Cycling UK Forum

A few have had favourably things to say about subsidising some types of transport. But why should any mode of transport be subsidised? One could argue that cars are receiving by far the largest subsidy, public transport the least and if governments subsidised neither the latter and cycling would look much more attractive. At present car drivers pay little towards (help me out):

Health costs related to road trauma
Pollution (visual , noise, air, water, fuel transport 'accidents', soil)
Externalities of the manufacturing process
Costs of proper disposal and recycling of vehicles.
Cost of danger presented to other road users
Cost of inconvenience to other road users.
Opportunity cost of land use for driving and car storage (real estate value)
Global warmings effect on other countries
Travel delays to other vehicles including spoiled goods (currently borne by consumers of the good)
Costs of paying for obesity and sedentery lifestyle related illness

If car drivers were paying something like the true cost of these externalities (I admit their values are debateable) there would not be so much driving, it would cost too much. I suspect the cost of public transport would rise too but not by as much as that of driving. Then maybe we would not be living miles away from our shops and places of work, the true cost of all the unneccessary travel we do would be revealed.

Road pricing would be the best method as different roads would have different costs. Driving past the Houses of parliament in the rush hour would be bloody expensive compared to driving the highlands at midnight. Fuel taxes are a blunt and inaccurate indicator of the costs involved and politically unacceptable. Road pricing could work.

Hi there,
I am in the early stages of planning a ride from Lisbon to Kiev this summer. I do quite allot of road cycling but this is way out of my experience and I could use some advice from someone who has done something similar or knows about this sort of ride. It would be even better for me to ring you and have a chat if possible. The things I'm trying to estimate are costs, journey time, equipment needed etc.
Any advice would be fantastic and more than appreciated.
Thank you

This is why I hate cars:
I also grew up in a rural community, but our village had plenty of shops: a Co-Op, baker’s, hardware shop (including drill bits), two butchers, greengrocer, post office, bank, clothes shop and library. You could get almost anything you needed, and if they didn’t have it would get it for you. The Co-Op and baker even delivered locally. There was a daily bus service to the nearest town. Things were localised, you didn’t need to travel for them.
Not any more.
The county town (Cambridge) underwent a high-tech high-wage expansion. Now the village is a dormitory for motorised commuters. You’ll be lucky to get a bus once a week, the only places still open are the pubs, and the housing is priced out of the reach of local families.
This is entirely because of the existence of the motor car. It allows the sort of commuting distances involved here, and the out-of-town shopping that has killed off the local retailers. There are more people in the village now, but there is no community any more. The roads are full of people hurling themselves between work, home, and out-of-town shopping centre. There’s no connection with anywhere, just a lot of destinations to be reached as quickly as possible. My “land of lost content” wasn’t lost, it’s a road-kill victim.
How did we get conned into this? It’s all a big trick. Goods and services used to have to come to where people were. Now we are expected to travel huge distances to work and shop in centralised locations. Certainly it’s efficient for the businesses and employers, keeps their costs down and profit up; but we’re expected to pay for the transport costs of getting ourselves there. Instead of one van delivering to a local retailer, we’ve got 50 or more cars driving to the mega-mart. Perhaps just to get a pint of milk. Meanwhile the local Co-Op is converted into ‘Georgian style’ flats. It’s insane.

Anyone doing this. I have seen racks for the suspension forks. I have also read about people using trailer. Is there anyone that has done either and what do you think.
I have two Specialized Bikes a Sirrus and a StumpJumper. I don't envisage doing more than 50 miles per day.

Kerry,
Get a copy of Chelmsford council's map, "Get on your bike and cycle around Chelmsford".
This shows that you can cycle from the town centre on shared tarmac footpath/cycleways:
1 West to Writtle Ag Coll and St John's Green. The western km of this is new and might not be on their map.
2 North, the Chelmer valley to Valley Bridge Rd.
3 West to Chelmer Village.
On each of these you can see ducks and swans and the occasional Great Crested Grebe.
Look at www.sustrans.org.uk. There is a linear cycleway on the old railway out of Braintree. I don't know what the surface is like.

3 days, it's not enough! See www.visitshetland.com, lots of ideas there.
Lerwick the capital, has an excellent SYHA hostel and camp site and selection of B&B. Museum there gives an insight to the locality. Best to book ahead if planning to spend a night out of Lerwick. Cycling can be quite energetic,hilly, and there's the wind! Visiting the Broch on Mousa is an interesting expedition. Or a trip to Bressay, birds & cliff scenery. There is a TIC in Lerwick with all the info you would want.

So what alternative is there to "rationing by price"?

Whatever you propose I am sure that the rich will use their money to find a way round it.

In one country they banned the driving of cars with odd and even numberplates on alternate Sundays. The rich bought another car.

In Britain the roads are often jammed anyway. The rich get helicopters.

Everywhere people get banned from driving (for a little while) when they do it really badly. The rich get a chauffeur.

Any kind of rationing you care to try boils down to price in the end. The only thing worth discussing is how we may use the price mechanism to alter people's choices. The rich are also influenced, albeit to a degree, by that mechanism. They didn't get that way by squandering their money on bad choices!

There is a difference between the wheels. The top one is the one that has a small amount of free play from side to side. This allows some float in the chain position to soak up tolerances without noisy running.

Any first hand information for B & B's and any other cycling info I might need. Places not to miss.
I only have 3 days in Shetland so want to make the most of my time up there.
Thank you
Liz

Does anyone have any practical experience of cycle hire close to Schipol Airport please?
I'm looking specifically for somewhere that has child-sized bikes available, something that I've found not too common in NL .
(I worked in Arnhem for a year so I'm familiar with the Fietsen scene over there)

Recently I saw a car pulling slowly out of a T juntion into the path of a Motorcycle, both vehicles where going slowly at the time, the car driver did not seem to see the bike at all.
A few vehicles passed by and the car moved forward again but the driver still did not see the bike, in the end the motorcyclist had to stop in the middle of the road and sound his horn to avoid the car pulling out on him. I belive some drivers just dont see the bikes, perhaps because they don't expect them to be there among the traffic, they are only looking for other car's.
Pat.

Old, obsolete sizes of tyre are unfortunately the sort of thing most people will only spend a small amount of money on, in order to keep an old bike on the road, so it's not that attractive to the mail-order firms and more Halfords stock-in-trade, so best try there. Failing that, you need the sort of relationship with your local lightweight dealer that makes it worth his while to place an unprofitable special order with a supplier he maybe doesn't normally use.

32-597 (26×1¼) tyres are still made, but only basic quality by only a few firms. 26×1.25, by the way, denotes a completely different size, 32-559, that is readily available.

Helmets, without doubt, are trouble magnets! Every one I know who wears a helmet has had a serious accident. I went climbing once in The Isle of Sky and only one of us was wearing a helmet, whilst sitting on a ledge eating our butties, a large rock bounced down the cliff and hit our hatted friend square on the bonce.
Another time we were proceeding down a hill, and all three of my armoured headed friends slipped on a manhole cover & disappeared into a large rhubarb patch on the other side of the wall (snigger).
Yet again while descending into Reeth having had a pint or two at that noble Tavern known as Tan Hill, my polystyrene protected companion lost touch with the tarmac and tested the cheese grater properties of a newly surfaced road.
'I’ in the best of health, accompanied my concused and damaged mate back in the ambulance, and had to spend the next twenty miles listening to the lady paramedic trying to tell ‘me’ how silly I was not being helmeted, sadly my statistics fell on brainwashed ears. I spent the rest of the afternoon in the hospital being berated by every passing nurse as I sat next to my friend who was bearing painful testament to what a helmet can do.
On a ride while actually wearing the appropriate head gear a wasp flew into the front slots & I almost rode into the wall trying to get the dam contraption off .
To ride un hatted makes a chap very aware of his vulnerability and hence take more notice of road conditions. I’ll wear a helmet in a large group or ‘off road’ because there’s more things out of your control, but on my own or with only a couple of us Ill stick to letting the wind blow through where my hair use to be, and if I do fall off and bang my nut, It’ll be my fault & my head.

I was cycling fairly regularly, out on club runs, to about 6 months. I could probably have carried on another month or so, but happened to not have any weekends free. After that, I found I could not get on and off my large diamond frame bike. I did a few very, very short rides, just up and down the road, late on, with a smaller bike, which I found an enjoyable form of gentle exercise.
You get so that you are very, very slow on the uphills, and you keep wanting to stop and go to the loo, and you go rather fast downhill - a toptube comes in handy here for resting the bump on. You also do not want to strain yourself with lugging eg over stiles etc. Your wife has probably worked all this out by now.
Broadly, your assumption of common sense is correct. I would not advise anyone to start cycling when pregnant, but those of us who are cyclists already have no problems continuing until sheer physical impossibilty comes into play.
There is the story of course of the woman who cycled down to the hospital in labour, remembered she'd left toothbrush behind, cycled back to get it, returned to hospital and had the baby. This may be apocraphyl.

I was cycling fairly regularly, out on club runs, to about 6 months. I could probably have carried on another month or so, but happened to not have any weekends free. After that, I found I could not get on and off my large diamond frame bike. I did a few very, very short rides, just up and down the road, late on, with a smaller bike, which I found an enjoyable form of gentle exercise.
You get so that you are very, very slow on the uphills, and you keep wanting to stop and go to the loo, and you go rather fast downhill - a toptube comes in handy here for resting the bump on. You also do not want to strain yourself with lugging eg over stiles etc. Your wife has probably worked all this out by now.
Broadly, your assumption of common sense is correct. I would not advise anyone to start cycling when pregnant, but those of us who are cyclists already have no problems continuing until sheer physical impossibilty comes into play.
There is the story of course of the woman who cycled down to the hospital in labour, remembered she'd left toothbrush behind, cycled back to get it, returned to hospital and had the baby. This may be apocraphyl.