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Political parties should have "ambitious" cycling plans in their manifestos, says Chris Hoy

Olympian dreams of riding to school with his son

Britain's most successful Olympian, Chris Hoy has called on political parties to come up with "realistic and ambitious" plans to provide better facilities for cycling, reports The Times.

Hoy told the paper's Kaya Burgess that provision for cycling should be “at the front of the queue” when designing new roads and junctions, and that he dreams of being able to ride to school with his son when he's old enough.

And he pointed out that building cycling facilities doesn't just benefit people who ride bikes. Reducing congestion "will benefit everybody" he said.

Hoy said cycling plans and budgets should be included in party manifestos

He said: "It’s easy to say ‘we’ll do it’, but how are they going to do it? We need a clear picture of how the different parties see cycling as part of their transport policies.

“I would certainly welcome that - if a party did come up with something that was both realistic and ambitious, they would get the support of the cycling community.”

Cycling infrastructure benefits everyone, Hoy said, and should be welcomed even by those who don't expect to use it.

He said: "It would be short-sighted for people to bemoan any investment in cycling, even if they never intend to cycle themselves. It’s logical that if there are more people cycling, there are fewer people in their cars and more space for them to drive.

"Hopefully politicians will realise that and will sell their support for cycling in that way - that they’re spending this amount of money on cycling, but it’s not just for people who ride bikes: it will benefit everybody.”

Hoy's son Callum is five months old. Not quite old enough to be following in his famous father's wheel tracks yet, but when he is, Hoy plans to teach him to ride away from traffic where there won't be “buses coming straight past you”.

Hoy wants to be able to ride to school with his son.

“That would be the dream scenario. We harp on about Holland and Denmark and Germany, but that’s what they do over there. Not everyone rides around on £10,000 carbon road bikes in luminous Lyrca - they just ride their bikes as part of their lives.”

John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.

He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.

Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.

John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.

He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.

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a_to_the_j | 9 years ago
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with the recent announcement of £300m "pledged funding" in Scotland (spread over 5 years - £60m a year! - and part of existing spending budget - and to be spent on **WALKING** and CYCLING ways) on just upgrading tourist routes in order to bring in the tourist buck, we really need more high profile names to get out there and ride DAY IN DAY OUT as commuters, then shout with your high=profile=voice just where this money really needs to be spent to keep us DAILY cyclists safe

if you actually read what Hoy is saying its basically, our roads are too dangerous for us to cycle on and he wouldnt let his son do it, how bad is that!

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HarrogateSpa | 9 years ago
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The more high profile racing cyclists take up this campaign, the better, as far as I'm concerned.

It's a minor annoyance, but is it necessary for advocates of everyday cycling to keep having a pop at Lycra? It's irrelevant to the argument. And Chris Hoy should be the last person trying to demonise Lycra, because I think he might have worn it once or twice.

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Kim | 9 years ago
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This is something that Pedal on Parliament have been calling for, for years. We even have a ready made Manifesto for safer roads for all, which any political party is welcome to adopt.

Sir Chris Hoy and anyone else are welcome to join us as we ride to Holyrood on the 25th April 2015, to call on the Scottish Government to make our roads safer. It is notable that where the Scottish Government leads with policy, Westminster follows, just look at the smoking ban, etc.

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