Olympic BMX racer collides with person crossing track; Cancellara's special edition BMC snaps at the airport; Tom Pidcock wins mountain biking gold for GB in Tokyo; No room at the bike rack; Bitcoin prize money; MVDP's crash + more on the live blog

So their take on it is a money spinner from Councils and an attack on motorists. My take on it is unlike Parking offences (in the main), speeding kills so should be kept as a criminal punishment and points on the license etc. 

I see where you are coming from. However, if councils (or the police for that matter) were incentivised to catch speeding drivers by way of profiting from the revenue, then I can see a couple of benefits: 

• More rigorous enforcement. If councils/police can profit by having a person on every street with a speed gun, then it's likely they would do so. If that means the number of drivers speeding falls (because the chance of being caught is much higher), then that's a good thing.
• Profit can feed into local finances. Whether its the local council or the police, there have been significant budget cuts in the name of "austerity". I wouldn't have a problem with speeding drivers being used to plug some of those funding gaps.

I don't know how significant of a legal issue it would be to either keep it as a criminal offence but allow the police to profit from fines (and hence encourage more enthusiastic policing), or switch to council enforcement but still hand out points on drivers' licences etc. 

It feels like they are saying 'if you can't police our streets we will'. For me it only seems fair that drivers that can't drive safely should be made to pay for road safety and increased enforcement would be a massive plus. Also are they mutually exclusive? If the council catch a driver going significantly above the speed limit why can't they hand it over to the criminal justice system.

Agreed, I watched the whole of the World Champs last autumn on the red button, it was awesome. It's made for mainstream (sports) TV with split times, great personalities, huge jumps, high skill, and big risks. Hopefully the BBC will have it on a main channel this year.

kil0ran wrote:

If it's true about the plank that's proper naughty. Been a few uncharacteristic inefficiences/mistakes these games. Street skaters were complaining about the wind, false start in the tri yesterday, the mix up over timings/gaps in the road race, etc

From the short clip, everyone else seemed to make it over it OK...

Might have been that some planned one line and others planned others. VDP definitely doesn't lift up his front bars enough which leads credence he was planning to land on something early (the plank?) where Pidcock is on a different line so does need to fully jump. 

kil0ran wrote:

If it's true about the plank that's proper naughty. Been a few uncharacteristic inefficiences/mistakes these games. Street skaters were complaining about the wind, false start in the tri yesterday, the mix up over timings/gaps in the road race, etc

apparently a coach or someone contradicted him and said this had been discussed numerous times over the last week. Maybe in the heat of the moment he just forgot?

I watched some of it on iPlayer where the whole race is available. His teammate had no problems neither did the others also just ahead of him, so it does rather look that way.

davwil wrote:

Sponsors have missed a trick with Tom Pidcock - What sort of bike was he riding with what equipment?

I thought the olympics was supposed to be about amateur sports-people?

hawkinspeter wrote:

davwil wrote:

Sponsors have missed a trick with Tom Pidcock - What sort of bike was he riding with what equipment?

I thought the olympics was supposed to be about amateur sports-people?

really?  amateurs like Usain Bolt? Did he have a different full time job, or did he make his living from sponsorships and prize money as a sprinter?

Or maybe Roger Federer (career earnings $130m) 

The age of amateurism ended in the olympics a long time ago, when it bcame about the best sports people, rather than being a jolly for rich individuals

I think HP was having a little jest (and there are only amateurs in the squirrel olympics).

hirsute wrote:

I think HP was having a little jest (and there are only amateurs in the squirrel olympics).

.

hawkinspeter wrote:

hirsute wrote:

I think HP was having a little jest (and there are only amateurs in the squirrel olympics).

.

Wrong Olympics - it should be something more like this.

An anti-crash one !

As he's contracted to INEOS he's not supposed to ride anything but Pinarello, so as they don't make MTBs he has to have the maker's name blanked. As a matter of fact he uses a BMC Fourstroke for MTB races.

Rendel Harris wrote:

As he's contracted to INEOS he's not supposed to ride anything but Pinarello, so as they don't make MTBs he has to have the maker's name blanked. As a matter of fact he uses a BMC Fourstroke for MTB races.

I thought at the olympics bikes were supplied by the national teams, rather than the riders bringing their pro cycling team bikes.

Who would TeamGBs bike partner be though for non track cycling events ?

I noted Lizzie D was riding her Trek team bike,whilst Anna Shackley looked to be on the same Specialized bike her SD worx team mates were on, and all the Canyon teams riders in the women's race were on Canyons albeit with a special Tokyo livery which I think van Vleuten initially thought was just specially for her.

wycombewheeler wrote:

I thought at the olympics bikes were supplied by the national teams, rather than the riders bringing their pro cycling team bikes.

No, for example in the road race on Saturday G, Tao and Adam Yates were all riding INEOS livery Dogmas (with GB flag decals attached) but Simon Yates was on his Bianchi; apart from the demands of the sponsoring manufacturers no pro is going to swap onto a completely new bike just for one race. Carapaz won on a Dogma as well, albeit one badged in Ecuadorian livery.

That will largely apply for the track cycling but as the road and XC riders are pros they ride trade team bikes. In the road races it was helpful to look at bikes to work out who was who in their unfamiliar national team kit.

On the track that tends to be the case, in other disciplines, no. There are also strict rules on size of logos on equipment, so in this case, frames. At Rio and London, Specialized gave their bikes (irrespective of country) a bright orange paintjob to aid standout (plus matching helmets for some riders).

At Tokyo, it's Trek that's gone with a striking colour scheme specific to the Games.

Simon_MacMichael wrote:

On the track that tends to be the case, in other disciplines, no. There are also strict rules on size of logos on equipment, so in this case, frames. At Rio and London, Specialized gave their bikes (irrespective of country) a bright orange paintjob to aid standout (plus matching helmets for some riders).

At Tokyo, it's Trek that's gone with a striking colour scheme specific to the Games.

are the rules for minimum size? because in that picture it's hard to imagine a larger logo without bringing back the trek monocoque frames of the 90s

Rendel Harris wrote:

As he's contracted to INEOS he's not supposed to ride anything but Pinarello, so as they don't make MTBs he has to have the maker's name blanked. As a matter of fact he uses a BMC Fourstroke for MTB races.

Someone should tell INEOS and Tom that Wiggle/CRC have a few Dogma MTB frames going on eBay, from Pinarello's brief foray into the MTB market. 

Serious need of a bike check for that. 

Looks like SLX M7100 group, 11-46 cassette, SR Suntour Axon Elite fork, 80mm travel?

Tyres are Conti prototypes which have been around for about 6 months in the hands of pro riders.

A bit more info on the bike https://www.bikeradar.com/features/pro-bike/tom-pidcock-bmc-fourstroke/