Single Speed World Championship Date Announced

After months of quiet negotiations with a number of landowners, the confirming call to the organisers (the self-styled “The Telly Savalas Players Club”) came today.

SSWC 2007 will be on September 1st & 2nd (Race Day) in Aviemore.

So book your holidays – whether you are planning to race, drink or watch. Unless you have been before, any Single Speed World Championship will be a (fun filled) surprise. The Scottish version even more so!

Keep an eye on the official web site sswc2007.com for details.

Aviemore is 3 hours north of Edinburgh by train. Will ScotRail put on extra trains or extra cycle capacity (booking free but essential to Aviemore)?? In keeping with the party spirit, visitors from London (or overseas) might like to start their Highland weekend at London Euston on the Sleeper.

AND THEN – on the 3rd (until the 9th) – there’s the Fort William UCI Mountain Bike & Trials World Championships – only 60 miles away!

Cycling, Scotland, September!

Critical Mass Starts New Year

Almost 50 people turned up for Edinburgh’s first Critical Mass of the year, which is a significant improvement on December’s bunch of five!

Perhaps this year it can be the first event of Edinburgh’s Hogmanay with hundreds of riders, from Edinburgh and around the world, bringing bicycle lights instead of fiery torches.

Critical Mass is a celebration of cycling, but occasionally regarded as ‘giving cyclists a bad name’ for briefly delaying motorists. Whether you agree or disagree, have your say after the screening of (We aren’t blocking traffic) We Are Traffic! on Monday 5th of February at 6.30pm – part of the Winter Bicycle Film Festival.

CTC Solves Pothole Problem

OK that’s an exaggeration, but it has made reporting problems a (w)hole lot easier!

Once again the internet has produced a useful tool to (quickly) record problems, and make them available to the people who should fix them AND to other people who might have thought about reporting the same thing.

Edinburgh has had the Clarence service for years where potholes, broken lights etc. can be reported by ‘phone or e-mail. The new CTC site (fillthathole.org.uk) has the benefit of Google Earth which has a skimpy road map (not many cyclepaths) backed up by a satellite image. The whole of Edinburgh has been covered by a high resolution image since just before Christmas. This has given a big boost to mapping Edinburgh routes on-line.

As CTC Director Kevin Mayne says “Potholes and other road defects are more than just a nuisance; they’re a danger to cyclists. They’re responsible for 12% of compensation claims by CTC members, and local Councils have a duty to fix them. Reporting problems like this can be a chore, but our online facility has made it quick and easy.”

The CTC has also created clearthattrail.org.uk for off-road routes, though whether having two separate sites is a good idea remains to be seen!

Journalist Gets Bike Back

Photo Mike Pead

“Britain’s leading transport commentator” Christian Wolmar recently had his bike stolen. A few hours later he got it back. This is one of the stories on his website.

He also writes about a trip to see the cycle facilities in Huddersfield. He found some well designed routes but says that “the problem is that there are insufficient links to the Greenways”. Overall verdict – “It was an instructive trip showing that it takes more than goodwill and some good infrastructure to attract people back onto their bikes.”

This won’t be news to anyone involved in cycling in Edinburgh – campaigners and Council officials alike. One problem is due to the arcane financial rules constraining local government. There are clear distinctions between ‘capital’ and ‘revenue’. It can be relatively easily to get money to build things – even cycle routes – but smaller sums for maintenance or promotion…