“Is he delivering pizza?”: New Jersey cycle courier taking shortcut across frozen river makes the news; “It’s lighter without grease”: Cyclist who pressure washes bike after every ride divides opinion + more on the live blog
SUMMARY
"Is he delivering pizza?": New Jersey cycle courier taking shortcut across frozen river makes the news
Yikes…
This footage has been shared by the New York Post, a New Jersey cyclist, believed to be a courier or food delivery rider, spotted riding across a frozen river. The scene unfolded to the equal parts shock, confusion, amusement and concern of onlooking workers.
There doesn’t appear to be much more information than that, the rider apparently making it off the ice fine. “Employees on break in Red Bank couldn’t believe their eyes when a man pedalled a bike across the frozen Navesink River, sparking disbelief, profanity and jokes about a pizza delivery gone wrong,” the New York Post told its YouTube subscribers.
One of the workers was heard comparing the rider’s set-up to the iceboats on the river at the same time, the wind-powered boats in the background that sail on ice using metal runners.
“The iceboats make sense,” the worker said. “They’re skimming on the top part. He’s on a bicycle, in a river… he does not have a wetsuit on… he’s an idiot…”
Now, there are plenty parts of the world where cycling on ice is a thing, in the depths of Russia for example, but we’re guessing from the reactions it’s less of a thing in New Jersey. Whoever got that pizza better have left a tip.
Meanwhile, in Canada…
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Biniam Girmay sprints to victory in first race for NSN Cycling
Dream start! 🔥
Biniam Girmay wins the opening stage of the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana — his first victory since 2024 and his first as an NSN rider 👏 pic.twitter.com/qDcVk2A17M
— Cycling on TNT Sports (@cyclingontnt) February 4, 2026
Not too much to say about the racing action this week, but certainly noteworthy that Biniam Girmay is up and running for NSN Cycling in his first race for the team. Even if it is just the 2.Pro Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana we’re talking about, and a sprint stage with climber Aleksandr Vlasov in 5th, it’s still Girmay’s first win (somewhat unbelievably) since stage 12 of the 2024 Tour de France. Imagine hearing that day, his third stage win at that year’s Tour, that it would take 19 months for his next race win full stop.
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Are you the next Jonas Vingegaard? Visma-Lease a Bike invite applications to 'Talent Day' trials
Visma-Lease a Bike reckon youth cycling in Europe limits the opportunities for lightweight climbers to stand out. It’s a hypothesis that makes a lot of sense, especially here in the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, and several other major European cycling nations, where amateur and youth racing is often circuit-based and rarely has any significant climbing, let alone mountains.
So, to give the next generation of climbing specialists a chance, the team organises ‘Talent Days’ in the Belgian Ardennes. These feature standardised uphill tests “to offer talented cyclists the opportunity to demonstrate their abilities in an objective, performance-focused environment”.
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Brace yourselves for this next detail… male riders born between 2008 and 2011 and female riders born between 2008 and 2009 can apply… we’re all getting old, aren’t we?
The team has invited riders to apply, with staff to assess each application and invite riders to Talent Days.
“All participants receive a personal performance feedback report,” the team says. “Top-performing male riders may be invited for further monitoring and a U19 training camp. Female riders will receive individual follow-up regarding development opportunities within the team’s talent pathway.”
Any 2008-born readers out there? We suspect not but all the application info is on Visma-Lease a Bike’s site.
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"It's lighter without grease": Cyclist who pressure washes bike after every ride divides opinion — but is it really that bad for your bearings?
To pressure wash or not to pressure wash? That is the question…
It’s up there with disc brakes and socks over or under bib tights in the pantheon of great cycling debates. Naturally, the discussion today was split between the two great pressure-washing camps: the ‘chill out, it’s fine’ crew, versus the ‘won’t someone please think of the bearings’ side. Personally, I’ve got little skin in the game on this one. I’ll occasionally use a garden hose for a quick rinse after a particularly grimy ride (that’s on my bike, I should add, before any of you jokers in the comments get any ideas), but don’t have access to a pressure washer and certainly don’t swear by the hose, it’s just sometimes convenient.
Anyway, as I’m sure you’re aware, others are more opinionated on the pros and cons of cleaning your bike. We suspect the person who shared the post knew exactly what they were doing when they posted the pic and caption, and boy did it get a response on this Reddit thread…
“It’s lighter without grease”
“The option to shorten the life of all the bearings”
“definitely gonna get someone T R I G G E R E D”
“Doesn’t this blast the grease out of bearings?”
For some comedic relief, I’ll drop in the comment from someone who reported their wife gets mad when they do this too… but maybe “because the bike is on a trainer now. In the living room”.
Back to the serious stuff, someone who said they are a UCI-licensed mechanic got involved and reckons there is “no problem” with pressure washing your bike: “Washing a bike is a normal part of routine maintenance. There is no problem here and I can tell that you take care of your equipment.”
One reply came: “Yes, washing a bike can be ok if you regularly maintain everything and have a good maintenance routine. It definitely can also decrease service intervals on some parts unless you are careful. Seen this first hand over the last couple decades of wrenching. If you are wrenching for UCI racers then the bikes you are working on see far more regular maintenance than 99.9% of non-professionals.”
Likewise, someone else suggested that “you wouldn’t ask a NASCAR or F1 mechanic for longevity advice for your Honda Accord, you probably shouldn’t look to a pro tour mechanic on how to make a bike last either”.
I told you things kick off when it comes to bearing longevity discussions…
Brands such as Shimano, Trek and Ribble have told us previously that they don’t recommend using pressure washers on their bikes and components. Those views were largely down to damage concerns, although Hunt told us while jet washing “can be extremely useful for cleaning” it “generally is not recommended as best practice for bike maintenance”.
“We find the issue often isn’t the process of jet washing itself, but in the aftercare,” a spokesperson told us. “It’s crucial to ensure that components are adequately dried off and re-lubricated after jet washing before storing the bike. Simply putting the bike away without proper cleaning and drying can lead to issues down the line.”
CeramicSpeed also couldn’t recommend the practice: “Just as when riding for an extended period in heavy rain or extreme riding conditions, the bearing seals and grease protection can be overwhelmed by the volume and pressure of water exerted against them.
“While our SLT-equipped bearings (headset and pivots) contain solid lubrication [SLT stands for Solid Lubrication Technology] that cannot be washed out by force, our traditional hand-built hybrid ceramic bearings would just need to be serviced and refilled with the appropriate grease following moisture ingress typical of pressure washing.
“All of our bottom bracket, hub, and pulley bearings can be serviced and cleaned by accessing the face of the bearing and removing the seal. We recommend properly cleaning the bearing to ensure fine contaminants are not forced in during the pressure washing, and then applying the clean UFO grease of choice and reinstalling or replacing the seal. All in, it would be more time-efficient to avoid pressure washing around the bearings when cleaning the bike, but with the appropriate service and aftercare, we do not need to worry about pressure washing around our bearings.”
What I’m taking from all this is it can be fine, but equally it can cause problems if done incorrectly? Do you pressure wash your bike?
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And I don’t know when you wrote this but I think it was published 9 days after Onley was confirmed out of the Tour.
Paul Seixas’ team is Decathlon CMA CGM
The best thing about the TTT as Stage 1 is that it emphasises the fact that cycling grand tours incl the TDF are a team sport.
If you click through and read the story you'll see that the first motorist hit the cyclist, and the second, following, motorist then also hit them while they were lying in the road - both were convicted of causing the cyclist's death.
I may be reading far too much into it, but I felt as though Pogacar and UAE weren't actually that bothered about winning today. Not having yellow to defend and all the extra press etc to do this early in the race is an indisputable advantage; I just got the impression that they were out to lose no more than a handful of seconds but not to bury themselves for the win. With about 2.5kms to go I thought that if Pogacar really wanted it he would have gone from there, but he stayed with Del Toro for nearly another kilometre even though the body language was saying that no way was Del Toro in as good shape as Pogacar. Even after the finish he didn't seem as wiped out as Ganna (whom I don't think I've ever seen quite so shattered) or Jonas. As I say, might be reading too much into it but I would not be surprised if UAE had played a very clever hand not to lose any meaningful time but to avoid the burden of yellow from the get go.
@tomlew It's not his youth so much as his inexperience. He's never ridden a race longer than eight days before. Pogacar won his first Tour, it's true, but he'd already finished a Vuelta. There's simply to much for him to learn and become accustomed to in my opinion for him to have a realistic chance of victory, particularly as he's up against probably the greatest of all time and a double Tour winner, both of whom seem to be at the peak of their powers. It's not entirely beyond the bounds of possibility but he'd need a hatful of luck and something fairly catastrophic to happen to both of those guys before he'd realistically be in with a shout. Don't forget nobody has won their first Grand Tour since Hinault in 1978, forty-eight years is a hell of a lot of precedent.
There is no rational reason for a rider this young not to dominate the race, other than some of us believing this is "not right" based purely on opinion. Younger athletes recover much, much faster. They adapt more easily. They are typically more eager to take risks, which is... well, risky, but could pay off big time if the stars align. Burnout? Yes, that is a risk. But it's not a given. See how long Leo Messi has been absolutely top-notch. The risks are high, but the potential is even more so. And even if Seixas does burn out early, it may just be his choice despite the awareness of the risk. If I were a prodigy cyclist youngster with a realistic shot at winning, I might take it even if I knew it might be the end of my career. After all, it's winning the TdF we're talking about!
@Rendel Harris Let's turn this around. One can hack their electronic shifting and nobody will believe them!
I’m confused: “ A driver who took a selfie, watched videos and sent messages at the wheel before killing a cyclist was jailed for five years, whilst a hit-and-run motorist who subsequently struck the same rider….” How does that work? Resurrection? Did the poor unfortunate cyclist recover from his/her case of death, only to be hit by a motorist again? Please, I don’t mean to make light of either case, merely to point out the poor/lazy journalism….
It was certainly an exciting watch today. Surprised that INEOS selected Ganna and Tarling. It felt like win at all costs and they didn't quite manage it. Personally I would rather see more riders having to stay together till the finish. It will reduce opportunities for teams to "rest" climbing domestiques and it preserves the spectacle and identity of the TTT discipline. Great start to the tour. Vingegaard is obviously in outstanding shape, but will he pay for today's effort later on.
19 thoughts on ““Is he delivering pizza?”: New Jersey cycle courier taking shortcut across frozen river makes the news; “It’s lighter without grease”: Cyclist who pressure washes bike after every ride divides opinion + more on the live blog”
So whose to blame for that borked wordpress update in the middle of the night? Did you have to roll back the database? I noticed some of the latest articles are missing from the homepage.
Someone pressure-washed the site at the end of the day.
That makes sense: I’ve lost my bearings.
Oh wow. Properly threaded replies in comments?
I preferred them when they were press fit?
Everything should be there, some bits are missing from the homepage though. Steadily working through the issues, apologies.
The rest I can live with, but “2 like” is egregious.
Even worse, when I click the ♥, it changes to 3like, not 3 like.
I can see and comment on some threads but on others (like todays Blog) I can’t see any comments!
Hopefully they’ve fixed it I’m seeing and commenting in here now!
that’s odd
Hmmm – An automated WordPress update has failed to complete! Please notify the site administrator.
Oops – can’t edit that message to add that you can get that if you click on the “Edit your profile” link at the bottom of the comments.
i.e. https://road.cc/wp-admin/profile.php
Just to see if things are working, I’ll say that I’ve never washed my gravel bike since it arrived in October 2019. I leave that job to the rain.
Shame on you!
Ah but… I’ve just had to replace my El Cheapo rear wheel. The hub came with the bike, but the rim was replaced nearly 3 years ago. The ratchet ring was worn so the pawls couldn’t engage. There was only a single bearing in the freehub, at the outer end, and it was horribly knackered and crunchy. A new freehub wasn’t available anyway, but the ratchet ring was what finished it off. The punchline is: but the 2 sealed bearings which transmit the load to the through-axle were perfect and smooth, and there was no mess in there to indicate water ingress. I attribute this to an absence of washing, power washing in particular.
It’s 2005 all over again with this site ‘redesign’
He’s pedalling, so it can’t be food delivery.
Can someone explain why a man cycling across a frozen river – one so frozen many others are using it for recreation, as a perfectly normal thing to do in regions with deep winter freezes – is “Yikes!”?
This seems to be just another case of “Oh no… a cyclist doing something normal! Cyclists are so stupid!” general anti-cyclist nonsense.