[Cycling] Time Trials + 20 limits = cyclist apoplexy

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.

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.

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.

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!

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?

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

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

See

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.