Support road.cc

Like this site? Help us to make it better.

news

BBC's Kate Silverton turns down chauffeur-driven car - she'd rather go by bike

News anchor one of growing number of occupants of BBC Breakfast sofa turning to pedal power

BBC Breakfast presenter Kate Silverton last week turned down the offer of a chauffeur-driven car to take her to a book launch – because she preferred to get there under her own steam using pedal power.

Speaking to The Mirror’s Dean Piper as she packed her rucksack to ride home from the launch of Katie Nicholl’s book William and Harry, Silverton explained: "I've cycled for miles today and do a load of cycling each week. I got a call this evening saying do you want a car to the event? But I turned it down. I'm fine on my bike."

Silverton first revealed herself to be a keen cyclist when she was interviewed for a ‘My Perfect Weekend’ feature published last August in the Daily Telegraph, in which she said that on Sundays, she and her fiancé “often cycle to Richmond Park and meet up with a group of friends for a picnic."

She continued: "I'm a huge cycling enthusiast and ideally I'd like to own three bikes. I have this fantasy about having an old Pashley – the sit up and beg type – and peddling [sic] to my home in the country with my whippet in the basket.”

Whether it’s down to the fact that they have to get up at an ungodly hour to get to the studio, or the need to get out and exercise after spending the working day sitting on a sofa, the BBC Breakfast show does seem to attract more than its fair share of cyclists.

Former presenter Dermot Murnaghan, now with Sky, is a self-confessed cycling nut, and last year, regularly commuting by bicycle more than 30 miles a day from his home in North London to the Sky TV studios, and last year “did a Tebbit” by getting on his bike to ride around the West Country to report on the effects of the recession. He also took part in former England rugby captain Lawrence Dallaglio’s Cycle Slam earlier this year.

Meanwhile, in 2007, BBC Breakfast's sports reporter Chris Hollins and weather presenter Carol Kirkwood undertook a tandem ride from Edinburgh to Glasgow to raise money for Children in Need.

And Mike Bushell, who in the weekend sports slot gets to try out a new sport each week, has tried his hand at cyclocross, roller racing courtesy of Rollapaluza, and last year even tackled Mont Ventoux, as shown in the linked video.

 

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

Add new comment

11 comments

Avatar
Simon_MacMichael | 13 years ago
0 likes

If it's helmet hair you want, have a look at Vino in picture # 12 in this cracking set of shots from the Giro (warning: also includes bloke in Borat mankini):

http://www.boston.com/sports/blogs/bigshots/2010/06/giro_ditalia_2010.html

Avatar
wild man | 13 years ago
0 likes

She looks remarkably well groomed, and lacking in helmet hair, for a bike commuter.

Avatar
handlebarcam | 13 years ago
0 likes

Lazy, cookie-cutter TV news reporting has become so easy to identify and parody: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHun58mz3vI

Avatar
Simon_MacMichael replied to handlebarcam | 13 years ago
0 likes
handlebarcam wrote:

Lazy, cookie-cutter TV news reporting has become so easy to identify and parody: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHun58mz3vI

I was pretty sure that was going to be the Charlie Brooker clip even before I clicked on it - great piece of TV  4

Avatar
Simon_MacMichael | 13 years ago
0 likes

If you're not allowed to use a mobile phone while driving, I'm pretty sure you shouldn't be doing a piece to camera... it's not just the Top Gear boys either (who at least are probably better than average at handling a car, not that that matters) but pretty much every reporter.

From memory, Ray Snoddy brought this up on Newswatch one Saturday morning following a viewer's complaint but the producer they wheeled in to respond just shrugged it off.

Avatar
Tony Farrelly | 13 years ago
0 likes

Yes, it's bloody irritating. The other one that gets my goat is news anchor/studio person talks to reporter expert, who tells him that Fred Bloggs has indeed bitten his dog and the person in the studio then re-casts what the reporter has just told him as a question back to the reporter who then repeats what he just said using a slightly different set of words… only slghtly different mind about the dog biting incident without telling you any more the second time than he did the first.

Sports reports are the worst for this, basically cos they've got hours of airtime to fill with not very much news at all. The pre-tournament coverage of the World Cup so far has been a veritable feast of this it's so light on actual facts it's almost content free.

Avatar
handlebarcam | 13 years ago
0 likes

Has anyone noticed the huge amount of padding added to TV programmes these days by including footage of the presenter driving somewhere? It came in with the move away from hiring experts to present documentaries, and I guess was intended to re-enforce the concept that the presenter is an Everyman on a Voyage of Discovery. But now even a programme about quantum mechanics, presented by a leading theoretical physicist, seemingly must include shots of him driving along a motorway in Denmark talking about his emotions at visiting Copenhagen, and shots of him driving a 4x4 up a mountain, talking at length about how the air is thin, so he can deliver two lines about how atomic physics informed cosmology in front a random big telescope. I guess Dermot Murnaghan's "Economic Cycle" was just another version of this trend.

Avatar
swldxer | 13 years ago
0 likes

"Good spot, Simon - though we'll give the Daily Telegraph credit for the confusion."

Indeed, I read the original article in the Telegraph. Professional journos, eh?

Avatar
amazon22 | 13 years ago
0 likes

"I've cycled for miles today and do a load of cycling each week." Probably should be 'four miles'.

Avatar
Simon_MacMichael | 13 years ago
0 likes

Good spot, Simon - though we'll give the Daily Telegraph credit for the confusion  3

Avatar
swldxer | 13 years ago
0 likes

"Peddling to my home in the country?"

Oh dear, do you mean "pedalling"?

Latest Comments