Cycling UK Forum

Dear Sir/Madam

I do not know if any CTC members saw the Jonathan Ross show some weeks ago. Whilst interviewing Sheila Hancock he asked her what she really disliked. To my horror, she replied with such venom how she HATED CYCLISTS, I HATE BLODDY CYCLISTS she added.

They both then went into a most hated attack on cyclists, discussing the best way to bring a cyclist off their cycles - ie., sticking a stick between their spokes, jumping out in front of them etc.

To cut a long story short, an email to the Jonathan Ross show produced no response.

I then wrote to Sheila Hancock suggesting that in a prominent and responsible position on TV she should not take advantage of that position to incite dangerous antics against a group of people.

Her reply was unbelievably ignorant, showing no remorse for her remarks. The letter was not worthy of another reply.

J.B.

The cycle compartment on both the First Great Western High Speed and the new Adelante trains are in coach A which is at the front leaving London but to be found at the rear going the other direction. I have found many cyclists don't bother to unload their bikes when using the limited space available with the result that space can be severely limited. One laden cycle can effectively take up three available spaces to the detriment of any other cyclists wanting to use the train. Also on services going to Cornwall it is quite common to find surf-boards in cycle-racks. So reserve a space if you need to use a particular train.

I have seen reports in newspapers of folk on bikes having points applied to their driving licences. Obviously they were not adequately represented by the legal profession, nor did the courts and magistrates bother to check the limits of their powers. So long as the public remain in ignorance of their rights, the law will dispence injustice!
BTW did you know that the Breathaliser legislation was introduced as part of a motor legislation act, and consequently cannot be applied to those riding bikes? Try to get a copper to get you to blow in the bag, and the evidence should therefore be inadmissable in court. Not that I condone that sort of thing, you understand.....

My advice is take action yourself. You do realise you pay for the Highways Maintenance? The funding comes from the Community Charge which you pay, and from central Government funds, to which you contribute! Your elected local councillors have the responsibility to deliver these services, on your behalf, via the various maintenance contracts negotiated by councils.
Most County Councils operate a website. That may offer an online reporting facility, or a list of phone numbers. Take action yourself, reporting the faults, and keep a reference sheet with dates, locations and the council's Reference Number.
Try to find out the time taken to fix faults. My county provides an excellent service, and the rare service failures are investigated and acted upon.
Across the county border is a 3rd world county. Money they request for Highways Maintence is reallocated to vote-winning areas, such as Education or Social Services. This robbery is permitted by law, yet we hear nothing from the CTC on such issues. The elected councillors decided to spend the remaining budget on maintaining the busy roads. That left the unclassified roads to fall into ruin. Highways reports were ignored for months or years. Parish Councils were ignored. This happens because of the almost total lack of independant scrutiny of the Highways Maintenance system. After all, the elected Councillors were the ones responsible for the misallocation of funds, so they won't rock the boat by monitoring their service. And it's no good lambasting the various jobsworths for failing to deliver the service, as their masters made the decisions. If they complain, their masters will mark their card when it comes to promotion or redundancy. Private firms may lose their contract if they complain about their inadequate budgets! So we have a system designed to ensure failure. With railtrack such parallels can cause a major incident, which attract scrutiny and retribution. With Highways Maintenance there is no such scrutiny.
It's up to us to make sure the job gets done, and that requires an understanding of how the system works both in practice, and in the political environment. Don't rely on others, do it yourself; and be assertive. Just remember how hard the Councils will be if you try to make a claim. You will be faced with solicitors letters denying liability, statements that it was your fault, suggestions that you are making a false claim, assurances that the council's contractors had recently carried out an inspection and found no fault (Yeah, really!). Another County Council agreed an increase in budget for legal services so they could more effectively fight claims for damages; but did they increase the maintenance budget to prevent the claims arising?
There are also tricks played to give misleading statistics on repairs. An example was the time taken to repair a "Dangerous Pothole": 48 hours may be the set standard, but the pothole could be left for weeks after being reported by you as Dangerous before it was visited. Only after an Inspector had visited the site could it be officially categorised as "Dangerous", then it could be repaired in 48 hours to meet the target set.
So long as cyclists leave it to others, there is little chance of an effective system being put into operation in those areas where political graft is the norm.

If your DA has co-operation with their local Right to Ride officers and the RTR's have a rapport with the Highways Agency and County Councils, then report it to them. BUT you will need to give exact location of the fault, best of all a digital photo. With the photo the authority will be able to see the situation and what needs to be done. I have emailed pictures to the authorities and had action within a few days.

The thing that struck me is that the shop does not offer 27 x 1 1/4 tyres- there must be loads of CTC members out there still using these tyres, on their second best bike if not their best.

I have always relied on a full-sized frame-fit Blackburn pump. Their Air-stick mini-pumps are better than most of that type, but if touring you need a big un. Topeak are similar quality I believe.
You raise the old chestnut about having to deflate tyres before flights. The jobsworths at the airports have been trained to counter the risks of pressurized (sic) containers exploding in flight. As a bike tyre is pressurised, they have to be seen to take action. In reality a tyre is designed to handle up to 7-8 BAR when ridden, with a safety margin on top. As the additional pressure from ground level to stratosphere cannot exceed another 1 BAR, it remains within the design tolerances. But when tyres are deflated by the jobsworths, there is a risk of inner tubes being trapped under the tyre beading, and bursting after being reinflated and ridden away from the airport. That can put the rider at risk of being killed in traffic. One might have thought that the CTC could have sorted out this nonsense by now, but then again....

If you wish to go for 40 spokes at the back, eg on a camping iron as I did, then the Shimano XT Tandem hub can be fitted with the shorter axle from the XT MTB hub. DRC make their ST19 rim in 36 & 40 hole drillings. Personally I went the whole hog by having the frame made to accept the 145mm tandem axle, which makes the wheel almost dishless with 9 speed.

Where in the Highway Code you the words "YOU MUST" or "YOU MUST NOT" in red capital letters, then the rule is LAW.

Overtaking a car by using a cycle lane is legal, see Rule 139. You can overtake on the left if a vehicle is indicating a right turn, and also if traffic is moving slowly in lanes, and your lane is moving faster than the lane on your right, then you can overtake on the left. So if the traffic is moving slowly, and you have a nice empty cycle lane, you can overtake on the left.

Advanced stop lines without a cycle feeder lane are probably illegal, as the diagrams in the regulations governing their design and installation do not include ones without feeder lanes. Entering the box if there is no feeder lane or a gap in the first stop line is illegal, as all traffic has to stop at the first stop line that they come to. This makes an ASL with no feeder lane a completely useless bit of road graffiti. You should cross into the cycle box anyway, as this is obviously what the local authority intends. There may well be an interesting test case one day.....

With regard to your reversing motorist problem: if you mean that the driver is doing a three-point turn, then it is usual round here for other drivers and cyclists to stop and wait until the turner has finished. Could be different in other parts of the country, but could explain the bad-mouthing that you are getting.

I wonder if they still build their own frames as there is no indication on their website that they do. It may be that they are built in Taiwan like so many quality frames nowdays.

On am planning a cycle caming trip in the summer which will involve taking a Great Western train from Paddington to the west country - Gloucester. I know their regulations for bikes - i.e. that they can accommodate them and that I will need to reserve a space.

But for the trip the bike will be very heavily loaded with tent etc so I will probably need to unload it to fit in the cycle racks. Does anyone know whether this will be a problem? Has anyone good or bad experiece of taking a heavily laden bike on that route.

For an A2 design project im looking at designing, a low cost system for easy transport of a rucksack on a bike.
Aimed at commuters, shoppers, leisure, school cyclists etc; who may have to carry heavy loads of books etc with a rucksack on a bike and on their back. The system would allow any rucksack to be easily and safely attached to the back of a bike, i know there are specific products which cross between a panier and a rucksack but are often expensive and hard to find.
Any one got any comments on the design idea or knowledge of similar products on the market?

Ear plugs are not really a good idea for cyclists as you need to be able to hear the traffic noises around you, especially the sound of cars coming up behind, in busy side streets, when unless you have mirrors fitted it is hard to know what traffic behind you is doing.
But if you really need them may I suggest just wearing one earplug only, facing the main direction of greatest sound volume from traffic, this way you still have some idea of car movement behind.
And bicyclists who are sounding their bells/horns to get you to move over to let them past!

Currently, you can pursue damages claims through the civil courts. Where there is a criminal conviction relating to the same matter, it will be easier. You can either pay a lawyer directly or use a "no win, no fee" contract.

Not sure the CTC could add much value to the process beyond the current legal advice service and their contacts with cycle-aware legal firms.

You can also go to Cambodia without any health insurance, save yourself a packet of money and most likely get away with that too!

What I know is more cycling holidays have been disrupted by snapping rear wheel spokes than any other single factor, and the best insurance against that is more spokes. But with the right sorts of spokes and skilled tensioning of them, 36 can be enough. By the right spokes I mean thicker 13/14g single-butted (e.g. Sapim Strong) on the right where the tension is high and thinner 14/17g double-butted (e.g. Sapim Laser) on the left where the tension is low. With that arrangement, crossed 3, and skilled building you can be pretty confident of avoiding spoke fatigue.

It's just a matter of how much peace of mind you want. More spokes always = less worries. And for what little they weigh and cost, it's very cheap insurance. Admitedly though, hubs and rims with more than 36 holes can be expensive and hard to find.

Remember that the front wheel however, carries only 1/3 of the total weight (even if you also have front panniers), no drive torque and is not weakend by dishing. Provided you don't crash, front wheels have an easy life. The likelihood of crashing in a race is indeed the only reason racing bikes have the same number of spokes in front.

So the weight weenies amongst us would be best advised (unless they're in the habit of crashing!) to reduce their front wheel to 24 spokes before taking the rear below 36.

Even tandems have less weight on the front wheel than the back. Mine naturally has a 48-spoke rear wheel, but I saved myself a load of unnecessary expense (and a small amount of weight) with a 36-spoke front.