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Riders on the Chiltern 100 sportiveChilterns cyclists asked to clean up their act
Cyclists in the Chilterns have been asked to watch their speed, and not to litter, after one man raised concerns about road safety and items being discarded by riders at weekends.
Chairman of the River Chess Society, Paul Jennings, says the area has seen an “incredible” increase in cycling, and told GetBucks a minority of those on two wheels are behaving badly, and has accused local cycling clubs of ignoring the issue.
However, a secretary of Berkhamsted CC, the area’s largest cycling club, told road.cc he has seen no evidence of littering, and says BCC members aren't responsible, adding while local riders know the short sharp nature of the hills, more can be done to address the problem of speed.
Jennings said: “There has been an incredible increase in cycling in the area. It becomes very busy on a Sunday. It is great to see so many people using this a route to fitness,”
“As with so many things a minority can ruin it for the majority. The danger of speeding cyclists on narrow downhill sections of road will lead to accidents and possibilities of fatalities.”
Jennings says he regularly finds items discarded across the Chilterns, particularly after weekends, and claims he found six or seven inner tubes in recent weeks. He believes he has been ignored by local cycling clubs about the problem.
Simon Boysey is co-founder and secretary of Berkhamsted Cycling Club, the area’s largest club, with 200 members, from amateur to team GB triathletes.
He says no-one has approached him about the litter issue, but that the club makes a concerted effort to ensure good rider behaviour and bike handling skills.
“A big part of what we do is promote good behaviour on the roads,” he told road.cc.
“Leaders are there to manage the behaviour and pace of the group. We have never had to say anything to any of our members about littering; it has never even come up. From the hundreds of rides I have been on I have never seen a single person littering. I don’t think these are local cyclists to Berkhamsted, that I have come across.”
He says the number of sportives and races has increased in recent years and large numbers of visiting recreational cyclists come to the Chilterns to cycle.
He said: “I’m not trying to blame people who come to the Chilterns, but I think if there is an incidence of littering it wouldn’t be from someone from here. You just wouldn’t want to be seen littering, especially wearing a club jersey”.
“The sort of people we have in our club they would be more likely to pick something up because we don’t want that sort of thing in the countryside.”
Mike Harris, of Milton Keynes touring club, told road.cc he is not aware of a cyclist-specific litter problem in the area.
He said: "Most of our members are aged 50+ and I have never seen anyone in the group litter, quite the contrary, members are very careful to take any litter home with them. We do, of course, come across a lot of roadside litter and fly tipping, but it is not cycling specific."
Phil Ashbourn, also of Milton Keynes Cyclists Touring Club, who describes himself as a walker cyclist, public transport user and car driver, said: "Of course not all cyclists are perfect citizens but there would have to be an awful lot more of them to cause the same amount of litter as motorists.
"On the other hand cyclists for all their faults do not cause death and injury from motoring crashes (1.2 million deaths worldwide every year) and premature deaths from exhaust pollution (40,000 in the UK every year)"
Boysey said while the club’s riders know the local roads and are offered training on safe riding, the hilly terrain means riders can quickly build up speed, an issue he admits, needs to be addressed.
“The short sharp nature of the hills means you can pick up quite a bit of speed,” he said.
“It’s feasible to get over 30mph on the downhills.”
“That does need to be addressed within the clubs because we want to have good relationships with motorists.
"We try to ride as tight as possible, so it’s the equivalent of passing a van.”
He said: “The club has a duty of care to its riders. We have specific handling skills sessions to make sure if people aren’t confident or would like additional sessions they are available.”
Laura Laker is a freelance journalist with more than a decade’s experience covering cycling, walking and wheeling (and other means of transport). Beginning her career with road.cc, Laura has also written for national and specialist titles of all stripes. One part of the popular Streets Ahead podcast, she sometimes appears as a talking head on TV and radio, and in real life at conferences and festivals. She is also the author of Potholes and Pavements: a Bumpy Ride on Britain’s National Cycle Network.
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36 comments
Banana skins are fine. Food for insects and grizzly fings as far as I'm concerned.
+1
They might last a long itme on the tundra on top of the Cairngorms or somewhere like that, but I think a banana skin in the bushes in the UK generally will disappear pretty quickly. They start to go soon enough when they're in the fruit bowl!
It's out of order to leave them hanging in plain view but otherwise I don't see the problem.
I find this hard to believe. Surely we all take our punctured tubes home and hang them in the garage for a few years before eventually throwing them away, you know, just in case...
An area I ride in often. See the odd inner tube, rarely. A few gel wrappers but nothing abnormal. Worst time for gel wrappers by far is after the local half marathon. Worst litter problem is lunch detritus in popular walking areas. I suspect one group is responsible for a chunk of it but it would be an unfair or circumstancial conclusion to come to, much like blaming bikes for any litter that isn't an inner tube. It may be, may be not.
Dude - how do you know the rubbish is from runners ? It could just as easily be from cyclists - we are both guessing.
I'm a runner/cyclist and can't abide litter. The only time I've seen runners or riders littering is in races or sportives. If there are gel wrappers and things I'd assume its from a recent sportive. People see the pros lobbing bottles and copy them.
All sportives and races should DQ people for littering and make this plain on the entry and race details. There is no excuse.
We (as cyclists) come under attack. A lot.
But, to be fair, if this chap has noticed inner tubes popping up left right and centre, and gel wrappers as others have alluded to; then surely he has gone about trying to get change in the right way.
Phil Ashbourn also seems to have used it as an excuse to go on the attack about the problems cyclists face, a bit pointless really. That's like car drivers addressing our concerns by stating more people are killed in wars...
I've taken part in several fairly large events and rarely see other riders littering and the organisers always tend to make sure there are plenty of obvious bins at feed stations.
The only time I've been ashamed to be with a group of riders was on a small event organised by Reading CC when lots of riders were throwing banana peels into bushes. I guess they assumed that fruit isn't litter, but a banana peel will last a surprisingly long time in the wild.
Do they? I rarely take anything with me on rides, but if I do eat a banana I confess I've slung the peel away over a hedge on occasion, assuming (perhaps wrongly) that it will degrade and be food for some grateful wee mice. If it's not doing that I'll stop...?
If you can be bothered to carry the full gel in your pocket then, really, it's not that difficult to put the empty packet back in when you're done, is it? Yes we all see KFC crap by the side of the road, but that doesn't mean it's ok to add to it. In a few thousand years this plastic crap will still be around, so think and take it home.
As I've said before (said in a sanctimonious voice) if you really need to rely on gels do this;-
Get a squeezy bottle of ice cream topping next time you do your shopping then before you go out on the bike fill it with your gels put it in your pocket no mess no fuss and more importantly NO LITTER!
Gel bottles.JPG
As a slight aside, the best way to store an empty gel wrapper is to fold it up and stick it up the leg of your shorts.
Just hypocrisy- Im sure no other road user has dropped litter, gone over 30mph, its a case of NIMBY.
No - it's a valid complaint, whether hypocritcal or not. Cyclists should not be littering. Nor should drivers, horse riders, walkers etc.
As my mum used to say, two wrongs don't make a right.
(Double post)
(double post)
Some of my most enjoyable rides have been sportives in the Lakes and the Dales, extremely scenic and miles from any McD/KFC. The /only/ litter in places was gel wrappers and plenty of them. It looked pretty horrible and was a rare occasion where someone moaning about cyclists would have had a point.
Sportive organisers need to lead the way in terms of what they provide food/wrappings they provide at stops, telling riders in event info to have a pocket for mess (should be obvious but apparently not...) and riders should be prepared to call each other out if need be.
Yes there's a monumental amount of crap on the roads that's not due to us cyclists, but we should play our part.
So that's what the gel wrapper thing is. My boy could do an excellent mime impersonation of a cycling pro taking, slurping and throwing a gel before he could actually drink from a bottle on the go, I always assumed they were just imitating Cav. Didn't the Cycling Podcast give an award in the Giro to a rider for keeping their empty wrapper?
The guy does have a general point though. Maybe if we all stopped and picked up some cyclist related rubbish this morning, then all our routes will be nicer. It might mean missing getting 3rd best time on a strava segment though ...
indeed, it's as if they think, 'Oh I don't want to get sticky residue all over the pocket of my nice new jersey' - what the one you've been sweating into for the last few hours?
The Chess Valley has some of the most terrifying hills in the whole of the Chilterns, but I don't think I've ever seen any inner tubes or cycling specific litter around there. More of a Whiteleaf thing ...
As other people point out, plenty of McD's and KFC, flytipping, hedges and verges trashed as cars and lorries force their way through tiny lanes. So, next time I see a sofa dumped in a layby, I'll be sure to get the Chess Valley assoc onto DFS ... and the NFU for all the fertilizer bags. And the AA and the Road Haulage Assocation for just ruining an astonishing bit of countryside, camoflaged by the M25
The gel wrapper people do wind me up though, really, who do they think they are? What's wrong with a nice cheese sandwhich or a banana? I'll be on the lookout next time I'm up, ,doesn't hurt to do a bit of litter picking ...
After recently doing the virgin cyclone I can hand on heart say that the amount of rubbish including gel packets and other cycling related food packets left by the side of the road was disgusting. It takes nothing to put it in your back pocket until you see a bin.
Just because we see the pro's discard stuff on TV does not mean we can. People forget there is a massive clean up program goes on after the peloton passes through.
Take your litter home and that goes for all people.
I think Bus Drivers are cocks but my sole view appears to be largely ignored by the many
You can't win. Do less than 30 and have Nick Ahad up your arse, do over 30 and risk who knows what.
I ride the Chilterns all the time and am very happy to say I see very little cycling related rubbish by the side of the road. The odd gel packet or bidon. But really very little. The time when we see the most is when we have a large ride going on ike the Chitern 100 because cycleists come from everywhere and then go home so they dont mind chucking rubbish in our back yard. But I have to say the most seen rubbish are coffee cups, MacDonald and KFC containers and beer cans and bottles. And the most annoying of all those neat little bundles of rubbish all neatly collected together in a plastic bag. Take your shit home and recycle it...... I ride in two clubs ARCC and BCC and I have never seen any of our riders chuck anything. In fact I think that somebody else would pick it up and give it back with an instruction to "Take your shit home".
Don't forget where someone has picked up after their dog, but rather than take it to a bin they've just hung the little black bag from a branch or a gate post.
And finally, have you EVER made a journey and not seen broken wheel trim / hubcaps everywhere?
Maybe Berkhamsted CC could find out from Paul Jennings of the River Chess Society where the worst hill for litter is & spend 30mins on a litter pick. That would be good for their public relations/publicity & acknowledge that sometimes things fall out of pockets or off a bike, even if one tries not to litter.
Our local parkrun holds a litter pick a few times a year. Last time we found bits of a car bumper & two old bicycle wheels in the stream amongst other stuff. There wasn't much to clear up & it didn't take long, but it's nicer to have a tidy environment (and who else would do it?).
"According to one man" -
We got a new McDonald's locally. Now their branded litter is everywhere, chucked from cars.
But yeah, as a general rule for a happy life and nicer environment, take your litter home.
Having seen the picture of the dumped inner tubes, four or five in a bunch, I'd bet that they were dropped from a car. I've never met a cyclist who carried that many tubes. Still, they are cycle related I suppose. Given the massive amount of rubbish dropped by car users, it seems slightly odd to concentrate on cyclists, or is he a friend of Matthew Paris? http://road.cc/content/news/3069-what%E2%80%99s-smug-and-deserves-be-dec...
I trust Mr Jennings has also made representations to local car clubs about their excessive speed, or is it just cyclists who manage to achieve the magic figure of 30mph?
I'm imagining he gathered them up from different locations and took a photo of them all. 5 photos of single inner tubes would be a waste of time.
A lot of rubbish at the side of the road that I find here in Suffolk is from runners or car drivers.
I dont do club rides, but the ones I have ended up following didn't drop litter.
As for the increased numbers of cyclists... I'm guessing people complained about the increase in cars in the 50's?
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