Category: Blog

EPISODE 226

Spokesmen Cycling Roundtable Podcast

Sunday 29th September 2019

SPONSOR: Jenson USA

HOST: Carlton Reid

GUESTS:

British pro cyclist Ben Swift

Greater Manchester’s walking and cycling commissioner Chris Boardman

Helen Pidd, The Guardian

Fundraiser Steve Craddock

TOPICS:

The Mens’ Elite road race at the World Championships in Harrogate, Yorkshire; plus Chris Boardman’s (latest) helmet controversy.

Interview with Help For Heroes top fundraiser Steve Craddock.

Top pic of Mads Pederson winning the Men Elite World Championships 2019 by SWPix.com.

TRANSCRIPT

Carlton Reid 0:13
Welcome to Episode 226 of the Spokesmen Cycling Roundtable Podcast. This show was recorded Sunday 29th of September 2019.

David Bernstein 0:23
The SpokesmenCycling 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 Jensenusa.com/thespokesmen.

David Bernstein 0:42
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 I’m bringing you this episode of the Spokesmen Cycling Roundtable Podcast shortly after the finish of the men’s elite road race at the world championships in Harrogate, Yorkshire. Excuse the audio but I’m recording just outside the media room, and I’m just about warmed up after today’s race, and I was sheltering in the press tent.

Today’s show is a two-halfer. I’ll start with two bits of audio I grabbed at the world championships, and that’s a swift interview with, OK, Ben Swift. Listen carefully, and you’ll hear his teeth chattering. And I also caught up with Chris Boardman as he came away from the BBC tent. As well as talking about today’s racing, I also asked Chris about his controversial – it really shouldn’t be controversial – his controversial decision not to wear a helmet when cycling on an ordinary bike on telly. For the second half of the show. I’m dropping in a pre-recorded interview with Steve Craddock, an inspirational fundraiser for the Help for Heroes charity, which is still pretty much bicycle based. But first here is Ben Swift, seconds after finishing today’s wet and cold race – by the way, he came 31st out of 46 finishers. And that was about 120 hundred and 30 DNF’s – race was brutal. And he was six and a half minutes behind the new world champion, Denmark’s Mads Pederson.

Ben Swift 2:41
Yeah, definitely it was a really tough day out there. I

think it probably looked quite cool on some of the photos as the flyer

actually got really cold there as well towards the end and you know, when it’s already cold like that, you know, you need to start stripping off getting ready to the finish and stuff but uh, yeah, we gave it out good shot so

Helen Pidd 3:02
Was it hard even by Yorkshire standards as Yorkshireman?

Ben Swift 3:05
Yeah, no, it definitely was, it was cold, I’m pretty freezing now. And no, it’s quite windy in times. And it was a lot of big deep puddles out there, which made it quite quite difficult and this climb here, this finishing circuit, sorry, was was really difficult – with the steep climb is it Old Bank Road or something was? Yeah, that was really hard.

Helen Pidd 3:28
And how does it compare to other world championships races you’ve done?.

Ben Swift 3:34
Er, I think it’s probably the hardest one that I’ve done. And each one’s been a little bit different. You know, Qatar was pan-flat and the crosswinds in pretty warm weather. The thing you had here was really short punchy climbs which in this weather made it really difficult.

Journalist 3:54
What was the support like out on the road?

Ben Swift 3:56
Oh, it was incredible.

I think it was just the atmosphere was building and building on I think it was amazing to so many people in during this sort of like pretty bad weather. So yeah, thanks to that.

Helen Pidd 4:12
Did you think about giving up any point? Hardly any riders finished.

Ben Swift 4:16
You don’t want to, you don’t want to give up, you go until you can’t go no more and that’s pretty much what I did …

Carlton Reid 4:24
One of the other voices you heard asking questions there was Helen Pidd, The Guardian’s north of England correspondent. Because she covers Manchester she does lots of stories with BBC commentator and Greater Manchester’s walking and cycling champion [commissioner] Chris Boardman, who I managed to grab as he finished his BBC stint from the world championiships.

How’s that gonna do for Yorkshire’s PR around the world, a bit of a brutal day wasn’t it?

Chris Boardman 4:48
I think he was dramatic. It was like how we like to refer to it. How we come to refer to it all week. And depends how you want to think of it. I mean, it was dramatic scenes for the whole week. We’ve had a bit of everything but some great racing. It’s not like we haven’t seen rain in a world championship before. I think it’s the first time it’s ever been shortened befoe, I don’t recall it happening before. But ultimately, 250 million people watch this around the world. And it was great. Some surprise results some fantastic sporting achievements.

Carlton Reid 5:16
Because they gave up at the end they didn’t they the peloton they gave up quite quickly, they were so cold coming through talking to them..

Chris Boardman 5:22
Yeah, I mean, World Championships, something like this. It’s always the same … I thought they’d be about 50 finishers, because there’s nothing in it for you. There’s no stage tomorrow. Why would you? And these are vast majority of these are pro riders, they don’t do it just for the honour of. They’ve done that already. But it’s fascinating, the way the tactics worked out, there’s a lot of similarities throughout all the road races where fatigue played as big a part as the form book.

Carlton Reid 5:47
Because of the punchy hill?

Chris Boardman 5:49
There was just no flat. There’s nowhere where you can get I’ll get over this climb, and I’ll sit in the wheels and recover. There’s just nothing. And so it was incredibly hard. But I think it Lizzie Deignan summed it up when she said, ‘I know I’m going to feel awful all day, because you don’t feel good on these roads.’ And I think it’s an advantage, that I’m prepared for that. And she was right.

Carlton Reid 6:10
Cos Ben Swift was through there. And his teeth

Unknown Speaker 6:12
were chattering.

Chris Boardman 6:16
I know what it’s like being that cold, but they barely couldn’t get any words out. And everybody was just completely spent. And it’s a course where there was, something of a cliche, there wasn’t anywhere to hide. You know, you as soon as you’re fatigued, there’s just things that are going to push you out the back and it’s over.

So there you go.

Carlton Reid 6:35
One last word, the helmet thing that’s kicked off again on Twitter

Chris Boardman 6:38
It always will. It’s it’s it’s hard position for me to take. I’m anxious about it every time because if I just conform and do what everyone else does, then I’m promoting something that I don’t – not only do I not believe in – I think it actually does harm. But as you know, it’s a nuanced argument in unintended consequences, we just need to be in a place where you ride a bike in normal clothes, doing normal things. And that’s not seen as a terrible thing. It’s what I want for my kids. And that’s why I’m going to stand up for it. I had conversation with my wife on the phone and just said, ‘I’m gonna have to find a way to do this work without wearing a helmet, but also without having to go and ride a bike or do something else.’ And oddly for her, she said, ‘No, keep doing it. If you actually look at the feed, people are starting to realise it’s not just black and white.’ And it’s really important that we make this look safe. And we’ll save more people if we do that. Um, so that made me do it, stick with it.

Carlton Reid 7:40
Thanks to Chris Boardman there. And now here’s the second half of the show, an online interview I did with Help for Heroes fundraiser and N+1 cyclist Steve Craddock, and we did that interview about a week ago. But before we get into that, I have a two points to raise if I remember rightly, at one point, Steve mentioned Weebles, now Weebles were a 1970s, perhaps 1980s toy which you couldn’t push over because it had a fat base. We also talked about The Likely Lads, a 1970s comedy set in the North East of England.

Hi, Steve. Your nickname is Geordie Steve, but you’re not in Newcastle. I’m in Newcastle. You’re not in Newcastle. Where are you, Steve?

Steve Craddock 8:26
I’m down in Chatham in Kent.

Carlton Reid 8:28
Okay, but the Geordie means you were born in the North East.

Steve Craddock 8:32
Yeah, I’m a Geordie, I was born up in Newcastle. And I lived there from ’57 to ’74. When I joined the army

Carlton Reid 8:40
Likely Lads time.

Steve Craddock 8:42
It was likely the Likely Lads time. Absolutely.

Carlton Reid 8:46
And you joined the army to do what, what was your, what was your original dream about going in? What do you want to become? And then what did you eventually leave as?

Steve Craddock 9:00
Well, I just wanted to get away from Newcastle.

Carlton Reid 9:05
Don’t say that, it’s a lovely place!

Steve Craddock 9:07
It is now. Beautiful now. It wasn’t when I was there.

Carlton Reid 9:17
I joined the Royal Engineers

Steve Craddock 9:18
I spent almost 15 years in the Corps and left as a sergeant.

Carlton Reid 9:27
And I was reading your biography. You’ve got some pretty grisly stuff there about you served in Northern Ireland, and you were basically with the bomb squad.

Steve Craddock 9:37
Not the bomb squad. As a Royal Engineer, party of a search. We would do the search, find any weapons or IEDs [improvised explosive devices] or anything like that. And then that would be handed over to the silly buggers who want to go down there and try and disarm it. So we weren’t bomb squad as such, but we were what’s called search teams.

Carlton Reid 9:59
But reading the biography, you did see some pretty horrible stuff.

Steve Craddock 10:04
Yes. Anybody who really, I did multiple tours in Northern Ireland. One of them was a two year tour. And anybody that served there, during the mid 70s, through to 1990 will have seen some pretty horrendous things. You mean, when a bomb goes off.

And people are caught up in it, it does tend to make a mess of them.

Carlton Reid 10:28
And we’re kind of hoping that we don’t go back to those days at the moment. That’s kind of resonant politically right now. I won’t get into that. But this is a cycling podcast so we’re not talking about your your army career as such, we’re talking about what happened after your army career. So give us a thumbnail sketch of why we’re talking to you on a cycling podcast. So how did cycling change your life?

Steve Craddock 10:57
When I came out the army

I sort of carried on, I did very well in Civvy Street. And I had lots of transferable skills as a as a Royal Engineer in Civvy Street and ended up as a director of a security company, and was doing very well. But there was something that was always in and in my mind something wasn’t quite right. And then I had a real bit of bad news where my brother committed suicide, and it it triggered something inside me. And it fired off a real bout of pretty bad mental health with a lot of what I saw in Northern Ireland and in other places, flashing back into my mind. And it created an awful lot of problems for me. It. Although I was operating, I had a real mental health issue. And which was causing me real problems. And I tried to drown those problems away and alcohol and that sort of stuff. And I ended up getting to about 19 stone [120kg/266 pounds]. Now when you’re only five foot six, and you’re 19 stone and you’re you’re a bit of a Weeble. And I was in a bad bad way. I was diagnosed about 12, 13 years ago with what they called PTSD. It’s just a mental health problem. You know, you call whatever you want to call it.

Carlton Reid 12:21
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Steve Craddock 12:23
At the end of the day …

Carlton Reid 12:24
So this is a common a common thing for ex-squaddies to have, somebody who’s been through some rough things, yeah?

Steve Craddock 12:32
I wouldn’t say. Yeah, lots of lads have problems, can we say? You know, PTSD is it’s a terrible four letters to explain huge amount of different mental health issues. So really, that’s the only way I can put it because it people can understand that. But really, I had a mental health problem. I was in a real physically bad state, which has made me even worse when you remember how well you were and how fit you were when you were in the army. I was in a pretty, pretty low place, pretty low place and Help For Heroes was formed. And I picked up on that and that it was formed by having a bike ride through the battlefields in northern France, and they got 300 people to go and cycle through France as a way of raising funds for Headley Court, which was the army rehabilitation centre near Leatherhead. And I saw this, and I thought ‘do you know, I wouldn’t mind doing that’. And the reason why I said that, to myself, was because I knew that my physical state was making my mental health far worse than it was.

And I thought I’d like to do that. I was too late for that ride.

But I saw that, and I bought, I went out and bought myself a bike, I thought I’m the only one that’s gonna be able to sort myself out. Because at the time there was no real help for veterans with the problems that I had. I bought a bike. And I started riding, it was horrendous. It was really hard. But there was something a bit special about it because suddenly, I was out on my own and I and I was out in the fresh air and I was looking around at things that really I hadn’t seen for a long time. I’d gone past them, but I hadn’t seen them because you were buried up in your own mind and your own problems. The following year, Help For Heroes did another bike ride, which I took part in. It was 350 miles from Normandy to Paris. And it killed me. It absolutely killed me. I couldn’t get up most of the hills and, and everything you know, I mean, the normal climbing thing, but you know, I was still about 18 stone and, but there was something about again I really absolutely loved. And from there, I just started pushing myself on my bike and got into the the normal N+1 thing. And just love bikes. And as I was doing that I found my weight started to come off, my mental health started to improve.

And the harder I pushed myself the better I felt in my mind.

And starting to find where, yes, it was still tough going up hills and you still quite heavy. But it was making me feel better. And maybe the pain in the legs was taken away from some of the pain that I was feeling in my mind. And that went on. I think it’s been, as far as my mental health is concerned, it’s been an absolute saviour, and it’s something I absolutely love doing. It’s just, to me, it’s just the best thing I’ve ever done in my life. And what really gets me is I wish that I’d discovered this years ago, but I was 50 when I discovered cycling, you know, I’m 62 now and I love it. I just can’t think of anything better than belting along the road with the wind in the air and looking out through the beautiful Kent countryside or through Normandy or as I’ve cycled through Burma, I’ve cycled in Zambia, you know I’ve cycling in a lot of places around the world and it just makes me happy.

Carlton Reid 16:31
And your N+1 syndrome that you’ve got there, what did you start with and what have you got now?

Steve Craddock 16:37
I started I bought

I can’t remember what the thing was. It was steel like

and I started enjoying it and I bought myself a special Specialized

cyclo cross bike, which I liked. And then I bought myself a – I was always getting better and better – I bought myself an S-Works Roubaix with Roval wheels and everything.

Carlton Reid 17:03
Oh, OK, you are going N+1 here!

Steve Craddock 17:09
And then I bought myself a Cube mountain bike

to do some off road stuff and really enjoyed that. And then a couple years ago, I bought a Dassi Interceptor Graphene.

Which is just the most beautiful bike in the world.

And I love riding it.

Carlton Reid 17:31
So these are obviously lightweight bikes. Tell me about your weight. So you were 18 stone. Tell me about the progression? How did you lose that weight? And if you don’t mind me asking, where are you now?

Steve Craddock 17:43
I’m now just under 13 stone [82kgs; 182 pounds].

And the progression really was was just and how I did it was really just being a little bit sensible about what you’re eating, and not cutting anything out? And I don’t think not, you know, what’s the point? You know, one of the greatest things on a ride is finishing off and having a pint. And enjoying your food while you’re doing it. And, and just being sensible about what you eat, and enjoying yourself, but just making sure that you get out on the bike. But also, you know, I mean, that doesn’t just, it’s not just bikes, that loses weight, you’ve got to do a bit of resistance training and stuff like that in the gym. And of course, getting fitter on the bike makes it easier for you to go to the gym, although I really detest it. But I use it to develop my muscles and everything. And I find it makes it easier for me to get up the hills. You know, I’m not fast up the hills. But there isn’t a hill, now, that I don’t believe I can’t get up.

Carlton Reid 18:40
When you go out riding, to others or to yourself, do you say I’m going out for a training ride? Or do you say ‘oh, I’m just going out for a ride? How do you consider it?

Steve Craddock 18:52
I just say I’m going out for a ride. And then, you know, I mean, I know what I’ve got to do, there’ll be times where I’ll say right, okay, i’m gonna go for a bimble around. And then I’m going to do a bit of hill training. So I’ll do some hill repeats. I’ve got a nice hill, which is on a military road, it’s very lightly trafficked. It’s about five and a half, six percent average for about 600 metres.

And that’s a cracking one. So I’ll go and do five

repeats of the hill, in a relatively light gear so, I’m spinning, and then I’ll go off, do about 15 mile, come back and I’ll do three or four repeats in a heavy gear. So I do a little bit of weight training on the bike and go off and then other times I’ll just ride and I’ll ride really slowly. And then every hill I’ll hit it as hard as I can. So I make it up as I go along really.

Carlton Reid 19:46
Yeah but you’re thinking about it, you’re not just bimbling along.

Steve Craddock 19:51
If you want to learn how to ride up hills, you’ve got to ride up hills. There’s no substitute for gravity trying to pull your back and you pushing against it. It’s and I’ve been out there with Hot Chilli in the Alps and, and things like that. That killed me, you know mean, they’re proper hills. But you know you it makes you feel good. And next month, I’m off to Portugal, I’m going to cycle the length of Portugal, from north to south, and there’s something like 30,000 feet of climbing on that. So we’ll be doing that in five days. So that’s gonna be good fun.

Carlton Reid 20:31
And you said ‘we’ there? When you ride locally are you just by yourself? Do you go out with people? What do you do?

Steve Craddock 20:40
Most of the time I go out on my own, actually, I really enjoy that. But I set up a group, a cycling group a couple years ago called No One Left Behind. And it’s a Sunday morning group where I encourage anybody, no matter what their weight, what their physical ability or anything is come and join us. And we ride at the pace of the slowest. And one of the things we try and do is to build up their confidence on the road, build up their fitness. And one of the aims is because every year I have my own sportive that I put on, I’ve just had this year’s was the fifth I’ve hard in support of Help For Heroes.

We try and build them on to do that first sportive, it’s only 50 mile, but it’s a massive landmark in a lot of people. And we’ve had probably, on average, about 10, 12 people come. We get regular people come have never been really done anything on a bike before. And we we welcome them and say like, okay, we’re going to go at your pace, and you’re gonna enjoy your ride. And so we just try and make it sure cycling becomes accessible to people and they’re not worried or ‘I can’t keep up with those people,’ you know what you can be like in, in some cycling clubs in and whatever, they get the train going in as much as they say and nobody, you know, nobody, no drop policy, they race off to the next junction and then wait and to have the same person has to keep keeping up and feels bad about themselves. This way, I control the pace at the front, I have a few guys along along the line. And if if if I’m picking it up a bit too fast, or they’re dropping back, I’ll get a shout and I’ll just drop the pace off and so that they enjoy it and feel that they’re part of what we’re doing. And it’s several of those people have not just completed my my sportive, but there’s another ride which I part organise, which is called the Great Kent Cycle Ride, which is a three day tour of Kent.

And we do 70 mile a day.

And several of those people have completed that three day event. And it’s something they wouldn’t have done if they hadn’t joined that group. So it’s really good that you see people, you know, it’s really killed them doing that three day ride. But the smile on their faces at the end, realising you know, I can do it. It’s such a, and I love it because I love seeing that and people come up and saying ‘cheers, mate’. But again, it’s about just making people feel good about themselves. And if you feel good about yourself, you know, it’s likes a lot easier. If you like yourself. And for many years, I didn’t.

Unknown Speaker 23:20
Tell me about. I mean, you’ve raised a stonking great amount for Help For Heroes. So tell us how much you’ve raised over these years.

Unknown Speaker 23:29
£486,000. I’m in my …

Steve Craddock 23:33
My goal to get 14 grand to get to the half million, which is I’m hoping we get this year.

Carlton Reid 23:38
Yeah, that’s that’s, that’s really really impressive. That’s an enormous amount of money to have raised.

Steve Craddock 23:44
You know, I mean, yes, it is, I’m not I’m not trying to decry it or anything but raising that money – and most of that’s been done on a bike, and organised events around that sort of thing – when you see what that money’s been done used for by Help For Heroes to help and support guys who’ve been horrendously injured in Afghan or whatever, or guys have got really bad mental health issues and how Help For Heroes has helped them. My way of recovery was my bike and raising money and knowing that that money is being put to good use. That’s actually it’s been my recovery pathway. I haven’t really asked for help from anybody. It’s been the way that I felt good about myself that I was doing something for somebody else. And at the same time, it was making a difference to my life. So and I could almost say it was selfish, because it was really about me and me getting better. And that’s the way I found it

enabled me to to move on. Not

not. What’s the word?

And just get better. They get it just me get better.

Carlton Reid 25:12
Now that 14,000 that you’ve you’ve got to raise to hit that magic figure looks as though it’ll be pretty easy to reach on your next challenge, which not the Portugal one, but the one where you’re going across Europe. So tell us your your your plans for that in 2020.

Steve Craddock 25:33
Yeah, I have a pal of min – Lee Patmore – who, five years ago never been, first of all, he was medically discharged from the Royal Navy for a pretty severe back injury. And in the time, when he came out, he then developed fibro, fibromyalgia, which is a pretty debilitating

disease.

And he because of that, he developed mental health issues and everything and he had contacted me when I did my first Cycle for Heroes, my first sportive the first year and said, ‘Look, I’ve never done anything like this, but I can borrow a handbike, can I come along with you’? And I said, ‘alright, mate’, and he he came along on the day. And I didn’t know he’d never done more than five k’s on this bike. And it was a 60 mile ride. And he got through it. When he told me halfway around it, he never done more than five k’s on a bike before like, and I did not half clip him around the back of their heads like, lucky he had a helmet on. But he got it got through it. And when he went home a couple days later he contactws me and says I want to do Lands End to John o’Groats. I said ‘you’re joking, son’ and you know mean that that’s a big, big challenge. He went, ‘no, I want to do it.’ I said ‘All right. let me think about it, I shall come back to you’. That was a couple years ago when Help For Heroes was in its 10th year. And I thought well, let’s do that. And we’ll do Joh o’Groats to Lands End but we’ll visit all the Help For Heroes recovery centres en route. And the following year we did it and we actually rode 1400 miles from John O’Groats to Lands End, visiting down the northeast coast of the UK and and down to Chatham in Kent and then whatever. So we did 1400 miles and the last year I took him on an 800 mile ride. And and so this year or for next year, I’m looking for challenges to do. And there’s a cycle route called the Eurovelo Six. And it goes from Saint-Nazaire on the Atlantic coast of France to can’t remember the name of the town but to the Black Sea and it passes through nine European countries. And I thought

That’s the one, Constan?a. On the Black Sea coast of Romania.

Carlton Reid 27:59
Is it Constanta?

Steve Craddock 28:02
Constanta, like. [Laughs]

I thought, you know, I mean, that’s already fully sign posted. It takes us on quiet roads, and on cycle paths and everything. And for Lee, couldn’t take him up in the Alps. So it’s relatively flat, but it means we’ve got a we’re going to do it in 22 days, it’s, it’s 2175 miles long. I’m going to do it in 22 days, so about 100 mile a day. And we’re going to go and ride it. And

Carlton Reid 28:35
How is the riding between you too, because a hand cycle and an ordinary bike, they’re different machines clearly? And different speeds? Yeah, how do you cope with with the differentials there?

Steve Craddock 28:50
Well, on the flat, once, once he gets this thing up to speed, because he’s so low down, he’s got very little wind resistance. And they move. They really shift. And if you go on a downhill, you know, they fly. When we were coming out of Scotland, out of Glen, not Glen Shee that’s in Northern Ireland, but I can’t remember. But he was hitting 50, 55 mile an hour. And once I get over 40, 45 mile an hour, then I’m starting to panic a little bit. So I can’t keep up with him downhill. And then when he hits the flat, he just maintains that speed, and I’m having to chase him down. When he hits a hill, then he slows down, gravity really pulls on him. But on the flat we can we can bowl along and I’ve said to him ‘look what we got to do, we will look at riding 8 hours a day, at about 12 and a half miles an hour average. For the first few days, let’s see how we get on. If we can pick up the pace a little bit, we’ll do that. But we really aiming to say we’re gonna be in the saddle every day for 22 days for 8 hours. That’s what we’re going to do. And if we can stick to 12 and half, 13 mile an hour, we should be flying. I mean, the real difficulty of that challenge is not 100 mile and then next day hundred mile it’s 6 days down the line, a 100 miles. Remember, he’s using his arms to power his bike. But you know, it’s a challenge to what’s the point of doing the challenge of is not going to push you? And it looks absolutely beautiful, the cities in the area we’re going through. Looks absolutely gorgeous. We have a support group, two guys. Yeah, it looks absolutely gorgeous.

Carlton Reid 30:31
Yeah, Budapest, Vienna. Yeah, looks lovely, does’t it? Lots of I can see.

I mean, you’re basically going through a lot of river valleys there.

Steve Craddock 30:41
We go along the Loire.

Carlton Reid 30:42
You look so you get to the

Steve Craddock 30:44
Yeah. And we end up but we will go through the Danube and whatever. So it literally is following the river valleys. And it to me it just seems you know, I mean, the challenge isn’t isn’t, you know, mean, it’s not a massively hilly route. I mean, it’s a getting on a bike every day for 22 days. And seeing how Lee’s body manages. So yeah, we’re callng it the 2020 Challenge, or Cycle2Recovery.

Carlton Reid 31:10
That’s in May, is it?

Steve Craddock 31:13
Two thousand and twenty miles in 2020, two veterans cycling to raise £20,020 for Help For Heroes.

Carlton Reid 31:26
And I believe Steve, I believe you’re the biggest fundraiser for Help For Heroes.

Steve Craddock 31:33
Individual, yeah, individual fundraiser. Yeah, in in the charity’s history. But it’s because it’s been it’s been, it’s what really what made me better. You know, that’s simple fact. It just made me, that’s been my recovery. And I will continue doing it. Because I enjoy raising money for them. I enjoy my cycling. I enjoy putting events on. In fact, in on the first of November, I’ve got Mark Beaumont, you know, Mark Beaumont, who broke the world record for cycling around the world in 78 days and 14 hours. And I’ve got him down here to do a talk on that ride. And the other things he’s done like the World Penny Farthing Record and cycling the length of Africa, world record holder. So he’s gonna come down and that’s another event in in support of Help For Heroes. So he’s going to come and do that, which is excellent, he’s also agreed to be one of the patrons of the ride. And along with Dame Kelly Holmes, our double Olympic gold medal, middle distance runner. So yeah, it’s we’re just trying to push it so we can get beyond the £14,000 and hit the half million.

Carlton Reid 32:46
And what does Help For Heroes? What does that do with all that cash? Describe its work.

Steve Craddock 32:51
Its work is based around recovery.

When a guy comes back from a war zone, or an accident, while he’s serving, or whatever, and he severely injured, maybe an amputee or he’s got a crush injury or whatever, the first thing they’ve got to do is rehabilitation. And they go to the defence rehabilitation centre, there’s a new one, I can’t remember where it is, but it’s somewhere in the Midlands. And where they are, if they’ve got to use prosthetics, they’re shown how to use the prosthetics get fitter, and stronger. So that they can operate with prosthetics, because if you’re, if you’ve been your legs come off above the knee, you’ve got to learn a different way of walking. So they have to get fit and going to so that’s rehabilitation, Help For Heroes comes in on the recovery pathway. Because once that’s been done, and you you you’re walking again or you’re operating, we’ve got a huge amount of problems, from there, recovering from the mental trauma, and everything that goes with being severely injured or having mental injuries because of what you’ve seen. So Help For Heroes is there to support guys through that, that pathway. And one of the big things they do is sports recovery. Because they’ve found that if you can get people stronger and fitter, they feel better if you get them cycling, and cycling with other people because sometimes some of these guys can feel quite isolated. If they’re cycling, and these are girls as well like it when I say guys I do mean guys and girls, it’s not just the blokes, but they feel better about themselves and they’re sharing their experiences, some may need some education or other courses that will help them with move through into Civvy Street and whatever but that money is spent at our four recovery centres where guys and girls can go to their run courses and everything like that to enable them in their future lives which the vast majority will be out of the military to be able to move over the light and live a full and productive and healthy life.

Carlton Reid 34:57
See it is a charity that I know about – my dad was actually he was pensioned out of the army in the 1950s. He was there he was actually stationed in Germany, this is after the war, obviously. And and he was blown up in a in a gas station, in a petrol station explosion when he was driving a petrol tanker and he survived but he was in hospital for many, many months with with serious burns. And now obviously Help For Heroes didn’t exist back then but he’s been through that rehabilitation process when it wasn’t quite as as formal and as you know, helped with Help For Heroes right now. So you know, he’s very aware of that, that charity and the cycling angling for me, I’m very aware of the charity.

Steve Craddock 35:52
There are many sports that that Help For Heroes use to enable people to recover from their physical and mental injuries. But cycling’s been one of the biggest one. Of course, that’s our our premier event of the year is the Big Battlefield Bike Ride where we cycle through the battlefields of France and Belgium. And you know, mean, earlier on this year, just after I’d come back from cycling from Lusaka to Victoria Falls, we did this year’s Big Battlefield Bike Ride. And that again with this year was Normandy to Paris. And so Help For Heroes has built up over the years this thing of cycling in it and so many guys have taken up on it, because it’s relatively easy to get into, you don’t need a massively lightweight bike, you just need something that’s decent, that you can get out on and you can ride. And the beauty of it is is because you’re outside you’re moving your body, you’re talking to people, you know, you’re you can just go out and enjoy being out in the fresh air. And I think a load of what cycling is about is it is that, it’s being out in the fresh air and hearing and listening and smelling different things and that sort of thing. It’s more than just riding the bike and getting fit. It gives you so much more. And you know to me, you know, I average even if I’m pushing it harder, I might average 15 mile an hour. So I’m no fast bloke or anything, but I don’t care. I don’t care. I love cycling. And I just try and encourage as many people as possible to come along in and join us and get the benefit of what cycling is given to me.

Carlton Reid 37:41
Thanks to Steve Craddock there. He can be found on twitter at Cycle2 recovery, which is ‘cycle’ two the number two to recovery. And he has a justgiving page which I will place in the shownotes which, as always, can be found at www.the-spokesmen.com. Thanks for listening to today’s show. The next one will be out in a week or so and features the Bartali 180, a new long-distance, one-day bike ride. Meanwhile, get out there and ride.

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?

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

2:59
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

3:18
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

4:00
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.

5:01
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.

5:13
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.

6:00
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

6:17
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

6:59
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.

7:24
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

8:00
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

8:46
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.

8:56
All sorts of people have weighed in on this because clearly it is, it is

9:00
bonkers situation.

9:02
Can you describe?

9:05
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.

10:00
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

11:00
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?

11:41
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

12:00
scary and the document what it actually asks it pretty much prohibits me to even know about cycles

12:08
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

13:00
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?

13:12
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

14:00
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

15:00
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

16:05
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

16:39
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

17:00
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.

17:08
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

17:16
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

17:59
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

18:59
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

20:00
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,

21:00
“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

22:00
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.

23:00
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,

23:54
the Council have told me that if I don’t do as they’ve asked

24:00
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

24:17
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?

24:39
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.

25:45
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.

26:01
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

26:59
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

28:00
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

29:00
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

29:59
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.

31:00
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

32:00
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

33:43
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.

37:30
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

38:00
We’d appreciate you leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. Meanwhile, get out there and ride …

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.

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.

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

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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.

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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