Oh no, here we go again. "Washed", "delusional", or "coping mechanism"?
Before you come raging at your poor live blog host, that's not me, just people on the internet using those words for the four-time Tour de France winner.
But as I said earlier in the day, eras do come to an end, and maybe this is it for the legendary rider?
It was all going well until Froome gave an interview to GCN, where he might have let his hubris get the better of him for a split second, and that's given all the ammunition to fans to have cheeky digs at him.
The Israel-Premier Tech rider said: "Physically I was ready, but unfortunately I was unable to show my full ability at the races assigned to me due to equipment issues."
And as soon as these words were uttered into the ether, the age-old can of disc brakes was opened, and out crawled all the memories of several instances of Froome blaming his disc brakes for his not-so-great performances.
It's not like the 38-year-old hasn't been mired with "equipment" controversy before. He has swayed from hating disc brakes, to being all aboard the hype train, and then went back to detesting them, even publicly posting a video of a slow wheel change on Instagram for which he got a lot of flak.
> Fed up Froome denounces disc brake wheels on Instagram Reel
Our mysterious forum contributor, Secret_squirrel true to their name, were the first to move with lightning-fast reflexes: "Oh me first me first!
"Equipment issues".... it was those pesky disc brakes wasnt it Chris?"
squired also didn't pass on the free hit, going so far as to pull a reference from the depths of WWE (or WWF depending on how old you are): "Chris Froome is fast becoming the Ric Flair of cycling - "I've got one more in me"."
SimoninSpalding, who reportedly can't be bothered about LTNs and taxis today, had time for Froome's comments: "I have long been a fan of Chris Froome, but this is getting ridiculous.
"IF the equipment he is being given is genuinely $h!t, but he is the best ride on the squad, then his results would still be better than his teammates and he would be picked. UNLESS he is suggesting he is given inferior equipment to that of his teammates which would be a strange decision in light of his purported salary.
"I am afraid he should have accepted his best days were over the first season back post his crash and retired with some dignity."
> What’s wrong with Chris Froome’s disc brakes?
Sean Dowden wrote on Facebook: "Circling the drain. Blaming equipment on his lack of results. Just retire.", while Richard Docherty was more pitiful: "Sadly a decision out of his hands. Maybe time to bow out and move into coaching and/or team management."
To Froome's misery (chap's got enough already), Twitteratti weren't so kind, going straight for the jugular.
Me? I don't really have much of an opinion about the guy, so I can just sit back and watch people being petty.
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BBC R4 "Sliced Bread" cycle helmets edition https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001n21k
This is my email to them:
Hi Greg,
just listened again to your prog about cycle helmets, and it had serious errors and was extremely biased. The professor from Virginia Tech Labs, Steve Rowson, stated several times that cycle helmets saved lives and that there was overwhelming data to show that, a claim you yourself repeated. The most reliable data, from whole population, long term studies from Australia, the first place to bring in a helmet law, showed that the risk of death rose after the law was brought in. The studies showing massive benefits from helmet wearing are small scale, short term and have methodological shortcomings which mean they are not reliable, something mentioned in the article by David Speigelhalter and Ben Goldacre which you mention later.
After Dr Ian Walker was interviewed, Steve Rowson was allowed to criticise his findings, but Steve Rowson's conclusions were taken as being absolutely true, when they are at the very least, questionable. Steve Rowson was given considerably more time than Dr Walker and his views are no more valid than Dr Walker's.
You mentioned the national cycling organisation, CUK, but interviewed nobody from them, and didn't challenge Steve Rowson when you asked him about their views and he simply ignored them and repeated his mantra about helmets saving lives.
You seem to think that the controversy over helmets started with Dr Walker's 2006 paper on how much closer drivers get if you wear a helmet, but it has been raging for many years before that, basically because of the worst of bad science used to justify laws and promotion. The claims of helmet promoters have been proved wrong time and time again, e.g. 85% reduction in deaths, but they are still repeated by people who haven't looked at the actual effects of cycle helmets at a population level.
You also mentioned David Speigelhalter and Ben Goldacre's work, without saying what their conclusions were, which is rather odd, or was it because they found that cycle helmets are not effective?
Neither was the question raised of why cycling should be singled out for such an intervention, when it is not particularly productive of head injuries and is safer than many other common activities. Walking for instance has the same death rate for distance travelled as cycling, and many more car occupants die from head injuries than do cyclists, so it would save more lives if they wore helmets.
The only detectable effects of helmet laws and promotion is a reduction in the number of cyclists, who then lose the gigantic health benefits, and obscene profits for the helmet manufacturers and sellers.
No helmet sceptic was interviewed, only helmet promoters, so the entire programme was grossly biased.
I hope that you will be correcting these errors very soon, or I will be making yet another complaint about the decades long bias of the BBC about cycle helmets.
If you would like to make a rather more factual article about cycle helmets, I'd be happy to contribute.
“Taxi numbers are predicted by officers to be low. I don’t accept that taxis always speed; they are professional drivers."
Must just be in my town that the standard of driving exhibited by taxi drivers is so low. The only time they're not speeding is when they are waiting at the rank.
It’s a disaster from start to finish. I fear for safety of my residents. This council should be charged for manslaughter if anything happens. It is a class war," said a City councillor.
Such a shame that we don't know the name of this paranoid councillor, but it isn't clear what he's referring to: is it installing the LTN in the first place, or removing the bollards and putting in ANPR? I think it's the former, and if so, since LTNs significantly reduce the risk of KSIs, his outburst seems rather misplaced. But maybe all his constituents are black cab drivers.
I'm surprised the issue of bike hangars being blocked by drivers leaving their vehicles too close hasn't been raised before (unless I've missed it).
You'd think their testing would have highlighted it and the designers/planners worked out that they need yellow "DON'T PARK HERE (unless you like scratches on your vehicle..." markings on the road next to them.
If those are eventually painted on the road and someone still parks there (in a non-emergency) then call the tyre extinguishers.
Entirely missing the point of LTNs, to stop motorized through traffic.
Low
Traffic
Neighbourhood
The clue is in the name.
Taxis may not be the most desirable form of public transport, but they are definitely public transport.
In what other form of public transport do you pay someone to take you, and only you/people with you, from exactly where you are to exactly where you specify? You might as well call a second-hand car public transport on the grounds someone else was in it before you.
No, taxis are just chauffeur car rental per journey. To be public transport the vehicle has to be in public use at the same time, not sequentially.
Incorrect.
I have long been a fan of Chris Froome, but this is getting ridiculous.
IF the equipment he is being given is genuinely $h!t, but he is the best ride on the squad, then his results would still be better than his teammates and he would be picked. UNLESS he is suggesting he is given inferior equipment to that of his teammates which would be a strange decision in light of his purported salary.
I am afraid he should have accepted his best days were over the first season back post his crash and retired with some dignity.
In case you were wondering I can't be arsed with the LTN/ Taxi crap today
Whether or not taxis are public transport seems irrelevant to me. It makes no sense to say "I can't drive through here in a car, but I can pay someone else to drive me through here in a car".
Pretty much. Although it's sensible to make partial exceptions sometimes e.g. "no cars through here but buses are OK" or "between the hours of..."
But yeah - if it's a LTN, the point is "no through route". As others say - you can still drive to any point you want, just not by every route which looks possible on the map.
There's a UK mindset which says that almost every road has to have two ends. Don't know why - perhaps it's to stop drivers (in pre-sat-nav days) getting "stuck"?
How is that any different to "I can't drive through here in a car but I can pay a bus driver to drive me through?"
Taxis have far far higher utilisation than private cars - therefore they have a contribution to make to Low(ering) Traffic in Neighbourhoods.
How can this be? If I drive, it's a car transporting me. If I take a taxi, it's a car transporting me and a driver, who has had to drive to pick me up and will have to drive to the next fare. Taxis may spend less time parked (good), but I'm not convinced that they are great news on the congestion front.
A bus takes about the road space of 3 taxis and carries 70+ people when full. Those 3 taxis will take 12. I'd call them Not Very Public transport.
Hi Road cc - I think you may need to check your stats re Pog's TT times:
"setting a time of 29:43 with an average speed of 31.699 km/h for the 15.7km course."
Either that is incorrect, or there is hope for me yet, as I can go faster than that!!!
There were 744m of ascent in there too... https://www.procyclingstats.com/race/nc-slovenia-itt/2023/result
ok fair nuff - no hope for me after all
The bike parking in my office building is in the lower basement, only accessible from the open air car park at the rear of the building. There's an outward opening/locking metal gate, and then behind that is a locking door which opens inward.
A handful of times I've walked round from the building front door to the car park to go home, only to find that someone has parked their car too close to the gate so I could maybe just about get into the basement but then wouldn't be able to get my bike out without taking it apart... So I have to walk back round and start asking in the other offices "Who's car is <this>? Can they move it because I'd quite like to go home now!"
Why wouldn't a taxi be public transport?
It's used by the public ... and it's transport.
However, that shouldn't give their drivers carte blanche to rat run LTNs on their way to the next pickup or drop off.
Cars, bikes, helicopters etc are used by members and are transport.
To me, the public/private distinction here is "does the passenger choose the destination?" and "can another member of the public join the journey without the passenger's permission".
I'm struggling to think of an alternative definition that would count taxis as "public" but (say) a chauffeur-driven car as "private". Just saying "you can hail it in the public street" doesn't seem to do the job: I can buy a coffee on the street, but it's still a privately-owned good if I do.
There is also the definition of "Taxi" and "Private Hire Vehicle". Taxi is the black cabs mostly and have more rules allowed for travel like using Taxi Ranks, Bus Lanes (were noted) and other places. They can be waved down at any time.
Private Hire Vehicles are just that, a private car that can be hired to drive you from point A to B. They cannot use taxi ranks to wait, cannot use bus lanes and in theory should follow the exact same rules as you and I. The latter has overtaken the former for usage, especially with the likes of Uber and Bolt and I suspect are the ones being mentioned as allowed through these gates.
I actually find the PVH drivers worse then cabbies for ignoring road signs like No Entry or Turn Left Only as they usually charge fixed prices for pre booked pickup / drop off so want to go as short a distance as possible, both to make more of a profit on the transport and be available as soon as possible for a new fare.
And also in the last few years, the latter ones seem to be registered no where near where they operate. This is both because the councils decided it was a good money raising ploy to register them, and because drivers believe they are less likely to be reported to their registered council area from outside the council.
Public transport is when the vehicle you are tavelling in is shared with other members of the public. Private transport is exclusive use at the time of travel.
Mainstream examples:
- bus: public transport
- train: public transport
- bicycle: private transport
- car ferry: public transport
- private jet: private transport
- scheduled airline: public transport
- taxi: private transport
So by your crappy definitions anything with one passenger in it is not public transport. What a bag of fail!
PS please share the origin of that definition? Was it from the Dept of Making Sh*t up?
I am struggling to come up with an example of a single occpancy public transport option. What ones are you thinking of?
Bike/scooter hire schemes.
Privately owned vehicles operated for profit and privately rented. Is Hertz rent a car public transport?
Busses, trains and car ferries all tend to be privately owned and operated for profit and having thought about it you are right, Hertz are also public transport.
"Busses, trains and car ferries all tend to be privately owned and operated for profit"
Only since they were privatised. Which time and and time again has been shown to be a bad idea.
No, but Hertz Van Rental is a little known racing cyclist from the early 20th century.
I've got one of his LP's.
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