Live blog: Removable windscreen for urban bikes; banned driver charged after Essex cyclist was killed in New Year’s Eve crash, Chris Froome to ride Tour de Yorkshire + more
SUMMARY
Froome to race Tour de Yorkshire with World Championships in mind
Chris Froome is hoping to ride the UCI Road World Championships in Yorkshire in September. With that in mind, he aims to ride the Tour de Yorkshire in May.
Froome said: “Yorkshire hosted the start of the Tour de France a few years ago and the atmosphere was just incredible. The Tour de Yorkshire has been growing year on year and I’d love to get out there this year.”
As we reported earlier in the week, both Froome and Geraint Thomas are targeting the Tour de France this year. Thomas said that his Worlds ambitions centred on the time trial.
“Looking at the course for Worlds in Yorkshire, I think the Men’s Elite Individual Time Trial will be my best chance of getting a title. It’ll be a good goal to have for the end of the year. I certainly want to be there because the support in Yorkshire is unbelievable. I think it’s going to be a massive World Championships and I want to be a part of it.”
Entries open for the Cyclone24 at Geraint Thomas National Velodrome
The event takes place on the Newport velodrome now named after the Tour de France champ on October 20-21st, which will see 24 teams of six ride in relay over 24 hours from noon to noon.
if you fancy it then the Early Bird Team Entry is £900 for a team of six, available until 31st December 2018. Standard Team Entry is £999 for a team of six – unless you’ve competed before you also need to attend a taster session to prove your worth on the track first – head here to find out more.
Elan Valley Trust working with Back on Track to design new adventurous trails in Llanerchi Woods
If you’re partial to off-road riding and aren’t far from this picturesque part of Mid-Wales, then there’s good news in the form of potential new and exciting trails at Llanerchi Woods, reports County Times. The Elan Valley Trust says the new trails would “bridge the gap” between easy and difficult mountain bike trails in the Elan Valley.
Jennifer Newman, of Elan Valley Trust, said: “The development of a new woodland biking trail will complement and enhance the current mountain biking available at Elan.
“The construction of the new blue and red trails will provide the much desired for circular routes.”
New bike day for team Deceuninck-QuickStep
Our riders aren’t the only ones waiting for the new season to finally kick off.
Photo: Justin Sullivan pic.twitter.com/XhXEX4hY1R— Deceuninck-QuickStep (@deceuninck_qst) January 3, 2019
New name, and a fleet of shiny new Specialized Tarmacs for Deceuninck-QuickStep riders in 2019.
Turning blue shorts brown...
Australian pro Miles Scotson got a bit of a scare thanks to a mid-corner white line in the Bay Crits series. Thankfully for us and unluckily for Miles, fellow pro Alex Dowsett had a GoPro handy to catch a very good save!
Callum Skinner predictably unhappy with Russian anti-doping situation
Speaking at the time, Callum Skinner said that the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (Wada) decision to lift the suspension of Russia’s anti-doping agency “just stinks basically”.
He’s backed the comments from the Wada Athlete Committee after Russia missed the deadline to hand over doping data from its Moscow lab.
Well done to the @wada_ama Athlete Committee for following the @ukantidoping AC in speaking out.
This isn’t a West vs Russia issue.
It’s about athlete welfare and fair play. All athletes are invested in those values, if only the leaders of WADA and the IOC were too. pic.twitter.com/DUa0yQp4b6
— Callum Skinner (@CallumSkinner) January 2, 2019
The Dutch are spot on again
The Dutch have calculated the benefit/cost to society of different travel modes per urban km travelled. I converted it to £ and miles.
Cycling +98p
Driving -54p
Bus -42phttps://t.co/8lPxlCMPfK@Jesse_Norman how close are these to UK figures? Can we get them published? pic.twitter.com/tdFoUCdxYo— Adam Reynolds (@awjre) January 2, 2019
This time, in realising the benefits that cycling brings to the economy, that has been handily converted into £s by the chairman of Cycle Bath Adam Reynolds. What would the figures look like for the UK, we wonder?
Story update: cyclist killed in Thurrock hit-and-run named by police and banned driver has been charged
The cyclist killed in a hit-and-run in Thurrock, Essex on New Year’s Eve has been identified by police as 43-year-old Alexandru Matei, reports Essex Live. The driver responsible, 31-year-old Ravinger Matharu, has been charged with causing death while disqualified from driving, causing death while uninsured, causing death by aggravated vehicle taking, failing to stop at the scene of an accident and failing to report an accident. He has been remanded in custody to appear at Basildon Magistrates’ Court today.
Pro Conti team hasn't heard of Naomi Klein
“Pass the fully-automatic logo gun, we’ve got a jersey to do.” https://t.co/hUpQ0qyiMB
— Pro Elbows (@pro_elbows) January 3, 2019
Ireland abandons plan for close pass law and sets to work on ‘dangerous overtaking of cyclists’ offence instead
Attorney General felt passing distance would too easily be challenged in court.
"Cycling to work? But what about when it's raining?"
Then you need the Veltop Urban in your life! You get a waterproof basket and the ‘windscreen’ is removable in seconds according to Veltop. We’re intrigued, and will be trying to track one down soon…
British Cycling handed £5.6 million funding boost by Sport England
British Cycling today receive another £5,690,000 funding boost from Sport England in 2019, taking the total received to £17.3 million since 2017. Sport England also announced a £15 million funding injection to be channelled directly in to local community cycling facilities as part of the staging of the 2019 UCI Road World Championships in Yorkshire.
Martin Merryweather, British Cycling’s Strategy Director, said:
“This funding award is fantastic news, and gives us additional momentum and impetus as we look forward to 2019, building on British Cycling’s reputation for successfully combining elite success and increased participation.
“Our HSBC UK Breeze programme has been the hugely successful cornerstone of our women’s strategy, which is on course to encourage one million more women to cycle by 2020. It is our intention to continue to develop and evolve programmes which effectively inspire people from all walks of life to take up cycling, through industry-leading research, insight and dedication.
“This, in addition to the legacy funding for the UCI Road World Championships – which will also be aligned to many of our programmes – is a fantastic boost for recreational cycling as we look forward to 2019, and we’re extremely grateful to Sport England for giving us the opportunity to continue this vital work.”
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@ColdHand Specially when you look at replies to incidents like this and frothing drivers almost always respond with something akin to 'Well, they're going too slow on a 60mph road...' FFS.
"They dont understand cars and they expect that a car is not going to come around a blind bend on a footpath etc." FTFY. But, seriously, this is definitely subjective - if the young lady involved had suffered the same injuries due to a car driver, I somehow doubt that cars would have been described as the bigger menace. It does seem that e-bikes (or the confusion over what constitutes an e-bike) are the flavour of the month - both with the mainstream media, from a scapegoat point of view, and with the criminals, who have embraced them as a cheaper alternative to a dodgy hot-hatch. The authorities don't seem to be willing/able to take robust enough action. Does anybody know how this situation is panning out, on the continent?
Meanwhile, the criminals are using the main highway, instead ... you know, the highway that is much wider and goes just about everywhere 🙄
I would argue that people speak from their own experience in some cases here. When people are around cars they expect danger and they are more alert and more aware of the dangers. They know cars. They understand cars and they know that a car is not going to come around a blind bend on a footpath etc. When they haven't been hit by a car but they have been hit by an ebike, its hardly surprising that they fear one more than the other. Ebikes also intrude on spaces that people felt we previously safe. Thats ignoring the massive prejudice so many people have against bikes and the massive motonormativity in society that minimises anything involving cars and their danger. Like it or not as well, there is an e-bike/e-motorbike problem that is growing. They are the choice of the oiks of society. I saw a lovely group of them on clearly illegal ebikes causing trouble outside my house the other day. A black man on a push bike was cycling along the road and clearly said something or did something they didn't like (probably existing or asking them to mind out for him) and they hurled abuse at him and then as a particularly lovely parting shot, one of them shouted n***** at him. You can't expect people to see the rise of this and not be concerned.
"They are everywhere now" / "I’m afraid that it is too late" Just wait until you hear about motor vehicles! I'm also a bit pessimistic about how a combination of "laissez-faire (capitalism)", lack of interest in transport issues outside of national infra (which will run over budget) and keeping the grumbling from drivers down ... has apparently poisoned the well of cycling travel / EAPCs. But as NL and other countries have shown, while you might not be able to return the djinn to the bottle you can reduce the harm and improve spaces and transport options. Paradoxes - It's an open goal but also very hard to make happen (because "change" and not the kind that generates mind-bending concentrations of cash). Also there's never been a better time to do it. And yet it's always the case that "there's no money" / "we don't have space" / " the have-nots will have to bear the consequences" / "don't you know there's a war on?" / "new tech just around the corner will change everything anyway"...
It seems that many drivers over estimate their ability and don't drive with enough care, especially on country roads which require a lot more attention than sitting in commuter traffic. Add to that the entitled behaviour of some people when behind the wheel and the only surprise is that there aren't a lot more collisions.
@mitsky The BBC refusing to admit mistakes and ignoring any criticism? You surprise me. They really don't know how to learn from their errors do they? Zero humility yet they will try and pretend they are non-partisan and totally neutral. Absolute joke. And in a time when they are fast running out of friends
The Ortlieb quick rack is compatible with carbon frames if you buy the thru axle adaptor - so exactly the same as this rack. It's also lighter (particularly the quick rack light).
(OK, logging in to Road.cc now takes me to the WP-Admin dashboard!) I hope nobody tells plod about BMW M3s.....
And when they do take action, they confiscate and destroy legal e-bikes, using an entirely invalid method for finding their maximum powered speed.
5 thoughts on “Live blog: Removable windscreen for urban bikes; banned driver charged after Essex cyclist was killed in New Year’s Eve crash, Chris Froome to ride Tour de Yorkshire + more”
Yet another banned driver
Yet another banned driver involved in a death. We have to have a better system for preventing these people from driving and detecting them when they do, as they clearly obey no laws nor respect the life and limb of other people.
It can’t be beyond the wit of scientists and technicians to develop a cheap, universal system for ensuring that a driver is legal.
I’m sure the government review of road law will address this issue, but the backlog of issues is now ominously long. Still, I’m sure it’ll happen any day now.
‘Froome lands on British soil
‘Froome lands on British soil in Knighthood bid.’
The problem with enforcing
The problem with enforcing bans with technical means is that it needs to be continuous authentication. So that means biometrics, and the only systems that really make sense for that are iris recognition or heart rhythm. They’re expensive, and probably not good enough to be 100% successful at preventing banned drivers from driving, plus there is a substantial risk of false positives for the non-banned population. And there are privacy aspects because the continuous authentication would require reference to a central database and potentially end up tracking everyone’s journeys.
I don’t think facial recognition is sufficiently good to be able to use the ANPR technology to prevent use of the road network.
That leaves legal enforcement. I think a ban backed with a mandatory prison sentence (or 24hr curfew) is probably the best option. If you’re caught driving whilst banned (admittedly unlikely) you go to prison for a year. Do it again and its five years. And life bans should be mandatory for persistent offenders.
None of this will happen until we get the right sort of victim, or a truly exceptional death toll. Even then it probably won’t – the bus driver with persistent health issues in Scotland springs to mind.
kil0ran wrote:
it could be done fairly easily with fingerprint readers on smart keys.
Those removable screens for
Those removable screens for cycling in the rain are really popular in China and have been available for years there.