Police arrest man riding stolen motorbike in Richmond Park area as patrols increase due to bike-jackings; Lycrist infiltrator: the new MAMIL?; Point to camera...driver waits; UCI helps Afghan cyclists; Roubaix behind the scenes + more on the live blog

Daveyraveygravey wrote:

Lycrist infiltrator - am I the only one that associates this with someone like Morrisey or Billy Bragg sitting alone in a bedsit trying to make words rhyme?

Punctured bicycle, on a hillside desolate...

Steve K wrote:

Daveyraveygravey wrote:

Lycrist infiltrator - am I the only one that associates this with someone like Morrisey or Billy Bragg sitting alone in a bedsit trying to make words rhyme?

Punctured bicycle, on a hillside desolate...

Winner.

I've had relations with bikes from many nations, I've rode passes on cycles of all classes.

I can see the kitchen light, from the road where I park my bike.

Also BB:

The chain that fell off my bike last night
Is now wrapped round my heart
 

Charles Wesley got there first!
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed thee.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sQeIGbKqiw8&t=156

Well how did he follow someone if his chain fell off? Must have been on a descent...

No that's a lyricist

chrisonatrike wrote:

Hate's so debilitating.  Between the One Tower Hamlets tweet and Rendel I'm confused - so are One Tower Hamlets saying cyclists are Lycrist ("lycraist"?) tories?

Lychrist, perhaps....

Thanks - looks interesting. I'll read later but just struck by their "counterfactual" example at the top because for a second I actually thought they'd got this directly from a road.cc poster of times gone by:

"Don’t they sometimes make you want to just drop a breeze block off a motorway bridge and listen for the smash?’"

Legseleven, or something close, and it was a paving slab.

Left the site and left the UK for the wonders of Amsterdam, and it's wonderful cycling provision.

Really good read; thanks for the recommendation.

Hmm maybe, it reads to me as one of those essays that wants to really focus on an entirely different subject, but has to stretch the analogies to fit to make it something related to cycling, because well its tagged as a cycling site primarily.

I don't know: I thought they made some good points.

(And let's face it, we all know allegedly cycling sites which get diverted off into completely off-cycling topics...).

Awavey wrote:

Hmm maybe, it reads to me as one of those essays that wants to really focus on an entirely different subject, but has to stretch the analogies to fit to make it something related to cycling, because well its tagged as a cycling site primarily.

Interesting. I took it that the focus was on the othering and hatred of an out group, and a demonstration of the objectively harmful outcomes that come as a result. The example used was the of football supporters in the 70s and 80s, culminating in Hillsborough, and followed by the continued vilification of the victims for decades afterwards, and a denial of the justice they deserved. I don't believe that this was an analogy.

I felt it broke it down into constituent parts of psychological cause and effect that were applicable not just to football supporters, but to a wide range of people including us. 

The "jokes" that are made by "characters" such as Christo, Clarkeson, Liddle, Parris, Ferarri et al (generally demeaning, dehumanising or even violent in tone), do have real-world effect, even if considered indirectly - and we know that, as we are on the receiving end.

We often joke that now racism is illegal, these bigots need to find someone else to hate. However, if that hate is real, and the outcome is somewhere on a scale between intimidation through violent assault to murder, can the bigots be considered to be any more morally respectable just cos they are more cleverly selective in identifying their targets?

I just felt it was something they clearly wanted to write about Hillsborough and the treatment of football fans in that era versus the establishment be that government or police, which is fair enough it's their site they can write what they want. But its not at all about cyclists or how cyclists are treated and they had to stretch the analogy of 'othering' all those types of people so it still broadly met their cycling theme.

The hillsborough section is probably a quarter of the whole article. And it is probably the biggest example of people believing stories about a group of people and so believing anything said about them.

A minority of football fans were hooligans. Yet people believed, (and still believe to some extent) that Hillsborough was caused by drunken fans, and they abused the Police and emergency services. 
A minority of cyclists go through red lights or cycle very antisocially. However in every discussion about a cyclist you see the bingo of RLJ, knocking people over, etc. 
And the press / columnists used to fan the flames of football hooligism back then and now fan the flames of cyclists always behaving badly now. So no, I don't see wanting to write about a certain thing but tenously linking it to cycling, I actually do see the paralels being pointed out.  
 

Very good read. Thanks for sharing. 

Looking at Christo's tweets at the time he appears to suggest transport choice is soley a personal choice, devoid of any financial, societal or environmental pressure. This would suggest he believes every motorist is partly personally responsible for the estimated 28,000 premature deaths each year caused by air polution. Which makes his stance on cycling difficult to understand...

kt26 wrote:

Very good read. Thanks for sharing. 

Looking at Christo's tweets at the time he appears to suggest transport choice is soley a personal choice, devoid of any financial, societal or environmental pressure. This would suggest he believes every motorist is partly personally responsible for the estimated 28,000 premature deaths each year caused by air polution. Which makes his stance on cycling difficult to understand...

Get outta here, with ya.... fffacts, and, and,and.....  lllllogic....

One would be forgiven for thinking Christo may be recieving contributions from parties who are interested in keeping people in cars - I mean there's a first for everything right...

Thank you for posting that link, an excellent, informative, erudite read.  And it reminded me that I'm still banned from twitter for calling Cristo a cretin, despite my appeal now being in its tenth month, or as soon as possible according to the twits.  I might throw it a birthday party at the end of December.

The article also includes a link to "Negative attitudes to cyclists may affect road space given to them: variation in drivers’ perceptions of adequate space when overtaking a cyclist on the road"  which I've not read yet.

https://psyarxiv.com/7659j/

Thanks for the link, a superbly well-written and thought provoking essay. The points made are very good, and compare to my experience of being one of the only people in my company who regularly cycles to work.

In the name of humour, many of my colleagues will make unfavourable remarks about cyclists, whilst trying to make it clear it's supposed to be funny. It isn't funny (in fact it is mind-numbingly predictable), but I pick my battles carefully, and these are battles I don't need to win and will not win anyway. In fact earlier this year when I was knocked off on the way to work (over the bonnet of a volkswagen - not recommended), despite being lit up like a christmas tree and with video footage to show it wasn't my fault, along with some significant injuries, many of the comments I received fell into the categories of

a. victim blaming; or

b. making jokes at my expense.

This clear bias (conscious or unconcious) runs through wider society and is a worrying trend. These are every day law abiding decent people in many respects - yet when a cyclist is mentioned the hate comes streaming through.

doodlydiddle wrote:

Thanks for the link, a superbly well-written and thought provoking essay. The points made are very good, and compare to my experience of being one of the only people in my company who regularly cycles to work.

In the name of humour, many of my colleagues will make unfavourable remarks about cyclists, whilst trying to make it clear it's supposed to be funny. It isn't funny (in fact it is mind-numbingly predictable), but I pick my battles carefully, and these are battles I don't need to win and will not win anyway. In fact earlier this year when I was knocked off on the way to work (over the bonnet of a volkswagen - not recommended), despite being lit up like a christmas tree and with video footage to show it wasn't my fault, along with some significant injuries, many of the comments I received fell into the categories of

a. victim blaming; or

b. making jokes at my expense.

This clear bias (conscious or unconcious) runs through wider society and is a worrying trend. These are every day law abiding decent people in many respects - yet when a cyclist is mentioned the hate comes streaming through.

It's staggering isn't it? When driver training for my company, I'd describe the circumstances around, and the experience of being knocked off by a car driver. In fairness most people engaged really well. That is except for the individual who immediately asked "what were you wearing?"......