“He should have pushed me even harder”: Cyclocross rider apologises after Mathieu van der Poel shoves him out the way… because he was taking mid-race selfie with a fan; Dave Brailsford spotted at Man Utd win as Ineos deal nears + more on the live blog
SUMMARY
"Some of the craziest crowds I have seen at a race today, but also some of the most dangerous": Cameron Mason calls for more measures to prevent cyclocross crowds affecting the race
17k people in Gavere. Cross is boss. @UCIcyclocrossWC pic.twitter.com/0LPLtYweW6
— Tomas Van Den Spiegel (@tomasvds) December 26, 2023
That’s 6,000 more than who watched the Premier League football match between Bournemouth and Fulham yesterday afternoon, however the festive party atmosphere was not without issues. British rider Cameron Mason said the crowds were the “craziest I have seen at a race” but that it spilt over to “some of the most dangerous”.
“Some of the craziest crowds I have seen at a race today, but also some of the most dangerous. Fans leaning over the barriers, looking the wrong way and impeding the riders. Double barriers needed at most points of the track to keep the fans back and to stop them affecting racing,” he said.
I was there and you’re definitely right. People were looking at the screens as soon as the 5th rider passed while leaning over the barriers at some places. Saw a guy in front of me get hit by a wheel of a rider running cause he wasn’t paying attention. pic.twitter.com/eAUSLIefBc
— Jarko (@EnViJaYo) December 26, 2023
Five Cool Things at Christmas 2023: Show us your cycling-related gifts for the chance to win some cycling schwag!
Dave Brailsford spotted at Man Utd win as Ineos deal nears
🔴 INEOS’ Sir Dave Brailsford, tonight in attendance at Manchester United game @ Old Trafford. pic.twitter.com/s5nPENPIVz
— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) December 26, 2023
Manchester United’s 3-2 comeback win over Aston Villa was attended by the man touted to be heavily involved with the Premier League giants once a deal for investment from Ineos goes through…
Manager Erik ten Hag told the Amazon TV cameras pre-match that Brailsford “wants to work with us, we want to work with him. I am looking forward to it” and the familiar face was then snapped in the stands at Old Trafford.
“I think it’s very positive,” Ten Hag added after the game. “This group has a lot of experience in sport at the highest level, so it will be very good for Manchester United.”
Not everyone has followed Brailsford’s rise through the British Cycling, Team Sky and Ineos ranks however…
Thought it was Greg Wallace off Masterchef
— Josh (@joshpearson180) December 26, 2023
United came from behind to overhaul a two-goal deficit at half-time, winning the Boxing Day clash 3-2… cue marginal gains talk…
ffs Dave Brailsford has only gone and used ‘2-0 is a dangerous lead’ as one of his famous marginal gains
— Duncan Alexander (@oilysailor) December 26, 2023
And of course…
Man Utd look in dire need of some asthma inhalers, skin creams, bespoke pillows, maybe even a Triamcinolone shot or some TUE-cleared prednisolone. And obviously some marginal gains. Where on earth are they gonna find that?
— Nick Harris (@sportingintel) December 26, 2023
Tesla's Cybertruck inspires Olympic medallist to design futuristic e-bike trailer (+ video)
> Tesla’s Cybertruck inspires Olympic medallist to design futuristic e-bike trailer (+ video)
"I read that he apologises, but that's not even necessary... everyone makes a mistake sometimes": Mathieu van der Poel responds to Felipe Nystrom's apology hopes he will "not give up his dream"
Mathieu van der Poel has spoken to Sporza this morning to address the incident during yesterday’s cyclocross…
“I know Felipe Nystrom’s story and have sympathy for him,” he said. “Yesterday, however, he gave me a fright. I initially thought he had pulled over to let me through, until he suddenly wanted to leave when I was at the same height. I pushed to keep myself straight and not hit his bike.
“I read that he apologises, but that’s not even necessary. I wasn’t angry with him either. Felipe made an error in judgement and that can happen. Everyone makes a mistake sometimes. He should certainly not give up his dream for that. I hope he stays here and continues to complete his planned programme.”
road.cc reader presents
Anyone get anything good for Christmas?
road.cc reader Petras B sent us this picture of their bike chain coaster from Links By Annette…
Apparently they’ve got a few interesting handmade items from used bike parts.
Confession of an e-biker...
Fesshole, if you’re not already acquainted, is the anonymous confession cesspit of the internet, usually filled with tales of sexual misadventure or family troubles, or sometimes both. Today, however, cycling’s on the agenda…
I cycle an e-bike as I commute 40 miles a day, it’s hilly and I don’t want it to take all day, I’ve lost 25kg, gained a 6 pack and can crush melons with my thighs but it still don’t stop some bald obese man commenting an e-bike is cheating at some point during my commute.
— Fesshole 🧻 (@fesshole) December 27, 2023
Sir Dave Brailsford hit with the full force of ranty ex-footballers' wrath...
It’s quite amusing seeing Sir Dave Brailsford, a near ever-present figure within professional cycling for longer than a decade, suddenly come onto the radar of the footballing world… cue meltdown from pundits and former professionals…
“I wouldn’t have a cycling expert!” 😱❌
“Football comes from within. You can have as many laptops as you like.. It’s nonsense!”
Dean Saunders argues why #MUFC should NOT employ Dave Brailsford as a director. 👀 pic.twitter.com/ay7uYFu4G0
— talkSPORT (@talkSPORT) December 27, 2023
Saunders wasn’t the only one… Paul Merson laying into Dave B during Sky Sports’ Boxing Day coverage, and concluding that ” you’ve got to get football people in – in my opinion – and work with football people”.
“The first thing they’ve got to sort out is the recruitment,” he said. “I’m not sure about the man coming in, the cycling man… It didn’t work with (former England rugby coach) Clive Woodward at Southampton. I think you’ve got to get football people in – in my opinion – and work with football people. This is a big football club.
“They’ve got to start performing. At the moment they are all over the place. They’re rotten. I’m not being horrible there.”
No pressure then…
No Van der Poel at today's 'cross race means... Wout wins (obviously)
🏆 Superprestige Heusden-Zolder (C1) 🇧🇪
1 🇧🇪 Wout van Aert
2 🇧🇪 Eli Iserbyt
3 🇳🇱 Joris Nieuwenhuis4 🇧🇪 Vandeputte
5 🇳🇱 Del Grosso
6 🇧🇪 Wyseure
7 🇧🇪 Huybs
8 🇨🇭 Kuhn
9 🇧🇪 Th. Aerts
10 🇧🇪 Dockx
➡️ Results: https://t.co/hWU5xWlEOY pic.twitter.com/ibkbbr8cWZ— Cyclocross24.com (@cyclocross24) December 27, 2023
And a win for Fem van Empel too, making it two wins for yesterday’s second-place riders in the absence of their winners, plus two wins for Jumbo…
“What a BATTLE!” ⚔️
Fem van Empel and Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado sprint to the finish in Heusden-Zolder! 🏁#CXWorldCup pic.twitter.com/CiNdgkEhtr
— Eurosport (@eurosport) December 27, 2023
Comment of the day
That’ll do for me…
"I think a change of attitude is more important than infrastructure": James May talks about road sectarianism, says "nothing is going to be solved" with "angry drivers and evangelical cyclists"
Former Top Gear host and one-time road.cc YouTube interview guest James May guest edited this morning’s BBC Today programme, during which he spoke about “road sectarianism”, specifically ending it, and called it more important than infrastructure.
Speaking from the saddle in West London, May said: “I’m a car enthusiast, but I also love bicycles. I love cycling around London because it is good for you and it is quite good fun, and to be honest it is now the quickest way to get about.
“Cycling is good and I like cycling infrastructure, I like cycle lanes but some of them are overwrought and too complicated […] I think a change in attitude is more important than infrastructure, good though infrastructure is, as long as there is road sectarianism and we have angry drivers and evangelical cyclists, nothing is going to be solved.”
Explaining that he has just been cut up by a driver turning across his cycle lane and into a side road, May said he has some level of sympathy for drivers in such a situation, as there is “no precedent for this layout on the road network”.
“On my bike rides it normally happens once, and I’m ready for it because I cycle around here a lot, but it only has to go wrong once for it to be quite unpleasant,” he continued.
Government touts Frog Bikes as post-Brexit "success" story, just months on from company blaming Brexit "friction" for £500,000 losses
"He should have pushed me even harder": Cyclocross rider apologises after Mathieu van der Poel shoves him out the way... because he was taking mid-race selfie with a fan
Mathieu van der Poel and Puck Pieterse won the Boxing Day cyclocross in Gavere yesterday, however much of the post-race discussion has centred, not on their dominant mud-taming abilities, but the Dutchman’s shove of a fellow rider on the third lap…
¡QUÍTATE DE AHÍ! 🤣 Van der Poel en modo bestia quitando del camino al tico Felipe Nystrom #CXWorldCup pic.twitter.com/ti2UV0V053
— Camilo Uribe (@Uribecycling) December 26, 2023
And while some seemed to enjoy Van der Poel’s apparent win-at-all-cost, stop slowing me down, attitude towards the lapped rider Felipe Nystrom, others have labelled it unnecessary, overly aggressive, and deserving of a penalty.
I don’t think there was much need for that Mathieu… if anything it looks overly aggressive https://t.co/KWtMpEi9aT
— Peter. ✊🏻✊🏼✊🏽✊🏾✊🏿🚴♂️(he/him/his) (@PBCycleWrites) December 26, 2023
A key bit of context is the explanation for why Nystrom was there in the first place. No, he wasn’t just lapped, accidentally oblivious to Van der Poel’s storming approach from behind due to the noise of the crowds, but instead… because he was taking a selfie with a supporter…
Spanish pro cyclocross and road rider Felipe Orts Lloret addressed the discussion around the video, saying: “I appreciate and respect Felipe’s effort but any reaction from Van der Poel would be justified. The race is the race and anyone who is not competing in it cannot prevent the first person from going where they need to.”
And on the whole, the fans who took to social media to share their views agreed…
Am I the only one who thinks that this is not aggressive at all and that it’s a pure reflex to avoid a fall?
— Jimi Hendrix (@jimi_on_zwift) December 26, 2023
Clowning around with the fans while the race leader is coming through is unacceptable… Fan favorite or not pay attention while getting lapped!
— Lukáš Ronald Lukács (@lucasaganronald) December 26, 2023
A rider not paying any attention to his surroundings nearly takes out the leader of this race. No, it wasn’t aggressive. It was a natural reflex to stay on his bike.
— James Talks Cycling (@JamesTalksSport) December 26, 2023
Nystrom later told Belgian news outlet Sporza about the incident, his embarrassment and guilt obvious, the 40-year-old urging people against blaming Van der Poel, saying the race winner should have “pushed me even harder”, and even going as far as to say he is ending his season early because “I have to bear the consequences of my actions”.
“I feel terrible,” he said. “It was 1,000% my fault what happened there. Mathieu had to push me — it should have been even harder. I was in the way and I feel very bad about it.
“I am concerned that Mathieu may receive hate messages. Some people tell me I’m stupid, but others say Van der Poel was mean and didn’t have to push me. It’s horrible that he would experience a negative impact from a situation I put him in. I wish that I could look Mathieu in the eye and say how sorry I am.
“I don’t really deserve to be here. I had a dream and I achieved it, but my mistake on Tuesday is too big for me to continue. Normally I would have had the [financial] means to continue until the World Championships. But now I’m just going to leave next week.
“I’m going to give the other Costa Rican (Joseph Ramirez, ed.) one last push in Hulst and then he has to take over the torch. I have to bear the consequences of my actions, I have disappointed people.”
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Latest Comments
@stulemanski "... if drivers decided it was okay..."
Really? They lost me at "SUV".
@mitsky in theory there's a purpose, being it should mean steps to doing something about this can be skipped if they do this again or penalties could be higher etc. Since in practice nothing of consequence happens however (and certainly not like them immediately being banged up / car crushed etc - plus of course there might be a long period before anything might happen under the current system) it's simply "don't do it again, or we'll tell you not to do it again, again"...
@flowboy "Shared space" - this is a thing that some urban planners / designers got wildly enthusiastic about *. A couple of UK ones still do, long after the Dutch ones abandoned this as being dangerous and unpleasant for people not in motor vehicles. The take-home is it doesn't work well for humans. Safety is not best served by creating uncertainty. And motor traffic dominates as normal, except under very specific conditions **. Plenty on that online (see eg. David Hembrow's "a view from the cycle path" blog for that mostly in NL, Aseasyasridingabike for some UK examples). * I can only conclude they love being able to have more of a blank canvas to create on, so they can be more free to play with "blue sky" designs. Also perhaps they like the "cleaner lines" to spaces without all the paint, signs, marked areas for different modes etc. ** There is in fact an opportunity to have "sharing" and indeed "clean lines" - that is by having a genuine "home zone" / "play street" / "woonerf" (Dutch term). But that requires this is not a) still principally a space for motor vehicles, which in turn means b) those areas should not be permeable for driving through, and everything should promote very low speeds and indeed not much driving (or even parking) there.
@Paul J Also she pleaded with him at the time to stop the car, multiple times. She was apparently in absolute shock after the incident and felt threatened to write the note. We need to bear in mind what she had just witnessed Richardson do. He's undoubtedly a very violent man.
@flowboy "It's flat" / "It's the culture" - actually "it's a lot more complex". Flat: that is a thing, however there's more cycling in not terribly flat places like Switzerland / Norway than many UK places. (And eg. Maastricht is hilly, and while there's less cycling there than many places in NL there is *way* more than most of the UK). Alas the excellent "cycling fallacies" site - addressing a lot of misconceptions about cycling / cycle infra - seems to have died. I can only recommend eg. BicycleDutch's "How the Dutch got their cycle paths" - although it really could do with a book/movie-length treatment. As above. Bristol - lots of steep gradients, but cycling is growing there. Edinburgh - hills (and a mountain inside the city) but most gradients are relatively gradual and there's cycling. Both have quite a lot of motor-traffic (Bristol feels like an order of magnitude more...) though and are in no way approaching even Scandinavian cycling levels.
You had me until 'AI-powered automatic shifting'
Only an idiot would've assumed continued growth after a boom as large as the one during the pandemic. But we seem to have Bianchis and Accells galore.
Still no vertical cutoff for safe use on public roads? Thanks, I'll just laugh once, then one more time when I see the price, and pass.
@mdavidford Didn't want to break the flow, boy.
15 thoughts on ““He should have pushed me even harder”: Cyclocross rider apologises after Mathieu van der Poel shoves him out the way… because he was taking mid-race selfie with a fan; Dave Brailsford spotted at Man Utd win as Ineos deal nears + more on the live blog”
17,000 fans at cyclocross etc
17,000 fans at cyclocross etc – But we Brits can’t watch it as some knob at Disney has pulled the plug on GCN.
it was on eurosport
it was on eurosport
Yeah, there’s been a lot of
Yeah, there’s been a lot of mis-information about this. If you were already a Eurosport subscriber, then there was no issue. It’s the same as before – no change.
However come June annd the time to re subscribe, I suspect it won’t be £39.99 for the year…….
Capt Sisko wrote:
Disney??
Disney/ WarnerBros – owners
Disney/ WarnerBros – owners of Discovery/Eurosport.
Velophaart_95 wrote:
Disney does not own those and is unrelated to WB.
https://discoverysports.com/
https://discoverysports.com/
Capt Sisko wrote:
Yep – still not DISNEY.
Well, this is some kind of
Well, this is some kind of shit Xmas day present:
https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/bristol-bike-shop-owner-distraught-8999572
Costa Rican CXer should carry
Costa Rican CXer should carry on as planned, stuff happens, no-one got hurt. Startling incident, yes, end of the world, no.
Miller wrote:
Yes, hopefully his statement that he was going home was made in the heat of the moment in the shock of having done something stupid and MVDP’s very gracious and understanding attitude will persuade him that he can stay on.
I must admit I hadn’t heard Nystrom’s story, it is quite incredible, well worth looking up if you haven’t heard it: in very brief precis a childhood of sexual and physical abuse ended up with him living on the street as an alcoholic and drug addict, trying to kill himself seven times. After the seventh attempt he suddenly decided he had to make something of his life, moved to America and worked his backside off, sometimes holding seven jobs at once. However he found America lonely and he didn’t know where one could go to make friends except bars, which as a recovering alcoholic he had to stay clear of, so he joined a cycling club and went from strength to strength, eventually winning the Costa Rica National Road Race Championships in 2019, since when he’s been competing in the cyclocross almost completely self-funded. Absolutely awesome and outweighs x 1,000,000 a silly mistake.
James May on Today R4: well,
Today R4: the interesting bit starts at 1:35:33.
James May on Today R4: well, they’ve finally mentioned cycling, so only forty years of pestering has finally paid off, even if it had to take someone famous for being a petrolhead to do it.
It was almost balanced, but the presenter was clearly anti-cyclist as was the taxi driver, with the usual bingo card of hi-viz, RLJ etc, but incredibly, no mention of helmets.
The presenter finished off by saying that this debate could go on, so I’ve emailed them suggesting that, for the famous BBC balance, they might dedicate a five minute slot every day for the next year to match their e/hydrogen/self-driving car coverage. And maybe they could get someone rather more authoritative than an ex-Top Gear presenter, from CUK perhaps.
If you wanted to join in, it’s today@bbc.co.uk
Anyway, thanks James, at least you got them to talk about cycling.
There’s been, of course, a
There’s been, of course, a lot of coverage of May’s comments on self-driving cars. They’re inevitably coming to the UK, because even a car driven by the speak-and-spell machine out of Toy Story is going to be more safely driven than those featured in the Car Collides with Building and Drivers and their Problems topics- and the great majority of those drivers will be on the road today. PS: safer than the average BMW and Audi driver as well
eburtthebike wrote:
The presenter was a typical journalist, in that at one point all the guests agreed on the need for mutual respect, but that was too dull, so he interjected with a comment of his own about cyclists being scofflaws. That was clearly meant to prod the cabbie to fulfil her designated role, and that’s when she obliged with standard-issue guff about compulsory hi-viz and registrations. It was basically the sort of thing that The Day Today so mercilessly satirized here:
Although, to be fair, the cabbie and the presenter are both presumably based in London, where they are exposed to a higher concentration of dickhead cyclists, because London has a higher concentrations of dickheads in general. Some of the dickheads ride bikes, some crowd around the doors on the Tube, some dangerously squeeze past cyclists in their motor vehicles, some live in palaces, a lot trade on the stock markets, and some present radio news programmes. But nobody calls for Londoners to be registered, taxed, and made to wear signs that say, “Warning, I may be a dickhead.”
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Today’s fairest Handle, yeah?!
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