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Live blog: Chris Froome shares photo from training camp; Someone is trying to sell this ‘bike stand’ on Facebook Marketplace; Derry judge says some roundabouts “too big and complicated” to man who hit cyclist; Gino D’Acampo rides Bianchi e-road bike +more
SUMMARY

Unfortunate...
Another cyclist with their eyes closed pic.twitter.com/EXEALJDKzG
— Thos Major (@ThosMajor) January 9, 2020
That pontoon might need extending a bit?
Here’s the map of the Belgian #CXNATS venue and track. pic.twitter.com/H9M70NiPMv
— Bill Schieken | CXHAIRS Media (@CXHairs) January 9, 2020
Unless the Belgian national cyclocross championships have now introduced a swim section, either the course or this map may need a redesign…
Mud biker?
Why do we call ourselves mountain bikers when the majority of us have never been down a mountain….I’m going to call myself a gentle slope biker from now on. #mtb #mtbtalk
— Andy (@Andyfragglemtb) January 9, 2020
It’s true that ‘road cyclist’ is largely a more accurate description, unless you’re a mountain biker who genuinely rides up and down mountains. As a regular Bristol and Bath railway path commuter, I am now a proud path biker…
Gino D'Acampagnolo?


Well actually, Gino was probably the only one not using the famous Italian groupset as he headed out with Treviglio locals who were kitted out in vintage kit and Bianchi bikes, while he rode one of their new Aria e-bike models in jeans and a shirt.


Treviglio is the location of Bianchi’s famous headquarters, and the convicted house burglar-turned TV chef paid a visit to the factory as part of his new ITV series, ‘Gino’s Italian Escape’. He also stopped by Milan to check out some cocktail bars, and we were also treated to footage of D’Acampo licking a huge wooden stirring spoon used to whip up fresh Stracciatella gelato in Bergamo.
Definitely true...
‘The consensus of opinion is increasing overwhelmingly day by day that bicycle riding produces in the female a distinct orgasm’.
– from an editorial in the Canadian journal, The Dominion Medical Monthly (1896). pic.twitter.com/elDymAHDYN
— Whores of Yore (@WhoresofYore) August 11, 2018
Cyclist settles for $500,000 with San Diego County after suffering brain injury due to pothole


NBC San Diego reports that the woman suffered ‘a traumatic brain injury’ after being thrown from her bike while riding on U.S Highway 8 in August 2017. The woman, who wished to remain anonymous, hit a broken section of tarmac that had risen from a tree root, creating a large pothole in the road.
According to public documents, the road near the city of El Cajon had been in disrepair for years, and this particular section was only fixed after the incident; some potholes were filled on the road following complaints from motorists, but the bike lane was left in disrepair.
Records now obtained by NBC show that the woman settled the case for $500,000 in October 2019. Her attorney Daniel Petrov said: “The County worked diligently to repair the rise in the concrete in the bicycle lane after the fall.
“Unfortunately, it took my client suffering a traumatic brain injury before the repair was complete. Our hope is that the county continues looking for the rises or potholes on public streets, and especially bicycle lanes, so that bicycle riders can feel safe riding in San Diego County.”
That's not a pothole... THIS is a pothole
Although the crater that caused injuries to the unfortunate cyclist in San Diego reported on below (see it on the NBC News San Diego website) was a bad one, over on our Facebook page Shaun Wyllie appears to have topped it with this absolute beast he happened across on a ride recently.
Sad but true
Cycling outside a school in the UK Vs Cycling outside a school in the Netherlands. pic.twitter.com/DR1YPBwWdp
— Adam Tranter (@adamtranter) January 10, 2020
The reality of cycling outside a school in the UK too often looks like the scene on the left; but it should be far more like the journey Dutch children used to making on the right.
Judge in Derry says some roundabouts "are too big and too complicated" as man charged with careless driving for hitting cyclist
Derry’s district judge made the comments as 42-year-old Matthew Horner admitted the charge of careless driving, for knocking a woman off her bike on 15th June last year. She told ambulance staff when they arrived that she was on the roundabout when Horner’s car entered and hit her.
Horner’s defence said that he “did not see” the cyclist and tried to avoid hitting her when he eventually did. The judge Barney McElholm said that some roundabouts with “too many exits” could cause problems for drivers, noting that Horner offered to stay and help the woman and appeared “very remorseful”. Horner was £175 and given three penalty points on his driving licence.
The future of e-bike batteries? Scientists claim they've created a battery that offers five times more energy than a lithium-ion battery


Causing quite a stir over on our sister site eBikeTips is the news that a team of scientists say their lithium-sulfur rechargeable battery design is far superior to lithium-ion. If you’re not an e-biker, they also say it could power a smartphone for five days or allow an electric car to drive over 1,000km on a single charge – full story here.
New £1 million cycling and walking route to be built in Northern Ireland
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Derry City and Strabane District Council have approved the new route in Strabane, a 3.5km route constructed in the town, connecting the A5, Derry Road, Canal Basin, River Mourne Flood Wall and Strabane Retail Park.
Further proposals include changes to exisiting kerb alignments, new road markings and new path lighting.
Not a bike stand
Who’s going to tell him? pic.twitter.com/bBymHcvr8n
— Andy Lulham (@LulhAndy) January 10, 2020
To be fair it’s an absolute bargain, and anyone who manages to pick up what is actually a Tacx turbo trainer for a tenner will probably be very pleased so long as it works.
As Real Gaz points out on Twitter, as an item that you a secure your bike to, technically a turbo trainer is sort of a bike stand…
Behind the scenes of 'that' Danny MacAskill video
I’ve always wanted to transfer between 2 slacklines on my bike. After 199 goes I didn’t even come close to landing both tires on the line. Then in the 200th go it worked perfect haha!
Full film https://t.co/CWIBLBYaG1
#gymnasium #slackline #trials pic.twitter.com/1fGYr1h3tm
— Danny MacAskill (@danny_macaskill) January 9, 2020
Remarkably the Scot said he’d never came close to landing this trick before nailing it perfectly in his epic Gymnasium vid – watch the full thing here.
Can we just talk about that training kit...


Chris Froome (appears to be) on a training camp... and what's going on with that kit??
On training camp… or maybe not No really, I am pic.twitter.com/HpvyFik1W6
— Chris Froome (@chrisfroome) January 10, 2020
His tweet doesn’t exactly settle the matter, but it looks like Froome has joined his teammates on a new training camp, less than a week after reports from Italy claimed he had left another camp early.
The report in Bicisport magazine quoted Team Ineos’ sports director Dario Cioni as saying, ““He is not well and who knows if he will recover?”; however Froome responded via his Twitter account saying that his recovery is in fact going well.
Whether he will make it to the Tour de France in 2020 remains to be seen, but this photo is certainly promising. On another note, is this the Ineos away strip or does this indicate a complete departure from the blood red and black kit of 2019?
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Latest Comments
You state for the audio for the baofeng that they use an in ear design however they don't ship with any headphones with a mic. What did you use for this?
@eburtthebike One of my best mates, a former rugby teammate of mine, is a Kiwi and a teacher (over here). I can imagine him making precisely that joke and he's a mad keen cyclist! Honestly, if this is the whole story it's a hell of an overreaction to a remark that deserved a mild reprimand about appropriate conduct if that (different if it was coming from a police officer or a driving instructor or similar, maybe). Having worked in a number of schools it's my experience that when senior management take agin someone they'll grab any excuse to get rid of them, I wouldn't be surprised if that was the situation here.
Hi I wasn't implying the ramps were equivalent to a pump track. I was saying many forestry trails are pretty hairy rather than a well designed pump track. The ramps are definitely not suitable and need replacing, but they are replacing with a new design. I suspect much more tame.
Oh dear! With my sense of humour, I should have been sacked a dozen times: every year. The Kiwis I've met all seemed to have a reasonable sense of humour, and one was excellent, but perhaps they weren't working for a school.
"neither student laughed..." Well, it elicited a wry smile from me...
@60somethingcyclist Unfortunately there are a couple of problems with that: firstly in order to try to manage some of the chaos in the Italian political system, for several decades when a mayor wins an election in large towns they are automatically given a guaranteed majority of 60% of the council seats, and also if a decree of the mayor's is overruled by the council that automatically triggers a no-confidence vote which then dissolves the council and forces a new election. So in order to vote down this decree not only would opponents need to persuade a considerable number of the mayor's own party to vote against him but also effectively to vote themselves out of office with no guarantee of return.
My first road bike was a Raleigh, too. A 1976 Raleigh Record. I dragged it out of the shed a few years ago and got it working again. 14kg it weighed! A 52/42 crank and a 14-28 five speed 'cluster' at the back made hills pretty hard work...
@Destroyer666 Campag cranks use replaceable standard cartridge bearings, pressed onto the axles. They're a slightly unusual size but you can find them easily enough on bearing specialist sites or elsewhere.
More use of compulsory purchase is needed. Active travel route providers need the same kind of financial and legal power that Highways England and analogous bodies have. On the other side to the jam factory, by the junction in Histon, the busway path narrows as it goes past the bus stop and housing. It is the kind of pinch point where enforcement of the limit is most likely.
20 thoughts on “Live blog: Chris Froome shares photo from training camp; Someone is trying to sell this ‘bike stand’ on Facebook Marketplace; Derry judge says some roundabouts “too big and complicated” to man who hit cyclist; Gino D’Acampo rides Bianchi e-road bike +more”
…and not a helmet in sight.
…and not a helmet in sight. The ‘real’ cyclists were all kitted out in vintage style, to be fair, as if they were heading straight off to L’Eroica.
Here’s that missing part of
Here’s that missing part of the Belgian CX Championship course…
dgmtc wrote:
I like how they’ve got someboy in the water waving their arms about just after the corner. Presumably their bike is now on the bottom of the canal?
CygnusX1 wrote:
So there’s some bike riding. And some running. And now they’ve got to go swimming.
Kick your socks off and Sharpie some numbers on your arms, we’ve got a triathlon, people!
Unfortunate…
Unfortunate…
To be fair, I have seen worse cycle parking infrastructure.
Perhaps these drivers that
Perhaps these drivers that find roundabouts a bit too complicated might want to avoid them. Perhaps, and maybe going a bit too far, get on a bike, I’ve never found a roundabout “too complicated, and of course better vision, no need for a blind spot warning on my arse, or find a different route that avoids them.
ktache wrote:
You can get poor infrastructure that does lead to increased risk and needs to be redesigned. Can’t say I have ever found a roundabout too complicated. Even if you have roundabouts around a roundabout, you just treat each one as you come to it and ignore the rest.
Perhaps the driver was one of these people who can’t lose face by going around a roundabout more than once due to missing the turn or being in the wrong lane and instead have to force their way into the lane they want.
hirsute wrote:
I know the roundabout in question (https://www.google.fr/maps/@55.0229519,-7.3388255,229m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en) and it’s an odd one TBH. It’s not the number of exits, which isn’t excessive at 5, It’s more the shape/orientation – sort of elongated/egg shaped as can be seen in the satellite view in the link above. It’s a busy roundabout, and when coming on to it from the main approaches (Buncrana Rd either direction in the link above) it seems to have a fairly gradual bend which gets then gets suddenly and appreciably sharper at the apexes to the east and west and can come as a surprise to the unwary. I’ve no idea why it’s not just round – it’s not like it the don’t have the space (could even do so in the current space it occupies)
I’ve never had the pleasure of going round it on the bike, but it doesn’t strike me as a pleasant piece of infrastructure to negotiate at busy times
I’d never consider my driving
I’d never consider my driving to be that perfect enough never to have found myself confused by a road layout,try driving on the new A14 section that opened before Christmas for instance,and some of the roundabouts here about rely on familiarity to use properly,rather than road common sense, and some just seem to be badly designed to begin with
https://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/motoring/norwich-northern-distributor-road-wroxham-road-roundabout-video-1-6457416
That aside theres no excuse for hitting anything that you should be able to see, even if you are confused by the layout
There’s nothing wrong with
There’s nothing wrong with being momentarily confused by a road layout – it’s the driver’s response to it that matters. Slow down, pay more attention to one’s surroundings? Fine. Sail on through that confusing junction at 40mph without a thought for other road users? Not fine.
There’s just as much, if not more, badly designed motor vehicle infrastructure as bike lanes.
That Ineos kit, did they just
That Ineos kit, did they just copy and paste from CCC?
Cyclolotl wrote:
Maybe, but it’s just training ride kit, Trek Segafredo do similarly with their dayglo yellow training version of their normal road kit.Ineos announced last year their main team coloured kit wasnt changing for 2020 except for the addition of the new uci world tour logo
I think it’s a lovely shade
I think it’s a lovely shade of a very striking orange. Any slight reduction in the chances of being hit by incompetent motorists to their significant investments would seem worthwhile.
Marginal gains…
“It’s true that ‘road cyclist
“It’s true that ‘road cyclist’ is largely a more accurate description, unless you’re a mountain biker who genuinely rides up and down mountains. As a regular Bristol and Bath railway path commuter, I am now a proud path biker…”
The French have a more apt description, VTT: Velo a tout terrain (All terrain bike).
judda6610 wrote:
A stroke in MTB (mountain/trail bike) would also do, I reckon, unless you are being particular about what a trail is.
judda6610 wrote:
A stroke in MTB (mountain/trail bike) would also do, I reckon, unless you are being particular about what a trail is.
Could be good for Nottingham.
Could be good for Nottingham.
https://westbridgfordwire.com/almost-1-million-to-be-spent-on-part-of-nottinghams-cycle-path-network/
One less psychopathic BMW
One less psychopathic BMW driver on the road.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-51065720
A proper ban when he finally gets out too. Shame it couldn’t be lifetime
Odd that the BBC news website said that [the victim] “was hit by the car and thrown into the air.”
Not that the perpetrator deliberately drove his car at the victim, as the judge said (which the BBC website doesn’t mention) “You drove at him, in effect using your car as a weapon, causing him to suffer the injuries that led to his death, all in the sight of his family.”
South Today managed to include the weapon thing and show cctv evidence of the car starting the fateful acceleration towards the victim.
Admitted manslaugher too, tried for murder, not causing death by dangerous.
ktache wrote:
A shame also that he was still on the road to do this after 13 [courtroom vidiprinter: THIRTEEN] previous offences.
mdavidford wrote:
Sorry – my mistake – 13 convictions – 28 [TWENTY-EIGHT] offences.