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Would there be any interest in bike maintainance training and would that be something the STFC money could be put towards? I’m thinking along the lines of gear/brake adjustment, chain repair, puncture repair, cleaning and lubrication – that kind of thing. I’m not sure if that is covered by the Bike Repair Man event or not.
Personally I can fix a puncture but that’s about my limit.
No problems from my perspective, I didn’t get a puncture (but I am using durano+ tyres). There certainly aren’t stone chippings everywhere and I saw no sign of any flint.
I came across the path this morning so thought I’d post the video of the section so people could have a look. The surface is good (no flint in sight) and the path is a nice width at the top of the hill.
On the hill, the kerb drop to the road is quite high and the path is pretty narrow so I’d be tempted to use the road going downhill at busier periods. There is probably enough space for 2 bikes to pass carefully but pedestrians and dogs would be more of a challenge. The path appears to give way to side roads so if you’re going to wing down the hill then again the road is probably the better option.
On the flat part of the path at the top the mud at the sides is already over the height of the path. I can see it getting muddy on the top if they don’t reduce the height of the verge a bit. Still a big improvement on what was there before.
I’m guessing the issue isn’t surface dressing per se but rather the choice of stone for the surface dressing. Stone age man realised that flint easily breaks into sharp pieces but sadly the knowledge doesn’t seem to have filtered down to OCC.
I’ve got a couple of 700c spare tubes and patches at Diamond. x8929 or Z06.81 on the ring.
Neil
I’d echo this regarding the surface – we’ve spent lunch fixing a double puncture from the new section of track. 3-5mm flint shards in both tyres.
Yep phone 101. They’ll take a few details and check you have some evidence (camera or witnesses). They pass them on to a member of the road policing unit who will give you a call back – for me this was the following morning. The officer took some more details and I was asked to upload to youtube and send a link to the officer’s email address. I was also asked at this time what outcome I was looking for – advice letter, prosecution etc. After the officer had looked at the footage he called back and asked again if I was happy with the advice letter approach with a link to the footage in the letter. I then got another call once the letter had been sent out and checking I was happy with their response.
Better process than I was expecting to be fair. I’m not sure how it differs with no corroboration – I imagine an advice letter would be possible but not sure if it would be passed to the roads unit or not.
It’s worth mentioning that police can issue fixed penalty charges for careless driving, 3pts + £100 fine. From when I last spoke to them it seemed that would be the approach for repeat offending but I assume they would require camera or independent witness evidence for that.
If anyone is interested you can pick up the Garmin Virb for about £75-85 (that’s the camera I was using in the clip I posted).
I go through there every evening heading towards Harwell and now take the lane through the pinch points due to idiots trying to squeeze past. The shared pavements are a waste of time but that seems to be the limit of the council’s imagination. You can probably find the planning application and responses on the Vale website although it might be a slog, their search feature is a bit crap.
On the plus side the advance stop line/approach lane at the lights is helpful when cars aren’t in it and it’s a heavenly surface compared to the rest of the commute.
Sounds pretty standard for some of the drivers round here. If it’s happening repeatedly it might be worth a call to Thames Valley Police via 101. They can have a word and that might be enough to change behaviour.
I got this one this morning right at the entrance to site:
I’d be interested to know what the split is between road/path cyclists. Certainly among the group of 6/7 cyclists I work with it’s definitely weighted to the road largely due to the lack of priority on the roundabout. I don’t think uncertainty over this crossing is going to change any attitudes on that.