“If you make life difficult for me, I’ll return the favour”: Frustrated cyclist opens car door to “teach a lesson” to driver; Pfeiffer Georgi suffers fractured neck in Tour de France crash; Can the T-Rex survive the Vuelta sun? + more on the live blog

Here on the live blog, we've seen plenty of incidents where cyclists have vented their frustration at motorist driving carelessly or dangerously. But this latest response — all the way from Auckland, New Zealand — is a new one even for us.

The cyclist who goes by the name of Captain Pinchy on Twitter, shared this footage of a driver making a turn across him, completely ignoring the oncoming rider in front of him, making him brake, come to halt and go around. But in the middle of all that, the cyclist decided to tug on the rear door handle of the car and leave it open, before riding away.

“Dude. If you make life difficult for me, I’ll return the favour (opens back door),” read the caption.

Dude. If you make life difficult for me, I return the favour (opens back door). pic.twitter.com/l1KzrxoJ9s

— Captain Pinchy (@captain_pinchy) August 13, 2024

Most of reaction on social media has, as usual, was one to probably ignore, given most commenters were quick to jump on the cyclist-hating train which obviously veered into death threats very quickly.

“If this happened to me and I was in a car I would have just slowed down and waited.  Why do cyclists expect to never have to stop?” wrote one person, to which Captain Pinchy replied: “Oh we do. We're just sick of f***wits trying to kill is and actually have the balls to point it out.”

Meanwhile, another person quoted “If you make life difficult for me” followed by a few question and exclamation marks; the cyclist replying: “It’s called 'underselling it'. Please insert 'if you try and kill me with your shitty driving' if it was hard to understand.”

One more person pointed out: “Slowing down is also an option,” which was followed by Captain Pinchy’s rebuke: “I did, but where is the lesson for the illegal turning driver if I just ignore it?”

It would be good to note here that in the UK, there’s no legal offence of opening someone’s car door without permission, however, depending on the circumstances, it could potentially be committing an offence of disorderly behaviour and vehicle tampering/interference.

> Driver handed suspended sentence for cutting across and killing cyclist claimed he was “blinded by the sun” before fatal crash – despite motorist behind saying she spotted victim

And obviously, by doing so you’re making physical contact with their car which we know most motorists aren’t too keen on. Case in point, this latest near miss, in which a cyclist was passed by a motorist on solid white lines while barely even leaving his own lane, and the distance was so little that the cyclist could give a tap on the car with just a flick of his shoulder as it was close passing him.

But the driver then pulled over a few hundred metres ahead, got out of the car and started screaming at the cyclist, while claiming that he gave “loads of room”, even proceeding to physically assault him by shoving him and his bike down to the ground.

Now we can debate all-day long whether that move is one that’s warranted and makes complete sense as a harmless act of retaliation against the driver, or does it teeter on the edge of decency, or maybe even spill over into the territories of “Yeah, I’m never doing that to anyone”, but…

Wait, there’s no but, because guess what? That’s what we’re here to do. Let me know what you make of this in the comments.

After making history as the first male cyclist to win both gold medals in road race and time trial at the Paris Olympic Games, Remco Evenepoel will be coming to the Lloyds Bank Tour of Britain Men, which begins on 3 September, just three weeks before the road race world championships in Zurich.

And joining him at the starting line in the Scottish Borders at Kelso will be his Soudal Quick-Step teammate, former world champion and winner of the 2018 Tour of Britain Julian Alaphilippe, making his third appearance at the race.

Meanwhile, making his Tour of Britain Men debut will be Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X Mobility). The 28-year-old Norwegian leapt to prominence in this summer’s Tour de France, featuring strongly in the days’ break on each of the first two stages to hold the King of the Mountains jersey for the first 10 stages. 

Earlier this season Abrahamsen took his biggest career win to date in the Brussels Cycling Classic UCI ProSeries race, while also finishing runner-up in the UCI WorldTour Dwars door Vlaanderen one-day race a few weeks before.

Calls to establish a traffic-free active travel path along the route of a disused canal have been dismissed by local politicians, who claimed that the proposed greenway would be underused by cyclists “who don’t use cycle paths” and “will always want to use the road”.

Meanwhile, other councillors argued that those cyclists who would take advantage of the infrastructure would force pedestrians, parents with pushchairs, and dog walkers to “jump out of the way” as they speed past at 30mph “trying to do Personal Best times”.

> “People who cycle don’t use cycle paths because they aren’t very safe”: Plans for traffic-free cycle route criticised due to prospect of dog walkers and pedestrians “having to jump out of the way of cyclists trying to do Personal Best times”

Talk about pushing the limit! Well, Cédrine Kerbaol has surely pushed them to the max and in fact, gone beyond with a brave, daring solo ride on a very technical descent to win the sixth stage of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, and become the first French rider to do so.

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A post shared by Eurosport Cycling (@eurosportcycling)

The Ceratizit-WNT rider was the first one to launch an attack with just 15km to go, with Pauliena Rooijakkers eventually bridging the gap to her. It looked like the group behind, with Demi Vollering and yellow jersey  Kasia Niewiadoma would surely not let this attack go by, as Karbaol was fourth in the general classification before the start of today’s stage.

But that’s exactly what ended up happening, with no one being able to pull back the gap to the 2023 French time trial champion, who with her inch-perfect and at times, a bit mad descending prowess managed to gain time on her rivals, and climbed to second place in the GC, just 16 seconds behind Niewiadoma.

Meanwhile, Demi Vollering who yesterday suffered a last-minute crash after touching wheels with her teammate Lorena Wiebes and lost the maillot jaune, looked content to just come home safely today, hoping to inflict some real damage in the upcoming mountain stages.

Although the yellow jersey stayed with Niewiadoma, the polka dot and the points jerseys changed hands after today's eventful stage, with Justine Ghekiere getting her hands on the former while Marianne Vos took the green jersey from Charlotte Kool after winning the bunch sprint behind Kerbaol and crossing the line in second place.

Cycling lanes segregated by bollards are a gamechanger 🚲💫

They might not be perfect,but they’re a👣 in the right direction. These lanes keep mini cyclists safe, reduce accidents & give grown-ups peace of mind.

More than a path, they offer kids freedom to explore &stay active pic.twitter.com/tvV7bO9VIk

— Francesca Savage 🚲💕 (@francesca_kms) August 16, 2024

One more day until we go into the mountains, and it looks like the large breakaway is currently struggling to get rid of the peloton which is being paced by an unlikely Arkea-B&B Hotels.

The stage began in Remiremont and it’s a set of rolling terrain, with the front of the race nearing the end of that stretch now. From there on now, the peloton will have to go through a set of climbs — nothing in the realm of category 1 or double digits gradients, but a swift and steady hills beginning with the Col de Ferrière and the Cot de Laviron, before the final two climbs of La Roche du Prêtre and Cote des Fins, finally onto the descent and then a flat run up to the finish line.

We might have a dual race on our hands now, as Vollering, who lost out on her yellow jersey yesterday after the nasty crash which saw Pfeiffer Georgi abandon with fractures to her neck and right hand, will be keen to close the one minute gap to the leaders before the last two stages, meanwhile a break fights it out for the win.

A large breakaway is formed with a 30-second lead
Un groupe important s'est formé avec 30 secondes d'avance

🇳🇱 Fem Van Empel
🇩🇪 Franziska Koch
🇱🇺 @C_Majerus
🇳🇱 @ellenvdijk
🇳🇱 Maaike Coljé
🇫🇷 @velopipoire
🇫🇷 @CordonRagot
🇦🇺 Amber Pate
🇦🇺 Anya Louw
🇫🇮 Anniina Ahtosalo
🇱🇺… pic.twitter.com/NrXKmNhGf3

— Le Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift (@LeTourFemmes) August 16, 2024

British road race champion Pfeiffer Georgi, who was involved in the horrible crash in the final 10 kilometres of yesterday’s stage of Tour de France Femmes which saw a number of riders hit the deck and suffer injuries, as well as Demi Vollering lose her maillot jaune under controversial circumstances, has abandoned the race after suffering fractures to her neck and hand.

The Team dsm-firmenich PostNL rider who had helped her teammate Charlotte Kool get the green jersey with great sprint lead-outs in the first two stages of the Tour, was one of the two riders to abandon the race yesterday, along with EF-Oatly-Cannondale rider Magdeleine Vallieres who also suffered a concussion and were taken to a hospital.

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Team dsm-firmenich PostNL (@dsmfirmpostnl)

The team has now announced that she will be out of action for four weeks as she heals from her injuries, with the team doctor saying: “After her hard crash yesterday at the Tour de France Femmes, Pfeiffer went to hospital to thoroughly assess her injuries. The evaluations showed fractures of the neck that fortunately do not require surgery and a fracture in her right hand.

“It was a heavy fall so we will continue to assess and monitor her as she returns home. It’s likely we’ll see her off the bike for at least the next four weeks, but we are in no rush and her health and recovery is paramount.”

Team dsm-firmenich PostNL coach Albert Timmer added: “We are very sad to lose Pfeiffer due to yesterday’s hard crash. She is not only important during the race as our road captain but also off the bike she brings a lot to the group, so this is a big loss for us as a team. She will take the rest needed now to heal up and we are confident that she will fight back and come back stronger than before.”

Not us sharing posts about how much does an Olympic track bike cost after taking the mickey out of other websites that would pull this shtick in our firmly tongue-in-cheek article last week... something something about the Ouroboros.

> 13 things you didn't know about track cycling SEO articles during the Olympics

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by The Drive (@thedrive)

The V-Izu TCM-2 track bike is manufactured by Toray Carbon Magic, which is owned by Japanese carbon giant Toray. According to Toray’s official site, they produce carbon components for everything from Super GT monocoques, NASCAR seats, Olympic-grade bobsleds, WEC prototype and Formula 3 body panels, and even competition wheelchairs and winged rockets.⁠ But yeah, if you didn't know, now you know that Japan's new Olympic bike costs around £108,000.