'Cyclists dismount' evolves... now it's just NO CYCLISTS at all!; How do you solve a problem like murder strips?; Tour de France countdown; 'Road rage-reducing tips' miss out cycling again; Strava used to spy on Israeli military + more on the live blog

Lots of discussion in the comments today about murder strips (Belgium’s Word of the Year 2018, for anyone asking) and questionable ‘no cycling’ signs.

Steve K wrote that “Advisory lanes should go, and mandatory ones only remain if they are wide enough not to encourage close passing”, while the little onion argued that “the world would be a better place without these murder strips. Burn them!”

BalladOfStruth said: “A lot of them… are a ‘worst of both worlds’ sort of situation. If a cyclist uses advisory cycle lanes, they are actually at an increased risk of injury compared to there being no lane there (by as much as 34 percent according to some studies).

“However, if there is a lane there and a driver observes a cyclist riding next to it instead of in it, we get the sort of intentional, bullying behaviour we saw in NMOTD 787. When presented with something like the lane pictured below, the cyclist can't win.

“No infra is better than bad infra.”

“I ride a recumbent handcycle, that's three wheels to keep within the painted lane,” says handcyclist.

“If I'm fully in the lane the nearside rear is always just inches off the kerb in all the detritus hitting every sunken drain and other obstacle so I tend to ride with my front wheel outside the line and put up with the occasional close pass.

“So actually, I don't ride in them much at all and tend to avoid them like the plague! Now when they're wider with decent segregation and wands I put up with the discomfort of crashing my nearside wheel into sunken drains. Absolutely paint is not infrastructure.”

Mungecrundle sent us their local murder strip, which even by the standards of the genre, is particularly shocking:

They wrote: “Here's my personal piece of cycle infrastructure which seems designed for the sole purpose of getting me close passed. If I ride so as to avoid going over the gratings, my bar end is actually across the line.

“Officially, just down the road at the pedestrian crossing, I am supposed to hop off the road, cycle on the pavement and around the back of any pedestrians waiting to cross then re-join the road. There's stupid little arrows and cycle glyphs all over the pavement.

“It would be far better to simply have these nonsense lanes removed. Even preferable to widen the footway and make it shared use.”

Meanwhile, on the subject of dodgy ‘no cyclists/cycle/bycles’ signs, mark1a sent us this perfect bit of visual juxtaposition, writing “I remember at the time thinking ‘there goes half our medals then’”…

Lucinda Brand followed up Trek-Segafredo teammate Lizzie Deignan’s win at the inaugural Tour de Suisse last year, by taking the race’s second edition after a dramatic final mountain stage.

Winner of stage 4 and the GC! #TourdeSuisseWomen @lucinda_brand @TrekSegafredo @PrimeoEnergie pic.twitter.com/nRnNeIGPML

— Tour de Suisse (@tds) June 21, 2022

Going into today four seconds down on Team BikeExchange-Jayco’s Kristen Faulkner, Brand – who also won the opening stage on Saturday before Faulkner’s commanding time trial victory – attacked on the final descent with just under 20km to go after strong work from Trek’s world champion, and domestique deluxe, Elisa Balsamo.

Brand, who took valuable bonus seconds at the foot of the category one climb to the summit finish in Lantsch, was joined by Trek’s mountain bike and cyclocross star Jolanda Neff – riding for the Swiss national team – but, after struggling to hang onto Neff on the descent, soon dispatched the 29-year-old with 5.5 kilometres to go.

Knowing that she had to beat Brand to the line to take the GC, Faulkner made her own move with three kilometres left, dropping Pauliena Rooijakkers and powering across the 25 second gap to Brand.

The hunter can see the prey!

Faulkner has to beat Brand at the finish to win, catching isn't enough#TourdeSuisseWomen pic.twitter.com/w1KUyEdwZz

— Mathew Mitchell (@MatMitchell30) June 21, 2022

In an epic head-to-head tussle played out in driving rain, the American Faulkner finally caught Brand just before the final kilometre, setting up a dramatic do-or-die sprint for the overall title.

It wasn’t to be, unfortunately, as Faulkner slid out on a corner during the tight and technical finale, allowing Brand – who looked in pole position to take the sprint in any case – to savour the third stage race win of her career.

Cycling, eh? Bloody hell.

There is a scourge which is sweeping the world (probably), but is most prominent in cycling writing and specifically when people are Tweeting about cycling and quite frankly I've had enough of it.

It involves verbs and tenses.

— Cillian Kelly (@irishpeloton) June 21, 2022

An example:

"This is an interesting breakaway group. So who wins from this group?"

Nobody. Fucking nobody 'wins' from this group because they're not at the finish yet. Because the finish line is in the FUTURE!

— Cillian Kelly (@irishpeloton) June 21, 2022

Please... it has to stop.

Who WILL WIN from this group?

OR

Who is GOING TO WIN from this group?

Please...

...

I haven't eaten any carbs for a while.

— Cillian Kelly (@irishpeloton) June 21, 2022

You seem (dare I say it) tense.

— Vincent van Gogogoch (@GogogochV) June 21, 2022

Cillian does have a (pedantic) point.

Anyway, Pogačar, Roglič, Vingegaard, or Thomas – who wins the Tour de France?

Liverpool-based driving instructor Ashley Neal – who last month said that he “wholeheartedly” disagrees with the road safety approach taken by fellow YouTuber CyclingMikey – has shared his latest set of ‘nice cycling’ clips, which he hopes will help “change the perception that all cyclists are rule breakers”.

Neal’s third instalment of ‘Nice Cycling’ – the first for eight months – features cyclists waiting for vans and lorries to reverse, showing awareness of pedestrians stepping out onto the road, and pulling in to let a line of motorists pass (though Neal does question how appropriate this response is in certain situations).

One clip, which the driving instructor describes as “top”, shows a cyclist arguably putting themselves in danger by riding in the ‘dooring zone’, in order to help the drivers coming the opposite way avoid waiting for a few seconds. But maybe I’m being harsh there…

What do you think? Do Neal’s videos provide good examples of safe and sensible cycling?

As we have 'road' in our name, we get quite a few generic motoring and car industry press releases as well as cycling ones land in our inbox - and while this one is actually of interest to us, it's probably not for the reasons the PR person imagined. 

"​​With a number of train strikes taking place this week, traffic on UK roads will inevitably surge. But how can stay on top of our road rage and manage our frustration during delays this week?" reads the first paragraph from the release about a new Compare the Market study. 

The suggestions? We're told to maintain concentration, make sure we're well-rested (I'll assume it's excusable to drive while frothing with anger if I have a bad night's sleep then), take a moment to think before we react and "be forgiving and learn to let go." 

Other than the obvious "just stop being a buffoon and don't get so angry over pointless things" or "leave earlier", we can't help but notice a glaring two-wheeled omission from these road rage-reducing tips... 

(For clarity we mean cycling, not buying the new road.cc x Stolen Goat kit - but if you want to buy it that would be great, so do that here)

or set off earlier https://t.co/f4BLfcAvwb

— Jase (@Terrahawk) June 21, 2022

We do like the idea of commuter cyclists weighing up the choice between investing in a new CeramicSpeed OSPW Aero or just winding their alarm back a bit - 2.5 seconds if the journey to work is 25km and up to 7.2 seconds if it's 40km, according to CeramicSpeed's wind tunnel calculations on how much time and sweet wattz the new Aero version of its oversized pulley wheel system will save you. 

"739 euros? Lol!"

Of course this product is aimed at a totally different kind of cyclist with more money than sense really... or you could just turn professional, and you might get one for free. You can read more about the OSPW Aero in our full story over here. 

So it turns out that Strava isn’t just for showing off to your mates, creating weird art on maps, or ogling Mathieu van der Poel’s training data – the fitness app has also been used for espionage.

The Guardian has reported that an anonymous Strava user, who according to their profile hails from Boston, Massachusetts, had set up a number of fake segments across various military establishments in Israel, including those belonging to the country’s intelligence agencies and highly secure bases assumed to be linked with Israel’s nuclear programme.

The user – whose affiliation has yet to be uncovered – could then keep tabs on members of the Israeli military, tracking their movements as they exercised in secret bases in Israel and around the world.

The fake segment approach allowed the spies to bypass Strava’s privacy settings – while profiles can be made available only to followers, unless users set each individual activity to be actively secured, their profile picture, first name and initial will appear on segments they have covered.

> Strava’s new Edit Map Visibility provides greater privacy control 

The operation was uncovered by the Israeli open-source intelligence outfit FakeReporter.

“We contacted the Israeli security forces as soon as we became aware of this security breach,” the group’s executive director, Achiya Schatz, told the Guardian.

“After receiving approval from the security forces to proceed, FakeReporter contacted Strava, and they formed a senior team to address the issue.”

In a statement, Strava said: “We take matters of privacy very seriously and have been made aware by an Israeli group, FakeReporter, of a segment issue regarding a specific user account and have taken the necessary steps to remedy this situation.

“We provide readily accessible information regarding how information is shared on Strava, and give every athlete the ability to make their own privacy selections. For more information on all of our privacy controls, please visit our privacy centre as we recommend that all athletes take the time to ensure their selections in Strava represent their intended experience.”

Well, that’s one way of going about it…

This rather questionable road sign, which seems to indicate (bluntly, I may add) that work is currently being carried out on the bike lane further up the road, was spotted in Wimborne, Dorset this week.

One member of a local active travel Facebook group reckoned that the sign was missing a second part, and kindly offered a few suggestions:

Although the road.cc reader who sent the photo to us described it as 'nonsense' and a 'non story', we do love a tangential angle round here; and it of course got us thinking about other unhelpful signs aimed at deterring cycling, and if this one may in fact top the lot. 

We only have to go back to late May of this year to find the last big story on the live blog that involved a controversial anti-cycling message: this incorrectly spelled yet space-saving 'NO BYCLES' beauty. We never did find out whether this was the work of someone in authority or not, but this corker definitely was... 

BicycleBenUK, fiets.uk/podcast

In April, this sign in Oxford University Parks was slammed as "ridiculous and petty"; although according to a number of Oxford cyclists, the park's cycling ban isn't actually problematic day-to-day. 

For a more commonly used classic there's always the 'no no cycling' sign, which technically doesn't make sense because the red circle already tells us not to do something... 

10 days till the Tour de France.

Just sayin'. 🇫🇷

— Daniel Lloyd (@daniellloyd1) June 21, 2022

It's ten days to the TOUR DE FRANCE. TEN DAYS, PEOPLE. Sorry for shouting but I'M NOT READY YET 😱 #TourdeFrance #TDF2022 pic.twitter.com/X8pTxQHuX7

— Katy M (@writebikerepeat) June 21, 2022

I think it’s safe to say I’m getting just a bit excited for next Friday’s grand depart in Copenhagen.

Just need to get hold of my £15 official preview magazine now…