Solicitor says wearing Lycra or cycling while overweight should be criminal offence, as drunk cyclist knocked off bike by police fined £350

In one of the more bizarre court proceedings we’ve seen in recent years, a defence solicitor has said that cycling while overweight or wearing Lycra “possibly” should be a criminal offence.

Solicitor Seamus Quigley’s joke – or at least we assume it was joke – came as his client, Caolan Roberts, was fined £350 for cycling while unfit through drink or drugs, possessing cocaine, and failing to stop for police, following an incident which saw an officer knock the cyclist off his bike before arresting him.

On Thursday, Derry Magistrate’s Court heard that 24-year-old Roberts was cycling on the Skeoge Link carriageway, just outside Derry/Londonderry, on 28 July when police spotted him and believed he was under the influence, Derry Now reports.

Roberts was soon stopped by the PSNI officers, who found him to be unsteady on his feet. However, the 24-year-old then proceeded to ride off, instigating a chase that eventually led to one officer knocking him off his bike and detaining him.

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A subsequent breath test revealed 67 micrograms of alcohol per litre of breath, almost double the UK drink drive legal limit of 0.37mg/L (though it must be noted that no formal upper alcohol limit for cycling exists, despite it being an offence under the Road Traffic Act 1988 to ride a bike while under the influence of alcohol or drugs). Cocaine was also found in Roberts’ shorts at the time of his arrest.

Along with pleading guilty to possessing cocaine and attempting to flee from the police, the 24-year-old also admitted the charge of cycling while unfit through drink or drugs in court today.

The particular plea prompted Roberts’ solicitor Quigley – who also defended his client during a domestic abuse and assault case earlier this year – to clarify to the court that the charge of cycling while unfit “did not refer to someone being overweight or even wearing Lycra”.

“Although that possibly should be an offence,” the solicitor remarked.

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The defence solicitor’s comments, though they may have been made in a light-hearted manner, is alarmingly indicative of the way cyclists’ clothing affects how they are perceived by people who don’t ride bikes, with Lycra gear often providing the focal point of ridicule aimed at people who cycle by anti-cycling mouthpieces on social media and in the tabloid press.

Last year, Australian academic Dr Mark Limb – who co-authored a study which found that people who wear helmets or high-visibility clothing while riding their bikes are viewed as “less human” by motorists – told the road.cc Podcast that the reaction from the study’s participants when shown images of cyclists wearing Lycra clothing was “off the charts” in terms of being selected as ‘less human’.

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Moving away from odd jokes made at the expense of cyclists, Quigley claimed that Roberts simply had too much to drink at the time of the incident, arguing that the “biggest danger was to himself”, and that the cocaine found in his shorts was “a very small amount of drugs for personal use”.

After admitting all three charges, Roberts was fined a total of £350.

The 24-year-old’s fine for drink cycling comes six months after just across the border in Donegal a legally blind man received his second conviction in as many years for cycling while drunk, after police found him riding his bike in an “extremely unsteady” manner along the hard shoulder of a dual carriageway after a night out.

> Blind cyclist fined for riding bike on dual carriageway while “extremely” intoxicated – months after crashing into car while cycling drunk

Gintaras Jankauskas – who was found to be “clinically blind” with a “reading of 6/60 in his vision” – was fined €200 by a judge at Letterkenny District Court in March, after he was found guilty of the offence of “driving a pedal cycle while being under the influence of an intoxicant to such an extent that he was incapable of having proper control”.

This latest incident was preceded just eight months before by Jankauskas being fined for cycling while drunk and crashing into a passing vehicle.