New Year's Resolution - Learn to ride

It’s like riding a bike!

That’s what we say about something we’ll never forget. And it’s quite true. Once we have learnt to ride a bike our brains will remember. It’s down to our molecular layer interneurons…apparently!

It is great when you get an opportunity to re-introduce someone to cycling. Even after a break of more than fifty years, it only takes a few minutes to get riding again.

But some people never learn to ride a bike. As a cycling instructor, one of the greatest joys is to help people to learn to ride a bicycle for the very first time.

As we get older we build up fear barriers, so the challenge is to persuade new cyclists to break down those barriers. Consequently teaching someone to ride a bike later in life is a gentle, careful activity where we progress in baby steps. It’s about boosting confidence – also known as “Gok Wan-ing” – and convincing the brain, those molecular layer interneurons, that it is perfectly safe to balance on two wheels.

So if someone you know is planning to make a New Year’s resolution to learn to ride a bike, then encourage them. Support them. Help them. It’s never too late and it just might be life changing. And you only have to learn once, because you never forget how to ride a bike!

First Frost

First frost of the winter. Just zero at 8am this morning. Car impressively iced up. Beautiful bright and sunny day. Great day to be out cycling.


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Just What the Doctor ordered

The days are shorter and the temperature cooler and may be there’s a bit more rain about than there was in August (just). But don’t be tempted to moth ball your bike until Spring as it could be the one thing that keeps you well this Winter.

Scientists at Appalachian State University have discovered that regular exercise, such as cycling, can help prevent you from catching a cold. And if you do catch one, if you regularly exercise then the symptoms are unlikely to be so severe.

Therefore, Dr Bike’s prescription this winter is:

• Look after your bike and your bike will look after you, wash it regularly, ensure the tyres are nice and hard, brakes are nice and sharp and there’s a little lubrication on your chain and gears
• Wrap up warm in cold weather with a cap under your helmet and a good winter collar around your neck
• Wear waterproof jackets and trousers
• Pull on a good pair of waterproof gloves and shoes

And get out there and ride! It will not only be fun but healthy too!

Dr bike at the library

Had a good afternoon running a roll-in surgery at this fab 60s library. Not lots of bikes but lots of issues and some good questions.

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A week in Aldington

We've spent the week in Aldington, a strip of a village about 5 miles south of Ashford. Very friendly, great views and always windy!
As well as the school, it's got a butcher, baker, post office store and a pub.
It's also got a rich history. Erasmus was the rector for a year, there was a busy smuggling gang, the village is about a mile from the church so I suspect the village moved away from the church during the plague and it's been home to Noel Coward, Ford Maddox Ford, Joseph Conrad and now Julian Clary and Paul O'Grady (not together!).
The grasshopper in the picture below was on the bike in the school bike shed. It rode on the bike until we stopped by some grass when it hopped off.






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Obsession

Is my obsession out of control!?



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Lunchtime ride

Bikes ready for a lunchtime ride for staff at Pluckley Primary School.

Pedal Power!

Oil, Money, Society and Happiness

OK. I'm generally a happy chap. Cycling makes you happy. It makes you feel good and keeps you nice and healthy.

That's a very good reason to cycle. Another good reason is environmental. Cycling really is a good way at reducing your carbon footprint. However, that reason seems completely eclipsed when something like the Mexican Gulf oil spill happens. There's more oil coming out of that broken pipe everyday than I will ever consume in a whole lifetime.

A recent piece in the right wing newspaper the Daily Telegraph was headlined "Don't Blame BP".

Hmm!

It's general thrust was that we as a society, especially in the US, demand so much oil that BP were just serving society and this accident was inevitable because we are so demanding.

It is actually a good point. But BP were responsible for this particular tragedy and so they really are to blame.

In the same vein, we as a society were responsible for the economic crisis. During the Thatcher years we were transformed into a greed ridden consumer society.

We want more.

We are never satisfied.

This greed requires money. Banks were our sources of a never ending flow of cash to feed our consumerism. And like our oil companies who have to get oil from more difficult places and even from sand, banks had to develop more and more experimental techniques to keep that flow of money going. So it was inevitable that there would be a financial disaster. We are to blame. We have built a consumer society with advertisers fueling our addiction, manufacturers constantly creating new versions of things we already have but somehow the new one is the one we must have and banks supplying the money so we can get it. Perhaps a free market driven society isn't so good for us after all? We need to develop a new economic model for society that isn't based on consumerism.

With what money our nations still have, can we get our best brains working on this? If we can, we will get to a point where we won't demand so much oil, we won't demand so many things, we won't consume all our natural resources.

If we can develop this model quickly we may even reduce the impact of global warming.

In the meantime, I'm going to get back on my bike to cheer myself up.

Tonbridge Cycle Fun Day

A couple of weeks ago we had a great day in Tonbridge organising loads of cycling activities for families.

We had BuildaBike, a game that started with a stripped down bike and as people added parts on they were entered into a draw to win the finished bike. The winner was ever so chuffed as he really needed a new bike.

We had some skill games including a slalom, limbo and balance board (how much fun can you have with a plank of wood and a brick? Loads!).

We had some guys down from the London fixed gear and single speed scene teaching riders how to play bike polo.

We did roller racing, which got really competitive.

We even did a Commuter Challenge on a couple of GoCycles kindly leant to us for the day.

Everyone had fun and we hope that by having fun they will ride their bikes more.

Our thanks go to Tonbridge & Malling Borough Council for organising, supporting and funding a great day.

There are more photos on Flickr and a video on YouTube.

Cycling in Dublin

When I visited Dublin a couple of years ago the traffic was horrendous. It was like London before the M25. Everything was going through the streets of Dublin. And it was crawling through. The noise and the fumes and the dirt was awful.

The City is now trying to create a cycling culture. Which is fantastic and the situation is ripe for it. Cyclists have got to be able to get around the City quicker than motorists!

They have invested in a cycle hire scheme. They've introduced a Cycle To Work finance incentive package. They let cyclists ride through the pedestrianised shopping areas (unlike some cities such as Canterbury). The Council has given up it's ground floor car park to provide 140 CCTV monitored public cycle parking spaces. And the council is investing in creating a cycling infrastructure. Again this is being done in a canny way. By using their existing canal towpath network they will get more bang for their bucks! Smart.

What is obvious and why this is more likely to work is that there appears to be firm council support for cycling and instead of approaching it in a bits and pieces sort of way there's been a conscious effort to create and follow an holistic strategy to change people's behaviour and make cycling an attractive alternative.

Here's a link to an RTE programme all about the emerging cycling culture in Dublin:

http://www.rte.ie/player/#v=1070805

Our Roads Are Safe!

The Guardian Bike Blog today had the sub heading "Many roads may be accident free but they are safe only for car drivers, not for more vulnerable users such as children, pedestrians and cyclists."

His view as "a cyclist who wants to feel safe on the road" is just propagating the myth that our roads are dangerous. Some of them are. I wouldn't recommend one of the local trunk roads. It's fast and narrow and bumpy and bendy. But every morning and every evening a very mature cyclist cycles steadily and deliberately all the way from Ashford to Faversham and back. I'm sure he hasn't got a death wish. He just does it because he can and clearly he feels safe. And as of this morning he was still alive and well. We have millions of miles worth of roads that are perfectly safe for cyclists. If you stop thinking about traditional motorised vehicle routes and have a good look at your maps and at your neighbourhood you will discover plenty of safe roads to enable you to get around on a bike. And no cyclist has the right to criticise another road user unless they have taken the trouble to actually learn how to ride safely on the road in the first place. Every other road user (even most pedestrians!) has been trained to use their vehicle safely on the road. Cyclists are not blameless as many pro-cycling "safety" campaigns such as the recent CTC SMIDSY campaign would have us believe. Very few cyclists position themselves well in the road and at junctions. Even fewer bother to be aware of what's going on around them. And even fewer can communicate effectively on the road. We don't need another bunch of consultants draining even more funds from real cycling advocacy work by producing a rubbish piece of research telling us what we already know. What we need is planners to follow the latest street design guidance from the Department for Transport and we need people claiming to be "the voice of the cyclist" to "grow some".

A new bridge and it's NOT for cars!

This weekend and next weekend a rare - and consequently exciting - event is taking place. A new bridge is being installed. But it's not for motorised vehicles. It isn't even connecting a road. It is a bridge connecting a bridleway by Kingston in Kent that was cut in two when the Canterbury bypass was built some twenty odd years ago. So it's a bridge for walkers and riders of horses and bikes.

It's quite a pretty bride too.

To install the bridge the Highways Agency will be shutting the A2 from 8pm on Saturday evening until 6am on Sunday morning this weekend and next.

There's more detailed information here - http://www.highways.gov.uk/roads/projects/24211.aspx

If it's not going to be officially opened, I think we should all get together and do a grand ribbon cutting event ourselves! Do you think the Queen will come?

New Track Bike In The Snow

My new track bike arrived in the post last night. The box was open and the bike built within minutes, not that I was excited at all!

It's cheap and simple, as these things should be - steel frame, 700c wheels, brakes, chain, freewheel and fixed gear.

This morning we awoke to snow. Lots of snow. Was I really going to take my new bike out in the snow? Absolutely! It was brilliant slicing the skinny wheels through 4 inches of virgin snow. Eventually got it out on to clear, if a but slushy, roads and it rides really smoothly and it's nippy. Great new year treat!