Breaking: cyclists using bridge intended to be cycled over

Here is a video of someone trying to cycle from one side of the Avon to the other.

You can see at the beginning of the video that they have to  is another bridge, the cheesegrater bridge, which, since they replaced its artistic metal surface with one which works in the wet and ice, can be used year round. Or at least could be, if a lorry hadn't been driven over it, destroyed the surface and still, two months later, not been repaired.

Here's a video of someone cycling over it again


Nothing unusual there, given it has been since its inception a walking/cycling bridge

Why our coverage then? Because on December 5, 2017, Alex Ballinger, Bristol Post journalist, published an article Cyclists ignore signs asking them to dismount on a Bristol bridge but warning isn’t mandatory. Where, shockingly,

Pictures show cyclists riding over a city centre bridge and passing pedestrians

That is the most undercompelling subtitle you can imagine, but it gets filled up with

Cyclists have been photographed riding over a pedestrian bridge near Bristol city centre despite the ‘health and safety’ warning signs, but there is no way of enforcing the rule.

That's because its a cycling and walking bridge. There is no rule to enforce. The fact that the owners don't want to people to cycle over is their problem. The fact that the "cyclists cycle over the bridge" story is a recurrent on in the Post is, however, the newspaper's problem.

Here's an article from April 3, 2017, How many cyclists do you think we caught riding over a pedestrian bridge in Bristol in just five minutes?, by one Tim MacFarlan.

This is the Bridge in question. Notice how the recurrent videos of cycling over this bridge is, well, repetitive. Not a coincidence.



From the article

when it comes to a pedestrian bridge, with signs at either end ordering cyclists to dismount when crossing, you'd have thought you could relax a bit if you're on foot. 

Not so with the Valentine Bridge in Temple Quay if our experience is anything to go by.

...
This is despite the fact blue and white signs are clearly visible at both ends of the bridge saying in block capitals, 'CYCLISTS MUST DISMOUNT WHEN USING THE BRIDGE'. 

we filmed 22 cyclists crossing the bridge in both directions - and just SIX got off their bikes and walked across.

Well, it is a cycling bridge after all.

Except, guess what:

Not a single pedestrian complained to any of the cyclists, despite the fact they should only have been sharing the bridge with people on foot - wheeling their bikes if they had them.

The writer almost sounds disappointed "everyone on a walking/cycling bridge coexisted happily."

And here, May 10 2017, by Alex Ballinger, Sign urges cyclists to dismount on Bristol city centre bridge - but is it against the law to ignore it? This covers the Prince Street Bridge, but it quite clearly covers the fact that no, you can cycle where there's a "cyclists dismount" sign.

Now, that's a bit far back for some group memory, but there's search engines to find this history. And the article from October 23, 2017, These are the rules for cyclists. The clothes to wear, can you ride on pavements, and must you adhere to dismount signs?, by journalist Emma Flanagan.

Q. Do you have to adhere to dismount signs?
A. No. However, not dismounting can cause tension with pedestrians who may not be aware it is advisory.

And the article has a photo of guess, what? Valentine's Bridge.

That's the one in this video with the dismount sign next to a barrier installed without council permission. We think the barrier is designed to force people off their bike, but really its like chicanes are to Astra drivers showing off to their mates: entertainment. The challenge is "can you get round without putting a foot down". (tip: put the brakes on lightly but pedal all the way through; gives you a bit of oversteer and stops you having enter too fast).



There we go then: four articles this year on cycling over bridges with dismount signs, three covering this bridge, with the most overblown the "we counted 22 people cycling over a walking & cycling bridge and nobody minded".

The issue is no longer "why are these cyclists ignoring the signs", but "why does the local newspaper regurgitate same variants on the same story 4 times/year", especially when the story is "why do cyclists cycle over bridges designed to be cycled over?".

Some theories

1. Journalists are hard pressed to think up content, walking round Templemeads they see some people cycling over a bridge, see the dismount sign and think "that'd be something I could write up!", pushing out a story without bothering to search the archives or talk to colleagues.
2. Someone looks at the hit counts for previous articles and yells out, taps into the team whatsapp group, Slack channel or whatever "whose turn is it to do the cyclists on Valentine Bridge story this month?"
3. The bridge owners hate cyclists and every so often get in touch with the paper to say "we have a story!" And whoever writes it up doesn't bother to look through the archives. Or doesn't care.

We propose a sweepstake: when will the first 2018 article denouncing cyclists cycling over Valentine's Bridge appear in the Bristol Post?

Prize: a free cycle ride over the bridge

Rules: this competition is not open to Bristol Post staff or immediate family.

What's painful here, is not just the uninspired repetition of the same old story, a repetition which only increases prejudice and polarisation, but because we assume that the authors do have some ambition to really write compelling stories.

Yet there is an interesting one right in front of their eyes: the story about why a bridge built in the 21st century as a walking/cycling bridge has its owners trying to suppress cycling over it?

Here then, are our recommendations for the next Bristol Post journalist tasked with covering this story in April/May 2018.

1. Ask the bridge owners whether or not this was commissioned as a walking/cycling bridge?
2. Ask them why they unilaterally decided to add "cyclists dismount" signs?
3. Ask them why they unilaterally installed barriers without council permission?
4. Ask them why they get so worked up about cyclists exercising their legal right to cycle over the bridge?
5. Given the stance on cycling, do you consider that as a walking and cycling bridge, the bridge is a failure?

If the answers to Q2-4 is "because the bridge is too narrow", then ask them: what traffic modelling did they do? Was it wrong?  If so; why? If not: why was the bridge inadequate for the predicted numbers. And, if they didn't do any modelling, that's interesting too.

If the answers to Q2-4 are "because the surface is slippery when wet", ask them "was the weather of Bristol taken into account when the bridge was designed and materials specified"

Follow this with: given the surface of the first bridge was failure, why was the second crossing also designed with a surface which doesn't work in rain and ice?

A cycling bridge you cannot cycle over is not a cycling bridge: it is a failed project.

As, for Alex Ballinger and colleagues: why are you recycling this?

If you look at the comments, articles like this are clearly reinforcing the opinion of the commenters that "cyclists are lawbreakers". Maybe, but not here. This article has the defensibility of a "shocking expose, people driving on the M32 flyover". You should have been embarrassed to put your name to it

Please: write a new story on the failure of the bridge, not how Bristolians are using it as originally intended.

Prewar Bristol

A lot of newcomers ask us: "what was it like before the war began?", or "How was the city centre before it was ruined by the war?"

Well, the War on Motorists began over 25 years ago —and the city is still suffering under it. Before the war, you could drive from temple way over the rickety flyover, straight to the centre, then past the cathedral and out to the A4, with only a couple of traffic lights in your way. Not now.

Some of the history of pre-war Bristol is still there, if you know where to look. Redcliffe Way for example —have you noticed how wide it is? Or why the road from the Jacob's Wells Road roundabout to (what's left of) the Bristol library is wide, yet deserted. All distant memories of a city before the war.

Here, in our historical artifacts, we've found an A-Z map of Bristol from 1985, when the motorists were not yet under attack by a car-hating council.


Look at the subtle differences

1.  Castle Park is as it once was: parking. A large amount of its surface area was dedicated to medium to long stay parking for "Broadmead Shopping Precinct" —one of Britain's premier shopping areas. Now: stolen by greenery. And of course, there's a bike path. And look what happened to Broadmead —its decline is not a coincidence.
2. There's a road, "College Green", where now there is a park: "College Green". Newcomers just don't appreciate how wonderful it was to have a main road going past the cathedral entrance, between it and the council house —showing the council what mattered to Bristol: fast-moving cars. When Anchor Road was reworked in the early 1990s, it was designated the through road, and College Green taken from us; Dean Road becoming a cul-de-sac.  And of course, the park added a bike path. This was one of the first losses in the war —and possibly the greatest strategically. No longer did the council get to see a main road out their windows. And without that, they lost their way: they forgot what mattered.
3. Redcliffe Way goes all the way through to The Centre, via what is now known as "Queen's Square". That got captured by the tree-huggers at the turn of the century —who went out to plant trees to commemorate their victory. And of course, a bike path.
4. The infamous rickety flyover has gone. Nobody who has arrived in the last 15 years will ever appreciate the thrill of driving over that single lane flyover, wondering if today would be the day that it fell down. Stolen, replaced by a lights-controlled gyratory. And of course, a bike path.
5. Templemeads had a motorail terminal. Actually, this was news to us. Apparently you could drive onto a sleeper train and get to Scotland overnight. Of course, being able to drive up the M5, get stuck at Spaghetti Junction, crawl over Wolverhampton on the M6 and then eventually get to the A74 replaced that. And even now, with the M74 and new motorways round Glasgow, the speed enforcement on those motorways have made the journey worse.
6. The railway path doesn't exist. While they didn't steal our roads for that —they could have converted that old railway line into a new road, or at least extra parking. Instead: a route designed to encourage more law-breaking cyclists to come into the city.
7. The M32 ends at the "Allied Carpet and sex shops" junction, rather than the more convoluted "queue for Cabot Circus Parking" junction. Again, the addition of vast amounts of parking has made congestion worse on the M32. And, with more lights, pedestrian and cycle crossings.
8. Nine Tree hill is open to through traffic. This was the great partition of Kingsdown. Before then you could drive down Springfield road, cut through Ninetree Hill and make your way to Jamaica street —allowing you to get all the way from The Downs to the city centre without a traffic light. Not now —and by forcing everyone to drive down Whiteladies Road, St Michael's Hill or Arley Hill+ Cheltenham road, it only makes congestion worse. And again: there's a bike path on the roads they stole.
9. Prince Street Bridge. Two way, Closed to cars —possibly indefinitely.
10. Lots of the other little "P" areas have been taken away by offices and housing. And what have we got in exchange? Nothing but the multi-storey parking of The Galleries, the multi-storey parking of Cabot Circus, the underground parking at @Bristol and the vast amount of parking behind Temple meads. That's it.

You can see, then, the multipronged battles which we've been fighting —and losing— in the war on motorists. Those bits of red paint on the main roads aren't the real war, they are just the victory signs, the equivalent of unionist and nationalist kerb painting. No, the battles fought have been far more strategic

• The closure of the inner ring road, the replacement of College Green and Queen's Square's main roads with parkland and bike paths. And in doing so —increasing congestion on the remaining roads.
• The closure of important rat-runs, closures which partition whole parts of the city. And in doing so —increasing congestion on the remaining roads.
• The replacement of surface parking with multi-storey parking facilities. And in doing so: encouraging congestion.

This is what we are up against. And while it's easy to point to the current mayor and say "20 mph zones! RPZ zones!" and accuse him of conducting a war on motorists, those aren't the real war. Those are details in a conflict going back decades.

Templemeads: the city gateway experience

Bristol is getting a new City Gateway: one in the middle of the city.

The phrase "city gateway" should be a warning sign; it means someone has focused to much on some "urban realm" and new visitor experience rather than useful.

The only direction to be coming from where the "city gateway" would be the first thing you see of the city is if you are coming from the train station and have never visited the city.

In this situation, what would you rather see:

1. A six lane road with a bend in it, where, at the jut-out point, some trees?
2. A bus station with buses taking you useful places?

Because Bristol has two public transport city gateways: the bearpit and now this. And unlike the bearpit, we don't fear gentrification here, the Brunel pub suddenly serving beer you can drink, or open air pop-up cafes in front of the train station. (yes, we know about gateway 3, the underpass for walking and cycling. Another day)

But wait! people say, we are going to get a new showcase entry to the north of the station.

That entry point exists already. It's very convenient pickup/dropoff point today, because nobody else knows about it and you can pull off Temple Way early and stop right by the entrance.

It's also known by the cyclists as the way you can get to the station without being run over, the way you can get out without being run over on the way back, and where you can collect pre-ordered tickets from a machine which will only issue them to you if you have both the card and a six-character reference number. Given that you can check in for a transatlantic flight needing only the credit card, we are still trying to determine what security requirements mandate a significantly stricter policy for issuing tickets between Bristol and Bath, but we are sure it makes sense.

The cyclists gain from being able to get to the Bristol-Bath railway path, which is signposted

That's it, the blue one above the no-bicycles and "Cyclists dismount and give way to pedestrians" sign. That's our favourite, as it makes clear that even when they get off a bicycle they are still the Untermenschen of our city, the only ones we can discriminate against until UKIP come in to power and we can ban anyone muslim from the M4.
emplemads.
Anyway, cyclists can get to and from the railway path here. As this is the site of the most recent templemeads access point redevelopment, let's look at it and see what the last designers did in terms of making walking and cycling in Bristol better.

It starts at the Cheesegrater, one of the two Bridges added in the twenty first century. These are the showcase walking and cycling bridges to Templemeads. We'll get back to them after the tour.

Here then, we cycle across the Cheesegrater Bridge, as if the Untermensch were coming from the railway path, go past the "Untermenschen get off and respect your superiors" turnoff, where the Untermensch turns right, along what is currently a wide cycle route separate from the footpaths, and which will be upgraded to "new route for station dropoff". That is good, a bike path that wide is wide enough for a road: its what it needs. And we know from the rest of the area, that cyclists and pedestrians will share a pavement provided there's a sign telling the cyclists to dismount.




Carrying on from there, Herr Untermensch continues along past the "wet wood with afterthought traffic calming when they discovered people were actually cycling over it bridge", or as we will now call it "the rattling wood bridge" Then: along the river. This could actually be a nice route to the city centre, except that its existence is kept a secret. Even the pedestrian signs to Cabot Circus don't direct people this way, not when there's some main roads to walk past. Oh, and a new "city gateway" of course. In theory, then, this riverside walk could be made a walking and cycling "city gateway", one that took people to Cabot Circus and even the new Broadmead, whenever those plans surface. This path is also the most direct route to the Bus station, 15-20 minutes and traffic free the whole way. Maybe: but Bristol has always been proud of the inner ring road, "temple way", and should celebrate it. On bike, an Untermensch will eventually reach the Counterslip Road where they can see that the council would rather provide three parking bays on a bridge than any form of cycling infrastructure. Just something to bear in mind whenever someone talks about a war on motoring: we still have those parking bays on the bridge on Counterslip Road.


Finally, down some steps and along the remainder of the path to Castle Park. To summarise: a quiet route from the station, which with some minor effort could me made a gateway to the city:

• Lighting
• Signing
• Tax-dodger routing on the counterslip
• some way to get bikes up the stairs.

Finzal's reach will address this by adding a slightly different bridge, one to the west. As you can see from the consultation, this will be a curvy bridge, like Peros' the cheesegrater and the slippery wooden one.

There've been some mixed feelings about this. The cycling campaign felt that the route wasn't designed to take the cycling traffic volumes which would be seen if the councils goals of numbers of people cycling were actually to be met. On the other side, the Bristol Civil Society came out against it, because

Finzel’s Reach Bridge would not be the choice of most people walking or cycling between Cabot Circus or the Old City and Temple Meads Station; they would choose to cross Bristol Bridge or St. Philip’s Bridge. 

This surprises us. Certainly people walking and cycling choose to use Bristol Bridge or St. Philip’s Bridge, but that's because "those are the two bridges they can use", especially when "the nice route by the river isn't known about by all". They also chose not to critique the bridge for the reason we would, which is

we are sick of architects trying to give us fancy bendy bridges as they don't appear to work. Given Bristol's history of being built around a bridge, being internationally renowned for its suspension bridge, can we have some bridges which now actually meet their design goals of "getting people over the rivers safely"?

Which brings us, in a roundabout way, back to the Cheesegrater. This is a bridge which has warning signs telling people not to cycle over it when wet, and even for pedestrians to take care. Think about that. 

• A bridge.
• Two transport modes: walking and cycling
• Expected traffic volume: more than one person walking or cycling over the bridge at the same time, possibly in opposite directions
• For use in Bristol. Which has rained a lot in the past 1000+ years, enough for people to know that wet surfaces should be a common state, sometimes being replaced by "icy surface". Yet the cheesegrater bridge utterly fails to provide anything resembling traction in this situation. 

Now look at the implementations we've had in C21

Valentines: 
Surface: wood, slippery when wet or icy, rickety
Shape: S-shaped, for no apparent reason other than someone thought it was innovative
Designed for: walking and cycling
Not suitable for: anyone trying to cycle over it while someone else is walking over it
Amelioration measures: stick up some barriers over the bridge to discourage anyone actually trying to cycle over it.

Cheesegrater
Surface: metal,very slippery when wet or icy
Shape: S-shaped, for no apparent reason other than someone thought it was innovative
Designed for: walking and cycling
Not suitable for: anyone trying to cycle over it when it has rained in the previous 24 hours
Amelioration measures: cyclist dismount signs.

There then, are the two features we have had in terms of innovative city gateway work near Templemeads in the past 15 years. Two bendy bridges that completely fail to meet their design goals. One could just be misfortune. But a second? Didn't someone from the design team look at the first and consider how had it failed? Or did they just say "yes, bendy bridges with slippery surfaces are fashionable, let's do one too".

They didn't, did they. Which means that there are civil engineers out there who are still being allowed to build things. What we fear is this: they are involved in this new Templemeads work.

Step 1: find out who designed the rickety bridge and reassign them to doing bridges in Morocco and other low-rainfall regions.
Step 2: find out who designed the cheesegrater bridge and reassign them to doing something completely unrelated to civil engineering, or indeed designing things that people are expected to use. Working on Windows Phone User Experience, perhaps.

Whatever happens: we have to make sure they weren't involved in the new Templemeads "city gateway" as we know its not going to work, even before looking at the designs.

Clifton may call itself a village, but it is not rural

Some revolutionaries exploited some known PHP hack and defaced the travelwest web site.

Cue cause for coverage in the guardian, Muslim Hackers take down bus schedule web site, including describing how people resorted to facebook to ask the Arab Security Team what the schedule for the #8 bus is.

Well, it's good for Bristol to get some coverage in a paper written in London but sold nationally. Sadly, the paper covered the story with a photo of a stock bus stop in the rural road middle of nowhere. This is surprising, as we'd expected at least one of the paper's unpaid interns to have studied somewhere in the city.

For future reference the #8/9 bus meanders round the northwest bristol urban areas, with Clifton is furthest point in its orbit from its terminus, Bristol Templemeads.

Here, then, is an authentic Bristol #8 bus. Sitting at templemeads with the lights out and no cue whatsoever as to when the bus engine will be spun up and passengers able to get to their destination.



This, and non-determism of Bristol traffic flows, mean that if you live in 30 minutes walk of BTM, then, even if you are on the #8/#9 bus line, you are better off walking, except when one or more of the following conditions are met: its wet, you have luggage, you have a child with you. Even there, given child fares are non-zero in Bristol, walking with a child is still appealing.

As for Clifton being a rural idyll of empty roads: no. The residents may imagine it is a village, but only by the same criteria that stokes croft could consider itself a village: it was one a couple of centuries ago. Avonmouth village has far more villageness.

Dear Guardian: when you next want a photo of a Bristol bus stop -please get in touch.

Temple Gate bike crossings

we are not entirely sure what the rights of ways of this cyclist-only junction in the middle of the temple gate roundabout ,-close to templemeads railway station-  actually are.

In the photo above, the camera may be taken from a path to the right which has priority over bicycles coming from the left or far left. But look at that far left approach it's on the wrong side of the pavement. And the oncoming route is meant to give way -but give way to what?
 
passing cyclists seemed to go by with no  respect for the rule of the highway code at all.

Double discrimination

While looking for a pavement to park on by templemeads, this sign caught our eye:
 
Just beneath the advertisement for the bristol-bath cycling& walking route, on a pavement with signs saying pedestrians are allowed to walk on it, there are two other signs

• A "no entry to bicycles sign"
• A sign saying "cyclists dismount and give way to pedestrians"

The latter was our favourite. Think about what it means.

It means anyone who has dismounted and is now pushing their bicycle has to give way to pedestrians.

Clearly it means that cyclists pushing their bicycles are not yet pedestrians, they are still cyclists endangering pedestrians by their very insistence on walking their bicycle towards templemeads station -perhaps to get to the railway path, perhaps even to get on a train.

Either way, it's nice to see that whoever owns Templemeads Station hates cyclists whether on their bicycles or on foot.

Plot 6: bus station or parking?

For all those entrants to the Friday Quiz: behind the purple fence with the no skateboard or ball games signage is a temporary car park. Temporary. We need something more permanent.

This is why it's exciting to hear that the infamous plot six, the now defunct post-office-railway-integrated sorting/delivery office may well be turned into a multi-storey long-stay car park, and not, as some troublemakers demanded, a transport hub for buses, trains and bicycles.

Providing an integrated transport hub here would merely encourage people to use train+bus, or train+bike, and not offer the revenue opportunities of, say, a five storey car park.

Two issues

• We hope the car park is SUV friendly, as Cabot Circus is, and not 1980s-legacy-galleries style.
• This is going to increase demand for road access to the area, especially as the Portishead railway line is not going ahead. We propose recognising that the Coronation Road cycle path is a waste of space, and turning that entire pavement into another inbound lane. Yes, some trees will have to go, but they will grow back elsewhere. And as Elf-King Ap Rees says, the South Bristol Link road is critical to make commuting by car into Bristol quicker. Anyone who says otherwise is making "mischievous misleading comments"

We praise the Waltham Forest Faction of Bristol council for their plans, and the assistance of North Somerset and S Gloucs councils.

On this topic, we saw an article recently arguing that the suburban dream in Bristol is in trouble. The actions to improve driving options from North Somerset show that this is false. What has changed is this: the important people in the city, rather than live in the fringe suburbs, have moved out of the city altogether, into the picturesque towns and villages outside: Portishead, Clevedon, Wotton-under-edge, etc. While public transport to the fringe of the city is collapsing, those with money still need to come in, and the increasing use of road space by cyclists, resident parking schemes and expanded pavements is anti-capitalist. It is critical that Bristol Council -who would otherwise pander to their electorate- recognise that the true wealth of the city depends on these out-of-city commuters, and meet their needs: fast wide roads, low-cost in-city parking. The Plot Six and South Bristol Link Road are only part of what we need.

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?

Transport Hub

This vehicle, half on the pavement, half on a double yellow line, is waiting

The vehicle in front is parking in front of a taxi-only space for a single taxi; where it is waiting it would block any turning vehicles, such as, say, a bus.

Why would one expect a bus to be turning here? For the same reason the taxis and the cars are here: this is the bus station.

If you are doing dropoff or pickup by car, these two spots are the only places you can do it. Of course they are going to wait here. It's inconvenient, but the only alternative would be a short stay dropoff zone, like round the corner at the BRI, and as everyone who goes past that knows, it's a medium-stay-sit-in-the-car zone which wouldn't be any good for trying to drop someone off at the bus station.

This leaves three access options to the long-haul bus network

• FirstBus buses which may or may not work
• Taxis
• Parking for six bicycles
• Space for two cars to park on the pavement, so stopping all buses
  

Some subversives has proposed an integrated transport hub at templemeads, where it would be possible to get from a bus to a train without relying on any FirstBus services. This is wrong, as FirstBus are an invaluable aspect of our city and can be relied on, just as TfL can be trusted in London.

Cycle City proposals: the riverside route

One of the new routes proposed for cycle city is a route between Templemeads and the south-east of the city along the river.

As you can see, no such route exists today. To be precise, such a route does exist, but it is unpleasant, dangerous and not fun to cycle.

The area is built up and you are left pining for such quality infrastructure as the St Philip's flyover, visible in the distance.

It is certainly a relief to get off this unpleasant and dangerous path and into the safe cycle facilities around Templemeads.

Victory to Oceania!

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]

Bristol's secret free bus

Here, in templemeads, is a bus to relish. Yes its small, no, it doesnt run weekends, but its free. It can take you from the station to the BRI, the highbury vaults pub at the top of Saint Michael's Hill, and the General Hospital by the harbour and the Ostrich Pub. Which means you could use it during a weekday pub crawl, perhaps.


The bus can be used to get between Temple Meads and Cotham. We've no data on whether it is faster or more reliable than the #8 bus for this, but it does have a cost advantage. Students and patients only though. There are no obvious checks, but a family with holiday luggage may have to do some explaining.

The University has a map and timetable.