As predicted Alberto Contador’s win at the Vuelta on Sunday is already proving complicated for his team Astana. Speaking to the Spanish newspaper AS Contador dropped a strong hint that he would quit the Astana team if it hires Lance Armstrong, who has announced he is coming out of retirement to seek a record eighth Tour de France title. Armstrong has strong links with the current Astana management. Contador was asked by the sports newspaper AS how he would feel if the Armstrong joins Astana. "It would be quite complicated. I think I’ve earned the right to be the leader of a team without having to fight for it," he said in the interview published on Tuesday. "And with Armstrong, there could be difficult situations in which the team would put him first and that would harm me." Armstrong, now 37, shocked the world of cycling earlier this month by confirming that he was planning an audacious comeback with a view to winning a record eighth Tour de France next summer. Astana boss Joahn Bruyneel, who managed Armstrong as director of the US Postal and Discovery Channel teams, said recently he would "not allow" the American to join another team. Contador who has now won three grand tours in 14 months – a feat which guarantees him legend status now says he may quit the Kazakh-backed, Luxembourg-based team if Armstrong signs on, the American will announce his plans at a press conference on Thursday. "I will base my decision on what he says," the Spaniard told AS. "I intend to stay because I am under contract until 2010, but I have received a good many offers from other teams. "Bruyneel believes I can deliver results, but it can’t be denied that he made his name because of his ties to Armstrong." Contador won the Tour of Spain on Sunday to add his victories in the 2007 Tour de France winner and this year’s Giro d’Italia. He is now only the fifth rider in history, and the first ever Spaniard, to win all three of cycling’s three-week Tours. A feat that in most situations would guarantee him an unassailable position in most teams, but Armstrong is different. Contador’s comments to AS are very different from those he made immediately after Armstrong’s announcement and suggest his Vuelta win has emboldened him into letting his true feelings on the Armstrong situation be known. Back on 10 September when asked about Armstrong’s return he said: "I would welcome (Armstrong) into the team with open arms because a cyclist like him would fit in anywhere," "I have always had the highest regard for him and would be delighted to be in the same team as him."
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Update: Contador may quit if Armstrong joins Astana- Armstrong to join Astana
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@Dodonline Hard to say without seeing the crash but it looks most likely that the wheels have not had any undo force applied to them. From the way the forks have bent and one leg has broken I'd guess that the motorcycle went over a point higher up in the frame around the fork crown, so the only pressure on the wheels would have been around the thru-axle as a pivot point; thru-axles are deigned to withstand around a tonne of force before failure, whereas I believe (willing to stand corrected of course) carbon forks can't withstand that level of force, particularly when experiencing aside impact, so they would be most likely to snap before the axle did.
Those must be strong wheels to have not broken before the frame!
@markvr Are you going to ban large people on bikes? An 18 stone person is 115kg plus 20-30kg of e-bike. Is 140kg too much when it hits you? And stopping, are you going to ban rod brakes, cable brakes, rim brakes, coaster brakes as they're inefficient? What about mobility scooters? Slow, unwieldy, with infirm users. Are they ok?
@Rendel Harris TBF if commercial interests thought there was benefit in sending 500kg of goods down a cycle path at say 15.5mph+ (and figure out a way) no doubt some would because "free resource". (Food delivery firms *cough*). Get something free/cheap, make money out of it - it's just "buy cheap, sell dear". That would be worse since most place in the UK are barely at the start of providing any infra, never mind adequate stuff. The flip side is that currently if kids want to get about they'll often be on streets / roads ... with multi-ton trucks, currently many with acknowledged limitations on viewing angle. Which have been comprehensively fatal to people going under them at any speed. Or the great number of vans with drivers highly incentivised to maximise deliveries. And while not a complete replacement, smaller vehicles and especially cargo bikes can (and do in other countries) pick up a lot of that, with (AFAIK) a good safety record...
@Mat Brett ah, thanks Mat. In the picture it looks like it's made from wood, which I thought was unlikely...
@henryb It's a carbon bar from Darimo. I think it's the Nexum Drag. https://r2-bike.com/DARIMO-stem-handlebar-unit-Nexum-Drag-Carbon-Road-UD-matte-6-400-mm-6-Flare-100-mm
@markvr would 100kg of bricks hurt more or less than 100kg of person though? Of course me plus bike weighs more than me. And I often carry shopping. And I've moved house with the aid of a trailer. Would you suggest banning tandems? What's your criteria for safe use, or do you not think it exists?
@vw_mtbiker I get some people rave about 'the incredible supple riding experience of handmade open tubular tyres'. I would suggest these tyres will have an incredible supple ride that is 99.9% due to them being 50mm and 0.01% due to being open tubular. I used to run Open Corsa CX back in the day and they felt amazing at the time but ride them back to back with a modern 30mm tubeless GP5000 on a wide rim and you'll see what I mean. Also - check Bicycle Rolling Resistance.com - there is basically no performance advantage from open tubular style tyres (yeah the Corsa Speeds are the fastest, but that has much more to do with the uber thin rubber than the way they are made). They do look amazing though....
@mitsky The number of mobile phone offences doesn't surprise me - I see these multiple times a day when commuting - but the much greater number of people failing to wear seatbelts is frankly baffling.
In the second picture (above) of the VAGUS bike, what's the handlebar made of? It looks odd