You are reading a single comment by @SRD and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed is a community of predominantly fixed gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London, UK.
This site is supported almost exclusively by donations. Please consider donating a small amount regularly.
@SRD
I've noticed a slow increase over the last ten years (even seen a couple of fixies!).
Seems to me that Birmingham is not as enticing to cyclists as, say, Oxford, Cambridge or London. It's more spread out, there are more hills, no congestion charge, the universities don't ban the students having cars etc. And, of course, the road system is designed for the car, although that too is changing slowly with the destruction of the concrete collar.
I don't think that the cycling facilities help much either...take the canals, suggested as a nice safe way into the city - an excuse for the council not doing anything to make the roads better for cyclists more like. Canals are slow, grotty, unlit, wet'n'muddy and can abound with druggies, drunks, flashers and assorted miscreants - how is that meant to be any better than the roads? Fine to use for a leisure pootle on a Halfrauds full sus MTB on a Saturday afternoon in the summer, but if you want to use them to do any distance t any speed on a road bike then forget it.
I started using NCN5 more - now I by-pass parts of it and use the roads to escape the cyclists - not a complaint: more cyclists is a good thing!