Battered Holdsworth-Campagnolo cycling team bag from 1970s (with Milk Race sticker) available on Facebook Marketplace… for £450; Wider cycle lanes only for faster e-bikes, not “regular” cyclists, Trump fans say; TNT hits parliament + more on the live blog

Over in the land of the bus-filled ‘protected’ cycle lane, New York, Republican councillors and pro-car activists have bizarrely argued that a recent proposal by the city’s Department of Transportation to widen a popular protected bike route will fail to benefit “regular” cyclists and only “serve” delivery riders on faster e-bikes – a claim dismissed as “laughable” by, you guessed it, regular cyclists.

About a month ago, you may remember, the United States’ reality TV president Donald Trump proclaimed that he wanted to “kill” New York’s congestion pricing policy, as well as “getting rid” of the Big Apple’s bike lanes, arguing that reduced traffic is bad for business and a sign that “people can’t come into” the city.

“They should get rid of the bike lanes and the sidewalks in the middle of the street. They’re so bad. They’re dangerous. These [electric] bikes go at 20 miles an hour. They’re whacking people,” the former Tour de Trump bike race organiser said in February (apparently, he’s been preoccupied with other things since then, though I’m sure you haven’t noticed…).

> "They're so bad": Donald Trump promises to scrap "dangerous" New York bike lanes and "kill" congestion charge

Since then, New York’s Department of Transportation (DOT) has responded to the Donald’s intervention by approving plans, first almost unveiled a year ago, to widen the existing cycle lane on Sixth Avenue from six-foot to 10-foot-wide, by removing one of the four lanes currently available to motorists.

“We’re hoping we can increase the width of the bike lane to accommodate the higher volumes, the greater mix of faster and slower bikes and also wider bikes,” the DOT's project manager Preston Johnson said in a recent committee meeting.

According to the agency, the number of cyclists using the Sixth Avenue cycle lane increased by 21 per cent on weekdays between 2019 and 2024, and by 54 per cent on weekends. However, during that period, there have also been 345 reported collisions involving cyclists on Sixth Avenue, including four fatalities.

The DOT also noted that the avenue has already been reduced to three car lanes to the north and south of the project in any case, making it “low-hanging fruit” to widen the cycle lane.

The Sixth Avenue cycle lane in its current guise

But despite this sound reasoning, it’s fair to say that local Republicans and pro-car campaigners have responded… not so calmly to the DOT’s proposals.

“This is New York City, not the Tour de France,” New York City Council’s Republican leader Joann Ariola said (originally) in a New York Post article this week, the headline of which referred to the DOT as “car-hating bureaucrats”.

“The anti-car insanity has gotten so extreme,” she continued. “The Department of Tyrants is not just trying to make it impossible for anyone to drive in this city, it is willing to jeopardise the safety of New Yorkers by creating conditions that will seriously impede emergency responders. Where is Elon Musk and DOGE when you need them?”

“It sounds like revenge over Trump weighing in on congestion pricing and promising to axe bike lanes, and also further proof that the DOT has been completely co-opted by radical bike nuts that don’t care about the biz world,” added Jason Curtis Anderson, the co-founder and policy director at the One City Rising grassroots group.

A section of the cycle that’s already been widened

Meanwhile, Manhattan-based campaigner Maria Danzilo also told the Post that the changes will make the avenue less safe because vehicles “will have a harder time navigating” it.

“This is really serving the delivery-app lobby and delivery workers who use [electric bikes] because regular bikes aren’t served by this change,” she said.

That particular argument has been fiercely criticised on social media, with Vincent Barone, a press secretary at the DOT, describing it as “laughable”.

“Setting aside that every worker deserves to be safe on the job, the idea that a widened bike lane wouldn’t benefit ‘regular’ cyclists is so laughable no wonder not a single rider is quoted,” he wrote on BlueSky.

“Because the Post won’t talk to a ‘regular’ cyclist in the city, I’ll give my opinion as one,” added New York cyclist Cooper Lund.

“Not only does widening bike lanes make me safer as someone who is slower than an e-bike and has to get passed by much faster bikes in a narrow space, it doesn’t go far enough.

“We need dedicated micromobility lanes for traffic that lives in the electric motor space of ‘not a car, but much faster than a human can power something’. It’s the future of transportation and the sooner we can embrace it for everyone, the faster it can transform our cities.”

Another road safety advocate, StreetsPAC’s executive director Eric McClure, also said the group “strongly supports” the redesign, which he believes will keep cyclists safer while only having a negligible impact on traffic.

“We’ve all seen the data on the reduction in traffic volumes since congestion pricing was implemented, and the eye test shows that three travel lanes are plenty for free-flowing motor vehicle traffic,” he said.

Elsewhere, Barone criticised many of the other claims made in the New York Post article as “demonstrably untrue”.

“The DOT‘s data shows the removal of a lane to bring life-saving upgrades won’t bring any real change to car speeds, even if we had pre-congestion relief zone volumes,” he pointed out, dimissing Ariola’s claims that the plans will bring gridlock. “The agency modelled the project using pre-toll vehicle counts. So there’s even more room to work with before touching speeds.

“Another: Most of 6th Ave is *already three lanes*. This just brings the remaining stretch from 14th to 35th to three lanes, eliminating merging and making it easier for drivers to navigate. It’s common sense. All research shows these projects help save the lives of pedestrians, cyclists, and people in cars.

“Traffic safety is public safety. Let’s remember the stakes. There were four people killed on 6th Avenue from 2019 to 2024 along this stretch alone. Another 25 people were seriously injured.”

But hey, it’s only going to help delivery riders on e-bikes, right?

It’s bad enough that UAE Team Emirates already have one of the greatest bike riders of all time, who looks capable of winning any race – including Paris-Roubaix – he wants, if he feels like it.

Now, in Juan Ayuso, they’ve also got someone seemingly ready to win all the races Tadej Pogačar isn’t that fussed about, too.

The Spanish star’s start to the season – which was only five days ago, of course – couldn’t have gone much better. After finishing tenth on debut at the Faun-Ardèche in France on Saturday, Ayuso took an impressive solo victory at the Faun Drome Classic.

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by UAE Team Emirates🇦🇪 (@uae_team_emirates)

And this afternoon, he confirmed Jim Steinman’s theory that two out of three ain’t bad by producing another ominously powerful, attacking display to win the Trofeo Laigueglia, easily dispatching Christian Scaroni, Michael Storer, and Neilson Powless in the sprint to secure the tenth victory of his young career.

After first attempting to surge clear of the pack on the Colla Micheri climb with 20km to go, the 22-year-old launched a series of blistering, brutal bursts on the race’s finishing circuit. Each time, however, Astana’s Scaroni was able to follow, with Powless and Storer able to bridge during the breathers that followed on the run-in.

And while he wasn’t able to go solo this time, Ayuso kept his cool during the tense, tactical finale, powering clear in the final few hundred metres for what in the end proved an ominously comfortable victory.

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by TNT Sports Cycling (@tntsportscycling)

“It was the place I was missing, one time third, one time second, and now finally I also have the win, the place I was missing which was first,” the Spaniard said in his post-race interview.

“I’m glad I could finish off the work of the team, we set a hard pace on the climbs and in the final circuit, I always had a teammate with me to cover any movement.

“I was quite confident, the only thing I didn’t want was for more people to join from the back because then they could attack with one or two kilometres to go and you never know, so I just wanted a sprint with the guys who were there. I was quite confident in my sprint to be able to win.”

Reflecting on his ambitions for the rest of the season, which include next week’s Tirreno-Adriatico, Ayuso said: “The big goal is the Giro d’Italia, but we start Tirreno next, which is a race I really like. Last year I was second and I won a stage, so I really want to improve on that.”

The UAE world domination plan continues to slot into place…

10 products made the road.cc Recommends cut in February, including a perfect 10/10 for VecchioJo’s stunning new Mint Sauce coffee table book. Here’s our latest run-through of the hottest cycling stuff from the coldest months, as spring steadily approaches…

> A freshly minted selection of top-rated cycling products from Wattbike, Lezyne, Gorewear, Giant + more

It has come to my attention that some folks still have not seen the term "acoustic bike" (as in, not an ebike) and in case that's you, today is your lucky day

[image or embed]

— Gretchen McCulloch (@gretchenmcc.bsky.social) March 4, 2025 at 3:00 AM

So does this mean anyone who rides an e-bike is a traitor to the folk cycling scene? Probably best not to go there, actually…

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by ®️ad (@radkapalusova)

In Reading – where a cycle lane was recently described as a “good initiative badly implemented” due to its bumpy surface, lack of protection near junctions, and tendency to flood – a proposal is currently being considered to create a cross-party task force which will scrutinise the council’s delivery of active travel projects.

According to the proposal, which will be debated at a meeting of Reading Council’s Strategic Environment, Planning, and Transport (SEPT) committee next week, a ‘task and finish group’ made up of a group of councillors will be able to take evidence from external and internal stakeholders to “identify examples of best practice and areas for improvement”, and make recommendations on the future of Reading’s active travel plans.

A range of cycling and walking initiatives have been implemented in Reading in recent years – some more successful than others, mind you – as part of the council’s Transport Strategy 2040, which aims to reduce private car use and improve the health and wellbeing of residents.

> “A good initiative badly implemented won’t work”: Resident slams new cycle lane as “bumpy” and “dangerous”

Will Cross, the chair of SEPT, has requested that a task and finish group be set up to scrutinise the design, funding, and delivery of these active travel schemes and initiatives, to assess what is “working well and where improvements can be made”.

“The council has taken a lot of positive action on cycling and walking in recent years and a cross-party task and finish group would be an effective way of looking at what is working well and where improvements could be made,” Cross said today.

“It would be particularly useful to hear the views of interested parties so the group can develop an overarching view of the council’s active travel strategy and make recommendations on how we can improve on the implementation of its goals and best deliver its objectives.”

Meanwhile, John Ennis, Reading’s lead councillor for climate strategy and transport, added: “Active travel is a key part of Reading’s local transport plan and its objectives of creating a cleaner and greener town and supporting healthy lifestyles.

“The council has made great progress with delivering cycling and walking schemes but these projects are dependent on securing funding from central government.

“We have ambitions to develop more strategic and local pedestrian and cycle routes, safer school travel, public space enhancements and much more, and the creation of a task and finish group will help provide a focus on the delivery of these schemes.”

One of these recent schemes, a seemingly protected cycle lane on Shinfield Road in the south of Reading, has attracted some unwanted scrutiny in recent years, however.

> Council update on cycle lane's "excellent progress" interrupted by... motorist driving into segregated infrastructure

In fact, upon its completion in March 2023, the infrastructure became the subject of ridicule almost immediately, when a council video extolling the benefits of the supposedly ‘segregated’ lane was interrupted by a motorist driving a van straight over it, before veering back onto the road at the last moment to avoid hitting the oblivious council official.

A month later, a local cyclist also criticised the layout and surface used for the new lane, arguing that a “good initiative badly implemented won’t work” to encourage more people to ride their bikes in Reading.

“The surface on the cycle paths they create is bumpy. It would be acceptable for a pavement but not for a cycle path,” Reading cyclist Leonid Yanovich said at the time.

“I will not cycle on this bumpy surface, which pushes me into more danger than before the ‘improvements’ on the narrow remains of the car lanes.”

> Cyclist almost hit by driver while swerving to avoid massive puddle on “unfinished, dangerous” bike lane

And just before Christmas 2024, the lane made headlines once again, thanks to a huge and persistent puddle located just before a set of traffic lights, leading to complaints from numerous cyclists, who claimed they had to swerve back into the path of drivers to avoid it, with one rider reportedly being “nearly knocked off his bike” by a motorist as he was unexpectedly forced to exit the bike path.

So, plenty to scrutinise, then…

The debate over Warner Bros. Discovery’s controversial decision to move its cycling coverage from Eurosport to TNT Sports in the UK and Ireland, hiking up the price for a monthly subscription by 343 per cent in the process, has been rumbling now for over a month on social media, cycling sites, and in the national press.

And this morning, it’s set to hit parliament.

At 11am, Conservative MP and cycling fan Ben Obese-Jecty will lead a debate in Westminster Hall on the future of cycling coverage in the UK, as he aims to raise concerns about cycling’s move behind “a significantly larger paywall” at TNT, as well as the impending demise of ITV4’s free-to-air coverage of the Tour de France.

According to the Huntingdon MP, who pointed out that cycling “is going to become a prohibitively expensive luxury to a huge number of fans” when Discovery first announced the move in January, the lack of accessible TV coverage of bike racing could have a negative impact on the uptake of cycling in the UK.

> Warner Bros. Discovery tries to tempt disgruntled cycling fans back with half price for seven months offer sent to viewers who cancelled subscriptions

“Free-to-air coverage is vital not only for entertainment, but it also acts as inspiration for people to get into the sport,” Obese-Jecty said in a statement this morning before the debate.

“The impact that Grand Tour and Olympic success over the past decade has seen a huge positive impact on the British cycling scene leading to a world class talent pipeline at one end, and people leading healthier lives at the other.

“Sadly, in the cases of sports like cycling, a lack of visibility of these events has a damaging effect on participation and the sport more widely.

“Given the challenges professional cycling is having in the UK, this could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back for what is one of Britain’s greatest sporting success stories in recent years.

“I have secured this Westminster Hall debate to press the Government to do what they can to secure the future of cycling. We need cycling blue ribbon events to receive live free-to-air coverage so that the next generation can be inspired in the same way we were.”

We’ll have more on this story when the debate takes place later this morning.