Category: Blog

September 15, 2019 / Carlton Reid / Blog

TEACHING OLD DOGS NEW TRICKS IN EPIC BIKEPARK LEOGANG

EPISODE 225

Spokesmen Cycling Roundtable Podcast

Sunday 15th September 2019

SPONSOR: Jenson USA

Carlton downhilling in The Epic Bikepark Leogang.

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUESTS:

Katharina Auer, downhill mountain biker and marketing for Saalfelden Leogang tourist board, Austria

Nico helped me nail some berm-riding techniques

Nicolas Wegs, downhill racer and mountain bike instructor, The Epic Bikepark Leogang

TOPIC: Riding–and learning–in The Epic Bikepark Leogang, Austria, venue for the 2020 UCI Mountain Bike Downhill World Championships.

TRANSCRIPT

Carlton Reid 0:14
Welcome to Episode 225 of the Spokesmen Cycling Roundtable Podcast. This show was recorded on Sunday 15th of September 2019.

David Bernstein 0:23
The Spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast is brought to you by Jenson USA, where you’ll always find a great selection of products at amazing prices with unparalleled customer service. For more information, just go to Jensonusa.com/the spokesmen. Hey everybody, it’s David from the Fredcast cycling podcast at www.theFredcast.com. I’m one of the hosts and producers of the Spokesmen Cycling Roundtable Podcast. For show notes, links and all sorts of other information please visit our website at www.the- spokesmen.com. And now, here are the spokesmen.

Carlton Reid 1:08
Hi there. I’m Carlton Reid. And this show is a mountain bike special recorded last week in the Epic Bikepark Leogang, Austria. I scared myself witless tearing down some world class downhill trails. But at least my technique was a little bit better than usual. Because I had some pre ride lessons from 20 year old Nico, one of the bike parks full time instructors. I mentioned Nico’s age, because I’ve been mountain biking for the best part of 35 years. That’s a long time. But you’re never too old to learn new stuff. And Nico taught me how to ride berms higher and faster than I’m used to. And instead of slinking back on the bike during a root- strewn descent, he showed me how I’d have more control of the front wheel by keeping my centre of balance over the bottom bracket.

This episode of the Spokesman Cycling Roundtable podcast is brought to you from Leogang in Austria, which is mountain bike Mecca, and I’ve been riding in the Epic Bikepark, but right now I’ve just had breakfast at the Mama Thresl hotel, which is a boutique hotel, wonderful hotel, in Leogang and at the back of the balcony here at the hotel are a bunch of cows because they are munching on grass right in front of me. You might be able to hear the sound of cows moving and munching and right up above them are the Steinberg mountains, so Stein/stone, Berg/mountains, and that’s the foreground really to all the mountain biking that you do in this area. So this is the Saalfelden-Leogang area. And I can see the cow is actually quite full of milk. Local milk. So the breakfast I had today was said it was all local and you couldn’t get much more local than these cows. Anyway, the Saalfelden-Leogang area is as I said before a mountain bike Mecca. Now I’ve been a mountain biker since 1984. Yesterday, I had my first ever bike lesson. And Nico, who’s not a local downhiller, but he’s from Germany, but he is an expert downhiller and he took me out on some of the amazing trails here at in The Leogaqng Bike Park, the Epic Bike Park has been renamed that and I can I can see why it’s called that it’s pretty steep. So it was it was very much out of my comfort zone on many of the steeps, so Nico taught me some stuff that I probably will have never been taught before. Especially on berms, and how to ride berms, and there are a tonne of berms here in Leogang. And he then took me out on the on the trails. And I didn’t crash, I didn’t kill myself. I survived much to my surprise on a on a rental bike from the resort. And even though I’ve been riding for the best part of 35 years, I learned loads. So after yesterday’s wonderful day in the Leogang Bike Park, I came back to the hotel and went in Mama Thresl’s unbelievably scenic spa I’ve ever been in – that’s a car leaving the hotel, there’s not cows – the most scenic spa I’ve ever been in. So the sauna is just got this amazing vista of the surrounding mountains. Incredibly hot sauna. And what a great way to to unwind after a hard session on the Leogang Bike Park. But now right now, I’m off to meet Katharina Auer who is the Saalfelden-Leogang bike expert. And she is at the Bike Festival, which is an annual event here and I’m going to chat to her there.

Katharina Auer 5:44
I’m Katharina Auer, marketing manager at the Tourism Board Saalfelden-Leogang.

Carlton Reid 5:50
Okay. Well, thank you for meeting me

today. Because we are sitting in the stands we can hear

5:56
the gondola

Carlton Reid 5:57
going over mountain bikers coming back, and then some bike washing in the background. And also across the road there. You’ve got a bike festival going on. So tell me first about the bike festival. what’s what’s happening there?

Katharina Auer 6:11
The Bike Festival is taking place the second time this year. And there are about 80 exhibitors who present the bikes from next year already. And you can actually also test them. So this is kind of the big thing here. You can just come around, test the new bikes from next year and then ride them next year.

Carlton Reid 6:32
Eurobike has just finished. So bikes from there have come

here and now you can test them. Yeah,

perfect. And that

6:44
costs or that people just come along and

Katharina Auer 6:46
just come along. They can test bikes, they can test backpacks, they can take part in enduro races, or pumptrack races – its festival for the whole family.

Carlton Reid 6:59
Now, tell me your background. So you, you are from promoting the mountain biking here and you also a mountain bike yourself?

Katharina Auer 7:06
Yeah. Well,

I’ve worked in tourism boards for seven years now. And taking over the mountain bike marketing and also product development in the region for a couple of years. And I’m a biker myself. So basically, just perfect job.

Carlton Reid 7:25
Wonderful. And do you get out on the trails? Like at the end of the day? How do you or do you like you’re always in the office, you can never get out.

Katharina Auer 7:32
Now? Well, I try to get out as often as possible. So just catching the last gondola up on the mountain and then doing for example, the new Steinberg Line by Fox, which is a really nice flow line. And a long run so good run in the evening and or in the afternoon after work.

Carlton Reid 7:51
So how long is that particular trail, how long is that from the top?

Katharina Auer 7:55
It’s 10 kilometres long approximately. So we didn’t finally measured yet because it was just finally opened. A couple of weeks ago. We had a lot of snow this winter. So everything got to be delayed with building all the new trails. But I think everyone loves it. And kids can go on it the whole family can go on it. And even experts are having fun it.

Carlton Reid 8:19
You’d have to be pretty good kid to go down that. But then again, he here, I’m guessing you’re going to have lots of very good kids from a very early age, because you’ve got an amazing world class facilities here.

Katharina Auer 8:31
Yeah, well, we try to instruct kids and beginners of all ages, like you learn skiing in winter. So you start with the carpet, down in the valley, just doing small trails with the bikes cool. Then you go on a T bar. And when you’ve done that, you go up in the mountain. And so it just takes away all your fear. And you can learn downhill biking, safe in safe way.

Carlton Reid 8:58
What about schools, local schools do they have as part of our lessons that they have mointain bike lessons, and then ski lessons later on.

Katharina Auer 9:06
And we are actually developing a bike club right now trying to get more kids into mountain biking just like they do skiing in the winter. It’s kind of a cooperation between the cable car company, the bike school volunteers Tourism Board, trying to motivate kids to go biking.

And one of the big motivating things I guess coming up and I know there’s it’s very big here is what’s happening next year. Yeah. Well, you tell me what’s what’s happening next year?

9:38
Well, we are hosting the Downhill Mountain Bike World Championships for the second time next year in September. We’re really looking forward to it. We’ve been hosting loads of World Cup events in last years. So yeah, I’m excited already. To see as many people as possible coming here.

Carlton Reid 10:03
That was my next question. How many people are you expecting to crowd into into Leogang next year?

Katharina Auer 10:09
Well, we had on the World Cup events we had about 25,000 over the whole weekend, in the last years, and I guess it’s World Championship. So it’s going to be even more people being excited about the sport,

Carlton Reid 10:25
There is a very, very extreme World Championship route already out there, which you can you can right now. But that is being changed, you’re going to have a brand new route rail for next year.

Katharina Auer 10:41
It’s going to be probably going to be the same course. We always every year trying to make some adaptations, building new things, changing the route slightly. So we see it’s going to be a surprise for everyone.

Carlton Reid 10:56
And when people who come here when mountain bikers come here for like that week holiday as part of that, the World Championships coming to watch that they can ride all of the trails at the same time, or will there be that that World Championship route will be closed off to them for that week?

Katharina Auer 11:15
Well, the World Championship route of course is closed and couple of trails which cross the World Championship track, of course. But anyway, there are a lot of trails open still. So you can just plan your day go hiking, watch the world championships, go to a concert in the evening. go biking on one of the single trails also which are outside of the bike park or even do yeah, I don’t know, pedal up in the morning, if you want to.

Carlton Reid 11:49
And to tell me about the lift access, so you can hear they get the gondola here behind us. But you’ve got this too. So there’s two lifts up from the from the town.

Katharina Auer 11:57
Yeah, this was one of the innovations this year as well. Well that we opened a second cable car all the way to the top, on the weekends from Thursday to Sunday. And the cable car is actually open from mid May till beginning of November, which is a really long season. So every single day. So yeah, you can go biking and then start skiing right away. Probably we we even had this this Easter because Easter was quite late so people could ski to the middle station and then biking a bike park, from middle station down into the valley.

Carlton Reid 12:35
And you’re already attracting an international audience here. I mean, Leogang is famous around the world. And you see that from your figures, you can see that you’ve got – where’s your biggest overseas markets

Katharina Auer 12:50
Well, it’s actually the UK because of the biking, probably this is one of the main reasons and also when not overseas would be for example, Czech Republic because they are really sports interested. And then of course first places is always Germany and Austria. Those are the main people coming here, but we can see an increasing. Yeah, UK people for example.

Nicolas Wegs 13:21
Just watch where am I going in the berm, most people go straight into it. But we want to go as high as possible. Right in front of the berm. Okay?

Carlton Reid 13:48
Nico? What’s your full name?

Nicolas Wegs 13:51
I’m Nicolas Wegs . I’m from Germany from West Germany next to the border of the Netherlands.

Carlton Reid 14:01
And you I mean, I’ve been I’ve been mountain biking for Well, I’m not gonna do the arithmetic here. But since 1984. And this is the first time I’ve ever had a lesson on how to mountain bike.

So how old are you?

Nicolas Wegs 14:18
I’m 20 years old.

Carlton Reid 14:19
Okay, so I’ve been mountain biking roughly double your life.

But you know far more than me even though because you’re an instructor Yes,

Nicolas Wegs 14:29
yes, I am a bike guide since for years

14:33
and before this for years, I was racing downhill

Carlton Reid 14:37
So describe Nico where where we are right now because we are in a we’re in a little cabin. We’re going up the mountain but behind us describe what what mountains Am I seeing there? Nico, we are in Leogang. Yeah, we’re living in Austria. But what are those mountains there behind us?

Nicolas Wegs 14:53
This mountains right there called the Steinberger. So it’s translated should call stone mountains. Yeah. Just because not necessarily which whether you will always see this big rocks. In the winter, there’s no snow just rocks.

Unknown Speaker 15:14
And this is the the Leogang Epic. Nothing has now been changed. The name has been changed.

Nicolas Wegs 15:19
Since this year. It’s called the Epic Bikepark Leogang.

Carlton Reid 15:22
Yes. And this is going to be the venue in 2020. Of The World Championships. Yeah, right. So that’s what that’s what the leading up to here. Yeah. You said there is a world championship course here, which we’re not going to do Nico,

Nicolas Wegs 15:35
Just over here is the World Cup track, the Downhill World Cup track? Since I think 10 years already. And next year, they are the world championships and the data.

Carlton Reid 15:46
Okay, what’s what’s siren we’re hearing? We’re hearing what’s what’s that?

Nicolas Wegs 15:49
Let’s look on the clock. Okay, it’s thinking, I hope it’s a test alarm, which is

once a month, I think,

Carlton Reid 16:00
telling us telling us what, what if it went normally, what would it be telling us

Nicolas Wegs 16:06
It would tell us that is something wrong, but it would tell the rescue team that they should go somewhere and rescue something. And someone

Carlton Reid 16:19
Describe what we’ve got here in the Bikepark here. And I can describe it. And then there’s lots of North Shore, chicklen wire. These look pretty extreme from my point of view, it would, it would scare me coming down some of these but you’ve got I mean, we have lots of steep ground here. So many of the routes down can be for beginners, or is this all really for experts, and pros?

Nicolas Wegs 16:42
Much tracks are already for beginners. So we got I think 13 tracks in Leogang. For from the top to the middle station. And from the middle station to the bottom, we got all the rest of the tracks. From the top station to the middle station, we got the Steinbeck line, which is the first track we’re riding with beginners. And then the Hotshots line is, which is the flow line with big tables, big jumps, big berms, and the Hangman I, which is by technical step downs, many rocks many roots. And from the middle stage, and we got the Flying Gangster and the World Cup track, which this one we can see from the gondola

Carlton Reid 17:22
And you’re not going to take me on those, no?

where you get it where you gonna take me because I’m, I’ve been doing it for a long time. But as you can see, because you were teaching me today, I’m not the best mountain biker in the world. So where you going to take me?

Nicolas Wegs 17:36
We’re going to ride the Steinbeck line from the top station to the middle station. And after this one, we’re going to go to the Flying Gangster, which is this route saw down there. But the other part is not that difficult, like down there. And then I think we’re going to go to the Schwartzleo trail, which is a nature-based trail, and not very much shaped and not this flow line. Like, yeah.

Carlton Reid 18:04
And how much is it costing people to get into the bike park and then rent a bike and then then and then rent somebody like you? What do people would have to pay for that?

Nicolas Wegs 18:14
Okay, in the beginning, we need a lift ticket, which is around about 30 euros per day. And if we want to go with the downhill bike, so not this bike not this bike, but the downhill bike will cost you around 100 euros a day. And private lessons at the bike school costs 65 euros per hour. And 20 euro plus if you want to get a friend into it or something if you if you’re more people than one it’s 20 euro more

Carlton Reid 18:49
per person. Is that normal for you than to do what you’re doing because you got your day, Nico. I’m very lucky. Is that normal? Or do you just literally go out for some day?

Nicolas Wegs 18:59
Mostly we got bigger groups like group training, which is not this expensive. So you’re paying like the same price for the whole day. But you have a group of six to eight people. And yeah, just private lessons over the whole days. Not the usual day for me.

Carlton Reid 19:18
And then we have got some events happening this weekend. So there’s a there’s a bike festivals and more. More mountain bikers are expected to come in this weekend. Yeah,

Nicolas Wegs 19:29
There are really two big events in Leogang. The first one in June is the World Cup of the Downhill and now this event is the Bike Festival which is with was already in Ria del Garda and Wlling in Germany now it’s the last stop and we got enduro races, mountain bike races since until two years ago, there was a European downhillcup here too, theere are kids’ races, theres an Expo area so quite big event. Yeah,

Carlton Reid 20:03
Because I can’t see many mountain bikers here now because we are we are midweek but also it’s a huge, huge area. So I guess mountain bikers will be spread everywhere.

Nicolas Wegs 20:14
Yeah, if you go down to the gondola station, you will see okay, now today, many people on the track. But on the track itself, you won’t see this much biker because we have 13 tracks and split up quite well.

Carlton Reid 20:28
So we’re now going through the mittel station, mid station. And we are going to go all the way to the top. Yes, yes.

Nicolas Wegs 20:36
Right. So we could go out here and ride the Hangman to the downhill track and many other tracks but we going up just because we have much more fun and much more to ride if we go all the way to the top. And what

Carlton Reid 20:51
are they cabins do we have here was this this is we now have the cabin. That’s it for the bike park or there are other means of getting up to the top?

The Asitz gondola was until last year the only way to go up the hill. And since last year, you can go up the hill from Thursday to Sunday on the Steinbeck vantu. It starts one kilometre down the road and ends up on the same level and it’s the same point as this one. So it’s not not important if you take this one or the other one you will get up to the same point.

And why are you here? What are you doing? Because you were telling me before that you’re a student, you’re doing mechanical engineering, but this is something that you do in the holidays, you you you you’re qualified by guide and then you come and do this in your in your holidays.

Nicolas Wegs 21:44
Yes, just because I love to teach something I can do and I love to see it if people get what I want them to do. So have a smile after the lesson I’ve done wanting to do

Carlton Reid 22:02
And have you mountain biked in many places in the world?

Nicolas Wegs 22:05
Yeah, just as I said just before I started guiding here leaving I raced for three or four years and raced European downhill cups, German downhill cups, and local downhill cups …

All over Europe to race my bike. Yeah.

Carlton Reid 22:28
And now we’re getting very steep again here. So this is the mid station and then it’s basically from the bottom it’s 16 and a half minutes all the way to the top. What kind of height are we going up to?

Nicolas Wegs 22:41
We start around 800 metres of height down there and we’ll end up at under 2000 metre height

Carlton Reid 22:53
Okay, and what is the season here when when does it start and when does it finish?

Nicolas Wegs 22:58
You can ride your bike here in Leogang from May to the end of October. And it depends on how much snow days and if there’s much snow in October they close up earlier if there are no snow in October maybe you can go and ride your bike until November.

Carlton Reid 23:16
So just describe this compared to other places where you have mountain biked What is special about here?

Nicolas Wegs 23:26
I think the most special part of Leogang is that you only have this one gondola and have this much tracks for example in comparison to Saalbach which is on the other side of the hill, you have five or six gondolas and less drag so you going around the city all the time to go into the gondola and here in Leoganf you can go with a gondala and you have all these tracks right in front of you.

Carlton Reid 23:51
And then if you are much more sedate mountain biker and not a downhiller roundabout you have many many trails for just cross country cycling you don’t have to come into the into the park you can go on the trails which are free.

Nicolas Wegs 24:08
Yeah, for example, you can just get one ride with the gondola and many many trails around Leogang and many many tours. Even for beginners you can do like the panorama trail panorama to which is mostly on forest streets. And it’s getting difficult more difficult and more difficult until you doing for example the big five so you can get your big five ticket go up this gondola and too big to around this five highest mountains around and you’ll end up here again.

Carlton Reid 24:48
You saying before that you like these conditions because we’ve had some rain overnight. So it’s it’s stickier, it’s less dusty so this is what you prefer these are the conditions for you ideal conditions

Nicolas Wegs 24:59
Yeah, I love these conditions firstly because there are no people in the Bikepark so you have the tracks for your own and if there’s rain overnight and it’s dry over the day there’s not this loose gravel in the berms so it’s much more grippy, the roots starts to dry so you have enough grip to read over roots and yeah, just I said by focus for your own know people out there and you’re the best conditions to ride.

Carlton Reid 25:28
And a bit of a pro tip there is don’t touch any of the wires because they are electrified day I presume with me because this is a very agricultural area so to keep the cows out and I’m I can see that as we’re just going over some sheep. Yeah. So the wires are to keep the livestock in not to stop the mountain bikers going off-piste.

Nicolas Wegs 25:49
Yeah, right, the wires up just for keeping the the animals inside the area. So some of the tracks for example, Hangman 1 is going through areas through the area of animals. So is it possible to drive over the track and at any point there is a cow in the middle of the track. So on top of the hill, there’s a sign Be careful of animals, Be careful of cows or sheeps, or even horses or something. So

yeah, you have to give way for animals.

Carlton Reid 26:22
Thanks to Nico and Katharina there of the epic Bike Park, Leogang in Austria. You can find out how and when to get there at www.BikePark-Leogang.com and Nico’s photos of me nailing if you can say that way – nailing some downhills can be found at the same place where you can access this podcast’s shownotes, which is, as always, at www.the-spokesmen.com Now, the next episode of the Spokesmen Roundtable Cycling podcast is road-bike themed as I ride – I’m a lucky guy- as I ride the Bartali 180, a 125-mile ride from Florence in Italy to the hilltown of Assisi.

This was the first of an annual pilgrimage ride celebrating the World War Two heroism of Tour de France winner Gino Bartali. Meanwhile, get out there and ride …

August 11, 2019 / Carlton Reid / Blog

Council’s Injunction To Stop Cyclists Assembling At Cycle Cafe Could Go National

Episode 224

Council’s Injunction To Stop Cyclists Assembling At Cycle Cafe Could Go National (see UPDATES below for the latest information on this fluid situation).

SPONSOR: Jenson USA

Sunday 11th August 2019

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUESTS:

Lee Goodwin, owner of Velolife cafe
Cycling UK’s campaigns head Duncan Dollimore
And – via DMs – barrister Martin Porter QC

TOPIC:

Berkshire cycle cafe Velolife & six local cycling clubs have been served with scary legal letters to stop cyclists assembling because of an alleged noise nuisance. What’s being done about this, and can such absurd over-reactions spread elsewhere in the UK?

Road.cc article

The Lady Harberton case of 1899

Telegraph article

NOTE: In the intro to the audio I made a mistake – it’s Lee Goodwin not Lee Martin. Sorry about that. The transcript has been corrected.

UPDATES

New: The elected leader of Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead council Simon Dudley has visited Velocafe and gave his support. Some common sense to be engaged soon, then?

Cycled to @thevelolife to chat to fantastic owner Lee. He’s got a great setup here for cyclists to enjoy. I will be meeting with @BritishCycling and responsible @RBWM officers to find a pragmatic compromise to allow this super little business to flourish. Great cake and coffee! pic.twitter.com/iWeAg3Q2AD
— Simon Dudley (@MrSimonDudley) August 11, 2019

THE LATEST …

Joint statement on behalf of the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead, British Cycling and Cycling UK: Velolife Cafe

Friday, 16th August 2019 (about lunchtime)

Yesterday the council held very constructive talks with representatives from British Cycling and Cycling UK, who represent many cyclists and cycling clubs in the UK

The aim of the talks was to look for a pragmatic solution that gives clubs and cyclists clarity regarding the council’s position on Velolife Cafe.

Following the meeting, the council are pleased to confirm that they will not be taking any action against cycling clubs or individuals who use the facilities at Velolife Café and apologises for suggesting that they might. Letters sent to cycling clubs indicating that legal action might be considered have already been withdrawn.

All three organisations will continue to work with the café owner, the freeholder, and local people to ensure that the business is able to continue while respecting the rights of nearby neighbours.

It has never been the council’s intention to stop a local business from thriving or prevent groups from enjoying the facilities at the café. However, in its role as a local authority the council must consider the rights of local residents. The council hope that with the support of British Cycling and Cycling UK we will be able to strike the right balance for all concerned.

Duncan Sharkey, managing director at the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead, said: “I am pleased that we have been able to hold these very constructive talks with British Cycling and Cycling UK.

“Ensuring that the café and those who want to use its facilities are able to continue, while respecting the rights of those who live nearby has proven tricky. However, I hope that by working together we will find a solution everyone is happy with.”

Colin Walker British Cycling’s lead cycling delivery manager said:

“First and foremost, we’re delighted that the threat of legal proceedings against cycling clubs for using the Velolife café on their weekend rides has been lifted. Hats off to the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead for meeting with us to discuss this issue, recognise the mistake that had been made in raising the possibility of legal action, and withdrawing the letters sent to clubs.

“We know that cyclists in the region really value the Velolife café as a place to visit on their weekend rides, so we certainly hope that the café and council can engage constructively to ensure that the planning issues that have been raised can be resolved. We’ll continue to talk with all concerned and do our bit to help achieve a positive outcome”.

Duncan Dollimore, head of campaigns at Cycling UK said: “Cycling clubs and their members shouldn’t be concerned about legal proceedings if they stop at a particular café, so we’re relieved that the council has now confirmed that it will not take any such action.

“Given the council’s willingness to meet with and listen to representations from both Cycling UK and British Cycling, and then review their position regarding the cyclists attending Velolife, we hope a swift resolution to the planning dispute concerning the café can also be achieved.

“We spoke with Velolife’s owner Lee Goodwin this morning, and will continue to liaise with him, local clubs and the Council to ensure that this much loved and thriving local business can continue.”

HOWEVER …. A NEW STATEMENT WAS ISSUED AT ABOUT TEATIME ON FRIDAY 16th AUGUST

Duncan Dollimore, Cycling UK’s head of campaigns said:

“Yesterday, Cycling UK and British Cycling met with representatives from the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead. Subsequently, the Council confirmed that they were happy to withdraw enforcement letters sent to cycling clubs threatening legal action if they attended the Velolife Café.

“In a joint statement issued this morning, the Council then indicated that it would work to ensure that Velolife was able to continue, and that it was not its intention to stop people enjoying the facilities there.

“It is therefore incredibly frustrating and disappointing to have to issue this further statement a few hours later, following discussions with Velolife’s owner Lee Goodwin this afternoon and lengthy email exchanges with the Council.

“Cycling UK was informed a few hours ago that the Council had informed Mr Goodwin today that, notwithstanding their statement that no action would be taken against clubs attending Velolife, Mr Goodwin still needed to ensure that clubs did not use the café as a stop before, during or after organised rides, and that to do so would breach the terms of the draft injunction the Council has sought.

“Accordingly, Cycling UK are obliged to clarify their position, and notify local cycling clubs that whilst their attendance at Velolife will not lead to enforcement action against the club, any such attendance may be considered a breach of planning requirements by RBWM and lead to further action against Mr Goodwin.

“Cycling UK will be discussing matters with Mr Goodwin and considering what further steps need to be taken as a matter of urgency.”

YES, WTAF …

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TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to Episode 224 of the Spokesmen Cycling Roundtable Podcast. This show was recorded on Sunday 11th August 2019.

0:24
The Spokesmen Cycling Roundtable podcast is brought to you by Jenson USA, where you’ll always find a great selection of products at amazing prices with unparalleled customer service. For more information, just go to Jensonusa.com/thespokesmen. Hey everybody, it’s David from the Fred cast cycling podcast at www.theFredcast.com. I’m one of the hosts and producers of the Spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast. For show notes, links and all sorts of other information please visit our website at

0:59
www.the-spokesmen.com And now, here are the Spokesmen …

1:09
Carlton Reid
Hi there. I’m Carlton Reid and today we have a fascinating roundtable discussion of an issue that could have potential damaging ramifications for cycling clubs in the UK and the cafes and restaurants they may wish to visit. However, the virtual round table went a bit wonky, and had to be propped up with little bits of pretend cardboard. Let me explain. To record these podcasts I use a Skype-like service called Zencastr, which usually works great. But yesterday while recording three guests in different parts of the UK, who I’ll introduce in a second, Zencastr had some resilience issues. I’ve been able to salvage most of the audio, but you get to hear me dealing with a tech meltdown. Barrister Martin Porter was supposed to be on the show, but Zencastr didn’t like his mic.

2:00
After some valiant attempt using different PCs, the always eloquent Martin was sadly forced to drop out of the show. But I asked him to send me some comments via Twitter DMs, which he did. And I read them out live to my other guests. These were Cycling UK head of campaigns Duncan Dollimore and Lee Goodwin of the Velolife cafe. This cafe in a Berkshire hamlet is famous at the moment because a draft injunction has been served preventing cyclists congregating outside. This is an absurd situation and the absurdity carried through to the recording, because Lee couldn’t hear Duncan and Duncan couldn’t hear Lee. However, I could hear them both. So I relayed messages between the two while I was recording. It worked bizarre, but it worked. When the gremlins started sabotaging the show, I could have called the whole thing off, but I persevered because, as you’ll hear towards the end of the show, this isn’t just something that affects Lee’s

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business, bad though that is, it could potentially prevent cyclists from congregating in groups in public places across the UK. That would be restriction of historic proportions. And that’s why I asked Duncan to start us off with a 19th Century anecdote.

3:16
Carlton Reid

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On today’s show, we’re discussing a bicyclist ban at the Velolife cafe near Henley on Thames in Berkshire and examining whether local authorities and perhaps even the courts have the right to ban cyclists from congregating before or after group rides. Joining me on the show will be Velolife owner Lee Goodwin. And maybe if the technology works because we’ve been having mic problems but if he if we we are able to get him on and maybe even just by text messages because he could hear us but we couldn’t hear him and that would be bicycling barrister Martin Porter QC. Before I attempt to bring

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Martin in and before I speak to Martin, I’d like to talk about the 1890s with Duncan Dollimore, who is head of campaigns at Cycling UK. So Duncan, I’d like you to tell us what happened at the Hautboy pub in Ockham, Surrey, in 1899 and why that may have at least a passing resemblance to the Velolife situation of today.

4:26
Duncan Dollimore

4:26
Well, back in the 1890s people seem to get themselves unusually concerned about what women wore when they went cycling. Many women didn’t want to wear clothes that restricted their movement. They didn’t want to wear long skirts, which made it difficult to ride so the phrase “rational dress” was coined to describe outfits that were there, the favourite outfits of the day, which were Knickerbocker suits, and Lady Harberton was riding what was wearing such a suit when she arrived at the Hautboy Hotel in 1899.

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The plan was to stop for refreshments and luncheon in the hotel. But the proprietor refused her service, such was his indignation about what she was wearing.

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We weren’t Cycling UK as such at that stage, Cycling UK were known as the Cyclists’ Touring Club, and CTC were involved in the legal challenge of that decision. It was a challenge, which unfortunately failed. But it was part of the process of starting to challenge some decisions that were made and challenging efforts to make cycling more difficult for people, which we’re still dealing with today. So although it was a loss of a case, I’m not sure it was an entire defeat. And it’s really strange that 120 years on when we look at Velolife, although the facts are different, there’s still somebody wants it met to make it difficult for another person on a bike to stop off at an establishment and enjoy tea and cake.

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A bit of a future from the past moment when we look at it. And it’s it’s a little sad that we’re still having the same arguments and petty mindedness now, in 2019, that Lady Harberton experienced back in 1899.

6:16
Carlton Reid

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Yes, discrimination. So back in the 1890s, there was discrimination against women, and not not in cycling in general. But this case where we’re discussing today is discrimination against cyclists of any creed, colour, sex, whatever. So at that point, I’d like to bring in Lee and just ask you, could you could you tell us what’s been happening, but start in 2016, right from when you actually started the business.

6:47
Lee Goodwin

6:47
Hi, guys. Um, so in 2016, I took over the premises, which was previously a pub and is still obviously a pub in its entirety as a building and we’ve been

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proceeded to open a cafe. We were under the understanding, possibly in my naivete at the time that we could downgrade the licence from pub to the cafe. And it was highlighted to us by the Council reasonably after that, that that was not the case. And so I took some planning advice and they said that we should apply for a certificate of law from this, which we did. And that was denied.

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The council then issued an enforcement notice for us to cease using the premises as a cafe, a bicycle workshop, for retail and for cycle meeting place within appeal the decision and then spectrum it came back in late 2018, giving use for us as a bicycle cafe as a bicycle workshop, not retail, and then potentially the tricky part. She said that she deemed a cycle meeting place to be to widen its meaning as

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that it could encompass a range of purposes, where she thought the allegation was intended to talk with the use of the land as a place where cyclists meet prior to departing on organised right and event. And she then said you would like to substitute meeting place for cyclists meet and gave a little note on that. That said, a cyclist meet is distinguishable from youth as a cafe. We’re visiting cyclists might be at the premises for the primary purpose of taking refreshments. We thought that was good. And we would have to stop doing our Velolife club right from the premises, which we move down the road and continue to trade allowing cyclists from club rides to come around and take refreshments

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and the situation

8:48
Carlton Reid

8:49
Okay, so this this obviously blew up on Twitter and an awful lot of people have been talking about it. Chris Boardman’s, you know, weighed in.

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All sorts of people have weighed in on this because clearly it is, it is

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bonkers situation.

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Can you describe?

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Can you actually describe where you are as in the locale you in like in your like an in rural area, you’re in a pretty quiet place? Is it the fact that you haven’t got that many houses around you so the complainant must be known to you and must be, you know, in that hamlet?

9:25
Lee Goodwin

9:25
Absolutely. There’s not not a lot of houses down Warren Row and quite a reason it’s a reasonably quiet road. It’s quite a important road because it connects what we call the flats, which go out towards Windsor and Maidenhead and the children’s which start just on the side of family. And so if you look at some Strave data on the heat maps from before does a very well used cycling route. And it’s the closest that of tar road to National Cycle Route fourteen. It’s also on the council’s cycling routes deemed as a quiet route.

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Perfect for all cyclists to us. And we have some residents on the opposite side of us and we have some residents next door and just behind us. And yes, it appears to be a single resident that has filed the complaints.

10:17
Carlton Reid Are you able to say are you able to even intimate that this person might have contacts at the Council influence at the counter, or is at literally one resident and that’s enough to to bring the wrath down on you.

10:30
Lee Goodwin One would like to think that the single reason can’t bring the wrath down on you. However, I’m certainly not aware of any connexion to the council. So I can’t I can’t really say sometimes it appears that way. But I can’t say with any confidence that I know they do or don’t.

10:47
Carlton Reid So let’s bring us up to date because you’ve then had and this is where this is why I brought Martin in. And I have had some text room by the way. So I can even though

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We can’t hear from Martin, we will be able to get Martin’s expert opinion because he has sent me through some messages there. But you put onto Twitter, you put this injunction documents, that’s the latest situation. And Martin and a few other lawyers were saying, well, that’s not actually a physical injunction yet. It’s it’s looked like it’s not dated. It’s not number, it must be some sort of draught injunction. But it’s a very scary document. You look at that and that you’re basically talking about jail time for anybody encouraging.

11:33
Cyclists me so so. So tell me exactly what’s happening. Right. The second time with that, that document you’ve had?

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Lee Goodwin Yes, so that absolutely correct. It’s a draft injunction, which has not yet been obtained by the courts. And as you alluded to Carlton if I wanted, it’s an incredibly scary document. And in particular, for somebody who’s not, you know, overly familiar with the law and it’s quite quite

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scary and the document what it actually asks it pretty much prohibits me to even know about cycles

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that exists in Warren Row. And so yes, it was issued to me we’ve we’ve had the first court hearing regarding it and the next court hearing is in November. And I think what what even more scary and what actually kicked this whole thing off on social media is that draught injunctions will also issued to some cycling clubs in the borough. And they were actually the ones who put that on Twitter, which started this sort of frenzy as such to go around. And I still currently sit with the with the draft injunction and have been told that if I don’t, if I don’t see a marked improvement, then they will possibly seek an interim injunction or stop order.

12:54
Carlton Reid So don’t could bring in bringing you back in in the in the Telegraph and I’m sure in other places where this

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been brought up. You’ve called this an absurd catch 22 situation. So So have you heard of anything like this before apart from the 1899 example?

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Duncan Dollimore

13:12
Well, I described it as a an absurdity of catch 22 proportions. Because the council just don’t seem to hadn’t really thought through what their position is properly, or one level they’re saying that they don’t want to stop cyclists visiting the cafe. But then they go on to say, but They mustn’t arrange or organise any meat starts or ends or stops off there. And the definition of meat seems to include any congregation of people who arrive at establishment who are members are associated with a cycling club, whether they get there by any means carbon or cycle. So what they’re doing is they’re creating this Kafkaesque situation whereby you can technically be in breach of the enforcement notice that’s been serving a particular club

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Because you’re cycling along, joining a ride with two or three other people who have arranged by Twitter or Facebook to stop off at the establishment, and you suddenly become a congregation or or part of the cyclists meet, that stops off the team cake at the cafe, whole thing is Kafkaesque in nature. And it’s a demonstration of have someone in the planning department departments simply not thinking this through. We haven’t come across this exact situation before at least I haven’t have an establishment are putting in these rules and these these sort of very generic descriptions where they they treat people whether by their particular mode of transport, whether they’re a cyclist, a car driver or a Rambler, but it’s indicative of a of an attitude we sometimes see with local authorities on a different manner. We’ve been involved in a number of challenges and one particular legal case where we supported various opponents in Mansfield, where they were challenging the making of what was known as

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public space protection order, or PSP. Oh, and that’s an order that lots of local authorities have used to try and prevent cyclists from entering parts of town centres. So in Mansfield, we had the ludicrous situation where the council’s sought to make a 24 hour a day public space protection order around the entirety of the town centre that was fortunately fortunately varied by them and became a much more restricted arrangement based on an existing traffic regulation order restriction. But a number of local authorities have had that small mindedness where their, their approach to dealing with public life and activities and that’s how centres have been to try and make generic orders banning particular activities, whether it’s skateboarding or cycling, or anything else, such as busking. So we do see this small mindedness from local authorities on a regular basis but not an infrequent basis.

15:59
Carlton Reid Now unfortunately, we’re

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we are having technical problems here in that Martin couldn’t hear us. We couldn’t hear him. Sorry, he could hear us. And unfortunately now, at least I cannot hear you, Duncan. So I can hear everybody. So I’m like omniscient here. Which which is a bit weird. So I’ll I’ll, I’ll kind of summarise that in a bit and and for for the for these purposes because he can’t hear about so Lee I’ll just repeat what some of what Duncan said there it’s just it’s a calf gasket proportions here and is clearly

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absurd what’s happening and at this point I will actually now go through and I’ll mentioned because it has the technical problems but we sort of sorted this word by using text I’m going to actually say what Martin has has has told us so Lee, can you just can you hear me able to hear

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Hear me now, are you? You can hear me. Okay, so you can hear me You just can’t unfortunately you can’t hear Duncan. So Duncan.

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I don’t know what we can do there. We just, I can hear you. But unfortunately cause I missed the seance thing that we’re having problems with anyway. So I’ll do it. I’ll say what

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what Martin was saying, because I thought Martin would be actually would not be able to say stuff on this case because all lawyers all barristers always say, Well, I can’t discuss this particular case. So I’ll put that caveat up there. But I will now just say what Martin’s sent through to me. So this is from Martin. This is Martin’s words, not mine. “My contribution is that the Royal Barough have messed this up badly. I think we can pretty much concur on that. Anyway. There is no planning us categorised as cyclists meet. And the inspector should not have ruled that a meeting requires planning permission. If you have permission, as a cafe or pub or shop etc, etc. People will necessarily

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meet other people. It is not a use sue generis.”

18:05
Carlton Reid Have you got any legal training there, Duncan by any chance?

18:09
Duncan Dollimore What? Yes, I have some legal training and I worked in legal practice for a number of years. And Martin refers to sue generis, I’ll leave Martin to, to deal with the legal technicalities, but broadly, what he’s talking about is sue generis means of its own time. And I think the point Martin’s, and to make is that there isn’t a specific distinction of use for buildings known as cyclists meet. So there’s various types of use that are described in planning law in relation to whether a property is being used as a restaurant or for retail, but there’s nothing which actually defines a particular type of use as a cyclist meet. So anybody else that’s carrying on a type of activity is in the course of that activity, going to meet other people. So I think Martin’s

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questioning the whole that whole use of that phrase, as though it’s somehow a magic term, which can be closely defined. The reality is that we’ve got no idea whether meet relates to an organised event of a specific limited number. And it applies if there’s more than 20 or 30, or 15 or 10 people attending, and it’s arranged and organised in a particular official way, or whether that applies Carlton, if you are I tweet or text and say, we’ll meet up at the Velolife tomorrow we’ll have a ride and then we’ll call in for cake, the whatever it is, and so the whole thing’s become a little bit bizarre and its interpretation. What is however, deeply depressing if we leave aside some of the legal niceties of how you might define an organised event, how you might define what is a cyclist meet, it’s clear that the planning inspector was not seeking to unduly restrict

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This particular that that might want a story strict activities of people who might seek to call in this particular establishment, but the enforcement officers of the local authority have decided to take the most restrictive interpretation of that phrase cyclists make that was possible for them to take. And that’s the really sad and depressing issue here. And it’s why we’re going to have to, as an organisation, look to do something about this to put it very, very bluntly.

20:30
Carlton Reid Yes, crazy. So Lee, you’re going to have to listen to this show back. So you can be able to hear what Duncan was saying. But But Duncan was just telling us there and I won’t repeat everything what what Duncan said, but he’s just giving us exactly what so generous means, and that the phrase is a very woolly phrase, and has now been extended, generally which which is not on. I’ll continue anyway, with with what Martin was saying. So, so after so generous there, Martin said, however,

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“Since this is what the inspector found, and it was not challenged, there is apparently permission to operate as a cafe workshop but not as a cyclist meet. The inspector made clear that there was a distinction between cyclists their primary to use the cafe, and – in inverted commas – “cyclists meet.” So it was apparently the gathering together of cyclists for group rides outside the cafe that she thought she was prohibiting. The proposed injunction I have seen goes way beyond that though, and no court would grant it – it literally means to cyclists on a ride cannot stop at the cafe. And he finishes by saying as Duncan was saying, upset Oh, no, in fact, it doesn’t finish he’s carried on sorry. But he says that’s absurd. Unfortunately, the town hall does have very little affinity for cyclists. The elected councillors may be fine, but the staff at City Hall are the only authority in the area to have held out despise numerous requests from BC

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I’m assuming it means British cycling there against the accredited Marshall scheme for racing and have been quite useless. Always been very. He’s been very unlawyerly here. I’ve been quite useless and doing anything about safe cycling Routes to schools in the bearer. And then he says he’s not going to get a microphone.

22:17
Okay, but we’ve got the gist of what Martin was was was saying there so he’s he’s being a modern is pretty good. He kind of speaks his mind doesn’t he doesn’t hedge his bets at all. So Lee, coming back to you.

22:30
Have you had legal help here? Have you also had representation saying, yeah, that haven’t got a chance in hell here. What What have you had?

22:42
Lee Goodwin – I have had some legal representation. And it all happened very quickly. If I’m completely honest, from being issued. The proposed injunction to going to court was a couple of weeks, not even for us. So it’s all happened very quickly and unfortunately.

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since going to court, my legal representation had pre booked holidays, so is away at the movement. And so although yes, I have had legal representation, and it’s been a little bit challenging over the last week to try and decipher my way through this without them actually being of access. And so yes, they haven’t said this is absurd, but then I’m not sure we’ve quite got that conversation as of yet.

23:27
Carlton Reid So the situation you are in right now you’ve taken some legal representation, you had this this draft injunction shown to you sent to you seven you however draft injunctions work, and you are then waiting for a court case to come up in November. Is that right? Lee Goodwin That’s correct. And in the meantime,

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the Council have told me that if I don’t do as they’ve asked

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Then they will seek to get an interim injunction or a stop order. And so I’m in a little bit of a tricky position because if I continue to trade as I lawfully see I may and then they may seek to do to try and get a further injunction

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and obviously, I think what kicked us all off, really is that they then served drauft injunctions to the clubs, which means not only have they told me I’m not allowed to they’ve been gone and try to stop my customers from coming to the cafe. Once again, it’s it’s rather threatening, especially for us that aren’t involved in law. It’s it’s quite a scary document. Carlton Reid Duncan, can you hear Lee?

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Duncan Dollimore I’m back on. Yes, but I’ve been struggling to hear what Lee’s saying so I’ve been hearing you but not Lee.

24:49
At all of a sudden I can now hear lead but I haven’t heard anything you said since we started this. I apologise if I say anything which contradicts what he’s just said. Carlton Reid So that clearly is a

25:00
And absurd situation. And of course everybody feels for Lee and for Velolife. However, this potentially, Duncan, has ramifications away from Warren Row. And this is why I’m presuming you’re involved, or Cycling UK is involved, because this could involve, if this goes through this, this becomes some sort of precedent and this could happen to many other businesses, not just Lee’s

25:11
Duncan Dollimore

25:27
Well, there’s two wider implications. One is for clubs that have been served with notices threatening club secretaries, with legal proceedings with injunctions with proceedings that can lead to people going to prison.

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And bear in mind, these are people who are volunteers who are organising a local club and getting people to go on a ride or a Saturday or Sunday, so they receiving legal … threatening letters, the council saying you’re not allowed to stop off at this particular cafe.

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So it has implications for them, which discourages people from becoming involved in local community activities and organising groups and organising rides. Because of that, why do I need to bother with this? It’s too much hassle, but it also has implications for other organisations, other businesses, other cafes around the country, where they seek to rejuvenate a failing pub in a local village. They seek to encourage walkers, cyclists, horse riders, whoever it is to attend. And then suddenly they’re facing legal threats from a local authority – it is absolutely bizarre. If you if you rowed this back, this is a pub that failed. It couldn’t make a business couldn’t couldn’t make profits. And somebody came in and try to encourage other people to to attend it. And there are the government’s planning framework is designed to encourage people to

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conduct more than one business, to diversify to encourage other people to, to be engaged in activities, which is exactly what Lee did with this business. And we have the situation where now there are enforcement proceedings being pursued against him

27:14
Carlton Reid

27:15
So Duncan don’t get how much do you think this is kind of like discriminatory against cyclists because motorists can can turn up at this this cafe rev their engines do crazy stuff. Fine, because they’re motorists is not not a problem, but it’s just aimed at cyclists. So is that so? discriminatory? Is it bound to be overturned but it is clearly well discriminatory?

27:42
Duncan Dollimore

27:42
I think it is discriminate discriminatry, but also, I don’t want to sound like the guy that’s constantly defending cyclists or put another way, it’s just stupid to define people by how they might travel on one particular

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occasion. So, you know, it suggests that members of a cycling club shouldn’t assemble there however they travel there, whether they’re travelling by van, car or on a bike. I ride a bike, sometimes go on a train, sometimes drive a car. So if I arrived at this cafe,am I not defined by the fact that I’m in the cycling club? Am I a cyclist? If I arrived there one day and I’m on it by cycle, if I’m a member of a cycling club, do I cease to be a cyclist if I arrived there the next day we have in a van with my bike at the back of the car? It’s just crass stupidity to define people by their mode of travel on a particular day. The reality is that you know, people are people and ramblers, horse riders, people involved in Duke of Edinburgh, cyclists, mountain bikers, people aren’t are attracted to venues that have a particular interest. My partner’s cousin

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owns a local pub a few miles from where I’m living. He’s desperately trying to get ramblers to attend his particular pub and I had a conversation with him about his on the NCN route and is trying to encourage cyclists to go there. And this is a pub that wants to encourage people to get to the village where there’s not much going on. And he doesn’t really care whether it’s the Classic Car Club, or the Ramblers, or the cyclists or the mountain bikers, the horse riders that go there. It just wants some business. And this is what Lee did here. He was trying to encourage people to attend and to divert to people by their mode of travel, and bands them up as cyclists or walkers and horse riders, is just just ridiculously naive and simplistic. Hmm.

29:45
Carlton Reid Now, Lee

29:49
tell us if you can that the actual impact on your business this is having.

29:53
Lee Goodwin

29:55
I will I think you know

29:58
at the crux of this as well as this

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is a community facility which is quite clearly been said in the past when an application was put into turn it into houses, that the inspector actually found that he understood that a pub was a struggle to run there. But he employed the owner to say why don’t you seek another opportunity to have in the pub that could retain the community facility. He was actually quite clear that the the community is quite small and therefore couldn’t support a business in particular pub on its own. So the impact if we were to lose the cyclist coming through would be that the community facility that the previous inspector envisaged should stay and should remain will be lost. The community supports as much as they can, we have regulars from the village in every single day of the week. However, that’s not enough trade to – no fault of their own – they just simply cannot purchase that amount of coffee.

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So in order to retain that, that facility, we have to encourage people to come in from elsewhere. And cyclists are perfect seeing as they were using the road any way. They were coming past that road on their way, why not invite them in? And it seems crazy and going back to what Duncan said it’s, it’s just bizarrely discriminatory, that you could arrive in any amount of any number at any time during our opening hours, by any mode of transport you so choose, except by bicycle, arguably one of the greenest modes of transport around, never mind the health implications that it has and the reduction of you know, use in the NHS and all those things that surround cycling, but it is just so discriminatory that transport should be excluded. And it’s early days yet coming back to your question. Sorry, welcome. I went on a little bit of a tangent there, but

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Coming back, it’s early days yet, and I can categorically say that if clubs are forced not to come past, then the business is simply not sustainable.

32:10
Carlton Reid Lee, have you ever heard of the Barbra Streisand effect?

32:17
Lee Goodwin – Not in particular some explanation.

32:19
Carlton Reid That’s that’s the concept of when somebody

32:26
complains. This goes back to Barbra Streisand. I think it was a helicopter or paparazi who are above her house and she took an injunction out and to stop them. And you know, you must be publicised my house in California, wherever it is. And what that in fact did was every day more to look at her house because oh, what’s so fantastic about your house? And so the Barbra Streisand effect is, whenever anybody you know, raises too much of a complaint. It just raises the fact that there must be something really interesting here. So let’s all do this. So could you potentially be

33:00
Be the beneficiary of the Streisand effect here in that this actually raising your profile, cyclists locally who, you know might not have done that five mile, 10 mile detour to get to you will go, well, let’s all go to Velolife, because that’s clear the happening place at the moment do you do? And if that happened, would you actually get blamed for it?

33:24
Lee Goodwin – Well, it’s, if I’m honest, it was, it was a huge concern of mine for this weekend. Because we’ve done nothing to encourage anything other than what we were allowed to do. And if I’m honest, there was a little bit of concern that we would be inundated with people over the weekend, and that would actually cause

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some more trouble for us. And yes, I guess there is definitely a part of that that could happen. I think that hinges in particular on the outcome of our current situation, and it still remains and as I’ve said from the beginning, it wasn’t actually us that went public.

34:00
At first, it was a club that got served an injunction and rightly so.

34:05
So I could certainly be some of the Barbra Streisand effect that takes place but certainly that wouldn’t be the case unless we can get this sorted.

34:13
Carlton Reid

34:14
Okay. So, Duncan, what’s Cycling UK’s is next step. What’s going to happen from here? We’ve had like partly the PR angle. Is there anything now that can be can be done

34:29
in courts perhaps?

34:30
Duncan Dollimore

34:31
Well, we’ve been contacted by six clubs since Friday afternoon who’ve been served with legal proceedings, so I’ve got to go back to them next week. So I’m not going to say definitively what we’re going to do, but I think it’s fair to say that we are going to be considering what legal steps there are for those particular clubs to challenge the orders well, the threats of action that they received, so well and good the local authority, the council,

35:00
sending some rather conflicting letters saying we don’t really want to pursue proceedings against the clubs, they haven’t withdrawn their legal threats. And so those clubs are still on notice that that exists. You mentioned the Streisand effect. And I really sympathise with Lee’s position because on the one hand,

35:23
it would be a great show of sympathy of 500 cyclists were turning up to attend his cafe. But he’ll be thinking, is that going to lead me to being pursued in court in relationship to this matter? It may well be that a different course of action is that those 500 cyclists are descending on the council’s offices. And so those are some of the things that we’re going to have to be considering next week. But this is not something which should be allowed to continue. So it is it is a matter that we’re going to be chatting about next week to come up with a plan. I don’t think it’s wise for me to say tonight exactly what that plan’s going to be.

36:00
But it’s not something where, where we’re seeking to or planning to just let lie, because this is just a ridiculous decision by a council. And the bizarre thing is there was an opportunity on Thursday this week for the council to say, we’re really, really sorry, we’ve got this wrong. We shouldn’t have been threatening local clubs and cyclists with legal proceedings if they attend this cafe, and they actually made matters worse by by rather implying that if you attended there, you could yourself be somebody who was legally liable to legal proceedings. And in those circumstances, this isn’t something that we as an organisation can just ignore.

36:42
Carlton Reid

36:42
Okay. Now, I think everybody who’s listening to this, this, the Spokesmen podcast will recognise this as absurd. I think people away from cycling circles will think this is absurd. So at some point, I think, Lee your business will get

37:00
back to normal. And you will, you will hopefully get over this because this cannot be allowed to stand for all sorts of different reasons.

37:11
But for now, it does sound as though Cycling UK is on the case it sounds as though your legal representation is on the case and hopefully this will be overturned. But for now, I’d just like to thank you both and to Martin, for being on today’s show.

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Thanks also to you for listening and for subscribing. As always, this show is brought to you in association with Jenson USA. Show notes and more for the Spokesman Cycling roundtable podcast can be found at the-spokesmen.com. That “more” now includes full transcripts with time codes, so you can skip around the recording should you wish. David Bernstein and I have been producing these shows since 2006 and

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August 7, 2019 / Carlton Reid / Blog

Re-Opening Of Britain’s Best Cycleway

Episode 223

Re-Opening Of Britain’s Best Cycleway

SPONSOR: Jenson USA

Wednesday 7th August 2019

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUESTS:

Engineer Stuart Turnbull
Jonah Morris, partnership manager, Sustrans
Peter Calhoun, a Ridley-riding roadie of the North Tyneside Road Club

TOPIC: The re-opening, after a six year refurbishment, of the Tyne Pedestrian and Cyclist Tunnels, near Newcastle, northern England. The tunnels were built in 1951.

Forbes article.

Alternatively:

Subscribe via Apple Podcasts

SHOW TRANSCRIPT

Carlton Reid 0:13
Welcome to Episode 223 of the spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast. The show was recorded on Wednesday, August the seventh 2019.

David Bernstein 0:24
The spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast is brought to you by Jensen USA, where you’ll always find a great selection of products at amazing prices with unparalleled customer service. For more information, just go to Jenson usa.com slash the spokesmen. Hey everybody, it’s David from the Fred cast cycling podcast at WWW dot the Fred cast.com. I’m one of the hosts and producers of the spokesman cycling roundtable podcast. For show notes, links and all sorts of other information please visit our website at W

Unknown Speaker 1:00
www.the-spokesmen.com And now, here are the spokesmen.

Carlton Reid 1:09
Hey, I’m Carlton Reid. And recently I’ve brought you shows from Sweden and from Idaho in America. But for today’s dose of the spokesmen I stayed rather close to home, yet still managed to visit what I think is probably Britain’s best cycleway. This is inside a tube buried in the silt of the river time near my home in Newcastle. The Tyne pedestrian and Cyclist tunnels in two separate tubes and was sunk into the river 68 years ago. In 2013, the Grade II listed tunnels were closed for refurbishment, cutting off a vital transport link for Tyneside’s, many of whom have been chomping at the bit waiting for the tunnels to reopen. Back in March I

Carlton Reid 2:00
wrote a thumping great article on the refurbishment for forbes.com after I was given early access to the tunnels. They were meant to reopen a few weeks after that, but the ribbon cutting ceremony kept on getting knocked back. Well. today, the tunnels were finally reopened and I rode across there with my tape recorder and my trusty drone to capture some audio and video footage of the day’s event. The video is online already. And I was at a show I speak with three people. The project manager of the refurbishment, a representative from building charity Sustrans and a Ridlet riding roadie who cycled in the tunnel as a taught in 1953 or so.

Stuart Turnbull

I am Stuart Turnbull. And I’m the project manager for the Tyne pedestrian cycle tunnel. And you just told me that this is a labour of love, and I agree it’s a fantastic job you’ve done here. How long

Carlton Reid 3:00
How long yave you been on site? And how long have the people been on site? If maybe that’s different?

Stuart Turnbull 3:07
Yes, it is different.Myself and my team came to site in April 2015, after GB building solutions, who was the original main contractor went into administration. So we were asked if we would come and step in, and see whether we possibly take over the project. The project itself started may 2013. So we’re just past six years that the tunnels have actually been closed. And that six years of doing what I mean, there’s asbestos in here. There was an awful lot that people got surprised at what was here, and that’s why the estimate went up. That’s why the costs went up. The TA went up, everything just went different. Yeah, absolutely. And there is I mean, you know, the initial assessment, we knew there was asbestos in here. We knew that there was some structural deterioration, but because it’s a listed building, you’re limited to how much you can destroy you before you start working. Fortunately, we nobody anticipated a the amount of asbestos

Stuart Turnbull 4:00
The amount of contamination that would cause the this the amount of deterioration once we started lifting structures taken off tiles, the water ingress was much more significant. So everything just escalated from from that point.

Carlton Reid

So this is probably quite accurately on the on the tape here because we are under the Tyne at the moment and there are two tunnels here. So you people tend to say in you know, the cyclists tunnel of pedestrians tunnel but of course it’s two tunnels it’s plural. So just describe what we’re looking at here. Now we are we are where are we now?

Stuart Turnbull

Right right. So we’re stood now just the other portal of the pedestrian tunnels we’re in the pedestrian tunnel and it’s a slightly smaller diameter in the cycle tunnel so that made it slightly bigger for the for the cyclist, but not hugely noticeable. And and what you’re looking down is where we’re still looking towards Jarrow.

Carlton Reid

We’re looking at a steep slope here. So it goes it goes down and goes down goes out and lightens out.

Stuart Turnbull 4:55
Yeah, and there’s there’s a couple of engineering reasons for that. They have to follow the strata and

Stuart Turnbull 5:00
When the best route through, but also for, for the for the drainage because it totals eat water even when they’re brand new. So you have to manage the drainage so so that’s including gets us down to a some by the waters then pumped out up to the surface as well. So there’s an engineering need for it.

Carlton Reid

We’ve got about half an hour before people are allowed in so this is first time in six years people are allowed to come in so I’m guessing there’s not going to be hordes coming through. But this in its day and that is peak. So it was built 1951 in like 1960s it was 20,000 people a day. What are you projecting for people coming through walking and cycling? Do you have any idea?

Stuart Turnbull

We’ve all discussed this and obviously there’s we know there’s a lot of interest because whatever there’s anything released about it. We get a lot of commentary. There’s been a lot of interest about a day the the amount of press that come to see the opening. We know there’s interest there. And we really just don’t know I mean, we could be looking at dozens we could be looking at hundreds we could be at the thousands certainly maybe in the light the first three or four weeks.

Stuart Turnbull 6:00
We purposely wanted to try and get it back open, because there’s some holidays as well, because we thought, there’s a chance that families will be off, they want to bring the children down. And and I know and I’ve been telling people that I’ve been involved this project, a lot of people don’t even know that there’s a total here that did that they know about the traffic to another, all driven through it, but a lot of people didn’t know. So I hope these kind of events and the coverage going forward will really put it back on the agenda. And people can come and see this fantastic, which is an industrial heritage asset for the Northeast industrial heritage. It was done really well back in the day, the 1950s. And I still describe this as probably watching the pedestrian tunnel in the place in total now, but of course, next to us is the slightly wider as you say, cyclists tunnel. I still described that as probably Britain’s best cycle infrastructure, even though it’s, you know, was built in 1951. But it’s an incredibly impressive infrastructure back then, even still today. Certainly, back that it wasn’t I mean, it was it was this was the first dual purpose

Stuart Turnbull 7:00
pedestrian and cyclist tunnel on the block to pedestrian tunnels right? That was the first time they’ve done a dual purpose one so it was quite significant in its time as well. And and yes we do we just we haven’t spent all this time to do this we just want to see it used we want people to enjoy it when people will put it on their bike to work routes and and bring families down make it part of a route from Newcastle Quaysideside down through the tunnel and back again. We want people to enjoy it and use it.

Carlton Reid

So when it was built, it was for the shipyards on both sides of the river, the shipyards are long gone. And now this is mostly you think can be used for leisure or do you envisage people using this you know, at three in the morning to get to work at four what how do you think it’s generally

Stuart Turnbull

I mean, again, once we close so long we don’t we don’t actually know but what we do know is that we’ve run a shuttle bus so there’s still being a means to cross the time whether on foot on a bicycle. And and whilst not thousands of people It has been regularly news and the peak times mornings in

Stuart Turnbull 8:00
we get commuters who are doing it and some slightly outside of that. But then we do get a lot of leisure cyclist as well. So you’re right. I mean, we haven’t got the same industry on the banks of the time as we did. But I also think things like cycling have got a bigger profile now even probably the last six years, things like the Tour de France and that come into the UK and I guess it’s part of the work that once once I finished the purely technical building construction side of it, that that will be picked up as well and promoted and we’ll move on so students here today and and they’re very keen to get that promoted again on their site on networks. So so it’s that kind of coverage that we want to say, hey, if you don’t know about it, this is what’s here. If you do come down, you’re in for a treat, because it’s quite unique.

Carlton Reid 8:44
And say make it part of allegedly ride the weekend with the family. Now the Italian lifts that the left the inclined lifts aren’t working yet. When When are they going to be work because they look pretty trend in these glass. Absolutely. Glass lifts but they’re not working. No and unfortunately, that’s the biggest

Stuart Turnbull 9:00
Point and but we made a major decision that will have been working. We have had them operational, but it’s just the testing commission and part of it and the Italians have just been struggling to get that final bit right. And unfortunately, Italy shuts down for most of August it’s a it’s a national holiday and we were told in July if they’re not ready by then we’ll we’ll be off site for most of August. So as you can see all the other construction workers finished. We have the decision do we wait and post another two month delay? Or do we just get it open? And I think the whole team said no, let’s get it open. And and let people share it, share it and see it again as it is. So I think it’s the right decision. Personally, I would say that but I think it’s the right decision to to open it and get people to to look in and see what it’s about.

Jonah Morris

I am Jonah Morris, partnerships manager for Sustrans. So we have got on dirt on the outside here. We’ve got the Hadrian cycle way we have what kind of infrastructure Have you got around the tunnel? So it’s going south

Jonah Morris 10:00
Links through to NCN 14 which will take you down to Darlington and coming North it links to 72 so Hadrian cycle way which goes coast to coast and also National Cycle network route one as well. So Dover to Shetland Isles under the river.

Carlton Reid

You’ve currently got an over river option with the ferry that you’ve now got over and under options so it’s been quite a major dislocation for the past six years not having the tunnel three because yes, you can go across on the ferry, but it is does take longest very nice on the ferry, but this is just your cycling through. It’s a fantastic bit of infrastructure. So this is gonna be a key missing link.

Jonah Morris

In effect. It is yes. And you know, every piece of research shows that people want segregated infrastructure as well and what better example of segregated infrastructure that you are not only segregated from cars you are also segregated from pedestrians because they have their own tunnel as well.

Carlton Reid

Yeah, because like in Antwerp, they’ve got a tunnel similar to this, but it’s a cyclists and pedestrians are you actually next to each other?

Jonah Morris 11:00
cycling and walking along whereas this year, hopefully Yes, separate from each other. I think people might need to watch their speed though because with the incline, you do get up quite a speed going down. And whilst it’s nice and wide, you won’t necessarily see someone coming the other side at the same speed. But yeah, I’m sure those issues will work themselves out.

Carlton Reid 11:21
So, what kind of usage Do you envisage here? If you have I mean, I know you do monitoring on the cycle network of how many people come through, what do you envisage happening here with this missing link,

Jonah Morris

nabbing no longer missing, and I think it will be key for commuters, as well as leisure cyclists. You know, I’ve I live north of the river. I’ve got a lot of friends who live north of the river but works out for the river. So currently, I’ve got to take either the ferry or the bus transfer. So happy to have this open. Eventually, 24 hours a day, you know, people working on nights

Jonah Morris 12:00
South of the river, it’ll be key for them as well as well as for leisure cyclists doing long distance journeys, either doing all of Hadrian’s or all of the NCR cycle route, which will form part of this as well. Those coming over from Ijulmeden to North Shields on DFDS ferries is very to get onto this to get your get yourself in the river straight away. I mean, what better advert can it be for the Northeast than to have something like this?

Carlton Reid

So what Sustrans is going to be doing apart from your presence here, of course, Jonah, what are you going to be doing?

Jonah Morris

So we’ll be promoting it through our website. And people have been notified that it’s been closed past six years, so we will be writing a piece to let people know that it’s open. And we’re also supporting, particularly North Tyneside council who got transforming city’s funding to do some off road

Jonah Morris 12:50
infrastructure improvements on the north side as well as working with South Tyneside on links through South the road for as well. So I think the key for us will be working with the local

Jonah Morris 13:00
authorities to make sure that infrastructure on either side is to the best it can possibly be to then allow the tunnel to get its maximum usage.

Peter Calhoun 13:10
I am Peter Calhoun, but I’ve come down to be one of the first people through the tunnel and be part of the experience.

Carlton Reid

But you you’ve been here six years ago when it closed for refurbishment. You used to come before that.

Peter Calhoun

Oh, yes, yeah, many times throughout my life. But more recently with with the NCR cycling club.

Peter Calhoun 13:33
fabulous for getting across the western experience. Is this going to be like a route for the club then to come come through and get across the river, definitely on our list of rides. There’s a list of a route to come through here this Sunday. So we’re looking forward to that.

Carlton Reid

And where you’re going to go from here. You get into Jarrow and then we’re from Jarrow

Peter Calhoun

will haven’t decided that yet. But it’s the routers involved here. And how many people are in the club.

Peter Calhoun 14:00
It was in the region about 400. And we like to promote safety. And when we wear our

Peter Calhoun 14:09
uniform, our our jersey would like to show what cyclists can be here like, and would like to be in a good example to

Peter Calhoun 14:19
the cycling community and get more respect on our side.

Carlton Reid

That’s very laudable. And now, I have missed I heard you before when when I caught you saying Was it your father, or your brother had the bends on it, who worked on this,

Peter Calhoun

M father in law worked on here back in the day, and the the river was held back by compressed air. And so it’s a bit like dive and he had to go down and come back at a certain risk and suffering from the bends was quite common. And he suffered with that.

Carlton Reid 14:55
So that was 19 1950 1951 when it was built the whole area

Peter Calhoun 15:00
After us the channel was first built going across the the river was he ended by this in the work as he would you wouldn’t be able to get room get space on here it was but now that the build the the the tank tunnel

Peter Calhoun 15:18
with with traffic obviously this is not

Carlton Reid 15:22
what it used to be. So if you don’t mind me asking you how old are you?

Peter Calhoun

I’m 70.

Carlton Reid

So you would have remembered this? You’ve been you’ve been in this for 70 years and you’ve been you’ve been coming potentially down here quite a lot.

Peter Calhoun

Yeah. If If my first bike

Peter Calhoun 15:40
was too heavy for me and I couldn’t hold it and had to be rescued by your fellow traveller who

Peter Calhoun 15:47
come to my rescue big time I was absolutely in floods of tears, crying for help, and he was my hero. And was that on the escalator was good as the people I was with work was further up my brother

Peter Calhoun 16:00
His friends were

Peter Calhoun 16:02
only able to get down because they had their own bikes. So that’s a memory that I hold, dear. And that would have been when roughly 65 years ago,

Peter Calhoun 16:13
maybe 67 years ago, right?

Carlton Reid

No 64 6064 years since your first memory of using it because it was a quite a traumatic experience. In fact, there’s little kids there now using it and we can see we are right now seeing little kids probably of your age, back then using it again, going down a lift. Now, of course, and then how did you use it in subsequent years?

Peter Calhoun 16:41
Not a great deal, because of the alternatives.

Peter Calhoun 16:45
And I’m only been in the cycle for the last

Peter Calhoun 16:48
three years haven’t haven’t joined the club. And it’s been

Carlton Reid 16:54
it’s been very rewarding. Well, I’m looking down at your bike. Now you’ve got a very, very nice Ridley.

Peter Calhoun 17:00
I think I’ve earned it.

Peter Calhoun 17:02
I’ve rewarded yourself with the amount of time and effort I’ve put in and it was time for a new bike. And how old is it? It looks brand spanking new to me a few few months old. Yes. Very nice. And you’re gonna be using it this weekend for coming on this this this ride. This will be the bank that you would use on the, on the MTI and car rides. Yeah, a lot of the club members have been down to Ride London and we did our own

Peter Calhoun 17:28
100 mile ride. So it’ll be some sore legs, but I’m sure as a Sunday, they’ll be quite a few people down here.

Peter Calhoun 17:36
Thanks to today’s guests, and thank you for listening to this spokesman cycling practical podcast, show notes and more can be found on the dash spokesman.com. Now, you may remember I told you about the virtual velo city podcasts I recorded with manager Laura lake in Dublin in June.

Thanks to today’s guests, and thank YOU for listening to the Spokesmen Cycling Roundtable podcast. Show notes and more can be found on the-spokesmen.com.

Now, you may remember I told you about the Virtual Velo-city podcasts I recorded with Laura Laker in Dublin in June. These were originally sent out only to Kickstarter backers but I’m pleased to report they are now free to all thanks to sponsorship from the Dutch Cyclkijg Embassy. Search for Virtual Velo-City on iTunes, Spotify and other places where you may get your podcasts. I’ve uploaded three shows so far, with another nine to be published weekly.

And there will be another episode from The Spokesmen real soon … meanwhile, get out there and ride.

July 28, 2019 / Carlton Reid / Blog

What a Tour! Tour de France 2019 recap special

Episode 222

Tour de France special.

SPONSOR: Jenson USA

Sunday 28th July 2019

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUESTS:

Attorney Jim Moss

Joe Robinson, writer for Cyclist magazine

Casper Hughes of Rollapaluza and Stop Killing Cyclists

TOPICS: Tour de France special.

We talk NBC Sports and Lance Armstrong’s rehabilitation as a Tour de France pundit

Capping of team budgets.

Freaky weather at the Tour, the heat as well as snow storms in July, The first – but definitely note the last – Tour de France adversely impacted by climate change.

Could 22-year-old Colombian phenom Egal Bernal go on to win another 10 tours?

Apple should create an iTunes category for “Cycling”.

Main pic by A.S.O./Pauline BALLET

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SHOW TRANSCRIPT

Machine transcribed, pardon any mistakes.

Welcome to Episode 222 of the Spokesmen Cycling Roundtable Podcast. This show was recorded on Sunday 28th of July 2019. The spokesmen cycling roundtable podcast is brought to you by Jensen USA, where you’ll always find a great selection of products at amazing prices with unparalleled customer service. For more information, just go to Jensonusa.com/the spokesmen. Hey everybody, it’s David from the Fredcast cycling podcast at www.theFred cast.com. I’m one of the hosts and producers of the spokesman cycling roundtable podcast. For show notes, links and all sorts of other information please visit our website.

MORE …

July 18, 2019 / Carlton Reid / Blog

In conversation with Kyle Ranson and Jeremy Rider of Showers Pass

Episode 221

SPONSOR: Jenson USA

Thursday 18th July 2019

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUESTS: Kyle Ranson and Jeremy Rider of apparel and accessories brand Showers Pass.

TOPICS:

A post-Impact Sun Valley catch-up with Showers Pass.

Alternatively:

Subscribe via Apple Podcasts

MACHINE TRANSCRIPT

Carlton Reid 0:13
Welcome to Episode 221 of the Spokesmen Cycling Roundtable podcast. This show was recorded on Thursday 18th of July 2019.

David Bernstein 0:24
The Spokesman Cycling Roundtable Podcast is brought to you by Jenson USA, where you’ll always find a great selection of products at amazing prices with unparalleled customer service. For more information, just go to Jensonusa.com/thespokesmen. Hey everybody, it’s David from the Fredcast cycling podcast at www.theFredcast.com. I’m one of the hosts and producers of the Spokesman Cycling roundtable podcast. For show notes, links and all sorts of other information please visit our website at www.the-spokesmen.com. And now, here are the Spokesmen.

Carlton Reid 1:09
I’m Carlton Reid. And on today’s half hour show, I’m chatting with Kyle Ranson and Jeremy Rider of apparel and accessories brand Showers Pass. Now, Kyle was on the show a couple of years ago, and he explained where the Showers Pass name came from. And it’s not where you think. I think it’s worthwhile actually getting him to repeat that. So I have got Jeremy and Kyle. And I’m in the UK. You’re both in the US. But you’re in different places in the US. So Kyle, where are you?

MORE …

July 8, 2019 / Carlton Reid / Blog

CrankTank’s Intent Media Summit and Outerbike, Sun VALLEY, IDAHO

Episode 220

Monday 8th July 2019

SPONSOR: Jenson USA

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUESTS:

Adrian Montgomery and Scott Montgomery, CrankTank

Mark Sevenoff, Outerbike/Western Spirit

Lori Barrett, Rotor

Chris Schieffer, Zoic

Barton Burdette, Fidlock

Tom Brady, Light & Motion

Cassie Abel, Wild Rye

Zach Spinhirne-Martin, Viathon/WalMart

Peter and Tom Marchment, Luisa Grappone, Hunt Wheels

TOPICS:

Product launches and more at CrankTank’s Intent Media Summit and Outerbike, Sun Valley, Idaho.

Luisa Grappone of Hunt Wheels at Outerbike in Sun Valley, Idaho

See: Aerodynamicist Luisa Grappone Designs Fatter Yet Faster Bicycle Wheels on Forbes.com

Alternatively:

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MACHINE TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to Episode 220 of the spokesman cycling roundtable podcast. This show was recorded Monday, July 8th 2019.

David Bernstein:
The Spokesman Cycling Roundtable Podcast is brought to you by Jenson USA, where you’ll always find a great selection of products at amazing prices with unparalleled customer service. For more information, just go to Jensonusa.com/thespokesman. Hey everybody, it’s David from the Fredcast cycling podcast at www.theFred cast.com. I’m one of the hosts and producers of the Spokesman Cycling roundtable podcast. For show notes, links and all sorts of other information please visit our website at www.the-spokesmen.com. And now, here are the spokesman.

Carlton Reid 1:09
Hi there, I’m Carlton Reid. And today’s show is a collection of interviews from Crank Tank’s Impact Media Summit held in Sun Valley, Idaho towards the end of June. I talked with folks from Crank Tank who told me why they partnered with the bike demo fest that is outerbike. I talked with Outerbike’s cofounder Mark Sevenoff who also co founded the cycle holiday and guiding company Western Spirit. I got the latest product info from folks representing Rotor, Fidlock, Light and Motion and Wild Rye. Zach from Viathon talked about a Walmart bicycle brand that’s nothing like a Walmart bicycle brand. And today’s show ends with an interview I could have conducted in the UK because I speak with Brits and one Italian from Brighton-based Hunt Wheels. Before that, here’s Adrian and Scott Montgomery – they’re not related – who give me the background to pairing up with Outerbike, and also how the bike industry is having to adapt to a rapidly changing marketplace.

MORE …

July 7, 2019 / Carlton Reid / Blog

“USA! USA! USA!”

The Spokesmen Cycling Roundtable Podcast

Episode 219

SPONSOR: Jenson USA

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUEST: Jim Moss

TOPICS: Tour de France, Outerbike, women’s soccer.

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July 4, 2019 / Carlton Reid / Blog

“When I am on a bike, I still get chill bombs”

The Spokesmen Cycling Roundtable Podcast

Episode 218

“When I am on a bike, I still get chill bombs”

Thursday 4th July 2019

SPONSOR: Jenson USA

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUEST: Brent Whittington, owner of Moots.

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June 14, 2019 / Carlton Reid / Blog

Bikes and more from the UITP Global Public Transport Summit (part 2)

The Spokesmen Cycling Roundtable Podcast

Episode 217

Friday 14th June 2019

SPONSOR: Jenson USA

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUESTS:

Giovanni Circella riding on an autonomous pod at the UITP Global Public Transport Summit, Stockholm

Giovanni Circella, 3 Revolutions Future Mobility Program, Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California Davis.

Change at Transdev’s bus driver safe following distance study on slide at presentation given at UITP Global Public Transport Summit, Stockholm. Steve Martin at lectern, Marielle Villamaux, seated second from right.

Steve Martin, CEO of Influence at Work UK, behavioural scientist and co-author of “Yes! 60 Secrets from the Science of Persuasion” which has sold over one million copies. Also heads CHANGE By Transdev–a joint venture that has built the world’s first specialist behavioural science unit in a global transport operator. Based in London.

Marielle Villamaux, Chief Client Officer, Transdev Group, Issy-Les-Moulineaux, France.

TOPICS:
Automated vehicles, bicycling and behavioural science from the UITP Global Public Transport Summit in Stockholm, Sweden.

Stepping in front of autonomous pod tweet. Carlton Reid and Laura Laker’s Virtual Velo-city podcast.

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June 12, 2019 / Carlton Reid / Blog

Bikes and more from the UITP Global Public Transport Summit (part 1 of 2)

The Spokesmen Cycling Roundtable Podcast

Episode 216

Wednesday 12th June 2019

SPONSOR: Jenson USA

HOST: Carlton Reid

UITP General Secretary Mohamed Mezghani.

GUESTS:

Rachel Zack, Remix.
Niccolò Panozzo, European Cyclists Federation
Tanya Castle, PBSC
Sebastian Schlebusch, Nextbike
Mohamed Mezghani, UITP (Union Internationale des Transports Publics)
Rafael Cuesta, Transport for Greater Manchester

TOPICS:
Bike share, congestion charging, last-mile transportation and more nearly-live from the UITP Global Public Transport Summit in Stockholm, Sweden.

Articles on Forbes.com::

Most Cities Will Have To Introduce Congestion Charging, Say Experts At Global Transit Conference

Fly Less Or Fry The Planet: My 28-Hour Train Journey To Greta Thunberg’s Stockholm

PLUS: Virtual Velo-city podcast with Carlton Reid and Laura Laker

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