Excuse the absent round-up last week – our resident blogger was riding leg 3 of Ride25: Geneva to Milan. (Check back later this week for a write-up of that!)

In the meantime, Tour de France fever has begun to hit fever pitch. The BBC has a great piece about Utrecht’s hosting of the Grand Depart this weekend. Those of us not dwelling under rocks will remember the glorious scenes from this time last year, when Yorkshire played host to stages 1 and 2:

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Utrecht is the sixth Dutch city to host the Grand Depart: “after Amsterdam (1954), Scheveningen (1973), Leiden (1978), Den Bosch (1996) and Rotterdam (2010)”. It is obviously a hugely momentous  occasion in a country where cycling is held in such high regard (where, as someone told the author of the BBC article, “once you can walk, you are on a bike”).

The image below summarises the route for this year’s tour, and comes from a cool infographic put together by Halfords. You can see the full thing here – it has information about the history of the tour, the route, the jerseys, and more.

Drive Ride-through

McDonalds have launched an interesting new type of packaging, designed especially to fit onto bike handlebars. The launch taps into the ever-increasing popularity of cycling and the need for sustainable alternatives to driving, and allows cyclists to use the restaurants’ drive-through windows in participating cities. You can watch the video here.

The decision to introduce this updated packaging was based on the fact that McDonalds’ market research identified cycling as the transport of choice among millennials.

Ditch the luggage and ride!

Another attempt to engage with cyclists and improve a service comes from Pickathon – a festival in Portland, Oregon. The festival has partnered with MailChimp to offer attendees the chance to cycle to the festival from a pre-agreed location, and have all of their luggage carried in a van. The aim is to reduce the traffic and fuel consumption traditionally associated with getting to the festival. Good plan!