Yorkshire Writers' Lunch

Who is King of the Road? The motorist versus the cyclist.   Many cyclists would have us believe the motorist is the bad guy, forcing them off the road at every opportunity and, of course, this sometimes happens, but not in the majority of cases.   New updates state cyclists should cycle in the middle of the lane on quiet roads, in slow-moving traffic, or when approaching junctions or road narrowings.  The code also says cyclists should maintain a distance of 0.5 metres from the kerb edge when cycling on busy roads or with traffic that is moving faster than them.   Mmm.   In theory this may work, in practice, I am not too sure.   When cyclists are going straight ahead at a junction, they have priority over traffic waiting to turn into or out of a side road, unless road signs or markings indicate otherwise.   Really!!   How ridiculous.   Of course, the motorist must abide by these rules, yet cyclists seem oblivious to some basic rules which als...

The town lies below me in the valley, a star-shape of grey slate and stone framed by the green hills. I’m anonymous in the peleton , hidden away by my team. The break-away at the front is just for show, and the task of the moment is a safe, high-speed descent to the ring road and into town. The wind, loud in my ears, almost drowns out the noise of the crowd. I glimpse flags and faces through the pack of riders. Hunched over the bars and hiding in the slipstream of the bikes ahead of me, I rest my legs for the climb that I know will come all too soon. It’s a climbing day. It’s not the Pyrenees, no, but the laws of physics and human biology dictate that I will spend much more time going up than going down. All too soon, I’m on my way back out of the town. The climb starts gently enough, a smooth incline waking up the muscles for the torture that lies ahead. The gap between one bike and another grows, centimetre by centimetre as the strain begins to tell. The nonchalant smiles of t...