cyclesam.uk
The poster formerly known as @MCRCycleSam
Walking, Cycling, Urbanism.
https://cyclesam.uk/
844 posts
631 followers
157 following
Getting Started
Active Commenter
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I'll be honest so far I haven't bothered. I did send an email two years ago about a cycle and walk forum but the response was I'd have to set one up. Perhaps it's time
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I'd be interested in contacting my local council members more so than I have so far. The council is now controlled by the group that is most concerned with Gaza, which is a noble enough cause but I'm not sure how it relates to bins and highways. I'll have to see what they say,
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The infra for both is SHITE (awful cambered uneven pavements with frequent dropped kerbs) and essentially NO dedicated cycle infra in the whole of east lancs, but I've thoroughly enjoyed both. I think east lancs, despite the hills, could be an active travel haven with the right infra.
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And I do enjoy running and cycling in east lancs, even on country roads. The vast majority (95%+) of drivers are respectful and safe. More so when running than cycling but honestly both modes have been a relative dream.
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I thoroughly enjoyed the ride from Chorlton to Deansgate to MediaCity to Chorlton again for the GM Run: other than White City it was a European dream (other than the lengthy delays on Trafford Road from car-centric junction design). First time I'd cycled in GM since leaving. A revelation
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Should I praise it as it's SOME cycle provision, or should I scorn it as its badly delineated shared use footways with seasoned cyclists staying on the carriageway?
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I like to think I was always relatively constructive but I cannot honestly say it was interpreted that way 100% of the time. That said, Lancashire council are still delivering dual provision nonsense in 2025-26 so it's hard to say what is best.
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I am proud of the Hyde Road and Sackville St stuff (even if the latter was silly but correct, the former has been proven right over the years) but yeah especially in the recent news from the Guardian I can't help but see my past self as part of the problem.
www.theguardian.com/news/2025/ma...
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I've also found myself shockingly siding with the council on the Zoe Bread issue. And can see how annoying to them I must have been...
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Perhaps a case of lost perspective. I do think it's funny but I'm not sure I'd be photographed in the same article now, in the grand scheme of things the council did act rather swiftly to get the bridge deck repaired all things considered.
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I'll accept that this is a classic @apiln.bsky.social though :)
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I accept the golden Twitter years (for me) of 2015-2020 were kind of an anomaly where I had even a minimal amount of influence, after all I didn't deserve that! This is just returning the natural order of things of ranting into the ether :)
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I sort of treat it the same as a website in the 90s (or indeed a personal website now) where posts are for your own good and anyone actually reading them is a bonus.
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I'll never forget going to a pub on an unrelated purpose and being asked "are you MCRCycleSam"? by a stranger though. Was so disproportionate to my following at the time 😅. Would never happen in a million years now :)
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I'm not terribly unhappy about this, I'm quite happy living a quieter life in a rural town versus posting outrage about Manchester City Centre. I guess it's just a re-evaluation of social media in general: sure I used to get hundreds or thousands of likes, but to what end? They didn't matter.
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Mastodon is similar in that there are relatively few people on there to engage with stuff. I'm guessing the market for niche social media sites with limited reach is low, and the market for X is ever shrinking as it becomes a right wing bot echo chamber.
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I wonder if this is the beginning of the end of social media as we know it. Facebook/X is unusable for bots and shills but here there is essentially no engagement on anything.
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Last week I turned off a road I'd traveled a thousand times onto a new-to-me road, went along that for a bit in what I thought was one direction, and ended up back on the exact same road I'd turned off, just a few kms along. Really reset my mental map of that area.
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I love it when a road leads exactly to where I think it'll go, and I'm always amazed when it leads somewhere unexpected that I recognise, and have to look it up on Strava later to see exactly how I got from where I was to where I ended up. Really gives a deeper understanding of the area.
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I do have a GPS app on my "dumbphone" for emergencies but it's hard to decipher in an unfamiliar location on the tiny screen after a couple of drinks.. Much easier to ask.
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Did this last month after failing to get from the post-work pub to Farringdon (from where I knew exactly which trains to get back to my accommodation). The gentleman walked me to the entrance, turns out I was only a street away :)
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I always look out for cheap ones at market stalls or charity/bookshops etc. Can get them for a bargain price although often 30+ years out of date: my Blackburn one has the small detail of not having the M65 on it....
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However, I'm not sure it'll have a huge effect on the numbers of people working without the right to do so: I'd presume most illegal work is done via Deliveroo account sharing, or car washes who don't check visas etc?
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My OS Map of Blackburn and Burnley doesn't have the M65 on... MIght be time to get a newer one...
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I've got the AA modern central london pocket map. Folds up and fits in a pocket no issue. Think its more centred on roads but works well for walking
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Perhaps it could be written into S106, if possible, that the temporary lane/road closure will be allowed for a year or two for construction with temp materials, and if it proves positive over that time, the developer will fund the permanent reinstatement of said layout with concrete.
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I wonder if developers could be compelled, under S106, to reconfigure a highway prior to construction to its future permanent layout. The issue is, at the point before construction starts, we don't have the data to say that the lane/road closure will work.
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I'm guessing also it's due to how the developer funded the several years of cones (or complete junction remodels in the case of some high profile changes like Whitworth/Medlock St) but then to make the change permanent, Highways has to find £1m from a non-existent budget to reconfigure a jctn.
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Indeed the Class 323 has a 90mph top speed (the line between Fairfield and Dinting is limited at 75mph, do trains actually hit this?) versus the Metrolink M5000 top speed of 50mph or Sheffield supertram top speed of 62mph.
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Does it matter if the Hadfield Service is run by TfGM as a tram, or the existing excellent (if less frequent than they should be) electric 323 services by a nationalised northern rail? Will TfGM really deliver a higher capacity tram service vs the current rail service?
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Will be interesting to see. See also how the Hadfield/Glossop tram-train has been promised for 10+ years while Sheffield actually delivered one. Not clear why it hasn't happened yet. Do sort of wonder if it's actually a priority now GM Rail will happen by 2028:
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I'm guessing, as a nationally significant project, it'd involve some compulsory purchases and demolition a la HS2?
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Do you know why the black thermoplastic was used? I don't think I've seen that on a zebra before, usually the underlying road surface is used for the "black" stripes. Is it painting over something else?
Looks good
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..."big bang" of Metrolink expansion has been over for a few years and presumably a lot of the talent moved on to other things.
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GM does now seem to think the Stockport Metrolink can imminently go ahead though, whereas it's been stuck in planning hell for years with previous funding commitments? I'm interested to see if they can keep up the same excellent track record of on-budget, on-time delivery now the...
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I'm an ex Green Party member. I joined because the Manchester party were excellent locally but left because of some of the more unhinged national party policies including anti-HS2, anti-nuclear, anti-pylon etc. Would love to come back.
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Obvious issues with planning and highways not talking fully to each other and having different budgets etc but you'd think if a road had been reduced from 3 lanes to 2 for several years with no ill effect, that third lane should never reopen as a general purpose lane. Make it a bus or bike lane.
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All our work calls are now automatically joined by Google Gemini for the purpose of generating meeting notes of variable quality. They say it is our own organisation's version of Gemini and the data isn't used to train it etc but I'm still not a huge fan.
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save any time and often involve absolutely miserable detours like the A1(M) route which takes me on an hour of country roads from Wetherby at the end. The simplicity of the main route is just so nice, even if it means waiting in a queue sometimes.
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When I drive down to London for work I just remember the series of motorways, M65, M6, M1, M25, A10. I quite like how a 230 mile journey can be reduced to just that. I never bother with GPS for this journey: sometimes there's congestion but the GPS alternative routes never...
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I've recently tried to get around more without GPS as part of a wider digital minimalism journey by looking up routes beforehand and remembering them, turning at landmarks etc. I've learned 10x more about the geography of my local area in the last 6 months than the 2 years prior since I moved here.
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Yeah this has been around a long time, before parallel crossings were in the road signs manual. I always found driver compliance pretty low when I cycled over it. There's also "sparrow" crossings that use toucan signals further down the same road, and very odd nonprescribed mini zebras too.
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If you think your average kerb or bollard will protect you from such a vehicle, think again: it won't even slow it a few km/h.
No cycle "infra" except westminster bridge (buried into the ground at vast cost) can protect you from that.