I’ve got a punctured… thru-axle? Bizarre Fisherman’s Friend ad; Cav jumps on NFT train; TDF crash like a “war zone” says race doc; Thomas crashes with reports of dislocated shoulder; Positive Twitter thread about London cycling & more on the Live Blog
SUMMARY
The weekend Roundup
It’s Monday again and we’re feeling a little like Mathieu. Admittedly, his tiredness was caused by an exceptional stage win that also netted him an emotional rendevous with the Yellow Jersey. Ours is caused by a couple of easy rides and some light gardening, but it’s all relative…
Here’s what you might have missed at the weekend, starting with non-TdF news.
- Leah Goldstein makes history by becoming the first woman to win Race Across America
- There’s £1000 worth of NamedSport prizes up for grabs with 11 chances to win!
- Had saddle pain on your weekend ride? Here’s how to avoid it
And now for a round-up of TdF news…
- Men’s road World Champion, Julian Alaphilippe took stage one with a huge attack on the day’s punchy final climb
- But massive crashes marred the stage with the first being caused by a spectator who stands to be sued by the race organisers
- The pile-up was big and the chaos is shown perfectly by this video from a Jumbo-Visma mechanic
- Having missed one chance, Van der Poel wasted no time in putting things right, winning the stage and taking the bonus seconds needed to also secure the Yellow jersey, something that his grandfather, Raymon Poulidor never managed
- Oh and this is why Jumbo-Visma have those strange blue tyres. No, it isn’t one to be used on the indoor trainer
Cav has hopped on the NFT bandwagon
Mark Cavendish has announced that he is set to launch a series of NFTs (Non-Fungible-Token) which celebrate his 30 stage wins at the Tour.
The NFTs include “exclusive drops, art collaborations & new drops”, though we’re not entirely sure what you’d virtually be the owner of.
The comments on Cav’s Instagram post aren’t all positive, with several pointing to the less than favourable environmental impacts attached to the digital art.
Cavendish joins Bahrain Victorious in the crypto-art world. His former team turned up at the team presentation in shiny new jerseys, but they were then destroyed and one virtual copy will be auctioned to raise money for diabetes charities.
Back in the real world, Cavendish will be hoping to take a win in today’s stage, which we’ll have a look at in just a little bit.
Whisper it quietly... *positive Twitter cycling thread*
There’s a few lycra-clad colleagues who bike to work each morning (for some reason, they all work in our financial PR team). I’ve always viewed them with a mix of respect (hardline exercise at 06:30 – gruelling !) & as a bit bonkers given how dangerous urban roads look to me.
— Daniel Hamilton (@danielrhamilton) June 27, 2021
My first error (and I appreciate this is both a rookie one and a fundamental one) is that I didn’t wear a helmet. It’s not the kind of thing one carries around. The speed was fun – downhill! – but I was acutely aware I was one pothole away from a life-changing brain injury.
— Daniel Hamilton (@danielrhamilton) June 27, 2021
I was amazed at the speed of getting from place to place. That shouldn’t be a revelation but it was. 5 tube stops in about ~15 minutes! Urban areas are actually pretty small as the crow flies and I can now see the attraction of biking over the car, bus or train. And it’s healthy!
— Daniel Hamilton (@danielrhamilton) June 27, 2021
I appreciate much of the above are the naive ramblings of a novice – but that pretty short ride taught me a good deal about cycling, why it’s easy and fun and how it can be made a bit safer. I’ll give it a go again at some point!
— Daniel Hamilton (@danielrhamilton) June 27, 2021
Looks like we’ve converted another one. One at a time, people, one at a time.
Van der Poel's bike gets the yellow treatment.
New bike day for @mathieuvdpoel, and it’s a beauty!
Thank you @canyon_bikes 💛 pic.twitter.com/ZvCsXYdvjB
— Alpecin-Fenix Cycling Team (@AlpecinFenix) June 28, 2021
The Aplecin-Fenix mechanics probably had this one hidden away in the team truck and they’ll be rather pleased to be able to use it.
The Canyon Aeroad CFR gets a full Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 groupset, Dura-Ace C60 tubular wheels, Vittoria Corsa G2.0 tubular tyres, and what looks to be a fully repaired front end.
The big question is, however, what bib shorts will Van der Poel don for today’s stage? He’s a big fan of white, but he could also go full yellow. Time will tell.
It’s all about yellow today 💛✌️#TDF2021 pic.twitter.com/Wfi1rSw7x2
— Alpecin-Fenix Cycling Team (@AlpecinFenix) June 28, 2021
No white bib shorts 😒
At Kalas in Tabór, CZE, they quickly made new bibs for Mathieu van der Poel
For replica kits check https://t.co/HsB0fpnYQk for team Alpecin-Fenix team versions and Nat champs kit in 🇳🇱 and 🇧🇪 available pic.twitter.com/AYKrevPo4b
— José Been (@TourDeJose) June 28, 2021
Want a pair of custom bib shorts made for you last minute and then overnighted to you, all so that you don’t have to colour clash navy blue with yellow? You just need to be one of the best bike racers on the planet.
This also answers our earlier question as to whether Van der Poel would go full yellow or break out his much-loved white bib shorts.
Another crash at the front of the bunch, and this one takes Thomas and Roglic down
We’re not entirely sure what happened there, but a crash at the front of the bunch has taken down pre-race favourites Geraint Thomas of Ineos Grenadiers along with Primoz Roglic of Jumbo Visma.
Thomas and Roglic were riding right at the front of the peloton when suddenly
Thomas appeared to jolt upwards, suggesting that he could have hit a water bottle which would be the same way that he crashed out of the Giro last year.
Roglic remounted soon enough, but his teammate Gesink is out of the race. Thomas took longer to remount, with Bernie Eisel saying that he saw Luke Rowe signal that is was over for Thomas.
A dislocated shoulder, immediately treated by the team’s osteo, they stated on @RTBFsport
— Sven Spoormakers (@SvenSpoormakers) June 28, 2021
Reports from the race suggest that it was a dislocated shoulder that was put back in at the side of the road. Thankfully, Thomas is making his way back to the peloton, though he has around 2 minutes to make up.
Saturday's crash left "unimaginable breakage and bodies everywhere"
Gilbert Versier, the surgeon working on the Tour de France as one of the in-race doctors has described the mass peloton pile-up on the first stage of this year’s race as looking like the scene from a war.
Versier, speaking to l’Equipe, told of how he arrived on the scene to find “the same chaos, the same moans, bodies everywhere, and tangled machines.”
The crash, the first of two big incidents within the first stage, was caused by a fan who was holding a cardboard sign out into the road. The woman, who the police are yet to identify, was facing away from the road, trying to catch the attention of the passing TV motorbike.
Versier says that when a large crash happens in the peloton “you can’t imagine so much breakage. In the midst of the commotion, the riders are getting up and wanting to start again, the most serious cases must be identified.
“In general, these are the ones who are furthest from the accident site, because they have been thrown.”
Thankfully, despite the two high-speed crashes taking down countless riders, only three riders were unable to finish. Marc Soller, meanwhile, finished with two broken arms and did not start stage 2.
It was quite a finale...
Today’s stage has been another crash-filled one. Jack Haig is out, he was an outside bet for the GC and Caleb Ewan has reportedly not finished after crashing around 100m from the line. His teammate says that he’s gone to hospital.
Jack Haig is out of the Tour de France. Caleb Ewan didn’t cross the finish line and according to teammate Roger Kluge (via @SophieSmith86) is off to hospital #TDF2021
— José Been (@TourDeJose) June 28, 2021
Meanwhile, speaking to Sporza, Deceuninck Quick-Step’s Tim Declerq has said that the riders asked for GC times to be taken at 8km to go, but officials didn’t respond.
#TimDeclercq reportedly told Sporza post-stage: “Riders requested before the stage to take GC times at 8 km to go as the final was very technical. Unfortunately, there was no response.” #TDF2021
— CyclingTips (@cyclingtips) June 28, 2021
I've got a punctured... thru-axle? Cyclists bemused by bike-themed Fisherman's Friend lozenges ad
We’re not sure how much the Fisherman’s Friend social media person knows about bikes, but that ooks like it could be a puncture. Of course, it could be that Laura did indeed forget her front thru-axle (we’ve been there) but took the above picture as it was easier to frame.
Commenting on the caption, Paul Murphy said: “Except that’s the back wheel and the tyre being soft is nothing to do with the quick release axle…”
Adrew Hooper added: “They’ve [Fisherman’s Friend] helped out on many a situation, like that time stuck in a blizzard on snowdon, and the soothing lozenges got us through it.”
Whatever the case, Laura had her strong menthol Fisherman’s Friend lozenges to make everything better. Extra points for colour-matching them with the Hope brakes too!
It's going to be busy on the X-Ray bus
.@GeraintThomas86 will head for an ultrasound post-stage, having suffered a dislocated shoulder in his crash. It was put back in at the scene by the race doctors. A full update will follow later #TDF2021 pic.twitter.com/EJa4Jz9w48
— INEOS Grenadiers (@INEOSGrenadiers) June 28, 2021
Picking today’s stage apart is going to be a tricky business but one thing that we know for sure is that the X-ray truck that follows the race will have a bit of a queue forming.
Roglič going for scans, his tailbone/coccyx is sore says DS Maassen, via @DanielDwars https://t.co/4sCdLQQ9pQ
— the Inner Ring (@inrng) June 28, 2021
Thomas is on his way there now after his crash early in the stage while Roglic, who came down really hard with 10km to go is also headed for a scan. He’s got a sore coccyx according to his DS.
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Latest Comments
Hope Barcelona keep the transport improvements (they've been making for a while) coming! Better streets, more infra to help active travel where necessary. And while it's a major investment (though can be lower operating cost than busses) maybe more trams where they can. That may be more effective in making places active travel friendly and replacing taxis than mass public bike hire. They've a good start with 6 lines already.
I think this is a positive story. They're not getting rid of public hire bikes - they're expanding their in-house one. They're merely kicking out cowboys who've shown they've a lack of interest in the game they claim to be playing. It seems logical that companies whose business model is to extract (venture capital) money by invading public space are even less likely to make the efforts to keep things in order than a local "in house" scheme. (After all the "bikes and riding" part of these schemes always *costs* money, they don't generate it.) So not surprising their experience shows those firms are not particularly motivated to follow the rules - especially when scrapping for "market share". It's nice the European Cyclists’ Federation is thinking about tourists also (i hesitate to say "follow the money...") - as they note, where it's safe to cycle locals will largely get their own bikes. Tourists aren't going to stop coming because lack of public bike share - I think this is mostly a "nice to have" ("hey - why don't we go on one of those bikes there? ").
Harm minimization - at least they're not driving...
I'll counter that by saying the Bryton 750se I have drives me nuts at times. Inconsistantly picks up on routes created on Komoot and the app re-syncs every few seconds when trying to set up the device and sends me back to the home screen. The most infuriating one is that I turned live track on. Once. It now won't turn off and repeatedly flags up the live track is starting, and then disconnecting every few seconds whilst riding. I haven't timed it but it wouldn't suprise me if 10-20% of the time the the screen is covered with an error message. That's been about 6 weeks now. Other than that it's great :/
RE: Police launch road safety operation... by clamping down on cyclists using footbridge Meanwhile in Glasgow, Police Scotland are riding their motorbikes over the pedestrian and cyclists only bridge. https://x.com/FietserGlasgow/status/2065106152917012523?s=20
@Paul J Van Schip certainly seems a bit of a dick, but he's a European and multiple World Champion on the track, pretty sure you don't get there without having some talent in your legs.
Poor Vincent cannot get over the simple fact that given the choice people prefer dedicated cycling spaces, rather than pretending to be cars like vehicular cyclists.
What is the point of the fancy air sensor if it can't account for changing weather conditions?? If all you care about is a delayed approximation of aerodynamic watts in steady conditions, you don't need any special sensors for that. Just your speed on a decently flat course is enough to approximate rolling resistance and drivetrain losses. And the rest must be aero. If you assume a less aero body position at the same watts, your speed will drop while rolling resistance also drops, which means approximated aero watts goes up. And that's enough to demonstrate what you've shown in your testing protocol ("I sat upright and the number went up a little while later").
Your correction is accurate - it's almost always been "the (lack of) thought that (doesn't) count". "Massive" - less than a billion a year spent on active travel (trying to catch up / building a network across the entire country) Not massive - 6 billion every year (2026-2030) spent on road *maintenance* of existing "already built, goes everywhere, very convenient" road network for inactive travel Ultimately the reason "cycle infra" is *needed* is those unbelievably colossal amounts spent every year (and for more than a century now) on making mass motoring not just viable but apparently the "best choice" for most journeys. As the Dutch and others have shown, the majority of people *are* prepared to cycle and even mix with very light, slow local motor traffic *if* cycling is also made safe and convenient for the whole of their journey (including secure parking at both ends). (The history of the financial drivers of the current situation are a complex topic but note that while people complain about "crumbling roads" and underfunded motor infra - with some reason - by us continuing the fuel duty escalator freeze (for example) we're actually helping motorists pay *even less* for that activity / subsidising more of the cost of driving than ever.)
yes, but people will still object - which was my point.
18 thoughts on “I’ve got a punctured… thru-axle? Bizarre Fisherman’s Friend ad; Cav jumps on NFT train; TDF crash like a “war zone” says race doc; Thomas crashes with reports of dislocated shoulder; Positive Twitter thread about London cycling & more on the Live Blog”
It used to take me around 40
It used to take me around 40-50mins to commute to work every day on public transport.
Ive been commuting by bicycle since 2014/2015 about 8miles each way and the same journey now takes me 28mins on a really good day or 32-35mins on an average day.
Its saved me a fair chunk of money not paying TFL fares. But to be brutally honest that money often ends up being spent on more junk for the bike anyway. Its a disease i tell you.
But yeah… Rush hour on the tube sitting/standing on packed carriages where its hot next to sweaty smelly people. If i jumped on the bus to work it would have been super cheap but the trip takes 1hr-1h15mins and i honestly dont have enough patience to sit on the bus that long there and back every day. Thats a lot of time wasted.
But with the bus journey time
But with the bus journey time, then you can read a book over several days or just mellow. It is the one thing I do miss on biking over bussing. I do listen to podcasts but don’t think I could concentrate on an audio book the same way as reading them allows.
Maybe there was a time where
Maybe there was a time where i would have done it more regularly. set a timer, put on some tunes and just doze my way to and from work for £1.30 each way (im not sure if bus fares have gone up, I think its like £1.80 now or something???)
But i find having to constantly wear a mask rather annoying unless its totally unavoidable so for me bicycle makes the most sense as im ‘away from everyone else’ in the loosest sense as in not sitting/standing right next to random people or tucked under their armpits like i would be on the tube (figure of speech, Im actually 6ft tall so its probably the other way round)
RoubaixCube wrote:
Where do you live? Nineteen ninety? 😉
London buses are really cheap
London buses are really cheap per journey compared to the rest of the country as TFL initially subsidised the Oyster cards to persuade people onto them by halfing the cost if they were used £1 instead of £2 in 05ish. And now that is the only options for paying for journeys, the prices are still based on the initial costs plus rises per year or so.
brooksby wrote:
To be exact its currently £1.55 to hop on the bus but i do remember a time when the fare was £1.60 then £1.75 or £1.80 — its been all over the place.
every new mayor for transport just keeps pushing fares up and down every time a new one takes over
RoubaixCube wrote:
Last time I travelled by bus was the last week of February last year, when things were starting to get weird. Someone stifles a cough on the bus and everyone on there noticeably and physically twitched…
Positive of Covid is it finally gave me that push back into regularly cycle commuting – haven’t been on a bus since then, could count on my fingers how many times I’ve driven anywhere in a private motor vehicle since then…
You mentioned you had been
You mentioned you had been cycle commuting for the last 6 years so I wasn’t taking the ‘current times’ as your reason for not doing it. Anyway, it was just pointing out the options for such a journey to not be a time waste in normality.
I do wonder how many yellow
I do wonder how many yellow painted team bikes there are under dust sheets in the back of team trucks – just in case like, and what happens to them if they dont get used. Do Ineos have 4 Dogma’s painted up and will they end up on ebay?
Secret_squirrel wrote:
I was reading about this on Twitter earlier, all teams carry a stock of all the kits and helmets they will need if one of their riders takes a jersey, which are returned to the manufacturers for distribution if they are not required. In terms of bikes, nobody carries ready painted bikes with them, partly because of the extra carrying capacity that would be required but also because most riders think it’s bad luck to anticipate by having a ready prepared bike. Manufacturers also believe that apparently, Pinarello consistently refused to supply Chris Froome with a yellow bike in advance even when he was the hottest of favourites. Generally manufacturers will have staff on alert and if one of their riders takes a jersey they start re-spraying a frame in the factory the second they are over the line and have it shipped post-haste for the mechanics to build up for the next day. In the case of Froome he felt it was ostentatious to go straight for a yellow bike when he took the jersey (and also he didn’t want the additional paint weight in the mountains) so he would ask for a little bit more yellow each day he was in the jersey, bar tape the first day, bottle cages the next and so on, and only ride the full yellow bike on the last stage into Paris.
Cool! Thanks for the nice
Cool! Thanks for the nice info!
Great thread from twitter by
Great thread from twitter by Daniel Hamilton – thanks for sharing, and a shame that he was visited by the anti-helmet (or “polystyrene hat”) Twitter mob shortly after posting. However, he took it in his stride and overall this is the kind of positive action that will help encourage others to do the same.
Some more good news articles such as this would be most welcome!
obviously hope that Thomas
obviously hope that Thomas and others who crashed are ok…..but…..i think bad luck is not a sufficient explanation…you make your own (bad) luck to a significant degree – no one else seems to fall as often as he does.
Global Nomad wrote:
So Thomas has a magical attraction to dislodged bidons?
Absolute rubbish. The water
Absolute rubbish. The water bottle that did for him last time was unavoidable, if this is a repeat then likely the same. Was it Barguil that used G as a crash barrier on a sharp right downhill at a previous Tour and took him over the side.
You’ll see many riders demonstrating skills to avoid a crash, some great holds when it gets a bit loose on a corner. Suggesting because a rider has had a few incidents that he’s a bit lacking on talent is very shortsighted.
all riders have strengths and
all riders have strengths and weaknesses, at pro level they are unbelievably talented….but…its no good being at the top if you keep making errors…all riders come off for unavoidable reasons, but others also come off for errors of judgement or technique….
It’s not bad luck when he
It’s not bad luck when he keeps falling off – once or twice, then yes. I’m not sure what the issue is, but there is a pattern; he falls off alarmingly regular.
The pattern is called a
The pattern is called a statistical fluke. Averages are averages, not numbers that every individual conforms to. Some riders will be lucky, some unlucky, if crashes are completely random.
There is no reason to think GT has a particularly notable record of crashing particularly often. He’s just been unlucky about when it’s happened.