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Live blog: Rafa Nadal jumps on bike to go shopping in Wimbledon, Greg Van Avermaet riding yellow BMC Teammachine + more
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Tue, Jul 10, 2018 14:25
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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
chrisonabike 11 minutes 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 28 minutes 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 32 minutes 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 1 hour ago
@perce everyone should wear lights, full stop. And punctuate properly - that really gets up my colon! Anyway, must dash...
perce 1 hour 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 2 hours ago
Arrogant obnoxious Tory.
Rendel Harris 2 hours ago
How do you see them then? Do you regularly drive into black cars?
eburtthebike 3 hours ago
@Blackthorne83 He'd love to, but some bastard's taken out the cycle lanes.
kil0ran 4 hours ago
I was a few bikes away from the fatal collision during Ride London a few years ago, I barely avoided the victim's dog which was running loose. Definitely one of those slo-mo adrenaline fuelled moments and I was only doing about 40kph. At lead out speeds it really doesn't bear thinking about.
13 thoughts on “Live blog: Rafa Nadal jumps on bike to go shopping in Wimbledon, Greg Van Avermaet riding yellow BMC Teammachine + more”
Well actually, the real blame
Well actually, the real blame lies in the massive lobbying of our government by the haulage industry who are against anything that puts their costs up in the name of safety… they fought like heck with side bars for lorries, eventually selling them to companies outside London when the deadline came in. Same with mirrors… and no doubt high vision cabs and camera systems.
BJ has built a whole career
BJ has built a whole career out of transparent bullshit. It’s a deep criticism of this country that that absolute wanker has had the power and authority he is apparently granted.
I’m sure that if Boris had a
I’m sure that if Boris had a superior safety system to the EU offering, the EU would have looked at it and incorporated it if it were indeed superior. They are kind of good like that.
don simon wrote:
The EU has all the strengths and weaknesses of a collection of 28 members with sometimes complementary and sometimes competing interests. Lots of extensive discussion, horse-trading and compromise.
On a related safety issue – longer cabs with better visibility – France and Sweden opposed the proposals on behalf of their truck manufacturers. But the case for change was a good one, supported by most, so a compromise was reached (IIRC) which meant the change would happen, but a few years later.
Of course, once outside the EU, Johnny Foreigner will just do whatever we tell him
Borris is an idiot and will
Borris is an idiot and will say whatever suits his own agenda at the time. Let’s stop taking him seriously.
harragan wrote:
Parallels with Jeremy Clarkson…?
Slides? They look like
Slides? They look like sandals to me. These are slides (I think these are by United Colors of Benneton)…
de Pfeffel Johnson has always
de Pfeffel Johnson has always been a self-serving tosser. (I never refer to him as ‘Boris’ because hes no friend of mine)
He only started to do somehting about cycling provisions in London when there was a cluster of 6 cyclist deaths in a 2 week window and he knew that would be his legacy. Prior to that he had argued against it for nearly 6 years, even going as far to suggest prosecuting cyclists wearing headphones not long prior to the death cluster.
The much missed Twitter account @BorisWatch put it most succinctly in 2015:
If Boris gets run over we
If Boris gets run over we should give the EU credit for it.
What a self serving prick.
“Shimano show off Greg Van
“Shimano show off Greg Van Avermaet’s yellow BMC Teammachine he’ll use to start TDF stage 3”
It’s amazing that BMC knew he’d be in the lead before they started the time trial. And they even had the confidence to give him a road bike to ride it!
dst wrote:
“Shimano show off Greg Van Avermaet’s yellow BMC Teammachine he’ll use to start TDF stage 3”
It’s amazing that BMC knew he’d be in the lead before they started the time trial. And they even had the confidence to give him a road bike to ride it!
— dst
Often “special edition” frames are painted, delivered overnight, and then built first thing in the morning in Grand Tours.
Rapha Nadal wrote:
Often “special edition” frames are painted, delivered overnight, and then built first thing in the morning in Grand Tours.— dst
That may be the case, but my point was that he didn’t use that bike for stage 3 (the team time trial stage) as the artical headline suggests.
Ref: Rapha Slides.;
Ref: Rapha Slides.;
What do you call a French Pro Cyclist wearing sandals?
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Julian Alaphilippe Floppe