Corbyn v Johnson – the L-shaped cranks issue; ‘Safety first’ Xmas tree; Peloton shares drop further; #bikesatpollingstations (and #dogs); Christ(mas) on a bike; Israel Cycling Academy becomes Israel Start-Up Nation + more on live blog
SUMMARY
Morning
Think we’re going to have to pace ourselves a bit today. It’s already feeling like a gruelling day and it’s barely past nine.
A logical place to start for a cycling live blog on the day of a general election is with a round-up of where each of the main parties stands on cycling.
My colleague Simon MacMichael has done a nice rundown of the various policies and promises.
We know there are plenty of other issues, but it’s interesting to think about how cycling policy reflects the broader attitudes of each of the main parties.
#bikesatpollingstations
#bikesatpollingstations pic.twitter.com/93R331kyCm
— David Knight (@furnivalknight) December 12, 2019
Voted. #BikesAtPollingStations #BromptonsAtPollingStations #GE2019 pic.twitter.com/sdqIznnHwV
— Graham Boulton (@gboulton66) December 12, 2019
#BikesAtPollingStations pic.twitter.com/EEwqMSDBLy
— Cycle Sam (@MCRCycleSam) December 12, 2019
London's cycling commissioner's been down already
Voted! #bikesatpollingstations pic.twitter.com/wVwYzEH4zF
— Will Norman (@willnorman) December 12, 2019
#cargobikesatpollingstations
#bikesatpollingstations #cargobikesatpollingstations #GE2109 pic.twitter.com/fE90WSZh5d
— Rob Wilson (@mrrobwilson) December 12, 2019
voting for a brighter day #BikesAtPollingStations #cargobikesatpollingstations #GE2019 pic.twitter.com/rGNyxhKcbo
— Jack Thurston (@jackthurston) December 12, 2019
Very important election day sociological analysis
Early days, but I’ve noticed something while embedding #bikesatpollingstations on a website that throws a whopping great tantrum whenever it encounters non-alphanumeric characters.
People who cycle to vote are far less likely to deploy emojis than the average social media user.
#bikesatpollingstations fail
I was going to do a #BikesAtPollingStations photo, but I went at 07:00 and it was still dark. When the flash went off and my tyre sidewalls reflected back, I jumped and took a picture of my feet instead.
— Goth on a Brompton (@GothOnABrompton) December 12, 2019
Beryl offering free rides to polling stations
A reminder that British bike share company Beryl are offering users free rides to their polling stations.
Beryl operates in the City of London, Hereford, Bournemoth and Poole, and say they’re running the complimentary rides to “encourage riders to choose sustainable transport to and from their local polling stations.”
The promotion will be automatically applied to everyone with a Beryl account. Voters can make use of two rides with a free unlock and ride of up to 30 minutes each.
Doing the double
Maybe this can help us segue into another topic for a bit…
#BikesAtPollingStations
followed by #treebybike pic.twitter.com/NS0v9X0ERk— Nick Flynn (@nickflynnUK) December 12, 2019
A lunchtime reminder of where the parties stand on cycling
As the UK heads to the polls again, we’ve highlighted the key active travel pledges as politicians chase your vote.
Israel Cycling Academy becomes Israel Start-Up Nation
The new sponsor for Israel Cycling Academy is Start-Up Nation Central, “a Tel Aviv-based non-profit organisation that connects companies around the world to Israeli innovation.”
The team will therefore be known as Israel Start-Up Nation for the 2020 season.
Our new name for season 2020. WorldTour, here we come! #yallaacademy pic.twitter.com/K8eZCtm0Hm
— IsraelCyclingAcademy (@yallaACADEMY) December 11, 2019
Here’s the kit.
Israel- Start Up Nation will be racing in a new kit: #yallaacademy pic.twitter.com/Wa9zkQQg4R
— IsraelCyclingAcademy (@yallaACADEMY) December 11, 2019
It's not just Beryl Bikes offering free rides to polling stations
Uber offering free Jump e-bike rides on election day: if you’re London-based and yet to cast your ballot, you can take advantage of two free rides of up to 12 minutes each to the polling station and back… https://t.co/tWmY0jjATV #cycling #GeneralElection2019 pic.twitter.com/kpoYgQtDyc
— ebiketips (@ebiketips) December 12, 2019
Or get a lift off Pedal Me
People already jumping on our free rides for Election Day promo – look up feed for code! pic.twitter.com/8YWxRaFmjR
— Pedal Me (@pedalmeapp) December 12, 2019
REE RIDE CODE FOR LIFTS TO/FROM VOTING: 7DEWQA
Please pre-book to avoid disappointment – we’re likely to be extremely busy.
Only applies to passenger jobs within our operating hours (8-8 tomorrow).
— Pedal Me (@pedalmeapp) December 11, 2019
We don’t endorse any one party – though this is the only party leader who’s committed to using us for their ride to Buckingham Palace to start their government, should they be invited to do so, so far…
Not too late to get in there @BorisJohnson ! pic.twitter.com/KDS3xtMvNo
— Pedal Me (@pedalmeapp) December 12, 2019
The infrastructure buzz
The Deputy Mayor of London for Transport, Heidi Alexander, has a confession to make.
Something strange has happened to me in the last 18 months. I now have emotional reactions to pictures of kerbs and concrete – this one gives me a particularly warm feeling inside 🙂 https://t.co/EJMqC69OrC
— Heidi Alexander (@Heidi_LDN) December 12, 2019
"The wild"
The wild? If you did all your riding in an airbed showroom, you probably wouldn’t be all that concerned about possible blows to the head.
This is how the Hovding system would perform in the wild! pic.twitter.com/TOgGgTZtRu
— Fully Charged (@FullyChargedUK) December 12, 2019
Last year's Portuguese national champion provisionally suspended for anti-doping rule violation
UCI Statement on Domingos Goncalves and UCI Professional Continental Team Caja Rural – Seguros RGA https://t.co/VADwB0aso0 pic.twitter.com/D5jFMd4QPy
— UCI_media (@UCI_media) December 12, 2019
The tree clearly feels it's necessary to wear a cycle helmet
It’s attire is pretty hi-vis too, you’d have to say.
Rode in the local Festival of Lights, look how much my son loved it! from r/bicycling
Merida’s 2020 time trial bike “ready to slice the air”
[Adopts Jim Bowen voice] “So, Rohan, let’s take a look at what you could have won…”
You’ve already seen @MeridaBikes‘ lightweight #SCULTURA and aero #REACTOEVO in the new colours for 2020. Here comes the #TIMEWARPTT, ready to slice the air. pic.twitter.com/WHfOwNbuxE
— MeridaProRoadRacing (@MeridaProRoad) December 12, 2019
Heading to the polling station on your way home?
If it’s of any help at all, here’s our thing highlighting the various parties’ key active travel pledges.
Where do you stand on our L-shaped cranks article?
What do you mean you’ve never read it?
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Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn’t especially like cake.
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Latest Comments
Genuine question, how much of that increased likelihood is attributable to the fact that less confident/ more nervous riders might be more likely to wear a helmet and also more likely to have a crash, and also to the fact that people are more likely to wear helmets in a perceived-risk environment? If all urban commuters wear helmets and nobody who rides on quiet country roads wears a helmet, obviously the urban commuters are going to be have more collisions and so the figures would show riders with helmets have more collisions but it would be primarily attributable to the environment, not the helmets. Is there any research that shows that amongst a cohort of riders of similar experience and ability, riding in the same type of environment, those wearing helmets will have more collisions?
They really aren't that tough, researchers have found that a simple skull fracture can be caused by a force as low as 10kgs; it has been known for people to fracture their skulls simply by walking into a door frame, and a very significant proportion of fractured skulls come from simple low-impact falls when walking. The idea that hair can protect you from abrasions is pretty risible, maybe if it was woven into a mat it might but on your head it's in individual strands; try running your fingernails over your scalp, does the hair protect you? No, it parts. Now imagine your fingernails are a rough road surface, the same thing would happen. None of this particularly is meant as a pro-helmet argument, but if you think you can rely on your skull and your hair to get you out of a crash undamaged I'm afraid you might well end up severely disappointed.
If there's one thing for sure, you don't anything about her crash. Her helmet shows a crack, and that's significant. Maybe you think it's no big deal. That's your right, but don't think you're making any informed decision or that you know anything about potential consequences. After having had a closed head injury and going through everything that followed, I can safely say I don't want to ever go through that again. As a result, I do what I can to make sure I get home safe and intact. I understand the physics behind how a helmet works, and I further understand the limitations of helmets. With that said, I'm willing to pay for the possibility that a helmet might dissipate enough energy to keep me alive if for whatever I have to exchange energy and momentum with a car, road, or whatever. As for your handwaving statistics, come back when you understand statistics and all the factors that influence statistical outcomes.
Person who gains financially from the support of a helmet company makes superlative claims for the product they are financially rewarded to wear and promote. Shocker.
If you strap something to your head, and you fall, and the thing strapped to your head is damaged, you can NOT infer you would have died if not for that thing. Particularly when that thing is itself fairly fragile. To make the flaw in such logic clear, if you strapped eggs to your head, fell and the eggs broke, would you seriously be able to claim "The eggs saved my life!!!"? Skulls are already pretty tough things. Hair is also a pretty good abrasion resistant material protecting your skin.
Fast forward to 2050. MTBers and gravelers are riding bikes with tyres compatible with the olde Penny Farthings.
Wasn't the parrot some random parrot that just happened to regularly join Scarponi on his local training ride - not Scarponi's own parrot?
"Helmets save lives in certain types of accidents." They also increase the risk of the most dangerous injury, Diffuse Axonal Injury, caused by rapid rotation of the head. After thirty years of denying that helmets increased that risk, the helmet industry realised that there was even more money to be made by producing helmets that might possibly reduce that risk, MIPS etc. Helmets were sold because people were endlessly told that a helmet would save their life, not by the manufacturers, but by helmet zealots. Since it has been proved beyond doubt that helmets don't save lives, the helmet zealots have switched to saving injury, which they probably do. But they also increase the likelihood of a collision, as helmetted riders have more. The biggest reasons that I oppose such misleading, inaccurate stories like this are that they deter people from cycling because they show it as dangerous, they distract from measures that actually make cycling safer, and the whole cycle helmet promotion thing started out from the worst of bad science, Thompson, Rivara and Thompson, A case-control study of the effectiveness of bicycle safety helmets, 1989 https://www.cyclehelmets.org/1068.html
I'll bow to your superior knowledge of facebook and twitter as I don't use them (and I'm not going to start if your description is accurate) and I'm not accusing anyone of campaigning for mandatory helmets but I do believe we have to reject the regular unsubstantiated claims of their effectiveness.
I got one of the Dynamic air blasters recently, and coincidentally I also use it for getting the difficult to reach coffee grinds out of my hand-grinder!
10 thoughts on “Corbyn v Johnson – the L-shaped cranks issue; ‘Safety first’ Xmas tree; Peloton shares drop further; #bikesatpollingstations (and #dogs); Christ(mas) on a bike; Israel Cycling Academy becomes Israel Start-Up Nation + more on live blog”
Loving that Peugeot. I had
Loving that Peugeot. I had one in a similar paintjob, though mine probably never looked that good.
Oh, and whatever the weather, get out and vote.
I always walk, the polling station has never been far away enough to ride.
Oh, is there an election on?
Oh, is there an election on?
Kendalred wrote:
I’m surprised they allow people to park their bikes that close to polling stations.
Every remembrance sunday, they prohibit bike parking anywhere near the cenotaph here in the centre of Bristol, citing the risk of terrorism…
Quote:
Here’s a hmmm review about a
Here’s a hmmm review about a bicycle touring movie-
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/dec/12/the-bikes-of-wrath-review-cameron-ford-charlie-turnbull-cycling-documentary
ktache wrote:
I’m not sure they’re very impressed with it:
I’ve just been to vote for a
I’ve just been to vote for a party that won’t win a majority tonight, but does have a clear policy on the biggest issue of the day; which sadly isn’t active travel. We shouldn’t leave that up to party policy, it should be agreed between all parties and run by commity. Was I wasting my time; probably. Will I be able to complain later? Inevitably.
I am definitely a fan of the
I am definitely a fan of the ‘banking my right to complain’ approach!
Compact Corned Beef wrote:
I voted Green, so I’m pretty sure I can complain about the result tonight.
Compact Corned Beef wrote:
Good on you for doing your democratic doody!