Combing my hair….

This is what fear looks like. The brutal realisation that the corners of the Manchester Velodrome are banked at up to 42.5 degrees and therefore the outside of the track is 12 feet above the inside. Pictured just before a two hour taster session organised by Sheffield CTC it was certainly an experience. The knowledge that your bike handling skills as a complete novice to riding fixed on the banked surface are matched by the nine others on the track makes for a certain heightened level of awareness. Actually slowing down was the the bit I found most difficult, and the one person who fell off during the evening did so just as they came to a stop at the rail. Chris Hoy I am not, but then I think I knew that already.

The team pursuit must have been hilarious to watch. Not so much two tightly disciplined groups of riders, more two groups of riders linked nothing more than they were moving in the same general direction.

Lynne Jones talks about a visit to Cambridge by the all party parliamentary cycling group in this video by Carlton Reid.

For those not in the know, Section 106 agreements are referred to, these agreements are often known as ‘planning gain’ where a Local Authority can reach agreement with a developer for community facilities in return for planning permission. As a way of funding cycling facilities they are problematic because honey pot locations such as Cambridge can extract more in return for planning permission than areas desperate for employment. Net result, the environment is developed more in the places which are already attractive, making them even more attractive comparatively.

There is also the wider question of whether paying to improve cyclist specific facilities rather than creating better general cycling conditions by enforcement of a generally safer environment for road users is the the way to go. Having said that, I like the idea of guided bus tracks far more than tram tracks.

Barbara forgets she was on the radio when responding

Of course it isn’t summertime yet, but I was reminded of the Mungo Jerry song this morning, you know where they sing ‘have a drink, have a drive, go out and see what you can find’. Poor old Mungo Jerry. They weren’t to know that their feelgood song embodied an attitude which would become socially unacceptable within a generation.

Now I happen to think that a 20 miles per hour residential speed limit would be a rather good thing. See Twenty’s Plenty for more information. Some people disagree, but then again some people disagreed about the breathalyser when it was introduced. For the next few days you can hear Barbara Castle defending it on the The World This Weekend from 1 October 1967 over on the BBC website here (Go to 18minutes 30 seconds and press play). The killer quote ‘….you’re only a woman, you don’t drive, what do you know about it?’

It is fascinating how participants often try to disenfranchise non-participants as way of winning the argument. Still we remember Barbara and her achievements, her questioner rather less so.

An interesting find in the search for the ultimate utility/commuting bike is the Renovo Panda Urban. With SRAM iMotion 9 speed hub gears, disc brakes and a hub dynamo it ticks the three pre-requisite boxes. The novel dimension is alluded to in the name, the frame is made of bamboo. Not seen it in real life, the photos on the website give the impression of a bike that is seriously well made.

Two thoughts put me off. The excessive import taxes which would result from importing the bike from the US and the use of a chain tensioner rather than an eccentric bottom bracket to maintain chain tension. The latter point is a small one but the simpler the chain line the easier it is keep running cleanly.

To date the Tout Terrain is looking to be the favourite.

Sheffield Cycling Paramedics (Photo by Mike Lee)

I’ve used this photo by Mike Lee before, last time to illustrate a good news story about the success of Sheffield’s cycling paramedics. Today’s news is not so good. One of the bikes has been stolen reports Yorkshire Ambulance Service. The theft happened at about 1pm on Thursday 18 February when the bike was taken from the secure bike park inside Sheffield Town Hall on Pinstone Street. In addition to the bike a defibrillator, oxygen and drugs were taken. Alan Baranowski, Assistant Director of A&E for South Yorkshire, said: “These offenders are putting people’s lives in danger as our staff are not able to respond to 999 calls without the correct equipment. [The] kit can help save lives when used by specially trained ambulance staff and, if used incorrectly, have the potential to be extremely dangerous and possibly even fatal.”

Monday saw Bike Night at the Sheffield Showroom. The main feature was Peter Yates’ 1979 coming of age movie Breaking Away. A heart warming tale it also serves as a document of how road bikes and cycling position have changed over three decades. The film was followed by MC Spandex’s amusing critique of fixie culture, and then an extended film about Japanese fixie culture – we retired to the bar to discuss our approach to securing the team prize at the Brompton World Championships.

Awoke to discover Sheffield covered in snow, so no riding today. This is getting rather too common.

Have been thinking a lot about mudguards. Normally one might think this a sign of insanity, and it may well be. However the thought was prompted by a comment on a post on Vik’s Lazy Randonneur site. You can see the post here. Essentially my comment was that a road bike with close clearance aluminium mudguards would be safer with some form of quick release on the guards. Well the debate that followed got me thinking about my set-up which I am very pleased with but have had precious little chance to use because I don’t want to take my audax/light touring bike out in the salt.

The general set-up is illustrated above: Proline DLX reflex mudguards with short drop Centaur brakes and 23mm Continental Four Seasons tyres. The guards are full-length and have flaps. Built into the material is a 3M reflective strip which is a barely visible dark grey during the day and reflects headlights at night.

Neat, I like it. The guards have snap-off stays:

I don’t know how effective the snap-off stays are and I am not in a hurry to find out, but it is a reassurance to know that they are there.

I’ve been using the Assos winter gloves kit since early in December when the weather turned nasty. Too early to say about durability, but they certain work well to keep your fingers warm – I used them on day long rides with the CTC when the temperature has been around freezing. Expensive though, certainly not something you want to leave on the train by mistake.

Value:                ♥♥♥

Usefulness: ♥♥♥♥♥

Sheffield Supertram tracks represent a real danger for cyclists. At any time there is the risk of a wheel dropping into one of the two parallel groves, in the wet there is also the risk of sliding on the metal tracks. The best route to take is to cross the tracks at 90 degrees, but this is rarely possible. A particular problem is Hillsborough Corner which links two main routes out of the city to the North West. The video shows me negotiating the corner from South to North, but it is actually more difficult in the other direction as the road slopes uphill and turning from Langsett Road into Ripley Road to head up Walkley Lane is effectively an impossible manoeuvre to do safely when the road is wet.

Last week’s CTC email newsletter drew my attention to the debate about strict liability. There is a good explanation and video here, but essentially it is about removing the necessity to prove negligence in order to be entitled to compensation. If traffic law were amended to place a duty of care on drivers, in the event of an collision involving a cyclist or a pedestrian compensation would be payable unless the driver could show that they caused the collision. Now unlike nearly all other CTC policies this argument didn’t immediately convince me. It struck me as a departure from the usual rule that one is innocent until proven guilty. Eventually however it dawned on me that the ‘innocent until proven guilty’ line doesn’t actually hold many other analogous situations. For example as an employer I have a duty of care – if there is an accident at work  I can be called upon to show that there was a health and safety policy, that I made sure it was followed, etc. The injured person wouldn’t have to prove that I was reckless.And I happily accept that this is hold it should be.

Therefore a motorist choosing to get into a heavy and potentially fast moving vehicle should accept that they have a duty of care for more vulnerable road users. And by extension, I think that it is fair that cyclists should have a duty of care for pedestrians – if the logic apply to motorists it should apply to cyclists. But this is where it starts to become unclear whether changing the law in this way will benefit cyclists. Clearly it will benefit cyclists who are injured by car drivers who will be far more likely to receive compensation, but it is uncertain that there will be fewer injuries. Saying to a driver that they have a duty of care and that message influencing the way they drive are potentially two different things. After all most drivers presumably do not want to cause injuries. If this is the case, it is lack of awareness of the potential harm they can so easily cause rather than a concern about their insurance premiums which determines how they drive.

So the change may not change driver behaviour, but it could change cyclist numbers. A duty of care for pedestrians would mean cyclists could be called upon to have third party insurance. A member benefit of being in the CTC is third party insurance, so I am covered. But imagine if the ‘you don’t pay road tax’ argument morphed into a ‘you should have insurance’ argument and that then got legal backing. The dedicated cyclist would not be put off, my insurance costs me less than a pound a week. But your casual cyclist might be. If this were the case then fewer cyclists on the road would mean a more dangerous environment for cyclists as drivers become even less used to taking account of their needs.

For these reasons therefore, I am not against strict liability, but I don’t think it is necessarily the policy change which I would want the CTC to push for above all others. A cycling test as a mandatory part of the driving test – that would really make a difference. And if that is considered utopian maybe we don’t need a change in the law at all, better enforcement of existing speed limits would be a start.