ‘Perceived exertion’ to mobile app; Glitch sees Santander Cycles app users spammed; Oz driver channels Ronnie Pickering in epic road rage rant +more on live blog”
Is that Darren “definitely
Is that Darren “definitely not part of the official Leave campaign, definitely a completely independent person in no way connected to Arron Banks” Grimes?
I wouldn’t trust or believe a word he said (or wrote!).
Quote:
Someone REALLY needs to cut back on their coffee!!
brooksby wrote:
Epic rant. I have moments like that. Particularly after watching the news recently.
Darren Grimes = trolling
brooksby wrote:
no, that’s just how Australian drivers talk. Like a highlight reel from dash cam australia that was! Shows the mid life crisis car doesn’t stop you having a very public mid life crisis either.
Driving is obviously too stressful. He should take up cycling, look how relaxed the cyclists were. And put the caffeine to good use!
Philh68 wrote:
It was the stamping about – I thought he was going to put a foot through the floor like Rumpelstiltskin!
its Australia mate – you’re taught from birth not to stand in one spot for too long or your flip flops melt! You notice he kicked the flip flops under the car to preserve them, it’s cooler in the shade. We don’t call it global warming, the rest of the planet is just playing catch-up.
Oh, the antics is just miming. The fella on the bike is wearing funny clothes so he must be a foreigner who doesn’t understand Strine, and he’s just trying to give him directions. Bikes don’t go in the middle of the road, they belong in the far queue, right next to far queue two. Apparently Mother Farquhar is already there waiting. Once you know the lingo, it all makes sense!
Darren who?
Darren who?
Ah the rant where they find
Ah the rant where they find an attribute to have an excuse not to hit you (e.g. I’d lamp you one mush but you’re wearing glasses”)
Clearly a heavy dose of small dog syndrome there, with a side order of oh fuck, I’m driving a hairdresser’s car in a land of massive V8 utes.
There is something small,
There is something small, convertible, sporty cars and unfit, short and balding middle aged gentlemen.
I saw one the other day and couldn’t not laugh.
ktache wrote:
PEAK GAMMON
And the irony is that they’re so often a Mercedes SLK.
kil0ran wrote:
Isn’t that the car that Clarkson regularly called “a hairdresser’s car” and laughed at, when he was on Top Gear?
ktache wrote:
Indeed I had my worst 1×1 of the year with the balding fat cockney driver of a Mazda MX-5.
I didn’t even know what I did apart from filter up the inside of a queue of traffic at some roadworks traffic lights, but didn’t even pass him as he was at the head of the queue?
He said something, and I made the mistake of responding. When we got through the roadworks, he pulled over and got out of his roller skate and tried to get me. Not nice, but he was too fat and unfit to get me
I honestly thought that Steve
I honestly thought that Steve Cummings had stopped racing this year sometime around March as he was generally to be seen at the back of races chatting with those around him in the same ‘support’ role as per Wiggo on his s
wansong lapTour of BritainI’m giving the cyclist 12 out
I’m giving the cyclist 12 out of 10 for not stepping off his bike (although that part would be optional) and lamping the clown…. I suspect he was awaiting him to make any physical contact, so that a single solid blow to put him down could legitimately be classed as self defence.
“Mother Farquhar” I refuse to
“Mother Farquhar” I refuse to use an emoticon, but my goodness that really amused me.
hmm, Garmin in the deal
hmm, Garmin in the deal catcher. New fenix 5 I see,strange coincidence that my garmin fenix 3 (and others as far as I can tell from the net) has stopped recording gps at about the same time
wycombewheeler wrote:
Garmin 6 is the new one, the 5 is old.
And it’s way cheaper to get it from Blacks even with Garmin discounting: https://www.blacks.co.uk/s:garmin+fenix+5+/?search=garmin+fenix+5+
If he’s channelling Ron
If he’s channelling Ron Pickering, things must’ve changed since We Are The Champions. I don’t think David Coleman would ever have been so potty-mouthed.