Britain's bike friendly cars of the 1950s

I got my first lightweight bike in 1950, it was only five years after the end of WWII and the economic turnaround in Britain and the rest of Europe was only in its early stages. Petrol was in short supply throughout WWII for obvious reasons. It was needed for the war effort, plus off shore oil had yet to be discovered in the UK. Oil had to be imported, and petrol was strictly rationed.

Rationing did not end at the end of WWII, in fact in 1948, (Three years after the war ended.) The Motor Spirit Regulation Act was passed by the British Government, and red dye was added to some petrol. The red petrol was for agriculture and commercial use only. A private motorist caught with red petrol in his tank, could lose his driver’s license for a year, and a petrol station selling red gas to private motorists could be shut down.

The scarcity of petrol throughout the war and the five years that followed, meant there was very little motorized traffic on the roads, and even when petrol rationing ended in 1950, the average working man did not rush out to buy a car, many had never owned, or even driven a car. Traffic was light even into the mid to late 1950s.

In the late 1940s, my pre-teen years, I would ride my bike after school, in the dark using battery lights, with no fear for my safety from my parents. This era is now referred to as the “Golden Age of Cycling.” On the Continent of Europe, cycle racing was the number one sport.

Looking back, it was a great time to ride a bike. Many of the cars on the road were pre-war from the 1920s and 1930s. New cars produced were like the Morris Minor (Above.) and the Ford Anglia, (Below.) had a tiny engines around one liter. (1,000cc.) About the size of many motorcycles today.

You could forget about zero to sixty in a few seconds, for most vehicles, even the new ones, *60mph was the top speed, and that was probably downhill with the wind behind you. Throughout the 1950s, on city streets, there were still as many bicycles as cars, there were even a few horse drawn carts still in use.

A car driver did not sit fuming at a traffic light because there was a cyclist or a horse and cart ahead of him. The driver was lucky if he could get above 20mph between lights, and a fit cyclist on a lightweight bike could get away from a light faster than he could.

The first Motorway (Freeway.) the M1, did not open until 1959. It was approximately 70 miles long from London to Birmingham. I remember within the first few weeks it was littered with broken down cars, as people took their old clunkers out and took them up to speeds they were never built to maintain. The Golden Age of Cycling ended from that point on, as throughout the 1960s and 1970s, more motorways were built and other main roads were widened and straightened.

During the 1950s, most of the people driving cars had grown up riding bicycles, their parents probably still rode a bicycle as their personal transport. They didn’t get upset with cyclists on the road, and they were content to cruise along at 30mph, occasionally reaching 50 or 60 on a straight road that ran downhill. At least they were in they were protected from the rain and cold.

Gradually all that changed, and now you have a generation who never rode a bike to school as a kid. Owning and driving a car becomes ever increasingly expensive, and with the spending of all that money comes an attitude of entitlement. 

However, Britain is still the same size as it was in the 1950s, but with a far greater population. Improved highways mean that you can drive from one city to another in a very short time. But what do you do when you get to the big city, where there is nowhere to park, and streets where built for horse drawn vehicles?

The cars of the 1950s and before may have been underpowered by today’s standards, but they still got people from A to B. They were cheap to buy, used less petrol, and they were simple to work on. A person could do their own maintenance. Most of all because of their lack of power and speed they were less of a danger to pedestrians and cyclists.

*Footnote: I am sure someone far more knowledgeable about the Morris Minor will tell me it had a top speed was in excess of 60mph. But just as many of today’s cars have a maximum speed well over 100mph. few are ever driven to that limit. 

    To Share click "Share Article" below

The Mob Mentality

Whenever I am engaged in conversation with people who are not cyclists, on learning of my background in the bike business, and my continued interest in cycing, they will invariably ask me,

“Why do large groups of cyclists take up the whole damn road? If you give even a friendly toot on the horn to let them know you are passing, you will more often than not get the finger. Why are they so hostile and so rude?”

This is how I try to explain it:

First of all in any random group of people you have a cross-section of society. Some are nice people, and some are assholes. It is the assholes in the group that will give you the finger. Rarely would you get the whole group giving the one finger salute in unison. Just as there are assholes who drive cars, there are assholes who ride bikes.

The other thing is the mob mentality. This is a common human trait that we see in any group of people not just cyclists. When people get together in a group, they are less considerate of others outside the group.

Your neighbor is having a party, and as the guests leave late at night, they laugh and talk loudly, slam car doors, and disrupt the sleep of people living several houses away. Usually these people are good neighbors, why would they have such inconsiderate friends we ask ourselves?

How many people have been in a restaurant where there is a large group of say ten or more people? I guarantee that party will be extremely loud, often obnoxious, and will have little regard for anyone else who is unfortunate enough to be seated nearby.  

However, this is what we have come to expect in certain bars and restaurants. There will always be large groups made up of co-workers, family members, celebrating someone’s birthday or something.

Also, an important factor, these are just people you can’t stereotype them.

But get a bunch of cyclists on the road, enjoying each other’s company, and are being no more, or no less considerate of others around them than the party in the restaurant.

The big difference is, now you can stereotype them, they are cyclists. Whenever you see a bunch of cyclists together, they seem to be behaving badly, therefore all cyclists are lumped together as being bad.

The larger the group the worse the behavior. Take sports fans assembled in their thousands and the mob mentality really takes over. The mob could be angry over their team’s loss, or celebrating their victory, the outcome is the same.

In extreme cases store windows are broken, parked cars are overturned, and even set on fire. Most people would not behave that way individually, or even in a smaller group.

This is how I try to explain why some cyclists behave badly. I don’t condone it. It is one of the reasons I no longer ride with large groups, even though it can be fun. So I ask that people don’t condemn me for riding a bike, just because a few cyclists behave badly.

What is needed is a little more tolerance and understanding on both sides. Cyclists need to be a little more considerate of other road users. Remember our cycling kit and helmet is what sets us apart so we will be stereotyped and others like us will be judged by our behavior.

And the general public needs to realize that these are just a group of friends enjoying each other’s company and getting some fresh air and exercise while doing so.  And if it is a Sunday, where are you going in such a big hurry anyway?

What are your views, and how do you handle the conversation with non-cyclists?

     To Share click "Share Article" below

The Wave

A wave of the hand has to be one of the simplest and yet basic of human gestures. A wave can say, “Hi,” or it can say, Thank you.” 

Most important a wave to a stranger is saying, “I acknowledge your existence, I am not ignoring you.”

The wave immediately says, “I am friendly towards you.” Even the most hostile and aggressive of drivers, will give another driver a thank you wave, if they slow and let them in. 

In fact if you don’t get a thank you wave, you feel slightly offended, somehow deprived, “Hey, I let you in and I didn’t get a thank you wave, where’s my thank you wave?”

Some cyclists will not return a wave to another cyclist, or will not do so unless they are wearing Lycra and a helmet like them. Total bull-shit. I know it must be terribly hard if you are lying down comfortably on those aero bars, to struggle up to give a proper wave, but at least raise a hand, make the effort.

Unless you are a serious time-trialist, or tri-athlete, it might be a good excuse to dump the aero bars. Set yourself free to sit up and wave to the whole world.

I wave to everybody when I am riding, not just people who look like me, other people on any kind of a bike, those walking, running, or on skate-boards.

Even ladies pushing babies in strollers. They are all people like me, out getting some fresh air, and exercise. Sometimes, I get a wave back but not always, I don’t feel deprived or offended if I don’t. 

If I see a driver waiting to turn in front of me, or pull out from a side road, I give a wave. This time it is more of an attention getter, “See me, I’m over here.” Rather like the wave to a waiter in a busy restaurant.

However, it is still a friendly gesture, and the driver may interpret it as, “Thank you for waiting, and not pulling in front of me. Often, they will wave back, which is very nice. It means they have seen me, but more important they acknowledge my existence, and my right to be on the road.

A wave costs me nothing, and yet it gives so much. It gives me a great deal of satisfaction and pleasure, makes my ride a better experience.

If you are not in the habit of waving, I can recommend it. It is good for the soul, yours, and your fellow travelers.

     To Share click "Share Article" below 

Russ Mantle, the Million Mile cyclist

This past week Russ Mantle an 82-year-old English cyclist completed a million miles on his bike. Russ started cycling in 1952, that is 67 years, averaging 14,925 miles a year, 287 miles per week.

His achievement reminded me when I started cycling about the same time. The British “Cycling” weekly magazine, at the beginning of each year would print a mileage chart that you could save and create a graph of your weekly mileage throughout the year.

At the end of each year Cycling Magazine would publish some of the reader’s charts, along with any stories about specific rides that year. How did one measure mileage back then, you might ask? In the 1930s, Joseph Lucas, a company that made bicycle lights and automobile electronics, made a little mechanical mileage counter, called a “Cyclometer.” (See magazine ad below from 1936.)

A simple inexpensive little device, costing 3 shillings and 6 pence, in 1936. About 17.5 UK Pence in today’s money. 22 cents US. It attached to the front wheel spindle on the right side, and it was easy to glance down and read your mileage as you rode. It had a little pin that attached to a spoke, so it struck a five-point star-wheel each wheel revolution. Thus, five-wheel revolutions turned the star wheel one complete turn.

It was calibrated to measure miles and tenths of a mile with a standard 27-inch wheel. If one wanted to be super accurate, you could ride a measured mile, take a reading to calculate the mileage for any size tire.

Its only drawback was, it made an annoying tick, tick sound. I used one when I started cycling but gave it up as I got into riding seriously. The Cylometer disappeared from general use sometime in the 1960s as I remember, and there was not another simple device until the electronic ones appeared some years later.

One can also calculate mileage on a map. British Ordinance Survey maps are extremely accurate, especially the larger scale one inch to the mile, which mark detail like field gates and old growth trees. I was never into keeping accurate records of my mileage, and there were long periods when I was too busy running a business to even ride a bike.

Russ Mantle however, kept meticulous records of not only his mileage but towns he went through and cafes he stopped at. On occasions, he even recorded the temperature and wind direction. He rode time trials with success and toured extensively in the UK and in Europe, USA and Canada.

It must be nice to read through his old notes and remember some of those rides in detail that would otherwise be long forgotten. What a tremendous sense of achievement to travel a million miles under your own power. All done for the simple joy of riding a bike. Only another true cyclist could understand and appreciate the enormity of such a feat.

I read a few online comments made by sceptics like “If it didn’t happen on Strada, it didn’t happen.” Back in 1952 when you sent your yearly mileage chart off to Cycling magazine, there was no glory, No one even read your name, let alone remember it. No one gave it a thumbs up, or “Liked” it.

You did it for your own personal satisfaction, and where is the personal satisfaction if you lie or cheat? It is a sad world when we have become so desensitized by corruption, and lying, we can’t allow an 82-year-old man to share his moment of glory in attaining a lifetime achievement, without saying “Prove It.”

Hats of to you Russ, I look at your picture at the top of the page and I see a man who looks like he rode a million miles, and that is good enough for me.

     To Share click "Share Article" below 

Is it time to opt out of the culture of speed?

All over the United States and indeed the world, people are riding bicycles. Forget about saving the planet, that is not the reason, it is a satisfying and civilized way to travel. Faster and more efficient than walking, and for not much more energy input. Compared to driving a person is burning calories rather than gasoline.

A person riding to work each day on his bicycle is traveling for free, he gets there in only slightly less time that his colleague who drives. In some congested cities the cyclists gets there faster. He has not had to allot time to exercise or pay gym fees. When he gets to his destination he has fewer problems with parking.

Many more people would ride bicycles but they are afraid of being hit by cars. There are still those who will try to intimidate and bully anyone in their way. The whole “Share the Road” concept is flawed in that it implies that the roads are for cars and cyclists are asking drivers to share space with them.

This is not the case, public roads are just that, “Public.” They are there for people to travel from their home to where ever they need to be. The right is for the person to travel, not according to the persons’ mode of transport.

There is no pleasure in driving anymore, it is the myth and the lie being sold to the public by the auto-makers.

Look at any car ad on TV and what do you see? The obligatory slow motion shot of a car sliding sideways in a controlled skid, cars driving at break neck speed on deserted streets and highways.

This is not reality, on today’s congested roadways. Not only is driving fast impractical, it is downright dangerous. And what useful purpose does it serve? There is a legitimate argument for being allowed to maintain high speeds for long journeys on freeways that traverse miles and miles of open countryside.

However, when freeways approach cities and become congested, there is a definite need to slow to the same speed as everyone else. It is the driver trying to maintain his high rate of speed under these conditions that not only cause accidents, but cause people to brake and in turn lead to the stop and go traffic conditions that are all too familiar.

The best thing a person can do is to realize that getting from A to B is a necessity, so if you can’t make it a pleasure then at least make it stress free. Opt out of the culture of speed, slow down and relax.

Speed limits need to be lowered to 20mph in crowded city centers where there are many pedestrians and cyclists. Would such a speed limit have a great impact on people’s over all drive time?

In most cases drivers simply accelerate to race from one traffic light to the next. On long stretches of highway, traffic lights can be timed so someone driving the speed limit can have green lights all the way through a town.

The faster cars go the more space is needed between each car. Therefore, people moving slower but continuously in a procession can travel closer to each other. This means traffic is moving slower but on any given stretch of highway it is carrying a larger volume of vehicles. So is the overall flow of vehicles per hour that much less? Bottom line is, people still get to where they need to be.

The world is becoming more and more crowded. Populations are exploding everywhere including the US. Every person who rides a bicycle is taking one more car off the road, making more room for those who choose to drive.

Wouldn’t life be a little more pleasant if everyone slowed down a notch? So what if it took you five or ten minutes longer to get to work, at the end of each day would that make a huge difference? Of course wishing for this is wishing for Utopia, but who would argue that it would be better if less people had to die on our roads.

The cities across America that have adopted a “Bicycle Friendly” program, have found that when more people ride bicycles the overall speed of traffic slows. With that comes less fatalities, not just for cyclists, but across the board for pedestrians and motorists too.

Previously posted May 2012 

     To Share click "Share Article" below