Cop suspended for punching cyclist wrongly accused of theft; AA chief says cyclists shouldn't "pretend they’re in Tour de France"; Nail traps buried on trail; £5m cycling infra boost for Manchester; 'Priapic cyclist' spotted + more on the live blog

But that's not how it is framed. It is put in the context of the strain on the emergency services or having to have a recovery service out.
Whilst you are allowed to travel to a food shop, where has anyone suggested that you should only go the nearest one or only walk if you can?
And the guidance has been updated to say you can drive to get to your exercise as long as the exercise is longer than the drive. Well, I can drive quite a few miles in 15 - 20 minutes, somewhat further than walking distance.

Part of me wonders if it's kind of dog whistle politicking,where he mistakenly feels his AA members,who after all pay to keep him in his job,are more motorcentric focussed & would react more positively to the message well motorists need to do their bit now stuff but only with an added "but yeah grrr grumble cyclists" attached to soften it for them

eburtthebike wrote:

Edmund King is usually pretty good about cycling, but he's got it badly wrong this time.

You may be right, I don't know but I'd have thought any utterance coming from him re cycling or cyclists is going to play about as well here as a comment from Darth Vader on the new design of X-wing fighter. 

 

He was responding to a poll saying that people feel that cyclists and motorists are doing worse. He said sure, both should do better. Yes, it might not be exactly what I would have said, and I would quibble with the word "equally". But I think you are asking way too much from him. What he said was more than fine. 

Yes, the responsibility inherent to driving a car is much greater than that of riding a bike, but, to a limited extent, that is fact is laid bare by the quite-right-but-not-uncontroversially-so lower legal and regulatory requirements for cycling. It's not his job to bend over backwards to make light of that fact every single time he touches on the topic of cycling. That's just too much to ask. Regardless, he seems very aware of the issue and restated the importance of giving cyclists room when overtaking. That is, IMHO, the most useful point he can make to motorists. If you're going to asking him to add prayer of contrition before making any type of statement on cycling we'll all be the poorer for it.

jollygoodvelo wrote:

I might suggest to the AA president that lockdown isn't the time to start behaving like the Stasi. 

I'd assumed I had missed a memo or something - everyone else seems to be happy to report their neighbours to the Authorities, so why wouldn't Mr King?

+10 on Park Lane. Not much to like about riding in Park Lane, there are too many buses and everyone goes way too fast. Crossing it is tough though, so a bike lane there might help someone commuting from Chelsea or somewhere further Southwest into Mayfair. But unless that's where you're headed I would just as well rather avoid it altogether and go either through down through the Embankment or up trough Wigmore/Mortimer or Howland/New Cavendish. 

I'd go for Gloucester Place instead of Baker Street though, fewer pedestrians. And Baker Street's just had some work done recently, theoretically to slow cars down and make it safer. 

I have to call you on that.

Is it reasonable to expect a casual cyclist to repair a double puncture?   Especially its done in with malice and designed for multiple holes and potential tyre shredding.

I think your standards are unreasonable in this instance.

It specifically states that he went back to look for the nail traps because he realised "the damage to the tyres was too severe to be an accident" so it sounds like a lot more than a just replace the inner tube job. Those things certainly look as though they could render a tyre unusable. Or should we all carry spare tyres as well as tubes now in case some psycho wants to rip our tyres up?

I know it's unusual, but  I always carry a spare folding tyre. At the moment, in the climate we are in, I won't go anywhere I couldn't recover myself from, un aided either. It's pretty daft to have got himself in the exact situation that was encouraged against. 

Judge dreadful wrote:

I know it's unusual, but  I always carry a spare folding tyre. At the moment, in the climate we are in, I won't go anywhere I couldn't recover myself from, un aided either. It's pretty daft to have got himself in the exact situation that was encouraged against. 

But he didn't get himself into the situation. The idiot who laid the trap put him in that situation.

Judge dreadful wrote:

I know it's unusual, but  I always carry a spare folding tyre. At the moment, in the climate we are in, I won't go anywhere I couldn't recover myself from, un aided either. It's pretty daft to have got himself in the exact situation that was encouraged against. 

I take it you really haven't read piece. Damage was done to both tyres, I doubt even you carry two mtb tyres and tubes when you ride off road.

I always carry around 2 spare tyres in case I miss one of these

out of interest what do you expect cardrivers with no spare wheel to do, espcially if they hit a pothole and damage the wheel.

What is your advice to a runner who suffers and bad foot injury and cannot walk and needs the emergency services?

We're not talking about runners getting hurt, or stingers though, we're talking about someone who went out on a ride unprepared for the ride, to a location he couldn't recover himself from, without assistance. 

It's reasonable to carry a couple of spare tubes inflator and a multi-tool, not a full blown work shop/

You've got to keep perspective, that's true, but everyone is supposed to be either solo, or with members of the same household, so I'd have thought it's reasonable to expect to have to carry more kit than you would on a normal group ride /club run, but it looks like this guy didn't even have the bare minimum with him. We don't know exactly what he did have with him, because it's not clear from the piece, but the fact he called on outside assistance, also doesn't help. It doesn't detract from the point that some shit for brains loser put the spikes there in the first place, but it will risk having the foamy mouthed anti cyclists getting even more incandescent than they usually do.

Surely the even the most foamy mouthed would have to accept that Mr Nailtrap created the requirement for a rescue, if rescue were to be the beef?

You might be, everyone else is viewing this a criminal act with intent to wound. You think it is reasonable to carry 2 spare tyres when you say you only carry a spare tyre. I don't think it is reasonable to mitigate against malicious acts.

The story was about a track used by different users, so why are you falling into the media trap of focussing on cyclists?

You should be thinking about the different types of users -  little Johnny being chased by his Dad who trips over and gets the spikes embedded in him.

You also don't know whether the rider could have got home under his own steam. All we know is he was picked up, not that he had to be picked up.

Perahps these NHS workers were equally unprepared by not having a spare bike

https://road.cc/content/news/cycling-live-blog-29-april-2020-273085

hirsute wrote:

You might be, everyone else is viewing this a criminal act with intent to wound. You think it is reasonable to carry 2 spare tyres when you say you only carry a spare tyre. I don't think it is reasonable to mitigate against malicious acts.

It's not just malicious acts that can finish a tyre. At the moment, under current circumstances, I think it's entirely reasonable to carry a folding tyre.

hirsute wrote:

The story was about a track used by different users, so why are you falling into the media trap of focussing on cyclists?

Because It was a cyclist who had the issue.

hirsute wrote:

You should be thinking about the different types of users -  little Johnny being chased by his Dad who trips over and gets the spikes embedded in him.

Yes, but the article was about a cyclist.

hirsute wrote:

You also don't know whether the rider could have got home under his own steam. All we know is he was picked up, not that he had to be picked up.

That's a big part of the problem. He chose ( for whatever reason ) to call for outside assistance.

hirsute wrote:

Perahps these NHS workers were equally unprepared but not having a spare bike

https://road.cc/content/news/cycling-live-blog-29-april-2020-273085

That's a totally different situation. 

For heaven's sake M'Lud!  First law of holes!

The story is here https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/first-picture-shocking-...

and is about "Cyclists, runners, walkers and dog owners are being warned to be vigilant after cruel vandals planted nail traps in a popular beauty spot."

Quite why you want to make it a victim blaming of a cyclist is beyond me (and I think everyone else).

I hope you carry at least 2 spare tyres in the current circumstances in case of any issue that happens to your tyres, including malicious damage.

Judge dreadful wrote:

We're not talking about runners getting hurt, or stingers though, we're talking about someone who went out on a ride unprepared for the ride, to a location he couldn't recover himself from, without assistance. 

He was not prepared for sabotage. We don't actually know what other preparations be did make.

Moreover, in the context of the current "save the NHS" imperative which is what this is all about, clearly he was able to organise his own recovery from that location. He did not need any assistance from outside of his household.

eburtthebike wrote:

The BBC article is typical of their coverage of transport during this crisis, and despite cycling being the answer to many of the current problems, let alone those existing normally, they simply refuse to mention it. 

Not again... FFS. No they don't... which BBC website do you look at ? I've just been on there and looked at the articles talking about transport alternatives driven by the current epidemic and climate change mitigation requirements both here and abroad - it's not wall-to-wall coverage, it could easily be better, but there's stuff there. The last few of times i've searched and posted you the links you've mainly ignored them - although IIRC the last correction I sent, you at least acknowledged - go have a look now and see if they really do "refuse to mention it" or just don't do it as much as many of us would like.

fukawitribe wrote:

eburtthebike wrote:

The BBC article is typical of their coverage of transport during this crisis, and despite cycling being the answer to many of the current problems, let alone those existing normally, they simply refuse to mention it. 

Not again... FFS. No they don't... which BBC website do you look at ? I've just been on there and looked at the articles talking about transport alternatives driven by the current epidemic and climate change mitigation requirements both here and abroad - it's not wall-to-wall coverage, it could easily be better, but there's stuff there. The last few of times i've searched and posted you the links you've mainly ignored them - although IIRC the last correction I sent, you at least acknowledged - go have a look now and see if they really do "refuse to mention it" or just don't do it as much as many of us would like.

OK, there are a few mentions of cycling, but they are the exception rather than the rule.  I must have heard/seen hundreds, if not thousands of BBC articles selling ecars; I haven't seen/heard a single one about ebikes, let alone ordinary bikes, but bikes are a thousand, nay a million times better by any metric than ecars. 

The BBC has many progs about health, transport, congestion, obesity, pollution the environment, and in almost all cases, the bicycle is not only appropriate, it is by far the best answer, but I've never seen it presented as such by them.  That's never.  Despite it being overwhelmingly the best answer by far: never.  It is clear that the BBC is institutionally anti-cyclist.  If they weren't, cycling would be mentioned a hundred times a day.