Bike to Work

David Hembrow's talking about Critical Mass today - a subject that's been picked up by Andy Cline over at Carbon Trace. Neither of these two are big fans of Critical Mass, and I've got to agree. I've never seen a critical mass demo here, but what I have seen online doesn't fill me with a...
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I was at a cycling conference last week, thanks to the generousity of that Nice Carlton Reid - he was one of the speakers, and had a free guest’s ticket, which I grabbed at when offered. The theme was “Cycling and the Sustainable Door to Door Journey”. Not very exciting-sounding, and with speakers on the...
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So yesterday, Brad insinutated that I might be one of those people who would be up for some “crazy bike love“. Now, while it’s true that I DO love to ride, and have given each of my bikes a name (Daisy, Christine, Trixie, and  . . . um . . . Wilf), I’m really...
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You wouldn’t believe the number of reasons that people dream up for not cycling, and staying instead in their nice, expensive, gas-guzzling, planet-wrecking, antisocial, unsafe cars. Via the Bike Darlington Blog, I came across this new research from Cycle England: Two thirds (64%) of women say they never cycle and just 2% cycle every day...
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I guess I’m just one of those guys who likes to jump on a bandwagon. I’d probably make a great political leader - see which way my people are headed, and then rush after them so that I can lead ‘em. Anyway. This thing about bike helmets. Everyone else is posting about it (like here, here,...
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So yesterday I overslept. Again. I know why this time though - I’d set the meeting that I had to get to on my phone as starting at 4pm, rather than 9am, with a +3 hours alarm. Yeah, I know. I’d intended to get up at six, finish off the stuff I’d been writing on...
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Y’know how the popular press characterise all cyclists as law-breaking anarchists, with no respect for the rules of the road, the highway code, or trivialities like red lights . . . . . . well the funny thing is that on a bike, you have a whole lot more time to look at the world...
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Seems to me that there are two types of bikedom. On the one hand, in countries and societies where the car / automobile is king, there’s the Adult Toy culture (no, Honey-Bunny, not THAT sort of adult toy). Lots of Lycra and carbon fibre and a fixation with gear ratios. They wear helmets and Camelbaks,...
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Our local council has tried to do the right thing for cyclists. They spent some money & put in quite a lot of effort to uncover & re-surface the old railway lines (”Waggonways”) that crisscross the area. These make for excellent cycling surfaces, being as they’re all pretty flat. BUT The council also fell into the...
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Yesterday I mentioned Billy Connolly’s bicycle joke, which seemed particularly relevant after seeing this German bike-promoting advert on Copenhagenize. Somehow, I just couldn’t find any actual footage of the scene on the Michael Parkinson show. And that was a little annoying - I thought you could find anything on the Internet. SO I tried a...
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