Non cyclists need recalibrating

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OP
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Drago

Drago

Legendary Member
The BBC article talks about the guy from Leamington Spa who won’t ride a mile to his nearest supermarket because it is too dangerous. About 90% of that journey is along fairly decent shared infrastructure and the missing gap in the middle everyone rides on the pavement anyway as it alongside an industrial estate. I think a lot of people are just looking for excuses.

I did some training around Leamington Spud in the summer, and used the town centre for the advanced road skills session. It's fine, the guy is taking out his arris.

If he'd rather have a coronary, then that's fine with me, but I do wish his sort would keep their lame excuses to themselves.
 

Randomnerd

Bimbleur
Location
North Yorkshire
The meejah are a big fly in the ointment here. Sticking a camera or mike in someone’s face isn’t getting to the truth of anything. It’s just fodder to fill webpages.
Sadly, there remains very little serious journalism about here, about where we live. Most of it is bollox. We’re all too busy worrying about Brussels or Washington.
 
it's about a 30 minute walk for me (perhaps 40 for others), and the very prospect of such a walk would have my neighbours hyperventilating in shock.
Two words: Drop bears. :biggrin:

March this year was the only time I've seen most of my neighbours walk out of our street.
Beast from the east closed the only road in and out for several days.
Only option was on foot. Most seemed to manage to get their boots on and make it to Asda, about 15-20 minutes away.
I remember going to the supermarket about a mile away on foot during that. Lots of cars stuck halfway up a 1% hill. The bread and milk aisles were completely emptied, except for almond and soya milk, which most people picked up and then put back down. Realising that people are unthinking slaves to habit and almost entirely incapable of change was a pretty bleak epiphany but I cheered myself up by taking a lovely walk through the park in knee-deep snow.

It's on the plans submitted!
Were these plans by any chance on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard."?
 

keithmac

Guru
Lazy people will always find an excuse and if children see their parents driving everywhere they'll follow the same lead..

I know a woman who arrives at school 1/2 an hour early so she can get the space closest to the gates (less walking..).

My two have always walked in, we had a discussion why the woman over the road spent 15mins deicing her car to drop her kid off at school and drive back again and none of us could work it out!.

Sometimes the simplest solution is true, bone idleness more.often than not.
 

byegad

Legendary Member
Location
NE England
Yes had a read of this early on. I did think just walk and can't you just get a bike ? Can see it being an issue for elderly or disabled but most new builds are clearly marketed at the "yummy mummy" market. The shoe boxers that are going up near me have adverts full of nice looking families all white and all "normal" 2 pt 4. Old , disabled , ect need not apply. Walking is clearly an issue for this new estate too only last week spotted one driving her kids to brownies. It's only 5 mins up the road.
Well we moved into a new build estate in 2016. There are lots of people within 10yrs of our age and a very few with children or likely to produce children. Sadly even in 'cheap' NE England the 80k for the cheapest 2 bed semi is beyond young workers. I sold our old terraced house cheap to my youngest son as he was effectively homeless after a divorce. I'm 67 and by no means the oldest on the estate, I'd guess the average age on the estate is about 50.

As to amenities, I can walk to the far end of the village in under 20 minutes, and I walk badly with a stick. Two of our three convenience stores are in the middle of the village, as is the Primary school, yet at school time the roads are filled with cars trying to park right at the school gates. A neighbour drives to the shop for some milk :banghead: I really do despair of people.
 

classic33

Leg End Member
Two words: Drop bears. :biggrin:

I remember going to the supermarket about a mile away on foot during that. Lots of cars stuck halfway up a 1% hill. The bread and milk aisles were completely emptied, except for almond and soya milk, which most people picked up and then put back down. Realising that people are unthinking slaves to habit and almost entirely incapable of change was a pretty bleak epiphany but I cheered myself up by taking a lovely walk through the park in knee-deep snow.


Were these plans by any chance on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard."?
Nah, they could well have been held in such a place though. The flood plain mentioned doesn't flood.
 

Julia9054

Legendary Member
Location
Knaresborough
An estate of new houses has just been built on the very outskirts of Tinytown where I live. As I rode past it this morning I thought "who the hell would want to live here?"
Tinytown is about 45 minutes walk end to end. There are no shops near to this estate - a 25 minute walk to the centre of town. I live near to the centre of town - it is 5 minutes walk to the shops/pub and 10 minutes to the bus and railway station. This suits me. This estate does not feel like part of the town but neither is it in the countryside so why would someone want to live there?
 

ColinJ

Puzzle game procrastinator!
I'm going there again tomorrow so I'll have a good look to make sure that I didn't cycle straight past some bike stands. If I still can't find them, I'll see if I can speak to a manager and find out if there is a plan to fit some. If I don't get any joy then I'll contact the council.

The new store's trolley storage area has a nice roof over it. I'll suggest that the cycle parking should be covered too. I will also emphasise that for bike security it would be good to have any stands near the store's entrance and not tucked away in the far corner of the car park. There is a rear entrance to the car park from the Rochdale canal towpath, which I think is a good thing, but it would also be a good way for would-be bike thieves to nip in and nick bikes if they were located over there.
There are DEFINITELY no bike stands!

I spoke to my checkout operator today. He turned out to be a cyclist and I know that there are at least 2 other employees who cycle to the store because I have seen them arriving or leaving by bike in the past. He had been similarly surprised by the lack of bike stands too and said that he'd raise the issue with the store manager next time he spoke to him. I said that I'd contact Lidl UK and see what they had to say about it.

There are no direction arrows in the car park so drivers are guessing which way to go and ending up driving straight at each other. There is an evident need for a one-way system to protect them (and pedestrian/cyclist shoppers) from each other.

There is a support for the trolley bay roof which looked to be a suitable bike-locking point but I nearly broke the glass side of the bay when my bike flopped against it. I decided not to risk it so I locked my bike on the lamppost-protecting hoop next to the trolley bay again today. Nearly all of the other posts and their hoops are either located in flower beds or so close to parking bays that any bike locked to them would probably get driven into by careless drivers (such drivers being why the hoops are there in the first place)!

Let's see how long it takes my 'Make Todmorden Lidl cyclist-friendly' campaign to bear fruit ... :whistle:
 

Will Spin

Über Member
There are DEFINITELY no bike stands!

I spoke to my checkout operator today. He turned out to be a cyclist and I know that there are at least 2 other employees who cycle to the store because I have seen them arriving or leaving by bike in the past. He had been similarly surprised by the lack of bike stands too and said that he'd raise the issue with the store manager next time he spoke to him. I said that I'd contact Lidl UK and see what they had to say about it.

There are no direction arrows in the car park so drivers are guessing which way to go and ending up driving straight at each other. There is an evident need for a one-way system to protect them (and pedestrian/cyclist shoppers) from each other.

There is a support for the trolley bay roof which looked to be a suitable bike-locking point but I nearly broke the glass side of the bay when my bike flopped against it. I decided not to risk it so I locked my bike on the lamppost-protecting hoop next to the trolley bay again today. Nearly all of the other posts and their hoops are either located in flower beds or so close to parking bays that any bike locked to them would probably get driven into by careless drivers (such drivers being why the hoops are there in the first place)!

Let's see how long it takes my 'Make Todmorden Lidl cyclist-friendly' campaign to bear fruit ... :whistle:
Can you not just wheel your bike into the shop and when challenged by security, ask them where the bicycle parking is?
 
OP
OP
Drago

Drago

Legendary Member
An estate of new houses has just been built on the very outskirts of Tinytown where I live. As I rode past it this morning I thought "who the hell would want to live here?"
Tinytown is about 45 minutes walk end to end. There are no shops near to this estate - a 25 minute walk to the centre of town. I live near to the centre of town - it is 5 minutes walk to the shops/pub and 10 minutes to the bus and railway station. This suits me. This estate does not feel like part of the town but neither is it in the countryside so why would someone want to live there?

Alas, too many buyers are dense and consider nothing more than finding a gaff within their budget. Car parking, proximity to amenities etc is all too often an afterthought, if indeed its a thought at all. As long as there are legions of buyers out there this daft then developers won't face any market pressure to change their approach.
 

Johnno260

Guru
Location
East Sussex
guy I work with bought a new build last year and there is nothing close by and he complains a lot about it, also it took the developers and open reach close to 6 months to get him a phone and internet connection.

When we bought our current house we scouted the area beforehand.

Another place we scouted out had a kind of local carnival BBQ type event that we went to for a pulse in the locals.

But in my opinion laziness plays a large role in people driving.
 

ColinJ

Puzzle game procrastinator!
Can you not just wheel your bike into the shop and when challenged by security, ask them where the bicycle parking is?
I will be okay until someone gets to MY hoop first and locks their bike to it before I get there! :laugh:

I think a security guard would simply say "That's not MY problem" closed followed by "Take it outside"!

I just think that it wouldn't hurt Lidl to use one of their 139 parking places to provide enough space for 10+ bikes. (That ought to be enough - I never saw more than 5 bikes outside the old store at one time.) Companies should be encouraging people to cycle to their stores, not putting them off by ignoring their needs.
 

Glow worm

Legendary Member
Location
Near Newmarket
An estate of new houses has just been built on the very outskirts of Tinytown where I live. As I rode past it this morning I thought "who the hell would want to live here?"
Tinytown is about 45 minutes walk end to end. There are no shops near to this estate - a 25 minute walk to the centre of town. I live near to the centre of town - it is 5 minutes walk to the shops/pub and 10 minutes to the bus and railway station. This suits me. This estate does not feel like part of the town but neither is it in the countryside so why would someone want to live there?

There's a large new estate on the edge of Swaffham exactly like that. Its brutally ugly too- could be anywhere. Nothing about the place says Norfolk. It's like a little piece of Slough transplanted 150 miles north east. There's hardly any work in Swaffham, so no doubt they all drive to Norwich or Lynn, clogging up further the choked A47. It's a good 10 minute walk to the shops too, so three guesses how they all get there. And another even larger estate is now planned over the road. It's just bonkers- there seems to be no coordinated planning for anything in the UK. I'm just glad I'll be dead in 40 yrs at most so won't live to see what a total nightmare the place will be pretty soon.
 

Saluki

World class procrastinator
I would be annoyed if my nearest shop were a mile away. Not every location suits every person: we are all individuals.
My nearest shop is 15 min walk away but only if I want sewing stuff. Nearest pint of milk shop is a mile, even the garage is the best part of a mile and along a very busy road that I am not keen on walking along. I walk or bike but don’t feel it to be an inconvenience.
 

NorthernDave

Never used Über Member
I will be okay until someone gets to MY hoop first and locks their bike to it before I get there! :laugh:

I think a security guard would simply say "That's not MY problem" closed followed by "Take it outside"!

I just think that it wouldn't hurt Lidl to use one of their 139 parking places to provide enough space for 10+ bikes. (That ought to be enough - I never saw more than 5 bikes outside the old store at one time.) Companies should be encouraging people to cycle to their stores, not putting them off by ignoring their needs.

It does seem incomprehensible that they got planning for the store without including provision for "alternative" means of transport to and from the store, especially as you say the old store had cycling provision.
Perhaps they simply "forgot" to install the bike racks in their haste to get the store opened?
Definitely worth taking further.
 
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