CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
Well done to ALL posters
It soon became useful and entertaining. There are regular posters, people who add useful info occasionally and plenty more who drop by to watch. That's fine. If you want to add news/comments it's easy to register and become a member.
RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
I had to go to Lauriston Place for a medical appointment at 9am yesterday. Normally I cycle to Haymarket just after 7:30am and I see cyclists.
HOW MANY CYCLISTS did I see yesterday??!! Lots. A group of us going up Henderson Terrace, and then when I got to the King's Theatre junction there were 5 bikes in the ASL with a blue car behind them, so I joined another cyclist behind the blue car and by the time we moved off there were 5 bikes there too.
I was away last week but feel like I have returned to find a noticeable increase in the number of cyclists crossing the Meadows in the morning, on the towpath, primarily in the mornings as well, and locking at the relatively new bike shed at work which was overflowing this morning for the first time. I had to lock mine to the one clear strut.
Semester started a few weeks ago, but there's been a noticeable increase in the number of bikes parked at KB this week compared to last week.
I was the fifth of five cyclists heading south on Leith Walk up the cycle lane as far as Macdonald Road this morning. I briefly pondered not doing so as the road was so relatively quiet. There was a bit of pearl-clutching on the I Love Leith FB page last week, so four people will probably warrant an "it's like the Tour de France" from whoever it was said that about Seafield Road. threefromleith engaged with the thread at one point, which stemmed from someone being asked why they weren't using the cycle path on Links Gardens.
At 0725 this morning I saw more bikes (five, including me) on Myreside Road than cars (four) in the time I was on it.
Maybe not commuters and cyclists being a minority blah blah blah....
Waiting for a lift this morning in Dalry I counted 27 bikes in the 15 minutes or so I waited just after 08:00.
Coming back from a short holiday break down the A9 / M90 I was amazed at the number of vehicles with bike racks on the back / roof - At one point I reckon it was at least 25%....
I was on the canal almost from the basin out as far as Lanark road on my way to nursery pick up today and there were basically no cyclists. It was eerie! My memories of commuting along it are rammed with cyclists even in winter
@Dave - Yesterday had a bad forecast yet I did four journeys on bike and two on foot and remained dry.
I am seeing lots more groups of young riders. Not uncommon now to see four riders going somewhere by bike.
I followed a pose up MMW and onto Forest Road - late teens I reckon using SfP then going up both isdes of traffic queue at hotel works on George IV Bridge. Lights were green so they got through ok.
At 9.30pm coming back from Summerhall say four women on road bikes with good lights coming onto Meadows. Looked like they had been out of city and just splitting to go home. Also saw around another 10 bikes and not tall deliveroo. Most had decent lights.
On the canal bridge at Viewforth I often see families in large groups coming down from Bruntsfield. The bike count varies a lot it seems but younger riders are noticeable now. Many ride pavements of course as been brought up to fear traffic. Maybe another reason why e-scooters are a thing.
Using my cargo bike to take a donated bike from Morningside to the Bike Station this morning I encountered many people on bikes, but notably: an Urban Arrow (I think) with a full rain cover and a Circe Helios (both on Grange Road), a Tern GSD with two kids on board on Canaan Lane, a trailer with a child in on Woodburn Terrace and a box trike with two children in on Balcarres Street (this last one being part of a bike minibus that looked like it was in its way back from football).
I know this was a ride through a leafy part of South Edinburgh, and I know that several of these bikes cost as much as a car, but still, there's reason for optimism.
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In some parts of Europe, a quarter of all journeys are made by bike. In Britain the figure is 2%. Can anything persuade us to leave our cars and get pedalling? Perhaps the unlikeliest of towns - Darlington - holds the key. Matt Seaton reports
It's a damp, chilly day in Darlington. Oli Lougheed assures me, a softy southerner up from London for the day, that it's not usually like this. Here, on the eastern side of the Pennines, he says, it may be cold in winter, but it's normally clear and dry. Lougheed is not, in fact, from the local Tourist Board, but he does work for Darlington. He is the town's cycling officer, and today he is showing me how the town is making itself more cycle-friendly. Which explains his anxiety about the grim weather: as we make our way from the station to the town centre, there are not many cyclists in evidence.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/jan/09/transport.lifeandhealth
Purely anecdotal, but noticing in the last few months I am coming across more cyclists from Queen's Drive in Holyrood Park onto London Road and out east to Portobello Road at evening rush hour. Assume most of them are commuting. Up until a month or two ago I would only occasionally see fellow-cyclists. Now often have to share the ASL at Jock's Lodge. I hope the trend keeps going.
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I agree with most of what Jonathan Liew says (UK cycling boom was not here to stay and lack of institutional will could keep it away, 6 February). However, his article doesn’t seem to entirely separate the sport of cycling from the activity.
I have been a cycle ride leader and cycle trainer since 2009 – a few years before the boom times. I was put off the racing side in the early 1980s when I found that cycling clubs were really just golf clubs on wheels. The “Rapha cafe bore” equates to 1980s golf bore. I loved riding the velodrome in Glasgow, pre-pandemic, until I rediscovered the golf club mentality of the 80s. I have never returned.
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Friday ‘rush’ hour
I encounter very few “normal” cyclists on my twice weekly cycles into town (Albany St) from Gorebridge .What I do see using the cycle lanes are increasing numbers of the Deliveroo boys on what appear to be illegal electric bikes as hardly any pedalling seems involved. I guess they all have throttles .
This was not perhaps the use envisaged by the instigators of the city cycle lanes.
However better than fossil fuelled pizza delivery ,I suppose.
I don't think the instigators of the city cycle lanes envisaged overtaking, either. The Deliveroo Crew seem to have next to no real sense of road use, a bit like drivers in the early days of the Preston Bypass. No, you must not stop on the motorway! No, you must not try to perform random u-turns!
One of them decided to stop in the middle of the cycle lane on Minto St, oblivious to the commuter cyclist behind who had to slam the brakes on. I was a bit further back and not bothering with the cycle lane because the tarmac is smoother in the main carriageway.
I like the chaotic-ness of the delivery riders. Sometimes it feels like we're getting beyond motornormativity, aka the concept where heavy machinery operators (and defacto everyone else) have to follow strict* rules
*supposedly, but not really enforced anywhere
Also, why are the segregated lanes (both permanent and temporary) being built in the city just soooo narrow?
Take a look at the Spaces for People bollarded lanes down Pennywell Rd, they are unnecessarily narrow - it's a bl**dy dual-carriageway for goodness sake. But they've only left less than 1 metre for bikes, once you take margin for the width of the bollards / defenders and clearance between them and the kerb. And full of rough surface, debris and holes.
And it's not like the extra space in the general traffic lane is useful either - 1.5 lanes can't be used by cars for overtaking, doesn't help buses or lorries, and also encourages speeding.
No wonder there's so many calls of "clowncil"
I don't think I was embracing the chaos when a Deliveroonie decided to cross the road at the lights without looking at the end of the segregated path on Portobello Rd while I was heading down it on the road. Managed to slam the brakes in time just but I almost lost the rear end completely (rear wheel lifted off the ground). Disc brakes FTW. In their defence the light was at amber.
In saying that no matter your personal feelings on delivery riders their increasing use of cycling infrastructure at least reinforces the fact that there is genuine demand for it and it's not just us MAMILs campaigning for infrastructure we don't use.
On Pennywell for example, if they just bollarded off the whole lane it might become fully parked in..
I've been walking all summer. but one of the few times I've been on a bike I too had a deliveroo guy just stop randomly and suddenly in front of me on Dundee st. He got an earful.
Have the impression these Deliverooers have never been on bikes before they joined the gig economy and are not versed in cycling etiquette ,what ever that is . Even the basics like shouting and swearing at motorists have not been grasped
Yes, the cycle lanes are too narrow for comfort - no wiggle room to avoid debris and sunken drain holes , just ok for my delta recumbent trike but I imagine too narrow for those turbo charged hurtling wheel barrows aka cargo bikes let alone for red torpedoes
Too many of 'us'?
I experienced three minorly irritating moments on Middle Meadow Walk this morning due to the sheer volume of people, some of whom were on bikes. First, trying to turn left onto MMW from Teviot Place, I was initially slowing for and weaving around various pedestrians only for an unsighted person on a bike to emerge from behind the statue at speed just as I was finally able to go for the gap. Luckily I was able to stop easily because I was going so slowly. Halfway down MMW, I spotted an overtake being initiated in the distance involving cyclists on the way up the hill, which I initially assumed would be completed or backed down from by the time I passed them, but no, I just got squeezed out to the edge of the path. At least the path is wide enough to accommodate such situations reasonably well. Finally, trying to turn right onto NMW at the bottom of the hill, three or four people on bikes were approaching from the right, the first of whom stopped for me, but I then ended up stopping as well since I wasn't sure what the others were going to do. By the time I was trying to restart there were people on bikes approaching from all directions and lots of pedestrians. Polite carnage ensued. Just for good/bad measure, I then witnessed an almost head-on collision between two cyclists on NMW, the reason for which wasn't clear.
I was on the towpath to The West this morning. It was the busiest I've seen it for ages: lots of bikes. It felt like 'good old days' for the first time since 2020: riding along in convoy with a bike in front and a bike behind.
Tuesday on the Innoocent also hoaching with cyclists.
@Greenroofer - yes, found myself in my first post-covid morning commute peloton last week. Actually quite a nice feeling, as cyclists just coalesced into a bunch and then peeled off to head to work, study or whatever.
Back to normal today other than what must be my first high-five of the year with gembo just in front of Boroughmuir High School.
And your second in same place tonight. Good to start with a Doubler.
CEO of CEC on his bicycle this morning . Good lad, way different from his predecessor.
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