Jeremy Clarkson on a bike

oblongomaculatus

Anybody see Top Gear tonight, Clarkson and May arseing about on bikes? What do people think?

Not as rabidly anti bike as I was expecting, he actually managed to slip some good points in amidst the facetiousness:

Turning right in traffic can be scary.

Some cyclists jump red lights and it's annoying.

Buses are very big and get too close to cyclists.

The roads are often bumpy and this can make your ride uncomfortable (though the bit he was on at the time looked OK to me).

He did say that every car, including taxis was courteous and gave him six feet of room when passing, but I assume this was irony.

Of course, he didn't address the problems of poor driving or road design, or anything that might actually help, but that's not what he's there for. And James May did sound as if he knew what he was talking about in his bike maintenance part.

bendertherobot

One point I'd note. It's quite wrong for every cyclist to get tarred by other's red light jumping.

But, equally, on the point of overtaking, 99.9% of drivers on my 200 odd mile commute each week do give me room. It IS the odd idiot that sticks in your mind.

thomthom

Went to London last month and was baffled how incredibly bad the cycling infrastructure was. Cyclist in and out of the roads where the cars are supposed to drive, bus lanes that completly shits on the bike lanes creating really dangerous sitiations etc..

This is how it's supposed to be:

airbag

I quite liked it. Though it did veer into the usual TG problem of being overpredictable.

Cygnus

Well if some motorist deliberately knocked him off then they can say Jeremy Clarkson told him to.

team47b

I googled it and came up with this...

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vfPZz7Rx68w

fatsmoker

I thought it was funny - Chris Boardman's face when they presented their videos was ace.

team47b

In case you don't live in the uk or own a tv, here's the relevant part of the show...

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tW1bmdogC7c

bianchimoon

I think carrying teabags from string on your helmets is the best idea they came up with

just what you'd expect from TG

ddraver

I like TG...there, I said it. I laughed in spite of myslef when I watched it. It's a bit of a shame that they couldnt have got a few more cycling friendly points in like the realities of RLJing and the need to give cyclists space, even in a TG jokey way but I think the real message they made, which was things are much nicer when everyone is not being a dick to each otehr so just smile and be nice, is a good one actually...

CiB

bianchimoon wrote:

I think carrying teabags from string on your helmets is the best idea they came up with

just what you'd expect from TG

Wasn't it their long-running gag of buying brand new kit for a purpose and leaving all the labels attached?

I liked it, thought they that made some valid points and deliberately exaggerated the issue to make the point that 'actually this isn't really true you know', like they often do. That's where TG's humour lies.

bianchimoon

CiB wrote:

bianchimoon wrote:

I think carrying teabags from string on your helmets is the best idea they came up with

just what you'd expect from TG

Wasn't it their long-running gag of buying brand new kit for a purpose and leaving all the labels attached?

I liked it, thought they that made some valid points and deliberately exaggerated the issue to make the point that 'actually this isn't really true you know', like they often do. That's where TG's humour lies.

yup, i did realise, but thought carrying tea bags would have been funnier.
unfortunately TG's humour would to the 'less' open/intelligent minded road users give credibility to clclist hating mentality

crescent

I actually thought their bomb disposal themed advert about the difference between red and green was quite clever.

Mikey23

Yes, very good. Some powerful points made

So get your geraniums sorted guys...

oblongomaculatus

fatsmoker wrote:

Chris Boardman's face when they presented their videos was ace.

Chris Boardman and his fellow experts were good sports to play along with the format - May & Clarkson present two comically useless films, the panel offer some constructive criticism, the TG team go away and come back with another comical and marginally less useless film. A lot of their pieces follow that script. It was a shame Richard Hammond, who is a regular cyclist, wasn't involved; he could have had fun pointing out their errors. And it would have been nice if JC had taken thirty seconds at the end to say that his spell in the saddle had given him a new appreciation of the difficulties cyclists face and the problems that can arise from thoughtless driving. But maybe that would have been too much to hope for.

Maybe someone should make a "how to drive safely around cyclists" film in the same style; eg: "Ah, there's a cyclist ahead of me and some bollards narrowing the road. Excellent, a chance to squeeze the bugger into the kerb!"

slowbike

oblongomaculatus wrote:

Maybe someone should make a "how to drive safely around cyclists" film in the same style; eg: "Ah, there's a cyclist ahead of me and some bollards narrowing the road. Excellent, a chance to squeeze the bugger into the kerb!"

Exactly what I experienced on Sunday morning ...

airbag

CiB wrote:

bianchimoon wrote:

I think carrying teabags from string on your helmets is the best idea they came up with

just what you'd expect from TG

Wasn't it their long-running gag of buying brand new kit for a purpose and leaving all the labels attached?

I liked it, thought they that made some valid points and deliberately exaggerated the issue to make the point that 'actually this isn't really true you know', like they often do. That's where TG's humour lies.

Is that long running? I hadn't noticed it before. What have they even bought before that would have a label on?

It was pretty good on the whole. OK, cliched (as TG in general is - as somebody else mentioned, it was basically the scirocco film, again), but whilst cyclists are the butt of some jokes, it was carried out in a balanced - dare I say it, professional - manner.

Certainly, there are a lot of people, who'll gladly tell you all about the deities of hi-vis and helmets, claiming it's because "they're so very concerned about safety", who stay completely silent on the matter of the way you should drive around cyclists. TG, you'll notice, did not.

I know who is more deserving of my scorn.

CiB

airbag wrote:

Is that long running? I hadn't noticed it before. What have they even bought before that would have a label on?

When they drove open cars to the circuit and pulled in to buy waterproof togs, they had labels hanging off then. And probably other times too - why let a good joke go to waste?

Dick-Dastardly

It was the expected Top Gear humour. They could have been a *little* more serious about it and, as others have pointed out, educating drivers about how to pass cyclists safely would have been a good start. Cyclists being killed on London roads is no joke.

I admire cyclists - if you cycle in London you must have some big Jacobs and an arse of steel. I was born in London and have lived here most of my life, but have not cycled on London roads for 20 years now. The cycling infrastructure and road surface quality is a pathetic joke.

Using a car here is dangerous enough - idiot drivers (especially buses, taxis and recent immigrants), third-world potholes, speed humps, sunken manhole covers every few yards, drivers staring at their sat-navs or paying more attention to their speedometers than the road because of the bloody speed cameras.

The front suspension bushes on my MINI failed a recent MOT although I drive less than 3000 miles per year. My flatmate's VW failed its MOT because a front suspension spring had snapped. The front suspension on a friend's car recently collapsed and one wheel rolled off down the road.

London is run by clueless morons and self-serving scam-artist berks (and I mean that in the original Cockney sense of the word).

If you cycle in London I wish you good health and a long life. I honestly don't know how you put up with it.

rabk

ddraver wrote:

I like TG...there, I said it. I laughed in spite of myslef when I watched it. It's a bit of a shame that they couldnt have got a few more cycling friendly points in like the realities of RLJing and the need to give cyclists space, even in a TG jokey way but I think the real message they made, which was things are much nicer when everyone is not being a dick to each otehr so just smile and be nice, is a good one actually...

^^This

It was really good, I thoroughly enjoyed it, laugh out loud funny at times

it's on again tonight at 7pm BBC two

outcastjack

I quite enjoyed the feature, and if nothing else it showed how safe cycling is 99% of the time, provided you don't ride like an idiot. If those two can manage it without dying then anyone can.

secretsam

Crescent wrote:

I actually thought their bomb disposal themed advert about the difference between red and green was quite clever.

+1

"Cyclists: Red and Green. Learn the bloody difference"

MartinGT

I havent seen it myself, however, I have seen PLENTY of cars go through red. But its ok for them I suppose?

Just to add, I stop at Reds and I am NOT impressed by RLJ's

me-109

The red/green film would have been more useful and made more sense if it had some visual clue about the traffic lights within it - even just a two-second clip of traffic lights changing colour. Add that, get rid of the "bl00dy" and it would be useable.

The second film "righteousness" had me a bit baffled, unless it meant 'it's no good being right and dead'.

slowbike

Good grief ...

all those who took it seriously - please book yourself in for a therapy session ...

JC is a Joke, the show is a Joke and this piece certainly was a joke ...

WTF did you expect them to do?!

MichaelW

Crescent wrote:

I actually thought their bomb disposal themed advert about the difference between red and green was quite clever.

Reported today, another routine "car accident" by RLJ driver and texting driver kills 2 children.

crescent

MichaelW wrote:

Crescent wrote:

I actually thought their bomb disposal themed advert about the difference between red and green was quite clever.

Reported today, another routine "car accident" by RLJ driver and texting driver kills 2 children.

Hmmm, not quite sure why you quoted my comment with this, did you think I was inferring that only cyclists jump red lights? That was certainly not my intention. I was merely saying that I liked the concept of the red wire/green wire with respect to safety and danger. I genuinely thought it was a clever idea in what was quite obviously a light-hearted article.

MartinGT

How the funk can you deny death by careless driving, when you were using your bloody phone whilst driving!

Dick-Dastardly

Hands-free phone call. It is still a major distraction though, in my opinion.

oblongomaculatus

The thing about Jeremy Clarkson is he doesn't necessarily believe what he says, or at least he exaggerates his opinions for, mostly, comic effect. It's an act, and a very successful one. That said, he did seem genuinely cross about the cyclist he tweeted the photo of a couple of months ago. He called him a "point maker", which he was, just not the point JC thought he was making. Clarkson seemed to think it was "I'm as much entitled to use the roads as you, so I will make that point by getting in your way and annoying you." But as far as I can see from the picture, the point was "It's not safe to overtake me here, there isn't enough room, please don't attempt to squeeze past."

Everyone seems to have liked the red wire/green wire film. Perhaps there should be one in a similar vein for motorists about how much room to leave when passing a cyclist, with the tagline "Motorists; feet and inches. Learn the bloody difference."

littledove44

I think I read that South Africa have a law that you must leave 1.5m clear when overtaking a bike.

Sounds sensible to me.