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How nervous do you think a chaingang might make someone riding a Boris Bike?
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The opposite for me, the odd wobbly BB going at walking pace can easily be accommodated for and dealt with fairly safely with a wide berth. Getting boxed in by a chain gang striving to hold the wheel in front while passing within inches was frequently unpleasant.
Which is not to say we should design roads for one over the other, but wobbly BBs have as much right to the road as anyone else...
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Edited to say more, rather than much more. I like to cut as close as I can to them when overtaking, so that can be abit nervous if they wobble and I have to dodge!
More seriously, the chaingang rarely make sudden changes of directions to veer across the road, which has happened with the old wobble boris, but thankfully due to leaving them enough space no incident occurred and I went on my merry way chuckling at their inexperience.
I never said they didn't have a right to the road...it is all just personally opinion and feeling right? Best if we can all go out there and enjoy it.
One thought though - if cars were banned where would the ladies and gents I see lifting their bikes out of their cars for laps park?! I have never really understood why you would drive to do laps of the park.
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Email I just received:
Dear all,
I hope this finds you well.
As many of you are already aware, there have been several talks about the proposed CS11 cycle superhighway route that could potentially affect cycling around Regent’s Park in a big way.
After looking at the history of the dialogue, data points, plans, and getting to know the various groups involved, it became very clear that cyclists who commute or ride around leisurely are being thought about (rightly so), but those of us (and there are loads of us) that use the Outer Circle to train have not been thought about. What is also clear is that a lot of people / agencies are actually working quite hard against our interests, in some cases, unintentionally.
To keep it concise: in the worst case scenario there could be speed humps and/or a 20mph speed limit, which, safe to say, will affect all of our members who use Regent’s Park to train. I should emphasise that Regent’s Park is currently one of a few places in Central London with long, uninterrupted stretches of road that provide the opportunity for sports oriented cyclists to train effectively.
CC London, Tri London, Regent’s Park Rouleurs, Muswell Hill Peloton and Islington have been actively involved in building relationships already, so we started organising stuff as quickly as possible to work out how we deal with this. It’s been a crazy week, but things are moving fast and we are now relatively optimistic.
What has not skipped our mind is that there are loads of clubs that have a really big vested interest in this and more than likely share the same ultimate objective. It’s a massive burden to try to take this beast on, so, if you feel strongly about this, we would greatly appreciate your involvement and to work with us as a team.
The big argument that comes up whenever cyclists are involved is that we don’t care about rules or pedestrians. This is not a Regent’s Park thing, just appears to be an anti-cyclist thing. The elephant in the room is always red light jumping. In this case, we have a very weak voice unless we can solve the issue in Regent’s Park. We simply have to stop it in the Park immediately if we want a voice at the table. We have talked to the Police who are going to proactively monitor the lights and we plan to do a physical leaflet campaign on this, but we all have to be on our best behaviour if we stand a chance to win this battle. I know that we’re probably preaching to the choir and that the worst offenders are generally not club riders, but we would like to agree on our broad common objectives and get as many other clubs involved as possible. In short we want to:-
- Develop a code of rider etiquette that all of us are happy with. - Encourage a culture that is less tolerant of red light jumping and encourage people to call out any bad or dangerous behaviour that will put cyclists in a negative light. - Communicate what is at stake to all Regent’s Park cyclists. - Invite clubs to attend the meetings and get involved with developing solutions. - Keep training around Regent’s Park.If you do feel strongly about this then we would appreciate your involvement and I would suggest the following:-
1. Have no more than two representatives from each club attend meetings to discuss. Currently these are planned for Monday evenings from 18.30 at The Stag in Hampstead (http://www.thestaghampstead.com/ ), but subject to change. If you plan on attending, please let us know so we can book an appropriate size table. 2. Share any suggestions, objections or ideas via this email or, preferably, via the Facebook group or in the meetings (https://www.facebook.com/groups/regentsparkcycling/). 3. Share the social media links (Facebook, as above; Twitter: https://twitter.com/RPcyclists) 4. We’re also proposing Friday morning chat-laps at 6.00 around Regent’s Park, for a less formal discussion on the issues. All welcome.In the meantime, attached is a very rough draft of a Riders Charter / Etiquette Guide and we would really like the finished guide to contain content that we have all agreed upon, so please feedback. I should, however, make clear that we already have someone on board to help with the design and layout, so this will be fixed.
I hope you would like to get involved and I look forward to your feedback.
Thanks in advance,
(on behalf of Islington CC, Muswell Hill Peloton, Regent’s Park Rouleurs, CC London and Tri London)
Details of threat to Regents Park as a cycling venue.
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I appreciate the need to train but really they are - rightly - at the bottom of the pile when it comes to prioritising requirements for the outer circle. Soz.
Now if they could apply this energy to battering Westminster in to submission and getting them on board with cycling in general, or even put that energy in to getting a dedicated training venue in central London - i.e. a crit track, velodrome etc - think what could be achieved...I'd back the shit out of that.
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Every Friday morning at 6.00am for the foreseeable future, there will be social laps of Regent's Park for 1 hour.
The original aim of this ride is for different clubs to have a less formal chat about the CS11 plans (see this thread: http://forum.islington.cc/conversations/269905/) but it's a good excuse just to meet and ride with others. So far Muswell Hill Peloton, CC London, Phoenix, Regent's Park Rouleurs and a few more have shown up.
Meet at the zoo and divide into groups with a max size of 12, riding in 2 x 2 formation.
Every few minutes the rider on the right front comes through and moves left to keep the chat fresh.We also now have a Strava group. Please spread word:-
https://www.strava.com/clubs/149273
All are welcome.
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I was going to quote the same thing.
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I went earlier in the week to do some counts of red light jumpers at one of the sets of lights. I like Regent's Park riding, I most often ride solo there, before the gates open, in the winter and it is lovely to have a relatively peaceful, convenient place to ride on the way to work. I also sometimes ride with my club, CC London, doing either easy chat laps or through-and-off quicker laps. We go to significant efforts to make sure that we do not ride in an antisocial fashion.
Even as a commuter I was pretty horrified at the number of people riding through red lights at a pedestrian crossing. More than a quarter of people facing red lights jumped through them. Generally solo cyclists, occasionally pairs. I didn't see any bigger groups go through reds while I was there (half an hour, in the morning).
I think that traffic bumps/tables will be a real nuisance in the park. It seems to be an ad-hoc facility that is just going to disappear, and I think London will be just a little bit worse for it.
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I think they aren't considering zebras because of the 'road block' effect with large volumes of pedestrians you often see in the park (like at the recent zoo events on Friday evening). They would be a good thing for cycling at certain times (before the park opens), but probably dangerous at other times (people will 'jump' zebras too) but I understand the plans are quite advanced for speed tables at the junctions, possibly with a cobbled surface on top.
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When there are huge numbers of peds they ignore the foot traffic control anyway and have to be marshaled by security staff in my experience.
Shame we can't prioritse pedestrian access to the park, but I guess this is London: if you want anything nice - the park - you have to suffer to get there - crossing the outer circle. Le sigh.
Any idea where I can see the plans? Apols if posted already I'm feeling lazy.
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Ban cars and the road would just fill with wandering peds and be a nightmare for pacy cycling. Same for Richmond Park.
What you've got now is probably the best it will ever be.
So true.
Poxy smartphone users and foreigners....Do they even teach the green cross code or an equivalent anymore?
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How about introducing a man with a red flag?...oh wait! that's for motor cars...
Some of you guys come across like descendants of the National Cyclists' Union.
From the outer ring of the M25 to Piccadilly circus in the center of this city state of London cyclists have only two places that I know of that we can train/ride at a decent pace and in relative safety, those are Regent's and Richmond and still some people still want to hobble us.
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About
CS11 Plans - Regents Park
Posted by
@PeteC
The 4mph wobbly Boris Bike riders make me more nervous than the chaingangs, though occasionally people do pass without leaving quite enough space.