The Great Big Talking to Ourselves Cos Everyone's Watching the TV Bike Blog Roundup

There will be a necessarily olympic flavour to this weeks blog roundup as it was hard to find anything that wasn't at least tangentially related. Starting, of course, with the dog that failed to bark in the night: London's impending transport meltdown that never happened, possibly because we're 'alarmingly' driving less anyway, and probably because many people took advantage of the closed roads to enjoy cycling there (although some officious folk did their best to stop them). While the Dutch officials made a special effort on their orange bikes, Pedestrian Liberation was delighted to see Shank's Pony (that's not Mitt Romney's wife's horse, BTW) get gold in an almost car free olympics. Cycling Info wondered what the real legacy will be - perhaps we can keep the ZiL Lanes, but for bikes? Sadly, none of this helped the would be users of the Lea Valley Towpath who demonstrated again today against the continued closure by riding around the park itself to highlight the continued danger on the roads.

One legacy - apart from the criminal records of those caught up in the Police Kettle at Critical Mass might be the reappearance from retirement of Freewheeler - to many's delight, including the People's Cycling Front of South Gloucestershire - who brought us his or her very own London Olympics cycling guide (not to be confused with the adrenaline-fuelled challenge that is the Dublin bike lane - nor with this beautiful hand drawn illustration of a London Bike Race). What our legacy may not include may be many more London-bred Olympians, anyway, if their pollution blackened lungs are anything to go by

And speaking of London-bred olympians, we'd all hoped that the 'Wiggins effect' would be about more cyclists, more people signing up to the cycle to work scheme (with most workers at least 'bike curious', even more sporting cyclists (we're not fussy, any cyclists are good). Instead, on the day that Bradley triumphed in the time trial, a bus killed a cyclist outside the Olympic park. Mr Wiggins, ambushed at a press conference, said something that may or may not have implied helmet compulsion - and extraordinarily, unleased a tide of pro infrastructure and anti-helmet comment in the mainstream press (including the Spectator, the Telegraph and even the Mail). Plenty more weighed in, whether Bradley was a good transport cycling role model or not, somewhat drowning out the main question of whether lane closures were partly to blame - and the fact that something must change

In an attempt to set the H-word debate at rest for once and for all, War on the Motorist puts all those helmet posts in one place, the Cycling Surgeon looks for the evidence, Dawn Foster points out helmets won't protect you from lorries and - getting the last word for once - Dr. Ian Walker, quoted on Channel 4's Fact Check, said that "If the answer is a bike helmet, we've not understood the problem". Now that science has spoken, we confidently expect that that will be the end of the matter.

Curiously, despite all the bike-love out there thanks to the Olympics, there seemed to be a strange undercurrent of cyclist loathing out there. The Road Danger Reduction forum asked if we were all colluding with the culture of subservience - even cyclists don't like cyclists, so what chance have we against ordinary drivers, let alone those actively trying to edge us off the road? We're in the way (even in Germany), or else we're on the pavement - or perhaps we're just from the wrong side of the tracks. Perhaps we need to make sure we obey the Kantian Categorical Imperative - or just get pushy. Either way, the pedstrians should get angry too.

But it's the Olympics, we're all happy, so let's stick to the good news - like cyclists getting their own TV show (on ITV4 but it's early days). Or Parisians getting their river back (London next please), or Nashville to get a bike share scheme - and Bradford a cycle bridge. The Ciclovia meme is spreading - as are Seattle's greenways, by thinking bigger than just incremental change. Boris Bikes turn two, and Scotland discovers that speed cameras save lives (someone tell the UK government, eh?), and one deadly driver is finally taken off the road, albeit not before he killed a second time. Chester Cycling gets himself a Cycling Embassy coloured Brompton - and however slowly he rides it, he's likely to save himself some time. Oh, and Jon Snow for president. That is all.

Sadly, we can't ignore the bad news out there either. A mother writesto Croydon Council about the road layout that might have killed her son, while time is running out to stop the removal of cycle lanes in Twickenham. Denmark may not be the shining example of cycling lost and found we've always been told. Poor enforcement hampers an innovative road layout in Belfast - perhaps what it needs is for traffic wardens to get on their bikes - while light phasing changes (to ease traffic flow) create a lethal junction - no wonder our spouses and partners worry. Not everyone loves 20 mph zones - perhaps what we need are wider bikes - and soft measures rather than proper infrastructure still won't get us more cycling.

But maybe dove bikes will? I can't be the only person whose twitter stream filled up during the opening ceremony with people asking how they could get themselves luminous wings for the winter commute home - well you start with a Dawes and you add LEDs. Rather more realistically, we're probably going to see a few of these in our Christmas stockings instead.

We leave you with news of a cycling writing competition - and surely any one of our featured bloggers must be in with a chance. The rest of you should just tear yourselves away from the small screen and write something - anything - to win the glory (but no prize) that comes with featuring in next week's Bike Blog Roundup...