Bike Culture

So the fine for using a handheld mobile hone while driving will be increasing from £60 to £90. Apparently the Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin is getting tough and cracking down on drivers, saying, “We want to send a clear message to dangerous drivers: If you continue to show complete disregard for the safety of other...
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I go to Osijek in Croatia once a year to teach on a postgraduate programme. It’s a good gig that’s made even better by the hospitality and the places - generally travelling out and back via Zagreb, and Osijek itself has the feeling of a small university city with some great weather. Normally when I’m...
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I met the HR Manager for TT2 Ltd at an event I was presenting earlier this week - TT2 are the operators of the Tyne Tunnels. In discussion, he brought up something that’d quite passed me by - even though I’m a reasonably regular user of the Tyne Pedestrian and Cycle Tunnels. The refurbishment of these,...
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First up, let’s look at the results for last week’s caption contest. The winner is of course Betty, who correctly identified that on high-end bikes like the Townsend pictured, almost everything is now seen as an optional add-on that you pay for. Having done so, she immediately spotted the problem with the tyres: “The rider...
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The funny thing about riding my Frankenbike bakfiets, Mary Shelley is the reactions it gets. Slack-jawed amazement from drivers, intense excitement from shall children (who shout things like, “What a totally amazing bike!”. No, really.), and incredulous hilarity from teenagers - but ONLY when they’re with enough friends to see that they’ve such a cool...
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Simple enough challenge for you today: Just identify what’s missing from this snap by CyclingVillage, and provide an explanation of what’s happened: Best answer gets our usual level of fabulous prize: A CCTV system to keep an eye on your precious ride. Good luck!
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Some people say that riding a brakeless, 4m tall bike, in a crowd, along busy streets, amongst other motorised traffic isn’t the sort of thing we should be encouraging. What’s worse, there’s no helmet and no hi-viz. This is an accident waiting to happen! Well I say to these Health And Safety Pen Pushers that...
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That’s what people will tell you. And in some places it might be true. The trouble is that a flat country next to the sea will also tend to be windy: Give me hills instead of a headwind any day - at least with hills, you get a respite as you ride down the other...
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I’m always puzzled whenever I see someone riding a so-called “mountain bike” along the street. These things are frequently supermarket models, with frames made from girders, useless & heavy suspension, brakes & gear components made from Kraft cheese, and they all seem to be fitted with super-knobbly tyres. You can usually hear these bikes coming...
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Choose life. Choose driving. Choose congestion. Choose no fresh air and an ever-expanding waistline. Choose a f**king long commute, inhaling the exhaust from the car in front. Choose massive fuel bills that get bigger every year, HP, depreciation, and pointless bitching about road tax. Choose stress and swearing at other drivers. Choose enviously watching...
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