Fake Strava profile pretending to be Jonas Vingegaard ‘beats’ Tadej Pogačar’s KOM… possibly on a scooter; Cyclocross crash chaos; The duality of cyclists between Christmas and New Year; Council’s lack of payouts causes concern + more on the live blog
SUMMARY
What time's this?!
Someone’s keen to get the live blog cracking this morning…
"It's all happening here": Cyclocross crash chaos in Diegem as bizarre startline pile-up causes carnage... before Nys clips barrier and hands Del Grosso victory
The tone was set for a dramatic night of cyclocross from the start, Michael Vanthourenhout sent tumbling by a crash within seconds. My amateur timekeeping makes it around two seconds from when the riders are sent on their way to the contact which sent the Belgian sprawling and ended his chances in record time.
Un départ catastrophique pour Michael Vanthourenhout à Diegem ?❌#Cyclocross #Superprestige #Vanthourenhout #Diegem pic.twitter.com/l0RI9DnYu5
— Pickx Sports (@PickxSports) December 30, 2025
Once that bizarre startline stutter was out the way, Tibor Del Grosso and Thibau Nys renewed their burgeoning ‘cross rivalry, battling it out in the Dutch and Belgian national champs’ jerseys like Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert have done so many times before. With Van der Poel hinting at cyclocross retirement after this winter, in Del Grosso vs Nys we’re looking at the future of the sport on the men’s side.
In this instance there was decisive moment (if not an expected one), Nys drifting too close to the edge of the course in the sand and hitting a pole, sending himself (and Joran Wyseure who was also with the Belgian rider) to the deck and leaving Del Grosso to fly by and regain an advantage he’d protect to the finish.
HUGE DRAMA IN DIEGEM ?
Elbows into a hairpin bend see Del Grosso grind to a halt before Thibau Nys crashes in the sand moments later! ? pic.twitter.com/mK9OTXCIBJ
— Cycling on TNT Sports (@cyclingontnt) December 30, 2025
The drama was captured by a sand-side fan’s phone too…
CHUTE DE THIBAU NYS pic.twitter.com/k0V6akWnbn
— Alex-is (@alreisor) December 30, 2025
There was plenty happening in the women’s race beforehand too, European champion Inge van der Heijden crashing in the first bend before mechanical misfortune gave Puck Pieterse a brief scare. That wasn’t enough to get Marie Schreiber back in it however and the Dutch rider secured her second win in Diegem.
Perfection from Puck ?
Not even a flat tyre could stop the Dutchwoman from taking her first win of the ‘Cross season ? pic.twitter.com/lOXNG6gtHO
— Cycling on TNT Sports (@cyclingontnt) December 30, 2025
A good night for the Dutch national champs’ jerseys, although we thought the fireworks were meant to be tonight…
"Great use of free will on display..."
Enjoy a musical ride down memory lane as Steve Thomas catches up with Lloyd Cole to talk all things bikes (and a bit of music)
If anyone missed this cracking interview from Steve Thomas with Lloyd Cole it makes enjoyable New Year’s Eve reading, if we do say so ourselves.
"I contacted his manager... almost": Belgian cyclocross race tried to lure Tadej Pogačar to star appearance
The organiser of the Superprestige cyclocross in Gullegem has revealed he made an ambitious bid to tempt Tadej Pogačar to race their event on January 3. Belgian broadcaster Sporza explained Stijn Tant winked when telling them how close they got… “Almost,” he said.
“But we’ve already made contacts for next year,” Tant added. There were apparently plenty of calls with Pogačar’s manager Alex Carrera but “ultimately, we were told no, because Pogačar was on a training camp at the time. So it didn’t fit into the schedule.”
Maybe next year… well, the year after if you’re still reading this in 2025… you know what I mean…
By-law change to benefit cyclists in one Welsh town
A council in Wales has agreed to change a local by-law to allow cyclists to ride through memorial gates at a country park.
Wales Online reports Neath Port Talbot Council will change the by-laws so that cyclists can continue journeys through Neath’s memorial gates at the Gnoll Country Park Estate, a move which was approved earlier this month.
Talk began in 2023, the plan proposed as a means of helping residents more easily access the town centre on foot or by bike. Can you tell there’s not much cycling news out there today?
The duality of man
Local paper reveals council has not paid any compensation to cyclists injured on city's cycle lanes during past five years
An important piece of local reporting in the Echo today, the newspaper reporting that Southend Council has declined to pay any compensation to cyclists injured on the city’s cycle lanes during the past five years, that despite there being 12 reported incidents, of which four were classed as serious.
The definition of ‘serious’ is reportedly linked to insurance definitions, where it could range from fractures to more significant harm. The local authority has confirmed all claims are assessed individually but none have resulted in payouts.
The Echo reported the cases included one cyclist who fell after hitting a pothole. Somewhat bizarrely given the nature of that incident and others cited in the piece, councillor Martin Terry said “as a keen cyclist” he believes “riders should take responsibility for their own safety – use lights, wear visible clothing and apply common sense”.
He added: “The evidence shows cycleways are relatively safe, with only 12 incidents in five years. Cyclists should ride at appropriate speeds, especially in shared spaces like City Beach, and respect pedestrians.”
A council spokesperson commented: “Cycling-related compensation claims in Southend are assessed and dealt with appropriately by the council’s insurers. This forms part of our ongoing work to maintain safe roads and cycle routes across the city.”
Happy New Year from everyone at road.cc
Right, that’s us for 2025, the pub’s calling…
In a late contender for the saddest person to grace the internet in 2025... someone sets up fake Strava profile pretending to be Jonas Vingegaard and 'beats' Tadej Pogačar's KOM on a scooter
You know what? I take that back, that’s actually quite funny…
Somebody got bored, created a Strava account under the name Jonas Vingegaard, and rode Coll de Rates on a scooter just to make the news. ??
Jonas Vingegaard is currently home in Denmark with his family, not in Spain. pic.twitter.com/Z54YsgzsLF
— Lukáš Ronald Lukács (@lucasaganronald) December 29, 2025
The Coll de Rates KOM fell again, but rather than Tadej Pogačar beating his own time it was his great rival Jonas Vingegaard atop the leaderboard. Well, sort of. The account said Jonas Vingegaard but closer inspection showed just 22 followers and a newly created profile, the Dane’s actual profile (which he stopped using several years ago) sitting a bit further down the leaderboard.
> Tadej Pogačar obliterates iconic Coll de Rates Strava KOM with 32km/h smashfest
Anyway, fake Jonas has now been removed and Pogačar restored to the top. Panic over (in case anyone was worried). Plot twist: the profile’s fake, but the effort isn’t… okay, wishful thinking. Let’s move on.
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Latest Comments
Good stuff: most of it (except 5 and 9) is also relevant to loaded touring in the high mountains. So for no. 4 think 22T inner chainring rather than 34T. And in a similar way to taking hairpins wide, when it gets really really steep you can zigzag across the road other traffic permitting - that said I climbed a mountain pass this year where the only other road users I saw were some lizards.
@Velo-drone I'm sorry but that doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Yes, the health benefits of cycling do outweigh the health damage done by pollution. That's because cycling is incredibly good for you. It doesn't mean the harm that pollution does to you is minimal. If there's a way to enjoy the health benefits of cycling whilst minimising the detrimental effects of pollution then that is very much worth mentioning and studying. Obviously I would rather that the detrimental effects were mitigated by reducing car traffic and increasing cycle provision away from the most polluted roads, but until that happens it's certainly worth knowing what the detrimental effects are and how they might be mitigated by personal actions such as wearing a mask, if only in order to allow one to make an informed decision.
@Smoggysteve That's definitely the case with plenty of unassisted riders, in my experience in London every Lime bike user wants to get to the top speed as quickly as possible and stay there. I agree that the 10mph cyclist whom one passes between lights who then insists on going in front (often going over the stop line to do so) at the next lights, necessitating a continual run of overtakes, can be extremely annoying, but it doesn't really apply to Limes (I suspect the person making this complaint deliberately mentioned Lime bikes to point out just how amazingly fast he is).
@Mr Blackbird I'm not expert in highway design, but I have some knowledge of public procurement of construction work and my tuppance is that in addition to the work being more complicated than most people realise, there are two main reasons modern projects cost more than we feel it ought to: 1. Health & Safety. Construction remains one of the leading cause of occupational injury and death in the UK. It's come a long, long way from where it used to be, but doing things right so people don't die, or just injure their backs, lose fingers or their hearing means things take longer and cost more than they used to do. In particular, there's a lot of extra admin to ensure that people don't cut the kind of corners that result in a corporate manslaughter charge. 2. Procurement. Ironically efforts to ensure fairness and good value for money by opening up competition so jobs no longer go to the company the official knows will do a decent job, or comes with a brown envelope means the procurement process is now incredibly long-winded and torturous. Everything requires the kind of rigid specification that prevents fly-by-nights bidding low and doing it on the cheap, but also discourages innovation.
She has seen the accounts for 25 and the first two quarters of 26 and the losses grow. And jumped with a reserve chute before the plane crashes. It is a changing market place. British brands ruled the roost for a decade but now with the failure of Rapha, Le Col and Endura....
Can we make it mandatory that whenever someone brings up rubbish like this, they should be required to respond to or at least reference the pre-existing excellent research on the topic, which shows that you'd have to cycle continuously in the highest polluting conditions in central London for over 9 hours before the health detriment from pollution would outweigh the benefit of the additional exercise? And that there's no city in the whole of Europe where cycling all day in normal pollution levels would result in overall health detriment compared to not cycling? https://ig.ft.com/sites/urban-cycling/?spoor-id=cln5y3tl70000at6ys8f9m15n It's lovely that they care. But they need to stop the scare stories. Cycling regularly, even in the most polluted UK cities and conditions, is overall health positive. Nobody should be running stories focussed on a non-existent need to "protect" yourself from this.
@Rendel Harris Wheras they are capable of doing those speeds, that isnt a guarantee the rider will. All cars on the road are capable of 70mph yet you will always get the driver sitting at 55-60 in the middle lane. I think that's the annoyance of people who get stuck behind 'slow' cyclists.
@Smoggysteve I simply made a mistake, Gusto is Taiwanese. My apologies. I think someone at the stand said the bikes were made in China and so the word was in my head, nothing more or less to it than that.
@Paul J Technically, yes the strict constitutional name of Taiwan is the Republic of China (an historical anomaly, when the Republic of China was overthrown by the Communists to establish the People's Republic of China in 1949 the original name stuck to Taiwan even though the Republic of China no longer existed because that's where the defeated government fled), but "many Taiwanese consider themselves Chinese" is not accurate, with polls showing that 85–90% of the population consider themselves Taiwanese and separate from the nation of China both culturally and politically. The overwhelming majority of people in Taiwan use Taiwan as their name, and the government in Taipei very definitely does not consider Taiwan to be part of China but is vehement in its insistence that it is an independent sovereign nation.
The police would prevent a lot more accidents if they did random breath tests on motorists and not slow e-bikes.
6 thoughts on “Fake Strava profile pretending to be Jonas Vingegaard ‘beats’ Tadej Pogačar’s KOM… possibly on a scooter; Cyclocross crash chaos; The duality of cyclists between Christmas and New Year; Council’s lack of payouts causes concern + more on the live blog”
“Man with “generalised hatred
“Man with “generalised hatred of cyclists” arrested on suspicion of firing shots at group ride …”
Not sure why I can’t comment on the page:
https://road.cc/content/news/man-arrested-suspicion-firing-shots-group-ride-317455
Anything less than a significant prison term for this will simply send the message to others that gun violence against cyclists is OK.
Hi, we close comments on
Hi, we close comments on stories when someone has been arrested and there is likely going to be a trial. It’s to avoid any potential comments risking prejudicing the trial and to avoid possible contempt of court. While that’s for UK stories, we’ve done the same here.
Thanks and happy new year!
Understood.
Understood.
But as I’ve shown by my original comment, anyone can still post a message about any topic here so closing comments on the page itself may not provide foolproof prevention.
I don’t know if it is possible on Your site’s comments system, but maybe for situations like this: keep comments open but each post/reply requires approval?
I appreciate that requires more work on the Road CC team’s part, but it could help in some way to keep the conversation going.
What a great idea! That close
What a great idea! That close ratio 8-8T cassette makes choosing your favourite chainline a doddle without needing to do a pesky front shift.
Happy New year.
Happy New year.
Just seen what seemed like a feature length ad from Tunnocks.
Wishing us a happy 2026, claiming they’re still the same size.
But featuring cycling and fine scenery from Scotland.
And nice cycling too.
Happy New Year to you ktache!
Happy New Year to you ktache! Also to others on here.
Just rode out of the house in the old year to watch the bangs and share a song, and back in in the new.
Didn’t have any cake or coal on me though (or even oil)…