Cycle Yorkshire Cycle Harrogate

Cycle Yorkshire was launched yesterday the official Grand Depart legacy brand, the link is to their prospectus. It's a welcome to Yorkshire initiative. I was hoping to be at the launch at the International Centre but I had to work after taking the Wednesday off as the NUT were on strike. So I was on childcare duties.

What to make of the initiative? I have argued for a while now that cycling has failed to progress in these parts as much as it should have, due to a lack of strategic planning. Well this is a ten year plan so that's progress, there are five main objectives

1. Provide access to and training for bike riding
2. Increase the number and awareness of cycling events and increase participation for all age group and abilities.
3. Improved infrastructure & travel planning advice to make cycling an attractive travel choice
4. Support and increase awareness of community led cycling businesses
5. Promote cycling in the region as a leisure, sport and travel activity

They are all laudable aims and there are some targets for increased participation levels to so that's great as well. It seems to be a joint initiative between York Council and Sustrans and that is also good news.

How will it affect Harrogate? Well there is a question. My worry is that we drop off the back of the group or worse do no more than we were going to do anyway Andrew Jones has praised the initiative but when you get down to detail most of what looks set to happen round here is money that was committed before the Tour swung our way.

If as a town we are really to benefit from this legacy we need to look at how we can do more to deliver increased levels of cycling. I like the idea of number 4 - promoting social entrepreneurship to build some cycling businesses, something we are set up to do in Harrogate. That has links to training and the leisure cycling market. We already do well for event participation and I think it's reasonably well promoted, but we could do more outreach to target people who have never even thought about riding a bike for fun.

It's objective number 3 that's for me is the potential stumbling block. That is about infrastructure and easier travel choices, at least it made the list. Alas better infrastructure which has a huge effect on participation levels costs money and currently once the LSTF spending in Harrogate is over, I see no new money being earmarked to be spent on cycling infrastructure over the medium term.

If we are not careful, or more to the point if we don't plan for it we will be back to arguing with a reactive highways department for piecemeal provision rather than working together to build an integrated network. We need to put some money where our mouth is. A commitment from our politicians to a 5% slice of the Harrogate roads budget for cycle and pedestrian infrastructure for the next 10 years would make these fine words real.

My concern is that whilst this initiative looks great on paper and I welcome it, without a Harrogate specific cycling plan we run the risk of missing the peleton on this one.

It's not about the bike - Nidd Valley Road Runners

I haven't been riding my bike much recently. I was a bike commuter for 6 years but a change of job means lugging tools around rather than pedalling. What cycling I have been doing has been with my kids and as a family. The kids are mad for it, I suppose we will be doing loads more.

So to close my activity gap, I have been doing a bit of running. To lose a bit of weight and to improve my climbing grade. Climbing has always been my one true exercise love and I guess it always will be. It engages your brain as much as your body, think of it as outdoor chess, with pull-ups. It has gotten me to places few have been and I have a lifetime's worth of memories already. I write on a climbing blog here if you want more about that game. Running though makes you feel off the scale good, even when your pavement pounding near your backdoor. It turns out your bodies own endorphins produce a better high than any chemical you could ever put into your body, who knew?

I re-started running after a long break as Mrs Cycle Harrogate had caught the bug, joined a club and it's something we can do together when we get the chance.

She joined Nidd Valley Road Runners and Saturday night was their annual dinner at Harrogate Golf Club. I expected a load of young emaciated stick insects talking about times and PB's that would bring me out in a cold sweat. I was very wrong. At 45 I was one of the younger ones there and there were all shapes and sizes. Everyone did talk times actually, runners do but I was expecting to feel chronologically inadequate and I really didn't.

I got taking to a guy in his late 70's. he had done 26 marathons and didn't start running until he was 40. His marathon personal best was 3 hours 17 minutes which is proper good and he posted it when he was 56. He talked about a Berlin Marathon in the early 80's when the wall was still up and about  sneaking behind the East German side the day after as he had connections. He had a twinkle in his eyes and he still puts in the miles every week. I hope I'm half as vital when I'm his age, I might just look forward to my old age if he can be my inspiration.

His wife was near by, she has a terminal cancer diagnosis, but she was there amongst friends and seemed to be loved by one and all. I thought when she is gone the guy would have this club, a place to be amongst like minded people and although he looked a bit scared, his future looked a dam sight better than a comfy but bleak and lonely chair in a nursing home, which will be many of our fates.

I got nattering to a guy who had just done his first marathon. A year after he started doing the excellent Harrrogate Park Run. A 5K challenge on the Stray 9am every Saturday. There are over 300  of these across the UK. We did one down in Nottingham after a gig last month. Me with a medium sized hangover, still good fun. A new one has just started at Fountains Abbey which would be a cool place to spend a Saturday morning. We talked Park Run times (runners do), he was a tad slower than me, but I could no more run a marathon than I could free Syria, respect. If you have never park ran you should. Its free, register online and simply turn up. There are all shapes and sizes there too. I sound like I'm on commission, I'm not.

What shone thorough from the whole evening at the golf club was the, lets call it shared, individual endeavour. Everyone was competing but against themselves and they were doing it as a group, mutually supportive and having fun. The exercise will keep them alive a lot longer than clean living and self denial and its all free at point of use. We need more of these type of clubs in Harrogate. We are an ageing population and we need to get people moving if we are to impact on our stroke and heart disease rates. They have a junior section which has just started. When I have finished brainwashing my kids into the joys of mountain biking, camping, climbing and the outdoors. I might try and get them doing a bit of running with this lot, they could do worse.

Short term Hire Bikes at the Station - use them and tell your friends

Picture Patrick Dunlop stray Fm

There have been short term "Boris" style bikes at the station now since Christmas. Seems nobody knows and nobody is using them. Quite why Northern Rail and the bike hire company  have done nothing to promote them is beyond me and Patrick Dunlop at Stray FM.

Anyway they are available for short term hire if you need a bike for a few hours, tell your friends who are coming by train. If the people who are supposed to be promoting them won't, I will. It seems unlikely people will use them if they don't even know they are there.

Mint - Moutainbiking in Timble Woods

I took my kids to Swinsty/Fewston today to ride the new'ish Yorkshire Water Moutainbike trial.
One 8 year old and one 5 and a half. I wasn't sure if it would work out, but work out it did. You park in the car park by the dam, bizarrely there is a separate car park 50 metres away for horses and bikes, to protect who from who I'm not sure.

Come out of the car park take a right down the minor road to the junction at the other car park. Then head left and pick up the bridleway at the bottom of the short hill and follow it along through a gate. When you come to the woods and a junction, head left uphill toward the road. You will see the bike signs stencilled on the trees and a track heading off right, that's the one you want.

Or ride uphill  on the road from the car park and you will see a gate on your right after maybe 500m that's pretty much the same place. I wanted to get the kids away from the traffic so we went via the trails.

The first few hundred metres where really muddy in places, we had to push a fair bit. At one stage I was carrying two bikes, so the kids could wade though. It will be drier in a few weeks. As you get toward the top of the wood the path levels out and the fun starts. It's  the best part of a Km downhill not too steep with whoops and berms, drops offs and a few jumps which are all avoidable via "chicken runs". My youngest avoided most everything and still had a ball. The eldest whizzed off till he got to far ahead and waited, but he had a grin like an inflated frog when we caught him up. The last section was best of all.  Tree trunk balances some huge rocks to avoid or take on and a nice section of big ramps with lines of varying difficulty depending on your skill level. I bottomed out my front fork a few times, it's been a while.

We headed back to the car park, the kids were jabbering like the Jabba the Hutt and singing "everything is awesome". You know what? For an hour or so in a wood on the banks of the Washburn Valley, they were spot on.

There are loads more trails in the area we didn't ride them but you could probably put a longer fun loop together. A few years back I got onto Blubberhouses moor and came down the old road on Kex Gill that was a nice ride too if your young, fit and keen.

Here is a bit of a sketch map based  on Yorkshire Waters Image which is a bit of a shocker to read on their webpage as it rotated in a daft way, and the description is a bit crap too. Hope this helps as this deserves more riders, I rated it.

The vision thing - Harrogate the bike town

Helen Flynn Lib Dem councillor and prospective parliamentary candidate for these environs has been ruffling feathers recently. She has blogged about why we need to make Harrogate a bike town, I agree with her, we do. She has also had a pop at Borough and County Councils and "the Tories" for not all working together to make this happen, with a few caveats (some people are working hard), I agree with her. Thing is she is detail lite and she risks alienating the people who are already working hard to make Harrogate a bike town, that would be counter productive

I have to say she got on my nerves a bit. It all seemed a bit "well if we just thought big it would happen". Then I got to thinking I have been beating on the doors of local government and local politicians for two years trying to raise this very agenda and it has got us all, well not that far. I have whinged in the past that the Liberals weren't interested. At least now they are I should give them the benefit of the doubt. So I have put my dummy back in. There seems no harm in dreaming big, hell the Tour De France is coming. Here as a plea for unity but also in a spirit of ambition are some thoughts. Not just off the top of my head but trying to look at what has worked elsewhere in the world. At least finally we seem as a town to be having the debate.

Here is my vision of what Harrogate would look like as a bike town.

Harrogate as a bike town would be somewhere my 8 year old son could ride around on his bike. Not on his own at least not past the local shop, but with me and the rest of the family. There are places where this can happen currently but after you have ridden to Ripley and down the Beryl Burton there aren't that many others. If he wants to ride on any of Harrogate's main arterial roads his dad would just laugh at him and tell him to keep watching the telly.

Harrogate the bike town will integrate and sign its existing piecemeal but reasonably extensive off the road cycle network and get people to be aware of what we have.

Harrogate the bike town will have high quality commuter friendly routes to the cities of York and Leeds. These seemingly car only accessible destinations will attract a surprising number of commuters. Some will do it one way and bring their bike back by public transport.

Harrogate the bike town will have separated on road provision for bikes on Knaresborough Rd, Skipton Road, Leeds Road and Harlow Hill. This won't be a crap 1m wide strip on the road but will involve some form of physical separation from the traffic like what the Dutch do and we are beginning to do in forward thinking towns over here.

On all minor residential roads in Harrogate there will be a 20mph speed limit. This reduces cycling fatalities and accidents more than any other intervention and it makes these roads easy to cycle on.

Harrogate the bike town will have cycle parking at all public transport stations and you will be able to take bikes on public transport, no drama, no booking.

25% of all car journeys in Harrogate will be undertaken by bike or on foot. People will think back as they drive easily around and remember the bad old days when the Skipton Rd was one of the most congested roads in the country.

Harrogate the bike town will have a more car and HGV free centre. This will make it more bike and pedestrian friendly. When this was tried in New York in a few neighbourhoods it increased footfall to businesses too. A free park and ride bus scheme operating from the showground will bring additional business to the shops there as well as allowing people easy access to the town centre which is considered a retail gem due to its mix of high quality shops and historic architecture and relaxed feel. A bike hire scheme operating from the showground will allow those that want to, to get into town along the new Greenway extension.

In Harrogate the bike town all primary and secondary schools will have traffic free routes from their main catchment areas to allow walking and cycling to them and there will be safe cycle storage when you get there.

The Tour De France memorial sportive will be an event of national significance. Mark Cavendish will turn out one year and repeat his near legendary performance from Stage 1  2014 despite being older than three quarters of the field, perhaps form is temporary and class is for ever after all?

GP's will offer cycle training amongst a range of other exercise therapies and discounts on bike purchases to their patients as treatment for the increasing range of diseases linked to sedentary lifestyles. As a result of this intervention despite having an ageing population Harrogate will have one of the highest senses of well being in western Europe.

Harrogate the bike town will be a popular overnight stop on the Way of The Roses coast to coast cycle route. This green tourism will be bringing some high spending affluent customers to a town that is now appealing to a broader demographic than it did in 2014.

Commuting rates by bike will be 25% of all journeys in rush hour. local employers will be delighted by the reduction to their sickness rates and the increased productivity from their staff.

All of this will have been paid for by increasing the existing 2% spend as a proportion of the roads budget to 5% for a 10 to twenty year period. For Harrogate in 2014 this will mean investment rises from approximately 200K a year to half a million quid.

There will have been resistance to most of the above from what is a fairly conservative (small c) town but in hindsight people will agree that Harrogate the bike town is now a nicer, healthier and even more affluent place to walk, cycle and drive around than it was in 2014.