Epic ride! Surely she has it!

We are doing that with lateral flow if seeing anyone remotely vulnerable- as I think many are.

If it even gets shown on bbc, there was a thing on the rights in the guardian and bbc can only show two sports at once so if there is anything else going on with greater public interest then we won’t see it

Starmer now also self-isolating as one of his kids has covid… I assume it was an lft test cince he was in HoP this morning and if a PCR he should have been at home till they had the result

@stevemuzzy @reluctantjumper and others, sounds like the numbers of double vacinated getting it on here aren’t unrepresentative of the expected numbers then. I was a bit surprised about how many double vaccinated popele were posting with covid, but I guess you aren’t going to post up saying I’m double vaccinated and feel fine!

@tpbiker same here – i still find some situations give me a bit of anxiety, but so long as am careful I feel its the best i can do

There seems to be quite a few people (I think 5?) on this forum becoming positive while double jabbed. Is delta evading vaccines more than originally thought?

If anyone is after sites in Pembs I just saw on social media a campsite called clifftops camping (I think it was at druidstone) which was opening on the 24th for the first time so I guess has vacancies. I know nothing more than the post someone shared… but might be worth a look.

Our Dear Leader is having a News conference tonight at 5pm to warn of the dangers of easing up too quickly on restrictions. No doubt he’s expecting his position of PM to provide some credences to tonights “advice

Really? is this televised? I couldnt see anything on BBC

Even this morning at 0700 my local beach car park was starting to get busy – 1/4 full I reckon. Admittedly I think most cars were just single-occupancy with locals popping down for a quick swim/paddle before work but a fair few families were already setting up for the day.

Kind of ironic that we’ll have a ‘world-beating’ number of people staying at home self-isolating on freedom day!

Personally I’d pack up the car tonight and leave at 4am. Get down early, have a swim and a snooze on the beach. Sitting in a traffic jam in 25 degrees and sheet sunshine wouldn’t appeal!

Edit. Summer hols started today in Wales

Ah thought gap had increased really quick but I probably didnt check for longer thna i thought

Was there an incident? I stopped paying attention for 20 minutes or so and the gap went from about a minute to 8 minutes

Congratulations and good luck Mr Whyte – I know of others who’ve acted similarly to you, definitely seems the sensible approach.

Anecdotaly I’ve heard (not seen it myself) that many people in Wales have stopped wearing masks even though our rules are that they have to remain. Really does feel like snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

I have one, northcore lowrider, it works well for my 5’10, bit of a nuisance if it’s windy. I normally use it to cycle to the local beach down a very eroded loose Boulder 4×4 track so need to tighten the bolts most trips. I think it would stay tighter if not abused off-road though!
Expensive but I got it during lockdown when the rules were you could surf if you didn’t drive to beach

As he is leaving I carry on the chat and he jokes that I’m going to be shut indoors all day while he is off to sit in a pub garden with his mates. Things take a darker turn when I point to the sign saying he now should self isolate, going straight home, not to the shops or to see friends

Had the joy of my child in floods of tears this morning becuase she started coughing last night and so we said she would need a test and would miss school today and probably tomorrow (last two days of term in first year of school so a big deal) – even at that age she understood when we said she could make her teacher very ill that it would be better to stay at home.

Some people are just knobbers

He was pretty wrecked after the stage yesterday by the looks of things.

I still am a bit dubious but to a certain extent he’s got lucky this tour and yesterday showed he’s not heads and shoulders above the others all the time.

Any road helmet should fit the bill – I like the kask one I have but forget which one. Catlike also seem popular

Reminder its an early start today, already off, though I guess it wont be too exciting for a while…

In the Guardian article it said the conditions we have (high level of cases, high level of vaccination) are perfect for promoting the emergence of an escape variant. The next few months are going to be shit.

Been largely very enjoyable to watch. The Cav ‘come-back’ obviously has been great, almost too fairytale so I hope he does make it to the end.

I’m still hoping that Pogacar cracks a bit in one of the next two days to build a bit of excitement (nothing against him, but a bit of summit finish second counting is always fun). Has there been less summit finishes than normal? I think only one so far and two next week.

edit. Plus I’m looking forward to the time trial to St. Emillion; always used to stop there for a couple of nights on our way to/from holidays in south-west france. Bet there will be some iconic images among the vines

Sounds like England are now doing the same (seen on guardian live feed headline but not read post)

I’m mostly worried about children- seems like there is more cases of young kids getting long covid. This will now go through the roof. Childhoods destroyed and who knows what longer term problems.

I find it amazing I still have capacity to despise the tories even more but it seems bottomless

Simon Yates also abandoned :-(

We should be acting to prevent another disturbed academic year. That absolutely should be our priority

I completely agree – unfortunately it will be the kids who will probably pay most for the MPs having a jolly summer recess.

Never new basking sharks could ride bikes!
(ref. Pollit)

47.40 to the cut-off according the the racecentre.letour website.

the live data seems to have stopped but I think Cav was at 45 something

I’m pretty sure MvDP has previously said he can’t do altitude or long climbs well, this was with reference to the MTB WC in Andorra I think.

I can suspend my disbelief for MvDP because we’ve seen him smashing cx from junior level up for the best part of a decade and because he has reasonable cycling genes by anyone’s standard.

If you have your card, it will have the batch number on it, up the thread the range of batches affected are listed

Its the manner in which he did it that makes it a bit suspect, he just didnt seem that gassed at the end of either stage and his riding didn’t obviously exhibit it being a big effort from what you could see on the TV. It kind of reminded me of Femke van der dreishe (sp?) and her mechanically doped attack on the Koppenburg. Not that I think that would be possible in the tdf.

@kelvin – I can’t help thinking the relaxation of restrictions is very conveniently timed for the MPs summer recess (starts 22nd) and, in a classic Tory u-turn, we’ll be locked down again in September/October just when you’d hope to be getting into the swing of an uninterupted academic year.

I saw on social media that Roglic won’t start today

No, but I guess a lot of people enter! I’ve not bothered this year, seems like waste of two quid

My first thoughts too, but it is only week one, I’m hoping he cracks spectacularly so it seems more reasonable… would make the race more interesting too!

Got to be a breakaway – with two more mountainous stages before the rest day i can’t imagine there would be much appetite to chase one down today?

I wonder what odds I’d get on Cav equalling Merckxs record on the Champs Ellyeses (sp?) this year?

Wow! practically burst into tears at that. Epic.

Pretty scary reading on the guardian analysis article (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/27/delta-covid-variant-may-be-edging-race-against-vaccines): encounters of 5-10s enough to transmit.

I read in one of the medical journals (I think BMJ) it was 90% compared to 97% – though I was just skim reading for some figures to tell family so may have misunderstood

The reading I did on the lateral flow test was that they aren’t *that* much worse than the PCR (I think it was still 90% accurate), so given that we can have them for free and repeatedly test it seems to me still worth doing. We do them if seeing an elderly relative primarily.

I’m in a bit of a quandry – meant to be going on holiday to corwall, but cases there are spiking and lots of hospitality/attractions being closed becuase of it. The weather forecast is crap too. I’m beginning to wonder if we are better off staying at home!

Back to the original question, it seems very geographically variable. In the south-east, things like Gorrick are great, but its an area of high population density so even if only a fraction of riders want to race, that’s still a lot. In Wales, numbers are pretty thin and its typically only the faster guys that race. Even before covid I was starting to question why I was travelling 2hrs to race against half a dozen others that I wouldn’t see after the second lap. I guess with the amount of good natural riding, the idea of going racing to ride a good venue is less of a pull too.
I see that BC have recently put out a .pdf where they are indicating they want to get behind enduance mtb more, but it seemed largely like window dressing to me.
Hopefully the pidcock factor will boost cx and xc – is he going to be fit for the olympics?