Cambridge Bikes
Last week we took a bit of a mini-break down to Kent to visit my parents, and then back home via Hotel Von SmallHaussen in That London on Friday, and Auberge Algernond in Cambridge on Saturday night.
The trip to London was interesting - I managed to get a parking ticket through my own stupidity in being unable to fill in a perfectly simple visitors parking permit, but was compensated by borrowing Von SmallHaussen’s Brompton P6R for a trip to the shops. Lovely bike - nippy, turn-on-a-sixpence type of riding, though I found the gearing a little strange. It has a Sturmey Archer three speed hub (i.e. wide ratio), coupled with a two-sprocket rear derailleur. So to go efficiently through the gears, you use something like the following sequence: 1-4-2-5-3-6. Bearing in mind that I’m a man, and so multi-tasking (walking AND chewing gum? I don’t think so) doesn’t exactly come naturally, I found this a little confusing.
In Cambridge we took a walk around the town on Sunday (in search of cake), and I took my phone out of my pocket to photograph a few of the bikes . . .
Those in the process of being stripped by the Cambridge Bike Nifflers:
Old bikes with integrated locks (I’d love to see an unsuspecting scroat try to ride off when the steering’s been locked!):
Bikes in a nice new secure underground bike park at the Grand Arcade:
… and a whole bunch of people riding bikes:
Overall, there was an impressive number of bikes. But I had the feeling that this was because part of the Cambridge dream is to be a student on a bike. It’s a romantic ideal that’s survived in spite of the traffic and the infrastructure.
Still better than the North East though, so perhaps Cambridge represents a step along the right path!
Karl, there is also the small fact that Cambridge, a city with a population of 130000 has two universities which between them cater for nearly 40000 students, and that “Undergraduate students are not normally allowed to keep a car”.
If a large segment of the population of the North East was banned from keeping cars, that just might increase the cycling rate there too.
Karl, Cambridge is a small city of about 130000 people. There are roughly 40000 students spread between the two universities.
Students anywhere are the easiest demographic to get cycling, due to being young confidence adults a bit strapped for cash, but in Cambridge there’s more: “Undergraduate students are not normally allowed to keep a car”.
This in itself goes a long way to explain the amount of cycling in the city despite the less than stellar conditions.
Ban a significant proportion of people in the North East from keeping cars and you’d probably achieve a similar cycling rate.
The real challenge is to achieve a high cycling rate amongst the population at large. To achieve it amongst a much wider demographic, in towns which don’t have universities, and not to have to force people to cycle.
Hi,
Living in Cambridge and working in and around (current commute is ~10 miles), there are very few journeys into the city that are faster by any other vehicle than the bike.
Given the parking rates and the high bus fares, it’s cheaper too.
I wish I was living the dream. I’m just a bloke getting from A to B in the most expedient manner! But glad you enjoyed yourself.
cheers
G