Combing my hair….

Glossop Road, photo by DrJoolz

The commute home was rather challenging to say the least. The snow hit just before the evening rush hour and gridlock followed. I managed to ride up from the station to West Street and was almost enjoying it -it was technically challenging to stay upright. From there it went downhill (metaphorically!). There was too little room between vehicles to ride most of the rest of the way. Brrr!

Meanwhile if you need a further reason to dislike cars, maybe they caused the credit crunch argues Wired magazine

Elsewhere the cycling web is abuzz with news of a new Shimano Alfine 11 speed hub. Most temptatious.

Photo by huzu1959 on flickr

It is 8.30 pm and now thawing fast in Sheffield. This means one of two things. It it freezes, it will be an ice rink tomorrow morning. If it doesn’t freeze  – all those tons of grit on the road will still be there. I’m off to High Wycombe – vigilante central and home to the John Lewis Hotel and the Chair Museum.

Many thanks to Huzu1959 for posting his photo of the GP-Mistral under a Creative Commons licence.

Yet more snow in South Yorkshire

After over two weeks off the bike and in despite of my earlier post, today the urge to cycle to work got the better of me. Despite a few hairy moment, it was actually not that bad. In particular I saw a consideration and carefulness from motorists which was quite a refreshing change – people keeping back and not overtaking. Just got to get home this evening!

I know some people do, and they seem to enjoy it

GoPro test goes wrong from b3ans on Vimeo.

One of the things this cold snowy weather in the UK brings home to you is the extent to which we have a car culture. It is assumed that the roads will be kept clear for motorists.  Motoring lobby groups such as the AA fill the airwaves with strident comments about the extent to which Local Authorities are up to the challenge. The press release they used to get the media invites mentions the number of extra call outs they receive in wintry conditions. But the ‘right to drive’ discourse is so predominant that there is no mention of the fact that some of the call outs and accidents might just possibly be the result of motorists not having the skills to cope with the weather, or not necessarily changing their tyres before they get dangerous, and above all that the sensible course of action might be not to drive at all and leave the roads for those like the emergency services who have an absolute need to be on the road. And the argument is backed with two favourites of mine:

‘He (Edmund King, AA President ) also pointed out that a post-code lottery exists as regards how much of a priority some local authorities place on keeping roads free of ice and snow.’ No shit. And what exactly is wrong with a post-code lottery. Maybe some Local Authoritiess decide that at the margin education is more important than grit. Life is a post-code lottery. It is about time we grew up and realised that fact. And recognised that we in the UK are the bloody winners. If you doubt this, you might want to swap your ticket with someone in Swaziland. no snow there, just life expectancy of 39.6 years.

The second is the reliance on economics and old favourite, the cost to the economy:  ‘In February the chaos on the roads had severe effects – it is estimated to have cost the economy £1.2bn’  This figure is a repeat of an estimate made at the time by the Federation of Small Businesses, who are no doubt very pleased that this hoary old crap is being repeated. The underlying methodology with these type of estimates is flawed.  It assumes that when people can’t get to work sales are lost. The approach is flawed because it doesn’t take account of displaced demand and second order effects. If I as a consumer wanted to go and buy a widget and Grunnings Engineering is shut because of the snow, it is possible that I might go along and buy the same widget on the next clear day. After all I still need the widget. Alternatively maybe I only wanted the widget, I didn’t need it. I can’t buy a widget as Grunnings is shut and I can’t get to my workplace. Maybe I’ll just turn the heating up and spend the widget money on keeping warm. Grunnings’ loss, is British Gas’ gain. Net cost to the economy, zero.