Co-ordinator's Update

Hopefully, most readers of this blog should be aware that I am the new co-ordinator for the Leicester Group. I am hoping to be in touch with all of the rangers soon to try and decide on meeting venues and arrange work-parties etc.

In the meantime, here are a couple of recent events that I would like to feed back about:

Stall at the Greenlight Festival

On Saturday 16^th March we ran a successful stall at the Greenlight Festival. This festival is now annual and celebrates sustainable living in Leicester.

Despite generally poor weather, the organisers estimate that there were about 900 people through the doors and many of them stopped at the Sustrans stall. We chatted about the National Cycle Network, Sustrans aims and cycling in general. We gave away heaps of leaflets, badges and maps and several people expressed interest in volunteering with us.

I feel that there is real value in having stalls at events such as this where we can obtain feedback from the public and can promote the aims of Sustrans. I certainly enjoy sharing my passion for cycling and the work of Sustrans with a wider audience. It is surprising how many people still do not know about who we are and what we do. More publicity will, I hope, help to remedy this. I'm hoping to organise more such stalls over the coming year (in addition to our important presence at Leicester Skyride). Anyone interested in helping organise or run a stall, or who has ideas for a suitable venue, please get in touch.

Lastly, huge thanks to Richard, Keith, Judith and Peter (and a guest appearance from Rory!) for giving up their time to help on the stall.

Looking forward to more successful events in future.

Group Coordinators Conference

This took place last weekend in the fair city of York (I was careful not to mention Richard III!) and was a great success. In addition to a led ride, we had a talk from Peter Litman (Head of Strategy and Innovation). I was very pleased that he emphasised the environmental impact of our work and discussed how a serious long term aim of Sustrans should be to reduce (and eliminate?) car use. He told us that, according to Ministry of Health research, children raised in London will 

NEVER have full lung capacity, due to air pollution.

According to Peter and Tony Ambrose (National volunteer coordinator), Sustrans is now taking the recruitment and support of volunteers more seriously than perhaps it did in the past. The website, and volnet in particular, have been greatly improved recently and are well worth checking out. We are able to share our photos directly with the country by using Flickr, which is connected to volnet. I am hoping to use the new volnet to recruit more volunteers for the group.

On a practical note, Sustrans is putting on more training for ride leaders. Now only certified ride leaders will be able to lead any ride that is part of Sustrans. In addition to Sustrans own training, British Cycling/Skyride and CTC certificates are also permitted but no others. Anyone interested in undertaking free, full-day ride leader training, please contact me and I'll pass your name on. The next Sustrans training day is in Derby on 16th May.

For me, the most useful aspect of the conference was meeting with other Midlands group coordinators as well as with Ian Keetley, the new east Midlands volunteer coordinator. Ian is trying to visit local volunteer groups and would like to come to Leicester soon. I found him very approachable and I'm sure that he will do his best to support and network with the group and I look forward to further work together.

That is all for now but please do get in touch with any ideas for how the Leicester Rangers can be further supported.

Steve Massey

Wreake Bridge Replacement

On a beautiful autumn morning we decided to take a walk along the new path from Platt's Lane in Cossington, along the canal and picking up the new NCN48 Connect2 path into Syston (for a pint at the Dog & Gun). 

I wanted to see how the towpath was now that the tarmac had been laid, and to look at what stage the bridge replacement was at.

As you can see it is a very wide area now, this has been achieved by managing the hedge and reinforcing the bank, which has reclaimed and widened the path. Its a very smooth surface and is suitable for all users. My only concern is when its frosty it may well become very slippery, maybe a few grit bins could be installed?

I was particularly taken with the way they had finished the tarmac short of the Armco reinforcing, adding a soil strip, which as you can see at the top of the photo is starting to see signs of grass growing. Once established this will give a more natural edge to the path and soften the lines. 

Work on the replacement bridge over the river Wreake is well under way. A wide access ramp on the Cossington side is taking shape and there is currently a diversion along the adjacent field edge to allow construction.

On Meadow Lane there is a temporary roadway to the site to allow construction materials (and the new bridge) to be brought to the site.

The bridge is currently still accessible but will be closed for a short while when the new span is swung into place (no date for this is available as yet).

Once over the bridge the towpath continues as it was before. We picked up NCN48 at Meadow Lane and followed it all the way into Syston, crossing the Fosse Way and along the new path under the railway. The engineers have made an excellent job of the very limited space here, with a path that has a flood relief brook to one side and a railway arch to the other.

To gain much needed space the rail to the brook side is angled out to create more shoulder room.

This final section of Connect2 has brought the villages of Birstall, Thurmaston, Syston and Cossingtion together with traffic free (apart from a small section of Meadow Lane) green routes, which if Saturday was any indication are being well received and used by walkers, cyclist and mobility scooters alike.

Leicester Sky Ride 2011

Another very successful Skyride with an estimated 14,000 riders enjoying the route.
Our stall was loaded with maps this year, thankfully, alongside general information about Sustrans' work.
The star of the show was undoubtedly Justine with the smoothie - maker.
This was the first of many customers!

The rest of us did our best to compete, including being talked into appearing on this YouTube sensation.

I guess we have several ideas to make it even better next year, but have to say a big thank-you to Rory for all his hard work getting the stuff to the site.

Route 48 signing ride

Following a welcome hot drink and plan of action at Keith Drury's house in Birstall we, including Steve Hill, set about making a detailed analysis of the requirements from our prospective for the connect 2 GI signage requirement's of route 48 north from Whiles Lane Birstall north to Rearsby village.

Keith was very organised with his recording system of folder and camera which gave Steve and myself plenty of opportunities to talk with familiar cycling faces as they passed by wondering what we were up to.

I found it quite interesting to see where the route actually goes on the Eastern side through Watermead Park since the new paths have been surfaced and bridges constructed in recent years.

I usually cycle on the Western side of King Lears lake.

- Looking at the road crossing on the Old Fosse Road near Syston Triangle.

There is a possibility of us claiming a mile post or two. One of which we thought would/could be sited adjacent to the North end car park in Watermead, the other if we get it further on into the Vale of Belvoir, more news on this at a later date.

The route through Syston has not yet been confirmed as there are a few options, which we looked at, the best being to split following the one way systems in each direction to and from Syston church where signs are in place through to Hickling Basin.

We continued to Rearsby village and found a few problem areas with existing signs which will need to be repositioned in future.

We parted company at Rearsby with plans of another ride to access the remaining section of 48 into the Vale of Belvoir sometime soon.

-Rearsby Ford

Signing ride, route 63

A beautiful spring day saw four of us at Bede Island just off the Great Central Way.  Heather, who has responsibility for route 63 from Bede Island to Glenfield and Nigel who takes over from there towards Thornton.  Rory brought along his friend Kyle who lead for much of the ride.

We found signs that needed twisting back to show the correct direction.




Signs that looked better ater the bushes had been given a good trim.

And some that just needed replacing to make the route clearer.
In all we found several places which will need further attention and a new supply of signs has been ordered.
It was a useful ride, good to have a new pair of eyes looking at our familiar routes and hopefully when the new signs arrive and are in place the route will be clearer for everyone to use.

”Cycle Route Signage” – Soar Valley GI Signage Scheme

Keith outlined this Scheme – well, the little we know about it so far - in his November 15 2010 contribution to this blog.

Rory James, Heather Massey and Richard Himan met at Keith’s house on Saturday Jan 15th to chat about the GI (Green Infracture) Signage Scheme and its implications for Sustrans and our Group’s work, and to ride some of the routes in the northern part of the affected area. There’s been no further detail of the content of the scheme yet, so we agreed to ask the County Council immediately for more detail, and for another seat at the table in the Steering Group for the Scheme for Rory to take up. We’re writing this week to the Council to that effect.

Rory cycled from home in Glen Parva to Keith’s place in Birstall - at some speed (remember the strong southerly wind on Sat 15th?)! Richard had a hard push into the wind from Loughborough. We then rode with Keith through Watermead along the unsigned part of Route 48 from Birstall to Syston, where signage rather surprisingly starts, and continues to East Goscote.

On the way, we experienced the superb new cyclepaths through Watermead Park, then the most recent tarmac paths along the Canal past the Hope and Anchor, and into Syston itself.

Building of these paths is all part of the Connect2 Scheme, but they will need

signing, which, we hope will be provided under this GI Signage Scheme. (Nothing if not complicated, these Council ways of working, but, of course, these days you grab funding wherever you can get it!)

OUT WITH THE OLD "NO BIKE" REGIME

Watermead Park is being equipped with the Council’s latest version of an entrance gate – the ‘A-frame barrier made by K Barriers Ltd. We negotiated several on the way, and, well, have mixed views about them. They may be easier to negotiate than the ‘kissing gate’ type for those using recliners, tandems and other ‘stretched’ bicycles and those towing kids bikes or trailers. Also for mobility scooters, pushchairs and pedestrians. For a ‘normal’ bike, they’re not really too much trouble but regular use would drive a commuter to take a hack saw to their handlebars. Anyway: go and see for yourselves.

The GI Signage scheme actually starts in the City Centre, and includes a link from London Road Station to the route of NCN 6 along the River Soar. But we have no details of that yet, nor of the route which it’s intended to use between the St Nicholas area and Abbey Park. When that’s clear, we may be asking for help from other Rangers to review what the Council proposes by way of signage for this – given that it interacts at least with NCN Route 6, if not Route 63 as well.”

It was a good day, and we felt we were at the start of a positive programme of works! :-))

Sustrans at the Skyride

Volunteers manned our stall throughout the day at the second Skyride Leicester.  12,500 people were recorded as cycling on the day and a good many visited the stall.  Leaflets about Sustrans were distributed alongside materials and maps provided by the local councils.  Most requested and most sadly missed item was the Leicester Cycling Map - this has been 'in production' for a prolonged period.
I have e-mailed the City Council reporting how many requests we had on the Skyride day but am still awaiting a reply.  Please mail, phone or send a letter to support our requests.
We learnt alot during the day - not least that we need paper weights to hold down the leaflets in the wind that sprung up in the afternoon.
On the whole a successful day for Sustrans and the Skyride organisers.  How lovely to see an event like this come to our city.  You may like to follow this link to see news, pictures and videos of the ride.
http://www.goskyride.com/city/details.aspx?cityid=6