Live blog: Leave vs Remain Poll – Paris-Roubaix special; Police ploy to tackle bike theft in Hull… a gold bike; Police wanted to counter Lord Winston’s This Morning nonsense but didn’t get chance; Costs & benefits of driving and cycling +more
SUMMARY
The costs and benefits of driving and cycling
A new study has calculated the per kilometre cost of driving, cycling and walking in the EU.
Eltis reports that the parameters used were:
- Environment
- Travel time and vehicle operation
- Health, accidents and perceived comfort
- Perceived safety and discomfort
- Quality of life, tourism and infrastructure
They concluded that each kilometre driven by car incurs an external cost of €0.11, while cycling and walking represent benefits of €0.18 and €0.37 per kilometre.
Extrapolated to the total number of passenger kilometres driven, cycled or walked in the European Union, the cost of driving is about €500 billion per year.
Due to positive health effects, cycling is an external benefit worth €24 billion per year and walking €66 billion per year.
Peter Sagan recons Paris-Roubaix cobbles
All eyes will be on Paris-Roubaix this weekend, can Peter Sagan win it again? Here’s a video his Bora team have shared from their recon ride yesterday.
Also check out Peter Sagan’s’ race bike in-depth look here.
Just 48 hours left until the start of @Paris_Roubaix! Here's a short video from our recon ride yesterday. @BORAhansgrohe pic.twitter.com/2wSYFPXZAm
— Peter Sagan (@petosagan) April 12, 2019
New Amsterdam bike parking facility opens, with each row including a unique motif of a bird to help you find your bike
Yesterday, the City of Amsterdam opened a new 1,300-space “fietsenstalling” (bike parking facility) at the Amsterdam Noord Metro Station.
Such investments make good business sense for Dutch transportation agencies, as they increase ridership and revenue.https://t.co/AUPoHI9xjR pic.twitter.com/gCZyuzJLva
— Dutch Cycling Embassy (@Cycling_Embassy) April 11, 2019
With room for over 1,300 bicycles, the new ‘fietsenstalling’ connects commuters to the city via the Noord Metro station. The handy bird-based guide to help commuters locate their bikes is a smart touch, and there are also dedicated spaces for cargo bikes.
But what if that gets pinched?
Cycle crime prevention at Hull Paragon Interchange. We are getting an increase in cycle crime at the station. Follow us on twitter to get your bike registered @bikeregister #keepitlocked @TPExpressTrains @northernassist @Humberbeat pic.twitter.com/W5hEZWl2wv
— BTP East Riding (@BTPEastRiding) April 10, 2019
Hull Live reports that an increase in cycle thefts in Hull City Centre has led the British Transport Police in the area to deploy this gold bike to highlight the issue. Cyclists are being prompted to have their bikes registered to prevent thefts. Hopefully the gold deterrent will work rather than ending up in a cash converters with the other nicked bikes…
Swiss government says coffee "not essential" for life (we beg to differ)...
The Swiss have stockpiled coffee and other provisions since World War One in preparation for shortages should any other national emergencies break out, and now the government want to phase out coffee from the list by 2022 because they don’t deem it essential. The explanation on the Swiss Federal Council website reads: “The national economic supply has checked the maintenance of today’s compulsory storage of coffee. She came to the conclusion that coffee is not vital according to the criteria that apply today. That is, coffee contains almost no calories and therefore does not make any contribution to food security from a nutritional point of view. The risk of supply disruptions is also rated as low. The growing areas are spread over three continents and the harvests are possible all year round. The continuation of the compulsory storage of coffee is therefore no longer justified from a supply policy perspective.”
Who wants to tell them that they’re wrong?
TweedLove’s Transcend Bike Festival unveils full line up for 2019
For its tenth year TweedLove Bike Festival has undergone major changes with a new name, a new location, new partnerships and a major new line-up of events. The Gritopia gravel race is still on the cards alongside the Skinny Tweed sportive, a mega demo event over the three days and lots of family-friendly fun.
off-road.cc have all the details for the new Transcend Bike Festival with links to tickets for the 2019 event here.
National survey reveals decline in cycling for leisure, sport and travel
Active Lives survey aims to provide snapshot of the nation’s sport and physical activity habits.
Sounds like This Morning wasn't interested in the police view on Lord Robert Winston's demented ideas about bicycle licences
Earlier this week, Lord Winston continued his absolute non-starter campaign to get cyclists licenced and registered in an appearance on This Morning on ITV.
After the Government told him there was no prospect of requiring cyclists to be licensed and insured because the costs would massively outweigh the benefits, he floated electronic tagging as some sort of solution.
Chris Boardman described both Winston’s stance and the fact that outlets give it airtime as ‘shameful’.
The tweet attracted an intriguing and enlightening reply from West Midlands roads police.
We did volunteer our services to give an #evidencebasedpolicing opinion on this matter, but it would seem that the producers weren’t interested as we had no reply #mainstreammedia is too often #theproblem instead of being #thesolution. Imagine what good they could do for society.
— West Midlands Police Road Harm Reduction Team (@WMPRHRT) April 9, 2019
School cycling competition cancelled after thieves steal 30 Chris Hoy bikes
Friday Leave vs Remain poll: leave and take a smoother line or remain on the cobbles?
It’s Friday, which means it’s time for our weekly poll… but it’s also Paris-Roubaix this weekend, so we’ve just about managed to find a way to intertwine the two. So, are you a hard knock through-and-through and think it’s all good vibrations, or are cobbles just simply no fun and best avoided if possible? Do let us know your thoughts!
A bit more on that painted cycle lanes story from earlier in the week
The gist is they actually make life worse for cyclists.
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Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn’t especially like cake.
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Latest Comments
"All that's required is an to roads policing" - that's a big all... Although no doubt the "idiots just keep coming" aspect does apply: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz9lel2wz93o "Man charged after car crashes through bowling alley" - luckily they only skittled over skittles.
Almost any change to roads and streets is accompanied by a period of heightened danger, and in the UK "look out for cyclists" will need to be learned... practically. And over the time it takes for cyclists to become a regular feature. OTOH once (if...) good designs are in and frequent enough such that drivers encounter them AND the cyclists on them regularly (another big if) I don't think they should be much more difficult than a footway to deal with. These things are all over NL - don't have the collision stats but they should. (NL isn't perfect but collecting info on the safety of designs to feed back into better designs as required is part of the "sustainable safety" philosophy - if they're really a killer I think they'd be altering these.)
I'm in the happy position of agreeing with everybody here! I've never considered a bike with a stand, yet I'm impressed by the ingenuity and adaptability of this axle. I tow a Yak Bob with a Robert Axle, employing my El Cheapo Vitus gravel bike and I just have to be very careful where I stop. Hedges are generally a dead loss, and I seek walls, telegraph poles and signposts and generally lean the widest part of the Bob against it. One very awkward task is removing the two steel pins which lock the trailer arms onto the special mounting slots on the Robert axle, and when you have one out, the sodding weight in the trailer can twist the whole caboodle and bend the Bob fitting before you can get the other out and unhitch. I doubt if a stand would help with that. You can imagine that this combo is a real pain when you have to get it over the bridge at railway stations, and it nearly resulted in Merseyrail nearly parting me and the trailer on the platform from the bike on the train. It's a long story for another time. Another axle example recently featured on here, with a 12mm front axle bearing the Herculean weight limit of a monster American front rack.
This has nothing to do with the type of bike - it's the type of behaviour that's the problem. Banning the sale of such bikes will not curtail the behaviour. They'll just find another type of vehicle and continue to drive dangerously as there's such a lack of enforcement. I'd sooner see them ban the bally. But really, all that's required is an improvement to roads policing.
The EAPC Bill is welcome, but full of holes. What's to stop an overpowered but temporarily limited e-bike being sold and subsequently delimited? This is often a trivial process.
@KiwiMike Yeah, in my over four decades of riding all over Europe I've never 'been for a ride in the countryside'. That must be it. Or, and I know this is a wild concept, you just accept that I just voiced my personal experiences and never missed a kickstand, like I wrote. Anyway, what's the big horror of laying your bike on its side for the very few occasions where there is nothing to lean your bike against?
They may have looked, but did they see?
Ds2025: where they are going wrong is that they are crushing the motorbike rather than the person sat on top of it. If they did the latter this issue would be solved in less than 24 hours.
I came this way today with the car boot sale in operation. There was a marshal at the entrance, who stopped a car turning right across the cycleway as I was approaching. So that certainly works. I think it necessary for the marshal to be there, I couldn't say if the driver would have turned if he hadn't been there but you always have to suspect the worst. Unfortunately there is no marshal at the exit, and there was certainly a car stopped across the cycleway as I was approaching it. But he pulled onto the road before I reached it, and the following car stayed off the cycleway as I went through. Ideally there should have been a marshal there too. On the whole, though, it's a really high standard piece of infrastructure. Just a pity it doesn't extend a bit further.
“absolute carnage” So right! Just look at the bodies piled up, blood running in the gutters and injured people limping away. It's a bit of a problem with a road, delaying some people for minutes at a time: it isn't carnage, let alone 'absolute carnage'. Anyone who exaggerates so ridiculously really shouldn't be allowed to comment in public, unless they want to demonstrate their idiocy to all and sundry.
19 thoughts on “Live blog: Leave vs Remain Poll – Paris-Roubaix special; Police ploy to tackle bike theft in Hull… a gold bike; Police wanted to counter Lord Winston’s This Morning nonsense but didn’t get chance; Costs & benefits of driving and cycling +more”
> “A new study”
> “A new study”
The authors have chosen to publish via Elsevier, so this valuable analysis is behind a paywall.
On the other hand, it means that the closure of Hammersmith bridge to motorised vehicles is now enhancing the economy of west London.
West Midlands Police are
West Midlands Police are right, and the biggest problem with cycling in this country is the media. They are all over stories about electric cars saving the planet, teenage obesity bankrupting the NHS, pollution killing tens of thousands of people, but always, and I mean every time, they ignore the simplest, cheapest, quickest solution to all those problems and many more.
I’ve had many discussions with my local BBC radio station about cycling, and BBC R4, but neither will give the benefits of cycling any air time, despite having a cast iron guarantee of balance in their charter and editorial guidelines. We all know what the rest of the msm, the DM, Telegraph etc are like about cycling. I used to be media officer for my local CUK branch, but it was impossible to get positive coverage, even Sustrans struggled to get good stories, and they are much more media savvy than me.
burtthebike wrote:
They do this because the car industry, the Road Haulage Association and the multinational oil corporations spend billions every year on advertising in the British media. They also contribute to the election fund of several high-ranking Conservative MPs – donations which are never registered as they take the form of free dinners, free holidays and other gifts.
The BBC does little more than toe the party line, as the Conservative Party ‘in-house magazine’.
I’ve never set foot in a Cash
I’ve never set foot in a Cash Converters, I’m afraid. However, don’t they ask for some proof that the item you want to sell them is actually yours to begin with? If not, isn’t that breaking some sort of duty of care or even a law??
Sorry if that sounds naive.
“Cyclists are being prompted
“Cyclists are being prompted to have their bikes registered to prevent thefts.”
Waste of time and money. Much better to advise on weaknesses of cheap locks and advise what to use (or what not to use) if you want to keep your bike.
Regarding Winston, perhaps electronic tagging and live GPS tracking of members of the House of Lords would enable us to see just how many of them are in the House bar at any time.
I’ve got one of these cups at
I’ve got one of these cups at home which kinda sums up my relationship with coffee:
hawkinspeter wrote:
Would you be good enough to tell me where you got that? I think it needs to be added to some sort of ‘wish list’…
Legs_Eleven_Worcester wrote:
I got mine from DieselSweeties: https://store.dieselsweeties.com/products/fucking-coffee-mug but you may find copies of it cheaper on Amazon or EBay etc (and avoid US->UK delivery charges).
You would think that the BTP
You would think that the BTP could have locked that gold BSO up better. There is plenty of really good advice online, or they could have just asked someone who actually looked like they knew what they were doing. If you are going to set an example set a good one.
Rear lock, both seatsays, wheel rim to immovable object, front lock wheel rim to frame with bonus to the rack if possible.
There is a lot of “that will do” going on there.
For those that want to access
For those that want to access the article referenced.
https://sci-hub.tw/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2018.12.016
Is it me, or does the latest
Is it me, or does the latest L vs R poll read like one of Deckards tests in Blade Runner…?
brooksby wrote:
it’s probably you. How did you get on with the tests?
ConcordeCX wrote:
They wouldn’t tell me, and now I keep finding these teeny tiny tinfoil origami animals everywhere…
brooksby wrote:
.
brooksby wrote:
Describe in single words only the good things that come to mind about your bike
brooksby wrote:
Is this testing whether I’m a replicant or a lesbian, Mr Deckard ?
Does nobody know the
Does nobody know the difference between “you’re” and “your” anymore?
FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:
It is an infallible way to identify Brexiteers, so while it’s wrong, it is extremely useful. By their spelling shall you know them.
FluffyKittenofTindalos wrote:
Whats’ your’e point? ‘