Anybody watch top gear

[swee'pea99]

I've been a fan for years, but the 'going thru' the motions' feel has been getting steadily more pervasive over recent years, and when the best they can do for the first of a new series is a rehash of an old 'race' and a review of a supercar, it's hard to avoid the feeling that it's time to pull the plug - even if there's no prospect of that, so long as it continues to bring in yankee dollars from all over the world. The fundamental problem, I suspect, is that the 'engine' of the show - Clarkson - is simply bored with it. He's old, fat and very rich, and he simply doesn't give a stuff about it any more. Hence the 'PR blunders' - the only buzz he gets out of it nowadays is pushing things ever further, to prove his unsackability.

 

[vernon]

[QUOTE 3498005, member: 9609"]some serious points touched on tonight, how badly cyclist are treated on the roads with clowns not seeing us - then there was the very on-topic (for edinburgh cyclists) of the dangers of tram lines.
And Clarksons comment about cyclists getting more and more enraged was quite funny..[/QUOTE]

There was no need to call someone '@numbnuts' though like Richard Hammond did. Tram lines are not dangerous if people took the correct precautions. I wonder how cyclists cope with tram lines in Vienna, Amsterdam, Budapest, inter alia.

 

[vernon]

[QUOTE 3498018, member: 9609"]There's two attributes I share with him then[/QUOTE]

You young whippersnapper.

 

[mjr]

Tram lines are not dangerous if people took the correct precautions. I wonder how cyclists cope with tram lines in Vienna, Amsterdam, Budapest, inter alia.

Two ways as far as I've seen in cities that have them: fat tyre town bikes rather than inappropriate featherweight racers; and fall into track slot, stop, get off, lift bike out, ride on.

 

[mr messy]

I had to cross the tram tracks in Edinburgh once and it wasn't a pleasant experience, and that was without the trams!!! Pointing out i was just visiting and not a local....

 

[shouldbeinbed]

Tricky one. I understand that in Manchester a hard core of cyclists have adapted to cope with tram tracks while in Croydon there are no cyclists left, or something.

I'll be one of the hardcore then, City centre isn't too bad as the tracks follow the road flow or cross it at 90 degrees and are easy to manage. Certain roads though, Ashton New Road particularly, TfGM seem to have made them deliberately awkward to cross safely due to the way they've zigzagged the tracks up the road then off it for a bit then back on again, the shallower turn angle the trams need meaning you can't cross them at a safe angle on a bike, lots of little bits of bike detours round the back of stops but barely signed, unhelpful, puts you into pedestrian areas and nightmarish for the unwary or new to the area riders to spot and get used to. The narrowness of the road overall and laughable bike lane immediately in the door zone of the road long parking bays mean you have no option but to negotiate the tracks as best you can as the least worst of several s**te options. There is no alternate direct back route that takes you all the way into Ashton that means you can avoid tracks all the way. The best you can hope for is a not quite as direct disjointed mish mash that minimises your contact with tracked road.

I had a hairy moment a while ago when the back wheel skirted the track and the rear end went out on me, both feet down to stop me going over and I've seen/stopped for several riders making emergency saves, going down or picking themselves up after a spill. It has gone from an optional route to a make sure the will is up to date and it has to be absolutely necessary to go that way one.

 

[machew]

Birmingham City Council have sorted the problem of cyclists and tram tracks, were the tram tracks are in the road the have put up "Cyclists Dismount" signs

 

[I am Spartacus]

Indeed, silly puerile tosh , the whole thing and now for ffs, the fat blubbery part of the British public now have their errant prejudices all confirmed.. we waste loads of money (everyone now assumes we spend £10k on a bike) and we can't get it up. Sorry he fell off though.. I recognised the hurt he went through.

 

[Richard A Thackeray]

I watched, but would like to comment on the 'Patagonia' special insteed

Didn't the scenery in Chile look absolutely wonderful

 

[DWiggy]

Absolutely Great tv imo, the Hamsters bike was lush and the crash definitely looked real to me!! he also said the change over from road to mountain bike set him back 20min's and I don't think that included his reduced pace on the mountain bike, so another win for the cyclist I reckon! |(The only way to travel )

 

[mjr]

Shorten the chain and make it single speed.

That would have been a good example of resilience (especially given the hours they used to spend during specials bodging the cars back together when I used to watch it), but was he riding without any sort of toolkit? Did the bike have a front derailleur?

 

[BrumJim]

Top gear specials are always far better than the rest of the series.

I didn't watch the last special, as it was described on a petrol head type forum as being formulaic, predictable, and a couple of hours that you will never get back. So I deleted it off the TiVo.

 

[sarahale]

The last special was worth watching for the 5 minutes of footage where the crew had to drive the cars out of Argentina with a police escort. The rest wasn't great.

 

[AndyRM]

Not watched it yet, but I will be this evening.

I don't understand why folk get so worked up about it being staged or controversial or whatever. It's a light entertainment programme like any other.

 

[Fubar]

I doubt the crash was staged, but I think the deal with borrowing the Merida MTB involved a little bit more than just "we'll give you a lift to work". Didn't take them long to mount cameras on the replacement, did it?

Also, I must mention that mounting a frame bag inside the triangle on a Pinarello should be a crime.

I didn't pay too much attention (ie didn't wind it back to check) but if he fell left as he appeared to how did he damage his hanger? As they said if he had finished 20 minutes quicker than the rest it would have been fairly dull, looks like they needed to invent a delay.