Green Machine

How to compensate for your crap bike lock?, paint it a horrific green in such an uncaring manner it would make even bikehacks blush. I especially like the matching green shopping bag-come saddle cover. Very fetching..... No, honestly I do like it. Chavs will nick anything, but this will make them think twice at least. Room for improvement?, it could have been candy pink maybe.

Fancy cycle parking for cool hip peeps

 

This is an underground car park on Spring St in Manchester. Nice isnt it?. Let's ignore the fact that you have to lift your bike a significant height above your head and hook it on. Then the metal loops mean only a cable lock is really useable. Aaannnd you are doing all this whilst stood in on the entrance exit ramp. Bad shoulder?, bad back?, bit old?, not tall enough? prefer a better lock?, heavy bike?. Tough park somewhere else you loser!, this cycle parking is for cool peeps.

Fail.

Merc has got a good spot tho....

Plymouth Grove crash

(Not a nice post, but sadly this is the result of certain driving styles...)

Sirens and unusual tailbacks are never a good sign.

This is Plymouth Grove yesterday evening, which fortunately for the occupants is where the emergency ambulance depot is located, meaning a response time of about 10 seconds.

Unfortunately for the occupants of the black Citreon it looks as if the boy racer Focus was overtaking on the wrong side of a traffic island straight into oncoming traffic.

....crashes like this are obviously common place enough for the Police to have a special unit for the job.

Gruesome'ish bit - highlight to read:

Beady eyed viewers, or people who've seen too many crashes will notice the distinctive way the Focus windscreen is shattered. That only happens when the driver is not wearing a seatbelt and slides headfirst up and over the airbag. Suprisingly survivable though, but not always.

The cargobike bloke....

Who is he. Nobody knows. He's a Manc mystery on wheels wrapped in an 3/4 length enigma. He pops up in more places than Droopy the Master Detective and even has his own 8 Freight fan page. Well here he is now on tape. Well ok his backside on tape. ....Never noticed the cargobay on 8 Freight was uncentred til now. Interesting that.

p.s I'm not wheelhugging. It's just a cheapo camera that's not very wide angle.
p.p.s @ 0.55 it sound like a tram honks at me!.....it was actually warning an ipod zombie about to cross the tracks.

Grosvenor Contraflow and Apollo roundabout alternative

There is quite a bit of cycle facilities work being done by Manchester city council at the moment. Mostly green and white paint, such as repainting on Wilmslow Rd using green blobs so thick that they create little cycle speed bumps along with new ASLs & square patches on Ashton Old Rd. Nothing particularly exciting. But on Grosvenor Street and Hyde Rd they are putting in a segregated contraflow and a dropped kerb roundabout bypass respectively. Neither are groundbreaking, but the Grosvenor street contraflow in particular is interesting because it reduces the space for motorised traffic a bit. I don't know the details of it as the consultation period passed me by and the pdfs have now been removed from the council website. But you can get an idea from the photos. It'll be a kerbed lane of somesort with Toucan crossings at the end to access the existing painted contraflow further on. 

Personally, the kerbs look too nicey nicey to me and the lane too thin, but since I haven't seen the plans I'll wait til its done to pass judgement.

The Alternative route from Hyde Rd to avoid the Ardwick Green roundabout is supposed to be still in consultation, but they appear to have started anyway. In my opinion the dropped kerbs are too short, but arguably this will mean bikes can't join the footway too fast, which is in the best interest of pedestrians. So it's swings and roundabouts really. You can have a look at the route for this still on the council website. Not great but a nice alternative for anyone not prepared to negotiate a big roundabout. 

On a side note - where the current cycle lane vanishes into a bus stop is a very dangerous spot (exactly where you see the girl on a bike in the photo). Because it guides you into a space that rapidly disappears, meaning you have to rejoin a fast moving lane of traffic. It's always been best to try and completely ignore this bit of lane and not get yourself stuck in the bus stop area.

one of three dropped kerbs put in already.

Cycling on a motorway

On the way to the Wheeler's Brunch yesterday I went down an eerily quiet Ashton Old Rd. This was because the Mancunian Way is closed for the weekend. Big road closures tend to have this effect, they don't mean more traffic clogged up elsewhere they just mean less traffic is fed to the lesser connected roads. So on the way back I took a little detour and did my first, and possibly last bit of motorway cycling. It kind of felt like that scene in Ghostbusters 2 where they are walking down the abandoned subway lines. At any moment the totally empty road might suddenly fill with ghosts of R*nge Rovers blasting along honking their horns.

In this photo note how the beautiful February sunlight catches the hints of colour in the grey armco barrier, the grey tarmac and is further bolstered by the patternated staining on the grey concrete university tower. Its a shame that the sky chose to be so blue really. A good overcast grey would have really finished off the pallette.

Just in case you thought it might be odd to find some motorway going through a major city they have put some signs up to remind you. This is based on the same principle applied to cycle signage. Here they want cars to use the motorway, therefore = lots of signage to help you find it and use it. In most other places those people on bikes tend to get in the way a bit so avoiding helpful signage where possible will discourage them.

Some inconsiderate railway people have gone and put this bridge over the road. Next time they should be made to use some grey engineering bricks instead of those colourful reds ones or better yet make it out of concrete. And that stone detailing around the base of the arches is just showing off. Nobodies looking up there when they need to concentrate on which lane to be in for the junction ahead.

Cycling on the motorway is alot of fun, but I think I'll give it a miss on Monday when its open again.

*Update: Here's the plaque, made of concrete no less. This little spot beside Brook St is actually quite nice to travel through when the sun is out, hence the large number of pedestrians and a bike in the photo. Just a shame that most of the other similar spots underneath the Mancunian way are used for private parking. Thye do make good skatepark locations in other spots though.

Manchester Piccadilly on Fire...a bit

I did wonder why every other vehicle on Ashton Old Road was a police van, turns out it's because Piccadilly is on fire. Well a bit on fire anyway.

Thankfully little hindrances like a tunnel network inferno and subsequent road closures aren't a problem for bikes and pedestrians. The motorists that had to do u-turns and anyone delayed on the trains aren't having such a good morning.

At least 5 fire engines there when I went past along with the mobile fire station lorry thing they have. Can Imagine a fire in a cramped old tunnel network is about as noxious & claustrophobic an environment you can get.

The middle finger from Metrolink

This is what Metrolink think of cycle infrastructure.

The polite 'conversation' with the bloke prat on the right went roughly like this:

Me: 'Can I cycle up there?' ...(sarcasm went undetected, he thought I was genuinely asking)

Prat: 'eh?, erm...'

Me: 'How am I supposed to ride up there?'

Prat: 'Oh, erm....just go up the road' (points at the one way road with traffic coming down it)

Me: 'Oh, thanks Einstein, great advice....'

Prat & Prat: .....both walk off giggling.

This is the contraflow lane featured here on Mad cycle lanes of Manchester. It might have the most convoluted method of access ever, but as a means to get up to Piccadilly Gardens in the morning it's very useful. Not so much today though.

The Metrolink is owned by GMPTE, whose HQ is the building in the background to the left of the bridge (No.2 Piccadilly Place). However the system is operated under license by Stagecoach. So it's anyones guess who these two actually work for.

Sigh.....anyway, time for a cup of tea.

**

Edit for the folks at Skyscrapercity enjoying this post. When I took the photo I didn't realise the guy's leg had partially blocked the number plate (annoying). From looking at my car check & consulting my resident Ford Transit expert we think this might be MV58 XPR.(although I may have just incriminated some poor unsuspecting plumber from crumpsall). Oh & rudenames have been substituted for 'Prat' because I wouldn't want anyone thinking something silly like me just trying to get to work in the morning makes me a 'Militant cyclist'.

Sunday canal ride

On Sunday me & my brother went for a trip round the Peak Forest Canal, Ashton Canal, Bridgewater Canal then a nip down Seymour Grove in Firswood (?) to get to the Fallowfield Loop. We took the mountain bikes, this wasn't really necessary but it's fun to bounce around on the suspension just for the day.

The canal system has never had a great reputation, but parts of it, especially the Peak Forest canal in Hyde are looking very neglected compared to the last time I explored a few years ago. The ruts are bigger, the litter is worse and the boggy bits are boggier. British Waterways is to be changed into a Charitable Trust as part of the quango axing, which is apparently a good thing as it will give them more access to grants and funds, so hopefully some of that (probably pitiful) dosh can make its way towards Tamesides canal system and upgrade the paths to the quality found closer to the city centre.

If you put the parts of dereliction aside, the canal system is a fantastic resource that goes totally unappreciated in a country thats prepared to spend £3.1m on making congested motorways more dangerous for instance. It's the fastest route to get from Hyde to Ashton for example and involves no hills at all. It's the same on the otherside of Manchester where to get from the city centre to Trafford park would involve a steady climb whereas the Bridgewater canal is a flat, unhindered & quiet route to the same destination. And even on a nippy Janurary afternoon a ride around the canals makes for a really pleasant day out, it's even nicer on a summers day when the sun's out.

Anyway, enough waffling. Here's some photos of the Peak Forest canal to get to Portland Basin in Ashton. (By the way I've taken some of the photos facing forwards, some back the way we've come from.... just in case you think the towpath is switching sides all the time!)

This spot is in a noticeably bad state, I've no idea how long its been like this but eventually the edging stones will collapse completely into the canal and become a much bigger problem to fix than if it had been seen to now. (near the Snipe retail park). There are a few other spots similar, but this is the biggest. The towpath has been collapsed in someway near Asda in Ashton for a long time, but I haven't been over there for about 10 years so haven't seen the state of it myself.

You then get to the Motorway bridge, which is the darkest and gloomiest part of the journey. The main problem here is the lighting is insufficient for any time of day & most of the bulbs have gone now anyway.

 

Just past here you get to the only 'posh' bit of the journey with a range of expensive looking canalside homes. The surface on this stretch is pretty good but I'm not a fan of this sandy gravel surface (whatever its proper name is). It's seen as being more 'countryside' and natural, when in reality canals are anything but natural and it would be a benefit to everyone if these towpaths were resurfaced with the wide tarmac like surface that can be found further on as you get towards the Sportscity.

  

 

The search for Alien life continues in Droylsden.....

A little further on you start to find the good old British tradition of 'Cyclist Dismount' signs. At least these ones are signed with British Waterways so you know who to blame for wasting money. From this point on there are quite a few shoulder gates, but there is no need to use any of them as some are off to the side for no reason and at others the gate next to it is permanently open.

 

From here onwards the surface is good and a decent uniform width. This is all part of when the Commonwealth games was held in Manchester and the whole stretch got a thorough refurb.

This bike rack caught my eye because it's a shining example of form over function. It's a fantastic piece of manufacturing and looks good, but it's quite obviously a useless piece of crap for locking bicycles to (the bent rusty front wheel illustrates this nicely!). Plus it's hidden out the way down the side of the building instead of outside the entrance & visible.....sigh.

This spot is obviously the favourite nicked bike dumping area. We counted at least 7 bikes and 2 shopping trolleys amongst other stuff.

Near Great Ancoats now and you start to find some big apartment buildings. The new metro line goes right past here as well and there is a fair bit of ground works going on. You can stay on the towpath here and come off somewhere near the BDP Architects building on Ducie St, but we chose to come off and zip down the roads to get under Picadilly train station and over to Canal Street where you can rejoin the towpath.

Canal St is one of nicest parts of the city centre. Infact such a good job has been done of creating a pleasant, relaxed, traffic free daytime environment on Canal St that I propose British Waterways should join forces with the LGF and embark on a pioneering revival of the Northwest's waterways.

Once you are back onto the towpath you are heading towards Castlefield with it's city centre living atmosphere,  bridges, viaducts, bars & restaurants and.......hmmm what is it that makes this place so nice?...no cars blasting around.

Once you are outside of Castlefield the towpath reverts back to the thin sticky sand-gravel stuff. 

Our journey on the canals ended at Throstle Nest Bridge where we used the excellent segregated facility (Pavement) to partially negotiate the Mega roundabout of death and begin to head towards the Fallowfield Loop.

On the Loop we met this little fella who I saw again the next morning, but this time at the complete other end of the Loop. So there you have it, the canals are good but the Loop is so good that stray kittens think its worth making Home. That's a seal of approval to be proud of :-)

Manchester Velodrome: Taster Session

A couple of weeks ago I went on an hour long taster session at Manchester Velodrome. The omens were good as I cycled straight there from work, setting off at the same time as everyone else (all going by car) and arrived a good 10 minutes before anyone else. I rode up Ashton Old Rd then up the partially segregated lanes on Alan Turing Way. When you get to the point that you need to turn right off Alan Turing Way the traffic lights have a cyclist only phase to allow you to pootle across the massive expanse of tarmac safely. It's a shame every mega junction doesn't have this style of setup!.

There is a good number of Sheffield stands up the steps out the front, but they are on thier own,in the dark and pretty unappealling. Luckily as part of the new work being done (building an indoor BMX track nextdoor) they have installed a new sheltered cycle rack directly outside reception. It was still fenced off though - solution?....move the fence and use it anyway. Note my cunning use of a Tesco bag which I put on to protect my saddle from the rain......then I realised the shelter has a roof......

Once inside I realised that if you are willing to carry your bike down a short flight of stairs then it was ok to take your bike indoors with you, as a couple of other people had done in the session that was just finishing.

The taster session itself was brilliant. Most in our group got the hang of cycling up on the banking even if there was some apprehension beforehand. It was a bit of a free for all really, with people cycling round at all speeds and over & undertaking on both sides. I guess the idea being to let you have a feel of what it's like to cycle a fixed wheel on a track rather than learn all the rules and etiquettes.

A few random impressions:

• Listen to the man in yellow and do what he says
• The blue concrete is slippy as hell in daft clown road shoes.
• Don't stop pedalling
• Power through the bends
• I found it worked best for me if I looked at the exit of the corner
• Hold the bars gently
• Shoulder checks before doing anything.
• Pootling around daily on your slow utility bike is ideal preparation
• Say thanks to the man in yellow afterwards.

Even if you've got no intention to become a track cycling aficionado and have never been above 15mph on your bike I'd still recommend having a go at a taster session just for the experience. Bonus points are awarded if you ride your bike to get there :-)

 When we had finished there was quite a big group of riders waiting to get on the track so I took a couple of blurry snaps of them doing things properly before heading off.

The gas men are here

Gas works on Peter Street this week (and probably for many many weeks further) which means we get the pleasures of signs like this slapped in the middle of the cycle lane yesterday. 

Fortunately it makes almost sod all difference to the everyday experience of this cycle lane because without fail there will always-always be a white van man parked up outside the newsagents in Peter house.

Oh look!....here's todays white van man. DG07 XMZ

On the flip side of things, its not just cycle lanes the gas workers have screwed up this morning. The huge jam of cars in the photo is because the temporary lights up ahead are stuck on red in all directions (do temporary lights have any other setting?). Oh well, at least on a bike it's almost impossible to be made late for work by traffic like this :-)

UPDATE: The sign has now been move forward a bit and put on the pavement. Hopefully this was done by the gas workers to correct their error and not a pissed off member of the public, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Poundshop Bargains

I'm sad enough to have noticed that the poundshops in Manchester city centre (at least the two in the Arndale) seem to have this year reached a bit of a threshold. They now stock more cycling stuff than car stuff and have started to stock some pretty decent useable items too.

For instance three things I've recently bought are a puncture repair kit, a kick-stand and a set of rack straps. The repair kit comes with alot more stuff than a normal one - the metal tyre levers being the best bit, one of the kick-stands will go on the Hopper and the straps fit perfectly on the Nexus rack and look alot neater than the thick old bungees I was using before.

A tiny victory for cycling I know, but not that long ago you would have struggled to find anything to do with cycling let alone a whole range of stuff. Chose wisely though,  most of what they sell is still crap! and what they have changes all the time.

Segregation over Integration

There has been a lot of debate about segregation recently. Notably on:

http://ibikelondon.blogspot.com/2010/10/is-lcc-pro-cycle-lanes-or-not.html

http://ibikelondon.blogspot.com/2010/11/ctc-rep-to-talk-cycle-paths-and.html

http://quickrelease.tv/?p=1351

http://hembrow.blogspot.com/2010/11/reality-vs-myth-dangers-of-dutch-cycle.html

http://42bikes.warnock.me.uk/2010/11/24/am-i-for-integration-or-segregation-for-bikes/

http://karlmccracken.sweat365.com/2010/11/12/segregation-im-with-the-pfj/ 

With all this ongoing I realised I’m not entirely sure what my own position is on the subject. I’d reckon most cyclists don’t know either. Dave Warnock’s post is along these lines – i.e. trying to find which sides of each argument suits my own position and thinking. I’d think that most cyclists would broadly agree with Dave’s findings, as I do, especially the point that waiting for segregation will mean I miss out on the benefits cycling can offer me today. But I do want every new piece of cycle facility to be aimed at reducing my interaction with motorised traffic and think segregation is the only way to go with cycling policy as long as its made clear that its decent, properly designed, continuous segregation that is provided. The obvious problem with that is that it would mean relocating road space from motorists to cyclists & walkers.

One thing that is never  mentioned is that integrationists are unbelievably outnumbered. Every single potential rider out there, who doesn’t ride because they fear the road can be considered to be a segregationist. If the UK implemented the facilities and rules that the Netherlands has (or even followed the route that places such as New York are following) then masses of these potential riders would begin to cycle. Why?, because the ratio between cost and perceived safety would be reversed. It’s nothing to do with sustainability and CO2, but entirely to do with providing Joe Bloggs and his family with an alternative way to get from A to B without fear. As soon as it makes more financial sense for the fearful to cycle instead of drive - they will.

Take a look at the Dutch. Dutch cycling policy isn’t about ecofluff and saving the planet. It’s a fiscal policy pure and simple. It makes financial & social sense to free your populace to be as mobile and time efficient as possible, whilst keeping them all healthy, fit, happy and richer.

Vehicular cycling is a reaction not a solution. I’m a vehicular cyclist, so is every other cyclist in the UK. Not through choice, but through situation. I have no other choice but to ride in heavy traffic and mix it with HGV’s, buses and 4x4's on a daily basis. The only alternative would be to get on a train, bus or car and immediately see my income eaten up by costs and my quality of life decline as I not only have less money but I waste time waiting for unpleasant buses that never come,  packed trains that get cancelled or sit in traffic getting fat.

Segregation as the Dutch have done is a solution not a reaction. It was done ‘in reaction’ to the influx of the motor car, but not as a reactionary measure to survive as vehicular cycling is. The Dutch implemented segregation to solve the problem created by motor cars and provide normal people with a way to get about without fear or unfair costs or being killed at every junction.

Currently for 99% of the UK population the perceived dangers presented by cycling so heavily outweigh any of the advantages that even popping to the shops on a bike is unthinkable, let alone doing their daily commute on a bicycle. None of those people enjoy paying out for a train ticket that rises in price each year whilst the service declines. None of them enjoy paying to sit on an uncomfortable noisy bus. Nobody enjoys burning money through the exhaust whilst sitting in start stop traffic for an hour each way every day. If these people had an alternative that would cost them nothing in fares or fuel they would take it. The only way to provide that alternative is with proper segregated cycle facilities on each and every major road in the country along whilst eliminating rat runs and making routes more permeable.

It’s understandable why some cyclists in the UK are against segregation. They see segregated paths as being a white line on an existing pavement, poorly dropped kerbs, no priority over side roads and so on. And rightly so, because this is what so many of the segregated ‘facilities’ are like in the UK. Here’s just one example from Manchester. There are thousands more. (having trouble seeing it?, I'll give you a clue, it runs down the righthand side of the Bull's Head Pub) Or how about this fine example from Great Ancoats


View Larger Map

This is shit. And does not, never would or never will get used by cyclists because not only it is more dangerous than being on the road itself, it’s also more inconvenient and unpleasant to ride on. The fear for existing cyclists that oppose segregation is that facilities like this will be built if people shout for segregation. It’s a genuine fear and even people who dream of having Dutch style facilities (me!) know that this is Britain and the cynicism is well founded.

Segregation isn’t about facilities like this, it’s about a fundamental shift in the way our towns and cities are treated by government and councils towards the Dutch method. I don’t believe it will happen, but I’m free to wish for it.

Properly done segregation isn’t about benefitting us existing cyclists, it’s about creating the only environment in which the other 99% of the population will feel safe to cycle. The trouble for existing cyclists like myself is that whilst the Dutch have spent 40 years building the most comprehensive cycle infrastructure on the planet, the UK has spent 40 years going in the opposite direction. We aren’t just 40 years behind the Dutch we are 80 years behind them and no living UK cyclist has got that much time to wait for segregation. Doing ‘A Hembrow’ looks increasingly attractive. In the meantime we can only try to do our best to improve the situation for cycling in Britain. For me that means suggesting segregated facilities at every opportunity and making it clear that they should be a certain kind of segregated infrastructure (not the shit kind).

This is why it's great to see Jim at the LoFidelityBicycleClub begin to setup a Cycling Embassy of Great Britain. I still believe the UK is much too far down the slippery slope, but at least this project might provide a focal point for those who don't see their own position represented by groups such as the CTC/LCC.

Lock-Fail

 Found this photo from a while ago, it's up somewhere near Piccadilly Gardens
 Spot the problem.... :)

Piccadilly Place Car Park - Cycle Racks

I recently discovered that there is some cycle parking within the Piccadilly Place Car Park on Whitworth Street Near Piccadilly Station. There's not that many of them, especially considering they are taking up the space of around 6 car spaces and only providing space for 16 bikes. I've no idea if it's free, but I couldn't see anything to do with charges for cycles or any kind of tickets on the bikes, so I presume it is free.

That London lot have raved recently about some cycle parking in a multistorey car park, but it seems us Mancs have half heartedly beaten them to it! ;-)

Apologies for the shit pictures. And don't be fooled by the lack of bikes, this was on a Saturday morning, presumably it looks a bit more packed on a weekday.