MP accuses council of creating "Battle Royale" over cycle lanes after angry motorist drives over wands; Unicycle commuting; Prolific bike thief banned from station cycle parking; 38 million unused bikes; Active travel boost + more on the live blog

The comments in the argus are very similar to other rags regarding cycle lanes. A group of people so angry about anything cycling related. Having read quite a few of these I have come to the conclusion that they are all cabbies comments. Angry fat bastards who spend their entire day shouting at other road users might feel their business is being taken away from them as people choose to use bikes instead of cabs.

Decent R5 turbos were hard enough to find in the 90s never mind now. Idiots would try and ram 2 bar boost through them and grenade them or they became bodykit victims and never recovered. I haven't seen one for years now I come to think about it. You're more likely to see a Sinclair C5. 

Funnily enough I saw my first one of these in probably 2 decades, blatting past me up a local hill last week.   Looked minty too.

Quote:

 You're more likely to see a Sinclair C5.

I can see one of those quite easily on my rides.
 

EK Spinner wrote:

MP Peter Kyle, seriously, when did you last see a Renault 5, never mind a "souped up" one, any still existing high perormance R5s are now very cherised classics and it would seem very unlikly that the owner would start using it a battering ram.

Start your story with unbelievable rants and the rest is just mince

In fairness there's one just round the corner from me usually parked in the street. A rather cool gen 2 in silver. A few roads up there's a Renault 4, used daily. Not really the point of the article but he may well be absolutely right about the car. 

Indeed! According to howmanyleft.co.uk there are just under 800 Renault 5s left on the road, with the Turbo being the most 'common' at just 287 examples. Like you say, it's very likely that they are all cherised and well looked after, not deliberately trashed on road furniture.

My immediate thought. There's no way somebody owning a classic (5's ceased in 1995 I think) would ram wands. Causing damage to body work or spin their tyres. They tend to drive in a sedate manner showing off their vehicle. There's a Mark1 Escort and an Austin Elevenhundred my way. Both in pristine condition and both driven with utmost care. The Escort has a roll cage and spec'd as a rally car

Renault 5, Lancia Delta or Audi Quattro?

We have many bicycles in our family. In the last few months I've given away two. One went to a friend who had mentioned he was thinking about taking up cycling again because of the pandemic. He was delighted and uses it a lot. The other went to my son's school. I'd been given the latter, a brand new but low end MTB by a client. I didn't need it so donated it to my son's school, suggesting that perhaps a low income family with someone as a key worker would appreciate it. This was accepted gratefully and was also highly appreciated.

I think I've one more bike at the moment that's probably surplus to requirements. The partner of the bloke I gave one bike to is now showing interest in taking up cycling again also, so it might go there.

I don't mind giving bikes away. But if I do, I want them to be used. Some years ago I gave a perfectly good MTB I'd built to another friend, who later confessed he'd never used it and instead allowed it to rust in his garden. I wish I'd kept it now as it rode really well.

When I gave the hybrid I'd reconditioned (a neighbour had chucked it out, so I asked if I could have it and fixed it up) to the guy who was restarting cycling I did so on the proviso that if he realised he wasn't interested in cycling he'd either give it back to me or to another friend or neighbour who'd use it. I didn't ask for money, I just wanted it used.

Be surprised. 2 knackered old bikes in my MiLs garden (been outside for teh past couple of decades) have jut found new homes.

I'm about to replace my MTB (nice Cotic on order, roll on May!). My ClaudeButler Cape Wrath Disc is 17 years old. I'm staggered that it's retained enough value  I can expect to get half what I paid for it

Mrs Badger's old ridiculously heavy Carera Vulcan is also going for a similar amount. 

People want bikes, and if they can't afford new, or can't wait, they'll go for what they can get.

Carlisle has a place called 'Rebike', where they take old bikes, do them up, then sell them on. It's non profit making. They also help re skill people and help the unemployed. They have real bargains and quite a few different types of bikes. Most cities must have the same...

Sriracha wrote:

"Do you have an unused bike collecting dust?" No, but I've got an old hoover in the corner. (Yeah, the old ones are the best!) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-28838287

That BBC site is brilliant for all of the one liners in the comments section.

So you did - somehow I missed that. 👍

My garage looks like a bike shop!

Eventually, VED is going to be replaced as more zero emission vehicles hit the road. So, as some motorists keep banging on about how they pay to use the road, maybe there should be a road tax that actually takes into account the amount of road you use?

I'm thinking something based on vehicle footprint and weight (to consider the space consumed and damage caused to surface) which is then applied for every road journey (to make people think about the necessity of each journey).

I would think they will find a way to tax the lecky used by cars. Maybe multiplied by a fudge factor made up from unnecessariness quotient of the vehicle and its coefficient of obnoxiousness.

Add in a "Road tax" multiplier. The number of times they have moaned about cyclists not paying the non existant tax in the last 3 years is their multiplier.

Sriracha wrote:

I..... unnecessariness quotient of the vehicle and its coefficient of obnoxiousness.

Love it!

I think a tyre tax would work well:

- effectively charges for miles driven without intrusive tracking and reporting

- can be made roughly proportional to the weight of the vehicle and thus the damage it causes to roads

- if a tyre failed early, this could be documented at the shop that replaced it, and a credit issued against the tax on the replacement tyre

- discourages doing burnouts and drifting around corners

- downside: may encourage more people to drive on unsafe bald tyres

- tyres used only on private racing events could be untaxed