live-cycle

So just what is the condition of cycling in Britain? The news over the past week or so gives a confusing picture.
On the minus side We begin with a National Audit Office report that the number of cyclists killed or seriously injured rose by 11% between 2004 and 2007. In 2007 alone, it said, 136 cyclists were killed and 16,000 injured.
On the plus side But, confusingly, the CTC put out a report at the same time saying that the number of cycle accidents had gone down by 33% since the mid-1990s. The CTC added that the number of regular cyclists in London had increased by 91% in the past nine years.
One the plus side One place where the number of British riders has increased is the Giro d’Italia - a record nine British riders started the race, and Mark Cavendish has already snatched two stage wins and, lazily, as he admits, missed a third.
On the minus side David Cameron has again become the victim of bicycle thieves. His Scott went missing while chained to railings outside his house. (Even in the leafy bit of Kent where I live I wouldn’t chain my bike outside my house.) This gobbet of information was accompanied, in The Guardian, but yet another picture of our wannabe Prime Minister cycling along bare-headed, helmet over the handlebars.
On the minus side The Tour of Wessex, due on bank holiday Monday, has been cancelled after the police asked the organisers for £140,000 to train motorcycle outriders. It is the fourth amateur event to be cancelled this year.
So, with all that going on, where is the “bounce” in cycling that we expected after such a successful Olympic campaign last year? Where are our next Nicole Cookes and Mark Cavendishes (and, indeed, Chris Boardmans) to come from, if we can’t manage to hold events for aspiring beginners?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 20th, 2009 at 8:54 am and is filed under Dennis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.