Sunday Times decide to Strava bash

[simon the viking]

I read the article and was disgusted at the blatant anti-cyclist angle, what about all the cars that passed me on the M1 today (coming back from a cycle jumble - I was in my car) I was travelling at 70 mph and was being overtaken all the time and the conditions were far from perfect.

I've fired off a 'letters to the editor' reply I will let you know if they publish it

 

[sidevalve]

Seems to be reasonable to me, the purpose of Strava is to encourage competition and thus encourage people to ride faster. When your focus is getting a KOM your focus may not be on other road uses.... The question which needs to be answered is whether the road is the place for competition. If they did Strava for cars the roads would be carnage.

Spot on. Racing is illegal on public roads and sadly that is what SOME riders do. Trying to excuse it by saying there are nobs in all walks of life is like saying it's ok to mug someone bacause it happens all over the country.
Further the only reason speed limits don't apply to cycles is historic. VERY few cyclists could exceed the 30 limit over half a century ago when the limits were being brought in on a large scale. More to the point is that there are more and more 20 zones now, a speed not that difficult to exceed. Believe it or not cyclists have a bit of a charmed life at the mo, very few rules actually do apply to them and those that do are often broken because they can "get away with it" [riding on the footpath for one, no requirement for any form of insurance, even the most basic 3rd party, for another], even these actions often being defended or "excused" by people on this very forum.
Do as you will but the heavy hand of officialdom will [given any excuse] come down even harder on ALL road users and to believe otherwise is, at best optimistic, at worst -well---.

 

[lejogger]

Spot on. Racing is illegal on public roads and sadly that is what SOME riders do. Trying to excuse it by saying there are nobs in all walks of life is like saying it's ok to mug someone bacause it happens all over the country.

If you read my post I'm not trying to excuse anyone. I just don't believe all cyclists should be chastised over the actions of a few... Which is what the article seemed to be doing.

 

[addictfreak]

I held a KOM for a while, until I was robbed! Tried a few times to get it back, but the route consisted of crossing a busy staggered junction with limited visibility, a level crossing and a roundabout. I realised it was all getting a bit silly and just let it go. Plenty other segments around that are not so risky.

 

[simon the viking]

Spot on. Racing is illegal on public roads and sadly that is what SOME riders do. Trying to excuse it by saying there are nobs in all walks of life is like saying it's ok to mug someone bacause it happens all over the country.
Further the only reason speed limits don't apply to cycles is historic. VERY few cyclists could exceed the 30 limit over half a century ago when the limits were being brought in on a large scale. More to the point is that there are more and more 20 zones now, a speed not that difficult to exceed. Believe it or not cyclists have a bit of a charmed life at the mo, very few rules actually do apply to them and those that do are often broken because they can "get away with it" [riding on the footpath for one, no requirement for any form of insurance, even the most basic 3rd party, for another], even these actions often being defended or "excused" by people on this very forum.
Do as you will but the heavy hand of officialdom will [given any excuse] come down even harder on ALL road users and to believe otherwise is, at best optimistic, at worst -well---.

I understand what you are saying about a charmed life but a lot of laws relating to cycling would be impossible to police, even a most basic 'helmet law' If I was stopped for not wearing a helmet should it ever become law, I could say my name was Bob Smith of 53 Coronation Road and as I could claim I had no I.D on me and my cycle does not carry a registration plate, short of putting my bike in the patrol cars boot and driving me to my claimed address there's not a lot the police could do, I suppose they could lock me up in a cell until I had a form of I.D bought to them but I suspect there would not be enough cells. Also police would be on a hiding to nothing stopping all the paper boys without helmets.

 

[Crackle]

Spot on. Racing is illegal on public roads and sadly that is what SOME riders do. Trying to excuse it by saying there are nobs in all walks of life is like saying it's ok to mug someone bacause it happens all over the country.
Further the only reason speed limits don't apply to cycles is historic. VERY few cyclists could exceed the 30 limit over half a century ago when the limits were being brought in on a large scale. More to the point is that there are more and more 20 zones now, a speed not that difficult to exceed. Believe it or not cyclists have a bit of a charmed life at the mo, very few rules actually do apply to them and those that do are often broken because they can "get away with it" [riding on the footpath for one, no requirement for any form of insurance, even the most basic 3rd party, for another], even these actions often being defended or "excused" by people on this very forum.
Do as you will but the heavy hand of officialdom will [given any excuse] come down even harder on ALL road users and to believe otherwise is, at best optimistic, at worst -well---.

Edit: Never mind I couldn't be bothered to argue this

 

[400bhp]

Spot on. Racing is illegal on public roads and sadly that is what SOME riders do. Trying to excuse it by saying there are nobs in all walks of life is like saying it's ok to mug someone bacause it happens all over the country.
Further the only reason speed limits don't apply to cycles is historic. VERY few cyclists could exceed the 30 limit over half a century ago when the limits were being brought in on a large scale. More to the point is that there are more and more 20 zones now, a speed not that difficult to exceed. Believe it or not cyclists have a bit of a charmed life at the mo, very few rules actually do apply to them and those that do are often broken because they can "get away with it" [riding on the footpath for one, no requirement for any form of insurance, even the most basic 3rd party, for another], even these actions often being defended or "excused" by people on this very forum.
Do as you will but the heavy hand of officialdom will [given any excuse] come down even harder on ALL road users and to believe otherwise is, at best optimistic, at worst -well---.

It's actually not, albeit it has to be done under the auspices of the cycling governing bodies AFAIK.

 

[lejogger]

Surely it's impossible to actually define it as racing when there's just one sole participant at a time too? Where does a pootle turn into training and training turn into racing?
If you're defining trying to improve on times as racing then that would include pretty much every cyclist who owns any sort of cycle computer on pretty much every ride?
How do any cyclists train for any time trial? I'm pretty sure they don't close the courses to traffic before national championships but I'm also pretty sure every rider will have ridden the course beforehand.
Riding fast doesn't have to be riding reckless.

 

[Bromptonaut]

Cannot read the original article as I'm not paying to go through Murdoch's turnstile.

 

[simon the viking]

Cannot read the original article as I'm not paying to go through Murdoch's turnstile.

I read it at the in-laws. I aint paying two quid for a newsper either

 

[boydj]

Idiots will be idiots, but I've seen some of the behaviour that the paper complains of. Though it doesn't necessarily need Strava to initiate it, Strava definitely provides an additional excuse for some decidedly risky riding.

 

[Andrew_P]

The only real KOM are the ones where you are ascending. They should re-name all the other non climbing KOM. Some are just plain stupid.

 

[HLaB]

I've seen roadies riding as if making fast progress is the only thing that matters, so there is a fair point to be made here.

Leaving Strava aside, I've been on an organised 'fun' ride - and read of others - which have been partly spoiled by some riders who treat it as a race.

One rider swore at me and/or two pedestrians for impeding his progress on a shared path.

You dont live near Peterborough do you. When pushing my bike by a lady on a narrow footway, I had one rider numpty come downhill, round the blind bend swear at me

 

[Ben Lowe]

I put together a blog post debunking the main statistic that drives their article: 41mph. A little bit of digging and you can see that it actually only 31mph: http://veloviewer.com/blog/41mph-the-evidence-against-the-sunday-times-article/
They interviewed me last thursday and I pointed out that the times and hence speeds were often rather suspect (the 1st position on that segment at the time had a speed of over 100mph which the journalist specifically asked me about how that could be). I also pointed out that speeding isn't illegal in the UK on a bike but it appears he chose to ignore.
I'm not saying that Strava doesn't encourage a minority to push themselves in built up areas, but I very much doubt it turns a law-abiding cyclist (one that doesn't jump red lights, not much else seems to be illegal) into one that purposefully smashes through every red light they see. The percentage of cyclists who jump a red light specifically because they are actively pursuing a Strava segment must be close to zero.
Lots of cyclists do jump red lights but that is a different issue.

 

[lejogger]

I put together a blog post...

A very well written piece Ben, and a very interesting read. If the journalists wanted to write a balanced piece then they would have certainly used your views much more widely.

A further niggle is that this is from the Times, who so sadly lost one of their own in a bicycle accident last year, and who seem to have done a heck of a lot of campaigning for making the cities safer for cycling, yet at the same time happily print this misguided rubbish which only offsets any good they may have previously done.