“Car brain strikes again”: Motorist blocking shared cycle + pedestrian path tells cyclist to “get on the road”; ‘Vote Flights, Not Bikes’ says Ryanair; GB News "war on motorists" fiction; GCN explains website closure on YouTube + more on the live blog

Anyone who frequently cycles anywhere that has decent cycling infrastructure (you lucky sods) will be all too well acquainted with the car driver’s favourite traditional chanting ritual: ‘Use the bloody cycle lane!’

And while the reasons for not using your area’s cycling infrastructure may be myriad and diverse – the live blog doesn’t have its own ‘Why don’t cyclists use the cycle lane?’ series for nothing – sometimes, sometimes you will choose to ignore nearby road and ride on the nice, protected cycle lane next to it… and still be berated by motorists.

I call it Schrödinger’s Cyclist.

> “Get on the f***ing road!” Angry pedestrian confronts cyclist for “riding on the pavement” – while standing in front of shared-use path sign

Anyway, that’s what happened recently to Bournemouth Liberal Democrat councillor and cycling YouTuber Adrian Chapmanlaw who, while riding his bike on a shared-use path, was told to “get on the road” by a motorist, who – wait for it – had parked his car on the path, almost completely blocking it.

I think we may be dealing with a bad case of irony deficiency here, readers.

In a video uploaded to his YouTube channel, Councillor Chapmanlaw can be seen cycling last week along a path clearly and frequently marked (makes a change, eh?) as a route for both cyclists and pedestrians, before encountering a vehicle perched on the path, forcing him to slow down.

“Apparently blocking a path is better than blocking a road,” Chapmanlaw notes in the video.

As he passes the car its driver, in rather timely fashion, appears, prompting the councillor to remark: “You can’t park there dude, there’s a road you can park on”.

The response?

“Then you should be on the road, anyway!”

That piece of advice didn’t go down too well with Adrian, who shouted back – amid a flurry of obscenities flying in the opposite direction – “It’s a shared path! Look at the f***ing signs. F***’s sake!”

“Apparently I should be on the road, not the shared path,” BCP councillor Chapmanlaw noted in the video’s captions.

“He keeps shouting something about being on the road – what this has to do with him parking on the shared path, I have no idea!

“I wish people would make their minds up – do they want us on the cycle lanes or the road?”

After confirming that he’d reported the driver to Operation Snap for obstructing the highway, Chapmanlaw added: “Car brain strikes again. When you are confronted by a cyclist who asks you nicely not to park on the shared path and use the road instead, the answer should be ‘oh yeah sorry’ not GET ON THE ROAD!!!!”

In the comments under the video, let’s just say opinion was a touch divided over the incident (it is the internet after all).

“The amount of times this happens is insane,” wrote Mark. “Way too many selfish entitled people who think it is okay to park where they like with zero regard for anyone else.”

> “You couldn’t make it up”: Driver – in untaxed, SORN-registered car with expired MOT – mounts pavement on wrong side of the road… then chastises six-year-old for cycling on same footpath

Meanwhile, another local cyclist Gaz said he had his own contradictory experiences on the same stretch of road Adrian was riding.

“Once I had a lady with her kids shout at me ‘get on the road!’ Coming up the hill the other way, I had a driver gesture at me to get ON the shared path, until I caught him up where your video starts, where he told me I should be on the path and I told him my speed was incompatible with pedestrians,” he said.

Of course, not everyone seemed to grasp the point of the video – with some seeming to think that the cyclist was “entitled” for being slightly annoyed that a motorist (who’s not entitled, apparently) just decided to block a path designated for pedestrians and cyclists.

“Another aggressive cyclist giving cyclists a bad name. Just ride around the car,” said Simon.

“I live in Cambridge (I’m a cyclist, motorcyclist and van/car driver) and regularly get held up in the van/car by cyclists choosing to ride in the road rather than on the very extensive and expensive cycle paths provided,” another user said.

“It works both ways. Also, yes I know you don’t legally have to use a cycle path  but it’s a large factor as to why so many car drivers think cyclists are entitled c**ts.”

To which Adrian replied: “I don’t see what any of this has to do with a driver blocking a shared path.”

Nor do I, Adrian, nor do I…

Jumps before pushed in gen election??

Failed Green Minister quits:
• Dublin World’s 2nd slowest city for drivers
• Europe’s only traffic capped airport
• Green party fails Irish Tourism

Vote #flightsnotbikes 🤪😜 pic.twitter.com/29zrNRwD2p

— Ryanair (@Ryanair) June 18, 2024

You shouldn’t expect Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary to provide you with any leg room, or to let your child sit next to you on a three-hour flight without an additional charge, but you can expect him to launch a series of scathing – and characteristically petty – digs at a politician trying to improve the safety of cyclists.

Yesterday, the leader of Ireland’s Green Party, Eamon Ryan – who also serves as the coalition government’s minister for transport and environment and climate minister – announced he is stepping down from the position, after his party lost both of their MEP seats at the recent European elections.

And with Ryan’s spell as transport minister leading to a passenger cap at Dublin Airport in a bid to ease traffic in the area, how did ‘budget but we’ll take your money in other ways’ airline Ryanair respond to the Green Party leader’s resignation?

By telling him to get on his bike, predictably – and launching a ‘Flights, not Bikes’ social media campaign.

We would offer free seats for failed green ministers… but we’re capped at Dublin Airport… so get on your bike 🚲🤯🤡@EamonRyan pic.twitter.com/kG5j3SwNlN

— Ryanair (@Ryanair) June 18, 2024

“We would offer free seats for failed Green ministers… but we’re capped at Dublin Airport… so get on your bike,” Ryanair’s social media account tweeted following Ryan’s resignation, which included a reference to the “relentless” social media attacks faced by the politician during his tenure, which he says even “included vile statements about my recently deceased father”.

Not that it deterred Ryanair yesterday, however.

“Jumps before pushed in gen[eral] election??” another post, featuring Ryan riding a bike, said. “Failed Green Minister quits: Dublin World’s second slowest city for drivers; Europe’s only traffic capped airport; Green party fails Irish Tourism.”

And it kept on going like that, with Ryanair even coming up with their own cardboard sign:

Vote #FlightsNotBikes pic.twitter.com/Ky1cPyMtcE

— Ryanair (@Ryanair) June 18, 2024

Despite Ryan’s occasionally misguided remarks about “irresponsible” cyclists, it’s safe to say Ireland’s cycling community isn’t too impressed with Ryanair’s latest odd social media stunt.

“Such a petty, juvenile company,” wrote Irish cycling journalist Shane Stokes.

“Pathetic,” added Paul.

“Whatever you have to say about Eamon Ryan and the Greens, the man is a decent human being. Whether or not you agree with his policies, he always carried himself with dignity, which is more than you can say for the Ryanair marketing team,” wrote another X user.

And to think, cyclists already have to put up with ‘war on drivers’ nonsense – now we have to listen to people complaining that there’s a ‘war on pilots’ and billionaire airline CEOs taking advantage of struggling families whose backpack was an inch too large…

He may be enjoying the season of his life, with wins at Paris-Nice and Dwars door Vlaanderen and a close second place behind Primož Roglič at the Dauphiné under his belt, but it’s clear that American star Matteo Jorgenson is under no illusions when it comes to his place in the Visma-Lease a Bike stage racing pecking order.

After Dutch cycling site WielerFlits published an opinion piece today speculating that double Tour de France winner Jonas Vingegaard – whose recovery from that horrific crash at the Tour of the Basque Country is still uncertain – could prove a “worthy” domestique for Jorgenson on the roads of France in July, the baffled 24-year-old delivered the most American response ever on X:

Y’all are unhinged wtf 🤣🤣🤣 https://t.co/xgL6kJe9Sc

— Matteo Jorgenson (@MatteoJorg) June 19, 2024

Of course, this is Visma after all – for whom Vingegaard finished second at the 2021 Tour after going into it as a domestique for Roglič – and stranger things have happened in grand tours.

Just as Wiggins and Froome about the 2011 Vuelta…

> Fizik introduces 3D-printed saddle service, with prices starting at £459

I think I’ll stick to my old, non-3D-printed, slightly decaying one, thanks…

After Kirstie van Haaften’s announcement that she is set to undergo brain surgery on Monday, another member of the women’s peloton, Veronica Ewers, has decided to take a break from racing and training for the remainder of the season, in a bid to “reset” and improve her physical and mental health.

29-year-old American stage racer Ewers, who has a ninth on GC at the Tour de France and a fourth place overall at the Giro d’Italia to her name, joined the new EF Education-Cannondale team at the start of this year (from its now defunct namesake squad), but revealed today that she entered 2024 suffering from RED-S [relative energy deficiency in sport].

After battling on through the start of this season – and even finishing 14th in today’s US national road championships – Ewers said in a statement that her drop in performances was negatively impacting her mental health, leading to today’s decision to take time off completely from the bike, even in a training capacity, to allow her to physically and mentally reset and refresh.

(A.S.O./Thomas Maheux)

“I’m recovering from RED-S and it was pretty clear at the end of last year, coming into this year, that I was suffering from it,” she said in an interview published by her EF team, who will continue to support her as she takes a break from the sport.

“I had gotten a stress fracture in my heel, which prompted the team to have me get a DEXA scan and get some blood testing done, which showed that my bone density was quite poor, and my oestrogen levels were pretty much non-existent. I was experiencing all of the symptoms of RED-S.

“So going into this year, when I joined the new team, we really focused on me getting healthier. At the beginning of this year, the team said, ‘We're going to try and get you to a healthy place. That might mean that performance takes a hit, but we’ll make some adaptations at the beginning of this year, and then hopefully it’ll come around mid-season.’

“And so my training changed because my body needed to heal and recover in certain ways. This then impacted my performance, which then had a domino effect on my mental health even more than I’ve already struggled with in the past. So at this point, I think there are still some physical blocks happening when it comes to performance, but I also think the mental side is a big part.

“Physically, my oestrogen levels and hormones are still not where they need to be. So this break was a suggestion from the team as a way to just have a full reset, physically and mentally, to try and recover properly with time off of training and racing. I’ll be taking time completely off the bike for quite some time, and then going from there.”

(Zac Williams/SWpix.com)

She continued: “It's going to be hard. I've been training or practicing sports pretty competitively since I was 10 or 11. So this is a very new experience for me, and it’s very scary. It sounds kind of ridiculous for this to be scary, but it's jumping into the unknown.

“I don’t know what it's going to be like to be out of fitness and to have to come out of that. Will I be stronger than I was before? Once I am able to get in shape again, what kind of rider will I be afterwards? It’s a lot of not knowing, which is something I’m not always great at dealing with.”

A week after the news first trickled out that the Global Cycling Network (better known simply as GCN) has been sold back to its founder and CEO by Warner Bros. Discovery, the sale has finally been publicly acknowledged on GCN’s YouTube channel, where hosts Daniel Lloyd and Simon Richardson described the development – which will see the return of the GCN’s documentaries but also hastened the end of the brand’s website, leading to multiple redundancies – as “exciting”.

Last Wednesday, Warner Bros. Discovery confirmed to us that it had sold the company back to founder Simon Wear and CEO Mia Walter, but that it would retain a minority stake in Play Sports Network to work with “leadership on the long-term development of the business”.

In September, it was reported that Warner Bros. Discovery was looking for a buyer for Play Sports Network, after streaming service GCN+ was shut amid a “changing media industry landscape” – which in fact meant that the parent company was simply wanting to consolidate its live cycling coverage output as part of its Discovery+ service, leaving no place for the dedicated cycling streaming platform.

> GCN sold back to founder by Warner Brothers Discovery, website to close

And yesterday, as part of GCN’s weekly show, Lloyd and Richardson confirmed that GCN and Warners Bros. Discovery have “headed their separate ways”, in “great news” that will mean the brand will continue under its new/old ownership solely as a YouTube-focused operation.

That “regained independence” also means that GCN+’s documentaries – which disappeared into the ether when the app was shut last year – are set to return (both old and unfinished ones) and will be available to view for customers on a YouTube membership basis.

“We know that many of you are still mourning the loss of the GCN+ films and documentaries that we made. In the very near future, they will be coming. The reason why is even more exciting than that,” Richardson said in the video.

“With our regained independence, we are liberated to get back to basics. Get creative, have fun, and explore other avenues,” added Lloyd.

> What's the best way to watch live cycling following the closure of GCN+?

However, the hosts were at pains to point out – despite the optimistic hopes of viewers last week – that live racing coverage will not return to GCN, with the rights retained by Discovery.

Despite Lloyd and Richardson branding the developments “exciting”, they also confirmed that GCN’s website, which launched last year but ceased operations last week in the midst of several job losses, will close permanently.

“The web team did an amazing job, quickly turning it into one of the biggest cycling websites,” Richardson said. “It’s a blow to lose the website, but it’s a bigger blow to lose some incredibly passionate colleagues.”

“To reiterate, what you have always known GCN for, the videos, is not going anywhere," Lloyd concluded.”

He may hate disc brakes and having to keep up with pro cycling’s new very fast generation, but there’s one thing we know Chris Froome is a big fan of, and that’s an all-in-one digital wallet.

And how do we know that odd piece of a trivia about the four-time Tour de France winner?

Because he told us all about it on Strava, of course.

In a post on the ride-sharing platform last night – somewhat at odds with Strava’s usual array of show-off long-distance rides and fear-inducing climbing times – Froome announced his partnership with British tech company Curve, which apparently he has been a long-time investor in, fronting the brand’s latest campaign for its digital wallet and ‘financial wearables’.

“Cyclists, we’re minimalists,” Froome definitely, definitely wrote himself on Strava last night. “We want to keep everything as streamlined and as light as possible, especially when we go out on the bikes

“Having Curve is a no brainer for me. My whole wallet in one card makes life so much easier. I can link it to any wearable device – my phone, watch, or even a ring – it’s a game changer. The best wallet you never have to carry.”

And the response to the Israel-Premier Tech’s foray into digital wallet advertising?

“Drivel. Don’t care about wallets.”

“Utter rubbish Froomey, sad times.”

“This ain’t Instagram, Chris.”

Setting aside the cringe factor, we’ve contacted Strava to see what they think about one of cycling’s most recognisable names using their platform to flog some tech company’s latest invention…

This year’s Tour de France may be starting in the birthplace of the Renaissance and finishing by the warm waters of the French Riviera, taking in some epic gravel roads and mountain passes in-between…

But this – this is proper cycling:

A Yorkshire panorama 😍

God's own country 🤍#NatRoadChamps https://t.co/vBnnpiy9u6 pic.twitter.com/vj4kitXO6Y

— British Cycling (@BritishCycling) June 19, 2024

Beautiful.

In case you were watching Turkey v Georgia and missed it last night…

> Cyclists riding through town centre threatened with £1,000 fines and told they “don’t pay road tax” as “cowboy” wardens accused of “running amok” – but council orders staff to stop fining cyclists