"Here's a man who never buys his own bearings": Peter Sagan pressure washes his poor Specialized...and people aren't happy; Cereal offender; How to watch our James May interview; School bike buses + more on the live blog

he had a prior drink driving conviction from 2014 too.

The most peculiar thing is that they were guessing whether he had made a guilty plea before he arrived at court from the way the article was written.

Guilty pleas are often made just before the case arrives when the defendant's team look to see who turns up at court - hoping to get away with it if witnesses don't turn up. You don't get the full discount. Presumably they were arguing about whether the guilty plea was submitted in advance of the trial which gets a lesser sentence than on the day. TBF the guy didn't get much off his sentence.

theres more case detail at https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/dri...

though it raises more questions, like I didnt think you had to give permission for the police to look at your phone for anything anymore, or to consent to them investigating your car, this is that crazy thing that theyve treated this simply as a motor vehicle collision, rather than manslaughter.

I mean when they arrest people charged with murder, they dont ask their permission to do a forensics check on their car do they ? or ask for permission to look at the murder weapon.

but it sounds like there was some sort of procedural screw up and enough legal wiggle room to say the plea hadnt been recorded properly. not withstanding I dont think you should get the full plea reduction anyway if your non cooperation with the police actually hinders their investigation and potentially destroys vital evidence.

How is "celebrity" defined nowadays?  I literally didn't know who any of those women were!

Are you a judge ?

brooksby wrote:

How is "celebrity" defined nowadays?  I literally didn't know who any of those women were!

I'm pretty sure one of them is Paddy McGuinesses wife, but beyond that I'm also left in the dark. I think 'selebratty' is defined as anyone who wants to be famous and has either followers on social media and or has been on the tellybox.

One is Mel B's (Spice Girl) daughter, another was in Harry Potter I think...part of me is glad I dont recognise any of them because it means I dont waste my time normally watching the kind of rubbish they must have been in to qualify as celebs, though I must admit I did watch abit of this briefly just to watch the unfurling carnage.

Don't know what the commissaires were playing at - first and second should clearly have both been disqualified for passing the derny.

I dunno, my purely anecdotal and unscientific evidence is that our old fleet of demo bikes in our shop (Specialized funnily enough) seemed to always come back from days at trail centres suspiciously clean (or at least, that sort of 'faux' clean where the muck has been blasted off but no cleaning product has been used, a sort of faint patina of muck still left on the frame) and had no end of issues with bearings and seals etc. and just generally felt and sounded awful.

Maybe just a result of being used by a handful of neglectful customers ('ride it like you've only put a £50 deposit down on it') but put me off ever jet washing my own pride and joy.

IanEdward wrote:

Yeah but you'd not be jet washing it like you only put a £50 deposit on it eh!

I assume that GCN did this as a one off, on a brand new bike/ bottom bracket. The concern is not that you can trash your bearings in one go, but the damage to the seals is cumulative and shortens the life of the grease/ bearings.

I have seen a lot of articles over the years where pro team mechanics are held up as experts in bike maintenance, but they really aren't as drivetrain consumable parts are treated by them as disposable whereas an amateur/ leisure cyclist on a budget needs their chain to last 000s of km, along with cassettes, chainrings, bearings etc.

The people to ask about bike cleaning and maintenance are the ones still running a mid 90s 8 speed Campag groupset who are committed to buying a new one "if it wears out".

Exactly, what's the rule of thumb advice for riding through flood water, nothing deeper than the bottom of your frame as you'll just end up trashing the BB bearings via water ingress, and likely the pedal and wheel bearings too.

Focusing high pressure water on those same areas, and specifically in the way Sagan shows, how is that not going to produce the same result ?

Every rider I've ever seen on video who pressure washes bikes has either the support of a professional mechanic, bikeshop or a bike manufacturer who simply constantly replaces bearings as consumables for them or replaces the whole bike yearly instead anyway.

It's like I was never keen on Specs Future Shock tech, as it might have been ideal for Sagan to use in the Belgian classics but any long term mechanical issue caused by water ingress would never show up as the race bike would be discarded and replaced after those races.

Back in the 90's we did a silly thing in Mountain Biking UK that involved riding deep under water, with SCUBA gear.

The bike was one we'd had on test, so we thought we better get it super-thoroughly serviced before we sent it back. Pete, the mechanic at (now sadly demised) John's Bikes, reported no water in the bottom bracket or hub bearings, and was pretty confident that the combo of labyrinth & rubber seals on Shimano hubs of the time would resist jet-washing.

"But if you print that I'll kill you," he said.

Ahh John's Bikes in Bath. 

Was an occasional visitor to Bath in my late teens early twenties, it being the first decent town down the M4 from me.

Fond memories of going to look at MTB Porn there and in Total Fitness whenever I visited.

The best thing was that if you hung out in there long enough you'd get to observe John Potter's idiosyncratic relationship management technique as it applied to reps and awkward customers.

In commemoration of one incident his staff got him business cards that said:

John's Bikes
John Potter — Proprieter
Here's a fiver now fuck off

I'd trust alot of bike equipment made in the 90s to be able to do that, I doubt the stuff we get made now is so similarly well engineered.

just ask those riders from Ride London in 2014 how their bikes fared after riding through the flooded underpass.

Carior wrote:

The case for the defence is GCN's video Should You Jet Wash Your Bike? 

Possibly, but I am fairly certain that the £800 Triban I ride is not built with parts that provide the same kind of protection against these things that the multi-thousand quid bikes ridden by the GCN crew do. 

Jetmans Dad wrote:

Carior wrote:

The case for the defence is GCN's video Should You Jet Wash Your Bike? 

Possibly, but I am fairly certain that the £800 Triban I ride is not built with parts that provide the same kind of protection against these things that the multi-thousand quid bikes ridden by the GCN crew do. 

It would depend on the specific make of course but your Triban is very likely more robust and able to take abuse than a top-end racing machine; top racing bikes and components are generally designed on the assumption that their owners will be continually cleaning, oiling and fettling them and their lightness leads to fragility - look how often racers have to change their bikes in the course of a stage. Thoroughbreds need more kid glove treatment than carthorses.*

*I know next to nothing about horses, this metaphor may be bollocks.