Planners set up conflicts between cyclists and pedestrians
I’ve been very critical about some of the very poor investments that my city, Sheffield, has made in cycle facilities so you might think that when they create a long section of wide, well-surfaced separate cycle track alongside the city’s inner ring road, giving access to important buildings including the railway station I would be very pleased.
Sadly it’s a mixed blessing and while the cycle track has done some good, weak insensitive design has created new problems and put cyclists into conflict with pedestrians, just the thing that a separate cycle track should avoid. Read the rest of this entry »
The course is around 2.5 miles, from my workplace to my home, mixture of level and moderate uphill. I was riding my Brompton Wide Range M6L with broken rear mudguard and C-bag full of office survival gear. Secret weapon is Mirrycle bar-end mirror. Normal work clothes – cotton shirt, Craghopper trousers and lightweight blue windproof. Reebok trainers and strapless toeclips.
The first part is uphill so I tend to take it easy while I warm up. A roadie caught me sleeping but he wasn’t going very fast so I tucked in behind for a couple of hundred metres Read the rest of this entry »
A new toy, watch this space for more details
It’s already done 7 train changes, one rural and one urban ride and so far pretty good.
A Multimode Adventure in China
7am in Beijing, it’s a clear chilly morning and I’ve been travelling for16 hours. My body clock thinks it’s 11pm. I could stay in the airport for 3 hours and take a local flight to my destination in Shenyang 430 miles to the north-east but when planning the trip I decided that a 20 mile bike ride and a train to Shenyang would probably be better for my general wellbeing. Read the rest of this entry »
Russ Roca has braved the demons of the US airline system with a naked folding bicycle. He just denied its name. Citizens can do NewSpeak too!
Russ “gate-checked” his Brompton. Not sure whether anybody could do that in Europe where we seem to be much more strict on security if more relaxed about bicycles. Not sure also whether most people could come up with the emotional toughness exhibited in Ross’s blog post on the subject but it was a very interesting experiment which shows how far somebody can go if they are determined to sidestep mindless authority. Just don’t try it in Helsinki airport where I had a little lightweight cable lock confiscated at the x-rays because it might be a lethal weapon.
TNT Broke the law and put cyclists in Danger – but they apologised when the problem was pointed out
Then Pentti posted a video clip of an excellent piece of thoughtful driving by a TNT driver who noticed he was being put in danger by a car driver.
Photographed in Sydney Street, Sheffield, 16 February 2011
The new setup with riserbars, ergon grips and a standard Rohloff shifter at the end of the bar.
I had a difficult time with my wrists and hands on our 7-day tour of Argyllshire as reported earlier. My wrists ached and after three days I suffered from pins and needles in my hands.
This all seemed to be down to the rather unusual handlebar setup on the Pino which gives little chance to vary your grip, badly angled hand grips which force my wrists into an over-extended position and a less upright riding position than I have on other bikes which puts more weight on my wrists. Plus the rather basic hand grips cannot be replaced with more ergonomic ones because they rotate with the gear shift. Read the rest of this entry »
If you want to influence cycle planning in the city
Image from the Savannah Bicycle Campaign, click on the photo to go to their website
the Sheffield City Cycle Forum takes place at the Town Hall on these dates:
15th March 2011 | 17th May 2011 | 19th July 2011
20th September 2011 | 15th November 2011
The meetings are at 4:30pm. They would like advance notice of who is coming so email transport@sheffield.gov.uk to tell them you want to take part.
Thanks to Simon Geller for the heads-up
Zorro had his reasons but hiding your identity online is not acceptable if you expect people to trust you.
One of my posts, criticising my home city for some of the cycling infrastructure, has attracted a few people to express their opinions. It was even used by another blogger, who calls herself Freewheeler, as evidence in a critical post about Simon Geller, one of the contributors to that small debate.
Simon and I do not see things completely the same way, and he can be an awkward person to deal with sometimes, but he works hard to support cycling development and our local cycling community would be less interesting without him. However that’s not what I wanted to focus on here. Read the rest of this entry »
