London Cyclist Autumn 2022 by London Cycling Campaign

CYCLINGFAMILY CLIMATE SAFE STREETS UPDATE FUTURE OF LONDON WHY I STARTED CYCLING? DOM WHITING INTERVIEW CENTRAL ENGLAND TOURING MAGAZINE OF AUTUMN2022

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PLANES, CRANES & TUNNELS STATIONTW’M STATIONTW’MPARKOSTERLEY 7.5km 24 3 HOUNSLOWHEATH 21kmSTADIUMRUGBY 2.5km CRANFORDPARK 15km I68PRODUCTS59RIDEBIKES66 FEATURE > 20 Nick challengesadaptcityatLondonCentrefromBowestheforlookshowthemusttonew CENTRAL ENGLAND TOURING, 46 FAMILY CYCLING, 40

There is now a costly level of climate change baked in, to which we will have to adapt ASHOK SINHA, OPINION, PAGE 9 This project is throwing good money after bad... build more roads and you get more traffic CARLTON REID, OPINION, PAGE 12 LONDON CYCLIST Autumn 2022 3 AUTUMN 2022 News | Features | London | Travel | Ride Guide

66 TERN QUICK HAUL D8 ■ FROM £2,900 ■ ternbicycles.com/uk ERN CREATED the compact e-cargobike category with its pioneering GSD model. It ticked all the boxes for a family vehicle: passenger carrying (two children or one adult), huge load capacity, step-through frame and easy storage, being no longer than a regular bike. e only catch was that it was expensive (about £5k). A few years on and the GSD now faces stiff competition from imitators who have followed the template, if not the quality, but undercut Tern by some £2k. Its answer is the Quick Haul — same format, similar finish, but without the frills, to squeeze in below £3k. We certainly found the Quick Haul the equal of the GSD in terms of handling, convenience (it stores vertically, something most rivals have yet to copy) and reliability. power assist of the Bosch Active Line motor is reassuringly predictable with no pulsing or surges as you engage modes, the charger is portable and the riding position, though more forward than the GSD, is spot-on for commute or leisure ride. At 23kg it is also about 7kg lighter than the GSD, which is helpful on steps. What you lose compared to the GSD is official rear carrying capacity (down from 100kg to 50kg), though we did try it with a 70kg adult passenger and handling was fine and nothing bent or squeaked. ere’s no suspension, smaller motor, and a shorter range. Our supplier (Fully Charged) estimates range of 32 to 65 miles depending on the power setting T and this corresponded to our own experience — we managed 15 miles on one indicator square (out of five) riding solo on the flat in the second lowest (Tour) setting, and five miles with a passenger on hills in the third (Sport) setting. We loved the comfy Captain’s Chair (an extra £200) and Tern’s cavernous 74-litre (but not quickrelease) panniers, which we initally found awkward for storage until we discovered they fold flat, another neat innovation. Passengers used the panniers as footrests because, unlike the GSD, there are no integral footrests, though you can buy horse-style stirrups. We searched for PIN code on the display to deter access to children or thieves but, currently, there isn’t one. mix local lucky spot a flash of iridescent blue as kingfisher darts by unperturbed by a Boeing 737 flying few feet above — one of the many surprises you’ll hopefully discover on this bike tour of west London. The splendid Osterley House, rugby history, unexpected industrial heritage, open heathlands, stretches of boardwalk, and even a mysterious tunnel await. The River Crane is one of London’s least known rivers, threading its way for some eight miles unobtrusively through dense suburbia to join the Thames at Isleworth. The low, marshy floodplains, being unsuitable to build on, remain a more or less continuous finger of green weaving a way through the concrete sprawl. This is an easy ride on flat, wellmaintained gravel tracks, connected by quiet roads and cycle paths; in fact, at times, it’s difficult to believe that you’re only a stone’s throw from the UK’s busiest airport. In association with We have partnered with mapping specialist Komoot to bring you free downloadable route maps. Simply scan the QR code here to access the relevant page on your smartphone or tablet.

BogdanowiczTomReview: Is this new Tern as capable as its pricier stablemates? We loaded it up to see... E-BIKESNEW HOT TECH BIKES LONDON CYCLIST Summer 2020 69LONDON CYCLIST Autumn #7 #8 #2 #3#1 #4 #6 #5 RIDE GUIDE contents FEATURE > 14 thesuccessbuildandcampaigningourAssessing2022CSShowweonthatinfuture INTERVIEW > 26 DJ and social media star Dom Whiting on his love of mixing music and bikes FEATURE > 32 LCC favetoppasscycling,theyexplainmembershowstartedandontheirtipsandrides RIDES bigstock/Rott70Photo: LONDON CYCLIST Autmn 2022 59 & TUNNELS PLANES, CRANES 27km (16 miles) BIKE TYPES: Suitable for all bikes START POINTS: Twickenham or Hayes stations NB: Komoot shows parts of this route as ‘not permitted’ for cycling, but these are shared use paths on the ground. FACTFILE Ride maestro Charlie Codrington heads west to discover a

Happy cycling! John Kitchiner Editor

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4 CONTENTS | Autumn 2022 When will the penny drop? LONDON CYCLIST Unit 201 Metropolitan Wharf, 70 Wapping Wall, London E1W 3SS n 020 7234 9310 n lcc.org.uk EDITORIAL Editor: John Kitchiner (london.cyclist@lcc.org.uk) Design: Anita Razak Contributors: Simon Munk, Tom Bogdanowicz, Ashok Sinha, Rob Eves, Melanie Etherton, Toby Zeidler, Jack Thurston, Carlton Reid ADVERTISING Allie Gill (allie.gill@lcc.org.uk) SOCIAL MEDIA TWITTER: @london_cycling FACEBOOK: @LondonCyclingCampaign INSTAGRAM: @london_cycling Editorial, copyright, membership LCC is not aligned with any political party. All views expressed in London Cyclist are those of the authors and are not necessarily endorsed by the editor, nor do they necessarily reflect LCC policy. All material is copyrighted and may not be reproduced without the written permission of the editor. Editorial content is independent of advertising. All LCC membership offers and discounts are presented entirely at the discretion of the provider. London Cyclist is published by LCC. CAMPAIGNS: lcc.org.uk/campaigns MEMBERSHIP: lcc.org.uk/membership TO DONATE: lcc.org.uk/donate LCC is a charitable limited company, reg no 1766411; charity no 1115789 Cover image: Andy Donohoe Location: Victoria Park, August 2022 EDITORIAL LCC MEMBERS’ LEGAL HELPLINE

P LUS ÇA CHANGE. The common, shortened version of a well-known French expression that translates as ‘the more things change, the more they stay the same’, and which seems to perfectly sum up where we find ourselves right now. London’s literally been burning, likewise dozens of places from Scotland to the South Coast have seen deadly wildfires this summer, as temperatures hit record highs. And that’s just the UK. Yet our politicians and decisionmakers still see no urgency in climate action. By the time this issue lands on your doormats, we’ll have a new Prime Minister and, shockingly, nothing either prospective candidate said in their bid for Number 10 has touched on this global emergency. Worse, they’ve been talking net zero delay, fossil fuels and fracking. Active travel, not a dicky bird. If only they’d look up. Or even out of their Westminster windows. Cycling numbers in London have risen 25% compared to pre-pandemic levels and we’re not far off a million daily trips by bike. Change is possible.

The Dalai Lama said recently: “The future depends on the present; we still have the opportunity to shape it. This is not a matter of employing technology or spending more money, it’s a question of developing a sense of concern for others’ wellbeing.”

Osbornes Law is the official legal partner of LCC, providing members with exclusive access to a legal helpline. If you’re involved in a collision or have a cycling-related legal issue, phone the Cycling Team at Osbornes for advice on 020 7681 8672. London Cyclist printed by Buxton Press on FSC carbon-balanced paper from responsible sources.

Open to all types of bike: Urban Hill Climb SwainsonLane N 24 September, we’ll be welcoming hundreds of riders back to take on the Urban Hill Climb up the infamous Swains Lane in north London. Stretching 700m, with an average gradient of 8%, Swains Lane is one of the only places in London where hill climb specialists can test their mettle. Carving through the world famous Highgate Cemetery, this is a truly stunning stretch of tarmac, drawing cyclists in from across the South East.

6 for spectators, as well as being the section that really bites for those seeking to top the leaderboards. Cow bells will be ringing and fans shouting encouragement and we can’t wait to see you there — it’s as close to an Alpe d’Huez atmosphere as you’ll find in the UK.

It’s not all Lycra and ultralight bikes though — all types of cycle are welcome, including Bromptons and cargobikes, plus there’s categories for kids. This is an inclusive event and everyone is welcome to join the fun.

The initial stretch of the course is along a low walled section of the cemetery, and has a consistent and forgiving gradient, before ramping up beyond the main entrance. The final section is narrow and steep with high walls and lower tree coverage, creating an incredible tunnel of noise to help push riders over the line. This steeper section is the prime spot

Autumn 2022 URBAN HILL CLIMB RETURNS SEPTEMBERTHIS O

“LCC took over the Urban Hill Climb event in 2019 and has been thrilled by the response after a two-year gap due to covid. Community events like this are not only a great day out, but also a fantastic chance to experience people-friendly streets,” said Ashok Sinha, CEO of LCC. While many are battling for a personal best, the rest will be waving to the fans and drinking in the atmosphere. It’s a unique opportunity to bring communities together on closed roads and to enjoy a space that is typically used for motor vehicles. Local food and drink will be available on site. Entries are open until 17 September — secure your place today or come down to watch and cheer on the riders. n lcc.org.uk/events/urban-hill-climb-2022

With categories for Bromptons, cargobikes and kids — as well as serious road cyclists — there’s no reason not to join in the fun

Andy was a founder member of LCC and made an enormous contribution in a variety of ways to our work across the decades. He served on the LCC board, including as Chair, and spent time as coordinator of Southwark Cyclists too. He was also closely involved with running the Dunwich Dynamo transport, initiating and taking part in the Road Works Patrols with TfL and the Metropolitan police, and setting up the bi-monthly Southwark Dr Bikes (and attending pretty much every one).

innumbersLondon (Source: TfL statistics 2022)

LONDON CYCLIST Autumn 2022 7 NEWS

THE ANNUAL general meeting of the London Cycling Campaign is an important occasion. It gives members a chance to discuss LCC’s performance and future plans, engage with the Board of trustees, staff and fellow members, celebrate success and build momentum for the next 12 months of campaigning. This year we are returning to the format of a day-long Campaigners’ Conference on Saturday 15 October, at a venue to be announced. The AGM will form part of that conference. The agendas of the conference and AGM will be published in due course.

As previously notified by email, if you wish to stand for election please download and return a completed nomination form from the website. Note that candidates are required to be nominated by two other LCC members and are asked to provide a 500-word supporting statement. Completed forms must be returned to the LCC office by 9am on Monday 5 September. n lcc.org.uk/lcc-agm

LCC’s ten-strong Board, elected by the membership, is responsible for governing the organisation and overseeing the CEO and staff team in working towards the organisation’s campaigning goals — and there are seven vacancies in this year’s election to the Board. Each person elected will serve for three years between the 2022 and 2025 AGMs.

LCC

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WE REPORT with great sadness the death of Andy Cawdell during the summer. Andy had been suffering from Motor Neurone Disease for a number of years.

Andy was given a special award for contributions“outstandingto cycle campaigning” by LCC at our 2019 AGM. He will be sorely missed by everyone at LCC.

JOIN US AT THE 2022 AGM

The AGM is LCC’s highest decision-making body, and members are invited to submit motions for debate and voting. To submit a motion please email it to agm@lcc.org.uk by the deadline of 9am, Monday 5 September.

PASSESCAWDELLMEMBERFOUNDINGANDYAWAY

The number of Londoners cycling has risen this much since pre-Covid times* 27 % of Londoners who already cycle, with a further 22% considering”“activivelystarting** % 800,000 daily journeys are now made by bike in London k 82 Cycle trips have risen this much at weekends; (up 14% on weekdays) Cycling

As per LCC’s rules, all motions will be subject to a process of scrutiny and possible amendment prior to the AGM. This year’s scrutiny meeting will be held on Thursday 8 September at the LCC office in Wapping (or virtually, to be confirmed) at which proposers will be invited to attend and discuss their motions with trustees and staff.

* Cycling now accounts for 3.1% of daily trips; it was 2.7% in 2019. This compares to 36% in Amsterdam. TfL says there are 8 million daily journeys that are ‘switchable’ to bike.

% THE STATS

It is imperative we keep the pressure on. With Boris gone, it would be unwise to take anything for granted, whoever takes his place in Downing Street.

ONDON’S BURNING (or it was at the time of writing), but not with boredom, as the Clash famously sang. Instead, the busiest days recorded by the London Fire Service since the Blitz saw every single engine out on call at one point, dealing with fires across the capital and beyond. With tinderbox dry grass under a blazing sun and air temperatures smashing historical highs, this was an emergency foretold: there is now a costly level of climate change baked in, to which we will have no option but to Theadapt.heatis on elsewhere too, with ballot papers having landed on the doormats of Conservative party members; by the time you read this, we will have a new Prime Minister. But, when it comes to active travel, and cycling in particular, does it matter whether it is Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak? Or perhaps the real question is, does it matter that it’s not Boris? The short answer is, it all depends. Here’s one reason to be hopeful. Whatever the claimed merits or demerits of Boris’s time as a politician, one thing is uncontested: he wanted London and the rest of the country to be a place where pootling about on a cycle is simply the natural thing. True, it took campaigning from LCC to overcome his resistance to Dutch-style infrastructure, but that Damascene moment has influenced everything he has done on cycling since, including overcoming reported Treasury resistance to see investment in active travel at an all-time high (though still a mere fraction of what will be spent on new roads capacity).

And did anyone hear talk of how promoting cycling over driving would help reduce air pollution, increase public health and civilise our town centres? Nope, me neither. With energy bills set to soar further, turning a cost-of-living crisis into a full blown social emergency, we have a lot of work to do to defend the fantastic return on investment that cycling brings. This, despite the fact that, as people seek to save money on transportation, this is exactly the right time to invest more in making our streets safer for cycling and helping people store or get convenient access to a cycle.

“There is now a costly level of climate change baked in, to which we will have to adapt”

Dark clouds

OPINION

With a new PM in place, Ashok Sinha explains why we must not take investment in cycling for granted L

Crisis follows crisis I surmise that getting all that past Jacob Rees-Mogg’s mission to slash 100,000s of civil service posts may have taken some doing; ATE may be independent, but it’s still government funded. The Johnson ledger has this entry, at least, as a credit. But has anyone managed to spot either Truss or Sunak speak significantly about active travel? No, neither have I. True, unlike Boris, they are not known for the passion for cycling, but you would expect them to get the intellectual arguments. However, like many of you, I did spot the zeal with which pretty much all of the contenders for Tory leader and PM lined up to slow down on net zero. As if nature would do us a favour and kindly put the climate emergency on hold for a while to fit political vicissitudes.

Ashok Sinha Chief Executive of London Cycling Campaign

Plus, Active Travel England (ATE) was created under his watch, with funds and a remit to support local authorities to deliver a big increase in walking and cycling — and cast a critical eye on their performance.

While there’s been plenty of positives, says Kris Sangani, we must push hard to make access to cycling truly equal inclusivity

Improving

W HEN I DECIDED to seek election to LCC’s Board of Trustees, my transpicuous objective of promoting diversity and inclusiveness was no longer a nice to have: it had become imperative that we work much harder to make LCC more reflective of the city we serve. As with many organisations, this will be a huge challenge. But our heart is in the right place Opponents of new cycling infrastructure use culture war tactics to frame their argument by suggesting that cycle lanes and LTNs penalise the poor, ethnic minorities and people of colour. They say that LCC only represents the views of white, middle-class, middle-aged men and promotes their interests above others. This is totally untrue. But it is true that we lack diversity, and people can see that. This culture war that some try to stoke up creates an extra imperative for LCC to be much more representative of London’s diverse communities, across staff, trustees and members. Access to cycling and its advantages is not equal. Different communities face distinct impediments to taking up cycling. Therefore calling for action to reduce these barriers is now much more central to our campaigning efforts.

“Cycling benefits us all, but those from marginalised groups more than any other”

Earlier this year, we launched a membership survey. The results indicated that 7.5% of those who responded are disabled. Compared to data for Londoners as a whole, 23% of Londoners have a disability, as do 16% of cyclists. Furthermore, at least 10% of our respondents are non-white — this is in a city where about 40% of the population is non-white. Forging community links Nevertheless, our Ride London and Freecycle rides attract a wider diversity of participants, and our Cycle Buddies programme has proven to aid wider participation in cycling. To date it has helped 220 female riders to build confidence, and helped more than 120 black and people from other ethnic communities to cycle with more assurance. LCC has also started formal partnerships with many community organisations, including Wheels for Wellbeing, Londra Bisiklet Kulübü and Joyriders. Staff and trustee training in D&I (Diversity & Inclusion) has now been completed. The next stage is to expand this to all our local groups. Additionally, we want more people from diverse backgrounds to join our Board of Trustees. If this is you, feel free to reach out to me or Eilidh Murray, our chair, to find out more. But it’s great to see more participation from the Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities within our borough groups. That was my path to becoming a trustee, and I hope it encourages others to do the same. We also plan for more inclusive recruitment and hope to set up an apprenticeship scheme (or similar) aimed at minority communities. Cycling benefits everyone, but those from marginalised groups benefit more than any other. Cycling empowers people to get to work cheaply and opens up more choices. But the cycle campaigning community needs the cooperation and support of all Londoners. It’s a natural symbiotic relationship that we have started to build on. If there is one message to get over it’s that we have just begun our journey to become truly inclusive. We will strive to improve diversity in all areas. And by becoming more inclusive, we will maximise the effectiveness of our campaigning, and this will benefit the health and wellbeing of all Londoners.

OPINION

Kris Sangani is an LCC trustee and chair of LCC’s Redbridge group

Building a motorway-style tunnel for motor traffic is an odd way of going about such a reduction. Odd as in the direct opposite of what is required. Khan has written that the tunnel is “an important part of, not at odds with, my ambitious policies on climate and air quality”. But you can’t put a rocket under car use and then say you’re opposed to car use.

Stop the tunnel is based on timidity. He frets that the £2.2bn project — started by his predecessor — is too far advanced to be pulled, making him responsible for squandering all the costs sunk to date. A project-specific tunnel borer is already in place, and, if sense does not prevail, it will soon start its work beneath the Thames.

“This is throwing good money after bad... build more roads and you get more traffic”

“We have too often seen measures to tackle air pollution and the climate emergency delayed around the world because it’s viewed as being too hard or politically inconvenient,” continued Khan in January. Yet he is doing exactly that. Cancelling the tunnel is seen as too hard.

OPINION

THE biggestemergencyCLIMATEistheglobalthreat we face today,” tweeted Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, in August 2021. He called for “urgent action to protect our planet,” warning that “if we’re to avert catastrophe, there’s no time left for excuses”. Tough words, undercut by Khan pushing ahead with the soonto-be-built Silvertown Tunnel, a project guaranteed to increase motor traffic. Even if, by some miracle, all of London’s motor vehicles became electric overnight, there would still be massive harm to the planet from the microplastics shed by their tyres, not to mention the increased road danger posed by more motor vehicles, battery-powered or not. Khan’s tweet wasn’t an isolated example. True, he has some credits in the bank — a big growth in protected cycle tracks, fighting hard to promote LTNs, rolling out electric buses and, most recently and controversially, extending the ULEZ to the whole of Greater London next year. But the three magic words ‘but’, ‘Silvertown’, and ‘tunnel’, undermine all of this when uttered after each of his calls to action on climate. His sound predictions about the climate emergency are based on science; his support for the tunnel on opposite sides of the river.

Carlton Reid is a book author and leading transport journalist

The Mayor still has time to do a handbrake turn on plans for a climate-wrecking tunnel, says Carlton Reid

“The climate emergency means we only have a small window of opportunity left to reduce carbon emissions to help save the planet,” pleaded Khan in January, committing TfL to target a 27% reduction in vehicle-kms by the end of the decade to help meet his target of a net zero London by 2030.

“I’m determined that we continue to be doers,” he stressed. But when that doing includes building a tunnel that all previous experience shows will increase traffic congestion you’re doing the wrong thing, Mr Mayor.

Continuing this project is throwing good money after bad. Within months of any tunnel being completed, the exceptionally wellunderstood mechanism of induced demand would damage the Mayor’s climate credentials: build more roads and you get more traffic. And the idea that tolls will be set so high as to stop this will dissipate in the face of political reality when the tunnel opens. Not too late to stop The 1.4km Silvertown Tunnel is the UK’s biggest road construction project, planned to link the Royal Docks and the North Greenwich peninsula. It is opposed by the key councils in Newham and Greenwich

With our Climate Safe Streets local elections campaign finished, what did it achieve and what’s next? Simon Munk reports from the campaign trail CLIMATE SAFE STREETS

is that the climate crisis is getting closer to home and the volume of public disquiet and political discourse on climate action is only going to get louder. LCC chose to make climate its central political campaigning theme not only because saving the planet is the right thing to do to and because it’s central to every single person’s way of life, but because of the unique role cycling plays in dealing with climate in London. Road transport is one of the biggest sectors for emissions, but it’s also one of the areas London’s politicians have most in their control to change, though it’s an area that has not been changing fast enough. In London, the simple truth is that cycling is the one mode that has the potential to expand rapidly and cheaply. The majority of walkable trips are already walked and enabling more walking and wheeling is relatively easy. Buses are not trivial to expand in routes or capacity — and congestion is the big bus issue to deal with. And tube expansion is incredibly hard — as Crossrail/ Elizabeth Line demonstrates amply. Cycling (particularly if you count in e-bikes and e-scooters) on the other hand, is relatively cheap to boost and has the potential to grow incredibly quickly under the right conditions. That’s why our ongoing Climate Safe Streets work is about making the case to politicians that they need to act on climate, on road transport emissions and therefore on cycling. We ran a Climate Safe Streets themed campaign around the mayoral elections in 2021. But in that election, we faced a pair of lead candidates, one of whom pledged to deliver a zero carbon London by 2030, and the other who effectively pledged to rip out cycling infrastructure. In that context, there was little pressure for Sadiq Khan to do more than he had already said he would. However, the local borough elections in May this year proved a vastly different and more interesting campaign.

Action in your area

LCC local groups pulled out all the stops, as did office staff, to deliver a major campaign with activity in every borough. The campaign started a year out from the election with a push to recruit Climate Safe Streets ‘champions’. These were people motivated to campaign by the climate crisis and who wanted to get more involved in LCC, often drawn from outside the existing group activist base. By the time we hit the six weeks pre-election period there were more than 40 champions across 23 boroughs, helping lead the charge, or just helping, working with many of our boroughBeforegroups.thecampaign launched, there was also an extensive period of time where champions, local activists and the staff team worked together to produce a set of ‘asks’ that each politician in each borough could realistically commit to. The aim was for those pledges to be tough, to reflect real and bold actions on cycling and climate, but

THE

viscerally,demonstratedrecentaway.crisisCLIMATEisnotgoingIndeed,asheatwavesthereality

CAMPAIGN LONDON CYCLIST Autumn 2022 15

From the amazing work of our local groups, 62 candidates committed to complete the asks in their borough. And of those, 14 elected leaders of boroughs committed, including new Labour leader of Westminster, Cllr Adam Hug who said that Westminster’s Labour group is “committed to building a fairer Westminster that tackles the climate emergency, creates more new green spaces and incorporates the principles of ‘15-minute neighbourhoods’ into reinvigorating our local high streets and communities”.

On top of that, a further two leaders gave qualified support. Cllr Simon Hogg, new Labour leader of Wandsworth said: “Wandsworth Labour will make cycling easier and safer.”

While Cllr Jas Athwal, returning Labour leader of Redbridge added: “I want to see more people have greater access to cycling (whether that’s through cycle storage schemes or improved cycle lanes) and feel safe about cycling around our borough.”

London loves cycling (and walking and wheeling)

Several politicians have told us that our Climate Safe Streets campaign was the most visible during the run-up to the election, but in part that now means there are far more boroughs than ever before openly committed to bold action on climate and cycling. However, there are often bigger factors at play, and this election was fought to a backdrop of controversial schemes put in during Covid and the potential for political backlash to them, and indeed the changing political winds of London. Many commentators suggested we would see a wave of anti-cycling candidates triumph at local level — instead, arguably the opposite happened. All over London, there was a visible voter appetite for more, not less action on cycling, active travel and climate.

Where local schemes were controversial and where politicians stood on platforms directly opposed to progressive schemes, they broadly lost. Less than a handful of boroughs showed a significant shift away from those in favour of active travel towards those against. But in all of these cases, it appears other issues were key — old rivalries, green belt or high-rise development, financial instability of the incumbent council administration, etc. In all, this wasn’t a case of politicians who oppose cycling schemes and emissions reductions versus those clearly in favour; it was a case of politicians who were already weak on commitments being ousted.

Overall, then, not only has our Climate Safe Streets campaign seen lots of activity from our borough

Local campaigners used the BetaStreets online tool: to show how Ardleigh Green Road in Havering could look with an improved design

CAMPAIGN 16 also to be feasible for each borough and where it was on its journey. The asks then became part of the online action we launched at the start of the pre-election period. In those six crucial weeks, that online action — targeted at the next potential leaders of each borough — saw nearly 11,500 emails generated, thousands taking the action, bolstered by real-world and online campaigning: eight group rides took place, including several that spanned multiple borough groups, 12 rides with leadership candidates and a further 22 meetings with them, seven hustings, a tsunami of social media including dozens of images our activists created using the groundbreaking new BetaStreets tool, and much more.

Wheeling into the future So where do we go from here? What next for London, boroughs and Climate Safe Streets? We are currently working on several strands of work… Firstly, we are still recruiting champions and knitting those champions who have joined our groups in to their work. In some boroughs we’ve already seen champions step into committee roles, even become coordinators. The aim is that the champions will continue to lead on our work on climate and cycling, and the asks in each borough — working with the rest of the group. But that can mean very different things in each borough. We’re working through that process now.

n For more campaign info, go to lcc.org.uk/climate.

Greek Street in Soho gets a makeover: again using BetaStreets tech as part of our Climate Safe Streets campaign

CAMPAIGN 18 groups and more borough leaders committing to bold action than ever before, including in some very surprising and exciting boroughs, but once again it is clear that the vast majority of Londoners want more —and urgent — action on cycling and active travel.

On top, we’re asking each borough to focus for now on what action, or which of the asks, makes most sense to doggedly pursue and hold politicians to account over with immediate effect. For some boroughs we’ll be expecting rapid delivery on all asks as funding comes up, in others it will be a case of building up towards the biggest ones. And we’ll be pushing politicians in each borough to act whether they committed to the campaign or not — after all, there’s still a need for cycling and action on climate in Bromley, Barnet and Bexley regardless of the fact their leaders didn’t commit during the campaign. We’ll be providing more guidance to our boroughs and campaigning materials to really help every borough move their political leaders on — because if not now,We’llwhen?also be bringing our focus back to our Mayor. While funding from central government for London remains a key barrier to the capital’s progress, we also believe there are things Sadiq can do to act despite a lack of funds. He committed to a (net) zero carbon London by 2030 and that means acting fast and being bold on road transport. His teams have done modelling to show that he must reduce road kilometres driven by over a quarter by then to even stand a shot of making that commitment. We’ll be holding him to that.Finally, we’ll be increasingly working with other organisations and institutions to ensure London moves on climate action and cycling. It’s clear that key institutions in the city such as the NHS, and large business forums, get it — but we need to make sure that it’s also now recognised on every high street and in every Business Improvement District, and by every GP practice. Because the days of high street retailers or GPs fighting to retain things like car parking have to be over if we are going to deliver a genuinely ‘climate safe’ London.

In my early 30s, as a local councillor and the opposition spokesperson on transport, I was approached by the indefatigable Susie Morrow from LCC’s Wandsworth branch who offered to do some cycle coaching with me. Enthusiastically I agreed, believing it important to understand what it meant to be a cyclist in London. Despite Susie’s best efforts, the experience of cycling down the ‘red route’ in Tooting Broadway put meThatoff. was, until recently. Like many others, the pandemic provided an opportunity to cycle more. I bought a bike through the Cycle2Work scheme (a lovely Temple city bike) and made the most of the spookily empty roads to build up my confidence. Two years on I don’t think twice about cycling long distances and even up steep hills. I feel fitter, enjoy the freedom a bike provides and even commute to work when I can. My experience riding around London has helped me see firsthand the problems the city still faces when it comes to active travel options. But my experience in my previous day job, working on the public policy aspects of cycling, are just as salient. As the Mayor’s policy director, I saw up close the obstacles (physically and politically) in the way of building cycling infrastructure. It taught me how competing interests meant leaps forward also suffered setbacks along the way. And I saw how on occasions cycling could be treated as a lower priority by TfL than buses, tubes and trains. As a result, I have really got to know the problems the city still faces when it comes to active travel. I know the challenge competition for limited roadspace poses. I’ve

20 FOR MOST of my life, I’ve not been a cyclist. Even as a kid, I didn’t really take to it. For more than 25 years, the only time I’d been on a bike was in Amsterdam when Interrailing, and even then the confusing system of braking by pedalling backwards nearly led to a nasty accident.

Nick Bowes from the Centre for London discusses how London might look over the next few years and the challenges that lie ahead

LONDON CYCLIST Autumn 2022 21 CAMPAIGN experienced just how poor some road surfaces are; huge potholes and rutted road surfaces that have gone years without being repaired, which cars would feel only as a minor bump, but could easily fling a cyclist over their handlebars. And — not winning any friends for myself here — I’ve seen how the unacceptable antics of a very small number of cyclists can really annoy other car users and pedestrians. Instinctively, I deplore rule breaking — I just cannot abide the jumping of red lights. Cycling has also been drawn into the culture wars. At the risk of oversimplifying the arguments, cycling is portrayed as a white, liberal, middle-class activity, with new schemes negatively impacting London’s poorer communities. Car users begrudge the loss of roadspace to dedicated cycle lanes and taxi drivers blame bike lanes for creating more congestion. Of course, the reality is much more complicated and the argument more nuanced. Winning the arguments Where progress has been made, it has needed political courage and determination. New segregated cycle lanes have gone in across the city, first under Boris Johnson and continuing under Sadiq Khan. Some boroughs have embraced walking and cycling projects. Even the current Mayor has gone all in with his electric Brompton. However, schemes to encourage cycling have often become political flashpoints. At the 2021 London mayoral campaign, the Conservative Party candidate Shaun Bailey committed to rip out low traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs). In the run-up to this May’s local elections, there was a considerable noise from anti-LTN protestors in some parts of London. Some boroughs were spooked, dismantling their schemes. Others doubled down and really owned the agenda. Even Centre for London waded in with our recent report looking at what did and didn’t work with LTNs. The clash came to a head in London’s recent local election results. There were independent candidates standing on an antiBigstockPhotos:

But now, in just the past few weeks, more political turbulence has erupted in Westminster. With Johnson departing 10 Downing Street in early September, most of those around him working at No 10, such as Gilligan, will also leave. Along with likely changes at the Department of Transport and the Treasury, this might present an opportunity to reset relationships with London, and thus increase the chances of getting TfL’s finances on a stronger footing. But there’s also no guarantee the new PM has quite the same affinity with cycling. We wait and see. New schemes pending Meanwhile, London pushed ahead on other fronts. The Mayor has shown some leg on a smart road user charging (RUC) scheme. Implemented properly, this has the potential to bring huge benefits is a huge political tussle between City Hall and Whitehall. A series of short-term bailouts means the city is in the dark about any future longterm investment programme. Changes at the top As things stand, TfL looks unlikely to be able to invest much in activities that don’t generate income. Prior to Covid, the Tube generated a huge surplus which supported other activities across TfL. This surplus has shrunk considerably, so without a new source of funding in the coming years, serious belt tightening is going to be needed. Cycling infrastructure could fall foul of this new landscape — not only does it generate no income, but actually results in a loss of revenue (I am one of the guilty!) as Tube and bus users switchHowever,modes.it’s hard to disentangle TfL’s funding crisis from raw party politics. Ordinarily, a Prime Minister who was previously the Mayor should be an asset. They’d understand how TfL is reliant

22 CAMPAIGN LTN platform, as well as some political parties who committed to rip out LTNs and other cycling infrastructure. However, on the whole, candidates that were anticycling were the dog that didn’t bark. Only in a handful of places could it be argued the outcome was influenced by candidates that opposed LTNs.

Hackney shows little sign of slowing down, yet next door in Tower Hamlets, the new Mayor, Lutfur Rahman, is delivering on what he promised the voters — a removal of many of the schemes the previous regime put in. One key factor is the issue of funding. With local authorities cash-strapped and TfL barely surviving from week to week, the future of investment in active travel schemes is unclear. How to fund TfL

Given the hesitancy in some boroughs before May, the results might embolden some councils to push ahead with more investment in walking and cycling, with those councils already at the vanguard going even further still. Early signs are mixed.

on fare income and immediately understand the impact Covid had on its finances. Instead, it has got wrapped up in rivalries and the fighting of old battles with cycling often caught up in the crossfire.

The PM’s transport advisor, Andrew Gilligan, who was previously the cycling czar when Johnson was Mayor, is at the heart of many of the key debates and areas of friction. There’s no doubt Andrew is a divisive character — fiercely pro cycling, his sheer determination ensured many of the new segregated schemes in London were built, and it is down to him that money within the government bailouts for TfL was ringfenced for cycle schemes. But it is fair to say he has also picked up enemies along the way, sometimes making it harder than it ought to be to make progress and contributing to some of the stand-off over the future of TfL.

24 to the city — cleaning up the air, cutting congestion and increasing walking and cycling — as well as filling the hole in TfL’s finances through the income generated.

Pushing on with new cycling infrastructure is only going to heighten the debates about roadspace allocation. The explosion in the use of e-scooters, as well as e-assisted and electronic bikes, presents a new front in the battle for roadspace. How cycling interacts and cohabits with these new forms of mobility will be critical to Anotherwatch.areaof tension continues to be the interface between TfL and local authorities. So-called ‘red routes’ are the Mayor’s responsibility and are intended to be the city’s most strategically important arteries. When red routes were first established, what constituted ‘strategic importance’ was very much cars, lorries and buses. Might there be pressure to revisit the definition of a strategic road to include cycling and micromobility as key modes of transport? More to the point, despite the Mayor’s responsibility for these CAMPAIGN key routes — that constitute 5% of London’s roads but carry up to 30% of its traffic — the overwhelming majority of roads fall under the authority of the boroughs. This limits the Mayor’s ability to implement broader schemes that are important to how Londoners navigate the Removingcity.responsibility for some roads from the boroughs and handing them over to the Mayor is likely to be controversial, but others might see this as the only way to progress programmes that are currently being held up by local authorities’ inaction. An uncertain future In some parts of the city, there is growing grassroots pressure on local authorities to do more on cycling and making roads safer. I can see this in my corner of Lewisham. Will the boroughs respond to demands for more bike hangars, LTNs, traffic calming and cycle lanes, particularly in the context of tackling air pollution, climate change and the drive to netOuterzero?London faces particular challenges. With little prospect in the short term of money to build new Tube or rail lines, and with existing bus routes being squeezed by TfL’s funding problems, there is the potential for many more journeys to be made by bike, on foot, or with the growing number of micro-mobility options. But will there be the political courage to ween the suburbs off a dependency on Thecars?coming years promise to be a turbulent period. Despite this and given the pressures on limited roadspace and the constraints on funding so critical to providing new infrastructure, a smart payper-mile RUC scheme would look like the solution most likely to satisfy the needs and objectives of the cycling community. That’s why it’s time for cycling groups and active travel campaigns to rally the troops and seek constructive alliances with other interested parties like road safety charities, the environmental lobby, progressive local authorities, and some business groups. This is where I’d recommend pinning your hopes and focus on a smart road user charging scheme for London if the progress on cycling made to date is to be built on in future years.

The cycling community will need to think hard about how it works with public health campaigners, road safety charities and other civil society groups if it wants to see RUC introduced, as the battles seen to date over roadspace in London are nothing compared to what is to come over RUC. But with the next mayoral election just two years away, it’s likely that many more surprises lurk in the political cycle which could blow these plans off course .

You’ve mentioned on other interviews that mixing DnB is hard on the bike due to the fast pace of it – is this part of the draw for you?

WHITING INTERVIEW

LONDON CYCLIST Autumn 2022 27

What’s your connection to DnB? I used to mix DnB around six or seven years ago, before moving more towards house and techno which I still play often. I’ve found DnB to be a real winner for the rides though, because it has a more get-up-and-go feel to it; it’s really energetic and goes hand in hand with the bike. As a scene, I think it’s grown a lot this year and I hope this continues.

How did the concept for these rides come about in the first place?

It’s definitely a genre where you have to be quite quick. The tracks are over before you know it; a techno tune

Toby Zeidler talks to the UK-based DJ about his Drum and Bass (DnB) rides that have brought thousands of cyclists to city streets across Europe

The idea started at the height of lockdown when we were doing lots of static sets with moving backgrounds. People really enjoyed these changeable backdrops and then a friend suggested trying it out on a bike. Obviously I had to find a bike that could carry all the kit I’d need, then make some modifications, but here we are today, just over a year later, still pedalling! Was that concept of a changeable backgrounds something that came from moving from in-person sets to live streams? That’s right. When we came up with the concept, club nights weren’t an option, so I did a set on a roundabout which was the point where the moving backdrop really started — with people getting involved as they went past. It took about two hours for the police to turn up and move me along. Was there a point where you knew you were onto a winning idea? Not really. It’s amazing looking back but there’s always aspects that I want to improve like adding more speakers or making the route better. It’s so cool to see how diverse the crowds are, with people of all ages turning up to ride. It’s brought a lot of people out — music and riding is a match made in heaven.

DOM

What made you choose DnB for the rides? Did you consider house or other music genres that you’d regularly play? Initially it was more house tunes since that was what I was mixing at the time. But I thought I’d try some DnB and see how it went and that’s proving to be the winning formula. The first DnB ride was March last year, but it actually wasn’t planned that the rides would end up being DnB specific.

Have you always ridden bikes or has this concept brought you back to riding? I’ve always had a bike, but I wouldn’t say I rode it as a hobby. I used to ride to school which was about six or seven miles. I rode less once I got a driving licence, but still always had the bike. Now, of course, I’m using the DJ bike quite often and I’ve recently bought myself a road bike to help with mapping out the routes in advance. I went out last night actually in France, to scope out the local town while I’m here for a festival.

I did a DJ set on a roundabout... that’s when the moving backdrop idea started 28 could last six or seven minutes which you could play out in full, but with a DnB tune you want to have it in and out in a couple of minutes. I don’t really see it as a challenge when I’m on the bike because there’s so much going on. I can barely see the screen sometimes because of the sun, but you just get on with it.

Bikes beats:and a big hit on Sheffieldstreetstheof

I can’t always see what’s going on from the front so

There’s only so much I can do while on the ride, but so far we’ve had no major incidents and we’re going to try to keep it that way. What’s been the most memorable moment on one of your rides?

Has your style changed much out on the bike compared to sets in clubs and at festivals? It would be a completely different set. I put a lot of preparation into my static set and in that environment I’ve got much more time and space to use my capabilities on the decks. On the bike I’m watching the road, watching the live stream, as well as shouting people out and interacting with the crowd, so I can’t focus too much on the mixing. I haven’t done many club sets recently since the bike rides have gained momentum. They’re proving to be the real crowd pleaser right now. Have you faced any challenges with crowd control? It’s something we tend to manage as we go along. The police got quite involved in Southampton, but in general we haven’t had much presence from them. On that same ride they were really good; if it was like that every time it would be quite an unstoppable concept since they were literally holding up traffic for us! Safety is paramount and whatever makes the rides safer is something that has to come into play, to make sure it’s still inviting for all ages. More police involvement has its pros and cons, but it would definitely give us more authority to say for sure where and when we’ll have free reign over certain spaces in each city.

INTERVIEW

Currently we tend to have a set schedule of locations without exact dates since we’re pretty weather dependant. There’s a chance there’ll be some more UK-based rides this year, but we’ve got some cool plans coming up for next 12 months outside the UK and hopefully beyond Europe as well. It’s a challenge to ship the bike, but once that’s figured out that should open up the doors to quite a few extra projects. Where would be your dream location worldwide to do a DnB-on-the-bike event?

30 INTERVIEW

In mid-June we went to Sheffield and it felt like we had the whole town rocking. There was a bus driver that stopped to dance with the crowds which was pretty epic. Berlin was incredible too — to be out of the UK and still bring in more than 1,500 people was really something special.

Are there any new possibilities on the horizon for your DnB rides?

It’s very rare we come across a bad reaction. It’s really cool to see how music and bike riding can bring people together. Some people might be a little bit moody about being delayed, but we make a real effort to get them involved. We’ve never had anything majorly bad come up, everyone’s having a good time and it’s a real spectacle when you come across it.

I’ll often rely on the camera to watch it back and see what’s happened. So much goes on at every ride and they’ve all got their positives.

In London, we rode through a huge tunnel along the Thames which was probably the craziest part of that ride — the atmosphere was just mad.

At the minute, it’s crazy how much I’m being asked to go to the US, so that’s probably up there at the top. Also New Zealand and Australia must both be right up there too, since they’re pretty much as far away as you can get from the UK. I’m confident that they will happen and that’ll be a good month, getting a few rides done whilst we’re there.

I couldn’t list how many times I’ve heard from people saying that they’d not ridden in years

A big proportion of my audience is from the UK, but it’s amazing to see the numbers I’ve been able to gather in places like Berlin which really puts it into perspective for me. Are the reactions from most drivers and other bystanders generally positive from your perspective?

n Dom has plans to return to London when he can, so do make sure to follow him on social media (@dom_whiting on Instagram) and join the next ride.

Spot the DJ: Dom’s in there near the front on his trikeadapted

Have you heard from many people who started cycling or restarted thanks to one of your rides? Yeah, that’s one of the most common things I hear. I couldn’t list how many times I’ve heard from people saying that they’d not ridden in years or that this was their first time riding here. We get the same thing from people who’ve not listened to DnB in ages, not been out in ages even aside from the bike. There’s so many aspects to it.

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Vic: Having the kids was the thing that changed cycling from something I just did occasionally into how we get around. We love the cycle lanes in Waltham Forest. I remember all the roadworks when they were building them and it was very frustrating. But now that they’re done it’s a gamechanger. With all the cycle lanes, when I’m with the kids using the bikes is genuinely the fastest and easiest way to get around.

Ned: Stabilisers! Sidney: Rocket boosters. Vic: The only thing would be if sometimes people were a little more understanding. The cycle lanes are almost too good because they’re attracting a lot of people, and people sometimes tut at me when I’m out with the kids, because they want to go fast and we’re in their way. That frustrates me. People forget that they’re only cycling today because years ago their mums or dads took them out on a bike and cycled at one mile an hour with them — so please be patient with us.

People have many and varied reasons for taking up cycling. Melanie Etherton speaks to a group of LCC members and supporters about their life in the saddle...

Vic: It was the Tour de Waltham Forest. We weren’t sure that any of us could manage 11km, but it was actually really nice.

Favourite place to cycle in London?

Sidney: Sometimes I cycle to school or to Beavers, it’s faster than walking or scooting. We also cycle with my friends because we like being together.

WHY STARTEDICYCLINGWHYISTARTEDCYCLING

Top tip (from Vic): For cycling with kids, try and borrow someone else’s bike, or bike and bike seat, or bike and trailer, depending on what set-up you want. Just so you can test it out in a park or quiet location first. Initially it feels weird, like you having to take the corners extra-wide with a trailer, or when you suddenly have all this weight on the back of your bike, you do feel wobbly. But it’s just practice: your muscles get used to it and somehow your body adjusts.

What one thing would make your cycling life better?

Name: Vic Dove and her two children, Sidney and Ned Ages: 42, 7 and 3 Borough: Waltham Forest How often do you cycle and why?

Ned: I like riding my bike. It’s little, with no pedals, and it’s dark blue. Why did you start cycling?

Sidney: Some of the parks I usually go to like Manor Park, Lloyd Park, Jubilee Park. I did a big ride of 11km there.

LONDON CYCLIST Autumn 2022 33

LONDON

Name: Roger de Freitas Age: 74 Borough: Hammersmith How often do you cycle and why? I cycle to get around, things like shopping and the post office; I only use my bike for errands. I think this bike is 25 years old. See, there’s an LCC sticker from the early 2000s! My bike makes my borough a very sensible size: anything you could walk to, I can get to in a third of the time. All the heavy stuff gets delivered. I haven’t driven a car in decades. I’m very happy. Why did you start cycling? I grew up in Cambridge and everybody had a bicycle. There were no telephones; we cycled every day to school and stayed out until it got dark. You can’t say there was an infrastructure, but there was a culture that supported you. There was a period 40 years ago when I cycled in every day to the West End, there was just me and one or two others battling our way across Kensington. I’m thrilled about the new infrastructure. I think LCC has been an extraordinary force for this agenda — it’s everything I became part of LCC for 40 years ago. Favourite place to cycle in London? Coming home. Top tip: If you’re changing a habit to start cycling, ask someone to help you. What one thing would you change to help people cycle? Immediately it would be Kensington & Chelsea getting its act together. It’s just a couple of kilometres but the lack of cycle lanes makes it very dangerous. It’s a most unsatisfactory neighbour. In the long term, I want a new paradigm where people know what they can be responsible for on their streets — to own the streetscape. I want more people engaged with making their travel environment better. n email(lcc.org.uk/patrons).sinceRogerhasbeeninvolvedwithLCCwebeganin1978andisalsoafoundermemberofourPatronsNetworkIfyou’reinterestedinbecomingpartofthisnetwork,pleaselucy.cooper@lcc.org.uk.

WHY I STARTED CYCLING 34

Favourite place to cycle in London?

Probably my favourite bit is the Cycle Superhighway along the Thames. Top tip: Approach with baby steps, but occasionally take a leap. What one thing would make your cycling life better? The cycling infrastructure needs to improve. It’s good within central London but further out it’s almost non-existent. I remember cycling outside the Princess Royal Hospital in Bromley and it was outright dangerous. I’d love to see safer bike storage at hospitals too, and a better partnership between public transport and cycling so it’s easier to combine ways of getting around.

Name: Zeshan Rawn Age: 43 Borough: Hounslow How often do you cycle and why? I’ve got an hour’s commute from west London to the Evelina London Children’s Hospital by the Houses of Parliament. Why did you start cycling? I joined the IT side of the neonatal unit eight years ago and started cycling to get away from a really bad train provider. Through Chinthika my interest in the health side really escalated. She suggested we join a bike ride from London to Glasgow. I’m a ‘leap first, ask questions later’ kind of person and I just wanted to do a multiday ride! But along the way to Glasgow we interacted with a lot of medical professionals and I learnt so much. Favourite place to cycle in London: My favourite part of my commute is the Serpentine. When the sun is shimmering off the water and there’s no cars, it’s a couple of minutes of sheer bliss that changes my day.

Top tip: Be that person who gives someone else a nudge in their life. For everyone who changes from a car to a bike there is less air pollution on the road, and that person is also getting healthier from cycling. What one thing would make people want to cycle more often? We’d like to set up more rides for NHS staff. I want everyone to see that it’s not about going as fast and as far as you can, but actually you can get on a bike, any bike, and go shopping, pop to work, or just enjoy your local area.

WHY I STARTED CYCLING WHY I STARTED CYCLING

LONDON CYCLIST Autumn 2022 35

Name: Dr Chinthika Piyasena Age: 44 Borough: Lambeth How often do you cycle and why? I ride to work at the Evelina London Children’s Hospital and back, and to the gym. Why did you start cycling? I used to cycle on holiday, for sightseeing. Zeshan’s always been a really good friend to me, and I started commuting with his encouragement. Then last year I got an email advertising a ride from London to Glasgow. The image of children’s healthcare providers arriving to the COP26 climate conference on bikes calling for cleaner air was just too tantalising to resist. I was initially only going to do one leg, and then because Zeshan wanted to do more I felt inspired to try and do more, and we ended up doing the whole thing. It was so much more than I expected I could achieve.

LONDON 36

WHY

CYCLINGSTARTED

Name: Tomás Age: 13 Borough: Lewisham How often do you cycle and why? I go once a week with my mother to a park close to my house in New Cross. Why did you start cycling? Back in Argentina, my uncle rides a lot and showed me how to ride when I was six. It gives me adrenaline because I go quite fast. I came to the UK in January this year and my mother found IRMO (the Indoamerican Refugee and Migrant Organization), and then I met Julio through their workshops. Like today, we’ve been on a bike maintenance course with upCYCLE. We learned how to fix a puncture in the tyre. Next week we learn how to fix the brakes and we take the mended bike home. Being part of this has helped me to revive my social life and to feel better. Favourite place to cycle? Fordham Park in New Cross. Top tip: Take chances. If you fall once, get back up. Just keep taking a chance. What one thing would make your cycling life better? Training so that little by little you learn more stuff. I can’t get to my school at the moment by bike because it’s quite far and I don’t want to risk it because I’m not very used to riding my bike in the street with cars. I’d like to be able to cycle to my school or to other places.

n Tomás’s bike maintenance course was provided for free by Hugo and Philip of upCYCLE in Brixton (upcycleldn.co.uk).

n This interview was translated from Spanish by Julio Andrade, a youth worker at the IRMO. I

Top tip: If cycling is something that keeps coming to your mind, go for it. Reach out to people who live in your area to see if they can help you. What one thing would make your cycling life better? Cycle lanes on all main roads and really clear routes for bikes to turn right or change lanes at junctions. n You can find someone to help you

Richmond Park. Me and the friend who got me into cycling go for a Sunday ride and end up at a bakery.

Name: Sophie Stanley Age: 29 Borough: Wandsworth How often do you cycle and why? I really love my bike and use it most days to get to university and to work. It’s cheap, it keeps me healthy, and I like the views. I also have a car to visit family outside London, but found it really easy to stop using it for city trips; I can get from A to B so much quicker on a bike. Why did you start cycling? Cycling in London is completely new to me. I had a bike when I was young, rode the Santander bikes a handful of times, and then decided to get my own through the Cycle2Work scheme. I feel like the woman with all the gear and no idea. My friend who lived opposite helped me. We started out just going around Putney on the back roads, then went a bit further on the main roads to Richmond. Later she cycled with me to work and I cycled home on my own for the first time. It was the middle of winter, I took a really bad route and it was pouring with rain, but I did it. I’m working full-time and studying part-time, and feel like I’m thriving. It comes from the cycling. You think: I can do this for myself, so I can do all these other things as well.

startcyclingthroughourCycleBuddiesscheme,connectingnewandexperiencedcyclistsacrossLondon(lcc.org.uk/groups/cycle-buddies).

LONDON CYCLIST Autumn 2022 37 WHY I STARTED CYCLING

Favourite place to cycle in London?

Name: Justin McKie Age: 46 Borough: Camden How often do you cycle and why? Everywhere, all the time. Why did you start cycling?

LONDON 38

I started riding seriously in London about 15 years ago, mostly around Regent’s Park. This space is used by everybody, from new cyclists through to professional racers. But in the beginning we were just separate people using the same space: no-one spoke to each other. Through my work to protect the park for cycling, I’ve accidentally built an entire community. Now we’ve got a Facebook page with 2000+ members (Regent’s Park Cyclists), all the cycling club leaders meet as a group, and we’ve become part of the Royal Parks and local police community panels. The reality is cyclists are a mixture of human beings, from high-quality right through to just a bit annoying. But we try to temper people’s enthusiasm to do stupid stuff and be good stakeholders, and improve this special place for others in the future.

Favourite place to cycle in London: Regent’s Park! I’ve completed 10,000 laps of the park. And the park’s 4.5km round. So that’s 45,000km and counting. In a straight line, that’s the entire way around the world.

WHY I STARTED CYCLING

Top tip: Come down to Regent’s Park very early in the morning, before the park gates open to cars at 7am, and do a few laps. You cannot help but get drawn into something: there’s always people meeting, a group forming, and you find others of your level and experience. And then you end up falling into a cycling club, and the next thing you know you’re doing races… What one thing would make people want to cycle more often? For me, restricting unnecessary through-traffic is top of the agenda. Until the Regent’s Park gates open, we have people cycling, pottering around without the threat of cars, really building up their confidence. We must continue to fight for this.

40 LCC’s legal partner, Osbornes Law, highlights half-a-dozen of the best places in the city to ride with pre-teen children, or the entire family BESTKIDS YOUNGERPLACESTHETO CYCLE WITH

There is a choice of cafes and The Roebuck pub, just outside Richmond Gate, is rightly popular with LCC members. The Tamsin trail is not surfaced, but fine for most cycles that don’t have skinny tyres.

BogdanowiczTomimages&Words:

IN ASSOCIATION WITH OSBORNES LAW

Best for deer spotting

OST CHILDREN love cycling — it’s a independentbecomingtowardsstep and allows them the pleasure of ‘free motion play’, enjoyed on swings and roundabouts, while travelling to a destination. The development of low traffic neighbourhoods, alongside older traffic management schemes, has made cycling for children so much easier for many families. But the ideal location for leisure cycling with young children is the park and there are more than a hundred parks in London where cycling is permitted. Even those where it isn’t permitted for adults (like some routes in Royal Parks) it is usually OK for children under 10. Small children can be taken for rides in childseats, trailers, or the ever-increasing range of cargobikes or e-cargobikes.

It is now common to start children cycling on their own by putting them on a balance bike (parks are good places to practice) and then switching to a small pedal cycle. The secondhand market in kid’s bikes is very active and you may well find local parents/carers who can sell you a bike that’s in good condition. If choosing a helmet for your child make sure it is the right size and fits comfortably. Remember to pack water on all rides too, especially if it is a hot day, and dress children in warm clothing if they are sitting in a childseat on coldOncedays.children are in school be sure they take advantage of any Bikeability classes that are offered, usually in year five. Here’s a list of some of our favourite parks for cycling with younger children (there are more examples in Cycling London by LCC’s Tom Bogdanowicz):

Richmond Park, SW11 No park in London comes close in size to Richmond and the Tamsin cycling and walking trail (12km) around the park’s perimeter is deservedly popular with children and adults alike. In earlier days, Queen Elizabeth I used to come stag hunting here and the Royal Park still has several hundred red and fallow deer that you can spot (and shoot with a camera) as you pedal round. If you walk up the King’s Mound, in Pembroke Gardens, near Richmond Gate you can see great views across the river and a preserved view of St Paul’s though a hole in the vegetation. In the spring, the azaleas in the Isabella Plantation are a must for adults.

Sights: Pembroke Garden; King Henry’s Mound; Isabella Plantation (azaleas). Cafés and pubs: Pembroke lodge café; The Roebuck pub. Stations: Richmond (cycle hire at station); Kingston.

LONDON CYCLIST Autumn 2022 41 M

Finsbury Park, N4

The road around this park has no traffic and is ideal for cycling with children. An anti-clockwise circuit takes you downhill, then up to the boating lake and popular café next door. Two playgrounds offer activities for older and younger children. There are also tennis courts, a skatepark, basketball courts and small football areas. If you want a slightly more demanding ride, search for the bridge on the west side of the park, a little below the basketball courts. On the other side of the bridge (across the railway tracks) is the entrance to the Parkland Walk, an uphill unsurfaced woodland trail following a former railway line going all the way to Highgate. It’s shady and pleasant but can be desolate during weekdays. If you exit the path at its north end and head further north you will reach Highgate Wood with another fine café. An all-ability cycle club, Pedal Power, meets at Finsbury Park on some weekends.

The park also features a disused lime kiln and the multi-cultural Chumleigh Gardens where there is a popular café. The Park Life café offers refreshments, but if you ride south along the Surrey Canal path (east end of Burgess Park) you will reach the busy, and memorable, Rye Lane where you’ll find a selection of all the world’s cuisines, foodstuffs and assorted other goods on display. Rye Lane is currently restricted to buses and cycle access.

Immensely popular in the summer, it has a non-trafficked wide road around the inside perimeter where children and adults walk and cycle. A road bisects the two halves of the park and you have to take care at the crossings. In the eastern half is the lakeside Pavilion Café with daily queues for its barista coffee, sourdough bread and all-day breakfast variations. Next to it is a delightful playground for small children with mini houses, mini river and mini swings. In the other half there is another café with impressive slides, sandpits and a skatepark for older children nearby.

Sights: Lake; skatepark; Parkland Walk; views of London. Cafés and pubs: Finsbury Park Café; The Pavilion café, Highgate Wood. Station: Finsbury Park. Best for BMX Burgess Park, SE5 Burgess Park is named after Jessie Burgess, Camberwell’s first female mayor. The park is longitudinal, running from Camberwell to Peckham, and connects to the former Surrey Canal path to Peckham Rye. It was created as an open space replacing some derelict housing, a churchyard and part of the old Surrey Canal. There is a small lake and a giant BMX park, championed in its early days by LCC member Barry Mason. In its all-new incarnation, the BMX track offers training and competition opportunities for everyone — from the novice to the expert, and has produced multiple world and Olympic medallists.

Sights: BMX track; historic lime kiln; lake; Surrey Canal path; Rye Lane. Café: Park Life café. Station: Peckham Rye (ride along the Surrey Canal path to Burgess Park).

FAMILY CYCLING

Best for cafés & playgrounds Victoria Park, E9 Vicky Park, the largest in east London, was created in response to a mass public petition and laid out in the 1840s.

Sights: Lake; multiple playgrounds; skatepark; gardens. Cafés and pubs: Pavilion Café; Park Café; Royal Inn on the Park.

Stations: Hackney Wick; Cambridge Heath.

Best for boating & secret connection

Alongside the park is the Regent’s Canal and Hertford Union. A range of concerts take place in the summer which can make some routes more complex and the park closes at dusk. You can also reach the Olympic Park, with more playgrounds (see p44), via the towpath that runs between the two parks.

Sights: Velodrome, BMX, mtb and road tracks; swimming pool; West Ham United football stadium; ArcellorMittal Orbit slide. Cafés and pubs: Timber Lodge café; Natura Café and Pizza (Hackney Wick); Crate pub (Hackney Wick).

Best for all ability cycling Dulwich Park, SE21 Once farmland alongside the Effra river, Dulwich Park is well kept and much enjoyed by locals. In this florally decorative park you will find a somewhat hidden brick building marked ‘London Recumbents’ — it is open daily and offers a range of adapted cycles for hire, including recumbents, side-by-sides, tricycles, tandems and a cargobike that can take children in the front. Explore the boating lake, where you can hire pedalos, spend time at the café, visit the vegetable garden and perhaps, for older children, cross the road to visit the Dulwich Picture Gallery. The gallery houses an art collection assembled for Poland’s last king who lost his job, and art collection, when his country was partitioned by invaders.

Stations: West Dulwich (via Belair Park and Lover’s Walk).

Best for fountains & adventure parks

Stations: Hackney Wick; Stratford.

Sights: Boating lake; London Recumbents; vegetable garden; Dulwich Picture Gallery. Café: Dulwich Clock café.

Osbornes Law is LCC’s official legal partner and its specialist cycling injury lawyers are on hand to offer cycling-related legal advice to all LCC members. For more details go to osborneslaw.com or call 020 4502 8855.

FAMILY CYCLING

QE Olympic Park, E20 Opened for the 2012 Olympics the Olympic Park is currently a mix of parkland, tall buildings and yet more tall buildings in construction. But it also has a superb velodrome (that you can visit when competitions are not on), one of the finest swimming pools in the world (both architectural icons), a playground with an entertaining fountain feature, a second playground with rope ladders, slides and sandpits, a climbing wall, a giant slide and a range of towpaths, rivers andCyclingcafés. is permitted on all the paths, though you must give way to walkers, and there are now cycle tracks next to most of the main roads. Our favourite café is the Timber Lodge, just south of the velodrome, but the Westfield shopping centre that adjoins the park has every food (and clothing) outlet you can imagine. For more hipsterlike fare head for Hackney Wick on the other side of the park. Older children can enjoy the BMX track next to the velodrome, the mountain biking trails, the road racing circuit (all charge admission), or special indoor sessions for smaller children. The velodrome itself provides training for children aged 12 or over at reasonable rates.

Proud to be the legal partner of the LCC and their members We operate a free telephone advice line for LCC members who have been involved in a cycling crash or collision. Our lawyers will advise you of your legal rights, the legal process and whether a legal claim can be brought. Telephone: 020 3944 1334 | Email: cycling@osborneslaw.com “As a member of veryWhat wonderfulI was recommendedLondon Cycling CampaigntheOsbornes.advice…theywerepersistentinfollowingthroughtheactiontakenagainstthedriver.Iamincrediblygratefultothem,frommyexperiencea highlyrecommendedlawfirm.” Osbornes Law is a trading style of Osbornes Solicitors LLP. We are regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA).

CUT TO THE CHASE Author Jack Thurston heads to a relatively unknown part of central England and discovers quiet lanes and trails aplenty, worthy of a weekend cycling getaway

AS CYCLISTS we owe a lot to the Midlands. It was here, in the workshops and factories of Coventry, Birmingham and Nottingham, that the primitive velocipede was refined into the modern bicycle and then produced in vast numbers, both for the home market and exports around the world. The region’s rich heritage in bicycle-making has never been matched by a reputation for bicycle-riding, however, and much of the great cycling to be had in the countryside surrounding the big industrial centres of the Midlands remains a hidden secret. The latest in the Lost Lanes series of guides is an attempt to set this straight, to show that the central counties of England aren’t just places you pass through on the way to the more celebrated landscapes of Wales and the North. At just one hour and nine minutes by train from London, the historic cathedral city of Lichfield is perfect for a weekend getaway. This ride combines quiet lanes, canal and riverside towpaths, a slice of Staffordshire’s gently rolling countryside and some wilder gravel sections through Cannock Chase. This hilly expanse of heath and woodland is something of a hidden gem — beloved by mountain bikers, its off-road trails gained recent exposure when hosting the mtb events at this year’s Commonwealth Games. It’s big and wild enough to get away from it all for a wild camp if that’s your thing too, and during the summer the Forestry Commission runs a brilliant 30-acre ‘pop-up’ site with full facilities and bell tents available to hire.

England’s answer to Cologne’s gothic masterpiece, Lichfield cathedral’s giant spires shoot up to the heavens above a vast,

LONDON CYCLIST Autumn 2022 47 TRAVEL

ThurstonJackPhotos:

Returning to nature

From the cathedral, this ride heads out on National Cycle Route 54, passing through the construction site that will eventually carry HS2, the high-speed rail line. Back when canals were the latest thing in transport technology, Fradley Junction was an important Midlands interchange and is still a popular spot for recreational boaters. The towpath provides a pleasant way through the village of Alrewas and over the River Trent, avoiding the shockingly-poor cycle path beside the A38. Barton-under-Needwood is the gateway to the lost forest of Needwood, originally a hunting ground for deer and wild boar and ‘wood pasture’ for grazing livestock and woodland crafts. In the late 1700s, the owners of the seven landed estates which owned Needwood saw the potential profits of clearing the land for modern agriculture. In ornately-statued frontage. For the medieval imagination it must have been overwhelming. And its gory history is a match for the dramatic architecture. In the 1500s, people were tried in the cathedral for heresy and burned alive in the Market Square — in fact the last public execution by burning in all of England was here in 1612. In the Civil War Lichfield was divided between Roundheads and Cavaliers, and in repeated sieges the cathedral was reduced to a wrecked shell. And yet, just a few decades later, Lichfield had set aside its violent past to become a sophisticated intellectual centre of the Enlightenment. A few hours from Birmingham, 48

Chase:Cannock loved alikecampersandmtb’ersbywild and ‘just’ two days from London by stagecoach, connectedness brought commerce and radical new ideas. The physician and polymath Erasmus Darwin (the grandfather of Charles) hosted meetings of the Lunar Society at his house, bringing together likeminded thinkers and doers from across the Midlands. Samuel Johnson, who was born and raised in Lichfield, even declared: “We are a city of philosophers. We work with our heads and let the boobies of Birmingham work for us with their hands.”

n Lost Lanes Central is published by Wild Things Publishing (£16.99). Signed copies available directly from the author at lostlanes.co.uk/shop.

The region’s other large expanse of upland and open country are the Shropshire Hills. Here, some of the oldest and most unusual geology in England makes the area a mecca for rock hounds and cyclists with a taste for climbing. To the south, the Cotswolds are one of the most celebrated English landscapes, part of a broad and intermittent outcrop of limestone that extends from Dorset to North Yorkshire. While the East Midlands has a reputation for being pancake flat and easy riding, there are some often-overlooked pockets that are surprisingly lumpy, like Lincolnshire’s wolds and ‘high’ Leicestershire, immediately south of MeltonElsewhereMowbray.there are expanses of archetypal ‘green and pleasant lands’. Edward Elgar rode his bicycle all around his native Worcestershire and Herefordshire including the wonderful Malvern Hills. Lord of the Rings author JRR Tolkien — who grew up in and around Birmingham and its suburbs — described ‘The Shire’, the idyllic homeland of the Hobbits, as “more or less a Warwickshire village” of the 1890s. Almost all the rides in the book are accessible by train and start points have been selected in locations that are great places to stay over for a long weekend, from historic cities and large towns like Lincoln, Worcester, Leamington Spa and Shrewsbury, to interesting and independent-minded towns like Ludlow, Ledbury, Cirencester, Buxton, Newark, Oakham and many more.

A few miles on is Abbots Bromley, a well-todo village neatly built in Staffordshire red brick and best known, in fact world famous, for its annual Horn Dance. The ritual folk dance involves dancers bearing reindeer antlers, a man dressed as Maid Marian, a hobby horse, and a fool. A fragment of one antler has been carbondated to around 1065. The dance takes place on Wakes Monday in early September, but the horns are on display in the church all year round. From Abbots Bromley it’s south on the causeway across Blithfield Reservoir to Colton and negotiating a mess of canal, railway and trunk roads to reach the haven of Cannock

TRAVEL LONDON CYCLIST Autumn 2022 49 an early instance of environmental protest, leading lights from Lichfield’s intellectual scene including Erasmus Darwin and the Romantic poet Anna Seward, spoke out against the clearances. They mourned not just the destruction of a beautiful landscape but the loss of traditional woodland ways of life. Mother nature is now making a tentative return to Needwood thanks to local conservation charities. At Brankley Pastures, arable monocultures are being reverted to the kind of wildlife-rich wood pasture that would have been typical of Needwood before the clearances. Small projects like this are part of the National Forest initiative which aspires to link the ancient forests of Needwood and Charnwood, straddling the borders of Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire.

With this latest addition to the Lost Lanes series, I have deliberately chosen a large canvas. As well as including the traditional core of the Midlands, it covers an area from the Cotswolds to the Peak District, and from Lincolnshire to the Welsh border. Within this area are an astonishing variety of landscapes. The most spectacular of these are in the southern half of the Peak District, comprising the Derbyshire Dales and the Staffordshire Moorlands. Canals and disused railways overlay a dense network of old roads, green lanes and packhorse trails. No area of Britain combines such a high density of routes for exploring by bike with such stunning landscapes, from windswept moors and vertiginous gritstone edges to limestone crags and caverns.

EXPLORING CENTRAL ENGLAND

Take towpath:the and mainlanespooravoidcycleonroads

50 Chase. Another former royal hunting forest, it is a mixture of broadleaf woodland, coniferous plantations, open heathland, small lakes and the remains of early industries like coal mining and ironworking, plus a few old military training camps. With miles of good gravel tracks as well as some serious downhill trails, it’s a popular local destination for mountain bikers. Cannock Chase is also a favourite haunt for ghost hunters and paranormal enthusiasts.

Start/finish: just about anywhere in Lichfield. Nearest stations: Lichfield City or Lichfield Trent Valley. Terrain: quiet country lanes, woodland, heathland, easy gravel trails.

TRAVEL

Both trails up through the Chase converge at The Butts trig point. From here the route heads south-east on Marquis Drive through richlyscented pine plantations. The last few miles back to Lichfield are on pleasant country lanes.

Among the apparitions reportedly seen on the Chase are a pig-man, black-eyed children, werewolf-type creatures and an assortment of UFOs. The main trail from the Seven Springs car park follows the hard-packed gravel track up Abraham’s Valley, but you could equally well go a little to the west and ride the bridleway up the Sherbrook Valley, which is a little longer, a little rougher, but even more scenic.

In 1834 Lichfield had an astonishing 72 pubs, one for every 69 inhabitants. The city can’t match that ratio today, but it’s still got way more than is usual for a place of its size.

beauty:GothicFACTFILE exploringwellhistoryCathedral’sLichfieldisworth

Food & drink: lots of options in Lichfield, Barton-under-Needwood and surrounding villages.

Online map: lostlanes.co.uk/llce-lichfield/

To celebrate this beery legacy, Lichfield Real Ale Trail features traditional boozers, grand coaching inns, bistros, brew-pubs, Belgian bars, and micropubs. It’s a perfect way to round off a big day out on the bike.

Want some help to cycle more? Would you like to build your confidence riding on London’s roads or find safe routes to school or work? Or do you cycle already and want to help others experience the joy and freedom of getting about by bike? Cycle Buddies puts new and returning riders in touch with experienced riders in their local area. Meet up and ride together – to work, to the shops, or just to the park for practice! Sign up at: www.lcc.org.uk/cyclebuddies Cycle Buddies HELPING YOU TO CYCLE MORE

BIKEWORKS IS a London

The organisation recently secured funding for a 12-month project to provide a fleet of six cycle taxis across London, that will be available to book seven days a week — it’s ‘dial-a-ride’ with a difference. Aimed at addressing isolation and loneliness, the free service hopes to increase feelings of connectivity and wellbeing and is designed to be especially accessible to people with restricted mobility, including older people or those with visual/ sensoryFundedimpairments.bytheDepartment for Transport, the cycle taxis can take up to three passengers at a time to enjoy gentle exercise and fresh air in a social group, while also carrying out practical journeys in their neighbourhood.

Award-winning social enterprise Bikeworks adds new ‘dial-a-ride’ service to tackle loneliness and isolation to its list of activities and courses

LONDONERS

The taxi can be booked for oneoff leisure or utility trips (to the doctor, shopping or community events) — and it can even be HAIL CYCLE TAXI

‘toolusingsocialcommunity-evolvedbased,enterprise,cyclingasaforgood’to address social, economic and environmental challenges. Established to seize the legacy opportunities of the London 2012 Olympics, Bikeworks continues to address the inequalities experienced by those most likely to be left behind, and it is this founding vision that shapes everything they do.

NEW

n Cycle for Wellbeing Free, inclusive cycling programme focused on supporting mental wellbeing, using group cycling that embeds the NHS ‘Five Ways to Wellbeing’ programme, while getting out and about in green spaces and waterways.

LONDON CYCLIST Autumn 2022 53 COMMUNITYTRAVEL

n Cycle Training For families, schools, and 1-to-1 sessions for children and adults.

n Technical Courses

BikeworksPhotos:

booked for repeat slots to attend regular weekly activities. Throw in a boost from the electric battery and a friendly pilot who stays with you the whole time, and you have the perfect vehicle for tackling loneliness and isolation. The taxis are free to use for local journeys and can be booked online or by phone. The service is currently available in Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest, Newham, north Hammersmith and Fulham, and north Kensington and Chelsea, with booking slots are up to 1.5hr long. If passengers need to make it to an appointment at a specific time with a return trip, up to two slots can be booked in a day.

Pedal & earn Bikeworks is currently recruiting taxi pilots to staff this service. Candidates should be friendly, patient people who like to cycle and who are happy to map out places of interest that are accessible using this 4m x 1.2m vehicle. Full training is given, plus risk assessment, and Bikeworks will share some of its expert knowledge in delivering inclusive services in the community. More info on the role and an application process can be found on the website callcycle-taxi-service).(bikeworks.org.uk/Oryoucan02089807998.

n E-Scooter Training Courses for instructors and organisations, including free training sessions to improve e-scooter skills.

BIKEWORKS’ ACTIVITIES

The online booking system allows for passengers to book flexible time slots or, if they just want to go for a leisure ride, they can ‘share’ the ride with someone else, which is a great way to meet other people in the neighbourhood and explore the local area together.

While a second added: “From the second that I got on it, I was laughing, so much fun! It was brilliant because the pilot is the one controlling it, we didn’t have to steer. I liked that I could just sit back and take it in.”

From beginner maintenance courses to City & Guilds accredited courses, for people who want to advance their knowledge of bicycle maintenance to further their career in the cycle industry, start a new career, or simply for cycle enthusiasts.

n All Ability Club Free to access, drop-in club designed for people with learning, physical and/ or sensory disabilities, and carers to enjoy cycling using a range of exciting adapted cycles. These include single/ tandem tricycles, side-by-side cycles for two or more people, wheelchair platform cycles and go-kart style recumbent cycles.

One early passenger said of the new service: “You can’t describe what it’s like to be free and have the wind in your hair on the bike. Fantastic! I felt a bit exhilarated.”

# 7 MOON RIGEL PRO FRONT LIGHT

#1 CYCOLOGY LONG-SLEEVEDHORIZONJERSEY

The perfect combination of style and functionality, these sleek, waterproof pannier bags (15l/M or 25l/L) are more than roomy enough to carry your everyday essentials, With rolltop closure and reflective tabs, they’re built to last for years. n tenways.com; £49 (M), £69 (L).

An exceptional bike light that’s versatile enough for off-road cycling, adventure rides and daily commutes in low-light conditions. It has a robust, water resistant, aluminium body, takes 3hr to charge, and lasts 1hr30 on full beam or 24hr on flash mode. n raleigh.co.uk; £65.

The bright rainbow colours and coralcoloured hem stand out during the day, while the Darkflow’s reflective fabric shines bright at night. This women’s hi-vis vest is perfect for layering over your bulkier winter layers as well. Sizes XXS-XXL. n cyclechic.co.uk; £44.99.

Eyepod sports glasses have been designed by opticians with cyclists in mind and to suit all prescriptions. They come with five different lenses, including polarised, low light contrast and mirrored — perfect for road riding or mountain biking. n sportsglasses.online; from £99.

#8 GOFLUO DARKFLOW REFLECTIVE VEST

A versatile lock, the Messenger Mini+ comes with a handy extender that can secure a wheel while the frame remains locked to an immovable object. It’s a great combination of strength and low weight, and Sold Secure Silver rated. n freewheel.co.uk; £74.99.

#4 EYEPOD PRESCRIPTION CYCLING GLASSES

Commute with confidence thanks to the CityZen’s double layer of the brand new KinetiCore impact protection technology. This is a helmet designed for cyclists who want to feel protected on the city streets. Six colours; sizes S-XL. n freewheel.co.uk; £59.99.

#3 MESSENGERKRYPTONITEMINI+

#2 LAZER KINETICORECITYZENHELMET

#5 VAELA CYCLING JEANS

This performance fit jersey is made with a premium, high-stretch, brushed fleece fabric that ensures both plenty of warmth and flexibility of movement. Reflective piping in the front panel seams add visibility in low light. Sizes S-XXXL. n cycologygear.co.uk; £85.

#6 MADISON STELLAR REFLECTIVE JACKET

Beat the shoulder-season blues with a few suggestions for cool and canny gear that will help keep you pedalling whatever the weather...

AUTUMN GEAR GUIDE

T’S NO SECRET that the summer months always see a massive uptake in cycling, with numbers dropping off a little as the weather turns more unpredictable in autumn and winter. But, as many people have come to realise, a few key kit choices can keep you riding year-round without worry. Sometimes it’s only a warmer, more breathable layer or two that can make the difference. Or a better waterproof jacket, with built-in reflectivity. Perhaps a new set of lights that cover all eventualities, or a pair of glasses that adapts to varying conditions. One or two new or upgraded items can often be what’s stopping people riding moreHereregularly.webring together nine innovative and genuinely useful products that are worth considering if you want to become a year-round cyclist.

Available in men’s and women’s versions, the Stellar Reflective jacket combines high visibility with a dose of style for anyone commuting around town. The waterproof fabric keeps the elements out and vents help prevent overheating. Sizes S-XXL/8-14. n freewheel.co.uk; £89.99.

54 I

Vaela jeans look fabulous both on and off the bike, with subtle tweaks and innovations (like hidden reflective details) making them crazy comfortable without shouting ‘cyclist!’. What’s more, this female cyclewear brand is sustainable too. Sizes 4-24. n vaela.cc; £160

#9 TENWAYS PANNIER

LONDON CYCLIST Autumn 2022 55 ADVERTISING FEATURE #2 #3 #4 #7 #6 #9#8 #5 #1

MEMBERSHIP BENEFITS • Third-party insurance cover • Free cycling legal advice • Discounts with 100+ bike shops and top cycling brands • Subscription to London Cyclist magazine • Priority entry into major sportives • Free ABUS Ultimate U-lock with extender cable Visit www.lcc.org.uk/locks or use the QR code below Free Abus Gold-rated U-locks for you and a friend Introduce a friend to LCC membership and you’ll both receive a free Abus Ultimate U-lock, plus an extender cable. They’ll be supporting our work campaigning for safer cycling in London as well as receiving a host of great benefits.

RIDES bigstock/Rott70Photo: LONDON CYCLIST Autmn 2022 59 & TUNNELS PLANES, CRANES DISTANCE: 27km (16 miles) ASCENT: 133m BIKE TYPES: Suitable for all bikes START POINTS: Twickenham or Hayes stations NB: Komoot shows parts of this route as ‘not permitted’ for cycling, but these are shared use paths on the ground.

The River Crane is one of London’s least known rivers, threading its way for some eight miles unobtrusively through dense suburbia to join the Thames at Isleworth. The low, marshy floodplains, being unsuitable to build on, remain a more or less continuous finger of green weaving a way through the concrete sprawl. This is an easy ride on flat, wellmaintained gravel tracks, connected by quiet roads and cycle paths; in fact, at times, it’s difficult to believe that you’re only a stone’s throw from the UK’s busiest airport. We have partnered with mapping specialist Komoot to bring you free downloadable route maps. Simply scan the QR code here to access the relevant page on your smartphone or tablet.

In association with

PLANES, CRANES & TUNNELS STATIONTW’M STATIONTW’MPARKOSTERLEY 7.5km 14 2 3 HOUNSLOWHEATH 21kmSTADIUMRUGBY 2.5km CRANFORDPARK 15km I

FACTFILE Ride maestro Charlie Codrington heads west to discover a mix of open heathland trails and local curiosities

F YOU’RE lucky you’ll spot a flash of iridescent blue as a kingfisher darts by unperturbed by a Boeing 737 flying a few feet above — one of the many surprises you’ll hopefully discover on this bike tour of west London. The splendid Osterley House, rugby history, unexpected industrial heritage, open heathlands, stretches of boardwalk, and even a mysterious tunnel await.

S/F: Leave Twickenham station, cross the road, sneak past the pub and you’ll come across the river for the first time; follow the shady path past the old railway yards and enter a different, quieter world. Shortly you’ll come across the more namedgrandlyDuke daysriver,Northumberland’sofcutintheofHenryVIII.

60 Ride Guide

Follow the canal as it passes those two icons of the rugby world, the Stoop (home of the Harlequins) and Twickenham stadium itself. Fans may want to peel off to visit the vast collection of memorabilia on show at the World Rugby Museum.

3 OSTERLEY PARK

2 STADIUMTWICKENHAM

Osterley Park is magnificent on so many levels; as you cycle through the front gates and along the imposing avenue, turn the final corner to reveal the façade of the house in all its glory. You can even ride up to the foot of the front steps for a closer look. Osterley House was rebuilt by Robert Adam in the 1760s, its neoclassical interiors are justly world famous, a glorious concoction of gorgeous colours, delicate moulding, gold leaf, paintings and fab furniture. Lock up the bikes and take a tour. If neoclassical interiors aren’t your thing, the National Trust has bent over backwards to make it as bike friendly as possible. You’re free to ride almost anywhere and they have even created a mini mountain bike trail around the middle lake; it’s easily ridden on most bikes and is well worth the detour. The route then follows the Grand Union Canal for a couple of miles to reconnect with the River Crane at Hayes, which is on the new Elizabeth Line and an optional starting point.

4 CRANFORD PARK

In the olden days the river passed through the grounds of Cranford House. The house hasn’t survived, but the stable block with its cobbled courtyard has, making an impressive entrance to the park. It’s the first part of an almost roughTwickenham.thereservesofconnectedcontinuouslystringparksandnaturethatstretchentirewaybacktoCranfordParkisopenland,criss-crossed by well-made gravel paths, and our route winds through the woods on the riverbank before crossing over to the manicured Avenue Park. Cross the grandly-named Great South West Road before diving back into the woodlands of Donkey Wood, before riding the boardwalk along to BaberOnBridge.intoBrazil Mill wood where, if you look carefully, you can see the remains of the original mill. Look even more carefully and you may see the flash of a passing kingfisher. You don’t have to look at all to be aware of the underbelly of the passing Airbuses.

PLANES, CRANES & TUNNELS

FIND, PLAN AND SHARE YOUR ADVENTURES WITH KOMOOT

5 HOUNSLOW HEATH Brazil Mill wood is part of the much larger Hounslow Heath, once the most dangerous place in England; the infamous highwaymen Dick Turpin and Claude Duval held up the carriages of the wealthy bound for Bath or Exeter. The modern heath hosts a network of gravel paths just asking to be explored. Back to the route, you’ll soon come across the most unexpected relic of the area’s industrial heritage; turn a corner and you find a mysterious tunnel, it goes nowhere under nothing. Take a torch and explore, the tunnel floor is rough, the walls decorated in graffiti and the other end opens on to an impenetrable railway fence — but what is it? Turns out it’s a flood relief tunnel built during the Great War with help from German prisoners of war. Straight after the tunnel, take a moment to check out the graffiti in the old concrete tanks before heading for Crane Park. Formally the site of the Hounslow Gunpowder Works, this neatly explains the presence of a ‘shot tower’ slap bang in the middle of a smart residential area. Osterley, both inside and out, never disappoints and you stumble across an andlikewell-madewithfromaccessiblelevel,scale.heritagerangeunexpectedofindustrialonagrandOnapracticalit’seasilybytrainmostpartsoftown,stress-freecyclingonpaths—andwhodoesn’tabitofboardwalk,edgygraffitiamysterioustunnel?

Turn your next ride into an adventure with Komoot. Get inspired by tapping into shared community knowledge and recommendations, then bring your own adventures to life with the easy route planner. New users can receive a Komoot Region Bundle of offline maps (worth £8.99). Visit komoot.com/g and enter the code ‘LCC’ to choose your free Region Bundle.’ [Valid for new Komoot users only, redeemable until 31/12/2022].

Simply scan the QR code here to access the relevant ride guide and map on a smartphone or tablet. LONDON CYCLIST Autumn 2022 61 In association with PLANES, CRANES AND TUNNELS 3 2 4 5 KEEPANDCUT-OUT S F

62 In the first part of a new series, we explain the key things to consider when buying a city bike. While much of the same advice can also apply to buying secondhand, there’s often other factors at play there too, so we’re concentrating on buying from a reputable dealer. There’s hundreds of great retailers in LCC’s bike shop network and staff will be happy to help (lcc.org.uk/membership). MY FIRST... CITY BIKE H FOR MORE BIKE ADVICE & TOP TIPS, GO TO LCC.ORG.UK/NEWS-AND-ADVICE H Same differentbike,style: many cyclists, men and women, prefer the ease of a ‘step through’ frame (1a) 1 4 4 5 7 8 9 1a 10 Front derailleur or not? Two or three chainrings give you more gears, but they’re not an essential in London. A single chainring (1x) set-up is also lighter and easier to maintain. John Kitchiner is editor of London Cyclist and a confirmed bikeaholic

5. SADDLE Comfort is the name of the game here, and as no two anatomies are the same it’s a case of trying a few to find your perfect perch. A moderate amount of padding and a ‘pressure relief channel’ down the centre are standard on most saddles these days.

Some cyclists swear by caliper/rim brakes, but they don’t come close to the power and reliability of modern disc brakes, especially on wet roads. They also require much less servicing. For smaller hands it’s worth noting that brake levers can usually be adjusted inwards for easier reach.

2. TYRES Aside from the frame, the biggest factor in how a bike handles is the tyre choice. Slick tread patterns may be faster but they come unstuck in wet conditions and on less than perfect surfaces. So look for tyres that marry good grip with puncture protection. Also, as most city bikes lack suspension, consider fitting the widest tyres your frame allows for an added bit of cushioning and comfort.

1. FRAME Forget about flashy carbon frames, it’s best to consider either aluminium or steel. Both have pros and cons in terms of ride ‘feel’ (a matter of personal preference), but both are tough, and can take plenty of knocks and scrapes. Most important — and we cannot stress this enough — is fit. And you must try before you buy. Sat on the bike with the saddle set at the correct height (so there’s a slight kink in your knee when the pedal’s at its lowest position), you shouldn’t feel cramped or stretched with your hands just resting on the bars. Minor adjustments at the saddle, or a different stem length, can help if fit isn’t far off. But any more and you should try a different size bike — you can’t change this at a later date!

While narrower bars allow you to nip through tight spaces, wider bars provide better steering control. We’d err towards wider for a more relaxed shoulder position.

A dynamo set-up, fitted permanently to your bike (as pictured) is the ultimate, though priciest option. Otherwise see if the dealer/ seller will throw in a set of USB-rechargeable lights.

6. HANDLEBARS

For peace of mind you’ll need a strong D-lock or chain to secure your bike when it’s out of your sight; look for silver or gold-rated locks as a minimum. Security skewers or bolts at the wheels, seatpost and saddle further deter

2 3 6 7 10 6a cassette in the rear. Losing the front derailleur is one less thing to maintain too.

Many city cyclists prefer using panniers to rucksacks, taking the weight off their backs. They’re also useful for shopping and recreational trips, so look for wobble-free racks with secure fittings.

ADVICEtheft.

8. MUDGUARDS They don’t just keep rain spray from your eyes and clothes, they do the same for fellow cyclists, an important courtesy on busy cycle lanes.

7. LIGHTS

9. PANNIER RACK

H FOR MORE BIKE ADVICE & TOP TIPS, GO TO LCC.ORG.UK/NEWS-AND-ADVICE H

For the most part London is relatively flat, so you don’t need a huge spread of gears. A single front chainring will suffice, paired with a 9, 10 or 11-speed

10. SECURITY

4. GEARS

3. BRAKES

A simple to ride, multimode commutable, folding e-bike — what’s not to like?

E-BIKESNEW HOT TECH BIKES

PeaceRichardReview:

64 VELLO BIKE+ n FROM £2,990 n en.vello.bike | aboutthebike.co.uk T LONDON CYCLIST, we previously looked at the Zehus motor system in our review of the Quella Varsity Edinburgh, where we liked its simplicity but criticised its relatively weak hillclimbing and limited range from the small battery. Here the innovative, steel-framed folder, the Vello Bike+, uses the second generation of that system and we’re pleased to say that the greater motor power and bigger battery means it is a ride transformed. It retains all the electric elements in the large, shiny rear hub, including motor, 173Wh battery, and motion and incline sensors, along with bluetooth connectivity — but it climbs much better and goes farther on a single charge. It also boasts a Gates belt drive for oil-free, low maintenance compared to a regular chain.

The neat and simple-to-use motor system is married to Vello’s high quality frame which folds in three parts; undo the fork hinge and knock the rear triangle out of its magnetic connection and the front and rear halves come together elegantly with a combination of magnet and hook keeping everything solidly together. Drop the seatpost and bars, and fold the bar ends and pedals, and at 81x37x57cm (as measured by us) you have a compact package that’s a doddle to lift and carry up stairs. Our test bike weighed 16.4kg but came with a Schlumpf Mountain Drive transmission mounted at the bottom bracket (only really necessary in very hilly terrain) that probably A added around 700g. There is a lighter Speed Drive option, or a full titanium version of the Vello Bike+, with claimed weight of 12.9kg, but that ups the price to £4,190. There is a wireless remote button option, though we used the excellent Bitride smartphone app via the bike’s very reliable bluetooth link. There are various power modes but our favourite was Hybrid Custom, meaning the rear hub’s inclinometer applied power based on gradient and speed and applied regenerative braking (where the motor slows you down) at higher speeds and on downhills. Over a lumpy test course it made it up hills over 15% gradient and posted a 20-mile plus range, most impressive for a relatively small motor and battery combo. It felt sporty and fast too, and the

n Plenty of spec and frame options, including a drop-barred, fat-tyred gravel model or titanium frame.

n Intelligent Hybrid riding modes let you concentrate on riding while sensors apply electric power and motorLONDONbraking.CYCLIST

Autumn 2022 65

REVIEWS

FACTFILE n Stem riser allows riders of all sizes to find an optimal fit.

1.5in wide Schwalbe Marathon tyres coped easily with unsealed tracks.

There’s an increasing amount of competition in the area of electric folding bikes light enough to carry onto trains and small enough to store on a luggage rack; leaders in the field include Brompton, Flit and Gocycle. They all cost several thousand pounds and all weigh 15kg+(there’s also the 10.9kg Hummingbird Electric, but that is over 1m long when folded). The Vello Bike+ belongs in this select and stellar company.

VERDICT + The new and much improved Zehus all-in-one motor system makes a lot of sense on this fast folder; no cables to get tangled and a belt drive to keep everything clean.

Lights that attach by magnets and click-brackets, and mudguards, are added extras as are various gearing choices — the singlespeed would be perfectly adequate around London. There are also front and rear racks available.

+ It’s a welcome further option for anyone looking for an electric folder suitable for multi-modal commuting.

BogdanowiczTomReview:

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A few years on and the GSD now faces stiff competition from imitators who have followed the template, if not the quality, but undercut Tern by some £2k. Its answer is the Quick Haul — same format, similar finish, but without the frills, to squeeze in below £3k. We certainly found the Quick Haul the equal of the GSD in terms of handling, convenience (it stores vertically, something most rivals have yet to copy) and reliability.

What you lose compared to the GSD is official rear carrying capacity (down from 100kg to 50kg), though we did try it with a 70kg adult passenger and handling was fine and nothing bent or squeaked. There’s no suspension, a smaller motor, and a shorter range.

The power assist of the Bosch Active Line motor is reassuringly predictable with no pulsing or surges as you engage modes, the charger is portable and the riding position, though more forward than the GSD, is spot-on for a commute or leisure ride. At 23kg it is also about 7kg lighter than the GSD, which is helpful on steps.

Our supplier (Fully Charged) estimates a range of 32 to 65 miles depending on the power setting T and this corresponded to our own experience — we managed 15 miles on one indicator square (out of five) riding solo on the flat in the second lowest (Tour) setting, and five miles with a passenger on hills in the third (Sport) setting. We loved the comfy Captain’s Chair (an extra £200) and Tern’s cavernous 74-litre (but not quickrelease) panniers, which we initally found awkward for storage until we discovered they fold flat, another neat innovation. Passengers used the panniers as footrests because, unlike the GSD, there are no integral footrests, though you can buy horse-style stirrups. We searched for a PIN code on the display to deter access to children or thieves but, currently, there isn’t one. Is this new Tern as capable as its pricier We it up to see...

stablemates?

TERN QUICK HAUL D8 n FROM £2,900 n ternbicycles.com/uk ERN CREATED the compact e-cargobike category with its pioneering GSD model. It ticked all the boxes for a family vehicle: passenger carrying (two children or one adult), huge load capacity, step-through frame and easy storage, being no longer than a regular bike. The only catch was that it was expensive (about £5k).

E-BIKESNEW HOT TECH BIKES

VERDICT + If you plan to transport kids and/or heavy loads on a regular basis, and can live with a shorter range than the GSD, the Quick Haul can save you a cool £2k over its stablemate, while giving you the same proven reliability and solid performance.

With its chunky Schwalbe tyres, eight-speed gearing and disc brakes, the Quick Haul fared surprisingly well off-road too. With its passenger capacity and the ability to squeeze into lifts and urban hallways it could be another winner for Tern.

Front and rear lights included and always on.

n Lockable battery; can be charged on or off the bike.

REVIEWS

FACTFILE

n One size, but with adjustable seat and handlebar to suit riders from 160cm (5ft3in) to 195cm (6ft5in).

n Ultra low standover height for easy (dis)mounting.

Wheels, seatpin and bars have quick-release bolts, so it would be a good idea to consider replacing with security bolts in

LONDONLondon.CYCLIST

Autumn 2022 67

City cyclists are spoilt for choice with helmets these days, whether it’s dazzling designs, the latest safety tech, or just real bang for those bucks

Another more traditional-looking helmet, the C317 is lightweight, has 17 vents that channel air across the head nicely, and has a minimalist fit adjuster. The large rear light is simple to switch on with one hand while riding, and those vents also provided multiple attachment spots for lights. However at this price point there’s no impact protection tech and unfortunately only one colourway. Two sizes. n £45.99; everythingtocycling.co.uk #8 HJC CALIDO

The vents might be few in number here, but the size and placement mean they do a great job. The auto-fit system, which clips on around the back of the head, takes a little getting used to, but actually proved very comfy; it also removes the need to keep adjusting the fit to your hairstyle. But there’s no visor or mounts for accessories. Six colours, three sizes. n £75; saddleback.co.uk a USB charger. Otherwise, the helmet is light and brilliantly vented. Just be careful with fit, as our S/M sample was tiny. Three sizes. n From £38.99; bellbikehelmets.co.uk #3 LAZER CITYZEN

One passer-by described our test lid as a ‘green ladybird’, but if this one doesn’t tickle your fancy there’s eight other designs. The magnetic strap closure make things easier for frailer hands, adjustment is simple, and again there’s a Mips system, plus a detachable visor. It also has surprisingly good airflow. The only catches are the small ponytail #1 ABUS MACATOR MIPS

This cute-looking lid, available in six colours, boasts its own impact protection technology, KinetiCore; the front vent and side wings are designed to flex if subject to rotational or direct hits. And while the CityZen fits really nicely, airflow over the head could be better. Also there’s nowhere to attach a light or cam, so you need a ‘sticky’ mount. Four sizes. n £59.99; freewheel.co.uk #4 TSG GEO Sporting an eye-catching geodesic shell, like a dome at the Eden Project (one co-designer founded a paper arts company), the Geo includes 10 vents and a removable, battery-powered rear LED light. We found the helmet comfy and well ventilated, and it has a thoughtful emergency contact sticker inside; the straps are reflective too. Only available in black, we felt it sized up small, but there’s four to choose from. n £79.99; ison-distribution.com #5 NUTCASE STREET

URBAN CYCLE HELMETS

T HERE’S lightweightcycling,everyofdifferentAstylehelmetfortypeoffromultraroad lids to full-face ‘moto-style’ downhill mountain bike models. For city riding something in the middle works best, with ‘style’ an added Whateverconsideration.helmetyou finally plump for, it should be comfortable, fit well, and be up to the job. Try before you buy at your local bike shop — and show your LCC membership card for discounts in independent retailers across London. Read on for our reviews of eight of the newest models.

opening and the lack of accessory mounting options. Three sizes. n £75; upgradebikes.co.uk

This trail-style helmet has a whopping 19 vents, really effective on baking hot days, and a basic dial to tailor the fit. There’s five colours to choose from, each with adjustable peak and integral LED light (just press to cycle through modes), and it’s light at 270g. Rear head coverage isn’t quite as substantial as others tested though, and the matte finish scratched very quickly. Two sizes. n £36.99; oxfordproducts.com # 7 ETC C317

#6 OXFORD METRO-V

This classic road-style helmet’s main special feature is the rear 20-lumen LED, which provides flashing red lights for a few days of commuting. However, for recharging you need to connect the whole helmet into

EthertonMelanieREVIEWS:

This understated helmet is both light and comfy, and includes a Mips cradle designed to protect against rotational injuries in the event of a crash. The retention system was easy to adjust and there’s plenty of vents to stay cool; the latter’s also useful for attaching lights or cams. A bug mesh at the front keeps flying insects out too. Two sizes. n £69.99; extrauk.co.uk #2 BELL AVENUE LED

REVIEWS LONDON CYCLIST Summer 2020 69LONDON CYCLIST Autumn 2022 #7 #8 #2 #3#1 #4 #6 #5

There is, of course, a limit to weight/ space saving ideas and we found ours on a recent off-road tour when yet another plastic ‘spork’ snapped and we had to fashion an eating implement out of duct tape. So we’ve gone back to the future with a traditional threepiece cutlery set like we used at Cubs, only made of superlight titanium. Plus it all snaps together for neat storage. n £21.99; subzero.co.uk

#3 MOUNTAIN EQUIPMENT

#1 #2 #4#3

#4 TITANIUMLIFEVENTURECUTLERY SET

With the horrific state of UK rivers and streams right now, finding a clean water source on the hoof can be tricky, made harder when the usual method of killing H2O-borne viruses and bacteria (boiling on a stove) risks potential wildfire. Enter the Eddy+ with its built-in ‘LifeStraw’ that twice filters the liquid to remove the aforementioned nasties, plus parasites, microplastics, chlorine and other unwanted chemicals. It saves carrrying a separate filter (eg Katadyn) and the design keeps water cold for almost a day. Pair with a Horizon mug (£28) in the same material and you’re all set for a comfortable camp. n £70; various sizes; camelbak.co.uk

With domestic holidays surging, interest in cycle touring and bikepacking has never been greater. Here’s a few of the products we’ve been testing this year...

KJohnREVIEWS: REVIEWS

#1 CAMELBAK EDDY+ 1L VACUUM INSULATED STAINLESS STEEL BOTTLE

#2 ALPKIT DUMO We’re lucky enough to be able to mix and match our sleeping kit depending on the trip and bike/luggage options: for fast, light overnighters we’ve been using Alpkit’s 350g Numo for years; for slower tours we’ve plumped for the luxury of a fat, but bulky Therma-a-rest. The Dumo sits in the middle — it’s still pretty light at 850g, packs down to only 30cm long and sits a very welcome 10cm thick when inflated. Pumping it up is quite unique too — no blowing or floorpumps required, you simply use both hands as if giving someone CPR! n £54.99; one size; alpkit.com

CYCLE CAMPING KIT

HELIUM GT 400 Sleeping bag choice can make or break a trip and while it’s better to be too warm than too cold, carrying a hefty three-season bag on a bike can be a challenge. That’s why we rate the Helium GT 400 so highly, as it straddles both summer and shoulder season use, with a comfort limit of -6oC, it fits easily in most mid-sized bar bags or saddlepacks, and has no discernible cold spots. And compared to our original Helium (that lasted more than a decade), the GT model has more room at the shoulders and feet, which is perfect for us side sleepers and wrigglers. It’s obviously a big outlay, but if this also lasts us 10 years that’s great value in our book. n £280; mountain-equipment.co.uk

Markus Stitz adventurebooks.com; £25 Having enjoyed Stitz’s Big Rides, (London Cyclist, winter 2021), which focused more on longer road/off-road tours, here the endurance racer and founder of Bikepacking Scotland brings together 26 cracking one-day loops suitable for a modern ‘gravel’ bike or hardtail mountain bike. All these routes are guided by local riders, many well known in the cycling world, including Jenny Graham, Mark Beaumont, Aneela McKenna and Jo Burt; they cover ground from the Highlands of Scotland to the South Downs, even London. While many routes will be familiar to old-school mtb’ers, it’s a great way to bring a new generation of explorers to these beloved bridleways and broken trails. The design is clean, the maps simple, the notes on where to eat and where to stop brief but handy. If you fancy a weekend away, this book provides the inspiration.

RoddaKatyK,JohnREVIEWS:

THE DOT Lachlan Morton rapha.cc; £20 The idea was simple: could one pro cyclist, riding solo and self-sufficiently, beat the Tour de France peloton over the exact same route to Paris, including all the ‘transfer’ stages? Well in 2021 the author gave it a go. The main Tour’s itinerary would clock up 3,383km, with 42,200m of climbing, but for Morton’s ‘Alt Tour’, including those transfers, the figures jumped to 5,510km and 65,500m of ascent. And the first hurdle, on the very first day, was to attempt a 300km leg to get ahead of the caravan.

72 REVIEWS CYCLING BOOKS

Brilliantly designed by the creative team at Bluetrain Publishing, everything from the font choice, basic layout, image use and paper stock gives the feel of a finelycrafted, handmade journal. The gatefold cover, with map and details of each stage, sets the tone perfectly. It’s a personal story, and you quickly get absorbed in the highs and lows of this brutal challenge.

CLIMBERS Pete Cossins octopusbooks.co.uk; £20 Asked why he rode so fast in the mountains, mercurial Tour de France winner Marco Pantani replied: “To shorten my agony.” And it’s the world’s greatest climbing talents who take centre stage in the latest volume from award-winning author Cossins. It tells how the kings and queens of the mountains changed the shape of professional cycling, looks at what sets these unpredictable athletes apart and why they’re so revered. From the likes of Bartali, Coppi and Merckx to Froome, Alaphillipe and Pogacar, we learn about the lives and exploits of those daring riders who ignite Grand Tours. As Canada’s Michael Woods says: “ The peloton is such an angry and inhospitable place... but when you hit a climb and start attacking all that goes away. And it’s just silence.” Impeccably researched, it’s a wonderful insight into both the famed climbs and climbers alike.

GREAT GRAVELBRITISHRIDES

MOVEMENT Thalia Verkade & Marco te Brömmelstroet £12.99scribepublications.co.uk; Why do we focus on movement? Should streets be designed solely for moving from A to B? Cars, cycles, buses: what do we lose when we look at our streets only in this context? Verkade’s journey over nearly three years is ostensibly about why we don’t do urban travel better at a systemic level, but it reflects in difficult and sometimes challenging detail about what this has done to childhood. It feels several steps ahead of our current progression towards peoplefocused cities. We read Movement while observing ten year-olds at a school residential, ‘bringing out their inner feral’ and it is critical reading for parents, planners and decision-makers: we’d love to have 500 copies to send out straight away. Read this book and look young people in the eye about the cities we’ve made for them.

74 ICONIC BIKES

W HILE THE HISTORY of recumbents is as long as that of the bicycle — with inventors tinkering with prone and supine designs since the mid to late 19th century — it wasn’t until 1893 that illustrations of what can be considered the first recumbent, the Fautenil Vélociped, appeared. Other pioneering forerunners of that period include Challand’s designs of 1897 and those by American Brown in 1901. By the 1930s recumbents came to the fore as racing machines, with Charles Mochet’s Vélo-Vélocar breaking multiple long-standing records, including fastest bicycle and fastest average speed. Unfortunately, soon after the UCI (cycling’s governing body) banned recumbents from events where normal upright bikes were used and this had a devastating effect on the former’s market, stifling development for several decades. Popularity didn’t return until well into the 1970s, with the world’s first mass-produced modern recumbent bicycle, the Avatar 2000, rolling out in 1979. Electric models were seen in the 1980s and these days recumbents still easily outperform upright bicycles over long distances. The fastest speed ever achieved on a recumbent sits at 144.17 km/h, with the one-hour distance record almost 40km more than that on an upright.

SparshottDavidIllustration:

Lowracers, highracers, mountain bike recumbents, tandems and handcycles are among the most common recumbents spotted on our tracks, trails and roads now, with myriad designs in each category. Varying wheelbase lengths, plus multiple wheel size, steering and drive options means there’s as much tech and as many ‘standards’ as most other cycling sectors, though each comes with its own quirks that require a familiarisation period. Recumbent fans point to lesser strain on back/neck muscles, better seat postion, lower falls, and higher speed, as the main attractions; non-users remain wary of a rider’s visibility (especially in urban traffic), manoeuvrability over obstacles, storage and higher prices.

2002 ONWARDS

The Bacchetta Basso pictured is typical of a modern ‘performance’ recumbent and even though this has mixed wheel sizes front and rear, the company was actually the first to offer dual 700c wheels on a recumbent, as well as the first carbon-framed racing recumbent bikes and trikes.

Offering a completely different riding experience to an upright bicycle, John Kitchiner explains the appeal of such low-flying mile-munchers

Bacchetta recumbent

CALIDO URBAN HELMET