“Santa, this is my Christmas wish”: Eight-year-old asks for “all street users to be a good Grinch” in letter to bike lane-ripping Canadian city mayor; Lance Armstrong’s old boss says UCI chief “capable of selling his own mother” + more on the live blog
SUMMARY
Why are NIMBY residents angry about a bike track for kids? Oh…
A possible ninth title on the cards? Marianne Vos will return to cyclocross after two years for a shot at the world championships
Some Christmas-y cheer on the blog for members of the Vos brigade! After two years of absence, eight-time cyclocross world champion Marianne Vos is set to ride her first CX race since January 2023 at the World Cup round in Besançon, aiming for a shot at a possible ninth world title.
The Royal Dutch Cycling Union (KNWU) announced Vos’ return yesterday evening and confirmed that her performance would determine whether she’ll ride at the cyclocross world championships in Liévin, France later in the season.
National coach Gerben de Knegt said: “It’s great to welcome Marianne [Vos] back to the field.
“She wants to get a taste of this discipline again in Besançon and will partly base her performance in this French race on whether she will also ride the World Championship later this season.”
Christmas road.cc podcast klaxon 🚨
It’s the most wonderful time of the year… that’s right, it’s our annual podcast episode looking back over the biggest and most bizarre bike-related stories of 2024!
Tom Pidcock’s brother and coach follow suit in joining double Olympic champion at Q36.5 Pro Cycling
Joe Pidcock, Tom’s 22-year-old brother, along with the British rider’s coach Kurt Bogaerts have joined Q36.5 Pro Cycling, following suit after the double Olympic champion’s dramatic transfer saga to the Swiss team.
Joe Pidcock had been racing for the last two seasons with UK Continental team Trinity Racing, where the elder Pidcock had already raced in 2020, and even picked up some of the team’s biggest wins at the final stage of the Ronde d’Isarde as well as a stage of the Dornan Ras Mornhan in Ireland.
Meanwhile, after much speculation, the widely expected move of Kurt Bogaerts from Ineos Grenadiers to Q36.5 has also been officially confirmed, with the Belgian taking on a new role as the team’s head of technical performance. And in another classic talent poach, Pidcock’s longstanding soigneur Xenia de Roose, also joins the Swiss ProTeam from Ineos Grenadiers for 2025.
Family ties et cetera et cetera…
PSPO shenanigans continue as council insists targeting of "dangerous, careless or inconsiderate" riders
Month on from council promising any order would not be a “ban on cycling”, controversial plan appears to soften to continue to allow safe riding — but campaigners argue “no need” and PSPO still fails to address root cause of issues…
Lance Armstrong’s former boss Johan Bruyneel lashes out at David Lappartient, says UCI President can “sell his own mother” and “doesn’t care about anything else than his own self promotion”
If anyone’s not feeling cheery this Christmas, it’s the former US Postal Service boss Johan Bruyneel, who hasn’t been mincing his words these last two days…
After yesterday’s episode saw him asking Tom Boonen to “shut up” after his comments fuelling Fabian Cancellara’s motor doping rumours, this morning the sporting director with serving a lifetime ban (along with his former protégé Mr Armstrong) has, once again, directed his social media wrath at the UCI President David Lappartient.
The UCI boss shared a video, gloating about the pro cycling body’s “achievements” this past season, including the 2024 Paris Olympics, and hosting road and para-cycling road world championships in Zürich, and next year’s world championships in Rwanda as another step towards inclusivity.
As we close the chapter on 2024, we now look ahead to 2025 with optimism and excitement. A year that will mark a historic milestone in cycling: the first-ever UCI Road World Championships in Africa, to be held in Rwanda.
I would like to extend my best wishes to the entire… pic.twitter.com/SUDBM6o1E2
— David Lappartient (@DLappartient) December 23, 2024
Lappartient wrote: “As we close the chapter on 2024, we now look ahead to 2025 with optimism and excitement. A year that will mark a historic milestone in cycling: the first-ever UCI Road World Championships in Africa, to be held in Rwanda. I would like to extend my best wishes to the entire cycling family for a prosperous new year filled with success and growth.”
However, several people were quick to point out the lack of mention of the riders who lost their lives, namely Muriel Furrer and André Drege. One person wrote: “What about Muriel and Andre? How was it an incredible year? You based your entire election campaign on road safety and now you just forget about it?”
But besides random people on social media, one name stood out in the comments: Johan Bruyneel, who wrote: “This guy doesn’t care about anything else than his own self-promotion and everything he does and says is intended to serve his personal political escalade.
“As we say in Flemish, Jonas: ‘iemand die bekwaam is om zijn bloedeigen moeder te verkopen’ (you can Google Translate it, David, if you want to know what it means) (it’s people who have worked closely together with him by the way who gave him this kind of qualification).”
After a quick Google Translate as suggested by Bruyneel, your live blog host can tell you that it roughly translates to “someone who is capable of selling their own mother”. So to sum it up, not something very nice, but I’m assuming you already knew that
But of course, this isn’t the first time the former Belgian rider and DS has picked up the axe against the French politician and sporting administrator. Last November, Bruyneel compared Lappartient to former Turkmenistan dictator Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, after the UCI president threatened to ban cyclocross riders who didn’t participate in World Cup events from the discipline’s world championships.
And in January, he once again took shots at him for what he regards as the Frenchman’s alleged hypocrisy and careerist ambitions, after Lappartient posted a selfie of himself riding with Tadej Pogačar in Abu Dhabi, ahead of the governing body’s launch of its partnership with UAE-based virtual cycling platform MyWhoosh.
“David the Selfie King! He is everywhere, this sacred omnipresent David!,” Bruyneel tweeted under Lappartient’s clip. “The most important thing for him is to be seen alongside important and influential figures, the Pope, President Macron, the President of Korea, his friend Thomas Bach, the Ballon d’Or, etc.
“All with one specific objective: the presidency of the IOC. What many know but no one ever says: he doesn’t really care about cycling.
“The worst part is that he will succeed in his bet. Sooner or later he will get there. In the meantime, he travels around the world carrying out his dozen official functions… Half a million euros per year for nothing to do at the UCI. You have to do it anyway. It seems that this champion sleeps very little.”
A Christmas special with Bruyneel and Lappartient not very congenially chatting with each other? Let me see if we can get them to agree to come on the road.cc podcast…
“Santa, this is my Christmas wish”: Eight-year-old kid asks for all road users to “be a good Grinch” and bike lanes to be not ripped out in letter addressed to Canadian city’s mayor (PS. he was helped by his grandpa)
Can this one boy’s wish bestow us with a Christmas miracle and magically turn every road user into “a good Grinch”?
In a 550-word letter to the editor of GuelphToday and addressed to the mayor of Guelph, a city in southern Ontario, an eight-year-old, along with some (read: maybe a lot of) help from his grandpa, co-chair of the Guelph Coalition for Active Transportation, has expressed what he wants for Christmas — and no, it’s not the shiniest new toy or the rainbow-coloured, sugar-coated candy — instead, he just wants safer cycling provisions.
It starts by sharing how “cool” the new protected bike lanes in the city are, with the concrete barriers and posts separating drivers from cyclists and also “connecting people and places so that they can cycle from their home to their work, schools and shopping”.
He writes: “The new barriers also calm traffic as the car lane appears narrower, which I learned are proven to reduce speeding. I am looking forward to biking with my dad and grandpa to get to my favourite parks, stores and schools.
“Unfortunately, there are some people that don’t like these bike lanes for some reasons including slowing down traffic.
“And unfortunately, our mayor, Cam Guthrie, has responded to this Facebook group saying he may be looking at removing these bike lanes.”
The kid added that his grandpa told him that he loved biking in the protected bike lanes and that “a few minor tweaks to the barriers along with improved snow removal in the bike lanes would please the majority of cyclists and motorists”.
He continued: “Mayor Guthrie has also proposed looking at the possibility of installing multi-use paths on these two corridors, similar to those on Woodlawn Road, which would be amazing as it completely separates cyclists and cars.
“I hope the mayor is serious and adds money in the city budget to install these multi-use paths.
“But in the meantime, I hope he consults with city staff and other street users and leaves the new, less costly protected bike lanes in place.
“We also welcome Mayor Guthrie to ride his bike with us and experience these protected bike lanes like the ones he experienced and raved about on his recent trip to Copenhagen with Guelph transportation staff.”
He was also briefed by his grandpa about all of the recent collisions between motorists, pedestrians and cyclists. “Many of these collisions could have been prevented with safer active transportation infrastructure. He told me about a cyclist friend of his that recently died in a collision on an unprotected roadway in front of a school in Guelph. Her daughter will not have a mom to celebrate Christmas with this year,” he said.
“Santa, this is my Christmas wish. Please convince Mayor Guthrie to speak to all street users and be a good Grinch like the one in my favourite Christmas story.
By the way, my grandpa helped me with some of the big words.”
What may not come as a piece of happy news this Christmas for eight-year-old Noah (and his grandpa) is that Ontario’s premier Doug Ford is hell-bent on not giving cyclists an inch on the road.
In October, Ford, who rather wisely conducted a TV news interview on road safety while driving through a snowstorm back in 2022, was slammed for his “put cyclists on secondary roads” stance, amid “ineffective and dangerous” plans to block bike lane projects, which, in his own words, seemed to be an “absolute insanity right now.”
Just last month, it was announced that cyclists who have been injured or worse in one of the cycle lanes ripped up in Toronto won’t be able to file a lawsuit against the Ontario province’s government, with opposition politicians describing the amendment to safeguard the government’s impunity as “heartbreaking”.
“What this means is the conservatives want to remove themselves from any responsibility if someone is injured or killed in the future,” New Democratic Party’s Member of Provincial Parliament Jessica Bell said. “It’s heartbreaking, because someone will be injured or killed in the future.”
Merry Christmas from everyone at road.cc!
It’s been a fun day at the office, but I hope everyone’s now off to pour out some wine and pop open their favourite cheese and biscuits — because your live blog host is!
Don’t worry, the live blog will be back in two days, but until then, happy holidays and Merry Christmas from everyone at road.cc!
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@chrisonabike True, things went back to normal once the pandemic was over. In this case, however the problems are still ongoing, and aren't likely to be resolved in the near future. If anything, they're going to get worse. Food shortages are predicted because of the effect that the heatwave has had on crops. This is bound to push prices up. The Straits of Hormuz aren't likely to reopen anytime soon and the strategic oil reserves are running low. Russia is having to import petrol because its own refineries have been badly hit, so that's even more competition for an even more scarce resource. I think that more and more people are going to see cycling as a way of cutting household bills.
I think if "grown up" cyclists * are quibbling about ASLs we've very much missed the road safety point anyway. (Not to mention the wider "better transport choices" picture). ASLs are poor-to-useless "cycling infra", even for their design intent. If the idea is "for less confident cyclists" then a design that requires that you re-position in front of the motor traffic - waiting to accelerate - seems unhelpful. Of course they're only designed to help when traffic is stopped, and you can reach the front in time and if vehicles aren't already occupying them. As we're noting here drivers frequently ignore them - whether that be deliberate, a lack of road craft, because they were concentrating on following the vehicle in front, or because the paint has rubbed off. * Aside: shouldn't cycling also be safe and accessible for kids? Or should they only be allowed to do this when accompanied by sufficient qualified adults? Or be limited to parks and otherwise being driven around by their carers? Perhaps there is another way...?
Hi Bungle, I saw you follow-up comment. I can't imaging there's a tolerance of 4 seconds on camera enforced lights, seems an odd decision - an offence is committed if a vehicle starts crossing on a red, any tolerance is discretionary. There does seem to be some odd thinking about 'advanced stop lines' where the rules relating to them are identical to a regular stop line, as explained correctly elsewhere in the Highway Code. It does seem a regular offence. Where I live it doesn't help that some of them are very faint and disappear in rain.
@ktache Not sure he's totally ruled out of the worlds yet (though I think it would be best if he doesn't), normal recovery time is about eight weeks but surgery can halve that...depending on the nature of the break he could be just about fit to ride by the time of the elite men's race, but he'll have missed a lot of training. Hopefully his managers and team will persuade him to wait until Lombardia, if not just to knock it off for the rest of the year.
@Bungle_52 The Met told me a couple of years ago when rejecting a submission that they needed a clear three seconds of red visible before they would consider it for an RLJ prosecution. I pointed out to them that this meant that at 30 mph a driver could see a light change to red from 40 metres away and still get through without sanction, or 55 m if they accelerated to 40 as most do. They just replied "them's our rules..."
@Ben Graham I have just checked the footage from my report. The driver crosses the 1st stop line 4 seconds after the light turns red. All on camera from behind the vehicle. No further action. So I assume the margin is at least 4 seconds.
Oh, and active travel funding per head (in England at least) is laughable compared to other places. Plus it is delivered intermittently. It's more like a Blue Peter contest...
Yup, I see those opportunities being missed all the time in Edinburgh. When it gets really bad, dig it all up and put it back down again how it was. Contrast with what seems to happen in NL - when things are dug up the whole thing seems to get a "let's redo this according to the current standards" treatment. They even coordinate with the utilities, so that after a refurb the street isn't immediately dug up again because of leaking pipes / we suddenly realised the new estate being planned for round the corner will want broadband etc. Pros and cons of course - you may wait longer there for changes as smaller changes may be deferred until a major redo is due. (Though in the UK case you likely wouldn't get them at all...) It seems we "can't have nice things" in the UK in part because a) we have greater motor traffic speeds/volumes spead across "streets" / within urban areas b) the funding and organisational responsibility differs. Are we in the "Sam Vimes boots" territory (being too poor to afford better products which not only save money over time but actually work)? There is long term money pressure on LAs and it seems that due to poor construction and maintenance we have to regularly pour money into (pot-)holes in the road. And it seems there's no budget to check up on or enforce adequate standards from utilities work or even private building.
Shame about the world champs defence. Speedy recovery. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/aug/30/tadej-pogacar-vuelta-a-espana-cycling-crash-hospital-stage-nine
I believe the accepted form for this kind of argument is "I know you are, you said you were, but what am I?".
1 thought on ““Santa, this is my Christmas wish”: Eight-year-old asks for “all street users to be a good Grinch” in letter to bike lane-ripping Canadian city mayor; Lance Armstrong’s old boss says UCI chief “capable of selling his own mother” + more on the live blog”
And a Happy Christmas to you,
And a Happy Christmas to you, road.cc staff!