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Cycling, Environment, Language, Life and style, Science, Transport policy - August 31, 2022

How car culture colonised our thinking – and our language

We have become used to thinking about things from a driver’s perspective – but is that the sort of world we want?

When we block traffic from a street, like for a sports event or a street party, we say that the street is “closed”. But who is it closed for? For motorists. But really, that street is now open to people.

We say this because we’ve become accustomed to thinking about the street in “traffic logic”. For centuries, streets used to be a place with a multiplicity of purposes: talk, trade, play, work and moving around. It’s only in the past century that it has become a space for traffic to drive through as quickly and efficiently as possible. This idea is so pervasive that it has colonised our thinking.

This is an edited extract from Movement: How to Take Back Our Streets and Transform Our Lives by Thalia Verkade and Marco te Brömmelstroet, translated by Fiona Graham

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Climate crisis, Cycling, Environment - August 18, 2022

Why we drew 600-mile long picture of a bicycle across Europe

Couple rode thousands of miles to plot GPS image to raise awareness about climate crisis and encourage bike use

Daniel Rayneau-Kirkhope and Arianna Casiraghi, accompanied by their dog, Zola, have just finished 4,500-mile (7,250km) bike ride across Europe to draw a giant GPS-plotted bicycle across seven countries to raise awareness of how cycling can help tackle the climate emergency. It is believed to be the world’s largest GPS drawing. You can see photos of their trip on their Instagram account.

We really, really love cycling. Like everyone, we’ve become more aware of climate change, and we wanted to add our voices to what should be a bigger chorus. We think using the bike as a form of transport is a wonderful thing, and wanted to do something.

RideLondon: it’s all change as cycling festival on closed roads returns

There were notable differences from the last time the event was held in 2019. Here are five thoughts

RideLondon is back. After a Covid-enforced hiatus, the closed-roads cycling festival held its first incarnation since 2019 on Sunday, with both the family-based Freecycle and the 30-, 60- and 100-mile rides held on the same day. There have been some changes – so what was it like? As has become traditional, here are five thoughts about the event.

The man challenging anti-cycling trolls to change their ways

Andrew Tierney is part of a new breed of cycling activists tackling a rise in online abuse head-on

“If someone deletes their comment, that’s success for me,” says Andrew Tierney. “Hopefully, that person will think about what they’re saying in the future.”

Tierney, who goes by the name @cybergibbons online, is part of a new breed of cycling activists. After noticing an increase in the amount of abuse and violent threats on social media directed at people who ride bikes, Tierney decided to take action. He started calling out the posters online, with the result that many deleted their comments or even their accounts.

Common myths about what UK Highway Code changes will mean

Cyclists won’t be ‘in the middle of the road’ and there is no new rule on riding two abreast

There is, we are told in the Daily Mail, “fury” over changes to the Highway Code. There is “confusion” among road users. Cyclists and pedestrians will, the more breathless news coverage intimates, have carte blanche to weave across the highways, with drivers held culpable for every mishap.

This is, of course, nonsense. After a weekend of yet more misleading coverage, and with the new rules due to come into effect later this week, here’s a brief, potted guide to what will change – and what will not.

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cycling RSS

How car culture colonised our thinking – and our language

Why we drew 600-mile long picture of a bicycle across Europe

RideLondon: it’s all change as cycling festival on closed roads returns

The man challenging anti-cycling trolls to change their ways

Common myths about what UK Highway Code changes will mean

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