Journalism and cycling

maltanar · 09-03-2020 10:15pm

Mc Love wrote: »

There's a guy on Liveline now talking about a scooter theft and assault last night at that Inchicore/bluebell blackspot where other cyclists have encountered issues.

Group of 15-20 lifted a wire and knocked him off his scooter, assaulted him and took his scooter. Luckily a motorist saw it and intervened.

https://www.rte.ie/radio/radioplayer/html5/#/radio1/21728248

To me it sounds like he says "Fatima LUAS station", but then when Joe asks if this was near Bluebell/Blackhorse he replies "yes" which was a little confusing (there's 2-3km in between), but similar general area I guess.

Gardai didn't show up until they were told the gang was "holding something in their hand", sounds all familiar...

Mc Love · 09-03-2020 11:12pm

Thargor wrote: »

Did they get his scooter?

Yeah but didn't take anything else. Pretty shocking to hear it especially for a foreign national to experience it

Seth Brundle · 13-03-2020 11:07am

British Medical Journal: Association of injury related hospital admissions with commuting by bicycle in the UK: prospective population based study
F1.medium.jpg

magicbastarder · 13-03-2020 12:00pm

interesting that there's a significantly greater reduction in cancer diagnoses than cardiovascular events - i'd have expected cardiovascular events to be more greately effected.

AndrewJRenko · 13-03-2020 2:07pm

magicbastarder wrote: »

interesting that there's a significantly greater reduction in cancer diagnoses than cardiovascular events - i'd have expected cardiovascular events to be more greately effected.

But a relatively small impact overall for both. I'd wonder where this stands with the research from 2 years ago showing a 45% reduction in cancer rates for those who cycle to work?

magicbastarder · 13-03-2020 5:41pm

i guess it boils down to the stat of 'if you picked 1000 working age people at random, how many will be given a cancer diagnosis within the next ten years'. if it's 3%, and cycling halves that, you'd see the result above.

work · 14-03-2020 9:03am

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

But a relatively small impact overall for both. I'd wonder where this stands with the research from 2 years ago showing a 45% reduction in cancer rates for those who cycle to work?

Some parameter are important and missing. Wellbeing effect, how is mental and general health affected.
Do you feel better for cycling or driving or taking the bus, for some this improvement may be very important. For me it's not that cycling makes me feel better but that car and bus transport makes me feel down.
Regarding your general physical wellbeing just because you may not personally live longer doesn't account for the fact you can do more and are more fit making you feel better. I work in healthcare and patients cycling over 60 are generally in a different place physically and mentally compared to their sedentary peers.
It's like saying smoking kills 1 in 2 but it's missing that the surviving 1 in 2 had a crap quality of life.

tomasrojo · 14-03-2020 11:14am

work wrote: »

Regarding your general physical wellbeing just because you may not personally live longer doesn't account for the fact you can do more and are more fit making you feel better..

I think habitual cyclists do live a few years longer on average too. I read the habitual cyclists/non cyclist difference was about the same as the non smoker/ smoker difference: about five years.

Haven't read the paper, but from the image, an elevated risk of being hospitalised for a short stay is a small price to pay for all the other benefits, and the authorities should be working to minimise that risk further anyway.

tomasrojo · 14-03-2020 11:35am

Something about it here. Pretty good. Was outside the paywall for me. (Opened up the helmet can of worms in the last sentence though, with an indirect reference to the NZ experience that doesn't take into account head injury *rates* as opposed to simple counts).

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2237214-why-the-health-benefits-of-cycling-to-work-outweigh-the-risk-of-injury/?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=echobox&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1584116457

tomasrojo · 14-03-2020 12:10pm

From the New Scientist article:

The new study, which looked at outcomes over 10 years, shows those fears aren’t unreasonable – commuting by bike is associated with an increased risk of admission to hospital for injury, with 7 per cent of cyclists experiencing such an injury compared to 4.3 per cent of non-cyclists. Squint a bit, and you can turn that into the “50 per cent more likely” figure mentioned above.

Basically, you go from a 4 in 100 chance over ten years of requiring hospitalisation related to walking/bus/train/driving to a 7 in 100 chance if switch to cycling, mostly likely short-stay hospitalisation too.

It doesn't look ominous to me, I have to say. Even leaving out health benefits, mental and physical, you'd be gaining thousands of euro over ten years. In my case, over ten years, commuting by bike costs me about €1500. I think a one-year bus-only tax saver ticket costs about that.

tomasrojo · 14-03-2020 12:22pm

It occurs to me that if the "non-cyclist" group includes walking, the 4 in 100 risk might be disproportionately elevated by the relatively high incident of minor injuries pedestrians in motorised environments are susceptible to. Would be interesting to run the same numbers based on walking and cycling combined as a category.

Seth Brundle · 20-03-2020 4:24pm

Council to Look at Stricter Rules for HGVs and Driver Blindspots

Dublin City Council is looking to introduce stricter safety measures for HGVs, similar to London’s, Dublin City Council’s Head of Technical Services for Traffic Brendan O’Brien said at a council meeting last week.

The London initiative has introduced a direct-vision standard, which measures the visibility that HGV drivers have around their blind spots.

Over 8,000 permits were given out from October to January to trucks that now comply with the direct vision standard, according to Transport for London’s website.

Permits will be given to HGVs that have reduced the blind spots on the vehicle. HGVs that operate in London without the permit will receive a fine of £550 a day from 26 October 2020.

The vehicle is rated from zero to five stars on blind-spot visibility. Anything below one star will not be given a permit to drive in the city.

Seth Brundle · 20-03-2020 10:10pm

Why not encourage cycling during the coronavirus lockdown?
Bikes allows people to maintain isolation but provide important respite from being indoors

AndrewJRenko · 21-03-2020 10:59am

Good to know that we'll have more unfit drivers on the road over the coming weeks.

https://www.facebook.com/RSAIreland/posts/3325973244098965?notif_id=1584741677904858&notif_t=page_highlights

eclipsechaser · 22-03-2020 4:39pm

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/five-motorists-fined-for-dangerously-overtaking-cyclists-1.4209196

1 motorist per month fined for dangerous overtaking of cyclists since November.

Compare that to an average of 100+ fixed penalty notices to cyclists per month for 4 years.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/almost-5-000-on-the-spot-fines-issued-to-cyclists-1.3977141

I've seen more than 5 videos of dangerous overtaking in the Near Miss thread in a single day, never mind over several months. Really shows how cyclists are thought of in this country. Is it really the 80kg objects going at 20km/h that are the priority danger or the 1 ton object going at 80km/h? Answers on a postcard.

Thargor · 22-03-2020 8:47pm

eclipsechaser wrote: »

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/five-motorists-fined-for-dangerously-overtaking-cyclists-1.4209196

1 motorist per month fined for dangerous overtaking of cyclists since November.

Compare that to an average of 100+ fixed penalty notices to cyclists per month for 4 years.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/almost-5-000-on-the-spot-fines-issued-to-cyclists-1.3977141

I've seen more than 5 videos of dangerous overtaking in the Near Miss thread in a single day, never mind over several months. Really shows how cyclists are thought of in this country. Is it really the 80kg objects going at 20km/h that are the priority danger or the 1 ton object going at 80km/h? Answers on a postcard.

Didnt realise there was that many cyclists getting caught. What are the figures for cars breaking red lights?

Pinch Flat · 23-03-2020 9:35am

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/five-motorists-fined-for-dangerously-overtaking-cyclists-1.4209196?mode=amp

The Irish Times reported this on its Facebook page - cant find the link. Barely a comment. Extraordinary times we are living in.

Mc Love · 24-03-2020 8:38am

I hadnt seen it, thanks Pinch! Shared on my Social media feeds

magicbastarder · 29-03-2020 9:57am

this was just posted to facebook, but the date it went online was 10pm on Friday, so was probably already in the queue. what timing.

Ian O’Riordan: The aloneness of the long-distance rider
Ghosts of cycling greats for company on a spin deep into the heart of the Garden of Ireland

The bitter sting and dust of the fabled pavé. The last Alpine switchback of the hors catégorie. The first climb over the Sally Gap loud-mouthing the arias of Il barbiere di Siviglia and then down along the already gorse-scented Glenmacnass where the earth is fast reawakening.
Every rider has their own idea of where the season begins. It used to be in small groups of two or three, never beyond Glencree until after the clocks spring forward, or before hurling derision at TS Eliot for being wrong about the cruellest month.
By Thursday afternoon, with the sun laughing in the back windows, this season unlike any other began with the first irresistible urge to go alone and properly deep into the Garden of Ireland.

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/other-sports/ian-o-riordan-the-aloneness-of-the-long-distance-rider-1.4214054

eeeee · 29-03-2020 10:25am

God the actual writing in that article is horrendous, the Times are really missing editors.

TheBlaaMan · 29-03-2020 12:45pm

Nice to see this lovely piece in this weekend's Irish Times by Ian O'Riordan. While it's not that often, I buy the IT, I doubt there is much room for cycling in it, or other daily papers.

I'll post the full article after the weekend unless there are issues doing so?

attachment.php?attachmentid=507465&stc=1&d=1585482083

attachment.php?attachmentid=507465&stc=1&d=1585482083

Seth Brundle · 29-03-2020 2:27pm

Article link: https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/other-sports/ian-o-riordan-the-aloneness-of-the-long-distance-rider-1.4214054

CramCycle · 29-03-2020 2:37pm

TheBlaaMan wrote: »

I'll post the full article after the weekend unless there are issues doing so?

Alas there is, it is against site rules, post a link but that is it.

eeeee · 30-03-2020 12:17am

Threads Merged

tomasrojo · 30-03-2020 3:24am

Prose started off very purple alright, but it did calm down and hit an appropriate tone after, I think.

Sillitoe's story it mentions is really fine, I've always thought. More for its depiction of the defiance of underdogs than as a tribute to running, as such, thought it's that as well. Very memorable title too,

tomasrojo · 30-03-2020 10:20am

Just in passing ... I also read Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, which was good but I didn't find it anywhere near as compelling The Loneliness ..., the novel The Death of William Posters, which I can't remember anything good about, and a lot of his short stories, a few of which were very good. I think he only had a few good stories in him seemingly all written early on, but one was a cracker.

Anyway, just in case I accidentally encourage someone to read The Death of William Posters or something like that.

Harrybelafonte · 30-03-2020 11:11am

tomasrojo wrote: »

Just in passing ... I also read Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, which was good but I didn't find it anywhere near as compelling The Loneliness ..., the novel The Death of William Posters, which I can't remember anything good about, and a lot of his short stories, a few of which were very good. I think he only had a few good stories in him seemingly all written early on, but one was a cracker.

Anyway, just in case I accidentally encourage someone to read The Death of William Posters or something like that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_aaECIey0M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_aaECIey0M

Grassey · 01-04-2020 6:10pm

on-the-bike-i-meet-no-one-78-year-old-cyclist-refuses-to-cocoon

Seth Brundle · 01-04-2020 6:14pm

Grassey wrote: »

on-the-bike-i-meet-no-one-78-year-old-cyclist-refuses-to-cocoon

:rolleyes:

Although he admits he himself had “a cardiac arrest four years ago, but that is well over.” It was true too he had “an abdominal operation last September” and “a stroke three weeks ago”. But, “it had no effect.”

He is “in great health” and “I’m not near anyone out on the bike.”

RobertFoster · 01-04-2020 8:10pm

Seth Brundle wrote: »

:rolleyes:

Journalism and cycling

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