This month has gone quickly and the discussion about this years big races has been growing. Entry forms for Sleepless in the Saddle are already out. Now it just a case of deciding what to do and who with.
Cars, love them or hate them they’re everywhere. There are a few of those ridiculous Chevrolet built Hummer’s around Manchester, which just goes to show there are some people with bottomless wallets. Even that Clarkson (who has been in trouble recently) didn’t like them. He and I’m sure a few others will be amused by this tongue-in-cheek website…
Cars are also probably the reason behind these statistics published by the Sustrans as part of their latest copy of the National Cycle Network Map. Part of the problem of course is changing the attitude of the majority about bike use…
There’s some interesting stuff coming out for the new season. New shoes from Italian footwear specialists DMT and Lance has a new weapon to help him in his campaign for this years Tour Yellow jersey, a new purpose built Trek TT bike. There are more photos on the Trek Bikes site. Any money on those wheels actually being used in Le Tour?
In a follow up to a report I posted up a few weeks ago, Bikebiz reports that the world doesn’t seem to have gone completely mad just yet:
Shanghai back-pedals on bike ban threat
Police chiefs in the bicycle-dense Chinese city had been planning to lever bikes off the streets in order to fit in more cars but the Shanghai city government has now said it has no plans to limit cycling and is, in fact, planning to build cycle routes. But is this a ploy to ghettoise cyclists in the run-up to the World Expo, due to take place in Shanghai in 2010?
According to the Shanghai Daily News, Wu Jiang, deputy director of Shanghai Urban Planning Administrative Bureau said “The bicycle is still a premier transport tool in the city.”
Shanghai has a bicycle population of 9 million and rising, but increasing prosperity in China is leading to an ever growing appetite for privately-owned motorcars. If Western cities are designed around the automobile, then so should Chinese cities, goes some official thinking.
In December last year, Shanghai police chiefs mooted plans for banning cyclists in downtown areas and on major arterial roads. Law-breaking cyclists were to also face tougher fines. To date there has bee no ban and Shanghai’s cyclusts continue to flout traffic laws with impunity.
R O T H A R . C O M 
i will still have my chroming on my bike. I have done just yesterday chromming at bicycle engine kit and no one will stop me from riding on my little baby
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