At least one Biggin Hill resident seems to have taken against ‘lycra louts’ and has gone to the trouble of putting up a sign informing local cycling clubs that they are not welcome. The person responsible feels cyclists block roads and pollute the countryside ‘with orange plastic signs’ – a reference to the route markers used in organised cycling events.
The sign was discovered by cyclist and Twitter user @trivers1985 at the top of Westerham Hill near an Indian restaurant called Shampan At The Spinning Wheel.
Come across this while out #cycling in #bigginhill this morning while out on a #cycling did make me laugh 🙂 pic.twitter.com/5jvDqVyXpE
— rivers (@trivers1985) October 16, 2014
There is an obvious irony in putting up a sign to object to people putting up signs. Twitter user, @Binstedman, suggested to @trivers1985: “you should have taken it down to keep them happy” while @greycells commented: “the temptation to stick a more honest notice about pollution would be too great.”
Reporting on the story, the Sevenoaks Chronicle are running a poll asking: 'Do you think cycling clubs are a menace on our roads?' At the time of writing, 63 per cent of respondents had answered 'yes'.
They and the person who put up the sign will be disappointed to learn that all three routes on next year’s London Cycle Sportive will tackle Biggin Hill. With the sportive having been sold out both this year and last, hordes of ‘lycra louts’ are pretty much guaranteed. Details pertaining to signage along routes are not yet known.
58 thoughts on “Biggin Hill resident rails against ‘lycra louts’”
the irony…..
the irony…..
No arrows. You ‘erd. No f’ing
No arrows. You ‘erd. No f’ing arrows.
Arrows?…What Arrows…..? I
Arrows?…What Arrows…..? I didn’t even see the Indians……. :/ ….or should that be Indigenous American Population….? All too PC for me…..
Oh dear another spineless
Oh dear another spineless coward that wants to rant & rave with anonymitiy by posting signs, internet comments or hiding locked inside their car.
It is about time that the Police started charging these anti social moron’s who seem to think that others are not allowed to use “their roads” with hate crime, after all that is what it is. That would start getting these bully’s attention.
If that was near me I’d print
If that was near me I’d print out 200 orange arrows and stick them all over that pole – except for the part where his notice is.
Or maybe I’d point the 200 arrows at his notice, and below them stick another notice that said “COCK”.
Guess I’ll go back to
Guess I’ll go back to polluting the countryside and slowing everyone down in my car then 🙁
How are they going to
How are they going to differentiate between lycra louts and lycra niceys?
don simon wrote:How are they
Lycra louts have cans of cider in their bottle cages.
Just found
Just found this:
http://www.sevenoakschronicle.co.uk/Anger-aimed-lycra-louts-polluting-Biggin-Hill/story-23228907-detail/story.html
Feel free to vote, I won’t say anything for fear of accusations of bias.
EDIT: Don’t know whether you can vote more than once either. B-)
don simon wrote:Just found
You can vote multiple times. Either use a different browser or clear your cookies 😀 Well-known shortcoming of Polldaddy.
re: voting multiple times –
re: voting multiple times – or copy the web address, go Incognito (Private Browsing, etc) and fire away as many times as you like. Like shooting the proverbial fish in a barrel.
dafyddp wrote:re: voting
They might get suspicious when the no vote passes 100%. Yes, I’m really awesome at maths :))
Some old tosser’s winding the
Some old tosser’s winding the residents of SevenOaks. Just because they can’t ride themselves they want everybody else to stop riding as well.
I was slightly disappointed
I was slightly disappointed to not find a “VOTE UKIP” at the bottom.
I’m starting to think there
I’m starting to think there should be some sort of direct action group to start standing up to these bullies, meeting fire with fire so to speek
Pathetic and laughable as it
Pathetic and laughable as it is, it still represents cyclist haters pure and simple. Hate for the sake of hate. I’m not sure if its jealousy, the “your not like me therefore I hate you” mentality, or what. But its the attitude we see all too often of hating for no logical reason whatsoever.
pmr wrote:Pathetic and
We are an outgroup. Wearing lycra and cycling on the road somehow brings out some people’s prejudices. Replace ‘lycra louts’ with olympic athletes or marathon runners and it seems pathetic and churlish. Change it to a persecuted minority and it takes on a more sinister tone. Yet, like the horn-leaning punishment pass drivers, none of them would dare to behave in the same way towards a group of 6’8″ rugby players on the street. They are all cowards really.
Simon E wrote:
We are an
Its so laughable its a joke. However replace “Lycra Louts” with the name of Wing Commander Guy Gibson’s Dog and the Police would have been all over this 3 mins after the sign went up. Funny how its acceptable to be abusive and belittle certain minority groups but not others.
Now 80/20 for the No vote.
Now 80/20 for the No vote. 😀
I’m looking forward to the follow up story.
don simon wrote:Now 80/20 for
4 hours later it is 90/10.
Haha! Yes. I have voted
Haha! Yes. I have voted multiple times. All you need to do is refresh the page in Firefox on a Mac.
Cyclists are an easy target for the NIMBY bullies! Like all bullies they are not prepared to show their faces or leave the comfort of their cars. (|:
I thought it was an excellent
I thought it was an excellent bit of laminating though.
Blocking our roads?!?! What
Blocking our roads?!?! What a fuckwit! Might be going out of my way to go to Westerham a lot more!
Voted multiple times and will email the rag with some choice comments
Interesting use of words
Interesting use of words claiming ownership over the roads. If the ride organisers have council permission to put signs up and someone takes them.down is that not vandalism at best and possibly even outright theft. Shows who the real louts are doesn’t it
Cycling clubs aren’t the
Cycling clubs aren’t the problem, sportives are, charging people to ride a mass participation club run, Hundreds of riders thinking they’re racing, with no marshalling, no lead cars etc.
neil2908 wrote:Cycling clubs
Bollocks. All the sportives I’ve been on have marshalls and ok some people take it too seriously but not everyone thinks they’re racing
Daveyraveygravey
Quite – for me the challenge is finishing…
neil2908 wrote:Cycling clubs
Frankly that’s as bad an attitude as the original poster guy.
There are plenty ASSHOES in clubs as well as on Sportives.
And last time I looked, they were usually marshalled, they may also have a lead car…..albeit with a long strung out 50 mile tail.
Having done a bit of both, club events cause trouble with other traffic, just because they do, Sportives seem to cause more grief between riders as they aren’t schooled in group riding.
I’m also getting increasingly pissed off by the way some clubs seem to expect individual riders to vanish as they pass, we aren’t all gringos.
Flying Scot wrote:
There are
Asshoe? Is that a tool for clearing the arse of weeds? A boon for the ageing club and sportive rider I’ll be bound.
Plonker, sportives are great
Plonker, sportives are great demonstrating how many cyclists there are in this country. No one is racing accept their own limitations.
Mass events are very well supported by locals cheering cyclists on, well that was my overall impression of the thousands who lined the ride london event this year.
Plonker, sportives are great
Plonker, sportives are great demonstrating how many cyclists there are in this country. No one is racing accept their own limitations.
Mass events are very well supported by locals cheering cyclists on, well that was my overall impression of the thousands who lined the ride london event this year.
Our club organises the Hell
Our club organises the Hell of the Ashdown starting & finishing in Biggin Hill, I can assure you all the signs go up Fri/Sat and come down Sun/Mon, signs in the Biggin Hill/Knockholt area are always last up and first down due to the number of stolen and turned signs in the area, approx £150 worth of signs have gone missing in the area over the last five years.
Also tin tacks in the road and a cows carcass that may or may not have been accidentally left in the road that had a rider off his bike, I know of many road rage incidents in the area, but often even a reg number is not enough due to the number of unregistered cars in the area, our own Vice President had his £2000 trek written off as a driver drove over it whilst going for him, the Police Officer said he wished he could put a big wall around Biggin Hill and call it a jail.
Poor misguided LynnS, she
Poor misguided LynnS, she seems to think the the article is making refernce to either her or their roads. I wonder if she’ll be so enthusiastic to take ownership when it comes to filling in the pot holes and general road maintenance….
86/14 =))
A brain surgeon by the name
A brain surgeon by the name of Lynns posted “The roads in Biggin Hill are not suited to bikes as they are very narrow and have no bike lanes.” But surely that just means the roads aren’t suitable for cars!
http://www.sevenoakschronicle
http://www.sevenoakschronicle.co.uk/Health-wellbeing-week-aid-Sevenoaks-Area-Mind/story-23255362-detail/story.html
Let’s get healthy, just don’t go cycling… :B
I have a sympathy with the
I have a sympathy with the arrows if, as is round here they are left up. They should be removed by the vehicle that closes the course ie just behind the last rider and most definitely with , say an hour. An organisation that cannot do that should be made to do so. Equally they should only go up the day before.
Who ever runs Wiggles events is especially bad at that.
I still feel that its just plain selfish to run several events in an area when vast parts of the UK never see one. Oh yes, the organisers care little for the locals.
I would assume that someone just doesn’t like arrows and bikes. Its a free country.
Don’t confuse freedom of
Don’t confuse freedom of speech with hate speech
mattsccm wrote:……….I
So in the interests of fairness you’ll make those who want to ride drive to other ‘deprived’ parts of the country. I won’t even begin to calculate the additional costs in fuel, time, CO emissions etc that would produce.
People want to ride in that area because it’s close to or accessible from where they live. If organisers can’t get enough entries in ‘deprived’ areas it’s because no one is interested or they’re out sticking up stupid signs or putting down tacks.
Incognito on the Chrome
😀 Incognito on the Chrome browser and get voting on the Chronicle web site fellow bicyclists. 👿 <:P 8} :H
What’s the smallest possibly
What’s the smallest possibly circuit on which a 100mile Sportive with a couple thousand people could be run that passes that house? couple thousand riders passing every 1/2 hour for the whole day should work nicely.
Local sign for local people i
Local sign for local people i suppose… 😕
This is near where obnoxious
This is near where obnoxious Youtube and Twitter troll Cycling Mikey lives. Anyone think that it is him putting the signs up to get a rise out of people, and to create an argument that would not otherwise be there?
Twybaydos wrote:This is near
No, I think it’s just you.
Whole family voted 91% now
Whole family voted 91% now 🙂
92/8.
Great work.
92/8.
Great work.
The minority of ‘lycra louts’
The minority of ‘lycra louts’ spoil the goodwill for the majority. You know who you are.
Beaufort wrote:The minority
You’re right. And you know what, too – there are some motorists who are selfish s*ds, driving aggressively and badly.
I for one think it is terrible – can’t they see that they are spoiling it for the majority, and bringing down the good name of motor vehicle drivers. 😕 This “collective responsibility” thing is tosh.
re the comment from an
re the comment from an organiser above.
Signs should not go up Friday/Saturday.
The former is too early and is visual pollution. Coming down on Monday is wrong. Your course closing team should strip them.
Arrows, PR notices the lot.
Yes I know it is a pain but life is a pain and local residents have an equal if not greater right to have a say.
Thing is if everyone did it properly there would be no problem.
It would give the irrational, grumpy and down right miserable no where to go. As the sportive scene has become more self indulgent and excessive it has created the rod to beat the back of all cyclists.
The rules as laid down by
The rules as laid down by Councils state that signs should go up no earlier than 48 hours before the event so we are within the rules, we also abide by the rules of placement so as not to interfere with pedestrians or other road users and when we remove them we remove all the fixings as well. To be honest I have always had them all down by Sunday night, this year we had three signs removed in an area that I had to re assign and a local cyclist has emailed me tonight to say he has seen them hidden behind a hedge off the route so I am picking them up tomorrow.
Don’t forget it is not just route arrows but Caution Cyclist signs and Cycle event signs that all have to be placed either side of major junctions, a lot of sportives even some commercial ones skirt this one.
PS I took down several SRS Event signs that had been left up by another group as well.
Cheers
Steve
just do an audax
just do an audax 😉
when the signs go up or down
when the signs go up or down is a red herring. They’re almost certainly not actually worried about the visual impact of the signs. They’re against what the signs bring.
Though of course they’re (unsurprisingly) ignorant about who puts up signs, as generally cycling clubs don’t….
Whilst the idea cyclists
Whilst the idea cyclists ‘block roads’ is clearly wrong, I agree with the sentiment that hundreds of day-glow signs along a route is visual pollution. Organisers should be putting them out on the morning, and removing the same day. If they aren’t, local councils should remove and send the organiser a bill.
Particularly in popular areas – I have seen some major intersections with two, three or more arrows from previous events stapled or zip-tied to street furniture.
I managed to do this for my charity sportive earlier this year – three routes of 20, 40 and 60-miles, putting them out by myself on the day (4:30am start!) and 3 others helping get them back in. An hour after the last finisher crossed the line, all ***400*** course arrows were back in. Given the majority of sportives are commercial ventures they should 100% be out and in on the same day. Councils should be stipulating this for events, and not re-issuing permits if the organisers don’t comply.
Simples.
Also, sportive entrants should be pressuring organisers to clean up after themselves on the day. I see no difference between a discarded pile of gel/bar wrappers and a swathe of neon arrows.
South London Cycling Clubs.
South London Cycling Clubs. What a nuisance. It’s not like they’ve been going for the last 130 years or anything.
The irony of people in that
The irony of people in that area complaining about signage is that on a Sunday half of Surrey is gridlocked by people driving to and from Sunday pub lunches.
I recently did the Ride of the Falling Leaves through there – a small sportive, about 600 riders, organised by local club Dulwich Paragon.
Due to a series of mechanicals I was much later than I wanted to be and at one point going through the village of Downe it was total chaos. A long single lane road out of the village with about 50 cars and trucks trying to go in opposite directions. They might still be there for all I know.
However there was plenty of space for bicycles. A red-faced Mercedes lout started yelling at me about how I should stop because “We’re all just trying to get through here”.
I told him I was going through, no problem. Certainly not my problem anyway.
Come to think of it, all those pubs have signs too.
abudhabiChris wrote:The irony
And that’s where this whole story is full of irony and wrong. Local complains that the area is polluted by signs, the solution is to put up more signs! 😐
LynnS complains that the roads are too narrow for bikes and that she and she alone should be allowed to drive here car down her own roads.
The newspaper that brought us this story and wonderful poll is full of stories regarding the traffic gridlock of the area and not one mention of the pollution created or random useage of inverted commas. I particularly like the story about traffic chaos caused by a golfing event… =D>
Bicycles freely passing stationary traffic, yet are considerd to be the reason for slowing traffic down.
And of course, the final irony of cyclists not paying “road tax” (do you see what I did there?).
A female friend of mine
A female friend of mine admits she detests cyclist and uses no ‘road tax’ and other various reasons for her dislike. What it actually boils down to is that she doesn’t like to be delayed by cyclists and feels nervous around them (whilst clad in steel). There is an element of jealousy that cyclist can filter pass slow or stationary traffic.
CXR94Di2 wrote:A female
As a friend of mine who knows a few things about psychology has explained this to me before, for some drivers their dislike is caused by their own lack of confidence (the feeling nervous). Driving safely around cyclists is something they don’t know how to do, and for the simple reason that we all instinctively don’t look to blame ourselves in life’s disputes, irrational arguments gain weight.
The simplest solution for the driver is for the cyclist to not be there. The correct solution for both parties, is for the driver to have the training to handle the situation.
It’s a reason why I’ve argued before that drivers should specifically be taught how to drive around slow road users (mainly cyclists) during their driving lessons, so that it becomes a familiar and practised skill. Not only will driving improve, it will probably have some impact on these stupid attitudes.
Idiotic tiny minded car
Idiotic tiny minded car drivers! You are not welcome here, blocking roads paid for by cycling taxpayers and polluting the air with exhaust fumes causing global warming and the end of life on earth!