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Live blog: Active travel campaigners slam Budget, Italian ex-pro dies in plane crash, £330 Bournemouth prom cycling fine + more
All the news from the site and beyond as we start a new week
Mon, Oct 29, 2018 16:00
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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
tomlew 2 hours ago
@Rendel Harris Oh, and by the way. "But I will not take risks for something other than the GC." - this could just as well be read as "I won't take any risks unless it's really, really worth it." They're not even talking about snatching the maillot jaune for a day, but about the GC. Who wouldn't, if they had a opportune shot at that?
Miller 10 hours ago
Here's a photo I took on Alpe d'Huez at TdF 1991. L to R: Gianni Bugno, Miguel Indurain, Luc Leblanc. They would finish the stage in that order, Bugno winning. Yes, colour film was available in 1991 but that day I chose to use black and white knowing that many years hence it would look epic.
tomlew 11 hours ago
Riding a bike is green. Pro cycling is not. Don't greenwash us by confusing one with the other.
Rendel Harris 12 hours ago
The first 750 words of this article comprise a detailed explanation of the ways in which cycling continues to feel the full force of climate change. Perhaps more time reading what's actually written before rushing to spaff nonsense everywhere might help your comprehension.
60somethingcyclist 12 hours ago
Sadiq Khan and TfL cannot be accused of neglecting cycling. They have greatly improved provision in London. Yes there is a lot more that could be done, but we need to be patient. The public finances aren't in good shape, so things are going to b e tight for some time.
tomlew 13 hours ago
@Rendel Harris "ultimately football at every level is played on roughly the same size to pitch, the goals are the same size and there are eleven players on each team." Except they don't. In a senior team a 16-year-old plays against adults, under tougher competition, plays more matches and under greater mental strain. If your argument was vaild, I could easily counter it by sayng that riding the very same bike on the same roads as in training, 150 km a day, should not be such a big deal for a pro cyclist.
MaxiMinimalist 14 hours ago
The TdF yearly circus generates human and atmospheric pollution. Big time. Airplanes, choppers, trucks, cars for teams, media, VIP and other involved parties. But pro cycling is a profitable business, ask ASO. Don't spoil the party with questions about carbon footprint, side-road waste, recycling (pun intended). Also, why does ASO not have a plan B case of high temperatures - earlier departure times, shortened stages, ... ? Based on this week's weather forecasts, several stages are likely to be cancelled. Quote of the day : "But as cycling continues to feel the full force of climate change, ..." In what ways?
Pub bike 15 hours ago
@Podc I heard that Scunthorpe CC's experiment with wrapping the name around the jersey under the arm to make it fit didn't go too well either.
IanMK 16 hours ago
Be interesting to see if UAE chase down any breakaway today to ensure that Jonas stays in yellow.
Rendel Harris 19 hours ago
@Rendel Harris Interestingly, and it sort of supports my theory that UAE were being cunning, Pog has the mountains jersey today because he was the quickest up the final climb, which argues that he hadn't burnt all his matches when he got to the finish.
21 thoughts on “Live blog: Active travel campaigners slam Budget, Italian ex-pro dies in plane crash, £330 Bournemouth prom cycling fine + more”
Ermm – they do understand
Ermm – they do understand that “£420m for potholes in today’s Budget” is total and utter f-ing peanuts, right??
Same old shit, different day.
Same old shit, different day. So you can beat someone up, attack with your killing weapon of choice and get no charges but a cyclist on the prom gets a bigger slap than someone distracted driving or speeding.
Fucking ridiculous!
£330! Totally
£330! Totally disproportionate. This driver was under the influence of drugs, put other road users at risk but was fined about the same, even if he did have to do some community service https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/17001272.drug-swipe-on-driver-in-boscombe-gave-positive-result-for-cannabis/?ref=ar
Mind you, they did the right thing with this idiot https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/16986349.mitchell-stuart-drove-his-porsche-at-55mph-near-lilliput-c-of-e-infant-school/?ref=ar “He is one of those start-up child prodigies.” I think they meant one of those upstart children.
£330 fine is rediculous when
£330 fine is rediculous when compared with what drivers get for more dangerous offences, however, the cyclist was stupid to get back on his bike after being informed of the ban. When taking into account the situation and that he was let off and then decided to try and take advantage he probably deserved a good chunk of what he got.
ClubSmed wrote:
Fixed that
ClubSmed wrote:
Such as running over an elederly man who’d fallen into the road, despite the car 100m ahead managing to swerve around him, while driving your car with a defective headlamp, on the (handsfree) phone to your boyfriend arranging to meet up (presumably for some rumpy pumpy), failing to stop, turning around, coming back, and then skulking away when spotting it was in fact a person she’d hit (as she suspected, despite having said she thought it was rubbinh but suspected it was a person – go figure that out).
Depriving a family of a family member and she’s fined 500 for leaving the scene, not for the intial accident, or the defective lights.
Random thought in response to
Random thought in response to the Bournemouth article; does dabbing count as cycling? That somewhat archaic practice of having one foot on a pedal and using the other to scoot along like a scooter user?
kil0ran wrote:
Given that even pushing a bike down the pavement is technically illegal – you should carry it – I would imagine “dabbing” would also fall foul of this.
vonhelmet wrote:
I don’t believe that pushing a bike is technically illegal – got any references for that?
From this article http://www.bikehub.co.uk/featured-articles/cycling-and-the-law/ :
Scooting on a bike (I’m pretty sure that dabbing is something entirely different in modern vernacular) would thus be considered to be riding it.
vonhelmet wrote:
Not true https://www.cyclinguk.org/cycle/scooting-cycling
kil0ran wrote:
Scooting, or dabbing as you call it, is as far as I know, technically legal as you aren’t riding the bike. I’m sue I’ve read legal opinion about this, but perhaps someone with more knowledge than me could elucidate?
Found this, https://www.cyclinguk.org/cycle/scooting-cycling which makes it clear that pushing your bike with both feet on the ground is definitely legal.
Cycling back towards
Cycling back towards Greenwich from Bethnal Green the other night, 11.30pm, going through Greenwich foot-tunnel I got an earful from a drunk woman walking the opposite way to me because I was cycling through. She stepped out in front of me to stop me, shouting at me to get off my bike. OK, strictly speaking, the rules say don’t cycle (they also state you’re meant to walk on the left, and she wasn’t, but I digress). There needs to be some kind of proportion (as I tried to explain to her). It was an empty tunnel, apart from her. At 11.30pm I’m not causing anyone any harm by cycling. “What about small children walking in here” she ranted. I looked up and down the deserted tunnel and looked bemused. At busy times, during the day I’ll always get off the bike and walk. That evening I’d come across so much agressive driving on the streets of east london, I couldn’t help thinking, as this angry woman ranted at me, we have our perspectives all messed up.
£330 is too lenient.
£330 is too lenient.
People who think they are above the law should, and will, be made to pay, entitled cyclists are no exception.
A440 wrote:
I’d be happy to agree if the same standards were applied to motorists as well.
A440 wrote:
Ooh, Charles Bronson! Go on, baby, make me pay! Make me pay ’til I beg for more! Wear your superhero mask for me, big boy!
The full Herald on Sunday
The full Herald on Sunday piece is truly appalling. (They don’t appear to have made it available online.)
“…cyclists are allowed to run riot on our roads, never signalling, rarely obeying traffic lights or pedestrian crossings, and often exceeding 20mph speed limits in towns or wobbling along on 60mph country roads, causing drivers on blind bends to have heart attacks.”
“They cause cars to overtake into oncoming traffic, but don’t give a damn as long as they get to practise their smug hobby and display their disturblingly distended calf muscles.”
“Humour” indeed…
PS – sad farwell to Norman Sheil – Class rider – brilliant coach – nice guy who had little time for the UK “blazer brigade”
JohnnyRemo wrote:
Oh how I love this one: a clear confession that the driver is not in control of their car and hence had no way of preventing it from swerving into the oncoming traffic.
rkemb wrote:
It’s the sense of entitlement that does it. “The speed limit is 30mph, therefore I am entitled to travel at 30mph no matter what.” Well, no, that’s not how it works.
rkemb wrote:
I think we’d always assumed motor vehicles were like bicycles (short of a mechanical failure, the rider is completely in control of them) when clearly they’re actually more like horses (and horsists are constantly reminding us that they have very little control over their two tonnes of very nervous and jumpy still-almost-wild animal).
Cycling UK and Sustrans are
Cycling UK and Sustrans are right, and this budget is yet another disaster for active travel and sustainable travel. £30bn for roads and £650m for alternatives to driving, which is exactly the inverse of what it should have been. This government has gone way beyond hopeless, hurtled past totally incompetent and is currently at abysmal.
I stand corrected – I was
I stand corrected – I was misinformed.