Italy, the land of Silvio, the Camorra and Corleone, has recently introduced a very successful, simple and efficient incentive scheme for people who want to purchase a bicycle. Here in the UK instead, we are saddled by a Brownesque monstrosity that encourages a Mafia-style racket. If a BBC employee comes to our shop and wants to purchase a bike under the Cycle-to-work scheme, there is a hoodlum, sorry a “facilitator”, who demands 10% protection money from us. And the BBC, Barclays Capital, Arup, Make, Goldman Sachs, and plenty other imbeciles are happy to play this ‘rob the cycle store’ game.
We have asked the Association of Cycle Traders to help us but they also seem unwilling to fight the racketeers.
Yet another sign that unless London stops being a Third World city (and Naples and Sicily are definitely Third World), it will never be a great cycling city.
