“Please find a different job”: Jeremy Vine blasts ‘toxic’ London taxi driver; “Bristol cycle infrastructure needs reinventing”; Pidcock a doubt for classics; Snake Trespass, round 2; More dropper post chat; Coffee and cycling + more on the live blog
SUMMARY
“Please find a different job”: Jeremy Vine blasts ‘toxic’ London taxi driver
Ah, Twitter. Widely renowned as a place for thoughtful, considerate debate (isn’t it?), the social media platform can also – surprisingly – provide a largely anonymous refuge for the more toxic opinions of certain groups.
And so it proved, when over the weekend Jeremy Vine posted another video of his commute in London, which showed a van driver mounting the footpath to get past a taxi on what used to be the cycle lane on Kensington High Street:
Yesterday, Kensington. 😡@Trafficwmp @SurreyRoadCops @roaddangers @Lord_nikon0131 @London_Cycling @KensingtonVan @kensington @KensingtonRoyal @kensingtonband @betterstreetskc @BetterChiswick @AracerRacer @rant_rate @ormondroyd @danbamb @jonburkeUK @RailtonLTN @LoveFor2Wheels pic.twitter.com/H8LzO2TD9G
— Jeremy Vine (@theJeremyVine) March 19, 2022
One particularly unpleasant taxi driver’s response to the broadcaster’s video was, let’s say, rather blunt:
@theJeremyVine … u are a sad twat
— Tom (@tjab1425) March 19, 2022
In fairness, Vine didn’t hold back either:
So sad that you have a licence to embarrass London. Please find a different job.
— Jeremy Vine (@theJeremyVine) March 20, 2022
You don’t understand do you? The more people cycle, the clearer the roads are for you to pick up passengers. But you have a strange loathing for cyclists instead of loving us.
— Jeremy Vine (@theJeremyVine) March 20, 2022
After a few more childish and largely meme-based taunts (I would probably avoid visiting Tom the cabbie’s profile, as it’s pretty unsavoury), one user came up with handy idea for cyclists to avoid any anti-bike taxi drivers:
Wish toxic Twitter taxi drivers would put their Twitter handles on the side of their taxis so you could avoid them. There are so many lovely taxi drivers, but there is the concern you could end up with someone who has all this hate.
— Railton LTN (@RailtonLTN) March 20, 2022
This prompted some cyclists, including road.cc’s very own Simon MacMichael, to share their favourite bike-related taxi stories:
My fave London taxi story? Cutting it fine for Eurostar, grab cab from Paddington.
Driver: “Effin’ cyclists, think they’re in Tour de France. Anyway, where you off to guv?”
“Paris. Presentation of route of next year’s Tour de France. Don’t worry, don’t think Euston Road’s on it.” https://t.co/a6rLsbb2aP— Simon MacMichael (@simonmacmichael) March 20, 2022
Some of the Edinburgh ones not much better! https://t.co/Ok9d8cec1X
— Deacon Thurston 🚴♂️ (@DeaconThurston) March 20, 2022
And my personal favourite, from cycling author Chris Sidwells:
Mine is. Irish female taxi driver. “What do you do?”. Me, “I write about cycling” Her, “I hate fuckin’ cyclists.” Then, “do you know Sean and Stephen?” Me, “Yes I do” Her, “Ah, they’re lovely fellas.”
— Chris Sidwells (@ChrisSidwells) March 20, 2022
Others, however, were keen to point out that Tom the cabbie certainly doesn’t represent all taxi drivers:
Tubes were playing up one morning so I got a cab to Euston. Said I cycle to work and he asked which club I rode for ‘Catford’ (at the time). ‘Oh, I’m West Kent RC’. Lovely trip.
— Rob Bullyment (@RobBully) March 20, 2022
But so many lovely drivers who have been a great deal of comfort at dark and sad times.
— Railton LTN (@RailtonLTN) March 20, 2022
The last time I was in a taxi, a few weeks ago in the coastal town of Bray, just outside Dublin, we spent almost an hour chatting to our driver, a retired café owner who used to race mountain bikes, reminiscing about local cycling legends like Peter Crinnion. Thankfully he didn’t keep the meter running…
“Bristol cycle infrastructure needs reinventing”: Drum and Bass on the Bike founder calls for change
Not sure what’s going on outside my window, but I do love to see it 🚲💚 pic.twitter.com/AWE5QcYIfg
— Patrick McAllister🌱 (@PatDBMcAllister) March 20, 2022
The founder of ‘Drum and Bass on the Bike’, DJ Dom Whiting, is using his popular pedalling rave to call for improved cycling infrastructure in Bristol.
Around a thousand people joined Whiting as he went for a spin around the city yesterday, spinning some tunes from his handlebar-mounted decks.
It’s the second time the DJ has taken his mobile disco to Bristol, filling the streets with cyclists, scooters, walkers and positive vibes – not to mention bemused onlookers and frustrated motorists…
And back again. Lots of annoyed motorists pic.twitter.com/jAPOBNgarT
— Patrick McAllister🌱 (@PatDBMcAllister) March 20, 2022
Last month he celebrated the one-year anniversary of Drum and Bass on the Bike with a tour around his hometown of Southampton.
“We definitely shut down Bristol, that is for sure”, Whiting announced to the impressive crowd during yesterday’s ride.
But as they went around the Bearpit roundabout and headed down Haymarket, the DJ had a message for the local council, declaring that “Bristol cycle infrastructure needs reinventing ASAP”.
Now it may not be my cup of tea musically (as regular readers will know from my punk and classic rock-based puns), but if it leads to more cycle lanes I’m all for the occasional drum and bass…
Snake Trespass, round 2
Following Cycling UK’s call for Derbyshire County Council to publish a risk assessment justifying why it closed Snake Pass to walkers and cyclists, a bunch of two-wheeled trespassers took to the Peak District climb on Saturday for the second week in a row.
Despite the brutal headwind, everyone seemed to enjoy a sunny and rather pleasant spin on the car-free A57:
Sun out ☀️
No cars 🚗Snake Pass Mass ride! pic.twitter.com/NCEGtAwwKT
— Harry Gray (@HarryHamishGray) March 19, 2022
Great to see so many new faces this week up Snake Pass
Everyone made it to the top, even if some had to walk with the headwind! pic.twitter.com/aWuU2RNKIs
— Harry Gray (@HarryHamishGray) March 19, 2022
What an experience – here’s the #snakepasstresspassers #snakepass @HarryHamishGray plus others…. I’d never EVER ride that road with cars …. The bluest skies EVER … wow! #glossop #incredibleexperience #cycling pic.twitter.com/plV6ZazYLs
— Deb Todd (@DebTodd21) March 19, 2022
Snake pass trespass – what a day! Best day I’ve had on a bike on UK roads. Cheers for organising @HarryHamishGray 👌🏻 #SnakePass #SnakePassTrespass pic.twitter.com/zVguv7AUwN
— Rhianna Parkinson (@Rhianna1991) March 19, 2022
Roadies – always at the cutting edge
With half of the cycling world taking to Google to figure out what exactly a dropper post does after Matej Mohorič’s death-defying descent of the Poggio to win a thrilling edition of Milan-San Remo on Saturday, we all assumed we were witnessing the birth of some new ground-breaking technology, set to revolutionise the sport.
> UCI confirms Matej Mohorič’s Milan-San Remo-winning dropper post is within rules
Mohorič even described dropper posts as “the future of cycling” in his post-race press conference.
But, as with all great leaps forward in road cycling, the dropper post of course stems from another branch of the sport, and was first tested in mountain biking a decade before the Slovenian was born:
Roadies, always at the cutting edge of technology. pic.twitter.com/uWQIFPLcep
— Daniel Lloyd (@daniellloyd1) March 21, 2022
I imagine I wasn’t the only one who spent the weekend listening to their brother claiming: ‘I knew they’d bring dropper posts in. After they banned riding on the top tube, I knew it…’
In any case, as Sam Bennett predicted over the weekend, just like LeMond’s tri-bars in 1989 the market for dropper posts has surely ballooned after Mohorič’s monument-winning antics on Saturday:
🙈🙈🙈🙈🙈
— Matej Mohoric (@matmohoric) March 20, 2022
Coffee and cycling: can you love one without the other?
Went to a cycling cafe last week, happened to mention I wasn’t all that keen on coffee. Not sure I’m allowed back. Probably ended up on some list.
— Quicklink Podcast (@QuicklinkPod) March 21, 2022
Coffee stops are synonymous with cycling – but is there anyone out there who can’t stand a cappuccino or a flat white?
As a teenager on club runs, I was one of the few who ordered a cup of tea – but over the years they slowly ground me down (geddit?) and now coffee is a prerequisite on a long ride.
Has anyone stronger than me held out against the ever-increasing pressure to bow down to the omnipresent cycling-coffee culture of the 2020s?
More ‘accessible’ infrastructure...
I don’t even know where to start with this one…
What the hell is this! pic.twitter.com/UUiP6KdASc
— Tug_van_Tuggles (@caminante_norte) March 20, 2022
Martin on Matej
It seems as if Matej Mohorič wasn’t being completely honest with Dan Martin during the Tour de France last year:
Flashback to a conversation I had with @matmohoric during @LeTour last year. ‘I have a kid now so I’m less crazy on downhills’.
Definitely demonstrated lower risk tolerance on Saturday 🙈— Dan Martin (@DanMartin86) March 21, 2022
That particularly conversation, which took place only two months after the Slovenian’s horror crash on a descent at the Giro d’Italia, was evidently forgotten by Mohorič on Saturday afternoon as he crested the Poggio and deployed his dropper post.
Paying homage to Sean Kelly on the thirtieth anniversary of the Irishman’s second Milan-San Remo win (he must have read Thursday’s blog), the Bahrain-Victorious rider added ‘bunny-hopping out of the gutter’ and ‘nearly ending up in someone’s living room’ to the Poggio descent lexicon…
Most of Mohoric’s daredevil descent that won him MSR pic.twitter.com/j8yS9kE7DX
— Peter. ✊🏻✊🏼✊🏽✊🏾✊🏿🚴♂️ (@PBXscribes) March 20, 2022
As well as commenting on Mohorič’s madcap descending, the now-retired Martin also decided – rather mischievously – to throw the 27-year-old’s name in the ring as “a strong contender” to become only the fourth rider in history to win all five monument classics.
On another note. @matmohoric now becomes a strong candidate to win all 5 monuments. Already 5th @LiegeBastogneL and a favourite now for @FlandersClassic
Discuss 🙈— Dan Martin (@DanMartin86) March 21, 2022
And to think we haven’t even gotten over the whole ‘Pogačar is too dominant’ debate yet…
WVA: Best hair in the peloton?
Move over Marcel…
He may have missed out on La Primavera this year, but Wout van Aert continues to pick up accolades wherever he goes…
How does he fit all of that under his helmet? #BestHairInThePeloton https://t.co/4Z8LZmWulx pic.twitter.com/xiYchNVe9a
— Anna Mac (@AnnamacB) March 20, 2022
Pidcock a doubt for classics: “We can't find the cause of his stomach problems,” says coach
Tom Pidcock is a doubt for the upcoming cobbled classics after the British rider suffered stomach problems during Milan-San Remo on Saturday.
The cyclocross world champion, who also missed Strade Bianche two weeks ago due to similar digestive issues, was dropped on the small capi climbs that precede the Cipressa and Poggio at Milan-San Remo, before the racing had truly ignited.
Pidcock failed to finish the first monument of the season and was later fined by the UCI after he was forced to stop for an emergency toilet break by the side of the road.
The Ineos rider’s coach Kurt Bogaerts told Het Laatste Nieuws that Pidcock won’t race until his stomach problems are resolved.
The 22-year-old wasn’t scheduled to race Friday’s E3-Saxo Bank Classic or Sunday’s Gent-Wevelgem but is now a doubt for next Wednesday’s Dwars door Vlaanderen, which itself is only four days before the Tour of Flanders, one of Pidcock’s main spring objectives.
“It wasn’t a stomach bug, but Tom had to go to the toilet seriously. Even afterwards, his stomach did not feel one hundred percent healthy. There was no point in racing any further,” Bogaerts said.
After failing to start Strade Bianche, Bogaerts claimed that Pidcock felt fine while training at altitude in Andorra before the issues suddenly and dramatically resurfaced at Milan-San Remo.
“The strange thing is that he doesn’t really feel sick,” Bogaerts said.
“We are going to investigate this. Tom had a blood test on Wednesday and we hope that based on those results we can find a cause.
“We are not going to make a race schedule until this problem is solved.”
After De Ronde, Pidcock is pencilled in to race the Ardennes Classics later in April. He was also due to make his debut at the Giro d’Italia in May, though recent reports suggest he could be on his way to the Tour de France as Ineos Grenadiers recalibrate their plans in the wake of Egan Bernal’s training crash.
Countdown to the cobbles
I know, I know, Opening Weekend was back in February – but the real cobbled classics season starts this Friday in Harelbeke, for the Ronde-lite E3 Saxo Bank Classic.
Let’s hope by then we’ve finally finished talking about dropper seatposts…
Your twitter timeline in 24 hours’ time: pic.twitter.com/SyUfsIVdqZ
— Jim Cotton (@jim_c_1985) March 21, 2022
A new bike lane record?
This could be a new record – 7 cars parked in the cycle lane pic.twitter.com/xTXwKLAs8H
— Colchester Cycling Campaign (@CampaignCycling) March 20, 2022
Another record: Boy completes Rubik’s Cube in 14 seconds – while riding a bike
Careful now while trying this at home…
Jan Ullrich auctions off 1998 Tour bike for Ukraine
Do you have a spare 25 grand and a deep fascination with one of cycling’s darkest moments?
Well you’re in luck, as 1997 Tour de France winner Jan Ullrich is auctioning off one of his bikes from the following year’s race – yes, that one – to benefit the ‘A Heart for Children’ campaign, which supports sick children and orphans in war-torn Ukraine.
The autographed bike features carbon-fibre wheels, a Campagnolo groupset, and a carbon fibre Pinarello frame, painted yellow (with yellow bar tape too), presumably kitted out in anticipation of the German’s second victory at the race, before his infamous collapse on the road to Les Deux-Alpes at the hands of Marco Pantani. Ullrich, despite wearing the yellow jersey for a number of stages, rode a bike bedecked in standard-issue pink and grey Telekom colours throughout the race.
Of course, the 1998 Tour proved more notable for what happened off the bike – at customs checks, in hotels, and at teary press conferences – than the racing itself, so Ullrich’s ill-fated yellow Pinarello is a potent symbol of one of the sport’s murkiest hours.
The highest bid currently stands at over €25,000.
You can place a bid for your own little piece of the Festina Affair and help out the humanitarian effort in Ukraine at the auction site here.
21 March 2022, 10:29
Remember the cyclist who held up the van driver for nine whole seconds a few weeks ago? Well, Mr Loophole – who else? – has had his say…
Mr Loophole applauds police action against "vigilante cyclists" filming law-breaking drivers
Earlier this month a Bristol cyclist received a Notice of Intended Prosecution after holding up a van driver for nine seconds while filming another motorist using their phone behind the wheel
21 March 2022, 10:29
21 March 2022, 10:29
21 March 2022, 10:29
Help us to bring you the best cycling content
If you’ve enjoyed this article, then please consider subscribing to road.cc from as little as £1.99. Our mission is to bring you all the news that’s relevant to you as a cyclist, independent reviews, impartial buying advice and more. Your subscription will help us to do more.
40 Comments
Read more...
Read more...
Read more...
Latest Comments
I wonder if it's a location thing? I live in Canterbury and, apart from the odd close pass, I find the vast majority of drivers are actually very considerate. In fact it's a common occurrence for someone coming the other way to stop and pull in if we're both on a narrow lane. I do the same if there's a wide bit close to me, or someone's been stuck behind me for a little while, and I almost invariably get a 'thank you' wave or flash of the hazard lights.
On one occasion when we went to watch the Tour on a cobbled stage, one of the sponsors in the publicity caravan was a chain of retirement homes. My wife is somewhat younger than me; the lady leaning out of the open-top car took one look at us and made absolutely sure she actually passed one of the fridge magnets to her rather than throwing one on the ground as usual. We still laugh about it. Well, my wife does!
@mctrials23 I wasn't thinking of identifying poor driving, which is obviously tricky without supplementary evidence, but given the huge amount of incidents that involve excessive speed GPS for keeping people to the speed limit is perfectly valid; even if there were issues with identifying the exact speed at any point, if it can be measured (as you can) that somebody has gone from point A to point B, a mile apart, on a 20 mph road in two minutes instead of three then get the fine and points in the post. Remove excessive speed and you remove the cause of numerous injury and fatality incidents.
@Sheen wheels I have a version of the R8100 and you definitively need ceramic for the socket Oh no, you don't! Ceramic sockets pretty rare and, as far as I know, only with ceramic and not metal 'ball' (femoral head)
@mitsky Its another one of those things that makes no sense isn't it. Someone was saying in another thread that we need a harder driving test. I don't think we do. Everyone who has passed in the last 20 years has done a test that is more than happy to fail you for behaviour that 90% of drivers exhibit every time they get behind the wheel. The test is fine. The fact that getting your license seems to be considered some weird proof that you will continue to drive safely is the issue. The fact that when you prove that you cannot drive safely its not immediately revoked is the issue.
@Rendel Harris The issue with GPS chips, as everyone who has one of those black boxes will attest to, is that they are crap. They interpret heavy braking as poor driving rather than someone else forcing it. They see rapid acceleration where there is none. All we need is a much higher chance of people being caught and punished for their everyday shit driving. I'm sure as a cyclist that every single time you go out on your bike you will have a dozen or more times when you think "that would have been a nasty accident if someone was coming the other direction". Eventually, when bad behaviour suffers no consequences it becomes completely normalised. Then we struggle to treat it as anything but a normal, unavoidable accident when that bad behaviour does incur consequences.
Drivers regularly pull out in front of me and cause me to slam on the brakes or avoid them. Very often they have seen me and just assume I'm not going very fast or they assume I will slow down/stop (which I do). Too many drivers don't look for cyclists, hate giving way to them or expect the cyclist to be moving slowly and just pull out.
@Rendel Harris By the time someone is looking at prison time its too late. As has been proven time and time again, the severity of punishment is a poor deterrent to bad behaviour if people don't think its going to happen to them or they don't think they will be caught. Now I do think that there should be far more severe and immediate punishments for bad driving when drivers are caught but this would need to be coupled with a massive push to actually act on information/proof of bad driving. As anyone that submits footage to the police knows, its a crapshoot and certain police forces are anti-cyclist. This would try to essentially put people off misbehaving whilst driving before they cause an accident rather than getting the tired old excuse of "it was a single dangerous incident, they definitely don't do this all the time and their luck finally ran out". Perhaps it should go even further and if you have a history of speeding and you hurt someone speeding, that is looked upon in a very dim light.
Can we talk about “Washing up liquid contains a lot of salt – not a great idea to use a corrosive substance on a bicycle”? This is an urban myth. I have washed all of our many bikes using Fairy liquid or Ecover for decades. I’ve never found any evidence of corrosion, paint, laquer or decal wear, or any sign of anything. I regularly service forks and bearings, swapping a lot of gear, and everything has always been fine. Here’s far too much info below - long story short, Fairy liquid in 5L of hot water has a borderline-homeopathic amount of salt, it’s fine to use on a bike. ============ The honest answer is that neither Fairy nor Ecover publicly disclose the actual sodium chloride concentration in the consumer products I could find. The safety data sheets list hazardous ingredients above reporting thresholds, but sodium chloride is not reported for either product. However, we can put some realistic bounds on it. Fairy Original The SDS lists: Sodium laureth sulfate: 20-30% Lauramine oxide: 5-10% Alcohol: 1-5% No sodium chloride is declared. 15 In detergent formulations, sodium chloride is commonly used as a viscosity modifier (thickener) and is typically present at around 0.5-3%, sometimes lower. The absence of declaration suggests it is either not present or present at a low concentration that does not require reporting. This range is an informed formulation estimate, not a value stated by Fairy. Ecover The Ecover ingredient information lists: Sodium lauryl sulfate Lauryl glucoside Cocamidopropyl betaine Alcohol Lactic acid Sodium octyl sulphate Again, no sodium chloride is listed. Ecover's formulations tend to rely more heavily on plant-derived surfactants and may use little or no salt for thickening, but I could not find a published concentration. 63 What does this mean for bike washing? Let's assume a worst-case 3% salt content in Fairy. If you add: 10 mL Fairy to a 5-litre bucket Then salt introduced would be approximately: 10 mL × 3% ≈ 0.3 g salt Distributed through 5 L water ≈ 60 mg/L salt For comparison: Typical seawater: ~35,000 mg/L Lightly salted winter road spray: often hundreds to thousands of mg/L The wash bucket above: ~60 mg/L So even under a pessimistic assumption, the salt concentration is hundreds to thousands of times lower than the salt exposure your bike gets from winter roads. From a corrosion perspective, the quantity of salt introduced by washing-up liquid is essentially negligible compared with: Riding on salted roads Coastal spray Leaving winter grime on the bike Therefore my practical conclusion remains: ✅ Fairy or Ecover in a wash bucket is extremely unlikely to contribute any measurable corrosion risk. ✅ The important thing is rinsing and drying afterwards. ✅ Winter road salt is the real enemy, not washing-up liquid.
Another example of a driver's actions that would have been a straight fail in a driving test but is barely likely to lead to a disqualification... I'm wondering if having a driving licence is like a "Get out of jail free" card...
40 thoughts on ““Please find a different job”: Jeremy Vine blasts ‘toxic’ London taxi driver; “Bristol cycle infrastructure needs reinventing”; Pidcock a doubt for classics; Snake Trespass, round 2; More dropper post chat; Coffee and cycling + more on the live blog”
Had a great conversation with
Had a great conversation with a taxi driver on the way home one night about the Bianchi he was about to buy.
Went on the Dom n’ Bass ride
Went on the Dom n’ Bass ride yesterday and he’s right, Bristol’s cycling infrastructure is very poor. The last Dom n’ Bass ride I went on was in Swansea and they’ve made a token effort also but still not enough – there is a wonderful cycle track that runs along the Bay but in the city nada.
That said the car drivers took the delay of 4-5 minutes max in their stride, and as always the rides were very well natured. The cyclists flowed through the city’s streets like a river, and as the sun was out it was a wonderful day for all.
I can’t stand coffee. I
I can’t stand coffee. I desperately want to like coffee – I want to be part of the cycling/coffee culture – but I just don’t. So it’s tea or an energy drink for me to get my caffeine fix.
Steve K wrote:
Well, I’m no fan of a cappuccino or a flat white – to my mind, milk is added to coffee to mask the bitterness of poorly made coffee. The same can be said of tea as well, and when I occasionally drink tea, I have it hot and black (insert “like my ….” here). I do like a cup of loose leaf Earl Grey (teabags are for the proles).
Don’t force yourself to drink coffee if you don’t like it – it’s getting expensive enough as it is without artificially inflating demand.
Edit: Felt the need to show people what proper tea looks like along with a novelty tea infuser
Dave Gorman has some words on
Dave Gorman has some words on Coffee, tea and expenses.
AlsoSomniloquism wrote:
That did make me chuckle though I’d quibble with his temperatures. When using an aeropress, I go for around 80°C (his 90-95°C is correct for most other methods though). Also 100°C for tea should only be for black teas – green tea should be much lower (80°C?) and white tea should be around 70°C.
One of the worst drinks I’ve had was from a bakery in London’s Chinatown that served an abomination that they called Hong Kong coffee tea (I was curious, okay?):
https://www.thespruceeats.com/yuanyang-coffee-tea-recipe-766158
hawkinspeter wrote:
I like green tea, but never seemed to be able to get a nice cup at home until I found out that you shouldn’t use boiling water.
Steve K wrote:
It’s shocking (well not that shocking) how many people just don’t know how to make beverages properly and by properly I mean so that the desired flavours are enhanced. Green tea becomes very bitter at higher temps.
(For those that don’t know, white, green and black tea are from the same plant, but black tea is fermented.)
hawkinspeter wrote:
Unless you’re Indian (like me) and your ‘cutting’ chai tea is made with ginger and spices, oodles of milk, sugar and served piping hot to be consumed in small quantities.
If you asked my mum, she’d tell you it’s so hot it makes you sweat and cool down!
vthejk wrote:
I’d go along with ginger and spices (cinnamon works well in tea), but not so much the milk and sugar. I find that asian coffee is often underrated – I’ve been buying monsooned Malabar quite often when I put in my coffee bean orders. Recently had some really funky Thai coffee – Doi Pangkhon Natural – certainly not to everyone’s taste, but I loved it.
Awful close pass on Saturday
Awful close pass on Saturday – as a pedestrian. Country walk, no pavement, 30 mph and some ridiculous squeeze through. Was slow to react with my trekking pole.
Earlier very late swerve by van man pratting about on his mobile.
Do I need a camera as a ped now ?
I did some pedestrianing last
I did some pedestrianing last weekend. Walking back from Portbury to the A369 along this road – https://goo.gl/maps/DKeLS4zc4BknrGMP9
Walking on the right-hand side of the road, into the oncoming traffic, no footpaths beyond those 30mph speed limit signs.
REALLY not a pleasant experience… The number of people who clearly had never even entertained the possibility of encountering someone along there not in a car… <shakes head>.
I ended up just saying to myself, “OK, well if the worst happens…”, making my best Man with No Name squint, and Just Walking.
What, no 2 metres and slow
What, no 2 metres and slow speed to pass, as required by the revised HWC? You must have been wearing lycra.
IanMSpencer wrote:
More bollards please (recent
More bollards please (recent news item which escapes me led me to this).
So either came down the road
So either came down the road in the picture and lost control enough to end up mounting the kerb on the opposite side. Or came blasting out the road opposite (if there is one). Either way, I hope the Police are investigating the driving.
World Bollards do numerous
World Bollards do numerous tweets on bollard damage. Would not surprise me if they simply tried to park there but due to the size of their wankpanzer failed to see the bollard and the bollard did it’s job.
Hope this Snakes Pass ride
Hope this Snakes Pass ride becomes a thing, and stays a thing when the road is open to motor traffic.
Small groups of say 10 or so riders all leaving the same(ish) spot every minute or two …
Reclaim the roads ?
I followed most of that Taxi
I followed most of that Taxi driver thread on Twitter.
There are literally a subset of sad twat taxi drivers that are convinced they are in the mafia.
Their delusions are frightening to behold.
On More ‘accessible’
On More ‘accessible’ infrastructure… – is that some sort of childrens’ play equipment?
Was trying to work out what
Was trying to work out what the “hole” part was for. First I thought this – but it’s not quite the right shape:
Next idea – looking at the
Next idea – looking at the sloping sides:
But finally I figured it out:
But finally I figured it out:
@crippledbiker – can we have
@crippledbiker – can we have an opinion on this “infrastructure”?
I think that you are expected to wheel your bike halfway through the middle, leap over the bit at the side (while holding onto your bike so it doesn’t just fall over), and then wheel it the rest of the way through.
It seems in 2014 the “good”
It seems in 2014 the “good” people of Bexleyheath decided it was an hinderance. (although it could have been the builders wanting access around the back).
I’m down that way for Ride London as my
in-lawsbase of operations is about a mile from there so I might pop over and see it IRL to test if the bike can get through the frame.I was just coming down here
I was just coming down here to ask whether it shouldn’t have some woodchip down underneath it, but you pre-empted me.
Like this ?
Like this ?
“local art class was assigned a project with bars”
But the bicycle bit is too
But the bicycle bit is too narrow for my recumbent and it will bisect me if I go through on my upright…
It does look much more like play equipment with your nice colours though, that’s an improvement!
Not image – but somewhere in
Not my image – but somewhere in that (now very long) twitter thread.
Government guidance expressly
Government guidance expressly mentions tricycles and other nonstandard forms should be catered for in cycling infrastructure. Time for a complaint quoting Cycling Infrastructure Design, issued in 2020.
That completely fails to meet
That completely fails to meet the EA2010 requirements for access, so anyone who qualifies should complain to the council, with a. Civil claim to follow
hirsute wrote:
Is that made from old Mouse Trap Game parts?
brooksby wrote:
No; it’s to delay Russian tanks.
eburtthebike wrote:
On current evidence, that doesn’t take much more than a kid’s sandpit.
Personally I’m beginning to
Personally I’m beginning to think Putin is actually a US agent as he’s clearly destroying Russia. He’s clearly sabotaged the Russian military. Plus Donald Trump was very positive on him to start with.
Love coffee, just not on a
Love coffee, just not on a bike ride. If I stop, I want to hydrate, not dose up on caffeine
Yes. I dont do caffeine
Yes. I dont do caffeine either, if you’re tired get more sleep. Probably not in the middle of a ride though.
Re: Pidcock mysterious
Re: Pidcock mysterious stomach problems. Too many superman poses on his saddle?
7 cars in the bike lane.
7 cars in the bike lane. Guessing by the time and skyline it was late sunday, so no enforcement around.
Cycle lane doesn’t actually go anywhere either as it was started/built before getting approval to convert the subway to shared use and approval was not forthcoming. The other side is a hideous door zone trap. Complete waste of money all round.
https://goo.gl/maps/WcZXXiuVBafj8t8T7
https://goo.gl/maps/pTW2wJogCvjnArZcA
Those pedestrians in Jeremy
Those pedestrians in Jeremy vine’s video were lucky not to live in Bristol. They probably would have ended up with a fine for holding up the van driver for at least 9 seconds!