Are You A "Regular Cyclist"?

What a silly question you might say..., well first ask yourself what you would consider a regular cyclist.



Would you call someone a "Regular Cyclist" if they cycled:-

• 12 times a day,

• 12 times a week,

• 12 times a month,

• or 12 times a year?

Well 12 times a day is the sort of punishing regime you would expect of someone like Chris Hoy or Victoria Pembleton, so that's a bit beyond us mere mortals.

12 times a week is a bit more reasonable. That includes people who commute to work 5 days a week and get out on a bike at weekends too, say a couple of shopping trips, or visiting friends. That's the category I belong to and it feels about right to me.

12 times a month would include people who potter out on a bike 3 or 4 times a week. Regular cyclists, possibly, particulally if they have restricted opportunities to cycle, like they have to take the train to get to work.

12 times a year on the other hand is a bit of a joke. You only have to get on a bike every day for a couple of weeks once a year, or ride round your local park once a month to fall into this category. Nobody could take such a measure of activity seriously, could they?



Well, you've possibly guessed by now that the joker in this particular pack is Sky/British Cycling.

They claim that:-

A ‘regular cyclist’ is a cyclist who has cycled at least 12 times in the past year.

 Why on earth would anyone use such a weak level of activity? In order to make wildly inflated claims of course! Sky are making the claim that they have created a million more "regular cyclists" with their Sky Rides.

This would be a joke if they didn't have undue influence over cycling policy in the City of Manchester. Indeed, Manchester City Council has adopted the same weak measure, phrased as once a month, for its own target of getting "20,000 more cyclists" by 2017.

Besides, James Murdoch, who was personally responsible for Sky's funding of British Cycling, the Sky racing team and other events, is a personal friend of Jeremy Clarkson, and he wouldn't want to get people out cycling too often as they might get in the way of Clarkson's Range Rover.....

BCF, "the voice of cycling" in Manchester, for ten years...

One of the vital pieces of information missing from the version of the Memorandum of Understanding between Manchester City Council and British Cycling released under my FoI request was the length of the agreement.

However, the City Council have now agreed that it isn't a secret after all. You see the information was made public back in September 2010 on the British Cycling Web Site.

The reply from the Council gives the full deleted text:-

I have made further enquiries and found that the deletion of the length of the agreement from the Memorandum of Understanding that I sent with my message of 15 February was a mistake as this information is not commercially sensitive and is already in the public domain.
I apologise for this error.

The relevant paragraph in the document is:

8. Duration
8.1 The duration of this Agreement shall be 10 (ten) years from the date of this Agreement.

This means that Manchester is stuck with having the BCF acting as the "voice of cycling" in Manchester until 28th September 2020!

So what are we going to be landed with as a result of this agreement? Well apart from the £28 motorway cycling tax being tried out in June this year, you might like to take a look at item 7.3 below...



It seems that Manchester City Council will be prioritising issues such as cycle racing on the public highway.

Which leaves me to wonder whether the council spends more money on cycle sport in this city than it does on providing for cycling on the streets. It's time for another FoI enquiry...

The Great Manchester Cycle Charging Trial

The Great Manchester Cycle will take place on Monday 4 June 2012. It looks like a trial of a new innovative congestion charging scheme for bicycles in Greater Manchester. On the day cyclists will be charged a whopping £28 each to cycle a fixed route around Manchester, Trafford and Salford.

All cyclists using the route will be also required to wear wear a cycle helmet that is Snell, CE or ANSI approved and must keep above minimum speeds of 7mph, 13mph or 18mph depending on how many laps they ride.


The web site however doesn't say whether the entire route, including access points such as the MediaCity footbridge will be closed to non-paying cyclists. Something that would seriously inconvenience cycle commuters in the area.

Looks like another bad idea from the BCF and MCC.

Just imagine the outcry if Manchester City Council proposed charging drivers £28 per day to use the Mancunian way...

BCF, "the voice of cycling" in Manchester, but for how long?

One of the vital pieces of information missing from the version of the Memorandum of Understanding between Manchester City Council and British Cycling released under my FoI request is the length of the agreement.

It seems that the length of the agreement is top secret!

Is the BCF going to be "the voice of cycling" in Manchester for the next two or three years? Or will it be as long as five years?

That would be bad enough. Five years is long enough to screw up cycling policy in Manchester for the next decade.

However, just imagine how dreadful it would be if this agreement were to last for ten years....

Still I'm sure the council leader was fully aware of the impact of his actions when he signed the document!

British Cycling Federation, "the voice of cycling" in Manchester?

I have just received the reply to my FoI request for the Memorandum of Understanding between Manchester City Council and British Cycling. Much of the document has been covered in black ink on the usual excuse that "the requested information is exempt from disclosure under the following qualified exemption - section 43: Commercial Interests."

There are very strong "commercial interests" in this agreement, not least because, as far as I know, Manchester City Council own the Velodrome, so British Cycling are their tenants. One can only assume that Manchester City Council would like to ensure a stable income from the rent paid and so it is in their interest to keep British Cycling here as long as possible, otherwise we will all be paying more council tax.

However, the one small section which was of greatest interest to me has come through unscathed, "7. Transport, Environment, Health Education and Social Cohesion."



The really worrying thing is the way in which the BCF, an organisation concerned with cycle racing, and maximising income for sports training is somehow given pride of place in the city of Manchester as "the voice of cycling" within the relevant policy forums.

This is a real problem for cycling in Manchester, because the BCF are advocates of the dangerism view of cycling. For example they strongly promote the wearing of helmets, even for closed road events like the Sky rides.

The biggest challenge facing Manchester City Council in increasing the level of cycling in the City is the need to significantly reduce the level of traffic in the city. British Cycling is hardly likely to support such moves when it receives a significant amount of money from a car manufacturer!

Still with the ConLibDem government squeezing the council's finances they need every penny they can get...

"Memorandum of Understanding with British Cycling"

Is the Memorandum of Understanding between Manchester City Council and British Cycling, signed by the council leader back in September 2010 really a secret?

An email exchange with the officer drafting the council's cycling strategy hasn't provided the contents of the document, so I have submitted an FoI request.

Is the contents of an agreement between our council and British Cycling (funded by Sky and Fiat) so controvertial that we can't see it? We shall see.

From the British Cycling web site:-

British Cycling and Manchester City Council marked the occasion by signing a Memorandum of Understanding, a ten year agreement outlining the city's continued commitment to cycling with the aims of developing a joint strategy for performance, participation, events, facilities and grass-roots projects across all cycling disciplines.

Ian Drake, Chief Executive of British Cycling, said:

"British Cycling and its elite success are a perfect example of what Olympic legacy is all about. Our dominance on the world's performance stage at Olympic level has attracted new public and private sector funding, enabling us to build an organisation that can effectively drive participation in its sport. Since we moved to Manchester in 1994, the city has played a vital part in the transformation of our sport.

"Today's signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with Manchester City Council shows our long-term commitment to the city and both the Velodrome and the new Indoor BMX Arena will be the training base for the GB Cycling Team in the build up to London 2012 and the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow."

Sir Richard Leese, leader of Manchester City Council said:

"The phenomenal success of the Great Britain Cycling Team demonstrates exactly what can be achieved when you combine the vision, foresight and ambition of a city like Manchester. I am proud to reaffirm the city's commitment to the sport and am confident that it will continue to provide opportunities for many local people and our elite athletes of the future."