Ryanair wins the internet with Tour de France gag; Dodgy bike rack; Timmy Mallett discovers the joys of Britain’s cycle network; Cycling in the heat; Michael Mørkøv is hard as nails; Weekend round-up + more on the live blog
Making a splash! Tour de France peloton goes swimming on the rest day
Chris Froome and the Israel-Premier Tech lads went for a dip in nature to cool off from the sharp French sun…
@OutOfCycling one for you 😂 pic.twitter.com/HAogI93n9x
— Chris Froome (@chrisfroome) July 18, 2022
While Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl and Fabio Jakobsen clearly got a better hotel choice…
Rustdag bij Chateau Tietema bevalt @FabioJakobsen prima. @BasTietema #TDF2022 pic.twitter.com/9dwDzUFNqn
— Robbert de Rijk (@robbertderijk) July 18, 2022
Two riders need further Covid examination before continuing race
[Image: Zac Williams / SWpix.com]
Stage winners Magnus Cort and Simon Clarke were the latest riders to fall foul of a positive Covid test bringing an end to their Tour de France prematurely, as they left the race over the weekend. Two other unnamed riders who “do not rank within the top 20 of the general classification” will need a “complementary biological examination” to see if they can continue after today’s rest day, the UCI today explained.
“While these riders are completely asymptomatic, security measures (isolation of the two riders) have been implemented to protect the other participants,” the statement said.
“A final decision on their participation will be taken by tomorrow (Tuesday) morning in a collegial manner by the concerned parties (COVID-19 event and team doctors, and the UCI medical director).”
Sweating through Monday like...
Alexander Kristoff, pedaling with his ears & his heart 💪 #TDF2022
— Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert (@IntermarcheWG) July 17, 2022
We’re all feeling a bit like Alexander Kristoff today…
Ryanair wins the internet with Tour de France gag
Rumour has it you have to pay an extra £1.99 to retweet Ryanair’s now-viral Tour de France joke…
A Domestique flight https://t.co/C8UbxgijYn
— Ryanair (@Ryanair) July 17, 2022
They, like the rest of the aviation industry, might have cancelled your flight this summer, but at least their social media admin is spending July right…
admin needs to upgrade their cassette
— Ryanair (@Ryanair) July 17, 2022
The incident in question was Trek-Segafredo’s Toms Skujiņš keeping his teammates hydrated in the near 40°C heat of southern France yesterday afternoon with a jersey full of bottles. He must have done a decent job considering Mads Pedersen sprinted to third, and the Latvian, who was the first rider we spotted aboard the new Madone at the Dauphiné, became an internet sensation in the process.
Race organisers invoked the UCI’s Extreme Weather Protocol yesterday, meaning riders could take food and water later into the stage, discard bottles at any point, and were subject to a much more favourable time cut.
Ryanair seized the moment and jumped into the action, getting us thinking about (in a slightly Partridge way) airways as cycling teams: EF Education-EasyJet, UAE Team Fly Emirates and Jumbo(jet)-Visma…cut us some slack, it’s Monday morning…
18 July 2022, 08:08
18 July 2022, 08:08
Can you stuff eight bottles down your jersey?
This is why you’re not a Tour de France racer
What is actually holding you back from Tour de France greatness? Dave and Jamie signed Liam up to find out
18 July 2022, 08:08
18 July 2022, 08:08
18 July 2022, 08:08
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Per my comment on yesterday's blog about Sadiq Khan's prosecution... "London mayor's untaxed car conviction withdrawn ... The DVLA will also investigate the false registration..." I wonder if they will also apply the same investigations to all the other fraudulent vehicle registrations... And given: "After the mayor expanded the Ultra Low Emission Zone (Ulez) to cover the whole of London he faced a wave of protests, including from motorists who said they planned to register their car in his name - supposedly to make him liable for the £12.50 daily charge." Would all of those drivers have been prosecuted (or at least got a formal warning) for openly admitting to planning to commit fraud? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c7708vn2yp7o
@wtjs Couldn't agree more, there are an estimated 498,000 vehicles being used on UK roads for which VED has not been paid, that's a whisker under £100 million lost to the Exchequer every single year. Imagine if the wet dreams of the haters came true and cyclists had to pay some form of "road tax" (as they would call it) and it was found that £100 million of it was uncollected despite the fact that it would be an easy matter to enforce. The sound of exploding gammon would be deafening!
Thanks Liam. Good to know. I do get over to FOD at times and plan to give Sam or Katy a call. Appreciate it. Neil
Yes. Such is the case with most sports. Cyclists can develop their riding skills and racing experience, footballers have yoga sessions and improve their conditioning in order to minimise the chances of injury, but it still happens. Most athletes have to learn to deal with setbacks if they are to have long successful careers.
@Psi Squared I'm lucky enough to have had 2 sets of the 'modern' series of Roval wheels, the first generation CLX and the second generation CL II. They have 21mm internal rim width and the wide (35mm-ish) front wheel. I haven't tried this third gen CLX wheelset (and cannot afford to!), but none of my 28mm tyres measured anything close to what the reviewer has stated: - Conti S TR 28mm >> 30+mm - Tufo Comturo Prima 28mm >> 32-ish mm (they come up large on all my rims) - Spesh Turbo Cotton 28mm (tube-type) >> 30+mm once "stretched in" I think the reviewer has made a mistake or has a dangerously stretchy set of tyres and should stop riding them immediately!
They did the towns pretty quietly too. It's only [certain elements in] that there Oxford that's really kicked up a fuss about this stuff. Mind you, most of the time, you'd be doing well to get over 20 going through town anyway.
You're conflating the throttle and the pedal assist. The throttle should only get it up to walking speed; about 6kph. Once it takes it past that, whether or not it's capable of 15mph or 58mph is entirely irrelevant.
@ktache Isn't it "LTNs BAD, cul-de-sacs and a quiet village green good*"? * As long as we can drive into town, of course...
@Robert Hardy As Rendel suggests, I'm not certain that any wheeled mode of transport - even at speeds well below the limit - would have avoided tragedy here. Although the road around the *outside* of the park where IIRC this occurred (Outer Circle) isn't "the main drag" (that would be e.g. Park Road / Marylebone Road) it is wide enough to put a question mark over "casual crossing". And indeed there are signalised crossings... Leaving aside "but racing cyclists!!" for now, looking at how safety might be improved here let's see how others do this. For example: West End of the Vondelpark in Amsterdam is on a "main road" (Amstelveenseweg). (The rest are very much "streets"). What happens there where pedestrians are crossing to and from the park? As it's a main road (and with tramlines) there are cycle paths (in this case unidirectional). That means that everyone knows where everyone else is and what to expect. The cycle path is really obvious, and it's only a couple of paces wide. People expect cyclists in that section, but being narrow compared to the road lanes it's simple to cross - so much so that no lights are used. cross. (Although unusually - presumably due to very high flows of pedestrians and cyclists - there is a *marked* crossing point). Once you've negotiated the cycle lane you can then wait (again in "pedestrian space") and concentrate on "watching for the cars" at a signalised crossing if needed (because it takes longer to cross the road part). I think there is space in the Regents Park case for cycle paths of some kind...
Oxfordshire very quietly made all it's villages 20mph a couple of years back.
48 thoughts on “Ryanair wins the internet with Tour de France gag; Dodgy bike rack; Timmy Mallett discovers the joys of Britain’s cycle network; Cycling in the heat; Michael Mørkøv is hard as nails; Weekend round-up + more on the live blog”
2 NMOTD from last night
2 NMOTD from last night
Must Get In Front
That second one, with the
That second one, with the white car, was awful. I hate it when motorists overtake on a left bend and then still try to do a racing line around the bend…
And all the comments (at
And all the comments (at least when I looked last night) that mentioned that clip were the typical “bicycles don’t belong on the road”/”cyclists can’t complain about drivers because they don’t pay for the roads”.
Also, there were a few bad lorry drivers in that compilation, yet nobody in the comments is suggesting that all lorry drivers are selfish rule-breakers – every time there’s clip of a misbehaving cyclist in there though, every comment is “why are all cylists like this?!!11”
The first one where the lorry
The first one where the lorry approached the car from behind then turned into him seems to have spawned loads of “that is why you don’t sit in a lorry’s blind spot” comments. He didn’t, the lorry driver put him there, the car driver did not. I also like how accepting it is to having a large mass travelling at 55mph is ok to have blind spots on, yet a small mass cycling on the pavement is jumped on by the same people.
Clearly professional jerseys
Clearly professional jerseys are a lot stronger than you’d think…
No surprise that this is
No surprise that this is lancs police !!
“‘No further action. Evidential difficulties. Your position contributes to the incident.’ So staying in primary & away from parked cars to avoid being doored is contributing”
I couldn’t work out the the camera angle at first, it looked like a recumbent but going backwards !
No surprise that this is
No surprise that this is lancs police !!
Thanks for bringing this to my attention- naturally, this is no surprise to me. OpSnapLancs is an abomination whose only function is as a quick route to the bin. If they notice someone is bringing indisputable offences to them, they cease responding altogether. Doesn’t matter what the traffic offence is- gross RLJs, no MOT for 2 years on a vehicle frequently seen on the roads in Garstang, false number plates etc. etc. They ignore them all, which is why Lancashire is a safe haven for offending and insurance- and tax-evading drivers
I’ve found that if, when you
I’ve found that if, when you have raised an issue and had nil response, submit a complaint. LC does NOT like their complaints stats to show an upward trend. Applies to other crap customer service issues as well.
Mark Hodson has been dragged
Mark Hodson has been dragged into the twitter feed for that. He is giving potential excuses for them (lack of staff) but he has obviously never seen any of the posts on here about their poorness.
This Police force is definitely one that needs chasing down by road.cc, Cycling UK, Boardman or anyone else that can drag some answers out of them about their poor performances with Cyclist submitted stuff, including the basics like RLJ or Untaxed drivers.
Writing “Your position
Writing “Your position contributes to the incident” – tell me you know nothing about the HC or cycling without actually stating that.
They are not fit for purpose.
Writing “Your position
Writing “Your position contributes to the incident”
What Lancashire Constabulary woud mean by that is ‘if you scummy cyclists weren’t on the road these close-passes would not have happened – and besides this Sainsbury’s 44-tonner has something about cyclists on the back so it’s even more your fault because Sainsbury’s is Caring and Sharing’
May be an idea to get some
May be an idea to get some examples of videos from Lancashire with the police responses on NMOTD. I did a search for NMOTD Lancashire and of the two reported, one in West Lancs had the police contacting the firm for the name of the driver and one the police did not respond at all.
Another advantage of getting examples on NMOTD is that if Cycling UK decide to belatedly get involved then all the evidence is in the same place. At the moment I don’t think there is any other repository for these.
There are now quite a few for Gloucestershire and road.cc have contacted them a few times with the last one resulting in them admitting to an error. https://road.cc/content/news/near-miss-day-794-294151
Small steps but in the right direction.
May be an idea to get some
May be an idea to get some examples of videos from Lancashire with the police responses on NMOTD
That’s in the hands of the site managers. They didn’t put them on, so I stopped sending them. Clio PE69 OOC passed at about 60 mph. No response from Lancashire Constabulary
Ah, I see, sorry to hear that
Ah, I see, sorry to hear that. All I can suggest is that you try again. May be use a recent one where it’s a clear case of careless driving and NFA so that road.cc can chase it up if they feel so inclned. I suspect RLJ is not the way to go for NMOTD.
Alternatively there must be other readers in Lancashire with suitable footage.
Any way, good luck. I really hope you manage to get somewhere in your quest to improve Lancashire’s responses to video footage submitted by cyclists.
From the multiple screenshots
From the multiple
screenshotshi-res still from HD videos he has posted here, he has examples of all sorts of NMotD. There is normally one post, if not two or three under most. The RLJ and untaxed, MoT’d (and so uninsured) car is just the icing showing that Lancashire Police ignore all sorts of road crime submitted to them.May be use a recent one where
May be use a recent one where it’s a clear case of careless driving and NFA so that road.cc can chase it up
Ho! Ho! Ho! road.cc is not going to be chasing anything up, because they can’t. The main tactic of Lancashire Constabulary in cases where they’re as guilty as sin is to simply not respond in any way. That stops a website dead.
All wtjs really. Plenty of
All wtjs really. Plenty of examples (albeit screenshots) and comments about lancs, so I’m surprised Road.cc haven’t contacted him directly to get more info.
Plenty of examples (albeit
Plenty of examples (albeit screenshots)
No they’re not! Mostly they’re hi-res stills extracted from the HD video. The only time I use screenshots is to show the time between the lights turning red, and the offender going across the stop line. Using the 50 fps video as a clock is verified by the amber phase being always 3 seconds =/- 10 milliseconds or so. And the ‘caution’ hardly applies to cases like this, where there’s a 100% probability of Lancashire Constabulary failing to act: (that’s almost 3 years of enjoyable tax-free motoring, and 6 1/2 months so far of freedom from the tiresome over-restrictive MOT)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-62207530
A police and crime commissioner who had pledged to crack down on speeding has been given a six-month driving ban after being caught breaking the limit five times in 12 weeks.
The 52-year-old declined to answer questions on whether she would resign.
A police and crime
A police and crime commissioner who had pledged to crack down on speeding has been given a six-month driving ban after being caught breaking the limit five times in 12 weeks
The Lancashire PCC ‘Communications Team’ is all over Lancashire local media urging people dissatisfied with Lancashire Constabulary responses to reports (these are simply No-Responses) to write to the PCC. When you do, there is, unsurprisingly, No Response
She tried the old exceptional
She tried the old exceptional hardship – visiting daughter in hospital, judge told her to piss off and get her husband to give her a lift – it’s not that hard to ban after all, is it?
Yes, the Beak did well:
Yes, the Beak did well:
“The PCC, who was elected to the post in May 2021, was caught speeding in a [b]Mercedes and a Lexus with a personalised number plate[/b]…
…The district judge dismissed Henry’s application to keep her driving licence due to [b]”exceptional hardship”.[/b]
Speeding isn’t murder (until
Speeding isn’t murder (until you kill someone) but had she been caught, say, shoplifting on numerous occassions, I doubt there would be any question about her standing down from her position as Police & Crime Commissioner.
That she even thinks she has any duty to continue in that office tells us more about her own morality with regard to the bloated salary that comes with the job or her view, in common with many drivers, that speeding isn’t really a proper crime.
https://metro.co.uk/2022/07
I think it is germane to
I think it is germane to mention that she’s a tory.
Miller wrote:
And that she’s married to a Tory MP…
brooksby wrote:
And that she’s married to a Tory MP…
— MillerIf it looks like corruption and smells like corruption…
ChrisB200SX wrote:
In all fairness, it probably came as a bit of a shock to discover that laws can apply to the friends’n’relations of Tory MPs…
Probably was trying to escape
Probably was trying to escape dealing with an alleged corrupt force over the Alex Belfield situation
Heat != UV
Heat != UV
Out at 7 this morning, 20
Out at 7 this morning, 20 degrees and very pleasant. Not so much now, though: mid-thirties here in south-west London. Glad I’m able to stay inside.
About to go out (central
About to go out (central London) for an unavoidable 25kms (well not strictly speaking unavoidable but damned if I’m getting a bus or train in this weather). I shall be interested to see how my new invention works: empty catfood sachets filled with water, sealed with gaffer tape and frozen overnight, one in each jersey pocket. Yeah well, I bet they mocked Thomas Edison too…
Don’t come whining to us if
Don’t come whining to us if you get attacked and eaten by cats who think you are some sort of cat food flavoured ice cream.
Explains why this happened.
Explains why this happened.
Mungecrundle wrote:
Already upset my three who saw me getting pouches out of the fridge and thought they were getting an unexpectedly early tea.
Rendel Harris wrote:
Youre better off using these empty juice pouches – They are more water tight.
we use them as extra icepacks for the fridge.
That’s a good idea… although
That’s a good idea… although I did find an extra advantage to the imperfect seal, which was that as the ice melted any time I wanted to have some extra cooling I could reach back, press on a pocket and get a nice squirt of cold water down my back!
.
LOL! Nice one!
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LOL! Nice one!
.
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What, no Camelback?
.
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What, no Camelback?
.
16º C at 8am on the way to
16º C at 8am on the way to work, 35º C on the way home at 5pm. It wasn’t quite as unbearable as anticipated but neither would I describe it as comfortable.
Simon E wrote:
Certainly in London (sorry can’t remember if you’re a Londoner, think you might be?) the heat was mitigated by very much lower than usual traffic levels this evening, so the reduction in hot fumes and being surrounded by hot engines, as well as not having to stop quite so often, made it not much worse than a 28° day with normal traffic I thought. But I agree, not exactly comfy and I was certainly glad to get home and under a coldish shower.
Rendel Harris wrote:
Interesting that the lack of vehicles made such a difference.
I’m not a Londoner but a Welsh ex-pat in Shropshire.
I’ve just looked through my records and below are the dates when temperature at 5pm (RAF Shawbury weather station) was above 26° C. Purely anecdotal.
29/06/09 27
02/07/09 27
12/07/13 27
01/08/13 29
30/06/15 28
19/07/16 32
23/08/16 27
19/06/17 28
21/06/17 27
26/06/18 28
28/06/18 27
02/07/18 27
23/07/19 30
24/06/20 28
25/06/20 29
31/07/20 27
07/08/20 28
19/07/21 29
20/07/21 27
21/07/21 28
06/09/21 27
11/07/22 29
18/07/22 35
Simon E wrote:
It was really noticeable during lockdown just how much cooler the streets were. On busy London streets one’s often completely enveloped with cars on every side, all reflecting the sun off their glass and metal, then add in exhaust gases at around 200°C and the heat off the engines, hot brake discs etc and it’s like being wrapped in bacofoil and then having dozens of industrial hairdryers pointed at one. Trying to stay off the main drags in this weather but for some things, like crossing the river, they are unavoidable. I envy you your chance to get out into the blue remembered hills!
Really need to check your
Really need to check your translation software. “Cofidis pro rider Alexis Renard is to undergo surgery next month to treat the onset of a heart rhythm disorder. The 23-year-old was tested at hospital in Nantes and needs an atrium removed“.
Maybe an atrial ablation, but removing an entire chamber of his heart! bit extreme.
To be fair, Road.cc appear to
To be fair, Road.cc appear to have copied verbatim from the Euro Weekly News article linked. The original news story on Team Cofidis’ website is in French but it would appear the French for an ablation is ‘une ablation’ so really no excuses for getting that one wrong…
I’d guess after having an
I’d guess after having an atrium removed it would be pretty tough to get back into competitive cycling.
All you lot MOANING about the
All you lot MOANING about the heat, spare a thought for those of us who crashed a fortnight ago, have broken bones and can’t ride again for maybe another fortnight. The sling is like a blanket, I can’t get in or out of a sun lounger, and if the Tour wasn’t on, would have gone crazy!
When it happened I had 3 or 4 miserable days wondering if I’d ride again. At least on Sunday when I woke early and noticed the amazing early morning light and thought it would be lovely to be heading out on a ride, there’s a glimmer of hope…
I feel your pain .. it wasn’t
I feel your pain .. it wasn’t this hot when I was laid up with both arm and leg immobile, but you have my sympathies.
Ice bags, hanging in front of the fan – and don’t forget our favourite frozen peas.
Have a look at the KoolPac stuff on Amazon – squeeze to activate ice packs (https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/Koolpak/page/2391A9A3-EB0A-43B8-92CF-FFD89285558D?ref_=ast_bln)
If you want to get back on the bike, you will … just don’t rush it