Cycle culture in the UK

I read this article on road cc about UK cycling cultures

Really really interesting! Having had 10 years in Holland, then 5 years in London and now 7 in Cambridgeshire and in all that time spent most of my travel time on bikes up until moving to Cambridgeshire. I feel invested in projects like this.
I live 17 miles north of Cambridge where cycling is popular but nothing like Cambridge standards. Cambridge most similar to Holland in that the bikes are similar in style, there are plenty of families cycling with cargo bikes etc and yes, people wear normal clothes. I regularly cycle my kids to school in a dress. The major difference is the prevalence of shared cycle paths and frankly appalling cycling infrastructure in Cambridge. It's actually one of my least favourite places to cycle. I'd much rather cycle in London.
I spent a few days in London over the summer and took my Brompton with me, we cycled from Camden to the city along the canal and having lived by Old St and worked in a bike shop in London, cycle culture there really fascinates me. The trend now is for fixed wheel bikes, the safe ones have a brake, but they don't always! When I left 7 years ago, they were around but the sheer number of cyclists and fixed wheelers at every set of lights was phenomenal. I remembered that London cycling is all about the sprint from one set of lights to the next. Bromptons pull away from lights very well and are good for sprinting too.
There is a faint withering annoyance with the Boris bike riders who often seem to be in the wrong lane or holding up a bus but I think the buses, taxi's and experienced riders seemed to see them as a good thing.
My sister lives in the middle of Bristol and with the hills being what they are, a good set of gears is what you really need. People in Bristol really do have good bottoms and legs! Bristol is full of rebels and cycling is one of their causes, against all odds, hills, wet weather and so on, cycling there is becoming the future.

Sticky poster for the new campaign. I should get this message around town quite a bit with this :)

Good signs

  Call me an optimist but I thought reading this on the East Cambs Council website was a good thing. Let's see how much comes to anything, they at least know the problems, their causes and some of the possible solutions. Will they take advice? Will anything come out of them consulting the Cycling Campaign? Only time will tell.

Ely Traffic and Environment Study

This study was established as a result of the Section106 agreement for the new Sainsbury store in Ely, which opened in February 2012. The agreement committed £611,000 towards traffic and environmental improvements in Ely, linked to assimilating the new store development into the city centre. Since then a small working group has been established involving officers from East Cambridgeshire District Council, City of Ely Council and Cambridgeshire County Council and the work to date has included:

• The first of two rounds of traffic surveys across the City; the next round of surveys takes place in July 2012.
• Air quality monitoring in Ely during 2012, to establish baseline data on nitrogen dioxide pollution
• Comprehensive consultation on traffic and access issues and potential solutions for
• Ely, involving a website survey, stakeholder event and public consultation sessions at Ely Markets.

As a result, a number of key issues and possible solutions have been identified including:

• The need to improve the quality of pedestrian access and the shopping experience, including more pedestrian crossings
• Safer and better cycling routes along with cycle parking
• More effective parking enforcement to reduce blockages
• Reduced speeding across the City (to 20mph)
• To find a solution for Broad Street blockages
• Change the layout and management of Market Street
• Improvements in the Lisle Lane area

Further work is now being undertaken to identify a shortlist of priorities.       

Leon's new Loekie

Leon's new bike!

Well, it arrived the day before the last day of term and I wanted to show it to him first thing before school and let him have a try, not expecting him to be confident enough to ride to school that day. He got on and rode it, I am not sure why I'm surprised as this is the same as what happened when I took the stabilisers off his other bike. We've been riding into town and round and about, on picnics and shopping trips and he loves it. Still getting the hang of the gears, he still gets up off the saddle when the gearing is to high and sometimes he's peddling fast and not changing up. There are only three gears and unlike a dérailleur set, he can change gear while stationary and stop peddling or keep peddling and no chain will fall off. My only reservation is it's very heavy, this was the 100 eur difference between the Puky and the Loekie (made by Basta, a very reputable Dutch bike manufacturer), the Puky is German and aluminium where as the Loekie is Steel frame it is as heavy as an adult utility bike. He's handleing it very well and as you can see. He loves it!

Polar bears are epic

Give me strengnth

I've been finding it hard to find a balance between reading every article and piece on transport and roads that relates to cycling and wanting to blow up parlament and then the local council. There's only so much information and evidence that has been ignored while I wonder why I can't cycle on a 60mph road without at best drivers calling me a liability and at worst ending up an organ donor.
It angers me that the roads aren't safe to cycle on and there's no alternative; I don't want to cause a collision while a driver overtakes me on a blind bend at 60mph or end up dead but I want to choose the transportation I deem most appropriate.
The British Medical Association told the government they ought to make the roads suitable for use for bikes as well as motorised transport as this would be beneficial on so many levels and they choose to ignore it, followed by a constant growth in car use and deaths.
My priority is to my kids and my family, part of that is bringing them up to cycle safely where ever they want to. In order to do that I have to do what I can to improve things in Ely. I also have to be here at home and not huffing around being angry which is what some of the stuff I read does to me. I won't stop reading it but having spent the last 5 years buried in nappies, toy sheep and wooden railway, emerging and remembering the real world is a mess is at times, hard to handle.
A sense of humour, proportion and still urgency in measures I'm still trying to work out.