Whoosh they were gone. I shouted for Cav and the whole team Quickstep until my lungs burned. They had control of THE Tour De France with 2k to go, barreling in toward Parliment Street as the sun burned down. Until that is Spartacus spoiled the party. Then with everyone else in the fan park I watched the bottomless heartbreak unfold.
Next day in Starbeck and Kittel rides past in pole position, I clapped but I had hoped to be cheering a Manx man. Was this the tour where the baton was passed from one great sprinter to another? I hope not, Cav seems too great a rider to just fade away. I hope he has a few more stage wins in him.
I should now once more get wound up about Harrogate and the UK's failure to get proper serious about cycling but I will not. Harrogate is a town that is now post Tour we are on the world map, A town that now can attact cycle funding like Coldplay attract negative critism. A town that now has some small but growing political will and an ongoing bike debate but not yet enough of either I fear to tip over the statues.
Post Grand Depart and the Cycle Harrogate Peleton heads for the continent. Stage one Germany: Lubeck and Bremen. Two Northern German towns one workaday, one with a bit of tourist glamour. Cycle lanes were everywhere as were cyclists. Lots of shared use pavements with no more than a white line down them. The give way markings at the junctions are set back and cars do indeed give way to bikes.
Everyone just gets on with it. Lots of people ride bikes, not Lycra clad athletes just people getting about. I start off as a pedestrian forgetting to look out for bikes, but after half an hour it's second nature. The roads seen a little quieter as far as car traffic goes around town. The autobahns are still busy enough and my battered old SUV hugs the inside lane as Mercs torpedo past and we head north toward the ferry to Denmark.
If Germany was an emerging bike culture Denmark was a country where bike use is an accepted fact of life. Copenhagen is ramned with bikes. I'm guessing 20 percent of traffic is two wheeled. This in a bustling capital city built on a series of Islands where it rains a fair bit. The Danes have shed loads of bike infrastructure. There are vast bike parks at the stations, with endless rows of commuter bikes in them. Lots of segregated cycle lanes and through the smaller parts of town with narrower roads, there are lots of car slowing traffic bollards to ease (but not stop car traffic). This means you drive closer to 20mph though town but you keep moving. All this makes it easier for bikes, pedestrians and cars to rub along. Again not much lycra, few helmets or drop bars, just normal people in everyday clothes getting on with their lives
Everyone said this was how it was on the continent, that it can and has been done. I have seen it now, it is so, it is good.
I should rage, rage against the dying of the light. Rage at North Yorkshire County Council's outdated traffic plans, which still puts the car first, last, always. Yet here on the 58 parallel of Sweden's West Coast. Where at 11 O'clock at night the light will still not die. Light which shines upon a sea of small islands off the Bohuslan Archipelago. I think it is time for me to roll the dice and move on.
As of now Cycle Harrogate will be campaigning no more. I'm going to be offering cycle training soon under the Cycle Harrogate name. I might make a few quid, I might help more people cycle, that's what I'm about. Some of what I do will be in partnership with Harrogate Borough Council. Some may well involve North Yorkshire County Council. I will have more details mid August. So I will berate, lobby and cajole these organisations no more. 2 years is enough. Whatever I might think about some of what they do. I can have more impact getting people using what we have. If I have had any impact at all that's great but it time to move on. From now on If you want better biking in Harrogate it is your turn to bang the drum and do your bit. I hope someone or maybe many of you will do just that. We had a truly Grand Depart we now need to build a Grander cycling Legacy.
If we build it they will come.
Dave Prince July 2014
