Bike blog | The Guardian – Page 18

Cycling, Environment, Life and style, Local government, Local politics, London, Politics, Sadiq Khan, Society, Transport, Transport policy, UK news - February 25, 2019

London’s cycle network overhaul has come to a standstill

Sadiq Khan’s claims to have built 140km of cycling infrastructure are simply false

Among the more amusing frauds of the energy company Enron was the time, in 1998, when it decided to create an entire fake trading floor at its Texas HQ – complete with TVs, computers, and shirtsleeved guys shouting down phones – to fool Wall Street analysts visiting for its annual general meeting.

Now, however, the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, appears to be aiming for something even more ambitious – an entire fake cycle network. I am in south-west London, in an alley about six feet wide, wedged between a railway line and the back garden fences of Southdown Road. According to Khan, this is the Wimbledon to Raynes Park Quietway, part of the 140km of cycle infrastructure, which he claims to have built since taking office.

Bike theft affects the young and poor most – why is it not taken seriously?

National cycle crime strategy set to launch after survey finds 50% of victims feel police don’t take the offence seriously

For many people a bicycle is the only transport they can afford and the only exercise they get. These people are often among society’s most vulnerable, and the impact of the loss of their bike can be devastating. So why is cycle theft so often seen as a minor crime?

According to the police, 96,210 bikes were stolen in 2018, and about one in 50 bicycle-owning households are victims of cycle theft each year, but it’s a crime disproportionately visited on the young and the poor.

'We need more people to go by bike': meet Amsterdam's nine-year-old junior cycle mayor

As the world’s first junior cycle mayor, Lotta Crok wants to draw attention to the obstacles kids on bikes face – and inspire other children to cycle

During Amsterdam’s chaotic rush hour, nine-year-old Lotta Crok cycles to a very busy junction. “Look,” she says. “There’s traffic coming from everywhere. Four trams from four different directions. For a child on a bike that’s really confusing!”

Lotta is the first junior cycle mayor in the world and her working area is the Dutch capital. It is her mission to inspire children to cycle every day and draw attention to the obstacles that kids on bikes are facing.

A city that’s good for an eight-year-old is also good for an 88-year-old

Scrapped HS2 bike path 'five times better value than HS2 itself'

Campaigners argue that the business case for the project was a ‘no-brainer’

A scrapped “emerald necklace” cycleway up the spine of the country alongside HS2 would have delivered a return on investment of up to five times greater than the rail project itself, an FoI request has revealed – but neither the government nor HS2 Ltd will fund it.

A 50-page report outlining the business case for the national cycleway, obtained by the Guardian, reveals health, congestion and economic benefits of between £3 and £8 per £1 spent. The return on investment of HS2 itself, meanwhile, is just £1.5-£1.7 per £1, according to the National Audit Office. Campaigners say completing the cycleway should have been a “no-brainer”.

The right bike for the right person: a lesson from Isla Rowntree

The Islabikes founder’s new range of bikes for those aged 65-plus shows how different people can often have very different cycling needs

On the Bike Blog we do wang on quite a lot about the vital importance of safe infrastructure to get more people cycling, and with very good reason. But there’s another aspect also worth considering: having people on a suitable bike.

Why did this occur to me? Because of a chat with Isla Rowntree, the eponymous founder, head and design supremo for Islabikes, who has spent 13 years thinking about how bikes can be made easier and more fun for children to ride, and is now branching into intended bikes for older people.

At that point in time, I think children’s bikes had reached an all-time low in terms of their functionality and the riding experience. They were really heavy, because they had great big fat tubes to make them look like adult mountain bikes, but made of steel, and very often some kind of faux-suspension that added another couple of kilos, huge numbers of gears that young children couldn’t understand.

They seemed to have gone away from the shapes that fit an actual child – huge, long cranks, brakes that they couldn’t reach and with springs so heavy they couldn’t pull on them.

I thought: again, there’s a group of people here to whom cycling is a really important thing, but are struggling because they can’t get the most appropriate bikes for their currents needs. It was really as simple as that.

That’s the beauty of living next door to my parents. They won’t go out too far any more on their own because they can’t get the tyres off if they have a puncture to change of inner tube. I say to them, ‘Call me if it happens, I’ll come and fetch you,’ but they’re too proud.

It’s that practical detail that you only get to think about if you’re around people who are actually at that stage and struggling with it. And that’s the kind of thing I get really excited about. It might seem a bit obscure, a bit techy, but I know it’ll make a real difference to those enthusiast cyclists who are still going off on rides.”

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Bike blog | The Guardian RSS

London’s cycle network overhaul has come to a standstill

Bike theft affects the young and poor most – why is it not taken seriously?

'We need more people to go by bike': meet Amsterdam's nine-year-old junior cycle mayor

Scrapped HS2 bike path 'five times better value than HS2 itself'

The right bike for the right person: a lesson from Isla Rowntree

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