“Jesus, it’s like a horror movie”: Bike mechanic despairs at “one of the worst” worn tyres they’ve ever seen; 85km/h crash footage goes viral; The Tour de France Femmes hits the climbs + more on the live blog
SUMMARY
85km/h crash footage goes viral
This is doing the rounds on social media and has been watched more than 1.2 million times on Twitter since Tuesday. There’s not much more info other than the reassuring ‘I am OK :)’ message at the end, so we’re not sure when or where this happened, but it has unsurprisingly blown up online. Is that blood at the end real? It looks slightly too, I don’t know, movie or AI-like? Maybe that’s complete rubbish… let me know in the comments.
Anyway, give this a miss if you don’t want to see a pretty frightening crash or an influencer commentating on it for clicks.
OOOOOOOOOOuch. pic.twitter.com/DMBc1Zenvp
— TacticalStNick (@TacticalStNick) July 29, 2025
Tour de France Femmes stage six: it's time to climb
Over its opening five stages the Tour de France Femmes has meandered its way from Brittany on a west-east transection to Clermont-Ferrand, the city whose inclusion on any Tour route means one thing — climbing. Sprinters need not apply, in fact the fast finishers’ stage hopes are finished for the rest of the race, stage six taking the peloton on a lumpy first foray into the mountains.
After today we’ve got an Alpine triple-header so there’s a decent chance today is more of an aperitif, especially considering there’s more descending than climbing in the final 45km. Breakaway day? Or maybe we can throw all of that out the window when Vollering, Niewiadoma, Ferrand-Prévot, Van der Breggen, Gigante and Co. take off on the Col du Béal.
Shut up LEJOGs
Well worth a watch just to see Jens tackle some Cornish place names…
Meanwhile in The Guardian, the question on one person's lips — 'should my cyclist boyfriend stop drinking from a water bladder during sex?'
I see The Guardian is having a totally normal Thursday.
This is the tale of Leanne and Wes, a couple of a year and a half, Leanne taking her big issue with Wes to The Guardian for its ‘You be the judge series’ where readers are invited to settle disagreements.
Wes, who “loves hiking and biking”, has built a four-poster bed and hung a water bladder from it for “practical” night-time hydration. Leanne apparently didn’t mind too much at first but then… “we were having an intimate moment and he whipped out the water bladder and started drinking from it”.
Leanne continued: “Wes loves hiking and biking, and uses a water bladder then. I think that’s acceptable as it’s what it was originally designed for – but it’s not for the bedroom.
“Even though we live separately, as I usually go to Wes’s place, I think he should listen to me when I say I’m not comfortable with something. He did take it down after that incident, but I know if I allowed it, the water bladder would go straight back up.”
Apparently we’ve got to wait until next week to find out whose side The Guardian’s readership voted for, however we’ve got a feeling Wes might be onto a loser here. Don’t worry though, if the hydration pack gets vetoed, you can always arrange a remote-controlled team car to pull alongside and hand out some bottles mid-act…
East Suffolk Council announces new sportive which will follow part of the route to be used on stage one of the Tour of Britain
To mark the Tour of Britain returning to East Suffolk, the county’s council has announced that it is organising a new sportive which will follow a section of the official route to be used on the opening stage of the professional race in September.
The sportive will be based out of Woodbridge, 50km and 100km routes on offer and travelling on the stage route through Clopton, Tunstall, Snape and Melton. A portion of the entry fee (£20 for the 50km route, £30 for the 100km route) is to be donated to a local mental health charity, Suffolk Mind, and participants will “benefit from broom wagon support, feed stations, clearly signed routes, free downloadable photos, a goodie bag, and a customised t-shirt”.
Woodbridge councillor Sarah Whitelock said, “We’re absolutely thrilled to be hosting the Pedal & Picnic in Woodbridge as a lead-in to the return of the Lloyd’s Tour of Britain this September. It’s a fantastic opportunity to bring our communities together, celebrate cycling at every level, and support a brilliant local cause like
Suffolk Mind. Whether you’re riding for fun, for fitness, or for the love of the sport, this event truly has something for everyone and I can’t wait to see East Suffolk buzzing with energy and excitement.”
Woodbridge is hosting the start of the Tour of Britain’s opening stage on Tuesday 2 September.
Jeremy Vine says ex-footballer Joey Barton paid out "at least" £500,000 over "bike nonce" tweets
> Jeremy Vine says ex-footballer Joey Barton paid out “at least” £500,000 over “bike nonce” tweets
"Our days are numbered": London bike shop launches crowdfunder as "financial hardships" and rent increase "threaten to close doors for good"
Independent bike shop Seabass Cycles, based out of Peckham in London, has posted on Instagram explaining the challenges facing the business at the minute. They’ve launched a crowdfunder as “the risk of closing our doors and losing everything we’ve built is very real”. Penning a lengthy post, the shop’s owners wrote:
Dear friends, family, neighbours, and fellow cyclists,
We are Seabass Cycles, an independent bicycle shop run by Charlie and Sam, that has proudly served our community for nearly 12 years. Over the years, we’ve become more than just a shop — we’re a part of your lives, your routines, and your community. We’ve built friendships, supported families and local schools, we have helped countless people find joy and freedom through cycling. We’re proud to be pillars of our community.
Charlie and Sam started Seabass Cycles with nothing but a shared dream and a passion for bikes. With a wealth of industry knowledge but with no money and no business experience, they built the first shop in Camberwell from the ground up. From those humble beginnings in a tiny space, they have grown into a well-respected, beloved local business that is truly sown into the fabric of Peckham.
But today, we’re facing a critical challenge. Recent financial hardships, coupled with a rent increase we simply cannot afford, threaten to force us to close our doors for good. Sadly, over the years, a handful of independent and corporate bike shops in our area have already closed, and we don’t want to be the next. We’ve worked too hard, and we’re too passionate about what we do, to let that happen.
Your donation will help us stay on the road, keep our doors open, keep our staff employed and ensure that our community continues to have a trusted local bike shop for years to come. If you’re unable to donate, sharing our story with friends and family would mean the world to us.
The clock is ticking — we must be out of our current location by the end of September, and there’s a mountain of work to do in a very short time. The risk of closing our doors and losing everything we’ve built is very real, and we’re reaching out to our friends, family, the cycling community and beyond for support.
Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your support, your loyalty, and for helping us keep the wheels turning. We’re excited for what’s next, and we hope to continue riding alongside you for many more years!
With gratitude,
Sam Lewin & Charlie Roberts
How I picked the worst fantasy team at the Tour de France
Representing the alphabetically last country of Zimbabwe, this is the fantasy team that took me to the glorious (or should that be glory-less) ‘achievement’ of 29,945th out 29,945 players in Velogames’ Tour de France game.
The GC rider choice was the real danger. Thankfully, spotting Geraint Thomas struggling to make a mark results-wise in his final season kept the total relatively low. For my climber pick, I went for Ilan Van Wilder, hoping the Belgian would be preoccupied by looking after Remco Evenepoel. Unfortunately, one Remco pulled out, Van Wilder was free to chase his own results and ended up as my highest scorer, that Ventoux breakaway performance making up the bulk of my points.
A solid first-week time trial by Pablo Castrillo threatened to keep me off the bottom of the rankings, but finishing the team with 34 points between my cheapest six riders ensured the ‘victory’. Maybe next time there should be a minimum budget used requirement to make things more challenging, but for now I’m quite proud of my lanterne rouge.
Come take us on at the Vuelta if you’re bad enough…
"I hope this motivates other riders from Africa to dream big": Kim Le Court on taking yellow at the Tour
Ahead of today’s stage, yellow jersey Kim Le Court spoke of her pride at becoming the first non-European stage winner at the Tour de France Femmes. The Mauritian rider was quick to correct the TV interviewer, who said it was the first non-European Tour de France win, Le Court pointing out that Africa has won stages at the men’s race before, but said she hopes her victory yesterday will inspire others.
“It’s a privilege and I’m very honoured,” she said. “I hope this motivates other riders from Africa to dream big. I was very lucky to have Sarah [Gigante] with me, for sure if she hadn’t been there it would have been a bit more difficult, I think we would have looked at each other a bit more. Without her help I wouldn’t be in this position.”
Ben Healy 'wins' post-Tour crit twice having celebrated too early
Post-Tour de France crits, eh? The WWE of the cycling world, the stars of the past three weeks of racing going head-to-head in a spectacle of scripted spinning for fat appearance cheques.
We’re just pointing it out but really, who cares? Fans get to see their heroes racing around their local town. Riders get a bit of appearance money. It’s all a bit of harmless fun.
Anyway, Ben Healy’s in such sparkling form that he managed to win one of the post-Tour crits twice. How? Well, the Irishman celebrated a lap too early, you see. We’re not talking a minor victory salute either, Healy coming almost to a full stop before circling back the wrong way. The ‘chasing’ riders came flying past and presumably began panicking about how they were going to get the EF rider back in front by the proper finish.
Ben Healy lève les bras trop tôt sur un criterium d’après Tour de France. 🤣🤣 pic.twitter.com/x5P4CgDrPw
— Passion Cyclisme (@PassionCyclism) July 30, 2025
He managed. Getting his arms in the air a lap later.
Plot twist: maybe the celebration fail was in the script?!
"You know nothing about cycling!": Cyclist slapped with £300 fine for crossing stop line at red light – as pensioner slams "trivial and wrong-headed" charge
Maeva Squiban wins Tour de France Femmes stage six with 30km solo move
Allez Maeva Squiban, allez France 🔥🇫🇷🔥🇫🇷
The first home win of this Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift goes to the 23-year-old. pic.twitter.com/kL1NUhiNHu
— Cycling on TNT Sports (@cyclingontnt) July 31, 2025
It was the predicted easing into the mountains ahead of a climbing-heavy weekend, stage six seeing the GC favourites finish together after Maeva Squiban gave the French their first win at this year’s race.
The UAE Team ADQ rider was second on a stage at last year’s race but went one better today, chipping away off the front with 30km to go and building an impressive advantage of just over a minute that could be held until the finish.
Juliette Labous went on a late raid for second before Kim Le Court took welcome bonus seconds and added to her race lead. It all means Le Court heads into the Alps with 26 seconds on Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, 30 seconds on Katarzyna Niewiadoma, 31 seconds on Demi Vollering and 35 seconds on Anna van der Breggen. The stage is well and truly set.
Trade authority aims to prevent "injury" to UK cycling industry by proposing to keep anti-dumping measures on bikes and components from China
"Jesus, it's like a horror movie": Bike mechanic despairs at "one of the worst" worn tyres they've ever seen
Coming to you from the treasure trove of bicycle abuse photos that is Reddit, I present to you this tyre so worn it now looks more like a horror movie prop or something grizzly from a nature documentary.
“One of the worst ones I’ve seen so far,” the poor mechanic who called this one in said. One of the worst though? We want to see the other contenders.
Unfortunately there’s not much more context about what happened here, although it probably doesn’t take a detective to work out the owner of this horror show should probably have fitted some new rubber hundreds, if not thousands, of miles ago.
It took quite a few people a minute to work out that, yes, that is the tyre all orange and poking out, and not some kind of Wotsit-like parasite, although some wondered if they were curled up patches. Zooming in to this pretty grim level of detail, I’m leaning towards the person who replied suggesting it’s the tyre’s now-mangled puncture resistance belt, different brands using different colours.
Another suggestion was ‘bacon-style’ tubeless plugs, the rest of the comments people joking about what their first reaction was when the grizzly image popped up on their feed.
There were suggestions of matchstick carrots, cordyceps, maggots, a parasite ridden fish, shredded chicken, a cyst-popping video, and Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. What an eclectic mix.
We’ll leave the final word to the joker responsible for: “I also hate it when grilled salmon tries to escape from my threadbare tyres.”
Elsewhere on Reddit this morning…
How’d you get the beans above the frank?
byu/davidisalreadytaken inBikeMechanics
31 July 2025, 08:04
31 July 2025, 08:04
31 July 2025, 08:04
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@Smoggysteve "Most would happily ride on the roads and be treated with respect by drivers". But people aren't - and as far as I can see they won't be. Not until there is a lot less driving and it's slower around cyclists, and far more people driving have "skin in the game" eg. they sometimes cycle and their friends and family do also. That's what leads to the model - which is perhaps most advanced in NL - where cycling, walking and driving are all seen as separate normal transport modes. Their needs, vulnerabilities and any dangers to others are considered. And *that* leads to "mix / share when possible, separate when necessary". But "possible" is "where your 10-year old would be safe to cycle unsupervised" - so very few motor vehicles, going slow! And AFAICS everybody - even "existing cyclists" - is happy with the result. (I dunno about a few pro cyclists - but don't they tend to have training camps in different counties anyway?)
@quiff as an Edinburgh resident I can confidently say he's speaking without moving his lips in one sense: - while as I noted in a separate comment there *is* now some real separated cycle infra, all the examples i can think of have *at least as much space* for pedestrians. The rest of the "cycle infra" is essentially similar to the situation in the rest of the UK: eg. bus lanes*, cycle lanes and shared use paths (eg. "build" infra by sticking up a sign). Edinburgh is one of the places with a moderately extensive network of former railways which have been converted to "shared use" paths (completely motor traffic few). However though shared they are not narrow by UK standards. And this is all effectively a "free extra" for all non- motorised users, not like the "sign a cycle path" where pedestrians do lose space. I think this all comes from the "popular understanding" of cycling in which ultimately cyclists are the "other". They don't fit "motor vehicle" or "pedestrian" (including wheelchairs on the very rare occasions people think about that). Thus "cyclists are cheating" in multiple ways! They shouldn't get their own space as "there aren't enough" of them. And "they can just use the road / path". But being able to *choose* "on the road" or "on the footway" (shared use path) is clearly unfair - nobody else gets to do that! BUT of course even if they did pick just one of road OR pedestrian space it's still not fair anyway because they're "too slow" for the road (don't pay "road tax" etc...) and "far too fast" for pedestrians... * Though some existing cyclists may appreciate them when there are few buses, buses and bikes are a very poor mix for several reasons.
Whilst a shame for any employees, their bib shorts had the worst chamois pad I’d ever encountered, utter waste of my money. Even though they were Strava challenge discount purchases, still a waste of money.
Thanks, just going to have to suck it up. Got next week off and will take the easy, if expensive option...
@ktache Just go for the TNT Sports only package, £30.99 for a month. Alternatively have you considered experimenting with a VPN for a few pounds, allowing you to sign up for a free stream abroad, e.g. SBS Australia which streams the Tour live? If I didn't have a kind mate's login that's what I'd do!
So, it's now the month of July and I'm going to have to pay to watch the TdF, for one month only. On a tablet unfortunately, as I didn't manage to get a laptop to rig up to the TV, grrr. Just wondering, what package will I have to fork out for? Not wanting to pay for the wrong one...
Not that it sounds like a dealbreaker given the other faults you've identified, but that cable isn't really a "proprietary" cable, four pin magnetic cables like that are quite common on bone-conducting headphones and other devices (my inexpensive smartwatch uses one) and they can be had for £4.99 on UK Amazon.
There was never really anything to say about le col kit. Most of it was alright. Some of it was poorly designed/made. Trying to position yourself as a Rapha competitor whilst always offering 40% or more off doesn't scream premium though.
Up next in the MucOff product line; for when the cassette won't budge, (chain)whip-it!
12 thoughts on ““Jesus, it’s like a horror movie”: Bike mechanic despairs at “one of the worst” worn tyres they’ve ever seen; 85km/h crash footage goes viral; The Tour de France Femmes hits the climbs + more on the live blog”
What Wes needs in this
What Wes needs in this situation is a suspiciously sticky bottle from the DS
That assumes there’s more
That assumes there’s more than one person on team Wes. I’m not convinced.
That 85km/h slide hurts to
That 85km/h slide hurts to watch. I’ve taken a slide down the road a few times but never from that speed, even when I came off my motorbike last. Road rash really hurts. I’ve still got a bit of grit left under the skin above my right knee from a slide umpteen years ago, only having found it a few years after it’d healed over and wondered what the funny little lump was.
…. but how is the bike? (I,
…. but how is the bike? (I, too, have a “tatoo” from a face plant at speed!)
Box hill KoM has been beaten
Box hill KoM has been beaten again yesterday (4:02 – Dylan Hicks) was reported here last year with Dom Jackson, so perhaps worth noting. Drafted effort with domestic team Raptor factory racing I believe
Get off and push – North
Get off and push – North Yorkshire Council’s solution to a junction on a cycle route that they are revamping, but where they don’t intend to put in any cycle crossing facilities.
Yup, it’s never the right
Yup, it’s never the right time / there’s never the “spare” money to fix the basics for cycling *. Curiously though we regularly find much *more* money for driving convenience. While that’s more expensive anyway we go well beyond the basics. But then … there are all those emergency vehicles that need to get through / all that traffic is fuelling the economy…
TBH I’m amazed that the stock response isn’t “let them drive”. That’s pretty much what it amounts to. Or “you’ve got legs” as the default go-to for unusable or missing cycle infra.
* In the same way that e.g. it would be unheard of to just have an entirely unsurfaced section of main road and advice stating “just drive at walking pace – oh, and simply use an alternative route in the wet / winter. But we can come back some other time and complete this!”
… on the other hand it’s not unheard of for councils to be at or below the bare minimum for walking provision also. And it seems the calculation for accessibility requirements is “wait until we’re taken to court, otherwise we’re spending money we don’t have to”.
Who reads the Guardian anyway
Who reads the Guardian anyway?
Not the Swamp Donkeys who
Not the Swamp Donkeys who read the Daily Excrement
MaxiMinimalist wrote:
36M unique adult readers in the UK per month, frequently topping the tables for all UK papers and easily topping the tables for quality papers, 82M worldwide. Next.
Are we sure they’re just not
Are we sure they’re just not these AI learning bots ?
This morning on the 6:30ish
This morning on the 6:30ish BBC south news update in Breakfast, during the Travel bit, which normally loves using the term “accident” to explain why there have been road closures, the presenter correctly used the word “Crash” to explain the road closures and resulting congestion. He did it twice for separate occurrences, and never once uttered the “accident”. It’s a start…