“I’m f****d,” says cyclist who wore these shorts in the sun and came home looking like the Tour de France’s polka dot jersey; “Hold on mate, the cycle lane isn’t finished! It’s got to be open before you park on it”; Tour build-up + more on the live blog
SUMMARY
"Hold on mate, the cycle lane isn't finished yet! It's got to be open before you park on it."
Hold on mate, the cycle lane isn’t finished yet! It’s got to be open before you park on it.
Tour bikes (and kits): Trek and Factor bring out blinged-up bikes for the Tour de France
Israel-Premier Tech will be easy to spot at this year’s Tour, the team unveiling a colourful new kit and special edition Factor Ostro Vam ahead of the race. Groovy.
It’s quite funny seeing Jake Stewart be put front and centre on the Ostro Vam. I wonder what bike he’ll be riding on Saturday in Lille…
Anyway, the new Ostro Vam colourscheme is quite fun.
Lidl-Trek too will have a unique ride for the biggest race of the season, the team’s riders sticking with their Lidl masterpiece kit but getting this reimagined Madone paint job for the Tour.
Which do you prefer?
Bianchi teases sneak peek at brand new Infinito endurance bike, featuring down tube storage and unique sculpted seatpost
"Absolutely awful" or a "massive improvement"? Ineos Grenadiers' new Total Energies-sponsored jersey divides opinion
TotalEnergies has one and a half teams at the Tour, with both the self-named TotalEnergies squad of French breakaway fodder and, now, a prominent jersey sponsorship with the Ineos Grenadiers.
We knew it was coming, Ineos seeking new investment in the team to try to get back to cycling’s top table, while the French energy giant had always seemed keen to boost its profile, the marriage with Ineos something of a greenwashing power couple.
As Patrick Pouyanné, TotalEnergies CEO said last week: “We are very happy to support the INEOS Grenadiers team through this jersey sponsorship, which reflects the broader industrial cooperation between INEOS and TotalEnergies on a global scale, in particular in Europe and Saudi Arabia.” Isn’t multinational corporate involvement in sport so poetic…
Anyway, my ramblings aside, what we didn’t know was what the new Ineos x TotalEnergies jersey would look like. Well, now we do.
So, thoughts? Naturally, as it’s the internet we’re talking about, the reaction so far has been near-perfectly split between ‘it’s hideous’ and ‘it’s the best thing to ever grace a bike race’. Some replies to the team’s post sharing the image:
“Intern did a good job with Paint”
“That looks like a proper cycling jersey. Massive improvement.”
“Absolutely awful”
“This is weird… Total Energies on two teams jerseys..”
“Crappy jersey, did you get AI to design it in half a second?”
“There’s no way you paid someone to drop that”
And of course…
— DG (@Bahamuttt76) July 3, 2025
Only one way to settle it.
Make it stop! The Great Lube War of 2025 enters its second day
Our calls for phones to be confiscated at Silca and Muc-Off offices have gone unanswered. The two have thankfully stopped squabbling in the comments, WD40 amusingly getting involved too with a GIF of someone sitting back with some popcorn. Anyway, Silca’s now stuck a new Insta post up bigging up its products…
Will there be any further escalation? Let’s hope not, the last thing anyone needs to see is marketing teams from bike lube brands squaring off in a rap battle or releasing diss tracks. Our resident ultra-cycling legend Matt Page couldn’t help himself last night and got some AI promo for the big pay-per-view showdown…
Carl Dyson over on our Facebook page also earned himself a gold star for the comment… “I can sense friction”. Brilliant.
"Wasn't pleasant, but I guess it was fast conditions": John Archibald breaks RTTC National 50 Mile Championship record with blistering 53km/h average
"You're ticketing law-abiding citizens!": Cyclist fined for "riding no-handed" as police officer claims it "contravenes Human Rights Act"
Hipsters painting murals, avocado, independent coffee shops, art galleries and of course cycling clubs — the Daily Mail is never going to beat this headline
It’s an all-timer on the MailOnline website today, plus it’s an ‘EXCLUSIVE’ don’t you know.
Apparently Penge has been “overtaken” by an “influx” of cycling clubs. The horror.
Anyway, for some further reading…
> 20 of the most hysterical Daily Mail anti-cycling headlines
UCI outlines "comprehensive" anti-doping programme which will seek to catch any cheats at the Tour de France
The UCI, cycling’s governing body, has outlined its anti-doping plans for the Tour de France, namely what it calls a “comprehensive” programme to combat potential doping and technological fraud. It will be led by the International Testing Agency (ITA) and features a “targeted, intelligence-led testing plan grounded in the latest scientific developments and risk-based analysis”.
There will be more than 40 ITA staff at the Grand Départ in Lille, around 350 out-of-competition tests in the month prior to the race, and around 600 in-competition samples to be collected during the event.
The UCI also says there will be strong cooperation with French national authorities and long-term storage of samples over a 10-year period “in anticipation of future new detection methods or scientific developments”.
On the technological fraud side of things, a “reinforced monitoring programme” will be undertaken before and after stages. Interestingly, the UCI also says that during stages “an incident and performance monitoring programme will be implemented, relying in particular on the UCI Video Commissaire and the UCI Commissaires officiating at the race”.
“Anything that arouses suspicion will thus be identified, enabling better targeting of checks,” they said.
ITA director general Benjamin Cohen said: “The Tour de France is not only one of the most iconic events in sport, it is also a key moment for protecting the integrity of cycling. Our approach in 2025 reflects a continued commitment to intelligent, data-driven anti-doping strategies grounded in science, collaboration and continuous improvement.
“By combining targeted testing with advanced analytical tools such as the endocrine module, long-term sample storage and performance monitoring initiatives, we aim to ensure that this prestigious race is contested on a level playing field. We are proud to lead these efforts on behalf of the UCI and in close coordination with all our trusted partners.”
The last 'fast' Tour de France? Why the UCI's attempt to slow the pro peloton is unlikely to work
The bloke who cycled from Madrid to Glastonbury didn't stop when he arrived...
"I'm f****d," says cyclist who wore these shorts in the sun and came home looking like the Tour de France's polka dot jersey
This is making me feel a whole lot better about the picture of my weekend sunburn that I stuck up on Monday’s live blog. In my case, the great error was the usual underestimating of overcast skies and a lack of suncream. In this now-rosy Reddit cyclist’s case, it was wearing Castelli’s liner shorts as bibs and missing out on some suncream below.
How it started:
How it finished:
Unfortunately for the cyclist involved, those Castelli bib shorts are its ‘ultimate liner’, a short designed to be worn under baggy shorts. That’s not to say you technically couldn’t use them as regular bib shorts, just that the holes are there to keep you cool when wearing two pairs of shorts and aren’t designed with sun protection in mind. There’s no reason why, if you really wanted to, you couldn’t wear them as bibs, you’d (quite obviously given these pictures) need to remember to fully suncream your legs to avoid this spotty sunburn outcome.
> Cycling survival — how to avoid sunburn & stay comfortable
That’s the context, now onto the good part… the famously unsympathetic internet having its fun in the comments section.
One reply suggested the big problem was going to be aligning the dots on the next ride, while others joked about the poor rider looking like a cross between the Tour de France’s mountains jersey and an allergy test.
“Don’t tell PNS this trick,” another reply joked. “They might make a cutout on the bibs with their logo and you will be wearing their branding as tan.”
It’s funny you should say that, Wout van Aert’s beaten them to it…
Both Van Aert and this Reddit user have a long way to go before they can challenge the cycling sunburn GOAT, however. Returning for another viewing (the third of the week on the live blog no less!) Chris Froome’s back after wearing one of Rapha’s old mesh Team Sky jerseys for a training ride.
Legendary.
Alternatively, to be extra safe, maybe we should all be riding around like Uno-X climber Tobias Halland Johannessen and his heat adaptation outfit. “25 degrees outside, five layers of jackets, body temp 39.6, 2,5 litre fluid loss and one bike rider from Norway that is a bit more adapted,” he told his Instagram followers.
Hmmm maybe, or maybe we should just remember sun cream.
3 July 2025, 08:00
3 July 2025, 08:00
3 July 2025, 08:00
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Latest Comments
Um - not sure that follows. "I get all my facts from Wikipedia" =/= "I get all the facts that are on Wikipedia".
@Surreyrider you're going to be outraged at the lack of river / ancient female warrior content on Amazon...
Please remove this from Road CC's webiste, which, as its name confirms, is for ROAD cycling, not gravel riding or MTB.
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 – 4.5 out of 5 for 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 found the time to read this one. The Green Bullet is a 270-page chronology detailing Valverde's career from start to finishTo day that "...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"–is proof on its own that the reviewer hasn't done the road.cc readership, or me, the author, the courtesy of actually opening the covers and looking in between. On the subject of 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.
20 thoughts on ““I’m f****d,” says cyclist who wore these shorts in the sun and came home looking like the Tour de France’s polka dot jersey; “Hold on mate, the cycle lane isn’t finished! It’s got to be open before you park on it”; Tour build-up + more on the live blog”
What choice did the taxi have
What choice did the taxi have but to park on the cycle lane? The road has zig zags, so can’t park there, and somebody else has beaten them to the pavement!
Mot expired September 24. In
Mot expired September 24. In lancs ?
MOT expired September 24. In
MOT expired September 24. In Lancs ?
They would get a police commendation in Lancashire for an MOT expired only 9 months ago- or it could be a taxi authority which claims its own tests are more stringent than the ‘real’ MOT.
Or inexplicable ones like
Or inexplicable ones like this:
How has that Rover managed to
How has that Rover managed to be taxed but hasn’t had an MOT for 16 years ?
You can’t tax a vehicle without an MOT certificate?
That’s why it’s inexplicable.
That’s why it’s inexplicable. Could be a DVLA failure- they think it’s an exempt vehicle, for instance. My MP is awaiting a further letter from a transport minister concerning the hopelessness of DVLA over vehicles without VED for years which DO keep passing MOT
wtjs wrote:
Even if it is an exempt vehicle, e.g. used by a disabled person, they still have to renew VED each year just as with electric vehicles (up until earlier this year), it’s charged as £0 but it’s still a legal requirement to have it.
Wrong argument! If you read
Wrong argument! If you read the sequence you’ll see that the question is about vehicles without MOT for years which have remained taxed, and common instances are police vehicles and taxis – it’s MOT-exempt I’m referring to. My assumption is that DVSA issues some type of exemption flag for a vehicle, and this may not be properly gathered or maintained by the considerably less competent DVLA. Therefore, the MOT-checkpoint for ‘permission to tax’ may fail.
Rendel Harris wrote:
Even if it is an exempt vehicle, e.g. used by a disabled person, they still have to renew VED each year just as with electric vehicles (up until earlier this year), it’s charged as £0 but it’s still a legal requirement to have it.— wtjs
Historic vehicles, too: I get a reminder each year to log in and renew my VED of £0.00
Owners of historic vehicles are not obliged to MOT them, but are still legally required to make sure that they are roadworthy (so still have their vehicles serviced as often as and, let’s face it, sometimes more than, the owners of ‘modern vehicles).
The bike lane is not
The bike lane is not completed until the broken glass is scattered over it!
dabba wrote:
Edinburgh has you covered! The south end of the cycle path at Marine Drive had broken glass people lobbing their empties over the barriers before you could even get on it!
And the cycle slaloms on Leith walk were “finished” before they’d done things like remove lamp posts and holes where they’d already dug up the surface they’d “finished”.
That’s an interesting tan
That’s an interesting tan line!
Vote!
Vote!
The time and effort Gobik put
The time and effort Gobik put in to create the design of the new jersey must have cost them about 99 euros in labour costs
Don’t be daft, they didn’t
Don’t be daft, they didn’t spend that much.
The Silca photographer needs
The Silca photographer needs to learn to focus, that Merckx is much more interesting.
That Ineos-Grenadiers-Total
That Ineos-Grenadiers-Total Energies jersey is just embarrassingly poor.
Whoever ‘designed’ this
Whoever ‘designed’ this jersey showed they couldn’t careless. One don’t need to be an expert in brand management to know that this awful design will generate negative feedback. Any doubt? Ask Jaguar about their woke ad and the whopping sales 97% drop.
G must be delighted to wear this rag for his last TdF.
The only explanation I can
The only explanation I can think of is that they had hardly any time between realising they needed a new design and having to submit it to the Tour organisers for approval.
Both the new Factor and Trek
Both the new Factor and Trek paint jobs are lovely, I’d have a hard time picking between those. However just had a quick squint on the trek website and its a staggering extra £2200 just for that colourway !!!!!