“I’ll miss the convenience… but time to give independent bike shops some patronage”: Cyclists react to Wiggle Chain Reaction in administration (+ Islabikes ceasing production); Monster 105km hill climb; Hi-vis silliness + more on the live blog

24 thoughts on ““I’ll miss the convenience… but time to give independent bike shops some patronage”: Cyclists react to Wiggle Chain Reaction in administration (+ Islabikes ceasing production); Monster 105km hill climb; Hi-vis silliness + more on the live blog”

1. On Hi-vis needed for…

   On Hi-vis needed for… “anyone not in a car” – someone posted on my village FB group those two pictures from the other day with the child standing by the road dressed in bright yellow raincoat and with the child wearing dark colours.

   Nobody said anything about all those cars from 1976 (how old were those photos??) which were clearly visible even without their lights on and without being painted fluoro…

   The better lesson may be, “Don’t wait by the side of the road in an area of heavy shade” 

   Log In or Register to post comments

   • It’s the flip side of the 15

     It’s the flip side of the 15 minute conspiracy theories.  I hear they’re going to solve the problem of road crashes by just putting chips in all vulnerable road users.  Then cars can detect them and drivers can ignore that warning also avoid them.  Simples!  Technology solves another problem.

     Log In or Register to post comments

     • Apparently they tested heat

       Apparently they tested heat-vision in cars, but it couldn’t pick up the cold-blooded politicians….

       Log In or Register to post comments

       • Luckily that wasn’t a problem

         Luckily that wasn’t a problem

         Log In or Register to post comments

       • HoldingOn wrote:

         Apparently they tested heat-vision in cars, but it couldn’t pick up the cold-blooded politicians….

         — HoldingOn

         Hmm… lizards are ectotherms.  Paging David Icke

         Log In or Register to post comments

   • brooksby wrote:

     On Hi-vis needed for… “anyone not in a car” – someone posted on my village FB group those two pictures from the other day with the child standing by the road dressed in bright yellow raincoat and with the child wearing dark colours.

     Nobody said anything about all those cars from 1976 (how old were those photos??) which were clearly visible even without their lights on and without being painted fluoro…

     The better lesson may be, “Don’t wait by the side of the road in an area of heavy shade” 

     — brooksby

     I can’t find it now but some website debunked that photo pointing out that it was photoshopped to be unrealistic.  The face being one of the issues (it should be visible in both) and I think the legs/boots????

      

     Log In or Register to post comments

     • https://irishcycle.com/2019

       https://irishcycle.com/2019/10/25/minister-ross-promotes-high-vis-with-deceptive-image-of-child-crossing-road-blacked-out/

       The image being shared mainly on Facebook this week is claimed to show the different just in clothes but a close inspection of the image shows how the image was Photoshopped or otherwise edited to darken even the face and legs of the child:

       Log In or Register to post comments

     • It was on one of the live

       It was on one of the live blogs here – last week or the week before.  Think both of the photos had been ‘toned’ to not be representative of actual light.

       Log In or Register to post comments

2. The issue is that as usual

   The issue is that as usual drivers don’t see the issue with trying to pin the responsibility for being safe on the roads on the people who are at risk. They don’t see that the number of cyclists who are riding around at night without lights or reflective clothes is tiny. They don’t understand that its just a driver advocacy group trying to appear to care about vulnerable road users when they are just trying to avoid more scrutiny of the fucking awful driving standards in this country. 

   I would wager that a tiny percentage of “accidents” involving cars were anything other than poor driving. I am also certain that if drivers paid some fucking attention when moving around at speed in a 2 tonne lump of metal they wouldn’t hurt or kill so many vulnerable road users. Theres your big ticket item. 

   When its the middle of the day and a twat in a car swings across the road in front of me getting into a pub and misses me by about 1m because I whack on my brakes, I don’t think hi-vis is the issue. 

    

   Log In or Register to post comments

   • 100%

     100%
     If anything more than a tiny minority of collisions were the fault of mechanical/design failures of the vehicle, the manufacturers would face an uproar.
     But because the normal cause of them is bad driving (be it “accidental” or deliberate) on the part of drivers, it is considered a non-issue.

     Log In or Register to post comments

   • When I cycle to work at six
     When I cycle to work at six in the morning I am wearing HiViz and lights everywhere. It would be a great relief if pedestrians did the same. They all wear black and are constantly walking out into the road without looking. At that hour in the morning they are nothing but shadows that appear from nowhere.

     Log In or Register to post comments

3. Highway Code

   Highway Code

   Rule 3:

   Help other road users to see you. Wear or carry something light-coloured, bright or fluorescent in poor daylight conditions. When it is dark, use reflective materials (eg armbands, sashes, waistcoats, jackets, footwear), which can be seen by drivers using headlights up to three times as far away as non-reflective materials.

   Rule 59

   Clothing. You should avoid clothes that may get tangled in the chain, or in a wheel or may obscure your lights when you are cycling.

   Light-coloured or fluorescent clothing can help other road users to see you in daylight and poor light, while reflective clothing and/or accessories (belt, arm or ankle bands) can increase your visibility in the dark.

   You should wear a cycle helmet that conforms to current regulations, is the correct size and securely fastened. Evidence suggests that a correctly fitted helmet will reduce your risk of sustaining a head injury in certain circumstances.

    

   Have we forgotten about these two rules, or are we doing the selective reading bit?

   Log In or Register to post comments

   • I think people remember when
     I think people remember when they got told smidsy despite being lit up like a Christmas tree.
     Or they are tired of PPE being trotted out so drivers can go faster than they should.

     My concern, mentioned the other day is that there are so many cars now with excessively bright lights hence ‘can I been seen whatever I wear’ ?

     Log In or Register to post comments

     • I’m not immune to the SMDISY
       I’m not immune to the SMDISY or to the whole PPE as a be all, end all.
       Get that.

       What i am highly conscious of is ‘contributing negligence’ and how it is being used more and more as a way of dragging out insurance claims and reducing payouts. It is so easy now for an insurance company to extend a process by saying that the injured party wasn’t wearing lights/brights/reflective.
       Hell, they tried on me – despite their driver copping points for Careless Driving, and it’s one of the reasons my claim too just under 4 years.

       Excessively bright lights in cars … absolutely agree there. That and the size and placement of lights has changed.
       Indicators and sidelights have gravitated towards the middle of the car, making them harder to see due to the glare from the ultra bright, normally miss-aligned focused LED headlight.

       Brake lights and rear indicators have all but disappeared from the rear of cars.

       A bright, flashing light front and back, with a second steady, and wearing lights/brights/reflective is about all you can do.

       It might not stop you getting hit by a shit, but at least there will be no grounds to reduce the compensation.

       Log In or Register to post comments

       • Oldfatgit wrote:

         Excessively bright lights in cars … absolutely agree there. That and the size and placement of lights has changed. Indicators and sidelights have gravitated towards the middle of the car, making them harder to see due to the glare from the ultra bright, normally miss-aligned focused LED headlight.

         — Oldfatgit

         And don’t forget that since so many vehicles on the road are SUV now, the excessibely bright headlights are all about five feet off the ground 

         Log In or Register to post comments

         • They need to be that high to
           They need to be that high to cast a long enough shadow of the kid that’s about to disappear under the front bumper ?

         • You are not kidding either

           You are not kidding either

           This just came up

           A handy demonstration of why #wankpanzers are inappropriate for urban environments pic.twitter.com/yRGGimFYxr

           — Wankpanzer Watch (@Wankpanzer) October 27, 2023

           This is not for the fainthearted or those who have been in a similar incident.

         • That is just fecking
           That is just fecking horrendous ?
           I hope the kid is OK, and that the driver is done for minimum of Without Due Care.

           I can see the next bunch of safety instructions to small kids …
           “Now remember, everyone .. when hit by a WP, curl in to a ball, keep your arms and legs tucked in, your head down and make yourself as small as you can. Pretend you’re a hedgehog…
           No … maybe not a hedgehog, but you get the idea …
           Wass that Timmy? Bleeding over the nice shiny car? No, no, no, Timmy. You mustn’t do that or the nice, kind WP ‘driver’ is likely to give you a kicking.
           … yes Clara? No, love … you can’t start screaming once the WP has gone, in case the ‘driver’ hears you and gets upset. Then the nice PC Plodderic will have to arrest you for making a loud noise … “

       • HP dug out a page on the

         HP dug out a page on the legal stuff in the last week *.

         If they were a way to find things on this site…

         Oh and I have 4 rear lights and 2 front lights. I’ve even started a day front light as my risk appetite is now inversely proportionate to my age.

          

         edit * I found it as it wasn’t that long ago and I thought it was in a long thread.

         https://www.weightmans.com/insights/cycle-helmets-and-contributory-negligence-revisited/

         Log In or Register to post comments

         • Let’s not make this about
           Let’s not make this about helmets when it’s not.
           It’s about clothing and reducing the risk to yourself both physically and from a CN point of view.

           I just have the 2 rear lights – the Garmin Radar one (can never remember it’s name) in Auto mode and the Fly6Gen 3 also in flash.
           On the front, I have my Fly12 Sport in Organic, a 400lumen in steady on and a 1600lumen for when I’m away from the streetlights (about 25 miles of my 40 mile commute is in pitch black this time of year. Thankfully, most of that is segregated or my wife wouldn’t let me ride home. She’s still dealing with the emotional effects of the collision in 2018 as well as the physical changes to me).

         • Not my intention at all was

           Not my intention at all was only thinking about the general principles highlighted in the article (slight edit to the page to remove H word)

           “For a deduction to be made, the defendant must plead the allegation and thereafter establish that the cyclist was at fault for not wearing [or having] X and that this failure and was causative of greater injuries. Once the above two limbs have been satisfied, the court will then apply a ‘just and equitable’ deduction to the claimant’s damages, by reference to the parties’ respective blameworthiness and the causative potency of each of their actions.

           Then one of the cases Phethean-Hubble v Coles [2012] EWCA Civ 349

           “involved a 16-year-old cyclist who was riding his bicycle at night, […] and without lights, on a pavement.”

           “The court found that the use of lights […] would have made no difference to the claimant’s injuries and the allegations of contributory negligence were accordingly dismissed.”

            

           (Obviously you have to have lights at night and it is stupid not to, as lights can always been seen regardless of where the car headlights are pointing)

         • The daft thing is Im seeing
           The daft thing is Im seeing more & more people favour hiviz over having any lights at night, cos they’re still visible right is I think the broken logic they use.

           But there you go, last year with 1 front light and a luminous yellow jacket I nearly got t-boned by a police car on a roundabout. 2 weeks later Id doubled up on front lights and nearly got wiped out on the same roundabout in the same setup.

           Which shows what little damn use lights, hiviz, street lighting or give way rules are if the driver is more concerned about their journey.

4. The Wiggle news is sad. I

   The Wiggle news is sad. I wonder what will happen to Vitus? Some of the prices on the ZX-1 have been pretty tasty recently. I would have pulled the trigger if I had any idea what would happen with warranties. Same with Prime and DHB. There’s some great brands there.

   Log In or Register to post comments

5. ‘Just When I Thought I Was

   ‘Just When I Thought I Was Out, They Pull Me Back In’ – Peter Sagan.

   Log In or Register to post comments