Top Gear

congokid said:

A few years back the Evening Standard did something similar (and I think
there have been several other such challenges before that), but the
distance was only a couple of miles or so in the West End area. Not
completely sure, but taking part were a bus, bike and taxi, and possible
a motorbike.

A similar exercise is conducted in Edinburgh (for at least the last
couple of years I am aware of)

<http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/cyclists-win-edinburgh-commuter-challenge-12731>

--
Don Whybrow

Sequi Bonum Non Time

Some people have one of those days. I have one of those lives.

Dylan Smith said:

The Pirate Bay doesn't restrict you to Windows only. Since I pay my TV
license, I see nothing wrong in getting a BBC programme that I've missed
from a torrent on The Pirate Bay.

Hurry while stock last!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/13/pirate_bay_charges_dates/

--
Don Whybrow

Sequi Bonum Non Time

Are you still here? The message is over. Shoo! Go away!

Rob Morley said:

How about Sabine Schmitz? She's funny. :-)

And she comes out with lines like
"..Oooo ja ja faster faster"
<fx:mumble> "if I wasn't a married man ...
teenage boy's fantasy".
</fx>

In article <[email hidden]>,
[email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

I never knew he was in the Ramblers Association.

If you'd watched any of his programmes you would have realised he
rambles all the time.

--
Tony

"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has
taken place"
George Bernard Shaw

marc said:

Membrane said:

"Dave Larrington" <[email hidden]> wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

>> Anger towards buses is London is a perfectly normal reaction :-(

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

> But so unhealthy. Why not just accept them as an inconvenience like
> bad weather, and get on with life?
Bad weather, in London at least, is unlikely to prove fatal?

Quoted message said:

You can be unaccepting of their current behaviour by for example
campaigning for an improvement whilst accepting current reality and get
on with it when you're out there.

Quoted message said:

Shouting at bus drivers not only is unlikely to educate them, it further
sours up the already poor tolerance between various road users.

But it does make for good TV, and if I was campaigning for better
facilities in London I would be sure to use the TG clip as an example.

I think that could be counted as an own goal on TG's part ;-)

David Lloyd

In article <[email hidden]>, David
Lloyd
[email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

On 13 Nov, 16:03, marc <[email hidden]> wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

But it does make for good TV, and if I was campaigning for better
facilities in London I would be sure to use the TG clip as an example.

I think that could be counted as an own goal on TG's part ;-)

Why? The more people switch from cars to bikes, the more space there is
for Lamborghinis. :-) You have to remember that most cars are driven
by pedestrians, just as most BSOs are ridden by pedestrians.

Rob Morley said:

In article <[email hidden]>, David
Lloyd
[email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

marc said:

But it does make for good TV, and if I was campaigning for better
facilities in London I would be sure to use the TG clip as an example.

Quoted message said:

I think that could be counted as an own goal on TG's part ;-)

Why? The more people switch from cars to bikes, the more space there is
for Lamborghinis. :-) You have to remember that most cars are driven
by pedestrians, just as most BSOs are ridden by pedestrians.

I was thinking on the grounds that TG wouldn't want to be seen doing
anything that might be considered as promoting cycling, even if, as a
consequence, it resulted in better traffic flow for the captive
cagers.

David Lloyd

David Lloyd said:

Rob Morley said:

In article <[email hidden]>, David
Lloyd
[email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

On 13 Nov, 16:03, marc <[email hidden]> wrote:
> But it does make for good TV, and if I was campaigning for better
> facilities in London I would be sure to use the TG clip as an example.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I think that could be counted as an own goal on TG's part ;-)

Quoted message said:

Why? The more people switch from cars to bikes, the more space there is
for Lamborghinis. :-) You have to remember that most cars are driven
by pedestrians, just as most BSOs are ridden by pedestrians.

I was thinking on the grounds that TG wouldn't want to be seen doing
anything that might be considered as promoting cycling, even if, as a
consequence, it resulted in better traffic flow for the captive
cagers.

Why would they not want to promote cycling? Anyhow, they did pick a
1700 GBP carbon fibre hybrid for the hamster's wheels. Very nice it
looked too. A couple of weeks of commuting and the hamster would have
managed it with far more time to spare - he was being creamed by
lasses on BSO's at the end.

...d

David Martin said:

On Nov 14, 2:26 pm, David Lloyd <[email hidden]> wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I was thinking on the grounds that TG wouldn't want to be seen doing
anything that might be considered as promoting cycling, even if, as a
consequence, it resulted in better traffic flow for the captive
cagers.

Why would they not want to promote cycling?

You forget: in the minds of a few people here TG is a serious motoring
magazine programme. Personally, I don't believe that it does TG any harm
at all to let people see how sometimes the car isn't the right solution.

Quoted message said:

Anyhow, they did pick a
1700 GBP carbon fibre hybrid for the hamster's wheels. Very nice it
looked too. A couple of weeks of commuting and the hamster would have
managed it with far more time to spare - he was being creamed by
lasses on BSO's at the end.

It's just possible that those "lasses on BSO's" that you mention had
only been travelling a mile or so. I suspect there's more than a few
quite fit cyclists who ride more slowly after 17 miles than after 2.

Cheers,
Luke

--
Red Rose Ramblings, the diary of an Essex boy in
exile in Lancashire <http://www.shrimper.org.uk>

Nobody Here <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Ekul Namsob said:

The Beeb have claimed that they will open up to other platforms when
they go for a full launch.

Yes, but they also claimed that their site was only accessed by 600 Linux
users, which seems unlikely because I know 4 of them personally. They
later shamefacedly revised that to something like 90,000.

which is still probably utterly wrong, as they're basing that on the
User-Agent which is pretty often faked (as in doesn't follow the spec for
it).

But the platforms argument is missing the point, as is being explained
excrutiatingly slowly to the BBC on their Internet Blog - the iPlayer does
the equivalent of 'you must buy your TV from these manufacturers and then
seal it shut with tools from our approved suppliers' and the BBC should
not be doing such a thing. Much less have spent most of the price of
television centre doing it. It's a scandal and a disgrace.

So please don't watch the DRM/TPM-infested iPlayer version. Grab it
unencrypted, unlocked, from the broadcasts.
--
MJ Ray http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html tel:+44-844-4437-237 -
Webmaster-developer, statistician, sysadmin, online shop builder,
consumer and workers co-operative member http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ -
Writing on koha, debian, sat TV, Kewstoke http://mjr.towers.org.uk/

Peter Clinch said:

Ian Smith said:

Any chance of a summary for those of us that aren't secret Top Gear
watchers?

About what I've deduced so far is that 'Hammond' rode a bike in some
competitive (or semi-competitive) event that included riding with
other traffic. He wore a helmet. The outcome was positive (those the
details of what constitutes positive are not clear).

It was a race between 4 modes of transport from Kew Bridge to London
City Airport. The contestants were Hammond on a bike, James May in a
Chelsea Tractor, Clarkson in a power boat going along the Thames (though
limited speed until Wandsworth bridge, according to Thames navigation
rules), and The Stig on public transport.

The bike won, the boat shortly after, then PT, and a quarter of an hour
later the car. In the roundup, because it was Top Gear, they pointed
out the car won, because London doesn't have a river and the other
contestants (stood there saying this) were in fact dead; i.e., quite
happy to take the [censored] out of themselves after as well as during their
feature. It was a way to entertainingly fill some air time, not prove
the best way to get around London.

Of course, unless you were flying somewhere with your bike or LCA have
secure cycle lockers, there would be no point in getting to the
airport by bike because you'd just have to turn around and go home.
I'm sure there is not many places where you can tie up your boat,
either

David Lloyd.

David Lloyd said:

Of course, unless you were flying somewhere with your bike or LCA have
secure cycle lockers, there would be no point in getting to the
airport by bike because you'd just have to turn around and go home.
I'm sure there is not many places where you can tie up your boat,
either

I was waiting for it to end like this: boat gets there first, and then
spends 30 minutes circling trying to find a parking space/landing spot 🙂

Roos

David Lloyd said:

Of course, unless you were flying somewhere with your bike or LCA have
secure cycle lockers, there would be no point in getting to the
airport by bike because you'd just have to turn around and go home.

Thobut it is Not A Million Miles from Canary Wharf, rumoured to be the
location of a few folks' working offices...

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email hidden] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

In article said:

Of course, unless you were flying somewhere with your bike or LCA have
secure cycle lockers, there would be no point in getting to the
airport by bike because you'd just have to turn around and go home.

I have cycled to an airport and left my bike there while I caught a plane.
Not, however, in London. (Cambridge, and I just locked it to a railing in
the car park.)

Maybe you could meet up with someone who was driving (from somewhere else
not convenient to just share a ride) and leave it in the back of their car?

8 knots Upstream from Wandsworth Bridge no limit downstream. Although there are some local (lower) limits on the non-tidal bit.

P

Paul Boyd said:

On 12/11/2007 20:31, Adam Lea said,

Quoted message said:

I am surprised the speedboat didn't win. What is the speed limit along the
Thames?

That was the catch. It was something like 9mph until a certain bridge,
then unlimited. JC was belting along at 75mph once unfettered, but the
river has a few twists and turns in it apparently, which added a lot of
mileage.

--
Paul Boyd
paul-boyd.co.ukpaul-boyd.co.ukOpen ↗

Quoting David Lloyd <[email hidden]>:

Quoted message said:

Of course, unless you were flying somewhere with your bike or LCA have
secure cycle lockers, there would be no point in getting to the
airport by bike because you'd just have to turn around and go home.

When I used to fly I, more than once, left my bike locked in a rack at LHR
for a fortnight.
--
David Damerell <[email hidden]> Distortion Field!
Today is First Monday, November.

MJ Ray said:

So please don't watch the DRM/TPM-infested iPlayer version. Grab it
unencrypted, unlocked, from the broadcasts.

Quite, as soon as the downloaded software started bleating about DRM, it
was ripped out. I will wait until there is a version on YouTube.

--
Don Whybrow

Sequi Bonum Non Time

At first there was nothing. Then God said 'Let there be light!'
Then there was still nothing. But you could see it.