Rest-Day Round-Up

Yesterday was a rest-day at the Giro and so it seems like a good opportunity to round up some other news and events, while we debate whether Wiggins has lost his descending bottle entirely or is playing a clever game to force Nibali’s Astana team to defend the race lead

Talking of going downhill, the weekend saw the Fort William round of the British Downhill Series which acts as a precursor to the World Cup even there later in the season. It turns out that it was being live-streamed, which I missed, but for the next round you’ll be able to link to it from here. The race was won by Danny Hart pipping Gee Atherton, with Floriane Pugin taking the honours in the women’s race from Manon Carpenter.

Also taking British honours, Sam Pilgrim won the FISE Slopestyle event, which comes with a handy video round-up from some very efficient videographers:

The weekend, for me, was taken up with debating what I really think about mass group rides. I had plenty of time to do this as I tried to look cool by the Lordship Rec track as a 10 year old on a BMX utterly kicked my arse both in terms of speed and clearing the jumps whenever I rolled round. I hope he keeps riding and uses what I doubt he yet realises is a talent for riding until he’s my age. Anyway, the reasons for my musing were the Evans “Ride-it” Ride I’d encountered on Saturday.

This consisted of a very mixed and numerous bunch of cyclists riding the bridleways of Hertfordshire at the same time I was. I’m all for getting people involved and getting cycling more popular but then I have mixed feelings about the volume of riders on this event. It meant a constant stream of riders on every bridleway, none of the glorious alone-time you might expect, and arguably an intimidating spectacle for anyone walking in the same area. I hope that I do my bit for mountain biker/walker relations by smiling, thanking people for letting me past and being generally polite, but I didn’t notice a whole lot of the usual nods and smiles even between the riders. They had a cake and drink stop halfway round, I assume, to break up the pretty tame bridleway blasting.

I don’t think I’ll be shelling out the £12.50 to do it myself.

Elsewhere Gatorade are offering to refund all purchases made between now and the end of the Tour de France if a Sky rider wins. There’s another article celebrating oddly designed bikes, and there’s this from Rob Warner.

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