Jewbacca

If 99% of cyclists behave better, the motorists who hate cyclists will still encounter the 1% and that will vindicate their hatred. You won't ever get 'perfect' behaviour from any group of people. Sticking to the context of the chat in it's entirety, I have said we 'should' all aim to do better, but no, the hatred will exist because the hatred exists. Good behaviour will always be offset by one or two instances of not good behaviour, even if it's an accident. That is the nature of prejudice On the other part of the highlighted text, most sport riders that have been taken out recently have not been in the wrong or riding in a large group in the middle of the road. They have been mowed down by drunk drivers or speeding drivers while doing little wrong. Recent memory and a quick google search shows the cyclists were almost all either in the yellow line or well left. The commuters that get killed are also usually not riding in big groups in the middle of the road.

I kind of agree with you. I'd suggest a majority of cycling fatalities aren't even sport cyclists but individual commuters being taken out by naughty cars and drunk people or trucks who just don't belong on the roads they are on. Sport cyclists make up a small percentage of fatal accidents. It does piss the cars off, which leads to 4x4 forums littered with hate and 'humorous' tiktoks, but there is zero onus on the cars and drivers to change. Behaving better on the road won't influence the number of deaths much and it won't change the way the public hate cyclists. That is unfortunately already inherent. Making posts suggesting anything can change by highlighting the poor behaviour just gives the real baddies ammo to say 'See, even your own people hate you cyclists, now I feel vindicated in hating you because you all behave badly on the roads' and they will proceed to spread the vitriol. Dehumanising subgroups is easy. As soon as something has a collective noun that can be used to generalise, the damage is done. Let's stop pretending our behaviour will change the statistics. Much like racism, xenophobia and other irrational fears and prejudices, no amount of behaviour will stop people from irrationally hating the sub group they hate.

For sure, but that's also a case of how we think currently vs how we can learn to think. Never mind an ideal world, when I lived in New Zealand, if you sped, you got caught. The end. This seemed to breed a very easy going, courteous road user. That included going 55 in a 50 zone in the suburbs, 107 in a 100 zone on the highway or anywhere in between. No one sped. You just left earlier, drove 4kph less than the speed limit and everyone let everyone in and out of lanes and turns. That wasn't a utopian, theoretical society, it just happened because everyone who drove thought of safety and others when driving. Here people don't even merge without playing chicken with the people next to them. They then drive next to each other then have to slam on anchors to avoid a collision, causing stopped traffic. If they just slowed down and meged like a zip, no one would need to stop, less traffic and they would get there quicker with less stress, less road rage and use less fuel. Anyway, cars and the mindset of a carcentric/motornomative society is so ingrained here that people can't shift their perspective. It just is because that's what we've all been brainwashed to think. Don't even get me started on people who park in your boot while driving in a row of cars. I brake check those people sometimes 🫢

#fullfactoryracing Leatt sponsorship. 🥰

What dangerous situation involves going really really fast? They make cars that can go from 0 to 100 in like 2 seconds but top out at 140. I understand that one needs to accellerate from a standing start if one were, say, about to be hijacked, but going from 120 to 180 to overtake is, erm, speeding, which is illegal. As an ex defender owner I used to Max warp speed out at a deafening 117kph, pull over for all the fast dudes only to see them on the road the entire way from here to Kenton. The difference between a dangerous average speed and a safe, chilled average speed is tiny in terms of time, but worlds apart in terms of safety, for everyone. It's just normalised. Imagine you got held up in main road traffic by cars while out riding and you started swearing and gesticulating at them for holding you up....

Follow in the footsteps of DDT and put flats on your gravel bike and ride in 510s......

Emailing companies on a Sunday often ends in failure. Those receiving the email will likely get a ping on their phone, see it, it gets marked as read and then on Monday they walk into a wall of work and things get a bit crazy until Thursday. IMHO, type your email, prepare it and then set it to sent between 10:00 and 11:00 on Monday morning. Whoever does that part of the admin will be at their desk, switched on and dealing with work. I really do mean this. Enquiring about anything on days when companies don't work is opening the door to them not being answered.

SSShhhh... you can't question cars on the road. All the other users are the problem, cars BELONG on the roads so all the traffic they cause, trouble they make and space they take up is NORMAL. One cannot question it, it simply is. Jokes aside, that sucks. I'm so sorry.

Wait... I paid you for this. Hang on. You 'should' have received R1208 at some point in the last 10 days. I'm about to log in to check

yeah nah..... as soon as anyone gets defensive it's usually because they think the comments are aimed at them in some way. As I said before, everyone commenting here and/or on that IG post is guilty of being a douchepole on the road at some point. Minimising that both ways is the dream, but unfortunately cars and drivers in a carcentric or motornormative environment have right of way by societal default

OR........ He doesn't want to elaborate 🙃

Sure, I get that, but many of the photo's just show people enjoying themselves quite innocently and not holding up any traffic. The guy taking a picture of his flossie is as harmless as it gets. No cars in sight. I read through the comments and most of it is just token backslapping but there are definitely elements of deserved hurt and baddyness. It is a lot like one of those 'out of context' skits. It 'MAY' hold water in some cases (taxi over the solid line, big group across the whole lane etc) but in others it is just content to support a narrative that, in this case, is putting the onus on vulnerable road users. I don't disagree we all need to be better, but he could have also taken some videos of the cars being naughty to suggest it's a 'two way street' for all road users.

Well the DRIVER might survive, but if the 3 ton death machine breaks the rules of the road and pedestrians/cyclists/bystanders etc are involved they die. The onus is on people realising this. Drivers realising they are driving a big powerful killing machine and vulnerable road users not living in fear, but responsibly sharing the road. In this country stationary cars in free, allocated storage spots have more importance than vulnerable road users. Drivers do whatever they like. ALL parties have a responsibility, but it seems that currently the responsibility lies with the vulnerable road users not to be responsible for dying, simply by using the road. Chris isn't helping the narrative by posting what he posted how he posted it. But as I said in an earlier post, no one here is without sin. if you've ridden on the road and driven a car, you have been guilty of being a douchepole at some point

One thing I can note as a frequent user of that stretch of road is that the BIG groups are terrible. They don't stick together between the lights/stops because it's a race, so there lands up being lots of groups of 6 spread out, all in the road, but not far enough to ever overtake. The slow guys soft pedal while the front guys go hammer and tongs, stretch the group, then they re group at every stop. It doesn't give anyone any chance to overtake safely ever. I'm talking groups of 20 plus people. It also make spassing them on a bike difficult and dangerous through that stop start section, so the group swells and swells as nothing can pass them. I do get that we/they are road users but it IS hogging the road and being inconsiderate to other road users. The bin guys even pull over every few minutes to let the cars pass on that stretch.

Yes! Because road closed, do not use! only applies to cars, not cyclists because we are not cars - but also treat us like cars when we want to be treated like cars.... The road is closed to the public, cyclists are the public

The guy in the purple shirt is one of you trail boets, pal. No roadie rides a heavy trail lid with a visor.

The comments section kills me on these..... It's a lot of pointing fingers at the cyclists, which, to be fair, is somewhat warranted. Big groups are always a pain. No one ever questions the cars though and if you do it's not relevant. Like that entire section of road has a speed limit of 60kph but almost everyone is speeding. The common denominator is humans. We are ALL junk at times. I've sped on that section of road many times, I've ridden 2 abreast on that section of road many times. Not maliciously or dangerously on purpose, but I have. We can all do better. Drivers, cyclists, influencers and finger pointers. No one in the pictures, the comments or on this forum is throwing the proverbial first stone

My inside sources tell me that there was supposed to be a cycle lane included in the original plans, but parking was chosen instead. Such a weird concept that an empty, stationary object is more important than the safety and wellbeing of people and traffic flow. for FREE! What else can you store for free on public land? Nothing.... but a car? yeah nah, give it preference and make it free. Carcentric society is baffling

That Saturday race for heathens! hahahaha

I'd suggest 75% of cycling fans can't name the top 5 ranked XCM females without google. I'd also say that getting unknowns onto teams is development, not having the top racers in the world competing, which is more in line with the marketing and coverage focus than a stepping stone TO the top tier. So yes, it is entertaining, but it isn't the deep, competitive field of top female athletes that the coverage and hype says it is.

They will need a pretty big re-structure to get the top XCO women out here. One that balances the overall cost/recovery/effort and the season. Equal distance/time/effort/pay isn't attracting them now, so if they want to keep the 'pro centric' advertising and focus they need to change something. One can't advertise and sell it as 'the biggest, bestest, most competitive race' if it's being contested by people with little credibility near the top of the sport.

Wasn't there a massive hoo-ha around that when some dude died? I seem to vaguely recall it being dragged through the mud if not pulled off the market eventually.

It's been a while since the lady field was genuinely competitive and more than 2 teams deep. It's a pity, but I remember reading 2 years ago that the cost coupled with the load as well the the timing aren't beneficial to most of the top ladies who want to race XCO. Hopefully they have something in the pipeline to attract a better ladies field down the line.

Very intentional.. One has to keep the chirps going, especially with family.....

Sleep is super important, but this spreads over to REST in general. Not enough people have an active rest week every 3 or four weeks. They just train high volume for months and wonder why they are always flat and plateau hard with their gainz. Supplements WITH a well managed fatigue load are great, supplements to try and boost overtraining or my favourite, supplement actual training, just don't work. It's also a VERY fly by night culture. I am young enough but old enough to remember the 6kg of creatine a day phase (hyperbole for those that are literal) that was going to make everyone a Springbok. I see how well that turned out long term OP, whatever you do, just make sure it's a balanced in take with lifestyle, exercise, rest and diet