Mark Cavendish edits sign to mark 31st Tour de France stage win; Primoz Roglic reveals crash injuries; Rider protest; £100k for pothole claim cyclist; Rowe fined for 'insults'; Boardman tipped for National Cycling Commissioner role + more on the Live Blog

agreed, but I do wonder if such a role is even achieveable at a UK wide level though, you really need lots of CBs spread around the regions pushing the message & focussing on the local problems, because assuredly whats needed in London or Manchester isnt remotely the same as whats needed in less urban parts of the country.

and when theres only him how does he not end up taking on too much and being spread too thinly.

Very true.  It would need a network of local Active Travel champions and huge changes in the government approach to transport, with no more road building and legal powers to provide the necessary infrastructure.

Many councils already have Cycling & Walking Champions (clumped together as active travel funding often encompasses both) or their equivalent. My wife holds the position on Cheshire East Council and has been incredibly active in completing 'cycle safaris' in each town in the Borough alongside active travel campaigners such as the local cycling campaign groups, Sustrans reps etc etc and then written reports and plans for infrastructure changes. These are a requirement if you want to apply for funding.

What she struggles with is getting the funding to facilitate the changes. The council leadership are supportive, but not to the point of stripping budget from roads and drivers and reallocating it to active travel.

Central government does put money up for bidding (not enough, but some) so having  CB becoming a national Tsar will be a huge boost - he will have influence at government level to drive budget change and although my wife has already engaged with Chris (as Cheshire East borders Greater Manchester) having a formal relationship where he can push and influence outside of GM will be a huge benefit. He will draw up plans and tell government what infrastructure will cost. He will also ensure LTN1/20 is adopted and proper, up to date infrastructure becomes the norm - we can say goodbye to white painted murder strips.

It all comes down to money. If government wants to become serious about delivering what they claim they want to see, then the likes of CB will hound them to put their money where their mouths are. At the moment very few people of influence are doing that. If you don't have a supportive MP (which means Tory on the whole) then they don't push it at all. They are completely at odds with their own government. If your MP is Labour, they will more than likely be supportive, but will be ignored by the government. This is why we need someone like CB who will literally just drive this change irrespective of who is in power.

well he seems to have ended up as chair of Sport England instead so either peoples wires got crossed about his new role or he'll be spreading himself even thinner if he ends up as some kind of UK active travel champion as well.

Im not sure it matters whose party your MP belongs to, MPs only count this stuff in terms of votes for them, if an MP thinks its a vote winner, theyll support it, if they dont most of them, there are exceptions of course, arent anti enough to go out of their way to campaign against it and theyll simply judge things by the size of their postbags.

its the local councils with responsibility for the roads who I find have the most say about bringing in active travel schemes and supporting cycling or not as the case maybe, and some of them often clash with all the various local governance even with councils from the same party because its all about who has power and the money and silliness like that.

and thats where if you had a Chris Boardman style advocate working at that level youd get the most benefit imo, because you need to translate those high ambitions the government sets with the budget they do provide but with very little detail behind it, to get things done, and very few local councils have anyone championing this stuff, yours excepted clearly, or owning the responsibility for it, explaining what it is all about to the public in clear simple to understand chunks.

plus I dont think its any good saying at a national level just implement LTN1/20 and its all fine, because it doesnt really go beyond dealing with urban solutions, which isnt a criticism of LTN1/20 but theres a gap here when you arent dealing with urban solutions what do you do? .What use to someone is having a segregated cycle lane in the middle of a town even just 10 miles away from where they live, how does that get them using their bike instead of a car ?

Link is broken? Do email info [at] road.cc to clarify, thanks and congratulations!

Jack Sexty wrote:

Link is broken? Do email info [at] road.cc to clarify, thanks and congratulations!

Just a couple of trailing characters - try this: https://www.justgiving.com/team/under40hours

Maybe it seems more due to the people involved - there are always crashes in the first week, although the one with Sagan and Ewan was a bit weird !

seems like we should also differentiate between types of crashes and what is part of course design, road furniture, racing incident or spectator caused,

some are part of the sport , some are avoidable

Not sure what happened to Cav yesterday... maybe the run-in didn't suit him, or the Wolf Pack were looking after Alaphillipe, or he wisely decided he'd let the day pass while he remained uninjured.

PRSboy wrote:

Not sure what happened to Cav yesterday... maybe the run-in didn't suit him, or the Wolf Pack were looking after Alaphillipe, or he wisely decided he'd let the day pass while he remained uninjured.

He said he had to brake hard to avoid the last big crash, nearly came off but managed to get a foot down but his front wheel was wrecked, by the time it was sorted he had no chance to catch the leaders and he coasted in five minutes down (stopping to check on Ewen as he came in, which was a nice touch).

He came down in the second last crash, broke his front wheel and coasted in. There are also reports that he stopped when he saw Ewan had been in the final crash and checked to see if he was OK. 

peted76 wrote:

Seems like another inconsistent rule..  

It isn't the rule that is inconsistent, it is the application. If the application of the rule was the same for everyone, and Roglic had, likewise, been allowed no assistance, I imagine Rowe wouldn't have kicked off the way he did. 

Think he was upset before Roglic went down. There does appear to be an anti-Ineos/Sky interpretation of some rules, other than the running without a bike one!

I feel like starting a JustGiving page to fund raise for his fine!

Rendel Harris wrote:

When riders who crash in the last three kms are given the same time as the group they were with when they crashed, surely the same principle should be used to allow riders who crash to be drafted back to the peleton? Don't blame Rowe for unfurling a bit of choice verbiage.

But that misunderstands what the 3km rule is there for.  It's not so that you are not disadvantaged from a crash; it's to stop the GC teams from riding at the front for the last 3km and getting in the way of the sprinters. (Having said that, I don't blame Rowe either!)

Steve K wrote:

But that misunderstands what the 3km rule is there for.  It's not so that you are not disadvantaged from a crash; it's to stop the GC teams from riding at the front for the last 3km and getting in the way of the sprinters. (Having said that, I don't blame Rowe either!)

Yes I understand that's what the 3km rule is there for but it has the subsidiary effect of meaning that riders who crash are not overly disadvantaged, I'm simply suggesting that that effect could be applied for the whole length of the course.

Who commissaires the commissaires?

IanMK wrote:

Who commissaires the commissaires?

I have always kind of got the impression that they are a little like the stewards at F1 Grand Prix. They are given the framework and rules by the FIA but it is up to them how they apply them on raceday. 

Same with the commissaires at the big races.