Jeremy Vine nearly taken out by London cab driver on his morning commute; Pidcock deletes tweet questioning photo finish; Genius shipping trick reduces bike damage; Cav is back; Hi-vis bike thief; Gravel stories; Bike lane petition + more on the live blog
SUMMARY
Jeremy Vine nearly taken out by London cab driver on his morning commute
Idiotic mistake by me this morning as I forgot that road markings are not operational on Piccadilly pic.twitter.com/C3nLIP9K6p
— Jeremy Vine (@theJeremyVine) April 19, 2021
Happy Monday, Jeremy… the pedalling presenter’s commute through Piccadilly this morning included this sketchy moment with a cab driver, who appeared to miss the oncoming cyclist completely. As Vine points out, it was silly of him to forget that road markings aren’t operational and are presumably just there for a bit of decoration…
Jeremy’s London cycling adventures, now captured in glorious 360, have acquainted him with many a dodgy driver, including this one spotted mounting the pavement and driving down the Hyde Park segregated cycle lane…
And this all too familiar tale: impatient driver blasts the horn as they pass…only to get stopped at the next set of traffic lights…
Shipping bikes in TV boxes reduces damage by 80%
Here’s an interesting story from 99 per cent invisible who detailed the simple yet innovative idea from Dutch bicycle manufacturer VanMoof for getting its deliveries to customers in one piece. By shipping bikes in boxes with large, expensive TVs printed on the side, they cut damaged orders by 70-80 per cent overnight and experienced far more success than with tougher boxes, better packaging or changing couriers. Genius. Apparently companies beyond the cycling industry have taken note too. Desk manufacturer Uplift now ship products in boxes with electronics to camouflage orders and get better treatment from shipping companies.
Cav on top of the world
Let’s face it, none of us saw this coming. From the sounds of his Instagram post, not even Cav thought he would come away from the Tour of Turkey with four stage wins. The return of Fabio Jakobsen to the peloton was great to see too…
The amazing @FabioJakobsen returned to competition last week and yesterday he completed his first race with the Wolfpack in more than a year 😃
So, so proud 🤗 🤗
Photo: @GettySport pic.twitter.com/9hyiN4RDCC— Deceuninck-QuickStep (@deceuninck_qst) April 19, 2021
What's next for Mark Cavendish?
He’s back. Four stage wins in eight days has got us dreaming of a return to the dizzy heights of 2011. Okay, maybe winning five stages at the Tour is too much to ask but what can we realistically expect from Cav this year? The last we heard was that he will not be going to the Giro d’Italia or the Tour de France. The Vuelta a España is a punishing race for any sprinter but may be Cav’s only shot at a Grand Tour this year. With 48 Grand Tour stage wins already, we’re asking will he get a 49th? Go on, vote yes, you know you want to…
Hi-vis bike thief caught on camera
This happened on wanstead road in the early hours of this morning a guy trying to take a bike.. pic.twitter.com/O6Ssu0V2WS
— London & UK Crime (@CrimeLdn) April 14, 2021
Protected cycle lane proposals
Coventry South’s Labour MP Zarah Sultana encouraged her constituents to sign the online petition to show support for the proposed Binley Cycleway, a 6km (3.75 miles) segregated cycle lane to connect the city centre to University Hospital. The petition says that until recently, Coventry did not have any high-quality cycle lanes and that 60 per cent of journeys between one and two miles are still made by car.
Connecting the City Centre to Binley Business Park and University Hospital Coventry & Warwickshire, the route is described as “a real missing link for cycling” due to flooding in the winter and shared paths with pedestrians and dog walkers.
Anthony Webb offered some feedback to Sultana’s message: “Very important thing that’s always forgotten with these – rights of way at turnings etc often make it more dangerous to use the cycle lane than not to.”
Nigel Depledge said: “Cycleways like this are brilliant, but with a few provisos. First, they have to go somewhere that people want to go (as opposed to some that just end when you get to a really busy main road). Second, there needs to be an actual physical demarcation between the bit that is allocated to bikes and the bit that’s allocated to pedestrians. This drawing looks like it has a small kerb, but I don’t think that’s going to achieve anything. Some cycleways I’ve seen in the past were utterly useless because they were always covered in pedestrians.”
Thoughts?
Gravel & Gratitude
Gravel riding is fun. Whether you’ve got a gravel bike or, like me, just enjoy stretching the limits of 25mm tyres whenever you see an appealing looking track heading off into the hills. It’s more adventurous than just sticking to the road, where everything links up and you know where you are. Plus, there aren’t any cars.
To celebrate the spirit of getting off the beaten track, Salsa has released a four-part storyside focused on gravel riding and the way it makes people feel. Gravel & Gratitude shares the stories of three riders: Krystal Salvent, Leonardo Brasil, and Brooke Goudy and has some cool photography to enjoy too.
Cycle lanes as Muppets thread
Cycle lanes as muppets, a thread
Kermit pic.twitter.com/9WKdGRVRNV
— Hannah 🚲 (@theeyecollector) April 19, 2021
Because I’m sure this is exactly what you need in your life…
Cookie Monster pic.twitter.com/VdoXoVhnsl
— Hannah 🚲 (@theeyecollector) April 19, 2021
Gianni Moscon wins stage one of the Tour of the Alps
#TotA 🇮🇹🇦🇹 / Gianni Moscon a réussi à sortir du peloton dans le final et à s’imposer à Innsbruck en résistant au retour du peloton.
🏁 Étape 1
🏆 🇮🇹 Gianni Moscon (ING)
2⃣ 🇳🇴 Idar Andersen (UNX) m.t.
3⃣ 🇧🇾 Alex Riabushenko (UAD) m.t.pic.twitter.com/CMvfhoO3TH— Chronique du Vélo (@ChroniqueDuVelo) April 19, 2021
Gianni Moscon has probably just made himself the least popular winner of a bike race all year…The Ineos Grenadiers rider attacked on the final uncategorised climb before being joined by 21-year-old Uno-X rider Idar Andersen. Moscon beat the Norwegian in the sprint with the bunch, led by Alexandr Riabushenko, just behind.
A quick look in the archives will tell you why the Italian’s victory hasn’t been well received…Last week Kévin Reza called on the UCI to implement proper punishments for riders found guilty of racism. In 2017, Moscon was suspended for six weeks for racially abusing the Frenchman at the Tour de Romandie. He was also disqualified from Kuurne-Brusells-Kuurne last year after throwing his bike at another rider…
Bike porn
Happiness comes in many forms. And this is definitely one of them: Colnago V3Rs in frozen color option. #colnago #labicicletta pic.twitter.com/hjlhW1gboX
— Colnago (@Colnagoworld) April 14, 2021
We don’t even need to see the rest of the bike, just a glimpse at the paint job is enough.
Tom Pidcock deletes tweet questioning Amstel Gold Race photo finish
Even with the UCI’s advanced, space-aged finish line technology, the men’s Amstel Gold Race was a close call! Pidcock doesn’t seem convinced…
Who do you think got it?
Watch the replay and highlights from this and the weekend’s racing now with GCN+ 👇https://t.co/rrFJjckW75 pic.twitter.com/D0p2bsFypY
— GlobalCyclingNetwork (@gcntweet) April 19, 2021
Tom Pidcock was outspoken about the photo finish at Amstel Gold Race yesterday before quickly deleting his Tweet. Pidcock wrote: “There’s been a lot of speculation on Twitter. A photo finish is used to verify a result. However yesterday’s photo seems to have created more questions than have been answered. This isn’t correct, photo finishes should be 100% accurate and should be in the future.”
Some have speculated that Pidcock beat Wout van Aert by sharing different stills from the finish line, many of which were not the actual angle used by the comissaires for the photo finish. There was a long delay and some confusion in the moments after the finale before it was judged Van Aert had beaten the Ineos rider by 0.004 seconds. I wish I could be upset about losing to Wout by 0.004 seconds…
The results are in: Cav's going to win another Grand Tour stage...
We wanted to know if Cav will win another Grand Tour stage…We’re impatient, you see. Last week has got us dreaming of the Manx Missile back to his best. However, unfortunately there’s no road.cc crystal ball to take a peek into to find out what happens next. So we did the next best thing…Ask you lot, of course.
And…79 per cent of you think there is a 49th Grand Tour stage win coming soon…Let’s hope you’re right.
Monday...
Monday pic.twitter.com/Ed24AQdbFs
— Cycling out of context (@OutOfCycling) April 19, 2021
No love for Moscon and questions asked about dangerous finish in Innsbruck
Proud to have a rider like him in the squad?
— belgian baroudeur (@nudaveritas13) April 19, 2021
Just two of the many similar replies to Ineos Grenadiers’ tweet congratulating Gianni Moscon on his win at the Tour of the Alps. It is not really a surprise that a rider with a racist abuse suspension on his palmares is not very popular…
Or to Jens Debusschere for punshing him in the race. Real shame that despite of that he got a contract
— EliasTeller (@EliasTeller2) April 19, 2021
Elsewhere, Dan Martin had questions for the UCI about the safety of the finish, saying it was one of the scariest he has done for a while.
All the new rules @UCI_cycling is creating with the excuse of making racing safer and they forget the basics. Parked cars all over the place in the final of a ‘sprint’ stage. They will claim they don’t have responsibility. One of scariest finishes I’ve done for a while. pic.twitter.com/AbaR7JfL38
— Dan Martin (@DanMartin86) April 19, 2021
19 April 2021, 08:06
19 April 2021, 08:06
19 April 2021, 08:06
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Latest Comments
@kinderje Are you aware that -ise endings are actually the newer form, having supplanted -ize (as used by Shakespeare, the King James Bible and Jane Austen, amongst many others) in the mid 19th century? Etymologically there is a far better argument for -ize endings for words with Greek and Latin roots than the -ise ending which arose from Victorian publishers imitating French verb endings. Both endings are now regarded as acceptable in British English, although the Oxford style guide recommends -ize. It is most certainly not incorrect.
@Backladder Given that the makers are selling it as being useable on any ride on open roads, it doesn't seem unreasonable to try to test it in those conditions.
'Leasting'? That's a whole 4 letters less.
Although usually the easiest thing of all would be for them just to stop for a few moments while you cycle past them (which requires a lot less space to do safely than them passing you), but most people seem allergic to stopping, even for the briefest time.
@Backladder Oh I think I can guess - the nearest indoor velodrome to road.cc HQ looks to be some distance away in Wales, whereas Odd Down Cycle Track (where this test was conducted) is just 2 miles away.
There are a number of causes of "the divide between motorists and cyclists". Only one is to do with the technology (of bicycles and cars) and that's the nature of the car, which is designed to induce the sort of dangerous and careless behaviours that providing humans with a lot of power and glamour fetches out of us. Other causes are much more insidious - A culture of hyper-individualism bordering on solipsism, with violently ultra-selfish and aggressive anti-heroes being promoted in every mass media channel as the ideal. A "news" media that overwhelmingly seeks, creates and offers pariahs and scapegoats to the rabid individualists, which pariahs and scapegoats includes all kinds of those perceived as less powerful and therefore easy victims, including cyclists. The near complete lack of any curb upon the dangerous antics of vast numbers of media-maddened motorists by the forces of law and order, many of whom are actually members themselves of the mass media maddened motorist ilk. ******** No amount of a more rational discourse about active travel or the means of making it safer will change these root causes of the vast numbers of deaths and maiming due to inept, incompetent and deliberately violent antics of vast numbers of motorists allowed their dangerous "weapons of choice". Yet many other highly damaging aspects of modern societies would be solved by a much more effective curbing of mass media mob-building and goading along with a serious attempt to prevent motorists and a whole range of other damagers from behaving as badly as so many do. It'll not happen, of course. Large and powerful elements of the modern world obtain far too much ultra-riches and power from current conditions for them to allow any significant change. And vast numbers of the population have long had their minds, attitudes and behaviours captured and directed by various oligarchical monsters and their mass media propaganda horns. About the only chance of safe active travel becoming extant is for the population at large to become mostly too poor to afford a car, ironically one other likely outcome of the machinations of those same power and money-mad monsters that have created the car-issue in the first place. Their need for zero-sum socio-economic arrangements degrades everything, including the wallet-contents of the masses.
@Astralstroll The hierarchy of road users does not mean priority of road users except in certain circumstances, e.g. stopping to let pedestrians cross junctions before turning. It doesn't mean that cyclists have priority over motor vehicles at all times any more than the pedestrians have priority over cyclists at all times. It certainly doesn't mean that you have priority in the circumstances you describe; personally, unless the driver is being a complete dick, on a narrow country lane I accept that it is easier for me to turn around and go back to the nearest passing place, which is never that far if you're on a bike, than for a tractor or other large vehicle to reverse back down the road for my benefit.
If you were spending that much money on the device the obvious thing to do is to book a couple of hours in a velodrome for testing in a stable environment, I can't understand why Road.cc tried to do it outdoors.
@Astralstroll The Hierarchy of Road Users, announced with great fanfares in 2022, has been rendered into complete fiction by the attitude of the police: there is this hierarchy/ priority list but we don't take it seriously and if drivers ignore it we don't care! The same applies to the ludicrous notice of close-passing - No KSI'd cyclist = No Offence ttps://upride.cc/incident/lwa190_minicooper_hierarchy/
17 thoughts on “Jeremy Vine nearly taken out by London cab driver on his morning commute; Pidcock deletes tweet questioning photo finish; Genius shipping trick reduces bike damage; Cav is back; Hi-vis bike thief; Gravel stories; Bike lane petition + more on the live blog”
Mr Vine is missing the point.
Mr Vine is missing the point. Those particular road markings signify ‘give way’, and any fule kno that you don’t have to give way to cyclists! The very thought!!
For a moment, I thought
For a moment, I thought Jeremy was turning his head to give the driver a ‘hard stare’ but he seemed to be staring for a bit too long and then did that owl trick of turning his head right round.
which camera does he have,
which camera does he have, anybody know?
one of those Instagram 360
one of those Insta 360 cameras I suspect, could have done with one of those at the weekend as an SUV tried to drive through me but none of it captured on my forward facing camera
According to https://twitter
According to https://twitter.com/theJeremyVine/status/1375927773496233984, it’s an Insta360: https://www.insta360.com/
Edit: I’ve been looking at their store and they look very impressive bits of kit. I think I’ll have to wait for my Fly12 to finally break before I can justify getting one, though.
Looks like an Insta360 One X
Looks like an Insta360 One X or the more recent One X2. I recently acquired a One X and it’s a fascinating device although the battery life is poor and the device can be flaky. Here’s a short video I made of a recent gravel sportive, it uses a mix of Insta and GoPro footage.
https://youtu.be/SBenRQjbXHM
Miller wrote:
Great footage, though I threw up in my mouth a little when I saw bikes being put upside down.
What we need is a full on Road.cc review of these as the stabilisation and choice of angles is superb, but if battery life is poor then they might not be best for commuters.
Reviews have been mixed to be
Reviews have been mixed to be fair,its an interesting camera and great for video bloggers to get unique footage with. But to get that 360 look also requires some post processing I think, so Vine has edited the raw footage to display what’s interesting, and I dont know how that works with submissions for police close passes.
If I got one, I’d be inclined
If I got one, I’d be inclined to upload the raw footage and a suitably chosen angle or two to highlight the incident.
If you want a low maintenance
If you want a low maintenance way to record traffic around you, I wouldn’t recommend a 360 cam at their current state of development. On the other hand, yes for getting a unique look in youtube videos. What I have: the One X camera itself and some spare batteries and assorted mounts. 360 stills or video recorded on the camera can be downloaded to your phone where you can use the Insta App to do some basic editing for export to social media. For more elaborate post-processing you can copy the source files to PC and then use Insta Studio to select angles of view and effects in your clip, then export the clips one at a time as either 360 video or flat non-360 video. Then you can assemble your clips into a final video, noting that although all video editors will of course handle flat video, only a couple of high-end video editors are able edit 360 video.
Here’s another little
Here’s another little Insta360 video done for fun.
https://youtu.be/cr99lZEJ0Hs
Coventry: the new Cycle
Coventry: the new Cycle Infrastructure Design LTN1/20 is very good – clearly written by people who know about best practice around the world.
Follow the guidance, and you won’t go far wrong.
Quote:
When North Somerset Council was proposing to put in a new shared-use cycle path alongside the A369 between Pill and Abbots Leigh, at the consultation I raised this very point. I asked if they could put a give-way line set back from the main road on the side roads? (No) or at the very least some sort of warning sign to remind people that there was a cycle lane ahead (No).
We also couldn’t get a light controlled crossing as it would hold up the traffic (?), so we got a refuge in the middle, to cross what was originally a 50mph commuter route (now dropped, supposedly, to 40 mph). It can take 5-10 minutes to cross just two lanes of traffic, during morning rush hour…
In Surrey, the council puts
In Surrey, the council puts some metal staples at intervals on pavements and hey presto a cycle lane (that nobody uses). Or widens a cycle lane on a fast road where there were never any problems but ignores the roundabouts at either end and seems happy that bikes have to filter back into the traffic on the approaches (& of course drivers always allow that..). A five-year-old would do better in a primary school project.
It’ll be interesting to see
It’ll be interesting to see how Rule H3 will change thinking on this:
You should not cut across cyclists going ahead when turning into or out of a junction or changing direction or lane, just as you would not turn across the path of another motor vehicle. This applies whether cyclists are using a cycle lane, a cycle track, or riding ahead on the road and you should give way to them.
I understand that most cycle lanes have a give way signs at junctions and this would negate rule H3 anyway. The ones I have seen are just painted on the tarmac. However, it’s going to be difficult for drivers to know who has priority as they approach the junction if they can’t see the cyclist specific give way sign. It’s therefore surely better for most junctions to adopt rule H3 as default.
Quite a smart choice for bike
Quite a smart choice for bike thievery – hi-vis will tend to draw away the attention of any witnesses and make them less likely to remember any actual identifiable details.
Of course, getting caught on video is rather less smart (though you can’t make out a great deal from this clip).
Deliveroo investigating after
Deliveroo investigating after picture emerges of food courier cycling along M32 motorway (Bristol Post)
https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/deliveroo-investigating-after-picture-emerges-5317913
Deliveroo is investigating after an image shared online appeared to show an employee cycling along the motorway in Bristol.
A cyclist wearing the distinctive turquoise backpack with the food courier’s branding was pictured riding on the hard shoulder of the M32.
The image was shared on social media platform Reddit on Wednesday night (April 14) with the caption: “Not everyday you see a Deliveroo rider on the M32.”
It showed the rider about a mile before the turn-off for Fishponds and Horfield, despite it being illegal for cyclists to ride on motorways in the UK.
So…. That’s the story (assuming its not all made up). One of the first comments BTL is (as you can guess):
“This doesn’t surprise me…cyclists make then own rules on the road..jump red lights ride faster than cars in a 20mph zone.. ride on pavements ride in and out of traffic hitting cars not giving a dam.”