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Live blog: Alejandro Valverde says “I never tested positive,” Frankfurt tow away nearly 800 cars in a month for parking in cycle lanes + more
All the news from the site and beyond as we start a new week
Mon, Nov 05, 2018 15:42
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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
kil0ran 1 hour 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.
open_roads 1 hour ago
@Xenophon2 "That’s a lot of batteries to keep track of, to the point that I have a dedicated charger with 3 m USB-C cable in my office, another one at home. Can’t imagine having to deal with another battery such as on the Flight Attendant." Top tip: In reality most of the SRAM stuff lasts a month or two even with pretty heavy usage. I just charge all the batteries on the last Sunday of every month and have yet to be caught out. The SRAM batteries are so cheap / small / light it's also worth keeping a spare in a saddle bag or similar.
ajuk.uk@gmail.com 2 hours ago
@chrisonabike 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. Speed limits should especially not be set very low in the hope that many or most drivers will only exceed them by a set amount because, not only is it not true that many people drive like that, the opposite can happen. Instead of targeting the drivers most likely to cause harm, you're putting the prohibition onto the behaviour of more sensible drivers and forcing the police to target them. The DfT guidance used to have a paragraph calling out this presumption. The extent to which road design and conditions at the time dictate traffic speeds is too stark to ignore. I've seen urban roads with signed 40 mph limits have lower average speeds than some roads with posted 20 mph limits. And yes, that road in Gloucester has signs openly inviting drivers to go faster, and almost none of them do: the non-compliance was about 2%. Compare that to over 99% non-compliance on some roads in Wales. What I'm mainly talking about is the increasing imposition of 20 mph limits on much higher-standard main roads. That's where you see extreme levels of non-compliance. In some cases, the average speed has even been known to go up after the limit has gone down. Showing such contempt just brings speed limits into disrepute and my contention is that drivers should take speed limits seriously.
ajuk.uk@gmail.com 2 hours ago
@chrisonabike 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. Speed limits should especially not be set very low in the hope that many or most drivers will only exceed them by a set amount because, not only is it not true that many people drive like that, the opposite can happen. Instead of targeting the drivers most likely to cause harm, you're putting the prohibition onto the behaviour of more sensible drivers and forcing the police to target them. The DfT guidance used to have a paragraph calling out this presumption. The extent to which road design and conditions at the time dictate traffic speeds is too stark to ignore. I've seen urban roads with signed 40 mph limits have lower average speeds than some roads with posted 20 mph limits. And yes, that road in Gloucester has signs openly inviting drivers to go faster, and almost none of them do: the non-compliance was about 2%. Compare that to over 99% non-compliance on some roads in Wales. So no, when speed limits match the road, compliance is much higher, but speeds are not. What I'm mainly talking about is the increasing imposition of 20 mph limits on much higher-standard main roads. That's where you see extreme levels of non-compliance. In some cases, the average speed has even been known to go up after the limit has gone down. Showing such contempt just brings speed limits into disrepute and my contention is that drivers should take speed limits seriously.
Rendel Harris 2 hours ago
@jaymack Yes...to an extent, and I'm happy at the moment with my twelve-year-old Dura Ace mechanical, but I must admit when I had Ultegra Di2 I did notice not so much the ease of shifting but the perfect trimming of the gears after every shift so that the chainline was always absolutely perfect and that did enhance the simple pleasure of being outside, for me anyway. At least until that day I forgot to charge the battery which died at the turnaround on an eighty-mile ride and had to ride a very lumpy forty miles home stuck in 50x14...
Rendel Harris 3 hours ago
@Daclu Trelub Well no, given that I object to the use of derogatory slurs against people with mental health issues I think I'll "bother" the person who's using derogatory slurs against people with mental health issues. Have a little think, if capable: if your mother or someone else close to you had dementia or mental health issues, would you be happy for people to be pointing at them mockingly saying, "Looks like she's a few chips short of a fish supper"? Stop it.
Daclu Trelub 3 hours ago
@Rendel Harris Go and bother somebody else with your opinion.
jaymack 3 hours ago
I'm sure electronic gears, pedals, seat posts etc. are each a modern marvel but they all seem to solve a problem I've never encountered. However I have encountered others faffing while searching for batteries, cables and even a firmware update. All of which just gets in the way of cycling's simple pleasure - being outside
Rendel Harris 3 hours ago
@Daclu Trelub Yeah...that sort of expression is OK when being jocular about someone who's a bit dense or slow on the uptake, is it really appropriate for someone who quite obviously has mental health/dementia issues?
17 thoughts on “Live blog: Alejandro Valverde says “I never tested positive,” Frankfurt tow away nearly 800 cars in a month for parking in cycle lanes + more”
Quote:
Would love to see that happen in places around the UK, but it would be seen as more of the Great War on the Motorist (TM) and no police force would touch it.
brooksby wrote:
Would love to see that happen in places around the UK, but it would be seen as more of the Great War on the Motorist (TM) and no police force would touch it.
Think they would need to build a bigger compound first.
Grahamd wrote:
nah, just crush them and deposit the offending cube of scrap metal on their porch.
brooksby wrote:
Would love to see that happen in places around the UK, but it would be seen as more of the Great War on the Motorist (TM) and no police force would touch it.
It’s a bit of a giggle commuting (by bike/car/bus/horse/whatever) down Hotwell Road in the morning – any of the cars left in the left-hand lane just get picked up and stuck on the back of a lorry
Canyon48 wrote:
You realise that they have to do that *every* morning- there are some people down there seem to think that recovery charge is just part of the cost of running their car, it seems…
Quote:
Duplicate post.
Except clearly the prospect
Except clearly the prospect of your car being towed has no effect on driver behaviour as (a) there are dozens of tow companies making a healthy living from doing this already, and (b) inspite of a month of warning, 850 drivers in one city still parked on the bike paths. Useful as revenge, but not sure how useful as a deterrent. Perhaps if the cars were then crushed……
I love the word
I love the word Abschleppdienst.
ConcordeCX wrote:
some of the German nouns are pure class. While the compound nouns are in a league of their own. I still break into cold sweats thinking about it and trying to get my tongue around them when I attempted and failed my German O’Level quite spectacularly.
I think it’s not so much the
I think it’s not so much the police that wouldn’t touch it as local councils.
Bezirksschornsteinfegermeiste
I used to be a bit of a bookie in my early teens and was fascinated with long words, I can’t recal many so had to look it up but some of the longer words in every day use are in German, Finnish + Scandanavian words too
Bezirksschornsteinfegermeister – head district chimney sweep
Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän – Danube Steam boat river captain
BehindTheBikesheds wrote:
it’s a process called agglutination. The second word breaks up quite easily into “Danube steam ship travel business captain”.
you’ll enjoy this one, which I’m going to practice shouting at recalcitrant drivers, just to disorient them:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lopadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsanodrimhypotrimmatosilphioparaomelitokatakechymenokichlepikossyphophattoperisteralektryonoptekephalliokigklopeleiolagoiosiraiobaphetraganopterygon
ConcordeCX wrote:
I don’t recall seeing that in Auguste Escoffier’s Reportoire de la Cuisine, that’s a belter!
Valverde: “I never tested
Valverde: “I never tested positive”. Oh well, that has a long history as a valid defence then….
I was almost starting to feel
I was almost starting to feel sorry for Valverde, thinking that he was getting a disproportionate amount of stick, but then he goes and says something like this and any sympathy disappears. So he was just storing his blag with a highly notable doctor linked to doping for prosperity?
Footpath parking seems to be
Footpath parking seems to be default setting for a lot of Drivers, no matter the situation. I have noticed an increase in people parking a few inches onto the footpath in locations where it makes no difference “Emergency Sevices might need to get by” … Well, don’t fucking parking there if Emergency Services are so important to you.
one from down under on
one from down under on yesterday’s ride – not 100% sure on the law – parking in a bike lane is legal in Victoria unless signs (none) say otherwise – blocking access to/from probably is a parking offence I’m told but at most its around a $95 fine