Can I claim to be the Ultimate STW “not effected by Marketing” person

I think you know you can never surpass the previous winner

why wouldn’t a newspaper editor feel the same?

DezB – I suspect your boss is trying to do a good job. Anyone who applies for a job as Editor of a British tabloid knows full well what the game’s about – selling papers – which doesn’t require quality output! I doubt he/she is cut of the same moral cloth as your boss!

Sadly I suspect her editor is fully aware of this story and what it’s trying to achieve… clicks and frothing by a bunch of people who feel inadequate…

Which is why I like social media, we can bypass such gatekeepers and make our voice heard

Cookeaa – you’re right. Social media will give us a voice, and help us correct such dangerous writing at source, but it’s only one component in a whole machine of dealing with the real problem which is dangerous driving.

I find that shouting and waving at bad drivers makes no difference. Mounting a social media response to writing like hers does at least raise awareness amongst a broader audience.

Enforcement of the law is the only real solution for now.

I do wonder what would happen if all commuters and road riders had helmet cameras and at the end of each ride, downloaded all incidences of bad driving and emailed them to the Police asking for prosecution or at least a talking to.
They’d be overwhelmed… maybe that would help drive it up their agenda?

Cookeaa has it – it’s clickbait supporting the prejudices of their readership. However, in doing that it’s damn dangerous writing.

I’ve emailed BC and asked them why they don’t get officially involved in such stories – especially this one as she brings Brad into it, suggesting that the driver hasn’t yet been found at blame when in fact, they’ve been summonsed by the police.

I’ve suggested they make a formal complaint or at least post an official response in the comments pointing out the inaccuracies and prejudice – ideally on each and every story like this. Social media gives us a voice with such stuff…

brooess – you the person she’s having a dingdong with on Twitter?

No. I avoid people like her like the plague. They can only make your life worse.
The article is either a) clickbait or b) she has some serious personal issues which probably require therapy!

My advice is dress to ride, not for the carpark. You generate a lot of heat cycling. IME you’ll be cold standing around in the carpark in kit which will be spot on as soon as you start riding.

The main thing is a windproof outer shell to stop you cooling down later on.

Whether I’m up North or down South I find a single warm layer + one windproof outer later is almost always enough. A buff around the head can make a massive difference to your overall warmth IMO

It’s a very childish article. Geetee has it right – it’s not harmless. The great thing about social media however, as you can see from the comments, is we can subvert the prejudice with reasoned argument…

Also in these comments sections of articles like this, we need to start pointing out that changing ‘cyclist’ to Jew, Black, Woman, Gay etc would lead to an article which would be an incitement to hatred…

My observation is the people at the top do nothing else in their lives, work is everything to them. Fair enough if that’s what they want but I think that’s a waste of the 70+ years we have on this planet and rather sad that they don’t want to do anything else with themselves. The MD who didn’t go to his son’s funeral sounds inhuman and a total lack of compassion

I feel really sorry for the CEO’s son ^^. My uncle has been v successful in business and my cousins complained along similar lines.

Seems a bit steep, hardly his fault.
I thought Humphries was being an idiot on R4 this morning trying to make out he should have been more involved. The guy was DG, he wasn’t supposed to micro manage a single problem programme. It’s like my chief exec getting involved in my work

The point about illegal trails is they’re unsustainable – end up being unrideable mudfests, let alone causing conflict with walkers because they’ve not been thought through route-wise.

End of BKB was lousy for everyone until they got the digger in.

The TD trail down to Walking Bottom is just water cos the berms were stuck in the fall line. Not just an eyesore and causing erosion but unrideable after any amount of rain. Amateur!

I grew up in Cheshire and came down to London for uni at 18 and stayed. Moved back to Cheshire a couple of years ago because I thought I’d had enough of London.
Missed it like crazy. The culture, the air of ambition, decent summer weather, plentiful jobs, energy.
Luckily I was screwed out of my job by my boss. COuldn’t find another job in Manchester and came back to London. I don’t think I’ll leave again

depends why you want it. I have TNF down for urban use. Very warm and tough. And a Rab Generator synthetic for hill use – packs up v small and ideal for summit stops in Scotland in winter, Surprisingly warm

Hard to know if there’s a connection but I seemed to be getting more space today around London.
Be interesting to see what Wiggins says when he’s recovered. I doubt he’ll be staying quiet on this! I think what he says will carry weight and can be leveraged to get the momentum on properly improving the environment for cycling.
It would be good if those fools on that twitter feed Carlton Reid published in The Guardian could get visited by their local plod and be given a quiet word

I went through a pretty hard 2nd interview for a job recently. couple of days prep, 1/2 day assessment. SEnt email afterwards saying was interested.
Heard nothing for a week, sent reminder. Was told they would chase
heard nothing for 2 weeks, sent reminder, heard nothing
sent another reminder, told I didnt have it.

tbh when the guy I would have reported to was taking messages on his BB during the interview I’d already decided he didn’t have the respect and manners of the kind of person I want to be managed by… this whole process just confirmed it tbh.

Very unprofessional process, sends a terrible message to people you’re supposed to want to work hard for you…

So I’m afraid I think your experience is relatively common. tbh be glad you don’t have to go and work there

referring to Crikey’s comment!
I think Antony’s voice is a bit odd – but it’s part of the beauty of the experience

Songs of great beauty. Lou Reed rates him
Just ignore the fact that you think he’s a bit odd and enjoy the music. Deeply underrated IMO

Songs of great beauty. Lou Reed rates him
Just ignore the fact that you think he’s a bit odd and enjoy the music. Deeply underrated IMO

In response to the OP’s question I think there’s an element of power and changing power on the roads going on here.
cars have been mass usage from 1950s onwards. Most people alive today therefore know nothing other then being able to drive where they want, when they want, without having to worry too much about cyclists.

There are more cyclists now which means a change in driver behaviour is necessary – primarily having to think a little more about others.

I think the core of the bad attitude to cyclists is simply this, it means the balance of power on the roads has changed.

When the car driving masses either ride themselves or get used to this change, things should be better. But for now, we’re in a transition period whilst car drivers will need to adapt their expectations and behaviour. Some are ok to do this, some are like small children and throwing a tantrum (or an egg!)

I don’t think it helps that modern cars cocoon drivers from the risks they take, and so they have little awareness of the riskiness of their driving style for others.

I think the required kind of culture change we’re expecting will take 10+ years to come through… better enforcement of current law would help IMO

Do people carry eggs in the car with them ready to launch at cyclists? 😯
Even if I wanted to throw an egg at someone, I don’t have a ready collection in my car… you’d have to have something wrong with you if you go out prepared…

FFS!

Unfortunately, we kind of need news stories like this to raise the issue of the dangers faced by cyclists every day…

Taking out high profile cyclists like Wiggo, Cav, Chris Hoy etc is far more likely to make the news than you or I getting taken out, and as such allow CTC, BC etc to raise the risks of aggressive/dozy driving up the news agenda…

Best wishes to him, I hope he gets better soon as doesn’t impact his training

One of the things I love about the social media is it’s catching out stupid people, time and time again! What a tit! He know’s he;s on camera, name and reg known, so he threatens the guy… Doh!!

We just need more and more of these videos to start fighting back and make sure our day to day experiences of being bullied and threatened are widely publicised, and ideally this kind of behaviour can no longer go on unpunished…

Police should get involved, he nearly knocked the cyclist off
Car driver just needs to grow up and recognise cyclists are legally in the road, and recommended to take primary position

From Virgin who seemed to be throttling it somehow to O2, with whom it was fine. Same wires, different attitude to customer service!

Used it on my shoulder scar which was pretty severe (3 times they went in to sort out my clavicle)
Word of warning – it stained my shirts…

Good luck. Takes balls to admit stuff like that and deal with it

I have a Tifosi and very happy with it. Considering the price difference between it and my carbon summer bike it’s comparably a far better ride than you would expect… if it was all I had I think I’d be pretty happy.

A few things to consider:
1. Carbon seatpost for comfort
2. It’s an audax bike so depending on where you live, the gears may be quite low. If you have lots of steep hills you’ll be fine but if you’re in a flat area, you might want to think about non-compact
3. As per 2, it’s relatively high at the front end. Not a problem but noticeable when you come off your summer bike in terms of getting low over the front
4. Mine had Miche brakes on it which needed better brake blocks from the off but could still be better on the power front… but if you’re custom building you can get round that

The shot of Rannoch Moor and the Buachaille was cool.

My local was, until a few months ago, owned by Daniel Craig’s stepmum. FACT 🙂

Ok, thanks.
Wouldn’t be a bad idea for the seller to mention this on the website would it!?

I told my wife I was going to build a car out of spaghetti. She called me an idiot and said it would never work.
Should’ve seen her face when I drove pasta

I’ve sent a note to BC (I’m a member) to ask them to call for change at the UCI.
We should all do the same

Looks like the pressure for real change is building. Which is heartening to see.
Wonder when BC will make a statement?

decent light on the front is good. As said above, mount far enough back (right at the back rather than in top) so it’s horizontal when you’re head down.

I have a decent 3LED Cateye in this position and I get double takes from pedestrians and car drivers all the time, which suggest it’s noticeable!

Some folk just don’t seem to value their life highly enough.

I think it’s slightly different. More to do with lack of ability to assess risk or even understand that assessing risk is important for survival.

Life is generally very safe these days in the UK – so much has been done to protect us from danger/our own lack of skill (airbags and ABS pretty much standard, non-rewireable plugs etc) that unless you do risky activities (climbing, hillwalking, cycling, motorbike, building work, window cleaning etc) many people fail to realise that risk assessment is a skill they they need but lack.

Risk is being mitigated by product design rather than personal judgement essentially

The number of people wandering around with headphones round dark streets in South East London, or wandering into the road without looking, and all the RLJers… suggests to me they don’t even realise they need to assess risk before they do something…

Oh and some people are simply thick!

Unscrew the cap at the back end.
I sent mine back to Exposure last week when it was a bit dicky, cost me a few ££ postage, they checked and sent it back
They can sell you replacement or reconditioned batteries if you need.
I thought their service was excellent and would give them ago before you spank more £££ on something else

I ran a 40.20m 10k a few years ago (37 at the time) which was 30 secs off my PB I’d set aged 30.
I was placed about 20th in the field and almost everyone ahead was older.

I suspect you can be as fit as you’re prepared to work for and that’s my plan until my body tells me otherwise

Being born in one of the wealthiest countries in the world doesn’t give us a right to continued wealth and economic growth. I think it’s daft to expect that tbh…

Globalisation is the underlying force in our economic situation – previously poor countries are getting wealthier and more politically powerful. I’m not sure what’s wrong with that really. It’s certainly better for them, no?

It’s also beyond UK government to really mitigate against such a shift in the balance of global power.

Labour helped get us in this mess, Tories may be stopping it getting worse or maybe making it worse. Empirically it’s impossible to tell really but I know the UK isn’t like Spain, Greece or Portugal so we could certainly be in a much worse place than we are.

Seems to me best approach is like the bottom of a hard climb. Head down, positive attitude and dig in… Sitting at the bottom wishing it wasn’t there or blaming the bike doesn’t help a huge amount…

I suspect one reason for going for Armstrong is his ‘legend’ status amongst general public – has more impact in terms of negative publicity and to act as a warning. Plus they may well yet go after the others.
Also Armstrong has made a lot of enemies it seems, more than the others? So more people wanted to see him punished…

I have the Road ID slim. Bought it direct from the US site.

Wear it every day, in part so people ask what it is and I can tell them how dangerous it is for cyclists, in the hope they’ll think a little more next time they drive.

It sounds like he was bullying. Seems rather extreme behaviour whatever led to the confrontation. Clearly he has issues which needs resolving. I doubt it’s the first time he’s tried to take them out on someone he perceives as weaker than him. Today you just happened to be that person.

Your life is undoubtedly better than his. And Karma will surely come and get him. Karma’s having a good time right now by the looks of things 🙂