Progressive thinking

Cyclists benefit from £14m 'hubs'

Thousands of new bicycle parking spaces will be created at stations
Plans for £14m of investment to improve facilities for cyclists who use railway stations have been announced.
Ten stations in England will get "cycle hubs" which will provide storage facilities, repair services and bicycle hire schemes.
The hubs are planned for three London stations as well as Grimsby, Hull, Leeds, Liverpool, Scunthorpe, Sheffield and York stations.
Funding is also available for 10,000 bike parking spaces across the country.
'Green travel'
The government-led project is expected to take two years to complete. Network Rail, Cycling England and several rail operators are also involved.
Transport Secretary Andrew Adonis said: "More and more people are turning to cycling as a healthy, green and convenient way to travel.
"I want to encourage this choice.
"The aim of the programme is to boost the significant number of people cycling to catch their train. This will tackle congestion, promote rail travel and help people develop healthier lifestyles and protect the environment."
Of the £14m investment £5m will go towards the cycle hubs.
Another £3m will go to creating more than 4,500 additional cycle spaces at stations including Nottingham, Stevenage, Cambridge, Exeter, Scarborough, Sunderland, Barrow-in-Furness, Crewe and Middlesbrough.

Four seasons in one day

This week has not been good for me..............
My pedals have not turned and my cycle of life has has hit a few puddles and potholes
Hopefully normal service will be resumed soon.

At least my video has a bicycle in it

'The Times' are changing

I find it really encouraging that nearly all of the more serious newspapers are regulary proving artricles about cycling.
This is the latest one from The Times

Cycling should be dull, not an extreme sport
We must overthrow the cult of the car and the Lycra-clad vanguard of aggressive men, if more of us are to take to our bikes
Janice Turner

I cycled to the Treasury on Tuesday to interview the Chancellor. All along Horse Guards the railings were plastered in police notices: bicycles chained to them would be removed, detonated possibly, since the fear is bike bombs, which crop up in conflicts from Vietnam through to Ireland and Iraq. In the end, my foldable was carried inside by a kind civil servant, trying not to get oil on his suit.
Cyclists are not welcome visitors to any public offices: Parliament, Portcullis House, Downing Street. You’d think someone would set up a token rack beyond where ministers might be vaporised by bombs. But whatever the political posturing inside, outside it’s still two wheels bad. And one wonders if things will change if/when George Osborne, who every morning can be spied freewheeling through Hyde Park, finally dismounts at the Treasury.
The pedalling Tories — George, Dave and Boris — are often mocked by Labour as poseurs, snapping on green credentials like cycle clips. But they merely reflect their class and generation. In the past two years, with Tube strikes and terror threats, the number of London cyclists has doubled: clustered at every intersection is a mob of professional, affluent, under-40, Georgie-boys.
Indeed, to cycle in Britain today you must embody Tory philosophy: be a rugged fearless individual, wholly responsible for your destiny, battling against the collectivism of bendy buses and the red tape of illogical one-way systems. Norman Tebbit, after all, instructed the jobless to get on their bikes, not the train.

The trouble is, to judge by that microcosm of our blue future, the London mayoralty, Tory policy is not to make cycling safer but to encourage more people to be brave. Transport for London bangs on about Boris’s 12 new “cycle superhighways”, which will sweep into the centre from disparate suburbs. Will these routes have barriers so the two-wheeled are finally safe from being squished beneath Land Cruisers? Er, no. For the main part, we will still be playing dodgems with buses and now motorcycles — yes, cheers Boris, for adding veering Vespas to our worries. The mayor’s cycle superhighways, it turns out, are just lines on a map.
And yet last Sunday, from St Paul’s to Buck House, cars were banned from London streets for the mayor’s Skyride. Around 65,000 people gloried in our city, rode beside our pink-cheeked children without, for once, picturing the wobble that would land them under a truck. Oh, if only it were like this every day, we all cried, as if ordinary citizens — oldsters on uprights, little girls on pink Barbie trikes, hipsters in unfeasibly high heels, tweed suits on rusty butcher’s bikes — just getting around safely on two wheels was a fantasy.
Because elsewhere cyclists are just that: a random cross-section of humanity. Not a Lycra-clad male vanguard pumped with aggression and self-righteousness. In Europe’s top three cycling nations — Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands — timorous old people cycle, women as often as men, children bike off unaccompanied to school. Cycling is not a moral manifesto or a carbon offset. It does not require DayGlo or £500 alloy wheels or attitude. Cycling is, as it should be, banal. Because it is safe.
Yes, you might say, those countries have always cycled, just like their women have never shaved their armpits: it’s their way, not ours. Actually, a fascinating report, Making Cycling Irresistible, by the American academics John Puchera and Ralph Buehler, reveals that in the early 1950s cycling in Britain and Denmark started tailing off as car ownership increased. Indeed, for some years, we were keener bikers than were the Danes. The difference was, in the mid-1970s, the governments of Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands resolved to stop the car’s dominance of the streets and championed the bike and pedestrian while the British allowed our townscapes to be ground beneath the wheels of the car. And yet these three continental countries own just as many cars per head as we do — the Germans more — it’s just that, unlike us, they aren’t glued into their driving seats.
Now only 1 per cent of our journeys are on bikes, in the Netherlands it is 27 per cent. And the reason is simple: a British cyclist is three times more likely than a Dutch one to die per miles travelled — even though only 3 per cent of Dutch cyclists wear a helmet. In Britain safety is seen as a matter for the individual, not government policy: yet it is highways, not helmets, that save lives.
And with quite extraordinary far-sightedness, these three countries built endless miles of barriered lanes along major roads but, more importantly, in many residential streets cars were slowed to a crawl and compelled to give way to bikes. And to enforce this, the law assumed, unless otherwise proved, that in an accident between a vehicle and a cyclist, the driver was at fault. Last week when that very principle was suggested here by Cycling England, there was a predictable furore about a (snore) Lycra louts’ charter.
But maybe it would make the idiot motorists who pelt down my 20mph street obey the law. Maybe it would have encouraged the left-turning HGV lorries who in London this year killed six female cyclists (women being vulnerable because we tend to ride defensively, hugging the kerb) to check their mirrors. Two fitness instructors, a film producer, a Goldsmiths’ graduate, a City director and an architect: those women were not loutish at all.
The answer to so many intractable modern problems — obesity, urban congestion, global warming — is cycling. What now feels like an extreme sport should be the default mode of transport. But it has dawned on me only recently that the big fat flaw at the heart of democracy is that politicians will never invest in the long term if voters’ initial inconvenience and expense are not rewarded with results before an election. And it will take years and billions to chip away at the cult of the car, to erect multistorey bicycle parks in every mainline station, to build genuinely super highways for bikes through our towns and reverse years of destructive urban planning.
Only when the fear is gone will big jessies stop riding on pavements, maniacs stop charging red lights, the streets be reclaimed from cars, and cycling from angry men with tiny bums. Do the Tories have the cojones to do it? Or is that just padding I see in their cycle shorts?

Wordless Wednesday - Comfort Zones

Some people follow a steady road

Others just like to take risks

Which one are you?

End of Term Report

Having completed my last sportive of the year two weeks ago I find myself in a reflective mood.
So reflective that my bike has become curious by its lack of activity and is staring to believe that it might be time for a grease up,blanket and into the shed for winter........Surely Not ????????
I remember when I was at boarding school that the first two weeks of my Summer holidays were idyllic and care free.
After those initial two weeks I knew that there would be the immanent arrival of my annual school report in the post.
If the report was good, the rest of my holidays were good.
If it were bad they were not.
My school report would be the barometer for my Summer vacation.
Now I am older there are no School reports, however through my reflections I have decided to provide myself with one nevertheless to ensure that my adult education process is still developing.
We are never too old to learn or change.

Philips Annual Report
Maths.
Philip has used his Garmin effectively to record all of his mileage, however this can only be used accurately when it is switched on and off at the appropriate times.
He may like to believe he cycled at 75 miles per hour but that was the Garmin recording the car speed.
English.
Philip has used his blog to catalogue his experiences and illustrate his understanding of various issues with cycling. However I believe there should be more emphasis on various related topics rather than him. His grammar and punctuation appear to depend on wine consumption, alcohol should not be consumed during these periods.
He has now developed a new blog writing blog called The Lost Muse to assist with his writing. He is now serialising a book that he wrote called The Last Siren, I have read it and its a great bodice ripping Yarn.
French
Despite the great french traditions of Cycling Philip has struggled to embrace either the language or culture, his only contribution being bad words and the heavy consumption of Garlic
Art
Philips riding style has become far more fluid, and at times he could be mistaken for a proper cyclist, there is still a long way to go in this area. He still uses his bigger gears too much and must learn to pedal faster.
He has recorded a number of interesting and artistic pictures which have been admired on his blog........well done.
Geography
Philip has travelled far and wide on his bicycle and experienced new regions and cultures and terrains. This process can on assist in his development.
Drama
He has excelled in this area so much so that it is now difficult to distinguish between himself and the many cycling characters he tries to portray. I particularly like his recent depiction of Lance Armstrong 'Bonking', he seemed to capture the full essence of pain and those tears were so lifelike.
Diet
If Philip wants to move from being and average competent cyclist to compete in the veterans next year he will have to loose 30 lbs. He can be as fit as he likes but it wont matter.
Carrying the equivalent of a sack of potatoes on your back when cycling will always slow you down.
Aptitude
Philip has a great attitude to training , he has certainly put in the miles this year.
Although his ability is increasing so is his perceived ability which always appears to be slightly greater he should endeavour to recognise this. His stamina and enthusiasm are never in question. To progress he needs to train more effectively mixing up his routines and working on his core strength and speed. He needs to get out of his comfort zone and set himself much greater challenges.

After stamping my feet for ten minutes and weeping I realised that on the whole my report was true and if I wanted to move forward I would have to change.
The first question was did I want to? There was nothing wrong with what I had been doing.
That question did not really need asking.
Although I have not been on my bike this week (And may not for a while still)

I have gone to the Gym.
I have been spinning, running, rowing and been doing selected weights.
I have also decided that I have to be strict about what I eat.
I also need to set myself goals that are slightly out of my reach.
In that way that the change in style, speed, diet etc will HAVE TO become a requirement rather than a desire, or a wish.
With that in mind I have decided that my first goal next year will be to complete The Cheshire Cat (102 Miles) without getting off my bike at Mow Cop or any of the other F***ing killer ascents.
I also want to do other similar arduous sportives.
I want to do a 24 hr challenge, to see how many miles I can do in 24 Hours
Finally I want to do one super challenging event with The Mules
What really caught my imagination was The Triple By Pass in the Colorado Rockies.
It looks and incredible ride with 3,500 people on 10th July 2010.
I know that to complete the 120 miles, I would have to be really, really fit and light.

Its a great dream who knows the registration is not till January.
Anyway Mules and other prospective Mules Check out the Video below it might capture your imagination.

Edvald Boasson Hagen - The skys the Limit

Although close to 50 years old I am a relative novice to cycling, only taking it more seriously in the last few years. In many respects I feel that the same could be said about British cycling.
For years our achievements have been rare and have in some way provided a novelty factor for the garlic munchers across the English Channel.
Call me ignorant but winning the odd prologue does not count for me.
As I watched the cycling classics and grand tours I also used to play 'Spot the Brit'.
It was a difficult challenge, but I soon worked out that if you watched the support cars you might spot one. They were the domestiques, the ones fetching fresh water bottles.
Never expecting things to change my allegiances went to the US riders and my unashamed hero Lance Armstrong.
Then came along a certain David Brailsford who transformed British Track Cycling and gave us all household names to look up to.
Garden sheds were revisited and tyres were reinflated.
People suddenly took to the road and liked it and the best part was it was free.
Despite the recession cycle sales are now soaring.
That's obvious you might say........ people are buying bikes to go to work in to save fuel cost.
I fully accept that - but the actual biggest area of cycle sales are the top end performance bikes.
Every Weekend the roads are strewn with cycles taking part in events which are multiplying throughout the country. I used to have to travel half a day to enter an event, now there is always something local
With the Success of Mark Cavendish, Bradley Wiggins at this years Tour de France, British cyclists are now having water bottles brought to them, and quite right too.........
The Sky is the Limit
Next year we have the new Sky Team to look forward to.
The new team, funded by broadcasters BSkyB, will be managed by Brailsford, the GB performance director who was responsible for delivering 34 medals at the Beijing Olympics and Paralympics.
Having the top British cyclists training together should improve chances of success on the road at future World Championships and Olympic Games.
Team Sky squad so far:
Kurt Arvesen - 34, from Norway; has won stages of the Tour de France and Giro d'Italia and will be a mentor for young riders; part of Saxo Bank squad that included 2008 Tour de France winner Carlos Sastre and Frank and Andy Schleck.
John Lee Augustyn - 23, from South Africa; Barloworld team-mate of Thomas and Froome during 2008 Tour de France; has potential to be a great climber.
Edvald Boasson Hagen - 22, from Norway; currently sits third in the UCI rankings, having won a stage in this year's Giro d'Italia.
Kjell Carlstrom - 32, from Finland; a specialist climber, he has ridden all three Grand Tours and is a stage winner in Paris-Nice.
Steve Cummings - 28, from Birkenhead; part of pursuit teams that won gold at 2005 World Championships and 2006 Commonwealth Games and silver at the 2004 Olympics.
Russell Downing - 31, from Rotherham; winner of 2009 Tour of Ireland; one of the most successful ever GB-based professionals.
Juan Antonio Flecha - 31, from Spain; has 10 years' professional experience, including a Tour de France stage win in 2003; known as a Classics specialist.
Chris Froome - 24, born in Nairobi, Kenya; became British-registered in 2008; has completed two Tours de France.
Simon Gerrans - 29, from Australia; has won stages of all three Grand Tours this year and the 2008 Tour Down Under.
Greg Henderson - 31, from New Zealand; world scratch race champion on the track in 2004; has recorded nine victories with Columbia in 2009, including the Tour of Spain.
Peter Kennaugh - 20, from Isle of Man; British Under-23 Champion who is dominating the Under-23 calendar in Italy; partnered fellow Manxman Mark Cavendish in madison at 2009 world track championships.
Thomas Lovkvist - 25, from Sweden; a five-year pro who wore the leader's jersey during this year's Giro d'Italia as part of Columbia HTC squad and could contend for overall tour wins.
Lars Petter Nordhaug - 25, from Norway; former mountain-biker who switched to the road and became Norwegian national champion; runner-up to Russell Downing in the 2009 Tour of Ireland.
Morris Possoni - 25, from Italy; wore the best young rider jersey during the 2008 Giro d'Italia as part of the Columbia squad.
Ian Stannard - 22, from Chelmsford; came third in 2008 Tour of Britain and rode 2009 Giro d'Italia.
Geraint Thomas - 23, from Cardiff; youngest rider in 2007 Tour de France; won gold in team pursuit at Beijing Olympics
I am sure that once their contracts have expired that Cavendish and Wiggins will also be joining this Team.
In the meantime there is a certain Viking who may keep us Anglo Saxons on our Toes
'Edvald Hagen'.
He is just about to win the Tour of Britain and has some real star quality.


Lance Armstrong says Britain's Team Sky cycling team can succeed in Tour de France and that
the formation of Team Sky is "a great step forward for cycling".
"A few years ago if you had said that the British Cycling Federation (now British Cycling) is going to dominate the Olympic Games people would have said 'no way' but Dave Brailsford and his entire team there has made amazing progress.
"Not only are they (Team Sky) going to be in the Tour de France, they are going to be a factor.
"It is good for cycling fans in Britain and cycling fans all over the world."