“I don’t understand what the problem is” says pavement-blocking driver; Sprinters vs breakaway battle at Giro + more on the live blog
SUMMARY
Motonormativity Exhibit No. 101
What good is non-motorist infrastructure if the motorist will just make it unusable for the non-motorist? Quite often here we end up talking about blocked cycle lanes, on school runs, outside businesses, you name it.
But you would hope a motorist would be considerate enough to spare a pavement, when a person is without the wretched excuse of a bicycle to justify trying to bump them off the roads entirely.
Well road.cc reader Jack has alerted us to one motorist so tired of being told to stop blocking the pavement, and covering her neighbour’s drive, that she’s gone to the press!
BBC Bristol’s headline ‘Why I should be able to park across my neighbour’s drive’ also seems to make relative light of the issue of blocking almost the entire pavement, seemingly preventing anyone on a mobility scooter, or pushing a pram or bicycle, from passing through without ramming into a hedge – see the link for the image.
Astrid Cooper’s reasoning for her parking behaviour is rooted in a lack of available parking. Where her neighbour has converted their garden into a driveway (seemingly illegally and without a dropped kerb), Cooper has retained her front garden. She also insists that she leaves enough room when she parks over the non-dropped kerb for wheelchairs and prams to pass, but that she has continued to receive taped notes on her car asking her to stop blocking her neighbour’s drive.
Cooper lives in the suburb of Brislington, where streets are narrow and sometimes not wide enough to enable on-street parking on both sides of the road, as this randomly selected street from the neighbourhood shows…
She also argued that parking several streets away when she had her two children with her was “impractical,” though why she claims she would have to park several streets away rather than one or maybe two streets isn’t clear.
Between the driveway aesthetics of the neighbour, the kerb-surfing of our case study, or just the framing of the whole story by the journalist, this altogether makes for a classic case of car-brained thinking. One that presents more parking spaces as the ultimate, ideal solution. Heaven forbid there was a more economical, space-conscious mode of transportation…
Growing percentage of children cycling to school in Scotland – but driving also reaches record high
I think the technical term for this report’s findings is “a mixed bag”…
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Giro: Magnier wins!
Kulset and Eulalio were caught with a kilometre to go.
Soudal Quick-Step were absent for most of the day but were perfectly placed into the penultimate corner. Jasper Stuyven led out Paul Magnier perfectly into the final corner and despite Milan sitting in third, the big Italian couldn’t launch on the wet roads to come round Edoardo Zambanini in time to contest for the win.
MAGNIER GIRO HAT-TRICK! 🔥
Paul Magnier and Soudal Quick-Step navigate the finish perfectly to take Stage 18 — and send the Sprint Classification battle all the way to Rome! 👏 pic.twitter.com/Hv5GipnajB
— Cycling on TNT Sports (@cyclingontnt) May 28, 2026
An astonishing result, I should stop making predictions! And Paul Magnier has retaken the lead in the points jersey by some margin!
Jonathan Milan is swamped by reporters at the finish, he looks very gutted, very apologetic and very very out of breath!
Giro: 2-up
Uno-X’s Johannes Kulset launches a flyer and Eulalio goes with him. The Portuguese is indefatigable!
The gap opens up and Derek Gee-West is next to accelerate but pulls the peloton with him. It seems like most of the fast men have rejoined the front peloton, but they still have 2 to chase!
2km to go
Giro: Eulalio attacks!
The lead-out trains were furious into the sweeping bend into the climb, Geens didn’t stand a chance!
Jonathan Milan was second wheel at the bottom but is soon passed by Jonas Vingegaard, who comes to the front at a patrolling pace before Afonso Eulalio attacks!
The adrenaline must be pumping for the climber after his crash earlier as he quickly gains a gap as Sepp Kuss comes to the front of the peloton. What a ride!
Then over the top, Vingegaard pushes on and leads over the summit, there’s a small split of around 20 riders at the front of the peloton. Thomas Silva then moves to gain a gap but is quickly brought back. WA’s duo of Ben O’Connor and Michael Storer aren’t there but it looks like Venezuelan sprinter Orluis Aular has made the cut! Will the Movistar man finally get his chance!
6km to go, and a 15 second advantage on the sprinters’ group
Giro: Climb incoming
Well, rumours of the breakaway’s death are greatly exaggerated. By me, at least.
Jonas Geens ploughed on and re-established a 20 second lead for himself. He took the Red Bull Kilometre prize of a couple of thousand euros, whilst Oliver Naesen and Conor Swift ensured neither Thymen Arensman or Felix Gall gained bonus seconds on one another.
We’re 4km from the Muro, and the peloton is all stretched out!
Giro: Brief split in peloton, break caught
Bad news for Lidl-Trek, the peloton stretched out on a small descent and a split has been made, with Giulio Ciccone, Ben O’Connor and Afonso Eulalio caught on the wrong side!
The front of the peloton start riding furiously and bring the gap to the break down rapidly before the gap is eventually closed. A nervy moment though.
We still have a Red Bull Kilometre and some bonus seconds to fight for. Meanwhile, Jhonatan Narvaez dashed out from the peloton to nab a solitary point in the ciclamino competition. Just in case you were keeping tabs…
22km to go and the break, including EF’s James Shaw are caught. Hopefully he enjoyed his day out. Just over 10km from the final ‘Muro’ climb
Unbound Gravel demystified...
Everything you need to know… excluding the legal difficulties of former Dutch pros…
Giro: Eulalio crash!
Disaster for the maglia blanca!
💥 🤍 Afonso Eulalio has crashed in the feed zone! The white jersey is losing time on the peloton, sitting nearly 2′ behind.
He had a 2’17” lead over Davide Piganzoli this morning #Giroditalia pic.twitter.com/6bKkIBAaHs
— Giro d’Italia (@giroditalia) May 28, 2026
The former race leader Afonso Eulalio has crashed after he appeared to brush an outswinging musette. The Portuguese climber initially grimaced whilst gripping his left arm before remounting but he’s more than a minute and half behind with only one teammate, Robert Stannard, for company. He’s also rubbing and swinging his arm whilst riding, it looks like an Adam Peaty warm-up! He started today in 5th place overall, with a 2’17” margin over Davide Piganzoli in the young rider competition. Thankfully with some drafting from the team car he gets back soon enough and gets himself some magic spray from the race doctor.
Meanwhile the peloton are only a few kilometres from the intermediate sprint but with the break still a minute ahead, that should neutralise the competition for now.
Giro: 50km
Andrea Mifsud is enjoying his birthday, the Maltese-Frenchman having just smiled and shouted something unintelligible to the camera in the breakaway.
The break’s lead has steadily dropped and is currently 1’20”, whilst the mood in the peloton seems relaxed. Jonas Vingegaard has just changed his bike, telling Adam Blythe on the motorbike he’s switched from a single chain-ring to a double-chain ring. What does that say about the finale the Dane and Visma-Lease a bike are expecting? Surely if one GC rider makes a move, they’ll all try and follow?
Meanwhile it’s looking less likely that Jonathan Milan expects to sprint today, with the Italian spending his lead-out train of Max Walscheid and Simone Consonni to keep the break in check. Despite 50 points being up for grabs, it looks like another on-paper ‘sprint’ stage might be disappearing, and we could be in for a stalemate in the ciclamino contest. It’s looking good for Narvaez in that competition.
Extra Extra! Fleet Street transformation proposed
Some nice news from the capital where the City of London corporation, the authority running Central London has unveiled plans to ‘transform’ Fleet Street, by “creating a more welcoming and sustainable” environment for people walking and cycling on the road.
The initiative is backed by Fleet Street’s Business Improvement District (so much for businesses not liking new active travel-y infrastructure) and proposals include “wider pavements to provide more space for people walking and wheeling, improvements for people cycling alongside seating and planting to create a high-quality environment.”
A consultation on the various proposals opened yesterday, and will be open for the next couple of months. You can find the details of the various proposals here.
Lovely stuff…
Giro: Easy peasy
The peloton approached the climb and backed off very quickly. Perhaps the GC teams decided the best way to prevent counter-attacks was to let the break get a bigger lead. The gap to the front four has expanded out past two minutes, setting us up for an intriguing race dynamic.
The final climb of the day summits with 11km to go, and is only 1km long but it’s called a ‘Muro’ (wall) for a reason. So whoever decides to ride needs to be pretty confident their sprinter can hang on when the attacks start on the climb.
At the moment, Lidl-Trek, UAE, and NSN are sharing the work, whether Lidl-Trek are working for Jonathan Milan or Giulio Ciccone we’ll have to wait and see. The next two stages, for what it’s worth, are big mountain days before the final day in Rome so if an escapee is going to succeed, today is probably the day!
Inside the final 75km.
Giro: Small break gives sprinters hope
There’s been a very extended break formation today, with Jhonatan Narvaez among several riders launching attacks. But after more than an hour of chasing, pursuing and so on and so forth, the Polti-VisitMalta duo of Mattia Bais and Andrea Mifsud broke away and they were allowed to get a gap! Nottingham’s finest, James Shaw eventually embarked on a solo pursuit and made it to within 15 seconds of the front pair before they sat up and allowed him to join. Then Alpecin’s Jonas Geens bridged across to complete the quarter.
They’ve only got an advantage of around a minute for now though and you sense that other riders might use the short leash to launch counter-attacks on the forthcoming category-3 climb. 95km to go…
“Shared provision does not work" but council admits “this is as good as we can do”
Toucan crossings for the win! Or toucans for the win at least… I like toucans
Thomas Dekker misses flight due to previous "indecent" arrest
We’re taking a surprisingly 00s reminisci-package today, with our next little segue looking at Thomas Dekker. You might remember him as the pro who wrote a (very good) doping confessional called Descent.
Or you might remember him as the man accused of “gay behaviour” in a car park with Laurens Ten Dam. The whole story is quite extraordinary, but the short version is that it was a misunderstanding after both men washed and changed after a gravel ride whilst training for Unbound. They were released after paying bail and the charges were dropped.
Still, the issue has caused some difficulties for both men, with Ten Dam revealing he’s been pulled aside by security at airports due to the arrest, with both men returning to the race this year.
“Apparently, somewhere in the system, a note actually says: ‘These are two sex offenders,’” said Ten Dam on his podcast.
“In hindsight, everything clears up quickly: You explain what happened, they do a quick Google search, and then everything is fine again.”
German-language Radsport-News reports that Dekker was held up in Chicago for three hours whilst airport security scrambled to ascertain the criminal record of the Dutchman. And in that time, he missed his connecting flight to Kansas City, Missouri.
Now seems like as good a time as any to remember that the World Cup starts in exactly a fortnight…
A very sticky bottle...
🇪🇸 Markel Beloki and EF Education – EasyPost DS 🇺🇸 Tejay Van Garderen fined 👇
📰 https://t.co/nwoHKiu4Ldpic.twitter.com/R3uDAdgzBq
— Domestique (@Domestique___) May 27, 2026
Both Markel Beloki (yep, son of that Beloki) and DS Tejay Van Garderen (yep, that former best young rider) were fined for their behaviour.
We’re getting old…
Gunk-y drivetrain
Like that one brand of wood varnish, this headline does it exactly what it says on the tin.
Nastiest Jockey Cookies this year
by
u/HerbanFarmacyst in
BikeMechanics
Might need something more nuclear to clean that though…
Gall-ing transfer talk for Decathlon
This wasn’t Decathlon CMA-CGM’s plan. This morning the transfer rumour mills are going big on Felix Gall, and the suggestion that the second-placed rider in this Giro d’Italia could leave the team at the end of the year.
The Austrian climber has finished second to Jonas Vingegaard on every summit finish in this race, and his French team would be very keen to see the 28-year-old stay with them, both for his own results, and as vital climbing support for Paul Seixas in the years to come.
Info @Gazzetta_it – Sources told us at @giroditalia that @LidlTrek is interested to sign Felix Gall – current 2° in the overall at @giroditalia – for next season @cycling_podcast
— Ciro Scognamiglio (@cirogazzetta) May 28, 2026
The esteemed Ciro Scognamiglio was first to jump on the story, linking Gall to Lidl-Trek, whilst in the last few minutes Daniel Benson has confirmed that the long-rumoured contract extension with Decathlon has not been signed.
This could shake up the men’s peloton, though with Juan Ayuso, Derek Gee-West, Mattias Skjelmose and Giulio Ciccone already on the team, you have to wonder how many more second-tier climbers Lidl-Trek want?
Not just Britain!
The issue of blocked cycle lanes isn’t constrained to this sceptred isle, how about this for a Parisian commute…
Un parking, un salon : ça peut servir à plein de choses une piste cyclable !#GCUM #vélo #vélotaf #cyclisteurbain #dailyobs pic.twitter.com/EwT0uk31gh
— 🚲VélotafR_93🚲 (@VelotafR_93) May 27, 2026
All this from somewhere that should be a ‘100 percent cycling city’ by now…
Something about gear ratios...
Might see if I can convince one of our tech heads to write an essay about e-bike gear ratios based solely on this person’s construction of their Razor Rambler.
I am however, in awe of this storage solution…
Speaking of cool-looking e-bikes with nice storage solutions:
Giro stage 18 preview: A ciclamino battle
It’s difficult to say how today’s stage will go. In the first week, you would nail on today’s stage for a bunch sprint, despite the late 4th category climb. But it’s the third week of a Grand Tour, more than a dozen teams are still without a stage win in this race, and you’d have thought most of them would rather hedge their bets by throwing riders up the road than trying to best the star names in a fast finish.
What will be key is the new maglia ciclamino Jhonatan Narvaez. If he tries to get in the break, expect Paul Magnier’s Soudal Quick-Step team to try and chase him down. UAE may be depleted but they’re likely to fully support the Ecuadorian’s unlikely pursuit of the sprinter’s jersey, and it’s looking more likely the jersey will come down to Sunday’s final stage in Rome.
Meanwhile in the third week, most of the strongest, likeliest breakaway contenders were probably in the move yesterday so expect to see some familiar faces along with one or two general classification outsiders tempted to try and parachute into the top-10. Yesterday, Damiano Caruso, David de la Cruz, and Jan Hirt all made the key move, but only the veteran Italian, riding his final Giro, jumped into the top-10 at the expense of Egan Bernal.
TNT Sports reveal "heavy lobbying" for race calendar changes
Warner Bros. Discovery’s Vice President of Cycling also argued free-to-air broadcasting “was never complete. It was a very limited story.”
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No justice as usual. At least we can take solace that the perp seems to have aged about 20 years in the 2 years this has taken to come to trial.
I wonder if Mavic still chuck their spares away after a while, refusing to sell them to bike shops and thereby forcing the customer to buy new wheels? Possibly that decision was a reason why they initially went bust?
Was the judge breathalysed?
@mitsky “Blood delivery driver who ran over cyclist jailed” But not for very long, and he'll clearly be released at the first possible opportunity in about 21 months. No driving ban, so he'll then be able to drive straight away. I wonder if the Police New Variant 'have to live with this for the rest of his life' Excuse (he will have to face the youths he mentors, who may well cheer him for doing it, after his version of 'mentoring') helped to get him this preferential treatment after deliberately swerving his van into a cyclist causing extremely serious injuries? Mitigation for having 8 children and just driving a van containing blood for a hospital?!! Was he simply trying to ensure a good use for the blood he was driving around? Would the offence have been viewed more seriously if he'd swerved into a cyclist of 74 with 135 donations to his credit, with 2 of the last 3 going to Liverpool University Hospital? Would it bollocks!
All the more of a reason to always wear a helmet, obviously the cyclist thought he was entitled and invincible. Now after the fracture he must wear a helmet just to walk down the road. The car driver pays vehicle tax so has the right to do whatever he wants and the law will back him right up to the hilt..
It's a bit scary to know the UK justice system let's people off with a slap on the wrist for attempted manslaughter! I don't think I'll be riding a bike if I visit your fair country! That was unbelievable!
@Terry Hutt quit with the jibba-jabba
@chrisonabike Do you have to be riding a 40kg cast iron bike to trigger them? Or will they also work with those emaciated wraiths that dance by me talking with each other on a 10% climb? I want to make the f*ckers wait until I catch up to trigger the light for them.
@mdavidford Considering the way they've absolutely declared war on them, seems more like their sworn enemy.
@mitsky As it states in the article:
20 thoughts on ““I don’t understand what the problem is” says pavement-blocking driver; Sprinters vs breakaway battle at Giro + more on the live blog”
I mean, her neighbour doesn’t have a drive so she can very much park over her imaginary drive.
I lived in a semi-detached house until recently with crappy parking outside. What I never quite understood was that you could apply to get a dropped curb so you can take a car off the road. That dropped curb always removed far more than a single cars worth of parking on the road. Usually 2 or more. It often lost more than 2 spaces because the interplay of the parking zones and wasted space.
So you don’t have any right to park outside your own home on the road but you can have a dropped curb, reduce parking for everyone and suddenly reserve parking for yourself. Make it make sense.
Realistically we need to be trying to simply reduce the number of cars on our roads and enforcing no parking on certain roads. Its pretty simple. If you can’t park your car legally then you need to park it somewhere else. Unfortunately there is almost zero enforcement against people who park like utter twats.
On a new build estate near me there is a cycling lane. Its just used as parking for the people that live there.
@mctrials23 I can’t believe I read the whole article before I got to the crucial detail at the end – the ‘driveway’ that actually isn’t legally a driveway. Motornormativity all round.
Round my way, someone has concreted over their entire front garden of a very large house – the garden easily measures 1000m2 (at least 35m on each side!), just so that they can haphazardly park a whole bunch of cars over it. Nevermind the aesthetic damage, the impact on flood water runoff, biodiversity, urban heat island effects will be immense!
@the little onion I believe there are quite a lot of rules about that sort of thing but lets be honest, they probably aren’t enforced. As you say, its awful in every way to have massive tarmaced drives.
@mctrials23 Here’s one just a few miles from where I live – a developer cut down 6 large mature protected oak trees, with a nominal value of £250k. Got fined £1,666
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpdq37wenywo
And then replaced the whole area with concrete and tarmac!
(number 11 stavely road, google map view here!)
https://www.google.com/maps/place/11+Staveley+Rd,+Shipley+BD18+4HD/@53.8342676,-1.8062811,324m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x487be4487e6e16db:0xa379255ef66c9eb0!8m2!3d53.8343897!4d-1.8049484!16s%2Fg%2F11c21t88s7?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDUyNS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
From January…
“New powers for councils to fine pavement parkers”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp80ll3kk9jo
@mitsky given that sorting on the pavement is an offence and yet decriminalised, that parking enforcement is apparently a “cash cow” in the opinion of many, and yet in most places enforcement is spotty to say the least, I’ve long though something doesn’t add up.
And I hope to be wrong but this sounds like yet another instance. The police already have powers to sort things, but they handed them off to councils. The councils already have powers and presumably could get more bylaws added. Haven’t been through this but I don’t see how it changes anything? (There are plenty of vehicles on pavements here in Edinburgh, where there are even more draconian powers…)
@mctrials23 Irresponsible journalism and huge entitlement too.
I knew Narvaez wasn’t the biggest of pro cyclists, but I didn’t realise he was quite that small.
Some reassuring words from Judge Smith following another tragic death, though the length of custodial sentence remains to be seen.
I wonder if that guidance will be reiterated to all in the judiciary
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g9y7n8xe0o
@ROOTminus1
“Price was also warned that carrying out an unsafe manoeuvre against a vulnerable road user such as a cyclist carried an immediate prison sentence.”
Wait. Since when??
If only that was true.
The way that is worded, it would apply to pretty much all the dangerous (even careless) driving that we see.
@ROOTminus1 In this case the cyclist was runnung cameras. I wonder if the fact that the judge could view what actualy happened, rather the defence lawyer’s version of events, had any effect.
Just a few notes on what may or may not be illegal…
Changing a garden to a driveway is a breach of planning control; it is not ‘illegal’. An offence is usually only committed if the owner fails to comply with an enforcement notice.
However, driving across the footway other than via an authorised access is an offence under s72 highway Act 1835, even if it is to access the property (which would otherwise make it lawful). It is not the presence of the driveway but accessing it that is illegal.
The neighbour is not causing an obstruction by preventing access to the unauthorised part of the drive – AFAIU, you can’t obstruct that which doesn’t have a right to exist.
However, even though they are not in London or Scotland, the neighbour is driving on the footway in order to put the car there – a s72 offence. It’s difficult to enforce* without evidence of the offence and the driver at the time, but it remains an offence. (*A NIP cannot be served in relation to the Highway Act, because the Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988 doesn’t include it.)
In addition, the car is now causing an obstruction on the footway. Police use guidelines of 1m to determine whether to enforce, but that is a practical guideline, not law. In any case, if it causes harm or inconvenience to legitimate users of the footway (or the carriageway), the car may be causing an obstruction to the extent that an offence has been committed. That looks like a very narrow gap between the car and the hedge.
@GMBasix Just as an addendum to this (I discovered this in our previous property when I was researching whether there was any way I could prevent new occupants of the house opposite from destroying their charming garden full of mature trees and shrubs to make way for two wankpanzers and a motorhome – there wasn’t but pleasingly after they had presumably spent considerable sums their dropped kerb application was refused), unless you live in a restricted area you’re not actually in breach of planning controls converting a garden to a driveway unless you use impermeable materials: if you use porous asphalt or gravel then planning permission is not required.
@Rendel Harris That’s right, although there is detail that needs to be taken into account.
To be absolutely pedantic, any development or change of use requires permission, however some development is defined (and has conditions pre-applied) such that the permission already exists. This is “permitted development” (PD). The relevant legislation is the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015, as revised (“The Order”).
On that basis, where the hard-surfaced area is between the road and the front of the house (in general terms) and is more than 5m² (cumulatively), it needs – as you say – to be porous… or to drain to a porous/permeable surface on the property. (The Order, Schedule 2, Part 1, Class F)
What that does NOT include is:
– standard MOT (Type 1) laid with porous tarmac or loose gravel on top: standard MOT is not generally porous and so the condition fails;
– non-permeable surface with an ACO drain to the household waste pipes*.
What might work is:
– Permeable (Type 3) MOT with a porous finish, built to standard**;
– A gradient that angles all run-off to what is left of the unsealed front garden, or a soakaway (that gradient starts from the edge of the property – if any ruins off to the highway, it fails)
– ACO channelling the water to the unsealed part of the garden
Even if some parts of the scheme are PD, if the ultimate purpose serves something that requires but does not have planning permission, the whole scheme can be ordered to be removed – even the bits that would otherwise be PD (subtle legal detail applies).
* The purpose is that hard-sealing your garden should not cause any off-site run-off, and putting it down the drain just adds to the water treatment load, which is already over capacity, causing flooding and pollution elsewhere
** Ultimately, the test is not whether it ought to keep water on site, according to what some builder’s merchant said, it’s whether it does. Cue the bucket of water test.
If anybody is not sure:
– check your local planning authority and local highway authority web pages;
– check if you are in a conservation area (aka Article 4 area), or if the property is listed;
– check if PD rights have been removed as part of a previous planning permission, to prevent cumulative harm;
– consider using a planning agent to advise you;
– you can use Planning Aid (google, or use RTPI web site) for advice;
– you can apply for a Certificate of Lawful Development, which is a half-way house between winging it and applying for permission you might not need.
Is motornormativity newspeak for stupidity behind the wheel?
@MaxiMinimalist no, but it seems “active travel” is a fnord.
Or is that “congestion” – but then perhaps *that* is confusing a symptom with the disease?
@MaxiMinimalist “where is the best place for the congestion”:
Motornormativity: you can’t see it, until you can’t unsee it.
And here I thought this problem was limited to the U.S. because Americans are now so fat and lazy they can’t even walk across a street after parking.
Some people are just rude, bad mannered and probably too fat to walk more than 5 steps.
@Sabre I don’t think a person’s weight has anything to do with it – more often than not the people who problem park are just too lazy.