Killer Loop: the image of cycling

Is it an alien from an extraterrestrial craft?

Is it someone in a horror movie whose soul has become possessed by the devil?



































No, it’s a cyclist. Whose face is splattered in mud (proving he’s a tough, fearless red-blooded man, presumably). Underneath the personal details it says

FAVOURITE RIDE: Killer Loop, Surrey Hills.

This flyer was being handed out at London Sky Ride and advertises the Cycle Show at Earl’s Court, 8 – 10 October.

Another view of Sky Ride

Look back down Birdcage Walk for happy people out for a relaxed ride (as you would see on segregated facilities across various European towns and cities).

Turn toward Victoria Station down Buckingham Gate for occasional cyclists starting to look a little bit desperate as they mix it up alongside fast moving cars and vans (as you would see in all British towns and cities). Particularly parents trying to herd their brood alongside a tide of Audi’s and Volvo’s before giving up and using the pavements.

Last night thousands of bikes were probably returned to sheds to collect dust. This morning’s cycle commute also coincided with the beginning of a new school term so the roads returned to resembling a Blues Brothers car chase. The two can be reconciled with decent, segregated cycling infrastructure designed and built to a Danish or Dutch model. Then everyday can be a Sky Ride. No lycra or helmets necessary. Just happiness.

The mathematics of Sky Ride

For the most part, the road space was two lanes wide. A single lane of motorway can accomodate 2100 cars/hour. So this road could have accomodated 4200 cars/hour, perhaps a bit more at slower speeds. Skyride had 85,000 participants, so the peak flows would have been what, 20,000 maybe 30,000 bikes/hour? That should give you an insight into how inefficiently we use roadspace in central London, when we allow almost total domination by motor vehicles thereby scaring would-be cyclists off the road.

And a recumbent cyclist heads home after London Sky Ride:

A great day, overshadowed rather on my way home by an idiot who overtook me when cycling along Hampton Court road, between Kingston and Hampton Court. I was about ten metres from queuing traffic. He screeched past me at maximum revs, he then swerved hard left in-front of me because he'd just noticed that the road was full of cars, which were plainly visible only metres ahead. I shouted at him: 'that was bloody clever'.
Naturally, I left the idiot behind in the traffic.

‘Recumbenteer’

from the Comments to this

Sky Ride: how was it for you?

OK, so this guy wins the prize with his pack of huskies. But I expect he's Canadian, so we'll disqualify him.

(Below) Smart kid. You let mum and dad do the pedalling while you rest your feet on the crossbar.





























A Jeremy Clarkson nightmare. A major road entirely filled with cyclists in both directions. Victoria Embankment.

























Sky Ride attracts people on unusual bikes...




























Some people appeared to be having more fun than others...



























Outside Buckingham Palace. Come on, ma'am, where are you? Get out on that balcony and show your support. Although come to think of it I’ve never seen a photograph of any member of the royal family on a bicycle.




























A typical Sky Ride family admire the official residence of The Cycling Prime Minister.



































Sky Ride attracts too many bleedin' cyclists if you ask me. ST PAULS LOOP CONGESTED PLEASE PROCEED STRIGHT (sic) ON. Naturally I transgressed and ignored this advice.





























Ageing cycling hippies with amazing constructions should always be preceded by a small child with a red flag.
































A cool dude.






































Sky Ride cycle chic.




























In the tunnel I encountered a woman transporting two young children in some sort of painted wooden tub on wheels. Apparently women like this are from Copenhagen. They can’t help it, they grow up in a society where this kind of behaviour is regarded as normal. And don't miss the unicyclist in the background.


























Oh. My. God. Mayor Boris Johnson was PERSONALLY there to give me a cheery wave. God bless you, Boris!






























Sky Ride was a fabulous success in terms of the numbers it attracted. The route was choked with cyclists. A lot of people plainly had a very good time, especially families. If there is going to be a Sky Ride next year it needs far more roads closing off. The current route is simply not adequate for the demand, as was underlined by the sign asking riders not to take the St Paul’s loop because it was congested.

One major bugbear about cycling in London is the lack of safe, convenient, secure cycle parking, so I was amazed that a highly-orchestrated affair like Sky Ride seemed to lack any temporary cycle parking at all. No cycle parking was provided by the marquees and temporary toilets in St James Park.

The message of Sky Ride is that if you provide a safe, traffic-free environment people will come in droves. Unfortunately this is not the conclusion which will be applied by Transport for London, Boris Johnson or the London Cycling Campaign. Their message is to enjoy Sky Ride, get some cycle training, and then plunge into the world of vehicular cycling in London.

Sky Ride is ultimately nothing more than a gimmick. Even its route takes place on roads which are regularly closed off to traffic for parades and demonstrations. London as a city remains car-centric to the core and Sky Ride does nothing to address this. Boris Johnson and Transport for London are far more interested in prioritising motoring than they are cycling, and this transport culture simply isn’t prepared to re-allocate road space for cycling.

There is no opposition to this state of affairs from either the London Cycling Campaign or the Green Party, who are both equally clueless about how you get mass cycling. Both these campaigning organisations remain wedded to the failed philosophy that the bicycle is a vehicle and as such must share the roads with drivers. Cycling campaigners won’t see it that way, of course. They’ll convince themselves that Sky Ride is part of the momentum which is being built up which will result in London becoming a mass cycling city. This is wishful thinking. The demand which ought to come out of Sky Ride is for some completely traffic free cycling routes in London, seven days a week.

The reality of Sky Ride was summed up for me when I left the fenced perimeter and headed off home. At the first set of traffic lights I caught up with a family. The father was saying, "And now this is where it gets dangerous, so we are all going to ride on the pavement." And off they went.

I kept to the road and headed along the first unpleasant city gyratory and within two minutes had had my first bad experience with a driver, in this instance a homicidal coach driver. Nothing changes.

Two views of the Ealing Sky Ride

Photo: Charlotte Barnes

I think it’s such a shame the way these hyper-critical cycling bloggers are always grumbling, grumbling, grumbling. Don’t they realise 2010 is the year of the bicycle?

The Ealing branch of the London Cycling Campaign thought the Ealing Sky Ride was

an extraordinary day.

And this blogger on a bicycle didn’t.

I tried hard to just treat it as a fun day out on the bike, but I’m afraid that I couldn’t help thinking just how little it all had to do with promoting cycling. Really, I know that sounds awful, but it wasn’t the sort of thing that’s going to persuade people to get out of their cars and ride their bikes next week when all the marshals have gone home and all the barriers have been taken down.

Worse, this kind of blog just brings out all the other whingers:

And I thought I was the only one curmudgeonly enough to resent the corralling, the frequent stops for the important people in cars and the absurd preponderance of highly questionable safety equipment.

Don’t forget the original idea of these days was a city completely closed to motor traffic. That was too much for London to swallow so for the Freewheel we got a few closed roads, and the stops were to allow pedestrians to cross. Now the Sky Ride is a segregated route mainly on back roads and in parks with minimum inconvenience to motor traffic. The message is: these are the safety measures we need to take so you can venture out for a ride to nowhere on your bicycle.

the Redbridge Sky Ride experience

Making the point that cycling is for ordinary, normal people…


I went on yesterday’s Redbridge Sky Ride, along with some 5,000 other people, rather less than the original estimate of 11,000.

We encourage everyone to wear a helmet, it said on the website. Quite right too. Roads filled with nothing but cyclists are obviously highly dangerous places.

My impression of the ride was that for those participating it was a great success. But not necessarily for spectators. I overheard the jolly cycling jester greet a woman standing by her front door and ask if she was having a good day. ‘NO I AM NOT!’ she angrily retorted. It wasn't his amplified music she was objecting to (which was no worse than that which thumps out from any passing BMW or boy racer) but the fact that she couldn't use her car. The Sky Ride roads were closed to traffic between 9 am - 5 pm and residents on affected streets were not allowed the chance to vote on this shocking proposal. This is why in Redbridge SKY RIDE is infamous

The majority of those cycling were on shiny mountain bikes which looked like they spent the rest of the year in a garden shed. There were lots of families, lots of very small children. A broad slice of the community. A bit like a scene from Denmark or the Netherlands – apart from all the yellow bibs, helmets and mountain bikes.

What Sky Rides demonstrate is that there is a great appetite for cycling on traffic-free routes. Unfortunately the logic of their success is not applied to transport planning. British cyclists are still expected to cycle on roads with motor traffic and all the literature available at Sky Ride was about learning how to adjust to this state of affairs. Me, I shall never again cycle on the Redbridge Sky Ride route. Unless, of course, there’s another Sky Ride. I wouldn’t want to cycle the route sharing it with motor vehicles. Too unsafe and unpleasant.

Bob Davis has this to say about Sky Rides:

Of other initiatives, the mass participation Skyrides aim to get 1 million more cyclists over a five year period – but that is for the 10 cities in which they take pace over 5 years, and with cycling once a month being the measure of a new cyclist. Translated into London statistics, that means Skyrides are aiming at about an extra 5,000 daily cyclists, or a 2% increase, over 5 years. However, despite a great deal of organisation associated with Skyrides, there has been no follow-up monitoring to assess whether participants increase their regular cycling to achieve even this very modest target.

Redbridge invested in this first local Sky Ride but it is not a cycling-friendly or walking-friendly borough. On the contrary, like Waltham Forest, the London borough of Redbridge is going backwards, and promoting MORE car dependency, not less. More on this tomorrow.

(Below) Sky Ride signing and advice is magnificently comprehensive.































(Below) Marshalls with megaphones were on hand to shout “narrow road!” to help blind cyclists negotiate this hazardous section of the route, which is, er, about the same width as a crap Waltham Forest cycle lane on a major ‘A’ road.

























(Below) After two gruelling miles there was a rest-stop with free drinks, toilets and HGV enlightenment.






































(Below) Cycling-friendly road haulage contractors Keltbray provide the opportunity for cyclists to learn about how lorry drivers can’t see them in the zone marked out on the grass. Keltbray? Hang on, isn’t that the firm… No, I’m saying nothing. Sky Ride is an upbeat affair and there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with education.

























Safe cycling for families:



































(Below) The war on the motorist. Drivers make the shocking discovery that their route is blocked by cyclists and that they have to turn round, go back the way they've come, and find some other way of getting to their destination.
























(Below) Journey’s end. A woman with a PA system at her command shouts her congratulations at your achievement in cycling a gruelling four miles (or eight miles if you started here instead of the High Street in Barkingside and did the complete circuit).

After that, a carnival of freebies including an environmentally-friendly ballpoint pen and a CTC goody bag. Sullen ingrate that I am, I shall be sneering about the contents of the latter gift in a future blog post. The Sky Ride high viz bib will, however, come in useful when cycling home from Critical Mass on a dark winter’s evening.