NIMBY

To start with today it’s worth mentioning that the Cycle Show (the exhibition, not the ITV4 programme) is on over this weekend at the NEC. This means that your (or mine at least) twitter feed will fill up with endless news on new products and exciting events and shows that you’re not at. I’ve been in the past and it’s definitely jolly good, although if you go you will find it hard to resist buying all sorts of things.

In other news I can confirm that people will find literally anything to moan about. You will have heard (because I’ve definitely mentioned it) that the Olympic mountain bike course at Hadleigh Castle will be opened to the public eventually. Meanwhile, also in Essex it seems that one couple (who do not to me look like they regularly cycle) and a newsagent owner are complaining about the possibility of more mountain bike trails being created by the county council.

But hang on…

I looked further into this story, providing the sort of investigative journalism you expect (and yet still not leaving the comfort of my desk).

Let’s look at googlemaps:


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You’ll see that the land in question (Benfleet Downs) is right between the Olympic course and the nearest train station. Could it be that the council are suggesting a good plan that would let cyclists get the train out from London and ride to the track? Would that not be better than the local roads being clogged with cars? Oh and will local businesses like Alf’s newsagent not benefit from more people being in the area?

Googlemaps doesn’t show existing rights of way so, ever probing, I looked at Streetmap (which annoyingly doesn’t let you embed the maps so I’ve slightly broken the law by just screen grabbing it, sorry…):

Look, though, there’s already a bridleway. So basically the council wants to put in some bike routes to improve access where it already exists. This will probably limit the impact on the environment for the locals and help to marshal the bike traffic that will be going that way anyway to an Olympic legacy site. How is this a bad thing? Also. One final point. The trails will be 3.5 metres wide. Three and a half metres. Hardly where you’ll get your average mountain biker fitting the description of “thrill seeking, racing mountain bikers”.

I will not be signing the petition.

Enough with ranting. I feel like finishing the week with a good positive idea to help people get on bikes more and more wherever they are. This project to allow people in the States to hire out their unused bikes to visitors to the area seems to fit the bill just nicely.

A