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news
"Cycling is inherently safe; driving is dangerous”; Oxford and Cambridge top bike theft rankings; Highway Code changes; comeback kids (and elder statesmen); 'cross carpets + more on the live blog
SUMMARY
City cyclists (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Cian Ginty:Flickr)30 December 2021, 18:35
Great news - the government is finally tackling the pothole crisis! Oh, you mean like that…
A Conservative peer has received more than £300,000 from the government’s “levelling up fund” to fix potholes on his 7,500-acre private estate.https://t.co/ZwZDkUh0GE
— The Big Issue (@BigIssue) December 29, 2021
And finally, next time you hit a pothole on your commute to work, spare a thought for the Conservative hereditary peer who had to apply for over £300,000 from the government’s “Levelling Up Fund” to fix the potholes on the driveway to his 7,500-acre private estate.
Yes, you read that right. Lord Nicholas Gage (not to be confused with the Con Air actor) received £330,000 to repair a road to the independently-run Charleston Farmhouse in East Sussex from a fund the government claims “contributes to the levelling up agenda by investing in infrastructure that improves everyday life across the UK.” Makes perfect sense.
That’s all for today folks, I’ll catch you in the New Year. In the meantime, if anyone knows a hereditary peer, tell them there are a few potholes that need fixing down my way…
30 December 2021, 17:37
Tabloids go two wheels, Part II
The Daily Mail is really loving its celebrity cycling stories this Christmas.
Yesterday we delved into their quite creepy fascination with Harrison Ford’s “clinging” jersey; this time around we have a report on an interview with Nicole Kidman where she reveals – make sure you’re sitting down for this – that she didn’t perform all her own cycling stunts for the 1983 Australian film BMX Bandits.
“While I did do some of the riding in BMX Bandits, they also had a professional body stunt double – who was a teenage boy wearing a padded bra!” Kidman apparently laughed. Scintillating stuff.
Kidman’s first major film role, BMX Bandits follows three young BMX aficionados (never saw that coming) who foil a gang of bank robbers with their silky cycling skills. At least I think that’s what the plot is, I’ve never seen it. I’m more a Breaking Away kind of guy myself - now that’s a film.
30 December 2021, 16:20
“Cycling is inherently safe; driving is dangerous” – readers respond to email calling “for a better level of understanding of the problems faced by all road users”
We’ve had some interesting replies to Colin’s email about the relationship between cyclists and motorists, which he sent to us in response to our article on public awareness of the upcoming changes to the Highway Code.
While a few expressed at least some degree of sympathy with Colin’s viewpoint, most of you took exception to his claim that cycling and walking on country roads is “inherently dangerous”, with one reader commenting that “danger is brought into this environment by inappropriate driving.”
Here’s a selection of some of your views:
Well, I disagree with Colin's opinion…
Cyclists are obviously part of the solution, not the problem so it's insulting and disingenuous to claim that some lone cyclist is 'stubbornly claiming his/her space' without also realising that a large percentage of drivers are also sole occupants and using much more space.
Some people have been fed the 'car is the solution' story so many times that they can't spot that the personal car has spectacularly failed as a mass transit solution and is also very damaging to people's health and welfare.
"Cyclists riding in groups can be impossible to deal with."
What's "impossible" about driving behind them until there's a safe legal opportunity to pass?
Colin's comment is worryingly close to 'the responsibility for road danger is 50-50, can't we all just be nicer to each other?' That is to misunderstand the problem and any possible solution.
I have some sympathy for what Colin says. And yet, he paints a picture of even a solitary cyclist being the problem, on roads which are "inherently dangerous".
Both postulates ignore the truth, which is that the problem and the danger are presented by the excessive numbers of drivers in vehicles… The dangers and frustrations Colin describes are real, however. We have arrived here by following a path of ever more cars. Demonising car substitutes can not be the answer.
I think there needs to be a happy medium in Colin's story between unfairly calling out a solitary cyclist undertaking a worthwhile journey, and condemning the reckless and selfish antics of large groups of leisure cyclists hogging the roads and making cycling more dangerous for everyone.
30 December 2021, 15:54
Wout a Save
Great save by @WoutvanAert 🇧🇪 after his back wheel slides out on the mud! pic.twitter.com/q3AFLwluXe
— GCN Racing (@GcnRacing) December 30, 2021
Not that it needed proving, but Wout van Aert showed us once again today that there is little he can’t do – check out this cool-as-you-like save after his back wheel slid out during the X20 Badkamers Trophy race in Loenhout.
Cyclo cross is officially the most ridiculous sport in the world and I loves it.
Also Wout is just insanely good at it so his massive duck collection must be growing. pic.twitter.com/mGHdD3Erzq
— Richard (@richkbristol) December 30, 2021
Also, in the list of completely bonkers cycling prizes, today’s race has to be up there. Makes you wonder: who would you rather fight – one Wout van Aert-sized duck or 100 duck-sized Wout van Aerts?
At least those ducks don’t need too much looking after, unlike the poor piglet won by the best Breton rider at the Tro-Bro Léon.
30 December 2021, 15:12
Was El Pistolero ready to fire one last bullet?
Speaking of improbable comebacks, it was revealed this week that seven-time grand tour winner (or nine, depending on who you ask) Alberto Contador was seriously considering a spectacular return to the sport during the reconfigured 2020 season.
According to his brother Fran, with whom he runs the Eolo-Kometa team alongside former Giro winner Ivan Basso, Contador eyed up a comeback at October’s Giro d’Italia, won of course by Tao Geoghegan Hart.
The Spaniard, who turned 39 this month, retired from professional cycling in 2017 after he capped off his career in style with a solo victory atop the fearsome Angliru on the penultimate stage of the Vuelta a España.
“After retiring he has continued to feel strong and has been capable of pushing big numbers,” Fran Contador told the BiciEscapa podcast. "I understood perfectly that Alberto had that fire to return, that ‘why not’, the ‘I’m going to train and see if I can or not’. But in the end it was left at that. Alberto retired in a good way, at the top, and is now enjoying his life away from the bike."
It is perhaps surprising that Bertie even contemplated a return to the peloton after so long out of the sport. He did, after all, spend a turbulent 2009 sharing team leadership with a certain brash Texan who made what could be charitably described as an ill-advised comeback…
30 December 2021, 13:20
I hope that wasn't a Christmas present...
Someone sacrificed their rug for today’s course #Azencross pic.twitter.com/uP9ePzHtlZ
— José Been (@TourDeJose) December 30, 2021
The winner for best reply to José's tweet surely has to go to Rasmus for this mid-noughties nostalgia-laden gem:
Is that Vladimir's Karpets?
— Rasmus Nowak Franklin (@NowakFranklin_) December 30, 2021
30 December 2021, 13:08
Move over Pog – there’s a new comeback kid in town
Not how you start, it’s how you finish…😜🚲🔥❤️ pic.twitter.com/qPUfVCOsZ8
— Fred Schultz (@fred035schultz) December 28, 2021
Here at road.cc, we love a bit of frenetic balance bike racing. But where does this display of sheer will and fortitude rank in your all-time list of epic cycling comebacks?
Surely that has to be up there with Cav’s return to the top this year, Van Vleuten in Le Grand-Bornand, Froome on the Finestre, Pogačar’s Tour-winning TT, or even Floyd’s impersonation of Lazarus in 2006? I could go on…
(Incidentally, a similar mishap happened to my five-year-old cousin on the start line of his first ever cyclo-cross race last month. Unfortunately he didn’t quite muster the same kind of comeback…)
30 December 2021, 12:37
Highway Code Changes – a reader’s response
You may have read our article this morning on Cycling UK’s bid to persuade the government to launch a properly funded awareness campaign over changes to the Highway Code, due to come into effect at the end of January.
One road.cc reader, Colin, has got in touch to share his thoughts on how we can all be safer and more accommodating on the roads. What do you think of Colin’s suggestions?
I have been a cyclist all my life, and a driver holding a variety of licences since my twenties, which means I've been driving for 60 years. It's good to see that cycling is becoming once again a serious means of transport as well as a leisure activity and I applaud all efforts to make it safer. I have lived in West Somerset for many years, so my observations are mostly about rural cycling, where there is a serious conflict of interest between cyclists and all other road users, including pedestrians. On our roads cycling, like walking, is inherently dangerous. Narrow, winding, with high hedges and poor visibility, to say nothing of often very rough edges and potholes, they were never constructed to carry the traffic they now have to. The A39 is a road where, in many places, large vehicles can only pass each other with care, and where overtaking anything safely can be difficult for miles. It's not uncommon to see a long line of vehicles stuck behind a lone cyclist who is stubbornly 'claiming his/her space'. In the end people take risks, which don't always turn out well, often in a 'red mist' of anger and frustration. Cyclists riding in groups can be impossible to deal with.
Alternative routes suggested for cyclists are often impractical. Anyone who thinks that country lanes are safe is living in the middle of the last century, and has certainly never tried to ride a bike along one!
None of these problems will ever be resolved as long as each side goes on beating it's own drum, refusing to really listen to what others are saying. There is an urgent need for a better level of understanding of the problems faced by all road users and for all of us to stop just shouting the odds and blaming everyone else. There is an equally urgent need to provide proper separation for cyclists in particular. Painted white lines on already inadequate roads provide answer to anything.
Whatever the shortcomings of the new Highway Code may or may not be, it will have achieved a lot if it leads to a sensible debate, and maybe even some wise decisions, about how we can all be safer on our roads.
30 December 2021, 12:23
Oxford and Cambridge top the rankings… as the bike theft capitals of England and Wales
Oxford’s city centre has once again been confirmed as the worst neighbourhood for bicycle theft in England and Wales.
While the city, to me anyway, certainly doesn’t seem like the perfect stomping ground for the Conors and Jocks of the world (that’s a “Young Offenders” reference, for those scratching their heads), a plethora of students with cheap locks ensures that the area has long proved fertile for sticky-fingered bike snatchers.
Even with the pandemic reducing the number of students living in the city over the past year, 214 reports of bike theft were recorded in Oxford Central between March and August 2021.
Cyclists outside the town centre can take heart though – when taking into account the entire city, Oxford sits second on the national rankings behind old rivals Cambridge, where bike theft remains one of the most prevalent (and under reported) crimes in the area.
Reading, Lincoln, Norwich and Bristol sit alongside Oxbridge in the top ten of places where your bike is likely to go missing.
Ryan joined road.cc as a news writer in December 2021. He has written about cycling and some ball-centric sports for various websites, newspapers, magazines and radio. Before returning to writing about cycling full-time, he completed a PhD in History and published a book and numerous academic articles on religion and politics in Victorian Britain and Ireland (though he remained committed to boring his university colleagues and students with endless cycling trivia). He can be found riding his bike very slowly through the Dromara Hills of Co. Down.
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51 comments
Colin does have a point about the A39 although it doesn't apply to country roads in general. Last summer I walked from Kilve to Watchet along the coast. Pretty mixed terrain including beaches and rocks. Certainly not easy. Caught the (free) bus back to Kilve. The bus absolutely flew back along the narrow road much as Colin describes. I wouldn't have wanted to cycle it let alone walk it. However, as far as I could tell there's little alternative for active travel connecting the villages. I'm sure the route of the A39 hasn't changed in centuries and must predate the car. I think the only real solution is reduce speed limits so that this space can be shared by all forms of transport. The car has no inalienable right to dominate this historic route. Drivers need to understand that on these routes they are the interlopers.
Colin says "On our roads cycling, like walking, is inherently dangerous". It isn't walking and cycling that present the danger. A simple experiement would be to ban motor vehicles from a set of these country roads for a given period and see what the accident rate was and compare it to the same period before. I think we all know what the result would be, which would lead to the conclusion that Driving is inherently dangerous, as it is that which presents the danger.
This is one of those slippery arguments which embed the underlying assumption without us even realising it.
Compare with, "On our motorways cycling, like walking, is inherently dangerous". I don't think there is any disagreement there. And yet we could equally agree that cyclists are endangered on roads. So what is the difference?
The assumption, which is valid in the second but which is being smuggled into Colin's statement to be accepted unopposed, is that pedestrians and cyclists do not belong on and should not be using the roads. Hence his characterisation of the road-going cyclist as "stubborn".
Nailed.
The issue partly comes from the "safety" improvements that are applied to vehicles constantly. Elected improvements (ie elected by the industry, and not legislated) are, without fail, driven by an intention of 1st party safety.
In an own fault collision when driving you have to be either extraordinarily unlucky, or in the main cock up so monumentally to get seriously hurt. Hence driving seen as safe, and what happens to the vulnerable, unprotected people around you is clearly their fault. Roads are inherently dangerous, because roads are inherently used by drivers.
Can't be soon enough for these to be brought in legally and should be used in lots of roadways, not just Motorways.
https://metro.co.uk/2021/12/30/new-game-changer-camera-caught-15000-driv...
Sounds like a war on the honest, law abiding motorists
Yes, unfortunately it would be watered down to having the camera locations installed on sat-navs and printed in newspapers because apparently speed signs and road laws are not enough of a warning that they might get caught, they have to be given the opportunity to drive within the speed limit for the bits the cameras watch.
Colin, Colin, Colin, you're right, there is an urgent need...for all drivers to be reminded of their obligations to drive responsibly. Close passing is one of the biggest problems on our roads, in my opinion. There's NO NEED for expensive infrastructure if drivers make the effort to drive properly around more vulnerable road users.
Road cc shouldn't have cited @Garage at Large's comment in their array of answers to Colin.
There is absolutely nothing "reckless" or "selfish" in leisure cyclists cycling in groups, nor ar they in any way "hogging" the road or "making cycling more dangerous" for anyone when ding so.
I'm now expecting Road.cc to invite Prick Ferrari , clarkson or Christo Pooface as guest columnists, probably with a side order of Nick Griffin and a chaser of Haty Kopkins.
Don't give me that "balance" shit the BBC practices - they've been known to give air time to moonlandings deniers on prime time - I shit you not.
Keeping an open mind is reliant on not being so open your brain falls out
Fair. In my defence, Clarkson was too busy to make a statement so I had to make do. Hammond volunteered but I turned him down.
I was originally going to preface his comment with 'And now for the controversial opinion' but decided that was too on-the-nose. Sure, what's the internet without a viewpoint to complain about?
(For the record, of course I agree with both of you)
Have a good New Year.
Happy new year to you too Ryan, have a good one!
Welcome to the team Ryan - I think you'll fit in just fine around here!
Happy New Year
Isn't @Garage a shill account created and operated by the site's admin to stir up the natives?
Slightly OT, but now we know how to get those pesky potholes filled in; you need to be a tory aristo with a private drive and apply to the levelling up fund. Sorry it's the DM.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10353483/Labour-demands-probe-3...
I would say unbelievable, but it is in fact very believable. Cheers!
It is perfectly safe to walk or cycle along country lanes, both in terms of 1st and 3rd party safety.
Danger is brought into this environment by inappropriate driving. Sometimes to the driver themselves, but more frequently, and to a greater extent, to other road users.
The whole view of hazard in road safety is arse about-face. I recently had words with some numpty on YT who insisted that cyclists and pedestrians were a hazard. He couldn't accept that the agent with the propensity to cause harm is the driver where they drive inappropriately.
Beat me to it. 99.9% of the danger on rural roads comes from drivers.
Agree.
First of all, the process of testing hazard perception conflates risk and hazard, with an arbitrary timing/scoring process ahead of the point of conflict. By over-simplifying that, what the video process actually tests is your ability to game a video system rather than think about the tells that a careful driver is actually assessing.
Secondly, by labelling pther road users as "hazards" projects responsibility away from the driver. The driver still has to handle the situation, but by calling the pedestrian walking in the carriageway a "hazard" takes away the responsibility of it all goes wrong.
I'm just amazed Neil Warnock found time to email in
I'm afraid you have the better of me....
Permission to enlighten you sir?
It is a hilarious football anagram joke. Mr Warnock has been known as Colin by opposing fans (and indeed his own fans when at Leeds) because if you extract Colin as a first name from Neil Warnock you are left with Newark, and everbody hates that part of Nottinghamshire.
Or something like that
Ah consider me enlightened!
Nice one Flaneur, I doff my hat
I disagree with a lot of Colins sentiments regarding rural roads. Having spent most of my driving and cycling life travelling on narrow rural roads, the biggest danger to motorists/cyclists/pedestrians/horse riders on rural roads are motorists who are going too fast for the road or conditions.
To put it quite simply many people see the speed limit on rural roads as a target when it is blatantly not safe to travel at the speed limit. When I learned to drive I was taught that you should in essence be able to stop in the distance that you can see ahead of you, if you cannot you are going too fast.
And also I disagree with the "lone cyclist who is stubbornly 'claiming his/her space'" viewpoint, as it flies against most of the general advice in relation to safe cycling. If it is not safe to overtake a solo cyclist riding in primary position, then in general it is not safe to overtake a solo cyclist. Colin's thought process seems to be that a cyclist should ride in to the edge of the road to allow motorists/more important road users past at the expense of your safety.
Actually you may have a point.
The police could stop *everyone* using the road system, check if they are making a necessary/important/worthwhile journey or whether their journey could be made using a different mode of transport.
The number of cars on the road would halve (or less!) within days
But remember as far as Nigel is concerned.... all car journeys are "worthwhile" but there are very few reasons why anyone should be out on their bike.
I'm sure he will go and check his opinion with his mum first though
Doris Stokes was approached for comment but, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, there was no reply.
The rest of your suggestion is, as ever, unqualified blx.
More Nigel Nonsense.
I am not sure why you hate cyclists socializing and riding in groups which is a perfectly safe and worthwhile activity. You have a bitter view of the world.
Welcome back Nige, was the uncharacteristic tone on Chirstmas Eve due to enthusiastic pilfering of your mother's Christmas sherry?
Have you ever considered (or indeed already have) a career in comedy?
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