Cyclenation

Cyclenation A.G.M.& Ride

2012-02-02T06:42:00.000-08:00

Cyclenation AGM advance notice
Notice is hereby given to all member groups that the AGM will take place on May 12th 2012 to be held at Carrs Lane Church Centre Birmingham starting at 11am. If any member group has any motion that they wish to be considered by the AGM the secretary must receive it at the latest 28 days before the AGM, ie 21st April.
The board intends to bring forward an amendment to the articles of association to allow for additional members of the board to be coopted to allow for a more representative and balanced board.

After the AGM & Lunch there is an (optional of course) Ride to Leicester via Market Bosworth: About 45 miles with two shorter options: dropping off at Coles Hill for trains on the Birmingham - Leicester line, or Atherstone ( about 20 miles) for trains between London Euston and Crewe. Leicester is on the Sheffield - London Midland Mainline as well as having train services between Birmingham and Stansted Airport via Cambridge.

Market Bosworth, close to the Battle of Bosworth site, is an interesting market town with a campsite, pubs, steam railway, canal and estate grounds.

Leicester has been making news with its groundbreaking policy of allowing cycling in the City Centre. Our final stop will be in the historic New Walk area, and the London Rd 'Golden Mile' of curry houses isn't far away.

Route Map Here

Conference advance notice

2012-02-02T06:40:00.000-08:00

A quick heads-up about a conference we're organising -we'll let you have more details when they're finalised.

The ogre of cycling danger is constantly with us in the media, local authorities and other groups, impeding our efforts to get more people cycling more often.

From Facilities to Helmets, Networks to Cycling Standards you’ll know that the truth gets trampled. But rebutting misinformation and criticisms of cycling is far from easy.

Be under no illusion we are up against increasingly stiff opposition, despite all the pro cycling rhetoric and strategies. Ironically much comes from quarters which claim to promote cycling oblivious to the fact that they’re doing exactly the opposite.

To help you fully understand the issues, get the facts at your fingertips and ready to engage locally with the media, councils and others Cyclenation has arranged a conference. We are bringing together a range of experts, not just from the world of cycling, but also from the likes of the Transport and Health Study Group, mainly epidemiologists and other medical professionals .

The full programme is being finalised but will cover the relative risks associated with cycling together with the health benefits .It’s important to have at least one delegate from each Cyclenation group up to speed . They would probably already have concerns over this aspect of campaigning, but anyone else wanting to gain an understanding would come away far better informed.

It’s free to Cyclenation members and CTC right to ride reps (although you or your local group will have to fund travel and lunch) .

Time and Place Saturday 21st April 2012, 10.30 for an 11.00 start to about 4pm at Carrs Lane Church centre Birmingham.

Get ready for a Summer of Cycling!

2012-01-09T09:11:00.000-08:00

This article, Carlton Reid, appeared in the Guardian Bike Blog today,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/bike-blog/2012/jan/09/summer-of-cycling-bike-organisations

Bike orgs and businesses agree on joint promotion for 2012 and beyond

The Summer of Cycling will be a non-denominational celebration of every facet of cycling, from the velodrome to the cycle path to the bike shop.

Riding a bike is practical. Fun, too. But the world of organisational cycling is famously fractious, riven with splits, some of them with amazingly ancient roots. Trying to get bicycle orgs to agree on something, on anything, is like herding proverbial cats.

Which makes a recent meeting all the more amazing: twenty three cycle organisations agreed on something. Something that could go big and could run and run.

In 2012, orgs are to go into a digital huddle to promote the Summer of Cycling. Details for exactly what this promotion will entail are still being worked out but to get any sort of consensus is Big News. And, unlike previous attempts at joint promotions, all the major orgs were present, there were no major omissions.

The meeting was held at the back-end of November last year in an upstairs committee room in the House of Commons. Present were executives from British Cycling, CTC, Sustrans, London Cycling Campaign, Cycling Scotland, the Bicycle Association, Bike Week, Transport for London, the Association of Cycle Traders, Halfords, the Tour of Britain, Cyclenation and other organisations. Chairing the meeting was Julian Huppert, the workaholic LibDem MP for Cambridge. He's the co-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Cycling Group, a cross-party bunch of bicycling MPs and peers.

The APPCG has no axe to grind, it's neutral. It could therefore bang heads together - gently - to call for the meeting to discuss a joint promotion for Olympic year. What was anticipated to be a heated meeting, with cycling factions splitting along the usual party lines, turned out to being a session of nodding heads. Instead of objections, there were offers of help, and from all quarters. Heady, unprecendented stuff.

It helped that the promotion won't be location-based: Cycling Scotland could flag-wave with the Summer of Cycling just as easily as Transport for London could tie it in to the Olympics. The promotion is cheap, it requires the organisations to submit their events to a database and then link to this central database via their own websites. Link farming, but for a good cause. Cost? Small banner-sized space for a clickable Summer of Cycling logo; the logo printed on business cards, or placed below email signatures. Later this week it may start to appear on corporate Christmas e-cards.

Introducing the concept, Huppert said:

"There needs to be a better cross over between all the cycling groups. We need to bring all the interests together. In 2012, we need cycling to say the same thing at the same time. Events could be linked together to flow from one event to another."

By linking together, cycling becomes bigger, stronger. This would pique the interest of ministers, said Huppert. He added it would also be a good hook for the media. With sport cycling expected to do well at the Olympics - with a potential gold medal winner at the opening event of the Games, Mark Cavendish in the road race - 2012 could be the year when cycling goes "top of mind", said Huppert.

Phillip Darnton, vice president of the Bicycle Association, agreed: "2012 ought to be year we sell more bikes than ever before. It ought to be the year more kids get cycle trained than ever before. More children should be cycling to school than ever before. And after the Olympics, more people than ever before should be lining the roads to watch the Tour of Britain."

The execs from the wide variety of cycling groups agreed to agree that the Summer of Cycling had great potential, and importantly, didn't conflict with any existing or planned promotions.

In March, Sustrans' Big Pedal - supported by Bike Hub, the industry's levy fund - will aim to get children in 1000 schools cycling for one million bike-to-school miles. This would be the kick-off event for the Summer of Cycling, with summer being a loose term, a very loose term, for March through to October.

The idea that most galvanised the meeting was the +1 concept: those taking part in events would be encouraged to bring one other person along. A proselytising pledge campaign could get new people to try cycling to work for the first time, or riding the wooden banks of a velodrome for the first time, or taking part in a long-distance challenge ride for the first time.

By linking events - even if the bond was little more than 180 pixels wide - the 23 organisations could benefit from social media cross pollination. Cycling, in effect, would be singing from the same hymn sheet. For once.

There's a holding website online at summerofcycling.net. There's a twitter feed (I bagged that during the meeting) and there's a logo, designed by the graphic artist who created the look for the Tour of Britain. The Summer of Cycling isn't exclusive to the 23 cycling organisations present at the first meeting. It's a promotion open to any business, any organisation, any club, any individual, any blogger, any magazine.

Feel free to join in. Bring a friend.

Infrastructure and Cyclists Safety Report

2011-12-01T01:26:00.001-08:00

The DFT has published a report on Infrastructure and Cyclists Safety and you can read it at
http://assets.dft.gov.uk/publications/infrastructure-and-cyclist-safety/infrastructure-and-cyclist-safety.pdf
There's a summary at
http://www.dft.gov.uk/publications/infrastructure-and-cyclist-safety
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What the Chancellors Autumn Statement means for cyclists...

2011-11-29T08:06:00.000-08:00

....Well, nothing, really.

In his autumn statement, George Osborne says his plans will mean:

"improving the performance, capacity, connectivity and environmental impacts of the UK’s transport networks including maintaining the status of the UK as an international hub for aviation; "

Specific infrastructure improvements are:

"extension of the Northern Line to Battersea
two new managed motorway schemes to allow use of the hard shoulder at congested times on the M3 and M6;
• improvements to M1/M6 Junction 19, the A14 Kettering Bypass, widening of the A453 and the A45/46 Tollbar End improvement scheme; and
• smaller projects which will deliver significant improvements on the road network, such as removing bottlenecks and improving safety and road layout.
More than £1.4 billion will be invested in railway infrastructure and commuter links, including:
• electrification of the Transpennine railway route from Manchester to Leeds and a rail link between Oxford and Bedford;
• enhancement and renewal works to improve stations and rail infrastructure, improve resilience against extreme weather and tackle problems more quickly; and

improvements to the quality of travel for rail users, including extending smart ticketing across London and the South East, supporting the Southern Rail franchise’s procurement of 130 new carriages and limiting the increase to regulated rail and Transport for London fares in January 2012 to the Retail Price Index plus one per cent.

The Government is committing £170 million of extra funding to allow more local transport projects to go ahead, including the Kingskerswell Bypass in Devon, the Lincoln Eastern Bypass and Manchester Cross City Bus, and will write down £150 million of debt on the Humber Bridge which will halve the tolls for cars. "

On the Northern Hub, we have weasel words. Electrification between Leeds and Manchesrter will be funded, but not the links between the mainline stations in Manchester that would facilitate the increased capacity that this will create.

There are some rail improvement which will help those cyclists who are dependent on public transport to complete their journeys. Oxford to Bedford for example, which is a fair way towards an Oxford - Cambridge link. Nothing directly for cycling though although the statement goes on to say "

"The Government’s £560 million Local Sustainable Transport Fund will also help to reduce emissions from vehicles, improve air quality and rural transport connections, by helping local transport authorities do more to encourage walking and cycling, improve public transport and make better connections between different forms of sustainable transport."

This however is money that was already committed.

It will be up to local campaigners to try to ensure that if the envisaged road schemes go ahead that they include decent facilities. I suspect that many of our local group will be working to try to ensure that these schemes don't go ahead - as we know, new roads don't cure congestion, they merely buy time.

News from the AGM

2011-05-24T02:39:00.000-07:00

The Cyclenation AGM decided to embrace Web 2.0 & Social Networking in all its aspects. You might therefore wish to explore the following means to communicate with us:-

Cyclenation on Twitter: @CyclenationUK

Cyclenation on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_212553935445357&ap=1

Other important stuff from the AGM:

We are very pleased to announce that Philip Darnton has agreed to become our Honorary President. Many of you will know of Philip from the excellent work he has done with Cycling England.

Two new members were welcomed to the Board : Jayne Rodgers (Portsmouth) & Graham Hankins (Birmingham) Jayne will be working with me on Communications (e.g. the Web 2.0 stuff mentioned above) while Graham will continue as Newsletter editor.

Roger Geffen came and talked to us about the possibilities for greater co-operation between ourselves and CTC, and the AGM authorised us to explore "Partial Engagement". We noted that Cyclenation with its network of local groups is ideally placed to address the current government localism agenda in a way that the other large pro-cycling organizations are not.

We also had a debate about Road Safety and agreed that Cyclenation could afford to be more forthright about the issues than some of the other large pro-cycling organizations, as we are not in receipt of any funding from any organizations other than our member groups.

Cyclenation - Get Involved

2011-04-03T02:48:00.000-07:00

We will have at least one vacancy on the Cyclenation Board this year - Howard Boyd has resigned on grounds on grounds of ill-health. John Pritchard is also receiving medical treatment and we wish both of these long-serving members of the Board well.

So this is your opportunity to step up if you would like to make a difference to cycle campaigning and indeed cycling in the UK today. The Board meets about 4 times a year, alternating between Birmingham and London - travel expenses are paid - and we have occasional teleconferences as well as conversing by email of course. We'd particularly like more input from women and minority groups.

If you'd like to contribute, you need to get yourselves nominated by your member group - nomination forms will be circulated to your designated contact address before the end of April. Elections are at the AGM in Birmingham on the 21st May and we hope to get a good turn-up for this - even if you don't feel you can stand for the board please get along to the AGM or make sure someone from your group does. Also at the AGM there will be a workshop on closer co-operation with the CTC, and after the meeting there will be a ride along the NCN, eventually reaching Burton-on-Trent but there are several dropping-off points en route where you can get a train back to Birmingham or elsewhere - contact me for more details.

We can see some opportunities for next year - with localism on the agenda our our local groups are going to be key to developing cycling, and we are the only cycling advocacy organisation with a network of local groups already in place. There are plenty of challenges up ahead as well! It will be an exciting time to be involved, so why not give it a shot?

Cyclenation calls for Strict Liability.

2011-02-02T02:28:00.001-08:00

Cyclenation is asking all its member groups to write to their local MP's to demand legislation on Strict Liability within the term of goverment of the present administration. A suggested letter is available below, and at the link:http://bit.ly/ggKB94l The letter itself hopefully explains what Strict Liability is all about, if you are not aware of the concept - however, a very good general definition is available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_liability

Some groups, for example Bristol, are asking one member a week to write to their MP thus ensuring a steady dripfeed of letters. However, even one letter, especially if it refers to local issues, may have an impact.

Please let us know if you have written a letter, and especially if you get a response, via secretary@cyclenation.org.uk. You can also use the comment facility on this blog to let us know about progress.

This is our proposed letter to MP’s asking them to support the principle of Strict Liability. Please feel free to amend it as you think fit, perhaps drawing attention to issues in your local area.

You can contact your MP via http://www.writetothem.com/

Dear [INSERT MP NAME HERE] MP

Hundreds of pedestrians and scores of cyclists get injured or killed by car drivers every year. The 2008 road casualty figures show that 332 pedestrians were killed in car/pedestrian collisions, and in car/ cyclist collisions 52 cyclists were killed. In all 390 cases not one car driver was killed. Amongst pedestrians, cyclists and car drivers, it is clear that the car driver is most likely party to inflict injury or death upon the others.

Similarly, when pedestrians and cyclists are involved in collisions, which is rare, it makes sense to conclude that the cyclist would be seen as the stronger party.This does not mean that either party is automatically to blame.

It goes against natural justice that the burden of proof would be on the more vulnerable road user and not the one who is actually more likely to cause harm: inflicting pain and suffering through causing injury, or devastating families by causing death.

If you think so too, it would be much appreciated if you could highlight to the Minister for Transport, the Minister for Road Safety and your party colleagues on the Transport Select Committee.that we should subscribe to a more civilised system that favours the vulnerable. Could I also please ask you to sign any Early Day Motions that relate to this.

Liability should be considered on a fair and proportionate basis to provide legal protection to the vulnerable road user. This could be achieved by establishing a hierarchy of care (as the Scottish Government is considering) where the burden of proof would always be on the user of the heavier vehicle (the party more likely to cause injury or death). This would show the commitment of this Government to its
agenda of societal and social fairness. It does not assume guilt on the part of the driver of the heavier vehicle.

This principle of proportionality described above is in place in all but four European countries,The UK being one of them. The other three are Ireland, Cyprus and Malta. It should be noted that stricter liability has not resulted in higher insurance premiums for motorists in the countries that have adopted it.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

With kind regards
[INSERT YOUR NAME OR SIGNATURE HERE]

Cyclenation AGM

2010-05-10T05:36:00.000-07:00

Don't forget our AGM in Birmingham this Saturday.

Cyclenation - working to create cycle-friendly communities across the UK

2009-08-26T01:32:00.000-07:00

Cyclenation is the federation of cycle campaign groups across the UK. We arose out of a recognition that the big cycling organisations were not really addressing the problems that urban utility cyclists face. Our emphasis is on changing the environment for urban cycling so that it is seen as a safe and healthy way to get around. To this end we support the 20's plenty campaign and moves to improve driver behaviour, such as stricter driver liability legislation. We support the vulnerable cyclist against the sheer mass of traffic that is clogging up our towns and cities.

If you are feeling aggrieved about your local cycling facilities and don't have a campaign group
in your town why not start one up?

Visit our main site http://www.cyclenation.org.uk for more information.