“This green initiative ensures that I now drive around to avoid it”: Revamped roundabout leaves residents baffled by a segregated bike lane; Movistar man plays the bicycle; Brennan signs Visma contract extension + more on the live blog

I like this story. Partly because Ryan’s headline evokes Talking Heads. Partly because it makes me wonder if the Ministry of Defence want to inspire a new generation of cyclocross talent in Fife by forcing cyclists to cross an unmarked stretch of grass through the depths of winter. The mind boggles…

> “The path to nowhere”: Ministry of Defence accused of “pettiness” for blocking completion of new cycling and walking route to school – and threatening to fence off 15-metre section if children use it in “nonsensical” row

One of our favourite stories to watch this year has been the rise and unstoppable rise of Matthew Brennan. 

The 20-year old sprint sensation has taken 12 pro wins this year, including outsprinting Jonathan Milan at the Deutschland Tour and winning the overall at the Tour of Norway having finished first or second in every stage. The future is bright…

And now with Olav Kooij moving to Decathlon next year, Visma have moved quickly to tie down the services of their marquee fast man.

⏱️ We are just getting started …

Matthew stays until the end of 2029! pic.twitter.com/iGbjeiZ4bA

— Team Visma | Lease a Bike (@vismaleaseabike) December 12, 2025

Tied down to 2029, how Brennan and Wout van Aert will combine in the classics and support Jonas Vingegaard will be fascinating to watch.

What’s “fixed penalty notice” in Spanish?

> “So, you don’t respect the Highway Code?” 10 Groupama-FDJ pro cyclists fined €100 for ‘riding through red light’ during Spanish training camp, according to reports

I could write about the calendar revelations of Enric Mas and new signing Cian Uijtdebroeks. I could write about the new kit of the Spanish team. But that doesn’t matter. Nothing matters compared to this…

Day three of team media days and no team will rival Movistar’s dedication to a bizarre but beautiful opening act. The rest of the event? Quite chaotic. I do hope Cian Uijtdebroeks is aware that Movistar isn’t like Visma and Bora.

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— Chrissy Marshall-Bell (@cmbreports.bsky.social) 11 December 2025 at 20:06

A man playing a bicycle like a harp, with a synthesiser and flute-like instrument fashioned out of handlebars. I am utterly obsessed. Florian Schneider, the Kraftwerk co-founder whose Tour de France music video bicycle and array of electronics and vocoders recently sold at auction, would surely be proud.

The full fantastic spectacle is 5 minutes long and starts 5 minutes into their official team presentation that you can watch below…

 

 

 

 

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We’ve been loving the reaction and analysis you’ve been giving us on our deep dive on Factor’s new speed machine.

In that spirit, albeit from a distinctly less technical perspective, Alpecin-Deceuninck have unveiled the cyclocross bike that Mathieu van der Poel will ride this winter, starting on Sunday in Namur. 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Alpecin-Deceuninck (@alpecindeceuninck)

It is, in my humble opinion, a lovely bit of kit and likely to be caught quite a bit on camera in the coming weeks, with Van der Poel ultimately aiming to win a record-breaking eighth World Championship, taking the record outright from Erik De Vlaeminck, older brother of Roger. Any excuse to share an old Panini sticker…

Admittedly, hypocrisy in politics is hardly new. Still, this is slightly galling, not least because Reform are taking credit for the infrastructure projects agreed by the council long before they even won control of the council in May. And considering what the party has previously said on the subject of cycle lanes.

Ryan has the full write-up here: 

> From the party that brought you ‘cycle lanes are a waste of money’: Reform UK council hails “excellent” new bike path, celebrating “safer and greener environment for everyone”

It’s Friday afternoon. You should probably be working, I need things to type about. Any important breaking news will probably break at 5pm just as we’re all clocking off. So until then, let’s look at some of the team kits that we’ll have to get used to next year, based off my scraping and sourcing of rights-free images…

Do you like my collage? Do you like how the smaller World Tour teams that barely changed a thing are confined to a small corner? Let’s not knock it. There’s a brand there, an identity that smaller teams often need to cling to. And FDJ’s kit is technically a switch, it’s just reusing the special Tour de France kit that everyone who watches the sport has already seen this year. Uno-X’s kit is fine as well, so long as I don’t have the misfortune of hearing Carlton Kirby describe it as “lipsticks and custard” again.

Right, let’s go clockwise. Decathlon and Red Bull are moving into the big leagues. A more parochial French team might dance with brown shorts, but a mega team sponsored by a shipping giant has to go blue. A nice hue and fade presumably represents the explosivity and excitement that racing amid a wave of calm can bring. Or something like that. Red Bull go white, the sleeve contrast is a nice touch but the coloured horizontal stripes might upset the Volta a Catalunya organisers who have for decades maintained a niche of white leaders jerseys with thin coloured stripes. 

Movistar have cleaned things up a little bit, the plain white, bold m is a marketing dream. Nothing more needs to be said, nothing more can be said that will compare to the joy of a Movistar man playing a bicycle. 

Lidl-Trek have made small moves, bold colours remain, blocks swapped for patterns over the chest, but nothing to stop you liking the team. In a world of dictatorships  and fossil fuels, what’s not to like about a German discount supermarket? (Ever attentive Ryan has since noticed that ‘stomach sponsor’ ServiceNow are an AI company, specifically an “AI control tower for business reinvention”. So a black mark on that front after all.)

Onto the home straight and two beauties sandwich mediocrity. Pastel colours, a funky sort of collage effect, SD Worx is a sight for sore eyes and one I can get used to as Kopecky, Wiebes, Bredewold et al. cause havoc. The same can be said for NSN. Apparently inspired by Barcelona, the Spanish-Swiss team have moved on from the saga of Israel-Premier Tech in the best way possible, with a kit that I genuinely want to own. It’s warm, distinct, multi-coloured and multi-patterned. Like my approach to Eurovision, I admire the stuff with chutzpah, the courage to be weird, wacky and potentially terrible. But NSN’s isn’t terrible, it’s tremendous.

What a pity that we end with UAE, though compared with last year’s black splodges that resembled oil stains, the red and black triangles are an upgrade. But where’s the interesting bit, the je ne sais quoi? Maybe I’m biased with the knowledge it’s a jersey we’ll be condemned to watch endlessly as Tadej Pogacar, with his added rainbow stripes, or Isaac Del Toro, chomping at his heel, accelerate away with 30km remaining of a spring classic.

Anyway, this was fun…

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, training camp season. After drip feeds of rider calenders in the past few days, today’s details come from Lidl-Trek. After winning the points jersey in every men’s Grand Tour last year, but suffering GC heartbreak on the parts of Giulio Ciccone and Mattias Skjelmose, the team swooped in to prise a disgruntled Juan Ayuso from the soap opera of UAE.

And it’s been confirmed that Ayuso will be the team’s GC leader at the Tour de France next year, and will be accompanied by Mads Pedersen, who is chasing his own complete set of Grand Tour points jerseys.

Ayuso, who podiumed the Vuelta a Espana at the age of 19, has set himself the same goal for Paris and will have an intense racing schedule leading up to the showpiece, racing Paris-Nice, the Tour of the Basque Country, the Ardennes classics, and the Tour Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes (formerly the Criterium du Dauphine) in the four months before July. 

Skjelmose, for his part also a white jersey winner at the Vuelta, will race the Ardennes and the Tour de France, the latter in support of his new teammate. Whether Lidl-Trek can come close to challenging the behemoths of UAE, Visma and newly-rich Red Bull remains to be seen. Racing for both yellow and green can work, not least when Wout van Aert turned domestique-deluxe for Jonas Vingegaard in 2022.

Do you like reading about wobbly American bicycles? Have we got a story for you…

> Trek recalls 700 electric road and gravel bikes due to loose chainrings, as brand tells customers to stop riding immediately

Maybe people don’t like Levelling Up after all…

Today’s dose of local internet comes from Folkestone (congrats to them) where readers of Kent Online seem baffled by the installation of a segregated cycle lane and new zebra crossings at the Radnor Park roundabout, close to Folkestone railway station.

> “They started waving and smiling”: Fuming Folkestone residents claim children’s bike track has “ruined living here” and devalued houses – due to kids “peering” into their homes

Folkestone and Hythe District Council, which facilitated and coordinated the upgrades, describe the end result as a “significant improvement” due to the better signage and accessibility for pedestrians and cyclists. To be honest, we’re inclined to agree.

The new layout was, admittedly, rather steep, costing £3 million but funded through central government’s Levelling Up scheme rather than local council tax. And despite not yet being finished, residents are out with their proverbial pitchforks…

“100 feet of cycle lane that leads to no where [sic], how was that and a new flower bed 3 million quid” wrote Paul Stannage. The answer, we think, is that it leads safely to the other side of a busy roundabout but hey ho.

“It’s totally worked for me. This green initiative ensures that I now drive around in ever increasing circles to get from a to b by avoiding it!” Carolyn Uden added.

Fears seemed centred on the raised kerb that was installed to segregate the cycle lane from vehicle traffic, though Kent County Council, which actually installed the infrastructure, say they have yet to receive any complaints. Despite this, residents told Kent Online it was “downright dangerous” and an “accident waiting to happen”.

“It is dangerous, I’ve nearly gone into the raised cycle parts and not because im a crap driver lol. There was no need for them.” Paula Kinsley said.

And finally, Andy Mulls wrote that the infrastructure was a “poxy waste of money like all of the building works…those kerbs will cause major accidents in the dark especially”.

We’ll believe it when we see it…