Is that Rhonda Pickering?! Near Miss of the Day goes viral; Not a crash, just falling with style; Team Cav linked with for months told "elite-level lies", says Audrey Cordon-Ragot; Eternal Valverde; Dogs in cargo bikes + more on the live blog

Rhonda Pickering

— Hantsman (@hantsarchitect) January 5, 2023

Makes me proud to be Welsh. https://t.co/wGTzdSHD2o

— Mat Toor (@muckton) January 5, 2023

Anyone else?

"Why are you stood there for?"

Well. I mean, it's a Give Way like. I'm guessing he was Giving Way. Until it was safe to proceed. Like how you were told when doing driving lessons. Remember them? Guessing not...

— David Cameron (@DJCameron84) January 5, 2023

pic.twitter.com/DKZBJAFm1A

— phil wright (he/him) (@ukwrightphil) January 5, 2023

That’s funny 😆 - a slightly ranty apology (I think). Some of our fellow citizens we walk amongst …honestly 🤦🏻‍♂️

— Mark (@Markstevel78) January 6, 2023

More bad news for Peloton... is there ever any good news for the home training brand these days?

The exercise equipment company has agreed to pay $19 million in fines in relation to a delay in reporting a defect with its treadmills that caused one person death and multiple injuries.

The news was announced by the federal consumer watchdog the Consumer Product Safety Commission who yesterday in a statement that said Peloton had knowingly failed to immediately report the defect to the commission, as required by US law.

In December 2018 and into 2019, Peloton received more than 150 reports of incidents where users were pulled under or entrapped, including the death of a child who suffered broken bones, lacerations, abrasions and friction burns.

CPSC said that Peloton didn’t immediately report those incidents to the Commission, despite knowledge of them taking place.

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"...when, where and why child pedestrian-motor vehicle collisions occur who will die as a result, than for almost any other disease in childhood. It would make more sense to talk of a case of accidental meningitis or accidental leukaemia." Professor Ian Roberts pic.twitter.com/mcJjXgUWKO

— RoadPeace (@RoadPeace) January 5, 2023

Sorry to all 'Rules' absolutists, Alex Dowsett could be going for a swim before and a run after his bike rides very soon...

The clues were there...

Now, in a press release for NoPinz he says "work has already begun on some new projects".

"I'm having to contain my excitement and secrecy over them," Dowsett said. "I'm excited to be with NoPinz for the next step of my career, racing on home soil some more, trying some different disciplines within cycling and who knows, maybe even picking up a pair of goggles before a bike race and a pair of trainers afterwards."

Dowsett was part of the top team of pro riders drafted in to... well, draft Joe Skipper's sub-seven Ironman attempt. That was obviously just the bike leg, but it seems it won't be too long before he'll be taking on all three too.

A driver has been arrested on suspicion of drink driving, after they crashed their car into a building causing it to collapse. https://t.co/H3t0qqseN4

— APPGCW (@allpartycycling) January 6, 2023

[📷: A.S.O/Thomas Maheux]

French national champion Audrey Cordon-Ragot was, along with Mark Cavendish, linked with a move to Jérôme and Sébastian Pineau's B&B Hotels-KTM squad that eventually came to nothing, the current team then folding due an apparent lack of sponsorship.

Well, Cordon-Ragot has been speaking in the French press about the protracted affair, saying it's a "crazy story" and one she "still can't believe". 

"For two months, we were pushed around. As far as lies go, that's on an elite level," she told Le Télégramme. "I'm still trying to find explanations: was it a vicious circle, a spiral, a descent into hell where you lie once, then a second time, then a third time and you end up convincing yourself of your lies?"

> Mark Cavendish's future uncertain after team boss tells riders to look elsewhere

Big words. And she wasn't done there...

"I believed so much in this project, I had put my DNA into it. People are going to think I'm completely stupid, but until December 6, I was convinced that it was going to work. I was even yelling at people who said it wasn't. I feel guilty for taking so many people with me in this shipwreck.

"In the spring, I met the Pineau brothers in Theix. They presented me with their project and proposed me to be part of it. I was in on the secret, it gave me confidence, and I embraced the project like never before. At the same time as I was preparing for the Tour de France – I took care of recruiting the riders and staff with one of my friends and future coach.

"When I asked, Sébastien Pineau reassured me. In mid-October, we were summoned to Paris for an interview with the management, to try on clothes, etc. At the time, I was told that the team's co-sponsor was about to sign. Why would I doubt it?

> Mark Cavendish 'confirmed' as leader of a team which may not exist in two weeks

When the October team presentation was cancelled she "spoke with Mark Cavendish. He told me that he had no news, that he was starting to be afraid."

"On November 30, I reiterated my concerns to Sébastian Pineau who told me that he never had any doubts, that the bikes will arrive the following week. On December 2, Jérôme Pineau tells me that the whole project will not be done and that only the women's team could eventually be saved," she continued.

"Three days later [December 5 – Ed.], the Pineau brothers had a meeting with the directors of B&B Hotels and in the evening, by videotape, they told us that it had only taken them ten minutes to convince them and that, this time, it was sure to go ahead.

A day later Cordon-Ragot "learnt that B&B Hotels no longer wished to continue and that they had informed the Pineau brothers that very morning".

"I am extremely disappointed, extremely saddened. It calls into question the trust I can give to people. It makes me a bit withdrawn, which is not like me. This story has impacted me enormously. After my stroke, it was a new ordeal.

"I feel more pity. The trust is gone. They tried to save a project that was no longer a project. In the end, we all felt like we were taken hostage.

"I would never understand. I will never understand either that they don't take responsibility, that they look for other culprits when, sorry, the only culprits are them and the bad people they surrounded themselves with.

"What hurts me deeply is to hear from X and Y that they are trying to blame me, that basically if the team didn't work out, it's my fault. In other words, I'm being blamed for talking to the media - something I've never done, this is the first and last time I'll be speaking today - and for not going through with the project when I waited until the last day. All of this sticks in my craw, all this disgusts me. I find it despicable. But the bicycle wheel turns."

Is anyone going to explain to him what 'retirement' actually means? https://t.co/SxekyRECJw

— Cillian Kelly (@irishpeloton) January 6, 2023