Live blog: Video: Close pass driver stops and (wrongly) tells cyclist he must use cycle lane - huge row ensues; Van driver in Ireland fined for shockingly fast close pass; Alex Dowsett educates Twitter user on riding two abreast + more

The Plymouth Herald article is a rather wandering dissection of the bikes vs cars argument, but entertaining and worth a read.  It seems it acheived its aim, to get lots of replies and clicks, and expose some of the more anti-cyclist posters.

That van pass in N.I. was just beyond belief. Now that, is a close pass worthy of the term. I can’t believe the cyclist didn’t get decked by the side draught. 

I had a look at Rich Energy timeline this morning after seeing a tweet from Jason Plato and couldn't see anything untoward then read this article and it all came clear. Some of the replies her are good.

https://twitter.com/jasonplato/status/1138400317945602048

Incredible restraint and patience from the cyclist in the close pass video.

I found myself thinking "just fuck off" at the Merc driver just a few minutes in, but it wasn't until 13 minutes when the cyclist in a somewhat exasperated voice resorted to a still reasonably polite "Would you please just fuck off".

Chapeau, sir! 

The dick in the Mercedes has form - there’s another close pass video with the same car.

The police need to have a word, or better still find a reason to seize his car and crush it before he kills someone.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=62FVyFwP64k

The lady in Plymouth who foolishly used her horn and shouted at the group of youths on bikes, and was treated to "unexpected" abuse, don't.  There is only one thing to do, nod in approval, declare "Skillz" to the best wheelie, and wish you were that young and fearless.

It never fails to astound me how many people are so lacking in self awareness that they will cause an obstruction (on double yellow lines in this case) to rant at someone that they perceive is causing an obstruction.

What an absolute C*** the driver. Plenty of evidence of using car as a weapon. Then when he realised he had no coherent argument, waffles

That MerceBMW would have had a big scratch and/dent down the side of it if he'd driven it at me like that!

He had a tendency to make impressive statements, which on further investigation or consideration were not quite what they seemed.

Most people describe this as lying.

And easily shown to be lies. Wow, he must be really stupid!

I was once told by a motorist not to ride 2 abreast.

I was on my own.

True story.

Interesting delve into who Rich Energy are "The further people went down the rabbit hole on Rich Energy, the weirder things got. America’s F1 team might just be partnered with a company without the means to sponsor it, fueled by a flipped Zimbabwean tobacco farm and investments from a soft-core porn billionaire. It’s charming, in the context of Rich Energy’s brand." - https://jalopnik.com/what-you-find-when-you-look-into-rich-energy-the-my...

For the record, its not a BMW in the close-pass sweary bloke video, its a Mercedes (CLS63 AMG, just the ticket for urban use with its 6.3 litre V8... it does sound good though)

Close pass BMW driver...

It's actually a Mercedes!

I just read the High Court judgement - interesting reading (for an IP attorney at least).   Her Honour was not particular enamoured:

"Conversely, I found both Mr Storey and Mr Kelly to be poor witnesses.

Mr Storey provided different and inconsistent accounts of the development of D1’s Device, which also conflicted to a large extent with the evidence of Mr Kelly. He often did not answer questions directly, preferring to make speeches about his vision for his business or alternatively seeking to evade questions by speaking in generalities or in the third person plural. He only answered several questions when I intervened. He had a tendency to make impressive statements, which on further investigation or consideration were not quite what they seemed. For example, when Mr Wyand in cross-examination tried to understand his evidence about the sales figures of Rich Energy drinks, and put to him that he had been quoted in the press in February 2019 as saying that the First Defendant had produced 90 million cans, Mr Storey explained that it had produced 90 million cans, but had not yet filled and sold them. He said he would have to check the figures, but in 2018 he thought the First Defendant had filled and sold “circa 3 million cans” of Rich Energy drink. In another example, he stated in an impassioned fashion that he was “not in the business of trying to create a world-class business by taking any inspiration from anybody else whatsoever”, but his own written evidence was that his starting point when thinking about developing a logo was to carry out logo research on what other drinks companies were doing, and to carrying out internet searches on stag head logos used by other companies. For reasons which I set out below, I am satisfied that some of Mr Storey’s evidence was incorrect or misleading and that he was involved in the manufacture of documents during the course of litigation to provide additional support for the Defendants’ case."

So the BMW's registration plate ends with WTF?     

Another perfect example of someone who's in such a hurry that they're willing to stop, block another road user, and rant at them for a quarter hour...  Honestly.

Very impressed with the cyclist's responses, though - not losing it or shouting back, and lots of "Sir"s (they like that ).

Excellent.

(That said - I probably would have had my lights on  )

Can't see 'Rich Energy' getting many fans after that twitter rant..  I sort of felt a bit sorry for them, until I realised the owner of rich energy is just some privileged investor type who's ploughed some money into a company so he can get in the pits and buy some cool friends, sad.  Good riddance @rich_energy 

In due course you have to feel that there's going to be insufficient popcorn in the world for that Rich Energy/Whyte story

Don't know if it's faked but there's also a pic of Romain Grosjean (Haas/Rich Energy driver) on a well-abused Whyte bike in that twitter thread. Awks

I'm always wary of people who stick their qualifications in their twitter handles or email sigs. Yeah, I get they're probably Really Proud and all but is it really that relevant?

As to the question abreast means "side by side and facing the same way"

I take that to mean riding torso to torso, so perfectly reasonable to be echeloned out a bit

And in that particular case we don't know whether the outermost rider is going through and off.