Another delayed post this week – we wanted to wait until Bradley Wiggins’ attempt to break the world hour distance record was successful.
The confidence that Wiggo had been displaying in the run up to the event turned out to be well placed: he smashed Alex Dowsett’s previous record of 52.937km, reaching 54.526km. Alex has said he’ll aim to regain the record!
Though Bradley described the pace as “torturous and unforgiving”, he said the event was not the most difficult accomplishment of his cycling career. That he attributes to the Tour de France.
The Global Cycling Network offer a great breakdown of the ride:
Good and bad news from the capital this week.
Beginning with the positive, Transport for London have announced that numbers of people cycling continue to increase: 23 million journeys are made by bicycle each year, amounting to 610,000 per day – an increase of 5%!
The bad news is that the government have announced the withdrawal of £23m in funding for the Cycling Cities scheme (a scheme which was announced by Nick Clegg earlier this year..!). Cycling Cities looks like a great idea, and we hope the remaining funds are sufficient to see it successfully implemented.
This week marks the 20th anniversary of the Eurovelo, a “network of 14 long distance cycle routes which over their combined 70,000km unlock the gems of 40 countries”. The organisation website posted an update including an image of an amazingly crafted celebratory cake, topped with a map of the network:
Looks delicious, doesn’t it? Linked to source
If you’re not familiar with the network, check it out. It includes some fantastic looking routes including a 10,000km trek along the entire length of the former Iron Curtain.
A great story was submitted to reddit’s Bicycle Touring community by user MyDogIsToby, see below:
During a cross-country trip, a group of long-distance cyclists in China acquired an unexpected team member in the form of a little brown and white dog. The dog, who was eventually named Xiao Sa, joined them after one member tossed some food scraps to it. This encouraged the dog to stick with the group, and it did so for 1,100 miles (1,770 kilometers) over a 24-day period. The cycle route included 12 mountains located in high elevation territory. After the trek, Xiao Yong, one of the cyclists, adopted the dog, giving it a good home and all the rest it needed after its long journey.
Too cute! And a fine addition to our list of weird and wonderful things that can happen on a tour!
The previous story was supposed to be our light-hearted end to the news, but we discovered this story at the last minute and it pipped poor Xiao Sa:
As Stuart Clarke writes over at Cycling Weekly, this is a perfect example of a question you’d ask with your mates at the pub after a couple of pints: “how many Robert Förstemanns would it take to power a toaster?”
It turns out it takes 1 Robert to toast a slice of bread, 180 Roberts to power a car, and a “pretty unlikely” 43,000 Roberts to power an aeroplane. Answering the important questions there guys, well done!
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