“From an ex-cyclist… no, it’s not cheating”: Sticky bottle video goes viral… before Thomas De Gendt silences the “cheating” claims; Snapped seatpost shocker; Bardet retires, Molly Weaver’s record attempt; One cool Bontrager + more on the live blog

Pain.

Poor Sara5a suffered this on a recent ride, taking to Reddit to tell the tale. As we’d all probably assumed would be the case, “To say the least, it hurt.” We’ll happily take your word for it and skip giving this one a go.

The bike’s a GT Gutterball fixed gear that was bought “used and clapped” off Facebook three years ago. While Sara5a replaced the drivetrain and brakes, everything else was kept the same, the previous owner having put that seatpost and matching fork on the bike. 

“I just kept them on there…” the story continued, until one day — snap.

A mechanic who read the tale identified the seatpost as “off an old Specialized Roubaix”, adding: “Defects happen but they are not common. Working in a bike shop for years and I’ve never seen this exact failure. My suspicion is it was damaged from being inserted too far and someone tried to tighten the clamp at that spot or it was overloaded. But that would take about a 300 lb rider to overload it.”

Elsewhere, the comments were as sympathetic and mature as you’d expect the internet to be in times as painful as this…

“When your doctor told you to add fibre to your diet he meant like chia seeds or more vegetables.”

“I see you went for the direct mount seatpost upgrade.”

We’d love to have known how/if they made it home. We’ve seen incidents before where the saddle has come off the rails, but even then you can (very carefully) limp home perched on what’s left. There’s definitely no perching on that…

Anyway, the whole ordeal has reminded us of a live blog favourite from a few years ago, Chad Tavernia… or as you might know him: No Saddle Guy. Our favourite superhero, Chad was the US-based rider who rode 100 miles completely out the saddle and then did it again just to prove the haters wrong.

> ‘No Saddle Guy’ proves doubters wrong with virtual 100 mile ride

Our latest Bike at Bedtime feature takes a look at the Genesis Flyer, the steel-framed mainstay of the brand’s range for many years. Sadly it’s no longer available, so we thought we’d take a quick look back at this once-popular bike and see what similar options are still available.

For Tech of the Week, I put together a bumper round-up of all the tech we snapped at the Dauphiné, from a bonkers saddle angle to 160mm cranks, monster chainrings, 1x set-ups and, of course, Dries De Pooter’s front end.

We’ve also got a mega competition running with Kostüme at the minute, giving two lucky readers the chance to win limited edition Kostüme #EDIT004 cycling kit bundles worth £390 each, including jersey, bib shorts, base layer and cap. Check it out here.

French favourite Romain Bardet has bowed out after a 14-year professional career that saw him carry the hopes for a home Tour de France win for the best part of a decade, entertaining us all with four stages and a King of the Mountains jersey along the way.

While his Giro and Dauphiné swansong lacked what would have been an incredibly popular final victory, Bardet was on the attack until the end, but unable to stay away with the strength of UAE Team Emirates and Visma-Lease a Bike charging behind. 

🙌 Le bel hommage du peloton pour @romainbardet au départ de la 8ème et dernière étape ! 😍

🙌 A beautiful tribute from the peloton to @romainbardet at the start. 😍#Dauphiné pic.twitter.com/6HJQ8TFvSa

— Critérium du Dauphiné (@dauphine) June 15, 2025

He finished Sunday’s finale crossing the line alongside teammate Chris Hamilton, although it’s probably not the last time you’ll see Bardet racing bikes, just not on the road. Team Picnic PostNL have already shared a picture on Instagram of his Lapierre gravel bike, something it sounds like we’ll see him on at some big events soon.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Team Picnic PostNL (@teampicnicpostnl)

Good luck calling a winner between Jasper Philipsen and Paul Magnier here.

Magnier on the far side was given the win after a photo finish that, somewhat confusingly, looked quite different to the real-time image above.

No complaints from Philipsen at the result, the Belgian saying he was “happy” with second as he continues his prep for the Tour. As it turned out the first image was a bit of an optical illusion, the pic not taken from the centre of the finish line and the perspective making Philipsen look level. 

Pide perdón pic.twitter.com/8CxBCkZspv

— Gorka (@GorkaBender) June 15, 2025

Molly Weaver has made it to Southampton having left London early yesterday morning and ticked off the Kent, East Sussex and West Sussex sections of her coastline record attempt. The live tracker says she’s racked up 367km over the past 24 hours and is at 532km total distance, about seven per cent of the total. She’s got 20 days left to beat Nick Sanders’ current record.

road.cc Jo got out to the roadside to cheer her on as she passed yesterday evening. “Remarkably chipper, but then she’s only 370km in!” 

You can follow her progress on the live tracker.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Keith Bontrager (@bontrager.keith)

It’s up on Craigslist over in the US for $1,250. A rare pre-Trek steel Bontrager made by the man himself, with Campagnolo Chorus groupset and 650c wheels.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Tadej Pogačar (@tadejpogacar)

It was a sobering weekend for Jonas Vingegaard, Visma-Lease a Bike, Remco Evenepoel and anyone else with hopes for the Tour de France GC battle, Tadej Pogačar again reminding everyone just how superior he is.

We’d questioned what went wrong in the time trial, Pogačar only fourth on the stage but losing significant time to Remco and Vingegaard, but once the race reached the Alps on Friday it was the now-familiar story of 2024, nobody able to get close to the Slovenian sensation as he secured two more stage victories and the overall.

“For sure, this helps the morale and motivation for the Tour because it is the biggest goal of the season. I think it is a mental boost for all the team,” Pogačar said.

However, it does seem that time trial is bugging him a little bit, the world champion saying he’s going to rest up from the week’s exertion before “we look a little bit towards the time trial” so he doesn’t find himself on the wrong side of a “big gap” to Vingegaard again.

If he delivers in the mountains as he did these past three days then the two TTs on this year’s Tour de France parcours probably won’t matter anyway, especially considering the second of the two is up the eight kilometre, seven per cent climb to Peyragudes. Regardless, it does seem UAE and Pogačar have some tinkering they want to do with stage five’s 33km flat time trial in mind.

“Obviously, it was a big gap after the time trial [to Vingegaard]. But when you look at the profile, and when we actually rode it, the weekend was even harder than it seemed at first. So I know it was possible to come back, I knew it would be hard, but I am super happy to pull it off,” he said. 

 

 

 

 

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Marlen Reusser won the women’s edition of the Tour de Suisse over the weekend, beating former teammate Demi Vollering. Afterwards, three-time Grand Tour winner Vollering didn’t hold back when assessing her condition 40 days out from the Tour.

“I’m empty,” she said. “It’s time to sleep. I’m looking forward to jumping in the lake here and then going home and resting a bit. I didn’t feel well from the start of this race. I did my best every day and normally I recover quickly, but I kept suffering here as soon as I had to push a bit harder. I think there might be a virus in my body, because my roommate Elise (Chabbey) also really suffered.

“I have raced a lot in recent weeks. I won the Vuelta and the Tours of the Basque Country and Catalonia. But you can’t always be in top form, it is now time to rest. Apparently this was one race too many […] I have pushed myself to the limit here and beyond.”

FDJ Suez will be keeping everything crossed that Vollering recovers quick, gets some rest and peaks again for her biggest race of the year, an attempt at reclaiming the yellow jersey next month. 

Here’s a cycling event that’s a bit different. Got a cargo bike? Like solving puzzles and planning routes? Ready to help your neighbours out in case of a disaster? 

Pedal Collective is running a cargo bike Disaster Relief Trial down in Bristol on September 6, inspired by similar events in the US. The cargo bike delivery service explains that “it’s all about mixing the fun of a cargo bike meet-up with the really serious and necessary element of creating community resilience in preparation for any potential disaster”.

Essentially, riders will hit five checkpoints in total to pick up items to transport to the finish. You can go to them in any order they choose but it introduces a tactical element as some might be heavier than others, or more fragile, which do you want to pick up first and which do you want to save until the end?

The checkpoints will be revealed on the day and riders will get a laminated map (no GPS or phones allowed). There’s an e-assist category where riders will have to show how they’d charge their battery in a case of the National Grid going down. The non-electric category will undoubtedly be a leg-burner given some of those Bristol hills.

If you fancy getting involved check out Pedal Collective’s site where they need volunteers to marshal the event too. Oh, and there’s a family ride too.

 

 

 

 

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> Dangerous “fake” e-bikes undermining UK’s cycling efforts and putting industry at risk, say MPs calling for clampdown

Back in November we broke the news that Rapha had suffered its seventh consecutive year in the red, the brand’s losses almost doubling to £22.7m. Well, new CEO Fran Miller (formerly of Team Sky, Belstaff, and sister to former pro-turned-Factor CEO David Miller) has spoken to The Times about her plans to rejuvinate the business.

Millar explained how Rapha had tried to broaden the clothing from its “cult-like” following to “mass appeal”.

“In the process of doing that, and then post-acquisition, there was a lack of clarity,” she said. “It got a bit confused and went from being very clear, very focused, absolute crystal-clear knowledge of who the customer was… to this far looser and more democratised version.

“We just have to make sure that we can communicate to both ends of that in a way that feels credible and authentic, so the people at the top of the pyramid still feel a sense of ownership and belonging and the people at the bottom of the pyramid don’t feel alienated or that it’s elitist and they’re not welcome here. That’s our job to fix that.”

One particular area for growth, Millar suggested, was with female riders. 

“You see across platforms like Strava that women are engaging more in cycling than they ever have done. Women performing at the highest level in cycling now are doing some unbelievable, incredible things,” she said, stressing that Rapha would be “doubling down” on its offering for women.

Vincenzo Albanese makes it look easy as he claims victory in Stage 2 of the Tour de Suisse! 👏 pic.twitter.com/ErC2gz8wnU

— Cycling on TNT Sports (@cyclingontnt) June 16, 2025

It’s a belting live blog comments section to start the week… Rendel Harris winning the day for spotting this in Battersea Park this morning… an “early contender for chump of the week”…

A worrying number of you have had to limp home without a saddle too. I had no idea today’s blog would turn into a ‘saddle mishap anonymous’ session. Well, as anonymous as the instigator behind his keyboard pasting your usernames back into the blog for a comments section round up…

chrisonabike: “Had my saddle stolen one evening many years ago so had to ride back standing.  Luckily only a few miles from home – I wouldn’t want to do more than that!”

brooksby: “There’s a bloke I’ve seen riding around central Bristol on several occasions with no saddle or seatpost.  I’m pretty sure it’s the same person, anyway.  Otherwise there are some very unlucky people out there…”

wtjs: “Several years ago I went out in the dark for a Christmas morning ride in the hills. Both saddle rails broke (logic tells me that one of them may have broken previously but I hadn’t detected anything) so I had to complete 2/3 of the trip standing. That was only 15-20 miles, but it was hard work.”

Didsbury: “Snapped mine once, I hit the half inch lip of the lifting bridge in Poole at speed on the way home from work, limped the last ten miles standing on the pedals with the saddle and part of the aluminium post in the panniers. As a 100kg rugby player it was a bit of an unexpected shock to say the least!”

> “Drivers don’t have to push their cars”: Park barriers designed to stop “speeding” cyclists are forcing families onto busy road with no bike lane, cycling campaigners say

Quite a few people of the internet learnt what a sticky bottle was this weekend. In fact, this video has been viewed more than 20 million times since Saturday… that’s more people than there are in the Netherlands, Chile or Kazakhstan.

is this cheating 😳 pic.twitter.com/uaNXigJXB0

— Crazy Clips (@crazyclips_) June 14, 2025

Oh, and obviously from the caption, the main question was: ‘Is this cheating?’ 

The answer, which I suspect few reading this will need clarified, is no and yes, depending on how it’s done. The example from the video is of course fine, just your standard team car bottle run. However, as Vincenzo Nibali found out during the 2015 Vuelta, there is a line that shouldn’t be crossed when it comes to taking the piss when taking a bottle.

Josh Tarling too found himself on the receiving end of a DQ, at last year’s Paris-Roubaix, for taking a tow with the Ineos Grenadiers team car.

Thankfully, Thomas De Gendt was on hand to educate the masses who may have been seeing a sticky bottle for the first time when clicking on that viral vid, explaining why there’s no foul play there.

“From an ex-cyclist. No. It’s not cheating,” the breakaway extraordinaire explained, before answering some follow-up questions.

“It is regulated,” he said to one reply from a “lifelong cycling fan” who says they still get “infuriated” seeing it during races. “No longer than five seconds to exchange a bottle and the car can’t move up in the convoy,” De Gendt said of the limit. “Holding the car is only to stay level with the car.”

He also explained how, in this situation on a flat road, there would be “no benefit” and it would matter more if on a climb. Anyway, it’s a cracking excuse to bring up my favourite moment of Tadej Pogačar’s brilliant weekend. No, not the stage wins and climbing performances, but that moment on Saturday when he casually rolled back to the team car, fetched teammate Pavel Sivakov a bottle, then even more casually rolled past everyone to personally drop it off to the Frenchman on the front, just to let everyone know. Class.

 

 

 

 

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