“More cat-like reflexes than the damn cat”: Cyclist pulls off save of the year, somehow bunny-hopping over cat at last minute; “Falling apart”: Pothole protest over “disgraceful” state of roads; How not to finish a bike race + more on the live blog
SUMMARY
"They are falling apart": Pothole protest over "disgraceful" state of roads
Cycling campaigners in Macclesfield have planned a protest over the “disgraceful” state of roads in the town. Green Party representative John Knight has called for “urgent” action from Cheshire East Council, with a demonstration to take place this Saturday.
“They are falling apart,” he told Nub News. “With little or no thought given to alternatives to driving, congestion is getting worse. We need action to fix the potholes and make better provision for all road users. I want to be able to walk or cycle safely in town. It’s time for change.”
The protest involves a short loop around Macclesfield, ending at the Town Hall, and will start at 11am from the Whalley Hayes car park.
How not to finish a bike race
At the other end of the scale to heroically bunny-hopping over a cat is this…
"I've just bought a lottery ticket": road.cc reader tech talk as Campag launches world's first 2x13-speed, wireless road cycling groupset + Shimano officially announces automatic shifting
It was a bumper day of tech news yesterday, neither story that surprising considering all the reports and leaks but big nonetheless. First up, Campagnolo brought out Super Record 13, the world’s first wireless 2×13-speed groupset for road cycling. Most importantly, of course, the thumb shifter is back. It’s also apparently the lightest 2x groupset on the market, and the fastest too… according to Campag.
Suggested retail prices start at £3,900 for a groupset without a power meter, and £4,950 with a groupset that includes one. It also looks like a Campagnolo Super Record Gravel groupset is on the way later in the year too. So, how did it go down with you guys?
Miller: “Want this. Sell a kidney maybe, would that cover it? Go Campag for producing a group that is likely to be much better received than WRL. I have seen speculation that there is some cross-compatibility between the new 13 speed kit and the WRL 12 speed group. But even if that is technologically feasible it’s probably too much to hope for.”
jaymack: “I’ve just bought a lottery ticket as this seems to be the only rational response to such a beautiful groupset being on the market.”
lesterama: “Good for you. My rational response was to quit my job at Oxfam and apply for CEO at Goldman Sachs.”
Rapha Nadal (great name) is less convinced and “remembers the good old days when Campag groupsets were a joy to look at! Those mechs look horrendous.”
Ouch.
In the other unsurprising tech announcement of the day, Shimano officially announced its Q’Auto Di2 automatic shifting concept for mechanical gravel, urban and trekking bikes. Unsurprising because there have already been plenty of pics and info about this, the tech enabling battery-free automatic shifting on non-electric bikes, meaning that manual shifting is no longer required. Is it the future?
Secret_squirrel: “I like the tech in this. The shifters are interesting too — they’ve been on the compatibility charts for a year and currently show up as STEPS compatible which would bring wireless shifting to e-bikes for the first time. The sad thing, though, is that this will probably be priced far too highly to be found on the utility bikes who will have the users who could really benefit from it.”
Women's Tour of Britain gets underway... and you can watch it on the BBC
It won’t look much like that today, the peloton getting a typically damp welcome for the first stage of the women’s Tour of Britain. All four stages are being broadcast by the BBC, on iPlayer, the BBC Sport website/app, and red button. You can tune in for stage one from 12pm.
Sir Dave Brailsford to step back from Manchester United role to renew focus on cycling, as Geraint Thomas poised to take "senior leadership position" at Ineos Grenadiers
Some reader-submitted Strava art... Bat out of El(tham)
road.cc reader James Murphy’s bat ride with Lee Velo…
Kim Le Court wins opening stage of Tour of Britain
Kimberley Le Court WINS Stage 1 of the Tour of Britain 🥇
The breakaway duo worked so well together, with Kristen Faulkner JUST losing out to Le Court! 🔥 pic.twitter.com/hedawpHihK
— Cycling on TNT Sports (@cyclingontnt) June 5, 2025
Just how hard are British roads? Well, an 80km stage through North Yorkshire ended up with the Liège–Bastogne–Liège winner and Olympic road race champion escaping the clutches of an extremely reduced peloton. In fact, by the time the race reached Redcar there were just 20 riders left to sprint for third.
Kim Le Court and Kristen Faulkner survived to contest the win, the Mauritian national champion beating her American rival in a two-up sprint. I say ‘rival’, but they’d worked perfectly since escaping on an earlier climb, never increasing their advantage beyond 30 seconds but holding off the bunch all the way to the line.
That was despite Faulkner narrowly avoiding disaster at a right bend…
😮 Heart in mouth moment for Kristen Faulkner as she gets a corner wrong!
She saves it and Kim Le Court waits for her to catch up as our leading pair head into the finish in Redcar 🚗
📺 Watch the BBC Sport and YouTube | Thursday 5 – Sunday 8 June
#ToBW | @LloydsBank pic.twitter.com/zGCJKt1bNT— Lloyds Tour of Britain (@TourofBritain) June 5, 2025
Perhaps there could have been more cohesion to bring the escapees back, but with Lorena Wiebes lurking in the front group, there wasn’t much hope for anyone else wanting the stage win. Wiebes did indeed win the sprint for third, Cat Ferguson the highest-finishing Brit in fifth. Tomorrow it’s the now-familiar Saltburn Bank climb, likely another demanding day of racing in the north of England.
Everybody chill out... Mathieu van der Poel's fine for the Tour de France... and he's even racing the Dauphiné
Fears that Mathieu van der Poel’s broken wrist and ligament damage could keep him out of his summer targets on the road can be put to bed (unless things unexpectedly get worse, of course). The former world champion suffered the injuries in a crash during a mountain bike World Cup round not even two weeks ago but has already shared pictures of him back on the bike.
If that wasn’t enough, he’s even back racing this weekend at the Critérium du Dauphiné, Alpecin-Deceuninck saying he has “recovered sufficiently” and is ready to go.
Pro cyclist lands emotional first victory after seven years in the game... only to see win ruled out for sprint infringement
Rui Oliveira thought he’d finally bagged his first win after seven years as a pro. Even worse, he’d been interviewed as the stage winner before the decision came from the commissaires too. Here’s the footage of the finish, Oliveira judged to have deviated from his line, something the new winner Fabio Christen was visibly upset by at the time.
LOOK AT WHAT IT MEANS TO HIM ❤️
Rui Oliveira gets his FIRST win as a Professional cyclist at the age of 28 🙌 pic.twitter.com/AMNBEz9aV2
— Cycling on TNT Sports (@cyclingontnt) June 5, 2025
The UAE Team Emirates rider’s twin brother Ivo took to social media to express his disgust at the relegation, arguing: “If you decide from now on to disqualify someone by this move, cycling is over! You can start relegating everyone because everyday and in every sprint something like this and even worse happens and nobody is dsq! Rui, you are the winner.”
Unfortunately for him the result sheet will forever say he finished sixth, having been relegated to the back of the group. As we mentioned earlier in the post, even more cruelly Oliveira had already done his post-win interview with the TV cameras by the time the news came through.
7 years of leading others out… now he gets his moment ❤️
Rui Oliveira emotional after his first professional win 🥹 pic.twitter.com/n4FyHBHEJ6
— Cycling on TNT Sports (@cyclingontnt) June 5, 2025
"They're saying bikes and kids aren't welcome": Conservationists slammed for "vindictive" destruction of children's bike track – but councillor says work will stop speeding cyclists and "undo harm" in wood
What's the best upgrade for your bike?
"More cat-like reflexes than the damn cat": Cyclist pulls off save of the year, somehow bunny-hopping over cat at last minute
Think that’s one of your lives moved up, kitty…
The video’s doing the rounds on social media, a mountain biker finishing an event in the Philippines recently when a cat nonchalantly strolls out in front of them — you know, in that ‘I don’t give a f-‘ manner cats are so good at.
Luckily for our feline friend, it apparently picked one of the best bike handlers out there to walk in front of, the rider reacting quick to bunny-hop over and avoid a crash. Even more impressive when you notice that at the moment the cat came into view the rider’s right hand wasn’t even on the bars. All reflex… cat-like, you could say…
“More cat-like reflexes than the damn cat,” one amusing Instagram commenter suggested.
“That cat doesn’t even know what didn’t hit them!” another added.
The general consensus is that the rider should win whatever race/event it was, regardless of their finishing position, as well as pick up the ‘Save of the Year’ trophy.
But what’s this? The VAR has phoned down and is checking for possible AI on that bunny-hop as some people aren’t sure about the “waviness” of the footage… “just look at the cat’s legs”, one disbeliever cried. Surely not? Yep, there are a few comments discussing whether this clip could in fact be AI, but again there seems to be a consensus. I’ll leave the explanation to @catchatyou:
“In a sense yes, but not what you’re thinking. To artificially slow down footage, the editing software has to guess what the missing frames would look like if it’s trying a generative fill technique instead of becoming choppy. So some frames in the slowed down portion are indeed not real, but guesses of what it should look like based on the most recent and next actual frames.”
Award reinstated.
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@lawrence18uk Occasionally I see tradies travelling with some tools on the train, compact tool bags, rucksacks and wheelie luggage, often carrying long spirit levels separately, but on a couple of occasions collapsible ladders.
Finally some proper Gravel for the UCI World Championships! …no dates in the article. Racing starts today 10/11 Oct. Watch it free on SBS 6pm Go well Matt…
@Aluminium can - as an alternative to vans, yes cargo bikes (plenty in Cambridge), and I've been wondering whether supplies could be delivered from retailers - using delivery robots. and it's possible I suppose that ladders could fall in the same category - you could, instead of just hiring a bicycle, hire a ladder and it would arrive of its own accord.
... and we still had apostrophe rationing.
@Rendel Harris There was a bit in the bicycle hating Guardian, a nice little read, part of his justification was to acclimatise to the heat and humidity, which if he was in a better car might have been worth it. Good luck to him, chapeau.
@SecretSam That's not really fair, in fact not fair at all. It wasn't his fault that the last two mountain stages were shortened and on the first one he had dropped everyone and was a minute clear as he summitted the Iseran when the stage was neutralised, and on the second he stayed with or dropped all the other GC contenders. You seem to have forgotten his Giro win as well as Paris Nice and the Tour de Suisse. Only the fourth rider to have won the Tour and Giro before the age of twenty-five. Yes he probably couldn't have stayed with Pogacar even if he hadn't had the awful crash, and probably nor could any other rider in history except perhaps Merckx.
@lesterama Bernal has had two whammys. His crash, which he has probably never fully recovered from and Ineos taking a nosedive. They have no focus and no identity.
@Zermattjohn Read the comment I posted about my experience
I bought some Challenge Strada tyres. After a while the sidewalls began to detach from the tyre and the tread became rippled making them unsafe to use. The shop I bought them from asked me to drop them in and he would show the Challenge rep as he was due in the following week. The rep bizarrely firstly claimed that the tyres had failed because they may have been punctured (they hadn’t), then immediately claimed that they had failed because the rear tyre was more worn than the front! I emailed pictures to Challenge and was told they had failed because they had been fitted incorrectly. The black strip they had introduced to stop the issue I had was supposed to be above the rim. Which it clearly was shown to be correct on the pictures I sent to them which proved that the tyres were correctly fitted. This seems to be the norm now in the cycle industry, if there is an issue with a product, the company automatically blames the end user rather than look to address the issue, thereby pissing the customer off. A pissed off customer rarely returns.
@kingleo And there are hundreds, if not thousands of people holding up a shattered helmet saying it saved their life, the doctor/policeman told me.
9 thoughts on ““More cat-like reflexes than the damn cat”: Cyclist pulls off save of the year, somehow bunny-hopping over cat at last minute; “Falling apart”: Pothole protest over “disgraceful” state of roads; How not to finish a bike race + more on the live blog”
No offense to G but what
No offense to G but what credentials has he got to “be a senior leader” at Ineos. TDF winner and time served wont necessarily make you a great off-the-bike leader and gawd knows their ability to chose off the bike leaders recently is pretty much shown to be shite.
With SDB on the way back,
With SDB on the way back, more marginal gains perhaps ???
Depends how much leading he’s
Depends how much leading he’s been doing in recent years. He’s seen first-hand the various iterations of Sky and Ineos’s management structures. He knows well how certain structures worked and others failed miserably. He lives cycling and Ineos. So there’s potential there.
It depends on the role they
It depends on the role they give him, it might just be the classic sports thing that the younger riders respect what he says more than some sports consultant, even if they deliver the same message, (see Tom Pidcock) because he’s got the trophies and the medals to back it up
Interesting how this article
Interesting how this article refers to the criminal…
“… the suspect who was driving an e-bike.“
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/c0ln2x0x40ro
Since cycling involves human
Since cycling involves human power, logically we drive bikes and ride (in) cars and (on) motorbikes.
So (unless they’re sure this is an EAPC) they’re still wrong…
Except that drive has twin
Except that drive has twin meanings of ‘power’ and ‘direct’, so in the second sense it’s applicable to any vehicle.
I believe that the operators
I believe that the operators of stationary steam engines were called drivers.
Not sure if that was before said engines became self powering mobile.
I blame utility-horsists…
I blame utility-horsists…
But I’ll happily concede this point to the Beeb if it can be shown that the criminal was driving the ebike using the electronic equivalent of a lead rein or a whip.
Oh … a throttle you say?