The Prince of Wales was pictured sitting astride a bike yesterday in Glasgow on the first leg of his current nationwide tour to promote sustainable living. The tour, which so far has received as much coverage for its use of the Royal Train as for its core messages, has British Cycling as its sustainable transport partner.
The Prince, however, has so far had very little to say about cycling and it was left to British Cycling’s Peter Haymes to interpret what His Royal Highness made of his two-wheeled experience in Glasgow:
“The Prince of Wales was clearly quite impressed with the folding bike and even tried it for size. Collapsible bikes are great for commuters as they can be easily folded away and taken on trains and buses,” he said.
“We hope that the Prince’s support for cycling as a means of sustainable transport will help us encourage more people to ride to work. The message from today is that we can all START living more sustainably by making little changes in our lives such as cycling to work.”
The Prince later got back on the chip-fat fuelled Royal Train to “race” cyclists, including Rapha’s Dean Downing, to Edinburgh. “We met Prince Charles before the start of the ride and he asked us all about the bikes and the team,” said Downing.
“It was really inspiring to meet him but even with his kind words of encouragement we weren't able to make much headway into the really strong headwind and the train beat us on the day. Still, a great experience for us.”
There was also a fun lunchtime led-ride for Glasgow’s city centre workers yesterday and British Cycling will be hosting a free healthy breakfast for cyclists on the Royal Tour’s visit to Manchester on Wednesday, September 8 and Birmingham on Thursday, September 9.
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if you're on twitter, check out @carltonreid for his caption comp for the above pic
The royal family make me smile, but let's not go down that road.
The idea of promoting sustainable transport by racing your train to Edinburgh certainly made me smile
You cheerless git. At least he's making an effort for something he believes in. Granted he's also apparently into whacked out crap like homeopathy, but as a cyclist, I'm happy to see the PoW supporting our cause.
making an effort? like converting his aston martin to run on chip fat?
and as for 'supporting our cause' - I ride a bike, I'm not a terrorist.
I agree with the cheerless git remark though.
Hey, running it on chip fat is a start! And it is an old one, so he's re-using rather than just buying new all the time ...
Besides, you are a terrorist! We could have an internet race to see who could most quickly find an internet post on how cyclists are axe-wielding murderers who pillage schools and damage cars. I bagsie the Daily Mail comments!
But yeah, overall, he could be doing more / differently, but I think it's good to have a picture that says to people "Look, you don't need lycra to ride a bike - it's a perfectly normal, healthy thing to do, and might even be fun!" Err.
What an inspiration he actually *sat* on a bike... didn't actually ride it just sat on it.