Ride London - Does it help the cause of cycling?

[Sweep]

i'm sorry.
Are you, amidst your rant, saying that no provision was made for the access of emergeny services?

[poetd]

No, sorry, I just foolishly thought for a second that other people who don't cycle might deserve to live, but have realised my error now.
Apologies.

[Sweep]

No, sorry, I just foolishly thought for a second that other people who don't cycle might deserve to live, but have realised my error now.
Apologies.

i'll ask again.
Are you saying no provision was made for the access of emergency vehicles if needed?
(Note - my general understanding is that this would include ambulance, fire, police. But not ocado delivery vans)

[poetd]

i'll ask again.
Are you saying no provision was made for the access of emergency vehicles if needed?
(Note - my general understanding is that this would include ambulance, fire, police. But not ocado delivery vans)

It's irrelevant if there was.

There SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN!

If you can't cycle to hospital or cycle to get your own water to put a fire out then you deserve to die.
I get it now!

[mjr]

i'll ask again.
Are you saying no provision was made for the access of emergency vehicles if needed?
(Note - my general understanding is that this would include ambulance, fire, police. But not ocado delivery vans)

It's irrelevant if there was.

There SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN!

If you can't cycle to hospital or cycle to get your own water to put a fire out then you deserve to die.
I get it now!

You don't get it. No-one is saying that. Emergency access was provided. Not to do so would have been as unreasonable as, well, letting motorists dominate all roads 24x7x365 and believing the wild exaggerations about being made prisoners in their homes and deny all event closures...

[mjr]

Every bum on a saddle helps to make cycling more normal.

I don't believe this is true.
If the rider him or herself is clearly recognisable and dressed in normal everyday clothes your statement is true. However the sight of someone in the anything but normal garb of a sporting cyclist is quite repulsive to many and certainly a disincentive to become engaged with the activity of cycling.
Sadly many people in the UK are unable to differentiate between sport and utility cycling, to the detriment of the latter.

I was a lycra wearer for about 20 years of my cycling, including on my commute, and over that period lycra wearing became less unusual. Today no-one thinks anything of it if they see a cyclist in lycra. When I started wearing lycra it was almost an old fashioned thing, worn by ageing time triallists with grey hair. Now it is worn by a wide age spectrum and people with widely varying fitness levels. Lycra, in short, is not unusual anymore. Here in Wales it is even worn by the national rugby team, by joggers and folk in the gym. People doing exercise. And doing exercise is not a freak thing anymore. It is a variety of normal, as lycra is.

You can probably make an argument for lycra in general being usual because it's now in lots of clothes and quite difficult to avoid, but many people do still think of cyclists wearing only lycra as strange freaks. Like this comment from a facebook group local to me a few days ago (on a post which mentioned cycling but was not really about it as such): "Yea looking like bellend in all that dayglo spandex lycra and being hated by other road users" - someone pointing out that you can ride in any clothes got another reply "do you mean to say blokes dress like that out of choice"

Of course people should be able to wear whatever they want and if you're comfortable with your bulges and bumps on show through thin skintight stuff, all power to you, but I do sort of agree with Ron that we need more people who wear ordinary clothes cycling too if we want it to seem normal behaviour to most people.

And maybe Wales is doing better than eastern England, but sadly people here still aren't exercising much and we're still rolling towards a health crisis and I don't think Ride London and its annual extreme-challenge mentality is going to change that much. It'll be like the various marathons and half-marathons which don't increase walking levels much, do they?

[pwa]

[
And maybe Wales is doing better than eastern England, but sadly people here still aren't exercising much and we're still rolling towards a health crisis and I don't think Ride London and its annual extreme-challenge mentality is going to change that much. It'll be like the various marathons and half-marathons which don't increase walking levels much, do they?

I'm not finding a lot to disagree with you about on this. Wales is not that great when it comes to obesity levels, but you do see more people power walking, jogging, cycling and going to the gym, and lycra is common to all those activities to some extent. I think it is true to say that obvious lycra is a much more common sight that it was twenty years ago, and it isn't confined to cycle sport. Lycra is normal attire for recreational exercise these days. I suppose there will always be people who moan about anyone who dresses differently to themselves but frankly they need to get a life.