{"id":628230,"date":"2025-12-12T11:48:23","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T11:48:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/628230\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T11:48:23","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T11:48:23","slug":"so-you-dont-respect-the-highway-code-10-groupama-fdj-pro-cyclists-fined-e100-for-riding-through-red-light-during-spanish-training-camp-according-to-repo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/628230\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cSo, you don\u2019t respect the Highway Code?\u201d 10 Groupama-FDJ pro cyclists fined \u20ac100 for \u2018riding through red light\u2019 during Spanish training camp, according to reports"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spain\u2019s Costa Blanca has been jampacked with professional cyclists this week, as the biggest teams in the world flock to the nice roads and moderate temperatures of Alicante for their annual pre-Christmas winter training camps. And, when it comes to catching these pros flouting the rules of the roads, the local police are having a field day.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Last week, Decathlon CMA CGM\u2019s Norwegian rider Johannes Staune-Mittet was issued a \u20ac200 fine<\/a> (or \u20ac100 if he paid it quickly) for cycling with a pair of Apple AirPods while training near Calpe.<\/p>\n

And yesterday, ten Groupama-FDJ pros were pulled over by police and handed the same penalty just down the road \u2013 this time for allegedly all riding through a red light.<\/p>\n

In a since-deleted post on Strava, Groupama rider Ewen Costiou published a photo appearing to show a police officer standing at the rear of his vehicle, after seemingly stopping the group of pro cyclists in Ll\u00edber, a small village around 10 miles from Calpe.<\/p>\n

23-year-old Costiou, who joined the top French squad from the now defunct Ark\u00e9a-B&B Hotels outfit this winter, was taking part in a 136km training ride with teammates David Gaudu, R\u00e9mi Cavagna, Tom Donnenwirth, Rudy Molard, and others when they were stopped by the officer.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u20ac100 a head, he really enjoyed himself,\u201d Costiou joked on his Strava post.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, you don\u2019t respect the Highway Code?\u201d his teammate Gaudu replied in the comments. That comment, along with Costiou\u2019s original caption and photo of the scene, have since been removed.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the Groupama-FDJ riders\u2019 accounts of their ride on Strava all feature a reference to a slower than normal passage through Ll\u00edber, the riders taking 35 minutes to navigate a flat, three-mile segment through the village, at an average speed of 5mph, presumably thanks to the officer\u2019s unexpected intervention.<\/p>\n

While Costiou and his teammates did not provide any details as to why they were fined, French Instagram account Cycling.mag has claimed that the riders were stopped for running a red light on Ll\u00edber\u2019s narrow main road, which allows for alternating one-way traffic through the village.<\/p>\n

Groupama-FDJ were contacted by road.cc for comment last night, but are yet to respond.<\/p>\n

>\u00a0Pro cyclist fined \u20ac100 by Spanish police for riding with earphones<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Whatever the reason for their run-in with the local police, this winter could prove a decent revenue raiser for the Spanish authorities, given their apparent propensity to dishing out fines to rule-flouting pro cyclists taking part in training camps.<\/p>\n

As noted above, last Monday, Decathlon\u2019s promising stage racer Johannes Staune-Mittet shared a short clip on Strava of a penalty notice issued to him by the Spanish police<\/a> for riding his bike near Calpe \u201cwhile using headphones or earphones connected to devices that receive or play sound\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"JohannesJohannes Staune-Mittet fined for riding with earphones (credit: Strava)<\/p>\n

Failing to abide by this rule, which applies to both motorists and cyclists, could result in a \u20ac200 fine, according to Spain\u2019s Reglamento General de Circulacion, though by paying early Staune-Mittet was able to avoid this higher penalty, instead coughing up \u20ac100.<\/p>\n

\u201cGuess it is better to buy a pair of those ugly out-of-ear headphones than to get fined for AirPods every day,\u201d the 23-year-old joked in his Strava caption.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spain\u2019s Costa Blanca has been jampacked with professional cyclists this week, as the biggest teams in the world…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":628231,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4104],"tags":[4230,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-628230","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115706443802607793","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/628231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}