“At least they put their indicators on”: Motorist pulls out right in front of bunch during pro race; “Hero” cyclist blocks queue-cutting drivers using ‘protected’ cycle lane; Unclipped De Lie wins stunning sprint with with one leg + more on the live blog

Back in February last year, New York’s Department of Transportation began installing four-tonne protective ‘Jersey’ barriers on the city’s cycle lanes, after a spate of cyclist deaths and injuries in the Hell’s Kitchen neighbourhood.

“New York City’s cyclists deserve to be safe everywhere, but especially in protected lanes — where drivers will too often disrespect and block that critical space,” transport commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez said at the time.

“We have an actionable, concrete plan to protect cyclists and we are going to deliver on this work to keep our lanes clear. We thank our friends in the advocacy community for helping us identify top targets – and we know that these 20 miles of barriers will make a real difference.”

However, despite Rodriguez’s admirable stance, the plan to protect New York’s cyclists doesn’t appear to have made much of a difference so far, with one social media user posting footage of “your typical Friday content” – in other words, motorists using the partially segregated bike lane on 11th Avenue to skip the queue of traffic ahead of them:

Your typical Friday content of cars trying to skip the line using the 11th Ave bike lane. @ebottcher pic.twitter.com/IVUw85Aoue

— Jehiah (@jehiah) September 29, 2023

However, two of the queue-jumping, bike lane-driving motorists – one of them with a bike strapped to the back of their car – weren’t prepared for one cyclist to take matters into their own hands, blocking their cheeky route along the cycle lane and forcing them back into that pesky traffic jam…

Hats off to this cyclist. My hero for the day. pic.twitter.com/DKdwqhEOxo

— Jehiah (@jehiah) September 29, 2023

And she stopped another. pic.twitter.com/0f5zqejJnw

— Jehiah (@jehiah) September 29, 2023

Not all heroes wear capes. Some ride bicycles… Quick, put that on a mug in time for Christmas!

Anyone paying attention to bike racing over the last two years will be well aware by now that Arnaud De Lie is something special.

The 21-year-old Belgian has been gobbling up the wins – taking 19 in total – since turning pro with Lotto Dstny at the start of 2022, and earlier this month showcased his ability at the very highest level, outsprinting Corbin Strong and Michael Matthews at the GP Québec to seal his first WorldTour victory.

While the Walloon Bull’s capabilities, and the devastatingly convincing ways in which he can win, have been well known for quite some time now, I think it’s fair to say that most of the cycling world was still stunned by the manner in which De Lie secured his tenth victory of the season at yesterday’s Famenne Ardenne Classic.

What a finish!@Arnaud_De_Lie held on to win the Lotto Famenne Ardenne Classic despite unclipping before the line!

Watch the race replay over on GCN+ 👉 https://t.co/8FSJcLL3Gx pic.twitter.com/lURUrRcrro

— GCN Racing (@GcnRacing) October 1, 2023

Sprinting from a reduced group at the Belgian one-day race, De Lie – as predicted – simply powered away from his rivals in the final few hundred metres, appearing on course for his second victory in four days after winning the Circuit Franco-Belge on Thursday.

However, with just fifty metres to go, disaster struck. De Lie’s right foot clipped out of his pedal, forcing the 21-year-old – who briefly looked around to check on the gap he had opened up to the rest – to carry on sprinting with just his left leg, his right leg now used purely as part of a high-speed balancing act.

And if all that wasn’t enough, De Lie managed – somewhat miraculously – to hold off his fully clipped-in pursuers, finishing the whole thing off with a flourish, throwing his bike to the line, right leg almost kicking the barriers in the process.

Oh, and those sprinters he managed to hold off while sprinting with just one leg in the final 50 metres? Just Kaden Groves, winner of three stages at last month’s Vuelta, Florian Sénéchal, and freshly crowned European champion Christophe Laporte.

And the aerial shot makes the whole chaotic sprint (and De Lie’s calmness under pressure) appear even more impressive:

De Lie wins on one leg pic.twitter.com/OmElSGyC2n

— the Inner Ring (@inrng) October 1, 2023

“I f***ing love this,” De Lie’s Lotto Dstny teammate Mieke Docx, a crowd pleaser in her own right, tweeted after the Belgian’s stunning win.

“Iconic,” added AWOL O’Shea’s Charlotte Broughton, and she’s not wrong.

It’s also fitting that on the day Peter Sagan – another rider known for winning while suffering a pedal mishap mid-sprint – bowed out of the pro peloton at the Tour de Vendée, a young prodigious all-rounder made his greatest claim yet to the Slovak’s crown as the king of cycling’s entertainers.

Oh, and he’s also been known to pull the odd mid-race wheelie too…

When bad luck rules you out of @GentWevelgem, just make the best out of it, @Arnaud_De_Lie must have thought 😜

Credit: Erwan Bolle pic.twitter.com/bxxNSVFUYO

— Lotto Dstny (@lotto_dstny) March 26, 2023

The King is retired, long sprint the King…

Wout van Aert’s week in Italy got off to the perfect start this afternoon, as the Belgian made light work of a small group sprint in Legnano to win the Coppa Bernocchi, his fifth road victory of what has been a season of near misses.

After being teed up perfectly by Tiesj Benoot, Van Aert launched his sprint early and had more than enough in the tank to hold off the fast-finishing Vincenzo Albanese and Andrea Bagioli.

“It’s a nice feeling, especially after a season where I missed out on quite some occasions on the win. It feels nice to raise the hands again and especially with the team performance we did today,” the 29-year-old said at the finish.

“I want to dedicate this victory to the people who keep on believing in me: my family, my trainer Mark, and of course, my team. Today all seven guys on the start line were committed to controlling the race and this we did until the very end, so it feels very good to finish it off.”

Wout van Aert venceu a Coppa Bernocchi em Legnano no sprint com Vincenzo Albanese e Andrea Bagioli no pódio.pic.twitter.com/M3F0b26hG3

— Pelote Ciclismo (@Pelote_) October 2, 2023

Van Aert will be hoping his late-season form, first demonstrated at last month’s Tour of Britain, will continue for the rest of his week in Italy, where he will race the Tre Valli Varesine and Gran Piemonte before riding the UCI gravel world championships for the first time at the weekend.

While Van Aert cemented his return to winning ways, most cycling fans will have viewed the composition of today’s decisive break with some trepidation, as three riders each (each!) from Jumbo-Visma and Soudal Quick-Step – the two squads at the heart of the autumn’s ongoing merger saga – made it into the final nine-rider group that contested the finish.

Let’s just hope the Coppa Bernocchi isn’t a sign of bike racing to come…

On the same weekend Peter Sagan retired from road racing, 25-year-old British pro Charlie Quarterman announced that he will bow out of the sport following the upcoming Italian autumn classics.

The Corratec-Selle Italia rider, who spent his first two years as a pro at Trek-Segafredo, was an almost permanent fixture in the breakaways at this year’s Giro d’Italia, and finished 13th on the final stage in Rome.

However, the man from Oxford, who after failing to finish today’s Coppa Bernocchi (won by Wout van Aert) will ride tomorrow’s Tre Valli Varesine and Thursday’s Gran Piemonte before hanging up his wheels, said that the physical and mental demands and risks of pro cycling, along with the almost constant uncertainty over contracts, has prompted his decision to retire at the age of 25 and pursue an economics degree.

I’ve decided to retire from professional cycling and Coppa bernocchi, Tre Valli varesine, and Gran Piemonte will be my final 3 races.

I’ve enjoyed 7 years as a professional cyclist, raced many big international races, competed with many of the top riders, and have loved the pic.twitter.com/BsvfQLZbym

— Charlie QUARTERMAN (@quartermanc) October 1, 2023

“I’ve decided to retire from professional cycling and Coppa Bernocchi, Tre Valli Varesine, and Gran Piemonte will be my final three races,” Quarterman wrote in an Instagram post.

“I’ve enjoyed seven years as a professional cyclist, raced many big international races, competed with many of the top riders, and have loved the high points along the way.

“In this last year, I took huge satisfaction from competing in, animating, and completing the Giro d’Italia with Corratec.

“However it becomes harder to maintain the complete lifestyle commitment when the physical risks, contract uncertainties, and tough demands inherent in professional racing take their toll. In the end, it was once again a serious trip to the hospital that made me put things into perspective. These are the ‘push factors’.

“However I’ve become increasingly excited about getting on with the ‘afterlife’. I plan on completing my economics degree at University of Grenoble, and pushing on with my career outside of cycling. And of course I will be getting married to Louise in the autumn of 2024.

“I’m incredibly lucky to have had a career like this in cycling and to go out on my own terms. It has been a rollercoaster, but there have been countless great comebacks and unforgettable moments. I would just like to say an enormous ‘thank you’ to everyone who made my seven years as a full-time cyclist as fantastic as they have been. It means a huge amount to me. See you on the road.”

A quick update from Dave, and another round of apologies, on the niggling issues affecting the site in recent weeks. Hopefully we can see the light at the end of the tunnel…

You might have noticed that the website has been running a little on the slow side recently, and navigating between pages, especially when logged in with a road.cc account, has been particularly difficult. We’ve definitely noticed too, as it’s made working on the website pretty tricky and frustrating these last two weeks.

We’ve been experiencing a number of issues with the server over that time and the exact cause of them has been hard to pin down. The ChatGPT bot (and some others) hoovering up a fair bit of the server’s bandwidth certainly wasn’t helping, and we’ve blocked those, but the root cause of the slowness looks to be down at the database/application level and we’re still hunting for the fix. We haven’t released anything new to the site in the past few weeks, so the reason why the site has suddenly slowed is unclear.

What can you do?

The site currently works better if you’re logged out, because a lot of the time you’ll be seeing cached pages that aren’t directly from the affected server. Obviously you can’t comment if you’re not logged in, but you’ll probably find the site easier to navigate. Other than that, it’s mostly going to be a case of being patient with us. We're really sorry for the continued disruption and are confident the site will be back up to speed soon.

> road.cc website issues — an apology and some updates 

After Rishi Sunak unveiled his ‘Plan for Motorists’ last week, unleashing a maelstrom of, ahem, interesting feedback, it was the turn of Transport Secretary Mark Harper this morning to officially unveil the government’s plans ahead of the upcoming election, featuring a questionable and quite often fact-free take on “blanket” 20mph zones, ULEZ, and of Labour’s plans to “stop you getting from A to B how you choose” (despite, of course, that most of the active travel initiatives of the past decade are very firmly Tory-led policies. Not that they’ll mention that, of course).

Kicking his speech off with an obligatory reference to the Uxbridge by-election (the “inspiration” for all these pro-car policies, apparently), Harper then told the half-empty conference room that “for most people, the most important mode of transport remains the car, the van, the lorry, the motorbike”.

He continued: “But from listening to certain corners of the metropolitan bubble, you would think that owning a car was immoral, a dirty habit, an optional extra in people’s lives. Politicians like Sir Keir Starmer, Sadiq Khan, and Mark Drakeford are only interested in the short term, taking the easy way out, and making decisions that hammer motorists to seek praise from the social media and London newspapers.”

I see they’re not handing out irony pills at the Tory conference, anyway…

“It’s the Conservative party,” he continued, “which is proudly pro-car.”

A light smattering of applause, more danger on the roads, the environment in tatters – job’s a good ‘un, eh Mark?

Meanwhile, just before Harper’s speech, we reported this morning that active travel commissioner Chris Boardman has urged Rishi Sunak to “just stick with” policies promoting cycling and walking.

The former Olympic champion also noted that the language used by Sunak as part of his plans – including calling schemes such as low-traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs) and 20mph zones “hare-brained” and saying that he was committed to “slamming the brakes on the war on motorists” – was “not the language I would choose” and called on the government to also announce “sensational active travel policy”.

Read more: > Chris Boardman urges Rishi Sunak to stick with "fantastic" pro-cycling plans, admits concerns with language of "war on motorists" policies

Missed the weekend’s cycling news because you were too busy out on your bike enjoying the early autumn sunshine?

Well, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered…

> “Our advice is not to use the Hub”: Bike theft “hotspot” at train station forces cycling campaign to warn people against using £400,000 cycle racks

> Cycling track where Tom Pidcock won National Cyclocross title “in ruins” with cracking surface and “brambles shooting out of everywhere”

> Near Miss of the Day 878: Abusive driver who close passed driver three times in two minutes learns "an expensive lesson" with a £793 fine and five penalty points

> Will these cold weather Adidas cycling shoes be your new winter commuting kicks? Plus more tech news from Bianchi, Genesis, Whoop, Pearson + more

> Scottish cycling commissioner pens scathing letter condemning the “frustrating and disappointing” lack of collaboration drowning active travel plans in “bureaucracy”

> Cyclists fear being ousted out of decision making after council abolishes active travel forum without telling them for months

> Christina Mackenzie says she has "no hope" that hit-and-run driver who left her motionless will ever be found