Welcome to Yorkshire! Frightening moment Tour of Britain pros narrowly avoid crash with sheep on fast descent; Puncturegate: Adam Blythe denies "insinuating Remco was cheating"; New Transport Secretary; Roglič abandons injured + more on the live blog

I'm disappointed by the lack of a jet pack.

We want an end to Boosterism!

No horses, huskies or hovercraft.

Too bad that "A keen cyclist, [Chloe] Smith highlights her interest in transport ..." is nevertheless put in charge of Work and Pensions instead.

maybe she was offered it but turned it down.

as for the twitter emojis stuff...

Awavey wrote:

Though he couldn't really explain what the benefit of claiming a mechanical at that point

I would think it just mitigates the risks inherent at the end of any race - as per Roglic's unhappy ending

but thats the loop Blythe got stuck in with it, claiming the mechanical mitigates against doing a Roglic...but no-one would ever have anticipated Roglic crashing like that or why Remco would experience the same problem, so why would you be mitigating against a completely unexpected edge case.

Playing devil's advocate, the original GC flashed up as Roglic having a lead of something like 1.26 over him. 
And what if, as suggested by some, his puncture started at 6.9km to go and he was losing ground due to that? 
I'm not sure what Adam Blythe was trying to say beyond calling what he saw on TV - the images appeared to show no puncture. But that's the problem of relying on TV images from one angle.

Remco punctured. Where exactly? Nobody watching will probably know. So onwards and upwards. 

Surreyrider wrote:

Remco punctured. Where exactly? Nobody watching will probably know. So onwards and upwards. 

I suspect he did develop a slow puncture outside the three kilometre zone and decided – or was advised – to try and ride it to the finish if possible, so that Roglic and the other GC contenders couldn't get a jump on him while he was changing, but that if anyone lit it up within the 3 km zone he was to call for a change. Which is all perfectly fair and above board as far as I can see, the only problem would be if he was faking a puncture that didn't exist, and the pictures appear to show that isn't the case. Twitter going predictably hysterical about it of course, I've even seen people saying that Rog wouldn't have crashed if he hadn't been so furious about hearing that Remco was trying to cheat! I ask you.

If Remco's GC lead had got screwed because of a slow puncture in the final, that wouldn't be a satisfactory outcome to the stage either. 

well I certainly felt Blythe was going beyond calling just what he saw on the tv images in that post stage wrap up they do, theyd got to the point, after several back & forths where both Dan & Adam were giving their opinions, and equally about whether the 3km mechanical rule even applied, where Dan wasnt sure if there was a puncture or not, whilst Adam seemed pretty strongly sure there wasnt,and the implication of that is even if you dont say it pretty obvious.

But it got to the level of them replaying footage in slowmo & a frame at a time to show there was no deformation in the rear tyre, or when Remco sat on the bike and even looking for signs of leaking sealant.

That to me is slightly more than just calling what theyd seen, and merely offering an opinion on it

Quest didn't show the Eurosport highlights last night.

hirsute wrote:

Glad the forum topic on an ongoing trial was removed.

Surely people have come across 'Comments are closed' on articles on ongoing trials?

What case was it? (an external link is fine). I don't want to discuss it, but I was late to the site today so don't know what you're talking about.

I'm going to leave you to look on itv.com for Ian Roland Gunn.

Don't want to link really - sorry !

OK: got it, thanks

Late on today. Did Martin start a post about an on-going court case in an area of the site that doesn't have locked comments, then complained when people started replying to him? I'm assuming the court case is a cyclist in court, and not the multiple multiple ones when a car driver is in court.

Anyway this is what google returns when typing in cyclist court case into it. 

AlsoSomniloquism wrote:

Late on today. Did Martin start a post about an on-going court case in an area of the site that doesn't have locked comments, then complained when people started replying to him? I'm assuming the court case is a cyclist in court, and not the multiple multiple ones when a car driver is in court.

Anyway this is what google returns when typing in cyclist court case into it. 

A cyclist collided with a pedestrian who tragically died.  The court case is on-going.  Our resident troll titled the thread in a deliberately prejorative way, and also prejudged the outcome of the case.  

Thanks. I see Road.cc have picked it up seperately and as pointed out by Sriacha, the story (of the completed court case now) is appearing in the search. 

And in that Google search (now):
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/newsmanchester/cyclist-found-not-guilty-a...

Park it on the road, in the same way that a motorcycle is parked? A cycle pays the same amount of road tax as a car or motorbike (zero because that's not even a thing).

Dunno, hopefully Dan will cover this later !

Hmm. Is that legislation commonly used in the context of other "things" deposited on (any part of) the highway:

149 Removal of things so deposited on highways as to be a nuisance etc.

(1)If any thing is so deposited on a highway as to constitute a nuisance, the highway authority for the highway may by notice require the person who deposited it there to remove it forthwith and if he fails to comply with the notice the authority may make a complaint to a magistrates’ court for a removal and disposal order under this section.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1980/66/section/149/2020-07-22

Things like that though are always not about the individual case but the impact of the whole it has.

If you let them carry on parking their property there, and debate away about cars doing the same thing, but that in itself shows what happens when you let it get out of control, wheres the line you draw when someone parking their cargo bike on a pavement does start to block the pavement ? Is it an inch, couple of inches or a foot further across the pavement ?

Just because it's "a nice thing" doesnt mean it can be overlooked by the council.

I was going to wait for Dan but I'll just say there is a clear danger of justifying it as 'whataboutery'

It'll be a while before we have this problem though (or the solutions).  I'm pretty sure without the councils (and the Highways / TfL etc.) making drastic changes to their policies we won't have this issue!

In general I agree about being proactive but I note:

a) this is utterly normal for the UK.  We almost never pre-emptively tackle issues.  Even obvious things like putting in infrastructure (cycling facilities) where there's a new development *before* all the buildings appear.
b) This is sort of "selective concern".  Did people care about the underlying issue (limited footway space / poor accessibility) before?  To be sure "Cycle parking plague delays ambulances" is a better headline than "millions of people breaking law as usual by casually parking all over causing a habitual barrier for everyone including emergency services, the disabled, the old..."