An 8-point manifesto calls for cities to be made fit for cyclists:
Trucks entering a city centre should be required by law to fit sensors, audible truck-turning alarms, extra mirrors and safety bars to stop cyclists being thrown under the wheels.
The 500 most dangerous road junctions must be identified, redesigned or fitted with priority traffic lights for cyclists and Trixi mirrors that allow lorry drivers to see cyclists on their near-side.
A national audit of cycling to find out how many people cycle in Britain and how cyclists are killed or injured should be held to underpin effective cycle safety.
Two per cent of the Highways Agency budget should be earmarked for next generation cycle routes, providing £100 million a year towards world-class cycling infrastructure. Each year cities should be graded on the quality of cycling provision.
The training of cyclists and drivers must improve and cycle safety should become a core part of the driving test.
20mph should become the default speed limit in residential areas where there are no cycle lanes.
Businesses should be invited to sponsor cycleways and cycling super-highways, mirroring the Barclays-backed bicycle hire scheme in London.
Every city, even those without an elected mayor, should appoint a cycling commissioner to push home reforms.
Tweet your support and let's get this trending on Twitter- end your tweets with #cyclesafe
I'd drafted some notes back in October 2011. See below in italics...
I'm now back in counselling. Leanne thinks my PTSD is based in anxiety and not depression. DURRRRRR, no shit Sherlock! It really doesn't take alot to work that one out! Ok, ok so what you gonna do about it? She doesn't think CBT is for me but EMDR is the way forward. I've read a little and it all seems a bit... well..... ok, I will try and stay open minded... no more reading. Let's just do it. I've had 2 sessions with Leanne and we're going to start the EMDR tomorrow (Monday)- spent these last 2 sessions talking crap and crying... bloody sick of it!
Well, it's now nearly February and I've had my counselling. Been signed off as 'normal' (lol!!!!!) or back to a state she thinks I can cope with. Between you and me, I think the real reason I was signed off is because she went on maternity leave and it tied in very nicely for her. Me. A cynic? Never!
Anyway, I have still no real understanding of the EMDR process but it seems to have made a difference. At the moment, no flashbacks and feeling okay. There is still alot of resentment to the hospital. Until the legal wranglings have completed, there always will be. Am I still short tempered? Yes is the honest answer but I can control myself more. Deep breath, safe place and all that. It works for me. The thing that still works best is my bike and running, so let's leave all this BORING drearyness behind and think to the year ahead. Let's think of events, races, fun and the happiness and achievement it brings.
Gran Fondo
is an Italian term for a a single day cycling event. You'll also hear these types of events called cyclosportifs or sportive. Whatever you call it, these events are multiple distance rides on open (sometime closed) roads along with timing (split into age groups and M/F), snacks and a cracking atmosphere for every cyclist.
Gran fondo fever has taken the cycling world by storm and there events for every level of cyclist. Honest! Its popularity is gathering a pace in the UK, especially with it being Olympic year and our strong team. Here are some of the popular European rides-
La Pinarello Gran Fondo This is one I really want to ride. PLUS, if anyone would like to buy me a Pinarello Dogma or Rokh bike, I'd be most grateful!!! We met Andrea Pinarello at last year's Gran Fondo New York and sadly he passed away in August last year :( Best wishes to his family.
We’ve all heard about how difficult the pave sections are in Paris-Roubaix, but I want to experience it for myself one day. It’s only a 135kms route instead of the real 260kms, but to be honest, I’m not sure I really need to do the full route to get an appreciation for the cobbles!
174km long and 5180 metres of climbing. A beast! The route goes up the Col du Glandon, Col du Telegraphe, Col du Galibier and finishes at the top of Alpe d’Huez. Enough said.
The website says: L'Etape du Tour, established in 1993 to allow amateur cyclists to test their legs on the route of one of the mountain stages in the Tour de France, has become the reference race for cyclosportive riders from all over the world.
This is its second year and I'm gutted I can't go. It's a brilliantly organised day. Great course and great party afterwards. I'll definitely be back to do this one again.
hoping to add Lincoln Triathlon, Woodhall Triathlon and hopefully the Wiggle Dragon Ride (which is ballot entry), will add in a section of the Tour of Britain and a couple more I imagine. I'd really like to get one in abroad but will have to wait and see. Got to get through these ones first!
Oh and by the way, keep an eye out over the next few weeks as there will be an exciting announcement.... hopefully!
There is a page on Facebook called Holiday Inn Stay You. An odd name BUT an advert/link was spotted by my wife within minutes of it going live-
Calling all cycling fans. We're giving you the chance to ride with World Champion and cycling legend Mark Cavendish. Clickto register. Places are limited. The first 150 to register will be e-mailed full details.
So, she entered me and I got a place! I actually got a place! The date for the ride was today, 31 October, which is also the date GoWithCrow stops collecting money. It's been a loooong old slog, but finally got there. As I type, the running total, including Gift Aid is £1442.50... so close to the £1500 but never mind! Anyway, it just seemed right that this should happen today if you know what I mean.
So armed with my Willy Wonka Golden ticket, off I set at 0430 for an 0800 registration and 0830 start. Got there in plenty of time despite the rubbish traffic as I approached London (how people commute every day I have no idea!!)
And as surreal as the morning was, it was well organised... just the right amount of people without it being crowded. The venue was Redbridge Cycling Centre near Ilford and Chigwell- great little set up with a 2km circuit- we were to do 20k with Mr Cavendish. So after a few autographs and pictures we were all lined up at the start for a photocall. For some reason, I ended up on the front row (must be my boyish good looks!)- pics done and off we went.
The first couple of laps were a bit hairy as alot of people weren't used to riding in a group but eventually, we all spread out and the downhills were great for a bit o speed. In fact the course was excellent! I even overtook Cav!....well sort of :)
Lucky old Cav being photographed with me!
What happened was I got lapped by Mr Cavendish (it turns out on my 9th lap- his final) half way round the circuit. I then caught him up and rode alongside. First thing that blurted out of my mouth was "any idea how many laps we've done?" (all of a sudden I thought what a stupid thing to ask- is that the best you've got Crow, you nob!) and to my relief he says "no idea pal, I'm just waiting for someone to tell me to stop!" I then decided to cut my losses before making a total d**k of myself, so shot off and crossed the finish before him! We were then all offered breakfast whilst Cav did interviews and more pics.
"Can you sign this to Phil and Helen please."
"Sure no problem."
"Oh and could you put Go With Crow underneath?"
"yer what?! Go with... wha...crow? c..r..o..w?"
"erm [grins] yeah, it's this charity thing I've been doing for Intensive Care..."
"There you go pal."
"Thanks Mark- nice to meet you!"
And that, as they say, was it. Like I said, a very surreal way to finish 6 months of fundraising.
I'll be posting more as things are still going on and as long as someone is reading this drivel, I'll keep posting it. There's more up and coming events to chat about- decisions to be made about which foreign event to do in 2012, more thoughts on my counselling (3rd session tomorrow!) and the process I'm undertaking PLUS, of course, what ICU decide to do with the money!
Not much to say. Steve was one of the world's greatest tech visionaries. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and this guy was imitated! From the Mac operating system (Windows OS was always 5 paces behind Apple- a poor man's OS yet marketed as ground breaking. We saw right through you Mr Gates!)
to Pixar to the OSX followed by the iMac, iPod, iPhone and of course the iPad. Genius and a hard act to follow. RIP Mr Jobs from a photographer that has been kitted out by your company since 1995
James Cracknell and Jerone Walters record attempt was a cracker this weekend. Starting on Saturday at 3am, Cracknell and Walters were trying for the Land's End to John O'Groats (LEJOG) world record on a tandem. The record to be broken has stood since 1966 at 50hrs 14mins and 25 secs. Over the entire weekend, it looked like they were on track to smash this BUT with only 68 miles to John O'Groats, their safety team stopped them and called it off. At the moment, Cracknells blog is vague to say the least but suggests that his heart simply wasn't in it.
"[The team] detected a 'laissez faire' attitude to the record that hadn't been there over the previous two days," he said. "It was my reaction to being stopped within 60 miles of John o'Groats and a new record that was telling. Previously I may have protested or tried to argue my case but in recovering from my accident last year I've learnt to trust and rely on people around me a lot more."
The press release from the main sponsor, Project7Racing says "Richard Gorman, crew chief for the attempt run by Project 7 Racing, took the decision to call a halt to the ride at 1.15am when it became clear that sheer mental fatigue was beginning to seriously compromise the safety on the road of both riders.
“It’s the most heart breaking and difficult moment you can possibly imagine,” commented Gorman, “After 773 miles of riding not a single member of the team or crew want it to come but I had make a call on the safety of the riders and we will just have to come back again even more prepared in the future.” ...Drama then ensued when the pair broke a crank near the Forth Bridge; having switched to spare tandem Rocket 1 while Rocket 2 was repaired, the duo lost over 20 minutes when Rocket 1 punctured in the middle of the Forth Bridge.
With just 68 miles left to the end of the record run all the calculations indicated that the pair would be within minutes of beating the existing record of 50 hours, 14 mins, 25 seconds set in 1966 by Pete Swinden & John Withers, making the decision to abandon even harder to bear. “No-one said breaking records is easy. I’m just so terribly proud of James and Jerone and the whole crew for their ability to get so far.”
And on another note -and an important one at that...potholes. Bloody potholes. My village is one big sodding pothole. No? Well try it on a bike, then you'll see! Anyway, a new iPhone app has come to light to help report the state of our nations roads. So, all you iPhone users, download it here and get snapping! If I find any humongous ones (what do I mean if....when!)- I'll post them here. Also, another site all about potholes- how exciting...
Finally, just adding this picture- one of the best pics I've seen for a while and an image to make us Brits feel proud.
Well done Cav on bringing the rainbow jersey home- looking forward to the Olympics- no pressure mate!! Though I still think Bradley Wiggins for SPOTY for one of the most amazing lead outs in the Worlds. Great team, great race!
This is going to be a LONG post! So much has happened in the last 12 hours, let alone the last 7 days! Where to begin.... well, Monday saw the Garmin Cervelo Rideout: 500 invitees in the New Forest to ride with the pro team. Excellent. 29 miles at an average speed of 18mph... hmm, ok that's do-able...just. Not gonna dwell on this one but to say it was a fab ride. Our group was led by Lucy Martin and Roger Hammond. The group splintered but we all made good time- just the sort of practice I needed in preparation for the Wiggle Rut that was ahead of me on Sunday (Gulp!)
Q&A with none other than Ned Boulting!
And so to the sorry tale of the Rut. A sportive of 102 miles of undulating roads. Having just started to develop a really bad cough and now drippy nose, I was not really looking forward to this one- luckily, the forecast was looking good. Our team consisted of Myself, Andy, Gavin and Jon- all the usual suspects that ride regularly (well, me and Andy do!) Setting off at 0530, Jon mentioned we might have a problem... in so much as his race number was 6666- Nah, we'll be fine...
We arrived in plenty of time and set off at just past 8 o'clock. I didn't feel so good at this point and the thought of 7 hours in the saddle was looking less and less like fun. Oh bollocks, let's just get on with it- stop moaning and man up! A mile in and it begins to rain...FML this is gonna be a LONG day! 5 miles in and the boy racer, Gavin, takes the front caning it down an unknown hill at a good 30mph. As his back wheel slid from under him, he corrected his position, ending up on the verge and then, in slo mo, he somersaults into a tree hitting it with his back, the bike in the ditch and him motionless. I start to pull in with Andy now having to avoid me almost crashing too. The corner is blind so we arrange ourselves at the top of the hill, halfway down and Jon looking after Gavin who by now has very vocally told us how painful his back is. oooo that's not good- ring HQ and get a medic QUICK. Number- why isn't the phone number on the back of our race numbers?!- shit- pull someone over. And now no signal... what a nightmare- all this AND more riders belting down the hill- we're now in full safety marshalling mode to protect Gavin- SLOW DOWN! 90% of the riders were brilliant- but you always get 10% of dicks who think they know better- some slid, some were plain selfish. If we hadn't been there I'm sure more people would have come off. It was awful! Eventually a motorbike safety marshall turned up as did a paramedic followed by and ambulance. Gav was moved onto a spine board as a safety precaution and after a few pics and sarcastic banter (yes, by this point we knew he was going to be ok- "if it was really serious, he'd be in a helicopter by now"-and so humour took over as it seems to in such situations- almost like a safety valve releasing itself)
Gav's new FB profile picture
Thanks to the lovely paramedic that shot this for us!
So Gav was taken to Leicester for X-rays and all the tests. We carried on- there was nothing we could do for him. By now, we had decided to ride the short route- this was 73 miles. That's still do-able plus the sun was coming out. Ok boys, let's ride this for Gavin- it's the least we can do. Over the next hour, I'd perked up. Dunno what had happened but I just seemed to get my head in the right place and we all began to settle into the ride. After 20 miles, Jon began to get cramp in his legs- he told us he was ok and to keep going. After the feed station he was struggling- certainly on the hills. No problem, we ride as a team, we help each other- that's how it goes. We bunched as a group to give Jon some shelter to help him recover a bit- there was still quite a distance to go. From about 40 miles, we had go a real good pace going- the HTC High Road train had nothing on us- we were shifting! We were bombing along at a good 30mph on the flat. It was brilliant- Totally in the zone and loving every minute. Then the worst thing possible happened. Jon crashed. It was awful. That bloody race number of his had struck for the second time. look at this video clip. He fell like this...
I ditched my bike as quickly as possible to get to him- I was worried he'd get run over! We recovered his bike and shuffled him over to the side of the road and dialled 999- well, we knew he needed an ambulance so we simply cut out the middle man! His legs had gone into spasm from cramping and he'd landed heavily on his shoulder. When the safety marshall arrived, he did a double take... "Didn't I see you lot earlier today?" "Erm, maybe..." "Yep, it's your collarbone mate. Ambulance on the way? Good." And then there was two.
On closer inspection of Jon's helmet, we made a discovery. It had taken a right bashing and Jon had actually rolled on his head cracking his helmet. Basically, it had saved his life. If there was ever an example of why we wear helmets and why we tell our children to wear helmets, this was it. Have a look. On the second picture showing the inside, I've circled the cracks.
So Jon was being taken to Grantham for a check up, X-rays etc... we've been here once before!
Eventually the broom wagon turns up and we (well, I- Andy wanted to carry on!) decided to cut our losses and hitch a lift back to the finish line. We'd completed 49 miles. It felt like a lot more. We were exhausted to the point of hysteria. Here's us in the wagon. This day was like being in the twilight zone. Did we enjoy it? Well, yes. It's a day none of us will ever forget. The fallen soldiers have wounds and a tale to tell. This day was not an experience any of us want to repeat but in the strangest way, we did have fun. Sort of.
Gavin has whiplash and extensive bruising. Jon has broken his collarbone in two places. Both guys are home tonight. Cyclists are a tough breed and here's to our next ride out. We're really sorry how the day panned out- Should have listened to Jon with his warnings of scary jinx'd numbers. Well, we know now don't we!
As a final warning to all you people who are too cool for school and refuse to wear a helmet, I'm adding a favourite YouTube clip.
To adults- you have to lead by example: your children will not wear a helmet unless you do. To any kids reading this- don't ever listen to your mates that laugh at you wearing a helmet- they are the idiots, not you. Be safe, not dead.
This week has been the Tour of Britain. It's like the Tour de France but not as good. No, I don't really mean that :) Anyway, you will recall from my witterings on this blog, I rode the Norfolk section a few weeks ago. Today is actually that section of the Tour, so we're off to watch the finish at Sandringham.
Watching this race on TV reminded me of Shuttleworth Ward. This was the last ward in Lincoln Hospital I was placed and so spent many hours watching shit TV. Apart from enjoying the Tour from my bed, other memorable programmes included The Professionals, Randal & Hopkirk Deceased, The Saint (Roger Moore version) and The Champions! My God I watched some REAL retro crap! And the other thing that unfolded during this stint in bed was the Chilean miners being rescued in the tubey thing... Remember?
This week I also saw a new shrink. I was passed onto her by ICU as she has an interest in ICU cases. This day I get told that I was in ICU for 42 days.... Hang on, I thought I was in there for 4 weeks!? No. It was 6 weeks. 6 f**king weeks. What more stuff have I yet to discover? To you, the reader, this probably sounds like nothing. To me, well actually it makes a hell of a difference. Just when I think I have the whole episode ordered in my mind, something new comes to light to change it all. Some days it's all consuming. Some days it's not. Most days I think about the fact I nearly died. For the last few weeks I've not slept well. Don't get me wrong, I think I'm ok. Not getting flashbacks, just waking up at 430 and not able to get back to sleep again: irritating rather than a problem.
Geraint Thomas with a decent cyclist!
Cav at the start of Trentham, Stoke stage
Fans at the finish line
Cav finished and not happy!
Thor Hushovd being interviewed
Lars Boom winning the Stoke stage
Ben Swift by the Sky bus
I think I reported earlier that July/August was a difficult time for me. Flashbacks and quite bad mood swings. I delt with it- sought help, you know, all the right things. Within the family, all was not completely right. Where communication was supposed to be, it seemed there was none. I thought I'd said my piece and everyone else thought they knew what it was BUT didn't want to say anything due to fear of me shouting. Thus creating a stalemate. It doesn't take much to sit and chat. Having the balls to do it and the nouse to spot it is another thing. And it's all obvious stuff. After a good 'airing' of all things, the house atmosphere improved. Nurses, for example seem to just spot the physical stuff... they don't really see patients after they leave hospital so there is not necessarily any knowledge of the Post Trauma side of things. For our family, this is kinda important and now, communication has reached a new level for us all. Because of this, I [think] am calmer and returning to how I should be. On Facebook recently, I've called myself "Nearly Phil Crow" cos, well, I was not all there. I'm now in a way better place mentally and I think my family are calmer for it- no eggshells to walk on in this gaff! And so to anyone out there reading this who knows someone going through PTSD, talk to them. Understand them. Get them to open up. It will not be easy but it is worth it. You really have no idea what's behind our eyes and we are racked with guilt for all sorts of illogical reasons that, actually, we DO want to talk about. It's shit. But there is light at the end of the tunnel- I know, I'm cycling towards it at a rate of knots :)
