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big roads yet rarely see a truck or car though tractors quad bikes and post vans are a bit more common i d been invited to the department for transport s cycle stakeholder forum which took place on monday in london although on paper i m a member of this forum i ve yet to attend a meeting frankly the continuing taking cycling seriously waffle whilst so little s being done to make cycling easy makes me nauseous and whilst i know it s not a particularly rational political strategy and even immature i increasingly want nothing to do with it to be honest i m still not sure whether men and it is mainly men in suits pretending to take cycling seriously is a good thing it s probably an inevitable and necessary stage in the process of making cycling mainstream something i ve long hoped to see but and this is where the nausea comes in i hate seeing cycling instrumentalised reduced and bureaucratised all so it makes sense within worlds which at least for me are antithetical to what cycling is and should be so rather than go to london i promised myself a long ride instead then i d save the 90 train fare and likely spend and end the day energised and elated rather than dejected and deflated some days all i want to do really is sit on the bike and ride spend the day thoughtlessly pedalling on those days i tend to devise a relatively flat route along relatively big roads and i almost always ride anti clockwise a habit i developed long ago i think through riding with people who saw right turns as making rides unnecessarily complicated with so much talk of getting britain cycling it s odd that i can leave home at 9 am on a monday morning ride 85 miles along big roads remarkably free of motorised traffic and passing through some of england s finest countryside yet barely see another person on a bicycle we might be getting more serious about more effectively inserting cycling into the straight world but what i d like to see is the straight world get a bit less well straight through its embrace of cycling so that the monday friday 9 5 grind starts to lose its allure yes cycling could make us more efficient workers one of the few reasons many politicians could probably be persuaded to like it but really who wants to be a more efficient worker instead sell the car get a bike and use the money saved to drop hours spent working and go cycling instead that way lies more health benefits than merely pedalling the commute could ever bring and a tangible sense of freedom to boot rides such as this one involving big loops north east of lancaster don t feel they ve quite started until i reach ingleton 18 miles from home i think that s because only then do i reach roads that are wide open and quiet until then bigger roads are busy while quieter ones are lanes that tend to feel intimate not expansive i love riding through the gentle mid morning bustle of ingleton village i often pop my first banana or energy bar on my way through because then the niggly bit is over and the long straight roads of the western dales begin the b6255 road to hawes climbs steeply at first before flattening as it strikes a course north east whernside to one side ingleborough the other riding this road i always feel a deep privilege to being on a bike the valley narrows towards chapel le dale and the exposed limestone creeps closer then ribblehead viaduct strikes its clear fine line across the moor ahead you swoop fast down beneath it and then immediately after the horton turn which follows the settle carlisle south there s a lovely curve to the road which lets you keep your speed ahead of the next rise as you pass the motorists huddled in their cars from the pass at newby head it s downhill almost all the way to hawes the road is wide and its gradient gradual so you can hold a good speed with on monday a strong head wind saving me the effort of braking from hawes the wind is mostly at my back and i plain sail west up valley to the moorcock inn just shy of the wensleydale garsdale watershed turning north there down a valley for which if i ve not ridden it in more than a month or two i develop serious cravings mallerstang why do i love mallerstang the gradients are gentle you can see why the settle carlisle railway took this valley and in this direction after a short climb you ve a long downhill that s fast and fluid the surrounding fells wild boar is perhaps best known are little visited while their long edges and gentle slopes form a perfect fit with road cycling and though you re moving fast across smooth tarmac you feel here that you ve left the world behind i usually stay along this eden valley into kirkby stephen because 50 miles from home i need food but today progress slowed by the wind i ve already eaten in hawes so at pendragon castle a few miles short of kirkby i take the little lane west the railway tunnelled below to the next empty a road the 683 a super road going south it aims straight at the howgills before hugging tight their eastern flank you re enter the yorkshire dales national park where cautley spout tumbles from the fells behind the cross keys temperance inn like mallerstang heading this way the gradient s in your favour and it s another straight fast run all the way to sedbergh through the town i keep to the a683 along the lune s east side to kirkby lonsdale switching there via devil s bridge to the lune s west side for the last stretch along the b6254 for home cycling wide open roads lifts not just my spirits but also my horizons it makes me ambitious for cycling in ways not encouraged by the department for transport ambitious not just quantitatively but also qualitatively yes to more bums on saddles but i want cycling to lead those bums both individually and collectively towards better things why get britain cycling to get its bodies and its cities primed for the next wave of neo liberal corporate consumer capitalist incursions aimed at making britain more economically efficient and profitable not in my name thanks i want britain to get cycling so more people might ride their bike to ride their bike and take a cycling perspective one that gets them closer to home closer to themselves closer to a world in which no one need wear a suit tags cycling get britain cycling mallerstang the howgills yorkshire dales posted in cycling promotion 18 comments digging in october 1 2013 autumn seems inevitably to bring a turn back to the local hill climbs somehow fit this return this digging into our back yards the hill climb demands engagement with the ground even as you pull up on the bars it seems to be pulling you towards it your focus becomes literally grounded as eyes to the tarmac you grunt your way slowly up the world cut down to rasping breath and burning legs hill climbs come as summer turns to autumn and they mark the end of the road cycling calendar if the world has opened out over the long light warmer months it begins slowly now to close back down again the grip of familiar territory upon our riding might have loosened during summer but it s re established now i enjoy this cosy sense of coming back of coming home to the local the time between now and christmas is about getting in the miles on favourite roads between favourite places for me hill climbs embody this return to the local the hard pull up a short steep incline my last grunt before with winter in sight i drop into gentler riding this year something about uphill racing appealed to my son bobby who now he s 12 can compete on the road his uncle derek was also enthusiastic so the three of us rode lancaster cycling club s hill climbs on consecutive thursday evenings the first condor bottoms climbs the quernmore valley s short and steep west side the second jubilee towers goes the other longer way out the valley up onto the forest of bowland bobby and derek enjoyed these events so much they wanted more so the next week we all had another go up jubilee towers in lancaster cc s open hill climb this event attracted three current national hill climb champions eve dixon lynn hamel and jack pullar they re considerably quicker than us but however fast or slow you are there s something universal in the hill climbing experience for the jubilee towers climb you start on a gradient so steep a concrete block is placed behind your rear wheel to stop you slipping back up until then you re in the world getting ready making small talk warming up but as your start time draws closer you become more serious quieter less outgoing when your number s called you line up and as the final seconds are counted down you compose your breathing then away you move into the climb and enter a different world racing uphill quickly extinguishes all thought beyond the most basic instructions to yourself out the saddle up a gear the world closes down around your body bike and breath everything else is gone this reduction to body bike and breath is brutal and beautiful to race uphill is very hard but freedom comes from mind being put in place by body within minutes the effort is done and you re emerge into a world you ve barely left behind it s the same world but you re a bit different now physical recovery from so short a burst is rapid but at another level something s changed though exactly what i struggle to say for me at least i think there s a small sense of empowerment it s hard not to be just a little bit impressed with yourself after making such an effort but also a transaction has taken place your emotional energies have been invested in the hill the hill now matters more both to you and also i think because hill climbs are not merely personal experiences but also more importantly cultural events to cycling many thanks to graham atkinson for his permission to publish some of the super photos he took on condor bottoms in september and also to bobby s uncle derek for his of the three of us after the jubilee towers climb tags condor bottoms forest of bowland hill climbs jubilee towers lancaster cycling club posted in cycling experiences 7 comments 10 years of cycling and society september 13 2013 i m just back from the 10 th annual cycling society symposium hosted this year by the university of central lancashire at their outdoor campus ty n dwr near llangollen in mid wales it was superbly organised by richard weston and pulled together around 35 of us face to face as well as jennifer bonham in adelaide australia via skype as someone who s been around since the start i was invited to say a few words about where as a research community we ve come from where we might go and how in the wider world cycling is changing i decided to start by telling the cycling story of my daughter flo who like cycling society is 10 years old flo was born into a bubble structured by cycling her parents love cycling and live without a car for a decade she has developed through that structured space into a skilled and experienced cyclist at the start she had to be physically carried or pulled but she soon learnt to propel herself initially on a balance bike then through a series of pedal driven machines the bikes grew bigger and she became stronger faster and more independent for so long as her friends were the children of our friends cycling remained normal but then slowly inevitably she has through school developed friends of her own friends whose lives are not based around the bicycle but the car and cycling is steadily becoming less natural it s becoming more unappealing we ve taught flo to cycle but it s getting steadily harder to make her cycle in a world which mainly doesn t her agency is being structured less by us her parents and more by the world outside for now she s riding slowly away from us towards the car her transport preferences are becoming normal in her own little sweet and innocent way flo shows how far we remain from a cycling world the personal and the social are inextricably complexly connected i struggle with but also accept flo s resistance to cycling she s finding her way in the world and wants to fit in we ve helped her and some of her friends to understand more about cycling but they re all part of a car centric society in which being normal matters in the world as it is her reluctance to cycle is part of learning to be sociable so our challenge as parents is changing if over the last decade we ve taught and encouraged our kids to cycle over the next one i hope we ll teach them to navigate and negotiate a world of multiple and sometimes clashing visions and values in other words politics we ll explain cycling s significance to a healthy peaceful happy just and green world and we ll try to nudge them some ways more than others but they ll figure things out for themselves including what role cycling if any should play in their own lives but this next decade is crucial either to cycling s continued marginalisation or else to its normalisation a decade ago cycling was ignored and or treated as irrelevant by most academics including those with expertise in transport and sustainability today in contrast there s a steady stream of peer reviewed journal articles about cycling major research funding for cycling projects and more respect shown to those who argue for cycling s importance cycling s shift from the margins towards the mainstream of academia is an effect but also a cause of cycling s shift from the margins towards the mainstream of society in general both trends are tentative but have the potential to develop significantly between now and 2023 so i look forward to the 20 th cycling society symposium in 2023 and hope i might have good news to report there on flo s cycling trajectory over the coming decade as she moves into adulthood by then cycling could be much more normal and flo and her friends might perhaps be cycling and less self consciously llangollen was a cosmopolitan affair there were people from brazil china poland romania denmark france portugal italy ireland the netherlands spain hungary and the uk as well as jennifer from australia i find this truly inspiring and encouraging the thirst for new cycling knowledge like the push for cycling is now happening almost everywhere the beautiful rural and remote location provided good opportunities for riding many participants got out and about by bike during the event for myself i rode over to llangollen from crewe with tim jones above who gave a super presentation about the mamil middle aged men in lycra phenomenon and cosmin popan below who s recently started a phd on cycling at lancaster university and after a full day spent listening to twelve diverse but uniformly excellent papers the three of us rode with peter wood who s close to finishing his phd on cycling at the open university up horseshoe pass it s a huge privilege to hang out with researchers such as peter and cosmin who compared to tim and me are starting out on their journeys into cycling research the energies and enthusiasms of others who love cycling are infectious and there s still so much 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