Due to a brief site blip we missed last week’s round-up, so we’ve combined two into one bumper post! What a treat.
The top image is of a duvet that’s perfect for the cyclist who can never quite put their bike out of mind. We wonder whether sleeping under this leads to dreams of race wins or long tours?
In 2000 there were 137000 drivers and 12000 cyclists and London; in 2014 those numbers changed to 64000 and 36000. This huge shift in habits is expected to continue, with predictions that cyclists will outweigh drivers next year.
In a news article about this, the shift was aptly described as “a feat unprecedented in any major city”.
A video in the article above shows how this shift is changing infrastructure in London, from the much discussed cycle superhighways to new road furniture for cyclists. It also highlights objections, including those from the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association (predictably!) who say the changes are politically motivated and “a last hurrah” for Boris Johnson before he leaves office.
Other proposed measures to ready London for an increased amount of cyclists include closing roads in Regents Park to bikes during rush hour, and adding a dedicated and separate cycle lane to a popular flyover (these are outlined here).
What do you think about the shift in road behaviour and proposed changes?
If you haven’t seen it, there have recently been conspiracies about the discrepancy between the autocomplete results for ‘Conservatives are…’ vs. ‘Labour are’ and ‘the Lib Dems are’ (the latter being less than polite):
In the wake of this, Cycling Weekly decided to take a look what happened when you typed ‘cyclists are’ into the search engine. Thankfully they’re less rude than we expected, and some of them prompt fairly interesting questions:
An adventurous Australian couple have beaten the previous record for longest e-bike tour, but have not set a definitive new record as they are still going!
Their tour uses the EuroVelo network of bicycle paths around Europe. So far they have visited 12 countries over 220 days, and plan to keep going for at least another couple of years.
Gary and Rachel Corbett – adventurers. Linked to source.The current world record recognised by Guinness is held by Troy Rank who rode 7,151km in 2014, although there is contention about the criteria for inclusion. Gary and Rachel’s attempt has already passed the 17,000km mark, but due to rigid requirements they are not eligible to be officially recorded (they explain why on their blog).
Still, we think it’s an incredible effort and wish them the best on the remainder of their journey!
Another tour worthy of a shout-out is the 6 year odyssey by Stephen Fabes, which has seen him visit six continents and meet enough kind-hearted people to convince him that the negative stories we hear about other parts of the world are untrue.
A BBC article about Stephen’s journey provides an uplifting read: we recommend it!
StephenMark Cavendish has won the nation’s favour again by helping a cyclist to change a puncture.
According to a Twitter exchange between the puncturee and the person who took the photo, Mark was the perfect gentleman:
This exchange and the recent news that David Beckham bought a coffee for a paramedic is a nice reminder that professional sports-people are people too!
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