Aug/Sept 2011
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Contents
Ian Jones
Editor: John Kitchiner; londoncyclist@lcc.org.uk Design: Anita Razak Communications: Mike Cavenett; mike@lcc.org.uk LCC contributors: Ashok Sinha, Tom Bogdanowicz, Charlie Lloyd, Matt Mallinder, Gerhard Weiss
news, letters & opinion
News New-look section featuring local updates and city-wide campaigns Letters Members’ comments, queries, rants and raves Ashok Sinha On the theft of his family’s bikes and London’s poor air quality Zoe Williams Questions what makes cyclists enjoy riding at night
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features Blackfriars In depth look at TfL’s controversial plans for the bridge development Bike Theft How to safeguard your bike — and what to do if it’s stolen Stricter Liability Why can’t our laws be more like those on the Continent? LCC Board Fancy becoming an LCC Trustee? Here’s how you can get involved Best Rides Little Green Ride on the quiet lanes of Hertfordshire Have Your Say LCC members discuss what spares they carry on a ride 2012 Olympics Assessing the eight new mixed-use routes to the Stratford site Travel A London teacher makes his lessons come alive — by riding to India
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reviews Bikes A trio of mountain bikes, for both men and women, ridden and rated Product Summer cycling clobber and useful accessories reviewed Books Glossy coffee-table tomes, plus a selection of the latest paperbacks
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Community Round-up of grassroots projects happening across the city Local Groups Borough-by-borough news, plus two-month rides listing Interview Joff Summerfield — the man who rode round the world on a ‘penny’
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WHAT LCC DOES… ■ Campaigns for change ■ Supports our members ■ Promotes cycling LCC’S STRATEGIC AIMS ■ Promote cycling to the people ■ Redesign our streets for cycles ■ Promote cycling to our politicians ■ Make cycling diverse and inclusive (www.lcc.org.uk/strategy)
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Aug/Sept 2011 London Cyclist 3
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Going Dutch in
News Aug/Sept 2011
Long lost cycle path re-opens After a break of more than five years the key waterside link in National Cycle Network route 1 has re-opened. Thousands of leisure walkers and cyclists will have confronted the once hazardous crossing at Westferry Circus outside Canary Wharf as they were enjoying a peaceful ride from the Thames as far as Waltham Abbey. Developers at Canary Wharf closed the path while the adjoining building site stood idle for five years. The once popular route was deleted from the London Cycle Maps and riders and walkers had to enter a dark underpass and use a lift to make the 50-yard connection from riverside on the Isle of Dogs to the riverside at Canary Wharf, or cross two lanes of fast traffic. Tower Hamlets Wheelers say the re-opened path will stay in place for at least six months.
View of Amsterdam Central station, with multi-storey bike park to the left. Photo by Steve Cadman
‘Nightmare Operating Strategy’ heavily biased towards cars LCC’s campaigns team has responded to Transport for London’s draft strategy explaining how traffic on London’s major road network will be managed for the foreseeable future. The Network Operating Strategy has been dubbed the ‘Nightmare Operating Strategy’ because it is a blueprint for creating a city where machines are much more important than people. Despite paying lip service to other objectives — such as public transport and increasing walking and cycling — the Mayor’s repeated goal of ‘smoothing traffic flow’ to reduce
congestion is prioritised beyond all other considerations. In the whole 90-page document there’s only one paragraph about reducing road casualties, and the only mentions of increasing cycling and walking are where these modes of transport are seen as a way of reducing traffic at locations where everything else has failed. Incredibly, the strategy underestimates the number of journeys on foot by a factor of three, with TfL overlooking at least 12 million walking trips per day because it doesn’t count journeys on foot to and from bus stops, or tube and train stations.
It’s also believed that the number of cycle trips per day is being severely underestimated. According to the strategy, the only road users for whom journey time reliability is significant are “light goods vehicles, heavy goods vehicles and cars”. Cyclist and pedestrian journey times and safety are suborned to motorist priorities. Meanwhile, the congestion charge zone is barely mentioned despite its success. LCC chief executive Ashok Sinha said: “It looks like TfL has forgotten its legal duty to consider the movement of all road users: pedestrians and cyclists, not just motorists.”
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2012? By the time your read this, our vote for the 2012 Mayoral Election campaign will have closed. We asked members to vote on which of four activistchosen campaigns they preferred: Going Dutch, cycling space on main roads; Unwind, removing gyratories; Start Right, children cycling to school; and Love Thy Neighbourhoods, doubling local bike journeys. As we went to press, Going Dutch was the clear leader. If it does win, we’ll be thrilled to lobby all the mayoral candidates on your behalf for continentalstyle clear spaces for cycling on main roads. That’s not to say that
removing gyratories, getting kids cycling to school and improving neighbourhoods aren’t important, and won’t be part be part of the story. All these form part of a progressive cycling vision for London alongside other Dutch-style facilities such as cyclist priority at junctions, reduced speed limits in residential areas, shared zones, grand parking designs, and much more. Finally, we’re thrilled to have our members choose our campaign. If you didn’t get a chance to vote this time, please make sure your email address is up to date with membership@ lcc.org.uk, so you can take part in votes like this in the future.
London Assembly votes on Blackfriars 20mph speed limit As we went to press, a second motion asking the Mayor to retain the 20mph at Blackfriars is due to be reintroduced in the London Assembly on 20 July. When the motion was first submitted by Assembly members on 8 June, with support from Labour, Lib-Dem and Green politicians, Conservatives walked out, preventing a debate or vote on the motion. Second time around, the likely presence of all opposition Assembly members should ensure the meeting is quorate, so a vote can take place. While the Assembly cannot force the Mayor to act, a majority vote in favour of 20mph puts pressure on him to think again about Blackfriars. More than 1,500 people have already shown their support for the motion and we’ll be presenting the petition to Assembly members so it can be formally introduced at the debate. The motion follows formal objections from us, as well as hundreds of emails from cyclists prompted to complain to TfL
by ourselves and city-based bloggers. Cyclists are objecting to the series of flawed designs for the northern junction of the bridge and the plan to raise the speed limit from 20mph to 30mph. The current speed limit was introduced during roadworks and TfL has proposed scrapping it for unconvincing reasons. The Assembly motion says: “This Assembly regrets the Mayor’s failure to retain the temporary 20mph speed limit on Blackfriars Bridge in the permanent new scheme for the bridge. We note the recommendation for a 20 mph speed limit on four London bridges in a 2008 TfL report, and the recent decision of the Corporation of London to ask officers to bring forward plans for the whole of the City of London to become a 20mph zone, including TfL roads. We ask the Mayor to reconsider his rejection of a 20mph limit on Blackfriars Bridge, in the interests of the safety of all its users.”
Tributes pour in for Barry Mason On Wednesday 6 July, around 100 people crammed into Honor Oak Crematorium to hear words of farewell from family and friends for Barry Mason, former coordinator of Southwark Cyclists who died suddenly on holiday in June. In true Barry style, those attending the funeral were instructed not to wear black or Lycra, and to bring “two good locks”. Acting coordinator of Southwark Cyclists Alex Crawford was among those who spoke at the humanist service, where in a final act of remembrance all the guests were invited to place flowers on the coffin. Alex said: “Many tears, hugs all round, some laughter — all were
shared today as we remembered and said our farewells to dear friend and group coordinator Barry Mason. “The bicycle cortège of about 30 riders (or 35 if we use ‘Barry counting’) cycled with the bicycle hearse from Barry’s home in Rotherhithe to the waiting crowd at the crematorium. Barry’s son Sam alternately pedalled the hearse and his dad’s beloved red Perry. “Family, friends, fellow campaigners, colleagues and so many other people who had made a connection with Barry through his rides or the scores of other ventures he was part of, were gathered to hear song, poetry and moving tributes to
him. We marked a life which was too short, but which was so rich, so important and unforgettable. “After the service, many of us regrouped at Surrey Docks Farm, and it struck me how much Barry would have enjoyed seeing all
those familiar faces together on his patch, with bikes strewn everywhere and the naughty goats frolicking in the background. Well done to Barry’s partner, Cheryl, and Sam for organising such a perfect day.”
Aug/Sept 2011 London Cyclist 5
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NEWS
How to navigate the new w As the last issue of London Cyclist arrived on members’ doormats, the new LCC website was formally unveiled. In addition to a host of smart new features, the site’s been designed to allow simpler navigation, better accessibility and greater interaction with members. Not only does each story give readers the chance to add their own comments, but there’s links to all the LCC’s social media platforms — including Facebook and Twitter pages — plus a useful forum where you can join or initiate new debates. This feature alone has proved a big hit with members, allowing people to discuss local cycling matters in depth and to reach potential new members in their area. It’s also allowed us to open up the debate on next year’s campaigns for the Mayoral elections, giving members the chance to vote for their preferred course of action (full results in next issue). Here’s a quick guide to what’s what on the website. Try it out...
Sign up for Gift Aid and help increase funds London Cycling Campaign is now eligible to claim Gift Aid relief on all membership fees, which could raise funds of to £70,000 a year at no cost to members. This is a vital boost to the organisation during tough economic times. To get this free money, we need all taxpaying members to sign a Gift Aid declaration. If you do, then your membership is worth an extra 25 percent to us at no cost to yourself. We urge all members — including new members — to tick the Gift Aid box when you join or renew, or visit www.lcc.org.uk/GiftAid.
HAVE YOUR SAY Once you’ve registered your email address, here’s where you can post comments and threads in the new forum.
LATEST NEWS Whether it’s a city-wide campaign update, local success or blog entry, this is where you can find the full story.
ADVICE, RIDES, REVIEWS Below the news section you’ll find the advice pages, rides listing, an archive of kit reviews and cycle-related videos.
2011 AGM and LCC Board elections The 2011 London Cycling Campaign Annual General Meeting will take place on the evening of Wednesday 17 November at London South Bank University. As well as the hugely popular annual LCC Awards, the AGM will feature this year’s Board Election
and hot debate on the burning issues affecting cycling in London. Details of the Board election are on page 28. If you wish to stand for the London Cycling Campaign Board, please download a Nominations Form from www.lcc.org.uk/ BoardElections, which must be
2010 AWARDS: one of the shortlisted children’s projects
completed and emailed back to info@lcc.org.uk by 5pm on Thursday 15 September. Any motions for debate that members wish to propose should also be emailed to the same address by the same deadline. If you’re thinking about standing for the Board but are not sure what Board membership entails, then why not come to our elections ‘open day’ on Thursday 11 August at the LCC office (2 Newhams Row, SE1 3UZ) between 1-7pm, when you’ll be able to discuss any aspect of the organisation’s work with trustees and staff. Just email info@lcc.org.uk to let us know when to expect you. Full details of the AGM including the final agenda will be published in the October issue of the magazine.
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ebsite JOURNEY PLANNER We’ve teamed up with the folk at cyclestreets.net to provide this cycle-specific planner. Just enter an address or postcode.
Elephant & Castle plans axed by TfL GOOD MONTH FOR
FACEBOOK With Facebook’s global reach nearing one billion people, here’s where you can ‘like’ or comment on recent posts.
CITY CYCLISTS As CycleHoop unveils a series of stylish new public use bike pumps, the first of which have been installed at Banyard House car park on Queen Victoria Street and at the London Wall car park in Moorgate.
TWITTER See what the current hot topics are, not only from LCC but from other well-known cycling commentators and bloggers.
DUNWICH DYNAMO As record numbers of riders join the annual 120-miler from east London to the Suffolk coast over night on 16-17 July. Many riders were riding as a tribute to Barry Mason, the Southwark Cyclists coordinator who previously organised the ride.
NEWSLETTER Enter your email address here and you’ll automatically receive LCC’s e-newsletters, sent out to members weekly.
London Cycling Awards entries
BAD MONTH FOR BRADLEY WIGGINS The Londoner broke his collarbone in one of several large pile-ups, becoming one of a record number or retirements in the first week of the Tour de France. BLACKFRIARS BIKER Female cyclist dragged under a lorry on the southbound approach to Blackfriars junction. Amazingly, she survived relatively unscathed.
Elephant and Castle has become the latest victim of TfL and the Mayor’s strict adherence to ‘smoothing the flow’, ensuring the free flow of motor vehicles at the expense of the safety, convenience and comfort of pedestrians and cyclists. Making Elephant and Castle more bike and people-friendly has been discussed for decades and earlier this year it looked like a redevelopment plan strongly favoured by Southwark Council would finally provide an antidote to decades of car-centric planning. The hope was to create something that seems an obvious benefit to the area: a large public space, the centrepiece being a new civic square, which uses an aptlychristened ‘peninsula’ to connect the shopping centre to the rest of the locality. But building the c ivic square would require substantial changes to how motor vehicles move around the area because the roundabout would no longer exist. LCC’s Mike Cavenett said: “If the same number of vehicles tried to navigate the new road layout then it’s possible some journeys would take longer. But that’s to ignore that 50 percent of
journeys in London are less than two miles and it only requires a small percentage of these to be walked or cycled to free up enough road space to allow the remaining vehicles to continue to move just as freely.” Unfortunately, the Mayor and TfL have halted the regeneration project, objecting to its effect on traffic flow. This is somewhat surprising because Boris Johnson has been very complimentary in the past about this “fantastic” development plan. Now, since TfL pulled the plug on it, the Mayor is conspicuously failing to back a civic vision that would create an inviting area, including a transport hub where people could switch effortlessly between train, tram, bus and tube. The plans envision a bold transformation of this rundown area to create a landmark square as large as Trafalgar Square, providing an arena for local and regional events, as well as a space that residents and visitors could use daily. Sadly, as the Mayor has shown at Blackfriars, he’s prepared to back down when major urban improvements require a significant reduction in the speed and volume of motor vehicles.
DoctorSoup/RoBo1960
Now’s your chance to nominate a winner in the London Cycling Awards 2011. This year there is a new category of Local Campaigner of the Year, plus a public vote in the Events category. Anyone can nominate a cycling project or facility and self nominations are welcome. Categories for 2011: ■ Local Campaigner of the Year ■ London Cycle Event of the Year ■ Community Cycling Project of the Year ■ Best Project for Children or Young People ■ Best New Cycling Facility ■ Best Workplace Cycling Initiative The deadline for nominations is midnight on Monday 10 October 2011. To enter, visit www.lcc.org.uk/awards). The awards will be presented at LCC’s AGM on 16 November.
BIKE SALES After a difficult winter, mainly due to the snowy weather, many bike shops report a strong surge in early summer cycle sales, bucking a generally gloomy outlook for retailers. High street giant Halfords announced a five percent increase in revenues compared to last year.
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NEWS
Dangerous crossing gets full revamp
Campaigners from Islington Cyclists Action Group (the local LCC group) and Living Streets Islington are expecting work to start soon on a revamped crossing at the junction of Madras Way and Holloway Road. Local campaigner Keith MacFarlane said: “Sadly, it was here that local cycle campaigner Lisa Pontecorvo died in the summer of 2009, struck by a lorry while wheeling her bike across the road. Indeed, this junction has been the scene of countless crashes, so it’s great that local cyclists and pedestrians have got together to successfully lobby to make it safer.”
Latest two Cycle Superhighways fall short of Mayoral ambitions London’s two newest Cycle Superhighways, 2 and 8, were launched in July. So it’s disappointing that both will stop short of their original planned destinations. In both cases local authorities, Newham and Westminster, appear to be the reason the routes have been shortened. Neither Superhighway takes cyclists into the city centre, terminating some distance from the West End and the City. Since the inception of the Superhighways project, LCC has been calling for a complementary central London BikeGrid that would link the routes and enable people to ride more confidently in the centre of town, rather than abandoning them at busy junctions or gyratories a mile or two from where they want go. Facilities on the two Superhighways are mixed, with likely reductions in road danger on Cambridge Heath Road and the Embankment, and some more patchy improvements such as ASLs and wider bus lanes. How much these two new Superhighways will boost cycling remains to be seen.
LCC chief executive Ashok Sinha said: “Londoners deserve high-quality cycle routes into the city centre. The re-worked junction at Whitechapel Road and the wide cycle lanes along the Embankment show what can be achieved. Overall, though, the new Superhighways don’t go far enough in terms of length or improved provision for cyclists.” VERDICT: Superhighway 2 Superhighway 2 runs from Aldgate to Bow flyover, a mere 2.5 miles, instead of reaching Ilford (via the Olympic Park) as planned. The route will not reach the Queen Elizabeth II Olympic Park, stopping at a congested roundabout 500 metres short of the entrance. This is incomprehensible because the section of road further along, four-lane Stratford High Street, has ample space to provide cycle lanes or segregated tracks. On the plus side, pedestrians and cyclists will benefit from a major re-working of the hazardous Cambridge Heath Road junction where three left-turn slip lanes have been removed. TfL has also provided a
short stretch of new cycle lane near Bow Church, which helps pass congested traffic. At it’s western end, Superhighway 2 ends at Aldgate, rather than going into the heart of the city. VERDICT: Superhighway 8 Superhighway 8 is longer (4.75 miles), from Wandsworth to Westminster, but still stops at Lambeth Bridge instead of continuing to Parliament Square. It provides an improved and welcome two-metre wide cycle lane from Chelsea Bridge to Lambeth Bridge. The route, however, stops some 500m short of its original planned destination, Parliament Square, and leaves riders at the busy Lambeth Bridge roundabout where no new provision has been provided for cyclists. Overall, Superhighway 8 is a mixed bag with some useful improvements, but also stretches where only blue surfacing, without any white road markings, is provided. The section of Superhighway through Wandsworth roundabout still isn’t complete.
Read more online If you can't wait for the next issue of London Cyclist magazine, you can find a large archive of this subversive cartoon strip (based in a Wisconsin cycle repair shop) by visiting www.yehudamoon.com
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NEWS
Summer ride on hottest day June saw the inaugural LCC Summer Ride and timing couldn’t have been better — it was the hottest day of the year so far. Cycling development officer Gerhard Weiss said: “Starting at the London Eye, Tom Bogdanowicz was not only
an inspiring and confident ride leader, but also a knowledgeable tour guide. He missed no opportunity to show us some of the fabulous landmarks along the way. “Of course, no ride is complete without a punctured
tyre, but did it have to be a full ‘blow out’? Thankfully with a little help, Charles was on his way soon enough. “After an hour of winding through pleasant parks and back roads, we arrived in Greenwich Park — with the all-new
these and even Zoe is pictured next to a curly bike, albeit in ordinary clothes. Rob Kittle, email
Letters Aug/Sept 2011
LCC replies: The feature on electric bikes was deliberately just a general overview — in response to member feedback — not a recommendation or review. And drop handlebars remain popular among all cyclists, which is why brands feature them; they account for a third of all bikes in some areas. We’ll be doing a census shortly.
ARE FRIENDS ELECTRIC?
STICKERS NO DETERRENT
I have been a member of LCC for a number of years, in the belief that we have to encourage ordinary folks to bike. Two comments on the June/July issue of London Cyclist: 1) Electric bikes should not be featured; next will you be recommending mopeds? 2) Ordinary folks do not use curly handlebars. Most of your ads are for
Rob Ryan should not be so complacent. I had a bike that was completely covered with stickers of punk rock bands. I similarly thought that “it looks like it’s not worth nicking”. However, someone nicked it... PJ Crittenden, EC1
PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS? I was interested to read in The Evening
WEBSITE CHANGES Well done to whoever’s responsible for the new LCC website. Unlike the old version with its dull green colour scheme, the new site is welcoming and seems to have a lot more content too. I’ve noticed a few glitches but hopefully they’ll be ironed out. H Downes, N4
Greenwich Fayre happening near by, where we all headed for a fun afternoon, pleased with our slightly improved tans. “We can’t wait for the 2012 Summer Ride. Will it go to the Olympic Park?” ■ More photos at www.lcc.org.uk
Standard’s City Spy (17 June) which claimed to know why Addison Lee drivers seem to be a disproportionate danger on the road. Twice in the last week while cycling I’ve narrowly avoided being killed by their drivers, and I’m inclined to believe that their drivers are frequently rushing as City Spy suggested, cutting up everyone on the road while rushing to pick up a job. I believe it is high time the Met Commissioner launched a review as to the behaviour of their drivers and considered ways to prevent the “incentive to drive recklessly” which employees of the company told me about a year ago. To hear that their drivers are now using iPads to get to jobs means even more danger for cyclists and pedestrians. I urge LCC to investigate whether it’s true that Addison Lee drivers are encouraged to behave irresponsibly — and perhaps save a few cyclists’ lives. Nick Wilson, SW1
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A coalition of cycling, environmental and safety groups are opposing government proposals to allow a new type of very long lorry on our streets. It is considering allowing trailers to be up to 15.65m, making a total vehicle length of 18.55m. And there is a huge risk that these longer artics will become the default road transport vehicle. As well as the increased danger to cyclists from larger vehicles, it’s feared the lorries will encourage street designs that favour larger vehicles — wider roads, less sharp corners — which encourage smaller vehicles to drive faster. Campaigns officer Charlie Lloyd said: “Bringing in larger lorries will force planners to design less people-friendly streets. We don’t think there’s any reason to increase danger and reduce quality of life for millions of Londoners.” ■ Send objections to your MP at www.writetothem.org.
10,000 cyclists sign HGV petition we trust that politicians in every London council as well the Mayor now respond to this urgent call for action.” Signatories of the petition included Olympians Chris Boardman, Chris Hoy and Victoria Pendleton, as well as Lords Berkley and Haskell and MPs Ian Austin and Simon Hughes.
More than 10,000 signed LCC’s petition calling for all London councils to provide cyclistawareness training for their lorry drivers. It was presented to London Assembly members representing the four major parties on 18 May at City Hall, before being handed on to the Mayor by his cycling advocate, Andrew Boff. LCC chief executive Ashok Sinha presented the petition to Liberal Democrat assembly member Caroline Pidgeon, Labour member Valerie Shawcross,
ASSESS YOUR ROUTE Rik Andrew’s route assessment system is genius (June/July issue, London Cyclist). I’ve already done it for my commute and suggest we could all contribute. In no time at all, we’d have a simple and cost effective implementation plan to improve London’s street quality and traffic management. If only London cyclists held the contract on line painting and signage... However, it’s not just about being “organised and transparent”, there is clearly no will within TfL or the boroughs to do anything. I’ve been commuting by bike for 20 years and, between Shepherds Bush and Lancaster Gate (I’d give most of it a C4 rating), there’s still not a safe route in sight. Shocking! The councils, TfL and the Mayor should be ashamed at the disorganised and dangerous arrangement of traffic. They’ve just resurfaced a long
Green member Jenny Jones and Conservative member Boff. Pidgeon said: “Cycling in London needs to be made far safer. More than one cyclist a month dies on London’s roads — that is a shocking figure and is unacceptable. The Mayor is always talking about promoting cycling but the harsh fact is that more needs to be done to tackle the dangers facing cyclists.” Sinha added: “Cyclists and other road users have supported our petition for lorry driver training in huge numbers —
stretch of Holland Park Avenue and actually removed the short sections of cycle strip (aka handy parking bays). There’s barely a nod to safe cycling routes now except for a couple of ASLs which no-one seems to understand. And, for the record, what is it with Kensington Gardens? Why isn’t there a route there on the north side? Please just explain that one. For the mayoral campaign, the single most important issue for reducing congestion, enhancing public space, increasing road safety, reducing air pollution, reducing obesity and enabling reliable travel times should be safe cycling routes. Susannah Woodgate, W12
TROUBLE AT TESCO’S Readers may be interested to learn that I have been in communication with Tesco’s about the lack of cycle parking at their main Hackney store on
SEND YOUR LETTERS TO: londoncyclist@ lcc.org.uk
Belinda Sinclair
Cyclists at risk from plan for longer lorries
Cyclist-awareness training Following LCC lobbying, the number of councils in Greater London providing the training has increased from one to five. Lambeth Council pioneered the training programme which enables lorry drivers to experience urban cycling and helps them understand the cycle user’s perspective. ‘Exchanging places’ sessions are also provided for cyclists who have the opportunity to get in a lorry cab. LCC is lobbying for the training scheme to be included as part of the regular professional training received by lorry drivers and that it is included in the Transport for London FORS (Freight Operators Recognition Scheme) quality standard scheme that 21 boroughs have already signed up to.
Morning Lane. The current position is outlined here: 1) There is one set of racks, of the most inadequate design, accommodating six cycles; 2) In the absence of effective cycle parking, the series of safety barriers at the entrance to the store are regularly and wrongly used; 3) There is provision in this central London store for 100 cars. Tesco’s response, after several reminders, was to the effect that there was no room for more cycle parking. They did not answer my question as to why they could not treble the existing provision by reducing the motor vehicle provision by one percent. I suggest cyclists boycott the store and inform Tesco’s accordingly. Are there similar examples elsewhere about grossly inadequate cycle provision at supermarkets? Dave Harris, email
Aug/Sept 2011 London Cyclist 11
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NEWS
Cyclist concerns Sign up and win! over future of London Bridge LCC’s campaigns team is working with Southwark Cyclists (the local LCC group) to give cyclists a voice in the redevelopment of the London Bridge transport hub. Work was hampered initially by the fact that the plans were posted on the Southwark Council website in a form that couldn’t be searched and many pages had to be manually orientated, plus many maps were illegible. A formal objection to the poor useability of the documents preceded our consultation response. Southwark Council hopes the new ‘London Bridge Quarter’ — incorporating The Shard and other offices, a rebuilt rail/bus/ tube transport hub, and more shops — will become a new business district for the city centre. London Bridge station is to be completely redesigned, with Stainer Street, currently part of
London Cycle Network route 22, being pedestrianised. The existing TfL-funded secure cycle parking (around 250 spaces) behind the On Your Bike shop will be relocated, as will the store itself. New cycle hire docking stations and around 500 bike parking spaces are promised, but details have yet to be finalised. Routes for buses and other motor vehicles serving the station will also be remodelled, and we’re pressing for cyclists’ needs to be properly considered. Southwark Cyclists’ acting coordinator Alex Crawford said: “Cycle trips should be seen as stages in people’s daily journeys, which might also include travelling by train, tube, bus or on foot. We’re calling for cycling to be part of this area’s integrated travel solution, with routes in and out of the station and adeqate secure parking.”
SOLUTION TO STOP/START I would agree with Anna Semlyen (June/July issue, London Cyclist) that there are plenty of reasons for introducing 20mph limits in and around our towns and cities, but I can’t help feeling that this step alone would not have the stated impact on fuel consumption and congestion. Surely the greatest enemy of fuel consumption, congestion and pollution is constantly stopping and starting, and the bigger and heavier the vehicle the greater the amount of fuel wasted. In this day and age of high-speed communication it beggars belief that our traffic lights are not better synchronised to keep traffic flowing smoothly. As a cyclist who has signed up to the Stop at Red campaign (www. stopatred.org) I would also welcome this measure. It is immensely frustrating to have just got up to a comfortable cruising speed, only to have to stop again.
Cool bikes, sexy summer picnic hampers, fresh and organic fruit and veggie boxes — we’re offering you the chance to win everything you need for a great cycling summer if you sign up a friend or relative as a member. Trek’s £900 Trek Lexa SL bike (above) comes in men’s and women’s styles, and is the perfect companion for relaxed summer rides. You could also win one of five Rucksack picnic hampers to take on a cycling trip with a friend. Plus you could also take home one of five vouchers for a bumper Abel and Cole fruit and vegetable box.
Obviously where major arteries intersect it isn’t always going to be possible to keep the flow optimum, but when riding along the CS7 there are far too many places where you accelerate away from a junction and immediately have to stop at a pedestrian light, and then another, by which time you have missed the lights at the next junction. A particularly poor example is on the A24 at Morden, where there are three sets of lights in the space of less than 100 metres, where I have had to stop at every set on more than one occasion. John Williams, KT21
CONTRIBUTIONS WELCOME In the latest excellent issue you asked for ideas for the magazine. I know you have a fair amount of user-generated content, but I think you could have even more. How about a column written by a different member every time (or you could have a dozen or so
SADLY MISSED Like many others I was shocked to hear about the death of Barry Mason. He inspired myself and several members of my family to take up more regular cycling and he’ll be sadly missed. Favourite memories include perfect Xmas morning rides and DD. T Davies , SE15
As well as the chance to win, you’ll be helping us in our efforts to double our campaigning voice in Greater London. And whoever you sign up will enjoy our fabulous benefits package: ■ Support our campaigns ■ Security and peace of mind ■ Bike shop discounts ■ London Cyclist magazine ■ Rides and events New members can sign up at www.lcc.org.uk. Please remember to get them to add your name (as the person who recommended them) in the ‘additional details’ area, and we’ll enter you in our competitions.
alternating contributors) on the perils and pleasures of cycling? This would be an opportunity for people to develop ideas rather more than through the letters page (which I read avidly). Strikes me you must have plenty of literary types who would jump at the opportunity. Anyhow, as they say on Blue Peter, I’ll soon be sending one I prepared earlier. It is certainly controversial as it suggests we should be nice to motorists! I’d really appreciate your feedback and hopefully you might take up my idea of getting more members to conribute to the magazine? Max Hotopf, email
LCC replies: Max, we’re certainly always keen to look at member contributors, especially for campaign issues. If anyone feels like they may be able to write 800-1,500 words on a particular subject, please get in touch.
12 London Cyclist Aug/Sept 2011
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14/07/2011 21:37
OPINION
BEST RIDES IN LONDON
OPINION
Ashok Sinha Why do we put up with such poor air quality in the capital, asks LCC’s chief executive
D
o you remember that moment in the 2006 World Cup Final when the French midfielder Zinedine Zidane, in an act as unexpected as it was foolish, headbutted Italy’s Marco Materazzi? In case football isn’t your sport our flawed hero’s excuse was that his opponent had just conveyed an insult so unacceptable to him (involving his sister’s honour) that it justified the unacceptable in his response. Not that I would ever seek recourse to physical violence but that’s how high my emotions were running a few months ago when all my family’s bikes were stolen, in a carefully executed midnight raid that pained like a gross personal affront. We loved our bikes, mirroring the affection that I am sure many of you hold for your own. Friend, trusty servant, dependable companion, it’s easy to anthropomorphise our bikes because of the joy and service they bring us – despite the casual way some of us bang them about and neglect to maintain them. Our lost bikes were imbued with emotional content, and it was especially galling to lose a child’s seat and a youngster’s cycle. Had these thieves insufficient empathy to picture the sadness on the children’s faces? It hurt, I can tell you, and honesty requires me to admit to imagining dark fantasies of retribution in the immediate aftermath. Yet as one door closes another opens. I am soon to take delivery of a quite irrationally expensive new bike, to make my urban peregrinations as delightful as they are ergonomic. Putting the children’s faces aside for a moment (sorry kids) I am beset with excited anticipation. Life-enhancing experience Rather uncharacteristically I have even been dreaming at night of the sheer urbanity with which I will be transported by some precision German engineering (at least the saddle is British), eliciting comments from my
partner as to whether this purchase is entirely wholesome. But I am sure I am not alone in feeling that buying and owning a bicycle is a joyously life-enhancing experience, even if it is simply the wonderful replacement second-hand workhorse I have also bought to transport the little ones (in case you were thinking I’d forgotten them). Or, rather, it would be joyous if the pleasure and utility of the cycling experience in London matched the quality of the bikes in which we derive such happiness. Why do we put up with such poor service for ourselves and our families? Maybe it’s because we British are famously diffident about complaining. It’s almost as if we take it as an unmalleable fact of life that cycling in London will, more often than not, be a struggle. Which takes me to a seminar I have just attended at City Hall on London’s air quality. During the many years I have previously spent working on energy and climate change issues I have mentally shelved air quality – subconsciously taking as a fact of life that ingesting a certain amount of artificial pollutants is par for the course when living in a modern industrial society. Wrong! Alarming facts on pollution I already knew that over 4,000 Londoners die prematurely each year due to London’s poor air quality, but at this event I also learned that their average reduction in life is a staggering 11 years. Most arrestingly there is evidence to indicate that children brought up within a few hundred metres of even moderately busy roads (which probably accounts for most of London’s kids) may well suffer permanently impaired lung development. And the major source of the pollution that causes these impacts (and more) is cars and taxis (mostly diesel). It makes you wonder how much better London’s air quality would be
— and how much the health of our children, the old and infirm would be improved — if our city had much more ambitious measures for switching from motorised transport to cycling. Yet, as we see in this issue’s article on Blackfriars Bridge, traffic planners seem still to be in thrall to the motor car, despite the Mayor’s promise that
"London’s poor air quality leads to an average reduction in life of a staggering 11 years"
Make life hard for thieves and increase the chance of getting a stolen bike back by registering it at www. bikeregister. com.
this would no longer be the case. Measures that would give people genuine freedom to choose to cycle (or walk) are rejected seemingly because of their impact on ‘traffic flows’ – as if cyclists were not traffic too. To be fair, there are many people in authority doing their utmost to support cycling and sustainable transport. But the obeisance to motorisation displayed by some of their colleagues that pervades planning in London not only stifles the increasing consumer demand there is for cycling, but also steals years of life from thousands of Londoners young and old through the impaired quality of the air we breath. Puts the theft of a few bikes into perspective. Joined-up policies anyone?
Aug/Sept 2011 London Cyclist 15
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OPINION
BEST RIDES IN LONDON
OPINION
Zoe Williams Our regular columnist muses on why people actually choose to ride their bikes at night
M
y brother-in-law, the one who keeps his bike in his bedroom and I think most likely sleeps with it when my sister is away, has taken to night cycling. On the Dunwich Dynamo, the most famous London night ride, he contended that he was the least weird person there, since one guy went 120 miles on a ‘Boris Bike’ and another did the trip on a butcher’s bike with a dog in the basket. There are degrees of weirdness in the hierarchy of bikes that will most likely never be solved, least of all by me (such as, which is more eccentric, between a recumbent and a fixie? And which of them would want to be seen as the most eccentric?) But there is a more pressing perversity on this agenda than why you would want to lie down while you cycle, or eschew the modern technology of gears, which is this: why do a cycle ride in the night? Why not do it at a more convenient time, say, for instance, the day? The conclusion I jumped to first, the obvious one, that egregious one that would prompt Stephen Fry to make that four-minute-warning noise if someone said it on QI, is that cyclists are simply contrarians. Why do we cycle at all, if not to make some cussed point about our independence of spirit and suspicion of modern life? It’s sheer cussedness, a gleeful, could-dobut-won’t-do attitude. I quite like this attitude. That’s definitely what made me take up cycling. Dark forces at work But the night cycle is not really about cyclists like me, otherwise — surely — I would have been on one. So I’ve been forced to revisit the motivation, using less solipsism and prejudice and more pure empathy. What’s really going on here is a love of things that are difficult. Any ride to Dunwich is going to be taxing, right? You don’t cover a quarter the width of a country on nothing but some padded pants and a cereal bar,
without going through some hardship. They even talk, on the Dunwich ride at least, of going through that famous ‘pain barrier’ (running is very pompous with its terminology: it’s all ‘pain barriers’, instead of ‘intense physical discomfort, the predictable and avoidable result of excessive exercise’, and ‘take on fluids’ instead of ‘drink’). Cycling usually avoids these aggrandising words, so when bikers do start using them, you know they aren’t just talking about a slightly sore arse. The physical endeavour is all in place, then: you couldn’t make this ride any longer, or hillier, without alienating all the regular, nonprofessional, ride-to-work riders, who make up its main cohort. And yet, there it is, that niggling desire of the pure cyclist’s heart, to take one step closer to impossibility: get closer to the furnace of the unfeasible, so that you can warm your hands on it. Could you make things harder? Well, doing it in the dark isn’t the only way to make things hard for yourself: you could do it blindfold. For that matter, you could do it naked, and a bit of that goes on in the cycling subculture also. But as impediments go, cycling in the pitch black through unlit country hamlets is pretty comprehensive. It’s not fighting a lion with one hand behind your back, but it’s up there on the gladiatorial spectrum. If you accept my argument — I’m just going to go ahead and assume that you do — what’s the causal link, here? Do people with this ‘make it harder’ personality feel drawn to cycling? Or does the act of cycling build up not just thighs but also an appetite for pointless challenge? It would be useful to know, because this quality — this cognitive ability to take a huge physical pain in the your butt, and turn it into a sense of achievement so intense that you seek out ways to make it even worse —
this is not just any old trait, like a sweet tooth or curly hair. This is your brain building you a past to die for: polishing up difficulty and hazard, then selling them back to you as triumphs.
"If it’s in the pedalling act that this joy in endeavour is generated, then that is a pretty good argument for having a bike" That’s the kind of psyche that makes you glad to get older, because all you remember about your life are the good bits. And if cycling itself is responsible — if it’s in the pedalling act that this joy in endeavour is generated, then that is a pretty good argument for having a bike. The spectre of people thrashing themselves to their limits in the dead of night is a much better advert for this business than those prissy photos of a redhead cycling through a park in a pretty dress. Zoe Williams is a freelance journalist and columnist who contributes regularly to publications including The Guardian and New Statesman
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FEATURE CAMPAIGN
Bridge of sighs In recent months, no topic has preoccupied campaigners as much as Blackfriars. Mike Cavenett tells the story so far 18 London Cyclist Aug/Sept 2011
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T
he day last year when the Transport for London planners chose their new design for Blackfriars Bridge probably seemed like any other to them. They’d run their computer models and figured out a way to accommodate extra pedestrian space outside the new Blackfriars station while keeping the motorists moving. They’d fulfilled their ‘network assurance’ requirements — job done. Except that, astonishingly, the proposed design completely ignored the safety of cyclists by proposing to remove one bike lane and shrink another. This despite the fact that cyclist numbers have grown such that bikes now make up over one-third of peak-hour traffic on the bridge, more than the number of private cars and taxis combined. When Transport for London made its decision, it can’t have known that Blackfriars Bridge would come to symbolise the polar opposites of London’s transport debate. Many Londoners have become entirely disillusioned with Transport for London’s policy of increasing the flow and speed of motor vehicles to the detriment of cyclist and pedestrian safety. And they’re calling on Mayor Boris Johnson to intervene and give Londoners a genuine choice in their mode of transport.
Proposal to worsen cyclist safety Transport for London’s first proposal for the Blackfriars junction, announced at the end of 2010, was met with howls of derision. It was arrived at without proper consultation and intended removing a vital southbound cycle lane to accommodate an extra motor traffic lane, and also narrowing the northbound cycle lane. All these measures were to be introduced despite the fact that cycle traffic has been rising steadily on this bridge for a decade and is projected to rise further. Such was the strength of the objections to the plan that Transport for London was forced into opening the plans to consultation. After 560 complaints from cyclists, Transport for London agreed to reinstate the limited cycle facilities that would have been removed. However, the latest solution is still woefully inadequate: it still retains the motorway-style slip-roads, still increases the speed limit to 30mph (from the current temporary 20mph), and still requires cyclists turning right
to negotiate several lanes of fastmoving traffic. In short, it leaves Blackfriars as the kind of junction that even highly experienced cyclists prefer to avoid and one that’s total anathema to anyone new to cycling. Quite simply the junction needs nothing less than a radical and comprehensive reconstruction. Sadly, even the recent serious injuries to Dr Clare Gerada, a prominent GP who was sandwiched between two vehicles while turning right into Queen Victoria Street in May, haven’t been enough to make Transport for London listen — and at present their plans are still going ahead. Coalition of campaigners Opposition to TfL’s Blackfriars proposal has been organised and vociferous. There have been email and photo petitions running on our new website (www.lcc.org.uk), along with a Twitter-organised ‘flashride’ across the bridge involving several hundred people (follow us @london_ cycling). Respected journalists, bloggers and campaigners have torn Transport for London’s rationale to shreds, while representatives of road crash victims and pedestrians have shown this isn’t just a few cyclists banging their drum. Even the president of the AA has come out in favour of a more peoplefriendly Blackfriars, as have many traffic engineers who are cyclists and understand the failings in the traffic design methods. In a highly visible show of support from the London assembly, all the Green, Labour and Liberal Democrat members were prepared to vote on a motion supporting the retention of the 20mph speed limit at Blackfriars. On the day of the vote, however, the Conservative members walked out of the chamber in protest at an unrelated matter, killing the debate. This enraged the cycling community, leaving the Conservatives, with their continued support for Transport for London’s plans, looking isolated. A second debate was scheduled for 20 July, just after we go to press, and a motion for 20mph at Blackfriars will very likely be passed. There was a risk that this might become a party political issue (it’s really a road danger issue) but since the walkout several Conservatives have come out in opposition to Transport for London’s plans too. It appears to be mainly Transport for London that hasn’t
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CAMPAIGN FEATURE understood that Londoners of all backgrounds are choosing to walk or cycle, and many more them want to have the choice. The days of characterising cyclists as sandal-wearing hippies are over, and it’s a wise politician who realises that many of those Blackfriars bike commuters are heading for well-paid and influential jobs in the West End and the City. Why is Blackfriars so important? So why has Blackfriars taken on this talismanic quality? Well, most cycling Londoners have used this horrible bridge at some point, for work or leisure, because it’s so central. And many commuters have little choice but to use it every day, unless they make a significant detour. But it’s not just about its location or the number of people that use it. More importantly, Transport for London’s plans for Blackfriars have been shown to be driven by an apparently unyielding dogma, in the face of Mayoral and GLA priorities, that prioritises motor vehicle speed and volume at the expense of other road users, quashing the prospect of
BRIDGE OF SIGHS: campaigners and bloggers have led the call to keep Blackfriars’ speed limit at 20mph
designing pleasant streets for cycling and walking. Read the small print of Transport for London’s latest ‘network operating strategy’ (currently open to consultation) and you see how it prioritises the movements of lorries, light goods vehicles and cars over everyone else. Cyclists and pedestrians don’t count in any meaningful way, and even buses packed full people don’t seem to count for much under its rationale. If the latest figures are to be believed, the TfL modellers guess that a car causes five times more congestion than a cyclist and so value a car space five times higher than a cycle space. Perhaps this helps explain why cyclists feel squeezed and threatened by high-speed motor traffic. A Londoner on a bicycle has the same rights as a motorist. TfL has a lot to learn about balance and equality. Flawed models equal poor spaces Transport for London’s blind adherence to its ‘network assurance’ responsibility is the logic that created urban monstrosities such as the
Elephant and Castle roundabout and Vauxhall gyratory, and it’s this thinking that is currently stifling attempts to redesign these very places in people-friendly ways. It’s the same reason the Cycle Superhighways frequently disappear at major junctions, where most crashes take place, and novice cyclists are expected to share space with multiple lanes of fast-moving traffic. Transport for London isn’t just consulting traffic models when redesigning streets – a sensible idea as long as the limitations of these models are recognised – it’s allowing these flawed models to be the decision-makers. Transport for London has claimed that the Traffic Management Act prevents them giving more space for cyclists. That is not true, the Act and Department for Transport guidance directs TfL to make the “best use of existing road space for the benefit of all road users” and not over-ride road safety or other policy objectives. Sticking to their dogma ignores the fact that motor traffic doesn’t behave like a big machine, because vehicles are controlled by humans. And humans
20 London Cyclist Aug/Sept 2011
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Panel: Tom Bogdanowicz Photos: Neil Cordell
SO WHAT HAPPENED TO TFL’S OWN SAFETY PLAN?
behave in far more sophisticated ways than the computer models currently predict. For example, if there’s major disruption in an urban area, such as a street closure, then predictions of traffic chaos are often wrong because motorists make alternative travel choices. If you’ve gone a long period without owning a car in London and you suddenly acquire one, it’s surprising how often it comes in useful. Equally, if you dispense with this same car, it’s surprising how rarely you miss it. In short, many journeys that can be made by car can also be made by other means or not at all. This isn’t that surprising when you consider that 50 percent of car journeys in the capital are less than two miles. And given that people are making these choices all the time, surely it makes sense to create conditions where they have the genuine freedom to choose to walk or use their bicycle (or indeed drive, as their needs possibly dictate), rather than continually biasing road conditions for local journeys and commuting towards the car?
Call to arms We’re calling on the Mayor to give Londoners the freedom to choose to enjoy the convenience, health and financial benefits of cycling, which would also benefit our city as a whole. It’s not like London couldn’t do with serious reductions in air pollution — not to mention death and serious injury — along with the wholesale revamp of so many public spaces. The last thing we would want to do is tell people to cycle, but it’s been shown that if we create safe and convenient conditions for cycling, then people freely choose to bike in their droves. As one politician said recently: “It’s not just about recognising the capacity of the road any more. It’s about the thought that goes into the people using that junction. It’s about how people use that junction.” Can you guess who said this about Blackfriars? Green Party mayoral candidate Jenny Jones perhaps? In fact, it’s the voice of Conservative assembly member Andrew Boff, the Mayor’s own special cycling advisor. Are you listening Boris?
In 2004 two cyclists lost their lives on Blackfriars Bridge. Following the second of these deaths, that of Vicki McCreery, TfL undertook a major review of its standards and procedures associated with cycling. You can see this at www.tfl. gov.uk/static/corporate/ media/news centre/archive/ 4303.bit.ly. The review, carried out by the independent Transport Research Laboratory resulted in 35 recommendations for improvements at Transport for London. These included several recommendations on improved consultation and one stating that TfL should conduct a full review of conditions for cycle users on bridges. The report further stated that the most effective strategy on bridges would be to reduce speeds to 20mph. TfL’s action plan (TIRA) following the recommendations of the report identified the need for non-motorised user audits before all major traffic schemes and provided guidance on the consultation process. In response to the requirement to conduct a review of conditions on bridges, TfL carried out a study whose findings were released to LCC in 2008. It concluded that enforcing a 20mph speed limit on 13 bridges would save more than two million pounds in reduced collisions. LCC has asked TfL why the recommendations of the Transport Research Laboratory and Bridges reports were not followed and why a nonmotorised user audit was not carried out at Blackfriars Bridge before the recent designs were drawn-up. At time of writing we were still waiting for a reply. ■ For up-to-date info on the Blackfriars debate and other news, go to www.lcc.org.uk.
Aug/Sept 2011 London Cyclist 21
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FEATURE CAMPAIGN
To Catch a Thief Laura Laker looks at the latest initiatives to help combat bike theft and suggest ways to discourage opportunists
T
here’s no getting away from it, cycle theft in London is a big problem. A cyclist in London for five years, I have lost three bikes to theft, two of these within six months, so I’m sharing my experiences to help you keep hold of your bike. Whether it’s your beaten-up old runaround, or your pride and joy with a £1000-plus price tag, bike theft is an awful experience. Unfortunately, with the rise in bicycle ownership in London, cycle theft is becoming big business and second-hand markets such as Brick Lane and online sites like Gumtree and eBay have become synonymous with
stolen bikes. I saw my bike for sale on Gumtree a day after it was stolen but was ultimately unable to get it back. Even though I saw the thief, I wasn’t sure of how to go about retrieving it. Things would have turned out differently if I had known then what I know now. How to avoid becoming a victim Most of us do too little to prevent theft in the first place and then when bikes are stolen so many never report the theft, believing the police cannot do anything about it. This is not true. The biggest problem police have in bike theft is not recovering stolen bikes, but finding out who owns them.
Chief Inspector Ian Vincent of the Met’s Safer Transport Command Cycle Task Force said: “We advise any cyclist to follow ‘the three R’s’ — record the details of their bike, register them onto online property databases and report any theft to the police. These are simple steps that all cyclists should take so that if their bike is stolen they stand a good chance of being reunited with it.” Recording your bike with an online site like bikeregister.com, together with noting your frame number and any distinguishing marks can increase your chances of recovery if your bike is stolen. Ideally take photographs of your bike too.
22 London Cyclist Aug/Sept 2011
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With two of my bikes, I didn’t write down the frame numbers, which meant even though I later saw one of my stolen bikes and I called the police, when they turned up tragically I couldn’t prove it was mine. Always lock your bike securely The type of lock you buy will be the difference between a thief easily taking your bike and having to use power tools. The best locks are ‘Sold Secure rated’ bronze, silver or gold — gold being the hardest to break. D-locks or heavy chains are generally the best protection, while cable locks are best avoided as these are easily cut by thieves.
Parliamentary campaigner Steve Shaw’s bike was secured to a bike rack near Pentonville Road by a cable lock while he was at lunch. Colleagues in an office across the street saw two teenagers hacksaw his lock open, but by the time they got downstairs the thieves had taken the bike. However, having a good lock counts for very little if you secure your bike incorrectly. James Russell, of UX Architect in Farringdon, had his D-lock broken outside LSE in Holborn in 2009. He said: “I had just locked the top-tube to the rack. This left a lot of space in the ‘D’ of the D-lock. Apparently the thief either forced the lock open with a car jack or similar, or
YOU CAN NEVER BE TOO SAFE: always use two strong locks — make it your new mantra. Photos by Steve Rutherford
levered it open with a scaffold pole.” So best practice is to lock both wheels and frame to the cycle stand or other immovable object, also ensuring you fill the lock with frame, wheels and bike rack to prevent thieves getting enough purchase to lever the lock apart. It may seem obvious to use locks on the street, but two out of three cycle thefts occur in or around the home. Two of my bikes were stolen from home, one from inside a communal hallway and one from my front garden. Thieves can spot a good bike and follow you home, or target specific areas such as offices or flats where expensive bikes are locked regularly,
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CAMPAIGN FEATURE so always lock your bike securely and be wary of suspicious characters. Using two different lock types is a good deterrent as it will require thieves to use more than one tool. And always take removable items like lights, saddlepacks and pumps with you. Police recommend parking your cycle where it can be seen in a designated parking facility and avoid leaving it in the same place every day. Remember: report all thefts If the worst happens, report your stolen bike to police. Recent statistics on bike theft obtained from the Met by Halfords show Westminster, Islington and Hackney to be the boroughs with the highest cycle theft rates. The Met’s recently-founded Cycle Task Force is dedicated to tackling crimes involving bikes. When I found my bike for sale on Gumtree I should have called them straightaway as this unit deals with anything from sting operations to catching repeat internet sellers of stolen bikes. Talking to several police officers later, I was shocked to find that most people don’t report bike theft, which seems crazy. The more people who report bike theft the better picture the police have of the problem. Police advise that if you are a victim
LOCK AND LEAVE: but make sure both wheels are secure and all accessories removed
of bike theft and you suspect your bike is being sold online, that you do not arrange to meet the seller — instead contact the police. Cycle theft does not only happen with unattended bikes. Business analyst Duncan Stuart was knocked off his bike in September in Shoreditch by a thief. He said: “It was about three in the morning. I thought busy roads were quite dangerous so I took back roads between Old Street and Moorgate. There was a guy walking along in the middle of the road; he mumbled something to me and I slowed down. He said something else and I stopped.
He got a bit rough and I ended up on the floor. He just picked up my bike and started cycling away.” Duncan said some passers-by tried to stop the thief but he still got away. So be wary of suspicious people loitering in quiet streets or trying to make you slow down on your bike. If in doubt, don’t stop.
GOOD PRACTICE Check out our useful bikelocking video (featuring the late Barry Mason of Southwark Cyclists) at www.lcc.org.uk.
24 London Cyclist Aug/Sept 2011
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Stop cycle thieves in their tracks BikeRegister has been used by UK Police Forces for the last 15 years to return stolen bikes to their owners Secure your bike today, log onto:
www.BikeRegister.com
:LSLJ[HTHYRWSJ Advanced Asset Protection
DA301 ISSUE 1
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FEATURE CAMPAIGN
Reforming liability laws Why can’t UK law mirror its European counterparts when it comes to ‘stricter liability’? Mike Cavenett argues the case
I
want to tell you a story about a man called James. He’s not really called James, but we can’t give his real name because he’s worried that might affect his case. ‘James’ was hit by a car in London while walking across a pedestrian crossing. He suffered severe head injuries and, while recuperating, he got into severe financial difficulties because he’s self-employed and there was no-one to look after his business. You’d think James would be entitled to compensation for his injuries and loss of earnings. Well, under British law, a person that’s hit by a car has to prove the guilt of the driver before they’re entitled to any recompense, relying on the police and the legal system to produce a result before they can pursue the guilty party in the civil courts. In James’s case, the driver pleaded
not guilty and then later failed to appear in court. The severe injuries James sustained in the crash added to the difficulty of proving the driver’s guilt. The case dragged on for a year before the driver was found guilty, but further complications to do with the vehicle being a hire car have delayed the compensation. Eighteen months after being run over on a zebra crossing in broad daylight, James hasn’t received a penny in compensation. This isn’t unusual — and compensation claims can often take four or five years. More happily, James has now built up his business again by sheer hard work, and his health has improved dramatically. But this outcome is despite our legal system, not because of it. Let’s contrast what would have happened if the same incident had
SAFER CYCLING: make your views known on the website forum
happened in France. The major difference is that the driver of the car would have automatically assumed a degree of liability for the crash by choosing to operate what is an inherently dangerous machine, a fast-moving metal box, in a public space. Fortunately, the driver would be insured for the risk that he might be in a crash, even one that wasn’t his fault. Different system on the Continent Therefore, without James having to prove anything, the law in France, as it does in many European countries, would allow him to claim compensation. The driver might try to show that James had acted irresponsibly and, if there was evidence of recklessness, then James would most likely have his compensation reduced — for example, if he ran across a busy road without looking or
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JOIN THE DISCUSSION We’re started a discussion thread on our web forum (www.lcc.org.uk/forum). We’ll be collecting stories from the media about Stricter Liability, including ones that misrepresent the issue. Why not help us rebut the falsehoods and build the case for this essential national law-change?
IT IS ALL OUR FAULT HOW THE STORY WAS TURNED ON ITS HEAD
country roads in Normandy nor in the bustling town centres, have any cyclists or pedestrians thrown themselves in front of my vehicle in an attempt to enrich themselves at the expense of my insurance company. Nor have I seen crowds of locals weaving in and out of the traffic, oblivious to their own danger, comfortable in the knowledge that if they are maimed by a car then the law is on their side. French law strongly favours vulnerable road users and for the vast majority of the time, you wouldn’t know it for a second. he had been drinking heavily. In James’ case, he was entirely without blame, so under French law the driver’s insurance company would have paid out 100 percent of his claim, without the need for any court case. If some blame had been attributed to the victim, then the payout could be reduced by a proportion decided by the court. By coincidence I’m writing this article in France and, in the short time I’ve been here, I’ve been a driver, a cyclist and a pedestrian. Have I noticed anything different in the way people behave here? To be fair, the answer is ‘a little bit’. When I’m cycling, drivers definitely give me more room than I get in the UK, often passing me entirely into the next lane, rather than trying to share mine at high speed. The exception to this is British tourists. However, at no time, either on the
A law change makes sense Now this isn’t what some would have you believe if the same law was to be applied here in the UK. Whenever stricter liability – for yes, that is what most of Western Europe has that we don’t — is discussed in the UK, British journalists start frothing wildly at the mouth and, either deliberately or through ignorance, misrepresent how the system works (see panel). It’s true that not all are as bad as the tabloid journalist highlighted here, but the level of debate is still pretty woeful. Let’s get this straight: all we’re asking for is that drivers’ insurance should cover the costs of damages when a vulnerable road user is hurt by their motor vehicle, allowing for a reduction in damages if the driver can show that the victim acted recklessly. What’s not to understand?
Every few years the UK press slips into a frenzy of misinformation on ‘stricter liability’. At times it feels like a conspiracy, the same prejudices and falsifications appear again and again. To explain the finer points of stricter liability takes more time and attention to detail than British journalists expect from their readers. Sometimes they feel it is better to make it a scare story, fear always sells more papers. 1. 2002 — ‘Bicycle Guerillas’ threaten the world The outbreak of anti-cyclist ranting was so extreme it qualified for an academic study in the American Journal of Comparative Law. It began with an article in the Observer in August: “Driver fury over Euro cycle laws”, “Motorists face soaring premiums for bike crashes”. Later that week a Mirror journalist wrote: “Bicycles are for children...[they are] like masturbation — something you should grow out of. There is something seriously sick and stunted about grown men who want to ride a bike.” 2. 2009 — Accepting liability is not taking the blame. Substituting the ‘blame’ word instead of ‘liability’ now seems to be the game. The Daily Mail leads with: “Drivers should always be blamed for cycle crashes”. It goes on, instilling fear in the readers: “Even in Caption to go a crash results from illegal or dangerous cases where here manoeuvres by the cyclist, the motorist is usually blamed.” Later it mentions a difference between civil and criminal law, too late to notice. A few months later another journalist picks it up, and throws out: “Yet Brussels is now proposing to make motorists responsible for all accidents involving cyclists, irrespective of who was actually in the wrong.” 3. 2011 — Changing the rules is “too contentious” says minister Transport Secretary of State Norman Baker replies to another MP’s letter with many of the arguments for stricter liability, noting that the casualty rate for child cyclists aged 10-14 is five times higher in the UK than in the Netherlands. Nevertheless he concludes: “Any change in the law is likely to be very contentious.”
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FEATURE ELECTION
Get on Board Have you got what it takes to be an LCC Trustee? Austen Cooper explains what’s involved and how you could stand for election
F
ancy taking one of the top jobs in the world’s largest urban cycling organisation? If you’re up for a challenge and feeling competitive, there are four seats up for grabs at this autumn’s elections to the LCC Board. No experience is required — just a bit of time, lots of ideas and a passion for turning London into a cycling city. As a charity, LCC is run by a Board of ten Trustees. Elected by the membership, they play a pivotal role in setting overall strategy and direction: from deciding what campaigns we should run to ensuring our finances are in good shape. We have a professional staff team of course, but the Board is LCC’s highest-level decision-making body. As well as the Board, all Trustees also belong to at least one of our decision-making committees — Campaigns & Active Membership, Policy & Lobbying, Income Generation, Finance & Administration, and Human Resources — alongside other LCC members who volunteer their knowledge, skills and experience. It’s a really exciting time to stand for election. In the last 12 months the Board has overseen the launch of a new website and brand, devised new approaches for income growth,
enhanced LCC’s financial stability, delivered the biggest campaign effort in recent years (HGVs) and laid plans for getting right in there in London’s 2012 Mayoral elections. Your mission — should you choose to accept it — is to help us build on our successes and plan for a bigger and better future. Would you make a good Trustee? Board members come from diverse backgrounds – some are employed, others work for themselves, others are retired (but still very much active). Their professional knowledge ranges from banking through charity management to surveying. What they all have in common is a passion for cycling and for making London a better city, particularly for cyclists. So have you got what it takes to become a Trustee? We need people who can see the bigger picture, work well with fellow Board and committee members and who can bring to the table their ideas, enthusiasm and opinions. On a practical level, you will need to attend bi-monthly Board meetings and attend at least one committee, which can also meet up to six times a year. These meetings take place in the evening at LCC’s office near London Bridge, generally start at 6.30pm and last up to two hours.
USEFUL INFO Find out more at www.lcc. org.uk/Board Elections ■ LCC Trustee Open Day: 1-7pm, 11 Aug. ■ Deadline for Trustee Nominations: 5pm, 15 Sept. Send to info@ lcc.org.uk. ■ Postal Voting for Trustees: 4 Oct to 5 Nov. Ballots in next London Cyclist ■ AGM: 16 Nov, vote in person
Past Trustees are very positive about their experiences. Brendan Paddy, a board member for six years, recalls: “The work involved a lot of meetings but it was there that I learnt a huge amount about cycling, activism and the way organisations really work. I used my professional skills as a voluntary sector media relations manager to help LCC get its message across. I’m proud to have served but I also learnt a lot and met some great people with whom I share more than the occasional pint.” Does that sound like your sort of thing? All you need to do is to get two members to countersign your nomination form. If elected, you have the role for two years, after which you can seek re-election. To find out more about being elected to the Board or simply becoming a committee member, LCC is holding an open day on a date being arranged in the next few months; you will be able to meet staff and Board members, have an informal chat about what’s involved and get more details. If you want to find out more before then, current Trustees Charles Barraball (charles@lcc.org.uk) or Austen Cooper (austen@lcc.org.uk) will be happy to answer your queries.
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RIDES
Little Green Ride Steven Taylor takes us on a summer outing in the leafy lanes of Hertfordshire MAP AD DOWNLO ely.com/ http://www.bik maps/bike-path/ Little-Green-Ride
Stopsley
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King’s Walden
Tea Green
Wandon End
Winch Hill
Breachwood Green
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SOMERIES 4 CASTLE
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The Hyde
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DISTANCE: typically 25 to 30 miles. INFO: blogspot.littlegreenride. com. Or follow us on Twitter @LGRide.
St Paul’s Walden
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KNEBWORTH HOUSE
A short diversion before Old Knebworth takes you close to Knebworth House. The original was built in 1492 but much of it was rebuilt in the early 19th century in a heavily Gothic style. It has been the home of the Lytton family since the 15th century. Famous members include the Victorian author, Edward Bulwer Lytton, who wrote the words “the pen is mightier than the sword.” Knebworth House is more famous now for its rock festivals. These began in 1974 when Van
Temple Dinsley
Mangrove Green
FACTFILE MEET: the Little Green Ride takes place on the third Sunday of each month, starting from Finsbury Park mainline station just before 10am.
Preston Ley Green
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he Little Green Ride, variously described as a Sunday lunch with a bike ride attached, or a perfect cure for a hangover, is something of a north London institution. Once a month for many years, cyclists have met at Finsbury Park station on a Sunday morning to take the train out for a meander along Hertfordshire country lanes. Each time the route will be different but the theme remains the same; an easy-paced ride punctuated by a leisurely pub lunch and, frequently, a tea stop. You can always hear the Little Green Ride long before you see it as the burble of conversation drifts across the hedgerows. It’s more a social event than a bike ride. Old friends are reunited and new friendships created. One or two relationships have even blossomed on those Hertfordshire country lanes. This is the route of a typical Little Green Ride.
THE OLD AND NEW CHURCHES, AYOT ST LAWRENCE
Morrison headlined. Since then, the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Queen (their last concert with Freddy Mercury), Oasis and Robbie Williams have performed to massive crowds in the grounds of the house.
The small village of Ayot St Lawrence boasts two churches. The old one now stands as a ruin in the centre of the village; it was built in the 12th century with modifications through to the 15th. In 1779, the local landowner, Sir Lionel Lyde took exception to the church because it spoilt his view and ordered it to be demolished. The villagers protested to the Bishop of Lincoln who intervened, but not before parts of the church had been pulled down.
The new church, designed by Nicolas Revett in 1779, stands in a field and was built to catch the eye from Lyde’s house, hence its expansive frontage.
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JOHN BUNYAN’S CHIMNEY
FOOD STOPS Emily’s tea room, Whitwell offers fair-trade food, along with spare inner tubes and puncture repair kits for any cyclist who gets caught out. It is open all year, Tuesdays to Sundays until 4pm (5pm in the summer).
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At Coleman Green, a little south of this route, a solitary chimney stands behind a garden gate on the side of the road. It is all that remains of a cottage that was allegedly the home of John Bunyan, the author of Pilgrim’s Progress. He was born in nearby Bedfordshire in 1628 and was known to have preached in Hertfordshire. As well as Pilgrim’s Progress and a number of hymns, Bunyan was a radical preacher and was frequently on the run in Restoration Britain when such non-conformity was frowned upon. He spent many years in Bedford prison for preaching without a licence and it was during one of these periods of
POINTS OF INTEREST
incarceration that he wrote the book for which he is most famed today. He died in 1688.
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NINE WELLS FARM, WHITWELL
Langley Newton Wood
Old Knebworth
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Rabley Heath Codicote
Ayot St Peter
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Nine Wells Farm is a watercress farm on the edge of Whitwell. It is just one of two remaining in Hertfordshire and has been run by the same family for more than 200 years. The watercress is grown and harvested in a traditional manner. The nine wells are nine boreholes which draw water from 250ft underground to the cress beds. Watercress is harvested twice a year from March to May and then again from late August to December. There is a farmshop where you can buy freshly-cut watercress. It goes well with new potatoes in a warm potato salad.
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SHAW’S CORNER
George Bernard Shaw, the playwright, socialist and Nobel Prize winner, lived in Ayot St Lawrence from 1906 until his death in 1950. He was drawn to the area after visiting the churchyard where he noticed how long lived some of the villagers could be. This certainly was the case for him as he lived to be 94. The house, built in the Arts and Crafts style in 1902, was originally the rectory. Shaw himself was an enthusiastic if accident-prone cyclist. After each crash he would
jump up crying “I am not hurt” despite the evidence to the contrary (black eyes and worse). The house is owned by the National Trust and is open on Wednesday to Sunday afternoons from March to October. Admission is half price if you arrive by bicycle.
■ St Pauls, Walden Bury. On the B651, north of Whitwell. Home of the Bowes Lyon family and birthplace of the late Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. The gardens, laid out in the early 18th century, are open to the public. ■ St Giles Churchyard, Codicote, includes a graveboard recording the unfortunate circumstances following the burial of a John Gootheridge in 1824 who became the victim of “resurrectionists” looking for bodies for medical schools. Fortunately his body was recovered and he was reburied a week later. ■ Temple Dinsley, Preston, was the site of the Preceptory or monastary for the Knights Templars, a religio-military order set up to protect pilgrims to Jerusalem in the 12th century. ■ Ayot St Peter Churchyard. The old medieval church at Ayot St Peter or Little Ayot was demolished in 1750 but the churchyard remains. A local legend has it that the old churchyard was the site of a plague pit.
SOMERIES CASTLE
The ruins of Someries Castle stand in the corner of a farmyard a couple of miles west of Peters Green, under the flightpath of Luton Airport. It is certainly worth a detour even though it is more of a fortified manor house rather than a full blown castle. It was the home of Sir John Wenlock who was notorious for fighting on both sides in the War of the Roses. He started out as a Lancastrian, before joining forces with the Yorkists, and then switching back again. Someries Castle was built in
the 15th century and is considered to be one of the first brick buildings in Britain.
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FEATURE COMMENT
Have Your Say How much bike repair kit do you need to carry? Is a puncture repair kit enough or do you go ‘naked’? Or maybe you carry enough tools to strip and rebuild?
Arnold Ridout Newham I use my bike mostly for commuting the ten miles to work from Manor Park to Westminster, with occasional leisure rides. I would classify my repair skills as moderate. I carry a spare inner tube and the necessary tools to change the inner tube (supplemented for leisure rides by a standard puncture repair kit. I also carry a couple of Allen keys and a chain tool, although I have never used the chain breaker. All this can be carried at the bottom of a pannier or in a waterbottle. In fact I am finding punctures increasingly rare as tyres have become much more puncture resistant and other breakdowns are also rare. The worst problems to have are with the wheels. It is sometimes possible to limp home with a buckled wheel or broken spoke and on my commute it is often possible to walk the bike to my destination to avoid the need for emergency repairs. I think that if a bike is used regularly and an eye is kept out for problems which are fixed when they first appear, the chances of a catastrophic breakdown are low. Fortunately I have never been badly stranded in 30 years.
Alex Crawford Southwark I always have the basics with me on my travels — spare tube, multi-tool kit, levers and a mini-pump, and wet wipes. I don’t really bother with puncture repair kits these days as I’m too impatient to stand around on the side of a road finding holes and sticking patches on. How much else I carry depends largely on where I am going (out of London, for example), what time it is (ie night-time so after shops have closed) and who I am with (if I am leading/marshalling a ride I will bring spares). I rarely bring tools to do more than basic emergency repairs though. What I tend to find is that I can go months without a puncture or similar emergency and on the one day when I forget to take my repair tools, I will get three flats. It is usually raining on these days. Sod’s Law is particularly cruel when it comes to cycling matters I find.
Roger Stocker Lewisham I ride a folding bike and carry an Oyster card.
James Hoggarth Kew I always take a pump, couple of spare inner tubes, multi-tool — mine includes all the usual Allen keys, chain tool, Torx wrench, spoke keys and tyre levers. I tend to also have pre-glued patches, and a tyre boot. These items should be sufficient unless there is a catastrophic problem. There are now basic one or two-day maintenance courses in most boroughs that can teach you most of the skills you need to service a bike. With those skills you can save yourself a lot of money and be confident of roadside repairs. There is a sense of reassurance knowing that most problems can be fixed, adding to the liberty of the two-wheeled experience. In thousands of miles there have only been two occasions when I could not fix the bike and had to limp home. Both these instances required replacement of major parts.
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Helen Vecht Edgware Travelling ‘naked’ is only viable if you are willing to walk back if there’s a problem — so that’s fair for anything below two miles. I carry a pump, puncture repair kit and spare inner tube for anything over two miles. Then I carry assorted spares (M5 bolts, cables etc) and tools (Allen keys, spanners, screwdrivers, cable cutter) for self and others for long day rides.
Ross Corben Stoke Newington I tend to include spare inner tubes. I find it’s better than walking the bike home when you have a puncture. Also spare cables (rear derailleur and brake) are useful as both have gone in the past. Of course a puncture repair kit makes sense but I have yet to use it other than on a long journey. I tend to carry collapsible pliers which have been handy to hold and twist a nipple when changing a spoke, on the occasions when a spoke-key won’t catch it. I keep it cheap using spanners (6-17) from Poundland, plus a pump, Allen keys, chain breaker, three tyre levers, cone spanner that fits 13-16 and screwdrivers, (both flat and crosshead).
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FEATURE LONDON
On route to the Olympics The 2012 Olympic Games are now less than a year away. Tom Bogdanowicz explores the eight new multi-user routes to the main Stratford site
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ell before London won the right to hold the 2012 Olympic Games, LCC lobbied for a cycling legacy. A legacy that would promote everyday cycling rather than just deliver venues for elite performance sport. The bid committee responded by including a commitment to ‘active spectatorship’ in the bid documents. The eight 2012 Olympic Games Walking & Cycling Routes (OWCR) are one outcome of that commitment. As of this summer you should be able to walk or ride on one of a dozen routes to Olympic venues in the Queen Elizabeth II Olympic Park, ExCel and Greenwich Park. The original eight become a dozen once you include several spurs which have been tagged on to the main routes. While much of the work is complete (Transport for London says 80 percent) the remaining construction works interrupt the continuity of several routes so be prepared to follow diversions. A major handicap is that the routes won’t be waymarked until the end of the year (about six months after the official launch date). That’s less of a problem on popular routes like the Regent’s Canal, Lea Valley, Greenway and Thames path which are already signposted, but on the other routes you will have to rely on maps or GPS in the interim. Both LCC groups and Sustrans provided initial input to the choice of routes which are mostly upgrades to existing popular leisure routes. Some, more ambitious, plans were dropped because of limited funding, short time scales, or local authority obstacles. The original £5m of funding came from the Olympic Delivery Authority
with additional funds coming from TfL. Most of the money has been spent on around a hundred low profile changes like better surfaces, path widening, dropped kerbs, bollards, raised tables at junctions, toucan crossings and access modifications. The unanswered question is whether the routes will be able to cope with demand, particularly along narrower stretches of towpath. The ODA set itself an low 5 percent target for walking and cycling to the Games but overcrowding on public transport may make cycling a popular choice not just for Olympic ticket holders but all Londoners during the Games period. Legacy routes are key One of the potential benefits of designing a dozen routes that converge on Victoria Park/QE Olympic Park, ExCel and Greenwich Park is that by linking up at key points they can help create a leisure cycling and walking network across East and North London. But this potential will only be realised if the legacy cycle routes through the Olympic Park itself are completed and more convenient east-west connections are made. To make the network come together Stratford town centre needs to have convenient cycling and walking tracks leading into the QE II Olympic Park and connecting to the Greenway. The 2012 games will leave behind them some of the finest sports cycling facilities in the world. If local politicians in the Olympic boroughs want to capitalise on that they need to ensure that they are matched by high-grade local cycling infrastructure which will attract tourists and Londoners alike to visit east London’s Olympic legacy.
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EPPING FOREST
Kings land Road
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difficult right turn at Green Lanes and a hundred yards of Cassland Road (A106). TfL has been alerted to both.
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Shared pavements bring you to Stratford station but it remains unclear how the route will reach the Gamestime cycle parking in the Southern Plaza and how it will continue into the Olympic Park once the Games are over.
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An eastern extension to the route runs across Walthamstow Marshes and past the Warwick reservoirs to reach Blackhorse Road via a quiet route.
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LIMEHOUSE CUT
Curiously, the peaceful towpath route along Limehouse Cut has never featured on the London Cycle Maps as a permitted route. The OWCR programme has spruced up the path facilitating a link that reaches from Surrey Quays (via the little known ferry from the Hilton Docklands to Canary wharf Pier), all the way to Stratford (Olympic time cycle parking is promised at the Southern Plaza). When the Bow Flyover floating path is complete, this route will provide an off-road link from the Thames all the way to Waltham Abbey in Hertfordshire along the River Lea. A surprise bonus is the re-opening of the riverside path by Westferry Circus after closure for more than five years. This 50-yard stretch of path is the missing link in the National Cycle Network route 1 from Limehouse Cut to the Greenwich foot tunnel (via Millwall Inner Dock).
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LEA VALLEY
The Lea Valley towpath is one of the longest, and most pleasant, continuous off-road cycling and walking paths in London, reaching from Waltham Abbey to the Thames. The OWCR programme has resurfaced damaged sections of path, removed some of the obstacles and widened tracks. Locals say the path should be wider still given the popularity of this route in the summer time. At the time of writing, the southern section was still incomplete but heading north you can stop off at the nature reserve around the old Middlesex filter beds, see Hackney Marshes (where David Beckham once trained) and have a cup of tea at White House Lodge overlooking Springfield Marina.
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This backstreet route utilises some of the many quiet roads in Newham. Starting out (at its east end) beyond the A406, the link uses a footbridge to cross this motorway and descend into Wanstead Park. A wide re-surfaced path through the park takes you to Aldersbrook Conservation area whose ornate Victorian terraces rival those in the garden suburbs of Ealing and Hampstead. Side streets take you to a path across Wanstead Flats from where a car-light route, past the Victorian West Ham cemetery, arrives at the unpleasant and congested traffic gyratory at Stratford centre.
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HACKNEY PARKS
For most cyclists this OWCR route will be a new discovery. Starting at Finsbury Park, where Jimi Hendrix first set fire to his guitar, it takes advantage of streets without through traffic to wind its way to Victoria Park where the ODA promises to provide supervised cycle parking for 7000 bikes. En route you can see Clissold House, a fine Georgian mansion, stop off at the popular Shakespeare pub and finish off at the up-market Britannia Inn. At the time of writing, the route is marred by two short stretches of busy road: a
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How to find the new routes
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Atop of London’s eastbound sewer runs perhaps the widest cycling and walking route in town. It offers great views of the City and Olympic stadium. The route has been upgraded with clearly delineated cycling and walking tracks, plus signs, sculptures and viewing points galore. What the Greenway still lacks is better access onto the route and a satisfactory connection at Stratford High Street. Unless agreement is reached with Newham Council, the current choice for riders is to use a section of bus lane or, once the floating path is completed under Bow Flyover, to use a this longer diversion. However if the barriers on this route are removed, the pay-off for Londoners is an off-road link from Beckton all the way to the Angel.
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VICTORIA PARK AND STEPNEY
Changes to this classic ride from the Angel along the Regents Canal include towpath widening, better ramps and walkways and a grand entrance to Victoria Park. The route then follows the canal to the Thames at Limehouse Basin. Popular stops along the way include the Narrow Boat at the Angel and the Palm Tree in Mile End Park. From Limehouse Basin, once a hive of trading and smuggling activity, the route runs back to the Tower following the Victorian ornamental canal. A spur links up with the Greenway but, disappointingly, a short 200-yard on-road stretch (Wick Lane) gives priority to motor traffic despite ongoing lobbying by LCC groups in Hackney and Tower Hamlets.
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Pedalling along the river from Woolwich to Greenwich is always a pleasure despite the ever-changing construction detours. The popular Sustrans route, which passes the Thames Barrier and the Royal Naval College is getting some upgrades but, unfortunately, no riverside path at the Thames Barrier Centre. Until the time when a riverside path is provided, TfL says it is widening the shared-use pavements on the A206. The official route takes a short cut just before the Millenium Dome but unless you are on a tight schedule the views from the peninsula are worth the detour along the riverbank.
LOWER LEA VALLEY
The three branches of the Lower Lea Valley route all converge on ExCel though the north branch links (via the Greenway) to the Southern Plaza of the Olympic Park and the southern branch connects to the Greenwich foot tunnel. The long waterside stretches around the Royal Docks offer some spectacular views across London. Beyond them the Beckton Corridor provides an off-road link (curiously not included in OWCR ) to Beckton Alp which offers yet another superb view. Two busy A-roads are included in the route:
TfL says shared use on widened pavements is being provided on Silvertown Way; but there will be little change for cyclists along Manchester Road (A1026). East Ferry Road and NCN 1 are both more pleasant, if longer, alternatives.
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TRAVEL
A Passage to India When London teacher Danny Bent decided he wanted to bring his classes to life it was the start of an epic journey‌
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ycling around the world is all about pushing pedals, right? Wrong! I thought I was planning to do something I loved – cycling – for a cause I really believed in, while occasionally regally waving, in a typical British fashion, at passing farmers and elephants whilst they or I or both sipped tea. I thought it was going to be easy and fun. What was there not to like? If people had told me that within two months I would have the muzzle of a semi-automatic rifle pointed at my head I may have asked a few more questions before letting friends, family, fellow teachers and my pupils wave me off on my 9,000-mile bike ride to India. And had someone mentioned that I would be chased most of the way by rabid, fly-ridden, wild dogs salivating for a piece of my tiny calves, I would certainly have packed a pair of long trousers. Knowing I would wake on the first day of my four month trip with maggots wriggling through my luminous ginger beard and hair, I’d have packed my kit in the attic, rather than in four panniers, and continued working as a teacher at a primary school in the suburbs of London. Fortuitously the man holding the
gun only wanted me to stop for a while and drink vodka with him, the dogs were just after some exercise and the maggots... well they gave me one hell of a story to tell my ex-pupils back in London. As a teacher, I like my classroom to be alive. Be that throwing paint in art class, climbing trees in maths, or creating animations in science. I don’t just like to create a bit of a buzz either; I like the tiles on the roof to be vibrating. Some days I even like to try and blow the roof clean off (I got into trouble for that one). If the kids are looking out of the window it means I’m doing something wrong. The big adventure There was one day I was teaching the children about Chembakolli, a village in India, and comparing it with our own urban lives. I found myself struggling to bring the subject to life and make it as exciting for the kids as it was for me. When you’re eight years old it’s hard to imagine another life existing in stark contrast to your own. There was only one thing for it. I was going to travel out there to put myself — a figure they knew well — in the picture. By the age of eleven I’d already decided I wanted to travel the world for charity. What better chance would I get?
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TRAVEL When I told my class about my plans, one astute boy – fully clued-up on our school’s Green Awareness policy – asked how I was going to get there. Plane? Train? Bus? In contradiction to everything I’d taught them this year? I couldn’t. A shiver ran down my spine. Four words changed my life. “I’m going by bicycle.” Nine thousand miles to India. On my own. Carrying everything I needed on my steel-framed bicycle, affectionately known as Shirley. When Lance said “It’s not about the bike” he certainly wasn’t talking about adventure cycling. It was all about my bike. She was greeted by Indian crowds, excited and eager to touch her. She was dressed like a traditional sparkling Pakistani truck and accompanied me to a wedding in Gilgit. She even protected me from a striking cobra as I held her between us on a sand-strewn road in Kazakhstan. I’d imagined changing puncture after puncture but amazingly I only suffered one when I drove over a piece of wood with nails protruding from it. One puncture in 9,000 miles! A training ride out to the Surrey Hills can result in five times that on a winter’s day. Climbs up to 4,900 metres left the air thin and my oxygen levels low. I was the only living creature in sight. The chill air attacked my exposed skin as soon as I stopped to adjust a pannier or tinker with a spoke spanner. My water bottles froze and I had to move on. We rode into the slums in Mumbai
ROYAL WELCOME: Danny (or is it Wayne Rooney?) greeted by the people of Chembakolli
but I sadly had to leave Shirley behind for a day as the narrow alleyways were less than the width of my handlebars and I risked pulling down whole streets if I caught the wrong piece of corrugated iron sheeting. In the lower lands the wildlife was more prolific. When I stopped for lunch, a swollen rat lay dead in the gutter. I watched as the flies took flight, disturbed by an anorexic looking cow eating the rotting cardboard and paper under the rat’s body (cows in India have been proved to be able to digest paper). These same flies came towards me, briefly resting on the chef’s apron, before diving straight for my dhal. The toilets at this particular stop were the smelliest and most disgusting I’d ever encountered too — holes in the ground full to bursting with excrement, sometimes piled high around the bowl like sandcastles on Brighton beach. Apologies if this makes for unpleasant reading, but such images are very real and all-too common.
ActionAid publishes a range of educational resources about the Chembakolli village and a percentage of the income goes directly to the tribal community.
It’s all about the people The other enduring impressions are of the people that crossed my path. The loving and caring nature of the people I met changed the way I view the world and myself. Taken on outings to lakes, to temples and mosques. Likened to Wayne Rooney, the English footballer, I was able to avoid detention on the Uzbek border and the Russian mafia put me in a safe house to hide me from the local police when my visa expired prematurely.
I grew gaunt, the continuous cycling taking its toll, but strangers fed me more food than you can possibly wave a broken spoke at. And then there was tea, and lots of it. Once I’d left Western Europe if I wasn’t being forced to down copious amounts of vodka I was being welcomed into peoples homes who proceeded to hold me hostage until all the tea in Russia/Uzbekistan/China/ India had been drunk. I was intoxicated by these people’s way of life, their humility, their generosity. I was forbidden even in the slums of Mumbai to put my hand in my pocket to fork out five pence for a cup of tea; people preferring to share one cup between many and to allow this passing stranger to have a cup to himself. Then on my 31st birthday Shirley and I arrived at Chembakolli, the indigenous village that I’d tried so hard to bring to life for my pupils back in London. I was greeted by a chorus of voices, the dancing of feet and a whirlwind of colour. A mini carnival was taking place to celebrate my arrival and birthday. Twenty years exactly since I had told my friends and family that I wanted to cycle round the world at a school leavers’ assembly, I knelt down next to Shirley and wept with happiness. I’d lived my dream. ■ To follow Danny’s adventures visit www.dannybent.com. ■ Danny’s book is available to buy from the ActionAid website: www.actionaid.org.uk/dannybent.
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Cycle to Mount Everest ‘base camp’...
Cycle through Vietnam and Laos
Cycle to Machu Picchu
CYCLING ADVENTURE HOLIDAYS explore the most spectacular regions of the world Red Spokes Adventure Tours specialise in taking small groups of cyclists to the more remote and spectacular regions in the world.
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There is no better way of discovering a country than from the saddle of a bike.
Tel: Skype: Email: Web:
020 7502 7252 redspokes office@redspokes.co.uk www.redspokes.co.uk
18/07/2011 21:40
REVIEWS
Mountain bikes Burly enough for year-round commuting and recreational off-roading, these entry-level mtbs are genuine all-rounders as our testers found out
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B’Twin Rockrider 8.0 £399.99
Halcyon Talos £660
Pinnacle Willow Two £449.99
www.decathlon.co.uk
www.halcyonbikes.com
www.evanscycles.com y
We’ve tested a number of Decathlon bikes in the last two years, including folders and hybrids, and they’ve all lived up to the French superstore’s reputation for selling solid kit at sensible prices. Therefore, it’s no surprise that we were looking forward to testing an off-road model. Decathlon is well aware that mountain bikes still hold the largest market share (even though many never leave tarmac) and it offers a large range. The 8.0 is nestled in the lower-middle of the Rockrider spectrum, but has a great spec for the money and is well capable of handling some pretty rough treatment. After stripping off the chunky lights and reflectors, we had a closer look at the frame, which is 6061 aluminium (heavier gauge than 7005) and comes in four sizes. The B-Twin-branded fork is actually a Suntour item with 100mm of travel, plus lockout and preload adjustments. The drivetrain is a 24-speed mix’n’match of Suntour chainset, SRAM X.5 shifters, with Shimano Tourney (front) and SRAM X.5 (rear) derailleurs. None of this kit is renowned for being brilliant under pressure, though to be fair it worked fine during the time we took the bike off-road. The Avid Juicy 3 hydraulic disc brakes will slow you down, literally — but we found the squealing sound and the juddering from the front meant we rode within their obvious limits. The own-brand tyres are something of an on-road/off-road compromise, with almost no side knobbles, discouraging faster off-road cornering. Swapping them for something with more grip is an easy cure. Overall then there are limits to what the B-Twin is capable of, largely defined by its lack of serious stopping power. However, these are reasonably high limits, and you could quite easily bash around London’s heathland or Surrey’s Downs without ever reaching them. MC PROS Comfortable ride; keenly priced CONS Performance limits
This is an exclusive first look at the Talos, a well-featured and good-looking bike from new manufacturer Halcyon. The £600-£700 mtb price point is one where you’ll also find strong products from established brands such as GT, Kona and Specialized, but this model holds its own in that company. On paper, the Talos is has a strong spec, featuring a 7005 aluminium frame, with Suntour Radion forks that offer 100mm of travel, damping control and remote lock-out. Testers commented on how nicely the frame was finished, with its rounded tubes and smooth welds. The drivetrain is a reliable 27-speed set-up, mainly incorporating Deore kit from Shimano, though with a cheaper Alivio chainset. This combination offers solidity where it counts, even if they aren’t the lightest components. The hydraulic disc brakes (with 160mm rotors) are from Tektro and, once they were worn in, provided decent stopping power. Bear in mind that they are budget items, so keep an eye on the pads if you’re regularly hammering it. And hammer it we did with some confidence around the beautiful Dorset countryside. To be fair, that’s not Morzine-style terrain, but there are still plenty of challenges, which the Talos took in its stride. The Mavic rims were entirely unphased by impacts on hard-packed bridleways and rocky chutes, and though the 2.1in Innova tyres provided some grip, they’re likely to be an early upgrade for most people — we swapped them for a tacky Maxxis pair. The Canyon saddle didn’t last long either. At this price there are bound to be a few compromises, but the Halcyon’s combination of lightweight frame, decent fork and brakes makes for a solid package. It’s available in 15, 17, 19 and 21in sizes, in any colour as long as it’s black. Our 17in rig weighed roughly 16kg. MC PROS Sensible spec for the money CONS Saddle and tyres are a bit lacking
Recently reduced by a hundred quid to the price shown, the Willow Two is the higher-specced of two women’s-specific bikes in Pinnacle’s expanding mtb line-up. Like its stablemate it’s built around a very nicely finished doublebutted aluminium chassis; the colourway’s listed as deep gloss purple, though it appears almost bronze in most light. It has a steeply-sloping top-tube so that mounting and dismounting doesn’t feel like getting on a horse. Up front there’s a Suntour suspension fork which sports 80mm of travel — enough to take the edge off of potholes, Sustrans-type trails and easier off-road terrain. As a cheap unit it’s quite weighty, but it has a surprising amount of adjustment and a lockout, which you can turn on for more efficient road riding and climbing. Other than the fairly compact geometry, including a 70-degree head angle for confident descending, there are a number of touches to appeal to generally smaller female riders: narrower handlebars, a wider, more padded saddle and shorter crank length. There’s also a range of headset spacers to adjust the bar height up or down as required. However, our testers felt the stem could be shorter to reduce the reach a little more. The 24-speed Shimano Alivio drivetrain has proved very dependable and the range of gears is more than sufficient for the hills of the south-east and weekends in Wales. Likewise the Tektro hydraulic disc brakes proved very confidence-inspiring. The Kenda Karma tyres, with their low profile knobs, were also a great choice for mixed town and country riding, and particularly sticky in the wet. Bosses allow you to add bottle cages or pannier racks if needed. Overall the bike weighs less than 30lb, which is impressive for such a ‘cheap’ bike. Available in four sizes, XS-L , there should be one to suit most women up to 6ft tall. Jane K PROS Value, versatility, brakes CONS Be careful with sizing
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PLANTLOCK ® SIMPLE TO INSTALL, SECURE GREEN BIKE-PARKING, FOR HOME OR AT WORK. You can secure two bikes and grow herbs and §owers at the same time. Once Þlled with soil and planted, PlantLock weighs 75+ kgs and the super-toughened locking bars resist bicycle thieves. See the PlantLock Strength Test video and other secure bike-parking products at: www.frontyardcompany.co.uk Telephone: 020 7485 7618
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REVIEWS
Product More new kit for summer cycling rated by our experts Osprey Escapist 30L £75 5
BOARDMAN bottlecage £35
www.ospreypacks.com
www.boardmanbikes.com
New this summer, Osprey’s Escapist range is designed ed for multi-day ‘bike-packing’ adventures, though in practice we found und it equally capable for overnighters and commuting. Three sizes es are available (20L/25L/30L), all of which are offered in two back lengths, engths, S/M and M/L, the former aimed at women and smaller-framed fellas. las. As the largest pack in the series, the Escapist 30 maximises carrying capacity for long rides. We found it very useful on point-to-point oint-to-point trips like the Coast to Coast, where you need to pack multiple bike e spares and a change of clothes. For those of us who prefer a pack to panniers rs — and it makes even more sense off-road — it’s extremely comfortable ble thanks to a Bio-Stretch ventilated harness, mesh hipbelt and ventilated entilated backpanel. You get very little clamminess used with a proper jersey. For balmy two-dayers we’ve managed to fit in a 3-litre reservoir of water, jacket, midlayer, trousers and socks, first aid kit, tools, spares and even a sleeping g bag liner (for hostelling) — and that still allowed room m for a book or two. You can bundle up dirty kit into the bottom compartment or squeeze in an ultra-lightweight eight down sleeping bag. On work days the pack swallowed a 15-inch laptop and papers with ease. Two stabiliser straps and chest-strap keep loads from moving around. There’s an internal organiser pocket, a clever LidLock, LED light attachment and plenty of reflectivity for night-riding. Mesh side pockets (for snacks) and zipped hip pockets are accessible while riding. JK PROS: Perfect weekender pack, superb features CONS: Pricey — but much cheaper than pannier/rack combos
There’s not too much you can say about waterbottle holders — you simply want them to grip your drinks bottle when the going gets bumpy and not weigh too much. With a full carbon-fibre construction and supplied with two titanium bolts, this Boardman cage fulfils both ideals. It weighs just 28g and fits most regular bottle sizes, though it’s price only makes sense if you’re a serious sportive rider. JK PROS: Strong, lightweight CONS: Hefty pricetag
POLARIS Bojo £64.99
BBB Griffon £49.95
CROOZER KID for 2 £395
OPTILABS sunglasses £135
www.polaris-apparel.co.uk
www.windwave.co.uk
www.croozer.co.uk
www.optilabs.com
Long-time bikewear brand Polaris recently unveiled this urban cycling shoe, aimed squarely at commuters and tourers. It has a fairly robust synthetic suede upper, a PVC heel box for stability and moderately rugged outsole. We found it best suited mid-width feet; wider feet were ok in a summer Coolmax sock but a little snug with bulkier Sealskins. The sole is SPD-compatible, just unscrew the cover and add your cleats. Even with the reflective detailing at the heel, overall styling is sublte and will look like a cross-trainer to your pub mates. Sizes 40-48. Mark B PROS Well-made, comfy CONS No tongue bellows to stop water ingress
Watch the Tour de France very closely and you’ll have seen Confidis, Quick-Step and Vacansoleil riders wearing BBB helmets. They offer several models and this is its midpriced all-rounder. It has an in-moulded shell construction with 16 large vents to stop your head overheating, easy-to-adjust straps, washable anti-bacterial pads and reflective stickers at the rear. Helmet fit is hugely subjective: our smaller-headed tester found the fit fairly generous, but once adjusted it didn’t ride down. Six colours, sizes M (55-58cm) and L (58-62cm). Jane K PROS Look like a pro! CONS Sizing options
The Croozer’s quality engineering and finish is apparent. It has a roomy cabin with all-weather rollaway cover and ample boot space for ‘kiddie clobber’. It’s suitable for children from about 12 months up to 45kgs, with security from five-point harnesses into individual bucket seats, allowing each child their own space. (An additional baby harness allows children to ride from birth). It fits to any bike via an arm to the rear axle and this neither impedes the ride or steering. It converts into a stroller with a quick-fitting handle and front wheel, while the arm folds back under the buggy. MM PROS: Cheap Cheaper e er than most buggies, build quality CONS: Expensive if only used occasionally
Optilabs offers a wide range of road and off-road sunnies, but its forte is prescription models, which come with either standard polarised lenses or a mirror finish. Nonprescription lenses seem steep at £135, though single-vision (£160) or bifocals (£184) are much better value. We tested a pair with a traditionalsporty frame and standard lenses with orange tint on a long sportive ride in the Surrey Hills. The frames themselves are ultra-light and you can easily forget you’re wearing them. In changeable weather conditions they provided good protection from glare but weren’t too dark when it clouded over. Eyewear worth investigating. MC PROS: Light, choice of options CONS: Pricey for non-prescription
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REVIEWS
Books
More glossy hardbacks and info-packed paperbacks to digest
Cyclepedia £19.99 Michael Embacher When a leading art book publisher (Thames & Hudson) adds Cyclepedia to its list standing alongside Constable, Cezanne and Chagall you know that cycling fashion has arrived. Small-time bike collectors who have previously struggled to explain why they own five or ten bikes can simply point to
Embacher, who owns more than 200 — all neatly stored in Vienna. Cyclepedia is a sumptuously illustrated selection of a hundred of what Embacher describes as ‘iconic’ designs. The earliest dates back to 1922, so no high wheelers, and the most recent is a 2010 Pino recumbent. Folding bikes, beloved by architects, are
there in force with Brompton, Bickerton, Moulton and Strida all included. Racing milestones included Chris Boardman’s Lotus and Cinelli’s Laser. There are the white elephants like the plastic Itera which melted in the sun and curiosities like the Capo Elite for riding on ice. Recognising the compulsive needs of bike fanatics
Embacher includes the weight of every bike as well as its date of production and, for the truly obsessive, some of the frame numbers. Only five mountain bikes make ‘iconic’ status perhaps reflecting the author’s preferences. And absent from the book is London’s iconic Hetchins, which is represented by a Bob Jackson copy, and the Raleigh Chopper, echoed by an Italian version. Surely the time has come for a glossy book of the golden age of British cycle makers. Meanwhile, enjoy UK icons like the Baines ‘flying gate’ and the Mercian track iron in this luscious volume. TB
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Slaying the Badger £12.99
Cycling France £15.99
CycleBabble £7.99 edited by James
Lonely Planet
Sex, Lies and Handlebar Tape £8.99 Paul Howard
Richard Moore Most commentators regard the 1986 Tour de France as the greatest ever and here acclaimed author Moore speaks to its main protagonists: hard-nosed five times winner Bernard ‘The Badger’ Hinault and Greg LeMond. Both are rarely interviewed, yet their comments on the action 25 years ago are still vivid and telling. The previous year LeMond had helped a struggling Hinault to that fifth yellow jersey, for which the Frenchman promised to help ‘L’Américain’ win his first Tour at the next outing. But when push came to shove (and with the country baying for it), Hinault changed tack. What ensued was a race of simmering tension, bitter feuding, belligerance (Hinault), naivety (LeMond) and inspired bike racing. Well researched and brilliantly written. JK
This book was delivered to our office last year, only this summer did the opportunity arise to review it, and now we can safely say ‘it’s not bad’. That’s not to damn with faint praise, rather it’s just that this guide is most useful as an ideas bank because the chance of your desires, circumstances and abilities exactly matching those of the author are fairly low. Over a two-week period, we tasted rides in Calvodos, L’Isle de France, Bourgogne and Champagne, and enjoyed perusing the book’s maps, elevation charts, and restaurant and campsite suggestions. Often we found the advice useful, but just as often we went our own way. Cycling in France? Five stars. Cycling France? Three and three quarters. MC
The most annoying thing about this book is how brilliant Jacques Anquetil was, and from such a young age. Even at 17 he was thumping pro cyclists at the peak of their careers, and by the time he retired in the late 1960s, he was the first rider with five Tour de France victories. Anquetil is a fabulous subject for a biography and this 300pager by Paul Howard (famous for riding each Tour stage alone in 2003) recounts his life well. There are a few gaps (his time in occupied France) and some races are treated a bit perfunctorily, but overall it’s a sensitive rendition of the man’s life. Perhaps not up to the standard of the best cycling biogs on Coppi and Pantani, but a decent read. MC
If you’ve ever heard comedian Stewart Lee rail against the concept of a ‘toilet book’, you’ll understand why we refrain from using it. So we’ll call this best-of collection from the Guardian’s Bike Blog a ‘bus book’, a pocket-sized paperback with bite-sized chunks of engaging and thought-provoking journalism that you can dip in and out of at will. True, online journalism works best when it’s topical and immediate, which this book isn’t, and often the comments beneath the web page are the best reading (a couple are included for each article), but with writers like Matt Seaton, Zoe Williams and David Byrne, Cyclebabble could never be dull. We’re too modest to mention that we’re in there too. Oh, we just did. MC
Randerson & Peter Walker
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FEATURE COMMUNITY
Biking Boroughs shift up a gear Getting more people on bikes is the simple aim of the Biking Boroughs programme — here’s a lowdown on how it’s progressing 48 London Cyclist Aug/Sept 2011
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his summer, LCC’s community team and local groups are visiting over 80 workplaces, schools, families, groups and estates to help persuade them to choose cycling. The visits are funded by TfL as part of its Biking Boroughs programme, which aims to raise levels of cycling in outer boroughs where take-up is typically very low. To help increase cycling in these areas, the 13 Biking Boroughs are eligible for extra help and financial support. It’s estimated that 2.4 million daily journeys that are currently made by car in these areas could be replaced by cycling trips. A detailed study for each borough has been carried out, showing where an increase in cycling could best be achieved and we’re part of the effort to realise these ambitions. We’ll be active in Barking & Dagenham, Bexley, Brent, Bromley, Croydon, Haringey, Havering, Hounslow, Kingston, Merton and Redbridge. We’re using our experience of working with hundreds of local cycling projects in recent years — those funded by the TfL’s Community Cycling Fund for London (CCFL) — to implement four different event types to help Londoners make the switch to bikes. CYCLING TO WORK Many people would like to cycle to work but feel unsure about how to plan a route, how to ensure their bike is roadworthy and have lack of confidence in their cycling skills. In order to address these issues, we’re offering route-planning advice, a Dr Bike service to check over employees’ bikes, basic maintenance sessions at lunch-time, information about cycle training, and a lunch-time Q&A session covering cycling queries. The majority of the Cycling to Work events have already been delivered and were geared towards TfL’s Cycle Challenge in June and July. The remaining workplace events are scheduled around the London Skyrides. FAMILY CYCLING Cycling with children is an altogether different experience from cycling by yourself or in a group of adults. Often parents feel unsure about what type of childseat or trailer is appropriate and safe. On top of that, it can be difficult to get advice from an experienced cyclist who has cycled with children and is familiar with the different kit available. The family events are inspired by the Ealing Cycling Campaign’s ‘cycling
with children’ project which has been supported by the CCFL in previous years. Participants can get advice from a regular cyclist and parent and can borrow different types of kit to try for extended periods of time before deciding what to purchase. The family cycling events in the Biking Boroughs offer young parents a chance to try bicycles fitted with front and rear childseats, with single and double trailers, and a bike with a tag-along, also to speak to someone about cycling with children and to take away a price list and supplier details of the available products. WORKING WITH ESTATES Over the years, the CCFL has supported many cycling projects on estates. Often there is a lack of secure storage for bicycles and cycling in general is perceived as a less desirable mode of transport than cars which convey status. The events on estates aim to raise the profile of cycling, challenge these perception and introduce residents to cycling as a practical, healthy, quick and fun way of getting around. Residents can have a go at making their own refreshments on a pedalpowered smoothie-maker and everyone can help on the pedalpowered sound system. A Dr Bike service is available and, wherever possible, bike maintenance sessions and cycle training are offered for free. An LCC representative is available throughout to discuss route-planning, answer cycle-related questions, and provide contact details for free cycle training with the local council. The events also enable residents associations to start working with campaigners on improving bike parking and storage solutions.
START ‘EM YOUNG: getting kids cycling is a key aim of the BB
SCHOOLS Bikeability training teaches pupils cycling skills but frequently there is little support available to actually get more kids to cycle to school. As an incentive to encourage more pupils to arrive at school with their bikes, these events offer free bike health checks for all those who cycled into school in the morning. During school hours, smaller groups of pupils can attend Bling Your Bike sessions which cover an introduction to bike maintenance while letting the kids attach ‘spokey dokeys’ and reflective stickers to their bikes. At lunch-time, we show off the kids bikes, while the pedal-powered sound system and smoothie bike are always popular attractions. While raising the profile of cycling, this also ties in with school programmes around healthy eating and green living. Depending on the requirements of the individual schools, the events can include an element of outreach to the parents.
EXPERTS IN GETTING PEOPLE CYCLING ■ Growing grassroots cycling In addition to the 2011 Biking Borough events programme, we’re also adminstering the Community Cycling Fund for London on behalf of TfL. This year £125,000 in grant funding has been given to 28 grassroots cycling projects across Greater London. We’ve been running these projects successfully since 2007, with over £2 million given to local cycling groups. ■ Helping your organisation Through our corporate membership scheme, we’ve worked with organisations like Glaxo-Smithkline Beecham, the Metropolitan Police, and the BBC to encourage more employees to cycle to work, and providing them with our member benefits. We also organise Dr Bike and Lunch’n’Learn maintenance and self-help sessions for companies, along with workplace cycling audits, parking audits and information days. We regularly visit workplaces and use our experience to motivate and inform new and existing cyclists. We also organise guided group rides and one-to-one cycle training. ■ Specialist consultancy work Our knowledge of Greater London infrastructure and our network of local groups is invaluable in providing consultancy services to regional and borough decision-makers, from street audits and road design to local transport strategies. ■ Find out more about how we can help Contact Matt Mallinder: 020 7234 9310, services@lcc.org.uk; www.lcc.org.uk/services.
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Local Group News Find out more at www.lcc.org.uk/localgroups BARKING & DAGENHAM www.stibasa.org.uk Thank you to those who came to the 12th Bygone Barking By Bike local history ride on the longest day. If we hadn’t made a mess of the press release we may have had a few more, but seven of us had a good time. We tried to capture some AV of the talks and hopefully we'll be able to post some of it online shortly. ➤ Campaigning has warmed up a little, with the council trying to introduce a one-way restriction for all traffic in Victoria Road, off Ilford Lane, despite their long standing pro-cycling policy. A Havering campaigner has brought to my attention the unacceptably narrow advisory lanes in Rainham Road. The up. The group is you! point is that advisory lanes CONTACT: colin.newman@ should advise motorists how stibasa.org.uk; Skype much room to leave for cyclists cardinal_1962. when passing them, not show BLOG: stibasa.blogspot.com how little room the council thinks it should spare for cyclists out of the width available. BARNET ➤ As you read this, Skyride local www.barnetlcc.org is upon us in Barking — Sunday 21 August. To help out with LCC Back in June the group had a very publicity on the day, see the successful weekend away in blog/website. And there will be a Bedford; close enough to Barnet feeder ride from Barking to to cycle there and back, rather Tower Hill and back for the than take the train. The other Mayor’s Skyride on Sunday 4 cunning plan, as nearly 30 September. people were involved, was to get ➤ We don’t schedule everyorganise their chedule regular every one to orga meetings but try to own accom accomm-odation in the ttown, keep people EVENTS which informed whic made the through the th event far CREW NEEDEDnts of eve easier to blog and e We’re building up our list nts season. eve s 1’ arrange. website, a 201 for s eer unt vol us out at ➤ While and we can If you would like to help ps, selling n-u sig n itio not commevents, taking pet ing our memberships and publicis unicate organised o campaigns, please email through the by b us, June experience matthew@lcc.org.uk. No r Google group.. also saw the als nne ma y ndl needed, just a frie If that excludes local es loca Greenacre and a love of cycling! you, and/or iff you Rally. This now think we should annual event, to uld ev meet as a group encourage cycling, up in real cycli rather than cyberspace, do speak attracted a good turnout despite
TIME FOR TEA: Barnet LCC members on the way to Moggerhanger Hall
the rain and was even opened by the Mayor. ➤ Bike Week had us operating two Dr Bikes, one in High Barnet and the other at the East Finchley Festival. ➤ Also in Bike Week we had a ride to ‘Paradise Park’ near Broxbourne. This is actually a small zoo and part of the Europe-wide endangered species programme. ➤ Please note there will be no meeting in August as the hall is closed, but two in September on the 8 and 29. MEETINGS: last Thursday of the month, 8pm at Trinity Church Hall, Nether Street, N12. CONTACT: Jeremy Parker, 020 8440 9080
BEXLEY www.lcc.org.uk/localgroups We are now running the regular end of month Sunday rides and will again be doing some beginner rides in August. Does anyone know of an event coming up — fun day, fête etc where we could put on a mini-cycle obstacle course? Bikes
are provided, it’s always great fun for the children and an opportunity for them to find out how to get involved in cycling. We just need an event where we can do this. The size needed is about the area of a tennis court but does not have to be tarmac, grass is just as good; last time we did it in a vicarage garden. ➤ We will also be doing a feeder ride to the Barking Skyride on the 31 August — meet 10.45am at Abbey Wood station. This is sure to be a great day and we’re looking for a couple more volunteers to help lead the ride. MEETING: Tuesday 2 August, 7.30pm at Bexleyheath Sport Centre. Rides on last Sunday of the month, meet 9am at Bexleyheath Station. CONTACT: Frances Renton, f.renton@gold.ac.uk; Twitter @bexleycyclists E-GROUP: bexley-lcc@yahoo. groups.com
BRENT www.brentcyclists.org.uk Brent Cyclists held a successful stall at the revived Gladstonbury
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Festival in June, and by the time you read this we will have also been at the Queensbury Eco-Cultural Festival in July. The next festival we will be attending will be the very popular Queens Park Day on 11 September. ➤ The Annual Meeting in May saw Ben Tansley, who has been co-ordinator before, returned as co-ordinator again. Thanks to Ian Saville for ‘holding the fort’. We welcomed a new member to the committee, Charlie Fernandez, as Rides Co-ordinator too. Charlie has also been helping to respond to consultations. The only successful ride we have held since the last London Cyclist was an interesting excursion to Windsor in May, picking up Harrow Cyclists on the way. ➤ We have been consulted on changes to Station Road in Harlesden. These are a mixed bag, with some improvements to junctions, but a lot of parking bays incorporated into the new designs and potential pinch points for cyclists. We have suggested wasting less space on unnecessarily wide pavements and creating dedicated space for cycling. MEETINGS: Tuesday 2 August, 7pm at The Crown, Cricklewood Broadway, NW2; Wednesday 7 September, 7pm at Samaritans Centre, 1 Leopold Road NW10. CONTACT: Ben Tansley, 020 8830 6281; coordinator@ brentcyclists.org.uk.
BROMLEY www.bromleycyclists.org We have two new cycling businesses in the borough — Bromley Cycle Repair, run by Nev Medhurst, and Beckenham Bike Man, run by Chris Jones. ➤ SE20 Cycles and Penge CC, have been running some very successful Bike Polo sessions. For more information contact Jonathan Burns on 07794 07411. ➤ Coming up — first aid training day for our ride leaders. If anyone wishes to participate at a subsidised rate, please contact Spencer on 07958 693518 ➤ The new website is now live so have a good look — there are
also links to the new LCC site so there is a lot of surfing to do. ➤ We have now crunched all the data regarding which council ward you live in, the results are extremely interesting and will prove invaluable leading up to the 2012 elections. ➤ The British Cycling Go-Ride programme in Bromley is looking for volunteers for the new club at Crofton Junior School, If you have any spare time, contact Spencer (details below) ➤ Family rides will be taking place on the first Sunday of the month from Cator Park (see website). ➤ The first few weeks of our Biking Borough celebration rides have been extremely successful. In March we managed 98 riders, 148 in April, nearly 200 in May and June should be a bumper month, so come and join us on one of our very social rides. ➤ Congratulations to Bromley College for successfully completing their Bromley to Brighton ride in aid of ‘Help for Heroes’. ➤ Eve organised a fantastic weekend away camping in sunny Essex with a 38-mile ride on day one and a 35-miler on day two. For our next camping weekend (on 15-18 September) we’re off to Palace Farm, Doddington with rides on each of the three days. Contact Andrew Fergar on 07717 693701; andrew.fergar@cliffordchance. com. MEETINGS: second Wednesdays of the month (see website). CONTACT: Spencer Harradine, 07958 693518.
BERKS BOUND: Brent Cyclists rode to Windsor in May to visit verdant Langley Park
CAMDEN www.camdencyclists.org.uk We held our third Veloteer inspection rides in the South Hampstead area — see report at http://tinyurl.com/veloteer3. ➤ Camden Green Fair has now been relabelled as London Green Fair and took place over 4-5 June. Thank you to LCC staff and volunteers for supporting the bikefest — see report at http:// tinyurl.com/green-fair-11. ➤ Bike Week was very busy. The highlights were the Cyclists' Breakfast in Ossulston Street on Wednesday and the Ride All Round Camden on the last Sunday — see illustrated reports at http://tinyurl.com/ breakfast-2011 and http:// tinyurl.com/peripherique-2011. We also participated in the Fitzroy Square Cycling Festival and an event at Parliament Hill Farmers Market. ➤ We plan to lead feeder rides from Swiss Cottage to the Skyride on 4 September. MEETINGS: 18 August and 15 September, 7.30pm at Primrose Hill Community Association, 29 Hopkinsons Place, (off Fitzroy Rd) London NW1. CONTACT: Stefano Casalotti, 020 7435 0196; stefano@lamsamcasalotti.org.uk. Jean Dollimore 020 7485 5896; jean@dollimore.net.
EALING www.ealingcycling.org.uk The weather threatened, but ECC was not deterred.
Sometimes we roasted, sometimes we froze or got soaked, but we held two events and a Dr Bike, two information stalls and two social rides in the run-up to and during Bike Week. From Richmond Hill we enjoyed a glorious sunset over the Thames in the company of friends from Ealing, Hammersmith, Kingston and other boroughs, despite most riders being clad head-to-toe in waterproofs. ➤ In early June the Ealing Bike Hub celebrated its first birthday in style: a competition for the fastest rear wheel inner tube change. The winner managed under three minutes. If you can’t beat this come along to our maintenance classes and drop-in sessions. For further information, check out www. ealingbikehub.co.uk. Thanks to all the volunteer mechanics who have made the project possible. ➤ Summer 2011 has a full calendar of social rides to suit all abilities and ages, including the Hillingdon Skyride on 31 July and the Mayor’s Skyide on 4 September. We also have a couple of school fêtes and the Brentford Festival lined up for Dr Bikes and information stalls. If you would like to help please contact either of the Davids (details below). ➤ ECC’s deputy borough coordinator David Eales has won two grants for communitybased cycling projects. The first award is £12,000 from the Evening Standard to run workshops on bicycle maintenance for disadvantaged and disenfranchised members of the community. ➤ The second is £4,500 from the Community Cycling Fund for London to provide Dr Bikes and fun rides under the ‘Month of Sundays’ banner. David would be delighted to hear from anyone who would like to help out with these projects. MEETINGS: first Wednesday of the month, venue details on website. Social ride on first Sunday of the month, meet 10am at Ealing Town Hall. CONTACT: David Lomas, info@ ealingcycling.org.uk; or David Eales, 07880 797437.
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QUICK CHANGE: winner Jonathan at Bike Hub comp
ENFIELD www.lcc.org.uk/localgroups For many years we have held our meetings jointly with the Edmonton Cycle Club on the first Thursday of the month. Starting from September this format will change slightly — at the beginning of each monthly ‘social’ there will still be a short ‘campaigning briefing’, however any detailed discussion of campaigning issues will take place at separate Enfield LCC meetings. We plan to hold three or four of these per year and perhaps invite guest speakers to some of them. If you have any topics you'd like to see covered at these meetings, then please use the thread on the LCC forum. ➤ The first of these meetings will be our Annual Meeting and election of committee members on Thursday 8 September — please note this is the second Thursday of the month, not the first. If you're interested in standing for the committee, email r.reeve@blueyonder.co.uk. ➤ Rides — visit www. edmontoncyclingclub.fsnet. co.uk for details MEETINGS: Annual Meeting on Thursday 8 September, 8pm at The Wheatsheaf pub, 185 Baker Street, Enfield, EN1. Socials on first Thursday of each month —Thursday 1 September, 8pm at Winchmore Hill Cricket Club, Fords Grove, N21; Thursday 6 October, 8pm at The Wheatsheaf pub, 185 Baker Street, Enfield, EN1. CONTACT: Richard Reeve, 07957 591387; r.reeve@blueyonder.co.uk.
HACKNEY www.hackney-cyclists.org.uk Every three months the Hackney Lorry Safety Working Group brings the borough's road
safety officers, traffic police, fleet manager, highways contractor, councillors and ourselves together to focus on the particular danger presented to vulnerable road users by heavy lorries. Staff from Volker Highways, the council's contractor, recently offered themselves as guinea pigs for a new practical cycling course for drivers, devised by Lucy Nadris, Hackney's cycle training manager. Drivers enjoyed the course, apparently, and some have taken up cycling as a result, but most importantly they are now prepared to give cyclists more time and space. Norman Harding, Hackney's fleet manager, is also keen to let his staff do the training. The most cost-effective way to do this would be to do this as part of compulsory periodic training for drivers' Certificate of Professional Competence (CPC). Negotiations are going on with JAUPT, the organisation which approves driver CPC training, to have Hackney's practical cycle training course accepted. We hope that happens soon. ➤ We are all aware that it's not the council's drivers who generally present the highest risk to people walking and cycling, but Hackney's road safety officers feel that it will be difficult to effect change in the wider haulage industry until the public sector is seen to be eating its own dogfood. There are also moves to use town planning powers to encourage, and if possible require, developers to use contractors whose drivers have had cycle awareness training. ➤ Pupils from seven primary schools joined a huge ride across the borough from Clissold Park to the Greenway in June. It was a wonderful day, thoroughly enjoyed by the young riders. But on reaching Tower Hamlets the ride had to stay on the street, rather than going through Victoria Park as originally hoped. What is up with Tower Hamlets Parks Department's attitude to cycling? We feel for our colleagues in the Wheelers... MEETINGS: first Wednesday of the month, 7.30pm at Marcon
Court Estate Community Hall, near corner of Amhurst Road and Marcon Place, E8. CONTACT: Trevor Parsons, 020 7729 2273; info@hackneycyclists.org.uk. MAILING LIST: send blank email to hackney-lcc-subscribe@ yahoogroups.com.
agreed to spend £15,000 of a TfL grant on a new shared bike lane opposite Harrow bus station following a year-long campaign. The group identified the need a year ago when the plan to make Station Road two-way for bikes left a short stretch by the bus station without ‘permeability’. Cyclists from the south, west and north had the choice of illegal pavement cycling or a HARINGEY very long route round, one that www.lcc.org.uk/localgroups the council now agrees is unattractive. Our campaign Haringey has been awarded a included creating our own bike budget of £770,500 from TfL to lane last autumn using a roll of spend over three years with the green paper and cut-out bike aim of becoming a ‘Biking stencils. We ensured there was Borough’. Initiatives will include coverage in the Harrow creating a cycling hub in Wood Observer for this action. But Green, cycle training in primary there was still opposition from schools, cycling promotion, a some Council quarters; they dedicated cycling website, wanted nothing done because cycling community projects, the bus station may be volunteer rangers and redesigned at some future permeability improvements. stage. The new lane will cost Haringey Cycling Campaign is £15,000 from TfL money in the involved in this project, and we Allocation of Local Transport look forward to seeing a change fund schemes. There will also in culture amongst councillors be a further £ £15,000 on and officers with ith regards bike rack racks — town to promoting cycling centre racks are within Haringey. ey. LCC GIFT approaching ➤ Catherine app MEMBERSHIP full Cavanagh will fu capacity. LCC Gift Membership is available ➤ We have lead a ride on all year round and makes an ideal organised a Sunday 14 o present. Not only will your friends and August to number of n family benefit from discounts, third Epping rides (see r party insurance and our magazin e, you’ll be supporting LCC too. And, Forest and website) w while stocks last, Gift Memberships back. It will and a taken come with a free Trek cycle be roughly 15 space at local sp computer worth £25! miles on paths, shows. s, sho towpaths and ➤ We have also minor roads, and been approached by nd will app include an introduction the local police to help roduction to Epping Forest and a visit to the young people 'rescue' bikes in Queen Elizabeth Hunting Lodge. partnership with a local youth Recommended for mountain charity. We have applied for a bikes or hybrids rather than road grant which will be used for bikes. Meet at the junction of Mill tools and replacement parts and Mead Road and Ferry Lane at hope that six bikes will be 10am. Return to Markfield Park restored as a first move. café by 2pm. Contact Catherine MEETINGS: see website. for details — catherine.cavanagh@ CONTACT: Tony Levene, 07828 cityoflondon.gov.uk. 580931. MEETINGS: see website. CONTACT: via website.
ISLINGTON
www.icag.org.uk
HARROW www.harrowcyclists.org.uk Harrow Cyclists are celebrating a great success — the council has
We had another great Bike Week during which we did several new events, along with our established favourites
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such as our Cyclists’ Breakfast at which we recruited 15 new LCC members. We started the week by dodging the showers at the Wray Crescent Festival and then at the Farmers' Market in Chapel Market. ➤ For our campaign to get Bunhill Row two-way for cyclists we collected 379 signatures at our breakfast and evening events and Cllr Claudia Webbe agreed to present it at a full council meeting on 30 June. Thanks to everyone who worked so hard at our events and all who attended. ➤ Cycle Superhighway 12 comes through Islington along Holloway Road and Upper Street and work is due to start in autumn 2012. TfL tells us that the emergency services are against 20mph on this section (why?) but it will be in place in Muswell Hill. There is to be the usual blue paint and a new feature, trixie mirrors, installed on traffic signals to assist HGV drivers to see down the side of their vehicles. If anyone would like to see the draft plans, contact Keith Macfarlane on keith@lcc.org.uk ➤ In September we'll have stalls at the Angel Canal and Gillespie Park Festivals (see website). MEETINGS: second Wednesday of the month (10 August, 14 September), 7.30pm at Islington Town Hall, Upper Street, N1. CONTACT: Alison Dines, 020 7226 7012; alisondines@clara. co.uk; Twitter @IslingtonCycle.
KENSINGTON & CHELSEA www.kc-cyclists.org.uk Albert Bridge has come to prominence again as preparations are underway to finish the existing structural works and install a new road layout. We are currently working with residents groups and the council to ensure a better highway design for cyclists, but we need voices of support. Do you use or live near the bridge? If so, please do get in touch, or come along to our meeting. NB — we alternate our meetings with the Westminster LCC group,
MEETINGS: 16 August & 20 September, 7.30pm, upstairs at the Priory Arms pub, 83 Lansdowne Way, SW8. CONTACT: Philip Loy, 020 8677 8624; lambeth_cyclists@hotmail. com; Twitter @LambethCylists; Facebook — lambethcyclists. E-GROUP: http://groups.yahoo. com/group/Lambeth_Cyclists/
LEWISHAM www.lewishamcyclists.co.uk
BIKE WEEK IN LAMBETH: also included the 'Incredible Edible Lambeth' ride to places growing food in unusual places
so our meetings are every other month — check our website for news and upcoming rides. MEETING: Monday 5 September, 6.30pm, venue tbc on website CONTACT Philip Loy, 07960 026450; philip_loy@yahoo.co.uk. E-GROUP: http://groups.yahoo. com/group/kccyclists/
KINGSTON www.kingstoncyclists.org.uk There’s been further liaison with the council — commenting on what’s in its programme of works for the coming years and getting to know the people responsible for promoting cycling as an activity/sport. ➤ We met officers at Bentall’s back door to consider their proposals to continue the off-road track towards the railway station. ➤ Work is progressing on a scheme to link the secure parking at Kingston station to the cycle network. Meanwhile, work should’ve started by now at Norbiton station to provide the secure compound there that we asked for. ➤ The council is keen to plan and co-ordinate activities to support the Olympic cycling events that are coming to Kingston. There’s talk of an event on the Fairfield. This summer we’ve been asked to help out promoting cycling and providing Dr Bike sessions. We’ve not been able to do some of these because we didn’t have
sufficient volunteers at the right times. If you would like to help out in future please get in touch. ➤ It’s a sobering thought that the value of bikes stolen in Kingston is still greater than the money being spent under the trumpeted Biking Borough name — about £150k per year — to encourage people to cycle. MEETINGS: 9 August and 13 September, 8.30pm at the Waggon & Horses pub Surbiton Hill Road. CONTACT: Jon Fray, 020 8549 1172.
LAMBETH www.lambethcyclists.org.uk In the past month or so the LCC has set up a new website with lots of new features. As a result, we ourselves have set up a new website, which you can find at the above web address. Not only this, but we have also set up a Twitter and Facebook account. Please do check these out and 'follow' our Twitter profile and 'like' our Facebook page. Obviously we will be using these as a wider range of channels of communication and hopefully we can interact with members far more than previously. We will be using these for meetings, rides and other events, and updating people on current campaigns far more quickly. All are welcome to our meetings and rides; we're a very friendly group so come along.
Bike Week 2011 started with the ever popular Brockley Fayre; we ran a Dr Bike (busy all day) and helped towards doubling the size of the LCC by signing up new members. Highlight of the week’s led rides was the Lewisham Peaks ride — over 20 taking part to seek out the high points in the borough — including the aptly-named Forest Hill with stunning views over London, especially from the grade II listed folly opened for this event. ➤ Communications with Lewisham Council seem to have come to an abrupt stop — we have had to ask public questions to the full council just to get some answers, even the cabinet member for transport has failed to even acknowledge letters sent to him. All the good work in previous years could well go to waste, so we must keep the pressure on. ➤ Great to see some new faces at our monthly meetings and hopefully some more will join in when we help out with the Healthy Rides. Please try to drop in even if it's to just chat about cycling and cycling conditions – individuals contacting their local councillors is always a help. MEETINGS: every third Wednesday, 6.30pm at the Dog & Bell pub in Deptford. CONTACT: Roger Stocker, 07903 740401; rgstocker@gmail.com; Facebook — lewishamcyclists.
REDBRIDGE www.redbridgelcc.org.uk Following our great Bike Week meeting starring Ashok Sinha (LCC’s Chief Executive), Redbridge LCC will be setting up
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an E-group to facilitate contact. If you want to be on the list, contact David Giddings. ➤ We will be running a feeder ride on Sunday 21 August to the Barking and Dagenham Skyride (marshals needed) and holding bi-monthly group meetings at Wanstead House from September. ➤ Next Cycle Workshop course starts Wednesday 21 September — see website for booking details. ➤ A successful Redbridge Biking Borough bid will fund cycle promotion measures over the next three years in the Wanstead and Snaresbrook Hub , such as a Bike-It Officer and cycle clubs in schools. MEETINGS: bi-monthly at Wanstead House, 21 The Green, Wanstead, E11. CONTACT: David Giddings, DavidGiddings@live.co.uk. Or Gill James, 020 8989 4898, gilljames@btinternet.com.
RICHMOND www.richmondlcc.co.uk The long standing discussion with TfL over the A316 London Road roundabout continues. Some GLA members (Jenny Jones and Caroline Pidgeon) are involved to push TfL to take pedestrian and cyclist safety into consideration on the difficult junction crossings, particularly north and south. We hope to see a TfL representative at a future liaison group meeting. ➤ Now Cllr Head has been made Mayor, there have been changes to the way the council deals with traffic schemes and this has had an effect on the liaison group. We are not sure of its future and await news from council officers. However, along with the local CTC, we are present on an officer-only traffic scheme group which allows us to comment on upcoming schemes. ➤ The Strictly Cycling bikefest went well with little rain but lots of wind. We’ll be helping the organisers next year to bring in more general cycling and we hope it’ll be a huge event. ➤ It is with heavy heart that we have to report the death of Dave Peck, chair of Twickenham Cycling Club. Dave came to
several of our meetings and gave a measured and different perspective which helped us gain a greater understanding of the different types of cyclists in the borough. Some of us had a personal relationship with Dave and I can say that he was a warm hearted, generous individual whose passion for cycling, cycle racing and Twickenham Cycling Club was immense. We send our condolences to his family. MEETINGS: second Monday of the month, 8pm at The Ship Inn, Richmond. CONTACT: Jonathan Rowland, 07976 294626; info@ richmondlcc.co.uk; Twitter @RichmondCycling.
SOUTHWARK www.southwarkcyclists.org.uk
wonder that Southwark Cyclists organised more rides than any other borough in recent years. It will probably be years before the true scope of what he achieved can be fully comprehended. We owe him a great debt and we miss him. ➤ Meanwhile, in the spirit of Barry's no-nonsense approach, we have regrouped and busily got our act together to continue with a full schedule of rides this summer, including our Healthy Rides, Quiet in the Park, Murals Ride and the massively popular Dunwich Dynamo. We will also be leading feeder rides to Skyride and have a stall at Bermondsey Street Festival in September. ➤ Aside from the rides, we are continuing to act decisively on planning applications, to forge better relationships with key people in City Hall and Southwark Council and we plan to increasingly converge with other local groups so as to strengthen our voice when we campaign. MEETINGS: second Wednesday of every month, 7pm at Better Bankside, The Community Space, Bankside 3, Great Guildford Street/Zoar Street corner, SE1. CONTACT: Alex Crawford (acting coordinator), 0777 599 0087; alex@southwarkcyclists.org.uk; Twitter @southwarkcycle; also on Facebook.
It's a sad time for Southwark Cyclists and indeed the London cycling community at large, as we learned of the tragic news that Barry Mason, our group coordinator, who died on 2 June while on holiday in Spain with his partner. The huge outpouring of grief, shock and disbelief expressed since then by well-wishers far and wide is indicative of just how many people's lives he touched and often helped, both directly and indirectly, during his life. Barry had so many interests, from architecture to folklore, and SUTTON so many gifts of character, all of www.cyclismsutton.org.uk which he drew upon to the benefit of our group. He seemed A ramp will replace the steps from to know everyone, the A217 to Glenthorme yone, he Glen fought and won field, but the on so t A217 many battles both has overhead ov BIKE SHOP locally and wires wire and S further afield,, contractors co DISCOUNTnin g all all with his will w not risk New bike shops are ope ering LCC unique a large the time and the list off grows every membership discounts blend of crane, so c c. w.lc ww at p ma month. Check out the humility, they’re t nd fi to s unt org.uk/offers-and-disco enthusiasm, cutting the c money. out where you can save , list generosity, ramp into ra the on not If your shop's k engagement, smaller sm email matthew@lcc.org.u wit, pieces piec and will and we'll get in touch. determination, use a dumper n, d warmth and a huge truck to bring bri parts amount of energy tto see for end and f the th Forest Road F tR things through. Above all this, he across the field to the steps. This loved riding his bicycle and is part of the Sutton/Wimbledon getting other people on bikes. No Sustrans Green Route.
➤ Lynn has £50k for a cycle route from Stafford Road entrance to Mellows Park, which goes west then south to exit by Beddington Grove and Sandy Lane South junction. ➤ We can report a campaign victory as parking bays on Boundary Road are to be removed opening up the cycle lane. Before cyclists had to filter into the flow of traffic just after the brow of the bridge where visibility is poor and vehicle speeds often too high. ➤ If you want cycle parking in the borough, let us know where. ➤ Confirm your place on the Sutton Active Summer Cycle Rally to Sutton Arena, by emailing advice@ smartertravelsutton.org or calling 020 8770 4567. MEETINGS: second Tuesday of each month (9 August & 13 Sept), 8.30pm at The Robin Hood pub, at the junction of West Street and Robin Hood Lane, Sutton. CONTACT: Chris Parry, 020 8647 3584; cyclism@blueyonder.co.uk.
TOWER HAMLETS www.towerhamletswheelers.org.uk On 23 June Tower Hamlets Wheelers supported the Queen Mary Cyclists at Queen Mary University of London for a Bike Breakfast and Dr Bike session. From 8-10am, 50 cyclists attended, with a fair number of them getting basic maintenance from Dr Bike. The Met was also on hand to do cycle security tagging; at the end of the session, 30 bicycles were tagged. The event was well received and QM Cyclists plans to hold another Bike Breakfast in late summer. ➤ We're very pleased that Canary Wharf Management Group has re-opened the path around Canary Riverside. This allows pedestrians and cyclists to avoid the dangerous junction at Westferry Circus and is a huge improvement. Thanks to CWMG, who have produced a high quality path and to JP Morgan who provided half the funding, but we need to be vigilant as there is a possibility that the path will close again in a few months when work re-starts on
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the adjacent site. We think it should be possible to keep the path open whilst work goes on and will need to lobby hard for this when the time comes. ➤ As part of increasing cycling permeability in the borough we are identifying one-way streets which would be suitable for allowing two-way cycling. The Cycling Rangers project is tasked with auditing and passing these to the council. If you have any suggestions, visit the website and get involved. ➤ Our rides programme is going well, with attendances up on last year. The highlight this spring was our weekend trip to Eastbourne, when 30 riders tackled a variety of cycling and eating challenges. We have a good range of rides coming up, from leisurely afterworkers to longer distance rides. ➤ The monthly workshop has moved to the third Saturday of the month. The location is still at Limehouse Town Hall from 11am to 3pm. MEETINGS: second Wednesdays of the month (see website). CONTACT: robl@towerhamlets wheelers.org.uk
week. There’s only one way to encompass the wealth of artistic talent Walthamstow has to offer: by bike. MEETINGS: every second Wednesday of the month, 8pm at Hornbeam Centre, 458 Hoe Street, Walthamstow, E17. Workshop — Low Hall depot, South Access Road, E17 — sale on first Saturday of the month; recycling on Fridays from 9am-4pm; public drop-in on the second, thrird and WALTHAM FOREST fourth Saturdays of the month, from 11am-3pm (£3 donation for www.wfcycling.org.uk tools and support). CONTACT: Gerhard After a busy Bike Week G Weiss, 07894 and July events ts we 07 035571; look forward to 03557 gerhard@ TRY A RIDE wfcycling.org. the Barking & wfc WITH LCC uk; Dagenham uk Twitter @ Each week LCC local groups run rides wfcycling; Skyride on w for all ages and abilities, including Facebook 21 August. F families. You can search the listings at — WalthamJoin us www.lcc.org.uk/events. The rides are Forestopen to non-members too, so feel there, it’s F free to take your friends along — not only Cyclingcloser than C will you have a great time, but Campaign. you think. C you'll also introduce potential BLOG: www. For the BL members to LCC. walthamforest Central London n walt cyclingcampaign. Skyride (4 cycling blogspot.com. September) we will blogspot.c organise THREE EE guided id d rides this year. Experienced ride leaders will take you to the WANDSWORTH event from Chingford, www.wandsworthcyclists.org.uk Walthamstow or Leytonstone. ➤ Yet again we are supporting With summer finally arrived, the brilliant E17 Art Trail (2-11 we’re all looking forward to September) by organising guided holding our meetings in local tours around selected venues on pubs — for some reason these are Saturday 3 September and every always particularly well weekday evening the following attended, so do contact us for
RIDING INTO THE SUNSET: west London LCC groups headed to Richmond Hill on the longest day
details of time and place, and come along and meet us. ➤ Although summer meetings tend to be less formal than usual, we are likely to be discussing tactics for getting 20mph limits on residential streets — both locally and across the now infamous Blackfriars Bridge (see main feature in this issue). We are working very hard on this, but we need all the help we can get — especially with getting petition forms filled in. ➤ We might also discuss the Transition Town Tooting idea for a ‘Tour de Tooting’ in connection with the Olympic Torch passing through the borough next year. ➤ And there will certainly be some enthusiasts telling us how to improve our communications in general, online and on social networks. The technical types among us are quite excited about this, so if it’s your specialism or interest, do come along and help make sure we keep up with modern technology. MEETINGS: second Tuesdays of the month, 7pm at Friends Meeting House, 59 Wandsworth High Street (opposite Town Hall). CONTACT: Simon Merrett, 0208 789 6639.
WESTMINSTER
removed from Westminster's canalside cycle routes. The barriers along the high-level path past the Lisson Green Estate have already been removed — this path now connects with a cycle crossing of Lisson Grove. ➤ Further west, Westminster is working towards allowing eastbound cycling along Delamere Terrace. ➤ The worlds of cycling and gardens again came together on Open Garden Squares Weekend, when we led two tours to some of the participating gardens. For the riders, this was an opportunity to discover some good cycle routes in London as well as some little-known gardens. MEETING: Thursday 11 August, 7pm, near the bandstand, Serpentine Road, Hyde Park. CONTACT: Colin Wing, 020 7828 1500; cyclist@westminster cyclists.org.uk.
OTHER CONTACTS CITY CYCLISTS www.citycyclists.org.uk GREENWICH www.greenwichcyclists.org.uk
COPY DEADLINE Oct/Nov 2011 issue: Friday 26 August
www.westminstercyclists.org.uk After many years of campaigning, a couple of obstacles are being
Send your copy and photos to: editorlondoncyclist@yahoo.com
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EVENTS
Rides & Events For more details on cycle rides and events: www.lcc.org.uk/rides Ian Jones
Sunday 7 August ➤ Mole Gap to Norbury Park: 10.15am, Twickenham Riverside. Contact: Paul Luton, rides@ richmondlcc.co.uk. Sunday 14 August ➤ Bread Pudding Ride: 10.30am, Kingston Market Place. 25-30 miles. Contact: John Dunn, 07523 972231; johnedunn@blueyonder.co.uk. Tuesday 16 August ➤ Visit of Jenny Jones: 10.30am, outside Stratford station. Chance for local members to meet Green mayoral candidate. Contact: Collette Bird, collette.bird@london.gov.uk. Or Arnold Ridout, ridoutsat13@ gmail.com. Wednesday 17 August ➤ Midweek Ride: 7.30pm, Kingston Market Place. Please bring lights. Contact: John Dunn, 07523 972231; johnedunn@blueyonder. co.uk. Saturday 20 August ➤ Pick Your Own Apples: 10.10am, Bushy Park Fountain Car Park. Ride via Sandown Park to Garsons Farm for Pick Your Own fun, 12 miles but fairly flat. Contact: Paul Luton, rides@richmondlcc. co.uk. Sunday 21 August ➤ Little Green Ride: 9.45am, Finsbury Park station. Train from Finsbury Park into Hertfordshire, 30 miles with tea stop — see page 30 of this issue. Contact: Stephen Taylor, 07977 235735; sltaylor001@ yahoo.co.uk. Sunday 21 August ➤ Ride to Barking & Dagenham Skyride from Gidea Park: 10am, Gidea Park station. Ride to Skyride (about 6 miles), ride the Skyride loop (about 6.5 miles) and return. Contact: Gerhard Weiss, gerhard@ lcc.org.uk. Sunday 21 August ➤ Ride to Barking & Dagenham Skyride from Greenwich: 10am, Cutty Sark Gardens. Ride to Skyride (about 8 miles), ride the Skyride loop (about 6.5 miles) and return. Contact: Gerhard Weiss, gerhard@ lcc.org.uk. Sunday 21 August ➤ Ride to Barking & Dagenham Skyride from Wanstead: 10am,
Wanstead tube station. Ride to Skyride (about 5 miles), ride the Skyride loop (about 6.5 miles) and return. Contact: Gerhard Weiss, gerhard@lcc.org.uk. Sunday 21 August ➤ Ride to Barking & Dagenham Skyride from Stratford: 10am, Stratford station. Ride to Skyride (about 5 miles), ride the Skyride loop (about 6.5 miles) and return. Contact: Gerhard Weiss, gerhard@ lcc.org.uk. Sunday 21 August ➤ Ride to Barking & Dagenham Skyride from Bexley: 10.45am, Abbey Wood station, SE2. Ride to Skyride (about 7.5 miles), ride the Skyride loop (about 6.5 miles) and return. Contact: Gerhard Weiss, gerhard@lcc.org.uk. Thursday 24 August ➤ LCC retention evening: 6pm, LCC offices — see website for details. Sunday 28 August ➤ Bread Pudding Ride: 10.30am, Kingston Market Place. 25-30 miles. Contact: John Dunn, 07523 972231; johnedunn@blueyonder.co.uk.
Wednesday 7 September ➤ Midweek Ride: 7.30pm, Kingston Market Place. Please bring lights. Contact: John Dunn, 07523 972231; johnedunn@blueyonder. co.uk. Sunday 11 September ➤ Bread Pudding Ride: 10.15am, Waterloo Station under clock. Train-assisted ride towards the Olympic site, with pub lunch and tea stop; bring lights. Contact: John Dunn, 07523 972231; johnedunn@ blueyonder.co.uk.
Sunday 18 September ➤ Little Green Ride: 9.45am, Finsbury Park station. Train from Finsbury Park into Hertfordshire, 30 miles with tea stop. Contact: Stephen Taylor, 07977 235735; sltaylor001@yahoo.co.uk. Sunday 18 September ➤ Open House Ride — Westminster & Kensington: 10am, Albert Memorial, Kensington Gardens. Contact: Colin Wing, 020 7828 1500; cyclist@ westminstercyclists.org.uk
Thursday 15 September ➤ An Evening with Dervla Murphy: 6pm, The Gallery, Cowcross Street, EC1. Join Sustrans patron to hear about her life of global cycling and stories from her 20-plus books. Tickets £10 from www.sustrans.co.uk or 0845 113 0065, all proceeds to Sustrans.
Thursday 22 September ➤ LCC retention evening: 6pm, LCC offices — see website for details.
Saturday 17 September ➤ Open House Ride: 10am — details nearer the time at www. richmondlcc.co.uk. Contact: Paul Luton, rides@richmondlcc.co.uk.
Sunday 25 September ➤ Bread Pudding Afternoon Ride: 2pm, Kingston Market Place. Easy-paced 15-miler. Contact: John Dunn, 07523 972231; johnedunn@ blueyonder.co.uk.
Sunday 25 September ➤ Bread Pudding Morning Ride: 10.30am, Kingston Market Place. Easy-paced 15-miler. Contact: John Dunn, 07523 972231; johnedunn@ blueyonder.co.uk.
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PEOPLE
Joff Summerfield After two failed attempts, Londoner Joff Summerfield successfully cycled around the world on a fixed-wheel penny farthing Steve Rutherford
“
On my first attempt I made it to Folkestone before I developed pain in my knees and had to give up and come home. Prior to setting off I had moved out of my flat and had a huge leaving party and there I was back in London the day after I started. Everyone was great about it but it was such a disappointment for me as I only had one day on the road. I got as far as Budapest on my second trip but had to stop there after developing another, unrelated knee problem. At this point I could have given up but the three months on the road made me even more certain that I wanted to complete my trip as planned. The third time I was determined to make sure my knees were ok: I bought
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special knee pills from America and was videoed and measured on the bike to fine-tune my riding position. In reality there was very limited scope for adjustments to the penny but I did what I could. For example, I made two triangular wedges for the top of the pedals so that my legs weren’t being forced in an unnatural position by the flat pedals. An adjustment like this may only be slight but it makes a real difference when you are cycling all day long. With the penny you are constantly in people’s company — especially the further afield you get. Every time I sat down someone would ask ‘What are you doing?’ and I would explain my story with the help of an A4 map of the world that I carried with me.
Visit Joff’s website at www.penny farthingworld tour.com
In the more remote places, I would go days without speaking any English and, as a result, became very good at certain charades, for example for getting food and water. In fact, the most difficult part of the whole trip was cycling along the Himalayas between Cheng Du in China to Lhasa, Tibet. Not only was the terrain very challenging but I didn’t speak English to anyone for six weeks. When I got to Lhasa and I knew there were going to be Westerners there I thought: ‘God I just need to someone to talk to’. Why didn’t I give up after the first two attempts? You just can’t give up. To my mind, each setback is just a test of how much you really want to follow your dream.
”
18/07/2011 22:47
THANK YOU LONDON CYCLISTS
2000 signed our Blackfriars 20mph petition & submitted photos
STAY IN TOUCH WITH OUR CAMPAIGNS BY REGISTERING FOR OUR E-NEWSLETTER AT WWW.LCC.ORG.UK OR FOLLOWING US ON TWITTER @LONDON_CYCLING IBC.indd 59
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