How Do You Get Away From The Golf?
My two favourite channels, BBC 1 and Radio 5 Live are both broadcasting continuous golf. Now I will watch it in moderation, but I’m not keen to have it rammed into both my eyes and ears.
Admittedly, I have the cricket on Sky and soon the cycling will start, but the sooner the Open golf goes to Sky, the better.
As someone famously said, golf is a good way to ruin a walk.
The Olympic Torch Relay is not even on the red button!
Does My Bum Look Big In This?
Just watching the Tour de France and one guy is riding in an outfit with BigMat across his bottom.
It doesn’t do much for his figure!
Wiggins Plays The Gentleman
It’s not often that the Corinthian spirit shines through in modern sport, but when someone decided to throw tacks on the route of the Tour de France yesterday, Bradley Wiggins slowed the peloton to allow one of his rivals, Cadel Evans, to catch up. Read about it all here. Here’s an extract.
Race official Jean-Francois Pescheux confirmed: “The nails were mainly thrown on the ground around 200m from the summit.
“It was obviously done on purpose. We have the tacks but we don’t know who spread them. They are imbeciles.”
However, he was quick to praise the actions of Wiggins. “Sky showed they are for fair play,” he added. “They saw that something had happened and they slowed the peloton so that things could come together for the ride to the finish.”
Tour etiquette dictates that rivals do not take advantage of another rider’s misfortune and, as soon as he realised what was happening, Team Sky’s lead rider called for a truce.
“I thought it was the honourable thing to do,” said 32-year-old Wiggins who is aiming to become the first British rider to win the race. “Nobody wants to benefit from someone else’s misfortune.”
So in fact Wiggins was just following the etiquette. It’s a pity other sports don’t do the same.
There’s more on Wiggins here, who has now been hailed as Le Genteman by the Press.
Tour de Force In The Tour de France
It has been fascinating watching Team SKY control the most difficult stage in the Tour de France today. As ever ITV’s coverage has been ruined by advertising breaks. At least there is a decent commentary onf BBC Radio 5 Live.
I suppose if Team SKY get some of their riders on the podium in Paris, we might get the Tour coverage on one of their channels.
Sir Roger Returns
This morning Sir Roger Bannister carried the Olympic flame round the same track in Oxford, where he ran the first mile in under four minutes. There’s a report here from the Oxford Mail. He was also interviewed on BBC Breakfast. They then talked about how Bradley Wiggins demolised the field in the time trial yesterday to take a good lead in the Tour de France. Susanna Reid, one of the presenters, used a classic quote of Sir Roger’s as a link between the two stories.
The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win.
Sir Roger is 83 now and seems to be driving himself into the future as he can.
Exhibition Road
Exhibition Road, where the Science and Natural History Museums are is now a shared space between all users.
It seems to work, although I suspect some will object. Here‘s the view of the Daily Mail.
Danny Baker Can’t Ride a Bike!
This may seem rather strange in these days, but Danny Baker has just announced on his Saturday morning program on BBC Radio 5, that he’s never been able to ride a bike.
After my balance problems, I doubt I’ll ever ride one again.
Safety On Zebra Crossings
Every morning, when I go to get my newspaper, I have to cross a zebra crossing twice, that has a very busy and sometimes dangerous mix of cyclists and pedestrians. Sometimes, if a van, bus or other obscuring vehicle is waiting for a pedestrian to cross, cyclists will undertake the vehicle and then find a pedestrian is on the crossing.
Perhaps a convex mirror placed at the correct angle under the beacon, might make it easier for cyclists and pedestrians to avoid each other. The cyclist could see across the crossing and the pedestrian could see behind the obscuring vehicle.
Zebra Crossing Beacons
There’s plenty of space on this pole.
Graeme Obree’s Idea to Stop Drug Cheats
Graeme Obree has just said on BBC Radio 5, that the best way to stop drugs cheats in cycling is not to give them their prize money until several years after the event.
But why not add swimming, athletics, and of course, weight-lifting?
Cyclists
The area of Hackney where I live is just north of the City and there are a lot of cyclists. Normally, there isn’t a problem, but they will sneak up the inside of say a bus that has stopped at a zebra crossing for me to cross and a couple of times, I have nearly been run over. Although, I’m a recovering sixty-odd-year-old stroke victim, I can just about cope, but there is a lot of complaints in the shops and pubs from pedestrians about cyclists ignoring the rules of the road and the pavement.
All I think we need is that everybody tries to follow what the law lays down.
Perhaps, what annoys me at the moment, is that there is building work opposite, which means there are extra hazards like delivery lorries and skips, where I cross the road. This would be fine, as usually everything is properly placed to cause the minimum of obstruction. The problem though is that so many drivers and motorcyclists use the road as a short cut and weave in and out of the hazards at speeds over the 20 mph limit for the road.
I think it would help if Hackney followed Islington and went for a borough wide 20 mph speed limit.
The Anonymous Widower 