Cycling UK Forum

Auchmill, your pedantry is exasperating. We are not talking about about speed as an abstraction, which can obviously kill no one. We are talking about the speed of motor vehicles, which are driven by people, on roads, with other users, hazards and lapses of judgement. Jumping off cliffs will not kill you, and neither, probably, will the speed at which you fall through the air. Gravity will not kill you either. But this will be no consolation when you hit the ground very hard. I will concede, however, that in the case just mentioned, a speed limit would probably be ineffective…

Just received an email from Sustrans asking for my mobile number to “remind” me to vote for their Connect 2 Project in the so-called People’s Lottery £50m Giveaway. I’m not an advocate of purpose-built cycling facilities (or indeed of distributing public money by such populist methods), and am half tempted to ignore it (or even vote for the Eden Project!) but something tells me it’s churlish to refuse to back a high-profile cyclist-and pedestrian-focused project. I’d like to know what other people think.

I agree broadly with that, glueman. What I was saying was meant to apply more to purpose-built cycle facilities rather than routes or trails made up of bridleways, by-ways and minor roads. And PBCFs (if I may coin another slightly-annoying message-board abbreviation) are taking us a long way off-topic. Since I mentioned them, though, I received an email from Sustrans asking for my mobile number to remind me to vote for their Connect 2 project. I'm in two minds about this, so may take the topic to a more suitable board. See you there?

Ah! I see that the way to increase get the mtb forum is to veer wildly off topic – well done fatbob. For what it’s worth, I don’t think you need to be a mountain biker to feel that cycle paths are, broadly speaking, the least exciting of all the terrain available to cyclists, and that a future in which we are confined to them would be a bleak prospect. The arguments in their favour put forward by glueman are both reasonable and pragmatic, but they do unfortunately indicate the extent to which cyclists are already on the back foot when up against the dominant car culture.

The reasons so many cyclists prefer to use cycle paths are understandable – I often have to remind myself when on the road that it is rare to be struck from behind by same-direction traffic, for it does not always feel true. Which is why it is not enough for confident individual cyclists to behave assertively on the road and advocate the same behaviour to more nervous ones – we must at the same time combat car dominance on every level by pursuing arguments not just about safety but about health, the environment, economics, ideology (sorry, but cars are about the private appropriation of public space) and even aesthetics. Cycle paths can sometimes seem like a solution to some of these problems, but in the end I think they are about sidestepping or delaying the more difficult ones. And that still doesn’t have much to do with mtbs…

That’s true! But I quite like roads– they are good for getting places, even when you do have fat knobbly tyres.

Thanks for the welcome! I think I was expecting to be deluged with abuse about so-called “RLJers”. I guess I took the easy way out by posting here instead of the “On The Road” forum.

But back to the quietness of the mtb section, and of the dearth of CTC mtbers more generally. Considering the volume of sales of mtbs in comparison to the tiny amount of them one sees in what might be thought their natural setting, one might reasonably suspect that these are the bikes most bought and least used – in other words, these are the existing machines that it would be good to get people using instead of their cars. This might mean any number of things. Perhaps the anti-mtb people are right, and mtbs more often function as toys (used or otherwise) rather than “proper” bikes. On the other hand, maybe the versatility and robustness of mtbs makes them an appealing choice for anyone who likes the idea of a bike but is not sure what they intend to do with it – whether or not they make good use of it depends on other factors such as what kind of person they are and what are the social/political/practical conditions encouraging or discouraging its use. Perhaps the CTC is already includes plenty of people who ride mtbs, but don’t identify themselves as “mtbers” (this forum has the tag “anything specific to off-road riding”).

After rambling on at some length, I think I’m of the opinion that it doesn’t matter too much that this forum is quiet, just as long as 1) mtb riders do not feel excluded from the other forums or from the CTC generally and 2) all kinds of cyclists recognise that, as members of a campaigning organisation, the things they have in common are more significant than their differences.

As glueman says, “Making a bike you could ride 50 miles on of which 30 is off-road is a much cannier proposition than a downhill headbanger.”

Quite. For those of us who only have one bike and like to ride everywhere, an mtb makes more sense than anything else. I have noticed (admittedly with some degree of envy) that quite a lot of CTC members are multiple bike owners, and indeed hope to join their ranks some pay-days hence. In the meantime, the relative shortcomings of my mtb on tarmac are a small price to pay for its advantages everywhere else. I am in the fortunate position of being able (assuming I get up early enough) to choose a commute to work which includes bridleways over wildlife-rich heathland with extensive sea views, steep rocky climbs and descents, muddy, slippery-rooted woodland and busy urban roads. I do all this on a relatively minimalist, fairly lightweight xc steed which I built myself and of which I am very fond. This does not prevent me from admiring anyone else’s lightning-fast road bike, lovingly kitted-out tourer, or well-maintained old hack.

I joined the CTC only recently – the name of the organisation had left me with the misleading impression that it mainly or only organised and supported group cycle touring. I am pleased to discover that it is a more broad-based organisation with a campaigning/political function. The point being that I think the CTC has something to offer anyone that uses a bike to get from A to B, whether for work, leisure, or the journey in itself. The only cyclists to which CTC is irrelevant are those who never get on their bike without first driving it somewhere in or on their car.

I have been browsing the forum for a while and have been a little hesitant about posting as I indulge in some cycling practices that are widely disapproved-of on these boards (I don’t mean mountain-biking – I mean disobeying some red lights and even occasionally riding on the pavement. But this thread is probably not the place to argue about this). The reason I confess this here is because I think bikes are fundamentally different from cars, and mountain bikes particularly (along, perhaps, with bmxs!) celebrate this difference by refusing to be contained by the road system. Whilst vehicular cycling is an important principle to be adhered to when one is mingling closely with motor vehicles, the ability to hop up the kerb (assuming that there is no pedestrian on it) and disappear up a dusty shortcut joyously demonstrates the difference between the (liberating) bicycle and the (restricting) car.

I’m banging on a bit. Sorry.