“Unfortunately what many people don’t understand is that when cycle lanes are built we don’t just get cycle lanes”; Is Dan Martin cycling’s fastest runner?; Wout van Aert has surgery on fractured ankle; More cyclocross crash chaos + more on the live blog
SUMMARY
Weekend cyclocross round-up: Van der Poel wins again (as Zonhoven World Cup round descends into crash chaos)
Mathieu van der Poel and Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado both won at Zonhoven this weekend, following up their victories at the snowy Zilvermeercross in Mol on Friday. For Alvarado that meant ending Lucinda Brand’s 13-race winning streak, while Van der Poel extended his own unbeaten run to 20 cyclocross races.
You might have seen the videos doing the rounds on social media, but poor Alvarado, Brand and Puck Pieterse suffered a slapstick triple crash in the sand, something Pieterse could at least admit was “quite funny” afterwards.
? PILE-UP
This course is so tough as Pieterse, Brand and Alvarado all come down on this first lap! They’re back on their bikes and racing at the front. #CXWorldCup pic.twitter.com/SwgTf2D9iS
— UCI Cyclocross (@UCI_CX) January 4, 2026
The crashing didn’t stop there, Thibau Nys suffering a heavy fall in the men’s race which left him on the wrong side of the course-side barriers, icy conditions again causing problems as they did on Friday in Mol. Nys’s handlebar snapped during the crash, the Belgian dropping out of contention as Van der Poel comfortably beat Alpecin-Premier Tech teammate and compatriot Tibor Del Grosso by 45 seconds to wrap up another dominant festive season.
? DISASTER FOR THIBAU NYS
He’ll have a long run until the tech zone now to change bikes ? #CXWorldCup pic.twitter.com/87I0wZ532O
— UCI Cyclocross (@UCI_CX) January 4, 2026
Wout van Aert undergoes surgery on fractured ankle
Talking of icy ‘cross crashes, Wout van Aert underwent surgery this weekend, following his fall at Mol on Friday. Visma-Lease a Bike confirmed their rider suffered a sprained ankle and a small fracture. The crash has ended Van Aert’s cyclocross season and the team will be hoping he can be back at full fitness in time for the classics.
“Of course I am very disappointed to have to end my cyclocross season like this,” Van Aert said. “I was feeling better and better, including today in Mol. I was really looking forward to the race in Zonhoven and the Belgian Championships. But my focus will now be on recovery and, later on, the preparation of the road season.”
Is Dan Martin cycling's fastest runner?
Now that is QUICK…
Dan Martin might just be the new clubhouse leader for the pro cyclists (and former pro cyclists) go running leaderboard. Tom Dumoulin turned heads with his very impressive 1:08:42 half marathon and 32:38 10k, but Martin has turned things up a notch. Racing in Barcelona, Martin clocked a 29:38 10k, hitting a 14:45 5k in the process. Speedy.
This winter’s running efforts also included Mathieu van der Poel clocking a 33-minute 10k (and sparking triathlon talk), and British rider Lewis Askey doing a half marathon in 1:12… before quickly questioning if he’ll be able to walk again in time for the new season.
Any more super speedy cyclists want to get their running shoes on before the proper racing starts again soon?
Rush hour in the snow in Utrecht
The Utrecht morning rush hour in the snow did not disappoint!
— BicycleDutch (@bicycledutch.bsky.social) 5 January 2026 at 07:26
Cannondale's founder Joe Montgomery has died
The family of Joe Montgomery, the founder of Cannondale, this weekend confirmed his death at the age of 86. Writing online, Joe’s son Scott summed up the bike industry legend as a “father, husband, entrepreneur”, his post flooded with tributes and memories from figures from across the world of cycling. Everyone at road.cc passes on our condolences.
"Theft is now legal in Britain": Only 0.5% of station bike thefts lead to charges
> “Theft is now legal in Britain”: Only 0.5% of station bike thefts lead to charges
2026 is well underway over at the Daily Mail...
Maybe this is the year we’ll update this classic again…
> 20 of the most hysterical Daily Mail anti-cycling headlines
What on earth is an asphalt sausage?
Not the most appetising sausage you’ve ever seen, mind. These bizarre photos were snapped by the York Cycle Campaign, a rather strange defect appearing on an active travel path on their patch. They even stuck a 50p coin next to it on the right so you can get some scale about the size of the “raised snake of tarmac goo”.
I’d ask if anyone has any idea how this happened, but I quite like the York Cycle Campaign’s hypothesis, so let’s stick with that…
Ben Healy: In any sport I think it's impossible to go, 'Oh yeah, the sport is 100% clean'
Ben Healy has spoken to the Irish Mirror about his incredible 2025 and, in true major newspaper does professional cycling coverage, doping was top of the list of questions for Irish cycling’s star.
“In any sport I think it’s impossible to go, ‘Oh yeah, the sport is 100% clean’,” Healy said in assessment of where things are at. “That’s not to take away from anything that the sport and the governing bodies are doing to try and keep it clean and catch people out. Look at Oier Lazkano, everyone’s being tested thoroughly and pretty often to be honest, potentially even more than other sports.”
Lazkano, a former Spanish champion, was suspended last year over irregularities with his biological passport. Another hot topic is the speed of racing, with gear restrictions touted as a means of potentially making the sport safer.
Healy has no doubts much of the speed is coming from new tech, however he also believes tactics and dominant teams are playing a part: “Look at the equipment that we’re using now to even when I was racing first year at Under-23 which is only five years ago. The bikes are night and day different almost, that’s the first thing. And then just the way that we’re racing now. Look at UAE, they just set up their train and one by one the riders pull the race along at maximum speed possible. That makes a big difference.”
Near Miss of the Day 943: Police reaction to dangerous close pass shows "nothing much has changed" in reporting drivers in Scotland, says cyclist
Watch out, spinters... Jonathan Milan is going to be aero this season
Jonathan Milan isn’t the first name that comes to mind when you think about which pro riders are the most aero, the Italian more in the sprinting mould of Marcel Kittel or André Greipel, bruising fastmen who take their wins by sheer force. At 6ft 4″ it’s quite difficult to tuck yourself up like Remco Evenepoel (and there’s no suggestion you’d even want to for a max effort sprint), but Milan is determined to find some savings this season and has been looking at his set up.
He told Gazzetta dello Sport improving his position on the bike is one of his big goals and something plenty of work has gone into (just don’t say he’s listened to the internet trolls).
“Not because of the many comments I’ve heard, almost as if everyone is a biomechanic,” he said. “We’ve talked about it a lot in the team, with the specialists and I’m acting accordingly. We completely changed the frame size of the bike, widened the handlebars… This way, we’re able to save a lot of energy, especially for the sprint, where you need to arrive as fresh as possible.
“And I’m able to stay much lower overall. I can throw my head down much more. This, you’ll see, will be a clear difference.”
That’s one rider who won’t have anything to worry about when it comes to the UCI’s controversial handlebar width rules…
New year, same old anti-cycling ragebait in the media
"Unfortunately what many people don't understand is that when cycle lanes are built we don't just get cycle lanes..."
Now, you’ll have to forgive me for sharing something that’s three weeks old on the live blog, but the post just popped up on our timeline and it makes some points we’re not sure we’ve seen in the discourse around cycle lanes before.
A cyclist behind the Dorset Safer Roads page on Facebook went for a spin along Wallisdown Road in Bournemouth, using the recently installed cycling infrastructure to make their journey safer and easier. And while we love seeing footage of decent cycle lanes and traffic-free journeys, the point of the video was to highlight just how many other road improvements come with active travel projects.
After all, when we read council press releases about proposals and plans, cycle lanes are almost always just one part of a wider project. The cycling infrastructure gets all the headlines, but the whole package often includes much more.
“Unfortunately what many people don’t understand is that when cycle lanes are built we don’t just get cycle lanes,” the Dorset Safer Roads account said.
“We get: [a] fully resurfaced road, pavement and cycle lane, improved road drainage, junctions redesigned to be safer for all road users, narrower junctions [that] reduce entry speeds of vehicles turning in, shorter distances to cross for pedestrians, new crossing points with new signals with shorter wait times for both pedestrians and cyclists, cycle lane doesn’t give way at side roads meaning cyclists use the cycle lane, new bus shelters with information displays on bus arrivals.
“Fun fact, most of the money spent on this is actually spent on fixing the road, drainage, utilities etc. the actual cost of the cycle lane is minimal and this couldn’t happen without installing the cycle lane due to the way the government fund it.”
Back when the Wallisdown Road project was being thought up, the width of the cycle lanes came under scrutiny, some claiming the new route would be too narrow for drivers. However, the council chairman responded by saying that if drivers continued to cause crashes, then they would have more roadspace taken away to make them slow down.
One reply to Safer Roads Dorset’s video continued the familiar line of attack, claiming the redesign has meant “reduced road width for lorries, buses and emergency vehicles needing to pass”.
However, the video’s maker pointed out: “The road widths meet or exceed the national standards for road width for the type of road. But equally slightly reduced width helps to reduce speeding too.”
Likewise, another commenter added: “Each lane’s gone from one and a half vehicles wide to one vehicle wide. You can fit just as much traffic down one lane as down one and a half lanes — or actually more if you use the extra space for cycle lanes and encourage some drivers to cycle and leave their cars at home.”
We’ll leave the last word for the comment that said: “I’ve never seen Wallisdown Rd look so good, it’s always been the case that you can walk faster than rush hour traffic down that road, and now it has proper space for cyclists. Top job.”
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Latest Comments
I’d say that colour was more like fuchsia (and coming soon to a Rapha Pro Team jacket near you).
@yodhrin I believe the fairer summary is "we don't know - but making the main point advocating a form of PPE with relatively limited protection - and to a group of likely experienced cyclists - isn't very helpful..." I've only read one of the reports but that suggested the skull removal was to alleviate pressure from major brain swelling. And a given helmet *might* be better than the standard. So I think "don't know" is fairest.
@robgodd The poor guy himself suffered a traumatic brain injury and his skull was so badly shattered a significant portion of it had to be removed - do me a favour, have a look around cycling helmet manufacturers and see if any of them claim the foam hats they produce will protect against or even mitigate that level of injury. I'll wait if you like, but I can save us both the time and tell you what you'll find: none of them. Not a single one of them will. Because they don't, and they *can't* based on simple physics. Once the point of failure in a material is reached all(or as near as makes no odds) of the additional force beyond that necessary threshhold transfers through to the object beneath. Since bicycle helmets are rated for forces roughly equivalent to being dropped straight down from a stationary start 1.5m above a hard surface. Now, I'm not an expert in vehicle crash investigation, but I'm *fairly* sure that any impact or series of impacts powerful enough to render a quarder of your skull into gravel, put you in a weeks-long coma, give you massive amnesia, and leave you with ongoing symptoms of traumatic brain injury are a little bit, a teeny-weeny amount, a little smidgeon-widgeon more than what bike helmets are rated for. That's why none of the companies that make them claim they will help in such circumstances: because they know it would be a lie, and that unlike uninformed punters, carbrained journalists, or "medical professionals" who think wearing a helmet would save you from a broken arm(an actual scenario encountered by a mate, who's nurse at the A&E tutted and harrumphed her way through his whole treatment due to his lack of helmet despite his bonce having come through *being hit by a car* - another scenario bike helmets are worthless in - completely unscathed), the lawyers for those companies know their business and understand that if you lie in advertising you will get sued into the ground.
The Battle of Ypres April 1915. The German infantry division advanced using das Brumptstadt Fahrarden. The slow speed kept them behind the cloud of chlorine gas as it drifted towards the Commonwealth trenches. The offensive cleaved a two mile gap in the Western Front. The use of cycles was copied by the Japanese as they invaded Singapore and Burmah. By then war technology had embraced wider low pressure tyres, carbon frames and hydration gels. The German forces decided not to incorporate cycling as part of Operation Session, as bike theft in London and the South East was rife and would have caused huge casualties. Ironically superior advancement of tyre technology led to a British victory at El Alamein. This technology played a key part in the US Marines victory at Iwo Jima.
The appropriate response to Google pissing on your cereal is not a fancy new sugar that removes the taste of urine. Stop using Google products where you can. Firefox browser and DuckDuckGo search engine have had noticeable upticks in market share by explicitly NOT pushing AI.
my thoughts exactly...I wonder how that approach is working, with motor vehicle drivers...🤔
I do not wish to diminish the personal tragedy, but one never hear calls for pedestrians or even hikers to wear clothing with integrated lightening rods.
RE Andy Burnam / Heidi Alexander - this is the best thing in many ways - set an example (even if currently it leads to lots of online name-calling). And imagine some of the political alternatives! The folks in the apparently second-placed party seem incredibly unlikely to be doing so. And even the current "new Greens" seem less interested in ... y'know, environmental things. OTOH I wish Heidi could be bolder. And I fear that like anyone ambitious enough to get to the top (exception B Johnson - well, I guess there was the Corbyn bicycle...) Burnam will be trimming his transport policy sails to fit the wind (should that be "bunker-fuel-burning engines"?)
@mattsccm Bull bars aren't banned, they just have to conform to regulations so they are deformable or have plates that allow crumple give on contact, rather than rigid steel bars that can smash into pedestrians and cyclists with no give at all, catch them and drag them under the wheels. If you think that's a problem, do one. Why should who is responsible for a collision remove the responsibility of people driving a tonne of machinery on the road from having safety features to at least mitigate some of the effects of a collision?
I'd be willing to bet that's lazy use of stock photography rather than deliberate misinformation, but the result is still the same.
20 thoughts on ““Unfortunately what many people don’t understand is that when cycle lanes are built we don’t just get cycle lanes”; Is Dan Martin cycling’s fastest runner?; Wout van Aert has surgery on fractured ankle; More cyclocross crash chaos + more on the live blog”
“cycle lane doesn’t give way
“cycle lane doesn’t give way at side roads”
Somebody needs to tell the drivers. Many of them view any tarmac between where they are and where they want to be as a space to wait in for a gap in traffic. There were a fair number of points in that video where I’d not trust a car moving towards the cycle lane to actually stop.
Just wait until they find out
Just wait until they find out about this vision of hell, and that it’s very popular!
Or the full horror of spending money to take space from hardworking drivers to spend “on a few men in lycra”:
While you and I see that as
While you and I see that as an improvement, I’m sure a lot of drivers, who refuse to accept any good can come of bike lanes will see that as an extra reason to be angry at ‘wasting’ tax payers money on cyclists. How dare they not give way to important people in cars etc etc.
bensynnock wrote:
Like this: https://youtu.be/vEeljHmz6KA
bensynnock wrote:
Yep. And I’m afraid the police agree.
[quote[
Thank you for your submission to OP SNAP.
Your evidence has been reviewed, and we have decided that there is insufficient evidence for us to proceed with a prosecution. The vehicle has entered the cycle lane area when it’s way was clear – it is necessary for the vehicle to place itself in that position to see when it is safe to pull out onto the road.
It has committed no offence.
[/quote]
Was held up for at least 15 seconds because the driver failed to wait in the space allocated between the path and the road. This would have freed at least half the cycle path so that I could continute on my journey. Not even an advisory letter!
Not even an advisory letter!
Not even an advisory letter!
Do not be perturbed by this omission, as an advisory letter is perceived by many as police encouragement for ‘keep driving as usual, we don’t care about this non-offence’. There’s no way the police will display the wit or the willing to look back, the next time the driver offends against a cyclist, to look back to this ‘advice’, so the driver begins each day with a clean slate! Regular readers will be aware that Bungle, to his credit, represents the Conciliatory Wing of Cyclists v. Police interaction, whereas I, in my reticent way, represent the Sod the Bastards Wing. However, he doesn’t have to confront one of the Most Evil Organisations on the Planet! ( phrase courtesy of Professor Stewart from his excellent geology programmes on the BBC)
Complaining about the costs
Complaining about the costs of cycle routes, based on simplistic local newspaper headlines is a pet hate of mine, and glad to see someone drawing attention to it. A great example is this newish route by Dundee, which included a lot of the works mentioned in this article, plus works to protect sand dunes, nature and new wildflower meadows, which was a lot more than sowing a few seeds, as they had to do soil reprofiling etc. Everyone raves about the wildflowers now, but there was no end of complaining about it before and during the works. As well as the usual complaining about the costs of the cycling bits.
https://www.transportxtra.com/publications/local-transport-today/news/75964/-18m-cycling-and-walking-route-opens-in-dundee
There was a section done before that was proper flood defence works, requiring rebuilding the sea wall (and resurfacing a road), but people talked about it as if the whole budget was for a ‘few bikes’ along a route that’s too wide and ‘hardly anyone will use’. Needless to say, people are now complaining about there being too many bikes along the shared path.
RE new cycle infra – on a
RE new cycle infra – on a quick scan it doesn’t look bad – for the UK!
No doubt a careful re-view will show lots that can be improved. Both details (junctions, width) and overall concept (does this connect to a *network* of cycle routes?)
Also it’s a pity that this couldn’t be properly separated from motor traffic. Or perhaps even the road network needs redone – should this really be a main road? Should there be so much motor traffic here, what’s the speed limit? etc.
But … at least one cheer!
“Unfortunately what many
“Unfortunately what many people don’t understand is that when cycle lanes are built we don’t just get cycle lanes…”
Schrodinger’s cyclists (sort of) we don’t want them on the roads, but we don’t want cycle lanes either.
I think its more “fucking
I think its more “fucking cyclists holding up traffic and ignoring all the rules” coupled with “no one uses the separated cycle lanes”. Which is it? Are cyclists getting in your way all the time because there are so many of them or are there no cyclists?
Something something paywalls
Something something paywalls something something ruins cycling…
https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/cyclocross/article/20260105-Lloyds-National-Cyclo-cross-Championships-to-be-streamed-on-British-Cycling-YouTube-0
On a pounds/minute basis its
On a pounds/minute basis its probably more expensive than TNT sports.
Apparently my cycling apparel
Apparently my cycling apparel repels Annabel Grawlix-Euphemism (and probably other freelancers who specialise in RW rage-farming outlets for an easy ticket).
See: it works!
I expect to see the
I expect to see the manufacturers claiming “Annabel Repellent” as a feature any day now.
Perhaps someone could
Perhaps someone could manufacture an after-market spray for clothing that wasn’t made with that feature. Call it AnnabelGard.
Unless she’s Scottish then I’ll just keep using Scotchgard.
Cycling gear is primarily
Cycling gear is primarily designed for competitive and fit, young and handsome cyclists. One doesn’t need to be part of the Fashion Police to acknowledge the fact that seeing overweight dudes with bear guts in over-stretched Lycra jerseys isn’t a pleasant sight. Even more so when they hang around in public spaces without their bikes. Annabel – men feel the same kind of unease, not to say disgust, when seeing pudgy women with flabby rear-ends in colourful leggings.
Quite honesty, most ladies I
Quite honesty, most ladies I know don’t consider men of “cycling” body type attractive. Same about runners.
Sorry, there just ain’t enough meat on those bones
There are people who don’t
There are people who don’t have cycling body types who still enjoy cycling. It’s not my fault I was born with broad shoulders and a square jaw. It’s a curse if anything.
MaxiMinimalist wrote:
I don’t think seeing any sort of animal guts wrapped in lycra would be very pleasant, are bear guts worse than other types?
If you feel unease and disgust at seeing women who don’t have bodies that conform to a ridiculous and unattainable paradigm but who think they should be allowed to dress as they please anyway then really, you need to take a good look at your attitudes.
Rendel Harris wrote:
Suspect that would fill us all with unease, if not disgust…