# A Personal Message to Critical Mass.



## downfader (5 Mar 2010)

You aint helping matters.

Personally I do feel that the emphasis of the demonstration is all wrong. All the CM rally do is wind people up. Its jolly and nice for those partaking in the fun, but those outside the bubble either need to be let in on what things are about, or do not want to partake in matters. Often I'm sure they just want to get home.

I also think the CM wind up the barry boys and the idiots who are looking for an excuse or two. "I drove at him to teach him a lesson" and "I sounded my horn at her until she got out of my way" must run through their minds. 

I think there are other ways to protest. If cities and drivers are unhelpful to cyclists and pedestrians then we need to use political means to counter this. In fact I think it would serve more sense if they got a bit sneaky and found the really bad drivers that the Police and Courts keep letting off and kept nicking their wheels, LOL! Atleast then the good drivers would feel some benefit to themselves. 

I think CM sympathisers need to start thinking about standing for councillership, get into town planning. Stand for office, as they say. Infiltration is the only way to make change happen. The current CM bubble is exclusive to cyclists, also, pedestrian groups and driver's associations need to be in on the picture and be persuaded to come on side and see that cyclists are not the scary enemy, or hinderance some seem to think. 

The CM need someone who supports them who is eloquent and can speak with intellect and wit, someone who can become a public face in the same way Edmund King has with motorists. They need a decent spokesman. Currently everytime I see a CM'er inteviewed on tv they come across as a skunk-head or a dimwit.


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## Zippy (5 Mar 2010)

I accept your points, perhaps there should be more education about what CM is trying to tell people.

However, some folks need telling more loudly about the elephant in the room before they come round to admitting they see it too.


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## chap (5 Mar 2010)

downfader said:


> You aint helping matters.
> 
> Personally I do feel that the emphasis of the demonstration is all wrong. All the CM rally do is wind people up. Its jolly and nice for those partaking in the fun, but those outside the bubble either need to be let in on what things are about, or do not want to partake in matters. Often I'm sure they just want to get home.
> 
> ...




Definitly so, although these things attract these types of people. It's the same with most demonstrations, all the spliff smokers, balaclava-clad teens, Parisian students, and lofy Guardian readers come out to play - no doubt some skinny unwashed man with dreadlocks and an undercut will start playing the bongos.

I like the idea of corking, this could be handy if the CM had purpose e.g. impromptu Green waves, although if it started becoming organised then the House of Lords bill would fail and the police would have the opportunity to act.

On a 'BBC documentry' one of the representatives from the LCC got a soundbite in, with regards to the sensible and exacting question of something approximating 'Are cyclists bad'. What he said made sense, which probably explains why it was glossed over with tabloid style investigation. It went something like this:

In a civil society, we have an obligation to look after those who are more vulnerable than ourselves. As such, this extends to the road. The cyclist has a duty to the pedestrian to show consideration and care in their actions. Likewise the Car driver has the same obligation to the cyclist and the pedestrian, as does the Bus and HGV driver to the Car driver, etc.


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## MajorMantra (5 Mar 2010)

Yep. Witness the reaction to CM in NY. A quote from Bikesnobnyc:



> This is another great success for cycling for which we can thank Critical Mass. Just to review, it's always been perfectly legal to ride a bicycle in New York City. Moreover, nobody was really counting how many people were doing it at a single time. Still, a bunch of people decided for some reason that they needed to assert some rights that we already had, and thus Critical Mass was born. This in turn made the authorities question whether we should have those rights in the first place, and unfortunately the answer they came up with is that we shouldn't. So basically, Critical Mass advocated for something that was already legal and in the process made it illegal. This is almost exactly like the "Seinfeld" episode where they get a sitcom pilot offer from NBC and George manages to negotiate their fee _down_. Nicely done.



What a bunch of idiots.

Matthew


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## hackbike 666 (5 Mar 2010)

I know I won't be going on one as I don't agree with it.


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## BentMikey (5 Mar 2010)

I don't really have a problem with critical mass, don't have strong feelings either way. I'm just glad that we're able to do this without the dirty and underhand tactics used by officialdom in NYC.


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## GrumpyGregry (5 Mar 2010)

It's all about anarchy and rebellion. Apparently. They must have really boring jobs I reckon, or perhaps are be utterly disempowered when not on their bikes in a mob. I stopped when I came to the conclusion that CM's antics are essentially a bit of bullying, meaning they reduced themselves to the level of behaviour of the people they seem to perceive to be persecuting them.


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## hackbike 666 (5 Mar 2010)

I saw a clip where a cab was being bullied by at least five cyclists and in my book this isn't right and probably lead to more enemies.

Yes I know cabbies can be a pain in the bum at the best of times but some of the stuff I have seen on those clips doesn't look good.

I had a row with a cab driver about a month ago but at no time did either of us use bad language which is surprising really.We just said our views and we were off.Basically he didn''t like the fact I was blowing the horn at him and he asked me why I did it.I find a lot of time good manners on the road seems to work.I don't see that on critical mass.


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## chap (5 Mar 2010)

BentMikey said:


> I don't really have a problem with critical mass, don't have strong feelings either way. I'm just glad that we're able to do this without the dirty and underhand tactics used by officialdom in NYC.






NYC Cycling
Related article


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## Rohloff_Brompton_Rider (5 Mar 2010)

i go on the manchester one. it is good natured. i have never seen any trouble. i meet lovely people, i meet weird (in a nice way) people, i meet people i would never have come across in my normal life. most of all i meet people who have the common interest of cycling. i see fixies, brommies, old raleigh folders, old shoppers, choppers, cruisers, bakfiets complete with an old collie dog chilling, dutch bikes, rat bikes, prestige racing bikes, recumbents, but not seen a unicycle yet. seems i'm not like a lot of people tho, i don't judge till i have tried. it's fun and i get a monthly 100k in by doing it.


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## chap (5 Mar 2010)

> I'm torn. I'd like to go on one, because there are cyclists there and I generally enjoy the company of cyclists (Arch!).
> 
> But then, and again, I'm not really into all the blocking the streets stuff that can go on because it doesn't put us in a good light.




Wait for the inevitable launch party for the London Cycle Scheme, the blue streaks (London Super-duper highways), or one of Murdochs goody bag Skyrides. As long as they have Kelly Brook again, I'm happy.


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## Rhythm Thief (6 Mar 2010)

BentMikey said:


> I don't really have a problem with critical mass, don't have strong feelings either way. I'm just glad that we're able to do this without the dirty and underhand tactics used by officialdom in NYC.



For now ... 

Having been on one CM, years ago, the impression I came away with was that they weren't doing us any favours at all. We wobbled around the Wolverhampton ring road during Friday afternoon rush hour at under 10 mph, taking up the whole of one lane. The idea was to try and show that there was a need for cycling facilities in Wolverhampton but it seeme dto me that we were showing just what a monstrous pain in the arse cyclists could be when they put their minds to it.


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## Twenty Inch (6 Mar 2010)

BentMikey said:


> I don't really have a problem with critical mass, don't have strong feelings either way. I'm just glad that we're able to do this without the dirty and underhand tactics used by officialdom in NYC.



Mikey have a look at the link below:

http://www.criticalmasslondon.org.uk/gomm.html

This was a completely counterproductive effort by the Met to close down the public space. Not only did the courts slap it down, it remotivated a lot of people to take part again who had previously been drifting away, and subsequent CM were well-attended.

CM is an opportunity for cyclists to get together once a month and ride around town in company, without feeling in danger or threatened. It also has the effect of underlining that cyclists are traffic too. It won't reach every motorist, but I hope it makes some think about how we have made our public space hostage to a polluting, completely-inappropriate-in-cities form of transport. I've seen motorists being given a hard time, but usually after they have barged their way into the mass and put people in danger. I've seen a few drivers deliberately drive at participants and hit them. In my opinion those drivers were already nutters and CM wouldn't have made them worse. Most people might use the extra few minutes at a roundabout or junction to reflect on whether they need to be burning fossil fuels to move a ton and a half of metal around with only one person in it. 

And in any event, protest, demonstration, making one's voice heard is about getting up people's noses. It's empowering and energising. It's a great place to meet people and find out about things. There are plenty of dreadlocked, parisian bongo-drummers there, but there are also plenty of nice, articulate, intelligent people who have come along to have a ride and make a point in a nice fluffy way. Why should we be silent?


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## GrumpyGregry (6 Mar 2010)

bromptonfb said:


> i go on the manchester one. it is good natured. i have never seen any trouble. i meet lovely people, i meet weird (in a nice way) people, i meet people i would never have come across in my normal life. most of all i meet people who have the common interest of cycling. i see fixies, brommies, old raleigh folders, old shoppers, choppers, cruisers, bakfiets complete with an old collie dog chilling, dutch bikes, rat bikes, prestige racing bikes, recumbents, but not seen a unicycle yet. *seems i'm not like a lot of people tho, i don't judge till i have tried.* it's fun and i get a monthly 100k in by doing it.



intravenous heroin use, blood doping, incest, anabolic steroids, spousal abuse, etc., etc..


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## Rohloff_Brompton_Rider (6 Mar 2010)

excuse me?!!!!


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## thomas (6 Mar 2010)

MajorMantra said:


> Yep. Witness the reaction to CM in NY. A quote from Bikesnobnyc:
> 
> What a bunch of idiots.
> 
> Matthew




To me it sounds like a stupid judge, not stupid cyclists.

I've been on 2 critical masses. Loved the first, hated the second. First one was on a lovely day, around the centre of London. Got to see lots of great sights...without really having to worry about my safety much (compared to if I was cycling lone around London). The leisurely average pace of about 3mph, was sometimes a bit tough....even on my road bike...so did have to stop and cheer in the middle of some junctions 

The second one...wasn't as nice a day (it really started pissing it down), there weren't as many people and it was going out of London. I tailed off early as I felt we were just causing a nuisance that night and wasn't really enjoying it.

I'm planning on going up this month, I've nothing to do that Friday so I'm going to cycle up during the day...pop off for a Kebab Kid...then maybe have a spin around London....get lost a few times....then do CM.

If it's around the centre of London, a nice day and enough people are coming then it should be good fun


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## downfader (6 Mar 2010)

GregCollins said:


> intravenous heroin use, blood doping, incest, anabolic steroids, spousal abuse, etc., etc..


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## downfader (6 Mar 2010)

I'll add some more now I've thought about it.

In 2008 we had our only CM rally down here in Southampton that I know of. It was following the deaths of a guy on the Itchen Bridge and a lad walking his bike across the road in Millbrook iirc. 

6 people turned up. Perhaps it was short notice, perhaps there isnt that kind of interest down here. I didnt go but knew someone who did, and it was reported in the local paper as a poor turnout. 

With regards drivers deliberately offing people. Have seen it plenty of times on youtube. These t*ssers have been waiting for a excuse to do it imo. They then use the pyschological "victim tactic" that BNP and football hooligans use to show justification after they've just mauled someone. Unfortunately this then gets banded about that this violence was a response, rather than an attack and it helps spread the myths of cyclists.

We need a mainstreaming device. Something that will show people it is safe on the whole, it is fun and it keeps the weight off even when you barely turn the pedals. Drivers have done this by (unconsciously) including driving in everyday converse. We could do the same.

How many times have you heard some one reply to "what did you do at the weekend?" "..oh I had to take a drive out to blah blah to pick up xyz.."

Well what did you do this weekend?  Deliberately include "cycled" and "cycling" in a conversation...?


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## Titan yer tummy (6 Mar 2010)

*Hyper-vocal, aggressive, rebellious, hairy, unwashed, unloved, Neanderthal, fellow pedalers.*

I have dithered over replying to this for half a day and now decided to chip in my pennies-worth.

I am in complete agreement with those who deprecate this ludicrous, counterproductive, moronic, activity. It is a death wish for those of us who enjoy cycling as a healthy, gentle, pastime. It winds up other perfectly decent road users who will, in future, be less inclined to treat us with the courtesy that they might have previously been inclined to. 


I first encountered a critical mass style demo driving to work in a van one morning, outside the Palace of Westminster, many years ago. The first I new of it, as I inched forward in a queue of traffic was when some snarling, abusive, twerp on a bike, amongst a throng of snarling, abusive, twerps on bikes, was screaming through my open window about how I was personally ruining the planet and his right to be on it. He and they then turned right, illegally, and headed off up Whitehall yelling and screaming at anyone else they could get close to. This was years before the days of the current CM movement but clearly had the same sort of aims and was filled by the same sort of people.


Can you imagine a situation where your aging mother is innocently riding down to her local shop to pick up some groceries completely oblivious to a local CM event when she is confronted by a motorist who has been delayed, insulted and abused by some of our hyper-vocal, aggressive, rebellious, hairy, unwashed, unloved, Neanderthal, fellow pedalers. Not a very pleasant thought really?

The combustion engine cannot be un-invented and mankind has to learn to live with it, but this will not be advanced by gangs of sweaty, smelly, lathered-up, cyclists, beetling around urban centres making a nuisance of themselves. Without the combustion engine how are our shops going to be filled with produce vital for day to day survival? How will we be able to clothe ourselves? How are our bikes going to be designed, developed, built, delivered, distributed etc? These are major political problems which need to be resolved and with some urgency. But is anyone really advocating that we should return to a life-style that would recognisable by cavemen? The population of the planet has increased exponentially and somehow we have tap into the world resources to enable ourselves to co-exist. Governments and industries are applying themselves to climate change and the other major problems which confront mankind. But they aint going to be sorted in a day. Get real boys and girls motorised transport is essential in this day and age. We are an interest group amongst many other interest groups and a pretty small one at that. We are not, nor should be, big enough or important enough to bring about the sort of change that I believe underlies the CM agenda – highly political and far to the left and nor should we wish to.


Cautious political engagement by those amongst us who are bright, clever and charismatic is far more likely to have a productive outcome than by making life unbearable for our fellow road users.


I know that most of you who are perfectly decent, law abiding, members of society who have joined these rides for perfectly innocent reasons will feel highly insulted by my observations. But you, IMHO, are being abused for a political end which is nowhere near where you true political alliances lie.


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## hackbike 666 (6 Mar 2010)

bromptonfb said:


> excuse me?!!!!


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## downfader (6 Mar 2010)

Titan yer tummy said:


> I have dithered over replying to this for half a day and now decided to chip in my pennies-worth.
> 
> I am in complete agreement with those who deprecate this ludicrous, counterproductive, moronic, activity. It is a death wish for those of us who enjoy cycling as a healthy, gentle, pastime. It winds up other perfectly decent road users who will, in future, be less inclined to treat us with the courtesy that they might have previously been inclined to.
> 
> ...



Just got time for a quick reply (as I'm engaged in another activity at the mo..)

Ref the cavemen assertion.. I dont think it will ever come to that.The Car, the engine infact, will always be here. Motorvehicles will change soon (10 years+/-) from petrochemical propulsion imo to other forms of fuel. Traffic will remain a constant increase until we start to renegoitiate things like size of car, passenger levels etc. Eventually I think we may see more of a return to rail or the like if traffic levels increase as they are.


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## Sun Superlight (6 Mar 2010)

Seems to me that if we want to win acceptance and respect as equal rights road users, and then we deliberately set out to antagonise and delay others, we gain neither support, nor respect for our level of intelligence. 
I once accidentally joined in the Manchester CM ride and regretted it almost immediately. Sad really, as there were many good people there, but in among them were a few complete tossers who where hell bent on confrontation with whichever frustrated motorists they could intimidate. 
No better than bullying tactics really.
Far better to join a good natured organised ride out with a purpose. (Cafe stop, pub lunch, fitness/social ride, or any other acceptable reason)
A small group of happy cyclists who are clearly enjoying themselves may well win us a few more converts.
A large group of undiciplined and confrontational bikers will gain us neither the support nor the respect we need.


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## Rhythm Thief (6 Mar 2010)

Sun Superlight said:


> A small group of happy cyclists who are clearly enjoying themselves may well win us a few more converts.



You'd have thought so, but I've seen someone go puce with rage behind the wheel of his Range Rover when confronted with a Sunday club ride doing nothing more confrontational than consulting a map on the side of the road, well out of the way of everyone. I think the only thing to do is continue to ride as long as you enjoy doing so and accept that there are some folk out there who will never ever get it, whatever you do.


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## Titan yer tummy (6 Mar 2010)

*Far better to join a good natured organised ride out with a purpose.*



Sun Superlight said:


> Far better to join a good natured organised ride out with a purpose. (Cafe stop, pub lunch, fitness/social ride, or any other acceptable reason)
> 
> A small group of happy cyclists who are clearly enjoying themselves may well win us a few more converts.
> 
> A large group of undiciplined and confrontational bikers will gain us neither the support nor the respect we need.



Here here! I couldn't agree more.


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## Rohloff_Brompton_Rider (6 Mar 2010)

what about people who cycle with cm just because they feel safe in the bunch? there are people who only cycle in manchester city centre with cm because motons make it too dangerous at other times. cm is neither political nor antagonistic. it is simply a bunch of riders who like to cycle together. no more than that. it takes approx 5 minutes to pass. it doesn't go past the same roads and clog them up. why is ok for motons to kill cyclists every day but not to wait 5 minutes for a happy bunch to pass? i don't belong to a club and ride mostly solo. club rides are weekly sometimes twice weekly. why are club riders 3 or 3 abreast acceptable but 300 riders once a month are not? i think critical mass is good way for one voice to have the power of many. it is quite simple, motons stop killing cyclists every day and then there would be no need for cm. tbh i am amazed that all cyclists don't support cm. the fact that motons get upset just proves that there is still a point to make. why is it acceptable for people to come on here and brag about bashing cars or having road rage incidents but cm is disgraceful behaviour? double standards i think. cm is to show strength amongst cyclists and show we have the right to stay alive.


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## Rohloff_Brompton_Rider (6 Mar 2010)

Titan yer tummy said:


> Cautious political engagement by those amongst *us who are bright, clever and charismatic is* far more likely to have a productive outcome than by making life unbearable for our fellow road users.



fancy yerself a bit don't you?


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## hackbike 666 (6 Mar 2010)

Ok I may give CM a look but im not expecting too much because poor behaviour comes from every sort of road user not just cars.


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## GrumpyGregry (6 Mar 2010)

bromptonfb said:


> excuse me?!!!!


bromptonfb If what I posted upset you I unreservedly and sincerely apologise. Without hesitation. My intent was not to cause offence but to highlight the weakness of the argument. As others have pointed out one can have perfectly valid negative opinions about a variety of things without actually experiencing them for yourself. CM is, imo, one such thing.

For the record I took part in many London CM's from the late 90's onwards until in recent years I changed jobs and became a rural cross county bike commuter. I stand by my criticism and change of heart. CM is simply law breaking enabled by sheer weight on numbers. I used to RLJ in London too, part of the same mindset in my case, and have changed my opinions on that too.


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## beanzontoast (6 Mar 2010)

GregCollins said:


> bromptonfb If what I posted upset you I unreservedly and sincerely apologise. Without hesitation. My intent was not to cause offence but to highlight the weakness of the argument. As others have pointed out one can have perfectly valid negative opinions about a variety of things without actually experiencing them for yourself. CM is, imo, one such thing.
> 
> For the record I took part in many London CM's from the late 90's onwards until in recent years I changed jobs and became a rural cross county bike commuter. I stand by my criticism and change of heart. CM is simply law breaking enabled by sheer weight on numbers. I used to RLJ in London too, part of the same mindset in my case, and have changed my opinions on that too.



Really interesting to see how your feelings have changed, and good of you to say so. 

CM is not something I could ever be part of, having seen and read about many of their rides.


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## Titan yer tummy (6 Mar 2010)

*Absolutely not*



bromptonfb said:


> fancy yerself a bit don't you?



Absolutely not


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## shouldbeinbed (6 Mar 2010)

bromptonfb said:


> what about people who cycle with cm just because they feel safe in the bunch? there are people who only cycle in manchester city centre with cm because motons make it too dangerous at other times. cm is neither political nor antagonistic. it is simply a bunch of riders who like to cycle together. no more than that. it takes approx 5 minutes to pass. it doesn't go past the same roads and clog them up. why is ok for motons to kill cyclists every day but not to wait 5 minutes for a happy bunch to pass? i don't belong to a club and ride mostly solo. club rides are weekly sometimes twice weekly. why are club riders 3 or 3 abreast acceptable but 300 riders once a month are not? i think critical mass is good way for one voice to have the power of many. it is quite simple, motons stop killing cyclists every day and then there would be no need for cm. tbh i am amazed that all cyclists don't support cm. the fact that motons get upset just proves that there is still a point to make. why is it acceptable for people to come on here and brag about bashing cars or having road rage incidents but cm is disgraceful behaviour? double standards i think. cm is to show strength amongst cyclists and show we have the right to stay alive.




HMM, Is this really the reason for CM's? a protest about the right to life? 

you also give away your prejudice quite clearly with the derogatory Motons sweeping generalisation. 

I'm much the same as you, Manchester cyclist, daily commuter, invariably solo and not a club member/runner. but this is as far as the agreement goes I'm afraid. Motorists in Manchester are IME pretty good, there's one or two bad roads Oldham Road scares the c**p out of me however I'm travelling, and the inevitable knuckle draggers that will shout abuse at anything not them. Manchester city centre is a relative haven of safe and decent cycling with generally wide enough and courteous roads right into the centre, I've never in 20 years had a problem, altercation or bad moment on Deansgate, around Piccadilly, commuting the Oxford Road corridor when I lived actually in Manchester. Oldham to Old Trafford for years right through Hulme and Rusholme, for the miles I've ridden the grief I've had is minimal and I can honestly say I've only ever felt genuinely uncomfortable or frightened on my bike a couple of times.

300 people repeatedly cycling in a very compact city centre that doesn't have a lot of alternate options for motors passing through it as opposed to Club runs that go to different places on different runs, avoid urban areas at rush hour and are a far more linear and fast paced. How many abreast do the CM's ride if 2 or 3 on a club run is worthy of your criticism?

I'm also dubious that cyclists are killed by motorists every day, you make it out to be carnage on the roads and one death is one death too many but it isn't the motorised slaughter you're implying.

lastly if these people that are too scared to be cycling outside of a critical mass (dubious on this one, people cycling so infrequently are hardly going to be that motivated for cycling reasons to attend a CM) aren't really doing themselves any favours hiding in an artificially created and unusual bunch situation rather than expanding their horizons and gaining the skills and confidence to participate in proper cycling more than once a month.

CM isn't a movement that will engineer political change on cycling, nor is it a good training ground for frightened cyclists. At best it's a pointless self indulgent whimsy, at worst it is a counterproductive event that has the potential to irritate and inconvenience the local councillors and business interests that we need to have on side to bring about better cycling facilities in the city and a better attitude to biking by employers (C2W participation, a green policy that is more than lip service, investment in bike friendly infrastructure outside and inside the workplace) none of which will happen if they see a bunch of people making a deliberately planned and organised nuisance of themselves, and its not just for 5 minutes, but for the entire duration of the CM. it may take 5 mins to pass one spot but then you're onto another spot and so on, its a constant flow of interruption.


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## theboytaylor (6 Mar 2010)

This quote straight from the Critical Mass London website (I have no idea if all Critical Masses subscribe to the same ethos, by the way):
"Who Are We and What Are Our Aims?

We are not sure, opinions seem to differ. There are probably as many aims of CM as there are participants. Each individual comes there with his or her own idea of what it's about, and the sum of this makes up the Mass. We have no organisers and no planned routes."

This for me is the problem. It all seems very confused. I found another link to a pdf for DIY fliers that say "We're not blocking the traffic, we ARE the traffic". Travelling slowly en masse at rush hour is, admittedly, a key characteristic of London traffic, but I don't think CM are actually getting over a message of coexistence with other forms of transport.

To me, it all seems a bit whingey and student-y (I have been a whingey student in my time, so can spot a whingey student-y demo fairly well).


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## downfader (6 Mar 2010)

I think its reasonably clear from history what the CM is about - poor road conditions, infrastucture and bad road usage and intimidating behaviour of drivers. Saying they have no purpose negates why many have riden along and does them a disservice imo.


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## Rohloff_Brompton_Rider (6 Mar 2010)

shouldbeinbed said:


> HMM, Is this really the reason for CM's? a protest about the right to life?
> 
> you also give away your prejudice quite clearly with the derogatory Motons sweeping generalisation.
> 
> ...



okay, firstly, i am speaking about the worldwide phenomenon known as cm. there is carnage on the roads worldwide and cyclists get killed daily. a quick youtube search fetches up loads of helmet cam incidents and only a very small percentage of cyclists wear them. when was the last time you saw a child cycling manchester city centre? why not? because any sensible parent would not let there child cycle in a busy centre. is this right? should a child be safe cycling on any city roads? should the elderly be safe on roads? yes they should! why should a group of cyclists not have the right to 'protest'? because we don't pay ved or smell? what about religious parades? what about funeral car processions? what about when the wagons were stopping the country? oh but that was ok as it was supported by motons. why is the cm a nuisance? i was not criticising club runs, i was asking why is that group of regular cyclists ok but the cm, another group of cyclists, is not? why was the blenheim palace outing ok but cm is not? why do people call cm particitents stupid smelly hippy druggy crazy loons. i'm not and tbh i have never seen anything of that ilk on any cm i have been on nor have i seen any on youtube videos of worldwide cm's. the cm's i have been on have not gone round and round a compact city centre. i usually follows an outward spiral and visits many parts of the outer city districts i would never have seen without cm. i see children with parents on cm, where are they when not in the cm? where is the dog in bakfiets when not on cm?


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## Rhythm Thief (6 Mar 2010)

If you wrote in paragraphs and used capital letters at the start of sentences your arguments would be easier to follow and your posts easier to read. You may well have some good points to make but I'm afraid I get two or three lines in and my eyes begin to ache, and I skip the rest. This is not a pointless and pedantic "grammar nazi" post, I'm genuinely making the point that your posts could be much easier to read and you might reach a few more people. Although I confess I'm not a CM sympathiser.


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## tdr1nka (6 Mar 2010)

CM grew from a simple and peaceful idea but changed for the worse after the 1994 Criminal Justice act revision and put CM in the same catagory as a tree protest, et al.
It also attracted more trouble makers.

I stopped going after a friend of mine had his bike driven at(albeit slowly)and hit with a car after the driver became enraged by the actions of other cyclists on the ride.

I agree with demonstrations, even those without a planned route or authorisation()but when there is no discernable point or message it remains clumsy and random which has the potential to get out of hand.
Hence I've long since called it Critical Mess.


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## BentMikey (6 Mar 2010)

Well I rather enjoy CM. It's often a lovely social and slow ride out with many friends, and it's delightful to be able to ride and know that almost no driver will dare to barge into and push cyclists around. For once you get to feel like the streets belong to cyclists, if only for a little while.

Some people behave badly, but so what? Some car drivers behave badly too. Do you see anyone criticising the whole lot of car CM as "a bunch of tossers"? Of course not.




Twenty Inch said:


> Mikey have a look at the link below:
> 
> http://www.criticalmasslondon.org.uk/gomm.html
> 
> This was a completely counterproductive effort by the Met to close down the public space. Not only did the courts slap it down, it remotivated a lot of people to take part again who had previously been drifting away, and subsequent CM were well-attended.



Yeah, thanks. I'm aware of what happened in London. It was nothing, NOTHING, like the NYC smackdown.


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## Rohloff_Brompton_Rider (6 Mar 2010)

Rhythm Thief said:


> If you wrote in paragraphs and used capital letters at the start of sentences your arguments would be easier to follow and your posts easier to read. You may well have some good points to make but I'm afraid I get two or three lines in and my eyes begin to ache, and I skip the rest. This is not a pointless and pedantic "grammar nazi" post, I'm genuinely making the point that your posts could be much easier to read and you might reach a few more people. Although I confess I'm not a CM sympathiser.



 irony, ever heard of it? Please check your own English language grammar. Perhaps, I was being the knuckle dragging idiot that all Critical Mass participants are and (no comma) it went over your head.


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## BentMikey (6 Mar 2010)

To be frank, I didn't read it either for the same reasons. And I did think Rhythm Thief did his best to say that very nicely.


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## tdr1nka (6 Mar 2010)

I remember a beautiful Summer evening in the early 90's, 300 cyclists with Regent's Street to themselves...... but that was when the Police marshalled the ride and the overall atmosphere was very friendly.


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## shouldbeinbed (6 Mar 2010)

downfader said:


> I think its reasonably clear from history what the CM is about - poor road conditions, infrastucture and bad road usage and intimidating behaviour of drivers. Saying they have no purpose negates why many have riden along and does them a disservice imo.



Ok, so what has actually changed for the better of cycling because of Critical Mass?

There's any number of moans here and on other forums every day about all of these things from cities that have a CM.

That's not a disservice & is not negating anything anyone has done, it's simply stating a fact 

Whatever their hoped impact is, they don't seem to be achieving it by getting in the way en-masse and hoping people will be intruigued enough to go home an Google why they've been held up, rather than go home just thinking they're 'awkward bolshy tw*ts on bikes' (quote from a colleague)


In my opinion that it's not the effective campaign tool the CM'ers would like to think it is. Direct face to face communication with the movers and shakers is and always has been the way to effect change or at the very least put our opinions across in the most effective manner.


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## Rhythm Thief (6 Mar 2010)

bromptonfb said:


> *irony, ever heard of it?* Please check your own English language grammar. Perhaps, I was being the knuckle dragging idiot that all Critical Mass participants are and (no comma) it went over your head.



It's a bloody peculiar way to make a point, if that's what you were doing . But that post was much easier to read, I didn't feel like I was having to do the work you couldn't be bothered to do when you wrote it.


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## Rhythm Thief (6 Mar 2010)

BentMikey said:


> To be frank, I didn't read it either for the same reasons. And I did think Rhythm Thief did his best to say that very nicely.



Cheers, dude. I'm glad it wasn't just me.


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## shouldbeinbed (6 Mar 2010)

bromptonfb said:


> okay, firstly, i am speaking about the worldwide phenomenon known as cm. there is carnage on the roads worldwide and cyclists get killed daily. a quick youtube search fetches up loads of helmet cam incidents and only a very small percentage of cyclists wear them. when was the last time you saw a child cycling manchester city centre? why not? because any sensible parent would not let there child cycle in a busy centre. is this right? should a child be safe cycling on any city roads? should the elderly be safe on roads? yes they should! why should a group of cyclists not have the right to 'protest'? because we don't pay ved or smell? what about religious parades? what about funeral car processions? what about when the wagons were stopping the country? oh but that was ok as it was supported by motons. why is the cm a nuisance? i was not criticising club runs, i was asking why is that group of regular cyclists ok but the cm, another group of cyclists, is not? why was the blenheim palace outing ok but cm is not? why do people call cm particitents stupid smelly hippy druggy crazy loons. i'm not and tbh i have never seen anything of that ilk on any cm i have been on nor have i seen any on youtube videos of worldwide cm's. the cm's i have been on have not gone round and round a compact city centre. i usually follows an outward spiral and visits many parts of the outer city districts i would never have seen without cm. i see children with parents on cm, where are they when not in the cm? where is the dog in bakfiets when not on cm?



I agree with RT about your prose style, it is genuinely hard to read, it is like being shouted at by someone that can breathe through their ears and doesn't need to take a break. but here goes:

I take my children into the city centre if there is a need to go and I'm not intending to buy anything bulky but TBH its not really a leisure destination for a parent and child ride in the same way the local park or a trip to Dovestones is. That is why you dont see many kids in the city centre I'd argue - it is a business and commercial centre not a trip out.
You kind of make that point by saying that the CM takes you to central places that you'd not otherwise see - why wouldn't you see them? maybe because they're not stereotypical leisure ride destinations that are popular (esp with parents). 

My dogs are greyhounds, they're a bit big to get on the bike with me or they would do - I give them a good run out by cycling with them though.

Repeatedly as in every CM ride is in the city centre not that you go round and round in circles on each one- I did say that club runs go to different places, apologies if that wasn't clear enough, I thought it was.

I don't know that any of the other 'events' you quote are any more acceptable or supported - have you got proof that the "motons" accept and support them?

Funeral processions is rather an over reaction of an example isn't it, get real - they're a necessary and longstanding part of daily life, they are short and to the point journeys necessary as part of a wider ceremony that can't really occur at 3am when its nice and quiet out there. They are not a choice thing that have been deliberately organised and peopled to get in the way, nor can I ever remember seeing the city centre held up by one. 

You don't like being called nasty names but repeatedly refer to car drivers as "Motons". Pots and kettles spring to mind, rapildly followed by 'oh grow up'

Why do motorists, peds, other cyclists on occasions call each other nasty names (gynaecological slang usually)? If I'm called or call someone a rude name its not usually intended as a literal description, its a lazy shorthand insult to/from someone unknown. 

CM's as a worldwide phenomenon for change. words fail me. sure they happen across the world but are isolated events pertinent solely to their own cities, if they had any sort of world impact they be addressed at a world level. they aren't.
I will update my question from my previous post - where are the universal positive changes effected by the worldwide phenomenon?


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## MajorMantra (6 Mar 2010)

BentMikey said:


> Well I rather enjoy CM. It's often a lovely social and slow ride out with many friends, and it's delightful to be able to ride and know that almost no driver will dare to barge into and push cyclists around. *For once you get to feel like the streets belong to cyclists*, if only for a little while.



Thing is, they don't, they belong to all of us. Why should we expect motorists to respect us if, when given the opportunity, we behave as arrogantly (albeit not as dangerously) as the worst of them do? 

Matthew


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## BentMikey (6 Mar 2010)

Exactly - that doesn't happen much with the critical mass of cars around. When it's bike CM, then the cars can still use the road, but they have to wait instead of barging through and past. It robs their ability to intimidate.


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## Debian (6 Mar 2010)

MajorMantra said:


> Thing is, they don't, they belong to all of us. Why should we expect motorists to respect us if, when given the opportunity, we behave as arrogantly (albeit not as dangerously) as the worst of them do?
> 
> Matthew



+1


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## thomas (6 Mar 2010)

downfader said:


> I think its reasonably clear from history what the CM is about - poor road conditions, infrastucture and bad road usage and intimidating behaviour of drivers. Saying they have no purpose negates why many have riden along and does them a disservice imo.



If they had a purpose then there would be a load of legal things which would stop them 



bromptonfb said:


> irony, ever heard of it? Please check your own English language grammar. Perhaps, I was being the knuckle dragging idiot that all Critical Mass participants are and (no comma) it went over your head.



Paragraphs are easy. Seriously. Please put some in!!!


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## hackbike 666 (6 Mar 2010)

*You don't like being called nasty names but repeatedly refer to car drivers as "Motons". Pots and kettles spring to mind, rapildly followed by 'oh grow up'

*Hang on,when I use the moton term it's not meant in a nasty way from me and I didn't think it was an insult.


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## downfader (6 Mar 2010)

I always considered "moton" to be a generalistic merging of "motorist" and "moron"

To me its always been too generic. I wont use it because I dont consider all drivers to be morons. Its the motoring equivilent of "lycra lout" imo.


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## 661-Pete (6 Mar 2010)

Well! Shame really that a thread like this brings out the most sanctimonious, the most patronizing, the most dog-eat-dog attitudes of cyclist-against-cyclist!

I'm not sure whether the epithet of 'hairy Neanderthal' applies to me, although I don't see why I should take it as an insult. I have a lot of respect for the much-maligned Neanderthals, what I know of them, from what more recent anthropological studies have revealed. And I am certainly hairy. Indeed, a lot of us are hairy, if we aren't alopecia-sufferers.

Enough of that. I'm not going to join in sermonizing, saying 'do this' or 'do that' or 'go to CM' or 'don't go to CM'... Just relate some of my own thoughts and observations. I used to think of CM as a gathering of cyclists: indeed for me it became a sort of social thing, with joining several others for a meal after an hour or two of it. But alas! the social bit of it is now behind me, as far as I am concerned. And it looks a lot more like a _demonstration_ than a _gathering_. Let me describe my last turn-out, back in 2008. I was on my own; I was actually in London for another reason, I didn't go specially for CM; I just found the time to pass by the mustering-place under Waterloo Bridge.

I lasted all of five minutes on the ride. Somewhere south of the river (can't exactly remember where) there was a group surrounding a cabbie, bullying and threatening the driver. I didn't see what the driver had done, but I didn't see any signs of injuries or damage. No, they may have had a good reason but they were hassling and taunting (and maybe frightening) this driver, spoiling for a punch-up.

I stopped and watched this little scene from a distance for all of - maybe - ten seconds. Then I made my mind up. I turned my bike around, crossed over to the other side of the road, and pedalled my way the hell out of there.

I haven't been to a CM since. I'm not likely to, not now.

So: as I said I don't want to sermonise. I don't even want to speculate, on whether I was right or wrong in my decision. But I'm open to others' ideas.


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## ttcycle (6 Mar 2010)

Now this is an interesting topic -

Reading the posts has been intriguing as it has demonstrated the political compass that many are led by. To say CM isn't political is very naieve.

I have been on a few - the circling the same spots for a while really irritate me to no end and I often wait those out - I agree there can be counterproductive elements and in terms of creating change for cycling it's limited as the aims are disparate and fractured, however this is the anarchistic direction it has taken - perhaps its weak point. There are a few on the rides that are particularly brainless and can't see the bigger picture but that would be the case in any large gathering. Whoever it was that posted that those of us are being taken advantage through a political means of a few by joining these rides is clearly mistaken. I have a brain and can think for myself. I don't think CM is entirely effective as a campaign tool and does lead to bad feeling as it has no direction or message however, it could have potential if done correctly- yes it is far from that at the moment but it's just disorganised (probably why some like it)

Ok to move this on a bit- if CM isn't the way to do it for those of you in that camp- what are the suggestions? This is where armchair philosophising does not interest me- what can and will you do to create that change? It is all too easy to say oh some guy can do it for me. Change will never happen that way - what is the answer?

To those that think is a good thing -what are the issues with it and how can it be improved?


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## tdr1nka (6 Mar 2010)

One thing that irks me about the London motorists is that they could remember to make alternative plans for the last Friday of every month.
Ok, we need to recognise those who drive as a trade but it wouldn't really hurt for a lot of London drivers to take the bus, tube, walk or*gasp*cycle, once a month would it?

Were the ride better regulated in it's approach and aims it could well do cycling a wealth of good.

If it went on, say, four routes in rotation, going from central London and heading on a set route planned for north, south, east or west then you could spread the 'disruption'.

That's my point really, to the non cycling majority, as it stands, CM is only seen as a needless disruption and thus offers nothing to promote cycling, which, at the very least, it should be trying to do.


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## MacB (6 Mar 2010)

I agree with Pete the bullying aspect wouldn't sit well with me but I do get, at least some of, the ideas behind CM. The portrayal of cyclist v motorist, and use of terms like 'moton', really doesn't help. The key elements for me are the ideas around reclaiming town/city centres for everyone not just motorists. I would actually go beyond that to include all population centres, the ability to get in and out of them and to travel between them.

A lot of us are hypocritical though, myself included, we dislike cars invading spaces we would like to use for other things. Yet we think nothing of doing the same to others when we're driving. How many commuting motorists consider the blight they cause on the subburbs they travel through? I certainly didn't until I began cycling and took an active interest in learning more. Yet the same motorists would complain bitterly if their residential road suddenly became popular as a 'rat run'. How many people think nothing of driving to a picturesque destination? the irony seems lost on them.

I had the dubious pleasure of cycling through Guildford today. There are great swathes where traffic levels are enough to make being a pedestrian unpleasant, let alone a non motorist sharing the road. It's also a road setup that I doubt I could have coped with when I first started cycling again. But it's quite a pretty place, in part, and it could be really fantastic without the cars. Big thoroughfares, outdoor eateries, stalls down the middle. Actually most of the ugliness, in most towns, seems to be around provision for motorised vehicles.


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## tdr1nka (6 Mar 2010)

Amen MacB, amen.


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## Debian (6 Mar 2010)

hackbike 666 said:


> *
> 
> *Hang on,when I use the moton term it's not meant in a nasty way from me and I didn't think it was an insult.



Of course it's an insulting term. What the hell did you think it was?

Its a combination of MOTorist and morON - it's very insulting and uncalled for and I will not use it. There are, proportionately just as many idiotic cyclists as there are idiotic motorists and it does no good at all to be devisive for no good reason.


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## tdr1nka (6 Mar 2010)

CYCLONS!!


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## MajorMantra (6 Mar 2010)

ttcycle said:


> Ok to move this on a bit- if CM isn't the way to do it for those of you in that camp- what are the suggestions? This is where armchair philosophising does not interest me- what can and will you do to create that change? It is all too easy to say oh some guy can do it for me. Change will never happen that way - what is the answer?



You can ride your bike everyday to work, school, uni, the shops or wherever and encourage your friends and family to do the same. 

You can join organisations that campaign for cyclists' rights like the CTC, or start your own, or get involved in local politics or try to pressure your MP.

You can participate in rides (be they club runs, charity events or whatever) that don't intentionally set out to piss people off, i.e. almost any one except CM, and behave in a courteous manner to all other road users.

Matthew


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## ttcycle (6 Mar 2010)

Ok Matthew- which of the above do you think will make the most difference and how will you personally contribute to it?

Thing I'm getting at folks is it's really easy to spout on a online forum/fora where there is no responsibility to take things up - what can each person on here actually do to create that change? Surely the actual idea of a Critical Mass if you look up the purist meaning is that ciritical mass is about higher numbers of cyclists out on the road = better safety and that is the one statistical fact that can be backed up (I don't have a set of stats to hand I'm afraid) and this critical mass can create bottle necks that make people think about points of entry etc - hence the corking idea.

Of course CM is far from this purist ideal.

So what about it folks - what can be done on a large scale to create that change.

Tdr1nka - the planned routes thing is a potential idea but the issue is by planning it then you may have to run them via the Met/City police - in some ways takes the edge off it for some participants and it loses the sense of freedom that attracts many. I'm in agreement with your last line though.

MacB - I think that the aggression vs aggression aspect can sometimes hinder these rides. Well put paragraph.


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## MajorMantra (6 Mar 2010)

ttcycle said:


> Ok Matthew- which of the above do you think will make the most difference and how will you personally contribute to it?



I think leading by example is the most useful thing that most of us can do. If you have the time and energy to devote to pressuring public bodies and elected officals that's great, but most of us don't.

I don't claim to be a perfect cyclist but I think that anything we can do to rid ourselves of the stereotype of the cyclist as sanctimonious prick has to be good. By participating in events like CM we only serve to reinforce this image.

Matthew


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## ttcycle (6 Mar 2010)

If what you're saying is that cycling should be normalised - I'm in complete agreement with you there. However, surely there is more that can be done to change attitudes and to get more people on the bike in the first place or those with the bikes languishing in the shed.


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## HJ (6 Mar 2010)

Critical Miss or Critical Mass?


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## Rhythm Thief (6 Mar 2010)

HJ said:


> Critical Miss or Critical Mass?



That's a good article, and it echoes what I feel about CM. Although it appears that I'm just as guilty of alienating potential cyclists by commuting to work in lycra.


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## GrasB (6 Mar 2010)

That's a very interesting article there HJ & really does get in the mind of 'Average Joe'. It outlines why things like CM ihmo don't really work & turn the perception of cyclists into a less militant version of animal rights activists. This is a bad thing & is something that needs to be avoided at all costs.

OT: One thing that always annoys me about copenhagenize.com is that they seem to have this whole thing about people wearing cycling specific clothing like it's a bad thing. But here's the rub, every cyclist who travels a reasonable distance to work & back I know wears their version of cycling specific clothing, it usually isn't lycra but it certainly won't be the clothes they do their work in.

RT: I wish that people would stop seeing lycra as something linked to competitive cycling & started seeing it in a similar way as they see motorcyclists leathers, clothing to make cycling easier/safer for some people. There's no reason for someone to wear leathers if they don't want but there's also a valid reason to do so if the rider choses.


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## Rhythm Thief (6 Mar 2010)

Lycra just makes sense for cycling any distance over five or six miles. Sure, I could do my 12 mile commute in rigger boots and jeans, but why would I when I can wear something comfortable and efficient?

EDIT: Posted before GrasB's edit above. :-)


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## ttcycle (6 Mar 2010)

Rhythm Thief said:


> Lycra just makes sense for cycling any distance over five or six miles. Sure, I could do my 12 mile commute in rigger boots and jeans, but why would I when I can wear something comfortable and efficient?



+1

Though I think what's happening is that companies are starting to make more clothing that can be off bike stuff too- apparently.

I wouldn't think that getting people on bikes is simply about appearance though - it's multi factoral though.


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## GrasB (6 Mar 2010)

Most people I know riding more than 5 miles each way are wearing lycra or track suit type clothes & carry work clothes/shoes in a bag. Get more than 10 miles each way & they're almost exclusively wearing cycling specific clothes, mostly lycra but a few in baggies.

EDIT: ttcycle, I know lots of people are buying MTB baggy shorts/trousers & tops now, while at a casual glance don't look like cycling specific clothes it doesn't take much more than a glance to see the clothes are cycling specific. But does that really matter?


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## al78 (6 Mar 2010)

Rhythm Thief said:


> Lycra just makes sense for cycling any distance over five or six miles. Sure, I could do my 12 mile commute in rigger boots and jeans, but why would I when I can wear something comfortable and efficient?
> 
> EDIT: Posted before GrasB's edit above. :-)



My commute is just under 10 miles and I don't bother with Lycra unless it is very wet, in which case wearing clothes that don't feel too uncomfortable when wet and dry out quickly makes sense. I do, nearly all the time, commute in the same clothes I work in, mainly because taking in extra clothes would mean swapping the rack bag for panniers, which I don't want to do for several reasons.

I do have cycling shoes but they are the ones with recessed cleats so they can comfortably double up as ordinary shoes when off the bike (thus no changes of footwear needed).


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## ttcycle (6 Mar 2010)

GrasB said:


> Most people I know riding more than 5 miles each way are wearing lycra or track suit type clothes & carry work clothes/shoes in a bag. Get more than 10 miles each way & they're almost exclusively wearing cycling specific clothes, mostly lycra but a few in baggies.
> 
> EDIT: ttcycle, I know lots of people are buying MTB baggy shorts/trousers & tops now, while at a casual glance don't look like cycling specific clothes it doesn't take much more than a glance to see the clothes are cycling specific. But does that really matter?



Good point made in your previous edit.

It doesn't matter to me - it's about functionality and comfort isn't it- there's a whole load of stuff floating about that is stealth clothing - not mtb shorts and baggies. My mate who works in the industry has these jeans that are like normal jeans but cycling specific -ie cut for cycling and waterproof. However, a digression sort of..!


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## GrasB (6 Mar 2010)

al78, if that's you deal then good for you. But what type of job do you have, there's a bit of a difference between someone doing manual work & an office worker requiring a well presented look at the office. Of course there are also jobs in between which may or may not need changes of clothes.


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## MacB (6 Mar 2010)

The Copenhagen view also seems to be based around relatively short, within a city, journeys. There're a lot of people that also use their commute as a workout, not really practical if you then need to wear those clothes all day.


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## Rhythm Thief (6 Mar 2010)

al78 said:


> I do have cycling shoes but they are the ones with recessed cleats so they can comfortably double up as ordinary shoes when off the bike (thus no changes of footwear needed).



I'm stuck with cycling shoes, until some far - sighted individual produces steel toe SPD shoes.


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## al78 (6 Mar 2010)

GrasB said:


> al78, if that's you deal then good for you. But what type of job do you have, there's a bit of a difference between someone doing manual work & an office worker requiring a well presented look at the office. Of course there are also jobs in between which may or may not need changes of clothes.



I work in an office, but one with no dress code.

I just wanted to make the point that even for moderate cycling distances it is perfectly feasible to cycle in ordinary everyday clothing, as opposed to getting fully dressed up in special clothing then having to change.

I feel that if you have to keep lugging clothes about and then change at both ends then you start to increase the faff factor and thus erode the practicalities of utility cycling.


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## chap (7 Mar 2010)

bromptonfb said:


> okay, firstly, i am speaking about the worldwide phenomenon known as cm. there is carnage on the roads worldwide and cyclists get killed daily. a quick youtube search fetches up loads of helmet cam incidents and only a very small percentage of cyclists wear them. when was the last time you saw a child cycling manchester city centre? why not? because any sensible parent would not let there child cycle in a busy centre. is this right? should a child be safe cycling on any city roads? should the elderly be safe on roads? yes they should! why should a group of cyclists not have the right to 'protest'? because we don't pay ved or smell? what about religious parades? what about funeral car processions? what about when the wagons were stopping the country? oh but that was ok as it was supported by motons. why is the cm a nuisance? i was not criticising club runs, i was asking why is that group of regular cyclists ok but the cm, another group of cyclists, is not? why was the blenheim palace outing ok but cm is not? why do people call cm particitents stupid smelly hippy druggy crazy loons. i'm not and tbh i have never seen anything of that ilk on any cm i have been on nor have i seen any on youtube videos of worldwide cm's. the cm's i have been on have not gone round and round a compact city centre. i usually follows an outward spiral and visits many parts of the outer city districts i would never have seen without cm. i see children with parents on cm, where are they when not in the cm? where is the dog in bakfiets when not on cm?




Agreed, the roads could and should be a lot better and safer for cyclists, so what have CM actually achieved in the plight to improve this?

People refer to the unsavoury characters because they appear not only the vocal part of the group but the crux of it, the ride by definition is anarchic, set normally during rush hours, with no intent. A key aspect of it is corking (getting somebody to stand in front of cars so that the procession can pass at leisure), regardless of the status of the traffic lights - and we all know how crazy people go to get their turn when the lights are changing in their favour during rush hour. In effect, you are not only undermining the cities paid traffic controllers, but the rules of fair play on the roads as well.

The good old Christian adage of 'treat others as you would wish to be treated' goes a long way, and in itself could disarm the Critical Mass argument.

The dogs in Bakifets, the mock eccentric chaps on Penny Farthings, and the recumbent racers alongside families, predominantly on mountain bikes, are seen at other events. There are several organised rides such as the Skyride, the Tweed run held across the country. These are done in such a way that they can run smoothly without disrupting others. Yes, I know that the dominance of the motorcar encroaches upon our personal space, lowers our standard of living, and reduces daily communication between individuals in shared spaces and thus hampers communities, but again, how does CM challenge this?

Best, invest your time and money in a movement that actually has a purpose. The CM by definition, to circumvent various rulings, plays the coy approach, much like swingers advertising personal parties (albeit paid), and brothels advertising the services of a masseuse, there is an unspoken yet plainly obvious intention behind it; very few drug dealers would readily concede if you approached them on the street and asked if they sold drugs. In spite of these extreme examples, the prevailing intention of CM is to have an orgiastic bash at the expense of the petrol-burners. By cycling in a mob and holding up traffic, you are showing your lack of regard towards your fellow citizens who you hold back with an intentionally slow procession of cyclists, without a fixed route nor 'agenda'. You are reducing yourself to a level below that of the average inconsiderate driver, and contradicting claims about the bicycle being a more civil form of transport. It is merely primitive 'us vs them', urban clans getting one up over the other in a myopic battle whose ultimate purpose is lost right at the offset. What is the war about?

If a similar ride were organised, say on Saturday mornings across the Thames paths, and other quiet places, then this would encourage the families you desire to join. Especially, if a community spirit was envoked, in getting people to discover their surroundings by bike. 

Fortunately for you, my friend, this does exist and has for over a century, the CTC is an organisation that operates under the pretext of improving the conditions and lives of cyclists, they have national branches which organise regular rides. In London, the London Cycle Campaign do the same, similarly this organisation operates under the pretext of improving the cycleability of the city. Volunteers run regular cycles, and they seem a welcoming bunch. 

If you really want bakifiets, you can get involved and probably organise a market day ride, in which fellow cargo cyclists can flit from one market to the other (markets are some of the best treasures of London, and make eating good quality produce much more affordable than most other parts of the country.) I believe the CTC rides are run by volunteers as well.

These regular rides will introduce you to a diverse range of people, interested in cycling and its advancement (to varying degrees), thus will put you in better stead to improve the conditions for your fellow countrymen. All this for an annual charge of £30 - £35 on membership with these organisations, and you get magazines and 3rd party insurance as well.

Unfortunately, many of these organisations can be rather stagnant on the campaigning front, perhaps you are the spark required to civilise Manchester.


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## Twenty Inch (7 Mar 2010)

Oh what utter nonsense Chap. What good would a Saturday afternoon ride on the Thames path do for the hundreds of us who cycle in rush hour twice a day? CM says to people "Cyclists are traffic too" - we have a right to be on the road, and to be safe on the road. The anger that sometimes erupts is a function of how cyclists' everyday experience is one of inconsiderate, dangerous, and at times deliberately threatening, driving. 

Bloody namby-pamby "don't annoy anyone and then they'll take notice of us, let's be better than them and then at least we'll be on the moral high ground, even as we're under their wheels" - that's really going to work, isn't it?

CM invites people to contemplate a life and a city with fewer cars once a month. Some people get irate, on both sides, but it is generally a life-affirming event, which changes our cityscape for the good and gets a positive message across. There are drivers who will never get it, but we're never going to reach everyone.


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## GrasB (7 Mar 2010)

al78 said:


> I work in an office, but one with no dress code.
> 
> I just wanted to make the point that even for moderate cycling distances it is perfectly feasible to cycle in ordinary everyday clothing, as opposed to getting fully dressed up in special clothing then having to change.
> 
> I feel that if you have to keep lugging clothes about and then change at both ends then you start to increase the faff factor and thus erode the practicalities of utility cycling.


This raises another issue, you see if I ride to work at a speed which I don't get hot/sweaty thus don't need a change of clothes I take longer than if I do a hard ride to work, cool down, shower & change. Oh & I can get to work quicker for the same effort level so take even more time off my total commute


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## chap (7 Mar 2010)

Twenty Inch said:


> Oh what utter nonsense Chap. What good would a Saturday afternoon ride on the Thames path do for the hundreds of us who cycle in rush hour twice a day? CM says to people "Cyclists are traffic too" - we have a right to be on the road, and to be safe on the road. The anger that sometimes erupts is a function of how cyclists' everyday experience is one of inconsiderate, dangerous, and at times deliberately threatening, driving.
> 
> Bloody namby-pamby "don't annoy anyone and then they'll take notice of us, let's be better than them and then at least we'll be on the moral high ground, even as we're under their wheels" - that's really going to work, isn't it?
> 
> CM invites people to contemplate a life and a city with fewer cars once a month. Some people get irate, on both sides, but it is generally a life-affirming event, which changes our cityscape for the good and gets a positive message across. There are drivers who will never get it, but we're never going to reach everyone.




Surely if this is a commuting solution, then the rides would be less leisurely, they would be more frequent (Monday to Thursday / Friday), and the dis-organisation would have an aim. Instead, this is a ride held once a month during rush hour, on a Friday. There are some which are held on Saturday mornings so, I think that also works against your commuter point.

If people wanted safety in numbers, then there are initiatives which take place such as the London Cycle Campaigns 'bike train'. This was aimed at luring more commuters onto their bikes, where 2 volunteers - one at the front, the other at the back, would have set routes from the outskirts to key central locations. They would go past safe and convenient (read as quick and direct) routes picking up people as they progressed to the end. Why can't this be emulated in other areas crying out for safer bicycle commuting - i.e. presumably the places where Critical Mass operates. Then there are the genuine organic Critical Masses which take place, e.g. the largish groups of cyclists one can see on key routes across Central London during morning and afternoon rush hour. 

Fighting fire with fire is more effective than fighting it with sticks then dispersing. Do you really think the way to fight a more powerful foe is to irk them on a monthly basis and then scatter, hoping that they have learnt their lesson?

Surely the most effective means would be to utilise a united front of considerate, mature individuals who can then articulate their concerns appropriately, bringing on board key members, and exercising the rights and functions of a democratic society. For this, we have MPs, local councillors, cycle organisations (albeit rather ineffective on the campaign front), and (the) media. Compare this to joining in with a bunch of sanctimonious reprobates who annoy everyone around them, including those using public transport.

If CM is a means to envisage a better life without cars, then this once again begs the question of why they host the rides at rush hour. Surely an early morning run would be much more appropriate, or organised trips to car-free developments, or even cities which show consideration to cyclists such as most of those in the Netherlands, or even Paris. These acts would stoke the flames of its participants much more effectively than what it currently does as a petulant adrenaline-fuelled binge.

Critical Mass, is intentionally evasive of their underlying motive, they say that everyone comes to it with their own ideas of what it should be. Now that is complete and utter nonsense. One would be more effective holding an organised demonstration where everybody was allowed to protest their own point; as you can imagine that would be a disaster, as is currently the case with Critical Mass.


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## Titan yer tummy (7 Mar 2010)

chap said:


> Surely the most effective means would be to utilise a united front of considerate, mature individuals who can then articulate their concerns appropriately, bringing on board key members, and exercising the rights and functions of a democratic society. For this, we have MPs, local councillors, cycle organisations (albeit rather ineffective on the campaign front), and (the) media. Compare this to joining in with a bunch of sanctimonious reprobates who annoy everyone around them, including those using public transport..........
> 
> ......Critical Mass, is intentionally evasive of their underlying motive, they say that everyone comes to it with their own ideas of what it should be. Now that is complete and utter nonsense. One would be more effective holding an organised demonstration where everybody was allowed to protest their own point; as you can imagine that would be a disaster, as is currently the case with Critical Mass.



Well said Mr Chap. I'm with you.


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## Debian (7 Mar 2010)

Titan yer tummy said:


> Well said Mr Chap. I'm with you.



+1 also.

IMHO CM achieves nothing except to alienate non-cyclists further.


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## thomas (7 Mar 2010)

Debian said:


> IMHO CM achieves nothing except to alienate non-cyclists further.



The CMs I went on were greeted by cheers from many peds, and friendly toots from drivers too! I doubt they were all cyclists.


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## BentMikey (7 Mar 2010)

thomas said:


> The CMs I went on were greeted by cheers from many peds, and friendly toots from drivers too! I doubt they were all cyclists.



+1. There is lots of good will and fun, and bad too. It does rather seem that some are so radically biased that they can't see both sides.

p.s. Let's stop with the long posts please. In the same line as the breathless post from another user, these very long posts make me just skip to the next one.


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## hackbike 666 (7 Mar 2010)

BentMikey said:


> +1. There is lots of good will and fun, and bad too. It does rather seem that some are so radically biased that they can't see both sides.



Ooooh get you.



BentMikey said:


> p.s. Let's stop with the long posts please. In the same line as the breathless post from another user, these very long posts make me just skip to the next one.



Ok Mr Board Moderator.


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## chap (7 Mar 2010)

*In praise of soundbites?*



BentMikey said:


> p.s. Let's stop with the long posts please. In the same line as the breathless post from another user, these very long posts make me just skip to the next one.




-1


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## HLaB (7 Mar 2010)

BentMikey said:


> p.s. Let's stop with the long posts please. In the same line as the breathless post from another user, these very long posts make me just skip to the next one.


Oh I'm glad its not just me that does that


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## Sheffield_Tiger (7 Mar 2010)

I have mixed feelings

I used to CM regularly - years ago. At that point, the group that was Pedal Pushers were quite heavily involved and moderated the hippy "blanket ban on all cars now" Earth First! types, so it was a mix and it balanced out into quite a civilised affair.

I was on the fringe of that kind of movement, but never really being that extreme, I knew a few who went on with that kind of agenda. And to be honest, I was drawn to protests at that time anyway ("Rent-A-Mob" in the Daily Mail's words, though no rent was ever paid and I did believe in what I was doing.

Apart from one specific CM which was aimed at addressing the issue of tram-tracks, public transport was always allowed through (not denying that it could be delayed by the "knock-on" effect)

It was enjoyable but not sure what it achieved, looking back older and (arguably) wiser...

I think I'd have to participate again in one to really decide whether it had merits...


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## shouldbeinbed (7 Mar 2010)

hackbike 666 said:


> *You don't like being called nasty names but repeatedly refer to car drivers as "Motons". Pots and kettles spring to mind, rapildly followed by 'oh grow up'
> 
> *Hang on,when I use the moton term it's not meant in a nasty way from me and I didn't think it was an insult.



fair do's but do you think BFB was using it in a friendly joshing way?

I always read that word the same way as downfader and the analogy still stands, Bfb was complaining that s/he is not as described by motorists and then is using terminology of dubious origin which I've never seen outside of postings here and on other bike forums in posts which are invariably uncomplimentary to motorists.

I don't see then need to make up words which have an unpleasant feel to them to describe people; 99% of who are doing exactly the same as me, just trying to get from A to B only with a different vehicle; when there are several perfectly viable words and combinations that describe them without implied prejudice or inflection already.


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## shouldbeinbed (7 Mar 2010)

ttcycle said:


> Ok to move this on a bit- if CM isn't the way to do it for those of you in that camp- what are the suggestions? This is where armchair philosophising does not interest me- what can and will you do to create that change? It is all too easy to say oh some guy can do it for me. Change will never happen that way - what is the answer?



I've already alluded to this in my posts, I'm not a fan of sheer unexplained negativity (poss why I'm not a CM fan) without a but you could do....

I've advocated engaging in dialogue with the movers and shakers. Every unitary authority in Greater Manchester has a cycling officer and a council run and attended cycling forum/BUG - Shift work prevents me from attending mine anymore but I've been there and done my bit when I was able to.

As to employers, read what I wrote, encourage C2W, push the green agenda-highlight the likleyhood of grants for environmentally friendly projects such as bike sheds, for larger employers set up a BUG at work, push for adequate provision inside and outside of the building.
Contact the local chamber of commerce ask to speak to a meeting or contribute an article to their trade magazine.

Actually communicate professionally and civilly using real live words with people that have the power to effect changes rather than riding round deliberately slowly blocking the roads with no message as to the reasons given out there and then - or if there is a message it is the yobbo element snarling and spitting (metaphorically hopefully) at any motorist unfortunate to come up against bike-a-mob. 

The Manchester CM is an unknown phenomenon outside of interested cyclists- I've never seen any media coverage of it happening, nor any sort of media marketing by the organisers, inviting participation, giving fair warning to motorists that may be around at the time or explaining the rationale behind it.


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## Debian (8 Mar 2010)

tdr1nka said:


> CYCLONS!!



LOL!


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## tdr1nka (8 Mar 2010)




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## downfader (8 Mar 2010)

Cyclons!! Fnaar!


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## bottombracket (8 Mar 2010)

A-Whoooosh... exhales at last...

Just read all 93(?) posts - tried not to skip (skimmed the digression into suitable commuting clobber!)

I have been on a _few_ CMs years ago and also demo'd about things I cared about...

Participants then were predominantly crusty trustafarians on bikes which did not look often used (where can _I_ buy one of those rust-coloured chains).
A demo on a bike it certainly was...

In this city, it fizzled out after a while. (restarted recently)

*quote from earlier post*_ "what can and will you do to create that change?"_

Some years later I was asked to re-start CM here ("I see you on your bike every day...")
When I declined, gave my reasons and suggested my alternative, I just got a blank look...
I explained that I felt that for every supportive toot-toot, another 4 hated us just that bit more for acting like tw4ts and others who did not care either way became prejudiced against us.
Some of whom would badly treat the next cyclist they came across.

My alternative;
_Everybody_ using their bikes _at the same time_ while sticking to the rules of the road. In a group, if you so choose...

*Critical mass yes, critical mess no!

P.S.* I'm not anti-car, I just don't think it is an appropriate inner city mass-transit technology.


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## andyfromotley (8 Mar 2010)

i have read this with interest as i have never been on a CM but always fancied it, they're our roads as much as the motorists after all. I then had a look on you tube and saw (what *appears* to be) some really boorish, bullying behaviour from some cyclists...... not for me.

So i got to thinking how do we interact with motorists and begin a debate about our needs i thought something like this, when you have something to celebrate, a year or a month, without a cycling fatality for example, we stand at really chocker rush hour junctions, in our cycling kit, with huge signs saying '

*thanks for your safe driving, zero fatalities in 2009*! 

Wave at the drivers, hand out sweets? along with little notes saying thanks a funny little lists of cyclists top wishes, more room, understanding and the odd hello perhaps 

It would enable us to engage with drivers in a positive, non confrontational and constructive manner. It may not be the answer but it couldnt harm could it?


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## MacB (8 Mar 2010)

andyfromotley said:


> i have read this with interest as i have never been on a CM but always fancied it, they're our roads as much as the motorists after all. I then had a look on you tube and saw (what *appears* to be) some really boorish, bullying behaviour from some cyclists...... not for me.
> 
> So i got to thinking how do we interact with motorists and begin a debate about our needs i thought something like this, when you have something to celebrate, a year or a month, without a cycling fatality for example, we stand at really chocker rush hour junctions, in our cycling kit, with huge signs saying '
> 
> ...



What a ridiculous idea, getting people on side by being friendly, you know that screaming confrontation is far more effective. The 'motons' deserve it because it's quite valid to extrapolate out our experiences, one poor driver in every 1000, to include all drivers.

At the very least you should be handing out little notes saying 'you're an unfit fat bastard who's wrecking the world', rather than sweets.


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## bottombracket (8 Mar 2010)

Andy, that's a crazy idea - I love it!!


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## CopperBrompton (8 Mar 2010)

I've been on a few London CM rides. In the days when it was policed (albeit mostly unofficially), it was a good-natured celebration of cycling.

Since the police stopped attending (after their abortive attempt to ban it), it was taken over by the thugs. Deliberate and aggressive confrontations with car drivers for no reason at all. I peeled off and don't go any more.

It's a great shame. I used to do motorcycle toy runs, and those were much like Andy suggested. Yes, we corked junctions, but we always went and spoke to the drivers held up, explained what was happening, reassured them the delay would be 2-3 mins and gave them a leaflet inviting them to contribute to Great Ormond Street. All extremely friendly, and lots of smiles and thumbs-up from drivers.


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## Rhythm Thief (9 Mar 2010)

And of course the more reasonable people are put off attending, the more CM comes to be dominated by aggressive idiots waving their bikes around and snarling at motorists. Although I'm far from convinced by the underlying message of CM anyway, whatever the makeup of the attendees. Maybe it's because I don't live in a town, but even when I was commuting 150-200 miles a week in the West Midlands, I didn't feel the need to attend a CM ride.


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## chap (9 Mar 2010)

andyfromotley said:


> i have read this with interest as i have never been on a CM but always fancied it, they're our roads as much as the motorists after all. I then had a look on you tube and saw (what *appears* to be) some really boorish, bullying behaviour from some cyclists...... not for me.
> 
> So i got to thinking how do we interact with motorists and begin a debate about our needs i thought something like this, when you have something to celebrate, a year or a month, without a cycling fatality for example, we stand at really chocker rush hour junctions, in our cycling kit, with huge signs saying '
> 
> ...




That would go down especially well, if you also slipped mini biographies of the women killed by HGV drivers in the captial last year, to the Londons truck/van drivers.



 MET video to educate cyclists
Know your enemy article
BBC's take on events
LCC


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## Debian (9 Mar 2010)

Ben Lovejoy said:


> It's a great shame. I used to do motorcycle toy runs, and those were much like Andy suggested. *Yes, we corked junctions*, but we always went and spoke to the drivers held up, explained what was happening, reassured them the delay would be 2-3 mins and gave them a leaflet inviting them to contribute to Great Ormond Street. All extremely friendly, and lots of smiles and thumbs-up from drivers.



You see, this is one of the things I hate about the whole concept. Why does anyone feel they have the right to run contrary to the rules of the road?

If it was a properly organised event, with plenty of advance warning notices a week or two in advance and specific times between which the event would be run and with stewards controlling things then fine but to just do it out of the blue with no regard for anyone else is unacceptable. How do you _know_ you're not holding up someone taking their sick child to the hospital, or going to visit a seriously ill relative in hospital or, on a more mundane level, someone trying to get to a vital job interview on time? You don't, and you don't care so long as you get your way! It's just selfishness.


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## Tim Bennet. (9 Mar 2010)

It's just like one of those damn suffragettes throwing themselves under a race horse the other day: It's just completely selfish! Just seeing the terrible incident caused my wife to have an attack of the vapours, I lost out on a certain 10:1 winner and the poor horse twisted its ankle.

And all for what? What are they ever going to achieve? There's as much chance of there being an International Women's Day as men landing on the moon.


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## GrumpyGregry (9 Mar 2010)

However humerous in intent, any comparison between the members of the campaign for women's suffrage and CM-ers is an insult, imo, to the memory of those brave women.


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## BentMikey (9 Mar 2010)

Not in my opinion.

The blocking of junctions is necessary for safety. It's definitely preferable to having vehicles enter the mass, and it's what the police themselves advise in the situation.


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## theclaud (9 Mar 2010)

Tim Bennet. said:


> It's just like one of those damn suffragettes throwing themselves under a race horse the other day: It's just completely selfish! Just seeing the terrible incident caused my wife to have an attack of the vapours, I lost out on a certain 10:1 winner and the poor horse twisted its ankle.
> 
> And all for what? What are they ever going to achieve? There's as much chance of there being an International Women's Day as men landing on the moon.





Drivers moan a lot about a few hours inconvenience, but the car culture inconveniences all of us, all the time - and worse. I must say, and it relates to a recent thread about a different type of protest, there seems to me to be a lot of prejudice about "crusty hippies" and suchlike. Of course unprovoked aggression towards motorists is unacceptable, but a lot of the objection to CM looks to me as if it's based not on any actual bad behaviour, but on assumptions about the kind of people the participants are...


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## CopperBrompton (9 Mar 2010)

It has nothing to do with 'the kind of people participants are'. I suspect that 95%+ of them are there for the right reasons. It has everything to do with the _actions_ of a small minority who spoil it for everyone else.

When that small minority _deliberately _set out to anger, annoy and insult people just because they're in a car, they don't just spoil the CM ride, they do a disservice to all cyclists. Creating a view of cyclists as aggressive thugs makes life worse for all of us.


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## theclaud (9 Mar 2010)

Ben Lovejoy said:


> It has nothing to do with 'the kind of people participants are'. I suspect that 95%+ of them are there for the right reasons. It has everything to do with *the actions of a small minority who spoil it for everyone else*.
> 
> When that small minority _deliberately _set out to anger, annoy and insult people just because they're in a car, they don't just spoil the CM ride, they do a disservice to all cyclists. Creating a view of cyclists as aggressive thugs makes life worse for all of us.



My problem with that is it's a cliche that I've heard used to describe all kinds of events where nothing was spoiled at all. Stands to reason that in any very large gathering some people will behave like twats - been to any weddings lately? It doesn't invalidate the whole affair.


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## CopperBrompton (9 Mar 2010)

theclaud said:


> My problem with that is it's a cliche that I've heard used to describe all kinds of events where nothing was spoiled at all.


I can't speak for those unnamed events, but I can tell you first-hand that a small number of twats did indeed spoil the CM ride I was on, and not just for me.



> Stands to reason that in any very large gathering some people will behave like twats


I've done a number of very much larger organised rides (London to Brighton, Southend, Cambridge, etc) and never seen twattish behaviour beyond standing in rather silly places.

Come and do the London CM sometime and then tell me I'm wrong.


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## BentMikey (9 Mar 2010)

I've been on a number, and I don't agree with your view, Ben.


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## CopperBrompton (9 Mar 2010)

Since they stopped policing them?


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## theclaud (9 Mar 2010)

Ben Lovejoy said:


> I can't speak for those unnamed events, but I can tell you first-hand that *a small number of twats did indeed spoil the CM ride I was on*, and not just for me.
> 
> I've done a number of very much larger organised rides (London to Brighton, Southend, Cambridge, etc) and never seen twattish behaviour beyond standing in rather silly places.
> 
> Come and do the London CM sometime and then tell me I'm wrong.



Perhaps you're just very sensitive?

But you're right - I haven't been on a London one. They're usually a bit duff down here due to small numbers, but even then people get annoyed however well-behaved they are, just because cyclists are daring to get in their way. I see the next London one is the same night as the FNRttC...


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## CopperBrompton (9 Mar 2010)

theclaud said:


> Perhaps you're just very sensitive?


I have been accused of a number of things, but that isn't one of them


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## longers (9 Mar 2010)

I'm interested in the Manchester one at the end of the month, will make up my own mind about it after seeing it for myself.


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## Rob3rt (9 Mar 2010)

longers said:


> I'm interested in the Manchester one at the end of the month, will make up my own mind about it after seeing it for myself.



I may also go to this! I accidently ended up in the last one (was just leaving my appartment to head to my girlfriends as they were passing my appartment block on their route), was with it for about 100 metres then as I was in a rush (there was lasagne on the table at my destination ) and couldnt get through and they were rolling at a painfully slow pace I pulled out some disgraceful pavement surfing to get ahead.


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## MacB (9 Mar 2010)

I heard an interesting rumour that people may hold a wide variety of views and an equally wide variety of opinion on how best to express them. Whether I agree with the physicality of CM is secondary to the fact that they are actually making some level of effort.


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## Bollo (9 Mar 2010)

MacB said:


> I heard an interesting rumour that people may hold a wide variety of views and an equally wide variety of opinion on how best to express them. Whether I agree with the physicality of CM is secondary to the fact that they are actually making some level of effort.


I neither agree nor disagree with this point of view.


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## Rob3rt (9 Mar 2010)

I simply view it as follows:

Its a bike ride, a chance to meet other cyclists (I dont know anyone else that cycles), a social event, its free, it doesnt involve signing up, it might be fun! If it inconveniences some drivers, I dont care, I dont subscribe to its "message", I simply view it as a social event. If any event was run in a city centre with these numbers there would be inconvenience caused.

I'll deffo be giving it a go at some point.


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## theclaud (9 Mar 2010)

MacB said:


> I heard an interesting rumour that people may hold a wide variety of views and an equally wide variety of opinion on how best to express them. Whether I agree with the physicality of CM is secondary to the fact that they are actually making some level of effort.



Well said, MacB. Sometimes getting on with things is more important than agonising over getting them exactly right. It's protest, not neurosurgery...


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## MacB (9 Mar 2010)

Bollo said:


> I neither agree nor disagree with this point of view.




good man, knew I could count on you


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## Twenty Inch (9 Mar 2010)

Ben Lovejoy said:


> I've been on a few London CM rides. In the days when it was policed (albeit mostly unofficially), it was a good-natured celebration of cycling.
> 
> *Since the police stopped attending* (after their abortive attempt to ban it), it was taken over by the thugs. Deliberate and aggressive confrontations with car drivers for no reason at all. I peeled off and don't go any more.
> 
> It's a great shame. I used to do motorcycle toy runs, and those were much like Andy suggested. Yes, we corked junctions, but we always went and spoke to the drivers held up, explained what was happening, reassured them the delay would be 2-3 mins and gave them a leaflet inviting them to contribute to Great Ormond Street. All extremely friendly, and lots of smiles and thumbs-up from drivers.



This is news to me - when I last went, about 3 years ago, the police were still policing and lots of people were wearing shirts that said "I am NOT the organiser". ****ing amazes me how the police are managing to score so many own goals these days.

I'd love a happy, clappy CM, and several that I was one were just that, a real celebration. Perhaps this hardening of attitudes is what is putting the majority of cyclists off. 

FWIW, I have also engaged with local councils on cycling issues, represented TH Wheelers and worked alongside the Borough Coordinator, walked cycle routes with planners, sat on residents' forums, set up a BUG at work etc. etc. Doesn't mean that protest doesn't have a place alongside persuasion.


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## Rhythm Thief (9 Mar 2010)

Perhaps I'm in a minority here but I must say that in fifteen years of commuting round the West Midlands conurbation at all hours of the day and night including rush hours, I never felt the need to campaign for increased facilities especially for cyclists. The roads that everyone else used worked fine for me, and still do.


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## Debian (9 Mar 2010)

Rhythm Thief said:


> Perhaps I'm in a minority here but I must say that in fifteen years of commuting round the West Midlands conurbation at all hours of the day and night including rush hours, I never felt the need to campaign for increased facilities especially for cyclists. The roads that everyone else used worked fine for me, and still do.



+1, a hundred times over.


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## BentMikey (9 Mar 2010)

Rhythm Thief said:


> Perhaps I'm in a minority here but I must say that in fifteen years of commuting round the West Midlands conurbation at all hours of the day and night including rush hours, I never felt the need to campaign for increased facilities especially for cyclists. The roads that everyone else used worked fine for me, and still do.



I totally agree on facilities, but then that's a bit OT for CM surely? I've always seen it as an attempt to change peoples attitudes towards bicycles _on the road_.


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## longers (9 Mar 2010)

BentMikey said:


> I've always seen it as an attempt to change peoples attitudes towards bicycles _on the road_.



I thought that's what they were for, hence the thread being started as it was felt that some people's actions were detrimental to the cause or attitudes were being changed but for the worse.


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## theclaud (9 Mar 2010)

BentMikey said:


> I totally agree on facilities, but then that's a bit OT for CM surely? I've always seen it as an attempt to change peoples attitudes towards bicycles _on the road_.



Quite. CM's about reclaiming public spaces for the use of people. I can't see that it has anything to do with cycle facilities.


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## Rhythm Thief (9 Mar 2010)

BentMikey said:


> I totally agree on facilities, but then that's a bit OT for CM surely? I've always seen it as an attempt to change peoples attitudes towards bicycles _on the road_.



Yes, fair point. Even so, I can count on the fingers of one hand the incidents I had while commuting around the midlands, and if you discount those which were insignificant but annoying, or down to carelessness (rather than "attitude"), the number of incidents becomes vanishingly small. Hardly worth clogging up Wolverhampton's ring road every Friday afternoon rush hour for that.


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## Rhythm Thief (9 Mar 2010)

theclaud said:


> Quite. CM's about reclaiming public spaces for the use of people. I can't see that it has anything to do with cycle facilities.



It was the stated aim of the Wolverhampton mass I attended, to "show that cyclists need facilities". Hence the colonisation by a slow moving peloton of one lane of the Wolverhampton ring road in the rush hour, which did cyclists generally no favours at all. I freely admit that this is my only experience of CM, but if it put me off attending another, what must it have done for any motorist wavering on the edge of becoming a cycling commuter?


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## theclaud (9 Mar 2010)

Rhythm Thief said:


> It was the stated aim of the Wolverhampton mass I attended, to "*show that cyclists need facilities*". Hence the colonisation by a slow moving peloton of one lane of the Wolverhampton ring road in the rush hour, which did cyclists generally no favours at all. I freely admit that this is my only experience of CM, but if it put me off attending another, what must it have done for any motorist wavering on the edge of becoming a cycling commuter?



I didn't realise. But I know Wolverhampton quite well - the ring road is a hideous affair, entirely unconducive to pleasant cycling and allowing fast motor traffic to dominate the shape of the town, and I don't blame them for wanting to draw attention to this fact and do something about it. Deliberately slowing it down seems entirely appropriate. What do you suggest they do instead?


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## Rhythm Thief (9 Mar 2010)

theclaud said:


> I didn't realise. But I know Wolverhampton quite well - the ring road is a hideous affair, entirely unconducive to pleasant cycling and allowing fast motor traffic to dominate the shape of the town, and I don't blame them for wanting to draw attention to this fact and do something about it. Deliberately slowing it down seems entirely appropriate. *What do you suggest they do instead*?



Well, they could do what I did for fifteen years and use it quite happily, peacably co-existing with the rest of the traffic. Surely that would be better than showing what a pain in the arse cyclists can be when they really try, which was what they actually did?


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## GrumpyGregry (9 Mar 2010)

theclaud said:


> Quite. CM's about reclaiming public spaces for the use of people. I can't see that it has anything to do with cycle facilities.



Eh? So where are the people participating in CM who are not on bikes? Can a cabbie join in a CM in his cab? Or a MAG member on his FireBlade? Joggers... I want 200 joggers to jog along with the cyclists. What about the pedestrians who can't cross the road when they want to because the road is being claimed by the mass of cyclists at that particular moment. A mass trespass a la Kinder Scout of an open space it is not. 

Regardless of the philosophies of the participants what is being practically 'reclaimed' is a public highway not a public space, and it is being reclaimed through might of numbers and a calculated disregard for the laws of the road. The very laws that, if everyone abided by them, would protect the vulnerable a good deal better than they do at present.


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## theclaud (9 Mar 2010)

Rhythm Thief said:


> Well, they could do what I did for fifteen years and use it quite happily, peacably co-existing with the rest of the traffic. Surely that would be better than showing what a pain in the arse cyclists can be when they really try, which was what they actually did?



Forgive me, RT, because personally I'll cycle on anything short of a motorway, but anyone who is "happy" with the Wolverhampton ring road needs their head examined. Why on earth should cyclists bimble along "happily" on roads that are designed to dominate and intimidate them and to exclude pedestrians entirely? You call it peaceable co-existence - I call it submitting to being marginalised for the sake of cars.


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## theclaud (9 Mar 2010)

GregCollins said:


> Eh? So where are the people participating in CM who are not on bikes? Can a cabbie join in a CM in his cab? Or a MAG member on his FireBlade? Joggers... I want 200 joggers to jog along with the cyclists. What about the pedestrians who can't cross the road when they want to because the road is being claimed by the mass of cyclists at that particular moment. A mass trespass a la Kinder Scout of an open space it is not.
> 
> Regardless of the philosophies of the participants what is being practically 'reclaimed' is a public highway not a public space, and it is being reclaimed through might of numbers and a calculated disregard for the laws of the road. The very laws that, if everyone abided by them, would protect the vulnerable a good deal better than they do at present.



Well personally I'd be all for 200 joggers jogging along with the cyclists. Have they tried? I don't know what a fireblade is, but if it's motorised then no - the point is symbolically to reclaim spaces that should be for people from the motorised traffic that currently dominates them.


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## Rhythm Thief (9 Mar 2010)

theclaud said:


> Forgive me, RT, because personally I'll cycle on anything short of a motorway, but anyone who is "happy" with the Wolverhampton ring road needs their head examined. Why on earth should cyclists bimble along "happily" on roads that are designed to dominate and intimidate them and to exclude pedestrians entirely? You call it peaceable co-existence - I call it submitting to being marginalised for the sake of cars.



Maybe. Or maybe not: personally, I never felt marginalised and used to get a bit of a kick out of riding on urban roads, including the ring road. I agree that there isn't much provision for pedestrians on the ring road, but I can't see that a load of cyclists bimbling around taking up one lane of it at sub-walking pace is going to change that; as for being "designed to dominate and intimidate" cyclists, well I can only repeat that I never felt dominated or intimidated by the design of the road myself. I apologise if my urban cycling experience was too happy for you, but there it is.
I commuted for a while along the Black Country route from Bilston to West Bromwich, and I have to say I enjoyed that too.


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## GrumpyGregry (9 Mar 2010)

theclaud said:


> Why on earth should cyclists bimble along "happily" on roads that are designed to dominate and intimidate them and to exclude pedestrians entirely? You call it peaceable co-existence - *I call it submitting to being marginalised for the sake of cars.*



Which is what many members f our society appear to want to happen; wedded as they are to their cars. Unenlightened of them I know, but there you go. The risk is surely of marginalising oneself by appearing to be anti-car?


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## theclaud (9 Mar 2010)

Rhythm Thief said:


> Maybe. Or maybe not: personally, I never felt marginalised and used to get a bit of a kick out of riding on urban roads, including the ring road. I agree that there isn't much provision for pedestrians on the ring road, but I can't see that a load of cyclists bimbling around taking up one lane of it at sub-walking pace is going to change that; as for being "designed to dominate and intimidate" cyclists, well I can only repeat that I never felt dominated or intimidated by the design of the road myself. I apologise if my urban cycling experience was too happy for you, but there it is.
> I commuted for a while along the Black Country route from Bilston to West Bromwich, and I have to say I enjoyed that too.



You and I might feel happy mixing it with traffic, but most people are not (most will not even consider cycling on the road), and roads that cannot be crossed at will by pedestrians frankly have no place whatever in town centres. The reality is that traffic does exclude people, and shapes our towns according to the needs of the car. Perhaps they have a different vision to you, in which bimbling around at sub-walking pace is a perfectly normal thing to do, and people are at liberty to do it without fast-moving impatient vehicles endangering them?


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## GrumpyGregry (9 Mar 2010)

theclaud said:


> Well personally I'd be all for 200 joggers jogging along with the cyclists. Have they tried? I don't know what a fireblade is, but if it's motorised then no - the point is symbolically to reclaim spaces that should be for people from the motorised traffic that currently dominates them.



The motorised traffic is carrying people; vehicular traffic. The highway was often times built with that in mind. How are these people different to people on foot or bicycle?


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## Rhythm Thief (9 Mar 2010)

theclaud said:


> You and I might feel happy mixing it with traffic, but most people are not (most will not even consider cycling on the road), and roads that cannot be crossed at will by pedestrians frankly have no place whatever in town centres. The reality is that traffic does exclude people, and shapes our towns according to the needs of the car. *Perhaps they have a different vision to you, in which bimbling around at sub-walking pace is a perfectly normal thing to do, and people are at liberty to do it without fast-moving impatient vehicles endangering them?*



Yes, that's certainly possible. But I can't see that the number of these cyclists is going to be increased - quite the opposite - by effectively teaching them that the safest way to ride in traffic is to trundle along at walking pace. I'd have had more time for CM if we'd been given some guidance on how to safely coexist with "hard" traffic, rather than doing something which still seems to me to have merely further marginalised cyclists and shown us up to be somehow a different species of road user.
All that said, I can see your point. The Wolverhampton ring road was certainly not designed with cyclists in mind - it was built before the days of enlightened town planning - but hey ho, it is what it is and it's what we've got. Certainly I never saw that as a reason not to use it, and I'm not some kind of superhuman, just an ordinary bloke who happens to use a bike sometimes.


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## theclaud (9 Mar 2010)

GregCollins said:


> The motorised traffic is carrying people; vehicular traffic. The highway was often times built with that in mind. *How are these people different to people on foot or bicycle*?



They are in cars! Have you not seen my sig line?


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## Rhythm Thief (9 Mar 2010)

That was partly my point, Mr P. I wasn't born a confident cyclist, when I started pedalling around the Wolverhampton ring road I was a complete novice just like anyone else, hence my point above about just being an ordinary bloke on a bike. It seems - and this extends to the world outside cycling - that we can't simply _do_ something any more, but instead we have to be either told how to do it by a number of expensive books or be part of a campaign group campaigning for better facilities to do whatever it is we'd otherwise be happily doing.


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## GrumpyGregry (9 Mar 2010)

theclaud said:


> They are in cars! Have you not seen my sig line?



I'm a driver, a bus passenger, a cyclist, a train passenger, a tube passenger, and a pedestrian, often acting out several of those roles in any one day. Nothing fundamentally changes about the nature of my personhood because of a choice I make about a given mode of transport. No more than it does if I choose a lilac shirt with double cuff and cufflinks, like today, over the dark blue polo shirt I chose to wear yesterday. I don't become one of the not-people because I drive a car.....

as for the late Fr. Illich, he held many a trenchant view that I would agree with, and plenty more I wouldn't, and, I suspect, plenty more still you wouldn't either! But it must be 30 years or more since I read 'Tools for Conviviality'


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## theclaud (9 Mar 2010)

GregCollins said:


> I'm a driver, a bus passenger, a cyclist, a train passenger, a tube passenger, and a pedestrian, often acting out several of those roles in any one day. Nothing fundamentally changes about the nature of my personhood because of a choice I make about a given mode of transport. No more than it does if I choose a lilac shirt with double cuff and cufflinks, like today, over the dark blue polo shirt I chose to wear yesterday. I don't become one of the not-people because I drive a car.....
> 
> as for the late Fr. Illich, he held many a trenchant view that I would agree with, and plenty more I wouldn't, and, I suspect, plenty more still you wouldn't either! But *it must be 30 years or more since I read 'Tools for Conviviality*'



Probably time to pick it up again, then . It's not about the nature of your personhood - it's about the nature of your mode of transport.

_Beyond a critical speed, no one can save time without forcing another to lose it. The man who claims a seat in a faster vehicle insists that his time is worth more than that of the passenger in a slower one. Beyond a certain velocity, passengers become consumers of other people’s time, and accelerating vehicles become the means for effecting a net transfer of life-time. The degree of transfer is measured in quanta of speed. This time grab despoils those who are left behind, and since they are the majority, it raises ethical issues of a more general nature than the lottery that assigns kidney dialysis or organ transplants. _
_Beyond a certain speed, motorized vehicles create remoteness which they alone can shrink. They create distances for all and shrink them for only a few._

Illich put the critical speed at around 15mph. Dellzeqq has agitated for 20 - but then he does have Dura Ace bearings...


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## CopperBrompton (9 Mar 2010)

theclaud said:


> _Beyond a critical speed, no one can save time without forcing another to lose it._


What utter tosh. 

How does me cycling cause a pedestrian to lose time? How does me driving cause a cyclist to lose time? How does me catching an Intercity train cause a driver to lose time?


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## theclaud (9 Mar 2010)

Ben Lovejoy said:


> *What utter tosh*.
> 
> How does me cycling cause a pedestrian to lose time? How does me driving cause a cyclist to lose time? How does me catching an Intercity train cause a driver to lose time?



After all of nine minutes of thinking! Well I can see that you've considered the matter in some depth...


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## CopperBrompton (9 Mar 2010)

Well, that argument convinces me. I shall walk everywhere extremely slowly from now on.


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## theclaud (9 Mar 2010)

Ben Lovejoy said:


> Well, that argument convinces me. I shall walk everywhere extremely slowly from now on.



Unless you can walk over 15mph, that's a very silly comment. The threshold is arguable, but you've entirely ignored the first part of the quote you so brusquely rubbished: "beyond a critical speed..."


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## CopperBrompton (9 Mar 2010)

And the mechanism for me magically causing others to lose time every time I hit the heady speed of 16mph is ... ?


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## theclaud (9 Mar 2010)

Ben Lovejoy said:


> And the mechanism for me magically causing others to lose time every time I hit the heady speed of 16mph is ... ?



I can't pretend I'm not enjoying this...

_The order of magnitude in which the critical threshold of speed can be found is too low to be taken seriously by the passenger, and too high to concern the peasant. It is so obvious it cannot be easily seen. *The proposal of a limit to speed within this order of magnitude engenders stubborn opposition. It exposes the addiction of industrialized men to ever higher doses of energy*, while it asks those who are still sober to abstain from something they have yet to taste._


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## Dan B (9 Mar 2010)

Forgive me if this is too obvious to be the right answer, but: the faster you are going, the more open space you arrogate to yourself as stopping distance. This makes it proportionately harder for anyone else to e.g. cross the road in front of you.

That said, some cyclists (many of those using the paths in Hyde Park come to mind) are just as guilty of robbing pedestrian time as any driver is.


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## theclaud (9 Mar 2010)

> I like freewheeling down hills.



Me too. But it's not the best time to bring it up. You're in danger of spoiling my fun.


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## CopperBrompton (9 Mar 2010)

Ah, I see, you were just blindly repeating some words without understanding the argument. As you were, then.

And this industrialised man has gone from higher doses of energy to lower ones, by a fair old margin. On which note, I'm off to the pub. :-)


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## wafflycat (9 Mar 2010)

CM. There's one twice a day in UK towns and cities. It's called 'The Rush Hour' except that it lasts longer than one hour and most of the participants clogging up the roads are motorised ones. And it's accepted as normal. Yet when cyclists do it once a month in London, it's all about them being anti-social, law-breaking, don't pay road tax.. etc., etc.. (cont. pg 96 Ed.)


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## theclaud (9 Mar 2010)

Ben Lovejoy said:


> Ah, I see, you were just blindly repeating some words without understanding the argument. As you were, then.
> 
> And this industrialised man has gone from higher doses of energy to lower ones, by a fair old margin. On which note, I'm off to the pub. :-)



Not at all. I just can't improve on the prose, and the appropriateness of it appealed to me. Coruskate's point is part of it, except that the arrogation of space goes way beyond stopping distances, and that of time way beyond the immediate interaction of fast- and slow-moving modes of transport.


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## theclaud (9 Mar 2010)

Anyway, Wafflycat puts it pretty well...


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## GrumpyGregry (9 Mar 2010)

theclaud said:


> Probably time to pick it up again, then . It's not about the nature of your personhood - it's about the nature of your mode of transport.



I might give it a go though I tend not to read books by Catholic clergy much any more. I hear quite enough from them of a Sunday. Perhaps it might count as a penance to do so.



theclaud said:


> Illich put the critical speed at around 15mph. Dellzeqq has agitated for 20 - but then he does have Dura Ace bearings...



Ball bearings are where the trouble started. I suspect that most bike fetishists put the speed just above the level they cruise at. Illich's arguments (which I've just spent a little time re-reading whilst waiting for some software to install) are provocative, and perhaps more designed to get people to see, or think about, cars differently rather than to be taken as literal conclusions to be acted upon. His anti-car rhetoric is startling but full of holes and somewhat simplistic. What is the average speed of my bike over its lifetime? What is the average speed of a 747 over its lifetime? Which is the most efficient form of transport? His arguments might well apply to trains, and he applied them to lifts!

I guess nowadays I'd just rather be pro- some things rather than anti- other things and for me CM is very much an anti-something activity.


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## GrumpyGregry (9 Mar 2010)

wafflycat said:


> CM. There's one twice a day in UK towns and cities. It's called 'The Rush Hour' except that it lasts longer than one hour and most of the participants clogging up the roads are motorised ones. And it's accepted as normal. Yet when cyclists do it once a month in London, it's all about them being anti-social, law-breaking, don't pay road tax.. etc., etc.. (cont. pg 96 Ed.)



Where in your rush hour do motorists collaborate with each other, park up and deliberately cork junctions to let their fellows through? When do they circle roundabouts over and over again purely to prevent others from joining the traffic on the roundabout? Where do hundreds of them deliberately and en masse drive through red lights? Or travel the wrong way down one way streets as a group.

Much of what happens on a London CM is illegal and only sheer weight of numbers allows people to get away with it. Because motorists break the law, even frequently doing so, during rush hour, that is no justification for cyclists to do so, imo.


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## theclaud (9 Mar 2010)

GregCollins said:


> Ball bearings are where the trouble started. *I suspect that most bike fetishists put the speed just above the level they cruise at.* Illich's arguments (which I've just spent a little time re-reading whilst waiting for some software to install) are provocative, and perhaps more designed to get people to see, or think about, cars differently rather than to be taken as literal conclusions to be acted upon. His anti-car rhetoric is startling but full of holes and somewhat simplistic. What is the average speed of my bike over its lifetime? What is the average speed of a 747 over its lifetime? Which is the most efficient form of transport? His arguments might well apply to trains, and he applied them to lifts!
> 
> I guess nowadays I'd just rather be pro- some things rather than anti- other things and for me CM is very much an anti-something activity.



 You might be right about that - like I said, the threshold is arguable, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. And the argument does apply to trains, but of course these are both physically and politically easier to constrain than private cars. There could be an argument for a rational sacrifice of space to faster traffic in certain circumstances, but that is most emphatically not what we have at the moment. I think the problem CM addresses is simply too important and too urgent to distract ourselves with criticism of its methods. Whether it achieves anything is arguable, but it most certainly doesn't make anything worse.


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## GrumpyGregry (9 Mar 2010)

theclaud said:


> You might be right about that - like I said, the threshold is arguable, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. And the argument does apply to trains, but of course these are both physically and politically easier to constrain than private cars. There could be an argument for a rational sacrifice of space to faster traffic in certain circumstances, but that is most emphatically not what we have at the moment. I think the problem CM addresses is simply too important and too urgent to distract ourselves with criticism of its methods. *Whether it achieves anything is arguable, but it most certainly doesn't make anything worse*.



Dang! I was with you all the way until that last sentence or so. I worked in London for many years. I would sometimes meet colleagues down the pub after taking part in a CM, or in more recent times after CM's had taken place. At best CM's appear to rub people, a lot of people, up the wrong way, and harden their attitudes to all cyclists as a result. The end does not justify the means. Anecdotal I know, but based on actual direct experience. ymmv.

My take; the most effective way to make the point that CM attempts, and imo fails, to make is simply "get on your bike and ride". Legally, ideally prettily and with a certain degree of elan, and with an obvious degree of enjoyment and pleasure in doing so. Just ride, wherever you judge it safe, and within the law, to do so, be it the Wolverhampton Ring Road or my local country lanes, just as often as you can, just because you can.


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## wafflycat (9 Mar 2010)

GregCollins said:


> Where in your rush hour do motorists collaborate with each other, park up and deliberately cork junctions to let their fellows through? When do they circle roundabouts over and over again purely to prevent others from joining the traffic on the roundabout? Where do hundreds of them deliberately and en masse drive through red lights? Or travel the wrong way down one way streets as a group.



Pretty much loads of junctions, roundabouts, traffic lights, jumping red lights... it's exceedingly frustratiing and it does happen. Seen it loads.


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## GrumpyGregry (9 Mar 2010)

wafflycat said:


> Pretty much loads of junctions, roundabouts, traffic lights, jumping red lights... it's exceedingly frustratiing and it does happen. Seen it loads.



My mileage varies.


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## GrumpyGregry (9 Mar 2010)

anyway an interesting article related to the debate here

Now please forgive me while I *DRIVE* home.


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## wafflycat (9 Mar 2010)

GregCollins said:


> Now please forgive me while I *DRIVE* home.



Nothing wrong with driving, I thoroughly enjoy driving - just do it courteously, legally and with patience. Oh and... "Give Cyclists Room"


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## Rhythm Thief (9 Mar 2010)

wafflycat said:


> CM. There's one twice a day in UK towns and cities. It's called 'The Rush Hour' except that it lasts longer than one hour and most of the participants clogging up the roads are motorised ones. And it's accepted as normal. Yet when cyclists do it once a month in London, it's all about them being anti-social, law-breaking, don't pay road tax.. etc., etc.. (cont. pg 96 Ed.)



And do the actions of a few thoughtless motorists within this group, clogging up town and city centres every morning and evening, make you think "wow, that looks like fun"? Or do you think "tsk, look at that peanut"? Now apply a little reverse thinking and you might see what it is that some of us don't like about CM.


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## BentMikey (9 Mar 2010)

No, lots of youngsters see that rush hour, and go, ooh, look, I wanna drive. They ignore the nasty folk just like we do.


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## chap (9 Mar 2010)

wafflycat said:


> CM. There's one twice a day in UK towns and cities. It's called 'The Rush Hour' except that it lasts longer than one hour and most of the participants clogging up the roads are motorised ones. And it's accepted as normal. Yet when cyclists do it once a month in London, it's all about them being anti-social, law-breaking, don't pay road tax.. etc., etc.. (cont. pg 96 Ed.)




Road Congestion by car is due to constrained paths, lack of manoeuvrability and a continuous feed of new inflexible cars passing through the same route. One or 2 idiots may let the frustration of the stop-start erode their patience thus ignore the signalling momentarily, although they will usually find their-selves at the mercy of others betwixt a procession of beeps.

Critical Mass ignore the traffic control measures, thus further disrupt the flow. They claim they have no purpose, no fixed route, thus for the sake of sporadic thrills contribute nothing but aggravation to those trying to get to their destination. 

I understand that our politics, and culture is saturated with it but victimhood will get you nowhere and shall always fail to progress the debate.





wafflycat said:


> Nothing wrong with driving, I thoroughly enjoy driving - just do it courteously, legally and with patience. Oh and... "Give Cyclists Room"



Couldn't agree with you more.


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## ed_o_brain (9 Mar 2010)

Adding my two penneth... without reading the entire thread.. so please do excuse me.

It seems motorists have a critical mass every morning and evening. I've even noticed some using the practice of 'corking' at major junctions, blocking them as to maintain priority. I'm actually not exaggerating here - observation upon reaching the A56/M60 interchange between Sale and Stretford in Manchester on a weekday morning at approx 8:30 am - traffic flows continuously off the M60 until that junction is full and traffic on the A56 cannot proceed even when the lights change to give them priority. 

If motorists can have a CM everday, then why don't we have one once a month?


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## BentMikey (9 Mar 2010)

Chap, you might have missed this:



BentMikey said:


> The blocking of junctions is necessary for safety. It's definitely preferable to having vehicles enter the mass, and it's what the police themselves advise in the situation.


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## Rhythm Thief (9 Mar 2010)

ed_o_brain said:


> Adding my two penneth... without reading the entire thread.. so please do excuse me.
> 
> It seems motorists have a critical mass every morning and evening. I've even noticed some using the practice of 'corking' at major junctions, blocking them as to maintain priority. I'm actually not exaggerating here - observation upon reaching the A56/M60 interchange between Sale and Stretford in Manchester on a weekday morning at approx 8:30 am - traffic flows continuously off the M60 until that junction is full and traffic on the A56 cannot proceed even when the lights change to give them priority.
> 
> If motorists can have a CM everday, then why don't we have one once a month?



It's not about whether we can or can't have a CM every month, it's about what impression it gives of cyclists. And I'd suggest that if you take your impression of the car drivers you see blocking up the box junction every morning, you'll have a pretty good idea of how the average car driver sees those CM riders who do much the same thing. "Because car drivers do it" is not a good enough reason for cyclists to behave anti socially once a month.


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## chap (9 Mar 2010)

BentMikey said:


> Chap, you might have missed this:



Thank you. Likewise, I'd advise you to read the 2nd paragraph of my last post:



chap said:


> Critical Mass ignore the traffic control measures, thus further disrupt the flow. They claim they have no purpose, no fixed route, thus for the sake of sporadic thrills contribute nothing but aggravation to those trying to get to their destination.


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## Rhythm Thief (9 Mar 2010)

BentMikey said:


> Chap, you might have missed this:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That may well be true, but it's not likely to make those motorists being held up by someone blocking a junction for a load of protesting cyclists think any more of us as a group. I quite agree with the safety reasons for doing it once you have a large group of cyclists to get through a junction: it's the tactic of organising a large get together of cyclists in a city rush hour in the first place that I don't like and think does us no favours.


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## BentMikey (9 Mar 2010)

It's a territorial p1$$ing contest, many car drivers think they own the road and that cyclists don't belong on it. When they do claim some space, it's tough luck to the drivers. It's showing a little parity for once, and it's decidedly fair. Besides which, CM is a far more dense usage of roadspace, so arguably has more right to it too.

Chap, what part of police advice to block vehicles from entering the mass did you miss?


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## Rhythm Thief (9 Mar 2010)

BentMikey said:


> It's a territorial p1$$ing contest ...



No it isn't, don't be daft. It's just people trying to get from here to there via different modes of transport, that's all. As I said earlier in the thread, I managed quite happily for over fifteen years commuting around the West Midlands in rush hour traffic. I haven't felt the need to get involved in CM since the first ride I attended and I still don't, because my (admittedly limited) experience of CM from a cyclist's point of view convinced me that all they do is present cyclists as a problem to be solved rather than people using just another mode of transport. And if the majority of CM riders see their presence on the road as a "territorial pissing contest", that only goes to confirm my impression that we'd be better off without them.


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## chap (9 Mar 2010)

*Cum hoc ergo propter hoc*



BentMikey said:


> Chap, what part of police advice to block vehicles from entering the mass did you miss?




Now BentMikey, I have afforded you the courtesy of polite consideration, I expect the same.

My previous post, the one prior to that, and all preceding thus have not attacked corking as a general concept. It is when it is used within the context of a mala fide social gathering that the issues begin.

Few would argue that traffic light pedestrian crossings, by their own right, were a menace. It is when the mischievous lad keeps on pressing it before running off that it is considered a nuisance. Were he to use it appropriately to cross the road, few would mind, if it's just for hicks and giggles then that is wrong.


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## ed_o_brain (9 Mar 2010)

> And I'd suggest that if you take your impression of the car drivers you see blocking up the box junction every morning, you'll have a pretty good idea of how the average car driver sees those CM riders who do much the same thing



Well that's the trouble. The highway is a public place. Not just the domain of motorists.
And CM generally takes place in the inner cities - and working in one, full of cars everyday, I really cannot see the reason all those car journeys are really necessary. There's good accessible public transport. Park and ride schemes. And once you are in the city centre, you are in walking distance of all the amenities you need. Driving into the city centre from the 'burbs take ages. In fact, nearly two hours to drive 17 miles the last time I tried it. Parking is expensive - which probably explains the disproportionate number of 'prestige vehicles'. It's inefficient. And for most people unnecessary. The relatively minor disruption caused by a monthy or occasional CM is a mere spec compared to the havoc caused by motorists day in, day out, by monopolising the public's rights of way.

CM is more than a disruption. It is sending a political message. I've participated in it and I've engaged with drivers - the majority of whom are curious about CM. When I have corked junctions, I've had numerous polite informative conversations with good spirited motorists. There are one or two bad eggs, and most often, for some reason, these are professional drivers. They usually end up making themselves look like complete c0cks in front of their brethren (other drivers). I thank the irate and impatient politely and cheerfully for their patience, in front of the other drivers at the front of the queues we have been conversing with who have been pleasant and patient. That usually brings about laughter and a common understanding.


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## thomas (9 Mar 2010)

ed_o_brain said:


> * When I have corked junctions, I've had numerous polite informative conversations with good spirited motorists.* There are one or two bad eggs, and most often, for some reason, these are professional drivers. They usually end up making themselves look like complete c0cks in front of their brethren (other drivers). I thank the irate and impatient politely and cheerfully for their patience, in front of the other drivers at the front of the queues we have been conversing with who have been pleasant and patient. That usually brings about laughter and a common understanding.



On my first one there was a chap on my left. I wasn't really corking, just stopped...anyway, thought he'd be getting annoyed waiting so decided to have a chat with him. He said there was no point getting wound up. It wouldn't get him anywhere, any quicker and he just enjoyed it. A few meters up the road there was a completely irate driver, and an ambulance driver getting very furious.

Now, OBVIOUSLY, if the mass was stopping an ambulance from actually getting somewhere important, fair enough...but it wasn't. Every time there was an ambulance the mass yelled up warnings and people all move to the side of the road, or pulled off it....Less can be said for people's motivation to move for the silly copper who kept pushing his way to the front of the mass to aggressively tell people to move on....while his colleague, who just walked through smiling and laughing, just asking people politely to mind out of the way unsurprisingly was listened to.

Anyway, I should be attending this month's mass in London. Hope to cycle up to London and have lunch at the Kebab Kid, then pootle around London (test my road awareness ) then attend. If anyone going look out for me on my specialised allez...I'll have my Muvi camera on


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## GrumpyGregry (9 Mar 2010)

Are you making a special trip to London to take part in a CM?


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## Rhythm Thief (9 Mar 2010)

ed_o_brain said:


> There are one or two bad eggs, and most often, for some reason, these are professional drivers. They usually end up making themselves look like complete c0cks in front of their brethren (other drivers).




Well, to be honest I can understand that. Put yourself in their shoes ... you've been at work since 4.30 that morning, you've got four drops to do around London (having driven down there from the Midlands), two of which are time specific. You're under pressure from your boss on the other end of the phone to get your last drop off because it's booze, and you can't park up overnight with that on the trailer because it'll walk. And anyway, you've got a full load to collect in Daventry before you can stop for the night. You've already been at work eleven hours; you might just get all this done, but it'll be tight ... oh, hang on, what's this? It's a load of cyclists bleating about their right to hold up all the traffic and how the roads are a public space. No matter how much I agree with you - and I _can_ see your point - for a bloke in a lorry it's not just about getting home ten minutes later than he would otherwise have done.


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## CopperBrompton (9 Mar 2010)

theclaud said:


> Not at all. I just can't improve on the prose


I'm less interested in his prose than his claimed mechanism by which travelling at 16mph slows down other people. If it is a tenable argument, I'm surprised you are so reluctant to have it exposed to scrutiny.


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## CopperBrompton (9 Mar 2010)

wafflycat said:


> CM. There's one twice a day in UK towns and cities. It's called 'The Rush Hour'


When was the last time you saw four or five motorists deliberately box in a cyclist who was simply trying to go about their business? When was the last time you saw a car park sideways across the road in front of a queue of cyclists and give them self-gratification artist signs?


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## longers (9 Mar 2010)

Ben Lovejoy said:


> When was the last time you saw four or five motorists deliberately box in a cyclist who was simply trying to go about their business? *When was the last time you saw a car park sideways across the road in front of a queue of cyclists and give them self-gratification artist signs?*



If I see any of that but in reverse on the Manchester CM then I'll be offski as that's not my cup of tea and I'm hoping it's not like that.


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## BentMikey (10 Mar 2010)

When was the last time you saw a moton overtake a cyclist and shout "Get orrrf the road you self-gratification artist", "You don't pay no road tax", "Get on the cycle path", "Get a car", etc. It *is* a territorial thing, many car drivers think they own the road and don't want cyclists on them.


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## wafflycat (10 Mar 2010)

Ben Lovejoy said:


> When was the last time you saw four or five motorists deliberately box in a cyclist who was simply trying to go about their business? When was the last time you saw a car park sideways across the road in front of a queue of cyclists and give them self-gratification artist signs?



Drive/cycle around any town or city and you'll see errant motorists treating other road users like that too often. Shame really. Like last night, driving into Norwich to go to see Dances with Smurfs at the picture palace. Was it cyclists doing the RLJ-ing? No, it was motorists - at several sets of lights. Was it the cyclists blocking the entrances/exits of roundabouts? No, it was motorists. 

It's the double standards being applied as regards lots of cyclists on the roads - happens twice a day in every town & city in the land, and it's ok because it's motor traffic. Happens once a month due to cyclists and it's chaos, anti-social, unnecessary, gives a bad impression, etc., yadda, yadda yadda.


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## Twenty Inch (10 Mar 2010)

Ben Lovejoy said:


> When was the last time you saw four or five motorists deliberately box in a cyclist who was simply trying to go about their business? When was the last time you saw a car park sideways across the road in front of a queue of cyclists and give them self-gratification artist signs?



I see motorists deliberately block the road on a daily basis. I've been punched, abused, spat at, knocked off, driven at, and given self-gratification artist signs too many times to count. All of which when I'm going about my daily business. I am a careful, considerate cyclist who doesn't go out of his way to aggravate other road users. So I conclude that the problem is that there is a discourse of intolerance and disregard for cyclists, which CM, from my point of view, does something to redress. 

FWIW, the vast majority of motorists who are corked at a CM are relaxed about it. There's a small, stupid minority who take umbrage, but we would never reach them anyway. 

I must say though, that the manyfold increase in cycling in Central London has led to an improvement in other road users' manners and awareness of cyclists, which is nice to see.


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## GrumpyGregry (10 Mar 2010)

wafflycat said:


> Drive/cycle around any town or city and you'll see errant motorists treating other road users like that too often. Shame really. Like last night, driving into Norwich to go to see Dances with Smurfs at the picture palace. Was it cyclists doing the RLJ-ing? No, it was motorists - at several sets of lights. Was it the cyclists blocking the entrances/exits of roundabouts? No, it was motorists.



So that is a clear an unequivocal 'no' then. You've never seen the behaviour described. Day to day driving standards and behaviour in Norwich seems to have as much in common with the behaviour seen on CM's as the CM does with the TdeF.



> It's the double standards being applied as regards lots of cyclists on the roads - happens twice a day in every town & city in the land, and it's ok because it's motor traffic. Happens once a month due to cyclists and it's chaos, anti-social, unnecessary, gives a bad impression, etc., yadda, yadda yadda.



The argument that cyclists can occasionally place themselves above the law because drivers frequently break the law is a weak one. Does a thief exonerate their own guilt if they denounce another as a fraudster?


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## theclaud (10 Mar 2010)

Ben Lovejoy said:


> I'm less interested in his prose than his claimed mechanism by which travelling at 16mph slows down other people. If it is a tenable argument, I'm surprised you are so reluctant to have it exposed to scrutiny.



Oh don't be so silly, Ben. You're doing an Andy in Sig. Am I expected to do all your reading and thinking for you? Scrutinise away...

http://clevercycles.com/energy_and_equity/


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## theclaud (10 Mar 2010)

Rhythm Thief said:


> *apply a little reverse thinking* and you might see what it is that some of us don't like about CM.



No! You keep talking as if it's about what two equal groups of people think of each other. It isn't. It's about the harmful monopolisation and dominance of public space by one mode of transport. I'm sorry, but it goes without saying that a lot of motorists aren't going to "like" it, because it calls on them to think about changing their behaviour. If they don't "like" being held up by critical mass, the solution lies partly in their own hands...


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## CopperBrompton (10 Mar 2010)

theclaud said:


> Am I expected to do all your reading and thinking for you?


I'm strongly resisting the temptation to respond with an ISBN and demand that you read the book ...



> http://clevercycles.com/energy_and_equity/


Which is heavy on rhetoric and light on mechanism, and totally without evidence. So your much-vaunted (and quoted) argument actually amounts to "some bloke reckons".


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## theclaud (10 Mar 2010)

Ben Lovejoy said:


> I'm strongly resisting the temptation to respond with an ISBN and demand that you read the book ...
> 
> 
> Which is heavy on rhetoric and light on mechanism, and totally without evidence. So your much-vaunted (and quoted) argument actually amounts to "some bloke reckons".



Wow - I see ideas are popular round here...


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## CopperBrompton (10 Mar 2010)

BentMikey said:


> When was the last time you saw a moton overtake a cyclist and shout "Get orrrf the road you self-gratification artist", "You don't pay no road tax", "Get on the cycle path", "Get a car", etc.


I think I can recall a 'Get off the road' sometime last year. I'd have to go back about five years to get to a 'You don't pay no road tax'.

But the point is that bad behaviour by some motorists doesn't make bad behaviour by cyclists either justifiable or, more importantly, desirable. By presenting an image of cyclists as thugs, it makes life more difficult and dangerous for the vast majority of ordinary cyclists who are just trying to get from A to B or enjoy a pleasant ride.

It's the same as cyclists who jump read lights - it creates an impression of cyclists as people who don't respect the rules of the road and thus aren't entitled to have our rights respected in return. The minority spoils it for the majority.

Claudine, meantime, seems to be deliberately missing the point. There is nothing wrong with lots of cyclists enjoying a ride together: we have as much right to the roads as anyone else, of course. The problem is the deliberately aggressive and confrontational approach taken by a small minority of London CM participants who have completely changed the spirit of the ride, both for those of us who used to enjoy it but now stopped going, and for those who are on the receiving end of that aggression.


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## CopperBrompton (10 Mar 2010)

theclaud said:


> Wow - I see ideas are popular round here...


Ideas are interesting, but it becomes difficult to debate them if the only 'argument' presented is a longer quote making the same claim and a refusal to present any kind of argument about how the claimed effect might work.


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## theclaud (10 Mar 2010)

Ben Lovejoy said:


> Claudine, meantime, seems to be deliberately missing the point.



 For which, read, "refusing to be coralled into my motocentric mindset".


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## theclaud (10 Mar 2010)

Ben Lovejoy said:


> a refusal to present any kind of argument about how the claimed effect might work.



Eh? Have you actually read it?


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## CopperBrompton (10 Mar 2010)

Yes


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## CopperBrompton (10 Mar 2010)

theclaud said:


> For which, read, "refusing to be coralled into my motocentric mindset".


'Motorcentric mindset'. Tell me, how often do I ride a bike compared to how often I drive a car?


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## theclaud (10 Mar 2010)

Ben Lovejoy said:


> Yes



Well we'll have to lock horns on it later then (when you've had a chance to give it a bit more thought ). I'm off to a "Digital Workshop", whatever the f**k that is .


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## CopperBrompton (10 Mar 2010)

Enjoy. I'll be glad to debate the 16mph mechanism with you once you've explained how you think it works.


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## theclaud (10 Mar 2010)

Ben Lovejoy said:


> Enjoy. I'll be glad to debate the 16mph mechanism with you once you've explained how you think it works.



It's not a "16mph mechanism" - it is simply the concept of an optimum top speed for transport, and, this being a cycling site, Illich's "speed of a bicycle" seems a reasonable place to start talking about it. You presumably think there is no optimal top speed, and that everything just gets infinitely better as traffic moves infinitely faster? I think that's clearly barmy, and don't see why the onus isn't on you to explain your ideology of infinite speed and progress. Do you accept, for a start, Coruskate's point that faster-moving vehicles make greater demands on space?


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## GrumpyGregry (10 Mar 2010)

theclaud said:


> It's not a "16mph mechanism" - it is simply the concept of an optimum top speed for transport, and, this being a cycling site, Illich's "speed of a bicycle" seems a reasonable place to start talking about it. You presumably think there is no optimal top speed, and that everything just gets infinitely better as traffic moves infinitely faster? I think that's clearly barmy, and don't see why the onus isn't on you to explain your ideology of infinite speed and progress. *Do you accept, for a start, Coruskate's point that faster-moving vehicles make greater demands on space?*



Nope. faster-moving vehicles only 'demand' greater space if maintaining a stopping distance is a priority of the operator. Riders on a group social ride don't increase the gap to the bike in front simply because the speed of the group increases. As demonstrated on every FNRttC I've been on.

In normal circumstances what would cause the vehicle in front of you to come to a dead stop such that you would require all your stopping distance to avoid hitting it? Vogon constructor ship materialising in its path? WMV pulling out from a side turning? Mr SMIDSY recognising that my Cinquecento contains a habitual passenger who would rather be cycling?

We weigh up the risk of things going wrong and we compensate accordingly. We don't demand more space; we evaluate the risk to our safety and act on the result (sometimes erroneously). We sacrifice safety for speed. Even on bikes.


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## BentMikey (10 Mar 2010)

Yet it's quite true that fast vehicles take up much more road space than slow ones. Your very point about CM and FNRttC proves just how densely and efficiently bicycles populate road space. Quite unlike cars, which take a lot more space the faster they get, even if it's not the highway code mandated amount.


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## CopperBrompton (10 Mar 2010)

theclaud said:


> It's not a "16mph mechanism" - it is simply the concept of an optimum top speed for transport


If he is right that there is one, and that 15mph is it, then there is some mechanism that makes it so. Neither you nor he (from the linked piece, anyway) seem to have the faintest idea what it might be, which suggests that it is, as I said, utter tosh.



> You presumably think there is no optimal top speed, and that everything just gets infinitely better as traffic moves infinitely faster? I think that's clearly barmy, and don't see why the onus isn't on you to explain your ideology of infinite speed and progress.


I have no such ideology, nor have I made any claims as to the existence of an optimal speed, nor any theories as to what it might be should such a thing exist.

You are the one plucking a figure out of the air, and the one with the need for a supporting argument.



> Do you accept, for a start, Coruskate's point that faster-moving vehicles make greater demands on space?


Of course. A cross-channel ferry needs a lot more space to stop, and to turn, than does a pedestrian. But then a ferry carries a lot more people a lot further in a lot less time, so the fact in isolation tells us absolutely nothing about what any optimal speed might be.


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## theclaud (10 Mar 2010)

GregCollins said:


> Nope. faster-moving vehicles only 'demand' greater space if maintaining a stopping distance is a priority of the operator. Riders on a group social ride don't increase the gap to the bike in front simply because the speed of the group increases. As demonstrated on every FNRttC I've been on.
> 
> In normal circumstances what would cause the vehicle in front of you to come to a dead stop such that you would require all your stopping distance to avoid hitting it? Vogon constructor ship materialising in its path? WMV pulling out from a side turning? Mr SMIDSY recognising that my Cinquecento contains a habitual passenger who would rather be cycling?
> 
> We weigh up the risk of things going wrong and we compensate accordingly. We don't demand more space; we evaluate the risk to our safety and act on the result (sometimes erroneously). We sacrifice safety for speed. Even on bikes.



How about a child running from behind a parked car?

Never mind the operator - when it comes to heavy objects moving fast, stopping distance is the concern of all of us. Ignoring for the moment the fact that there are many ways in which cars and bicycles are not the same - there is no motoring equivalent of the peloton - why, according to your theory, is the whole traffic jam on the motorway not whizzing along happily at 70mph? And why do we not hurtle past pedestrians at 25mph, millimetres from their elbows?


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## theclaud (10 Mar 2010)

Ben Lovejoy said:


> I have no such ideology, nor have I made any claims as to the existence of an optimal speed, nor any theories as to what it might be should such a thing exist.



So you are leaving us guessing about what you think? That makes any constructive discussion hard work. Do you think that the notion of an optimal speed makes sense or not? 

The figure is not plucked out of thin air - it is, as I said before, notionally "the speed of a bicycle". In other words it is the speed enabled by a simple, durable and equitable technology that extends human beings' natural animal capacity for mobility. You seem to have an aversion to illustrative quotations, so here's another, to explain how why the base reference for determining the optimal speed is its relationship to our natural mobility:

_People solely dependent on their feet move on the spur of the moment, at three to four miles per hour, in any direction and to any place from which they are not legally or physically barred. *An improvement on this native degree of mobility by new transport technology should be expected to safeguard these values and to add some new ones*._


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## GrumpyGregry (10 Mar 2010)

theclaud said:


> How about a child running from behind a parked car?



One such death or maiming is too many.  I am an advocate of compulsory 20mph speed limits, GPS enabled speed limiters, mandatory re-testing, I think we should use a system of colour tagged registration plates in place of 'tax' discs, have reg no camera's in every town, have cameras on every traffic light and speed camera's on every lamppost, we should fund compulsory insurance via a levy on fuel and stick 50p a litre duty on it too, etc., etc.. Driving/car use is a privilege not a right.



> Never mind the operator - when it comes to heavy objects moving fast, stopping distance is the concern of all of us. Ignoring for the moment the fact that there are many ways in which cars and bicycles are not the same - *there is no motoring equivalent of the peloton* - why, according to your theory, is the whole traffic jam on the motorway not whizzing along happily at 70mph?


Clearly you don't drive on the M25 very often. Densely packed cars, each significantly less than the safe stopping distance behind the car in front, all hurtling along at 85mph. In relative safety. Everyone relying, as per a peleton, that no one else is going to do anything daft and bring it all to a crashing halt. I don't think it gets more equivalent than that. In these parts the M25 is known as the 90mph car park.

None of the reading I've done around queuing theory as it applies to motorways has persuaded me that speed, per se, is what causes traffic jams. Chokes, idiot operators, etc., etc., perhaps but not speed. ymmv and I'll read anything you direct me to that demonstrates otherwise.



> And why do we not hurtle past pedestrians at 25mph, millimetres from their elbows?


Who we? Plenty of (RLJ'ing) people on bikes have passed me on foot (in London) going 'flat out'. One or two have had the ignominy of coming second in the ensuing collision with my shoulder. In fact I got a round of applause and several cheers from other peds when I offed a fakenger in November.


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## theclaud (10 Mar 2010)

GregCollins said:


> Clearly you don't drive on the M25 very often. Densely packed cars, each significantly less than the safe stopping distance behind the car in front, all hurtling along at 85mph. In relative safety. Everyone relying, as per a peleton, that no one else is going to do anything daft and bring it all to a crashing halt. I don't think it gets more equivalent than that. In these parts the M25 is known as the 90mph car park.
> 
> None of the reading I've done around queuing theory as it applies to motorways has persuaded me that speed, per se, is what causes traffic jams. Chokes, idiot operators, etc., etc., perhaps but not speed. ymmv and I'll read anything you direct me to that demonstrates otherwise.
> 
> Who we? Plenty of (RLJ'ing) people on bikes have passed me on foot (in London) going 'flat out'. One or two have had the ignominy of coming second in the ensuing collision with my shoulder. In fact I got a round of applause and several cheers from other peds when I offed a fakenger in November.



I'm not sure why we're at odds - I'm not arguing that speed causes traffic jams - I'm arguing that speed, and the everyday requirement to travel at higher speeds, degrades the social environment. The very existence of the M25 does exactly that, whatever speed the vehicles on it happen to be moving at a given time. The 20mph speed limit you favour is just a slightly higher estimate of where the threshold lies - I would contend that it is probably lower, and that the 20mph figure is a nod to the needs of motorists (it's the lowest speed limit they are currently prepared to countenance). The peloton is voluntary and co-operative - motorists do not pack together densely by choice, and there is no advantage in doing so. There is no environment more hostile to pedestrians and cyclists than the one you describe - fast moving AND densely packed. And no, I never travel on the M25 if I can help it, although there was a time when I frequently did.


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## BentMikey (10 Mar 2010)

Oh, of course the fast cars on the motorway don't take more space because of their speed.  Just look at this image:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=51.453004,-0.521534&spn=0.002561,0.004061&t=k&z=18


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## CopperBrompton (10 Mar 2010)

theclaud said:


> So you are leaving us guessing about what you think? That makes any constructive discussion hard work. Do you think that the notion of an optimal speed makes sense or not?


No, the notion of some kind of universal optimum speed is obvious nonsense. The optimum speed for an airliner flying to Hong Kong will be very different to the optimum speed for a car on an empty autobahn which will in turn be very different to the optimum speed for a pedestrian walking down the escalator at Oxford Circus.



> The figure is not plucked out of thin air - it is, as I said before, notionally "the speed of a bicycle". In other words it is the speed enabled by a simple, durable and equitable technology that extends human beings' natural animal capacity for mobility.


Your contention, which you're working very hard to distract attention from, was that is is not possible for one person to exceed 15mph without slowing down someone else. I am asking you to support that contention with either evidence or at least a plausible argument. So far you have done neither, but merely shifted ground.



> _People solely dependent on their feet move on the spur of the moment, at three to four miles per hour, in any direction and to any place from which they are not legally or physically barred. *An improvement on this native degree of mobility by new transport technology should be expected to safeguard these values and to add some new ones*._


In which case you are arguing that cyclists should never exceed about 3mph when alongside a pavement so that pedestrians are free to move across the road at will. It's a defendable point of view, but not one which is likely to see a great deal of support.


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## theclaud (11 Mar 2010)

Ben Lovejoy said:


> *No, the notion of some kind of universal optimum speed is obvious nonsense. The optimum speed for an airliner flying to Hong Kong will be very different to the optimum speed for a car on an empty autobahn which will in turn be very different to the optimum speed for a pedestrian walking down the escalator at Oxford Circus.*
> 
> Your contention, which you're working very hard to distract attention from, was that is is not possible for one person to exceed 15mph without slowing down someone else. I am asking you to support that contention with either evidence or at least a plausible argument. So far you have done neither, but merely shifted ground.
> 
> In which case you are arguing that cyclists should never exceed about 3mph when alongside a pavement so that pedestrians are free to move across the road at will. It's a defendable point of view, but not one which is likely to see a great deal of support.



That's a relief! I thought you were being deliberately obtuse, but now I see that you are merely missing the point entirely. I'm not remotely interested in the optimum speed for airliners and autobahns. I'm talking about a socially optimal traffic speed, not a speed that suits an industry or a class of passengers.

You're having trouble with the contention that one person's high-speed transit slows another down. How about a simple example. Person 1 wishes to travel on foot from A to B. Between A and B is a road on which Person 2 is travelling, let's say at 30mph, by car. Person 1 will either have to stop and let Person 2 pass before crossing, persuade Person 2 to stop or slow down, operate elaborate equipment to force Person 2 to stop or slow down, or die. This is because Person 1 and Person 2 are not equal. It doesn't stop there, of course. Person 1 is on the way to work. Because it is expected in his culture that people will drive to work, his workplace has been relocated to an industrial estate not served by public transport. It now takes him an additional hour to walk there. He could buy a car, of course, but he'd have to work more to earn the money to buy the car... etc. etc.


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## CopperBrompton (11 Mar 2010)

theclaud said:


> I'm not remotely interested in the optimum speed for airliners and autobahns. I'm talking about a socially optimal traffic speed


For what? Where? In what circumstances?

Your earlier messages suggested that it was a universal limit, now we know it doesn't include planes or autobahns. Does it include dual-carriageways? Roads that currently have a 50mph limit? Roads that currently have a 40mph limit? Do you really mean that pedestrians should be able to step out into a road at will in front of trucks, cars and cyclists and that the latter must all be doing a speed that makes this feasible?



> Person 1 wishes to travel on foot from A to B. Between A and B is a road on which Person 2 is travelling, let's say at 30mph, by car. Person 1 will either have to stop and let Person 2 pass before crossing, persuade Person 2 to stop or slow down, operate elaborate equipment to force Person 2 to stop or slow down


The highly elaborate equipment of some black and white paint, a couple of poles and some orange plastic spheres seems to work pretty well.



> Person 1 is on the way to work. Because it is expected in his culture that people will drive to work, his workplace has been relocated to an industrial estate not served by public transport. It now takes him an additional hour to walk there. He could buy a car, of course, but he'd have to work more to earn the money to buy the car... etc. etc.


As a matter of mild curiosity, where is this industrial estate that isn't served by public transport? As far as I'm aware, it is a condition of planning consent for any industrial estate that public transport provision has been made.


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## Twenty Inch (11 Mar 2010)

Mikey I've just looked at your sig link - the Royal Charles was taken a bout a mile away from where I live. Come down to Medway one day, at 16mph, we'll go around Upnor Castle together.


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## CopperBrompton (11 Mar 2010)

Twenty Inch said:


> Come down to Medway one day, *at 16mph*, we'll go around Upnor Castle together.


This is just the kind of selfish, irresponsible behaviour Claudine is trying to prevent. Kindly limit yourselves to the optimum speed of 15mph.


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## Dan B (11 Mar 2010)

Ben Lovejoy said:


> The highly elaborate equipment of some black and white paint, a couple of poles and some orange plastic spheres seems to work pretty well.


Not on Bethnal Green Road it doesn't.


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## CopperBrompton (11 Mar 2010)

I wonder what's changed since I lived there. They always worked just fine for me (the occasional Richard Head excepted, of course).


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## BentMikey (11 Mar 2010)

Twenty Inch said:


> Mikey I've just looked at your sig link - the Royal Charles was taken a bout a mile away from where I live. Come down to Medway one day, at 16mph, we'll go around Upnor Castle together.



I'd love to one day. I'm a distant descendant.


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## BentMikey (11 Mar 2010)

Ben Lovejoy said:


> I wonder what's changed since I lived there. They always worked just fine for me (the occasional Richard Head excepted, of course).




I suspect that:

There often aren't pedestrian crossings at many of the places where people want to cross.
You've become significantly polarised in the debate, so much so that you can't admit a single good point made by theclaud.


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## theclaud (11 Mar 2010)

Ben Lovejoy said:


> For what? Where? In what circumstances?
> 
> Your earlier messages suggested that it was a universal limit, now we know it doesn't include planes or autobahns. Does it include dual-carriageways? Roads that currently have a 50mph limit? Roads that currently have a 40mph limit? *Do you really mean that pedestrians should be able to step out into a road at will in front of trucks, cars and cyclists and that the latter must all be doing a speed that makes this feasible?*
> 
> ...



Pretty much, is the short answer. Like I said, there's no reason that people can't agree on a rational sacrifice of some public space to faster-moving traffic, but (and I repeat myself) that is not the sitution we have at the moment.

I happen to think that a even a zebra crossing _is_ a fairly elaborate device to need when all you want to do is walk twenty yards. And that's without even starting on pelicans. Not to mention the fact that the existence of such features to a certain degree obligates their use - they make it more difficult to cross elsewhere.

As to your rather picky last point - I made it up. But only yesterday I went to visit a designer on an industrial estate - there is no public transport that will take me there, so whatever conditions exist for the provision, they clearly are inadequate. As an aside, there is nowhere except a large out-of-town Tesco where the people on the industrial estate can get lunch or a coffee...


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## CopperBrompton (11 Mar 2010)

BentMikey said:


> You've become significantly polarised in the debate, so much so that you can't admit a single good point made by theclaud.


Not guilty. We recently had an equally spirited debate about Peter Sutcliffe, and she and Patrick (now there's an unlikely team!) were able to persuade me that I was wrong.

Claudine appears to be according such extreme priority to the idea that pedestrians should be able to wander in any direction at will that she is willing to sacrifice most of the mobility those same pedestrians enjoy when they climb onto their bicycle, get into their car, get on board a train, etc. (Trains, due to their stopping distances even at low-ish speeds, would be utterly impossible in Claudine's Brave New World.)


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## CopperBrompton (11 Mar 2010)

theclaud said:


> Pretty much, is the short answer. [...] I happen to think that a even a zebra crossing _is_ a fairly elaborate device to need when all you want to do is walk twenty yards.


Ok, then we really are coming from such different places in this discussion that I fear a meeting of minds is rather unlikely.



> And that's without even starting on pelicans.


Oh, we'd agree there. I hate the bloody things, as a pedestrian, cyclist and driver.



> But only yesterday I went to visit a designer on an industrial estate - there is no public transport that will take me there


Perhaps the rules are different in Darkest Wales.



> As an aside, there is nowhere except a large out-of-town Tesco where the people on the industrial estate can get lunch or a coffee...


Which is not necessarily a bad thing: companies in that position can buy bicycles for the use of the workforce to cycle to get lunch, and provided the bicycles are used for that purpose, employees can make unlimited personal use of them in their own time. It's even better than the Cycle To Work scheme. :-)


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## Dan B (11 Mar 2010)

GregCollins said:


> Nope. faster-moving vehicles only 'demand' greater space if maintaining a stopping distance is a priority of the operator. Riders on a group social ride don't increase the gap to the bike in front simply because the speed of the group increases. As demonstrated on every FNRttC I've been on.



However, the riders at the front of the group _do_ dissuade people from stepping out in front of them (or have to slow down in crowded areas)

Likewise the car which refused to slow down or deviate from its path while I was walking over a zebra crossing near Brick Lane last night - it is conceivably possible that the driver was merely leaving his braking as late as possible and would have emergency stopped if I'd taken the extra step to put myself directly in his path, but I got a strong impression that he didn't want to and wasn't prepared to. 

Driving/riding on roads is, when all works well, a series of amicable negotiations of potential conflicts for road space. But it's a fragile setup and when someone realises that they personally come off better at the expense of everyone else merely by driving faster, the system breaks down. It's the traffic equivalent of trying to have a sensible conversation when one of the participants INSISTS ON SHOUTING ALL THE TIME.

Back on the original topic, I find CM is a bit metaphorically-shouty itself towards people outside the mass. Yes, I know they're supposed to give way to pedestrians, but there's enough who don't ...


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## GrumpyGregry (11 Mar 2010)

coruskate said:


> Not on Bethnal Green Road it doesn't.


Perhaps an argument for a pedestrian crossing Critical Mass  of non-violent civil disobedience or similar demonstration or a local campaign. Make a fuss, make a huge fuss, and then maybe something might be done. Did one on the Stockwell Road in the early noughties when some local drivers started to ignore the pelican crossing lights. It worked. Though I was threatened with arrest for obstruction a couple of times

If we do nothing at all we guarantee nothing improves.


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## theclaud (11 Mar 2010)

Ben Lovejoy said:


> Not guilty. We recently had an equally spirited debate about Peter Sutcliffe, and she and Patrick (now there's an unlikely team!) were able to persuade me that I was wrong.
> 
> Claudine appears to be according such extreme priority to the idea that pedestrians should be able to wander in any direction at will that she is willing to sacrifice most of the mobility those same pedestrians enjoy when they climb onto their bicycle, get into their car, get on board a train, etc. (*Trains, due to their stopping distances even at low-ish speeds, would be utterly impossible in Claudine's Brave New World*.)



You ignored my point about the rational sacrifice of space. And you're eliding together three entirely different transport modes. I'm a fairly speedy cyclist, but I really don't have a problem with the idea of slowing right down (or not cycling) in areas that are densely packed with pedestrians, and allowing pedestrians to move freely and without fear pretty much anywhere except motorways and high-speed train tracks. I'm not sure why this is controversial. Anyway, as Coruskate says, back to CM...


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## theclaud (11 Mar 2010)

Ben Lovejoy said:


> Which is not necessarily a bad thing



Christ - I didn't spot this before. Employees as captive Tesco consumers "not a bad thing"?????


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## GrumpyGregry (11 Mar 2010)

coruskate said:


> However, the riders at the front of the group _do_ dissuade people from stepping out in front of them (or have to slow down in crowded areas)
> 
> Likewise the car which refused to slow down or deviate from its path while I was walking over a zebra crossing near Brick Lane last night - it is conceivably possible that the driver was merely leaving his braking as late as possible and would have emergency stopped if I'd taken the extra step to put myself directly in his path, but I got a strong impression that he didn't want to and wasn't prepared to.
> 
> ...



Some very good points very well made. The tweak I've made sums up how I would put it. For me it ain't about driving faster, it's about not slowing down when one should.


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## GrumpyGregry (11 Mar 2010)

theclaud said:


> Christ - I didn't spot this before. Employees as captive Tesco consumers "not a bad thing"?????



No need for blasphemy, this ain't P&L


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## CopperBrompton (11 Mar 2010)

theclaud said:


> You ignored my point about the rational sacrifice of space.


Well, hardly, as that's precisely what we were debating. My concept about the rational sacrifice of space includes roads, railway lines and airport runways. Yours includes ... well, you haven't said, but presumably a lot fewer roads.



> I really don't have a problem with the idea of slowing right down (or not cycling) in areas that are densely packed with pedestrians


Nor me, and that doesn't change whether I'm on a bicycle or in a car. 



> and allowing pedestrians to move freely and without fear pretty much anywhere except motorways and high-speed train tracks. I'm not sure why this is controversial.


Aren't you?


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## CopperBrompton (11 Mar 2010)

theclaud said:


> Christ - I didn't spot this before. Employees as captive Tesco consumers "not a bad thing"?????


Tax-free bicycles at no cost to the employee ... what's not to like?!


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## theclaud (11 Mar 2010)

Ben Lovejoy said:


> Well, hardly, as that's precisely what we were debating. *My concept about the rational sacrifice of space includes roads, railway lines and airport runways*. Yours includes ... well, you haven't said, but presumably a lot fewer roads.
> 
> Nor me, and that doesn't change whether I'm on a bicycle or in a car.
> 
> Aren't you?



Ha! I suppose you think the third runway is a rational sacrifice of space?


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## CopperBrompton (11 Mar 2010)

theclaud said:


> Ha! I suppose you think the third runway is a rational sacrifice of space?


A hell of a lot more rational than scores of aircraft burning extra avgas circling above London waiting for a runway slot to become free at Heathrow, yes.


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## theclaud (11 Mar 2010)

GregCollins said:


> Some very good points very well made. The tweak I've made sums up how I would put it. For me it ain't about driving faster, it's about not slowing down when one should.



You're pandering to Ben's inability or reluctance to understand things in systemic terms. Once you have an urban dual carriageway with a few defined pedestrian crossings and the rest of it physically barred to pedestrians, manners don't really come into it - it is an entirely different space than an area where people walk freely where they choose, no matter how nice the drivers are.


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## GrumpyGregry (11 Mar 2010)

theclaud said:


> I'm not sure why we're at odds - I'm not arguing that speed causes traffic jams - I'm arguing that speed, and the everyday requirement to travel at higher speeds, degrades the social environment. The very existence of the M25 does exactly that, whatever speed the vehicles on it happen to be moving at a given time. The 20mph speed limit you favour is just a slightly higher estimate of where the threshold lies - I would contend that it is probably lower, and that the 20mph figure is a nod to the needs of motorists (it's the lowest speed limit they are currently prepared to countenance). The peloton is voluntary and co-operative - motorists do not pack together densely by choice, and there is no advantage in doing so. There is no environment more hostile to pedestrians and cyclists than the one you describe - fast moving AND densely packed. And no, I never travel on the M25 if I can help it, although there was a time when I frequently did.



We probably agree on much, judging by your posts elsewhere in this thread. I find your promotion of Fr Illich's ideals at once admirable/inspiring and utopian to the point of utter unrealism. Motorists are fully functioning people* whose behaviour is often voluntary and co-operative. I reject his assertions that a chosen mode of transport alters the person, diminishes their sense of their place in the world, etc., etc..

and remember he didn't like lifts either.

and I got conviviality out of the loft last night.

*and therefore flawed just like all of us.


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## theclaud (11 Mar 2010)

Ben Lovejoy said:


> A hell of a lot more rational than scores of aircraft burning extra avgas circling above London waiting for a runway slot to become free at Heathrow, yes.



Neither is rational. I don't mean someone hasn't thought it through rationally, I mean that the rationale does not belong to those making the sacrifice.


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## GrumpyGregry (11 Mar 2010)

theclaud said:


> You're pandering to Ben's inability or reluctance to understand things in systemic terms. Once you have an urban dual carriageway with a few defined pedestrian crossings and the rest of it physically barred to pedestrians, manners don't really come into it - it is an entirely different space than an area where people walk freely where they choose, no matter how nice the drivers are.



I'm not pandering to anyone. I don't think I'd make a good panda.

So increase the number of pedestrian crossings, put bridges in, etc., etc.. Both parties must accept a compromise.


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## theclaud (11 Mar 2010)

GregCollins said:


> We probably agree on much, judging by your posts elsewhere in this thread. I find your promotion of Fr Illich's ideals at once admirable/inspiring and utopian to the point of utter unrealism. Motorists are fully functioning people* whose behaviour is often voluntary and co-operative. I reject his assertions that a chosen mode of transport alters the person, diminishes their sense of their place in the world, etc., etc..
> 
> and remember he didn't like lifts either.
> 
> ...




Now that's what I call a result .

If you don't mind my saying so, you're failing to make a distinction between function and character. What motorists are like as people becomes increasingly irrelevant as motorised transport becomes faster, as you will find out if you try and cross a motorway on foot. Sure, people's behaviour may be voluntary and co-operative, but it must always take particular forms, and some forms are more, well, "convivial" than others.


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## CopperBrompton (11 Mar 2010)

theclaud said:


> You're pandering to Ben's inability or reluctance to understand things in systemic terms.


Quite the reverse: it is _you _who is failing to think in systemic terms. You appear to view pedestrians as a distinct species. The rather meaningless 'freedoms' you want to grant them would have great costs to _those same people_ the moment they got onto their bicycle or into their car.


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## CopperBrompton (11 Mar 2010)

theclaud said:


> What motorists are like as people becomes increasingly irrelevant as motorised transport becomes faster, as you will find out if you try and cross a motorway on foot.


Most of us are willing to sacrifice the 'freedom' to wander across fields and through hedges in order to cross a motorway by foot in favour of remaining on the road or pavement to cross it via a bridge. This enormous sacrifice is worthwhile because those same motorways enable us to easily go about our business, visit friends, etc. We even tend to be convivial with those friends when we arrive.


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## theclaud (11 Mar 2010)

Ben Lovejoy said:


> Quite the reverse: it is _you _who is failing to think in systemic terms. You appear to view pedestrians as a distinct species. The rather meaningless 'freedoms' you want to grant them would have great costs to _those same people_ the moment they got onto their bicycle or into their car.



I'll resist the obvious invitation to get all postmodern on you, and simply point out that the "freedom" offered by cars has always been illusory, partial, and available only to some at the expense of others. And you're doing it again with cars and bicycles - completely different things, Ben! If you don't like Illich, perhaps we might try you on Andre Gorz. You'll _love_ this :

http://www.bikereader.com/contributors/misc/gorz.html


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## Dan B (11 Mar 2010)

Ben Lovejoy said:


> Most of us are willing to sacrifice the 'freedom' to wander across fields and through hedges in order to cross a motorway by foot in favour of remaining on the road or pavement to cross it via a bridge. This enormous sacrifice is worthwhile because those same motorways enable us to easily go about our business, visit friends, etc. We even tend to be convivial with those friends when we arrive.


Illich would counter that (I think, I've only really skimmed his argument) by pointing out that we're still trading time because the time we save making this journey is set against the time we spend at work paying for the car that lets us make it.

But I'm not going to argue about motorways (and maybe some of the butcher class of dual carriageways where reasonable alternative routes exist) because I tend to view them much as railways - not really public land in the first place, more just a single-purpose conduit for the exclusive purpose of getting A-B as fast as possible where special rules apply. The danger in my mind is that people take their "motorway attitude" and sense of entitlement onto other roads where it has no place. I used to live in Crick, a village just off the M1 J18 which at the time was neatly bisected by the A428 (a bypass has since been built). Despite a notional 30mph limit, crossing it on foot was not for the frail, elderly, or inform.


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## Rhythm Thief (11 Mar 2010)

theclaud said:


> No! *You keep talking as if it's about what two equal groups of people think of each other. It isn't. It's about the harmful monopolisation and dominance of public space by one mode of transport*. I'm sorry, but it goes without saying that a lot of motorists aren't going to "like" it, because it calls on them to think about changing their behaviour. If they don't "like" being held up by critical mass, the solution lies partly in their own hands...



Perhaps the trick to me being a reasonably happy urban commuter (on a bike) was that I never saw myself - or behaved in a way that indicated that I saw myself - as anything less than equal to every other mode of transport. If CM could somehow instill this mindset into every cyclist, it would indeed be a great thing; perhaps that's what it's trying to do. But it appears to me (and I'm a cyclist, remember) that all CM is achieving is to present cyclists as a problem, and as a mode of transport which somehow requires special facilities before it can be used. This is not a Good Thing.
And, incidentally, I wouldn't have a problem being held up by CM - except possibly in the scenario outlined in my post (number 177) - but I do object to them trying to foist the "poor downtrodden cyclist" stereotype on us all.


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## CopperBrompton (11 Mar 2010)

theclaud said:


> I'll resist the obvious invitation to get all postmodern on you


Very kind.



> http://www.bikereader.com/contributors/misc/gorz.html


Most entertaining. Personally, I'll stick to the partial and illusory freedoms I gain through being able to choose my mode of transport for each particular journey. Today I think I shall employ a minicab, train, tube and airliner. (I'm hoping the pilot doesn't share your views as to optimum speed, else I'm going to be in for a very slow and wet journey.)


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## CopperBrompton (11 Mar 2010)

coruskate said:


> the time we save making this journey is set against the time we spend at work paying for the car that lets us make it.


With a net gain.

I have to sacrifice time to pay for most of the material things I want in life: bicycles, gadgets, a home ...



> Despite a notional 30mph limit, crossing it on foot was not for the frail, elderly, or inform.


Which is exactly where we need speed limit enforcement but rarely where we get it, of course.


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## Dan B (11 Mar 2010)

http://groups.google.co.uk/group/uk.rec.cycling/msg/5ac93ca3b19e800d?hl=en is what I said about CM after the one and only time I joined one of their rides. I haven't really changed my viewpoint so much since (though judging by this thread the ride has changed in character, so maybe I should) except to note additionally that I fully supported their legal battle and I'm glad they won (if nothing else, from a purely selfish perspective, as long as CM is legal the marshalled streetskates have them to point at and say "look, they're worse than we are" ;-)

A marshalled streetskate can be, incidentally, a very convivial place to spend a couple of hours, but I am forced to admit that trying to cross the road in the middle of it is still ill-advised - skaters are very closely packed even by cycle standards, and some exhibit quite poor braking skills. On the other hand, no bike lifts.


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## GrumpyGregry (11 Mar 2010)

theclaud said:


> Now that's what I call a result .
> 
> *If you don't mind my saying so*, you're failing to make a distinction between function and character. What motorists are like as people becomes increasingly irrelevant as motorised transport becomes faster, as you will find out if you try and cross a motorway on foot. Sure, people's behaviour may be voluntary and co-operative, but it must always take particular forms, and some forms are more, well, "convivial" than others.



Say as you like. I can always cut you up* on an FNRttC!

What people are like as people becomes increasingly irrelevant as the transport they operate becomes faster. Is that really what you're arguing? Some sort of physic shift comes over them above a certain speed? Or they are so totally overwhelmed by the physics of it all that they are no longer have choice. It is an intriguing theory. I feel some more reading coming on.










*though I doubt I'd actually be able to keep up with you to do so!


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## Dan B (11 Mar 2010)

GregCollins said:


> What people are like as people becomes increasingly irrelevant as the transport they operate becomes faster. Is that really what you're arguing? Some sort of physic shift comes over them above a certain speed? Or they are so totally overwhelmed by the physics of it all that they are no longer have choice. It is an intriguing theory. I feel some more reading coming on.


I wonder if it's a "frame of reference" thing. If you're driving at 60 and everyone around you is moving at your speed +/- 10mph it's easy to maintain a dialogue with them if only by low-bandwidth signalling (nods in the mirror, headlight flashes, horn in extremis, etc etc), but the poor sucker doing 12 mph along the edge of the road has too high a speed differential to be included in the party. So, a lot of motorists probably feel they're being quite reasonable and socialising to the limits of their communication channels, but are oblivious to what's happening at earth speed.

There is a cognitive load to driving, even if drivers don't like to admit it. That load must surely increase with speed differential, and maybe that's why we tend to unconsciously resent anything on the roads that makes us have to think harder?


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## GrumpyGregry (11 Mar 2010)

and what is it about Austrian Catholicism that breeds much anti-capitialist cycle fetishists? The Marxist existentialism of Gorz is probably all very well in a University Common Room but it ain't going to do much to fix human nature. 

The car is near ubiquitous. Is my Fiat Cinquecento that cost less than any of my bikes to acquire really a luxury object? Is the pleasure I get from driving it, is the benefit in time saving it gives me, really a myth? I fear that he'd get "Must try harder" scrawled on that essay by my old philosophy professor!


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## GrumpyGregry (11 Mar 2010)

coruskate said:


> I wonder if it's a "frame of reference" thing. If you're driving at 60 and everyone around you is moving at your speed +/- 10mph it's easy to maintain a dialogue with them if only by low-bandwidth signalling (nods in the mirror, headlight flashes, horn in extremis, etc etc), but the poor sucker doing 12 mph along the edge of the road has too high a speed differential to be included in the party. So, a lot of motorists probably feel they're being quite reasonable and socialising to the limits of their communication channels, but are oblivious to what's happening at earth speed.
> 
> There is a cognitive load to driving, even if drivers don't like to admit it. That load must surely increase with speed differential, and maybe that's why we tend to unconsciously resent anything on the roads that makes us have to think harder?



Yep. As the once proud possessor of both ADT and ART passes from my days as a petrol head of course I recognise one's focus has to broaden as speed increases. Driving safely at high speed, and particularly at high differential speed, is much more difficult than driving slowly. How would not admit to that? How much more difficult is more difficult to quantify.

If I examine my own feelings when driving I find I only resent other motorists/drivers. Those who display what I regard as a lack of competency in their surroundings, who drive boorishly, or unstylishly, or don't operate their vehicles elegantly or effectively, or are inconsiderate. No doubt there are times when they, in turn, resent me.

But don't get me started on people who ride unlit bikes at night...


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## theclaud (11 Mar 2010)

GregCollins said:


> and what is it about Austrian Catholicism that breeds much anti-capitialist cycle fetishists? The Marxist existentialism of Gorz is probably all very well in a University Common Room but it ain't going to do much to fix human nature.
> 
> The car is near ubiquitous. Is my Fiat Cinquecento that cost less than any of my bikes to acquire really a luxury object? Is the pleasure I get from driving it, is the benefit in time saving it gives me, really a myth? *I fear that he'd get "Must try harder" scrawled on that essay by my old philosophy professor!*



Blimey - your professor was hard to please! I wish I'd been given essays like that to mark .


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## BentMikey (11 Mar 2010)

Rhythm Thief said:


> Perhaps the trick to me being a reasonably happy urban commuter (on a bike) was that I never saw myself - or behaved in a way that indicated that I saw myself - as anything less than equal to every other mode of transport. If CM could somehow instill this mindset into every cyclist *and driver*, it would indeed be a great thing;



I agree, and have added the bold to fix that. I think that would make the very biggest difference to every road user.


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## MacB (11 Mar 2010)

GregCollins said:


> and what is it about Austrian Catholicism that breeds much anti-capitialist cycle fetishists? The Marxist existentialism of Gorz is probably all very well in a University Common Room but it ain't going to do much to fix human nature.
> 
> The car is near ubiquitous. Is my Fiat Cinquecento that cost less than any of my bikes to acquire really a luxury object? Is the pleasure I get from driving it, is the benefit in time saving it gives me, really a myth? I fear that he'd get "Must try harder" scrawled on that essay by my old philosophy professor!



Greg you fall back on realism and human nature, but the current status of these two factors are not immutable. Like many beyond a certain age you also dismiss some views as being 'University Common Room' with the underlying implication of immaturity or naivety. I read a very interesting article that looked at these very attitudes in relation to age and circumstances. I can't remember all of it but some bits stuck in my mind. It actually categorised your style of argument here, when used by one time 'lefties', as being a form of self justification. Rather than admit to having failed to make a difference they seek to rationalise why it was foolish to consider the attempt in the first place. It was also pointed out that these rationalisations were generally made from an income point well above the average.

This leads back to the OP, agree or not with CM methods I still applaud that the effort is being made. I also recognise that some of the current CM crop will be 'enjoying' luxury car travel in future years. The one common denominator we all have is that we are pedestrians, it's after that things start to diverge.


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## GrumpyGregry (11 Mar 2010)

BentMikey said:


> I agree, and have added the bold to fix that. I think that would make the very biggest difference to every road user.



I'm going to tweak it a bit further..

Perhaps the trick to me being a reasonably happy urban commuter (on a bike) was that I never saw myself - or behaved in a way that indicated that I saw myself - as anything less than equal to every other mode of transport. If CM could somehow instil this mindset into every *person*, it would indeed be a great thing;


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## BentMikey (11 Mar 2010)

I think this youtube clip would be a timeous addition to this topic, very appropriate and true. Given that it's from 60 years ago, nothing much seems to have changed:


View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZgiVicpZGk


Thanks arallsop - I knew what it was as soon as you posted it. Put it in my newsletter a couple of years ago.


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## Dan B (11 Mar 2010)

GregCollins said:


> None of the reading I've done around queuing theory as it applies to motorways has persuaded me that speed, per se, is what causes traffic jams. Chokes, idiot operators, etc., etc., perhaps but not speed. ymmv and I'll read anything you direct me to that demonstrates otherwise.


I'm not claiming this is a counter-example, but it is interesting as a demonstration of how "sheer weight of traffic" can cause jams even when there is no apparent external trigger


> Traffic that grinds to a halt and then restarts for no apparent reason is one of the biggest causes of frustration for drivers. Now a team of Japanese researchers has recreated the phenomenon on a test-track for the first time.
> The mathematical theory behind these so-called "shockwave" jams was developed more than 15 years ago using models that show jams appear from nowhere on roads carrying their maximum capacity of free-flowing traffic - typically triggered by a single driver slowing down.


http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13402

A chhaotic system in both senses of the word, I'd say


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## GrumpyGregry (11 Mar 2010)

MacB said:


> Greg you fall back on realism and human nature, but the current status of these two factors are not immutable. Like many beyond a certain age you also dismiss some views as being 'University Common Room' with the underlying implication of immaturity or naivety.



I see little evidence to suggest that the flaws in human nature are changing over time. ymmv.

The common room. Not what I was saying at all. I characterise uni common room attitudes, in this context, as being the attitudes of highly intelligent, well educated, mature individuals who are splendid and highly valuable theoreticians (Gorz at least used to make practical suggestions at the ends of his books, well the ones I've read anyway). But I'm a pragmatist. If it cannot be made to work in life for whatever reasons, without some form of compulsion, then it isn't a practical proposition. We can't uninvent the car, or the road network, or the transport industry, no matter how much some dead Catholic Priest thought we should. Catholic Priests would have us all do many things differently. 



MacB said:


> I read a very interesting article that looked at these very attitudes in relation to age and circumstances. I can't remember all of it but some bits stuck in my mind. *It actually categorised your style of argument here, when used by one time 'lefties', as being a form of self justification. Rather than admit to having failed to make a difference they seek to rationalise why it was foolish to consider the attempt in the first place. It was also pointed out that these rationalisations were generally made from an income point well above the average.*


I can't identify myself in that description. I'm not a one time 'lefty'. I've not failed to make a difference. What does someone's income have to do with it?



MacB said:


> This leads back to the OP, agree or not with CM methods I still applaud that the effort is being made. I also recognise that some of the current CM crop will be 'enjoying' luxury car travel in future years. The one common denominator we all have is that we are pedestrians, it's after that things start to diverge.



Violence has many forms. I've seen what I regard as violence directed at other people on CM's. Rationalised and self justified by the perpetrators. That's why I stopped participating. I find myself unable to applaud the effort of those who methods I find reprehensible. I've seen what I regard as violence on CM's as recently as last Autumn. The end does not justify the means; no good tree grows from a bad or tainted seed. 

The only violence I'm interested in is the violence of love.


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## GrumpyGregry (11 Mar 2010)

coruskate said:


> I'm not claiming this is a counter-example, but it is interesting as a demonstration of how "sheer weight of traffic" can cause jams even when there is no apparent external trigger
> http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13402
> 
> A chhaotic system in both senses of the word, I'd say



with no external trigger other than the single driver slowing down?


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## Dan B (11 Mar 2010)

GregCollins said:


> with no external trigger other than the single driver slowing down?


Can you spot which driver it was? Even looking at the video quite closely I find it hard to see anyone I would describe as "at fault"


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## CopperBrompton (11 Mar 2010)

coruskate said:


> I'm not claiming this is a counter-example, but it is interesting as a demonstration of how "sheer weight of traffic" can cause jams even when there is no apparent external trigger
> http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13402


Though in most motorway cases, the root cause is actually poor driving. It only takes a single inattentive driver to get too close to the car in front then touch their brakes to correct it to start that kind of shockwave.

If everyone drove with what Roadcraft rather grandly calls 'acceleration sense', but which actually means nothing more than looking ahead and easing off the accelerator early enough to avoid the need to brake, shockwave queues would be pretty much a thing of the past.


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## Flying Dodo (11 Mar 2010)

I've seen that shockwave in real life, on the M1 between J9 & J10 which slopes uphill. Way in the distance up the top towards J10 I noticed a brake light come on briefly, and then there was a ripple effect from all the cars fairly close behind, and they would tend to brake longer, and so it meant the cars behind them in turn braked for even longer, so by the time it moved back to J9, cars were stationery.


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## Dan B (11 Mar 2010)

Ben Lovejoy said:


> If everyone drove with what Roadcraft rather grandly calls 'acceleration sense', but which actually means nothing more than looking ahead and easing off the accelerator early enough to avoid the need to brake, shockwave queues would be pretty much a thing of the past.


While I agree with you here in principle, I don't think this solution is compatible with Greg's pragmatism. People will move up to fill the space (especially ona multilane road where they also want to "defend" the space from anyone who may want to cut in). That's human nature

edit: any kind of gradient change will tend to set it off too.


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## CopperBrompton (11 Mar 2010)

Well, indeed, I won't repeat my 'When I'm world dictator' plan for driving licences ...


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## GrumpyGregry (11 Mar 2010)

now don't get me started on numpties who shoot past me in an overtake and then give me a big fat face full of brake lights so they can dive into the gap in front of me. I don't mind the overtake, it is the sheer graceless, unstylish, inelegant, brutality of the need to apply the brakes hard to do it that make me shake my head...

...I presume when they change lanes they hit the catseyes as well!


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## GrumpyGregry (11 Mar 2010)

Ben Lovejoy said:


> Well, indeed, I won't repeat my 'When I'm world dictator' plan for driving licences ...



Gwan. I'd probably vote for you.


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## MacB (11 Mar 2010)

Ben Lovejoy said:


> Well, indeed, I won't repeat my 'When I'm world dictator' plan for driving licences ...



it'll be the same as the rest of the plan, Ben first then maybe a select few


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## CopperBrompton (11 Mar 2010)

1. Passing the current L-test gets you an interim licence valid for 2 years
2. Within those 2 years, you have to pass an IAM/RoSPA level test to convert to a standard licence
3. Retests at IAM/RoSPA level every five years to retain the licence


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## Dan B (11 Mar 2010)

That's just persecution of the poor beleagured motorist


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## GrumpyGregry (11 Mar 2010)

Where do I sign up?


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## brokenbetty (16 Mar 2010)

I was thinking about this today as I bimbled in to work.

I think Critical Mass has it the wrong way around. Instead of a mass of cyclists, we need a mass of cars.

Once a year, everyone who normally commutes or otherwise uses a bike as day to day transport should get hold of a car and drive instead. For those who can't drive, as many as possible get a taxi.

The aim is to demonstrate that people who chose to cycle are not slowing traffic down, they reduce congestion. People on bikes benefit everyone, even drivers. To reinforce this anyone who would normally be on a bike would display a large bike graphic in their back window.

In itself that won't encourage anyone to ride a bike, but it would encourage the habitual drivers to think of bikes as a good thing for other people at least. And just that acceptance would make a real difference both to how cyclists are treated today and to whether people think of cycling as a viable way of getting around in future.

Really, when you think about it like that we should be the WMV's best friend for helping to keep his roads clear


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## chap (17 Mar 2010)

brokenbetty said:


> I was thinking about this today as I bimbled in to work.
> 
> I think Critical Mass has it the wrong way around. Instead of a mass of cyclists, we need a mass of cars.
> 
> ...



I felt compelled to log in purely to state that your suggestion is a very good idea, and an exemplary example of creative thinking - minus the inane business connotations. 

If fattie isn't impressed with the look of the healthy way, try a temporary heart attack.

Anyway, time to log off, wishing you a good night.


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## CopperBrompton (17 Mar 2010)

Agreed - that would definitely make the point.


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## Tubbs (17 Mar 2010)

brokenbetty said:


> I was thinking about this today as I bimbled in to work.
> 
> I think Critical Mass has it the wrong way around. Instead of a mass of cyclists, we need a mass of cars.
> 
> ...



Oh my god I was thinking exactly the same thing the other day. Exactly the same thing.


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## Flying_Monkey (17 Mar 2010)

Come off it, no-one would notice and if they did, they would find some other explanation - Gordon Brown, the weather, anything except the idea that cars might be any kind of a problem.

I think CM may have run its course as an idea. But some of you dismissing CM now should realise just how much you owe to those who helped organise CMs back in the early 90s when fewer people were cycling and the Thatcherite 'Great Car Economy' was still ascendent. CMs played a big part in raising the profile and awareness of cycling. In an changed environment it may be time for new tactics - I don't know - but don't _forget_.


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## theclaud (17 Mar 2010)

Well said, Monkey. But let's not put Ben in charge of the new tactical plan...


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## Origamist (17 Mar 2010)

Flying_Monkey said:


> I think CM may have run its course as an idea. But some of you dismissing CM now should realise just how much you owe to those who helped organise CMs back in the early 90s when fewer people were cycling and the Thatcherite 'Great Car Economy' was still ascendent. CMs played a big part in raising the profile and awareness of cycling. In an changed environment it may be time for new tactics - I don't know - but don't _forget_.



As someone who was attending CMs in the 90s and is now only an occasional participant, I agree.


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## brokenbetty (17 Mar 2010)

Flying_Monkey said:


> Come off it, no-one would notice and if they did, they would find some other explanation - Gordon Brown, the weather, anything except the idea that cars might be any kind of a problem.



Most habitual drivers do recognise cars cause problems. They just think it is limited to cars that are _driven by other people_.

You won't get those drivers to switch to a bike but you might get them to see cyclists positively as one less car in their way, which will feed into how they treat cyclists on the road and talk about them in the pub, and that's the type of cultural change that's needed to make cycling the mainstream transport it should be.


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## CopperBrompton (18 Mar 2010)

What has raised the profile of cycling in London is, er, a lot of people cycling in London.

The real boost came from 7/7, when that great irrational response people have to a dramatic event kicked in and suddenly lots of people were scared of the tube. A friend who works in a central London bike shop says sales went through the roof the following week.


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## Rohloff_Brompton_Rider (18 Mar 2010)

Ben Lovejoy said:


> *What has raised the profile of cycling in London is, er, a lot of people cycling in London.*
> 
> The real boost came from 7/7, when that great irrational response people have to a dramatic event kicked in and suddenly lots of people were scared of the tube. A friend who works in a central London bike shop says sales went through the roof the following week.



surely that was the congestion charge? if you didn't have that you would still have the same problems as every other city.


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## CopperBrompton (18 Mar 2010)

bromptonfb said:


> surely that was the congestion charge? if you didn't have that you would still have the same problems as every other city.


The congestion charge was mostly a con-trick by Ken. He scheduled three years worth of road maintenance into the six months prior to the introduction of the charge, all of which coincidentally completed as the charge was introduced. Surprise, surprise, congestion was reduced and average speeds were higher.


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## Rohloff_Brompton_Rider (18 Mar 2010)

but was there an increase in cycle usage due to cars being priced off the road?


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## CopperBrompton (18 Mar 2010)

bromptonfb said:


> but was there an increase in cycle usage due to cars being priced off the road?


I doubt it. No-one with any sanity voluntarily drives through central London. People do it either because they have lots of stuff to carry or because they lack sanity. In neither case is a switch to cycling a likely outcome.


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## Rohloff_Brompton_Rider (18 Mar 2010)

really? the congestion charge is £10 isn't? it would certainly make me ride, but i am a tight northern git. plus parking fees on top? or is that a pittance to high earning londoners?


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## CopperBrompton (18 Mar 2010)

bromptonfb said:


> really? the congestion charge is £10 isn't? it would certainly make me ride, but i am a tight northern git. plus parking fees on top? or is that a pittance to high earning londoners?


Parking for a day in central London will typically cost you something in the £20-35 range; if you can afford that, another tenner for the congestion tax isn't really an issue.

The congestion tax allowed Ken to do two things: hit out at cars (which he hates) and raise a lot of tax. It did naff all to reduce congestion.


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## theclaud (18 Mar 2010)

Ben Lovejoy said:


> The congestion charge was mostly a con-trick by Ken. He scheduled three years worth of road maintenance into the six months prior to the introduction of the charge, all of which coincidentally completed as the charge was introduced. Surprise, surprise, congestion was reduced and average speeds were higher.



This barmy con-trick theory allowed Ben to do two things: hit out at Ken (who he hates) and whinge about taxes (his favourite pastime). It did naff all to enhance civilised discussion.


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## BentMikey (18 Mar 2010)

Both Ben and brompton are wrong as far as I know, neither 7/7 nor the congestion charge had any serious effect on cycling numbers, they were just blips on an otherwise pre-existing trend.


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## BigSteev (18 Mar 2010)

theclaud said:


> This barmy con-trick theory



or the truth as it happens. He also left out the rephasing of traffic lights at major junctions which added to congestion* and their subsequent resetting to coincide with the intro of the congestion charge. 

But then, all of that would not be noticed by anyone that didn't have the misfortune of having to regularly drive into/through London.

*and, imho, played a big part in the increase in RLJing in London.


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## schlafsack (18 Mar 2010)

Ken did rephase the lights but it was Borris that put them back, long after the congestion charge was introduced.


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## Rohloff_Brompton_Rider (18 Mar 2010)

BentMikey said:


> Both Ben and *brompton are wrong* as far as I know, neither 7/7 nor the congestion charge had any serious effect on cycling numbers, they were just blips on an otherwise pre-existing trend.



sorry if you misunderstood me. i was asking as i have no idea. probably my writing skills again.


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## GrumpyGregry (18 Mar 2010)

BentMikey said:


> Both Ben and brompton are wrong as far as I know, neither 7/7 nor the congestion charge had any serious effect on cycling numbers, they were just blips on an otherwise pre-existing trend.



Are there any trustworthy stats anywhere that show the trend over say, 20 years....


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## CopperBrompton (18 Mar 2010)

theclaud said:


> hit out at Ken (who he hates)


'Hates' is too strong, but 'considers a nasty piece of work' would be true.



> and whinge about taxes (his favourite pastime)


You appear to be confusing me with someone else there.


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## CopperBrompton (18 Mar 2010)

BentMikey said:


> Both Ben and brompton are wrong as far as I know, neither 7/7 nor the congestion charge had any serious effect on cycling numbers, they were just blips on an otherwise pre-existing trend.


Do you have some stats?


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## theclaud (19 Mar 2010)

Ben Lovejoy said:


> 'Hates' is too strong, but 'considers a nasty piece of work' would be true.
> 
> *You appear to be confusing me with someone else there*.



Apologies if so. I took your comment about about Ken raising a lot of tax on motorists to be a complaint. Anyway, this thread needs a Jonesy or a DomD. I'm a Ken fan, but Steev is quite right to point out that I know next-to-nothing about games played with traffic-light phasing. And to be honest, I'm not sure I care very much. Ken is a wily sort, and the congestion charge is a Very Good Thing, which I would like to see extended to evenings, weekends and other cities. Timing things nicely to maximise the political impact of something that is a good idea in itself seems to me to be pretty smart...


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## CopperBrompton (19 Mar 2010)

theclaud said:


> Apologies if so.


Accepted.



> Steev is quite right to point out that I know next-to-nothing about games played with traffic-light phasing. And to be honest, I'm not sure I care very much


The end justifies the means?

If he'd had the courage to admit his aim and his motivations, I'd have had more respect for him, but he thought nothing of deceiving the people he was supposed to represent in order to get his own way.


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## BentMikey (19 Mar 2010)

I rather suspect that whole roadworks/traffic light phasing is nothing more than an urban legend. Sounds good, nice way to blame someone else for the traffic problem, and easy to spread, but no truth to it.


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## theclaud (19 Mar 2010)

BentMikey said:


> I rather suspect that whole roadworks/traffic light phasing is nothing more than an urban legend. Sounds good, nice way to blame someone else for the traffic problem, and easy to spread, but no truth to it.



I suspect that too, which is why we need a Jonesy or a Dom - to put an end to suspicion and dazzle us with facts .


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## Norm (19 Mar 2010)

brokenbetty said:


> I was thinking about this today as I bimbled in to work.
> 
> I think Critical Mass has it the wrong way around. Instead of a mass of cyclists, we need a mass of cars.
> 
> ...


Aside from the further reference to *W*hite *M*an *V*an (should it not be WVM?) it appears that some French motorcyclists have run with a very similar idea. I especially liked the idea of taking over the Métro.


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## CopperBrompton (19 Mar 2010)

BentMikey said:


> I rather suspect that whole roadworks/traffic light phasing is nothing more than an urban legend.


You suspect wrongly: it's a matter of public record:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...has-brought-congestion-to-capital-644850.html

TfL was eventually forced to admit that what they'd done. It was, of course, all done for the noble reason of protecting pedestrians and it was simply coincidence that Ken's entirely genuine concerns arose only shortly before introducing the congestion tax.


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## BentMikey (20 Mar 2010)

Let's see a slightly more reliable quote than the independent. According to TfL some traffic light changes were made to benefit pedestrians and buses, unsurprisingly some of the biggest and busiest junctions for pedestrians were affected. It's a bit of a stretch suggesting that was for the CC.

I'm quite happy for the congestion charge to go, by the way. I couldn't care less when the traffic is snarled up again, I'm on a bike.


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## CopperBrompton (20 Mar 2010)

BentMikey said:


> Let's see a slightly more reliable quote than the independent.




If you actually read the story, you'll see that TfL admitted it (just with some concern about pedestrian safety that, entirely coincidentally, it developed only just prior to the congestion tax being introduced.


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## Origamist (22 Mar 2010)

It looks like this Friday's CM will be highlighting the issue of HGVs and cyclists:

http://realcycling.blogspot.com/2010/03/hgv-deaths-critical-mass-demo-this.html

http://www.ibikelondon.blogspot.com/

I'll be attending, before the ride to Brighton.


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