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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 19:43
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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 + moreBits.PNG
31 July 2019, 15:30
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!

NLDIIbanner3

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.

credit_Dan Glasser 03

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.

Enter here

(Photo  © Dan Glasser)

31 July 2019, 15:05
How much do you really love your bike?

Probably not as much as this guy (apologies for the S*n link). 

31 July 2019, 14:20
TfL's cycling grants helping people to get out on bike rides

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.  

31 July 2019, 12:13
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.

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, 11:20
If you thought Fiona Kolbinger's Transcon lead was impressive, wait till you see the Strava evidence
Screen Shot 2019-07-31 at 12.20.29

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, 10:42
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. 

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, 09:55
It takes two
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Story from the Champs • @mhaller91 and I did a lap on a tandem. No one except @benedict13 and his camera noticed.

A post shared by Alex Dowsett (@alexdowsett) on

Some accidentally very clever photography going on here...

31 July 2019, 07:44
Part of Road World Championships course collapses with less than two months to go

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, 08:09
A Dutch-style police chase

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, 07:15
"It's over, I give up": Thibaut Pinot consoled by Groupama FDJ's Directeur Sportif in French documentary

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, 07:41
Jack Sexty

Arriving at road.cc in 2017 via 220 Triathlon Magazine, Jack dipped his toe in most jobs on the site and over at eBikeTips before being named the new editor of road.cc in 2020, much to his surprise. His cycling life began during his students days, when he cobbled together a few hundred quid off the back of a hard winter selling hats (long story) and bought his first road bike - a Trek 1.1 that was quickly relegated to winter steed, before it was sadly pinched a few years later. Creatively replacing it with a Trek 1.2, Jack mostly rides this bike around local cycle paths nowadays, but when he wants to get the racer out and be competitive his preferred events are time trials, sportives, triathlons and pogo sticking - the latter being another long story.  

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13 comments

Avatar
Dicklexic | 4 years ago
0 likes

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!

Avatar
RobD | 4 years ago
0 likes

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.

Avatar
brooksby | 4 years ago
1 like

Well, that injury certainly beats being bitten by a disc brake rotor... "Yes, doctor, I fell... Yes, it is very unlucky..."  

Avatar
leqin replied to brooksby | 4 years ago
2 likes

brooksby wrote:

Well, that injury certainly beats being bitten by a disc brake rotor... "Yes, doctor, I fell... Yes, it is very unlucky..."  

Well he's obviously using the wrong lubrication - in this weather he should have been using wet lube not dry.

Avatar
ktache | 4 years ago
1 like

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.

Avatar
Zebulebu replied to ktache | 4 years ago
2 likes
ktache 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.

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.

Avatar
burtthebike replied to Zebulebu | 4 years ago
2 likes

Zebulebu wrote:
ktache 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.

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.

To be free?*

 

 

*may contain irony.  In this case sufficient to be magnetic.

Avatar
clayfit | 4 years ago
2 likes

I’ve never crossed the Swiss-Slovenian border.  You must show me where it is sometime so that I can go there.

Avatar
henryb replied to clayfit | 4 years ago
1 like

clayfit wrote:

I’ve never crossed the Swiss-Slovenian border.  You must show me where it is sometime so that I can go there.

 

But the Swiss-Slovenian border is huge! - literally millions of people live on the border between Switzerland and Slovenia 

Avatar
Yorky-M | 4 years ago
1 like

Fiona. You rock.

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Organon | 4 years ago
1 like

I blame the flooding on all the people on r/britishproblems who wished the hot weather would go away.*

 

*and global warming.

Avatar
kil0ran | 4 years ago
0 likes

That sounds like he's retiring indecision

Avatar
lesterama | 4 years ago
2 likes

I have huge respect for Pinot and love the way he attacks races.

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