> Anyone else picked up one of these booklets from your LBS?
>
>
http://www.londontransport.co.uk/streets/pn_sm_121.shtml
I did, and I wasn't so enthusiastic.
In the first page of ch 1, it starts of by saying, in effect, that TfL supports cycling as a way to
making driving on the road faster for motorists. On the next page it talks about cyclists as
potential organ donors. The stat's on the page after that, quoted from the Economist are fatalities
per mile, not per person. They should be on the web somewhere (DfT site). Then, further down that
page, it talks about dangerous HGVs, but without saying what the danger actually is - read the TfL
leaflet instead, if you want to stay alive. The page after that it advises you, in effect, to break
the law at junctions, although without explain how or why. The whole first chapter seems to be
written by somebody who can concieve only of travelling round London by car, and is aimed only at
the car driver.
All the advice about riding in traffic is pretty bad, except for the little box featuring
comments from Patrick Field. On p6 it says that you will inevitably get a "thorough soaking"
about once a month if you commute by bike, which isn't true unless you forget your rain gear, or
buy the wrong kind.
About half the book seems to be the standard stuff that you get from the British bike industry,
revealing well why that industry went down the tubes.
The book seems to have a good selection of web sites to look at. Web sites are the only kind of
reference that it does give. It doesn't seem to mention Sheldon Brown, though.
A book put out by TfL should at least know what a bike lane is. Judging by pp16-17, the
authors don't.
A book about cycling in London, ought to tell you about riding in traffic.
* It should, but doesn't, tell the difference between a wide kerb lane and a narrow lane, and where
to ride in each
* it should, but doesn't, tell you how to change lanes.
* it should, but doesn't, tell you where to position yourself if you want to straight and there is
considerable left turning traffic
*it should, but doesn't tell you how to turn right
* it should, but doesn't, tell you how to tackle roundabouts
The 'position on the road" advice on p 15 is a disaster. Beginners always stay too close to the
edge, not too far out, so their advice to **never** (my emphasis) to get too far out is exactly
wrong. In any case, their advice to position yourself relative to distance from the kerb is wrong -
you should travel parallel to the tyre tracks of the cars, not parallel to a wiggly gutter.
The whole tone of the book is that cycling is uncomfortable and and dangerous, and the way the
authors do it, it probably is.
Jeremy Parker
