News mill: York has UK's top roundabout - official

York's Holgate Mill 'roundabout' (all pictures; see map) has been chosen as the top gyratory in the UK by the prestigious UKRAS (UK Roundabout Appreciation Society). Their 2013 calendar features it on the front cover.

After the good news making the York Press yesterday, the mainstream media has picked up on it, and when I arrived this morning, there was a camera crew doing a feature for Look North tonight.

Well, I say 'crew'. It was one bloke doing camera, sound, interviewing and direction. In TV school they call this versatility. In TV itself they call it economy.

Anyway, after his interview with tourismo tsarina Gillian Cruddas (right), the multitasking camera guy borrowed my bike to get footage riding round the thing itself (bottom right).

He then videoed me doing the same, so you may briefly glimpse me in the feature tonight.

And I say 'roundabout'. It's not a real roundabout as it doesn't serve a junction; it's just a doughnut-shaped episode of a residential through-street - Windmill Rise, about half a mile south of the station - that happens to enclose a rather nice restored mill, landed Tardis-like amid a housing estate.

But it did look quirkily attractive (right) in today's crisp autumn sunshine.

Much in the same way as I didn't, following my recent grapple with a feisty Bradford curry.

Flood is thicker than water: Cycling York's new Everglades

York's great flood - the biggest since 2000 - topped out at 5m above normal on Wednesday last week.

It wasn't the best time to realise you'd left a bike locked to the riverside racks by Lendal Bridge (picture).

Or to attempt to cycle the riverside path north out of the city (picture) without a wetsuit.

But now, over a week on - even though the river has dropped to near normal levels - many surrounding areas are still under water. The low-lying meadows north of the city are huge water tanks, storing up potential flood water until it can be safely flushed down the Ouse.

Cycling is, therefore, not always straightforward (picture).

York's outskirts are more like the Everglades. Here's the riverside path (picture) just north of Skelton, a couple of miles from the centre, last Thursday.

This particular bike ride decided not to go any further; anyway, one of the group said they were allergic to fish.

And this (picture) is Rowntree Park this morning, transformed into a giant lake, a little bit of Florida in East Yorkshire.

There's No Cycling in the park, though local custom is to ignore it. Nobody was cycling today, though.

So perhaps York's city centre Pavement Cycling problem will resolve itself soon, thanks to global warming: those low-lying footways will simply be too flooded too often to bother cycling on.

Rio grand: Cycling in Madrid

I've just come back from Madrid. As the pleasant young man in Tourist Info confidently told me when I asked for a bike map, there isn't such a thing. Nobody cycles in Madrid.

Last Sunday (top right and bottom right) I rode past several thousand of those nobodies, on the new 10km riverside cycle path and in the vast parklands of Casa de Campo.

In the centre of town, true, cyclists are as rare as a vegetarian bullfighter. There are no cycle lanes at all, and virtually no cycle parking. And I thought Manchester was bad.


This is a typical scene (right): intrepid bloke on bike wondering whether to risk riding up the main road, or weave in and out of strolling pedestrians on the footpath. Or just give up and spend all afternoon with beer and tapas.

But a few cyclists do ride around the old centre. It's not only possible but, in the mazy backstreets, actually quite pleasant. If you've cycled in London, and certainly Manchester, central Madrid will seem no more challenging.


So I hired a bike from the excellent Trixi Bikes - only 8 euros for four hours - and spent a blissful Sunday afternoon on two wheels.

The few miles of that riverside cycle path, Madrid Rio (right, see map of path), and Casa de Campo, were absolutely stuffed with cyclists. Clearly a lot of people have bikes, and a lot will use them if the facilities are there.


Facilities such as bike-friendly bars and cafes: Casa de Campo was full of them, their bike racks full with Sunday riders enjoying a one-euro-fifty glass of beer with free tapas (right).

As I blogged in May, Barcelona turned itself from a cycle desert into a cycle oasis in a few years thanks to sheer political will.

There's nothing to stop Madrid - whose main roads are gridlocked with motor traffic despite good public transport - doing the same.


Despite the fact that, as the Tourist Info man said, nobody cycles.

Sermon on the dismount: Bike-unfriendly works by the Hub

What planet are the contractors on? These roadworks (right) happen to be right outside the Hub, York’s friendly bike-recycling place.

The signs give priority for traffic going away from the camera up the narrow half of the street left available.

But another sign tells cyclists to dismount – even though motorbikes and cars are evidently fine to proceed.

Most cyclists, I’m happy to say, ignore the ‘Dismount’ instruction (which I’m assured has no legal status) and ride assertively but cautiously straight up the middle, as they have every right to do.



Some, though, get caught in two minds (top picture), not sure whether to dismount and push along the pavement (which isn’t wide enough for a pushing cyclist to pass a ped coming the other way in any case) or to sidle up the extreme left-hand side, which encourages oncoming vehicles to try and pass dangerously rather than give way as they should.

Of course, the smart cyclist (bottom picture) rides in behind a car, using it as a force-field.

The contractors would no doubt say they have safety in mind, but the effect – as we know from our experience here – is that it persuades some drivers that cyclists ‘shouldn’t be on the road’.

This is an opinion they are so happy to share with us, they will even break off from their mobile phone call to do so.

Instead of 'Cyclists Dismount', the sign should say 'Cyclists Proceed (but watch out for bad drivers)'. And as well as 'Give way to oncoming traffic', the sign at the other end of the roadworks should add 'including cyclists'. In theory.

But then, in theory, it's possible to land a robot the size of a Mini on Mars, and we all know that could never happen. Unless that's the planet that the contractors are on.

Mystery is over: Dinosaur cycle parking

I installed this new bike parking in my front yard this afternoon.

It’s a topiary diplodocus: one of the props from the much-admired York Mystery Plays, which finished last Monday. At the after-show party on Tuesday they auctioned off some of the props, which included a set of topiary animals depicting Creation: elephant, snake, shark, unicorn etc.

(Diplodocid sauropods are not specifically mentioned in Genesis, true, which is one of the reasons I was keen to have it.)

And cycling was a part of Mysteries (just as it was part of the Olympic opening ceremony, with those dove bikes). During the Creation scene, angels on bikes whirled in and out of the hedgy megafauna, harvesting fruit in their baskets.

The bikes were auctioned off at the end of the party, too, perhaps offering an alternative to that taxi home for some.

So now, when I invite some of my fellow thesps from the show, they’ll have somewhere familiar to put their bikes when they come for dinner.

Decorated at the Olympics: Weybridge's bike sculptures

Legacy was a keyword for the Olympics, and Weybridge has celebrated its inclusion in the Cycling Road Race route by putting up some entertainingly decorated bikes at various points, apparently as legacy sculptures.

Here are some at one roundabout we passed (pictures) while I was leading a leisure ride earlier this week.

We stopped for a group photo, pretending to ride the bikes. I nearly got flattened by a lorry mounting the roundabout as I took the snap.

I don’t want to address the question of my own personal legacy in detail just yet, thank you.

Decorated bikes are even at Brooklands, the historic motor racing circuit and museum, just up the road (picture).

And some locals have even done their own bike installations in tribute to the cycling racers (picture).

Or perhaps it’s the only way they can beat the bike-shed thieves.

Ten Top Yorkshire cycling experiences

It's Yorkshire Day, so here's Ten Top Cycling Experiences in Yorkshire. (That's PROPER Yorkshire, not the post-1974 boundary-meddling nonsense.)

1 Spurn Head
One of Britain's strangest rides: four miles along a windswept sand spit, sometimes no wider than a York cycle lane, to a remote community of austere beauty.

2 Swaledale
A glorious downhill that cuts through sheepy hills and delightful villages such as Keld and Muker and Reeth – the pubs aren't bad either. Entry via Buttertubs Pass (right) is not always flat


3 Scarborough-Whitby railtrail
The views on this coastal cinder-track marvel, particularly from Ravenscar to Whitby via Robin Hood's Bay, stop you in your tracks. As does the often bad surface – you need a mountain bike



4 Humber Bridge
The world's longest single-span suspension bridge that you can cycle over. A thing of wonder – as in, I wonder if it'll ever be paid for


5 York
Probably England's cyclingest city outside Cambridge. Pedestrianised centre is a pain but lovely cycle paths by the river and sometimes under it, a fabulous Millennium Bridge, city-wall gates to cycle through, and a scale model of the planets!


6 Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge
One of a handful in the world: fly across the Tees with your bike for 70p on a cross between a ferry, bridge, tennis court and coat hanger



7 Way of the Roses
Almost all in Yorkshire, this varied and often challenging three-day coast-to-coast takes you from Morecambe, in somewhere called Lancashire, to Bridlington on the seabird coast


8 The North York Moors
A trekker's micro-alpine gem, with flattish offroad tracks criss-crossing the moortops. Lunch at Blakey Inn and climb Rosedale Chimney, officially England's steepest road climb

9 Dentdale
Cycle-camp in the quintessential Dales town of Dent. Explore the Three Peaks and Cam High Road, an astonishing Roman-road bridleway that gunbarrels its way straight over the hills

10 Five Rise Locks
The steepest hill on Britain's canal towpaths? Hurtle (carefully) down by the famous staircase-lock marvel at Bingley, and explore the post-industrial world of Saltaire and Leeds from the saddle.

Happy Yorkshire Day!