Here’s a selection of the latest news, reviews, and previews to help you while away your Monday lunch hour:
> "Complex rope rescue" after cyclist crashes from bridge into river
> Review: Giant Propel Advanced Pro 1 2023
And with the Dauphiné coming to a fairly tepid end yesterday (don’t worry, we’ve still got Wout and Remco at the Tour de Suisse), the countdown to this year’s Tour de France has well and truly started.
So I think it’s about time you became acquainted with the intricacies of this year’s pretty savage route, by getting stuck into our detailed stage-by-stage guide. Unless you’re a time triallist, of course, then this Tour just isn’t for you…
> Tour de France 2023: From Bilbao to Paris, our stage-by-stage guide to cycling’s biggest race
What do you mean, you still haven’t finished watching the Netflix doc yet?
From this morning’s comments section:
It’s Mallett’s world, we’re all just living in it…
Brilliant clip – especially love how the cyclist just nonchalantly rode away across the field afterwards – though I’m less sure that the anti-cycling bashing was necessary in the caption…
On what was the finishing circuit for Fridays stage of the tour of the Pyrenees (where there where parked and moving cars in the last 3km) the road is currently totally closed (large police presence at junctions) with all cars cleared for a sportive. I am totally speechless pic.twitter.com/saRIpKSAKc
— Connie Hayes (@connie_hayes123) June 11, 2023
To add yet more insult to insult to injury, it turns out that it is in fact perfectly possible to completely close off a road through Lourdes for a cycling event.
If that cycling event happens to be an amateur sportive, and not an elite women’s pro race, apparently.
22-year-old British pro Connie Hayes, who was riding the Tour des Pyrénées for AWOL O’Shea – and so experienced first hand the traffic bedlam on the finishing circuit through Catholic Disneyland, I mean Lourdes, on Friday – tweeted yesterday that she was “totally speechless” that the road was completely clear of parked cars, and that junctions were being guarded by police, just two days later… for a sportive.
It really is. I was speechless when we rode past this afternoon seeing a full closure where we had risked our lives in an elite uci race just days before and I am not someone who is usually speechless!
— Connie Hayes (@connie_hayes123) June 11, 2023
Exactly, I am so confused by the organisers comments as we race multiple times a year in France and never have any issues and nearly always feel safe for the whole race
— Connie Hayes (@connie_hayes123) June 11, 2023
Unfortunately, this year’s Tour Féminin des Pyrénées won’t be remembered for a scintillating battle on the fearsome Hautacam, or for Marta Cavalli’s long-awaited return to winning ways after a difficult year.
Instead, the three-day stage race will be remembered for the UCI’s decision to call off the final stage following protests from a peloton concerned for its safety after two stages dominated by members of the public driving on the course (and even towards the riders), parked cars littering the final kilometres of stage one into Lourdes, race motorbike riders creating hazardous conditions, spectators wandering on the roads, a lack of marshals, and, finally, successful calls to neutralise most of the second stage to the foot of the Hautacam.
> "What a mess": Chaos as live traffic passes metres from racing peloton
“Considering the safety risks involved, we firmly believe that a bike race is not worth endangering the lives of the female cyclists,” Adam Hansen, the head of the riders’ union the CPA, said in a statement announcing that yesterday’s third and final stage had been cancelled.
If your finale looks like this, with random vehicles everywhere, you're not worth organizing a race. What were they even thinking? The attitude of the organizers makes it clear: no single rider will participate if there comes a new edition without drastic changes. pic.twitter.com/VUvJOhXjdt
— BramDesmet (@BramDesmetKoers) June 11, 2023
> Tour Féminin des Pyrénées stopped amidst rider safety issues
So, how did the organiser of the Tour des Pyrénées react to being at the centre of a media frenzy (the race’s cancellation even made the BBC’s website!) concerning the running of his event?
By creating another, entirely different kind of media frenzy.
“What is happening is that the girls have requirements that are not in line with their level,” race director Pascal Baudron told La Nouvelle République yesterday morning.
“They imagine that they are on the Tour de France and that all the roads must be closed. But in France you cannot do that.”
Baudron continued: “They are sawing off the branch of which they are sitting. The day when there will be no more races, they will cry and that’s what’s going to happen.
“Quite honestly, I tell myself that it is not worth organising a race to see all those months of effort ruined for the whims of spoiled children.”
Omg those comments are from someone from the 15th century! Certainly they can’t organise a race if they do not think the athletes deserve safety measures ! Unacceptable!
— Evelyn Campos Flores 🌳 (@wevecampos) June 12, 2023
Unsurprisingly, Baudron’s questionable use of language, and his belief that top-tier pro cyclists are “spoiled children” for believing that they should be able to race without motorists driving at them, hasn’t gone down too well with most of the cycling community.
Some described the organiser’s comments as “sexist”, “offensive”, and “from the 15th century”, with Twitter user Jonathan writing: “The numerous use of ‘girls’ and ‘spoiled brats’ is quite telling of his attitude towards women”.
You'd expect something like yeah it was not good enough but it's hard and we'll do better next year. But this is just taking the piss with road cycling and the sponsors should not be happy. That's saying it nicely.
— Marco van den Hout (@mvdhout) June 11, 2023
“Female riders being called spoiled for, er, not wanting to be hit by cars?” wrote cycling journalist Matilda Price. “Extremely basic levels of safety shouldn’t be the reserve of the Tour.”
“Sounds like it’s the race organisers with ‘requirements above their level,” added Ryan. “They expect the best cyclists in the world to show up to their race but they're not competent enough to fill out the forms to close the roads?”
Organising a major bike race is tough (as we’ve seen in Britain over the past year or so), but that’s certainly one way of ensuring you lose all the sympathy you had from onlookers, I suppose…
So, Richard Madeley, Timmy Mallett, and Howard Cox walk into a TV studio and debate whether cyclists should be forced to put registration plates on their bikes…
No, I’m not describing a live blog and warm weather-induced fever dream I had last night – that was what actually occurred this morning on Good Morning Britain, the home of sensible, breakfast-accompanying discussion in the UK.
And, you’ll perhaps be surprised to learn (though maybe not), it was even more frustrating than it sounds.
'We want to encourage people to be on their bicycles'
'When you go through a 20mph zone and you're being overtaken by electric bikes and other bikes it's an issue'
Should cyclists have registration plates? pic.twitter.com/XuinL88709
— Good Morning Britain (@GMB) June 12, 2023
Truncated due to Michael Gove’s incessant blathering about some former MP (Boris somebody? I didn’t quite catch the name), the ‘debate’ – titled “Should cyclists have registration plates?” – was an awkward, random, and chaotic assortment of mystifying statements and anti-cycling bingo tropes.
Fair Fuel UK founder Cox – a friend of the live blog– made sure to hit all his favourite points right from the start.
“As any HGV, van, or taxi driver will tell you, cyclists are running riot, running red lights, riding on pavements,” he said.
Most cyclists are doing 30 in a 20z jumping red lights. If a big guy on a bike travelling at 30 hits you its not much different to a motorcycle at the same speed.
— henry wright (@swwchels93) June 12, 2023
Cox also noted that people using e-bikes are riding at “30, 35mph” in 20mph zones (a claim that made e-bike aficionado Mallett raise his eyebrows), while he – again dubiously, I must add – added that cyclists “don’t contribute anything financially to the roads”.
Hmmm…
> 'Road tax' is coming... but not for cyclists
Unfortunately, the brilliantly attired Mallett was somewhat less succinct in formulating his own argument against cycling number plates (such as the ludicrous amount of resources that would be required to implement such a measure), a debating style not helped by Richard “I ride my bike every three days” Madeley ignoring his attempts to intervene during Cox’s more questionable claims.
Of course, what passed as a debate on British breakfast TV comes just days after Italy’s transport minister pledged to introduce tougher laws for cyclists, including requiring riders to wear a helmet, take out insurance, and put number plates and indicators on their bikes – before almost immediately backpedalling in the midst of a fierce backlash by claiming that the laws were only ever intended for scooter users.
(Remind you of anyone, Grant?)
And anyway, despite all that nonsense on GMB, surely the Great British public have a much more considered take on the whole matter… or maybe not.
According to a Twitter poll carried out this morning by the programme, at the time of writing 70 percent of respondents believe that cyclists should in fact have number plates:
Should cyclists have registration plates?
— Good Morning Britain (@GMB) June 12, 2023
Oh dear… Timmy, come back!