Is Tadej Pogačar being unfairly criticised for simply trying to win the Tour de France?

@quiff Doh! You're playing 5D pedant chess here.

@Wales56 Thank you for that. I visited Bristol yesterday. Bus and train. I was astounded by the number of cyclists even on the steep hills in a heatwave. Many people still drive though and the traffic was horrendous meaning a short bus journey from Temple Meads to the center took ages. Quicker than walking (just) but cycling would have been much quicker. The number of cycle paths does mean you need to be aware as a pedestrian but I was prepared for this after getting in the way of a cyclist on my previous vist a few years ago. Needless to say the train on the return journey was overcrowded (had to stand for the journey) and delayed and meaning missing a few public transport connections which made the journey take longer than needed. Even with these frustrations it was much more relaxing than driving. 20 years ago I would have driven without even thinking about it.

@quiff Should be on a new sub-tier website 'OffroadRacing.cc' :)

There you go, getting in a tangle over terminology again - you've written 'subtle', when what you meant was 'incoherent'.

…serves you right for seeking out such a cliche of a photo opp! 🙃 sunflowers, please 🙄

@quiff The police definitely can't park where they like (rephrase: legally they definitely can't park where they like, in practice…), if they are not on emergency response all traffic laws and regulations apply to them just as they do to the ordinary motorist. I have an ongoing battle with the Met regarding the bus lane outside King's College Hospital on Denmark Hill; every morning there will be three or four police cars or vans parked in the lane, often on the zigzags of the pelican crossing there, forcing buses, motorcyclists and cyclists to switch out into the busy main traffic lane. As a user of the hospital myself I know that very rarely do they have any police business in the hospital, they are usually getting coffee and doughnuts from the in-hospital Costa. The Met has admitted that they should not be parking there and promised to sort it out, but my dialogue with them has lasted more than five years now and every morning they are still there just the same.

@Cayo I’m very much pro-Police, but that particular issue only serves to normalise pavement parking Well, I'm very much anti-police, but not over trivial parking decisions while they're actually working against offenders, as opposed to sitting about thinking up reasons why they can't act over well-supported and evidenced reports of serious offending

This ancient topic has been revived at the same time as another topic questioned the competence of police 'experts'. On 2014 the police blatantly just 'made up facts', so the question arises 'are they any better now when they varnish up their reports with a load of pseudo-scientific bollocks?'

I attended this inquest & was appalled at the poor way that evidences was handled Venera was rammed from behind by the truck driver who had barely reached 12 mph The coroner was told that there was another (untraced) vehicle ahead of the truck that hit Venera as this traffic moved away Venera was a fit regular cyclist riding Stratford to City of London on fixed wheel - no evidence was presented to indicate her typical average speed for this journey (it woiuld have been significantly faster than 12mph!). No evidence was presented concerning the vehicle travelling in front of the truck The circulating traffic on the roundabout routinely runs the red lights cutting across cycle traffic as much as 10 seconds after the cycle traffic gets a green light - I have a picture of the green light for cycle traffic shining through the windows of a bus that has been driven through the red signal

re: occasions when police needlessly pavement park... You only need to watch Police Interceptors and the like to see how unbothered they are. Usually, when they pull over a motorist, said driver mounts the pavement (and cop often does the same), yet there's never any mention of the illegality* or needless manner of their parking. (*Highway Code infraction, even if not against the law in the location being shown). I'm very much pro-Police, but that particular issue only serves to normalise pavement parking.