Category Archives: Cycling

Now the world can witness a cyclist’s road traffic problems

Posted on 22 February 2013 | Leave a comment

Five days ago I argued that it was time to make dash cams mandatory for motor vehicles. Today, I’m making a plea with my fellow cyclists. We’ve know that far too many motorists couldn’t care less about us. We know the police can’t be bothered to respond to our complaints. We know that for every minor incident which a witness will never even wait to talk about there is a major accident waiting around the corner. For decades we’ve been thrown onto our back foot, wheel, erm whatever… but now we have the technology to fight back. Now we can buy cams to fit to our bicycles.

The wearer of this head cam seems to have escape 2012 unscathed but only after the stress of the too many violations of the Highway Code for me to have time to count this morning. Each one of the following transgressions could have cost him dearly. Dear motorists, we all know that most of you drive considerately but there is a persistent and probably recidivist minority which drive cyclists off the road. Make no mistake, most people could not contemplate cycling not because they are fat and lazy but because they are frightened of motor vehicles. Whilst we all have our own personal theories as to why some people drive like bastards ~ mine is that the worst offenders are those who spent their working lives on the roads and have developed an absurd sense of ownership of the physical space ~ the fact is that only an experienced cyclist can even recognise much of the nasty driving. In the video that follows, many viewers might be asking themselves, what’s the big deal? If you watch it and think that, remind yourself that this stuff is almost completely filmed from someone’s head. The front of their vehicle (their bicycle) is actually further forward than the camera. Also, don’t forget about other factors such as the amount of rubber each road user is pressing down into the tarmac, the stopping distance for a cyclist and the fact that cyclists are outside their vehicle and much more likely to come into close personal contact with the tarmac.

Dear motorists, if you think I’m over-egging this, ask yourselves, how many transgressions of the Highway Code were there in that video? I doubt very much that most drivers get the answer right.

Eighteen months ago I carried a bicycle cam for a week. During that time, I recorded one transgression after another. Two of them I complained about at the time. Both emails were acknowledged by Sussex Police. One complaint was dealt with. One was ignored completely ~ chasing emails were not acknowledged (even though they never bounced back). If this was a diplomatic, police or military car with some sort of protected status, surely I could have been told?

Imagine if 50% of all crime reports just generated an automated acknowledgement and the police declined to even respond after that? That would be a scandal. Is there some kind of limit on how often the police will hear a complaint from one person? No, there isn’t. They just can’t be bothered with cyclists. The time has come to expose this outrage. We’ve waited far too long to see if we can persuade people to be nice to us. The time has come to fight back.

This is a call to all cyclists. Mount a cycle cam on your bicycle. Every time you are placed in danger by a motorist, grab the footage and upload it with these tags: #CycleCam, #BadDriving and #the-vehicle’s licence plate. Let’s spend 2013 gathering our evidence. Make sure you also upload information about the exact time and place. Complaint to the police about the incident. If the complaint is not responded too, mark the video with another tag: #PoliceSilence. Then we can launch a mass complaint about all this crap. If the police don’t respond, we can launch judicial review proceedings in the High Court to prove that they have an unlawful policy of ignoring cyclists. The time’s are gonna change. There’s gonna be a new mantra on the road: four wheels bad, two wheels good.

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Posted in Bad Driving, CycleCam, Cycling

Spoof poster competition to advertise Southern Rail’s anti-cyclist policy

Posted on 15 November 2012 | Leave a comment

In years gone by you could purchase special train tickets in and around London which were designed to encourage cycling. The cyclist could buy a ticket out of London to one station in the countryside (the same stations are now inside suburbia), set off on the open road and arrive at another station, from where they could return to their inner city home, freshly invigorated from the country air. An advertising campaign accompanied this scheme, which was very popular. I couldn’t find one of the posters this morning but they were classics of their type, typically with a beautiful young couple enjoying a healthy hobby and some railway stuff going on in the background, birds singing and corn bobbing in the wind.

Modern trains from Brighton lack even a carriage which cyclists can store their vehicles in. Trains are carrying more passengers than ever before and need the space for pedestrians, argue the train companies. There is some mileage in this justification. Adding more carriages to each train is not a simple fix because too many stations already platforms which are too short for some trains.

However, it seems clear that many train companies and, in particular, our local biggie, Southern Rail, actively discourage cyclists. The first signs of this emerged a few years ago when they implemented a whole day ban on cyclists returning from Brighton to London, after the London to Brighton bicycle ride. If any single policy appears geared to increasing carbon emissions through road traffic, this must surely be it.

Southern Rail’s cycling policy rams home its total lack of comprehension about even the simplest cycling related issues. Essentially, there’s a three hour slot during the busy commuting periods when the company will only allow folding bicycles on trains. Bicycles are heavy and expensive. Folding bicycles are often much heavier than regular bikes. Nevertheless, the company policy is that they are folded and carried, not wheeled, through the ticket barrier. This envisages carrying them far further than many people would ever be strong enough to manage. The policy itself is very short on detail but is supplemented with an FAQ.

Southern Rail’s Cycle FAQ makes a serious of ridiculous statements. It starts off with the bold claim that the company has done as much as possible to communicate its policy to its customers. That turns out to mean that it has put posters up at stations, made oral announcements at stations and included the FAQ online. It hasn’t attempted to contact a single cycling organisation, lobby group, club or anyone else. Most absurdly perhaps, it states that a folding bicycle must be capable of being reduced to the size of a briefcase. I dare say that you could get a suitcase which is of roughly proportionate size to a Brompton but there isn’t an adult-sized folding bicycle in the world which could be reduced to brief case size. This size restriction is impossible to comply with. It even advises people considering combining train and and bicycle for their transport plan to re-think their journeys.

There’s a complicated colour coded system to describe which routes regular bicycles cannot come onto trains on, which doesn’t match up with the actual policy. For example, uncoloured areas on the presented map, such as between Shoreham and Hove, actually do have restrictions. Furthermore, for reasons that aren’t entirely clear, engineering works can cause additional restrictions. There are trains which unexpectedly refuse cyclists because they have insufficient carriages. Booking a journey would cure that problem but cyclists are not allowed to book their bicycles onto a train.

Cyclists may be asked to vacate a train in the interests of safety and comfort. Have you ever seen anyone with a monstrous bag, far bigger than a folding bicycle, being kicked off a train? When the rail service is suspended and we’re all given a free bus ride, cyclists are pointed to the open road because the bus will not take our bicycles.

Perhaps Southern Rail should bring out a modern set of posters to advertise its attitude to cyclists? Instead of an appeal to enjoy a country ride, a commute to work or the benefits of exercise, it could just simply ask us two wheelers whether we were going give up our popular hobby and get in line instead. Perhaps if they won’t, we will. Spoof poster competition? Send your entries to me and I’ll publish them here.

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Posted in Bicycles, Cycling, Southern Rail

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Hills of Brighton

Posted on 29 October 2012 | 1 Comment

Brightonians get to be fitter by default than people from flatlands. We live on many, little, steep hills. Some people escape their advantages by mastering bus routes leaving them only ever needing to walk downhill. Many more enjoy the views around every corner. As with many other hilly places, cycling is very popular. Although that might seem counter intuitive, the reason lies in the road layout also inhibiting cars, thus slowing them down and leaving more time for the less brave cyclists.

We’ve all enjoyed watching the brave riders of the favela downhill races. Watching one got me thinking. Wouldn’t it be great to have a Hills of Brighton cycle race? We could fix a route around and out of town which takes in all the steepest hills. With the streets free of cars and other traffic we could finally enjoy those spaces which normally are so tough for the two wheeling fantasy merchants. Starting on the London Road, we could sieve the endurance riders away from the truly hardy with the first hill being The Drove.

The_Drove

With cars on the road, cyclists need to be hearts of metal to take this hill on

The Drove, Brighton

With the normal traffic rules suspended, cyclists could ride their hearts out on the way up here.

After here, the racers could ride back down a neighbouring road and follow that by another attack on this particular hill, up a gruesomely steep route. When one hill was exhausted the race could move on to another. You get the idea. With all the hills in and around Brighton, it might not be necessary to go out of town at all. If they proved insufficient, there is always the steep side of Ditchling Beacon and one or two other Downland classics.

We might not get to the edgy favela drop offs or the narrowness of those lanes but I reckon we could persuade people to hit the streets for the day of the race and cheer the riders on, especially on some of the steep hills. Myself, I’d be out riding tomorrow, if only I could find that puncture kit…

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Posted in Bicycles, Cycling, Hills of Brighton Race

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Campaign for Ciclovías in Brighton & Hove

Posted on 16 October 2012 | Leave a comment

There seems to be universal agreement that cycling is a healthy transportation activity. It’s good for you, good for the planet and good for the wallet too. Sometimes people say they don’t like getting the two wheel contraption out in the rain or the wind but the biggest inhibitor isn’t the weather at all. It’s the other traffic. Whilst most drivers are considerate, a consistent minority treat cyclists like shit. No amount of education, campaigning or legislation seems able to eradicate the problem. It is caused by the power some feel when they’ve got a steering wheel in their hands and an accelerator pedal under their right foot.

Some enlightened political administrations have dealt with this problem by creating separate lanes for cyclists. The reasoning that giving cyclists their own space will give the cautious the confidence they need is sound. Different places have adopted different qualities of lanes. The qualities chosen appear to be dictated by whether those commissioning the lanes are cyclists or whether they are merely theoretically in favour of cycling for reasons of public policy but on a personal level persistently prefer to travel by car. Brighton & Hove City Council is a fine example of this phenomena. A previous Labour administration (admittedly before Hove was politically joined to its neighbour), decided to create cycle lanes. I was in the Labour Party at that time. Unfortunately, those in charge of overseeing the procurement process were not committed cyclists. The result was a mare’s nest, much of which sensible cyclists ignored. Our cycling lanes became the proverbial laughing stock for proto-Clarksons everywhere. The current Green Party administration has set about creating cycling lanes which are the envy of the world. The fellow in charge of this project is the estimable Ian Davey, a committed cyclist. Our political opponents bombard him with criticism because they know that the legacy of his building projects will be with us for generations to come. Compare and contrast the two approaches ~ Labour and Green. (Links from Weird Cycle Lanes.) It’s obvious which is more likely to encourage cyclists to get from A to B.

Much of the criticism directed at the Green administration for building these new lanes revolves around the fact that cyclists have not immediately congested their new spaces. The thieving Tory bastards would like us to imagine that something is not a success unless it immediately becomes a victim of its own success. Plainly, projects like this take years to take effect. First we have to create the infrastructure, then we have to wait. The new lanes are being created at the points of most need, in the places where people have been killed. They are not yet joined up. For that to happen, we will most probably need to give the Greens another full term in office here in Brighton & Hove. That’s because these lanes are being built in the midst of a deep recession. There just isn’t the cash floating around to overhaul the entire City’s transport network in a couple of years. Was there ever?

Meanwhile, the planet continues to heat up. Although we have lost the visible smog which characterised the times of Dickens, our cities are more polluted than ever. The central valley in Brighton is almost permanently permeated with a particularly obnoxious mixture of contaminants. People sitting outside the Circus Circus pub at Preston Circus, Brighton, are breathing the worst of it. Nitrogen dioxide levels are nearly twice the legal limit set by the European Union (EU). Financial penalties loom because of this. Our national government has washed its hands of responsibility by passing a law which ensures that local authorities have to pay the fine. These EU limits are not set, as UKIP and most of the Tory party would have us believe, as some kind of draconian plan to bastardise our precious British car culture. They are in place to protect our health. The EU cares about us more than our own government. There is a limit to what local authorities can achieve when attempting to tackle the problem, in the absence of support from central government.

There are other methods which we haven’t yet tried in the UK. The same problems have been suffered all around the world. Bogotá, Colombia, took a radical approach over thirty years ago: once a month they banned vehicular traffic from their roads altogether. 30% of its citizens join in every Sunday and on all public holidays. The roads are taken over by cyclists, pedestrians, runners, skaters and so on. Stages are set up in public areas, for mass yoga lessons and similar events. These days give citizens a breathing space, in much the same way as London in the mid-19th Century took a strategic decision to save large green spaces as parks to act as the City’s lungs. Known as Ciclovías, these events have been copied around the world. So far, 42 cities in Australia, Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Ecuador, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, USA and South Africa have taken up the idea. It’s worth remembering that inactivity is at least as dangerous as smoking. With the most environmentally enlightened council in the country, Brighton & Hove is well placed to be the first to stage a Ciclovía in the UK. Here’s a ten minute video showing how Bogota runs its Ciclovía.

The first Brighton Ciclovía could start small. We don’t have to close every road to begin with. The event can be time limited. Banning vehicular traffic between 10:30am and 6:00pm would be a good start. The crucial idea is to remove vehicles from those roads which suffer most from vehicular traffic. There’s little point in allowing our arterial roads to remain choked with poisonous fumes and banning them from the residential areas. The first Brighton Ciclovía could start with banning vehicles on the entire seafront, on the London Road all the way to the City’s boundaries and for the entire length of the Old Shoreham Road. The last Sunday of every month is probably as good a day as any other to use.

The idea is to inspire us, to let us see what a better transport system could look like, as well as give us room to breathe more freely. It is the same idea as that sought by Critical Mass in Brighton every month. However the Mass can only take up as much space as its noble participants physically occupy. Brighton is used to seeing our roads taken over by public events. 28 of the weekends of each year sees some kind of rally on Madeira Drive. Some of these events lend nothing to our local economy but still manage to make that part of our classic seafront impassable for the residents of East Brighton. The Motor Caravan Rally is an obviously antisocial example. They don’t even buy food from local vendors; they use their own kitchens instead.

The local politics of this proposal will be stark. We’ll have to persuade the Brighton & Hove Green Party to support the idea. They ought to be favourable. It is bang on the nail of their natural politics but, being in a minority administration, they will need convincing of its popularity. That requires nothing more than signatures on a petition and the like. The Tories will whinge that it will affect local business, as if they still have a clue how to run any. The fact is that cyclists, pedestrians, runners and skaters buy stuff too. Labour will complain that the police won’t manage to enforce it. Both Labour and the Tories will present a case that says it is further evidence that the Green Party is really a cult hell bent on destroying Brighton & Hove. The Liberal Democrats can say whatever they like. No-one’s going to listen to them anymore. They are now nothing more than a curiosity of political history.

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Posted in Brighton, Brighton Critical Mass, Ciclovías, Critical Mass, Cycling, East Brighton, Green Party, Hove, Ian Davey, Labour Party, London Road, Madeira Drive, Politics, Politics in the Cave, Protests, Thieving Tory Bastards

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Are we ready for the come down?

Posted on 5 August 2012 | Leave a comment

We’re all very familiar with what happens after some enormous artificial high: there’s the come down. The bigger the hit, the bigger the crashing sense of doom. A party leaves us with a hangover. A weekend at the Glastonbury Festival leads to a week of depression. The unadulterated joy of Tony Blair’s first election victory over the thieving Tory bastards led us to allow an illegal war, the slaughter of hundreds of thousands and more conflict than ever before. Are we ready for what will happen after the Olympics? With numerous reports of sporting facilities lying empty at the moment and the pubs packed with people drinking and cheering for more than two weeks, there’s bound to be some heavy casualties. It’s not going to be pretty.

Our media covers the Olympics in much the same way that Russian television reported Soviet elections. There is one message and one message only, delivered by commentators who understand what they have to say but not all that much about what they rave about. It’s gold, gold, gold. It’s a strange way to examine an event in which we take away comparatively few Gold medals.

I watched the BBC presenter, whose name I didn’t forget – I just don’t want to know who she is, foul up an interview with Rebecca Adlington. She really rubbed it in, using a heavy patronising manner, going through the motions of assuring her that no-one minded that she had only come away with a tawdy bronze medal. Adlington looked hurt but knew she had to keep that perma-grin in place until the ordeal was over. Otherwise, the corportate-KGB might never call again. She loosened up a bit when some fellow athletes chatted with her on the same sofa. Her explanation of what it was really like, being at the centre of a shit storm of attention, was as relevant to the issues before the Leveson Inquiry as it was interesting to hear. The other sofa guests were clearly trying to rescue the show. The presenter was practically useless. She looked so embarrassed, letting slip that she reads what gets said on twitter. The people’s coverage of the Olympics is much more fun there.

It’s not the fault of any one presenter or any one newspaper. They’re all competing with each other to dish out their patriotic credentials, to sell copy, to turn a profit. We used to have media organs which took risks, which changed the way we thought about stuff. They don’t seem to exist any more. With all this endless emphasis on the need for unobtainable gold, is it any wonder that the kids on the sofa turn to their crisps and their games consoles, rather than their track shoes? The occasional glib remark about the ‘taking part’ being more important than the winning is always delivered with a down at the mouth look, drab and annoyed at the obligation to be well meaning.

For the kids who rioted last summer, it’s hardly a look that will inspire them to take up the lofty ambitions of the Olympic Spirit. Bombarding us with demands for gold is guaranteed to make most of us reach for the fizzy drinks, for the remote control, for the easy way out. Later on in life, when these cheap thrills no longer suffice, it will be the harder drinks and drugs and the thrill of anything for nothing.

Each and every media whore who just takes part in this spectacle and does nothing to challenge the wall to wall propaganda is culpable for the crap that will follow. Lip service to the training regimes, to the graft, to the required commitment is insufficient to counterbalance the relentless adulation of gold. For every kid or adult who changes their life as a result of Olympic inspiration, there’ll be a hundred more who want that golden feeling without any of the effort. Beyond that, there’ll be a thousand more who will just sit on their arses, watching others perform to perfection, feeling disappointed when their shiny token of success is the wrong colour and learning to hate themselves when they next pass a mirror. For them, the come down begins whenever they turn the television off.

It doesn’t have to be like this. The UK has excelled in cycling recently. It’s an accessible sport. Virtually everyone can ride a bicycle. Our green and pleasant land is covered with small lanes. What is the point of our media praising our cycling success and then failing to criticise the constant harping about cyclists or to report the routine hazards we face when riding around, the injuries, the deaths and the way that most of the travelling public treat us?

Down here in Brighton & Hove, the Green Party administration is putting its ability to obtain grants where its mouth is and building state of the art cycle lanes. We know that we have to build the infrastructure first to create good conditions and the increase in safe cycling will come later. Yet the other political parties and our local media lay into them for this grand plan. It is dismissed as a ‘pet project‘. These new cycle lanes considerably improve upon the debacle that an earlier Labour administration left behind for cyclists. Those lanes are considered to be so dangerous that they appeared on websites dedicated to exposing such things. Check out the lanes so short they can barely contain a bicycle at all, the lanes too small to contain even a child’s bicycle, some ever so longer lanes, the lanes which require you and your bicycle to get slimmer whilst you ride down them, the lanes which basically just direct you onto the pavement and the lanes blocked by traffic islands containing a Sheffield Stand for locking up bicycles! In typical top down misinformed style, the Labour Council which laid them out hired a firm from Birmingham to plan them. The firm recorded average traffic speeds, fed the results into an unsympathetic computer model and the resulting plans left a legacy of cycling accidents and discouragement. Average speeds is a measure which makes the car win. Spacial consideration gives a fairer result.

Britain’s best cyclists have not become the best in the world because we have made it particularly challenging for them in the past to train here, they have won through despite the obstacles. In fact, a few years ago they announced that they would just train abroad instead because it was too dangerous on our roads. Our media reported this with a general undertone of, ‘good riddance’.

I haven’t watched any of the sports yet because I don’t own a television. It just isn’t the same on the radio. I’d like to see Bolt become the fastest man of all time, so today I’ll be in my local pub with a pint, waiting for the ten seconds I’m most interested in. I’ll also be admiring the others. Anyone who makes it into a Olympic final is a winner in my book.

I’ll watch a few other events and go lug my excessively fat body home feeling bad about myself. I’ll resolve to sort my weight issues out, like much of the rest of the country will this evening. Whether we manage that will be up to us. Our media won’t be helping us. They’ll be covering their pages and screens with adverts for culinary crap, hypocritically blessed by athletes who wouldn’t consider eating such poisons themselves. When we fall off our various waggons, we’ll tell ourselves that gold wasn’t for us anyway and our indoctrinated brains will urge us to ‘reward’ ourselves with that gluttony we saw advertised in the name of the Olympics.

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Posted in Brighton, Cycling, Hove, Olympics

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British Olympic police say don’t get on yer bike!

Posted on 28 July 2012 | Leave a comment

Danny Boyle surprised the most cynical about the London Olympics with an opening ceremony closer to the country we recognise than expected. Collective action, dissent, humour and our public services featured centre stage in a revision test for the ideal citizennship test. The Olympic flame has been lit, the scene is set, the greatest show on earth can begin. For the next 16 days, we’ll have a feel good factor in the UK on a scale we haven’t had for years, decades even. We’ll forget about the corporate whoring, the absurdity of branding police monitoring bagel shops in East London, the easy profiteering on the back of this early peace movement. We’ll kick back, crack open more beers than are healthy and cheer the greatest athletes of eternity compete for the highest glory. Along the way, a new generation of one day British Olympians will be inspired to concentrate their lives on the good things, especially the ones we’re good at, like cycling.

Last night’s spectacular was not all the world saw of London last night. Thanks to twitter, newly emboldened by the English High Court decision earlier in the day (here’s my commentary and full appeal judgement in Paul Chambers’ case, readable on any device), a confusing alternative vision of London emerged. This other story also involved a celebration of sporting endeavour, dissent, humour and, erm, violent arrests. The occasion was critical mass, a monthly event, a peaceful plea for the pleasures of cycling.

The last Friday of every month London witnesses this a good natured mass cycle ride, which has been the subject of considerable legal argument already. The highest judges in the land (then known as the Law Lords), decided in 2008, with reference to the Public Order Act 1986, that was “inconceivable that Parliament could have intended … to outlaw events such as Critical Mass“.

Ever since April 1994, cyclists have met near the National Theatre on the South Bank and ridden as a block on the roads on a follow-my-leader basis. In other words, as the agreed facts in that case put it, “there is no fixed, settled or predetermined route, end-time or destination; where Critical Mass goes, where and what time it ends, are all things which are chosen by the actions of the participants on the day“. Yet last night, the police met them with truncheon blows and pepper spray, with kettling and multiple arrests. Cyclists were pushed to the ground. The very emblem of London, the red bus, was used to store confiscated bicycles.


View Location of cyclists arrested at Olympics on 27th July 2012 in a larger map

100 cyclists were contained by police at the junction of Stratford High Street and Warton Road, where they were held for most of the Opening Ceremony. It appears that most of them were arrested, although the police have not given any figures. Doubtless the authorities are edgy about the prospect of violence during the Olympics. Without any obvious threat, they seem to have picked on these politically minded cyclists, despite the social networks to which they belong having repeatedly declared that they do not wish to disrupt the games.

English cycling has finally come of age. Years of solid campaigning has converged in the common goals of our personal and planetary health. A few days ago, an Englishman won the Tour de France. Hopes run high for gold medals in the Olympics. Yet all this has been despite our culture of criticism of cyclists. After the last Olympics, our greatest two wheelers announced that they were going abroad to train because it was too dangerous in the UK. That’s just the road traffic for you. Last night’s action by the Metropolitan Police ramped up the risks still further. The message is, if the trucks don’t get you, the boys and girls in blue will.

I attended a London critical mass in 1996, a couple of years after it started and long before the Law Lords declared it a customary procession. Normally such processions are not required to observe the traffic lights, as anyone who has attended one will know – the normal rules of the Highway Code are suspended for the duration of the event. Having accidentally become a freelance legal observer the month before, I put my newly acquired orange bib on and went to watch what happened. I wasn’t at yesterday’s mass, this post is based on reports I’ve received. I’ll be attending the Brighton Critical Mass next month, which meets at The Level on the last Friday of every month at 6:00pm and starts riding at 6:30pm. The Metropolitan Police have inspired me again, so thanks to them for that.

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Posted in Brighton Critical Mass, Critical Mass, Cycling, July 2012, Kay v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis [2008] UKHL 69, Law, London Critical Mass, Olympics, Police Violence, Politics, Politics in the Cave, Protests, Public Order Act 1986, s. 11

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London to Brighton bicycle ride spoilt by new route

Posted on 18 June 2012 | 3 Comments
Original Hand Drawn Poster Advertising First London to Brighton Bike Ride

The first London to Brighton Bike Ride was partly organised in 1976 by Friends of the Earth. Click to enlarge.

Clearly, although I am no athlete, I like cycling. I hope soon to restart my cycling video channel – Old School Cycling – which was one of the original motivations for this blog. I’m no athlete and I don’t have a fancy bicycle but I really enjoy a long distance ride on my own. I’m also fond of riding around with a small bunch of pals. For me, the idea of riding in a throng many thousands strong is an appalling prospect. That’s why I’ve never joined the official London to Brighton bicycle ride. Except once and that was an accident. I was riding across town from West to East, when I suddenly realised that the bottom of the Ditchling Road, by The Level, was a fast flowing tightly packed river of riders which I had to cross. This obstacle obliged me to join it in order to work my way across to the other side. When I made it across its width, I turned my handlebars to peel off to the left and a complete stranger grabbed my arm, saying, “Don’t give up now, mate, you’ve only half a mile to go. It’s worth finishing now!” As he said these words he tried to pull me back into the throng. He damn nearly pulled me off my bike. Correcting my balance, I swung back into him and we narrowly avoided skittling his riding companions.

Paul Bonett of Bonett’s Estate Agents took part in the first ride which took place on May Day 1976. He said:

“We went up to London and stayed in a squat in Kentish Town the night before.  The ride started from Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park with 60 riders.

We crossed the Thames at Westminster, headed east down to and along the Old Kent Road, on to Biggin Hill and Crowborough, before finally splitting into two groups: a few mad ones like me, going via Underhill Lane and Ditchling Beacon, the others along to Lewes and the old Lewes Road, and on to the seafront at the Palace Pier.  It took us most of the day!!  It was about 95 miles in total, a bit too far, but a great day.  37 finished, I remember.  All the Brighton riders did because we had to get home!!  Most of those who stopped, did so before we got far down the Old Kent Road – they were the wise ones!

The following year, it went from the same spot but took the more direct route similar to today, including the Beacon of course, and was about 64 miles and 100 riders.  Year 3 which I also did, had about 1,000 riders then it leapt up. I did not do it again until 1989 when it had the numbers it has today and went from Clapham Common.”

Looking South uphill just below Ditchling Beacon, in Sussex

Just below Ditchling Beacon, heading South. Click to enlarge.

From its earliest days, the route cruelly obliged the participants to climb the North side of Ditchling Beacon. Most of the 27,000 riders who took part this year have never cycled anything like the 54 miles of the route in one go. By the time they reach Ditchling Beacon, they are in a bad way. Saddle soreness is the least of their problems. The road up to the Beacon began its life as a horse and cart track, which winds very steeply up to a high point on the downland. Previously, there were sections of it which levelled off or almost levelled off. These short sections were originally placed there to allow horses to rest up from pulling their heavy carts. They were a godsend for cyclists. They also made the road dangerous (especially in winter) for those motorists who live to drive up and down it too fast. Frankly, that seems to be almost all drivers. Instead of introducing traffic calming measures, the opposite approach was taken. The nearly level sections (which quickly iced up in the winter, to be fair), were removed. Consequently, the climb is significantly harder for the cyclist.

After climbing Ditchling Beacon, the cyclists are definitely on the final leg into Brighton. In the old days they rode downhill to the junction with Coldean Lane, crossed over it and then downhill again and only had one very brief and rather easy uphill section to get to the top of Hollingbury Hill. From there it was downhill the entire way to the finish line. I’ve done that ride many times and it is a complete joy, even after a short local ride. For the weary travellers with 50 miles behind them and, in many cases, their underwear meshed into their red raw upper inner thighs, this descent to the finishing line must have been a truly glorious reward. No wonder that someone hurtling along at the bottom of the Ditchling Road would try to prevent another rider from peeling away. With no traffic in the way, it is (just) possible to travel from the top of Hollingbury Hill to the finish line on the sea front without pedalling! That’s about three and a half miles.

A few years ago, that part of the final route was abandoned. I’ve never heard a convincing explanation as to why this decision was made. The current route sees the cyclists turn left at the top of Coldean Lane and lose almost all of their height above sea level very quickly by descending to the Lewes Road. If you’re not sure which junction I’m talking about, here’s someone’s helpful GPS tracking video showing them missing the right turn back onto the Ditchling Road (at 8:35) and instead flying down Coldean Lane.

This means that (a) they have to pedal all the way to the finish line; (b) they lose the stunning panoramic views as they ride past Hollingbury; and (c) they block up an arterial road which much local traffic depends on. In yesterday’s event, the local traffic network ground to a halt in many places (according to a local taxi driver who took me to Lewes in the evening yesterday).

Although it’s not for me, the ride is an excellent event. It raises money and awareness for the British Heart Foundation. It gets thousands of people out on the roads on bicycles. The whole thing is positive in every way. Here’s my simple plea to the organisers – can we have the old route back please? The riders deserve that glorious long downhill reward!

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Posted in Bicycles, Cycling, Lewes Road, London to Brighton Bike Ride, Old Route, Road Rides

UK bicycle lighting law

Posted on 17 February 2012 | 6 Comments

Compared to the weight of bicycles in 1895, the Bridgeport Brass Search Light probably didn't add too much extra weight.

For many years, the law on bicycle lights in the UK was archaic in the extreme. Cyclists were required to rely on filament bulbs which were heavy, short on power and very power hungry. Thankfully, the law has now caught up with modern lighting technology and LED based lights are permitted. the Road Vehicle Lighting Regulations 1989 (amended in 1994, 1996, 2001, 2005, again in 2005 and 2009) dictate that bicycles must have various lights and reflectors working and clean when ridden between sunset and sunrise. These Regulations are routinely ignored by the police but if you are caught up in an accident after dark and have not complied with the lighting rules, you run the risk of being liable in some way for the accident. The liability will be in the common law tort of negligence. Negligence is pursued by the victim (or, more commonly these days their insurance company) through the civil courts.

1897. Note the air vents to let the heat escape and the hinged back plate to allow the rider to light the wick!

At least one white front lamp is required, no more than 1500mm from the ground. It must be positioned centrally or offside and visible from the front. Steady light emitting bulbs must conform with BS6102/3 or a European equivalent standard. One red rear lamp is required, again positioned centrally or offside, between 350mm and 1500mm from the ground and it too must be visible from behind. Steady lights must conform to to BS3648, or BS6102/3 or equivalent European standard. If either front or rear light can only manage to flash, they must emit at least 4 candela, which is probably rather more than the Union Lamp Company William’s Globe (pictured right) managed to emit.

A red rear reflector is also required, conforming to BS6102/2 (or equivalent), with the same positioning rules as the lights, between 250mm and 900mm from the ground. It must also be visible from behind. Four amber pedal reflectors are required, conforming to BS6102/2 (or equivalent), positioned so that one is plainly visible to the rear of the pedal and one to the front.

To escape these rules you can ride an old machine. Any bicycle manufactured before October 1990 can have any kind of white front lamp which is visible from a reasonable distance and bicycles from before October 1985 don’t need pedal reflectors.

A carbide lamp powered by acetylene gas.

Someone needs to inform the trailer manufacturers that trailers need a rear lamp as above and a triangular rear reflector with an ECE mark III or IIIA. Most do not bother to fit a rear lamp. If you’re one of the rare types who uses a bicycle side-car, it also needs its own front and rear lamps. Wherever a British Standard (BS) is required, equivalent standards from other EC countries must now also be recognised but it is not exactly clear which ones match up. Germany has the strictest cycling laws in Europe. Consequently equipement marked with a “K~number” is probably going to be up to scratch.

Dynamo powered lights are legal even though, without a capacitor fitted, they extinguish when you stop. That is deemed to be okay so long as you stop on the left, which is troublesome if you are waiting for oncoming traffic before turning right.

Could this 'homebrew' approach be going to far?

So long as you don’t fit a red light to the front or a white light to the rear, you can supplement the prescribed lighting arrangements with as many lights and reflectors as you like. The smart money is on you covering yourself with lights, reflectors and anything else which makes you visible. I’ve painted my bike with strontium aluminate, which glows in the dark after being out in the sun or after being sweeped by car headlights. For many years in my youth I rode around without lights but then I got a telling off from a fellow cyclist who crashed into another who had been waiting at traffic lights, invisible in the dark. These were the days when lights didn’t really show you much of the rode ahead but after hearing that tale, it seemed positively antisocial not to don the lamps. Since then I’ve gone the other extreme and prefer to cover my bike with as many lights and reflectors as possible. The idea being that at the back of every motorist’s mind will be the notion that if they hit you, they will later on have to explain how they failed to notice you. For that reason, I’d strongly recommend that you wear high visibility clothing too.

What to do with this coat after dismounting?

Once upon time the idea that you might accidentally break the bicycle lighting regulations by causing undue dazzle or discomfort to other road users would have been fanciful but these days LED and HID lamps can be very powerful indeed. Do remember that apart from excessively powerful lights being illegal, they are also dangerous, even if cars all have them.

Unfortunately, although the The Pedal Cycles (Safety) Regulations mean that new bicycles are sold with several extra reflectors, they do not require them to be fitted with lights, which begs the question of whether it is unlawful for cycling shops to sell bicycles in the late afternoon in winter.

A mark of quality rarely found for bicycle lights.

Flashing lights have been allowed. Incredibly, despite their demonstrable advantages for rear lights, it wasn’t until 2005 when flashing LEDs were allowed. However, due to the technicalities of the regulations, the government’s insistence on confirmity with the brightness of lights in their steady state and the general distaste in the British establishment for cyclists, flashing LED lights are legal but are not approved, which means that to be lawful you will need another light as well. The really big problem is the lack of bicycle light manufacturers who will trouble themselves by testing their products to the British Standards. We are considered to be too small a market to trouble with.

There is a new generation of more powerful LED lights on the way. They ‘burn’ ten times brighter than LEDs did before. Developed by a new Californian company, Soraa, there isn’t yet a version for a bicycle. Soraa claims that a 12 watt bulb uses 75% less power than a 50 watt halogen bulb but produces the same illumination. This must be good news for cyclists – the more energy efficient a light, the longer the batteries will last. These lights may be very expensive because they use gallium nitride. Expense may not put off the mountain biking brigade or the fashionistas but, as Max Glaskin tweeted:

Brighter family of LEDs needs less power so will battery bike lights get, er, lighter? Or brighter? Or nicked?

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Posted in Bicycle Lights Law, Cycling

A big man’s New Year Resolutions

Posted on 30 December 2011 | 1 Comment

Despite saying that I would not publish my new year’s resolutions, I’ve changed my mind. Making resolutions at the end of one year for the next appears to be terribly old unpopular these days. That’s a shame. Deciding to better yourself by goal setting can only be a good thing. Making them public makes them real. Private resolutions are much harder to obtain results from. Here are my goals for 2012.

  1. I will quit smoking & drinking and alcohol
  2. I will quit the company of alcoholics and smokers
  3. I’ll publish 500,000 words here or elsewhere
  4. I’ll build a woodshed
  5. I’ll raise 5 new beds in my garden
  6. I’ll cycle 20 miles per day or take an equivalent amount of exercise until I weigh 12½ stone.

Unfortunately I recently started smoking again. Occupy London seemed to be full of smokers. It fitted neatly with the romantic revolutionary air the Occupationists were bent on creating. I found myself constantly in the company of smokers and myself smoking again.

By our society’s standards I don’t have an alcohol problem but clearly I drink too much. I do not seem to be one of these people who can take it in moderation, though I believe they do exist. Once I’ve got a pint in my hand, the cigarette comes next. I didn’t drink at all until I was 26 so I’ve a fair bit of experience of enjoying myself without it at all.

It’s easy to quit the company of smokers, thanks to the smoking ban in public places. They have to go elsewhere. Their numbers are decreasing. I’ve one or two friends who can properly be described as alcoholic. I’ve retained their friendship despite them frequently being destructive of that friendship. This declaration to avoid them is bound to prove controversial. Recognising that hanging out with addicts impresses bad behaviours as the norm is an important step for me to recover my physical, spiritual and mental health.

For many years, I declared I would write this many hundred thousand words or that many and never got close. After many years of blogging in private, on 28th February 2011, I started this blog. Now I’ve written over 330,000 words on it. My self-discipline of publishing a post every day has obliged me to write large. The act of daily composition has improved my writing, I believe. No-one every writes their best to begin with, it has to be worked at. If I’m heading towards the one million word mark by the end of 2012, I should be a much improved writer!

I’ve never built a woodshed before. My garden is full of fallen trees which need a home. Nestled inside a woodshed, the logs can season in their own time. This is a wholesome project which I’m really looking forward to. Expect photographs of progress here.

With the logs cleared out of my garden, there’ll be space for five new raised beds. They will only technically be raised beds. In fact they will be planks raised around areas of double dug earth. It’s a fair bit of physical work, especially with the ground still full of leylandii roots. Completing all five within a year will be quite a challenge.

The last challenge has been set down for me by my lovely wife. After losing three stone this year, I regained much excess weight in my recent time in London. On the year, I’m still down. Dieting is a disaster. As regular readers will know, in 2011 I joined weightwatchers and attained gold membership, which means that I can turn up for free. I only went once more after that achievement. The fact is I never followed their bizarre food value counting system – I just walked or cycled to my heart’s content and ate healthily. Whatever I weigh now, by this time next year I intend to weigh in at 12½ stone, which would be a very healthy weight for a man of my size. I am a big man.

 

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Posted in 2012, Alcohol, Alcoholics, Bicycles, Cycling, Garden, New Year's Resolutions, Occupy London, Occupy London Stock Exchange, Raised Beds, Trees

Old School Cycling: review of Sport-Cam.co.uk – bullet cam sold under false name with fault and parts missing

Posted on 14 October 2011 | 3 Comments

I recently bought a bullet cam from sport-cam.co.uk. You’ll immediately notice that I am not linking to them. Yes, this is going to be a bad review. They sent me a product priced at more than double what I could have paid for it on ebay. Fair enough, my mistake. It was a bullet cam. They called it a MiniHD 2. In fact it was an ACT20.

Their website did not say that the cam would break the film down into little chunks and put a tiny gap in between some of the chunks. When I telephoned them to ask about this, they said that they would call back. They did not call back. There were parts missing – the two little rubber rings which ensure that it actually is waterproof. The reset button did not work at all. They never responded to any of my emails to them. At one point they sent some of their internal emails to me.

They did agree to refunding me, in a telephone call. I repackaged the thing and returned it to them. I telephoned them again to confirm that they had received it back. Of course they had, I had sent it special delivery. I asked if my refund was going to be processed. They said it was. A week later I chased them. Still no reply but the third party agency they used for payment processing sent me an automated message saying that a refund was on its way. Charming. Please don’t buy from this company!

These little bullet cams are going to revolutionise how cyclists are treated on the road. Soon large numbers of us will be routinely filming everything that happens to us on the road. Motorists will begin to treat us differently.

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Posted in Cycling, sport-cam.co.uk