Clarkson weighs in on the cycling debate - and is right!!

[Craven Wine]

I read the OP's piece without logging in, only to find car adverts being plugged, made me laugh at the irony..

 

[Westdene Seagull]

You would get a fine for being drunk in charge of a cycle up to £100, not a driving ban from motorised vehicles which is 12 months and many hundreds of pounds in fines. That is quite a big difference.

Given he's suggesting this as an alternative to paying a taxi fare my guess is that most taxi fares from the pub will be somewhat less than £100 and you're less likely to die.

 

[Nibble]

Never worn a helmet, waste of time. Plus I never want to look like one of those half man/half bike people you see in Surrey and Sussex. All Lycra and 4 grand bikes. How do these people ever get laid?

 

[Nibble]

I agree that, at times, this is stupid. For example, between Rottingdean and the Marina there is an excellent cycle lane, few, if any, pedestrians and a really good surface. Yet still some people cycle on the road, which is a busy dual carriageway. I personally think that this is arrogant and pointless.

But, in summer, between the piers, cycling on the cycle lane is dangerous - pedestrians ignore it entirely. I have been threatened for politely asking people to let me by on more than one occassion.

I use cycle lanes where it is safe and practical to do so. But some of them are so badly thought out that cyclists are forced back onto the road.

You understand that pedestrians are allowed to use cycle lanes to walk in right? Cycle lanes are just a part of the pavement that cyclists are allowed to ride on.

 

[Grombleton]

Whenever i go out, i don't wear any of the lycra or anything like that (shorts, t-shirt and trainers) but i always wear a helmet - i go off road as well as on road and i've come off a couple of times when i was younger (fractured my cheekbone once and split my head open another time).

I think it's just common sense to wear some sort of protection, you don't know what sort of prat is on the road.

 

[seagully]

Whenever i go out, i don't wear any of the lycra or anything like that (shorts, t-shirt and trainers) but i always wear a helmet - i go off road as well as on road and i've come off a couple of times when i was younger (fractured my cheekbone once and split my head open another time).

I think it's just common sense to wear some sort of protection, you don't know what sort of prat is on the road.

Very much this. I came off my bike when I was a teenager on an icy road. Wasn't wearing a helmet and was lucky to escape without a serious head injury.

 

[Nibble]

Very much this. I came off my bike when I was a teenager on an icy road. Wasn't wearing a helmet and was lucky to escape without a serious head injury.

Or you have just proved a helmet is neither here nor there.

 

[seagully]

Or you have just proved a helmet is neither here nor there.

I'd rather put up with the extremely minor inconvenience of wearing a helmet than ever have to seriously test the theory that wearing a helmet makes no difference to safety

 

[Nibble]

cycle helmets are virtually useless in a ll but the daintiest of mishaps.

 

[Grombleton]

cycle helmets are virtually useless in a ll but the daintiest of mishaps.

Utter bollocks. If i had worn a helmet when i came off, i wouldn't have split my head open.

 

[brightn'ove]

cycle helmets are virtually useless in a ll but the daintiest of mishaps.

Absolute ****ing bullshit.

I can't remember his name but there was a guy on BBC breakfast once who was hit in the back of the head by a wing mirror of a truck going at 70mph in the US. He still suffered sever head injuries, but if he wasn't wearing a helmet he would have been killed there and then.

That is an extreme example but if you honestly believe that bike helmets do nothing you are one simple little man.

 

[Stat Brother]

cycle helmets are virtually useless in a ll but the daintiest of mishaps.

Care to enlighten your pronouncement with the facts that back it up?

 

[Buzzer]

The only time Clarkson could ever be right is if he asked "Am I a tedious tw@t dressed in Gant who peddles a particularly snide reactionary agenda on a TV show so formulaic that a 14 year old could write the script...or what?"

 

[footychick]

Not sure, but my son (10) did bikeability at school last week 5 x 1.5 hour sessions

My daughter did too though she did it in 2 half days.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

You understand that pedestrians are allowed to use cycle lanes to walk in right? Cycle lanes are just a part of the pavement that cyclists are allowed to ride on.

Yep, I understand this entirely. This is why I am always courteous and polite when I ask pedestrians if they'd mind letting me through, when it's busy.

Unfortunately, I don't always receive the same level of friendliness in a lot of people's responses.

So, as I said, I will often move back onto the road if it's not safe or practical to be using the cycle lanes. And then I get abused by drivers, who feel that a bicycle shouldn't be on the road.

It's all about tolerance really, and too often there's a lack of it.

 

[teaboy]

You understand that pedestrians are allowed to use cycle lanes to walk in right? Cycle lanes are just a part of the pavement that cyclists are allowed to ride on.

And that's the exact reason that people don't use them.

 

[Meade's Ball]

This Meade would be very much dead if it weren't for the helmet i'd worn that day a mystery vehicle - not the Scooby Doo one i hope - and i collided. Instead, just a fractured skull, bit of brain damage and a life of very occasional confusion. It would be very wrong of me to continuously wish for no padded cranial saviour just because of a little impairment and tiredness for life remaining. Helmets ought be an affordable must really. It's bloody dangerous out there.

 

[1959]

Never worn a helmet, waste of time.

Go and tell that to nurses and doctors who work in A & E.

 

[Nibble]

Care to enlighten your pronouncement with the facts that back it up?

You stop clumsily squeezing long but ultimately useless words into nonsensical statements and I'll do so.

 

[Stat Brother]

I have 2 bikes to strip down clean and reassemble, or I can procrastinate on here, which is it to be?

3 hours down, one bike done, with a fair amount of procrastination in between.
Not great, but as the crank refused to come out and needed careful 'encouragement', plus I trod on an open tube of grease .