Afternoon tea rides?

I am repeating a post from over two years ago (gulp). I haven't re-checked the info, but I have added some new details from comments received.

The following Essex country churches are known to serve tea and cakes on summer Sunday afternoons:

• Blackmore, St Laurence. 2 or possibly 2.30-4.30pm (first Sunday of months of May - October). Very popular with cyclists.
• High Beech, Holy Innocents. 2-5pm, every Sunday May - September). Allegedly 20 types of cake (source of this info not recorded, but I feel certain there should be a disclaimer here somewhere!)
• Stanford Rivers, St Margaret. 2 - 4.30 some say, but the church's website says 2.30-4.30. Tea also available by arrangement.
• All Saints Doddinghurst - I'm told by Andrew Smith that they serve tea and cake, and to check their website, but I can't find anything there and the site isn't being updated.

Anyone planning to lead a bike ride might like to cut their teeth with an afternoon trip to one of these.

Another stolen bike website

http://www.bikerevolution.org/

Is a stolen bike website that I've just come across. I'm not sure of the merits of there being several such sites. I found the link on http://www.goinggoingbike.com/ a bike auction site with devices to prevent stolen bikes being sold on it.

This is all well and good, but if someone steals your bike the chances are they will sell it on for such a good price that the buyer will "ask no questions"

Tyre sizes available in Wilkinson's, Barking

Wilkinson's is quite useful in a town with no bike shop, except out of town Halfords, but I've always been puzzled by the selection of tyre sizes. Here is what was available in their Barking branch today. I'm only quoting ISO sizes, formerly known as ETRTO sizes. Although unfamiliar to any, they are the only ones that are reliable. The British, European and US sizes can seem similar whilst being very different.This guide converts between the different standards.

ISO uses width in mm, dash, bead circumference in mm. Obviously the latter is critical. The former doesn't make that much difference, especially with a few mm of course

Wilkinson's had 47-406, 47-507, 47-559, 37-622 and 32-630 sizes. I believe the most popular size in the world is 37-590, which British (Empire) people know as 26 x 1 3/8. 37-622 is a common size amongs my LCC friends.

I once encoutered someone who had his Brompton folding bike stolen shortly after he bought some new tyres for it. Brompton tyres are 37-349 typically, commonly called 16 x 1 3/8. Unfortunately he had bought 16" USA sized tyres, of a mere 305mm diameter (probably 47-305), almost an inch and three quarters too small in diameter.

Temporary closure of Station Parade (eastbound) - more

http://stibasa.blogspot.com/2011/05/temporary-closure-of-station-parade.html

Further to my previous post, I discovered this via B&D council's new Facebook Page:


http://www.lbbd.gov.uk/News/PressReleases/Pages/BarkingStationWorks.aspx

I note "new cycle parking".

Victoria Road

Following my previous post, I had a quick nose down Victoria Road today. The signs are already installed, albeit covered. At the junction with Loxford Road there are "no entry" signs facing west - apart from tne fact that they are round, one of them is not completely covered.

Nearer Ilford Lane, facing east, are what I assume are one way traffic signs - rectangular. These are covered, but fit with the public notice and correspond with the 'no entry' signs further west.

I apologise that my impact on B&D council in twenty years of campaigning is such that they will still propose and even implement schemes such with no reference to cycling at all. This one is a minor scheme (but many are) and it won't cause major problems, but the feeling is of a death of a thousand cuts. Are we, little by little, progressing, or is it the opposite? Hard campaigning can lead, here and there, to things being restored to how they were before cycling was unfairly and pointlessly restricted, but restrictions themselves continue to increase. B&D council tried their luck with Axe St - t doesn't seem to have happened (a campaigning success), but it requires much vigilance and perseverance to hold back the powerful if not fast flow of anti-cycling measures that this council still manages to propose or even implement, despite the claim that they are prp cycling. It is not enough to just say/write that you are pro cycling, B&D council. You have to live this out, and stamp out the pernicious if ignorant attempts to restrict cycling

A new name for LCC?

Please have a look at the attached documents, one of which is from the latest London Cyclist magazine, and let ME know your views. The Word document guides you in this, but I think the key point is what name for the organisation would appeal most/best to non-members and even people who don’t cycle. Making everything nice for current members is not what we should be about. *

I have studiously avoided using the word ‘cyclist’ where possible in campaigning, based on the idea that I was convinced of that it conjours up a certain image in (some) people’s minds that may not be entirely positive to them. Cycling does not have this connotation. It is true, though, that cycling is an activity, whereas cyclists are people (yes they are!) and it is better to refer to people than an activity. The approved term was “people who cycle”.

Then there’s the word ‘campaign’, which at once makes specific what it is that we’re about, but also (it is said) sounds off putting.

Lastly of my points is that many LCC branches are called [name of borough] cyclists. There’s a name for the logical fallacy that if lots of people do it it must be right.

Anyway, please think about this and let me know, preferably by e-mail.

* My aim is to get more people cycling more often. For me LCC is an organisation that helps in this aim both directly and by supporting me as a campaigner. Therefore the LCC is worth supporting, but to the end of increasing cycling, not growing the LCC per se, though the more members we have, the more clout we have as we represent a larger constituency.

Temporary closure of Station Parade (eastbound)

http://www.lbbd.gov.uk/thenews/Documents/thenews-49.pdf

A notice in "The News" (B&D council newspaper) says that from 2 June Station Parad Barking will be closed eastbound between Wakering Road and Cambridge Road - ie in front of Barking Station. The order has force for 9 weeks, but they usually err on the cautious side.

Pedestrians will not be able to use the northern footway.

B&D council still trying to restrict cycling?

B&D council nearly caught me sleeping. They have threatened to introduce one way working in Victoria Road, the last road in B&D off Ilford Lane before the LB Redbridge boundary. I could practically write the e-mail to Darren Henagan with my eyes shut. I have written so many, but B&D still don't seem to be able to apply their pro-cycling policy to their efforts in traffic management.

My letter in "The News" - 'Pay as you drive' will boost cycling

This letter from me was published in a recent edition of B&D Council's newspaper, The News:

Well , another writer on cycling ("Please spend cycle investment wisely", thenews, 2 April). I'll be out of a job - voluntary, by the way!

I don't want to disparage someone who wants to encourage cycling, but I do think I should point out some of the pitfalls of Mrs Green's suggestions. Cycle tracks on pavements arguably need to be clear of opening car

doors to avoid collisions. And for every person who argues cycling should be on the pavement, there's

someone else saying it should be on the road.

I think the idea of banning car parking in cycle lanes is rather optimistic. There's the enforcement issue - have

a look at the cycle track in Pickering Road, Barking. It's constantly full of parked cars.

Mrs Green's letter strikes right at the heart of why Barking and Dagenham is really a driving borough.

Government policy encourages us to buy cars, and cars have high fixed costs. There, parked outside your

home, is your lovely warm and comfortable car, with a full tank of petrol and much of your hard-earned cash

already committed to it. So you use it - of course you do. Yet most cars spend most of their time parked, unused, wasted. 

I think that if you don't use your car, you shouldn't have to pay. An easy way of doing this would be to shift all the costs of driving onto the pump price of fuel, rather than vehicle excise duty (not 'road tax', which doesn't exist), VAT on cars and insurance - all costs you pay whether or not you use your car. 

The "pay as you drive" way of  doing things model would encourage economical driving and economical

cars. Some people might even give up their car and just hire one when they need it. The changes I suggest would boost local shops and amenities, as the cost of the drive to a out-of-town supermarket would make it much less attractive. In rural areas, the village shop and pub would spring back to life. And with fewer parked cars, there'd be more room for cycling and public transport, and more cycling, as the cost would be attractive compared to driving. More buses and trains, and lower fares, too - wonderful virtuous circles.

Colin Newman

Leader, London Cycling Campaign

Barking and Dagenham branch

At last the rival London Connections Maps are to merge!

For a long time, TfL and AYOC each produced maps called London Connections Maps, showing both National Rail and LUL lines. Foillowing my suggestion several years ago, ATOC's introduced the colour codes for Underground Lines, so with colur coding for each TOC, it makes a good document. TfL's LC map used to show all the National Rail lines in one colour / without colour, until Oyster PAYG spread to National Rail, whereupon it changed the LC Map to the Oyster Map, and colour coded the National rail lines according to the London Terminus, or pair of termini. This avoided the irritating and changing names of the TOCs, but makes the maps very similar in content.

According to Modern Railways magazine (April 2011) ATOC and TfL have devised one map between them. At last and end to the wasteful duplication.

Bank cards insttead of Oyster Cards. Oyster outside London

"TfL an train companies are also to work to complet plans to extend Oyster PAYG outside London, and to evaluate the extension to National Rail services of payment using contactless bank  cards, for introduction in 2012. TfL has confirmed that, by the end of 2012, card readers across its whole network will have been upgraded so that a contactless bank card can be used  ... for PAYG travel." [Modern Railways April 2011]

Goodbye Oyster Extension Permits

"From 22 May, passengers using a London Oyster Travelcard who want to travel outside their travelcard zones will no longer be required to load an Oyster Extension Permit onto the Oyster Card. The permits were intended to indicate an intention to to extend travel using Oyster pay as you go (PAYG) credit. Although free of charge, the permits ... caused widespread confusion." [Modern Railways, April 2011]