Live blog: Greg James forced to pause Sport Relief efforts, Armstrong helps test autonomous drone + your pics of cycling in the snow and more
All today’s news about snow and other cycling related stuff too
Thu, Mar 01, 2018 18:27
Help us to bring you the best cycling content
If you’ve enjoyed this article, then please consider subscribing to road.cc from as little as £2.49. Our mission is to bring you all the news that’s relevant to you as a cyclist, independent reviews, impartial buying advice and more. Your subscription will help us to do more.
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.
23 Comments
Read more...
Read more...
Read more...
Latest Comments
quiff 27 minutes ago
Nick, brake to a stop. Now take your foot off the brake. No, don't put it on the accelerator. Now what speed are you doing? If it's more than 20, drive to a garage.
mdavidford 1 hour ago
@chrisonabike I think we probably do need a finer grained approach than power-of-ten speed limits, unless you're going to allow for fractional powers, which is going to put an excessive cognitive load on the poor old drivers...
mdavidford 2 hours ago
Were you always missing the first period?
chrisonabike 2 hours ago
@Rendel Harris indeed, but giving this a sympathetic reading it *is* a bit harder to see cyclists especially in low light conditions. I think this usually means "I was a bit startled when I noticed cyclists where not expecting them / so late that if I had needed to I wouldn't have had time for evasive action". That might be when unlit non-reflective cyclists appear from a side road - or where people are salmoning against traffic flow / on and off the footway. We all have tons of experience looking for motor vehicles and are familiar with where they'll be and how they will move. Cyclists are significantly smaller, have more complicated shapes and may not be exactly "where we expect the motor vehicles". They may be moving at unexpected velocities. Plus even if cars don't have their lights on they tend to reflect. I put this one in the "follow the opposite philosophy to 'shared space' for better safety" category. That is: safety between road users is enhanced when a) people can clearly see other road users b) and have as much time as possible to deal with them c) and know exactly where to expect them / what to expect from those other road users. Most humans perform very poorly when faced with the unfamiliar and worse when startled...
chrisonabike 3 hours ago
@ajuk.uk@gmail.com "There does seem to be evidence that 20 mph limits work on roads that already lend themselves to such low speeds, and I do think the lack of a 25 mph limit option is an issue for some roads." Again - not disagreeing that numbers alone are not the best way. But I ask: were people already doing 20mph or near that when those roads that "lend themselves" to that speed had a 30mph sign? I would expect in most cases the answer was "no, people saw thirty and that primed them for the 'expected' speed". Or perhaps "they hadn't noticed the signs at all but it seemed like e.g. a residential area and they recalled from all those years back 30mph probably made sense"? Since we've previously gone through the evidence * that merely changing a number on a sign *does* in fact change behaviour and lower average speeds, and AFAICS nobody has proposed a "a set amount" they hope it will constrain people to ... ... is it fair you're disputing the evidence because it doesn't fit with how you feel it *should* work / your local experience? Or do you believe that eventually everyone will revert back to the old speed or higher because 'freedom' or because nobody's actually getting nicked for ignoring the limit? (And if the latter - what's the point of proposing that the speed limits should help with policing, if there aren't the police?) While I can believe that the truly reckless and *some* less circumspect wrong'uns are more likely also to wildly speed, I think this assertion needs more scrutiny **. As for "forcing the police to target them" I think it's been amply illustrated on this site that many of the police don't feel forced into doing much if any enforcement on the roads (see wtjs etc.). Even where they are more active the level of enforcement isn't such to make many drivers worry about "what happens if I break the law *and* get caught?" I don't feel we need 25 or 32 or other intermediate speed limits. In practice where there's enforcement at all there *may* be the discretionary 10% + a few mph in play - so you might even be fine and not fined doing 35mph in a 30mph limit. But you're far more likely simply not to experience any enforcement. And even if you are detected it's still first chance, then maybe any number of 2nd, 3rd etc. with a reasonable lawyer / sympathetic magistrate. Although if you feel the most important thing is to identify indifferent drivers (and assuming we've got enough police / cameras / "spy in the car" black boxes from somewhere) then having lots of non-power-of-ten speed limit signs might be a way to spot who's paying attention or not. Or ... if we changed to km/h (imagine!) you get a finer-grained 10 / 20 / 30 etc. * The last time this topic came up, or the time before! ** I don't know if anyone has studied this, but I'm not sure of the relative amounts of harm caused by a) a small minority of reckless joyriders and "sod getting a licence" types (who *are* very likely to cause serious harm) and b) vastly more "average reasonable drivers" - who are human and thus cut corners and sometimes make unfathomable errors - who cause damage (up to killing people and destroying buildings) at a small but definitely non-zero rate overall. It wouldn't surprise me if the overall determinant of harm turned out to be simply proportional to the number of drivers times time driven for times some measure of speed. (Since speed reduces both time to do something about a situation and increases the harm, absent a lot of engineering to mitigate it - e.g. evidence shows motorways are statistically safe environments).
belugabob 3 hours ago
Now the wands are gone, I look forward to the cycling lanes being cleaned regularly - and not parked in (thereby leaving plenty of room for the buses and emergency vehicles) (all to delivered before Coventry win the FA cup again)
chrisonabike 3 hours ago
@perce everyone should wear lights, full stop. And punctuate properly - that really gets up my colon! Anyway, must dash...
perce 3 hours ago
@Ojisan My old English teacher told me i had to work on my punctuation, so I started going to school half an hour earlier.
60somethingcyclist 4 hours ago
Arrogant obnoxious Tory.
Rendel Harris 4 hours ago
How do you see them then? Do you regularly drive into black cars?
23 thoughts on “Live blog: Greg James forced to pause Sport Relief efforts, Armstrong helps test autonomous drone + your pics of cycling in the snow and more”
Snow day for me, woke up at 6
Snow day for me, woke up at 6, a wall of red cancellations on the live train board, went back to bed. Thing is the ride part of the commute has been fantastic all this week. On Monday the mud had frozen and it had not been that dry since June. Got a bit sketchy on Tuesday evening so fitted the spike tyres. After a hearty brunch I’m off for a big off road ride.
Getting some use out of the
Getting some use out of the IceSpikers this year.
Drinfinity wrote:
that looks nice. Where is it?
ConcordeCX wrote:
Cadshaw farm to The Strawbury Duck. Just off the A666 Bolton to Darwen.
It’s part of my regular off-road short loop. There’s a whole set of bridleways and farm tracks that link up to form decent circuits, and access the PBW feeder routes.
A good long freeze and spikes also makes the top of the moors accessible. Most of the year it’s bog, but when frozen solid extra circuits open up.
Drinfinity wrote:
lovely round there. Spent many a fine summers evening at or outside the Strawberry Duck in my youth before moving away
Drinfinity wrote:
thanks, that’s near my ancestral homeland. Looks good on the OS maps too. PBW is on my list of things to do.
I’ve just got a road bike
I’ve just got a road bike with 28mm semislick GP4000s. Remember discretion is the greater part of valour; have the weekend off, Mother Natures free rest day. It’s going to be a long summer.
Leviathan wrote:
Also riding a road bike with GP4000s. Around the same area (Manchester). Don’t know what the fuss is about. Bit of white stuff on the side streets but once on the reasonably frequently used A & B roads its fine.
CygnusX1 wrote:
Oh yeah. Do you know Rufus Brunt? I wonder if you are one of my Velofrenemies. As easy as it is the quote Rule 5. I’d rather not take a needless spill and be off the bike for days or weeks when it will take literally one day to melt this lot if the wind turns. I’ve lots of shopping to do and haven’t seen Black Panther yet.
And my work site is closing
And my work site is closing from tonight and all day tomorrow. Double snow day, Yeah!
ktache wrote:
Me too. Paid leave. Awesome. Long may it continue!
RE those drones, they could
RE those drones, they could be a godsend for cycling coverage in years to come. No need for a road full of motorbikes.
Turbo @ 6am and then a(nother
Turbo @ 6am and then a(nother) day of WFH 🙂
“The drone pursues him like
“The drone pursues him like an Irish journalist.”
Hmm.
“The drone pursues him like
delete
“The drone pursues him like
delete
Lance who?
Lance who?
CygnusX1 wrote:
Armstrong.
His name’s Casey Neistat not
His name’s Casey Neistat not Casey Neustat. At least get his name right!
greenphotos wrote:
yeah we know – slip of the finger, but you can’t edit an embed on the live blog unfortunately
Warming up after a 20 mile
Warming up after a 20 mile off road snow day adventure.
Spike tyres, Yeah!
ktache wrote:
Yes, they are great aren’t they? I got to work through heavy snow shower and packed snow on the minor roads no problem. In fact I would have struggled to get to work in the car on wednesday.
Then two hours later they shut the workplace down (University campus) so I did it all over again! Great fun knowing you can keep rubber side down in these conditions.
Having said that, I don’t think we in South Cumbria have had it that bad, compared to the rest of the UK – still hasn’t stopped work closing the campus until next monday.
I’m with you on this 110%
I’m with you on this 110% Leviathan. This’ll be gone in a couple of days and no point risking 6 weeks off the bike with a broken wrist. PS. It’s rule #9
.