"Home clothes" flash ride idea

[style over speed]

Good blog here from Danny about this weekends Times:

http://cyclelondonci...-were-anti.html

Jeremy Clarkson still thinks we're anti-capitalists. His own newspaper disagrees. Sunday Times: cyclists now outnumber motorists on busy commuter routes
Today's Sunday Times featured two big pieces on cycling. The first, an editorial from Jeremy Clarkson. "Cycling is seen now .... as a frontline propoganda weapon in the war on capitalism, banking, freedom, McDonald's..." you get the idea.

Except that a much larger and more balanced piece featured large on page 11. "Cyclists have for the first time outnumbered motorists on some of the country’s busiest commuter routes during the rush hour," splashed the Sunday Times news feature. You can read the article below.

So what Jeremy Clarkson calls home clothes wearing cyclists seems to be a call to arms if the idea of this blog is taken up:
http://voleospeed.bl...of-protest.html

The idea is to keep doing a Flashride on Blackfriars Bridge, every week at the same time. Publicise it so it grows bigger and bigger. But the "gimmick" would be that it would be the reverse of the Naked Bike Ride; rather than looking whacky, as most cycle protest do, it would emphasis the normalisation of cycling: everybody on it would be dressed in business suits. Not fancy dress, not Boris Johnson wigs, just straight, serious, everybody in formal suits.
Because this is a movement starting in the heart of London, the City of London, no less, at Blackfriars Bridge (but which could grow) give it a distinctively City of London feel. Emphasise that fact that cyclists are not scruffy, left-wing, homespun veggie types, but concentrate on the new face of cycling, the mainstreaming of it; establish an idea that cycling is the new establishment method of transport, not a fringe activity carried out by fringe-types. So we combine a protest on the specific issues at Blackfriars and the specific attitudinal problems in TfL with a general media assault on the image of cycling.

come on LCC theres great ideas being generated, stop with the petitions and start organising.

 

[MrHappyCyclist]

I agree that there is a need to "normalise" cycling if we are to get more people on bikes. Until I started commuting I, like most people, though of cycling as the destination rather then the means of getting there, often putting the bikes on the car in order to "go cycling". There is also the stereotypical belief among non-cyclists that people who cycle as a means of transport do it because they can't afford to own a motor car, which I suppose is the one that might be addressed by dressing in a way that suggests affluence.

However, I'm not sure that cycling in suits is the right way to go about it. Perhaps it just replaces one set of prejudices with another. I am fairly well-paid and have a very nice car thank-you, but I rarely went to work in a suit even when going in the car; what is this prejudice against people who don't wear suits? How stupid is that?

I know lots of people who go out running to keep fit, and some even run to work. They don't do it in suits, though; they do it in running clothes, with running shoes (often quite expensive ones). They don't seem to be considered particularly weird because they run in clothes that were designed for running.