As I am sure you are aware, this Saturday the 28th, is the LCC “Big Ride”. The route is from Park Lane to Embankment on closed roads. They expect a record turnout to what will be London’s largest ever bike action.
“Participants are being encouraged to dress themselves and their bikes in red and white (the campaign colours), and to bring music, bells and whistles to create a carnival atmosphere.
The ride meets on Park Lane at 11am, and will pass many of London’s most famous landmarks – Hyde Park Corner, Piccadilly Circus, Trafalagar Square and Parliament Square – before ending on the Victoria Embankment at 2pm.”
We hope you will be part of it! Read more on the LCC site.
To help get you and your families to and from the event, BarnetLCC have a marshaled feeder ride from Tally Ho corner. Leaving at 9:30AM… sharp. There will be a returning ride from the Embankment, the details of which will be given at the rider briefing at Tally Ho in the morning.
The upcoming mayoral elections are a rare chance to get some solid commitments on cycling out of the candidates. Let’s make our voices heard.
Reminding all that our meeting is 8PM tonight at The Elephant in North Finchley. There has been some really good fallout post the Great Divide Ride and we need people to help push forward. If you want to help plan our next moves, this is the place to be.
Best
On 25 March 2012 more than 80 of you took to your bikes and rode Barnet’s Great Divide Ride. Two Barnet councillors wrote to us with their support for the GDR and Green candidate AM Poppy came along on the day. It was a sunny day, it was enjoyable, a picnic lunch was had.
We took in all the borough’s road crossings of the North Circular Road. Fully marshalled by an expert team, we were ushered though some hellish intersections in a glass jar of safety. This was a ride that even small children could and did enjoy, which is a stark contrast to what these roads are like to ride ordinarily.
Our picnic spot was unusual. Perched high in the centre Staples Corner the noise of motor vehicles was calmed enough for us to enjoy our lunch, but close enough to act as a reminder of the challenge we face.
Now for my confession… Even though I count myself as a highly able and super confident city cyclist, there is a huge section of the A406 I would simply avoid: from the A5 to Brent Cross. To do this though, you have to swing out very wide. It’s just not practical. The off-road and cycle path options to traverse are so limited, hidden and circuitous that I doubt most know of their existence or would find them useful. It would be interesting to hear what participants thought of the route and junctions. Please comment below or email us.
I know we’ve said this before, but thanks to our marshals, feeder ride leaders and everyone who helped.
What next? If you haven’t done so already, we urge you to sign the LCC’s Love London, Go Dutch petition and to join the LCC’s Big Ride on 28 April. This is a traffic-free, family-friendly ride. Details on www.lcc.org.uk
And what about Barnet? We have a few ideas. Our next campaign meeting is 8PM Tues 17 April, at The Elephant, North Finchley We’ll need to organise feeder rides to the Big Ride and decide on our next campaign.
What can you do now?
Flag up individual junctions of the A406 as hazardous on The Times website:
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/cyclesafety/contact/
Write to your councillors about cycling provision on any/all of junctions of the A406:
Thank you to all who came to ride with us yesterday! A special thank you to our marshals and ride leader.
We had more than 80 people, including one as young as 7! Barnet Cyclists were there in force, as well as LCC members from other boroughs.
There will be a full report, more pics and a video later this week (when I get time). Anyone who has pictures or video, can you please let us know by dropping us a line to barnetlcc@gmail.com
We will add links below…
Great photos from @smsm1
Barnet Times article
Preparations are now well advanced for this Sunday’s Great Divide Ride. There’s been a great deal of interest from all directions and a lot of great stuff on blogs and Twitter. We wouldn’t be surprised if our video is viewed more than 1,000 times by Sunday!
Great Divide Ride News
Remember that the clocks change on Sunday (they go forward one hour) – so be sure to set your alarms correctly. The ride will start at New Southgate Station. Gather from 10:00am for a 10:30am depart.
There are two feeder rides from Brent and SW Barnet:
1) Start 9:00am from the forecourt of The Crown pub, Cricklewood Broadway. Ride will be led by Mustafa Arif (mob. 07966 924728).
2) Start 9:00am from Kingsbury Station. Ride will be led by David Arditti (mob. 07866 456390)
Bring food for the picnic – The “secret park” at the end of the ride has no facilities, so do come armed with a bracer filled with your favourite light refreshments and something for lunch.
Mayoral email – We have received initial responses from the Mayor’s office, AM Jenny Jones and Brian Paddick. Unfortunately, they will not be joining us. We have yet to hear from Ken Livingstone. We will continue to press for responses to the issues we have raised.
Barnet councillors – We have emailed all the borough councillors to invite them on the ride and invite their views on the issues raised by the video. Despite the short notice some of them will be taking part!
Thanks to all of you for your support.
We have written to all four of the mayoral candidates asking them for their views on the issues we are raising. The email is reproduced below and we will post their answers as they come in. We will be sending simillar emails to every barnet Councillor as well.
Quote:
I am writing, on behalf of the Barnet Cycling Campaign, to invite you to join us this Sunday the 25th March, on our Great Divide Ride (details and route at: www.barnetlcc.com). We would also like to get your views on what we consider to be a pressing issue to the cyclists of Barnet and indeed all of London.
Please take a moment to view the short video here:
http://barnetlcc.com/2012/02/12/barnets-great-divide-ride/There are details that we have left out of the video as they are too technical. For example, I am sure you will be surprised to hear that simple design changes to assist cyclist safety, requested in Tfl’s 2010 Road Safety Audit of the Henlys Crnr scheme, did not end up being implemented. We will be happy to supply more details on request.
Can you commit to any of the following?
- The main north-south crossing points of the A406 to be included in TfL’s junction review program, especially Henlys Corner.
- Infrastructure improvements to assist the growing number of people who are choosing to cycle across the A406.
- That, as the head of TfL, you will see to it that whatever eventually happens at Staples Corner and Brent Cross, the design will include robust, high-capacity provision for cycling.
- To strongly encourage Barnet Council to acknowledge that the growth in cycling is real and needs to be accommodated in the road not on the pavement.
I look forward to your response to the video and the points it raises. We hope to see you on our ride on the 25thMarch.
best,
Barnet Cycling Campaign
One of our cohort has produced this video:
There is a post about it here and we shall be linking to it from our site.
The Great Divide Ride press release goes out tomorrow… Chocks away!
We will be out counting cyclists again tomorrow. This time at Henlys Corner. Stop in from 7:30 to 9:30 and say hi on your way to work..
Counting Bikes
We have conducted bike counts at the A1000 and Colney Hatch Lane where they cross the North Circular. We will publish the figures in due course but suffice to say that there are MANY people cycling to work from Barnet, possibly as much as 10% of private traffic. The response to our efforts was universally good with many people being very pleased to support our efforts to improve crossings of the North Circular. Sign ups to the site and follows on twitter show a marked “surge” after these events and our membership secretary tells me that February was big month for new LCC members too. Thank you to the volunteers who came out at 7AM to do the counting…. Especially new member Ciarán Mooney (@ciaranmooney)… Top effort Ciarán!
The next count will be on the 13 March at Henlys Corner… This is the big one! Can you be there? These events help us gather information, are a great chance to reach out to new people and raise the visibility of our group. We count from 7:30 to 9:30. Even if you can only spare an hour, it’s all good. Can you help? Contact barnetlcc@gmail.com
The Great Divide Ride
We have secured the services of the highly experienced ride leader Charlie Holland. Charlie and I are riding the route today to assess it’s convoluted course… crossing the A406 is tricky! We have an excellent team of highly experienced marshals who have all volunteered their time. Thanks people!
The route has been shortened somewhat and will now finish in the secret park at the center of Staples Corner roundabout. Did you know there was one?
Feeder rides from our neighboring boroughs are being organized. Details will be posted here in good time. These rides should head home at the end of the ride too for those who don’t fancy finding their own way out of Staples Corner! We will be leading a “home ride” back to Tally Ho for those from Barnet.
There has been great support from the online community… let’s keep it going. Please blog/facebook/twitter and generally tell your friends that this affects them no matter where they live in London.
Meetings
The next Campaign Group meeting will be announced soon. It will probably be in the week before the great Divide ride. Details and venue to be posted here shortly.
Reaching out
Cycling in Barnet has a certain amount of political/historical baggage attached to it. We are an overtly non political group and as such we will work with anyone who wants to work with us. Building cross party support is the only way forward in a borough like Barnet. In this spirit, we hope to have a special guest at an upcomming Campaign Meeting… More on this as it develops! 
This is an exciting time for cycling in London and in Barnet. Thanks for being part of it.
Toby Jacobs
Joint Campaign Coordinator
Barnet LCC
We will be conducting cordon counts of cyclists crossing the A406 at Henlys Corner and at the A1000, on the following dates: Feb. 21 (yep this Tuesday) and March 1st and 13th.
This involves counting cyclists as they pass by between the hours of 07:30 AM and 09:30 AM. It is also an opportunity to talk to them, spread the word about what we are doing and encourage them to attend Barnet’s Great Divide Ride.
Cyclist numbers have been growing in Barnet for several years in line with London in general, yet the council will often insist that no one cycles so there is no demand for better provision. These counts are important because they provide hard counter evidence to that position.
Now, we know that not everyone has the time to organize a group or run a blog but many of you will want to contribute in some way. Well this is your chance! Can you give us an hour or two on one of these mornings? Even if all you can do is drop some hot drinks down to the people doing the counting, your support will be greatly appreciated!
If you want to help, please get in touch asap barnetlcc@gmail.com
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