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East London Cyclist Archives
The newsletter of Tower Hamlets London Cycling Campaign Group
October-November 1999
City plans traffic restricted area for Broadgate
Another fatality - read this message from Gary Cummins, Borough Co-ordinator.
New Strategy Document
The London Triathlon
Exclusive Lee Hurst interview
£25
average fine handed out by courts for
footpath cycling
£250
average fine handed out by courts for
causing death by careless or dangerous driving | |
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City plans traffic restricted area for Broadgate
The City of London, along with Islington, Tower Hamlets and Hackney have supplied Wheelers with details of proposals for a series of road closures between City Road and Spitalfields, and sought our comments. The scheme is intended to discourage through traffic, and thereby improve the environment within the area bounded by Worship Street, Norton Folgate/Bishopsgate, Broadgate Developement, South Place and Finsbury Pavement/City Road. All the road closures will have exemptions for pedal cycles, and the one-way section of (one-way working) at the eastern end of Worship Street will incorporate a contra-flow cycle lane. Other service traffic will be able to enter the area, but by only two points, one at South Place and the other at Norton Folgate. Restrictions will initially be in the form of plastic barriers and when fine tuning of the scheme has been completed more permanent solutions will be put in place.
This is a highly enlightened scheme for the City and boroughs to propose. We will be endorsing the project in full. |
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Another Fatality
As this copy of the newsletter was being put together, another cyclist has been killed on the streets of Tower Hamlets, few details yet, but the fatality occured at the junction of Mile End Road and Burdett Road on Friday, 24 September.
Latest: Further details and what you can do to help improve our cycling facilities have now been posted in this message to THW/LCC members from Gary Cummins, Borough Co-ordinator. |
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New Strategy Document
You will have received a copy of this document produced by the council with your last copy of ELC, some of you will recieve a copy with this newsletter. The fact that the borough officers are giving you the opportunity to ask questions is a positive move. Please respond to this initiative, I know many of you have not. While this document is a step forward, the way it is produced is arguably a disincentive to take to the streets of the East End on a bike. Only one cyclist is clearly shown in the document, and he appears to be dressed for cycling in an off-road mountain bike race down Everest; state of the art bike, helmet, gloves, back pack and body armour etc. If the borough really want to encourage bicycle use in Tower Hamlets they need to remember that all types of people can ride a bike. The image shown in this brochure may suggest to a potential cyclist that this method of transport is dangerous and only be undertaken by the fit and carefully equipped. Helmets are currently worn by only 16% of the British cycling population, and are a positive discincentive toward taking up cycling for many people. Motorists take to the road with none of this specialised equipment, cyclists should not need to either. | |
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The London Triathlon
19 September 1999
Swim 1.5km; Bike 40km; Run 10km.
Wheelers were represented in the third London Tri this year in the person of Oscar Franklin, who had spent six months training for this gruelling event.
The swim was held in the choppy waters of the Royal Albert Dock, a one lap course which left everyone rubber-legged (upon exiting the water). A smooth transition led onto the six lap bike course riding his workshop built cycle along the Beckton dual carriageway, with five roundabouts and four hairpin bends it was described as "technical"! A puncture due to a rouge safety pin(!) held up Oscar's progress by about four minutes and was swiftly fixed. Another puncture happened just before the second transition, but Oscar was close enough to the changeover area to wheel the bike in.
At the start of the run leg Oscar admits thinking "Flipping Heck I could finish this!" but there was a three lap course to cover yet. Isotonic drinks and encouragement from fitter athletes helped at this stage, and Oscar finished the course in under three hours. His next aim is to take five minutes off his brand new personal best!
Next season starts in May in Swindon-sponsorship welcome!! Anybody with a sponsorship offer can contact Oscar via the newsletter address on our contacts page. |
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Lee Hurst Interview
Borough Co-ordinator Gary Cummins chatted to Lee Hurst, local lad, professional comedian, (and cyclist!!) about white mice, Hercules, and got around to asking him...Lee Hurst, can you mend a puncture?
| GC: | Your rich and famous now Lee, do you still ride a bike? |
| LH: | Yes I do, I do indeed. I've got a Falcon mountain bike, £150 from Daycocks. The best £150 quid I've ever spent, had it for what... five or six years now, done very little to it. Not on it today though, I'm going to a gig in Brighton tonight, but normally I do ride in , its almost lazy of me, I only live what...12 minutes walk away.
| GC: | Have you always ridden a bike?
| LH: | Yeah, when I was a kid I used to ride a really ramshackle old rattler, my dads. He used to ride back and forth to the docks on it, still got it. Its a Humber, got a brass plate on it saying 'Humber: by appointment to King George VI'. It got me around as a kid. Then I eventually persuaded dad to buy me a racer, second hand £35. I then got this, see my knee there (Lee points to a nasty looking lump on his knee) called Osgood/Schlatters disease.
| GC: | As in Peter Osgood? (Chelsea forward of the 70's)
| LH: | Yeah, exactly, and I had to stop games, PE for six months, and unbelievably within 2 weeks of stopping cycling somebody broke into my dads garage and nicked the bike. But then my dad saw the old bike, the Humber, in Brick Lane market and collared the kid who nicked it, but didn't get my bike back, bit sad really,
| GC: | Do you ride into town on the bike, for instance when you do gigs?
| LH: | Yeah, I used to cycle in every Tuesday when I did the Comedy Store, I had another old bike then with wrap around handlebars, I'd chain it up in Leicester Square. Then they moved the venue in to Soho and I used to have to take my bike in, when I did Saturday live in '96 I'd cycle to LWT, it was just so easy to get there, I mean, they'd send you a car and that, but it was just easier on the bike. But at the BBC for They Think Its All Over, that was a bit too far.
| GC: | Hang on, that's White City isn't it, about ten miles away. I worked there myself on a Beeb magazine, but I cycled there Lee!
| LH: | Yeah, but its a bit of a long haul isn't it?, you get hot and sweaty, but for the Comedy Store I'd just take it easy, pootle along, for the west end gigs I'd always use the bike.
| GC: | So how come ten years ago, after I saw you in a club off Oxford St, you gave my then girlfriend I and a lift home in a beaten up Mk4 Cortina?
| LH: | Did I?!, Lets see, If had the Mk4 that would have been 1989-90, I don't think I had a bike then, I had the Mk 4 stolen as well, off Digby St.
| GC: | Do people recognise you on the bike?
| LH: | Yes they do, I get ribbed a lot in the west end by cabbies, they shout "where's ya limousine?", but I'm always going faster than them, I shout "I'll get there before you."
| GC: | Do they stop you for autographs?
| LH: | I don't tend to stop; if people shout out I wave back. In the early days I'd look round, but now I just acknowledge them and keep my eye on the road. I have had people shout at me from a car window, pull up in the distance and flag me down for an autograph.
| GC: | Being famous must be a disadvantage if you're cut up, you must want to give the motorist a mouthful?
| LH: | Yeah, I get cut up and that, I have to grit my teeth. But I really, really, tend to hog the gutter, for instance at Old Street roundabout I never pop straight out, I wait, hog the kerb, and go round slowly. I always think that I may be invisible to a car. I had an uncle of mine who was knocked off his bike by somebody opening a car door and run over, he was cut from stem to stern. I just assume the worst is going to happen, there's no point in thinking "I've got a right to be on the road, I'm as good as that motorist is", because at the end of the day, if they hit you, they won't feel anything. If someone is obviously getting annoyed because I'm slowing them up I will pull over and wave them past.
| GC: | You're a very defensive cyclist Lee, I tend to fight aggressively for my place on the road, perhaps that's why I get knocked off. Do you use the bike around the east end, do you ride out into Epping for instance?
| LH: | No, the bike is simply a mode of transport, I don't ride on it for pleasure, the bike is just practical. If I have a puncture and the bike is off the road for a few weeks I always think, how much time have I wasted by not using the bike.
| GC: | Which brings me to my next question, can you mend a puncture?
| LH: | No, My dad does it for me. I just change the inner tube. Next time he does it though I'm going to get him to show me, I haven't a clue about putting the patch on.
| GC: | I always change the tube at roadside myself, got any good jokes about bikes? Two nuns on a tandem etc.
| LH: | I haven't actually, it's no joke, I feel rather smug on my bike riding in
London's pollution. I like to think, I am not contributing to this at all.
| GC: | What improvements can be made for cyclists in London?
| LH: | Drain covers, they should countersunk under the pavement, drains are the equivalent of a pothole, if you go round a drain or a pothole you're forced into the traffic.
| GC: | What do you do at nasty junctions, Old Street roundabout to Shoreditch High Street, where one is forced to travel at speed and cross six lanes of traffic? It's a terrible example of highway engineering.
| LH: | What I do there is go straight across into Hackney Road and detour south, I just avoid those places. I'm not averse to getting off and walking at those places either.
| GC: | So you have a longer but safer journey, you avoid that conflict. Do you go through red lights?
| LH: | I do, heh heh, I have a way of negotiating red lights, by turning into the side road, then out again, I don't go straight across.
| GC: | Do you wear a crash hat?
| LH: | I don't, the helmet tends to extend out from the forehead, and if I go forward onto my face the helmet forces my head back and I'm more likely to get whiplash.
| GC: | Helmets are not effective at over 20mph anyway, most impacts are from cars hitting you travelling above that speed, and dragging a helmet around makes cycling a lot less practical. Have you heard of the LCC?
| LH: | Vaguely
| GC: | The LCC produce this cyclists map of central London backstreet routes. (Shows Lee LCC map)
| LH: | I know most of those from my days as a van driver.
| GC: | Van driver?! You weren't a bastard White Van driver were you?!
| LH: | No mine was maroon, we used to call those white vans white mice, from the days on the Wapping picket line.
| GC: | Have you got a car now?
| LH: | No I use my girlfriends, I will buy one though, one of the smaller ones with the lower tax, I'd like to support that initiative, but I think the margin is too low at 1100cc, it should be 1300cc.
| GC: | Lee, thank you very much for your time
| LH: | You're welcome
Backyard Comedy Club, Tuesdays to Saturdays
0171 739 3122
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