Sky News cycling poll slammed by Sarah Storey & West Mids Police; Video preview of worlds finishing circuit; THAT team car; Road champ v MTB champ; Recovered bikes alert; Kiwi driver who doubled back to hit cyclist gets grounded; Cool Ritchey stem + more
SUMMARY
12-month ban for Kiwi driver who doubled back to hit cyclist on pavement
This is quite the sentence. A Kiwi motorist who deliberately hit a cyclist and broke his leg has basically been grounded.
Sean Woollgar, a cyclist from Carterton just outside Wellington, was riding home from the supermarket in 2017 when Joshua Rowland started beeping his horn at him.
Woollgar said he turned and said, “Hey, what’s up?” and the motorist then started tailgating him and driving alongside “really close.”
“At that point I got a bit angry, and I went up onto the pavement and swore,” said Woollgar.
He tried to ride away, but Rowland followed him. Stuff reports that he eventually turned round, mounted the pavement and drove into Woollgar.
As the cyclist lay on the ground with a broken leg, Rowland walked up to him and said, “serves you right”.
Woollgar’s leg was so badly broken he will likely never have full use of it again.
In court this week, Rowland’s lawyer said his client’s head “was not in a good space” when the incident took place.
Rowland pleaded guilty to causing grievous bodily harm and also admitted driving in breach of his limited licence terms, unaccompanied and without displaying an L plate.
He was sentenced to 10 months’ home detention, 200 hours of community work, disqualified from driving for a year, and was ordered to pay $5000 emotional harm reparation to Woollgar. He also has to take treatment programmes and counselling as directed.
Woollgar said he never wanted Rowlands to go to prison. “He has got anger issues. He needs to deal with it and prison is not the place for that.”
He did say that he would have liked him to be banned from driving for more than 12 months though. “Hopefully he will appreciate how lightly he got off,” he said.
"A mountain of pure muscle and blond hair"
Mark Cavendish has paid tribute to Marcel Kittel after the German sprinter agreed to have his contract with Katusha Alpecin terminated early by mutual consent yesterday.
1/3 For many years of my career I felt unbeatable, invincible. 1 rider came that changed that. A mountain of pure muscle and blonde hair. That rider is @marcelkittel. It seemed like cyclings version of Rocky IV. He was the first rider I ever had to “work out” how to try and beat.
— Mark Cavendish (@MarkCavendish) May 10, 2019
2/3 Marcel, I want to say thank you for a rivalry that lifted my game, but above all gave an excitement to cycling fans.
— Mark Cavendish (@MarkCavendish) May 10, 2019
3/3 As competitors, we all try to have an edge on each other. But as humans, we should only wish for peace and happiness for each other. From my heart, I wish you the all the best for your next chapter. pic.twitter.com/R0sq6JlObY
— Mark Cavendish (@MarkCavendish) May 10, 2019
New Ritchey Chicane stem with magnetic top cap launched
Weighing 175g for the 100mm version, this snazzy new 7050 aluminium stem has aero in mind with hidden bolts and a smooth external shape, and an angle of 80°. Price in euros is quoted at €109.95, and it’s already for sale online at Depor Village.
Recovered bikes alert - haul found at Cardiff property
South Wales Police Cardiff have uploaded a gallery of stolen bikes recovered from a property in the Riverside area of the city. If you or anyone you know has had a bike gone astray, the number to call and a reference number is there.
HGV blind spot project that will save hundreds of lives up for award
Loughborough Design School project led to the introduction of the Direct Vision Standard.
If you think that lorry drivers actually being able to see pedestrians and cyclists is a good thing, maybe you’d like to vote for them.
National Road Champ vs National MTB Champ
Matt Walker and Connor Swift go head-to-head in a race down Cwmcarn’s legendary black run, followed by a climb up the Gospel Pass.
From the forum - Your cycling deals
We’ve got a brand new spot over on the forum where you can post links to cycling deals that you find.
That way, you can share the savings and point out stuff that we might have missed!
Sky News have been discussing “whether it’s a motorist’s responsibility to make a cyclist feel safe”
West Midlands Police were unimpressed with the tone used.
Society is defined by how we take care of the vulnerable in any given situation. Driver behaviour has created an environment where people are now scared to make positive life choices & use #activetransport, the onus for change lies with those who pose the #greatestthreatofharm.
— West Midlands Police Road Harm Reduction Team (@WMPRHRT) May 10, 2019
Dame Sarah Storey also stepped in when the Sky News Twitter feed published a follow-up poll asking whether it was time for cyclists and motorists to “bury the hatchet”.
Hatchet? Please stop such inflammatory reporting. People moving around their villages, towns & cities shouldn’t have to do so in fear of their life because there’s a bully in a metal box who wrongly perceives they have right of way.#greatestthreatofharm https://t.co/jg6N6CRBql
— Dame Sarah Storey (@DameSarahStorey) May 10, 2019
Citroën teams up with Surrey County Council to fill potholes
It’s “part of the brand’s commitment to advanced comfort” apparently.
Swingeing penalties in the Giro
If getting banned from cycling doesn’t discourage you maybe this 2000points fine will. pic.twitter.com/u5epzM7wZQ
— Thomas De Gendt (@DeGendtThomas) May 10, 2019
Irish cyclist dies after hitting parked motorbike during road race
Gardai investigating.
A number of reporters are saying Simon Yates is *very* confident ahead of the Giro
@SimonYatess: “There are many favourites for the Giro but I do believe that I’m in great shape and I’m confident in winning it. I’m confident in my abilities. I’ve dedicated the last twelve months to this race now”. #Giro pic.twitter.com/41hlijR2lb
— Giro d’Italia (@giroditalia) May 10, 2019
Video: On bike recce of the finishing circuit of this year's Road World Champs course in Harrogate
Your chance to join legendary bike tester, rider, and proud Yorkshireman, Guy Kestevan on a one off, on bike recce of the 14km finishing loop of this year’s Road Worlds, round the lumpy (not bumpy) roads of Harrogate. The start/finish goes the wrong way up/down a one way road so the only way for Guy to get the recce vid was to jump on to the course (he got the nod to do so) ahead of the Women’s Tour de Yorkshire – which also used the same loop. Guy’s always entertaining an enlightening company and he is in this vid too. He’s also a strong rider – at the very top end of ‘mere mortal’, so you get a good impression of how hard that finishing lap is going to be even for the pros.
There are team cars, and then there are team cars
This McLaren will follow Bahrain Merida’s Vincenzo Nibali in the tomorrow’s Giro d’ Italia opening time trial. Lucky for some.
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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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"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.
12 thoughts on “Sky News cycling poll slammed by Sarah Storey & West Mids Police; Video preview of worlds finishing circuit; THAT team car; Road champ v MTB champ; Recovered bikes alert; Kiwi driver who doubled back to hit cyclist gets grounded; Cool Ritchey stem + more”
David Beckham banned from
David Beckham banned from driving for using mobile phone
Good.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-48213106
The outcome of this could
The outcome of this could have been so different. The cyclist could have been killed, so the sentence appears lenient. There is no mention of any treatment for his “anger problems”.
leaway2 wrote:
Can’t disagree with the leniency of the sentence but he will have to attend treatment for his problems: “He also has to take treatment programmes and counselling as directed.”
leaway2 wrote:
Should have a perma until he can prove he is capable of using public highways safely
This isn’t one of those
This isn’t one of those tragic one punch knockouts to serious head injury things, even the stupidest of people knows that driving a car into a person is going to result in serious injury. I don’t really know how you can write it off with a lenient sentence. He may as well have shot him as the intention was the same.
So, when Sky News are
So, when Sky News are discussing domestic abuse, do they think its acceptable to ask whether its the responsibility of the abusing partner to not scare or harm the weaker partner? I would have imagined that they’d take that as a given…
brooksby wrote:
I too am struggling with the question they pose and the premise from which the begin.
Does a driver have no responsibility to other road users, whether cyclists, pedestrians or other drivers?
Why are we supposed to “bury the hatchet”? What a dumb-fuck term to use!
And what are people who both drive and cycle supposed to do? Apologise to myself, kiss and make up with my non-lycra self when I’ve done nothing wrong?
Goodness me, and people wonder why we blame the mainstream media for stoking hatred!
They clearly don’t want their readers, viewers or listeners to get along with people they define as a ‘them’ and not part of ‘us’. It doesn’t seem to matter whether that group is gypsies, migrant workers and refugees, Johnny Foreigner (whether here or minding their own business in his/her own country), LGBT, ethnic or religious minorities etc etc… they seem to put so much effort into turning us against each other. It’s about time we all turned on them.
Simon E wrote:
It’s Kay Burley, she is to news reporting what Boris Johnson is to integrety
Simon E wrote:
It’s Kay Burley, she is to news reporting what Boris Johnson is to integrety
Why the focus on car drivers
Why the focus on car drivers responsibility toward just cyclists, unless the agenda is to perpetuate the “us v them” narrative?
I mean, why not re-title the section “Is it the motorist’s responsibility to make pedestrians, cyclists, horse riders, other vulnerable road users and each other feel safe?”
Or maybe run a section entitled “Is it the responsibility of HGV drivers not to crush motorists and their families to death in flaming wrecks due to careless driving?” and see if there are the same kind of responses?
The Guy Kestevan video of the
The Guy Kestevan video of the ride around the World Championship course is well worth a look. I enjoyed it very much. A lovely ride around Harrogate.
Perhaps if there weren’t
Perhaps if there weren’t quite so many people driving SUVs over them there wouldn’t be quite so many potholes in the roads needing filling.