Deals for the Dirt – shopping bargains from Vitus, Race Face, dhb and Charge, plus a cheap drone

More like this please.

Given the first item on today's blog, that doesn't sound encouraging.

"consideration is a two-way street" Perhaps it could be made one-way and use the other half for a cycle route?

I recently had 2 weeks cycling in France. My first ride back in the UK was commuting to work; on return I said, of all the great things about French cycling (eg amazing climbs and descents, views, quieter roads, considerate drivers (mostly), cafe stops etc), if there was only one thing I could pick out then it would be the vastly better road surfaces; makes such a difference. I was on one French road with UK standard tarmac (ie potholed and bumpy) and there were temporary signs by the side of the road saying 'Chaussee Deformee'; probably resurfaced by now. Even their bike paths are silky smooth.

Please remove this story and replace it with one about ROAD cycling as this is ROAD CC. Stop filling out content with irrelevant stories.

Richard Standing said: “Or maybe the cyclists should find a safer mode of transport…” The memories come flooding back- the day when Blackpool Police wrote on Twitter the thoughts of the whole of Lancashire Constabulary: 'If cyclists don't like the conditions on the roads, they should find an alternative mode of transport'. This was later deleted, but LC has remained true to the sentiment to this day and is also resolute in its determination to protect offending drivers at all costs. HN21 VXB's driver has now exceeded his year without MOT and 2 years without VED, and I've now discovered where he lives- it's half a mile from Garstang Police Station where NPT stalwart PC Mike Duff works at writing letters asserting that he mustn't be told of any more 'alleged offences' because he doesn't have time to deal with them.

@eburtthebike I like the cockwomble telling you that the roads were safe for bicycles in 1826. So all you have to do to be safe is to go back in time about forty years before the pedal cycle was invented and you won't have any problems!

@Smoggysteve For me one of the plus points of cycling is in the particular: getting the local knowledge, finding the better route ... ... but I think most of the population are less inclined to "magical mystery tour" (with the possibility of the odd bad trip) and more "just getting from A to B safely". Even when just "out travelling". I haven't done much cycling round Lincolnshire and what I did was mostly about the south. I do know that even trying to get between neighbouring towns there - what a not-unfit person might contemplate as a "journey for transport" - could involve a Hobson's choice of thundering traffic or the poorly maintained alternatives (or going a very long way round). I don't think that's necessarily inevitable (see Dutch countryside and "just don't let the motor vehicles drive over everything"). But I suspect (for several reasons, but especially the "low population density" one) Lincolnshire will be among the last places any transport revolution reaches, if it ever does.

Campaign to make endangering a cyclist “as unacceptable as drink driving” I recently had my life threatened by a reckless/inattentive driver, and since I had a bar cam, I posted a still and an explanation on our local website. Whilst I did get some support, there were also some incredibly entitled drivers: 'the one idiot [cyclist] decided to start weaving back and forth across the road, almost collided with me yet I was over the white line in the other 'lane'..... yes, I did beep my horn at them and got told to F*ck Off for the privilege!!!' 'However, had he have collided with me/my car who was going to HAVE pay for the damage to my 26 plate car.....oh yeah that'll be me !!!' 'The public highway is not suitable. In 1826 it was. In 1926 perhaps it was. In 2026 I suggest it really isn’t.' '....cyclists will hold up a significant amount of traffic for quite some time to excercise their "rights" to be on the road whilst making people late for work/school/appointments etc just because its their "rights".' '...all because of 3 cyclists all riding "abreast"...' [I did ask for evidence, but didn't get any.] 'Im absolutely certain that we all get the message that ONLY you matter, ONLY your story is the truth.....' [sic] 'However, I do take issue with Entitled arrogant smarmy cyclists who think only their opinion matters, oh, or thinking about it, do I detect misogyny. [sic] 'My point remains - consideration is a two-way street, and the idiot policy makers who can’t see an issue with mixing 10-15mph traffic with 50+mph traffic are the main problem.' '..by the way, only one contributor in this thread has lowered to thinly veiled prejudices, borderline rudeness and absolute refusal to consider anyone else’s point of view.' All that because I posted about two drivers who put my life at risk and posted a picture of one of their cars. Motornormativity is so deeply embedded in our society that it is going to take generations to change things.

Thanks for all the marvellous entertainment Julien, even though it's always been coupled with irritation as one shouted at the screen "There's no N! It's not Alanphilippe!" as the commentators consistently got your name wrong. Somewhere in an alternative universe there wasn't a landslide on stage 19 of 2019, you caught back up with Bernal on the climb to Tignes, the next day wasn't shortened either and you clung on to the yellow jersey all the way to Paris. You deserved one just for the amount of excitement you generated that year and the peloton will be a duller place without you, plus Mrs H is going to have to find a new piece of eye candy now...