Browsing Archive: May, 2011

Tyneside Infrastructure Safari Part 1

Posted by Tom Bailey on Thursday, May 26, 2011,

The Coast Road Cycle Path

The Coast Road (A1058) is the 8 mile direct route between "The Coast" (Whitley Bay & Tynemouth) and Newcastle City Centre. Opened in the 1930's it was designed to serve suburban housing estates being constructed by the seaside and take a stream of traffic into the City, at the time there would have been very large numbers of cyclists using it. In the 1970's large sections of it were "upgraded" to grade separated dual carriageway. The planners at the time inten...

Say "NO" to cycle parking?

Posted by Tom Bailey on Wednesday, May 25, 2011,

I am slowly arriving at the conclusion that in a lot of cases when cycle campaigners around Tyneside are offered more cycle parking they should say "no thanks, please spend the money on something more useful". This sounds ungrateful, counter intuitive, perhaps downright silly? My thinking is as follows:

1/ In all my many years riding a bike I have never failed to find somewhere to park, there is always a lamppost railing or convenient bit of street furniture. If numbers of bicycle users go ...
Continue reading ...

The War on the Motorist is over - Sustainable Future here we come

Posted by Tom Bailey on Tuesday, May 24, 2011,

Last night I went along with Bill Dodds to a meeting at Newcastle Council where we as the Newcastle Cycling Campaign are being "consulted" and asked to give our input to the Tyne & Wear bid to something called the Local Sustainable Transport Fund.

Bill is in fine fettle right now being chair of the West Gosforth Labour Party, given the change in regime in Newcastle. I'd been gently winding him up earlier in the day suggesting that we propose that the bid focus its efforts on getting risk ha...

A brief homage to David Hembrow

Posted by Tom Bailey on Saturday, May 21, 2011,

I know, I know, lets get this out of the way......

If you want hand crafted bike baskets delivered to your door direct from Assen the man to go to is http://hembrow.eu/bicycle.html If you want to hear about how cycling is in the Netherlands and could be where you live, explained in plain english, look at http://hembrow.blogspot.com/ . What you find here is clearly completely different. No connection at all, honest.

Continue reading ...

Friday - taxis and Bicycle Baskets

Posted by Tom Bailey on Friday, May 20, 2011,

So, made it through the week. Three Bicycle Baskets sold, one to our neighbour Pam which I went round and fitted to her Giant last night after work. A bit of shuffling the straps around and adjusting the angle of the brake levers and job done. Two now on their way to Portsmouth and Chelmsford via ebay and royal mail. A hint of nervousness pervades, will the post office lose them, will the recipients like them etc etc. It'll be fine, I'm sure?

This week I've managed to report 6 taxis for d...
Continue reading ...

About the blog

Posted by Tom Bailey on Wednesday, May 18, 2011,

Riding a bicycle around Tyne & Wear can be alarming at times but always fun. As well as running the Tynemouth Bicycle Basket Company I'm also one of the key contacts for the Newcastle Cycle Campaign www.newcycling.org.uk (plus having a rather boring day job which I won't mention). Not sure where this blog will go.....
Continue reading ...