Review of 2010

Once again my track record against the year's cycling resolutions is a bit mixed. I achieved some of my goals, but missed more. Purely on the numbers I'm a bit disappointed with myself. Being walloped by a car back in October was definitely the low point of the cycling year. It's no excuse, but it was one of the factors in falling short on the numbers. The other factor was either my inability to set myself realistic targets, or my inability to achieve the targets I set myself. Either way, it doesn't really matter. What's important is that I've had some lovely days out on the bike, a variety of different experiences, and quite a lot of ground has been covered. Looking back over the whole of the year it has been thoroughly enjoyable, and I feel reasonably satisfied.

I knew that setting a goal of cycling 3,759 miles over the year was going to be ambitious, and I was absolutely right. In the end I covered 3,010 miles. That's a long way short of the plan, slightly more than I covered in 2009 (2,853), and slightly less than I covered than the year before (3,019). I'm plateauing at about 3,000 miles a year.

I wanted to reach an Eddington number of 50 in 2010. At the start of the year I didn't think that was very ambitious, but at the end of the year it stood at just 49 (i.e. I've ridden 49 rides of more than 49 miles since I started counting). Just one more 50 mile ride would have allowed me to put a tick against this one. To fall short by just one ride is a bit galling.

I didn't manage another 100 mile ride in 2010 either. My longest was 76 miles, but I did do half a dozen rides of more than 70 miles. I was particularly keen this year to clock up rides that were longer than 60 miles. I did better at that than I had in 2009, but not as well as I hoped - with 16 rides in 2010 of more than 60 miles compared to 10 in 2009

I did better than I planned on reaching famous churches. The idea here is to take a list of famous English churches, rank them by the distance from home, and ride to them in turn. Each time I reach one the next is a bit further away. Each year I seem to set my ambition a bit too low for the number of churches I reach. In 2010 I planned to reach the 40th, and ended up reaching the 50th furthest from home. Since I started this project it has proved to be one of my better ideas. Many of the churches are in pretty little villages, but not all. So it has encouraged me to explore areas that wouldn't otherwise occur to me, and taken me to some interesting places as well as helping me to gradually increase the length of my rides. I can't help feeling that the idea has run its course now though. To reach the next tranche would involve round trips of about 70 miles, and take me to places of no great interest, through busy road networks. I need an alternative for 2011.

I had a wonderful week cycling in the west of Scotland back in May. It was not the ideal weather, but I saw plenty of glorious scenery, met some lovely people and generally had a whale of a time. I had also intended to do at least one overnight trip with the bike in 2010, but I never managed to fit that in. On shorter trips I had plans to fill some of the local gaps in Open Street Map, and retrace more of the routes around London that Charles Harper charted in 1902. I've done a bit of both, but not as much as I would like. On the other hand efforts to locate Blue Plaques, old Milestones and local War Memorials have worked reasonably well as incentives to vary the short trips I take exploring  local byways.

On progress towards reaching the ideal height for my weight, the least said the better.

That leaves the question of what goals to set myself for 2011. My track record in setting and reaching annual targets in 2009 and 2010 is iffy to say the least. More importantly cycling has to fit around some significant family and work plans for 2011. For various reasons this is going to be a particularly difficult year to predict. So my current thinking is to go with a target of cycling 3,000 miles over the whole of the year, but otherwise to track short-term progress on the basis of a "project of the month". We'll see how that goes.

Meanwhile, thanks to everyone for sticking with my ramblings in 2010, and best wishes for 2011.

Fawlty Towers

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How appropriate to find the location of Fawlty Towers missing from Open Street Map.

The place where they filmed the exterior was not in Torquay at all. It was at Wooburn Grange Country Club between Bourne End and Wooburn Green. The familiar white building burnt down in 1991. It was demolished and replaced by private houses. I've used OS Streetview to add the roads.

There's more informsation here

Rode ten miles this afternoon. Well I say rode, but....

I took a quick turn over the winter hill loop after lunch. The road there and back was clear, but between Winter Hill and Cookham there was still a lot of snow and slush on the road surface.

It was a bit of a mess, and left the road slippery and lumpy so the bike was sliding around quite a bit. Last winter (when I was younger and more foolish) I rode in worse. Today I decided that discretion was in order, so I ended up walking and pushing for a mile or so.

Despite that it was good to get out. The ten miles has finally taken this year's total mileage over 3,000. That falls well below my plan for the year, but at least I can console myself that it's higher than I achieved in 2009, and there are still a few days left to go.

I also took the opportunity to try out the new helmet camera, but that wasn't a great success. I hadn't positioned it properly so I have just collected and downloaded about 40 minutes of video showing nothing except a stretch of tarmac just ahead of the front wheel. I'll have another try soon.

Christmas presents

There has been a bit of a cycling theme to this year's Christmas presents.

I must have been a good boy in 2010. There's an old cycling poster from the 1940's to go on the wall, a couple of cycling books to dip into, some padded underpants to protect my nether regions, and a helmet camera so that I can record descents down some favourite bits of road. I suspect most of these will reappear here in future.

Today, though, is a lazy day. This shiny little metal cyclist is getting more exercise than I am, as he pedals across the windowsill in front of me.

Roads for the rich

Some drivers claim ownership of the roads because they pay road tax. The "road tax" part of this is nonsense (see footnote below if you don't know why). But let's suspend disbelief for a moment, and examine the other part of the idea - that those who pay most for the roads have a superior right to use them.

Roads are funded through general taxation. The average family with income of more than £74,000 contributes about 27% of their income to government spending. The average family with income under £26,000 a year receives more in benefits than they pay in taxes. Low income families make no (net) contribution to government spending. An average family with income between £26,000 and £74,000 contributes about 15% of their income to government spending. All this is laid out here. (the numbers may be slightly different two years on, but I can't find anything more recent, and I am confident that the principle still holds).

In other words families with the highest incomes are contributing most to funding the road system. If we follow the principle that those who pay most have some kind of moral ownership of roads then nobody with household income under £26,000 should be allowed to use the roads at all, and those with income of more than £74,000 should be allowed to use them most.

Since 60% of households earn less than £26,000 it's obvious that limiting use of the roads to higher income groups could solve a lot of congestion problems. It would be a cheap way of boosting sustainable forms of transport, such as buses and walking, as well as cycling - all policy aims of our government.

I commend the idea to the house.

On second thoughts, perhaps not. Surely a gap between the value of services we receive from government and the amount we pay in taxes isn't some anomaly in the system - that's how it is supposed to work.

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Footnote - what most people mean by "Road Tax" is actually Vehicle Excise Duty. VED is what we pay for the right to use a vehicle (not really - see Chris Hill's comment below), and has nothing to do with spending on roads. For what it's worth, fuel duties raise more than VED, but fuel duties have nothing to do with spending on roads either. Spending on roads is funded from general taxation. VED and fuel duties all go into the same pot as income tax, VAT ,and the rest. All this was decided way back in 1937. Before that there was a separate Road Fund. The case for the change was made by Winston Churchill (no less) - "It will be only a step from this for them to claim in a few years the moral ownership of the roads their contributions have created". Even though the system was changed the problem that he envisaged didn't go away - though "a few" years seems to have turned out to be about 70.

One in 25,000

According to this I've contributed about 0.004% of the content on OSM since I started about three years ago. That's 1/25,000 of all the content.

I'm sure that I could have done more, and perhaps I ought to feel bad about that. But I don't. This isn't a competition (or if it is, I'm not playing). There are 336,650 registered OSM users. I'm quite pleased with the bits I've added, but more than 2,000 have made a bigger contribution than I have, and I think that's great.

Phlegmatic cyclists

According to the British Crime Survey people who have their car stolen are more likely to be emotionally affected than people who have their bike stolen. They are also more likely to get angry (69% vs. 55%) and more likely to cry (8% vs 2%). Perhaps that's because people get more attached to their car, perhaps it's because the average value of a stolen vehicle is £2,400 and the average value of a stolen bike is £253. Or perhaps cycling helps us deal with stuff. The data is here