Soon to be a thing of the past? Unrepentant taxi driver squeezes past ‘wobbly’ cyclist on soon-to-be-pedestrianised Oxford Street; Indian summer Lime Bike rolls out first Cycle to Work subscription; “Strava AI stole my KOMs” + more on the live blog
SUMMARY
"Pointless and dangerous": Camera cyclist reports taxi driver for what could be one of the last horrible close passes on Oxford Street
You’d hang it in the Louvre (or the National Gallery), if it wasn’t so awful… but what with the news that over a kilometre of Oxford Street is set to be pedestrianised from 26 October, interactions such as this one are set to become a thing of the past in this particular location.
As others have pointed out on YouTube and on a Reddit Thread concerning this video, it would have been wise for “wobbly cyclist” to hold back for the bus – but putting them and others in considerably more danger, a taxi driver decides to undertake them, while overtaking a Lime rider far too close on the other side.
When the camera cyclist catches up with the driver and says the move was “stupid”, the driver replies: “I think you lot are.”
Where to start… it will likely start and end with a warning letter for the driver, as the camera cyclist says he has reported him.
Tuchel on a Lime bike
Wonder if he stopped in the shop window to visualise more formations that Trent Alexander-Arnold doesn’t fit into…
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Seems harsh...
NYC has a plan to stop homeless people from cycling between hospitals and the streets https://t.co/H3fmROx6lG
— Gothamist (@Gothamist) September 29, 2026
One of the perils of writing about bicycles day after day is over time you forget words have potentially more than one meaning…
What now for Maindy?
The Welsh Government has today announced £2 million in sports facilities investment, with a closed road cycling circuit in Cardiff top of the list…
Intended to provide “a lasting legacy for the city. The multi-functional circuit will support club training sessions, schools use, community sessions, events and competitions, coaching and workforce development, and pay-and-ride activity.”
That all sounds well and good, although there are reasons to be sceptical. Not least because £2 million spread across five different projects isn’t a lot of money, and because Cardiff already has an outdoor velodrome.
The last time we reported, specifically on the Maindy circuit, it was at risk of being demolished to enable the expansion of the secondary school over the road.
Since then, I (Callum) actually ended up living a stone’s throw from Maindy for a while, whilst plans to build a new velodrome in Cardiff Bay were scrapped. For the Maindy Flyers club that kick-started the careers of Geraint Thomas, Elinor Barker and Owain Doull, that was actually good news given that the lack of an alternative circuit strengthened the club’s case against the velodrome’s closure.
So is the funding intended to upgrade Maindy? Is it renewed funding towards a new velodrome project? Is it something else entirely that hasn’t been made clear. Rest assured we’ll try and get to the bottom of it.
Still, nice to see the Welsh Government investing to try and make a legacy out of next year’s Grand Depart. It’s also a great excuse to wheel out this photo of the head of government…
August and September sentencing round-up
The latest instalment of the feature we’d much rather not feel the need to publish:
If you've forgot your Sram charger, you can now get a custom-made carbon-covered battery to charge it while you travel
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If your bikes run Sram AXS and you need a lighter and more convenient solution for charging on the move, Ti-Parts have a novel solution.
Encased in carbon fibre and weighing just 20g, you can charge the battery with a standard phone charger and then stick it on your bike to charge up. This gives you “extra convenience when you travel or race when you forget to bring a charger”, says Ti-Parts.
Bear in mind it’s priced at £106, and we’ve seen Sram’s own AXS battery charger going for around 37 quid – so you could just buy three of those for around the same price and make sure one of them goes with you on your travels.
What if you forget your Sram charger, your £106 carbon-infused battery and your phone charger? Maybe buy two or three of each just in case…
Time to switch out the head coach in our Footballers Who Cycle XI?
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It’s another mention for London’s foremost e-bike hire scheme operator and another football reference, as we’ve been alerted to this clip of England manager Thomas Tuchel hacking around on a Lime bike.
Our footballers who cycle XI feature currently has Roberto Mancini as head coach with Neil Warnock as his assistant – but now we’re not sure Mancini purchased his road bike with legitimate funds, so perhaps the German should take the reins…
Lime launches the first annual Cycle to Work subscription
More Lime Bike news, that may mean we’ll see even more of the distinctive e-bikes parked outside Skehans in Nunhead very soon.
The e-bike hire operator has just launched ‘the first annual subscription for shared e-bikes’ in partnership with BHN Extras. That means riders will be able to pay for a subscription through salary sacrifice and pay monthly, allowing them 500 minutes of riding per month.
Alice Pleasant of Lime said: “We want to make it easier for more people to choose shared e-bikes for everyday journeys. Through this partnership, eligible employees can access a Lime Annual Subscription through their workplace, giving them a more affordable way to include shared e-bikes in their commute, whether they ride all the way or connect with public transport.
“It is another option for people looking to make how they get to work more sustainable, healthy and convenient.”
The subscription is priced at £635 per year/£52.92 per month before tax or national insurance savings. Because higher rate taxpayers have a larger percentage of taxable income beyond the basic rate, the subscription is actually cheaper for higher earners after the tax break. Here’s what subscribers can expect to pay:
£38.10/month (28% savings) for basic rate tax payers (<£50,270)
£30.69/month (42% savings) for higher rate tax payers (£50,271-£125,140)
£28.05/month (47% savings) for additional rate tax payers (>£125,140)
Worth it, or better to stick to your own bike? Let us know what you think in the comments.
Apologies for the disruption...
It appears a disgruntled Manchester City fan might have taken umbrage with our strapline this morning and crashed all three of our websites. We’ve identified the problem now, and things will hopefully continue as normal for the rest of the day. As you were!
"Strava AI stole my KOMs"
Have you noticed Strava being a bit more stringent with verifying that your rides were completed on conventional bicycles recently?
One serial KOM-hunting road.cc reader got in touch to say: [Strava] used to allow you to self certify a ride as a ride (i.e. not an e-bike), but now you have to wait for a human review to check.
“I was on a streak of 28 rides in a row with at least 1 KOM each ride but now Strava might decide the streak is over? Not sure I’m okay with that.”
As someone who has never achieved a one KOM streak, let alone 28, I can’t say this will affect me. But perhaps it could be considered a good thing that Strava are being a bit more on it with checking that rides are legit…
> Strava KOMS are being hijacked by motorbikers going as fast as 112mph
A burst of warm weather in September = Lime Bike mayhem outside London pubs
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You love to see it… well apparently some don’t according to numerous people in the comments section, but it’s nice to see how many folks are hopping on a bike to get to the pub nowadays.
Yours truly has had many a drink in this very pub when some friends lived in the neighbourhood, and if I remember correctly a Thai restaurant was operating within it around that time. I shall have to return, by Lime Bike of course…
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Ards and North Down Cycling Campaign earlier this week held an event with local police encouraging drivers to leave a safe passing distance of 1.5m when overtaking cyclists This will achieve nothing whatsoever, because the drivers and the discouraged potential cyclists all know that the police postscript to the pretend encouragement is: 'but if you choose not to, don't worry because we have no intention of even thinking about enforcing the 1.5m distance, just like all the other UK police forces, and it doesn't matter if it's only 10% of that. Try not to hit them unless you have to get them out of the way, but if you do, scarper and you'll probably get away with it. If you've been drinking, just say you had a few drinks after you got home to calm your nerves after hitting what you thought was a fridge or a sack of potatoes, if they show up at your door.
Sadly, I feel that the reaction to this will be the same as the many multiple shootings that the US endures, every year - shock, tears and platitudes, swiftly returning to the status quo (untill the next time)
@Velo-drone I did not submit reports of either of the two heinous close passes I experienced with my daughter while on holiday there in half term But you could show them to us! I sent one to upRide today: it's the silver Kuga above, and will likely be viewable in a couple of days, and the long holdup on here can be sidestepped by simply omitting the 'h' from the https at the beginning of the link. It's all very easy to do. Other hosting sites are available.
@matthewn5 On which - I've not been there (and I've heard from a couple of cyclists online who say that they *are* good...) but I suspect the following blog post (from 2012 - As Easy As Riding A Bike) nails it: "They built it, and they didn’t come – the lesson of Milton Keynes" Verdict: the place was designed (1) for very convenient driving (not surprising - aspirational driving was the thing at the time, they had a blank canvas etc). (2) While the designer genuinely tried to provide for cyclists that comes across as "we need to get the cyclists off the roads because we fixed it for the cars to move fast". As is common (across the decades) in the UK it's nominal safety from motor vehicles but at major cost to convenience. Not to mention lack of social safety. FWIW there's also videos online by Alexei Sayle of him cycling around giant car parks there...
@mitsky Doesn't matter ..... Insurance / No insurance, License / No license These types will drive anyway!
@VIPcyclist Agree regarding cycle lanes, but the article is referring to cycle _tracks_ in Milton Keynes, which if I remember rightly are segregated but also don't run next to roads, so they're often quiet, dimly lit and secluded.
First, the actual change from issuing a bunch of "warning letters" to basically taking no action on anything is more or less no change to be honest. There is no evidence that sending a warning letter does anything. Not all forces even keep a record of warning letters. I'm aware of no actual empirical study of outcomes from sending a warning letter. Its main purpose therefore can only be to say that something has been done, rather than to actually improve road safety outcomes, because nobody cares enough to check if it achieves any outcome. It's the equivalent of finding a bike thief, and popping in a note through the door saying "please don't do that", and considering it an effective response. The apparent discrepancy between the NPCC position given early in the article, and the judgment later on that the Derbyshire policy "appears in line with the guidance" muddies the water considerably. There is a gaping lack of clarity over what police forces can and can't (or will and won't) do under the NPCC guidance. The suggestion for cyclists to provide speed measurements is silly - most cyclists don't have that capability, or won't be using it on e.g commuting rides. It's not clear why the speed of the cyclist is particularly relevant in any case? The Highway Code guidance relating to passing cyclists refers only to the speed of the motor vehicle. Saying you'll only take action in "exceptional circumstances" but not giving any indication what those circumstances might be is tantamount to saying "don't bother reporting, because it's 99% likely to be a complete waste of your and our time and we're not going to tell you how you might assess whether your case might be in the 1%" So, unsurprisingly the Derbyshire Police policy does seem to have at least one clear impact. I did not submit reports of either of the two heinous close passes I experienced with my daughter while on holiday there in half term. Why would I? Why would anyone? And why would it be a surprise that some drivers in Derbyshire choose to drive as if they have a free rein to endanger cyclists lives without fear of any consequence - because in fact they do. The notion that "forensic analysis" is needed to determine if a close pass is actionable or not is nonsensical. I would say laughable, but it's not really a laughing matter. It is not necessary to determine if the car is 140cm vs 151cm away. It is generally perfectly obvious whether the car is less than a car's width away, or more than a car's width away. That's sufficient to make a reasonable judgement on whether the driving could be considered careless or not - bearing in mind that the vast majority of actioned cases would be easily visually identifiable as substantially below that distance.
@Pub bike 10,000 men find out a year they’ve got prostate cancer too late. We need to get those numbers down. There’s no screening unfortunately in the UK There's no blanket overall prostate cancer screening because the experts in the UK National Screening Committee have decided that it would do more harm than good. It's not because of cost, it's because the PSA test is not that good. There are big trials in progress to improve testing. When it comes down to PSA testing of specific groups, such as those with a genuine family history, the risk-benefit balance may well be different. I suspect thar Sir Chris has had at least tacit approval of his "just google ‘prostate cancer UK risk checker’ and there’s three questions, it takes you 30 seconds and that will help you assess your individual risk. If you’re high risk, go to your GP and ask for a PSA, a blood test" advice so it's probably reasonable. I am 74 and have never taken a PSA test. I have no family history I know about. 'Better to be safe than sorry' is bad advice when it comes to prostate cancer screening.
As well as a Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) blood test another non-surgical test you can have is a Digital Rectal Examination (DRE) which a GP can do very quickly and gives some more indication about the state of the prostate. See https://prostatecanceruk.org/prostate-information-and-support/prostate-tests/digital-rectal-examination-dre
8 thoughts on “Soon to be a thing of the past? Unrepentant taxi driver squeezes past ‘wobbly’ cyclist on soon-to-be-pedestrianised Oxford Street; Indian summer Lime Bike rolls out first Cycle to Work subscription; “Strava AI stole my KOMs” + more on the live blog”
I thought that *was* normal…
A claimed streak of 28 rides with at least one KoM in each, his latest ride at an average of 24kph? Yeah I’d flag that too.
@Miller It’s not my idea of fun, but not especially suspicious if your sole aim is to bag KOMs. Just pick obscure segments where the KOM is not especially challenging, go pretty easy the rest of the ride, and blast the segment as hard as you can.
@Miller Why? If I was going out KOM hunting I would 100% be taking it as easy as possible for much of the rest of the ride. My mate rides with his partner a fair bit and has some KOMs around where he is. He gets most of them when hes on a ride with her and his average power is often not much higher than this for the rides and hes 80kg.
Why, well just for example I’ve seen too many ‘KoMs’ belonging to someone who has no followers, who follows no-one, who pootles round at 20kph except for one hill which they zoomed up. That’s obviously an ebike phenom which perhaps Strava is stripping out these days. The people I know who get real KoMs ride fast and are well connected.
“That was stupid, really stupid.”
“I think you lot are”
If you think they’re a) a “lot” [as in some kind of connected group], and b) stupid, then driving into a narrow point full of them was probably a more stupid thing to do.
That said, it took axolotol around a minute to bump into him again. I think by that point, the moment has passed – I’d let it go. At that rate, the idiot-count is going to lap itself.
@GMBasix sure, what’s the point in having a confrontation in the street? Just submit the footage and move on.
wait until cyclists try riding through pedestrians on Oxford street, there will be far more confrontations….I ride it regularly as a ‘sharpener’ and for a buzz…trains focus and wider attention if you want to make progress, braking, stop start and general handling. then makes the rest of london feel much easier