“You scream and shout, but they just chuckle”: Cyclist feels helpless about bike theft in London; E-bikes seized by council to tackle bad parking; Transitional stage set to bring new race leader at Tour de France + more on the live blog
SUMMARY
"Doesn't matter if you buy the best lock money can buy"
The r/londoncycling thread on Reddit has had its fair share of complainants over the weekend, with users sharing their recent experiences of their bike being stolen, or rendered unusable. Like this, of a Genesis Croix de Fer 20…
Bike stolen right in front of me in gated development
by
u/Ok-Examination1239 in
londoncycling
“Picture this: two nights ago you get woken up to the sound of angle grinding right below your flat (2nd floor). You’re still half awake when you roll over to check the time on your phone thinking it’s 08:00 and building works have already started.
“WRONG, it’s 02:30 so you go over to your window and lo and behold there’s 3 men wearing ski masks sawing your “gold standard lock” off the bike rack along with two other bikes. You scream and shout, but they just chuckle, brandish the angle grinder, get on the bikes and cycle off.
“Well that’s what happened to me, which is especially frustrating because I live in a gated complex near Dalston which requires a code to enter. So either someone told them the code or they jumped the gate.”
The comments were full of similar experiences, and even reciprocal calls to arms, which we DO NOT recommend.
“I live in a gated complex in Dalston to, one night they forced the coded door and to an angle grinder to the bikes locked up in there, they got away with about 15”
“I work next to a gated complex, and saw this exact scenario a few months ago. Fuckers jumped the fence, 4-5 of them, with angle grinders and just went for it. Called the police, was told they are treating it as high priority but they never came out. I keep my bike in the flat now, used to keep it downstairs in the shared hallway but trust issues.”
“Exactly the sort of place pro crooks are looking for as they’re more likely to contain posh bikes. Keep a few half bricks ready by your window for next time to lob at them. Hope you get your bike back.”
Sometimes, thieves are not even interested in stealing a whole bike if it looks like it requires too much effort, like this incident in Hammersmith…
Can’t steal the bike? Just ruin their day then.
by
u/Roosterrr in
londoncycling
“Doesn’t matter if you buy the best lock money can buy. They couldn’t steal my bike, so they cut all my cables and took the handle bars. It’s not even a particularly expensive bike so they’ve just done it out of spite.
“I’ve had three bikes stolen growing up in London, including being mugged for a bike by grown men when I was a child. I guess I thought having good lots would actually offer me some kind of peace of mind but clearly not.
“Hammersmith is absolutely rife with bike crime and it doesn’t seem to be getting any better. I’m pretty sure this is going to end up costing a pretty penny just to get sorted and back on the road which is absolutely gutting.”
And it seems the original poster is not the only one to encounter such strange thefts…
“Had two D locks on my bike, locked up outside in Bethnal Green. They couldn’t steal my bike, so the stole the handlebar rings. I was so confused when I got back to the bike, the wheels and frame all intact, but the handlebars dangling around the front wheel.”
“Someone nicked my mobile phone holder in Queen’s Park earlier this year, value all of £10 new from Amazon. I’d left it for a couple of hours whilst at a restaurant. They’ll steal anything they can get their hands on.”
“Somebody stole a well-worn protein bar, and a pair of Temu-esque sunglasses with very obvious superglue repairs, from my rack top bag (a junk one so low risk of theft). They left my ratty fingerless gloves.
“The only thing I’ve never had stolen is water bottles. I’ve had junk lights stolen but they’ve left the mount behind so they’re useless. Really bizarre.”
Utterly bizarre and not a great look for our capital, although we’ve seen the data and stories that reflect for quite a while the low standing bike theft has as a crime:
Tadej Pogacar reaction
The perks of having someone on the ground is being able to bring you cool things like this! He seems pretty relaxed about losing the jersey to me…
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Always nice to hear the lurking press officer as well, peeling back the curtain of media etiquette.
New GC & Andy Schleck reaction
New GC
— the Inner Ring blog (@inrng.com) 7 July 2026 at 17:04
Wow, almost 8 minutes lead for a pretty nifty climber. My first medium-length mild take was on how Afonso Eulalio had a greater than zero chance of winning the Giro d’Italia, he survived the 40km time trial and went ont to finish sixth. Torstein Traeen has a similar chance here! Vacek also just podiumed the Tour de Suisse behind only Pogacar and Carapaz. Catch them if you can!
Ryan’s got some instant reaction from Lidl-Trek’s incoming general manager Andy Schleck…
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Mads Pedersen wins! Torstein Traeen race leader over Pogacar by seven minutes
60km/h they’re racing at, and that’s without anyone attacking! Inside 4km though and still no one attacks, Pedersen is even rolling through at the front.
Aha! Is that a Frigo attack? Barely, the big Italian climber abandons his effort quickly.
3km, still no attack
2.6km Garcia Pierna goes again but Sean Quinn and Pedersen quickly latch on, it looks like a complete stalemate.
1.6km Castrillo goes again but his acceleration is little more than a lead-out as they approach the flamme rouge. He’ll have to settle for the day’s combativity prize.
It’s an expert lead-out by Vacek, but Pedersen launches early after Vauquelin divebombs into the final corner, and it is the most dominant sprint you will ever see. Several bike lengths opened up to make Lorena Wiebes proud. Fantastic performance by everyone at Lidl-Trek.
Absolute perfection 🤩
Lidl-Trek executed the perfect race, with flawless teamwork from Quinn Simmons and Mathias Vacek setting up Mads Pedersen for victory on Stage 4 of the Tour de France 🫡 pic.twitter.com/ZuWAT0TvIO
— Cycling on TNT Sports (@cyclingontnt) July 7, 2026
This is also by some distance the biggest day of Uno-X’s history. First invited to the Tour de France in 2023, Torstein Traeen is one of the ‘founding riders’ of the project who returned ‘home’ to the team after a couple of years at Bahrain-Victorious earlier this year. General Manager Thor Hushovd is at the finish line and looks really rather emotional, and I can understand why…
Naughty naughty
Rather cheeky move from Movistar, they try to attack whilst Mathias Vacek is back at the team car. Mads Pedersen is alert to it though and closes it down himself. Otherwise not much to report as we enter the final 10km…
Saying that, Movistar attack again! Garcia Pierna this time gets a gap but Quinn Simmons will tow it back. Expect to see a lot of flyers in the finale. Castrillo is next before Vacek attacks himself. Castrillo then goes again. A very chaotic finale is coming. I’m expecting Marco Frigo to launch a big effort at some point.
Meanwhile it’s 1’40” to group 2, and more than 12 minutes to the peloton. Robbie McEwen’s done some sums and reckons Torstein Traeen can keep the yellow jersey until at least stage 15….
6.5km to go
Final 25km
So, we have a 10-strong front group, with the entire current podium of the race set to be replaced by Traeen, Quinn and Vacek, with the gap to the peloton quickly increasing towards 11 minutes! Quinn is a fast-finisher in his own right but compared to Pedersen who has a lead-out train courtesy of Simmons and Vacek, anything other than a Lidl-Trek win would be a huge upset!
The 9-strong chase group includes Michael Matthews, Frank Van den Broek (not that one), Ion Izagirre, Quentin Hermans and Georg Zimmerman but their gap is stuck around 50 seconds, their chance of rejoining looks pretty slim at this point.
24km to go, 50 seconds to chasers, 11’20” (eleven minutes twenty seconds!) to the peloton.
Mountain ripping
Goodness me, EF came onto the climb and have started ripping it up, using both Georg Steinhauser and Michael Valgren to support Sean Quinn. We’ve seen the likes of Michael Matthews, Ion Izagirre and Nico Denz drop away, before digging in and dangling.
Quinn Simmons is trying to set a steady pace for Mads Pedersen to deter attacks but it’s not working. Movistar one-two with Pablo Castrillo and Raul Garcia Pierna then Alpecin’s Ramses Debruyne is next to push on. The accelerations aren’t sustained though and Pedersen is still digging in. Kevin Vauquelin is next to be dropped.
900m to go to the top and Movistar go again and this time Castrillo gets a small gap. You wouldn’t fancy his chances to make it last 35km though… Torstein Traeen looks supremely calm, his lead over the peloton is now nine minutes!
Now Marco Frigo attacks across the gap, taking the Norwegian, Debruyne and Garcia Pierna with him over the top. But the gap is small and surely the groups will congeal on the descent.
This is looking very good for Mads Pedersen…
Old man yells at cloud?
That’s admittedly a slightly harsh headline, and the quote it’s based off is almost certainly a throwaway line, but “I don’t really understand cycling” is not the greatest line to come from the mouth of Netcompany-Ineos’ Director of Racing…
It’s a good interview though, (Geraint Thomas usually is) also touching on the team’s difficulty in making attacking racing in the age of UAE…
*Daft Punk voice* One more climb...
We’re just about to start the final climb, the category-2 Col de Montségur, 7km long and summitted with 35km to. Cofidis’ Alex Kirsch has bridged across but the gap to the rest of the breakaway keeps fluctuating, between 20 and 50 seconds. Interestingly, Tratnik and Kirsch have kept riding but Vacek has barely put his face in the wind, presumably using the presence of Mads Pedersen in the group behind as a reason not to work.
Movistar’s Nelson Oliveira is on the front, which is a perfect excuse to share this fantastic statistic.
📊✅🚴♂️ Most completed Grand Tours without a single DNF/DNS/DSQ starting from the beginning of pro career
23 — Nelson Oliveira (📷), Sylwester Szmyd
21 — Lucien Van Impe, Andrey Zeits
20 — Felice Gimondi
___________________
📷 🇮🇹 #Giro 2026 pic.twitter.com/XQcWcGONeH— ammattipyöräily (@ammattipyoraily) May 31, 2026
44km to go, 20 seconds to the rest of the break. 7’55” to the peloton. Things are looking good for Traeen.
Crash
Jake Stewart went down in a collision at the back of the peloton and was the only rider to stay down. He seems to have some cuts on his chin and was having some dressings from the doctor’s car. As a fellow ex-member of the Solihull Cycling Club, I’m rooting that he can continue, though it might be quite a lonely 75km. He gives a thumb up to the camera, good man.
Elsewhere the gaps have kept growing, prompting Mads Pedersen to launch an acceleration in an attempt to bridge to his teammate Vacek but he seems to have just disrupted the rhythm of the break. Tratnik and Vacek now have 7’30” on the peloton, whilst the chase are just 25 seconds from the front, with Alex Kirsch attempting to bridge across.
Torstein Traeen is now, quite comfortably, the virtual race leader, with 2 minutes on Pogacar and Vingegaard, and 28 seconds on his breakaway rival Sean Quinn. Traeen has history with this sort of thing, having taken the maillot rojo at the Vuelta a Espana last year, and eventually finishing ninth overall. You can bet he’ll be hungry for a stage win as well.
Splinterings...
At the intermediate sprint Biniam Girmay was victorious head of Philipsen and Pedersen. That was enough for the Eritrean who subsequently dropped back to the peloton. Philipsen doesn’t appear to have pulled the plug in the same way but has been dropped from the front of the break on the lower slopes of the category-2 Col de Coudons.
That leaves Pedersen with the best chance of snaffling points at the finish but Lidl-Trek have decided the best form of defence is attack! Mathias Vacek has attacked off the front with Red Bull veteran Jan Tratnik. The pair currently have 20 seconds on the rest of the break and more than five minutes on the peloton.
4km remaining of the climb and 81km of the stage. Nils Politt has been on the front of the peloton almost all day and is magnificent smile is really starting to turn into a grimace…
Nigel Farage on his bike?
Nigel Farage has just announce he is resigning as Clacton MP but intends to stand in the by-election, pitching himself as a candidate against “the establishment”, a phrase so nebulous it wouldn’t surprise us if he considers fans of cycle lanes part of the establishment. Am I part of the establishment?
It should be said that Farage is currently under heavy scrutiny following revelations of his personal finances, specifically receiving tens of thousands of pounds from a man who wrote a book titled “How to Launder Money”. He’s also under a parliamentary standards investigation.
Unfortunately we don’t have a copyright-free image of Farage on or near a bicycle, though there are a few available on a quick google search. We do however, have a perfect opportunity to reshare George Hill’s speculation on what a Reform UK government might look like. Perfect reading for any member of the Clacton electorate…
Big break
Well for Alex Molenaar at least, the Spanish-Dutchman fending off EF to take the solitary King of the Mountains point over the first climb, then two from the second. Having worn the mountains jersey yesterday, he’ll be keen today to wrestle it back from Alex Baudin, who’s not in today’s break.
Things have also heated up for Visma Lease-a-bike as the air conditioning on their team bus has broken, with L’Equipe reporting the team have dispatched another bus from their headquarters in the Netherlands to join the team in the coming days. Not ideal in this weather.
Finally, the UCI sent an urgent press release this morning, detailing the contingency measures made in light of the heat – it hits 39 degrees Celsius in the finish town of Foix today…
“It has been decided to exceptionally authorise the use of feeding bags in zones initially defined for the provision of bottles only (‘water bottle zones) located within listed climbs.”
So you can pick up multiple bottles at once, but still only at fixed points in the race. Not sure it’s the most the race organisers could be doing in light of the circumstances. Better than nothing I suppose…
116km to go, 3’05” the gap.
Daily dose of car dominance
Get the snazzy waistcoat out…
Shortly after the flag drop, we heard on team radio from Lidl-Trek that both UAE and Visma were content let a big break get away, and that’s exactly what we’ve got. 34 riders are up the road, with Torstein Traeen and Sean Quinn the best placed on GC at 5’06” and 5’34” respectively.
Several sprinters are up the road, including Jasper Philipsen, Michael Matthews, Biniam Girmay and Mads Pedersen, who was briefly virtual green jersey leader yesterday before Pogacar, Vingegaard and Del Toro had the nerve to contest for the stage win. Crucially, both Pedersen and Philipsen have two teammates, though you’d think the Dane is in the boxseat with both Mathias Vacek and Quinn Simmons for company. Girmay meanwhile has Marco Frigo.
Other stage hunters hoping to scupper this green jersey battle include the retiring Ion Izagirre, Pablo Castrillo, Romain Gregoire, Kevin Vauquelin, Georg Steinhauser, Jasper Stuyven, Michael Valgren, Nico Denz and Jan Tratnik. And that’s just the former Grand Tour stage winners. I could go on, but I really can’t name them all.
140km, 3’30” is the gap and the first of four categorised climbs is 10km away. Meanwhile in an unexpected twist of fate, Jonas Vingegaard is wearing the green jersey on behalf of Tadej Pogacar…
Powered by grief
It seems like an own goal on the part of a local authority to allow several hire bike providers to run amok through the borough, and then complain that bikes are being parked on pavements because there is nowhere suitable for the bikes to be parked.
Westminster City Council’s approach, rather than limiting the number of providers or, heck, installing active travel infrastructure to increase the availability of cycle parking bays, is a bit nuclear, seizing all bikes they consider to be “dangerously parked.”
It’s hard to know what the council think will happen having seized the bikes, other than there now being a potential shortage in supply that forces people to travel less sustainably.
And they must know that there are limits on the size and scope of infrastructure (parking bays) that these companies can construct, given that such construction is typically bogged down in debates about taking from pedestrian space. Particularly when you know how difficult it is to reduce car parking availability without the support of said council.
But you sense that this sledgehammer approach might not be the best way to crack this nut, and also that Westminster Council, despite progress in some areas, might not have the best interests of active travel people at heart…
Swag!
During yesterday’s stage, we were monitoring the progress of Lotto-Intermarche’s ill sprinter Arnaud de Lie, and his fight to stay within the time limit. Ultimately, the Belgian abandoned, leaving his teammate Baptiste Veistroffer to chase the gruppetto. But he wasn’t the last man to finish. Instead Tudor sprinter Arvid de Kleijn came over the line with only the broom wagon for company, 41’16” seconds after Tadej Pogacar.
Last rider is Arvid De Kleijn and within the time limit
— the Inner Ring blog (@inrng.com) 6 July 2026 at 16:57
We covered De Kleijn a little earlier this year, when he was heckled by a group of teenagers whilst on a training ride, then assaulted when he stopped to question their abusive language, which reminded him of his father who had died not long beforehand. road.cc user Paul J has a very good explainer on Dutch insults in the comments of our original story…
And, amid the suffering of yesterday, it was the memory of his father that gave De Kleijn the strength to continue…
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The Tour de France is long, the suffering will continue, but I think a lot more people will be rooting for Arvid de Kleijn for the rest of the race after his candour yesterday…
Visma Lease a Bike's mascot has a name...
It seems gone are the days when you’d get just a baggy jumper.
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People of the Pyrenean foothills can now spend the day trying to spot some polka-dotted E. LeClerc stickers…
How much does a Tour de France bike cost?
And I think you’re going to be very underwhelmed…
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Still, got nothing on the Soudal Quick-Step T-Rex…
Stage Four preview: Reduced bunch or breakaway day?
Based on Mat’s cost analysis, I will either have to settle for an XDS bike used by Astana, or ask my bosses for quite a pay rise. To be honest I might have to do both…
Tom Pidcock shocked by ‘hardest ever’ Tour de France heat
If you read our road.cc prediction’s article, you might realise I’m not much of a fan of this year’s route. After the first stage, we already had the GC shaken out in a rough order you might expect to see in Paris, after yesterday, we even now have the favourite in the yellow jersey. Stage 3 was probably envisioned as a breakaway stage when it was designed, but this early in the race the peloton (and UAE) were too motivated to let a stage win go up the road.
The question is whether UAE will finally give the break a chance given today’s final categorised climb is 35km from the finish, and the last 15km are mostly downhill. Or will Visma be tempted to ride the break down in order to keep Tadej Pogacar in the yellow jersey? Yesterday’s post-stage interview already hinted that the Sloveniam might become weary of having to talk to Seb Piquet (ASO’s interviewer and the voice of race radio) every day.
If the peloton do lead over the line, then the question will be whether the sprinters can survive the two second category climbs, and whether the teams of riders like Mads Pedersen and Dorian Godon have the firepower to hold them off on the chase at the other end. Here’s some of what Ryan had to say from his stage-by-stage guide:
“Starting in one of the homes of cassoulet, that hearty stew favoured by Tour journos, this stage, working its way through Cathar country, has the breakaway written all over it.
“Though considering the limited sprint opportunities available at this Tour, the more climb-friendly fast men could also eye this one up, and put their teams to work to ruthlessly slaughter the hopes of the escapees, Medieval Inquisition style.”
Sofa score: 7/10
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Latest Comments
@quiff Surely their system will have any action that has been taken against them with regards to the law.
@the little onion I saw that today too, and came here looking for reaction - it got a little bit of attention on the live blog a couple of days ago. I also don't have a problem with the police looking at a submitted clip in its totality, and if you've done something you shouldn't have, don't expect to get away with it. (Am I right in thinking they also looked at other, totally separate clips you had submitted too over the offensive language thing?) But I'm in two minds about the actual cycling that got the fine. Yes, it's uncomfortably tight, and if I'd done that I'd have a had a word with myself afterwards about self-preservation, but I'm not convinced they posed any danger to the driver of that tank, at the speeds involved and going uphill. However, sounds like the charge was careless cycling, so danger not required.
@mctrials23 totally agree, I think the problem is perhaps finding a police officer these days with a basic grasp of maths - or at least the authority to deploy it without being bestowed with the title of "trained forensic specialist".
"The net result of this confusion was police forces in Wales no longer issuing warning letters to drivers who dangerously overtake cyclists, pedestrians and horse riders, despite there being no formal policy change." That is one result, but my understanding is that it's wider than this - they were getting so many submissions that they are no longer taking action on *any* offence where the action would be a warning letter. So, for example, zig-zag line offences, where South Wales Police previously acted on OpSnap reports, are now NFAd. That begs a further question though - if you've already had a warning letter for an offence, a repeat offence should potentially result in a fine or prosecution. Are they checking each report to see if the reported driver has previously had a warning, or just NFA-ing all offences of a particular type? Any thoughts, wjts?!
The leader's team would get on the front and block the roads through Montmartre and completely kill the spectacle. Let's face it, the last stage has always been meaningless apart from the sprint, now it's meaningless apart from a superb and thrilling triple lap of Montmartre followed by a sprint. Neutralising GC helped that spectacle - imagine if Tadej had needed to go back and help bring Del Toro up. The roads are too narrow to allow for really fair racing, if we want the wonder of the Montmartre loop then GC neutralisation is the price we have to pay, and one well worth paying in my view.
@mdavidford Exactly this.
The big thing that the technical analysis missed out is positioning on the bike. Modern riders do aero work on their road bike and have much better discipline on holding position than even riders 10 years ago. I think Dan Bingham summed it up, his team rode with an old POC helmet with a massive peak whereas Sky had a little stub tail Cask helmet the idea being that it was less sensitive to head position. Bingham said that the long tail helmet was about 15W faster. “How hard would you train to get 15w more power, is it harder than training yourself to live with that helmet?” Pantani is standing up on the pedals, bare head, shirt open, rocking and rolling everywhere with his position, vs someone who is sat on the seat in a quasi time trial position. The 90’s riders were rank amateurs compared with those today, so it’s not a massive surprise that 30 years of progress can beat EPO.
@HoarseMann Oh I can assure you that plenty of passes can be proved with absolute certainty to have been illegal purely from generous guesses on the size of cars and the size of lanes. Lets say you drive a 2m wide car that takes up 2/3rd of a lane in a video. Someone with a basic grasp of maths would be able to tell you that you couldn't overtake a cyclist without moving into the opposite lane even if the cyclist was 0cm wide and somehow riding on the very edge of the road where it meets the pavement. Someone with a basic understanding of maths would be able to tell you that unless the car was 1.5m or less wide on a 3m wide road, its impossible to overtake by staying on your side of the road with 1.5m space even if the cyclist took up 0 space. They simply don't want to do anything about it. Its got absolutely nothing to do with holding up in court because that wouldn't be an issue in a huge number of cases and they know it. No one in their right mind would go to court to contest it.
That's... not right. The prosecution has to* prove beyond reasonable doubt that the offence was committed, but not that every single detail of statements made by their witnesses is accurate. And HoarseMann is correct that it doesn't mean the same as "with absolute certainty", otherwise it would be "beyond *all* doubt". [* More accurately, should have to. In practice, when it comes to offences against cyclists, the system often does seem to demand that it's proven beyond unreasonable doubt as well, but that's not what the standard is supposed to be, or what's applied to other offences. ]
has anyone else seen this story from the BBC - basically, a cyclist in West Yorkshire reported a close pass, and the police went through their footage and the cyclist ended up paying a £1,200 fine for dangerous cycling for squeezing in the gap between a parked car and an oncoming car. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/cd9w2l2wqvdo I'm a believer in fairness, proportionality and so on, so there are several key things here: -that is a terrible piece of cycling, posing a danger to themselves, and some small danger to the driver because the cyclist could have ended up smashing through the windscreen -there is absolutely NO WAY that any driver in West Yorkshire has been fined £1,200 for a close pass on a cyclist, even if they took it all the way to court and had to pay costs etc. -there is a strong "man bites dog" element to this story. Drivers endangering cyclists is mundane and everyday, not worthy of being reported in the BBC. Cyclists endangering drivers is the unusual exception, which then gets reported. P.S. as a measure of the standard of driving which endangers cyclists but DOESN'T get prosecuted by West Yorkshire police, they decided that this close pass/undertake wasn't a crime: https://vimeo.com/1079291114/f8d5ab5f41
40 thoughts on ““You scream and shout, but they just chuckle”: Cyclist feels helpless about bike theft in London; E-bikes seized by council to tackle bad parking; Transitional stage set to bring new race leader at Tour de France + more on the live blog”
BBC running a story on the cost of e-bike-related insurance claims, and claiming it’s “a major contributor to increases in annual premiums for ordinary members of the public”. But next to no context (is this a big number?; increases in what premiums?; are these incidents caused by those vehicles, or inflicted on them?). And it turns out nearly 1/5 of the amount is down to a single claim.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c05y9pe5p1jo
Presentation of the numbers is also confusing misleading:
So in other words, £59m paid out in 12 months, of which, £20m was a single claim, leaving £39m for the rest.
In 2024, MIB total payouts were £434m, so £39m would be a reasonable chunk on top of that. On the other hand, motor insurance payouts in 2025 were £11.9bn…
@mdavidford Don’t forget the classic conflation of e-motos and EAPCs when describing the vehicles involved in the claim cases.
@mdavidford Sounds like one for R4 More or Less. Presumably as this is payouts by the MIB, it will be just payments to third parties injured by an uninsured e-motorbike or e-scooter (but not EAPC) rider, not to uninsured riders.
@quiff ‘Sounds like one for R4 More or Less.’
Expecting More or Less to be impartial, unbiased and fair when it comes to cycling might be a little optimistic. AFAIK, the only cycle related thing they’ve ever done was about cycle helmets, and it was a travesty. For the only time in the prog’s history, no data were examined, and only helmet proponents were interviewed and the presenter made his views clear, all of which was against the BBC’s editorial guidelines, but as in every other case, complaints were dismissed.
The BBC is institutionally anti-cyclist.
@eburtthebike
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00tgwz7
‘Is it really safer to wear a helmet when cycling?’
@Wales56 Thanks for that.
The helmet bit starts at 12:40, but the intro says ‘We ask what the evidence really is on cycle helmets and safety.’ but they don’t. No data, no stats, no evidence examined. Two studies are quoted, Dr Ian Walker’s helmet study and the TRL report, and they did at least acknowledge that the TRL report’s conclusions were based on unfounded assumptions, but they didn’t challenge Dr Walker’s position on Risk Compensation.
They interviewed the most vociferous helmet proponent in the UK, Angie Lee of BHIT (Bicycle Helmet Initiative Trust) but no helmet sceptics, and then go on to say ‘There are passionate advocates on both sides…..’ But they didn’t interview anyone from the other side.
It was staggeringly biased, but complaints fell on stoney ground.
If they had any integrity, they’d revisit the subject, but this time use actual data and interview people from both sides of the argument.
@quiff Didn’t realise MIB would only cover vehicles that legally require insurance (as opposed to just anything that doesn’t have insurance). In which case the references in the article to mobility scooters and the like are also presumably besides the point.
@mdavidford That was my assumption, but have just had a look and it does seem to be the case (otherwise MIB would be yet another part of the answer to the “cyclists don’t have insurance” complaint). So no, I don’t think a ‘traditional’ 4-8mph mobility scooter has anything to do with MIB.
@mdavidford None of that is related to e-bikes. If it’s an EAPC then MIB isn’t involved. The article is about illegal motorbikes but the BBC is doing BBC
The usual misinformation being peddled, an interviewee at 8:21am on the BBC Breakfast news was calling for legislation to “require insurance for these vehicles that can go faster than 15.5mph” – when there already is legislation (it’s just rarely enforced, as is the case with a lot of road crime).
Then the example of the pedestrian who was hit by an illegal e-scooter rider, who thought she would be safe as she was on a crossing. But she was carelessly crossing on a red man. Had she been mown down by a car driver, she would likely have been far more seriously injured and this probably wouldn’t have made the news!
Saw this while on the BBC. Maybe this is unfair – the police have a job to do, they were investigating a murder, and they can park where they like. But really, did they need to? If even they have just defaulted to parking on the pavement, what hope is there?
Not sure that’s true, though. I mean, obviously in a practical sense it is, as it is for anybody, because nobody’s going to do a blind thing about it. But in a legal sense, absent any exigent circumstances, I’m fairly sure they’re notionally subject to the same laws as the rest of us, so it’s just as much an offence for them to drive on or obstruct the footway as it is for anybody else.
@mdavidford I did once attempt that conversation with a police driver while his two colleagues were busy apprehending someone. You can imagine how it went.
How long did they hold you for?
Not sure that’s true, though. I mean, obviously in a practical sense it is, as it is for anybody, because nobody’s going to do a blind thing about it. But in a legal sense, absent any exigent circumstances, I’m fairly sure they’re notionally subject to the same laws as the rest of us, so it’s just as much an offence for them to drive on or obstruct the footway as it is for anybody else.
@quiff I did once have a conversation with an officer who had driven and parked on the footpath when the road was quite wide enough to park in without using the footpath. To say he couldn’t have cared less would be an excellent example of the English understatement.
I think they’re trolling me now – the story has been updated with this pic
@quiff The police definitely can’t park where they like (rephrase: legally they definitely can’t park where they like, in practice…), if they are not on emergency response all traffic laws and regulations apply to them just as they do to the ordinary motorist. I have an ongoing battle with the Met regarding the bus lane outside King’s College Hospital on Denmark Hill; every morning there will be three or four police cars or vans parked in the lane, often on the zigzags of the pelican crossing there, forcing buses, motorcyclists and cyclists to switch out into the busy main traffic lane. As a user of the hospital myself I know that very rarely do they have any police business in the hospital, they are usually getting coffee and doughnuts from the in-hospital Costa. The Met has admitted that they should not be parking there and promised to sort it out, but my dialogue with them has lasted more than five years now and every morning they are still there just the same.
@HoarseMann RE: the pedestrian, a still image isn’t conclusive in this circumstance as pedestrians don’t get a yellow indication. It is perfectly reasonable that they began crossing on a green man, and the incident occurred in the period when a red light is displayed at all points, to ensure no road traffic begins moving and peds in motion can complete their transit, and new peds should not begin to cross.
Similarly, the peds are equally plausible to have moved into the junction on a red, just as much as the convicted e-scooter rider. Though if both parties had equally disobeyed the signalling, the rider is still more at fault for being present on an illegal vehicle.
@ROOTminus1 The BBC video doesn’t show the moment the pedestrians started crossing, but at the start of the video (below) it’s on red when they are halfway across, and a car has just passed through. Not conclusive, but seems likely they crossed on red. Obviously doesn’t absolve the scrote on the scoot, who absconded.
In any case, though, the signalling is entirely advisory for the pedestrians, and regardless of whether or not they have a green light there is a responsibility on other road users to take due care for their safety, just as there would be if they were crossing at any other part of the road where there was no crossing.
@mdavidford yes, of course the signals are advisory etc – but I think this tangent started in reference to the victim’s reported comment “I was on a crossing. I thought it was safe, you just don’t expect it”.
@quiff Fair point (that was a long way back up thread!). Although as well as saying that she thought she would be safe because she was on a crossing, that comment also said “she was carelessly crossing on a red man”, which is straying perilously close to introducing ‘jaywalking’ to the discussion.
@mdavidford dangerously close to introducing contributory negligence perhaps ; ) (Though I have to admit, I decided not to mention the red man, given the illegal scootering + no apparent attempt to avoid + scarpering).
‘Daily dose of car dominance’
Any fule nows that cars can’t block footpaths, only bicycles.
Nobody on Westminster City Council rides a bike, and they all drive huge SUVs.
Sounds like a good choice in the current conditions.
Will that take some of the heat out of the situation?
Not sure why any sprinter would bother going to the TDF, they ruined the Paris stage for them and the first week is mountains.
Just seen the Devil!
Throw some salt over your shoulder.
And a giant inflatable haribo gold bear…
Yeah – I’ve no idea how you ward that off!
“Cyclist feels helpless about bike theft in London“
In 30 years of commuting from the suburbs into central London, I had 13 bikes stolen. Or was it 14?
After the first two, all had expensive locks, were postcoded, thefts reported to police. The police never followed up on any theft, I never saw any of the bikes again.
“You scream and shout, but they just chuckle, brandish the angle grinder, get on the bikes and cycle off”
@60somethingcyclist …and the reason that they’re so arrogant? It’s because they know the Old Bill won’t come running for this. They’ve never taken bike theft seriously. Best thing is to make it as difficult as possible for them; I double lock my bike now.
(Before the days of blatent angle grinder use)
At my first job, my boss wouldn’t allow me to bring my bike indoors, despite there being room. I had to lock it to the railings on a busy street. Came out one night to find it still there… but with signs of attempted theft. Unable to defeat the lock, they’d cut my cables (clearly with proper cutters), purely out of spite😠 Nothing missing – they’d just been petty.
At least it persuaded my boss to relent: bike was indoors after that.
re: occasions when police needlessly pavement park…
You only need to watch Police Interceptors and the like to see how unbothered they are. Usually, when they pull over a motorist, said driver mounts the pavement (and cop often does the same), yet there’s never any mention of the illegality* or needless manner of their parking.
(*Highway Code infraction, even if not against the law in the location being shown).
I’m very much pro-Police, but that particular issue only serves to normalise pavement parking.
@Cayo I’m very much pro-Police, but that particular issue only serves to normalise pavement parking
Well, I’m very much anti-police, but not over trivial parking decisions while they’re actually working against offenders, as opposed to sitting about thinking up reasons why they can’t act over well-supported and evidenced reports of serious offending