Newcastle

OK - first off, please go and read this first rate article by Andy in Germany - Car Free Struggles. When you’re done, and have left a suitable comment, come back here and read the rest of this post. You’re back? Good. Here’s my question for you: Really, how hard is it to ride your bike...
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So yesterday was meeting & talking about getting kids on their bikes with the Tony Blair Sports Foundation . . . and today was email chat with a business support agency in Tyneside about getting their employees on their bikes . . . and then a great meeting with Sustrans. (followed by having to...
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. . . and a busy day. Wife’s abandoned me for a week’s gallivanting in That London. She’s staying with VonSmallHaussen, and according to the detailed & extensive itinery I’ve been left (she claims it’s so I’ll know where she is in case of emergencies. I think it’s to rub in what a great...
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Andy over at Carbon Trace is a big fan of the One Mile Solution. An astonishing proportion of the journeys most people make by car are within less than a mile of where they live, so the solution is to replace a few / some / all of these by walking or riding a...
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So. Yesterday, Amsterdamize put up some charts about the Dutch population’s ways of getting around. Great stuff, showing how far people travel, and what mode of transport they use depending on journey length, and how far people cycle. As an engineer, I like numbers,  so I thought it would be fun to compare our part...
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Meh! Driving. It’s just now how I expected it to be - certainly not the way it was portrayed in all those adverts. I mean, I already have the foxy Wife, and lovely Daughter, but where were the wide open roads so I can pretend to be a Formula one driver: . . . where’s my...
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I was working at a client’s on the Team Valley today, and over lunchtime, I put together a post that I immediately decided to embargo for just over a fortnight. My reasons may become clearer later. So on the way home, I was wondering what to write about, and surprisingly enough a couple of drivers...
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So I used to think that I was maybe a little paranoid about the way people drive around bikes. Or more specifically, about how people drive around my bike, when I’m riding it. But after today, I’ve realised that it isn’t paranoia - they really are all out to get me. Today I had FIVE assassination...
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So this afternoon, Daughter and I went to Wet’n'Wild. No, although that would be a good name for a venue with, ahem, adult entertainment, it’s actually a local water park. Slides, flumes, circulating water that you can just drift along with, and usually about a gazillion kids. Daughter’s now nearly eight, and until now she’s...
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So after yesterday’s post about how happy people on bikes are, here’s the flip side. Sometimes - often, it seems - something happens when you’re out cycling that just presses all the wrong buttons. These things can range to the irritating and inconsiderate, to the downright scary and dangerous. If you ride...
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