Cycling in Dudley MBC parks has been under threat for some time. Friends groups don’t seem to like cycling, and have lobbied the council to prevent cycling in them – even though these parks are now called Healthy Hubs and designed to increase cycling! Thankfully, the council pushed back, and a code for cycling has been agreed. Stourbug contributed to this code, and doesn’t believe that any point is anything but common sense. To ensure that cycling can continue in our parks, please heed the code, and share it with other cyclists in the area.

One thing though – we’re not responsible for the spelling. That’s not how you spell ‘braking’.

By Russell Eden, Chairman, Stourbridge Bicycle User Group, speaking personally.

On 6^th October, 2011, the Stourbridge News published a very short story regarding cycling on canal towpaths. I had been asked to comment following the tragic death of a local cyclist who had, it seems, suffered a seizure, fallen into the canal and died. That story is here.

The following week there were letters countering my comments. So short was the original piece that I believe people may have misunderstood my message. Michael Malpass of Amblecote didn’t hold back.

Now I may not be a ‘cycling expert’ to him, but I have been recognised nationally for founding Stourbug which has successfully trained perhaps 200 non-cyclists how to cycle and where to cycle. Our group continues to be one of the most successful in the UK.

I stand by my belief that canal towpaths are not a particularly safe haven for cyclists, and they shouldn’t be used lightly. We have any number of members who, prior to joining us, cycled almost exclusively on them; they were petrified at the prospect of cycling on roads. However, all of them very quickly realised that roads are a much better place for cycling, and they are not all full of high speed traffic. Mr Malpass is welcome to his daily commute on familiar ground, but our members don’t want to be restricted to a few miles of canal; riding the same route day after day when there is a World out there to explore. Our members have cycled John O’Groats to Land’s End, the Coast to Coast in the north, Devon Coast to Coast in the south. We cycle to Clun, to the Wrekin, to Boscobel House, from Vietnam to Cambodia, from Stourbridge to Aberdovey, from Stourbridge to La Rochelle, and all of because Stourbug has opened up people’s horizons.

People are frightened to cycle, it seems, by their inability to imagine cycling where it does not include the route they would use in their car – one which is always busy with cars – so they head for the canals – often on a hurriedly purchased heavy MTB which further seeks to limit them. The purpose of our group training is to demonstrate to people that most traffic travels on main roads, and that minor roads have very few vehicles, if any. By avoiding main roads it is possible to avoid all but very light traffic – and by being on these minor roads you also avoid the many pitfalls associated with canal cycling: banging your head on a bridge; falling into the water; getting filthy; flicking dog mess up on your chin; getting punctures from thorns; having to dismount for barriers; stopping for pedestrians; stopping for fishermen; being bitten by dogs; getting tangled in extending dog leads; etc; etc. All of these have happened to our members since 2007. It is difficult to make good progress, and with limited time to cycle they become restrictive. In addition, towpath mud means that cycles need more maintenance as the grit and grime wears the moving parts.

Cycling alone along a canal can be a scary place if you fall and injure yourself. With the exception of weekends very few people use them, so if knocked unconscious you could lie there for hours, something less likely to happen even on a very quiet lane.

Of course, we all use canals from time to time, and once out into the countryside, ie, away from barrier ridden Stourbridge, Wordsley and Dudley, there are lovely places to go. We use canals to facilitate longer routes, but our members will back me in saying that they would prefer to be on the roads for many reasons. I’m confident that any cyclist who restricts their cycling to the canal towpath only does so because they’ve never been shown an alternative. Dudley Council’s short sighted cycling policy, based on canal towpath and disused railway riding, perpetuates the myth that they are the safest places to ride.

Critics of cycling on roads often provide an insight that they could perhaps do with some basic cycling training too; most of the incidents which occur on the road can be avoidable with the use of primary and secondary positioning, and the use of expectation and observation skills. At Stourbug we train our members how to do this – and they go on to cycle many thousands of miles each year in total safety.

A final point – my father was cycling from the Stewponey to Wordsley along the canal a few years ago. It was the first time he’d done so for maybe 20 years. A loose dog ran at him, caused him to swerve into a pot hole and he fell off, head first, into the canal. As he fell his left inner thigh caught on a sharp corner of some sheet piling, and it ripped a hole in his flesh big enough to put your fist in. He got out and was able to cycle the mile home in great pain whilst losing a lot of blood. He was rushed to Russell’s Hall Hospital, whereupon he waited for four hours for treatment. After having to return to hospital three times to have his wound drained of puss and be re-dressed, he ended up being admitted so they could clean his wound properly, and during this time he contracted MRSA and spent nearly a month there. This is a man who, at the age of 74 still holds the Welsh Junior 100 miles time trial record he set at the age of 16. This is a man who has ridden many hundreds of thousands of miles over a lifetime as a utility, time trial, touring and racing cyclist. Yet it was on a canal just a mile from where he lives that he suffered his worst cycling accident. It’s something to think about.

How can cycling on a canal towpath compare favourably with traffic free lanes like the one in the video below?