Boris Johnson’s cycling revolution “a gross deception”, says leading anti-obesity campaigner; “Don’t ride safely, ride like a bit of a tw*t”,says James May; Vigil for Deliveroo rider killed in hit-and-run; LTN conflicts continue + more on the live blog

46 thoughts on “Boris Johnson’s cycling revolution “a gross deception”, says leading anti-obesity campaigner; “Don’t ride safely, ride like a bit of a tw*t”,says James May; Vigil for Deliveroo rider killed in hit-and-run; LTN conflicts continue + more on the live blog”

1. Love love love the idea of

   Love love love the idea of cycling buses – if there’s anything that make the idea of more cycling, better infrastructure and a step change in driving mentality this should be it. 

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   • Compact Corned Beef wrote:

     Love love love the idea of cycling buses – if there’s anything that make the idea of more cycling, better infrastructure and a step change in driving mentality this should be it. 

     — Compact Corned Beef

     We definitely need more of this.

     (However,  BooBoo would complain about all the congestion they’d cause with 5+ cyclists).

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     • It is only the adult cyclists

       It is only the adult cyclists who cause congestion because the children’s bikes are smaller.

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       • hirsute wrote:

         It is only the adult cyclists who cause congestion because the children’s bikes are smaller.

         — hirsute

         They only make a *little* bump if you drive straight over them

         (Please don’t drive over them)

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     • Riding two abreast and not

       Riding two abreast and not pulling over to let the cars by….. tut tut.

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   • Wish a Twitterer would put
     Wish a Twitterer would put the “Styo” twit back in his box, with his ‘research’ about travelling in the wake of exhaled covid plumes.

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     • Did they reply to the bus

       Did they reply to the bus thread as I didn’t see it. However I did notice the one doubting thomas on it is a London Cabbie. What are the odds?

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   • Anyone know why the cycle

     Anyone know why the cycle lane on the bridge appears to be opposite priority then normal? Right hand side lane forward travel rather then left?

     Shouldn’t make a difference really but just strange to see on Left hand side roads. 

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     • This is entirely speculative,

       This is entirely speculative, but could it something to do with entry and exit to the bike lane? The forward lane can fork off/merge seamlessly with the main carriageway, whilst the oncoming cycle lane will necessarily have to have more convoluted access points anyway and putting it on the “wrong” side doesn’t make this any worse (and retains the simplicity for the forward lane). 

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2. Andy Foster from Worcester

   Andy Foster from Worcester should take his complaint to the police; that is dangerous parking, which is a police matter.

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   • eburtthebike wrote:

     Andy Foster from Worcester should take his complaint to the police; that is dangerous parking, which is a police matter.

     — eburtthebike

     I doubt you’d get the police interested. It is not dangerous parking in the sense that the parked cars are not posing an imminent threat; rather the danger is caused by other drivers avoiding the obstruction and thereby endangering other road users.

     Obstructing the highway is also a police matter and might be more pertinent here, although again I think you would struggle. After all, its perfectly possible for the drivers to avoid the obstruction by driving over the magic line of paint, and if there’s something squishy coming the other way that’s hardly a problem now, is it?

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     • OnYerBike wrote:

       Andy Foster from Worcester should take his complaint to the police; that is dangerous parking, which is a police matter.

       — OnYerBike

       I doubt you’d get the police interested. It is not dangerous parking in the sense that the parked cars are not posing an imminent threat; rather the danger is caused by other drivers avoiding the obstruction and thereby endangering other road users.

       — eburtthebike

       I’m sure you are right, but that won’t be much consolation to the relatives of the dead cyclist.  I would argue very strongly that the drivers’ parking is creating the danger and the police should be taking action.

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3. Re: Worcester cyclist. “The

   Re: Worcester cyclist. “The footage shows cars coming in the opposite direction, and dangerously close, to Andy Foster, which he says is being caused by illegal taxi ranking“
   Er, no, it is caused by drivers overtaking in the face of oncoming traffic. They can clearly see the cyclist approaching who has priority. They have the option to apply their brakes and actually stop to allow the cyclist to pass – but chose not to…

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   • But they were ‘forced’ to

     But they were ‘forced’ to overtake. Waiting was not an option.

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   • Also seems like that bus

     Also seems like that bus could’ve made a better job of pulling in, and not left it’s backside hanging out, which would have meant that the cars would have been able to pass it without swinging in to the bus/cycle lane.

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   • A 30cm high concrete curb

     A 30cm high concrete curb should pursuade drivers not to cross into the bike lane.

      

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   • I came here to say exactly

     I came here to say exactly this.

     Andy says “You’ll see from the video, taken by me on my bike, cars are forced to cross into the bus/cycle lane on the other side of the road”. This is only true if cars are not forced to stop by their drivers when it would be dangerous to continue.

     Not a dig at Andy at all, and I agree it’s worth following up with the taxi firm. But those drivers were breaking the law by driving across the solid white line into a mandatory cycle lane, worsened by the fact that Andy was there and they still did it. They should be reported and the police should do something about those drivers.

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4. The Olympic swimmer Michael
   The Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps famously ate what, for most people, would be a terrible diet, and highly calorific too (12000/day?), yet was not obese. So yes, clearly you can out exercise a bad diet.

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   • Not all of us have the time

     Not all of us have the time to train that Michael Phelps will have had while training for his Olympic medals, life sort of gets in the way, going to work, looking after the kids etc.

     I’ve cycled all my life yet still managed to balloon to nearly 330lbs only a year ago, while now I am under 240lbs.

     Have I managed to dramatically increase the distance and intensity of my cycling, or have I embraced a far healthier eating regime?

     I don’t think the Dr was specifically looking to undermine the benefits of cycling or any other physical activity, but if you don’t focus on the calories in, then the exertion required to burn excess calories increases dramatically.

     So no, the vast majority of us can’t outrun a bad diet, especially as we get older, but a healthy diet combined with a liberal sprinkling of exercise can work wonders.

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   • He was in good shape while

     He was in good shape while doing all that training and eating that high calorie diet.

     What we don’t know is what that type of food was doing to his long term health.

     Some foods are bad and should not be eaten.

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5. From Wikipedia:

   From Wikipedia:

   “Aseem Malhotra is a “celebrity” doctor based in the United Kingdom, known for his controversial views on diet. He is best known as a promoter of a fad diet called the Pioppi diet and as one of the founders of Action on Sugar.  Maholtra’s views on diet and health have been criticised by the British Heart Foundation as “misleading and wrong”, and his public questioning of the need ever to use statins has been condemned as a danger to public health.[4] His diet, the “Pioppi diet” was named by the British Dietetic Association as one of the “top 5 worst celeb diets to avoid in 2018″.[1]”

   Like so many people obsessed with diet, he can’t see any other cause or cure for obesity than diet, despite all the evidence to the contrary.  Not so much a “leading anti-obesity campaigner” as someone obsessed by diet to the exclusion of all else.

   The real problem is the msm, which almost universally blames all weight problems and obesity on diet, and refuses to mention active travel as the most beneficial way to tackle them.  For instance “Inside Health” on R4 has an archive going back many years, and I recently trawled through them all to find mentions of cycling; I think it was three; and those three weren’t exactly gushing about the benefits of cycling, more a brief aside.

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   • Thank you for comfirming my

     Thank you for comfirming my suspicions that he was a publicity seeking self serving shill.

     I shan’t waste any more of my precious typing time on him.

     Losing weight is simply about using more energy  that you take in and exercise plus watching your calories is the best way of achieving that.  What you eat is essentially irrelevant for weight management.  Most diets only work because they help you limit your calorie loading, and they have to be relatively similar to your long term food choices if you aren’t to backslide unless you are ferociously self disciplined.
     Long term health management may be a different issue with some foods if you are eating deep fried mars bars every day…

     Look at TCR and endurance riders.  They eat trash and none of them are lardies.

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6. Dr Malhotra’s comments seem
   Dr Malhotra’s comments seem mostly fair.

   I’ve lost about 35 kilos through cycling (BMI of 33 down to 23) and am living proof you can outrun a bad diet, but that’s been achieved by going from zero to about 10 hours of structured and outdoor training a week. I won’t make any grand claim about speed, but I’m certainly substantially stronger than when I started.

   Your average utility cyclist is nowhere near that level of exertion and structure. Yes the more committed may see moderate gains, but to properly lose significant weight through cycling requires both consistency and intensity, neither of which are on most people’s mind when they are just riding down to the shops for some groceries.

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   • Dr Malhotra’s comments seem
     Dr Malhotra’s comments seem mostly self-serving – he is in the business of pushing diets.

     People can choose to eat what they will, but if they want/need to cycle anywhere they have little choice about the infrastructure.

     So I’m with Boris on this one – to each as they are able; let the government look to the infrastructure whilst people look out for their own diets. Nanny can stay out of it.

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     • There are a heap of other
       There are a heap of other reasons other than weight loss to have more cycling and cycling infrastructure, but when positioned as a public health intervention (e.g. Prescribing cycling on the NHS), it’s a pretty poor one.

       One of the biggest risk factors for covid is obesity, if we want to do anything about that at a public health/nanny state level (delete as applicable to meet your political leaning), cycling is actually of limited impact for most people unless combined with major dietary changes.

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       • There are a lot of studies
         There are a lot of studies showing that active commuting leads to long term weight loss.

         There was also a recent study showing that cycle commuters almost halved their risk of cancer, stroke and heart disease compared to non active commuters.

         If we could get more people cycle commuting (or cycling an equivalent ammount) the public health benefits would be enormous.

         Cycling mortality study here:
         https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.j1456

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         • I’m familiar with that study,
           I’m familiar with that study, but the issue is the selection bias that comes with measuring cycle commuting, never mind the data set used (which is actually acknowledged in the study).

           In a covid context you’re not really worried about those with maybe a few pounds to lose, it’s those much further up the scale. Yes cycle commuting is awesome, should be encouraged, but those most likely to benefit significantly from the weight loss are those least likely to embrace it sufficiently to make a dent. For that cohort, diet and (at the top end) surgical interventions are what is required.

         • I totally agree.

           I totally agree.

           Dietary changes make more difference to one’s health than exercise.

           Both are ideal.

         • You totally agree with
           You totally agree with FlyingPenguin and so do I, but I don’t agree with you… To be healthy one should be a sensible weight but also have a reasonable level of cardiovascular fitness. I lost 25 kg through dietary changes and then got fit by cycling. Doing it the other way round or simultaneously would have been really difficult as the fat to muscle changes would have reduced the rate of weight loss and hence my motivation.

           I must say as well, riding up the same hill before and after losing 25 kg is quite an eye-opener.

         • NZ Vegan Rider wrote:

           I totally agree.

           Dietary changes make more difference to one’s health than exercise.

           Both are ideal.

           — NZ Vegan Rider

           But I don’t need Boris to tell me what to eat; I can fix my own diet. However I can’t fix the cycling infrastructure, for that I do need Boris. It’s not that I disagree necessarily with Malhotra on diet, although he seems to be more interested in the opportunity to make money out of it.

         • The extreme cohort aren’t
           The extreme cohort aren’t really going to benefit from anything other than surgery and we just don’t have the capacity to meet even a fraction of the demand.

           Active travel isn’t a silver bullet for the obesity crisis, nothing is, but it does bring demonstrable benefits in terms of weight loss and disease prevention.

           Changing the diet of the country en masse will be incredibly difficult, the potential benefits are, I agree, huge but it’s questionable how achievable those benefits will be.

       • FlyingPenguin wrote:

         There are a heap of other reasons other than weight loss to have more cycling and cycling infrastructure, but when positioned as a public health intervention (e.g. Prescribing cycling on the NHS), it’s a pretty poor one. One of the biggest risk factors for covid is obesity, if we want to do anything about that at a public health/nanny state level (delete as applicable to meet your political leaning), cycling is actually of limited impact for most people unless combined with major dietary changes.

         — FlyingPenguin

         You are Dr Malhotra and ICMFP.

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7. That pavement parking

   That pavement parking consultation, like most transport-related consultations, heavily biased towards maintaining the status quo. The fact is that pavement parking is already an offence – “You MUST NOT drive on or over a pavement, footpath or bridleway except to gain lawful access to property, or in the case of an emergency” and they’re consulting to, at most, enforce that law. They seem to think new law is required…

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   • kil0ran wrote:

     That pavement parking consultation, like most transport-related consultations, heavily biased towards maintaining the status quo. The fact is that pavement parking is already an offence – “You MUST NOT drive on or over a pavement, footpath or bridleway except to gain lawful access to property, or in the case of an emergency” and they’re consulting to, at most, enforce that law. They seem to think new law is required…

     — kil0ran

     Yes, but the vital word in there is “drive”.  It doesn’t say you mustn’t park.  Now you and I both know that a car parked on the pavement didn’t just materialise there, it was driven there, but unless a police officer witnesses it being driven, there is no offence.

     A few years ago I came across a PCSO doing her rounds in my neighbourhood, and pointed out that a car was blocking the pavement, and she agreed to have a word with the driver to ask them to move it.  If she had done so and then witnessed the car being driven over the pavement, she could have arrested the driver, and I’m not sure why the police don’t adopt this tactic.

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     • Because Mr Loophole – the

       Because Mr Loophole – the friend of the little man – will appear and say “ah-ha!”.

       Pavement parking is a symptom of the pressure the roads are under from the excess car use we’re now seeing. 

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8. ‘Driving in London is

   ‘Driving in London is becoming stressful. Half the backroads have been blocked off, half the main roads have been reduced to one lane to accommodate cyclists and then half the other roads are full of temp lights that change back to red after 3 seconds. It’s beyond annoying’

   what a dumb tweet. It’s not even true. 50% of roads have been reduced to 1 lane to accommodate cyclists? Where’s that? Dumb comment. 

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   • Lukas wrote:

     ‘Driving in London is becoming stressful. Half the backroads have been blocked off, half the main roads have been reduced to one lane to accommodate cyclists and then half the other roads are full of temp lights that change back to red after 3 seconds. It’s beyond annoying’

     what a dumb tweet. It’s not even true. 50% of roads have been reduced to 1 lane to accommodate cyclists? Where’s that? Dumb comment. 

     — Lukas

     Driving in London has been stressful for all of the 30 years I’ve lived here. I’ve owned a car for about 20 of these, but only use it when I have to. I’d much rather be on two wheels.

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9. Everything about Boris

   Everything about Boris Johnson is a gross deception. Why would a cycling policy with his name attached be any different?

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   • MattieKempy wrote:

     Everything about Boris Johnson is a gross deception. Why would a cycling policy with his name attached be any different?

     — MattieKempy

     It’s just that the eternal optimists amongst us are hoping against hope that this time he’s telling the truth.  OK, the evidence of the past thirty years tends to confound that hope, but there’s always a first time.

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10. I eat the same crap diet all
    I eat the same crap diet all the time, if anything I eat more when I’m cycling more. But cycling more tends to lead to lower weight. But this is the difference between 50 and 20p miles a week. 4 miles a day of commutting isn’t going to make a massive difference to anyone.

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    • I agree …. for me there is

      I agree …. for me there is a basal mileage of cycling which keeps my weight level, and there’s an extended mileage that will affirmatively achieve mild weight-loss. I can make plans with complete certainty. For example I know that an upcoming 2-week holiday will lose me 2 kilos. This is due to having the time and enthusiasm to extend my daily mileage for that period. And I know in winter roughly what weight I will gain, due to lower mileage. My diet remains absolutely constant throughout – and is measured to be so. The only variable is the mileage.

       

       

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      • Back in the days when I

        Back in the days when I normally commuted via a combination of the train and an 9-mile each-way cycle, my weight would remain steady until accident or injury put me off the bike, when I’d put on a stone (6.5 kg, if you prefer) and that would be my new weight until the next interruption, when the process would repeat. The only time I’ve lost weight through cycling was one spring/summer when I regularly skipped the train and commuted the whole 25 miles, either one way or both ways. My weekly average mileage went from around 90 fairly-flat miles to around 200 undulating miles (into east Lancashire). But as with most forms of exercise-based weight loss, it is extremely difficult to sustain it for longer than a couple of years at most (and I speak here from repeated experience). So you can out-exercise a moderately-bad diet for a while, but not really long term.

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11. LTNs:  Please could motorists

    LTNs:  Please could motorists out there just stop complaining about their own congestion and pollution. Some motorists will need to continue driving for mobility reasons, lack of public transport capacity, or ( debatably) for the purposes of delivering microwave ovens. For the rest, please could they understand that they need to reduce: car use, car ownership, oversized cars, ICEs, idling. LTNs are incentivising that switch to active travel. Pressure on the remaining non-LTN road space is not an unintended consequence of LTNs. It is there to disincentivise car use further. They should take the nudge, and reduce their car use. Happily, their/our alternatives of walking or cycling will become more and more attractive – in relationship with every individual car journey that is deleted

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    • LetsBePartOfTheSolution wrote

      for the purposes of delivering microwave ovens.

      — LetsBePartOfTheSolution

      And, presumably, custom kitchens, refrigerators, and colour TVs?

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      • Should have learned to play

        Should have learned to play the guitar, if you ask me….

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12. Diet IS key. You’re wasting

    Diet IS key. You’re wasting your time taking up exercise for weight loss and eating crap. Ok you may get fitter and stronger but you’ll still look like crap with a stubborn layer fat. The only way you’re eating crap and losing weight is clenbuterol or something else.

    Think of how much exercise you have to do to burn that muffin off. DON’T EAT THE MUFFIN FATSO!!

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