Government publishes new Road Investment Strategy… including picture of driver illegally using mobile phone; Evenepoel turns sarcastic with Vingegaard in Catalunya; Council “infuriated” by three lopsided hire bikes on launch day + more on the live blog
SUMMARY
Government publishes new Road Investment Strategy... including picture of driver illegally using mobile phone
Some reports are more of a slog to get through than others. Particularly when the Government’s latest Road Investment Strategy can feel rather outdated. In the foreword, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander writes that £3.8 billion will “increase crucial capacity
where it is most needed, tackling known bottlenecks and driving economic growth for the country.”
The most obvious rebuke to this is that road widening maybe isn’t the best approach to meeting economic and environmental goals when alternative modes of transportation are available.
The Transport Action Network say that many projects such as the A38 Derby Junction and the A66 Northern Trans Pennine are “poor value” and “more likely to increase congestion than solve it.” More broadly, director Chris Todd said that “in the 21st century we really should be doing something better than building bigger roads in urban areas.”
Motornormativity can be a tough bug to shake-off, not least it seems in the Department for Transport itself. As pointed out by cycling blogger Last not lost first pointed out, page 13 of the Government’s report has a photo of a driver with an illegally positioned mobile phone.
Unsurprisingly, rules on windscreen obstruction can be rather strict, with all material attached to the windscreen (i.e. phoneholders) “maintained in such condition that it does not obscure the vision of the driver while the vehicle is being driven on a road.” It’s why phone mounts typically sit in the corner of the windscreen and dash cams are often mounted on the rear view mirror. Fixed Penalty Notices can be issued for breaking this rule, which has been in place since 2010.
Talk about own goals, in the words of Last not Lost “does no one in DfT check this stuff before publication?”
It would appear not…
Racing round-up: Double delight for the Brits abroad
I think I can count on my thumbs the number of times Lorena Wiebes has lost a bunch sprint, but now I think I need to use the rest of my hand.
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After yesterday’s Tour of Bruges was overshadowed by the aforementioned protestor, the very wet and hail-affected women’s edition took place today. Despite various late attacks, the race was always likely to come down to a bunch sprint and so it proved. But Wiebes was out of position and instead 19-year-old Carys Lloyd came through to take her first professional victory, beating off former World Champion Elisa Balsamo!
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A three-time junior world champion on the track, Lloyd became the youngest pro in the peloton last year when she signed a three-year contract with Movistar, joining Cat Ferguson and Claire Steels to make a British cluster on the Spanish team.
There’s also something fantastic about an unprepared interview…
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Men’s racing is rather dull in comparison where a shortened stage of the Volta a Catalunya was won by Ethan Vernon in a reduced bunch sprint ahead of race leader Dorian Godon and Tom Pidcock.
With both Pidcock and Evenepoel hunting for bonus seconds earlier in the stage the pair have opened up a 10 second gap on Jonas Vingegaard in fourth place overall. It does look increasingly like the race will come down to an explosive Barcelona stage on Sunday…
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Make streets safer and give women “real freedom to travel” by focusing on cycling as well as walking, campaigners tell government
"Cooperation was amazing": Evenepoel turns sarcastic after Vingegaard refuses to pull in Catalunya
Ah Remco, honestly never change.
I really like that we have different personalities in cycling. If we want to build up rivalries and storylines to get behind then we can’t always have rivals being on perfectly civil terms. I like Jonas Vingegaard, I really do, but the man is simply far too private and reserved for him to sustain any sporting ‘beef’. Enter Evenepoel…
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In the Volta a Catalunya yesterday, Remco Evenepoel broke clear amid the echelons, and took Jonas Vingegaard with him. But Vingegaard, wary perhaps of his inferior sprint and not wanting to lose further bonus seconds, chose to limit his contributions to the two-up attack. A move which angered Evenepoel but can also be put down to simple tactics. It’s a sport after all…
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In many ways, Remco’s mid-ride rage wasn’t even the highlight of the day after he crashed at a roundabout in the finale, squandering any hope of surviving to the finish. At that point, Jonas Vingegaard also sat up, perhaps wary of the perception of freeloading on your rival’s work without even ultimately beating them in a sprint.
Let’s fill out the other details. Dorian Godon won his second stage of the race, extending his small lead in the GC, and today’s summit finish has been scrapped due to high winds, suggesting that the week-long race might become substantially more puncheur-friendly. Remco Evenepoel is also fine bar some bruising, both in terms of injuries and his position on GC after crashing in the final 3km. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t more to say about the cooperation polemica from earlier in the day…
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Now now, no need to get sarky Remco! Still, if any element of this story happened at the Tour de France, you suspect it would create its own black hole of news and gossip. Instead it’s here today, gone tomorrow, by which point we’ll have moved on to the E3 classic. Or the football. Or the war in the Middle East. The battle for eyeballs continues apace, but you’re briefly giving your attention to us… thanks!
Unexpected winner in Italy
We’ll have a full racing round-up shortly but for now there’s been a bit of an upset in Italy at the Settimana Coppi e Bartali. It’s a prestigious race which has been won overall by Jonas Vingegaard, Jhonatan Narvaez and Ben Tulett in the past. Today’s stage was due to be a bunch sprint, but Filippo D’Aiuto upset the odds.
Filippo D’Aiuto WINS stage 2 of Settimana Coppi e Bartali in Massalengo, his first pro victory and also the first in history of General Store – Essegibi – F.Lli Curia team. 👏🇮🇹 Always nice when this happens. He attacked in last kms and derailed the bunch sprint.#CoppieBartali pic.twitter.com/ylXUfa4b7N
— Mihai Simion (@faustocoppi60) March 26, 2026
Riding for an Italian continental team, the 24 year old held off a bunch including Matteo Moschetti and yesterday’s winner Axel Laurence of Ineos to take the win and the race lead.
I’d normally add a short video around here but sadly today’s stage was not broadcast live anywhere, which is a shame…
Tour of Bruges protestor tried to glue himself to cobbles
We have an update on yesterday’s protestor who caused a crash at the Tour of Bruges…
Triple Everesting?!
Everesting, the art of climbing 8,848m as fast as possible, is an insane thing to do. Doing it three times in succession is beyond watershed-friendly language. Now though if you have 10 minutes spare to watch bikepacking extraordinaire Max Riese do so on a new Cervélo R5, it just might be worth your time…
"Perfect job from both sides" but should the cyclists have used the middle of the lane?
This post was first uploaded a few weeks ago but has proven something of a sleeper hit, showing a lorry driver in New Zealand slowing down as he approaches a pair of cyclists on a narrow road before overtaking as they pull off the road.
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Though it’s responsible driving to wait patiently before overtaking, the driver’s late vision of the cyclists seems to come because they’re riding on the side of the road rather than in the middle of the lane. Their positioning, coupled with the sudden downhill deceleration of the lorry to sit behind them, probably contributes to them choosing to pull off the road as soon as they did.
The lorry driver seems to be getting a lot of praise in the comments, but for your own sake, don’t check for their thoughts on cyclists…
School to sanction ‘dangerous’ young cyclists jumping red lights and forcing drivers to “brake sharply” – as locals warn “disgruntled” motorists will “take matters into their own hands”
If only dangerous drivers could receive the same scrutiny…
*political will sold separately...
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This mild amusement has been re-upped on bluesky this morning, any excuse to re-up a couple of our own segregated infrastructure articles:
Canterbury caught in the crossfire
It would be foolish to ignore the big news coming out of Canterbury this week, where a new arrival has been stirring up resentment and concerns among residents amid a lot of misinformation.
Beryl Bikes have arrived in the ecclesiastical hub. Around 100 e-bikes are now in operation around the city with 20 “designated geofenced stations” also in place for bikes to be picked up and dropped off. The contract lasts for 5 years, and both the council and Beryl are counting on the city’s large student population buying into the scheme to make it worthwhile.
That’s the gist of the story as far as we’re concerned, but it seems as though certain publications don’t see it that way.
“It is infuriating that when we try to do something positive for the city, a small minority of idiots seem determined to spoil it for everyone else. This is not something our suppliers have experienced in other, much bigger cities, in the north of the country.
“It is day one of the scheme and we always expected there would be some teething troubles that we would need to overcome. We’ll work with Beryl Bikes to get on top of them as quickly as we can.”
GB News for their part initially describe the launch before, with a Chris Morris-esque sense of seriousness – describe how “by Monday evening, the situation had already begun to unravel.” Why?
“At least three of the bright green bikes were seen lying on their sides near St George’s roundabout, blocking part of a footpath. Another was found toppled over inside an official docking area.”
So 100 bikes rolled out, three found in the wrong place, with another parked correctly but thrown into the story for good measure? It’s a good thing there was nothing bigger happening in Canterbury this week that might’ve been subsumed by this breaking news.
However important you think this story is, just remember it’s bigger than that Chris, it’s large…
Mads' Mad recovery
When Mads Pedersen crashed on the first day of the season, breaking one collarbone and an opposite wrist, we thought that was curtains for his spring campaign, until he suddenly rocked up at Milan-Sanremo on Saturday and finished fourth, winning the sprint behind the podium.
We hadn’t heard much from Pedersen about his recovery apart from one unfortunate quote about his difficulties defecating, but now the former World Champion has posted on Instagram details of his breakneck recovery…
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Utterly insane…
Drunk driver who killed cyclist while driving 63mph in a 30mph zone jailed for 11 years
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Latest Comments
Say what you will about the braking efficiencies of both rim and disc brakes. Or of seemingly having only one pedal and crank. Or of the angled-in brake hoods on flat bars. Let alone the rearward facing handlebars. I'm so impressed though, by the chain that traverses one side of the bike, to switch side somewhere around the dropouts, to the other side of the bike! Every side's a drivetrain side!
@chrisonabike We live in terraced houses, so no garage.
@Shades They have a 5 bedroom house for the 4of them (2 parents, 2 children). Admittedly, the hall isn't wide but it's not as if they're short of space. I keep 2 of my bikes in the cellar.
In other news, researchers prove beyond doubt that water is indeed wet.
And why are they not heavily de-starred by NCAP? The rot started with the Nissan Qashqai which used loopholes on bonnet safety regulations that didn't adequately include the headlight lenses, they put deep soft tissue penetrating ridges into the lens mouldings that increased their height and the aggressiveness of the look of the car but made it much more dangerous to any vulnerable roaduser. Unfortunately the raised stance and batmobileish looks appealed to buyers, particularly women and the whole industry surged in that direction. Now much worsened with the seeming unstoppability of the Range Rover look.
@mdavidford Most importantly, will someone name a range of exotic (well, exotic for the 1980s) snacks after me?
@mctrials23 Nerdy sort of fact, if the RTW challenge was to cycle round the equator, which would make sense in a way with that being the longest circumference of our oblate spheroid, it would only take 8,714 kilometres of cycling as the rest of the 40,075km would be by boat.
Two points. A few months I read an article about racing one of these ultra’s and the person (I can’t recall who) said that the route they used would not be safe today due to geopolitics. Secondly, 10 years ago I was chatting to Chris Bennett in NZ about his hope to race around the world. He was on about riding way up into Norway to get a load of European miles in rather than some hot places in Asia. Last year he achieved a finish in 129+ days aged 66 but he did not stick to the plan he outlined all those years ago. I believe the problem with what counts as unsupported over that time or distance is difficult to monitor. One example would be staying at a friend’s house overnight in Australia - does that count as support?
"Tough titties losers. It's natural selection. I am a high achieving go-getter and can afford a huge high up SUV to keep me and my family safe. My kids will no doubt go on to be high achieving go-getters with even bigger SUVs. Anyone who is not a high achiever deserves a bit of jeopardy to spur them on. Bring back Margaret Thatcher! Although, I have a lot of time for Farage!"
7 thoughts on “Government publishes new Road Investment Strategy… including picture of driver illegally using mobile phone; Evenepoel turns sarcastic with Vingegaard in Catalunya; Council “infuriated” by three lopsided hire bikes on launch day + more on the live blog”
In fairness to Remco, he didn’t just get snippy out of nowhere – it was in response to a silly question that was solely designed to provoke exactly that kind of response.
And to be fair to Jonus, he looked like he was only just keeping up with Remco, was the only one that did keep up, and of course ultimately its a race. Jonus was probably also thinking about the mountains that were due today, as that is more his playground.
Did a dozen get redefined and nobody told me?
[Also, since when is that ‘bright green’?]
“Cyclist, 16, dies after being hit by car” (there’s not much more than that at the moment, but here’s the BBC link anyway): https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c208nj1dmzno
I don’t know about the rest of you, but on some roads there isn’t a popsicles chance in hell I am riding primary because if someone flies around a corner or simply hasn’t really been paying attention I have a far better chance of them missing me if am at the side vs the middle. On many of the roads I ride, primary would also put me in the exact same situation for oncoming traffic and we all know that cars own 90% of the road and cyclists the other 10% (if we’re lucky).
Had some lovely chap with his two kids fly towards me on a road that was a single lane at best without slowing down at all. Probably passed within about 30cm of my bars going 40mph+
I wanted to think that it was a cultural difference as I believe he was indian or pakistani and perhaps didn’t understand that its unacceptable here. I say this because he just looked like a normal family man with his kids in the back rather than the knuckle draggers you sometimes see coming towards you who you can just tell get a kick out of it.
Think yourself lucky you weren’t driving a car, because you wouldn’t have had the luxury of being “at the side” and you would have probably have become just another statistic ( along with the chap and his kids)
What this illustrates is that the problem is not so much the position that a cyclist adopts, but the continuing lack of responsibility shown by those operating dangerous machinery.
The truck driver slowed down and waited. When possible cyclists rode off-road and let the truck through. Road safety works both ways.