One Up, A Few More to Go!
Today the Olympic Velodrome is being handed over. On time and on budget!
It looks good and I hope to be there for some of the action in 2012, as I said in an earlier post.
Let’s hope that the London Olympics set a new standard for project management and that all the venues follow this example of time and cost. After all the North and East London Lines, which will help take people to the games, set a precedent for this and the latest addition here, the Western Curve at Dalston, is expected to open soon.
I’ve Only Got a Gammy Left Hand!
My left hand is getting better, but I still have a degree of pain and lack of control in it, because of the stroke. But then Sarah Storey doesn’t have one at all.
But that didn’t stop her winning gold in the cycling at Manchester last night.
I think it decided what event I want to see in the cycling at the 2012 Olympics.
I’ve now registered for tickets.
If I do get to go, I’ll cycle there along the Regent’s Canal or through the parks. I may take the second option, as I can’t swim.
What Twit Did This?
For anybody with limited eyesight and/or movement this sort of unnecessary pavement obstruction is not only a nightmare but dangerous.
An Unnecessary Obstruction
The bicycle should be removed by traffic wardens and the only way the twit gets it back is on payment of a fine.
I was lucky, in that I saw it, but the only things I’ve bumped into on the pavement in the last couple of months are badly-parked bikes on narrow pavements.
Not Many Takers for Boris’s Bikes
I took this picture in Bunhill Row in the City.
Boris's Bikes in the Snow
Only five of the bikes had been taken.
But then it isn’t good weather for cycling. I did see a few runners though!
Cycle Race’s £1.5m Boost for County
Yesterday, this was the front page headline in yesterday’s East Anglian Daily Times. It was a good day out and shows that if you put on a show in Suffolk, people will attend.
As we have the Great North Run, today, would it be an idea to have Great East Run!
Scotland and London Get the Pope, Suffolk Gets the Tour of Britain!
Today, the Tour of Britain came to Clare, which is a village a few miles from where I live.
I asked one of the local officers about it and he definitely felt we’d got the most entertainment and the better deal.
There was quite a few people on the streets of one of Suffolk’s most pleasant villages, as this video shows.
After the excitement, I went down the pub and had a half of Aspalls, before returning home for lunch.
Looking back on today, I’m rather pleased at how the video has turned out. It’s the first real one, I’ve done since the stroke and it’s a lot better than some I’ve tried. But this was done with my trusty Fuji S5700 and Windows Movie Maker.
Something to Look Forward To!
The tour de France it is not, but the Tour of Britain is a spectacle in its own right and it will be coming almost past my door, as it goes from Bury St. Edmunds, through Haverhill, Clare and Cavendish on its way to Colchester on the 17th of September. Read more here.
I note two that it has teamed up with The Prostate Cancer Charity, something that has touched a few of my friends.
It’s All Down to the Cyclists Now!
With Murray bowing out of Wimbledon, England failing in the World Cup, the cricket winding down after an England victory against the Aussies, it’s getting quiet on the sporting front.
But the Tour de France starts today and Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish should give us something to cheer about. I’ll be watching. Let’s hope that the victor of the Tour does it unaided by chemists!
Cycling to Football
In my teens I nearly always cycled to football at White Hart Lane. When I returned last night, I don’t think that would have been possible. Or at least I couldn’t find anything on the Spurs web site.
Wouldn’t cycling to football be a good idea? Clubs could also make a charge for a bit of security.
If you take Ipswich Town, they have a bit more space than most and I’m sure that they could provide parking for a couple of hundred or so bikes with ease.
I’ve just looked up Ajax in Amsterdam. They have sheds for 3,000 bikes. It would also appear that the Olympics in London will also encourage people to cycle to the games.
Sustrans and the Cambridge Busway
When the Department of Transport report into the Cambridge Busway was published it contained these paragraphs in the section of the busway’s supporters.
Sustrans supports the guided bus project. Moreover, with its associated maintenance track it offers great potential benefits for cyclists and walkers. The route is expected to form part of the National Cycle Network and this is welcomed.
The maintenance track surface should be tarmac or equivalent throughout. There is a danger that were the surface to deteriorate, people would be tempted to walk or even cycle on the guideway. Access to the stops should focus on the public walking and cycling there. This necessitates a network of high-quality feeder paths to be constructed at the same time as the busway. More thought needs to be given to crossing details for cyclists, walkers and horse riders.
It would be desirable for the buses to employ hybrid drives to allow electric operation within the City area. Also, the buses should have the capability to carry cycles.
I suspect that they would be very interesting in the picture I put up in Paddling the Guided Busway. To get round the puddle, I actually crossed the busway twice, which echoes Sustrans’ comments about the deteriorating surface.
They also wanted hybrid buses and the capability to carry cycles. I don’t think either of these points have been met.
Interestingly, search the Sustrans web site and you will find no mention of the Cambridge Busway at all. So perhaps, the only reason they supported the busway was because of the promise of a cycle track, which is now more suitable for cyclo-cross.
I can’t find their comments on it now and would welcome them. The nearest I can get to a direct quote is this piece from Railway Ramblers.
This is Sustrans’ response in the latest edition of The Hub, its quarterly magazine for supporters: ‘While Sustrans fully supports plans to improve public transport, we do question whether bus routes should be built at the expense of walking and cycling paths. It seems counter intuitive to develop public transport in direct competition with walking and cycling when the aim is to tackle road congestion and greenhouse gas emissions [and rising levels of obesity – Webmaster]. What this trend seems to show is how under-valued walking and cycling are as transport choices in their own right.’ Many share this view. Many also question the wisdom of building guided busways in the first place. Not only are they visually intrusive structures that deploy vast amounts of concrete, but the example now being completed between Cambridge and St. Ives has cost millions of pounds more than reinstating the railway which it replaced.
I’d agree with all that.
We need good cycling paths everywhere and perhaps a better and much cheaper solution would have been to use the old railway to create a proper cycle path all the way from St. Ives to Cambridge. In fact I’ve seen comments on the Internet, that the route will be used by cyclists from Histon to get to the Cambridge Science Park.
But the latter did not need a scheme that is going to cost upwards of a hundred million pounds.
The Anonymous Widower 