WNBR London Zoom-In 2021: The State Of Cycling In London

FESCH.TV INFORMIERT:

A discussion during the #NotTheWorldNakedBikeRide Zoom-In on 12th June 2021, which marked the date the annual World Naked Bike Ride would normally take place in London were it not for the pandemic.

The State of Cycling in London was hosted by Mike Grenville with
Charlie Allenby – freelance journalist and the author of Bike London
Ruth Mayorcas – passionate cycling safety advocate
Paul Gasson – travel & climate change campaigner for 35 years and former chair of London Cycling Campaign

(There is no naked content in this video – only naked views!)

Paul Gasson has been an active travel & climate change campaigner for 35 years, holding many voluntary positions including 3 years as chair of London Cycling Campaign.
His focus over the last 20 years has been partnership working with local authority politicians & officers, and his local community, to deliver transformational schemes. He started championing protected cycle infrastructure back in the late 1990s, leading to the delivery of 2 substantial schemes in the London Borough of Camden.

He has been the Cycle Liaison Officer for the local LCC group from the outset in 2013 of the controversial £45m Mini Holland active travel programme in Waltham Forest, and is still heavily involved as the council continues to roll out a swathe of initiatives to enable walking and cycling.

Ruth Mayorcas describes herself as a mother of one and passionate cycling safety advocate. She says: I’m a Chiswick Resident as I have been for the last 45 years. I learned (learnt?) to cycle as every child of the 50s, taking Cycling Proficiency age 11 but was hopeless and fell off more than on! Only when I lived in Amsterdam in the summer of 76 did I learn to cycle with confidence, buying a Dutch Dames Fietser which I imported to London.
I cycled to work (before it was called commuting) and generally went everywhere by bike til sadly in the 80s traffic levels increased exponentially when I lost confidence and cycled just short local journeys, never at night.
I worked in Drama at the BBC based in TVC and often away on location.

Once I had my son I cycled more but was increasingly frustrated to the point of anger re the lack of safety and joined LCC with whom I have campaigned to this day. In 2013 I joined Stop Killing Cyclists as I felt more needed to be done.

FInally since retirement I joined various cycle groups and increased the distance and amount I cycle, to the point of selling my car and cycling everywhere.
I have a Dutch partner and spend some months of the year there.
Although not a professional I do as much as I can to promote cycling for everyone and live and breathe cycling!

Charlie Allenby is a freelance journalist and the author of Bike London. He is a freelance writer and editor who got into BMX as a teenager before getting his first ‚proper‘ bike (a 1992 Cannondale R400) aged 17. Since then, he’s moved onto bigger and better things (well, something that’s not as old as him) but always has his eye an bike n+1. A gravel/adventure rig is currently the apple of his eye. When not battling with inner-city riding in London, he enjoys escaping to the lanes of Hertfordshire and has dreams of doing a big bikepacking trip around the islands of the Inner Hebrides.

More than a mere directory, Bike London speaks to important players in the city’s cycling community, while also looking back and offering interesting facts and snippets of information from London’s 100-year-plus love affair with the bicycle.