No need to apologise, I totally agree - hack journalism at it's worst. A one-sided non-story filled with cliches and factually incorrect assertions ... the idea that it's a cyclist which makes taking blind bends at 60mph dangerous is my favourite part. And such ideas are exactly how a lot of people think. (I don't want to say all cyclists are angels - we're not - and nor that all motorists are demons - they're [and hopefully on the occasions when I am one, we're] not. There are idiots in both camps who take real or perceived ills too far - but the difference is that one set can kill. There are also people who are not idiots but perhaps don't think enough about their actions - and again these exist in both camps, but again, the damage caused by one group can be far more severe, and that group is considerably larger.) As well as ill-considered and irresponsible journalism, cyclists behaving badly does influence their perception amongst motorists and the next time they see a cyclist, they remember the one who gave them the bird (this is why I prefer the ironic thumbs up gesture, where possible) or jumped the red light, or cycled down the one-way street the wrong way, and they act on that - totally hypocritically as these people don't treat all car drivers as the one who cut them up, didn't indicate, ran a red light, sped past them in a speed limited area, etc. Cyclists are an easy target if you're not one of them, and major newspapers pumping out articles full of the worst kind of uninformed arguments against one particular group is just lousy.
Also, yes that's the Olympic road race being used to demonstrate cyclists riding in country lanes ... and the original caption implied that it was something other than an organised international sporting event. Also, another article on the Terrorgraph site described the ITU Triathlon event as being attended by large crowds up to ten deep. Hypocrisy as well as stupidity, naturally.
The handy 'someone else posted while you were typing' feature kicked in, and yes, along with a tonne of comments - not all of them sensible, the Guardian has delivered a decent reply.
This is also funny because it's true ...
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