“Get on the f***ing road!” Angry pedestrian confronts cyclist for “riding on the pavement” – while standing in front of shared-use path sign; National Cycle Network or cyclocross course?; “Why I stopped complaining about cyclists” + more on the live blog

Here on the live blog, we’re well used to reading articles in the national press – usually penned by lethargic, uninspired journos frantically scrabbling around, hours before their deadline, for something that will generate a few clicks and keep the editor happy – deriding cyclists, for whatever reason sprung to their tired minds first.

While there have been far too many of these paint-by-numbers ‘Cyclists are horrible’ diatribes to keep count of over the years (Jake Wallis Simons must account for at least 100 of them by now), one still manages to stick out in the mind.

Back in 2015, Metro writer Yvette Caster wrote one of the more inflammatory of the hundreds of anti-cycling articles that have littered our screens, as she cobbled together a well-worn list of cliches and bingo comments under the headline ‘Cyclists are a menace and should be banned from the roads’.

Her rather insipid piece (despite its hell for leather headline) relied on tropes based on MAMILs, Lycra, red lights, and ‘speed demons’, while claiming people on bikes are “holding up traffic, causing accidents and generally being a total liability on the modern highway”, and even inspired a satirical response on road.cc.

> Bart Chan demolishes Metro columnist's anti-cycling rant

Well, fast forward eight years, and it seems Caster – like Hank Williams before her – has seen the light.

Writing in the Guardian yesterday, she described the “caustic” backlash to her Metro article, during which “furious hordes accused me of stirring up hate, of encouraging reckless, criminal motorists and of indirectly putting cyclists in danger”.

“Cyclists who had been knocked off their bikes and people whose cycling relatives had been injured got in touch,” she wrote. “I was horrified but also convinced that most motorists were careful, sensible and well-meaning, so the accidents must have been tragic, rare, isolated incidents.

“Looking back now, I understand their rage better. I thought I’d thrown a stick on a campfire, but I’d poured petrol on an inferno. According to the Department for Transport, about 100 cyclists die on British roads every year. In 2022, 4,056 were seriously injured and 11,546 slightly injured.”

Those tight deadlines make it difficult to Google, I’ll give her that – but at least she’s found the DfT’s website now.

She continued:

When I wrote the piece, nowhere I had ever lived, which included cities across the country, seemed suited to cycling, and I, like my friends, viewed cyclists as eccentrics. I grew up in a remote country village with two buses a day: one into town, one out.

There were no pavements or bike lanes and no safe way to walk or cycle the eight miles to town – and there still isn’t. I could not understand why anyone would take the risk of cycling down windy country roads when 4x4s existed, or pedal through London, a place where everyone seemed to hate cyclists.

But my attitude changed during lockdown. There was no lightbulb moment – but suddenly the noise of the roads was gone. Cars were no longer important because we weren’t allowed to travel. In their absence, instead of traffic outside my window I heard birdsong. A strange kind of peace descended. Nature grew louder.

Caster claims her lockdown revelation inspired her, after it broke down, to give up her car and embrace public transport.

“I went from disliking cyclists to wishing there were more on the roads,” she added. “Looking at the article now, I know it was written by a thoughtless younger version of myself, putting clicks before people. I’ve come to appreciate those taking journeys that save us from pollution.

“I wish my town, and Britain, could repay cyclists’ and pedestrians’ efforts with an infrastructure to help them go everywhere, safely.

“Some friends still see cyclists as a nuisance. Others see me as odd for staying car-free… I’m even planning to try cycling. Just don’t ask me to wear Lycra.”

> We don’t need vigilante cyclists like Cycling Mikey – because “cyclists already own the roads”, says Spectator article

So is Yvette’s (somewhat) conversion enough to atone for her sins from 2015?

“I’m cynical,” says road.cc reader peted76 in the forum. “But I’ll take it and more turncoats just like her also please. A drop of goodwill towards cyclists in an ocean of hate.”

“I choose to believe the writer has in fact changed their outlook and is not simply jumping on another way of generating ‘clicks’,” added HoldingOn.

Maybe the road to Damascus was actually a cycle lane all along…

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by Freddy Ovett (@freddyovett)

Not jealous, not jealous at all (he says, while wearing three layers sitting in the office)… 

Some good news now (hurrah!) from Oxford, where teachers are waxing lyrical about the recent surge in the number of children cycling to school, described by two local Green Party councillors as a “quiet revolution”.

Writing in the Oxford Mail, Green councillors Lucy Pegg and Chris Jarvis say while there “has been a gradual uptick in walking and cycling to school in recent years… this academic year the change feels seismic”, with St Mary and St John Primary School (SSMJ) and Larkrise Primary in East Oxford witnessing a “huge increase” in the number of pupils and staff arriving by bike.

According to the councillors, the official School Streets programme at Larkrise, as well as SSMJ’s unofficial decision to ask parents to stop driving near the school, has made it safer for children to cycle, while the implementation of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods in the wider catchment areas have made walking, cycling, and wheeling the “default choice”.

“It’s much easier to get families starting in Reception to walk or cycle, than it is to persuade those who have got into the habit of driving to switch to active travel,” the councillors wrote. “With East Oxford’s streets feeling safe, this year’s reception intake have been empowered to walk and wheel to school.”

> “We needed to act”: Parents set up unofficial guerrilla School Street after several near misses for children cycling on narrow road used as shortcut by motorists

Meanwhile, teachers at the schools say the growth in cycling has meant that there is now an urgent need for more infrastructure, including bike racks, at the schools.

Ellie Armstrong, Deputy Headteacher at SSMJ, said: “We have a huge number of children cycling and walking to school. The last time we measured it was 82%, and I think it will be even higher now. This academic year, we’ve really run out of bike space for children, parents and for staff – and we’ve just ordered more stands.”

At Larkrise, where cycling and walking numbers have jumped from 65 to 85 percent in three years, the chair of governors Patrick Vale said: “Our bike racks have been overflowing since the start of the year. It’s excellent to see so much cycling – but our facilities haven’t caught up yet and we know we need more stands.”

> School bike racks destroyed by speeding, out-of-control motorist, as pupils and teachers stage protest demanding introduction of 20mph limit

“It’s absolutely incredible now to watch so many kids walking, scooting and cycling down the hill,” says mum-of-two Jane.

“The school gates used to be really stressful and dangerous with cars manoeuvring everywhere, and it feels such a lot calmer now. There’s so many different types of bike and trailer and the bike racks of all sizes are always crammed.”

Treinando pra batalha do sprint! 🙃 pic.twitter.com/vC9QKsqS98

— BikeBlz (@BikeBlz) November 26, 2023

Remember Tadej Pogačar’s attack on the Champs-Élysées during the final stage of this year’s Tour de France? You know, when the Slovenian cast aside the niceties of the race’s largely ceremonial romp through Paris, enraged the sprinters’ teams, once again ripped up the racing rulebook, and had fans everywhere fist pumping the air?

Well, Nathan Van Hooydonck certainly does.

Despite Pog languishing over seven minutes behind Jonas Vingegaard on GC – following his jour sans to Courchevel – the yellow jersey’s Jumbo-Visma teammate Van Hooydonck was still tasked with marking the team’s biggest rival on the boulevards of Paris.

And the UAE Team Emirates rider wasn’t hanging about, enjoying the architecture, as Van Hooydonck’s power numbers revealed after the stage.

Fancy taking a turn, Nathan? (Zac Williams/SWpix.com)

The big Belgian domestique – who was forced to retire from the sport in September, at the age of 28, after being diagnosed with a cardiac arrhythmia following a car crash – told the De Rode Lantaarn podcast this week: “I couldn’t take turns when I was attacking with Tadej Pogačar on the Champs-Elysées. I tried and did it once, but that was to slow down and recover.

“I think I did my best 20-minute power numbers of the whole Tour in Tadej’s wheels.

“[Jumbo-Visma DS] Grischa Niermann said I was allowed to take turns. We had an advantage of seven minutes so we didn’t care about two minutes. I saw Tadej moving up with Jonas in my wheels. Jonas told me to follow him, but when I looked back he wasn’t there anymore.”

My legs hurt just thinking about it. And don’t worry Nathan, we’ve all done a turn purely designed to slow the pace down in the group at least once in our lives – just not with Tadej Pogačar, of course…

Despite missing most of this Olympic cycle, Laura Kenny has confirmed that she is aiming to return to the boards in time to compete at next summer’s Paris Games, where she hopes to add to the five gold medals she’s achieved so far during one of track cycling’s most glittering careers.

Britain’s most successful female Olympian, Kenny suffered a miscarriage in 2021, before having surgery due to an ectopic pregnancy two months later. She gave birth to a second child, Monty, in July this year, and has not raced since the 2022 Commonwealth Games.

But, speaking as part of Team GB’s The Journey documentary series, the 31-year-old remains intent on making it to Paris next year.

“I obviously want to compete in the next Olympics,” Kenny said. “I know everyone thinks I’m absolutely mad in saying that, but if I don’t try, I’ll never know.

“I would hate to be sat here thinking, ‘well I never even gave it a go, to see whether I could make it possible’.”

(Alex Broadway, SWpix.com)

Kenny’s gold medal in the Madison alongside Katie Archibald at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, along with her silver in the team pursuit, came after the birth of her first child, Albie, in 2017 – but Kenny knows that it won’t be easy to replicate such a comeback.

“The two different comebacks between Albie and Monty have been so different,” she said. “With Albie, I came back feeling like I had a point to prove, that you could be a mum and you could be an Olympic champion all at the same time.

“I think this time, I’ve come back for me. I’ve come back very much because I love riding my bike, and I cannot imagine it not being part of my life.

“I hope both children see their mum as someone who was determined to make things work. They will never have the burden of thinking ‘mum had me and then ended her career’, because I didn’t.

“I carried on, I made it work. I hope they look back and they can see that, and they can see that from the day they were born, they were part of the journey.”

(Alex Broadway, SWpix.com)

While Kenny’s coach Len Parker Simpson conceded that the seven-time world champion has a “mountain to climb” to earn her place in GB’s endurance squad and once again challenge for an Olympic medal – arguing that the current level of competition on the track is “streets ahead of where it was” – you wouldn’t put it past Kenny returning to the top once again… and maybe, just maybe equalling her husband Jason’s unsurpassed record of seven Olympic golds.

Now that would be a story.

After the revamped and rebranded AG2R squad’s brown short-less launch in Lille yesterday, we took a deeper dive into the bikes and equipment from Decathlon’s in-house performance road cycling brand set to grace the sport’s biggest events in 2024:

> 2024 Van Rysel road bikes and kit for newly-named Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale unveiled (and the prices aren’t too outrageous)

Move over Dublin, there’s already a new contender for this winter’s ‘muddiest cyclocross course’ crown…

Ladies and gentlemen: The National Cycling Network. pic.twitter.com/NDZwX9RrKX

— Tony (@onetwotony) November 26, 2023

What? You’re telling me this isn’t a thoroughly entertaining lap around a field on a Sunday, but is actually a part of National Cycle Network 75, between Hilton and West Auckland in Co. Durham? Well, I never…

“I appreciate it’s been wet recently but it surely this isn’t acceptable?” Gaz asked on Twitter/X.

“I’ve known this lane for decades and it was always crap in winter. Surely needs de-signing or resurfacing. It is so annoying. We de-signed a route on South Tyneside last year that was better quality than that.

“The unpredictability of the NCN is one of its biggest problems.”

> Signposted bike path or river? Another contender for the UK’s most waterlogged cycle route

Responding to the criticism, a spokesperson for Sustrans North said: “I can’t tell exactly where this is but it looks like this section is owned by the local authority. I’ve asked the local officer for insight into the removal/reclassification process of the Network – and why this bit might have been excluded from that, so hold that thought!”

Though I’m sure NCN 75 won’t be the last terribly flooded cycle route we’ll see on the blog before the sun re-emerges in the spring…