HGV driver suspended after threatening to knock down "spandex-wearing f******"; Patrick Lefevere accuses Sam Bennett of "playing with my balls in public" by riding European Champs; LCC protest reaction; CyclingMikey's bonnet ride + more on the live blog

🇪🇺 #EuroRoad21

🥇 Stefan Kung 🇨🇭
🥈 Filippo Ganna 🇮🇹
🥉 Remco Evenepoel 🇧🇪 pic.twitter.com/RdG9xG6yff

— Isma Álvarez Cycling (@CyclingIsma) September 9, 2021

Swiss time trial machine Stefan Küng can keep his European Championships jersey for another year after defending his crown. The FDJ man beat Filippo Ganna's time by eight seconds. Remco Evenepoel was third, 15 seconds slower.

Of the other notable starters, Tadej Pogacar's 12th place caught the eye. Possibly a result down to minimal racing since dominating the Tour de France. The road race follows this Sunday...and you'd expect Pog to be one of the main favourites considering the 4,000m+ of climbing on the route.

Sam Bennett not so much, but hey, if it winds up Patrick Lefevere then surely it's worth it...

pic.twitter.com/VvU54aj9et

— Cycling out of context (@OutOfCycling) September 9, 2021

Sometimes you've just got to laugh... 

Swiss Side has unveiled a new pressure measurement rake that allows you to see aerodynamic drag, where it is coming from, and at what intensity.

“The Swiss Side pressure measurement rake measures the energy lost in the airflow behind an object,” says Swiss Side. “This is the aerodynamic drag. It does this using an array of 128 Kiel probes which are illuminated by 288 individually controlled LEDs, which change colour depending on the measured air pressure.”

A Kiel probe is a device that measures the pressure of a flow. Swiss Side says that its new equipment captures “a complete live colour picture of the aerodynamic drag and its intensity across the area measured”. 

No device of this kind existed before, so the Swiss Side engineering team developed everything in house to its exact requirements. 

“This included the design and assembly of every component from the physical rake hardware itself, the pressure measurement system electronics and data logger, all the way through to the software systems, “ says Swiss Side.  

The extensive array of sensors used by the rake system are connected wirelessly over a local internet network. 

Swiss Side says that its activities now extend well beyond cycling to include a wide range of industries from sports to automotive. 

“The pressure measurement rake provides a hugely valuable development tool for any application,” says Swiss Side. “It also provides extremely useful data for correlation back to the CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) simulation models, which further improves and refines the development process.”

Another day, another amusing balls story...today it's Sam Bennett playing the wasp, while Patrick Lefevere is the unamused Sir Chris Hoy. The Deceuninck-Quick-Step boss has accused Sam Bennett of "playing with his balls in public" as the Irishman prepares to represent his country at the European Championships this week.

Lefevere, who earlier this year distastefully compared his sprinter to a domestic abuse victim, wrote in his Het Nieuwsblad column that Bennett has not communicated with the team about the knee injury that forced him to miss the Tour de France. At the time, the team boss said the 30-year-old's problem was a "fear of failure", not a physical issue.

Lefevere has begun the process of cutting Bennett's salary in half from this month onwards, something the UCI allows if a rider has been inactive for three months. The Belgian believes Bennett is riding this weekend to prepare for a possible legal dispute, to prove he was fit and ready to race.

"What he's doing now is playing with my balls in public," Lefevere said. "Anyone who knows me knows that I never do that [cut riders' pay]. I continued to pay Fabio Jakobsen and dozens of other riders in full, despite long injuries. But here the rider acts in bad faith. He no longer uploads training files. He doesn't want to be operated on. And he is crying on the phone with our doctor Philip Jansen.

"I hear from his manager Andrew McQuaid that he will definitely finish the European Championship. I'm not so sure about that yet. We have already suggested that we do an exercise test at our Bakala Academy, but he does not go into that. For me it's simple; first prove that you're fit, before you take the place of a teammate."

Lefevere also sarcastically questioned why Bennett was suddenly so keen to race a hilly course with more than 4,000 metres of climbing, having not raced since May.

Huge turnout tonight at the @London_Cycling ride calling for safer junctions, good to see some familiar faces and that @BBCTomEdwards was at Southampton Row junction again to report on calls to make that safer for vulnerable road users. pic.twitter.com/rMhIoQKlOT

— Simone Di Michele 🇮🇹 (@simonmacmichael) September 8, 2021

These were the scenes in the capital last night for the London Cycling Campaign's big protest ride demanding action on dangerous junctions. In August, yet another cyclist was killed at London's Holborn gyratory, the seventh since 2008.

Riders were joined by Caroline Russell, the London Assembly member, and heard speeches, including from Liberal Democrat London Assembly member and Chair of the Transport Committee, Caroline Pidgeon. Flowers were laid and victims' names read in Holborn, where Marta Krawiec was killed last month.

Approaching the Holborn junction where Marta Krawiec was killed on 4 August pic.twitter.com/0vLHAVjbXi

— London Cycling Campaign (@London_Cycling) September 8, 2021

 The LCC's petition demanding action on lethal junctions has more than 7,000 signatures and can be accessed here...

Time to stop the preventable deaths at London’s dangerous junctions - join us @London_Cycling https://t.co/lwPxg6g3qh pic.twitter.com/YFHG6xZSWY

— Jules Mattsson (@julesmattsson) September 8, 2021