We confess

Ok, we confess.

Just for once, we rode a bicycle, instead of using the van. In the spirit of investigative journalism, of course.

Here you can see a bunch of Bristol Traffic supporters, who turned out to photograph us (naked!) at the Council House on College Green. Shame they weren't naked too, but we don't ask that of our readers.

And here you can see why our fan-base is so attracted to following us.

For once, our copy of The Sun remained unopened. Page 3 is safe.

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We feel for the unicyclist

The world naked bike ride

We worry about the sunburn for most of the participants, but for the unicyclist, the biggest risk is that they end up coming off the front of their toy. We can see from the photo that he has wrist-guards on, but aren't sure that will be enough.

We'd also like to see the video from the bloke on the left of the picture with the camcorder.

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Laura Local: our favourite new tier-3 provincial journalist

We feel really sorry for the Bristol Evening Post. Most of the real journalists have moved on, leaving only a few people who are actually valued for their knowledge of the area and their willingness to type what senior management want them to write (Ian Onion), and, to replace the others, some unpaid interns trying to learn how to write HTML content to put local journalism as an item on their resume.

In the latter category, then, can we welcome Laura Local, who is now our favourite third-tier reporter for the Redland People subsidiary web site of the Evening Post. We think "redland people" is a bit overambitious, as it implies all the residents check it every morning saying "what's happened in our part of the city?", but that doesn't happen. Nothing much happens there except when some drunk students put some traffic cones on some cars, or the helicopter over stokes croft keeps people awake. Even then, reading about in the Redland People site isn't the way most people discuss some items. In fact, given their readership count, we believe the site would be called "Redland Eight People"; the eight being friends and family of the authors.

Laura, we are pleased to see, is trying hard to get the audience into double digits by printing an anti-cyclist rant. We do that ourselves, which is why our daily audience is in the high double digits, and we can see why a commercial site that tries to make money through advertising revenue would aspire to be as successful. Hence this lovely article, Redland cyclists among the worst in the Bristol? Here's the opening paragraph

I was turning right out of North Road by the Arches when a cyclist, who wasn't wearing a helmet I hasten to add, whizzed by in the middle of the road heading the direction I wanted to go - towards Gloucester Road. I pulled out behind him, as I would have done had he been a car and he stopped in front of me all of a sudden and started mouthing off before jumping the red light.

Maybe I was a little too close to him when I pulled out but I felt any criticism was rich coming from a guy who was bombing down the centre of the road without a helmet and straight through a red light!

We aren't going to defend the tax-dodger, but we will provide some constructive feedback to the author

1. It's not actually a legal requirement to wear a helmet. The only time you should criticise them for not wearing a helmet is when someone gets run over by an HGV driver on the phone, then you can say in the daily mail comments section "were they wearing a helmet" and so absolve the whole of society for their death. We do.
2. It's not illegal to cycle down the middle of a lane. Yes, it annoys us as it stops us driving above 25 mph, but for the troublemakers, it gives them more options avoiding being hit by redland residents who are too lazy to drive to the gloucester road shops, and who open their doors without looking or pull out without indicating.
3. If you were the first vehicle to pull out, and you were parked in the ASL under the arch itself, the cyclist may have crossed the traffic light while it was still green, then if you pulled out aggressively he may have had some reason to express concern.
4. Don't ever admit in print something like "Maybe I was a little too close to him when I pulled out." It removes your ability to take the moral high ground. We never discuss our own driving actions for this reason, or make videos from our van -the police might want them.
5. Gloucester Road isn't Redland. It's Bishopston, on one side, St Andrews on the other. When when it becomes Cheltenham Road it's called "the arches" until you end up on the disputed Cotham/Montpelier/Stokes Croft region where the new Tesco is. Not Redland. If you have to drive outside your own reporting area just to get content to rant about, well, that may show some weaknesses in the "Redland cyclists amongst the worst in Bristol" story. We recommend spending some time in Cotham Hill, which, while again not quite Redland, is full of pedestrians, cyclists, school-run parents and us vans, so creating a lovely mix for new articles, such as "Redland Van drivers amongst the worst in Bristol?", "Redland students amongst the worst pedestrians in Bristol", and of course "Redland school-run parents amongst the worst in Bristol". Together this will keep your article quota fulfilled for a month with only one morning's worth of research. Or you could walk along Chandos Road and have a geographically correct region for the "Redland parkers amongst the worst in Bristol" article.
6. Do try and back up your articles with photos other than faded bike path signs that may convince everyone, motorist and cyclists alike, that Bristol's cycling facilities are dire.
7. If you do want to get a video of someone cycling through the red lights on that stretch of Gloucester Road, stand there with a camera on a weekday evening and wait for one lights cycle: it's not hard.

Anyway, Laura -welcome to the tier-3 anti cycling rant pages of Bristol. Those of us already in the business welcome new competitors, as it keeps us on our toes. Just try a bit harder and we might even feel slightly threatened.

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Is "The Fringe" a sign that Cheltenham Road is being gentrified?

We like that bit of the A38 from the Arches to Stokes Croft: our bit of the city. Wide roads, bus lanes to drive and park in, and shops for our lifestyle. As well as the minicabs, there's the car stereo place before Kwik-fit.

Which is why, while we were out stalking the pedestrian from Cromwell Road that we saw something to shock us. A new hairdressers, the fringe.

Looks pretty, doesn't it? But what's that in the window?

A sign

CYCLISTS

SPECIAL

OFFER

(From Monday-Friday)

"HOP OFF & CUT"

£7.50

Apparently cyclists can bring their bicycles into the hairdressers and get a haircut while their bike is kept safely out of the rain, secure from theft or damage.

Can you do the same with a car? No. You can't even park in the bus lane for half an hour for a haircut, not with the CCTV enforcement that's now underway.

The sign in the hairdressers is is a terrible sign. What it really says "we are at risk of losing Cheltenham Road".

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Men: bicycles are not the answer to your mid-life crises

We like seeing Bristol on TV, and right now the TV show that has coverage is the BBC's Mistresses, one that shows pretty women driving round the city having extra-marital relationships with men who are also driving round Bristol. Got that? There's a link there: cars=sex. 

This fact is important as there a lot of press right now saying that the new mid-life crisis toy is not a sports car, a motorbike or a woman half your age -it's a racing bicycle. These articles are appearing both in proper papers and socialist rags.

This is wrong.

Men: whatever issues you have in later years -  a bicycle will not solve them.

You may have seen the Tour de France, seen Andy Schleck go to-to-toe with Contador in the Pyrenees, and thought "I could do that", but sadly, you can't. You just penalise the rest of us.

Oh yes, it sounds nice, and makes for some articles showing shiny bicycles against mountain backdrops, such as here, Crater Lake, Oregon. Oh yes, you can dream of such things while stuck in the traffic jams on the A370, or the M32.

But look at those mid-life crisis cyclists. Has it really solved their problems? No, they just fill their lycra clothing too much for everyone else to enjoy, and have strange looking legs. The one on the left: drinks too much beer for that top. The one on the right, scrawny, and apparently has not only continued with his bicycle obsession, gone on to come in at #5 in the veterans category of US Cyclocross rankings, and dragged his daughter in that same obsession.

Well, it's their choice, their money you may think. But as well as damaging the family, we, the motorists suffer. You don't see it in those news articles showing the fat men gasping up the mountains, but we know. We get stuck behind them on our trips to cribbs causeway when we get held up by packs of these middle-aged lycra-louts on their Saturday training rides up the A38. We get stuck behind them on our weekday commutes when their training regime mandates mid-week rides. We get stuck behind them when they spend so much money on bikes and bits that they can't afford to drive and have to cycle to work -on our roads.

We even get stuck behind them in the mountains.


The photo above may look nice, but this is the Going to the Sun Road,  the road from the opening scene of the Shining, the only road through Montana's Glacier National Park, a road that last month the Guardian listed as one of the "must visit" roads in the US.

Yet it is somewhere a single mid-life-crisis roadie could hold up line of Recreational Vehicles, each of which could be towing an SUV carrying a quad bike and a jetski. There to enjoy nature, to bring revenue to the area, not faff around pretending they were six again. At least in the US, they recognise this and ban bicycles in summer, but that just means these people ride up illegally. Whoever took this photograph was not only a tax dodging cyclist, they must have illegally ridden up this mountain pass which is rightfully kept free for important people. Us.

Yet still they come, naively believing that spending money on a bicycle, some silly clothing and then pedalling round the mountains is a noble thing to do.  Then there are these "sportives", which is where hundreds of them come out and block through traffic, such as here, on the RAMROD "Ride around Mount Ranier in One Day" event.

As the cyclists block our roads -here there are even signs up to warn us of the inconvenience- the rest of society pays the price of your inability to settle into middle age with a few beers in front of the TV.

For all those men who have been spending too much time loitering around at Fred Baker's, Mud Dock or that fancy shop at the bottom of Park Street, print out this article and read the points below before you fritter away your money.

1. The main mid-life crises toys for men are sports cars, motorbikes, and a women closer to the age of your offspring than your own year of birth.
2. Motor vehicles -especially the open topped car, help you get that woman on the side.
3. Motor vehicles reward those with money: the more you spend, the faster it goes.
4. It doesn't matter how much you spend on a road bike, you will still be overtaken by the 22 year old riding a fixie one-handed while texting a friend and smoking a cigarette
5. That student girl you were after will find that 22 year old fixie-rider cuter than you.

Think about it. Open topped fast cars have a purpose, road bikes don't. 

More on this topic another day. In the mean time, we are watching you. Act your age -get a sports car.

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