We've got a new anti-cycling ranter to bring you this Friday... introducing... former England striker and Premier League journeyman... Peter Crouch...
The retired footballer, famous for his distinctive build and robot goal celebration, has turned into something of a media personality since hanging up his boots, regularly appearing on TV and podcasts. We can't say we've listened to it before... but the most recent episode of his own podcast, 'The Therapy Crouch', involved his wife listening, apparently fairly baffled by his disgust, while he launched into a minute-long rant about cyclists...
Crouch was clinical in front of goal early on, tapping in some of the old favourites with ease... "I do have an issue with the cyclist thing... you don't have to be a knob... you don't have to run people over on the pavement... you don't have to go through red lights whenever you feel like it..."
"You don't have to be a knob" is sound life advice, to be fair, possibly for anyone podcasting to a major audience too, perhaps? Anyway, onwards...
"You don't have to do that one, and I know the law says to do it, the one where you double bike," he continued, referring to two-abreast road positioning. Faced with the first questions from his wife, Crouch says he sees it all the time when driving...
> Why do cyclists ride two abreast?
"They do it to me on a country lane and you go, just go [single file] for one second and then I'll get past you. But they go, 'no, no, it's the rules, they told us to do it'. Piss off... and they wear them [those] silly little cleats in coffee shops."
"God, I didn't know Pete had such a hatred of bikers," co-host and wife Abbey Clancy concludes, before one more bizarre rant about cyclists not ordering normal coffees, instead going for a "frothuccino with double oat milk". Material not too dissimilar from a certain Jacob Rees-Mogg's extraordinary milk-tasting segment on GB News this week...
Can you do cyclists now Jacob? It's a slow news day for us too ya know🤷♂️ https://t.co/fOBUjCp4ht
— road.cc (@roadcc) February 21, 2024
Leukaemia UK has seven charity places left for RideLondon on Sunday 26 May, the charity telling us:
We would love for you to join team Leukaemia UK and be part of something spectacular! To secure your place in RideLondon, please click here https://www.leukaemiauk.org.uk/event/ride-london-may-2024/, and sign up today. We will be in touch with next steps and more information.
You'll get a Leukaemia UK jersey, challenge pack and access to the Leukaemia UK Strava group, as well as dedicated support from a cycle team lead, plus training advice. Email fundraising [at] leukaemiauk.org.uk if you're interested.
Defending champion Jonas Vingegaard WINS Stage 2 of O Gran Camino! 👏👏👏@ograncamino_igt | #OGC24pic.twitter.com/hcDWkzW51I
— Eurosport (@eurosport) February 23, 2024
Not that he ever went away... after taking it easy during yesterday's neutralised time trial, Jonas Vingegaard is back blowing up bike races again today, winning his first of 2024. That makes it two from two for Visma - Lease a Bike today, what they'd do to go two from two tomorrow... no pressure, Wout, Marianne, Christophe, Dylan and Co.
Checked out the latest episode of the road.cc Podcast yet? In episode 71 we talk to Darach McQuaid, the former chairman and current advisor to pro cycling outfit GreenEDGE Cycling, to discuss some big elephants in the room when it comes to the dichotomy between professional cycling and cycling as a mode of transport.
A few of you who have listened had some thoughts on that...
mctrials23: "My issue with all these complaints is that unless people want the money to drain out of sport, the richest companies who can afford to prop them up are always and I mean always scummy. You don't become a multi-billion dollar company by being nice.
"In the grand scheme of things, how bad is the Tour de France? I'm sure its not great but I imagine that a few thousand people's unnecessary journeys for the year equate to something similar. People celebrate the likes of Taylor Swift and don't really seem to care that she swans around the world on private jets on a whim. Basically, try and make it better without killing the sport but perhaps go after the really big-ticket items."
IanEdward: "I would love to see them doing something about the motorcade of vehicles that follows the peloton, I was struck by the visual of a solitary climber at the head of the race, high up some Alpine climb, almost indistinguishable against the background of cars and motorbikes behind him! I love the footage we get these days but is there not a better way?"
mark1a shared one of Dave Walker's brilliant cartoons...
🇧🇪 #OHN24
There he goes ⚡️ pic.twitter.com/rXmLXZjeo2
— Team Visma | Lease a Bike (@vismaleaseabike) February 23, 2024
[Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com]
Three-time world champion Peter Sagan will undergo a heart procedure having experienced an abnormal tachycardic episode during a recent mountain bike race in Spain, when his heart rate exceeded 200bpm.
La Gazzetta dello Sport broke the news, the Slovakian rider who is concentrating his efforts on competing in mountain biking at the Paris Olympics following the end of a 15-year road career experiencing the unusually high heart rate at the Chelva mountain bike race near Valencia last weekend.
The procedure reportedly involves an ablation — the heating or freezing of part of the heart to create scar tissue in an attempt to correct the arrhythmia.
Olav Kooij won stage five... just...
The lesser-spotted Mark Cavendish, who has been largely anonymous this week, appeared at the front following some strong lead-out work by his Astana Qazaqstan teammates, sprinted for a short while before pulling the plug and dropping back through the field. Save it all for July, Cav...
That left double stage winner Tim Merlier and Kooij to battle it out, the Team Visma | Lease a Bike fastman (it's going to take a while to get used to that name) just getting in front on the line.
Over at Tour du Rwanda, a British rider for Israel - Premier Tech won the summit finish stage at Mont Kigali. Unfortunately for any Chris Froome fans reading, that winner was 21-year-old Joseph Blackmore... not the four-time Tour winner.
Adam Tranter has expressed support for calls from police chiefs for officers to be able to ban drink and drug drivers at the roadside. Chief Constable Jo Shiner, the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) lead for roads policing, took to the press calling for the immediate action to be allowed without need for a sentencing hearing at a magistrates' court. Currently, drivers charged with such offences are still able to drive in the time before they are sentenced.
The West Midlands-based walking and cycling commissioner Tranter said: "Driving is a privilege and not a right. We should take dangerous drivers off the road as soon as possible. Ordinarily, even those who kill people when driving will be able to keep driving until the case gets to court, sometimes years later."
Chief Constable Shiner said: "The ability for us to be able to disqualify people either for drink or drug-driving by the roadside would mean that we can immediately take that risk off the road. And those people can't be behind the wheel, particularly if they've blown well over the legal limit."
Force chiefs are said to be in early discussions looking at the way tests could be enforced to allow officers to ban drink and drug drivers immediately at the roadside.
"We should have greater sentencing and far greater sentences"
Shiner went on to call for tougher punishments for those who kill while under the influence, including potential murder charges.
"We should have greater sentencing and far greater sentences, particularly for those people who do kill or seriously injure people on the roads," she told Sky News.
"I actually do believe that if someone makes that decision to get behind the wheel, under the influence of drink or drugs, that is a conscious decision they have made to get into a vehicle and therefore to put other people at risk.
"I think we really do need to work hard on making sure that we're strengthening the sentencing and making sure that we are properly using, where we can, sentencing that is already available to us."
[Zac Williams/SWpix.com]
Team dsm-firmenich climber Warren Barguil, winner of two stages and the KOM jersey at the 2017 Tour de France, told an amusing tale on Twitter this morning, namely how he, one of the most talented cyclists in the world, was accused of cheating by using an e-bike on the school run... by a fellow parent (driving a car)...
Firstly, for those at the back, e-bikes aren't cheating (unless motor doping), more people on bikes = a good thing. Barguil wrote on Twitter...
Someone made a comment to me the other day because I bring the children to school by electric bike, the mr tells me 'it's cheating on an e-bike' the Mr drops the children off by car 🤣🤣
[Simon Wilkinson/SWpix.com]
Former pro Dan Martin has spoken to the Irish Times about road safety, explaining how the longer his career went on the more aware he became of the dangers both in racing, and just when training out on the road.
Martin was promoting the launch of a L’Étape de Tour sportive in Ireland, visiting the country for the first time in Killarney on September 7. However, the interview also came to the backdrop of yet another cyclist death on Irish roads, John Walsh the second UCD Cycling Club member to be killed in a collision in less than a year, after Gabriele Goldenyte was killed last May.
"Even when we're fortunate to live in Andorra, or Girona, there are so many vehicles on the road now. Going out on the bike every day, you do have near misses constantly in cycling, and that is scary," Martin said.
"I think everyone seems to be in such a rush now, to get anywhere, rushing to get to work, wherever. It's a difficult one, it comes from both sides as well, because cycling safety comes from the cyclist and the motorist. As far as being respectful of where you ride on the road. But also with the vehicle, the cars, there does seem to be a misunderstanding that a cyclist is a human being as well.
"I do believe the more people we get on bikes, the safer the roads will become. Because if everyone motorist knows a cyclist, or knows somebody who rides a bike, they're inevitably going to become more careful around cyclists. That's why it's about pushing the sport out there as far as we can, and get the understanding this is a son or daughter on a bike, not something in your way."
[Zac Williams/SWpix.com]
Don't worry, folks. This appears to be the final thing to say on this, hopefully we can leave the whole episode after this week...
Patrick Lefevere sought to clarify his criticism of Julian Alaphilippe and partner Marion Rousse at a press conference ahead of this weekend's classics action. With Alaphilippe in the room, sat nearby as members of the press questioned Soudal Quick-Step's big names ahead of Omloop Het Nieuwsblad much of the attention was, naturally, on team boss Lefevere and the storm he caused this week.
> CPA accused of not standing up to Lefevere's "bullying"
"This interview was three hours, the passage about Julian was three minutes," Lefevere said, HLN.be reporting the 69-year-old held clear-the-air talks with the two-time world champion earlier in the day.
"As always, my Dutch is not always well understood," he claimed. "But maybe I made a mistake to speak about this. I [talked] about November 2022, and it's 2024 now. I understand there is not much news at the moment. I can set all that aside, and I hope Julian himself can, too."
Lefevere joked that he'd only had two or three glasses of wine before laying into his star rider's own drinking habits...
"That was certainly not the intention. The interview lasted three hours, and it's not like we had already drunk three bottles of wine. Two or three glasses [...] I mentioned that I spoke with Julian, his manager Dries Smets and Marion Rousse in November 2022. I said that he had to do better and that he had to work hard, and Julian did that too.
"It was not my intention at all to offend him, but the press jumped on it, his wife then started to react, and as a result, it also spread in France. Completely unnecessary, of course. But at the same time, I realise that perhaps I should have phrased it differently."
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner...
On yesterday's live blog it was the bike lane blocked by... a bicycle hire company's truck, but this beats that, in my book. Welcome to the Ladypool Road cycle lane in Birmingham where you might find your path obstructed... by a sign advertising a car wash... that asks "please do not block the entrance of car wash". Perfection.
Naomi spotted the blockage (which was hard to miss, to be fair) and then the slightly more obscure, but tremendous, messaging on the infrastructure-impeding sign.
"First time on the cycle lane on Ladypool Rd this morning and came upon this sign with an ironic (and hidden) request," she wrote on social media.
Moseley councillor Izzy Knowles replied saying the car wash has new owners, this presumably their day job when they're not being top-tier comics, and said that she would "pop down and speak to them".
That's left us imagining the quite bizarre scene... "Hi guys, just a quick one... you know that sign you've got for the car wash? Yeah... the one that says 'please don't block the entrance to car wash'... yeah... just erm... we were wondering if... well, you know... it might be an idea not to block the cycle lane with the sign asking people not to block the car wash? It's just an idea..."
I think we've peaked this live blog too early, I fear it's all downhill from here... (which, as a saying and going on my first tangent of the day, actually sounds like a positive if you're a cyclist...)