I know it can get quite disheartening to see all the rhetoric and lambasting of cyclists, mostly for nothing from not only trolls and strangers online, but sometimes also from your elected representatives. So, here’s a little ray of uplifting news on the live blog to cheer you up this morning.
David Barker, Labour & Co-operative Councillor in Birmingham, has received kudos and glowing remarks from cyclists after he shared his journey of learning to cycle as an adult with dyspraxia, a type of developmental coordination disorder that makes movements and balancing more difficult.
A year ago today, I got a bike for my birthday and tried learning to cycle for the first time. I've made a little video for fun to show my journey over the past twelve months.
I didn't think I'd be able to, so if you've never learned or want to try again, this is your sign🚴 pic.twitter.com/039kclCUxR— Councillor David Barker (@David4BKH) April 10, 2024
He says in the video: “A year ago I set myself the challenge to learn to ride a bike. I got a bike for my birthday, spending the morning watching instructional videos. First, I attempted to balance, then pedal, always expecting to fall or crash. I never did, and within a month, I had the basics down. I even found Bikeability lessons for adults, who, like me, were learning for the first time.
“Growing up, I never tried to learn. I was a clumsy child constantly tripping or bumping into things. At university, I was diagnosed with dyspraxia. Dyspraxia is a neurological condition that makes balance and coordination more difficult. It was a relief at the time to have an explanation for why some things were harder. But it also meant I gave up hoping I could learn to cycle. I thought if I tried, I would just fall off.
“I’ve spent a lot of time as a councillor looking at how to make active travel easier. People were often surprised when I told them I couldn’t cycle, but encouraged me to try. So a year ago, I set myself the challenge to learn to ride a bike. I thought, if I fall off, I can try again. And if I can’t pick it up, at least I’ve tried.
“I knew it would be nice, getting around the ward quicker, without needing a car. It’s helped me to understand how unsafe cyclists can be on the road. It’s not a surprise to learn more when you pick up a skill. But I didn’t expect it to be so freeing, to feel more confident, less held back.
“I’ve seen parts of the city I hadn’t before, or even just in a new way. It’s also been really fun. I think that’s important. Because if you’re like me and never learnt, or just haven’t cycled in a long time, I hope you see this and think, if I can do it, and have fun, you can too.”
I’m not going to lie, watching the video has made me really want to jump on my bike and go for a quick little spin. What a beautiful and liberating tool a bicycle can be!
Barker, who shared the little video on Twitter, has been showered upon with praise by many cyclists and active travel campaigners, including Jeremy Vine, who congratulated his efforts and welcomed him as one of their own.
87% of UK adults know how to cycle, including one more now!
Only 75% know how to drive a car.
So that's about 5 million more adults knowing how to ride a bike than to drive.
And then there's the children...
Sources: BHF, DfT— Oxfordshire Cycling Network (@OxonCyclingNet) April 10, 2024
Green councillor for Oxford Emily Kerr wrote: “This is such a lovely video, thank-you for sharing and what a brilliant journey. Cycling is such fun isn’t it?!”, while Liz Clements, Birmingham’s Cabinet Minister of Transport, replied saying: “Lovely to see this David and you’re right, that sense of freedom when you’e riding a bike is something special!”
Tim, another cyclist and campaigner from Birmingham said: “Wonderful to see your story, David. Cycling as joy; cycling as liberation. So great that you shared the story. I hope it motivates others to learn to ride, too. However old they are.”
Behold the mighty Brompton world championships, for it is back in search of the strongest victor! And the organisers don’t want any lycra! Instead, they encourage you to show off your personality with your choice of the whackiest costumes.
The organisers wrote: “The world-renowned race, which last took place in the capital in 2019, will return to London on Saturday 22nd June and will see cyclists from across the globe go head to head on a one-of-a-kind criterium circuit in the heart of Coal Drops Yard, Kings Cross.
Brompton, manufacturers of the vastly popular folding bike, has been hosting unique events in locations around the world since 2008. They aded: “Forget the lycra - instead race participants are encouraged to show off their personality through their choice of cycling outfit, the whackier, the better, before hopping into the saddle of a Brompton and making their way around a specially designed course.”
In another blow to the Belgian’s 2024 road season, Visma Lease a Bike has announced that Wout van Aert won’t recover in time to start the Giro d’Italia. The crash at Dwars door Vlaanderen in the run-up to the two cobbled monuments which Van Aert had his sights on has proved extremely unfortunate, with him breaking his collarbone and ribs and ultimately ruling him out for the entire classics season, as well as the Giro now.
> Is Wout’s Ronde dream over? Disastrous crash takes out Flanders favourite Van Aert
In the video announcement, Wout van Aert said: “Hello everyone I’m really happy to tell you that I’m doing well, recovering from all my injuries at the moment after my crash in Dwars door Vlaanderen. A lot of injuries are quite good at the moment but my ribs are still a limiting factor. So at this point I cannot train at all. I’m still trying to do my first pedal strokes on the bike, but [it’s] not enough to train.
“That’s why we made the decision to not start in the Giro d’Italia. It’s a big shame, I’m really disappointed to miss out on my second big goal of the season but at this moment I need to prioritise my health and I need to give my body the time to recover.”
Message from @WoutvanAert❤️ pic.twitter.com/XNJWqg6QoF
— Team Visma | Lease a Bike (@vismaleaseabike) April 11, 2024
Van Aert will most probably be seen next in action at the Olympics then, with the 29-year-old punchy all-rounder set to miss the Tour de France for the first time in five years, instead focusing on the Paris Olympics. He was set to race the Giro and Vuelta for the first time, but with the Italian Grand Tour ruled out, it’s already looking like another unfortunate season for the Belgian, who also missed out on his goal of winning the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix.
Bianchi has hit back in the fallout to Paris-Roubaix which saw Florian Sénéchal claim his bike had been on the verge of giving out on the cobbles, the manufacturer blaming Arkea B&B Hotels mechanics for disregarding "specific instructions" about assembling handlebars, causing "disparities in the handling of the bicycles in competition".
The legend of Mike ‘Puffa’ Jones is now perhaps a well-known one amongst cyclists. But it makes me glad to see that his name is spreading beyond too.
But in case you aren’t aware of who he is, Puffa Jones is a 49-year-old from Newport, Wales. His Freebikes4kids project collects and takes deliveries of unused, unwanted, broken, or outgrown kids bikes. He cleans and repairs them, and delivers them for free to kids who haven’t got a bike and might, nay, should be having one.
How it all started? He shared his story with BBC Radio Wales. “I had young grandchildren and I drove past a charity shop and saw a bike outside in the rain,” he said. “So I bought that, I think it was for £4 or something ridiculous. I made it look tidy for him, my grandson.”
“And then I put a picture on Twitter and then people just started messaging me saying, ‘Have you got any more bikes? Can you fix this bike? Can you get a bike for this age?’. And it just exploded from there.”
Please dont scrap old bikes.
Many can be rescued and given to a child that may never have owned a bike of their own.
Bikes are gifted for FREE once I have repaired them.
Please contact me if you have old bikes in your shed or garage that you would like to donate.#cycling#freepic.twitter.com/B41J38iBj2— PuffaJones (@PuffaJones) November 24, 2019
After that, people started asking him if he had any more bikes. He also tweeted from his personal account asking for old bikes from people who had lying around in their garages or sheds, if he could fix them and “find them a good home”, in his words.
“That was five years ago. Now there’s barely a day that somebody doesn’t drop a bike off to me. I’ll get home now, and somebody will have left three on drive. I guarantee it.”
“Now we’re five years in, I get lots of social worker referred families and charities getting in contact. So there’s always people coming to me now. I’ve constantly got a list that never goes down. I’ve got about six schools waiting at the moment, couple of charities. I’ve got bikes on the way to Sierra Leone!”
Mike "Puffa" Jones from Newport has fixed over 3000 unwanted bikes and made sure they get to children who might go without.
He spoke to Roy Noble about his "Free Bikes 4 Kids" charity project 🚲 pic.twitter.com/7jc1cDDy5P
— BBC Radio Wales (@BBCRadioWales) April 9, 2024
Since starting out in 2019, his repaired bikes have found new, budding cyclists as owners in 25 south Wales schools and dozens of local charities and clubs. Bikes have also been sent to children in Uganda and Sierra Leone to support grassroots cycle sport.
He added: “It’s literally something that started so small, that it’s almost kind of happened to me over the last five years and it’s got to the size that it is now without me being aware of how quickly it was growing.
“It’s still the same as it was when I started, two sheds in the garden now. I’ve upgraded it to two sheds now from one… I wish I had a warehouse.”
Jones does it all without any funding or sponsorship, and he relies mostly on donations and fundraisers to continue doing what he is. Right now, he has a Gofundme live, aiming to raise £10,000, which you can donate to by clicking here.
While the Tour of Basque crash which shook the cycling world to its core, with riders suffering serious injuries, fortunately hasn’t resulted in any life-threatening consequences as the injured cyclists embark on a tough recovery programme, reports from the crash are still trickling in.
And Steff Cras, one of the riders involved in the crash and perhaps one of the worst hit by it, has opened up about the crash. Speaking to La Dernière Heure, he said that he had “a brush with death” in the incident.
Des nouvelles de Steff :
Après des examens plus poussés, @SteffCras souffre d’un pneumothorax à droite, de plusieurs fractures costales associées et de deux fractures vertébrales dorsales, en plus de plusieurs hématomes, plaies et dermabrasions. (1/2)#Itzulia2024pic.twitter.com/Ha8wHRFsPt
— Team TotalEnergies (@TeamTotalEnrg) April 4, 2024
“I was scared to death because I couldn't breathe for thirty seconds. I only had one functioning lung,” he said. “I had a brush with death. I realised when I saw the concrete block [at the side of the road] that I would have been dead if I’d fallen 20cm further away. Honestly, I was very lucky.”
The Belgian who currently rides for Total Energies, had suffered broken ribs, two fractured vertebrae, and a collapsed lung, when he went off the road with Jonas Vingegaard, Remco Evenepoel and Primož Roglič, and others, on the descent from Olaeta with 35km remaining on stage 4 of the Itzulia Basque race. He spent four nights in hospital in San Sebastian before returning to Belgium on Monday.
Traffic-free days at Cheddar Gorge have taken a step closer to becoming a reality after a consultation saw more than 80 per cent of respondents express support for the idea that closing the road to motor traffic would make the site more accessible for pedestrians, cyclists and other non-vehicular visitors.
Despite less than a fifth of the 1,700 respondents expressing opposition to the road closure, the news of the project moving on to the next stage prompted wild criticism and complaints on Facebook, a vocal opposition to the road closure flooding the Mendip Hills National Landscape Team with negative comments.
Some questioned what percentage of respondents were local residents, while another accused the consultation of being "nonsense" and less fair than "Putin's election".
Elia Viviani, the prolific Italian classic rider from Ineos Grenadiers was involved in a crash at Sunday's monument with about 220km to go, which saw around 20 riders hit the floor. The 35-year-old was unfortunately forced to abandon the race, along with EF Education-EasyPost's Jonas Rutsch.
Thankfully, he's updated via social media that he suffered only a muscle injury and no fractures, and perhaps more importantly to his head, for which he thanked his helmet.
He wrote: "The tests carried out in hospital on the day of the race ruled out fractures, after returning home to Monaco, I carried out other checks which highlighted a muscle injury which I will be able to recover in a few days like the various abrasions on my body. About my head, I passed all the necessary checks and everything is ok, thanks to the helmet @kask_sport which saved my life."
These bizarre scenes happened in yesterday's Brabantse Plij classic, won by AG2R Decathlon's Benoît Cosnefroy after a bunch sprint.
E no meio do caminho tinha um ciclista na contramão 🤣
Isso foi na @DeBrabantsePijl hoje cedo pic.twitter.com/xhtQxhSVU3
— O País Do Ciclismo (@opaisdociclismo) April 11, 2024