Clifton CC

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyz5d3entBw

Worth a watch

Priceless! In contrast, a bunch of friends from around london are riding the Etape Caledonia in May and wanted to organise travel on the train. A brief chat with NXEC about Kings Cross - Glasgow revealed a big problem: only 5 cycle slots per train; but 12 want to travel. SO it's divide between 3 trains or hire a van. Van wins... (they could ride up I suppose)

What makes this even more a sign of the times is that the East Coast line trains have a whopping great big compartment which the 5 bike racks sit in - you could fit about 150 bikes in there if they were simply carefully packed against each other. But presumably the company would be worried about possible damage and claims.....

I am using the York to London train, always with bike, at least 8 times each year. I might have seen a second bike in the van twice in two years!
This is what the train company knows.

Message: start using the train with bike more, and then write letters! Campaign effectively!

Reminds me of my secretary at Uni who for twenty years snapped at me about how she and her husband would stop driving in from Dunnington in separate cars ( he started and finished half an hour earlier), and cycle the two miles, if only there were safe cycle ways! Sorry Barbara!

It's an absolute hoot - if only trains were still as accommodating and roads so empty!

Oh, forgot!
Trips to Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, always take bike on train. Seldom problems, although some bike commuters.
London trip with bike March 6th, Edinburgh March 15. Swansea April 4th, all bike reservations booked within seconds.
Fares, for any of these, about £45 max return.
Feel privileged, fear the time others find out.
Would have to start campaigning then for more racks in van.
No need at the present though!

Well what a history lesson(recent), that was quite a tour round the by roads of south Leicestershire & Northamptonshire, I drove back from Kettering yesterday & avoided all the motorway & as many A roads as possible & I amsure that I travelled over some of the same lanes as well as experiencing no traffic. It can be done, although I am not sure for the mid fifties about all those Cyclo & Benelux rear mechs, where were all the fixed gears that we had in the late fifties of my early teens ?
Bernard