UCI reports zero hidden motors found during 700 Tour de France tests; Jeremy Vine breaks down pointless punishment pass; Top notch junction; UK’s most bike-friendly cities; Penny-farthing Deliveroo; Rest day round-up + more on the live blog
SUMMARY
Jeremy Vine breaks down pointless punishment pass
This happened on a street where, for reasons to do with the width of the road, drivers simply cannot accept that the person in front of them is on a bicycle. They will try a risky pass — as this one did — despite there being no advantage in doing so. I tried to stay calm. pic.twitter.com/XWiaR5uxIZ
— Jeremy Vine (@theJeremyVine) July 10, 2021
This driver was seemingly so keen to sit in traffic he just had to race past Jeremy Vine, barely missing the presenter as he passed. After getting a ‘get out my way’ beep from the driver, Vine continues to ride a safe distance away from the cars parked on the left. The 360-degree camera then shows just how close the driver came to hitting him as he speeds through…only to get stuck behind more drivers and watch Jeremy pedal off into the distance.
Back in January, Vine shared a video of a 4×4 driver pushing through on a narrow residential street with the caption, ‘Every. Single. Day’…
Penny-farthing Deliveroo
You see the strangest things… pic.twitter.com/LlOou1PPre
— Dr Streetlove (@Iwalklondon) July 10, 2021
Study picks out five of the UK's most bike-friendly cities
Leisure Lakes Bikes has done some digging to compile a list of the UK’s five most bike-friendly cities, based on data and routes from Bikemap. Edinburgh topped the table with 1,751 routes on Bikemap and 164,913km of mapped ways, green space and of course, cobbles…
London came second despite having the most amount of mapped ways (223,429km) and 1,730 routes, while Bristol was third with a similar number of routes (1,612) in a considerably smaller area. Glasgow was ranked fourth and York rounded out the top five. Where do you think the UK’s most cycling-friendly city is?
Bottle banter
When you have a flight with Ryanair but didn’t buy the extra baggage. pic.twitter.com/EoIgmn9002
— Cycling out of context (@OutOfCycling) July 11, 2021
Tour de France rest day round-up from Andorra: Pros put their feet up ahead of gruelling final week
Rest day at the #TDF2021 😁 pic.twitter.com/VpkpSOoUR4
— Deceuninck-QuickStep (@deceuninck_qst) July 12, 2021
No stage today so the pros can put their feet up before a brutal final week of the Tour de France. Tomorrow looks another good opportunity for the breakaway with the double second-cat climbs of the Col de Port and Portet d’Aspet either side of the first category Col de la Core.
Wednesday takes the peloton back above 2,000m with a summit finish at the HC Col du Portet. Stage 18 on Thursday is the final of the mountain days and sees the race traverse the Tourmalet before another summit finish, this time at Luz Ardiden. Friday is the penultimate ‘sprint’ stage but could be hijacked by a breakaway if Cav’s troops are too tired to chase, before a 30km flat TT and the traditional Paris finish round off the Tour at the weekend…
To get that full rest day experience check out our feature on what the riders get up to on their day off…
Did someone say it’s a rest day tomorrow? 😁 #TDF2021 pic.twitter.com/ccnJiBblVY
— Chris Froome (@chrisfroome) July 11, 2021
A junction worth making a detour to visit
When in Cambridge . . . must detour to do a lap of this. pic.twitter.com/IsUEtqxgs0
— filter more streets (@iambrianjones) July 11, 2021
You could go round on this all day…
Deceuninck-Quick-Step becomes Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl Team for 2022
Same team, high ambitions, new name in 2022!
Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl Team
Read more about this, here: https://t.co/4xVLrGx95k pic.twitter.com/Cn9bBJpzhm
— Deceuninck-QuickStep (@deceuninck_qst) July 12, 2021
After teasing us with the promise of big news our imagination ran wild and left us wondering if a Cav contract celebration was imminent…alas, not today. Quick-Step’s big news is a change of sponsor and a new name for 2022….introducing…Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl Team. Out goes Deceuninck from the name and is replaced by Quick-Step’s Alpha Vinyl floor…”rigid, 100%-watertight, ultra-strong vinyl flooring solutions that are almost indistinguishable from real wood or stone – and they can be installed on different types of surfaces, level or fairly irregular.” That’ll set pulses racing…
Cheltenham & County Cycling Club celebrates centenary year
Cheltenham and County Cycle Club got in touch to share the news that it is their centenary year. The club offers regular evening and weekend runs and has over 300 members covering road, mountain bike, cyclo-cross and gravel. The club will be celebrating its special year by organising a few 100km and 100-mile rides as well as timed laps of a cyclo-cross course and slalom runs at a local mountain bike centre…
The picture above was taken at the start of the first club run in 1921 and shows the impeccably dressed founder members…
All 720 motor doping tests come back negative during first 15 stages of Tour de France
The UCI has published the numbers from the opening two weeks of the Tour de France. 606 tests for hidden motors were carried out on bikes before the start of stages using magnetic scanning tablets (like seen in this old photo from the Giro) and a further 114 at the end of stages. All 720 were negative. The stage winner and leader of the general classification are checked post-stage every day…so the testers must be getting sick of the sight of Tadej Pogačar’s Colnago.
A new backscatter technology will also be brought into use at the Tokyo Olympics…for those, like me, who have no idea what that means…the UCI says it is a light hand-held device that can provide instant images of the interior of a bike that can be shared in real-time to anywhere in the world via secure platform…
Former pro and UCI Innovation Manager, Michael Rogers confirmed tests would continue during the final week of the Tour.
Maybe England would win this...
Last night’s football was 🔥… but have you seen Cycle-ball? ⚽️ 😮#Euro2020 pic.twitter.com/9SCFP8YTuA
— UCI (@UCI_cycling) July 12, 2021
Thanks for the reminder, UCI…
12 July 2021, 08:21
12 July 2021, 08:21
12 July 2021, 08:21
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Latest Comments
@mctrials23 Yes, all of that and especially (I'm sure you meant this under the training understanding/advancements) huge blocks of altitude training which effectively legally simulates doping with EPO.
Another perhaps more extreme example of this is in athletics. Despite improvements in training and nutrition, shoes and kit, faster tracks, more nations taking part, increased funding and increased financial rewards the following world records still exist : Women's 100m & 200m (Florence Griffith-Joiner, 1988), Women's 400m (Marita Koch, 1985), Women's 800m (Martina Kratochvilova, 1983).
It is shocking how desperately stupid drivers can be. I've seen someone try to go around police blocking the road to drive up the highway towards where it was clearly blocked by multiple fire trucks filling bambi buckets on hovering helicopters. I've seen drivers (plural) who can't understand how to get around a collision blocking the road ahead where all they have to do is go around the block. Pit cones out to block a lane? Better make sure no one can squeeze their car between them because they will.
@Rendel Harris I'm frankly astounded that its taken this long to break many of the records and its just a testament to how ridiculous doping was. - training properly from a young age - diet changes - no long off season and "racing yourself back to fitness" - bike tech, aero bikes, better tyres, aero socks, skin suits etc - fuelling up to 3x the amount on the bike vs what they used to do - Recovery after rides - Training understanding/advancements Its amazing that we have had to change all this before we are beating guys who were doped up to the gills.
I tend to judge people by their actions rather than their words. At least he cycles and is not, to my knowledge, a die-hard vehicular cyclist nutter. Whatever happens he would struggle to be a worse candidate than Shaun Bailey. That was the chap who was caught campaigning in Brentwood, yes, the one in Essex where no one had the vote. Oh, and do we know if this will be a FPTP election or has it been rolled back to transferable vote?
@chrisonabike There seem to be three frameworks when it comes to speed limits. Framework 1 is the approach introduced in 1934. It doesn't see speed limits as traffic-calming measures, but as a legal tool for identifying and dealing with reckless drivers. You measure traffic speeds to establish what constitutes normal driving behaviour, assume most drivers are reasonable and have an aversion to crashing or running someone over, and set the limit accordingly. Exceptions should genuinely be exceptional, so that drivers take them seriously when the do differ from the norm. Framework 2 is closer to the approach that existed before 1930: you simply set a speed and expect everyone to drive at it. This seems to be the framework the Welsh Government claims to favour, set a lower limit and expect compliance, often without changing the road or substantially increasing enforcement. The WG guidelines actually said don't take any account of traffic speeds as a variable when it comes to making exceptions, if you like to link me to a study that says that's a good idea, I'd like to read it. This is also how I used to assume speed limits work, as something you just *set*. Framework 3 recognises that Framework 1 falls apart when you use Framework 2, but argues that this is acceptable as long as the average speed falls somewhat. This seems to be the reality of what is being used today: high, sometimes extremely high, non-compliance is considered an acceptable price for a marginal reduction in average speeds. The problem is what happens in the long term when non-compliance is effectively designed into the system: speed limits become useless for identifying genuinely dangerous drivers, speeding becomes normalised and more socially acceptable, and pedestrians are given signs telling them to expect speeds that drivers are routinely travelling above.
@Rendel Harris I think that's called a straw man, I've seen levels of non-compliance in Bristol measured at 97.5% and even over 99% in Monmouthshire, who is that meant to single out and target? It's not that most people wilfully break laws, it's because if the road is designed for higher speed people will naturally do it. This video from a traffic engineer explains it better than I can why this is materially different to things like drink driving. https://youtu.be/NDYQaa3K_BA
@Bill H ".....but he is a genuine utility cyclist." That's good to hear, but telling two different groups things that are diametrically opposed doesn't do much for his credibility or honesty.
I think Andy Burnham has offered some hope in the last few weeks by threatening renationalisation of some industries, highlighting Brexit's disastrous effects on trade and public funding and calling out the downside of Thatcherism (if that viewpoint becomes more widely acknowledged most senior Tory politicians will have no clothes). And to Kier Starmer's credit he did take steps to improve the relationship and trade with the EU. But let's not get too excited too soon. The big problem is that lots of things need fixing but many aren't prepared to pay more towards it or can't afford to pay more towards it. Incidentally, I was discussing modern politicians with my wife this morning. They often seem to be self seeking, uninterested in detail, not very capable and mainly focussed on soundbites and their careers. Has it always been like this? Or is it just that we are older? It always seemed that politicians of the 70's, 80's and 90's had a deeper sense of responsibility and obligations of duty towards the electorate. But maybe they didn't. Discuss.
I met James Cleverly on a ‘Movers and Shakers’ ride organised by the Redbridge LCC. The ride ended at the then new Hogs Hill race track, which was replacing the lost East Way track in Hackney Wick. My main recollection was JC being angry with Lord Victor Adebowale for being allowed to ride the circuit sans helmet. The rest of us had to borrow lids but the good Lord got an exemption for his hair. JC otherwise came across as perfectly pleasant and he has lived an interesting life. Whether that qualifies him to be mayor I don’t know, but he is a genuine utility cyclist.
20 thoughts on “UCI reports zero hidden motors found during 700 Tour de France tests; Jeremy Vine breaks down pointless punishment pass; Top notch junction; UK’s most bike-friendly cities; Penny-farthing Deliveroo; Rest day round-up + more on the live blog”
The more surprising bit in
The more surprising bit in that Vine clip is the cyclist at the start deciding he isn’t allowed in the ASL box and staying level with the cars.
AlsoSomniloquism wrote:
It looks like he might have stopped to look at something on his phone? Not exactly where I would have chosen to stop, but arguably a more sensible place to faff than further forward.
So Jezza Vine get’s a ‘toot’
So Jezza Vine get’s a ‘toot’ from the knob-head driver. Now imagine what happens when you give the knob-heads a big red ‘bicycle toot’ button under their right thumb! Thanks INEOS for encouraging the knob-heads!!!
zedbedboy wrote:
And I think we can safely conclude, based on the evidence of who currently drives gigantic 4x4s, Ineos drivers will all be knob-heads.
Towing horsey trailers?
Towing horsey trailers?
ktache wrote:
The irony…..
I know this isn’t the point,
I know this isn’t the point, but doesn’t that 360 camera make Jeremy’s arms look funny?
Quote:
Think this is fantastic, although this particular rider has massive balls/trust/naivete [delete as applicable] assuming that the cagers are actually going to give way
Can imagine judges summing up: “You approached the new roundabout at speed, and, not understanding the eh new road layout, made the entirely logical and responsible decision to floor the accelerator. The only reason that I was unable to accept your mitigation that the sun was in your eyes was that you were heading north towards Ruislip at 2300 hrs. A sad case of wrong place at the wrong time. I sentence you to a life of wondering whether you actually did anything wrong”
Wasn’t the footage sped up?
Wasn’t the footage sped up?
AlsoSomniloquism wrote:
Spoilsport.
Even so, I stand my view that drivers will blow through the give ways
Edit: have reread that, it’s a bit like saying that “I stand my view that the sun’ll come up tomorrow….”
he’s a witch, burn him.
he’s a witch, burn him.
Edit: Seriously though your future predictions are grimly correct, just watch the rest of the Dashcams video I posted to see the way drivers treat roundabouts and giveways for other drivers.
AlsoSomniloquism wrote:
he turned me into a newt….
Saw this awful driving and
Saw this awful driving and attempted murder of a cyclist on Uk Dash Cammers Youtube yesterday.
Footage is 4:43 in (should start directly there from the link).
https://youtu.be/h_2BwgUhjio?t=283
Wow, seems deliberate, and
Wow, seems deliberate, and far above the posted speed limit.
Just Feck’n Wow! WTF for me
Just Feck’n Wow! WTF for me that stands the test for attempted murder
wached a little further on, and the guy riding down the central reservation seems to be seeking a darwin award
Yep, was going to mention him
Yep, was going to mention him as well but then decided to not water down the seriousness of the incident above.
Clearly very dangerous
Clearly very dangerous driving, but I’m not convinced (and I doubt a jury would be either) that the driver was intending to hit the cyclist. Maybe attempting to scare their pants off, but not actually collide with them. By the time the van reaches the cyclist, it is already drifting back towards the main carriageway and not (IMHO) actively aiming towards the cyclist.
That chicane on the approach
That chicane on the approach to the Cambridge junction seems rather abrupt. Is that a deliberate attempt to slow down approach speeds (can’t make out whether the other approaches are the same)? How negotiable would that be for ‘non-standard’ cycles?
I have a disturbing image of
I have a disturbing image of blue vinyl skinsuits in my head now…
That looks like the same
That looks like the same penny-farthing rider who was racing in the 2017 London Nocturne. We thought then the deliveroo bag was just for a joke or a bet. Obviously not.