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news
Chris Hoy in the post-Olympic parade in Glasgow (CC licensed image by William Newman:Flickr)Chris Hoy hits out at “stupid” cyclists
Multiple Olympic gold medal winner Chris Hoy has emerged as one of Britain’s most vocal advocates for cycling. But he believes that some cyclists are doing the cause no good by their behaviour on the roads.
“When I’m out on a bike and I see someone doing something stupid I will absolutely have a word with them at the next set of lights,” he told the Telegraph’s Theo Merz in an interview.
Hoy gave a recent example, of a rider he’d chastised while in his home town of Edinburgh a couple of weeks ago.
He said: “There was a guy who was riding like an idiot, jumping lights, cutting up the pavement, and I just said: ‘You’re not helping matters here. If you want respect you have to earn it.’”
The response was stunned silence, perhaps at being told off by Scotland’s most famous cyclist, perhaps in amazement that someone had nothing better to do than police the behaviour of other cyclists.
Since retiring in 2013, Hoy has been developing his own bike brand with Evans Cycles, promoting family cycling, confusing football fans on Twitter who think he's a referee, and recently announced plans to get into car racing.
But he says cycling still matters to him and that’s why he gets annoyed with behaviour that, as he sees it, affects the perception of cyclists. He still wants to see more people on bikes.
“There are so many benefits to cycling,” he said. “It eases congestion, there are social benefits if you do it with someone else and of course there are the health benefits. It improves your cardiovascular system and you lose body fat.
“It’s particularly good if you haven’t exercised for a number of years. If you’re trying to run for the first time it puts strain on your joints, or people can have injuries that prevent them from doing that. But cycling is low impact, it’s easy for anyone at any level and it doesn’t have to be expensive.”
Hoy says he still gets out on the bike too.
“I still go cycling at least four times a week though,” he said. “Sometimes it’s to test models for my range and sometimes it’s purely for my own well-being. If I’m preaching about the benefits of exercise I can’t let myself go – and I wouldn’t want to.”
And of course, if he doesn’t ride, he doesn’t get to tell off those naughty red-light-jumpers.
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
Latest Comments
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Cycling infrastructure does not force drivers to break the law, drivers are the reason they break the law, no one else.
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134 comments
I agree with this. In truth I think his point was if you behave badly on your bike, you can't expect to be treated with respect. This doesn't mean some of dangerous shit idiots do on the road mind.
I second that.
I do not want anyone thinking that the cycling majority agrees with the childish comments of one bellend.
Cyclists that do not follow the rules only give motorists an excuse to demonstrate bad behaviour on the road, which in turn costs cyclists their lives. If one cyclist shows disregard, motorists put us all in the same category.
The only way that cyclists will win the right to be on the road is if we all follow the rules.
Nothing gives motorists an excuse to behave in a manner that endangers the lives of others. fucking listen to yourself.
What a fuckwit - descended to the same level of bullshit you expect from dickheads like Jeremy Clarkson.
I am not responsible for the actions of other cyclists any more than I am responsible for the actions of other drivers when I am in my car. As a driver no-one berates me for the speeding, redlight running, dangerous overtakes etc of other drivers. I don't need to answer for the infractions of some - only a few - cyclists either.
I'm amazed he didn't suggest we should be paying "road tax".
Perhaps the phrase "respect is easily lost" might be more appropriate than "respect has to be earned".
Surely what he meant was along the lines of (delivered in a Begbie style):
If the cyclists who ride like inconsiderate cunts stopped riding like inconsiderate cunts, then the drivers and pedestrians who witness this.....would hopefully see a reduction in cunty cycling, and thus would be less likely to dismiss all cyclists as inconsiderate cunts when actually most of them are ok, and just using their bikes for fairly harmless fun and transport.
I guess the Telegraph may have issues with the swearing. ...
Yes, you are. For the following reason.
Rider A rides like a git, driver B sees rider A and assumes all riders are gits. Driver B sees you and carves you up, or maybe even sides swipes you because, you know, all riders are gits, right?
Riders who act as if the laws of the road don't apply to them do a lot more harm for the perception of cyclists in general than they realize. If you don't see that then you're a fool, mate.
Yes, you are. For the following reason.
Rider A rides like a git, driver B sees rider A and assumes all riders are gits. Driver B sees you and carves you up, or maybe even sides swipes you because, you know, all riders are gits, right?
Riders who act as if the laws of the road don't apply to them do a lot more harm for the perception of cyclists in general than they realize. If you don't see that then you're a fool, mate.
I'd go with that and to be honest, probably what he really meant.
Cyclists have the right to be on the road - we don't need to 'win' such a right.
Exactly right Gordy, when I see shit riding on the same stretch of road as myself it pisses me off because immediately some motorists will show me less respect and leave less space.
Cyclists are a minority on the road, so it's easy to become tarred with the same brush, as minorities also suffer in many situations.
Doesn't make it right, but let's face it, don't many on here generalise with drivers of taxi's and rigid body HGV's to the point that if you drive one you must be a potential murderer?
the problem there is the driver who sideswiped a cyclist. are you fucking dense.
'Course, Sir Chris knows fuck all about proper cycling - there ain't no cars on them velodromes are there?
Very succinctly put Mike. +1
Hoy stick to racing cars please!!
Chapeau Chris.
Folks, if you don't believe in this then how about doing it to be a decent human being.
Civilisation is built on individuals doing their best to get along with one another.
.
I was in the pub last night - saw some bloke I didn't know who had just exceeded 5 units of alcohol, so I thought I'd intervene. I went up to him and said "careful mate - you're endangering yourself and even worse, you'll give us drinkers a bad name"
Then everyone put down their pints and gave me a round of applause
No one is suggesting that. The same rules of the road apply to everyone.
No. Nothing gives another road user an "excuse" to demonstrate bad behaviour or put someone else at risk. It's as simple as that.
So the problem is with the lazy-minded motorists (not all motorists) that generalise in this way, not with "cyclists" collectively.
I'm a bit disappointed with this story, but I accept that Hoy has been spun by the Telegraph, as most of what he said was positive about cycling, and nothing to do with the headline. However, we need to challenge at every opportunity the suggestion that cyclists have some sort of collective responsibility for the death and injury that is caused by bad drivers and that cyclists collectively need to "put their house in order". That's just an excuse to maintain the status quo on the roads.
You are bang on but sadly ppl do generalise. Some cyclists do the same
This is all very tiresome. I think that the majority of people will acknowledge that when drivers see poor cycling, RLJ'ing etc it causes them to get annoyed and attribute that kind of thing to 'all' cyclists. As borne out by all the comments people get about RLJ etc. My sisters, girlfriend etc have lal made those comments to me at times. As for earning respect, it is clear that he wasn't expecting a byunch of keyboard warriors to take apart every word of his interview like has been, yes he could and should have phrased it better. But i think its pretty clear what he meant, i.e. don't ride like a dick because it makes people assume all cyclysts are dicks. Which is actually a position i agree with. That he was lazy and used a cliched comment probably very familar to most of use was unfortunate, but afterall, he is an athlete and they are rather well known for speaking in cliches.
This thread has been remarkably informative and useful to me; from reading many of the comments on here recently I've had a growing feeling over the past few weeks - this article and many of the comments left have provided confirmation of this feeling and what I will do from here on, and to use a rather inelegant Americanism, I'll let you do the math.
I will say this though - I'm not entirely sure it is appropriate for the writer of the report here to give his own opinion in the comments section, especially using the language he chose to use, but hey, it's his website. Whether he thinks it's a welcoming and inclusive one that encourages visitors to remain or not is a decision he can make.
Wont work if they don't stop for the next set either!
If the individual you spoke to had been leering at other people, spilling his drink over them and followed up by being sick over the bar, you probably would have got a round of applause for pulling him up for his twattish behaviour. And you'd have had plenty of help to throw him out of the pub!
Twattish behaviour in any context needs pulling up, especially where it inconveniences or endangers other people (or even the twat himself). Well done Chris.
Very disappointing comment from someone with such a high profile.
The fallacy of this attitude is very eloquently described in blog referenced above.
There was also an Australian video posted here a while back that noticed the psychological tendency to attribute behaviour within groups that you are part of to individuals, whereas for a group that you're not part they are attributed to the group as a whole.
In other words, for your average citizen who is a regular driver but not a regular cyclist, bad driving gets attributed to individuals, whereas bad cycling gets attributed to all cyclists.
The only fix is to get more people on bikes
Actually, having that blog post engraved onto every steering wheel in the country might go some way to solving it, but that's fantasy.
So:
If Sir Chris as a motorist sees someone driving a car in excess of the speed limit (which is not very difficult), will he drive up to them, stop them, and explain that thinks they are giving drivers a bad name?
And if not, why not? Bearing in mind that this type of law breaking endangers other road users at least as much as a cycling red light jumper, he should.
'If you want respect, you have to earn it' - Yes, that means you.
An Exercise in Logic:
I see a lot of motorists breaking the law. Sir Chris Hoy is a motorist. therefore he has lost my respect, and I am entitled to kill or hurt any motorists (including him) I happen to feel like.
Why is that nobody says that they have to control the behaviour of other pedestrians otherwise they and all the rest of us will deserve to be run over when we cross the road?
“When I’m out on a bike and I see someone doing something stupid I will absolutely have a word with them at the next set of lights,”
He must be a busy man then, talking to all those drivers using mobile phones, exceeding the speed limit, driving and parking on the pavement, overtaking dangerously, obstructing dropped kerbs etc, etc etc. Not to mention the jay-walking pedestrians.
Surely it can't be worth riding a bike?
To pick on the cyclists, even the awful ones, as being somehow uniquely in need of correction is unfortunate and untrue, and it doesn't matter how well cyclists behave, it won't make drivers respect us.
Perhaps instead of the respect line, perhaps we should start promoting the line of treating others how you expect to be treated and see how far we get.
The whole not respecting others because they don't respect me, or the earn/ give respect arguments only appear to a downward and negative spiral. And a spiral that has to be broken.
I mentioned that respect should be earned as short time ago, the first reply started with the word "Bollocks", I haven't got a clue what that posters point was, I couldn't be arsed reading the rest of the post. Strange that, innit?
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