The joy of British bike lanes in autumn — leaves and puddles aplenty; Daily Mail columnist calls LTN supporters "Traffic Taliban"; Who's seen the worst bike rack?; Don't talk to Thomas De Gendt about Elon Musk; S-1; Friday fun + more on the live blog

The approach to Clifton Suspension Bridge from, er, Clifton (in Bristol).

Are you expected to shoulder your bike and carry it to the bike stands?

Wow.  Is that future-proofing for hover-bikes?

VanDerBike wrote:

The bike rack in my apartment building...

That rack looks like it's designed to hold bikes vertically. Space-saving (when used correctly) but also difficult to use with non-standard bikes such as tandems or if someone has upper body mobility issues.

But when stored vertically, can't lock anything other than the wheels. Hence it's used like this

VanDerBike wrote:

But when stored vertically, can't lock anything other than the wheels. Hence it's used like this

Vertical bike storage is always a bad idea in public spaces, though can be fine in a locked garage etc.

I don't understand why public bike parking is over-designed to take up as little space as possible, yet car parking bays are usually designed around the largest vehicles and don't seem to be optimised at all. There's also the issue that a lot of bike park designers seem to be on crack and just love to come up with crazy designs even though they can barely remember what a bike looks like.

Multistory car parks are wrong on so many levels.

chrisonatrike wrote:

Multistory car parks are wrong on so many levels.

The iRobot advertorial film showed the future of car storage:

However, ICE vehicles can't be stored like that as the engine oil sludge gets moved around.

That idea was tried during the early 1970s in the US, to move new cars by rail. I wouldn’t like to write the risk-assessment for this now ...

The 1960's version of that at the "futruristic" Bull Ring Shopping Centre

Bull Ring Centre Opened (1964) - YouTube (36 seconds in)

Steve K wrote:

This may not look like a bike rack, but it is the official bike parking at Crystal Palace Football Club.

That's an interesting design. Presumably totally approved by health and safety experts.

Absolutely. Especially when it's full with bikes up both sides of the stairs.

Good grief.

A couple of more recent stadiums are much better ... I've parked my bike at the Emirates (you need to know the secure parking is there, though, it's not exactly advertised) but the best I've seen has to be the nearest ground to me, Brentford, double-deck parking with lots of space.

Having said that, when I cycled over there with my friend to go to the Germany v Austria QF in the Euros, I decided we should park at the rack on the east side of the stadium (near the away end), turned out that was very isolated and a bit of a schlep round to our entrance, I'd have had misgivings about leaving the bike there were it not for the fact there would be a security presence there throughout the match.

The bike parking on the other side (NW corner, shown in the pic below) on the other hand is 20 metres from the stands and due to presence of stewards etc on a Brentford matchday is about as secure as it gets.

This is the (absolutely packed) bike parking at @BrentfordFC after last Saturday's match, no coincidence that C9 is bang outside, certain local councillors need to give their heads a wobble 😉 pic.twitter.com/QzeCOxbWPI

— Simon MacMichael 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇮🇹🇪🇺❤️💙🚲 (@simonmacmichael) November 11, 2021

I've cycled to 23 different football grounds. Parking varied massively. As you say, Brentford is excellent. I hadn't realised there were racks at the away end, so parked at the home end and had to walk three quarters of the way round the ground to get to the away end. But I agree the away end ones felt very isolated.

Much that I hate to say it Brighton was also excellent (although the police wanted to kettle me with the rest of the away fans back to the station!).

But the best was Liverpool, who had free, manned parking and would even supply a lock if needed. This was 2017 - no idea if they still do it.

Most UK clubs don't provide any cycling park facilities at all, rarely promote active travel, and will happily delay kick off due to traffic congestion around grounds.

Dutch cliche alert, but I believe Ajax have 3000 cycle spaces around the Amsterdam arena you can use.

stonojnr wrote:

Most UK clubs don't provide any cycling park facilities at all, rarely promote active travel, and will happily delay kick off due to traffic congestion around grounds.

I'd prefer it if they completely ignored active travel, rather than putting this on the website with a straight face. I expect they want to be able to point to evidence that they are encouraging active travel for the planning application for the new stand at the ground.

Got my COVID jab at the madgesky, foolishly followed the drivest signs and ended up in a really shitty car park. After riding back to the stadium I locked up my bicycle to a giant lamppost, right in front of the shop, big chain lock.

Before the booster I checked out Google maps, still couldn't find anything virtually. Even went around the stadium twice.

Went to get the booster, rode to the front of the stadium like any normal cyclist (ignoring drivist instructions) and there they were, well secured Sheffield stands, many too. Nice. Good and close too.

Is that the actual bike that you took to a whole season of Palace matches?

SimoninSpalding wrote:

Is that the actual bike that you took to a whole season of Palace matches?

In the Liverpool pic? Yes, a 2012 Charge Juicer Hi.