Yet another questionably designed place to park your bike — "chocolate teapot" station bicycle rack confuses cyclists; Dave Brailsford meets Manchester United squad; An all too familiar bike theft tale; From the (Daily) Mail-bag + more on the live blog

Drumroll please...

Similarly at Wandsworth Town station this cocktail bike rack as been recently installed - though possibly better described as a chocolate tea pot pic.twitter.com/wQRKBXveVF

— Human & Travels (@humantravl) January 4, 2024

'What's so confusing about that?' I hear some future commenter ask. Well, perhaps not the how to use it aspect of this 'bike rack', but more the commonly seen decision of councils and planners to opt for seemingly novelty bike parking solutions rather than just giving us a practical row of Sheffield Stands. It really is that simple. A row of properly installed, secure metal racks, that's all we're after.

The matter is even more important for riders of cargo bikes, trikes, or other types of bicycle that might not be able to be rolled up in the air and locked in place as this one asks. It's a similar discussion to what we hear about bike storage facilities on trains (obviously without some of the added booking, availability and cost-related issues there) where storage often requires riders to hoist their bike upright to fit in a tiny cupboard, for want of a better word.

> "Vertical bike storage is discriminatory and should be outright banned": Rail engineer Gareth Dennis explains why taking your bike on the train is such a faff on the road.cc Podcast

Fine if you're relatively strong and riding a road bike with narrow bars. Not so for many other types of bicycle.

Human & Travels spotted this "chocolate teapot" bike parking 'facility' outside Wandsworth station in south London, saying it had been recently installed. Needless to say it's caused a fair amount of eye rolling, eyebrow raising, face palming, and any other ways of expressing negative emotions with your facial features...

Ben Furfie suggested in reply, "Insurers should sue stations that install those. It's impossible to securely lock bikes to them; and don't get me started on bikes used as mobility aids for the less abled, or bikes used as car replacements like cargo bikes."

"There is a similar set-up at a place I've biked to. Totally worthless. All the bikes were locked around the area to signs and posts," another said.

On the plus side, at least we've now got another one for the collection...

> Worst bike racks — from the useless to utterly unusable places to park your bicycle 

Peloton. You know, the really expensive stationary bike service, used by Rishi Sunak, Joe Biden, and other people with above average sums of disposable income, that allows you to do home spin sessions with an instructor? Yep, the one which boomed during the pandemic but has seen its share price fall off a cliff since.

> End of lockdown wipes billions off Peloton’s market value

Here at road.cc we've largely watched from afar, obliged to report occasionaly on lawsuits or share-plummeting at one of the world's biggest cycling-related businesses, but with the knowledge the product hasn't ever really landed with the sort of cyclists who visit our website. 

One entertaining thing that has come from Peloton is the extensive backcatalogue of the service's class instructors being... how can we put this politely? A bit bizarre...

There was the instructor who, at the end of 2020, asked her class to climb in honour of their dead relatives. But now we've got a new sprinkling of unintentional comedy gold for the genre...

pic.twitter.com/C6MjCZJkmq

— Jason Koebler (@jason_koebler) January 4, 2024

 This has all come to light because Tenet's director Christopher Nolan said he was doing the class when he was suddenly bombarded with this X-rated review. 

"I was on my Peloton. I'm dying. And the instructor started talking about one of my films and said, 'Did anyone see this? That's a couple hours of my life I'll never get back again!" Nolan said during his acceptance speech for 'Best Director' at the New York Film Critics Circle award ceremony on Wednesday, Variety reports.

Addressing the review of the review, Peloton instructor Jen Sherman wrote on Instagram: "Listen. It was 2020. It was a dark time. I'm on the platform, teaching my little class, and I'm running my mouth off like I'm known to do. And I make a random comment about a movie I had seen the night before. What do you think the odds are that the director of said movie would take that ride some four years later? That would only happen to me."

Yeah, I think I'll stick to freezing, wet rides and the turbo thank you very much...

Let the record show there's more than a touch of sarcasm in that headline. Adwi's story about the Altrincham vicar having a pop at a cycle lane for driving away his congregation (welcome to 2024 everybody!) has at least attracted some of the best comments we've had on a story for a while. Top work!

Forgot Joseph and Mary took an Audi A3 to Bethlehem.

"Our bells have been ringing out since the mid-1800s" The first car was invented in 1886....

— Andy (@AndrewButrz) January 5, 2024

Rendel Harris:

"We can show you the way to salvation and eternal paradise."

"Sounds great, what's the catch?"

"You will have to drive a little way round the one-way system."

"Stuff that, can't be bothered."

Clem Fandango: "Forget tanks & drones. How about we build a cycle lane along Ukraine's border with Russia — surely that's a guaranteed way to prevent Vlad's boys from entering Ukraine?

And it came to pass in the land of the faithful that a new cycle lane emerged, diverting the path to the sacred church by a mere minute
Yet, some among the believers, vexed by this slight detour, found themselves absent from the pews, their hearts swayed by the unexpected journey pic.twitter.com/YgKLxrfpIu

— Harry 🚲🥑🏗️ (@H_H_Gray) January 5, 2024

EDIT: Oh, and there really is a Dave Walker cartoon for every situation...

I don’t know the specifics here, whether this is a good cycle lane design, etc, but to my mind it’s unfortunate when churches make headlines for opposing cycling infrastructure. https://t.co/1ZpXFITkvs pic.twitter.com/oe6y6gEJwt

— Dave Walker (@davewalker) January 5, 2024

road.cc contributor Laura Laker's bike has been nicked...

"I definitely should have used the good lock today," she wrote on social media. "Thankfully the legends at my bike shop had the frame number handy when I called them." 

The security at a nearby BT building reviewed their CCTV and found that at 11:38 yesterday morning three men arrived, one of them using an angle grinder to cut through the locks and release the bike. By 11.40 they had left with the bike...

@StolenRide stolen from an Aldgate bike rack by BT HQ 04 Jan '24. A 2022 Medium magenta Trek FX3, mudguards and rack fitted https://t.co/HsobOFl4IO pic.twitter.com/sPPHrDyTsb

— Laura Laker (@laura_laker) January 5, 2024

It's a bollard Sheffield Stand...

Additional new bike bollard combination stands at Old Street station. However, it's impossible to fit a standard bike frame parallel to the stand. Who designs this rubbish? pic.twitter.com/zCqw5NOsOv

— Bob From Accounts 🚲 (@BobFromAccounts) January 4, 2024

This is the original post from Bob From Accounts who sparked the dodgy cycle racks discussion. Two-thirds practical Sheffield Stand, one-third giant bollard.