In the news this winter

A bit of a news roundup from me about local  bikey stuff.

Harrogate Borough Council have now got onboard with the Cyclescheme that gets employees a cheap bike. Lots of big local employers in town do this now. HBC had been dragging their heels, but they have gone swiftly from heels to wheels and the scheme starts in April, good on them. Andrew at the big red bike co is delighted it's a scheme that works at his shop, this quote is from him.

Thank you very much for your efforts in this regard as hopefully we should benefit from this as a business as well as the Council’s employees who should receive a better service from businesses on their doorstep. Other local bike businesses should also benefit if they are registered with Cyclescheme. 

 Malcolm Margolis from HCA had been pushing for this for years and good on him for his tenacity.

We have a formal Tour legacy scheme approved finally. The route from Fountains Abbey via Ripley through Harrogate to Spofforth. This will be signed for cyclists. It won't all be traffic free but lots of it already is and there are plans to do more. It's going to cost 10 grand for the signs and Wheel easy, Harrogate Borough council, Sustrans and the Big Red Bike co have all chipped in about half the funding between them. Along with 5 grand match funding from NYCC to make up most of the remainder. As I write the scheme is £400  short. If you want to make sure it happens with a donation email Yvonee at HCA. If you contribute I will let it be widely known that you helped and be dead grateful. We aren't looking for huge donations every little will help. This route looks set to be the real start of getting some bike based tourism into Harrogate. Well other than the few folk who will turn up for the Tour!

Over in my end of the town, Harrogate Borough Council's park ranger. Sam Walker has filled in some potholes on the Starbeck to Bilton railway line. This after I offered to help with labour after someone got in touch. In the end we failed to arrange a time when I could be there to help, but good on Sam for getting on and doing it anyway. It rides way better now.

On Monday I recorded an extended interview with Gavin Rutter of Stray FM this week as part of their series about local bikey types as they begin their build up to the Tour. Quite way my particular brand of middle aged whinging is considered suitable for the radio I'm not sure, but it was nice to be asked. I hope I didn't whine on too much. We rode a bit of the Skipton Road and then a big of the greenway to contrast decent cycle provision with one of the busiest roads in the country. There was  quite a contrast. Broadcast date is mid February and Gavin is going to be to getting a few other local bike  people nattering too.

So that's you lot for now, on yer bike.

The Curious incident of the Frox in the spotlight

Recently and curiously in Harrogate, a local shop puts out a sign saying you can park in the cycle lane. Twitter and Facebook go ballistic with righteous fury, the press get involved as does the national cycle media. The shop issues an apology.

Except there were a few more things going on here if you looked. Snooty Frox the shop in question put the sign up and got quite a few bike rider's backs up last weekend. It was picked up on a Saturday morning by Dales Girl on Twitter and by the Monday lunchtime the apology had been issued. So why did the shop think this was ok? Here are my thoughts.

I suspect the shop's customers mainly use cars to get there and the new bit of advisory cycle lane was making parking more difficult. Although there is some adjacent off street parking and a plenty of side street options nearby. It probably never crossed their mind that some of their customers ride bikes too. I heard from a few incensed bike riding customers of theirs who were really annoyed by the decision to put the sign out.

The shop had apparently sought advice over the sign from North Yorkshire Police and Harrogate Borough Council and been told it wasn't illegal. They were right it isn't, but the highway code on advisory cycle lanes says you shouldn't park in them unless it's "unavoidable", whatever that means.

Whatever the story behind the sign, good on Snooty Frox for seeing sense and doing the right thing, they look bigger as a business as a result of their decision, I wish them well.

So Snooty Frox if they were guilty of anything are guilty of seeing cyclists as OTHER (not customers definately) and so making their lives difficult was worth doing if it kept business nice and healthy. From their press release it seems they were miffed at not being consulted over the cycle lane in the first place.

Twitter was fairly quick to condemn the shop over the decision and I was guilty of that too. I suspect they didn't realise how much more dangerous roads become when you have to pull out of the cycle lane, round parked cars and into often quicker moving car traffic. Some of the comments on Twitter though seem just as likely to paint cyclist as separate and other as the actions of the shop. There were people offering the home address of the owner and suggesting graffiti on the sign. I even heard rumour of people suggesting mobbing the shop. I mean they only put a sign out, it's not like they built an elephant trap to catch bikes in the carriageway is it?

The police and the council appear not to have covered themselves in glory either or at least to have changed their minds when confronted with a small media firestorm. Their advice may have been correct to the letter of the law, but it was hard advice to defend morally when vulnerable road users were on the wrong end of their advice. They didn't defend it for long in fairness. I wonder how the original conversations went?

I was surprised and delighted by how many people in Harrogate cared about this and how much social media and the interweb can help speed up the arc of these stories. A few years ago I doubt this one would have got much attention or been resolved in 48hrs. Perhaps I would have got somewhere with a polite behind the scenes softly softly approach rather than the name and shame in public approach?  You know what that's not been my experience at all. If you want biking infrastructure in this town it helps if you shout and get the media involved or nothing happens. That has definately been my experience, that's a pity but it's how things seem to be.

This is after all only a fairly small piece of cycleway, that was argued for locally by activists. The kind of fairly low quality provision you get when there is no strategic plan in place for sustainable transport due to poor local government traffic planning. Planning based on prioritising traffic flow and car use in an increasingly congested urban environment. Local government still seem unable to consider the needs of bike riders at the  design stage and god knows we are asking them to often enough. It's just not in their DNA yet.

So here we are again playing transport ping pong over these issues. People falling into the familiar old roles of driver, businessperson, bike rider and Offended of Harrogate. What we need to do if we are to move on, is to see everyone as people who do all of these things, some of the time. If we give them, us, you an urban environment that makes taking sustainable transport choices easier they will do it more often. Congestion will ease, people will be healthier and if Portland's experience is anything to go by spend at the shops will increase too.

So after this little diversion in the media spotlight. It shines to other parts of the nation's stage again. We as a town will be back in it's relentless glare in July. Expect one or two more of these type of stories before the circus leaves town. For a little while longer, people care about bike riding in Harrogate

Northern Rail fail

Mrs Cycle Harrogate is doing a day a week at the university in York. She likes a bit of learning and she was looking forward to starting.

She had a quick look at where the venue was in York. A bit too far to walk, but only 10 minutes on a bike and York is set up for bikes, she was excited. Then the wheels came off. She would need to get her bike to York on the train. Trouble is you can't just take a bike on the train. Northern Rail will take a massive two bikes but you can't book. So no guarantee you can get your bike on the iron horse. So your journey plans may or may not work. That's pants then, might as well say "We don't do bikes". Then she thought about hiring a Boris bike type thing at the other end, but the scheme in York isn't working yet. Then she looked at a bus at the other end and with the train ticket it was well over a tenner and was going to take another 25 mins on top of the train journey and life is too short, you know?

In the end she gave in and took her car with just one person, bad but perfectly understandable. That's how the roads end up full of nearly empty cars. Because we can't design an integrated public transport system that will let people make sustainable transport decisions. Even when they want to.

I raised this with Northern Rail on twitter and they said they were bound by their franchise and nothing could be done, it was the government's fault. I think they were wrong, I think what they meant was. We have a minimum service guarantee and as we are meeting it to do any more would impact on our profits. Suffice to say in the short term taking a bike to York on a train will be no easier.

 Now dear reader there is talk afoot about electrifying York to Leeds by Andrew Jones MP. That would be great, there would be an enhanced service, more trains. As part of that process if it happens, can we get some bikes on the trains and some WiFi? That would be nice. Rather than the current old skool rolling stock we have. Some of which  I worked on the design of, back in a time when I was still wet behind the ears last century. When people used drawing boards, cars had chokes and two Britain's winning the Tour De France was an impossible dream for fools.

And now in our dreamland we have won the hardest sporting event in the world, twice! Once with a rider who can't really climb all that well, that's amazing. I still get goose bumps thinking about Wiggo leading Cav out on the Champs Elysee. Yet we can't make daily exercise for everybody easy, in a country with a huge obesity and early death from inactive lifestyles problem. That's really pretty poor when you think about it.

Send us your outdoor events, we now have a calendar

Lots of people have been sending me details of outdoor or bike related events. I forget some of these and some I blog about, this is a bit crap. Cycle Harrogate now has a calendar.  I will put on there every local bike related or vaguely outdoor, running, triathlon type event I know about. If you send me things I will add them in.

email cyclehgt@gmail.com

twitter @cyclehgt

facebook cycle harrogate

Cheers

Dave