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I know... maybe they're trying to get it nicked so insurance will pay out and they can buy something off of here?

Things have improved since the report Hippy quoted from:

Buses look to be down to about 81g CO2 / passenger kilometre, according to the 2009 Environmental report. It's got PM10 data as well: apparently cabs account for 44% of PM10 emissions. (http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/corporate/environment-report-2009-non-print.pdf)

Quite a good piece by Gilligan in yesterday's Torygraph:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/andrewgilligan/100047776/how-to-make-the-cycle-superhighways-less-pointless/

Of course the comments descend into hilarity and road tax almost immediately, but there's a wicked slapdown, Telegraph stylee:

Your comments are so universally ignorant as to not be worthy of individual response. You're just wrong. I can tell from your silly comments that I earn much more than you, which means that I pay more towards the roads than you. I am also fully insured. This, combined with my driving licence means that you shoud take your silly car and silly ideas elsewhere and get out of my way.

Someone who climbs at the Castle keeps locking a Create with two shoestring cable locks... now ok, it's in the semi-secure bike parking bit inside, but they've still either (a) bought rubbish locks just to use at the Castle or (b) regularly lock their bike up with little more than a licorice strip wrapped in plastic.

Will try to snap it (with camera, not bolt croppers) next time I'm there.

Done, with the 'split into two zones and charge seperately' suggestion.

It's because TFL have slowly closed all but the main routes anywhere, you can't do the old short cuts any more, they have become one ways, closed roads and no through roads, gated off or made difficult with traffic lights and width restrictions. The volume of parked cars has also risen.

Pretty much, yeah: as cars cleared off the road, Ken reallocated space to peds, buses, cyclists (ha! right) etc. I don't know if there are more parked cars (car ownership in London is pretty static) but they're certainly used less, which is sort of the same thing.

The shortcut routes aren't TFL so much as local councils. I dunno about West London, but in East / North alot of the smaller one way systems are to enable more parking on residential streets as well as to stop rat-running. Our street in Manor House is blocked off, presumably because people got pissed off with cars avoiding Green Lanes and lobbied the council to close it.

Ok, what's my transport expenditure as a percentage of my household income?

Fuel costs: 3 cans of Fosters / day @ £5 a six pack + 2 pasties @ 99p = £4.48?

Transport / commuting stat of the day: the number of people driving into Central London in the morning rush hour (07:00 to 10:00) halved between 1997 and 2007, from 142,000 to 75,000.

Interestingly (well, as interesting as Transport Statistics Great Britain gets) the decline seems to have started well before the Congestion Charge: steady decline to 2002 (105,000 people) which drops sharply following CC (86,000 in 2003, holds at that level until 2005, then drops slowly).

Public transport? 863,000 in 1997, 1,020,000 in 2007.

Sad thing is I've been looking at this data all day for work. Go on, test me on transport expenditure as a percentage of household income /yawn.

Sheer weight of traffic is usually a consequence of the above rather than the cause.

Sorry RPM, but this simply isn't true. Sure, some congestion is caused by roadworks (not sure if you remember the work on the A10 a while back which closed the buslane for what seemed like a year, causing major congestion) but overwhelmingly the cause of congestion is too many cars fighting over too little space.

Otherwise roads without roadworks (or bus routes) would be free flowing, which, for the most part, they aren't.

HGVs cause a bit, particularly when they get stuck halfway across junctions, and buses do too, but buses are usually far more full than cars are and are reducing congestion by more efficiently using road space.

You could plan to avoid this, but it would mean taking road space away from pedestrians, buses or cyclists...

Aren't these being launched on the same day as Critical Mass? Hmm... now there's an idea.

Classic. When we lived in Holland, my mum collected (i.e. had more than one) little dutch ceramics.

Good to know he's keeping the spirit alive.

1. What is your favourite cycling brand? Why?
   
   

Rapha, but damn, it's expensive. Howies is good too. Not that I can bring myself to pay full price for either. Swrve is good too - how come no one has mentioned their shorts or jackets yet?

1. What do you look for in your cycling clothing?
   
   

The unique blend of form and function... nah, just something that looks good, isn't made of polyester (although some things can be) and which works.

Not breaking the bank over the lifetime of the product too... i.e. it can be pricey if it's going to last. I'm still using a Rapha jersey I bought four years ago in the sample sale, and it still looks pretty much brand new.

1. What is your favourite cycling accessory?
   
   

Pac hip pouch. Not for cycling, but because it was awesome at Glastonbury as a stash-everything-in-pouch. Cycling wise, probably the Crank Bros. Joplin seatpost I bought for my mountain bike.

1. If you could invent anything to make cycling everday easier, what would it be?
   
   

Can I un-invent cars?

1. What does cycling mean to you? Is it just travel? Or is it a fashion accessory?
   
   

It's primarily transport (on-road cycling).

I tried using caustic soda, having previously tried GT85, Plusgas and other lubricating agents [snarf!]. After several weeks of using a super-saturated solution (i.e. so strong that it wasn't disolving any more) I gave up and sent my frame to Mercian, who nuked the seatpost out.

I think once I worked out how much it had cost for the various lubricants, two packets of caustic soda, hacksaw blades for the 'drop a blade down the open seatpost' trick, etc... getting it done professionally was cheaper (albeit it wounding to my DIY ego).

that is a load of bollocks and even it were true how would a tattoo circus help matters?

Sorry, what? The tattoo circus is helping to raise money for prisoner support. I don't know exactly what they plan to spend the money on, but richoking asked why you might like to spend money on prisoner support, and I suggested three reasons.

Now if you have issues with the three reasons, fine. Let's hear them.

Why would anyone want to contribute to something that supports prisoners anyway?

Possibly:
(a) to help ensure they don't reoffend upon release
(b) because some will be prisoners of conscience and / or convicted of no-harm crimes (e.g. drug possession)
(c) because those in prison are disproportionately from disadvantaged groups and non-white communities, indicating systemic bias which needs correcting

What we need is to ban HGVs from zones 1 & 2 at rush-hour, get strict liability brought in, and educate pedestrians to look before they cross the damn road.

Nothing in the survey about that.

This (although I'd be nicer about the pedestrians).

I really hate to be negative, as I should welcome efforts to improve things for cyclists, but TL:DR.

I got a few pages in, got pissed of with the suggestive questioning, and tired of saying the same thing over and over again.

Sorry, I usually try to be positive, but that was just crap.

ha, i will go in winter on a crisp dry day but its summer when the fit young things from London come down. hot girls in bikini tops rock climbing. thats is perfect.

Some of the people I climb with there have been cycling down... it's almost worth organising a LFGSS cycle-climb trip one fine day.

'Almost' time for Southern Sandstone? HTFU :) We've been down there twice already this year.

I've always wondered about the Shoreditch Park boulder. What's it like? Will have to take my climbing shoes to work one day and visit it at lunch.

Dibs on handlebars, and possibly the Deda stem - I have to check whether gf's bike has an OS stem or not.

Got mine :) I'd forgotten about it, but my gf registered me. I've therefore no idea what photo I have to try and look like...

Oh well, that was fun while it lasted. At least I've always got the screenshot.

It's well worth comparing the revisions on her Wikipedia page, as there's some very funny edits by someone called PetrolnellaWyyyyyyat (or similar).

If you're going to have Wikipedia fun, get it right :P

In February 2010, Wyatt's mother was knocked down by a cyclist who Wyatt claimed was riding at night without lights on. Wyatt wrote an article for the Daily Mail, in which she said the collision had caused her to quit cycling.[9] The article went on to describe how she had been mugged "by a youth on a bike who rode on to the pavement, snatched my bag and disappeared at high speed. No one could stop him, even after I yelled that the bag was a fake" and complained that "male cyclophiles are becoming a blot on our highways." Some cyclists reacted angrily to the article. CTC, the national cyclists' organisation suggesting that people should write to the Daily Mail to object. [10] Some users on the London Fixed Gear Single Speed forum set out to vandalise her Wikipedia page, although others objected, asking how it looked when "how it looks when a group of mostly 20something males personally attacks a - let's face it - backwards 40 year old woman who lives with her mother and who once fucked Boris Johnson".[11][12]
http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/2447/71101709.jpg

That will probably be deleted, but it does comply with Wikipedia guidelines... up to a point.

We'll want to come away from the meeting with a clear 'something'... what we won't be able to rustle up is a clear strategy and full list of solutions.

I can speak to the person who arranged the existing lorry ban back whenever it came in on Tuesday... he should have some suggestions as to what might work (such as permits and the like). However we would be well advised to stick to a clear outcome - which might be 'fewer cyclists killed by lorries' - and keep that in our minds rather than fixate on a solution in the short term.

I spoke to Debra - campaigns coordinator @ CTC, and also Chris - policy coordinator @ CTC; hopefully at least one will be able to make it, and maybe Roger as well. Def. a good place to start.

I can speak to some more experienced large-scale (200 people plus) meeting facilitators if you want, I'm sure one of them would be up for pitching in if needed.