Caught by Strava – US cyclist charged with malicious wounding after being identified from one of his recent uploads

@TrainWalkWheel RE: "We need to sit down and think what we actually want and then plan where it can go." Are you straying into "nobody is swimming the river, we won't build a bridge" territory? (Or is it "not many are coaching from Brimingham to London, we won't build a railway"? Only for cycling it's many orders of magnitude cheaper...) Certainly councils have "ticked the boxes, got the funds" and "built it not where most needed but where *possible*" ( eg. where they'll only have complaints about wasting money on cyclists and not death threats from businesses and residents.) However in many (most? ) cases the "let's all agree" idea is problematic. Few people cycle, most places are seriously car-sick. And there are some very loud voices ready to steer things away from any change to the unsatisfactory status quo that doesn't involve more motor provision. (Occasional exception: small areas of pedestrianised streets - that people can drive to). Why bother then? We can ill afford the growing cost and side effects of growing motoring. Cycling for most would be enhanced walking - and most people walk. It can work together with public transport to genuinely replace car trips. Places like parts of London, Manchester etc have found that after the dust settles people's existences weren't ruined at all and they just get on with life. What would makes that work? Quantity and building networks. Along with some motor traffic reduction / displacement (alas - that's the harder part). But of course in most places - given the motoring push-back and "but costs" - piecemeal infra is all that seems possible.

Why are there no line breaks? Or are we going for the middle class niche, like the G?

The mismatch between the brifter hoods and the handlebar bend is hideous. An extra layer of tape underneath would have made such a difference!

Rome mate, you are giving us all a bad name... Was she fully loaded, were the kids screaming on the back?

To black cab drivers, and this one may not be one for much longer, why risk those years of doing the Knowledge and the massive investment in the vehicle for a few seconds of feeding that addiction. It just ain't worth it. He knew he was in the wrong, that's why he hot potatoed it, and Kate, they don't stop when they start moving, they are just easier to catch in their criminality while stationary. I think your naivety is showing there. This man had two licences, and the law breaking was still happening.

Hoey's comment heavily implies that it's OK for drivers to use their phone at a red light, or whenever else they determine, at their sole discretion, that it is safe to do so. Why did she not advance this position in her role as a law maker? As to her suggestion that such drivers will disengage from their phone the moment the situation changes - laughable!

The problem is that "bicycles" is being used here to describe unregistered electric motorbikes, and the speed limit does apply to them. (As do the laws requiring motorcyclists to have licences, insurance, helmets, etc.) Nick Freeman knows they don't apply to pedal cyclists because he's a lawyer, but he's using deliberately misleading language because he's a dick and the Daily Mail pay him.

Absolutely, when I had an ebike, Orbea Gain e-road bike, it was very easy to ride at 20 mph, in fact on a commute easier than on my standard bikes because so much of the energy in riding goes into spinning up to speed, once you get to 20 mph it's fairly easy to sustain. The extra weight of an ebike makes little difference once you're up to speed because at 20 mph nearly all your effort is going into overcoming wind resistance; I actually felt that the flywheel effect of the non-running hub motor actually provided a significant aid to maintaining a good cruising speed.

Unfortunately the UK is covered with ill conceived cycle routes built in a rush with no real strategy. The "build it and they will come" mindset taking over from common sense. Routes, often costing millions, built where nobody actually wants them and patchwork provisions in places where they do. We need to sit down and think what we actually want and then plan where it can go. Birmingham is the prime example. A massively complex and over engineered bike route from the university to the city centre, built at the cost of a dedicated bus way, now stands largely unused, with ridership decreasing year on year with a sudden massive drop in the last few months. Why? Well it was built in the wrong place. Campaigning cyclists got it built despite being told it was the wrong route to the wrong destination. Exeter has, it seems, fallen into the same trap. No clear idea of where the demand is, result, a route with no purpose to the many. We can and should do so much better.

Bike, helmet, lycra. That's all most people see and it inevitably ends up as lowest common denominator because all that gets discussed is the bad stuff, true or not.