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...

TV seeks cyclist: Bike programmes on BBC iPlayer

BBC4 last night had a bike-themed evening of programmes. Two of them, conveniently for those of us who don't have a television, are available for the next few days on iPlayer.

The Bicycle is a half-hour history-of-the-bike, but concentrating on the Edwardian period - the Golden Age of the Bicycle.


And in the hour-long Ride of my life: The story of the bicycle, Rob Penn treads a giant carbon footprint over most of the G7 as he assembles his dream bike.

With TV-programme logic, instead of simply ordering his Brooks saddle or Campag parts over the internet, Rob has to buy them all in person in a journey of discovery etc.

En route we also get an enjoyable history of the bicycle. Nice to while away a spare hour with, while you're on hold trying to phone your bank, perhaps. It's all feelgood stuff, and we're reassured several times that today is the beginning of a new Golden Age of the Bicycle.

Hmm. Perhaps iron pyrites would be more appropriate.

BBC joins the cycling debate

BBC London's magazine show Inside Out last night featured an item on Lycra Louts. You can see it again on BBC's iPlayer for the next seven days.

As you'd expect, it's all very fuzzy and never quite knows what it's complaining about. Like the local-paper letter writer with their green biro, it just splutters vague cliches: things have gone too far, the pendulum's swung the other way, something must be done.

Jumping red lights? They produce no evidence that this causes accidents. In fact, a recent study did not particularly show that such behaviour causes accidents.

There are many places where jumping red lights - oh, alright then, getting off your bike and remounting just the other side of the red lights which is perfectly legal and achieves the same effect - is the only safe thing to do. London Road, near the Elephant, is an example.

In the programme they show a Kensington cyclist pulled up by the police for jumping a red. He politely explains that there was nobody on the crossing and no traffic. Now, we know that vehicles in ASLs never get nicked. It's because the police think the penalty is too harsh - sixty quid and three points - for a trivial offence. But here are cyclists getting done, because it's only thirty quid and that's OK.

Why, when we know that vehicles kill people and bicycles don't? Well, as the programme explains, it's because residents help police set priorities. The problem being that the meetings where these are decided take place at times like 10am on Thursday mornings, when only a certain chippy type of retired resident is likely to be able attend. At least, as recent experience in the City shows, such priorities can be reversed by simply turning up. (Luckily, such times are convenient for unemployable cycle bloggers.)

So was the programme's complaint about pavement cycling? Partly. They interview the mother of a child who was hit by a pavement cyclist. I'd be pretty pissed off, like her, if that had happened to me. Pavement cycling is at best terrible PR, and at worst very rude and mildly dangerous and people shouldn't do it. Or at least not when there's anybody about, particularly a film crew. But then I nearly get killed once a week on average by buses and taxis flouting the law, and bugger all gets done about that, except for form email responses.

Of course, the programme can't come up with any figures to show how bad the Pavement Menace is. There aren't any, because it's a problem mostly created in the pages of silly newspapers and the minds of silly people. The only figure it comes up with is Westminster Council's estimate that '1 in 5' cyclists 'flout the law', whatever that's supposed to mean. Well, 1 in 5 drivers are said to be uninsured in London, and I know which pose the greater danger. They talk about 'zero tolerance'. Why not for all road users, then?

And, inevitably, they visit Critical Mass, an event many Real Cyclists are ambivalent about, and show images of people honking trumpets and blocking the traffic, rather forgetting that traffic itself blocks traffic on Friday evenings in London pretty effectively.

And they didn't manage to get anyone to put the cyclists' case effectively. They got someone in fancy dress at CM (of course) and Tom Bogdanowicz from the LCC, who always has the worried look of a politician who's left his laptop on the train. They should have tracked down the Waltham Forest blogger and interviewed them alongside anti-cyclist Councillor Angela Harvey, who also features in the video, evidently on her way to the theatre. That'd be worth watching.

Oh well. Watch it and smile wryly.

New Hovis ad set in age of Victoria

Olympic cycling gold medallist Victoria Pendleton has just filmed a TV advert (right) as part of her new three-year deal to be a brand ambassador for brown bread.

The new ad references one of the famous on British TV: a boy pushing his bread delivery bike up, then clattering down, Gold Hill in Shaftesbury (other pics). (It's all on YouTube.) It ran through the 1970s to the strains of a brass band parping the Largo from Dvorak's Symphony No 9 in E minor, or as we classical musicians call it, the 'Hovis'.

The director of that original was Ridley Scott (later of Bladerunner fame), while the boy actor, Carl Barlow, got the part because he was the only one of the candidates who was both prepared to have a haircut and who could ride a bike.


One of the chapters in my book 50 Quirky Bike Rides tells you how to recreate this very advert, complete with map. Here's an extract...

“Laaast stop on round would be old Ma Peggotty's place,” you reminisce as you push up, about an epoch so distant definite articles had not fully evolved. “'Twas like taking bread to the top of the world!”

Turn round and rattle downhill. “'Twas a grand ride back though,” you continue, twasly. The tourists sitting outside the cafe at the top of the hill will be taking pictures of you. And pointing at you and sniggering.


To re-enact the rest of the ad you can visit one of bakeries the centre of town, or one of the pubs: “And aaafterward, I knew baker would ’ave kettle on and doorsteps of ’ot ’Ovis ready. ‘There's ’olemeal in ’Ovis,’ he'd say.

‘Get it inside you, lad, does you
 good, that. One day you'll go up that hill as faaast as you come dewn!’"

Finish with the 1973-style Voice of Authority, obviously a chap with a pipe. “Hoe-vis,” you say, mindful of your elocution lessons. “It's ez good for yew todayyy, ez it's warlways beeyan”.


What next in the cycling-icons-do-TV-nostalgia thing? Chris Hoy as the Green Cross Code man? Rebecca Romero serving Ferrero Rocher at the ambassador's party? Bradley Wiggins doing covers of The Jam videos?

Actually, he'd be rather good at that.

DSA's new TV ad shows real cycling hand signals

The Driving Standards Agency's new TV advert has just gone up on YouTube. It shows an animated man walking out of a 'pedestrian crossing' sign, driving round a cartoonland of other animated figures from road signs, and eventually getting on a bike and riding away into the sunset.

It's nice animation, presumably making the point that, er, the Highway Code is, um, something something something.

And it's good that they've made it reflect the reality of everyday cycling. For example, in the way the car overtakes the cyclist far too closely (above right) and cuts sharply in front of him, even though the road is completely empty.


And, if you look closely (right), you'll see the cyclist demonstrating his knowledge of hand signals in response.

Bike cash for gold

Fans of daytime TV will be familiar with those cash-for-gold ads. If you have old gold hanging round the house that you haven't pawned yet, you just ring them up and they send you a padded envelope. You pop in your unwanted gold, send it off, and by return they send you a cheque for a quarter of what it's worth.

For this all-solid-gold bike, for example, spotted on High Holborn yesterday, you'd get about fifty quid. If you could find a jiffy bag large enough.

Mae hen feic fy nhadau yn annwyl i mi

Southwark Cyclists' mailing list, first with the news as ever, has just drawn my attention to this new TV ad which features Welsh singer-songwriter Duffy riding a bike (right).

Hooray! Another victory for Real Cycling! No helmet or lycra nonsense, just a good honest generic bike. Shame it doesn't have a rack or panniers, though. And not sure I'd recommend trying to ride through convenience stores.