Live blog: Anonymous employees launch Make Evans Great Again Insta account; Worst bike rack ever – or is it? Anti-dooring tech coming to Tesla cars? $250 'folding' Trek Domane; Pat Nevin reveals he 'nearly killed' Roman Abramovich; Man riding on M27 +more

Berlin-based designer and art director Ramin Nasibov has had a bit of kickback on Twitter today after posting the below picture with the caption, "I like this minimalist built-in bike stands."

The replies to his tweet have been almost universally negative, with some respondents querying whether he's ever ridden a bike and others listing design flaws.

Ultimate form over function:
1. Nothing to secure a lock to
2. Unstable design that makes bikes more likely to be knocked or fall over
3. Could bend your wheel
4. Unusable with larger tyres
5. Easy for someone to undo the front wheel and steal the rest of the bike

— Hannah (@theeyecollector) January 6, 2020

Could something else be going on, though? Whisper it, but could it be that an attempt at humour went way over the heads of his 700,000-odd followers on Twitter as well as the cyclists who piled in?

First off, it's a CGI rendering that has had a Dutch-style bike rather crudely Photoshopped on top of it (look at that front wheel). 

Secondly, the scale ... well, it all looks wrong, doesn't it?

We've tried to reverse-search the original image without success, but we suspect that Nasibov - or someone else - saw a picture of some kerbing with what may be a drainage culvert or something else and decided to have a bit of fun by plonking a bike on top and passing it off as the dernier cri in cycle parking and whacking it out on the internet to see the reaction.

Just us?

 

 

 

 

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Even though our buying department is full of incompetent and inexperienced people our stores across the country are filled with knowledge and have a huge passion for cycling. Low end brands like @vikingbikes and @schwinnbikes cheapen our image as a company, We know there is a market for lower priced bikes more than anyone but when the bike continues to fail straight from the box it’s time to re think our buying tactics (or buyers) Admin ~ Area manager #MEGA #makingevansgreatagain #viking #schwinn #evanscycles #snowflakes #newbuyersplease #cluelessbuyers #freshstart #2020 #evanscycles #sportsdirect

A post shared by Making Evans Great Again (@makeevansgreatagain) on Dec 30, 2019 at 5:11am PST

The account has racked up nearly 500 followers in two weeks, and levels a number of accusations against the senior management at Evans Cycles, who were taken over by Sports Direct in late 2018. Originating as a joke between colleagues at Evans' Gatwick store according to the account holders, they've now gone as far as to have merchanidise made including 'Make Evans Great Again' baseball caps; although they insist this is in no way a reflection of the account admins' views of the President of the United States, and simply topical play-on words that dovetailed with their predicament. 

As well as the post above criticising Evans' buying department for filling stores with cheaper brands, in another post they say: 

"As we near the end of 2019 we look back over the last year at the ups and downs at Evans. Moving forward, We hope we grow bigger and better in 2020 and really come together more as a company!

"Communication in any business is key, and with poor communication comes poor company structure and everyone becomes more and more divided. The stores, warehouse and contact centre don’t seem to have this problem as much as the upper management/directors do because most seem to be real people who can interact with one another. Instead directors and higher management have failed with their head in the sand, and dictate to everyone whether it be with their unrealistically high targets, awful decisions in spending company money or just taking honest feedback plus much more. 

"We hope Sports Direct gets this message with great positivity and takes in what the people are saying, because there is a lot of good talented people that work for Evans and even more talented people who have left! We get that a couple snowflakes out there will be mad over the slogan but in general we have had very successful feedback from all over the country from customers, from staff to famous cyclists!"

road.cc has been in touch with the Make Evans Great Again account admin and will be publishing a more detailed Q+A tomorrow; we have also contacted Evans Cycles' PR Agency for comment. 

If you've been experiencing slower-than-usual service from the online German bike retailer recently, this is most likely why: Canyon say they were the target of "a massive criminal cyber attack" just before the turn of the year, perpetrated by a professionally organised group. They do say that orders via the web shop could continue to be placed as usual, and the attack has now been identified and stopped. 

CEO Richard Arnold said: "Due to the encryption of our IT infrastructure, work and business processes were temporarily massively affected. Our Koblenz site was directly affected, as were all our international companies with the exception of the US company, as it operates its own IT system. Unfortunately, we expect delays in customer contact and delivery in the next few days. We are making every effort to keep the impact on our customers and fans as low as possible and to get back to normal operations as quickly as possible

"We regret this incident very much and apologize that Canyon is currently not able to offer its usual standard of service."

Full story to follow. 

Never knew a folding bike could look so good until I saw this on Craigslist from r/bicycling

Struggling to come up with the £££'s for an actual Trek Domane? Consider this bargain folding version, kindly advertised on Craigslist by someone who definitely isn't just trying to shift a completely broken bike onto some poor unsuspecting soul. Brompton eat your heart out...

57-year-old Anthony Rogers was last seen on CCTV cycling into Kinloss from Forres before vanishing on December 31st, and his body was found by police at 12:30pm on Saturday. 

Mr Rogers was a keen cyclist and well known in his local area. His disappearance was said to be extremely out of character and sparked a huge search; Mr Rogers' family have been informed that his body has now been found and identified. 

 

 

 

 

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Also... fresh new @nike shoes for 2020... these might be up there with one of my best designs

A post shared by Adam Blythe (@adamblythe89) on Jan 1, 2020 at 12:27am PST

The tireless recently-retired former pro Adam Blythe is anything but retired in every other aspect of his life: recently taking up a marketing executive role at Chpt3, still repping for Madison brands such as Genesis bikes and doing the odd bit of presenting, all while being a dad of three. All his hard work does open a few doors though, one of the most recent being these special custom Nike-branded shoes he's knocked up. We're not sure if he's actually bought these or not, but in any case to our knowledge Nike-branded cycling shoes are actually made by DMT. 

 

 

 

 

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New bike day... maybe doing a custom paint job on this... what do you rekon I should do? I’m thinking BRIGHT!!! White wall tyres will be on soon @genesisbikesuk (saddle is 2cm to High here)

A post shared by Adam Blythe (@adamblythe89) on Jan 6, 2020 at 1:40am PST

Today Blythe has also posted his latest gift from Genesis, this garish Zero Disc with full Dura-Ace groupset, deep dish DT Swiss wheels and a ridiculously massive and slammed stem. New bike day, bad back day... 

Yeah, but we have a winner!

Bloody #cycling menaces! pic.twitter.com/3vZoFAjc41

— ButCyclists (@but_cyclists) January 5, 2020

The Twitter account posts photos mostly of motor vehicles in precarious, dangerous and/or illegal positions to demonstrate that bad bike manners aren't necessarily our biggest issue... and this one may top the lot.

Catch up with the latest behind the scenes action from Tom Pidcock and co.

Speaking to GQ, Thomas said watching the BBC documentary on his 2019 Tour assault was ‘like reliving the whole thing again’, and said the whole thing ended up being quite last-minute even though he'd thought about documenting his Tour efforts for a while. The Tour was of course eventually won by his 22-year-old teammate Egan Bernal.

You can watch 'The Road will Decide' for free on BBC iPlayer here, and if you skip to 10:24 you will also be treated to a fleeting cameo from two of road.cc's finest. Fame at last...