CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Events, rides etc.
POP in the Herald
(29 posts)-
Posted 11 years ago #
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This ride (and the Polwarth feeder ride too) was impressively organised and was so well co-ordinated. I'd like to congratulate all involved on such a wonderful job.
Shame about the taxi driver running his mouth off at the crossroads of the bridges and Royal Mile. I'm sure he felt the swearing was wholly appropriate for the number of wee ears about. It just acted as an apt example of exactly why we were cycling today.
It was great to see so many different kinds of people all gathered together with the same aims. What a turn-out!
Posted 11 years ago # -
Aye, that taxi driver was a wonderful stereotype. I exchanged a few swear-words with him at the lights. Did he persevere with his folly?
Quite a surreal scene at the end there, down at the parliament... looking down at a thousand bobbing yellow highlighter pens... I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
Still, its got to start somewhere. Hope this is just the beginning.
Posted 11 years ago # -
"Did he persevere with his folly?"
I don't know but he was swearing and foaming as we went past, we were reasonably near the start though, just a few hundred back I think.. I wonder if it was the same one who threw a psycho at Kaputnik the other day? He sounds equally out of control if it wasn't.
That was just ace! Really enjoyed seeing soo many people there. Looks as if the wheels really are turning on this revolution. :-)
Many many thanks and congratulations to the organisers! I hope you are all giving yourselves huge pats on the back.
Posted 11 years ago # -
"Did he persevere with his folly?"
I was about a third of the way back, cycling next to the dapper gent in tweed, and the Taxi driver (as well as the BMW behind him) had a go at him, which the majority were rather outraged by - think he may have bitten off more than he could chew... (hint - mr Black Cab, if you plan on picking a fight with a cyclist, try not to do so when there are 3000 other cyclists, and the police, backing him up...)
Posted 11 years ago # -
Yeah, I reckon about 3,000 people there, maybe more. I've seen 1,300 cyclists two years ago, and this ride was at least twice that size.
"Hundreds" in the media: welcome to the world of spin. I recall an anti-poll tax demo I attended down in London a long time ago. Must have been 20,000 folk there, it was reported as 8,000 though. Don't expect those stories to be changed unless lots of folk badger the media outlets concerned...
Posted 11 years ago # -
I think there was probably around 900.
Happy to be wrong, though.
Posted 11 years ago # -
When I first showed up around 2.15, it looked like under 1,000. But then a load of people arrived, it got really busy. The line of riders took about half an hour or more just to leave the Meadows. We were near the back and it seemed like ages...
There were about 300 folk outside St Andrews House in January. This was so much bigger. I had a look around when the final riders arrived at Holyrrod and it was more than 2,000, that's for sure. I though about 3,000 or more.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I don't know how accurate the figure given for the London ride is but so far we compare very well to it, BBC are saying over 5000.
(I thought we had about 3000 as well but I don't know how good I am at estimating crowd size. There was a huge number of people anyway.
Posted 11 years ago # -
The word on the street was 'about 2500'. I was about halfway between MMW crossroads and Argyle Place, and the line of cyclists behind me was stretching quite a long way along Melville Drive when the lead group started moving.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Bax said "I think there was probably around 900.
Happy to be wrong, though."
I tried twice to count people as we were outside Parliament - I got 900 to 1000 also, but it was VERY difficult and it could easily have been 1500, but agree with Bax - happy to be wrong.
Posted 11 years ago # -
it took 25 minutes for a very dense line to pass up middle meadow walk. we were still on MMW when the first cyclists got to holyrood (confirmed both by a friend there who rang us, and police there who were rung by the tail police)> I brought 120 cyclists from harrison park - there were far more than 10 times that in the main ride.
Posted 11 years ago # -
it took 25 minutes for a very dense line to pass up middle meadow walk. we were still on MMW when the first cyclists got to holyrood (confirmed both by a friend there who rang us, and police there who were rung by the tail police)> I brought 120 cyclists from harrison park - there were far more than 10 times that in the main ride.
Posted 11 years ago # -
the Times - still our newspaper of record? - says 3000!
Posted 11 years ago # -
@SRD - That's astonishing!
@Bax: Taxi driver merrily carried on having a go at those who dared look at him until he turned onto South Bridge. I told him to "have some respect, mate"... His linguistic skills didn't seem to have improved in the time it took to make my comment!
Posted 11 years ago # -
can someone more clearhaded than me at this point do the right comparison: London 10,000 out of ? pop, versus Scotland 3000 out of ? pop
Posted 11 years ago # -
Even 'pretending' that POP was whole of Scotland - pretty impressive.
Posted 11 years ago # -
London: pop 7,825,200, Scotland: pop 5,222,100 (2010 estimate).
To be fair some cyclists did come from a long way away to attend the POP. I imagine it was not only London residents either in London.
Posted 11 years ago # -
I reckon about 2,300 to 2,700, and I work in the business of counting heads at events in Edin. A lot melted away just after the speeches got going at Parliament, so a head count at the grass probably was not representative of those who actually cycled the route! So nice to see little kids and parents, and getting large chunks of the street given over to cyclists! Well done to the organisers, a good afternoon was had by all including the Polis! RH
Posted 11 years ago # -
In defence of the London showing, did you see what the weather was like down there on Saturday?
Posted 11 years ago # -
For those trying to determine how many were there:
That's the space taken up by 60 people car/bus/bike
Looking at the 60 bikes I think you could easily multiply that up by 40 or 50 for the meadows queue...Damn the crop
Posted 11 years ago # -
Yeah, I have that image too. Try shrinky dinkying it in your favourite image editing software first.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Right click on the image and click "View Image" it shows it as large as it'll go. (Firefox any way)
Posted 11 years ago # -
Next time (....) we'll have to arrange an official count. I'd be happy to volunteer (though I am rubbish at counting despite my profession).
Posted 11 years ago # -
It was 3001.
I counted them.
Simple truth is - no-one knows. (Unless the CIA had a satellite overhead).
It was never possible to see them all.
There are definitely around 2000 in this pic, and, by various accounts, a lot out of sight on Melville Drive.
People were still arriving. Some will have joined en route and others will have gone straight to Holyrood.
Doesn't entirely matter.
A lot.
More than expected.
And yet, not many in the big scheme of things.
Important thing is that a lot of people were doing it for the first time and were enthused/inspired.
Key thing is keep up pressures/momentums.
We've won bits of the argument - it should be 'safer' to cycle, but now there are institutional pressures to be 'more visible' and 'wear protection'.
We haven't got across the message that many people would prefer to cycle rather than drive (for some journeys).
We haven't really got through to CEC that fixing the basics - potholes, drop kerbs etc. - is important to cyclist AND pedestrians.
BUT there are now more people who want things to get better!
Posted 11 years ago # -
@Crowriver - not got time to do that at work - finding better option of grabbing the google preview - and finding a newer image from Russia(?)
regarding number, idea: Give every bike a number to zip tie on, they keep it til next time and assume the same place in the queue at the start so they can meet the same strangers again and again and start to make new friends and connections...
Spread you and your family out along the queue so you get even more new friends.Posted 11 years ago # -
It should be fairly easy to get an (under) estimate just by standing on the Royal Mile and counting the cyclists passing. Much easier than making the estimate in the Meadows or Parliament.
Posted 11 years ago # -
But I'd agree that we shouldn't get too hung up on the numbers.
Posted 11 years ago # -
@spytfyre - yeah that works too. That new photo is Greek, by the looks of that alphabet.
This is the version I have on my office wall:
Posted 11 years ago #
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