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I'm honestly amazed that horse riders dare take to our country roads. I have no idea what the actual statistics on collisions are but they are very slow moving, often 2 abreast and generally on the little twisty turny country lanes. With the way far too many people drive on these tiny roads, I wouldn't dare be on a horse on them. On my weekend ride this week a pickup driver (shocker eh) nearly crashed into a poor lady head on because he simply couldn't wait until it was safe to overtake. Poor womans ABS kicked in and she had to go into the side of the road to avoid him as he barrelled on through and she still only missed him by inches I reckon. All because too many people don't care. If he hits her he will have a crash on his insurance but he almost certainly wouldn't be banned despite it being a fucking braindead overtake that he clearly does as a matter of course. He is a danger on our roads but we will never treat him as one until he kills or seriously hurts someone and we can prove he was completely at fault. Even then it will have been a "one off" according to his lawyer. A lapse. About 2 minutes after this near miss a BMW flies past me giving me plenty of space and gently drifts back over to our side of the road. He was going about 45 and was on the wrong side of the road going around a blind corner while he drifted back in. If someone else doing the same speed was coming around that bend he would have binned it into the hedge or hit them. The mind just boggles. Absolutely zero reason he didn't pull back in faster. Just didn't occur to him I assume. This is why it scares me on our country roads. Far too many drivers who are just fundamentally dangerous, bad drivers.
There needs to be a change in the language used when reporting on things like this. If there is ever an incident involving a cyclist it is very much dehumanised. Cyclist = Inanimate object. Not a human being, with family and loved ones. its all so easy to make them look more like a statistic. The more people who understand that cyclists are real people just trying to live their lives and and not just an obstacle or inconvenience then we might have people treating them the way you would wish to be treated.
@OnYerBike Hmm, and when I click the links to "preferred partners" for a small sample of items, they are not found on the preferred partners sites. So... seems it is now defunct too, as you surmise.
If the riders want a parade lap, then let the organisers set an officially neutralised parade lap. If some of the riders just don't want to race, then that's between them. They don't get to badger the organisers to neutralise the end of the race. And anyway, if they take final GC times at X km to go, that just sets the race to end at X km to go. If a GC rider really wanted to, they could try attack before then (course, it would lack the course feature advantageous for getting away that the riders wanted excluded.. but still). The riders trying to bring in safety, when conditions were fine and the circuit was also fine, is just going to undermine their voice in the future when they try bring up safety the next time. Stupid.
@james-o Yes. The mountain bikers are still breaking the law. I saw two more yesterday.
@james-o Yes. The mountain bikers are still breaking the law. I saw two more yesterday.
@panda I don't think there would be a problem with maintaining a GC truce, because it only has to be maintained until the times are taken. In the case of Paris, everyone could ride in fairly easy, couple of parade laps up and down the Champs, times taken, and then if after that Pogacar wants to tow Del Toro round three laps of Montmartre, or indeed go for the stage himself, no worries. I too am of the generation when the organisers held that sort of sway, nothing like as important now when 90% plus of the top riders' salaries come from the team rather than prize money, indeed I believe it's customary for the winner nowadays to give their prize money away to the rest of the team. This is, I believe, a good thing; although rider power can sometimes appear a bit excessive in its demands (the main reason for asking for neutralisation yesterday, as explained by the rider representative, seemed to be "we're all knackered", which was pretty ridiculous) at least organisers can no longer dictate that they must go on in dangerous circumstances. As they were saying on commentary yesterday, what they need to do is for the rider representatives and the organisers to get together as soon as, or even before, the route is announced and iron out any problems then instead of waiting until the eve of the stage or even, as in stage of the Giro this year, to complain about the parcours while it is in progress.
@Riggers No single option has really filled the void. For clothing, Sigma Sports probably has the best range, but tends to be higher end brands at RRP (or close to). They also have the Universal Colours brand, but my impression is that leans towards form over function (i.e. looks nice but isn't actually great quality). For steep discounts on brand name stuff, Merlin is probably the best bet. Beyond that, a lot of googling and shopping around - Tredz, bikeparts.co.uk, Condor, SJS Cycles etc. Van Rysel at Decathlon is probably the closest comparison to dhb for good quality "own brand" stuff at a sensible price.
@Paul J As I understand it, the sale did include the IP for the dhb brand, and I think Frasers/Evans claimed to have been planning to keep the brand going. That said, there's no reason to think that the brand has/will retain the quality or value credentials it was formerly known for - I don't believe any staff were retained, nor any obligation to retain or restore relationships with the suppliers that had previously manufactured dhb-branded kit. Far more likely dhb becomes another "brand" plastered across the cheap tat that is the hallmark of the Frasers empire. I note the dhb website you link to doesn't appear to have been updated since February 2024 (based on Wayback Machine archives).
@Rendel Harris I think it says a lot about the previous two days that not many guys chose to race for the sake of racing. If the win is prestigious (like Paris) and/or the previous stages haven’t been so brutal then more teams and riders will choose to race. It’s a shame because Paris the last couple of years has been great and I can see what they were thinking! Few minor tweaks and I think it works. I’m also from a generation where an organiser could just say “the course is safe, if you want your prize money, race. No tears” and it would have happened unless Hinault didn’t fancy it. Which he would’ve. I could also see a situation where a GC contender wants to work for one of their team-mates who has worked for them for three weeks so a GC cordially agreed truce wouldn’t be possible, but how big would the time gaps be, anyway?
24 thoughts on “Live blog: Study: Cycling reverses ageing but weight training has no effect, Jeremy Clarkson back on his bike in The Grand Tour +more”
Quote:
Even if he hadn’t been carring a big-a$$ knife, it seemed like a clear-cut case for assault, I’m afraid. Carrying the knife? Not sure how this was a suspended sentence.
And, the media is calling him a cyclist. That’s like saying a bank robber was a motorist or a pedestrian and, you know what, they don’t do that.
And, and, why is it called a zombie knife anyway? Last time I checked, there was no such thing as zombies IRL…
brooksby wrote:
Clearly you’re not prepared for the zombie apocalypse, foolish man! I have a full detailed escape and survival plan.
peted76 wrote:
Worryingly – I don’t know if you’re yanking my chain…
brooksby wrote:
He was kidnapped by people who in all likelyhood would do it again, so I can see why he might turn to carrying a knife for protection. I am not saying in any way shape or form that it is right, but I can see the logic.
In the video it looks like the car in question pulls out without indicating and knock the guy off the bike and crashes into a car in trying to get away (hit and run).
It is after he has been assaulted by a weapon (the car) that he retaliates with the knife that he is now carrying around with him for protection.
Given this series of events I can see how mitigating factors can be a factor in the sentencing.
If I had just been knocked of my bike by a car I would be pretty mad too!
ClubSmed wrote:
This was no road rage attack. If you watch the vid, the bike pulls up alongside the car *before* the car pulls out. Reckon the bike rider and driver knew each other. The erratic driving says to me the driver knew he was in trouble before the knife gets pulled out.
Good point Pete. I believe
Good point Pete. I believe Hawkinspeter has an entire underground bunker with years of food and supplies and an army of thousands of highly trained anti-zombie special forces squirrels ready to take on the hoards of the undead.
StraelGuy wrote:
What, just one?
Cracking legs to the person
Cracking legs to the person in the top pick wearing a black jacket and the green brompton.
Scoob_84 wrote:
Didn’t notice – too busy looking at the well developed glutes on the left..
This one is pretty insane:
This one is pretty insane:
Cycliq Fly6 – Roadrage in Scotland
cdamian wrote:
I’ve had similar to that in the past. No point trying to argue the toss with a nutter.
Hope the cyclist was ok and some action was taken against the driver.
In another scenario the
In another scenario the driver gets stabbed/shot, would be no fucking great loss either.
BehindTheBikesheds wrote:
Yorkshire wallet wrote:
as seen very recently some people are taking weapons with them, in places like London, Manchester/NirthWest, Glasgow, West Yorks, all places that have high rates of weapon carrying. As I said, another scenario is one where the assailant gets a deadly weapon used against them. You never know in these times particularly in certain areas where it would be more prevalent for young men to be tooled up.
BehindTheBikesheds wrote:
— Yorkshire wallet as seen very recently some people are taking weapons with them, in places like London, Manchester/NirthWest, Glasgow, West Yorks, all places that have high rates of weapon carrying. As I said, another scenario is one where the assailant gets a deadly weapon used against them. You never know in these times particularly in certain areas where it would be more prevalent for young men to be tooled up.— BehindTheBikesheds
Guns for cyclists? Just for defence like.
You would only take a weapon
You would only take a weapon if you were expecting trouble. People who expect trouble usually have no problem in finding it.
Mungecrundle wrote:
As it happens you hear often on forums about arming up and to take a D-Lock or a chain so that one can smash it through the windscreen/against a person, are these wrong uns just going out to look for trouble?
And your comment ignores what I said, on another occasion the outcome could be very different, particularly in areas where knife and gun crime are prevalent. Would it be common place, of course not, but that’s the thing, can you absolutely be sure what any one person is capable of, how they might react in a scenario as per the video?
Can you tell by looking at someone who is going to be violent in a confrontation, who might be carrying a d-lock and smash it in your face and beat you to within an inch of your life, or a knife/gun/solid bar and do you serious harm? Is it that hoodie wanka on a BMX or is that just a kid going to see his mates. Is it that tattoo adorned emo looking person on a fixie, maybe that white middle aged man with a helmet and carbon bike who actually turns out to be a bit of a pscho and will punch you so hard his victim dies? That will be the Paul Lambeth case if you want to look it up.
That criminals and wrong uns do use bikes is a twisted confirmation that cycles really are the transport machine of the masses and for all types of scenarios. IF they whilst using a bike to get wherever they are going to are carrying a weapon and someone they do not know takes umbridge at them being in their way/riding like a prick/doing something else that has pricked their driverwanka, a likely scenario isn’t one of a chase but one of driver gets out, driver gets threatened with knife/gun. depending on said youths state of mind that could end really badly for them.
In cases like this where the assailent is hell bent on assaulting the victim you find yourself wishing that the assailent does get the rough end of it.
BehindTheBikesheds wrote:
Not sure I have any particular disagreement with your straw man argument. Just saying that people who prepare for trouble, at least to the extent of arming themselves, are either actively looking for an excuse or on something of a hair trigger to retaliate, maybe due to previous experiences or for whatever reason.
The fact that this news item
The fact that this news item is a news item shows how scarce knife violence is in reality. It does happen, but it seems pointless to arm yourself unless there’s a specific reason you might be targetted (e.g. gambling debts, drug deals, forcing crappy Brexit deals through, squirrel smuggling etc.).
Just be prepared to defend yourself and you’ll almost never have to.
hawkinspeter wrote:
That’s a Masonic greating if ever I saw one.
Mungecrundle wrote:
Well, one variant possibly.
I prefer to use this handshake to identify myself:
Your Gif unfortunatly
Your Gif unfortunatly features no squirrels, and the squirrel reference in the text doesn’t quite cut it.
Isn’t his saddle a little bit far forward? I think he needs a bike fitting.
ktache wrote:
I was queueing up the squirrel pic for a response, so I do apologise for disappointing you.
Ooooh! Proper Top Gear’s back
Ooooh! Proper Top Gear’s back.