Dublin City Council has confirmed that the end date for the trial of chicane barriers on Capel Street and Parliament Street was yesterday.IrishCycle.com reported on Wednesday that councillors said that the obstacle course had made a dogs dinner and a mess of both streets. The traffic cones and other barriers were placed along the streets daily during weekdays after the morning delivery times, with nine (9) sets in the 420-metre section of Capel Street and five (5) sets on the 130-metre-long Parliament Street.Councillors at a meeting on Monday expressed mixed views on the solutions, including more targeted enforcement against electric bikes or mopeds used by delivery riders and others, which are seen as the main source of inappropriate speed. Most of these devices are effectively outright illegal, as they require registration, tax and insurance, but cannot be registered.They are often confused with legal electric bicycles, as both include batteries and pedals. But pedal-assisted bicycles, which are legally treated the same as bicycles, must not have a throttle that allows for continuous movement without pedalling, the assistance from the motor must cut out at 25km/h, and the continuous rated power of the motor must be no more than 250 watts.Some councillors and the campaign group I Bike Dublin pointed out that the barriers were putting people walking and those using bicycles, electric scooters, and illegal motorised bikes into smaller spaces, causing more conflicts. The Dublin Cycling Campaign on Wednesday said: Wed absolutely back what I Bike Dublin say in this IrishCycle.com piece.The article included a statement from I Bike Dublin, which noted that Capel Street was only the second bridge across the River Liffey, after the Samuel Beckett Bridge, to provide cycling facilities in two directions segregated from motor traffic. The group said: We think that the 15 sets of cones and barriers that are creating unnecessary conflict between people walking and cycling on Capel Street and Parliament Street could be put to much better use to create safe, segregated cycling routes on OConnell Bridge.Dublin City Council told this website yesterday that 16/07/2026 was the end date for the trial, and when asked how the results of the trial are being recorded, a spokesperson said: A number of surveys have been undertaken, and this will continue.Asked why Section 38 of the Road Traffic Act was not used for the traffic calming measures, the spokesperson said: No requirement to, there was no change to the use of the road, deliveries were still facilitated as were emergency access, pedestrians and cyclists could still freely use the road no exclusion was being made to any group of users, no statutory signs needed changing.A council spokesperson added: There is no change to the use or purpose of the road, no changes were made to either the designation of the street or the vehicles who could use it therefore there was no legislative changes required.Section 38 of the Road Traffic Act 1994 is the primary legislation governing traffic calming measures in Ireland. It also covers trials of temporary measures using removal materials this was the Councils position, reaffirmed by the Court of Appeal in the Strand Road case, which the Council won on appeal.Section 38 is used by other councils for traffic-calming measures, even where there are no access restrictions for road users. For example, Galway County Council has an ongoing consultation for raised junction tables. Public consultation is not strictly required for traffic calming under Section 38, but, according to guidelines, it is for trials using these regulations.Asked why the measures were not needed at night or at the weekends, the spokesperson said: The measures are aimed at collecting information about how cyclists are using the street and what measures cause a reduction in speed; they are not intended to be permanent measures but are a data collection exercise.There were road traffic control crews with 5-6 or more staff dotted along the streets while the trial was ongoing. Asked about the cost of this, the spokesperson said: There are minimal costs involved as we have traffic management staff who attend these streets twice every day, and this is funded from the traffic maintenance budget.

This Friday afternoon, just after 4pm local time, the Tour de France will pass through a small town named Mlisey. Its a typical French place, home to around 1,600 people, with old stone buildings, a post office and a couple of boulangeries. Therell be bunting and fans decked in polka dots, as there always is. But theres also something special about Mlisey. On a farm within the communes hedgerows, one of Frances most beloved cycling sons wakes up each day at around 6am to tend to his animals. He feeds the sheep, goats and highland cows, and some nights has to head out in the early hours to help with births. His lifestyle today is a far cry from three years ago when the Tour last visited the region. Then, riding in his final edition for Groupama-FDJ, Thibaut Pinot led solo over the Col du Petit Ballon, through a sea of thousands of fans. They waved flares and signs, and roared in the Frenchmans face, carrying him through his farewell Tour on his home training roads. Now retired and working as a farmer, Pinot will be among them at the roadside on stage 13. Thats going to be a very strange and very beautiful feeling, he said.(Image credit: Airbnb/Anna Huix)So what happened to Pinot after that final stage in the Vosges? Hes done few interviews since he left the sport at the end of 2023, preferring instead to retreat from public life into the bubble of his farm. This weekend, however, he has decided to open up his gates; in collaboration with Airbnb, hes letting one family stay with him, free of charge, to experience the Tour passing through his hometown for the first time. It will be, in his words, a loop closing, in a way. Its a way to shine a light on the region and the town where I was born, where I grew up, where I always came back to between races, and where I chose to stay, he said in quotes provided exclusively to Cycling Weekly. I was lucky enough to travel to beautiful places all over the world, but coming back here always had a different flavour, something I never found anywhere else. (Image credit: THOMAS SAMSON/AFP via Getty Images)It was always Pinots plan to retire into anonymity. For years, he had been the darling of French cycling, adored as much for his victories he claimed three stage wins at the Tour, including on Alpe dHuez in 2015 and the Col du Tourmalet in 2019 as his raw emotion, strained pain faces and teary post-race interviews. Over 14 years as a pro cyclist, though, the attention from fans grew overwhelming at times. Now hes enjoying the calm. The animals dont know who you are or what youve won. That feels good, he said.After so many years on the road, being able to go out in the morning and have this space around me, my land, my family, that means a lot to me. Theres also something deeply satisfying about work that produces something real, something concrete. Every day, you can see what youve done. That grounding in something real, I had been missing it. This isnt to say, of course, that his new life is easy. Far from it. Pinot may no longer be training or racing, but with almost 300 animals to care for, he rarely downs tools before nine or 10 at night. It can sometimes be hard to anticipate what your day will look like, he said. You can do everything right, plan for everything, and then bad weather, a sick animal, a problem you didnt see coming, and your whole plan changes. As a professional athlete, you spend years optimising every variable. Farming teaches you to let go.At first, I found that hard to accept. I came into this profession wanting to do things properly, and I was lucky to be surrounded by neighbours and friends here who were extraordinary and supported me at every stage of learning this trade. They didn't treat me like a former cyclist playing at being a farmer; they passed on their knowledge, took me seriously, corrected me when I got things wrong. Without them, it would have been so much harder. Its likely the Tour will pass through Mlisey today with little fanfare. The riders will hurtle into the town, through the stage's only intermediate sprint, and on to the finish in Belfort. It may take five minutes for the whole cavalcade to pass, and calmness to resume. But there, for those five minutes at least, Pinot will be part of the Tour circus again. For both him and fans alike, it will be a loop closing, in a way. Cycling Weekly requested to speak directly with Thibaut Pinot but was told an interview would not be possible. The quotes in this article were provided exclusively by a PR representative for Airbnb.

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Thijs Zonneveld has accused Tour de France organiser ASO of cutting corners on rider safety and helping to create the conditions for the violent stage 12 crash in Chalon-sur-Saone. Fernando Gaviria and Jenno Berckmoes both suffered broken collarbones in the incident and have been forced to leave the...

The Tour de France tackles the Ballon dAlsace today, and will do again tomorrow too. Its the first big mountain climbed by the Tour de France and the first celebration of climbing in the race and possibly the origin of the mythology of the climber as a lone rider ahead of the rest. And recently its been the subject of a mini-polemic.The first two editions of the Tour de France tackled some climbs Massif central but they were not features of the race to the point where theres debate over what the first mountain pass used by the race was, the settled view now is the humdrum Col du Pin Bouchain. In 1905 the Ballon dAlsace was the first major mountain used in the race.Ren Pottier was first to the top and when the race returned the following year he was first again and so the sports first identifiable climber. There is a monument at the top to Pottier which celebrates how he overtook everyone to arrive solo at the top of the climb, perhaps the origin story of mythical climbers. For all the history the Ballon dAlsace has been used sparingly, today is the 22nd time the Tour visits.Literally the balloon of Alsace in French, the spherical association can also be applied to a glass of wine, you can ask for un ballon de rouge as in a glass of red in a bar. Tour chronicler, pun artist and drunkard Antoine Blondin played on this double meaning in his despatch printed on 5 July 1969.Its poetic to imagine the mountain with gentle, globular shape of a wine glass. But not linguistic, the origins of the ballon label here are debated, it could be from the celtic tribes, you can derive it from the Latin pabulum.Le Ballon dAlsace can confuse. Its a ballon, its in the Alsace but the definite article is a trap as there are more ballons nearby. Theres the Ballon de Servance, and within riding distance are the Grand Ballon and the Petit Ballon. The Grand Ballon helpfully lives up to its name as the highest point of the Vosges mountains at 1,424m.Theres been a mini-polemic in the French media earlier this year regarding the Tours visit with stories of 900 trees being felled just so that the race can ride past, eg Le Parisien. Shameful! A scandal! Well it might be if it were true.Forestry workers did cut down many trees near the road in April and May this year, all in time for the race. But its got little to do with the Tour. While the top of the Ballon is exposed grassland, the flanks are covered by forest. Some trees have storm damage, others are prone to being toppled in a future storm, some are weakened from heat stress which in turn is helping a beetle which damages the pine trees. Its common practice, and the law, to cut vegetation within two metres of all roads in France for safety, both so branches dont fall on the road and to keep the roads drier.The decision to start the works in April somehow got linked to the Tour coming, seemingly on a Facebook page. This kicked off a polmique about the race cutting down trees, the gigantisme of Tour devouring nature in its way. Only the local commune approved this regular work back in 2023, long before anyone knew the Tour was coming. But delays and bureaucracy meant it took years for the works to start.Theres a lesson in causation and correlation, about someone being mistaken about something, others wanting to believe it and then it all going viral with wider media running provocative headlines only to deny the story in small print several paragraphs below. If its largely harmless when it comes to trees and the Tour, you wonder about more sensitive issues.These days as well rating a climb for its distance and gradient, organisers now take notes on the leaf canopy. Not so they can rev up their chainsaws but instead because it affords shade to the riders, something increasingly valuable on hot days. Tomorrows final climb of the Col du Haag is a case in point and because its a cycle path and not a highway the trees can grow right by the road.The post Postcard from the Ballon dAlsace first appeared on The Inner Ring.