Furious Mark Cavendish berates Tour of Britain motorbike rider; Toronto's horse poo bike lane problem; Was the double cleat horror set-up was real?; ITV's cheery ads; NYC cops remove "illegally" locked bikes; Pedal Me's round + more on the live blog

Almost slipped to my death on the forty metric tons of shit the police horses left in the Dundas bike lane. Who do I call about that, toronto cops?

— Laura Fisher (@termitetree) August 30, 2021

We're no strangers to crap cycle lanes here at road.cc...Mike brought this amusing BlogTo piece of Friday news to our attention. Toronto Police's horses have been defecating in bike lanes and parks...pissing off/shitting on (choose your toilet-related word play) locals.

Photos of grassy areas covered in the stuff have emerged online, prompting some to call for the police to clean up after themselves. Disgruntled residents said the problem isn't just in the parks...and has spread to bike lanes and pavements, causing cyclists and motorists to spend their time dodging dung.

It should be mandatory for mounted cops to clean up after their horses. Get this (literal) shit out of the bike lanes #Toronto

— Joey (@8FloorsAbove) April 14, 2021

Cav getting feisty! ⁠
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Mark Cavendish "politely" informs the camera bike that he should stop giving a tow to Mark Donovan.⁠
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The breakaway had worked hard to distance the rider who sat 9th on GC at the Tour of Britain, as his presence induced a chase from behind. pic.twitter.com/C9K74U76j2

— GCN Racing (@GcnRacing) September 10, 2021

Here's the vid of Cav's rant we referenced earlier...

The Deceuninck-Quick-Step sprinter was in unfamiliar territory today, up the road in the breakaway on stage six of the Tour of Britain. Mark Donovan's presence in the break meant the escape was never likely to succeed due to his threatening position on GC. So, when the break attacked the DSM rider in attempt to get rid of him, and Donovan received some timely help in the slipstream of one of the race motorbikes - Cav lost it... 

Calling the motorbike up for a word...the 34-time Tour de France stage winner screamed, "You're helping them! What's wrong with you?"

Before taking a moment to talk down the camera..."For all you people at home, these motorbikes have a bearing on the race. The guys are sat on them." It was at this moment, perhaps wisely, the TV director cut back to the peloton.

It seems part of the Cav brand to occasionally get caught having a pop...his 2016 rant at a Tour de France cameraman shadowing him while he dropped out the peloton for a slash remains undefeated..."I went for a piss"...followed by an oh too familiar gesture. 10/10.

Pro mountain biker Gee Atherton was filming in remote Snowdonia for his YouTube channel, hence the quality of the shots, when he suffered the biggest crash of his career. Emergency services and the Welsh Air Ambulance Service used the global addressing technology what3words to locate him.

The tech splits the world into a grid of three-metre squares and gives each square a unique three word address - for example the public car park at the National Trust Powys Castle and Garden in Wales is limits.pads.rust. The service helps emergency services locate casualties, particularly in remote or heavily forested areas, far off the beaten track.

Attack! The pace isn't just relentless in the peloton this morning... 🐄 🐄 🐄

📺 Watch stage six live on ITV4#TourOfBritain 🔴🔵⚪ pic.twitter.com/7kToQBxmTC

— AJ Bell Tour of Britain 🇬🇧 (@TourofBritain) September 10, 2021

We've had sheep and cows aplenty...now you can tick horse off your farmyard bingo cards...it makes for less stressful playing than anti-cyclist bingo...

“well damn what’s going on here” #tourofbritain pic.twitter.com/bqgWHtLAET

— Robyn (@robynjournalist) September 10, 2021

Plans to create a new cafe marketed at cyclists, runners and walkers have been withdrawn due to objections over traffic. The cafe was to be built as part of the conversion of former farm buildings at Foxhall Hall, plans which included an orthodontic centre and conference room available for hire by local groups and businesses. 

However, Foxhall Parish Council objected to the plan, saying: "We believe that Hall Road is unsuitable for the additional regular traffic that this development will generate. This is a remote location which will be principally accessed by motor vehicles along a single-track road.

The Ipswich Star reports a new application has been submitted with scaled down use of the buildings. The primary use as an orthodontics centre remains, but the cafe has been removed from the plans.

 

 

 

 

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Let's end the week how it began...grimacing at that punter's cleat set-up from hell. We heard the naysayers and doubters questioning whether it's a hoax, so got in touch with the bike shop mechanic unfortunate (or fortunate, depending on your point of view) enough to be handed the double cleat disaster...they confirmed to us, "the fail was, sadly/joyously, all too real!"

I could tidy up the reply and split it down for quotes, but I'm going to leave the thrilling storytelling, with all its local charm, to our bike shop friend...strap yourselves in...

"The day started off normal - overcast, with a chance of light rain. Business was steady, and uneventful. The fail-party began when two middle-aged gentlemen rolled up on road bikes - the second guy pedalling all sortsa funny. First fella asks if I can help his buddy out with a cleat issue - cause he's 'tired of pedalling on his toes'. I think nothing of it, and ask him to hand me his shoes, so I can get a look at the problem.

"He does so, and, as mentioned in the post, I flipped them over and just stared, seemingly for ever. I was wearing a bucket hat and, as I talked with the guys, I was peering out from under the brim, studying their faces, to see if they were messing with me, since I was having a really hard time believing the cleat placement was naively intentional. There was nothing about their facial expressions, body language or vocal tones that indicated it was all a joke.

"The fella that had been wearing the shoes/cleats like that - for God knows how long asked me if there was any way I could mount the road cleats in the location of the mountain bike ones. I said no, not on the spot and, if there are adapters out there somewhere, we didn't have any on hand. The solution was to swap out his road pedals for some cheap mountain bike ones, and when I went back into the shop, to get the pedals - I kid you not, my hands were shaking! - I, excitedly, ran around and showed the shoes to all my coworkers. Jaws were straight droppin', left and right!

"At this point, it probably sounds somewhat sad that I'd get so excited over some silly cleats - but hey, you gotta get your thrills, when and where available, and this was basically bike-fail-manna-from-heaven! 

"One cleat was mounted to the front holes of its backing plate, the other to the rear, and neither was even remotely straight - to the point where I don't see how they really could have worked at all properly. There are a few other kinda quirky details to the story but that's the important stuff.

"Hopefully that helps dispel the naysayers' assumption that that bonkers cleat arrangement was a fishing prank! I could honestly give a crap about likes. At the end of the day, I/we here at Trench Tails are just looking for a nice, virtual group hug. It can be cold and dark, here in the trenches..."

Maybe that allays your doubts, maybe it doesn't...I hope you had as much fun reading it as I did when that literary masterpiece dropped into the DMs...

Tickets for the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham next year went on sale this week. A ballot system is being run until the end of September when applicants will be told if they've been successful. If it's track cycling tickets you're after, just remember that confusingly the Birmingham event's venue is in London.

Lee Valley Velopark is staging the track cycling as the second city doesn't have a suitable facility. I'd rather watch them race through the Bullring to be honest...but then again, there's a reason I'm not in charge of these things...