“Every minute I walk on the streets my life is in danger”: Peter Hitchens calls for e-bike number plates – but cyclists say “don’t be put off by illegal machines”; “Put cyclists on secondary roads,” says Ontario PM; Cat wins again + more on the live blog

I regret to inform you that, across the pond, Doug Ford is at again.

The Ontario premier, who back in 2022 rather wisely conducted a TV news interview on road safety while driving through a snowstorm, has defended his government’s push to limit the construction of cycle lanes in the Canadian province by claiming that motorists should have priority on busy city streets – and that cyclists should simply be shunted onto “secondary roads”.

> Cyclists angered by Canadian politician's road safety interview...while driving through snowstorm

“We just want to get traffic moving … that’s what it comes down to, making sure you aren’t putting bike lanes in the middle of some of the busiest streets in the country. Put them on secondary roads,” Ford told reporters during a press conference last week, the Toronto Star reports.

Ford’s controversial plan – the upcoming legislation for which is apparently titled the ‘Reducing Gridlock and Saving You Time Act’ – would block the construction of new cycling infrastructure if its results in the loss of lanes previously reserved for cars, buses, and lorries.

The proposal, which comes in a year when six cyclists have already been killed on Toronto’s streets, has been widely condemned by political opponents and cycling campaigners in Canada.

> Police officer dishes out fines to cyclists – then crashes his SUV into one in a cycle lane

“This is politics that plays with people’s lives,” said New Democrat MPP Joel Harden. “This is putting wedge politics over real solutions.”

University of Toronto geography and planning professor Matti Siemiatycki also described the plan to limit the number of cycle lanes in Ontario as “ineffective and dangerous”, due to the increasing popularity of cycling in the province, helped in no small part by the swathe of newly installed bike lanes.

Despite Ford’s clear anti-cycling agenda, Toronto City Council recently voted in favour of adding 100 kilometres of bike lanes to major routes within the next three years, in a bid to reduce vehicle emissions and combat climate change.

> Are drones the future of close pass operations? Police in Canada to use drones as part of attempt to clamp down on dangerous driving around cyclists

However, Ford was scathing in his assessment of the claim that the new cycling infrastructure hasn’t increased congestion.

“That’s a bunch of hogwash,” the politician said, insisting the reduction of motoring lanes on University Avenue’s “hospital row” to make way for cycle lanes has made that stretch “jammed like crazy”, while claiming bike lanes in another area of the city have “disrupted all the businesses there.”

“We need to focus on transportation routes. They get people… from point A to point B,” he said.

However, in a Twitter thread, one Canadian cyclist picked apart Ford’s implication that cyclists aren’t going “from A to B”.

> "Crosswalk referee" dishes out red cards to dangerous motorists who block bike lanes and crossings

“The anti-bike crusade badly wants you to think urban cyclists are in it for exercise, and can be shunted to side streets and trails,” Matt said.

“The reality is cyclists are *going places*. Their homes and destinations are on major streets. They’re going to work, shopping, growing the economy. ‘Just cycle on a side street’ doesn’t help a nurse who cycles to work at a hospital on a major street, it doesn’t help the Uber Eats delivery get from the restaurant to your house, there needs to be an actual long connected grid of usable cycling infrastructure on real streets.

“The car lobby wants you to think ‘cyclist’ and picture a guy who drives his $3,000 trail bike on his bike rack to the park to joyride in Lycra, not an essential worker living downtown going to work on a Bike Share bike (which had 5.7 million riders last year in Toronto).

“The more protected bike lanes you build, the more people cycle instead of drive. The more people cycle, the fewer cars. Bikes take up less space than cars. Bike lanes ease traffic.”

So, it looks like Thibaut Pinot has arrived in London this evening, potentially to watch PSG play Arsenal in the Champions League (though he could just be on a farming business trip to buy supplies, who knows? It’s the match, isn’t it?).

So cue scenes of commuters waving flags and screaming ‘TIBOPINO’ as he makes his way down the tube to his seat. Or they’ll all be looking at their phones and not realising French cycling royalty is right there…

Just days after she finished third behind Lotte Kopecky and Chloé Dygert at the world road race championships in Zurich, Elisa Longo Borghini’s long-anticipated move to UAE Team ADQ has been confirmed.

The 32-year-old Italian champion has spent the last six seasons at Lidl-Trek, establishing herself as one of the best and most consistent riders in the world, winning Paris-Roubaix, the Trofeo Alfredo Binda, the second of her two Tour of Flanders victories, and this year’s Giro d’Italia.

(Pauline Ballet/A.S.O)

According to Daniel Benson, Longo Borghini’s long-term coach Paolo Slongo is also making the move from Lidl-Trek to UAE Team ADQ for 2025.

“I’m delighted to share the news that I’m joining UAE Team ADQ for the next three years. The team attracted me the most from the beginning because it’s an ambitious team and it aims to grow every year,” Longo Borghini said in a press release issued by UAE.

“This matches my character. I’m an ambitious person and I’m really looking forward to targeting many races with this team. I will try to defend my title at the Giro d’Italia, and try to win the Tour de France, and one of the Ardennes [classics]. As a world-class rider I’m also aiming to be a role model and inspire the community of women in the UAE towards a healthy lifestyle.”

So, apparently a new study has claimed that a river is eroding rock and soil at the base of Mount Everest, pushing it upwards, and making the world’s highest mountain 15 to 50m taller than it normally would be.

Should someone tell Illi Gardner and Ronan McLaughlin?

To be fair to Illi, she’d probably be able to set a new record for what I’m going to call ‘Super Mount Everest’ by dinner time tonight…

It looks like the bike ban big hitters are out in force this week.

With Worcester councillor Alan Amos’ latest anti-cycling scolding still ringing in our ears, today we’re heading back to one of the OGs of controversial cycling bans, Bedford, where opposition councillors have said that they have been “inundated with complaints” from residents who have been fined for dismounting and pushing their bikes in the town centre.

Read more: > Bike ban council says it wants “a safe place where people don’t worry about bicycles” and claims cyclists “fly through town centre” – but cyclists say they are being fined for dismounting and pushing their bikes

And speaking of promising young British riders… It’s been a few years, but the name Wiggins is one we’ll have to get used to seeing again on the start list of major bike races.

After riding the Tour of Britain in Team GB colours last month, 2012 Tour de France winner Bradley’s son Ben will get another early taste of elite racing this week at the Cro Race, a six-day stage race in Croatia, alongside the likes of Filippo Ganna, Fred Wright, Brandon McNulty, and Pablo Castrillo, after being called up to the Jayco-AlUla squad as a stagiaire, the traditional end-of-season trainee role for aspiring pros.

Wiggins enjoyed a successful season as a junior in 2023, including taking the overall win at the Trophée Centre Morbihan, second at the junior world time trial championships, and securing a Madison world title alongside Matthew Brennan.

(Zac Williams/SWpix.com)

Since moving up to the U23 ranks for 2024, the 19-year-old has raced this year on the continent for Axel Merckx’s Hagens Berman Jayco squad, and finished 18th in the U23 time trial at last week’s Zurich worlds.

Earlier this year, Hagens Berman announced a new partnership with Australian WorldTour team Jayco AlUla, a relationship which has enabled Wiggins Jnr to take to the start line in Vodice today – and quite possibly provide a path to the WorldTour for the very promising teenager.

We won’t forget the name in a hurry, anyway.

He’s been knocking on the door for quite a while now, but young British climbing talent Max Poole upgraded his run of podium places at the Vuelta a España by securing his first ever pro victory this morning, winning the Tour of Langkawi’s Queen Stage from a reduced bunch sprint.

The 21-year-old DSM-Firmenich rider, who took an impressive but ultimately frustrating three third places and one second place at the Vuelta last month, has clearly kept his sparking end-of-season form going, beating Astana’s Harold Martín López and Italian Thomas Pesenti in an 11-rider sprint at Cameron Highlands.

Poole had thinned the group out himself by attacking near the top of the final 8km climb to Brinchang, after DSM had controlled the peloton on the previous longer, 19km ascent to KG Raga. After a few riders made their way back on the short descent to the finish, the British rider launched early again to seal his first pro win.

That victory, taken on the toughest and most mountainous stage of this year’s Tour of Langkawi, has also proved enough to move Poole into the overall lead at the Malaysian stage race, five seconds clear of López.

“It was quite a straightforward day with how the parcours was, with a flat first 100 kilometres then uphill for the final 70 kilometres. It was really the only opportunity for the climbers here,” a delighted Poole said at the finish.

“I have a really good group of people around me, we made a good plan and knew that it was being about patient and waiting until the last kilometre of the climb to make the damage. When there were attacks, I just tried to stay patient until the last moment to then make the difference and then come over the top of the climb with a gap.

 

 

 

 

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“We worked well together as a trio but the group from behind came back. There were a few teams with a couple of guys, so I just had to pick the right wheel and get a good run to the line. We knew the finish was slowly dragging uphill, but I got a good bit of slipstream and used it to launch early and held on to the finish. I’ve been sprinting quite well the past few months, so I had to back myself.

“I’m super happy to get my first pro win and the guys did a great job today so thanks to them as well. We’ll approach each day as it comes, and we have some nice sprint opportunities with Casper so we will also focus on them too and try and go for another win there.”

Poole’s win also marked the 20th victory of the season for his Dutch squad – which leaves DSM just three behind Tadej Pogačar on the win front for 2024…

Setting aside Tadej Pogačar for a moment (I know, nobody puts Pogi in the corner), for most cycling fans, the standout performance from the men’s world road race championships on Sunday came courtesy of Toms Skujiņš.

The Latvian, who finished second to Pogačar at Strade Bianche earlier this year, put in a barnstorming ride on Zurich’s hilly course, mounting a ferocious chase alongside Ben Healy which, at one point during the chaos that engulfed the first half of the race’s final lap, appeared within touching distance of reeling in the slightly fading Slovenian.

(Zac Williams/SWpix.com)

However, as the chase concertinaed, and the gap to Pogačar halted its downward descent, Skujiņš was forced to settle for fourth place on the line behind Mathieu van der Poel in the sprint – at the end of what still should be regarded as one of the rides of his career so far.

So, what was Skujiņš’ secret for his attacking, relentless ride in Zurich? Well, it could be the surreptitious tyres he was using.

Yes, our eagle-eyed YouTuber Jamie spotted that the 33-year-old wasn’t using the Pirelli tyres found on his Lidl-Trek team’s bikes, but was instead sporting a pair of tan walled Vittoria Corsas – with the logos carefully, and very cleanly, covered up with a huge black marker pen:

(Zac Williams/SWpix.com)

Of course, riders eschewing their team’s sponsor-mandated equipment for their own favoured brands while racing for their national squad is nothing new – interestingly, Simon Yates actually opted against using Jayco-AlUla’s Vittorias for the worlds – but who knows, could Skujiņš’ storming ride at the worlds set a new trend for aero felt tip makers?

This morning, Skujiņš, who was visibly distraught by his fourth place immediately after the race, posted on Instagram about his worlds experience – though notably left out any mention of tyre choice.

“Worlds in Zurich was quite something. Still unsure about my feelings from that event, but I left it all out there and would not change a single pedal stroke I made,” the 33-year-old wrote.

“Thankful for all the cheers from Latvians on the roadside, but most of all thankful for the support from my teammates and Team Latvia staff.”