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Riders delighted as Belgian team signs zero-alcohol beer brand as sponsor; Top Aussie cop says minimum passing distance hard to enforce; Amsterdam cyclists help improve infra through app; Ride with Lance for $30k + more on live blog on our shiny new site

All the news from the site and beyond
23 January 2020, 21:29
Top Belgian team signs zero-alcohol beer sponsor

A Belgian UCI ProTeam has signed up a beer brand as one of its sponsors – nothing to see here, really. Except, the beer in question is alcohol-free, and don’t the Circus-Wanty Gobert-Tormans riders shown above look delighted?

The brew, Bière des Amis 0.0%, 100 per cent blond beer, “will support all convivial moments of the Belgian cycling team in 2020,” according to the press release.

There is good news though, for anyone who prefers a bit more oomph to their beer and who is invited along to hospitality.

“This dealcoholized beer is perfect for the recovery of athletes and will also be shared with friends of the team in a 5.8 per cent version throughout the whole year. With guests, with partners and with fans, Bière des Amis, to share without moderation!

“No matter the time or place, there's always a good opportunity to take some time to share a beer with friends.”

The team’s general manager, Jean-François Bourlart, said: “Our team is always distinguished by its convivial and family aspects. After the first sips of Bière des Amis I knew it was a perfect match.

“It was proven scientifically that beer without alcohol has benefits for the recovery of athletes, because there's a combination of the nutritional qualities of beer and the absence of the negative effects of alcohol.

“The Bière des Amis will be shared throughout the whole year with friends of the team: guests, partners and fans, just like at our team presentation in Spain.”

23 January 2020, 17:35
We have to share the road with people like this
23 January 2020, 17:19
Chrome launches 25th anniversary BLCKCHRM limited edition

Founded in a garage in Portland, Oregon in 1995, Chrome is celebrating its 25th birthday this year – and to mark the occasion, it has launched a limited edition BLCKCHRM heritage collection.

BLCKCHRM 01

“Forged from the toughest and lightest materials Chrome have ever created, new methods of craftmanship have been deployed in the innovative new BLCKCHRM collection to push the limits of mobility and performance in the city,” says the brand.

“Inspired by technical sailcloth material, a Nylon Shell with cordura TPX durable laminate technology with a distinctive diamond embossed finish delivers Chrome’s signature water resistance, toughness and durability to a whole new level.

“Sleek and stealthily constructed, these resourceful urban warriors are sculpted to fit your body and adapt to securely transport a wide range of cargo during your everyday excursions.”

BLCKCHRM 02

Included in the range are the 3.0 BLCKCHRM edition of the Bravo rolltop (RRP £180) and the Yalta 3.0 daypack (RRP £160). Find out more information plus details of stockists or order online here.

23 January 2020, 16:05
Difficult to police, maybe, but surely worth trying?
readers choice 2018 - passing-distance-west-midlands-police.jpg

The Assistant Commissioner of road policing in Victoria, Australia, Libby Murphy has played down talk of a law that would see drivers obliged to give cyclists at least a meter when overtaking.

Speaking on 3AW Breakfast with Ross and John, the Senior Manager of Transport for the Royal Automobile Club of Victoria (RACV), Peter Kartsidimas called for a trial of the law citing the simple aim of saving "lot of cyclists lives".

Victoria is the only state in Australia that doesn't have a close passing law, making it hard to understand why one hasn't been brought in. 

The proposed law would require drivers to pass cyclists with a meter of space when travelling under 60kph (37mph) while leaving 1.5m or more when travelling faster.

The breakfast show hosts weren't so keen, pointing out that many people are bad at judging distances while the Assistant Commissioner of road policing in Victoria, Australia, Libby Murphy said that the law would be very hard to police.

Responding later to the interview, Murphy suggeted that cyclists could incur an offence for a drive with "the slightest movement".

23 January 2020, 12:35
Cyclists in Amsterdam reported 31,000 problem areas for improvement

The 700 riders were equiped with devices that allowed them to report cycle infrastructure that wasn't working properly. This will allow the local councils to improve the infrastructure and shape future projects.

What progressive thinking.

23 January 2020, 12:17
Cycle lanes found to be much more effective for moving people around a city

This tweet, shared by Chris Boardman, contains a great little stat. Studies have found that cycle lanes can transport 5 times the number of people as a motor traffic lane.

It makes a valid argument for widening roads to accommodate protected cycle lanes or simply prioritising them over motor traffic lanes when designing new roads, or updating current ones.

23 January 2020, 11:42
Ride London looking for new title sponsor
Adam_Blythe_wins_2014_Prudential_RideLondon-Surrey_Classic_(picture_credit_Sportsbeat)

To go along with the issues that the domestic race scene is facing, the UK's only UCI one-day race is now looking for a new title sponsor after Prudential announced that they will stop sponsorship after this year's edition.

This isn't the first bad news to hit British racing this year. Earlier this month, the owner of the Lincoln Grand Prix blamed Brexit for the financial struggles faced by the elite one-day race.

23 January 2020, 11:25
What a sh*t deal...
23 January 2020, 10:23
Skier vs Cyclist - Who's the better cook?

Naturally, when you have a 3 x World Champion on the bike, and the same on skis, you put them in a studio kitchen to find out which is the better cook.

23 January 2020, 10:13
Shocking pictures of Aussie fire destruction

Today's stage of the Tour Down Under rolled through some of the areas affected by the bush fires that ripped across Australia and continue to burn in places.

These images speak for themselves.

23 January 2020, 08:45
Shiny New Site

via GIPHY

Overnight the internet pixies (Dave) transformed the site into this shiny new format.

We think it looks lovely, but we really want to know what you, the reader, thinks of the design.

If you spot any glitches, do let us know. Now, someone get Dave a coffee!

23 January 2020, 08:36
Holiday with a disgraced doper.

If you're looking for a 'lit' holiday in Mallorca then there's a very 'well-connected' former pro cyclist now doing holidays. This won't be a tour of Magaluf's nightclubs though.

Armstrong is teaming up with former teammate George Hincapie to offer 6 nights/5 days of guided riding on the lovely island of Mallorca, taking in all of the famous cycling spots on the island. 

You can join the US Postal train for a paltry $30,000. For that, you get you accommodation, meals and bike hire included. Bargain.

23 January 2020, 08:33
Anyone for a coffee?

Deceuninck-QuickStep have taken their coffee obsession to a whole new level. The Wolfpack now have a coffee machine following them around on group training rides.

Who wants to tell them about the latest invention, cafes?

23 January 2020, 08:31
It was a long day for the voice of cycling

We've all have an oops moment at work from time to time. Luckily for most of us, there's not a global audience to our c*ck ups.

23 January 2020, 08:26
If in doubt, attack

Richie Porte of Trek-Segafredo didn't take long to throw in a big move up the final climb on stage 3 of the Tour Down Under.

The Tasmanian ended the day with a 6 second lead in the GC over Mitchelton Scott's Daryl Impey. Brit Simon Yates, also of Mitchelton Scott, took 3rd on the stage, 5 seconds down on Porte after doing much of the chasing.

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47 comments

Avatar
antigee | 4 years ago
0 likes

Just across the state line ACT police are publicising their intent to focus on enforcement of minimum passing laws....where there is a will there is a way...slow train coming RACV is quite correct to point out that the issue is constantly being kicked into the long grass

https://policenews.act.gov.au/news/media-releases/police-targeting-unsaf...

(looks familiar) 

 

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kt26 | 4 years ago
0 likes

Regarding passing distance, after 2 extremely close calls yesterday, one requiring me to move into a bus stop to avoid getting hit. Its fair to say I have a bone to pick.

With the disclaimer out the way, a lot is made of these arbitrary distances being difficult to enforce, because it can be difficult to know the exact distance, was it 0.95m or 1.01m. So call me crazy but can't you just make it simple, the vehicle has to move into the other lane to overtake safely. No tape measure required, or fancy guess work. If you fail to have all 4 wheels in the other lane while passing it is an automatic offence, no ifs buts or maybes.

Of course this is just a small part of the overall problem and there may still be issues arising for example around parked traffic. But unless there is an easily enforcable starting point, that gives a lot of power to the camera armed cyclists, I don't see anything changes.

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ktache | 4 years ago
0 likes

I think threaded is generally newest first but witht the replies under the comment being replied to.  We can still do newest/oldest first it would seem.  We'll get used to it quite quickly, and the reply thing might mean less excessive quoteing.

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Rapha Nadal | 4 years ago
3 likes

The fuck is going on with this new comments layout?! Truly awful.

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Hirsute replied to Rapha Nadal | 4 years ago
0 likes

You can get to a menu to see the posts in oldest to newest -see earlier post.
The default is 'threaded' whatever that represents.

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Awavey replied to Hirsute | 4 years ago
0 likes

except it doesnt work on Firefox...

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Awavey replied to Awavey | 4 years ago
0 likes

or Edge, even with all the annoying ads...

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Tony Farrelly replied to Awavey | 4 years ago
0 likes

I'm looking at your threaded comment in Firefox and it's threaded for me. To go back to the way comments displayed on the old site all you have to do is switch to 'Oldest first' by selecting it from the drop down a at the top of the comments which is defaulted to Threaded

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Hirsute replied to Tony Farrelly | 4 years ago
0 likes

But that box is often not visible. It's not visible on my phone.

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eburtthebike replied to Hirsute | 4 years ago
0 likes
hirsute wrote:

You can get to a menu to see the posts in oldest to newest -see earlier post. The default is 'threaded' whatever that represents.

Is there any way to change the default to oldest first?  I'm getting rather fed up with have to change it every time.

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Hirsute replied to eburtthebike | 4 years ago
0 likes

I haven't found one but conversely there was no way to change the default to how you wanted on the old site.

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hawkinspeter | 4 years ago
2 likes
Quote:

Responding later to the interview, Murphy suggeted that cyclists could incur an offence for a drive with "the slightest movement".

Is Liam having a stroke or has the new site disabled any spell checkers?

Anyhow, I would suggest to Murphy that motorists not only could, but do cause serious injuries with "the slightest movement". Still as long as no-one gets hurt (apart from cyclists of course and most of them are aboriginal, so they don't really count)...

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AlsoSomniloquism replied to hawkinspeter | 4 years ago
2 likes

It is their equivalent of the RAC which is asking for the close pass trial. So an automobile society is asking for a law in the aim of protecting cyclists and the police are saying, no it can't work. Just seems strangely backwards. 
 

love that the hosts were also against it as people are bad at judging distances! Well yes that is the whole point anyway of bringing it in although 1m at close to 40mph is a close call. 

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Captain Badger | 4 years ago
2 likes

Maybe the "Top Cop" could let us know what they consider to be easy to police....

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visionset | 4 years ago
2 likes

comment count in news list page should link to comments anchor

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ktache | 4 years ago
1 like

Even though there is a lot more going on, especially witht the Home page, my old and slow computer seems to be able to handle it better and faster.

I'm going to miss the What's Hot section throwing up ancient unrelevant articles.  Though often a pleasure.  Bike at Bedtime being a wonderful example.

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Liam Cahill replied to ktache | 4 years ago
2 likes

We need to bring that back. I loved doing that. 

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pruaga | 4 years ago
0 likes

Another problem with the new layout is that far left advert column overlays on top of the forum page in anything except a full screen browser.  The right hand two columns of adverts seem to be happy to be pushed off the side, but the left hand one goes on top of the content.

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boringbutton | 4 years ago
1 like

Site feedback: 

not taking into account dark mode users for night time reading 

please see this as an example: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2019/511/

 

thx

 

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ktache | 4 years ago
1 like

I cliked on "Bike Live" in great anticipation, new stuff and all that, got a Whoa! warning from my virus protection.

I'm not big on change and the changes will take a little time to get used to, but seems generally good.  I do miss the developing comment thread from the whole site not being on all pages, it's the community thing.

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ktache replied to ktache | 4 years ago
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I'm very much hoping that the changes might reduce the weird multiple posts.

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Bmblbzzz | 4 years ago
1 like

As others have said, there's a lot of white space, ie blankness.

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EddyBerckx | 4 years ago
3 likes

First impressions...its a bit white  1

Will take a little getting used to!

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pruaga | 4 years ago
1 like

Based on some crude measurements of a screenshot, the first page you see when you visit is now about 8 % Menu/Logo, 38 % Content and 53 % Adverts (the rest is either white space or rounding error).

Bit much?

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kil0ran | 4 years ago
0 likes

Nice laugh

All a bit Grauniad, with less typos. Looks good on mobile and on a big screen.

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Jackson replied to kil0ran | 4 years ago
6 likes
kil0ran wrote:

Nice laugh

All a bit Grauniad, with less typos. Looks good on mobile and on a big screen.

*fewer typos

 

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brooksby replied to kil0ran | 4 years ago
0 likes
kil0ran wrote:

Nice laugh

All a bit Grauniad, with less typos. Looks good on mobile and on a big screen.

I use the Brave browser on my mobile devices (Android tablet, iPhone), which blocks ads.  However (as happened when you updated the site once before), if I use that browser then the site doesn't seem to work for me.

Yes, I know the ads pay for the site, but if I have to spend all my mobile data allowance just to watch ads then I'd rather visit a different site.

(Looks like its back to using the office PC to read the site, then... )

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Awavey replied to kil0ran | 4 years ago
0 likes
kil0ran wrote:

Nice laugh

All a bit Grauniad, with less typos. Looks good on mobile and on a big screen.

Theres alot more scrolling required on a mobile,

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jollygoodvelo | 4 years ago
1 like

Nice new site. Bring back the yellow and black colourscheme!  3 Does the search function work now?

 

Edit: top right of the screen seems to think I'm srchar.  I'm not (and neither is my wife).

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dave atkinson replied to jollygoodvelo | 4 years ago
1 like

yeah, it's a caching problem. it's not sharing your data, just showing you the wrong name. should be fixed in half an hour or so

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