Bonkers time triallists

[RIP]

As we know it's not fair to heckle other people's pastimes unless maybe they verge into doing harm to others/things, but since we're heading into philosophical life/death territory, major-A-road TT riding strikes me as purgatory. They've crossed the Styx and suffering before they've been called. Probably getting my mythology mixed up.

Oh, I've broken my no-heckling rule Go for broke then - mate of mine fancied trying it so turned up to meet a group in a nearby town. Wasn't really acknowledged or welcomed. Managed somehow to keep up with the phalanx or whatever it is until the half way point where they stopped very briefly. Hardly a word spoken so far. Mate pleased that finally they might all have a nice chat and a larf in a cafe or something so enquired about it. Withering looks, all turned and rode back down same major road and went straight home. He never went again. His main comment, as I've touched on before and others mentioned, was the lack of roadcraft. I agree entirely with Dave that cyclists have every right to ride any road and an expectation of driver consideration, but these guys did little communication/interaction/negotiation with their fellow road users and therein lay the main (self inflicted) danger. I'm probably generalising and there's any number of great TT groups but that was my mate's experience and I've seen the same.

Much rather be out with BPers who are a lovely bunch without exception . Bizarrely have often seen better roadcraft from MTBers too.

So, back to the Vikings, I can only assume TTers might like dicing with death because they're keen to meet those Valkyries. Hmmm... >thinks<... blimey.. they've got a point... where do I sign up?!

[jam bo]

I find it hard when there’s a section of road that cyclists are allowed to ride and we say “they shouldn’t be there”. I understand the reasons but it still hurts. Sorry redefined_cycles but that’s not why I am here.

Being in the right isn’t much consolation when you’re dead...

[Pirahna]

With stories of people riding into things with their head down, one of the older riders I know was riding a time trial in Essex in the 70's. He reckons he'd got a fair bit of speed up riding down a slip road onto some dual carriageway, head not looking where he was going and rode into the back of an Invacar, went through the back window and finished up lying across the bloke inside. No reason to doubt this as I know a few other riders who were riding the same time trial.

For the youngsters, this is an Invacar.

[sean_iow]

Haven't the time trials been using the same roads (courses) for a long time? Decades? When they first used the road it was probably a single carriageway but had the best surface in the area. Tradition means the course stays the same and as lots are competing against their own time from a previous year you can't change the course.

I wouldn't want to ride on it, but I don't ride on my own local dual carriageway and it's less than a mile long and a 30mph limit for most of it

[Asposium]

There is a time trial on the A63 (main road in/out of Hull)
Absolutely nuts
Road is horrendously busy with HGVs shortly after a ferry has docked.
Bad enough to drive along let alone cycle.

[Dave Barter]

Haven't the time trials been using the same roads (courses) for a long time? Decades? When they first used the road it was probably a single carriageway but had the best surface in the area. Tradition means the course stays the same and as lots are competing against their own time from a previous year you can't change the course.

I wouldn't want to ride on it, but I don't ride on my own local dual carriageway and it's less than a mile long and a 30mph limit for most of it

Yes. Racing on the roads was basically illegal. Each course had a secret code (and still does). Riders used to pass the word around and meet up early Sunday to race. Many would ride there with a set of racing wheels on their bars which they’d change at the start. As usual we fecked up another great tradition so Angie could get to Aldi faster.

[Lazarus]

Being in the right isn’t much consolation when you’re dead.

Blaming the victims isnt helpful either

I just find it weird plenty think MTB is dangerous and plenty think it should be banned for damaging the countryside and here we cyclists are suggesting other cyclists should reconsider legal cycling.
Personally, though its not what I personally want to ride, I will never ever be in the position of NOT defending a cyclist riding legally, even if what they ride is a bit daft - like say a BW off the side of mountain or a busy A road

I also find it a little depressing tht we cannot even get all cyclists on side to defend something legal so we have no chance with the drivers who both oppose us nd kill us
Lets look at them rather than us

For the record i am not saying i dont think its foolish[ as indeed is much of my cycling] i am just saying i defend their right to legally be foolish.

[Thisisnotaspoon]

For the avoidance of doubt I love riding with the road racing club even if they do give me a strange look when i pull out the hip flask at a winter stop!

And TTing is a great niche of that. We run a lot of 'sporting' TTs which aren't 10 or 25 miles but a lap of a course, usually with a few hills in it. Or 10 or 25 miles on back roads.

I agree that what people do in their own time is their own business. But DC TTing does harm others. As a driver we all take responsibility to look out for others, but there's a dice being rolled, it might be a 1,000 , 10,000 or 100,000 sided dice each time a driver overtakes, but at some point even a good driver wont see you, you're dead and the driver has to live with that.

Riding on the road I do sometimes use DC's to get places. But that's a calculated risk assessment of roads I know well (e.g. the a33 getting into reading if im in a hurry), id not extend that to riding on the a34! Even the A4 which is our local fast TT course is a horrible road to ride on (its not even a nice surface) despite being just a wide SC for most of it.

[ChrisF]

Blaming the victims isnt helpful either

I think we’re in danger of arguing when we are all actually agreeing.
No one is saying that TTs shouldn’t be held on busy roads if the riders want to do that. I just can’t for the life of me understand why they do it, but that applies to the vast majority of things that people do these days. That’s cos I’m an old fart, and prefer a rainy hilltop to a busy shopping mall or football terrace, and I know that makes me an oddity in the smelly mass of humanity. (Although not an oddity on here, which is why I’m here )
As for the risk/reward business, I’ve often thought about this when climbing/mountaineering/miles from anywhere on the hills etc. I like to think that I manage most of the risks by good judgement, skills and experience, and that I can deal with many of the things that might go wrong. Not all of them of course, but the most likely ones. In other words, I’m in control (mostly). I can’t say the same for TTing on a ‘motorway though. ’

[Dave Barter]

Mate of mine broke his back descending the Gap when his forks disintegrated. Define “in control”

Edit: Is a ITT rider with 72 hours without sleep in control? Or are they on a virtual dual carriageway?

I’m ranting cos I just love people on bikes. Even chavs in town centres with placcy bags on their saddles.

[GregMay]

Ex-TTer - rode quite a few races fixed also. Nothing wrong with it, or where it is done, it's a facet of our wonderful sport. As per Dave B - it irritates me (mellow word to my actual feeling) when people have problems with it.

[Lazarus]

at some point even a good driver wont see you,

I accept your broad point that something could happen . However it is an inattentive driver who does this. The "good drivers killing cyclists" is reflected massively in cycling related deaths in courts.
It is the "good drivers" sub standard driving that is the cause here.

[Alpinum]

Thankfully, no one has ever died or been seriously injured while mountain biking.

The risk is probably similar to mountain biking isn't it? I can think of a couple of deaths of blokes who were just pootling about.

Ah - we typed our responses at the same time.

I'd much rather kill myself taking risks in a place otherwise void of other people, potentially putting myself to risk through poor decisions from both sides. I'd rather kill myself going thick-headed into a storm where mistakes were made and I try to save a friend I'm travelling with, same goes for roping up when mountaineering.
Don't let others folk's (you don't know and can't influence) mistakes kill you, just because you choose to take risks in the wrong place. That's about how I see it and I do take risks seriously yet also choose to take them to an amount many might shake their heads.

In the bikepacking world there have been a few occassions that had me shake my head in disbelief.

When I got to know on what roads some bikepacking events like TCR or IPWR (and others) took place, I cramped inside for all those fellow cyclists who chose to the risks in places where your mistakes will/can also cause death/trauma to others (drivers).

The cramp is still there.

[ChrisF]

^^ What Alpinum said makes sense to me.

Dave - you’re misrepresenting what I said, but as you’ve admitted to ranting, I’ll let you off

[belugabob]

Being in the right isn’t much consolation when you’re dead.

Blaming the victims isnt helpful either

I just find it weird plenty think MTB is dangerous and plenty think it should be banned for damaging the countryside and here we cyclists are suggesting other cyclists should reconsider legal cycling.
Personally, though its not what I personally want to ride, I will never ever be in the position of NOT defending a cyclist riding legally, even if what they ride is a bit daft - like say a BW off the side of mountain or a busy A road

I also find it a little depressing tht we cannot even get all cyclists on side to defend something legal so we have no chance with the drivers who both oppose us nd kill us
Lets look at them rather than us

For the record i am not saying i dont think its foolish[ as indeed is much of my cycling] i am just saying i defend their right to legally be foolish.

I agree

[Bearbonesnorm]

Let's just get back to Vikings a minute - I discovered today that 'they' estimate that 47% of people who live in Merseyside have Viking heritage. That came as no shock to me and I believe explains quite a lot.

*That's my great swathe of insulting over for the day.

[htrider]

Sign of the times innit. Time was that on a Sunday morning or tuesday evening even A roads were fairly quiet so fair game for the TT'ers given that I guess they need a smooth straight road for max velocity. These days unless they do it a 2 am every fecking road away from the U and C network is mobbed. Still fair play to the die hards for sticking to their guns but I feel they should move their events to beaches when the tides out as TT bars look ace on a fat bike

[Jurassic]

Many of the TTs that I used to ride took place very early in the morning at the weekend so were on relatively quiet roads. I remember being fourth man off in a 25 in Ayrshire, the race started at 5am so I started at 0504 which meant getting out of bed at 0330 to get ready and get there in time for my start (I was back in the house again before 10am)! The exception was midweek 10s which were run in the evening (meaning busier roads).
Reg, I found TTs quite sociable, I competed as a representative of my club (Glasgow Ivy CC) which was a very socially active group anyway but as I became more experienced as a tester I got to know the guys from other clubs who tended to finish around the same time as me, it developed into a friendly rivalry but at the finish we'd always seek each other out to find out how we'd all got on. Maybe things are different darn sarf though?

[Dave Barter]

No jurassic I raced and marshalled loads of TTs near Swindon. Really friendly crowd and ALWAYS thanked marshalls as they hooned by.Its not down south, just Reg

[Bearbonesnorm]

I think each and every one of us has done stuff / does stuff that others might think is reckless (I'm not using the word dangerous because driving a car is probably the most dangerous thing most people do) Think about the stupid sh1t you've done - setting up an 1/8th mile drag strip on a public road so you could test bikes at 4.00am with an old 20w Cateye taped to the front, street luging down Long Hill from Buxton on the morning of New Years day or trying to paddle your surfboard out into the swell when all the local (and experienced) surfers said it was far too rough*. None of us are (that) stupid, we know the risks and the potential outcome from things going wrong and if we continue, then it means we've accepted them.



*they were right.

[pistonbroke]

1st TT I entered I turned up on my mountainbike with slicks and 1 of the other competitors asked if that was my warming up bike. He was a bit less mouthy afterwards when I'd beaten him by 2 minutes over 10miles of the pan flat A44 Ludlow bypass. The Ludlow CC hilly TT was also a pan flat course that happened to go over a railway bridge.

[frogatthefarriers]

The Vikings believed that from the moment of your birth, your death was already mapped out and nothing you did could alter when it would be ... probably makes it easier to cope when you've got a dangerous occupation like those lads had

My mum had a saying "Kto ma wisieć to się nie utopi" or some such. (Polish). Translates roughly as " If you're fated to be hanged, you'll never drown"

Me, soon-to-be sixty-eleven, I'm hoping for a great big heart attack or stroke so I don't have to lose my marbles like Mum has.

[RIP]

Jurassic/Dave - glad to hear it's sociable elsewhere. Maybe my mate should've realised living in D*ble probably makes everyone grumpy never mind the TT folks .

[Thisisnotaspoon]

I accept your broad point that something could happen . However it is an inattentive driver who does this. The "good drivers killing cyclists" is reflected massively in cycling related deaths in courts.
It is the "good drivers" sub standard driving that is the cause here.

I agree that bad drivers are more likely to have accidents than good ones. But think about your drivung as a normal distribution/ bell curve. On the far left theres the times when you're doing 30mph in a (probably inapropriately low) 30mph limit on a dead straight road in the middle of nowhere, thr middle is just youdriving arround obaying all the rules and generally being a good driver. On the right (for a really good driver anyway) is doing 70 on the motorway with a 2 second gap and a car pulls into your gap meaning for a few seconds you're closer than youd like.

A bad drivers curve might be skewed a long way to the right. But even the best driver will have bits of their journey where things could go wrong. And riding on busy DC's put you in the path of a lot more "one in a million" chances even before you accept that no one is actually the saintly first example.

I used to work in h&s for petrochemical plants and the basic assumption is that you cant always protect against malice but you can protect against competent people making mistakes. One of those protections is limiting time spent exposed to a risk, e.g. the tolerability of the risk of a fire in an area is inversely proportional to the chances of anyone being there. A valve station in the middle of nowhere might just be protected by isolating valves miles away and just left to burn itself out, the same wouldn't be acceptable at Grangemouth, and within Grangemouth there will be areas of higher and lower risks, the offices will be as far away from lpg or ethylene storage as possible for example (and the area arround the flare stack is completely excluded) . Riding on DC is putting your office under the flare stack and saying "i trust the operator/drivers".

[Lazarus]

If only this was STW

Good point that was very well made*.- I cannot refute that some roads are safer than others.

I still defend their right to do it though whilst refusing to do it myself for the reasons you note.


* except of course we are all above average at driving,