So how fast do you go round the park?

[David Martin]

Richmond Park that is..

A somewhat illegal 13.35 if you are David Millar. 29mph and change.

BBC Sport - Graham Bell v David Millar in cycling time trial

(My best is about the same as Graham Bell, 19 mins something set about 25 years ago when it was legal to ride that fast)

[Sergeant Pluck]

Gulp.

That's impressive - the lap is by no means flat and there are at least 2 sharpish turns at roundabouts that he'd have had to slow for.

[clarion]

BBC supporting breaking the law shock!

Impressive ride, though.

[Rhys W]

BBC supporting breaking the law shock!

It's like Top Gear, but for cyclists!

[dasmoth]

There has to be a workable program concept there.

20^th gear, anyone?

Edit: or "The Big Ring"

[Greenbank]

The fast lot in RP manage 3 laps in under 45 minutes, that's not far off that pace.

However, I'm not sure of the conditions that day and it was his debut lap...

[TimO]

BBC supporting breaking the law shock!

It's possible that they don't realise that they're breaking the law.  In most of the country, there is no speed limit for bicycles, and they may not realise that the 20mph speed limit in Richmond Park applies to all vehicles.

Of course, claiming that he was going that fast isn't proof that he was, although it's probably not a wise move to claim you've done that.

They didn't claim at any point that they had official permission to go that fast, and I'm not sure how you would go about getting the bylaw suspended.  I would imagine if you did somehow get permission to cycle around the park that fast, they'd probably close it to motorised traffic, which it clearly wasn't.

I think the Parks Police got absorbed into the rest of the Met, has anyone thought of sending them the link?

[Gandalf]

This may be a daft question, but how are cyclists supposed to know how fast they are going? 

I can't see how someone can be nicked on a vehicle which is not legally required to have a speedometer.

[David Martin]

This may be a daft question, but how are motorists supposed to know how drunk they areg? 

I can't see how someone can be nicked on a vehicle which is not legally required to have an intoximeter.

[darkpoint]

The BBC seem to have pulled the video.. :-(

[clarion]

Bet someone's complained.

[Wascally Weasel]

BBC supporting breaking the law shock!

It's possible that they don't realise that they're breaking the law.  In most of the country, there is no speed limit for bicycles, and they may not realise that the 20mph speed limit in Richmond Park applies to all vehicles.

You would be hard pressed not to realise, there is pretty clear signage to the effect that the limit applies to cyclists.

These signs are now permanent, the temporary warnings ones kept getting removed and hidden.

My personal record down Bastard Hill Broomfield Hill is just over 40mph but that was before the resurfacing made me less confident at speed down there.  The rest of my lap time is a lot slower 

[TimO]

The BBC seem to have pulled the video.. :-(

Bet someone's complained.

It's also possible that someone looked at the Referer URLs on the Beebs website's logs, and then looked at this thread.  They may have noticed our point about the relative stupidity of making available on a major website footage of someone breaking the law!

[marcusjb]

The BBC seem to have pulled the video.. :-(

Bet someone's complained.

It's also possible that someone looked at the Referer URLs on the Beebs website's logs, and then looked at this thread.  They may have noticed our point about the relative stupidity of making available on a major website footage of someone breaking the law!

I would be fairly sure that this thread would probably have contributed 0.0(keep adding 0 for a while)01% of referrals to one of the world's biggest websites!

Looks like the run was done during the day (leisure cyclists etc. Around).

I wonder what he could do with a pre 7am start?

There are TTs run in the park very once in a while, starting from 5am. Does anyone know if this is done with the approval of the parks police etc?

I am sure his bike must count for at least a minute of that time, so I need a TT bike and then i only need to find another 5 and a half minutes and I'll be able to give him a run for his money!  

[Charlotte]

It's a 404 Not Found now.

Shame 

[Riggers]

I don't Twitter or Facebook (too busy on here), but can't a few start up on there asking why the BBC pulled the video? Can't see why they did.

[David Martin]

I don't Twitter or Facebook (too busy on here), but can't a few start up on there asking why the BBC pulled the video? Can't see why they did.

Because it was lending an aura of legitimacy to an illegal activity that might have something to do with the major protagonists book launch.

[Greenbank]

This may be a daft question, but how are cyclists supposed to know how fast they are going? 

I can't see how someone can be nicked on a vehicle which is not legally required to have a speedometer.

Ignorance of your speed is not a valid defence. Keeping below the speed limit is the responsibility of the road user. If you don't know your speed you can do two things: a) slow down to keep well under 20mph, b) risk getting caught.

When I've seen them in the park doing speed checks (on cyclists) the Police will generally give first offenders a warning whilst taking their details. I'm guessing that the idea is to scare them that if they get caught again they'll get a FPN as they've already been warned, not sure how this works out in reality though.

[clarion]

As an aside: Do they ever do speed checks on cars in the Park?  I've been riding at the speed limit there and been overtaken by a string of cars...

[Snakehips]

Do they ever do speed checks on cars in the Park? 

They do. The bottom of Sawyers Hill is the favourite place for that.

Snake

[clarion]

Good to hear.

[Greenbank]

I've seen plenty of cars pulled over by the Police in the park, along with plenty of commercial vehicles pulled over (they're banned from the park unless they have a legitimate reason to be there, i.e. delivering/visiting one of the residences/businesses in the park).

[Salvatore]

David Millar sets Richmond Park time trial 'record' | Latest News | Cycling Weekly

Cycling Weekly spoke to Millar Friday lunchtime about the ride. Now back at his home in Girona he explained that he had since written to the Royal Parks. "I apologised profusely, and explained that it was all down to my naivity. I had no idea of the rules."

[TimO]

It's hard to see how he could argue that he didn't realise it would be a problem, when the speed limit is fairly heavily advertised.  I think his abject grovelling and the removal of the video from the Beebs website is just various people pointing out it's iffyness, and both the Beeb and David Millar realising that they have rather put their feet in it.  If it it had barely been noticed, then it would stlll be there, but it's become high enough profile (which after all was probably the intent!) that suddenly people have realised that maybe overt law breaking isn't all that smart.

[Greenbank]

It's hard to see how he could argue that he didn't realise it would be a problem, when the speed limit is fairly heavily advertised.

From what I remember I'm not sure it's entirely clear that it applies to bicycles too. In most places it's just a standard "20" speed limit sign. The fact it applies to all vehicles (not just motor vehicles) may only be written in relatively small text somewhere on a gate that you tend to pass at 20mph+ anyway.

They have changed the signs a bit recently, I'll get some photos next time I'm in there.