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?

Cyclist Licenses - the bad idea that will not go away

There are plenty of blog posts and articles with this already, so forgive me for not going into the already well-trodden details as to why this isn't a good idea. The arguments have been made and not addressed by advocates of cyclist licensing - and until there are well thought out responses there's nothing left to say on the subject. If you believe cyclists should be licensed I invite you to respond to the points raised in such articles, and when you've done so we can have a discussion - merely re-stating that you see a necessity for cyclist licensing and again not answering the argument against isn't having a discussion, its just you being an ass.

But I do want to address something here - cyclist licensing is an argument that just keeps coming back. This morning I observe that someone has set up yet another 'campaign' (although it could be, and I think it is, just be one person with an axe to grind).

Why is it that we keep seeing this? I mean, why do people set themselves up as crusaders for bike licensing without doing the slightest amount of due diligence? What is it that makes this demonstrably erroneous stance blindingly obvious to them? 

I put it to you that the guy phoning your local radio station to demand that cyclists are licensed, or whoever it is behind the new twitter feed, and anyone else making this argument, is suffering from the same delusion - it is OBVIOUS to them that cyclists should be licensed. They don't need evidence, they don't see any point in addressing the practical, cost, health, legal or safety issues involved because they've already decided that OF COURSE cyclists should be licensed. The reason they give for their argument varies (accountability to catch red light jumpers, because cyclists who break the law 'get cyclists a bad name', because there's no way of identifying cyclists, etc.) but it always comes from the same place - an assumption that licenses solve these assumed problems (they don't) and a perception of cyclists as a collective social out-group (we aren't). 

The name for a phenomenon where facts don't have to be put forward because its obvious that 'they' must be thus controlled, and there's no need to engage in the arguments put forward against a claim? The elevation of 'common sense' over study, evidence and facts? Prejudice.

Literally, it is just that. They've decided in advance, they've pre-judged the idea based upon how they perceive cyclists. They are, in the most literal sense, prejudiced against cyclists.

As such these people are unremarkable - they're all just sub-variants of Type 2, Type 4, Type 6 or even Type 8 cyclist haters, and I believe we should respond to them as such. And, just like with any other cyclist hater, we should be unsurprised when they react with contempt, disgust, hate, and a refusal to provide evidence for that which from their biased perspective is already obvious. 

My dear Cyclists4Licenses - I await your contemptuous blocking of me, merely an uppity cyclist.

Cambridge News - How very DARE cyclists use the road!?

Once in a while I delve into the cesspit that is Cambridge News reporting on cycling matters. And it rarely disappoints.

Today I see that there's a news story berating cyclists for using a road.

Apparently they're using the road and not the cycle path, five abreast with no concern for the road, eating babies and wanking into the vicars tea. They do this to inconvenience and terrorise locals, make old people fear for their lives and force the poor pensioners to vote UKIP and protest Down With This Sort of Thing. 

Or, just maybe, on the other hand, there's no story here. The path isn't finished, its off road and quite good for a pootle or commute for the likes of me, but a fast club ride of tens of riders couldn't possibly use it like that. So on a Sunday morning, when the roads are just a little quieter, they'll quite reasonably continue using the roads.

The problem here is not that cyclists are on road. Its not even that some cyclists don't yet know that there's a growing off-road route there (which is quite good for a couple of you at a time). The problem is the ever-green assusmption that the presence of an off road cycle path must necessarily mean no more cycling on the road. It doesn't. 

Cycle routes are constructed for the convenience and safety of cyclists - where a cyclist or group of cyclists prefer to use the road for any reason then thats their choice, to be respected. I promise you, I absolutely guarantee, that no one is riding on the road to inconvenience you - why they're riding, where they're riding, is not about you. It isn't a display of disrespect and its not proving a point - its a clear statement that the facility hasn't been constructed to a standard that really facilitates all levels of cycling. Cyclists don't ride to piss you off any more than farmers take their haystacks for a drive. The world does not revolve around you, motorist. Fucking grow up already.

The bottom line is that news stories like this come from the mistaken belief that cycle facilities are to get us out of the way of motorists. One would hope, but not I'm afraid expect, Cambridge News reporters to understand this. 

Oh well. I'm not curious enough to look at the no-doubt blood bath of a comment section.

Another Victim Blaming Safety Campaign in Cambridge

Yet another terrible safety campaign from Cambridgeshire Constabulary.

From the first line in the first press release, we can tell exactly where this is going:

THE CAMBRIDGESHIRE and Peterborough Road Safety Partnership are urging road users to look out for each other after figures reveal that at least one cyclist is injured on the counties roads every day.

Yes, thats right. Cyclists are getting hurt or killed on our roads, so the cops are asking everyone to look out for each other. Equal weighting - completely ignoring the disparity in risk brought by each party to the other. We oughtn't have to re-hash the stats yet again, but we know that 70% or more of adult injuries are due to drivers - and less than 15% are attributed as solely the cyclists fault. Mutual respect is not the answer to our road safety concerns.

It gets worse though: 

Officers from the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Roads Policing Unit (RPU) hope the latest Think! Cyclist campaign will encourage drivers and cyclists to look out for each other through highlighting the common ground between wheeled road users, and giving advice and tips on staying safe, visible and alert on the road.

Hang on, you're going to hilight common ground by giving us advice on visibility? But the vast bulk of cyclist injuries happen in broad daylight, and police campaigns to improve cyclist visibility in Cambridge have demonstrably delivered no reduction in cyclist injuries. Look, guys, we don't have to pull ideas for what influences cyclist safety out of our arses, we've got heaps of data on this subject. Its even been compiled for you so you don't have to go fishing for it. Telling cyclists to look out for motorists is, frankly, an insulting position to take on this topic. Its not our inattention causing injury. 

Earlier this week multiple motorists drove straight at me in front of Magdalene College, where there's a narrow section of road with priority for inbound traffic (the way I was going). They did this right in front of two Cambridgeshire Constabulary PCSO's, and on camera (my helmet cam was on). I asked said PCSO's if they'd ticket the drivers, they replied that they couldn't radomly ticket motorists - as if breaking the rules of the road is just a natural state of affairs and our Police service just can't be getting involved in nonsense like that or something. I tweeted this to our police service and they didn't even reply. And that was that - if you're in a car you can break the rules of the road right in front of the Police and nothing will happen. You can pretty much guarantee it. 

Bluntly @CambsCops you need to quit telling me to '#sharetheroad' when you do nothing to enforce the rules that would facilitate that working out. You seem to think #sharetheroad means some happy road Nirvana whereas in reality every time you use this phrase problem motorists read 'cyclists should get out of the way', whereas to us it just means 'stop driving at us'.

Your approach disproportionately targets cyclists and in so doing actively ignores the risk factors causing harm. This is disgraceful and disgusting victim blame. Stop it. I know that you approached cycle campaigners in Cambridge for input on this and were refused - can you really not understand that this victim blaming mentality is massively damaging to your reputation among cyclists? That your lack of action on illegal and dangerous driving coupled with a total capitulation to speeding, anti-social parking motorists means you've got a huge good-will deficit among cyclists, and that this campaign further stigmatises you in the eyes of ordinary folk who just want to ride a bike without their lives being endangered by the motorists you are clearly supporters of?

Addendum: We really oughtn't be surprised by this lamentable campaign on cyclist safety from a police service that thinks its ok to tweet real time traffic info to people driving, i.e. who through their actions condone mobile phone use at the wheel by giving information specifically to law breakers. 

Stagecoach Driver - Told.

So this was what happened.

And this was Stagecoach not handling it. 

And on Wednesday I got a call from local copper who's done his job well - when both his and the drivers leave no longer clashed he went in and informed the driver that such a close overtake could lead to harm.

So, result.

But the driver was under the impression until that point that I had the whole bus lane so his overtake was fine. Of course, it wasn't - I was fairly central in the bus lane (as you should be) but his overtake was fast, close, and hazardous.

I put it you you, Stagecoach East, that it shouldn't be the case that we need to get the cops involved as otherwise the opacity of your disciplinary system doesn't give members of the public access to any useful information. I further put it to you that it looks very much like you had evidently not disciplined the driver as otherwise the police officer I talked to would't have fed back to me that your driver thought his overtake was okay because of my road position.

I suggest, Stagecoach East, that it therefore appears that your driver has not received further training on how to be safe on the roads of Cambridge, Britains most cycled city.  I put it to you that this is a matter that you should rectify, as a matter of urgency. If you've re-trained the driver let us all know - if you've not then do so.

I also suggest that this is a systemic problem. Two drivers in a short time? Have you subsequently addressed this with all of your local drivers?

Lastly - your driver thought it was ok to pass fast and close. It, obviously, was not. I await your apology.

EDIT: Well Stagecoach had the weekend to mull this over and have failed to acknowledge that the drivers behaviour was below par, and failed to apologise. So after I specifically asked the cops to just have a word with the driver on the assumption that this would be enough, that they'd hold their hand up and say yes, we need to do better than that. I've got no admission from Stagecoach that their driver shouldn't have overtaken like that.

I therefore assume, in the absence of Stagecoach saying they're sorry that their driver acted that way, that they are NOT sorry their driver acted that way. If you're not condemning your driver for this you're condoning his actions. 

Cycling Bestiary - Part 3

You'll note part 3 in the title, which of course implies part 1 and part 2.

But if you can't be arsed to click on part 1 and see what this is about then I'll tell you - I'm a bastard. I'm a complete scumbag. I make up stories about people I see, including cyclists. Its a bad habit of mine. But the stories aren't all bad. And in a city chock full of 'characters' like Cambridge there's plenty for my imagination to work on.

Anyway, I thought I might relate some more of these, because, well, why not. 

The first is the Two Bears. I've seen them riding around together in the city centre many times, two hairy, bearded chaps, early 20's, always so happy looking when they're on their bikes together. I'd never paid them much attention until I ran into them in a coffee shop recently, the two guys totally in to each other but trying ever so hard to avoid any gratuitous public displays of affection, so they constrained themselves to affectionate beard stroking. And suddenly, after such a cute display, in my head, they became the Two Bears.

Even cuter is Barry Sheen Junior. He's probably nursery school age and I often see him riding to school alongside his older sister and mum - I say alongside because the ladies like to ride on the road, but he prefers the car-rutted, parking-ruined grass verge they ride past - to a kid his size its proper up-and-downey stuff to go over. And the whole time he makes motorbike noises - in his head he's obviously racing against other motorbike riders in some epic contest through inhospitable terrain.

At the other end of the age spectrum is Anti-Super Gran. We've a lot of older folk who ride through Cambridge, and Anti-Super Gran isn't unusual in her age. I most often spot her riding up past the Market, along past the Nat West bank and up towards Sainsburys - roads that kind of, sort of, look like they ought to be pedestrianised and many people walking on them seem to think that they are. But they're not. And Anti-Super Gran tells them. Reinforced with her bell, a stern, harsh, upper class yell and the gleaming metal of her chrome handlebars and unyielding wicker basket. I genuinely don't know how she's not managed to mow anyone down. I've seen her standing off against another old dear who was riding the wrong way down Sidney Street (a one way street), refusing to give an inch until her adversary turned round. I really don't know what its all about - but I like to believe she's got an army of grandchildren who she insists are only trained in the deadliest of martial arts.

I'm also going to revisit Uber Woman. I mentioned her way back in 2012 in my first bestiary. She's still out on the roads, but you know what? She's way less uber. Yeah, she's still big, but it turns out if you get on a bike and keep riding it you'll not be as big after 4 years. Great to see.

Lastly, I present the mystery that is Dirty Knees. I don't know much about Dirty Knees, and find him hard to describe. I think he's one of the interestingly clothed couple I've occasionally seen weaseling garments out of the clothing bank at the local recycling centre and trying them on right there, alongside his partner. The two of them are therefore often colourful figures, choosing the brightest and oddest looking clothing from this source - but what differentiates dirty knees from your common or garden weird looking chap are his dirty knees. Like, seriously, whenever I spot the guy riding around in whatever weird shit clothing he's nicked most recently, his knees are covered in mud. Frankly, your guess is as good as mine.

Politics of Roadside Trees and Cycle Lanes

People are attached to trees, especially the ones that are close to where they live -  and with good reason.

Trees improve road environments in urban areas in many ways - they provide shade, they screen homes from the sound and sometimes even the intrusive view of cars, they can provide nesting sites for birds, and flowers, fruit, even just a bit of greenery can liven up an otherwise dreary roadscape. Trees also improve drainage thus reducing flood risk, and can give an area a 'mature' and 'looked after' appearance that makes people feel comfortable in their environment in exactly the way that the never ending stream of poison spewing engines doesn't.

So its unsurprising that people get attached to these great living things in their neighborhoods - trees sort of become 'friends' in our environment as we watch them grow, change through the seasons, grow leaves, flower, fruit and shed their leaves in Autumn. Indeed, the very same people who'll buy palm oil packed processed food from destroyed rain-forests will chain themselves to dying cherry trees next to their own home. But I digress.

That we get attached to the trees around us doesn't mean that we should throw all sense out of the window when deciding how to manage our road spaces. Where trees were first planted fifty or a hundred years ago on roads initially intended to handle a quarter of the (radically different) traffic we have now is not necessarily the best place for them now or in the future - and the type and shape of the trees may not be at all suited to how we live now. But thats perfectly fine on most routes in and around the UK where, for the most part, we've got plenty of room to improve our urban treescapes.

Now very often, when we're looking at road improvement schemes planners are very keen to make changes for motorists and buses, but very reluctant to make any serious changes for cyclists. Very often, indeed, we're told that there's room for cycle facilities on the road so we're relegated to fighting pedestrian groups and residents groups for an ever dwindling amount of room, a fight we're doomed to fail in when faced with a never ending stream of retired NIMBY's who we've no hope of out free-timing in campaign terms.

When it comes down to it we'll rarely want to see treescapes removed to give room for cycling - but it isn't uncommon for the current location or type of trees to be inappropriate to fit decent bike routes. We shouldn't hold back from demanding good bike routes just because of this - in fact this is even more of a reason to campaign, as very often there is massive room for improvement in the planting schemes we have.

You may think this sounds crazy, digging up mature trees and planting new ones, but bare with me - this is best viewed as an opportunity, not a weakness.

Let me introduce you to the city of Nottingham - not always thought of as a model of modern road design but in one important respect it is vastly ahead of most of the rest of the UK. An extraordinarily prescient set of urban planners in the 19th century started producing some of Britains best tree lined roads. Whats most interesting about these roads is the kind of trees they chose to plant - influenced by some of the great tree lined boulevards of France, they selected trees with a great scale - linden and plane in particular, but also trees like horse chestnut - and which are, crucially, superbly well suited to urban conditions, being resistant to pollution and disease, and they thrive when treated harshly - so they can be pollarded (the upper branches cut back), extending their life-spans massively. 

When we compare those trees with the more regularly planted urban fare (for example cherry, whitebeam, silver birch etc.) and many advantages are apparent - they have a longer lifespan, provide far better shade, give an even better and more mature look to an urban environment and, crucially, they provide a superb habitat for wildlife - birds, insects and fungi thrive in and around them.

The need to re-assess where trees are to be on our roadscape such that we can fit in top quality cycle lanes is also an opportunity to create better urban tree planting schemes - unless a road already has a gold-standard tree scheme, then on every occasion the replacement of trees (often unhealthy trees suffering due to disease or pollution, of differing ages and sizes, planted piece-meal with little oversight) is a golden opportunity to make a better urban space.

Top class cycle infrastructure makes for better cities, by giving us options for clean, fast, healthy transport, and indirectly by increasing the separation distance between pedestrians and cars. But its also an opportunity to improve our environments in indirect but no less important ways - the bottom line is that cycle facility installation is a huge opportunity to improve environmental quality in all sorts of ways.

So how the hell do we convince the damned NIMBYs?