He's behind you! Pro cyclist in disbelief after thinking he'd won... only for chasing rider to snatch victory on the line; Telegraph anti-cycling bingo; 5km stage race even we could finish; Stairway to heaven? Nope, just a cycleway + more on the live blog

"𝗧𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗳𝗲𝗲𝗹 𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗴𝗼𝗼𝗱!"

🇧🇪 Wout van Aert wins Stage 3 of the Volta ao Algarve with a spectacular sprint to claim his first victory of the season ⚡️#VAlgarve24 | @WoutvanAert | @vismaleaseabike pic.twitter.com/iCSiHirLFu

— Eurosport (@eurosport) February 16, 2024

He left it late, but Wout van Aert is off the mark for 2024 (on the road, of course).

The Belgian stressed throughout his cyclo-cross campaign that he was aiming to peak for the Classics, hoping to claim a maiden Tour of Flanders or Paris-Roubaix. Ominous he's picking off reduced sprints already, the lumpy route to Tavira helping put fatigue in the legs and shelling some of the faster sprinters at the race.

Anyone interested in some weekend bike race watching, tomorrow is the race's ITT before Sunday looks a cracker — hill-top finish up a 2.5km climb averaging 9.6 per cent? That'll do! Let's see how those legs are, Wout.

Elsewhere today, Marlen Reusser took the second stage of the women's Volta Femenina de la Comunitat Valenciana, building a commanding lead on GC in the process. If you thought the Algarve climb was tasty, the women's peloton will tackle a 3.9km ascent averaging 11.2 per cent tomorrow. Sunday's stage into Valencia could be anything, with a fair bit of climbing before a downhill run into town. Sprint? Breakaway? 

It's good to have bike racing back, isn't it?

"The infrastructure has to be there for the journeys people are going to make. In Holland it took decades to create the cycling culture it has now..."

> "Where are the cyclists?" Councillor questions "low numbers" on cycle superhighway – but Chris Boardman praises "exemplar" of cycling infrastructure

> OPINION: Changes to the Highway Code mean very little if they are not known or followed by motorists

> "Waste of money" cycle lane branded an "annoyance and inconvenience" for adding 570 metres to motorists' journeys, as council approves extension plans

[Zac Williams/SWpix.com]

Chris Froome will make his return to racing in 2024 at the Tour of Rwanda, the scene of one of his 2023 meltdowns over disc brakes...

> Fed up Froome denounces disc brake wheels on Instagram Reel

The eight-day stage race begins on Sunday, the four-time Tour de France champion saying he is looking forward to returning.

"I love any opportunity to get back to Africa, it feels like home," he said. "Everyone is always so warm and welcoming, it's a great feeling.

"Seeing the Field of Dreams was the highlight [of last year's visit to Rwanada] for me. It was a project we had raised funds for at the Tour de France in 2022 so being able to go there and see it for myself was a wonderful experience."

The Field of Dreams is a cycling centre in Bugesera, "a game-changing project that has already helped countless local children discover the joy of cycling" that was set up by Israel-Premier Tech at last year's race.

Recon day 👀🔨 pic.twitter.com/ASfldALtra

— Les Amis de Paris-Roubaix (@A_ParisRoubaix) February 16, 2024

A week to go until Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, there's something to look forward to. What we'd do for those cobbles of Roubaix to look like this in roughly two months time.

Anti-cycling bingo is finished. Rowan Pelling from the Telegraph newspaper has completed it. There is nowhere left to go...

Yes. On the day after the Office for National Statistics announced that the UK was in recession, the Telegraph's columnists tackled the big issues of our time — "idle Britons are taking hard-working taxpayers for fools", "the EU is in an even worse state than Britain, but Rejoiners couldn't care less", and of course cyclists apparently being "the rudest, most entitled people in the UK today". What a spread...

Anyway, time to focus on the one we're most interested, you can take in the rest on your lunch break...

Anti-cycling bingo refers to the game that can be played while reading online comments about cyclists, or in this case a column published in one of the UK's biggest newspapers. The aim? To cross off all the tired, often heard, boring things that people who don't like cyclists tend to say about cyclists. For example, if it were a points-based game, red-light jumping, riding on pavements and not using cycle lanes would be the low-scoring bankers. 

Why do I say all this? Well, Rowan Pelling might just have completed it...

"Lycra-clad boors give off an almost palpable air of smug self-satisfaction even as they make life miserable for fellow road users," she begins, and what a start that is. No dilly-dallying, no prefacing the topic with context or an anecdote or two. Nope, just straight on in with the bashing.

Thankfully, we get that anecdote or two in the intro, as Pelling ticks off the obligatory 'keen cyclist' qualifier, justifying all future anti-cycling bingoing, in the form of explaining how 30 years ago she used to use a bike to get around in Cambridge.

What follows is a whistle-stop tour through: that video on our live blog yesterday of a cyclist and lorry driver in a countryside stand-off, "mightily virtuous" cyclists, "obnoxious road etiquette", "Lycra-clad road hogs" riding two-abreast "while a queue of motor traffic forms behind them", "shooting red lights", "ignoring one-way systems" and, SAY THE LINE... "nipping onto pavements"...

We're not done there, I'm afraid...

On to the "wholesome mummies on their big cargo bikes" apparently "hurtling down a footpath", the "push-bike Puritans" who "believe they're a form of citizen police", the "GoPro brigade who live for recording motorists' tiniest infractions", "snitching on drivers for minor infractions".

Pelling concludes: "It all reminds me of the curtain twitchers who reported neighbours to the police over lockdown because granny came visiting – a sort of jealous appeal to authority to stop people having fun. It’s the absolute worst of modern Britain, and nowhere is it better embodied than in our miserable, obnoxious, moralising cyclists."

BINGO!!! 

Peter Walker, the Guardian's deputy political editor did a breakdown of the piece on his social media, with the amusing statement...

Oh, hello Rowan, 2014 just rang, asking for their comment piece back. pic.twitter.com/foYEdvJIHq

— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) February 15, 2024

"Seriously, who still writes or commissions this sort of stuff? The article itself actually manages to cram in even more cliches than the astonishingly banal headline suggests, which is an achievement of sorts," he said.

The inevitable serious bit: as the comments show, articles like this help stoke up the sort of out-grouping which, some studies have suggested, can prompt people to take less care around cyclists – including me and several loved ones. So thanks for nothing @RowanPelling pic.twitter.com/fRNOga11Eq

— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) February 15, 2024

Stuart Johnson, the Chair of the Colchester Cycling Campaign added: "Great job by the Telegraph. Whipping up hatred for cyclists yet again with more nonsense."

And breathe. Think I might head back to bed for a lie down in a dark room...