“Not just extreme, but poor coaching”: 18-year-old pro does “crazy” 100km “recovery ride” immediately after 157km race — but is ex-pro right to criticise team?; Safety concerns over Rwanda world championships; Pidcock wins again + more on the live blog
SUMMARY
Leave it to the French to make the most quirky cycling road signs
Credit for these goes to Steve Fleming, who shared images of these très bizarre and très amusante road signage for cyclists from France, including a wicked speed bump for a poor cyclist who just wants to have a chill ride, an interesting mix of cyclists, pedestrians and horse riders indicating a shared ‘greenway’, and finally, a road cyclist with a helmet making their way down a serpentine descent that looks a bit too much like the Ventoux…
“Grumpy old woman” makes New Year resolution to be less grumpy towards cyclists wearing dark clothes and those who think “red lights don’t apply to them”… alongside drivers parking on double yellow lines and dog owners
It’s delayed by some 31 days but we finally have a “well-intentioned” New Year resolution from a local who’s decided it’s time to stop being “grumpy” at drivers, dog owners… and of course, cyclists.
“This grumpy old woman plans to be less grumpy in 2025. Is this possible?” asks Jane France, in a column published in the Eastern Daily Press.
Her first object of ire is drivers who park on double yellow lines. “Even traffic wardens do not seem to deter them,” she says. “Cars [sic] also park on the verges in front of houses churning up the grass and on some occasions completely blocking resident’s access to and from their property.”
The next naughty bunch on her list is, you guessed it, cyclists. “Another thing that makes me grumpy is the behaviour of some cyclists who often put their safety and that of others at risk.
“Some cyclists wear dark clothing with hoods up and no lights on their bicycle – not even a reflector. Recently I saw a cyclist who only became apparent due to his white socks – that was a real trigger to my grumpiness.
“It amazes me that many cyclists do not appear to think that a red traffic light applies to them. Today I gave way to a cyclist who, in freezing conditions, came down the road wearing headphones and with his hands in his pockets — at least he wasn’t texting.”
Next up is dog owners. “It’s amazing just how many people do take their dogs in – Is my grumpiness because they’re ignoring the signs, or a little bit of jealousy that they don’t appear to care?
“I could go on forever – litter, wheelie bins left on pavements, and e-scooters with their silent motors.”
She ends by saying: “The WI has a long history of campaigning so perhaps instead of being grumpy I should put my energy into positivity and see whether a resolution leading to a campaign for possibly safer conditions for delivery e-bikes, whose riders are required to deliver at speed and do not always have reliable safe bikes that meet legal requirements. Just a thought.”
That would be a good thought, indeed.
£1,000 fine and 12-month ban for DPD delivery driver who left cyclist with broken neck after cutting across cycle lane
Bike shed for Danny MacAskill? “Cyclists dismount” sign ahead of ‘Cycle Hub’ located down a flight of stairs
Welcome to the one of most ironic cycling facilities we have seen here at road.cc: The ‘Cycle Hub’ at Sheffield Hallam University’s campus, designed exclusively for those with the skills of Danny MacAskill, or maybe those looking for an upper-body workout (but then, which cyclist doesn’t?).
Rather conveniently located at the bottom of a staircase, cyclists are first greeted with the ultimate paradox, a sign saying “Cyclists please dismount before entering the hub” — a polite reminder that unless you’re bunny-hopping your way down like the Scottish trials rider, you’ll be lugging your bike like it’s an awkwardly shaped suitcase. Nothing says ‘bike-friendly’ like carrying your bike down a flight of stairs, does it?
This wonderful piece of infrastructure was brought to our attention by road.cc reader Andy Nichols, who said: “I’m not sure if it’s quite on a par with some of your other content but this made me laugh when I had to use a different bike shed at work to usual.”
Oh believe me, it is on par with some of our other content…
Tom Pidcock’s done it again! 9km solo attack helps British rider claim second victory with new team Q36.5 at queen stage of the AlUla Tour
Poor management, missed opportunities, burned bridges, call it what you want — but Tom Pidcock has wasted no time settling into his new team Q36.5 Pro Cycling after the uncomfortable exit from Ineos Grenadiers, with the 25-year-old rider claiming a second victory at the AlUla Tour and gaining a comfortable lead in the general classification.
A 9km attack saw Pidcock fly solo across the Skyviews of Harrat Uwayrid, the queen stage of the five-day tour with riders climbing the volcanic mountain. And just like in the second stage, in which he claimed victory for the first time in Q36.5 colours, there was basically no competition for the double Olympic champion.
🌟 Tom Pidcock does it again! 🌟
The @Q36_5ProCycling rider soloes to a SECOND stage at the 2025 AlUla Tour and extends his lead in the GC 🙌 pic.twitter.com/fKcF6PsF13
— Eurosport (@eurosport) January 31, 2025
Pidcock said after the finish: “On a climb that steep I went to the bottom to set my own pace. Offence is the best form of defence, sometimes. When I came to this race, they said it’s normally a tailwind up here, but it was a headwind. It was a long eight kilometres. There were four guys behind me, and I don’t know how well they were working but I was on my own. It was a long way, but I am happy. I extended my lead, and this gives us a buffer going into tomorrow. I did a lot of training that helps me do these efforts. This week I set a new 5–10-minute power record so I am definitely in good shape.”
“I looked at tomorrow’s stage and I think it will be windy so it will be a stressful day to hold this jersey. It’s definitely not over but I think I couldn’t have done much more up till now.”
With this win, Pidcock is in a comfortable lead in the general classification, with Bahrain Victorious’ Rainer Kepplinger 29 seconds behind him, he should have his first stage race GC victory in the bag with his new team, barring any terrible misfortune.
Cycling fans report Warner Bros. Discovery to market regulator for “abuse of monopoly” and “price gouging” after moving cycling behind £30.99-a-month paywall, as Tory MP slams “terrible decision”
“These pro cyclists are crazy”: 18-year-old rider does 100km “recovery ride” immediately after 157km race ridden at 48km/hr
Here’s a cheerful start to your Friday with a humble reminder of how good the pros are — a realisation made even more shocking when you find that the rider is just 18 years old.
Fresh off the back of winning the young rider jersey at the Tour Down Under in his first-ever pro race, Lidl-Trek’s Albert Philipsen continued his racing season in Australia with the Surf Coast Classic, a UCI 1.1 one-day race.
Although the multidisciplinary Danish rider came home in 44th position in the race, which ended in a bunch sprint finish won by Tobias Lund Andresen—another young Dane from Team Picnic PostNL—Philipsen has managed to draw attention to his post-race escapades thanks to his Strava upload, which showed that he added almost 100 kilometres to the race.
The coolest thing? He labelled the update on Strava as “Recovery ride”.
Actually, what’s even cooler is that despite the race being ridden at almost 48km/hr from Lorne to Torquay, Philipsen’s 252km-long ride ended with an average speed of 41.8km/hr (he hit a top speed of 94.2km/hr), lasting just over six hours with almost 3,000 metres of climbing.
The 2023 junior world champion also claimed the King of Mountain badge on the Lorne-Benwerrin Climb, riding the 25km segment with over 400 metres of climbing in 17:50, beating Michal Kwiatkowski’s record by one second.
So to sum up his last few weeks: He turned pro with Lidl-Trek, skipped the U23 classifications, made his debut in the Tour Down Under, and then went on to prove his GC credentials by winning the youth classification and securing a top 20 overall finish. And now, he’s showing off in front of us amateurs by casually doing a 100km recovery ride and setting several personal bests along the way.
Alright then, I’ll note him down in my diary as one for the future, or maybe the present.
Great Britain edges Italy and France to win mixed relay at cyclocross world championships
The six-rider team of of Zoe Bäckstedt, Thomas Mein, Oscar Amey, Cat Ferguson, Zoe Roche, and Milo Wills kicked off the UCI cyclocross world championships in Liévin, France with a gold medal in the mixed relay race.
The team, spearheaded by Thomas Mein, who came back from third place on the final lap, finished ahead of Italy by just two seconds, while the French team finished a further three seconds behind to claim the bronze medal.
Last week, British Cycling had come under fire for not selecting any riders in the elite women’s and men’s U23 categories, including recently crowned women’s national champion Xan Crees for the cyclocross world championships, with fans and ex-riders dishing out scathing criticism of the governing body, calling the decision as “short-sighted”, “disgraceful”, and “sexist”.
No relocation of 2025 road world championships to Switzerland planned, but UCI “closely monitoring” Rwanda-DR Congo situation, as Belgium Cycling Federation raises concerns for riders and staff security
With the violent situation in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo exacerbated by the advancing M23 rebel group reportedly backed by Rwanda, the UCI has come forward today and released a statement saying that it is “closely monitoring” the developments ahead of the road world championships, scheduled to take place in Kigali, Rwanda in September 2025.
“The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), in close collaboration with the Local Organising Committee (LOC) of the 2025 UCI Road World Championships, is closely monitoring developments in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and their potential impact on the organisation of the UCI Road World Championships scheduled for next September in Kigali, Rwanda,” the governing body of pro cycling said.
“The ongoing conflict is confined to the DRC, and Rwanda remains entirely safe for tourism and business.
“We hope for a swift and peaceful resolution of the situation. The UCI wishes to emphasise that sport, and cycling in particular, are powerful ambassadors for peace, friendship, and solidarity.
“Moreover, following the spread of rumours on this subject, the UCI clarifies that no relocation of the 2025 UCI Road World Championships from Rwanda to Switzerland or any other location is planned at this time.”
Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, which is set to host the world championships, is located 150km from the Goma border. The BBC has reported that the Rwandan government has deployed troops to the Goma frontier area as a security measure.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson from the Belgian Cycling Federation confirmed to Dernière Heure that they have delayed their reconnaissance programme and raised concerns for the safety of riders and support staff.
Nathalie Clauwaert from the BCF said: “We have lots of questions, and we’re not the only ones.”
“There were already lots of doubt about the quality of the accommodation there. But right now, our concerns are of a very different nature.”
“The most important thing is to be able to be certain of our riders’ security and all the support staff.”
Doubts have also been cast over the upcoming Tour of Rwanda at the end of next month, with the route taking the peloton very close to Goma at the Rwanda-DR Congo border. The Belgian media has also suggested that Martigny, Switzerland could emerge as a ‘Plan B’ should the event at Kigali fail to go through.
Do you really have to pay £30.99 every month to watch cycling? Find out how to watch cycling for less now it's moving to TNT Sports
It’s soon going to cost quite a lot to watch cycling in the UK — what’s happening when… and can you get it cheaper?
> How to watch cycling for less now it’s moving to £30.99-a-month TNT Sports
Cyclist who flew over handlebars and “nearly broke neck” after uninsured SUV driver pulled out confronts motorist at home demanding $13,000 – but pensioner says “there’s no way I’m bloody paying that”
“Not just extreme, but poor coaching”: 18-year-old pro takes on “crazy” 100km “recovery ride” immediately after 157km race — but is ex-pro right to criticise team?
Albert Philipsen, the 18-year-old Danish rider who within one month of turning pro has already won the youth classification at the Tour Down Under, might have shocked fans with his “crazy” 100km “recovery ride” after the 157km, however, there’s one person who isn’t very impressed, and it’s none other than former Aussie pro Rory Sutherland.
Commenting under a post on social media, Sutherland expressed his doubts over such a long and hard recovery ride, in which Philipsen continued to set personal bests and ended the six-hour total ride with an average speed of 41.8km/hr.
“As an 18-year-old with hopefully a minimum of 12-15 years ahead of him this is (again in my opinion) not just extreme, but poor coaching and thinking long-term about an athlete’s health,” the former Movistar and UAE Team Emirates rider said.
When one person pointed out that Philipsen has dipped his feet in all kinds of discipline — MTB, cyclocross and road — and just loves to be on the bike, as well as adding that “things have changed a lot now” and “Mathieu van der Poel is doing 200km+ training rides every day at the moment”, Sutherland replied: “I certainly don’t disagree that things have changed… We all have our opinions, I think it’s too much personally. I think whether you love to ride your bike or not shouldn’t come into it, all professionals love to ride their bikes. MvdP [Van der Poel] isn’t 18.”
Nick Owen, Paralympic manager and coach at the Australian Cycling Team also agreed with Sutherland, adding: “This obsession with juniors racing and training as senior riders is going to cause many issues for many rides in my opinion.”
But besides Sutherland and Owen, most seem rather impressed with the Strava post, commenting that “he’s one to watch” and even heralding him as the “next Van der Poel”. Either way, the young Dane has found himself in the middle of some interesting discussions today.
Do you think Sutherland is right in criticising Philipsen and his team for allowing him to do the monster recovery ride or do you think there’s no harm in doing an extra 100 kilometres after a race, as long as the rider wants to do it?
31 January 2025, 09:42
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Latest Comments
Both stories re ghost bikes unfortunately sound very similar to one local to us. Cyclist killed by a driver, ghost bike put in place, ghost bike vandalised/cruel notes put on it then ghost bike disappears with no explanation from the council or anyone else. Of course everyone on local Facebook is against removing it, but there always seems to be one or two who can’t seem to stand ghost bikes!
RE hateful comments / "angry drivers" - while there does seem to be a strong correlation between "possibility of any inconvenience to my travel" and "unjustifiable anger" * ... ... I think this is mostly a story about "modern Internet-mediated interaction", no? * Which is mostly drivers simply due to numbers. Although things like "the advert said cruising on the freeway, the reality is queueing on the Westway" and "person on horse shouts at peasants on foot" no doubt contribute.
@Natrix How likely is it that I get all my facts from Wikipedia? I'd be writing a book a week, wouldn't I?
@Wales56 Overbiked Randonneuring reviewed the SeeMee 300 and one of the criticisms was that although the battery life was very good, it was only 75% of the claimed values. I thought the reduced values for the newer model were a result of better testing and it is very disappointing to find out that not only the runtimes in the newer model have been slashed, but they're still hugely exaggerated.
@chrisonabike they could try this on motorists first (because number plates, that’ll have ’em bang to rights Exactly!
@chrisonabike Unfortunately, I think you're disputing with a Very Small Language Model A Low I Pro-Driving Fictitious Cyclist troll, powered by a single AAA battery with those white crystals oozing out of the terminals.
Hi, this is the author. In the past road.cc has published critical but generally positive comments on my work – The Road Book 1989, Colombia Es Pasión, and others. Have a look at them and you'll see that thorough and uncompromising research is central to all my books. Then ask yourself how realistic this so-called "review" of The Green Bullet is likely to be. The writer says "I've read plenty of books on cycling." He clearly hasn't read this one. The Green Bullet is a 270-page chronology detailing Valverde's career from start to finish, so the following extract–"...he won massive races all the way through his career. However, if you went purely off Rendell’s book, you wouldn’t know any of that"–proves on its own that the reviewer hasn't done me (or the road.cc readership) the courtesy of actually opening the covers and looking in between. On the subject of making light Google searches, I plead guilty. It took a few to find, online, the 353-page Caso Nóos judgment, the 361-page Operación Puerto judgment, the multiple TAS rulings, the Operación Galgo documents, the USADA investigation into Lance Armstrong, plus the newspaper reports described on p. 21 and in the 15 pages of endnotes. I obtained the complete Puerto documentation from other sources. Reading and digesting each one of what turned out to be many thousands of pages of legal Spanish and Italian, together with legal texts explaining concepts I found otherwise incomprehensible, took a bit more effort, as did getting permission to speak to the Carabinieri officer who investigated Valverde, and whose work brought down Alejandro and, ultimately, Lance too, as published for the first time in the book. To explain how Valverde's astonishing win rate was used by highly questionable sponsors, political groupings, members of the royal family, even religious organisations, to distract public attention from their nefarious conduct, it was absolutely necessary to explore various so-called "rabbit holes and tangents." I don't know how else you could come to an awareness of the hair-raising degree of the corruption at Banesto, Kelme (and related sponsors) and Illes Balears, and the bizarre institutional role of Telefónica/Movistar–providing jobs and escape route for disgraced politicians and royalty–which has never been documented in a single book, and much of it never in English in any form, short or long. Given the months of painstaking work embodied in The Green Bullet, I'm obviously very disappointed that you have persuaded @Natrix, in the Comments above, that "Matt Rendell seems to have used wikipedia to get most of his information." Setting aside the harm this may already have done to my employability and standing with publishers, broadcasters and the reading public, I'm curious to know why you would do this to a fellow cycling writer who simply attempts to do the best and most thorough job he possibly can of each assignment. I don't much like reading or viewing my own work, but a few weeks ago, before a talk, I re-read The Green Bullet. It has never done well commercially (I wonder why?) but I felt–and feel–very proud to have written it. I stand by the book and I'm very happy to be judged on its merits and its failings, provided the criticism is done in good faith. This review has not been done in good faith. Something else is going on, although I'm at a loss to know what.
@jackcycles mind you, perhaps points could be added to their cycling licenses? And you'd think insurance companies * would increase their cycling insurance premiums? An administrative penalty might improve *compliance* - especially if it could be applied immediately after the offence. But I think they should trial that to see if it actually does. For ease of testing they could try this on motorists first (because number plates, that'll have 'em bang to rights). Monitor numbers speeding / going through red/amber lights in an area before and after bringing in fines, say. I dunno how much it would help with road safety though. Then again that's far more to do with removing incentives or even opportunity to behave dangerously, and making the desired safe behaviours "natural". * Currently I pay for membership of Cycling UK, which also gives me liability insurance; I think British Cycling membership does similar.
@jackcycles two-tier justice you say? Quite, that would never happen with driving - they throw the book * at you if you break the law then. You certainly wouldn't just be given "points" and a second chance, or allowed to do a course rather than paying a fine! * The Beano?
@Fursty Ferret "... if I came across a car driving on a bike path..." or "... if I came across someone driving on a bike path..." http://rc-rg.com
11 thoughts on ““Not just extreme, but poor coaching”: 18-year-old pro does “crazy” 100km “recovery ride” immediately after 157km race — but is ex-pro right to criticise team?; Safety concerns over Rwanda world championships; Pidcock wins again + more on the live blog”
…
love that first sign – “Table
love that first sign – “Table Jump Ahead – woo-hoo!”
The French have such élan –
The French have such élan – throwing a bunny-hop coming back from the boulangerie on your town bike with the petit-déjeuner!
The culture warriors would
The culture warriors would insist you can achieve similar results in Croydon – French elan nothing – what abaht British values!
Only it would involve a (hacked) Lime Bike & a take away Nando’s.
It looks like they’ve hit the
It looks like they’ve hit the speedbump so fast, that in the next photo they’ve flown right over the heads of the horserider and pedestrian. Impressive.
But they’ve lost the basket,
But they’ve lost the basket, and presumably the croissants with it!
Just have to settle for a Ricard and a Gauloise for breakfast again…
Please note: this is intended as affectionate mockery of an outdated national stereotype, and and in no way is intended to be racist OR constitute health and nutrition advice
I”d be tempted to graffiti
I”d be tempted to graffiti ET into the basket too
Social pressure is not a new
Social pressure is not a new thing.
Sad
I prefer the gumpy woman to
I prefer the gumpy woman to most moaners as at least she said “some cyclists” and not all
road.cc wrote:
Does that mean he had to come back and do a time trial after his 100km of recovery?
How dare anyone claim that
How dare anyone claim that Rwanda is not perfectly safe, we have a law, passed by both houses of parliament, both democratic and appointed/somewhat hereditary and quite ridiculously religiously there, that it is safe and must remain safe until that law is changed or rescinded.