“He can use the road if he wants”: Cyclist filmed ignoring bike lane in front of driver for “good five minutes” divides opinion; Chris Froome recreates iconic Ventoux run at gran fondo; 45-minute queue for climb at Amstel sportive + more on the live blog

Do I have to tap the sign?

Every week, another motorist, instead of reading our extremely helpful and rather timeless ‘Why don’t cyclists use cycle lanes?’ feature, takes to social to ask that very question. And complain. Loudly.

This time, it was the turn of roller-skating content creator (no, you have read that right) SideZwipe who posted a video, filmed from a following car, of a cyclist riding, and stopping at a set of traffic lights, on a road.

SideZwipe was annoyed by this everyday behaviour, however, thanks to the intermittent presence of a protected cycle lane to the left of said road.

“Guys, you know those cycle lanes I talk about, right there?” he asks in the video, as he’s stopped at the lights behind the cyclist.

“Look at this donut here. The cycle lane’s built for you mate, and look at you, you’re on the bloody road, you absolute pillock.

“This just goes to prove, waste of money, waste of money… look at that, cycle lane, cyclist. Absolute joke, you’ve got your own bloody lane mate, what are you doing?”

In the caption for the clip, SideZwipe continued: “Needless to say we were stuck behind this cyclist for a good five minutes before he moved on.

“All joking aside, I do like these cycle lanes they are great for skating.” Well, that’s good.

> Why don’t cyclists use cycle lanes?

His video has attracted almost 3,000 comments, many of which touched on those all too familiar live blog topics: Lycra, taxpayer’s money, bike licence plates… I could go on.

Some, however, exhibited some rare commonsense for a Facebook comments section.

“As a cyclist and driver. Dude can use the road if he wants. Chillaxxxxx,” said Keith McEvoy.

Meanwhile, Richard Salthouse wrote: “Allowed to use the road if he wants to. The cycle lane isn’t always the best choice but it is there to encourage people that aren’t as confident to start cycling. Don’t be a knob.”

“He’s using his options, stop, start on a cycle path or go for longer stints on the road. The only donut’s talking,” noted Wayne Wright.

> “But why aren’t cyclists in the cycle lane?”: London rider stunned by this “awesome infrastructure” closed at one end… and blocked by a van at the other

And Chris Stuttard said: “He’s riding a ‘road’ bike. If I’m pottering on my commuter bike into town I’ll use the cycle path. If I’m on my road bike I’ll use the road because: A. I’m going 20mph+ (too fast for cycle path). B. I’m not bumping my £2k carbon wheels up and down dropped kerbs. C. I don’t want to be stopping every 50 yards and giving way to side streets.

“D. I’ve contributed just the same as anyone else so I’ll make my own informed decision on which route I will take. E. Do you ever see cyclists post videos of motorists criticising them for using their choice of route/road?”

Finally, John Cameron concluded: “The donut/pillock is behind the camera!”

Of course, not everyone in the comments was on the side of free choice for cyclists.

The intellectual powerhouse that is Brick Pointing Brick Pointing (yep, that’s what it said) chipped in with this classic point: “Cock they all fink they r in the tour of Britain.”

I fink you can’t argue with that…

When that video of a panicked Nikita Kiriltsev dashing around a Hong Kong velodrome, his broken track bike on his shoulder, started doing the rounds yesterday, I knew it was only a matter of time before Chris Froome popped up on our screens.

After all, the four-time Tour de France winner is the OG when it comes to desperate bouts of mid-race, post-crash running going viral on the internet.

And Froomey certainly didn’t disappoint.

The currently unattached grand tour specialist (jury’s still out on the whole retirement question) spent his weekend in Panama, where he took part in the Gran Fondo Océano a Océano on Sunday. There, the former Team Sky leader rode with 5,000 keen local amateurs – and a certain Alejandro Valverde – for a 125km route linking the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.

The ride itself mustn’t have been too scintillating, however, because Chris and Alejandro were soon called on to brighten everyone’s day with a theatrical recreation of those madcap scenes on Mont Ventoux, and Froome’s on-foot antics, from the 2016 Tour:

 

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I’ll admit, when I first stumbled across this video, rather bleary-eyed this morning, I assumed it was dodgy AI. But nope, it actually happened.

He couldn’t let poor Nikita have his own running moment, could he? Though at least it’s gone down well with the general sporting public.

“That is actually top banter. Respect,” wrote Dave Ryding, the great British Alpine skier, on Instagram.

Well, at least Froome is keeping himself busy these days – too busy to draft up a retirement confirmation statement, it seems.

The 40-year-old, who’s been without a team since his big money contract with Israel-Premier Tech (now NSN) ran out at the end of 2025, was last month appointed Chief Innovation Officer at AI-powered coaching and training platform Vekta.

In this new, specially created role, Vekta said, Froome will “work across product innovation, performance modelling, feature development, and long-term platform strategy, ensuring that data-driven insights reflect how performance is actually experienced by athletes” (whatever that all means).

However, the Vekta role, we understand, isn’t full-time. And while he hasn’t raced since August (when he finished 68th at the Tour of Poland), ending his ill-fated spell at Israel-Premier Tech in typically understated fashion, Froome is yet to publicly confirm his retirement as a professional cyclist.

> Chris Froome’s retirement limbo leaves the sport of cycling to grapple with a difficult legacy

Back in December, at the Vuelta route presentation, Froome told Cyclingnews that “people will know soon enough” about his future plans. But since then, he’s remained tight-lipped, his most recent Instagram posts featuring ski holidays snaps with his family, a video of him chatting to Tadej Pogačar and Primož Roglič at the Monte Carlo Rally, and a trip to the basketball with his son.

And now he’s enjoying some lovely cycling around Panama and harking back to the glory days with some amateur dramatics.

Maybe Froome’s finally teeing up that much-anticipated foray into acting? Much-anticipated by me, anyway…

‘So honey, how did your weekend away at the Amstel Gold sportive go?’

‘Errr, we queued for three quarters of an hour to ride up one of the climbs…’

 

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A post shared by Daphné Merlevede ✨ (@daphnemerlevede)

The Amstel Gold bouncers need to get their finger out, judging by this properly shocking clip from the sportive attached to the Dutch one-day classic at the weekend.

According to Belgian short track skater and keen amateur cyclist Daphné Merlevede, riders taking part in the Amstel sportive were forced to wait around in an orderly queue for 45 minutes on the Keutenberg, in a scene that resembled the long lines at Disneyland more than a cycling event.

I dread to think what everyone’s legs felt like once they got going again…

Speaking of the Tour de France Femmes route, will Snake Pass even be open when the peloton rides through the Peak District? The local council certainly hopes so, anyway…

> Council confident Tour de France will be safe to race up Snake Pass despite “numerous active landslips”

Yep, it’s only Tuesday and I’m already delirious… and hungry:

 

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After his performances at the Giro and Vuelta last year, including a stage win in Spain, and his strong start to the season, we all knew it was only a matter of time before Giulio Pellizzari broke his duck on home roads in Italy.

And Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe’s 22-year-old prodigy did just that on stage two of the Tour of the Alps this afternoon, outsprinting Thymen Arensman at Val Martello, laying down a huge GC marker on what was the five-day race’s only true summit finish.

Pellizzari profited from a strong showing from his Red Bull squad, with two of his teammates – Aleksandr Vlasov and the even more precocious Lorenzo Finn – making the group of six that contested the finish.

Finn, only 19 and still a member of Red Bull’s ‘Rookies’ squad officially, looked extremely impressive on the climb to Val Martello, the junior world champion easily following Arensman’s initial attack after Tudor, then Ineos, blew the field apart.

He sat tight as Pellizzari, biding his time, bridged across from the bunch before making his own solo move. By the top, however, things had regrouped slightly, as Egan Bernal put in a strong policing job on behalf of his Ineos teammate Arensman.

Giulio Pellizzari caps off a brilliant display from Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe to take the win 👏

That success also sees the young Italian move into the lead at the Tour of the Alps. pic.twitter.com/7ys57A0qJp

— Cycling on TNT Sports (@cyclingontnt) April 21, 2026

On the short run-in to the line, Vlasov regained contact with the group then immediately attacked, Bernal again snuffing that one out, before Red Bull finally got the job done through Pellizzari in the sprint, who took over the race lead in the process. Arensman was forced to settle for second and the battling Mattia Gaffuri, the last surviving member of the break, took third, as his Picnic PostNL team’s barren 2026 continued.

And while the Italian youngsters Pellizzari and Finn may take all the plaudits, reserve some of your applause for a rider on the other end of the pro cycling age spectrum, Domenico Pozzovivo.

On his comeback race after 18 months in retirement, the 43-year-old climber was a constantly active presence on Val Martello, his traditional fighting with the bike style intact, only being distanced by Vlasov towards the summit and ultimately finishing 12^th on his first day back in the mountains.

Pro cycling in 2026 – where age really is just a number.

The dream of Remco Evenepoel becoming the first male rider since Philippe Gilbert in 2011 to achieve the Ardennes Triple has been snuffed out just as it started, the Belgian’s team confirming today that he will skip tomorrow’s Flèche Wallonne to properly prepare for Sunday’s showdown with Tadej Pogačar at Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

(Just for the record, Anna van der Breggen and Demi Vollering have since completed the triple in the women’s peloton, in 2017 and 2023 respectively.)

After winning Amstel Gold for the first time in his career at the weekend, Evenepoel had initially hinted at taking on Flèche’s Mur de Huy, where he finished ninth last year behind a rampant Pogačar.

 

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“I need to see how I recover, but I don’t feel completely exhausted. I would definitely like to race,” the double Olympic champion said on Sunday, suggesting that the race could be added at the last minute to his programme.

However, in a statement issued to Sporza this morning, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe said: “He will not take part in order to recover from the Amstel and will fully focus on Liège-Bastogne-Liège.”

That’s a pity. That decision leaves the door open for French wonderkid Paul Seixas to add a hilly classic to his fast-growing palmares on the Mur de Huy, following his stunning display at the Tour of the Basque Country a few weeks ago.

Then all eyes will be fixed on the Pogi versus Remco show on Sunday. Unless Seixas has other ideas, of course…

> Meet the new e-bike drive system with no mechanical link between the pedals and rear wheel

The end of April is approaching and we’re in the heart of Ardennes week, so that means only one thing in Visma land: it’s time to unveil their new Tour de France kits!

(If I’m honest, I’m surprised it’s taken them this long.)

And this year, the Dutch squad is mixing things up – and by that, I mean doing what they did in 2021 – by asking their fans to decide which of the two designs they’ve come up should be worn at cycling’s biggest race.

According to Visma, to mark the 2026 Tour’s Barcelona Grand Départ, both kits were apparently inspired by the Catalan capital’s iconic architect Antoni Gaudí and his lasting imprint on the city’s visual culture. Oh, and honeycomb, because of the team’s whole beehive thing:

 

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A post shared by Team Visma | Lease a Bike (@teamvisma_leaseabike)

Hmm, I’m not really seeing the Gaudí thing, to be honest. Not enough phallic chimneys. And I’m sure Visma will be hoping their Tour riders won’t be inspired by the architect’s almost-complete Sagrada Familia and take ages to finish the race.

Anyway, what’s it going to be, light Visma or dark Visma? You have until Wednesday to cast your vote – it could end up deciding the Tour, who knows?

Tom Pidcock returned to racing yesterday, just a few weeks after crashing into a ravine at 60kph at the Volta a Catalunya, with a very promising second place to surprise winner Tommaso Dati on stage one of the Tour of the Alps.

But despite the impressive result, it wasn’t quite the gentle reintroduction to racing Pidcock was hoping for in Innsbruck.

“Terrible, awful,” Pidcock said, when Domestique asked him how his first day back had gone.

“It was like we were going full gas up every climb, it was the worst day ever on the bike.”

 

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But surely second in a sprint finish is a decent return, Tom, especially given the circumstances and his last-minute decision to race the Tour of the Alps in the first place.

“Yeah, but there’s no sprinters here, so that’s not very difficult, is it?” he pointed out. “I just followed in the wheel. I had no sprint at all.”

Any positives to take from the stage, then?

“No, no positives. The positive is that it can only get better.”

Well, at least you can’t say he’s not honest.

Ah, don’t you just love to hear the spring birdsong? Not when it’s coming from your pedals, however:

 

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Yesterday evening, you may have seen, the route details for next year’s Tour de France Femmes Grand Départ – which just so happens to be taking place in the UK – were revealed.

And the whole thing is shaping up to be a cracker, complete with an historic London TTT and an absolute brute of a stage in Yorkshire, described by race organiser Marion Rousse as the “hardest stage in a Grand Départ we’ve ever seen”. Yikes.

While the start and finish cities of the opening three stages of next year’s British-flavoured Tour start have been known for a few months now, the exact details of these stages were revealed for the first time yesterday in London.

Stage one, from Leeds to Manchester, promises to be a rather benign, sprinter-friendly start to the 2017 Tour de France Femmes, thanks to a short, 85.7km route featuring three climbs.

Nevertheless, the 8.4 per cent average gradient of the 3.2km climb up Meltham Hill (that’s the Côte de Meltham to you) could shake things up, while the Côte de Delph (I’m sure it’ll catch on with the locals) comes with just over 20km to go, so will keep the sprinters aiming for yellow on Manchester’s Deansgate on their toes.

The biggest race of the opening day, however, will almost certainly be fought out amongst the Tour’s press pack, who will be in a race against time to make it from Leeds to Manchester before the peloton. That’s going to be a stressful day for us hacks, I assure you.

And while stage one offers a gentle introduction to British roads for the Tour’s riders, stage two – from Manchester to Sheffield – is anything but.

The bare facts are slightly frightening, if I’m honest: 154km, 2,750m of elevation, and seven climbs, including the iconic Snake Pass, Winnats Pass, and the stage-deciding Jenkin Road, where Chris Froome attacked and eventual race winner Vincenzo Nibali descended to victory when the Tour last visited Sheffield in 2014.

“There won’t be a metre of flat,” Rousse said during yesterday’s press conference. “This will be a battle. This second stage will be hard fought with some spectacular climbs.”

It’s already being described as a “brute” on social media – and stage two is so hard it could prove pivotal in deciding the fate of next year’s yellow jersey.

And finally, the Tour’s double visit to the UK next year will conclude in (where else?) London, with a 18km team time trial, a first for the modern edition of the race and a relative rarity in women’s cycling.

The route will pass Houses of Parliament, the London Eye, and Tower Bridge before finishing on the Mall in front of Buckingham Palace, once again retracing the steps of the 2014 men’s Tour.

“We made this choice for a number of reasons,” Rousse said yesterday. “One is because it’s a huge honour for us to come to a capital city such as London, and it’s a huge moment in the history of the race. What we wanted to do was create something that would allow us to spend the whole day in the city, and allow us to visit and revisit the same landmarks.

“The reason that we’re able to have the time trial here is that London has been on board and wanted to facilitate this with us. Actually, it’s easier to organise a team time trial on roads in a busy city than it is for the whole peloton to arrive in one go. It’s a huge opportunity.”

For Cat Ferguson and Flora Perkins, the two riders acting as representatives of the peloton’s growing British contingent, next year’s Grand Départ will be a big one for a few reasons, especially considering they’ve both only raced one TTT before.

“And I didn’t make it off the start ramp because I got a puncture!” Movistar rider Ferguson said.

“It’s really important, as women, that we get to do another team time trial. I don’t know how many there have been across the Grand Tours and races we’ve done, but not that many. To do it in the Tour de France is, of course, the best place to showcase that.”

“I think it’s a really tangible way for the public to see this is a team sport,” Perkins added. “Time trialling in the UK is really historic. We’ve always had time trials. I think people maybe don’t realise that time trailing is a really authentic way that grassroots cycling and racing has been.”

> “Historic day for British sport”: Leeds, Liverpool, London, and Cardiff confirmed as 2027 Tour de France host cities – as talks over free-to-air TV coverage of UK Grand Départ “ongoing”

“Having the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift so close to home feels like a full circle moment for me,” Ferguson said. “I watched the men’s race in 2014 from the side of my home roads as a young kid, and now I hope to have the opportunity next year to line up and race in the peloton. I truly appreciate how far women’s pro cycling has come.

“If I can inspire some women or young girls, even in a small way, to get out on their bikes, that would make me very happy. I know that UK fans will make this an unforgettable experience for all riders. Bring on the 2027 Grand Départ.”

Bring it on, indeed.

How come they keep spelling “open” wrong?

Does that street look closed to you? Only if you’re a car… and presumably that’s the real problem. #UrbanTruth

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— Urban Truth Collective (@urbantruth.bsky.social) April 20, 2026 at 7:03 PM

“So much of our language reflects the common ‘car first’ bias around our streets,” city planner Brent Toderian wrote in response to the above post.

“We should never forget that much of that language was the result of deliberate campaigns to specifically re-write our perspective of streets as ‘for cars only’. This is one of the more subtle, but important, examples.”

Almost a year after Riese & Müller halted shipping to the United States amid uncertainty around Donald Trump’s tariffs, the brand has now announced that “given the current circumstances, it is more important than ever for us to focus our efforts on our core markets”.

Read more: > Major e-bike brand to stop selling in US due to “increasingly volatile market conditions”