The Guardian's bike blog

Not the blog but interesting

Mexico City cyclists rally to reclaim the streets
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/bike-blog/2011/sep/12/mexico-city-cyclists-reclaim-streets

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/bike-blog/2011/sep/13/renovo-wooden-bikes

Anyone ridden one? I'd love to see how they ride.

I saw one once, in the wild. Dude in mufty, rolling through Earl's court. I was tempted to RLJ and chase it down just for a look.

motorists did not like it when you're on the primary position on a road without a cycle lane - they do honk and shout at you for example, apparently what you learn from bikeablitiy/cycle training must be unlearnt if you were to cycle in Copenhagen.

I couldn't disagree more. Motorists act like that everywhere - it's not an effect of having cycle lanes on some roads.

I found the difficulties with Copenhagen drivers to be the opposite - they were so polite that they frequently wouldn't take their right of way - leading to both of us stopping, staring and waving at each other for a bit.

• the employer should have done the risk assessment - they should have demanded that all employees wear a helmet or sign an indemnifing waiver.
  
  

Apologies for going back to previous articles, but something bugs me.
(For clarity I think that suing the Employer was a bit of a dick move.)

Putting aside all element of blame or risk assessment or helmets were available etc, it's not a legal requirement to wear a helmet, so why are you allowed to be penalised for not wearing one?

It's not a legal requirement to wear knee pads whilst cycling, but if I got hit by a car and broke my knee and decided to sue, the court wouldn't look at me and say I should have been wearing knee pads would they...

Or have I totally missed the point?

I think you are trying to use logic in a situation which is all about politics.

Or have I totally missed the point?

I think the point you've missed is that a helmet is a magical device that projects a protective aura all around the cyclist, so if you had fallen off and broken your knee it was probably because you didn't have a helmet on. If you'd been wearing one, your knee would have been fine.

I believe they work using a combination of tiny crystals and magnets although I admit I am not completely up on all the sciency bits.

oliver schick alert!

could you sally forth and knock some heads together with your detailed analysis of what is happening on these here streets

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/bike-blog/2011/oct/07/cycling-death-appalling-road-layouts?commentpage=last#end-of-comments

Comments are depressing

Urban Hill Climb mentioned: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/bike-blog/2011/oct/11/hill-climb-cyclists

oliver schick alert!

could you sally forth and knock some heads together with your detailed analysis of what is happening on these here streets

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/bike-blog/2011/oct/07/cycling-death-appalling-road-layouts?commentpage=last#end-of-comments

I'm not sure about the specific thrust of your question--standard comments would include not to read too much into one year's stats--you need several years to really understand trends--, that as far as we know cycling is still increasing at a faster rate than crashes, that the crash rate in London, while too high, is still pretty low. That said, there has been very little progress for the better on the street network at large and quite a lot of regression (nonsense like 'smoothing the traffic flow'). There's still a huge amount of work to do to change the stone-age thinking that prevails in certain quarters, so no reason for complacency.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/bike-blog/2011/nov/17/getting-children-cycling-to-school

This is amazing:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/bike-blog/2011/nov/25/cycling-indian-schoolgirls-bike-blog

Great story, thanks for posting it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/bike-blog/2011/nov/17/getting-children-cycling-to-school

bows
if you like that^
youll like this
URL=http://journals.humankinetics.com/jpah-current-issue/jpah-volume-8-issue-8-november/cycling-to-school-and-cardiovascular-risk-factors-a-longitudinal-study
now if we could just get a U.K one written the same

this new blog post..

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/dec/27/cyclist-deaths-rise-recessions

what caught my eye was these statistics from the Department for Transport of cycling

DfT statistics reveal that the biggest single contributory factor in cycle deaths is the cyclist failing to look properly (25% of fatalities), followed by failing to judge the other person's path or speed (10%), the cyclist entering the road from the pavement (8%), and careless or reckless behaviour (8%).

how were these statistics gathered, are they correct, who says they didn't look properly, or were reckless or careless in their behaviour... and what about the other 49% of fatalities, how did they come about?

...and what about the other 49% of fatalities, how did they come about?

Failing to have brakes, failing to wear helmet, failing to not use earphones. Probably.

I've never seen that stat before, it's flatly contradicted by a previous Guardian report:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/dec/15/cycling-bike-accidents-study

With adult cyclists, police found the driver solely responsible in about 60%-75% of all cases, and riders solely at fault 17%-25% of the time.

Frustratingly, the article Andrew linked to isn't actually on the blog, just an article in the Lifestyle section. This means you can't comment on it even to point out the contradiction between the two articles.

I bet Charlie Lloyd isn't too happy with the title of the article; he certainly didn't say anything to back it up and wouldn't support the findings.

Open thread:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/dec/28/cycling-deaths-rise?commentpage=last#end-of-comments

"Cyclists disobeying stop signal or wearing dark clothing at night **rarely **cited in collisions causing serious injury"

Red!

Open thread:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/dec/28/cycling-deaths-rise?commentpage=last#end-of-comments

calling wiganwill alterego for contributions--

A poster called robjordan posted:

I finally tracked down the source of these numbers to the DfT report, specifically Table RAS50005 on page 73. Some conclusions drawn by the Guardian author and various commenters are bogus based on the published data:

1. The table relates to all road accidents, not specifically to fatalities, so "cycle deaths" is bogus

2. The numbers are quoted from the column on factors attributed to a pedal cycle, there's no way of knowing from these percentages what percentage are ascribed to a car, so the "biggest single contributory factor" is bogus

3. Multiple contributory factors may be ascribed in an accident, so the implication that a total of 51% implies a majority of accidents 'caused' by a cyclist is bogus... there might well be a higher total for cars; I don't think this information is deducible from the table because it doesn't separate car-bike from car-car or car-motorbike.

There are more detailed studies available, e.g. the Transport Research Lab report from 2009, which show that the majority of adult cyclist fatalities arise from causes ascribed to motorists.

A nice little watch:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/audioslideshow/2012/jan/02/1948-london-olympics-cycling-audio-slideshow