Welcome to Wednesday’s live blog, with Jack Sexty, Simon MacMichael and the rest of the team…
Live blog: Doctors untangle cyclist’s dangly bits after he gets them stuck in bike bits (somehow); N London Dirt Gravel ride returns; Fiona Kolbinger leads Transcontinental Race; Video: NYPD ticket cyclist for breaking non-existent helmet law + more
All today’s news from the site and beyond…
Wed, Jul 31, 2019 18:43
SUMMARY
31 July 2019, 18:43
"It's over, I give up": Thibaut Pinot consoled by Groupama FDJ's Directeur Sportif in French documentary
Les mots de Marc Madiot à @ThibautPinot quelques minutes après son abandon sur le Tour de France… #AvecThibaut #TDF2019 pic.twitter.com/WWU6a9HKxD
— France 2 (@France2tv) July 29, 2019
Pinot’s Tour de France of course ended in tears after he was forced to abandon on stage 17 due to injury, that has since been diagnosed as a torn quadricep. In this French documentary that aired on Sunday night in France, Marc Madiot is trying to console his distraught rider following his abandon. Pinot says “Every time it’s the same, every time”, and “It’s over, I give up”, with Madiot protesting that Pinot did everything right and it wasn’t to be: “Carry on doing everything well and one day or another a door will open.
“A guy like you doesn’t give up. Ever since you’ve been a rider, you’ve never given up until now. You’ve overcome everything.
“We’re going to get you there. We’re not going to leave you. The team is behind you.”
At the end of the clip Pinot is sobbing uncontrollably, and simply says: “I’m fed up.”
31 July 2019, 18:43
A Dutch-style police chase
Dutch police arrest Dutch pickpocket in the most Dutch way possible.
(According to Reddit) #WhatTheDutch pic.twitter.com/SvOiV0532t
— Brandon Lust (@CaraiVei1) July 30, 2019
Forget guns, sirens and all that lark – this officer simply pedals up alongside a pickpocket nonchalantly and cuffs him without barely saying a word. Now that’s efficient policing!
31 July 2019, 18:43
Part of Road World Championships course collapses with less than two months to go
8 weeks until the world championships in Yorkshire and this is the current state of the bridge half way up Grinton Moor pic.twitter.com/zQfWujAGeC
— Sam Blades (@SamBlades93) July 30, 2019
Intense flash flooding in Yorkshire has caused vehicles to be swept away and roads to collapse, and with the Road World Championships coming to Yorkshire in September this is what a part of the course now looks like. The road up Grinton Moor between Wensleydale and Swaledale is completely impassable after a bridge collapsed, with over 3 inches of rain falling in less than 24 hours and hailstones ‘the size of pickled onions’ were reported.
The Ard Rock enduro mountain bike festival, due to take place this weekend, has already been cancelled because of the flooding, with the organisers saying on their Facebook page that they are “doing everything in our power to ensure our team on the ground is safe, and we can support all those who need help.”
31 July 2019, 18:43
It takes two
Some accidentally very clever photography going on here…
31 July 2019, 18:43
Transcontinental Race breaking news: Fiona Kolbinger now in overall lead as Jonathan Rankin pulls out
Rankin cited horrendous foot pains for his reason for dropping out, but saying it had been “a pleasure” despite being forced to ‘scratch’ from the race.
For years we’ve waited, knowing it is possible. Finally and with a vengeance, Fiona Kolbinger has arrived @transconrace. I’m rooting for her. Rockstar. What a time for our sport. pic.twitter.com/VSVEJv1QS0
— James Hayden (@JamesMarkHayden) July 31, 2019
It means that Fiona Kolbinger is now leading the race overall, having just crossed the border between Italy and Switzerland – the tweet of support above is from James Hayden, who won the 2017 and 2018 editions. Ben Davies is in second, and quite far behind Davis in third is Sam Thomas. Could we get a first female overall winner of the annual epic in its seventh edition? The tracker can be found here.
Unfamiliar with the Transcon? Check out our handy guide.
31 July 2019, 18:43
If you thought Fiona Kolbinger's Transcon lead was impressive, wait till you see the Strava evidence
Kolbinger is riding for around 17 hours a day so far at a hugely impressive average speed, clocking up her biggest day yet yesterday covering 475km. If she keeps this up, there can only be one winner.
Link to her Strava profile is here if you want to feel very inspired/completely jealous.
31 July 2019, 18:43
Video: NYPD officers ticket 45-year-old cyclist – for ignoring non-existent helmet law
Video has emerged of two New York Police Department officers ticketing a 45-year-old cyclist for not wearing a helmet – even though it is not illegal to ride a bike there without one.
Adults pulled over for not wearing helmets. What’s most impressive about this video (not where they parked) but that they quote the law with such authority, even #2 pulling out his phone and offering a legal opinion with a little swagger, all the time being dead ass wrong. pic.twitter.com/lHVJ4DytXo
— Daniel Flanzig (@NYbikelawyer) July 30, 2019
In the incident, which happened on Saturday morning in Brooklyn when Ricky Bernstein, his wife and two other cyclists were pulled over for riding through a red light, an officer told him: “In New York City, you should not be riding without a helmet.”
Bernstein said that the four were kept waiting for 45 minutes while officers tried to determine if they had broken any other offences other than riding through the red light.
He told the pair: “A helmet’s not a law either,” to which one of the officers responded sceptically, “It’s not? OK.”
“No, it’s not,” Bernstein continued. “I’m 100 per cent positive.” He was correct; in New York, only cyclists aged 14 years and below have to wear a helmet.
The NYPD subsequently said in a statement: “The summons issued to the male for not wearing a helmet was issued in error and has been voided.”
The court summons issued for running the red light still stands, however.
31 July 2019, 18:43
TfL's cycling grants helping people to get out on bike rides
Yesterday @Heidi_LDN & I visited @Time_Talents and saw how they’ve used @tfl’s Cycling Grants funding to offer cycle rides for older people in Southwark.
We’ve increased the funding & expanded it to include walking. Find out how to apply here: https://t.co/bQdzNnR9zg pic.twitter.com/xpCfwICNy5
— Will Norman (@willnorman) July 31, 2019
Funded by TfL’s community grants scheme, with a total of £500,000 in grants made available, Time Talents are running a befriending program that offers older people bike rides around London with willing riders. London’s Cycling and Walking Commissioner Will Norman had a go at taking two willing participants for a spin yesterday.
Alan (87) and Bill (96) have been enjoying cycling with @Time_Talents befriending programme, funded by @tfl‘s community grants. Yesterday, they braved the rain and (even more bravely) let me cycle them around Southwark, while telling me how the area has changed. pic.twitter.com/drybStDyTI
— Will Norman (@willnorman) July 31, 2019
31 July 2019, 18:43
How much do you really love your bike?
Randy cyclist has to be cut free after having sex with his bike and getting todger trapped in the gears https://t.co/Ltp10dexJK
— The Sun (@TheSun) July 31, 2019
Probably not as much as this guy (apologies for the S*n link).
31 July 2019, 18:43
North London Dirt gravel ride returns on Sunday 8th September
Here’s an event that looks a lot of fun, and it’s for charidee!
Back for a second year, the North London Dirt II is a 70-mile gravel ride that heads out of London, starting Rapha Spitalfields CC and returning to London N16 via a mix of quiet roads, urban cut-throughs, gravel tracks and fun singletrack.
The event is open to about 100 riders with all profits going to a local charity, the St Mary’s Centre in Stoke Newington. You can get your entry in at www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/the-ride-journal-17443784689 and it costs £22.
It’s a brand new route this year and takes in “many back roads, dirt tracks and gravel paths as we’ve been able to fit in” say the organisers. They say anything over a 32mm cyclocross tyre is fit for the task so best leave your skinny slicks at home.
The organisers also add that it’s no sportive, there won’t be arrows at every junction, so you’ll need a degree of navigational ability (or download the route to your cycling computer) and be self-supported with enough food and spares to get you round.
(Photo © Dan Glasser)
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Jack is group editor across road.cc, off.road.cc and ebiketips, overseeing all three sites in the F-At Digital group to make sure everything’s up to scratch. He’s been writing about cycling and multisport for over a decade, arriving at road.cc via 220 Triathlon Magazine in 2017. He worked across all areas of road.cc including tech, news and video, and also contributed to ebiketips before being named editor of road.cc in 2021 (much to his surprise). Jack has been hooked on cycling since his student days, and currently has a Trek 1.2 for winter riding, a beloved Bickerton folding bike for getting around town, and an extra beloved custom Ridley Helium SLX for fantasising about going fast in his stable. Jack has never won a bike race, but does have a master’s degree in print journalism, and two Guinness World Records for pogo sticking (it’s a long story).
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Latest Comments
bensynnock 39 minutes ago
"And if you are cycling up the Cavehill Road, they expect you to stop, cross the busy road before the fire station, cycle 100 yards and then cross back across the busy road at the lights again. Who thinks that anyone would do that? Cycling down the Cavehill Road, I would not stop, cross the busy road to get on the cycle path, I’ll stay on the road." If that's true then I'd do the same. Poorly designed infrastructure is worse than none at all.
Tony W. 44 minutes ago
If drivers all over the UK adhered to speed limits and drove in accordance with the highway code, cyclists/scooter riders etc wouldn't need all these traffic calming. cycle lane changes, and maybe drivers wouldn't kill 300+ children every year.
mctrials23 44 minutes ago
@Pub bike I don't think they can prove it. Thats what they are saying. They can use it as an indication to guide further testing but as an actual "gotcha" its not going to work. I don't know if this is all part of a strategy to make people so paranoid about getting caught that they don't even try to get away with it.
mctrials23 46 minutes ago
@Gravel1-2 If that was going to be a smoking gun the teams would likely just be circumventing it. Fiddle the power data either pre-flight or post-flight based on the motor usage. If someone has gone to enough effort and expense to create an invisible motor inside a WT team bike that doesn't set off any more obvious red flags like weight, random buttons, scanning etc then they will get around this one as well.
mdavidford 48 minutes ago
Also rather confused that they appear to be concerned that people might not be able to park outside a fire station. 🤔
mdavidford 1 hour ago
I think you'll need to take that up with the media and society more widely. These things only tend to get attention / become 'news' when people make a fuss about them, and people are much more likely to make a fuss about things they're against than they are things they're in favour of. If road.cc were only to pick up stories where people were being universally positive about them, there basically wouldn't be any.
OnYerBike 1 hour ago
The irony of people complaining about cycle lanes making it harder to drive to a fun run.
chrisonabike 2 hours ago
(Some) people are always "not against change" as long as it's the kind of change that doesn't... change things. Or at least not anything that changes their current convenience. OTOH it's hard to get beyond "me, my kids, my elderly parents and my sick ferrets *need to* (something involving driving or cars) - now you're saying I just can't do that?"
pjclinch 2 hours ago
As we spend some time on formal campsites we often see these, and are genuinely mystified. Compared to a high quality lightweight tent that boringly goes on the ground they cost far more, seem to take at least as long to set up, have less space inside, don't let you so easily cook in bed or easily get to all your stuff, and require you to get in and out via a ladder, as well as taking up all your roofbar space and making your fuel ecomomy worse. Our bikepacking tent cost a fraction of that, is easier to get in and out of, judging from setup times I see at campsites isn't really more of a problem to put up, leaves all our kit immediately to hand and being 48 Kg lighter and packing much, much, much smaller means we can take it by bike if we want. 🤷♂️
mr_pickles2 2 hours ago
It's a bit tiring that any good news about new, decent cycle infra is always written through the lens of angry locals' "concerns" on road.cc. We all know that there will always be some whiny antis people when it comes building anything for cycling, and it's about time these moaners were given far less column inches – especially on a cycling website! 21 local residents is fewer than the number of people in my local pub on a Thursday night, yet almost the whole article is dedicated to platforming their NIMBY views. It would be much better to read about how this scheme fits into the wider context of new routes and plans in Belfast, as well as some specific details about where the route will be, if its fully segregated, etc.
13 thoughts on “Live blog: Doctors untangle cyclist’s dangly bits after he gets them stuck in bike bits (somehow); N London Dirt Gravel ride returns; Fiona Kolbinger leads Transcontinental Race; Video: NYPD ticket cyclist for breaking non-existent helmet law + more”
I have huge respect for Pinot
I have huge respect for Pinot and love the way he attacks races.
That sounds like he’s
That sounds like he’s retiring
I blame the flooding on all
I blame the flooding on all the people on r/britishproblems who wished the hot weather would go away.*
*and global warming.
Fiona. You rock.
Fiona. You rock.
I’ve never crossed the Swiss
I’ve never crossed the Swiss-Slovenian border. You must show me where it is sometime so that I can go there.
clayfit wrote:
But the Swiss-Slovenian border is huge! – literally millions of people live on the border between Switzerland and Slovenia
If I were the NY cyclists I
If I were the NY cyclists I might be tempted to fight the red light thing, if BOTH officers can be mistaken about the laws that they are meant to be enforcing, they may be mistaken about the colour (sorry, color) of the light when the cyclists rode through the junction.
ktache wrote:
Wouldn’t do you any good. Even if you won (which you shouldn’t, as you broke the law), US police forces are basically I’ll-controlled paramilitary units. You’d end up being targeted every time they fancied a go at you. Literally sitting outside your house and following you when you left, watching for any minornteansgression and inventing one if you didn’t commit any. If you were super unlucky you might end up getting shot. Why anyone chooses to live there is an absolute mystery to me.
Zebulebu wrote:
If I were the NY cyclists I might be tempted to fight the red light thing, if BOTH officers can be mistaken about the laws that they are meant to be enforcing, they may be mistaken about the colour (sorry, color) of the light when the cyclists rode through the junction.
— Zebulebu Wouldn’t do you any good. Even if you won (which you shouldn’t, as you broke the law), US police forces are basically I’ll-controlled paramilitary units. You’d end up being targeted every time they fancied a go at you. Literally sitting outside your house and following you when you left, watching for any minornteansgression and inventing one if you didn’t commit any. If you were super unlucky you might end up getting shot. Why anyone chooses to live there is an absolute mystery to me.— ktache
To be free?*
*may contain irony. In this case sufficient to be magnetic.
Well, that injury certainly
Well, that injury certainly beats being bitten by a disc brake rotor… “Yes, doctor, I fell… Yes, it is very unlucky…”
brooksby wrote:
Well he’s obviously using the wrong lubrication – in this weather he should have been using wet lube not dry.
Really feel for Pinot, he
Really feel for Pinot, he certainly hasn’t had great luck, and for a rider with so much pressure and expectation it must be pretty hard.
I hope he doesn’t give up, especially after showing just what kind of form he was in this year, FDJ looked like they’ve really got their heads around supporting him in races this year. I’ve always wondered how he might have fared if he’d signed to a different team a few years ago.
The randy ‘cyclist’ may or
The randy ‘cyclist’ may or may not actually be a cyclist, but that gear wheel he was trying to shag was certainly not off a bicycle! More likely that it’s from a moped or motorbike.
Perhaps he thought he was shagging a bicycle, but after getting intimate with the gears it turned out to be a cross mesher!