It is widely known that the Queen must think that the whole world smells of manicured lawns and spruced-up fences. She must think that cars are made of soft leather, sound proofing and that chauffeurs come supplied, and she must assume that the highways agency does a superb job of keeping the roads in perfect condition.
But she's not the only one.
There was a bike race in the area around my home on Sunday, and two hundred of the world's best cyclists descended on the city and it's surrounding country lanes. Now, I spend a lot of time on these roads: I guess that I have done about 4000 miles on the very lanes that the crème de la crème of world cycling were haring along. I can, therefore, vouch for the fact that these roads are not in the best state possible. In places, they are awful, and bordering on dangerous. There are some very nasty potholes on some very tricky descents, and if you don't know about them, you can be in serious bother. I went flying down one hill a few weeks back only to discover that the Dutch authorities had decided to pour gravel on it. I'm not sure how this was meant to help anything. My point is that the roads are not brilliantly cared for. But in the build-up to the big race, I went for a ride to discover that the roads are all in perfect condition - glass smooth, clean and, thankfully, gravel-less. The road fixers had obviously been at work in readiness for the pros.
Now, I could moan about the total lack of equality displayed by this sudden flurry of activity, but actually, I think it's good. The Dutch are famously keen on bikes, so they pull out all the stops to make sure that their beloved bike races go ahead - last year they granted a plane an exemption from the volcano induced no-fly-zone so that it could broadcast images of the race to the world.
The reason I won't complain about this is simple: I get to use the better roads, too. It benefits everyone who uses those roads, and the fact of the matter is that the pros are a lot better at cycling than me, that's why they're pros and I'm not, and it justifies the work being done for their benefit and not mine. What I actually think is that we should have more bike races and in more different places. For example, I spend a lot of time in North Yorkshire. The roads there are fantastic for cycling; the hills are astonishingly challenging, so there are loads of opportunities for strong/brave/foolish breakaway riders to make their bid for freedom. The only disadvantage is that some of these roads are abysmally maintained. The harsh winters smash them to pieces, and nothing is ever done to repair them. But, as I've just seen, the pros coming to town justifies the roads being re-metaled.
It also provides a fantastic spectacle, which must encourage more people to get out on their bikes and have a go. Considering Britain’s growing waistline, an increase in what is possibly the most endurance-heavy of the endurance sports (London Marathon: 2hrs 5mins, Amstel Gold Race: 6hrs 30mins) has to be a good thing. On top of that, we are constantly being told to use non-polluting modes of transport. Now, forget electric cars, which aren’t viable at the moment. Bikes are mass produced, cheap, require zero fuel and produce no emissions – not even at power plants. They use a bare minimum of materials, too, so that aspect of their production is eco-friendly, too.
So, why don’t we have top bike races in the UK?
Well, there is an obvious element of tradition. We never really have had many big bike races in England’s pastures green. Furthermore, many of the roads are not good enough for a proper peloton to roll through without instigating total chaos. There’s the Tour of Britain, but none of the one-day classics that are so popular on the continent. And that’s because they’re so expensive. I cannot pretend to know exact figures, but I know that the reason we do not get closed road bike races in this country it cost. Only the police are allowed to close roads, which makes perfect sense. But they charge a ridiculous amount of money to do it. They claim that their officers need special training before being able to close roads for bike races, which is fair enough, I suppose. But they also seem to believe that they need this training before every race they preside over. This means that organisers cannot afford to put their races on closed roads, which means that we cannot develop cycling like it is possible to do on the continent.
Which, to return to my original theme, means that we shall not have good country lanes, extending a vicious circle poor roads leading to no bike racing leading to poor roads.
You might think it’s very ego-centric of me to assume that cycling is the only thing that gets us a better road network, but I will simply point out the evidence of the beautiful Amstel course. And I will also say that, even if it is not the only reason the road network is improved, it is a reason. To refuse to use cycling to get a better network merely because it’s not the only method of doing so would be like refusing to jog to get fitter, just because it’s not the only way to do it. Unless you choose one of these other ways, you won’t get anywhere, and I don’t see anyone doing anything else. Also, I would point out that the country lanes are vitally important to many people, but that these people are not of direct importance to the economy, so it makes no financial sense for the Government to care for them. Cycling can give these quietly crucial lanes an economic raison d'être that they don’t currently have. Both advertising and tourism would pave the roads with, if not gold, at least some semi-precious mineral.
That benefits everyone, and it’s not just for that reason that we should encourage cycle racing. As I said before, it benefits our health, our financial comfort and the environment
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