“It’s always the little men in the wrong that have the biggest tantrum”: Taxi driver threatens to call police after near-miss… but Facebook defends the cyclist; Reaction to new Ineos title sponsor and AI partner + more on the live blog

Amid the gentle hum of the songbirds in Piccadilly Circus, you can just about make out a small disagreement between two road users in our dose of dashcam footage, this time a classic from the capital.

The taxi driver appears to have accelerated in an attempt to get past the pedestrian crossing whilst there was still a green light, the cyclist appears to have been going about his journey, maintaining a steady pace on the left-hand side of the lane. That didn’t stop the cab’s rear wheel narrowly avoiding the cyclist, though it did then cause something of a tiff. Why? Because the driver was incensed that his taxi could be “hit” by a cyclist.

“I didn’t cut in front of nobody” is one of the few sentences we can re-publish in full, amid threats to call the police, though for what purpose it isn’t exactly clear. The cyclist behind filming the interaction for us then pulls off to the side of the road to film the taxi driver holding up the lorry behind before both protagonists clear the scene.

As one eagle-eyed user noticed, the taxi livery suggests the footage is around a decade old. Encouragingly though, the Facebook comments section in 2026 seem broadly rational, “Angry little man in a cab” the top-rated remark.

“I wonder why taxi drivers are in the idiot group of road users, now I know why “

“1.5m clearance, how long did he think the cyclist’s arm are if he’s giving enough space?”

There are a few of the usual comments as well of course, my personal favourite being one suggestion that the “Cyclist should’ve been in the left lane!” Because naturally, where the cyclist wishes to go is but an afterthought…

When I told our road.cc groupchat that I reckon a lad on the Decathlon team could do with some of their profits, it received a grand total of 1 (One) laughing emoji. Thanks Dan…

> Decathlon profits up 16% despite “complex economic and geopolitical environment”

*Lord Kitchener voice*

Do YOU know someone studying art, design, graphics or photography somewhere the Tour de France is visiting for the Grand Départ next year?

Well Grand Départ GB wants that person to design an official poster for either the Tour de France Hommes or Femmes, to be launched at the race’s route presentation this autumn…

The competition opens on Monday and will accept submissions until the 26th of June. As you might expect, JOY, the Grand Départ GB 2027 social impact programme behind the competition, are rather upbeat saying “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for two talented students to showcase their creative skills on a truly global platform, and to forever be associated with this historic Grand Départ.

You can always count on Brian Smith to explain things for us…

 

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The last man out, Tadej Pogacar could not quite make himself the fastest man back, despite the steady incline in the final part of his effort. He finished 5th, seven seconds behind the winner.

Instead, Dorian Godon, who’s had a very good spring with two wins at Catalunya, takes the win and the race leader’s jersey. Primoz Roglic meanwhile finished a second behind Pogacar in eighth. But over such a short distance, with several riders opting for the comfort of the road bike, we’ll save the extrapolations for another day…

 

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All hail the Bike Bus!

There was a time when Ivan Sosa was talked about as a ‘next big thing’, at Ineos at the same time as a young Egan Bernal, the Colombian moved to Movistar and steadily accrued a series of wins at smaller stage races before the victories dried up.

Now riding for second-tier Caja Rural, who will ride the Tour de France for the first time in decades, Sosa has claimed his first win in nearly four years, going solo with 4.5km remaining on the summit finish at Kiran to also take the GC lead after three stages.

 

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Last year, the Tour of Turkiye was a key race for Astana on their way to avoiding relegation from the WorldTour, taking several stages and Wout Poels and Harold Martin Lopez finishing first and second overall.

Elsewhere the Tour de Romandie starts today, meaning it’s one year since Sam Watson claimed victory after being called-up to the race at a day’s notice. It also established Watson as a slightly unexpected prologue specialist, though he’s not racing this year. Today’s effort is a tad over 3km and has just gotten underway.

In terms of the favourites, as nice as it would be to share a 3000 word polemic on Primoz Roglic, I suspect both his presence and Florian Lipowitz’s is overshadowed by Tadej Pogacar lining up for his first stage race since last year’s Tour de France.

It came after a busy spring (starting at Strade Bianche) where Pogacar was the only rider to finish all four spring monuments. Heck, he was one of only two riders to start all four. his record wasn’t too bad either…

📊2 riders participated in all 4 Monuments of 2026:

🇬🇧Owain Doull (TVL):
🇮🇹MSR: 136th
🇧🇪RVV: DNF
🇫🇷PR: 136th
🇧🇪LBL: DNF

🇸🇮Tadej Pogačar (UAE):
🇮🇹MSR: 🥇
🇧🇪RVV: 🥇
🇫🇷PR: 🥈
🇧🇪LBL: 🥇 pic.twitter.com/3uIdYcSh7g

— Cycling Statistics 📊 (@StatsOnCycling) April 27, 2026

In terms of his stage race record, Romandie is a box waiting to be ‘ticked’ off. The race’s long history gives it prestige as one of the ‘big seven’ one-week stage races, and Pogacar still has yet to win it, along with the Basque Country and Tour de Suisse. Helping the Slovenian on his mission here is a relatively weak start list.

Beside the aforementioned Red Bull duo, Oscar Onley is there, as is Lenny Martinez, Antonio Tiberi and Lorenzo Fortunato. None of them are riders who have exactly troubled the Slovenian in recent years though, whilst several WorldTour teams have chosen to skip the race entirely, so no Uno-X, Lotto, Lidl-Trek or Decathlon lining up either.

That’s no reason to be downbeat about what is usually one of the prettier races on the calendar, and we should be able to bring you the result a little later.

Who says the news is just negativity?

> Drivers could save £4,000 during fuel crisis by swapping to a cargo bike, new research suggests

“This is also the time to push for active travel, as the economic argument is now much clearer than purely the environmental one.”

> Donald Trump’s senseless war could be an inflection point for cycling infrastructure across the world

Things are looking up for Forest in its battle for hire bike supremacy in the capital. Richmond-on-Thames recently gave the provider exclusive provider status in the borough, and they also brought back One Pound Fish Man from the depths of the 2010s.

> More than you could ever possibly need to know about how e-bike hire company Forest recruited ‘One Pound Fish Man’ to star in viral social media clip

The Times is now reporting that the company has secured £27 million in investment in fresh equity, including £17 million from the manufacturer of their e-bike fleet, Okai. In exchange, Forest will now work on the design and production of the bikes whilst Okai take a minority shareholding in the business.

Forest say the investments will be used to build new parking bays, enhance safety measures and developments of their app.

The investment has also attracted the attention, and praise, of the UK Government, with Small Business Minister Blair McDougall quoted as saying “Forest is a great example of the kind of ambitious, innovative and high-growth business we want more of in the UK, bringing in investment, creating jobs and boosting the economy.”

Sticking with the orange app, Strava has opened up some of their data findings to the public, with the biggest number (how big is a number?) being the 550 million miles that Strava say are recorded commutes on their app.

Strava’s Commute Report also finds, contrary to the performative posturings oft-associated with Gen Z, that the generation are 21 percent less likely to upload a commute than Boomers. Maybe that means the Boomers are more desperate to measure every physical exertion, or maybe Gen Z are still more performative in choosing to ‘curate’ their Strava feed by just recording their specific exercise exertions.

Strava’s also broken down commutes by type and found, somewhat unexpectedly, that Iceland has the highest proportion of commutes by e-bike, followed by Belgium and Norway. Maybe this is a per capita quirk, the same sort that makes Nauru the most successful Olympic nation ever (one silver medal for 10,000 people) or the Vatican City as weak-on-crime as the US President suggests – thanks to pickpocketing in a tourist hotspot.

Strava say the Strava Metro dataset can be used “to enhance pedestrian infrastructure” by showing where people are commuting. The data may also be useful for showcasing the company’s worth as it still considers going public.

Tadej Pogacar seemingly can’t help but try and befriend his rivals, joking with hot new thing Paul Seixas on Strava that, whilst the 19-year-old may have lost Liege-Bastogne-Liege, he at least claimed the KOM on La Redoute…

And this morning the Frenchman replied…

This a good excuse for me to re-up Ryan’s very good piece on the Slovenian’s superlative-exhausting spring, but also makes me yearn for a little bit more edge to the rivalry.

I’m not sure I necessarily want the sport’s biggest stars to be this friendly with one another. I like the fact that Chris Froome devoted months of the year to thinking about what Alberto Contador could be doing and got into arguments with Vincenzo Nibali. I like how SD-Worx had such a clash of egos that their biggest stars were sprinting against one another for the win at Strade Bianche. It’s why I’m slightly more willing to tolerate Remco Evenepoel’s general shenanigans in-race. Anyway, the biggest star in the sport is friends with his rivals, more when we get it…

The new AI system will “turn raw operational data and predictions into safe, auditable actions across your ecosystem”.

> Ineos Grenadiers announce AI technology company “fighting for Europe’s digital sovereignty” will be new title sponsor… and Sir Dave Brailsford is (officially) back as Team Principal

British Cycling have confirmed the route details of the National road championships, with the races returning to Ceredigion between the 25th and 28th of June.

The time trial will kick things off on the Thursday with a rolling course starting and finishing in Lampeter. The men will do three laps of a short circuit for a total of 38.4km whilst the women and age category riders will do two laps totalling 25.6km. Ethan Hayter and Zoe Bäckstedt are the defending elite champions but Josh Tarling and Anna Henderson might be keen to change that.

After the circuit championships on the Friday, the road races will be tackled on Sunday 28th, starting and finishing in Aberystywyth involving laps of two different circuits. The second, 12km circuit ridden in the closing stages includes an 8.7% climb through Southgate before a technical descent and a possible sprint along the promenade where Sam Watson and Millie Couzens triumphed last year.

Netcompany INEOS Cycling Team. Admittedly cycling names don’t always roll off the tongue but that’s not great. At least it’s not Netcompany-Ineos Grenadiers-TotalEnergies.

Anyway, the new team name will debut at the Giro d’Italia, and will see the team double down on Netcompany’s “PULSE” AI-driven technology. Thankfully, Dan is writing this up as a proper story so he’ll be able to try and tell you what that all means.

There are quotes from Sir Jim Ratcliffe who, contrary to rumours, isn’t going anywhere, Geraint Thomas and Sir Dave Brailsford, for whom we finally have a job title – Team Principal and Director of Sport for INEOS. We’ll have a full summary shortly, but for the whimsy of the live blog, I’ll give you this quote from Netcompany’s CEO André Rogaczewski:

“As a leading European AI technology company fighting for Europe’s digital sovereignty, joining forces with the most successful cycling team of the modern era and the UK’s only WorldTour team is a unique opportunity.”

Answers on a postcard as to what this means, please! In the meantime, we’re a little short on photos of the new kit so this launch video will have to do. Hope you like grey…

 

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I’ll admit that’s a click-bait-y (?) sub-heading, not least because as someone who watches Midlands Today I quite like David Gregory-Kumar. And to see him on the cargo bike train can only be a good thing, pity this one driver denies him the luxury of segregated infrastructure…

Why don’t cyclist use the cycle lane? #405.

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— David Gregory-Kumar (@drdavidgk.bsky.social) 28 April 2026 at 08:59

 

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