Lidl-Trek reveals what was really going on with the Coll de Rates traffic jam
The Coll de Rates traffic jam that flooded social media in December came with plenty of speculation about what Lidl-Trek was doing on the climb. Now the team has addressed the rumours and says the reality was far less dramatic, and far more practical.
Speaking on the In the Middle of the Lidl-Trek podcast, Amy Cameron and Jacob Kennison, two members of the team’s media staff, explained that the day in question revolved around filming a Lidl TV advert on Coll de Rates.
They said the location was chosen by Lidl, largely because the climb is iconic and instantly recognisable. The downside, they added, is that it is also “the busiest climb in the area”, so unexpected traffic was always going to be part of the equation.
To keep the shoot safe, Lidl-Trek said it obtained permission to close the road for parts of the day. Even so, riders still came through. Cameron and Kennison claimed other professional teams had been warned in advance, but that some ignored the heads up and ended up caught in the congestion around the set.
Amateur riders also appeared on the climb, and with so many cameras and phones around, photos and videos of Lidl-Trek’s 2026 jersey made their way online before the official reveal.
Most of the online chatter, though, focused on one detail: riders seen wearing dry robes. On social media, that sparked a theory that Lidl-Trek was trying to hide its new jersey. The team flatly denied it. The robes were not a disguise, they insisted, but a basic measure to keep riders warm during a long, stop start filming day.
They described the schedule as early and drawn out. Riders arrived around 8:30 to 8:40, filming began at 9:00, and the crew continued shooting up and down the climb until roughly 15:00. It was a long stretch of stop start filming, repeated takes, and short runs up the climb in short sleeves. In those conditions, they said, keeping riders warm is non-negotiable.
They also pushed back on a second rumour: that the whole situation was a calculated publicity stunt, designed to stir attention by pretending to hide the jersey. They said any such impression was accidental, not planned, and joked they almost wished they had been clever enough to engineer it, because then they could have made it even bigger.
