Helmet safety has never been so fun...reaction to Road Safety Council's Viking comedy worthy of Netflix; Prince of Wheels; Laura Kenny hitches a cargo bike lift; Buzz Bikeyear; Van Aert's costly day in court; 24 rainbow jerseys + more on the live blog

Your comments have been flooding in all day on the Danish helmet campaign video...Wycombewheeler thought the message was perfectly clear: "So my take from the Danish helmet ad, is that if you go cycling in England you best wear a helmet because people will be trying to hurt you. Or was that not the analogy they were aiming for?"

On similar lines, IanMK wrote: "It's funny but doesn't stand much scrutiny. The Vikings were aggressors. The way they dress is designed to intimidate their victims, particularly farms that they went to raid i.e. their victims. If they did come up a bunch of equally well-trained warriors it was very difficult to get them to engage Shield walls. It often took a lot of "Dutch Courage". However, the armour they wore was psychologically important in making them "feel" invulnerable. Many helmets would be poor quality and simply fall apart on impact and so did not protect the wearer against anything but minor blows.....oh hold on a minute, is that the point of the analogy?"

ChrisB200SX commented: "Perfect analogy I suppose. Wear a helmet because the roads are like going into battle involving swords and other weapons that kill and maim at the hands of others. But of course, the solution isn't the people with the dangerous weapons trying to bully others into submission." Maybe the Danes have created a masterpiece after all, it just takes a while...

HarrogateSpa wins 'comment I least expected to read under the live blog today'..."There isn't enough Anglo-Saxon history on road.cc for my liking. Would the Venerable Bede have been in favour of disc brakes? Would King Edwin of Northumbria have been a supporter of the extension to York's 'footstreets' area, or opposed?"

A time when 'lance arm strong?' was only a question of how long a cavalryman could hold their weapon for...

@RichardCarapazM (@INEOSGrenadiers) takes todays win! pic.twitter.com/OQ5IeoyD0O

— Tour de Suisse (@tds) June 10, 2021

He told you he was going for the Baloise Belgium Tour time trial...Remco Evenepoel got his stage win, beating teammate Yves Lampaert by two seconds on the pan-flat TT in Knokke-Heist at an average speed of 56km/h. With that he looks likely to have sealed the overall race win too...

In Switzerland, Richard Carapaz added his name to the growing list of Ineos Grenadiers GC riders peaking ahead of the Tour. Last week, Geraint Thomas won a stage and Tao Geoghegan Hart went close as Richie Porte won the Critérium du Dauphiné...this week Richard Carapaz has won a mountain stage of Tour de Suisse and now has 26 seconds advantage with more mountains, including a climbing TT to come...The Tour de France is getting more intriguing by the day... 

And remember Miguel Ángel López's Mont Ventoux domination on Tuesday? Well, the folks at climbingrecords have worked out it was the fastest ascent of Ventoux since 2004 and the 12th fastest of all time, just three seconds slower than Lance Armstrong at the 2000 Tour de France.

🥇He's done it! @TamauPogi rode solo to victory in the stage 2 of the #TourofSlovenia 🇸🇮! 🎉#UAETeamEmirates #RideTogether pic.twitter.com/frhM73rqN0

— @UAE-TeamEmirates (@TeamEmiratesUAE) June 10, 2021

It might only be the Tour of Slovenia and the key stages of the Tour de France are still a month away but Tadej Pogačar has shown his early form winning the second stage of his home race. The 2020 Tour de France champion went away on his own and opened a gap of 1:22 by the finish, almost certainly securing the overall race win as well barring any misfortune. British rider James Shaw was in the first group behind the UAE Team Emirates star and earned a respectable sixth place on the stage.

Elsewhere, we've got what looks like a GC day in Switzerland and a TT in Belgium on the menu...

Things we love to see...four-time Olympic gold medallist Laura Kenny getting a lift to 'work' in a cargo bike pulled by six-time gold medallist Jason Kenny...that's a lot of gold medals for one cargo bike...

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Remco Evenepoel (@remco.ev)

Remco Evenepoel was back to close to his swashbuckling best on the opening stage of his home tour yesterday. He did not get the stage win that his efforts deserved but he took control of the general classification thanks to his 28-second advantage on the road and 15 bonus seconds...and he expects to go even better in today's time trial...

"I'm very happy, even though I feel that I can still gain a few per cent. It is not quite what it should be, but I am on the right track," Evenepoel said. "I felt in Italy that the decline after the first ten days was serious, every day again. The goal was to gain as much time as possible on the chasers and we can be content with the way it panned out, as it’s a perfect start for us. Tomorrow in the time trial I want to extend my lead."

I can't say I blame any of the comments rolling in about the helmet safety vid from Denmark...even as well done as it is, I'd say you are well within your rights to have a pop at the underlying message...

Sparrowlegs wrote: "As funny as the vid is (and I thought it was hilarious) it reminds me of one of the last scenes in Blackadder Goes Forth where Lt George says he wouldn't want to face the German's machine guns without his stick. Wearing a helmet does very little if you're hit by some prick in a car. It might if you fall off by your own hand but all this does is allow the "higher ups" to walk away satisfied that if a cyclist is in an accident (whatever accident that may be) and isn't wearing a helmet then it's their own fault."

Kamoshika added: "It may be a funny video but it makes me sad that even in Denmark helmet propaganda is starting to creep in."

Sriracha was more concerned with my description of being impaled by an axe...fair enough.

Wout van Aert has been ordered to pay €662,000 to Nick Nuyens, the owner of Sniper Cycling, after being found to have breached his contract by an Antwerp Court. Van Aert left Verandas Willems-Crelan in 2018 after terminating his contract to join Jumbo-Visma. The long-running legal battle continued on Wednesday with the labour court's original decision to exonerate Van Aert being overturned at appeal. Van Aert can appeal the latest decision in a court of cassation.

Nuyens' lawyer had originally demanded damages of €1.2 million when his star rider walked away from the team before joining WorldTour Jumbo-Visma shortly after. Nuyens' lawyer Rudi Desmet was unsurprisingly content with the latest verdict: "They went back to the essence of this file and asked whether Nick Nuyens actually made a mistake and there was therefore an urgent reason for Van Aert to end the collaboration. Today we know that Nuyens did not make that mistake."

Van Aert's lawyer Walter Van Steenbrugge told Het Laatste Nieuws: "The interpretation of the court deviates 180 degrees from the judgment of the labour court. It is not nice for us to see that the position of the labour court in Mechelen that was very favourable to us and that was put on paper very clearly, is now completely nullified."

Van Aert terminated his deal with Sniper Cycling, formerly the Verandas Willems-Crelan team,  at the end of 2018 before riding independently during that cyclo-cross season. Shortly after joining Jumbo-Visma in March, Nuyens took legal action. Van Aert's defence was that he had an "urgent reason" to terminate his contract and he accused Nuyens of coercing the coach Niels Albert to sign an incriminating statement about him.

Don't worry, we're not planning on having this descend into another tedious helmet debate...forget the message if you can, we're just here for pure entertainment value. As far as road safety public service announcements go, this one is up there...

"Svend, shouldn't you be wearing your helmet?"..."No, it's annoying it makes my scalp itch"...

The Danish Road Safety Council are responsible for this comedy that is surely worthy of a sequel...does Svend stick to his promise and wear his helmet in England? Does it save him from being impaled by an Anglo-Saxon axe? So many questions...

We are just happy to see cycling safety issues being addressed in a way that does not involve a major traffic monitoring group telling cyclists to not ride at night...visuals straight off the big screen and some Viking comedy are an added bonus...

And the Danes' effort has certainly got people laughing...unlike UAE-based airline Emirates' 2016 advert featuring a cyclist riding through Amsterdam...with a helmet photoshopped on... 

Give the people what they want...more Vikings, less photoshop...