Bristol cycling city, just not on council land?

Couple of juniors here that race

http://www.dreamcyclingclub.co.uk/dream-race-team/

http://www.dreamcyclingclub.co.uk/race-results/

Well Joe looks like a budding Olympic champ to me and Bristol City Council are going to make that really hard to happen. A perfect story for a slow news day for the BEP…

Mr A, sorry to hear BCC seem intent of f*cking up the amazing opportunity gifted to them in AC 🙁
I did think it waqs taking time to get the bike shop etc up and running…

In true stw fashion I recall being told by a friend in the bike trade that there were quite a lot of conditions that needed to be fulfilled by any shop owner that wanted to operate at the new cafe although Mr. A will probably have a better idea of what conditions were being laid down.

Complaints should be directed through faircomment@bristol.gov.uk

This is more likely to lead to a response, which will impact on their performance monitoring.

Had a response from the evening post who want to talk to someone about this whole thing. Anyone happy for me to give them a mobile number to talk about what’s going on.

Mr agreeable?

email in profile

Tricky, they’re probably better off speaking to the race organisers – I’ll ping you a couple of emails. Craig already said it perfectly on that Road.cc article though.

Racemonkey, I don’t know anything about the tendering process for the new cafe except that a few local shops looked at it and passed, then it was awarded to a shop based in the Home Counties, then it fell through. And I can’t believe we still don’t have a bike wash. Grrrr…

cheers. Yes i got hold of craigs email and he’s given me his number. Let’s hope we get something good out of this

Oh god, I hope BEP don’t get this wrong – they aren’t exactly known for their pro-cycling journalism.

My feeling is it’s going to come down to speaking to the right people at the council, rather than a populist campaign like the Railway Path thing.

I was thinking, what’s the possibility of exploring using school playing fields for cross? I know some school playing fields get used in wales for cross races.

Is/will there be a Mayor in Bristol. Can see them getting involved if there’s votes available?

George Ferguson Is the pro cycling candidate in the mayor elections

trickydisco – School grounds make for some great CX venues: plenty of playingfield peripheries, private roads, even steps and sandpits. Not to mention changing rooms, toilets, parking etc… I’ve tried and failed in the past to convince several local schools to let us hire their premises, even though they agree they’d make perfect venues.

Chard was mentioned as somewhere that’s held playing field CX races in the past. The chairman of the Dean Trail Volunteers has got in touch with very reasonable rates for holding an event there (which would be amazing if SSEC was anything to go by. Hopefully Freeminer would supply the beer hand-ups.) All of which is appreciated.

Still though, it doesn’t change the fact that a long-running race series which loads of participants could ride to has been axed, apparently on a whim, for the thinnest of reasons.

Still though, it doesn’t change the fact that a long-running race series which loads of participants could ride to has been axed, apparently on a whim, for the thinnest of reasons.

I wouldn’t go as far as saying the series has been axed, there are rounds in stroud, gloucester, cheltenham etc, Just the bristol rounds have been axed, which might be quite a lot though…

George Ferguson Is the pro cycling candidate in the mayor elections

They’re all paying lip service to bikes but not many concrete policies. Jon Rogers and Marvin Rees also support the feckawful BRT2 scheme which will turn cycle lanes into bus lanes.

Was this the prompt for BCC’s decision (or does this relate to a whole different sport / series of events)?

http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk/Park-left-poor-state-cycling-event/story-17317493-detail/story.html

Mr Agreeable – Member
They’re all paying lip service to bikes but not many concrete policies. Jon Rogers and Marvin Rees also support the feckawful BRT2 scheme which will turn cycle lanes into bus lanes.

Not sure I’ve seen anything from Ferguson which says he does or he doesn’t. Come to think about it all I know from his campaign literature is that he’s been to an awful lot of other cities.

mrmo, yes, technically I suppose it’s true, however it’ll mean less variety of venues and driving for over an hour to ride for 45 minutes.

matthewspb, class bit of stirring by the local rag there, but it sounds like things were sorted out sensibly, or why haven’t Gloucs Council banned cycle events?

I suspect it’s more of a knee-jerk response to the problems with this year’s Oktoberfest instead, where heavy rain left the eventing field in a state. Oktoberfest gets thousands of participants as opposed to 50-60 and unfortunately there’s no hard standing there to park cars on like there is at CX events.

Ditto for Brisfest, the Balloon Fiesta, the Love Food festival on Queen Square (which looks like a swamp at the moment after being scarified and reseeded), all of which had noticeable effects on the places they were held. It’s just a case of the Council picking on small events that they don’t think people will miss.

”I do not support BRT2″ George Ferguson

all I know from his campaign literature is that he’s been to an awful lot of other cities.

Yeah, that was a bit of a running joke at the cycling hustings which he was happy to play up to.

Ferguson opposes BRT2 really strongly and personally I think he’d be good for cycling – he’s a old colleague of John Grimshaw’s and they have the same “let’s try stuff out” attitude which you’d need to make any appreciable difference to Bristol’s traffic problems.

http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk/Park-left-poor-state-cycling-event/story-17317493-detail/story.html

I bet the photo of the park being re-turfed was actually taken in conjunction with this:

http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co.uk/Fears-long-term-damage-iconic-gardens-Cheltenham/story-17166179-detail/story.html

Give George a call, I’m sure he’ll come on board. I’ll drop him an email anyway as I haven’t caught up with him for a while.

All well and good, except 1) He hasn’t actually been elected yet and 2) I expect he’s randomly deleting 3/4 of his emails and voicemail messages just so he can keep on top of all the pleas for favours from obscure causes like ours.

Well, I know him both personally and professionally, it’s up to you.

nice to see the Echo is as crap as usual, why am i not surprised that they labeled a picture of Pittville park as Montpellier…

And having walked past at the weekend you can barely see the marks, but they have picked the worst possible corner at the most exagerating angle. considering the event has been going for a few years and this was the wettest it has been it has hardly left a mark.

Not surprised by the attitude of the OAP NIMBY’s in the town though!!!!

I don’t bother looking but i do wonder what state the football pitches in the back ground are in?

Well the latest is that me and Craig should be on Radio Bristol tomorrow morning talking about this, together with someone from the Council.

aP, that was a bit harsh of me. If you think you’ll get a response, go for it!

I seem to remember that bristol did this last year and there were last minute cancelations.

re Pittville park, AKA round 11? western league,

Hope CBC aren’t stupid and follow the lead of Bristol though. Nothing would surpise me, the council is a bunch of f*****ts perfectly happy to ban cycling from the town pedestrian centre and do nothing to address why cycling through the town centre might be preferable to playing with the boy racers on the ring road. a one way perfectly designed race track that is treated as such!

Mr A – What time (or on which show) are you guys on?

Should be around 7 am. Ugh. Expect me to be even more bright and sparkling than usual. 😀

This email from the Councillor responsible for parks is now doing the rounds:

Dear all

I have received a number of e-mails of varying tones,varying from the ultra reasonable enquiry to the aggressively accusatory, regarding a report that has been passed out claiming that a ban has been put on cycling events in parks.

LET ME FIRSTLY BE CLEAR THAT NO SUCH BAN EXISTS and that in fact parks dept. are looking to develop further BMX facilities building on the success of fairly recently installed courses and that in general encouraging physical activities in parks is encouraged and is increasing.

I understand that there was some interaction between council officers in the events team and a club. Clearly any activity in a park,be it pop concert,fun day or sporting activity will have an effect upon the park and any group needs to take responsibility for any damage which could have a negative effect upon other users and contribute to the reinstatement costs.

This matter came up some months ago and I am surprised and disappointed that it has reemerged at this time. I trust that this is down to misunderstanding/miscommunication.I sincerely hope that nobody has been deliberately misled.

Gary Hopkins

But that still doesn’t explain why organisers of smaller events are being told that they could be charged £50 per competitor if they chew up a bit of grass.

Being very crap at cross I only tend to do the Bristol ones and dont really want to venture further North to darkest Glos. to finish last.

no ban exists, but we’ll charge so much that no one can afford it….

I did the one in Warmley the other week but thats South Glos and although we chewed it up it was round some woods and some scabby old land

I went and had a look at Warmley today and the path by the river was a quagmire, but not a tyre track in sight – it was all boot prints. The bits of the park that had been used purely as a CX course were identifiable, but in nothing like as bad a state.

Heads up.

Breakfast show starts on BBC Bristol at 6.30.
First item is the bloody cyclists ruining the grass!

Damb i bloody missed it!!!

It was on about 7.05.
Should be on iplayer later.