New Cycling Advocacy Organisation Launched

The loss of Cycling England in the infamous "Bonfire of the Quangos" must be regarded as nothing more than a setback to promoting cycling in Britain. Cycling England is dead. Get used to it. Move on.

The past campaigning policies of the CTC, the major cycling advocacy organization in Britain for over a century, while successful in parts, has totally failed to have any significant effect on cycling levels in Britain. This failure, in the opinion of many people, is almost entirely down to the organization's continued insistence on the failed "vehicular cycling" strategy. Whilst more enlightened and forward thinking countries of Western Europe have successfully implemented other strategies which resulted in cycling gaining a modal share of more than 30%, here in Britain it sticks resolutely at 1%-2%. Does this not suggest that the British public, over 40% of whom are reputed to own a bike, have simply rejected "vehicular cycling"? They have shown that they simply don't want to share the road with fast moving motor vehicles. VC advocates can talk themselves blue in the face on the advantages of that strategy; the British public simply won't buy it. It's all about "subjective Safety" as David Hembrow, a British ex-pat living in the Netherlands, puts it.

I don't propose to go through all of the advantages of the bike as one of the best, if not the best, mode of personal urban transport ever invented - readers of this blog, by definition, must know this already - but the recent news confirming the rather obvious fact that Britain is the unhealthiest nation in Europe, partly because of the unhealthy, sedentary lifestyle of an uncomfortable majority of the population must ring bells somewhere. Everyday cycling by more people won't solve that problem, but it can certainly go a long way to help.

Thanks to the hard work and organizational skills of Jim Davis the newly formed Cycling Embassy of Great Britain promises to be a new approach to cycling advocacy in the UK. We do need to find a way of engaging policy makers and the non-cycling public alike to show them the benefits to everyone in so many ways of increased cycling and reduced car dependence.

Even if you (currently) never intend to ride a bike yourself, you could do worse than follow developments.

http://www.cycling-embassy.org.uk/

Cycling and the Profitable Culture of Fear

People, particularly your stereotypical Brits, who tend to have the unfortunate habit of spending their lives with their collective heads firmly parked up their collective backsides, often ask what's the big deal about cycling? Why do I continuously bang on about it? Why am I such a bicycle bore?

Well, here's one of my all-time heroes, Mikael Colville-Andersen, yes, he of Copenhagenize and Copenhagen Cycle Chic giving a presentation at the TedxCopenhagen event. Mikael clearly is a very accomplished speaker and gets his point over far better than any stumbling, mumbling and semi-coherent effort that I might make. It's a long video but I guarantee that you won't be bored, whatever your attitude to bicycles and cycling might be.

Watch, listen, learn. Then, get that bike out and experience.