Remco Evenepoel 60km solo victory halted by flaming roadside car; Cyclist "lucky" not to be hit after bollards removed; Gold medal prank; Bizarre New York wheelie crash; Packed bike lanes; Bernal shoots hoops; Paralympic medals + more on the live blog

Cycle insurance provider Bikmo and cycling encouragement platform Love to Ride have announced a three-year partnership to "get more people on bikes and increase education for riders on how to keep their bikes safe".

Love to Ride's online campaigns have so far engaged more than 570,000 people worldwide, including 132,000 new cyclists. Riders can collect points to win prizes, some of which are provided by Bikmo and include gold sold secure rated Hiplok bike locks and a £200 Freewheel voucher to be spent in a local bike shop.

sound up. pic.twitter.com/3z5Qtz5Qb8

— YS (@NYinLA2121) August 26, 2021

Campaigners hoping to reopen a disused West Yorkshire railway tunnel as part of a new active travel route have installed a memorial to the ten men known to have died during its construction.

Work on the Queensbury Tunnel betweeen Bradford and Halifax begain in May 1874 and involved the excavation of 180,000 cubic yards of rock. Groundwater delayed progress and dozens of the 600-strong workforce suffered injuries, many of them life-changing.

Ten workers died and to honour the navvies, the Queensbury Tunnel Society has built a memorial near the tunnel entrance. "Navvies are the forgotten heroes of the railway boom that changed the nation in the 19th Century," Graeme Bickerdike, the Society's Engineering Coordinator said. "The risks would be intolerable now and many paid the highest possible price, leaving their families destitute. As we ride comfortably on their infrastructure, we must not forget those who gifted us our railway network through the Victorian era."

A cyclist said she was lucky to avoid being hit by a driver after cycle lane bollards were removed from the B3108 between Bradford-on-Avon and Winsley in Wiltshire. The markings and signs remain, so Caroline Tassell used the lane as normal but soon found herself riding towards oncoming traffic with no protection from the bollards that usually seperate cyclists from drivers.

In the pictures below you can see how riders heading eastbound from Bradford-on-Avon towards Winsley were directed over to use the lane riding towards oncoming traffic, while riders heading westbound were encouraged to use a pretty questionable shared-use path...

The cyclist told the Wiltshire Times that if nothing is done then she fears somebody will be seriously injured on the road. She said: "I know the cycle lane between Winsley and Bradford-on-Avon has been a controversial subject for sometime now, and as a regular cyclist I have been using it somewhat reluctantly when travelling from Bradford-on-Avon to Winsley."

"It never felt safe - narrow, potholes, full of debris, and lethal if meeting another cyclist coming the other way. However, it was marginally preferable to the abuse I experienced from motorists if I chose not to use it and cycled on the road instead. Today, I started to cycle along it only to realise that a car was heading straight for me.

"I then realised that the bollards have been removed so there is nothing to separate cars from cyclists, however the white lines and signage remains in place indicating that this is still a cycle lane. As if it wasn’t dangerous enough before! I am lucky that I wasn’t hit but this has to be dealt with as a matter of urgency before somebody is seriously hurt. An absolute shambles."

Wiltshire Council says it intends to replace the temporary infrastructure with a permanent facility next year and the bollards have been removed under temporary traffic signals. The temporary facility was installed as a response to the Covid pandemic to make active travel more accessible. 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by San Antonio Spurs (@spurs)

Rapha and San Antonio Spurs have teamed up to launch a cycling kit collection so fans can rep their team's colours out on the road. The first is a lightweight race kit with the team logo and traditional silver and black colours. The other features the team's "fiesta colours" of their famous 90s design.

The idea has apparently been worked on for a few years now after the team noted that cycling had become a popular post-retirement sport for a lot of its former players.

"Rapha was thrilled by the opportunity to work with the Spurs and offer a cycling kit to the team’s fans. This project gave us a special opportunity to forge a connection between local cycling initiatives and the broader San Antonio sporting community. We hope that the collaboration will have a positive impact by promoting the positive values that sport of any kind can bring to anyone’s life," a Rapha press release said.

NYC is back!! pic.twitter.com/g4D2AXSEVp

— Aaron Stewart-Ahn (@somebadideas) August 25, 2021

 This one's all quite strange. It could be a scene out of a bad cop comedy. None of the other NYPD officers seemed too bothered when one of their men was flattened by the cyclist popping a wheelie. The guy on the bike also seemed like he'd barely noticed the cop caught under his front wheel...

The clip has been viewed more than 650,000 times and nobody, as far as I can see, has worked out what's going on either. Some have questioned why everyone was going the wrong way down a one-way road, others were more concerned by the cops flying through the pedestrian crossing.

There's not much sympathy for the police officer in the 500 plus replies...

What the hell. The cop basically parks in the middle of a turn, gets tapped by the bike rider, does a slow roll. Is this some kind of really crap choreography? Like really bad fake Kung-fu movies?

— Hoarder of old game stuff. (@PsychosisFuzz) August 25, 2021

then toss his helmet like he’s in the NFL and some ball boy will go and grab it.

— Frosty Giant (@Frost_Giant_) August 25, 2021

pic.twitter.com/VEFxUuyXtk

— Cycling out of context (@OutOfCycling) August 25, 2021

For some reason I don't think the Milwaukee Bucks (yes, I had to look that up) will be coming in for Egan Bernal this off-season. He got there in the end...

Fake news guys 😜. Nothing but net from Egan! 🏀 pic.twitter.com/0UFqZ2Yz1v

— INEOS Grenadiers (@INEOSGrenadiers) August 25, 2021

Ineos Grenadiers don't have a great record when trying out other sports...their training camp trip to the driving range was entertaining for all the wrong reasons.

Don't get me started on when they did that crossbar challenge...

And as for the time Tom Pidcock claimed to have run a 13.25 5k and triggered the entire running community in the process...stick to the day job, lads.