“If you want to ride on the road, get a car”: Sky News Australia presenters call for “all bikes to be banned from all roads” – and brand recumbent cycle a “kid’s toy” – after lorry driver almost hits motorist in “crazy near miss” + more on the live blog

Don’t we all love an ill-informed TV panel discussion about cycling?

Over the years, we’ve been treated to plenty of frothing bike-themed gibberish on morning shows and news debates, from Richard Madeley, Timmy Mallett, and Howard Cox going at it over cycling number plates to Judge Rinder chatting cycle insurance and Mr Loophole’s biweekly tour of any TV or radio studio that will have him.

But, like they do in most things, the Australians have upped the ante this week, airing their own panel discussion/diatribe about cycling that was so bizarre – and frankly, so unwarranted – that it would leave even Madeley, Piers Morgan, and Mike Graham blushing (alright, maybe not Mike Graham).

> “Cyclists are running riot!” Richard Madeley, Timmy Mallett, and Howard Cox ‘debate’ bike number plates on Good Morning Britain – as Fair Fuel UK founder claims cyclists “don’t contribute anything financially to the roads”

On Sky News Australia’s ‘Sunday Showdown’ segment, where a panel of five broadcasters and contributors get together to shout ‘real news and honest views’ at each other while laughing hysterically for no reason, they decided to show a dashcam clip of what host Caleb Bond described as a “crazy near miss” on Main South Road in Adelaide, involving two car drivers, a lorry driver, and a cyclist on a recumbent tricycle recently.

Describing the footage, Bond said: “So, you have the bloke on the recumbent cycle riding on the side of the road, the car behind him has slowed down to wait for an opportunity to overtake, and the truck – which is obviously running up his arse – has had to hit the brakes and nearly hits the oncoming vehicle.

“Well, the driver of that car, who was nearly hit by the truck, says that bikes should be banned from that stretch of road – which opens up another question: Are there other places where cyclists should be banned, especially if they wear Lycra and have large guts?”

Crikey. That escalated quickly. So, let me get this straight. A lorry driver is driving up another motorist’s arse, and ends up on the other side of the road, and almost into an oncoming vehicle, because the car in front slowed down slightly.

But, in the warped world of Sky News Australia, it’s the cyclist’s fault?

Don’t worry, though – it gets worse.

“What the hell was that person thinking riding… it looks like a kid’s toy, these trikes,” says co-host Caroline Marcus, who obviously came prepared with research about recumbent cycles and their uses.

“I’ve ridden one around Centennial Park in Sydney, you don’t ride one on a 100kph road frequented by huge trucks, and buses, and cars. It is an absolute danger to everyone on the road,” she continued.

“We see it in Syndey all the time, with these insane bike lanes everywhere. If the cyclists are going to have those bike lanes, there have to be roads that are just for the big vehicles too. And if you want to ride on them, get a car.”

Shout, shout, shout, laugh, laugh, laugh

But surely that’s as bad as it’s going to… No, wait, the old white man in the corner’s about to pipe up. It’ll get worse.

“Not some, ban all bikes from all roads, forever – simple solution. It’s the only intelligent solution,” says the obviously hyper intelligent Kel Richards.

“You can never have bicycles mixing with steel traffic, it can never be safe. But they think they’re so morally good, because they’re saving the planet remember, and they’re safe because they’re in Lycra.”

Ah brilliant, we’re back to Lycra. Not that it would take long for the ‘discussion’ to drift back to recumbents and how they’re so morally repugnant, of course.

> Aussie police sergeant warns cyclists to “stay off” busy roads and “don’t put yourself in harm’s way”, as Sky News asks “Are cyclists annoying us?” – a month after two riders seriously injured in deliberate hit-and-runs

“Can we at least just start by banning those bicycles in particular?” asked another overly confident, ill-informed, shouty male panel member. “They take up a lot of road, and what goes through a person’s head to think, I want to get fit but while lying down?”

Please, please, could someone, anyone, at Sky News Australia give Wheels for Wellbeing a ring before letting their presenters come out with this ableist nonsense?

“I’m actually quite a keen cyclist, or at least I used to be when I lived in Berlin, where it was very safe to get around on a bicycle, because there was a co-operative spirit on the roads,” adds the final panel member, to gasps from her co-hosts.

“But I don’t think that works in Sydney, where drivers have much wilder ideas about how to use the roads. And I do think that’s a case for bicycle lanes – I know that’s not always a popular argument around here – and I’m delighted to see lots of new bike lanes.”

Finally, some common sense. For a moment, at least.

> "Grant Shapps should be congratulated": Frothing talk shows and Mr Loophole discuss number plates for cyclists

“But there are clearly some areas where bikes should not be, and that video was one of them, obviously,” she continued, before bringing up “dangerous” e-bike riding delivery couriers, who she nevertheless admitted she feels sorry for, thanks to their navigation maps often directing them towards motorways.

“Maybe we need a bike app, which says this is somewhere you cannot go.”

Or maybe all Australians should just be given a remote, so they can turn off Sky News and not have to listen to this rubbish. Real news, honest views, my arse.

I’m sure Eliot, Wordsworth, Frost, or Dickinson would have given anything to come up with a line as profound as ‘For the lanes sit empty, mile after mile, But, oh, those council folk ride in style!’

Beautiful, moving stuff. And yes, the anti-cycle lane lot are getting odder by the day, I agree.

> “They’ll carry on with their cycle crusade, while we’re stuck in the mess they made”: Local paper publishes bizarre anti-bike lane poem protesting council’s “new crazy scheme”

Hold on a second, is that you Sylvia Bike Plath?

I’ll get my coat…

 

 

 

 

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Paddy’s road to nowhere (alright, Glasgow) continues today, with the Chopper-riding charity cyclist tackling the longest day of the whole challenge, 67 miles from Preston to Kendal.

Before heading to the Lake District, and those Chopper-killing hills, he managed a quick stop at Blackpool Promenade, where it was just revealed that he’s already raised almost £325,000 for Children in Need.

Fair play all round.

> New parking bays and automatic “slow zones” mean Lime can continue operating e-bikes in Brent

Fancy getting your head kicked in on Zwift every Tuesday? (No, that’s not a trick question.)

Well, just in case you’re up for a midweek suffer fest, we still have a few spaces in our two Zwift Racing League teams (B and C) for the upcoming season.

Racing starts tonight at 6.45pm GMT. So if you’re interested, plonk your details in at this link.

Trust me, we need all the help we can get…

He may have only just officially retired this week, but Mark Cavendish has wasted no time adapting to post-racing life, reportedly setting up a new role for former Hour Record holder Alex Dowsett as Astana Qazaqstan’s full-time performance engineer.

With Cavendish himself now set to step into an ambassadorial or managerial role at Astana, the 39-year-old has been seemingly busy on the recruitment trail, lining up fellow retired Manx pro Pete Kennaugh for a sports director role at the Kazakh squad, with the news that Kennaugh is swapping his punditry role at ITV for a stint in the team car expected to be confirmed soon.

And now, Daniel Benson has reported that six-time British time trial champion Alex Dowsett will now follow Cavendish and Kennaugh to Astana, joining the team in the newly created role of performance engineer, after helping them out on several occasions this year.

Dowsett, who retired from the pro peloton in 2022 after racking up 15 victories on the road during a 12-year career, including two stages at the Giro d’Italia, was viewed as one of the most thorough pros when it came to aerodynamics, tech, and clothing, which contributed to him briefly holding the Hour Record in 2015.

The 36-year-old helped Cavendish throughout this season, on the way to the former world champion’s record-breaking 35th Tour de France stage win, while he also worked with Alexander Vinokourov’s son Nicolas in the wind tunnel ahead of the Zurich worlds.

According to Benson, Dowsett will focus on Astana’s equipment, and has already attended training camps which saw the squad fitted out with their new XDS Carbon bikes, after switching from Wilier Triestina.

(Zac Williams/SWPix.com)

After turning professional in 2011 for Team Sky, the 36-year-old from Essex picked up 15 victories on the road, including six British time trial championships. In 2013, riding for the Spanish Movistar team, the time trial specialist won a gruelling 54.8km rolling race against the clock at the Giro d’Italia, ten seconds ahead of then-reigning Tour de France champion Bradley Wiggins.

Seven years later, Dowsett repeated the trick at the Italian grand tour, this time in the colours of Israel Start-Up Nation (which he joined in the aftermath of Katusha-Alpecin’s collapse), with a rare victory on a road stage, attacking his breakaway companions to solo to what the British rider described at the time as a “career-saving” victory in Vieste.

In May 2015, Dowsett set a new UCI Hour Record of 52.937km, a mark that was surpassed a month later by Wiggins. Dowsett gave the Hour another crack in November 2021 but fell short of Victor Campenaerts’ then-benchmark of 55.089km.

Since retiring, he has raced a number of time trials in the UK, while raising awareness of the blood clotting disorder haemophilia, with which he was diagnosed when he was 18 months old.

Cyclists in Sheffield were warned to “be vigilant” after a dog walker reported finding “a length of wire-filled electric fencing mesh” strung tight and at head height near a popular beauty spot, which he described as “clearly intended to do harm”.

Read more: > Cyclists warned as latest wire trap “clearly intended to do harm” found on trail

In case you missed it last night:

> Long-running bike shop “no longer commercially viable”, closes after 35 years in business