UPDATE: Reviews section refreshed, redesigned, searchable: Go take a look
A little no-spoiler mention that the Giro did some classic Giro-ing again today
Yep, what a stage!
It's Team Time Trial at the Critérium du Dauphiné Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, but I've missed something as every team seems to have one rider sprinting off the front - is that for the final finish time for the stage result, or for GC purposes or have I missed something? It used to be that the time was taken for the 4th rider over the line for the stage result?
Its Paris-Nice format - first rider home counts for the stage, individual times for GC.
first rider home counts for the stage
Wow. So it's actually an ITT, but the whole team sets off at once and can work together for drafting and so on.
I really like this TT format as you really get to see the differences in how each team approaches it.
The GC at the Dauphine looks promising at the moment. Seixas, Del toro and Ayuso are all down on time so they’re going to need to race aggressively to overcome the Visma and Ineos guys who did well today. All 3 have shown that they’re up for a bike race so we could well be in for some entertainment.
Horrible news out of Portugal
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/articles/ceqed1g3j48o
Some sites reporting he collided with a car not affiliated with the race. I mean, WTF?!
I really feel for his teammates, family and friends 😢🥺
19 years old. Absolutely awful.
Absolutely tragic.
RIP Finlay
Grim and tragic.
According to A Bola he was off the back of the peloton and trying to get back on. The accident happened on a slight downhill going into a curve. The car came the other way and he hit it head on.
Vingegaard done for the year, after that crash. He was unlikely to race the Vuelta anyway having won the Giro, but once Tadej said he was going there was no way Jonas would have bothered. He MIGHT have fancied a crack at the world champs, but...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/articles/cy07zn57pq8o
EDIT - just checked and Velogames Spain 2026 is not live yet, I'll have a look for a Vuelta preview later as it starts this weekend (in Monaco, I think)!
According to A Bola he was off the back of the peloton and trying to get back on. The accident happened on a slight downhill going into a curve. The car came the other way and he hit it head on.
Is the Volta a Portugal fully closed roads or is it a rolling closure?
Rolling road closure. Bit more info here:
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/aug/16/finlay-tarling-death-volta-a-portugal-safety-cycling
Is the Volta a Portugal fully closed roads or is it a rolling closure?
The majority of road races outside of the Grand Tours are rolling closure. Anything else is very expensive and usually causes so much disruption that the race becomes untenable.* Sometimes you'll have a full closure through a town then rolling elsewhere.
Police and supplementary trained Moto outriders will operate a caterpillar system at the front of the race, stopping and holding traffic, sometimes initiating a stop then handing over to a static marshal. In theory at least, the stop is only supposed to be lifted once the broom wagon and rear police vehicle has gone past but that can be 15 minutes on a big stage and if there's nothing coming, anyone pulling out of a driveway or unmarshalled side road may never even know there's a race on.
I've had near misses in UK race convoys, I've had to physically put my car in the way of civilian drivers trying to turn / pull out etc on multiple occasions. They almost invariably get very irate because they've not grasped What's going on.
*That sounds harsh in the circumstances and I'll point out that I've known Finn since he and Josh were Youth riders so it's not remotely intended as justification for the tragedy of his death.
I've competed on closed roads, rolling closures and mostly on open roads as that's how triathlons are usually run. Vehicles filtering through happen, usually with no consequences. I've also worked in Aberaeron. There's one factor not in the press reports. When riding around Aberaeron when a car appeared round a bend I went left and the driver went to his left, no problem. On moving to France it took a few years for that reflex to reliably change to go right, especially descending cols where I'd be using all the road if there was nothing coming the other way. If the driver saw Finlay and went right that would have left no gap if Finlay went left.
As with crazy-legs I'm expecting possibly harsh reactions to this post, but I reckon it's worth thinking about. When I get in car whether it's LHD or RHD if the car is in the right country it's obvious which side to drive on because of where I'm sitting, on a bike it's not. When we did TransWales we lost count of the number of times we started on the wrong side of the road on road sections.
So I'm expecting to get slagged of for this post when I'm just pointing out it's a possible contributory factor and if ever you ride in Europe work hard on not forgetting, it could have been me on TransWales.
Full live coverage of both Women's and Men's Tours of Britain, albeit all will be fully streamed and not necessarily broadcast.
In the UK, highlights of the women’s race will be broadcast daily on ITV4 and ITVX, while a dedicated live stream of the stage races will also be available on TNT Sports and Lloyds Tour of BritainYouTube channel.
As for the men’s race, the live coverage of stages 1-4 will be broadcast on ITV4 and ITVX, with stage 5 coverage on ITVX, and a daily highlights package on ITV4 and ITVX. All five stages of the Lloyds Tour of Britain Men will also be broadcast on Lloyds Tour of Britain free to viewYouTube channel.
The BEST news though is that commentary is from Ned Boulting. Order and Sanity may, for a brief, glorious, period, be restored.
The BEST news though is that commentary is from Ned Boulting
This is very good news indeed.
For The Love Of Cycling during the Tours was supoib, so really pleased that there's more Ned.
I too am pleased about some Boulting comms in my life. One of the best to ever do it.
I unfortunately had to unsubscribe from FtLoC pod because of the spoilers in their episode titles. I thought about reconfiguring my podcast app so I wouldn’t see them but given there’s so many good alternative pods out there they got the chop.
spoilers in their episode titles
This seems to be a growing trend thanks to the proliferation of the %^&!ing witless. I complained to the BBC about it some time ago, I was fed up of logging on to the BBC sports website to watch highlights, only to be greeted with the result in the title of the clip. In this case it was Winter Olympics, but the same happens for Rugby and I would assume other sports. Not sure about football, I know they used to say "look away if you don't want to know results" but that may have changed. I've stoped paying attention as I don't care abut football. Anyway...
YOUR COMPLAINT:
Title shows the results
I resent the fact that when I go to iPlayer to watch coverage of an event I’ve not been able to watch live, the highlights clips almost invariably include the name of the winner. Please don’t do this. Just say “thrilling final” or something, so I can watch either the highlights or even the full coverage “as live” and not know the result in advance
and their reply
We're sorry these headings spoiled your viewing and understand this will have been frustrating.
We're trialling our approach to descriptions on our highlights videos from the Winter Olympics, as audience data shows us that a large proportion of viewers engage more with videos which give a clear description of the content (i.e informs the audience of a result or key takeaway).
We understand that for those who wish to watch the action back without knowing the result, this is disappointing, and we're working towards finding a balance between clearly advertising clips and attracting viewers to our content, and an acceptable level of discretion in reporting results for those who wish to watch it back.
We'd like to thank you for sharing your disappointment with us here, which we've discussed with management across BBC Sport, and we're using this feedback to help inform ongoing decisions about our approach.
So, the proliferation of people too stupid / lazy to bother watching / reading have meant a change to "SHOW THE RESULT IN THE TITLE TO DRIVE ENGAGEMENT"
%^&!wits.
https://www.youtube.com/live/GtOP2eZrQNE?is=3oktuAR1ISsgJry-
Link to the live feed of Stage 1 from 10.45am on Wednesday 19th.
Coverage has started, Dani Rowe presenting with Ned ready to commentate.
https://www.procyclingstats.com/race/the-women-s-tour/2026/startlist
Excellent start list. Should be a cracker.
Heading down to Cockermouth with my daughter on bikes to watch the sprint and the finish, looks a cracking stage.
Race is off. Sounds like Dani Rowe and Lizzy Banks will be doing the live commentary on the Youtube feed. Maybe Ned will be presenting the ITV4 coverage
I was hoping ITV4 might have partnered with the race organiser / broadcaster and got Ned to do race commentary. He did the entire Giro (with Jacopo Guarnieri) and was excellent, light years ahead of the TNT team. SBS was close to Ned for the TFD / TDFF, at least
Velogames Spain 20206 is open for entries. I'm putting a team together
https://www.velogames.com/spain/2026/
League Owner: NBT
League Name: STW Grand Tours League 2026
League Code: 613979427
ToB start pics. Great vibe around the town (only a couple of sad ****s complaining about the road closures... 😆 )
Heading back in shortly to watch lap and finish
Race is off. Sounds like Dani Rowe and Lizzy Banks will be doing the live commentary on the Youtube feed. Maybe Ned will be presenting the ITV4 coverage
Enjoying Banks as a commentator so far. She's great on the Cycling Podcast Feminin, particularly when she gets worked up about teams doing bad tactics. I suspect she'll keep a lid on that during comms though.
I've had near misses in UK race convoys, I've had to physically put my car in the way of civilian drivers trying to turn / pull out etc on multiple occasions. They almost invariably get very irate because they've not grasped What's going on.
About 25 years ago we were marshalling a stage of the Tour of Britain. An aged driver deliberately drove at me because I was blocking the way to get to his doctors' surgery. There's sometimes not much you can do if you're confronted by an angry driver, as many of us know, unfortunately. Thankfully in this case the riders and crowds weren't due for a good while so he wasn't going to do any damage and his surgery, being on the course opposite the finish line, also had a good police presence whose opinion mattered much more than mine, a skinny volunteer in a hi-viz vest.
Well that was a good day out. Tough course. A couple of strong attacks which lasted a while. Peloton then split up on the final climb, it all got quite fast moving with groups forming, splitting, re-forming and then there was a reduced bunch sprint.
Won't post any spoilers beyond that.
Great crowds along the course, Cockermouth is buzzing.
Great atmosphere!
https://www.youtube.com/live/KYE5p7zJSkI?is=7H-pJOjzHxtMm_a0
Link for Stage 2, Clitheroe to Blackpool, 11.30am start. The weather up here is miserable. Such a shame that after 6 weeks of perfect weather, it's back to standard UK cold and grey. Hopefully it'll improve enough to fly the helicopter.
Hopefully it'll improve enough to fly the helicopter
Wonder if it's the usual Meccano-copter. That thing looks sketchier than Roglic.
They did pretty well yesterday weather wise but here (just south of Manchester) I woke to the sound of TORRENTIAL rain, and we noted they've changed the flight path for planes approaching Manchester Airport which only happens when the weather is really bad. Hope things go ok on the race and that we don't have any crashes caused by the weather. They did mention several withdrawals after a crash yesterday, and I was wondering how the breakway girl (Annabel?) got on after she got stung. What a terrible time for that to happen!
Start of today's stage delayed until midday.
I was wondering how the breakway girl (Annabel?) got on after she got stung. What a terrible time for that to happen!
Arabella, not Annabel, sorry - Dani just said that she asked for antihistamines but didn't get them, which affected her performance 🙁
Race halted on the climb up Nick o'Pendle, there's apparently been a motor crash further up the course. Lots of riders heading for "nature breaks". Ambulance is apparently on the way up to the accident. Not great timting as the riders would be reasonably warm from the climb, don't want them to get cold hanging around.
Hope the crash is not too serious
Riders are moving again, the Nick o'Pendle QOM and Intermediate sprint have been cancelled, they'll roll into Whalley then resume racing with the gaps they had before the stoppage. That makes it a 66k flat ride to a sprint finish....
https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/tourofbritain/women/stagethree
Mold to Great Orme today, at least the weather has improved. Today has a few stiff little climbs too, should shake things up a bit.
Live feed on the usual BC / ToB YouTube channel and highlights on ITV4 at 8pm.
Bunnyhop don't forget to get your team into Velogames 😉
This one has crept up on us fast, roll on some sunshine cycling:)
NBT here on Bunnyhop's account
Yes, the vuelta has snuck up on us all! Really enjoying the Women's Tour Of Britain though, there;s been some great racing
As for the Vuelta:
roll on some sunshine cycling:)
Yeah, about that. Uno X would like a word
The vuelta roadbook is available if anyone is interested
https://www.lavuelta.es/en/interactive-route-book
There are FIVE flat stages, and four "hilly" stages, which suggests that sprinters might want to have a go - but Cyclist.co.uk suggests otherwise.
Looking at the team roster, Bunnyhop and I were wondering if Visma might be pushing Wout for GC. They've no obvious GC leader, so either they're aiming for Wout (or maybe Sepp, who has after all previously won the Vuelta) or gunning for stages
https://www.cyclist.co.uk/in-depth/cyclist-vuelta-a-espana-2026-predictions
Looking at the team roster, Bunnyhop and I were wondering if Visma might be pushing Wout for GC. They've no obvious GC leader, so either they're aiming for Wout (or maybe Sepp, who has after all previously won the Vuelta) or gunning for stages
They have Matthew Brennan with them - probably one of the best bunch sprinters at the race. They're almost certainly gunning for stages with him & wout, with potential side quests for Kuss, Tullet or Amirail later in the race.
a reminder to get a team into velogames today before the deadline. You can join the league later if need be
Velogames Spain 2026 - the final Velogames Fantasy Cycling Grand Tour of the season - is now open for entries! Select your team of nine riders before the entry deadline of 16:00 CEST on Saturday 22nd August 2026. That is 15:00 in the UK and 10:00 on US East Coast. Good luck!
If you have a VPN there’s full English language coverage of the race on SBS in Australia, I’ll post up if I spot a world feed in YouTube, or there’s plenty of free options in other languages
Spain also has complete free coverage. RTVE will broadcast every stage on Teledeporte and RTVE Play, while finishes will appear on either La 1 or La 2. RTVE Play offers six selectable camera feeds sourced from race motorcycles and helicopters.
An EBU agreement running through 2030 provides whole or partial free-to-air coverage in Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Switzerland. The agreement does not identify every national channel or guarantee that each broadcaster will carry every stage live, so local schedules should be checked before the start.
