RESULT!

The B&NES Planning committee today approved the scheme to extend the Norton-Radstock Greenway from Somervale Road, Radstock, along the former Somerset & Dorset Railway trackbed to Charlton Road, Midsomer Norton, Somerset, England.

Great news. Another link in the chain...

www.nrgy.org.uk

Now, THAT'S what a cycle path should be like

[pictures by Amsterdamize]
Given the laughable efforts of the Neanderthal British highway "authorities" these pictures of cycle paths in the Netherlands must seem well over the top.

News stories like this one from the Bristol Evening Post show the lack of informed judgement and "conservative" attitudes of British policymakers.

55km to Amsterdam

I've just been browsing (as one does) the excellent collection of photos on the Flickr site of Amsterdamize. He also runs an excellent Blog.

He's just posted a set of pictures entitled 55km to Amsterdam.

That's 34 miles in our old fashioned Imperial measurement.

OK, the Netherlands are lacking in significant gradients, but given the standard mount of your typical cyclist in those parts - heavy, minimal hub gears; the standard clothing of your typical cyclist - everyday clothing - 35 miles is a good trip.

This set of pictures certainly blew away my stereotypical view of your typical Dutch cyclist who I assumed only cycled a couple of miles at the most at any one time.

Bath Cycling Summit

Yesterday, I was invited by the Bath Cycling Campaign to attend the Bath Cycling Summit as a representative of Somer Valley Wheels. I was going to do a little write-up on the event, but to save myself the bother I'll just link to the appropriate page of one of the event's sponsors, road.cc for you to read if the mood grabs you.

So many cycling organizations... so many web-links...!

It was interesting to put many faces to names and to partake in the current fashion of "networking".

Of the event, the most telling was how much talk was going on and how little was happening in the three-dimensional world. Maybe I'm just getting a little bit impatient and just a tad cynical in my old age but it would be really good to see some serious results on the ground while I'm still able to make use of them. Quoting from the road.cc report about Bath & North East Somerset Council's sum total of pro-cycling achievements over the past 12 months, which amounted to... "...making a councillor a cycling champion, opening a path through the park that everyone rides on anyway to bikes, and realising that a bridge that's one way to cars could have cyclists going the other way. Even so, cycling in Bath has grown by nearly half in the last six years apparently, possibly in spite of the council's meagre efforts (and some that actively discourage bikes)".

The best news of the morning's proceedings was that the Two Tunnels project looks set to start very soon..."everything looks to be just waiting for signoff...".

The chairman of the session, Bath MP Don Foster, closed proceedings by informing us that a litre of petrol contained the equivalent calories consumed by a cyclist over 1000 miles (1600km). That may well be true, Don, but the stuff tastes horrible.

Somerset Levels Heart Charity Ride

The Somer Valley Wheels team at the start of the 27 mile route of the British Heart Foundation Somerset Levels Bike Ride; 7th June 2009.

Some of these riders have only been back into cycling for about 18 months after several decades off the bike.

Age range was not quite 18 through to 74, with the empasis on the higher end of the range...

Standing L to R:
Derek Button, Jenny Aisbitt, Anne Bryan, Nigel Shoosmith, Katie Shoosmith, Alison Britton, Steve Britton, Chris Revill.
Kneeling, L to R:
Karen James, Ken Challenger, Fred Powell.

This event was of particular interest to Ken, who told me that has had two heart attacks and two heart bypass operations. Today, at 74, he was one of the fastest riders. He now has the nickname of "Guildford" (because he has more than one bypass).

Everyone completed the ride, although some complained of aches in places where they didn't know they had places...

50 mile circuit next year, chaps?

Update 20th June: I've not yet been informed of total sponsorship money from everyone, but the numbers of six of us known so far totals nearly £700. Good stuff.

Ignorance: a prime requirement ...

...if you want to be a politician:

Over on the 2020 blog, Matt quotes a UKIP candidate's answer to the question:

Q. Do you have any other general cycling-related comments or points?

A. “Provision for cyclists is already adequate. Please remember that motorists are the people who pay to use the roads whereas cyclists are “freeloaders”. They are entitled to use the roads but not disproportionately”.

“If everyone cycled, as you suggest, there would be no roads to ride on”.

That last sentence particularly odd. Even an averagely thick person must realise that bicycles pre-date cars by several decades and that roads pre-date them by several millennia!

Evidently, to be a candidate for your local council your prime qualification must to be as thick as two short planks, glued and screwed. To be a UKIP candidate you must be really special.

I wonder if any of them bother to scrutinise their annual Council Tax budgets before voting on them. My local authority, Bath & North East Somerset, has budgeted 6.2% of our council tax for...

wait for it...


Highway Maintenance.


Now... think very hard before you answer: Who pays for the roads?

Brompton v. Bus

I had to take the car up the dealer in Bath this morning for its annual service.
Usually I get the bus back. It's a pretty good 15 minute interval service (theoretically!), but I thought, it's a nice day, why not cycle back. I was working from home today so there was no rush to get to the office. The car's a rather small hatchback so the choice of bike was easy - the Brompton. So at 7am, with the folded Brommie on the back seat (it's too big for what passes for a boot in my doodle-bug). It was early enough to miss the usual nose-to-tail, so wizzed up the A367 for the 10.5 mile trip to the dealers. Car handed over at 7.30, bike unfolded and away we went. I hadn't got as far as planning a suitable route home so I made it up on the way. Being a dweller of a small market town I don't get much chance to play the "urban road warrior" but I stormed around the Pinesway giratory, blasted down the Lower Bristol Road, round the Churchill Bridge giratory like a dose of salts and up the Wellsway. A brief pause at the "open all hours" at Bear Flat to get a bottle of water (you can get the drift that this trip had not exactly been planned to the nth degree..). By this time I'd realised that the meandering National Cycle route along the Kennet and Avon Canal to pick up NCN24 at Dundas was not for me today as I was having too much fun, so on up the Wellsway, past the Red Lion. I briefly considered branching off at the Park & Ride roundabout and take the route to Wellow but remembered that there seemed to be twice as many hills to tackle that way, so the main road it was. Dunkerton Hill was way more bumpy than you notice in the car and at 30+ the Brommie's little wheels seemed not to be both in contact with the ground at the same time. Quite exciting. On the grind up to Peasedown St. John my legs started to object to the narrow range of the Sturmey Archer 3-speed, so discretion being the better part of valour, I pushed the last bit. Eschewing the racetrack Peasedown bypass I followed the old route through the village, hung a left down Braysdown Lane, crossed the bypass at the bus gate and hurtled down the hill with the Brommie's brakes probably smoking and swung onto the NCN24 Colliers Way by Braysdown Bridge. Back onto the tarmac warzone at Radstock's double mini-roundabouts, up Wells Hill like it wasn't there and back indoors at 8.35. 1 hour 5 minutes. Not bad. Probably the same overall time as the bus, including walking and waiting time, I thought.

Come 4pm and time to get the motor back. Take it easy and take the bus. It would make an interesting comparison. Check bus times; 6 minute walk to the bus stop. 5 minute wait for the bus. (That was lucky, last week my daughters gave up after 45 minutes and went home - like I said, it's theoretically a 15 minute service). Got off the bus near the bottom of the Wellsway, walked down a short cut to the Lower Bristol Road and along to the car dealers. Just over 50 minutes.

So, there you have it. Today the bus won by a mere 10-15 minutes or so. But we were lucky with the bus; one cancellation and the bike would have won. Using my old gits bus pass the cost of travel for both modes was the same, for me £0.00.

However, the rare opportunity for a mid-week bike ride - priceless.

In a couple of years time, with a bit of luck, that journey might become somewhat easier, a whole lot more pleasurable and significantly less hazardous when the Two Tunnels motor traffic free route opens. I'll make sure that I report back journey times...

Every Day's a Nice Day for a Bike Ride

We had a good sized group on Saturday.
Nice easy Slow Bicycle ride.
The way it should be done.
Especially when it's warm and sunny.

Karen kept her jacket on, though, because she got "lobstered" on Friday walking to the pub.

BTW, the chap in the light blue shirt just in front of the camera - 73 years old; triple heart bypass; one of the original group that did the first Somer Valley Wheels ride in 2007; will be doing the 27 mile BHF Somerset Levels charity ride next week.

"Don't you just love it when a plan comes together!"

Motorized Vehicles...Bring Out the Worst in People...

...so wrote Bill Bryson in his book, "Notes from a Small Island".

I got a new toy for my birthday. So now I can record events and incidents whilst out on the bike.

Here's a quick clip demonstrating the care, consideration and maturity of your typical Great British Motorist.

They Who Must Not Be Delayed

...because they might be a few seconds late at the next tailback.

And that would never do.

Filmed near Rudge, Wiltshire, 24th May 2009.



In case you missed it the registration of the BMW is CAN 107:


This is what the UK's Highway Code instructs us to do:

Yeah. Right.

An English Classic

Built back when we understood.

Amen to this...

'Nuff sed.

One of Those Doh! Moments

On this morning's ride I was bothered by a mysterious rhythmic clicking noise apparently emanating from the pedal/bottom bracket area of my bike. I kept stopping and trying to find the source of the noise but to no avail.

Getting off the bike and walking into the cafe the sound followed me.

And then the penny dropped.

Perhaps I should put these...

in separate pockets in future.

What do Cyclists Do When They're Not Cycling?

Answer:
Eat, drink, have a laugh in good company.
'Cos you simply meet a better class of person on a bike.

A Somer Valley Wheels gang taking a break at Cranmore Station on Sunday 10th May 2009.

(Picture by Alison Britton)

Helping the Less Mobile Amongst Us

This post is not about promoting cycling, but I'm posting it as it is in the spirit of this blog in the sense that we like to help promote alternatives to the Great Car Infestation.

Our local council has been working hard to improve access to buses for the less mobile amongst us - wheel chair users for instance - by building raised kerbs at bus stops.

Here's one on the A367 between Radstock and Peasedown St. John, Somerset.

Note the beautifully laid rectangle of tarmac behind the raised kerb so that users can get on and off their bus with little difficulty.

Note, also, the surrounding terrain.

Quite how users are expected to access the beautifully laid rectangle of tarmac is left to their initiative.

Yes. Initiative. Something which is apparently not a basic requirement if you want to become a council highways engineer.

Load Haulers!

"She ain't Heavy, She's my Sister"

This young lad was successfully hauling his sister along the Colliers Way this morning. The combined weight of sister, trailer and his own bike must have exceeded his own weight by a fair margin!

"Just-a Walkin' the Dawg"




(Pictures by Odd-Socks)

Choosing the Right Bike for You

This young lady is searching for a suitable new bike for herself, having decided that the standard issue mountain bike/hybrid/touring bike configurations aren't for her.

Here she's trying out an alternative mount for size and likes the style of this one.

She's already surfed the net to find her ideal machine.

And she came up with this one.

Truly a lady of taste and quality.

All it needs now is for the "finance department" to flog off the undesired machinery to help raise some of the cash in order to accede to Her Ladyship's desires.

Copenhagen - City of Cyclists

Mikael Colville-Andersen has produced this excellent little promotional video about cycling in his home city.

We look forward to the day when he can come and produce for us a "Bath - City of Cyclists" or "Midsomer Norton and Radstock - Towns of Cyclists"...

Watch and enjoy. Thanks Mikael.

Copenhagen - City of Cyclists from Colville Andersen on Vimeo.

Pro-Bike BBC News Item! Shock! Horror! Probe!

Whatever next!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7953197.stm

For 10 years Frank Kinlan's bike remained unused and gathering dust in his attic.

He piled on the pounds and did no exercise, but refused help to lose weight.

Then one morning, weighing 21 stones (133kg) Frank decided he had to do something.

"One morning I looked in the mirror and thought that I had got to do something, so I picked the phone up and got an assessment with my local health trust."

Frank was morbidly obese, with a BMI (body mass index) of 42.


I would be out of breath going up the stairs because I was winded carrying the extra weight
Frank Kinlan

"I was massive, with a 46-48 inch waist, and I found it difficult to get clothes to fit," he said.

Assessors told Frank, aged 49 who is from the Wirral, that he needed to lose weight and exercise more. They signed him up for their initial 12-week course, which used British Heart Foundation guidelines.

But the idea of exercise was an anathema to Frank, who was so worried about the effect of his weight on his health and his extremely high blood pressure, that he was doing nothing.

"I had slowed my life down to an absolute nothing and did nothing. The diet was bad and I was probably on the verge of diabetes and some other problems," he said

"I would be out of breath going up the stairs because I was winded carrying the extra weight.

"I turned up at the first class and they told me to do 30 minutes of exercise a day, five days a week."

Got on bike

So Frank decided to get on his bike and do something about it.

"Welcome to the world of overweight cycling," he says.

At first he was just doing short runs, but gradually he started to drop the pounds and set up a blog to record his progress, initially just for the others on his course

"I had done what they said and it worked for me, but some could not adapt and were not doing the exercise and by the end of the 12 weeks half those on the course had dropped out.


"By the follow-up class a month later only four turned up.

"Then there were three and then there were just two of us. After a year I was the only one.

"I used to go to the new groups and talk about how the exercise had helped me, but I could see their eyes glaze over despite the before picture."

Popular blog

Frank has become an inspiration for both slimmers and cyclists alike, not just for his weight loss, but for the way he has gone from being completely inactive to competing in races.

Today his site gets nearly 5,000 hits a month.

In the initial 12 weeks Frank says he lost two stone (17kg).

And as he lost weight he got more active.

"Each time I went back I improved a bit more. My riding got better and better and I started going out with the CTC cycle touring club and then I did club riding," he said.

To treat himself for getting down to 15 stone (100kg) Frank bought a carbon fibre bike and then there was no stopping him.


"I had lost down about a third of my body weight and was losing about a kilo a week, and once I got a new bike things took off in a big way.

"I rode the best I had ever ridden and started doing 125-mile rides. I had started with just two to three."

He is now determined to keep up the good work, calculating how much exercise he has done before treating himself to calorific food.

Victoria Taylor, a dietician for the British Heart Foundation (BHF), said Frank's slow weight loss - sustained over four years - is the best way to lose weight.

"The combination of diet and exercise is an important one. If you are just trying to do the one it is quite difficult.

"If you do them together it is a more sensible and the changes are easier to keep up.

"Obviously being obese or massively overweight has risk factors for heart disease and diabetes and high blood pressure.

"If there is less of you to carry around it is more easy to move around, so that makes it easier makes you more willing to move around you enjoy it more and it is not so effortful."

But she said even simple changes such as walking, rather than taking the bus, or climbing the stairs rather than taking the escalator, can make a big difference.

BIG news? Not to anyone who rides a bike, perhaps...

Then there's the Daily Mail's article on Sir Alan Sugar's cycling passion.

Well, well? The Media Leopards changing spots? What's come over them all?

Who cares...

If that little lot doesn't get at least one more bum on a saddle I don't know what will.

Democracy in Inaction

Yesterday I “turned activist” and supported a group of “Farrington Link” campaigners delivering a petition to the Bath & North East Somerset Council offices in Midsomer Norton.

First, a bit of background:

“Farrington Link” is a group of Farrington Gurney villagers and supporters campaigning to create better transport links between the village and the nearby conurbation of Midsomer Norton and Radstock, barely 2 miles away.

Currently the only practical way out of Farrington Gurney is by car.


The A362 road between the two places is a busy country road with no continuous footway so walking is not an option.

For experienced cyclists the A362 is manageable but for new cyclists, the nervous and the young it’s not a pleasant place to be. The road is the main link between the A37/A39 Bristol to South Coast route and the Midsomer Norton and Radstock area. Thus there is a fair amount of heavy traffic most times of the day.

Amazingly there is no regular bus route. If you want to go to Bristol, Wells or Yeovil there is a regular service along the A37/A39, but nothing to the shops and other facilities at Midsomer Norton/Radstock. Attempts by local activists to get the local alleged bus company – "WorstBus" (they prefer the title "FirstBus) - to put on a connecting service between the towns have fallen on deaf ears. Which is a shame, because not only would a service provide a useful service for Farrington Gurney residents, but would provide Midsomer Norton-Radstock residents with a fast route to Bristol. Sounds like a no-brainer, but no. The usual suspects – the out of touch car-centric administration – must assume that “everybody drives” so they also assume that there would be no demand for such a service.

So, for all intents and purposes, if you don’t have access to a car and live in Farrington Gurney then you are effectively trapped in the village.

Once upon a time, in a more civilised age before the Great Car Infestation destroyed “society”, trains ran through Farrington Gurney on the Bristol & North Somerset Railway between Frome and Bristol. Needless to say, the trains and the track are long gone, but the trackbed is reasonably intact.

Cyclepath!

Part of the old Bristol and North Somerset Railway trackbed already carries a substantial length of multi-use path between Great Elm, near Frome, through Radstock, to Northmead Road, Midsomer Norton on what is now known as the “Norton-Radstock Greenway” and the “Colliers Way”. So, converting the old trackbed from Farrington to link with the end of the Greenway at Northmead Road must be another no-brainer. The local Tesco, which lies alongside the trackbed between Farrington and ‘Norton, has already put up £40,000 towards building the path, so there’s already money in the kitty.

But, of course, there are “land ownership issues”. When the railway was closed it was flogged off in various little bits to various people. Forty years on it seems to be a problem finding out who owns what, and of those who are known some don’t want a degrading psycle path on their land. But, I’m told, negotiations are proceeding. As always in these things, visible progress is glacial in pace.

Then there’s the dead hand of Bath & North East Somerset Council (motto: “Making Bath & North East Somerset an even better place to live, work and visit.”).

When the “Farrington Link” was first mooted, the first thing that the Suits in the Ivory Tower came up with was that if the cycle route was built they would take away the school buses. The school buses only operate because there is no way for kids to get to school in Midsomer Norton under their own steam. Good move, eh. That should split opinions in the village and kill the cyclepath scheme. They thought. (If, indeed, suits in ivory towers actually do think, of course).

Anyway, back to yesterday’s little demo.

The ringleaders of the group had got up a couple of petitions – one supporting the cyclepath project and the other supporting a new bus link.

The plan was to run a little publicity stunt and take the petitions by bicycle from Farrington Gurney to Midsomer Norton along the main road. Appeals were made for folk to turn up on their bikes on Thursday morning to join the short ride Midsomer Norton, and for non-bike riders to drive in and meet up at the Council Offices. The local councillor was asked to be involved, but he declined the invitation declaring that he was already talking to “the people that matter”. Perhaps he will be reassessing just who “matters” come the elections. Too late. Damage done. (Typical head-in-clouds Tory. Much the same as pseudo-tory Nulabour. Who says we don’t live in a one-party state?).

Just four of us assembled at the Memorial Hall at Farrington Gurney on a drizzly Thursday morning for the planned photo-call with the photographer from the Somerset Guardian. Three villagers, plus myself who had trundled out from Radstock to meet them.

I wish now that I had taken some on bike pictures to show here how our little group fared on the A362. It showed the typical brain-dead Brit motorist at his and her most typical. The road to Midsomer Norton is narrow and winding but has to handle everything up to 44 tonne artics. We had the usual 4x4 Neanderthals and BMW driving death-wish merchants and all the rest of the fossil fuelled lemmings risking all to get past us to get to the back of the next traffic queue as quickly as possible. Quite why they need to do that, I’ll never understand. But thanks to the handful of drivers who were patient and respectful to other road users. You know who you are. We smiled and waved when you went by…

Arriving at Midsomer Norton unscathed we met up with the others and went into the reception area to undertake the PREARRANGED handover of the petitions.

However, nobody wanted to see us. The person whom we were supposed to meet decided to be “too busy” (11.30 – coffee and fag time). The receptionist didn’t want to accept the petition on their behalf and turned quite hostile when pressed. Fish eye stares was the best we got.

Thanks for nothing, B&NES people. Doing your best to make Bath & North East Somerset fit to live, work and visit?

Perhaps, if a B&NES drone happens upon this blog there might be “good reasons” offered as to why a group of people who help to pay their wages were treated so shabbily.

Maybe even apologies made?

Excuses for bad manners, even?

Tough shit.

The damage is done.

Easy as That

Yes, it really is as easy as that; and it could be the same in Britain.
Given a change in attitude and the political will.
Thank you to Marc of Amsterdamize for producing such an inspiring video.

Easy As That from Amsterdamize on Vimeo.