What if cyclists paid 'road tax'?; “Get on the rubbish cycle path!”; LNER upgrades bike storage, but is it good enough?; Tour of Britain host regions announced; Cav misses out; Don't try this at home, bike maintenance edition + more on the live blog

The leaders' jersey at this year's Tour de la Provence is to honour of Bernard Tapie, The Boss, who passed away in October
His initials at the base, and an homage to the.#classic 'La Vie Claire' design#TDLP2022 pic.twitter.com/6TMUinyADP

— Ashley House (@AshleyPresents) February 10, 2022

After winning today’s prologue of the Tour de la Provence in dominant fashion, Filippo Ganna will wear this slick looking leader’s jersey, designed to honour the memory of businessman and former cycling team owner Bernard Tapie, who died in October last year after a long battle with cancer.

Tapie, a businessman famed for rescuing bankrupt companies, made his first foray into the sport as the mercurial and controversial owner of La Vie Claire, the all-conquering squad led by Tour de France winners Bernard Hinault and Greg LeMond.

Since 2019 the Tour de la Provence adopted a Piet Mondrian-inspired jersey as an homage to La Vie Claire and Tapie, one of the race’s co-organisers.

Tapie has been credited with bringing a sense of drama and flamboyance – along with astronomical wages – to cycling in the 1980s. At the 1984 Tour he famously attempted to persuade LeMond to join his new team by arranging a clandestine, Bond villain-esque meeting with the American at night, and subsequently declared his new signing cycling’s first ‘million dollar man’.

Tapie wasn’t just an enigmatic figure in cycling circles, of course. A former colleague of mine, a Glasgow Rangers fan, still hasn’t forgiven him for 1993 and all that…

In any case, this design has reminded me to restart my petition to bring back the white Paris-Nice leader’s jersey. Come on, ASO, sort it out…

When a potential road.cc user applies for an account, we ask them what they ride. Looks like a future comedian from Y7 happened across us during an IT class! 

Fancy some more ammunition for when your cousin at Christmas or some faceless online troll next grumbles on about cyclists not paying the mythical beast that is ‘road tax’?

Well, look no further, as numbers nerd Matthew has gotten in touch, after he applied his spreadsheet skills to calculate how much ‘road tax’ cyclists would pay if the government decides to introduce a road user charging system in place of vehicle excise duty, as recommended by MPs on the Transport Committee this week. 

If road pricing is introduced, which would charge motorists nationwide for using the roads, it will of course only add more weight to the oft-repeated cry of “cyclists should pay road tax” (despite cyclists being more likely than average to also own a car).

Basing his figures on curb weight and miles driven or ridden, Matthew worked out if a typical cyclist paid £10 a year under a new road pricing system, the average motorist would have to pay £5,250.

Using the same comparison, if a driver paid £180 a year, a cyclist would only have to 34p in ‘road tax’.

“Thought you might like to use this the next time someone says, ‘pay your road tax’”, Matthew told road.cc. Indeed…

How your bike looks after every summer road ride in Scotland. #cycling https://t.co/gsuBgEPyJA

— Ｓａｍ Ｓｈａｗ (@velosam) February 10, 2022

As someone who spent a year riding his bike around the East Neuk of Fife, I can assure you he’s not wrong... (I'm joking! I'm joking!)

Introducing the 2022 Tour of Britain 🇬🇧 host regions.

🔹 Return to North Yorkshire on stage four
🔹 First-ever Gloucestershire and Dorset stages
🔹 Stage starts in Aberdeen, Redcar and Ryde
🔹 Stage finish in Sunderland
🔹 Nottinghamshire hosts stage five#TourOfBritain 🔴🔵⚪

— Tour of Britain 🇬🇧 (@TourofBritain) February 10, 2022

Bear with me here, but the Tour of Britain organisers must feel like rock stars sometimes.

And no, I’m not talking about the swathes of adoring fans on the roadside, nor am I referring to drugs (though the race in its current form has been running since the mid-2000s, so I’m sure there were some knocking about back then…).

No, I’m talking about how when every rock band announces a tour, no matter how big it is, there’s always some wise guy popping up in the comments to ask, “why aren’t you playing my town?”

It seems the ToB now has the same problem.

This morning, the organisers announced the host regions for the 2022 race. Starting in Aberdeen on Sunday 4 September, the race will travel through Scotland, before taking in the north-east of England, North Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, first ever full stages in Gloucestershire and Dorset, and finishing a week later on the Isle of Wight.

A few fans, however, weren’t happy with the route and took to Twitter to express their disappointment. “Play Cardiff!!!,” I hear them cry.

The organisers, who seem to be acutely aware of the neediness of some British cycling fans, promptly slapped down these complaints with a pre-prepared FAQs page and some excellent, withering responses:

We’d suggest you read this guide explaining how the route is put
together. https://t.co/jfRoLTs9WN

— Tour of Britain 🇬🇧 (@TourofBritain) February 10, 2022

We’d suggest that you read this, Tim. We always get accusations of ignoring areas: given that our HQ is in the south east and our the majority of our staff live locally and regularly ride in the area shows that if we *could* host a stage there we *would*.https://t.co/jfRoLTs9WN

— Tour of Britain 🇬🇧 (@TourofBritain) February 10, 2022

Could that be a premature sigh, too? We’d suggest reading this. https://t.co/jfRoLTs9WN

— Tour of Britain 🇬🇧 (@TourofBritain) February 10, 2022

The race’s FAQs page, which outlines the financial and logistical factors that shape the Tour of Britain’s route, reads: “Hopefully, for many, many people, today’s announcement has whet the appetite for what promises to be eight unforgettable days of racing in September.

“We appreciate that our annual route reveal is an emotive day for cycling fans in the UK. Believe us when we say that we’re sorry for not visiting your hometown or the climb you’ve been riding up for years. However, this has nothing to do with us ignoring places: sadly it’s not possible to visit every part of Britain in just eight days.

“Putting together each year’s route is a logistically and strategically challenging task.

"Unfortunately we cannot cover every part of Britain during an eight-day bike race. It’s impossible and unfortunately the nature of the beast when it comes to organising events. Take this year’s Tour de France route, for example: look how much of the country that doesn’t cover in 21 days of racing!

“Under the rules set by the UCI, the sport’s governing body, we cannot have any stage above 240 kilometres in length. Also, the maximum average daily distance permitted is 180 kilometres, so from starting out in Aberdeen city cente, we’d have to take the most direct route to get riders to the Isle of Wight within the rules. Even then, that would be a push!”

Nevertheless, cycling journalist and author Ed Pickering did make one suggestion that I’m sure the organisers will happily take on board:

Once again, the Falkland Islands have been snubbed. https://t.co/SuPQxUp8Mm

— Edward Pickering (@EdwardPickering) February 10, 2022

A recent survey carried out by cycling retailer Sigma Sports has found – rather unsurprisingly – that Cambridge is the most bike-friendly area in England (details weren’t available for Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland – typical). 

According to the figures, 51.2% of adults cycle at least once a month and 44.8% once a week in Cambridge, a number no doubt helped by all the students rushing about to their classes.

As if to illustrate that point, Oxford came in second with 43% of the city’s adults riding their bikes once a month.

Six of the top ten, however, belonged to London, with Hackney beating Lambeth to the final podium place behind the Oxbridge duo.

Here’s the top ten, including the breakdown of the numbers:

As the cycling capitals of England, it will again come as no surprise to readers that Cambridge and Oxford also sit on top of the pile of areas with the most bike thefts. They’re just used to striving for excellence, I suppose. 

We saw some particularly unconvincing examples of cycling infrastructure on the blog yesterday – one was a national cycling route that effectively turned out to be a bog, and another was a simple lick of paint flagrantly ignored by a certain Brad Wiggins. Who does he think he is, a Tour de France winner?

Well here’s another lamentable piece of UK cycling infra to shake your head at today (with a bonus near miss thrown in too). Yesterday, road.cc reader Phil told us about a recent encounter with a bus driver who, after giving Phil a scare with a close pass, told him to “get on the bloody cycle path”.

Eh… does he mean that bit of dirt by the hedge? I think I’ll take my chances on the road, mate.

“I recently had a run-in with a Stagecoach bus driver, who close passed me through a pinch point where there is a pedestrian crossing island in the centre at Red Scar, Preston,” Phil told us.

“He almost brushed my arm, he was that close. I caught up with him at the next bus stop. Before I could say anything he opened his window and told me to ‘get on the bloody cycle path’.

“Here is the cycle path. Great, isn’t it?”