This week’s round-up features great reports by Sustrans on cycling attitudes, a breakdown of the effectiveness of hi-vis, bike towed caravans, and some classic anti-cyclist vitriol.
The top image comes from a Reddit post by ‘RogueBagel’ who has photographed an interesting addition to a bike lane. People in the comments note sarcastically that the only blockage in the bike lane seems to be the sign warning about said blockage…
Sustrans recently carried out the biggest ever survey into attitudes to cycling in the UK (this is the data that informed the article we wrote about last week). To recap, their findings were positive: 75% of people want governments to invest to make cycling safer, 79% say they want improved safety for people riding bikes, 75% support more investment in cycling with £26 being the average desired figure per person per year.
They’ve now published in-depth reports for each city surveyed on their website which offer some fantastic insights into what resources are currently available for cyclists, and what the future holds. We recommend taking a look!
A piece of legislature in Wyoming recently proposed to force cyclists to wear at least 200 inches “of high-visibility fluorescent orange, green or pink color clothing visible from the front and rear of the bicycle”
A study from the University of Bath found that 1-2% of overtakes leave less than 50cm of space between the car and cyclist, regardless of what people are wearing. The article on this topic on the Psychological Science website explains the study and mentions that some riders were given vests saying “Police” on them – these are the only ones drivers made a noticeably larger effort to avoid.
An article in the Telegraph this week showcases the Wide Path Camper – a snazzy two-wheeled caravan designed to be towed behind a touring bicycle:
Described as “mobile houses” and designed to “offer instant shelter from the weather”, these look like they’ll appeal to a certain sect of tourers. We’re not sure we’ll add them to the Ride25 kit list for next season, though!
A controversial anti-cycling article hit the internet last week, courtesy of Yvette Caster at the Metro. It featured such nuggets as “a bike’s construction is frankly some kind of highly suspicious witchcraft – how do they even stay up at all?”:
This was immediately met with a flurry of criticism and comments, and on Friday Cycling Weekly published a fantastic retort. We won’t repeat their analysis of Yvette’s “views” as it’s already spot on, instead we’ll just highlight a few favourite bits:
We hope people will see the baiting nature of the article and realise that most of the points she raises are either misunderstood or completely incorrect..!
And, to finish, it brings us pleasure to share with you another surreal black and white cycling gif, again posted by the ECF (European Cyclists Federation) with zero context this week:
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