If you have signed The Times Cities for Cycling Campaign, you will have received this message:

Thank you for supporting The Times Cities Fit for Cycling campaign – we are making headway, but we need your help.

A parliamentary debate on the measures called for by The Times’s campaign has been scheduled for February 23. For this debate to have real impact we need as many MPs as possible to attend.

Only you can make that happen: we have just two weeks to write to our MPs telling them why they should attend. Please take a moment to write via our campaign page thetimes.co.uk/cyclesafe.

We also need to spread the word and ask as many people as possible to write to their MP. Please help by posting the link to our public page thetimes.co.uk/cyclesafe and forwarding this e-mail to friends, family and fellow cyclists.

You are one of 23,000 people who have signed The Times Cities Fit for Cycling manifesto – this campaign has generated radio and TV coverage the length and breadth of the country as well as official backing from all quarters. But we need to keep the pressure on ministers to bring about real change.

We will update you on progress in the next couple of weeks. With your help, we can make Britain’s cities fit for cycling.

It takes only a couple of minutes, and it is definitely worth doing.

The Times campaign has been adopted by campaigners in Italy as well.

We have always been saying that the number of children on bikes is a litmus test on the livability and pleasantness of a city. It is also a sign of the paranoia of a society.

All parents should read Tim Gill‘s No Fear: Growing up in a risk-averse society.

Tim has been invited to give the next Street Talk.

It is often said that kids today grow up faster than they used to. As a statement about their everyday freedoms, nothing could be further from the truth – as we know from the seminal work of Mayer Hillman on children’s independent mobility. Anxious parents are often blamed for this shift to a more captive childhood. Yet parents have to deal with the environment that is around them. For decades, transport and planning policies have worked against creating the kind of compact, liveable neighbourhoods that help parents to untie the apron strings.

The everyday lives and neighbourhoods of city children were a key focus of the work of great urbanists like Jane Jacobs (who devoted a whole chapter of Death and Life of Great American Cities to the topic) and Kevin Lynch (who, after his seminal Image of the City, went on to spearhead UNESCO’s international Growing Up in Cities programme in the 1970s). Recent years have seen lively debate about both the future of cities and the changing nature of childhood. Yet there have been few serious attempts to join the dots.

Tim Gill argues that this has to change. Join us for February’s Street Talk to explore why children’s everyday freedoms matter: to them, to communities, to policy makers and to the planet. Just as with the salmon or the house sparrow, children’s presence in public space should be seen as an indicator of the quality of their habitats. Is the outdoor child becoming an endangered species?

Upstairs at The Yorkshire Grey, 2 Theobalds Road, WC1X 8PN at 19:00 (bar open 18:00) on 7th February.

Picture of Shirley Temple via Rides a Bike

EVERYTHING NEW is at least 10% off, including bikes.
Many items at 20% and 30% off.
It will end on 21.1.12.
It does not apply to online orders.

Image by Romie Stanley, on 500px

We are open on Sunday 18th 10:30-18:30.

Then as normal, except:
24th – 11:00-15:00
31st – 11:00-15:00

Strip by Yehuda Moon. We are taking orders for the Issue 2-4 Bundle, due out in March.

David Herlihy, author of ‘The Lost Cyclist’ will join The Bicycle Book Club meeting on the 14th December in Fitzrovia, a few hundred metres from our shop.

The book narrates the story of Frank Lenz, an American who disappeared in the Middle East while cycling around the world, in 1894.

Here is a background interview with the author.

UPDATE: We have signed copies of the book, £10.

On 25 November we hosted a seminar devoted to the business use of cargo bikes. A select group of entrepreneurs have visited us, along with CTC and LCC campaigners and TfL planners – all invested in the idea of transporting goods by bike.

CTC organised the event as part of a 3-year EU project, CycleLogistics, which aims to reduce energy use in urban freight transport. Sensibly, they see Human Powered Vehicles (bikes, that is) as the obvious answer within our towns and cities. We agree.

CTC’s Sara Basterfield was the first to speak – and the first to list the reasons why cargo bikes are the answer to urban freight transport. They deliver goods faster than vans in towns and cities, and cost far less to purchase, run, and service. There’s the obvious environment argument – zero carbon emissions – and they are perceived with positive curiosity in city streets, whereas vans are perceived as menacing. They are also considered more fun to use by those who made the conversion.

Gary Armstrong came from Cambridge on a train-and-Brompton, a journey Outspoken’s couriers do regularly in as little as 90 minutes. Back home they’ve shipped it all since 2005: from parcels and boxes to Royal Mail deliveries required before 9:30 in the morning – a service Royal Mail no longer provides; from flowers to legal papers; from wedding cakes to occasional late brides.

Velorution’s Andrea talked about Zero Couriers which showers flowers upon Central London and about his continuous belief in cargo cycling and Velorution’s role in promoting it. He advocated integration between bikes and vans for seamless service but he admonished Transport for London for placing ‘smooth’ traffic flow over quality of life in London, and over safety.

John Reynolds brought to the seminar more than his experience of cargo cycling: he also brought the screen and projector used by the presenters. His company, AV2Hire, rents AV equipment throughout London and, as he was quick to point out, their bikes can deliver professional equipment for conferences for a couple hundred people.

John summed up all presentations with some key facts, drawn entirely from his experience with AV2Hire:
His bikes are 3-4 times faster to deliver within London than cars or vans – as little as 10 minutes from receiving the order
His bikes can ride right up to the front door – and park there, speeding up the loading / unloading
He has no worries over yellow lines, parking restrictions and fines, or the Congestion Charge – that’s a saving of £3000 per year, per bike.
Running and servicing bikes costs a fraction of running and servicing cars and vans
He calculates the overall efficiency of a bike at 5x greater than that of a van

John finished by admitting that he never cycled before setting up AV2Hire; he was driven (ridden?) by economic efficiency.

Naturally, at the end of the conference, participants enjoyed a scrumptuous lunch from the Cafe Velorution catering trike.

Report by our Cargo and Family Bikes specialist, Mat Schmidt

The ride is this Saturday, 26th November.

From Rubbish‘s website:

Team Rubbish has been v busy prepping for the upcoming Rugby Ralph Lauren Tweed Run. For those of you who haven’t a clue about this tweedtastic event, it’s a ten-mile bicycle ride around the Capital, taking place Saturday November 26th. Lots of our pals are taking part, so we thought we’d do the right thing and create a short film providing top tips on how to conduct oneself on the ride. Created exclusively for us by Pencil, we’d like to send a big shout out to composer Daniel Pemberton for the rocking soundtrack [hear him score, I mean his score on The Awakening among other marvellous moving moments], super bike store Velorution for the props [it is the best bike store on the planet], and director Ian Anderson for his patience with Mrs Rubbish, who bossed him around no end and made sure a lot of leaves were thrown all over the team for the final few shots…

UPDATE 27.11.11: Here is a well edited video from Mark (see how many Velorution bikes you can spot):

And the official promo from Ralph Lauren is also worth watching:

Our workshop is offering 10% off basic and general services until the end of the year, parts included.

Call 020 7636 6535 to book.

Here are our standard (pre-discount) rates.

We would be happy to issue gift vouchers redeemable at the workshop: perfect for your friend who already has all the gadgets. A voucher puchased now will attract the discount even if used in 2012.

Image via Trackosaurus Rex

Two influential London bloggers, Mark and Danny are organising a study tour of ten dangerous junctions in London.

Already one hundred people have signed up.

UPDATE: Here is the map with the route. And here are more details of the day.

UPDATE 2: Full report by Mark

UPDATE: Yes, it was thousands of us:

A new exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum presents 99 beautifully crafted objects.

Above is the entry by Ben Wilson, enriched by a special edition Brooks Swallow.

Images by Brooks

Hop on your bike, follow the stories and (re)discover east London on this animal inspired adventure. Big black bears, porky pigs and a thirty-foot tall feathered friend are among the beasts that you will encounter on this trail that reveals a wilder side to our urban environment.

The trail goes between Toynbee Studios, Brick Lane, London Fields, Dalston and Old Street and takes approximately 2-3 hours to complete.

You will need a bike and a camera.

Map of the route