OFF TRACK SPOKES


Should bicycle businesses support city cycling or sportives?


Carlton Reid pitches in to the ding-dong battle between a bike advocate and the executive director of the Bicycle Association


SOME BIKE advocates sneer at Sustrans for creating a bicycle route network that often needs car-park access, with families driving to a honeypot route rather than riding there. Some bike advocates think SkyRide-style roped-off city rides are sell-outs for making people wear helmets and hi-vis vests. Some bike advocates think Lycra-clad charity challenge rides portray cycling as a, well, challenge and deter people from cycling to work in ordinary clothes. Me? I’m just happy to see people on bikes. I don’t care


whether they’re mountain bikes, road bikes, BMX, unicycles, penny farthings, CXers, 29ers, DHers or recumbents. It takes all sorts and no one sector of cycling is “real” cycling. It’s all cycling (although tricyclists may stiffen at that). So the criticism levelled at the Bicycle Association’s Phillip Darnton by blogger Danny Williams – that the bicycle industry doesn’t do enough for advocacy and should be pushing for segregated bicycle infrastructure for cites – misses the fact that cycling is far bigger than city cycling. Cyclists are dying on the roads of Britain and, in many


ways, that’s criminal, but cyclists also die on off-road rides, and time triallists put up with crazy risks by cycling on dual carriageways (sadly, some die). Transport cycling might be the major focus of many advocates but the Bicycle Association has to represent all sectors of the industry. The BA doesn’t demand velodromes, BMX tracks, MTB trail centres or other facilities for cycling. Via the Bike Hub levy, the BA encourages children to cycle so that they and their parents buy more bicycles. These children may turn out to be MTBers, roadies or


everyday cyclists. Doesn’t matter. What’s important is that they’re cycling. The cycle industry is run on capitalist principles (mostly, there’s also an element of passion and sheer enthusiasm) and, in a time of austerity, keeping any sort of levy going is very tough indeed. What Phillip Darnton didn’t mention in his answer to Danny Williams was that monies from the Bike Hub levy


Wondering what the Twitterati have been up to this month? Look no further...


In the spirit of breaking laws only a little bit, we should be


allowed to give Tory ministers a slap. It’d boost business.


@BenCooper


Have to say, from a purely aesthetic point of view, 650b


just looks right #controversial @_si _bradley


Sending a Backflip is by far the best way to recover from being


*have* been been spent on city cycling projects. The Bike Hub levy’s Big Ideas Fund spent £100,000 developing Darlington’s Beauty and the bike Dutch-bike project and on encouraging more cycle commuting in some northern cities. Part of the same funding round was also provided to Age Well On Wheels, a ‘silver cycling’ project run by the London Cycling Campaign. If advocates – or existing organisations – approached the Bicycle Association with well-thought out plans for bicycle infrastructure projects I’m sure they would be welcomed. But should the BA spend levy money on this sort of thing? Isn’t that the Government’s job? (Not that the Government does much in this regard, mind). Maybe the Bike Hub levy should fund the sort of urban MTB trail centre projects that I mentioned last month? If there’s some cash knocking about I’d quite like a pump track. One of the biggest growth areas in cycling is the


sportive sector. Maybe the Bike Hub levy could subsidise a closed-road sportive somewhere scenic? That would get lots more people cycling. Money in the till. Thing is, cycling is such a broad church it’s impossible to fund everything. The commuter market is clearly lucrative to bike suppliers and bike shops but city cycling cannot be the sole focus for the industry association.


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taken out on the first straight at the world champs.


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there is no path and leave a trail. @CyclingSurgeon


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