“You can’t polish a climate turd, but you can sprinkle it with active travel glitter”: Cyclists slam proposals for ‘bike bus’ through controversial tunnel; Pogačar makes a splash (literally); Decisive Tour de France time trial + more on the live blog

The Spectator is certainly churning out the, ahem, interesting cycling takes lately, isn’t it?

Less than a month after the paper’s assistant features editor Robert Jackman told its readers to beware of the “vigilante cyclist” and “lycra-clad informant” who is “out to get you” (“you” in this instance referring to law-breaking drivers), columnist Jake Wallis Simons has claimed that, actually, there really isn’t any need for camera cyclists such as Cycling Mikey reporting instances of dangerous or distracted driving – because, apparently, “cyclists already own the roads”.

> Driver caught using mobile phone launches foul-mouthed tirade at CyclingMikey — and accuses him of supporting Chelsea

Wallis Simons, who self-describes as “one of those awful cyclists” wearing Lycra and riding Bromptons, focused the attentions of his latest column on a recent, expletive-filled Mikey video (you know, the one with the foul-mouthed, football and innuendo-obsessed phone driver), which he claims saw the famous camera cyclist pull up the motorist for a “hollow supposed offence”.

“Who exactly was the motorist endangering by texting in stationary traffic?” he asked.

Wallis Simons then questioned, after recently beginning to commute in London again on bike, “Why on Earth would anybody be a van Erp-style cycling vigilante?”

He continued: “As I’ve discovered for myself these past few weeks, cyclists already own central London.”

> “Mike van Erp is out to get you”: Spectator article tells drivers to beware of the rise of the “vigilante cyclist” and “lycra-clad informant”

“My preconception before going full Brompton was that London would be a hellhole of danger,” he writes. “Cyclists, I thought, would be disparaged and disregarded by motorists, and squashed by oblivious HGV drivers while turning suddenly left.

“What I discovered was a different world… London is a different place compared to 15 years ago. There are far more cyclists now, moving in great swarms and chevrons and phalanxes, and there are established rat-runs along cycle lanes that sometimes evoke the spirt of the peloton.

“Drivers seem hyper-aware of us, accelerating considerately, behaving courteously, crawling along behind without pounding the horn and even giving way on occasion. Once you get the hang of your regular route, and learn to predict where the traffic will come from, it feels… well, maybe not safe, but certainly not unsafe.

“All of which is to say that in central London, cyclists rule the road. Most of us don’t bother obeying red lights when there’s no reason to do so, channelling the spirit of the driver with his phone out in a traffic jam perhaps. Personally, I always observe the Highway Code, of course. But it’s bliss.”

I knew a red light would pop up eventually…

> “Italy’s cyclists are a public menace”: Spectator journalist claims Italian government’s “crackdown on cyclists is long overdue”

Anyway, Wallis Simon, continuing on with his anti-cycling bingo game, but with the clever trick of referring to himself when relying on those tropes, concluded that London is now “the cyclist’s playground: we ride the wrong way up one-way streets, cruise along the pavements, ignore zebra crossings, and flex our speed in the plentiful cycle lanes.”

Full house!

“So, van Erp, why bother with the vigilantism? Face it: we’ve won. Motorists have lost. The handlebar is the new symbol of our era. Truly, Britain has arrived in the age of the bicycle.”

Hmmm… Thoughts? Comments?

> VanMoof declared bankrupt – e-bikes remain functional for now but repairs will not be carried out

Just when you thought you’d seen every weird, head scratching proposal in the world of active travel, Transport for London go and reveal their plans for a ‘bike bus’ to shuttle cyclists through the forthcoming, and much-maligned, Silvertown Tunnel in London.

And no, I’m not talking about the kind of bike bus that sees children cycle to school in a mini parent-led peloton.

According to TfL, who announced a consultation on the plans yesterday, a “bespoke” shuttle bus could run every 10 minutes under the Thames and carry only cyclists and their bikes, which would either be brought onto the bus or loaded onto a trailer behind it.

Pedestrians would not be able to use the bus, with conventional zero-emission buses set aside for them.

The cycling shuttle bus idea comes after TfL said back in 2019 that it could not afford to build a walking and cycling bridge between Rotherhithe and Canary Wharf, and that it would be “unsafe” to allow cyclists to ride through Silvertown Tunnel, which will open in 2025 and link the Royal Docks and Canary Wharf with north Greenwich.

The new tunnel has been the subject of vociferous criticism over the years, with campaigners and councillors claiming that it will encourage car use, result in more lorries entering London, and increase pollution.

However, TfL says that the shuttle bus is the best option for cyclists crossing the river in east London as services could be tailored to “uncertain demand”. People on bikes can currently use the cable car – which is free in the morning – or walk their bike through the Greenwich or Woolwich foot tunnels, though frequent lift closures often mean cyclists are forced to carry their bikes up and down the stairs.

> Greenwich foot tunnel bike commuters face months of carrying bikes up stairs

TfL also says that they are considering in the future a cross-river ferry service which could be used by pedestrians and cyclists, though several attempts at a high-speed ferry service have been dropped in the past due to costs.

Praising the proposals for the Silvertown Tunnel shuttle bus, Will Norman, London’s walking and cycling commissioner, said: “These plans will mean that cyclists will benefit from easier travel between the Greenwich Peninsula and Silvertown, enabling more people to make the switch to active travel and helping to build a better, greener London.”

However, despite Norman’s praise, cyclists on Twitter have been scathing – to put it mildly – of the ‘bike bus’ plans.

Just repurpose the Silvertown Tunnel for cyclists and public transport. https://t.co/ypAGssgzlRpic.twitter.com/Lx73fGM5s1

— Victoria Rance (@VictoriaRance) July 17, 2023

“This is 2023. The climate is at a tipping point. We must reduce car use by 27-40 percent according to London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s own carbon plan. So putting bikes on a bus instead of creating bike lanes is bonkers. Please repurpose the Silvertown Tunnel, the sooner the better,” wrote Victoria Rance, a local teacher and the founder of the Stop the Silvertown Tunnel Coalition.

“I do also think that bus is ridiculous. It will be a huge disruption to people’s journeys,” added another Twitter user. “If there is enough demand for a bus then there should be enough demand for a bike path.”

“A city which cannot afford to build a dedicated bridge or tunnel for cycles and pedestrians, but dedicates countless billions to new infrastructure for more cars. Embarrassing,” wrote Nick.

It’s pants. Let us walk and cycle through it. Simple. All this ULEZ etc, and this is happening round the back of city hall. Why not build our bridge from Canary Wharf that was cancelled? How do you lot sleep at night if you’re as worried about emissions etc as you say you are?

— Andy Lloyd-Williams (@A_LloydWilliams) July 17, 2023

Some noted that, despite TfL’s claims that the bike bus will cater to all types of cycles, the potential difficulties in manoeuvring cargo bikes, non-standard bikes, and hand cycles off the bus.

“Doesn’t this just have all the same issues as the cable car, which also has a door on one side?” wrote Alex.

Having great fun imagining my cycle with the heavy pannier on it being a pain to get into one of those racks.

It's amazing just how many problems trying to park a cycle to move it across a river creates.

— Alex Ingram (@nuttyxander) July 17, 2023

Others, meanwhile, have referred to the proposals as “deeply impractical” and a “ham-fisted” attempt at “bikewashing” the Silvertown Tunnel project.

“Evidence that whilst you can’t polish a climate turd, you can sprinkle it with active travel glitter,” Jon chipped in (rather poetically, I may add) on the proposals.

“Silvertown Tunnel will likely increase, rather than decrease, greenhouse gas emissions, will, at best, redistribute air pollution rather than decrease it, will cause induced traffic, and is incompatible with the targets for climate action  linked to the 2015 Paris accords.”

But otherwise, it all sounds great, yeah?

So, what’s the alternative?

If this administration genuinely cared about creating a cycle crossing here, and genuinely thought a bike bus was a good solution, they'd already be running a bike bus through the existing Blackwall Tunnel. And maybe the Rotherhithe Tunnel too. 2/n

— Stop the Silvertown Tunnel Coalition (@SilvertownTn) July 17, 2023

“Repurposing the tunnel would be so much better. Or building the cycle bridge,” argued the Greenwich branch of the London Cycling Campaign.

“All Silvertown will bring is more pollution and more congestion. It is incompatible with a responsible climate policy in its current form.”

The Tour de France is the greatest sporting event in the world, and you’ll never convince me otherwise #tdf2023pic.twitter.com/092yyiE0KU

— Myles Smith (@mylessmith33) July 18, 2023

> Tour de France TV broadcasts urged to give stage winners more airtime over GC battle

CPA riders’ union president Adam Hansen has called on broadcasters to give riders and sponsors the “exposure they deserve”, after stage 15 winner Wout Poels got around two seconds of airtime as he celebrated crossing the line on Sunday in Saint-Gervais – before the television director abruptly cut back to the GC group.

What do you reckon? Would split screens – showing both the breakaway and the GC battle, as Hansen suggests – solve the problem and provide fans with a better viewing experience?

Or is the sometimes chaotic nature of watching pro cycling on television, and the inability to cover every aspect of the action as it unfolds on the road, part of its charm?

For example (and I know this doesn’t apply to the Wout Poels case), how many times have you excitedly shouted at the TV ‘Where did they come from!’, when a rider seemingly appears from nowhere at the pointy end of a race?

Or what about bringing in, at least on online platforms like GCN, a choice of which group you want to watch, like the old ‘Player Cam’ function on Sky Sports’ football coverage.

What’s the UCI’s number again?

Right folks, it’s time. After yesterday’s much-needed rest day, one of the tightest and most hotly contested Tours de France in years returns this afternoon, with a tough, complicated 22.4km time trial in the foothills of the Alps.

It may be the only effort against the clock in this most rouleur-phobic of Tour routes, but they don’t call it the Race of Truth for nothing. Today, Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard will take a break from their two-week-long roles as each other’s shadows, tactics and bonus points set aside, and leave everything out there on the road, the yellow jersey on the line.

And, if I’m honest, I have no clue who’s going to come out on top.

Because, as Simon noted in his Tour preview, time trials may be the race of truth, but today’s mix of short, sharp hills and fast rolling terrain proves that the truth can often be complex.

The early climb on today’s course, the Côte de la Cascade de Coeur – 1.5km at eight percent – will precede around 12km of flat-out effort on wide roads with sweeping bends, until the main event, the Côte de Domancy, which the riders will tackle in the last six kilometres of their TT effort.

At 2.5km and an average gradient of 9.4 percent, with sections of more than 15 percent, the Côte de Domancy is roughly the equivalent of tackling Belgium’s famous Mur de Huy twice, and raises arguably the all-important question of today’s time trial – to change bikes or not to change bikes?

For cycling fans of a certain age, the Domancy is also synonymous with five-time Tour winner Bernard Hinault’s dominant victory at the 1980 world road race championships in Sallanches, when it was climbed a staggering 20 times over the course of a brutal 268km that saw only 15 riders finish. So you know it’s going to be hard.

In many respects, today’s mixed terrain time trial has echoes of that Tour-upending final TT at La Planche des Belles Filles in 2020, something which may fill white jersey Pogačar with confidence as he heads to the start ramp this afternoon, and the whole of the Jumbo-Visma crew with dread…