Rejoice! Today is the first day of the London Cycle Challenge!
In central London cyclists can enjoy the challenge of finding somewhere to park by St Paul's Cathedral.
And in outer London there's the challenge of crossing busy 'A' roads without any assistance, such as here on the A1006 in Walthamstow, where the dedicated signalled crossing for cyclists has once again been shut down and fenced off, with temporary signals for motor vehicles but none at all for pedestrians or cyclists. And in a final clever touch, cyclists are given no advance warning, so that those following the blue cycle route signs only discover at the last moment that they would have been better off going on an alternative route.
So the ultimate challenge, really, is understanding how anyone seriously believes that cycling is ever going to expand significantly beyond a small hard core of vehicular cyclists.
