I mentioned that I was starting a new Blog. Why you may ask, well for a number of reasons. I like cycling, it is energising and fun and practical and green and cheap and… Yep there are loads of reasons and we all have our own reasons. I guess the important thing is to maximise the pleasure and try not to become a slave to it. Whether that is cycling to work or doing a 24 hour time-trial or whatever it is you do.
There is no doubt that for me having some pleasant cycling facilities encourages me to cycle. Cycling around Cambridge for meetings is pleasant in all but the most foul of weathers because there are cycle routes and cycle parking.
However, even in Cambridge I come across cycling facilities that are really pretty pathetic, despite the best and excellent efforts of the Cambridge Cycling Campaign. I also came across Crap Cycling in Bournemouth which reminded me of Crap Cycling & Walking in Waltham Forest. So as both an homage and just to remind ourselves that our best cycling facilities aren’t that good in comparison to The Netherlands, I created.
I intend to use it to put the pictures of the dodgy facilities that I come across in Cambridgeshire, yes I know – that’s what’s called feature creep. (County rather than City).
| also intended to try out Adsense to see how that worked (sort of related to what I do). However with only one post so far I have been turned down – not enough material. I know I could add it to this Blog, which has over 700 posts, but it seems easier not to.
I have started with my pet hate the cycle parking facilities at the Cambridge Railway Station. I, perhaps in common with other men, had to do a man-dash into the city centre for some last minutes Christmas shopping. it got me thinking, there are bikes all over Cambridge, many of the cycle parking areas are full and quite a lot of fences as well. So clearly there is a demand for easy access into the centre, so why do they often seem to build something and then get annoyed when it overflows. Why not just build some more.
Cycle facilities are pretty cheap compared with roads, yet when they seem to work the powers that be seem to get annoyed. You can almost hear them in their Council Chambers – “harrumph – damned cyclists, just like rats and they get in the way of rich motorists who clearly buy more than those scruffy cyclists. Then when we build something for them they have the temerity to complain.” Of course we know it isn't true.
So on that festive note – here is some cycle parking in the middle of Cambridge – I bet some of them are actually Christmas shopping.
A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, when it will be time for some New Year Resolutions.
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