Tadej Pogačar prepares for Il Lombardia with 190km, 31.7kph “coffee ride”; “Call it something cool like ‘rush hour’”: Motorist ridiculed after calling for “slow drive protest” against cyclists; 17-year-old British star turns pro + more on the live blog

It seems like the middle aisle in Lidl is starting to overflow, with the raft of signings the nouveau riche American team have acquired for 2024 so far this year.

Though they might have to clear out a few freezers thanks to their latest addition, with Het Laatste Nieuws reporting that ‘El Tractor’ Tim Declercq is set to join Lidl-Trek next year after seven seasons with Soudal-Quick Step.

The 34-year-old has been a ubiquitous presence on the front of the peloton in the classics and sprint stages – controlling things for his teammates and killing breaks at will – since joining Patrick Lefevere’s outfit from Topsport Vlaanderen in 2017.

But all eras must come to an end, I suppose, and the arrival of the big Flemish rider, who also reportedly had an offer from AG2R, at Lidl-Trek will help bolster Mads Pedersen and Jasper Stuyven’s chances in the spring classics.

The surprising move also underlines the transition period currently underway at Soudal-Quick Step, who appear to be pivoting, after years of chewing up the cobbles, towards a Remco Evenepoel-centred stage racing focus – as well having to bat away all those pesky Ineos merger rumours, of course…

So, it seems that yesterday’s blog story on Kevin McKenna’s, ahem, somewhat inflammatory column in the Herald, in which the writer called on motorist to channel their repressed “pulsing” rage “directly onto cyclists” (yes, really), has stirred up quite the debate on social media. Quelle surprise, indeed…

One of McKenna’s many, many questionable suggestions in the column – which ranged from boring, outdated tropes about hardworking drivers to head scratching environmental conclusion – involved the journalist telling his readers that when he’s driving behind a person on a bike, he now takes “a deep breath before gently edging out and around the cyclists and taking up a position directly in front of them. And then slowing right down to about two miles an hour”.

> “Easily triggered?”: Scottish journalist publishes bizarre column urging motorists to “transfer your pulsing rage directly onto cyclists”

That manoeuvre, McKenna says, “will lead to better mental health outcomes, knowing that you’ve given these insidious and sanctimonious weapons a taste of their own medicine”.

As ridiculous as the whole column is, it appears that some drivers on social media have latched onto that particular suggestion, regarding it as a serious solution to the pesky problem of cyclists, yes cyclists, bringing the UK’s cities to a standstill.

“Drivers should do a slow protest. Bring the cities to a slow crawl,” Tony posted on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, with no apparent hint of irony at all.

The response? Just what you’d expect.

Call it something cool like “rush hour”

— Three U-locks in a trench coat (@KillTheCars) September 19, 2023

“They already are.”

“They do everyday.”

“Let me know when the protest is over!”

“Call it something cool like ‘rush hour’.”

Ah, Twitter may be a raging cesspit these days, but every so often it can still come up with the goods…

The soccerisation of cycling continues at pace, as this morning Movistar confirmed that Cat Ferguson, the 17-year-old Brit tipped for big things after a sensational first year in the junior ranks, has signed a professional contract with the Spanish team.

Ferguson, who raced this year on Movistar and Trek-Segafredo branded bikes as teams vied for her signature, will continue to race road and cyclocross for her Yorkshire-based team Shibden Hope Tech Apex, before joining Movistar as a stagiaire on 1 August 2024, three months after turning 18.

She will then become a fully-fledged member of the team from January 2025, on a three-year deal. According to a statement released by Movistar today, Ferguson will also begin working with the squad’s performance team immediately, while also taking part in training camps.

Born in April 2006 – the same month Fabian Cancellara took his first Paris-Roubaix title, José Mourinho secured his second Premier League title with Chelsea, and Gnarls Barkley’s ‘Crazy’ was topping the charts (just to make you feel old) – Ferguson has enjoyed a scintillating season as a first-year junior.

In March, she won the Trofeo Alfredo Binda on her junior debut as a 16-year-old, before taking second at Gent-Wevelgem a week later. Along with impressing and picking up wins in stage races, Ferguson then went on to win the junior Tour of Flanders in May, the British junior time trial title, and a silver medal in the junior road race at the world championships in Glasgow.

(Pauline Ballet/SWpix.com)

By turning pro not long after her 18th birthday, Ferguson will become the second British pro in recent years, after the equally hyped and heralded Zoe Bäckstedt, to turn pro while still a junior, with Bäckstedt making the jump to EF Education last August as a 17-year-old.

She will also be younger than the youngest ever rider to turn pro for a men’s team, Quinn Simmons, who signed with Trek-Segafredo in 2020 at 18 years and 238 days, 142 days older than Ferguson will be on 1 August next year.

“It’s a dream come true to soon turn pro with the Movistar Team,” Ferguson said today. “From our first meeting it felt like such a welcoming and family environment, with a great focus on developing my attributes at WorldTour level.

“I look forward to learning from the best and most experienced riders in the world, and couldn’t think of a better team to help me make the step up to elite cycling. First, I want to close out my junior CX and road seasons, hopefully achieving some big wins.”

What? Local councillors claiming that segregated cycle lanes are a “nuisance” and that they’re “trip hazards” making roads even more dangerous, somehow? Well, I never…

> Council shuts down complaints about plan for new cycle lane segregation as councillor claims “nuisance” lane will be a “trip hazard” 

Another week, another story about the struggling cycling industry…

This time it’s the turn of Sigma Sports, with the retail giant revealing that it recorded a pre-tax loss of £4.15 million for 2022, down from a profit of £6.58 million the year before, and marking the first time that the company has recorded a loss since 2016.

In the company’s accounts, which were published on Friday, Sigma Sports’ finance director Oli Lawson said: “FY22 was a challenging year for retailers in the UK, as businesses had to deal with the economic environment post Covid-19 which was compounded by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in March, rising interest rates and the fallout from September’s mini budget – all factors contributing to a decline in consumer confidence.”

CEO James McEuen added: “We had to drop prices (like everyone else) thereby making a loss.  This was intentional and carefully controlled. We also continued to invest with the opening of a new Electric Bike store, as well as seeing growth in own brands Vel+ and Universal Colours.”

> Halfords remains “very, very confident” about cycling market, despite overall annual profits falling by 55 percent

Sigma’s accounts add yet another layer of concern to the cycling industry landscape in the UK.

Earlier this month, we reported that online retailer Wiggle Chain Reaction Cycles posted a pre-tax loss of over £92 million for 2022, compared to £14.5 million for the previous year, as the company’s former chief finance officer blamed the aftereffects of Covid, Brexit, and ongoing economic uncertainty for the significant drop.

In July, FLi Distribution ceased trading with immediate effect, as the Huddersfield-based distributor’s director blamed the “red tape and barriers to trade” currently affecting businesses for his company’s demise, just four months after Moore Large – the UK distributor for brands such as Tern Bicycles, Lake, Forme, ETC, Emmelle and MeThree – also entered liquidation.

He may not be a household name, but Tottenham Hotspur full back Japhet Tanganga, currently on loan at German side FC Augsburg, has made a daring bid to be included in road.cc’s star-studded Footballers Who Cycle XI – by falling off his bike while trying to come to a stop at the club’s training ground.

Japhet Tanganga, now close to joining German side Augsburg on loan deal from Tottenham 🚨🟢 #THFC

Loan move will also include buy option clause, being discussed right now. pic.twitter.com/1x2WReYpFN

— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) August 31, 2023

The 24-year-old English defender, a Spurs academy product who has played 50 times for the senior side since 2019, has been struggling with a knee injury since joining the struggling Bundesliga outfit on loan in the summer.

As he eyes up a return to first team football, Tanganga has joined in on Augsburg’s tradition of riding bikes from the changing room to the pitches at the club’s training ground.

However, it’s clear that the full back has struggled to adapt to the German side’s two-wheeled habits, with Augsburger Allgemeine reporting that Tanganga, along with fellow new arrival Kevin Mbabu, had issues while coming to a stop during one training session, with both players tipping over, causing a domino effect that took out a whole row of parked bikes in the process.

Oops. How very Spursy of him…

Let’s just hope that Tanganga’s spell in Germany will improve his bike dismounting skills, and that he won’t have any more embarrassing tipping over incidents.

Or, as they’re called in the football/cycling crossover industry, ‘doing a Michael Owen’…

First ride of the year and I forgot the golden rule – if in doubt, clip out!😂🙈 pic.twitter.com/CHZm01XZ5N

— Michael Owen (@themichaelowen) February 26, 2021

Never gets old…

Just in case you missed it last night, here’s my deep dive into Jumbo-Visma’s dominance at the grand tours this season, and where the Dutch squad’s unstoppable 2023 ranks in cycling’s not always unshady list of all-conquering team performances down the years.

Perfect for a lunchtime stats (and asterisk) feast, I reckon…

> Jumbo-Visma clean up at the Vuelta – Are they the most dominant cycling team of all time?

After being relegated from the WorldTour at the end of last year, it’s fair to say that Lotto Dstny have endured another annus horribilis when it comes to non-racing incidents in 2023.

First, the Belgian team was forced to sack assistant sports director Allan Davis, after the Australian was accused of sending inappropriate and unsolicited images to women online, while bike sponsor Ridley last month accused the squad of “disloyalty” and of inflicting “reputational damage” upon the brand by bringing an early end to their 12-year partnership.

And Lotto Dstny’s PR woes continue today, after shocking footage emerged of one of their sports directors driving into a race marshal, who was trying to temporarily prevent him from rejoining the convoy at Sunday’s GP Rik Van Looy in Belgium, knocking the marshal to the ground, before speeding off.

Lotto Dstny have suspended the sports director, Carl Roes, while police are currently investigating the incident.

Read more here: > “Very unfortunate and unacceptable”: Lotto Dstny sports director suspended for running over race marshal, as police investigate footage

The West Midlands’ Walking and Cycling Commissioner, Adam Tranter, has hit out at motorists who claims that policies and measures to encourage active travel are “anti-car”, arguing instead that “good transport is about balance and choice”.

Tranter, who last month made an urgent plea for action to “turn the ride on aggressive driving in Birmingham” after a spate of cyclist deaths in the city, criticised the divisive discourse around cycling and walking schemes in a Twitter post today.

One of the biggest fallacies in the discourse on active travel at the moment is that providing choice for people is anti-car.

The Netherlands is one of the best countries in the world to drive. Cycling is enabled and popular but car journeys are also more than well catered for. pic.twitter.com/qmadGYwwA8

— Adam Tranter (@adamtranter) September 19, 2023

“One of the biggest fallacies in the discourse on active travel at the moment is that providing choice for people is anti-car,” he wrote.

“The Netherlands is one of the best countries in the world to drive. Cycling is enabled and popular but car journeys are also more than well catered for.

“Good transport is about balance and choice. Many journeys are very short where safe walking and cycling reduce demand for car trips, freeing up space for those who need to drive.

“Cars are good tools for longer trips but we need to acknowledge they’re not good at scale in cities.”

Transport for London has today launched four new Cycleways in Enfield and Waltham Forest, adding 10km of safe cycling infrastructure to north and east London.

The new or extended routes have been delivered as part of TfL and the respective boroughs’ existing active travel programme, and mean that 40 percent of people in Waltham Forest, and 51 percent of Enfield residents, are now within 400m of a cycling route.

The new cycleways have been installed to support a 38 percent increase in cycling in Enfield and a 77 percent boost in people riding bikes in Waltham Forest since 2019.

“Well-connected and high-quality cycleways play a crucial role enabling more Londoners to cycle safely,” Will Norman, London’s Walking and Cycling Commissioner, said in a statement today.

“We have already seen a significant boost in cycling in north and east London and the Mayor is committed to building on this progress even further. These new cycleways in outer London will make cycling safer and more accessible to more communities across the capital – helping to build a fairer, safer, greener London for everyone.”

Intermarché-Circus-Wanty, home to Biniam Girmay and recent Vuelta stage winner Rui Costa, have been reprimanded by the UCI after members of the team complained to the governing body about late salary payments over the summer.

The Belgian WorldTour squad was one to two weeks late paying wages for riders and staff in July, August, and September, CEO Jean-François Bourlart confirmed to Het Laatste Nieuws today.

However, Bourlat also claimed that the issue stemmed from certain sponsors failing to make their quarterly payments, that the wages have since been paid in full, and that there are no concerns regarding the team’s future financial stability.

“A number of sponsors are delayed with their quarterly payments, which can happen, and as a result, we were also a bit late,” Bourlart said.

“But this is just a ‘cash hole’, a deficit in the treasury – it has nothing to do with our budget or any problem for the future.

“We had a cash flow problem for a while, and therefore it’s a problem of punctuality, nothing more. 10 days [delay in payments]? It could be. There were some late payments, but all amounts were paid correctly. It’s a serious matter when people are not paid.”

Former world champion Rui Costa wins stage 15 of the 2023 Vuelta (Rafa Gomez/SprintCyclingAgency)

Het Laatste Nieuws also reported that around a dozen members of the team’s backroom staff, including coaches, doctors, mechanics, and soigneurs, are leaving Intermarché this winter for other teams. Bourlart, however, insisted that such a high turnover in personnel is normal at WorldTour level.

“Call the other teams and ask how many staff are leaving. It will be the same,” he said.

The CEO denied that the late payments were due to Belgium’s new restrictions on gambling sponsorships, with the names of betting companies on sports shirts set to be reduced in size from 2025, and removed altogether in 2028 – with betting and casino company Circus set to decrease their sponsorship of the team by 50 percent (a reported €1 million) as a result of the law change.

“The problem is the new law on gambling advertising that has been in force since July 1,” Bourlart said. “Circus disappears as a name sponsor but remains part of our team. We had no cash for a while but that had nothing to do with Circus.

“At the moment, the budget remains the same as in 2023. I had another meeting today with a potential new sponsor. I hope our budget will increase a bit more for 2024.

“I assure you; the budget will not be a problem. If you have a bit less money, then you hire less expensive riders. That way, everything stays balanced.”

We started the day talking about pros ripping up Strava, so why not finish it doing the same?

And while Tadej Pogačar is busy uploading some insane training rides to the app, Sepp Kuss has been busy gobbling up KOM after KOM, a handy consequence of winning your first grand tour, if you’re into that sort of thing.

In fact, Strava has announced today that the American sits proudly atop the leaderboard of KOM-hunting pros, having claimed a whopping 808 segments this year.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Strava (@strava)

“2023 has been a big year for American pro cyclist Sepp Kuss,” Strava announced on Instagram. “No, we’re not talking about how he just won the Vuelta a España, or helped Jumbo-Visma sweep the other men’s Grand Tours. We’re talking about the 808 KOMs he claimed this year. That’s more than any other pro athlete in 2023.”

Of course, Kuss may be the KOM of the Strava pros, but that doesn’t necessarily mean some weekend warrior hasn’t chalked up more segments in 2023, a fact noted by ex-pro and infamous KOM hunter Phil Gaimon, who described the Vuelta winner as an “amateur” in the comments.

And Kuss’s Strava crown was no doubt aided by riding all three grand tours in 2023, and the fact that his two teammates/rivals/eventual domestiques Jonas Vingegaard and Primož Roglič, who notably climbed a few of the Vuelta’s mountains a touch faster than the American, don’t actually use the app (do their Giro and Tours wins even count then, I hear you cry).

Oh dear, better not start another debate about Kuss being ‘gifted’ anything…

Any pro believing that they have a chance of usurping Tadej Pogačar’s recent pre-eminence at Il Lombardia, look away now…

Because the Slovenian has been preparing for what he hopes will be his third consecutive triumph at next month’s Race of the Falling Leaves, the final monument classic of the cycling season, with the mother of all “coffee rides”.

And no, I don’t mean the kind of coffee ride that constitutes a flat hour to the café, and hour and a half of nattering and scones, followed by an easy ride home; I’m talking a Tadej Pogačar kind of coffee ride.

According to his Strava account, the UAE Team Emirates rider covered a whopping 190km on his own in the mountains around Monaco yesterday, packing in over 3,813m of elevation gain by climbing the iconic Col de Turini, Col de Brouis, La Turbie, and Mont Leuze (for comparison, Il Lombardia, at 240km-long, features 4,400m in total elevation).

Oh, and he covered the almost exactly six hour-long ride in an average speed of 31.7kph. So much for a coffee ride, Pog.

Though judging from his Instagram account, it looks like the only breaks programmed into yesterday’s mammoth spin were for a quick pain aux raisins and a few tins of Coke… Come on Tadej, no tray bakes at all?!

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Tadej Pogačar (@tadejpogacar)

The 24-year-old – who’s about to turn 25 in two days, the horror – certainly isn’t averse to laying down the Strava gauntlet when he’s approaching a big goal. In July, as he turned his attentions from his second place at the Tour to the Glasgow worlds, Pogačar uploaded a four-hour ride around his home in Monaco – which also, notably, included the destruction of Richie Porte’s KOM on the fabled slopes of the Col de la Madone.

> Tadej Pogačar smashes famous Col de la Madone Strava KOM

But his latest exploits will certainly strike fear into the hearts of those seeking to end the Slovenian’s streak as the Fresh Prince of Lombardy.

Speaking of which, I for one can’t wait for another famous Strava showboater Remco Evenepoel – confirmed to race Lombardia for only the second time since his horror crash in 2020 – to upload his latest training spin from Tenerife.

> Remco Evenepoel destroys Mount Teide Strava KOM

Let the Strava phoney war commence…