Disqus - Latest Comments for teacup

Re: Drops vs. flat bars: this is why drops sometimes suck - BikeRadar

Karl McCracken — Wed, 22 Nov 2017 13:49:44 -0000

Interesting... go one further and try something like Velo Orange's Montmartre bars - they work really well to convert a fixed gear road bike into a bit of a sleeper beast - it looks and feels very civilised (chic, even) until you start acting like you are in that 2008 fixie edit. They also come in two diameters, so you can fit road or MTB brake levers.

Re: Build It And They Will Come: the case for US-style baseball facilities in the UK

Karl McCracken — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 07:09:55 -0000

Tell me about the road networks in Stevenage, Cramlington, Milton Keynes &c.

"Build it and they will come" is only one side of what's required in the UK. The other half is making driving harder - especially for those short trips of less than 10km, which account for over half of all car journeys. This is something we just didn't do (but, as you point out in your comparison of Stevenage with Houten, the Dutch did).

Roads are now built based on economic models that equate more driving with a positive benefit to society.

The truth is the exact opposite, and making the economic case for that is the only way to get it accepted.

If that's too hard, then perhaps "Doing a Hembrow" is your only option. This will regrettably involve you moving to the USA, but I look forward to reading your posts on their excellent baseball facilities, to visiting your webshop selling proper American baseball equipment, and encouraging local politicians to use your services to open their eyes to what is actually possible if they've the will to see it through.

Re: Starbucks Tills

Karl McCracken — Thu, 09 May 2013 05:59:38 -0000

The payment processing is great, but their system as a whole sucks - especially when they're busy:

o Always a queue
o Queue next to tempting, but vastly over-priced cake
o After payment, mill around the collection area for an indeterminate amount of time
o End up with someone else's coffee, and only realise it after they've put four sugars into *yours*
o Tables and chairs always just on the legal side of grotty.

And that's before they've avoided tax.

Independent coffee shops with table service are much better. They may not have the choice of your favourite skinny decaff soya mokacinno with extra mayo, but it's worth foregoing such pleasures!

Re: What Motorists Think

Karl McCracken — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 09:29:34 -0000

Really interesting. So if we were at the Institute of Advanced Motorists, and writing a press release about this, we'd say "64% of Motorists Routinely Break Safety Rules".

Also interesting that "using a mobile phone" wasn't an option in the last question...

Re: 1st MTB World Championships, 1987

Karl McCracken — Fri, 18 May 2012 15:41:36 -0000

Two observations:

1. The bloke being interviewed and claiming to be "Carlton Reid" is plainly an impostor. He can't be more than 13 years old.
2. Yellow shorts. Hahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Re: Cycling and Equality

Karl McCracken — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 18:19:04 -0000

I'm a big fan of this sort of thing - especially as you've also put on the caveat about lack of necessary cause & effect (repeat after me: "Correlation does not imply causation"!).

Would you mind if I borrowed both your charts for a course I'm delivering in a couple of months? Full credits etc!

Re: Wayback Machine 1914: Aerothrust Propeller Driven Bicycle

Karl McCracken — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 18:01:19 -0000

It's got everything a chap could need: Nice sensible riding position; made from steel like proper bikes are; and a little extra oomph that'll also deter anyone from overtaking too closely.

Where do I sign up?!

Re: Will UK politicians ever seek to restrain the motorised majority?

Karl McCracken — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 04:09:01 -0000

I don't think the Times' campaign is "dangerising" - it's telling it how it is, and asking for something serious to be done. Years of tinkering around the edges of this problem have done nothing to improve the situation, and despite the worry that journalists have a habit of moving on to the next big story, and that this could just be astroturfing the Murdochs' front lawn, I welcome the move.

Cycling safety has now become mainstream news rather than something that only the cycling minority are concerned with. The Times hasn't got it completely right (Cracknell's cracked helmet; those Godawful infographics you're copied above), but in highlighting the scale of the problem and making it personal, they have the initiative.

We can sit back secure in our righteousness of things that were tried before and failed, or use this as you suggest, as a “Stop de Kindermord” moment: This is the time to push the central issue home - people don't ride bikes because they're sh*t scared of traffic and it's easier to drive than ride anyway. Fixing this means curtailing the freedoms to do drive, and investing serious money in fixing those major routes and junctions to make them fit for people on bikes. Do that, and we have a chance of cutting the death toll while at the same time tackling congestion, obesity, heart disease and Cameron's Gross National Happiness measure.

Re: Shopping

Karl McCracken — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 16:16:04 -0000

Tom - Great post. We need to make more of the fact that improving traffic flows for out of town shopping just makes it more attractive, and by definition makes it less attractive to shop on the high street.

Re: On Going Dutch, Cherry-Picking & Confusion Amsterdamize

Karl McCracken — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 13:37:25 -0000

Top marks - the devil is in the detail of this. My big worry is that we will get "Dutch" infrastructure as seen by planners, politicians, engineers and cycle campaigners who haven't really understood the details. The result would be a very British travesty, which would then be used as an I-told-you-so example by those who believed that everything was already peachy, and that before all this foreign tinkering, a Very British Cycling Renaissance was just around the corner.

Re: A Gay Evening

Karl McCracken — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 13:27:40 -0000

You really should visit Whitley Bay for more of this sort of thing.

Re: Dooring video

Karl McCracken — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 11:10:00 -0000

Wow - that shows how quickly it can happen. Top marks for the driver with the camera in their car - looks like they missed the cyclist. Hopefully.

I've never been doored, but I experience close calls usually about once or twice a year. And it's usually when I'm riding along with a bunch of drivers behind me getting all impatient, while I'm just starting to think that I should pull a bit closer to the parked cars to let them pass.

Re: Drivers: if your car wheels were on stilts you could do this too*

Karl McCracken — Thu, 05 May 2011 14:12:11 -0000

... although when you think about it, no-one's doing any driving in this video!

Re: 103 year old cyclist

Karl McCracken — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 13:29:06 -0000

Fantastic - our local Sustrans project has a Pashley trike that they loan out. It's very popular with older people, who've often fallen into thinking life is about what they can no-longer do. Not sure that they've ever had anyone over a hundred on it though!

Re: Tyneside, 1951: when a bicycle tunnel was built before a car tunnel

Karl McCracken — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 17:53:25 -0000

The fish sculpture being replaced with car parking?!! More details on this / source, please!

Re: Critical Mass in pictures, 1921-2011

Karl McCracken — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 14:52:12 -0000

What will it take for automotive critical mass to become a fissile criticality? £1.50/litre? £2.00/litre? £3.00/litre?

Re: iPhone app aims to be your clever short-cut mate

Karl McCracken — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 14:32:49 -0000

Brilliant - I actually have CycleStreets installed, but have never really used it, as I just preferred the BikeHub interface. Will go digging around!

Re: iPhone app aims to be your clever short-cut mate

Karl McCracken — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 06:39:21 -0000

Hi -
I was talking with Katja from the Newcastle Cycling Campaign last night, and apparently a part of the nice new bike lane along the Scotswood Road is going to be removed to improve motorised vehicle filtering - she was talking about putting together some list of all our local infrastructure, and then using this as an at-risk list when proposals are made to take things away. Of course, I pointed out that such a list already exists under the bonnet of the BikeHub app.

So would it be possible to add a reporting function to the next release? Something like, if you get to a road that's now closed / an off-road route that's blocked / an on-road lane that's been erased, you can click, and this will take you through to something a little like Fill That Hole, with the resulting report either sent to the local campaign, or if one doesn't exist, the appropriate national body?

Re: Partition is not a panacea

Karl McCracken — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 13:51:24 -0000

I think this is an artificial dichotomy. Given the state of cycling in the UK, we need things like the CTC's campaigns, your excellent apps, and political engagement via the Parliamentary Cycling Group just to maintain the status quo. But no matter how hard we work on these things, I really don't think they're going to lift cycling rates for regular journeys even to the upper end of single figure percentages.

What this needs is a completely different approach - I genuinely believe that it does need proper, high quality, and where traffic speeds or volumes dictate, segregated infrastructure. This is needed not for the confident cyclists who already account for the majority of our pathetic 2% minority, but for the other 98% of the population, half of whom probably would ride if it weren't so scary.

Your kids are about the same age as mine. Mine walks to school unaccompanied, while yours cycle . . . but don't you ride with them? Do they need this escort for fear of 'stranger danger', or because you just like the ride (a perfectly valid reason, and one of the perks of fatherhood!), or because the prospects of them riding on the roads around you just makes your blood run cold?

If it's the latter, then might proper "Dutch-style cycle paths" be what's absolutely needed? If they are, then it'll mean a fundamental shift in local transport policy - akin to changing the course of an oil tanker. Maybe it won't happen until after our children have grown up & left the nests, but with your excellent network of connections in (reasonably) high places, could you help to bring about the change that's needed?

Re: Bottlenecks ahead, even for Hoverboards

Karl McCracken — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 04:11:36 -0000

This is just so depressing - it's enough to make Doing a Hembrow seem like the only sane option. Now, where id I put that Dutch phrase book . . .?

Re: Why is “dyke on a bike” jibe worse than “behead cyclists” joke?

Karl McCracken — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 18:02:22 -0000

Of course it depends on the type of cyclist that Parris was referring to. If they were members of the Church of Sit Up Cycling, then there may be grounds to complain as he was inciting religious hatred. Actually, to hell with the PCC on that one - it's a criminal offence under the Radical & Religious Hatred Act 2006! Which would mean that technically, the police have a statutory duty to investigate...

Re: Officials Prepare For Ironman Triathlon - Madison News Story - WISC Madison

Karl McCracken — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 14:46:32 -0000

Surely that's 112 miles on the bike?

Re: Car tour, anyone?

Karl McCracken — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 18:21:34 -0000

That photo of the Reids on the dyke with the sun (setting / rising?) is just beautiful - a perfect image that it's the journey, not the destination that counts . . . though if the destination involves tea and cake, it always helps! ;-)

Re: Hey soccer mom – meet cycling family!

Karl McCracken — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 13:19:29 -0000

No - you're misreading these stickers. They depict the driver's kill tally in the same way that flying aces used to have their kills painted on the side of their plane's fuselage.

:-(

Re: Stereotypes

Karl McCracken — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 13:10:52 -0000

Woa! You mean that you don't wear clogs and go nuts for tulips? That's my illusions shattered.

Personalising a perfectly sensible bike is definitely what it's all about!