Terrific W Mids Police vid on filtering; DfT cycling infra photo fail; Anti-fracking protesters to target Team Ineos at Tour of Britain; Are e-bike riders nicking all the Strava KOMs? And much more on the live blog this evening

jaysa wrote:

Nice pace and shoulder checks in the Police filtering video, however at 50 seconds he passes to the left of a black car approaching a left t-junction (which isn't indicating).

Isn't that something to avoid in case they wipe you out by turning left without seeing you/looking?

he actually mentions about that in the text of the tweet. #watchthewheels. So he checks the front wheels to see if they turn, plus he also didn’t attempt to pass until he was sure they had gone past the ‘normal’ turning point of the junction. 

Rick_Rude wrote:

Loads of KOMs are now garbage. People loading bikes up and forgetting to turn off Strava but then don't want to lose the ride they did do so they save it anyway.

I'd go out on my motorbike to get some KOMs but I'd be grassing myself up to the cops.

 

It's perfectly possible to edit the length of a ride.  Not everyone does though.

ktache wrote:

I looked several times and I could not see a left indicating white car, there is the land rover at about 12 seconds when the brake lights come on, please tell us when?

I suspect thats the one as I thought it was an indicator at first but the left turn isnt anywhere near,and it doesnt seem to be flashing either, could be an offcoloured lense,or faulty wiring

alchemilla wrote:

Filtering policeman, looks like he went on the inside of a left-indicating white car. Cyclists should never do that, surely.

Are you named after the excellent Glasgow restaurant?

nniff wrote:

My finest KOM theft was the hill on the race circuit in Lincoln.  I was handsomely assisted by the ambulance with blue lights to which I was firmly strapped at the time.  My ride as a whole had a very idle period of an hour and a half, waiting for said ambulance to turn up.  I did the decent thing the following morning  - screenshot and delete ;o)

After a similar event, for a week or so I was KOM of a new segment running between J8 and J7 of the M11... 

kil0ran wrote:

Nearside filtering, yuck. You're invisible for so long with modern vehicles due to high beltlines and massive C-pillars. I was taught to check my nearside mirror when moving off, and in stop-start traffic, but I wonder how many drivers actually do that?

Offside all the way for me, even/especially in urban traffic like that. 

do you ride a motorbike when not cycling ? the problem for me offside is as per how those cars are positioned,they force you to filter towards oncoming traffic, who arent always as appreciative of you being there, and being left between a rock and hard place isnt a good space to be as a cyclist, and if you misjudge the traffic queue you are in, the obstruction clears, or the light changes, you can be left hung to dry on the outside by the impatient so and so's youve just "out queued", as the traffic can out accelerate you.

none of those problems really impact motorbikes filtering offside as you are bigger presence on the road, and can out accelerate anyone trying to cut you up on the inside before youve regained your place in the queue...hence the question as I believe motorbike cyclists favour the offside more as thats what they are used to than car cyclists.

but Id have filtered exactly as PC Hodson did there, though personally Im more impressed he cycles on what looks like a godawful two lane roundabout with heavy traffic/lorries as Id not be going near that unless I had a flashing blue light on my bike

ktache wrote:

Some fine filtering by PC Hodson there, I'm hoping he can overcome his cancer as effectively as he has that traffic.

Wrong one. Steve Hudson is the one unfortunately diagnosed. The filterer is Dave Hodson. I'm glad he is patrolling those roads, however it doesn't stop people and I have uploaded three really bad close passes and / or left hooks to their portal with no responses months later.

cyclesteffer wrote:

Maybe they could show what percentile you are in.

If you install the Stravistix plugin (now seems to be called "Elevate") for Chrome/Firefox/Safari, you can see exactly that, by segment. As well as the delta between your latest effort and your all time best and current year best.

https://thomaschampagne.github.io/elevate/#/landing

cyclesteffer wrote:

Maybe they could show what percentile you are in.

Heartily recommend the "Elevate" (formerly Stravistix)  Chrome browser add-in for Strava - when you look at an activity, it injects your position ranking and % ranking into every segment listed on that activity.

Among a few other nice features, it also has a fitness/form/fatigue chart which gives an indication of your training load, which I find personally matches quite well with how I feel.

Free to use - donation to the author if you like it.

StoopidUserName wrote:

The strava ebike problem is nothing new, it's just that people are moving from cars/motorbikes to ebikes to do it. Legal ebikes will only kom uphill due to the 15mph speed restriction, otherwise they will be de-restricted and essentially motorbikes (I chatted to one e-mtb'er with a massive motor/battery on his that could approach 40mph with him sitting upright. The obvious ones like that can be flagged...non obvious ones would be a problem.) This is why we can't have nice things, always someone around to spoil the fun and troll endlessly!

I believe they are only allowed to power assist up to 15mph and anything above would be ride effort.  So in theory they could go fast enough to get down hill or flat segments (can't bring my self to say KOM ).  I doubt their riders could go fast enough thoug given the bike's weight penalty

jollygoodvelo wrote:

The point of the KOM rankings on Strava is to see how you match up to other cyclists, isn't it?  If you don't really care, that's fine, but for people who do care, Strava should be ensuring that the rankings are sound.  Obviously there will always be cheats, but instead of asking users to tick half a dozen settings, why don't they simply suggest they tick a box when creating the 'bike used' to say it's an ebike, which automatically removes it from non-e leaderboards?

I guess you want people to point out if they had their pal give them a good lead out or had a generous tail wind? It's absolutely pointless trying to use Strava to see how you match up with other cyclists anyway, isn't it?