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For fork's sake...how not to increase tyre clearance; Olympic track rider taken to hospital with lung contusion after keirin crash; Messi to Ineos?; UAE beef up Pogacar's support; Jack Carlin wins sprint bronze; Gold medal reaction + more on the live blog

Happy Friday! Dan Alexander is here with your final live blog of the week
06 August 2021, 15:30
Vuelta a España team news: Jumbo-Visma select strong team to support Primož Roglič's tilt at hat-trick + Brit watch
Primoz Roglic on his way to winning Tokyo 2020 ITT (copyright Alex Whitehead, SWpix.com).JPG

Olympic TT gold medallist Primož Roglič is gunning for a third straight Vuelta a España crown at the final Grand Tour of the season. If successful he'll be only the third man, after Tony Rominger and Roberto Heras, to pull off the hat-trick. In support of their Slovenian star Jumbo-Visma have named a strong squad, including Tour de France stage winner Sepp Kuss, Steven Kruijswijk and Robert Gesink. Classics specialist Nathan Van Hooydonck, Koen Bouwman, Lennard Hofstede and Sam Oomen complete the Dutch team's strong looking line up.

There'll be at least one Brit in Burgos for the race's start next weekend. Scott Thwaites has been selected by Alpecin-Fenix as the wildcard Grand Tour debutants look to continue their 100 per cent record of winning a stage of each three-week tour they've competed at. The rest of the teams should be named over the next few days...

06 August 2021, 15:01
Your best bad bike DIY stories: look away Aussie track cycling team

Inspired by the hideousness of the carved out fork earlier, we asked you lot for the worst bike DIY you've seen...10/10 for this zinger from Robert Paul on Facebook...

Martin Smith compared the mystery bike hacker's self-harm to Brexit...but let's not get into that on a Friday afternoon...

Jukka Rajala sent in some of his favourites:

06 August 2021, 14:06
Agent G working his magic for the Gunners

Imagine inflicting Arsenal Football Club on the greatest footballer in the world...Sorry, Arsenal fans...

06 August 2021, 13:39
"It seems silly not to now that it's so much safer": A positive cycling infrastructure tale
06 August 2021, 13:27
Direct Line launches specialist cycling insurance
Direct Line insurance/ Cyclists (press release)

Direct Line has launched a new specialist insurance product for cyclists, aimed at providing comprehensive cover for commuters, leisure riders and those who take their cycling seriously. The new cover protects against theft and accidental or malicious damage to bikes, e-bikes and accessories. The package also provides public liability and personal injury cover to customers. Additional protection for sportives, races or while travelling abroad can also be added.

06 August 2021, 12:42
Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse...

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse it turns out our mystery fork fiend is a rim wrecker too...Cycle Systems Academy shared the next horrifying pic of the DIY just in time to put us all off our lunch.

Worse still is the couple of readers tagging their mates in our Tweet asking if it's their handiwork. Maybe we've got some more secret bike maimers amongst us. In the replies, Racing Condor said if ever their was a case for licencing cyclists it was this...

Bikepacking Adventure wants to know if it's a hack or a bodge? I'm saying neither. If anything, it's a fuck up. It doesn't deserve the credit and glory of hack/bodge status... 

06 August 2021, 10:52
For fork's sake...how not to increase your tyre clearance

If there's a will there's a way is a proverb that should never be applied to tyre clearance. I wonder at what point this rider realised what they'd done? 'Hmm, maybe I could just craft my forks a little. I'm sure they're designed to be carved to the user's preferred width...'

Anything to shave off a few extra grams for hill climbing season...

What's the worst bike DIY you've ever seen?

06 August 2021, 10:02
Madison tactics explainer

If you were slightly surprised by this morning's action here's a simple guide to how it works...ITV commentator and cycling writer Ned Boulting described the Madison as the closest cycling comes to the Large Hadron Collider, which I'd say is just about spot on... 

06 August 2021, 09:40
Jack Carlin wins men's individual sprint bronze

Jack Carlin has won Team GB another bronze in the velodrome. The 24-year-old from Glasgow won both his first two sprints against Russian Olympic Committee athlete Denis Dmitriev. Chris Boardman on comms for the BBC said the result was as good as any nation could have realistically hoped for considering the strength of the Dutch sprinters. In the final, we're going to a decider...Harrie Lavreysen and Jeffrey Hoogland are 1-1 after two. Either way it's a gold and silver for the Netherlands...

In the women's sprint, Katy Marchant has fought back from her crash yesterday to make it through to tomorrow's quarter-finals.

Katie Archibald and Laura Kenny have just stepped on the podium to collect their golds...What a morning!

06 August 2021, 09:26
Team GB gold medal reaction: Laura Kenny and Katie Archibald win Madison in Tokyo

Utterly dominant. Katie Archibald and Laura Kenny won the Madison this morning, GB's second track cycling gold of the Tokyo Games. It means Kenny is the first British woman to win gold at three different Olympics. Legend.

06 August 2021, 09:14
Lionel Messi to Ineos?

Lionel Messi's departure from Barcelona has got us thinking...which cycling team would he sign for? Ineos Greandiers is the obvious answer. What about UAE Team Emirates? They're kind of the PSG of cycling...

06 August 2021, 08:25
UAE Team Emirates beef up support for Tadej Pogačar with signing of João Almeida on five-year contract from Deceuninck-Quick-Step

It's an inevitability that UAE Team Emirates, one of the richest teams in the sport, are going to spend big to build a team that gives their star rider Tadej Pogačar the best chance of winning as many Tour de France titles as he can possibly fit into his new six-year deal. Portuguese GC star João Almeida is the latest signing to fit that bill...4th at the Giro in 2020 and 6th this year, Almeida has proven himself as a top-level climber as well as a super strong TT rider. Tadej clearly has the legs, and it looks likely he will soon have the team...How does anyone beat him?

"I am really looking forward to this new chapter in my career and in my life," Almeida said. "I feel like the move to UAE Team Emirates is coming at the right time and I’m sure I will be happy on this new adventure. The team is growing every year and I can’t wait to be a part of it. I am quite a thoughtful person by nature and I find myself already dreaming and visualising about the future and I’m super excited about it."

06 August 2021, 07:48
Olympic track rider Laurine van Riessen taken to hospital with lung contusion after keirin crash

Track cyclist Laurine van Riessen has suffered a broken collarbone, multiple broken ribs and a contusion of the lung after falling during the keirin at the Tokyo Olympics. Van Riessen looked to have touched wheels with the rider infront, causing her to swerve into Team GB's Katy Marchant. After both riders received treatment the Dutch rider was stretchered out of the velodrome and taken to hospital. Marchant was back on the bike a short while later and continues the competition.

Van Riessen is being kept in hospital for further treatment and observation. On Eurosport, Sir Bradley Wiggins noted that Van Riessen almost crashed heavily at the last Olympic Games too.

"The Dutch girl who crashed with her in that, she was the one who crashed five years ago in Rio and went over the fence, if anyone can recall that,” Bradley Wiggins told Eurosport live from the Izu Velodrome.

The Olympic track cycling this week has been full of GB crashes unfortunately. On Tuesday, Team GB's Katie Archibald and Neah Evans fell while rolling around the track having just set a new world record. Later that day the Danish rider, Frederik Madsen, ploughed into the back of Charlie Tanfield, bringing an end to the team pursuit semi-final and causing some unsavoury scenes when the Dane angrily confronted the British rider. Madsen has since apologised and admitted he got caught in the moment. He insists he wasn't shouting at Tanfield.

Dan joined road.cc in 2020, and spent most of his first year (hopefully) keeping you entertained on the live blog. At the start of 2022 he took on the role of news editor. Before joining road.cc, Dan wrote about various sports, including football and boxing for the Daily Express, and covered the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Part of the generation inspired by the 2012 Olympics, Dan has been 'enjoying' life on two wheels ever since and spends his weekends making bonk-induced trips to the petrol stations of the south of England.

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18 comments

Avatar
yupiteru | 2 years ago
1 like

Friend asked me to have a look at his daughters bike as she was having a problem riding in a straight line.  The forks had been fitted the wrong way around!

Bike came from Halfords like that he said - crazy.

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matthewn5 replied to yupiteru | 2 years ago
2 likes

I saw a kid riding a bike in the park with the forks backwards. Said something to the parents, but they said it came from the bike shop like that...

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andystow | 2 years ago
0 likes

The fork on the hacked Trucker is a Crust Clydesdale. Legit.

https://crustbikes.com/collections/forks/products/clydesdale-cargo-fork

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Gkam84 | 2 years ago
0 likes

Don't remember Van Riessen crashing at Rio, she did avoid a crash by riding on the hoardings https://twitter.com/Chris_Boardman/status/764461897169141760

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Awavey | 2 years ago
1 like

It always annoys me when tv commentators boost this meme that the Madison is just some horribly complicated thing to follow that blows their mind, as it completely switches off new viewers accessibility to it, and it's not that hard to follow.

Maybe it requires they dont just regurgitate facts constantly or rely simply on saying what they see as their style of commentary and turning down the hyperbole for a 120lap race could help too.

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brooksby | 2 years ago
2 likes

"For fork's sake...how not to increase your tyre clearance

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brooksby replied to brooksby | 2 years ago
1 like

And now the wheel rim? Now, I'm no mechanic, but I don't think that work will be very good for the bike... 

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Hirsute replied to brooksby | 2 years ago
0 likes

wtjs did a thread about a failed rim - I think that photo surpasses it !

https://road.cc/content/forum/collapsing-rim-after-18-months-seen-anythi...

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wtjs replied to Hirsute | 2 years ago
0 likes

wtjs did a thread about a failed rim

At least mine is genuine, not some crude 'modification' undertaken just to get in the news.

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Hirsute replied to wtjs | 2 years ago
0 likes

You forgot the italics

Still progresing through the small claims court  on yours ?

 

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wtjs replied to Hirsute | 2 years ago
1 like

It was done from a phone which doesn't allow me to quote in italics. Chain Reaction has now agreed to 'inspect it'.

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Hirsute replied to wtjs | 2 years ago
0 likes

Feeble excuse
From my phone.
You need [I][/I] markup.

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hawkinspeter replied to brooksby | 2 years ago
2 likes

That fork and rim made me throw up in my mouth a little - the cuts aren't even straight!

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eburtthebike replied to brooksby | 2 years ago
2 likes

I've seen curved brake pads fitted upside down.

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brooksby replied to eburtthebike | 2 years ago
0 likes

eburtthebike wrote:

I've seen curved brake pads fitted upside down.

Hang on... But isn't THAT (of all things) "Common Sense" (TM)?

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Shake | 2 years ago
0 likes

I wonder what happens to all these track bikes after a crash, do they get retired?Must be expensive if they do

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AlsoSomniloquism replied to Shake | 2 years ago
0 likes

I suspect the same as a professional road bike after a crash. 

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Global Nomad | 2 years ago
0 likes

wouldn't Messi join Froome at  Israel Start Up Nation -  a place where stars at the end of their careers can nurture new talent.......

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