London Cyclist Summer 2019

SUMMER 2019

CARGOBIKES

HOW BUSINESSES ARE MOVING FORWARD

‘MUST DO BETTER’

HOW IS THE MAYOR FARING ON HIS CYCLING PROMISES?

FUTURE LONDON

MOBILITY CHANGES AND NEW TECHNOLOGY

MAGAZINE OF

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SUMMER 2019

contents

News | Features | Travel & Rides | How To | Bikes & Reviews CAMPAIGNS > 14

RIDES 47

GUIDES RIDE GUIDE

WEST SUSSEX

Explore beautiful West Sussex this summer, guided by Katy Rodda

ATTRACTIONS FACT FILE START: Arundel station (long option), Amberley station (short option).

FINISH: as for start.

DISTANCE: 58km (36 miles); or 41km (25.5 miles) for short option.

TIME: 3.5-6 hours depending on stops and visits to attractions.

GRADIENTS: hilly, including one short 16% climb. Ascent/descent: 560m (long option), 250m (short option).

SUITABLE FOR: hybrids, mtb or gravel bikes for the longer route; any bike for the shorter route. You will also need good brakes and tyres, check them before you head out. Remember to take a spare inner tube, puncture repair kit and pump, plus your usual multi-tool and spares. Plenty of places for topping up waterbottles.

WEST SUSSEX: ATTRACTIONS

START: ARUNDEL

AMBERLEY 11.5km

4

3

2

5 BIGNOR 45km

PETWORTH 34km

PULBOROUGH 18km

6 7 END: ARUNDEL

HOW TO 51

LONDON CYCLIST Summer 2019 47

HOW TO

RIM BRAKE

TIPS

Working brakes are essential for safe cycling, which means fine-tuning them as part of your regular bike maintenance regime, as Jenni Gwiazdowski explains

Jenni Gwiazdowski Founder of London Bike Kitchen and book author

Stopping is good. But it’s a simple truth that bicycle brakes become less effective over time.

Cables will stretch and pads slowly wear away. If you can squeeze your brake lever all the way to the handlebar without the brake engaging, you’re due to make some adjustments.

Here we look at a few simple ways to improve the performance of rim brakes.

STEP 1: ADJUST CABLE TENSION First try using the barrel the problem, try re-clamping adjuster (located where the cable. Wind the adjuster the cable exits the lever or back in. Then undo the cable enters the caliper). Turn the clamping bolt, feed more adjuster anti-clockwise one cable through (while full turn to start, then half squeezing the caliper together turns, testing the brakes as with your other hand) and you go. If this doesn’t solve re-clamp the cable.

STEP 3: ENSURE PROPER PAD ALIGNMENT Pads set too high will touch the rim and the brake pad. the tyre and rub a hole in it; Squeeze the lever or use your pads set too low will develop hand to push the brake arm a lip that can hold the brake so that you can see where pad against the rim. To adjust the pad makes contact with pad position, undo the bolt the rim. Once you’re happy on the pad. Ideally, you’ll with the position of the pad, want a 1.5mm gap between re-tighten the bolt.

STEP 2: CENTRE THE BRAKE CALIPER If only one pad is rubbing your brakes don’t have this against the wheel rim when adjuster, slacken the fixing braking, you’ll need to centre nut/bolt combo that holds the caliper. Caliper brakes the brake to the frame or will often have a small grub fork. Now squeeze the lever screw/allen bolt on top of to re-centre the caliper with the caliper. Screw this in or one hand, while re-tightening out slowly, so you can watch the fixing nut/bolt with the the brake arms move. If other hand.

STEP 4: KEEP THE NOISE DOWN Loud, squeaky, noisy brakes? hold the brake lever to keep There are a few potential the card in place. Loosen and fixes to keep in mind. Try a adjust the pad bolt to reset toe-in — this refers to the the pad position ever so angle that your pad contacts slightly, then re-tighten. the rim when brakes are You can also try cleaning applied. Place a piece of your rim with a damp rag, or folded card under the back filing your brake pads to get end of the pad, then pull and rid of slick spots.

BIKES 54

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REVIEWS

E-BIKE UPGRADE

Andy Donohoe

MODEL: SWYTCH 250W STANDARD KIT, £699 ■ swytchbike.com

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they kindly fitted a 700c version to our much-loved vintage fixie, exactly the sort of bike we think people will consider upgrading. For safety we flipped the rear wheel from fixed to singlespeed mode, a freewheel being a better match for the front hub-based motor. Then it was a case of (a) removing the front wheel, swapping tyres onto the Swytch wheel and refitting; (b) attaching a pedal sensor at the bottom bracket; (c) bolting on the handlebar bracket for the battery; and (d) connecting up all the cables, using zip-ties to cinch down where required. Stick the battery pack on, making sure you hear the audible ‘click’, and you’re ready to ride. It’s an extremely simple, no faff set-up.

Operation is equally straightforward with buttons on top of the battery; you can select pedal assistance settings from 1 to 9. One full charge lasts roughly 80km (50 miles), though we found it exceeding that a couple of times; charge time was between 6-7 hours.

We found the lower settings a little redundant and on the flat around town level 5 became our

We assess the capital’s health ahead of LCC’s next Big Campaign TRANSPORT > 18

What does the future look like in terms of mobility for the world’s big cities?

CAMPAIGNS > 23

With a year left in his first term, Mayor Sadiq Khan still has a lengthy to-do list

In 2011, one in a hundred London pupils cycled to school — at Dutch rates 46% would RACHEL ALDRED, OPINION, PAGE 10

TRAVEL, 42

CYCLIST SAFETY >35

Looking for a more viable e-bike solution? This retrofit kit could be the answer...

HILE THE e-bike market is booming and currently the industry’s leading light for innovation, not everyone wants to shell out a couple of grand or more for a basic model from the big brands. Which is where the new Swytch kit enters the picture — it’s specifically designed to retrofit on your existing bike, no matter its wheel size (folding bikes included).

You either buy the appropriate kit online and fit it at home yourself, following the video guide; it’s genuinely no more than a 20-minute job for a competent mechanic. Or, rather uniquely, you can opt for the home-fitting service for a £50 surcharge. We popped along to the company’s Hackney HQ where

Photo: WWT/Ben Cherry

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OPTING FOR THE SLOW ROUTE To avoid two sections of busy main road on the longer loop, our suggested route follows a pair of quiet bridleways.

One is a hard stone/gravel trail like most people will have ridden at some point, and the other is a two-mile riverside path of which parts may require you to push your bike (unless you’re a mountain biker). These are worthwhile ‘diversions’ though, as you really feel like you’re getting away from it all and immersing yourself in the landscape. So much nicer than mixing it with fast-moving traffic and it allows you to return much more peacefully to Arundel. So embrace the slower pace we say — it’s a wonderful area, with so many sights to take in that you wouldn’t want to rush anyway!

HIS CIRCULAR route starts from Arundel, with a shorter circuit from Amberley. The full route takes you to seven attractions in West Sussex, far too many to visit in one day, but you can pick and choose.

The ride is nearly all on country lanes, but there are a few sections on busier roads (described opposite) and two bridleway sections on the full-length route. Many of the lanes run through woods and under shade, so this ride would be good on a warm day. Young children will be fine on the quieter parts of the route, such as Arundel to Bignor or Pulborough Brooks, but probably not the Petworth section. Check opening times before you visit.

CARGOBIKES, 28

By teaching drivers the Dutch Reach, ‘dooring’ incidents could be minimised

We are, and will remain, on the right side of history ASHOK SINHA, OPINION, PAGE 9 LONDON CYCLIST Summer 2019 3

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CONTENTS | SUMMER 2019

Cover image: River Lea (by Andy Donohoe) EDITORIAL

The long days of summer W

HAT ARE the highlights, or ‘lowlights’, of your ride to work? For me it’s always been the Thames Path, or the short hop through the Greenwich foot tunnel.

Now, after moving house and LCC’s relocation to Wapping, my trip still involves quiet backstreets and canalside paths, only these days it also includes Tower Bridge. And for cyclists this beautiful Victorian, Gothic-styled landmark can fall anywhere in that high/low spectrum of loveliness.

On rare occasions you can tackle the whole span unhindered (usually due to gridlock around the Minories) and check out the views as you pass. But for the most part traffic’s either slow-moving or at a complete standstill. With care it’s possible to weave forwards on a bike, though it’s easy to see why plenty of people find it an intimidating and extremely unpleasant crossing. It’s a congestion and pollution hotspot, sadly typifying some of the key issues facing the city.

In this issue we consider the future of mobility in big cities, look at what Mayor Sadiq Khan has to prioritise in the final year of his first term, and tease our next Big Campaign. Plus there’s routes and travel ideas to inspire summer explorations, and I stick this bundle of components (right) on my beloved fixie to convert it into an e-bike. Happy riding!

John Kitchiner Editor

LCC MEMBERS’ LEGAL HELPLINE Osbornes Solicitors 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 Unit 201 Metropolitan Wharf, 70 Wapping Wall, London E1W 3SS n 020 7234 9310 n lcc.org.uk

EDITORIAL

Editor: John Kitchiner (londoncyclist@lcc.org.uk) Design: Anita Razak Contributors: Fran Graham, Simon Munk, Tom Bogdanowicz, Sarah Flynn, Ashok Sinha, Carlton Reid, Rachel Aldred, Isabel Dedring

ADVERTISING

Allie Gill, 01306 621147 allie@lcc.org.uk

SOCIAL MEDIA

TWITTER: @london_cycling FACEBOOK: @LondonCyclingCampaign INSTAGRAM: @london_cycling Editorial, copyright & printing policy 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. Editorial content is independent of advertising. All material is copyrighted and may not be reproduced without the written permission of the editor.

London Cyclist is published by LCC. OUR AIMS: lcc.org.uk/strategy MEMBERSHIP: lcc.org.uk/membership TO DONATE: lcc.org.uk/donate LCC is a charitable limited company, reg no 1766411; charity no 1115789 London Cyclist is printed by Walstead Roche on paper made from 100% FSC sustainably-managed and carbon-balanced forest.

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Summer 2019

NEW CONSULTATION LAUNCHES IN K&C Four neighbourhoods in Kensington & Chelsea look set for major walking and cycling improvements

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FL AND the Mayor have announced proposals to improve walking and cycling in Kensington & Chelsea across four neighbourhoods.

The schemes include 3.8km of two-way segregated cycle track and pedestrian improvements to reduce motor traffic dominance and make Wood Lane and White City, Shepherd’s Bush, Holland Park and Notting Hill Gate nicer places to not only walk and cycle, but also live, shop and linger.

The cycle tracks would connect at one end to a shared-space route on the A40 all the way to Acton. But at the other end currently the scheme doesn’t reach even 120m into Westminster to get to Kensington Gardens, or go a further 1.2km along Bayswater Road to reach the East-West Cycle Superhighway CS3.

Will Norman, London’s Walking and Cycling

Commissioner, said: “These improvements would enable many more people to walk and cycle which is vital to reduce car use and clean up London’s toxic air. By creating new pedestrian crossings… and making it safer to cycle, we will make streets welcoming for everyone who lives, works or visits the area.”

Casey Abaraonye, Coordinator of Hammersmith and Fulham Cyclists, said: “These improvements are a brilliant opportunity to create a healthier and happier west London. They will create neighbourhoods where people working or visiting the many schools, hospitals and shops will be able to easily walk or cycle their journeys.”

We are formulating our response to the consultation and aim to provide everyone with our pros and cons via our blog at tinyurl.com/ KCneighbourhoods.

New-look Wood Lane: will include two-way cycle lanes under new scheme

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NEWS

Marathon Man raising funds for LCC CONGRATULATIONS TO Richard Balfe, the very first person to complete the London Marathon with an official LCC charity place. Richard is a long-time LCC supporter and cycling advocate. He also owns and manages one of south London’s best loved bike shops, Balfe’s Bikes, which has branches in East Dulwich and in Streatham.

Richard’s heroic efforts saw him complete the 26.2-mile event in 4hr52min and he raised over £2,000 for LCC in the process. As with all LCC challenge events, the money raised supports our campaigning efforts.

There’s still time to donate to Richard at tinyurl.com/ RichardBalfe. Or, if you’d like to find out more about taking part in a running or cycling event for LC, please visit: lcc.org.uk/teamlcc.

MYTHBUSTING: cycle lanes are empty?

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%

Lower Thames Street (CS3) has seen this % increase in cycling

1/4

Safer lorry deadlines for European truck manufacturers IT’S TAKEN years of campaigning to get lorries without ‘blind spots’ rolling off all European production lines, but that’s now on-track for 2023 (new models) and 2027 (all existing models). At time of writing, we await official approval from EU ministers and a sign-off on translated versions of the regulations, after which detailed standards will be drafted by the UN Economic Commission for Europe.

Under the rules new lorries will have to give significantly improved direct vision (directly through the windscreen and windows rather than via mirrors or cameras). This follows strong advocacy for the measures from LCC, TfL and the Action on Lorry Danger group.

London lorry safety standards, plus new LCC website launch

1 in 4 of all vehicles in Central London during the day is a cycle

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Cycle usage has risen by this % on CS6 between 2014-2017

4 8 %

This % of cyclists feel safe on CS3 for some or all of their journey

Mobileye cycle alert system: on McGee lorry

MAYOR SADIQ Khan promised LCC to make safer lorries the norm in London and step one of that process takes effect next year. As of October 2020, lorries will have to meet a 1-star standard (lorries are rated from 1 to 5 stars) and a 3-star standard will become obligatory in 2024. See page 26 for more information. n LCC’s new ‘Lorry Safety’ website launches this summer. The website (and associated education programmes) are being backed by construction company McGee, which has been at the forefront of driver training, adoption of lorry safety systems and addressing work-related road risk. The other backer is Mobileye, producer of an advanced alert system that uses cameras to identify pedestrians and cyclists in close proximity to a vehicle using special algorithms.

Mobileye’s system is being trialled by McGee and has already been adopted by a south London bus company after a successful trial.

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OPINION

Let’s be ‘not stupid’ The school climate strikers will hold our generation to account if we don’t take action says Ashok Sinha

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HAVE A blue metal water bottle with ‘Not Stupid’ printed on the side. A souvenir from a past life, the slogan occasionally elicits curious glances: exactly who or what is not stupid?

It dates from the premiere in Leicester Square of Franny Armstrong and Lizzie Gillet’s film The Age of Stupid in 2009. Intended to shake us from our collective, ‘stupid’ torpidity in the face of the existential threat of climate change, the event was livecast to 10,000 people in cinemas across the country. My job, as the then Director of the Stop Climate Chaos coalition, was to address what was a world record audience for a cinema premiere with a call to action: to exhort people and governments to wake up and be ‘not stupid’. I’m glad that we seem to have transcended the age of stupid, but wisdom will be needed to avoid the Age of Complacency.

On the plus side, the days are long gone when seemingly every media interview was a battle with climate change deniers or contrarian journalists. Key figures across all sectors of society now comprehend that climate change is real, driven by human activity, essentially irreversible and the greatest of threats to civilisation.

But on the debit side is the worrying

indifference seen towards the humanitarian catastrophe caused

by Hurricane Idai, the blistering heatwaves in Australia, the widespread retreat of glaciers, and the accelerating loss of global species — all of which (and more) comprise a pattern of worsening climate impacts that is absolutely consistent with predictions.

The blitheness with which these impacts are described as the ‘new normal’ suggests a collective complacency about the severe threats they present to billions of people — not to mention the resulting political-economic instability and conflict by which no-one will be untouched.

School strikes Thank goodness then, for the schoolkids. I am sure, like me, many readers of London Cyclist have accompanied their younger children to protest against stupidity and complacency at a school climate strike. Many will also have been led by their

“I remain confident that humanity will prove itself neither stupid nor complacent”

Ashok Sinha Chief Executive of London Cycling Campaign

children, whether of school age or young adults, to join one of the extraordinary Extinction Rebellion protests. We would be wise to realise that these young protesters are deadly serious: they will hold our generation to account for an irreversible screw-up, one that will hit them worst of all, if we don’t rouse ourselves to action.

LCC has been organising action on two wheels to support the strikers. We were born out of the environmental movement of the late 1970s, and that heritage remains part of our DNA. We will continue to strive to reduce the dangers that prevent people from being able to cycle as their everyday mode of transport — not only so that they can enjoy the flood of happy hormones that getting around by bike brings, but to play our part in rapidly eliminating carbon emissions.

I’m an optimist. I remain confident that humanity will prove itself neither stupid nor complacent. LCC will do its bit; we will assure the school strikers through even more determined lobbying and campaigning that we are, and will remain, on their side and on the right side of history.

They are demanding wisdom from us, and we owe it to them to show it — to be ‘Not Stupid’.

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OPINION

Data crunch time Nearly half of London’s schoolchildren could cycle to school. But only 1% do explains Rachel Aldred

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EADERS OF London Cyclist may be familiar with the concept of ‘cycling potential’, used within TfL’s Strategic Cycling Analysis, which is feeding into ‘Future Routes’ being developed.

The idea is that we need to go beyond building for current cycling, to think about where people might want to cycle but currently don’t ­­— often because of hostile streets without cycle infrastructure.

If we just planned cycle infrastructure based on where people are currently riding in London, we’d ignore much of outer London and focus on central and inner boroughs. But as TfL found, most journeys that could be cycled (based on the characteristics of the trip, with distance particularly important), but currently aren’t, lie in outer London.

I’ve been part of the academic team working on a related national tool, the Propensity to Cycle Tool (pct.bike), whose major funder is the Department for Transport.

The PCT has been developed through collaboration between the universities of Cambridge, Leeds, LSHTM and Westminster. This has created a free, open source online tool and associated data downloads, used across the country by planners and advocates.

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One limitation of the PCT is that until recently, it’s only covered travel to work. This is because the tool — which maps cycling potential down to street segment level — requires detailed data on trip origins and destinations. This is freely available across the country for travel to work from the 2011 Census, but not for other types of trip.

Broader research The PCT has given planners across England and Wales something radically new: estimates of how many cycle commuters there might be on parts of their route network, under different future scenarios.

My personal favourite scenario is Go Dutch, which calculates cycling potential if we cycled at Dutch levels, based on the distance and hilliness of each commute trip.

But only doing commuting is limited. It’s one in five trips, although it often feels like more as those trips are concentrated at particular times and along particular routes. Planning only for

“We can now see how many trips to school might be cycled — and by which routes”

Rachel Aldred lectures on Transport & Planning at the University of Westminster

commuting biases planning towards working-age adult men, who make more commute trips.

So when the PCT contract was recently extended we were excited to be able to include school travel.

Until 2011, state schools had to collect data on each pupil’s mode of travel to school, as part of annual monitoring. The PCT team used this data to implement two scenarios used for commuting and see how many trips to school might be cycled — and which routes they might use.

For London, the gap between current and potential uptake is larger than the national average.

In 2011, one in a hundred London pupils cycled to school — but if they cycled their trips at similar rates to Dutch pupils (based on trip distance and hilliness), 46% would. At borough level, it ranges from 53% of Hounslow schoolchildren to 39% in Barnet. This shows catchment density and distances do matter: but with Barnet currently on under 1% against a potential of 39%, they’re relatively minor factors.

If we can create safer streets, then we might see thousands of young people cycling to school regularly. This would substantially increase the amount of physical activity pupils get, particularly for those at secondary school.

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OPINION

MGIF mentality Carlton Reid believes ‘entitlement’ is behind motorists’ obsession with overtaking ‘slow moving’ cyclists

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BC PRESENTER Jeremy Vine is probably Britain’s most famous cycle commuter. He’s certainly our most famous bike-cammer.

Almost daily he shares videos of close-passes, and some of his 695,000 Twitter followers take him to task for doing so. What to you and me would be cut-and-dried examples of duff overtaking by impatient motorists are frequently and wrongly pinned on Jeremy.

Earlier in the year Jeremy told the London Assembly Transport Committee that he often witnesses as many as 40 motoring offences on his 13-mile daily ride from his home in Chiswick to BBC Broadcasting House near Oxford Circus. We should be grateful he only posts the most egregious, then.

I haven’t watched every one of his videos but there’s generally a common factor: priority. Priority is quite simple — the road user in front got there first, those behind have to wait. That goes for a road user on two wheels able to dot along at 15mph or on four wheels with the ability to do more than 100mph.

Might is not right. We cyclists are not ‘in the way’, we’re merely going about our business and if we happen to be in front of a motorist that doesn’t mean we have to scuttle to the side of the road to

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let our lord and master go on his, or her, merry way.

Sadly, many motorists believe it is an imperative to overtake a ‘slow moving’ cyclist. There’s even an acronym for this pointless obsession: MGIF, or ‘must get in front’. On my daily urban rides, I witness so many examples of MGIF that I now only notice the worst.

Unachievable dream Many motorists feel they should not wait behind cyclists even when there’s most obviously a queue of stalled traffic ahead, and even though any overtake is going to offer only the most fleeting of advancements.

The most annoying MGIFs are those that result in a halt just metres further ahead. “Why bother?” you, me and every other cyclist mutters, and not always under our breath.

MGIF manoeuvres may be motivated by ‘entitlement’. Drivers have been sold the unachievable dream of free-flowing roads, and many wish to drive along them at speed at all times.

“We hardly register on the retinas of motormyopians as we don’t pose existential risks”

Carlton Reid Transport Journalist of the Year (Specialist Media) 2018

Cars, vans and trucks ahead — with obvious priority — are also an impediment to their forward movement but width, heft and physics prevent progression so the desire to get-in-front is internalised, leading to angst, ill temper and, very possibly, ulcers.

Analysis of the drivers shown in Jeremy’s videos does not reveal a horde of homicidal cyclist-haters.

The MGIF drivers invariably seem unaware they have just passed him.

In effect, he was invisible to many of them (there are psychopathic exceptions) which, possibly, is of greater concern because it may reveal that the reason for ‘sorry mate, I didn’t see you’ (SMIDSY) claims is that many motorists genuinely don’t see us.

That is, they choose not to see us, a cultural tic. We hardly register on the retinas of motormyopians because we do not pose an existential risk.

Naturally, if we exploded on impact, thereby causing the death of the party doing the impacting, there would be an awful lot more pussyfooting around us. I’d hazard a guess that cyclists with such explosive potential would experience no close-passes, no MGIFs and no SMIDSYs. Funny that.

Jeremy’s videoing, but he’s certainly not laughing.

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CAMPAIGN

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The everyday miracle pill With the Mayor’s Healthy Streets agenda and new evidence on inactivity and pollution emerging, the health of the capital is increasingly under the spotlight. Fran Graham takes London’s temperature...

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CAMPAIGN

expectancy isn’t growing at the rate imagined — in fact, it’s stalled.

And it’s not just affecting our life expectancy, it also means we are likely to live with poor health for longer, which is exacerbated further by poverty.

People living in more deprived areas are likely to die earlier and live in poor health for longer periods compared to their counterparts in wealthier areas.

For instance, women living in Kingston upon Thames will live with poor health for an average of 15 years, whereas for women living in Tower Hamlets, that rises drastically to 27 years.

What’s the cure?

It’s been called the ‘miracle’ pill by doctors ­— a prescription that can cut your risk of inactivityrelated diseases and extend your life expectancy by six months. It doesn’t just boost your physical health either — multiple studies show an increase in wellbeing, especially when compared to driving the same journey.

Obviously, I’m talking about cycling — well, this is the London Cyclist magazine after all! Hopping on your bike and cycling your everyday journeys can do all this, and more. A healthier population has all kinds of wider benefits too — first and foremost saving a huge

amount of time and money for the beleaguered NHS. Walking or cycling for 20 minutes a day could save the NHS £1.7 billion a year. Plus by switching trips from the car to the bike, you’ll also being doing your bit to reduce air pollution in the choked-up city.

But what about the risk of collisions? Or exposure to air pollution from sitting on a bike in traffic? Won’t that counteract all the goodness from choosing to cycle? Well given your exposure to air pollution is lower on a bike than it is in a car, and that the risk of collision is statistically low, then benefits of getting moving on your everyday journeys vastly outweighs these concerns.

If you cycle already, you know this. You know that you get to your destination with a big grin on your face, meeting sourfaced colleagues who have been crammed in the tube. You know that you can arrive, safe in the knowledge that you’ve already done your exercise, without having had to find an additional hour in your day to visit the gym.

Enabling people to build activity into their day-to-day lives, making it easier, safer, and more pleasant to walk and cycle their usual journeys, is the most effective way to help all Londoners to get their recommended activity.

PHOTO: Cyclehoop

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HERE ARE many benefits to big city living: from the museums, theatres and concerts right on our doorsteps, to just about any cuisine you could be hankering being available day and night. But there are drawbacks to living here as well. Cost of a pint for one thing. But more seriously, the harm it’s doing to our health.

A constant stream of reports and research tells us just how bad breathing in the illegal levels of air pollution that are standard across London is. Children in Tower Hamlets having 5% less lung capacity than others thanks to pollution, and that same pollution is leading to an estimated 9,000 early deaths in London a year.

Excess exposure to air pollution has been linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular (heart) disease, lung cancer, strokes, and tentatively to Alzheimer’s and dementia. But even if we could wave a magic wand and transform every motor vehicle so that the only thing that comes out of the tailpipe and off the tyres and brakes were harmless rainbows and sunshine, we would still be facing a public health crisis.

As a population, we’re just not moving enough. In London, 43% of adults are not achieving the minimum level of 150 minutes of physical activity each week that they need to stay healthy. And 8 in 10 children do not get the one hour per day of physical activity that 5-18 year olds need as a minimum to stay healthy. These sedentary lifestyles are leading to a whole host of inactivity-related issues, from type 2 diabetes and heart disease to certain types of cancer.

This all adds up. Despite the huge medical advancements in recent years, our average life

What’s stopping people?

The number one reason people give for not cycling is safety. People are concerned about collisions, about aggressive driving, about having to share the road with high volumes of fast-moving traffic, from cars to vans and huge lorries.

Up to now, our city has been designed to put motor traffic first.

But all that has done is encourage LONDON CYCLIST Summer 2019 15

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CAMPAIGN

expectancy is already predicted to have increased by seven months.

So why isn’t everyone rushing to follow Waltham Forest’s lead?

Political will

this approach is Waltham Forest.

Off the back of LCC campaigning in 2012, the previous Mayor Boris Johnson made funding available for boroughs to bid to transform whole areas into neighbourhoods where walking and cycling are prioritised.

Waltham Forest won £27 million of the mini-Holland funding, and set to work with its bold plans. The creation of a highquality cycling network ringing low-traffic neighbourhoods has been embedded for long enough now that we can start to measure the impact it’s had. Strikingly, because people are walking and cycling more in the borough, and the air quality has improved, life

PHOTO: HealthyStreetsHarrow

people to drive every journey — and more motor vehicles means more pollution and an increasingly inactive population. It’s created a city that is making us all sick.

Luckily, we at LCC have a solution: a network of highquality cycle routes, comprising physically-protected cycle tracks on main roads and low traffic neighbourhoods. This has to go hand in hand with a reduction in motor traffic to make the space available for the cycling infrastructure, but also because we need to reduce the huge number of unnecessary local car trips.

Over one third of all the car trips made in London under 2km and two-thirds of car journeys are cycleable in under 20 minutes.

Getting these journeys made either on foot or bike will significantly reduce pollution, get everyone moving more and make necessary journeys by car much easier.

This much is reflected in the current Mayor’s Transport Strategy.

It focuses on the need to create Healthy Streets, where walking, cycling and public transport is prioritised, and car use is reduced.

On the ground, the poster-child for

The key ingredient for these changes is political will. The solution might seem obvious, with all the evidence backing up that it’s the right step, but it requires politicians to challenge the status quo, where car is king, and many people see their car as essential. It’s why there is ‘bikelash’ (pictured above) to any cycling scheme that even hints at taking space motor vehicles currently use, and why so many cycling projects are delayed, watered down or in some cases scrapped altogether.

Set against that, though, the Mayor and borough councils have statutory duties in relation to the health of Londoners — they are required to take appropriate steps in order to improve the health of residents. Along with public health experts, LCC believes enabling more people to walk and cycle is vital to meeting that statutory duty.

And just because delivering it might be tricky, doesn’t mean that politicians can shy away from it.

It’s not acceptable that so many Londoners feel that cycling isn’t an option for them, that they are denied access to a way of getting around the city that can help them lead longer, healthier lives.

Too many borough leaders still haven’t got the message that the lack of safe cycling infrastructure is harming people’s health and lives. They must urgently work alongside the Mayor to put cycles before cars, to improve the wellbeing of all Londoners.

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Can we harness new technologies to transform our ability to tackle urban challenges and build cleaner, better cities, ask Isabel Dedring and Victor Frebault from Arup

Illustrations: Boing Graphics

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RIVERLESS CARS, solar roads, drone deliveries, e-scooters, flying cars... every day there is another story about a new technology that has arrived, or is just around the corner. New business models seem to be arriving at a blistering pace. Bike sharing schemes that don’t require docking stations. Dozens of variations on minicab and car-sharing schemes, each promising to take thousands of cars off the road. On-demand buses that will be able to serve previously-unservable, low-density parts of the city.

Purportedly each is going to transform how we move goods and people around our cities and beyond — and clearly transport is in the foothills of a period of massive change.

Around the world, the transport industry is in the throes of an odd mix of enthusiasm for and unease about these changes. As transport professionals, many are geeking out over the technology, and about the fascinating economic and philosophical questions these changes raise.

Take driverless cars — what is the role of the insurance industry in a driving world with many fewer accidents and hence much less insurable risk? How do we set the machine learning algorithms that make moral decisions — how does the computer choose between the

driver and the unexpected pedestrian running across the road? These are fascinating questions that are debated intensively at dozens of seminars, dinners and conferences every year.

Meanwhile, cities around the world continue to grapple with the same challenges that they have dealt with for decades: rising congestion, unacceptable levels of air pollution, a need to cut CO2 emissions, rising concerns about social equity, and pressure to deliver more, and better, walking and cycling solutions.

Yet the explosion of new technologies, business models and future mobility thinking

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is not yet being deployed at scale to tackle these challenges. Why is this?

Firstly, many of these technologies are not as ‘around the corner’ as their promoters would like us — and themselves — to believe.

Successfully constructing a ‘full stack’ driverless car that can navigate its way safely down a Californian motorway is one thing. It is an entirely different thing to deliver a system of vehicles, interacting with each other and with pedestrians and cyclists, in a dense and complex urban environment, and to replicate that in hundreds of cities around the world. Dozens of organisations need to change long-established ways of planning and doing — some do not want to change, many do not know how to change.

But the challenge of future mobility goes beyond readiness. In practice, many of these emerging solutions are at risk of exacerbating, not solving, our cities’ problems. This is already manifesting itself. Big cities around the world are seeing a decline in public transport ridership, whether

We can’t stop the explosion in future mobility solutions... but we need to be aware of the reality of such changes if left entirely untrammelled

Pie in the sky: flying cars are among the most fanciful mobility solutions

it’s BART in San Francisco or MTA in New York or Transport for London’s bus ridership. While this decline in urban public transport ridership has a variety of causes, it is also clearly linked to the availability of new, affordable alternatives such as Uber or Lyft. Often trips using new forms of mobility are replacing walking trips and public transport trips as much as they are replacing car trips.

Arup has recently conducted an in-depth economic study of the expected impact of driverless and shared vehicles in a wide range

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of urban scenarios.

This showed that the significantly lower generalised cost of driverless cars means that — under ‘business as usual’ — the arrival of driverless cars will lead to a significant increase in car usage and hence congestion in cities.

We can’t stop the explosion in future mobility solutions — and nor should we seek to. But we do need to be aware of the reality of these changes if left entirely untrammelled. We need to manage the introduction of new mobility solutions in a way that keeps the city working.

So how can city shapers and urban transport decision-makers harness these technologies and new business models to deliver the cleaner, more equitable, less congested city we all would like?

Embracing uncertainty, designing for flexibility Traditionally, transport infrastructure was designed to be long-lived and immutable; built to last for centuries, and not change much over that time. Iconic Victorian railway stations, the 150th anniversary of the Tube, even beloved bus routes — transport as an industry reveres its monuments and celebrates their permanence.

With the changes afoot in mobility, coupled with changes in how people work and live, the predictability of transport demand is changing dramatically. Trip patterns are moving away from the predictable morning commute pumping into the centre of the city, with more ‘Brownian motion’ in trip patterns.

This uncertainty is exacerbated by new technology. Current estimates for the uptake of autonomous cars range from 20% to 100% by 2050. We will not be able to nail down this figure more precisely in the short term, so we must design for uncertainty.

It means moving away from a singular use of

E-scooters are here already: but what is their place in future transport planning?

kerb space, to a much more ‘hour by hour’ adaptable use of space based on need by time of day. It’s ‘less permanent’ techniques for building segregated cycle lanes to test demand, reduce cost, and reduce political opposition to a new route on Royal College Street in London. It’s the ‘zipper lane’ that reverses peak hour capacity on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge to ease congestion.

Decision-makers need to ever more assertively use emerging technology solutions to both require and enable transport infrastructure to change form and function throughout the day and over time — to deliver better cities.

Better data for better decision-making One of the most significant limitations to designing high quality transport systems has always been understanding demand. In more sophisticated cities such as London, we can ‘count cars’ through the traffic system loops in the road. And we can count bus and Tube movement via Oyster and contactless cards. But we cannot ‘see’ walking and cycling journeys, or link people’s trips across modes.

This creates major limitations. It makes it very difficult to make the case for walking and cycling infrastructure. Any policy involving mode shift — such as London-wide road pricing — is hard to evidence and deliver, because we don’t truly understand how individuals move across modes.

The explosion of data that mobile phone technology and cloud computing bring, therefore, is a massive opportunity for transport.

By collecting real-world and real-time data about how people move, across modes, we can transform our understanding of how infrastructure needs to be designed to best accommodate users preferences. It allows us to understand individuals, not generalised and simplified groups.

The mission will be to build a trust-based

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relationship with the individual that their data will be secure and private. This is data already held by players such as Google — it is about using that same data to design and deliver better cities.

Forward-thinking urban transport agencies are already thinking about how they can leverage existing relationships with customers to build data streams to enable better policy making, and this will channel new mobility solutions in the right direction.

The explosion of data that mobile phone technology and cloud computing bring is a massive opportunity for transport

A new era for assertive and creative urban policy-making The explosion of new mobility technologies and business models has knocked policy-makers onto the back foot. Responding to the almostweekly arrival of new mobility providers is an industry in itself. In City Halls, government departments and city transport agencies around the world urgent meetings are held for each new solution that appears. Should e-scooters be allowed? At what speeds and where? If so should they be regulated? If so how and under what regulation? Is e-scooter company X different from company Y? If so, should it be treated differently? The list goes on.

Every one of those ‘reactive’ meetings is a time in which policy-makers and leaders are not able to proactively pursue solutions to congestion, pollution, active travel.

There is a huge opportunity here, however, for policy-makers to harness new technology to the city’s progressive ends. In Madrid, new entrants to the car-sharing market were told to deploy zero-emission vehicles, or not receive a license to operate.

Despite an initial ‘that’s not possible’ response, the city’s request was met in the end.

This is about creating a more proactive, purposeful relationship between public institutions and

Driverless taxis: are currently being trialled and could be seen on our streets in the next decade

private sector companies. It requires sufficient, high-quality individuals on the public side, empowered to deliver the ends the city wants to achieve.

It is also about embracing the opportunity that the internet has created to draw in feedback from users, interest groups, community groups, etc.

London’s recent cycling experience shows that delivering high-quality infrastructure will be accelerated by genuinely listening and developing solutions with interested groups and individuals. Starting with what the city needs, policy-makers can ‘co-create’ the city working not only with mobility providers, but with residents, passengers and users.

If we do this well, if we are purposeful about channelling these new technologies, we have a tremendous opportunity to transform our ability to tackle urban challenges and build cleaner, better cities for everyone. n Isabel Dedring is Director, Global Transport Leader at Arup (arup.com).

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Sadiq’s End of Term

REPORT CARD With the next Mayoral election set for May 2020, Simon Munk asks what will current Mayor Sadiq Khan need to achieve to fulfil his promises on cycling?

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RIOR TO his election back in 2016 — and thanks to your lobbying pressure — Mayor Sadiq Khan committed to LCC’s Sign for Cycling campaign and pledged to “make London a byword for cycling”.

He said he would “triple the extent of current provision” of main road cycle tracks. And ensure “every London borough that wishes to do so, and can produce a viable, high quality plan, has a fair opportunity to benefit from a mini-Holland style scheme”.

On lorries, he said he would “set new safety standards, work to make sure City Hall and TfL contracts specify ‘direct vision’ lorries, and use planning and other powers available to me, so that the safest lorry types become the norm on London’s streets as soon as possible.” We also asked him to fix the worst junctions in London, better and faster.

So how has he fared on the five key areas?

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#1 Cycle tracks Cycle tracks are probably the single simplest measure of how cyclefriendly any Mayor or transport authority is. It’s disappointing, then, to see that the Mayor has focussed more in his first term on cycle ‘routes’ and Quietways than on getting on with tracks — despite promising to triple them.

Progress so far: TfL claims it has built over 150km of new cycle ‘routes’ since Sadiq was elected — but these aren’t made up of tracks, and they aren’t necessarily high-quality routes. Of that figure, a large proportion are Quietways, many of which are no more than painted logos and metal direction signs.

On cycle tracks, TfL says it had built 44km by the end of 2018, and is on track to build over 110km by

110km sum doesn’t add up May next year. That’s compared to around 53km built by the previous administration, meaning that if all goes to plan, Sadiq is set to achieve his target.

This 110km of new track will comprise 43km of Cycle Superhighways, 9km from ‘Future Routes’, 11km from Quietways (most of which has already been built), and 38km from the three mini-Holland boroughs (21km currently built).

What needs to be done: Construction will need to have

#2 Safer Junctions Mayor Khan didn’t directly pledge to fix all our worst junctions during the Sign for Cycling campaign, but since he has reiterated his commitment to doing so.

Progress so far: Previous Mayor Boris Johnson’s ‘Better Junctions’ programme was mothballed when Sadiq was elected. This was primarily

begun on CS4 and CS9 and at least one of the first Future Routes announced: Camden to Tottenham Hale, Lea Bridge to Dalston, and/ or Hackney to Isle of Dogs (Ilford to Barking Riverside is unlikely to feature much segregated cycle track). The rest will predominantly come from mini-Holland schemes which were mostly consulted on and designed prior to Sadiq coming into office — with the hard graft done by the previous administration and the boroughs.

The Mayor is trying to squeeze delivery of his pledge into the last

because many of the remaining junctions were on borough roads, often hostile boroughs such as Westminster. Our webpage (http:// bit.ly/tfljunctions) tracks progress on the remaining list.

Of the remaining ones, Westminster has for now scuppered Lambeth Bridge (pictured), Great Portland Street and Marble Arch, and even Swiss Cottage outside its borough boundary. Many of the others in the programme are set to be improved under upcoming cycle schemes such as Cycle Superhighways 4 and 9, and the Future Routes.

Replacing the Better Junctions programme, 27 of 73 Safer

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year of his term — something we warned would happen because of the slow progress over the last two years. Here’s hoping he (or whoever wins the next Mayoral election) is prepared to hit the ground running next time.

For Sadiq to fulfil his pledge, there’s a far more immediate concern: will all those schemes actually begin construction in time? Past experience (CS11 and many other schemes) shows how precarious schemes are to political and stakeholder opposition. It only takes one unexpected hurdle and the target will be missed.

So it’s vital he has some schemes in his back pocket, and that TfL and City Hall work rapidly to unblock any issues. The Mayor and his Deputy, Heidi Alexander, will need to get their hands dirty in championing schemes and moving them forward in the next year.

Junctions schemes on TfL roads have been ticked off already. But the vast bulk of these remain too dangerous to reach Sadiq’s ‘Vision Zero’ target of no deaths or serious injuries on London’s roads by 2041.

Indeed some of them have seen serious injuries at the junction since their ‘improvements’.

What needs to be done: The Mayor says 20 more junctions will be in construction by May 2020. That’s not good enough.

By 2020, all 73 junctions should have interim safety schemes in place, while at least 20 permanent, high-quality ‘Vision Zero’ schemes should be properly in progress.

#3 Liveable Neighbourhoods

Progress so far:

and Enfield revisiting its Enfield Town mini-Holland scheme.

It’s also exciting to see boroughs including Bromley, who have traditionally not been the most progressive on walking and cycling, bidding and winning Liveable Neighbourhood funding with bolder proposals.

The Mayor has made available funding to all boroughs to bid for between £2m and £10m for town centre, residential area and transport hub schemes. Two rounds of bidding has seen 18 successful boroughs so far, with another tranche due before the end of Sadiq’s term.

The first seven funded boroughs are moving towards public consultation and several should be in construction by next May. The second 11 appear to have stepped up the ambition level at bid stage further to the originals. The stars thus far include Lambeth’s bid to transform Brixton town centre, with ‘low traffic neighbourhoods’,

A further funding round will happen before May, and it will be vital TfL ensures the quality bar for these schemes stays as high as this year. If that means funding a second scheme in some boroughs, we’d rather see boroughs who are ambitious rewarded, rather than TfL scraping the barrel.

We also want to see significant construction from at least the first round of schemes, and ideally some of the second too. We’d also suggest bigger funding pots are deployed — some of the ambitious second round schemes will be hard to really deliver with current funding.

The Liveable Neighbourhoods programme is a continuation of the ‘mini-Hollands’ — area-wide improvements for walking and cycling — although the level of funding available is on a smaller scale per borough.

What needs to be done:

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#4 Direct Vision lorries

The Mayor’s report card

The Mayor has, as promised, created new safety standards on lorries, and indeed there’s a permit system that will be in place — a world’s first — that mandates which lorries can enter London based on what drivers can see from their cabs of the road around them.

Unless things change rapidly in the next year, the Mayor is set to just get over the line on his pledges, but more by including delivery of projects that had already been agreed and funded by the time he came to power than by concerted and strategic action. On paper, Sadiq has scored big — a massively ambitious Mayor’s Transport Strategy with bold targets, serious funding levels for cycling and lots of promises to change London’s roads. But on the ground action has been frustratingly thin.

There are signs he’s only now hitting his stride. The bold ULEZ has arrived and is set to expand in 2021, assuming the next Mayor, if not Sadiq himself, doesn’t can it. We’ve seen public engagement begin on four of the top 25 priority Future Routes for London and others are moving forward rapidly too. Plus construction is finally set to begin soon on CS4 and CS9.

If Sadiq gets a second term, then we want to see the following: no pause at all on delivery and progress; a far bolder and faster approach; the cycle network quality criteria revised to push TfL and boroughs harder to deliver truly high-quality schemes; ULEZ expanded to all of London, rolled out more rapidly, and the Mayor looking further to ‘smart road-user charging’.

If we really want a London that copes with the threats of climate change, pollution, inactivity and more, we need Sadiq, or whoever is elected instead, to be bolder.

Progress so far: From later this year, lorries entering London will have to have a permit rated from 0 to 5 stars based on driver vision. But lobbying from the freight and construction industries has weakened the system to allow ‘mitigation’ measures to be installed on 0-star rated lorries to keep them on the roads. So in 2024 when only 3-star and above lorries should be permitted, we could still see dangerous high-cab tipper trucks with 0-star ratings on our roads — as long as they’re bristling

with (potentially distracting) sensors. However, there’s no clarity on which mitigation systems will be approved.

Fortunately, EU directives due to be signed in April will mean all new lorries need to be Direct Vision by 2023 and all lorries by 2027. TfL and LCC both lobbied the EU for this directive to be adopted.

What needs to be done: Ensure the EU delivers its directive, and push further for higherrated Direct Vision lorries to be written into council, TfL and other contracts earlier than the current cut-off dates.

#5 Strategic Cycling Network The Mayor has also pledged to see 70% of Londoners living within 400m of the Strategic Cycling Network of high-quality routes by 2041. In the Cycling Action Plan he says by 2024 a quarter of all Londoners will be within 400m and daily cycling journeys will double from current levels.

Progress so far: Most of the network completed under the previous Mayor was far from high enough quality to count as part of the network under

Sadiq’s own interlinked ‘quality criteria’. But it appears that CS1, CS7, CS8 and other such schemes are being counted regardless. The criteria are not being set high enough to guarantee good schemes, but merely remove the worst.

What needs to be done: Improve the quality criteria to ensure the Strategic Cycling Network is high enough quality to get lots more people cycling. And roll out schemes a lot faster from now until 2024.

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THE FUTURE OF

URBAN FREIGHT Business is healthy for companies swapping polluting vans for cleaner cargobikes says Tom Bogdanowicz

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OOR AIR quality in cities, everpresent congestion and rising online sales are making transport authorities seek sustainable solutions for freight deliveries: the Mayor of London and the Department of Transport both want to see much greater use of cargobikes. The DfT has even provided a £2m fund to encourage their uptake.

It’s not hard to understand the reasons: cargobikes and e-cargobikes are faster and cleaner than diesel-fuelled vans in town, quicker to unload, they don’t need large parking bays, and they make our cities more liveable as online shopping and spiralling delivery volumes become the norm.

In London, the new Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) is a further incentive to switch to e-cargobikes. Companies like the Co-op and James Knight of Mayfair (seafood suppliers), as well as Royal Mail and NHS blood deliveries are all adopting e-cargobikes.

We visited several companies at their London HQs and also joined a ride in April, just ahead of the introduction of ULEZ, where several firms got together to demonstrate cargobike solutions.

We wanted to see how some progressive

businesses in the capital are delivering what the Mayor and the government hope will become an obvious choice for local deliveries.

Royal Mail Stratford The demise of posties on bikes in London was lamented by many but Royal Mail is back with the latest in cycle technology for a six-month trial that could turn into a permanent fixture in Stratford, Cambridge and Sutton Coldfield.

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Royal Mail’s Director of Public Affairs & Policy, David Gold, said: “We are committed to making changes to our operations which reduce our environmental impact… this trial is part of a programme of initiatives across our business that will ensure we can continue to deliver letters and parcels safely, efficiently and responsibly.”

Unlike more conventional trikes, the Royal Mail versions have a protective fairing for the rider, useful in poor weather, plus the roof includes solar power cells that help recharge the battery (in sunny weather). Other technical aspects are more typical of e-bikes: a 250W motor and a 48V lithium battery.

ROYAL SEAL: London’s posties are trialling e-trikes in Stratford

Royal Mail says the trikes are able to carry most parcels, as well as letters and cards. They are being used on usual routes and, if the trial is successful, they will consider expanding the use of trikes more widely.

The launch of the trikes in March got a thumbs up from the Mayor’s Commissioner for Cycling, Will Norman, who said: “I’m delighted that Royal Mail is trialling these e-trikes which will take polluting vehicles off our streets — helping to reduce congestion and clean up London’s toxic air. I hope this trial will be extended and other delivery companies follow Royal Mail’s lead so that many more communities can benefit.”

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bikes were all muscle-powered, but last year an e-cargobike was added to ease the strain on riders and potentially extend that range.

Currently E5 runs three delivery rounds: to restaurants and shops in Clapton, Shoreditch and Stoke Newington. While e-cargobikes can stretch those zones the ovens are currently at full capacity, so those living outside Hackney may have to wait patiently for any expansion.

Photos: Tom Bogdanowicz

E5 Bakehouse Hackney Hackneyites may not all be E5 customers, but many will have encountered the E5 Bakehouse bikes that deliver bread to dozens of destinations. Their cargobikes double as mobile advertisings hoardings.

It’s a business story that seems apocryphal — Ben Mackinnon, E5’s founder, was inspired by baking in Andalucía (Spain) and Fez (Morocco) to give up his office job and bake sourdough bread. He started out by renting oven time (in E5) and delivering locally by bike in 2011.

A testimony to the quality of the bread is that eight years on the business employs a hundred people, occupies three railway arches next to London Fields railway station (confusingly in E8) and, despite the expansion, it still delivers bread by bike. As well as also selling bread directly from the Bakehouse (you can see the bakers at work behind the shop counter), E5 now runs a busy café and offers bread and pizza-making classes.

Office manager Alice Cullen says that bike delivery is an integral part of E5’s set-up: “It means we have a lower impact on the environment and it means that we run a sustainable business.” She observes that they have “no budget for marketing” so the bikes and word of mouth are what attracts the queue of customers every morning.

One of the E5’s fleet of bicycles can carry up to 200 loaves of bread which is about 20% of the day’s bread output. Until recently, the

Pedalme Central London

PEDALME ETHOS: means all staff get to ride the e-bikes some of the time

If your child’s school has just had a School Street (temporary car-free zone) installed you have the founder of Pedalme, Ben Knowles, to thank.

Ben was pioneering school streets in Camden when he became “frustrated that people were using diesel-powered vans for local deliveries rather than bicycles.” So he decided to do something about it and, having left Camden Council, created an app-based business that combines people carrying with delivery of goods, all by e-cargobike, to provide an efficient

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logistics solution for anyone with a smartphone.

Growth for the start-up has been impressive.

Starting from scratch in April 2017, Pedalme now employs 35 and has recently, following a crowd-funding exercise and trip to Amsterdam for more bikes, increased its bicycle fleet from 17 to 32. Turnover multiplied tenfold last year and is expected to grow fourfold in the coming year.

Ben is clear about his priority in making the business a success: the people. All the staff, including the founder, ride the Urban Arrow e-bikes some of the time. This ensures those running the business are fully aware of what delivery riders are being asked to do. Everyone gets the opportunity to take a stake in Pedalme and all are expected to participate in training to develop their skills; for Pedalme good people means good relations with clients and more repeat business.

As a new start-up Pedalme is yet to turn a profit but Ben is confident that the numbers add up and will continue to improve rapidly. More bikes means more deliveries with a lower total cost per trip. A standard e-cargobike can take the rider plus 150kg (which can mean meals for 200 people) and a trailer can add a further 220kg. An electric car can typically travel 100km on a 10kWh battery whereas a much lighter e-cargobike will travel 40km on a 400W battery. Ben argues that cycles, with trailers attached, are more efficient than electric vans.

CARRY ON CARGO: businesses gather for a mini-expo and ride at Guy’s Courtyard

response time (delivery within two hours) from a local store but without the environmentallydamaging use of a diesel-fuelled van.

According to the Co-op’s Alan Braithewaite: “Co-op’s initiative to use e-cargobikes for grocery home delivery is ground-breaking.

Totally clean, same day, with reduced basket size and reduced congestion.” If you were wondering what “reduced basket size” means, it’s simply that they can deliver smaller loads quickly rather than wait until a van is full before setting off on a round.

E-cargobikes, who carry out the deliveries for Co-op, say that they have been given thumbsup by customers both in their earlier trial for Sainsbury’s and now at Co-op: “We’ve found customer response to be very positive both on the doorstep and on the street. And the requests on social media for it to be rolled out further show customers are aware of the problems caused by increasing numbers of delivery vans and are very receptive to alternatives.”

Co-op Chelsea Co-op’s entry into the cargobike game is starting small, with one store in Chelsea, but is set to expand quickly to a further seven stores.

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James Knight Mayfair

ZED Waltham Forest Waltham Forest’s first small-scale cargobike enterprise, back in 2016, was council run, but it was judged a success so the council tendered for the contract in 2017. It established a joint venture with Cambridge–based Outspoken, opting for the moniker Zero Emission Deliveries or ZED for short. (Outspoken has since merged with Recharge Cargo to create Zedify which remains the business parent of ZED Waltham Forest).

Starting originally with three e-cargobikes (one of which hangs on the wall of its railway arch home and two are still in daily use), ZED has expanded to a fleet of seven e-cargobikes, plus an electric van.

Like several cargobike firms they pay the London Living Wage to their three full-time and eight part-time riders. ZED’s operations manager Andreas Larsson says they want to be sustainable in terms of people as well as transport: “Our clients expect us to be their brand ambassadors — effectively an extension of their business”, so they need to have good staff and be good employers.

Although the electric van they own is less efficient than bikes for local deliveries Andreas says it’s useful as a mobile depot: bringing in larger quantities of goods from outer London for subsequent local distribution by bike. In a car-centric world, ZED says it also means some clients find it reassuring that they have an electric van as well as bikes.

ZED has regular clients, notably Waltham Forest Council’s libraries department, and according to its general manager, Oscar Godoy, it “wants to become the logistics arm of local businesses” with a target of becoming fully independent in 2020.

THREE WHEELS: a new breed of trike is slowly replacing van fleets

Delivering fresh seafood is a time-critical business — to serve a lunchtime fish dish a restaurant needs to get that delivery in the morning. James Knight of Mayfair is the largest independent seafood supplier in London, with clients including the House of Commons, members of the Royal family and leading restaurants. The company prides itself on sourcing fish from sustainably-managed stocks.

Business owner Paschal Tiernan says he has always “sought to reduce our carbon footprint” and when he noticed that the new Cycle Superhighways in the capital had far fewer cycles outside rush hours he saw an opportunity for faster, and cleaner, deliveries. Paschal found existing e-cargobikes did not suit a business which requires cold storage during transport so they designed their own in collaboration with Cycle Maximus.

The resulting tricycle with ‘high insulation’, supplemented by containers filled with ice packs, can carry three-quarters of the load of a regular van but with a much faster turnaround.

So it in effect is “equivalent to 1 to 1.5 regular vans,” says Paschal. The efficiency of the first trike has encouraged the company to order another two and it hopes to eventually switch most of its 14 vans to electric-powered vehicles.

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CAMPAIGN

Dutch Reach Teaching new habits will help reduce ‘dooring’ incidents says Stuart Kightley, managing partner at Osbornes Law

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EHIND THE door of every stationary vehicle there is a maniac waiting to attack passing cyclists by flinging the door open at them. Or so it often seems. A cyclist is not very conspicuous in a rear view mirror and is particularly vulnerable to being ‘doored’ when overtaking stationary cars and vans. A point graphically illustrated by government minister Chris Grayling a couple of years ago when he opened his ministerial limo door and flattened an unsuspecting rider.

The consequences of such a moment of inattention can be serious, occasionally tragic.

There is a paucity of reliable data, but about 500 casualties a year (including 60 serious injuries and one fatality) were attributed to vehicle door accidents by police in 2016. And in a US study doorings accounted for 20% of all cycling crashes.

Cycling lawyers like those at Osbornes see a lot of these cases. My first trial many years ago

involved a graphic designer who was going about his business by bike in London when he was hit by a car door. He suffered serious fractures to his foot and ankle in the collision, required multiple surgeries and was left with long-term disabilities.

After a week-long hearing where it was argued that he was cycling too close to the parked cars and that he was exaggerating his disability, the judge accepted the claim in full and awarded the claimant a lot of money in compensation. But he had to go to a full trial after three years to get recompense.

Of course accidents happen, but the risk of such a common and potentially serious accident should be controlled, by a combination of deterrent and education. The criminal law is inadequate. There is an offence of opening a vehicle door “so as to injure or endanger” someone, but the penalty is only a fine, and the police do not often prosecute. The more serious LONDON CYCLIST Summer 2019 35

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CAMPAIGN

HOW DOES DUTCH REACH WORK?

offences of careless driving or causing death by dangerous driving will not apply because the defendant will not technically have been ‘driving’ at the time.

In a tragic recent case Professor Maria BitnerGlindzicz was killed by an oncoming taxi when she swerved to avoid an opening door as she overtook a stationary van. The defendant was prosecuted for the minor offence of opening a car door to danger, but in fact died two days before the trial was due to start and so the proceedings were dropped.

Law change needed The civil law offers a better deal for cyclists injured and the families of those killed. A criminal conviction can be pleaded in support of the case, but all that is actually required to establish civil liability is that the defendant was negligent on the balance of probabilities standard of proof, and that negligence caused the injury. But eligibility for compensation is cold comfort in these cases and the civil law, like the criminal law, does little to deter the bad and careless behaviour that leads to such accidents.

The Highway Code is not strong on dooring either. So it was welcome news when the government announced last October that it would add advice about how to open a door safely, using the ‘Dutch Reach’ method, as part of its review of the Highway Code.

TEACHING GOOD HABITS: until they become second nature

The phrase ‘Dutch Reach’ describes the practice adopted for opening a car door in driving tests in the Netherlands. In other countries it has been variously described as ‘Lead with your Left’ (helpful in Australia, but not in continental Europe), ‘Reach Across’ or ‘Opposite Hand Trick’.

Whatever the phrase, it simply means using the opposite arm to open a vehicle door. So for a UK driver’s offside door he/she would use his left arm, reaching across their body to get to the handle, and in so doing he/she would naturally face out and behind to see oncoming traffic. The driver does not tend to open the door as wide as otherwise either.

And the idea is gaining traction. The University of Nottingham published a paper in November 2018 which suggested that in tests the Dutch Reach technique did indeed increase head rotation and promote greater awareness. Further testing with a view to improving vehicle design is planned.

The benefit of encoding Dutch Reach into our Highway Code is that future generations of new drivers will be taught this technique and may be tested on it to pass their driving test. It should then become habitual. For the rest of us, awareness campaigns supported by government are necessary. We need to be reminded of how serious the consequences of carelessness can be.

LCC’s recent Stay Wider of the Rider campaign led the way as a means of educating the public about a change of habit to promote road safety.

Other than overtaking at least a door’s width away from stationary vehicles and using a bright front light, there is nothing we cyclists can do to prevent other road users from being careless and putting us in danger. So we continue to rely on our own vigilance and risk awareness to minimise the danger of being injured in a dooring incident.

Encoding Dutch Reach into the Highway Code means that for future generations it should become habitual

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5

drills to hone ’Slow Skills’

Learning or improving a few basic skills will make you a better rider says cycling coach Thea Smith from Velociposse, even if you have no intention of racing

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YCLING WITH friends or as part of a ‘club run’ is great fun: a bunch of likeminded people, usually leaving their local streets behind and heading to new areas or even country lanes. It’s great for fitness and general wellbeing (if you don’t overdo the cake stops), but such rides don’t necessarily improve your bike handling skills.

Riding in a group is loads easier if you know you can trust the riders around you to ride smoothly and

consistently — and bike handling skills are key for that. These simple exercises can be practised with your friends in any park or quiet piece of tarmac, and can benefit everyone, even experienced riders.

All you need is a set of plastic cones or discs, though bits and pieces from your bag will work at a push. So gather your mates together and give it a go. These tips will work best for two-wheeled bikes, but can be adapted for nonstandard cycles too.

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SPORT

1

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apex as possible than to enter the corner at the inside edge. Remember to keep the inside pedal up when cornering to avoid clipping the ground when you lean.

Another way to think about this is to put pressure on the outside pedal.

Add in an extra level of difficulty by having riders corner next to each other.

The outside rider should take the corner wide enough to allow their partner to get round too.

Funnelling / Bottlenecks

3

4

How does a group of riders get through a bottleneck? There’s no one answer, but the key is communication. Set up a funnel of cones that gradually get closer together. Riders will have to negotiate with each other about whether there is space to go through together, or who will go first.

This is a useful skill when someone shouts ‘car back’ on the road and you all need to get into single file without a fuss.

Contact Riding [4] Box Game [1]

Great for a warm up and to get everyone’s focus dialled in at the beginning of a session. Set out a large-ish square with cones or markers, and get everyone circling inside it. The riders will have to pay close attention not to bump into each other — this one is best done in trainers and flat pedals if you’re not sure about your slow riding skills yet.

Gradually reduce the size of the box — this is great for adding a competitive element. Eliminate anyone who puts their foot down, or goes outside the box, to see who will be the last rider standing.

Photos: Velociposse, Total Women’s Cycling

Slow Riding & Track Standing [2]

Riding slowly requires core strength and balance. Start off with a ‘slow race’: line riders up at a start line and the last one to get to the designated finish line (not too far away, 20-30m will do) without putting their foot down wins. Top tips: look forward, use a low gear and apply the brakes very gently while pedalling — the balance will come.

Another thing to practice is getting riders to pause as they’re cycling along, without putting their foot down, as though waiting for someone to cross the road. The key is to have the pedals horizontal so there is something to balance against, but also so you’re not in

the dead spot of a pedal turn when you want to nudge off again.

Track standing — named after the skills shown by riders in the velodrome — is the ultimate goal. It’s easiest attempting it on a very slight uphill so you’re pushing against gravity — turn the handlebars to one side to aid balance, keep the foot forward on the same side that the bars are turned towards, and keep those cranks horizontal. Look ahead and keep your torso stable while applying pressure to the pedals to allow the bike to move around slightly to maintain balance.

Don’t worry if you don’t get it straight away, it takes a while to master!

Cornering [3]

Start off with a simple slalom and get riders to weave in and out of a straight line of cones. Try and turn the handlebars as little as possible — instead use your body to tilt and alter the direction of the bike. Start with the cones more than a bike length apart, and when you get faster and more accurate move the cones closer together to make it harder.

To replicate the road you could lay out a larger course with different kinds of corners. Keep your head up and look for the next corner as soon as you’re at the apex. Always adjust speed prior to the corner, not through it, and think about the line you take: it’s more efficient to come in wide and get as close to the

Watch any race and you’ll see riders in the peloton bumping off each other.

And even if you and your friends have no intention of racing, it’s a great skill to be able to ride close to each other on narrow lanes.

Pair riders up and try keeping shoulders relaxed and elbows out. Get closer to the rider next to you — touch elbows and then shoulders. Use your body weight to lean against each other a bit. Try putting your hand on each other’s shoulders. Then try putting a hand on each other’s handlebars.

The ultimate goal is to go round corners in contact with one another.

Once you know you can do that, then riding close to each other doesn’t seem so scary anymore.

INCLUSION AND CONFIDENCE BUILDING Velociposse is a London-based women’s cycling club that’s open to beginners as well as those who want to race. A core part of its schedule is a ‘slow skills’ session, and it’s great for riders of all abilities. Thea Smith is a Level 2 British Cycling coach and has seen first-hand how mastering slow skills makes for confident and safe riders. n velociposse.cc LONDON CYCLIST Summer 2019 39

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SLOW WIGHT

John Kitchiner discovers a land that not only welcomes bikes, but offers hundreds of miles of quality routes 42

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TRAVEL

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TAKE A CRUISE: to a bikefriendly island not far from home

us return for a popular Trailquest (mtb orienteering) event and a schoolmate’s wedding, both of which were still 20 years back. So we wanted to see if time had been kind to an old friend and, more importantly, what interest it held for cyclists of every hue.

Making its mark No lesser authority than Lonely Planet has included the IoW in its ‘top ten cycling locations’ recently and a closer look at our Ordnance Survey OL29 sheet revealed dozens of clearly annotated trails and shared-use paths. That’s in addition to hundreds of quiet country lanes that should keep the most ambitious roadies and cycle-tourers happy, plus an almost overwhelming wealth of off-road options for mountain bikers and gravel grinders. On paper it’s impressive and quickly the brain cells were whirring with possibilities. But where to start?

To be fair, the island’s no stranger to championing cycling (and walking) activities and we’d spot evidence in many places of the council’s previous campaigns to push a ‘greener’ tourism agenda.

For whatever reason those initiatives never truly gelled, but now with cycling in relatively rude health, the local administration

PHOTOS: John K, VisitIOW

F WE TOLD you there was a dream cycling destination just two hours from London, with dramatic coastlines, chalk downlands and the densest concentration of bridleways and byways in the country, where would you think we meant?

Somewhere in Dorset? Maybe Exmoor? Possibly even Suffolk at a push? Well, you’d be wrong.

If we added that it was famed for its 19th-century lighthouse and dinosaurs (both fossilised and plastic), you might still be hedging your bets south-west.

The giveaway would be when we explained you need a ferry, or hovercraft, to get there. Yes, after a train to Portsmouth or Southampton and a short boat trip, you can alight in a land with rich bike heritage and growing twowheel appeal — the Isle of Wight.

Like many Londoners bored of daytrips to Southend or Margate, ‘the Island’ was a family holiday staple for us, several decades before ‘staycations’ were a thing. Memories mainly revolve around an overloaded Triumph Herald, clifftop caravans and iffy souvenirs. And theme parks — the sort whose ‘quirkiness’ could really only be appreciated by candyfloss-fuelled schoolkids.

The intervening years have seen

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HANTS DORSET

Porstmouth

ISLE OF WIGHT

PHOTOS: John K, VisitIOW, Seaview Hotel

TRIP HIGHLIGHTS: Easy train/ferry connections, amazing network of trails, chalk downs and cliffs, historical sites, great pubs and tourist board have come up with a ‘Slow Wight Travel Guide’.

The idea being to steer people away from the obvious destinations and point them in the direction of lesser-known spots and the natural wonders — all at a more leisurely pace. The website (see Factfile) outlines eight really fun routes to try, all suitable for families, and these act as appetite-whetters for your own explorations.

If time allows we’d recommend trying the 100km permanentlymarked ‘Round the Island’ route — the same parcours followed by the annual IoW Randonnée every May — which includes a very short hop across the River Medina on the Cowes Floating Bridge (a small chain ferry). The loop passes through, or close to, all the main seaside towns and is popular with pannier-laden tourers due to the number of available camping sites.

But with only two days free, we decided to take a leaf from the ‘Slow Wight’ guide and sample more of the hidden interior, mixing elements from their suggested rides with sections of our own devising.

Our first foray started at the

pretty village of Seaview, heading south by the water’s edge to check out the handbuilt houseboats in Bembridge Harbour. Quiet ‘B’ roads and dedicated cycle tracks then led us inland to Brading and up a stiff climb to the lookout point at Brading Down. Sadly a summer haze restricted our views to the surrounding farmland, but usually you’d be afforded far-reaching panoramas to the sea.

Then we had a choice of tarmac, bridleway or BOAT (Byway Open to All Traffic), initially on the Nunwell Trail, then the Bembridge Trail, all the way to Newport. Your

choice here will depend on the tyres you’re running; we were grateful for our armoured cyclocross treads when the going got bumpy. The route (as we found on all our trips) was both well worn and well signposted, so you’ll struggle to get lost.

As we were here to discover the countryside, we didn’t pause in the isle’s ‘capital’ other than to refill bottles, before we were headed out on the Yar River Trail (also marked as National Cycle Route 23). Essentially flat, it’s mostly on re-surfaced old railway lines and is very busy with families off all ages. We spotted Highland cattle on adjacent fields and were told kingfisher sightings at Alverstone Mead were possible,

The ‘Round the Island’ route passes through, or close to, all the main seaside towns and is popular with pannier-laden tourers...

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TRAVEL

but our highlight was the Pedaller’s Cafe at Langbridge with its vintage cycling posters, jerseys and assorted bike memorabilia.

To round out the day, rather than dropping down to Sandown and its glitzy pier we returned via Bembridge Down and a quick out-and-back to the ancient battlements at Culver Down.

Tales from the trails We felt like we’d had a pretty good first taster, but revisiting the map showed it was actually only a thin slice of the rhomboid-shaped pie.

It had reminded us of the South Downs, with its rolling hills, sharp scarps, loosely dotted settlements and great pubs. But to share the love, our second outing would be to the far west.

Again, the ‘Slow Wight’ guide would provide the backbone for the itinerary, starting from Yarmouth and combining marked trails and minor roads down to the Freshwater peninsula. Marshes, mudflats and lagoons abound in the initial stages, though the big reveal is saved for the whaleback ridges on the West Wight shores.

Luckily we’d swapped onto our hosts e-bikes so we could maximise mileage and the extra

pedal assistance was welcome as we sweated up the beautiful Compton Down traverse, before skirting Tennyson Down on our way to The Needles. The Tennyson Trail — named after Victorian Poet Laureate Alfred, Lord Tennyson who lived in nearby — is regarded as “probably the best chalk trail in the UK” according to the Good Mountain Biking Guide and really shouldn’t be missed. Likewise a walk around the Old Battery on the headland above the famed lighthouse is well worth an hour or two’s wandering.

For such a compact location — the island is only the same size as the county of Rutland (almost to the square metre) — the topography and geology is fascinating and the more you delve the more it reveals. Sadly we only got to dip the tip of a toenail into the history on this occasion.

So was our long overdue return worthwhile? Definitely. It’s good to see a few shabby penny arcades endure, though some of the big attractions (admittedly viewed from the outside) look like they’d give Banksy a run for his dystopian dollar. But there’s dozens, if not hundreds, of cool cafés, refurbed restaurants, and classy

accommodation options sprinkled in every corner. It’s pulling off a difficult trick: appealing to older nostalgia lovers, while offering enough for metropolitan newbies.

And, undoubtedly, two wheels is the best way to explore the place.

It would be impossible to ride all the trails and secret lanes in a week so, like us, you’d be best off adopting a mix-and-match approach, cherry-picking a few select highlights. Cycling by the bucket (and spade) load awaits.

FACT FILE n MORE INFO: for route ideas and maps go to slowwighttravelguide.co.uk. n TRAVEL: we travelled with Wightlink ferries (wightlink.co.uk), which runs 26 services daily each way between Portsmouth and Fishbourne.

Regular rail services link London mainline stations and Portsmouth. n WHERE TO STAY: we were kindly hosted by Seaview Hotel (seaviewhotel. co.uk). It offers a range of standard and superior rooms, plus its restaurant has held a Michelin Bib Gourmand for four years. The hotel also offers ‘Wight Coasting’ packages (£159 per person) – two nights’ stay, full English breakfasts, plus full use of its e-bike fleet. n MAPS: OS Explorer OL29.

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RIDE GUIDE

WEST SUSSEX

Explore beautiful West Sussex this summer, guided by Katy Rodda

ATTRACTIONS OPTING FOR THE SLOW ROUTE To avoid two sections of busy main road on the longer loop, our suggested route follows a pair of quiet bridleways.

One is a hard stone/gravel trail like most people will have ridden at some point, and the other is a two-mile riverside path of which parts may require you to push your bike (unless you’re a mountain biker). These are worthwhile ‘diversions’ though, as you really feel like you’re getting away from it all and immersing yourself in the landscape. So much nicer than mixing it with fast-moving traffic and it allows you to return much more peacefully to Arundel. So embrace the slower pace we say — it’s a wonderful area, with so many sights to take in that you wouldn’t want to rush anyway!

FACT FILE START: Arundel station (long option), Amberley station (short option).

FINISH: as for start.

DISTANCE: 58km (36 miles); or 41km (25.5 miles) for short option.

TIME: 3.5-6 hours depending on stops and visits to attractions.

GRADIENTS: hilly, including one short 16% climb. Ascent/descent: 560m (long option), 250m (short option).

SUITABLE FOR: hybrids, mtb or gravel bikes for the longer route; any bike for the shorter route. You will also need good brakes and tyres, check them before you head out. Remember to take a spare inner tube, puncture repair kit and pump, plus your usual multi-tool and spares. Plenty of places for topping up waterbottles.

Photo: WWT/Ben Cherry

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HIS CIRCULAR route starts from Arundel, with a shorter circuit from Amberley. The full route takes you to seven attractions in West Sussex, far too many to visit in one day, but you can pick and choose.

The ride is nearly all on country lanes, but there are a few sections on busier roads (described opposite) and two bridleway sections on the full-length route. Many of the lanes run through woods and under shade, so this ride would be good on a warm day. Young children will be fine on the quieter parts of the route, such as Arundel to Bignor or Pulborough Brooks, but probably not the Petworth section. Check opening times before you visit.

WEST SUSSEX: ATTRACTIONS

2 START: ARUNDEL

AMBERLEY 11.5km

3 PULBOROUGH 18km

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5

PETWORTH 34km

BIGNOR 45km

6 7 END: ARUNDEL

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RIDE GUIDE

Route Guide WEST SUSSEX ATTRACTIONS

AMBERLEY MUSEUM [2] It’s easy to miss the steady old industries of the region, but in this old chalk quarry you can find a narrowgauge railway, early telecoms and electricity, printing presses, pottery, working blacksmith, and transport heritage. Nearby Amberley Castle is now a luxury hotel and restaurant, while Amberley Village Stores sells a range of fresh food and drinks for your onward journey.

RSPB PULBOROUGH BROOKS [3] This RSPB conservation site, set in the floodplains of the Arun, features lowland heath and watermeadow.

Although the RSPB focuses on birds, their habitats benefit a wide range of wildlife. It’s typically hands-on too, continually developing sustainable natural features.

PETWORTH HOUSE & PARK [4] The 17th-century house and Capability Brown-designed park are unmissable if you’re a National Trust fan. The main car park with bike racks is a mile north out of town on a fairly busy road, but there’s a pedestrian entrance by the church in the town centre also with bike racks. National Trust properties can be hard to reach without a car, but arriving at historic houses under your own steam is entirely appropriate.

PETWORTH TO BIGNOR Enjoy the hilly lanes to Bignor. A barn owl found us before Sutton; perhaps he’ll do a special flypast for you too. Sutton is another beautiful village with aged stone houses.

There is a short 16% climb at Bignor Mill; and look out for Yeoman’s House – you can book it for short breaks if you’re smitten with the area.

BIGNOR ROMAN VILLA [5] The buildings you can see on the crest of the hill have protected the site for

over 200 years, following the moment in 1811 when farmer George Tupper hit a basin with his plough. He brought in experts, who discovered a sizeable Roman villa with stunning mosaics and hypocaust, and built the distinctive thatched buildings. If you turn round to face the Downs, you are looking at the same contours that Bignor’s residents would have seen around 2,000 years ago.

BIGNOR TO ARUNDEL If you want to go back to Arundel via Burpham, head back to Amberley and retrace your route east of the Arun.

The rough bridleway runs along the west bank. Once over the motorbikeprohibiting gate, the trail is slightly bumpy, packed mud at first, but tree roots soon cross the path. Get off and walk when it becomes too much.

Eventually the tree roots end and the trail undulates over dirt and chippings.

When you pass the first of several ‘No Entry’ gates into Arundel Park, you are nearly back on tarmac, which returns at the farm just outside South Stoke. Keep an eye out for the splendid lion and horse-topped gateway.

ARUNDEL WETLAND CENTRE [6] This is one of the UK’s nine Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust sites, the first being Slimbridge, set up in 1946 by Sir Peter Scott. This fabulous site provides habitat for mammals, rodents and birds, with guided boat tours, meadows, a boardwalk and events.

ARUNDEL CASTLE [7] Still owned by the Duke of Norfolk, the castle contains a collection of paintings, interesting rooms, stone staircases and even a proper dungeon.

©Crown copyright 2018 Ordnance Survey. Media 060/18

Photos: National Trust/John Miller, Aerial Sussex

AMBERLEY TO PULBOROUGH The character of the landscape changes here: after a mile or two the road becomes surrounded by low-lying woodland. Everything feels slightly damp and shaded; enjoy the breeze on your face.

PULBOROUGH TO PETWORTH You’re riding through woodlands for a little longer, then out through fields and bridges surrounding the River Rother. After Coldwaltham, keep an eye out right for the tiny chapel of St Agatha; except for the belfry, it is unchanged since the 11th century. It’s hilly near Petworth; this ride is quite a workout for its 58km.

CUT-OUT AND KEEP

ARUNDEL TO AMBERLEY You’re in the National Park as soon as you join the quiet, meandering lane through Warmingcamp, Wepham and Burpham. These pretty villages sit along the edge of the hills above the River Arun, with old stone cottages, and countless primroses on the banks.

The tarmac gives out on the lane out of Burpham at a farm, but mysteriously reappears near the top of the descent into North Stoke. The next lane runs peacefully next to a railway line, between banks and trees.

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WEST SUSSEX ATTRACTIONS

CUT-OUT AND KEEP

4

3

5

SHORT LOOP

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HOW TO

RIM BRAKE

TIPS

Working brakes are essential for safe cycling, which means fine-tuning them as part of your regular bike maintenance regime, as Jenni Gwiazdowski explains

Jenni Gwiazdowski Founder of London Bike Kitchen and book author

Stopping is good. But it’s a simple truth that bicycle brakes become less effective over time.

Cables will stretch and pads slowly wear away. If you can squeeze your brake lever all the way to the handlebar without the brake engaging, you’re due to make some adjustments.

Here we look at a few simple ways to improve the performance of rim brakes.

STEP 1: ADJUST CABLE TENSION First try using the barrel the problem, try re-clamping adjuster (located where the cable. Wind the adjuster the cable exits the lever or back in. Then undo the cable enters the caliper). Turn the clamping bolt, feed more adjuster anti-clockwise one cable through (while full turn to start, then half squeezing the caliper together turns, testing the brakes as with your other hand) and you go. If this doesn’t solve re-clamp the cable.

STEP 3: ENSURE PROPER PAD ALIGNMENT Pads set too high will touch the rim and the brake pad. the tyre and rub a hole in it; Squeeze the lever or use your pads set too low will develop hand to push the brake arm a lip that can hold the brake so that you can see where pad against the rim. To adjust the pad makes contact with pad position, undo the bolt the rim. Once you’re happy on the pad. Ideally, you’ll with the position of the pad, want a 1.5mm gap between re-tighten the bolt.

STEP 2: CENTRE THE BRAKE CALIPER If only one pad is rubbing your brakes don’t have this against the wheel rim when adjuster, slacken the fixing braking, you’ll need to centre nut/bolt combo that holds the caliper. Caliper brakes the brake to the frame or will often have a small grub fork. Now squeeze the lever screw/allen bolt on top of to re-centre the caliper with the caliper. Screw this in or one hand, while re-tightening out slowly, so you can watch the fixing nut/bolt with the the brake arms move. If other hand.

STEP 4: KEEP THE NOISE DOWN Loud, squeaky, noisy brakes? hold the brake lever to keep There are a few potential the card in place. Loosen and fixes to keep in mind. Try a adjust the pad bolt to reset toe-in — this refers to the the pad position ever so angle that your pad contacts slightly, then re-tighten. the rim when brakes are You can also try cleaning applied. Place a piece of your rim with a damp rag, or folded card under the back filing your brake pads to get end of the pad, then pull and rid of slick spots.

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L ATEST | BIKES | GEAR | MEDIA

BIKES

SWYTCH 54

REVIEWS

BRISTOL 57

BACKPACKS 58

BOOKS 61

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REVIEWS

E-BIKE UPGRADE Looking for a more viable e-bike solution? This retrofit kit could be the answer...

Andy Donohoe

MODEL: SWYTCH 250W STANDARD KIT, £699 n swytchbike.com

W

HILE THE e-bike market is booming and currently the industry’s leading light for innovation, not everyone wants to shell out a couple of grand or more for a basic model from the big brands. Which is where the new Swytch kit enters the picture — it’s specifically designed to retrofit on your existing bike, no matter its wheel size (folding bikes included).

You either buy the appropriate kit online and fit it at home yourself, following the video guide; it’s genuinely no more than a 20-minute job for a competent mechanic. Or, rather uniquely, you can opt for the home-fitting service for a £50 surcharge. We popped along to the company’s Hackney HQ where

they kindly fitted a 700c version to our much-loved vintage fixie, exactly the sort of bike we think people will consider upgrading. For safety we flipped the rear wheel from fixed to singlespeed mode, a freewheel being a better match for the front hub-based motor. Then it was a case of (a) removing the front wheel, swapping tyres onto the Swytch wheel and refitting; (b) attaching a pedal sensor at the bottom bracket; (c) bolting on the handlebar bracket for the battery; and (d) connecting up all the cables, using zip-ties to cinch down where required. Stick the battery pack on, making sure you hear the audible ‘click’, and you’re ready to ride. It’s an extremely simple, no faff set-up.

Operation is equally straightforward with buttons on top of the battery; you can select pedal assistance settings from 1 to 9. One full charge lasts roughly 80km (50 miles), though we found it exceeding that a couple of times; charge time was between 6-7 hours.

We found the lower settings a little redundant and on the flat around town level 5 became our

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default. You feel the pick-up within the first crank turn and it’s seamless (and quiet) thereafter, with minimal drag compared to many integrated systems we’ve tested. The assistance has been much appreciated on ‘heavy-legged’ days and, in level 9, we zipped up the three steepest hills in Brighton in record time.

The weight of the battery pack up front did make hopping up kerbs trickier, but steering was little affected even on our narrow bars.

Overall the ride has been smooth and without issue — and the fact that our bike stills retains its retro looks is an aesthetic bonus. This kit could transform a lot of old-timers.

MAKE A SWYTCH: with the handlebarmounted battery pack (top), hub motor (above) and pedal sensor (left)

VERDICT + L ightweight system, adds only 3.9kg to bike. +C an be fitted (or removed) in minutes. + Quickly removable battery adds to security. + Battery has USB output for phone charging.

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BIKES

MODEL: BRISTOL TOURER, £590 n bristolbicycles.co.uk

REVIEW: Rob Eves/JK

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TRONG, LIGHT, cheap — pick two. An adage popularised by bike guru Keith Bontrager to describe what’s possible in bicycle manufacture, the phrase has never been more ably demonstrated than by the accessory-packed Bristol Tourer. So while two of these attributes most surely apply (strong, cheap), the third is a distant dream.

Available in either a standard ‘diamond’ or step-through version, the aluminium frame is both backbone and standout feature of the package; it’s reasonably light and paired to a robust steel fork. There’s 24 gears, courtesy of Shimano’s Altus groupset, and hydraulic disc brakes — a fantastic bonus on a bike of this price. Wheels are 36-spoked,

heavy-duty affairs (with front dynamo hub), shod in equally hefty, puncture-proofed 700x35c Mitas tyres. The online configurator allows you to choose from six bar types (we opted for ‘hybrid’), plus mudguards and pannier racks. We went for the full house and out of the box the Bristol was ready for some easier weekend tours.

We stress the ‘easier’ here as the combination of so many budget parts and add-ons means the basic weight was only a tickle under 16kg (35lb) on our office scales ­— more than some cargobikes and fullsuspension downhill bikes — and that’s without any luggage (which can easily double this figure). It’s that weight which defines the ride characteristics too — it felt stable on

cobbles and rough towpaths, but definitely won’t be setting any LEJOG records.

It does offer good value for a starter tourer that’s ready to roll straight away, but we’d recommend it more for shorter explorations and commuting.

FACTFILE

n Online tool allows you to build the bike with as many, or as few, extras as you’d like. n Impressive range of frame sizes to suit riders from 5ft to 6ft3in.

VERDICT + Strong, built like a tank. + Cheap, good value. + Ride can feel harsh.

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REVIEWS

URBAN BACKPACKS Six solutions for carrying your city essentials ridden and rated by our experts ALTURA Thunderstorm City 30 altura.co.uk

ORTLIEB Commuter Daypack Urban

n £79.99 n Capacity: 30 litres n Weight: 600g

n £119 n Capacity: 21 litres n Weight: 900g

Pared-back simplicity is the Thunderstorm’s forte, with a shape and construction similar to an over-sized pannier. The ripstop material has sealed seams and a special coating which makes it certified waterproof — it’s virtually bombproof and our belongings were fully protected even in the worst showers.

The back system has six raised foam pads, which allowed air to circulate and prevented discomfort when carrying heavy loads (cameras, lenses, reference books); the shoulder straps are also more comfy than many citystyle backpacks. Inside a laptop sleeve held our 15in Macbook easily and there’s a small pocket for valuables, while a simple metal buckle secures the rolltop. As you’d expect from Altura, the 360-degree reflective detailing is excellent, and an alernate hi-vis version will appeal to many.

Ortlieb has long pioneered waterproof cycle luggage — we’ve given the company’s panniers and sporty backpacks top marks in the past — and this stylish new addition is a direct attempt to woo the fashion-conscious end of the commuter market.

The main body is made from waterproof Cordura, with a lovely textured feel almost like a woven fabric, and a tough, tub-style bottom. Rolltop closure is with a simple buckle design. The padded laptop sleeve is deeper than Altura’s and has a larger zipped pocket for chargers, cables and suchlike; there’s a really handy outer zipped pocket too for travelcards and coins. Plus we could attach a D-lock to the reinforced exterior loops. The unique back padding combines with malleable straps for a very comfy carry, though we did feel that tub base rubbing our back on occasion.

POLARIS RBS Radar Commuting Backpack

RESTRAP Commute Backpack

n £25 n Capacity: 25 litres n Weight: 530g

n £130 n Capacity: 35 litres n Weight: 1200g

The RBS Radar immediately stands out in this company on a few levels, most notably price (it was even reduced by 50% during our test period) and weight. But, to be fair, compared to the others the fabric is considerably less robust, it’s not waterproof, and the features are less sophisticated. The main compartment has a simple mesh laptop holder and pocket for hydration bladder, and that’s it. Though an outer pocket does contain organisers for valuables, bike tools and inner tubes, plus there’s a clear plastic sleeve which will hold an LED light. Two hip pockets, accessible as you ride, are handy for carrying snacks or smaller phones. It proved less stable with heavy loads and the back system’s pretty basic, but we couldn’t fault the superb reflectivity. Overall, better for carrying a change of clothes than weighty electronics.

Only a few weeks into our test and we can confidently say this is a pack we’ll keep coming back to; though it’s right at home as a daily commuter, the large capacity means it has handled everything from the weekly shopping to long weekends away.

Hardwearing Cordura and waterproof zips have kept our gear dry in spring showers, though we’re still waiting to see how it fares in torrential rain. There’s a padded laptop sleeve inside, plus easy-to-access external pockets for minimal faff while out and about. Handy compression straps allow you to cinch up the main compartment which keeps loads steady when bumping around on cobbles or towpaths. The back padding is basic but we found it really comfy, though sweatier than those with air channels. It’s the joint most expensive option here, but probably the most versatile.

REVIEWS: John K, Sarah Flynn

polaris-bikewear.co.uk

ortlieb.com

restrap.co.uk

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OSPREY Radial 26 ospreyeurope.com

n £130 n Capacity: 26 litres n Weight: 1370g Anyone who’s used Osprey packs will quickly recognise many of the Radial’s key features and quality detailing. And the fantastic array of storage solutions — from the padded laptop/ tablet pockets, document sleeve, mesh stashers for cables and chargers, large front pocket for bike tools and spares, side bottle holder and valuables pocket. We had more than enough room for a change of clothes, couple of books and lunch, while glasses have their own space.

The back system uses a suspended ‘trampoline’ panel which works a treat — it’s as sweat-free as it’s possible to get — and the fit was the best here, sitting just right on our hips. With a rain cover, LED light clip and plenty of reflective piping, it’s nigh-on perfect. Only the integrated ‘kickstand’ proved overkill in our eyes, but it’s still top-notch kit.

SHIMANO Tokyo 23 Urban Backpack freewheel.co.uk

n £119.99 n Capacity: 23 litres n Weight: 1485g Better known as the world’s biggest cycle component manufacturer, the ‘Big S’ has been growing its accessories range for a couple of years now. And as a dedicated urban pack, the Tokyo 23 nails it on most fronts: tough splashproof fabric (with additional waterproof cover), highly padded laptop and tablet sleeves, quick buckle closure, front organiser pocket and outstanding 360-degree reflectivity. We’ve managed to carry a D-lock on the webbing straps and attach an extra dry bag using ski straps. Deep side pockets swallowed our waterbottles and bananas/ snacks, keeping them separate from other kit. The back and straps are lightly padded and well vented, and with our typical daily load it felt centred and stable. An impressive, considered design.

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REVIEWS

BIKE BOOKS

SPORTIVE CYCLING: SOUTH-WEST ENGLAND

REVIEWS: John K, Tom Bogdanowic

Colin Dennis Cicerone, £12.95

These days the cycling calendar is chokka with a huge variety of ‘sportive’ challenges across the UK, usually offering route alternatives from 25 miles to 100+ miles. And, for most people, such events mean getting some miles into our legs beforehand, not only to maximise enjoyment on the big day, but to get used to being in the saddle for long periods. This pocket-sized guide — a companion to the South East England volume we’ve reviewed previously — outlines 20 great training loops, from Bristol to Bodmin, Plymouth to Poole, and all areas between. The routes are all graded, from 1 to 5, with simple maps and navigation overview — but all can be downloaded for use with GPS. The vast majority of the routes use quiet country lanes, so it’s useful for touring cyclists as well.

THINGS COME APART 2.0

CYCLING: CAMINO DE SANTIAGO

Apparently philosopher and boy genius John Stuart Mill took apart a clock when he was a small child — when his father told to put it back together he obediently did so. If he wasn’t hooked on reading Plato at the age of eight Mill might have enjoyed Things Come Apart 2.0. Its author, Todd McLellan, confesses to taking his toys apart with a hammer and disassembling a car while at secondary school. Here he dismantles 50 design classics, including a 1980s Raleigh road bike, and lays them out for beautiful ‘portrait’ shots, before using strobes to capture all the parts (893 for the bicycle) as they fall from the ceiling. Not surprisingly, McLellan laments the non-repairable nature of many complex modern designs.

Many cyclists are workshop tinkerers with a passion for taking things apart — this book will surely delight them.

The Camino de Santiago de Compostela (Way of St. James) is among the world’s most famous pilgrimages — and a UNESCO-listed route — and this typically wellresearched Cicerone guide provides all the info you need to successfully ride it, broken down into 18 stages. Two versions of the trail are described, either one usually taking between 10-14 days: the ‘Camino route’, based closely on the walkers’ route and suitable for hybrid or mountain bikes; and the ‘road route’ for roadies and tourers.

There’s clear navigation descriptions and mapping throughout, plus sections on local history, interesting stops, accommodation and food options. And there’s notes on how to qualify for your ‘pilgrims’ certificate’. All the hard work has been done for you, meaning your own physical challenge or spiritual journey should go smoothly.

Todd McLellan Thames Hudson, £14.95

Mike Wells Cicerone, £14.95

GRAVEL CYCLING

Nick Legan Velopress, $24.95

Every ‘new’ or ‘rebadged’ niche needs a book and this glossy 300-pager fills that void, albeit with a largely US and racing slant. Initial chapters deal with how to prepare and what to take if you’re tackling one of the classic off-road challenges, then there’s an extended focus on specific sufferfests like Grinduro in California and Dirty Kanza in Kansas, plus lesser-known (to Brits) epics like the brilliantly-named Barry-Roubaix in Michigan.

Northumbria’s Dirty Reiver is the only UK entry.

The second half looks at rugged, multi-day adventures and how to camp more efficiently. And, unsurprisingly, mountain bikes become more prevalent than rigid drop-bar bikes here (having ridden two of these trails we fully agree that you’ll need the most capable set-up available). In fact, we might have lost our heart to an image of a stunning Vlad Cycles Dirt Tourer with its own custom luggage...

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MEMBERS

MAKE THE MOST OF SUMMER WITH LCC MEMBERSHIP We did it, team. We've seen off winter and another changeable spring, and LCC Membership is here to help you make the most of your summer cycling adventures, wherever the road may take you

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T LAST! We finally say goodbye to multiple layers of clothing for our commutes and can all look forward to a summer filled with evenings in the park and guaranteed daylight on our evening rides.

Maybe you’re planning a cycling holiday this summer, or maybe your idea of adventure is an afternoon pedalling along the local towpaths. Either way, LCC membership has all you need in order to make sure you’re ready, wherever your wheels take you.

In this issue, we round up some of our favourite membership benefits and discounts to help you before, during and after your summertime cycling trips. Head to the website for even more offers!

SPECIAL OFFER! Know a friend who loves to cycle? Refer them to join LCC and you’ll both get a free set of Lost Lanes books. For more info visit lcc.org.uk/lostlanes.

1 Before you go So much of a cycling holiday lies in the planning. From choosing a destination to plotting your route, having a plan means that you’ll be able to make the most of your trip.

Publishers like Cicerone, Bradt Travel Guides and Wild Things Publishing make great reference books for providing inspiration, offering insight to areas of the UK and abroad.

Once you’ve got your destination locked in, you may

consider going with a travel or tour company. For those looking for a laid back approach to a two-wheeled holiday, InnTravel call themselves ‘the slow holiday people’ and offer a range of selfguided holidays for individuals, allowing you to take things at your own pace.

For those sporty folk who want to ride like the pros, Etiquette Cycling [1] offers a Spanish prostyle cycling holiday experience — great for anyone looking for a LONDON CYCLIST Summer 2019 63

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MEMBERS

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2 fun challenge on their holiday adventure. Budget riders look no further than Bikecation [2] — decide on your dates, destination and, most importantly, price with this custom-run holiday provider.

During your trip You’ve bought your tickets, but what about your bike? Many destinations will have options to rent a bike once you arrive, but if you’re keen to take your trusty steed with you along for the ride, Scicon makes brilliant bike bags and boxes to ensure transporting your bike is both safe and easy.

In need of some new kit suited for your holiday? LCC members get great discounts with a whole host of top cycling brands like Howies, Stolen Goat and Cycology. If you're

4 off bikepacking or touring, look no further than the folks at Restrap who make a whole range of bags, luggage and accessories perfect for any multi-day venture.

You wouldn’t forget to pump the tyres on your bike or lube your chain before a big day out, so why would you treat your skin any differently? Green People makes a fantastic range of certified organic products for the whole family, including sun lotion for everyone (even those die hard, tan-lined roadies).

After you trip Once back from your cycling holiday, you’ll probably want to give your bike a little TLC to ensure it’ll be ready for the next one. If you’re tight on space living

SHARE YOUR SUMMER ADVENTURES WITH LCC We’d love to see where the road takes you this summer. Use the hashtag #RideTogetherAdventures when you post your cycling holiday pictures and we’ll repost our favourites!

Until then, head on over to membership@lcc.org.uk to check out the member benefits in bold text above, along with the other great discounts and offers included with LCC Membership.

in London, or just prefer to give the dirty job to someone else, then call Ride Clean [3] — this mobile bike cleaning service thoroughly scrubs your bike from top to bottom, including all those hard-to-reach areas you hate doing yourself.

If a tune-up is what you need, head on over to the Retail Network section of our membership site (lcc.org.uk/membership), where you can find a range of bike shops across the city that offer discounts on everything from parts to servicing to labour to all LCC members.

Can’t make it to a shop? Call the folks at Havebike [4] or Honor Cycles, who both offer a 'collectrepair-return' service to make bike servicing an absolute breeze.

We go further when we #ridetogether

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Dangerous Junctions Appeal LCC urgently needs to raise ÂŁ15,000 to support imminent campaigning work.

We must tackle years of inaction and make London’s most dangerous junctions safe for cycling now.

Please donate today: lcc.org.uk/junctions

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ICONIC BIKES

1980s onwards

Brompton MkII Named after the London district in which they were first conceived, the appeal of these folding bikes continues to grow says John Kitchiner

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compression by the rider’s weight. Other unique components (including a chain tensioner arm and folding pedal) facilitate the quick four-stage fold process, which achieves a compact storage size of roughly 56x54x25cm, smaller than most suitcases. With practice the complete fold takes no more than 10-20 seconds. It’s all these features combined that have made the brand a commuter stalwart for hundreds of thousands of cyclists across the globe.

These days you can order a Brompton in 11 different frame colours, with a choice of four different handlebars, four different gearing choices, extras like muguards, racks and bags — and since 2017 there’s even an e-bike model. At the moment the company manufactures 45,000 bikes each year at its ‘new’ Greenford plant and its ambition is to increase that to 60,000, 20% of which will be electric. It’s the UK’s biggest bike builder by far.

Meanwhile the Brompton World Championships — with qualifying heats in 15 countries — is almost growing as quickly and is now in its 11th year. If you want to watch this year’s grand final it will take place at RideLondon in August.

Illustration: David Sparshott

LONGSIDE RALEIGH’S Chopper, the Brompton must be the world’s most easily identifiable bicycle silhouette. But unlike its iconic counterpart, the London-built folders are still thriving to this day. The first designs actually emerged from Andrew Richie’s bedroom workshop in the mid-70s, with prototypes and early models following before the end of that decade. However, it wasn’t until substantial backing from friends, former customers and banks had been secured in 1986 that large-scale production properly kicked off. In 1988 the first mass-produced Bromptons rolled off the Brentford factory floor — and the company’s never looked back.

All models share the same curved frame design, comprising a hinged main tube, pivoting rear triangle, fork, and hinged handlebar stem. And each bike uses an incredible 1,200 individual pieces, many of which are manufactured solely for the Brompton design.

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