A triathlete in Ireland was pulled over for “reckless cycling” after a Garda took issue with him riding at 62km/h along a 50km/h road, despite the speed limit not applying to cyclists.
Like here in the UK, Ireland has no speed limit for cyclists, although John Blake still found himself on the receiving end of a “stiff warning” from a Garda who was unimpressed by his speed on the N11 in Wicklow.
> Do cyclists have to stick to the speed limit?
Sharing a photo of his Canyon TT bike resting against the police vehicle, Blake explained while “it’s annoying to get done for 62km/h in a 50 zone, it’s great to see An Garda Síochána out in force doing their job”.
Triathlete Blake, who is training for the Venice 70.3 Ironman in a couple of weeks, told us yes, it “is correct [speed limits don’t apply to cyclists], but you can be done for reckless cycling depending on the cop that spots you”.
“I guess the guy I got didn’t like my bike,” he said, amused that the post has since blown up and left his Instagram notifications working overtime.
Midway through a three-hour ride everything was going well until he was “clocked by a Garda at 62km/h in a 50km/h zone”.
Blake was issued a “stiff” warning for reckless cycling but escaped without a €40 fine.
“No Strava segment to show for it but it’s definitely one for the grandkids,” he joked.
“It was hard to see them when in a TT session, that was more his issue with me. The speed, he said, was aggressive. There are lads that hammer that section faster than me, for sure. They had a speed gun out and he was a bit of a d**k but would let me see it. His reference to the speed does match my ride, to be fair.”
While Blake’s incident happened in training and on a faster road (50km/h converting to 31mph), similar questions were raised in the autumn of 2023 in the UK when Cycling Time Trials (CTT), the governing body of the sport in England and Wales, introduced a ban on events taking place on roads with 20mph speed limits. That came in response to the implementation of default 20mph speed limits in Wales.
A couple of months later, CTT clarified its stance and said any course with a 20mph section should be avoided if a suitable alternative is available, and all cyclists taking part in time trials in Britain must slow down and adhere to the speed limit while racing through 20mph zones.
Many clubs and event organisers had highlighted that an outright ban on time trials on 20mph roads could make the sport far more dangerous and less accessible to newcomers, with events instead pushed onto faster and more hostile roads.
Ironman events sometimes implement similar rules too, something Blake has surely already looked into considering his recent experience and upcoming appearance at the Venice event. Former Ineos Grenadiers pro Cameron Wurf found himself on the receiving end of a speed violation disqualification at the recent Ironman 70.3 Oceanside.
Wurf later said: “I was expecting the steep climb, and it caught me by surprise. But it was actually the steep one, then the easy one, and then the descent. I was like s***!
“I just wasn’t concentrating where the descent was. I went too fast, so it sounds like I’ve been disqualified.”
37 thoughts on “Irish police pull over cyclist riding at “62km/h in a 50 zone” for “reckless cycling””
The amount of red light
The amount of red light running and speeding in Dublin that goes undetected, he should train up here
I asked an ai about the
I asked an ai about the minimum braking distance for this assuming gp5000 tyres and best of everything else it’s 36m, more if reaction time is slower, surface is poor or wet, more if tyre pressure not optimal. If I had to choose between being hit by car or bike, I’d choose bike, but I’d prefer neither…
Depending on the downhill and
Depending on the downhill and tailwind situation, getting an officially and recently calibrated 37mph ain’t bad.
Meanwhile, the speed limit
Meanwhile, the speed limit for ebikes is 15mph before the motor cuts out. What a joke.
Why’s that then? Speed limit
Why’s that then?
Speed limit for cars is 20mph even in a fair bit of the UK city I stay in, yet these exist. Perhaps we should raise all the limits?
Motorbikes are available, if people want to get licences.
And this guy can do a fair lick presumably unpowered on the cycle path, but I don’t think we should make that the default speed for everyone from 8 to 80 who can mount a bike. After all – ebikes don’t stop them getting up to that kind of speed after the assistance cuts out. Of course a) that is a very deliberate choice – they’ll really know they’re doing it and b) only a handful of people are going to be doing that for very long! Not so cruising at whatever the top speed with assistance on an ebike – that is not so self-limiting…
Dz1 wrote:
Whats that go to do with the price of fish? You dont ride a TT bike at full speed on a mixed use path unless you’re a psycho. You cant say the same for any random ebike. Your agitiating is pointless. 15mph is a very good average speed for any cyclist until there are a far more dedicated cycle lanes around, especially for city/town commuting riding.
You are an edge case and probably the least important item to enhance to encourage cycling.
Good point on average speed
Good point on average speed (especially in urban places).
I’m not a racing snake but I’m motivated to get off fast from the gun at lights when cycling on the road and get up to my best “chasing the cars” speed. While that’s perhaps “free interval training” if I get caught by say 5 lights my average speed drops to a crawl because all the time sat motionless.
If we can somehow aim at “networks” which mean that in practice cyclists can avoid interacting with most traffic lights / or at least stopping that would be a significant speed up for cycling on average. Even if going a little bit further (and ignoring that coming to a complete stop and restarting is an energy drain also).
I’m almost certain my preferred route to town at around 4 miles, one traffic-light junction and a pedestrian / cycle crossing (may be able just to nip over without wait) is quicker than the most direct at nearer 3 miles, which crosses 5 traffic-light junctions.
Of course the former is both flatter / has gentler gradients and avoids a big multi-lane roundabout. As well as being a lot more pleasant than being with the noisy motor traffic…
I wish I could do
I wish I could do consistantly 15mph average.
And that’s *with* an e-bike.
As he admitted the speed and
As he admitted the speed and that he didn’t see the trap due to his TT position, copper has a fair point.
62kph?? Was that on the flat
62kph?? Was that on the flat?
brooksby wrote:
Could be but without denigrating the gentleman’s undoubted ability last week in Wicklow (he doesn’t specify the day) on several days there was a 32 kmh southerly wind and the N11 runs almost directly south-north, so that may have helped…
*According to my online wattage calculator, 62 kmh on the flat on a TT bike (70kg rider, 8kg bike, aero position) requires 1001W on a still day but 284W with a 32 kmh tailwind.
Rendel Harris wrote:
Tailwinds are a complete myth, as any fule kno
True, but everyone also knows
True, but everyone also knows that the emerald isle is the land of myths and legends.
brooksby wrote:
Nonsense, I see them every single time I go out, blowing along those riders coming towards me on the other side of the road. Every time.
Rendel Harris wrote:
Rendel Harris wrote:
And when you come back down the road an hour later on the return leg, the breeze has already swung round to at least a crosswind if not a full on headwind.
It’s the meteorological equivalent to the MTB rides which feel more like Escher geometry than Euclidian; uphill there and back
ROOTminus1 wrote:
Nonsense, I see them every single time I go out, blowing along those riders coming towards me on the other side of the road. Every time.
— Rendel Harris And when you come back down the road an hour later on the return leg, the breeze has already swung round to at least a crosswind if not a full on headwind. It’s the meteorological equivalent to the MTB rides which feel more like Escher geometry than Euclidian; uphill there and back— brooksby
Have you been riding in R’lyeh again? 😉
“… you can be done for
“… you can be done for reckless cycling depending on the cop that spots you”.”
So the variation on getting done is the cop that spots you, not the cycling behaviour itself?
“Blake was issued a “stiff” warning for reckless cycling but escaped without a €40 fine.”
“The speed, he said, was aggressive.”
Ridiculous.
Without giving a more detailed reason for their conclusion that it was aggressive, this should be contested and hopefully have the fine cancelled and the copper “educated”.
If the copper thinks the speed of a cyclist (admittedly going quite fast) is aggressive, he will be shocked at how many drivers behave.
mitsky wrote:
How do you think Blake should go about having the fine that he never received cancelled?
mitsky wrote:
The first line quoted shows he wasn’t fined!
ETA posted simultaneously with Mark…
I need to go to Specsavers.
I need to go to Specsavers.
But he still “escaped” the fine.
So there was the chance of it being potentially wrongly issued.
We can’t suggest that police
We can’t suggest that police should ignore a “speeding” cyclist just because we know that many speeding motorists have not been caught. We should be above this whataboutery.
Comment: I put “speeding” in quotes, as there’s no formal speed-limit. But there must be a requirement to not endanger others! And I don’t think that being hit by 100kg with a very long braking-distance is necessarily preferable to not being hit by 2000kg with a far shorter braking distance… (In TT-position, braking distance will be very poor. Without good visibility, the reaction time, including the change of position before braking, will take long – and the subsequent deceleration won’t be great, given rolling-resistance optimized tires and the high risk of summersaulting due to the forward center of gravity on such bikes.)
Picture below from Google
Picture below from Google Maps of the N11 in Wicklow, it’s a dual carriageway without pavements, there aren’t going to be any pedestrians along there to hit. Given that, who exactly was the cyclist endangering? The fact that the police officer didn’t issue a ticket or summons for the alleged reckless cycling speaks volumes.
Presumably “endangering
Presumably “endangering themselves and risking traumatising motorists when the latter run them over”?
I’m for some common sense e.g. if cyclists were going over speed limit in an environment with frequent side roads or likelihood of pedestrians about then yes, police should probably have a word.
That doesn’t seem to be the case here though, and unlike the “Deliveroo rider spotted on M25” type of story it would appear they were here through choice, not navigational error or outright ignorance of
Highway CodeRules of the Road (these look similar though).This photo does certainly not
This photo from Rendel Harris does certainly not show the 50km/h zone that was mentioned in the article, or does it?
Rendel Harris wrote:
The N11 is at a number of different standards through Wicklow, from near-motorway dual-carriageway, to the more typical national road standard with pedestrians walking on the hard shoulder, along with tractors, etc.
If this is the road situation
If this is the road situation it happend on, the fine is a load of bull-🤬 !
If in a village tcyclist should use common sense and adjust his speed to the current situation, like are there people about ?
I break the speed limit everytime i cycle to work, but there are no people on the streets at that time and i concider that safe.
Keesvant wrote:
What fine?
I break the law eveytime I
I break the law eveytime I rob a bank I consider it a easy way to make money because I never got cought. You need to follow the rules of the road when your on the road. 1000 of time we use the hiway code to defend cyclist riding But when 1 breaks the laws gets cought we all say it OK there nobody there he/she can hurt.
What laws were broken?
What laws were broken here?
Not saying it’s a good idea but its best to start arguments from facts.
He on the road there still a
He on the road there still a speed limit what your suggesting is the cars should also go reallly fast because the no predestrians or anyting to endanger.
The 100kg vehicle is no more
The 100kg vehicle is no more than 50cm wide, and much easier to avoid at the last, than the 2m wide one though.
The roads would be *much* safer if they were full of “speeding” cyclists, rather than speed-limit adhering motor vehicles – the latter keep increasing in tonnage too. The average ICE car today is surely at least 50% heavier than the ones 30 years ago (?) – and EVs are heavier again (I drive an EV).
In the States you can get a
In the States you can get a speeding ticket on a bicycle, ask me how I know!
I was coming down a long hill which went past a elementary school, I saw a motorcycle cop with a radar gun but I didn’t I was going fast and I didn’t have a computer to tell me. Next thing I know I hear a siren behind me, yup, he gave me a ticket for doing 35 mph in a 25 mph school zone.
I also had a reputation for going fast in my cars, so when I went before the judge who had seen me numerious times before to plea my case, he looks at the ticket and just starts laughing, with my permission he reads the violation to the courtroom full of people and they start laughing, then the judge says to me, “I guess you’re going to speed no matter what your driving in or riding on; but today you made my day, so I’m dismissing this case!”
Follow the rules of the road
Follow the rules of the road. The speed limit is for anything on the road. Just imangine if it was a car that was going over. Yes I ride but rules still need to be followed.
What rules are you taking
What rules are you taking about?
The law in the UK and as far as I can Google Ireland is that speed limits do not apply to cyclists (horse riders? Joggers?)
Given on a couple of my bikes I don’t currently have a speedo (perfectly legal) and I do quite a lot of riding on shared use paths (not aware of a speed limit – though some might have by-laws perhaps?) am I not following some rules (and it’s on me to work out what they are and how I might abide by them)?
You are still required to ride with due care and attention and if the police think you’re reckless you can be charged. I don’t know if there are specifics on that or it’s more precedent.
I’m sure it’s triggering because “I’m not allowed to but they’re in the same space but not following the same rules”.
And there are a small number of people no doubt who don’t care – or even want to deliberately challenge the system.
I’d suggest considering why the rules are there. The speed limits for motor vehicles are to keep motorists and others safe.
This is a serious issue partly just because “mass motoring”. So that’s numbers plus “all kinds of everyone”. As long as you can drive a car (and we know that for a significant number of people that is just “have access” not “licenced to drive”) you can go any speed it will do with no extra effort. Normally with little “feedback” on the speed you’re going and with little awareness of personal vulnerability / the limits of your own control of the vehicle. And when it goes wrong you can be bringing an immense amount of energy to the collision.
All of those are far less the case with cyclists. Some are orders of magnitude less.
Mybike wrote:
No it isn’t, speed limits vary for different types of vehicles and for bicycles they are not applicable.
Mybike wrote:
Did you practise to become that wrong?
The motorised speed limit on roads is precisely that – the maximum allowed speed for motorised vehicles. It doesn’t apply to horses, cyclists, pedestrians, skaters etc.