Resonance FM wins award

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Earlier this week, Resonance104.4fm won the Radio Academy’s Nations & Regions Award for London – for the second year running. The judges said:

“We agree that the winner should be Resonance FM. The judges felt this was the type of radio to be admired and applauded. Experimental and unique with a clear focus and raison d’être. Anyone who thinks UK radio has become bland and homogenised should listen to Resonance FM. It revels in its eclecticism, champions creativity, experiments with sound, dares to take risks, celebrates London’s vast cultural diversity and brings true meaning to the word ‘variety,’ because you genuinely have no idea what’s coming next. It offers a service not available anywhere else and London would be a poorer place without it.”

A Christmas Stocking: Apprenticeships, L’Eroica and MyBikeLane.com

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eroica-bigIn the last show before Christmas, Jacqui Shannon reports on new opportunities for paid bike mechanic apprenticeships and Matt Sparkes files a report from Italy on L’Eroica, the annual vintage cyclosportive (pictured, left).

Civic hackers Greg Whalin and Richard Pope talk about MyBikeLane.com, Greg’s website for crowd-sourcing bicycle lane violations.

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Four Great Lives in Cycling: Kuklos, Robinson, Mustoe, Fignon

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brian-robinson

Studio discussion of four great lives in cycling: Kuklos, the prolific journalist who documented British cycling scene in the first half of the twentieth century; Brian Robinson (pictured, above), the first Brit to win stages in the Tour de France; intrepid cycle tourist Anne Mustoe; and Laurent Fignon, perhaps the last truly great French professional bike racer.

Expert guests are Graeme Fife, author of a newly published biography of Brian Robinson, and Tim Dawson, columnist on the Sunday Times and editor of the Cycling Books website. Plus a chance to win a set of Gavin Turk Les Bikes de Bois Rond postcards. Answers by email to bikeshow@resonancefm.com.

Further reading:

Of Wrigging – Kuklos. A 1927 essay taking on John Ruskin’s opposition to cycling.

Brian Robison: A Pioneer – Graeme Fife (Mousehold Press, 2010)

A Bike Ride – Anne Mustoe (Virgin Books, 1991)

We Were Young and Carefree – Autobiography of Laurent Fignon (Yellow Jersey Press, 2010)

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Season opener: Knutsford Great Race and all the fun of the Cycle Show 2010

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knutsford

Window shopping at the Cycle Show 2010 taking in the latest offerings from Brooks (saddles), Bisignals (lights), Bike Dock (storage), Carradice (bags), Schmidt Maschinenbau (dynamo lights) and the Moulton Bicycle Company. Matt Sparkes reports from the once-a-decade Knutsford Great Race, where upwards of 80 competitors raced their ‘ordinaries’ (penny farthings or high-wheelers) in a deadly serious 3 hour time trial.

Photo credit: Knutsford Great Race

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Return of the Jack

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Okay, okay, it’s been a long break since the last show went out in August. Thanks to everyone who’s enquired as to my health and well-being and dropped subtle (and not so subtle) hints that it’s about time for another season. Yes, it is.

And so without any further ado, I’d like to announce that the new season will begin on 29 November, running up to the Resonance FM Christmas Break, and then restarting again in the New Year.

Tous en selle!

Cycle Show 2010: the pick of the crop

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It was to Earls Court on Thursday for the trade and press day of the annual Cycle Show. It seemed there were fewer exhibitors than in past years, with Sunrace Sturmey Archer perhaps the most noticeable and from my point of view, regrettable, absentee. What the Cycle Show 2010 lacked in venerable British (now Taiwanese) hub gears, it made up for in cycle sport celebrities. Mario Cipolini was looking every inch the David of the cycling world, towering well over six feet tall, tanned, in skin tight jeans and a bucket of hair gel keeping each and every one of his golden locks in place. Eddy Merckx was doing sterling duty signing autographs on his company’s stand.

Here’s the pick of what I saw. Continue reading →

Are TfL’s cycling promotion campaigns worth the money?

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From the Dutch government’s Bicycle Master Plan (1999):

The Dutch citizen knows what a bicycle is and how to use it. The promotion of bicycle use does not require billboards, but instead adequate, suitable facilities.

(via the ever-fiery Crap Cycling in Waltham Forest blog)

After questions to the Mayor from Richard Tracey AM, we learn that Transport for London spent £341,000 on a recent campaign to promote cycling including series of five YouTube videos and a cinema advertisement.

The film production costs were £224,400, including paying Big Brother presenter Dermot O’Leary and Edith Bowman (who she?) £5,000 each for a day’s filming – nice work if you can get it! TfL paid a further £141,000 to have the 90 second advert screened in more than 800 cinemas over a six week period in the late summer.

With impressive precision, TfL say that that 2,880,825 people saw the advert. But I wonder how many of them didn’t know what a bicycle is, or how to use it.