2 Wheels Good

A clock for a cyclist

2009-12-07T21:35:00.001Z

In recent months I've dismantled a few bikes. The process has left me with some spares too worn to reuse on a cycle but too nice to just throw away. So I'm starting to make decorative items from them.

I have several chainrings, from road and mountain bikes, which are going to be used in clocks. The first one, above, is available to buy from here.

Originally published at On Two Wheels

Blame the victim, as usual

2009-11-30T10:35:00.001Z

Far too many cyclists are killed injured oin the roads every year. Some cyclists listen to music whilst riding. Therefore the Daily Mail has confused correlation with causation and decided that it's all the cyclists' faults for listening to their iPods. Just another piece of shoddy, prejudice enhancing non-journalism designed to let car drivers believe they have no responsibility for the safety of others.

Originally published at On Two Wheels

The case against car culture

2009-11-28T10:38:00.000Z

The Cycling Lawyer does a thorough critique of the judicial system's bias against cyclists and in favour of drivers.

Originally published at On Two Wheels

My safety is more important than your pride

2009-11-11T12:11:00.001Z

Every time a newspaper runs a story related to cycling safety their comment threads, and no doubt letters pages, fill up with predictable, offensive and just plain wrong bile. Consider two different stories, both of which I found on the Daily Mail website. One story concerns the top ten annoying behaviours by drivers, as voted on by other drivers. Never mind that many of these "annoyances" are illegal and most are very dangerous, not one Mail reader had anything to say about the piece. By the time I found it comments had been closed, empty. Meanwhile, over in the seeing red corner, there was a shameful and shoddy article about a drop in the number of cyclists being punished for running red lights.

Wilfully and gleefully ignoring reality and logic- that the Police should be, and no doubt are, concentrating on reducing the damage done by the biggest killers on the road- the author peppers the piece with incitement to prejudice. Whilst the numbers used may be genuine, their juxtaposition is designed to suggest conclusions that are completely false. The piece immediately attracted the usual ill informed nonsense. I was glad to see, when I last looked, that there were a number of intelligent pro bike comments dismantling the author's and ranters' weak arguments.

I'd be interested in finding out what makes the seething would be anti cyclist vigilantes tick. Why do they feel the need to blame the victims and ignore the real dangers on the roads? Whilst we cyclists aren't entirely blameless, we're a thousand times less dangerous than drivers.

As I gear up to start posting here regularly again after a very long summer break I think I'll lay down some rules for anyone who wants to comment. If you must trot out the usual tripe you'll get one chance to accept that this is a blog about cycling, then I'll ignore you or even delete you when you get repetitious. Should you want to stay safe in your prejudice then you can pop on over to the Daily Mail. I doubt you'll be missed.

In case you don't get why I'm not interested in your attempts to convince me that my tourer and I are the most dangerous thing on the roads here, for drivers, are a few of the reasons you're wrong-

Even the best of you is far more dangerous than I'll ever be. You're driving around in a big metal box, cocooned in all sorts of safety devices. If you don't get how much more dangerous your car is just try a simple comparative test. Lay your hand on a flat surface and, from about a foot, drop a pencil on it. That was a bike. Now repeat the experiment with a house brick.

Many of the things that make you safer endanger cyclists and pedestrians. For instance, the A pillars of modern cars have been getting ever fatter and stronger. Which is great if you roll over, but the rest of time creates a blind spot you can lose a bike in.

Some of you don't look out for us. Every time I'm approaching a side road and see a car about to pull out I assume the driver hasn't seen me or properly estimated my speed. So I get ready to pull on my brakes.

Some of you break the law. You use your phone whilst driving, break the speed limit, run red lights, drive or park in the cycle lane and much more.

Some of you are ignorant, selfish, dangerous idiots. Just last night the driver of a Mercedes Kompensatorwagen pulled out of a side road right in front of me. Managing to stop just short of hitting him- because I'd been applying my junction rule- I slapped the driver's window and shouted something about looking where he was going. He then chased me down the road a short way and the passenger started shouting something incoherent that implied that even though it was my right of way I had to give way to the car coming out of the side road. I doubt he'd have used this line of argument on another driver. I gave up trying to explain how wrong he was, told him to read the Highway Code and cycled off, leaving him ranting in a queue of traffic.

I enjoy cycling. It's even fun in the rain. And for my commute I'd much rather be on a bike than trapped in a box burning money and going nowhere. So I want to carry on being able to enjoy cycling. One of the ways to do this is to make drivers more aware of their responsibilities and force them to be less dangerous. Another is to ignore those of you who effectively argue for the rights of drivers to be more dangerous and imply that the risk they expose me to is somehow my own fault.

Originally published at On Two Wheels

Brompton love

2009-11-09T19:39:00.001Z

The Guardian has a piece today about the success and growth of the Brompton bike company and their lovely little bikes. Just after reading the article I popped out of the coffee shop to see someone riding one.

Bromptons are built in a factory in London by a skilled and very experienced workforce, refusing to take the easy money and outsource to Taiwan because it would be a bad long term plan.

I'm not really a small wheeled bike rider, though I thought the same about single speeds before I tried one for a week. Though if I was ever going to get one I think I'd take the technology and design fetishism all the way and have a Moulton, another work of British design genius.

Originally published at On Two Wheels

Where's the modern Amber Gambler advert?

2009-10-08T19:44:00.000+01:00

Does anyone else remember this? Or are you all too young-

Where's the modern Amber Gambler advert? Because we need it more than ever. At almost every junction where I see the lights change I also see people speeding up on amber to get through and on red I see them creeping forward ready to sprint off. It's a wonder I've seen so few collisions.
(And yes, this applies to cyclists as well. Though I can't help thinking that if they saw the folks in big metal boxes behaving more responsibly fewer cyclists would be in such a hurry to get safely away from them.)

Originally published at On Two Wheels

Is the Metro stirring up anti-cyclist hatred?

2009-08-13T13:33:00.000+01:00

The front page headline of today's Metro was Cyclist is jailed for killing by 1861 law. He was done for 'wanton and furious driving causing bodily harm' after mounting the pavement to run a red light (according to the story) or avoid being hit by a car (according to one of the commenters) and hitting a pedestrian.

I'm not that interested in the details of the case, for the purposes of this post anyway, what concerns me is that this was given such prominence. Certainly it's news that a cyclist has killed someone- cars kill a thousand times more people every year in this country and, by the articles own disputed numbers they kill 133 times more people on the pavement than bikes do. And the cyclist was prosecuted under an old law, but many people every day are banged up because of rules that have their basis in the 19th century. If the Metro put a daily tally of deaths on the road prominently on the front page, or other cases of Strange Old Laws appeared somewhere other than the light entertainment sidebars then this front page might be acceptable.

But they don't. I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt, but it's not easy. I think this front page was chosen to feed anti-cycling hatred. If you look at some of the messages in the comments on the online version it's worked. Seeing the placement of this article, and reading the comments of drivers who say they want to run cyclists over (for being so much less dangerous than cars, if you consider the context) makes me think we're one of the last groups people feel they can safely be vocally prejudiced against.

Originally published at On Two Wheels

Bring out the idiots!

2009-07-20T13:40:00.000+01:00

Articles about cycling, particularly ones about safety, on the MEN website seem attract- for want of a better word- idiots. It's like we're one of the last groups it's acceptable to spout prejudiced nonsense about.

Take the comment thread on this article for instance. A cyclist wants people to sign a petition asking that drivers under the influence of the telephone are properly punished and the comments are overloaded with people asserting that bikes are the true evil on the roads. The few cyclists who try to engage the trolls in dialogue are for the most part civil, well informed and thoughtful. So they're losing.

There's a lot of misunderstanding and misinformation the anti bike brigade comes out with in these threads. It's not going to stop them, I know, but for your benefit here are rebuttals to some of the regularly repeated nonsense-

Cyclists don't pay road tax Or Vehicle Excise Duty as it's more properly called. The rate of VED is based upon two factors- damage to the road and damage to the environment. Cycles don't register on either of those scales. In fact, the roads around Manchester can be so bad that if "road tax" were introduced for bikes I'd expect a cheque every year to cover damage to my bike.

Cyclists don't have insurance Actually, some of us do. I have third party insurance through being a member of the CTC, in the unlikely event that an accident is my fault. I can also ask them for specialist legal help in the more likely event that it's someone else's fault.

Cyclists shouldn't run red lights No argument there. No-one should go through lights on red, but I see motor vehicles do it all the time. My friends and I refer to "dark amber", a magical colour visible only to certain drivers- notably of buses and taxis- which the rest of us see as red.

Cyclists shouldn't ride on the pavement And drivers shouldn't park on it, or drive in the cycle lanes or do any number of other dangerous things that make some cyclists feel safer off the road.

Cyclists should always use the cycle lanes Not a chance. The safest place on the road for a bike is about three feet out from the pavement, where drivers can better see them and they have more room to avoid pedestrians who step out without looking. It also keeps us away from the least well maintained part of the road, which is more likely to be cracking up and littered with broken glass. This is further out than the cycle lane usually extends.

Cyclists should signal Pot. Kettle.

Cyclists should learn to drive It's tempting to use the "Pot. Kettle." line again here. The majority of adult cyclists hold driving licences. I've had mine for over twenty one years and have yet to get any points on it. (In the interest of full disclosure, this doesn't mean I'm a perfect driver. I wrote off my first car and two months ago was involved in a collision. I always endeavour to drive sensibly, legally and safely and thankfully the mistakes I have made haven't injured anyone.)

Drivers are always being punished Awww, diddums. No, drivers have been given priority in road transport policy for too long. Any moves to give a share of the public highway back to the rest of us is a good and fair thing.

That should do for the time being.

If you're a car driver who can't see where I get the right to have a go at you think about this. You're in a metal box that weighs a ton or more, with crumple zones, seat belts, airbags, strengthened A pillars and any number of other things designed to keep you safe in a collision. You, as a group, kill over three thousand people a year (cyclists occasionally collide with pedestrians and kill them, but the ratio is in the order of thousands to one.) I'm sat on top of some tubing wearing a helmet that's rated safe for collisions of 15mph or less. Think about that next time you want to opine on who's most dangerous.

Originally published at On Two Wheels

World Naked Bike Ride 2009

2009-06-16T13:54:00.001+01:00

Manchester World Naked Bike Ride 2009, originally uploaded by spinneyhead.

Last Friday's naked bike ride was fun, even though the Police stopped us and claimed that no-one had told them that Naked meant we'd have no clothes on. More pictures in the Manchester World Naked Bike Ride set

Technorati tag: Cycling

Manchester bike shops

2009-05-22T10:56:00.002+01:00

Most of my bike blogging has now moved to the On Two Wheels blog for the Manchester Evening News. One set of posts I'd like to share here is my ongoing guide to Manchester's bike shops. There's been a lull in posts on the subject but I will get back to it when my routine allows it and the weather improves.

There's also a map of Manchester's bike shops to go with the posts. As you can see, at the moment everything mrked on it is in the city centre or close to a route south from it along Oxford/Wilmslow Road. Again, this is something I'll try to remedy when I can get back out there hunting for other bike shops.

Technorati tag: Cycling

Now I'm On 2 Wheels too

2009-01-07T10:31:00.002Z

Since just before Christmas I've been blogging for the Manchester Evening News at the On Two Wheels blog. My plan for the blog is to do a bit of outreach to pedestrians and drivers as well as reporting cycling news.

Technorati tag: Cycling

Austerity Cycling

2008-11-17T13:26:00.002Z

As credit has been crunched, so sales of bikes have risen, as more and more people catch up with those of us who realised years ago how much could be saved by switching to two wheels.

Technorati tag: Cycling

Manchester's most dangerous cycle routes mapped

2008-10-15T10:24:00.002+01:00

A map has been drawn up of the most dangerous roads in Manchester city centre for cycling. Unsurprisingly, Oxford/Wilmslow Roads are high up the list. Equally unsurprisingly the "blame the victim" mob of commenters are out, trying to say it's all the cyclists' fault because a few of them do dumb things.

Technorati tag: Cycling

I Bike Mcr mini festival next week

2008-10-02T10:48:00.001+01:00

There's another I Bike Manchester mini festival next week. Check out the timetable here.

Technorati tag: Cycling

The bike always wins

2008-09-23T22:30:00.002+01:00

There was a bus-bike-car-train race from Heaton Chapel to Manchester Town Hall last week. As usual, the bike won.

Technorati tag: Cycling

Google Earth and GPS for the Olympic cyclist

2008-09-01T13:07:00.005+01:00

Kristin Armstron, who won the Olympic gold in the Womens' Individual Time Trial used a clever GPS and Google Earth hack to improve her training. Whilst in Beijing last year to check out the course she used her husband's GPS unit to record the time trial course. Back in Idaho she exported the data and plugged it into Google Earth to find the nearest local equivalent route and to get gradient data.

I keep meaning to get a GPS unit for my rides,though I doubt it would make me any faster.

via kottke.org

Technorati tag: Cycling, Olympics

Victoria Pendleton wants safer roads

2008-08-28T22:41:00.004+01:00

Olympic gold medallist Victoria Pendleton has criticised drivers who make her road training dangerous. Why does it take an Olympian speaking out to make this newsworthy- surely it's something that deserves wider coverage as a matter of course- and why am I not surprised by the number of whining idiots in the comments?

In case my reply was too long for the system, here's what I had to say. It's more of a bullet point list than an argument, but, hey-

Working my way backwards through the comments-

Chris- road safety isn't a non-story. It's sad that it takes an Olympic medallist to draw attention to it.

Ace/Once again- if a driver gets close enough to me that I scratch his paint with my pedals I'll be reporting him for dangerous driving rather than handing over any sort of insurance details. And yes, I am insured- third party- through being a member of the CTC.

L L Fontelroy- it isn't my responsibility to pull in to let cars past. It's drivers' responsibility to only go past me when it's safe. Don't blame other people for your dangerous driving. And it takes more brains to ride a bike than drive a car, because you have to second guess the idiotic moves of drivers in order to stay safe.

Mancrider- agree with you completely

Bean B4- so much nonsense in two sentences. Well done.

Technorati tag: Cycling

The world's most prolific bicycle thief

2008-08-26T13:24:00.002+01:00

Toronto bike shop owner Igor Kenk was hoarding 2,865 stolen cycles when police raided his store and several other addresses around the city. They're still not sure why he took so many.

Technorati tag: Cycling

The secret menace

2008-08-07T12:26:00.001+01:00

James Daley wishes pedestrians would pay more attention. Don't we all.

Technorati tag: Cycling

Adrenaline Gateway

2008-07-11T11:15:00.003+01:00

As part of the Adrenaline Gateway project the area around Lees Quarry near Bacup now has several mountain biking routes. There must be a train out to Bacup.......

Technorati tag: Cycling

Over reaction as usual

2008-07-11T10:00:00.006+01:00

I have no sympathy for Jason Howard, the cyclist who hit and killed a teenager he could easily have avoided. I'd even agree with the girl's parents that sentencing for death by dangerous cycling should carry as big a fine or sentence as the equivalent crime by a driver (though that is often pathetically low).

However, the truth is that cyclists kill fewer people per year than drivers do per day and reactions such as this overwrought piece in the Daily Express show the bias and prejudice of the writers. Virginia Blackburn trots out the usual nonsense about lycra louts jumping red lights and then gives an example from her own life that says a lot more about her fecklessness than that of any cyclist. She steps out into a busy road in front of an oncoming cyclist, and only when he warns her does she realise there's heavy traffic in her path. Does this woman not know the Green Cross Code?

Look both ways next time Virginia.

Update My email to the Daily Express news desk-

Sir,

I would like to raise a complaint about Virginia Blackburn's column which I read on your website today. Terrible as Jason Howard's behaviour was, I feel she is over reacting in the cliched attack on cyclists she spins out of it. The truth is cyclists kill fewer people per year than drivers do per day, and very rarely through recklessness. Her description of cyclists "speeding down the high streets as if they're taking part in a race, ignoring red lights, terrifying pedestrians and occasionally killing anyone who gets in their way" could more accurately be applied to motorists.

Virginia's description of her own encounter with a cyclist says more about her than him, I feel. She was in the middle of the road before she spotted him, and she was heading for a lane with heavy traffic in it? Has she not heard of the Green Cross Code? If she had looked both ways before stepping off the pavement she would have seen the cyclist and not had to make him swerve to avoid her, and she would have been able to tell that there was too much traffic to sensibly cross where she was. It sounds like she's lucky her jaywalking didn't get her and another person injured.

There are too many attacks on cyclists in the popular press, a disproportionate amount given how little danger we represent to pedestrians and other road users when compared to cars. This could be because too few journalists cycle regularly and understand the joys (and dangers) of using two wheels. To redress that balance I will happily invite Virginia, or any other Express journalist who is game, to spend a day with me cycling around the streets of Manchester. I promise it will be an eye opening experience.

Sincerely,

Ian Pattinson

http://www.2wheels.howtosavetheworldforfree.com/

Technorati tag: Cycling

Bike Salute

2008-07-09T09:57:00.002+01:00

Whilst in Budapest last week I saw a few people with Critical MAss T-shirts. One of them had a pair of riders doing the "bike salute". I think it was my first introduction to it, strangely enough. Synchronicity saw me find bikesalute.com yesterday, a site/gallery with the plan to get a thousand riders to do the salute.

So long as they don't ask the guy with the mosaic bike.

Technorati tag: Cycling

Mosaic Touring Bike

2008-07-09T09:52:00.002+01:00

Mosaic Touring Bike - Top Tube & Down Tube, originally uploaded by nathan2480.

This touring bike has gained nine pounds in weight because of the mosaic the owner has decorated it with. It looks lovely, but must be hard work getting around, and even harder work getting to stop.

via BoingBoing

Technorati tag: Cycling

The Bicycle Tutor

2008-07-01T19:45:00.002+01:00

Everything you could possibly need to know about fixing your bike.

via Lifehacker

Technorati tag: Cycling

The £15 cardboard bike

2008-06-26T21:57:00.001+01:00

A student at Sheffield Hallam University has designed a cardboard bike that could sell for as little as £15.

Technorati tag: Cycling