Footage has emerged of a furious local walking across the road during the final kilometre of the Tour of Britain’s second stage, narrowly avoiding being struck by the charging peloton in the process.
The bizarre and extremely dangerous near miss, filmed by photographer Barry Robinson, took place on Thursday in Skegness, the finishing town of stage two of this year’s Tour of Britain, won in a sprint by Tim Merlier.
In Robinson’s footage, a woman can be seen storming across the road at a non-barriered junction, located under a kilometre from the finish line, shortly after the leading group, containing Merlier and most of the favourites, had passed.
As spectators shout at her, she can be seen waving her arms in apparent frustration before ignoring them and continuing to cross the closed road.
As she reaches the other side of the road, which is barriered off, a race motorbike rider, blaring his horn, passes, followed less than a second later by a large group led by Netcompany Ineos, whose Italian leader Filippo Ganna had punctured earlier in the stage.
The woman, wheeling a shopper bag behind her, continues to stand on the road as the riders speed by, just a short distance away, before making her way through a gap in the barriers.
Posting a clip of the incident on Facebook, local photographer Robinson wrote: “Well stupid or what?”
He wasn’t the only one to criticise the actions of the seemingly frustrated Skegness resident, Graham Scott writing: “There is always one.”
However, others expressed concern about the lack of barriers and marshals at a pivotal part of the route, when the peloton would be battling for space at high speed ahead of the sprint for the line.
“Why was she even able to cross?” asked Stephen Whitley, while Angela Gooch wrote: “That’s why we needed barriers!”
The stubborn local wasn’t alone in expressing her frustration with a temporary road closure caused by the visit of an international sporting event – though other Skegness residents restricted their complaints to social media, not the race route itself.
Under a video posted by a local holiday let, showing the post-race clear-up operation, Richard Ord wrote: “What about all the trade that was lost because people could not get to park?”
Meanwhile, Graham Jordan moaned: “So that’s why you can’t get an ambulance when you need one.”
Of course, the Skegness shopper isn’t the first member of the public to step out in front of a bike race, deliberately or otherwise, in recent years.
At the 2024 Rund um Köln one-day race, the breakaway somehow managed to avoid what would have been a nasty collision with an elderly pedestrian who had wandered across a zebra crossing.
The woman – seemingly oblivious to the fact that one of Germany’s biggest bike races was taking place – was halfway across the pedestrian crossing just as the seven-strong escape group emerged from a roundabout.
A number of riders were able to move sharply to avoid the bewildered and stunned local (who seemed to be unaware of the racers until they were level with the zebra crossing), though both Team Lotto Kern-Haus’ Mauro Brenner and Caja-Rural’s Czech rider Michal Schlegel, especially, were forced to showcase some expert bike handling skills to narrowly jink either side of the pedestrian.
Ole Theiler wasn’t so lucky, however, the 21-year-old German hitting the woman’s walking aid with his back wheel, knocking it from her hands and dragging it along the road. While the pedestrian appeared to lose her balance in the collision, both her and Theiler remained, rather miraculously, upright following the bizarre incident.
The issue of pedestrians using crossings during races – despite the road in question being closed – has become an increasingly common concern in recent years, with a number of oblivious locals also spotted availing of the infrastructure during the first time trial of the 2023 Giro d’Italia, while riders were hurtling towards them at 50kph.
And at the 2023 UCI Cycling World Championships in Glasgow, delays in ushering spectators and pedestrians across the road at some predetermined but congested crossing spots led to a few near misses with oncoming racers on the city centre circuit.
During the junior men’s road race, one group, including Ireland’s Seth Dunwoody, turned the corner onto Buchanan Street only to be faced with crowds covering the width of the road, with only the frantic attempts of the marshals – and some short sprints from local shoppers – securing just about enough room for the group to squeeze through.
That close organisational call came just hours after France’s Julie Bego, the surprise winner of the women’s junior race after a brave solo ride, made her way around the final left hander, only to see – not the finishing straight or the roar of an appreciate crowd – but a line of pedestrians again crossing the road, in a chaotic cycling version of the Beatles’ Abbey Road album cover.
1 thought on ““That’s why we needed barriers!” Fuming local crosses road in front of charging peloton during final kilometre of Tour of Britain stage”
Looks like she’s a few chips short of a fish supper.