Happy ending for NHS worker whose bike was stolen while he worked in Covid ICU; Richard Carapaz lays down some watts; Sir Dave Brailsford helps England's rugby team; Summer's coming; Bike thief caught; Record viewing figures + more on the live blog

Ive always appreciated ITV4's support and coverage.  I hope this does not herald a move of other cycling events exclusively onto subscription platforms.

Hopefully ITV4 will still do highlights, if not live.

well Ned Boulting seems to have confirmed via Twitter thats still the case for ITV4 (and so it should be), whilst the press announcement specifically does note the deal,though its not clear if it means just the Tour of Britain or includes the Womens Tour as well (but lets presume it meant both) is not exclusive to Eurosport/GCN in the UK or France.

but digging into the press release, it talks about "digital destinations", aka its the Eurosport/GCN app subscription service isnt it. its not Eurosport turning around and saying hey lets not show that repeat of an 8hr snooker final from last year to fill time on our channels when we have live sport to show, its go subscribe to our app service and then you can watch this stuff live, and hope you can mash up a setup that streams it onto a viewing platform you want.

now some people might be ok with that, live broadcast of cycling on tv isnt cheap or easy, so especially for womens cycling its a step in the right direction, but for all the fanfare of it, come June assuming the race even takes place, alot of people are going to be disappointed I think trying to find coverage, only to find by then theyve got to pay 40quid to watch something they may only have interest in for a few days.

Sriracha wrote:

Quote:

Only eight more weeks until the clocks go forward.

Yup, I'm guilty of scanning ahead in my weather app to rejoice prematurely at the prospect of extra daylight to come. One thing I don't understand - the clocks go back at the end of October, but they stay back well beyond the point at which the day has recovered to the same length, which comes some time around mid Feb. Even going by sunrise time, we are back to where we switched by the end of Feb. Yet we drag it out another month until even after the equinox before going back to summer time. Why?

Suspect it has something to do with Scottish farmers? For example, in the middle of February in the Highlands the sun doesn't rise until 7.50 GMT, so putting the clocks forward then would mean they'd be in darkness until nearly 9am in the hours when much of the work of a farm is done.

Schoolchildren too... (remember when they were allowed to go so school), they would have their trip to school in the dark if the clocks did not move later.

Rendel Harris wrote:

Sriracha wrote:

Quote:

Only eight more weeks until the clocks go forward.

Yup, I'm guilty of scanning ahead in my weather app to rejoice prematurely at the prospect of extra daylight to come. One thing I don't understand - the clocks go back at the end of October, but they stay back well beyond the point at which the day has recovered to the same length, which comes some time around mid Feb. Even going by sunrise time, we are back to where we switched by the end of Feb. Yet we drag it out another month until even after the equinox before going back to summer time. Why?

Suspect it has something to do with Scottish farmers? For example, in the middle of February in the Highlands the sun doesn't rise until 7.50 GMT, so putting the clocks forward then would mean they'd be in darkness until nearly 9am in the hours when much of the work of a farm is done.

Surely farmwork is governed by the sun, not the clock. I'm sure the cows don't know what time it is, even in Scotland.

Sriracha wrote:

Surely farmwork is governed by the sun, not the clock. I'm sure the cows don't know what time it is, even in Scotland.

My (limited) understanding is that it is also to do with things like getting milk sent off by a specific time in order to get it processed and on supermarket shelves.

Sriracha wrote:

Surely farmwork is governed by the sun, not the clock. I'm sure the cows don't know what time it is, even in Scotland.[/quote]

Well no, because farmers still have to  get their kids to school, go to the bank, do their shopping etc. If all they had to do was work dawn to dusk without any other committments that would work, but they do have a right to a normal life too!

And actually cows do know what time it is, they need to be milked at the same time each day, twice a day, whether it's light or dark, and obviously the more it has to be done in the dark the more onerous it is for farm workers, the greater risk of accidents, etc.

Rendel Harris wrote:

And actually cows do know what time it is, they need to be milked at the same time each day, twice a day, whether it's light or dark...

Exactly - and that time does not change with the clocks (which is what I meant). So the farmer's day does not change with the clocks either.

Anyway, none of this gets me any closer to knowing why the changes into and out of GMT are not symmetrical. Why do we remain in GMT until days are longer than equinox when we don't enter GMT until days are well shorter than equinox? By any parity with the start of GMT we should exit some time in Feb, not wait until end of March.

Sriracha wrote:

Quote:

Only eight more weeks until the clocks go forward.

Yup, I'm guilty of scanning ahead in my weather app to rejoice prematurely at the prospect of extra daylight to come. One thing I don't understand - the clocks go back at the end of October, but they stay back well beyond the point at which the day has recovered to the same length, which comes some time around mid Feb. Even going by sunrise time, we are back to where we switched by the end of Feb. Yet we drag it out another month until even after the equinox before going back to summer time. Why?

The simple answer is to align us with other countries, particularly Europe. Though that doesn't really explain why we or they coalesced around that particular arrangement.

Historically it's started all over the place - from late Feb up to May, via diversions into double summertime and all-year-round summertime - until the current arrangements were solidified in 1972.

mdavidford wrote:

The simple answer is to align us with other countries, particularly Europe.

The way things are looking, we're more likely to align our clocks with Samoa or New Zealand...

Indeed I do recall years ago there was a month where we overlapped with the continent, before we aligned our changeover dates.

I hear all the arguments about school kids (although dark evenings are the greater danger for them apparently) and farmers and indeed Europe - but none of that answers the question; why do the parameters of day length and sunrise times which trigger the change in October not likewise apply in reverse - why the asymmetry? Whether you be a Scottish farmer, schoolkid or European.

The only thing that comes to mind is maybe Scottish farmers are up to things of a February morning that don't obtain in October?

The current arrangement with Europe wasn't set in 1972. I was in Germany from1973 on and for years the clocks were moved about three weeks apart from the UK. The Germans still piss and moan about changing the clocks and I'm convinced that those that moan fail to understand that keeping CET (winter time) would mean people on the east side would get daylight around 3am in June. 

Hose

Well, yes - I should perhaps have said 'particularly European ones' rather than 'particularly Europe' - the EU only fixed a single standard some time in the 2000s, so whatever we did we would still have been out of sync with some European countries.

In any case, though, I more meant that that's why we've hung on to the current arrangement, rather than carry on messing around with it, as opposed to that's why it was adopted in the first place.

I always loved what the Indian Chief said about daylight saving time:

"Only the white man could cut a foot off the bottom of a blanket, sew it to the top, and say he had a longer blanket."

Speed pedelecs assist to 45kmh, and helmets are mandatory for them (as they're effectively mopeds). The only e-bike helmet standard I know of is NTA 8776 from the Netherlands. It sounds like this is designed to meet that standard.

Helmets aren't designed for encounters with vehicles.

For bicycle helmets, I believe it's the vertical speed that the helmet will hit the ground, so forward speed is not relevent. So, the 27mph could imply that ebikers heads are higher up when biking?! Or that the MIPS copes with higher rotational forces when experiencing the friction of the road surface?

Helmets are designed to limit head acceleration, not prevent injury. What the impact is with  is irrelevant. Neither is the direction, they are merely tested at different angles using a drop test because it's a simple way of achieving uniform testing.

Philh68 wrote:

Helmets are designed to limit head acceleration, not prevent injury. What the impact is with  is irrelevant. Neither is the direction, they are merely tested at different angles using a drop test because it's a simple way of achieving uniform testing.

Are you sure about your facts?  I thought the helmet was designed to dissapate energy during decelleration (ie when your head hits something stationary and goes from moving to not moving)

hirsute wrote:

Do ebikes do 27mph ?

Not over here, but in the US where preumably this is aimed many states allow a top speed of 30mph.