On 3 Mar 2024 at 01:14:23 GMT, "John Miller"
<millerhouse@spamtrap.talktalk.net> wrote:

> Just try a little patience and understanding of a grassroots sport which
> has brought this country countless Olympic medals.

Why?

And there's no need to hold the Olympics, cycle races, or televised skiing
more than once. Just record it and then fours years or whatever later, just
play it again. No one would notice.

--
"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."

James Nicoll, rasfw

On 03/03/2024 01:14, John Miller wrote:
> Cycle racing on British roads are governed by law, specifically Cycle
> Racing on the Highways Regulations 1960. Cycling time trials also need
> police permission and involve individual riders, not a massed start.
> Organisers generally go to some trouble to ensure races are well
> signposted in advance to try and minimise any inconvenience. Be sure
> that any unauthorised races would involve a prompt Police response.
> Just try a little patience and understanding of a grassroots sport which
> has brought this country countless Olympic medals. Those athletes have
> to start somewhere

I am very sympathetic to cyclists wanting to gradually improve their
personal best times. In my own little way (and I am hideously unfit!) I
tried to gradually improve my time on a circular route of a few miles
which involved a hill that I could not even cycle all the way up without
stopping when I first began doing the route, and which I progressed over
about 6 months to being able to do in better and better times without
stopping. Speed limits were not an issue because all the road were
National Speed Limit, even if some of them were narrow lanes where 60
would have been reckless or dangerous. But if there had been limits, I
would have kept to them. Where I passed through a village with parked
cars and driveways, I slowed down enough to be able to stop, just as I
would in a car.

But... it was always on a best-endeavours basis: I realised that I may
encounter an oncoming car on a single-track lane which meant I had to
stop to let it pass me, if it hadn't already stopped for me. If I was
aware of a car behind me, I tried to find somewhere to pull in for a few
seconds to let it past me, maybe pointing ahead of me and then
signalling left to say "I'll pull in at the layby that I can see 100
yards beyond where I am". What didn't I try to do was to keep on riding,
hell-for-leather even when the car had already passed its last passing
place and therefore had nowhere to pull in.

Too many cyclists seem to have no road sense at all, or the arrogance to
think that because they are doing something healthy which is a sport,
they have the god-given right to ignore all the rules and courtesies of
sharing a road with other traffic.

I'm sure that the race that I got behind was not being run according to
normal rules in that there were no "Cycle Race" or "Diversion" signs,
and there had not been (as far as I am aware) any advance warning to
locals. I realised that once I got behind them, there would be no
overtaking opportunities for several miles and that they would encounter
a steep uphill. I resigned myself to a slow journey, even if I did
under-estimate just how slowly they would go up the hill (they looked
fitter than they turned out to be!).

I don't like roads to be closed, even with prior warning, for running,
bicycle or car races. The Tour de Yorkshire has been through our village
and the roads were closed for a long time before and after, on a very
well-used B road which normally carries a fair amount of traffic which
would have had to find an alternative route - I'm not sure where they
were officially being diverted.

Apparently when the TdY was routed through the outskirts of York, they
were advising pregnant women who were close to their due date to make
arrangements to stay (eg with friends) close to the maternity hospital
in case they went into labour during the race. That is wrong: in an
emergency, whether known about in advance (pregnancy) or unknown (heart
attack etc), all bets are off and the ambulance needs to get through,
even if it throws the race into disarray. Road are there first and
foremost as a means of getting from A to B, and their use as a racetrack
takes second place. And of course there was that notorious case in
France where the TdF riders rode through a level crossing that had its
barriers down and seemed miffed that the peleton got broken into two
halves when a train had the "audacity" to arrive at the crossing.

On 03/03/2024 08:51, Tim Streater wrote:
> On 3 Mar 2024 at 01:14:23 GMT, "John Miller"
> <millerhouse@spamtrap.talktalk.net> wrote:
>
>> Just try a little patience and understanding of a grassroots sport which
>> has brought this country countless Olympic medals.
>
> Why?
>
> And there's no need to hold the Olympics, cycle races, or televised skiing
> more than once. Just record it and then fours years or whatever later, just
> play it again. No one would notice.

The real problem with on-road cycling races is not the day of the race.
It's the "me too" events that follow the route for months or years
afterwards. A lot of the roads in the Yorkshire Dales (eg the Buttertubs
route between Wensleydale and Swaledale, as well as the main roads up
those dales) have seen a large increase in cyclist events since the TdY.

The problem is not the groups of a few friends who decide to "do" the
route. They are usually considerate and cycle with gaps so a car can
multi-hop to overtake them one bike at a time, or else they usually pull
over whenever they can to let cars past.

The problem is the clubs which have a group of maybe 50 riders who stay
together in a pack (peleton) which make it almost impossible to get
past. Any other event (eg a tractor parade) of slow vehicles would have
guidance for how to make it as easy as possible for normal-speed
vehicles to pass them. But the cycle events have no signage, no warning
in advance. Just turn up and inconvenience everyone who wants to use the
road as a road rather than a racetrack.

In article <POydnYDY08WeInj4nZ2dnZfqnPcAAAAA@brightview.co.uk>, NY
<me@privacy.net> wrote:
> On 03/03/2024 08:51, Tim Streater wrote:
> > On 3 Mar 2024 at 01:14:23 GMT, "John Miller"
> > <millerhouse@spamtrap.talktalk.net> wrote:
> >
> >> Just try a little patience and understanding of a grassroots sport
> >> which has brought this country countless Olympic medals.
> >
> > Why?
> >
> > And there's no need to hold the Olympics, cycle races, or televised
> > skiing more than once. Just record it and then fours years or whatever
> > later, just play it again. No one would notice.

> The real problem with on-road cycling races is not the day of the race.
> It's the "me too" events that follow the route for months or years
> afterwards.

Indeed. We had the Olympic cycle road event go throught our village 12
years ago, Cyclists are still coming in packs. A few years ago, the police
reported that large numbers of them were coming from Belgium!

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England - sent from my RISC OS 4té²
"I'd rather die of exhaustion than die of boredom" Thomas Carlyle

On 04/03/2024 12:30 pm, NY wrote:

> On 03/03/2024 01:14, John Miller wrote:

>> Cycle racing on British roads are governed by law, specifically Cycle
>> Racing on the Highways Regulations 1960. Cycling time trials also need
>> police permission and involve individual riders, not a massed start.
>> Organisers generally go to some trouble to ensure races are well
>> signposted in advance to try and minimise any inconvenience. Be sure
>> that any unauthorised races would involve a prompt Police response.
>> Just try a little patience and understanding of a grassroots sport
>> which has brought this country countless Olympic medals. Those
>> athletes have to start somewhere

[ ... ]
>
> I don't like roads to be closed, even with prior warning, for running,
> bicycle or car races. The Tour de Yorkshire has been through our village
> and the roads were closed for a long time before and after, on a very
> well-used B road which normally carries a fair amount of traffic which
> would have had to find an alternative route - I'm not sure where they
> were officially being diverted.
>
> Apparently when the TdY was routed through the outskirts of York, they
> were advising pregnant women who were close to their due date to make
> arrangements to stay (eg with friends) close to the maternity hospital
> in case they went into labour during the race. That is wrong: in an
> emergency, whether known about in advance (pregnancy) or unknown (heart
> attack etc), all bets are off and the ambulance needs to get through,
> even if it throws the race into disarray. Road are there first and
> foremost as a means of getting from A to B, and their use as a racetrack
> takes second place. And of course there was that notorious case in
> France where the TdF riders rode through a level crossing that had its
> barriers down and seemed miffed that the peleton got broken into two
> halves when a train had the "audacity" to arrive at the crossing.

+1 and well said!

Whose advice was it that the interests of pregnant women and their
unborn children should come a distant second?

It surely cannot have been official advice?

It must have been someone speaking for the entitled chavs on bikes?

NY <me@privacy.net> wrote:

> Apparently when the TdY was routed through the outskirts of York, they
> were advising pregnant women who were close to their due date to make
> arrangements to stay (eg with friends) close to the maternity hospital
> in case they went into labour during the race. That is wrong: in an
> emergency, whether known about in advance (pregnancy) or unknown (heart
> attack etc), all bets are off and the ambulance needs to get through,
> even if it throws the race into disarray. Road are there first and
> foremost as a means of getting from A to B, and their use as a racetrack
> takes second place. And of course there was that notorious case in
> France where the TdF riders rode through a level crossing that had its
> barriers down and seemed miffed that the peleton got broken into two
> halves when a train had the "audacity" to arrive at the crossing.

The Good News: negotiations for a 2024 TdY fell through.

The Bad News: it’s going to be replaced.

See
<https://www.cyclingweekly.com/racing/tour-de-yorkshire-to-be-replaced-with-new-look-cycling-event-in-2024>

--
Spike

On 04/03/2024 14:39, JNugent wrote:
> Whose advice was it that the interests of pregnant women and their
> unborn children should come a distant second?
>
> It surely cannot have been official advice?
>
> It must have been someone speaking for the entitled chavs on bikes?

I really don't remember. It may well have been an article in the York
Press newspaper (web version of it) but I don't know who was making the
recommendation - emergency services or spokesman for TdY organisers. The
article gave the impression that it was "official" advice from some
organisation.