Cyclical

Sometimes these entries will have a reflective spiritual air to them, sometimes they won't - I don't want every entry to be like a sermon else I won't have anything left for real sermons. Today's entry is most definitely not spiritual - I'm going to talk about bikes, and possibly have a bit of a rant by the time I get to the end.

I spent quite a lot of time yesterday looking up cycle routes - I didn't actually go anywhere near my bike, but was stuck firmly to the laptop, on www.camcycle.org.uk, the website of the Cambridge Cycling Campaign. I was interested in finding out the best way to get to college without getting squished, and I spent hours on there finding the best combination of fastest/slowest/shortest. It's easily the best website I've found for giving directions - all the car orientated ones (TheAA, multimap, streetmap etc) have a tendency to express their directions in ways that a driver wouldn't (have you ever told somebody to drive 47 yards, blend straight left ahead and turn into the A14?). This one is straightforward and I can mail in suggestions for improvements where I don't agree with it! However, it's no use to you if you're not a cyclist in Cambridge.

What does amaze me is just how many people in Cambridge do cycle, and how good the provision is for cyclists. The people who run that website would like it to be even better, and they do a good job of pointing out where councils/builders/developers could be a bit more thoughtful (e.g. painting a cycle lane that's actually narrower than a set of handlebars!).

I'm already using the bike as my primary option, and I haven't put any diesel in the car for over 3 weeks. At this rate it's going to be about 2 months between tanking up. OK, so Cambridge is flat, but Ferndown (where we came from) is pretty flat too. The fact that your town has one or two slight rises is no excuse for not cycling.

One area where it's particularly noticeable - schools. At our primary school most parents seem to walk or cycle with their children - there are few cars outside the school gates (and little parking for them anyway!). I haven't seen a Pointless Chelsea Tractor at a school since we left The Beautiful South. At the secondary school I haven't seen a parental car at all! All seem to walk, bike or bus in.

Oh, and Cambridge thinks it's congested. Let me tell you that if I took a wrong turn in Ferndown between 8 and 9am it could take me 15 minutes to get through a set of traffic lights. Mostly because dear little Johnny was being ferried to school half a mile from his house when he could walk it in less time. In Cambridge they think its congested if they have to wait more for more than two changes of the lights, and they're threatening a congestion charge. Of course I'm sure that this would then fund future improvements to cycle routes.....

So my message to you, dear readers, is "don't be so flipping lazy". Walk or bike if you can.