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"Cyclists again, they've even left their bumper behind"; Ineos Grenadiers' Dani Martínez flies past traffic at 90km/h in Colombia; NINE summit finishes, Angliru + Tourmalet — brutal Vuelta route announced; Sweaty turbo + more on the live blog

Another day, another live blog... Dan Alexander is with you for this one
Wed, Jan 11, 2023 09:00
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"Cyclists again, they've even left their bumper behind"; Ineos Grenadiers' Dani Martínez flies past traffic at 90km/h in Colombia; NINE summit finishes, Angliru + Tourmalet — brutal Vuelta route announced; Sweaty turbo + more on the live blogBut cyclists (@MancUrban/Twitter)
11 January 2023, 09:50
"Cyclists again, they've even left their bumper behind"

If you've been reading the live blog for a while you'll be well aware of our regular 'but cyclists' feature. Normally accompanied by a video or photo like today's...

Or Friday's...

It's not meant to be a point-scoring us vs them exercise by the way, just a reminder for the next time your mate down the pub, anonymous stranger on the internet or Daily Mail columnist tries to suggest that cyclists are a major danger on the roads.

That's why we say 'but cyclists' as this is usually the phrase you'll hear followed by something about red light jumping or some other supposed danger to other road users.

The facts are, as per the Department for Transport's Reported road casualties Great Britain for 2021, cyclists are far less of a danger to pedestrians than many other road users...

Pedestrian casualty figures 2016-2021 (Department for Transport)

But cyclists run red lights...

11 January 2023, 16:37
Is a smartphone better than a cycling computer? Find out if a mobile really is all you need on the bike
2023 bike computer vs smartphone

> Is a smartphone better than a cycling computer? Find out if a mobile really is all you need on the bike

11 January 2023, 16:24
11 January 2023, 16:09
Holistic wellness brand Lifeplus joins as co-title sponsor of former Le Col-Wahoo
Lifeplus Wahoo

The UK-based "hollistic wellness" brand Lifeplus is the new co-title sponsor of the women's team formerly known as Le Col-Wahoo and has signed up for two years. 

Malcolm Vincent, European managing director at Lifeplus, said he is excited to form partnerships with people that "share the same core values" as his brand.

"Not only is cycling a true personal passion of mine, but the team's purpose of inspiring millions more women to cycle and live healthier lives embodies female empowerment and wellbeing all in one," he said.

"All of us here at Lifeplus are looking forward to everything this new partnership brings in 2023 and beyond. Just like our colleagues and network, the cycling team represents international coverage and together we aim to stimulate those markets across Europe with our shared vision, through physical appearances at races and training camps, Lifeplus events and collaborative content creation. Joining forces to make a bigger impact."

Le Col Wahoo (press release)

Le Col stepped back from title sponsorship at the end of last year, but pledged to continue to support the team. The move left the team short of €400,000 in sponsorship and the team's future somewhat uncertain, a concern which may now have been addressed.

11 January 2023, 15:43
👀

> Starting next week: road.cc Recommends awards 2022/23 

11 January 2023, 13:30
11 January 2023, 13:11
Injuries to Dublin cyclists caused by tram tracks a "significant public health issue"
Sheffield tram tracks (via StreetView).jpg

A new medical study has deemed the scale of injuries to Dublin cyclists caused by the Luas line tram tracks to be a "significant public health issue". Independent.ie reports the review, published in the Irish Journal of Medical Science, into emergency department admissions over a two-year period found that 48 patients had suffered injuries after their bicycle got trapped in the city's on-road tracks.

The Luas tracks near College green were described as a "black spot" and accounted for 46 per cent of all incidents. Of the injuries reported, 60 per cent were a limb fracture, 14 per cent of which required othopaedic surgery.

Injuries to the shoulder (possibly collarbone related), hand and elbow were the most common and more than half of incidents happened during morning and evening commuting hours.

One of the authors, Olivia Smith, concluded the study "demonstrates that cycling in and around tram track lines or crossing tram track lines in Dublin city has inherent dangers".

 A blog from Cycle Law Scotland this week also highlighted the continued dangers reported in Edinburgh, noting four successfully settled cases against The City of Edinburgh Council.

"All four cases involved cyclists who fell from their bicycles and sustained injury as a result of their wheel(s) becoming either stuck or slipping on the tram tracks at different locations within Edinburgh City Centre," the blog explained.

"A takeaway from the recently settled cases is that settlement is being agreed without the need for the case to be heard at Proof in Court. However, whilst offers are being made and settlements are being reached, liability is still being denied. Each case continues to be looked at on an individual basis once the case is raised in Court."

In September we reported the figures that 422 cyclists had fallen on the Scottish capital's tram lines since 2012 as a local cycling group claimed that safety improvements have come "slowly and too late".

During the same time more than £1.2 million had been paid out in compensation by the city's council in relation to the injuries.

11 January 2023, 12:52
Skills to pay the bills (or at least to save you from unclipping)
11 January 2023, 11:48
GRUPETTO
11 January 2023, 10:54
Ineos Grenadiers' Dani Martínez flies past traffic at 90km/h in Colombia

Bloody hell, he's not hanging about...

90km/h on the following motorbike's speedometer in this clip uploaded to Dani Martínez's Instagram. 

Doesn't look like he's got his unreleased Kask Elemento helmet on, which tech editor Mat spotted in some of the team's pre-season shots...

2023 Ineos Grenadiers Kask Elemento - 2

Writing in Tech of the Week, Mat explained: "There's no Elemento model in the current Kask range. Judging by the shape, we'd say it'll slot in between the Protone Icon – designed to combine ventilation and aerodynamics – and the Utopia – which is more purely aero-focused.

2023 Ineos Grenadiers Kask Elemento - 1 (2)

"We're short on details, though. Guess we'll just have to wait for the official launch for more."

11 January 2023, 11:20
Your reaction to the Vuelta route

We're looking forward to more of this in 2023... 

Angliru

Rendel Harris: "Should make for a great race. Maybe I'm getting old (no maybe about it) and conservative (small c!) but I still feel that the classic climbs for each Grand Tour ought to be kept for those tours, I don't really want to see the Vuelta on the Tourmalet any more than the Giro on the Alpe or the Tour on the Stelvio, just feels as though it removes a bit of the special aura they have, as if we played the Ashes or held the Olympics every single year...won't stop me being glued to it come September, obviously!"

thisismyusername: "2023 is not a year for the sprinters!"

Patrick9-32: "I have long been of the opinion that mountain stages without summit finishes don't make for good racing. There is no point in the pure climbers attacking on the climbs as the bigger guys catch back up on the descent and there is no way for the big descenders to drop the pure climbers on the way up so its rare you get a real banger of a stage. It happens, but its rare. Summit finishes almost always have huge drama."

ShutTheFrontDawes: "I'm pretty disappointed in the increasing trend of grand tours having more hilly stages (both in number and severity)."

thisismyusername: "Completely agree — I was thinking about this the other day, sprinters are being taken out of the picture more — I don't want to see a cycling world where sprinters are more or less non-existent due to lack of opportunity, as it will exclude some great riders. 

"There seems to be more of a place at the moment for the Mads Pedersens of the world, where they are good enough to get through the climbs to have a shot at sprinting for a win, but not quite good enough to win on a pure sprint or climbing stage."

11 January 2023, 10:41
The slightly gross sign of a good turbo session

Just don't let this happen...

Handlebar nightmare (Credit: Stevil Kinevil/Twitter)

> "This needs an exorcist, not a mechanic": You'll never train indoors without a towel again

11 January 2023, 09:35
It's just a shame this monster berg didn't make the cut...
Miserat (Google Maps)

Alas, life's not fair and you can't have it all. No sign of the Miserat which I got very excited about last month...

> "Brutal" new 20% monster climb rumoured for next year's Vuelta a España

Oh, and if the Tourmalet's not enough for you, Pyrenees Cycling pointed out you can go even higher. Perhaps bring a gravel bike though...

11 January 2023, 08:58
NINE summit finishes, Angliru, Tourmalet & world champs style 4,000m of climbing finale — brutal Vuelta route announced

The big reveal of this year's Vuelta a España route has become one big game of count the summit finishes... nine summit finishes, Jeremy, NINE... that's insane...

Peep Show Mark GIFfrom Peep Show GIFs

 

Among the nine is the infamous, notorious, *insert menacing adjective here* Angliru and a day trip over the border to France to scale the Tourmalet. Oh, and on the final 'proper' stage before the sprint in Madrid the organisers have decided to do away with the usual mountain pain and replace it with this...

208km and 4,000m of climbing... more like a world championships parcours than the deciding day of a Grand Tour, but in our book a very clever and novel way to create time gaps and attacking racing. 

On the time trial front, just a 14.6km team time trial in Barcelona on the opening day and a 25km individual effort on stage 10. 

Here are a couple of our favourite stages...

Two TTs, nine summit finishes, one non-summit finish mountain stage, five hilly days and just four out-and-out 'flat' stages for the fast men. 

What do you think? 

Dan Alexander

Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.

Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.

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19 comments

Avatar
Rome73 | 1 year ago
4 likes

According to the table published above; 'The facts are, as per the Department for Transport's Reported road casualties Great Britain for 2021, cyclists are far less of a danger to pedestrians than many other road users...'

that's incorrect. Cyclists are far less of a danger to pedestrians than EVERY other road user . . . .

Avatar
NOtotheEU | 2 years ago
2 likes

I think Road.cc has just made these stats up as we all know that cyclists are MUCH more dangerous to pedestrians than any other form of transport.

Avatar
chrisonabike replied to NOtotheEU | 2 years ago
1 like

NOtotheEU wrote:

I think Road.cc has just made these stats up as we all know that cyclists are MUCH more dangerous to pedestrians than any other form of transport.

Well at least you included the "other vehicles involved" bit - which I don't think we've pinned down e.g. are they counting 1 for bike one for car if a car hits a pedestrian and cyclist?

TBH given the rarity of people cycling compared to driving you could correct by frequency (somehow - if you did it per miles travelled by the other mode that might be great for making cycling look a real menace) and indeed claim that cyclists are much more dangerous than most.  Of course that leads to more questions e.g. where is this happening - is it because we've renamed footpaths "shared space" and some of these are actively dangerous for that purpose etc.  Is it Tour De France wannabees and time triallists, or youths and wrong 'uns?  Was it all just the cyclists in London jumping red lights...?

Avatar
brooksby | 2 years ago
1 like

Quote:

"Cyclists again, they've even left their bumper behind"

You do see a lot of pieces of cars left behind along roadsides.  From collisions, I suppose?  Every day, you see bumpers or hubcaps on the verge.

Thinking back, I have seen a couple of inner tubes and one chain abandoned at the side of the road.  Ever.  In twelve years of cycle commuting 

Avatar
wtjs replied to brooksby | 2 years ago
0 likes

I have seen a couple of inner tubes and one chain abandoned at the side of the road.   Ever.  In twelve years of cycle commuting.

Whereas I see a lot of CO2 canisters left around laybys and car parks- however, this doesn't remotely compare to the amount of junk deposited by motor vehicles

Avatar
brooksby replied to wtjs | 2 years ago
11 likes

I'd thought that those were from giggling teenagers on a weekend... (NO rather than CO2).

Avatar
Awavey replied to brooksby | 2 years ago
6 likes

yes I think so, I used to think they were CO2 cannisters left by cyclists, but i began seeing them so often and in such volume in clumps, they couldnt be possibly left by cyclists unless 100s of them all had punctures at the same spot.

for the most part its just discarded gel wrappers, and maybe a light thats left by cyclists I see.

whereas the amount of junk cars leave, theres one road I did today that was just a line of broken door mirrors clearly from those who cant judge how much room there is to pass on a narrow road, and at the weekend there was a full front number plate from an electric car that must have just "fallen off" as they do(nt)...

 

Avatar
ShutTheFrontDawes | 2 years ago
1 like

I'm pretty disappointed in the increasing trend of grand tours having more hilly stages (both in number and severity) for two reasons.
1) I find sprints more exciting.
2) climbers lose significantly less time on a sprint stage than sprinters lose on a hilly stage. Sprinters, even those considered at the top of their discipline, are increasingly unlikely to win in the GC, and in some cases, to get to the end of the tour.

Avatar
Rendel Harris replied to ShutTheFrontDawes | 2 years ago
0 likes

ShutTheFrontDawes wrote:

climbers lose significantly less time on a sprint stage than sprinters lose on a hilly stage. Sprinters, even those considered at the top of their discipline, are increasingly unlikely to win in the GC, and in some cases, to get to the end of the tour.

Was it not ever thus? The only sprinter I can think of in my lifetime who won a grand tour is Sean Kelly, and that was at a stage of his career where he had evolved from sprinter to all-rounder. There's not really anything that can be done about the fact that, as you correctly say, sprinters lose more time in the hills than climbers do on the flat, simply because climbers can just tuck in behind the sprinters' teams on the flat and get an "easy" ride. Really no sprinter is ever going to have a chance of winning on GC unless you do away with the hills altogether.

Avatar
Patrick9-32 replied to Rendel Harris | 2 years ago
1 like

Even if you did away with the hills, one successful breakaway that beat the sprinters would be enough to put them all out of contention for GC. 

Avatar
ShutTheFrontDawes replied to Rendel Harris | 2 years ago
1 like

It has been a very long time since a sprinter has won a grand tour, I agree, but sprinters are now not just nowhere near the front page of the GC standing, they are barely scraping through time cut-offs time and time again. I find summit finishes frankly quite boring generally, unless there is a good close bunch going for the win (TdF last year did offer a couple of those to be fair).

Avatar
lesterama replied to Rendel Harris | 2 years ago
1 like

Merckx was also a sprinter. Handy at everything else, too.

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Awavey replied to ShutTheFrontDawes | 2 years ago
1 like

Yet strangely whenever the Tour of Britain/Women's Tour routes get announced it seems like everyone then complains about the lack of hilly stages, summit finishes and how they always totally favour the sprinters.

It's almost like you cant please all the people all the time 1

Avatar
ShutTheFrontDawes replied to Awavey | 2 years ago
0 likes
Awavey wrote:

Yet strangely whenever the Tour of Britain/Women's Tour routes get announced it seems like everyone then complains about the lack of hilly stages, summit finishes and how they always totally favour the sprinters.

It's almost like you cant please all the people all the time 1

Indeed, that's very true. I'm not saying that grand tours should be re-planned because I don't think mountain stages are as exciting; and I recognise that lots of people do find them exciting.

I just think it's a shame that grand tours are increasingly weighted towards climbers from a GC perspective. I'm my view the GC should generally be won by all-rounders with a reasonably equal chance for other disciplines taking the top step on the podium.

Avatar
Rendel Harris | 2 years ago
0 likes

Should make for a great race. Maybe I'm getting old (no maybe about it) and conservative (small c!) but I still feel that the classic climbs for each GT ought to be kept for those tours, I don't really want to see the Vuelta on the Tourmalet any more than the Giro on the Alpe or the Tour on the Stelvio, just feels as though it removes a bit of the special aura they have, as if we played the Ashes or held the Olympics every single year...won't stop me being glued to it come September, obviously!

Avatar
Patrick9-32 | 2 years ago
2 likes

I have long been of the opinion that mountain stages without summit finishes don't make for good racing. There is no point in the pure climbers attacking on the climbs as the bigger guys catch back up on the descent and there is no way for the big decenders to drop the pure climbers on the way up so its rare you get a real banger of a stage. It happens, but its rare. Summit finishes almost always have huge drama. 

Avatar
marmotte27 replied to Patrick9-32 | 2 years ago
0 likes

"Summit finishes almost always have huge drama."

Not any more in the age of power metres and W/kg.

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Secret_squirrel replied to marmotte27 | 2 years ago
2 likes

You didnt watch Tom up the Alpe then? laugh

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Surreyrider replied to marmotte27 | 2 years ago
0 likes

But it was always thus - they just didn't know exactly their power read-out or their weight per kg.

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