Cycling UK Forum

I am at the moment trying to get my daughter more experienced and confident in cycling on the road and also off road.

As well as my experience as a cyclist I feel that it would be good to get some structured and impartial training from somewhere else. I'm sure she gets fed up with dad showing/telling her what to do.

I live near Cannock in South Staffordshire and would like to ask all you fellow cyclists where I could get her onto a recommended cyclist course.

Many thanks.

I'm not saying that I agree with speeding, i don't. I ride my bike to work 220miles a month at night.

However i'm sure its a good campaign to highlight the speeds outside of a school and can only help reduce the speeds of motorists.

But when it comes to issuing fines or taking someone to court I can see it been dismissed. Having a child gather evidence on behalf of the police will not stand up in court. Im not a lawyer or anything but it seem like common sense to me.

meic wrote:Interested to hear of anyone's experiences of being stopped by Police in speedtraps.

Today the Police were running a speedtrap at my son's school. The kids got to aim the guns and the Police would stop speeders and offer the choice of prosecution or going in to explain themselves to the kids.

As I was going to be cycling past and I knew my son might be on the gun I thought it might be interesting to see what the Police would do. It is quite easy to go fast at the location and I had the road to myself.

On arriving there was no-one out on the road checking and I saw all the kids in the carpark talking to the Police.

When my son got home he said they caught 4 motorists speeding and 3 failed to stop when waved down.
He also said that the Police had gunned me as they were hiding behind the school gates. I was recorded as doing 74mph in a 30 limit!

The Police told the kids they would have stopped me but they werent ready to act as the were no cars around and they were off-guard.
My son who was well-brieffed asked them wasnt it true that the law only applied to motorised vehicles? He said most of the Police didnt seem to know this but the one with the equipment said Yes that was true but they would stop a cyclist and have a word with them.

My speedo was playing up that day but I know I often use the brakes to keep down to 30 around there. I guess I may have been doing 37 and the laser caught my spokes. Or of course my son was getting everything wrong as usual.

This part interests me "Today the Police were running a speedtrap at my son's school. The kids got to aim the guns and the Police would stop speeders and offer the choice of prosecution or going in to explain themselves to the kids."

If the children are holding the guns at the time the speed was detected I could see some drivers when going to court, pointing out the evidence gathered on the speeding offence what produced by a child. I'm sure that I have read somewhere that some of these new community civilian volunteer speed gun traps are more of a slap on the wrist/warning to speeders and can only be enforced with a fine etc by the camera partnership operators and the police. Is this true ..........

Not saying that its not good to reduce the speed of motorists by schools but i'm not sure it can be enforcable if the gun is been held by a child and not a police officer???

It's not my intention to be unfair to the site itself, I am just a little confused if not more so now how the District Associations and sections are organised.

If i go to the CTC main web site and look for the clubs in staffordshire I get Lichfield CTC section, Wombourne CTC section and also South Staffordshire CTC District Association.

So I click on South Staffordshire CTC DA. This then gives me a contact point of the Chase Cycling web site. I then click onto Chase Cycling and then on the left it has South Staffs DA. I then click on this to find South Staffs DA with its sections listed below. As seen here:-

http://www.chasecycling.co.uk/cyclists% ... hire%20D.A.

It lists the sections of South Staffs DA as:-

Walsall
Lichfield
Dudley
Wombourne
Wolverhampton

Only two of the above are in south staffs. I do understand that you say

"It's a site put together (on a purely voluntary basis I believe) by people who are members of the CTC, and who want to let anybody know where to find CTC sections around that particular area.

Its good that they can list all resources including clubs around a particular area but the above sections are listed or appear to be listed as Sections of the South Staffs DA. So are they saying that these sections are part of the South Staffs DA or not. I am a little confused.

You also point out to me

"I believe that the designation of some older Sections to DAs may stem from the old county system before the instigation of the West Midlands. You'll notice that there is not a West Midlands DA, but a Birmingham and Midland. (although the bit of Walsall near me is South Staffs according to the signage, as was the outlying bit of Wolverhampton when I lived there)."

I went to the main CTC site again and found eight links for the West Midlands. These are below

Birmingham & Midland CTC District Association
Birmingham 50 plus CTC Section
Birmingham Southern Wheelers CTC Section
Dudley CTC Section
North Birmingham CTC Section
Southern Birmingham CTC Section
Walsall CTC Section
Western Birmingham CTC Section

As you say there is not a West Midlands DA, but a Birmingham and Midland. So should Wolverhampton, Walsall and Dudley Sections not be in this Birmingham and Midland DA and not in the South Staffs DA.


So as I said I was looking for a CTC club in South Staffs and to be correct there is only two and thats Wombourne and Lichfield and if I was looking for one in the Chase area there would be none.

If I was looking for a club that used the Chase area which could be each week to only a few times of the year then it could be a vast number. I have no problems with any of these resources been listed but this is not what i was after as even to go to lichfield in my car could take me 30 minutes.

To be honest, what i wanted was to go to a club by bike that would not take me too long to get to. So looking at South Staffs there are only two clubs and these to be honest are a little to far to go.

I do not mean to put down the work done on the Chase Cycling web site, even though feel that it would be more usefull if it was called Midland Cycling. I feel I must be a bit new to how the CTC organise itself and maybe I must get used to some of its traditional and historical ways of doing things.

I live near to Cannock in South Staffs and was looking for a club that I would consider local.

Looked at Chase cycling web page/South Staffs DA, however I would not consider any of the club featured on this site part of the Chase.

http://www.chasecycling.co.uk/index.htm

http://www.chasecycling.co.uk/cyclists% ... hire%20D.A.



CTC Sections

Lichfield - Yes in Staffordshire but not what I would consider the Chase

Wombourne - Yes in Staffordshire but again not part of the Chase.

Walsall - No way is Staffordshire more like the West Midlands and in no way part of the chase.

Dudley - Not in Staffordshire so why listed as part of South staffs DA?

Wolverhampton - Not in staffordshire so also why on South Staffs DA?

Stafford - Not sure about this as it looks like it is listed as a contact and not a club.

So to be honest I can only see Wombourne as the only real South Staffs club but still not part of the Chase.

So no clubs in what I would call in the area of the Chase.

I can't understand why the CTC has all these clubs listed for an area of the country where they do not reside. I'm still looking for a CTC club or maybe any cycling club that is really in the Chase/south staffs area.

Im more suprised that the bikes got taken in the first place. I would not have taken one even if they paid me.

First, i must say that I do like the new forum. If all go's well i am sure CTC could become one of the most used cycling forums.

However a few changes need to be made to the forum sections.

I would generally go along with what ed o brain has suggested for the forum sections, but i must say that for sure that Commuting, Touring/Expedition and Fixes all need there own forum sections.

keep up the good work, and make those forum changes.