‘Why don’t cyclists use the cycle lanes?’ International edition; Primož Roglič, an advertiser’s dream; Cyclist uses clever car overlay to highlight poor driving; Psychopath to Inverness sign mystery; Van Aert to miss Strade Bianche + more on the live blog

We’re kicking things off this Tuesday with a special, international edition of a much-loved live blog favourite…

road.cc reader Ashley, having viewed the dozens (hundreds, thousands?) of motorists spotted abandoning their cars across the UK’s cycling infrastructure on this site over the years, decided to get in touch to prove – though we may have suspected it, given the country’s attitude towards other aspects of cycling culture– that “disrespect for bike lanes happens in Victoria, Australia too!”

Ashley’s courteous bike lane blocker was snapped yesterday on Geringhap Street in Geelong – the site, you may remember, of Thor Hushovd’s victory at the 2010 world road race championships (which I miraculously managed to stay awake for after a big night on the town – but that’s a story for another day).

Geelong’s recent record with bike lanes, as Ashley pointed out to us, isn’t great either. In November, the city’s council was forced back to the drawing board after councillors voted down plans to build new cycling infrastructure along the High Street of the southern suburb of Belmont.

The project, which was also delayed by councillors earlier in the year, formed part of a wider strategy to “provide cyclists with safe, accessible, and connected cycling routes within Geelong” – but, unsurprisingly, was opposed by local traders.

> Why don't cyclists use cycle lanes?

“We support bike lanes, what we don’t support is developing infrastructure that creates division in the community,” one councillor told the Geelong Times.

Now that Ashley has thrown down the gauntlet, can anyone come up with an example of bike lane blocking from even further afield? Antarctica, perhaps?

Incredible power! 😲

There was no stopping @LotteKopecky at #OHNwomen after she launched an unstoppable attack on the Bosberg. 💪🥇

#OHN23pic.twitter.com/i4IcMJpelP

— GCN Racing (@GcnRacing) February 25, 2023

The women’s cobbled classics season started with a bang at the weekend, with SD Worx – courtesy of star riders Lotte Kopecky and Lorena Wiebes – sending a warning shot to all their rivals thanks to the duo’s dominant wins at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Omloop van het Hageland, respectively, before UAE Team ADQ’s Marta Bastianelli rolled back the clock with a tactically astute victory at Le Samyn today.

The racing, then, has been as exciting as usual – but are we seeing enough of it?

EF Education–Tibco–SVB’s British rider Lizzy Banks certainly didn’t think so on Saturday, as she waited patiently for coverage of the women’s Omloop to start after Dylan van Baarle had done his thing in the earlier men’s edition:

Hello Twitter, The men's omloop was great. It's finished now so please can we watch the women's race now. It would be nice to see some of the action instead of just the finish 🙃 #OHNwomen#OHNmen

— Lizzy Banks (@ElizzyBanks) February 25, 2023

Pleaaaaaaase please pleaaaaaaase let us see the god dam race 😭😭😭😭😭#OHNwomen

— Lizzy Banks (@ElizzyBanks) February 25, 2023

Well, at least the lack of coverage got my blood pumping and HR up ready for the final of #OHNwomen😅

Place your bets now! Who's your money on?! ⬇️✍️

— Lizzy Banks (@ElizzyBanks) February 25, 2023

In the end, we were treated to a whole 28km of racing (but at least we didn’t miss the Muur and the Bosberg I suppose).

Today wasn’t much better, with just over 32km of the women’s Le Samyn broadcast on TV. And this time, they didn’t even have the excuse that the men’s race was on beforehand.

So, altogether, the entire televised coverage of Omloop and Le Samyn amounted to just 60km of racing, or around an hour and a half of viewing time.

32.3km of Le Samyn des Dames. Yes, I'm going to log how much coverage of women's races we actually get. Some is good. Doesn't mean they don't deserve more #LeSamynDesDames

— Katy M (@writebikerepeat) February 28, 2023

In contrast, this afternoon’s coverage of the men’s Le Samyn started with over 90km left to the finish.

The distinct lack of coverage, especially compared to the men, has been branded a “disgrace” by some fans on Twitter, who view the missing action as a barrier to properly progressing the sport:

Didn't think in 2023 that we'd be applauding equal prize money with one...set of hands and then also having to deal with the bare minimum 45 minutes of WWT live coverage 😞#OHNwomen

— Mathew Mitchell (@MatMitchell30) February 25, 2023

It’s a bit of an insult isn’t it?

— Bromley Parsons (@bromley_parsons) February 25, 2023

I'm waiting with baited breath for how pathetic the strade bianche coverage is this year

— Natalie (@TrixNat) February 28, 2023

it’s 2023 and women’s cycling still only gets an embarrassing amount of coverage https://t.co/PSVoOudaKE

— Lächeln im Frühling (@anewcd) February 28, 2023

Of course, as others noted on Twitter, some coverage is at least better than no coverage at all. And it’s really not that long ago (the pre-2012 era, to be precise) that 30km of live TV of a men’s early-season semi-classic would have been welcomed with enthusiastic cheers by cycling-starved fans in the UK.

The women’s versions of Omloop and Le Samyn are also only 17 and 11 years old respectively, so the clamour for proper coverage of both is at least a sign of the lightyears women’s cycling has travelled in that period.

This year has also seen the advent of equal prize money for the men’s and women’s winners in all of Flanders Classic’s races, a move welcomed by Omloop winner Lotte Kopecky as a “nice gesture”.

Lotte Kopecky wins the 2022 Tour of Flanders (Zac Williams/SWpix.com)

“Well, it’s not always an important thing. But in the end, I mean, if you saw what it was the last years, it was just that in the end as a rider there was almost nothing left,” the Belgian said.

“I think it’s a very nice gesture from Flanders Classics that they are raising the prize money. Because in the end, although we do less kilometres, I think we still have to work for it as hard as the men and I think it’s a very nice thing that this prize money is the same now.”

Kopecky’s argument that the women work just as hard as the men – and often race in a more exciting fashion – is all the more reason that they should be given the TV coverage they, and the fans, deserve.

AVV’s Tour-winning move – except we didn’t see it

Last year’s Tour de France Femmes was heralded as a pivotal moment for women’s cycling – but, even though line-to-line coverage has existed for the men’s Tour for the last ten years, the decisive move of the entire race, Annemiek van Vleuten’s attack on stage seven, was not broadcast live.

If the women’s side of the sport is to continue grow and build on the positive steps forward in recent years – and especially if big races continue to be held on the same day as their male counterparts (which is also an argument for another day) – coverage needs to be expanded to ensure that none of the excitement and drama so inherent in women’s cycling is missed.

🇧🇪 Milan Menten gets his first win for @lotto_dstny with a fantastic 𝒔𝒑𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒕 finish in Le Samyn as Kasper Asgreen 𝙘𝙧𝙖𝙨𝙝𝙚𝙨 out! 🥇 #LeSamyn | @MilanMentenpic.twitter.com/QWZhVnT51X

— Eurosport (@eurosport) February 28, 2023

After Arnaud De Lie’s flying start to 2023, Lotto Dstny today proved that they’re not short of tough classics riders with fast finishes, as fellow Belgian Milan Menten secured the biggest win of his career this afternoon at Le Samyn – and promptly hurt his shoulder while celebrating (not that he’ll care too much).

26-year-old Menten, who joined the team this year from Bingoals Pauwels Sauces, overhauled 2020 Le Samyn winner Hugo Hofstetter on the slightly uphill sprint to the line in Dour, after a late move – instigated by Alpecin- Deceuninck’s Søren Kragh Andersen and driven on by Trek-Segafredo with their best Jumbo-Visma impression – was brought back in the final kilometre.

Kragh Andersen’s attack on the race’s final cobbled section came after another dangerous looking move, containing Menten’s teammate Victor Campenaerts, along with Jasper Stuyven and Stan Dewulf, was neutralised.

My legs hurt just watching you, Victor…

Campenaerts’ time off the front allowed him to showcase his new Classified rear hub and ridiculously big 62-tooth chainring – which, if we’re honest, looked a bit of a slog of Le Samyn’s rather benign hills…

> Victor Campenaerts debuts Classified PowerShift hub and massive 62-tooth chainring at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad – but is still forced to walk up the Muur

Meanwhile, Soudal Quick-Step’s woes from Opening Weekend continued, as sprinter Fabio Jakobsen crashed out, landing in a ditch, before Kasper Asgreen, who missed Omloop Het Nieuwsblad with illness, touched wheels in the final kilometre and hit the deck himself.

Always tough to identify a rider when they're sat in a hedge and only their legs are sticking out but unfortunately it's Fabio Jakobsen#LeSamynpic.twitter.com/hiEE3nB9Qm

— Mathew Mitchell (@MatMitchell30) February 28, 2023

I’m not sure I’d want to bump into Patrick Lefevere this evening…

Today’s news that SRAM has lost its patent case against Princeton Carbon Works concerning the company’s undulating rim design – inspired, in part, by the humpback whale – has stirred one road.cc reader to campaign in favour of the dispute’s silent, and some might say most important, party:  

> Court rules SRAM patents not infringed by Princeton Carbon Works' aero wheels 

2020 Strade Bianche winner Wout van Aert won’t be taking to the scenic gravel tracks of Tuscany this weekend, with illness disrupting the Jumbo-Visma rider’s start to the road season.

The 28-year-old, whose last race saw him lost out to longstanding rival Mathieu van der Poel in a thrilling world cyclocross championships showdown in Hoogerheide at the start of this month, is currently training at altitude at Tenerife’s ever-popular Mount Teide and will instead return to road racing at Tirreno-Adriatico, which starts next Monday.

🗣️ A message from @WoutvanAert, who’s preparing his road season at the Teide.

Change of plan: his first race to come is Tirreno-Adriatico!🇮🇹 pic.twitter.com/jzgUekuMe4

— Team Jumbo-Visma cycling (@JumboVismaRoad) February 27, 2023

“I won’t be at the start of this year’s Strade Bianche. I will start my road season in Tirreno-Adriatico. Unfortunately, I was not feeling very well for several days last week during the start of my training camp. Fortunately, it wasn’t too bad, and I felt better shortly after. However, it affected my training,” Van Aert said in a social media video.

“After taking a break following the cyclocross world championships, I again lost a few training days in preparation for the season. We decided it’s better to stay at altitude longer so I can reach my best shape possible for Tirreno-Adriatico.

“We think it’s not possible to perform at my best in Strade Bianche. I want to race to win, but that isn’t possible right now. I need a bit more time, but sometimes changing plans is necessary. That’s how things are.

“For the upcoming Flemish spring classics, I am in good spirits and I’m looking forward to seeing my fans by the roadside again soon.”

Update pic.twitter.com/wcLtwyGoIx

— Eemeli (@LosBrolin) February 27, 2023

Van Aert’s absence means that Van der Poel will be the only Strade winner of the 2020s to take to the start in Siena on Saturday, with last year’s victor Tadej Pogačar instead preferring to focus on an early season head-to-head battle with the reigning Tour de France champion Jonas Vingegaard at Paris-Nice, which gets underway on Sunday.

But don’t despair, as while the two grand tour heavyweights slug it out at the Race to the Sun (it’s basically all my Christmases come at once), MvdP and WVA will clash at Tirreno, 29 days after the battle of Hoogerheide.

My mouth is watering at the prospect of it all...

I wonder how the online conversation around poor driving would change if all clips uploaded by cyclists to social media of near misses and scares were framed in this way:

Motorist pulls across other road users and forces them to brake to avoid a collision.

You would fail your driving test for doing this.
So don't do it! pic.twitter.com/K8oQJGFZ7f

— CycleGaz™ (@cyclegaz) February 28, 2023

“Superimposing a car view on a cyclist’s journey and suddenly a majority of people would blame the car turning. Funny that,” wrote Twitter user Cycling in Kilkenny.

Meanwhile, Snake Pass trespasser said: “We’ve done it. How to make car-brained people understand what it's like to cycle – put a car overlay over your cycling view.”

This is excellent - totally confused me as to why you were in the cycle lane ha!

— MD Parkins (@mattparkins) February 28, 2023

I wonder how this will be viewed by the folk who tend to excuse this behaviour. The Car POV mask is quite striking.

— Matt Lafferty (@LattMafferty) February 28, 2023

Clever illustration of how inbuilt prejudices need to be set aside, for an objective view

— Let’s be part of the solution (@let_part) February 28, 2023

Although I reckon it wouldn’t be too long some would start calling for that pesky cartoon motorist to wear a helmet…

But the car looks to be a dark colour to me. This could have been avoided of it was hi-viz yellow.

— Robert Bury (@robertbb87) February 28, 2023

That car should be wearing high vis, a helmet and have to pay bike tax.

— biofanatical (@biofanatical) February 28, 2023

I think we’re all struggling to get our heads around the bizarre, and rather grim, news that Trek-Segafredo’s great Italian hope, Antonio Tiberi, has been fined for shooting dead a San Marino politician’s cat (not the kind of sentence you expect to be writing on a Tuesday morning, but here we are).

Bit late to this story but I'd just like to express my feelings on it and they are as follows: what the actual f***? https://t.co/5Kk3Qa6tN0

— Katy M (@writebikerepeat) February 28, 2023

That is putting it quite mildly.

— 🌈 evy cuypers 🌈 (@TheCignalu) February 28, 2023

Meanwhile, somewhere in east London, a French centre-half breathes a sigh of relief…