Chris Froome mistaken for 'leisure rider' on French TV after being turned back due to forest fires; Presenter Storm Huntley hit by driver; Vigilante arsonist?; Schrödinger's cyclist; Vuelta team news; LTN thoughts + more on the live blog

I thought you were being facetious until I discovered that you refer to a takeaway !

hirsute wrote:

I thought you were being facetious until I discovered that you refer to a takeaway !

Look Mum No Hands! is more of a cycle cafe and bike workshop than a takeaway - the original one is anyway - there's another in Hackney which may be a takeaway.

Think most people come back from a Centre Parks holiday thinking "well, it was alright, but not worth the size of the hole in my wallet".

I was looking at the edge and wondering how long it would last ...

Cycle path right at the end looks overgrown but don't tell your local Cllr !

What is the point in putting in a nice wide shared path and then allowing half of it to become overgrown. What a waste of money.

Did Hirsute respond to the wrong OBE post and wverybody followed suit like cars at a red light. Or did OBE edit both posts to reverse them?

I replied to "It's infrastructure, anything..."

The JV vine wasn't there when I posted.

I do oldest to newest order when viewing.

It is threaded as the reply to JV so you probbaly clicked the wrong one if he posted that fast (if OBE edited one it might have pushed it newer as well as the JV one is older on my view).

However It is more that every other reply followed suit that made me chuckle more. 

No, I added a second post moments after the first once I saw Jeremy Vine spaffing over Twitter on a quiet day in August.

I'll post remarks far slower in future.....

Owd Big 'Ead wrote:

It's infrastructure, anything is better than nothing, but to call it top class is subjective. It's the usual woeful approach from Sustrans who still haven't learnt a thing from our Dutch and Danish neighbours.

Oh well, at least someone is happy.....

Exactly. I saw a badly laid bit of tarmac (look at those edges....), which just happened to be going the same way as the rider wanted in this instance.

infra means that all people get the opportunity to go quickly, safely and efficiently by bike or foot to their distination, and requires fully integrated transport policy.

Well I suspect it was just a footpath originally and was adopted as a cycleway, rather than someone thinking hey let's build a cycle path next to the A259.

Captain Badger wrote:

Owd Big 'Ead wrote:

It's infrastructure, anything is better than nothing, but to call it top class is subjective. It's the usual woeful approach from Sustrans who still haven't learnt a thing from our Dutch and Danish neighbours.

Oh well, at least someone is happy.....

Exactly. I saw a badly laid bit of tarmac (look at those edges....), which just happened to be going the same way as the rider wanted in this instance.

infra means that all people get the opportunity to go quickly, safely and efficiently by bike or foot to their distination, and requires fully integrated transport policy.

I think that is the cycle lane from Newhaven to Seaford, in which case it is relatively good.  There's a bit of loose gravel, there's a car park entrance you have to negotiate and then ride through the car park, there's dog walkers, runners, families etc to be aware/wary of...but it is quite long, and you do feel protected from the motorised morons.  It ends abruptly in Newhaven where you have to cross the access road for a small shopping development including several of your favourite fast food restaurants, which is always brilliant (!) but the end at Seaford comes out on the sea front which is very wide.

Daveyraveygravey wrote:

.....I think that is the cycle lane from Newhaven to Seaford, in which case it is relatively good.  There's a bit of loose gravel, there's a car park entrance you have to negotiate and then ride through the car park, there's dog walkers, runners, families etc to be aware/wary of...but it is quite long, and you do feel protected from the motorised morons.  It ends abruptly in Newhaven where you have to cross the access road for a small shopping development including several of your favourite fast food restaurants, which is always brilliant (!) but the end at Seaford comes out on the sea front which is very wide.

I shall defer to your knowledge of this stretch

Not sure that lone women (or in fact anybody) will be too keen to use it after dark.

Meanwhile, in the Netherlands

Pavement parking really boils my p***, and I am now old and grumpy enough that I have started challenging people when I see them doing it (e.g. last week: Me: please don't park on the pavement, park on the road. Driver: but then I'll be in the way of that bus stop. Me: why have you parked by a bus stop then? EDIT: Her: why don't you get a job, etc)

But, without endorsing it, I can understand the psychology because of the relative volumes of pedestrians vs cars - chances are, a car is actually going to inconvenience fewer people when parked half on the pavement (leaving room for pushchairs, wheelchairs etc) than it is if parked fully on the road.      

Most of the pavement parking round here still leaves a gap on the road of 1.5 cars so if the misguided approach is to allow traffic flow, then it shows they can't work out clearance.

I think they are really doing it to stop a scratch for some driver who can't drive properly.

Yeah, depends on the road obviously. I can think of larger suburban roads round me where pavement parking on both sides will allow two lanes of traffic to flow without blocking the pavement. I can also think of smaller residential roads nearby where the road would effectively be impassable if everyone parked wholly on the road, because of the size and number of cars versus size of road. Also agree it's probably often perceived more as a way of protecting their own car. Have to admit, I am guilty of doing it out of long-formed habit when visiting one of my family - it's psychologically difficult to be the one to park fully on the road when everyone else is on the pavement, but I am trying to mend my ways.       

Just don't get me started on the person with 2 horse boxes who parks them partly on the pavement not far away. When did public goods become a storage area for people's private property ?

There'sa a family just up the road from us that bought a motorhome, and park it on their drive, yet one end sticks out into the pavement, crossing it almost completely. Thankfully it's a very quiet dead end road so isn't actually much of an issue, but still it smacks of selfish entitlement that that they would think it acceptable to permanently park like that.

Much of the pavement parking around me appears to be by people who have either already filled their driveways with other cars or (worse) seem to find it inconvenient to use their own driveway for parking at all. 

my road is about 2.5 cars wide, so parking is allowed on one side but bizarrely the other side has only a single yellow.

So blocking the road in the evenings and at weekends is OK, but not suring the week. Or drivers will park mostly on the pavement. I really can't understand why the council would endorse this practice.

hirsute wrote:

Most of the pavement parking round here still leaves a gap on the road of 1.5 cars so if the misguided approach is to allow traffic flow, then it shows they can't work out clearance.

I think they are really doing it to stop a scratch for some driver who can't drive properly.

do they drive half on the pavement for the same reason? or do drivers find it easier to avoid moving cars (presumably 2 feet from the kerb) than stationary cars (presumably tight to the kerb)?

On a local facebook page I once suggested that the solution to pavement parking was to make residential streets "shared space". You can imagine the reaction. #nocompromisenosurrender 

brooksby wrote:

It's funny how many people will be more than happy to move vehicles, park vehicles, whatever, on a cycle lane or even on a footway so that they are "Out of the Way" rather than leave it at the side of the road but on the roadway.

I mean, it's not like anyone ever actually uses the cycle lane or footway, is it...?

often half on half off, the pavement so they are still not leaving two clear lanes free on the road, while also restricting the pavement.