"Even Tadej Pogačar will have difficulty beating him": Eddy Merckx "completely in awe" of Remco Evenepoel, predicts "exceptional" Olympic champion will beat Tour winner at World Championships; £15m road project with no bike lanes + more on the live blog

Gold medal winning brilliance from @TeamGB's women's team sprint! 🥇

Katy Marchant, Sophie Capewell and Emma Finucane set a third new world record at #Paris2024.#BBCOlympics #Olympics pic.twitter.com/oM5aJe44QU

— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) August 5, 2024

Three rides, three world records, three GB track cyclists with a gold medal in the bank on day one of the velodrome action. The men have qualified second fastest in the team pursuit, behind a flying Australian team, however tonight's all about the sprinters...

"WE DID IT!" ❤️

Katy Marchant, Sophie Capewell and Emma Finucane reacted to winning gold in the women's team sprint 🇬🇧🥇#BBCOlympics #Olympics #Paris2024 pic.twitter.com/h1OcKvmaah

— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) August 5, 2024

> "Best Parisian driver detected": Olympic silver medallist Anna Henderson collides with Shimano neutral service car during road race, as Lizzie Deignan reveals "medial emergency" and night in hospital days before strong Team GB showing

The Manchester Evening News has been all over this story in the past week, the area's mayor Andy Burnham reportedly telling BBC Radio Manchester that he will speak with the council's leader to "look again" at the proposals for the "critical route". These comments come after the council's transport leader had told the public the local authority has "undertaken some significant design work over the course of the past 12 months to arrive at an agreed scheme that will now move to the outline business case stage of the funding process".

Another councillor Asa Caton told the local newspaper that there are concerns that the west-east and east-west cycle routes proposed will send cyclists to "an area that is overrun with heavy-goods vehicles, delivery vehicles, industrial units, an abattoir".

"You could make any number of improvements to that area and it would not be used for walking and cycling," the local politician argued. "You would still see people using the A6 [where there will not be any protected cycling infrastructure]. It just makes me shudder, the fact that we are trying to push people to use that route."

This one seems like it's going to rumble on into this week and beyond...

Kudos to Alex Whitehead, Zac Williams and Ed Sykes from SWpix.com for their shots from the weekend's road races, a Parisian photography paradise... 

Claude Monet, 1878. pic.twitter.com/iHCSHdEtOU

— NO CONTEXT OLYMPICS (@OlympicsContext) August 4, 2024

[Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council]

A major road upgrade project, costing £15m, has been criticised by local politicians for lacking any cycling infrastructure on a busy main road that the scheme is centred around, the council claiming including the construction of such cycle lanes would make the cost "colossal" and arguing there is "insufficient space".

The scheme includes east-west cycle routes with crossing options but will not provide cyclists infrastructure to use on the A6, a Green Party councillor pointing out that the painted cycle lane currently on the busy main road [pictured above] will go too and arguing that the "compromise scheme" is in fact just "losses all for cyclists".

Gary Lawson told the Manchester Evening News: "I find it a very disappointing scheme. It's referred to as a compromise scheme, but in a compromise everybody gives a little. Motorists are not losing out in any way here, buses are benefiting, the compromise is the losses are all for cyclists.

"We have a cycle lane at the moment along the A6 but that will go as I understand it, and cyclists will be sent here, there and everywhere. Most cyclists want the most direct route and the safest route, and that would be a segregated cycle route along the A6."

The council admits that "a number" of people have asked for cycle lanes on the A6 to be included in the £15m project, that is expected to take two years to implement and is using funding from the Greater Manchester City Region Transport Settlement.

However, the local authority has claimed there is "insufficient space" for protected cycle lanes on the A6 and that they would cost a figure that is "absolutely colossal" and "beyond the budget or timetable".

A spokesperson said: "We have looked at this, I don't have a cost for what it would cost, because a large part of it would have to move every single kerb line on the A6 along the entire length of the scheme," a council officer told the local newspaper. The cost in terms of stats diversions [utility services] could be absolutely colossal. It would require third party land to do it.

"That would almost certainly require a CPO [compulsory purchase order] process, because every time you get to a bus stop or junction you run out of space. The northern section of the corridor is actually narrower, so you have definitely run out of space.

"It would require a very large number of land acquisitions to do it, and it's not just the cost, it's the time, there is no way we could deliver this project in the timetable if we were to go along that route. It would be a completely different scheme, it would be considerably more expensive, and it would take a much longer period of time to build."

Active travel group Walk Ride Greater Manchester wrote to councillors last week urging the local authority to avoid making the scheme about "cycles vs buses" and saying that the A6 is "inaccessible to many" without protected cycle lanes. A second councillor, James Frizzell, has also expressed concerns that sending cyclists along quieter side streets would force people to make journeys on "lonely passageways at night" with "personal safety" risks.

As planned, the scheme will see new bus lanes with "improved junctions, enhanced crossings and better bus stops", two 'Western and Eastern' cycle routes, and the introduction of 20mph speed limits on some residential streets.