Obligatory Helmet Opinion Piece

There will be another more reasoned and less sweary post about bike helmets at a later time. In the mean time if you're offended by things like swear words then this post is not for you...

Of late I seem to be addressing several of the cycling issues that just will not die, like whether or not sport cycling influences mainstream riding behaviour, bike licenses, etc. And now it appears to be time to jump feet first into the one that pisses many cyclists off the most.

Fucking helmets and people who don't much cycle trying to force their fucking arguments on us. Don't expect this to be yet another well researched, reasoned, thoughtful and referenced demonstration of the bleeding obvious fact that bike helmets reduce the uptake of cycling while not particularly reducing injury rates, about risk compensation and brain stem injuries and all that bollocks. You want that? Just fucking google it, the internet is already full of articles that make that point, don't ask me to flog that dead horse for you. I'm not into that, go and satisfy your fetish elsewhere you kinky bastard. 

I don't care if you ride wearing a helmet. Or not. I don't. Seriously, its not my business so stop expecting me to have an opinion about it. Its an almost perfect example of your actions affecting you and not me or anyone else for that matter. If you feel the need to denigrate others for wearing a helmet or not, or otherwise doing shit that doesn't affect you, at all, you've got problems. Deal with them, don't bring them to me.

So, yes, I accept the argument that at an epidemiological level bike helmets offer little, and that at a personal level whether or not to wear one depends on a number of factors. And I accept that as such its really just a personal choice. If you want to wear a bike helmet, great. If you don't, fine. Its a handy platform for a helmet camera, and that alone is reason enough for me to wear one sometimes. I also wear one if I'm going properly off-road or in icy conditions where the most likely fall is a slow one of my own engineering.

But here's where the controversy really comes in to it - compulsion vs. opposing compulsion. No one, but no one argues its never ok to wear a helmet. I want to make that absolutely clear - this is a discussion that is often portrayed as pro-helmet vs. anti-helmet, but that is not true at all. No one is telling you that you must never wear a helmet. The entirety of the argument 'against' helmets is simply one in favour of choice to wear a helmet or not. There is no 'anti-helmet' movement. It does not exist - there is merely the desire not to be compelled to wear personal protective equipment of marginal worth and an understanding of the net negative impact of such across a wider society.

Conversely there's an active, insidious and genuinely demented pro-helmet lobby - and they frequently portray those who don't agree with them as anti-helmet. I'd like to say they're naive but really that seems needlessly generous to those responsible for what I believe to be a cynical and dishonest portrayal of the points put to them. For the most part their narrative is better served by pretending that those who disagree with them want to deprive you of your right to be safe and your right to wrap your child up safe. Its a lie. It is not erroneous, its a flat out lie. They know better, they're frequently told better, and they still come out with this lie.

When you're discussing an issue with people who will portray your opposition to compulsion as a desire to ban their personal preference, and such is the argument you'll invariably encounter, you're not in the kind of mutual respect territory conducive to reasonable discourse. Helmet bigots are not rational or reasonable and their argument is not based on an intelligent analysis of the available data - its an emotive, angry position based purely on anecdote reliant victim blame and othering of injured cyclists - one can easily blame those one sees as 'other' for anything bad that happens to them, whether it their fault or not. 

Don't keep tediously banging on about choice with these people - be honest with them that you know what they're doing. Don't keep demanding that they accept the published data, they won't. Published data doesn't trump dogma. Use your imagination for a nanosecond and you'll think of dozens of examples (religions, climate change denial, UKIP, Beliebers, Sunderland fans, etc.)

Roll around with pigs, get covered in shit. Its that simple. Tell them, tell them again, then tell them what they are. And thats it. 

Car Overturned on Road. Cyclists to Remain Frightened.

Its by Britney but I can't even see how he could slant this against cyclists.

The tone is dreadful of course, designed to attribute no agency to anyone involved. No, Raymond, the car did not flip. The driver somehow managed to overturn the car in a 20mph section of straight road with good visibility in dry, warm conditions. I'm fairly sure that the car did not flip itself over like an amorous terrapin sliding off a chip shop pie.

But this is only half of the story. The top end of Arbury Road, a section close to Kings Hedges Road, is currently closed to put in bike lanes and make some other improvements, as the first part of a disappointing upgrade. This upgrade, it transpires, stops some distance before this incident. We're due to get the other end of Arbury Road improved, somewhat, but there are no plans to make cycling to the Milton Road junction more appealing. If you're trying to get to the Behhive Centre to work or shop, tough, you'll be left on a long, straight, allegedly 20mph race track where somehow or other cars magically invert themseves, parked cars block lines of sight, and close, aggressive overtakes are the norm. Do you live off that end of Arbury Road and want to cycle to school? Tough titties, cyclist scum, we don't care about your welfare.

In all of Cambridge there is not a better example of the scorn our local authorities show to cyclists than this abysmal plan to make half of a major throughfare safe for cycling - this supposed improvement that does nothing to make whole journeys safer can not and will not encourage more people to ride in to Cambridge. 

A bike trip is only as appealing as its most terrifying part - and you plan not to improve this section where motorists flip their cars over. Why, dear road planners, do you even bother with this nonsense?

Cyclists vs. Runners

This is another of those 'belt it out before work' type posts.

I spotted a tweet thats been picked up by bigger feeds like ukrunchat, and its worth a ponder:

Why are so many cyclists nowadays riding on the pavement? I'm having to dodge them all the time when running. Sure it's illegal? #ukrunchat

— Victoria H-H (@VictoriaJHH) September 4, 2016

The answer is simple enough really. Lots of cycle facilities are rather mediocre 'shared use' pavement routes. Sometimes they're better signposted from the road than they are from the pavement, so if you primarily use the pavement at one of these locations you may not even have seen such signs. Its also very often the case that this provision suddenly ends with no notice - so you're riding perfectly legally down a shared use path, then you're suddenly riding illegally, but with no way of knowing this.

But cyclists do break the law and go on the pavement to avoid frankly terrifying road conditions - and this is acknowledged in guidance originally issued alongside the capacity to issue fixed penalty notices. To paraphrase - chill out, the cyclist is just trying not to get killed.

But lets take a step back and, for a moment, just compare the risks brought by each. Remember, we can determine the kinetic energy of an object simply enough, half mass times velocity squared, and a cyclist at 15mph has about 2000 J. 

A runner, going shall we say 8mph and unencumbered by the mass of a bicycle so, shall we say 80kg, thats a little over 500 J. Yes, the cyclist can bring more bang in a collision, by about four times - not by the orders of magnitude difference we see between a cyclist or pedestrian and a car. Lets also say, though, that a cyclist on the pavement is going more slowly than a cyclist on the road would be, a fair assumption considering how bumpy and congested with street furniture our pavements have become. At that speed we're only looking at about 1250 J - two and a half times more energy - we're down to the kind of differences where the specific type of collision becomes very important in determining what the real risks are.

We really should reflect that while understanding the numbers still show its better for cyclists and runners not to mix on pavements, that there are very few injuries thus caused is a fair reflection of the fact that the actual risk of this is low. Do you want cyclists off the pavement so you can run there without worrying about it? Great, I'd like that too - what you need to do is pester your local authorities and central government to build segregated infrastructure that facilitates this.

Letter from Olympians - pretty close to spot on!

Just a couple of quick thoughts before I dash out to work.

This is in the news. Open letter from British Cycling, being widely promoted by Chris Boardman, about Olympic cyclists calling for an increased spend in transport cycling (to a still modest 5% of transport spend).

So its from British cycling and its notable that there aren't many names from the velodrome cycling team not there. Some no don't want to get into anything political, some have done so and got stung by saying stupid things before, maybe a couple of them don't agree. But I think it more likely from assorted tweets and instagrams that some are also just way too busy doing media and indeed just partying after another successful Olympics.

The only thing I'll add is that you can't just throw cash at transport cycling - it can go wrong. You've got to have oversight that leads to sufficient quality infrastructure that actually makes a change and, all too often, cycle funds sit there in local authorities bank accounts until they can leverage them to fix junctions for motorists. UK councils leverage cycle infastructure funds for generic road building/fixing projects, they don't leverage generic road funds for cycling.

So if this is to be anything other than cosmetic, it has to have just a little bit more detail - the funds have to be protected and targeted towards high quality infrastructure.

Otherwise, I have to say, this is tremendous news. Good stuff, British Cycling!

Dear Grafton Centre and Vue Cinema - why do you hate us?

I promised you a local blog article for local people. So here it is. 

Please bear with me while I get through the ranty bit. I promise you I'm ending this with a constructive proposal to make things better for cyclists in Cambridge. 

We (my better half and I) went to the pictures last week to see Suicide Squad after work. The Vue cinema up at the Grafton is maybe a little more convenient for us than the other place down on the leisure park, so we went there. There's no dedicated cycle locking provided by the Grafton centre, which is a downer in a city like Cambridge. None. There are some rather out of the way bike locks at the East Road entrance in the bus station, but that's an urban motorway, vaguely rideable during the day when the traffic isn't moving but not at cinema kicking out time among speeding night time taxi drivers. So we locked up by the main entrance - Fitzwilliam Street, where there is safe, well lit bike parking.

After the movie we were stopped by a security guard while en route back to our bikes, instead being directed via a side door to a dingy, dark, intimidating narrow alleyway that stinks of urine. The kind of place Batman's parents go to die. You wouldn't go there alone at night, you would rather not go there even in a group. 

Needless to say we did protest. But the security guard would have none of it.

Whats that you ask? You want to know what the car parking is like? Massive, pervasive, convenient, opening straight on to the cinema concourse. Step out from the pictures, step straight in to the car park.

I mentioned this to various people who ride bikes here, they gave me a simple enough answer for how they handle the whole 'going to the pictures at night' thing - they go to the other cinema.

I contacted the Grafton, got the standard 'its our policy to...' spiel. Then I contacted the cinema chain and got the 'its them, not us...' nonsense. Yes, I understand, you want to keep homeless people out because, oh, I don't know, reasons. Yes, I get that you need security. But at the expense of customer safety to the point where a cyclist (we're half your potential customers here) will go elsewhere? That's just stupid.

Look, guys, you're in the middle of a big redevelopment at the Grafton. Why aren't you making positive noises about cycle parking? We make shopping trips and we're good spenders. Don't insult is by actively looking the doors on the only good bike parking that you don't even provide. Want our custom? Great, lets talk.

You, me, the guys from Cambridge Cycling Campaign, maybe the cycle officers from City and County councils, let's sit down and talk about how to deliver better cycling access. I'll bring cake. Let's do this. Are you game? Will you meet with cyclists or do you not even want our custom?

Team GB on the Velodrome - how good are they?

This isn't normally a blog about sport cycling. Don't worry, my next post will be a good old fashioned rant about local cycling issues for local people. But I do occasionally touch on the subject. I'm a bit of a nerd for track cycling, I have been since Channel 4 started showing it on television back in the '80s. And in this post I'll look at Team GB track cycling at the Rio, London and Beijing Olympics. And, by comparison, ask how good has the Team GB performance been this time round?

Track cycling has had a long history at the Olympic games, with medals awarded at Olympic games since 1896. And like many sports we've seen much chopping and changing of events, with the program continuing to evolve until today. And while Britain has long had a reputation for producing strong pursuit riding, the age of Britain really dominating on the velodrome started in 2008. While we saw some success with the dawn of the Queally/Hoy/Wiggins era in 2000 and 2004, the seeds of this success were sown in the early '90s rivalry between Obree and Boardman (with Boardmans medals in '92 and '96 coming just at the right time to secure vital lottery funding), it was at the Beijing Olympics that Britain started to dominate.

So how have we progressed from 2008 until now? While there has been some change in the events over the three games, we can make some comparisons.

Pursuits (Team and Individual)

Beijing saw GB individual and team pursuit wins for men, and an individual pursuit win in the women's competition, while in London there were only team events for both (4k for men with 4 members to each team, but 3k and 3 members for women in London). GB dominance over these years has been absolute, but its getting harder, and winning margins are narrower. In the Beijing final the British mens team very nearly caught the Danes in the final, in London they comfortably beat Australia, whereas in Rio we witnessed a nail-biter with the Brits and Aussies slugging it out right until the end. Likewise, in the womens event the win in London was more comfortable than the absolute corker of a final we've just seen in Rio. Add that to individual gold medals for Wiggins and Romero in the individual events in Beijing, with silver for Houvenaghel in the womens and bronze for Burke in the mens, and you've got a scene of total (but increasingly contested) British domination at the Olympics. 

Sprints (Team)

The team sprints for men and women are real 'blink and you'll miss it' affairs, and are usually decided by fractions of a second. This wasn't an Olympic event for women back in '08 which is a real pity, especially we consider just how dominant Pendleton and Reade were at the time. In 2012 the women's team sprint was the biggest disappointment for Team GB on the velodrome, with their (I still believe overly-picky) disqualification leading to this being one of the three events they didn't win.. Pendleton and Varnish were a strong pair, but it wasn't to be on the day. Since 2012 there has been a lot of much publicised chopping and changing in this lineup, and GB didn't qualify to compete in this event - the only velodrome event we've not had a competitor in at any of these three games.

In the mens we've saw a colossal half second advantage for GB over France in the final in Beijing. In the rematch in London four years later they'd cut the advantage. In Rio it was the Kiwis in the final, and they were shaded out by a tenth of a second. A brilliant, but hard won win which required beating the Olympic record!

There's work to do in women's team sprinting, but Britain have the talent. But for both men and women the world has moved on over these 8 years, and winning margins are ever tighter. Brilliant for the chaps to have won again, breaking the Olympic record, but on current trends that's going to get harder and harder.

Sprints (Match Pair)

Dominance of the men's sprint has been absolute. Hoy gold, Kenny silver in Beijing. Kenny won Gold in London where only a single competitor was allowed per country, and Kenny and Skinner won gold and silver in Rio. Its not really an event best judged by times, that only being necessary for qualification, but by finishing fastest and second fastest in the qualifying part of the contest our cyclists have been able avoid each other until the final. Bluntly, at the Olympics our men have been peerless in this event.

In the women's event, the 2008 and 2012 Olympic cycle was best defined by the Meares-Pendleton rivalry. The Aussie and the Brit pushed each other on to great things, making their meeting at the edge of the track in Rio really touching. And they shared the honours - Pendleton won in Beijing, Meares in London. However in Rio team GB really kicked on, losing the gold medal to Vogel from Germany but capping off a difficult Olympic cycle for women's springing in Britain with silver for Becky James and bronze for Katy Marchant. Women's sprinting is now an event where we've got real strength in depth - the future looks bright. 

Keirin

This was first held for women in London, and being a sprinters event its fate has more or less followed that of the sprinters - Victoria Pendleton won in London, Becky James exceeded expectations by winning a silver in Rio. 

In the mens event Britain has been almost as dominant as in the men's sprint - Hoy won convincingly in Rio and more narrowly in London, whereas Jason Kenny dominated the event in Rio. One would have to be very picky to point out that the last time we were allowed multiple entrants in Beijing, Ross Edgar also win silver. Callum Skinner also competed in Rio, failing to reach the final but performing well - a tactical error in the heats repercharge sent him out for a rules violation. Skinner is one to keep your eye on - if he can stay fit he could turn out to be a very special athlete indeed.

Omnium

Not everyone is a big fan of the Omnium, it being a new addition to the Olympic program seemingly designed to keep a bit more variety on the track while some classic events were lost to get gender parity in events, and to make room for BMX medals to be awarded. I'm a fan of it - its a shame to have lost some of the other events but cycling just hasn't been given any more medals to play with, and the omnium adds some variety to the program.

Its really an event for an endurance athlete with an impressive turn of speed, and in the women's omnium Laura Trott has been the star. Sarah Hammer, the American also known for pursuit riding, has pushed her, but it seems Trott has managed to step up for London and Rio and somehow made the Omnium look easy.

In the Men's event we've had the greatest British multi-medallist the man in the street has never heard of and a road legend - the now three time Olympic gold medallist Ed Clancy competed in London and took bronze, whereas Mark Cavendish (a.k.a. the 'Manx Missile', the most decorated sprinter in the history of the Tour de France) was entered in Rio and won silver. It would seem to be an event either of those gentlemen would be ideally suited to, and while by Team GB cycling standards a silver or bronze medal might seem disappointing, these are still fine results in complex, highly competitive events.

Other Events

Two track events haven't been repeated since Beijing, the points race and the Madison (the former being 25k for women and 40km for men, the latter being a 50km insane tag team event only held for men - a disparity that I believe still exists at world championship level).

In the men's point race in Beijing we got our last Olympic look at Chris Newton, who picked up his third olympic medal (a bronze), whereas in the women's Rebecca Remero finished some way down, this distance event with sprints every few laps perhaps not being one she was as well suited to as the pursuit (in which she won gold). 

GB went in to the Madison with high hopes - the tremendous acceleration of Cavendish and the stamina of Wiggins had brought them gold in the world championship in Manchester, with the pair gaining a lap on the field in a stunning solo effort, but having ridden multiple world record rides in individual and team pursuit this was maybe asking too much of Wiggins in the much tighter Olympic schedule. They were also marked men - no one would work with them to help gain a lap on the rest of the field at the end of such a dominant GB track performance in preceding events. They finished 9th.

Total Medal Hauls - How good has Rio been compared to London and Beijing?

Britain dominated all 3 games, in Beijing winning 7 gold, 3 silver and 1 bronze, London 7 gold, 1 silver, 1 bronze and Rio 6 gold, 4 silver, 1 bronze. Now of course we can't directly compare the numbers because there was only 1 entrant per country in London, but the achievements across all games were similar. In Beijing there were 2 occasions where British competitors failed to win medals, in London 1 and in Rio 1. Measured by this rate of success, its a near faultless record.

The times posted by British riders also continue to improve - with Olympic and World records falling across all 3 games. But the winning margins are getting tighter and tighter - this is more apparent in the 'against the clock' events like team sprint and pursuits. It would appear that the famous 'marginal gains' are getting ever more marginal as the rest of the world catches up.

All in all, the record of team GB on the velodrome has been consistently excellent - the only snag going forward is that the rest of the world edges closer all the time. But there's much to be optimistic about here - experienced multi-medallists like Trott, Rowsell Shand, Burke, Hindes and Kenny are all in their twenties and could be stronger still in Tokyo, and don't be at all surprised if Clancy (31) remains a power-house in the mens team pursuit past Tokyo. And then riders like Doull (who's off to team Sky), Skinner, James, Marchant, Horne, Barker and Archibald are comparative youngsters. 

It'll get harder and harder for GB to maintain this level of dominance on the track - but with the available talent? They've as good a chance as possible. The future, like the recent past, looks bright.

Sport Cycling for Men and Women, and the rest of us...

Another Tour de France goes by, and like in 2012 we're heading in to another Olympic games where, with luck, we'll follow up amazing British success on the Tour with a grand medal haul at the Olympics.

And as we see every year following the Tour,  two questions arise on social media. Is sport cycling a significant driver in every day cycling? And, why isn't womens sport cycling as big a deal as it deserves to be?

For the former question I am as ever in two minds - I don't think sporting success harms us if our goal is to get more people out riding. I recall during the London Olympics two little girls playing out in front of our house on their bikes, one of them shouting at the other 'I'm Laura Trott, you're Victoria Pendleton'. Ok, a small amount of confusion about how each might be competing, but its a great sign. Kids emulate fun things they see, and having high profile role models in cycling can't hurt. And, again, after the 2012 Olympics people in bike shops were telling me there'd been a certain increase in sales of high-spec road bikes and accessories after the Tour and Wiggins victory in the Time Trial. And thats fine - doesn't mean more people are riding every day but many a hobbyist becomes a utility cyclist in time.

But is there any wider impact than that? I don't know. Does there have to be? Isn't the fact that kids can now name major cycling stars enough for some of them to get on two wheels? Do we really need or expect sport cycling to have a bigger impact on how people travel than that? We don't criticise football because kids play the game but don't dribble a ball in front of them everywhere they go. We don't mock Greg Rutherford because kids will practice long-jump at school but not leap across roads. Yes, there's an impact of sport cycling on behaviour but I think the criticism of that impact not being even greater is based on inflated, unrealistic expectations.

As for womens sport cycling, I find it hard to express how much it annoys me that the ladies don't get the respect or even the races they deserve. In the days of Boardman and Obree when people in the UK were just beginning to discover sport cycling, I was the kid who responded with Beryl Burton in discussions where everyone else would say that Tom Simpson was the greatest British cyclist of all time (and even after all these years of British success I'd argue she's still got one hand on that trophy). In my ideal world there'd be great coverage of both Mens and Womens cycling, we'd see prize money being equal, and sponsors would be keen to support both. For my money the spectacle is similar, so the event should have similar status. 

I'm going to throw an idea into the ring here, this is very much just thinking out loud. Hear me out and rip the idea apart if you like. Is the fact that womens cycling doesn't reach the same audience predictable based on the format of the sport and the suffering of the competitors?

Three things came to mind while watching the closing parts of stage 9 of this years Tour, up the majestic, massive mountain Andorre Arcalis in driving rain, then hail, just when Froome was trying to attack in the most atrocious of conditions. Road cycling, especially the grand Yours, isn't like, say, running a marathon. The conditions are harsh, horrific on occasion, and the punishment taken day in, day out, is extreme. The duration of suffering endured, and the degree of risk, is higher in road cycling than in nearly any other non-contact sport.

That got me thinking about a blog article I'd read about something entirely different, a dissection of one of my favourite action films 'Long Kiss Goodnight' that talks about the risk involved in releasing action films where women are subjected to extreme suffering - the same kind of torture, when its James Bond, gets a lower rating when the film is classified for release. Audiences are, Angela there argues, more shocked when a woman is tortured than a man

And then I recalled Nicola Adams brilliant gold medal win in Womens Flyweight boxing at the last Olympics (if you know nothing about Adams, go look her up, she's great, and I do hope she repeats her win in Rio!), and discussions I had about that at work the next day. Many people, especially he women I talked to, didn't (and don't) like womens boxing, and if you ask them why they usually answer in a wrinkled up nose sort of way, they're turned off by the idea of it in a way they're not turned off mens boxing.

So I wonder, is the appeal of mens road cycling, of the grand tours where great riders slug it out on the highest mountain roads, laying down days of pain on their rivals in the most gruelling of conditions, is this sport more akin to boxing and James Bond being beaten up than it is to, say, Wimbledon Tennis or the New York Marathon? And as such, for womens cycling to reach the heights that the tremendous athletes competing therein deserve, does it need to be something other than that? And if it does need to be something other than that, what? Does the sport need to look at how the races are constructed? Does cycling need to consider backing womens road racing regardless and just hope to push through the reticence sponsors have to put the same kind of money in? Will peoples attitude to womens road racing change or harden if that happens?

I dunno. This is me thinking aloud, coming up with a different pesspective because just saying 'this isn't good enough' year in, year out isn't changing much. What do you think?