2020 Vision
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I PAY ROAD TAX . COM
Published by Matt Polaine | Filed under Campaigns, Cycling, Cycling infrastructure
Any cyclist reading this will at some point have listened to a motorist telling them that they have a right to use the roads because they pay Road Tax and you, the cyclist, don’t have the right because you don’t pay it. Read the rest of this entry »
Tony Kornheiser on cyclists: “Run ‘em down”
Published by Matt Polaine | Filed under Cycling
credit: bikeradar
American radio talkshow host Tony Kornheiser has joined the ranks of cyclist-haters (like the UK’s Matthew Parris and James Martin) by claiming live on air that motorists should “run ‘em down”.
Today Lance Armstrong used his Twitter page to pass on his thoughts on Kornheiser, saying: “Disgusting, ignorant, foolish. What a complete f-ing idiot.” Read the rest of this entry »
Puerto del Faglioli
Published by Matt Polaine | Filed under Motorcycles
I know Paddy, and he sent emails of his trips to an email group enroute. He also sent some great pictures which sadly are not included in this book, just a select few.
I’ve read about eight motorcycle adventure books and of course seen the whole Charlie & Ewan bandwagon. Paddy’s book is typical of this genre in that nothing is typical. Each chapter was an adventure in its own right, and I was with Paddy through his pages at every checkpoint, bit falling off Peggy (his motorbike), some grim sleeping accomodation, and desperate races to go back and forth between offical desks getting bits of paper stamped. Read the rest of this entry »
RBLR 1000
Published by Matt Polaine | Filed under Events, Honda XRV750, Motorcycles
What is the 2010 RBLR 1000?
Summary: To motorcycle round a set UK route, covering over 1,000 miles in 24hrs to raise funds for the Poppy Appeal.
In October 2008, the Royal British Legion Riders (RBLR) Branch came up with the idea to try to break the world record for the largest amount of motorcycle riders to complete 1,000 miles in less than 24 hours.
Recorded by the international motorcycle Iron Butt Association, plans were made for over 156 riders to concurrently ride a 1,000 mile route to establish the new world record.
The inaugural event took place from Squires Cafe Near Leeds on Saturday 20th June 2009. The 1,000 miles covered either a Northern Route into Scotland or a Southern Route to take in the West Country. In total the event had 187 starters, 173 finishers of which 162 were riders with 9 pillions, which would have smashed the world record if the Americans hadn’t pipped the RBLR riders to the post first! See 2009 photos.
However the event did break both the European and UK records and so far has raised over £10,000 for that single event alone, and so far £33,000 (up to 1st November 2009) for the Poppy Appeal. The same ride will take place on 19-21st June 2010.
What is the Poppy Appeal? Each year the nation expresses its unequivocal support for The Royal British Legion’s charity work through the Poppy Appeal. The emphasis in 2010 is the need to help the Afghan generation of the Armed Forces and their families – today and for the rest of their lives. Read the rest of this entry »
Training: Get fit for mountain biking
Published by Matt Polaine | Filed under Cycling
credit: bikeradar
Bike Radar has some great advice around fitness, 33 reasons to cycle, and 10 cycling myths busted this month.
“If you want to ride at your best this summer – whether it’s for racing or just so you can hold your own when you’re out with mates – you need to hit the trails hard now. You should be out there ripping it up in the woods, building your fitness and fine-tuning your skills”, says Mat Brett of Bike Radar.
“The trouble is, your motivation can be low at this time of year and even though you know you’ll love it really, you can usually think of an excuse not to go. We’ve all been there. It’s too wet, dark or muddy. Ring any bells? Thought so. What you need is a healthy dose of inspiration – and that’s where we come in”.
27th Cambridge Scout Group funds cycle ride
Published by Matt Polaine | Filed under Bicycle, Cycling, Events, Xanthe
WHAT ARE THE FUNDS FOR?
The 27th Cambridge Scout Group is in real need of updating equipment including new tents. The money raised will also go towards sending the Troop to local and national Scout Camps.
For the Scout who wants to be recognised for his or her achievements there are a number of Challenges Awards and Activity Badges which helps them to find out about the world in which they live, encourages them to know their own abilities, the importance of keeping fit and to develop self-sufficiency.
WHAT IS THE CHALLENGE? The challenge is to cycle from Cambridge to Ipswich via Lavenham, approximately 110km (65miles) in one day in May 2010. You can get ride progress updates via Matt’s Facebook or Twitter.
WHAT IS THE TARGET? The target is £200, from each sponsor to sign up for 5 pence per kilometre covered. For example: 5p/km x 110km = £5.50 (+£1.40 GiftAid*). If you have signed up on the paper form, we will add your amount, and come and collect the money from you direct. Read the rest of this entry »
Limp UK DfT: Aussi’s get road culture ad so right.
Published by Matt Polaine | Filed under Cycling
Below is a NSW Government Road Safety advertisement 2007. The UK has a growing car-centric culture problem that excludes all other road users, to the point that even in 2010 many drivers still shout at cyclists to get off the roads because cyclists don’t pay road tax. In addition to this, the UK government is not only failing to address this cultural problem, it enforces cycling as a dangerous activity with repeated moves to enforce helmet wearing and high visability clothing for all cyclists.
As mid-tone metallic colours practically make cars disappear in dusk and fog, there is no pressure for car manufacturers to paint cars only in neon colours, nor is there any pressure for everyone driving, walking on the pavement or doing DIY to wear a helmet, which would totally eclipse the saved head injuries compared to cycling ones.
Cities like Copenhagen have cycle use way beyond anything the UK could possibily achieve with current policies and funding yet virtually no-one wears a helmet or high visibility clothing - they wear just normal clothes. Why is this? It is because of their culture. Along with most Benelux countries, they have grown out of car-culture, where the UK is still stuck with Clarkson pinkies.
PBP 2011 Training
Published by Matt Polaine | Filed under Cycling
Follow my progress during the PBP Event via Twitter: http://twitter.com/mpolaine Use #PBP to search all PBP Twitterings for the PBP.
I’ve published this calendar so that those supporting me for the PBP 2011 can view my progress. I do mainly two types of training, endurance training and lactate threshold training. However, I learnt a great deal about ultra endurance riding in the LEL. Small events can accumulate and then snowball out of control. Read my ride report. So I’ll be carefully reducing those factors for the PBP. Read the rest of this entry »
National Cycle Plan for England
Published by Matt Polaine | Filed under Cycling
This January, the Cyclists’ Touring Club - CTC - took a survey in reponse to the UK government’s National Cycle Plan for England, as Gordon Brown has stated his objective for making ‘cycling as [a] mainstream form of transport’. Read the rest of this entry »
Modal lawlessness in Los Angeles
Published by Matt Polaine | Filed under Cycling
A Doctor was sentenced to 5 years in prison for assaulting bicyclists in Brentwood, L.A., U.S. today.
A doctor convicted of assaulting two bicyclists by slamming on his car brakes after a confrontation on a narrow Brentwood Road L.A. was sentenced today to five years in prison. Read the rest of this entry »
Democracy Live: Scottish Parliament: Transport
Published by Matt Polaine | Filed under Uncategorized
The committee heard 61% of people in Scotland want to cycle to improve their health, but many were afraid of road dangers on 24 November 2009.
The research was carried out for the Scottish government by transport consultancy Steer Davies Gleave. Read the rest of this entry »
Beauty and the Bike
Published by Matt Polaine | Filed under Bicycle, Campaigns, Cycling, Cycling infrastructure, Transport
The UK premiere of this 18 months-in-the-making documentary finally hit the big screen on Wednesday December 9th at 7pm in Darlington Arts Centre. The event was a sell-out, with a second screening needed to accommodate everyone that wanted to attend. It was a fantastic evening, with acclaim for the work coming from both cycling advocates and film-makers. This, and the world-wide interest being created by the 8 minute short drawn from the full documentary, suggests the film is set to make a significant impact on cycling policy.
“Why do British girls stop cycling? By simply asking this basic question, the film reveals the damage that has been done by 50 years of car-centric transport policies. Whilst we fill our lives with debates about risk assessment, cycle helmets, cycle training and marketing strategies to try to persuade people to cycle more, the basic barriers to cycling remain untouched - generous urban planning towards the car, and the resultant poor motorist behaviour towards cyclists. Is it any wonder that most people find cycling unattractive in the UK, but attractive in cycling-friendly towns and cities? It’s the infrastructure, stupid!”
Darlington Cycling Campaign has been closely involved in the Beauty and the Bike project, which has already resulted in a successful bid to Bike Hub for funding to expand the Bike Pool established by the film project.
The film is being released on DVD, together with an accompanying book. Details are available on the Beauty and the Bike website.
Digital Heros Award - please vote
Published by Matt Polaine | Filed under Campaigns
Simon Nuttall - Nominated by: Martin Lucas-Smith
Simon has worked tirelessly & without pay to create a journey planner and photo map for cyclists in Cambridge and all over the UK. Already used to plan 30,000 journeys, a grant would enable Simon to develop the website & encourage more people to get on 2 wheels!
He shall be explaining CycleStreets.net, and why you should vote for it to win the local award on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire’s Drivetime show from 5:35 pm this evening.
Voting involves going to and clicking on a button, no registration or emails are required.
Cycle culture ‘boom’ in Japan
Published by Matt Polaine | Filed under Cycling, Cycling infrastructure
credit: tomoko otake, the japan times
Picture: Riders pass the landmark Wako department store building in central Tokyo’s Ginza shopping district during ‘Tokyo City Cycling 2009’, a 40km event staged by the Japan Cycling Association on 20th September 2009. Photo by Yoshiaka Miura.
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama could have made a stronger impact at the United Nations Summit on Climate Change in New York last week had he trumpeted another environmentally laudable proposal in addition to his declared goal of Japan cutting its greenhouse-gas emissions by 25 percent from 1990 levels by 2020: riding bicycles. Read the rest of this entry »
Cambridge IAM biker on Route 66
Published by Matt Polaine | Filed under Motorcycles
One of the guys in my local IAM group (Graham Pryke) is currently riding in the US on Route 66. His blog is about the fantastic holiday he has booked where he travels the mother road of the US, Route 66, with his good friend Steve and a group of other people all organised by MCi Tours. The blog will show the highs and the lows of his 2,500 mile journey from Chicago in the east to Los Angeles on the west coast.
More and more of my biker friends are managing to do these mega-rides. Perhaps I will one day…
LEL photos
Published by Matt Polaine | Filed under Cycling
Here are some photo links from the LEL. Some of my choice ones below. It looks like I came out of the event lightly compared to these riders!
Ideal bikes for English weather?
Half the event was like this, a typical English summer.
Tesco protest is criticised by judge
Published by Matt Polaine | Filed under Bicycle, Campaigns, Cycling, Cycling infrastructure, Transport
credit: raymond.brown@cambridge-news.co.uk
A last-ditch High Court bid to stop Tesco opening today in Cambridge’s Mill Road has been thrown out.
The judge said the effort by No Mill Road Tesco Campaign was a “misuse of Judicial Review”.
Campaign committee member Richard Rippin filed the application against Cambridge City Council.
He wanted an interim injunction on Tesco to stop “dangerous” deliveries to the new Express store. Read the rest of this entry »
Print Fair in Norwich, UK
Published by Matt Polaine | Filed under Family
My father, Peter Polaine, is one of the artists exhibiting at the 14th Norwich Print Fair from 7th -19th September 2009.
LEL 2009 1400km – blown off course
Published by Matt Polaine | Filed under Cycling, Events
This is a long post. I am using it to record what did and didn’t work for me on the LEL, so I am better prepared next time.
Failure. There, I’ve said it – I failed. I failed to complete the 1,400km Audax in the allotted time. Worse still, I didn’t even make it back to the start and had to pack it in at 821.6km. So what happened? What went wrong? Read the rest of this entry »
12 days 14hrs
Published by Matt Polaine | Filed under Bicycle, Cycling
Twelve days and fourteen hours until I set off on the toughest bicycle ride I’ve ever entered. 1,400km in 120hrs from London to Edinburgh and back - the UK Audax LEL 2009. You can read more about it here and my training program here although ‘training’ is not really the right word to describe it.
Follow my progress during the LEL Event via Twitter: http://twitter.com/mpolaine
Please also support the charity I’m riding for here.
I am not sure of the failure rate for the LEL which is held every 4 years, but this year there were no qualifying rides of 100, 200, 400 and 600km within the preceding year. I feel OK about meeting all those criteria except the 600km. I’ve managed 330km in an unstressful 19hrs, but I was able to recover the next day. Not possible for the LEL.
It’s not called ‘EL & back’ for nothing…
Driver behaviour towards cyclists: video
Published by Matt Polaine | Filed under Cycling infrastructure
Whenever discussion over cycling on the UK highways comes up, there are those in motor vehicles who rant on about cyclists who ‘jump red lights, terrorise pedestrians, are law-breakers, cycle wherever they like’ and so on. It is as though motorists do nothing wrong and cyclists are urban vermin. Read the rest of this entry »
Is the human race worth saving?
Published by Matt Polaine | Filed under Uncategorized
When I have to deal with drivers who nearly kill me through arrogant, selfish or plain stupid driving while I am riding my bike, I do often wonder if the human race is at a branch again. It seems that some of our species are really wired differently. It is almost impossible to communicate with ‘them’, and no matter how terrible their actions are, they just don’t see it.
The depths that humans can go to in maiming, torturing and killing other humans is so off my comprehension ability I know I am not of the same species. How that other species can kill and eat children, hack them to death with their mothers with a machete, and even worse crimes of torture leaves me questioning the value of standing in the way of climate change that may eradicate us all.
Just when I thought I’d seen the worst, along comes another deeply disturbing chapter in our so-called evolution. If you are easily shocked, do not read on. If you think you know what horror exists and would rather pledge or donate (no gruesome images), jump here. Read the rest of this entry »
UKIP on cyclists in the UK
Published by Matt Polaine | Filed under Cycling infrastructure
Risking publicity for UKIP, I hope that those reading this blog are more pro-cycling than petrolhead or Clarkson mentality. I’m certainly not linking to the UKIP.
The local Cambridge Cycling Campaign sent out a questionnaire to the local election candidates asking about their views on a selection of key cycle infrastructure/culture issues. Many did not bother to reply, of those that did, most were ‘political answers’, but the UKIP’s Peter Burkinshaw sums up White Van Man culture of the UK;
Q. Do you have any other general cycling-related comments or points?
A. “Provision for cyclists is already adequate. Please remember that motorists are the people who pay to use the roads whereas cyclists are “freeloaders”. They are entitled to use the roads but not disproportionately”.
“If everyone cycled, as you suggest, there would be no roads to ride on”.
If this represents the honest opinion of the majority of politicians - and honesty is somewhat lacking in UK politics right now - then Peter Burkinshaw represents a new level of local government ignorance born out of a motor-myopic culture, sentencing many to an early death and massive NHS burden from an obesogenic timebomb and gridlocked towns and cities.
God help our children with people like this in local government.
UK cyclists becoming social pariahs?
Published by Matt Polaine | Filed under Cycling infrastructure
I have to write this blog after reading about Judge ‘barking mad’ Richard Lowden recently, and the sabotage of the UK biggest cycle ‘closed road’ race with carpet tacks. Our UK culture is sick. Very sick. Tell me, is it?
Forget being a banker with their ‘bonus’, an estate agent with that 2% fee or politician with dubious ‘allowances’ (the three least trusted professions in the UK), if one really wants to feel a member of the underclass, get on a bicycle. Read the rest of this entry »
At last, a motoring fine with bite.
Published by Matt Polaine | Filed under Cars
I’m not anti-car but I am anti UK car-culture. Wander around a crowded street with a loaded shotgun with the safety catch off, after having a few beers, slip and the gun goes off killing someone - you’re in trouble. Yes you have a shotgun licence, yes you have a clean record, yes it was ‘an accident’.
Um, hold on a minute. It wasn’t an accident, it was an incident. It was inevitable the gun was going to go off eventually, and the owner’s behaviour is entirely at fault. Just as driving a car while using a mobile phone or after drinking is exactly the same; licence, lethal weapon, carnage etc. Read the rest of this entry »
UK HSE culture, AUK and Copenhagen
Published by Matt Polaine | Filed under Bicycle, Cycling
Will the future of the LEL and other long distance UK events fall foul to UK-style H&S dogma?
AUK is right to feel paranoid about the HSE creep. In the UK, local authorities and some corporate environments have adopted a bizarre cross-breed of cultures from those of an isolated island, European joie de vivre, and American liability extremes. The result is possibly the worst of all worlds. Read the rest of this entry »
How did the Briton cross the road?
Published by Matt Polaine | Filed under Cycling, Cycling infrastructure
credit: stephen dowling, bbc news
The green man, an icon for pedestrians across the UK, could be joined by a countdown clock as part of London’s plans to ease traffic flow. But from Cairo to Chicago, how people cross the road speaks volumes about a country’s cultural values.
You only need to step outside your hotel when staying in a foreign city to know that when it comes to crossing the road, there’s no such thing as an international standard. Every country does it differently. Read the rest of this entry »
Cycle helmets - again.
Published by Matt Polaine | Filed under Cycling infrastructure
I’ve avoided these helmet discussions because they aren’t factual, can never be factual, and are part of a complex cultural mindset. You can’t quantify why there are far fewer injuries in Copenhagen than Cambridge from cycling, where the former has 5 times or more the level of cycling and virtually no helmet wearing, but you can say that many, many small cultural differences add up to a huge difference in hazard perception and intermodal behaviour. Read the rest of this entry »
Grit all major cycle routes in Cambridge during winter
Published by Matt Polaine | Filed under Campaigns, Cycling infrastructure
Background (Preamble): According to Cambridgeshire County Council more than a quarter of all transport to work in Cambridge is done on bicycles and it wishes to increase this figure in order to lessen the tear and wear of roads. Yet no cycle routes are gritted during the winter when the temperature is sub zero. Read the rest of this entry »
Academics invent a mathematical equation for why people procrastinate
Published by Matt Polaine | Filed under Uncategorized
source: urmee khan, the telegraph
Prof Piers Steel, a Canadian academic who has spent more than 10 years studying why people put off until tomorrow what they could do today, believes that the notion that procrastinators are either perfectionists or just lazy is wrong.
Prof Steel, who admits to becoming distracted by computer games himself, argues in a new book that those prone to putting things off suffer from a vice of their own - impulsiveness. Read the rest of this entry »