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!

E-read all about it: Bicycle Reader issue 1 – review

E-readers are now mainstream. It’s no longer a surprise to see someone next to you whiling away an hour or two – in the queue in York post office to buy a stamp, perhaps – with a Kindle or Kobo.

And for the everyday cyclist, the e-reader is a pannier essential: unlimited, lightweight, space-efficient reading matter to pass the time with that riverside picnic, or waiting for the red light on Clifton Moorgate to change.

Addressing just this sort of situation is Bicycle Reader (picture), a periodical e-magazine curated by cycle journos Jack Thurston (of the Bike Show) and Tim Dawson (a Sunday Times Cycle Guy columnist), which aims to assemble the best in new and classic thoughtful writing about bikes: essays, extracts, articles, opinions.

In the first issue, Summer 2012, Jack’s Up and Tim’s Down (yes, about climbs and descents, which requires a bit of imagination in the Vale of York’s ironing-board topology) frame eight diverse pieces.

There’s Mark Twain’s sardonic 1884 account of learning to ride a ‘penny-farthing’. It’s known chiefly for its conclusion (“Get a bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live.") so it’s nice to discover its quotable, period-portrait entirely (“If you try to run over the dog he knows how to calculate, but if you are trying to miss him he does not know how to calculate, and is liable to jump the wrong way every time.").

Gentle, bygone-era travel pieces from Violet Paget (posh continental picnics) and Albert Winstanley (back-lane exploration of the Trough of Bowland) complement fresh writing about car-free living in LA and bike politics in Washington DC. A polite-but-passionate Victorian debate about wheeling issues (Cyclomania) contrasts with Paul Lamarra’s absorbing exploration of the unheralded Scotland just off the M74.

The most fascinating item is probably Martin Ryle’s Vélorutionary, a philosopher-cyclist’s view of the bike’s role today that was previously seen only in a niche journal, Radical Philosophy. Biking helps us all think - Sir Bradley himself has said how much his time in the saddle has helped him work things out in his head – but while we fete the professional cyclist who can think a bit, it’s good to celebrate the professional thinker who cycles too. Though the question I usually mull over as I cycle home from the post-Mystery-Play- Rehearsals pub session is how to best stay upright.

There’s no shortage of words about cycling these days, though much of it is disposable: angry blogs, fluffy travelogues, rewritten press releases posing as news. (Yes, yes, I know, I’m as guilty as anyone. But as someone says in the Mystery Plays, let those among you without sin cast the f– ow! Ow! OWW!)

But this is a collection worth not just reading but re-reading – thinking stuff ideal for chewing over in that leisurely sandwich break or unwanted train delay. At the price of two packets of pub crisps it’s good value, and I look forward to the second edition later this year.

Did it ring your bell?: ITV4 The Cycle Show Mon 23 Jul - review

ITV4’s new weekly series The Cycle Show (right) got pedalling last night, promising to cover all aspects of the bike world from road racing to commuting. You can watch it for the next few days on ITV’s player.

Top Gear for bikes it certainly isn’t. The microbudgets of fringe TV see to that. No joshing MAMILs racing each other on butcher’s bikes down the Bolivian Road of Death here.

Instead what we got was a slightly awkward chat, filmed in the cut-price venue of London’s cool-cycle-cafe par excellence Look Mum No Hands, largely between affable presenter Graham Little and Nigel Mansell, F1-champ-turned-cyclist.

The world’s Second Greatest Living Manxman pronounced on the historic achievement of Sir Bradley, Team Sky, Cav (the First Greatest Living Manxman), and that wossname bloke who came second. He skipped through the gears of sofa-TV cliches - awesome, incredible, amazing... er... awesome – without ever managing to engage one of them.

Graeme Obree was also on the upholstery. I have a great affection for the clock-beating Scot, whose battle with demons - entertainingly portrayed on film - may be familiar to many of us.

His double-espresso exploration of the sofa space – often leaning forward to hear what was being said over the hubbub from the cafegoers behind – provided a nice counterpoint to Mansell’s instant-coffee blandness.

It was good to see footage of Obree’s latest speed bike, a contraption which looks frankly frightening. Though if you’ve stared down the abyss, as Obree has, then having mere high-speed tarmac two inches from your nose may feel relatively benign.

The special guest on the squashy seat for the second half was Gary Fisher, godfather of mountain biking, looking scarily like the magician-grandfather in a Disney flop.

He said some pleasantly positive things about not very much, and the programme ended with the bizarre sight of Obree and Fisher racing each other on sprint machines. Obree won, by a whisker, the way he glanced round near the end engagingly suggesting that he was ensuring victory over the plucky (and extremely fit) Mr F by only a small, diplomatic, margin. He’d even sported a pair of comedy Wiggo sideburns too: hats off, Graeme.

Their views on safety summed up the difference between Mansell and Obree. Always wear a helmet, said the now unmoustached one glumly. No: wobble a bit, suggested the animated Scot with a sly smile. Drivers will give you a much wider berth. Must say, I think that’s nearer the mark.

Anyway, two film reports complemented the coffee-table banter. A group of road bikers did the Box Hill circuit that’ll feature in the Olympics, half-heartedly giving us an idea of how basic racing tactics work; and a commuter gave us ‘safety tips’ for London. They were adequate as far as they went, which was just about up to the lights.

It’s easy to think of what they ought to be doing in the show. Where to go this weekend for a family spin; UK touring-route gems; news roundups on upcoming new routes, races, Skyrides and sportives; product reviews; a cycling YouTube top-ten each week, gathering up the best new helmetcam and other vids put up...

But such things need money, and the budget for producers Century TV must be as squeezed as a York cycle lane. Nevertheless, the first programme was like an energy bar when you need a sandwich: a well-meaning sugar rush that left an empty stomach.

Perhaps the biggest challenge is that cycling is an outdoor thing; the opposite of sitting on a sofa and watching a telly programme with people sitting on a sofa. We got rather a lot of that and it didn’t always make for inspiring viewing.

I’m happy to give it another watch next week, it might well improve, and I’d like to think a weekly programme could become a must-watch for bike fans.

But cycling on TV is not an easy ask. The subcultures – commuting, racing, touring, weekend leisure etc – can have little crossover, and the only ad money is in flogging high-end road kit. Chain Reaction sponsor the series and good for them, but Century TV’s task in making the series is challenged by high expectations from a diverse and demanding audience, and tiny budgets.

But then, that didn’t stop Graeme Obree...