road.cc live blog: Monday morning catch-up. Clarkson claptrap, clueless councillors and more
Some stories you may have missed over the weekend
Mon, Nov 20, 2017 08:29
Help us to bring you the best cycling content
If you’ve enjoyed this article, then please consider subscribing to road.cc from as little as £2.49. Our mission is to bring you all the news that’s relevant to you as a cyclist, independent reviews, impartial buying advice and more. Your subscription will help us to do more.
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.
9 Comments
Read more...
Read more...
Read more...
Latest Comments
OldTom 1 minute ago
@FionaJJ I'd add construction costs in themselves. That might sound obvious, but costs have risen significantly in recent years. I won't disturb anyone sleeping under a bridge, but a number of political decisions have factored into this state of affairs. Needless to say, everything is much more expensive than it was.
jackcycles 2 minutes ago
@Rendel Harris au contraire, disabled people want to stand on their own two feet (well, the ones without prosthetic legs at least) and contribute to society, just like everyone else does. You, on the other hand, have some kind of saviour complex where disabled people need you to dole out extra benefits to them, much like one might give a dog a bone or a child a bag of sweets. This isn't how people want to be treated. Rise above your prejudices and understand that disabled people are more than capable of making a full contribution to society and don't need silly tax breaks to be successful. As I understand it, if a tandem bike is adapted, it will (or should) already be tax-exempt according to current law. If it isn't adapted, well then it should be subject to normal tax rules, rather than an expensive and easily abused scheme (i.e. non-disabled people escaping tax) taking its place.
andystow 17 minutes ago
It's not the exact same shoe as in this list, but after years of FiveTen, I am currently wearing the Crank Brothers Flat MTB shoes, which I've owned for about a month and a half. I don't normally have an issue with smelly shoes, but these stink. Embarrassingly so. I wear wool socks. I've tried special a special spray, I've tried drying them out. I think I'll have to try washing them. I suspect they just don't breathe at all.
SVXY 25 minutes ago
@SVXY If you choose to cycle on a busy 60mph main road it is not sensible to cycle in sandals, for starters as it would reduce your grip and reaction time compared to some other types of footwear. You can have some sympathy with the victim while still making that point. As he was only convicted of careless driving clearly he did not commit that with intent either
squired 37 minutes ago
I'm out in Montreal for the Worlds. It has been great so far - can't wait for the road races to start tomorrow. Going to be some long days. Got some great photos of the time trials.
Rendel Harris 54 minutes ago
@Nigel Garage I saw on the rolling ticker that you had commented on this story and I thought surely even he can't be such an utter petty spiteful little dick as to object to disabled people being given assistance to purchase mobility aids. Sorry to say that I was wrong. An adaptive bike, for these narrow tax purposes, is anything that the government chooses to put on the approved list. In any case, many/most tandems purchased for use by visually impaired people will have some form of adaptation, making them literally adaptive bikes as well as for the purpose of the list. You really need to take a good look at your life. Not only because you have been banned from this site dozens of times and yet you still insist on coming back and trolling it, which is desperately sad in itself, but because you are so mean minded, selfish and greedy that you object to disabled people being given a small exemption when buying mobility equipment (equipment, incidentally, which will help them to keep fit and quite probably reduce the burden on the NHS, and therefore the taxpayer, by far more than the value of the exemption), apparently on the grounds that you wouldn't get the same exemption. You're not a good person.
sclarke3@talktalk.net 2 hours ago
Like this
sclarke3@talktalk.net 2 hours ago
32" is yet another marketing hype that we don't need... what next??? Bigger wheels are better.... so let's all go back to riding "Ordinaries"🤣
Sniffer 2 hours ago
I do enjoy our resident trolls double speak. The last sentence suggests he has paid tax to Lizzi. I definitely approve of the concept of trolls paying extra tax. I am off to see a production of 1984 at the theatre tomorrow night. I think our Nigel on this forum is probably a room 101 possibility.
sclarke3@talktalk.net 2 hours ago
@Smartstu Totally agree with you.. We should be promoting "normal" bikes for "normal" people at "affordable" price points... Encourage people to cycle to work instead of using the car, you don't need Lycra, or "aero" equipment, don't need electric assistance if you're fit, don't need stupid bike packing bags, don't need to be chasing Strava! Just need more people on bikes😎😎
9 thoughts on “road.cc live blog: Monday morning catch-up. Clarkson claptrap, clueless councillors and more”
Currently sitting in a car
Currently sitting in a car dealership waiting area, Daily Fail and (behind) the Times have just been dropped onto the table. Against my better judgment, picked up the DF,,, inside is a piece with Clarkson saying driverless car nearly killed him. Which means in a parallel universe…
CygnusX1 wrote:
And that, in a nutshell, is the problem with driverless cars: no judgement.
davel wrote:
And that, in a nutshell, is the problem with driverless cars: no judgement.— CygnusX1
I don’t understand. Is it a problem that it only “nearly killed him” and it should have definitely killed him?
hawkinspeter wrote:
That would be one measure of intelligence progression.
There is truth in what
There is truth in what Clarkson says… paraphrasing; shared cycle/bus lanes are dangerous, and given the choice he’d ban buses due to NOx and particulate emmissions. Hard to argue with that…
PRSboy wrote:
“shared cycle/bus lanes are dangerous” – no they’re not
“he’d ban buses due to NOx and particulate emmissions” – do busses pollute more per passenger per mile than cars then? If the car journeys were replaced by bus journeys the efficiency would be greater as would be the ability to increase investment in better busses…
“Clarkson’s been telling his
“Clarkson’s been telling his fans once again that only poor people cycle” Not exactly.
What he said isn’t exactly wrong either. Busses are ridiculously overpriced (£4 for a return ticket that takes twice as long as my car to get from one side of Bristol to the other – no thanks, I’ll drive).
I fully support removing diesel buses and replacing them with electric ones. Or, as should have been done in Bristol rather than Metrobus, create an electric tram network – go look at Geneva!
Cycling also provides free travel for millions worldwide who can’t afford to run a car.
My Canyon Ultimate is way more than twice the cost of my car though – and my Whyte Wessex is nearly twice the price, so, you know.
Quote” Clarkson’s been
Quote” Clarkson’s been telling his fans once again that only poor people cycle”
No he didn’t. He said if you can’t afford a car, buy a bicycle. Not the same thing at all.
The article says that
The article says that Clarkson is 57, which seems rather young to be having dementia to this extent.