“Use COMMON SENSE”: Woman on mobility scooter hit by onrushing peloton, causing spectacular crash + more on the live blog
A racing crash to forget
We start today with what can be diplomatically described as some “underthought out” spectator behaviour. You’re using a mobility scooter, you’ve popped out to see the local junior race and you think “I’d like to move forward to get a better view.”
Only you make the decision to reposition yourself as the peloton is flying past you. The outcome, I suppose, is inevitable.
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The video was shared by FirstCycling’s Eemeli, who follows the European junior scene closely and could provide some useful context…
“This older spectator caused a seriously dangerous incident today at Saarland Trofeo Juniors by trying to get a better look and entering the course while riders were flying past at full speed.
“Fortunately, the riders involved escaped without serious injuries despite some spectacular crashes.
“…but it should go without saying: please NEVER enter the RACE COURSE while riders are approaching. Even a small step onto the road can have serious consequences at these speeds. This was not even the first incident of this kind during the race. Junior racing is already dangerous enough without spectators making it even more dangerous.
“Obviously, incidents like this are almost impossible to eliminate entirely, which is why spectators also have a responsibility to use COMMON SENSE and stay off the race course.”
Hear hear!
A viral finish line photo
There was one another notable result from the weekend, over at the GP Gippingen in Switzerland. I’ve got a feeling the photos might not end up on Liam Slock’s wall anytime soon, despite it being his first pro victory.
Still, if you’re named after Liam Neeson, how else do you expect to win a race?
Weekend racing round-up: Dauphiné drama, Sprint honing and Blasi's not so blasé rise.
It’s that time of year where there’s loads of racing happening, but it’s all viewed through the prism of the bigger race in a couple of weeks time.
The race formally known as the Criterium du Dauphine wrapped up on the weekend and Isaac Del Toro made history, becoming the first rider in history to win both Tirreno-Adriatico and the *Tour Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes* in the same season, taking back to back summit finishes in a way that reminded me of Mark Padun – something of a deep cut there.
🏆 #TourAuvergneRhoneAlpes 2026 💐
🥇🇲🇽 Isaac Del Toro
🥈🇬🇧 Luke Tuckwell
🥉🇪🇸 Juan Ayuso👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏 pic.twitter.com/Y9GPvaMHef
— Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (@tourauverhalpes) June 14, 2026
The weekend was dampened somewhat by a crash involving Paul Seixas, with the Frenchman spending most of the penultimate stage chasing on before losing time to his rivals on Grand Colombier. He abandoned the race not long into yesterday’s final stage. Instead Juan Ayuso was the weekend’s main combatant. First to attack on Saturday, he was caught and passed by the Mexican before riding a more measured race the following day to again finish second up to Plateau de Solaison.
But it wasn’t enough to try and overtake Luke Tuckwell, who started the weekend in yellow after a fantastic ambush on Friday, and then excellently limited his losses to finish second. An outstanding result for the young Aussie.
Meanwhile in Denmark, Jasper Philipsen suggested he’s once again peaking nicely for July, taking victory at the Copenhagen sprint ahead of Tobias Lund. And he didn’t even have Mathieu van der Poel there to lead him out. It should be added though that neither Tim Merlier nor Jonathan Milan could contest the sprint after being caught up in a crash.
Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Premier Tech) won the 2nd edition of Copenhagen Sprint ahead of Lund and Welsford! 👏🇧🇪 Sadly, Milan and Merlier were caught behind a crash and didn’t contest the sprint. Another ruined race.#CPHSprintpic.twitter.com/Z81NJWU8OM
— Mihai Simion (@faustocoppi60) June 14, 2026
In the women’s peloton, it’s been impossible to ignore the rise of ex-triathlete Paula Blasi. First came Amstel Gold, then an unexpected overall victory at the Vuelta a Espana ahead of Anna van der Breggen. And Blasi’s stock continues to rise with her latest victory at the Tour of the Pyrenees. Blasi made her move on Saturday with an attack on the Col du Tourmalet, and won by two minutes. Her teammate Dominika Wlodarczyk won the sprint of the small group of favourites behind and hung on the following day to complete a UAE 1-2. It’s all hotting up!
Paula Blasi wins Stage two of the Tour Féminin des Pyrénées! 👏
A superb ride on the Queen’s stage earns the Spanish rider a solo win over Col du Tourmalet 🗻 pic.twitter.com/whCxNQDTA2
— Cycling on TNT Sports (@cyclingontnt) June 13, 2026
No one tell Jeremy Vine
London’s Nocturne returned at the weekend and, for all the highlights of criterium racing, this might be the best achievement of them all: a 100-inch (2.54m) high penny farthing. I suspect some stilts are involved somewhere, I just can’t prove it…
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Your road.cc weekend
We may not run the weekend live blog but that doesn’t mean we were busy ruining our sleep patterns trying to watch people kicking pig’s bladders. Not all of us anyway.
Firstly, just as I was clocking off last week, Jill Scott was just getting her weekend’s party started, having finished her utterly bonkers Sport Relief challenge riding and running from London to Sunderland (via Liverpool) in just five days! Find out more about her challenge, and the customised Mercian bike used to do it, here:
Remember when we covered a Reform UK-run council endorsing active travel plans? Well the work has started and the residents aren’t happy…
Why accommodate active travel infrastructure when your car boot sale is being held in a car park that’s been there since before I was even born? Ryan tries to find an answer…
And we’ve got a blog on ebiketips from a rather unpleasant collision involving an illegal electric motorbike:
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"I know in NL they have trialled semi-portable “test stations” to check max motor speeds." Worth noting, the dutch police have long had dynos to test mopeds for power/speed limits. Maybe generally kept at the station usually. But the newer portable ones do not look very different from the one my own moped got tested on at a station in the 90s.
@mctrials23 I agree, these illegal electric motorcycles have considerable advantages for the ne'er-do-well over there more traditional weapon of two-stroke dirt bikes, as you say, easier to store, you could get one up to a flat in a high-rise building easily which you couldn't do with a petrol-powered motorcycle, easy and much cheaper to fuel from any home power socket, no going down the petrol station and risking being caught, way less maintenance, if you can look after a pushbike you can look after one of these, and they are even silent so you can smash them around the woods and recreation grounds without people calling the police having heard the noise. Personally I would say a ban on sales of full-on electric motorcycles like Surrons to anyone who can't provide justification for use, e.g. farmers and other people who demonstrably have enough private land to use them, would be perfectly appropriate.
Adding regulations on the sale of e-bikes simply adds to the enforcement requirement. Meanwhile, increasing (or starting) traffic policing also works to catch a lot of criminal/distracted drivers as well as finding cloned plates etc. If police catch and confiscate a lot of illegal e-motorbikes, then people are going to be less confident of riding them on the roads - it's the current situation of next to no enforcement that creates the environment where people can get away with dangerous riding/driving. To be honest, the bigger problem is still drivers and congestion, so illegal e-motorbikes can be seen as harm reduction, despite the collisions.
Accusing that penny farthing rider of using stilts is a bit of a stretch.
Of course it will help. Theres a reason these are so widespread, they are cheap and east to get hold of. Oiks have always been bashing about on either scooters, dirtbikes etc but these are far more expensive, heavy and unwieldy along with requiring trickier storage than illegal ebikes. There is a reason this has only become more of an issue since cheap, powerful ebikes have become so available.
Regulation isn't required for the illegal e-motorbike issues - they're already illegal to use on the roads/pavements, so it's a question of enforcement. Tougher (or at least some) traffic law enforcement is required, but the police should focus on the biggest problems which to my mind are drivers who are not paying attention or speeding etc.
I think that's a crown farthing, isn't it?
"All that's required is an to roads policing" - that's a big all... Although no doubt the "idiots just keep coming" aspect does apply: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz9lel2wz93o "Man charged after car crashes through bowling alley" - luckily they only skittled over skittles.
Almost any change to roads and streets is accompanied by a period of heightened danger, and in the UK "look out for cyclists" will need to be learned... practically. And over the time it takes for cyclists to become a regular feature. OTOH once (if...) good designs are in and frequent enough such that drivers encounter them AND the cyclists on them regularly (another big if) I don't think they should be much more difficult than a footway to deal with. These things are all over NL - don't have the collision stats but they should. (NL isn't perfect but collecting info on the safety of designs to feed back into better designs as required is part of the "sustainable safety" philosophy - if they're really a killer I think they'd be altering these.)
I'm in the happy position of agreeing with everybody here! I've never considered a bike with a stand, yet I'm impressed by the ingenuity and adaptability of this axle. I tow a Yak Bob with a Robert Axle, employing my El Cheapo Vitus gravel bike and I just have to be very careful where I stop. Hedges are generally a dead loss, and I seek walls, telegraph poles and signposts and generally lean the widest part of the Bob against it. One very awkward task is removing the two steel pins which lock the trailer arms onto the special mounting slots on the Robert axle, and when you have one out, the sodding weight in the trailer can twist the whole caboodle and bend the Bob fitting before you can get the other out and unhitch. I doubt if a stand would help with that. You can imagine that this combo is a real pain when you have to get it over the bridge at railway stations, and it nearly resulted in Merseyrail nearly parting me and the trailer on the platform from the bike on the train. It's a long story for another time. Another axle example recently featured on here, with a 12mm front axle bearing the Herculean weight limit of a monster American front rack.
3 thoughts on ““Use COMMON SENSE”: Woman on mobility scooter hit by onrushing peloton, causing spectacular crash + more on the live blog”
I think that’s a crown farthing, isn’t it?
Regulation isn’t required for the illegal e-motorbike issues – they’re already illegal to use on the roads/pavements, so it’s a question of enforcement. Tougher (or at least some) traffic law enforcement is required, but the police should focus on the biggest problems which to my mind are drivers who are not paying attention or speeding etc.
Accusing that penny farthing rider of using stilts is a bit of a stretch.