Wiggo’s Vuelta crash verdict; Why don’t cyclists use the cycle path; Froome: Doubters are next Tour win motivation; Red light jumping - not RLJing cyclist; Pinarello, Whyte, Fizik + shiny, shiny shoes at the Cycle Show + more Vuelta & more

It’s aaaaaages since we mentioned anything about gravel on here so to put that right here’s a Whyte Gisburn we spotted yesterday at the Cycle Show. There were a lot of shades of yellow at play on the Whyte stand and one of them was this yellowy or is it green Gisburn. An eye-catching bike either way and I’m sort of surprised we haven’t test one already, it features a Sram 1x11 gearing, tubeless ready wheels, and a dropper post. Whyte say the geometry is mountain bike derived and the post helps get the most out of that when descending. You can find out more here. Oh, it’s £1999.99.

Our chums over at off.road.cc have got their mitts on Hope's RX gravel chainset, basically the RX chainset given the gravel treatment - you can read more about it here. 

Mathieu van der Poel of Corendon-Circus and Mitchelton-Scott's Matteo Trentin have been trading punches (in the figurative sense) at the Tour of Britain all week - and today, the advantage has swung firmly in the Dutchman's favour as he doubled his lead over the Italian to 12 seconds at Burton Dassett Country Park, where the pair finished respectively first and second.

And most years, that might be the GC all but decided - except that tomorrow, instead of a sprinter friendly circuit race in London, we have a looping parcours from Altrincham to Manchester that includes 2,000 metres of climbing.

Can Mitchelton-Scott, one of the strongest teams in the race, distance van der Poel on those climbs? Or will his Corendon-Circus team mates manage to neutralise any moves from the Australian UCI WorldTour team?

It should be a cracker.

Here's how @mathieuvdpoel got the better of nearest challenger @MATTEOTRENTIN to win stage seven of this year's @OVOEnergy Tour of Britain #OVOToBpic.twitter.com/CVkYQirrSP

— Tour of Britain (@TourofBritain) September 13, 2019

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Fizik off-road shoes also aimed at commuters and urban cyclists, £120 available from Monday

A post shared by road.cc (@road.cc) on Sep 12, 2019 at 10:05am PDT

Keeping with the footwear theme, this new line of shoes that Fizik were showing also caught our eye. Ostensibly they fall in to the off-road category, but the Fizik person we spoke to at the show said they were very much intended for any sort of cyclist who might want a shoe that didn't look like a cycling shoe – and they particularly had urban cyclists, commuters in mind too. As you'd expect in an off-road shoe they take two bolt spd pedals, and the cleat looks like it should be well recessed so walking about in them shouldn't be a problem. They also feature Vibram soles and you'd expect them to be robust and durable too… we'll be getting some in to find out. They're available from Monday and the SRP is £120. You can find more full fat Cycle Show goodness here - where Dave Arthur checks a host of new bikes from British brands and here where Jack Sexty check out the cool stuff on display while trying not to drool.

The Rwandan Cycling Federation has submitted a formal bid to host the 2025 UCI Road World Championships and if successful would become the first African country to stage the event, first held in 1921.

With the locations of the event between now and 2024 already decided, 2025 is the next available slot for bids, and Morocco is also vying to play host to the event.

The country’s leading newspaper, The New Times, reports that sports and culture minister John Ntigengwa and Aimable Bayingana, president of the local cycling federation, Ferwacy, formally submitted the bid to UCI president David Lappartient at the World Cycling Centre in Aigle, Switzerland, yesterday.

Since February this year, Tour du Rwanda was upgraded from a 2.2 to a 2.1 UCI category race, making it only Africa’s second race with 2.1 badge, after Gabon’s La Tropicale Amissa Bongo.

The Tour du Rwanda, founded in 2008 as an amateur event and now a UCI 2.1 race – one tier below the Tour of Britain – saw its 11th edition in March, with hundreds of thousands of spectators lining the roadsides to watch it.

We'll be dropping various things we saw at the Cycle Show yesterday on to the blog during the day starting with something extra special on the Pinarello stand.

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A little piece of history at the back of the Pinarello stand... #thecycleshow

A post shared by road.cc (@road.cc) on Sep 12, 2019 at 1:50pm PDT

There's loads of cool bikes to see on the Pinarello stand (obv) quite a lot of orange paint schemes award for the orangest going to the Gan out front. Head to the back of the stand and you'll find a special hint of yellow - a signed yellow Pinarello - we're guessing it's the actual one ridden to victory at the Tour by Egan Bernal, although it could be one of his spare yellow bikes too. We'd rather believe though….

We're working with @playingout
to restore children's freedom to play and ride in the streets and spaces where they live

Join the movement and create a safe space on your doorstep by organising a street play session

Find out how: https://t.co/kSoMSAZVWI#PlayingOut pic.twitter.com/KOOcDJFduE

— British Cycling (@BritishCycling) September 12, 2019

British Cycling are working with Playing Out and the Children’s Commissioner for England to encourage more parents to "reclaim their streets and estates and give children the chance to cycle and play out freely."

The campaign is also calling on local authorities to get behind them, and say that the frequency of children learning to ride a bike safely outside is in decline; according to a survey just commissioned by British Cycling, 92% of parents used to ride their bike on local streets as a child, but 76% said they feel it's now less safe for their child to do so because of traffic dangers. 

88% said they would teach them if their local streets felt safer and 94% said they would if it was easier to get to safe places to cycle, which is where Playing Out comes in. Starting on a street in Bristol but spreading to over 950 throughout the UK, parents and residents can apply for 'play street' sessions so kids can ride bikes traffic-free. Information on whether your local council has a play street policy can be found here.