“Sanctimonious swines”: Talksport presenter accuses cyclists of taking “diabolical liberties” in bizarre rant; “Seriously flawed”: Met Police speedy e-bike checks criticised for lack of rigour; Woman dramatically stops bike thieves + more on the live blog
SUMMARY
Talksport talk drivel
What a day to have ears! Simon Jordan, the former Crystal Palace chairman, current Daily Mail columnist and Talksport presenter appears to have decided he’s had enough for now of chatting about sport, and is instead expressing opinions on cyclists.
Not cycling, it should be said, as a sport. I doubt Jordan is a man who knows Thibaut Pinot from a Pinot Noir, but I’m happy to be proven wrong. He might even think Salbutamol was a Paraguayan centre back who played for Wigan under Roberto Martinez.
But that’s enough of that, sadly Jordan is not even the first Talksport presenter to ponder cyclists’ worthiness on the road…
Sadly, we’re not treated to what provoked this latest diatribe, but it’s one to get your bingo card at the ready…
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“I think it’s a diabolical liberty, because these sanctimonious swines drive around or ride around with GoPros on the front of their bikes or helmets, constantly evaluating what drivers do on the road.
“They constantly ruminate on what they’re entitled to. They think they’re a higher form of life because somehow they’re contributing to the fact we haven’t got climate warning because they’re cycling around.
“They crash into cars, they have no insurance and they get up on their high horse if you dare do something that they think you shouldn’t do.
“Why is it that the laws of the land, and the laws of the road, that they seem to think they’re so entitled to now? Because this idiot mayor has given them a new sense of life that they can ride around in every single lane, and they can do precisely what they want whilst ignoring what they expect the drivers to do.”
And breathe… in a fast-paced edit, Jordan’s words start melting into one another, whilst co-host Jim White’s interjections seem little more than a check his microphone is still on. Ryan has likened him to Harry Shearer in Wayne’s World 2, and I like that.
Also, there’s something about the choice of words: diabolical liberty, sanctimonious swines, ruminate. Maybe Jordan is a man of letters, but it just reminds me of the way Russell Brand used to use long words as a means of forcing you to think about what he said for far longer than the content of his sentence warranted.
To be clear, that’s the limit of the Russell Brand comparison. I understand Jordan is in a relationship with GB News Presenter and former Brexit Party/Reform UK candidate Michelle Dewberry, and I’m sure happily so. Maybe we could get them a tandem…
"Hell for leather"
Active travel funding is good, but what active travel will this funding fund? Reminds me strongly of my professor who said any reported number should be made clear whether such a number is big or not…
Racing round-up: Forza Italia!
Having thrice finished on the lower steps of the podium! Finally Italy have their world title. Filippo Ganna, Matteo Sobrero and Mattia Cattaneo delivered a stonking first leg to put the team in the lead, before Elisa Longo Borghini, Vittoria Guazzini and Monica Trinca Colonel brought it home. For Ganna and Longo Borghini in particular, it’s a very big win and ticks off a box that had been missing from their rather illustrious palmares.
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The next biggest nearly nation is now France. Thrice Bruno Armirail, Remi Cavagna, Juliette Berthet and Cedrine Kerbaol have now finished second in this event, and having trailed by 11 seconds at the relay point, Kerbaol, Berthet and Marion Borras couldn’t quite close the gap enough to Italy and must settle for second once again…
Stefan Kung’s broken handlebars forced his Swiss teammates to continue without the recent Vuelta TT winner, and they were sixth before handing over to their women. But new two-time defending individual world champion Marlen Reusser led home a stellar second leg to squeeze Switzerland on to the podium at Australia’s expense.
One more bit of racing to bring you today is the opening stage of the CRO Tour – the Tour of Croatia – where Juan Sebastian Molano, who’s leaving UAE for Lotto, took a maybe unexpected win ahead of Paul Magnier…
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Not the hardest test in the world...
“Ever wondered what happens during a London Met Police eBike stop? Wonder no more,” this Reddit poster writes.
Much has been happening with the Met in recent weeks and months that we’ve taken quite an interest in, be it their response to Richmond Park bikejackings, their roll-out of Sur-Ron electric motorbikes, or their rather indifferent attitude to hit-and-runs on cyclists…
It’s the e-bikes that are continuing to hold attention however, not least since there is great scepticism around if even the police know whether a bike is legal or not. After all, who remembers when West Midlands Police destroyed a legal e-bike hired through the local council, causing the force to announce it would stop and re-design its testing for illegal bikes?
So what have we got here? Captured near Tottenham Court Road, the footage shows our cyclist riding past a courier who looks, from a brief cursory look at the battery attached to his frame, to be riding an illegal bike, before our own cyclist is stopped by an officer at the junction ahead.
eBike Police Stop today near TCR
by
u/Jeff46K4 in
londoncycling
“Is it a push button one or is it pedal assisted?”
“It’s pedal assisted.”
“Can we jump round the corner and have a quick test? Hopefully it won’t take too long”
“It’s fully legal.”
“Yeah, well, as you can imagine recently, [unintelligible] so we’ve just got to check everything’s ok.”
What follows is around 20 seconds of the officer struggling before the rider puts out the kickstand, before he then half pedals the bike and watches the front wheel spin freely for a second or two before handing the bike back, and declaring it “all good.” The entire interaction is done in less than a minute.
Fellow cyclists are appreciative of the test, but there’s some questions over to the science behind the system…
“That testing of lifting the wheel and hand pedalling and then observing the speedo is seriously flawed. Who the heck thought that one up? In the OP video it looks like the officer does the same test but he does a half-hearted few turns, so rider was lucky.”
“I thought they were using rolling roads now for the testing. It’s easy to get any bike, even one with no motor, over 25kph by just spinning the wheel with no load. In this video it looks more like the police officer just trusted the guy and didn’t really bother checking anything except that he couldn’t find a throttle.”
“Nice enough policeman but aren’t the criminals they’re looking for just going to skirt around them? Feel like this is just another thing slowing the average person down for no reason.”
“This is a piss poor test. This doesn’t disprove whether the bike is push/throttle enabled nor does it do anything to check whether the motor is under the legal limit of 250W”
Right idea, but you suspect the execution needs a little refining…
"This isn’t suffering..."
A very emotive post-stage interview from Seth Dunwoody, and a very good write-up from Ryan here:
Relay day!
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I know earlier I wrote that all the world championship cycling began too late in the day for my liking. Well some has started perfectly!
It’s the day of the UCI Team Time Trial Mixed Relay, a slightly odd format that I like in principle but still find somewhat baffling. Countries submit six riders (three men, three women) who take turns at completing a TT circuit.
The time of the second rider from each trio is taken and combined to determine which country is world champion at this event for the next year, with the right to wear the rainbow jersey for the next year in all team time trial mixed relays over the next ye… oh never mind.
Anyway, some of the teams you might expect to contest for the medals are getting underway. Spain, Canada and Norway are all underway, whilst Estonia are currently sitting in the hotseat, though it looks like Poland, led by Michal Kwiatkowski and Dominika Wlodarczyk, might knock them off their perch shortly!
There’s also some children racing in the Canadian afternoon, but I’ll be tucked up with a horlicks by that point…
Happy World Car Free Day to all who celebrate!
Happy World Carfree Day! 🚲 🚲 🚲
Here our poster and theme “Fewer Cars, Cooler City”
We have this, and other posters for download on our website: www.carfreealliance.org/world-carfre…
(and other fun stuff)The Carfree Cities Alliance wishes you a joyful and happy day today! 🙂
— Carfree Cities Alliance (@carfree-cities.bsky.social) 22 September 2026 at 08:45
The day to reflect upon motornormativity and to try and do something about it has arrived! Although I might point out that on this website that might be something of a busman’s holiday.
Thankfully, Transport for London are doing something about it, and have announced that their Santander Cycles have today halved the cost of a monthly subscription pass to £10 for unlimited, 60-minute rides. They’ve even given us some quotes praising cycling…
David Eddington, Head of Cycle Hire at TfL, said: “World Car Free Day is a great opportunity to try a different way of travelling around London. Whether you’re commuting, meeting friends or exploring the city, cycling is often one of the quickest, most convenient and most affordable ways to get around.
“By offering a 50 per cent discount on a Santander Cycles Monthly Pass, we’re making it even easier for more people to experience the benefits of cycling.”
TfL have also teased the launch of a new app later this year, which they say will “make it easier to find available bikes and docking stations, unlock bikes, purchase passes and manage journeys.” So that’s all well and good…
Top junior racer hit by driver
Worlds round-up: Days to remember, days to forget
I liked the novelty of the last World Cup meaning you had an occasional late night football match, but you would watch it for leisure. From a work perspective, evening cycling doesn’t quite sit right for me. But that’s by the by.
In between the weekend’s time trials and the weekend’s road races, the youth of today were out on the streets of Montreal yesterday, with the under-23 Time Trials. The women’s effort was won by Australian Felicity Wilson-Haffenden ahead of Dutchwoman Nienke Vinke.
Emptying the tank for the rainbow jersey! 🌈
Felicity Wilson-Haffenden claims the Women’s U23 ITT World Championships with a stunning ride🥇🇦🇺 pic.twitter.com/pZtEgaXZOk
— Cycling on TNT Sports (@cyclingontnt) September 21, 2026
It’s another promising step in Wilson-Haffenden’s development, having won gold in the junior TT in Stirling three years ago, where I captured this poor quality photo in the aftermath. By my maths we’re looking at an elite world champion in 2029, whilst Fenix-Premier Tech announced shortly after her title that she’ll be swapping Lidl-Trek for them for the next two years.
Quite a bit happened in the men’s race, so much so we’ll get through the winner first. Ryan Gal was on Team Picnic PostNL and falling out of love with the sport. But a switch to a smaller Dutch team rekindled his love and focus on the race against the clock, and the Dutchman took the title ahead of Netcompany-Ineos Academy’s Nicolas Milesi. The first thing he did? Ring home…
Ryan Gal is the men’s U23 ITT world champion! 🌈🥇
He called his mum from the hot seat the moment he realised ❤️ pic.twitter.com/f7AFagH0Ph
— Cycling on TNT Sports (@cyclingontnt) September 21, 2026
But the most notable moment of the race came courtesy of Cameron Rogers. The 21-year-old nephew of three-time TT world champion Michael was a favourite for the race but endured a torrid ride, with a mechanical occurring in the first 10km.
A bent derailleur caused a lengthy stoppage and he was still left in difficult, heavy gears. The camera stayed with the Aussie as we watched him skid and bunny-hop on his machine whilst letting his feelings fly. Thankfully for us, French Eurosport uploaded the whole incident, which cost the Australian minutes out of his race which he to his credit, eventually finished.
Incroyable scène sur le contre-la-montre U23 des Mondiaux sur route : très bien parti, Cameron Rogers (AUS) est victime d’un saut de chaîne. Son mécanicien n’arrive pas à résoudre le problème et ça dure (très) longtemps…#LesRP pic.twitter.com/b4H1s8SzMk
— Eurosport France (@Eurosport_FR) September 21, 2026
If only a roadside fan happened to have an exact replica of his bike at the exact moment of the mechanical. If I had a nickel for every time that happened to a member of the Rogers family during a bike race… I’d still (just about) only have one nickel but it’s pretty weird it even happened!
A dramatic intervention
Some very eye-opening footage here shared by Bristol Live, showing a woman, seemingly the mother of the child heard in the background of this video, filming and preventing two balaclava-clad individuals using an angle grinder to attempt to steal a Tern e-bike.
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A few takeaways from this for me include how young and thankfully incompetent the two aspiring thieves seemed. Unable to navigate the bike’s highly complex kickstand, they seem to do a Columbo-style double back and second attempt for reasons I can only presume as being to get their better side also captured on camera.
As wannabe baddies it was also remarkable how they didn’t at any point even threaten violence against the woman filming them and stopping them taking the bike, just sheepishly turning away.
It also, though the phone’s portrait angle limits the surrounding view, appears as though it takes the thieves leaving to bring other people over. There’s also nothing immediately obvious to suggest any actually did call the police, but again there’s only so much you cand draw from a single angle.
Fascinating, scary, and incredibly brave stuff, though I doubt the police would recommend members of the public engage quite like this, given many bikejackers are likely to be far more prepared than these two.
Chain gunk!
It’s been a minute since I’ve had one this bad.
by
u/blumpkins_ahoy in
Justridingalong
Feel like there’s a market for short-form video content where people rid of themselves of evil black bike goo – that’s the technical term. I’ll have a word with Liam… that one not the other one.
Lovely relaxing bike ride
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Latest Comments
@Rendel Harris "Perhaps lethality should be measured as drivers/cyclists found guilty of causing death per chosen metric, rather than simply numbers killed?" Given the filter of the court system that would a) likely only introduce another source of bias and b) mean the cycling numbers had dubious statistical meaning relative to the motoring ones since after removing e-motorbikes (unless we didn't? But even then...) that is ... one or two in the last 5+ years?
@mdavidford You've made me curious so checked: in Devon and Torbay (in common with many councils, apparently), any project under £500,000 can be internally approved by the Corporate Director for Strategy, Performance, and Sustainability, whereas any project costing in excess of £500,000 needs a full cabinet vote. So it looks suspiciously as though there's been a bit of jiggery-pokery with the numbers to avoid full cabinet scrutiny.
From the screenshots, the software looks very similar to the Coospo CS600. I used it for a tour in Ireland and on the first day, I realised that the map of Ireland wasn't loaded by default. I could see my route as breadcrumbs but not the road or anything else around me. It looked very similar to what you saw when you went off-route. Are you sure you had the map of Scotland in your unit? Luckily for me, at the end of the first day, after tons of searches, trials and errors, I managed to download the map of Ireland into my phone, connect the Coospo to my phone as an external drive and upload the map. Not an easy task but that solved the problem. For the next five days I had a proper map to navigate. Regardless of that, I sent it back. Loading routes into it was a real PITA, the routes the app plotted were terrible compared to Komoot's and it didn't have re-routing.
@Rendel Harris I'm not sure why trips made is a better metric than miles travelled, but yes, that does yield a 9x difference for cars vs bicycles in pedestrian deaths. The real anomaly using that basis, though, are motorcyclists, who are a staggering 72x more likely to kill a pedestrian per trip than a cyclist. That suggests that speed, more than mass, is the real danger. And that young men are the greatest danger of all.
@chrisonabike Indeed, you put your finger on another problem with the fatality statistics in that we don't know in how many of the fatal incidents the driver/cyclist was to blame. If the two cyclist-caused-pedestrian fatalities the pedestrian was drunk and fell off the pavement into the path of the cyclist that could obviously change the lethality ratio considerably if factored in. Perhaps lethality should be measured as drivers/cyclists found guilty of causing death per chosen metric, rather than simply numbers killed?
Finally (on cyclists and junctions) cyclists may not be as observant themselves there. While junctions are high-mental-workload spaces (or should be...) for all road users I suspect cyclists - mixing with the motor traffic - are going to be focusing strongly on that for obvious reasons. Which is again why in places which are more advanced in this respect not only are junctions given better designs *, but network-level thought goes in to routes for each mode, the better to minimise the need for interactions. Especially when speeds might be higher. * Separation in space and/or time when modes cross, explicit space for different modes so it's clear who goes where / what to expect...
I'm not sure about the "60% of pedestrians killed at junctions are killed by cyclists" number, but i *could* believe it's relatively high. Why? Other "qualitative differences" - "noticeability" and "expectation". In the simplest sense cyclists are smaller and quieter than motor vehicles. (There's a lot of "looking with our ears" when eg. crossing roads believe). But more: in the UK we *expect* cars. We've learned to deal with cars both by formal teaching and daily experience. We know "how drivers behave" - where to expect them. I strongly suspect it's not just drivers "only looking for the motor vehicles". We don't *expect* cyclists. And (if taken at face value) there's a lot of quote anecdata that people are genuinely surprised by them / completely unfamiliar with cyclist behaviour on roads (except "they all jump red lights"...) - "came out of nowhere" / "never saw them" / " they were down the road, then suddenly they were right there" / wasn't expecting them to"...
A key one is "speed" as obviously injury is strongly related to that, and the 20-30mph region is where IIRC "mostly injured" crosses over to "mostly killed". Cars would be expected to be at higher speeds, for more of the time. That may be reduced in some places however eg. congested rush hours, and where "mixing" may be most likely the environment may cue lower speeds (narrow streets).
Stepping back, given that humans operate both cars and bikes maybe a *qualitative* "what differs" might be instructive? (Putting to one side for a moment what may be mostly a motornormative prejudice: that drivers are in some way "more responsible". Variations "more to lose because they've paid for a car" / "but trained and licenced" / "more accountable because number plates" / "only (man)children and crims who can't afford cars cycle" etc).
@AidanR I wonder how it would change the stats if one looked at deaths per trip? According to the NTS the average person makes 15 cycle trips a year and 357 as a car driver, so 23x more driving trips than cycling ones but 182x the pedestrian deaths so by that calculation cars are 8x more lethal. Take out the 20% of car trips on motorways and you have one death per 51M trips motoring and one death per 487M trips cycling, so motoring becomes almost 10x more lethal. I know one can make statistics do anything one wishes by changing the metrics but that figure seems a more realistic approximation of relative lethality to me. All this of course is before we count all the other deaths caused by motorists that cyclists almost never cause, i.e. motorcycle riders, car passengers etc, almost five times the pedestrian numbers, cars then become 50x more lethal than bikes...
46 thoughts on ““Sanctimonious swines”: Talksport presenter accuses cyclists of taking “diabolical liberties” in bizarre rant; “Seriously flawed”: Met Police speedy e-bike checks criticised for lack of rigour; Woman dramatically stops bike thieves + more on the live blog”
Why don’t the rozzers simply equip themselves with a cheap GPS speedometer, or even just download Strava or a similar app on their phones, and hop on the bike for a quick turn up and down the road, they would quickly be able to see if the bike speed was legal or otherwise.
@Rendel Harris So what has that got to do with whether a bike passing as a legal e bike, really is a e motor bike that needs to be registered, moted, have the correct licence and insurance? Secondly, what is the speed limit for a person riding a bike? I’ll answer the second part for you, there’s isn’t one! So using a speed detector as a way of stopping is redundant. Especially when most fit cyclists can do 25mph on the flat without the aid of an electric motor!
@didsthewinegeek Sorry, I thought it was obvious but happy to explain: there’s no speed limit for riding a bicycle but the power on an ebike, for it to be legal, must cut out at 15 mph. Some riders of illegal electric motorcycles have throttles, obviously, so they can immediately be sanctioned without further investigation, but the more cunning ones will retain the pedal assist but tweak the software so that the power continues up to much higher speeds. So, if an officer is presented with a bike that they suspect is not legal but which doesn’t have a throttle they could hop on, put it in a low gear and gently turn the pedals and use the speedometer to see if it takes them above 15 mph with the motor still having an input, if it does it’s illegal.
@Rendel Harris It’s not obvious for you as you make the statement “if the bike speed is legal or otherwise”. Please make what you think in your head and what you put on paper reflect the same.
You talk about in your SECOND statement about the speed legally having to cut out at 15mph. Bringing together this and your original statement, it begs the question how does a speed gun determine whether the excess speed is being achieved by a motor or the person’s own pedal power?
Your second statement also seems to track back on you feeling that the policeman can validate the need for a stop with a sped gun, rather than an inspection of the bike, which you now validate as the reason for the need to stop.
Clearly we have a case with you of the gob in 3rd gear and the brain in 1st!
@didsthewinegeek I rather think your final sentence applies to you to a far greater degree than it does to me. I haven’t mentioned a speed gun at all, it’s your reading comprehension that is the problem, not what I have written. I suggested that the police should equip themselves with a GPS SPEEDOMETER, i.e. a Garmin or similar, or use a SPEEDOMETER app on their phones, so that they could ride the bicycles themselves whilst monitoring the speed and then they would easily be able to assess whether the power cut out at 15 mph as the law demands. Please read more carefully before becoming unnecessarily aggressive and rude due to your lack of understanding of a perfectly simple concept, thank you.
@didsthewinegeek He can explain it to you but he can’t understand it for you.
@Rendel Harris So a cheap GPS speedometer isn’t unqualified speak for a speed gun?
@didsthewinegeek What on earth does that mean? A cheap GPS speedometer means a cheap GPS speedometer, if you don’t know what one of them is then I’m afraid I can’t help you.
@Rendel Harris Throttles are permiited to facilitate walking mode, limited to 3.7 mph. The presence or absence of a throttle does not in itself determine legality.
@Gary James Well yes, but that also is pretty easily tested by hopping on the bike for a few moments. In practice anyway most legal ebikes don’t have a throttle for that function, all the ones I’ve seen and a couple of kits I’ve owned just have a button on the control panel/display to activate it. Maybe there are some that have an actual throttle but I would have thought it’s pretty unnecessary to go from 0-3.5mph, it’s only really designed for pushing assistance.
ETA I don’t know why clicking on reply to you calls up the tag Gary James instead of Tradescant!
@Rendel Harris This would probably be better than their current “tests” if the e-bike has a cadence sensor and a non-GPS speed display. If it has a power sensor (proportional assistance) or no speed display you’re back to square one.
Mind you, if the bike is doing 30mph on the flat and the rider isn’t pedaling furiously, I say crush it with the rider still attached.
@Terry Hutt Thing is, I’ve yet to come across a silent ebike, so all you have to do to check legality is ride it, keep an eye on your own speedo and listen to hear if the motor’s still running when you get over 15 mph.
“Not the hardest test in the world…”
Crap test. Not sure I’d even have stopped, given that the policeman wasn’t holding up his hand in the universal sign language that means ‘stop’.
@eburtthebike Yes, it’s more of a…
Another attempt to claim “exceptional hardship” that will hopefully be thrown out?
“Spurs star Kulusevski’s speeding case adjourned
…
The Sweden international, 26, who already has 18 points on his licence…
The star – who has a reported weekly wage of £110,000 – added that his young family relied on him to drive them.”
With 18 points, why has he not already been banned?
Clearly doesn’t think anything of repeated offences.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cmx2z1491l0ro
@mitsky I read recently there are 4000 drivers with more than 12 points on their licence just from speeding that aren’t banned. Kulusevski must be one of them. And there are two with over a HUNDRED! You’d think he could afford a driver…
I’m currently at the Liberal Democrat conference. There’s a really good motion and debate on illegal electric bikes. Would be good to see some coverage of it here.
@Steve K Lib Dems and “good” in one sentence.
Nah, never happened
@jackcycles if our resident troll is anti-Lib Dem, I see that as a great endorsement for the party.
@Steve K You should be able to tell from polling alone that more than just trolls are “anti-Lib Dem” – is that what we’re calling the consequences of your own actions now? Some of us remember the Coalition. Some of us have the misfortune to live in areas run by Lib Dem councillors – nigh universally comprised of anti-cycling car-brained NIMBYs – or where said councillors have an outsize influence due to other factors(like Edinburgh, where the price the Fib Dems extracted for giving a figleaf to a rump Labour group to shield their grubby little deal with the Tories to keep the SNP & Greens out of power at the direction of Party HQ was the destruction of a hugely successful series of low-traffic measures in a posh part of the city and a series of committee appointments that have let them delay and water down several other schemes).
Some probably just saw the coverage of this very conference, where Steady Eddy took to the socials to gleefully crow that he would cut – not preserve the freeze, CUT – fuel duty, literally weeks after the country was roasting alive. Lib Dems made their own bed.
@yodhrin that’s weird. Because where I live (with a longstanding Lib Dem administration that massively increased it’s majority in May’s election) they are accused by opponents of being “anti-car”.
Anyway, I didn’t want to turn this into a party political argument, just point out that there was a motion at their conference on e-bikes (and everyone who spoke on the motion spoke about the great benefits of legal e-bikes).
@Steve K I’m currently at the Liberal Democrat conference…
Then you’ll have witnessed the depressingly desperate populist appeal from Davey for cheaper petrol and diesel in order to appease the ‘we have to drive’s. There’s no sign up here in North Lancashire that anybody has reconsidered the policy of ‘drive everywhere all the time as fast as you can get away with, and campaign for cheaper fuel in order to do that more and more’
Not familiar with the operation of ‘illegal e-bikes’ – would that gentle half-pedal have immediately launched one at its top speed so the police can just say ‘gotcha’? Or did the cop just see / hear ‘Bosch, ‘ and know this wasn’t the droid he was looking for?
@quiff defo a case of “you had me at Bosch”
@quiff defo a case of “you had me at Bosch”
@quiff defo a case of “you had me at Bosch”
.
It wasn’t an exhaustive test, for sure. But I think the test was a quick glance to see if suspicions were further raised; and possibly to show intent – a deterrent effect broader than the actual stop itself.
What the police officer did reassured him that the bike was not obviously twist/press and go. Did the motor power with pedalling? If so, all good. That’s all.
We could spend a lot of time criticising the minutiae of a roadside test when nobody was unduly inconvenienced (a routine stop is a random chance delay that we should all take into account). But is it worth it?
@GMBasix Exactly. The police pull cars over for roadside checks and don’t perform a full MOT on them.
I’ve no idea what the officer was told his objectives were when he was tasked with the job that day, but it’s entirely possible and reasonable that he was expected to identify the most obviously illegal bikes, and to do so was stopping anything that looked like e-bikes to ask them onto the pavement where they could have a better look without him or the cyclist getting run over. It could be a pre-cursor or to a more thorough operation.
Like most cases where the police pull over drivers, it will have included a bit of an attitude/idiot test.
The stop didn’t take long and the officer was respectful. It would be annoying if you were running late, but it’s in all of our interests to limit illegal e-bike use. This kind of exercise can help to get the message out that you should check before you buy, which is IMO a good thing.
“Lovely relaxing bike ride”
Of course the original was furnished by Mark Twain (“Taming the bicycle”): “Get a bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live”.
Albeit the drivers he had to content with were in carts, carriages, or behind herds of animals.
Dogs were a major issue then as now, though.
Dear Road.cc, please check your emails – I sent an email yesterday evening asking for an original copy of the photo one of you took yesterday of LCC’s cycling festival/iBike London ride. Cheers 🙂
Good to see Simon Jordan’s impassioned and popular Talk Sport comments getting some coverage here.
I seem to recall a commenter on here warning years ago that Cycling Mikey and Sadiq Khan were two of the largest contributors to anti-cycling sentiment in London. Here we see that opinion being borne out when a highly successful businessman gets recognition for stating the same.
No one likes to see two-faced hypocrites like Mikey and Khan playing the virtue-signalling card. Khan can be excused because he’s not really a cyclist (just pretends to be one every now and again for a photoshoot), but for Mikey to sneak around looking for minor infractions – while simultaneously ignoring the chaos caused by thousands of cyclists jumping red lights and ignoring basic traffic laws… Well one can only conclude he’s in it for clicks and controversy.
By his own admission he blew the entirety of his £75 million fortune through bad business decisions. Not sure that’s quite the mark of being a highly successful businessman, even to an Essex accountant.
@Rendel Harris and yet here he is, a wildly successful media personality, partner to the beautiful Michelle Dewberry, and apparently loving life.
If that’s failure I’ll take a bit of it. I guess the moral of the story is: don’t buy football clubs unless you’re as wealthy as Jim Ratcliffe.
@jackcycles “wildly successful media personality”
who?
Alack, what sad and tawdry dreams the pestilent airs of the Essex cul-de-sac doth spawn. If that’s your idea of the good life you’re very welcome to it.
@jackcycles Oh! Is that the Michelle Dewberry that won “The Apprentice”, one time Brexit Party ( now Reform UK) candidate and host on GB News? The one that questions whether benefits, free school breakfasts etc are a good idea?
Lovely girl.
I bet the pair of them have terrific post coital chats :
“Oh Simon! You’re terrific. So cute. Just like a hybrid of Kenny Dalgleish and Shane Warne. It’s amazing when you do that thing!”
“Bloody cyclists!. The roads should have a priority lane for top earners in a hurry, like myself!”
“Yes. And I get really angry about people who can’t work because of illness and expect benefits. I mean what is the point of them if they’re not working for entrepreneurs like us?”
@Mr Blackbird Also the one who claims Britain is being “colonised” by Islam, wants to restore the death penalty, defends far-right rioters, opposes net zero, et cetera et cetera et cetera. Doubtless the sort of pillowtalk that gets our Nigel salivating…
Yes – I seem to recall you coming out with that tosh as well.
It’s that feeling again
Simon Jordan is a twat? Who knew?
Well, me and every other Crystal Palace fan, for a start.
@Steve K My sister taught a kid who came up through Crystal Palace youth system then left for another club at 16. Jordan classily traduced him and his family in some friendly newspaper.
@anotherflat John Bostock?
Like a lot of CPFC fans, I take anything Simon Jordan says with a pinch of salt. Jordan took over an ailing football club, got it into the premiership and then his ego got even bigger, followed by him running the club downhill fast. He’s not remembered fondly by many down at Selhurst Park. He might actually know his wines as he did own a restaurant for a while. But he can stick his views on cycling up his behind.
Clearly, Simon Jordan has had a close encounter with Cycling Mikey, and it made a lasting impression on him. I wonder if he was fined, got points on his licence or maybe even lost it. I’m assuming that instead of accepting his fault, he blames the person who caught him: rather like a nine year old.
The police would prevent a lot more accidents if they did random breath tests on motorists and not slow e-bikes.