00:00:56 – News from around and about
00:09:25 – Felicity Tucker from JoyRiders Manchester shares their journey
00:48:45 – Ranty Highwayman gives us the low-down on Tragic Roundabouts
So, welcome to Active Travel Cafe on the 7th of October, 2025. Uh, tonight we’ll be hearing from Felicity Tucker of Joy Riders in Manchester and from Ranty Highwayman uh talking about the good, the bad, and the interesting in the active travel world. And um I’m Robin Tucker from Oxford Sheer and we’ll be facilitating the session. And uh we’ll start as ever with our crowdsourced news. And uh please put your hands up and let me know what’s happening near you. And we will start with H. Uh where are you and what’s happening? H I can see you trying to press the button. My mic up. Yep. You’ve got it now. Got it. Yeah. Um I I just saw a post from Joss Louu at MOSA. Um very much related to the bike theft issue and I if I can I might share screen or I can post out. Um about 10 years ago Mason’s the people who do access barriers uh produced a um a cycle store security system where you had to take a bike that was identified as your bike and yourself in and out. This was using a bike hire system I worked on in 1996 and is you is based on a kit that was has got 30 years proof of concept where you were securing uh home deliveries in crates at your doorstep with an electronic lock and tamper alarm cable. Jos has produced this um in a form that bolts to a building or bolts to a cycle stand and you can hire it and lock your bike. This has been this is this is technology that’s been around for over 30 years but nobody is prepared to spend the money and do it. Um I reported on this in 1997 for the report I did on cycle parking for DFT and you know nothing’s happening. Why can’t we get traction? Okay, it’s not a technology I’m familiar with but may maybe if is there a link to it that you can put in the chat? page. We’ve got a whole range of people here be able to take a look at it. Uh let us uh carry on. Wookie, do you want to talk to about the kitical mass in Cambridge? Uh if you like. Yeah. Far away. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, I’m not sure. Last weekend, there was the weekend before, but anyway, a week or two ago, uh Cambridge uh had a kiddical mass and it was great. I think there were about 150 people, of which about uh 59 were kids. Uh so I think that counts as a success. It was the slowest 1-hour bike ride I’d ever been on, but you know, the point. Um yeah so and uh they’ve uh they’ve uh I think I’m not exactly sure who was a camp cycle was involved but I think the organizers was the Cambridge oh um I forget what it’s called but the the cooperative organization of various uh cycling and public transport and general rightthinking organizations um that were set up in order to promote the sustainable transport zone we didn’t manage to get past government um but anyway uh so they said they’ll do it again at least next year if not before So we we can now put our flag on the critical mass list. That’s terrific. 159 I think you said for a first outing I think is fantastic. Um so in Oxford we’ve been doing that for several years and uh we just had the biggest one ever which was just over 200 people but that’s that’s built over time. So I think that’s a that’s a great one for a first one. Um, so well done uh there. Okay, let’s uh go to Jill from Stevenage. Hello. Hello. I couldn’t quite get my video working. I’m not sure if it’s going to work. Anyway, um yeah, I just wanted to mention Tim’s already put it in the chat, but we’re only just two weeks away from the Glow Ride. So, just a big shout out for the Glow Rides D UK are doing. Um, it’s the first time I’ve ever had um sort of paid for adverts popping up on my Facebook and my Instagram from Site UK telling me there’s a ride locally or you know these national rides are going on. It actually does flag up local rides. So, we’re seeing it as a really good opportunity. I can see things not working. My not working anyway. Um, we’re seeing as a really good opportunity to get lots more people involved because people are sort of really interested in the fact it’s a light up the night ride. We’re getting in touch with running clubs and so on. So, it’s a really nice way to get in contact with people for us locally who might be more interested in cycle campaigning as well. Um, but yeah, just a big flag up and thanks for Tim to mentioning it in the chat. Yeah, those are my list mentioned, Jill. So, thanks very much for mentioning those. Um, yeah, the glow rides 22nd of October uh Wednesday evening. Um, it’s it’s a critical mass for grown-ups, but you can bring your kids as well. Um, it’s part of Cycling UK’s women’s campaign, Our Ride. Um, sorry, um, I can’t remember. My ride, Our Right. Um, uh, uh, and, uh, if you don’t have one in your town or city, uh, it’s quite easy to set one up. There’s, uh, if you, if you Google Cycling UK rides, uh, there is still time to set one up. Um, and you can get a dedicated page on the Cycling UK website and uh and then use that to advertise the time and location and uh um see how many people you can get out um on the evening. Excellent. Any other news from around the active travel world? I will give you a little heads up um from Oxford. Uh the the big thing happening in Oxford at the moment is not specifically active travel but it will definitely help active travel. It’s the congestion charge um temporary congestion charge which is filling the gap between um well where we are today and the traffic filters which have been delayed by the network rails uh bridge works. Um the so in in all in the last month that has been approved by the cabinet um the launch date has been set for the 29th of October. That’s when it will go live right on it’s a w the Wednesday in the middle of half term and um the permit system has been um launched. There are about 28 different types of exemption passes and permits. Um, so you can now apply for your resident permits if you’re in Oxford or Oxford Shere. Um, and uh, the council is advertising them. Um, I’m not a terrible fan about of its advertising because it’s more about what it is, not why it’s happening. Um, but it’s a it’s a reasonable reasonably workmanlike job. Um and uh it’s it’s all coming and uh today actually uh in a good step um the bus companies are announcing new services uh that are possible because of the congestion charge and the council has announced that park and rides will be free for three months. So, uh I think I’m a general supporter of bus services as a complement to active travel and uh a little bit of um uh active travel is in usually involved walking to a bus stop somewhere along the line. Uh so that is uh and mostly it’s a sign of a council that’s prepared to do something which is always uh good and they’re they’re uh uh definitely politically in the right uh place. Okay. Anybody else? Nope. Right. Let us go on with Joy Riders then. Uh so Felicity Manchester who is no relation to me. I’m sure if we go back far we have some common ancestor like all humanity does. But um uh over to you Felicity and uh tell us about uh Joy Riders. Ah thank you very much and um it’s great to be here and thank you very much for asking us to come and um tell you about Joy Riders Manchester. I’m going to share my screen almost immediately. Um hopefully it’ll all work. Hang on. Uh share Uh oh. Can everyone see that? Okay, I seem so. That’s looking good. When it actually worked. Um, so yes. So, yeah, I’m Felicity Tucker and I’m a lifelong cyclist and I’m one of the Joy Riders ride leaders. Um, and I’m here to tell you really about Joy Riders Manchester and we were started in 2021 and I want to tell you exactly what we’re doing here in in terms of um helping women to gain confidence and um and we’ve got five Joy Riders ride leaders and nine back stop and middle ride helpers which is great. And this photo was taken this year in May at Station South, which is local to us. They had a cycle fest one afternoon and we had two rides going along to the cycle fest and it was it was a great afternoon. So really what we’re here to do is we are here to sorry I’ve covered up covered up the writing on the screen with the I can’t see. Anyway, what we’re going to do in what we’re here, sorry, what Manchester Riders do is we we remove barriers to cycling for women. So, that is the main thing that we do um by enabling them to gain confidence and get out on their bikes. And the way we do this, I’m going to explain to you now. Um and we look at the various barriers preventing women women from cycling. There’s fear of cycling on the road because of traffic. And this is the main thing that I come across if I suggest to people they they might like to go out on a bike ride. They say, “Well, well, I’m frightened of the traffic.” And the thing about Joy Riders Manchester is we use off-road routes as much as possible, especially on our beginners rides. And our beginner’s rides will be off-road, maybe some very quiet roads, but the photographs that are on this slide are two of our beginner’s rides. And we aim to get the ladies confident in um balance, using brakes, using gears so that they feel able to go on ride uh roads where there might be a bit of traffic. Um for women, the big thing is about personal safety when cycling alone. And because they are cycling in a group of women with us, of course, they don’t have to worry about that. And I think for women, if they don’t know where they can go where there’s no traffic and a lot of the places tend to be quieter lanes or back streets, then the fear of being on their own on an unknown lane is something that’s going to prevent them going out. So, we overcome that because they’re cycling in a group with us. This links into the lack of cycling confidence. Um, and for us, they come out with us and they’re cycling with like-minded, supportive people. If you have, you often see groups of men out cycling and men individually cycling, but if you see a group of women out on bikes, it’s quite unusual. So, at Joy Riders Manchester, we’re we’re proud because there could be 12 of us out on a bike ride and we are visible. And the idea is that uh we’re a visible group of women cycling which means that other women who are out and about who maybe feel they don’t have the confidence to get on their bikes are able to see that it’s perfectly possible and you don’t have to be wearing the Lyra. You don’t have to have the latest sport bought bike. You just be on a bike that’s comfortable and in comfortable clothing and we aim to kind of reinforce that. The other thing of course is fear of getting a puncture and not knowing how to mend it or something else happening to the bike. And we’ve got now collectively in our group enough knowledge that if there’s a group of us out, we can help with punctures, chains coming off, small mechanical issues. And we’ve we’ve gained this sort of expertise over the the last couple of years or so. We’re also very lucky that one of our leaders, Samina, is um a trained bike mechanic and um she’s been able to run some groups uh for us so that we can um boost our mechanic skills and a lot of us have done other um bike maintenance training sessions. So, someone coming with us will eventually learn how to do punches, what can go wrong with the bike, and they feel supported. Then the last thing that that’s a barrier for women is not being aware of the cycle routes and the quietest routes. So at Joy Riders, our roads take use a lot of the B network in Manchester, which is absolutely amazing. And we’ve got the canal, we’ve got the Fiferfield loop, and also we use Kimoot as our route planning app. And we find that the ladies start to download Kimoot and start to plan their own routes and they’re they’re helped um by the others who’ve learned this as well. And the thing that is great for us is the first time that somebody cycles from their house to the start of one of our rides and they they cycle on their own, maybe on a path they’ve known about for a while, but they’ve actually done that on their own on a quiet cycle route. And that’s a really big step for them. And it’s great for us to see that progression. Um, so we start removing the barriers by giving women the confidence to cycle through providing a range of graded rides from beginners to advanced. And that’s what I consider as our superpower. And I’ll tell you more about that in a bit. But next, it’s um a video that was done for us for Walk by Walk Ride Greater Manchester. Um, a guy called Ben came and filmed us on a really cold February day earlier this year. And I think this video will give you a really good flavor of what we do and what we’re about. So, let’s get it going. Okay. Today we met in Stretford. Uh we cycled up through Chelnese Sale Water Park and Ram Cholton Water Park. [Music] We take people who’ve maybe not ridden for years or have just started cycling and might start off with a 5 mile ride or even less than that. They gradually gain confidence, learn about local roots, make friends and community into yeah the community the group. The coffee and cake is as important as the route that you’re doing and it’s given people so much confidence as well. People who would never get on a bike are now cycling to work. They’re cycling um to the shop. I saw this group and I thought shall I give it a go? I’ve not been on a bike since I was a kid. They loaned me a bike and I was really wobbly, but they were so patient and kind and they they stayed with me the whole time. It’s such a great group of women. They’re so supportive and inclusive. I retired from work and I was looking for things to do and I’m a full-time carer for my mom. Um, so cycling is just good for your mental health, you know, not just your physical health. I started joy riders as a beginner and I really enjoyed um being able to go on rides at my ability. Um I was encouraged to become a a ride leader and I now giving back. Leading rides gives you me so much pleasure when I can hear people behind me just having a great time laughing and you know you’ve done a really good job. We can right I’ve I’ve stopped it there because I wanted to talk a bit about our um graded rides program which like I say is our superpower. So this is how we um really sort of boost the confidence of the ladies who come with us and the beginner’s rides um some of them are only two or three miles literally. They’re not all as much as six miles. Um because if we’ve lent bikes to somebody and we had a a grant to loan out bikes from Transport for Greater Manchester, um we have our own bikes now, then we will possibly only do a ride literally around the park. Like I was saying, getting all the basic skills going. Um and on the right hand side are all the places we go. If you’re local, you’ll recognize a lot of them. If you’re not local, then I’m not going to talk about that section at all. I’m just going to concentrate on the actual rides. So, beginners plus and intermediate rides are our most popular rides and they’re like our bread and butter. So, when somebody starts on the beginner’s rides, beginners plus rides and the intermediate rides are the ones that really um get their fitness up, they begin to know the local routes, they make friends, they gain confidence, and those two standards of rides are the ones that really um start to consolidate people’s cycling. So the ladies who we can see a massive increase in confidence and and stamina and fitness if somebody has cycled to the start of a ride um and then cycled home at the end of the ride they could have done 20 miles in the morning. So it it really is the sort of growth area and then at that at those levels people will start to download commute for themselves do their own um bike ride plans. They might go out in a group and one of them will lead the other group. And that’s all done without a joy riders official ride. That will be what we want is for people to become independent so they can go off and and plan their own rides and plan their routes to the shops and work and things like that. The intermediate plus rides are faster paced. They have hills in them and they’re for the people who really want to build their fitness and go a bit further and they’ll go out into Cheshire or up towards Bolton. Then the advanced rides. Um, one of our leaders, Helen, particularly um, does the advanced rides for us and she plans more like challenge rides. So there’s a nearly a 40-mile ride over in the Whirl. Um, earlier this year they did an older ledge hill climb recently. They go out to Judel Bank forest. So we’ve got a group of riders who really like the challenge rides and they quite a lot of them would have begun as on the beginners and the intermediates and have just built up their stamina over the over the year. Um so we couldn’t achieve any of this without the absolute commitment and dedication of our five ride leaders and we’ve got nine ride volunteers who are also able to lead rides. Um then the volunteers are our back stops and middle stops who make sure that nobody is ever left behind. We make sure everyone stays in a group with our rides and the idea is that the back stop will make sure that we don’t have anybody falling off the back. So they are enthusiastic, dedicated and have great commitment and because of that we can do so many rides. So I’m going to give you now a short clip from Kathy who’s our most recent ride ride leader. she trained in um earlier on this year. So, here we go. Hi, my name is Kathy. I’ve been with Joy Riders, Manchester Joy Riders since December 2021. That’s the first time that I joined a ride. Um I bought myself a bike and I thought, well, I better get out and use it. I did used to cycle. I used to cycle in London in the 80s, in my 20ies, but then, you know, since moving to Manchester, time, commitments, family, etc. sort of got in the way. So I hadn’t been out on a bike for years and years and years. Went out with that first ride in with Joy Riders December 2021. Absolutely loved it. Really increased my confidence. Went on a lot more rides. Again, increased my skills, my expertise, my confidence. I remember the first time I rode 20 kilometers doortodoor. I was absolutely thrilled. Put it on the website, put it on the jaw riders WhatsApp. It was it’s absolutely thrilling. And since then really I’ve continued I continue to go on joy riders rides in dis in about 2023 I jo I trained to be a back stop. So those you on on rides apart from the ride leader we have a back stop middle stop who sort of sort of who goes on the rides and sort of helps other women along the way and you know doesn’t leave anybody behind etc. So trained as a back stop in 2023 and then earlier this year 2025 trained as a ride leader. So I ride I I I lead mainly beginners or beginners plus rides. Um and really what I found with Joy Riders for myself it’s massively increased my confidence in terms of cycling. So I now cycle as part of my sort of daily stroke weekly routine as well as cycling with joy riders. I go out with other friends. I go to cinema, I do my shopping, you know. So, it’s cycling has become much more of my sort of daily life really. So, as well as increasing my confidence, it’s helped my health and it’s helped my, you know, help me in my retirement to sort of try and maintain an active sort of lifestyle. Um, what I also love about Joy Riders, and I can say this because I know I’ve spoken to lots of women who’ve been on our rides, is that you get to know all the, you know, you get to know loads of different routes, quieter back streets, back alleyways, the cycle ways, the canal toe paths, etc. We use all of those. And it’s not just us that use them. You know what I hear from others, and I’ve done the same. You know, I take my husband out on routes that I’ve done with Joy Riders. other women in the group take out their families, their children, their partners on routes that they’ve done with Joy Riders. So, it sort of has a knock-on effect. As well as increasing our confidence and our sort of sense of fun and enjoyment on the bike, and we get to know our local areas more, we also spread the joy in terms of widening out to our family and and and and friends, and that’s really good. And I mean, I don’t work anymore, but I’m retired now. But the amount of women on rides who I’ve spoken to who’ve said, you know, without Joy Riders, they wouldn’t have had the confidence to ride to work and they now ride to work daily or two or three times a week, etc. So, that’s been really marvelous. So, you know, thank you to all that all that you do within your organization and all that others who are listening to this do to sort of keep on improving access for women to rides, keep on improving all the Manchester and Greater Manchester cycle ways and and sort of cycle network, which has improved massively since I moved to Manchester round about 1985. It’s improved beyond belief. So, thank you for all you do. And that’s just a little bit about my journey on Joy Riders. Hi. Right. Thank you, Kathy. Um, so just some stats before I finish. Uh, we started off in 2021 and we did 18 rides that year. Then in 2022, 46 rides and we started summer evening rides. Um, our Wednesday wanders and Tuesday as we call them. And we also did the beginners rides with the bike loan and like I say, we had funding from that for transport for Greater Manchester. in 65 rides in 2023 and then 90 rides uh 2024 and this year as well an average of 10 women a ride in June and August we had 11 rides each month and these were our months the busiest months we had 123 riders in June 107 in August including the leaders so I thought well based on that I’ll estimate so far in 2025 we’ve done 800 miles of rides And that’s that’s a lot of um rubber on the tarmac of the B network really. And that and as Kathy said, it’s not just what we’ve done, it’s how it spreads out to family, friends, children. And so you end up with a lot more people using those valuable networks. Um this was our first ride, just this picture that comes up here. And now one of the um one of the people on there trained as a leader, Sally, very short shortly after that ride. and one of the other ladies is now one of our back stops. So, we’ve been, you know, sort of um going around for a while and there’s a sustainability to and the people who become ride leaders. Um so, our last my last slide is just to show how we’ve changed really. We had our first birthday picnic at Wenshaw Park and there were about 11 of us on that ride. Then this year our fourth birthday picnic at Bruntwood Park in June. We had four different levels of rides all meeting together at the park and um there’s an awful lot of bikes there and a lot of women. So, uh thank you very much for listening and um I know there’s some other joy riders who may be able to answer questions as as well as myself. Thank you very much. Fantastic. Thank you. Thank you, Felicity. And um you’re getting lots of thumbs up and electronic coming through. Stop stop share now. Um or shall we ask? Guess if we stop sharing the slides and um we’ll um there’s a few questions um uh coming on the uh Q&A and um I I just start with a bigger um one and um and then we’ll zoom in some into some of the specific ones. Um, in in terms of Joy Riders as a whole, I just had a quick look at the website and it look it looks like there are Joy Riders in London, Manchester and Oxford. So, I know the Oxford Annette in Oxford uh runs those. Um, in first of all, is is that right or are you aware of any others? And how how connected are you to the the center of joy riders? Yeah. So I didn’t really have time to explain this in the in the slides show which I was going to do but then I had to take it out. Um, so really we’re only here because of Joy Riders Britain and um they are based down in London and I know the Joy Riders in London, they have a lot of groups and they’re massively active down there and it was just after lockdown when uh they were looking to start Joy Riders groups in other parts of the country and that’s how we came about really. So, we’re here because they’ve supported um the training of our ride leaders and supported us basically and continue to do so in in terms of sort of help and policies and training and things like that. And Joy Riders Oxford I think they started at a similar time to us. Um so that yeah that’s really the structure. Right. Right. And build on to that is obviously if if somebody wanted to start another Joy Riders group, how how would they do it? And of course that getting in touch with somebody get in touch with Mariam who I think is on this Zoom call. I think I saw her. Yes. Yeah, she is. Mariam’s there. Miam. Um and there’s also Scott from London as well. There we are. He’s put a message up. So yeah, if anyone wants to start a joy riders group elsewhere in the country, they’re the people to talk to. Okay, great. Great. And um okay, let’s go into some of the questions. Um how do you promote the rides? Uh and this is from Katherine in Dundee who is a British cycling breeze ride leader. So it’s a similar um kind of prop proposition. So our rides are promoted. We do the promotion is by Facebook actually. Um so the Facebook set uh site was set up by Helen at the start in 2021 and so we set it up because thought that was the best way to really let people know that we’re here. And now the Facebook page is where if there’s a ride that’s going to be on we post that on the Facebook page. when we’ve done a ride, then photos go on the Facebook page from the ride as well. So, we publicize upcoming rides and we put out publicity about the rides we’ve just done and that seems to work really well. And then we um have Eventbrite because all the rides are on Eventbrite so people can join the Eventbrite, Joy Riders Manchester, and then they’re notified when a ride comes up. So, that’s our main way of doing it. Um, and we’ve got uh over a thousand people on Facebook, so that spreads out quite well. And then we can share obviously to other other groups on Facebook if we want to publicize further. Okay. Brighton Facebook. Good. Um, and um the type of people coming out on rides. Um so Andy from Wilshire asks about what’s the average age of membership. Um do you have any particular initiatives to get um different ages of uh uh women riding particularly young women women and girls? So I think the average age of our group I would say is probably 50 plus 45 plus 50. So we’ve got people who are still working and we’ve got retired people. So, um, that’s, yeah, I would say mid-4s onwards is the average age. Um, we do get younger people, but we don’t tend to get people in their 20ies. Um, we don’t have any family rides, so we don’t really have the teenagers on the rides and we don’t tend to have the younger Yeah. 20somes or the 30somes coming out and we haven’t really promoted that particularly. Um, it’s possibly something we could do in the future, though. Mhm. Okay, that’s good. And, um, let’s have a look. There’s another question about how really about how people get to the rides. So, one of the new features of Manchester is of course uh, trams. Not quite sure how new they are now. Um, but it’s really question of have tra made a difference to how people get on rides? if you can carry a bike on a tram or do people cycle there or um arrive by train or or what? Yeah, it’s an interesting question. So the trams you can’t take bikes on the trams. Yeah. Okay. Right. When you can that will probably open up a whole new area because we could actually have rides that start from a specific tram stop and we could start sort of further out on the network. Um so as it is uh often the rides are cyclable for people who are um in there sort of it’s difficult to describe if you don’t know Manchester but it depends which area of Manchester you’re in but we do our rides they start from lots of different places. So you you can it means that a lot of people can access our rides by cycling to the start because if they live near a stopport we have some rides that start there. If they live nearer to the center of town then there are rides that start there. Um because there’s five of us who all in slightly different areas, you know, we we tend to start the rides at lots of different points which makes it useful. Um also we start rides that have got a free car park. So if somebody needs to bring their bike in the car, they can. And and we have people who come by train as well. We’ve got um a lady who comes from East Mansion. No, actually Middle Middleton by train. So it’s perfectly doable to get to us by public transport as well. Okay. So, so H who who posed that question, he noted one thing in the question which was that um the this the particular advantage of that is it would allow you to start rides at the top of hills. Um which is good. And he he said you can now take bikes on trams which was launched very quietly by Sarah Story last year. Um, I thought it was not from Manchester. Oh, and somebody else says, “Unfortunately, you cannot. It was a trial.” Um, yet to be brought in. Oh, okay. So, we’re still waiting. Yeah, I thought that would have been very quiet if we hadn’t heard about it. Maybe it was just a trial. About to do a joy riders ride on trams next. Bill, who is actually from Manchester, judging by her the tag on the end of her name is probably has the local knowledge. Yeah, not to worry. We um we campaign onwards for for things like that. Okay, let us go for um uh question there. Let’s ask one about ride leaders. Um so so there’s a great clip from Kathy there who’s a ride leader. Um and there’s a bit about how you get ride leaders on. Um can you talk a bit more about how you get ride leaders on board and how you keep them uh leading rides? All right. Clearly Kathy was in sense of how how it was for her. Um, how John No, she doesn’t look like she wants to say anything. No. Um, so the the ride leaders, I mean, we’re really lucky because we started off with three of us in 2021. um and know it’s me Helen um who does a lot of the advanced rides and and Sally and so we were we we’ve had our other ride leaders Samina for example started with us as a beginner um and got her got confidence and then just requested to become a ride leader and but we need we we like to have somebody who knows us really well. So Kathy for example has been with us since 2021 uh and so knows us really well. So we tend to get our ride leaders from within our group and we’ve got another one um lady called Lorna who’s going to be um becoming a ride leader and again she’s been with us for quite a long time. So actual ride leaders have been with us long enough so they know know how we work. They know a lot of the roots they have and then they all have their own areas of expertise which is absolutely brilliant. Um, and then the ride, we call them the ride volunteers, but they are trained, so they could lead rides as well. And we’ve got nine of those. And they’re again people who cycled with us and may have been with us a while and say, “Oh, I’d like to start helping on the rides.” And um, and then you know that people know how we work. And so far, you know, we we seem to keep people. They seem to enjoy coming out on the rides. I think it’s a community. And that’s one of the big things about Joy Riders. We’re a whole community as well. So it’s not just that we’re out on the bike rides. We have lots of other things that that sort of have extended out from that. Um and um yeah, I think it’s the sustainability of having sourcing people who are helping with Joy Riders from within Joy Riders. Does that answer the question? Yes, I think I think that’s close enough that gives the impression back how Kathy expressed it. It’s Yeah, people people clearly get a buzz from doing that leadership and doing something for the community. Um, and there’s there’s a comment in the Q&A which is more of a comment, but um Sue um says she loves Joy Riders and it g gives her confidence and uh uh gave her confidence enough to do a solo tour which she would never have done uh if she doing the Joy Riders which is terrific. Yeah, she did the Way of the Roses. Oh yes. And Sue started off but it’s a terrific group by Yeah. I mean, it’s absolutely amazing cuz Sue started off just very local and you know, just I think she started cycling. Yeah. Only about 2021 and is doing the most amazing trips now. So, it’s people can go as far as they like really. It’s once once they’ve got the bit between the teeth. Great. Okay. Um, let’s a few more questions here. Do you do you promote at all at the universities? No, we haven’t done that actually. No. And that’s a good thought. That’s a possibility. A idea for you to take forward to that one. Yes. And that would be a younger demographic as well. And uh Yes. Yes. Is that somebody else mentioned Facebook is uh viewed as pay by the under 20s now? It is. We need to get on Tik Tok. Yes. Yes. or or at least Insta as they as they call it. That’s still has some credibility left. There’s not enough of us oldies on there quite yet. Um uh I’m I’m noticing H um has asked a question couple of questions already. Leon, you’ve got a hand up there. Do you have a question you want to pose from the floor? Oh, Mariam says uh Joy Rodes is on Insta as well. So much question. Anyway, Leon, far away. Yeah, sorry. It wasn’t so much a question. Um, I had just wanted to raise a new topic, that’s all. Um, but, uh, since since I’m here right now, uh, we’ve been doing something very similar. We call ourselves the ABC riders, which is the adventurous Brixton cyclists. And, um, we’ve been doing a few rides. It’s mostly, um, women and mostly over 50. Um, and so we’ve been getting out uh using Kimoot. Um, so we’ve been doing I’ve joined just recently. I got invited. Um, and it’s really nice to be able to get out on routes that are safe um, and feel safe and I think that’s the the the best thing about it is that lots of us can ride safely. But um, should I go on to this other point or we’re still in the middle of this other topic? Um, if No, carry on. um um bring it to an end in a couple of minutes so we’ve got time for ranty but I’m sorry I don’t mean to to uh guzzle this time. Um I’ve been mcking about with Lambeath cyclists and a few other uh groups. Uh the I’m Green Party and friends of mine are in the Labour Party in Lambbeath and we’ve managed to put together uh something like a 2021 point collective agreement between all the main parties in Lambbeath about making cycling safe. I’ve posted a a preliminary um whatever you call it, a sort of first draft of what those 20-ish points uh are. And it seems like a really good idea if if other people could approach their councils with a similar list of requirements that that help cyclists feel safe and make them safe. Um, I think that the one of the main problems about getting people to cycle um is that it it not only is dangerous, but it feels dangerous. Um, and so long as it feels dangerous, it’s going to be um hard to to sort of encourage people to be healthy and cycle and whatnot. Um, a a perfect example of that would be when roads narrow, suddenly the admittedly pathetic um cycle path completely disappears. Um and that is absolutely unacceptable to suddenly throw the most vulnerable road users in amongst the heaviest traffic um the most dangerous traffic. Um so I’ I’d recommend um a similar attempt by anybody to try and talk to the council and get a similar list together that their all the parties of the council will agree to. Anyway, so that’s that’s my whole thing. Thank you for your time. Yeah, that that’s good. And and actually um Shan from Bolton has a related question which just to bring it back to your experience in um Manchester Felicity. What elements of infrastructure particularly in the B network have you found most enabling most useful in getting out and riding? Yeah, I think um it’s probably something one of the others could answer as well, but um for the area that I’m I’m in, we we tend to use um I don’t know if the canal would be classified as a B network, but things like the in Manchester there’s the Faloffield Loop. They’ve got um they’ve got up Oxford Road into the center of Manchester now. They they for some years now they’ve had a dedicated cycle way and they’ve got that in Chtonton as well. Um I don’t know if anyone actually Helen is here and I know and Helen leads a lot of rides. Helen Glor in area areas that I don’t lead them so I think probably knows more about that area than I don’t know if Helen wants to say anything about the routes that she uses because unless she goes more out towards Bolton and everything. Hello. Yeah, I mean the infrastructure around here is fantastic. Um, in Mston alone, we’ve got the Trans Penine Trail. Uh, we’ve got the Meadows, Stretford, Erstston, we’ve got Charlton, Charlton, uh, I presume it’s Manchester Council has been sorting out all the um, cycle lanes in Charlton along the main roads. Um, I can just cycle up to I’m in Mston. And I know most of you probably don’t know the area, but about a mile and a half to two miles down the road, I’ve got Stretford. From Stretford, I can then cycle all the way into Manchester completely on cycle paths. So I go to the train station now. I meet friends there. Two or three years ago, I wouldn’t have cycled into Manchester. Probably the safest, if you can call it that, would have been along the toe path. And the problem then cycling the toe path on your own is goes back to that security of you know not feeling safe if you’re on your own. So I mean it’s it’s yeah it’s getting absolutely fantastic. We just need them Deansgate as well. Got a massive cycle path along Deans Gate in Manchester. We just need to them to try and connect all the cycle paths up now which apparently you know is something that they’ll be doing in the future. But yeah the infrastructure around here is fantastic. We could cycle to Warrington, to Bolton, pretty much all all off-road, all uh tracks and cycle paths. It’s brilliant. It’s fantastic. So, we are in a a fabulous place here, aren’t we? Yeah, we’re very lucky. And actually, I noticed someone else has just pinged up my one of my favorites, which is the Trans Penine Trail out to Stockport, which I’ve done rides out to Stockport along the Murzy. And then they’ve got the um they’ve got the helix, the cycle helix and the and the new bus station everywhere and the tracks in Stockport itself. And yeah, that that bit was done this year and it’s it’s brilliant. Really makes a really good cycle ride along. Yeah, the helix is fun to go up and down as well. I I saw a video about that. Um Yes. Um fantastic. In fact, that was it was a it was Active Travel Cafe video. We had it on a few weeks ago. uh watched it on catchup as I couldn’t the session live. I had photo time the um so it’s yes it’s it’s getting the clearly getting the infrastructure [Music] safety right and the personal safety aspect right. Yeah. Okay. And um one one more question and um the uh uh the loan bikes. I think you mentioned loan bikes. Um Caroline from Bedford had a question about the logistics of those, how you get them to people and um and how or the starter rides or or how you do that. Yeah. So um we started off actually with those because we had funding um so that we could use bikes from a a small um sort of cycle maintenance place called the Valley Times and Sale Water Park and that was idea because we would literally use our funding money to hire a bike for the people who wanted to use one and that’s how we started off and then we had some money given to us to buy bikes. So we’ve got four now and it’s from Transport for Greater Manchester and they are stored up at Longford Park. And so any rides where somebody wants to borrow a bike, they come on our ride really come on the beginner’s ride and we can lend you a bike is how it works. They’re not we’re not like a bike library where people can come and take bikes away and and kind of go where they want. It’s it’s if they come on our beginner’s ride, they can use one of our bikes if they don’t have access to a bike. and that that has worked really well. You know, we’ve had a few a few people who’ve really honed their skills and and come out with us on a loaned bike and then have gone and bought themselves a bike as a result of it and have become part of Joy Riders. So, it’s, you know, it’s a way of getting women out on bikes who don’t have one and eventually buy themselves one because they realize, you know, it’s it’s what they want to do. Give them a gateway. Yeah. Excellent. Excellent. Right, thank you very much Felicity and to all your joy riding friends and Scott and from London and all the others from Manchester that doing a great uh little informal co-production um and really good presentation. I love the video elements particularly as they worked which doesn’t always happen that was really good to get somebody to put that together. Yeahum lovely. Thank you very fantastic. really enjoyed that and what a great program you have there. Good. So, we’re going to switch over now to Mark, our very own uh very friendly ranty highwayman. Um, who is going to tell us about something that is horrific, but not so horrific that you’re going to want to look away. Um, I suspect that might mean it’s in the bad category of the good, the bad, and interesting. But Mark will now reveal it all. Quite bad. Quite bad. Quite bad. Okay. Well, I thought it’s it’s on the runup to Halloween. So, let’s have a look at the tragic roundabout tonight, shall we? Um, quite dystopian there from Jim will paint it. So, with apologies. So, I’m going to start with a proposition that UK roundabout design maximizes motor traffic flow. Um, we have the design manual for Bridges, which curses this land, um, anywhere away from a trunk road, it curses it still. Um, and despite having those two designs in there, um, we often just see the one on the left, um, which causes all sorts of problems, which I’ll come to as we run through. Um I was once on a webinar with people from National Highways who are the custodian of the design frozen bridges asking about some of the horror shows in CD116 and I was told oh well we deal with the active travel sections not the roundabout sections. So much for joined up thinking. So let’s look at a couple of things very very quickly. Um LTM120 cycling design guidance for England that many people will be familiar with. Just highlighting a couple of things here. So, if we’ve got people crossing roads in an uncontrolled way, uh crossing one lane at a time up to 10,000 vehicles a day, I’ve highlighted that there in red. Um it’s going to exclude some people with those sort of traffic flows. We’re well over on the right hand side there. We’ve got to grade, separate, or signalize it. So, just bear that in mind for just one second. And let’s look at CD116’s um guidance here. They say that less than 8,000 is fine um vehicles a day. There’s no advice on the number of traffic lanes that we have to cross in one go. And does anybody go back and check the actual flows after opening? I I’m not sure we do. So already um the design mode of roads and bridges gives us worse conditions than LTM120. Food for thought. Let’s look at some photos. So, here’s a CD116 roundabout, Bmpton Road, uh, near Buckton and Cambridge here. Um, and I’ll just point out a couple of of lovely features here. So, the crossing point is really close to the circle of the the roundabout. So, drivers are leaving that roundabout at fairly high speed and you’ve got to try and find that gap and when you get to the other side, you’re crossing two lanes of traffic. If you have a situation where you’ve got one slowmoving traffic lane and you’re crossing between the vehicles there, you are masked from the other potentially higher speed traffic lane. Let’s look at another one. The parks and bypass in Harage, uh the gateway to the port. Um and probably the place that scare people from the Netherlands back onto the ferry. Uh again, we’ve got um crossing points fairly close to the circle of the carriageway. Just look at how wide these crossings are. Um, yes, lorries come through here about 3,000 vehicles a day on on the arm I’m standing at. Um, but it’s pretty dicey trying to cross there when it gets a bit busy, especially when the ferry kicks off and you just can’t find a gap. So, the reason for some of this is the UK designs roundabouts for traffic flow. Um and a big part of that is the entry angle which is the angle five that you can see on the diagram from the design manual. Um it’s bit bit of a fudge of an angle but essentially if you have a small angle so you’re joining the roundabout circle um very very smoothly. You have to look over your shoulder as a driver to get access to the roundabout. If you’re coming in at 90° then there’s a risk of people shunting you from behind. So UK design guidance is between 20 and 60°. Um, and often we’re ending up drifting towards that lower number which means higher speed entries and uh faster speeds on the roundabout. But let’s go to the Netherlands where they do it completely differently. They’re not worried so much about that. They tend to have roundabouts uh where drivers join getting on for about 90°. And you can see here here’s me crossing the side road. Um actually as you cross the second bit there as people enter the roundabout they tend to give way to you even though priority is with traffic here this is kind of rural suburban um type of design and for drivers leaving the roundabout as you can see closest to me here um there’s quite a a bit of distance for them to stop to let you cross if you’ve already started crossing with all sorts of things in the geometry it’s very tight very controlled and the lries can get around it it’s much much safer so the Dutch designed uh to balance safety against capacity. And if you compare like for like, you’re talking about 40,000 vehicles a day through a UK roundabout and up to 25,000 a day for a Dutch roundabout. So, completely different beasts. Um, and let’s let’s give you some nightmares here. This is in this in CD116. This is the segregated left turn lane roundabout. And can you just imagine trying to cross um one of those entry arms there? You’re crossing what is essentially a slip road, free flow slip road, two entry lanes, which is easier said than done as I’ve just explained. And then you got to cross two exit lanes. And people are coming off those roundabouts pretty quickly. Surely nobody would build this. Of course they do. It’s the UK, isn’t it? So here’s uh Chill’s roundabout down in uh West Sussex where you get to cross a free flow traffic lane there on the left. Nice and wide. Nice fast speeds going in there. Uh drivers are seeing the the big yellow signs. Oh, I can stick my foot down. Then you have to cross another two lanes of traffic to get to the center. And then you got the same on the other side. There we go. View across. Uh, pretty daunting. Imagine doing that with kids. So, a real Frankenstein’s monster of design. That’s me this week. Don’t have nightmares. Okay. Thank you very much for that horror story, Mark. Um right uh we all like uh more compact roundabouts please. Um another mark in um Brighton if that’s where you are in transport initiatives land anyway. Well in Sussex land. Yes. Well just to say that we did the LCI for for Crawley and we did suggest doing things at that roundabout but that was getting them for five years ago. Set it on fire hopefully. Yes. Um, just to say it, we’re not clear whether it was in Carlton’s 1930s um, uh, cycle tracks because the A23 there was did have a historic cycle track along it which has got lost in in somewhere along the line. So yeah, it’s it’s a mess. Oh, I’m totally backing up Mark P, by the way, but it is a mess, but it’s it shouldn’t have been, right? You want to respond further or is uh No, no, no. I think we I’m in agreement with my honorable colleague. Yeah. Yeah. So, Graeme Graeme Smith, our friend from Oxford, um says, “On the DMRB roundabouts, is the text correct? Surely the com compact design on the right is better? I didn’t clock this as I went through, but is there something that suggests that the non-compact design is better? Uh, no. No. Um, the bullet point we like the left one here. As in this is what we do in the UK. We we do you’re saying that that is the common practice custom practice. Graeme. Yeah. Where I mean the one actually we like the um I’m not the active travel cafe that likes the left one. No, no, no, no, no. I’m stuck. The Royal Wii. The royal we. Yes. Right. Um, okay. Cameron in Buckton says, “How how do we get the design approach to change to be more like the Netherlands?” Um, they have successfully argued for a compact roundabout locally, but unfortunately it never went ahead. Um, which I have to say does not sound like you successfully argued for a compact roundabout. It sounds like you almost successfully argued for a compact roundabout. Um, oh, it turned out that it was a heritage a road in a heritage setting. So, actually nothing changed in the end. How how do we get the approach to change anyway? Is the uh set fire to CD116. We’ll put on the bonfire of the Shields roundabout that we’ve started. Um, and again, it’s it’s it’s the usual thing. We need to design a roundabout. Where’s the design guidance? Oh, CD116 because there isn’t really anything else out there. There there is something in um LTM120 from a cycling perspective but it it yeah TD116 is the go-to piece of guidance that people just lift I mean especially county councils when you know very well in Oxford share it’s always being used there where we we perhaps shouldn’t be using it. Yeah. Yeah. And I think Graeme will we we know this. We have the the the problem is that LTM120 isn’t the go-to guidance for highways engineers when they’re building highways. It’s the go-to guidance when they’re building cycle tracks. Exactly. And and we need to get the standards to change in the highways guidance. And uh yeah, we continue to around the head. Uh yes, Graeme. and then we’ll go to Tim. Regarding DMRB, the uh the Whitney to Oxford uh road, the A40, which has got an a uh an improved bus lane and allegedly improved cycle lanes. Um we’ve been arguing for better cycling provision over four consultants, I think, stretching over eight years. So that’s is that half a million pounds worth of wasted time. And uh the latest version I read through the uh some of the text with the transport uh study because it’s gone in for planning and it it says this is a trunk road and then has a list of all the side road entrances including a kind of chicken run and a farm track uh and explaining why they all have to give way to um to main road traffic. And when we complained at a meeting that was called uh recently, the was I’m not sure it was a county officer or I think it was a county officer nearly came to tears because we saying that uh they shouldn’t be using DMRB. Uh and the uh the consultant engineer says the county told us to use DMRB. So, it’s the counties that are the problem, the highways authority more than the DFT at this moment, I’d say. Yeah. Design manual frozen bridges. There’s text in there which says it is for trunk roads. So, that’s that’s National Highways Runroads in England. Um, county councils can use it as guidance if they want. They can make it a contract document. They can do what they like, but they are the highway authority. So, they will say what goes. It’s absolutely right. But even in I mean when it was a yes sorry when it was a paper document DMRB it had the um the normal roundabout on the front page of the uh of the chapter. It also had the text for a compact roundabout and the compact roundabout illustration was over the page and it says in DMRB this is for use where pedestrians and cyclists can be expected in urban areas. So, we’re we’re not even using DMRB correctly. Oh, no. We cherrypick all the time. Yeah. Capacity. Yeah. Tim, I hesitate to get stuck into all these acronyms, but I just wondered um whether the integrated transport review might integrate um LTN120 into DRMB or BRMBB or whatever it is. I I suspect a different job. And um you’re you’re breaking up, Tim. I think we got the agreed first half of your question, but not the second. I think all I’d say there is is yeah, us getting joined up just doesn’t seem to happen, does it? We we just I mean I think the big the big problem we have is with the design manual for roads and bridges we’ve other pieces of guidance which are more aimed at local approaches but there isn’t a national local roads design guide a more holistic thing. Um so yeah that’s that’s a massive gap and then people just revert to type oh here’s the thing about how to design roads we go and use that. Yeah. And the closest thing is probably still manual for streets. Um manual for streets too. Um but that’s somehow not part of the um and neither really tell you how to design roads. No no they don’t. You’re right. They’re not design manuals are they? They’re they’re broader than that. Okay. And on that uh note I think we shall bring it to an end. Um and uh we know what needs to be done but not how to do it. Um it’s a problem that goes beyond the active travel cafe. But we will see if we can um where we can get to in the future next. Uh that was a great session. I hope you enjoyed it. Roundabouts and all. Um we’ve got problems to do but joy riders were wonderful. Absolutely thoroughly enjoyed that. Um and the news as ever. Next week we have uh Alex Nurse from the University of Liverpool who is going to talk about the influence of social media on policy including active travel policy and I don’t know maybe he can talk about it on highways design standards policy. Um don’t know how effective that will be but uh we will ask him lots of good questions. I’m sure that’d be a fascinating session. Have a great week. Um, enjoy your active traveling around wherever you’re doing it and uh we will see you next week on the Active Travel Cafe. Goodbye.