“The best designers are those that use this type of infrastructure daily”: Active Transport planner turns to Reddit for advice, and the cyclists love it; Evenepoel reveals 425w threshold training; Finally a Dauphiné sprint stage + more on the live blog

Do you ever look at a piece of cycle infrastructure and wonder if the designer of such a thing has ever ridden a bike? Has a local authority, in a desperate plea for funding, mocked up a dreadful design without thinking what it might be like to use a cycle lane or a shared-use path? Reassuringly, it’s good to know that some planners are better than others…

“Hi all, I won’t be giving away too much information but I am an Active Transportation Planner with a London Borough,” writes one Reddit user.

“Looking for feedback from cyclists as I have a tricky section of a future shared use path that I am struggling to engineer around. Essentially we want to build a shared use path in a more ‘rural’ area, 90% of this path can be built to standards I.e. 3m minimum however there is one small (26m long section) that is 1.6m wide with no option to widen.

“Anyone have any examples of ‘pinch points’ on a shared use/ cycle path that they like/love or hate. Looking for good ideas or bad ideas to avoid, otherwise the options include a ‘cyclists dismount sign’ which I don’t want to do or abandon the path entirely. Thanks!”

Unsurprisingly, the top-ranked comment is short but sweet: “Just want to add that it’s great to be asked!”

So starts a rather nice conversation about the perils of current planning decisions, namely what the original poster describes as “the ‘anti- bike’ ‘it’s a war on cars’ ‘stop being woke’ brigade” who tend to hijack any public consultation. A cyclist themself, the planner is “just [a] fellow cyclist who wants safer and more efficient cycle infrastructure.

“The best designers are those that use this type of infrastructure daily.”

We couldn’t agree more, and today is a day where the internet delivers. Nearly 100 comments have been left for users expressing their concerns over “shared-use” paths, the difficulty in enforcing “cyclists dismount” signs. Among the two most popular positive solutions is one user who highlighted the benefit of additional lane markings, and another who recommended a small chicane to slow cyclists down through the narrow section.

Your own thoughts are, of course, more than welcome. But how good/refreshing is it for a cycle planner to go out of their way to consult fellow cyclists?!

 

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Imagine cycling to Villa Park or Hampden Park through Cannon Hill Park or Kelvingrove…

Everyone has a Remco Evenepoel opinion, I even managed to squeeze him into my latest medium-length mild take.

And where I earlier mentioned his commercial assets as a Red Bull athlete – a big part of that stems from the fact he’s actually a YouTuber with a new video out! In his latest production, we see the Belgian at altitude camp in Tenerife, training for the Tour de France having decided not to race a warm-up event between now and July. We get a glimpse into life in cafes, on yoga mats and, as you might expect, on a saddle. We also get some nuggets of data!

In a four-and-a-half hour “controlled threshold” session, we see Evenepoel performing repeated interval efforts between 8 and 15 minutes in length. His threshold on the mountain? 425 watts.

I think I could just about best that on a short sprint, for that to not even register as one of his most “explosive” days is a pretty good reminder of how utterly good at cycling elite cyclists are. And how my chances of turning pro get slimmer with each passing biscotti.

The organising committee of the 2028 Olympics and Paralympics in Los Angeles have announced that both the road race and time trial events will finish in Griffith Park, with the Olympics finishing up at the Griffith Observatory, nestled in the Hollywood hills.

The latest news confirms what has been rumoured for some time, that the race organisers are planning a rather brutal course with plenty of climbing. The Olympic Games are, after all, one of the few big races that Tadej Pogačar has yet to win. In 2021 he was denied by a perfectly timed Richard Carapaz attack on the lower slopes of Mount Fuji, and then forced to sprint for the lesser medals, finishing third.

Then, in 2024 he skipped the Games entirely, blaming both fatigue and the non-selection of his fiancee Urška Žigart, despite her being the reigning Slovenian champion. With Pogačar’s contract only running until 2030 (by which point he’ll be 32) and him having hinted at not exactly stretching his career out that long, it might be now (then) or never for the two-time World Champion.

Maybe it’s the first sign that we’re not in the Dauphiné era anymore, as much as we deep down want to be, that we’re halfway through the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and have yet to have a single sprint stage.

Finally though, we should have a day for the fast men, although you have to wonder how many fast men there actually are in the race, given most teams are smart enough to look at a stage profiles before rocking up on the startlist. Wout van Aert is here though, and after a couple of ropey days earlier in the week, including being the first Visma rider dropped on the Team Time Trial, he was the fastest sprinter in the peloton behind the breakaway yesterday. A good Tour de France needs a Van Aert in-form, so fingers crossed he can be in contention today.

Other fast men include Dorian Godon, who has won consistently since switching to Netcompany-Ineos, and surely two of the great nearly men of this sprint generation in Bryan Coquard and Phil Bauhaus. We’ll bring you the race updates a little bit later…

I quite like the normal Red Bull ads to be honest. The 2-D, seemingly hand-drawn stories illustrating how the disgusting drink can give you wings. Reminds me of Rhubarb & Custard.

Na na na NAHH! Na na na NAHH! NAH ner ner ner NAHH!

But this is Red Bull, and eyeballs need captivating, just ask Tom Pidcock, Wout van Aert or any members of Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe (although Remco Evenepoel is probably a better bet than… Ben Zwiehoff – that’s an example, sorry Ben)

So of course we have a video of a bike flip across two moving boats. Because why not…

> Standard ‘exclusive’ with anti-active travel campaigners claims Transport for London “covering up” cycling crashes – weeks after government released figures