In the first of what’s going to become a regular feature on the PBK Blog, we bring you the Friday Round-up. Alongside some of the major cycling news from the week just gone we’ll provide our favourite pictures and videos and give you a little bit of an insight into what we’re planning for our weekends.

The week’s news in brief:

UCI announce 18 ProTeams for 2011:

On Monday, the UCI announced the 18 teams registered as ProTeams for 2011. All the usual suspects appear to be present and correct such as Garmin-Cervelo, Rabobank, Team RadioShack and Saxo Bank-SunGard. However, Geox-TMC and Cofidis were refused licence requests. Geox-TMC, with Denis Menchov and Carlos Sastre, were certainly expecting to be granted a licence but the UCI had different ideas. Matt Walsh over at A Twisted Spoke came to an interesting conclusion about this decision, suggesting the UCI were simply trying to save Sastre’s life. Having rode all three Grand Tours last year, and consistently complaining of exhaustion and fatigue, Sastre’s intention to ride all three Grand Tours again is clearly suicide. Walsh’s conclusion was that Geox was refused a licence on humanitarian grounds as they were simply trying to prevent him killing himself. Whether or not this played a part in Pat McQuaid’s actual decision process will probably never be known.

Australian study concludes that drivers are at fault in the majority of cycling accidents:

On Tuesday, new research conducted in Australia attempted to shed light on the causes of collisions and near misses that involve cycling commuters. After giving 13 cyclists helmet cams, over 127 hours of footage were recorded before being analysed. The study’s conclusions were that motorists were to blame in 87% of incidents and 83.3% of drivers didn’t realise the danger they had put the cyclist in. However, surely we already knew drivers are to blame for the majority of accidents that occur? As some of our Facebook readers commented, hopefully the study wasn’t government funded.

Pearl Izumi sue Garmin-Transitions:

On Thursday, news that Pearl Izumi has apparently filed a lawsuit against Slipstream Sports and their Garmin-Transitions cycling team came to light. The issue appears to be centred on 12 missing ‘winged’ time trial suits. Pearl Izumi has demanded the return of the suits and is also claiming damages for the alleged theft of their intellectual property. If you see any expensive looking time trial suits laying around over the weekend then be sure to let us know.

Contador corner:

Contador’s ‘tainted steak’ came from South America?

There was another interesting twist to the Contador saga on Sunday when it was revealed that his ‘tainted steak’ may have been imported from South America, where farmers regularly use Clenbuterol. Ramon Riestra, a farmer, provided support for Contador and suggested “It’s more than possible” that Contador’s meat came from South America. Another wild goose chase or could there be some truth in Contador’s adamant stance that he didn’t dope?

Contador reiterates threat to quit if punished in Clenbuterol case:

On Thursday, Contador made a rare public appearance in order to reiterate his threat that he will walk away from cycling if he is found guilty and receives a ban from the sport, stating “It’s early to say it right now… but I cannot assure you that I would continue.” Nevertheless, Contador will soon fly to meet his Saxo Bank teammates at their training camp in Fuerteventura and proceed with his pre-season preparations as planned. We’ll keep you up to date on any developments on the Contador investigation next week.

Tweet of the week:

Nicholas Roche tweeted; “Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!!!”
That’s the weather report for the north and east of England done then.

Pic of the week:

Catch me if you can!

Video of the week:

Check out this interesting take on a bike lock. We can’t promise we’ll be stocking these any time soon but they could certainly take off!

Pick of this week’s new products:

Following our recent PBK T-Shirt Competition, we’ve had the winning entries made and they’re ready for you to wear with pride!

First up we have the PBK ‘Bike silhouette’ T-Shirt.

Next, the PBK ‘It’s all about the bike’ T-Shirt.

And finally, the PBK ‘Where grades really matter’ T-Shirt.

What we’re up to this weekend:

Well, John’s off to play Rugby at Stockport before experiencing his eagerly awaited initiation ceremony after only recently joining the club.
Chris is red wine tasting so we’ll expect him to be a little subdued on Monday morning.
Anthony will be trying to get out of the front door considering the heavy snowfall that is expected.
Meanwhile I’m heading to the BBC’s Good Food Show in Birmingham on Saturday to hopefully sample plenty of culinary delights.

Any comments on this week’s news? What have you got planned for this coming weekend? Let us know below!



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ProBikeKit

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A hub of reviews, advice and news from the online road cycling experts at ProBikeKit.