Mainstreaming cyclophobia

MONDAY, 19:30 ON BBC ONE

22/02/2010

Former Top Gear presenter Adrian Simpson asks if pedal power has gone too far.

Well we can all guess what a Top Gear man’s sophisticated analysis of cycling will amount to, can we not?

And when the national press and the BBC demonise cyclists, they encourage a lunatic fringe to carry out random physical assaults on cyclists. Like this, for example:

A cyclist's bag bore the brunt of an air rifle pellet fired at a 22-year-old in Tilehurst on Wednesday.

The man, from Three Mile Cross, was cycling along Romsey Road at around 2.15pm when he saw a silver Ford Fiesta in Ringwood Road. At the junction with Oxford Road he felt something like a punch in his back.