Has cycling's 'new golden age' been and gone?

[busb]

I think this the golden age is just beginning. We have satnav, electric bikes, more cycle paths than we've ever had and a larger selection of manufacturers / models than we've had in a long time. I see many more people out on bikes too.

Enjoy it while your still able -- my 3 month injury lay off has made me appreciate cycling, the freedom and health benefits it brings much more.

Agreed - though I'm not sure if "Golden Ages" in anything is a useful way of looking at stuff. I was hit in my left thigh during a commute that took a while for the massive bruise to go - my bike damage & clothing was paid for by a mortified young driver. Such happenings do prompt a re-evaluation.

My observation is that the minor roads around where I live in mid-Berks are probably far more dangerous that the straighter & wider major ones & that the level of motorised traffic has now exceeded pre-pandemic levels. Both bikes now sport bar-end mirrors but the jury's out on just how useful my new Garmin radar is in practice. At least I can do light off-road since converting my hybrid.

[pga]

I am old enough to have started cycling just after the War when the roads saw much less motor traffic and even the A1 was cyclable from London to Edinburgh and back again.

The first few months of Covid saw almost a return to those days and with glorious weather it was a delight to be cycling. Alas, that did not last very long and the petrol heads soon returned, seemingly somewhat angry that they now had to share the roads with more cyclists. Close passing incidents are the norm on most rides. It remains to be seen whether the new Highway Code will redress the balance.

Here in Milton Keynes the petrol and diesel shortage is causing widespread panic among the car driving populace. We have cycle/footways usable on foot or bike. We have rental bikes, rental E bikes and rental E scooters, and the buses and trains are still running but, no, we must have our cars.

I just wonder how we are going to challenge climate change.

[Cowsham]

I am old enough to have started cycling just after the War when the roads saw much less motor traffic and even the A1 was cyclable from London to Edinburgh and back again.

You must be in your 80's -- great to be still riding bikes. I remember back about as far as the late 60's but there were a lot of young any racers back then with no dash cams and not much in way of penalties if you hit a cyclist.

I remember I was going with a girl in the late 70's when her brother was killed on a roundabout in daylight. Driver got away Scott free.

[mjr]

I expect it surprises few here that it appears elite sports success has not caused a golden age either: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/ ... alth-games

I also note that a report today says gov spending will rise to 42% of national income due in large part to increasing health costs. As the likes of Peter Walker have been publicising for years, getting people cycling can be "The Miracle Pill" that reduces healthcare costs before they sink the NHS.

So, what does work and how can we convince Johnson, Shapps, Gilligan and co to get a naffing move on?

[mattsccm]

Someone above asks how we will challenge climate change.
As a society we won't until something serious happens and by then it will be too late. By serious I mean cities like London flooding catastrophically and permanently.
I actually believe that it is a lost cause but have little faith in the human race.

[Pete Owens]

So, what does work and how can we convince Johnson, Shapps, Gilligan and co to get a naffing move on?

Cycling is essentially a local activity so what politicians do directly at a national level is not as critical as what happens locally.

However, in our over-centralised state, they do control the purse strings of local spending, but are too remote to see what happens on the ground. What tends to happen is that every local authority has a pet project (typically a new road scheme) The way to get these funded is to make bids to central government for pots of funding that are doled out to meet whatever fad the current minister has - whether that is cutting congestion, improving air quality, segregating cyclists - the list goes on. Local highways officers basically spend their time preparing these bids, which are just a piece of creative writing dressed up with lots of statistics to make whatever scheme they are pushing appear to be designed to meet the aims of the current minister. Occasionally they get lucky and get funding to build their road, and the minister will boast that X million pounds has been spent on whatever their aim supposedly was. However, nobody will check whether the project actually delivered its claimed benefits. Once the money has been spent, the last thing the minister wants is evidence that it hasn't met whatever objective they had set.

The thing that needs to change is to focus on outcomes rather than outputs - ie to fund local highway authorities by results. So if you want to see lots of cycling then measure the amount of cycling in each local authority area and make their transport grant proportional to that figure.
Give them the freedom to achieve those results by whatever means they choose, rather than attempting to dictate specific solutions.

[Ayseven]

People listen to the government and actually try out some cycling lanes. They soon discover half of them go right into traffic, and people get the <i>[inappropriate word removed]</i> scared out if them or worse. They realise the government (s) is completely full of it, has been lying to them, and get back into their car, where they perceive (rightly or wrongly) that they are safer. Also cycling takes a lot of effort, hence the attraction to the modern moped, the ebike.
Also, they go back to the office, instead of working from home, and getting there by bike is not at all practical for most. See reason number 1.

Make the bike lanes lead somewhere meaningful!

[Cowsham]

Someone above asks how we will challenge climate change.
As a society we won't until something serious happens and by then it will be too late. By serious I mean cities like London flooding catastrophically and permanently.
I actually believe that it is a lost cause but have little faith in the human race.

We here on earth have been gifted the luxury of power from fossil fuels for a few hundred years -- will we use this precious one time use resource to just cause climate damage or will we take the opportunity to harness "endless" power before fossil fuels run out ?
I think this is the bigger question.

People have got the idea that there's endless fossil fuels --- this is false. It will run out and sooner than they think. Then there will be great weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Over population is another problem. Will 'artificial intelligence' ( I put that in inverted commas cos it might be the real intelligence ) save us and take over the running of the planet or keep some of us as pets along with the rest of the animals?

You may think that's crackpot ideas but it's just stating facts. Fossil fuels will most definitely run out. Machines will reach an event horizon where their intelligence will exponentially increase and become "woke" --- facts not fiction.

[Pete Owens]

People have got the idea that there's endless fossil fuels --- this is false. It will run out and sooner than they think. Then there will be great weeping and gnashing of teeth.

If only.

The very very much more serious problem is the capacity of the atmosphere to cope with the consequences of burning that fossil fuel. If it was about to run out then that would make solving the climate crisis fairly easy. The difficult task is persuading humanity that even the stuff we already know about needs to be left in the ground.

[Cowsham]

People have got the idea that there's endless fossil fuels --- this is false. It will run out and sooner than they think. Then there will be great weeping and gnashing of teeth.

If only.

The very very much more serious problem is the capacity of the atmosphere to cope with the consequences of burning that fossil fuel. If it was about to run out then that would make solving the climate crisis fairly easy. The difficult task is persuading humanity that even the stuff we already know about needs to be left in the ground.

I would never wish fossil fuels to run out too soon.

[Jules59]

Someone above asks how we will challenge climate change.
As a society we won't until something serious happens and by then it will be too late. By serious I mean cities like London flooding catastrophically and permanently.
I actually believe that it is a lost cause but have little faith in the human race.

One answer to the Fermi paradox is that advancing alien species destroy themselves as a result of their technological advancement ( in ways parallel to ourselves) before they can develop the necessary technology to travel interstellar distances and thus leave no signs of their existence to be detected by us.

[Pete Owens]

People have got the idea that there's endless fossil fuels --- this is false. It will run out and sooner than they think. Then there will be great weeping and gnashing of teeth.

If only.

The very very much more serious problem is the capacity of the atmosphere to cope with the consequences of burning that fossil fuel. If it was about to run out then that would make solving the climate crisis fairly easy. The difficult task is persuading humanity that even the stuff we already know about needs to be left in the ground.

I would never wish fossil fuels to run out too soon.

That is rather like not wishing for your brakes to stop you too soon as you hurtle down steep hill in the rain on a bike with steel rimmed wheels towards a set of red traffic lights at a busy dual carriageway.

[Bmblbzzz]

I think Cowsham is agreeing with you that fossil fuels should not run out, we should leave them in the ground while there's plenty still in there.

[prestavalve]

Machines will reach an event horizon [...] and become "woke"

Or they could just develop intelligence.



But I do love the idea of artificial stupidity: after all, if it can happen to the most intelligent organism we know of, why shouldn't we expect machines to get smart, and then dumb. "The Corden Paradox" is what it'll be called, ironically, because he wasn't in the first place.

[Cowsham]

Machines will reach an event horizon [...] and become "woke"

Or they could just develop intelligence.



But I do love the idea of artificial stupidity:

I think we have plenty of real stupidity already.