MANCHESTER HOLDS THE KEY

Manchester key to rolling out Britain’s cycling revolution

Manchester probably holds the key to whether the cycling transport revolution promised by the government finally happens, after decades of false promises.

Why? Because Manchester has a huge cycling plan ready to go – the Bee Network costed at £1.2bn - devised by former Olympic champion Chris Boardman and the Mayor, Andy Burnham MP (featured in a previous blog).

Surely, now it’s time has come.

Manchester placed their £1.2bn bid with the Department for Transport last year, months before the pandemic shut down the world with the spread of the coronavirus. They are still waiting to hear back from the DfT.

 

Manchester has big plans for cycling

If they get the go ahead, it will mean the government is serious about making the roads safer for cycling beyond their call to install Pop-up cycle lanes as a means of quickly encouraging bike use.

For then other cities will follow suit.

If Manchester doesn’t get the go-ahead, then the cycling dream will have become another of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s fairy stories.

Remember the 40 new hospitals he promised during his election campaign? Turns out funding provided was only enough money for six, including some in need of repair.

So after the initial surge  to install “pop-up” cycle lanes now happily appearing  in towns and cities, firm decisions need  to be taken and big money spent to make more permanent changes to the highway.

Then those who wish to cycle but do not because of the hostile road environment can do so, including the huge number of Manchester residents who do not drive.

Fewer cars mean less pollution, which is the key factor behind the calls now to encourage cycling and walking.

The only positive to come out of this pandemic has been the huge drop in pollution levels as traffic and production halted worldwide.

Pollution, which globally kills 9m a year, was simply blown away during this period.

The horrible irony is that over the years pollution has contributed to the respiratory illnesses which resulted in so many succumbing to the virus.

With the world breathing fresh air again, countries said that never again must pollution be allowed rise to such unhealthy levels.  Hence the global call to get on  your bike and walk for those many short journeys, instead of driving and, crucially for many, to allow people to avoid using crowded public transport  with its risk of infection.

It is worth noting the subtle but telling difference in the UK’s call, which emphasised to cycle and walk to work instead of using public transport. No mention of cycling instead of driving, as I recall. 

Afterall no British government dare risk the wrath of the Middle England, looking forward as they are to the £27b road building programme which is also on the cards and which will only add to the pollution levels the cycling strategy is meant to address.

Scientists warned this year that long term exposure to air pollution (with traffic the major contributor) is killing one in 19 people in the UK each year |(Air Quality News.com). This is despite the UK currently meeting legal limits!

Premature deaths from pollution in the UK – between 28,000 and 36,000 a year - is 25 times higher than deaths from road traffic collisions!

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There is huge political and public support in Manchester to roll out the 1,800 miles of the Bee Network.

Manchester, streets ahead in cycling planning

Ellie Stott, the Communications and Engagement Officer for Transport for Greater Manchester says work has been going for a number of years, mainly focusing around the delivery of the 1,800 mile Bee Network.

Now, in response to the call to install Pop Up cycling lanes to help people start to move safely after the pandemic lockdown, Manchester is planning to install  measures such as footway extensions, one-way streets, removing through traffic on certain roads, adding extra cycle lanes and removing street ‘clutter’ like pedestrian guard rail at pinch points.

This is their SafeStreetsSaveLives campaign which has received £5m of emergency funding from the Mayors Cycling and Walking Challenge Fund. 

One such initiative is the new cycle lane in Trafford along the A56.

Manchester has now also submitted a bid of £21.5m to the DfT for further measures in all 10 districts, including in the towns of Wigan, Bolton, Bury, Oldham, plus Salford, Stockport, Tameside, and Trafford.

Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, said: “Greater Manchester has been leading the way with our plans to build the largest walking and cycling network in the UK. A number of cities around the world have begun implementing measures to enable safe essential travel and exercise during lockdown. As part of our efforts to Build Back Better in Greater Manchester, we’re taking the same, bold approach - Safe Streets really do Save Lives.

“Peoples’ travel behaviour across our city region has transformed during lockdown. As more people turn to walking and cycling, we want that to continue as we move into life beyond lockdown. That’s why we’ve proposed measures, backed by up to £5m of funding, to create space which allows people to continue making safe, sustainable journeys.

“Whatever peoples’ motivation - these choices are contributing to cleaning up our city’s air and causing less congestion on our roads, and that’s something we must sustain for the immediate future.”

Chris Boardman, Cycling and Walking Commissioner for Greater Manchester, said: “Like any successful response to a crisis, people must be the priority. And fortunately, the data is unambiguous; during lockdown more and more residents across Greater Manchester are turning to walking and cycling for essential journeys and exercise. So, in order give people the space they need to keep safe, the only real question was ‘how soon can we act?’

“If we don’t take steps to enable people to keep traveling actively, we risk a huge spike in car use as measures are eased. Not only is it the right thing to do to protect people now, but it’s vital to meet our clean air goals and protect our NHS long term.”

*With the dramatic fall in traffic volumes of about 60% across Greater Manchester, walking and cycling have played an increasingly important role.

They now account for approximately 33% of all journeys, with cycling up 22% compared to pre-lockdown data. These trends have also led to congestion almost being eliminated and significant drop in pollution.

SOUNDS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE

Great times ahead for cycling, it seems, from all the positive announcements coming in from around the world since the previous blog.  Let's have another look at this story.
The roads are to be made safer for cycling, cycle lanes will be wider and longer, and people will switch from driving to cycling for short trips.

Is this real, or from Alice in Wonderland?

   Well, Cycling UK’s ears pricked up at Transport Secretary Grant Shapps statement:  “commits the Government to make public health part of transport policy, and active travel a core element.”

 Not sure how the UK government’s £multi-billion road building plan fits this picture!  Some 50 new road building projects are also planned over the next two years.

The scheme is facing a legal challenge from Transport Action Network, claiming such plans are in breach of the UK’s climate and air quality obligations.

So, a mixture of dreams and nightmares on the transport front.

Latest Government plan sounds too good to be true. 

At least several countries are now acknowledging the dire threat posed by pollution.

It’s taken over 200 years for them to reach their senses, despite the many warnings.
One such can be traced back to the 19^th century America.

This from Chief Seattle, who had witnessed the Red Man’s lands taken by the white man and who made this comment after observing the intruders wasteful ways.

He said:

“Like a man who has been dying for many days, a man in your city is numb to the stench.”

And that was before pollution from factories and traffic began to poison the sweet smelling air his people cherished, but which has been taken for granted by the rest of mankind pillaging and burning the earth for the riches which have given us our modern world and yes, been hugely beneficial in improving our lives.

But at a huge cost to the planet and to our health.  It is only in recent times we have sought to conserve, to replenish, and to try to restore balance.

It’s in our nature leave shit everywhere, even on another world.

How about this gem I heard lately, from a recent TV documentary on the historicMoon landing in July 1969.

Don’t forget this bag, Buzz Aldrin called out to Neil Armstrong through the hatch of the Lunar Module, as Armstrong stood poised on the ladder, about to become the first man to set foot on the Moon.

It was a small bag

Armstrong took the bag and threw it ahead of him onto the surface of the moon, where it still lies. It contained three days of accumulated trash from their flight from earth. So man’s first act upon visiting a new world was to trash it.

Say no more.

It can’t get any worse, surely? Things must be about to get better.

So, here we are, it’s May 2020.

It’s made the news, cycling is the way forward.

The Coronavirus pandemic has brought the world to its senses.  The lockdown which halted road and air traffic and factory production led to a huge drop in pollution levels.

It was as if suddenly we have woken up to the perils posed by pollution, which kills 9m globally a year, causing the respiratory illnesses which made so many vulnerable to the Coronavirus.

Now, apparently, cities  the world over have declared they want the clear air to remain, and call on  people to cycle and walk more and drive less and crucially, avoid using crowded public transport and the risk of infection.

How long will this last, will the honest endeavours of the enlightened be able to withstand the backlash from vested interests in the oil business?

We shall see.
For now, here are the positives.
Impressively, the UK government acted within days of announcing their plans for cycling, by issuing detailed instructions Local Authorities are to follow in order to put in place the Pop up cycle lanes quickly. 
So far (today, May 18) we know that Brighton was the first to install a Pop Up cycle lane, on a major dual carriageway. London quickly installed one on Park Lane.I think York has one in place.  Working on it, are Peterborough, Manchester, Liverpool, and other cities.
Meanwhile, Extinction Rebellion has spray-painted an unofficial cycle lane on a Cambridge Road.  
So, off to a good start. We next need to see a major road-rebuilding programme to accommodate cyclists in town and city.  

Then we’ll know whether all this is just more deceptive talk from Prime Minister Boris Johnson.  Whatever happened to his 40 new hospitals promised in his election manifesto?  Turns out there is only money enough for six NHS Trusts who each have an existing major hospital in urgent need of rebuilding.

Over to “pouring cold water on it” thinking.

We may well get the pop-up lanes, but the rest? It’s all too good to be true. The dozens of positive press stories following the announcement may convince the casual reader it’s happened. That  artist’s impressions of town centres criss-crossed with wide bike lanes are happening.

Those drivers who shout at cyclists for not using the adjacent cycle lane don’t know the cycle lane is all but one kilometre in length and is crap. 

As far I am aware, every pro cycling report calling for safer road conditions from Cycling UK (formerly CTC) presented to government has received fulsome praise.  But the buck has been passed to Local Authorities and those who had the political will  lacked the funding to do much.

This Creates the impression it’s been acted up or will be soon.  
We all know that the £2bn promised for major cycle works is about £4bn short. 
There is growing support from towns and cities with the political will do this work, if they are provided the funds to do so.
In the meantime towns hurry to install Pop up cycle lanes supported by the promise of £350m from government.  
As for the rest? 
Who knows?

Cycling takes off - or does it?

Well, well, quite suddenly, cycling as transport, plus walking -  ignored  by successive governments for 50 years, paid lip service at best, given buggar all in the last budget -  is now to get £2bn funding, effective immediately.

Cycling transport revolution at last? 

The reason?  The government is rightly very concerned that the economy will collapse because people are too spooked by the Coronavirus pandemic to use public transport to start getting back work. 
Whether it is safe to do so yet is an open question.  The latest advice on how lock down might or might not be eased from Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been criticised as confusing.

However,  they have turned to the humble cycle to save us from ruin.

The basic plan is to put in pop-up bike lanes, widen the pavements, make junctions safer and provide cycle and bus-only corridors. All this within the next few weeks.

Additionally, there will be vouchers issued to help people pay for bike repairs and to provide more “bike fixing facilities”, whatever they may be? Perhaps they will Bicycle Repair People stationed around town.

Better late than never.  But they haven't gone so far as to  say to drivers you should  cycle short distances instead of driving, to save the environment!

For it is common news that many of those who succumb to the virus have underlying  health issues, including respiratory illness, caused by pollution, with traffic one of the biggest contributors to fouling the air we breathe.

Between 7 and 9 million people die globally every year from illnesses caused by pollution and governments really couldn’t care less, counting this as a cost against production.

But since the advent of this plague, governments are waking up not so much to acknowledge that climate change threatens our extinction, but because the poorly regulated growth economics which has contributed to this and which underpins our very way of life -  or death if  you prefer -  has ground to a halt. 

So, on yer bike.

Crucially, though, £2bn on its own will not be enough. Cycling UK say between £5bn and £6bn will need to found over the next five years if the road infrastructure is to made safe for cycling.

It’s a huge undertaking if this is to be done properly.  All those roundabout to be ripped out and rebuilt, all the cycling-specific traffic signals which will need to be installed where cycle lanes cross main roads. All those contra-flow cycle lanes to be installed in those outdated one-way systems, the Bain not just of cyclists, but of drivers, too.

And what about those kerbs rounded off to allow traffic to turn into side roads without slowing, which puts pedestrians and cyclists lives at risk.
Can't see it happening.

I note in the news that the government is to it make it a strategic legal requirement to make changes to the highway – the pop up cycle lanes for instance. Are they talking about the trunk road network and/or the Local Authority road network.

This is important because historically, government, aka the Department for Transport, has only ever had the power to manage the few thousand miles of trunk roads and certainly not the 250,000 miles of the local roads network under Local Authority control.  
As one local councillor explained to me, the mechanics of government do not allow Westminster to tell Local Authorities what to do with roads under LA control.

Which is a pity, because it is these roads which carry the most traffic. I’m not sure what the present stats show, but as I understood it, 71 per cent of all journeys made are five miles or less, many of them suitable for cycling.

So, unless the government has got the LAs by the balls, and can now order them to make the changes necessary, this scheme risks going off at half-cock.  Because the LAs have never been legally bound by DfT decisions which have always been advisory for LA’s to ignore if they so wish and generally do over cycling matters.

With few exceptions, LAs have made a complete mess of any cycle infrastructure they could bother themselves to install, and their engineers have ignored government approved guidelines.

Watch this space.

Tales from the spectacular Horseshoe Pass

THE internet phenomenon Facebook has created a worldwide social network allowing us to keep in touch with friends at the touch of button.

To share experiences and memories and information at the drop of a hat.

The bad news is that YOUR data may be used for political and marketing purposes. So the contents of that meal – or that political statement you “shared” in a post - will have been noted! (That’s enough! Ed)

OK. Quite right. Because I’m off down memory lane. I’m going up the Horseshoe. You coming?

The view towards Llangollen, from the top of the Horseshoe Pass

For the good news is that a Facebook post got me thinking about the Horseshoe Pass in North Wales, my old stomping ground.

It was Tony Bell  who put this idea into my head. Tony is a former pro who posts so much stuff he has surely worn out the keyboard and now transmits  his thoughts directly to the screen.

Almost always funny, by turn wonderfully or horribly rude about people when venting his feelings but always on the button.  And he came up with this great idea.

He wanted to drag us all out of our misery, he said – be it the political situation, the VIRUS or whatever that was getting us down. And he would do this by calling upon us all to cheer the fuck up by recalling happy times, the first big cycling ride we did, the one which got us hooked.

It was a brilliant suggestion. And he kicked it off with a story about  his big moment, of how he and his dad and I think his brothers, all went on a ride into North Wales, returning over the very high plateau of  World’s End, high above the beautiful Vale of Llangollen,  higher even than the nearby Horseshoe Pass.

There was a good response and many others shared their stories.


It inspired me to recall my many rides  into North Wales in the 1960s. For I am Liverpool lad who learned his cycling with the Merseyside Wheelers. I made  second category - my competitive high point.


I rode all over the North West with the club and also solo, before I moved to the South of England.

It’s a lovely spot where I live now, views of the wooded slopes of the North Downs from my front door, all very beautiful. I scan the skies for Red Kites and the occasional buzzard.


But I do miss the wide open spaces of the big mountains up north, the huge rolling expanse of the empty moors, and the wildness of those spaces, where you truly felt you had escaped the crowd.

If time travel was possible, I’d back to that period like a shot, cycling on Sunday mornings down to the boat at Liverpool’s Pier Head.  Across the water to Wirral, off to the North Wales mountains seen in the distance, or into Cheshire and Shropshire.

Or escaping north to the Lancashire Fells, east to the Derbyshire Peak District.


The Horseshoe Pass in North Wales was one of my most popular rides, an 80-mile round trip, taking you up to just under 1,400 feet above sea level.

Approached from Llangollen the Horseshoe presents a four mile climb with an average gradient of 1-12, says the sign at the beginning of the pass proper. And it rises to a max of 1- 8 or 10 at the apex of the “shoe”.  From a distance this steep slope looks impossible to ride as it clings to the mountain wall.
The other approach, from the Llandegla Moors, is less steep, about two miles of climbing.

One particular moment sticks in the mind. I was alone. It was a cold cloudy but dry November Sunday.

At the summit – I’d come up from Llandegla – I stopped to survey the scene. My laboured breathing was the only sound in the eerie heavy silence.  No one about. Not a soul. Bare mountainside.  

Well, there was one thing.

Dead level and a few hundred yards away, a massive, solid looking black cloud hung menacingly. It looked so heavy it might at any minute slowly and silently sink down to crush the roof of the Pondarosa café closed for the winter.  Misty fingers stroked the roof, sought to make a damp embrace.

The rest of this creature hovered above a drop which fell away behind the cafe.  I felt goose bumps.   It was quite scary to be so close, up there, a trespasser in the domain of clouds.


So I was off, taking the spectacular descent on my Harry Quinn Bill Bradley model.

 You would easily touch 50 mph down there, thrilling to the rush of wind in your hair. (An experience denied most cyclists today).

I recall a motorcyclist coming alongside, throttling back and holding up five gloved fingers to me, before accelerating away.

Fifty was quite fast enough on 10-ounce tubs.

If you felt frisky, you would go home the same way, grovel back up the steep side. If you felt really fit, there was always a far crueller route to take out of Llangollen which was equally spectacular.
 This was up the single track narrow twisting ascent to aptly named World’s End, where a  flat plateau stretched as far as the eye could see. And the road becomes a shallow trench cut between banks of purple heather, zig-zagging towards the horizon.
You are as high as the surrounding mountain tops up there, higher than the Horseshoe.

Otherwise you would stay in the valley, leave Llangollen by taking the easier road to Ruabon and Wrexham, skirting the mountains and heading back along the Cheshire border.

I was a junior when I first cycled to Llangollen, via Ruabon. I wanted to save my legs for my first ever ascent!  That first ride up there had me on my knees, especially on that short bit of 1-in-7 past the spectacular ruins of the medieval Valle Crucis Abbey, in the vale below the road and before the pass proper.


A mile or two later, as the road swung to the left, and into the “shoe”, I recall looking up to my right, across the valley, and seeing the sunlight glinting off cars far above.

Blimey. How do I get to get up there?

In fact, on that first occasion I stalled on the 1-in-8 wall at the centre of the horseshoe, the really steep bit. Unclipping my feet from the clips I sat down at a parking space, my chest heaving.

I kicked myself for giving up, for I didn’t know then of the “secret” assistance waiting just around the corner.


For had I struggled another few hundred yards to where the road swung right for the final assault,

I would have been picked up by a strong gust of wind sweeping off the mountain. It was amazing and not uncommon to engage the big chain ring up the final slope.


My brother Ian has his own Horseshoe Pass story. He and club mate Dave Davis, returning from a hostelling weekend one winter, were on the ascent when it began snowing on the mountain. At the top the snow was evenly spread two inches deep on the road.  Theirs were the only wheel marks. A car had come up from the other side. The driver thought better of chancing that descent and turned round.


The pair descended safely. They took some respite in a hotel bar on the road towards Coed Talen, thawing out in front of a roaring fire.

Resuming their ride, the weather cleared up and the roads dried out. By the time they reached the Eureka café on the Wirral eager to share their snow story, the sun was out, the sky was clear, spring was in the air and no one believed them.


A day out to the ‘shoe invariably began from Liverpool’s Pier Head where the club would meet up to take the “Ferry ‘cross the Mersey” for Birkenhead Woodside. Then we’d ride along the A41 Chester road, forking right in seven miles to stop at the Eureka for elevenses.

Then on, via the Twin Sisters – two short roller coaster hills - and a couple of miles later, across the bridge spanning the River Dee and into Wales.
That's where  the climbing began, the gradual haul of some 1.5 miles to Hawarden, down and then up through Fairy Dell, and in a few more miles the five mile drag via Coed Talen to the Llandegla Moors. This was the most direct route.

It was a shallow straight climb to the moors. If memory serves me well, it was only five per cent.  Low gears, not much conversation, up and up to the top, then a short descent before rising onto the barren moor topping out at, 1000 feet above sea level.

On a clear day you could see Merseyside 30 miles away, a dark brown stain smudging the sky line, the smoke from all those coal fires.

Off the moors and across the Ruthin to Wrexham main road a steep descent takes you to the foot of the winding climb rising up across the bare flanks of the mountain, to the summit of the Horseshoe Pass.

This was the easier side, about two miles of climbing, low gears but not very steep.

Your reward upon reaching the summit was a breath-taking view of the pass curving away to the right, dropping down the mountain side. It swung left into the apex and steepest section of the shoe, and then left again for the long, long straight down the opposite flank far below, the road gradually curving to the right – no need to touch the brakes. The fast descent continued, offering more speed on the sudden steeper drop past the ancient abbey ruins, falling spectacularly until finally levelling out to enter Llangollen, the beautiful town on the River Dee where another spectacle awaited, the Horseshoe Falls. And a café stop for dinner, of course.

Cael diwrnod braf – which is Welsh for Have a Nice Day.

The Micro Ride

Fed up with reading about those long, long cycle tours indulged in by those with all the time in the bleeding world? Thought so.  Welcome to the micro training ride which as it so happens is now especially suited to the current plague restrictions.


In  fact the Micro predates this and is designed for those of us who, for one reason or many several, simply ain’t got the time for those 5 hour bashes – or even a two-hour thrash…

Not that I’m resentful of those able to go out all day or for weeks on end.  No, no, no, no.  Not me.  No, I’m certainly not envious of those lucky bastards.


Try this for size. Kicks off at 8am and I’ll be back indoors before I know it, calves and ham strings stretched and having a coffee by 9.


Here we go. Leave the house to quickly join the High Street  to exit the town a mile further on at the Big Cock – the quirky silver cockerel statue on the roundabout.

Hardly any traffic because of the lock down. It’s all so quiet.

I hear the soft beat of a Jay’s wings overhead. Normally it’s thundering motoring hell.

All quiet these day.


Straight on here, heading east on the A25, following the line of the lovely Downs rising to 600 feet on the left. On the left also note the town cemetery hard by the road, last resting place of former acquaintance Pete Allen. Pete, author of the Malcolm Birdseed Blog, an eccentric character with a weird and risqué view of market town life,  turning real local news inside out. Ribald comments a plenty.

He introduced us to electric sheep pants, much sought after by farmers for their flocks in winter.

(Birdseed is still accessible on the web. Check him out, for Pete)


We’d laugh fit to burst. Anything could start us off.  

RIP, Pete.


Over the railway bridge and sharp left, down Pixham Lane, parallel now with the railway where last year I was thrilled to see the Royal Scot loco steaming through on a special.


It was on this stretch of track in 1901, railway history recalls,  that the driver of Queen Victoria’s funeral train caused a stir by taking the curve far too fast – to the consternation of all aboard.
Her Majesty may have stirred but was  not shaken.


Houses on the left. Ease off for the traffic lights controlling a narrow section under an arched railway bridge. Not the same track, this one goes east - west, the other one north - south.

Playing fields on the left.  We’re approaching another roundabout, this one graced with the magnificent steel sculpture of two racing cyclists. Sculptor Heather Burrell has captured beautifully the athletic image of riders going full out.  This classic work was  erected in honour of the 2012 Olympic road races which rocketed through here. Sight of this always stirs my heart.


Left turn onto  a dual carriageway and  up a slight rise to cross over the railway bridge (the north-south track) followed by the corresponding drop to pass under another railway bridge (the east-west track).

Then up a gradual rise of some 300 metres which would make for an excellent road race finish, past houses with driveways, thence to the Big Cock and the completion of the first lap.


Where left again. On that first circuit we checked out places  on the left. Now we focus on the right.

First up is Tesco Express, dead opposite the cemetery (Hi, Pete, me again).

I ride down to Tesco Express now and again, whenever we suddenly find ourselves short of some vital thing, like mustard, or small bottle of brandy. It’s open till late.

I imagine most people using the shop are doing so for the same reason – not necessarily for mustard or brandy of course; but you never know.

 Because everyone is always moving at express speed, hurrying in there and hurrying out.  They’ve been out all day and suddenly realised they’ve nothing in.


On we go, over taking the young woman in bright yellow top running along the pavement.  Forgot to mention her on the first lap.

Left down Pixham Lane, through the traffic lights which give me the green for a change.  On the right the gates to the sewage farm. I imagine on warm sunny days people of no fixed awareness  enjoying a picnic, sitting out along the grassy banks of the filter beds.

Just ahead, another cyclist. Stay well back, mindful of the two metre rule.


Two metre rule? Clearly invented by Remainers. Leavers would prefer it to be 6 foot six.

On we go, saluting the Olympic Games sculpture now radiant in the low morning sunlight, up and over the bridge, under the next one.

And up to the Cock.
Two laps done.

Time for a third. 


Nothing has changed: all quiet in the cemetery. The rushers at Tesco have been brought up short...they’re in the queue outside, Remainers observing the two metre, Leavers the six foot six.

Eight minutes later, we’re back at The Cock, where right turn to retrace through the town for two laps of the one-way system.


West along the High Street now. Notable places of interest: all the empty coffee shops and bordered up shops, plus Sainsbury’s is open;  into the one-way system along South Street and passed posh Waitrose; further along we pass a new funeral parlour advertising money back if not satisfied. Past Antonio’s sandwich shop (Chow, Antonio – he’s a lovely chap, from Naples).

Past another funeral home, then hard right back into town. Wickes on the left, then Lidl – always think of the Quickstep team.


Then past the wonderfully named “Sliding Door Warehouse”!  I swear it hasn’t moved an inch during the 30 years I’ve lived in this town.

Traffic lights. Turn right into lovely narrow West Street featuring 15^th and 16^th century buildings.

We just need a coach and four to complete the scene, riders on Old Ordinaries.

This is now known as the “Antiques and Museum Quarter” and is on the Olympic road race route.

Nice windows for checking position.


Three pubs:

The Star (Green King) - no television - a tiny pub with a big heart, famous for introducing  pub panto such as Jack and the Beanstalk and film nights;  

The Old House (Youngs) – no Sky sports here, thank you.  But there is a wardrobe in the corner. If you push the coats aside there is a door in the panelling which leads to Narnia. So they tell customers, probably after eight pints of best;

The 14^th century King’s Arms (Shepherd Neame) - Sky Sports here thank you.

And not forgetting Head for the Hills bike shop and Mike’s Models.


In 300 metres pass Victoria’s Little Bra Shop window display (pulse quickens) making a right turn at Pump Corner to complete the first lap. Round we go again to complete a second lap. We start the third lap but time marches on and so in 200 metres right turn then left into the car park backing on to cottages. That’s it. Dismount, unlock the secret gate in the fence.

Home.

I an rejuvenated. It proves the saying, however little time you may have, ride the bike, ride the bike, ride the bike.

8.4 miles; 36 minutes;  calories 291; altitude 15.5m; average speed 14mph; Max 25mph.

Allez.

The media and the Coronavirus

This edition is given over entirely to cycling author Peter Whitfield.

“The Industry of Fear” questions the media hysteria to the Coronavirus and seeks to find a “sense of proportion” to this global health crisis.

THE INDUSTRY OF FEAR

Peter Whitfield,  March 2020

The Problem

All is not what it seems, and you should not believe everything you read in the newspapers. I am writing this in the city of Genoa, as much of the world is gripped by a public panic unlike anything I can remember, caused by a new form of influenza virus. This is the story which now entirely dominates the world news. The streets here are far quieter than I have ever seen them, because so many normal social functions are suspended, and people are being asked to isolate themselves indoors, and not to venture out. I don’t understand what is happening around me, and I am writing now to call for a sense of proportion in this crisis. I am not a doctor and not an epidemiologist; I simply want to look at a few facts, and place them in the context of some broader ideas. As I write, this city is, like much of Italy, in a state of near-paralysis.

Empty streets in cities across Europe

            I am not qualified to enter into an analysis of the disease statistics or to interpret them. This virus is clearly able to spread very quickly through some communities, but apparently less rapidly in others. The most striking thing about the disease it that it affects almost exclusively old people, aged at least sixty, more often seventy, with many victims in their eighties and older; the average age of those who have died here is reportedly 81. Most these people have been suffering from what we now call pre-existing conditions, that is, they were seriously ill, with conditions that could be life-threatening. Relatively healthy people under the age of sixty seem either not to contract the virus, or if they do, they experience moderate symptoms similar to other flu types, from which they recover normally. The reality is that 95% of people have little or nothing to fear from this infection.

            The first important question to ask is: How does this outbreak compare to our previous experience of flu, and to mortality patterns generally ? The population of Italy is 60 million, and total mortality is around 600,000. Half of the total deaths occur, not surprisingly, in the age-group 65-90, with heart disease, cancer and dementia among the leading causes. Publicly available statistics tell us that in Italy over the last five years, flu deaths have been running at 17,000 per year, say in round terms, 1400 per month. Total global deaths from influenza currently stand at 640,000 per year. We might also reflect that in Italy, smoking-related deaths are given as 70,000 per year, alcohol-related deaths as 20,000, and road traffic deaths as slightly below 5,000. Thus smoking, drinking and car-crashes cause a total of 95,000 deaths annually in Italy, deaths which we can surely classify as unnecessary or preventable. The average age of the Italian population is rising steadily. What conclusions do these statistics point to?

            First, that if the Coronavirus is here for some time, and if it continues to cause around 10,000 or 12,000 deaths per year, the total death toll would rise by that amount. Yet the extra deaths would still be lower than the “normal” flu deaths with which we have been living for many years. Second, that these extra deaths would occur almost entirely in the age-group 65-90. Third, that these extra deaths would still be far lower than those other unnecessary or preventable deaths mentioned  above. The conclusion is that there are certain types of death which we are prepared to tolerate, because we have become accustomed to them, and we are not prepared to take the steps necessary to eliminate them. To put it bluntly, we simply don’t care about them, they are simply part of the price we pay for a free-choice society. But there are other newer types of death which shock us and which we cannot tolerate. Except that this one is not a really new type of death, it is a form of influenza, which is already killing 17,000 Italians each year; so there is something irrational or inexplicable here about the way we perceive things.

The truth is that within the pattern of human dying, in Italy and world-wide, there is no very great abnormality in the current flu outbreak. Looking further afield, I give the example of malaria, an illness whose origin and treatment are very well understood, but which still kills around 500,000 people a year, the great majority of them in sub-Saharan Africa. If this new flu virus had brought extra deaths into Africa, would we have declared war on it, or would we have let it quietly run its course? In the field of preventable deaths, the numbers of gun-related deaths in the USA is 30,000 per year, mostly murders, but many suicides. No American government has ever shown any desire to reduce this figure by controlling the availability of guns, yet now, when American deaths from this virus number a few hundred, they are frantically seeking every means possible to combat it. 

Mankind Within Nature

Our attitude to death is clearly strange and irrational; perhaps our feelings about death have become socially conditioned. We accept certain types of death as routine, while others we target as unacceptable. Medical science has made such advances in the past fifty or sixty years, through drugs and surgery, that it can promise us a life longer by far than we could have expected in any past age. A longer life expectancy has become the Holy Grail of medicine, to the extent that there almost exists a sense that no one should ever die, that biological life can and should be prolonged to the ultimate point. We seem to have lost the sense that death is a part of nature, a part of life, in a word, that we must all die, some later and some sooner. Death is apparently seen as an affront to medical science and to human power. Yet this increased medical power has not led to a lessening of the fear of death, quite the reverse, it has intensified that fear, and created a demand to be cured of each and every ailment. This medical power has become part of man’s self-glorification, his sense of having risen above nature, of having left natural laws behind. When a new, previously unknown virus such as this one appears, able to kill a considerable number of people in the developed world, we are shocked and, we lose all sense of proportion, and are reduced to panic. We are outraged that the humblest life-forms in nature – insignificant, unintelligent, microscopic organisms – can threaten our life, and so we declare war on them. The language used to describe this present outbreak has been almost apocalyptic, which only shows what short memories we have, seeing that the plagues of earlier centuries killed humankind in their millions, but that, totally without the aid of science, the population has always recovered. It may sound heartless to discuss death in this cold clinical way, but we have to acknowledge that death is a clinical function, a fundamental part of living nature. This has to be said, even though to say it lays one open to the charge of being inhumane.

            I find it especially striking that this virus outbreak and the extraordinary reaction to it should happen now, at this point in human history. I had imagined that in the last twenty or thirty years, the environmental crisis had worked a radical change in our ideas about man, nature and the planet. I thought that we were beginning to re-capture a sense that man could not separate himself from nature, or else disaster would overtake him. For two hundred years mankind has been using science and technology to distance himself from nature, without regard to the costs of his actions; now it seems we understand those costs only too well. We understand that mankind’s success as a species threatens the whole of nature, ultimately even his own existence. And medical science is implicated in that threat, because beneath the environmental crisis lies the powerful driving force of population growth.

            In the environmental debate, one of the hardest things to talk about is population. It has been estimated that in the year 1800 the earth’s population was not more than one billion. It took until 1930 to reach two billion. By the year 2000 it was six billion. It is now approaching eight billion, and seems set to reach ten billion by 2050. Medical progress limiting the causes of death has been the key factor in this population growth. And here, in these figures alone, we see the fundamental force that is driving the environmental crisis: billions of human lives all demanding work, food, energy, housing, transport, tools for living, education, medical care and social care. And yet still medical science is moving forward with research on a hundred different fronts to combat still more causes of death. Why do we not see that death is the simple natural counterbalance to population growth? Why should the human population continue to grow? Why, when this virus appears and threatens to claim some tens of thousands of human lives, should a cry of panic arise from the medical and political establishments, saying that we must at all costs conquer this virus and save those lives?

Why, rationally, do we need eight billion people rather than seven billion, or six billion or five billion? If we continue to multiply, it seems that the earth will slowly but inevitably die. Perhaps a partial human extinction of humanity may be the only answer, but how can that come about? How do we reduce that population? Who shall say who should die and who can live? How can we claim that there must be a future for limitless numbers of humankind, if that future is biologically untenable? How can we doubt that nature is using these humble organisms to swing the balance of power against mankind?

True and False Perspectives

Questions like these are uncomfortable and disturbing, but if we have learned anything from the environment debate in the last twenty years, they have to be asked. If we admit that human impact on the planet is disastrous, then we have to look at ways to reduce it, and population reduction is an obvious way of achieving this. Yet the behaviour of political leaders and still more the news media has been to precipitate a global panic at the idea that some thousands of people, culled from eight billion, may die, in addition to the millions who die annually from a myriad of natural causes. And we should add that in spite of all these normal deaths, the world’s population is still remorselessly increasing by some eighty million per year. Leaders at all levels should be re-assuring people that the majority of the population has nothing to fear from this disease, while warning that some deaths are inevitable. In the news reports the virus has become a frenzied obsession, full of predictions of disaster for mankind. We no longer hear anything about the environmental issues about which the press has been screaming for years, nor about great political challenges such as Brexit. The only subject of interest now is this new threat to the lives of a small fraction of the human race – nothing else matters. There has been a failure of leadership, of rationality, so that the crisis we now find ourselves in is not the disease itself but the panic which has been allowed to develop, which is out of all proportion to the actual threat to life.  

The media have for years been selling news by promoting fear as hard as they can and in all its forms. Fear of war and terrorism, fear of climate change, fear of natural disasters, fear of disease, fear of financial collapse, fear of political and social change – all these things have made today’s press into a contemporary dance of death. The hysteria of the media naturally has an effect on political leaders, and in a situation like the present one they too are swept along into over-reaction. They lose sight of reality and a spiral of fear is generated that might be appropriate for some virulent plague which was capable of killing millions. This problem is presented as if it were the rout of civilisation, the massacre of mankind. This virus has revealed the tremendous levels of insecurity that lie beneath the surface of modern life, and the vulnerability of our social networks. Countless millions of people around the world have been terrified, social life has been disrupted, and reason has been lost sight of through the poor leadership that has been shown in this episode. It is as though our lives are no longer our own, they are mere incidents over which governments and scientists have jurisdiction. The politicians have played the fear game, responding to the media hysteria, promising extreme measures to defeat this disease, irrespective of the social costs. The level of fear that this illness has provoked seems to me to point to a deep unease felt by so many people about our modern way of life, the sense that the human world is unstable, out of control, and its individual members alienated and vulnerable. This is why the industry of fear is flourishing.   

The Romans didn't have toilet paper - they used a sponge on a stick

What kind of irrational fear is it that provokes panic buying of toilet rolls, leaving supermarket shelves bare? Is it the fear of having to self-isolate during this Coronavirus crisis and horror of horrors, running out of bum wipes.


(Tip:  The Romans used a sponge on a stick, which they washed in a bowl of vinegar.)


Coronavirus is new and science has yet to figure out the likely impact, how to control it.

It’s the fear of the unknown. Media coverage has added to our angst.


Dare we introduce some perspective? I began to search the internet, there to find a whole manner of life threatening diseases and fates which kill millions annually and none have been flagged up in the same way as Coronavirus.


It is the very young and the most elderly, specifically those with underlying health issues, who are most at risk of dying, we are told.


The biggest killer is chronic obstructive pulmonary disease - claiming 3.0 million lives in 2016;

Lung cancer (along with trachea and bronchus cancers) claimed 1.7 million deaths; Diabetes kiled1.6 million people in 2016, up from less than 1 million in 2000.


Down there in eighth place overall in the death stakes are Road Deaths: In 2013 some 1.25 million were killed on the roads.


One person is killed in a road traffic collision every 23 seconds…tick, tock, tick, tock, and another one.

At 14.45 on March 11, for the example, the figure stood at 2,275 killed that morning and growing; 39,396 killed so far this month; 265,821 killed since the start of the year.

In the UK alone, Department for Transport stats reveal that 1,770 people were killed on the roads in 2018.


Road deaths are currently ranked 8^th    most unpopular way to go in World Health Organisation stats.

One of the biggest killers is pollution from vehicle exhausts, power plants and factories which cause almost 9 million deaths a year.



As of (March 12) 4,291 people had so far died from Coronavirus-  over 3000 of them in China where the virus originated late last year. There had been 10 deaths in the UK by Friday the 13^th May, an increase of four in three days.