Friday Competition: Temple Quarter

Over in Temple Quarter there's a big purple wooden fence up with some marketing blurb, including a photo of someone on bike in hi-viz who is "building the future in Bristol"

Where is Temple Quarter. Next to station, where the cyclists dismount stretch of a sustrans route begins.

In the other direction, there's a sign saying "cyclists should dismount for their own safety", specifically, if they don't, they may hit the barriers put to make cyclists dismount for their own safety.

One commuter deftly negotiates the safety feature. One that presumably creates a pedestrian/cycle conflict too.

People might think the area picks on cyclists, and hence note the complete inconsistency between the marketing and reality, but that's unfair.

They pick on all round things, be they cylindrical or spherical.

Now: the competition. What is behind the big purple fence?

Waste of a good berm

The run up to the new Temple Quay bridge is a bit of a disappointment. There's a lovely left hand bend, with a steep bank that is dirt right now, but will probably be grassed over. That would be an excellent berm for any MTB or BMX rider to use as their line through the corner, get up to speed on the straight then drift over to the grass, banking through the bend and then dropping down, gaining extra speed to push through whatever traffic calming the bridge designers will try and sneak in.


But look at how it's been ruined. Someone has gone and stuck a light, just at the bend. What a waste. You are going to hit that lamppost with your full body if you try to work the berm. Wasted. Don't bike path designers recognise that the bits by the side of the path are there to make commuting interesting?
[Photo: TerryM]

exit strategy

TerryM, who has been documenting the issues with the new temple quay bike path is unhappy with this design, as the exit of the path is not very aligned with the bike/pedestrian crossing.

Well yes, if you want to provide a cyclist friendly safe commute route, that would be an issue. But from a mountain bike perspective, this bit of the route does retain some fun. Coming off the bike path into the road, you get to do some air. And on the way back you get to test your front wheel/back wheel lifting skills. Add some tree trunks to the main path and this would be a route to enjoy!

A little bit of the Alps.

It's been wet out there on the bike, the trails are muddier than they were in January. The only bright spot it any videos still to watch from the Tour de France. No stage winner got expelled for failing a drug test, so you don't get to watch a race like the Landis Columbiere/Joux-Planes stage or Vinokourov in the Pyrenees...knowing that the winner of the stage is now serving a two year ban from pro-cycling for EPO, steroid or testeosterone abuse. We can look at the alps, and think, it would be great to go out there.

Of course, fitness aside, there is the small problem of surviving cycling round the French towns. Their priorite a droite rule that gives vehicles to the right priority isn't too hard to deal with, as we are used to cars ignoring UK right of way rules. The cyclist-driver communications may consist of French words they don't yet teach in school, but a bit of UK swearing seems to work, and if not the old nose-blow into the open window is still an option.
No, what's hard is learning how to cycle properly on the wrong side of the road, so when you jump off the pavement onto traffic, you do it into an empty lane, instead of going head on into a french bus. You need to develop the instinct to fall to the right instead of the left, and you need to look out for traffic off your left side. Skills that are hard to learn in Bristol.

Until today. Because, with the opening of the new Temple Meads/Eastside Bridge Crossing, there is a new bike path joining Temple Quay with the ibis hotel. A French hotel, by a French chain. And look what they have given us, a new french style bike path, with pretty little cobbles.

With pretty little logo cobbles to gently show cyclists which side of the path to cycle on.


Logos that are on the mainland europe side of the path. Yes, we now have, in Bristol, a bike path that is officially for cycling on in 'mainland' style. So even though the Alps are a distant dream, we can head down here and train for it. We can cycle along on the right-hand-side of the road, looking ahead for the next patisserie, dreaming of our next pain-au-chocolate or mille-feiulles. Yes, with this path, Bristol is slowly becoming a continental city. [Photos by TerryM and SteveL]