"Every. Last. Drop...": Bike shop mechanics stunned by cyclist's "toothless wonder" jockey wheels that should have been binned months ago; Pogačar has "blacklist" of riders he's "not so fond of", Tour de France teammate reveals + more on the live blog

Pain...

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by trench_tales (@trench_tales)

This jockey wheel set-up was dubbed the "toothless wonder" by the good folks over at Trench Tales, the absolute best Instagram account for seeing the horrendous crimes people commit against bicycles.

I'm pretty sure it was road.cc regular Jo who first made me aware of this gold mine for mechanical misfortune (he's always got good suggestions, so it wouldn't surprise me), but since that glorious day I've enjoyed images of salt-corroded handlebars, rusty chains and impossibly worn tyres on my timeline, all making me feel much better about the state of my steed. 

Enough rambling, back to the "toothless wonder"...

Quite stunning levels of commitment to getting every single last mile possible out of that jockey/pulley wheel (whatever your naming preference). We're genuinely so interested to see that set-up with a chain on to try to understand how it worked...

A fellow Trench Tales enthusiast on Insta replied to the post with a comment that made us chuckle: "Here, just use this chocolate cookie as a derailleur pulley."

Bit harsh on the structural integrity of a cookie, to be honest...

In an era of oversized pulley wheels, perhaps this is where the tech might go next? Super-light, minimalist jockey plates, allowing a smooth, at times non-existent passage of chain through derailleur cage... hmmm, okay, probably not.

Anyway, it's all a great excuse to bring back the greatest hits of bike abuse we've ever seen on the live blog, starting with the rust-ridden "tetanus express" that no amount of WD-40 could cure.

Where to next? I know, the battered "single speed... maybe with multiple cadence options" that Trench Tales were too afraid to see if it still worked.

We have to give an honourable mention to the impossibly worn tyre too... the one that apparently earned the bike's owner a standing ovation from shop staff when they only came in "for a tube".

During the creation of your "toothless wonder" you have to go through the "sharp stage"...

You feel better about the state of your bike now, at least, don't you?

Concerning scenes at the Vuelta a Burgos this afternoon, a touch of wheels right at the front of the peloton bringing numerous riders down. Nairo Quintana was one of them, his team sharing footage of the Colombian continuing with some nasty road rash.

🟣⚪️ #VueltaBurgos

Por si necesitan prueba de que @NairoQuinCo y los ciclistas profesionales son todos unos berracos.

🎥 @rtveplay pic.twitter.com/uz6LN73iZB

— Movistar Team (@Movistar_Team) August 6, 2024

[📷: Similar Cyclehoop shelter design as seen in London]

News from Scotland next, where the Glasgow Times reports 500 bike hangars are to be installed as the council spends its £2.5million budget for increasing the city's cycle storage options for people who may not have space to store a bike in their accommodation.

Around 200 units were installed during a 2021 pilot, a 96 per cent take-up rate and 3,000-strong waiting list following. Now, £2.5m will be spent trying to meet demand. With each hangar providing storage for six bicycles, the 500 will provide a total of 3,000 spaces available for residents to rent.

Mairi Miller, the council's director of legal and administration has reportedly said that further units "may be required and installed subject to demand and available budget".

[Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com]

A little over half an hour after Remco Evenepoel had soloed to the base of the Eiffel Tower, dismounted and posed for one of cycling's greatest ever victory salutes, the final athlete to complete Saturday's Olympic Games road race crossed the line. But this is not a sad story, Uganda's Charles Kagimu calling himself "the happiest person on this planet" having finished the race in a week when he was ill and went into knowing it would be "a horrible day on the bike".

"My only goal last Monday was to make it to the start line and in a better health condition," he wrote on social media. "I knew it would be a horrible day on the bike  but I didn't care about all that at all, I just wanted to go into this race and enjoy the experience fully. Fast forward... I made it in the breakaway straight from the start and that was something really cool to do for me and almost 7hrs later from the start, I made it to the finish line last but believe me, I was the happiest person on this planet the moment I crossed that finish line.

The Olympics road race;
An epic bike race I will never forget in my life time.
Went into the race week with sickness and my only goal last Monday was to make it to the start line and in a better health condition. I knew it would be a horrible day on the bike but
1/ pic.twitter.com/rEKO6SZYKr

— Charles Kagimu (@kagimu_charles) August 5, 2024

"It was a great life experience to race in Paris and I'm proud to have represented my country out there. This is something very helpful to me and aligns well with my goals of inspiring people in whichever they do."

And while Kagimu was the last rider to finish the race, the DNF list included Tour de France stage winners Elia Viviani and Matej Mohorič, as well as one of Tadej Pogačar's trusted domestiques Domen Novak.

[Zac Williams/SWpix.com]

In comments made to the Schlag & Fertig podcast (and first reported by Cyclinguptodate), UAE Team Emirates' Nils Politt revealed the team has a "blacklist" of riders they don't like.

"Tadej and Remco like each other, both on and off the bike. They are friends, which isn't the case with Vingegaard. Tadej and Jonas respect each other but don’t necessarily like each other," the German said. "In the peloton, you have friends and riders you're not so fond of. On our team bus, there's also a list of riders who are friends and a blacklist. You don't want to be on that list."

Politt also spoke about his teammates times on the Tour's big climbs, namely going faster than Marco Pantani: "You can't really compare that any more. Our bikes are now 6.8kg, back then they were 9kg. All our equipment is tested to ensure it's the fastest: helmets, socks, base layers... That wasn't the case before.

"People don't realise what we do for it and that what happened in the past is really no longer possible. We have to be available for doping checks literally all day long, and in the Tour, Tadej was tested every day and sometimes even twice a day. They would come into the bus before a stage, where he had to provide a sample. An intrusion into privacy. But the questions are part of it, and we know that too."

In one final paragraph of punchy quotes, Politt spoke about Primož Roglič and his crash woes, suggesting "there are crashes of his that make us all wonder what he's doing".

"He's ridden the Tour six times and has crashed out three times," the former Bora-Hansgrohe rider said. "His crashes are, of course, widely covered, and there wasn't much he could do about this one in the Tour. But there are crashes of his that make us all wonder what he's doing. In that second week, 160 riders passed through that corner without any issues, and he crashes."