Dawning of a new cycling era?

The newspapers are awash with reports relating to the publication of the APPCG's Get Britain Cycling report - you can read it here if you like.
There are five key recommendations in the report:

• A new priority for investing public funds
• Redesigning our roads, street and communities
• Safe driving and safe speed limits
• Training and education
• Political leadership

All sensible stuff really - with the possible exception of 'redesigning communities' which sounds a bit fascistic to me. 

But, like all of these things, wise words must be met with action. Deeds! Let's hope something does actually happen from the report and we don't find ourselves in the exact same position 20 years down the road when the next 'revolutionary report' is issued.

You can help this come about by signing The Times' petition here.

@bradwiggins bike parking

You'll probably have seen this but it really is extraordinary. I sometimes struggle to stand my bike upright against the side of the house. This is just showing off! From the recent Giro del Trentino.

Click Wiggo's face

The doyenne classic

The spring classics are over for another year and thank goodness for ‘the doyenne’ which replenished my obsession with the events following a Milan-San Remo disrupted by snow and two rather processional cobbled classics. Liege-Bastogne-Liege took place yesterday over a slightly altered route – reassuringly changed due to road works – and the racing was excellent.

Excuse me, coming through

Dan Martin came through in the end with a perfectly executed mugging of Joaquim Rodriguez in the final few hundred metres. The normally sedate Sean Kelly was uncontrollably excitable as Dan crossed the line: he said ‘yes!’ with all of his worldly emotion while commentating for Eurosport. 

What has cycling ever done for @welcome2yorks ?

You'd have to be living in a ditch, or not interested in cycling to not know that Le Tour is coming to Yorkshire - and very briefly Derbyshire - next year for the Grand Depart.
At an event yesterday, the Yorkshire Tourist Board - now called Welcome to Yorkshire for our touchy-feely age - set out the value of the event to the region in a bid to enlist support from business.

The facts are impressive and do demonstrate the value le Tour brings with it: 5000 hotel rooms each night, 2,000 journalists and a TV audience of 3 billion - 3 billion! You can't buy that sort of publicity - well, you can actually but you know what I mean.
So, if anyone ever asks you why we should have le Tour on these shores, apart from it being a brilliant spectacle, there are cold economic reasons behind it too.

Disc brakes? On a road bike?

There is something about disc brakes on a road bike that just doesn't seem right isn't there. The people in the know reckon road discs are going to be the norm on our beloved machines in the not too distant. There are already a number on the market.
I think the argument goes that they have greater stopping power and don't damage rims. But, in the words of the great Mario Cippolini: If you brake you do not win.

@inrng provides great preview of latest spring classic

There's a superb review of today's la Flèche Wallonne over on the consistently brilliant Inner Ring. As well as highlighting the disparity in prize money on offer between the men's and women's races, there's a great little guide to the course and some info on the legendary Mur de Huy - including the factoid that Mur de Huy isn't its real name - who knew? 

Huy you kiddin?

Anyway, for what it's worth, my money is on Alejandro Valverde or Philippe Gilbert. A cyclist is what I'm saying. A cyclist will win!

More people cycle in the UK now, right? @roadcc know, I think.

Are we cycling more or less? This question lies at the heart of many of the current debates affecting cycling. The discourse goes that more people are riding so we need better infrastructure and then even more people will be encouraged to ride which will lead to a healthier society, less congestion and wall to wall happiness and glee.
It's undoubtedly true that if you go to the smoke, more people are riding there than have been in recent years. While not exactly looking like Amsterdam, Euston Road has a good number of riders on it whenever I hop off the train. The bike racks too are testament to the increase in popularity.
All this is simply a bit of context behind an excellent piece over on Road CC relating to Sustrans' interpretation of the self same figures which led British Cycling to wet themselves over last year.
Sustrans' interpretation is rather more downcast as it describes the figures from the ONS as 'bitterly disappointing'. The problem for Sustrans is that they say the figures show no increase in the numbers of cyclists in the year to October 2012 whereas British Cycling reckon the same figures show that every journey in the UK is now completed by bike. Yes, every single journey. Including the one which takes a first class parcel containing a marble bird bath and plinth from its distributor in Watford to the home of Elsie Thristwistle in Baxenden.*
Who's right? Well, Road CC have  good go at explaining the stats but ultimately, nobody really knows.

*not really

In my humble view, I think there are a few more wheels on the road but not that many. and fewer when it rains. Devastating insight there I know, but accurate I reckon.