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Live blog: Team GB limited edition chain for £250 anyone? Bristol Council’s decision to force L-Dub Community Bike Project to stop operating could leave 40 children without bikes for Christmas, Evans vouchergate resolved, + more

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We also have a greater volume of traffic, including on residential roads which were once quiet. Spending billions on infrastructure such as protected cycle tracks and modal filters is the only thing that will lead to mass cycling. Look at London. Why is there mass cycling there? Infrastructure. The Netherlands? The same reason. And often the only way to achieve meaningful change is reallocating some space and priority from motor vehicles, which is why the government's 'don't scare the horses' attitude is concerning.
You think there might be a clue to that in the name "City Light Set"? Marking it down because it's no good for fast riding on unlit roads seems somewhat akin to buying a micro-hatchback and then complaining that it's rubbish at pulling a plough.
This is like something from a kids' activity book. "The editor has a bit of a hangover this morning. Can you help him match the headline to the correct story?"
@kinderje Are you aware that -ise endings are actually the newer form, having supplanted -ize (as used by Shakespeare, the King James Bible and Jane Austen, amongst many others) in the mid 19th century? Etymologically there is a far better argument for -ize endings for words with Greek and Latin roots than the -ise ending which arose from Victorian publishers imitating French verb endings. Both endings are now regarded as acceptable in British English, although the Oxford style guide recommends -ize. It is most certainly not incorrect.
@Backladder Given that the makers are selling it as being useable on any ride on open roads, it doesn't seem unreasonable to try to test it in those conditions.
'Leasting'? That's a whole 4 letters less.
Although usually the easiest thing of all would be for them just to stop for a few moments while you cycle past them (which requires a lot less space to do safely than them passing you), but most people seem allergic to stopping, even for the briefest time.
@Backladder Oh I think I can guess - the nearest indoor velodrome to road.cc HQ looks to be some distance away in Wales, whereas Odd Down Cycle Track (where this test was conducted) is just 2 miles away.
There are a number of causes of "the divide between motorists and cyclists". Only one is to do with the technology (of bicycles and cars) and that's the nature of the car, which is designed to induce the sort of dangerous and careless behaviours that providing humans with a lot of power and glamour fetches out of us. Other causes are much more insidious - A culture of hyper-individualism bordering on solipsism, with violently ultra-selfish and aggressive anti-heroes being promoted in every mass media channel as the ideal. A "news" media that overwhelmingly seeks, creates and offers pariahs and scapegoats to the rabid individualists, which pariahs and scapegoats includes all kinds of those perceived as less powerful and therefore easy victims, including cyclists. The near complete lack of any curb upon the dangerous antics of vast numbers of media-maddened motorists by the forces of law and order, many of whom are actually members themselves of the mass media maddened motorist ilk. ******** No amount of a more rational discourse about active travel or the means of making it safer will change these root causes of the vast numbers of deaths and maiming due to inept, incompetent and deliberately violent antics of vast numbers of motorists allowed their dangerous "weapons of choice". Yet many other highly damaging aspects of modern societies would be solved by a much more effective curbing of mass media mob-building and goading along with a serious attempt to prevent motorists and a whole range of other damagers from behaving as badly as so many do. It'll not happen, of course. Large and powerful elements of the modern world obtain far too much ultra-riches and power from current conditions for them to allow any significant change. And vast numbers of the population have long had their minds, attitudes and behaviours captured and directed by various oligarchical monsters and their mass media propaganda horns. About the only chance of safe active travel becoming extant is for the population at large to become mostly too poor to afford a car, ironically one other likely outcome of the machinations of those same power and money-mad monsters that have created the car-issue in the first place. Their need for zero-sum socio-economic arrangements degrades everything, including the wallet-contents of the masses.
@Astralstroll The hierarchy of road users does not mean priority of road users except in certain circumstances, e.g. stopping to let pedestrians cross junctions before turning. It doesn't mean that cyclists have priority over motor vehicles at all times any more than the pedestrians have priority over cyclists at all times. It certainly doesn't mean that you have priority in the circumstances you describe; personally, unless the driver is being a complete dick, on a narrow country lane I accept that it is easier for me to turn around and go back to the nearest passing place, which is never that far if you're on a bike, than for a tractor or other large vehicle to reverse back down the road for my benefit.
11 thoughts on “Live blog: Team GB limited edition chain for £250 anyone? Bristol Council’s decision to force L-Dub Community Bike Project to stop operating could leave 40 children without bikes for Christmas, Evans vouchergate resolved, + more”
Re the Instacrash clip – look
Re the Instacrash clip – look at his forks, his right (our left) looks out of place. Apply braking, and…
The cable sticking out 8
The cable sticking out 8 inches to his left hurts my eyes even before he goes A over T
Yep, that fork does not look
Yep, that fork does not look right. The sticky out brake cable looks very wrong too. I think it’s a triathlon bike with the front brake caliper behind the fork crown. Nasty fall.
Looking at Hoarseman’s still,
Looking at Hoarseman’s still, looks like a triathlon arm rest tucked under the handlebars too.
I suspect this wasn’t his first crash of the day — attempting to ride home on a broken bike instead of sucking it up and making the call to the significant other to come pick you up.
Good reactions from the third
Good reactions from the third wheel though, narrowly avoided a bike wheel in the face
“Highways England will pump
“Highways England will pump £3 million in funding”
£3m is basically a rounding error in this context…
That’s a Giant Propel he’s
That’s a Giant Propel he’s riding, so has carbon forks which don’t really bend, they are either intact or broken, unlike metal. I think it is camera parellax that makes it look bent, as those forks have an outward curve from top to bottom.
I think he grabbed a handful of front brake at the same time as turning, which caused him to high-side. The Propel has a kind of linear pull,V brake type of affair, so maybe he was unfamiliar with the braking characteristics of it (as am I to be honest).
As said before, everyone else was riding on point, even if he wasn’t!
Away with you and your bike
Away with you and your bike identification/physics based explanation for the dodgy looking fork!
“Highways England now working
“Highways England now working with Sustrans to improve National Cycle Network”
Just how will an organisation whose only experience of cycling is to make it worse, improve the NCN. That’s HE I’m talking about, not Sustrans. Will they be putting in dog legs, barriers and interminable wait crossings? £3m; you’re having a laugh aren’t you. That’s one fairly minor road engineering project; loose change that HE found down the back of the sofa.
£3M hardly pays for
£3M hardly pays for consultation on a minor road engineering project.
That’s £3M of cones to block
That’s £3M of cones to block off a few routes to make it easier for the workers to park up their transits and drink tea.