“I thought the Tour of Germany would’ve been my final race”: Geraint Thomas braves eight-hour Ryanair delay due to faulty plane and storm, to make it to Tour of Britain start line with just five hours of sleep + more on the live blog
SUMMARY
Passport? Optional, apparently: cyclist challenges runner over Mont Blanc… and loses lunch
We’ve seen some odd challenges in our time, but this one might take the gâteau. British fitness coach Tom Trotter thought he’d have an easy time of it riding 100km around the Mont Blanc massif, racing ultrarunner and filmmaker James Norbury, who was “just” running 30km straight over the top, crossing from France into Italy.
On paper, it looks simple: bike beats legs. But in reality, the bike came with one small flaw — border control. Trotter, a little too cocky, forgot his passport and had to detour, while Norbury just kept grinding uphill, head down, ticking off the altitude like a metronome.
Spoilers for the results: By the time Trotter was pedalling into the Italian town, fuelled by the smell of pizza, Norbury was already across the border and into the restaurant…
“A final race deserves something special”: Check out Geraint Thomas’ stunning Pinarello Dogma F for Tour of Britain
Arguably the greatest Welsh cyclist of all time, set to ride his final race and come home to a fervent crowd in Cardiff on the last stage — on a bike this beautiful?! Now that’s what you call finishing in style…
A final race deserves something special 💫
Check out this stunning @Pinarello_com DOGMA F, designed for @GeraintThomas86 at the #TourOfBritain 🔴🟢 pic.twitter.com/1JCoSXwrvP
— INEOS Grenadiers (@INEOSGrenadiers) September 2, 2025
Teenager stabbed and threatened with plastic handgun during bike robbery attempt on canal towpath
> Teenager stabbed and threatened with plastic handgun during bike robbery attempt on canal towpath
“I didn’t want to do this for the next five to ten years”: 27-year-old pro announces retirement from peloton claiming he wasn’t “competitive” anymore and wanted to “have a life outside cycling”
Dutch rider Ide Schelling has revealed he will hang up his WorldTour wheels at just 27, announcing on the De Grote Plaat podcast that this October’s Tour of Holland will be his final race.
“I’m here to announce that I’m retiring as a WorldTour rider. And that I’m no longer as in love with the world and life as I once was,” he said. “For me, this is a very normal and logical decision.”
Schelling admitted the sport had simply become too much to keep up with. “A lot has changed in the peloton since I turned pro in 2020. The overall level has increased so much that sometimes I feel like I can’t compete anymore,” he explained, adding bluntly: “I don’t have a particularly big engine… but you need such a big engine these days to compete in a final. It’s a fast race all the way, from start to finish.”
A tough Vuelta a España last year, where he finished second-to-last overall despite riding “fantastic performances for my standards,” proved to be a turning point. “Then it became clear to me. I didn’t want to do this for the next five to ten years.”
The XDS-Astana rider also spoke about the toll the lifestyle takes. “When you have to dedicate so much time to your sport, it’s almost impossible to combine it with a life outside of it,” he said. “I love a lot of things besides cycling. If you only have a few weeks a year to do that, I personally think that’s not enough.”
Schelling has already set out his next chapter with his girlfriend Hannah in Campdorà, Spain, where the couple bought a 17th-century building. He says he’s keen to learn gardening, maybe even create a food forest, and balance that with occasional fixed-gear and gravel racing.
There are still career highlights to reflect on — a stage win at the Itzulia Basque Country in 2023, another in Slovenia, and that stint in the polka dots at the 2021 Tour de France. “When I turned pro, I didn’t necessarily think I would win a race or be a truly great rider,” he said. “But I wondered if I would ever go to the Tour. That happened a year later, with a starring role in the first week. It was truly very, very special.”
Before signing off, Schelling will race the Canadian WorldTour rounds in Quebec and Montreal, potentially the European Championships if selected, before taking a final bow in The Hague at the Tour of Holland in October.
“Garnacho of cycling”: Fans react to “wild timing” as UAE Team Emirates and Juan Ayuso announce they’re finally parting ways mid-Vuelta, citing “group harmony” and “values”
It’s happened, it’s finally happened. The worst-kept secret of this silly season is finally public: Juan Ayuso and UAE Team Emirates have mutually decided to part ways. Yes, while the Vuelta is still on.
As if football’s deadline day drama wasn’t chaotic enough, cycling lobbed in its own plot twist just as Liverpool were splashing £125 million on Alexander Isak and Manchester United were pinning their relegation survival hopes on a young Belgian goalkeeper.
UAE confirmed late last night that the 22-year-old Spaniard’s long-term deal — originally running until 2028 — would be cut short at the end of 2025, citing “differences in the vision of development plans and in the alignment with the team’s sporting philosophy.”
Team boss Mauro Gianetti said: “Juan has been a valuable talent and we are grateful for what we have built together. At the same time, our sporting project has always been focused on continuity, group harmony, and building a winning team. We believe that, in the best interests of both parties, this decision is the most consistent with the values that define our organisation.”
Ayuso, meanwhile, went full Real Madrid with a Comunicado Oficial.
“After an incredible journey, my path and that of UAE Team Emirates will part ways,” he wrote, thanking the team but adding: “On a personal level, I feel it’s time to find an environment that better aligns with who I am and with my values, a place where I can continue to develop with complete confidence and peace of mind. I feel now is the time to seek new challenges and opportunities, in a place that has the same vision as I do.”
The split comes just 48 hours after a telling Vuelta stage nine, where Ayuso lost more than 21 minutes and openly admitted he saw no point in helping Joāo Almeida chase Jonas Vingegaard. “I was quite tired and couldn’t help the team much,” he shrugged. Almeida, who was left to battle alone on the climb to Valdezcaray, wasn’t impressed, telling reporters that Ayuso’s lack of support had cost him.
It’s been a recurring theme. Ayuso burst onto the scene with third place at the 2022 Vuelta and fourth in 2023, but has found himself squeezed out in UAE’s talent logjam behind Tadej Pogačar, Almeida and rising star Isaac del Toro. This season alone he’s taken stages at the Giro and Vuelta, plus the overall at Tirreno-Adriatico — yet somehow looked more like an awkward extra in the Pogi show than a future team leader.
Fans, predictably, had their knives out and their jokes ready. “Visma has a chance to do the funniest thing,” one quipped. Another sighed: “Happy for the talent to go elsewhere, but sad the drama is about to end.” And plenty zeroed in on the timing: “Announcing this on the first rest day of a Grand Tour he’s still riding is just wild.”
Others were more scathing. “They’re fed up,” one commenter wrote. “Whatever the arrangements were before the Vuelta, I think some line was crossed.” Another added: “The writing was on the wall. If this guy wasn’t going to properly sacrifice himself to pull for Pogačar, why would he do it for Almeida?”
Meanwhile, one person simply said: “He’s really the Garnacho of cycling, isn’t he?” If you didn’t get that reference, well, it’s got to do with Alejandro Garnacho reportedly forcing a move away from Manchester United to Chelsea after falling out of favour with under-fire manager Ruben Amorim.
Some saw Sunday’s stage as the breaking point. “Yesterday falling back before the climb even started was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” one user said. “Ayuso most likely didn’t even want to come to the Vuelta, as that meant another supporting role. And that’s why he’s bailing mid-GT.”
And, summing up the general mood, one fan captured what I assume everyone’s imagining: “With all this drama and staying in the team bus… would love a camera and a documentary after.”
"Every bike could be another car making congestion worse": Cyclists fight to save cycle lanes facing removal due to looming deadline to make temporary bollards permanent
Welcome to the UK
A burst water main means that the Tour of Britain has been forced to make a diversion in its route, with the four-man breakaway acting as guinea pigs on the narrow country roads before the peloton makes their way through.
Did anyone pack their gravel wheels? 😅
A burst water main forces us into an early diversion.
Our four-man breakaway still holds a 2 minute advantage over the peloton ✌️
📺 Watch the Lloyds Tour of Britain Men LIVE on ITV4 and YouTube#ToBM | @LloydsBank pic.twitter.com/wUxC1S8qyx
— Lloyds Tour of Britain (@TourofBritain) September 2, 2025
“I bet cornering is a lot of fun”: Cyclist takes “just riding along” to another level with bike missing front tyres
You thought you’d seen it all… until you see a bloke pedalling around on a bike with no front tyres at all, bottle in hand, looking like it’s just another Tuesday commute.
The photo first landed on r/xbiking before being crossposted to r/JustRidingAlong, where the caption simply read: “Literally just riding along.”
Naturally, the comments section did its thing. “One Secret Trick to Just Ride Along! Continental Hates Him!” one joked. Another deadpanned: “No tyre = No flat.” Someone else pointed out the obvious: “That’s going to void the warranty.”
Others looked at the bright side: “The suspension fork re-adds the lost compliance,” while one user channelled no-seat-riding expert Chad Tavernia with a classic: “Think about the weight savings!”
And the winning understatement? “I bet cornering is a lot of fun on that thing.”
Starting where he left off... Olav Kooij soars to Tour of Britain opening stage sprint victory
Olav Kooij wasted no time reminding everyone who owned the Tour of Britain’s flat finishes last year. The 23-year-old Visma-Lease a Bike sprinter, who rattled off four stage wins in a row here in 2023, opened his 2025 campaign with another victory on the Suffolk coast.
Olav Kooij wins the opening stage of the Tour of Britain! 🙌
A huge effort sees the Visma-Lease a Bike rider prevail in the sprint to the line 🏁 pic.twitter.com/3MybJaPeLu
— Cycling on TNT Sports (@cyclingontnt) September 2, 2025
The opener from Woodbridge to Southwold always looked destined for a sprint, and the seaside town provided the stage for a drag race into a stiff headwind. Kooij had the benefit of a textbook Visma lead-out, but still had to claw his way past Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale’s Tord Gudmestad, who launched early and came within metres of spoiling the Dutchman’s party.
The win puts him straight into the first leader’s jersey, meanwhile, for the home crowd, Ineos Grenadiers’ Sam Watson managed sixth on the day.
"They're trying to damage my reputation": Juan Ayuso brands UAE Team Emirates "a dictatorship" in extraordinary interview just hours after sudden exit confirmed
Yeah, I’m going to need a full documentary about this fallout of gargantuan proportions…
Leuven delivers late drama as Lorena Wiebes powers to career victory number 111 in the Simac Ladies Tour opener
Stage one of the Simac Ladies Tour in Leuven had everything — constant attacks, Ellen van Dijk lighting up her farewell race, and a late break from Pfeiffer Georgi and Margaux Vigie that almost stuck. But once the bunch regrouped, the script was inevitable.
Win number 111 🔥 Lorena Wiebes takes 𝒂𝒏𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 victory on the opening stage of the Simac Ladies Tour 👏 pic.twitter.com/rLWjsOn8yY
— Cycling on TNT Sports (@cyclingontnt) September 2, 2025
European champion Lorena Wiebes launched down Bondgenotenlaan and left Elisa Balsamo and Clara Copponi trailing, bagging the first leader’s jersey with daylight to spare.
Jay Vine doubles up at the Vuelta a España as UAE finally have something to smile about, as Pidcock impresses again with top five finish while Vingegaard reclaims red
For a team that’s been mired in Ayuso drama the whole day, UAE finally got something positive to talk about. Jay Vine took his second stage of this Vuelta with a confident solo on the climb to Larra Belagua, giving the squad a much-needed breather from the headlines swirling around them.
Jay Vine conquers Stage 10 of La Vuelta a España 🚴♂️ pic.twitter.com/vgE9NK9jmJ
— Cycling on TNT Sports (@cyclingontnt) September 2, 2025
The Australian was part of the day’s decisive break and rode clear in the final kilometres, shaking off Movistar’s Pablo Castrillo to cross the line alone.
Behind him, Jonas Vingegaard finished with the favourites and did enough to wrest the red jersey back from Torstein Træen, who cracked and shipped more than a minute to the Dane.
João Almeida tested the waters with late digs but couldn’t shake his rivals, while Tom Pidcock — second behind Vingegaard on Sunday — proved he’s settling into the mountains nicely with another top five on the stage.
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“I thought the Tour of Germany would’ve been my final race”: Geraint Thomas braves eight-hour Ryanair delay due to faulty plane and storm, to make it to Tour of Britain start line with just five hours of sleep
You’d think a Tour de France winner would glide into his farewell race on a wave of ceremony, but Geraint Thomas’ last week as a pro started the way so many club riders’ trips do: stuck in a Ryanair queue.
The Welshman posted on Instagram that his flight from Nice was delayed by eight hours, sharing a picture of passengers shuffling onto the budget airline in the middle of the night.
“Finally leaving for Stansted… only 8hrs delay. At one stage, I thought the Tour of Germany would have been my final race,” the 2018 Tour de France winner wrote.
By the time his plane finally took off around midnight, he didn’t get to bed until 2am, managing barely five hours’ sleep before lining up at the Tour of Britain start in Woodbridge. But not one to count his losses, G shrugged it off as: “It could be worse, it’s not so bad.”
“I wasn’t sure I was going to get here yesterday with the flights and stuff, but I’m happy to be here now, and I’m buzzing, looking forward to it,” he told reporters at the start line “There was a fault with the plane, and then a storm came in, so the other plane to take us couldn’t get in. There were flights being cancelled all over the place, and I thought it could be tight here, but luckily the flight finally went at around midnight, I think. I got to bed about two o’clock.”
If anyone deserves a smooth ride this week, it’s Thomas; in more ways than one, it’s a special week for him. In fact, even Ineos — who’re happy sending him off in a Ryanair flight (remember when players from Sir Jim’s other team, Manchester United, were flying in easyJet last year?) — have unveiled a gorgeous red jersey emblazoned with Y Ddraig Goch, and an equally gorgeous Pinarello for the man to ride to mark his final race. The organisers have also designed a route that ends with a grand finale in his hometown of Cardiff on Sunday.
“It’s pretty mad, the effort the team’s gone to with the bikes and the jersey, and obviously the organiser as well, having the finish in Cardiff. It’s going to be a special week, that’s for sure,” Thomas said.
“The main thing is enjoying it, making the most of it and making it something to remember. Obviously, we’ve got a strong team here and I’ll do my bit for the boys. I’m not really in the shape to win myself, but we’ve got some good guys here to perform.”
He admitted it’s been “a year of lasts” — his last Tour de France in July, his last training blocks, and now his last race week before moving into a management role with Ineos from 2026.
“It’s certainly been a year of lasts, really, now the lasts are getting a bit more significant – last training day, last pre-race ride and this and that,” Thomas said. “It’s like when you’re a kid and Christmas seems so far away. This last race seemed far away, but suddenly it’s here. But it’s the last week of racing, so I’m going to try and enjoy it.
“It feels like the right time anyway, so I’m happy it’s finishing – but it’s also going to be a strange feeling.”
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Yes. And what was even funnier was his attempts to lobby for taxpayer funding from central government to pay directly for a new Manchester United stadium. Describing the proposed structure as a "National Stadium Of The North", was an attempt to divert attention from the main beneficiaries being the Glaziers and himself.
Really sad to see. All three of my kids used 2 Frog bikes to learn and develop. Well sized and spaced. I passed them to another family who are still riding them
Of course they are 5 and 10 grand.. because Simon Mot has invested and because Rapha has lost 200$ dollars and his shares are now worth a packet of Cheese and Onion crisps, he needs the cash for more 'exclusive' things. 'exclusive' stuff is killing our sport. PS the welds are god awful.
Maybe because the ultra-rich don't want the common people to realise just how abusive the ultra-rich are and instead blame some out-group who will not have the resources/safety to defend themselves. The important thing to keep in mind is that the ultra-rich got that wealthy by exploiting others. We should be spurning their opinions rather than amplifying them.
I don't think you necessarily have to try something to object to it - I've never eaten dog poo, but I feel justified in not wanting it included in various foods. The main problem with ChatGPT/LLMs is the further concentration of power into the hands of the rich and the exorbitant resources that it uses. Sorry, the two main problems with ChatGPT are the concentration of power, the resource usage and the lack of control of the outputs. The three main problems are the concentration of power, resource usage, lack of output control and the exfiltration of personal information. Amongst the problems with LLMs are the concentration of power, resource usage, lack of output control, exfiltration of personal information and the swamping of our culture with AI slop.
Black skin is not the problem. White bibs are.
Isn't it great how ultra-rich people who complain about immigration not even live in there… or even funnier, are immigrants by themself? Ratcliffe lives in Monaco (maybe only on Paper to save taxes)
But it can, er, find you a waterfall. I know when I'm planning a route, including a random waterfall is often a pre-requisite.
I've generally found komoot's built in routing engine to be pretty decent, especially if you choose the "road bike" type (as opposed to "bike"). The underlying maps are Open Street Maps, which have pretty detailed information on surface type etc., so easy enough to bring that in to a routing algorithm. I'm unclear to what extent user-ridden routes get incorporated (cf. Strava Heatmaps) - I know my rides get uploaded to komoot so they must have a lot of that kind of data. Which I guess underlines what I see as the main flaw in this plan. The built in routing is pretty good. How exactly is bringing ChatGPT in going to make it better? The absolute best case would be it correctly interprets your prompt to plot basically the same route you would have got very easily by yourself. It's not going to do any better - it doesn't magically know which sections of road are buttery smooth on 23mm tyres versus which are best ridden using 32mm tyres.
Thanks, that seems really bizarre to limit users to fairly standard road bike gear ratios when presumably the software could allow MTB/gravel ratios as well; when I'm puffing up the Alpe du Zwift or Ven-top I want lower than a 34/36. I've been thinking about getting a new static bike for next winter and at the price this looked promising but that limited gear range definitely means it won't be on my list of potential purchases and I suspect I'm not the only one for whom this would apply.
7 thoughts on ““I thought the Tour of Germany would’ve been my final race”: Geraint Thomas braves eight-hour Ryanair delay due to faulty plane and storm, to make it to Tour of Britain start line with just five hours of sleep + more on the live blog”
I doubt many will be sad to
I doubt many will be sad to see Juan go. More ego than talent and not a team player.
Secret_squirrel wrote:
That does seem to be the case, although the whole saga should make the teams think more carefully about the wisdom of buying up all the young talent they can get their hands on just because they have the money to do so and ending up with all chiefs and no Indians. With three GTs a year it’s inevitable that if you keep five or six potential GC contenders in your squad you’re going to end up with some of them being discontented.
However talented they may be,
However talented they may be, young WT riders must understand that they are part of a company that employs and pays them. In turn, they are required to comply with their employer’s policy and objectives, follow instructions and deliver on expectations. This is called work.
And your level of knowledge
And your level of knowledge of whether Ayuso did that and whether his team is being fair in their attitude towards him or showing sour grapes because he’s decided to leave is precisely the same as mine, i.e. zero. Also, employers are required to treat their employees with fairness and respect and announcing his departure in a way that clearly wasn’t the way agreed and with wording that is obviously intended to make him look as bad as possible isn’t doing that.
MaxiMinimalist wrote:
Unless you are Derek Gee.
I watched the Tour Of Britain
I watched the Tour Of Britain on telly today and saw the lycra-clad louts zooming through 2 red lights in Beccles.
Disgraceful!
N Farage,
Extreme Right Wing Think Tank Conference Hall,
(Nutcases who always wear combat gear and have formed their own army welcome),
Tweedtwattoola,
Alabama,
USA.
Always nice to see a bicycle
Always nice to see a bicycle race on UK roads.
And very excited school kids later in the week.