Seven days in cycling: Your weekly catch up service of the week's big news stories on road.cc

There’s a sombre tone to this week's slice of cycling life as we come to the end of a week in which the team at road.cc lost a friend and contributor, Steve Worland. You can read more about the man who invented mountain bike journalism as we know it, and catch up with all the other biggest cycling news from around the world in this week’s roundup.

Click on any headline to read the story in full and join in our reader debates in the comments section.

Donations pour in for cyclist killed on charity ride

 

On Sunday we reported how donations were flooding into the Just Giving page of a Kent cyclist undertaking a long distance charity ride killed in a collision with a car in the early hours of last weekend, eventually rising from around £3,000 on Sunday lunchtime to almost £78,000 a week later.

Christian Smith of Boughton Aulph, near Ashford, was aiming to ride 248 miles in 24 hours through Kent and Sussex to raise money for the mental health charity MIND when the fatal crash happened at around 4am yesterday.

Police say that the 18-year-old female driver of the vehicle involved, a Peugeot 206, was been arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving and driving with excess breath alcohol. She has been released on bail until 26 July pending further investigation.

Christian leaves a wife and three children.

Melbourne dooring video sparks debate Down Under

 

On Monday, a video of a cyclist being “doored” by a passenger exiting a taxi in Melbourne sparked a big row over cycle safety Down Under – with an editorial in The Australian lashing out at “the menace of urban cyclists,” and BMW Australia seeking to disassociate itself from comments made on Facebook by one of its contractors.

The video was shot by a female cyclist who was riding down the gap between traffic and the kerb in Collins Street in central Melbourne – described in local reports as a “cycling refuge” rather than “a designated bike lane.”

As she does so, the rear passenger door of a taxi is opened into her path, with no time for her to avoid the collision.
 

To read the debate in full, click the headline above.

2million new cycle commuters about to hit the streets says Cycle Scheme

 

Optimistic predictions from the Cycle to Work provider Cyclescheme.co.uk on Tuesday, who reckoned that driven out of public transport by overcrowding and squalor, and out of cars by congestion, two million new cycle commuters are set to take to the roads this spring, and three times that number of new cyclists will be out on their bikes for the first time.

Cyclescheme says one in ten Brits plan to change their journey to work in some way this spring. Two million people plan to ‘spring clean their commute’ by cycling to work for the first time.

Motorist upset after helmetcam footage posted to youtube

 

Here’s a new one: on Wednesday we brought you a driver in South London who’s extremely upset after footage of him exchanging words with a cyclist after trying to pass him at a pinch point on the road was posted to YouTube.

The driver seemed to have interpreted a signal from to hold back from the rider, who also told road.cc why he takes helmet camera footage and uploads it to the video-sharing site.

The 56-year-old driver Robert Lewis said: "I didn't sleep very well over the weekend because it really upset me.”

CyclingMikey, who in the description to the video points out that besides being a cyclist, he's also an experiencd driver, told road.cc: “I feel bad that he's upset about this incident, but then how does a little embarrassment compare with the fear and danger he caused me?

“It's very dangerous to cyclists for a driver to attempt to overtake at a pinch point, and I have been knocked off by a driver doing something very similar in the past.”

First crash of 2014 Giro

The first crash of the 2014 Giro d’Italia has happened in Belfast on Thursday - nearly two full months before the race is due to start in Ireland for the first time. The rider to come down wasn’t one of the stars vying to win the maglia rosa in May, but a cycle commuter in the Northern Ireland capital.

IT professional Chris Lindsay had the misfortune to ride across a wet patch of pink, chalk-based paint that had been painted on a cycle path for a photoshoot to help promote the race's visit to Ireland, complete with the words

“Be part of the start."

That happened quite literally in Chris's case, as his bike and clothing became splattered in pink paint.

Castelli launch Gabba Pro Edition - in marketing masterstroke every one comes with free marker pen

 

Castelli has launched a ‘Pro Edition’ of their windproof and water resistant Gabba jersey that’s available exclusively through Wiggle, the professional element being that the box includes a black marker pen.

Scratching your head as to why you need a magic marker? It’s not-so-subtly pointing out that many professionals from teams not sponsored by Castelli have been wearing the Gabba with the logos redacted in preference to their own team kit. Come on, that's quite funny. Well, we thought it was, anyway.

Cycling journalist Steve Worland dies from heart attack

It was with enormous shock and sadness that on Saturday the road.cc bade farewell to Steve Worland, the doyen of British mountain bike technical journalists and valued road.cc contributor, who died of a heart attack while running in Ashton Court, Bristol.

Steve loved all types of riding and was a noted road racer and time triallist in his youth. He was also an accomplished expedition cyclist and outdoorsman who rode all over Europe.

Steve will be greatly missed. Our thoughts are with all his friends and family, especially his partner Jo and their daughter Holly.