About 25 years ago I was just "getting into" proper cycling; a bike was slowly morphing from a toy, through merely a mode of transport and finally into a machine to have fun on and explore the world. I was learning to mend and replace bike parts, just starting to enter the murky world of "specialist clothing" and hanging around bike shops being an annoying teenager. I absorbed and learned from snippets of the Tour De France that were sneaking onto the television and then "The High Life" appeared on the goggle-box; a Granada TV documentary about Scottish cycling pro Robert Millar, a sporting champion unsung and unrecognised by a British public that were hugely ignorant of cycling, despite him bagging several stages and winning the King Of The Mountains jersey, achievements that would have him front-page news these days. Here was a man who was small, weedy, thin, not particularly handsome, grumpy, quite the loner and could do wonderful things on a bike. I could identify with all of those attributes and I could work on the "wonderful things on a bike" bit. I had my first hero. Two images from "The High Life" have stuck indelibly in my mind; the camera car trying to follow Millar as he shot down an alpine descent, greasing his way between on-coming cars and cliffs as he pulled away to finally disappear from shot around a bend, and him sitting in the back of the team car at the end of a stage peeling his team jersey off walnut-brown arms to reveal a torso of Scottish-White skin beneath. I was totally hooked. A spark had been lit. This would be the sport for me. I only saw it the once, if it was repeated I never caught it, the programme came out on video but is almost impossible to track down, and there are mere gobbets available on the web. So it is with a giddy heart that I find out that "The High Life" is finally available on DVD (apologies if this is old news to some), I do hope the damp mists of time have been kind to it and not let the memories sadly rust a bit. Where’s my credit-card? www.bromleyvideo.com
A Hero Returns
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These might be justifiable for a pro bike shop that might use these daily, and claim back VAT and claim them as expenses, effectively taking another 20% off. But for a consumer £50 a pair has passed the justifiable threshold for a convenience accessory that is easily misplaced! At £20, maybe £25 they would be a no-brainer. £30-35 would be justifiable. IMO
@SVXY You're almost correct - it does say - specifically in Rule 53 However, this applies to horses. For clarification, horses are not bicycles.
@chrisonabike Add reflectives to high viz too then. You can't safely overtake a bus unless it has stopped, certainly not on a rural road and nor can you safely overtake 3 or more cyclists riding abreast. You would not be able to see what was ahead, hence it is forbidden in the highway code. People in cars on Sunday mornings might be taking their kids to their football game, going to church, seeing family for lunch etc, they also don't have time to be stuck behind cyclists all day
@ribena or we can keep on highlighting ridiculous attitudes until it finally becomes apparent to the perpetrators that it's unacceptable. Ignoring them makes them think that nobody disagrees with them.
I have a pair, they're an absolutely brilliant idea, simple to use and store in a jersey pocket. They're perfect for popping to the shop or pub from a campsite or cycling onto a ferry in normal-ish clothing and footwear. I'm not sure the review's right about indoor trainer use, I certainly found my feet just moved around too much. Mind you, that's not really what they're for. That very minor issue aside they remain this year's top purchase.
@mitsky That's what terrifies me. It's one thing to accept that humans make mistakes, but another to act like you never did anything wrong. He comes across as someone who is convinced he is the real victim in all of this. I'm less bothered about the lack of custodial sentence than I am about the brevity of his driving ban. If not being drunk or on his phone is considered to be mitigation, surely being an actual professional driving instructor means he really ought to have known how to watch the road!! The lack of compassion and humility should also be considered. He didn't even have the gumption to fake it. Someone else suggested that being close to the verge may have given her some protection, and I'm sure it did when it came to the actual collision, but I wonder if she'd have been a bit more visible if she had been further away from the edge?
@SVXY Feel free to come back when any of that relates to this case. Or indeed makes sense by itself *. Actually, don't, if you would be so kind. * As you don't need reminding: hi-viz has little to do with night visibility, what you're after is reflectives; although those have also proved of zero guarantee of effectiveness in some other "the cyclist was there to be seen..." cases. And if you can safely overtake a car and certainly a bus (4 abreast seating - with an aisle!) you should have no difficulty overtaking said group of cyclists (you appear to have an abreast-fixation - FWIW I've never encountered more than a momentary 3-some). Assuming you were a competent driver. Or indeed waiting until they had turned off / moved over. Your reminded that another thing the Highway code doesn't say is "you MUST overtake slower-moving traffic..."
@SVXY At night a cyclist not in high viz will be hard to see and 4 persons cycling abreast are not only near impossible to overtake but cycling against the highway code which states you should not cycle more than 2 abreast. There may not have been provocation from the cyclist but there was no evidence of mens rea from the driver either. No cyclist should of course ever ride in sandals unless say a track over fields, even on a 20 or 30mph limit road that would be dangerous let alone a 60mph one
@mitsky Why should you be banned for life if you weren't even judged by a court to be driving dangerously, as he wasn't? At most he should maybe have got a few years longer ban and mandatory retest
@SVXY Shurely some feeble attempt at humour here! Or are you saying that a person on a bicycle in daylight is invisible from behind unless wearing hi-vis (and perhaps that's contributory negligence or recklessness?) but 4 persons (not sure where you get that from?) are ... also invisible? Because per previous comments about no mens rea you couldn't possibly be suggesting that this amounts to provocation, because that wouldn't apply if it was an accident. And careful competent trained driving instructors (no doubt fully in command of their emotions and committed to safe road use) wouldn't be provoked? Also: presumably 4 persons sharing the back seat in a car or bus are exempt from this "abreast" rule, even if the conveyance is not moving at all? Unless they're ... wearing sandals??
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More on the DVD, and Britain’s greatest ever pro cyclist
http://www.thewashingmachinepost.net/bob/index.html