Review begins into “sodding waste of money” cycle lanes blasted by Rupert Lowe as “central planning lunacy” + more on the live blog
Review launched into Rupert Lowe's favourite cycle lane
How times have changed! In scrolling through our archives for this story, I found a story from 2012 that wondered if Great Yarmouth would become Britain’s cycling capital, there was even talk of a velodrome!
That now all feels a very long time ago. I mean 14 years is quite a long time, but still, the rate at which attitudes have changed is remarkable. Today, Great Yarmouth has become the personal fiefdom of Rupert Lowe, the Reform UK MP who fell out with Nigel Farage and established his own party with an immigration policy even to the right of where the BNP once stood.
His Restore Britain affiliate in Great Yarmouth now hold the balance of power on Norfolk County Council, and have used their power to order council officers to review two newly installed cycle lanes in Great Yarmouth. For Lowe at least, this is a long-running vendetta.
Well, they’ve got their wish, with the Great Yarmouth Mercury reporting that the council has confirmed the review into the £500,000 Gorleston cycle lane “is currently under way and once complete, the findings will be shared with elected members before anything is published more widely.”
Disappointingly, the paper also quoted two residents, 83 and 64, opposing the scheme, although the latter, a cyclist himself, was mainly critical of the scheme’s cost rather than the final outcome.
So that’s something to look forward to, an effective use of council resources all round…
Show me the most road.cc comments you can... no that's too road.cc
Or maybe I should say off-road.cc…
We like to cross-post a little between our different sites. It’s a means of attracting specialist audiences interested in say, Mountain-biking or e-bikes, without alienating them by posting lots of stuff about active travel or pros doping. At the same time, a lot of people interested in all-things two wheels like to see all their interests in one place. And if you’re not interested, it doesn’t take long to avert your eyes to the next story.
That logic has served us well for quite a while, but it seems beloved reader Surreyrider has drawn a line in the sand on our recent post reviewing sunglasses for mountain biking.
“This is on ROAD CC. Take it down. If I wanted to read about MTB, I’d go to this site or MTB CC. I don’t. You’re just using this to pad out your story count. Don’t.”
Take it down? From off-road.cc? An interesting idea, let’s see what the rest of you think…
“One day last week, a Tuesday I think it was, just like St. Paul on the way to Damascus (don’t know where he was travelling from. Jerusalem? Seems a long way. Perhaps he had a donkey.) I had an epiphany – there was a blinding flash of light and I suddenly realised I didn’t have to read articles I didn’t find interesting even though other people might. I’m sleeping a whole lot better now, well, apart from the oppressive heat.” Thanks Perce.
Rendel Harris jumped in: “And so it came to pass that upon a certain day Saul was riding to Damascus and a blinding flash struck the shades from his eyes and lo a voice did cry out, “Saul, Saul, thou ridest a Dogma yet verily thou art clad in MTB sunnies, and this, as thou knowst, is against my law.” Thereafter Saul was sore afflicted until he was guided to that place where road.cc is pure and bought the same glasses but verily they were stamped “road use” and there was great rejoicing through all the nations, especially in Surrey.”
But my personal favourite was somewhat less biblical, from mdavidford, “Take this comment down. Put it on moan.cc where it belongs.”
Thanks all for making us chuckle, rest assured that one of us is normally reading the comments for your ‘wisdom.’ Or spell-checking…
Red Bull & Jayco-AlUla unveil their Tour teams
The startlist for the Tour de France is coming along nicely.
Whilst we were all failing to sleep, the Australian Jayco-AlUla team announced their eight man roster and have opted to hedge their bets somewhat, taking Pascal Ackermann for the bunch sprints, Michael Matthews for the reduced bunch sprints, Mauro Schmid for the punchy breakaways, and Ben O’Connor for the high mountains, though there’s no mention in the team’s press release of any GC ambition for O’Connor who struggled to make an impression during the Giro d’Italia. In an age of the super teams, you suspect a stage win and presence in the breakaway will probably be enough for the team’s sponsors.
One of those super teams, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe have confirmed that Remco Evenepoel and Florian Lipowitz will return to the Tour de France as co-leaders racing for the overall.
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The team can count on Jai Hindley as a super-luxury-domestique-deluxe, fresh from his third career podium at the Giro d’Italia, whilst Maxim Van Gils showed his worth defending Luke Tuckwell’s podium place at the Dauphine a couple of weeks ago. Mattia Cattaneo, Jan Tratnik are both strong on the flat and can climb, whilst the selections of Nico Denz and Tim van Dijke over purer climbers suggest the team will be targeting the opening Team Time Trial as an early chance to nab the yellow jersey.
Whether their team leaders will have the knack of holding on to it when the going gets tough is another matter…
Misleading headline of the week...
As click-bait headlines go, this one actually worked. On our cycling brains anyway…
Our thought process went something along the lines of:
“What?! This is bonkers, why the hell should cyclists be subject to… ah no ok. Fair play, lovely stuff.”
To be clear, cyclists an horse riders will not be subject to a lower speed limit than other road users. Rather the speed limit on the road has been reduced for all road users, for the benefit of cyclists and horse riders. Lodge Road in Cranfield, Bedfordshire will be designated a Quiet Lane and “aims to improve safety.” Kudos to their sub-editor though, that got us engaged…
That's some saddle work...
Impressive, although the caveat might have to be “The first person who BMXed Mont Ventoux… on camera.”
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Council fails to mark its own homework
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Besides, you can guarantee that whatever the review says, someone will be straight along in the comments to complain that the details of the review don't justify the final rating, that they've chosen the wrong sort of alternative infrastructure to compare it to, and that the price of infrastructure these days is taking us for a ride (literally!) and they could have built the bike lanes themselves for a tenth of that price.
@chrisonabike And look, some people aren’t Christian. Strip them of their citizenship! (And don’t mention that this is exactly what the Nazis did)
Less a “march on Rome”, more a slow, congested drive to Great Yarmouth
Review of cycle lanes? What a waste of taxpayer time and money! Surely they were elected to look into: - why all these foreigners are coming over here and how can we stop them. - stop all these bloody unelected council officials telling us we can't do things. - some men and women aren't married - that's a bit odd isn't it? We should check them out. Especially the ones we didn't see in church. - come to think of it I don't know who the neighbours really are now. We should be investigating them. It's not how it used to be any more, we knew everyone (and their business) then...
It's a typo with the units - when you round down, 8470 grams = 8.2 kibigrams
I think they have to be better organised to be actual Fascists.
A slightly odd way of putting it. 'Balance of power' usually implies sitting between two larger groups, with the potential of working with either one of them. In this case, Reform are three shy of a majority, and no-one else is close. They could, theoretically*, form a majority with any one of four other parties with minor representation, and Restore would be considered to sit politically to the other side of them from the other three. [* The Greens and the Lib Dems seem... unlikely, and presumably the Conservatives, who have one seat less than Restore, either refused or were considered a less amenable partner.]
@wtjs Seems to be some confusion about the weight also:
If Rupert Lowe is upset that cycle lanes are centrally planned, wait until he finds out about roads!
@Blackthorne83 Still at least the name isn't plastered on the frame in enormous letters so that "PEED" is the first thing you see when you pull up alongside. Oh wait... Maybe Bulhit.com and Asewipe.com were already taken?
8 thoughts on “Review begins into “sodding waste of money” cycle lanes blasted by Rupert Lowe as “central planning lunacy” + more on the live blog”
I’d love it if the actual final report said “you know what, the cycle route is great”
(And, whilst I don’t want to get too non-cycling related, but Lowe’s party is accurately described as fascist. An over-used word for sure, but meets the Umberto Eco definition. For a start, their official spokesperson said that non-Christians aren’t truly British, which is definitely Nuremberg race laws in style)
I think they have to be better organised to be actual Fascists.
Less a “march on Rome”, more a slow, congested drive to Great Yarmouth
If Rupert Lowe is upset that cycle lanes are centrally planned, wait until he finds out about roads!
A slightly odd way of putting it. ‘Balance of power’ usually implies sitting between two larger groups, with the potential of working with either one of them. In this case, Reform are three shy of a majority, and no-one else is close. They could, theoretically*, form a majority with any one of four other parties with minor representation, and Restore would be considered to sit politically to the other side of them from the other three.
[* The Greens and the Lib Dems seem… unlikely, and presumably the Conservatives, who have one seat less than Restore, either refused or were considered a less amenable partner.]
Review of cycle lanes? What a waste of taxpayer time and money! Surely they were elected to look into:
– why all these foreigners are coming over here and how can we stop them.
– stop all these bloody unelected council officials telling us we can’t do things.
– some men and women aren’t married – that’s a bit odd isn’t it? We should check them out. Especially the ones we didn’t see in church.
– come to think of it I don’t know who the neighbours really are now. We should be investigating them. It’s not how it used to be any more, we knew everyone (and their business) then…
@chrisonabike
And look, some people aren’t Christian. Strip them of their citizenship!
(And don’t mention that this is exactly what the Nazis did)
Besides, you can guarantee that whatever the review says, someone will be straight along in the comments to complain that the details of the review don’t justify the final rating, that they’ve chosen the wrong sort of alternative infrastructure to compare it to, and that the price of infrastructure these days is taking us for a ride (literally!) and they could have built the bike lanes themselves for a tenth of that price.