The coolest paint job ever?; Cyclist’s prickly situation after crashing into cactus; Quinn Simmons’ suspension lifted; Council introduces default 20mph speed limit; Reindeer traffic jam; 400 schools benefiting from ‘School Streets’ + more on the live blog
SUMMARY
Children at almost 400 schools benefit from 'School Streets'
The Times report that children at almost 400 schools in London are now benefiting from the ‘School Streets’ initiative which protects children from air pollution by implementing temporary traffic bans at drop-off and pick-up times. The number of School Streets has increased from 81 in April to 383 in October and there are firm plans for a further 68. This will extend the scheme to 15% of all schools in London.
Merton, Islington and Hackney have the highest proportion of schools benefiting from School Streets with 35-40% of schools in these boroughs involved in the scheme. Barnet, Bexley and the City of London are the only parts of the capital yet to introduce any School Streets.
On Tuesday we reported that children cycling to school in areas with School Streets had increased by 51%.
European Track Championships highlights
#EuroTrack20
📽️ Re-live the day 1⃣ best actions pic.twitter.com/tjRSkRr2ff— UEC_cycling (@UEC_cycling) November 12, 2020
Great Britain won two medals on the opening day of the European Track Championships in Bulgaria. Matt Walls won gold in the elimination race before the three-woman team of Milly Tanner, Lusia Steele and Blaine Ridge-Davis took silver in the three-woman sprint. Katie Archibald, Elinor Barker, Neah Evans and Laura Kenny qualified fastest in the women’s team pursuit and will compete for gold later today.
Jumbo-Visma release three-part documentary of Primoz Roglic's Vuelta win
If you’re suffering from Vuelta blues then Team Jumbo-Visma have got you covered. With no more road racing to watch until 2021 this three-part behind the scenes documentary following Primoz Roglic’s second Grand Tour win is the best we’ve got at the moment. Follow the team at the Vuelta from hotel to finish line and just about everything in between as Roglic wins four stages and the race overall.
Reindeer traffic jam
Bloody reindeer in the road, not using the deer lane…Of all the reasons to get held up on the road this is a new one. Becca Rankie was cycling near Aviemore in the Scottish Highlands when she came across this herd of reindeer in the road.
She told the Daily record: “I felt like Christmas had come early. “My morning ride up to Cairngorm was interrupted by a reindeer jam!”
“It was a nice break from the climb on my bike-the hill is pretty steep.”
Bag yourself a bargain
We’re starting to sort through the Storey Fleet and sell some bikes!
This is one of @DameSarahStorey ‘s frames which I’ve built up with a mix of Ultegra and Dura Ace, excellent condition! (Small men’s size)
£750
Contact barneystorey@hotmail.com pic.twitter.com/cn58TI25xW
— Barney Storey MBE (@BarneyStorey) November 12, 2020
It’s not often you can buy a nine-time Paralympic gold medallist’s bike…The Storey household is having a clear-out and have put some kit up for sale. The £750 asking price is an absolute bargain for this Boardman frame with Ultegra and Dura Ace components. Or if it’s wheels you need they’re selling a pair of Zipp 303 tubulars for £300…
Also for sale this week….. found in the vault 😂
Zipp 303 tubulars Shimano freehub (two pairs available) in excellent condition, new tubulars and bearings, £300 a pair 👍🏻 pic.twitter.com/XoHxeHLvhc
— Barney Storey MBE (@BarneyStorey) November 12, 2020
Are the roads quieter because of lockdown?
We all remember the joy of empty roads during the first lockdown when traffic seemingly disappeared overnight…but how much quieter are the roads this time round? From personal experience they don’t seem much quieter now than last week and there’s certainly more traffic than during the first lockdown earlier this year.
GPS navigation app Waze have seen a 51% reduction in driven kilometres since the start of the second lockdown. Have you noticed less traffic on the roads where you live this week?
The best (and worst) of your cactus puns
What a pr!ck ….
…..🥴😂😂😂🥂
— G_Bee_UK (@G_Bee_UK) November 12, 2020
Unsurprisingly our Twitter followers had a field day with the video of amateur cyclist picking thorns out of himself after crashing into a cactus…
ohhh he pricked the wrong day to have a crash!! 😂😂
— Mr Popp Drama 💙💛 (@mr_PoppL) November 12, 2020
Steve Ody suggested it could be a strange new form of accupuncture, while Ronan McDonnell repeated that famous old adage…
Showing the sense in what I’ve always said, don’t crash in a cactus.
— Ronan McDonnell🇮🇪 (@inquisitioneu) November 12, 2020
Quinn Simmons' suspension lifted
American rider Quinn Simmons will face no further action from Trek-Segafredo following social media posts in September which were labelled as “divisive, incendiary and detrimental” by the team. Simmons tweeted using an emoji with black skin tone and was suspended until further notice.
Cycling News report that the 19-year-old has begun training for next season as team general manager Luca Guercilena emphasised Simmons is in Trek-Segafredo’s plans for 2021. It is believedTrek-Segafredo will give the 2019 junior road race world champion further media training at the team’s December training camp.
“The situation is solved,” Guercilena told Cycling News.
“Quinn will attend the team camps and start the season as normal. We are looking into next season and have Quinn as one of our top talented riders to perform at a higher level in 2021, focusing on races.”
Kensington and Chelsea to introduce blanket 20mph speed limit for entire borough
All roads in Kensington and Chelsea will have a 20mph speed limit, starting from tomorrow 13 November.
With more people walking and cycling in the pandemic, this new limit is part of our plans to keep people safe.
Find out more: https://t.co/hxU9PZlHtj pic.twitter.com/WuQjLgjQuL
— Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (@RBKC) November 12, 2020
Kensington and Chelsea Council has announced that from tomorrow, all council-managed roads will have a 20mph speed limit. Signs and road markings will be constructed at the border with Westminster, and the experimental traffic order will begin on November 13. They’ve also commited £320,000 to support active travel since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, which has seen increased pedestrianisation, temporary cycle lanes built on Kensington High Street and seven new School Streets.
Last month we reported that The Netherlands’ House of Representitives had approved a plan to cut the default speed limit in built-up areas from 50km/h (31mph) to 30km/h (18mph).
Chloe Dygert signs with Canyon-Sram to join women's WorldTour
American rider Chloe Dygert will race in the women’s WorldTour on her return from injury having signed a four-year deal with Canyon-Sram. The 23-year-old is currently recovering from a serious laceration to her leg sustained in a crash at the World Championship Time Trial in Imola.
On the move Dygert said: “Honestly, it’s the best team for me – willing to work with my track schedule and giving me the freedom to still be the athlete I strive to be.
“I’m excited to see myself in the Canyon-Sram colours. It will be my first time racing on the road in Europe but my coach and I agree that the time for that has now come in my career.
“I’m confident that Canyon-Sram will provide the best environment for me to achieve my future goals over the next four years. Also, there’s lots of pink.”
Prickly situation
Cyclist ended up in the cactus 🌵 pic.twitter.com/PVo1Ks6rQs
— World Of Sport (@funsportsgifs) October 31, 2020
There’s got to be few worse things to crash into than a cactus… Diego Moreno needed thousands of thorns removed after he crashed into a cactus bush in the City Park area of Buenos Aires. Moreno told local press: “We were going with three more cyclists, I was last in line. I didn’t see a small crater in the asphalt and I hit the pothole. Thank god I was wearing glasses and a helmet and I didn’t injure my face or head.Because the way the spines got embedded in me, it could have blinded me.”
Ouch…
Festka creates another spectacularly intricate one-off: the Scalatore Samurai
After wowing us last year with the $35,000 Spectre Porcelain complete with 24 carat gold details, Czech bespoke bike specialists Festka – and the artist Michael Bačák – are back with the Scalatore Samurai, built for one very lucky and undoubtedly very well-off customer in South America named only as ‘Mitchell’.
From its concept to being fully built up by Festka and painted by Bačák, the Scalatore Samurai took nine months to make, and is completely customised in terms of size and fit. Weighing in at 6.9kg in total, the build includes a Campagnolo Super Record groupset, Lightweight wheels, a Schmolke carbon seatpost and THM carbon cockpit, and bars from a specialist German manufacturer. The stem and saddle both feature the intricate Samurai-style paint job.
Michael Moureček, Festka’s co-owner, boasts of his company’s creation: “Frames at this level are either real works of art created by renowned artists, or they are highly complicated designs from our artistic director requiring unrivaled mastery and precision in the paint shop.”
Festka don’t say how much this one set moneybags Mitchell back, simply telling us that it cost “a small fortune”. He commented: “I thank Festka for creating such a beautifully detailed masterpiece from the best components and
this amazing frame. I am grateful for this experience; I really enjoyed it and I am now a proud member of the Festka family. Im already planning my next project.”
Alright for some! Check out Festka’s website for more bespoke Czech loveliness.
12 November 2020, 09:14
12 November 2020, 09:14
12 November 2020, 09:14
12 November 2020, 09:14
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Latest Comments
@Rendel Harris "Perhaps lethality should be measured as drivers/cyclists found guilty of causing death per chosen metric, rather than simply numbers killed?" Given the filter of the court system that would a) likely only introduce another source of bias and b) mean the cycling numbers had dubious statistical meaning relative to the motoring ones since after removing e-motorbikes (unless we didn't? But even then...) that is ... one or two in the last 5+ years?
@mdavidford You've made me curious so checked: in Devon and Torbay (in common with many councils, apparently), any project under £500,000 can be internally approved by the Corporate Director for Strategy, Performance, and Sustainability, whereas any project costing in excess of £500,000 needs a full cabinet vote. So it looks suspiciously as though there's been a bit of jiggery-pokery with the numbers to avoid full cabinet scrutiny.
From the screenshots, the software looks very similar to the Coospo CS600. I used it for a tour in Ireland and on the first day, I realised that the map of Ireland wasn't loaded by default. I could see my route as breadcrumbs but not the road or anything else around me. It looked very similar to what you saw when you went off-route. Are you sure you had the map of Scotland in your unit? Luckily for me, at the end of the first day, after tons of searches, trials and errors, I managed to download the map of Ireland into my phone, connect the Coospo to my phone as an external drive and upload the map. Not an easy task but that solved the problem. For the next five days I had a proper map to navigate. Regardless of that, I sent it back. Loading routes into it was a real PITA, the routes the app plotted were terrible compared to Komoot's and it didn't have re-routing.
@Rendel Harris I'm not sure why trips made is a better metric than miles travelled, but yes, that does yield a 9x difference for cars vs bicycles in pedestrian deaths. The real anomaly using that basis, though, are motorcyclists, who are a staggering 72x more likely to kill a pedestrian per trip than a cyclist. That suggests that speed, more than mass, is the real danger. And that young men are the greatest danger of all.
@chrisonabike Indeed, you put your finger on another problem with the fatality statistics in that we don't know in how many of the fatal incidents the driver/cyclist was to blame. If the two cyclist-caused-pedestrian fatalities the pedestrian was drunk and fell off the pavement into the path of the cyclist that could obviously change the lethality ratio considerably if factored in. Perhaps lethality should be measured as drivers/cyclists found guilty of causing death per chosen metric, rather than simply numbers killed?
Finally (on cyclists and junctions) cyclists may not be as observant themselves there. While junctions are high-mental-workload spaces (or should be...) for all road users I suspect cyclists - mixing with the motor traffic - are going to be focusing strongly on that for obvious reasons. Which is again why in places which are more advanced in this respect not only are junctions given better designs *, but network-level thought goes in to routes for each mode, the better to minimise the need for interactions. Especially when speeds might be higher. * Separation in space and/or time when modes cross, explicit space for different modes so it's clear who goes where / what to expect...
I'm not sure about the "60% of pedestrians killed at junctions are killed by cyclists" number, but i *could* believe it's relatively high. Why? Other "qualitative differences" - "noticeability" and "expectation". In the simplest sense cyclists are smaller and quieter than motor vehicles. (There's a lot of "looking with our ears" when eg. crossing roads believe). But more: in the UK we *expect* cars. We've learned to deal with cars both by formal teaching and daily experience. We know "how drivers behave" - where to expect them. I strongly suspect it's not just drivers "only looking for the motor vehicles". We don't *expect* cyclists. And (if taken at face value) there's a lot of quote anecdata that people are genuinely surprised by them / completely unfamiliar with cyclist behaviour on roads (except "they all jump red lights"...) - "came out of nowhere" / "never saw them" / " they were down the road, then suddenly they were right there" / wasn't expecting them to"...
A key one is "speed" as obviously injury is strongly related to that, and the 20-30mph region is where IIRC "mostly injured" crosses over to "mostly killed". Cars would be expected to be at higher speeds, for more of the time. That may be reduced in some places however eg. congested rush hours, and where "mixing" may be most likely the environment may cue lower speeds (narrow streets).
Stepping back, given that humans operate both cars and bikes maybe a *qualitative* "what differs" might be instructive? (Putting to one side for a moment what may be mostly a motornormative prejudice: that drivers are in some way "more responsible". Variations "more to lose because they've paid for a car" / "but trained and licenced" / "more accountable because number plates" / "only (man)children and crims who can't afford cars cycle" etc).
@AidanR I wonder how it would change the stats if one looked at deaths per trip? According to the NTS the average person makes 15 cycle trips a year and 357 as a car driver, so 23x more driving trips than cycling ones but 182x the pedestrian deaths so by that calculation cars are 8x more lethal. Take out the 20% of car trips on motorways and you have one death per 51M trips motoring and one death per 487M trips cycling, so motoring becomes almost 10x more lethal. I know one can make statistics do anything one wishes by changing the metrics but that figure seems a more realistic approximation of relative lethality to me. All this of course is before we count all the other deaths caused by motorists that cyclists almost never cause, i.e. motorcycle riders, car passengers etc, almost five times the pedestrian numbers, cars then become 50x more lethal than bikes...
15 thoughts on “The coolest paint job ever?; Cyclist’s prickly situation after crashing into cactus; Quinn Simmons’ suspension lifted; Council introduces default 20mph speed limit; Reindeer traffic jam; 400 schools benefiting from ‘School Streets’ + more on the live blog”
On a completely unrelated
On a completely unrelated note: could subscribers have the option to block certain commenters?
You need uBlock Origin for
You need uBlock Origin for that
Are the roads quieter because
Are the roads quieter because of lockdown? – not noticeably during this second set of “National Restrictions” in England. During the first (proper) Lockdown? – definitely.
Round my way the roads are a
Round my way the roads are a bit less busy, but only slightly. I have noticed a lot more people out on bikes though – like absolutely loads, including types of riders that I don’t usually see out on the country roads, MTBs, shopping bikes, etc. it’s quite encouraging.
I’ve also noticed a lot more people taking outdoor exercise. Our local park is absolutely packed. So much so, I’ve stopped using the cycle route through it as there’s just no room to pass (grass is too soggy to ride on). This means a 2 min section on a 40mph limit A road. Sadly, in that time I was subjected to a close pass and then an oncoming motorist shouting ‘w**ker’ at me – nice.
I did break my rule about not engaging in dialogue when I came across the vehicle that had close passed me parked up the road. Driver had the window down so I just said – bit close, got the standard ‘you’re in the f’ing middle of the road’ from the old bloke, asked him to read the HWC then rode off. Probably pointless, must try harder to ride on by. Neither incidents bad enough to trouble the police with.
What always fascinates me
What always fascinates me with the likes of your Mr Hyundai example,and I’ve experienced similar abuse several times myself, is how does someone get that angry,that their whole face is instantly twisted in rage & apoplexy with someone theyve encountered only for a few seconds just riding a bike.
Are they permanently enraged with a hair trigger ready to go off ? Because youd think youd meet these people in pubs & shops,but no only when driving a car that you then demonstrate you werent holding up as you catch them up.
I know, it’s weird isn’t it?
I know, it’s weird isn’t it? He was coming the other way, it’s not like we had any interaction on the road at all. Looking at my video footage, his window was up, so he’s actually wound the window down in anticipation of yelling out of it.
I was riding central in the lane as there were peds on the pavement and a lorry approaching, plus I was doing 25mph in a 30. I had a flashing front light, so perhaps it was my light, or road position that had offended him. Or maybe just because I was a cyclist. I’ve had people yell at me before for no other discernable reason <shrugs>.
its so weird experiencing
its so weird experiencing instances like that because you almost have to laugh at how crazy & random it is, if it wasnt for the fact these people are in control of machines which can crush you and seemingly have no empathy towards us as road users
Awavey wrote:
I suspect my face has done the same thing when I’ve been cut off or close passed by a driver.
which is fair enough, youve
which is fair enough, youve been put in near mortal danger by a driver doing that, its an anger response to being threatened like that, but what possible excuse is there for someone in a car to flip out like that simply on encountering a cyclist for a handful of seconds, how have they gone from driving along minding their own business and not having a fight with every car they meet, to risk of an aneurysm angry instantly over seeing a cyclist, and even more crazily in this instance, the car was being driven the other way.
I once had a fella in a white
I once had a fella in a white convertible diesel Mercedes specially pull alongside as I was cruising fast on a flat straight road to say ‘w4nker!!’ before chuckling as he accelerated away. Must have been dropped on his head as a child.
PRSboy wrote:
Definately, I mean who would buy a diesel convertible, yuk. The noise, the smell. Then white! Cheaping out on metallic paint – maybe it was pearlescent – I hope so.
That’s a new one for ‘why I
That’s a new one for ‘why I wear cycling glasses’.
Hope he keeps away from murder hornets.
Are the roads quieter? If
Are the roads quieter? If youd asked earlier in the week I’d have said yes, certainly not 50% less though maybe more like 33% quieter,I was not finding I was queueing at junctions & minor roads seemed nicer to ride & definitely more people riding bikes out again.
But today, sheesh,it had the feel of a rush hour commute,in early afternoon!!! whether that was wholly volume,or the amount of close passes,aggressive driving I dont know for sure,but it didnt feel very quiet on the roads.
Time for Great Old Chestnut
Time for Great Old Chestnut No. 1537…
I’ll bet Diego Moreno felt a bit of a prick!!
Badabum, Tisshhhh!!
Eeeeyyyyy theng yowww!
They were going to give him
They were going to give him an injection for the pain, but he fainted at the sight of the needle.