Corbyn v Johnson – the L-shaped cranks issue; ‘Safety first’ Xmas tree; Peloton shares drop further; #bikesatpollingstations (and #dogs); Christ(mas) on a bike; Israel Cycling Academy becomes Israel Start-Up Nation + more on live blog

@theslowcyclistxx As I said above, the manufacturer claims that these wheels are "as strong as XC MTB wheels"; XC MTB involves a lot of crashing through tree roots and over fairly gnarly rocky sections, if these wheels can't cope with that sort of punishment then the manufacturers shouldn't make such claims about them. If they are only designed for well packed fine gravel roads then so be it, but they should be marketed as such and not with claims to which they clearly can't live up.

As a Bath cyclist, all they really needed to do was to make the short spur of road at the NW corner 2-way for bikes (currently one-way going S; cars and bikes) and use the funds elsewhere (for active travel). Bikes could then just follow the clockwise one-way around the park; the SE corner feeds you into the cycle route that goes through town. I'd have more sympathy for the opponents (with their usual "I support active travel, but what about the children playing" platitudes ie I don't want to lose my cheap parking/rat-run) if the recent (small) protest wasn't heavily promoted by the 'cycle-haters' who regularly rage against the new bike lanes on Nextdoor. I'm conditioned to Bath traffic, but if it encourages some people out of their cars, then build it. As someone who pretty much walks or cycles around Bath all the time, I've been 'beaten-up' by Bath drivers for long enough (18 years) that anything that sticks it to them is fine by me.

"Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria told media, “These are some of the busiest streets in all of North America. We need to restore them to vehicle lanes to stop the congestion." It beggars belief that in this day and age, a 'transportation minister' can spout such incredible lies. Anyone with the faintest appreciation of transport knows that cycle lanes don't cause congestion: in fact, they alleviate it. Still, it's nice to know, well, not that nice, but interesting, that the utter incompetents aren't restricted to the UK. Is Doug Ford the Canadian equivalent of Trump or Nigel? Full of fake news and excrement. We could learn a thing or two from our Canadian cousins though, and start organising protests to stop the removal of bike lanes. If we can present some convoluted reasoning which showed that cycle lanes were bad for asylum seekers, we'd get lots of blokes wearing black with balaclavas supporting us.

Just go for 32/34 tyres instead - a lot cheaper.

@Rendel Harris I don’t agree that a light gravel wheelset is expected to withstand impacts from rocks. Yes, it should be able to withstand potholes and also a cross country track, but if ridden directly into a rock, I would expect any carbon wheelset to be finished.

Something worth a mention in indoor cycling accessories is a rocker plate. Long rides on an indoor trainer can start to hurt after a while, and a decent rocker plate gives enough side to side and fore/aft movement to help prevent this. I acquired a TurboRocks Realplate React a year or so ago, it's very well made and the service from order to collection was excellent. It took a few weeks to get used to it, until the motion felt natural, but after that, longer sessions became much more comfortable. My current setup:

@eburtthebike now wondering if anyone has looked at the possible benefits of promoting cycling *goggles*, since the eyes are very easily injured but also easily protected. Presumably rather rare, but eye damage can have massive impact on someone's life...

The horizontal component will mean that on impact there's drag and so torque (not good) but that energy will mostly be dissipated over time (sliding) so much less peak force (ignoring torque briefly). ...but isn't the fate of many crashing motorcyclists decided when their flight / slide is checked by encountering a horizontal surface? If they do that with their head that torque could fatally damage the neck / brain, or their head / helmet then absorbs the likely much greater energy than the vertical fall. So the horizontal part matters - albeit still subject to the limited ability of currently practical helmets to help. Sounds like a good idea to wear one regardless of exactly how much it mitigates any of these risks. Not only keeps the law (and the in-laws?) happy but keeps debris out of your eyes, your ears from being blasted by so much wind, rain off your head etc. All of which would be very distracting and could well contribute to crashing in the first place. Bicycle helmets - slightly different calculation for me, since a hat and glasses do much of that and I'm rarely at wind-noise-deafening speed. Although abrasion protection is (and has been) welcome.

@theslowcyclistxx Completely agree. Or at least 4. The truth is that it is possible to crack a gravel, road, or a MTB rim if you are riding fast down a road with sharp rocks that stick out. It has happened to me before on rough roads. Notice that tire pressure, the width of tire used, etc were not mentioned. It is hard for me to imagine that "Value" is only three stars. None of the other wheels mentioned are anywhere near the weight of this wheelset. How Scribe's and Hunt's wheelsets have the same value ranking, despite the Particle one being 350g lighter despite being cheaper makes no sense.

On Picnic-PostNL, some interesting details from Nicolas Roche in NOS, "I think this management is not suitable for cycling. In cycling, we deal with a lot of variables. It's not a predictable sport. The body is not a perfect machine. We have to contend with weather conditions and also the tactics of 24 other teams. I understand that people want a master plan to be prepared, but they can't already be planning the seventeenth stage of the Tour de France in May. And that’s what they did." What did it mean to you that the bond between the coach and the rider wasn’t appreciated? "It wasn’t valued to maintain friendships. I find that strange. I remember that during the big tours, I got a different masseur every three days. For every rider, that massage is a moment of rest, or a chance to open up, call your wife, or just go over the day. I strongly disagreed with making changes with the sole purpose of ensuring we wouldn’t develop a friendly relationship with the masseur." Why were they so fixated on breaking those strong personal relationships? "A mystery. Maybe because in the past, masseurs often transported doping for riders? But I don’t know the real answer."