Not half bad: Green light for bike-friendly Barcelona

It's dispiriting to compare our current chilly spring with Barcelona's. I was there in March and it was lovely.

It's dispiriting to compare Barça's cycling situation with London's, too. The Catalan capital has gone from having no bike culture to a thriving one in just a decade or so.

I know which capital I'd rather live in too, and it's not just because of the two-euro bottles of wine and Mediterranean beachside.

Partly Barça's bike-friendliness is due to the very popular cycle-hire scheme, 'Bicing' (right) - for locals only, sadly, so I couldn't have a go on one.

Partly it's due to the system of cycle tracks round the city centre (top right), taking advantage of those wide boulevards. A bit skeletal, but useful; outside it, Barça's cyclists thread in and out of pedestrians in the narrow streets of the old Barrio Gotic, and nobody seems to mind much.

Whatever the case, the cycling scene is strong. And none of this hi-vis-jacket-and-helmet nonsense you have in London: like York, it's full of normally-clothed people just getting from A to B on two wheels.

And one traffic light caught my eye (right). Not only does the pedestrian appear to be kicking the bike - perhaps he's annoyed with so much pavement cycling after all - but there's only half a bike.

Perhaps it's the missing front half of the traffic light in York I noted recently...

Water under the bridge - and over the cycle path

York is famous for many things: Minsters, sweets, horse races, FA Trophy victories.

It's also gearing up for the York Mystery Plays in August, the first such for decades.

But right now there's a more pressing York speciality on our minds: city-centre flooding on the banks of the Ouse.

It's not an infrequent state of affairs, as shown by the permanent sign just off the riverside path (right) ready to be deployed, rather wearily, whenever there's another period of relentless rainfall - or as it's called in Britain, 'hosepipe ban'.

For anyone doing the Trans Pennine Trail or White Rose Route, they either have a detour along Bishopthorpe Road, or some aquaplaning along the inundated cycle track (right).

Over the Millennium Bridge on the other side of the river, things are no better.

It's not as bad as it can get. Levels were a foot or two higher back in January, for instance.

But with more rain forecast for this week, it might be time to invest in an ark.

Which, funnily enough, is one of the scenes in that Mystery Play... somehow it's all now making sense.

Public bike pumps? I'll drink to that

A public bicycle pump has been installed near Waterloo station, on Kennington Road outside the Three Stags Pub, my old south London stomping ground.

This exciting news, and picture, comes from the SE1 website.

It's another inventive cycle-parking initiative from Anthony Lau. Other works of Anthony's I've blogged about before include the Cyclehoop (which converts lamp-posts and street signs into cycle parking) and a car-shaped bike rack (which has been doing the rounds of south London, sometimes taking locked bikes with it when it gets moved).

Putting the bike pump outside a pub is an excellent idea. If your tyres are a bit flat you can top them up easily, and enjoy a beer while you do so.

If only London's outrageously short-measure pub pints were as easily seen to. Living in York does have its advantages.

Gormless to Gormley: Biking the Angel of the North, and other statues

I was in Newcastle this week, with bike, obviously. I like Newcastle, and the way it makes me feel so over-dressed and under-tattooed.

More about the Toon soon, but first, the Angel of the North (right). Antony Gormley's iconic statue is three miles or so south of the Tyne bridges, a straight cycle down the A167 Durham Road through Gateshead to Low Fell.



The cycle route is barely adequate - a mishmash of on- and off-road lanes and tracks - so it's quite a bit better than the rest of Newcastletynesagegateshead or whatever the marketeers call it these days.

There's a path up to the base of the Angel (right), and a splendid thing it is too. Heavier than you think, good-looking in a lumpy kind of way, and ageing gently in the northern rain, it reminds me a lot of me.

But it's not my favourite Gormley. At least, not for its bike-interactive possibilities.



I was very fond of the temporary statues - simulacra of the artist himself - that stood naked on and around Waterloo Bridge a few years ago.

We were very excited by their potential use as cycle parking (right).



But the top Gormley statue for cyclists, or non-cyclists, has to be Another Place (right) at Crosby (just off the Trans Pennine Trail).

I think it looks rather better with a bike in hand. It helps me relate to the statue that bit more. Especially as it's standing in a puddle looking lost.

Water carry-on: Rum roadworks in York

Yorkshire Water are busy digging up York's bike lanes at the moment.

The Planets Trail is up somewhere between Mars and Jupiter (right), necessitating a five-sides-of-a-hexagon detour through the asteroid belt, also known as Bishopthorpe housing estate.

As I discovered yesterday en route to a job yesterday. It made me arrive five minutes late, despite travelling at six times the speed of light, according to the scale.



More worrying is this operation on Malton Road, the A1036, between Monks Cross and the Toby Carvery, where hungry cyclists can refuel on limitless hearty vegetables.

Not only is the cycle lane (but only the cycle lane) closed off on a fast, busy road where some cars pass too close anyway.

First breath of wind and some of the plastic barriers do their impression of a Saturday night stag party in Stonegate, collapsing chaotically.

This forces cyclists out even further into the territory too many drivers think belongs exclusively to them (above right). The carvery must be quite an attraction, because most of the drivers can't wait to get there.

Cycling images and misconceptions: What I think I do... etc

On Facebook right now there's a fad for posting up humorous photo-essays contrasting perceived and real images of people's jobs.

The joke is the contrast between What I Think I Do, What My Mum Thinks I Do, What I Really Do, etc, and the general misconceptions people have.

Well, here's my contribution. (The image links to a larger version.) Have a nice weekend.

Bell lettres: Bike show in York Library

This week, York's library has an exhibition of bikes (right).

It's promoting cycling, specifically Sustrans's Big Pedal (5-23 March).

It's of interest to kids on half-term, and cycling bloggers with a similar mental age who also have nothing better to do.



There's some interesting stuff in the small display, notably this 1890s Safety Bicycle (right), from a private collection.

It has different sized wheels (30" front, 28" back), and a fixed gear.

No doubt the transport of choice for late-Victorian cycle couriers, dodging the Hansoms to deliver urgent packages of snuff in their bowler hats.



The bike also sports a state-of-the-art front light consisting of a candle (right)...



...and a bell (right) that sits on the front tyre and rings all the time you are in motion.

That would shut up those cycletrack jaywalkers who complain in local newspapers about silent bikes approaching from behind.



There's also a table made out of bicycle wheels (right) - I'd rather like one of these...



...and a novelty seat made from a bike saddle and frame part (right).

Handy where space is a premium, or you have unexpected guests you don't want to stay long.



The two objects above came (we're told) from the Bike Rescue project just by York station, which sells reconditioned old bikes for delightfully small amounts of money.

(You can typically pick up a preloved town bike, a Raleigh ten-speed perhaps, with three months' warranty, for eighty quid or so.) We like them.

Such rescue bikes don't all get intricate paint jobs like the one on display in the library (above right) but it certainly makes your bike distinctive.


Round the back of the display is a pinup gallery of kids' poems about their bikes.

"I love my bike, it makes me smile
I can cycle for almost a mile
It is shiny and pink
And it lives near the sink",

goes my favourite.

It's just crying out for a final, limerickish line, though. How about "Now I'm off to the pub for a while"?