When training on a road bike, speed limits are usually not an issue, but rather a lack of strength in the legs. However, an amateur cyclist in Ireland seems to have a lot of pressure on the pedals: he was "caught" at 62 km/h. John Blake revealed to a local daily newspaper that he wanted to test his new 58 chainring on a ride. The speed was recorded with a radar gun. The police stopped the speeding cyclist and gave him a verbal warning for "reckless driving". They cannot issue a speeding ticket because the speed limit does not apply to bicycles.
John Blake posted a photo with the TT bike on Instagram, told his story and triggered a viral wave. My page has already been viewed a million times, he told TOUR. He currently has 140 comments and over 8,000 "Like" clicks. The Stickybottle website, which first reported the story, told him that it was the most successful message in recent years.
Blake rode his TT bike on a rural road that is considered ideal for cycling. Time trial training is categorised. A local organiser, who holds a time trial on this exact route, raised concerns on Instagram. He wondered whether the police would also check the speed on race day.
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Blake reveals that the world is not always easy and positive on a linked website about himself: "The decision to push my body to its physical limits when I completed an Ironman race in 2019 in aid of Suicide or Survive showed that while my physical performance was at the highest level, the same could not be said of my mental health." The training took him spiralling downwards and he sought professional support, which saved him. In 2020, he founded a charity challenge with twenty like-minded people. The challenge is to complete 20,000 kilometres as a group and raise as much money as possible so that the NGO SOS (Suicide or Survive) can run suicide prevention and mental health workshops. He has also launched a fundraising campaign on Go Fundme, which runs programmes to improve the mental health of children and young people in Ireland. Perhaps the high-speed ride will have a positive side effect: raising awareness of an important issue!
Kristian Bauer
Editor
