"He could do it twice in my best time": Cycling world in meltdown over Tom Pidcock's Sa Calobra time; Incredible on-bike footage of Buenos Aires erupting at winning penalty; Council defends cycling roundabout; Weekend round-up + more on the live blog

An interesting story in The Irish Times this weekend showed that over in Ireland motorists had received just 71 fines in three years for dangerous overtaking of cyclists

What? This is supposed to be reprehensible?! Ireland is doing a fairly good job. In Lancashire, my FoI request to the police revealed NO penalties beyond possible 'have a word with', warning letter or joke driving course. I don't think anybody has ever been penalised in Lancashire with a fine or points on the licence for close passing a cyclist. Remember that offences like this receive no response at all from the unpleasantly lax and highly forgiving OpSnapLancs, who clearly think this close pass by Sainsbury's 44 tonner YN67 MVJ was the least I deserved for being on the road. This is a hotspot for similar offences- I have been passed at the same place (left hand bend approaching the top of a blind hill- the b******s overtake and when they encounter fast oncoming traffic they just squeeze the cyclist- with the approval of Lancashire Constabulary) by an equally close Stagecoach double-decker. I have written this before, too many times people may think, that the greatest single factor leading to danger for cyclists is the police

Has the remaining PBU been given another holiday?

71 close passes, that's three weeks, not three years...

RE: Cycling roundabout (before Flintshire gets here) - did someone confuse bikes with cars?

Mike McCusker (Salford lead for planning) wrote:

The roundabout allows pedestrians to cross the junction safely in two short moves so they only have to be aware of one lane of cycle traffic at a time.

Now that's a good general principle but really you don't need anything special for cycling / pedestrian interactions.  Unless you've designed something incompetently...

Mike McCusker wrote:

It provides a quicker crossing for them and is safer than trying to cross a wider junction with traffic from both directions.

It has been designed to accommodate people on foot or in wheelchairs or pushing buggies. Cyclists circulate round it like a 'normal' road roundabout so they, too, can get round this junction safely without putting pedestrians in danger

Yep - because "cyclists" we need to invent something that no-one else needs * otherwise the dark triad of tour-de-France wannabes, wrong'uns and incompetent riders will put pedestrians in danger.  Sounds like cycles = cars to me!

I'm not totally outraged because this whole "cycling" with its own space idea is extremely new to most in the UK - an "unknown unknown" if you will.  And because everyone ignores the standards guidance we do have for designing this infra no-one knows what to expect.

* Yes BicycleDutch has pointed out a couple of examples in NL e.g. this one- mostly as they're rare and notable because of how stupid they are.

Re. Buenos Aires - There were similar scenes in Scotland when Archie Gemmill scored against The Netherlands in 1978.

That Austrian cycle lane story means nothing to me.

Depressing reading today on the forum with those incidents.

Cycling mikey reckons it's the last day for submissions due to the 14 day limit for NIPs being messed up by strikes and christmas.

Manged a double ton on the way back from town - 101 passes and top speed of 103 kph. One benefit of radar being you can see if drivers are slowing down.

Pleased to say range rover drivers keep up the standards. Was confused to be overtaken by a black car when I knew a silver one was behind me. Then realised the silver car driver was giving me space but range rover overtook both with oncoming traffic (no rear camera to show this).

Did anyone see that footage of a woman in Burley being knocked down by a van on a zebra crossing, then immediately knocked down again by a car?  It's been covered on various tabloid sites.  You wonder about some people (the drivers, not the pedestrian): you really do...

Those mentioning he could do it twice, he did do it twice. Second time was 31 mins but HR and power shows he was just "coasting" compared to the first time. 

I see that the Kensington & Chelsea court case, about the cycle lane, has been adjourned until January 13, 2023.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/council-high-street-kensington-cy...