Ranting

I’m back at school again! Thanks to North Tyneside Council, I’m attending a four-day course on cycle instructor training. The aim is that at the end of it, I’ll be provisionally qualified to teach others to ride a bike safely on the road to the national BikAbility standards. To make it more of a challenge...
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This prompted by something I read on Twitter this morning. There is one thing that makes me see red. I mean, gets me steaming mad to the extent that I’ll mutter slightly more than “Gosh Darn It!” under my breath, and end up having to whistle until I calm down. Drivers using the phone. It’s one of...
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Wife’s away visiting a friend from university. So having walked Huge Dalmation, fed, bathed & put Daughter to bed, I’ve spent the evening Wwilfing. Amongst other things, I’ve found pictures from the Armistice Day services, The Great War (the war to end all wars), and a whole lot of bike stuff. Which brings me to...
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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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I’ve been BUSY these last couple of weeks. Really busy. Put it this way, work is starting to interfere with my fitness. And that just can’t be good! So I’ve had to grab it while I can . . . like on Saturday: In the morning, I had a meeting up at Starbucks / Borders at...
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David Hembrow’s recent comments have got me thinking. What’s the secret to getting more poeple on their bikes? Things that can and are being done to varying degrees include (in no particular order): Cycle lanes. Actually cycle lanes that mean something, rather than just being tokenistic jestures, that vanish at the first sign of difficulty...
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So. Back to this thing about helmets. You might think that I’m either just writing about this for controversy’s sake, or a glutton for punishment. Actually it’s neither - I just want to understand the facts. Not that there was much in the way of punishment after the last post. There was only one comment...
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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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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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