"Action hero" Ed Miliband rushes to help stricken Camden cyclist

Is there any statistical backing to this 'young women cyclists' debate?

This is a horrible reaction to a story of road-side chivalry:

"What exactly do you mean by experienced? Had they attended road safety courses?" ..

In my experience of cycle training, adult women are more inclined to take training; whereas men are often over-confident, feeling they have 'little to learn'.

The truth is that we all have something to learn, no matter how experienced.

Women eh?! Who do they think they are, swanning around on their sustainable and effective forms of transport, as if they have some kind of legal right to do so.

Still, at least we can mock their ignorance and laugh at their misfortunes, eh lads?! The last thing we need is MORE people riding bicycles; after all, it's their fault if they get crushed by lorries. As long as we create social barriers (like sneering at them) and suggesting legal barriers (like licensing them), we'll keep the numbers down and ensure the streets remain the domain of belligerent, knuckle-scraping men.

/sarcasticranting

@CraftyDutchi Is Colin saying that all young women can't ride a bike or that some can't? Seems like the latter to me. And while I agree that is seems unfair to single out young women cyclists - plenty of young men can't ride a bike very well either. I think Colin is saying that the problem is caused not because they are women but because they are inexperienced cyclists with no training or in some cases even any previous experience of cycling.

Actually quite a lot of English people don't know how to ride a bike - this is a very different place from the Netherlands in that respect.

Very many British children, particularly girls never learn how to ride a bike. I once interviewed one of the pioneers of adult cycle training in the UK and he told me that the people he trained were overwhelmingly women who had either never learned to ride or who had stopped riding at a very young age. As traffic level grew in the UK in the late Seventies and in to the Eighties parents stopped letting their kids just go out on their bikes - the perceived danger was too great. He estimated that most of the generation that grew up in the UK from the mid 80 to the mid 90s had been lost to cycling at a young age and that a much larger number than in previous generations had never actually started cycling at all. One of the consequences of the vicious cycle of car dependancy this country has gotten itself in to - the other being the rise in childhood obesity - now thankfully being reversed.

If more Brits had been riding their bikes like you continuously from the age of four on in to adulthood our transport system wouldn't be the mess it is today.

You're of course right though that no matter how good a rider you are there's always the chance of an occasional 'off' and it's good to know that people are still willing to pick you up when that happens.

Colin you do have a point...

Leech was probably getting a draught off the other bike before grabbing a handful of front brake. Did she check to see if he didn't steal her purse as he slipped away without being seen? Typical slimy politician.

Typical handling skills of a female London cyclist. No doubt hammered her brakes in an effort to stop and found physics getting in the way.

I'm sorry for this comment, but I see so many women cycling around London without any sense of road cycling awareness, and no really understanding of how to handle their bikes. It saddens and depresses me when I hear these stories about women being crushed under lorries, mostly because I see so many blithely riding around London without ever understanding their bike and the road.

I sort of feel you ought to have a license to ride. Imagine driving a car without having instruction. You'd probably do OK once you figured out the clutch and braking, but when you get yourself into a tricky position you'd be toast.

Many of these women (appear to me) to be young and may never have taken a driving test. They may have done cycling proficiency at junior school (and probably in a small town or village - at least on quieter roads), but they are vastly ingnorant of the risks they put themselves at. There are courses which they can take but the majority ignore. Plain irresponsible.

....and breath. Sorry guys

The Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte also stopped to help at an accident involving a cyclist a few weeks ago. Unfortunately that was an older woman being struck by a truck, and she died

Ms Phillips, said I half suspected he had deliberately knocked me off my bike just to gallantly help me up again.

Never a truer word spoken in jest

There must have been a fault with the brakes or the chain !!!!!!!!

Sounds like a panicked handful of front brake to me.

He does look like he should have a switch in the back of his head to control his eyes.

I would be worried about being dead, not concussion. He's like the grim reaper

There must have been a fault with the brakes or the chain !!!!!!!!