16 June 2008: From the Tropics to the Stones

The Bike Show is back for the summer season. This week’s show features two long rides: from Singapore to China with two small children in tow and a preview of Rolling to the Stones, a midsummer night ride from Central London to Stonehenge.

Plus music from Bucky: you can see the video version over here. The London Festival of Architecture has a fantastic programme of architecture and urban design themed rides coming up, running from a month starting on 21 June. Since being on air, Alastair Humphrey’s talk at Stanfords has sold out.

Play using links below. Other file formats (e.g. Ogg Vorbis) are here.

Resonance FM benefit 18 May: Robyn Hitchcock & more

Resonance FM presents a night of live music on Sunday 18 May, with all proceeds going to keep the radio station going in 2008 and beyond.

Headlining is English psychedelic folk rock legend and occasional bicyclist Robyn Hitchcock (pictured below) with Terry Edwards; Kiss Akabusi, masters of deconstructed Black Metal/Chinese pop/Reggae and special guests from Quebec, the duo Mankind. Plus Resonance DJ Johnny Trunk of the Official Soundtrack Show and more.


photo by Carina Jirsch

Tickets are are bargain at £10, though you should definitely chip in a bit extra on the night, the station really needs it.

Arts Theatre, Great Newport Street, 7.30pm. Leicester Square tube. Box office: 0844 847 1608 or book online. See you there!

28 January 2008: Transition Town Bicycling

Totnes in South Devon is where the rapidly growing ‘transition town’ movement all began. Transition towns are a response to the problem of resource depletion, peak oil and climate change and embrace the practical and more esoteric aspects of changing lifestyles and mindsets. Totnes and the surrounding countryside – like many rural areas – remain heavily reliant on car travel. What can be done to get more people on bicycles in the countryside? Is cycling a viable rural alternative to the internal combustion engine? For more on Transition Towns, listen to the latest episode of Resonance FM’s Low Carbon Show. Plus Eric Gauster of Cycle Training UK on some great value bike maintenance classes for Londoners. We give away a place on either a basic or intermediate class to the listener who best completes the following sentence:

“I want to go on a bicycle maintenance course because…..”

email to bikeshow@gmail.com

MP3 | Other file formats (e.g. Ogg Vorbis)

14 January 2008: Are cycling Waterloo sunsets under threat?

Thames at nightSouthwark Council plans to ban cyclists from a key stretch of the Thames Path, which runs along the south bank of the Thames, alongside the Tate Modern and the Globe Theatre. Jack Thurston canvases the (mixed) opinions of passersby and rapidly discovers that no one has been consulted about this proposed new byelaw. Koy Thomson, director of the London Cycling Campaign shares his perspective on the plans and argues for shared space. Amy Cooper reports on cycle training with Patrick Field and a new year’s wish list of cycle-friendly policies for the next Mayor of London.

For more on the draft byelaw banning cycling on the Thames Path, visit Southwark Cyclists’ website. To make your views known to the two Southwark Councillors responsible for this policy area, you can email them directly:

Lisa.Rajan@southwark.gov.uk
Paul.Noblet@southwark.gov.uk
Jeffrey.Hook@southwark.gov.uk

It might be a good idea to forward or cc any emails you send on this to the redoubtable Barry Mason of Southwark Cyclists, who is leading the campaign against the byelaw:

info@southwarkcyclists.org.uk

MP3 | Other file formats (Ogg Vorbis etc)

4 June 2007: To Paris for La Fête du Vélo // Unicycling in South Dakota

Snow unicycleThe Bike Show visits Paris’s 11th Fête du Vélo. Among the subjects discussed are Paris’s growing love affair with the Brompton folding bicycle, how Cannondale are marketing the latest urban bikes in France, a new puncture proof Dutch tyre and Les Dérailleurs, France’s gay and lesbian friendly cycle touring club. We also discuss unicycling with Mike Ray from South Dakota, who owns not one but five of the contraptions. He explains how unicyclists have escaped the circus for the rough-riding world of singletrack. Plus congratulations to the CTC and others whose campaign against anti-cyclist revisions to the UK highway code has forced the government to back down.

Downloads: MP3 (128 kbs)MP3 (64kbs)Ogg Vorbis

14 May 2007: Road Peace // Floyd Landis

testosteroneReturning for the summer season, The Bike Show turns to the trials of US cycling star Floyd Landis, whose sensational victory in the 2006 Tour de France was thrown into doubt after he failed a test for the banned drug testosterone. We also hear an extended talk on road danger in a global context by Dr Ian Roberts, Professor of Public Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical medicine. Dr Roberts was addressing an event organised by Road Peace, the UK national charity for road crash victims. See also Moving Target Zine for excellent coverage of road danger issues London cyclists, plus top tips for all you fakengers out there. The ‘def track’ is by ex-bike messenger MC Abdominal who has given up being a courier in order to rap about being one. Is he serious??

To follow the latest twist and turns of the Floyd Landis doping affair, I recommend Trust But Verify, whose authors, devoted fans of Landis, have digested an ungodly amount about the science and law of anti-doping in cycling, and present their coverage in an honest, straightforward way. Cycling Post maintains a Landis Dossier.

The launch of Graeme Fife’s new book, The Beautiful Machine, is at Velorution on Thursday evening, 17 May.

Downloads: MP3 (128 kbs)MP3 (64kbs)Ogg Vorbis

1 May 2007: Podcast special: ‘Stannerd’ comes out for cycling

The Bike Show is officially off air at the moment, but I couldn’t resist a podcast-only edition to discuss the Evening Standard’s Damscene conversion to the way of the bicycle. For years, London’s leading daily newspaper has been in thrall to unreconstructed petrolheads, but this week the paper has come out for cycling with a big front page splash on Monday and a series of double-page features during the rest of the week.

‘Buffalo’ Bill Chidley, a former London bicycle messenger who runs Moving Target Zine, tells it like it is, from trouble with heavy goods vehicles to running red lights. He is as bewildered as I am about the Standard’s volte face, and joins me for a look at the paper’s 12 point ‘charter’ for safer cycling in the capital. We a chat and spin a few 45s in the sunshine of my back garden.

(Normal Bike Show service will resume later in the month)