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Valleys Velo steep descents sign YouTube stillTacks again spread on fast descent at Valleys Velo
Sunday’s Valleys Velo sportive in Wales was targeted by someone distributing drawing pins along a section of the route. The event was also targeted in 2014 when tacks were spread on the descent of the Bwlch causing dozens of cyclists to puncture.
On both occasions the drawing pins were painted black in an apparent attempt to camouflage them.
Great #valleysvelo today, great organisation from #bikedoctor ! No thanks to idiots who put tacks sprayed black on the road! 2 tyres done pic.twitter.com/CPxxChW1sT
— Dean Porter (@Porter_Dean) September 25, 2016
Organiser Jamie Rowland of The Bike Doctor told us that despite precautions around 22 riders punctured out of the 400 riders taking part. As in 2014, he said that the tacks had been left on the Bwlch descent.
“Having been targeted in previous years we made every effort to reduce the risk of this happening,” he said.
“The police were notified on the lead up to the event and we even sent patrols and foot officers to the area to check before the riders got to that part of the course.
“We also had marshals present on the descent, each with a track pump and a box of inner tubes which we handed out free to riders.
“Despite this we had just a few riders pick up tacks on the descent. The tacks seemed to be strung out randomly over a distance of around four miles on that part of the course.
“Riders that unfortunately did puncture were almost immediately helped by the quick acting marshals and back on the bike in no time to continue with what was certainly the best Valleys Velo yet.”
Mark Deacon, who rode the event, told road.cc that his friend Matt had been one of those affected.
“We were heading down the Bwlch descent and he’d only gone about 500m when he felt and heard this ‘tick tick tick tick’ coming from the back tyre – it was a drawing pin, painted black.
“We were going a fair pace so it’s a good job he didn’t just blow out else it would have been a bit dicey to say the least. It happened near the first hairpin bend so we’d have ended up on the other side of the road and with it not being a closed road event… well, it doesn’t bear thinking about.”
Deacon added that race organisers had been “brilliantly organised” and had done all they could to prevent and minimise problems.
“There was a chap with a big brush sweeping the road and within about five minutes the van pulled up with a track pump. Another chap fell unlucky on the same spot just as we were putting Matt’s bike back together.
“I can’t understand why a few individuals would do something like this purely to ruin other people’s fun. Makes me cross, but it wouldn’t ever stop me from entering another sportive… just have to be on the ball and not forget to pack your spare inner tubes.”
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
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I hope you're all checking your insurance policies, helmets, test certificates and road tax, it's the 2024 round-up...
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200 people out of a close by population of how many? Just build it and stop being a wuss
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Thanks for using my picture of chocolate in your opening picture. The original can be found here, chocolate! | LongitudeLatitude | Flickr.
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30 comments
The will always be a minority who will try and spoil things for others. But being at the event the organisers handled the situation professionally and promptly. The event in my experience was a great sucess. The route is fantastic, all marshals are helpful and cheerful, which flows through to the riders. I did not see an unhappy rider. Would I do this event again - definitely yes
#STINKING EVENT
This has jack-all to do with Brexit, and tying completely unrelated narrow-minded and stupid acts to Brexit is an act of spectacular narrow-minded stupidity itself.
Brexit means things will change.....but the leave gang don't like change?
Remain would have meant nothing changed.....but remainers embrace change?
Round and round we go. Like wheels on a bike. With tacks in.
is this even possible? how can a person do that. take a minute and imagine what it has to be done: you have to go buy the tacks, put them in a bag and drive there, park somewhere, it has to be dark, and start spreading them. people are freakin nuts!!
Not supporting the track spreader. Wants a slap but why do people spout bollocks ? All that Euro rubbish! So narrow minded and repressive. Victorian maybe or Stalinist. Make your minds up Roadcc. The affected rider says drawing pins,you say tacks. They are different. And tacks are almost always black.
Silly details but why strive to be wrong?
This has small minded brexit voter written all over it
Postive liberty, the petty, pedantic, paternalistic notion that you're not preventing me from doing what I want to do, you're enabling me to do "better" things, see. Handlebarcam is right about one thing, whoever came up with that one (a Latvian-born CBE, as these things go) can take credit for Brexit, for all I care.
As with Godwin's law, could making generalisations about Brexit voters please be considered sufficient to end the thread?
Not just roads being sabotaged. MTB trails have had wire strung between trees, & here http://singletrackworld.com/2016/09/former-mp-linked-to-caerphilly-trail-sabotage/ is a recent example of trail blocking. Face it, everyone hates us!
Premeditated, therefore attempted murder.
As was mentioned above, set up a sportive, and put cameras up to catch them.
And to put tacks on a steep descent is horrific, the police need to take this more seriously.
Doubt they intended to kill so not attempted murder. Reckless endangerment, some kind of assault or intent to wound, maybe.
But yeah, it would be nice if someone took this sort of thing seriously.
The weired thing is the effort. Must have taken way longer to buy drawing pins, spray/dry them, travel along a four mile stretch scattering them evenly than any amount of inconvenience the sad looser might have suffered by being held up (which I'm guessing is the root of their problem).
It's possible they were just anodised ones off-the-shelf a la:
http://www.officeworks.com.au/shop/officeworks/p/esselte-drawing-pins-bl...
The people doing this can only have done it the night before or early in the morning as they would not want to affect themselves or car drivers. So we really need some volunteers to either patrol or lie in wait in the relevant places to try and catch these scumbags.
Can look into recent protests from the locals in the area and it's a good bet one of them will be involved. They no doubt think what they are doing is harmless and simply inconveniences the cyclists with a puncture. No harm done, but a point made in their eyes. They dont think people can get seriously hurt or even killed, by their actions which is worrying.
I think of Brits as more self centered than your usual european. Unless its something they're into , they oppose it, even if said activity has little or no impact on them personally. As a result, we're massively depricating (like what i've just written).
Wonder if this sort of thing is prevalent or ever happens at all during sportive cycling events on the continent? Or is it just a UK thing? My experience driving ,motorcycling and cycling in France and Germany is that attitudes outside of the big cities are generally more pleasant on the roads ,making life a little more tolerable for everyone including the cyclist. Yet it seems our country excels in producing large numbers of people who are clearly mentally unstable whenever they get behind the wheel or interact generally with fellow road users . Particularly would like to know if there have been any human behavioural studies carried out to look at why there are so many cyclist hating people in this country.
I've lived in various countries on the continent, mostly Germany and the Netherlands, and I've only ever come across this kind of thing here in the UK. Really not sure what it is either. It must be a mindset thing, but why/what? To do with image or status maybe? The UK is quite a bit more capitalist / less egalitarian than most continental countries after all.
Not just UK... Last year's Nordsjøritt here in Norwaysuffered the same fate, with several boxes emptied on a fairly steep downhill stretch with a hard packed gravel surface. The tacks were spotted by the marshals heading along the route before the start in their quad bikes with trailers carrying the stretchers and managed to get rid of most of them, but still caused a few punctures. (This is a once a year 92km mixed surface event) One unfortunate rider got a front puncture halfway down the slope and took himself out into a fencepost. One trip to hospital with a cracked collarbone,he was lucky.
It has happened in all three Grand Tours over the past few years.
For the same reason that millions of people voted to leave the EU: a limited sense of what freedom means. To many people, what is essential is to be personally free from external interference, whether that be eurocrats telling them how bendy their bananas should be, cyclists preventing them from driving as fast as they otherwise could, or event organisers closing the roads for one day of the year. It doesn't occur to them that other people might want to be free to actually go out and do things: to trade overseas enabled by common standards, to enjoy riding in a nice part of the countryside, to live, study or work abroad in a culture that might suit them better than the one they happen to have been born in. Cyclists are an underclass in Britain and its former colonies because there is a hint of enjoyment in their use of the roads, even when the primary purpose is to commute to a job they hate as much as the motorists "stuck" in queues they pass. They're getting some freedom without having to suffer for it which, for some people, just isn't acceptable if it means inconveniencing them, even for a second. Of course, they'll let their employers or the government buy their liberty, with money or a sense of security. But giving it away out of consideration for their fellow man? Nah, fuck 'em. Ultimately, the cause might be traced back to the failure of the English revolution, and the reaction to the French and Russian ones.
Yes, I can quite see that any reasonable, English person would prefer to be a French or Russian citizen.
Love it - brilliantly put.
Nailed it. Or should that be tacked it?
Miss, miss, handlebarcam's dropped his Gcse politics notes all over Road.cc, miss.
Grumpy17- Read Jeremy Paxman's book 'The English: A portrait of a people.' Basically the English were (and many still are) a bunch of thugs whose idea of a fun night out was to go to a neighbouring village and beat the shit out of the local residents. Go to Guildford on a Friday night if you need any proof. My ex (German) wife used to refer to us as 'island monkeys' and in that respect she was correct. We are a nation of narrow-minded individuals who guard their precious little spaces viciously and spend their time tending tiny vegetable gardens, looking after corner shops and drinking tea. Anything which disrupts our dull routines needs to be stamped out regardless of the benefit it may bring to the community at large. And this is why cycling on British roads is no longer safe and probably never will be. Very sad.
Grumpy17- Read Jeremy Paxman's book 'The English: A portrait of a people.' Basically the English were (and many still are) a bunch of thugs whose idea of a fun night out was to go to a neighbouring village and beat the shit out of the local residents. Go to Guildford on a Friday night if you need any proof. My ex (German) wife used to refer to us as 'island monkeys' and in that respect she was correct. We are a nation of narrow-minded individuals who guard their precious little spaces viciously and spend their time tending tiny vegetable gardens, looking after corner shops and drinking tea. Anything which disrupts our dull routines needs to be stamped out regardless of the benefit it may bring to the community at large. And this is why cycling on British roads is no longer safe and probably never will be. Very sad.
Have you been to the valleys?
Set up an event in that location a month from now and get the hidden cameras running. Then make them eat the jar of tacks, before hanging them.
Really into hanging at the moment. You know, proper public hangings like we used to have.
Perhaps the police should do one of those much-derided psychological profiles and erect a huge poster describing the suspect. I'll start - overweight, mid 50s, UKIP supporter, Daily Mail reader, drives a mark 3 Mondeo and has achieved exactly fuck all in his sad, pathetic little life.