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jdd said:
www.pinkbike.com

DirtySixer Makes NBA Star LeBron James a Custom 36

Where do you shop for a mountain bike when you're tall enough to make Paul Aston look like your middle school brother?
www.pinkbike.com www.pinkbike.com
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Looks pretty normal to me. But why would LeBron James run such small rotors and such a small cassette? The cranks look a little short, too. And is that a 28-tooth chain ring? :p

That reminds me, when I was in high school, I saw an original customs basketball shoe from Shaquille O'Neill. The father of my then-gf gifted it to one of her brothers. We called it child's coffin. 🤯
 
English cyclist Matt Walls flies into velodrome crowd at Comm Games.
Fortunately, he appears to be all right, but he was flying.
 
OreoCookie said:
You could also tell that the Dutch team was not well-coordinated, basically each of them could have gotten a medal and nobody really wanted to sacrifice themselves for the team (as would be standard operating procedure in UCI events). The medal doesn’t go to a team, but an individual, so the lack of team radios makes a lot of sense to me.

Her PhD supervisor actually gave a talk at a workshop I organized shortly after. Her supervisor is a character, an amazing researcher and all-around classy individual. Because of Covid-related travel restrictions, the workshop was virtual. I wish I could have met her in person. I asked her what she feeds her PhD students … :flip:
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Was your workshop about Mathematics ?
When I see the thema of Kiesenhofer's research, an other world and dimension for me, I guess you and Kiesenhofer are part of a restricted elite world. You might meet her someday.
(I loved mathematics but stopped during university to focus on Earth Sciences)

Is she still cycling ? I could not find any information on her having a team and competing now.

As for the race, all teams were waiting for the Dutch to chase hard, as often with the women event, and the Dutch team was late to put the gas on. As you mentioned, as everyone could get a medal, nobody wanted to sacrifice. I thought at that time they were forecasting Kiesenhofer to loose her momentum. The Dutch cyclists were often back to the team car, and it should not have been any communication issues. Regarding the time gap, it was a blackboard, and the DS could have access to the TV broadcast in English. It was a team failure from the Dutch and and impressive race and achievement from Kiesenhofer.
 
Elzico2012 said:
Was your workshop about Mathematics ?
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Yes, about a topic in mathematical physics. Her research is on a sophistication of classical mechanics, i. e. the laws of motion first discovered by Newton. (This is a simplification, of course.) I’m a professor of mathematics, but I’m somewhere in between theoretical physics and mathematics.
Elzico2012 said:
When I see the thema of Kiesenhofer's research, an other world and dimension for me, I guess you and Kiesenhofer are part of a restricted elite world. You might meet her someday.
(I loved mathematics but stopped during university to focus on Earth Sciences)
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She was on the short list of people to be invited, but didn’t make the cut. I (re-)discovered that after the Olympics. So if the workshop had been held in person and she had been invited, I might have met her in person actually. :)
Elzico2012 said:
Is she still cycling ? I could not find any information on her having a team and competing now.
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I think so. She competed in the Austrian championships and got two second places (road race and TT), and a first place in the hill climb championships. She doesn’t seem to be with a pro team as far as I can tell, which is surprising. At least I couldn’t find anything on her homepage or on wikipedia. I would have expected that she had gotten some offers after the Olympics.

Also, I would have expected that she had asked the Austrian government for a permanent job at a university. (This is a common strategy for the government to support/sponsor top-class athletes. Several of my 2nd degree cousins work for the German Federal Police (the border guard division), because they had been in the German youth development team for cross country skiing.)
Elzico2012 said:
As for the race, all teams were waiting for the Dutch to chase hard, as often with the women event, and the Dutch team was late to put the gas on. As you mentioned, as everyone could get a medal, nobody wanted to sacrifice. I thought at that time they were forecasting Kiesenhofer to loose her momentum. The Dutch cyclists were often back to the team car, and it should not have been any communication issues. Regarding the time gap, it was a blackboard, and the DS could have access to the TV broadcast in English. It was a team failure from the Dutch and and impressive race and achievement from Kiesenhofer.
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Totally agree.
The Dutch team might have fared better by excluding one of the alphas and bring one or two proper domestiques instead who’d then work for van Vleuten and Vos. Ditto for keeping track of the riders. I’m really surprised by the whining afterwards. I feel quite strongly that if you give medals to individuals, then you should also adopt rules that make it an individual rather than a team event. (Still, big, strong teams do have a big advantage.)
 
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the van driver got fined
the cyclist should have for lack of souplesse
irishcycle.com

IrishCycle.com -- 5 points and €300 fine for motorist whose solicitor argued cyclist shouldn’t be on a road at rush hour

A driver of a van has been given five points and €300 fine for careless driving when he aggressively overtook a cyclist in Cork. The cyclist, John Grace, aka ‘righttobikeit’, told Irish…
irishcycle.com irishcycle.com

 
this is just one of the several reasons that cumulatively resulted in me stopping cycling and staying away from it basically. it was only a matter of time I'd get injured and/or booked for road rage induced incident of some sort. had close calls of both kinds more times than I care to remember. it would get pretty bad sooner or later
 
Agree but everything comes with risk. Trains crash, nutters walk through society with knives etc.
I'm actually a bit pissed at this cyclist.
He deliberately wants confrontation. If he was ever in a group I was riding with one of us would be leaving.
He had opportunity to ride on the yellow line, ease up and let the van go by.
Tossers like him make our lives more dangerous irrespective of what the law says.
 
luka said:
this is just one of the several reasons that cumulatively resulted in me stopping cycling and staying away from it basically. it was only a matter of time I'd get injured and/or booked for road rage induced incident of some sort. had close calls of both kinds more times than I care to remember. it would get pretty bad sooner or later
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In Japan I found it much rarer than in other countries (Canada, Germany and the US). If you lived in the US, I'd say you might have a point. But in Japan, the cost-benefit analysis is very much positive for cyclists. In countries with proper cycling infrastructure (e. g. the Netherlands), this is even more clear-cut.

I really have to think hard to remember more than two, three instances of actual road rage. Most dangerous situations were matters of lack of attention or cluelessness (e. g. how fast road bikes can get).
kiwisimon said:
He had opportunity to ride on the yellow line, ease up and let the van go by.
Tossers like him make our lives more dangerous irrespective of what the law says.
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In my experience “riding the line” is more dangerous for many reasons*, it is better to be clearly seen and prevent that drivers attempt to squeeze by. Even when you leave cars more space, I have had it happen a billion times that cars and trucks didn't use the extra space they had, but left me centimeters anyway.

* Possible reasons include: the line itself can be quite slippery when wet, debris (I once “collected” a 5 cm screw with my tire), bad road surface, …
 
Agree about taking a lane or not riding in the gutter.
In this case he was seen. he knows they saw him.
Could have just pulled over and let them go by and give them a friendly wave. Same is if you were driving a slow tractor.
10 seconds being considerate makes the world drive by.
OreoCookie said:
In my experience “riding the line” is more dangerous for many reasons*, it is better to be clearly seen and prevent that drivers attempt to squeeze by.
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kiwisimon said:
Could have just pulled over and let them go by and give them a friendly wave. Same is if you were driving a slow tractor.
10 seconds being considerate makes the world drive by.
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I get the feeling behind it, but my preferred strategy is slightly different: I will gladly make space for cars when it is safe for me to do so. In many situations I will do exactly what you suggest and make sure I am not hogging the lane.

But judging by the short clip, it wasn't safe for the delivery truck to pass the cyclist even if he had pulled all the way to the right. There was traffic on both lanes and the road seemed quite narrow. Plus, I don't know Irish laws, but in the jurisdictions I have lived in, vehicles must leave about 1–1.5 m of space when they overtake bicycles. I reckon Irish traffic laws make similar stipulations. The shoulder did not seem very wide either, and even adding 20 cm or so, this seems like a pass that is too close for comfort.

Ultimately, the onus is not on the cyclist, it is on the drivers. Cyclists are weaker participants, and motorists need to take this to heart. I get that I neither want “I was right.” or “Butthole” written on my tombstone. But if society is persistent, it can effect change. It really works wonders in the Netherlands, where drivers are very patient, and most people who drive cars also ride bikes.
 
luka said:
this is just one of the several reasons that cumulatively resulted in me stopping cycling and staying away from it basically. it was only a matter of time I'd get injured and/or booked for road rage induced incident of some sort. had close calls of both kinds more times than I care to remember. it would get pretty bad sooner or later
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I also have done some reevaluating. As I get older, and as I see so many stories of bikers being mowed down by inattentive or enraged drivers, I have gotten a bit more skittish. Plus, I'd rather not suffer an accident that would impact my mobility in the future. I need all the mobility I can get. So, I'm moving to doing much more indoor training. Zwift has helped make that more tolerable.

My biggest concern is distracted drivers coming up from behind, and close passes. So, when I do ride on the roads, I try to minimize it as much as possible and prefer to get up in the mountains on trails or low-traffic roads. Mountains and trail riding is what keeps me going.

When I do have to ride on roads, I ride as far left as I can that is practicable and I pull over if I'm holding folks up. In my experience, 'taking the lane' invites aggressiveness and road rage. Yes...it increases the need for drivers to take you into account, but unless you ride in the middle of the road, (presuming they aren't texting while driving and they actually notice you) they'll either try to squeeze past you anyway (despite oncoming traffic) resulting in a very close pass, or they'll hang off your rear wheel by centimeters, which, IMO, is also dangerous. I don't care about speed so this approach works for me. YMMV and YDY.
 
yes, mobility is one of the biggest challenges as we age, and a major focus of mine recently. even in youth, any big injury involving broken bones and ruptured tissues will likely impact the rest of one's life. middle aged and later, an injury could mean a significant, immediate lowering of one's quality of living and irreversible damage. hope everybody stays safe, mobile and strong
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Chuck said:
When I do have to ride on roads, I ride as far left as I can that is practicable and I pull over if I'm holding folks up. In my experience, 'taking the lane' invites aggressiveness and road rage. Yes...it increases the need for drivers to take you into account, but unless you ride in the middle of the road, (presuming they aren't texting while driving and they actually notice you) they'll either try to squeeze past you anyway (despite oncoming traffic) resulting in a very close pass, or they'll hang off your rear wheel by centimeters, which, IMO, is also dangerous. I don't care about speed so this approach works for me. YMMV and YDY.
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Striking the right balance between taking the space to make yourself safer and giving others more space to make yourself safer is tricky sometimes. In my experience riding on relatively empty roads not being all the way to the right means cars tend to give me much more space when they pass. When I stay all the way to the right, they would just continue traveling straight as if I weren’t there whereas if I am riding a few centimeters to the right of the line, they’d have to make a conscious choice to overtake me. When the roads are (almost) empty, then cars aren’t held up and nobody is mad either, I haven’t had an instance of road rage in those cases. On the other hand, on some roads the shoulder is very broad, then I just stay on the shoulder.

At traffic lights where I want to go straight, I also find that being staggered with respect to the car and intruding in the car’s path of travel is a good way to ensure I am not accidentally turned left against my will. Of course, I yield the space as soon as possible.

In my experience, drivers get aggressive when they feel you are holding them up even if you aren’t or they wouldn’t get mad if I were a car. I think the last case of road rage was when I was climbing a very narrow two-lane road without a shoulder and my riding buddy and I held up a Maserati.
Chuck said:
My biggest concern is distracted drivers coming up from behind, and close passes. So, when I do ride on the roads, I try to minimize it as much as possible and prefer to get up in the mountains on trails or low-traffic roads. Mountains and trail riding is what keeps me going.
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Route choice and choosing when to ride is crucial in my experience. Avoiding times and places with heavy traffic is almost always the most important factor to improve your safety. That’s something that e. g. Strava’s automatic route generator doesn’t seem to get at all. Routes created with Wahoo’s app are bad in the exact opposite way, the Wahoo app sends me down the smallest roads with lots of subtle bends and turns.
 
Riding to the right will get you killed. Presume you meant left.

OreoCookie said:
. In my experience riding on relatively empty roads not being all the way to the right means cars tend to give me much more space when they pass. When I stay all the way to the right, they would just continue traveling straight as if I weren’t there
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