Cycling Cities UK | Episode 2 | Cheltenham

It’s episode 2 of cycling cities UK, and this time I’m in the UK’s horsiest town. It’s Cheltenham! But as always, I’m interesting only about cycling.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, go back and watch episode 0 ‘prologue’, where I give an explanation of the scoring system and what on earth I’m up to.

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[Music] My name’s Finn and I’m here to deliver the second installment of Cycling Cities UK. It’s Chelham this time, a large town in Gstershare in the southwest. You’ll probably know it for its horse racing, but a far more interesting fact is that I was born here. I’ll try not to let that influence me too much as I rank Chenham cycle infrastructure based on the six sacred criteria. cycle lane coverage, cycle lane quality, flatness, road friendliness, amenities, and local opinion. 40 points are up for grabs along with a place on the tier list. Let’s get going. If you arrive by train to Chenham with your bike and you’re headed for town, then you’ll be quickly greeted by the Honeyborn Line. This is a disused railway track which has since been repurposed as a shared space path. It’s nice and wide with a smooth surface, and the trees align it provide a nice backdrop for your journey. It also feels completely sheltered from any cars, and it snakes under and over many of the town’s busiest roads, which is just lovely. This seems like a simply fantastic start to the town’s infrastructure, but a few problems are quickly revealed. It looks like the signposting needs refreshing in places, and I’ll bet it gets far too crowded at peak times for cycling at any useful speed. Even on the quiet weekday afternoon that I was there, I found myself slowing down often for pedestrians. What’s worse is that it doesn’t take you all the way to town. Instead, it spits you out onto a network of busy central roads. [Music] As you cycle your way around Chelnham’s inner main roads, it’s immediately evident that cycling is barely an afterthought. I didn’t see a single decent cycle path, just a couple of lonely painted bicycles here and there. The worst offenders are a couple of one-way streets where bicycles are allowed both ways, but with little or no signposting, so drivers don’t expect you to be there at all. It can result in some hairy moments. The bustle of the center doesn’t help either. If you want to cycle into Chenham, it can feel a bit like a game of man versus car, and we all know who wins that. It’s nothing terrifying, but it no doubt discourages cycling. And it’s disappointing when compared to some of the fantastic paths in other areas of the town. Roads like the surface of the bloody moon. The most brilliant examples of cycle infrastructure in Chelenham are the paths which accompany the A40 in the west and the A435 in the north. Now, this is just fantastic. Exactly what I’d like to see. The second of these is a newcomer for the town and a very welcome one by Shia Reckoning. There’s tons to like about it. Fresh, smooth tarmac with an alluring green paint carries you for over a kilometer past Pitull Park and towards the raceourse. It’s wide enough for a cycle lane in each direction, separated from pedestrians, too, and is peppered with good signposts and friendly road crossings. It’s a sight to behold for any red-blooded cyclist, and it’s a similar story along the A40. Let’s take a ride along it from the western edge of the town towards the center. [Music] This bike path down the A40 could do with freshening up along here. Lots of rough bits. As you can see, it provides a great stretch of car-free cycling, although the surface quickly deteriorates towards the center. The other problem is that it just sort of stops roughly half a kilometer before the center. And the same is true of the A435 path. This leaves you with a frustrating choice. Cycle on the main road, push your bike the last bit, or lock it up and walk. While there is a nice choice of bike parking, it’s not ideal. The Princess Elizabeth Way has a path running along it too, although it’s a bit worse in every way. The surface is really rough in a lot of areas and it only has one lane for both directions. I reckon Lizzy would be rolling in her grave if she saw this mess. That said, it is of course better than riding on the road. And if your bike has suspension, it’ll be more palatable. It also links onto the A40 path, making a very lengthy, albeit very indirect car-free route. So far, everything I’ve discussed has been in the north or west of the town. That’s because, unfortunately, there’s very little to talk about in the east and south. In fact, this whole area is almost a total black hole for cycle infrastructure. Save for a few scraps, like this puzzling 200 m gravel path I found, you’ll be sharing with the big scary metal boxes. That’s right, cars, which can crush your frail cyclist body in mere seconds. These lovely painted bicycles don’t do too much to help. Most of the roads in this area aren’t too scary, so you might say it’s not a big deal, but it definitely isn’t enticing to new cyclists. This is especially true if you consider a potential ride into town. For someone living up towards Presbury, the obvious route would be to simply follow Presby Road as there are no signposts at all for alternative bike friendly routes. As you can see, it’s a bit of a slog down a not very wide road with plenty of cars passing. Not fun. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Okay, finally we see a bike lane. Been a while. While I was exploring the desolate reaches of N Chelnham, I ran into local cyclist Kevin and asked him for a chat. Okay, I’m here with Kevin. He’s from Chelham. I think at the minute we’re on the north side of Chelham. Was that right? Yes. Okay. So, would you say Chenham has a lot of bike paths and infrastructure that works well together? I think it depends where you live. Yeah. So, for me to get into the center of town, um the one big bike bike bike path is through a park, but it’s very hard to actually get in and out of the park. So, the cycling infrastructure is not actually connected well with the road infrastructure. Okay. And when you’re actually joining these bike paths, you don’t have priority. And so it’s quite hard to do. Yeah. Um they have built more cycling infrastructure connecting neighboring towns or neighboring like villages to Chelnham. Yeah. But there is no real cycling infrastructure in the center of town. No. Yeah, I noticed that there is cycling infrastructure joining these small towns together but not actually to the places you want to be. the small different areas of Chelham. Yeah, I I cycled along I think it was I was going north or south past Pitville Park and there was a really really nice bike path going all the way along there and they’re going to build build it straight to Bishop’s Cleave but then going actually to the center of town it’s not that nice. No. No. Okay. So, what patchy but really good in places? Yeah, that’s the problem. There’s also a lot of uh painted cycle maps or placebo cycle paths in Chelnham and I don’t rate it at all and I I was worn one of those in the center earlier going opposite one way and it felt like no one was really expecting me to be there. Okay. Is there an example of uh like a best bit and a worst bit of of cycle infrastructure? Um, so I I enjoy going through all the parks to the town center, but it’s because I know the roots and uh it’s like easy to do, but it’s still not fast and it still feels like it was once a pedestrian path and they just put paint on it and it’s not really thought out uh like what’s the best flow kind of I don’t live in an area where they have built in massive uh cycle lanes. Maybe in those areas I would say that would be an amazing Yeah. No, no specific I wouldn’t say. Okay. I don’t know. It’s for me it’s just entering. There’s a few bits where the road you want to turn right but the road also bends to the left. You have to decide when to be in the right hand lane. How soon do you have to be in that lane? Oh, I see. Yeah. How much traffic do you want to hold? Exactly. And I find that decision quite hard because you don’t want to hold that traffic, but if you don’t go give it too late, you’re just going to crash or you’re just not going to be able to go in that lane. Um, yeah, I think stuff like that makes cycling quite unenjoyable for me. Okay, so one final question. Yeah. If you had to rate Chelham’s cycle infrastructure out of five out of five. Oh, that’s you can go for a point five if you like. Yeah. So, the form is I feel for me personally I feel safe enough that I would say it’s probably a three or four maybe. But if I actually compare it to what it needs to be, I would say it’s actually a one or a two. Oh, okay. So yeah, with the the the out of five scale, uh if we’re doing it relative to a realistic uh optimum, a realistic ideal, I would say one or two. One or two. Okay. Yeah. Or maybe Yeah, maybe a one. A one. Because the problem is like you can have very good cycle lanes here and there. If your first 500 m or last 500 m is bad, what’s the point? or like not what’s the point, but it’s like it’s well it’s people are going to be put off by the the weakest link. Exactly. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t uh build cycling infrastructure, but it’s like we we can’t expect you just put in one road and people to start cycling. It needs to be a big system. So, I’m very happy with what they’re doing now, but I think it’s going to take a while until you see people who don’t cycle start cycling. Yeah. Okay. So, a one or 1.5. One. Yeah. 1.5.2. Yeah. Great. Yeah. Fantastic. Nice place to sum up. Off camera, Kevin told me he was studying for a PhD in astronomy, which possibly explains his highly analytical nature. I thought he made some excellent points. However, he did concentrate on the negatives. So, here’s a positive. If for some reason you had to cycle from Chland to Glouester, you might be thinking you’re in for a little bit of a nightmare. However, the B063 could come to your rescue. It doesn’t sound like much, but it offers over 5K stretching all the way with uninterrupted highquality segregated bike path. Just take a look at it. Thanks, Pathf. He’s right. Of course, this is a banging bit of infrastructure, and it makes this route seem very much commutable. While it doesn’t do anything to fix the more central issues that the town has, it’s a properly usable feature and I imagine it wouldn’t look out of place even in the Netherlands, which is rare in Old Pity. A nasty surprise that Chunham hides up its quaint sleeve is an occasional nerve-wracking road. The worst example I found was here heading northwest on the A4019. Essentially, it’s a 40 mph dual carriageway with lots of traffic, and it feels completely unavoidable on bike. Google Maps sent me down here without hesitation, which I thought must have been an error, but I looked at the map afterwards, and there really aren’t any easy alternatives for the way I was going. Fortunately, as you get to this behemoth of a roundabout, there are friendlier cycle options. Unfortunately, these options are poorly signposted shared spaces on pavements, and after you navigate the roundabout in a couple of directions, it quickly dumps you back onto the A- road. Charming. The final thing to mention is Chelham’s collection of parks. Many of them technically count as cycle infrastructure as bikes are allowed through them, but with most of them, such as Sanford, Havly, and Springfield’s park, they aren’t connected in any smart way to other paths. They exist as islands of cramped shared space where your cycling experience will basically be getting in the way of people. The one exception to this is Pitville Park which links with our new mates the A435 path and the Honeyborn line which as you’ll remember heads right to the Choo Choo station. This makes a good few possible kilometers of carfree cycling. However, Pitful Park is often thronging with Tweedy punters, and its windy, narrow paths really don’t make for great cycling. You definitely have to go slower around here. It’s quite narrow, and there’s lots of pedestrians, but it is a park, so that’s expected. And well, this isn’t even peak time. If you saw the first installment, you know what’s next. It’s time to score up the second location of Cycling Cities UK and find it a place on my still quite barren tier list. First up is Cycle Lane Coverage, which is a bit of a funny one with Chenham. Although there are a couple of fairly long carfree stretches, they really don’t go anywhere useful. Instead, they skirt around the center and often fail to link up with each other. Even worse is the southeast of the town where there is no proper coverage at all. Sorry, Chelters. It’s a 3.5 out of 10. The quality of cycle infrastructure is variable, too. There are some memorable highlights looking at you B463, but equally some absolute shockers. Again, particularly in the center and the east, it’s a 5 out of 10 from me. I’m going to give Chenham a four out of five for its topographic pleasantries. Even though it sits right by the Cotswwell, the vast majority of it is very navigable for the everyday cyclist. It’s only when you head to the far east that you might find a steep hill. Many of the roads you’ll be forced to cycle on here are small and residential. However, as you saw, there are a couple of nasty surprises waiting for the unsuspecting cyclist, and the central main roads are inhospitable and riddled with potholes. Therefore, I’ll have to give two points of a possible five. A gigantic positive for cyclists here comes in the form of good amenities. There are a plethora of cycle stores. I count nine. Nicely spread through the town, making roughly 13,000 people per shop. Nice. There’s a great spread of parking, too, although there is a lack of a city high scheme and public service stations. That’s 3.5 well-deserved points out of five. Kevin gave Chenham a 1.5 out of five. It would be easy for me to say this was a bit harsh, but really I think he made some very fair points about patchy connectivity and a lack of segregated bike lanes. I loved chatting with him and here at Cycling Cities UK, local cyclists know best. Thanks, Kevin. That makes a grand total of 19 and 12 points, slapping this place right into the middle of Ctier. It’s a town of contrasting elements. I was wowed at times and completely revolted at others. So, I think ending up as very average makes sense. Certainly an interesting visit and it was good to look around my hometown again. It’s been a while. Next time I’m going further a field to a whole another country, if you can believe that. See you in 2 weeks.