Rouleur Live - London rocks! Why I think London cycling infrastructure is pretty good

It was a pleasure to be on the panel at the London Rocks presentation at Rouleur Live, to talk about the positive aspects of cycling and cycle culture in London.

So many people talk about cycling in London in a negative way. It's something I have never really joined in doing, because I simply don't feel that way. I really enjoy cycling around London.

Rouleur Live panel, L-R: Laura Laker, Alec Briggs, yours truly, Ned Boulting

As someone who likes to travel by bicycle around London and in all the other places I visit around the UK and beyond, I don't think London does too badly, all things considered.

When Ian Cleverly of Rouleur asked me about appearing on this panel I was quite excited about doing it. In fact, I even put together a flow of how I thought the presentation could go! 

But a basic brief had already been put together and other panellists confirmed, so it was a case of going with the flow on the day. The presentation was chaired by Rebecca Charlton, and the other panellists were Laura Laker, Alec Briggs, and Ned Boulting. We all had slightly different perspectives: Laura was occupying her role as the active transport guru, given the writing that she does about it in The Guardian, Alec is a bike racer, though not a nerdy one that only talks about bikes and tech - but more of a cool hip kind of guy who keeps it real. The fact that he can also win races is just coincidental! 

Ned was there in his capacity as social commentator given that he gets on the telly a lot, commentating on the Tour de France, and other major cycling competitions, as well as being an author and a president of Herne Hill Velodrome. Then there was me - in the brief I was just billed as "all round good egg who likes to get out there rather than just talking about it!" I'm cool with that description.

We all had something to say, and were very positive about bike riding in London. The audience which engaged with us too, which is always a bonus. The main points we had to say is that London gets a bad rap, which is slightly unfair given that it is a newcomer in terms of infrastructure compared with other cities like Amsterdam and Copenhagen. 

Also, people have a tendency to take to social media to rant about negative aspects of cycling. Folks generally aren't going to go on-line to tell positive stories. It's not helped either by certain high-profile folks in media who constantly post footage from their helmet cameras about something they saw that didn't go well. 

There needs to be a way of highlighting the positives of cycling on a regular basis, rather than painting cycling in London as a doom and gloom picture as though folks cycling on the road were entering a lion's den or playing Russian Roulette.

In terms of cycling culture, because London is such a diverse place, there are varying "cycling tribes", meaning that some sets of cyclists don't always warm to other types of cyclists - for instance those dressed in Lycra on their road racing bikes vs. those in everyday clothes on a hybrid bike. 

At this moment in time, London is trying to find its feet in terms of cycling culture and cycling infrastructure. At some point things will settle down and cycling will become normalised as an everyday thing, rather than it being a specific activity set apart from other everyday activities. 

For the presentation I noted down various points, though didn't have the time to mention everything, so I will note them here:

• I first started cycling around London in 2001, at a time when most people cycling were cycle couriers and only a few hundred cycle commuters. I would only see about one or two women per week on a bike.
• There were no segregated cycle lanes at all - just the odd road that had a painting of a bicycle on the edge of the road, marking the bike lane! I used to spend time planning my own route from A to B through London via various back streets as there were no sign posts or maps. 
• Junctions at Elephant & Castle, Old Street, and Vauxhall Cross often involved putting my observation and bike handling skills fully to the test! 
• Nowadays, we have segregated cycle lanes including at those aforementioned busy junctions, a Superhighway network, signposted Quiet Ways, traffic-free paths, and a bike-sharing scheme for those who don't own a bike.
• When cycling to work at rush hour, there are so many cyclists on some roads that it's almost like being part of a mass participation bike ride. 

Segregated (ish) cycle path near rue de Rivoli, Paris

• Over the last 15 years that I have cycled in Paris I have noticed a steady growth in the number of cycle lanes, and on my most recent trip there had been radical changes, notably right in the centre, around Chatelet and Rivoli. 
• However, the lanes aren't any better than what can be found in London, particularly because sometimes a segregated lane "disappears" and then you are back in with the main flow of traffic.
• Segregated cycle lanes aren't totally segregated because there are gaps in the lanes to allow for delivery vans to pull into them!
• The traffic lights are phased so that even if you have right of way in the cycle lane, motorists can still turn right across your path - so you have to keep an eye out. That is something that you see in many European cities. I also saw that when I cycled across New York City.
•  It's great that many streets allow for cyclists to ride in contraflow up a one-way street, but some of the roads are very narrow, forcing you to give way to an oncoming van. 
• Some of the roads in central Paris are cobbled - not quite Paris-Roubaix, but you definitely get a bumpy ride. Ditto for when I used to cycle around Milan.
• There are very few green spaces to ride a bicycle in Central Paris until you get to the extremities of the city at Bois de Vincennes or Bois de Boulogne.

Bois de Vincennes on the edge of Paris - one of the few green spaces for bikes in the city

• I cycled around Brussels a couple of years ago, and had similar experiences to Paris, in terms of motorists encroaching into the segregated cycle lane. Also, some parts of the cycle lane contained a drainage channel, which I found hazardous to cycle on, so I ended up riding wide and on the main carriageway.
• Outside of Brussels, when riding in the Flanders region it was great to see cycle lanes on the A roads - something you also see in France as well.
• Interestingly folks talk about Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, and other countries in Europe being more cycling friendly countries than the UK. During the first coronavirus lockdown I used part of the time to do conversation exchanges with folks in other countries (to practice my language skills). Whenever I asked them about cycling in their country (apart from the Netherlands and Denmark), they all said that they don't ride because they find cycling in their country dangerous!
• Many cycling activists talk about wanting the freedom to ride their bike how they want - the freedom to wear whatever colour clothing they want, use or not use the cycle lane, wear a helmet or not, or put a bell on their bike.
• In these countries that are deemed "cycling friendly" even they have their rules. In many countries it is a legal requirement for your bike to have a bell fitted that can be heard from 100m away; it is illegal to ride on the main carriageway where there is a cycle lane; notably in France, cyclists have to wear high-vis on dim days or at night when outside of the city; in Spain it is illegal to not wear a helmet when outside of a built-up area.

So in light of all of the above it is hard to say that cyclists in London get a raw deal compared with other places. In fact, I feel very happy to ride around London and have the liberty to wear what I want and not have to stress about finding a bell for my bike!

It is also worth noting that when comparing infrastructure to other cities around the world, London is a sprawling mass compared with other cities and that the Mayor of London has to work on a surface area that is easily two or three times that of other European cities. 

On Blackfriars Bridge, London, next to a cycle Superhighway

Furthermore, this surface area is divided into 33 boroughs, each with its own administration and decision making power regarding cycling infrastructure - an added layer that Sadiq Khan has to deal with when trying to improve cycling in the city.

So on balance, I don't think we do so bad, and I do agree that London rocks!

Related posts

South London to Central London by bike (mainly traffic-free)

London gears up for more bike riders

Weekend at Cycle Expo Yorkshire, doing cyclocross, and running

It's official. Yorkshire is a World Champion venue when it comes to cycling. Indeed, the county will be hosting the World Road Cycling Championships in Autumn 2019. Just like when the Tour de France came to Yorkshire in 2014, Harrogate will once again be the focal town as most of the races will go through or finish in the Yorkshire spa town.

The countdown has begun, and as part of it Yorkshire hosted its first cycle show, Cycle Expo Yorkshire, at the site of the Great Yorkshire Show, in Harrogate.

Yorkshire counts down to the World Championships

I wasn't able to get up to the press and trade day, but I did go on the Saturday and Sunday, and quite a few high profile folks had turned out for the occasion, including Lizzie Deignan, fresh from having her first child; Shanaze Reade, who has come out of BMX-ing retirement to reinvent herself as a track cyclist; Canyon-Eisberg road racer Andy Tennant; Mr Yorkshire himself, Sir Gary Verity; and Ruby Isaac showing off her amazing tricks on rollers at the grand old age of 10!

I managed to get a few words with Sir Gary Verity about the expo and the upcoming World Championships. His interview now forms part of a feature I wrote for Rouleur website. Part 2 of it will come out in a few weeks. I also spoke to Lizzie Deignan for an interview feature for Rouleur.

Ruby Isaac throws a bottle to the audience while pedalling on rollers

In between interviews with the different guests and presenters I checked out the Yorkshire Event Centre, looking at what was on offer, while meeting different people. It was good to see, albeit briefly cycling presenter and author, Ned Boulting.

I also got talking to the husband of artist Lucy Pittaway, who has been the official artist for the Tour de Yorkshire for the past few years. Although she's not big on cycling, Neil is. So it was good to chat with him about the highs (literally) and lows of cyclosportives and riding events like the Etape du Tour, which he has ridden a few times. Lucy Pittaway had some lovely paintings on show, notably the one of the riders going up through Haworth, and the signature painting from this year, of the infamous Park Rash.
They are doing cycle themed calendars too, which I look forward to hanging up on my wall in 2019.

Park Rash by Lucy Pittaway

Also at the show were test tracks around the grounds to try out various types of bikes including off-road manual and electric bikes.
I didn't test out any bikes but I did ride around the grounds during a cyclocross race. It was a good call having one round of the Yorkshire Cyclocross league at the event, and I made the most of the opportunity!

Until this cyclocross race all my previous races had been in dry, sunny conditions. But this was the day where I would break my proper cyclocross duck (at least for the first time in about five years). Looking at Sunday morning's torrential rain it was the easiest thing in the world to say, "I'll stay at home and ride the turbotrainer." But somehow it felt weird saying that in relation to cyclocross.

Cyclocross means grey, muddy, rainy days. That is good cyclocross weather! Racing in the sunshine on dry, dusty, bumpy trails is not good. Your bones are rattled all over the place, you get massively dehydrated... why would you want to race in those conditions?! That was how I tried to convince myself to race, though I wasn't fully convinced myself - especially because when I told folks I'd be doing the cross race I was met with replies like "rather you than me" or "you're such a brave thing."

Anyway, I went through the motions of getting ready and drove from my base in Kettlewell, over to Harrogate. My morning had been spent doing a trail run, and I had managed to escape the rain. As soon as I arrived in the rainy car park and saw the various riders either getting ready to race, or covered in mud from having raced I felt convinced that I should get out there. Regardless of their situation they all looked very matter-of-fact about the conditions. No one seemed bothered by the torrential rain. It's probably a Northern thing, and there was no way I wanted to act like a Southern softie! So I got on with the business of racing too.

A bit of tarmac provides respite from the mud bath known as cyclocross!

It wasn't a wasn't a massively technical race, but there were a few sections that caught me out in the increasingly boggy conditions. Running across an adverse camber, locally known as the "Yorkshire Wall" was not at all easy, and was the scene of one of my more spectacular crashes - right in front of a sizeable crowd.
There was also a mini bombhole, which had a small pool of accumulated rain. As long as you got good momentum on the descent it was possible to clear it without putting your foot down, even if you did get a bit of a soaking. I had to use my core muscles to the max as the bike slid around, and it felt like I was in the lap of the Gods as to where I would end up. Luckily I didn't crash at that point at all during the race. I just crashed everywhere else!

I didn't know any of my other female competitors, but I got to know a couple of them afterwards - notably the ones I'd been sparring with throughout the race.

Mud-splattered but happy

There was one woman that I constantly swapped places with at different points. I was able to get around the corners and up the short sharp hills quicker than her, but she was better on the fast, non-technical sections. She was also better than I was at staying on her bike. I crashed at least five times, and things got decidedly tricky as the mud was more and more churned up, and it became very slippery. Towards the end of the race I was falling down just while walking with the bike.

Also my bike began to suffer and the last thing I wanted to happen was for my rear mech to snap, so I just slowed things down and gently twiddled my way around my final lap, crossing the finish line in a muddy mess, but happy to have made it through. Needless to say, my erstwhile opponent had gained even more ground on me, and I had to accept that as all part and parcel of racing. I hope to get to another cyclocross race in Yorkshire - maybe we'll have a return match.

As a reward I bought myself a UCI World Championships bobble hat, as I felt like a champion, having soldiered on through the difficult conditions. Back to the Expo where I had a final look at the various stands before heading back to London.

As a first Expo in Yorkshire I think it went well. They had been expecting around 200,000 visitors. I have no idea how many did go. The weather on Saturday had been forecast to be pants, but it wasn't. Sunday's wet weather didn't look like it had deterred the visitors.

Mr Yorkshire himself Sir Gary Verity (right)

Cycle Expo Yorkshire was probably about a quarter of the size of the Cycle Show at the NEC. I could imagine it getting bigger, in the same way as the Cycle Show has done. I remember a few years ago when the Cycle Show was held in a hall at the Business Design Centre in Islington. Then it just grew and grew, moving to Earl's Court, and now it's scaled the heights to being at the National Exhibition Centre. Cycle Expo Yorkshire will be a pretty big deal next year, as it will be taking place at the same time as the World Championships, so I expect it will be heaving at that time, as people descend on Harrogate from all over the country, and beyond. I'm looking foward to it.


Related Posts
A jaunt around the White Rose County

Yorkshire Post

Dales and Moors - Yorkshire Trip

One Day One Photo - 23

Thursday 2nd October

Browsing around I came across this photo on Carl Sukonik's @thevainphotos Twitter page. The photo was taken by Chris Auld while a group of us were in the press room at the Cycle Show a couple of weeks ago.

After I had done my rounds at the various stands at the show at the NEC I returned to the press room to find Jens Voigt there with TV sports presenter Ned Boulting, and a host of other press and PR folks. They were huddled around Ned's laptop watching live streaming of the World Cycling Road Race Champs. As the race entered the exciting closing stages more of us joined in to watch, and were treated to live commentary from Jens Voigt himself.

It was a little surreal see the Jensie just sitting there hanging out like your bog standard MAMIL who follows professional cycling. Some things never change! Once the race finished Jens got on with autographing a pile of posters and photos, doing a mini photo shoot, and being interviewed (notably by my good self) just as is standard with prominent people.

It was a pleasant surprise to find this photo. I wouldn't say no to coming across similar surprises on t'internet!

Photo courtesy of Chris Auld Photography

One day one photo - 19

Sunday 28th September



So I was back at the Cycle Show at Birmingham NEC on the final day, which meant even more people were swarming around the exhibition halls.

I was glad to have been there on the previous Thursday for two reasons.

Firstly, because on trade day it is a lot easier to move around the hall since there are fewer visitors than on the publicly open days.

Secondly, I wasn't able to move easily as I sprained my ankle the previous day when doing the Parkrun in the morning and then aggravated it even more at the cyclo cross race later that afternoon. So I had to keep my movements to a minimum, only visiting a couple of stands and then spending the rest of the time in the press room. 

Why couldn't I have just stayed at home and rested up? Well, because I had been accorded some time to interview a certain Mr Jens "shut up legs" Voigt for Cycling Weekly. It wasn't an occasion I wanted to miss. So I gave it a "shut up ankle" and made the trip down to Birmingham.

Now I, and my peers have a lot of respect and admiration for the Jensie and it is fair to say he is box office. But it's easy to say that when you are in a bubble of cycle aficionados who willingly travel to France to stand around for hours just to watch him whizz by in a few minutes - people whose lives revolve around cycling. It can't just be assumed that he is a crowd puller for the large number of lay public who have a general interest in bicycles and have come down to the NEC for a leisure day out with the family.

So I was interested to see how much of a crowd-puller and crowd-pleaser he really would be to the public, for the Questions and Answers session on the main stage.  And indeed he was. It was standing room only to see this event, with people squeezed into every possible space available. The MC said that this was the best attended event of all the Q & A sessions.

The session was followed by a mammoth autographing session on the Trek Factory Racing stand where a very long queue of men, women, children and babies waited patiently to have their minute of fame with the Jensie. Sadly, many people were turned away as he had to go away and fulfil other media commitments. People had also been left disappointed in the morning when the 90-minute photo and autographing session had not been long enough to satisfy the queue of folks who wanted a piece of him.

So I got my chance to talk to Jens Voigt later in the afternoon, not long before he had to dash off for his flight back to Berlin. I must say I actually felt a little bit nervous when I initially spoke to him, which is something I don't normally feel when interviewing people. I definitely had the feeling of being in the presence of greatness!

As ever, the smiling Jensie was down-to-earth, and quite easy to talk to. He really does talk for England and for Germany too! Jens had lots of stories to tell and made me and his entourage laugh with his sometimes out-of-left-field sense of humour.

The thing that struck me most about Jens Voigt was how generous he was with his time for people and he showed no arrogance at all in spite of all his achievements. He was just an all-round nice guy.

I hope Jens Voigt sticks around and maintains his profile in cycling or otherwise. The public appreciates characters like the Jensie. Who knows, if he gets his way we may even see a fly-on-the-wall style The Voigts, showing his family life on TV, or a "cameo" as a murder victim in CSI!

My interview with the Jensie is now on-line. Read it here.

Photo by Ian Homer Photography