La Flamme Rouge **off topic discussion**

The last few posts in the journalism thread ("you could buy a car for the price of that bike") inspired me to post this, though it is very off topic/tangential for that thread.

I've been away on holidays and one country visited was Luxemburg. We spent 4 days there. Luxemburg has free public transport, for everyone in the country, visitors included.

That meant 2 day trips length and breath of the country (combined with a day and a bit on bikes) the car was parked up, stationary in the campsite.

Now, ignoring the fact that this shouldn't happen and has to be investigated, our first expenditure outside of meals/camp pitch was to pay a breakdown van to jump the car so we could go to our next destination.

the bus thing has been trialled here AFAIK, but was discontinued when it caused traffic problems (i.e. slightly delayed people in cars).

I actually did some research on this very thing about 9 years ago for a local authority (I won't say which one as the results are theirs and I'm not sure it was ever officially made public). Phone location services weren't up to much at the time, so I worked with Bluetooth, an Android app and static beacons placed on and around roundabouts. We we able to thus put a bike into a zone, and by the passage from zone to zone tell whether it was approaching/leaving the junction and notify the server which could then take some action (unprescribed). They didn't proceed as they felt that there was the possibility of them being open to litigation if it failed, and that there were issues around not everybody having it (again smartphone penetration wouldn't have been as high)

The system was however subsequently adapted and trialled for the use case Seth mentioned - actually changing the signals to facilitate buses. I didn't work on that one personally, but AFAIK it worked as a proof of concept, though don't think it went beyond that.

This doesn't seem to be a place for this, so I'll stick it here.

Just used the new protected cycle lane in Naas,running from the Kilcullen roundabout to Swan's on the Green. It's really very pleasant, raised curb for protection, nice and smooth, and you don't cede priority at every entrance.

You still have to come off the cycle lane before the roundabout if you don't want to have to dismount and cross at the traffic lights with pedestrians. Considering there is a protected bike lane on both sides of the road, on all four roads leading to the roundabout, it seemed like an ideal candidate for one of those Dutch style roundabouts.

Know some of the owners of Keoghs are cyclists themselves and had jerseys made up. Might be them and their friends your seeing. They kindly sponsored the Velo Club Balrothery Ras team this year and think they used to sponsor the Ras itself a few years back.

"Bicycle races are coming your way so forget all your duties oh yeah!"

Here's your answer...

Saw some great teenagers being teenagers on the commute this morning... Lad on an escooter giving his mate on a bike a sticky school bag; Backies being given on ebikes. Genuinely good to see, and without a danger to anyone.

Have you got a budget in mind? Garmin, as an example, have a huge range of watches.

Take the Garmin Vivoactive 4. It would do all the things you want (and more), but it retails at about €230

I've the Vivoactive 4 and it ticks all the boxes you mention - I find it useful with stuff like the body battery which by and large does tally with how energetic I'm feeling. Keep an eye open for black Friday offers on it - they've just brought out a 5 which isn't really an upgrade. They've hobbled it (no barometer so no flights of stairs for one) as they've put the functionality into one of their other watches

Thanks folks for the helpful replies, vivoactive it is when tje price is right.

Has anyone experience of bringing a bike on intercity Irish rail trains and whether it is much hassle?

I'm hoping to bring my electric bike from Dublin to Cork but I'm worried it will get broke up as it has full mudguards. It mentions that bikes with motors are not allowed on their site below. Would that included electric motors I wonder?

https://www.irishrail.ie/en-ie/travel-information/bicycle-information-for-rail-travel

I suppose in fairness "athlete" is a broader term since didn't she go on to do horse racing after the cycling career? Having no clue what "The Dog House" was, I looked it up on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dog_House_(TV_series) it was pretty much what I imagined), and they do have her described as "Gold-winning Olympic cyclist Victoria Pendleton", which does sound better

I just received a message from Strava to say I'd lost my last KOM.

When I looked at the activity of the guy who took it, it seems to me that he might have been on an ebike or moped or similar.

These stats don't look right

Might have to flag my first segment in Strava