Is any place safe from the scourge of e-bikes? Apparently not. In fact even shopping at Walmart can be risky these days:Fortunately the victim didnt need medical attention, and the rider was released to a parent:Folsom residents are saying they are fed up with close calls involving e-bike riders after the most recent incident saw a rider knocking over a woman inside Walmart.It happened Monday night inside the Walmart on Riley Street. According to Folsom police, it was unintentional and the woman who was hit did not want to press any charges or seek medical attention.The 18-year-old rider was issued a formal trespassing warning and was released to a parent.The story does not specify whose parent it was, so I assume its simply Walmart policy to release teen miscreants to the nearest one. It takes a villageor at least a Walmart.Of course the appropriate response to an e-bike incident is always to deflect and to But cars! the situation. After all, motorists do seem to have an uncanny knack for crashing into Dunkin Donuts:In fact its almost as though cars are equipped with a safety feature that steers them right into the nearest one in the event of a loss of control.But while a car can easily infiltrate the flimsy prefab structure that is your local Dunkin Donuts franchise, youre completely safe from drivers within the impregnable fortress that is a Walmart.Oh, waitStill, on the bright side, you dont really have to worry about getting killed by a driver inside of a Walmart because chances are you wont even survive the parking lot:Meanwhile, here in New York, if youve got an e-bike youd better flog that motor while you can, because the new speed limit will soon go into effect:Yes, thats right, e-bikes will now be limited to 15 American Freedom Miles Per Liberty Hour, just like in Europe where they can only go 25 Socialist Miles Per Welfare State Work Week:Once implemented, the 15 mph speed limit for e-bikes, e-scooters, and pedal-assist commercial bicycles will match the same speed limit that currently applies to stand-up e-scooters. The new rule mirrors best practices for e-bike speeds in many other areas of the world, including the European Union, which has implemented speed restrictions for e-bikes of 25 kilometers-per-hour (approximately 15 mph) in bike lanes.This is a dark day for vape bros who enjoy riding around on huge batteries with wheels attached to them, though presumably finance bros in MAAP jerseys will remain free to exceed 15mph on their pedal-powered Fred machines:[Via here.]Pro tip from an aging Fred: always keep your phone in your middle pocket so you dont get the whole hanging jowl effect with your side pockets:You want the heavy stuff in the middle and the light stuff on the sides. Its just science.At any rate, its been amusing to watch the advocates messaging evolve as motorized vehicles have taken over the bike network. At first it was, Theyre not the enemy, theyre only doing it cause theyre scared!If you were forced to use a mopedsay, because yourincreasingly difficult job as a delivery driver required itwould you stick to the relatively safe bike lanes, or take your chances on the deadly, potholed-riddled streets with all of the massive metal boxes going much faster than you?But now they admit it is a problem:But the problem is people are confused, or Trump, or something:And Mayor Adams has added to the confusion, launching a criminal crackdown on legal e-bikes that has ensnared all kinds of cyclists, as Streetsbloghas documented. Expertshave arguedthat the Trump-friendly administration has used the notion of e-bike chaos to justify a crackdown that allows the NYPD to target the mostly immigrant delivery work force.But the main confusion right now comes from vehicles that look like bikes, are operated like mopeds, but can reach motorcycle speeds.You know how when a kid throws a tantrum and screams, I wish Id never been born! even though they dont really mean it? Thats how I feel about the bicycle network. I wish theyd never built it!, Im tempted to scream. I dont really mean it, but it is remarkably infuriating how quickly all the bicycles have been replaced with utter crapthough maybe instead of whining about it I should just surrender and get a luxury e-gravel bike instead:Im pretty sure Pard Impervia was the Voivode of Wallachia after Vlad the Impaler:[Pard Impervia, the Voivode of Wallachia]By the way, the Impaler would be an apt name for an e-bike.As for Pard, they have a whole line of electrified Y-Foils:I guess you could say that Pard took the old beam bike concept and sort of re-Parded it by adding a motor:Now thats what I call re-Parded.Though you can also go country gentleman if thats your thing:And theres even a video brimming with old world crafstmanship porn:Complete with Italian artisans mixing paint:Look at him opening that crabon mold just like they used to do in the old days:Its like hes baking a loaf of bread and not crafting a hideous battery-powered douche missile.And wait, is that a wooden saddle?!?Im not an engineer, so Id be interested in learning more about how you make a battery with this stuff:Aw, screw it, Im just getting one of these things for the Plimpton Bike:Hopefully it arrives before the new speed limit does.

This week, Genesis Bikes in the UK introduced a refreshed CDA (Croix de Alloy) lineup with three fresh models, including the all-new CDA Junior, and prices starting at just 749. Get to know them here...The post The All-Aluminum Genesis CDA Lineup is for Kids and Adults appeared first on BIKEPACKING.com.

The death of Muriel Furrer at the 2024 World Championships was one that was critical for the cycling world and has brough back to the surface some of its safety issues. In this cases Furrer crashed out of sight of any other rider or race staff and due to the lack of a GPS tracking system or radio, s...

For folks who had participated in two or more of the Pan Celtic Race Series, the organizers put on a final event called Magnum Opus, where riders would tackle a 1,000-mile route on the way to the 2024 Ultra. Watch the 50-minute film made by Friction Collective here...The post Pan Celtic Ultra Series 2024: The Magnum Opus Official Race Film appeared first on BIKEPACKING.com.

The study also found that bad behaviour is the biggest contributing factor towards streets hostile to walking and wheeling

The end of Hammerheads regular updates isnt just about one bike computer; its about how the bike industry gets us to keep spending money

As tempting as it can be to bury past predictions that soured its healthy to revisit the piece from January to see what the thinking was, what has happened since and try to learn from it.Who wins the Tour de France? Pogaar won as predicted but the piece envisaged a very close contest between him and Jonas Vingegaard. A season later and this was wrong to the point of wondering how this even got written.But the thinking was each had won the Tour after the other sustained a heavy crash and things could be close if they werent plagued by injuries in the build-up.Also the view in January was that it would still be a two rider contest with nobody else troubling the pair. The proved true with Florian Lipowitz a revelation but racing Oscar Onley for third place.The hypothesis of a close contest was tantalising, see the opening stage of the Dauphin with Pogaar, Vingegaard and Van der Poel making moves in Montluon was a thrill, only for the world champion to eject Vingegaard on the Domancy climb before the Alpine racing had even started properly. The hope existed into the Tour itself with a thriller opening phase, until the race was settled in Hautacam.Star riders will race lessIf youve read the paragraphs above you might say but Vingegaard did crash as he left Paris-Nice but he didnt race much elsewhere either in order to pick of his goals. Wout van Aert did go back to Dwars Door Vlaanderen when he could have sat it out to be safe; only he and his team mates got mugged by Neilson Powless.This one is harder to quantify and might still be one for 2026, Pogaars race programme could look like 2025 but with fewer races still. We should see more submarine race schedules with riders out of sight for long periods of time. It will also help on some teams that have congestion at the top, a chance to give others leadership.The sprinting spoils will be sharedThis held up. Take the Tour de France where Jonathan Milan took the points jersey, and two stage wins but only on days when Tim Merlier wasnt able the sprint, Jasper Philipsen won one before his early exit.Olav Kooij looked great at times but beatable too. Are sprint stages the new suspense, the days to make bloggers writing previews do their homework? It sets things up well for 2026 with Paul Magnier and Arnaud De Lie as fastmen but not pure sprinters. Matthew Brennan is interesting because at times he looked invincible, some how there were days you could see he was going to win with 90 seconds to go.Womens races get a rising audienceWhile the Tour Femmes had been off to a great start and has cemented its position as the lead event TV audiences were shrinking. Some of this was down to the Olympics last year hogging audiences so what would happen in a year with clear run? Pauline Ferrand-Prvt and Maeva Squiban certainly helped bring in a record domestic audience. The international audience is hard to quantify as a block but there were increases in Belgium and the Netherlands and comments from sponsor Zwift suggest it improved beyond too.Arguably a big change for the long term was made with the womens Giro moving on on the calendar, it wont be held in July any more and so it wont be eclipsed by the Tour de France. We should see more womens races with established brands eclipsing mens races that dont have status.XDS-Astana get relegatedWrong and then some. The idea was that a bunch of mercenaries recruited to grab points would not get along, they would be out for themselves at the expense of the team. This sounds more like Cofidis instead.The Kazakh team copied from Arka and Lotto before to chase points in smaller races and place riders in the top-10 rather than go all in to deliver a win, if you cant beat them, then score. But XDS-Astana didnt just score subtly, they had a great season: finishing fourth on the UCI rankings and ahead of Soudal-Quickstep and Red Bull; and fifth when ranked by wins too. Christian Scaroni was a revelation with 2,399 points and there was depth as their 20th rider Anton Kuzmin scored 208 points while Cofidiss Sergio Samitier had 68 (the relegation rankings counts the 20 best riders on each team).Arka-B&B Hotels get relegated tooYes and as the piece said the real worry was the team was set to fold. As we could see last winter the team had lost some good riders because of budget issues, it was in trouble already and this made it hard to appeal to sponsors.Kvin Vaquelin had a great Tour de France but already hed signed with Ineos in April so any incoming sponsor if there was anyone interested would struggle to get him back. Still Vauquelin-mania gave the team a good ending. Hes a promising rider to watch with a big talent thats often been sapped by self-doubt. The team might be missed but for now the place gets easily filled by teams on the up.Tour wildcards are make-or-breakBack in January three teams in Tudor, Total Energies and Uno-X were jostling for two places at the Tour de France. Tudor looked compulsory in January already but if Total or Uno-X were left out this could be existential for them because if they could not get in this year it didnt look any easier next year and so their sponsorship could be doomed. The solution mentioned was to invite all three by waiving the rules and this duly happened.The rule change has become the norm with five teams from outside the World Tour. Tudor, Q36.5 and Cofidis qualify* to race the Tour next year. Which leaves two wildcards. Paradoxically the situation looks very different. Total look obvious for an invite but the remaining place? Tietma Rockets probably but almost because theres nobody else given some Italian teams crave the Giro, likewise Spanish teams the Vuelta. Look to 2027 and what happens if Total doesnt find a replacement sponsor, then who is invited? Theres a chance to get a foot in the door for a team able to assemble the right project.Safety remains a contentious topic, divisive evenThere were times in the season when you could see some team managers quick to criticise race organisers but silent at other times because they have a beef with the organisers or even had a personal connection to the event.The nadir was surely the fiasco at the womens Tour of Romandie where some teams and the UCI could not agree about the trial of safety transponders and so there was a stand-off with teams refusing to fit the UCIs devices and the UCI applying the rule that disqualifies riders that dont fit an issued transponder. And behind this a squabble between some teams belonging to the Velon group and the UCI and rather than sitting down to find a solution for safety politics won.Yellow cards will prove controversialThis looked like it could erupt during the season but it was good to be wrong, we never saw a big name rider on a yellow card get issued a second during a major race and sent home. That doesnt mean it wont happen next season.The biggest fuss was probably over Bryan Coquard in the wake of Jasper Philipsens crash out of the Tour de France. Did Coquard deserve a yellow card? Probably not, even pro-Philipsen Belgian TV pundits seemed to agree after theyd cooled down but in getting one this crystallised his apparent fault and he got roasted on social media and it got to him.Calendar reform is finally unveiledNo sign of this. But while everyone likes the idea of reforming a jumbled calendar with confusing labels, the outcomes might not be what people want once you have to start scrapping races with local roots and its not easy to magic a new race around a desert(ed) motorsport circuit into existence either.Adjacent to this was the One Cycling cycling whose launch could have prompted the change. The scheme kept pushing back a mooted launch date only to all but vanish from conversations even if it is still a work in progress.David Lappartient remains at the UCITrue and the prediction was hed have a hard time trying to become the IOC chief. While hes a politician, hes not an operator on the level required to glide into the top job at the Olympics, especially as he started as an outsider without the implicit backing of the exiting chief. Its back to cycling and hes left the French Olympic committee too. So more cycling? Possibly and calendar reform could be back on the agenda theres a dossier on his desk about budget caps and other structural issues but a recent tweet in praise of ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy on the eve of his incarceration for campaign fraud hints at eye still on French politics too, or possibly thats reading too much into it?Gigantic waterbottlesMeh, not really. With some riders using these in training so that they can carry enough energy drink for todays high carb racing you have to train like this as well as race then they could race with bigger bidons. Only weight is still a live issue and so riders have relied on musettes from soigneurs and team mates to fetch supplies so they dont have to carry an extra 500 grams.Rider retirementsThe prediction was some riders can make so much money from the sport these days that they just dont need to go on racing, they can view the risks to their health as too much or just get fed up of life on the road away from family, mid-range hotels, weighing their food and more. This was wrong for 2025 although some riders stopping this year have surprisingly big real estate investments and this must have helped them decide quicker.As for the superstars its probably something thats coming. Plenty of millionaires can live expensive lifestyles so many will want to keep on earning for as long as they can but structurally the sport can set up riders mainly men for now for life these days. This was still a topic in the year as the loudest voice for early retirement was surely Tadej Pogaar who is increasingly invoking the end of his current contract as a date to leave the sport.The post How the Predictions for 2025 Fared first appeared on The Inner Ring.

The cyclocross calendar has changed quite a lot last season and this year the changes remain rather similar. With no huge trips and the World Cup more condensed, we could potentially see Wout van Aert or Mathieu van der Poel contest for the competition if they so wish to do it. Van Aert specially,...

CyclistMet Trenta 3K helmet gets an update for better airflow and safetyTadej Pogaars favourite helmet has had an update. While the previous generation Met Trenta 3K had a crown vent to suck air over the rear of the riders head, the new Trenta 3K has a design that focusses on airflow through the helmet from front to rear.In fact, Met claims that its updated Trenta 3K helmet is the most ventilated road bike helmet ever, with a 16% increase in airflow over the previous generation. Its tweaked the helmets shape for a fit thats rounder and with a more compact frontal profile.Its priced at 350 in the UK, a 60 increase on the previous generation.Slight weight increaseAt the same time, theres a 35g weight increase from the previous generation, from a claimed 225g to 260g for a size M. Mets says this is a result of increased head coverage at the rear of the helmet, increased impact resistance and a fully wrapped shell to increase durability, rather than the previous generations exposed EPS foam around the base of the helmet, a feature that we commented on in our review of the older Met Trenta helmet. Met says that the deeper design is a result of examining the 20 to 30 crashed helmets returned each year from its sponsored WorldTour teams. It says that most show signs of high energy impacts, so lowering the risk of concussion has been a high priority in its redesign. Were glad the pros are testing that and not us.Mets aerodynamic measurements, recorded in its own wind tunnel, show that the new Trenta 3K performs as well as the previous model, despite the deeper shell.The new helmet features a carbon fibre internal structure that Met says has allowed it to reduce the amount of EPS foam needed and so provide front-to-back internal channels that reduce the helmets head contact area and allow efficient airflow at a wide range of speeds. There are three main front-to-rear ribs and 24 vents with sunglass docking and the helmet includes a MIPS Air rotational impact system.Met says that Virginia Tech recorded a 40% improvement over the previous Trenta 3K in its linear and rotational impact tests and has awarded the updated Trenta 3K a five star safety rating, with one of the best (ie lowest) overall scores, ranking it in the top 5 road helmets. Related Posts Met Trenta 3K Carbon Mips helmet review Best road and gravel bike helmets 2025 reviewed Bike helmet safety: Standards, testing and tech, plus Virginia Techs top-rated helmets Best aero bike helmets 2025 reviewed Best budget bike helmets 2025 reviewed Used by the UAE mens and womens pro teams, the updated Trenta 3K was worn by Elisa Longo Borghini when she won the 2025 Giro dItalia Women, by Tim Wellens to the win on Stage 15 of the 2025 Tour de France and by Pogaar himself when he won the 2025 UCI Road World Championships.The updated Met Trenta 3K Carbon helmet is priced at 350 / $450 / 400 / AU$580.The post Met Trenta 3K helmet gets an update for better airflow and safety appeared first on Cyclist.

Versatile e-bikes for longer rides and multi-day trips