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Live blog
"Must get in front of cyclist, no matter what!": Reddit enjoys rider's footage of this incredibly pointless overtake; A "slap in the face" and not what was promised? Cycling community reacts to Budget + more on the live blog
SUMMARY
"Must get in front of cyclist, no matter what!" (Reddit/the-real-vuk)09:05
"Must get in front of cyclist, no matter what!": Reddit enjoys rider's footage of this incredibly pointless overtake
We stumbled across this on Reddit in a Subreddit dedicated to the noble pursuit of documenting "IdiotsInCars". Roll the tape...
[OC] Must get in front of cyclist, no matter what!
byu/the-real-vuk inIdiotsInCars
There's a lot to unpack from this, one of the most pointless overtakes we've ever had the pleasure/displeasure of seeing. Some suggested the driver had seen the truck in front pull away and thought the traffic might be moving away, hence the overtake, although we'd point out you'd want to wait until you're not on a bridge with a blind summit, perhaps?
Anyway, after that we get the rev of the engine mid-overtake, the emergency stop when the brake lights come on in front, a little chuckle from the rider, a wonderfully sarcastic thumbs up for the impressive manoeuvre and, of course, as is required for any MGIF (must get in front), the cyclist then sails on by as the queue of traffic comes to a standstill. Lovely stuff.
Once we'd scrolled past the replies defending the overtake, many seemingly applying US traffic rules to this situation filmed in the UK, we found the comments complimenting the rider for having perfected the sarcastic thumbs up, and another whose plays "car leapfrog" themself.
That is, the commenter explained: "My favourite game when riding in the city. Cars [drivers] are always doing incredibly risky manoeuvres to pass me between lights only to brake hard behind the next car. Then they have to watch me pass them and cross the intersection ahead. City drivers could save on fuel and brake pads if only they coasted slowly between intersection bottlenecks. Instead they have an innate predisposition to slower moving road users. What good is it to pass a cyclist yet gain nothing?"
Summing up the mixed response to the video, we'll end with a comment by someone called... *checks notes* Poetic_Shart... "This sub is full of idiots. If the cyclist was a car and got cut off like that everyone would be up in arms. The bias against cyclists is ridiculous. People have to learn some patience or get off the road."
Right, that's probably enough Reddit for one day...
12:37
"We made it difficult for the police to ignore": Cyclist leads police to serial bike thief in DIY sting operation – after spotting stolen bike on Gumtree
12:18
"Underwhelmed by the money for active travel": Your reaction to the Budget
Some of your thoughts...
eburtthebike: "I'm disappointed with the response from CUK and Sustrans, but I suppose they have to deal with the government in the future and don't want to prejudice those dealings, but Carlton Reid nails it.
The £100m doesn't even approach restoring the Tory cuts, which the chancellor could easily have done, justifying it by the huge return on investment, and as Mark Sutton says, it's just a drop in the ocean, not unprecedented levels of funding.
"The only positive thing to be said is that it isn't a cut, but given the increasing pace of climate change, obesity and the cost to society of car obsession, it should have been ten times that."
FionaJJ: "I'm equally underwhelmed by the money for active travel and the reaction from Cycling UK and Sustrans, but agree the response is most likely to be a pragmatic one with the calculated hope that staying positive will reap more rewards in future budgets. Building a healthy working relationship and having the ear of those in power is important at this stage of the electoral cycle."
Rome73: "100 million is nothing - but it's better than nothing. Freezing fuel duty to save the average motorist £59 over 1 year is also pathetic. But it's politics and everyone knows that cars come first."
Steve K: "For me - and nothing to do with cycling - the most depressing transport thing is to increase the bus fare cap at the same time as freezing fuel duty, not even reversing the emergency 5p cut. That cut was brought in because of rising petrol prices; it's currently about 30p less per litre than it was at that point. There is no justification for prioritising keeping that now unneeded cut over bus journeys."
hawkinspeter: "I'm with Carlton on the budget - such a tiny amount of money to allocate to the most effective investment we have. I was hoping that Labour might be forward-looking, but they're just looking backwards at the impossible personal motor car dream that the manufacturers spent a lot of time and money advertising."
11:36
"I do not care how much it costs. I want it to work good": Legendary customer asks bike shop mechanic to upgrade $250 Walmart ride with DT Swiss wheels, Shimano GRX and dropper post in $3,000 upgrade spree
Okay, a bit more Reddit for the morning's blogging, mainly because this is a bit of us...
[rentdue_nofoodforyou/Reddit]
The Bike Mechanics Subreddit has had its mind blown by one US-based mechanic's tale of how one customer racked up a "ridiculous abomination" of a ticket by asking for $3,000 of upgrades to be put on this $250 Walmart gravel frame.
DT Swiss wheels, Shimano GRX groupset and dropper post (that's yet to arrive) later and this is the end result. "I do not care how much it costs. I want it to work good," the regular customer apparently told the mechanic, giving the green light for upgrades totalling 12 times the value of the original bike.
The mechanic continued: "[He] skipped out on nothing, and I'm pretty sure if we didn't stop him, he would've let us put $7K into it. DT Swiss rims, hubs, and bladed spokes. He asked about a Chris King bottom bracket and headset, but maybe that's for next time lol. $85 tyres. Zoom in on the 203mm front rotor and all the configuration it took it make things work great. This was awesome to be honest.
"It rides how you'd expect an upgraded Walmart frame to ride. Shifting and braking work great, but something still feels… off. Definitely not something I would notice if I hadn't been doing this for a while, but my customer is very happy and that's all that matters."
It's been dubbed The Bike of Theseus by one of the astonished Reddit users to comment on the post. To save anyone out of the loop, like myself, that's after the Theseus' paradox — a thought experiment that raises the question of whether an object that has had all of its components replaced remains fundamentally the same object.
Another top comment added: "Wow! Well, all he has to do is upgrade the frame someday, if he wants to."
Another comment said: "These frames are not garbage like a lot of other Walmart bikes. Both this one and the OT MTB get pretty good reviews for what they are and I think the intent is to provide a decent foundation that you can build on as you progress as a rider. Incrementally replace parts as you need them and as your skills and needs advance. I really like the idea of making very affordable bikes that aren't absolute garbage to ride. I'm sure a lot of potential riders are turned off by heavy, shitty, poorly designed and specced BSOs from box stores."
To which the mechanic who did the work said: "I totally agree! It's one of the reasons we agreed to do this for our customer. It's been getting a lot of compliments as the project progressed from other customers."
11:07
Green Oil hit by i-Ride collapse... but launches world's longest bike brush
Green Oil has suffered as a result of i-Ride, a major UK cycling distributor, entering administration.
The brand told us it was still "owed thousands of pounds", a "huge hit for a small operation", bad timing as it has just launched its Green Oil Wet Chain Lube in Prevented Ocean Plastics and the world's longest bike-cleaning brush... in the words of David Brent... "You're still thinking about the bad news, aren't you?"
Made entirely from sustainably sourced wood, the aptly named Green Oil Massive-Brush takes the crown as the world's longest production bike cleaning brush and has been designed to last over a decade, Green Oil tells us. Its aim is to be better than five cheap brushes and combines a claw brush, spoke brush, frame brush, tyre brush and drive chain brush in one. A Basil short of a full house.
It's priced at £47.99 for the Massive-Brush 1.0 and £52.99 for the Massive-Brush SLR.
"Cheap brushes out there look like good value," Green Oil says. "Five in a pack. Made of plastic. £25- £35. But why not have one decent brush for the whole bike? Should we support British Manufacturing and sustainable forestry? Yes. Should we use everything made of plastic and leave bits of plastic bristle in the environment? Hell no. The Massive-Brush is Plastic Free, it has over 5 different uses, and it's designed to last over 10 years."
10:55
Airbag bib shorts could become a reality in 2025
09:36
A "slap in the face" and not what was promised? Cycling community reacts to Budget
So, how has the Budget gone down in the cycling world? The response has been... mixed. Cycling UK gave credit to Labour for "recouping additional £100 million funding for cycling and walking infrastructure", but others have questioned if this goes far enough?
Critics of the new Labour budget, including Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer, have expressed frustration at the discounted fuel duty, with some describing the funding allocated to cycling as a "drop in the ocean".
Transport journalist Carlton Reid said it is not the "unprecedented level of funding" in cycling that Transport Secretary Louise Haigh promised was coming after the election victory. "Meanwhile, motorists get yet another fuel duty freeze. Climate change anyone?" Reid asked.
One reply to Carlton's post on social media called it "staggering" that Boris Johnson "is still the first AND last Prime Minister to do anything for cycling". Another said yesterday's Budget had "absolutely shafted active travel".
Harry Gray from Walk Ride Greater Manchester called the £100m "a slap in the face".
"A single junction can cost £1.6bn - we are talking about change in the bottom of the pocket being spent on walking and cycling," he wrote. "Gear Change under Boris Johnson had us up at £300m a year. As a side note, I've heard word on the grapevine that the £500m pothole funds will be available for local gov to spend on active travel too. Also, we are not clear if Greater Manchester and West Midlands are included in the £100m because of devolution.
"Alongside the freeze on fuel duty, this isn't the ambitious budget we were expecting."
London's Walking & Cycling Commissioner Will Norman said the £100m was "great to see", although Donnachadh McCarthy, the founder of Stop Killing Cyclists and director at Climate Media Coalition, replied saying he was surprised to see Norman's assessment and suggesting it was "better to stay quiet".
"Another £5.7b giveaway to car sector," he wrote. "£0.1b 'extra' for cycling is the same old breadcrumbs that will NOT build a national cycle network needed for health, kids safety, climate & pollution reduction."
Any more thoughts on the Budget? Get them in the comments and we'll share some later...
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
Latest Comments
- andystow 1 sec ago
No loitering, unless you're doing your duty.
- Rendel Harris 16 min 14 sec ago
It was indeed originally sold as an ebike jacket on the basis that the rider would be making less effort. The manfacturer claims some breathability...
- lesterama 30 min 14 sec ago
Looks decent value. I wonder how it rides.
- jon m 32 min 11 sec ago
C62 SLT is £2999, not £2499 Still very cheap for Ultegra Di2...
- Another_MAMIL 46 min 9 sec ago
Indeed. While it makes sense to start with the professionals, I agree the older cyclist could be where the sales volume lies in the long term....
- Sriracha 1 hour 17 min ago
In the photo ol' Bill has them.
- Clem Fandango 1 hour 21 min ago
£300m today, so the actual final cost..... who the F knows. All so as drivers we can sit stationary in more lanes than before. Sweet.
- Secret_squirrel 1 hour 24 min ago
Wot no Wahoo Systm (including Sufferfest)?...
- Andrewbanshee 3 hours 40 sec ago
Same for me. Parked cars blocking the oncoming lane. Didn't stop a drivist gunning towards me. I held my ground as he kept shouting for me to...
- hawkinspeter 3 hours 30 min ago
I cycled past a flipped car last night on Cranbrook Rd, Bristol but it doesn't seem to be reported anywhere. Quite impressive as it was fully on...
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22 comments
All through the Massive Brush video, I see a brush being useless at cleaning a bike, with big black streaks where he just used it.
Also, I don't think I've ever seen a guy as enthusiastic about a product as purple hair man at 0:12.
And when talking about pointless MGIFs...
https://youtu.be/S7enDsD5bpc
"Mum settles legal action over air pollution death"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yx6leg4nqo
Ironically, Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah is against LTNs.
https://www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/nick-ferrari/appalling-councils-f...
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/ella-adookissidebrah-rep...
Cycling will be more dangerous due to council clampdowns, say campaigners (Gruniaad)
Critics of cycling bans in city centres say they unfairly punish cyclists and push them on to congested roads
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2024/oct/31/cycling-clampdowns-city-cou...
Shame the article didn't do a better job of distinguishing between legal EAPCs and illegal electric motorbikes "ebikes". It was alluded to, but wasn't made at all clear.
Also would have liked a bit more generally commentary on PSPOs, which I think give local authorities too much power to criminalise people without proper scrutiny (this article is old but nothing has changed https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/sep/08/pspos-new-control-orders-public-spaces-asbos-freedoms).
Also enjoyed this nugget:
I.e. we want people to come and spend time in the town centre, but as long as they don't spend too much time there. (And also nicely highlights my previous point - it's now criminal to simply spend time in a public place).
Whats the betting that if I turned up in a nice smart polo shirt and loitered in the middle of the town centre for a few days no-one would notice.
While if one of my younger (bame) colleagues turned up in a scruffy hoody and loitered while eating a sandwich/coffee bought in said town centre they would be fined/kicked out within 5 minutes...
I can't see a 'no loitering' PSPO being used for anything but criminalising anyone the enforcers want to criminalise - your only loitering if we don't like the look of you...
But isn't that the common attitude? I'd wager pretty much everybody you asked on the Clapham Omnibus would think that an electric motorbike (or as one blog I read puts it, "a smokeless moped") and a legal EAPC are the same thing.
Part of the problem is how much public space is actually pseudo-public space, and actually owned/managed by a private company (like Business Improvement Districts). Wasn't there a William Gibson novel where everyone has to have a credit check on them before they're allowed into any shopping malls or other public places?
No loitering, unless you're doing your duty.
For me - and nothing to do with cycling - the most depressing transport thing is to increase the bus fare cap at the same time as freezing fuel duty, not even reversing the emergency 5p cut. That cut was brought in because of rising petrol prices; it's currently about 30p less per litre than it was at that point. There is no justification for prioritising keeping that now unneeded cut over bus journeys.
Politicians don't tend to last long if they're completely technocratic.
I share a number of the frustrations about the budget.
As an EV driver I got a very unwelcome letter on Wednesday telling me in effect that the government doesn't make enough in VED from taxing petrol and diesel vehicles so I would now have to pay VED at the current normal tier (i.e. £190 per year). Meanwhile, people who bought dirty diesels through the 00s and early 10s under the "old" VED system will be paying a fraction of that (it was £20 on my 2010 A-class). So whilst it is necessary to levy VED on my vehicle which doesn't emit anything in order to raise funds, we aren't willing to tax the people that actually do the f-ing emmissions. Its very frustrating.
More interestingly, until you realise how little it is, was the extra money for road maintenance - however £500m vs the c. £16bn to fix all the pothole is again a drop in the ocean. But its alright, we can continue to fund motorists to the tune of £5bn plus per year.
Just imagine what we could do with £5bn - one obvious example is that that's the roads across the country being meaningfully less shit within 3 years - with knock on benefits to people property not getting trashed by poor quality infrastructre. And then at least when the motorists yell about paying for the roads they might have a bit more of a leg to stand on!
EV's are heavier, create more particulates and road damage. Not excusing the ridiculous budget of course.
I don't think the particulate bit is true. Regenerative breaking means there are not creating brake dust.
I don't think the particulate bit is true
It might be- they're all really heavy on big, fat, noisy tyres pushing out tyre dust. Diesels ought to be the greater menace, depending on how effective DPFs are
Life cycle assessment of electric vehicles.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969721079493
The only serious way to address overshoot of multiple planetary boundaries is to reduce global resource use to about 30% of current. At this point the term 'sustainability' is more than marketing wash.
I'm with Carlton on the budget - such a tiny amount of money to allocate to the most effective investment we have. I was hoping that Labour might be forward-looking, but they're just looking backwards at the impossible personal motor car dream that the manufacturers spent a lot of time and money advertising.
It's symptomatic of the system we have that we 'laud' breadcrumbs.
I was expecting fuel duty to be raised, it's an ideal time, world oil prices are low, pump prices are low too so banging up duty would've been lower impact than it was last year when petrol and diesel were over £1.50/l.
As a whole, the budget was 'more of the same' with no account taken of the elephant on a skateboard thundering towards us in the form of climate change and environmental breakdown.
There is no point being forward looking if you lose the next election and based on the astonishing amount of anti-Labour media since day one and the fact most Tory voters probably wouldn't have any issue blaming Brexit and the last 14 years of shit leadership on Labour somehow, you can't just go in all guns blazing.
Its nice to think that a radical and massively unpopular policy would win the hearts and minds of people by the time the next election comes around but it won't. People are squeezed financially at the moment so upping fuel duty would be deeply unpopular.
Labour can either try and move towards a better country whilst toeing the line on unpopular policies and hopefully get a decade or more to do things or they can go down in a blaze of glory, have most of their changes undone and the country in another mess in 10 years which they have to start again on.
We tend to be very idealistic on here when perhaps a slice of realism is necessary. Doesn't matter if people are the dregs of society or have completely the wrong views on everything. Their vote is as good as yours and Labour wouldn't even be this position if our voting system was proportional representation.
I get your point, but investing in active travel infrastructure can be easily justified by many studies on return on investment. I suppose I'm looking for a rational, analytical style of governing rather than the knee-jerk follow the newspapers populism style.
In 2016, the Conservative Government invested 316m I think? Now your beloved Labour throws you a 100m pitance. The delusion so many of you have, is that you think Labour are any different. Political parties are nothing but crime syndicates, only looking after themselves. Conservative, Labour, LibDem; they don't care about you, they really dont, yet they sucker you in to vote for them and have you trash other parties all day long. Public opinion needs to change, to affect more support for cycling infra investment, but that wont happen while hate-filled one-sided NPC mob sites, such as this one, propogate conflict. Honestly, this site has fast become a mirror of the Telegraph, for the hate and niave one-sided view on everything. You should merge into one site, you all deserve each other, you really do. Now cue my buddy Rendal, to respond with more hate, name calling and prove the point again, as he always does - thanks buddy!
They've got 5 years. If they can encourage people out of cars and on to bikes then those people will experience the freedom of cycling along with the improvements in physical and mental health that go with it. That in turn will reduce demand for NHS and social services. If that doesn't convince enough people to reelect tham then we may as well give up.
Same happens to me all the time, riding or driving, if I keep a safe driving distance (2-3 sec.) between me and the vehicle ahead, it never fails, another driver will pass and occupy that little space!