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Live blog: Poll – Would you care if your bike got stolen? Rule change scuppers World Champs ride, driver tells cyclist he hit "you were in the middle of the road", expensive bike breaks (not hols), more pavement fines, Belgian rides + more

All today's news from around the site and beyond.....
19 February 2019, 17:11
Phil Gaimon Worst Retirement Ever - Perth

The ex-pro goes in search of KoMs and tasty snacks while learning some Aussie-style English.

19 February 2019, 16:54
Things you can do on a bike in Belgium…

Ride through a pond without getting your wheels wet*. In the Bokrijk in the Di Wijers region.

*You might get splashed though. 

 

19 February 2019, 13:48
POLL: Would you care if your bike was stolen?

“Cycle theft is no longer seen as a priority: the feeling is that the public do not care if their bikes get stolen.”

In the final edition of yesterday’s Live blog we published a piece about the British Transport Police disbanding its dedicated bike theft squad to re-deploy resources to tackle violent crime. It was a decision that had angered members of the squad itself who see bike theft on the rail network as a major problem that will only get worse if not tackled. 

 

While it’s hard in these times of slashed police budgets to quibble about the BTP making an operational decision to target violence over bike theft the remark at the start of this piece from the officer explaining the rationale behind his superior’s decision leapt out at us, and it seems a great many of you too. It also set us thinking because it’s not the first time we’ve heard that sentiment expressed - it’s fair to say that there are as many different types of cyclist as there are people riding bikes and not all of them care as much about the bike ride as we’d imagine most road.cc users do. But even amongst enthusiast cyclists it’s not uncommon to hear the sentiment expressed that having a bike stolen is an opportunity to get a new bike. Maybe that’s just putting a brave gloss on a bad situation, but how would you feel if it happened to you?

Let us know by voting in our poll and in the comments below.

19 February 2019, 16:17
NZ track cyclist told he’s ineligible for world championships – an hour before leaving for airport

A cyclist from New Zealand has been told he is ineligible for next week's track world championships - just one hour before he was due to leave for the airport and the 11,000-mile trip to Poland.

Team pursuit rider Dylan Kennett fell foul of a new regulation brought in by the UCI that riders at a World Championships must have competed in a World Cup earlier in the same season.

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Cycling New Zealand appealed to the world governing body to be flexible given that Kennett’s absence from the World Cup this year was due to injury, but to no avail.

19 February 2019, 07:50
What's your most disastrous breakage?

It seems we're not the only unlucky ones, as tales of catastrophic mech fails, snapped seatposts and crack carbon wheels have all made it into our unfortunate round-up of equipment fails... what's the priciest bike bit that's broke on you? 

19 February 2019, 10:13
No one watches women's bike racing...

....unless you're Flemish where women's cyclo-cross racing is reaching a par with the men's. Maybe because the lead woman doesn't get a half lap lead by the third ronde

19 February 2019, 13:27
Cycling bridge in Best.PNG
Cycling bridge collapses in Netherlands - no-one hurt

A bicycle bridge over a canal in the Netherlands has collapsed – thankfully with no-one hurt.

Eindhovennews.com reports that the bridge over the Wilhelmina Canal in the village of Best collapsed yesterday.

The wooden bridge had failed a safety inspection two months ago, leading the local authorities to ban all traffic from it and put diversions in place.

19 February 2019, 08:23
Cyclist told he is to blame after getting clipped by driver on Dongegal road

Posting on Twitter, Pauric Ward claims the driver stopped only to tell him he was "cycling in the middle of the road" and it was his fault. He says that the Garda haven't been in touch even though the incident was reported, and luckily wasn't seriously injured. 

19 February 2019, 08:31
Pedestrian zone cyclist.JPG
Drop in fines for pavement cycling - this time it's Reading

We reported last week that numerous local papers and news websites were up in arms about the drop in fines for pavement cycling - and Get Reading are the latest to jump on board based on figures from a FOI request suggesting incidents of pedestrians getting injured are on the rise - they report that 18 cyclists were fined for pavement cycling in Thames Valley last year. 

While cycling on the footway, other than designated shared use paths, is illegal, official guidance issued by then Home Office minister Paul Boateng in 1999 and reissued by former transport minister Robert Goodwill five years ago makes clear it should not automatically result in a fine. The guidance originally outlined by Boateng says: “The introduction of the fixed penalty is not aimed at responsible cyclists who sometimes feel obliged to use the pavement out of fear of traffic and who show consideration to other pavement users when doing so.

“Chief police officers, who are responsible for enforcement, acknowledge that many cyclists, particularly children and young people, are afraid to cycle on the road, sensitivity and careful use of police discretion is required.”

19 February 2019, 08:06
London Cycling Campaign offering free bike checks

Every Monday until April, the London cycling charity will check bikes for free in Aldgate. 

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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