In case you missed it, there was a heck of whataboutery and the usual anti-cycling bingo taking place when West Mercia Police's Malvern force decided to introduce plain clothes officers patrolling the streets on bikes to catch motorists close passing cyclists — road tax, slow moving, stick to the left — you know the drill.
Here's what road.cc readers and other cyclists think about the whole deal.
David9694: "Hopefully, and to the extent they engage with them, the comments "backlash" help confirm the need for this type of operation to be a regular feature. As always, drivers' sense of victim-hood knows no bounds. Why you would make a political priority out of trying to appease such a bunch of whingers is beyond me."
andystow:"Drivers: please stop close passing, injuring, and killing cyclists so that police can solve shoplifting and maybe rape which are currently only happening because police are having to do Operation Close Pass."
wtjs:"...the really bad forces like Lancashire have never conducted a 'close pass operation', have no intention of doing so and determinedly ignore any reports of close passing. Mikey is doing a great job, but he's lucky in not living in an area where the 'Sod the Cyclists' Dark Side of the Force remains in control"
On Facebook, Debbie MacColl wrote: "Just goes to show that the general motorist has no idea how dangerous they really are…. Keep up the good work with the Op I say!"
A few reactions from cyclists on Twitter:
This is a great initiative. Thank you for your important work on road crime prevention. Passing cyclists at 1.5m when driving below 30mph is easy to achieve, and it ensures the safety of those more vulnerable on the roads. It’s always good to show we care.
— Tim on two wheels (@2wheelsgoodBrum) August 6, 2023
Well done and thank u. The people who have joined this thread who aren't aware that road crime is real crime, and those who choose to drive like they don't care about anyone but themselves absolutely need education at the roadside like this, or through fines. Top job!
— YMM (@Chin_up_YM) August 7, 2023
Well, the Tarmac SL8 is finally, officially out now. But ever since we noticed the leaks, the road.cc team has been scratching its head over that protruding bulge on the head tube, what many internet forums have now already dubbed as the 'speed sniffer'.
But once again thanks to the internet, people have started realising the feature's potential. And I don't mean the marginal aero gains, it's the potential for endless memes.
First of the many, hopefully, courtesy of Mr Steven Pinter.
Personally, I wouldn't mind a little Homer bobblehead rocking up and down on my stem, even if it meant giving all the aeroheads an instant aneurysm.
And in case you missed it, Jamie has already had a chance to test it and give his first impressions on the brand new flagship model of Specialized.
Adam Hansen, the president of CPA, the union that represents the pro riders to the UCI, seems to be in a bit of a pickle.
After climate activists This is Rigged brought the entire peloton to a standstill for more than an hour eighty kilometres into the elite men's road race at Glasgow yesterday, with some protestors "cementing their hands" to the tarmac, Hansen felt compelled to say something.
First he issued this statement: "A message to the protesters. What you did in today's race did the opposite to help the environment. While a bike race might not be the best thing for the environment, the impact of exposing people the thought of taking up cycling is key for the environment. Getting more people to ride bikes and means cars drive less.
"Also, those orange safety vest you all wear.... made from petroleum.... your glasses, shoe soles, plastic on the tips of shoe laces, buttons, debit/credit cards... yeah, made from Oil... just saying."
Now I don't know if you'll agree with me, but not a great look. Strawman arguments may seem clever in your head, but they never look good on paper, especially if the paper is called Twitter (sorry not sorry, Elon).
And expectedly, most fans pointed this out to him.
Adam, I love pro cycling but I support this protest. Individual use of cars has very little to do with pro cycling. And anyway this is a call for gov., not personal, action. And third, strawmen arguments are really old now. Do better. pic.twitter.com/Aq0GoJJ2mL
— Rich Francksen (@RMFrancksen) August 6, 2023
I know, but it affected the riders....
— Adam Hansen (@HansenAdam) August 6, 2023
Poor take. 1st there's not much connection between pro racing and people taking up cycling for everyday transport. 2nd, they're looking for government action, not nudging the population to take personal responsibility for things they cant solve. 3rd, we all participate in society
— Dr Headgear (@DrHeadgear) August 6, 2023
Hansen's response? Accusing trolls for attacking him. He also added: "It's ironic that those who complain about 'some sponsors' in cycling didn't support the protest themselves by turning off the TV......"
Maybe I should have written my tweet differently as people think I dont care for the environment. I support the cause behind the protest, but I kindly asked for it to be in a different location to avoid disrupting my riders. Sadly, some trolls attacked me for expressing this. You…
— Adam Hansen (@HansenAdam) August 6, 2023
Maybe I'm being too harsh on him, he's got a tough job protecting the riders. And Hansen, to his credit, tried to explain his position by saying: "I'm not saying don't protest. Protest! I'm not denying I am perfect or that there are no climate problems. I know the science very well. I do my part. I'm also a vegan. I don't believe in killing or abusing animals."
Good response, right? Erm, he finished with the tweet with this: "But I don't throat it down people's throat. I don't stop an event where 100s of athlete's have worked years to do their best while following their dreams. You disrupt my athletes, and of course, I am going to defend them. My tweet is not about a climate issue, but the way you handled it and stopped a group of guys on bikes who trained years of their lives on bikes.. how about you protest somewhere else where it's a real issue."
Funnily enough, This is Rigged have recently targeted the Scottish Parliament and the Grangemouth oil and gas petrochemical plant, the largest manufacturing site of cycling team sponsor Ineos. And to be fair, it's not like a cycling event is the cleanest, greenest sporting competition in the world.
> "Greenwashing, pure and simple" - fury as Shell UK sponsors British Cycling
Hmm. Protest, for thee, but not for me?
Hi Adam, Cycling fan / cartoonist here. My unsolicited take: you’re doing your job on behalf of riders, fair enough. But equally: the protests aren’t aimed at riders, but the sport, which unfortunately is, fairly undeniably, a vehicle for greenwashing by companies and countries. pic.twitter.com/BVKjRZlU1V
— Dave Walker (@davewalker) August 6, 2023
As I said, Hansen is probably just focused on doing his job, and has landed in a bit of a pickle.
On the lighter side, British rider Owain Doull seemed to be glad about the protest helping him out to attend a nature's call.
"I was busting for a pee, so I was quite happy to stop. They did me a favour!" the 30-year-old, who finished 18th after his stint in the break, joked to reporters, including road.cc, at the finish.
Well I would have coloured my pants. And been lofted a few metres across the fence...
E Bettiol que atropelou sua própria caramanhola#Glasgow23#ciclismonaespnpic.twitter.com/MflTtli4D0
— O País do Ciclismo (@opaisdociclismo) August 6, 2023
Take a BOA, van der Poel.
Amidst all the heroics of a laudable solo victory, you would almost forget that the new world champion suffered a horrible crash with just 16km to go, while navigating a right-hander on the rain soaked tarmac of Glasgow's roads in yesterday's men's elite road race world championship.
The crash left him with a ripped jersey, a bruised shoulder and torso, and a damaged cleat. He still somehow managed to win, by more than a minute and a half.
Van der Poel at UCI World Championships Glasgow (Thomas Maheux/SWpix.com)
As he was getting back up on his saddle, you could see the top BOA dial floating about on his personalised Shimano S-Phyre RC903 — now almost at the back of the shoe, barely held together by the laces but it wasn't doing much, definitely not what it was originally supposed to.
The cyclocross — and now, the road world champion, spent the next few minutes fiddling with the BOA dial, with this footage showing him getting fed up and ripping the thing off. And just like that, the dial was gone.
Mathieu van der Poel. For all your cycling shoe repairs. #GlasgowScotland2023pic.twitter.com/5yGPzbVzro
— Gert-jan Warrink (@GWarrink) August 6, 2023
Might as well put on some carbon loafers and win the damn thing, Mathieu?
Is the broken dial already on eBay?😂
— US_Cyclo (@James_Scheel) August 6, 2023
Imagine going to a pub for a couple pints at Glasgow and your bartender has a bracelet on his wrist with the dial attached.
Van der Poel after winning World Championship (Pauline Ballet/SWpix.com)
The Dutch rider, despite the setbacks, was on full gas, fending off his age-old rival Wout van Aert and two-time Tour winner Tadej Pogačar for the rainbow jersey. And just like he did on his way to victory at Paris-Roubaix, he displayed his immense bike-handling skills (ahem, courtsey of 'cross), as he navigated the cruel conditions and the even more cruel circuit for the race through the streets of Glasgow.
Van der Poel lucky here... 5cm from barrier sandbags (and us) in the wet. #glasgow2023#vanderpoelpic.twitter.com/PhR7FgKisQ
— cd (@saunaboy1975) August 6, 2023
Lucky? Nah, just better than the rest of us.
While yesterday's race was a unanimous success on all fronts, I have been seeing a few allegations being levelled at Glasgow for the route.
An ugly route, but it surely delivered a very entertaining race. I watch cycling for the race, not the surroundings. 😅 #GlasgowScotland2023
— Benji Naesen (@BenjiNaesen) August 6, 2023
While I understand riders' claims about safety and that the route was ill-planned in hindsight, with French rider Florian Sénécha even described the 14.3km city circuit and its roughly 50 corners "death race", I am really struggling to understand how are people finding Glasgow ugly...
Good morning everyone! 😁
Still thinking about yesterday...yep us too 😍 #GlasgowScotland2023🏴 pic.twitter.com/3PeC8quZzt
— 2023 UCI Cycling World Championships (@CyclingWorlds) August 7, 2023
Photo of the day 😍#GlasgowScotland2023pic.twitter.com/m3XgytU7tv
— UCI (@UCI_cycling) August 6, 2023
Today's fans 🥰
300,000 people lined the roads between Edinburgh & Glasgow 🏴 #GlasgowScotland2023pic.twitter.com/CnlaOKQ1nN
— UCI (@UCI_cycling) August 6, 2023
Laden with an eclectic blend of Gothic and Victorian architecture, with exhuberant and respectful fans lined up alongside the streets, and not to mention, the brutal climbs peppered nicely along the streets making it an especially punchy circuit, how are people finding this city ugly? Any Glaswegians or Scots in the comments, let me know how you feel about this.
After that exhilarating day of action, here's a reaction roundup on the blog. To kick things off, the view from the inside of Sir Chris Hoy velodrome from Ryan, witnessing "one of the greatest sporting moments" he's ever seen live, as Pippo Ganna beat the clock to take victory against home-crowd's favourite Dan Bigham.
Well that was one of the greatest sporting moments I've ever seen live. Good job I ran from the station to make it in time pic.twitter.com/O72eidw6b4
— Ryan Mallon (@ryanmallon92) August 6, 2023
𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐀 𝐅𝐈𝐍𝐈𝐒𝐇! 🤯
An incredible ride from Filippo Ganna to win gold in the Men’s Elite Individual Pursuit! 🥇 pic.twitter.com/2WVCwrKMnw
— Eurosport (@eurosport) August 6, 2023
Not to forget Lotte Kopecky, who performed a monster ride herself as she took home the gold medal and cemented herself as one of the cycling greats.
Winner of Ronde van Vlaanderen, 2nd place in Tour de France Femmes and now world champion on track. Lotte Kopecky, what a legend. She can do them all. 🎩 #GlasgowScotland2023pic.twitter.com/P9XTAImpeS
— Mihai Simion (@faustocoppi60) August 6, 2023
And then we had this epic road race, one that will go down as an all-time classic and stay in the memory for ages.
A podium made of Mathieu van der Poel, Wout van Aert and Tadej Pogačar. We are blessed.
11 years later Mathieu van der Poel is the 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒍𝒅 𝒓𝒐𝒂𝒅 𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒆 𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒎𝒑𝒊𝒐𝒏! 🏆 pic.twitter.com/UWC8KTFDN1
— Eurosport (@eurosport) August 6, 2023
Including this dramatic crash with just 16km to go, which saw van der Poel go down, leaving him with a ripped jersey, a bloodied jersey and a broken shoe. Still not enough to slow him down apparently, making him the first Dutch champion in 38 years, when Joop Zoetemelk beat Greg LeMond in 1985.
But just look at this group of riders chasing Bettiol down.
There's no better group than this one. #GlasgowScotland2023🌈 pic.twitter.com/8pDg6Tqqxo
— Aleksandra Górska (@miss_gorska) August 6, 2023
Attack after attack, crashes, drama, rain. Everything, the race had everything. If I may sum up how I started, using Ryan's tweet.
Siri, sum up that race in one image#GlasgowScotland2023pic.twitter.com/MjKXG0fxW9
— Ryan Mallon (@ryanmallon92) August 6, 2023
About eighty kilometres into the opening portion of yesterday’s race, which took the riders from Edinburgh to the city centre circuit in Glasgow, a group of protesters glued themselves to the road, forcing the race to be neutralised for almost an hour as the police and race organisers dealt with the situation (and the riders did their best to keep warm and occupy themselves during the unplanned hiatus).
West Mercia Police's local policing team, Malvern Cops announced this weekend that they are introducing some plain clothes Operation Close Pass cycle patrols.
They said they're hoping that publicising this activity will make "drivers think more carefully when passing any cyclist and not just uniformed police officers", adding that the patrolling cops will be armed with cameras to record the road users.
I'm sure the response the team got is unfortunately not the one they were hoping for.
Has the police considered actually solving real crimes such as rape and robbery, including shoplifting, instead of wasting taxpayers' money on woke propaganda stunts?
— Mike P. Jones (@Jones_M_P) August 6, 2023
If we see cyclists not adhering to the rules of the road then they will be dealt with in the same way as motorists. We are not adverse to giving a cyclist a ticket for jumping a red light and the officer in this picture has issued two such tickets to cyclists.
— Malvern Cops (@MalvernCops) August 6, 2023
Ranging from classic whataboutery and people still believing road tax is a thing, to the MGIF mentality and then just, plain hostility, it's a full house folks.
Now I know we have reported on motorists playing the anti-cycling bingo many-a-times, but it's surprising and disappointing to see the cops receiving the sort of backlash that would make anyone believe that all the work to encourage cycling never really happened and it's back to the Thatcherite 90s once again.
> West Midlands Police’s plain clothes cyclists spurn hi-vis
Thankfully, it wasn't all bad.
Detective Chief Superintendent Andy Cox applauded the Malvern Cops, saying that it was "an excellent move… Initiatives such as this can really help awareness and positively influence driving behaviours".
Meanwhile several other users also tagged their local police force to take inspiration for such initiatives and wondered if they would see officers cycling in plain clothes any time soon, with one person even pointing out how "easy" this initiative be to replicate.
Well, easy enough that cyclists do it everyday!
Mike van Erp, or more popularly known as CyclingMikey, meanwhile was also educating ignorant drivers about how cyclists are supposed to ride.
No, that's completely wrong. If you want to overtake, go in the next lane. Many of us run video cameras and if you squeeze past in the same lane we'll report you for prosecution. pic.twitter.com/OxAQsU5940
— CyclingMikey (@MikeyCycling) August 6, 2023
And finally, Malvern Cops confirmed that they will be apprehending cyclists all the same if they notice someone breaking any laws.
"If we see cyclists not adhering to the rules of the road then they will be dealt with in the same way as motorists," they wrote. "We are not adverse to giving a cyclist a ticket for jumping a red light and the officer in this picture has issued two such tickets to cyclists."
One of the best days of cycling I've seen, for sure, as the best of the best road racers duked it out for almost seven hours on the rainy roads and monstrous climbs of Glasgow — not very dissimilar from the treacherous cyclocross conditions we are used to seeing in the winter, explaining one Dutch giant's triumph to some extent even though it still seems unbelievable. And then, an Italian clinching victory by the teeth, putting up a final lap performance for the ages that saw him beat a lad from Stafford on his home soil, by the merest of margins — 0.054 seconds.
Filippo Ganna, against odds, against the roars of the crowd, shushed the Sir Chris Hoy velodrome into silence, staging a comeback as he beat Team Great Britain's Dan Bigham, who had led for the most part and put up a phenomenal ride himself, in the men's individual pursuit at UCI World Championships.
But as all that was taking place inside the velodrome, the men's elite racers had somewhat of an, well, elite race themselves (to put it mildly). Team Belgium, stacked with powerful riders including Remco Evenepoel, defending his champion's rainbow jersey and Wout van Aert, the all-rounder like none other, and then there was everyone's beloved Slovenian Tadej Pogacar, with Danish Mads Pederson and even Italy's Alberto Bettiol showing their brilliance.
But in the end, it was only one rider at the top of the podium. Netherland's Mathieu van der Poel, the current cyclocross champion, now donning the rainbow jersey of the men's road race champion as well. And what a season he's had, beating his age-old rival van Aert in cyclocross in February, winning Milan San-Remo to emulate his grandfather, the great Raymond Poulidor, beating van Aert again at Paris-Roubaix, then executing flawless leadouts to seal the green jersey for his teammate Jasper Philipsen at the Tour. And now, once again, like inseparable entities, beating Van Aert to yesterday's victory.
It still feels surreal (Ryan is one lucky man to have seen it live), but now, it's back to reality. And here's all the roundup over the weekend from Glasgow...
> UCI Cycling World Championships road race stopped as protester reportedly “cements hand to road”
What a weekend! I'll have something up for you in a while about those two days of pure wheel-to-wheel racing, but before that, here's everything else that went down.