“Cyclists again, they’ve even left their bumper behind”; Ineos Grenadiers’ Dani Martínez flies past traffic at 90km/h in Colombia; NINE summit finishes, Angliru + Tourmalet — brutal Vuelta route announced; Sweaty turbo + more on the live blog
SUMMARY
NINE summit finishes, Angliru, Tourmalet & world champs style 4,000m of climbing finale — brutal Vuelta route announced
😍 El mapa de #LaVuelta23 😍
😍 Here’s the official route of #LaVuelta23! 😍 pic.twitter.com/BOAHgsrxOl
— La Vuelta (@lavuelta) January 10, 2023
The big reveal of this year’s Vuelta a España route has become one big game of count the summit finishes… nine summit finishes, Jeremy, NINE… that’s insane…
Among the nine is the infamous, notorious, *insert menacing adjective here* Angliru and a day trip over the border to France to scale the Tourmalet. Oh, and on the final ‘proper’ stage before the sprint in Madrid the organisers have decided to do away with the usual mountain pain and replace it with this…
🔥 Etapa 20 | Stage 20 🔥
🚩 Manzanares el Real > Guadarrama 🏁
🚴 208,4 km🇪🇦 Más de 4.000 metros de desnivel repartidos en diez puertos de tercera categoría 🥵
🇬🇧 It will include over 4,000 metres of slopes spread out over 10 3rd category climbs 🥵#LaVuelta23 pic.twitter.com/qwDvpQuOTc— La Vuelta (@lavuelta) January 10, 2023
208km and 4,000m of climbing… more like a world championships parcours than the deciding day of a Grand Tour, but in our book a very clever and novel way to create time gaps and attacking racing.
On the time trial front, just a 14.6km team time trial in Barcelona on the opening day and a 25km individual effort on stage 10.
Here are a couple of our favourite stages…
Stage 13… THAT is a Queen Stage! 👑🔥 #LaVuelta23 pic.twitter.com/lKcsj9Onvl
— Benji Naesen (@BenjiNaesen) January 10, 2023
🔥 Etapa 17 | Stage 17 🔥
🚩 Ribadesella/Ribeseya > Altu de l’Angliru 🏁
🚴 122,6 km🇪🇦 El que salga líder de aquí dará un paso importante para conseguir la victoria final.
🇬🇧 He who emerges leader here will be a step closer towards the final victory. #LaVuelta23 pic.twitter.com/263qSoXSVv— La Vuelta (@lavuelta) January 10, 2023
Two TTs, nine summit finishes, one non-summit finish mountain stage, five hilly days and just four out-and-out ‘flat’ stages for the fast men.
What do you think?
It's just a shame this monster berg didn't make the cut...
Alas, life’s not fair and you can’t have it all. No sign of the Miserat which I got very excited about last month…
> “Brutal” new 20% monster climb rumoured for next year’s Vuelta a España
Oh, and if the Tourmalet’s not enough for you, Pyrenees Cycling pointed out you can go even higher. Perhaps bring a gravel bike though…
Who wants to go higher than Tourmalet? You can take the unpaved road from the top of Tourmalet to the top of Pic du Midi 2872m. An amazing road that takes you through a beautifully raw landscape, with fab switchbacks & spectacular cliff edges to add to the drama!#cycling #bike pic.twitter.com/22opRPMfj1
— Pyrenees Cycling Lodge (@CyclingLodge) January 10, 2023
The slightly gross sign of a good turbo session
Decent pool of sweat under turbo #Zwifting pic.twitter.com/LwXSbymVnM
— NW6Cyclist (@Cycle_Whamp) January 11, 2023
Just don’t let this happen…
> “This needs an exorcist, not a mechanic”: You’ll never train indoors without a towel again
Your reaction to the Vuelta route
We’re looking forward to more of this in 2023…
Rendel Harris: “Should make for a great race. Maybe I’m getting old (no maybe about it) and conservative (small c!) but I still feel that the classic climbs for each Grand Tour ought to be kept for those tours, I don’t really want to see the Vuelta on the Tourmalet any more than the Giro on the Alpe or the Tour on the Stelvio, just feels as though it removes a bit of the special aura they have, as if we played the Ashes or held the Olympics every single year…won’t stop me being glued to it come September, obviously!”
thisismyusername: “2023 is not a year for the sprinters!”
Patrick9-32: “I have long been of the opinion that mountain stages without summit finishes don’t make for good racing. There is no point in the pure climbers attacking on the climbs as the bigger guys catch back up on the descent and there is no way for the big descenders to drop the pure climbers on the way up so its rare you get a real banger of a stage. It happens, but its rare. Summit finishes almost always have huge drama.”
ShutTheFrontDawes: “I’m pretty disappointed in the increasing trend of grand tours having more hilly stages (both in number and severity).”
thisismyusername: “Completely agree — I was thinking about this the other day, sprinters are being taken out of the picture more — I don’t want to see a cycling world where sprinters are more or less non-existent due to lack of opportunity, as it will exclude some great riders.
“There seems to be more of a place at the moment for the Mads Pedersens of the world, where they are good enough to get through the climbs to have a shot at sprinting for a win, but not quite good enough to win on a pure sprint or climbing stage.”
Ineos Grenadiers' Dani Martínez flies past traffic at 90km/h in Colombia
🚴🇨🇴 | Soms hoor je wel eens over ongevallen tijdens de training. Als je ziet hoe dat er aan toegaat, met 90 km/u op de teller, snap je dat het wel eens fout afloopt… 😱😱 #wielrennen #cycling pic.twitter.com/fsqey4YmOz
— Eurosport Nederland (@Eurosport_NL) January 10, 2023
Bloody hell, he’s not hanging about…
90km/h on the following motorbike’s speedometer in this clip uploaded to Dani Martínez’s Instagram.
Doesn’t look like he’s got his unreleased Kask Elemento helmet on, which tech editor Mat spotted in some of the team’s pre-season shots…
Writing in Tech of the Week, Mat explained: “There’s no Elemento model in the current Kask range. Judging by the shape, we’d say it’ll slot in between the Protone Icon – designed to combine ventilation and aerodynamics – and the Utopia – which is more purely aero-focused.
“We’re short on details, though. Guess we’ll just have to wait for the official launch for more.”
GRUPETTO
Merlier looking at the #LaVuelta23 route. pic.twitter.com/XIOPHZlDQ2
— Benji Naesen (@BenjiNaesen) January 10, 2023
Skills to pay the bills (or at least to save you from unclipping)
Wish I could do this. pic.twitter.com/7DNcU32GV1
— Jeremy Vine (@theJeremyVine) January 11, 2023
Injuries to Dublin cyclists caused by tram tracks a "significant public health issue"
A new medical study has deemed the scale of injuries to Dublin cyclists caused by the Luas line tram tracks to be a “significant public health issue”. Independent.ie reports the review, published in the Irish Journal of Medical Science, into emergency department admissions over a two-year period found that 48 patients had suffered injuries after their bicycle got trapped in the city’s on-road tracks.
The Luas tracks near College green were described as a “black spot” and accounted for 46 per cent of all incidents. Of the injuries reported, 60 per cent were a limb fracture, 14 per cent of which required othopaedic surgery.
Injuries to the shoulder (possibly collarbone related), hand and elbow were the most common and more than half of incidents happened during morning and evening commuting hours.
One of the authors, Olivia Smith, concluded the study “demonstrates that cycling in and around tram track lines or crossing tram track lines in Dublin city has inherent dangers”.
BLOG | NEWS Update on CYCLING INCIDENTS caused by the #Edinburgh tram tracks and #compensation claims against @Edinburgh_CC Take note of the four main trouble spots. #WeCycleToohttps://t.co/Hq99HiFMxX pic.twitter.com/jb27BEc2lR
— Cycle Law Scotland (@law_cycle) January 6, 2023
A blog from Cycle Law Scotland this week also highlighted the continued dangers reported in Edinburgh, noting four successfully settled cases against The City of Edinburgh Council.
“All four cases involved cyclists who fell from their bicycles and sustained injury as a result of their wheel(s) becoming either stuck or slipping on the tram tracks at different locations within Edinburgh City Centre,” the blog explained.
“A takeaway from the recently settled cases is that settlement is being agreed without the need for the case to be heard at Proof in Court. However, whilst offers are being made and settlements are being reached, liability is still being denied. Each case continues to be looked at on an individual basis once the case is raised in Court.”
In September we reported the figures that 422 cyclists had fallen on the Scottish capital’s tram lines since 2012 as a local cycling group claimed that safety improvements have come “slowly and too late”.
During the same time more than £1.2 million had been paid out in compensation by the city’s council in relation to the injuries.
👀
The https://t.co/vVgfyt8IYK Recommends awards 2022/23 start on Monday – we’ll reveal which of the hundreds of bikes, components, accessories & items of clothing we’ve reviewed over the past year are the absolute best. Here’s what you can expect https://t.co/zc8hcaQA62 #cycling pic.twitter.com/Z5lkL78hhA
— road.cc (@roadcc) January 11, 2023
Holistic wellness brand Lifeplus joins as co-title sponsor of former Le Col-Wahoo
The UK-based “hollistic wellness” brand Lifeplus is the new co-title sponsor of the women’s team formerly known as Le Col-Wahoo and has signed up for two years.
Malcolm Vincent, European managing director at Lifeplus, said he is excited to form partnerships with people that “share the same core values” as his brand.
“Not only is cycling a true personal passion of mine, but the team’s purpose of inspiring millions more women to cycle and live healthier lives embodies female empowerment and wellbeing all in one,” he said.
“All of us here at Lifeplus are looking forward to everything this new partnership brings in 2023 and beyond. Just like our colleagues and network, the cycling team represents international coverage and together we aim to stimulate those markets across Europe with our shared vision, through physical appearances at races and training camps, Lifeplus events and collaborative content creation. Joining forces to make a bigger impact.”
Le Col stepped back from title sponsorship at the end of last year, but pledged to continue to support the team. The move left the team short of €400,000 in sponsorship and the team’s future somewhat uncertain, a concern which may now have been addressed.
Is a smartphone better than a cycling computer? Find out if a mobile really is all you need on the bike
"Cyclists again, they've even left their bumper behind"
If you’ve been reading the live blog for a while you’ll be well aware of our regular ‘but cyclists’ feature. Normally accompanied by a video or photo like today’s…
Cyclist again, they’ve even left their bumper behind …
How the fuck and what speed on a 20mph road were they doing. 🤬 pic.twitter.com/Ibjoda8QlD
— Urban_Manc (@MancUrban) January 10, 2023
Or Friday’s…
A house has collapsed after being struck by a vehicle in Ashton under Lyne, Gtr Manchester on the evening of 5 January. Whilst no casualties have been reported, it’s the 2nd time in a matter of months that the property has been struck @StellaPicsLtd #emergency #crash #collapse pic.twitter.com/9P540o52V7
— Matt Wilkinson (@wilkinsonphoto) January 6, 2023
It’s not meant to be a point-scoring us vs them exercise by the way, just a reminder for the next time your mate down the pub, anonymous stranger on the internet or Daily Mail columnist tries to suggest that cyclists are a major danger on the roads.
That’s why we say ‘but cyclists’ as this is usually the phrase you’ll hear followed by something about red light jumping or some other supposed danger to other road users.
The facts are, as per the Department for Transport’s Reported road casualties Great Britain for 2021, cyclists are far less of a danger to pedestrians than many other road users…
But cyclists run red lights…
11 January 2023, 09:00
11 January 2023, 09:00
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Latest Comments
@Rendel Harris "Perhaps lethality should be measured as drivers/cyclists found guilty of causing death per chosen metric, rather than simply numbers killed?" Given the filter of the court system that would a) likely only introduce another source of bias and b) mean the cycling numbers had dubious statistical meaning relative to the motoring ones since after removing e-motorbikes (unless we didn't? But even then...) that is ... one or two in the last 5+ years?
@mdavidford You've made me curious so checked: in Devon and Torbay (in common with many councils, apparently), any project under £500,000 can be internally approved by the Corporate Director for Strategy, Performance, and Sustainability, whereas any project costing in excess of £500,000 needs a full cabinet vote. So it looks suspiciously as though there's been a bit of jiggery-pokery with the numbers to avoid full cabinet scrutiny.
From the screenshots, the software looks very similar to the Coospo CS600. I used it for a tour in Ireland and on the first day, I realised that the map of Ireland wasn't loaded by default. I could see my route as breadcrumbs but not the road or anything else around me. It looked very similar to what you saw when you went off-route. Are you sure you had the map of Scotland in your unit? Luckily for me, at the end of the first day, after tons of searches, trials and errors, I managed to download the map of Ireland into my phone, connect the Coospo to my phone as an external drive and upload the map. Not an easy task but that solved the problem. For the next five days I had a proper map to navigate. Regardless of that, I sent it back. Loading routes into it was a real PITA, the routes the app plotted were terrible compared to Komoot's and it didn't have re-routing.
@Rendel Harris I'm not sure why trips made is a better metric than miles travelled, but yes, that does yield a 9x difference for cars vs bicycles in pedestrian deaths. The real anomaly using that basis, though, are motorcyclists, who are a staggering 72x more likely to kill a pedestrian per trip than a cyclist. That suggests that speed, more than mass, is the real danger. And that young men are the greatest danger of all.
@chrisonabike Indeed, you put your finger on another problem with the fatality statistics in that we don't know in how many of the fatal incidents the driver/cyclist was to blame. If the two cyclist-caused-pedestrian fatalities the pedestrian was drunk and fell off the pavement into the path of the cyclist that could obviously change the lethality ratio considerably if factored in. Perhaps lethality should be measured as drivers/cyclists found guilty of causing death per chosen metric, rather than simply numbers killed?
Finally (on cyclists and junctions) cyclists may not be as observant themselves there. While junctions are high-mental-workload spaces (or should be...) for all road users I suspect cyclists - mixing with the motor traffic - are going to be focusing strongly on that for obvious reasons. Which is again why in places which are more advanced in this respect not only are junctions given better designs *, but network-level thought goes in to routes for each mode, the better to minimise the need for interactions. Especially when speeds might be higher. * Separation in space and/or time when modes cross, explicit space for different modes so it's clear who goes where / what to expect...
I'm not sure about the "60% of pedestrians killed at junctions are killed by cyclists" number, but i *could* believe it's relatively high. Why? Other "qualitative differences" - "noticeability" and "expectation". In the simplest sense cyclists are smaller and quieter than motor vehicles. (There's a lot of "looking with our ears" when eg. crossing roads believe). But more: in the UK we *expect* cars. We've learned to deal with cars both by formal teaching and daily experience. We know "how drivers behave" - where to expect them. I strongly suspect it's not just drivers "only looking for the motor vehicles". We don't *expect* cyclists. And (if taken at face value) there's a lot of quote anecdata that people are genuinely surprised by them / completely unfamiliar with cyclist behaviour on roads (except "they all jump red lights"...) - "came out of nowhere" / "never saw them" / " they were down the road, then suddenly they were right there" / wasn't expecting them to"...
A key one is "speed" as obviously injury is strongly related to that, and the 20-30mph region is where IIRC "mostly injured" crosses over to "mostly killed". Cars would be expected to be at higher speeds, for more of the time. That may be reduced in some places however eg. congested rush hours, and where "mixing" may be most likely the environment may cue lower speeds (narrow streets).
Stepping back, given that humans operate both cars and bikes maybe a *qualitative* "what differs" might be instructive? (Putting to one side for a moment what may be mostly a motornormative prejudice: that drivers are in some way "more responsible". Variations "more to lose because they've paid for a car" / "but trained and licenced" / "more accountable because number plates" / "only (man)children and crims who can't afford cars cycle" etc).
@AidanR I wonder how it would change the stats if one looked at deaths per trip? According to the NTS the average person makes 15 cycle trips a year and 357 as a car driver, so 23x more driving trips than cycling ones but 182x the pedestrian deaths so by that calculation cars are 8x more lethal. Take out the 20% of car trips on motorways and you have one death per 51M trips motoring and one death per 487M trips cycling, so motoring becomes almost 10x more lethal. I know one can make statistics do anything one wishes by changing the metrics but that figure seems a more realistic approximation of relative lethality to me. All this of course is before we count all the other deaths caused by motorists that cyclists almost never cause, i.e. motorcycle riders, car passengers etc, almost five times the pedestrian numbers, cars then become 50x more lethal than bikes...
19 thoughts on ““Cyclists again, they’ve even left their bumper behind”; Ineos Grenadiers’ Dani Martínez flies past traffic at 90km/h in Colombia; NINE summit finishes, Angliru + Tourmalet — brutal Vuelta route announced; Sweaty turbo + more on the live blog”
I have long been of the
I have long been of the opinion that mountain stages without summit finishes don’t make for good racing. There is no point in the pure climbers attacking on the climbs as the bigger guys catch back up on the descent and there is no way for the big decenders to drop the pure climbers on the way up so its rare you get a real banger of a stage. It happens, but its rare. Summit finishes almost always have huge drama.
“Summit finishes almost
“Summit finishes almost always have huge drama.”
Not any more in the age of power metres and W/kg.
You didnt watch Tom up the
You didnt watch Tom up the Alpe then?
But it was always thus – they
But it was always thus – they just didn’t know exactly their power read-out or their weight per kg.
Should make for a great race.
Should make for a great race. Maybe I’m getting old (no maybe about it) and conservative (small c!) but I still feel that the classic climbs for each GT ought to be kept for those tours, I don’t really want to see the Vuelta on the Tourmalet any more than the Giro on the Alpe or the Tour on the Stelvio, just feels as though it removes a bit of the special aura they have, as if we played the Ashes or held the Olympics every single year…won’t stop me being glued to it come September, obviously!
I’m pretty disappointed in
I’m pretty disappointed in the increasing trend of grand tours having more hilly stages (both in number and severity) for two reasons.
1) I find sprints more exciting.
2) climbers lose significantly less time on a sprint stage than sprinters lose on a hilly stage. Sprinters, even those considered at the top of their discipline, are increasingly unlikely to win in the GC, and in some cases, to get to the end of the tour.
ShutTheFrontDawes wrote:
Was it not ever thus? The only sprinter I can think of in my lifetime who won a grand tour is Sean Kelly, and that was at a stage of his career where he had evolved from sprinter to all-rounder. There’s not really anything that can be done about the fact that, as you correctly say, sprinters lose more time in the hills than climbers do on the flat, simply because climbers can just tuck in behind the sprinters’ teams on the flat and get an “easy” ride. Really no sprinter is ever going to have a chance of winning on GC unless you do away with the hills altogether.
Even if you did away with the
Even if you did away with the hills, one successful breakaway that beat the sprinters would be enough to put them all out of contention for GC.
It has been a very long time
It has been a very long time since a sprinter has won a grand tour, I agree, but sprinters are now not just nowhere near the front page of the GC standing, they are barely scraping through time cut-offs time and time again. I find summit finishes frankly quite boring generally, unless there is a good close bunch going for the win (TdF last year did offer a couple of those to be fair).
Merckx was also a sprinter.
Merckx was also a sprinter. Handy at everything else, too.
Yet strangely whenever the
Yet strangely whenever the Tour of Britain/Women’s Tour routes get announced it seems like everyone then complains about the lack of hilly stages, summit finishes and how they always totally favour the sprinters.
It’s almost like you cant please all the people all the time 🙂
Awavey wrote:
Indeed, that’s very true. I’m not saying that grand tours should be re-planned because I don’t think mountain stages are as exciting; and I recognise that lots of people do find them exciting.
I just think it’s a shame that grand tours are increasingly weighted towards climbers from a GC perspective. I’m my view the GC should generally be won by all-rounders with a reasonably equal chance for other disciplines taking the top step on the podium.
Quote:
You do see a lot of pieces of cars left behind along roadsides. From collisions, I suppose? Every day, you see bumpers or hubcaps on the verge.
Thinking back, I have seen a couple of inner tubes and one chain abandoned at the side of the road. Ever. In twelve years of cycle commuting
I have seen a couple of inner
I have seen a couple of inner tubes and one chain abandoned at the side of the road. Ever. In twelve years of cycle commuting.
Whereas I see a lot of CO2 canisters left around laybys and car parks- however, this doesn’t remotely compare to the amount of junk deposited by motor vehicles
I’d thought that those were
I’d thought that those were from giggling teenagers on a weekend… (NO rather than CO2).
yes I think so, I used to
yes I think so, I used to think they were CO2 cannisters left by cyclists, but i began seeing them so often and in such volume in clumps, they couldnt be possibly left by cyclists unless 100s of them all had punctures at the same spot.
for the most part its just discarded gel wrappers, and maybe a light thats left by cyclists I see.
whereas the amount of junk cars leave, theres one road I did today that was just a line of broken door mirrors clearly from those who cant judge how much room there is to pass on a narrow road, and at the weekend there was a full front number plate from an electric car that must have just “fallen off” as they do(nt)…
I think Road.cc has just made
I think Road.cc has just made these stats up as we all know that cyclists are MUCH more dangerous to pedestrians than any other form of transport.
NOtotheEU wrote:
Well at least you included the “other vehicles involved” bit – which I don’t think we’ve pinned down e.g. are they counting 1 for bike one for car if a car hits a pedestrian and cyclist?
TBH given the rarity of people cycling compared to driving you could correct by frequency (somehow – if you did it per miles travelled by the other mode that might be great for making cycling look a real menace) and indeed claim that cyclists are much more dangerous than most. Of course that leads to more questions e.g. where is this happening – is it because we’ve renamed footpaths “shared space” and some of these are actively dangerous for that purpose etc. Is it Tour De France wannabees and time triallists, or youths and wrong ‘uns? Was it all just the cyclists in London jumping red lights…?
According to the table
According to the table published above; ‘The facts are, as per the Department for Transport’s Reported road casualties Great Britain for 2021, cyclists are far less of a danger to pedestrians than many other road users…’
that’s incorrect. Cyclists are far less of a danger to pedestrians than EVERY other road user . . . .