Big Bike revival ... yet more helmet normalising!

[gaz]

CUK don't ask as far as I'm aware, I've only been a member for 10 years and never once seen any info re submitting photos, I have seen that they often use stock images that they pay for or get permission to use.

Not even once? The editor replied directly to one of your own posts on another of your threads asking for images. Any suggestion that you either overlooked or forgot about that is implausible.

[The utility cyclist]

CUK don't ask as far as I'm aware, I've only been a member for 10 years and never once seen any info re submitting photos, I have seen that they often use stock images that they pay for or get permission to use.

Not even once? The editor replied directly to one of your own posts on another of your threads asking for images. Any suggestion that you either overlooked or forgot about that is implausible.

good spot, I must have missed the reply since it didn't quote me and I didn't reply/acknowledge the post by Dan Joyce, implausible to you maybe but I don't read every page/response of every thread, I'm not that obsessed as you seem to be trawling through my posts from my previous username.
good for you though.

[PH]

They don't want to show any cyclists sans plastic hat and/or hi-vis doing anything they would consider to be 'risky' or outside their little cocoon of normality.

Yet they do, I gave an example from the website earlier in this thread, there's plenty of others. You consider it promoting normality, I consider it reflecting reality.

[pjclinch]

They don't want to show any cyclists sans plastic hat and/or hi-vis doing anything they would consider to be 'risky' or outside their little cocoon of normality.

Yet they do, I gave an example from the website earlier in this thread, there's plenty of others. You consider it promoting normality, I consider it reflecting reality.

Indeed.

Here's a picture of Pedal on Parliament 2018 in Edinburgh, where a few thousand folk rode through the streets to push a cycle-centric manifesto for change.

To put this ride in to perspective, the roads were closed and it was at jogging pace, so the requirement for helmets and hi-viz was not what you'd call great. There were no mentions of either in any of the event details, there were first-aiders on hand, police escorts, and yet... this is what people who consider themselves "cyclists" choose to wear on a practically guaranteed safe ride.



They're wearing what they feel is normal and reasonable to ride a bike. If you turn up at such an event as a photographer and capture the mode then you'll have lots of people in helmets and a fair few in dayglo. If you show any more than occasional folk without it will take a somewhat deliberate effort and not be representative.

Pete.

[philg]

To put this ride in to perspective, the roads were closed and it was at jogging pace, so the requirement for helmets and hi-viz was not what you'd call great

Perhaps they were the ones that didn't teleport directly to the event, but had to ride through 'normal' roads to get there?
Just a thought

[Psamathe]

A bit of a tanget but Newsnight last night had a report on underinvestment outside London and part of the report included a discussion on new cycle lanes in Manchester and had a short bit discussing them with BBC presenter and Chris Boardman riding on one of their lanes discussing them, BBC presenter with helmet, Chris Broadman without helmet. So a 50:50 split was not bad. But I was surprised the BBC still transmitted the bit showing somebody on a bike without a helmet!

Ian

[pjclinch]

To put this ride in to perspective, the roads were closed and it was at jogging pace, so the requirement for helmets and hi-viz was not what you'd call great

Perhaps they were the ones that didn't teleport directly to the event, but had to ride through 'normal' roads to get there?
Just a thought

Well on the one hand fair comment, but on the other, take the folk on/in the bakfietsen. Not like they haven't got anywhere to put stuff, is it?

And the point was reflecting normality. That's what a huge group of people congregating on the ride felt was necessary to get to it, so that would be a reflection of normality.

Pete.

[mjr]

To put this ride in to perspective, the roads were closed and it was at jogging pace, so the requirement for helmets and hi-viz was not what you'd call great

Perhaps they were the ones that didn't teleport directly to the event, but had to ride through 'normal' roads to get there?
Just a thought

Well on the one hand fair comment, but on the other, take the folk on/in the bakfietsen. Not like they haven't got anywhere to put stuff, is it?

That would still require a conscious decision to carry the helmets rattling around in the bucket rather than on one's head, wouldn't it?

And the point was reflecting normality. That's what a huge group of people congregating on the ride felt was necessary to get to it, so that would be a reflection of normality.

I'm not sure whether you're using the same sense of normality: you seem to be using it as what's widespread, whereas I think CUK was being accused of promoting helmets as a norm/standard/requirement.

[Psamathe]

I think an interesting aspect to the discussion is emerging which raises the question "Should CTC/CUK reflect what the current situation is or should thye reflect what they would wish were the situation".

e.g. to encourage cycling should they be publicising photos of cyclists surrounded by buses and tipper trucks only inches away in the pouring rain breathing in clouds of exhaust fumes (maybe exaggerated reality?) or should they publicise photos of cyclists on dedicated 2m wide hard surfaced cycle lanes in glorious sunshine ...? Which would encourage more people to start cycling. I suspect skewing their images to present a more idealised situation already happens, so why not for helmets (to present their aims to present cycling as a normal everyday activity not requiring special gear ...).

Ian

[mjr]

They're wearing what they feel is normal and reasonable to ride a bike. If you turn up at such an event as a photographer and capture the mode then you'll have lots of people in helmets and a fair few in dayglo. If you show any more than occasional folk without it will take a somewhat deliberate effort and not be representative.

If the above photo is representative of Pedal on Parliament, Edinburgh cycling must be in an even worse state than I realised!

It's a problem with events - thanks to BC forcing so many to compel helmets and CUK refusing to make it clear they're not required, so many people assume all mass-start events require them now - but I think they just have to pick which events.

Here's a photo of Cambridge at the start of this week's Reach Ride, which is not primarily political and is on open roads, and while there may still be lots of people in helmets and a fair few in dayglo, they're distinctly in the minority, even in this BBC coverage, who lurrrve the H&H and include them as much as possible. The interview shown after this crowd picture seemed angled oddly with the interviewee right at one side of shot and then I realised it meant three brightly-clad helmet users were the most prominent background figures

[pjclinch]

They're wearing what they feel is normal and reasonable to ride a bike. If you turn up at such an event as a photographer and capture the mode then you'll have lots of people in helmets and a fair few in dayglo. If you show any more than occasional folk without it will take a somewhat deliberate effort and not be representative.

If the above photo is representative of Pedal on Parliament, Edinburgh cycling must be in an even worse state than I realised!

It's a problem with events - thanks to BC forcing so many to compel helmets and CUK refusing to make it clear they're not required, so many people assume all mass-start events require them now - but I think they just have to pick which events.

For Some Values Of "mass start events". If it's something like PoP where you turn up and join in, as opposed to signing your name, paying for your Participant Pack including medal and complimentary slice of Soreen and pledging to raise £x for charity, then I don't think there's much onus on people to do other than the usually do. But for "serious cyclists" in Embra, it's entirely normal to wear a lid. While I wish it were otherwise I don't think it's a fair indicator that cycling there is in a particularly bad state, at least on a UK average basis.

Here's a photo of Cambridge at the start of this week's Reach Ride, which is not primarily political and is on open roads, and while there may still be lots of people in helmets and a fair few in dayglo, they're distinctly in the minority, even in this BBC coverage, who lurrrve the H&H and include them as much as possible. The interview shown after this crowd picture seemed angled oddly with the interviewee right at one side of shot and then I realised it meant three brightly-clad helmet users were the most prominent background figures

I don't think I'm stretching credibility to suggest that Cambridge is something of an outlier. I wish that were otherwise too.

Pete.

[mjr]

But for "serious cyclists" in Embra,

Which would bring us back to whether the Big Bike Revival imagery should be showing "serious cyclists" or everyday ones?

I don't think I'm stretching credibility to suggest that Cambridge is something of an outlier. I wish that were otherwise too.

Oh for sure it's near one end of the range - although I picked it mainly because it's the most recent big ride that I've got photos of - but it's the end of the range that CUK should be trying to make more of the country look like, so surely it should be used as source material at least sometimes?

In general, I didn't find much about Cambridge on http://www.cyclinguk.org but maybe I'm looking in the wrong places.

[Wanlock Dod]

Something like the Big Bike Revival seems to me to be exactly the kind of situation where presenting images which are representative of the situation that CUK would like to achieve (more ordinary people getting about on bikes) could be appreciably more productive than reflecting the status quo of widespread helmet wearing. I am certainly not aware of any evidence to suggest that non-cyclists are encouraged to take to cycling by seeing people on bikes wearing protective equipment, whereas I can well imagine that seeing ordinary people getting about on bikes in ordinary clothes might seem a good deal more inclusive and encouraging.

I don’t really have too much of a problem with reflecting the status quo when they are preaching to the converted, but when trying to tempt people into using bikes more, especially for useful everyday journeys, I can’t help feeling that safety equipment is probably a bit off putting.

[pjclinch]

But for "serious cyclists" in Embra,

Which would bring us back to whether the Big Bike Revival imagery should be showing "serious cyclists" or everyday ones?

And of course part of the game/problem is that in much of the UK they largely amount to the same thing. Those folk at PoP were, perhaps by dint of getting to the event on "everyday" roads, wearing what they wear for "everyday" cycling every, errr, day. And the people around them will think of them as Cyclists, doing weird dangerous stuff that they wouldn't contemplate themselves (for the sort of person who'd ride a Bakfiets to PoP, check out the excellent Mummy's Gone a Cycle blog).

I don't think I'm stretching credibility to suggest that Cambridge is something of an outlier. I wish that were otherwise too.

Oh for sure it's near one end of the range - although I picked it mainly because it's the most recent big ride that I've got photos of - but it's the end of the range that CUK should be trying to make more of the country look like, so surely it should be used as source material at least sometimes?

I think there's a case for that in Big Bike Revival and the like, but you've also got the issue that if where you ride it's Cyclists in All The Gear it is entirely possible that looking at somewhere folk aren't riding in fear will create a feeling along the lines of "well, that's all very well for them, but it's different here". And we know that that line of thought exists because we hear it all the time in surveys about why folk don't ride bikes.

In other words, it will be quite impossibly to get it completely right, because it's really about change management which is (a) difficult and (b) there's always someone saying you're doing it wrong (wrong way, wrong speed, wrong goal, some combination thereof). And with that in mind I think it's important not to make CUK out to be the enemy: we've got quite enough of the Real Thing as it is.

Pete.

[Lance Dopestrong]

I wear what I like o the bike, and screw the safety brigade.

The very people who tell me to wear fluorescent depleted uranium chain mail, are the same people who buy a new car and would pay extra for a snazzier stereo or bigger alloys, but wouldn't dream of paying extra for the extra airbags or the model with the more sophisticated stability controls. They are, by and large, unhinking hypocrites so ignoring them is the best policy.