June Critical Mass

Todays Critical Mass had 3 sound systems - this was the smallest.



There were balloons,



and flowers and big smiles.



And there were lots of bikes..





Music mostly from x1 Project (Wayne Huff) Lunar Beach from Ultima Thule programme 643, Nightmares on Wax's Smoker's Delight and Hybrid's Live Angle: Sydney and finished off with ARC's Rise.

Irwell River Path Mud

The Irwell River Path is very muddy in places following the floods.



The worst place is under the Ring Road, A6042 Bridge where the mud is several cm deep.





It is quite slippery and not nice for anyone who has to then take their muddy bike indoors.


View Larger Map

Popup Bikes

I dropped in on Popup Bikes this evening.



Popup is an independant cycle centre on Corporation Street in Manchester, just North East of Victoria Station. It was featured on the Guardian web site last week.

It has facilities for bike parking,



bike maintenance,



a cafe



and lounge area, complete with lawn mower :)



I had a lovely chat with owner Dipak Patel who has tried to get help from the local council & transport authority, but he has received no help at all and in the end has gone it alone. Dipak is a realist, but also very much into the social and cultural aspects of cycling and I hope he makes a sucess of this venture.


View Larger Map

How Manchester plans to have "20,000 more cyclists" by 2017

If you listen carefully to this piece on Radio 4's You and Yours, you can start to unpick the figures and find out how Manchester City Council and British Cycling have chosen a measure of cycling that fits the aims of British Cycling whilst leave the general cyclist out in the cold.



The measure they have chosen is Sport England's Active People Survey. It is a measure of sports participation not transport choice.

The survey currently puts Manchester 8th in the country for levels of cycling with 43,000 people getting onto a bicycle once a month. Yes, that's right, the survey counts the number of people who cycle at least once a month and has nothing to do with the proportion of journeys by bicycle.

In other words Manchester City Council can meet its chosen target of 20,000 more cyclists even if the level of cycling on Manchester's streets falls significantly.

All it needs to do is get more people driving to parks and cycle trails and cycling round and round a track for an hour to reach its target. Stand by for massive amounts of council money being spent on facilities for British Cycling and the Sky Ride whilst on-road conditions get even worse...

.......

There is no sign of a press notice containing these figures, and no sign of the Cycling Strategy document on the cycling section of the council's web site. There is no mention on the Leader's Blog either.

If you know what you are looking for you can find the full thing here, and it is rather less of a headline grabber...

.......

and yet more reasons not to put bikes on pavements

This morning's collection of vehicles on the pavement cycle track on Trafford Wharf Road.











View Larger Map

Abandoned Bikes Block Workplace Cycle Parking

We've all seen it - the abandoned bicycles blocking parking spaces at work, left there by one-way cyclists who rode to work one day and took a taxi home.



Even worse are the bicycle that have been stored at their place of work because they don't have anywhere to store the bike at home. For those of us who cycle to work every day these people are taking up valuable parking spaces.

Maybe Bike Week should include a "Cycle Home Again" event...

Pedal Power on Parade

There were lots of pedal powered machines on show at the Manchester Day Parade.



And the occasional city councillor...



Some had fewer wheels than others.





























By the end of the day some people looked knackered!



Whilst the clean up operation joined in the spirit.



Whilst the machines were mostly pedal powered, the sound systems etc were battery powered - some people were clearly not aware of the dangers of exposed battery terminals!