Welcome to Tuesday’s live blog, with Jack Sexty, Simon MacMichael and the rest of the team.
Live blog: Tour de France heading back to Yorkshire? MAMIL trend sees rise in casualties among Australian cyclists aged 45+, London cyclist falls off after failing to spot fire engine turning left + more
All today’s news from the site and beyond…
Tue, May 07, 2019 20:21
SUMMARY
7 May 2019, 20:21
Froome signs off from Tour de Yorkshire, and reveals his team's shifting secrets
The DI2 has a button in there to change the rear mech
— Chris Froome (@chrisfroome) May 6, 2019
His teammate Chris Lawless was the overall winner, and Froome dipped into the comments on his Twitter post to explain why Ineos riders appear to hover their thumb on top of the hoods – turns out a Di2 button is nestled in there to make shifts down the cassette. Well if it works for them…
7 May 2019, 20:21
Plans to make Bodmin "Cornwall's cycling capital" with plans for cyclist's holiday park
Cornwall Live reports that plans have been submitted to the council for a holiday complex for cyclists, to be based in Callywith Quarry in Bodmin. The new cycle routes would act as a catalyst for the regeneration of the town centre and would hopefully bring 74,000 new cyclists to the town each year. CEO of Visit Cornwall Malcolm Bell said: “This proposed investment is exactly what we would like to support and be supported by authorities, as they are key to keeping Cornwall as the premier tourist destination in the UK and to directly help us to build the very important and valuable overseas market to our region.
“Having studied the plans for the proposed development, I can state that Visit Cornwall fully supports this proposed development. It will secure an increase in visitor spend from walkers and cyclists and its associated contribution to the local economy through purchases of food and drink supplies, retail and activities.
“As the area is already well served by cycle and walking infrastructure it will support the wider local economy, especially with customers in the very important low season.”
7 May 2019, 20:21
Cycling Scotland finds 'most' drivers unaware of dangers of close-passing, and 73% didn't know they could get penalty points
Driving too close to people cycling is an offence and can result in 3 points on your licence. We launch our new #givecyclespace campaign today. RT to support. pic.twitter.com/sB9F1a5ivT
— Cycling Scotland (@CyclingScotland) May 7, 2019
Cycling Scotland’s #givecyclespace campaign begins today, with officers taking to the streets on bikes in plain clothes to educate drivers who fail to give enough space. The BBC reports that out of 1,000 people surveyed, Cycling Scotland found that ‘most’ were largely unaware of the danger of passing a cyclist too close and 73% didn’t realise a close pass could land them with three penalty points on their driving license and a minimum £100 fine.
Cycling Scotland chief executive Keith Irving said: “People who cycle regularly are likely to experience a ‘very scary’ close pass incident every couple of days and cycling casualties are increasing, in line with cycling’s growing popularity.
“Every week in Scotland, at least three people cycling suffer serious, potentially life-changing injuries, usually from a collision with a vehicle. Our new TV ad campaign shows how it can feel to be close passed and increases awareness of the legal consequences for people driving too closely to someone cycling.”
7 May 2019, 20:21
Whip it, Froomie!
Managed to catch @chrisfroome getting some air on the way through #Burnsall on #TourdeYorkshire #TdY pic.twitter.com/3Isv973hM5
— Olivia Butterworth (@LiviButt) May 6, 2019
Next, we’ll be shouting ‘do a skid’!
7 May 2019, 20:21
Team Ineos sticks with Wahoo trainers
Wahoo has confirmed that despite a change of sponsor, its products will still be used by Chris Froome and co. In fact, Wahoo has renewed its sponsorship of Team Ineos through to 2021.
The details of the deal mean the team will use Wahoo’s Kickr trainer, which it has been using since 2014, for off-season training and pre-race warming up rides, along with the Climb, Headwind and Tickr.
The deal does not extend to bike computers, instead, the team will continue to use Garmin Edge computers.
“Warming up and training on the KICKR for the last several years has helped me to prepare for lots of races – especially the Tour,” said 2018 Tour de France winner Geraint Thomas. “This year the CLIMB lets us simulate the climbing position indoors, which helps greatly with muscle adaptation. With this year’s focus on winning the Tour again, finding every advantage is more important than ever, and I’m glad to have the Wahoo Ecosystem to help me get into Tour-winning form.”
“We’ve been proud of the team’s success during our partnership,” said Chip Hawkins, CEO of Wahoo Fitness. “When you’re racing for a win at the Tour de France, every small improvement can pay off with big results, and we’re grateful to be part of the winning formula for Team INEOS and our other sponsored teams. After all the success we’ve seen in 2018, it’s exciting to carry our partnership forward into 2019, and through 2021.”
7 May 2019, 20:21
Bespoked road.cc Choice Awards
We went to the Bespoked UK Handbuilt show over in Bristol over the weekend and saw some very lovely bikes, but we managed to highlight three of the best bikes on display for our road.cc Choice Awards.
See the bikes and read the reasons they stood out right here.
You can also see some more highlights from the rest of the show here
7 May 2019, 20:21
Cycling Scotland’s #cyclespacecampaign initiative – Boardman-approved
Great Nation-wide initiative. https://t.co/2NWfKrfqi5
— Chris Boardman (@Chris_Boardman) May 7, 2019
7 May 2019, 20:21
Video surfaces of cyclist falling off after failing to spot fire engine turning left
It’s had the comments section of a certain right-wing tabloid up in arms this morning, and yes it appears this cyclist, filmed near London’s Great Portland Street station, should have been more aware of surroundings… but according to a good proportion of those commenting on the tabloid’s website, that does indeed make everyone who rides a bike inherently bad.
7 May 2019, 20:21
The worst pothole, and best photo of one, we've ever seen (although it's technically not a pothole, say council)
Local news photographs don’t get better than this, sent to York Press by Grant Parker, the gentleman who is stood in it. In all seriousness, it says in the article that the road has since been repaired, but Mr. Parker is still waiting to hear whether he can claim for the damage it did to his car. That’s proving to be an issue as it isn’t technically a pothole, rather a hole that was formed due to water escaping and creating a ‘void’ in the road. A spokeswoman for City of York Council told York Press: “This is caused by water escaping from somewhere and washing out the structure of the road, over time, until a void is created. The road surface will hold up for so long and then the void becomes too large and the tarmac fails.”
This means it’s not the council but Yorkshire Water who are liable, and they’ve apologised to Mr Parker for the damage caused to his vehicle.
7 May 2019, 20:21
Tour de France heading back to Yorkshire?
Could the Tour de France be heading back to Yorkshire?
The region that in 2014 hosted what former Welcome to Yorkshire chief executive Sir Gary Verity described as “the grandest of Grand Departs” is hoping to bring the race back, as well as hosting the start of the Vuelta, also owned by ASO.
The tourism and inward investment agency’s commercial director Peter Dodd has told the Telegraph that “it’s a question of when the Tour de France comes back to Yorkshire and not if.”
He’s also spoken of the future of the Tour de Yorksshire in the wake of Verity’s departure due to an expenses scandal.
More on this story on road.cc tomorrow.
7 May 2019, 20:21
MAMIL trend means more casualties among older cyclists, finds Australian study
The rise in the number of so-called MAMILs – middle-aged men in Lycra – in Australia over the last two decades has led to cyclists aged 45 and over making up a greater proportion of casualties on the country’s roads, according to a new report from the Australian Institute for Health and Welfare (AIHW).
“The severity of injuries sustained by cyclists generally increased with age,” said AIHW spokesman Professor James Harrison.
He added: “Those aged 45 and over were more likely to have life-threatening injuries, stay longer in hospital and be transferred to another hospital.”
We’ll take a closer look at the report on road.cc tomorrow.
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Jack is group editor across road.cc, off.road.cc and ebiketips, overseeing all three sites in the F-At Digital group to make sure everything’s up to scratch. He’s been writing about cycling and multisport for over a decade, arriving at road.cc via 220 Triathlon Magazine in 2017. He worked across all areas of road.cc including tech, news and video, and also contributed to eBikeTips before being named editor of road.cc in 2021 (much to his surprise). Jack has been hooked on cycling since his student days, and currently has a Trek 1.2 for winter riding, a beloved Bickerton folding bike for getting around town, and an extra beloved custom Ridley Helium SLX for fantasising about going fast in his stable. Jack has never won a bike race, but does have a master’s degree in print journalism, and two Guinness World Records for pogo sticking (it’s a long story).
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Latest Comments
chrisonabike 2 hours ago
"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.
chrisonabike 2 hours ago
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.)
wtjs 3 hours ago
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.
HoarseMann 5 hours ago
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.
AidanR 5 hours ago
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.
Sredlums 6 hours ago
@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?
mdavidford 6 hours ago
They may have looked, but did they see?
jackcycles 7 hours ago
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.
Rod Marton 7 hours ago
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.
eburtthebike 7 hours ago
“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.
21 thoughts on “Live blog: Tour de France heading back to Yorkshire? MAMIL trend sees rise in casualties among Australian cyclists aged 45+, London cyclist falls off after failing to spot fire engine turning left + more”
73% of drivers are ‘not aware
73% of drivers are ‘not aware’, since the chances of getting any points are now very slim.
It is now standard practice for the officer who stops a driver – and this for the majority of offences – to make a ‘one-time offer’ of a ‘driver awareness course’. The ‘one-time offer’ bit makes it sound as if well, we were going to throw the book at you, but I’m prepared to be nice just this once…’
It is, of course, utter bullshit. Strapped for cash, the ‘driver awareness course’ is a nice little earner for the police forces that offer it, as they get a cut of the fee.
‘So we’ve arrested you for robbery, and we can prosecute you and you’ll get sent to jail. Or, you can pay our partner company a couple of hundred quid for a week in the Bahamas, during which you’ll get to see a video on why theft is wrong…’
Anywhere else, this racket would be fucking exposed and stopped.
We are being comprehensively fucking lied to, and very few of us seem to give a shit.
Legs_Eleven_Worcester wrote:
I think driver edication is a reasonable step for close-passes as there hasn’t been any direct damage/injury caused. Most drivers want to be considerate and careful, but due to the poor quality of driver instruction, they just don’t feel confident in knowing how to handle cyclists.
I quite like the idea of self-funding police, but maybe there needs to be some kind of reward/payment for getting convictions as well as sending people for education.
Legs_Eleven_Worcester wrote:
Unless it has changed over the past year or two, the police force in Lancashire run the courses and break even on costs, the cost of the course covers the venue and the officers time. I think this may be an old wives tale perhaps that the courses make profit. there is a simple answer of course, don’t break the speed limit, you won’t have to pay for an awareness course. Easy really.
biker phil wrote:
OK, so it is the Daily Mail, but …
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3306120/Fury-speed-camera-racket-s-revealed-police-pocket-54MILLION-year-blackmailing-drivers-attend-speed-awareness-courses.html
Legs_Eleven_Worcester wrote:
Very, very odd to find oneself sort-of agreeing with the Association of Bad Drivers spokesperson. Does sound like it might be a bit of a racket. Of course the ABD and the Daily Mail probably have different ideas than I do about what should be done instead and who is being cheated by this.
73%, I would of thought it
73%, I would of thought it was more like 95%, how many people know that a law was introduced ? how do you find out ?, I was never told of the new law, I found it on a cycling forum such as this, new laws are passed all the time but as far as I’m concerned they are all secret laws as the details are simply not sent out to drivers.
Of course it would be nice if we didn’t need a law about close passes, but hey ho.
There is no new law, at least
There is no new law, at least in england and I’ve not heard of a new one in scotland either, it is now just being enforced. It’s dangerous or inconsiderate driving.
Glad you got that off your
Glad you got that off your chest.
I’ve not seen stats on the effectiveness of driver awareness courses, but I did one for low-grade inadvertant speeding (you only get offered a course for low-grade offences) and thought it was excellent. I expected to be paronised and bullied, but the two instructors did a good job of engaging the class, even the knuckle-draggers, and I think we were mostly safer drivers afterwards. Friends who have been on awareness courses report the same thing.
And the there was also a section on two-wheeled road users, although it could have been deeper.
It’s not just £75. You have to organise a morning off work, sit in a dingy hotel on the naughty step, and know that you won’t get another chance to get off so lightly for another 3 years.
What was scary was the level of knowledge of most of the participants at the start. I came away thinking that awareness courses like these should be regular and compulsory for keeping your licence. A forklift operator has to get their skills topped up occasionally, why not for driving a car?
clayfit wrote:
Mine was three years ago, and I think I may have been the only lycra clad person on the course ever. It was local enough to cycle to.
Most of the people on my course seemed well aware of the law, if not the risks.
clayfit wrote:
Oh, ‘inadvertant speeding’? What’s that? Because unless your speedometer was broken (which is an offence in itself), it seems that ‘inadvertant speeding’ is yet another excuse for a driver who couldn’t be arsed monitoring his speed, and so when he’s caught, somehow manages to rationalise it away by calling it ‘inadvertant’.
So in your second paragraph, you manage to confirm what I in fact wrote previously about drivers generally getting a free pass, and coming to expect it as some sort of ‘right’.
Why would you expect to be patronised and bullied? You’re a driver. You’re one of the anointed. No other category of citizen in this land is coddled, subsidised and given free reign to intimidate, bully, assault and kill like the British driver.
The big problem with ‘think[ing]’ that you’re a better driver, is that most drivers already ‘think’ that they’re good drivers. So your own assessment of your abilities behind the wheel is almost certainly skewed.
Are we bad to you, or what? Poor you.
A driver awareness course is one of the greatest concessions given to drivers. It’s essentially a ‘get out of jail free card’. Its very existence is predicated on the belief that one can ‘educate’ someone that driving 2000 kg of metal, glass and plastic into a human being at over 25 metres per second is somehow going to cause them injury or death. You might as well have a ‘shooter awareness course’ to ‘educate’ someone that firing a handgun into a crowd of people might hurt or kill one or more of them.
The reason we don’t have the latter is because everyone knows that firing a handgun into a crowd of people might hurt or kill one or more of them. By the same token, drivers know that driving into a human being at speed is going to hurt or kill someone. Most don’t give a flying fuck. Some do so out of sheer malevolance.
You can educate away ignorance. You cannot educate away malice, or a complete lack of concern for the safety or comfort of others.
Driver awareness courses only exist because we live in a car-centric culture, where ‘everyone drives’, and where because of this, car ownership and driving are normalised. The dominant culture – in this context, drivers – are treated leniently, even when their actions cause unimaginable damage to people and property.
Driver awareness courses are a complete waste of fucking time, and everyone involved with them knows it.
Legs_Eleven_Worcester wrote:
I mostly agree, though in general this country really doesn’t like sending people to prison, its not only for driving offenses. And I’m not, in general, against that. I wouldn’t want to end up like the US – a (profit-making) prison system with a country appended to it. Hence, inevitably, ‘infrastructure’. For so many things, the only thing that works is changing the material conditions in which people live.
The inconsistencies are aggravating though, the law is always enforced very selectively, it’s always political. I wonder how many of those who have gone on ‘motoring awareness courses’ are among those calling for mandatory lengthy jail sentences for any youth caught carrying a knife?
Edit – oh, and I wonder how many of those demanding the police stop-and-search more (young male and black) pedestrians would be fine with the cops randomly stopping motorists and checking their car’s MOT-compliance, their licence and insurance, breathalising them, and maybe giving them a quick quiz on their knowledge of the highway code?
More people are killed every year by people wielding cars than knives [just checked and in 2015 there were 116 murders in total, not just stabbings, and 136 road deaths*], so why not concentrate on the real culprits? How many people are on the roads in possession of a dangerous attitude?
* figures for London – I have an unfortunate tendency to think of London as a country. But I’m sure its much the same across the UK.
Legs, loving the vitriol, I
Legs, loving the vitriol, I hope that it is not diminished by moving to a country where you may, if not be surrounded by better drivers, have a more accomodating cycling culture.
ktache wrote:
I can’t wait to get out of this shithole, man. I really can’t.
Legs_Eleven_Worcester wrote:
Arn’t you moving to a country with a more liberal justice system and a greater belief in education and restorative justice over punitive punishments?
John Smith wrote:
Indeed.
And significantly fewer twats, as well as less of a hysterical obsession with ‘immigration’, and less in hock to the far right.
Quote:
Nice, but panders to the view of cycling as a recreational hobby AFAICS – like all those 4WD vehicles which close pass you while two bikes are clamped to the roof or the back…
Is that fire engine making an
Is that fire engine making an illegal left turn?
efail wrote:
No.
fukawitribe wrote:
You sure as the sign next to the junction says no left turn, no wonder the cyclist was confused.
Illegal for anything not on
Illegal for anything not on an emergency. However the fact it went so wide, and was turning down a normally closed off lane and the cyclist was just ahead of the rear indicator excuses him very slightly. However I suspect he was trying to be almost like a car driver and thought he would use the same space the emergency vehicle creates to shoot ahead of any traffic.
In absolutely astounding news
In absolutely astounding news, a study in Australia has found that the majority of cyclists injured and killed are men, given that the majority of cyclists are men this should surprise exactly.. nobody.
What was the population growth over the 17 years? What was the cycling participation growth over 17 years? What was the change in car type (sedans to 4WDs, SUVs and dual-cab utes). What was the change in smart phone usage over 17 years? *crickets*
At least the writeup in the Guardian doesn’t drag out the MAMIL word, unlike the Age and others on the same story, I thought that trope went out in the late ’90s