Cycling UK Forum

Bonefishblues wrote:

Carlton green wrote:

Bonefishblues wrote:The bizarre thing is that the incident seemed to be at the lower end of the seriousness spectrum - poor and discourteous driving, but eminently predictable by the cyclist, I'm sure. It was the expression of disapproval that just lit his fuse, to terrible effect. There will be dozens of incidents, maybe hundreds, every day which never go bad like that.

The BBC article is short so perhaps you have additional detail?

What ever lite the driver’s fuse he is responsible for his own actions, hard words but true. If someone annoyed me and I then retaliate to the extent that I put them in hospital the law would come down very heavily on me. Just because someone drives a car and uses it instead of fists is no excuse for any leniency and certainly something to be most robustly discouraged.

Nothing i wrote was in any way supportive of the driver's actions, nor absolving him of any responsibility whatsoever nor seeking to establish any primacy of special treatment for a car driver nor should it be read or interpreted in that way. I am grateful for the opportunity to make that clearer than it may have been in the first instance, judging from your post. What exactly was it in my post that gave you the impression that was a point I was making?

No where in the BBC article do I read of the injured Cyclist making any expression to the driver so I wondered whether you had an additional source of information. “It was the expression of disapproval that just lit his fuse, to terrible effect”

For what it is worth I do accept that genuine accidents do happen from time to time, even with the best will in the world and taking all reasonable care sometimes accidents still happen. In this instance the event was not an accident at all but plain and simple assault that’s incorrectly, as we as a society do, labelled as an accident.

Bonefishblues wrote:The bizarre thing is that the incident seemed to be at the lower end of the seriousness spectrum - poor and discourteous driving, but eminently predictable by the cyclist, I'm sure. It was the expression of disapproval that just lit his fuse, to terrible effect. There will be dozens of incidents, maybe hundreds, every day which never go bad like that.

The BBC article is short so perhaps you have additional detail?

What ever lite the driver’s fuse he is responsible for his own actions, hard words but true. If someone annoyed me and I then retaliate to the extent that I put them in hospital the law would come down very heavily on me. Just because someone drives a car and uses it instead of fists is no excuse for any leniency and certainly something to be most robustly discouraged.

mercalia wrote:'Intimidating' driver William Heslop jailed for targeting cyclist
Only 2 years in gaol and losing his licence for three years?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-y ... e-49051772

I read the article too and thought about starting a thread. I watched the video too, had there been no video it would have been a case of deliberately hit and successfully run, of course of the driver had stopped and organised care for his victim then the incident would have warranted a lesser charge. The way I look at it is if you use a car in this way then your intention is to kill, maim or at the very least very seriously injure your target; with such intent I think that the book should have been thrown at him and a longer sentence sought. His driving ban is relatively short, to my way of thinking a minimum ban of ten years plus an extended driving test would have been much more appropriate. The convicted should be made an example of and the message should be clear to all: ‘if you chose to use your car as a weapon then you will be treated accordingly’.

I’m wondering what members feel that can do and do do in terms of cycling promotion by example.

In my own community I can be seen cycling to my local parks and shops, and once there my bike is parked for all to see as and advertisement of what you can do on a bike. I don’t use those local roads which have fast moving traffic on them (as needed I use quieter ‘back’ routes). However, having occasional seen other cyclists on those ‘fast’ roads I begin to question my judgements of danger and wonder whether I can reliably manage the hazards well enough. Locally I have benefited from people driving well whilst I cycle - hope that that’s not tempting fate - and when I drive my car I see other motorists behaving well towards cyclists - I understand that that is not the case everywhere.

So, in summary, I promote cycling by example and have it promoted to me by example too.

What have other people done and/or found ?

Oldjohnw wrote:The basis of payment of expenses in government is that you should be neither better nor worse off as a consequence of the expense.

At present that is law: there is not meant to be any political or policy element in the system.

In general I think that that is fair and the way that it should be. However nearly all rules have a bit of flex in them and so a degree of positivity in calculating cycling reimbursement costs is, I would have thought, possible.

fastpedaller wrote:Surely (if government were clued-up) the sensible thing would be to offer the 45p per mile 'expenses' if the MP used bike or car, thus getting more MPs (and other civil servants) on bikes - eager to make a 'profit'

To my mind that idea has merit. OK expenses are just that, they reimburse you for expenses incurred. However, there is some question about whether that should be the case when higher than necessary expenses are incurred and IMHO additional expenses incurred through use of larger vehicles than necessary shouldn’t be reimbursed. The inverse is equally valid, why effectively penalise someone for vigorously avoiding unnecessary expense?

Mileage expenses are generally reimbursement for marginal costs, but I wouldn’t necessarily expect an MP - or anyone else - to have a bike already so his / her ‘reimbursement’ needs to include some element of bike purchase cost too. There is therefore a case for encouraging new cyclists and rewarding existing ones by giving them the same mileage rate as cars. In calculating Cyclists’ costs there should be the assumption of high purchase cost, regular renewal / replacement (bikes get nicked, vandalised and potentially left out in all weathers), professional service costs and low annual mileage; additionally clothing costs might be incurred and a small financial incentive to cycle rather than drive isn’t unreasonable - to promote healthy low emission transport that reduces congestion.

mercalia wrote:He has a bit of a problem - He cannt turn back the clock to Blairite Labour, so he has to be very very careful?

Blairite Labour was very successful (ie. it won elections) and had it not been for getting involved in Iraq and the Brownite divisions it would likely have gone on in power for much longer and might even have weathered the great crash. Whether good or bad, IMHO the party was more electable under Blair than it has been since .......

Tangled Metal wrote:Limiting power to 100bhp? Interesting!

Domestic use of vehicles isn't the only use, there's trade, commercial and industrial use. Take trade use, which means vans. There's often power break points at 90, 100 and 115/125 bhp depending on the van. Looking at vauxhall vivaro for example the standard powers are 89/90, 99/100 and 114/115 bhp. There's also a biturbo at 120bhp.

Which is the most fuel efficient and least polluting option? The 120bhp not the 90bhp van. The 90bhp van is actually the highest carbon emissions and lowest fuel efficiency. The best on both counts is the biturbo.

I read an article on the website of a fleet car trade journal that's highly relevant here. The fleet manager for the whole of BT wrote about serious fuel efficiency and emmisions reductions that are possible by remapping vehicles. By remapping for more power, savings of 15% on fuel costs / use in vans and 8% in cars. Crazy right?

In fact the guy wrote that it could be advantageous for large fleets to mass remap their vehicles and then put them through type approval. What that means is the remapped vehicles become recognised as a new model with better fuel / emmisions figures. Advantage being lower personal tax for company cars. They don't because it's really only an advantage to the employee.

I'm no car expert but this guy was so I've no basis to dispute his article. I just think power isn't a good measure for limiting cars. There's evidence that it's a bad measure to use.

I completely see your point and of course arbitrary limits rarely make complete sense, they are (or are best treated as) but a line in the sand from which to work. Of course, in some small defence of my comment, I did specifically say cars and did not mention vans. Commercial vehicles do need considering too but that’s a more complex conversation for another day.

BHP is to an extent a false indicator anyway - it’s meant to be a start point - because what matters more to the user is the amount of torque produced by an engine. (For the reference of others Power = Torque x engine speed, the maximum torque available can vary considerably through an engines’s operating speed range). To my mind 100 BHP is quite a generous limit; whilst 100 isn’t much these days it was in the past and cars of half that power and less have covered very large mileages. Here’s an example of what was a very popular family car that had under 100 bhp : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Golf_Mk3. And here’s an iconic vehicle that mobilised masses of people and yet must have had less than 50 bhp under its bonnet: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_4.

I’ve always wondered about engine (performance and efficiency) mapping and am not surprised that after market improvements are possible. Whilst typically manufactures want to make good products they make products for sale and profit, ultimately their goal is to make make money and if product efficiency suffers along the way then that’s businesses as we allow it to function. At the moment we don’t know why the more powerful engines you mentioned are more efficient, but my instinct is that they are more recent designs funded by customer desire for more power. It’s a nice thing for the Marketing Team too that the most expensive model happens to be the most fuel efficient and have the lowest emissions .......

Power might or might not be a useful indicator but it is easy for Goverments to use and so is engine size (eg. 125 cc motor bike of less than ‘15’ bhp is deemed acceptable for a learner to use and 400cc? of less than 33 bhp is OK for recently qualified motor cyclists to use). In general cars with smaller and less powerful engines are more fuel efficient than more powerful vehicles, what’s needed is a trend effect and sometimes, for the greater good, you have to carefully and selectively set anomalies to one side.

horizon wrote:
I'm happy to agree to that. The government's original idea was to slowly increase fuel tax so people had time to adjust and the price would reflect the real cost to the environment - but there are other ways indeed.

IMHO the Government’s plan wasn’t that well thought out and has had unintended consequences, as such it’s best not to continue with it but rather to focus on more productive alternatives.

I would dispute that people use fossil fuel with the intent of causing damage to the environment (they just want to get by in their ordinary lives) and I would question whether the the environment can be compensated by putting money (Tax) into some Government’s bank account.

If we want to reduce fossil fuel use then structural changes to society are needed rather than the likes of fuel price escalators which punish the poor who by and large are doing their limited best to make good choices within their limited means. Here are a few more ideas for you:
1) Place a legal limit in the physical size of cars and, as above, limit their maximum fuel consumption (to 50 plus mpg) and engine power (to 100 bhp).
2) Place a minimum design life on cars and consumer products in general of twenty years (manufacturing and reprocessing uses energy so do it once, do it right and don’t churn for profit).
3) Stop the mass bussing of pupils and provide them with a quality educational experience near to where they live.
4) Support people who do part of their journeys by public transport by providing them with free parking.
5) Programs that glorify motor sport condition us all in unhelpful ways. Driving isn’t a sport and anything that might encourage people to act like it is both wastes fuel and leads towards injury via reckless driving. Simply refocus such media coverage towards ways of enjoying greener vehicles and transport.
6) Build homes near where people work and build places of employment near where people live. As part of the planning application process new developments should have to consider the link between homes, travel and employment.
7) As a nation be a good example of what can be done to manage fossil fuel consumption.
As a nation do not support the import of goods that have been made in environmentally damaging ways (it effectively exports pollution to other places)
9) As a nation try to influence other countries to act responsibly and adopt ‘best practices’ - so see things globally too.
10) As a nation strategically promote the use of and support the development of recycling and low energy use products.

We arguably do 7 to 10 inclusive already but more could be done without too much difficulty.

13) Alter the culture of Air Travel. Aviation uses massive amounts of fuel and it often does so on effectively recreational journeys.
14) Fuel rationing isn’t a practical proposition and if introduced it would almost certainly lead to criminal activity - so socially destructive. However supporting people to act as if fuel was rationed and supporting people to make the very best use of a (virtual) ration would change people’s mindsets and their choices for the better.

horizon wrote:
The point I'm making is that UK shipping is bringing oil to the UK for what? So that the government can scrap the fuel escalator, spend billions on road schemes and remove from motorists the need to make responsible decisions about their car usage. So yes, we are vulnerable - thanks to Mr and Mrs Average driving their huge car down to the local shops.

That’s really not the way that I read your original post.

horizon wrote:Yes, oil has other uses but far more valuable ones, as Mike Sales has pointed out. I don't expect people to drive less from a pang of conscience: I expect them to drive less because it's jolly expensive. So: fuel escalator or war with Iran?

I pointed out and Mike seemingly confirmed that oil has many other uses.

Raising the price of fuel hurts the least well off in our society the most. Many people are, for reasons that are mostly beyond their control, tied into using their car for key things like getting to work from where they can afford to live. Better off people aren’t too fussed what fuel costs and neither are professional drivers (Lorries, Taxis, Salesmen, Tradesmen) because costs can be passed directly onto their customers. If you truly want to reduce fuel (petrol and diesel) consumption then give people access to cheap and fuel efficient vehicles and simply refuse to accept new cars for registration that do less than say 50 mpg. Limit engine power to 100 horse power too, no one really needs more than 100 hp but if someone has a need for say towing then let them have a low ratio gearbox on the vehicle instead of a bigger engine.

It isn’t a choice between fuel escalator or war with Iran so there’s no need to pick. The choices that we as a country need to make are those that help people to be greener, give folk good choices and mostly they’ll take them, educate (rather than indoctrinate) and people will look towards what is best and how they can get there.

Unless I completely mistaken the U.K. Warships in the Gulf are there to protect U.K. shipping from aggression from Iran. Iran is a bit pissed at us for impounding one of their Tankers that was suppling oil to Syria. Iran has also been happy to plant and explode mines on other countries Tankers in the Gulf. The impounded ship (Grace 1) is managed by Russian Titan Shipping
( https://www.balticshipping.com/vessel/imo/9116412 , Russian Titan Shipping , https://lloydslist.maritimeintelligence ... over-cargo )

By all means complain about oil production and there being too many cars. Be happy to forget that oil powers buses, fire engines, lorries, and ships; forget too that your shopping is kept fresh in plastics, that your water is delivered in plastic pipes and that oil is used to heat people’s homes, hospitals and schools. All those things are there for the AA and RAC to worry about so we may not. Be happy too to forget about the atrocities committed in Syria and the fact that if Iran gets Nuclear capability the world will be an even unsafer place, again we have the AA and RAC for that.

Sorry if this is a bit of a rant but there is a time for a bit of a wider perspective - and IMHO posts goading of other members is also not what any forum should be about ......

Edit. For uses of crude oil see: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_refinery
I notice that 9% is used by aircraft (Jet Fuel), perhaps the AA and RAC are looking out for them too ......

mattheus wrote:
If you take something - with several sub-parts - off the bike, then there is a chance of damaging/losing bits.

Quick-link parts are even smaller than cassette parts => easier to lose.

If you leave the above parts ON the bike, you much reduce the change of loss or damage.
______________________________________________________________________________

The only reason I would take these parts off to clean them would be that it is IMMENSELY satisfying when I have the time. I couldn't justify it on any other grounds.

That’s pretty much what I find too. Even if you work slowly and methodically there is always a chance that your concentration will be diverted or broken, or that you will unexpectedly forget something. I try - but too often forget - not to rush ‘cause that almost always leads to problems.

Parts that are already together have often bedded together in some way, needlessly disturbing that joint isn’t a good idea. By all means dissemble for a specific purpose but after that such work is just an opportunity for ‘sod’s law’ to spring into action. Well that’s what I’ve found.

There’s been a lot of talk about oil and the benefits or otherwise of GT85. I suspect that GT85 is a lot like WD40 and I find that WD40 is great for getting some oil into frozen parts but not good as a long term lubricant; it seems to evaporate and I suspect that that’s due to propellant content and an intentional thinning effect for penetration of tight spaces. WD40 is also a help for cleaning surfaces, it seems to act as a solvent on oily/greasy deposits.

Perhaps I was working in error but for years I used a can of 3 in 1 oil for everything, it’s perhaps a little on the light side but for chains and pivoting parts it’s been fine for me and in free-wheels too. I even used to use it in a three speed sturmey too - didn’t everyone - and it worked OK for me, but now I would use something heavier. These days I use mower engine oil on chains (‘cause it’s in my oil can, it’s cheap, it seems to last well and it works a bit better than 3 in 1).

gxaustin wrote:

Yes there is a downside to partial strip down for cleaning. It takes ages and it risks disturbing things that might not go back together as intended (bits get damaged, parts get lost and somethings just get put back together incorrectly).

I'd like to know how you can damage/lose parts from a cassette by taking it off to clean it. Its easy and takes no longer than messing with cloths IMO. I often take my chains off, using a quicklink and have never had a problem re-making it.

My bikes have screw on free-wheels rather than cassettes and I don’t use quick-links (I split and rejoin the chain when needed). What I use might not be ‘modern’ or ‘the best’ but it works for me and similar has worked for loads of people over vast mileages and over many decades - which means it’s an effective way of doing things. If taking stuff apart and reassembling it makes you happy then be happy, my experience is that once parts are properly assembled it’s best to monitor and leave them that way until corrective action is actually needed. YMMV, we all find ways forward that work for us as individuals .

francovendee wrote:Once in every four clean ups I take the drive train off the bike and clean it in white spirit.
It does take a little longer but gives you an opportunity to have a good look at everything and spot potential problems.
On or off the bike it's still a messy job.

That seems logical enough to me. Cleaning stuff removes abrasive materials and that removal has a value, it also allows you to see damage and wear which is valuable too. Sometimes damage and wear has happened in places that can’t be seen without disassembly but in my experience it’s rare enough to follow your route of not dissembling everything every time you clean.