road.cc live blog: Olympic BMX hopefuls wanted, hidden messages on Zwift, poll says cycling 8th most boring sport and much more
The news agenda is starting to pick up after the Christmas and New Year break …
Wed, Jan 10, 2018 14:54
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Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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Oldblokey 3 hours ago
With so many people using and looking at mobie phones whilst driving and other distractions, may I suggest you always wear Hi viz and stay at home.
kil0ran 3 hours ago
The design of the "car" has played a role in this. SUVs and what the Americans call "trucks" are exempt from the pedestrian safety regulations which apply to passenger cars. Had the victim been hit by a car designed in the past twenty years he would have been "scooped" onto the bonnet and either over the roof or off to one side. Still a serious injury risk and potentially fatal but they have the benefit of those passive safety systems to improve their chances. With vehicles with such a high bonnet line as this Volvo has what tends to happen is the person bounces off the bonnet and falls on the road in front of the vehicle where they're then run over. This has happened time and time again and is becoming more of an issue as the numbers of vehicles exempt from the safety standards grows.
whosatthewheel 5 hours ago
@Accessibility for all Reducing the speeds wouldn't have helped in this case as the driver was reported doing 65 in a 40 zone on the approach to the junction, his driving described by the witnesses as erratic and evidently had no intention to stop to give way even though he had been warned by the passenger who apparently shouted "bike" three times just before the collision. He would have likely flown through that junction even if it was traffic light controlled with a red light for him at the time. In my own experience the entire area i.e. east of Lymm towards Warburton and along Dunham Road all the way up to Altrincham and past into Hale Barns, all those wealthy, posh settlements around Manchester Airport are best avoided by road cyclists. A disproportionally high number of psycho drivers must for some reason live in that area because every single time I went there on my road bike in the past, I either got harassed myself or witnessed proper dickhead driving - speeding, close passes, overtaking into oncoming traffic or round a blind bend, accelerating towards pedestrians already crossing the road, you name it. I gave up road cycling in that area years ago and only use the local TPT these days.
Hollis Jones 5 hours ago
In respect of the murder charge: based on him hitting Mr Mullins and making no attempt to help him (this killing him), how would the case compare to a hit and run driver who seriously injures or kills a cyclist, knowingly, and flees the scene without helping? Would this make the cut for a murder charge? Or is there something very different going on here that I’m missing? Genuinely curious because I don’t recall there being a murder charge before for this kind of thing unless it was premeditated. In fact, in my experience most cases like this seem to go the opposite way - where the driver can merely say the sun was in their eyes and get away with a slap on the hands.
jaymack 6 hours ago
@Rendel Harris...and there was me dishing out the praise!
whosatthewheel 6 hours ago
@polainm He must also be an already hardened criminal. It wasn't mentioned during the court proceedings to avoid influencing the jurors and ensuring he had a fair trial, but he had been released from prison shortly before this incident and was couch surfing at his cousin's house days before. Just look at his face, he's only 35, but looks older than his victim who was 56. Must have spent half his adult life in prison.
Rendel Harris 6 hours ago
@jaymack They did offer him manslaughter though but he declined to plead guilty. Without wanting to seem curmudgeonly, yes great that they preferred the most serious charges but hard to see how they could have done differently considering that Richardson got out of the car, saw Mr Mullins was stuck underneath and then got back in and carried on. That clearly moved it above anything that falls under death by dangerous driving.
Velophaart_95 6 hours ago
@thrawed Agree - the UK winters are utterly grim; grey, wet & windy. Not the type of weather you really want to go out and ride. Everything get covered in filth, and takes time to clean it after a ride. Oh for colder, drier & crisper days which can be enjoyable to be out in.
polainm 7 hours ago
@ymm In my view, lax sentencing of dangerous drivers, especially where cyclists are involved, makes the judge, jury and CPS complicit in UK driver culture. This driver is a sociopath.
slc 7 hours ago
@Mr Blackbird i reckon the libido is a bit overrated. I'd let that go rather than a limb or a nice bike.
7 thoughts on “road.cc live blog: Olympic BMX hopefuls wanted, hidden messages on Zwift, poll says cycling 8th most boring sport and much more”
Quote:
WEell F1 can be interesting (note “can be”, not “is”) due to the technical aspects of it and certain (usually weather or crash-related) situations. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve turned off some proper bore-fest F1 events and if you asked me I’d struggle to even remember what happened at any one circuit or indeed which circuits were “best” but then I’d struggle to describe to you what happened in any given stage of this year’s Tour or Vuelta as well so maybe I just don’t concentrate.
If you had half as much data and camera angles available in road racing as you do in F1, it might liven things up a bit. Some of it comes down to the commentary as well; the F1 commentary onf Sky SPorts F1 is generally excellent and knowledgeable but there are some dire cycle race commentators. Millar and Boulting are excellent but even they can struggle through a 6hr TdF stage.
Cycling is the new golf. Or
Cycling is the new golf. Or is it the other way round?
Why isn’t buzkashi on the list?
Obviously an insular list to
Obviously an insular list to UK. That said, the big issue with cycling is the incredibly long and boring flat stages…sometimes there’s four or five hours of absolutely nothing before the final sprint. I can start the feed, go to the gym, do grocery shopping, and still make it back home before it’s over. It’s just hard to make cycling spectator friendly for people who haven’t participated and know what it’s like. This is where cyclocross and mountain biking have the leg-up. Unfortunately, every time there is discussion about whether there’s need for 200km long stages, everyone acts like their cereal just got pissed in.
There is a need for 125+mile
There is a need for 125+mile ‘boring’ days because if you try to have balls out racing over three weeks then you don’t have a three week race. Unless you want to bring in blood doping and all that. There has to be something in it for all teams who prioritise different things.
A flat stage can often turn out to be a deciding factor, just look at what happened in the TDF a couple of years ago when the time gained on a flat stage that was meant to be a ‘boring’ stage. The time gained by Froome was virtually the difference over Quintana at the end of three weeks.
As for F1, used to love it, now it’s an utter snoozefest. Gone the way of soccer in that it’s purely about business and is corrupt as fuck, at least F1 doesn’t steal as much money out of the UK as soccer does.
American Football is tedious for the most part, 8minutes of highlights includes multiple replays, test match cricket must be up there though and I did used to play limited overs BITD alongside playing rugby league and squeezing a bit of cycling in too.
I guess followers of each sport like parts of it and loathe some of it also.
I think one of the worst sports is beach volleyball but watching a 10,000m, 20/50k walk or marathon is about the most boring at the olympics.
The problem with cycling is
The problem with cycling is you mostly only get stage racing on terrestial TV and this is really only appreciated by the hardened follower – like test match cricket. I bet if there was more crit and track racing people would change their view. My wife hates TdF when its on but loves coming to the velodrome when I go.
Track racing is boring, just
Track racing is boring, just going round and round the same oval. But I realise I’m not typical, because I think athletics is boring, and this surveys shows most people disagree with me.
Stage racing is very much like test match cricket, in that if you follow it closely the tactics make it interesting, and sometimes exciting, but it demands a certain amount of commitment to follow the whole thing. Otherwise you’re just watching people on bikes. Which, don’t get me wrong, I could happily do all day, but I understand why not everyone would want that.
Mark B wrote:
Maybe you’ve been watching the wrong kind of track racing. Us BMX racers ride on a track and in no way can BMX racing be descrcibed as boring. Maybe we need more BMX or MTB racing instead of other cycling sports to show that being on two wheels really is pretty special.
I note that British Cycling is now reaching out to more people to ride BMX so as to be ready for the 2020 Olympics. Well that makes a change, seeing as how BC deliberately blocked some top UK riders from competing before. Perhaps it’s part of the change underway within BC but I do wonder why Tre Whyte in particular was blocked from attending the BMX Worlds at his own (sponsor’s) expense prior to the last Olympics. By blocking him from the BMX Worlds, it meant Tre was not eligible for the Olympics. The British Olympic squad was allowed to take more BMX riders than it did to Brazil, despite having some quality, world class riders who ended up sitting at home.
There have been allegations of sexism and racism aimed at the previous BC management. I could be more specific, but I’d rather avoid the risk of a libel case thanks. I’ll leave that investigation/reporting to a cycle specific news organisation to dig into some of the back room conversations within BC that have seen some riders being prevented from competing, despite having the skills and ability. I’ll also not go into detail why there is a massive schism between BC’s treatment of BMX racing (as being secondary to track and road) and the BMX racing fraternity in the UK. There are questions in the UK’s BMX fraternity as to why young riders are now blocked from competing properly with rankings in the UK. There are also questions about how the Olympic BMX hopefuls are blocked from racing in favour of training, despite racing being one of the most important factors in training for BMX.
I could go on. But I’ll leave it to the Road CC team to investigate further.