Live blog: Is this the new Ronnie Pickering? The Mirror make epic Tour de France preview fail + more
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Tue, Jul 03, 2018 14:08
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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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Latest Comments
HarrogateSpa 5 minutes ago
I take a different view. 'Vehicular cycling' gets you modal share of 2%, whereas proper joined-up cycle facilities can result in 30%+. Most infrastructure projects are to provide for utility cycling - short trips in town - not leisure cycling in the countryside. The original designs for Harrogate Station Gateway (funded 2019) were excellent. Since then North Yorkshire Council has (a) failed to build anything at all and (b) diluted the cycling elements of the scheme to the point that they are disappointing and do not provide a useful route.
AidanR 9 minutes ago
I don't drive often, and I assumed that drivers around us were pulling out on me when I'm cycling for exactly the reasons you cite. But then I hired a car and, lo and behold, drivers still did this. It turns out it has everything to do with them being crap and aggressive, and not much to do with what it is they're pulling out in front of (except possibly lorries!).
Jakrayan 33 minutes ago
I wonder if it's a location thing? I live in Canterbury and, apart from the odd close pass, I find the vast majority of drivers are actually very considerate. In fact it's a common occurrence for someone coming the other way to stop and pull in if we're both on a narrow lane. I do the same if there's a wide bit close to me, or someone's been stuck behind me for a little while, and I almost invariably get a 'thank you' wave or flash of the hazard lights.
Jakrayan 37 minutes ago
On one occasion when we went to watch the Tour on a cobbled stage, one of the sponsors in the publicity caravan was a chain of retirement homes. My wife is somewhat younger than me; the lady leaning out of the open-top car took one look at us and made absolutely sure she actually passed one of the fridge magnets to her rather than throwing one on the ground as usual. We still laugh about it. Well, my wife does!
Rendel Harris 49 minutes ago
@mctrials23 I wasn't thinking of identifying poor driving, which is obviously tricky without supplementary evidence, but given the huge amount of incidents that involve excessive speed GPS for keeping people to the speed limit is perfectly valid; even if there were issues with identifying the exact speed at any point, if it can be measured (as you can) that somebody has gone from point A to point B, a mile apart, on a 20 mph road in two minutes instead of three then get the fine and points in the post. Remove excessive speed and you remove the cause of numerous injury and fatality incidents.
wtjs 1 hour ago
@Sheen wheels I have a version of the R8100 and you definitively need ceramic for the socket Oh no, you don't! Ceramic sockets pretty rare and, as far as I know, only with ceramic and not metal 'ball' (femoral head)
mctrials23 2 hours ago
@mitsky Its another one of those things that makes no sense isn't it. Someone was saying in another thread that we need a harder driving test. I don't think we do. Everyone who has passed in the last 20 years has done a test that is more than happy to fail you for behaviour that 90% of drivers exhibit every time they get behind the wheel. The test is fine. The fact that getting your license seems to be considered some weird proof that you will continue to drive safely is the issue. The fact that when you prove that you cannot drive safely its not immediately revoked is the issue.
mctrials23 2 hours ago
@Rendel Harris The issue with GPS chips, as everyone who has one of those black boxes will attest to, is that they are crap. They interpret heavy braking as poor driving rather than someone else forcing it. They see rapid acceleration where there is none. All we need is a much higher chance of people being caught and punished for their everyday shit driving. I'm sure as a cyclist that every single time you go out on your bike you will have a dozen or more times when you think "that would have been a nasty accident if someone was coming the other direction". Eventually, when bad behaviour suffers no consequences it becomes completely normalised. Then we struggle to treat it as anything but a normal, unavoidable accident when that bad behaviour does incur consequences.
mctrials23 2 hours ago
Drivers regularly pull out in front of me and cause me to slam on the brakes or avoid them. Very often they have seen me and just assume I'm not going very fast or they assume I will slow down/stop (which I do). Too many drivers don't look for cyclists, hate giving way to them or expect the cyclist to be moving slowly and just pull out.
mctrials23 2 hours ago
@Rendel Harris By the time someone is looking at prison time its too late. As has been proven time and time again, the severity of punishment is a poor deterrent to bad behaviour if people don't think its going to happen to them or they don't think they will be caught. Now I do think that there should be far more severe and immediate punishments for bad driving when drivers are caught but this would need to be coupled with a massive push to actually act on information/proof of bad driving. As anyone that submits footage to the police knows, its a crapshoot and certain police forces are anti-cyclist. This would try to essentially put people off misbehaving whilst driving before they cause an accident rather than getting the tired old excuse of "it was a single dangerous incident, they definitely don't do this all the time and their luck finally ran out". Perhaps it should go even further and if you have a history of speeding and you hurt someone speeding, that is looked upon in a very dim light.
18 thoughts on “Live blog: Is this the new Ronnie Pickering? The Mirror make epic Tour de France preview fail + more”
Mirror – chateau!
Mirror – chateau!
davel wrote:
Chateau!?
UK Cycling Expert daftness.
UK Cycling Expert daftness.
Well canal guy was, err, what
Well canal guy was, err, what I can only describe as a throwback. I was into eugenics I’d be round his with a pair bricks to the knackers to stop the line.
Trouble with pricks like that they are looking for any ‘good guy’ excuse to be a bad guy.
“but the cyclist was doing 11mph, I had to drown them so nobody got hurt”
Yorkshire wallet wrote:
there was a time, before British Waterways was turned into the charity Canal and Rver Trust that it is now, only in 2012, when you were supposed to have a permit to cycle on the towpat. So perhaps he’s emerged from a pre-2012 time tunnel. Don’t tell him the Olympics have been and gone.
I thought the cyclist did
I thought the cyclist did very well to keep so calm with that idiot by the canal. you know some people are trouble just by their cammo shorts and T. It sounded like he’d been on the booze too just to add to his already minimal IQ.
DrG82 wrote:
— DrG82you know you’re unintelligent when boozing increases your IQ.
I look forward to the video when I get home.
The term ‘mouth-breather’
The term ‘mouth-breather’ springs immediately to mind…
I still have my permit, sits
I still have my permit, sits in my bag.
never ridden on a tow path,
never ridden on a tow path, can’t say this would ever lure me to do so either.
Pedestrians should walk in
Pedestrians should walk in single file on the side of shared paths, and wear a bright yellow jacket so they can be seen.
kingleo wrote:
They should have clanging bells too, like Alpine cows.
PRSboy wrote:
And helmets and Mae Wests.
Its actually difficult to
Its actually difficult to tell if Canal Guy is genuinely trying to be doing something for the public good or if he’s just a bit pi$$ed and being an @rse. Even the worst of the “This. Is. A. Footpath!” type people don’t ever actually stand right in front of you with their arms outstretched (at least, not in my experience).
(BTW – is that his boat or is he just nicking something from it?
)
brooksby wrote:
Dunno, but there is something oddly compelling about his “Dismount when there’s pedestrians!” and the rallying cry “Pedestrians have the privilege!”
His camouflage outfit adds to the aura of canal path commando.
Less impressive was the cyclist pedalling off and leaving the lady cyclist in the clutches of the bloke who’d threatened him.
“Angry Canal Man”. One too
“Angry Canal Man”. One too many Cs in that.
burtthebike wrote:
No there is definitely one C in that picture.
Leviathan wrote:
Canal! Do I win a prize?