Dorchester

We were in Dorset last weekend. So when I announced that I was planning to cycle to Dorchester today eyebrows were raised. I'm a bit behind plan on my annual mileage goal, and a round trip of more than 200 miles would certainly have helped that. But even on the new bike that would be ambitious.

I actually meant Dorchester-on-Thames, which is more like a 50 mile round trip. The Abbey Church of St Peter and St Paul is on my list of churches to visit on the bike this year. It's one of the few on the list that I've already seen, so I knew I could expect something a bit special.

Rather than follow the most direct route I took a slightly wider loop to include another church on my list: St Katherine at Chiselhampton. But the real point of the day was to give the new bike a good stretch.

I covered just over 60 miles, across fairly hilly ground. The journey out started by crossing Winter Hill to Marlow, then climbing to Stokenchurch. The weather for that stage was sunny and quite warm.

I then dropped down to Watlington. As I've discovered before the weather on the other side of the escarpment can be quite different. Today it was colder and more windy. So the journey up through Chalgrave to Stadhampton and Chiselhampton was less pleasant.

However by the time I had moved on to Dorchester the sun was back. The late afternoon journey back through Wallingford, Stoke Row and Henley was really lovely.

There were plenty of other cyclists on the road. Lots of friendly "hello"s. And for once those which passed me mostly had the grace to be half my age, and fully lycra'd..

In summary, I've had a smashing day. I've ticked off two more churches. The mileage is looking a bit more healthy. I'm tired, and I am chuffed to bits with the new bike.

Potholes

Our local authority has Tweeted to say that they have filled 138 potholes today. I am tempted to say that they are barely scratching the surface, but somehow that doesn't seem to be the the right form of words.

TGIF

It's friday afternoon, and the pull of he weekend has started early. So instead of finishing off the stuff I ought to be working on I've been prodding around the internet looking at old maps.

In the process I came across a wonderful collection that belongs to the National Library of Scotland.


Most of them are maps of - guess where - Scotland. However, they also have a collection of the lovely 1/2 inch Bartholomew maps covering the UK, and various other bits and pieces. There's a full list here.


The picture shows how Mull is represented on a nineteenth century travelling map of Scotland. Other highlights include aerial photography from the 1950's that can be viewed as an overlay to Open Street Map here.


Any minute now the phone will ring, and I'll have to get back to doing something useful. Meanwhile, it's not been the most productive couple of hours of my week, but still time well spent, I think.

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The William Roy map, which came up in an earlier post, is here.

Political shopping

The Guardian Bike Blog has an item on manifesto pledges for cycling, based on a current CTC campaign. Both propose a number of ideas, and the Guardian invites further suggestions.

It's all good stuff that it's hard not to support - like better facilities, higher safety levels, and more commitment to cycling.

So I went off to see what the different parties are currently saying. As far as I can make out all of the major parties are in favour of cycling in principle, all want to see more of it (for the usual reasons) but all believe that it is fundamentally a local issue.

Labour don't seem to have a lot to say, but I suppose we can see their policy in practice. On face value the Liberal Democrats seem to have the most concrete proposals, but it's hard to see how they differ significantly from current practice. The Conservatives are trying to give the impression that they will transfer £200m from Congestion charging to walking and Cycling schemes - but they rather spoil the story by claiming that there has been a 15% decline in cycling since 1996 (based on number of trips in the 2007 DfT statistics), when the most recent figures show a 22% increase in cycling (based on distance travelled in the 2008 statistics). At least they got the decimal point in the right place - it's just the sign they got wrong this time.

The CTC campaign and Guardian blog are just a small sample out of a number of different election shopping lists that have crossed my path in recent weeks. Each is making a plausible case for a particular interest group that I could claim some allegiance to. It's all healthy campaigning activity by pressure groups, I suppose. But if I add all the ideas together what it amounts to is a combination of higher spending and lower taxes. To misquote Arthur C. Clarke, "any sufficiently advanced manifesto pledge seems indistinguishable from magic".

All this is generating some interesting discussion, but I can't help feeling that the principle is fundamentally flawed. I'm not at all sure that I want to vote for a party that makes promises to lots of different special interest groups - even when I am part of them. After all it's our money that they are promising to use to buy our votes. Perhaps I'm being perverse, but I'm not even sure that I want to live in the kind of society that puts the interests of people like me at the top of its priority list. But I suppose that if the majority of voters want to be presented with a bunch of shopping lists for special interest groups, then that is what democracy has to deliver.

n+1

The ideal number of bikes is supposed to be N+1, where N is the number of bikes you currently own. Until today, I owned one, so the formula made two the ideal number of bikes for me.

Today I collected my new bike. I now own two, so the ideal number has gone up to three.

There must be some kind of time delay in the formula though, because it certainly doesn't feel as though I am short of bikes. I still have a well-used hybrid, my faithful companion over several thousand miles exploring, mapping and generally pootling around. And  I have a shiny new touring bike, which has only covered ten miles so far, on a try out around my Winter Hill loop.

I'm very pleased with it. It rides well, and looks great, but I'm still unfamiliar with the different gears, and the different riding position, so my riding was a bit clumsy. I don't think the bike quite knows what to make of me yet, and I suspect I am more impressed with it than it is with me. But I hope it will reserve judgement until I get my act together. I have all sorts of plans for this year, and I would like to think that there are many thousands of happy miles ahead of us both. No doubt over time we will get more used to each other.

The thin end of the wedge is on a slippery slope

The Department for Transport is currently consulting on the safety of mobility scooters and powered wheelchairs. Although injuries are rare, there are already around 330,000 users of these vehicles and an ageing population means that the numbers are expected to increase. According to the DfT, concerns are starting to be raised about the risk they may pose to pedestrians.

Does that sound familiar?

The consultation is concerned with design questions, such as the maximum speed, and safety features. It is concerned with the users of these vehicles: whether the minimum age for drivers should be reduced, and whether fitness to drive should be assessed. And it is concerned with the use of the vehicles: such as whether they and their users should be registered, whether users should hold third-party insurance, and whether there should be a maximum speed limit.

The consultation is open until the 28th May, and the full details are here.

Hands up - this isn't an issue that I've given a huge amount of thought to. But on first reading it seems to make a lot of sense. It sounds as though the technology and the needs of users have moved beyond the way things were when the legislation was originally drawn up. Some considered changes might give pedestrians more protection, and users more mobility.

On the other hand, this could also raise some uncomfortable issues.

Electric bicycles currently have a speed limit of 15mph, compared to 4mph for powered wheelchairs. Some might argue that if users of mobility scooters have testing, registration, and the like imposed on them, then why shouldn't users of electrically assisted bicycles? If electric bicycles, with a maximum speed of 15mph have to be registered then why not a normal road bike, which is commonly ridden at higher speeds. There are a lot more of them, and we all know that some are ridden on pavements.

I don't really believe that changing the legislation on mobility scooters will end up resulting in a mandatory cycling test, and registration of cyclists. That cannot possibly make sense. I'm confident that there will be compelling reasons for drawing a line in the sand that will stop the floodgates being opened by the thin end of the wedge sliding down the slippery slope. I'm just not sure yet what those reasons are. However, I am pretty confident that we are going to see this issue raised.

February roundup

Another month has gone by, and my mileage total for 2010 has only risen to 337. That's almost exactly the same as I had reached at this time last year. It's pretty disappointing. I was doing alright until the middle of the month, and keeping more or less on schedule despite some ropey weather. But in the last couple of weeks I've slipped behind again.

However, the weather picked up today. It's been a bit cold but sunny and dry. So I bunked off work a little bit early, and I went for a quick spin of about 10 miles before dinner. It was great. The highlight was three deer wandering across my path on the way along NCN4 near Littlewick Green, then scattering in all directions as I approached.

Whatever the weather turns out to be like I'm not going to fit in a long ride over the weekend, because we have other plans. But the forecast for tomorrow looks good, and it's not too bad for the following couple of days. So I could be breaking off early again before the week is over.