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Police on trail of BMXer who kicked London cyclist off bike

Met "confident" of catching BMX-riding thug, says victim...

Raphael Carrondo, the cyclist whose video of another rider kicking him off his bike in London has had 150,000 views, says police have taken on the case and are confident of catching the BMXer who assaulted him.

Carrondo was riding east along Victoria Embankment at about 5:15 pm on August 6, on his way home from work, when he overtook a rider on a BMX at the pedestrian lights just outside Embankment Station.

Seconds later, as he approached a bus, the BMXer attempted to pass him on the inside and shortly after that Carrondo found himself on the road after the BMXer kicked his front wheel out.

Carrondo captured the whole incident on his handlebar-mounted video camera and posted it to YouTube.

After initially being rebuffed, Carrondo says the police are now investigating the case.

He told road.cc: "Police [are] pretty confident they can find him now that they decided to take on the case."

But Carrondo said he was shocked at the level of abuse he has been subject to on YouTube.

The 32-year-old sales and marketing consultant originally from Brazil, told the Evening Standard's Rachel Blundy he posted the video after police said they couldn't help him.

But he wasn't prepared to be subjected to accusations that he had caused the assault by deliberately blocking the BMX rider who subsequently knocked him off his bike, or that he'd faked the whole thing.

In a video interview on the Standard's website Carrondo said the police told him they could not afford the resources to track down the BMXer if he didn't know who he was. He admitted he didn't mention the video.

He then decided to post the video. "The next day I say, 'If the police can't do anything, I can.' This is something that probably happens every day, that kid probably did something to someone else. With social media as it is today we can find someone doing the wrong thing."

What I wasn't expecting was that when I put it online, that the wrong became me. Everybody was trying to justify why the kid would react like this."

Some of the more polite comments aimed at Carrondo included:

  • "You cut him up forcing him to go into the red bus at 00:11. Deal with it"
  • "I'm surprised the guy on the BMX didn't stop after he kicked you off.....and beat you round the head with your own bike."
  • "I can only imagine the muppet that fell did something previously to the cyclist who tripped him,";
  • "I've watched this a number of times, and it's safe to say... you sir should not be on the road."
  • "This video is fake, if you go frame by frame it doesn't make any sense. You're a phony and lame."

Carrondo was accused of having deliberately blocked the BMXer as he tried to undertake Carrondo and then of 'brake-checking' the BMXer and so precipitating the attack. He maintains he was slowing to allow another rider to pass.

Other commenters suggested that something had happened between them before Carrondo overtook the BMXer, so Carrondo posted this video which includes the minute before he passed the BMXer at the lights outside Embankment Tube station:

Many commenters did take Carrondo's side. A typical supporting comment saw petetube99 getting exasperated with the doubters. He posted: "Who cares what happened before this or who cut up who, kicking someones front wheel is fucking brutal, the intention is serious injury. Once that becomes accepted behaviour we're all at risk. I can't believe anyone who cycles is condoning this. You must be mad."

With the Met now on the trail of Carrondo's attacker, we may yet find out why he got upset enough with the Brazilian to put his life in danger.

John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.

He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.

Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.

John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.

He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.

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10 comments

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Cycliste65 | 10 years ago
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Just like someone who jumps on a bike without a clue on how to ride on the road. The Highway Code says always give way to the right. Roundabouts,traffic lights,junctions, or joining traffic flow.

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WashoutWheeler replied to Cycliste65 | 10 years ago
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Sadly quite a few people on bicycles (I hesitate to refer to them as cyclists) have never read the highway code as they feel it does not apply to them.

I put this BMX mounted hooligan in the same category of "fool" as the man in dark suit, on a bike with no lights, with his headphones in! riding on the road I the dark between Blackwall tunnel and the Bow Roundabout on Friday evening at 7 pm!

The only think missing from his "Please make me a cycling statistic kit" was a large sign on his back saying please run into me. I struggled to see him and as a regular cycle commuter I AM cyclist aware many of the drivers in that area have never even sat a UK test let alone have insurance or road sense!

Sometimes people on bikes really do the cause of cycling no help at all.

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caaad10 | 10 years ago
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A 'BMXer' is a 'cyclist' as far as I'm concerned, there's already enough aggression out there & I don't want to get into pigeon-holing every one of my cycle riding contemporaries...

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FluffyKittenofT... | 10 years ago
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As well as just generic trolling, there's probably also the usual driver for victim-blaming - a desire to convince yourself that whatever misfortune you've just witnessed, can't possibly happen to you.

If you can convince yourself the victim did something wrong to provoke it (whatever 'it' is, from sexual assault to being hit by a car to being blown up by terrorists), then you are freed from the anxiety about something similar happening to you - as you are perfect and would never do that wrong thing.

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kraut | 10 years ago
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When did blocking someone in traffic, deliberately or otherwise, become justification for an assault?

If I took time out to assault every driver who blocks my way to work in London, it'd take me weeks to get there.

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828321 | 10 years ago
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BMX tried overtaking on the inside, he was not blocked but put himself at risk, presumably annoyed that a little earlier the rider who was assaulted over took him (correctly on the outside). He then chased down the bike which stopped his smooth joining of the flowing traffic and assaulted the rider. Inexplicable level of abuse which is quite typical.nice to learn this week that internet trolls will be clamped down on.

Avatar
Alb replied to 828321 | 10 years ago
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828321 wrote:

BMX tried overtaking on the inside, he was not blocked but put himself at risk, presumably annoyed that a little earlier the rider who was assaulted over took him (correctly on the outside). He then chased down the bike which stopped his smooth joining of the flowing traffic and assaulted the rider. Inexplicable level of abuse which is quite typical.nice to learn this week that internet trolls will be clamped down on.

Either you were there or you have a tardis to give such a concise, detailed account of the timeline of events! As always, there's probably more to this incident than the posted 30seconds of video implies.

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FluffyKittenofT... replied to Alb | 10 years ago
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Alb wrote:

Either you were there or you have a tardis to give such a concise, detailed account of the timeline of events! As always, there's probably more to this incident than the posted 30seconds of video implies.

Quite difficult, though, to imagine what 'more' there might be that could possibly excuse the behaviour in the video. Unless the two of them had been repeatedly kicking each other all the way down the road, which seems unlikely.

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bendertherobot | 10 years ago
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He's surprised by the online abuse? Has he been online much?

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Username replied to bendertherobot | 10 years ago
0 likes
Quote:

He told road.cc: "Police [are] pretty confident they can find him now that they decided to take on the case."

Would these be the same police who are incapable of finding motorists who assault cyclists and pedestrians, even though they have great big black letters on yellow backgrounds affixed to their vehicles?

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