The Great August Bank Holiday Weekend Round-up

It was the week in which a little-known car insurance company bankrolled by Gary Lineker started a cynical publicity stunt genuine road safety campaign using the twitter hashtag #sharetheroaduk which, amongst other things called for compulsory training and testing of cyclists. Surprisingly, this publicity stunt campaign was supported by Bike Radar, for a while at least. In the end the while thing looked like a great big cock-up by all parties involved. The People's Front had a fairly frank response to the whole thing, meanwhile across the North Sea as always The Netherlands was showing just how badly we were all missing the point, with Bicycle Dutch reporting on the spectacular new circular bicycle bridge in Eindhoven.

It wasn't all bad here though, Mad Cycle Lanes showed us that if you just keep complaining about something often enough, it might just get sorted. Maybe all we need is more bicycle bloggers. The People's Front of Richmond was also holding local authorities to account on cycling issues. ibikelondon reports that a little bit of Copenhagen will be coming to London, whilst The Vole reported on last weekend's seaside infrastructure safari, showing us that sometimes we can do cycle infrastructure right in the UK, sort of. The Alternative DfT looks at the seldom-seen-in-the-UK cycle path priority across junctions and Pedestrianise London takes a look at how the UK is particularly inconsistent in its use of white lines on the roads.

In all the kerfuffle surrounding the #sharetheroaduk debacle, it'd have been easy to miss David Arditti's tweet suggesting that most people would rather have their own space than share the road, with some ludicrous replies following from some very misinformed people. As Easy As Riding A Bike didn't miss any of it though, and was inspired to write a piece in response. Chester Cycling considered whether separating of cycles and motor traffic could solve even more problems than we might think, and Chairman Jim challenged the notion that cycling has to be 'fun.'

The conventional 'wisdom' of safety in numbers was challenged by As Easy As Riding A Bike, who also finds time to re-examine last week's bogus Auto Express piece on cyclists and lawbreaking. Freewheeler highlights the continuing use of victim blaming in the way cyclist casualties are reported, even when there is no way to justify it editorially. Meanwhile, there was much shock from a new report which suggested that the 'war on the motorist' might actually just have been a complete fabrication to further the aims of motoring lobby. I always thought it had seemed like a very one-sided war.

Northern Ireland Greenways looks at whether cycling is really registering with those at Stormont, and which parties are paying the most attention. Meanwhile in Edinburgh, Pedal on Parliament questions the excessive projected costs involved in making a relatively short stretch of wide road less hostile for cyclists. David Hembrow takes a moment to look at what is being done for pedestrians in areas where cycles start to dominate and Cyclists in the City goes to the often overlooked great cycling nation of Japan to look at how they do things there, and is pleasantly surprised.

Joe Dunckley examined Bristol's claim of being a 'cycling city,' although far from perfect at least they are beating the Lea Valley routes as reported by Freewheeler. Everyone's favourite Waltham Forest-based cycle blogger also fought the establishment and broke rank on the whole Prince Harry thing. Manchester Cycle Chic returned with a shot of what is possibly the most stylish Raleigh Twenty rider I have seen.

And finally, if even a Brompton doesn't fold up small enough for you, perhaps it is time to consider one of these.