- News
- Reviews
- Bikes
- Accessories
- Accessories - misc
- Computer mounts
- Bags
- Bar ends
- Bike bags & cases
- Bottle cages
- Bottles
- Cameras
- Car racks
- Child seats
- Computers
- Glasses
- GPS units
- Helmets
- Lights - front
- Lights - rear
- Lights - sets
- Locks
- Mirrors
- Mudguards
- Racks
- Pumps & CO2 inflators
- Puncture kits
- Reflectives
- Smart watches
- Stands and racks
- Trailers
- Clothing
- Components
- Bar tape & grips
- Bottom brackets
- Brake & gear cables
- Brake & STI levers
- Brake pads & spares
- Brakes
- Cassettes & freewheels
- Chains
- Chainsets & chainrings
- Derailleurs - front
- Derailleurs - rear
- Forks
- Gear levers & shifters
- Groupsets
- Handlebars & extensions
- Headsets
- Hubs
- Inner tubes
- Pedals
- Quick releases & skewers
- Saddles
- Seatposts
- Stems
- Wheels
- Tyres
- Health, fitness and nutrition
- Tools and workshop
- Miscellaneous
- Tubeless valves
- Buyers Guides
- Features
- Forum
- Recommends
- Podcast
Prudential RideLondon FreeCtycle (copyright Simon MacMichael).PNGKatie Hopkins hits out at RideLondon
Broadcaster and Daily Mail columnist Katie Hopkins has vented her anger on this weekend’s Prudential RideLondon, including claiming incorrectly that the event will make it impossible for emergency vehicles to get around the city.
Speaking this morning on her LBC show Katie Hopkins – Talking Sense, the former Apprentice contestant said: “The fact is most of our roads here in London are blocked, 13 bridges are shut just for a bunch of people to show us that they can ride a bike.
“My four-year-old can ride a bike. I'm pretty sure most people have the capability to ride a bike I don't actually need all of London to be shut down in order to be able to watch them ride a bike.”
Other children - indeed people of all ages - will enjoy the opportunity to ride around the city on traffic-free roads today during the family-friendly Prudential RideLondon Freecycle, with just one bridge, Waterloo, fully closed today while others, including Blackfriars, remain open.
Tomorrow, when events including the Prudential RideLondon-Surrey 100 sportive and the Prudential RideLondon-Surrey Classic pro race will be held, rather than the 13 claimed by Ms Hopkins, eight bridges will be fully closed, while a further three, plus the Blackwall Tunnel, will have partial closures or other restrictions.
The timings of the closures vary depending on whereabouts the river crossings sit on the route, with Southwark Bridge, Tower Bridge and the Blackwall Tunnel all open again by 11.15 on Sunday morning, for example.
In the city centre, throughout Sunday, Waterloo, Blackfriars and London Bridge will all stay open.
As we reported earlier today, cycling events held in London since the city hosted the Olympic Games in 2012 have boosted the capital’s economy to the tune of £149 million.
> Olympic legacy cycling events add £149m to London's economy
“I don't think we need these sorts of events,”– whether that includes others such as the London Marathon, which similarly causes widespread road closures is unclear – "in our capital city stopping our emergency service workers getting around,” adds Hopkins.
“If someone had a heart attack today in London, well good luck with that because of course we have to watch some cyclist prove that they're healthy while you're having your heart attack.”
Besides the insensitivity of that remark – in 2014, Kris Cook, aged 36, died of a cardiac arrest during the Prudential RideLondon-Surrey 100, while during last year’s event Stephen Green, 55, passed away following a heart attack – it, too, is inaccurate.
For example, a leaflet explaining road closures in one of the boroughs hosting the event, Richmond-Upon-Thames, clearly says that emergency vehicles will have priority:
Emergencies will be treated as a priority in the usual way. If you require the emergency services, call 999. Emergency vehicle access will be maintained and prioritised throughout all of the Prudential RideLondon events.
“Frankly for me RideLondon is not an event I need to see nor do I need to see elsewhere in the country,” Hopkins concludes.
The tens of thousands of people riding their bikes on traffic-free roads today and tomorrow and the hundreds of thousands who will line the streets to cheer them on will doubtless miss her.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
Latest Comments
- wtjs 12 min 59 sec ago
And we can be sure that Police Scotland would be similarly disinterested...
- wtjs 17 min 2 sec ago
The self-professed cyclists are really self-claimed cyclists of the 'I'm a cyclist myself' variety
- panda 22 min 14 sec ago
So ... <trying not to unintentionally cause offence or even an international incident> ... I think the most remarkable thing about this is...
- lesterama 28 min 23 sec ago
I used to have the good fortune of watching Croydon disappear into the distance every workday afternoon, from the comfort of my commuter train. It...
- David9694 1 hour 9 min ago
Impressed that it comes with a lighting kit and pedals. Looks like a non-series chainset and is a Micro shift cassette, though; off-brand callipers...
- slc 1 hour 28 min ago
They should read scampercraft and not exaggerate the danger of scuttling along. I discourage squirrel predation by acting like one.
- HalfDanHalfBiscuit 1 hour 38 min ago
You can get the Varia for £10 less from Decathlon.
- Geoff H 2 hours 12 min ago
Perhaps they should apply the same standard to dangerous, unsafe, poorly designed roads and COMPLETELY rip them out rather than "fix" or "redesign"...
- Destroyer666 2 hours 35 min ago
Although the article does not make this clear, the Cybertruck reference is not made by Ingrid, but just some person stating their opinion on the...
Add new comment
42 comments
Never watched her on TV or read anything she writes... Roadcc please do not fill you columns with her rhetoric; as she is ill inform... If nobody reads it, waste of time her writing it.
What a poisonous, pointless gasbag this person is?
Its a vile example of the times we live in that someone can make a media "Career" out of making boorish, rude and upsetting comments.
Pretty but rather silly little miss Hopkins is a professional blowhard making lots of holoow noise is her raison d'etre.
So I really would not pay too much heed to anything she spouts, see just like a toilet it all has to go somewhere and she is a natural choice for outfall.
Twat!
http://www.getsurrey.co.uk/lifestyle/fun-stuff/ridelondon-radio-rant-lea...
That's actually pretty funny and makes her look pretty (more?) stupid (believing- and announcing on air- a satirical story that the M25 was to be closed for a week for an endurance road race).
But the worst is a screenshot of one of her tweets about RideLondon: she tweets a picture of massed cyclists during the event and complains that it's awful because she can't even cross the road.
I wonder how she copes the other 364 days of the year - does she fume about the cars, or does she just walk out into traffic and expect it to give way?
Why even report this. Not worth the time. Come on Road CC - better off having a longer break at lunch or coming in ten minutes late after a hard ride the night before.
Non-broadcaster and anonymous bloke jazzdude said today "This country doesn't need Katie Hopkins. If I want to look at something ugly I can watch Shrek."
“Frankly for me Katie Hopkins is not an individual I need to see nor do I need to see elsewhere in the country”
Her finest moment was on 'This Morning' when she slagged off people for giving their children geographical names such as Brooklyn or London. Philip Schofield then pointed out that her daughter is called India!!!
Yeah, Those are city placenames.... but India is a cuntry..oh no wait, that's her...
So the chance for her four-year old* to enjoy a traffic and choking emmission-free, quiet ride around our glorious capital in her own time just passed her by did it?
*facepalm*
*Who even shagged
herit, btw? (shivers)I see that the brain surgery didn't help very much.
Just ignore the cunt
The Daily Mail is the new Viz:
"Plastic Bags Banished from Britain"
"We Did It-We've Brexited. Future Bright For UK"
The title of this article should read.
The City Doesn't Need Katie Hopkins but sadly it has her!!!!!!!!!!!
Fortunately the city's emergency response systems are in the control of people far smarter and better qualified (but less well paid) than Katie Hopkins. Being epileptic* I can understand her concern for the medical services, even her jealousy of those who can ride bicycles, but her resentment of other people celebrating an activity they do enjoy betrays a rather unpleasant character flaw.
I hope she made the effort to take her daughter to one of the freecycle events yesterday and enjoyed the traffic free environment.
*I'm sure she won't mind this being mentioned, she has written about it publicly.
Still waiting for her to do the naked streak down Regent Street with sausage attached. She's lost all credibility with me until she does this.
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2016/05/08/katie-hopkins-confirms-she-will-str...
The problem with this and the rest of the vile vitriol promulgated by such papers as the mail is that people read it and believe it. They should be a way to stifle such inaccurate escoriating filth.
If the truth was presented fairly it might reduce some of the incidents of rage from motorists and make people realise cycling and cyclists are one of the many aspects of modern life to be celebrated, especially the enormous numbers in London where it must be having an advantageous effect on numbers of commuters on the tube and the amount of space on the road for car users.
At least she's not calling asylum seeker cockroach's this time I guess. perhaps she mellowing in her old age.
I but I still think she a cunt
I completely disagree. Cunts are harmless, provide endless pleasure to both sexes, are often beautiful - none of which apply to this person. And none of us would be here without them. Show some respect for cunts please, and do not insult them in this way.
I'm sorry, Katie who?
And the Daily Mail, is that a newsletter or something similar?
But more relevantly, why do road.cc keep going on about them?
Weird isn't it, terrorists never blow up really annoying people. Always just regular Joes going shopping or whatever.
I only got as far as "Daily Mail columnist" and realised there was no real point in reading on.
Never heard of her.
I've only got one thing to say to the air headed, attention whoreing suck puppy.
image.jpeg
She's (unfortunately) not alone in her views; our local paper is full of similar rubbish whenever we have a Skyride or the Tour of Britain. But apparently the various marathons and half-marathons are different and are fine.
Bottom line here is "Do you give a hump what Katie f-ing Hopkins thinks about anything at all? Well - do you??"
Katie says we don't need this event, but Katie we don't need you, nobody does.
Sorry You're fired
Everyone knows she's a fuckwit who will do anything for media attention. Doesn't matter if it's racist, homophobic or hate speech she will say it - I'm not surprised she hates cyclists alongside with everyone who isn't a jingoistic middle england capitalist like her.
The thing that pisses me off is the media outlets who employ her - they claim she is just expressing her opinions but they're 100% complicit in spreading her bile. Fuck her and fuck them.
Katie Hopkins in spouting utter shit shocker.
Pages