Are abandoned cycles left at the Cambridge Railway Station being crushed on the Guided Busway?

I am a bit behind on my posts at the moment – I have four rides (and photographs) and one visit to the Bottisham Airfield Museum to cover to catch up on. However another Bike meets Bus story came out this morning. “Bike is crushed by guided bus after cyclist rides along track” It happened on Saturday, 1^st October and according to the story the cyclist was on the concrete tracks between Swavesey and St Ives where work at both  reducing the flooding on the cycle way and adding a layer of tarmac has temporarily closed cycleway.

As it happens I popped up the cycleway on Sunday, the day after, to take a look at the area of cycleway that floods to see how the works were progressing.  The work started on the 30th August and I was hoping to see some significant progress.

I will cover that ride in a proper post but here is a picture of the current works. As you might imagine there was no repair work taking place on Sunday and I was able to cycle along the length of the cycle between Cambridge and St Ives.

This is typical of the work, ditches are being dug along the side with the cycleway being raised somewhat. I found it quite straightforward cycling on the cycleway. It is not very smooth after the tarmac section up to Swavesey, but it is more uniform and the worst bits are better. 

Two things amaze me, the first is why the cyclist was on the concrete tracks at all. Even at the weekend the buses run quite regularly. The second is why did the bus run over the bicycle?  Whilst I realise that the CGB is not a road, I would assume that bus drivers have been taught about stopping distances. Just because there is an obstruction on the track it doesn’t mean you can run over it.  Are there problems with braking hard on the concrete track I wonder. If one of the brakes on the front wheels is more effective than on the other side it could cause the bus to swerve, which might be problematic on the tracks?

Or are the bus drivers encouraged to call the bluff of anyone on the track – surely not?  I note that the cyclist was also blamed for using earphones – he/she must have had the volume pretty loud not to be able to hear a bus coming. I listen to music and radio programs when cycling and I can always hear the buses some way off – they are bloody noisy buses after all.  Although to be fair the tyre noise on the concrete is much less unpleasant than tyre noise on tarmac.

Ah I now what they are doing  – they are using the CGB tracks to crush the “unwanted” bikes that clog up the Cambridge Railway Station Cycle parks.

The A14 is still a problem though – “Lorry fire forces A14 lane closure”.

On a positive note “Cambridge paramedics to pedal to emergencies on ‘bike ambulance’ – a bit like this one in York perhaps.

And finally some pictures of bicycles not made for two but so what eh, an although I seem usually to link to actresses on their bikes – here is James Marsden in California cycling.