The World Rally Championships? Spanish team boss thrown out of worlds after driving airborne during junior road race; Pro rider interviewed as suspect after Vuelta’s pro-Palestine protests + more on the live blog

It’s quite a good thing that modern cars have rather good suspension. It’s rather a bad thing that we see them being deployed with such gusto.

It’s the World Championships in Montreal, and in yesterday’s junior men’s road race, Spain’s Benjamin Noval was solo at the front of the race, causing his national team coach Eleuterio Anguita Hinojosas to drive with quite a bit of oomph to catch up.

It should be said that in most races, the gap between riders on the road needs to be around 30 seconds to allow neutral service to sit directly behind the rider in the race convoy, and one minute for team cars. This meant Noval was some way up the road. It’s fair to say this time gap caused Hinojosas to go rather hell-for-leather…

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Barry Drew (@borrdrou)

Downhill, over zebra crossings, the driver was flying in both a literal and metaphorical sense. Considering it was a closed road flanked with spectators, Hinojosas was one slight misjudgement away from a serious incident that could have injured a lot of people.

Now, Dutch newspaper AD report that Hinojosas has been fined €1,060 and disqualified from any further involvement in the world championships. Ouch!

It’s the individual frames of the video that I think highlight just how dangerous this was. Look how the rear suspension sinks over the wheels here…

You’re praying on a rock-solid bike rack set up with movement like that. Comments are similarly shocked…

“Yeah….. not too responsible. One bad turn of the steering wheel and that car would lose control and career right into the crowd.”

“Acting like it’s another regular day.”

“As they say, in every cycling race there is a bicycle race and that of following cars”

Meanwhile Decathlon Canada’s Instagram account has attempted to make light of the situation, comparing Hinojosas’ driving to “Us when we see Paul Seixas”. Talk about tone deaf…

Bike/s?
by
u/ZippierUser in
carryshitolympics

Here’s an interesting story, first broken by Quebecois newspaper La Presse. Hugo Houle, who became the first Canadian from the French-speaking province to win a stage of the Tour de France in 2022, appears to have had a mural depicting his win removed and replaced with one of his former teammate Michael Woods.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by NSN Cycling Team (@nsncyclingteam)

It transpires that the building the mural is painted on is owned by the Canadian-Israeli billionaire Sylvan Adams, former owner of the Israel-Premier Tech team Houle rode for. Premier Tech are a Canadian agricultural company who, when they switched from sponsoring the team to Alpecin, Houle went with them.

Houle was notified of the mural’s repainting whilst he was riding in this year’s Vuelta a Espana, and told the ‘paper, “I have not been consulted about his withdrawal and I have not had any contact with [Sylvan Adams] since last September,”

“But the important thing is elsewhere. My victory in the Tour de France, I accomplished it for my brother Pierrick [who was killed whilst riding his bike by a drunk driver] and for myself. No painting on a wall will ever change that moment, or what it represents. What remains engraved forever is the history written on the bike and the immense support of Quebecers.”

A very gracious response from Houle, whilst Woods hasn’t been contacted about the decision. Maybe the two men will be able to chat about it on Sunday’s road race, where they are once again teammates, this time for Canada.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Canadian Cycling Magazine (@canadiancycling)

So Liam says, and I have a lot of sympathy with his argument…

> Blog: AI is destroying the personality that cycling thrives on

One of the most gruelling climbs in Britain, Bamford Clough in the Peak District, has re-opened after road resurfacing.

The smooth but narrow tarmac-covered ‘road’ gets steep from the off, and steepens over 700m to meet New Road above the village. Simon Warren, he of 100 Greatest Cycling Climbs fame, found in 2021 a section of the road was a hellish 36.5% incline.

Derbyshire Council say although the road has re-opened and is technically open to all road users, they’re instigating an 18-month experimental traffic order (ETRO) on Bamford Clough, a byway in Bamford, to make the route one-way (uphill) for public safety, with a six-month public consultation included within that, and appropriate signage being installed.

However, it will remain open both ways for non-drivers, meaning cyclists can make the most of the road going up and down.

Could you now be tempted to give it a try? Might be a bit of a slog…

> Council “putting aside half a million pounds” to make streets less safe, cycling campaigners say as funding to reopen controversial ‘bike only’ road to motorists approved

Last year’s Vuelta a Espana, it’s fair to say, became a race overtaken by events. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators repeatedly sought to disrupt the race, protesting the continued participation of the Israel-Premier Tech team.

If you scroll down this page and click the Vuelta protest tab, you’ll be able to relive the highs and lows of last year’s race, including stage shortenings, stage cancellations and a final podium presentation taking place on cool boxes in a car park.

Well one of the riders from that race, Movistar’s Javier Romo, is now under investigation for an alleged assault of a protestor. Romo, for his part, denies the incident and says he doesn’t fully remember the incident after crashing.

That crash is key to this case. On the 15th stage, a protestor ran down from a grassy bank but tripped before he could reach the road. A police officer saw this and ran across the road in front of the oncoming peloton.

Nouvel incident avec un manifestant, sur la 15e étape de #LaVuelta25 : une personne avec le drapeau de la Palestine est arrivée au moment du passage du groupe de contre. Javier Romo (Movistar) est tombé le premier. pic.twitter.com/rrIxOduCHX

— Le Gruppetto (@LeGruppetto) September 7, 2025

These disturbances caused Romo to touch wheels and crash, sustaining road rash and bruising in the process. He abandoned the race the following day.

Spanish website CiclismoAlDia report that as part of a police case being built around eight individuals arrested as part of the investigation into the protest, one of the protesters accused Romo of kicking him ‘several times’ and insulting him in the process.

Annoyingly for us, the race footage cuts to a replay of the crash just as the helicopter shows Romo leave his bike on the road and start run back in the direction of the fallen protester.

The police’s investigation is still in its preliminary stage, with charges against the eight individuals possibly including public order offences and causing bodily harm. A court ruling will then to determine if there’s sufficient evidence to press charges against either the protestors or Romo.

A former triathlete, Romo turned professional with Astana in 2021 after winning the Spanish under-23 road race title. He made his Grand Tour debut at the 2023 Vuelta a Espana before joining Movistar in 2024.

He achieved his first professional victory at the Tour Down Under where he also finished second overall. The 27-year-old has also finished in the top 10 of both the Tour de Romandie and the Tour of the Basque Country.

The Israel-Premier Tech team were subsequently bought by a consortium fronted by former Spanish footballer Andres Iniesta, and rebranded as NSN Cycling Team.

As you saw in the above post, Benjamin Noval was solo at the front of the race during yesterday’s junior men’s road race. Well, he held on solo until the finale, beating Simon DeFrance (of France) by 40-odd seconds whilst Sweden’s Elias Wändel won the sprint for third.

For Noval, who joins Netcompany-Ineos next year, it’s another raising of the bar of expectation after winning the junior TT earlier in the week. His trademark celebration does the same, paying homage to a Spanish Grand Tour champion… and it’s not Enric Mas.

Two races, two golds! 🥇🥇

Benjamin Noval collects his second victory in Montreal by winning the Men’s Junior road race 🌈 pic.twitter.com/GnbXderow9

— Cycling on TNT Sports (@cyclingontnt) September 24, 2026

The women’s under-23 road race meanwhile saw a much more dramatic finale which came down to a sprint…

Sprint finish for the rainbow jersey! 🌈

Viktória Chladoňová edges out home-favourite Isabella Holmgren to claim gold at the Women’s U23 World Championships🥇 pic.twitter.com/vBKcnZCTFu

— Cycling on TNT Sports (@cyclingontnt) September 24, 2026

19-year-old Viktória Chladoňová was due to lead-out the sprint only for home favourite Isabella Holmgren to come to the front with 400m to go, giving the Slovak rider time to measure her effort before powering past. Fleur Moors took the bronze from a group behind.

For Chladoňová, who already rides for Visma Lease-a-bike and is a multiple national champion, it’s undoubtedly the biggest win of her career to date.

Today’s worlds racing is the inverse of yesterday, with the men’s u23 event preceding the women’s junior event. I suspect I’ll be in my night gown and hat, wandering around with a candle by the time they finish, so you might have to look up those results of your own accord. Apologies…

> Lime and moped riders force cyclist off road and steal bike in “deeply unsettling” attack as London bikejacking reports on the rise

Did you know that London is home to over 400,000 students?

TfL offers a 25% discount on Santander Cycles to London students – making it one of the cheapest ways to travel around the capital.

Great to see the team out talking to new students during freshers week.

[image or embed]

— Will Norman (@willnorman.co.uk) 25 September 2026 at 10:42

Ah, are you UCI’d out yet? Sick of press release after press release? Well we’re not. We could devour each announcement to its bones, poring over each and every word, examining what is said, and more crucially unsaid.

Today’s instalment relates to cycling’s governing body’s review of “reform of professional cycling”. It’s a never ending debate. Stakeholders complain there’s not enough money, that the calendar doesn’t make sense, that the sport itself is too complicated.

For some people the solutions are interlinked, for others they are what make the sport exactly what it is. Some people think they’ve found a solution to effectively force the best riders in the world to repeatedly race one another throughout the year, chucking a load of money at them in the process. RIP One Cycling.

In response to efforts by several teams and race organisers that cycling needs to improve, the UCI has tried to bring the dissenting voice inside the tent with this consultation. The end result of all these meetings? More meetings.

The UCI say they have received a total of 55 detailed contributions from “across the full spectrum of cycling”: National Federations from several continents, organisers of one-day and stage races, men’s and women’s teams and their associations, riders and rider representatives, as well as equipment manufacturers, broadcasters and commercial sponsors.”

The proposed reforms the UCI say everyone agrees on include:

• developing a more coherent [race] calendar, structured around geographic blocks;
• consolidating commercial and media rights, with a solidarity mechanism for distributing the new revenue generated;
• introducing a financial fairness mechanism among professional teams, such as a budget cap or equivalent;
• strengthening the second division and maintaining an open, protected pyramid;
• treating safety as non-negotiable, with stricter enforcement of existing requirements;
• continuing the carefully managed growth of women’s cycling;
• modernising broadcasting and fan engagement;
• improving officiating through new technologies (VAR, GPS, etc.) and ensuring robust integrity systems.

Some of these points will require much more thrashing out than others. Safety and technology are always at the forefront and have already been partly addressed by some announcements made earlier this week.

> UCI promises to bring in GPS rider trackers “as quickly as possible”, as new equipment framework set up to “avoid excesses compromising safety and fairness” amid ongoing crash study

A budget cap is a fascinating proposition, and actually suggests to me that several of the biggest teams in the peloton, and many star riders, maybe did not participate in their consultation. This is my personal speculation of course, but why would a winning team that wins a lot volunteer to make it harder to win and start winning less? I’m sure Picnic PostNL or Cofidis would love a budget cap and to start receiving solidarity funds, but are UAE and Visma going to give that up?

As for solidarity funds, this implies that there is lots of money in cycling being horded, but I’m not too sure about that. RCS have the Giro d’Italia, but as you might have seen in recent years from the lateness and quality of their sponsors, as well as the relatively low bids for the Grande Partenza, they’re not massively flashed with cash.

Flanders Classics have done a very good job of maximising their hospitality experiences and revenue but have always been at the forefront of negotiating cycling’s reform. And then there’s ASO, the big dogs.

I seem to remember a couple of years ago reading that the only bike races ASO profited from were the men’s Tour de France and Paris-Roubaix. That means prestigious races like Paris-Nice, the Dauphine and Liege-Bastogne-Liege, as well as much of women’s cycling are loss-making for the organisation. No wonder it didn’t take much to change the Dauphine’s name.

> Blog: I’ll still be calling it the Dauphiné… Do pro cycling’s rebrands ever work?

It doesn’t mean any of these events are necessarily under threat, but it does show that there isn’t, on the face of it, that much money to be made. Even if you say there’s a number in the tens and millions of Euros that represents ASO’s net profits, imagine a fraction of that is given away in solidarity funding, then that fraction is divided 15-20 times over and distributed evenly. You might be left with a week’s worth of a team bus’ fuel costs.

Maybe some of the other points raised: modernised broadcasting and fan engagement, women’s cycling’s continued growth and a more secure pyramid, could effectively grow the pie. Or will we be left with live-streamed vlogs of Victor Campenaerts in-race? Daily Alison Jackson dances that you can try and tag yourself in?

It’s not an easy assignment but, in the UCI press release President David Lappartient, a staunch ASO ally, sounded optimistic about the next steps: more “in-depth discussions with the various stakeholders and partners involved, in order to propose ways forward for building a stronger, more attractive and sustainable model for men’s and women’s professional road cycling.” Initial findings will be presented at the next UCI meeting in December, though likely wouldn’t take effect until 2029.

“Road cycling is currently experiencing unprecedented growth.” Lappartient said. “That success comes with responsibilities: to identify new areas for progress and to write the next chapter of our sport together. The first of these responsibilities is safety. It is not negotiable, and it will move forward at an even faster pace than the other parts of the reform.

“The result of this consultation is remarkable, both in the diversity and the quality of the responses received. What unites the different families of cycling is far more important than what can sometimes divide them. The report presented today lays the groundwork for the thorough, collaborative work still ahead of us as we build a new model for our sport. I warmly thank everyone who took part in this consultation, and I am confident about our continued work together.”

And if you are even more invested than us, you can read the UCI’s full report here.

Heartwarming footage, but also still just a little bit scary, though that says more about the roads and infrastructure than the children themselves. The kids are alright…

Flashback to this clearly confident ride into town. Note how the driver of the @dublinbusnews.bsky.social hung back & gave those cycling space to go about their journey. No aggressive tailgating or rushing to try & get past. 💚
The kids are the future! This should not be a rare scene on our streets.

[image or embed]

— I BIKE Dublin (@ibikedublin.bsky.social) 24 September 2026 at 23:41

> Returning to ride in Western Scotland three decades later: A loop that took in breathtaking scenery in Arran, Islay, Oban and Loch Lomond