“Maybe cyclists should also learn”: Škoda’s new bike bell campaign attracts anti-cycling comments; Newspaper letter accuses authorities of “punishing car users”; Catalunya drama; Paris-Roubaix preview + more on the live blog
SUMMARY
Škoda's new bike bell campaign attracts anti-cycling comments
Hmm, ’twas ever thus! In our piece examining Škoda’s new noise cancel-defying bicycle bell, we only briefly referenced the social media campaign that the Czech car maker was launching to promote the DuoBell. What we didn’t perhaps expect was how the comments section of their social media output would descend into anti-cycling coverage more often seen in newspaper comments sections. But alas…
Škoda have enlisted mathematician-turned-presenter Hannah Fry to front their video campaign explaining the technology and the wonders of Škoda’s invention that remains both revolutionary but also entirely inaccessible and out of commercial reach.
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The video’s pretty good and has already amassed more than 80,000 likes but amid all the praise for the tech particularly among acousticians (a word I learnt this week), there’s plenty of people who can’t resist a swipe at the concept of cyclists altogether:
“Can’t remember the last time I saw anyone riding a bike with lights let alone a bell.”
“This is great, but let’s not forget that cyclists are not allowed to ride bikes on sidewalks… and yet they do that and don’t care about the pedestrians at all, which might be the cause of the number of accidents.”
“How about cyclists breaking [sic] before hitting a pedestrian. Here, the pedestrian has the right of way ALWAYS.”
“Maybe cyclists should also learn to observe traffic rules. As long as they are running red lights and not stopping at pedestrian crossings because they seem to think the rules don’t apply to them, don’t come for my headphones 🙄”
“I think that bikes have to sold with bells but nobody bloody uses them!! So many cyclists just ignore the rules of the road anyway”
So on. So forth. So tiring… my personal favourite though is this comment from someone clearly lacking the attention span to either read the whole caption or watch a short video, but more than made up for their deficiencies with bounds of opinion:
“How about not wearing noise-cancelling headphones/earphones when riding a bike? Just sayin’”
Incredibly, that comment has more than 1000 likes. As my dad says, strewth…
Seixas wins in Catalunya!
After a dangerous, hell-for-leather descent led by Seixas, the pair eventually collaborated on the false-flat run-in to Eibar, extending their advantage on a chase disorganised after catching Romo and Roglic.
In the sprint a deux, Lipowitz went early but just ended up providing a perfect lead-out for the Frenchman to take yet another stage win! Is Pogacar worried yet?
More than a minute behind, Romo stole a march to finish third just ahead of the group of favourites, led by Kevin Vauquelin.
In the GC, Lipowitz leapfrogged his teammate Roglic for second, buttressing Red Bull’s margins on the podium. But Seixas now has a GC lead of 2’30” to second and 3’40” to third after just five days of racing!
Having been glued to Seixas’ wheel, Lipowitz has started working with the Frenchman on the flat run-in to the final climb, meanwhile Roglic has caught the befallen Romo. They’re 30 seconds behind onto the final climb, but have 20 seconds on the other favourites.
The final climb begins, it isn’t as steep but that doesn’t stop Seixas trying. Lipowitz is unshakable though and the pair begin the descent before a false flat rise into Eibar. 10km to go… the lesser favourites are closing in on Roglic and Romo
Rampant Seixas
Blimey, with 30km to go, on the penultimate climb, Seixas attacks, drawing out the Red Bull pair of Roglic and Lipowitz and Cofidis’ Ion Izagirre. Roglic briefly went to the front before Lipowitz countered, distancing Izagirre and leaving the veteran Slovenian dangling off the back. Then out of nowehere, Movistar’s Javier Romo rocks up, passing Roglic and closing in on the duo up front only to crashes just before the top after overlapping wheels with Lipowitz.
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Over the top, they go, Seixas unable to drop Lipowitz, Romo 20 seconds behind, Roglic 30 seconds. What a race. 23km remaining.
Healy hotting up
Things are looking good in the Ardennes Classics for our second-favourite Black Country-Irish cyclist.
Ben Healy and Marc Soler pushed on on the steep Krabelin climb and are the last survivors from the breakaway but with just 35 seconds advantage to show for it. The peloton exploded on the climb, with Florian Lipowitz attempting to distance Paul Seixas. His effort was unsuccessful but did bring a small group of favourites across to the break. They now form a 19-strong group behind the two leaders. 35km and two categorised climbs still to go…
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Meanwhile the finale of Region Pays de Loire was harder than it looked, with Antoine L’Hote of Decathlon going solo with 15.5km and holding off a reduced bunch to take the stage and the overall victory. Ethan Vernon’s teammate Corbin Strong was NSN’s designated sprinter and led the sprint behind, in the process getting himself on the overall podium and nabbing the points jersey from the British fast-man.
Hunt says new wheels are quicker than the ones Pogacar used to win the Tour de France
Daily dose of bike tech wizardry:
"It's time to stop the disproportionate spend on cyclists"
Letters pages are funny things, at what point do you ignore fools, or seek to challenge dubious claims made by someone at the risk of elevating them to a wider, unsuspecting audience? But with The Herald choosing not only to publish a letter of misinformation about cycling in the city but social it like this, the elevation question has already taken care of itself…
Having attracted more comments than reaction emojis, the ‘paper have succeeded in setting up a froth-mouthed debate, now it’s our turn to interject…
The letter itself, from James Roxburgh in Glasgow, says that “the most striking feature of these [cycling] developments is not their success, but their under-use. At peak times and beyond, it is not uncommon to see newly-installed lanes sitting largely empty, while surrounding roads are increasingly congested.
“At a time when potholes go unrepaired, road surfaces deteriorate, and basic maintenance is visibly lacking, it is difficult to understand why such disproportionate emphasis is being placed on one mode of transport.”
Roxburgh goes on to suggest his own “sound principle”: “for every pound spent on cycle lanes, an equivalent pound should be invested in maintaining and improving the road network that the vast majority still rely upon. Where that balance is absent, it is entirely reasonable to ask whether other agendas are at play aimed at punishing car users.”
If only such a balance was even in place! Of the £4.3bn Transport funding allocated in the last Scottish Government budget, only £226m (around 5 percent) went on active travel. A whopping £1.2 bn went on Scotland’s strategic trunk road network, and that’s before you get onto the local government distributions. And, of course, cyclists are famously unperturbed by potholes, gliding like swans everywhere and anywhere.
Roxburgh also argues the pro-cycle lobby are too quick to dismiss concerns of longer commutes, unpredictable weather and lack of fitness among prospective cyclists. Maybe, but how many studies do we need to regurgitate showing the majority of vehicular journeys being short and unnecessary?
To argue “the balance has tipped too far” in favour of active travel only speaks to someone who hasn’t attempted to travel actively, and is probably enough motornormativity for today. If it isn’t, you know where the Facebook comments are…
Today's racing
We’ve got two races taking place today, both on the men’s side.
🟡 El equipo del líder lo tiene claro 🟡 @seixas_paul 🤝 @decathloncmacgm #Itzulia2026 pic.twitter.com/TwJdNdZYtY
— Itzulia Basque Country (@ehitzulia) April 10, 2026
There are 100km remaining in Stage 5 of the Tour of the Basque Country, where 19-year old phenom Paul Seixas yesterday extended his GC lead beyond two minutes whilst retiring home favourite Ion Izagirre moved to within a second of the podium. Today’s stage loops around the hills surrounding Eibar and might be another day for the breakaway with 30 riders up the road including Guillaume Martin, Ben Healy and Marc Soler among others.
Eternal breakaway artist Baptiste Veistroffer has stolen a march though on the others. The Lotto rider, along with former-nearly-Giro-winner Steven Kruijswijk, currently has 1’40” on the rest of the break and 4’30” on the peloton. But, there’s a LOT of climbing still to come.
Elsewhere, Stage 4 of the Région Pays de la Loire Tour is shortly set to end in another bunch sprint. Ethan Vernon won the first two stages before Uno-X’s Alexander Kamp won from the breakaway to take the GC lead yesterday.
Tour de France returns to free-to-air... in Germany
Well, if you’re bilingual and weighing up how to watch the Tour de France this summer, there’s a new option available.
> How to Watch Cycling on TV: Your Complete Guide
Germany’s public broadcaster, ZDF, finally motivated by a lack of recent doping scandal and a German climber in Florian Lipowitz who’s actually rather good at the moment (apologies to Emanuel Buchmann) will be broadcasting the Tour de France this year for the first time since 2011. The race will now be jointly broadcast between ZDF and ARD alongside Eurosport, as reported by Kicker. The VPN could be your friend!
But if there’s no polo shirts or dry quips from the presenter, you have to wonder what the point of it all would be…
The results are in.
The favourite Polo Shirt of the TDF2024 is:
Drumroll 🥁
Stage 1 Black Polo with collar and zip detailing
Yes. A ZIP. The Master has given his approval. Zips on Polos are officially IN
Thank you Gary. And thanks to everyone who voted
It’s been emotional pic.twitter.com/05Y7eXLMzm
— Gary Imlach’s Peloton of Joy (@ImlachHair) July 29, 2024
Women's Roubaix preview: Can Vos close a chapter?
In contrast to the men’s edition, the women’s race is much more open, even if it’s difficult to look past SD Worx.
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Former champion Lotte Kopecky will be sure to animate the race in any moves and is in good form having won Milano-Sanremo weeks ago. And she has the ace up her sleeve of champion sprinter Lorena Wiebes as a teammate, who can always be an option if the groups coagulate.
Defending winner Pauline Ferrand-Prevot lines up as well, alongside Marianne Vos. Vos, now 38, pulled out of the Tour of Flanders last weekend following the death of her father but will return to seek the last major one-day race that eludes her illustrious palmares.
With Marlen Reusser out with injury, other contenders include Strade Bianchi winner Elise Chabbey and Elisa Longo Borghini. British hopes will likely rest on Cat Ferguson and Zoe Bäckstedt, though honourable mentions go to former podium finisher Pfeiffer Georgi and Ferguson’s teammate Carys Lloyd, who outsprinted Wiebes to win the Tour of Bruges last month.
A final negative word though must go to the race organisers ASO, who will not be showing the first two and a half hours of the race at all, with coverage not beginning until 4pm UK time. It’s one thing missing the neutralised roll-out, but skipping crucial cobbled sections is just not on…
Men's Roubaix preview: Pog's to lose?
Right, it’s the afternoon now so let’s throw ahead to the weekend and Paris-Roubaix. It’s also a good excuse to bump up the Monument preview I wrote just before the Tour of Flanders. I mean not many people make ska references anyway…
> Madness of Holy Week could take Pogačar one step beyond
But after victory in Flanders last weekend in a near-carbon copy fashion, attention is turning to see if Pogacar can complete the set, not only winning all five Monuments but winning all five in a row. And in the rainbow jersey. Oh and he’s favourite for the Tour de France.
The Slovenian has been spotted reconning the famous French Flandrien cobbles with teammate Florian Vermeersch who heads into L’Enfer du Nord in the best classics form of his career having podiumed Omloop and E3 before finishing seventh in Flanders. He’s also a former runner-up at Paris-Roubaix having beaten Mathieu van der Poel in the sprint for second in 2021, the last time the race was run in the wet.
Pogacar will have another former runner-up in his team in Nils Politt, whilst Antonio Morgado and Mikkel Bjerg will no doubt be vital to the team’s efforts of whittling down the peloton before the attacks start. UAE’s sole sprint-lead-out riders Rui Oliveira and Juan Sebastian Molano complete the roster.
We’re still waiting on confirmation for the team line-up of Mathieu van der Poel but Jasper Philipsen is expected to line up having twice finished second to a Van der Poel victory in the classic. Expect Silvan Dillier and/or Oscar Riesebeek to be the big engines in the early stages of the race whilst Edward Planckaert has been a regular in early breakaways to be well-positioned in the latter stages of the race. After so many years of success, Alpecin-Premier Tech might go a year without a Monument victory for the first time since the pandemic. For a team built around a 31-year-old, could a defeat here be the first inkling that the team might need to broaden its horizons?
Elsewhere, Wout van Aert, Mads Pedersen and Filippo Ganna will be betting on getting in amongst it all, though the chance of all five favourites surviving the Arenberg Forest in tact is slim, especially if the cobbles are wet. Rain is currently forecast on Saturday but Sunday’s conditions are overcast.
There will also be a handful of Brits lining up including Ineos’ Josh Tarling and Connor Swift, NSN’s Lewis Askey and Pinarello’s Fred Wright, a former top-10 in this race. Best hopes of a result though probably rest with Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne winner Matty Brennan, who will line up alongside Van Aert and Owain Doull for Visma.
Last year Brennan, on his Roubaix debut, survived Arenberg and was active at the front of the race working. Whether he’ll get the freedom to push on for himself will rely as much on luck as form…
Perfect timing
One of the reasons people think no-one uses cycle lanes might be because they enable people to travel smoothly and efficiently, including past blocked roads…
“As you can see, it’s been brought to an entire standstill”.
Except for the bike lane… that lady riding past couldn’t have been any better timed. 🤣
— Cargo Bike Ben (@cargobikeben.bsky.social) 10 April 2026 at 08:22
Van Rysel aiming to bring airbag skinsuit to WorldTour in 2027
Our Ryan’s been really rather busy. Pedalling around Flanders with Van der Poel senior, today’s he out reconning the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix. In the meantime he’s popped over to Lille for a very interesting story that could revolutionise rider safety, providing pros can be persuaded to ride with a gas canister…
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You can read all about the tech and its viability in Ryan’s long-read here:
Pedalling on a pylon
Today’s quota of fantastic bike design comes courtesy of Masaichi Yamada.
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Squeaky bum time might get a second definition however…
Skoda release fancy bike bell... but it's not for sale
We had to double check the date when this story first hit our screens. First came the quick science lesson on how noise-cancelling headphones work, and how the tech can be circumvented to make someone hear something.
Then came the chasing up of what the bell would cost and when it would go on sale, only to find out it wasn’t being sold at all.
So a pretty interesting story, and a cool product, but not something you can expect to get your hands on anytime soon…
BMC electrifies its Teammachine flagship road race bike
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Latest Comments
If anyone reading this article is looking for reasonable alternatives Decathlon sell a range of bum bags including one with a bottle holder that comes with the bottle all of which are less than £20. I've got a bum bag I bought a few years ago to replace a North Face bum bag that has lasted really well including commuting and cycle touring that was only £10 and that doesn't seem to have any of the drawbacks of the pack on review.
@Borisface The frameset is similarly priced to e.g. Condor aluminium framesets such as Italia RC Integrato so it doesn't look too far off the mark. Obviously if you dress any old frame up with Campag Record 13 wireless and some decent wheels the final price is going to be somewhere north of £5k.
@Freddy56 @hotspanners Hi, just for for starters I didn’t boycott the race, if you read to the end of the article you’d have seen that I decided I was going to attend and try and implement a positive change… Just for clarity, if it helps with the credibility of my words and something I didn’t include in the blog for brevity and fear of willy-waving here’s an incomprehensive list of cycle events I’ve helped organise over the years - all Brighton Big Dog MTB events (about 12 i think), three league CX races and one Singlespeed CX Euro Champs (niche, i know), a few SAMS MTB races - maybe three or four it was a while back now, a Morvelo City Cross, I’ve stood on a corner in a high-vis vest at quite a few MTB, CX and road races too, and just helped wind up tape at last weekend’s CX race. I’ve also had the privilege to design logos, draw images, and create one-off pieces of artwork and give away prints as prizes for enough races and events for me to forget how many, all for free as part of ‘doing my bit’… Also if you made it through to the second half of the article you’ll have read that I have every sympathy for event organisers because of the experience of all the above and also from having conversations with various organisers on a regular basis so I am acutely aware of all the challenges faced. I chatted today with the future local CX race organiser mentioned, face to face in a field, and he has a similar hatred of AI and is more than happy for me to create a hand-drawn image to promote that race and also help out on the ground where possible… Might even draw a duck in there somewhere for giggles…
@Borisface Not entirely sure why some alleged good times set in the last century validate the silliness and ignorance of your rejection on the grounds of materials and weight of a bike that the reviewer (who, if you look at his bio above, has rather a lot of experience himself, not only of riding bikes but of engineering too) describes as "absolute perfection in every aspect". Thanks for the unrequested permission but I'm not actually looking to spend 6k on a bike at the moment; if I was, on the basis of this review and the photographs I'd certainly be putting this on my shortlist and looking for a test ride. But then in this area at least I have an open mind, you see.
@Freddy56 as the article says, Jo boycotted our race because he thought we’d used AI to design our flyer. I’m with him 100% but he got the facts wrong. People don’t like AI slop. It’s lazy and generic. But you’re right - these grassroots events run off volunteering. I wave flags, design kit and artwork, ferry things to our lockup etc - perhaps Jo could be the change he wants to see. He could volunteer to the London and SE CX league that he races in to help them out with artwork - he created Mint Sauce!
Currently riding home powered by this for the last 6 months after someone stole my SeeSence beam, LOVE it. super durable and batter life gets me home on full beam for 55 minutes
Comments and an article by people who organise NOTHING! Promoting an event is mostly by volunteers and an AI poster done at midnight after sorting the British cycling insurance, the toilets, the Marshalls, the council and a landowner is so draining. The effort is massive for usually a small team. Grab a flag and help rather than moaning about a generated image...o look the image is eye catching so it must work .
I have Wizzard works bag from 2018 (bought for my 30th) and this is a complete rip off it!!
6 times division champion, 1st cat road man, semi-pro for 3 years. Sub 21 min 10 and sub 55 min 25 on a steel road bike. Forty five years riding. Forgotten more about riding bikes than most on here will ever know. If you want to pay £6k for an aluminium road by all means go ahead.
@Borisface Probably for the best, if you're as ignorant about bikes and materials as your comment suggests you wouldn't appreciate it anyway. Go and buy something on the UCI weight limit made out of the latest space age super carbon and wobble around on it looking daft and feeling uncomfortable and to hell with aesthetics, practicality and real-world use cases, at least you'll have the right numbers ("6.85 kg, awesome!") and words ("Yeah, it's UHM 12k carbon, actually") for the cafe. Enjoy!
16 thoughts on ““Maybe cyclists should also learn”: Škoda’s new bike bell campaign attracts anti-cycling comments; Newspaper letter accuses authorities of “punishing car users”; Catalunya drama; Paris-Roubaix preview + more on the live blog”
I quite agree. I’m a little surprised they support increasing it appropriately, though.
At a time when potholes go unrepaired, road surfaces deteriorate, and basic maintenance is visibly lacking, it is difficult to understand why such disproportionate emphasis is being placed on one mode of transport anyone would object to the obvious solution of persuading as many people as possible to stop using the machines which do the damage and switch to a non-damaging alternative.” Fixed that for you, Mr Roxburgh.
That would have worked better if this site still accepted tags for strikethrough – “such disproportionate emphasis is being placed on one mode of transport” is meant to have a line through it…
Thanks. I’ve used a sharpie on my screen to rectify.
As usual, I ask if the likes of “James Roxburgh in Glasgow” also complains about any apparent overspend on bus lanes and pavements which both stand empty/”underused” for the vast majority of the time.
In addition to the various other, perfectly valid, points already made, I would note that my (albeit limited) experience of Glasgow is that, much like most UK cities, the cycling infrastructure does not yet form a coherent network. Whilst some of the new stuff is, in itself, of reasonable quality, there is just not enough of it. So if it is currently underutilised, the solution is to build more, not less!
Cities like Amsterdam and Copenhagen didn’t transform overnights; it take years of sustained investment to build a comprehensive network so that people could feel safe cycling their whole journeys.
Although the crew seem to be doing their best to make sure it’s blocked too.
The most telling implication here is the absolute insistence on using the mode that creates and suffers from congestion and pollution, when an immediately adjacent, cheaper, and often faster option exists to alleviate the problem for all.
The allegation that they are under-used, whether accurate or not, says more about James Roxburgh than anybody. It also underlines the need to establish whether a particular component of active travel infra is actually linked in a way that meets the purposes of people who would/should consider using it. In other words, perhaps more needs to be spent.
The one tangible element of the letter that escapes the Herald’s pay/spy-wall is the statement that “Infrastructure should serve the many, not the few”. It is a tragedy that people are so blinkered from the benefits and fitness for that purpose of active travel infrastructure.
@GMBasix indeed. But while some folks are “just no way” (perhaps James here?) taking things onwards probably needs tackling “what is” vs. “what could be”.
I guess a response would be to ask “is there a problem with the status quo and if so what” and “what should we do to improve it”?
I think that might have a (small) chance of moving the conversation on as there might be some overlap on the first question *. So talk of “congestion” – both sides likely agree this is a problem – so we’re then on to the second question.
However at that point while the enlightened debate would be pointing out the data around “one more lane!” not fixing things and *how* we get from here to a “reduced driving” environment, it’s difficult to get around the “what is”. And that varies massively in the UK. Some places are almost American in their lack of even footways.
While we can explain *why* loads of people aren’t yet ditching that short drive for the current infra it is the case that currently people *aren’t* doing so. Imagining something different is influenced by the fact that motor traffic *does* fill space! “Look at all those cars! Look at that massive long line of queuing traffic! It must be important! Everyone *must* need to drive!” (Even though that line might not be many people…)
So it takes more effort to believe that the change is *possible* / wouldn’t require an intervention as radical as “banning driving”.
* Though also not guaranteed… there are definitely those who just believe “it is fine as it is” / “it was fine *before* the cycle infra”. The latter might be true but also due to the growth in motoring removing the cycle infra may not return it to “good as it was”!
Meanwhile in places that have thought things through (and had already taken the first step):
Back to leave this here yet again – cycle infra is “a waste of space”:
Yeah – I imagine any exchanges will be pretty blunt by that point.
Re: the Skoa bike bell…
Having watched the clip with Hannah Fry she says at the end:
“… you can stay in your peacefull little bubble without being flattened by a angry cyclist or you know look both ways when you’re crossing the road…”
First bit is completely false.
When has anyone ever been flattened, even figuratively, by a cyclist?
Second bit is totally relevant and can be used against the trolls:
“… when you’re crossing the road…”
“At peak times and beyond, it is not uncommon to see newly-installed lanes sitting largely empty,” As someone who commutes into Glasgow for work (and sometimes for play!) the reason for that is we’ve been and gone before your traffic jam got there mate
Looks like a long term stand-off in the Persian Gulf with the Straits of Hormuz being blocked for some time. Let’s see just how anti-cycling these people are when this really bites.
A point I made in my contribution to the press release on the publication of the Forest of Dean Active Travel Strategy two weeks ago.