Following the introduction of a death by dangerous cycling bill, Julia Hartley-Brewer gave typically misinformed and biased bullshit on her sad excuse for a radio programme and now it seems everypone has to have a go at Cyclists.

Well done for jumping on the cyclist bashing bandwagon with your article “Cyclists have had an easy ride too long” Sebastian Shakespeare, however as commented on your article, here’s my response to your drivel:

You say that cyclists should have insurance (I do have third party insurance, FYI) but try having a look at the uninsured drivers stats first. When that problem is resolved try bringing in another rule for the contraptions that will do minimal damage (in most cases) to a person or other road user.

We haven’t had it easy, how you would call being hit (side swiped on a straight road) by a HGV and hospitalised easy (myself, July 2010) I don’t know.

A minority will flount the rules, and I try to tell the law breaking fellow cyclists of the reputation they give us. But you say we run red lights, in the eyes of the law I could give you hundreds of car (and motorcycle) registrations each week that are all positioned in the cyclists area at junctions, ignoring the ASL (Advanced Stop Line) making life much harder for cyclists to be safe.

How about the traffic wardens look at them too, or is that victimising the car drivers too much?

I could go on, and I’d like to have a conversation with Sebastian, but (as he pointed out in his article) he’d rather speak to someone who has poor English language skills than hear my northern twang. My money is actually on the fact that he has some form of regional accent. Or maybe he is too focused on writing shit that he never speaks.  Maybe I should give him a Glasgow kiss to justify his apparent lack of respect for anyone.

When they started by stating numerous times (the ill-informed Julia Hartley Brewer and callers alike) that car drivers pay to use the roads so should have exclusive use of them, I was hoping for ANYONE to point out that Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) does not pay for the roads, but roads are paid for by regular taxation, so I do pay for the roads, even if I don’t have a car or a bike. Check ipayroadtax.com for more details on that, but safe to say they are wrong. I did call in but unfortunately LBC didn’t call me back.

And MOTs, licenses and registration plates for cyclists is a useless suggestion, considering the police struggle and pretty much fight a losing battle against motorists who drive without insurance, how the hell do you expect this to be enforced. If anyone has any ideas I’d love to know.  Before anyone mentions insurance, I have third party insurance on my bike, although I would never expect to use it.

Next, callers were virtually threatening cyclists. I don’t remember his name but the driver that said of cyclists “I’ve hit one before and would do it again. If they’re in my way I’ll run them down.” WHAT THE FUCK. I guess it says something that the caller drives a BMW but I wish he had given his number plate so I can avoid him altogether. And report him to the police if he tries to use his car as a weapon.

Cyclists that “wear lycra and think they’re professional cyclists” should dismount and use a footbridge (as suggested by a caller) is bollocks. We have a right to use the road and when we are traveling at a fair speed, why should we sacrifice journey time by minutes when we would only hold up cars for a few seconds, most of the time.

To the cyclist who is the only one who doesn’t break the highway code and thinks other cyclists (and I think he included the LCC in the statement) are arrogant scum is living in his own little world, I see hundreds of cyclists every year that are fine cyclists and don’t jump lights and so on.

And as for the presenter I don’t remember the complete build up, but saying that if you kill a cyclist you should be the one people feel for is pathetic, you come across as a selfish cow. You have no more right to use the road than a cyclist, and while I can’t remember the incident as you described it, I do remember thinking you did not have right of way, so it would have been your fault. Maybe you can email me at matt@mattbee.co.uk to explain it again, because I now simply believe you to be a danger to myself and other cyclists for not even knowing the highway code.

I am very sorry that LBC couldn’t call me back so that I could defend cyclists and point out their errors, ask why they think the aggressive behaviour of some motorists is acceptable and why a 4 year old case has brought the fact that a cyclist could kill a pedestrian into the media spotlight when hundreds (or thousands) of cyclists AND pedestrians are seriously injured by motor vehicles all the time (no pedestrian deaths in the last 4 years involving a cyclist hitting a pedestrian, there have been 3 people killed by cars or lorries in the past 2 weeks!).

And don’t get me started on Advanced Stop Lines (ASLs)… when will drivers/motorcyclists get punished for entering those I wonder.

I was pretty pleased with the time, 5 hours 08 minutes and 35 seconds, with the following splits:

The swim started bright and early at 6:20am, so I was up and out of the B&B, with Rich from GyroHSR who was also racing, at 5am. We arrived and got transition sorted, I rushed a bit by faffing far too much, but all went relatively smoothly.

Rutland Water, home of the Vitruvian Triathlon

The water was full of plant life which was a bit annoying to say the least, tangling around my arms a few times but after 2 laps of the 950m course, I emerged feeling quite good. So much so I probably could have taken another minute off the swim time, but it was also a rough swim, with other competitors around me all the way.  I took my time a bit in transition, getting the wetsuit off and making sure I had all the gels and bars I needed and set off on the 2 lap 42.5km course.

It was cold, very cold and a bit too windy on the bike, but the hills got my heart going when they came around. I aimed at keeping my heart rate at 140BPM on the bike, gauging that would be the level I thought I would need to post a sub 3 hours time, turns out it was a great time, as I got through the hills and the wind still feeling strong for the part I had trained most for recently, the half marathon.

Feeling pretty  strong I set the target heart rate of 157 all the way, which should post a 1:35 half marathon, not bad at all. However I expected to flag and while I felt strong most of the way round, the faster runners were a little demoralising.  I kept above 155BPM most of the way round, in the last 7km easing off a little and cruising home at 145BPM, with an average HR of 154BPM for the 21km. I even had a little in the tank for a 50m  sprint at the end!

Only down side to the day was finding Rich at the end, and hearing his race wasn’t ideal – I wish he’d felt as strong so we had a fair comparison of times. Still, I had quite a bit of time on him and better training in the build up may just have given me a sub 5 hour time, but that’s life!

And the day after,  following that monster challenge, I had my Choi Kwang Do yellow belt grading, so now I’m a Vitruvian and a a proper colour belt in martial arts. All in all a good weekend!

The Pyrenees are beautiful and while we knew we were in for a tough time with a few big hills, no one really expected to be staying at the bottom of a hors catégorie climb in Col du Tourmalet. Round the corner was the Col d’Aspin too which has featuredin Le Tour de France 66 times. So the climbing was awesome, tough, beautiful, painful, challenging, sweaty and required a lot of determination.

Climbing the Col du Tourmalet as soon as we got there on Saturday morning was difficult enough. Of course the next day, the riding an undulating 70km (via Lourdes and Bagneres de Bigorre) and climb the other side from the West to on Sunday was unbelievably tough.

On Monday we managed to fit 2 Cols into out ride, by riding a nice small road Col near Heches, then up the Col d’Aspin from the East. It was in between these two Cols that we discovered Richard G didn’t actually have the compact chainset that he asked for on his Specalized Roubaix S-Works. Which provided amusement, expect for the fact it just showed his strength while he beat me up most hills, or mountains!!

Tuesday was the last day so it was a straight sprint up Col d’Aspin from the West and back down again to pack up and head home.

What a fantastic few days it was and I absolutely want to do this again, only next time I want to take those hills by the scuff of the neck and keep up with the rest of the boys, if not bethe first up! Although as I was riding with 2 Ironmen, this might be more difficult  than it seems.

The Great British Bike Relay is a relay cycle with a group starting in Glasgow and a team starting in London converging on Manchester on September 10th (where I will also be playing football for GyroHSR London vs the rest of Gyro HSR) before sending the next leg on its way.

So about 250 miles in 2 days should be enough of a challenge for which I have to raise £1,250 – so expect plenty of events and so on over the next few months. More information will follow as I get it – anyone who wants to join my team – let me know!

Watch the bottom of the video to see the Yellow Jersey leader Daryl Impey gets taken out by Theo Bos. Bos grabs Impey’s shirt and throws him into the barriers, taking himself out of the race as well.

Now I know cycling teams have all sorts of tactics and so on, but this is appalling and I hope that he faces a very long ban, amongst any other punishment that can be thrown at him.

The season didn’t get off the the best start, when I forgot to register and then tried to start but wasn’t allowed. Thankfully I woke up – I was only having a bad dream! Next dream was even worse when I forgot to rack my bike and had to get it out of the car once I had finished the swim. I’m a little worried that dreaming about triathlon means I might be taking this a little too seriously.

When I finally finished dreaming about triathlon I woke bright and early at 5am to load the car and get over in good time, parking easily and being all registered by 5:45am. This being my first Thames Turbo, I had no idea I would be standing around for 2 hours until all 483 competitors before me got started at 15 seconds intervals.

Eventually starting, I got the swim out of the way in a respectable 8:30 minutes, then I went out on the bike. The TT bike just didn’t feel fast. I couldn’t seem to get the pace up to what I wanted, the roads were horrible, but I got through and started on the run. I was passed by Louie of the Viceroys about half way round the bike course so that was my motivation on the run, get back in front and hold it to the end, which happened approximately 4km into the run.

After finishing in 1:14 I decided that I need to do Thames Turbo Race 2 on 4th May to find out what time I can get with proper preparation – not to mention a decent bike leg. So 5am starts for a bike and a swim it is I guess, because I’m determined to finally finish first out of all the people I know, if it kills me. Which is a distinct possibility.

It might have been a few months since I blogged, as I was rebuilding my site from the ground up, however I recently decided to maintain WordPress as my blogging platform – so I can add blogs without having to re-build the databases later… leaving about 5 months of blogging to do.

I’ll write and back date some blogs I have, including the 3 capitals bike ride and the triathlons, but some other summer news is below.

Promotion
Earlier this year I was promoted to the role of Senior Web Author, or Senior Front End Developer. About time too, say Dan and I, but now I have the title I will have to apply myself to the title more that previously – when we seemed to be doing the role without the title. I also need to start looking at my next role, and how I can progress further without becoming a management type person. I’m not ready for management roles yet!

Training
I’ve just got a training schedule and it is painful! I will stick to it as much as physically possible and see how much I can improve in triathlon next year, because there is a chance I could get well under 2:30 olympic distance, or maybe even represent GB in the amateur age group world champs. Not likely, but I’ll have to have a go.

Published
I recently wrote a blog entry for BluHalo about when should we stop supporting Internet Explorer 6.

Work wise, I’ve also started an email review system for Virgin Atlantic – which is going relatively well. I’m looking forward to completing the whole system and making it simple to update and making a system that can be used for other clients as well. I don’t think the Virgin system would work for all, due to the complexity of the dynamic content, but there is definitely something there we could sell. As much as I hate it, dynamic content does work.

Next year’s cycle challenge
I better get started on this soon, and get some fund-raising started if this is to come to fruition – but I hope next year to cycle from John O’Groats to Land’s End. Approximately 1,000 miles in 10 days I hope, but I’ll go as quick as I can! I’ll need cycle sponsorship, some support vehicle cost cover, some equipment sponsorship and fund-raising for an as yet undecided charity.

Movember
This was a mistake. I’ve joined our Movember team at work, where you grow a moustache to support male health issues, such as prostrate cancer.

I’ll blog about the danger of reply all that helped me raise most of my fund-raising later.

So other blogs are on the way, so keep an eye open!

Tomorrow was supposed to be the day that Hospital Tavern were promoted by beating Hoxton Foxes, having lost the title to FC Highstone, but the opposition can’t get a team. It means on Tuesday we will either be awarded the points by the league or have to play again. I hope it is the first because otherwise it will eat into my training schedule, which I would prefer not to happen. However the jubilation of being promoted by actual beating Hoxton and the celebrations afterwards would be great!!

Bank holiday weekend has not been enjoyable, having a terrible hangover all day (really considering less drinking…) today (Saturday) and planning on working on Monday to meet a deadline for SportsAid.

Speaking of which, I better try and get the DNS and domain sorted for that!

Bugger was it hard.

Well, I say hard, up until Hythe (next to Folkestone) I was absolutely great and loving it! It was a hell of a lot more of a challenge than I thought it would be, and further, with 107 miles being the final distance. The main problems being the number of very steep hills, by the time I was riding along the coast with its hill after every town I was ready to give up! I was still easily making 20-30mph on the flat and even faster downhill, but I couldn’t face the hills. It really didn’t help that my new gears (badly adjusted by myself I must add) were slipping like mad!

But the final achievement and the struggling up hills wasn’t what the ride was about. It was training for my 3 capitals in 3 days cycle challenge for MAG (sponsors still welcome at www.challengebee.org) and it was just a test of my capabilities, but in the end it was far more enjoyable than I thought it would be. Cycling through tiny villages with truly quaint village shops and little coffeeshops where the same people must meet for cup of tea every Saturday morning was absolutely brilliant!

Earlier today I was thinking that the London marathon must be great to run, but as much as I like London, Deptford and Charlton are exactly my idea of scenic. Yes, The Mall but The beauty of the countryside (including the hills) was a refreshing change. The tree lined single track roads, the waving at fellow cyclists and the sun shining felt great. Mind you, When I got to Folkestone there was one fella I didn’t take kindly to, with him suggesting I “try harder”. Yeah mate, you too after about 80 miles.

But even though I did have to stop for a few more rests than I planned from Hythe onwards, I did manage to make it all the way to Deal. Although this is probably thanks to Chris Woollard (despite letting me down on actually completing the charity ride with me!) and Adrian H at Evans in Wandsworth for helping me (even if it cost a small fortune) ready to make the trip, and if I am honest make the trip easier. And I do have a new wheel for the June trip!

If I can do 107 miles through the hilly South East of England though, I think I can do flat Holland, although the way my legs felt back on the bike today, I better do a little bit more training, and when I get more time to myself, just ride for the hell of it.

Anyway, I suppose I better give you the unimpressive stats!

Cycling Time: 7:48:10
Trip distance: 107.3 miles
Average speed: 13.7 mph
Maximum speed: 34.5 mph