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Plop-up cycle lane; 75% of cyclists experience road rage; Cyclist sentenced for assault on teenagers posting Black Lives Matter signs; Nick Ferrari claims LTNs are "apartheid"; Cut bike locks found outside hospital; Racing is back + more on the live blog

It's Wednesday and Dan Alexander is here to take you through the middle of the week on the live blog...
Wed, Feb 03, 2021 09:09
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Plop-up cycle lane; 75% of cyclists experience road rage; Cyclist sentenced for assault on teenagers posting Black Lives Matter signs; Nick Ferrari claims LTNs are "apartheid"; Cut bike locks found outside hospital; Racing is back + more on the live blogCycle lane portaloo (Al Ó Baoighill Facebook)
03 February 2021, 16:59
WorldTour jerseys as bathroom junk thread

Some quality pro cycling jersey x bathroom items content if you're into that sort of thing. Personal favourites have to include: FDJ as Colgate Total, Intermarché–Wanty–Gobert Matériaux as citrus clean Head & Shoulders and Trek Segafredo as Sudocream. Who wouldn't want to be compared to anti-dandruff shampoo? 

03 February 2021, 16:31
Plop-up cycle lane
Cycle lane portaloo original post (Al Ó Baoighill Facebook)

Handy if you ever get caught short, although admittedly quite difficult to see if anything's coming the other way. This photo was shared on the Bristol Cyclists Facebook page by Al Ó Baoighill who says when he returned it had been moved back to the other side of the road...

For more crap cycle lanes, check out this Essex bike route which gained notoriety last July with one user making the bold claim that it's Britain's worst cycle lane.

03 February 2021, 15:41
Cofidis' Christophe Laporte wins opening stage of Étoile de Bessèges
03 February 2021, 12:02
Three quarters of cyclists victims of road rage

A new survey in Australia found that three quarters of cyclists have been victims of road rage. The survey was conducted by the Royal Automobile Association (RAA), with 81 per cent of respondents saying they'd been cut off by a driver despite having right of way. In total 39 per cent said they'd been knocked off their bike by a vehicle driver, while 65 per cent had a car door opened in front of them. Between 2015 and 2019, 2,518 cyclists were injured and 26 killed in crashes, according to Southern Australia Police figures.

Additional responses from the survey showed that 85 per cent of cyclists actively avoided major roads without bike lanes, 58 per cent avoided riding during peak traffic hours and 45 per cent avoided large roundabouts.

In response to the survey, news.com.au were contacted by a cyclist who'd had numerous close calls. "I pick and choose when I ride so I don't have to ride on major roads when they're busy to try and avoid drivers," Mark Habel told the website. "You assume that people aren‘t looking or won’t stop or that someone would open their door without looking, (and) trying to ride to suit that. You’re not going to win against a car."

In 2017, a similar survey in the UK found that 63 per cent of cyclists had experienced aggressive behaviour from motorists. How do your experiences compare to these figures? Is road rage sadly just an inevitable part of being a cyclist? Or can something be done to reduce the amount of road rage incidents? 

03 February 2021, 14:56
Dame Sarah Storey recruiting two new female amateur riders to join the ŠKODA DSI Cycling Academy
Dame Sarah Storey Skoda Cycling Academy (via Skoda Cycling Academy)

Applications are open for female amateur riders looking to earn a spot on Dame Sarah Storey's ŠKODA DSI Cycling Academy. The academy provides a university-style programme for female cyclists aged between 17-22 as a route to the elite level of the sport. During their time with the team, riders are provided with the performance, nutrition and media skills required to be a pro cyclist as well as competing at some of the UK's most prestigious races. The team's 2021 schedule includes racing the Women's National Road and Circuit Series as well as ŠKODA sponsored events such as L’Etape du Tour, La Course, the Women’s Tour and the Tour Series.

Applications are open until Friday March 5 when succesful applicants will be chosen to attend a testing day on March 29 at Lee Valley VeloPark. Anyone interested in applying can do so by following this link.

03 February 2021, 14:23
03 February 2021, 14:08
British Cycling cancel several rounds of the HSBC National Road Series due to the pandemic

British Cycling has announced several rounds of the 2021 HSBC National Road Series, some of the UK's premier domestic races, have been cancelled due to the pandemic. The Tour of the Resevoir (men's event), Alexandra Tour of the Resvoir (women's event) and Stockton Cycling Festival Grand Prix (men and women's events) have been cancelled at the request of the race organisers. The Rapha Lincoln Grand Prix, originally scheduled for May 9, has been postponed and will not take place on its original date. However, British Cycling stressed the organisers are continuing to look for alternative dates later in the year.

In a statement the organisers of the Tour of the Resevoir and Alexandra Tour of the Resevoir said: "We and Project Genesis are still committed to 2022, when we will be able to give Consett, its citizens, and the sport itself an event worthy of its status, and also an event that can pay its respects to Mike Hodgson, the event’s organiser for 37 years, who passed away last April due to Covid-19."

Due to the changes the Women's CICLE Classic will be the opening race of the women's series on Sunday June 27, while the men's calendar opens with the Beaumont Trophy on Sunday July 4.

03 February 2021, 13:10
03 February 2021, 12:50
Cyclist sentenced for assault on teenagers posting Black Lives Matter sign

A judge in Washington DC has sentenced a man to three years of probation after he pleaded guilty to assault charges for an incident last June where three teenagers were confronted for posting Black Lives Matter signs. The cyclist, Anthony Brennan III, was accused of assaulting the teenagers on the Capital Crescent Trail after spotting them putting Black Lives Matter flyers along the popular bike route.

In the video, one of the teens can be heard shouting "leave her alone" and "do not touch her" as Brennan tried to take the posters off one of the girls. He then used his bike to charge at the man filming the altercation. The video has been viewed millions of times and featured on several US news channels. If Brennan re-offends during his probation he can be sentenced to up to three years in prison.

WJLA reports the cyclist blamed his actions on alcoholism and frustration and that he spent months in rehab following his arrest.

03 February 2021, 11:33
Nairo Quintana hoping for successful return to racing after a winter in Colombia recovering from knee injury that kept him out of action since September
Nairo Quintana during the 2020 Tour de France (picture credit Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com)

Nairo Quintana told Caracol Radio about his struggles to recover from a knee injury. The Colombian has been training at home in Boyacá over the winter but will return to Europe next week ahead of his first race of the season, hopefully at the end of the month. Quintana has not raced since the Tour de France in September due to a cartilage issue in his knee.

"From the first moment I have been working on what the injury has left. It is logical that we are not at a high level, the injury has delayed everything, in general we are doing well, we have worked on the bike and the feeling is good," Quintana said. 

The Arkéa–Samsic climber has eyed the Giro d'Italia as his primary goal for the coming months as well as riding for the French team at the Tour. "My intention is clear, I like the Giro a lot, I have participated twice, in one I was first and the other second. I want to repeat it again, I want to return to the podium, we hope that one of the invitations will be for us," he confirmed.

03 February 2021, 10:53
Geraint Thomas back racing after Giro d'Italia crash
03 February 2021, 10:28
Nick Ferrari claims LTNs are an "apartheid"

Nick Ferrari is a regular critic of LTNs. In 2017 fellow LBC host James O'Brien hit back at Ferrari's complaint about red light jumping cyclists by saying "any argument against cycling is an argument in favour of pollution, obesity and death". And, as highlighted before Christmas, the radio presenter has made anti-LTN arguments on his radio show despite reportedly having benefited from living in one for years. 

Ferrari was back arguing against the schemes on his morning show, this time claiming that LTNs are an "apartheid". In the full clip above, Ferrari argues: "All the vehicles are on the same road. So if you're on a leafy side street you've got a plant pot so nobody can drive past you. Your children can cycle around, play football.

"If you're on one of those main roads all the traffic: the buses, the taxis, the electric bikes and carrier bikes. And you just breathe in the fumes. It is an apartheid. The poor people on the roads can die, the rich people in the leafy side roads they're fine on the other side of the plant pots."

In November, analysis by Transport for London found that Hackney's LTNs have not resulted in higher traffic levels on five nearby A- and B-roads.

03 February 2021, 08:50
More cut bike locks found outside hospital where NHS worker's bike was stolen as he worked on Covid ICU ward

Yesterday evening we brought you the story about one NHS worker getting reunited with their bike that was stolen a few days earlier while they were working on a Covid ICU ward. Unfortunately, this is the less cheerful side of the story. Outside the same hospital where that bike was stolen, the London Cycling Campaign (LCC) found evidence of more thefts with cut D-locks scattered next to the bike parking area. 

LCC added that over 20,000 cycle thefts are reported in London each year and that a third of people whose bikes are stolen will give up cycling. In their 'New Cycle Parking Strategy for London', the LCC argued reducing bike theft required: "Secure cycle parking at home and at destinations is the obvious answer. TfL has identified the problems and its proposed solutions reflect LCC’s longstanding advice, as well as international best practice.

"New developments will benefit from the improved minimum cycle parking standards in the London Plan that LCC and TfL have backed, but retrofitting existing buildings is necessary as demand grows and incentives for employers have worked before and could prove an answer again."

Dan Alexander

Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.

Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.

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33 comments

Avatar
OldTom | 3 years ago
12 likes

Ferrari is right. It's apartheid. What you've got is places where people can play and cycle in reasonable safety in urban areas and then many, many more places in urban areas where they can't because of the number of motorised vehicles. We need to do something to get rid of this apartheid by reducing in number the latter areas and increasing the former. Well spotted Nicholas.

Avatar
Hirsute | 3 years ago
2 likes

Lardy oik thinks he should get to go ahead because he is bigger and fatter.

And driving with flip flops on...

Still his journey was so time constrained, he was able to stop and eff and blind for a couple of minutes and stop the traffic at the end.

Avatar
brooksby replied to Hirsute | 3 years ago
3 likes

hirsute wrote:

Still his journey was so time constrained, he was able to stop and eff and blind for a couple of minutes and stop the traffic at the end.

They always can...

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GMBasix | 3 years ago
7 likes

"Cyclist sentenced for assault on teenagers posting Black Lives Matter sign"

or
"Racist sentenced for assault on teenagers posting Black Lives Matter sign"

or
"Alcoholic sentenced for assault on teenagers posting Black Lives Matter sign"

or
"Man sentenced for assault on teenagers posting Black Lives Matter sign"

or
"First Amendment opponent sentenced for assault on teenagers exercising their 1A rights"

... but no, he had a bike, so he's a cyclist.

Avatar
hawkinspeter replied to GMBasix | 3 years ago
8 likes

That is literally what cyclist means.

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Rendel Harris replied to GMBasix | 3 years ago
0 likes

If he'd been in a car and bashed them with it it would have been "Driver sentenced...", if he'd been jogging it would have been "Jogger sentenced..." Don't think this is a legitimate "unfair media" example.

Avatar
Sriracha replied to Rendel Harris | 3 years ago
1 like

I think the test is, is it relevant? Or are they simply using it as a device to attach opprobrium to the category?
The bloke could have been many things, all of which are true, most of which have no bearing on the story.

Avatar
Rendel Harris replied to Sriracha | 3 years ago
0 likes

Sriracha wrote:

I think the test is, is it relevant? Or are they simply using it as a device to attach opprobrium to the category? The bloke could have been many things, all of which are true, most of which have no bearing on the story.

News people like to attach a description to those involved in a story, otherwise it's just "person attacks person." The fact that the victims were teenagers isn't relevant but that's mentioned too. If the headline was in the Daily Mail one might pause to consider whether the name was being used pejoratively (and it almost certainly would be) but this is Road.cc's own headline, I assume we aren't accusing them of trying to fuel the war on cyclists?

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Captain Badger replied to Rendel Harris | 3 years ago
1 like

Rendel Harris wrote:

If he'd been in a car and bashed them with it it would have been "Driver sentenced...", if he'd been jogging it would have been "Jogger sentenced..." Don't think this is a legitimate "unfair media" example.

Not sure about this. Jogger, cyclist granted. Driver? that's something we all do. And he clearly isn't like us. No true driver....

Obvs it depends on the reporter. I suspect that our esteemed friend Mr Ferarri might report it differently to, say, George Monbiot

Avatar
Awavey | 3 years ago
14 likes

If three quarters of cyclists have been victims of road rage then I can only assume the remaining quarter are infact just indoor cyclists

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HoarseMann replied to Awavey | 3 years ago
6 likes

I think that 25% covers the road rage motorists who say "I'm a cyclist too".

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eburtthebike | 3 years ago
11 likes

Nick Ferrari; if he thinks LTNs are apartheid, he really does need a history lesson, and maybe a chat with a few South Africans who really did suffer it.  He's either stupid or suffering click starvation.

What next Nick, concentration camps?

Avatar
Captain Badger replied to eburtthebike | 3 years ago
7 likes

eburtthebike wrote:

....

What next Nick, concentration camps?

Give him time, it's only Wednesday afterall....

Avatar
brooksby replied to eburtthebike | 3 years ago
0 likes

eburtthebike wrote:

What next Nick, concentration camps?

No - that's Jeremy Corbyn's brother, allegedly claiming that the Covid vaccination system is just the same as a Nazi concentration camp...

Avatar
fwhite181 | 3 years ago
17 likes

I'll never understand any argument against unfettered car access that is based on 'but if we reduce access to cars in this place it's unfair on the people living in areas where cars can get to the road from both ends'. Surely that's an argument for universal LTNs, with only a few dedicated through roads for cars (we could call them, I don't know, Motorways?) so that everyone can benefit from low traffic roads where the only drivers are likely to be residents? Active travellers could benefit from the enormous network of smaller urban roads and cars can still get to everywhere - just not via all those little roads! 

I also don't understand why anyone is letting any commentator get away with suggesting that LTNs reduce accessibility. Cars can still get to anywhere on the road network, it just means that rat-running isn't possible.

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Podc | 3 years ago
11 likes

At least NF is acknowledging that our excessive use of the internal combustion engine is killing people. He just wants everyone to share that burden equally. Except for him in his LTN 

 

 

 

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Steve Garratt | 3 years ago
7 likes

Oh dear, appears even heavy D locks are no longer a guarantee of security. Wretched Iithium battery disc cutters! The only solution now is if you have to use a bike which will be left secured, best to just use as I do, a very unattractive cheap machine for that purpose.

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open_roads | 3 years ago
11 likes

Nick Ferrari is part of the problem.

Putting aside the fact he's obese and could personally benefit from more active travel, his main beef with LTN's seems to be that it inhibits unfettered use of cars.

Ferrari drives / is driven every day from Blackheath to Global Radio's studio in central London. He also likes to drive up Regents Street and complains this now takes too long.

 

Avatar
OldRidgeback replied to open_roads | 3 years ago
3 likes

The drive is sending him nuts. I can appreciate why he might not want to use public transport during the pandemic, but in normal times it'd be a lot quicker and a lot less frustrating. The transport links into town from Blackheath are really rather good. 

Cycling would of course do him a lot of good given his BMI is not what you'd call healthy. I appreciate he'd have to grind up a hill on the way home but in the long run, the work out would extend his life.

Avatar
Captain Badger | 3 years ago
11 likes

RE NHS cycle thefts and facilities. So all the "Our NHS", "Brave frontline workers" rheotric, and claps in the street is simply communal back slapping without any effort into understanding what people need and actually providing it. Any practical support such as funding, pay, staffing and facilities are nice to haves.

Oh come off it Badger, you already knew this, it's been demonstrated time and time again......

 

Avatar
eburtthebike replied to Captain Badger | 3 years ago
10 likes

At the very least there should be secure cycle parking at all NHS sites.

When a 100 year old war veteran has to stagger around his garden to raise money for the NHS, there is something very wrong indeed with our universal healthcare system.  The government's slogan "Protect the NHS" is hugely hypocritical, unless they mean they want to sell it as a going concern of course.

Avatar
Captain Badger replied to eburtthebike | 3 years ago
4 likes

eburtthebike wrote:

At the very least there should be secure cycle parking at all NHS sites.

When a 100 year old war veteran has to stagger around his garden to raise money for the NHS, there is something very wrong indeed with our universal healthcare system.  The government's slogan "Protect the NHS" is hugely hypocritical, unless they mean they want to sell it as a going concern of course.

I remember wanting to vomit seeing Blowjob banging on about "our NHS". Of course he didn't mean "ours" as in the public's. He meant "ours" as in his and his rich chums.

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brooksby replied to Captain Badger | 3 years ago
0 likes

I don't imagine Johnson or his colleagues have set foot in an NHS facility as a patient for a very long time.  They can afford to pay to get seen quicker than the plebs...

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open_roads replied to brooksby | 3 years ago
1 like

"I don't imagine Johnson or his colleagues have set foot in an NHS facility as a patient for a very long time."

Er, you do know BoJo was in intensive care last year, don't you?!?

Avatar
Captain Badger replied to open_roads | 3 years ago
2 likes

open_roads wrote:

....

Er, you do know BoJo was in intensive care last year, don't you?!?

Saint Blowjob. Slumming it with the plebs.....

Avatar
brooksby replied to open_roads | 3 years ago
2 likes

open_roads wrote:

"I don't imagine Johnson or his colleagues have set foot in an NHS facility as a patient for a very long time."

Er, you do know BoJo was in intensive care last year, don't you?!?

Ah, but was he in a bog standard NHS hospital or was he in some special private place staffed by anthropomorphic cat nuns?

 

(sorry, was watching old Doctor Who).

Avatar
eburtthebike replied to Captain Badger | 3 years ago
0 likes

Captain Badger wrote:

I remember wanting to vomit seeing Blowjob banging on about "our NHS". Of course he didn't mean "ours" as in the public's. He meant "ours" as in his and his rich chums.

That would be the same Boris who boasted about visiting a covid ward and how he had shaken hands with everyone, and later, allegedly, got covid?  I'm beginning to think the entire population of the UK was very naughty in a previous life to have deserved this.

Avatar
open_roads replied to eburtthebike | 3 years ago
3 likes

"When a 100 year old war veteran has to stagger around his garden to raise money for the NHS, there is something very wrong indeed with our universal healthcare system"

He didn't raise money for the NHS. He raised it for the NHS Charities Together.
 

The nhs budget is also increasing c£35B  from 2019 to 2024 (around £24b in "real" increase due to inflation) - that's net of the c£20B put in for covid and writing off the debts of NHS debts.

The "selling the NHS" Is also a political trope given that private sector activity (by value) is barely changed on when Labour left office - as an aside, growth in private sector activity in the NHS was highest between 2002 and 2008.

Avatar
OnYerBike replied to open_roads | 3 years ago
8 likes

open_roads wrote:

He didn't raise money for the NHS. He raised it for the NHS Charities Together.

But when you look at what NHS Charities Together do with that money, a lot of it is things that really ought to be within the NHS's remit to begin with. 

Avatar
Captain Badger replied to OnYerBike | 3 years ago
7 likes

OnYerBike wrote:

open_roads wrote:

He didn't raise money for the NHS. He raised it for the NHS Charities Together.

But when you look at what NHS Charities Together do with that money, a lot of it is things that really ought to be within the NHS's remit to begin with. 

Quite. Charity is a great indicator of government failure 

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