Peter Viney's Blog

This is not “anti-bike” but it is arguing for a proportionate use of public money and a degree of control over the irresponsible minority.

Waterloo Bridge. 11.30 a.m, Friday morning. Dual carriageway bike lanes either side. The hyped-up lycra clad sports cyclists need dual carriageway bike lanes so they can ride past any normal people who are using bikes merely as a means of transport. In walking across slowly, we saw only two bikes. And one was in the main roadway holding up the buses (with a delivery pannier), not in the luxury cycle lanes. 

On the way in to London, along the north Embankment, we rigorously followed the newish 20 mph rule, yet cyclists were passing us on the inside and crashing straight through red lights, cycling between pedestrians on the roadway who were crossing.

The ‘Jubilee Walkway’ at 10 pm along the South Bank. Yet again, there were several hundred walkers between The National Theatre and The Globe. We saw three bikes, one was an electric bike, and we saw two scooters in that time, all of them riding very fast and weaving in and out between pedestrians. The only vaguely sane one had a ghetto blaster on the handlebars, so at least you could hear him coming up behind you. Why aren’t bikes banned on a “walkway?” Even more so electric scooters.

We were looking at the shocking condition of London pavements. They don’t get money spent on them. In spite of a lot of huffing and puffing about disabled ramps, the wheelchair user has to navigate the cracked uneven potholed pavements to get to one.

Three London mayors in a row have been dedicated to promoting the cyclist: Livingstone, Johnson and Khan. That’s why we got “Boris bikes” as they were once called. The rental ones are quite hefty, not racing models, but they can still be ridden pretty quickly. Now there are electric ones.And electric scooters.

Millions have been spent, let alone massive traffic jams created. It’s the same in BCP (Bournemouth Christchurch Poole ). It’s deliberate social engineering, fuelled by a small but extremely vociferous and successful cycling lobby. Face it, retired people and children can’t ride on busy roads. The social engineering lobby pretend we’ll all get fit. Really? Breathing in exhaust fumes at close quarters? So how do electric bikes enhance fitness? Or electric scooters?

Then they say they’re a building a car free future and saving the planet. As a recent article pointed out, you can buy a small cheap Citroen Ami totally electric vehicle for not much more than the cost of a top racing bike.

I’m not ‘against cycling.’ I’m for responsible cycling. I love walking along the promenade in BCP and seeing a careful parent on a bike, with two or three small children cycling behind them. My daughter and grandkids do it.

The sports cycling lobby want the taxpayer to build them racetracks on public roads. The cyclist today is not my 1950s primary school teacher on her sturdy dark green Raleigh ladies bicycle with a woven basket in the front with our homework and her lunch box. It’s not an elderly person cycling slowly to the allotment for exercise. It’s not kids riding to school across busy roundabouts. The world has changed.

The aggressive cycling lobby, the lycra clad ones riding racing bikes with razor thin wheels, are overwhelmingly male, though not exclusively male. It’s this small group among the much larger world of cycling that causes the problems. The thing is they are hyped up with adrenalin and endorphins. A late friend spent years freeing himself of various addictions: drugs, tobacco, alcohol. Then he told me he started going to the gym. First it was twenty minutes, then thirty, then an hour. He recognized the endorphin ‘rush’ which is released by vigorous exercise. Endorphins are produced by laughter, sex, exercise and make you feel better. They relieve pain and relieve stress … but like other things with the same effect, they are addictive if you have an addictive personality (my friend was convinced that there is an intrinsic addictive personality). I remember standing with my friend watching three racing cyclists, heads down,. pumping away on the pedals. ‘I wonder if they know they’re addicts,’ he said.

They also have great influence over public money, because they are aggressive and highly successful lobbyists.

This is the bike lane with its kerbstone at the side on Richmond Hill in Bournemouth, which benefits only the most vigorous sports cyclist and coincidentally (NOT) leads mainly to and from the Town Hall where I’m told we ratepayers provide hot showers for the cyclists after their sweaty commute. Hang on, the carbon footprint of a car is replaced by the carbon footprint of a hot shower.

A normal cyclist will get off and walk. Richmond Hill is so steep that only electric trolley buses were allowed up in the 1960s. When the first petrol buses were allowed up, I was on one that slid slowy backwards all the way down on a wet road, horn blaring … too many people were standing. My Vespa scooter in the 60s could only just climb it. Yes, I realize that gears on modern bikes far surpass my trusty Sturmey-Archer 3 speed, but even so … it’s a very arduous climb. 

The Ferndown suburb of Bournemouth has been disrupted for months installing cycling lanes on both sides of the road. I had to wait right on the cycle lane for a taxi last month, after dropping my car in for repair at 8.30. Between 8.30 and 9.10 a.m. I saw just the one bicycle in the brand new lane. Bike lanes in BCP, the new ones, are all double width for overtaking.

Similarly, I spent 45 minutes in a traffic jam on the extremely hilly Alder Road in Poole in the morning rush hour (8 to 8.45). I saw one bicycle and that was being pushed … it is far too hilly for normal cyclists.

Motorists are paying £2 to £10.50 a week on road tax depending on the vehicle. Yet with all this vast expenditure on cycle lanes, cyclists and those on electric scooters pay nothing towards the facilities, nor in spite of dangerously reckless and aggressive cycling on view many times a day, especially in London, do they have to hold Third Party insurance, nor have a licence (which could be withdrawn after offences). On our last visit, in a ten minute period we walked across three pedestrian crossings, and on each one bikes rode through fast while we were on there. I have seen this happen in BCP, but not as an everyday (several times a day) event.

Cyclists simply do not obey the law. When cycling was banned on BCP promenade between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. in the summer months, we saw bikes every time we went down there. They cycle down the zig-zag baths past the No Cycling signs. The BCP promenade has a 10 mph speed limit, with pedestrian priority. That’s a joke. A racing bike can easily do 25 mph, and they do. So what happens? They can’t be banned. They should need licences.

Would it be too much to suggest a government issued licence, with an annual road tax of a mere £10 (about what I pay per week for a car) and compulsory insurance for those over-eighteen? The insurance could be rolled into the tax and backed by government.  That’s only 20p a week though. Maybe £25 a year (50p a week) would be needed to cover the administration cost. £1 a week is not excessive.

Do you know what happens to an elderly person or child hit by a bike at 25 mph? A school friend of my granddaughter was in a coma for weeks after being hit by a cyclist on a pedestrian crossing at the foot of a steep hill. She was eight. Then the cyclist rode away. He was caught later and received a short prison sentence, with his defence costs paid by the cycling lobby who wrote many letters to papers defending him.

AN ADDENDUM

On the Bournemouth / Christchurch / Poole FB page people were bemoaning roadworks by Tuckton Bridge which were causing 50-60 minute delays – because they also had roadworks on the alternative route. Immediately a self-righteous cyclist posted that he’d had no problems at all cycling past it and it was the fault of people driving cars instead of cycling. A plumber replied, ‘Try carrying my tools on a bike.’ A mother replied, ‘It’s half term. I’ve got a car full of kids.’ I replied, ‘Try being 75 and getting three grandkids on your crossbar.’

I’m sorry, but it leads me to conclude that these more than 90% males on racing bikes have no partners, friends, nor family to travel with.