Pinarello unveil bike fit for a (World TT) champ; Bahrain-McLaren bike and kit; Tyre dust biggest ocean plastic polluter, says Cycling UK; Freeman ‘too upset’ to attend tribunal; Shanghai Marathon runner caught cycling + more on the live blog – road.cc

Sustrans have acquired funding to improve the busiest part of the popular off-road path to prevent conflicts from arising at the busiest times of day. 

A 1.7 mile stretch between Trinity Street (the beginning of the path) and Clay Bottom has been identified as the section marked for improvement, and described as a “victim of its own success” due to the number of people using it during peak times, which can be up to 1,800 an hour. James Cleeton of Sustrans says although they’ve been encouraging path users to ‘share, respect and enjoy’ with their One Path initiative, he admits physical changes would help to solve some of the issues: “We’ve spoken to over 250 people, either out on the Path, in community meetings, online or in specific user groups, to learn from them about what they need. This has included conversations with school communities, disability groups, older people groups, local community organisations, and walking and cycling campaign groups.

“We’ve heard that the excessive speed and close-passing of a handful of the people cycling on the path really does put others off using it. Some parents have even chosen to drive their children to school, instead of using the Path for that reason.”

Cleeton says a number of suggestions have been put forward, including widening stretches of the path to enable segregation between cyclists and walkers and encouraging cyclists to find alternative routes of the busier sections; however the majority weren’t calling for segregation, and as the Path represents “a much-valued traffic-free space”, banning cyclists from some sections has been ruled out. 

Cleeton added: “In the next couple of days, we’re holding more workshops with the community to talk to them about the ideas that have been coming out. We’re going to work with them to refine those design ideas so that we can start to develop some firmer designs. Should we ask people to adopt certain thinking while using the path, for example, everybody keep to the left? Maybe we ask people to ring their bells if they want to overtake.

“We will also invite scrutiny of designs from various people who have technical or ‘lived experience’ wisdom to offer. This will help us to further develop the designs for a path that will become ever more inclusive while remaining loved and cherished by the local community.”

Rohan Dennis will be, er… gutted that he’s chosen to jump ship to Team Ineos, as Bahrain-McLaren have unveiled this rather un-subtle kit made by Le Col for 2020. The team, which was known as Bahrain-Merida until recently, have also been restocked with Merida bikes in the new team colours too… 

Team Principal Rod Ellingworth said: “We were struck from the outset by Le Col’s relentless desire to continuously innovate. The culture fit with McLaren was natural and immediate; we scoured the cycling landscape with the aim of finding a brand that could deliver the best performing kit in the WorldTour. We were blown away by Le Col’s attitude to collaborating with us to create the very best performance products and taking a ‘rider first’ approach to improving athlete performance.”

Le Col also claim their kit was the fastest during initial aero testing by McLaren, which was a strong reason behind the partnership. 

Catch up on the weekend’s cyclocross action as Tom Pidcock and the Trinity Racing team ride the infamous ‘de kuil’ Zonhoven course.

Freeman took issue with articles that brought up his need for a skiing holiday – that his lawyer Mary O’Rourke says was prescribed by a doctor – and also the coverage towards O’Rourke herself. 

The panel questioned O’Rourke’s conduct in her questioning of Shane Sutton, and today she’s asked them to clarify their position as to whether she was considered to have bullied Sutton under cross-examination, according to BBC sports journalist Alistair Magowan 

The Specialized-sponsored team headed to the cycling-specific wind tunnel in California for several testing sessions, refining position and equipment choices. Quick-Step coach Koen Pelgrim said: “We’ve had some very useful days in Morgan Hill. We’ve mainly focussed on optimisation of the time trial position of our riders, and for that, the wind tunnel is a great tool. The combination of having a team of dedicated bike fitters, a test that checks the physiological effects of changes in position and subsequently a very fine measurement of the aerodynamic drag is a dream for me as a coach. That combination of these three tools makes is the perfect setup to optimise the performance of our riders.”

This time activists have glued themselves to concrete blocks on Cranbourne Street outside Leicester Square tube station. There are also protests going on in Manchester. 

The Australian appears to admit that the attention to detail when it comes to equipment and technology was a key reason for his move to Ineos, saying that he’ll now be “working with the best possible products on the market and available to us. That’s something that I’m really passionate about, especially when it comes to time trialling.”

Although never 100% confirmed, it was widely believed that Dennis’ bizarre abandon of the 2019 Tour de France was because he was unhappy with the equipment made available to him at Bahrain-Merida, particularly the Merida Warp Time trial bike. he’ll now be time trialling aboard the Pinarello Bolide, which has racked up countless victories for Team Sky/Ineos riders over the years. 

Read the full story here. 

The former Welsh Rugby star is cycling a four-seater recumbent bike 500 miles from Cardiff to Aberdeen.

His ‘mission’ is to collect the Sport Personality of the Year trophy from Geraint Thomas in Cardiff and deliver it for the awards ceremony in Aberdeen in seven days.

Along the way, he’ll be joined by famous faces and beneficiaries of Sport Relief funding who will help with the pedalling. 

Local junior cycling club, Maindy Flyers have already been out lending their support.

We’ll be following Gareth’s progress over the next few days.

If you thought jiffy bags were scandalous, the scale of cheating in Asian marathons even at amateur level is said to be reaching epidemic level… and this one might just be the most brazen of the lot. 

According to Japan Running News, Organisers of the Shanghai marathon that took place on the 17th November have now announced that an entrant has been banned for life for using a bicycle on part of the course. The female runner also ran with a male bib number, and organisers punished other competitors with bans who were said to have been complicit in the fraud, or ‘did not stop the problem from occurring’:  “The orderly conduct of the race was significantly disturbed”, they said. 

China is in the midst of a running and cycling boom at the moment, but incidents of cheating are said to be rife; another female runner was caught riding a bicycle in March’s Xuzhou International Marathon in a virtually identical incident, and at the Shenzhen half marathon last year, over 250 runners were caught cheating.  

Perhaps the most well renowned case of running fraud in the UK came back in 2011, when Rob Sloan was caught hopping on a bus to skip past a few of his rivals and claim third place in the Keilder Marathon.